8. Relation Du Voyage De Varennes, Adressée Par Un Prélat, Membre De L’assemblée Constituante, À Un Ministre En Pays Étranger; in Mémoires De Weber, II, 62–151.

Finally, all the obstacles having been overcome and the preparations made, the night of the twentieth to the twenty-first of June, the king and the royal family, having supped as usual, retired about half past ten, as if they were going to bed. Shortly after they betook themselves to the apartments of Madame Royale, where Madame de Tourzel brought the young prince, and they prepared to leave by the chamber of which I have spoken, from which the queen had secretly opened a door into the unoccupied apartment of M. le Duc de Villequier. The king, who was to pass for the valet de chambre of Madame de Korff, had a gray suit and a peruke which disguised him very well; the others were dressed very simply. I have heard it said, but I cannot recall by whom, that for several days before they had the Chevalier de Coigny go out at night by the gate of the court opening near the apartment of M. de Villequier. He had the same peruke and the same suit the king had at his departure; as his figure resembled very much that of the king, this could serve to prevent the king from being recognized in crossing the court on June 20th.

Madame Elizabeth went out first with Madame Royale, followed at a short distance by Madame de Tourzel leading the dauphin. One of the three body guards accompanied her. Either accidentally or purposely one of the sentinels of the court who in pacing his round crossed the path the two princesses would be obliged to take turned his back at the moment he was near them and was going to meet them. Madame Royale noticed it and said in a low tone to Madame Elizabeth, "Aunt, we have been recognized." Yet they got out of the court without being noticed and went, followed, as I have already said, by Madame de Tourzel, across the Petit Carrousel to the corner of the Rue de l’Echelle, where M. de Fersen awaited them with a carriage. It was a livery carriage, resembling very much in form, and in the horses which drew it, what is called a fiacre in Paris. He had hired it in a remote quarter, and he himself served as coachman, dressed as coachmen of that class dress. He was so well disguised that while he waited, having in his carriage the two princesses, the dauphin and Madame de Tourzel, an empty fiacre having stopped near him, the coachman, who thought he was talking to one of his comrades, opened a conversation with him upon matters people of that class would talk about. It lasted quite a long time, and M. de Fersen did his part with great presence of mind, talking in the jargon of coachmen in order not to make his fellow driver suspicious. He got rid of him after having given him a pinch of snuff from a very shabby snuffbox he had. Shortly after that the king arrived accompanied by the second body guard. There was quite a long interval between his exit and that of the first group, but it was not less fortunate, although, one of the buckles of his shoe having broken, very close to the sentinel of the gate of the Carrousel, he was obliged to fix it almost under his eyes. The queen, who was to come out last, made them wait more than a half hour and rendered the travelers very uneasy. They had given her the third body guard to accompany her, and he gave her his arm. All went well up to the great gate of the Royal Court, but as they were about to leave it they saw the carriage of M. de Lafayette coming with torches and his usual guards. He was going home and was crossing the Royal Court to reach the Pont Royal. The queen had a hat which covered her face. The night was very dark. She stood close to the wall to let the carriage of M. de Lafayette pass. After having escaped this danger she told the body guard to take her across to the Petit Carrousel to the corner of the Rue de l’Echelle–that is to say, two hundred feet from the place where she was. Her guide was even less acquainted with Paris than she was. It was too dangerous to ask the way so close to the door of the Tuileries. They turned by chance to the right, when they should have turned to the left, passed the wickets of the Louvre, crossed the Pont Royal, and wandered a long time along the quays and in the Rue de Bac. They were at last forced to ask their way. A sentinel on the bridge told them. They were obliged to retrace their steps, repass the wickets of the Louvre, cross the courts of the Tuileries to reach the Rue de l’Echelle. They finally got to the carriage without any other accident than the time lost, but that was a real one, for the value of each minute was incalculable.

All the illustrious caravan being united, they set out to join the carriage which awaited them beyond the barrier Saint-Martin. It was drawn by six horses with a postilion of M. de Fersen who was a stranger, not knowing a word of French and ignorant concerning whom he was going to conduct. M. de Fersen did not dare to drive his livery carriage by the shortest route because he did not know Paris well enough to run the risk of passing through the center of this immense city at night. He thought it safer to go down the Rue Saint-Honoré and to make the tour of the boulevards. He arrived safely at the rendezvous. All passed from the hired carriage into the traveling coach, the body guards mounting upon the seat or behind. M. de Fersen continued to serve as coachman, the first two horses being guided by his postilion. As to the hired carriage, it was left all harnessed in the highway, with nobody to watch it or take it back to its owner.

In less than two hours they reached Claye, which is the second post house on the route to Châlons, about six leagues from Paris. There one of the servants of M. de Fersen waited for him with a cabriolet and two horses to take him back to Paris. Although the carriage of the king was new, it was necessary to make some repairs at Claye, with further loss of time. It will be seen later what the consequence of of all these delays was. . . .

