The journey was fixed for the 19th of June. Everything was ready, every precaution had been taken, every possible obstacle anticipated. The Marquis de Bouillé, almost the only general whose devotion the king could trust to the death, was in command of the army of the Meuse, and Montmédy, a small but well-fortified town, was situated in the midst of it. Here the royal family were sure of a safe and loyal asylum. The minor military arrangements were entrusted to M. de Goguelat, an officer of engineers, who was on Bouillé's staff, and personally devoted to the king and queen. The Duc de Choiseul, under De Goguelat's orders, was to furnish local detachments from his regiment of Royal Dragoons along the road, and to precede the royal departure by a few hours, so as to ensure all being in order at the various stations. M. de Goguelat made two experimental journeys to Montmédy himself, to ascertain the exact hour of arrival at each place. Unluckily, he forgot to calculate the difference between a light post-chaise and a heavily-built, heavily-laden “new berlin.” Relays of horses were provided at each stage, and a detachment of cavalry from De Bouillé's army was to be there also, and, after a short interval, to follow the new berlin, picking up each detachment successively, and thus swelling the force at every stage. The utmost secrecy was observed with all except the leaders of the expedition; the pretext alleged to the troops for all this marching being that a treasure was on its way to the north for payment of the army. All was waiting, when, at the last moment, owing to some difficulty about getting Mme. de Tourzel into the berlin, the king sent a counter-order for the departure, saying it must take place, not on the 19th, but on the 20th. It was a woful delay. But at last, on the night of the 20th, behold the travellers under way. Mme. Royale's Mémoires give us the most authentic account of the mode of starting: “At half-past ten, on the 20th of June, 1791, my brother was wakened up by my mother. Mme. de Tourzel brought him down to my mother's apartment, where I also came. There we found one of the gardes-du-corps, M. de Malden, who was to assist our departure. My mother came in and out several times to see us. They dressed my brother as a little girl. He looked beautiful, but he was so sleepy that he could not stand, and did not know what we were all about. I asked him what he thought we were going to do. He answered: ‘I suppose to act a play, since we have all got these odd dresses.’ At half-past ten we were ready. My mother herself conducted us to the carriage in the middle of the court, which was exposing herself to great risk.”
The rôles were distributed as follows: Mme. de Tourzel, governess of the children of France, was Baronne de Korff; Mme. Royale and the Dauphin, her daughters. The queen was their governess, Mme. Rocher. The Princess Elizabeth was dame-de-compagnie, under the name of Rosalie. The king was Durand, the valet-de-chambre. The officers of the disbanded gardes-du-corps went as couriers and [pg 380] servants. This was a grievous mistake amidst so many others. These gentlemen were totally inexperienced in their assumed characters, and, by their personal appearance and ignorance of the duties they undertook, proved a fatal addition to the party. The preparations were altogether too cumbrous and elaborate, but it is difficult to accuse any special portion of them as superfluous in a time when the public spirit was strained to such a pitch of suspicion and hatred; though prudence might have hinted that this heavy paraphernalia was far more calculated to awake the jealous mistrust of the people than to baffle or allay it.
All being now ready, the fugitives furtively left the Tuileries, and proceeded to enter the hackney-coach that stood in wait for them outside the palace. “Mme. de Tourzel, my brother, and I got into the coach first,” says Mme. Royale. “M. de Fersen was coachman. To deceive any one who might follow us we drove about several streets. At last we returned to the Petit Carrousel, which is close to the Tuileries. My brother was fast asleep in the bottom of the carriage.”
