Volume 20 — Reminiscences Of A Tile-Field.

Once upon a time there lived a king and a queen in a grand old group of Gothic towers that was called the Louvre. Nowadays we should call their house a palace, but in those good old times kings built houses to fight in as well as to live in, and their abodes had to do duty at once as palace, fortress, and prison. At the time we speak of this mass of straggling roofs and gables resembled a citadel mounting guard over Paris from the western side, as the Bastile did from the east; but when Francis I. came on the scene, he denounced the barbaric-looking stronghold as a place too like a dungeon for a king to live in, though it did well enough for a hunting-lodge. It was too venerable to be thrown down, and too stern in its original character to bend to any architectural modifications, so he decided to leave it as it was, and build a palace after his own fancy by the side it. He began, accordingly, the florid Italian edifice which now forms the western side of the old Louvre. He did not live to see the work completed; but it was continued by his son, who died soon after it was finished, and left his widow, Catherine de Médicis, in enjoyment of it. But the wily queen, looking to the future, saw that her son would one of these days be reigning in the Louvre, and that it might not suit her to remain his guest; so she set about building a palace for herself, where in due time she might plot and scheme, distil poisons, and light civil wars unmolested by the king's presence or the prying eyes of his court. West of the Louvre, and in the then open country, was a tile-field, which, from the fact of tuiles being manufactured there, was called Les Tuileries. The Médicean sorceress touched the tiles with her wand, and up rose under that magic stroke the stately palace which was to be the centre of so many high and wonderful destinies, and which continued to bear through all changes and vicissitudes its first homely title of Les Tuileries. One life could not suffice for the completion of such a monument, however, and Catherine left it to her three king sons, successively to finish. But already in her own time the tile-field was baptized in blood. From one of its Gothic windows the mother pulled the trigger in the trembling hand of the son which gave the signal for the massacre of S. Bartholomew. Thus in its very cradle did the Tuileries sign itself Haceldama, a field where blood should flow, where princes should sell and be sold, where a king should wrestle with the powers of darkness, and be dragged forth in ignominy to death. The two palaces, hitherto distinct and separate, were united by Charles IX., who erected the long gallery by the river's side. It was not entirely finished when he died, leaving his brothers to make it ready for Henry IV., who is represented as traversing the gallery, leaning on De Guise, the day before Ravaillac's dagger cut short the Béarnais' career.

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The idea of turning it into a museum was first suggested by Louis XVI., who reverted to the plan frequently, but was compelled by financial difficulties to leave the glory of its execution to Bonaparte. Those who have seen the beautiful old palace recently, before its partial destruction, would hardly recognize it as the same which fifteen years ago was choked up to its very windows by the rubbish of the encroaching town; the space now cleared away between the two palaces, the Louvre proper and the Tuileries, was filled with mean houses, for the most part shops. Even the façade of the Tuileries was cumbered and disfigured by a variety of shabby buildings, barracks, stables, and domestic offices, these latter being necessary for the convenience of its inmates—since royalty must dine—the original plan of the palace having made no provision for those vulgar essentials for the carrying on of daily life. It was an unsafe abode for royalty when safety needed to be thought of and the hearts of the people had ceased to be the king's best stronghold; but when the Médicis reared the noble, picturesque old pile, they were troubled with no such considerations. The ghosts of constitutionalism and sans-culottism were slumbering quietly unsuspected in the womb of the future, and no provision was made for slaying or defying them. For nearly a century the Tuileries had been uninhabited, when, on the wrathful day of the 6th of October, the mob surged from Paris to Versailles, and dragged Louis Seize and Marie Antoinette from their beds, and installed them within its empty, neglected walls.

