This question was properly put, but it was too heavy for the town governors of a third-rate town to handle.
As their deliberation promised to take up some time, Sausse went home to see how his guests were faring.
They had refused to lay aside their wraps or sit down as this concession seemed to delay their approaching departure, which they took for granted.
All their faculties were concentrated on the master of the house who might be expected to bring the council's decision. When he arrived the King went to meet him.
"Well, what about the passport?" he asked, with anxiety he vainly strove to conceal.
"It causes a grave debate in the council," replied Sausse.
"Why? is its validity doubted by any chance?" proceeded the King.
"No; but it is doubted that it is really in the hands of Lady Korff, and the rumor spreads that it covers the Royal Family."
Louis hesitated an instant, but then, making up his mind, he said:
"Well, yes; I am the King. You see the Queen and the children; I entreat you to deal with them with the respect the French have always shown their sovereigns."
The street door had remained open to the staring multitude; the words were heard without. Unhappily, though theywere uttered with a kind of dignity, the speaker did not carry out the idea in hisbob wig, grey coat, and plain stockings and shoes.
How could anybody see the ruler of the realm in this travesty?
The Queen felt the flush come to her eyes at the poor impression made on the mob.
"Let us accept Madam Sausse's hospitality," she hastened to say, "and go upstairs."
Meanwhile the news was carried to the town house and the tumult redoubled over the town.
How was it this did not attract the soldiers in waiting?
At about nine in the evening, Count Jules Bouille—not his brother Louis whom we have seen in locksmith's dress—and Lieut. Raigecourt, with their hussars, were at the Monarch inn door, when they heard a carriage coming. But it was the cab containing the Queen's hairdresser. He was very frightened.
He revealed his personality.
"The King got out of Paris last evening," he said: "but it does not look as if he could keep on; I have warned Colonel Damas who has called in his outposts; the dragoon regiment mutinied; at Clermont there was a riot—I have had great trouble to get through. I have the Queen's diamonds and my brother's hat and coat, and you must give me a horse to help me on the road."
"Master Leonard," said Bouille, who wanted to set the hairdresser down a peg, "the horses here are for the King's service and nobody else can use them."
"But as I tell you that there is little likelihood of the King coming along——"
"But still he may, and he would hold me to task for letting you have them."
"What, do you imagine that the King would blame you for giving me his horses when it is to help me out of a fix?"
The young noble could not help smiling. Leonard was comic in the big hat and misfit coat, and he was glad to get rid of him by begging the landlord to find a horse for the cab.
Bouille and his brother-officer went through the town andsaw nothing on the farther side; they began to believe that the King, eight or ten hours belated, would never come. It was eleven when they returned to the inn. They had sent out an orderly before this, who had reported to Damas, as we have seen.
They threw themselves, dressed, on the bed to wait till midnight.
At half past twelve they were aroused by the tocsin, the drum and the shouting. Thrusting their heads outof the window, they saw the town in confusion racing towards the town hall. Many armed men ran in the same direction with all sorts of weapons.
The officers went to the stables to get the horses out so that they would be ready for the carriage if it crossed the town. They had their own chargers ready and kept by the King's relay, on which sat the postboys.
Soon they learnt, amid the shouts and menaces that the royal party had been stopped.
They argued that they had better ride over to Stenay where the little army corps commanded by Bouille was waiting. They could arrive in two hours.
Abandoning the relay, they galloped off, so that one of the main forces foiled the King at the critical moment!
During this time, Choiseul had been pushing on but he lost three quarters of an hour by threading a wood, the guide going wrong by accident or design. This was the very time while the King was compelled to alight and go into Sausse's.
At half after twelve, while the two young officers were riding off by the other road, Choiseul presented himself at the gate, coming by the cross-road.
"Who goes there?" was challenged at the bridge where National guards were posted.
"France—Lauzun Hussars," was the count's reply.
"You cannot pass!" returned the sentry, who called up the guard to arms.
At the instant the darkness was streaked with torchlight, and the cavalry could see masses of armed men and the musket-barrels shine.
Not knowing what had happened, Choiseul parleyed and said that he wanted to be put in communication with the officers of the garrison.
But while he was talking he noticed that trees were felled to make a breastwork and that twofield pieceswere trained on his forty men. As the gunner finished his aiming, the hussar's provost-marshal's squad arrived, unhorsed; they had been surprised and disarmed in the barracks and only knew that the King had been arrested. They were ignorant what had become of their comrades.
As they were concluding these thin explanations, Choiseul saw a troop of horse advance in the gloom and heard the bridge guards challenge:
"Who goes there?"
"The Provence Dragoons!"
A national Guard fired off his gun:
"It is Damas with his cavalry," whispered the count to an officer.
Without waiting for more, he shook off the two soldiers who were clinging to his skirts and suggesting that his duty was to obey the town authorities and know nothing beyond. He commanded his men to go at the trot, and took the defenders so well by surprise that he cut through, and rushed the streets, swarming with people.
On approaching Sausse's store, he saw the royal carriage, without the horses, and a numerous guard before the mean-looking house in the petty square.
Not to have a collision with the townsfolk, the count went straight to the military barracks, which he knew.
As he came out, two men stopped him and bade him appear before the town council; still having his troopers within call, he sent them off, saying that he would pay the council a visit when he found time, and he ordered the sentry to allow no one entrance.
Inquiring of the stablemen, he learnt that the hussars, not knowing what had become of their leaders, had scattered about the streets where the inhabitants had sympathized with them and treated them to drink. He went back into barracks to count what he might rely upon, say, forty men, as tired astheir horses which had travelled more than twenty leagues that day.
But the situation was not one to trifle with.
He had the pistols inspected to make sure they were loaded; as the hussars were Germans and did not understand French, he harangued them in their tongue to the effect that they were in Varennes where the Royal Family had been waylaid and were detained and that they must be rescued or the rescuers should die. Short but sharp, the speech made a fine impression; the men repeated in German: "The King! the Queen!" with amazement.
Leaving them no time to cool down, he arranged them in fours and led them withsabresdrawn to the house where he suspected the King was held in durance.
In the midst of the volunteer guards' invectives, he placed two videttes at the door, and alighted to walk in.