And now another traveller steals softly out of the palace, her face shrouded by a gypsy-hat. As she steps on the pavement a carriage, escorted by torch-bearers, dashes past. An unaccountable impulse moves her to touch the wheel with the end of her parasol. The occupant of the carriage is Lafayette, on his way to the king's couchée. He is late, having been delayed by urgent matters. They tell him the king has already retired for the night. Meantime the lady in the gypsy-hat, leaning on M. de Malden, one of the amateur couriers, loses her way in the dark street, and keeps the occupants and driver of the hackney-coach half an hour waiting in an agony of suspense. At last, after crossing and recrossing the river, they make their way to the coach, and start. Another presently follows them. So they jog on through the dark night to the spot where the new berlin is waiting; but, lo! they arrive, and no berlin is there. The king himself alights, and prowls about in search of it. M. de Fersen at last finds it, overturns the hackney-coach into a ditch, mounts the berlin, and drives on to Bondy. There the travellers find a relay waiting in a wood. The chivalrous Swede stands bareheaded in the dewy dawn-light, and bows his loyal farewell to the king and Marie Antoinette. They press hands in silent thanks, and the chevalier goes his way—to Stockholm, where that same day, nineteen years hence, he will meet a more brutal end than that which awaits the royal pair he has befriended—beaten to death with sticks by a savage mob, who, on the impulse of the moment, accuse him of having been accessory to the death of Prince Charles Augustus. But now he breathes with a glad sense of victory and security, and stands with bright, moistened eye watching the huge berlin lurching on its way, the only thing that broke the stillness of the wood, sleeping yet under the fading stars.
All went smoothly as far as Châlons-sur-Marne, about a hundred miles beyond Bondy, and here the programme as arranged by the queen and De Fersen ceased, to be taken up by the Duc de Choiseul and M. de Bouillé's detachments. The berlin rumbled on through Châlons at four in the afternoon, and reached [pg 381] the next stage, Pont de Somme-Velle at six, where M. de Goguelat's escort was to meet it. But no escort was to be seen. M. de Choiseul had been there at the appointed time, but owing to the slow pace of the berlin and the time lost in the early stages—one accident to a wheel causing two hours' delay—they were four hours behind time, and M. de Choiseul, taking for granted something had occurred to change the plan altogether, drew off his dragoons, without leaving even a vedette to say where he was going. Everywhere these unlucky troops turned out a hindrance and a danger. The soldiers accepted without arrière pensée the plausible story of their being on duty to protect the transport of pay for the army of the Meuse; but the municipal authorities looked on them with suspicion, and, long before the idea of the real cause of their presence got wind, the soldiers were eyed askance in the towns they passed through. At this very place, Somme-Velle, one detachment caused a panic. It so fell out, by one of those disastrous coincidences which pursued the berlin on its adventurous way, that some few days before there had been an affray amongst the peasants of a neighboring estate, they having refused to pay certain rates, in consequence of which the tax-gatherers had threatened to enforce payment by bringing down the troops. When therefore the population beheld De Choiseul and his cavalry they fancied they had been summoned for the above purpose, and a spirit of angry defiance was roused against them. The municipality sent the gendarmerie to parley with the troops and compel them to withdraw; but they failed in this overture, and words began to run dangerously high on all sides. Meanwhile De Choiseul was straining eyes and ears for the approach of the berlin, in mortal dread of seeing it arrive in the midst of the popular excitement. When, however, four hours passed, and there was no sign of it, he said to an officer, loud enough to be heard by those near, “I will draw off my men; the treasure I expected must have already passed.”
The accounts of this particular hitch in the itinerary of the flight are so conflicting—some envenomed by bitter reproach, others equally hot with recrimination from the accused—that it is difficult to see who really was in fault. The time lost in the first instance appears to be the main cause of all the mishaps. Goguelat is blamed for not having taken better measures for ensuring the relays being found at once at every stage; but he throws the blame on De Choiseul, under whose orders he was, and who was at any rate guilty of strange thoughtlessness in drawing off from the point of rendezvous without leaving word where he could be found.
