Germany from the Earliest Period, Volume 4Menzel, Wolfgang
History
Germany from the Earliest Period, Volume 4
Menzel, Wolfgang
Germany -- History
[Footnote 3: He mulcted the brewers to the amount of 255,000 livres,
"on account of their well-known avarice," the bakers and millers to
that of 314,000, a publican to that of 40,000, a baker to that of
30,000, "because he was an enemy of mankind," etc.--_Vide Friese's
History of Strasburg_.]
[Footnote 4: It was asserted that the Jacobins had formed a plan to
depopulate the whole of Alsace, and to partition the country among the
bravest soldiers belonging to the republican armies.]
[Footnote 5: John Müller played a remarkable part. This thoroughly
deceptive person had, by his commendation of the ancient Swiss in his
affectedly written History of Switzerland, gained the favor of the
friends of liberty, and, at the same time, that of the nobility by his
encomium on the degenerate Swiss aristocracy. While with sentimental
phrases and fine words he pretended to be one of the noblest of
mankind, he was addicted to the lowest and most monstrous vices. His
immorality brought him into trouble in Switzerland, and the man, who
had been, apparently, solely inspired with the love of republican
liberty, now paid court, for the sake of gain, to foreign princes; the
adulation that had succeeded so well with all the lordlings of
Switzerland was poured into the ears of all the potentates of Europe.
He even rose to great favor at Rome by his flattery of the pope in a
work entitled "The Travels of the Popes." He published the most
virulent sophisms against the beneficial reforms of the emperor
Joseph, and cried up the League, for which he was well paid. He
contrived, at the same time, to creep into favor with the Illuminati.
He was employed by the elector of Mayence to carry on negotiations
with Dumouriez, got into office under the French republic, and
afterward revisited Mayence for the express purpose of calling upon
the citizens, at that time highly dissatisfied with the conduct of the
French, to unite themselves with France. Vide Forster's
Correspondence. Dumouriez shortly afterward went over to the
Austrians, and Müller suddenly appeared at Vienna, adorned with a
title and in the character of an Aulic councillor.]
[Footnote 6: While in his proclamations he swore by all that was
sacred (what was so to a Frenchman?) to respect the property of the
citizens and that France coveted no extension of territory.]
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