Marie Antoinette spoke truly when she said that the enemies of the crown never lost time. The very prospect of war increased the divisions of the Assembly, since the Jacobins were undisguisedly averse to it. Not one of their body had any reputation for skill in arms, so that in the event of war it was evident that the chief commands, both in army and navy, must be conferred on persons unconnected with them; while the Girondins, though, as far as was yet known, equally destitute of members possessed of any military ability, looked on war as favorable to their designs, whatever might be the issue of a campaign. They were above all things eager for the destruction of the monarchy, and they reckoned that if the French army were victorious, its success would disable those who were most willing and might be most able to support the throne; while, if the enemy should prevail, it would be easy to represent their triumph as the fruit of the mismanagement, if not of the treachery, of the king's generals and ministers; and the opposition of these two parties was at this time so notorious that the queen thought it favorable to the king, since each would be eager to preserve him as a possible ally against its adversaries. It is for her husband's and her child's safety that she expresses anxiety, never for her own. With respect to herself her uniform language is that of fearlessness. She does not for a moment conceal from her correspondents her sense of the dangers which surround her. She has not only open hostility to fear, but treachery, which is far worse; and she declares that "a perpetual imprisonment in a solitary tower on the sea-shore would be a less cruel fate than that which she daily endures from the wickedness of her enemies and the weakness of her friends. Every thing menaces an inevitable catastrophe; but she is prepared for every thing. She has learned from her mother not to fear death. That may as well come to-day as to-morrow. She only fears for her dear children, and for those she loves; and high among those whom she loves she places her sister-in-law Elizabeth, who is always an angel aiding her to support her sorrows, and who, with her poor, dear children, never quits her.[1]"