Meanwhile the king and the royal family continued their route toward Châlons without obstacle and without stopping even to eat, having brought in the carriage everything necessary for that. Their passports were called for nowhere, and there was no objection to furnishing them horses. Thus they arrived at Chiffons about four or five o’clock in the afternoon of the twenty-first. [There a man who thought he recognized the king reported the matter to the mayor, and suggested that the carriage be stopped. The mayor pointed out the consequences that would follow if he were mistaken, and the man, acknowledging that he might be wrong, decided to keep silent.] Escaped from this danger, the king had passed Châlons when, the carriage having stopped for a moment on the highway, an unknown person, clothed like a bourgeois, drew near, put his head in at the door next to Madame de Tourzel, and said quite loud: "Your plan has miscarried. You will be stopped." He went off at once without giving time to learn his name or who he was. . . .

Everything had been calculated to the minute in the journey of the king, and his passage at Pont-de-Sommevesle was set down for three o’clock in the afternoon. It was long past this hour, and not only had the king not passed, but one of the three couriers who ought always, in the arrangements agreed upon, to precede the carriage by two hours had not appeared. According to this circumstance, a delay of an hour in the appearance of the king represented a delay of three in the journey. Between five and six o’clock he was four or five hours late, and could not be expected before eight. MM. de Choiseul and Goguelat were not only very uneasy, but they found themselves in a terrible position. The sight of these hussars, waiting so long at their post, had caused a crowd to gather at Pont-de-Sommevesle. The report went about that the arrival of a pretended treasure they were to escort was only a pretext. Châlons, which was below Pont-de-Sommevesle, sent national guards to inquire the cause of these detachments. Sainte-Menehould, which was above it, and where the excitement had increased since the previous evening, sent its deputation. There was talk of ringing the alarm bell to call in the country people, and already some bells had sounded their first note. MM. de Choiseul and Goguelat talked together in a low tone in the presence of the crowd which watched all their movements. Had the king, who had already once postponed his departure from Paris for twenty-four hours, postponed it again? Had he set out and been stopped on the way? In that case it was useless to inacite a sedition to no purpose and cause the loss of a detachment. Was it possible he might still arrive that evening? In that case it would render his arrest certain, it would be a matter of giving him up instead of escorting him, to call together upon his route all the communes of the environs, summoned by the alarm bell and filled with a suspicion that would soon degenerate into fury. As the two leaders were struck by this idea a man in the crowd which surrounded their horses observed that that morning a diligence had passed which seemed very heavily loaded. Another replied that it carried a lot of money. M. de Choiseul picked up this remark and asked of the one who had just made it if he was sure of what he said. He replied in the affirmative. "Why did you not tell me that three hours ago?" replied M. de Choiseul. Then addressing M. de Goguelat, still in a loud voice, he said: "It is clear that the diligence has got ahead of us. The money we were to escort has passed. We have nothing more to do here." These words had a magical effect. The excitement died out, the alarm bell ceased, the crowd scattered. MM. de Choiseul and Goguelat withdrew peaceably from Pont-de-Sommevesle with their troops.

They went as slowly as possible, halting frequently in order to conserve all their chances to the last moment. Finally, having marched thus for a long time without being overtaken by the king’s coach or by his courier, they did not doubt that the project had been at least put off till the next day. Then, fearing to renew the tumult excited the previous evening by their presence at Sainte-Menehould, knowing, furthermore, that this post and that of Clermont were sufficiently guarded, unless an extraordinary crisis arose, they decided to go around this city, instead of passing through it, and reach Varennes by the shortest road across the woods of Clermont. . . .

About an hour after the detachment of Pont-de-Sommevesle had set out, the coach of the king arrived there almost at the same time as his courier, who along the entire route did not precede him more than five minutes; a capital fault. The king changed horses peaceably and reached Sainte-Menehould. The courier, generally too late, arrived too soon in this last town. For during the five minutes he was there before the king he blundered about the location of the post, was obliged to retrace his steps into the town, to question on this side and that to find his way, and excited public attention, already too wide awake. The people of Sainte-Menehould were in a bad humor. [The presence of the dragoons, the fact that they saluted the king’s carriage as it passed, and the queen returned the salute "with her usual air of grace and kindness," aroused their suspicions.] A few moments more and the king would have had difficulty in getting out of the town. But the presence of the dragoons still had a restraining influence; the horses were changed; the carriage departed.

It was while it stopped that the king, putting his head out of the door too frequently, was noticed by the son of the postmaster, a very warm patriot named Drouet. This Drouet had seen the king at the federation the preceding year. To satisfy himself that he was not mistaken, he took a piece of paper money bearing a very good portrait of the king and compared it for some time with the face he had before his eyes. The attention he was giving the matter was so marked that it attracted the notice of the queen and redoubled her uneasiness. It was a quarter to eight.

However certain Drouet was that the king was in the carriage, he did not dare to give the alarm at Sainte-Menehould, either on account of the fear of the dragoons or because the departure of the coach prevented it. But he made up his mind to follow it, to have it stopped when he should find it possible. He communicated his discovery and his resolution to his wife, who said and did all she could do to dissuade him, but in vain. He mounted his horse and followed the coach. . . .

