Accordingly, the first eighteen months of Leopold's reign were occupied with his own immediate interests, and at the end of that time his success was marked. Catherine's vast schemes in Turkey had been checked. War had been averted. Poland had been strengthened by internal changes. Prussia had been conciliated and out-manœuvred, and her influence had been impaired. At last, at the end of August, 1791, the Emperor was free to face the French problem, and he set out for the Castle of Pillnitz to meet the King of Prussia and the Emigrant leaders at the Saxon Elector's Court. For some time past the restlessness of the French Emigrants had been causing great perplexity in Europe. Received with open arms by the ecclesiastical princes of the Rhine, by the Electors of Mayence and Trèves, they proceeded to agitate busily for their own restoration. They brought with them into banishment all the worst characteristics of their class. They treated their hosts with cool impertinence, indulged in the most complacent forecasts, and exhibited that profound contempt for anything except their own advantage, which had made them so justly detested in France. In the view of the Emigrants their cause was the cause of feudal Europe. Just as the revolutionists regarded all nobles as enemies, so the Emigrants regarded all princes and aristocrats as companions in arms. Deeply and serenely selfish, they would hear of nothing but their own reinstatement in the full privileges of the Ancien Régime; and all compromise with constitutional freedom, all moderation in counsel or in language, all respect for the wishes of the King was treated with disdain. Rarely has any class of men displayed in a more conspicuous manner its lack of patriotism, sagacity and temper, and its utter indifference to any interest but its own.