The New Berline.
But scouts all this while and aide-de-camps, have flown forth
faster than the leathern Diligences. Young Romœuf, as we said,
was off early towards Valenciennes: distracted Villagers seize
him, as a traitor with a finger of his own in the plot; drag him
back to the Townhall; to the National Assembly, which speedily
grants a new passport. Nay now, that same scarecrow of an
Herb-merchant with his ass has bethought him of the grand new
Berline seen in the Wood of Bondy; and delivered evidence of
it:[382] Romœuf, furnished with new passport, is sent forth with
double speed on a hopefuller track; by Bondy, Claye, and Châlons,
towards Metz, to track the new Berline; and gallops _à franc
étrier_.
Miserable new Berline! Why could not Royalty go in some old
Berline similar to that of other men? Flying for life, one does
not stickle about his vehicle. Monsieur, in a commonplace
travelling-carriage is off Northwards; Madame, his Princess, in
another, with variation of route: they cross one another while
changing horses, without look of recognition; and reach Flanders,
no man questioning them. Precisely in the same manner, beautiful
Princess de Lamballe set off, about the same hour; and will reach
England safe:—would she had continued there! The beautiful, the
good, but the unfortunate; reserved for a frightful end!
All runs along, unmolested, speedy, except only the new Berline.
Huge leathern vehicle;—huge Argosy, let us say, or Acapulco-ship;
with its heavy stern-boat of Chaise-and-pair; with its three
yellow Pilot-boats of mounted Bodyguard Couriers, rocking aimless
round it and ahead of it, to bewilder, not to guide! It lumbers
along, lurchingly with stress, at a snail’s pace; noted of all
the world. The Bodyguard Couriers, in their yellow liveries, go
prancing and clattering; loyal but stupid; unacquainted with all
things. Stoppages occur; and breakages to be repaired at Etoges.
King Louis too will dismount, will walk up hills, and enjoy the
blessed sunshine:—with eleven horses and double drink money, and
all furtherances of Nature and Art, it will be found that
Royalty, flying for life, accomplishes Sixty-nine miles in
Twenty-two incessant hours. Slow Royalty! And yet not a minute of
these hours but is precious: on minutes hang the destinies of
Royalty now.
Readers, therefore, can judge in what humour Duke de Choiseul
might stand waiting, in the Village of Pont-de-Sommevelle, some
leagues beyond Chalons, hour after hour, now when the day bends
visibly westward. Choiseul drove out of Paris, in all privity,
ten hours before their Majesties’ fixed time; his Hussars, led by
Engineer Goguelat, are here duly, come “to escort a Treasure that
is expected:” but, hour after hour, is no Baroness de Korff’s
Berline. Indeed, over all that North-east Region, on the skirts
of Champagne and of Lorraine, where the Great Road runs, the
agitation is considerable. For all along, from this
Pont-de-Sommevelle Northeastward as far as Montmédi, at
Post-villages and Towns, escorts of Hussars and Dragoons do
lounge waiting: a train or chain of Military Escorts; at the
Montmédi end of it our brave Bouillé: an electric thunder-chain;
which the invisible Bouillé, like a Father Jove, holds in his
hand—for wise purposes! Brave Bouillé has done what man could;
has spread out his electric thunder-chain of Military Escorts,
onwards to the threshold of Chalons: it waits but for the new
Korff Berline; to receive it, escort it, and, if need be, bear it
off in whirlwind of military fire. They lie and lounge there, we
say, these fierce Troopers; from Montmédi and Stenai, through
Clermont, Sainte-Menehould to utmost Pont-de-Sommevelle, in all
Post-villages; for the route shall avoid Verdun and great Towns:
they loiter impatient “till the Treasure arrive.”
Judge what a day this is for brave Bouillé: perhaps the first day
of a new glorious life; surely the last day of the old! Also, and
indeed still more, what a day, beautiful and terrible, for your
young full-blooded Captains: your Dandoins, Comte de Damas, Duke
de Choiseul, Engineer Goguelat, and the like; entrusted with the
secret!—Alas, the day bends ever more westward; and no Korff
Berline comes to sight. It is four hours beyond the time, and
still no Berline. In all Village-streets, Royalist Captains go
lounging, looking often Paris-ward; with face of unconcern, with
heart full of black care: rigorous Quartermasters can hardly keep
the private dragoons from _cafés_ and dramshops.[383] Dawn on our
bewilderment, thou new Berline; dawn on us, thou Sun-chariot of a
new Berline, with the destinies of France!
