Page:Readings in European History Vol 2.djvu/478

 44Q Readi7igs in European History 409. The French Assembly declares war on Austria, Reasons for war. considered reasonable beings, and will be regarded as mad- men, fit for the insane asylum. Since the opening of the Legislative Assembly most of the Girondists had been warmly advocating war, which they believed would force the king to take a definite stand either with or against the nation. When war was finally declared against Austria on April 20, the Assembly was able to assign a number of plausible reasons for their action. The National Assembly, deliberating upon the formal proposition of the king, in view of the fact that the court of Vienna, in contempt of treaties, has not ceased to extend open protection to French rebels ; That it has instigated and formed a concert with several of the powers of Europe directed against the independence and safety of the French nation ; That Francis I, king of Hungary and Bohemia, has, by his diplomatic notes of the 18th of March and the 7th of April last, refused to renounce this concert ; That, in spite of the proposition made to him by the note of March 11, 1792, to reduce to a peace basis the troops upon the frontiers, he has continued, and hastened, hostile preparations ; That he has formally attacked the sovereignty of the French nation by declaring his intention of maintaining the claims of the German princes who hold territory in France, whom the French nation has repeatedly offered to indemnify ; That he has endeavored to divide the citizens of France and arm them against one another by holding out to the malcontents the hope of assistance from a concert of the powers ; And that, finally, by his refusal to reply to the last dis- patches of the king of France, he leaves no hope of obtain- ing, by way of friendly negotiation, the redress of these several grievances, — which is equivalent to a declaration of war ; — the Assembly decrees that immediate action is urgent.