At the end of some minutes, during which they had been parleying, M. Goguelot and M. de Choiseul contrived to get admitted to the King.
M. Sauce, who, after he had conducted his guests to the chamber in which they were confined, had descended to get the key, remounted the stairs, followed by M. Goguelot and M. de Choiseul.
On seeing M. Goguelot, the King joyously clapped his hands, for he was the only person that he knew whom he had as yet seen. He was, without doubt, the precursor of assistance.
Behind M. Goguelot, he recognised M. de Choiseul.
Other footsteps were heard on the staircase—they were those of M. de Damas.
The three officers, as soon as they entered, bent looks of inquiry around them.
This is what they saw on entering, and what I saw from my window.
A narrow room, in the midst of which was a cask, which served as a table; on that table was placed some paper and some glasses. In a corner stood the King and Queen; by the window were Madame Elizabeth and Madame Royale; in the background, the Dauphin, overcome with fatigue, was sleeping on a bed, at the foot of which was Madame de Tourzel; at the door were stationed the two femmes-de-chambre—Madame de Neuville and Madame de Brunier, acting as sentinels—or, rather, two women armed with forks.
The first word that the King uttered was, “Well, gentlemen, when do we start?”
“When it pleases your Majesty.”
“Give your commands, sire,” said M. de Choiseul. “I have with me forty hussars; but lose no time. We must act before the citizens have an opportunity of bribing my men.”
“Well, gentlemen, descend, and clear the way; but mind, no violence.”
[176]
The young men went down.
The moment that M. de Goguelot had his hand on the street door, the National Guard summoned the hussars to dismount.
“Hussars,” cried M. de Goguelot, “remain in your saddles.”
“Wherefore?” queried the officer commanding the National Guard.
“To protect the King,” replied M. de Goguelot.
“Good!” returned the officers; “we can take care of him without you.”
A hundred voices at the same time cried, “Yes, yes, yes! Make the hussars dismount! It is our business, and not the business of strangers, to protect the King! Dismount, hussars—dismount!”
M. de Damas slipped through the crowd, and rejoined the three or four men who had been faithful to him.
M. de Goguelot exchanged signals with M. de Malmy, and in company with M. de Choiseul again ascended to the King’s chamber. Both addressed the Queen, as they knew that it was her head that planned.
“Madame,” said M. de Goguelot, “it is no use thinking of proceeding in the carriages; but there is a way of safety.”
“What?”
“Will you mount a horse, and set out with the King? He will take charge of the Dauphin. The bridge is barricaded, but at the bottom of the Rue Jean the river is fordable. With our forty hussars we will pass. In any case, make a quick resolution. Our hussars are already drinking with the people; in another quarter of an hour they will be brothers.”
The Queen drew back; that iron heart failed her at that critical moment. She again became a woman; she feared a struggle, a skirmish—perhaps a bullet.
“Speak to the King, messieurs,” said she; “it is he who should decide on this plan; it is he who should command; it is for me but to follow.”
She then added, timidly, “After all, it cannot be long before M. de Bouillé arrives.”
The gardes du corps were there ready to attempt anything.
[177]
M. de Valory said, in his and the name of all his comrades, “Her Majesty knows that she can command. We are ready to die for her.”
M. de Goguelot and M. de Choiseul chimed in.
“M. de Damas is below,” said M. de Choiseul; “he told us to tell your Majesty that he had but three or four dragoons, but that he could count on their fidelity as on his own.”
“Let us set out, sire—let us set out, since the Queen places herself in your hands.”
If the King replied yes, there was still hope.
“Messieurs,” asked the King, “can you promise me that in the struggle which must take place as a consequence of our departure, no ball will strike the Queen, my sister, or my children?”
A sigh passed the lips of the King’s defenders. They felt him giving way in their hands.
“Let us reason coolly,” said the King. “The municipal council do not refuse to let me go. The annoyance is, that we are compelled to spend the night here; but before daybreak, M. de Bouillé will be acquainted with the situation in which we are. He is at Stenay. Stenay is but eight leagues from here; two hours will take one there, and another two suffice to bring back a message. M. de Bouillé cannot fail to be here in the morning, then shall we depart without danger or violence.”
As he uttered these words, without announcing themselves, or asking the permission of the King to be admitted, the municipal council entered the room.
The decision that they had arrived at was brief and precise.
The people strongly objected to the King’s continuing his route, and had resolved to send a courier to the National Assembly to know its sentiments.
In fact, a citizen of Varennes, an M. Maugin, surgeon by profession, had started at full speed for Paris.
