After the return from Varennes the royal family were closely guarded, but in spite of this they still found channels of communication with the outside world. The king being sunk in apathy, the task of negotiation devolved upon the queen; but in her inexperience and ignorance of affairs, and the uncertainty of information from abroad, it was hard for her to follow any clear policy. Her courageous bearing during the return from Varennes had greatly impressed Barnave, and he now approached her on behalf of the Feuillants and the constitutional party. For about a year she continued to negotiate with them, forwarding to Mercy and the emperor Leopold II. letters and memoranda dictated by them, while at the same time secretly warning her friends not to accept these letters as her own opinions, but to realize that she was dependent on the Constitutionals.[5] She agreed with their plan of an armed congress, and on this idea both she and Fersen insisted with all their might, Fersen leaving Brussels and going on a mission to the emperor to try and gain support and checkmate the _émigrés_, whose desertion the queen bitterly resented, and whose rashness threatened to frustrate her plans and endanger the lives of her family. As to the acceptance of the constitution (Sept. 1791), "tissue of absurdities" though the queen thought it, and much as she would have preferred a bolder course, she considered that in the circumstances the king was bound to accept it in order to inspire confidence.[6] Mercy was also in correspondence with the Constitutionals, and in letter after letter to him and the emperor, the queen, strongly supported by Fersen, insisted that the congress should be formed as soon as possible, her appeals increasing in urgency as she saw that Barnave's party would soon be powerless against the extremists. But owing to the lengthy negotiations of the powers the congress was continually postponed. On the 1st of March 1792 Leopold II. died, and was succeeded by the young Francis II. Marie Antoinette's actions were now directed entirely by Fersen, for she suspected Mercy and the emperor of sacrificing her to the interests of Austria (_Fersen_, i. 251; Arneth, pp. 254, 256, &c.). The declaration of war which the king was forced to make (April 20) threw her definitely into opposition to the Revolution, and she betrayed to Mercy and Fersen the plans of the French generals (Arneth, p. 259; _Fersen_, ii. 220, 289, 308, 325, 327). She was now certain that the life of the king was threatened, and the events of the 20th of June added to her terrors. She considered their only hope to lie in the intervention of the powers and in the appeal to force, and endorsed the suggestion of a threatening manifesto[6] which should hold the National Assembly and Paris responsible for the safety of the king and royal family. Immediately after Brunswick's manifesto followed the storming of the Tuileries and the removal of the royal family to the Temple (Aug. 10).