8 Laura B. Pfciffer 



It was made clear beyond doubt by tbe document left behind him 

 in which he justified his acts and confessed that he had neyer 

 accepted the revolution in good faith.^* In the face of such a con- 

 fession the assembly persisted in its efforts to reconcile the king 

 to the new order of things. Arrested and brought back to Paris, 

 he was suspended from power and placed under guard until the 

 constitution was finished. Then set at liberty, he was permitted 

 to accept or reject the constitution. Again he perjured himself. 

 Having publicly accepted the new constitution he at once entered 

 into secret negotiations with the king of Prussia for an armed 

 congress of the powers to help him reestablish a more desirable 

 order of things in France. ^^' 



There followed then under the legislative assembly, a period of 

 pretense of administering the government under the new constitu- 

 tion during which time the king, though acting within constitu- 

 tional limits, was wholly out of sympathy with the new state of 

 things.'" 



The armed congress had long been the idea of Alarie Antoinette 

 and her agents at Brussels had numerous allies in the French 

 army.'" The Emperor Leopold had decided as early as January, 

 1792. upon armed intervention.'® This attitude of Austria aggra- 

 vated tlie situation.'" Its presumptuous interference in the in- 



" Glagau, Die francosiscJic Lcgislatiz'c, 1-3; Histoire parlciiicittaire, X, 

 260-74; Clapham, Causes of the IVar of 1792, chap. III. 



^^ Monitcur, IX, 152, 655; Clapham, Ca\ises of the JVar of 1792, chap. V; 

 Flammermont, Klgoc'xaUons secretes, 9, Louis XVI to the King of Prussia, 

 Dec. 3, i/Qi ; KHnckowstrom. Le coiiite de Fersen et la cour de France, 

 II. 103, Fersen to Gustavus III, March 4, 1792. 



"Clapham, Causes of the War of 1792, chap. VI. 



"KHnckowstrom, Le comtc de Fersen et la cour de France, I, 233 if. 

 Letters of Marie Antionette to Fersen, October and November, 1791. 

 Arneth, Maria-Antoinette, Joseph II und Leopold II, 259, Mercy to Kaun- 

 itz. April 8, 1792. 



"Flammermont, Ki^gociations secretes, 16, Schulembourg to Breteuil, 

 Feb. 13, 1792; Vivenot, Qucllcn zur Gescliichte der deutscheu KaiserpoHtik 

 OesterreicJis, I, 327-70. 



"Clapham, Causes of the Jl'ar of 1792, chap. VII; Roederer, Chronique 

 de ciuquante jours, 4; Arneth, Maria-Antoinette, Joseph II und Leopold 

 II, 253, Mercy to Marie Antoinette, March, 1792. 



204 



