The Peasant and the Prince Part 8

He had a model made first; and employed the first coach-makers in France. When it was done, he and the Duke de Choiseul made trial of it in a drive through the streets of Paris. They then sent it to a certain Madame Sullivan's, near the northern outskirts of the city. Count Fersen also bought several horses and a chaise, to convey, as he said, two waiting-women; and exerted himself much about getting the necessary pa.s.sport for the Baroness de Korff and her party. It appeared that Count Fersen was uncommonly polite, or very much devoted to this Baroness de Korff.

In order to put Paris off its guard, the king and queen promised to be present at a great Catholic festival, in the church of the a.s.sumption in Paris, on the 21st of June; meaning, however, to be off on the 20th.

Little Louis knew nothing of all that was going on, nor guessed, when he went to bed on the 20th of June, that he should have to get up again presently. As soon as it was dark, his governess took him up, and dressed him, and put a sort of hood over his head, which prevented his face being seen. He was probably as sleepy as a little boy of six, just waked up before eleven o'clock at night, was likely to be; and knew and cared little about what Madame de Tourzel was doing with him. His sister was dressed, and had a hood over her head too; and so had Madame de Tourzel. They were very quiet; for everybody in the palace but those who were in the secret believed that the king was now gone to bed.

Somebody opened the doors for them, and showed them the way. They pa.s.sed some sentinels who knew better than to ask them who they were; then went out through a back-door where there was no sentinel, along a court and a square, and into a street. A gla.s.s-coach was stationed before the door of Ronsin, the saddler, as if waiting for some visitors of Ronsin's. The coachman, standing beside his horses, opened the door without any question, and let Madame de Tourzel and the children into the coach. This was no real coachman, however, but Count Fersen.

In a little while came another lady, attended by a servant, as it seemed. She said "Good night" cheerfully to him, and stepped into the coach. It was the Princess Elizabeth. If anybody in the street wondered to see ladies coming the same way, one after another, the answer was easy; they had, no doubt, been at the palace.

Presently, the coachman's hand was again upon the door; and a gentleman, stout, in a round hat, was seen coming, leaning upon the arm of a servant. As he pa.s.sed a sentinel, one of his shoe buckles gave way. He stooped down and clasped it. Glad were the party in the coach when the king stepped in. They were all there now but the queen; and it was rather odd that she should be the last.

One looked from the window, and then another watched; and still she did not come. It must have been a terrible worry,--waiting and waiting there,--the Count afraid of what everybody in the street might think of a coach standing so long before one door;--the party within afraid of something having happened to the queen. Minute after minute pa.s.sed slowly away, and then,--"what is this? Here is some great man's carriage, with lights all about it, das.h.i.+ng up the street!" It was Lafayette's carriage, evidently in a prodigious hurry: and it went under the arch; it was certainly going to the palace.

It _was_ going to the palace. Madame R---'s eyes were as quick as ever.

She had told her lover perpetually that she was sure the royal family were going off; and Gouvion had kept constantly on the watch, but could discover nothing. This evening she had told him that she was sure they meant to go in the night. Gouvion sent an express for Lafayette, who came directly. He thought he met no one in the courts,--saw nothing suspicious. The sentinels were all at their posts, and the royal family (as all the palace believed) quietly in their chambers. So Lafayette went away again, telling his officer that he must have been deceived, and bidding him beware of treachery.

Lafayette was mistaken if he thought he had met no one within the precincts of the palace. Under the arch he had whirled past two people,--a lady in white, with something in her hand, leaning on a man's arm. The lady had even touched the spoke of one of his carriage-wheels with that which she had in her hand,--a sort of switch, which it was then the fas.h.i.+on for ladies to carry. This lady was the queen, and she was conducted by a faithful body-guard. However faithful this man might be, he did not know the way; and the queen's guard on such an occasion should also have been a well-qualified guide. The queen was flurried with meeting the enemy's carriage rumbling under the archway, with its flaring lights; and, on entering the square, she took the turn to the right hand instead of the left. She and her guard wandered far away, over the bridge, and they knew not where. The queen of France wandering through the streets of Paris, losing her way on foot at midnight! What could she have thought of a situation so new? How must her guard have felt, with such a charge upon his arm! And the Count, standing beside the hackney-coach-door; and the party within! We may hope that Louis was fast asleep upon Madame de Tourzel's lap, forgetting all about where he was.

