THE FLIGHT.
1791
Increasing excitement.--Inflammatory speech of Marat.--The king and
queen resolve to fly.--Effort's of the king's brother.--Exasperation
of the people.--Intention of the king.--Deliberations of the
emigrants.--Dangers thicken.--The plan of flight.--The Marquis
de Bouille.--The king refuses to change his plan.--The Marquis
d'Agoult.--The Count de Fersen.--His noble character.--The king and
queen leave the palace.--The queen loses her way.--Departure from
Paris.--Arrival at Bondy.--Departure of the Count de Fersen.--The
passport.--Appearance of the fugitives.--An accident.--The journey
renewed.--Emotions of the fugitives.--Suspicions excited.--Failure
of the guard.--The king recognized.--The dragoons and National
Guard.--The post-master's son.--He forms an ambush.--Arrival at
Varennes.--Alarm of the king.--The royal family arrested.--The alarm
given.--The king discovers himself.--His affecting appeal.--An
affecting scene.--The royal group.--Appeal of the queen.--Telegraphic
dispatch to Paris.--Intense agony of the queen.--Consternation in
Paris.--The palace forced.--Insults to the royal family.--Measures
to arrest the king.--The tumult subsides.
The ferment in the National Assembly was steadily and strongly
increasing. Every day brought new rumors of the preparation of the
emigrants to invade France, aided by the armies of monarchical Europe,
and to desolate the rebellious empire with fire and sword. Tidings were
floating upon every breeze, grossly exaggerated, of the designs of the
king and queen to escape, to join the avenging army, and to wreak a
terrible vengeance upon their country. Furious speeches were made in the
Assembly and in the streets, to rouse to madness the people, now
destitute of work and of bread. "Citizens," ferociously exclaimed Marat,
"watch, with an eagle eye, that palace, the impenetrable den where plots
are ripening against the people. There a perfidious queen lords it over
a treacherous king, and rears the cubs of tyranny. Lawless priests there
consecrate the arms which are to be bathed in the blood of the people.
The genius of Austria is there, guided by the Austrian Antoinette. The
emigrants are there stimulated in their thirst for vengeance. Every
night the nobility, with concealed daggers, steal into this den. They
are knights of the poniard--assassins of the people. Why is not the
property of emigrants confiscated--their houses burned--a price set upon
their heads? The king is ready for flight. Watch! watch! a great blow is
preparing--is ready to burst; if you do not prevent it by a counter blow
more sudden, more terrible, the people and liberty are annihilated."
The king and queen, in the apartments where they were virtually
imprisoned, read these angry and inflammatory appeals, and both now felt
that no further time was to be lost in attempting to effect their
escape. It was known that the brother of the king, subsequently Charles
X., was going from court to court in Europe, soliciting aid for the
rescue of the illustrious prisoners. It was known that the King of
Austria, brother of Maria Antoinette, had promised to send an army of
thirty-five thousand men to unite with the emigrants at Coblentz in
their march upon Paris. Every monarch in Europe was alarmed, in view of
the instability of his own throne, should the rebellion of the people
against the throne in France prove triumphant; and Spain, Prussia,
Sardinia, Naples, and Switzerland had guaranteed equal forces to assist
in the re-establishment of the French monarchy. It is not strange that
the exasperation of the people should have been aroused, by the
knowledge of these facts, beyond all bounds. And their leaders were
aware that they were engaged in a conflict in which defeat was
inevitable death.
The king had now resolved, if possible, to escape. He, however, declared
that it never was his intention to join the emigrants and invade France
with a foreign force. That, on the contrary, he strongly disapproved of
the measures adopted by the emigrants as calculated only to increase the
excitement against the throne, and to peril his cause. He declared that
it was only his wish to escape from the scenes of violence, insult, and
danger to which he was exposed in Paris, and somewhere on the frontiers
of his kingdom to surround himself by his loyal subjects, and there
endeavor amicably to adjust the difficulties which desolated the empire.
The character of the king renders it most probable that such was his
intention, and such has been the verdict of posterity.
But there was another source of embarrassment which extremely troubled
the royal family. The emigrants were deliberating upon the expediency of
declaring the throne vacant by default of the king's liberty, and to
nominate his brother M. le Comte d'Artois regent in his stead. The king
greatly feared this moral forfeiture of the throne with which he was
menaced under the pretense of delivering him. He was justly apprehensive
that the advance of an invading army, under the banners of his brother,
would be the signal for the immediate destruction of himself and family.
Flight, consequently, had become his only refuge; and flight was
encompassed with the most fearful perils. Long and agonizing were the
months of deliberation in which the king and queen saw these dangers
hourly accumulating around them, while each day the vigilance of their
enemies were redoubled, and the chances of escape diminished.