As he was crossing the threshold, he was touched on the shoulder by Colonel Damas on whose assistance he had no little depended.
"Are you in force?" he inquired.
"I am all but alone. My regiment refused to follow me and I have but half-a-dozen men."
"What a misfortune! but never mind—I have forty fellows and we must see what we can do with them."
The King was receiving a deputation from the town, whose spokesman said:
"Since there is no longer any doubt that Varennes has the honor to receive King Louis, we come to have his orders."
"My orders are to have the horses put to my carriage and let me depart," replied the monarch.
The answer to this precise request will never be known as at this point they heard Choiseul's horsemen gallop up and saw them form a line on the square with flashing swords.
The Queen started with a beam of joy in her eyes.
"We are saved," she whispered to her sister-in-law.
"Heaven grant it," replied the holy woman, who looked to heaven for everything.
The King waited eagerly and the town's delegation with disquiet.
Great riot broke out in the outer room guarded by countrymen with scythes; words and blows were exchanged and Choiseul, without his hat and sword in hand, appeared on the sill.
Above his shoulder was seen the colonel's pale but resolute face.
In the look of both was such a threatening expression that the deputies stood aside so as to give a clear space to the Royal Family.
"Welcome, Lord Choiseul," cried the Queen going over to the officer.
"Alas, my lady, I arrive very late."
"No matter, since you come in good company."
"Nay, we are almost alone, on the contrary. Dandoins has been held with his cavalry at St. Menehould and Damas has been abandoned by his troop."
The Queen sadly shook her head.
"But where is Chevalier Bouille, and Lieut. Raigecourt?" he looked inquiringly around.
"I have not so much as seen those officers," said the King, joining in.
"I give you my word, Sire, that I thought they had died under your carriage-wheels, or even you had come to this," observed Count Damas.
"What is to be done?" asked the King.
"We must save you," replied Damas. "Give your orders."
"My orders?"
"Sire, I have forty hussars at the door, who are fagged but we can get as far as Dun."
"But how can we manage?" inquired the King.
"I will dismount seven of my men, on whose horses you should get, the Dauphin in your arms. We will lay the swords about us and cut our way through as the only chance. But the decision must be instant for in a quarter of an hour perhaps my men will be bought over."
The Queen approved of the project but the King seemed to elude her gaze and the influence she had over him.
"It is a way," he responded to the proposer, "and I daresay the only one; but can you answer for it that in the unequalstruggle of thirty men with seven or eight hundred, no shot will kill my boy or my daughter, the Queen or my sister?"
"Sire, if such a misfortune befell through my suggestion, I should be killed under your Majesty's eyes."
"Then, instead of yielding to such mad propositions," returned the other, "let us reason calmly."
The Queen sighed and retired a few paces. In this regretful movement, she met Isidore who was going over to the window whither a noise in the street attracted him; he hoped it was his brother coming.
"The townsfolk do not refuse to let me pass," said the King, without appearing to notice the two in conversation, "but ask me to wait till daybreak. We have no news of the Count of Charny, who is so deeply devoted to us. I am assured that Bouille and Raigecourt left the town ten minutes before we drove in, to notify Marquis Bouille and bring up his troops, which are surely ready. Were I alone I should follow your advice and break through; but it is impossible to risk the Queen, my children, my sister and the others with so small a guard as you offer, especially as part must be dismounted—for I certainly would not leave my Lifeguards here."
He looked at his watch.
"It will soon be three o'clock; young Bouille left at half after twelve so that, as his father must have ranged his troops in detachments along the road, he will warn them and they will successively arrive. About five or six, Marquis Bouille ought to be here with the main body, the first companies outstripping him. Thereupon, without any danger to my family, and no violence, we can quit Varennes and continue our road."
Choiseul acknowledged the logic in this argument but he felt that logic must not be listened to on certain occasions.
He turned to the Queen to beg other orders from her, or to have her get the King to revoke his, but she shook her head and said:
"I do not want to take anything upon myself; it is the King's place to command and my duty to obey. Besides, I am of his opinion—Bouille will soon be coming."
Choiseul bowed and drew Damas aside while beckoning the two Lifeguards to join in the council he held.
The scene was slightly changed in aspect.
The little princess could not resist the weariness and she was put abed beside her brother, where both slumbered.
Lady Elizabeth stood by, leaning her head against the wall.
Shivering with anger the Queen stood near the fireplace, looking alternatively at the King, seated on a bale of goods, and on the four officers deliberating near the door.
An old woman knelt by the children and prayed; it was the attorney's grandmother who was struck by the beauty of the children and the Queen's imposing air.
Sausse and his colleagues had gone out, promising that the horses should be harnessed to the carriage.
But the Queen's bearing showed that she attached little faith to the pledge, which caused Choiseul to say to his party:
"Gentlemen, do not trust to the feignedtranquilityof our masters; the position is not hopeless and we must look it in the face. The probability is that at present, Marquis Bouille has been informed, and will be arriving here about six, as he ought to be at hand with some of the royal Germans. His vanguard may be only half an hour before him; for in such a scrape all that is possible ought to be performed. But we must not deceive ourselves about the four or five thousand men surrounding us, and that the moment they see the troops, there will be dreadful excitement and imminent danger.
"They will try to drag the King back from Varennes, put him on a horse and carry him to Clermont, threaten and have a try at his life perhaps—but this will only be a temporary danger," added Choiseul, "and as soon as the barricades are stormed and our cavalry inside the town, the route will becomplete. Therefore we ten men must hold out as many minutes; as the land lays we may hope to lose but a man a minute, so that we have time enough."
The audience nodded; this devotion to the death's point, thus plainly set down, was accepted with the same simplicity.
"This is what we must do," continued the count, "at the first shot we hear and shout without, we rush into the outer room, where we kill everybody in it, and take possession of the outlets: three windows, where three of us defend. The seven others stand on the stairs which the winding will facilitate our defending as one may face a score. The bodies of the slain will serve as rampart; it is a hundred to one that the troops will be masters of the town, before we are killed to the last man, and though that happens, we will fill a glorious page in history, as recompense for our sacrifice."
The chosen ones shook hands on this pledge like Spartans, and selected their stations during the action: the two Lifeguards, and Isidore, whose place was kept though he was absent, at the three casements on the street; Choiseul at the staircase foot; next him, Damas, and the rest of the soldiers.