A hackney-coachman came up, and began to talk. The Swedish count talked as like a hackney-coachman as he could. They took a pinch of snuff together, would rather not drink together, and the real hackney-coachman bade good-night, and went off without making any discovery. The clocks had struck midnight by this time; but soon after the queen appeared.

She had had to inquire her way, which was dangerous. Her companion and the king's were to go with them; so they jumped up, the Count was on the box in a moment; and off they drove,--six inside and three out.

In a little while there was another panic. The king was sure they were going the wrong way. They ought to leave Paris by the north-eastern road; but they were now going straight north. The king might have been sure that the Count knew which way to drive, after managing so well all else that he had to do. He was only going to Madame Sullivan's, to make sure that the new berlin was gone to the place where they were to meet it. All was right. Count Fersen's servant had called for the Baroness de Korff's coach, an hour and a half before. So on they went, through the north entrance, turning immediately eastwards; and when fairly free of Paris, they came in sight of the great coach, waiting by the roadside, with its six horses, and the Count's coachman on the box.

The party made haste to settle themselves in the berlin; for too much time had been lost already. Count Fersen was again the driver. His coachman went off in another direction, to have his master's chariot ready for him, at some distance on the north road. Who then was there to drive home the gla.s.s-coach? n.o.body. So they turned the horses'

heads towards the city, and set them off by themselves; and the coach was found next day in a ditch. Still there was another meeting to take place. At the hamlet of Bondy they were to meet the two waiting-women, with their luggage in the new chaise, and postilions with fresh horses.

There they were at Bondy, while every one else was asleep. They had been waiting some time. Here Count Fersen took his leave. How must the party have felt towards him! How must they have longed to say what they must not say before the postilions, in whose eyes Count Fersen must be a driver, and nothing more! He met his coachman and chariot on the north road, and got safely away. It must have given him satisfaction all the rest of his life to look back on this adventure, in which his part was so admirably performed. Perhaps, if he had been of the party for another day or two, things might have gone better with the fugitives than they did.

Now they had to take care of their behaviour, lest, by any forgetfulness, they should cause suspicion as to who they were. Madame de Tourzel had to act the Baroness de Korff, and call the princess and the dauphin her children. The king, who wore a wig, was her valet, and the queen her waiting-maid. The Princess Elizabeth was her travelling companion. We know nothing of how they supported these characters at the places where they stopped. One may imagine the queen putting some spirit into her part; but one can never fancy the king doing anything in the service of Madame de Tourzel. They stopped as little as they could, however; and yet they did not get on fast. How should a heavy coach, with nine people in and on it, get on fast? How much wiser would it have been to have travelled separately, and like other people! The king's brother and his lady did so; going in common carriages towards Flanders, by different roads, and finding no difficulty. At one point their roads crossed, and they happened to meet while changing horses.

They had the presence of mind to take no notice, and drove off their separate ways without a look or sign. The Princess de Lamballe travelled in the same way towards England, without impediment. It was lamentable folly in the king and queen to choose a way of journeying which must attract all eyes.

This sort of notice began almost before it was light. About sunrise they pa.s.sed, in the wood of Bondy, a poor herb-man, with his a.s.s and panniers of greens. When the hue and cry began, this herb-man told of the fine new berlin he had seen in the wood of Bondy; and thus set pursuers upon their track. Besides the eight horses wanted for the two carriages, there were more for the three body-guards, mounted and dressed as couriers, but knowing nothing about courier's business, as the people along the road must have found out, while watching the changing of eleven horses at the different stages. Then the berlin wanted some repairs, and this detained them at Etoges: and the king would get out, and walk up the hills, and they had to wait for him: so that though they gave double money to the drivers to get on fast, they had gone only sixty-nine miles by ten at night. This slowness ruined everything.

