STOP, KING!
With Isidore riding before it, the royal conveyance flew over the road
between St. Menehould and Clermont.
Night was falling; the coach entered Argonne Forest crossing the
highway.
The Queen had noticed the absence of Charny, but she could not slacken
the pace or question the postboys. She did lean out a dozen times but
she discovered nothing.
At half-past nine they reached Clermont, four leagues covered. Count
Damas was waiting outside the place as he had been warned by Leonard and
he stopped Isidore on recognizing his livery.
"You are Charles de Damas? well; I am preceding the King. Get your
dragoons in hand and escort the carriage."
"My lord," replied the count, "such a breath of discontent is blowing
that I am alarmed, and must confess that my men cannot be answered for,
if they recognize the King. All I can promise is that I will fall in
behind when he gets by, and bar the road."
"Do your best--here they come!"
He pointed to the carriage rushing through the darkness and visible by
the sparks from the horses' shoes.
Isidore's duty was to ride ahead and get the relays ready. In five
minutes, he stopped at the posthouse door.
Almost at the same time, Damas rode up with half-a-dozen dragoons, and
the King's coach came next. It had followed Isidore so closely that he
had not had time to remount. Without being showy it was so large and
well built that a great crowd gathered to see it.
Damas stood by the door to prevent the passengers being studied. But
neither the King nor the Queen could master their desire to learn what
was going on.
"Is that you, Count Damas?" asked the King. "Why are not your dragoons
under arms?"
"Sire, your Majesty is five hours behind time. My troop has been in the
saddle since four P. M. I have kept as quiet as possible but the town
is getting fretful; and my men want to know what is the matter. If the
excitement comes to a head before your Majesty is off again, the alarm
bell will be rung and the road will be blocked. So I have kept only
a dozen men ready and sent the others into quarters; but I have the
trumpeters in my rooms so as to sound the Boot-and-Saddle at the first
call. Your Majesty sees that all was for the best for the road is free."
"Very well; you have acted like a prudent man, my lord," said the King;
"when I am gone, get your men together and follow me closely."
"Sire, will you kindly hear what Viscount Charny has to say?" asked the
Queen.
"What has he to say?" said the King, fretfully.
"That you were recognised by the St. Menehould postmaster's son, who
compared your face with the likeness on the new paper money; his brother
the count stayed behind to watch this fellow, and no doubt something
serious is happening as he has not rejoined us."
"If we were recognized, the more reason to hurry. Viscount, urge on the
postboys and ride on before."
Isidore's horse was ready. He dashed on, shouting to the postillions:
"The Varennes Road!" and led the vehicle, which rattled off with
lightning speed.
Damas thought of following with his handful but he had positive orders
and as the town was in commotion--lights appearing at windows and
persons running from door to door--he thought only of one thing: to stop
the alarm bell. He ran to the church tower and set a guard on the door.
But all seemed to calm down. A messenger arrived from Dandoins, to say
that he and his dragoons were detained at St. Menehould by the people;
besides--as Damas already knew--Drouet had ridden off to pursue the
carriage which he had probably failed to catch up with, as they had not
seen him at Clermont.
Then came a hussar orderly, from Commandant Rohrig, at Varennes with
Count Bouille and another. He was a young officer of twenty who was not
in the knowledge of the plot but was told a treasure was in question.
Uneasy at time going by they wanted to know what news Damas could give.
All was quiet with them and on the road the hussar had passed the royal
carriage.
"All's well," thought Count Damas, going home to bid his bugler sound
"Boot and Saddle!"
All was therefore going for the best, except for the St. Menehould
incident, by which Dandoins' thirty dragoons were locked up.
But Damas could dispense with them from having a hundred and forty.
Returning to the King's carriage, it was on the road to Varennes.
This place is composed of an upper and a lower town; the relay of horses
was to be ready beyond the town, on the farther side of the bridge and
a vaulted passage, where a stoppage would be bad.
Count Jules Bouille and Raigecourt were to guard these horses and Charny
was to guide the party through the daedalus of streets. He had spent a
fortnight in Varennes and had studied and jotted down every point; not a
lane but was familiar, not a boundary post but he knew it.
Unfortunately Charny was not to the fore.
Hence the Queen's anxiety doubled. Something grave must have befallen
him to keep him remote when he knew how much he was wanted.