As they settled their arrangements, bustle was heard in the street.
In came a second deputation headed by Sausse, the National Guards commander Hannonet, and three or four town officers. Thinking they came to say the horses were put to the coach, the King ordered their admittance.
The officers who were trying to read every token, believed that Sausse betrayed hesitation but that Hannonet had a settled will which was of evil omen.
At the same time, Isidore ran up and whispered a few words to the Queen before he went out again. She went to the children, pale, and leaned on the bed.
As the deputation bowed without speaking, the King pretended to infer what they came upon, and said:
"Gentlemen, the French have merely gone astray, and their attachment to their monarch is genuine. Weary of the excesses daily felt in my capital, I have decided to go down into the country where the sacred flame of devotion ever burns; I am assured of finding the ancient devotion of the peoplehere, I am ready to give my loyal subjects the proof of my trust. So, I will form an escort, part troops of the line and part National Guards, to accompany me to Montmedy where I have determined to retire. Consequently, commander, I ask you to select the men to escort me from your own force, and to have my carriage ready."
During the silence, Sausse and Hannonet looked at each other for one to speak. At last the latter bowed and said,
"Sire, I should feel great pleasure in obeying your Majesty, but an article of the Constitution forbids the King leaving the kingdom and good Frenchmen from aiding a flight."
This made the hearer start.
"Consequently," proceeded the volunteer soldier, lifting his hand to hush the King, "the Varennes Council decide that a courier must take the word to Paris and return with the advice of the Assembly before allowing the departure."
The King felt the perspiration damp his brow, while the Queen bit her pale lips fretfully, and Lady Elizabeth raised her eyes and hands to heaven.
"Soho, gentlemen," exclaimed the sovereign with the dignity returning to him when driven to the wall. "Am I no longer the master to go my own way? In that case I am more of a slave than the meanest of my subjects."
"Sire," replied the National Guardsman, "you are always the ruler; but all men, King or citizens, are bound by their oath; you swore to obey the law, and ought to set the example—it is also a noble duty to fulfill."
Meanwhile Choiseul had consulted with the Queen by glances and on her mute assent he had gone downstairs.
The King was aware that he was lost if he yielded without resistance to this rebellion of the villages, for it was rebellion from his point of view.
"Gentlemen," he said, "this is violence; but I am not so lonely as you imagine. At the door are forty determined men and ten thousand soldiers are around Varennes. I order you to have my horses harnessed to the coach—do you hear, I order!"
"Well said, Sire," whispered the Queen, stepping up; "let us risk life but not injure our honor and dignity."
"What will result if we refuse your Majesty?" asked the National Guards officer.
"I shall appeal to force, and you will be responsible for the blood spilt, which will be shed by you."
"Have it so then," replied Hannonet, "call in your hussars—I will let my men loose on them!"
He left the room.
The King and the Queen looked at one another, daunted; they would perhaps have given way had it not been for an incident.
Pushing aside her grandmother, who continued to pray by the bedside, Madam Sausse walked up to the Queen and said with the bluntness and plain speech of the common people:
"So, so, you are the Queen, it appears?"
Marie Antoinette turned, stung at being accosted thus.
"At least I thought so an hour ago," she replied.
"Well, if you are the Queen, and get twenty odd millions to keep your place, why do you not hold to it, being so well paid?"
The Queen uttered an outcry of pain and said to the King:
"Oh, anything, everything but such insults!"
She took up the sleeping prince off the couch in her arms, and running to open the window, she cried:
"My lord, let us show ourselves to the people, and learn whether they are entirely corrupted. In that case, appeal to the soldiers, and encourage them with voice and gesture. It is little enough for those who are going to die for us!"
The King mechanically followed her and appeared on the balcony. The whole square on which fell their gaze presented a scene of lively agitation.
Half Choiseul's hussars were on horseback; the others, separated from their chargers, were carried away by the mob, having been won over; the mounted men seemed submissive yet to Choiseul, who was talking to them in German but they seemed to point to their lost comrades.
Isidore Charny, with his knife in hand, seemed to be waylaying for some prey like a hunter.
"The King!" was the shout from five hundred voices.
Had the Sixteenth Louis been regally arrayed, or even militarily,with sword or sceptre in his hand, and spoken in the strong, imposing voice seeming still to the masses that of God, he might have swayed the concourse.
But in the grey dawn, that wan light which spoils beauty itself, he was not the personage his friends—or even his enemies, expected to behold. He was clad like a waiting-gentleman, in plain attire, with a powderless curly wig; he was pale and flabby and his beard had bristled out; his thick lip and dull eye expressed no idea of tyranny or the family man; he stammered over and over again: "Gentlemen, my children!"
However, the Count of Choiseul cried "Long live the King!" Isidore Charny imitated him, and such was the magic of royalty that spite of his not looking to be head of the great realm, a few voices uttered a feeble "God save the King!"
But one cheer responded, set up by the National Guards commander, and most generally repeated, with a mighty echo—it was:
"The Nation forever!" It was rebellion at such a time, and the King and the Queen could see that part of their German hussars had joined in with it.
She uttered a scream of rage, and hugging her son to her, ignorant of the grandeur of passing events, she hung over the rail, muttering between her teeth and finally hurling at the multitude these words:
"You beasts!"
Some heard this and replied by similar language, the whole place being in immense uproar.
Choiseul, in despair, was only wishful to get killed.
"Hussars," he shouted, "in the name of honor, save the King!"
But at the head of twenty men, well armed, a fresh actor came on the stage. It was Drouet, come from the council which he had constrained to stay the King from going.
"Ha," he cried, stepping up to the count, "you want to take away the King, do ye? I tell you it will not be unless dead."
Choiseul started towards him with his sword up.
"Stand, or I will have you shot," interrupted the National Guards commander.
Just then a man leaped out of the crowd, who could not stop him. It was Isidore Charny who was watching for Drouet.
"Back, back," he yelled to the bystanders, crushing them away from before the breast of his horse, "this wretch belongs to me."
But as he was striking at Drouet with his short sword, two shots went off together: a pistol and a gun—the bullet of the first flattened on his collarbone, the other went through his chest. They were fired so close to him that the unfortunate young noble was literally wrapt in flame and smoke.
