success,—­nothing was wanting to this army at Coblentz save an understanding with their country and time.  Had the French noblesse but employed one half of the virtues and efforts they made to subdue the Revolution, in regulating it, the Revolution, although it changed the laws, would not have changed the monarchy.  But it is useless to expect that institutions can comprehend the means that transform them.  The king, the nobility, and the priests could not understand a revolution that threatened to destroy the noblesse, the clergy, and the throne.  A contest became unavoidable; they had not space for the struggle in France, and they took their stand on a foreign soil.

XV.

Whilst the army of the princes thus increased in strength at Coblentz, the counter-revolutionary diplomacy was on the eve of the first great result it had been enabled to obtain in the actual state of Europe.  The conferences of Pilnitz had opened, and the Count de Provence had sent the baron Roll from Coblentz to the king of Prussia, to demand in the name of Louis XVI. the assistance of his troops to aid in the re-establishment of order in France.  The king of Prussia, before deciding, wished to learn the state of France from a man whose military talents and devoted attachment to the monarchy had gained him the confidence of the foreign courts,—­the Marquis de Bouille.  He fixed the Chateau de Pilnitz as the meeting place, and requested him to bring a plan of operation for the foreign armies on the different French frontiers; and on the 24th of August Frederic Willam, accompanied by his son, his principal generals, and his ministers, arrived at the Chateau de Pilnitz, the summer residence of the court of Saxony, where he had been preceded by the emperor.

The Archduke Francis, afterwards the emperor Francis II., the Marechal de Lascy, the Baron de Spielman, and a numerous train of courtiers, attended the emperor.  The two sovereigns, the rivals of Germany, seemed for a time to have laid aside their rivalry to occupy themselves solely with the safety of the thrones of Europe; this fraternity of the great family of monarchs prevailed over every other feeling, and they treated each other more like brothers than sovereigns, whilst the elector of Saxony, their entertainer, enlivened the conference by a succession of splendid fetes.

In the midst of a banquet the unexpected arrival of the Count d’Artois at Dresden was announced, and the king of Prussia requested permission from the emperor for the French prince to appear.  The emperor consented, but previous to admitting him to their official conferences the two monarchs had a secret interview, at which two of their most confidential agents only were present.  The emperor inclined to peace, the inertness of the Germanic body weighed down his resolve, for he felt the difficulty of communicating to this vassal federation of the empire the unity