The Peasant and the Prince

by Harriet Martineau

This was one of the moments which occur now and then in the course of men’s lives, as if to show what they are made of. This was the occasion, if the king had been a man of spirit, to forget that he had blood to spill,—to assert his rights as a ruler and as an innocent man,—to daunt his enemies, and rouse his friends,—to carry off his family in triumph,—to save his crown and kingdom, his life and reputation. Things much more difficult have been done. His enemies were but six; and he and his body-guards might have resisted them till Bouillé was roused by the noise, to come up with his hussars, to help and save. It is true, the king did not know that his enemies were but six: but a man of spirit would have seen how many they were before he yielded. It is true he did not know that Bouillé was in bed, and his hussars drinking in the village: but a man of spirit would have trusted that help would rise up, or have done without it in such an extremity, rather than yield. Instead of this, what did the king do? He heard what his enemies had to say.

One of the six was Monsieur Sauce, a grocer who lived in the market-place, and a magistrate. He said, in the name of his party, that, whether the travellers were the Baroness de Korff and suite, or of a higher rank still, it would be better that they should alight, and remain at his house till morning.

With what a bursting heart must the queen have seen the king quietly doing as he was bid! For twenty-one years she had suffered what a high spirit must suffer in being closely united with a companion who has none; but the agony of this moment must have exceeded all former trials of the kind. She, the woman and the wife, must obey, to her own destruction, and that of all who belonged to her. She said little; but there was afterwards a visible sign of what she must have endured. In this one night, her beautiful hair turned white, as if forty years had at once fallen upon her head.

The king stepped out of the coach, and the ladies followed him. They took each an arm of Monsieur Sauce, and walked across the market-place to his shop, the king following, with a child holding either hand. It was strange confusion for little Louis. This was the third night that he had spent out of his bed. He had been asleep,—the whole party had been asleep in the coach; and now this disputing, and the flare of the lanterns, and the presenting the muskets, and the having to get out and walk, must have been perplexing and terrifying to the poor little fellow. There was much noise round about. The alarm-bell was clanging; there were lights in all the windows: men poured out of the houses, half-dressed, and rolled barrels, and laid felled trees across the road, that no help might arrive on the king’s behalf.

And what did the king do next? He asked for something to eat! “Something to eat” was always a great object with him; and he seemed to find comfort under all trials in his good appetite. He sat now in an upper story of Monsieur Sauce’s house, eating bread and cheese and drinking Burgundy,—declaring that this bottle of Burgundy was the best he ever tasted. One wonders that the queen’s heart was not quite broken. She believed that there was yet a chance. She saw Monsieur Sauce’s old mother kneeling, and praying for her king and queen, while the tears ran down her cheeks. The queen saw that Monsieur Sauce looked frequently towards his wife, while the king talked with him, explaining that he meant no harm to the nation, but good, since he could come to a better understanding with his people when at a distance and in freedom. Monsieur Sauce, the queen saw, looked so frequently towards his wife, that it was plain that he would act according to her judgment. The queen of France therefore kneeled to the grocer’s wife to implore mercy and aid. Fain would the grocer’s wife have aided her sovereign, if she dared: but she dared not. Again and again she said, “Think what it is you ask, madame. Your situation is very grievous; but you see what we should be exposed to. They would cut off my husband’s head. A wife must consider her husband first.”

“Very true,” replied the queen. “My husband is your king. He has made you all happy for many years; and wishes to do so still.” Whatever Madame Sauce might think of the poor queen’s belief that her husband had made his people happy, she replied only, as before, that she could not induce Monsieur Sauce to put his life in danger.

The leaders of the different military parties, hearing one alarm-bell after another beginning to toll through the whole region, made prodigious exertions to reach Varennes, and did so. The Duke de Choiseul and his troop surmounted the barricade, and got in; and the hussars promised fidelity to “the king—the king! And the queen!” as they kept exclaiming. They were led forward to beset Monsieur Sauce’s house: but Drouet shouted to his national soldiery to stand to their cannon. On hearing of cannon, the hussars drew back: though Drouet’s cannon were only two empty, worn-out, useless field-pieces, which seemed fit only to make a clatter on the pavement.

Count Damas had also arrived; and the king sat consulting with these officers and the magistrates of Varennes,—consulting, when he, with the aid which had arrived, should have been forcing his way out towards the frontier. There he sat, as usual, unable to decide upon anything; and while he sat doubting, the national soldiery poured in to the number of three thousand, and would presently amount to ten thousand. While he thus sat doubting, the people were handing jugs of wine about among the hussars; and when their commander came out from Monsieur Sauce’s, at the end of an hour, he found them tipsy, and declaring for the nation against the king.

There was still one other chance—one more opportunity of choice for him whose misfortune was that he never could make a choice. Another loyal officer, Deslons, arrived, with a hundred horse-soldiers. He left his hundred horse outside the barricade, entered himself, and offered to cut out the royal party,—to rescue them by the sword, if the king would order him to do so. “Will it be hot work?” asked the king. “Very hot,” was the answer; and the king would give no orders.—In the bitterness of her regrets, the queen said afterwards, at Paris, that no one who knew what had been the king’s answer to Count d’Inisdal about being carried off, should have asked him for orders;—that the officers should have acted without saying a word to him.

The children were asleep on a bed up-stairs, and the ladies remonstrating with Madame Sauce, from hour to hour of this dreadful night: and the end of it all was that it was decided by somebody that the party were to go back to Paris, as the people in the market-place were loudly demanding. The poor queen’s doubts and fears thus ended in despair. Weary as they all were,—after having travelled so far, and escaped so many dangers,—and now so near the frontier, so near Bouillé’s camp, so close upon the queen’s own country,—they were to pursue their weary way back to Paris,—journeying in disgrace, prisoners in the eyes of all the people, to be plunged again into the midst of their enemies, now enraged by their flight. It would have been easier to a spirit like the queen’s to have died, with those who belonged to her, in one more struggle,—in one rush to the camp, than to undergo the slow despair of a return among their enemies.