They decided to stay at Aix for the present, and had just taken and furnished a small apartment when they heard the French army, under Dumouriez, was advancing upon Aix.
There was no time to lose; the furniture, &c., was sold at a loss, they packed up in haste, found a carriage with great difficulty, and on a cold, bright day in December they set off, they knew not whither.
The French army had overrun Belgium, everyone was flying towards Holland; the road was encumbered with vehicles of all kinds. Old post-chaises, great family coaches, open carts, were filled with fugitives; many went down the Rhine in boats.
At Cologne Pauline met her cousin, the Comtesse de Brissac, still in mourning for their relation the Duc de Brissac, late Governor of Paris, and Colonel of the Cent-Suisses, murdered in the streets of Versailles.
They went down the left bank of the Rhine, passing the fortress of Wesel, where La Fayette was imprisoned. With tearful eyes Pauline gazed from the window of the carriage, but dared not ask to stop. M. de Beaune made no remark and pretended not to notice her agitation; but he made no objection to the window being wide open in the bitter cold, as he would usually have done.
They were kept a fortnight at the Hague by the storms and shipwrecks going on, but early in January they decided to embark for England. The cold was fearful, and, wrapped in fur cloaks, fur boots and caps, they set off to drive seven or eight leagues perched on the top of open baggage waggons, seated upon the boxes, so unsafe that the Baron de Breteuil, who was with them, fell off and put his wrist out.
The Meuse was frozen and must be crossed on foot. Pauline, who was again enceinte, managed, leaning upon her husband’s arm, slipping and stumbling, to get as far as the island in the middle. M. de Montagu insisted on her being carried the rest of the way by a sailor. M. de Beaune was helped by his only servant, Garden, a tiresome German boy of fifteen. They got to Helvoetsluys after dark, crossed next day, and after about a week found a cottage at Margate with a garden going down to the sea, which they took, and with which they were delighted. It stood between the sea and the country, and near them lived the family of M. Le Rebours, President of the Parliament of Paris, faithful Royalists who were happy enough all to have escaped, father, mother, grand-parents, six children, and three old servants. He himself had just then gone to Paris to try to save some of his fortune. They had turned a room into a private chapel where mass was said by an old Abbé; all attended daily, and, needless to say, the prayer for the King was made with special fervour.
The day the fatal news of his death arrived, the Abbé stopped short and, instead of the usual prayer, began the De Profundis with a trembling voice. All joined with tears, but when, at the end of it, the old priest was going on to the other prayers, one of the congregation said aloud—
“We have not come to that, Monsieur l’Abbé. The prayer for the King!”