"Let us tell Europe," cries Isnard,[2353] "that ten millions of Frenchmen, armed with the sword, with the pen, with reason, with eloquence, might, if provoked, change the face of the world and make tyrants tremble on their thrones of clay." "Wherever a throne exists," says Hérault de Séchelles, "there is an enemy."[2354] "An honest peace between tyranny and liberty," says Brissot, "is impossible. Our Constitution is an eternal anathema to absolute monarchs... It places them on trial, it pronounces judgment on them; it seems to say to each: to-morrow thou have ceased to be or shalt be king only through the people... War is now a national benefit, and not to have war is the only calamity to be dreaded." [2355] "Tell the king," says Gensonné, "that the war is a must, that public opinion demands it, that the safety of the empire makes it a law."[2356] "The state we are in," concludes Vergniaud, "is a veritable state of destruction that may lead us to disgrace and death. So then to arms! to arms! Citizens, freemen, defend your liberty, confirm the hopes of that of the human race... Lose not the advantage of your position. Attack now that there is every sign of complete success... The spirits of past generations seem to me crowding into this temple to conjure you, in the name of the evils which slavery had compelled them to endure, to protect the future generations whose destinies are in your hands! Let this prayer be granted! Be for the future a new Providence! Ally yourselves with eternal justice!"[2357] Among the Marseilles speakers there is no longer any room for serious discussion. Brissot, in reply to the claim made by the Emperor on behalf of the princes' property in Alsatia, replies that "the sovereignty of the people is not bound by the treaties of tyrants."[2358] As to the gatherings of the émigrés, the Emperor having yielded on this point, he will yield on the others.[2359] Let him formally renounce all combinations against France. "I want war on the 10th of February," says Brissot, "unless we have received his renunciation." No explanations; it is satisfaction we want; "to require satisfaction is to put the Emperor at our mercy."[2360] The Assembly, so eager to start the quarrel, usurps the King's right to take the first step and formally declares war, fixing the date.[2361]--The die is now cast. "They want war," says the Emperor, "and they shall have it." Austria immediately forms an alliance with Prussia, threatened, like herself, with revolutionary propaganda.[2362] By sounding the alarm belles the Jacobins, masters of the Assembly, have succeeded in bringing about that "monstrous alliance," and, from day to day, this alarm sounds the louder. One year more, thanks to this policy, and France will have all Europe for an enemy and as its only friend, the Regency of Algiers, whose internal system of government is about the same as her own. IV.--Secret motives of the leaders.