THE QUEEN'S HAIRDRESSER.
On the morning of the twenty-first of June, the Count of Choiseul, who
had notified the King that he could wait no longer but must pick up his
detachments along the road and fall back towards Bouille, who was also
at the end of his patience, was told that a messenger from the Queen was
at last at his house in Paris.
It was Leonard the Queen's hairdresser. He was a favorite who enjoyed
immense credit at the court, but the duke could wish for a more weighty
confidant. But how could the Queen go into exile without the artist who
alone could build up her hair into one of those towers which caused her
to be the envy of her sex and the stupefaction of the sterner one?
He was wearing a round hat pulled down to his eyes and an enormous
"wraprascal," which he explained were property of his brother. The
Queen, in confiding to him her jewels, had ordered him to disguise
himself, and placed himself under the command of Choiseul. Not only
verbal was this direction but in a note which the duke read and burned.
He ordered a cab to be made ready. When the servant reported it at the
door, he said to the hairdresser:
"Come, my dear Leonard."
"But where?"
"A little way out of town where your art is required."
"But the diamonds?"
"Bring them along."
"But my brother will come home and see I have taken his best hat and
overcoat--he will wonder what has become of me."
"Let him wonder! Did not the Queen bid you obey me as herself?"
"True, but Lady Ange will be expecting me to do up her hair. Nobody can
make anything of her scanty wisp but me, and----"
"Lady Ange must wait till her hair grows again."
Without paying farther heed to his lamentations, the lord forced him
into his cab and the horse started off at a fast gait. When they stopped
to renew the horse, he believed they were going to the world's end,
though the duke confessed that their destination was the frontier.
At Montmirail they were to pass the balance of the night, and indeed
at the inn beds were ready. Leonard began to feel better, in pride at
having been chosen for such an important errand.
At eleven they reached Sommevelle Bridge, where Choiseul got out to put
on his uniform. His hussars had not yet arrived.
Leonard watched his preparations, particularly his freshening the pistol
primings, with sharp disquiet and heaved sighs which touched the hearer.
"It is time to let you into the truth, Leonard; you are true to your
masters so you may as well know that they will be here in a couple of
hours. The King, the Queen, Lady Elizabeth, and the royal children. You
know what dangers they were running, and dangers they are running still,
but in two hours they will be saved. I am awaiting a hussar detachment
to be brought by Lieut. Goguelat. We will have dinner and take our time
over it."
But they heard the bugle and the hussars arrived. Goguelat brought six
blank royal warrants and the order from Bouille for Choiseul to be
obeyed like himself by all military officers, whatever their ranking
seniority.
The horses were hobbled, wine and eatables served out to the troopers
and Choiseuil sat at table.
Not that the lieutenant's news was good. He had found ferment everywhere
along the road. For more than a year rumors of the King's flight had
circulated as well in the country as in town, and the stationing of the
soldiers had aroused talk. In one township the village church bells had
sounded the alarm.
This was calculated to dull even a Choiseuil's appetite. So he got up
from the board in an hour, as the clock struck half after twelve, and
leaving Lieut. Boudet to rule the troop of horse, he went out on a hill
by the town entrance which commanded a good view. Every five minutes
he pulled out his watch, and, each time, Leonard groaned: "Oh, my poor
masters, they will not come. Something bad has happened them."
His despair added to the duke's disquiet.
Three o'clock came without any tidings. It will be remembered that this
was the hour when the King left Chalons.
While Choiseul was fretting, Fatality, unless Cagliostro had a hand in
it, was preparing an event which had much to do with influencing the
drama in course of performance.
A few days before, some peasants on the Duchess of Elboeuf's estate,
near Sommevelle Bridge, had refused payment of some unredeemable taxes.
They were threatened with the sheriff calling in the military; but
the Federation business had done its work and the inhabitants of the
neighborhood vowed to make common cause with their brothers of the plow
and came armed to resist the process-servers.
On seeing the hussars ride in, the clowns thought that they were here
for this purpose. So they sent runners to the surrounding villages and
at three o'clock the alarm-bells were booming all over the country.
Choiseul went back on hearing this and found Lieut. Boudet uneasy.
Threats were heard against the hussars who were the best hated corps in
the army. The crowd bantered them and sang a song at them which was made
for the occasion:
"Than the hussars there is no worse,
But we don't care for them a curse!"
Other persons, better informed or keener, began to whisper that the
cavalry were here not to execute a writ on the Elboeuf tillers but to
wait for the King and Queen coming through.
Meanwhile four o'clock struck without any courier with intelligence.
The count put Leonard in his cab with the diamonds, and sent him on
to Varennes, with order to say all he could to the commanders of each
military troop on the road.
To calm the agitation he informed the mob that he and his company were
there not to assist the sheriff, but to guard a treasure which the
War Minister was sending along. This word "treasure," with its double
meaning, confirmed suspicions on one side while allaying irritability on
the other. In a short time he saw that his men were so outnumbered and
as hedged in that they could do nothing in such a mass, and would have
been powerless to protect the Royal Family if they came then.
His orders were to "act so that the King's carriage should pass without
hindrance," while his presence was becoming an obstacle instead of
protection.
Even had the King came up he had better be out of the way. Indeed his
departure would remove the block from the highway. But he needed an
excuse for the going.
The postmaster was there among half-a-dozen leading citizens whom a word
would turn into active foes. He was close to Choiseul who inquired:
"My friend, did you hear anything about this military money-chest coming
through?"
"This very morning," replied the man, "the stage-coach came along for
Metz with a hundred thousand crowns; two gendarmes rode with it."
"You don't say so?" cried the nobleman, amazed at luck so befriending
him.
"It is so true that I was one of the escort," struck in a gendarme.
"Then the Minister preferred that way of transmitting the cash," said
Choiseul, turning to his lieutenant, quietly, "and we were sent only as
a blind to highwaymen. As we are no longer needed, I think we can be
off. Boot and saddle, my men!"
The troop marched out with trumpets sounding and the count at the head
as the clock struck half-past five.
He branched off the road to avoid St. Menehould, where great hubbub was
reported to prevail.
At this very instant, Isidore Charny, spurring and whipping a horse
which had taken two hours to cover four leagues, dashed up to the
posthouse to get another; asking about a squad of hussars he was told
that it had marched slowly out of the place a quarter of an hour before;
leaving orders about the horses for the carriage, he rode off at full
speed of the fresh steed, hoping to overtake the count.
Choiseul had taken the side road precisely as Isidore arrived at the
post, so that the viscount never met him.