It was of His Majesty’s ordering, this military array of Escorts:
a thing solacing the Royal imagination with a look of security
and rescue; yet, in reality, creating only alarm, and where there
was otherwise no danger, danger without end. For each Patriot, in
these Post-villages, asks naturally: This clatter of cavalry, and
marching and lounging of troops, what means it? To escort a
Treasure? Why escort, when no Patriot will steal from the Nation;
or where is your Treasure?—There has been such marching and
counter-marching: for it is another fatality, that certain of
these Military Escorts came out so early as yesterday; the
Nineteenth not the Twentieth of the month being the day _first_
appointed, which her Majesty, for some necessity or other, saw
good to alter. And now consider the suspicious nature of
Patriotism; suspicious, above all, of Bouillé the Aristocrat; and
how the sour doubting humour has had leave to accumulate and
exacerbate for four-and-twenty hours!
At Pont-de-Sommevelle, these Forty foreign Hussars of Goguelat
and Duke Choiseul are becoming an unspeakable mystery to all men.
They lounged long enough, already, at Sainte-Menehould; lounged
and loitered till our National Volunteers there, all risen into
hot wrath of doubt, “demanded three hundred fusils of their
Townhall,” and got them. At which same moment too, as it chanced,
our Captain Dandoins was just coming in, from Clermont with _his_
troop, at the other end of the Village. A fresh troop; alarming
enough; though happily they are only Dragoons and French! So that
Goguelat with his Hussars had to ride, and even to do it fast;
till here at Pont-de-Sommevelle, where Choiseul lay waiting, he
found resting-place. Resting-place, as on burning marle. For the
rumour of him flies abroad; and men run to and fro in fright and
anger: Chalons sends forth exploratory pickets, coming from
Sainte-Menehould, on that. What is it, ye whiskered Hussars, men
of foreign guttural speech; in the name of Heaven, what is it
that brings you? A Treasure?—exploratory pickets shake their
heads. The hungry Peasants, however, know too well what Treasure
it is: Military seizure for rents, feudalities; which no Bailiff
could make us pay! This they know;—and set to jingling their
Parish-bell by way of tocsin; with rapid effect! Choiseul and
Goguelat, if the whole country is not to take fire, must needs,
be there Berline, be there no Berline, saddle and ride.
They mount; and this Parish tocsin happily ceases. They ride
slowly Eastward, towards Sainte-Menehould; still hoping the
Sun-Chariot of a Berline may overtake them. Ah me, no Berline!
And near now is that Sainte-Menehould, which expelled us in the
morning, with its “three hundred National fusils;” which looks,
belike, not too lovingly on Captain Dandoins and his fresh
Dragoons, though only French;—which, in a word, one dare not
enter the _second_ time, under pain of explosion! With rather
heavy heart, our Hussar Party strikes off to the left; through
byways, through pathless hills and woods, they, avoiding
Sainte-Menehould and all places which have seen them heretofore,
will make direct for the distant Village of Varennes. It is
probable they will have a rough evening-ride.
This first military post, therefore, in the long thunder-chain,
has gone off with no effect; or with worse, and your chain
threatens to entangle itself!—The Great Road, however, is got
hushed again into a kind of quietude, though one of the
wakefullest. Indolent Dragoons cannot, by any Quartermaster, be
kept altogether from the dramshop; where Patriots drink, and will
even treat, eager enough for news. Captains, in a state near
distraction, beat the dusky highway, with a face of indifference;
and no Sun-Chariot appears. Why lingers it? Incredible, that with
eleven horses and such yellow Couriers and furtherances, its rate
should be under the weightiest dray-rate, some three miles an
hour! Alas, one knows not whether it ever even got out of
Paris;—and yet also one knows not whether, this very moment, it
is not at the Village-end! One’s heart flutters on the verge of
unutterabilities.