Through the fiery cloud he was seen to throw up his arms as he gasped:
"Poor Catherine!"
Letting his weapon drop, he bent back in the saddle, and slipped from the crupper to the ground.
The Queen uttered a terrible shriek. She nearly let the prince fall, and in her own falling back she did not see a horseman riding at the top of his pace from Dun, and plunging into the wake Isidore had furrowed in the crowd.
The King closed the window behind the Queen.
It was no longer almost but all voices that roared "The Nation forever!" The twenty hussars who had been the last reliance of royalty in distress, added their voices to the cheer.
The Queen sank upon an armchair, hiding her face in her hands, for she still saw Isidore falling in her defense as his brother had been slain at her door at Versailles.
Suddenly there was loud disturbance at the door which forced her to lift her eyes. We renounce describing what passed in an instant in her heart of Queen and loving woman—it was George Charny, pale and bloody from the last embrace of his brother, who stood on the threshold!
The King seemed confounded.
The room was crammed with strangers and National Guards whom curiosity had drawn into it.
The Queen was therefore checked in her first impulse which was to rush to the new arrival,spongeaway the blood with her handkerchief and address him some of the comforting words which spring from the heart, and therefore go to them.
But she could not help rising a little on her seat, extend her arms towards him and mutter his Christian name.
Calm and gloomy, he waved his hand to the strangers and in a soft but firm voice, said:
"You will excuse me, but I have business with their Majesties."
The National Guard began to remonstrate that they were there to prevent anybody talking with the prisoners, but Charny pressed his bloodless lips, frowned, opened his riding coat to show that he carried pistols, and repeated in a voice as gentle as before but twice as menacing:
"Gentlemen, I have already had the honor to tell you that I have private business with the King and the Queen."
At the same time he waved them to go out. On this voice, and the mastery Charny exercised over others, Damas and the two bodyguards resumed their energy, temporarily impaired, and cleared the room by driving the gapers and volunteer soldiers before them.
The Queen now comprehended what use this man would have been in the royal carriage instead of Lady Tourzel, whom she had letetiquetteimpose on them.
Charny glanced round to make sure that only the faithful were at hand, and said as he went nearer Marie Antoinette:
"I am here, my lady. I have some seventy hussars at the town gate. I believe I can depend on them. What do you order me to do?"
"Tell us first what has happened you, my poor Charny?" she said in German.
He made a sign towards Malden whom heknewto understand the speaker's language.
"Alas, not seeing you, we thought you were dead," she went on in French.
"Unhappily, it is not I but my brother who is slain—poor Isidore! but my turn is coming."
"Charny, I ask you what happened and how you came to keep so long out of the way?" continued the Queen. "You were a defaulter, George, especially to me," she added in German and in a lower voice.
"I thought my brother would account for my temporary absence," he said, bowing.
"Yes, I know: to pursue that wretch of a man, Drouet, and we feared for awhile that you had come to disaster, in that chase."
"A great misfortune did befall me, for despite all my efforts, I could not catch up with him. A postboy returning let him know that your carriage had taken the Varennes Road when he was thinking it had gone to Verdun: he turned into the woods where I pulled my pistols on him but they were not loaded—I had taken Dandoins' horse and not the one prepared for me. It was fatality, and who could help it? I pursued him none the less through the forest but I only knew the roads, so that I was thrown by my horse falling into a ditch! In the darkness I was but hunting a shadow, and he knew it in every hollow. Thus I was left alone in the night, cursing with rage."
She offered her hand to him and he touched it with his tremulous lips.
"Nobody replied to my calls. All night long I wandered and only at daybreak came out at a village on the road from Varennes to Dun. As it was possible that you had escaped Drouet as he escaped me, it was then useless for me to go to Varennes; yet but as he might have had you stopped there, and I was but one man and my devotion was useless, I determined to go on to Dun.
"Before I arrived I met Captain Deslon with a hundredhussars. He was fretting in the absence of news: he had seen Bouille and Raigecourt racing by towards Stenay, but they had said nothing to him, probably from some distrust. But I know Deslon to be a loyalgentleman; I guessed that your Majesty had been detained at Varennes, and that Bouille and his companion had taken flight to get help. I told Deslon all, adjured him to follow me with his cavalry, which he did, but leaving thirty to guard the Meuse Bridge.
"An hour after we were at Varennes, four leagues in an hour, where I wanted to charge and upset everything between us and your Majesty: but we found breastworks inside of works; and to try to ride over them was folly. So I tried parleying: a post of the National Guards being there, I asked leave to join my hussars with those inside but it was refused me: I asked to be allowed to get the King's orders direct and as that was about to be refused likewise. I spurred my steed, jumped two barricades and guided by the tumult, galloped up to this spot just when my bro—your Majesty fell back from the balcony. Now, I await your orders," he concluded.
The Queen pressed his hand in both hers.
"Sire," she said to the King, still plunged in torpor; "have you heard what this faithful servitor is saying?"
The King gave no answer and she went over to him.
"Sire, there is no time to lose, and indeed too much has been lost. Here is Lord Charny with seventy men, sure, he says, and he wants your orders."
He shook his head, though Charny implored him with a glance and the Queen by her voice.
"Orders? I have none to give, being a prisoner. Do whatever you like."
"Good, that is all we want," said the Queen: "you have a blank warrant, you see," she added to her follower whom she took aside: "Do as the King says, whatever you see fit." In a lower voice she appended: "Do it swiftly, and with vigor, or else we are lost!"
"Very well," returned the Lifeguards officer, "let me confer a moment with these gentlemen and we will carry out what we determine immediately."
Choiseul entered, carrying some letters wrapped in a bloodstainedhandkerchief. He offered this to Charny without a word. The count understood that it came from his brother and putting out his hand to receive the tragic inheritance, he kissed the wrapper. The Queen could not hold back a sigh.
But Charny did not turn round to her, but said as he thrust the packet into his breast:
"Gentlemen, can you aid me in the last effort I intend?"
"We are ready for anything."
"Do you believe we are a dozen men staunch and able?"
"We are eight or nine, any way."
"Well, I will return to my hussars. While I attack the barriers in front, you storm them in the rear. By favor of your diversion, I will force through, and with our united forces we will reach this spot where we will extricate the King."
