7. Tourzel, La Duchesse De, Mémoires, I, 304–327.

We descended to the entresol of the queen, where the king had already come from his side [of the château]. Their majesties told me that they would be followed by three of the body guards, one of whom would give his arm to the queen to conduct her on foot to the carriage; that the two others would drive the traveling carriage, which was to wait for the king at some distance from the barrier (for all the royal family went out on foot, except the dauphin and madame). The carriages having arrived, the queen went herself to see if all were quiet in the court, and, seeing nobody, she embraced me, saying, "The king and I place in your hands, Madame, with the greatest confidence, all we hold most dear in the world. Everything is ready. Go!" We descended through the apartment of M. de Villequier, where there was no sentinel; we passed through a door that was seldom used and got into an old and dilapidated carriage, resembling much a fiacre, which was driven by the Comte de Fersen.

In order to give the king time to arrive we took a little drive on the quays and returned by way of the Rue Saint-Honoré, to await the royal family in front of the house then called the Hôtel de Gaillarbois. I waited three-quarters of an hour without seeing any member of the royal family arrive. M. de Fersen played perfectly the rôle of driver of a fiacre, whistling, gossiping with another driver who happened to be there, and taking snuff from his snuff box. I was upon thorns, although I did not allow my uneasiness to appear, when madame said to me, "There is M. de Lafayette." I hid the dauphin under my skirts, assuring both of them that they need not be frightened. I was, however. M. Bailly followed him at a short distance. They both passed and suspected nothing, and after three-quarters of an hour of anxiety I had the consolation of seeing Madame Elizabeth arrive. It was, however, the beginning of hope. It was half past eleven, and it was only after midnight that we saw the king arrive. MM. Bailly and Lafayette, who had come to the coucher, began to converse; and, to give no cause for suspicion, the prince did not wish to appear in a hurry to retire. It was necessary, after that, for the king to undress himself, get into bed, make a new toilet, put on a wig to disguise himself, and come on foot from the Tuileries to the carriage. The queen was to leave only after the king, and the extreme affection he felt for her showed itself vividly upon this occasion by the manner in which he expressed his uneasiness. As soon as she got into the carriage he took her in his arms, kissed her, and said to her, "How glad I am to see you here!" They kissed each other. All the royal family did me the same honor, and, convinced that we had passed the obstacle the most difficult to surmount, we began to hope that Heaven would favor our journey.

The king told us that after having gotten rid of MM. Bailly and de Lafayette he went out alone through the great door of the Tuileries in great tranquillity, as he felt perfectly certain that by the precaution he had taken to have the Chevalier de Coigny, whose shape so perfectly resembled his own, go out by this same door, he had prepared the sentinels at this gate for two weeks to permit him to go out with entire security. So great was it that his shoe, having come unfastened, he refastened it without anybody paying attention to it, and he had not experienced the least trouble. . . .

M. de Fersen, fearing that the body guards might take another road than the one indicated to them, and that if he took the shorter we might have to repass the barrier to meet them, preferred to take the longest, which cost us a half hour, and this, added to the half hour more the coucher of the king had lasted, made us an hour and a half late. We found a wedding ceremony going on at the house of the official at the barrier, a crowd of people and lights at the doors; but, fortunately, we were not recognized, and passed without difficulty. To complete the bad luck, the horses of the king’s carriage fell twice between Nintré [Chaintrix] and Châlons, broke all the traces, and forced us to lose more than an hour in repairing the disaster. . . .

We found, at some distance from the barrier of Clichy, the carriage awaiting us, and we abandoned the old carriage and horses without caring what became of them. M. de Fersen drove the king’s coach as far as Laye [Claye], where we took the post. The king, on leaving him, expressed his gratitude in the most affectionate manner, hoping that he would be able to prove it otherwise than in words, and flattering himself that he would see him again soon.

