Александр Дюма
The Royal Life Guard; or, the flight of the royal family.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE CAPTURE
Inexpressible prostration overpowered the fugitives, checked on the highway by a danger they could not measure.
"Sire," said Isidore, the first to shake it off; "dead or living, let us not think of our brother, but of your Majesty. There is not an instant to lose. These fellows must know the Monarch Hotel; so, gallop to the Grand Monarch!"
But the postillions did not stir.
"Did you not hear?" queried the young noble.
"Yes, sir, we heard – "
"Well, why do we not start?"
"Because Master Drouet forbade us."
"What? Drouet forbade you? when the King commands and Drouet forbids, do you obey a Drouet?"
"We obey the Nation."
"Then, gentlemen," went on Isidore, "there are moments when a human life is of no account. Pick out your man; I will settle this one. We will drive ourselves."
He grasped the nearest postillion by the collar and set the point of his short sword to his breast.
On seeing the three knives flash, the Queen screamed and cried:
"Mercy, gentlemen!"
She turned to the postboys:
"Friends, fifty gold pieces to share among you, and a pension of five hundred a-year if you save the King!"
Whether they were frightened by the young nobles' demonstration or snapped at the offer, the three shook up their horses and resumed the road.
Prefontaine sneaked into his house all of a tremble and barred himself in.
Isidore rode on in front to clear the way through the town and over the bridge to the Monarch House.
The vehicle rolled at full speed down the slope.
On arriving at a vaulted way leading to the bridge and passing under the Revenue Tower, one of the doors was seen closed. They got it open but two or three wagons were in the way.
"Lend me a hand, gentlemen," cried Isidore, dismounting.
Just then they heard the bells boom and a drum beat. Drouet was hard at work!
"The scamp! if ever I lay hold of him – " growled Isidore, grinding his teeth. By an incredible effort he dragged one of the carts aside while Malden and Valory drew off the other. They tugged at the last as the coach thundered under the vault.
Suddenly through the uprights of the tilt, they saw several musket barrels thrust upon the cart.
"Not a step or you are dead men!" shouted a voice.
"Gentlemen," interposed the King, looking out of the window, "do not try to force your way through – I order you."
The two officers and Isidore fell back a step.
"What do they mean to do?" asked the King.
At the same time a shriek of fright sounded from within the coach. Besides the men who barred the way, two or three had slipped up to the conveyance and shoved their gun barrels under the windows. One was pointed at the Queen's breast: Isidore saw this; he darted up, and pushed the gun aside by grasping the barrel.
"Fire, fire," roared several voices.
One of the men obeyed but luckily his gun missed fire.
Isidore raised his arm to stab him but the Queen stopped his hand.
"Oh, in heaven's name, let me charge this rabble," said Isidore, enraged.
"No, sheathe your sword, do you hear me?"
He did not obey her by half; instead of sheathing his sword he let it fall on the ground.
"If I only get hold of Drouet," he snarled.
"I leave you him to wreck your vengeance on," said the Queen, in an undertone and squeezing his arm with strange force.
"In short, gentlemen," said the King, "what do you want?"
"We want to see your passports," returned several voices.
"So you may," he replied. "Get the town authorities and we will show them."
"You are making too much fuss over it," said the fellow who had missed fire with his gun and now levelled it at the King.
But the two Guardsmen leaped upon him, and dragged him down; in the scuffle the gun went off and the bullet did no harm in the crowd.
"Who fired?" demanded a voice.
"Help," called out the one whom the officers were beating.
Five or six armed men rushed to his rescue. The two Lifeguardsmen whipped out their short swords and prepared to use them. The King and the Queen made useless efforts to stop both parties: the contest was beginning fierce, terrible and deadly.
But two men plunged into the struggle, distinguishable by a tricolored scarf and military uniform; one was Sausse the County Attorney and the other National Guard Commandant Hannonet.
They brought twenty muskets, which gleamed in the torchlight.
The King comprehended that these officials were a guarantee if not assistance.
"Gentlemen," he said, "I am ready to entrust myself and party to you, but put a stop to these rough fellow's brutality."
"Ground your arms," cried Hannonet.
The men obeyed but growlingly.
"Excuse me, sir," said the attorney, "but the story is about that the King is in flight and it is our duty to make sure if it is a fact."
"Make sure?" retorted Isidore. "If this carriage really conveyed his Majesty you ought to be at his feet: if it is but a private individual by what right do you stay him?"
"Sir, I am addressing you," went on Sausse, to the King. "Will you be good enough to answer me?"
"Sire, gain time," whispered Isidore: "Damas and his dragoons are somewhere near and will doubtless ride up in a trice."
The King thought this right and replied to Sausse:
"I suppose you will let us go on if our passes are correct?"
"Of course," was the reply.
"Then, Baroness," said the Monarch to Lady Tourzel, "be good enough to find the passports and give them to the gentleman."
The old lady understood what the speaker meant by saying "find!" so she went to seeking in the pockets where it was not likely to be.
"Nonsense," said one of the crowd, "don't you see that they have not got any passport."
The voice was fretful and full of menace too.
"Excuse me, sir," said the Queen, "my lady the baroness has the paper but not knowing that it would be called for, she does not know where she put it."
The bystanders began to hoot, showing that they were not dupes of the trick.
"There is a plainer way," said Sausse: "postillions, drive on to my store, where the ladies and gentlemen can go in while the matter is cleared up. Go ahead, boys! Soldiers of the National Guard, escort the carriage."
This invitation was too much like an order to be dallied with.
Besides resistance would probably not have succeeded for the bells continued to ring and the drum to beat so that the crowd was considerably augmented, as the carriage moved on.
"Oh, Colonel Damas," muttered the King, "if you will only strike in before we are put within this accursed house!"
The Queen said nothing for she had to stifle her sobs as she thought of Charny, and restrained her tears.
Damas? he had managed to break out of Clermont with three officers and twice as many troopers but the rest had fraternized with the people.
Sausse was a grocer as well as attorney, and his grocery had a parlor behind the store where he meant to lodge the visitors.
His wife, half-dressed, came from upstairs as the Queen crossed the sill, with the King next, Lady Elizabeth and Lady Tourzel following.
More than a hundred persons guarded the coach, and stopped before the store which was in a little square.
"If the lady has found the pass yet," observed Sausse, who had shown the way in, "I will take it to the Town Council and see if it is correct."
As the passport which Charny had got from Baron Zannone, and given to the Queen, was in order, the King made a sign that Lady Tourzel was to hand it over. She drew the precious paper from her pocket and let Sausse have it. He charged his wife to do the honor of his house while he went to the town-house.
It was a lively meeting, for Drouet was there to fan the flames. The silence of curiosity fell as the attorney entered with the document. All knew that he harbored the party. The mayor pronounced the pass perfectly good.
"It must be good for there is the royal signature," he said.
A dozen hands were held out for it but Drouet snatched it up.
"But has it got the signature of the Assembly?" he demanded.
It was signed by a member of the Committee though not for the president.
"This is not the question," said the young patriot, "these travelers are not Baroness von Korff, a Russian lady, with her steward, her governess and her children, but the King and the Queen, the Prince and the Princess Royal and Lady Elizabeth, a court lady, and their guardsmen – the Royal Family in short. Will you or will you not let the Royal Family go out of the kingdom?"
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 they were uttered with a kind of dignity, the speaker did not carry out the idea in his bob 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 and saw 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 out of 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 two field pieces were 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 as their 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 with sabres drawn 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 unequal struggle 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.