The following plan was at last adopted for the flight. The royal family
were to leave Paris at midnight in disguise, in two carriages, for
Montmedy, on the frontiers of France and Germany, about two hundred
miles from Paris. This town was within the limits of France, so that
the king could not be said to have fled from his kingdom. The nearest
road and the great public thoroughfare led through the city of Rheims;
but, as the king had been crowned there, he feared that he might meet
some one by whom he would be recognized, and he therefore determined to
take a more circuitous route, by by-roads and through small and
unfrequented villages. Relays of horses were to be privately conveyed to
all these villages, that the carriages might be drawn on with the
greatest rapidity, and small detachments of soldiers were to be
stationed at important posts, to resist any interruption which might
possibly be attempted by the peasantry. The king also had a large
carriage built privately, expressly for himself and his family, while
certain necessary attendants were to follow in another.
The Marquis de Bouille, who commanded a portion of the troops still
faithful to the king, was the prime confidant and helper in this
movement. He earnestly, but in vain, endeavored to induce the king to
make some alterations in this plan. He entreated him, in the first
place, not to excite suspicion by the use of a peculiar carriage
constructed for his own use, but to make use of common carriages such as
were daily seen traversing the roads. He also besought him to travel by
the common high way, where relays of horses were at all times ready by
night and by day. He represented to the king that, should he take the
unfrequented route, it would be necessary to send relays of horses
beforehand to all these little villages; that so unusual an occurrence
would attract attention and provoke inquiry. He urged also upon the king
that detachments of troops sent along these solitary roads would excite
curiosity, and would inevitably create suspicion. The king, however,
self-willed, refused to heed these remonstrances, and persisted in his
own plan. He, however, consented to take with him the Marquis d'Agoult,
a man of great firmness and energy, to advise and assist in the
unforeseen accidents which might embarrass the enterprise. He also
reluctantly consented to ask the Emperor of Austria to make a
threatening movement toward the frontier, which would be an excuse for
the movement through these villages of detachments of French troops.
These arrangements made, the Marquis de Bouille sent a faithful officer
to take an accurate survey of the road, and present a report to the
king. He then, under various pretexts, removed to a distance those
troops who were known to be disaffected to the royal cause, and
endeavored to gather along the line of flight those in whose loyalty
he thought he could confide.
At the palace of the Tuileries, the secret of the contemplated flight
had been confided only to the king, the queen, the Princess Elizabeth,
sister of the king, and two or three faithful attendants. The Count de
Fersen, a most noble-spirited young gentleman from Sweden, most
cheerfully periled his life in undertaking the exterior arrangements of
this hazardous enterprise. He had often been admitted, in the happy days
of Maria Antoinette, to the parties and fetes which lent wings to the
hours at the Little Trianon, and chivalrous admiration of her person and
character induced him to consecrate himself with the most passionate
devotion to her cause. Three soldiers of the body-guard, Valorg,
Monstrei, and Maldan, were also received into confidence, and
unhesitatingly engaged in an enterprise in which success was extremely
problematical, and failure was certain death. They, disguised as
servants, were to mount behind the carriages, and protect the royal
family at all risks.
The night of the 20th of June at length arrived, and the hearts of the
royal inmates of the Tuileries throbbed violently as the hour approached
which was to decide their destiny. At the hour of eleven, according to
their custom, they took leave of those friends who were in the habit
of paying their respects to them at that time, and dismissed their
attendants as if to retire to their beds. As soon as they were alone,
they hastily, and with trembling hands, dressed themselves in the
disguises which had been prepared for their journey, and by different
doors and at different times left the palace. It was the dark hour of
midnight. The lights glimmered feebly from the lamps, but still there
was the bustle of crowds coming and going in those ever-busy streets.
The queen, in her traveling dress, leaning upon the arm of one of the
body-guard, and leading her little daughter Maria Theresa by the hand,
passed out at a door in the rear of the palace, and hastened through the
Place du Carrousel, and, losing her way, crossed the Seine by the Pont
Royal, and wandered for some time through the darkest and most obscure
streets before she found the two hackney-coaches which were waiting for
them at the Quai des Theatins. The king left the palace in a similar
manner, leading his son Louis by the hand. He also lost his way in the
unfrequented streets through which it was necessary for him to pass. The
queen waited for half an hour in the most intense anxiety before the
king arrived. At last, however, all were assembled, and, entering the
hackney-coaches, the Count de Fersen, disguised as a coachman, leaped up
on the box, and the wheels rattled over the pavements of the city as the
royal family fled in this obscurity from their palace and their throne.
