Page:General History of Europe 1921.djvu/583

The French Revolution 441 In this way the Assembly aroused the active hostility of a great part of the priests who had formerly supported the Third Estate. It lost, moreover, the confidence of the great mass of faithful Catholics, merchants, artisans, and peasants, who had ap- proved the reforms but would not desert their religious leaders. 767. France involved in War with Austria and Prussia (1792). By far the most important act of the Legislative Assembly during the one year of its existence was its starting a war between France and Austria. It little dreamed that this was the beginning of a war between revolutionary France and the rest of western Europe which was to last, with slight interruptions, for over twenty years. To many of the leaders in the Assembly it seemed that the existing conditions were intolerable. The emigrant nobles were forming little armies on the boundaries of France and had, as we have seen, induced Austria and Prussia to consider interfering in French affairs. The Assembly suspected that Louis was negotiat- ing with foreign rulers and would be glad to have them intervene and reestablish him in his old despotic power. The deputies argued, therefore, that a war against the hated Austria would unite the sympathies of the nation and force the king to show his true character, for he would be obliged either to become the na- tion's leader or show himself the traitor they suspected him to be. It was with a heavy heart that the king, urged on by the clamors of the Assembly, declared war upon Austria in April, 1792. The unpopularity of the king only increased, however. In June a mob of Parisians invaded the Palace of the Tuileries, and the king might have been killed had he not consented to don the "cap of liberty," the badge of the "citizen patriots." When France declared war Prussia immediately allied itself with Austria. As the Prussian and Austrian armies approached the French boundaries it became clearer and clearer that the king was utterly incapable of defending France, and the Assembly be- gan to consider the question of deposing him. The duke of Bruns- wick, who was at the head of the Prussian forces, took the very worst means of helping the king, by issuing a manifesto in which he threatened utterly to destroy Paris should the king suffer any harm.