So much for the hour at which he took to the wood.
Now what road did he pursue in the forest? Only one is possible. The forest here covers a high ridge, some three hundred feet above the open plain. Down in the plain, parallel to this ridge and at its base, runs the high road from Clermont to Varennes, with a row of farms and wide fields between it and the edge of the wood. Had Drouet gone anywhere but along the ridge he would have had to cross some twenty streams, to climb and fall over as many ravines (all of clay), to flank a dozen clay ponds and marshes, and with all this there was no continuous path. He could not have done it in two hours, let alone one. He was compelled to follow the ridge. It so happens that there runs all along the ridge a green ride called “the High Ride.” It is a Gaulish track of great antiquity, known to the peasantry as “the Roman Way.” It does not come down as far as Clermont; it leaves the forest at the farm and huts of Lochères. To this farm Drouet must have made his way by the lanes and gates of Jacques and Haute Prise—once at Lochères, a hard gallop along the High Ride brought him in six or seven miles to the Crossed Stone (called also the Dead Girl); here another green ride crosses the main ride of the ridge. He took this cross ride to the right hand: it leads down and out of the forest; one comes out of the wood a mile or so from Varennes with the town right below one and what was then a lane (now it is a county road) through the open valley fields. Just before entering the town a detour (by where the tile-works are now) would get him into the Rue de Mont Blainville, and so to the Bridge: a detour serving the double purpose of avoiding possible troops at the entry to the town and of getting ahead of any carriage coming in from Clermont. He cannot but have taken this detour, have noted the waggon by the bridge as he passed it (he later used it to block the bridge), and then have come up the main street from the river.
APPENDIX C
THE ORDER TO CEASE FIRE
THE order to cease fire, which forms the frontispiece of this book, and which is the last executive document of the French monarchy, has been misunderstood by not a few critics, and its value thereby lessened.
It is, as I shall presently show, authentic, and therefore of the highest possible interest to every student of history. The traveller will find it to-day in the central glass case of the square Revolutionary Room in the Carnavalet Museum. The body of the writing is not in the hand of Louis himself, but the signature is undoubtedly his. The lines were scribbled in haste by some one attendant upon the King, signed by him, and sent to the palace.
Now no event of such importance and so recent has been more variously described by eye-witnesses than the fall of the palace in 1792; and the particular incident of the order to cease fire suffers, like every other detail of those famous hours, from a plethora, and therefore a conflict, of evidence.
It may be remarked in passing, and by way of digression, that such difficulty cannot but attach to any episode of hard fighting, on account of the mental condition which that exercise produces. There is exactly the same trouble, for instance, in determining with exactitude the all-important moment of the evening in which the Guard failed at Waterloo.
We may confidently say, however, that two separate messages were sent to the palace. The first was a verbal message to cease fire, which reached Hervilly, who was directing the whole operation. Hervilly, as we know, refused to obey, having the action well in hand, and being yet confident of success. Either after the southern end of the Tuileries had been forced by the populace (who, as we now know, turned the flank of the defence by fighting their way through from the Long Gallery), or while that capital incident was in progress, Durler, a captain of the Swiss Guards, commanding no more than a company, but probably the company which had the best chance of retreating, asked for orders. It is difficult to believe that he would have done so unless the position was already desperate. The order which reached him was a repetition of the former one, but it was written, not verbal, and it is this second written order the facsimile of which forms the frontispiece to this volume. Durler did not see it written. He had gone in person to learn what he should do, but he was back again with his men before the note was handed to him. He was a perfectly honest and trustworthy man, and his testimony remains. It is evident from this testimony that, by the time the note came, all was over.
As to the pedigree of the document:—