The emotions excited in the bosoms of the illustrious fugitives were too
intense, and the perils to which they were exposed too dreadful, to
allow of any conversation. Grasping each other's hands, they sat in
silence through the dark hours, with the gloomy remembrance of the past
oppressing their spirits, and with the dread that the light of morning
might introduce them to new disasters. A couple of hours of silence and
gloom passed slowly away, and the coaches arrived at Bondy, the first
stage from Paris. The gray dawn of the morning was just appearing in the
east as they hurriedly changed their coaches for the large traveling
carriage the king had ordered and another coach which there awaited
them. Count de Fersen kissed the hands of the king and queen, and
leaving them, according to previous arrangements, with their attendants,
hastened the same night by another route to Brussels, in order to rejoin
the royal family at a later period.
The king's carriages now rolled rapidly on toward Chalons, an important
town on their route. The queen had assumed the title and character of a
German baroness returning to Frankfort with her two children; the king
was her valet de chambre, the Princess Elizabeth, the king's sister, was
her waiting-maid. The passport was made out in the following manner:
"Permit to pass Madame the Baroness of Korf, who is
returning to Frankfort with her two children, her
waiting-maid, her valet de chambre, and three domestics.
"The Minister of Foreign Affairs.
"MONTMORIN."
At each post-house on the road relays of eight horses were waiting for
the royal carriages. When the sun rose over the hills of France they
were already many leagues from the capital, and as the carriages rattled
furiously along over hill and dale, the unwonted spectacle on that
unfrequented road attracted much attention. At every little village
where they stopped for an exchange of horses, the villagers gathered in
groups around the carriages, admiring the imposing spectacle. The king
was fully aware that the knowledge of his escape could not long be
concealed from the authorities at Paris, and that all the resources of
his foes would immediately be put into requisition to secure his arrest.
They therefore pressed on with the utmost speed, that they might get as
far as possible on their way before the pursuit should commence. The
remarkable size and structure of the carriage which the king had caused
to be constructed, the number of horses drawing the carriages, the
martial figures and commanding features of the three body-guard
strangely contrasting with the livery of menials, the portly appearance
and kingly countenance of Louis, who sat in a corner of the carriage in
the garb of a valet de chambre, all these circumstances conspired to
excite suspicion and to magnify the dangers of the royal family. They,
however, proceeded without interruption until they arrived at the little
town of Montmirail, near Chalons, where, unfortunately, one of the
carriages broke down, and they were detained an hour in making repairs.
It was an hour of intense anxiety, for they knew that every moment was
increasing the probability of their capture. The carriage, however, was
repaired, and they started again on their flight. The sun shone brightly
upon the fields, which were blooming in all the verdure of the opening
summer. The seclusion of the region through which they were passing was
enchanting to their eyes, weary of looking out upon the tumultuous mobs
of Paris. The children, worn out by the exhaustion of a sleepless night,
were peacefully slumbering in their parents' arms. Each revolution of
the wheels was bringing them nearer to the frontier, where their
faithful friend, M. de Bouille, was waiting, with his loyal troops, to
receive them. A gleam of hope and joy now rose in their bosoms; and, as
they entered the town of Chalons, at half past three o'clock in the
afternoon, smiles of joy lighted their countenances, and they began to
congratulate themselves that they were fast approaching the end of their
dangers and their sufferings. As the horses were changing, a group
of idlers gathered around the carriages. The king, emboldened by his
distance from the capital, imprudently looked out at the window of the
carriage. The post-master, who had been in Paris, instantly recognized
the king. He, however, without the manifestation of the least surprise,
aided in harnessing the horses, and ordered the postillion to drive on.
