I have addressed the emperor, the empress of Russia, and the kings of Spain and Sweden, and I have suggested to them the idea of a congress of the principal powers of Europe, _supported by an armed force_, as the best measure to check the progress of faction here, to afford the means of establishing a better order of things, and preventing the evil that devours this country from seizing on the other states of Europe.

I trust that your majesty will approve my ideas, _and maintain the strictest secrecy respecting the step I have taken in this matter_, as you will feel that the critical position in which I am placed at present compels me to use the greatest circumspection.

It is for this reason that the Baron de Breteuil is alone acquainted with my secret, and through him your majesty can transmit me whatever you may think fit." XIII.
This letter, added to that addressed by Louis XVI.

to M.de Bouille, informing him that his brother-in-law the emperor Leopold was about to march a body of troops on Longwi, in order to afford a pretext for the concentration of the French troops on that frontier, and thus favour his flight from Paris, are irrefragable proofs of the counter-revolutionary understanding existing between the king and the foreign powers, no less than between the king and the leaders of the emigres.

The memoirs of the emigres are full of proofs of this fact; and nature even attests them, for the cause of the king, the aristocracy, and the religious institutions was identical.