But there was no sudden change in the position of the courts Christian till the French Revolution.
In a similar manner, while he abhorred the French Revolution when it came, he seems to have had no apprehension, like Chesterfield, Burke, or even Horace Walpole, of its approach; nor does he appear to have at all suspected that it had had anything to do with the speculations of the philosophic coteries in which he had taken such delight.
During the first years of the French Revolution Catherine's sympathy with philosophic liberalism rapidly evaporated, and the European sovereigns to the democratic movement; but she carefully abstained from joining the Coalition, and waited patiently for the moment when the complications in western Europe would give her an opportunity of solving independently the Eastern Question in accordance with Russian interests.
See the articles French Revolution and Marie Antoinette.
On the Continent, the movement was more aristocratic and theoretical; it was part of the intellectual renaissance which found its most striking expression in the principles of the French Revolution.