The Duke de Choiseul, Count Fersen's friend, had left Paris ten hours before the royal family, and was waiting, with a party of hussars, at a village, some way beyond Chalons. If the party had kept their time, they would have met their guard, and, finding more and more soldiers all along the road, would have been safe. There would have been no time for the attention of the country people to be fixed on the gathering of military in the neighbourhood. The Duke de Choiseul's pretence for his party was that they were to guard a treasure that was expected. The "treasure" did not arrive; the soldiers lounged about; and it was all their officers could do to keep them out of public-houses, where they would be questioned and made suspicious;--for, of course, they knew nothing of the meaning of their errand. It was a great misfortune, too, that the queen had changed her mind about the day, when it was too late to warn some of the officers; and they, supposing the party to have set off on the 19th, were now in great dismay; and their soldiers were lounging about twenty-four hours sooner than they should have been. The village politicians did not like what they saw. They began to say to one another that no treasure ought to be leaving the kingdom. Any treasure which had to be guarded by soldiers must be public treasure, belonging to the people, which no one had any right to carry away. Some of these rang the alarm-bell of their parish church; and from several places, parties of the national soldiery went out to explore the roads, and met parties of the national soldiery from other places. They agreed that there must be something wrong. At Saint Menehould, the National Volunteers demanded three hundred muskets from the town-hall, and stood armed: the same Saint Menehould where the former arrival of the queen as dauphiness had been awaited in a far different temper. In short, the hussars had to ride away, and leave the "treasure" to take its chance.

Thus all was confusion, expectation, and alarm along the road, for hours before the berlin appeared: the very road by which the queen had entered France, amidst cheers of welcome, in her bridal days!

It appeared afterwards that it was the king's wish to have these soldiers in waiting along the road, while his advisers thought it would be better to keep up the story of the Baroness de Korff till the party actually drew near Montmedy. As it turned out, the king not only lost his desired security, but, by his and the queen's management together, the whole region beyond Chalons was in an uproar before they entered it.

Meantime, the party had travelled only sixty-nine of their two hundred miles in twenty-two hours; and little Louis must have been sadly tired before they had gone nearly half-way.

On and on they went, however, through the night and all the next day, little knowing how fast messengers from Paris were racing all over the kingdom, to give the news of their flight. Lafayette had been roused, at six in the morning of the 21st, by a note from a gentleman who had been informed that the king's rooms at the Tuileries were empty. The whole city was in consternation, and Lafayette's life in great danger.

Tranquillity was preserved, however. Messengers galloped off in every direction; and one of these it was who, going north-east, spread the alarm which made the herb-man go and tell what he had seen in the wood of Bondy. Little did the travelling party think how much faster the mounted messengers were going than they: and on they lumbered, the eleven horses whisking their tails, and the king taking his time in walking up the hills, while the alarm was flying abroad.

It was near sunset on the second evening, when they had gone about one hundred and seventy miles, that one of the body-guards, mounted and dressed in yellow as a courier, came prancing into the village of Saint Menehould. His dress attracted all eyes; and so did his proceedings.

The gazers saw that this odd courier did not know the post-house; for he spurred past it, and had to inquire for it. The master of the post, Drouet, of revolutionary politics, was in a very bad humour, and had been so all day, having been angry about the mysterious hussars in the morning, and no less angry at seeing the village now full of dragoons, from another quarter, whose business here he could not understand.

These dragoons, strolling through the streets, touched their helmets to the party in the carriage, which the waiting-maid of the baroness acknowledged with remarkable grace. The dragoon officer, Dandoins, at first delighted to see the party arrive, presently did not like what he saw, and was pretty sure the village had taken the alarm. He looked full at the pretended courier, from the side pavement, as much as to say, "Be quick! Make haste to change horses, and be off." The dull fellow, not understanding what he meant, came up to him, to know whether he had anything to say. All which was observed by a hundred eyes.