Little time, however, was lost at Somme-Velle when the berlin at last arrived there. It changed horses at once, and away to Sainte-Ménéhould, which it reached at half-past seven. But here the incapacity of the soi-disant couriers caused fresh delay and danger. M. de Valory, one of them, not knowing where the post-house was, went about inquiring for it, exciting curiosity and some suspicion by his manner and uncourier-like appearance. He was still looking for it when a special escort of troops rode up—a circumstance which was very unfortunate, as the angry feeling excited in the neighboring village by De Choiseul's huzzars the day before had not yet subsided. The captain of the detachment, [pg 382] the Marquis d'Andoins, sees the berlin, and tries to telegraph by glances to Goguelat which way lies the post-house; but Goguelat cannot read the signals, and goes up to him and asks in words, keeping up the sham of his yellow livery by touching his hat respectfully to the aristocrat officer. The king, impatient and nervous, puts his head out of the carriage-window, and calls to Valory for explanations; the marquis advances and tenders them respectfully, but with seeming indifference, as to ordinary travellers asking information on their way. Unlucky Louis! Imprudent M. d'Andoins! Patriots' eyes are sharp, and there are hundreds of them fixed on your two faces now. These sharp eyes are suggesting some vague memory, a likeness to some forgotten and yet dimly-remembered features. Whose can they be? And the lady with the gypsy-hat who bends forward to thank the gracious gentleman, bowing in silence, but with a grace of majesty unmistakable, a something in her air and carriage that startles even these heavy-souled provincials into wondering “who can she be?” The lady falls back in an instant, and is hidden from further gaze; but that fat valet-de-chambre keeps his head protruded for several minutes. The post-house is found at last, and the horses are coming. The postmaster and his son are busy at their service. The son has lately been to Paris, and has seen that head somewhere. He whispers suspicion to his father, old Drouet, one of Condé's dragoons in by-gone days, and the two come closer, and steal a long, sharp, look. Yes, it is the same as the head on the coins and the assignats; there is no mistaking it. What is Drouet to do? He is a staunch patriot; is he to connive at the king's treachery to the nation, and let him fly to the foreigner unimpeded? Never was the ready wit of patriotism more severely tested. No need now to wonder at all this marching and countermarching, this flying of pickets to and fro, this moving of troops along the road to the frontier. Treasure to be transported! Ay, truly, a greater treasure than gold or silver. But what was to be done? How was it to be stopped? There were the soldiers and chivalrous aristocrat officers, ready to cut all the patriot postmasters in France to pieces, and then be cut to pieces themselves, rather than let a hair of one of those royal heads be touched. A word, and the village would be in a blaze; but only so long as it would take those glittering swords to quench the flame in patriot blood. Drouet is a prudent man. He holds his tongue until the new berlin is fairly on its way, with the village gaping after it, the military escort lounging about yet a little longer in careless indifference. M. de Damas was in command of the troops. Presently, after the appointed interval, he orders them to move on in the wake of the berlin. But short as the time was, it had sufficed to stir up the town to terrified and resolute opposition. The people had flocked into the streets in angry excitement, and would not suffer the cavalry to advance. M. de Damas at first took a high tone of command, but it was of no use; his weapon broke in his hand. The troops turned round on him and joined the mob, and after a desperate struggle he was obliged to escape for his life, unconscious, even at this crisis, of the danger that threatened his master. Drouet, meanwhile, was flying after his prey [pg 383] to Clermont, the next stage to St. Ménéhould, and which by a fatal chance he never reached; if he had, the final catastrophe would, in human probability, have been averted. On the road there he met his own postilions coming back, and they informed him that the berlin had not gone on to Verdon—the next stage beyond Clermont; that they had overheard the courier on the seat say to the fresh postilions, “A Varennes!” Drouet, who knew every stone of the roads, saw at once what a chance this gave him. He turned off the main road, and started by a short cut across the country to Varennes. Varennes was a small town, a village rather, where there was no post-house, but where M. de Bouillé had a relay waiting for the travellers, who, having arrived before Drouet, and without any suspicion that he was pursuing them, might have congratulated themselves on being at last safe over the Rubicon. Yet it was here that danger was to overtake and overwhelm them. In this secluded little dell, near midnight, when every one was asleep, hushed by the lullaby of the river hurrying on its way beneath the silent stars, no prying eyes to peer at them, no patriots to take offence or fright, with fresh horses waiting in the quiet wood, and young De Bouillé, the general's loyal son, to superintend the relays, with a guard of sixty staunch huzzars lodged in an old convent of the upper town, at hand in case of now seemingly impossible accident—it was here that the thunderbolt fell, and, as the king expressed it, “the earth opened to swallow him.” Valory, the clumsy courier in the gaudy gold livery, has been blamed for it all; but let us remember at least that a man who has ridden one hundred and fifty miles without breathing-space in twenty-three