They held out their hands to him by way of answer.
"In an hour," said Charny to the King and Queen, "you shall be free, or I dead."
"Oh, count, do not say that word," said she, "it causes me too much pain."
George bowed in confirmation of his vow, and stepped towards the door without being appalled by the fresh uproar in the street.
But as he laid his hand on the knob, it flew open and gave admission to a new character who mingled directly in the already complicated plot of the drama.
This was a man in his fortieth year; his countenance was dark and forbidding; his collar open at the throat, his unbuttoned coat, the dust on his clothes, and his eyes red with fatigue, all indicated that he had ridden far and fast under the goad of fierce feeling.
He carried a brace of pistols in his sash girdle and a sabre hung by his side.
Almost breathless as he opened the door, he appeared relieved only when he saw the Royal Family. A smile of vengeance flittered over his face and without troubling about the other persons around the room and by the doorway itself, which he almost blocked up with his massive form, he thundered as he stretched out his hand:
"In the name of the National Assembly, you are all my prisoners!"
As swift as thought Choiseul sprang forward with a pistol in hand and offered to blow out the brains of this intruder, who seemed to surpass in insolence and resolution all they had met before. But the Queen stopped the menacing hand with a still swifter action and said in an undertone to the count:
"Do not hasten our ruin! prudence, my lord! let us gain time for Bouille to arrive."
"You are right," said Choiseul, putting up the firearm.
The Queen glanced at Charny whom she had thought would have been the first to intervene: but, astonishing thing! Charny seemed not to want thenew-comerto notice him, and shrank into the darkest corner apparently in that end.
But she did not doubt him or that he would step out of the mystery and shadow at the proper time.
The threatening move of the nobleman against the representative of the National Assembly had passed over without the latter appearing to remark his escape from death.
Besides, another emotion than fear seemed to monopolize his heart: there was no mistaking his face's expression; so looks the hunter who has tracked to the den of the lion, the lioness and their cubs, with their jackals,—amongst whom was devoured his only child!
But the King had winced at the word "Prisoners," which had made Choiseul revolt.
"Prisoners, in the name of the Assembly? what do you mean? I do not understand you."
"It is plain, and easy enough," replied the man. "In spite of the oath you took not to go out of France, you have fled in the night, betraying your pledge, the Nation and the people; hence the nation have cried 'To arms!' risen, and to say:—by the voice of one of your lowest subjects, not less powerful because it comes from below, though: 'Sire, in the name of the people, the nation and the National Assembly, you are my prisoner!"
In the adjoining room, a cheer burst at the words.
"My lady," said Choiseul to the Queen, in her ear, "do notforget that you stopped me and that you would not suffer this insult if your pity had not interfered for this bully."
"It will go for nothing if we are revenged," she replied.
"But if not?"
She could only groan hollowly and painfully. But Charny's hand was slowly reached over the duke's shoulder and touched the Queen's arm. She turned quickly.
"Let that man speak and act—I answer for him," said the count.
Meanwhile the monarch, stunned by the fresh blow dealt him, stared with amazement at the gloomy figure which had spoken soenergetica language, and curiosity was mingled with it from his belief that he had seen him before.
"Well, in short, what do you want? Speak," he said.
"Sire, I am here to prevent you and the Royal Family taking another step towards the frontier."
"I suppose you come with thousands of men to oppose my march," went on the King, who became grander during his discussion.
"No, Sire, I am alone, or with only another, General Lafayette's aid-de-camp, sent by him and the Assembly to have the orders of the Nation executed. I am sent by Mayor Bailly, but I come mainly on my own behalf to watch this envoy and blow out his brains if he flinches."
All the hearers looked at him with astonishment; they had never seen the commoners but oppressed or furious, and begging for pardon or murdering all before them; for the first time they beheld a man of the people upright, with folded arms, feeling his force and speaking in the name of his rights.
Louis saw quickly that nothing was to be hoped from one of this metal and said in his eagerness to finish with him:
"Where is your companion?"
"Here he is, behind me," said he, stepping forward so as to disclose the doorway, where might be seen a young man in staff-officer's uniform, who was leaning against the window. He was also in disorder but it was of fatigue not force. His face looked mournful. He held a paper in his hand.
This was Captain Romeuf, Lafayette's aid, a sincere patriot, but during Lafayette's dictature while he was superintendingthe Tuileries, he had shown so much respectful delicacy that the Queen had thanked him on several occasions.
"Oh, it is you?" she exclaimed, painfully surprised. "I never should have believed it," she added, with the painful groan of a beauty who feels herfanciedinvincible power failing.
"Good, it looks as if I were quite right to come," muttered the second deputy, smiling.
The impatient King did not give the young officer time to present his warrant; he took a step towards him rapidly and snatched it from his hands.
"There is no longer a King in France," he uttered after having read it.
The companion of Romeuf smiled as much as to say: "I knew that all along."
The Queen moved towards the King to question him at these words.
"Listen, madam," he said, "to the decree the Assembly has presumed to issue."
In a voice shaking with indignation he read the following lines:
"It is hereby ordered by the Assembly that the Home Secretary shall send instantly messengers into every department with the order for all functionaries, National Guards, and troops of the line in the country to arrest or have arrested all persons soever attempting to leave the country, as well as to prevent all departure of goods, arms, ammunition, gold and silver, horses and vehicles; and in case these messengers overtake the King, or any members of the Royal Family, and those who connive at their absconding, the said functionaries, National Guards and troops of the line are to take, and hereby are bound to take, all measure possible to check the said absconding, prevent the absconders continuing their route, and give an account immediately to the House of Representatives."
"It is hereby ordered by the Assembly that the Home Secretary shall send instantly messengers into every department with the order for all functionaries, National Guards, and troops of the line in the country to arrest or have arrested all persons soever attempting to leave the country, as well as to prevent all departure of goods, arms, ammunition, gold and silver, horses and vehicles; and in case these messengers overtake the King, or any members of the Royal Family, and those who connive at their absconding, the said functionaries, National Guards and troops of the line are to take, and hereby are bound to take, all measure possible to check the said absconding, prevent the absconders continuing their route, and give an account immediately to the House of Representatives."
