slaves, the citizens and peasantry, plainly foreseeing that, instead of receiving the promised boon of liberty, they would but expose themselves to Custine's brutal tyranny, withheld their signatures, and the clubbists finally established a republic under the protection of France without the consent of the people, removed all the old authorities, and, at the close of 1792, elected Dorsch, a remarkably diminutive, ill-favored man, who had formerly been a priest, president. The manner in which Custine levied contributions in Frankfort on the Maine,[6] was still less calculated to render the French popular in Germany. Cowardly as this general was, he, nevertheless, told the citizens of Frankfort a truth that time has, up to the present period, confirmed. "You have beheld the coronation of the emperor of Germany? Well! you will not see another." Two Germans, natives of Colmar in Alsace, Rewbel and Hausmann, and a Frenchman, Merlin, all three members of the national convention, came to Mayence for the purpose of conducting the defence of that city. They burned symbolically all the crowns, mitres, and escutcheons of the German empire, but were unable to induce the citizens of Mayence to declare in favor of the republic. Rewbel, infuriated at their opposition, exclaimed that he would level the city to the ground, that he should deem himself dishonored were he to waste another word on such slaves. A number of refractory persons were expelled from the city,[7] and, on the 17th of March, 1793, although three hundred and seventy of the citizens alone voted in its favor, a Teuto-Rhenish national convention, under the presidency of Hoffmann, was opened at Mayence and instantly declared in favor of the union of the new republic with France. Forster, in other respects a man of great elevation of mind, forgetful, in his enthusiasm, of all national pride, personally carried to Paris the scandalous documents in which the French were humbly entreated to accept of a province of the German empire. The Prussians, who had remained in Luxemburg (without aiding the Austrians), meanwhile advanced to the Rhine, took Coblentz, which Custine had neglected to garrison (a neglect for which he afterward lost his head), repulsed a French force under Bournonville, when on the point of forming a junction with Custine, at Treves, expelled Custine from Frankfort,[8] and closely besieged Mayence, which, after making a valiant defence, was compelled to capitulate in July.