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Updated: June 4, 2025
The conspiracy of Pilnitz, and the brutal threats of the Royal abettors of that plot against the rights of nations and of men, had, in truth, to answer for all the additional misery, horrors, and iniquity, which had since disgraced and incensed humanity.
He fixed the Château 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 Château de Pilnitz, the summer residence of the court of Saxony, where he had been preceded by the emperor.
Therefore Leopold thought that he risked nothing by a demonstration which the émigrés made the most of to alarm and irritate the French people. But when the king freely accepted the Constitution, the manifesto of Pilnitz fell to the ground. If he was content with his position, it could not be the duty of the Powers to waste blood and treasure in attempting to alter it.
However, Leopold, after the conferences at Pilnitz, was more earnest than ever in his attempts to find excuses for peace. The Prince de Kaunitz, his minister, feared all violent shocks, which might derange the old diplomatic mechanism, whose workings he so well knew.
After the departure of her husband and her father, Marie Louise remained still five days in the capital of Saxony, profiting by them to visit the wonderful museum, the castle of Pilnitz, and the fortress of Koenigstein, on the banks of the Elbe, upon a steep rock. June 4, in the early morning, she left Dresden accompanied by her uncle, the Grand Duke of Wuerzburg.
During the conference, held at Pilnitz, the indivisibility of Poland was expressly mentioned. The constitution was monarchical. Poland was, for the future, to be a hereditary instead of an elective monarchy, and, on the death of Poniatowsky, the crown was to fall to Saxony.
But this we say, that the French had only one alternative, to deprive him of the powers of first magistrate, or to ground their arms and submit patiently to foreign dictation. The events of the tenth of August sprang inevitably from the league of Pilnitz. The King's palace was stormed; his guards were slaughtered.
During our stay on the plateau of Pilnitz, the enemy, and above all the Russians, received many reinforcements, the main one, led by General Benningsen was of not less than 60,000 men, and was composed of the corps of Doctoroff and Tolstoï and the reserve of Prince Labanoff.
The emigrants thenceforth relied only on the assistance of Europe; the officers quitted their colours; 290 members of the Assembly protested against its decrees; in order to legitimatise invasion, Bouillé wrote a threatening letter, in the inconceivable hope of intimidating the Assembly, and at the same time to take up himself the sole responsibility of the flight of Louis XVI.; finally the emperor, the King of Prussia, and the Count d'Artois met at Pilnitz, where they made the famous declaration of August 27, 1791, preparatory to the invasion of France.
And, thirdly, there is the European world. All kings and kinglets are astir, their brows clouded with menace. Swedish Gustav will lead coalised armies, Austria and Prussia speak at Pilnitz, lean Pitt looks out suspicious. Europe is in travail, the birth will be WAR. Worst feature of all, the emigrants at Coblentz, an extra-national Versailles. We shall have war, then!
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