M. de Goguelot saw that there was not an instant to lose; he dashed from the house, and found M. de Malmy at the door.
“Monsieur,” he said, “you live here, therefore you know this part of the country. A man, come what will, must set out for Stenay to advise M. de Bouillé of the predicament[178] in which the King is placed, and return with a sufficient force to rescue him.”
“I will go myself,” said M. de Malmy.
And sticking his spurs into his horse, he set off at a gallop.
At M. Gerbaut’s door, he saw a file of National Guards, who commanded him to stop.
“All very well,” replied M. de Malmy; “but I intend to go on.”
“Not you, more than another!” cried an officer, seizing his horse by the bridle.
“If you advance another step,” said M. Roland, the commander of the National Guard, cocking a pistol, “I will shoot you.”
M. de Malmy, without reply, spurred his horse right on to him.
M. Roland fired off the pistol so close that the flame blinded M. de Malmy’s horse, at the same time as the bullet passed through the fleshy part of the horseman’s arm.
The frightened animal reared, and fell back upon his master.
From the chamber where I was engaged in watching the King, I heard the pistol-shot, the fall of the horse and man, and the scream of a woman.
I recognised the voice of Mdlle. Sophie. I dashed down stairs, and arrived in time to see her throw herself on the breathless, and, as she thought, dead body of M. de Malmy.
“Réné, Réné!” she cried. “Help me—oh, help me!”
I rushed out of the house, took M. de Malmy in my arms, and, at the moment when he tried to stand, I took him into the house, and laid him on M. Gerhaut’s bed.
“He is dead—he is dead! They have killed him, the wretches!” cried the unhappy and despairing girl, who was covered with the blood which had flowed from his wound.
At this moment, M. de Malmy opened his eyes.
“He is not dead, Mdlle. Sophie,” cried I.
“Oh!” said she.
And she threw herself prostrate on the bed.
“Leave me—leave me!” said M. de Malmy, making an effort to lift himself up. “I must go and seek M. de Bouillé.”
Pain and weakness compelled him to fall back again.
[179]
“In the name of heaven, stay there, Alphonse!” cried Mdlle. Sophie. “Do not move, or you will uselessly throw away your life. You owe me somewhat; grant me that favor.”
“I must,” said the young man. “I think that my leg is broken.”
“Réné, Réné! I pray, I implore you, my friend—my brother—run for a surgeon!”
“Immediately!” said I, dashing out into the street.
But it was impossible to move.
The crowd had become something fearful.
“Hussars!” cried M. de Goguelot, “are you for the King or the nation?”
They all replied, “For the nation!”
“The others?”
“For the King—for the King!” they cried out, in German.
“Do you hear them?” said M. Drouet. “They are strangers—they are Germans—that is to say, enemies.”
“No, sir,” cried the officer; “it is a Frenchman, who, in good French, says to you, ‘Make way, in the name of the King!’”
“And I reply to you, in better French, if your hussars do not lay down their arms, we will fire on them, and not one shall leave Varennes alive. Soldiers, present arms—and, gunners, to your pieces!”
Then, stepping two paces forward, he said to M. Goguelot, “Take care, sir. I have sighted you with my gun.”
“Vive la nation!” cried the hussars, as they saw the musket barrels pointed at them, with the matches burning brightly in the obscurity, and the two little pieces of cannon placed in battery at the bottom of the Rue St. Jean.
At this moment, several National Guards sprang upon M. Goguelot’s horse, snatched the rider from the saddle, and dashed him head-foremost into the road, where he lay for a moment or so, completely stunned.
They treated M. Damas and M. de Choiseul, who appeared on the door-step at that moment, in the same fashion.
In the midst of this struggle, I set out for the Place Latry, by way of the Rue l’Horloge. When I got there, I found that M. Maugin had started for Paris, by wish of the municipality, at full speed.
[180]
I ran to the house of another doctor of less skill than M. Maugin—a M. Saulnier—and brought him to the Rue de la Basse Cour, where the hussars were drinking and fraternizing with the National Guard.
M. de Malmy was wounded in the shoulder by a ball which had traversed the deltoid muscles. His leg was not broken, but his knee was badly sprained.
Mdlle. Gerbaut, who feared that the condition of the wounded man would not be improved by his remaining on the ground floor in direct communication with the street, begged us to carry M. de Malmy into a chamber where the surgeon could pay, without inconvenience, all the cares necessary to a man in his condition.
I assisted M. Saulnier—a sufficiently difficult job—to carry a man who could use neither his left arm nor his right leg. Afterwards, as I saw that my presence was not welcome to Mdlle. Sophie, and as I felt no particular interest in the wounded man, I retired, so as not to lose a single scene of the drama which was being played out before my eyes, and which was nothing less than a duel between a King and a nation.
