[Footnote 13: In 1797, the anonymous statesman, in the dedication "to the congress of Rastadt," foretold the formation of the Rhenish alliance as a necessary result of the treaty of Basel. "The electors of Brandenburg, Hanover, Hesse-Cassel, and all the princes, who defended themselves behind the line of demarcation against their obligations to the empire, and tranquilly awaited the issue of the contest between France and that part of the empire that had taken up arms; all those princes to whom their private interests were dearer than those of the empire, who, devoid of patriotism, formed a separate party against Austria and Southern Germany, from which they severed and isolated themselves, could, none of them, arrogate to themselves a voice in the matter, if Southern Germany, abandoned by them, concluded treaties for herself as her present and future interests demanded."] [Footnote 14: "Oldenburg affords a glaring proof of the insecurity and meanness characteristic of the Rhenish alliance. The relation even with Bavaria was not always the purest, and I have sometimes caught a near glimpse of the claws."--_Gagern's Share in Politics._] [Footnote 15: No diet had, since 1770, been held in Wurtemberg, only the committee had continued to treat secretly with the duke. In 1797, Frederick convoked a fresh diet and swore to hold the constitution sacred. Some modern elements appeared in this diet; the old opposition was strengthened by men of the French school. Disputes, consequently, ere long arose between it and the duke, a man of an extremely arbitrary disposition. The Estates discovered little zeal for the war with France, attempted to economize in the preparations, etc., while the duke made great show of patriotism as a prince of the German empire, nor gave the slightest symptom of his one day becoming an enemy to his country, a member of the Rhenish alliance, and the most zealous partisan of France. Moreau, however, no sooner crossed the Rhine than the duke fled, abandoned his states, and afterward not only refused to bear the smallest share of the contributions levied upon the country by the French, but also seized the subsidies furnished by England. The duke, shortly after this, quarrelling with his eldest son, William, the Estates sided with the latter and supplied him with funds, at the same time refusing to grant any of the sums demanded by the duke, who, on his part, omitted the confirmation of the new committee and ordered Grosz, the councillor, Stockmaier, the secretary of the diet, and several others, besides Batz, the agent of the diet at Vienna, to be placed under arrest, their papers to be seized, and a sum of money to be raised from the church property, 1805. Not long after this, rendered insolent by the protection of the great despot of France, he utterly annihilated the ancient constitution of Wurtemberg.] CCLIV. Prussia's Declaration of War and Defeat