3. Extract from the Register of the Deliberations of the Commune of Varennes.

To-day, June 23, 1791, the municipality and the general council of the commune of Varennes assembled have deliberated and redacted the following Procès-verbal, to be addressed to the national assembly. . . .

Tuesday, June 21st, at eleven o’clock at night, the procureur of the commune was suddenly informed by a courier of Sainte - Menehould that two carriages, which they had attempted in vain to stop at Clermont, were going to arrive at Varennes, and that he believed they carried a burden dear to all French hearts. These carriages having arrived, almost at that instant the procureur of the commune appeared and asked for the passports. One was presented to him signed Montmorin, and given in the name of the Baronne de Korff and her family going to Frankfort. The night was dark, and the citizens were already on foot. To defer to the public uneasiness, the procureur of the commune observed to these persons, still unknown, who were in the two carriages, that the excitement of the moment, the darkness of the night, and even their safety forbade that they should continue their route, and at the same time he invited them to enter his house. These persons were eleven in number, five of whom were in one carriage, two in another, and four on horseback escorting them.

Having dismounted at the house of the procureur of the commune, they declared that their intention was not to go to Frankfort, but to Montmédy; and as if French hearts habituated to cherish their king naturally divined him, at the demonstration of love and respect we showered upon him, he said: "Yes, I am the king. There are the queen and the royal family. I come to live among you, in the midst of my children, whom I do not abandon." All the persons, including the king, being visibly affected, the monarch and his august family deigned to press in their arms all the citizens who were present in the apartment, and to receive from them the same marks of warm affection.

At this moment an individual calling himself the aide de camp of M. de Bouillé arrived and asked to speak to the king. Introduced by the procureur of the commune and interrogated by the king as to his name, he said, "I am Coglas." "Good!" said the king. "When do we leave?" "I await your orders, Sire." And the orders were given in concert with the procureur of the commune and this officer. The king meanwhile testified his eagerness to depart, and asked several times if the horses were ready. A crowd of citizens from all the neighboring towns had betaken themselves to Varennes in the interval; and at the news of the arrival of the king, carried rapidly into the most remote canton, all hurried toward him with all the joy, the eagerness, tender but at the same time uneasy and noisy, of a great family which comes to find its father and fears to lose him again.

The municipal officers had only to attract the attention of the king to this scene of sentiment and unrest to move the sensibility of his heart. They explained to him that, loved by the people, his throne was in all hearts, his name in all mouths, but that his residence was at Paris. To Paris he was called by the fearful and urgent desires of the provinces even; that in this time of discord and alarm, the nation called for its chief, and the people for their father; that the safety of the state was dependent upon the achievement of the constitution, and the constitution itself upon his return; that, fortunate on account of his virtues, the French people wished to be more so on account of his personal happiness, and that his good and tender heart could find the assurance of it only in the enjoyment of it in common with them.

In the interval there arrived a detachment of the hussars of the regiment of Lauzun, falling back upon Varennes; and, we are glad to say it, these citizen-soldiers testified for their brothers in arms only the most peaceable and friendly dispositions. . . .

Upon the reiterated request of the king, the municipality was deliberating in general council, when two aides de camp of M. de Lafayette arrived, bearers of the decree of the national assembly, or rather of the wishes of entire France for the return of the monarch. All the citizens then, redoubling their pleas and supplications to the monarch, succeeded in moving him by the account of the sanguinary misfortunes of which his departure was going to be the signal, of the happiness of which his return would be the pledge and of the tribute of love with which Paris, the national assembly, all France would repay with enthusiasm this new act of love for his people. Yielding finally to these gentle and pressing emotions, the king and the royal family consented to depart, and at about half past six in the morning, in the midst of public acclamations which are so pleasant to receive when they are at the same time the cry of liberty and of love, the king set out accompanied by a large crowd of citizens and of national guards destined much less to protect his march than to honor the triumph of his feelings. The municipal officers accompanied him as far as Clermont.