consequently evacuated the Netherlands, which were instantly overrun by the pillaging French. And thus had the German powers, notwithstanding their well-disciplined armies and their great plans, not only forfeited their military honor, but also drawn the enemy, and, in his train, anarchy with its concomitant horrors, into the empire. The Austrians had rendered themselves universally unpopular by their arbitrary measures, and each province remained stupidly indifferent to the threatened pillage of its neighbor by the victorious French. Jourdan but slowly tracked the retreating forces of Coburg, whom he again beat at Sprimont, where he drove him from the Maese, and at Aldenhoven, where he drove him from the Roer. Frederick, Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, capitulated at Maestricht, with ten thousand men, to Kleber; and the Austrians, with the exception of a small corps under the Count von Erbach, stationed at Düsseldorf, completely abandoned the Lower Rhine. The disasters suffered by the Austrians seem at that time to have flattered the ambition of the Prussians, for Mollendorf suddenly recrossed the Rhine and gained an advantage at Kaiserslautern, but was, in July, 1794, again repulsed at Trippstadt, notwithstanding which he once more crossed the Rhine in September, and a battle was won by the Prince von Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen at Fischbach, but, on the junction of Jourdan with Hoche, who had until then singly opposed him, Mollendorf again, and for the last time, retreated across the Rhine. The whole of the left bank of the Rhine, Luxemburg and Mayence alone excepted, were now in the hands of the French. Resius, the Hessian general, abandoned the Rheinfels with the whole garrison, without striking a blow in its defence. He was, in reward, condemned to perpetual imprisonment.[8] Jourdan converted the fortress into a ruined heap. The whole of the fortifications on the Rhine were yielded for the sake of saving Mannheim from bombardment. In the Austrian Netherlands, the old government had already been abolished, and the whole country been transformed into a Belgian republic by Dumouriez. The reform of all the ancient evils, so vainly attempted but a few years before by the noble-spirited emperor, Joseph II., was successfully executed by this insolent Frenchman, who also abolished with them all that was good in the ancient system. The city deputies, it is true, made an energetic but futile resistance.[9] After the flight of Dumouriez, fresh depredations were, with every fresh success, committed by the French. Liege was reduced to the most deplorable state of desolation, the cathedral and thirty splendid churches were levelled with the ground by the ancient enemies of the bishop. Treves was also mercilessly sacked and converted into a French fortress. [Footnote 1: Prussia chiefly coveted the possession of Dantzig, which the Poles refused to give or the English to grant to him, and which he could only seize by the aid of Russia.]