Drouet's eyes were the quickest. He thought that the waiting-maid's face was like somebody he had seen somewhere in Paris; and the valet, how very like the king! He called to a friend to bring him, quick, a new a.s.signat. [Note: A promissory note which pa.s.sed as money, like a bank-note. It bore an engraving of the king's head.] The king's head there, and the valet's head in the carriage, were exactly alike. Now Drouet understood the meaning of his village being filled with hussars in the morning, and dragoons in the afternoon.

The great coach was just driving off; and he dared not stop it, while the armed dragoons were standing about, even if he had been absolutely certain that he had seen the king and queen; which he could not be. So he let them drive off; and then told the friend that had brought him the a.s.signat, desiring him to saddle two of the fleetest horses in the post-house, while he stepped over to the town-hall, to give the alarm.

While they rode off, the report got abroad through the whole village.

Dandoins wanted his dragoons to mount and ride; but they were hungry, and would have some bread and cheese first. While they were eating, the National Volunteers drew up, with their bayonets fixed, to prevent their leaving the village. The dragoons were willing to stay, and side with the people: and stay they did; only the quarter-master cutting his way through, and riding off with a pocket-book, containing secret despatches, which Dandoins had managed to slip into his hand.

The berlin went on faster now; but not so fast as Drouet and his companion were following; while the quarter-master was spurring on to overtake _them_, if possible. What a race!--the fate of France probably depending upon it!

About six miles before coming to Varennes, the party observed a horseman pa.s.sing, at a gallop, from behind, close by the coach-window. In pa.s.sing, he shouted something which the noise of their carriage-wheels prevented their hearing exactly. They caught the sound, however; and when all was over, agreed that he must have said, "You are discovered!"

They did not know whether to take this man for a friend or an enemy.

They received another warning from one who was no enemy. A beggar, who asked alms of the king at a place where the coach stopped, said, with much feeling, "Your Majesty is known. May G.o.d take care of you! May Providence watch over you!"

The quarter-master, on reaching Clermont after them, called up the dragoons who were gone to bed; and a _few_ of them followed the royal carriage, under the command of a Cornet Remy. But they lost their way in the dark, and floundered about in fields and lanes, stumbling over fences, before they found the direction in which they should go to Varennes. The rest of the dragoons at Clermont,--all but two,--struck their swords into the scabbard when ordered to draw, and declared for the people, instead of the king.

The Duke de Choiseul, with his hussars, was all the while stumbling about in the cross country, finding it difficult enough to get to Varennes, as he must avoid the high roads. Some of his troop fell and were hurt; and their comrades refused to go on without them. Towards midnight, the alarm-bell of Varennes was heard through the darkness.

The duke said it was no doubt some fire: but in his heart he had strong fears of the truth.

Bouille, junior, sent by his father, had been waiting with his troop six hours at Varennes: and he, supposing that the party would not arrive this day, was in bed and asleep when the berlin reached the village, at eleven o'clock. His troop were, some of them, drinking in the public-houses. None of them were ready; and the royal party tried in vain to discover through the thick darkness any sign of a friendly guard, where they had made sure of meeting one. If they could but find these hussars, they believed they should be safe; for they had now no more towns to pa.s.s through, and no great way to go.

The berlin stood on the top of the hill, at the entrance of Varennes, while their pretended couriers were riding about, rousing the sleeping village, in search of horses to go on with. The horses were standing, the whole time, all ready, by the orders of the Duke de Choiseul, in the upper village, over the bridge; and the men never found this out. They might have changed horses in five minutes, and proceeded, without having wakened a single person in the place; instead of which, the carriages actually stood five-and-thirty minutes on the top of the hill, while this blundering was going on. The king argued with the postilions about proceeding another stage: but their horses were so tired, they would not hear of it.

In the midst of this argument, two riders came up from behind, checked their horses for a moment on recognising the berlin, which they could just make out in the dark; and then pushed on quickly into the village.

It was Drouet and his companion.

