 Initially, such rulers of Europe as Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor viewed the revolution in France as an event between the French king and his subjects, and not something in which they should interfere. As the rhetoric grew more strident, the monarchies started to view events with distrust. Leopold, who had succeeded Joseph as Emperor in 1791, saw the situation surrounding his sister, Marie Antoinette, and her children, with greater and greater alarm. As the revolution grew more and more radical, he still sought to avoid war, but in the late summer, he, in consultation with French émigré nobles and Frederick William II of Prussia, issued the Declaration of Pillnitz, in which they declared the interest of the monarchs of Europe as one with the interests of Louis and his family. They threatened vague, but serious, consequences if anything should happen to the royal family.