At a certain distance from Clermont, where the road divides into two, one of which leads to Verdun and the other to Varennes, the king gave the order to take the second. He had been gone some time when Drouet arrived at the same place. Not doubting that the king was going to Verdun, he took without hesitation the road which goes there. Probably he would not have noticed his mistake in time if he had not encountered by accident a postilion who was returning from conducting a courier to Verdun. He asked him if he had not seen a coach with six horses going to Verdun, and if it was far ahead. Upon the reply of the postilion that he had seen nothing, he did not doubt that it had taken the road to Varennes and he must endeavor to arrive there before it. Instead of retracing his steps he took a cross-road which led very directly to Varennes, and he rode so rapidly he arrived there before the king. . . . The king arrived at about eleven o’clock at night. The house where the post horses were to be had been so well described to him that he found it easily. He knocked on the door and asked for his horses. They could give him no information about them. Seeing nobody who could give him any information, he entered the upper city and got out with the queen. She knocked at several doors on the pretext of asking information about the relay, but in reality to see if by accident she might not encounter some of the people who were to meet her at Varennes. All her investigations were in vain. No one of those employed in this little town had thought of having somebody on the side by which the king would enter in order to inform him. Their majesties, after having walked about in the upper city for some time, proposed to the postilions to go on. They objected on the ground that their horses were worn out and could not go farther without food and rest. After this discussion, which lasted some time, the king succeeded in getting them to consent to take him to the other side of the bridge. He got into the coach with the queen.

Meanwhile Drouet, who reached Varennes a little before the carriage, had not lost a moment in putting obstacles in the way of their passage. His first care had been to instruct the procureur of the commune, named Sauce, and to induce him to have the king stopped. He had no difficulty in persuading him. This Sauce was a kind of revolutionary fanatic, but was not lacking in ability. He sent at once orders to assemble the national guard of Varennes and to surround the convent of the Cordeliers where the sixty hussars were. He sent at the same time emissaries to notify the towns and villages round about, in order to bring the national guards of these places to Varennes, and despatched couriers to Verdun and Sedan for the same purpose.

Meanwhile Drouet, aided by two or three determined men, one of whom was named Billaud, the same who was so well known later for his fury in the convention, overturned heavy wagons to bar the bridge and thus place an invincible obstacle in the way of the passage of the king if he attempted to force it. That done, he and his comrades, well armed, placed themselves in ambuscade under an archway by which it was necessary to pass before reaching the bridge and in a place most suitable for stopping the coach. All these steps were taken in such profound silence that neither the hussars nor their officers nor the persons sent by M. de Bouillé knew anything about it.

When the carriage was under the archway it was stopped by Drouet and his people on the pretext of having the passports of the travelers viséed by the municipality of Varennes and of having their persons identified. Drouet did not let a word escape him which could let it be known that it was the king; two loaded muskets were crossed at each of the doors of the coach. Drouet enjoined the travelers very brutally to go to the procureur of the commune, whose house was near by. It is even said that he laid hands on the king. His majesty believed that all resistance was useless, and, hoping still that he was not or would not be recognized, or at least could be rescued by force from the danger in which he and his family found themselves, he consented to follow Drouet. Sauce had the air of taking them for simple travelers, asked for their passports, and appeared to find them perfectly regular. He then said to them that their horses could not go farther without food, but as that would take some time, he begged them to rest themselves in his house, where they would be more comfortable than in the coach. There was no way of escape. All the family were received in a room on the ground floor, through the door of which they could see everything passing in the street. It was there the queen placed herself. It did not take her long to discover that each minute the crowd was increasing outside and that the house was invested. She no longer doubted, then, that they had been arrested and recognized. . . . When Sauce felt sure that the national guards were numerous enough not to let their prey escape he raised the mask and said aloud to the king that he knew who he was. He reproached him very bitterly for his flight, against his word, he said, to go into a foreign country and to make war upon his people. He then declared he arrested him in the name of the nation, and that he was going to have him conducted to Paris under a strong guard. The king sought at first to deny that he was king, which led to an altercation in which Sauce and those with him overstepped more and more the bounds of respect. The queen then approached and put an end to it, saying in a firm tone, "If you recognize him as your king, speak to him with the respect which is due him." . . .

It was only then that the aide de camp, Romeuf, reached Varennes, at six in the morning, consequently seven hours after the arrest of the king. He entered the town, passing between two rows of national guards drawn up on both sides of the road and which extended each minute on account of the arrival of new reinforcements. At Sauce’s door he found the coach with six horses harnessed to it, turned toward the Avenue de Paris and surrounded by an escort which was to conduct the prisoner monarch. Entering the house with shame and grief, he placed in the hands of Sauce the decree of the national assembly. . . . [Romeuf tried to justify his conduct and to defend Lafayette, saying that he was not the enemy of the king and his family.] "He is," said the queen; "he has in his head only his United States and the American republic. He will see what a French republic is. Well, sir," she continued, "show me this decree of which you are the bearer." Romeuf gave her a copy of it. "The insolent [creatures]," said the queen, while reading it; and without having read to the end she cast it from her. The paper fell on the bed where the dauphin and his sister were sleeping. The queen snatched it up and threw it on the floor, saying, "It would soil the bed of my children."