By a curious coincidence, when Monsieur d'Argentan left Diane de Fargas he asked himself the same questions about her.
Suddenly, just as they reached the summit of the hill which guarded the entrance of the post-town of La Guerche, from which the road was visible for miles around, Diane was startled and dazzled by the gleam of gun-barrels, reflecting the light of the sun. The road looked like an immense river of flashing steel. It was the Republican column, whose advance guard had already reached La Guerche, while the rest of the troops were still a mile and a half behind them.
Everything was of importance in these troublous times, and, as Diane paid her attendants well, the postilion asked her whether he should take his place in the rear of the column, or drive along the side of the road without slackening his pace, and thus reach La Guerche.
Mademoiselle de Fargas told him to raise the top of the carriage, that she might not be made the object of undue curiosity, and to drive on without slackening his speed. The postilion did as she bid him; and then, remounting his horse, set off at the smart pace at which the horses of the Department of Posts used to make their six miles an hour. As a result, Mademoiselle de Fargas duly reached the gates of La Guerche. When we say gates, we mean the beginning of the street which branched into the Châteaubriant road.
There they found an obstruction, in the nature of an immense machine, drawn by twelve horses, on a truck which was too wide to pass the gates, and which blocked the entire road.
Mademoiselle de Fargas, seeing that her carriage had stopped, and not knowing the reason, put her head through the open window, and said: "What is the matter, postilion?"
"The matter is, citizeness," replied the postilion, "that our streets are not wide enough for the things they wish to carry through them, and they will have to dig up one of the posts before M. Guillotin's machine can enter La Guerche."
And, in fact, as François Goulin had decided to travel for the edification of towns and villages, it happened, as the postilion had said, that the street was too narrow, not for the machine itself, but for the sort of rolling platform on which it was set up.
Diane gazed at the horrible thing that obstructed the road; then, realizing that this must be the scaffold, which she had never seen before, she quickly turned her head away, exclaiming: "Oh! how horrible!"
"How horrible! how horrible!" repeated a voice in the crowd. "I should like to know who is the aristocrat who speaks thus disrespectfully of the instrument which has done more for human civilization than any invention since that of the plow?"