Making of a German Constitution : a Slow Revolution

66 • The Making of a German Constitutionhe received from the Neuraths, this still must have been an emotionally challengingtime for him.War in the RhinelandRevolution came to France, violently, in 1789, and despite the initial renunciationof international wars, for a number of reasons, France and the German states werebound to wind up in conflict. Austrophobia fed the revolutionaries’ fears of the ForeignPlot. Lavicomterie de Saint-Samon’s Les crimes des empereurs d’Allemagnedepuis Lothar I jusqu’à Léopold II (1793) reflected the fever level of Austrophobiain France. As Thomas Kaiser writes, the Hapsburgs were accused of using ‘obliquemethods of conquests that traditional misogyny characterized as “feminine”, as opposedto the more honest, manly pursuit of war’. 54 According to Lavicomterie, it hadtaken centuries for the Hapsburg to perfect their contrived system of despotism. ‘Thebreakthrough’, as Kaiser points out, was alleged to have ‘occurred as a result of thePragmatic Sanction under Charles VI, which allowed women, in particular MariaTheresa, to come to the throne and thereby to deploy to maximum effect the peculiarfeminine methods devised by the Hapsburg’s for their aggrandizement.’ 55 Havingusurped authority from her husband, Maria Theresa amongst other schemes had allegedlygroomed her children to carry forward her programme of European domination.56 Her daughter, the hated Queen Marie Antoinette, who was charged with tryingto rule France according to the wishes of her family, had become the symbol of thisForeign Plot and was the embodiment of oblique conquest. In Vienna, EmperorsJoseph II (r. 1765–1790) and Leopold II (r. 1790–1792) were the siblings of the illfatedMarie Antoinette. After Leopold’s death, her nephew Francis II (r. 1792–1832)inherited the throne of the Holy Roman Empire.In the Rhineland, regardless of reform impulses, the Rhenish princes with theirpompous titles and tiny territories symbolized the decadence of ancient regime Europein the minds of French revolutionaries. Elector Clemens Wenzeslaus von Sachsenwas not only Louis XVI’s uncle, but, worse, allowed his court in Koblenz tobecome a centre for counter-revolutionary ferment. The elector of Mainz as wellas Cardinal Rohan of Straßburg also opened their territories to thousands of royalistémigrés, who readily formed themselves into militias. Although some electorswould later order the disarming and dispersal of such units, the damage could not beundone. Matters were complicated further by the question of what to do about nobleprivileges and territorial rights granted to German princes resident in Alsace, by thedeposed French monarchy. A report of the Constituent Assembly soon proclaimedthat, since the French people had not consented to such privileges, they were invalidand the people were not obliged to compensate for any losses. 57These various matters along with the intrigues of a group of multinational exilesin Paris combined to lend support to the war hawks in the Girondists-dominated