The Queen listened in torpor—but when the King finished she shook her head to arouse her wits and said:
"Impossible—give it to me," and she held out her hand for the fatal message.
In the meantime Romeuf's companion was encouraging the National Guards and patriots of Varennes with a smile.
Though they had heard the tenor of the missive the Queen's expression of "Impossible!" had startled them.
"Read, Madam, and if still you doubt," said the King with bitterness; "it is written and signed by the Speaker of the House."
"What man dares write and sign such impudence?"
"A peer of the realm—the Marquis of Beauharnais."
Is it not a strange thing, which proves how events are mysteriously linked together, that the decree stopping Louis in his flight should bear a name, obscure up to then, yet about to be attached in a brilliant manner with the history of the commencement of the 19th Century?
The Queen read the paper, frowning. The King took it tore-peruseit and then tossed it aside so carelessly that it fell on the sleeping prince and princess's couch. At this, the Queen, incapable of self-constraint any longer, rose quickly with an angry roar, and seizing the paper, crushed it up in her grip before throwing it afar, with the words:
"Be careful, my lord—I would not have such a filthy rag sully my children."
A deafening clamor arose from the next room, and the Guards made a movement to rush in upon the illustrious fugitives. Lafayette's aid let a cry of apprehension escape him. His companion uttered one of wrath.
"Ha," he growled between his teeth, "is it thus you insult the Assembly, the Nation and the people?—very well, we shall see! Come, citizens!" he called out, turning to the men without, already excited by the contest, and armed with guns, scythes mounted on poles like spears, and swords.
They were taking the second stride to enter the room and Heaven only knows what would have been the shock of two such enmities, had not Charny sprang forward. He had kept aloof during the scene, and now grasping the National Guards man by the wrist as he was about to draw his sabre, he said:
"A word with you, Farmer Billet; I want to speak with you."
Billet, for it was he, emitted a cry of astonishment, turned pale as death, stood irresolute for an instant, and then said as he sheathed the half-drawn steel:
"Have it so. I have to speak with you, Lord Charny." He proceeded to the door and said: "Citizens, make room if you please. I have to confer with this officer; but have no uneasiness," he added in a low voice, "there shall not escape one wolf, he or she, or yet a whelp. I am on the lookout and I answer for them!"
As if this man had the right to give them orders, though he was unknown to them all—save Charny—they backed out and left the inner room free. Besides, each was eager to relate to those without what had happened inside, and enjoin all patriots to keep close watch.
In the meantime Charny whispered to the Queen:
"Romeuf is a friend of yours; I leave him with you—get the utmost from him."
This was the more easy as Charny closed the door behind him to prevent anybody, even Billet, entering.
The two men, on facing each other, looked without the nobleman making the plebeian cower. More than that, it was the latter who spoke the first.
"The count does me the honor to say he wants to speak with me. I am waiting for him to be good enough to do so."
"Billet," began Charny, "how comes it that you are here on an errand of vengeance? I thought you were the friend of your superiors the nobles, and, besides, a faithful and sound subject of his Majesty."
"I was all that, count: I was your most humble servant—forI cannot say your friend, in as much as such an honor is not vouchsafed to a farmer like me. But you may see that I am nothing of the kind at present."
"I do not follow you, Billet."
"Why need you? am I asking you the reason for your fidelity to the King, and your standing true to the Queen? No, I presume you have your reasons for doing this, and as you are a good and wise gentleman I expect your reasons are sound or at least meet for your conscience. I am not in your high position, count, and have not your learning; but you know, or you have heard I am accounted an honest and sensible man, and you may suppose that, like yourself, I have my reasons——suiting my conscience, if not good."
"Billet, I used to know you as far different from what you are now," said Charny, totally unaware of the farmer's grounds for hatred against royalty and nobility.
"Oh, certainly I am not going to deny that you saw me unlike this," replied Billet, with a bitter smile. "I do not mind telling you, count, how this is: I was a true lover of my country, devoted to one thing and two persons: the men were the King and Dr. Gilbert—the thing, my native-land. One day the King's men—I confess that this began to set me against him," said the farmer, shaking his head, "broke into my house and stole away a casket, half by surprise, half by force, a precious trust left me by Dr. Gilbert.
"As soon as I was free I started for Paris, where I arrived on the evening of the thirteenth of July. It was right in the thick of the riot over the busts of Necker and the Duke of Orleans. Fellows were carrying them about the street, with cheers for those two, doing no harm to the King, when the royal soldiers charged upon us. I saw poor chaps, who had committed no offense but shouting for persons they had probably never seen, fall around me, some with their skulls laid open with sabre slashes, others with their breasts bored by bullets. I saw Prince Lambesq, a friend of the King, drive women and children inside the Tuileries gardens, who had shouted for nobody, and trample under his horse's hoofs an old man. This set me still more against the King.
"Next day I went to the boarding school where Dr. Gilbert'sson Sebastian was kept, and learnt from the poor lad that his father was locked up in the Bastile on a King's order sued for by a lady of the court. So I said to myself, this King, whom they call kind, has moments when he errs, blunders or is ignorant, and I ought to amend one of the faults the King so makes—which I proposed to do by contributing all my power to destroying the Bastile. We managed that—not without its being a tough job, for the soldiers of the King fired on us, and killed some two hundred of us which gave me a fresh wrinkle on the kindness of the King. But in short, we took the Bastile. In one of its dungeons I found Dr. Gilbert, for whom I had risked death a hundred times, and the joy of finding him made me forget that and a lot more. Besides, he was the first to tell me that the King was kind, ignorant for the most part of the shameful deeds perpetrated in his name, and that one must not bear him a grudge but cast it on his ministers. Now, as all that Dr. Gilbert said at that time was Gospel, I believed Dr. Gilbert.
"The Bastile being captured, Dr. Gilbert safe and free, and Pitou and myself all well, I forgot the charges in the Tuileries garden, the shooting in the street, the two hundred men slain by Marshal Saxe's sackbut, which is or was a gun on the Bastile ramparts, and the imprisonment of my friend on the mere application of a court dame. But, pardon me, count," Billet interrupted himself, "all this is no concern of yours, and you cannot have asked to speak with me to hear the babble of a poor uneducated rustic—you who are both a high noble and learned gentleman."
