Through a clearing in the midst of the tangled undergrowth the two riders saw before them, as they still rode furiously, the glimmer of a known white stone, a landmark; they sheered down a ride to the right: the wood ended abruptly, and they saw below them the lights of Varennes—one or two at that late hour, and the twinkle of the town lamps in the square of the town. The grasses of the forest were dull no longer under the anger of their ride: they clattered on a high road for a moment, next in the narrow street of Blainville Hill. They came down upon the bridge head and saw the dark line of the river; they halted the sweating beasts and strained to listen. They heard no sound, except the panting of their mounts; there was no rumbling of wheels, no distant approach of riders, no noise of cavalry. They had been beaten, and the berline had already passed the town and its one bridge—or the wheels had not yet rumbled in, and they had won. It struck eleven as they waited so.
Sketch Map
TO ILLUSTRATE DROUET’S RIDE
Guillaume crossed the bridge to the main square to see what he could find, whether indeed they had come too late, and whether between them and the fugitives was now cast abroad that compact screen of cavalry which had failed at Somme-Vesle and at Ste. Menehould. Drouet stayed on the hither side of the bridge, inquiring among the taverns of the upper town if any had seen a large travelling-coach go by. It seems that no one had noticed such a thing.... Yet the berline was there.
He saw it suddenly, up the steep hill; he saw the two great lights of it, and he heard the postillions protesting that the stage was finished, that they were not bound to go down the hill, that their mistress at Clermont needed the horses early next morning for the carrying of her hay. But even in the midst of the discussion, though he could not see the horses in the darkness under the houses, he could hear the skid upon the wheels, and he knew that the heavy vehicle had begun to move. He ran down at once to a little inn called “The Golden Arm,” burst in upon a group of rustic politicians, and warned them in one word that a large carriage would next moment go braked and sliding past: that carriage would hold, he said, the King, their public King—in flight for the frontier.
The military temper of this people! Here were a handful of men in the black darkness of a now moonless night, with not five minutes in which to make the decision that should transform the whole polity in which they lived. Yet they saw in a flash—and Drouet saw clearest of them all—first that the high town was not occupied with troops, and that therefore the commanding officers and those awaiting the King must be in the low town beyond the river; secondly, that but one communication connected the King and his rescuers, and that that communication was the narrow bridge across the Aire, the river of Varennes; thirdly, that they could gather in those few minutes no forces, even of the smallest, wherewith to hold the bridge, and that the least noise, until the bridge was held, would give the alarm.
There stood at the bridge head a great van for the removal of furniture, packed, with its pole upon the ground, waiting for the dawn, when it should be harnessed and start upon its road. In a moment they had drawn it across their end of the narrow bridge and blocked the approach. In the same moment certain of their companions had warned the officials of the town, and these, especially Sauce, the Procurator, saw to the rousing of every house upon the hither side of the river.
All this was done with such rapidity that the officials were astir, the bridge barricaded, and two men already armed, before the royal carriage had skidded half-way down the hundred yards of hill. At that point an archway running under an old church blocked the road; at that archway the two armed men posted themselves, and just as the outrider of the fugitives had come into the narrow pass, the challenge was given which ended the hopes of the Monarchy. For the two sentries thus improvised challenged, the outrider dismounted voluble, the horses of the cabriolet were thrown back upon their haunches, the huge coach and six behind it slithered somehow to a stop upon the steep road, and the Queen suddenly realised that the crash and the disaster had come. She heard the threat to fire. She looked from her window, as the Duchess fumbled for the passports, and uttered one of those phrases memorable in history for their anti-climax: she begged the gentlemen who had stopped them to go through the formalities quickly, as she was desirous of reaching the end of her journey as quickly as might be.
The two armed men had increased now to eight; to this little group was added a German soldier or two wandering aimlessly upon leave, uncommanded and perfectly drunk. The ladies in the cabriolet had got out and had been thrust into the inn; but even when matters had gone so far, that incertitude and fear of responsibility, which had saved the family thrice already in their flight, all but saved them again. The passports seemed regular, and had it not been for the wild energy of Drouet, his threats and his violence, the journey would have proceeded, the van would have been rolled back from the bridge, the relay of horses in the square of the lower town would have been harnessed, Bouillé’s own son, who had been waiting in a hotel beyond the river all day and was waiting there now in the dark expectant, would have accompanied them out of the borough.... With the dawn, which was now not two hours off, the vanguard of Bouillé’s cavalry would have ensured their safety for ever. But Drouet stormed, shouted perpetually the words “High treason!” and gained all that he desired, which was delay. “If there were any doubt,” said Sauce, “to wait for morning would do no harm. The horses needed rest; the night was dark.” He lifted the lantern in his hand and put it closely and curiously into the face of the Queen: “You must get down, Madame; you must get down.” He would not endorse the passport until the morning.