He would not be an accomplice in arresting the escape of the king. At
the next relay, at Point Sommeville, quite a concourse gathered around
the carriages, and the populace appeared uneasy and suspicious. They
watched the travelers very narrowly, and were observed to be whispering
with one another, and making ominous signs. No one, however, ventured to
make any movement to detain the carriages, and they proceeded on their
way. A detachment of fifty hussars had been appointed to meet the king
at this spot. They were there at the assigned moment. The breaking down
of the carriage, however, detained the king, and the hussars, observing
the suspicions their presence was awaking, departed half an hour before
the arrival of the carriages. Had the king arrived but one half hour
sooner, the safety of the royal family would have been secured. The king
was surprised and alarmed at not meeting the guard he had anticipated,
and drove rapidly on to the next relay at Sainte Menehould. It was now
half past seven o'clock of a beautiful summer's evening. The sun was
just sinking below the horizon, but the broad light still lingered upon
the valleys and the hills. As they were changing the horses, the king,
alarmed at not meeting the friends he expected, put his head out of the
window to see if any friend was there who could inform him why the
detachments were detained. The son of the post-master instantly
recognized the king by his resemblance to the imprint upon the coins in
circulation. The report was immediately whispered about among the crowd,
but there was not sufficient force, upon the spur of the moment, to
venture to detain the carriages. There was in the town a detachment of
troops, friendly to the king, who would immediately have come to his
rescue had the people attempted to arrest him. It was whispered among
the dragoons that the king was in the carriage, and the commandant
immediately ordered the troops to mount their horses and follow to
protect the royal family; but the National Guard in the place, far more
numerous, surrounded the barracks, closed the stables, and would not
allow the soldiers to depart. The king, entirely unconscious of these
movements, was pursuing his course toward the next relay. Young Drouet,
however, the post-master's son, had immediately, upon recognizing the
king, saddled his fleetest horse, and started at his utmost speed for
the post-house at Varennes, that he might, before the king's arrival,
inform the municipal authorities of his suspicions, and collect a
sufficient force to detain the travelers. One of the dragoons,
witnessing the precipitate departure of Drouet, and suspecting its
cause, succeeded in mounting his horse, and pursued him, resolved to
overtake him, and either detain him until the king had passed, or take
his life. Drouet, however, perceiving that he was pursued, plunged into
the wood, with every by-path of which he was familiar, and, in the
darkness of the night, eluded his pursuer, and arrived at Varennes, by a
very much shorter route than the carriage road, nearly two hours before
the king. He immediately communicated to a band of young men his
suspicions, and they, emulous of the glory of arresting their sovereign,
did not inform the authorities or arouse the populace, but, arming
themselves, they formed an ambush to seize the persons of the travelers.
It was half past seven o'clock of a cold, dark, and gloomy night, when
the royal family, exhausted with twenty-four hours of incessant anxiety
and fatigue, arrived at the few straggling houses in the outskirts of
the village of Varennes. They there confidently expected to find an
escort and a relay of horses provided by their careful friend, M.
Bouille.
A small river passes through the little town of Varennes, dividing
it into two portions, the upper and lower town, which villages
are connected by a bridge crossing the stream. The king, by some
misunderstanding, expected to find the relay upon the side of the river
before crossing the bridge. But the fresh horses had been judiciously
placed upon the other side of the river, so that the carriages, having
crossed the bridge at full speed, could more easily, with a change of
horses, hasten unmolested on their way. The king and queen, greatly
alarmed at finding no horses, left the carriage, and wandered about in
sad perplexity for half an hour, through the dark, silent, and deserted
streets. In most painful anxiety, they returned to their carriages, and
decided to cross the river, hoping to find the horses and their friends
in the upper town. The bridge was a narrow stone structure, with its
entrance surmounted by a gloomy, massive arch, upon which was reared
a tower, a relic of the feudal system, which had braved the storms of
centuries. Here, under this dark archway, Drouet and his companions had
formed their ambuscade. The horses had hardly entered the gloomy pass,
when they were stopped by a cart which had been overturned, and five or
six armed men, seizing their heads, ordered the travelers to alight and
exhibit their passports. The three body-guard seized their arms, and
were ready to sacrifice their lives in the attempt to force the passage,
but the king would allow no blood to be shed. The horses were turned
round by the captors, and the carriages were escorted by Drouet and his
comrades to the door of a grocer named Sausse, who was the humble mayor
of this obscure town. At the same time, some of the party rushed to the
church, mounted the belfry, and rang the alarm bell. The solemn booming
of that midnight bell roused the affrighted inhabitants from their
pillows, and soon the whole population was gathered around the carriages
and about the door of the grocer's shop. It was in vain for the king to
deny his rank. His marked features betrayed him. Clamor and confusion
filled the night air. Men, women, and children were running to and fro;
the populace were arming, to be prepared for any emergency; and the
royal family were worn out by sleeplessness and toil. At last Louis
made a bold appeal to the magnanimity of his foes. Taking the hand of
Sausse, he said,
"Yes! I am your king, and in your hands I place my destiny, and that
of my wife, my sister, and my children. Our lives and the fate of the
empire depend upon you. Permit me to continue my journey. I have no
design of leaving the country. I am but going to the midst of a part of
the army, and in a French town, to regain my real liberty, of which the
factions at Paris deprive me. From thence I wish to make terms with the
Assembly, who, like myself, are held in subjection through fear. I am
not about to destroy, but to save and to secure the Constitution. If you
detain me, I myself, France, all, are lost. I conjure you, as a father,
as a man, as a citizen, leave the road free to us. In an hour we shall
be saved, and with us France is saved. And, if you have any respect for
one whom you profess to regard as your master, I command you, as your
king, to permit us to depart."
