1792 Imperial election 21 at Varennes-en-Argonne. On August 27, 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 April 20, 1792, it declared war on Leopold's son Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor, his successor as king of Hungary, king of Croatia and king of Bohemia. The
Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor alienated by his brother's policies. The strain tolled on Leopold and by the winter of 1791, he became ill. He gradually worsened throughout early 1792; on the afternoon of 1 March Leopold died, at the relatively young age of 44. Francis, just past his 24th birthday, was now Emperor, much sooner than he had expected. As the leader of the large multi-ethnic Habsburg Empire, Francis felt threatened by Napoleon's social and political reforms, which were being exported throughout Europe with the expansion of the first French Empire. Francis had a fraught relationship with France. His aunt Marie Antoinette, the wife