That was how the deputy-governor encountered Peugnet and his friends outside the gate of France, for it was Peugnet whom he tried to arrest and who fired the pistol-shot which flattened the cross of St. Louis.
Pailhès and his supper companions had scarcely left the hotel when Carrel and Joubert arrived upon the scene. They had come to announce, in their turn, the discovery of the conspiracy. They only found in the dining-room Guinard and Henri Scheffer, who were just leaving it themselves. But not being natives of that country, they did not know where to fly! Guinard, Henri Scheffer and Joubert mounted a carriage and took the road to Mulhouse. M. de Corcelles junior and Bazard set out to meet la Fayette in order to turn him back. When near Mulhouse, Carrel quitted his three companions, took to horse and returned to Neuf-Brisach, where his battalion was stationed. At the gate of Colmar he met Rusconi on the road, the same fellow who, the evening before, had been at Mulhouse.
General Dermoncourt still waited, placing Rusconi as sentinel to bring news to him. Rusconi knew Carrel and learnt from him that all had been discovered and that the conspirators were fleeing.
"But where will you go?" asked Rusconi.
"Ma foi, I shall go to Neuf-Brisach to resume my duties."
"That does not seem to me a prudent course."
"I shall keep a look-out and at the first alarm I shall decamp.... Have you any money?"
"I have a hundred louis belonging to the conspiracy, take fifty of them."
"Give them to me, and then take my horse and go and warn the general."
The exchange was made, and Carrel continued his journey on foot, while Rusconi reached the general's country house at a gallop. The general was just rising. Rusconi acquainted him with the failure of the enterprise at Béfort, but Dermoncourt refused up to the last to believe it.