"What!" exclaimed the multitude, "the king running away, abandoning us, his children, and becoming a traitor to the nation; going over to the enemy, to aid them to burn our homes and massacre us all!"
Some wept; others execrated; others threatened to shoot the king upon the spot. The simple-hearted peasants were, in intelligence, mere children. They had been educated to regard the monarchy as paternal and the king as their father. Choiseul and Goguelat, who, it will be remembered, were stationed at the bridge of Sommeville with fifty hussars, now came clattering into the streets of Varennes with their detachment. At the same time Count Dumas arrived, who had escaped alone from his dragoons, they having abandoned him at St. Menehould.
The grocer's shop was surrounded with a crowd armed with muskets, pitchforks, and axes. Notwithstanding many fierce threats, the officers forced their way through the crowd and entered the shop. There they found the royal family in a deplorable condition. The little boy, Louis, the dauphin, was happily asleep on a low cot bed. His sister, Maria Theresa, three years older, in great terror, was sitting on a bench between her governess and her aunt Elizabeth, clinging tremblingly to their hands. The king and queen were standing by the side of M. Sausse, imploring him to permit them to continue on their way.
Choiseul, grasping significantly the hilt of his sword, said boldly to the king, "Sire, please give immediate orders to depart. I have forty hussars. No time is to be lost. In one hour they will be gained over by the people."
This was true. The hussars were Germans. Blindly obeying their officers, they had no idea of the commission upon which they had been sent. They were now surrounded by the populace, and were listening, with surprise and sympathy, to their narrative of the events. At this critical moment the municipality of Varennes, accompanied by the officers of the National Guard in that place, entered the shop. Accustomed as they had long been to revere and almost to adore royalty, for the rural districts had by no means kept pace with Paris in disregard of the throne, the officers threw themselves upon their knees before the king and said,
"In God's name, sire, do not forsake us; do not quit the kingdom."
"It is not my intention," the king replied, "to leave France. The insults I have suffered force me to leave Paris. I am going only to Montmedy, and I invite you to accompany me thither; only give orders, I pray you, for my carriages to be got ready."
The municipal authorities departed to deliberate, begging the king to wait till the light should dawn. It was now two o'clock in the morning. The chances of escape were every moment diminishing. The crowd, armed with such weapons as they could on the moment seize, had become formidable; the bridge was so barricaded that it could not be passed; and but little reliance could be placed in the fidelity of the hussars. There was, however, a ford near by, where the stream could be passed on horseback. Choiseul and Goguelat entreated the king and queen, with the ladies, immediately to mount on horseback, the king holding the dauphin on the saddle, and, protected by the forty hussars, to cross the stream, and attempt to effect their escape.
The queen, whose personal heroism never forsook her, looked at her children, thought of the bullets which might be showered upon them, and, yielding to a mother's love, hesitated. The king also, who never dishonored himself by an act of cowardice, thought only of the peril of those who were dearer to him than life, and said,
"But can you assure me that in this struggle a shot may not strike the queen, my sister, or the children? Besides, the municipality does not forbid to let us pass; it merely requests me to wait till daybreak. Moreover, the Marquis de Bouillé is at Stenay, but twenty-four miles distant. He can not fail to learn of my detention, and he will be here with his troops in the morning."