In the midst of the tumult which was produced by the disarming of M. de Choiseul and M. de Damas, and the cries of “Vive la nation!” shouted out by the hussars, to the great delight of the people, M. de Goguelot, profiting by a moment of inattention on the part of his guards, rushed up-stairs, and, all bleeding as he was, entered the chamber of the King.
His head had been cut open by the fall, but he did not feel the wound.
The appearance of the chamber had changed. It had become a prison.
Marie Antoinette, who was in reality the strength and life of the family, was overwhelmed. She had heard the cries, the shots, and she saw M. de Goguelot return all covered with blood.
[181]
The King, standing upright, prayed M. Sauce, the grocer, to assist them; as if he had the power, even had he wished to do so.
The Queen, seated on a stool between two packages of candles, likewise implored his assistance.
But with brutal and petty selfishness, he replied, “I should like to be able to serve you, certainly; but if you think of the King, I think of M. Sauce.”
The Queen turned aside, shedding tears of rage.
She had never been so humbled before.
The day began to dawn.
The crowd filled the street, the Place de la Rue Neuve, and the Place Latry.
All the citizens cried from their windows, “To Paris—to Paris—to Paris with the King!”
Alas! to show himself—he was to appear no longer, as on the 6th of October, on the balcony of the marble court, but at the windows of a grocer’s house.
The King had fallen into a state of torpor.
The cries redoubled.
Five or six people had seen, or rather had caught a glimpse, of the King; the others wished to inspect him thoroughly.
At that period, when it took a diligence six or seven days to go to Paris, to have seen the King was a thing to talk about. Each one had formed an imaginary portrait of him for him or herself.
Therefore the astonishment was intense when Louis the Sixteenth showed himself with swollen eyes, and proved to that multitude a thing which they did not before believe—namely, that a king may be fat, pale, bloated—with dull eyes, hanging lips, a bad peruke, and a gray suit of clothes.
The crowd believed that they were being deceived, and growled accordingly.
Afterwards, when they knew that it was the King, “Oh, heavens!” said they. “Poor man!”
Pity having once seized them, their hearts opened, and they began to shed tears.
“Long live the King!” cried the crowd.
If Louis XVI had profited by that moment—if he had prayed that concourse of people to help him and his children,—perhaps[182] they would have passed him and the royal family over the barricaded bridge, and delivered them into the hands of the hussars.
He took no advantage of that pity and sorrow.
An example was given of the commiseration which the royal family inspired.
Sauce had an aged mother—a woman of some eighty years of age. She was born in the reign of Louis XIV, and was a Royalist. She entered the chamber; and seeing the King and Queen bowed down with sorrow, and the children sleeping on the bed, which had never been destined for such a mournful honor, she fell on her knees beside it, repeated a prayer, and, turning towards the Queen, “Madame,” said she, “will you allow me to kiss the hands of the two innocents?”
The Queen bowed her head, in token of assent.
The good woman kissed their hands, and left the room, sobbing, as if her heart would break.
The Queen was the only one who did not sleep.
The King, who had need, whatever his preoccupation of mind might be, to eat and sleep well, having neither ate nor slept to his satisfaction, was distracted.
About half-past six, M. Deslon was announced.
M. Deslon had arrived from Dun with about a hundred men.
He had found the Rue de l’Hôpital barricaded; had held a parley; and demanding admission to the presence of the King, was accorded permission to visit him.
He informed them how, at the sound of the tocsin, he had hurried on; and that M. de Bouillé, warned by his son and M. de Raigecourt, would, without doubt, arrive in a short time.
The King, however, seemed as if he did not hear him.
Three times M. Deslon repeated the same thing, and rather impatiently the last time.
“Sire,” said he, “do you not hear me?”
“What do you wish, monsieur?” said the King, as if starting from a reverie.
“I ask your commands for M. de Bouillé, sire!”
“I have no more commands to give, monsieur—I am a prisoner.”
“But, at least, sir—”
[183]
“That he does what he can for me.”
M. Deslon retired, without being able to obtain another answer.
In fact, the King was indeed a prisoner.
The tocsin had completed its dismal task. Every village had sent its contingent. Four or five thousand men encumbered the streets of Varennes.
About seven in the morning, two men arriving by the Clermont road, and bestriding horses flecked with foam, pushed their way through the multitude.
The shouts of the people announced something new to the King.
Soon the door opened, and admitted an officer of the National Guard.
It was the same Rayon, who, whilst snatching a moment’s rest at Châlons, sent on an express to St. Menehould.
He entered the royal chamber fatigued, excited, almost mad, without a cravat, and with his hair unpowdered.
“Ah, sire,” said he, in a hoarse voice—“our wives, our children! They slaughter them at Paris, sire; you will not go much further. The interest of the State—”
And he fell, almost fainting, into an arm-chair.
“Well, sir,” said the Queen, taking his hand, and showing him the Dauphin and Madame Royale sleeping on the bed, “am I not a mother, too?”
“In short, sir,” said the King, “what have you to announce to me?”
“Sire, a decree of the Assembly.”
“Where is it?”
“My comrade has it.”
“Your comrade?”
The officer made a sign to open the door.
One of the gardes du corps opened it, and they saw M. de Romeuf leaning against the window of the ante-chamber, and weeping.
He came forward, with downcast eyes.
