tax-payers, namely, the refractory majority, that its taxes are just, and that it should not refuse to be taxed.-- "Under the reign of liberty," says President Daverhoult,[2337] "the people have the right to insist not merely on subsistence, but again on plenty and happiness."[2338] Accordingly, being in a state of poverty they have been betrayed.--"Elevated to the height achieved by the French people," says another president, "it looks down upon the tempests under its feet."[2339] The tempest is at hand and bursts over its head. War, like a black cloud, rises above the horizon, overspreads the sky, thunders and wraps France filled with explosive materials in a circle of lightening, and it is the Assembly which, through the greatest of its mistakes, draws down the bolt on the nation's head. III.--War. Disposition of foreign powers.--The King's dislikes.-- Provocation of the Girondins.--Dates and causes of the rupture It might have been turned aside with a little prudence. Two principal grievances were alleged, one by France and the other by the Empire.--On the one hand, and very justly, France complained of the gathering of émigré's, which the Emperor and Electors tolerated against it on the frontier. In the first place, however, a few thousand gentlemen, without troops or stores, and nearly without money,[2340] were hardly to be feared, and, besides this, long before the decisive hour came these troops were dispersed, at once by the Emperor in his own dominions, and, fifteen days afterwards, by the Elector of Trèves in his electorate.[2341]--On the other hand, according to treaties, the German princes, who owned estates in Alsace, made claims for the feudal rights abolished on their French possessions and the Diet forbade them to accept the offered indemnity. But, as far as the Diet is concerned, nothing was easier nor more customary than to let negotiations drag along, there being no risk or inconvenience attending the suit as, during the delay, the claimants remained empty-handed.--If, now, behind the ostensible motives, the real intentions are sought for, it is certain that, up to January, 1792, the intentions of Austria were pacific. The grants made to the Comte d'Artois, in the Declaration of Pilnitz, were merely a court-sprinkling of holy-water, the semblance of an illusory promise and subject to a European concert of action, that is to say, annulled beforehand by an indefinite postponement, while this pretended league of sovereigns is at once "placed by the politicians in the class of august comedies.[2342]" Far from taking up arms against "New France" in the name of old France, the emperor Leopold and his prime minister Kaunitz, were delighted to see the constitution completed and accepted by the King; it "got them out of an embarrassing position,"[2343] and Prussia as well. In the running of governments, political advantage is the great incentive and both powers needed all