We traveled in a large and very comfortable coach, but which had nothing extraordinary about it, as has been repeated since the sad outcome of this unhappy journey. I was supposed to be the mistress under the name of the Baronne de Korff; the king passed for my valet de chambre, the queen for my lady’s maid, and Madame Elizabeth for the children’s nurse. The Baronne de Korff, whose name I bore, had made a rapid journey from Paris to Montmédy, by the same route we took, in a carriage similar to our own, with the same number of persons, and nowhere had she been asked for her passport. The observation had been carried to the point of calculating how many hours she had taken to reach Montmédy, and the sad result of this last precaution will be seen.

When the barrier was passed, the king began to augur well for the journey and to talk about his plans: "Here I am," said this good prince, "outside of this city of Paris, where I have swallowed so many bitter potions. You may be certain that once in the saddle, I shall be very different from what you have known me up to the present time." He then read to us the Mémoire he had left at Paris to be carried to the assembly, and he enjoyed by anticipation the happiness he might cause France to experience from the return of the princes, his brothers, and of his faithful servants, and from the possibility of re-establishing religion and repairing the ills which his forced sanctions had brought upon it [France]. Then, looking at his watch, which indicated eight o’clock, he said: "Lafayette is just now a very much disturbed gentleman!" It was hard to share the anxiety of the general and feel any other sentiment than that of joy at having shaken him off. . . . The farther we advanced on our way, the more we abandoned ourselves to hope. "When we shall have passed Châlons we shall have nothing more to fear," said the king. "At Pont-de-Sommevesle we shall find the first detachment of troops, and the success of our journey is assured. . . ."

Arrived at Pont-de-Sommevesle, what was our grief and uneasiness when the couriers reported to us that they had found no trace of the troop, nor any one who could tell them anything about it; that they did not dare to ask questions for fear they might arouse suspicion; and we could only hope that at Orbeval, which was the next post, we would be more fortunate. But our happiness was at an end. Heaven, which wished to test to the extreme our august and unhappy sovereigns, permitted that the Duc de Choiseul should absolutely lose his head. The task was too great for him. . . . M. de Choiseul, on taking leave of the king, had given him an itinerary of the route as far as Pont-de-Sommevesle, where he was to find him at the head of the first detachment of troops charged to escort his majesty. Furnished with all the instructions necessary to arrive surely at the end of the journey, he had indicated where the king should be very careful not to be recognized, had calculated, as I have already said, the time it would take for the journey, and consequently when he ought to reach Pont-de-Sommevesle. But, unfortunately, he had made no allowance for accidents which might happen, and that was the cause of our destruction.

To avoid suspicion on the part of the troops, who had been placed by detachments from Pont-de-Sommevesle to Clermont, they had been told that they were destined to escort a treasure, the arrival of which had been delayed until Monday, the 21st. Some remarks made upon the delay of the arrival of the treasure disturbed M. de Choiseul, who, noting that it was already two hours beyond the time fixed for the king’s arrival, decided that he had changed his mind and that the plan had failed. He gave then, as I have been told, his cabriolet to Léonard, hair-dresser of the queen, whom he had brought from Paris with him, that he might inform the troops stationed along the route that the journey was abandoned, that the king had not appeared, enjoining him further to go as far as Montmédy to carry the same news. He then mounted his horse, saying to the detachment which was at Pont-de-Sommevesle that he had just received word that the treasure would not go through, and that he was going to Montmédy by the shortest route. . . .

We were no more fortunate at Orbeval than at Pont-de-Sommevesle. The same silence, the same uncertainty. We reached Sainte-Menehould in a violent agitation. It was still further augmented when M. d’Andoins, captain in the regiment of M. de Choiseul, approached the carriage for an instant and said very low: "The plan has miscarried. I am going to withdraw in order not to arouse suspicion." These few words pierced us to the heart; but there was nothing else to do than continue our journey, and no appearance of uncertainty was permitted.

As bad luck would have it, the infamous Drouet, son of the master of the post at Sainte-Menehould, a furious patriot, was at the door at that moment, and, having had the curiosity to look into the carriage, he thought he recognized the king, and made sure of it by comparing the face of that prince with some paper money he had in his pocket. This unhappy man got a horse and followed the carriage of the king to Clermont; and, having heard that he was going to Varennes, he judged it would be easy to have him arrested by getting ahead and informing the authorities and the inhabitants, upon whom he could count, of the passage of his majesty.