The Queen started at sight of him.
It was the same young man who had accompanied M. Lafayette in the visit he had paid the King just a quarter of an hour before he started.
“Ah, monsieur! is it you?” said the Queen. “I could never have believed it.”
[184]
It was she who should have blushed before him, and she tried to make him blush.
M. de Romeuf held in his hands the decree of the Assembly.
The King snatched it from him, cast his eyes over it, and cried, “There is no longer a King in France!”
The Queen took it in her turn, read it, and returned it to the King.
The King re-read it, and then placed it on the bed where his children slept.
“No—no!” cried the Queen, exasperated, furious, mad with hate and anger; “I do not wish that infamous paper to defile my children.”
“Madame,” at last said Romeuf, “you have just reproached me for being charged with this mission. Is it not better that I should have undertaken the task than one who would have borne witness with regard to transports of passion?”
There was, in fact, at this action of the Queen’s, a terrible murmur among the spectators.
The Queen had crumpled up the decree, and dashed it on the floor.
M. de Choiseul, who had regained his liberty, and who, at the moment, entered the chamber, accompanied by two messengers, picked up the decree, and placed it on the table.
The Queen appreciated his intention, and thanked him with a look.
“At least, sir,” said she, addressing M. de Romeuf, “I hope that you will do all you can for M. de Choiseul, M. de Damas, and M. de Goguelot when we are gone.”
In fact, the Queen well understood that go she must.
It was seven o’clock in the morning, and M. de Bouillé had not put in an appearance.
The peasants of the villages round Varennes continued to pour into the town, armed with guns, pitchforks, and scythes, and each cried louder than the other, “To Paris! to Paris!”
The carriage was in readiness.
The King made the most of each little obstacle, counting each moment, awaiting Bouillé.
At last, it was necessary to make a move.
[185]
The King rose first.
The Queen followed his example.
One of her women—whether naturally, or whether as an artifice, to gain time—fainted.
“They may cut me into pieces if they will,” said the Queen, “but I will not leave without one who has the misfortune to be my friend.”
“As you will—stay if you like,” said a man of the people, “At any rate, I will take the Dauphin.”
He took the royal child in his arms, and stepped towards the door.
The Queen seized the Dauphin from him, and descended the stairs, blushing.
All the family were filled with poignant anxiety. On arriving in the street, Madame Elizabeth perceived that half of the Queen’s hair had turned gray; the other half was to grow gray at the Conciergerie in a second night of agony, which was not, perhaps, more terrible than that which we have recounted.
They got into the carriage; the three gardes du corps mounted on the box.
M. de Goguelot, in the hope of bringing succor, had found means of escaping through the little passage situate at the back of the house of M. Sauce.
M. de Choiseul and M. de Damas were conducted to the city prison, where M. de Romeuf caused himself to be imprisoned with them, for the sake of protecting them more efficiently.
At last, after having exhausted every possible means of delay, the carriage started, escorted by the National Guard, under the command of M. Signemont, by the hussars of M. de Choiseul, which had been sent to protect his flight, and by more than four thousand citizens of Varennes and its suburbs, armed with guns, pitchforks, and scythes.
The carriage of the King did not, as some historians say, pass the house of the grocer, Sauce; that was the historical limit of the fatal journey.
The moment that the carriage moved, I felt great doubt—or, rather, great remorse.
The catastrophe of the arrest of the King had brought in its train an event which, though I have but mentioned it in the place it occupied relatively to that arrest, influenced in a strange manner the whole of my life.
[186]
One can readily understand that I speak of M. de Malmy’s wound; of the impression that that wound produced on Mdlle. Sophie, and of the involuntary avowal that, on her part, she had made to me.
I had a deep affection for Sophie. This affection, more than fraternal, had a spice of jealousy in it; although I must do the poor girl the justice to say that from the moment that she perceived my nascent love, she had done all she could to nip it in the bud, by telling me that she could never be anything more than a sister to me. I always had the suspicion—I will not say that my rival, for there was no real rivalry, was M. de Malmy.
This time I could no longer doubt it, and I felt it impossible to remain under the same roof with him. Not only because Sophie loved him and he loved Sophie, but because I knew that he was the origin of all the misery and unhappiness that was gradually wearing her away.
As soon as I saw the King ready to set out, and the carriage about to move on to Paris, I bade adieu to M. Gerbaut, without telling him that I did not think of returning to Varennes, and started off without having the courage to see Sophie, whom however, I unexpectedly found in my road, barring up the corridor.
“What, Mdlle. Sophie!”
She threw herself, weeping, on to my neck.
“Each one has his destiny, my good Réné,” said she. “Mine is to suffer. I shall accomplish it.”
“Shall I always be your brother?” asked I, weeping myself.
“Ah, yes! And if ever I have need of you, I will show you that I am your sister, by coming to you for assistance.”
“Heaven guard you, Mdlle. Sophie,” cried I, withdrawing myself from her embrace.
“And you, also—heaven bless you, Réné!”
And I heard the sobs which followed these words even as far as the door which opened into the street.
I took my place at the door of the King’s carriage, making a signal to MM. Drouet and Guillaume, who were on horseback, with the intention of preceding the carriages, in order to make way for, and protect them.
What was M. de Bouillé doing at this time? We will tell you in the following chapter.
[187]