French Revolution

Following the Seven Years' War and its support of the United States in the American Revolutionary War, the French government was deeply in debt. Its main source of income was the taille, a burdensome tax on its peasants which could not be much increased. As 1789 dawned, after years of bad harvests, it stood at the brink of a financial and social crisis.

In order to resolve the crisis, the king, Louis XVI, called the Estates General of 1789 on 24 January. The Estates General quickly became mired in disputes over the representation of the various estates. On 17 June, after months of such disputes, the Third Estate, representing the common people, declared itself the National Assembly. On 20 June the National Assembly swore not to disperse until they had established a constitution.

The dismissal of the Controller-General of Finances Jacques Necker, seen as sympathetic to the Third Estate, and the gathering of the army outside Paris led to fears that the National Assembly and its supporters among the people were soon to be crushed. In response, a bourgeois militia, the National Guard, was spontaneously established on 13 July. On 14 July the National Guard stormed the Bastille, a prison and armory, and killed its defenders. On 15 July the army outside Paris withdrew to its garrisons. The capital would never return to effective royal control. During the night of 20 June 1791 the king and his wife, Leopold's sister Marie Antoinette, fled Paris in an attempt to meet counter-revolutionary troops at Montmédy. They were recognized and arrested on 21 June at Varennes-en-Argonne.

On 27 August Leopold and Frederick William II of Prussia, king of Prussia, issued the Declaration of Pillnitz, calling for the release of Louis and Marie Antoinette and promising that, if his safety was threatened, and with the support of the other monarchs of Europe, they would go to war to restore him. The National Assembly interpreted the declaration as a declaration of war against the revolutionary government. On 20 April 1792 it declared war on Leopold's son Francis, his successor as king of Hungary, Croatia, and Bohemia.

Election of 1792

The prince-electors called to choose Leopold's successor were:

• Friedrich Karl Joseph von Erthal, elector of Mainz
• Clemens Wenceslaus of Saxony, elector of Trier
• Archduke Maximilian Francis of Austria, elector of Cologne
• Francis, king of Bohemia
• Charles Theodore, elector of Bavaria
• Frederick Augustus I, elector of Saxony
• Frederick William II of Prussia, elector of Brandenburg
• George III of Great Britain, elector of Hanover