“Buildings, like builders, have their destiny.” Ever since the memorable morning when insurrection reared its hydra-head under the windows of the Queen of France, and battered in the chamber door with clubs and tricolor-bedizened pikes, and sent her flying in terrified déshabillé through secret corridors and trap-tapestries into the king's room for safety; ever since “rascality looked in the king's face, and did not die,” but seized royalty by the beard, and led it, amidst hootings of triumph, to lodge where the people willed, the grand château of Versailles has stood vacant of kings and queens, its polished floors reflecting the dead monarchs on the walls, a great hush filling its broad galleries, grass growing in its courts, the silence of the past brooding everywhere. Noisy demagogues may scream and howl in the theatre where the Grand Monarch applauded the verses of Corneille and Racine, and their nimble heels may tread down some of the grass between the paving-stones of the Cour du Roi, but they are but jackdaws chattering in the deserted temple. Versailles has lived its day, and outlived its generation.

Neglected and uncomfortable as the Tuileries was, the royal family had no choice but to go there. The Louvre was partly dilapidated and quite unfurnished, while the sister palace, though so long uninhabited, was still furnished, and needed comparatively little to make it, even in this sudden emergency, a suitable domestic residence. The discomforts of the first few days were great, but the royal captives were absorbed in graver cares, and bestowed no idle regrets on such small matters as personal accommodation. Louis was satisfied with his truckle-bed, hurriedly provided by the nation in the tapestried room. “Where will your majesty please to sleep?” inquired an obsequious municipal, [pg 376] entering the presence; and majesty, with head bowed over his knees, answers, without deigning to look around and choose, “I am well enough here; let each lodge as he may.” So the truckle-bed is got ready. Strange days followed this strange beginning. Paris for a week was drunk with joy. The mob had got the king in their possession. Loyal subjects looked on, not knowing whether to weep or to rejoice. The Orleanist faction chuckled boldly over the degradation of the crown, and over the fact that the persons of the king and, above all, of the queen were safe in a gilded prison.

The queen was far too wise and keen-eyed to be deceived by the pale glimmer of popularity which, during the early days of their abode in Paris, shone upon them. Louis took pleasure in the scanty vivats that greeted him when he sauntered out for a walk on the terrace—his only place of exercise now—and within doors amused himself with carpentry and lock-making. The Dauphin played at soldiering, dressed in military uniform, and gave the word of command to his men, a regiment of warriors from five to eight years old. Marie Antoinette had her library brought from Versailles, and sought refuge from thought in reading. Mme. Elizabeth, meanwhile, watches the signs of the coming storm, prays, loves, and hopes.

The Assembly had followed the king to Paris, and installed itself in the Salle de Manège, formerly the riding-school of the Tuileries, and situated within sight of the palace on the north terrace. This proximity, whether accidental or designed, was a source of danger and humiliation to the king. The members could see the royal prison-house from the windows of the Manège, and the prospect served to point many an insolent period in the tribune. Mirabeau used it with fine effect. “I see,” he cried, “the window whence a king of France, under the influence of execrable advisers, fired the shot which gave the signal of the massacre of S. Bartholomew!”

But the Assembly did not content itself with pointing the arrows of its rhetoric at the doomed Louis; it sought to give him more practical proofs of disrespect. The riding-school being situated on the Terrace des Feuillants, the members declared that this terrace belonged to them, and not to the king; it was therefore thrown open as a public thoroughfare, the palace being thus exposed to the coming and going of the populace, who availed themselves of the opportunity of flaunting their disloyalty under the very windows of the sovereign. There was no longer any barrier on the north side, and, the external posts being all sentinelled by National Guards, the royal family had no control over either the courts or the gardens. This scandalous violation of his privacy roused even Louis to utter a mild protest to the Assembly, but it was met by one of the Girondists retorting that “the people lodged Louis in the Tuileries, but it nowise followed that they gave up to him the exclusive use of the gardens.” The unhappy king had no resource henceforth but in dignified patience, fed by the hope of escaping to the freedom and seclusion of St. Cloud at Easter. We know how, just as he had entered his carriage to start for that suburban castle, it was surrounded by the mob, and he himself only rescued from personal violence by Lafayette [pg 377] and his troop, who were, however, unable to effect his release. Louis re-entered the Tuileries crushed and humbled, but inwardly resolved on some desperate attempt to escape from the insupportable bondage of his position. The abortive attempt to leave the Tuileries, even for his usual summer residence, roused a bitter feeling of suspicion against him, and more especially against the queen, which was soon manifested by the increasing insolence of the mob. They dared no longer show themselves in public, and even their afternoon walk on the terrace by the river's side became impossible. They tried to avoid the humiliation and annoyance it provoked by rising at daybreak, and taking an hour's exercise in the early dawn; but this soon became known, and had also to be abandoned. At last the queen complained that she “could not even open her windows on these hot summer evenings without being subjected to the grossest invectives and threats.”

