indignation against the hapless
sovereigns at the Tuileries whom it was designed to protect.[77]

* * * * *

The outbreak of war on the Rhine and Meuse was an event of incalculable
importance. As we have seen, Pitt discouraged the bellicose tendencies
of the _emigres_ and of the Austrian and Prussian Courts. But the
passions of the time ran too high to admit of the continuance of peace;
and State after State was soon to be drawn into the devouring vortex of
strife. Strange to say the first to suffer from the outbreak of
hostilities was Poland. That Republic entered on a new lease of life in
the spring of the year 1791. The constitution adopted with enthusiasm on
3rd May substituted an hereditary for an elective monarchy, and
otherwise strengthened the fabric of that almost anarchic State. Social
and civic reforms promised also to call its burghers and serfs to a life
of activity or comfort. But the change at once aroused keen dislike at
St. Petersburg and Berlin. Prussian statesmen resented any improvement
in the condition of their nominal ally, and declared that, if Russia
gained a strong position on the Euxine, Prussia and Austria must secure
indemnities at the expense of Poland.

The Czarina soon succeeded in heading them in that direction. After the
signature of the Peace of Jassy with the Turks early in January 1792,
she began openly to encourage the factious efforts of Polish
malcontents. The troubles at Paris also enabled her to engage the Courts
of Vienna and Berlin in a western crusade on which she bestowed her
richest blessing, her own inmost desires meanwhile finding expression in
the following confidential utterance: "I am breaking my head to make the
Cabinets of Vienna and Berlin intervene in the affairs of France. I wish
to see them plunged into some very complicated question in order to have
my own hands free."[78] Though her old opponent, Kaunitz, fathomed her
intentions, she partly succeeded in persuading the Austrian and Prussian
Ministers that their mission clearly was to stamp out Jacobinism at
Paris, while Providence reserved for her the duty of extirpating its
offshoots at Warsaw. In the Viennese Court, where the value of a
regenerated Poland as a buffer State was duly appreciated, there were
some qualms as to the spoliation of that unoffending State; but Prussian
politicians, in their eagerness for the Polish districts, Danzig and
Thorn, harboured few s