In transforming the Bourbon kingdom into aconstitutional state, theFrench Revolution aroused intense excitement east of the Rhine. Most Germanintellectuals were at first in sympathy with the new order inFrance, hoping that the defeat of royal absolutism in westernEurope would lead to its decline in central Europe as well. The princes, on the other hand, were from the outset fearful of the Revolution, which they regarded as a serious danger, for the example of unpunishedinsubordination by the French might encourage demands for reform among the Germans. The result was a growing hostility between the government in Paris and the rulers of theHoly Roman Empire, which led in the spring of 1792 to the outbreak of theWar of the First Coalition (1792–97), the first phase of theFrench Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars. The immediate occasion of the conflict was a quarrel over the rights of German princes with holdings in France and over the propagandistic activities of French émigrés in Germany. But theunderlying cause was the clash of two incompatible principles of authority divided by profound differences regarding the nature of political andsocial justice. The course of hostilities soon revealed that the civic ideals and military power of Revolutionary France were more than a match for the decrepit Holy Roman Empire. After 1793 France occupied the German lands on the left bank of the Rhine, and for the next 20 years their inhabitants were governed from Paris. Yet there is no evidence that they were dissatisfied with French rule or at least no evidence that they strongly opposed it. Devoid of a sense of national identity and accustomed to submission to authority, they accepted their new status with the sameequanimity with which they had regarded a succession to the throne or a change in thedynasty. The Prussians, moreover, discouraged by defeats in the west and eager for Polish spoils in the east, concluded a separate peace atBasel in 1795 by which they in effect recognized the French acquisition of theRhineland. The Austrians held out two years longer, but the brilliant successes of the youngNapoleon Bonaparte forced them to accept the loss of the left bank in theTreaty of Campo Formio (October 17, 1797).