When things came to this point, the king was forced to lend an ear to the proposals which had up to this time met with a dogged and somewhat contemptuous refusal. There was but one way of remedying the miseries of their position, and that was by flight. It was no longer a question of flying from humiliation, but from absolute and imminent danger. The most sanguine or the most obtuse observer could not but see that things were hastening to a fearful crisis, which, terminate how it may, must work ruin to the royal family.

Many schemes were arranged, but for one reason or another they fell through. Finally, it was settled that the sovereign should escape with his wife and children and sister to Montmédy. This was the utmost that could be wrung from Louis, even in this extremity. No arguments could induce him to consent to leave France, or even to cross the frontier with the purpose of re-entering France the next day, though by so doing he would have shortened the journey and lessened its dangers. If even then he had consented to fly speedily, separately, instead of losing the precious days and weeks in preparations that only awoke suspicion and proved hindrances instead of helps! But in the race of destiny, who wins? Not he who flies, but he who waits. Louis waited too long, or not long enough; fled too late, if he should have fled at all.

The story of the flight to Varennes has been written by historians of all shades and camps, but it is generally tainted with such vehement partisanship that the simple, underlying facts become obscured, almost obliterated, by hysterical reproaches of this one and that; whereas the cause of the failure of that memorable expedition is to be sought rather in the attitude of the entire population, the atmosphere of the times, or, let us say at once, the mysterious leadings of the First Great Cause which overrules human events, even while it leaves the human instruments free to decide the issue. It is easy for one historian105 to lay the blame on Marie Antoinette, who “could not travel without new clothes,” showing us how “Dame Campan whisks assiduous to this mantua-maker and to that; and there is clipping of frocks and gowns, upper clothes and under, great and small—such clipping and sewing as might be dispensed with. Moreover, majesty cannot go [pg 378] a step anywhere without her nécessaire, dear nécessaire, of inlaid ivory and rosewood, cunningly devised, which holds perfumes, toilet implements, infinite small, queenlike furniture necessary to terrestrial life.” Poor Marie Antoinette! her grand, queenlike soul was lifted far above such silly “terrestrial life” by this time, and it is not likely that, when such tremendous stakes were impending, her care dwelt with new clothes or perfume bottles—so misleading does prejudice make the clearest mind, the most intentionally sincere witness. The plain truth is that the difficulty of the new clothes existed, but from a very different motive from that suggested by Mr. Carlyle. It was necessary that the queen and the royal children should be disguised, and for this purpose new clothes were essential, and it required all the ingenuity of Mme. De Tourzel, and Mme. Campan, and every one connected with the affair to get them made so as to fit the royal fugitives, and then conveyed into the palace without exciting the keen lynx-eyes that were fixed on every incomer and outgoer passing through the queen's apartments. As to the nécessaire over which the Scotch philosopher breaks the vials of his scorn so loftily, it was wanted. Some box was wanted to hold the money, jewels, and certain indispensable papers that were to be taken on the journey, and the queen suggested that her dressing-case should be used, adding at the same time that she was loath to leave it behind her, as it was almost the first present she had received from her husband—no great subject for philosophical sneers, as far as we can see. Nor did either nécessaire or new clothes—though the obtaining and smuggling in of the latter caused much delay—give rise to any of the accidents which worked the failure of the scheme.