[Illustration: CAPTURE AT VARENNES.]
The appeal touched the heart of the grocer and the captors by whom
the king was surrounded. Tears came into the eyes of many, they
hesitated; the expression of their countenances showed that they would
willingly, if they dared to consult the dictates of their own hearts,
let the king pass on. A more affecting scene can hardly be imagined.
It was midnight. Torches and flambeaux were gleaming around. Men,
women, and children were hurrying to and fro in the darkness. The
alarm bell was pealing out its hurried sounds through the still air. A
crowd of half-dressed peasants and artisans was rapidly accumulating
about the inn. The king stood pleading with his subjects for liberty
and life, far more moved by compassion for his wife and children than
for himself. The children, weary and terrified, and roused suddenly
from the sleep in which they had been lost in their parents' arms,
gazed upon the strange scene with undefined dread, unconscious of the
magnitude of their peril. The queen, seated upon a bale of goods in
the shop, with her two children clinging to her side, plead, at times
with the tears of despair, and again with all the majesty of her
queenly nature, for pity or for justice. She hoped that a woman's
heart throbbed beneath the bosom of the wife of the mayor, and made an
appeal to her which one would think that, under the circumstances, no
human heart could have resisted.
"You are a mother, madame," said the queen, in most imploring accents,
"you are a wife! the fate of a wife and mother is in your hands. Think
what I must suffer for these children--for my husband. At one word from
you I shall owe them to you. The Queen of France will owe you more than
her kingdom--more than life."
"Madame," coldly replied the selfish and calculating woman, "I should be
happy to help you if I could without danger. You are thinking of your
husband, I am thinking of mine. It is a wife's first duty to think of
her own husband."
The queen saw that all appeals to such a spirit must be in vain, and,
taking her two children by the hand, with Madame Elizabeth ascended the
stairs which conducted from the grocer's shop to his rooms above, where
she was shielded from the gaze of the crowd. She threw herself into a
chair, and, overwhelmed with anguish, burst into a flood of tears. The
alarm bell continued to ring; telegraphic dispatches were sent to Paris,
communicating tidings of the arrest; the neighboring villagers flocked
into town; the National Guard, composed of people opposed to the king,
were rapidly assembled from all quarters, and the streets barricaded to
prevent the possibility of any rescue by the soldiers who advocated the
royal cause. Thus the dreadful hours lingered away till the morning
dawned. The increasing crowd stimulated one another to ferocity and
barbarity. Insults, oaths, and imprecations incessantly fell upon the
ears of the captives. The queen probably endured as much of mental agony
that night as the human mind is capable of enduring. The conflict of
indignation, terror, and despair was so dreadful, that her hair, which
the night previous had been auburn, was in the morning white as snow.
This extraordinary fact is well attested, and indicates an enormity of
woe almost incomprehensible.
There was no knowledge in Paris of the king's departure until seven
o'clock in the morning, when the servants of the palace entered the
apartments of the king and queen, and found the beds undisturbed and the
rooms deserted. The alarm spread like wildfire through the palace and
through the city. The alarm bells were rung, cannon were fired, and the
cry resounded through the streets, "The king has fled! the king has
fled!" The terrified populace were expecting almost at the next moment
to see him return with an avenging army to visit his rebellious subjects
with the most terrible retribution. From all parts of the city, every
lane, and street, and alley leading to the Tuileries was thronged with
the crowd, pouring on, like an inundation, toward the deserted palace.
The doors were forced open, and the interior of the palace was instantly
filled with the swarming multitudes. The mob from the streets polluted
the sanctuaries of royalty with every species of vulgarity and
obscenity. An amazon market-woman took possession of the queen's bed,
and, spreading her cherries upon it, she took her seat upon the royal
couch, exclaiming, "To-day it is the nation's turn to take their ease."
One of the caps of the queen was placed in derision upon the head of a
vile girl of the street. She exclaimed that it would sully her forehead,
and trampled it under her feet with contempt. Every conceivable insult
was heaped upon the royal family. Placards, posted upon the walls,
offered trivial rewards to any one who would bring back the noxious
animals which had fled from the palace. The metropolis was agitated to
its very center, and the most vigorous measures immediately adopted to
arrest the king, if possible, before he should reach the friends who
could afford him protection. This turmoil continued for many hours,
till the cry passed from mouth to mouth, and filled the streets, "He
is arrested! he is arrested!"