They rode to the Golden Arms tavern, told the landlord what they came for, and proceeded to block up the bridge with waggons, and whatever else they could find. And the fugitives might have pa.s.sed that bridge above half an hour before, and be now speeding on with the fresh horses that were standing ready,--if only young Bouille had not gone to bed; or even if, instead of one of their useless servants, they had had a courier who knew the road, and could have told them of the upper village! Was ever an expedition so mismanaged?

Before the berlin came up (the horses somewhat refreshed with meal and water), the bridge was well barricaded; and (the landlord having roused three or four companions) about half-a-dozen men, with muskets and lanterns hidden under their coats, were standing under an archway, awaiting the party. Suddenly the lanterns shone out, the horses'

bridles were seized, and a man thrust the barrel of a musket in at each window, exclaiming, "Ladies, your pa.s.sports!"

This was one of the moments which occur now and then in the course of men's lives, as if to show what they are made of. This was the occasion, if the king had been a man of spirit, to forget that he had blood to spill,--to a.s.sert his rights as a ruler and as an innocent man,--to daunt his enemies, and rouse his friends,--to carry off his family in triumph,--to save his crown and kingdom, his life and reputation. Things much more difficult have been done. His enemies were but six; and he and his body-guards might have resisted them till Bouille was roused by the noise, to come up with his hussars, to help and save. It is true, the king did not know that his enemies were but six: but a man of spirit would have seen how many they were before he yielded. It is true he did not know that Bouille was in bed, and his hussars drinking in the village: but a man of spirit would have trusted that help would rise up, or have done without it in such an extremity, rather than yield. Instead of this, what did the king do? He heard what his enemies had to say.

One of the six was Monsieur Sauce, a grocer who lived in the market-place, and a magistrate. He said, in the name of his party, that, whether the travellers were the Baroness de Korff and suite, or of a higher rank still, it would be better that they should alight, and remain at his house till morning.

With what a bursting heart must the queen have seen the king quietly doing as he was bid! For twenty-one years she had suffered what a high spirit must suffer in being closely united with a companion who has none; but the agony of this moment must have exceeded all former trials of the kind. She, the woman and the wife, must obey, to her own destruction, and that of all who belonged to her. She said little; but there was afterwards a visible sign of what she must have endured. In this one night, her beautiful hair turned white, as if forty years had at once fallen upon her head.

The king stepped out of the coach, and the ladies followed him. They took each an arm of Monsieur Sauce, and walked across the market-place to his shop, the king following, with a child holding either hand. It was strange confusion for little Louis. This was the third night that he had spent out of his bed. He had been asleep,--the whole party had been asleep in the coach; and now this disputing, and the flare of the lanterns, and the presenting the muskets, and the having to get out and walk, must have been perplexing and terrifying to the poor little fellow. There was much noise round about. The alarm-bell was clanging; there were lights in all the windows: men poured out of the houses, half-dressed, and rolled barrels, and laid felled trees across the road, that no help might arrive on the king's behalf.

And what did the king do next? He asked for something to eat!

"Something to eat" was always a great object with him; and he seemed to find comfort under all trials in his good appet.i.te. He sat now in an upper story of Monsieur Sauce's house, eating bread and cheese and drinking Burgundy,--declaring that this bottle of Burgundy was the best he ever tasted. One wonders that the queen's heart was not quite broken. She believed that there was yet a chance. She saw Monsieur Sauce's old mother kneeling, and praying for her king and queen, while the tears ran down her cheeks. The queen saw that Monsieur Sauce looked frequently towards his wife, while the king talked with him, explaining that he meant no harm to the nation, but good, since he could come to a better understanding with his people when at a distance and in freedom.

Monsieur Sauce, the queen saw, looked so frequently towards his wife, that it was plain that he would act according to her judgment. The queen of France therefore kneeled to the grocer's wife to implore mercy and aid. Fain would the grocer's wife have aided her sovereign, if she dared: but she dared not. Again and again she said, "Think what it is you ask, madame. Your situation is very grievous; but you see what we should be exposed to. They would cut off my husband's head. A wife must consider her husband first."