hours is entitled to mercy if, at the end of the ride, his mind wanders and his thoughts become confused. It was past eleven when he reached Varennes, and went looking about for the relays, where he had been told he should find them, at the entrance of the faubourg; but no relays were to be seen. He pushed on through the faubourg to the town, which had gone to bed, and could find no sign of the missing horses. After wandering about for nearly an hour, he hears a sound of rumbling of wheels coming along the Paris road. Can it be the berlin? And where, oh! where are the fresh horses? He hurries back in the direction of the sound, and finds the fugitives at the entrance of the suburb, looking about for the relays. There was nothing for it but to wake up the village and make enquiries. The king and queen themselves got out, and went, with the couriers, knocking at doors, and calling to the inhabitants to know if they had seen horses waiting in the neighborhood. Drouet, meantime, was not asleep; he was up with his game now, and flashed past the berlin, like a man riding, not for life, but against life for death, just as the king alighted. He shouted something as he passed, but Louis did not hear it. It was an order to the postilions not to stir from the spot. The relays all this time were ready waiting not at the entrance of the suburb on the Paris side, as had been specified to the king in M. de Goguelat's programme, but at the entrance of the faubourg beyond the town—a safer and to all appearances more advantageous position, as the change of horses would be sure to attract less notice out of the town than within it. The grievous mistake on De [pg 384] Goguelat's part was in not having told the courier the exact place where the relays were to be found. But where were the officers commanding the sixty huzzars all this time? Fast asleep, it is said, though it is almost impossible to believe it. Certain it is that they and their huzzars, as well as the detachment of dragoons which, under command of M. Rohrig, was told off to keep watch over “the treasure,” kept out of the way while all this commotion was going on, and never appeared until the entire village was on foot, lights gleaming in every window, and the streets filled with the inhabitants, lately snoring in their beds. Drouet had managed his mission with a coolness and cleverness worthy of a nobler cause. He made no row, but went quietly to the houses of some half-dozen good patriots, told them what was abroad, and directed them how to act. Their first move was to hurry off to the bridge, and throw up a loose barricade which would prevent the berlin passing; they then flew to the other end of the town, and overturned some carts that happened to be close by, and thus barricaded the exit by the road. They were but “eight patriots of good-will,” Drouet proudly asserts, in these momentous preliminaries, so sagaciously and quickly executed.
The mob were by this time thoroughly roused. They surrounded the carriage, and forced the travellers to alight. Mme. Royale thus describes the scene: “After a great deal of trouble the postilions were persuaded that the horses were waiting at the castle (at the other side of the town and river), and they proceeded that way, but slowly. When we got into the village, we heard alarming shouts of Stop! stop! The postilions were seized, and in a moment the carriage was surrounded by a great crowd, some with arms and some with lights. They asked who we were; we answered, ‘Mme. de Korff and her family.’ They thrust lights into the carriage, close to my father's face, and insisted upon our alighting. We answered that we would not; that we were common travellers, and had a right to go on. They repeated their orders to alight on pain of being put to death, and at that moment all their guns were levelled. We then alighted, and, in crossing the street, six mounted dragoons passed us, but unfortunately they had no officer with them; if there had been, six resolute men would have intimidated them all, and might have saved the king. There were sixty close at hand, but the two officers who commanded them were asleep; and when at last the noise of the riot awoke them, they coolly rode away to tell the Marquis de Bouillé that the king had been stopped, and all was over; while M. Rohrig, who commanded the treasure escort, rode off likewise, leaving his men under a disaffected non-commissioned officer.” M. de Raigecourt, in his account of this eventful “Night of Spurs,” tells us how he and his brother officer, De Bouillé, “at half-past eleven returned to their bed-rooms,” after strolling about the town, in hopes of seeing the travellers arrive. “We extinguished our lights,” he says, “but opened our windows and kept a profound silence. About twelve we heard many persons passing and repassing, but without tumult; some even stopped under our windows, but we could not distinguish what they were saying.” They remained quietly in their rooms, “wondering what was [pg 385] the matter,” until about half-past twelve, when they were enlightened by signals which even their unsuspicious minds could not mistake. The tocsin was rung, the drum beat to arms, the tumult became very great. Terror seemed to prevail. I believe that at that moment ten, or even fewer, determined men would have routed that scared populace. A general cry informed us that the king was in Varennes, betrayed and a prisoner. Instead of now, at least, hastening to call out their men (who, we said, were lodged above the town in an old abbey), the two officers “took for granted that the huzzars had laid down their arms, as otherwise they would have come to the rescue and liberated the king,” and so they simply rode away to report the lamentable issue to De Bouillé. It was about a quarter to one when they left Varennes.
