Leopold II. had reigned as a wise man and a be neficent prince for 25 years in his interesting and hap py province, when he was called to the throne of Germany and Austria. He made peace with Prus sia and Turkey ; was involved, probably against his inclination, in the tremendous revolutionary war, af terwards so ruinous to his house, and died on the 1st of January 1792. His son, Francis II., succeeded him, and still reigns over the provinces which are the subject of this article, as a mild, tolerant, and bene volent prince. Austria, properly so called, has lost very little of the extent which it possessed in 996, from the its in which it gave the title of mar grave to ts lord, until the peace of Vienna, lately concluded in October 1809. A brief summary, how ever, of the circumstances which have, since January 1792, conduced to bring Austria into her present situation, may not, perhaps, be timed in 1810.
When the revolutionary war broke out in 1791-2, and the continental powers bordering upon France began to be alarmed by the principles which it pro pagated, and the serious aspect which it. assumed, it was natural for Austria, as the greatest monarchy -' of western Europe, and in contact with the revo lutionary state in many points, to adopt the most efficacious means for securing herself against it. Her councils, however, were divided in opinion ; and al though she preferred the alternative of war to that of remaining at peace as long as France might think fit to permit her, the exertions which she made at the commencement of it bore no proportion to her own resources, or to those of her antagonist. She had every inducement for going into the field with all her forces. No time was to be lost. France had few disciplined troops ; was distracted and torn by fu rious factions ; and regarded with horror by all the cabinets of Europe. In this situation, to strike a decisive blow at once ; to annihilate the army which protected Flanders and Paris, and which was in -a state of disorganization and mutiny, after the first rencounter with the Austrian regulars ; to draw, without delay, all her disposable military force, and the whole of the Germanic contingents, to the fron tier of that empire, and along the Austrian border, but not to advance a step farther,—was a measure equally consistent with the best interests of Austria and and with the principles of political justice, upon which the governments of Europe at the time pretended to act. This measure was also sug gested by the wisest men at the'court of Francis II. They were averse from taking any part in the intes tine divisions of France ; from interfering, in any shape, with her form of government or administra tion ; and deprecated, in the strongest terms, the idea of attempting to dismember her by conquest, and to appropriate any part of her territory in Flanders, or elsewhere, to the Austrian empire. The measure in question would, they said, protect Germany and Flanders from French principles, as well as French violence and arms ; it would have a powerful in fluence upon the minds of parties in France herself ; it would probably compel that state to have recourse to the mediation of Austria, as a friend, for reconci ling her contending factions, rather than unite those factions against her, as an invader of the French ritory ; and, at all events, such dignified and disinter ested policy would prevent any alarms in Germany and the North,from the ulterior views of Austria.
On the 'other hand, there was a numerous and power ful party in the Austrian cabinet, which had always recommended a very different course. They mistook the character of the French revolution from the be , -ginning, and neither understood its principles and tendency, nor the tremendous energies which it was to call into activity. These were the men who had -advised the partition of Poland, the various Turkish wars, and the frequent unhappy interferences with Bavaria, and the Swabian principalities. They were men of the old school. They scorned the idea of conceding any thing to public opinion, and seemed to be persuaded, that Frenchmen would display, on see ing their country invaded by foreign ruffians, and its population partitioned among them by commission ers and land-measurers, the same apathy which dis graces the miserable slaves of the East, and had late-' ly been experienced in Gallicia and Bukowina. The successful robbery in Poland had added five millions of souls to the population of the empire, and two mil lions sterling annually to its resources, without cost ing much money, or a single regiment to Austria. Flanders, Alsatia, Lorraine, and what had once been German territory, might at first with a good grace be seized upon, and circumstances would perhaps af terwards occur, which might render other acquisi tions expedient. It were desirable to arrondize the empire, and to secure for ever its western frontier : Something might he given to Prussia in the north of Germany, to keep her quiet in the interim ; and England would be sufficiently rewarded for any mo ney she might advance, or any forbearance she might practise on the occasion, by trowing into her builds some trading station or stations any where on the coast of Flanders or Holland, so as to enable her mi nisters to say in parliament, that they had procured a key to the storehouses and shops of the continent, and would fill them up to their entire satisfaction. This party was urged to constant importunity with the cabinet, by all the emigrants from France and the Low Countries, who had flocked to Vienna after the detention of Louis XVI. at Varennes. These were joined by such Austrian subjects as had pro perty in the Netherlands, and also by all those who expected promotion in the territories to be acquired, or in consequence of their influence at court.