The steps taken by the king with the princes of the empire were supported by military preparations. On the 6th of December a new minister of war replaced Duportail; Narbonne, taken from the Feuillants, young, active, ambitious of distinguishing himself by the triumph of his party and the defence of the revolution, repaired immediately to the frontiers. A hundred and fifty thousand men were placed in requisition; for this object the assembly voted an extraordinary supply of twenty millions of francs; three armies were formed under the command of Rochambeau, Luckner, and Lafayette; finally, a decree was passed impeaching _Monsieur_, the count d'Artois, and the prince de Condé as conspirators against the general safety of the state and of the constitution. Their property was sequestrated, and the period previously fixed on for _Monsieur's_ return to the kingdom having expired, he was deprived of his claim to the regency. The elector of Trèves engaged to disperse the gatherings, and not to allow them in future. It was, however, but the shadow of a dispersion. Austria ordered marshal Bender to defend the elector if he were attacked, and ratified the conclusions of the diet of Ratisbon, which required the restoration of the princes' possessions; refused to sanction any pecuniary indemnity for the loss of their rights, and only left France the alternative of restoring feudalism in Alsace, or war. These two measures of the cabinet of Vienna were by no means pacific. Its troops advanced towards the frontiers of France, and gave further proof that it would not be safe to trust to its neutrality. It had fifty thousand men in the Netherlands; six thousand posted in Breisgau; and thirty thousand men on their way from Bohemia. This powerful army of observation might at any moment be converted into an army of attack.