Then there was the new berlin to be provided—a lamentable mistake, but not one that deserves Mr. Carlyle's withering sarcasms any more than the nécessaire. “Miserable new berlin!” he cries. “Why could not royalty go in an old berlin similar to that of other men? Flying for life, one does not stickle about one's vehicle.” It was not for the newness or dignity of the vehicle that the queen stickled, but for its capability of carrying “all her treasures with her.” She positively refused to fly at all, unless it could be so contrived that she was not separated for an hour of the way from her husband, her children, and her beloved sister-in-law, the Princess Elizabeth. She insisted, moreover, that the few faithful friends who were to share her flight should be with them also, and not exposed to solitary risks in a separate conveyance. This was characteristic enough of the queen's loyal heart towards those she loved, but it was unlike her practical sense and intelligence. M. de Fersen, who was taken into confidence from the first, declared that no travelling-coach was to be found large enough to answer these requirements, and that one must be built on purpose. It so happened that the previous year he had ordered a berlin, of just such form and dimensions as was now wanted, for a friend of his in Russia; he therefore went to the coach-maker, and desired him with all possible speed to build another on the same model for a certain Baronne de Korff, a cousin of his, who was about to return to St. Petersburg with her family and suite. The berlin was built, and, to baffle suspicion more effectually, was [pg 379] driven through some of the most public streets in Paris, in order to try it. The result was most satisfactory, and M. de Fersen talked aloud to his friends of the perfect coach he had ordered and partly designed for his cousin, Mme. de Korff.

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.

[pg 386]

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.

In this sorry guise did the new berlin re-enter Paris. It had departed on Monday night, and behold it returning on Saturday towards sundown, a huge, jolting, captured whale whom no miracle will compel to disgorge its prey. In order to prolong the people's jubilee and the king's shame, it was brought a league out of its direct way, so as to make an entry down the Champs Elysées, and bear its occupants back to their gilded prison with due pomp and emphasis by the front gate of the Tuileries gardens. So with serried ranks of bayonets pointed at it on every side, it reappears in Paris, and jogs on to deposit its burden on the old Médicean tile-field, an ignominious procession, royalty degraded and fettered, a spectacle of joy to the king-hating citizens. The royal family enter the Tuileries, now a prison in the most cruel and literal sense. The queen and Mme. Elizabeth are henceforth watched, [pg 387] even in their chambers—so watched that, as it is recorded, the queen being one night unable to sleep, the National Guard on duty at her open door offered to come in and converse with her majesty awhile, conversation being sometimes conducive to sleep.

Even at this distance, when we read the history of the flight to Varennes, it has the exciting effect of a fresh tale. We hold our breath, and fancy that still at the last some deliverer will arrive just as all is lost; some accident will prevent Drouet from reaching the scene in time; the fugitives will clear the bridge, and the mob be prevented by the soldiers from pursuing them. Never, even in the history of those most unfortunate of princes, the Stuarts, was there a series of mishaps, blunders, and accidents such as make up the chapter of the flight to Varennes. It is idle to conjecture what would have happened if it had ended differently. If, when the berlin was first surrounded and the travellers ordered to alight, Louis had proudly defied the insolent command, and bade the soldiers fire, how quickly the “pale paralysis” of baffled rage would have seized Drouet and his eight patriots of good-will; how the froth of ruffianism they had evoked would have melted away before that imperial word, and slunk out of sight, while the monarch fared on his way along the high-road, the troops sweeping back all possible pursuers, and landing the destinies of France safe beyond the reach of regicidal hands! All this was so much more likely to be than that which was! The reason why it was not is so mysterious! Enough that it was not; that the bloody deed of January the 20th was to consummate the outrages and sufferings of the Night of Spurs; and that the fate of France was not shaped to a different issue, as we, in our short-sighted philosophy, fancy might so easily have been done.