A speech was in their eyes far more meritorious than a negotiation; and they cared not that their words should re-echo in foreign cabinets, provided they sounded well in the chamber or the tribune.

Moreover, they were desirous of war, and looked on themselves as statesmen, because at one stroke they had disturbed the peace of Europe.

Ignorant of politics, they yet deemed themselves masters of it, because they were unscrupulous; and because they affected the indifference of Machiavel, they deemed they possessed his depth.
The emperor Leopold, by a proclamation, on the 21st of December, furnished the Assembly with a pretext for an outbreak.

"The sovereigns united," said the emperor, "for the maintenance of public tranquillity and the honour and safety of the crowns." These words excited the minds of all to know what could be their meaning; they asked each other how the emperor, the brother-in-law, and ally of Louis XVI., could speak to him for the first time of the sovereigns acting in concert?
and against what, if not against the Revolution?
And how could the ministers and ambassadors of the Revolution have been ignorant of its existence?
Why had they concealed from the nation their knowledge, if they had known it?
There was, then, a double diplomacy, each striving to outwit the other.

The Austrian Alliance was, then, no dream of faction; there was either incompetence or treason in official diplomacy, perhaps both.