Only on leaving Clermont the road splits—one part going to Verdun, the other to Varennes.
It was not probable that the King would go to Varennes, where he had no relays; if that route had been indicated, it was simply to throw pursuers off the scent.
Anyhow, Guillaume would be at Varennes; and as he was a native of that place, he would have plenty of influence.
Drouet galloped, therefore, along the road to Verdun.
Scarcely had he gone two hundred yards, when he met a postilion, who was leading some horses.
“Have you seen a large berlin and a cabriolet going past, one with six horses and the other with three?”
“No, M. Drouet,” replied the postilion.
The King had therefore gone to Varennes.
Drouet got on the road to Varennes by cutting across the country, after having leapt a ditch.
This error, in all probability, saved him.