He saddled two horses and in ten minutes Billet was galloping on the road to Rheims and Drouet to Vitry.
Day dawned. Hardly six hundred men remained of the numerous escort, and they were fagged out, having passed the night on straw they had brought along, in the street. As they shook themselves awake in the dawn they might have seen a dozen men in uniform enter the Lieutenancy Office and come out hastily shortly after.
Chalons was headquarters for the Villeroy Company of Lifeguards, and ten or twelve of the officers came to take orders from Charny. He told them to don full dress and be on their horses by the church door for the King's exit. These were the uniformed men whom we have seen.
Some of the peasants reckoned their distance from home in the morning and to the number of two hundred more or less they departed, in spite of their comrades' pleadings. This reduced the faithful to a little over four hundred only.
To the same number might be reckoned the National Guards devoted to the King, without the Royal Guards officers and those recruited, a forlorn hope which would set the lead in case of emergency.
Besides, as hinted, the town was aristocratic.
When the word was sent to Billet and Drouet to hear what they said about the King and the Queen going to hear mass, they could not be found and nothing therefore opposed the desire.
The King was delighted to hear of the absence but Charny shook his head: he did not know Drouet's character but he knew Billet's.
Nevertheless all the augury was favorable, and indeed the King not only came out of church amid cheers but the royalist gathering had assumed colossal proportions.
Still it was not without apprehension that Charny encouraged the King to make up his mind.