He made a move to lay hold of the doorknob and re-enter the other room. But Charny stopped him for two reasons, the first that it might be important to learn why Billet acted thus, and again, to gain time.
"No; tell me the whole story, my dear Billet," he said; "you know the interest my poor brothers and I always bore you, and what you say engages me in a high degree."
Billet smiled bitterly at the words "My poor brothers."
"Well, then," he replied, "I will tell you all; with regret that your poor brothers—particularly Lord Isidore, are not here to hear me."
This was spoken with such singular intonation that the count repressed the feeling of grief the mention of Isidore's name had aroused in his soul, and he waved his hand for the farmer to continue, as Billet was evidently ignorant of what had happened the viscount whose presence he desired.
"Hence," proceeded the yeoman, "when the King returned to Paris from Versailles, I saw in it sheerly the return home of a father among his children. I walked with Dr. Gilbert beside the royal carriage, making a breastwork for those within it of my body, and shouting 'Long live the King!' to split the ear. This was the first journey of the King: blessings and flowers were all around him. On arriving at the City Hall it was noticed that he did not wear the white cockade of his fathers, but he had not yet donned the tricolored one. So I plucked mine from my hat and gave it him as they were roaring he must sport it, and therefore he thanked me, to the cheering of the crowd. I was wild with glee at the King wearing my own favor and I shouted Long Life to him louder than anybody.
"I was so enthusiastic about our good King that I wanted to stay in town. My harvest was ripe and cried for me; but pooh, what mattered a harvest? I was rich enough to lose one season and it was better for me to stay beside this good King to be useful, this Father of the People, this Restorer of French Liberty, as we dunces called him at the time. I lost pretty near all the harvest because I trusted it to Catherine, who had something else to look after than my wheat. Let us say no more on that score.
"Still, it was said that the King had not quite fairly agreed to the change in things, that he moved forced and constrained; that he might wear the tricolor cockade in his hat but the white one was in his heart. They were slanderers who said this; it was clearly proved that at the Guards' Banquet, the Queen put on neither the national nor the French cockade but the black one of her brother the Austrian Emperor. I own that this made my doubts revive; but as Dr. Gilbert pointed out, 'Billet, it is not the King who did this but the Queen; and the Queen being a woman, one must be indulgent towards a woman.' I believed this so deeply that, when the ruffianscame from Paris to attack the Versailles Palace, though I did not hold them wholly in the wrong—it was I who ran to rouse General Lafayette—who was in the sleep of the blessed, poor dear man! and brought him on the field in time to save the Royal Family.
"On that night I saw Lady Elizabeth hug General Lafayette and the Queen give him her hand to kiss, while the King called him his friend, and I said to myself, says I: 'Upon my faith, I believe Dr. Gilbert is right. Surely, not from fear would such high folks make such a show of gratitude, and they would not play a lie if they did not share this hero's opinions, howsoever useful he may be at this pinch to them all.' Again I pitied the poor Queen, who had only been rash, and the poor King, only feeble; but I let them go back to Paris without me—I had better to do at Versailles. You know what, Count Charny!"
The Lifeguardsman uttered a sigh recalling the death of his brother Valence.
"I heard that this second trip to the town was not as merry as the former," continued Billet; "instead of blessings, curses were showered down; instead of shouts of Long Live! those of Death to the lot! instead of bouquets under the horses hoofs andcarriage wheels, dead men's heads carried on spear-points. I don't know, not being there, as I stayed at Versailles. Still I left the farm without a master, but pshaw! I was rich enough to lose another harvest after that of '89! But, one fine morning, Pitou arrived to announce that I was on the brink of losing something dearer which no father is rich enough to lose: his daughter!"
Charny started, but the other only looked at him fixedly as he went on:
"I must tell you, lord, that a league off from us, at Boursonne, lives a noble family of mighty lords, terribly rich. Three brothers were the family. When they were boys and used to come over to Villers Cotterets, the two younger of the three were wont to stop on my place, doing me the honor to say that they never drank sweeter milk than my cows gave, or eaten finer bread than my wife made, and, from time to time they would add—I believing they just said it in paymentof my good cheer—ass that I was! that they had never seen a prettier lass than my Catherine. Lord bless you, I thanked them for drinking the milk, and eating the bread, and finding my child so pretty into the bargain! What would you? as I believed in the King, though he is half a German by the mother's side, I might believe in noblemen who were wholly French.
"So, when the youngest of all, Valence, who had been away from our parts for a long time, was killed at Versailles, before the Queen's door, on the October Riot night, bravely doing his duty as a nobleman, what a blow that was to me! His brother saw me on my knees before the body, shedding almost as many tears as he shed blood—his eldest brother, I mean, who never came to my house, not because he was too proud, I will do him thatfair play, but because he was sent to foreign parts while young. I think I can still see him in the damp courtyard, where I carried the poor young fellow in my arms so that he should not be hacked to pieces, like his comrades, whose blood so dyed me that I was almost as reddened as yourself, Lord Charny. He was a pretty boy, whom I still see riding to school on his little dappled pony, with a basket on his arm—and thinking of him thus, I think I can mourn him like yourself, my lord. But I think of the other, and I weep no more," said Billet.
"The other? what do you mean." cried the count.
"Wait, we are coming to it," was the reply. "Pitou had come to Paris, and let a couple of words drop to show that it was not my crops so much in danger as my child—not my fortune but my happiness. So I left the King to shift for himself in the city. Since he meant the right thing, as Dr. Gilbert assured me, all would go for the best, whether I was at hand or not, and I returned on my farm.
"I believed that Catherine had brain fever or something I would not understand, but was only in danger of death. The condition in which I found her made me uneasy, all the more as the doctor forbade me the room till she was cured. The poor father in despair, not allowed to go into the sickroom, could not help hanging round the door. Yes, I listened. Then I learnt that she was at death's point almost out of her senseswith fever, mad because her lover—her gallant, not her sweetheart, see! had gone away. A year before, I had gone away, but she had smiled on my going instead of grieving. My going left her free to meet her gallant!
