An interview to concert the measures of Austria and Prussia, was fixed between the Duke of Brunswick and the Prince de Hohenlohe, general of the emperor's army.

For form's sake, however, conferences were still carried on at Vienna between M.de Noailles, the French ambassador, and Count Philippe de Cobentzel, vice-chancellor of the court.

These conferences, in which the liberty of the people and the absolute sovereignty of monarchs continually strove to conciliate two irreconcileable principles, ended invariably in mutual reproaches.

A speech of M.de Cobentzel broke off all negotiations, and this speech, made public at Paris, caused the final declaration of war.

Dumouriez proposed it at the council, and induced the king, as if by the hand of fatality, himself to propose the war to his people.