The King grew more distressed, too, as he had so reckoned on Charny that
he had not brought away the plan of the town.
Besides the night was densely dark--not a star scintillated.
It was easy to go wrong in a known place, still more a strange one.
Isidore's orders from his brother was to stop before the town.
Here his brother was to change horses and take the lead.
He was as troubled as the Queen herself at this absence. His hope was
that Bouille and Raigecourt in their eagerness would come out to meet
the Royal party: they must have learnt the site during three days and
would do as guides.
Consequently on reaching the base of the hill, seeing a few lights
sparkling over the town, Isidore pulled up irresolutely, and cast a
glance around to try and pierce the murkiness. He saw nothing.
He ventured to call in a low voice, but louder and louder, for the
officers; but no reply came.
He heard the rumbling of the stage coming along at a quarter of a league
off, like a thunder peal.
Perhaps the officers were hiding in the woods which he explored along
the skirts without meeting a soul.
He had no alternative but to wait.
In five minutes the carriage came up, and the heads of the royal couple
were thrust out of the windows.
"Have you seen Count Charny?" both asked simultaneously.
"I have not, Sire," was the response: "and I judge that some hurt has
met him in the chase of that confounded Drouet."
The Queen groaned.
"What can be done?" inquired the King who found that nobody knew the
place.
"Sire," said the viscount, "all is silent and appears quiet. Please your
Majesty, wait ten minutes. I will go into the town, and try to get news
of Count Bouille or at least of the Choiseul horses."
He darted towards the houses.
The nearest had opened at the approach of the vehicles, and light was
perceptible through the chink of the door.
The Queen got out, leant on Malden's arm and walked up to this dwelling:
but the door closed at their drawing near. Malden had time to dash up
and give it a shove which overpowered the resistance. The man who had
attempted to shut it was in his fiftieth year; he wore a night gown and
slippers.
It was not without astonishment that he was pushed into his own house by
a gentleman who had a lady on his arm. He started when he cast a rapid
glance at the latter.
"What do you want?" he challenged Malden.
"We are strangers to Varennes, and we beg you to point out the Stenay
road."
"But if I give you the information, and it is known, I will be a ruined
man."
"Whatever the risk, sir," said the Lifeguardsman, "it will be kindness
to a lady who is in a dangerous position----"
"Yes, but this is a great lady--it is the Queen," he whispered to the
sham courier.
The Queen pulled Malden back.
"Before going farther, let the King know that I am recognized," she
said.
Malden took but a second to run this errand and he brought word that the
King wanted to see this careful man.
He kicked off his slippers with a sigh, and went on tiptoe out to the
vehicle.
"Your name, sir?" demanded the King.
"I am Major Prefontaine of the cavalry, and Knight of the St. Louis
Order."
"In both capacities you have sworn fealty to me: it is doubly your duty
therefore to help me in this quandary."
"Certainly: but will your Majesty please be quick about it lest I am
seen," faltered the major.
"All the better if you are seen," interposed Malden; "you will never
have a finer chance to do your duty."
Not appearing to be of this opinion, the major gave a groan. The Queen
shook her shoulders with scorn and stamped with impatience.
The King waved his hand to appease her and said to the lukewarm
royalist:
"Sir, did you hear by chance of soldiers waiting for a carriage to come
through, and have you seen any hussars lately about?"
"They are on the other side of the town, Sire; the horses are at the
Great Monarch inn and the soldiers probably in the barracks."
"I thank you, sir; nobody has seen you and you will probably have
nothing happen you."
He gave his hand to the Queen to help her into the vehicle, and issued
orders for the start to be made again.
But as the couriers shouted "To the Monarch Inn!" a shadowy horseman
loomed up in the woods and darted crosswise on the road, shouting:
"Postboys, not a step farther! You are driving the fleeing King. In the
name of the Nation, I bid ye stand!"
"The King," muttered the postillions, who had gathered up the reins.
Louis XVI. saw that it was a vital instant.
"Who are you, sir, to give orders here?" he demanded.
"A plain citizen, but I represent the law and I speak in the name of the
Nation. Postillions, I order you a second time not to stir. You know me
well: I am Jean Baptiste Drouet, son of the postmaster at St.
Menehould."
"The scoundrel, it is he," shouted the two Lifeguardsmen, drawing their
hunting-swords.