"Catherine returned to health but not to gladness! a month, two, three, six months passed without a single beam of joy kissing the face which my eyes never quitted. One morning I saw her smile and shuddered. Was not her lover coming back that she should smile? Indeed a shepherd who had seen him prowling about, a year before, told me that he had arrived that morning. I did not doubt that he would come over on my ground that evening or rather on the land where Catherine was mistress. I loaded up my gun at dark and laid in wait——"
"You did this, Billet?" queried Charny.
"Why not?" retorted the farmer. "I lay in wait right enough for the wild boar coming to make mush of my potatoes, the wolf to tear my lambs' throats, the fox to throttle my fowls, and am I not to lay in wait for the villain who comes to disgrace my daughter?"
"But your heart failed you at the test, Billet, I hope," said the count.
"No, not the heart, but the eye and the hand," said the other: "A track of blood showed me that I had not wholly missed, only you may understand that a defamed maid had not wavered between father and scoundrel—when I entered the house, Catherine had disappeared."
"And you have not seen her since?"
"No. Why should I see her? she knows right well that I should kill her on sight."
Charny shrank back in terror mingled with admiration for the massive character confronting him.
"I retook the work on the farm," proceeded the farmer. "What concern of mine was my misfortune if France were only happy? Was not the King marching steadily in the road of Revolution? was he not to take his part in the Federation? might I not see him again whom I had saved in October and sheltered with my own cockade? what a pleasure it must be for him to see all France gathered on the parade-ground atParis, swearing like one man the Unity of the country!
"So, for a space, while I saw him, I forgot all, even to Catherine—no, I lie—no father forgets his child! He also took the oath. It seemed to me that he swore clumsily, evasively, from his seat, instead of at the Altar of the Country, but what did that matter? the main thing was that he did swear. An oath is an oath. It is not the place where he takes it that makes it holy, and when an honest man takes an oath, he keeps it. So the King should keep his word. But it is true that when I got home to Villers Cotterets,—having no child now, I attended to politics—I heard say that the King was willing to have Marquis Favras carry him off but the scheme had fallen through; that the King had tried to flee with his aunts, but that had failed; that he wanted to go out to St. Cloud, whence he would have hurried off to Rouen, but that the people prevented him leaving town. I heard all this but I did not believe it. Had I not with my own eyes seen the King hold up his hand to high heaven on the Paris Parade-ground and swear to maintain the nation? How could I believe that a king, having sworn in the presence of three hundred thousand citizens, would not hold his pledge to be as sacred as that of other men? It was not likely!
"Hence, as I was at Meaux Market yesterday,—I may as well say I was sleeping at the postmaster's house, with whom I had made a grain deal—I was astonished to see in a carriage changing horses at my friend's door, the King, the Queen and the Dauphin! There was no mistaking them; I was in the habit of seeing them in a coach; on the sixteenth of July, I accompanied them from Versailles to Paris. I heard one of the party say: 'The Chalons Road!' This man in a buff waistcoat had a voice I knew; I turned and recognized—who but the gentleman who had stolen away my daughter! This noble was doing his duty by playing theflunkybefore his master's coach."
At this, he looked hard at Charny to see if he understood that his brother Isidore was the subject; but the hearer was silent as he wiped his face with his handkerchief.
"I wanted to fly at him, but he was already at a distance. He was on a good horse and had weapons—I, none. I groundmy teeth at the idea that the King was escaping out of France and this ravisher escaping me, but suddenly another thought struck me. Why, look ye; I took an oath to the Nation, and while the King breaks his, I shall keep mine. I am only ten leagues from Paris which I can reach in two hours on a good nag; it is but three in the morning. I will talk this matter over with Mayor Bailly, an honest man who appears to be one of the kind who stick to the promises they make. This point settled I wasted no time, but begged my friend the postinghouse keeper to lend me his national Guards uniform, his sword and pistols and I took the best horse in his stables—all without letting him know what was in the wind, of course. Instead, therefore, of trotting home, Igallopedhellity-split to Paris.
"Thank God, I got there on time! the flight of the King was known but not the direction. Lafayette had sent his aid Romeuf on the Valenciennes Road! But mark what a thing chance is! they had stopped him at the bars, and he was brought back to the Assembly, where he walked in at the very nick when Mayor Bailly, informed by me, was furnishing the most precise particulars about the runaways. There was nothing but the proper warrant to write and the road to state. The thing was done in a flash. Romeuf wasdispatchedon the Chalons Road and my order was to stick to him, which I am going to do. Now," concluded Billet, with a gloomy air, "I have overtaken the King, who deceived me as a Frenchman, and I am easy about his escaping me! I can go and attend to the man who deceived me as a father; and I swear to you, Lord Charny, that he shall not escape me either."
"You are wrong, my dear Billet—woeful to say," responded the count.
"How so?"
"The unfortunate young man you speak of has escaped."
"Fled?" cried Billet with indescribable rage.
"No, he is dead," replied the other.
"Dead?" exclaimed Billet, shivering in spite of himself, andsponginghis forehead on which the sweat had started out.
"Dead," repeated Charny, "for this is his blood which yousee on me and which you were right just now in likening to that from his brother slain at Versailles. If you doubt, go down into the street where you will find his body laid out in a little yard, like that of Versailles, struck down for the same cause for which his brother fell."
Billet looked at the speaker, who spoke in a gentle voice, but with haggard eyes and a frightened face; then suddenly he cried:
"Of a truth, there is justice in heaven!" He darted out of the room, saying: "I do not doubt your word, lord, but I must assure my sight that justice is done."
Charny stifled a sigh as he watched him go, and dashed away a tear. Aware that there was not an instant to lose, he hurried to the Queen's room, and as soon as he walked directly up to her, he asked how she had got on with Romeuf.
"He is on our side," responded the lady.
"So much the better," said Charny, "for there is nothing to hope in that quarter."
"What are we to do then?"
"Gain time for Bouille to come up."
"But will he come?"
"Yes, for I am going to fetch him."
"But the streets swarm with murderers," cried the Queen. "You are known, you will never pass, you will be hewn to pieces: George, George!"
But smiling without replying, Charny opened the window on theback garden, waved his hand to the King and the Queen, and jumped out over fifteen feet. The Queen sent up a shriek of terror and hid her face in her hands; but the man ran to the wind and by a cheer allayed her fears.
Charny had scaled the garden wall and was disappearing on the other side.
It was high time, for Billet was entering.