We reached Clermont without any inconvenience, but on our arrival in that city Comte Charles de Damas, colonel of the dragoons of Monsieur, and who had left his post, in spite of the notice from the Duc de Choiseul, told us there was excitement in that region, and that he was going to attempt the impossible by trying to withdraw his regiment and escort his majesty’s carriage. He did try it, in fact, but without success. The authorities joined with the inhabitants to prevent the regiment from leaving the village, and the troops refused to obey M. de Damas. He was tempted to move them by saying to them that he was going to escort the king and his family, but he did not dare to, fearing to meet with a refusal, the consequences of which would have been the arrest of the king. He contented himself with sending an officer post-haste to Varennes to inform MM. de Bouillé and de Raigecourt that the king was coming, but the fatality which accompanied all these attempts of the king to escape from his cruel situation decreed that this officer, who was not well acquainted with the road, took the road to Verdun instead of that to Varennes, and did. not get there in time to fulfil his mission. We saw on the heights of this last city a man who seemed to want to conceal himself. Our uneasiness increased. We believed we had been betrayed, and we drove on filled with trouble and sadness easier to imagine than to describe.

Our position was frightful. It became even more so when, on our arrival at Varennes, we found no fresh horses and no one who could tell us what had become of them. We knocked on a door; we endeavored to discover if they knew anything of the relay that should be waiting for us. We could learn nothing of the matter which interested us, and we attempted to follow the only course open to us by proposing to the postilions to double the distance, offering them money for it. They refused, saying their horses were too tired; we told them to take us to the nearest tavern in the town, to set out as soon as their horses should be rested. There was no longer any means of doing that, and the infamous Drouet had already executed his measures to prevent the passage of their majesties. He had barred the bridge over which it was necessary to pass on leaving the town by having overturned a wagon there loaded with furniture which happened to be at hand, and he had warned the national guard of the town and Sauce, procureur of the commune, of the arrival of the king and the necessity of stopping him. He had, moreover, associated him with one named Mangin, an ardent patriot, who seconded him perfectly. He had drink given to the national guards and to the soldiers who were in the town, and he had the dragoons of the regiment of Monsieur, at Clermont, warned to oppose the demand of their colonel to protect the journey of the king.

Meanwhile the carriages rolled on, but as soon as that of the women, which preceded that of the king, passed in front of the house of Sauce, it was stopped, and they were obliged to dismount to have their passports viséed. It was then half past eleven at night. We were informed of what was going on by the body guards, but we had gone too far into the city to retreat, and we continued our route. A minute later, as we passed under an arcade which led to the bridge of Varennes, two individuals named Le Blan and Poucin stopped the carriage and threatened to fire upon it if the least resistance was made. I learned this last circumstance only after my arrival in Paris. I know only that the body guards offered to employ force to make a passage for the king, but that this prince refused to allow it. The passports were called for; but, although they were correct in form, and although the queen begged them to make haste as they were pressed for time, they made all sorts of excuses to give the patriots of the city and the environs time to assemble.

An officer approached the king’s carriage and said in a low tone that there was a ford, and offered to attempt to get him over it; but the king, who saw the number of those surrounding the carriage increase each minute, and noticed to what a point they were exasperated, fearing he did not have force enough, and that he might uselessly cause a massacre, did not dare to give the order. He simply told him to press M. de Bouillé to use every effort to rescue him from his critical position.

The alarm bells were rung in and around Varennes, and it was impossible to dissimulate the fact that we were recognized. For a long time the king would not acknowledge who he was nor leave the carriage; but the insistence became so pressing, coupled with the promise of letting us go if everything was correct after the examination of our passports, that there was no further way of avoiding it. The king entered into the house of Sauce, procureur of the commune, and went upstairs into a chamber, where they placed the children upon a bed that was there. Overcome by fatigue, they went to sleep at once. Their sleep was calm and tranquil, and the contrast of this situation with that of their unhappy parents was truly heartbreaking.

