an of co-operation with the Court of
Berlin, which had so cynically deceived him. To this proposal Grenville
offered unflinching opposition, coupled with a conditional threat to
resign. Pitt persuaded him to defer action until the troubles in Ireland
were less acute. But the King finally agreed with Pitt, and Grenville
was on the point of retiring when news arrived of the defection of
Prussia.[361] For some time she had been deep in negotiations with
France, which had the approval of Moellendorf and the officers of her
Rhenish army.[362] The upshot of it all was a treaty, which Hardenberg
signed with the French envoy at Basle on 5th April 1795. By this
discreditable bargain Frederick William of Prussia enabled France to
work her will on the lands west of the Rhine, on condition of his
acquiring a general ascendancy over North and Central Germany, which now
became neutral in the strife. Austria and the South German States
remained at war with France for two years longer, by which time the
tottering Germanic System fell beneath the sword of Napoleon Bonaparte.

Prussia's bargain with France marks a reversion to her traditional
policy, which viewed that Power as the friend and Austria as the enemy.
It undid the life-work of Prince Kaunitz, now nearing his end at Vienna,
and left the Hapsburg States enfeebled. True, they had a profitable
share in the third and last Partition of Poland, which soon ensued; but
this scarcely made good the loss in prestige due to the undisputed
hegemony of Prussia in the greater part of Germany. The House of
Hohenzollern, impelled by men like Lucchesini, Haugwitz, and Hardenberg,
took the easy and profitable course and plumed itself on over-reaching
its secular rival at Vienna. In reality it sealed the doom not only of
the truly conservative policy of Pitt, but of the European fabric.
Prussia it was which enabled the Jacobins to triumph and to extend their
sway over neighbouring lands. The example of Berlin tempted Spain three
months later to sign degrading terms of peace with France, and thus to
rob England of her gains in Hayti and Corsica. Thanks to Prussia and
Spain, France could enter upon that career of conquest in Italy which
assured the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte and the temporary ruin of
Austria. The mistakes of Pitt were great; but, after all, they might
have been retrieved were it not for the torpor of the Viennese Court and
the treachery of Prussia.

FOOTNOTES:

[335] "Troilus an