The de Lignes spent the summer at Bel Œil, happy to be quiet and united once more in the country they loved so well; but to an attentive observer the tranquillity which reigned in Flanders was not to be of long duration; threatening symptoms might be discerned on every side. The frightful progress of the French revolution, and the presence of the _émigrés_ in the Netherlands, caused anxiety in many minds. Savoy, Switzerland, the Black Forest, Liege, Treves, Luxemburg, and the Netherlands were the first asylums of the persecuted; it was only later on, when they had lost all hope of a speedy return, that they went to Vienna, London, Poland, and Russia. The Archduchess Marie Christine, regent in the Netherlands, was the sister of the Queen of France; it was natural she should protect the _émigrés_; but Leopold was not favourably disposed towards them, and in the very beginning of his reign he requested the Archduchess Christine and the Electors of Mayence, Cologne, and Treves to do all in their power to prevent the refugees and the Princes from doing anything rash. “Do not allow yourselves to be led into anything,” he wrote; “do nothing the French or the Princes ask you to do; meet them with civilities and dinners, but give them neither troops, money, nor help of any sort.” He entirely separated the cause of the King from that of the _émigrés_. The Prince de Ligne was extremely ill-disposed towards the Emperor Leopold; he reproached him with having sucked the milk of Italian dissimulation, and he would not have anything to do with his pretended political calculations. He adored the Queen, and his heart leaped with indignation at the thought of the dangers which daily threatened her more and more. He had vainly solicited a command in the Austrian army. Leopold had carefully avoided granting his request, for he feared the imprudences his vivacity, his opinions, and his chivalrous devotion might lead him to commit. We must admit that the Prince de Ligne was no passionate admirer of liberty; he very soon foresaw the tendencies of the revolution, and in 1790 wrote to the Comte de Ségur concerning the National Assembly: “Greece had her philosophers, but they were only seven; you have twelve hundred of them at eighteen francs a day, having no mission but what they arrogate to themselves, no knowledge of foreign countries, no general plan of operations, and not even the sea, which is a sort of protection to the makers of empty phrases, and to the laws of the country it surrounds.”