They were not yet quite sure at Varennes that it was the king and the royal family who were in the house of Sauce, but Mangin, who knew them, went up into the chamber to make sure of it, and declared positively that it was the king and his family, and that there was no further room for doubt. This Mangin, a great patriot, and others like him, had hurried to all the neighboring villages and had assembled in less than an hour four thousand national guards, both of the town and the environs. The king, seeing that dissimulation was useless, declared that he was the king, that he had quit Paris to escape the daily insults they took pleasure in heaping upon him; that he did not intend to leave the kingdom, but that he wished only to go to Montmédy to be in a better position to keep an eye on the movements across the border; that if the authorities of Varennes doubted his word, he would consent to be accompanied by such persons as they might designate. The king and the queen employed all possible means to touch their hearts and to arouse the ancient love of the French for their king. They were hearts of bronze which fear alone could move. From time to time they were seized by the fear of the arrival of Bouillé, and then begged the king to protect them, and left it uncertain as to whether they would allow him to continue his journey; these dispositions changed as soon as they were given reasons for feeling safe. . . .

MM. Baillon [Bayon] and de Romeuf, the first commandant of a battalion of the national guard of Paris, and the second aide de camp of M. de Lafayette, arrived at Varennes between three and four o’clock in the morning. They were bearers of a decree of the assembly which ordered the most prompt and active measures to protect the security of the person of the king, of the dauphin, of the royal family, of the persons by which they were accompanied, and to secure their return to Paris with the regard due to the royal majesty. This same decree named as commissioners of the assembly to execute these measures MM. Petion, Barnave, and de La Tour-Maubourg, giving them power to employ the national guards, the troops of the line, and the administrative bodies in the execution of their mission, requiring of them entire obedience to the commissioners in the execution of this decree. It enjoined, furthermore, the arrest of M. de Bouillé and the most absolute prohibition to any body of troops whatsoever to execute any of his orders, and named M. Dumas, adjutant of the army, to command the troops which should escort the king to Paris and to execute the orders he might receive from the commissioners.

When the queen saw the two bearers of the decree arrive, who had always posed as being entirely devoted to the royal family, she could not control her indignation, and reproached them with the contrast between their conduct and their daily protestations. She snatched the decree from their hands without wishing to listen to the reading of it, and would even have torn it up had the king not interfered; she contented herself with throwing it scornfully on the floor. Romeuf, who still had a remnant of shame which made him blush at the rôe he was playing at the moment, remained silent. But Baillon [Bayon], who had in mind only the recompense he expected as the price of his mission, only sought to deceive the king: "Have a care," he said, "not to create a feeling of uneasiness by remaining too long in this town." And when the king objected that, as the children needed rest, he would remain some time, he replied, in a hypocritical tone: "Although your Majesty does not do me the justice to believe that I accepted the mission with which I am charged only with the hope of being useful to him, I am going to do all I can to induce this crowd to respect the sleep of the dauphin and madame." And he stirred them up, on the contrary, to hasten the departure of the king, by communicating to them his excessive fear of the danger they would run if M. de Bouillé succeeded in rescuing the king. The night passed very sadly, the king not daring to adopt the plan of employing force to escape from his cruel situation, and the officers, who would have obeyed at peril of their lives, not thinking they could take any decisive action without his authorization. It might have been successful when he was first arrested, but each instant added new difficulties. The effervescence augmented in proportion as the crowd increased in size, to which the most improbable news was reported in order to excite its terror and fury.

They did not cease to press the king to depart. The horses were put to the coach; the clamors redoubled and were excited by the fear of the arrival of M. de Bouillé. In vain the queen pointed to her sleeping children and urged the need they had of a little rest. They would not listen to reason, and from the chamber where the royal family was one heard this frightful populace demand with loud cries their departure.

After eight mortal hours of waiting at Varennes M. de Bouillé did not arrive, and we had no news from him. The king, seeing no possibility of escaping from the hands of this multitude, which visibly increased in numbers, did not believe he could put off his departure longer, and decided to return to Paris.