About half-past eleven, the King mounted the steps of the Hotel de Ville, his garments covered with dust, and his face altered and careworn.
The Queen dressed in black. She had changed her robe at M. Sauce’s, and held the Dauphin by the hand.
Louis XVI and his children were hungry.
As for the Queen, in the same manner, as she cared not to sleep, she now seemed to care not to eat.
A breakfast had been prepared through the forethought of the municipal council, but as they were a long time serving it, a gendarme named Lapointe brought some cherries in his hat for Madame Royale.
The royal family had likewise need of rest.
The Mayor, M. Dupuis de Dammartin, offered them hospitality; they accepted it; only M. Dupuis de Dammartin observed to the King that it would be just as well if the Queen and the Dauphin showed themselves to the people.
The King made no difficulty. He showed himself first. Afterwards the Queen appeared in her turn, holding the Dauphin in her arms. The window of the Hotel de Ville—the only one which had a balcony—was so narrow that the King and Queen could not both show themselves at the same time.
A municipal officer then announced to the people that the King, being fatigued, intended to honor the citizens of St. Menehould by sleeping within their walls.
The carriages had already been taken to the stables, and the news of a halt for twenty-four hours was not less agreeable to us, who had been marching seven or eight leagues under a burning sun, than it was to the royal family, when the National Guards from the adjacent towns and villages, who filled the hotels and cafés, rushed into the place, crying “Aristocrats! Traitors!” and saying that the royal family were far too near the frontier to be allowed to halt.