warted on the Lower Rhine by the vacillations of the German Powers and
the torpor of the Dutch, he hoped for success among the Royalists of
Brittany and la Vendee. He framed this decision reluctantly; for it
involved co-operation with the French princes, the Comte de Provence and
the Comte d'Artois, and with the swarms of fanatical _emigres_ who had
long pestered him with mad projects. Further, he had always been loath
to declare for the restoration of the Bourbons. To do so would be to
flaunt the _fleur-de-lis_ in the face of a nation which hated all that
pertained to the old regime. Besides, it implied a surrender to the
clique headed by Burke and Windham, which scoffed at the compromise
between monarchy and democracy embodied in the French constitution of
1791. Pitt, with his innate moderation and good sense, saw the folly of
these reactionary views and the impossibility of forcing them upon the
French people. Nevertheless, as an experiment in the course of that
bewildering strife, he had recourse to the _emigres_.

The accession of Windham to the Cabinet, in July 1794, had strengthened
their influence at Westminster; and incidents which occurred in France
during the winter of 1794-5 evinced a decline of Jacobinical enthusiasm.
The sentiment of loyalty, damped by the chilling personality of
Louis XVI and the follies of his brothers, revived now that the little
Louis XVII was being slowly done to death by his gaolers in the Temple.
The rapacity and vulgar ostentation of the Thermidorian party, then in
power, provoked general disgust; and despair of any satisfactory
settlement began to range friends of order on the side of the monarchy.
The late American envoy at Paris, Gouverneur Morris, informed Bland
Burges at our Foreign Office, on 28th June 1795, that the state of
France was so desperate as to admit of cure only by the restoration of
the old dynasty; that the recent death of Louis XVII was a benefit to
the cause inasmuch as his mind had been completely brutalized; and
finally the envoy heartily wished success to every effort to overthrow
the despicable Government at Paris.

Though the Royalist leaders in the west of France early in the year 1795
made a truce with the Republic, yet the resumption of the civil war in
that quarter was known to be only a question of time. Windham,
therefore, urged the despatch of an expedition to Brittany. His royalist
zeal had now developed his powers to their utmost. Early in the co