ABSTRACT

The mood of the Constituent Assembly was pacific. Two declarations (22 May 1790 and 5 August 1791) renounced wars of conquest and declared that war, like poverty, was a symptom of tyranny, and that free nations did not go to war. This attitude changed, however, in the face of the threat of the émigrés, and of the foreign powers who appeared to give them support, for instance in the Declaration of Pillnitz, August 1791. On 20 October Brissot called, in the Legislative Assembly, for military action to disperse the émigrés in the Rhineland, and, from then on, speeches demanding firm action against the enemies of France became more common. Various groups in France thought that war would serve their needs: the Republicans hoped that it would reveal all the King’s treasons, and the Monarchists that it would restore him to his place at the head of the people. Tensions in France increased with the King’s use of the veto in November, and the change of ministry on 10 March 1792, making room for the Brissotins, notably the anti-Austrian hero Dumouriez. Attempts to make alliances with the ‘liberal’ powers of the world, Britain and the USA, were unsuccessful, and this, too, fuelled the anxieties in France.