28 Laura B. Pfciffcr 



disorg^anization of his army and tlie exhaustion of his resources ; 

 (2) the idea of escaping surveillance on the eve of a premedi- 

 tated attack; or (3) a project of arousing" distrust at the court 

 of Berlin and of making dangerous use of responses which might 

 be interpreted as overtures.'' This distrust existed also at the 

 Austrian court. Kaunitz. writing to Mercy concerning Lafa- 

 yette's propositions, said emphatically that such a man did not 

 deserve the least confidence, lie advised Mercy, however, to use 

 a Fabian policy in dealing with Lafayette but not to accept a 

 single proposition of his as a basis for reestablishing order in 

 France.^''' Later correspondence between the two courts shows 

 that this distrust was not dispelled. Fear was expressed that 

 Lafayette would refuse to answer at the bar of the assembly to 

 which he had been summoned and would find in the devotion of 

 his army the means of resistance and so plunge the country into 

 civil war.^° His demand at the bar of the assembly for the pun- 

 ishment of the crimes of June 20 was also interpreted as an ex- 

 cuse for bringing on civil war.^' 



Circumstantial evidence seems to point to an understanding 

 between Lafayette and the directory of the department of Paris. ^'^ 

 The evidence also indicates that the fall of the Girondist ministry, 

 as Avell as that of Dumouriez. was the result of a plot between 

 Lafavette and the Feuillants.^-' 



^* Ibid., 318, Mercy to Kaunitz, Brussels, May 16, 1792. 



"Vivenot, Dcutsclic Kniscrl^olitik Ocstcrrciclis, II, 58, Kaunitz to Mercy, 

 May 26, 1792. 



" Glagau, Die fraiicosischc Lc(jislatix'c, 339, Mercy to Kaioiitc, June 27, 

 1792. 



"Ibid., 342-S2, Pellenc to La Marck. June 29, 1792; Pellenc to La Marck, 

 June 30, 179-^- 



" The letter was sent to the assembly on June 18, by a servant of the 

 president of the directory. Moreover, the aristocratic newspapers had 

 the contents of the letter on the morning of June 18. Who but the pres- 

 ident of the directory could have given it to them? Revolutions de Paris, 

 XII, 532-33; Histoire parlementaire, XV, 101-02; Aulard, La socicte des 

 Jacobins, IV, 15; Roederer, Chronique de ciiiquante jours, 67. 



^* Histoire parlementaire, XV, 74-78; Roederer relates an incident which 

 indicates that Lafayette intrigued for the fall of the Girondist ministers. 

 He had been sent to Lafayette's camp l>y Servan to assure that general 



224 