"Very true," replied the queen. "My husband is your king. He has made you all happy for many years; and wishes to do so still." Whatever Madame Sauce might think of the poor queen's belief that her husband had made his people happy, she replied only, as before, that she could not induce Monsieur Sauce to put his life in danger.

The leaders of the different military parties, hearing one alarm-bell after another beginning to toll through the whole region, made prodigious exertions to reach Varennes, and did so. The Duke de Choiseul and his troop surmounted the barricade, and got in; and the hussars promised fidelity to "the king--the king! And the queen!" as they kept exclaiming. They were led forward to beset Monsieur Sauce's house: but Drouet shouted to his national soldiery to stand to their cannon. On hearing of cannon, the hussars drew back: though Drouet's cannon were only two empty, worn-out, useless field-pieces, which seemed fit only to make a clatter on the pavement.

Count Damas had also arrived; and the king sat consulting with these officers and the magistrates of Varennes,--consulting, when he, with the aid which had arrived, should have been forcing his way out towards the frontier. There he sat, as usual, unable to decide upon anything; and while he sat doubting, the national soldiery poured in to the number of three thousand, and would presently amount to ten thousand. While he thus sat doubting, the people were handing jugs of wine about among the hussars; and when their commander came out from Monsieur Sauce's, at the end of an hour, he found them tipsy, and declaring for the nation against the king.

There was still one other chance--one more opportunity of choice for him whose misfortune was that he never could make a choice. Another loyal officer, Deslons, arrived, with a hundred horse-soldiers. He left his hundred horse outside the barricade, entered himself, and offered to cut out the royal party,--to rescue them by the sword, if the king would order him to do so. "Will it be hot work?" asked the king. "Very hot,"

was the answer; and the king would give no orders.--In the bitterness of her regrets, the queen said afterwards, at Paris, that no one who knew what had been the king's answer to Count d'Inisdal about being carried off, should have asked him for orders;--that the officers should have acted without saying a word to him.

The children were asleep on a bed up-stairs, and the ladies remonstrating with Madame Sauce, from hour to hour of this dreadful night: and the end of it all was that it was decided by somebody that the party were to go back to Paris, as the people in the market-place were loudly demanding. The poor queen's doubts and fears thus ended in despair. Weary as they all were,--after having travelled so far, and escaped so many dangers,--and now so near the frontier, so near Bouille's camp, so close upon the queen's own country,--they were to pursue their weary way back to Paris,--journeying in disgrace, prisoners in the eyes of all the people, to be plunged again into the midst of their enemies, now enraged by their flight. It would have been easier to a spirit like the queen's to have died, with those who belonged to her, in one more struggle,--in one rush to the camp, than to undergo the slow despair of a return among their enemies.

Her feelings were understood,--the case was understood,--by one of the attendants who had travelled in the chaise,--the Dauphin's head waiting-woman. Hoping that gaining time might afford a chance, she threw herself on a bed, and pretended to be taken suddenly ill, and in an agony of pain. The queen went to the bedside, and the woman squeezed her hand, to make her understand the pretence. The queen declared that she could not think of leaving in this state a faithful servant who had encountered many dangers and fatigues for the sake of the family; but a device so obvious was seen through at once, and no indulgence was allowed. The woman had to get off the bed and enter the chaise again.

The great berlin travelled back more slowly than it came, being surrounded by sixty thousand National Guards, besides the crowds of other people who drew near to see the captive royal family. There was so much indecent joy, so much insult shown by the ignorant and fierce among the crowd, that civility which would have been thought nothing of at another time touched the feelings of the unhappy ladies. The queen was delighted with the manners of a lady at whose house they rested,-- the wife of Monsieur Renard, the mayor of Ferte-sous-Jouarre. The mayor waited upon the king at table; and Madame Renard did all she could to make the ladies comfortable. Everything was done so quietly that the queen did not discover, for a long time, who she was. When, at length, the queen inquired whether she was not the mistress of the house, Madame Renard replied, "I was so, Madame, before your Majesty honoured this abode with your presence." To us there appears some affectation in this speech; but the queen was now so unused to homage from strangers that she shed tears at the words.