But before they could alight, the other had dashed away into the Lower
Town streets.
"Oh, what has become of Charny?" murmured the Queen.
Fatality had ridden at the count's knee.
Dandoins' horse was a good racer but Drouet had twenty minute's start.
Charny dug in the spurs, and the bounding horse blew steam from his
nostrils as it darted off. Without knowing that he was pursued,
Drouet tore along, but he rode an ordinary nag while the other was a
thoroughbred.
The result was that at a league's end the pursuer gained a third.
Thereupon the postmaster's son saw that he was chased and redoubled
his efforts to keep beyond the hunter. At the end of the second league
Charny saw that he had gained in the same proportion, while the other
turned to watch him with more and more uneasiness.
Drouet had gone off in such haste that he had forgotten to arm himself.
The young patriot did not dread death, but he feared being stopped
in his mission of arresting the King, whereupon he would lose the
opportunity of making his name famous.
He had still two leagues to go before reaching Clermont, but it was
evident that he would be overtaken at the end of the first league, that
is, the third, from his leaving St. Menehould.
As if to stimulate his ardor, he was sure that the royal carriage was in
front of him.
He laid on the lash and drove in the spurs more cruelly.
It was half after nine and night fell.
He was but three quarters of a league from Clermont but Charny was only
two hundred paces away.
Drouet knew Varennes was not a posting station and he surmised that the
King would have to go through Verdun. He began to despair; before he
caught up with the King he would be seized. He would have to give up the
pursuit or turn to fight his pursuer and he was unarmed.
Suddenly, when Charny was not fifty paces from him, he met postillions
returning with the unharnessed horses. Drouet recognized them as those
who had ridden the royal horses.
"They took the Verdun Road, eh?" he called out as he forged past them.
"No, the Varennes Road," they shouted.
He roared with delight. He was saved and the King lost!
Instead of the long way he had a short cut to make. He knew all about
Argonne Woods into which he flung himself: by cutting through, he would
gain a quarter of an hour over the King, besides being shielded by the
darkness under the trees.
Charny, who knew the ground almost as well as the young man, understood
that he would escape him and he howled with rage.
"Stop, stop!" he shouted out to Drouet, as he at the same time urged his
horse also on the short level separating the road from the woods.
But Drouet took good care not to reply: he bent down on his horse's
neck, inciting him with whip and spur and voice. All he wanted was to
reach the thicket--he would be safe there.
He could do it, but he had to run the gauntlet of Charny at ten paces.
He seized one of the horse-pistols and levelled it.
"Stop!" he called out again, "or you are a dead man."
Drouet only leaned over the more and pressed on. The royalist pulled the
trigger but the flint on the hammer only shot sparks from the pan: he
furiously flung the weapon at the flyer, took out the other of the pair
and plunging into the woods after him, shot again at the dark-form--but
once more the hammer fell uselessly; neither pistol was loaded.
It was then he remembered that Dandoins had called out something to him
which he had heard imperfectly.
"I made a mistake in the horse," he said, "and no doubt what he shouted
was that the pistols were not charged. Never mind, I will catch this
villain, and strangle him with my own hands if needs must."
He took up the pursuit of the shadow which he just descried in the
obscurity. But he had hardly gone a hundred paces in the forest before
his horse broke down in the ditch: he was thrown over its head; rising
he pulled it up and got into the seat again but Drouet was out of sight.
Thus it was that he escaped Charny, and swept like a phantom over the
road to bid the King's conductors to make not another step.
They obeyed, for he had conjured them in the name of the Nation,
beginning to be more mighty than the King's.
Scarcely had he dived into the Lower Town and the sound of his horse
lessened before they heard that of another coming nearer.
Isidore appeared by the same street as Drouet had taken.
His information agreed with that furnished by Major Prefontaine. The
horses were beyond the town at the Monarch Hotel.
Lieutenant Rohrig had the hussars at the barracks.
But instead of filling them with joy by his news he found the party
plunged into the deepest stupor. Prefontaine was wailing and the two
Lifeguardsmen threatening someone unseen.
"Did not a rider go by you at a gallop?"
"Yes, Sire."
"The man was Drouet," said the King.
"Then my brother is dead," ejaculated Isidore with a deep pang at the
heart.
The Queen uttered a shriek and buried her face in her hands.