At this juncture M. de Damas, who had escaped with a few faithful men from the fray at Clermont, reached Varennes—not with the idea of succoring the travellers, but of rejoining them. He believed that the uproar which so suddenly exploded at Clermont had been merely against the troops, and that the royal fugitives were now in security, past all further dangers or hindrances. His consternation was therefore great when, on approaching the village of Varennes, he beheld a barricade across the high-road, held by a band of peasants, who made an attempt to stop him. M. de Damas, however, leaped the barricade, and dashed past them into the town. But the chivalrous soldier was no war-god descending on fire-wings to save the royal prisoners. He saw the huzzars walking about the streets, and in answer to his question, “What were they doing?” they replied, “Nothing; we have no orders.” Those who should have given the orders had fled. M. de Choiseul was there with his drawn sword at the head of forty men; and there was a detachment just arrived from another direction under M. Deslons. There was therefore, even at this point of the disaster, no lack of armed force to clear the way, if there had been but one vigorous will to use it. But everybody seemed too bewildered to act. No one had the courage or the presence of mind to take the initiative. As to Louis himself, he was like one paralyzed; not with personal cowardice—that odious charge his subsequent conduct amply disproved—but with a sort of dazed, mental stupor. When Deslons went the length of asking him for orders, he replied, “I am a prisoner, and have no orders to give!” Deslons might have taken the hint, and acted without orders; but the two officers present were his superiors, and he lacked the genius or the desperation to seize the opportunity at the cost of a breach of military discipline. Even the queen's imperial spirit seems to have abandoned her in this critical extremity, and she sat passive and dumb in Sausse the grocer's bed-room, clasping her children to her heart, and taking with silent, humble thanks the sympathy of Mme. Sausse, who forgets the queen in her pity for the mother, and stands over the group weeping womanly, unavailing tears. Tears even of “warlike men” cannot help now, for the soldiers have fraternized with the mob, as their wont is in France; and even if Louis could be electrified by the shock of despair to arise and assert himself, remembering that he is a king, it is too late.
The journey so wisely planned, so deeply thought over, dreaded, and at last attempted, had come to an end, and stopped at the first stage along the road whose goal was the scaffold. The return to Paris resembled the capture of a runaway malefactor. Every species of insult was poured out on the unhappy victims of the popular fury. The brave men who stood by them in their hour of humiliation, MM. de Choiseul, de Damas, and de Goguelat, were disarmed and sent to prison; the three gardes-du-corps, who faithfully but clumsily played their part as servants to the last, were bound with ropes on the front seat of the berlin, and hooted at in their glaring yellow liveries by the mob; the National Guard of Varennes claimed the glory of escorting the fugitives back to the capital, and the National Guard of all the towns the berlin had passed through on its ill-starred journey fell in with the cortége one after another, swelling it to ten thousand strong as it advanced. As these men were on foot, the journey homewards lasted four days. When the king arrived at Sainte-Ménéhould, M. de Dampierre came out to salute him, and paid for the loyal act by being massacred on the spot. A little further on the prisoners were met by Barnave, Petion, and Latour-Maubourg, members of the Assembly sent by Lafayette to conduct them back to Paris. Barnave and Petion entered the berlin, Mme. de Tourzel leaving to make room for them, and following in another carriage. From this strange meeting grew the quasi-friendship of Barnave and the queen, which led to his honorable though futile efforts to save her and all of them. At first the proud Austrian lady sat in sullen silence, turned to stone, deaf to Petion's coarse sneers, as he sat opposite in ill-suppressed jocularity of triumph; but Barnave's interference to save a priest from being butchered, like loyal Dampierre, for saluting the king, moved her to speech, and soon to confidence in the young representative of the nation. Barnave was surprised beyond measure to discover in Marie Antoinette's conversation such clear and strong intelligence, and so thorough a comprehension of the existing state of things. He was captivated by her grace, as well as impressed by the serenity and courage that stamped her whole demeanor throughout that terrible journey; while his prejudices received nearly an equal blow in the person of the king. There was no approaching Louis XVI. without being convinced of his single-minded honesty and good sense.