The Royal Life Guard; or, the flight of the royal family.

CHAPTER XIX.
THE DOLOROUS WAY

In the meantime the Royal Family continued on the road to Paris.

They advanced slowly, for the carriage could not move but at the gait of the escort, and that was composed mostly of men on foot. Their ranks were filled up with women and children, the women lifting their babes up in their arms to see the King dragged back to the capital: probably they would never have seen him under other circumstances.

The coach and the cab with the ladies in waiting, seemed in the human sea like a ship with her tender. Incidents stirred up the sea into heaving furiously at times when the coach disappeared under the billows and appeared very slow to emerge.

Though it was six miles to Clermont where they arrived, the terrible escort did not lessen in number as those who dropped off were replaced by new-comers from the countryside who wanted to have a peep at the show.

Of all the captives on and in this ambulatory prison the worst exposed to the popular wrath and the plainest butt of the menaces were the unhappy Lifeguards on the large box seat; as the order of the National Assembly made the Royal Family inviolable, the way to vent spite on them by proxy, was to plague these men. Bayonets were continually held to their breasts, some scythes, really Death's, gleamed over their heads, or some spear glided like a perfidious serpent, in the gaps to pierce the flesh with its keen sting and return to the wielder disgusted that he had not drawn more blood.

All at once they saw a man without hat or weapon, his clothing smeared with mud and dust, split the crowd. After having addressed a respectful bow to the King and the Queen, he sprang upon the forepart of the carriage and from the trace-chain hooks upon the box between the two Lifeguards.

The Queen's outcry was of fear, joy and pain. She had recognized Charny.

Fear, for what he did was so bold that it was a miracle he had reached the perch without receiving some wound. Joy, for she was happy to see that he had escaped the unknown dangers he must have run, all the greater as imagination was outstripped by the reality. Pain, for she comprehended that Charny's solitary return implied that nothing was to be expected from Bouille.

In fact, while Charny had reached the royalists at Grange-au-Bois on a horse he picked up on the road, his attempt to guide the army ended in failure: a canal which he had not noted down in his survey, perhaps cut since then, was brimful of water and he nearly lost his life, as he did his horse, in trying to swim across it. All he could do, on scrambling out on the other side from his friends, was to wave them a farewell, for he understood that the cavaliers as a mass could not succeed where he had fallen short.

Confounded by the audacity of this recruit to the lost cause, the mob seemed to respect him for this boldness.

At the turmoil, Billet, who was riding at the head, turned and recognized the nobleman.

"Ha, I am glad that nothing happened him," he said: "but woe to whomsoever tries this again, for he shall certainly pay for the two."

At two of the afternoon they arrived at St. Menehould.

Loss of sleep and weariness was telling on all the prisoners, but particularly on the Dauphin, who was feverish and wanted to be undressed and put to bed, as he was not well, he said.

But St. Menehould was the place most enraged against the Royal Family. So no attention was paid to the King who ordered a stop. A contradictory order from Billet led to the change of horses being hooked on the pole.

The Queen could not withstand her child's complaints and holding the little prince up at the window to show him to the people, shivering and in tears, she said:

"Gentlemen, in pity for this boy, stop!"

"Forward, March!" shouted Billet.

"Forward," repeated the people.

Billet passed the carriage window to take his place in the front when the Queen appealed to him:

"For shame, sir, it is plain, I repeat that you never were a father."

"And I repeat, madam, that I was a father once, but am one no longer."

"Do as you will, for you are the stronger: but beware! for no voice cries more loudly to heaven than that of these little ones!"

The procession went on again.

It was cruel work passing through the town. If kings could learn any thing, the enthusiasm excited by sight of Drouet, to whom the arrest was due, would have been a dreadful lesson; but both captives saw merely blind fury in the cheers; they saw but rebels in these patriots who were convinced that they were saving their country.

Perhaps it was the King's impression that Paris alone was perverted that urged him into the evil course. He had relied on "his dear provinces." But here were the dear rurals not only escaping him but turning pitilessly against him. The country folk had frightened Choiseul in Sommevelle, imprisoned Dandoins at St. Menehould, fired on Damas at Clermont, and lately killed Isidore Charny under the royal eyes. All classes rose against him.

It would have cut him worse had he seen what the spreading news did; roused all the country to come – not to stare and form an escort – but to kill him. The harvest was so bad that this country was called "Blank Champagne," and here came the King who had brought in the thievish hussar and the pillaging pandour to trample the poor fields under their horses' hoofs; but the carriage was guarded by an angel and two cherubs.

Lady Elizabeth was twenty-seven but her chastity had kept the unfading brilliancy of youth on her brow: the Dauphin, ailing and shivering on his mother's knee; the princess fair as the blondes can be, looking out with her firm while astonished gaze.

These men saw these, the Queen bent over her boy, and the King downhearted: and their anger abated or sought another object on which to turn it.

They yelped at the Lifeguardsmen; insulted them, called those noble and devoted hearts traitors and cowards, while the June sun made a fiery rainbow in the chalky dust flung up by the endless train upon those hotheads, heated by the cheap wine of the taverns.

Half a mile out of the town, an old Knight of St. Louis was seen galloping over the fields; he wore the ribbon of the order at his buttonhole: as it was first thought that he came from sheer curiosity, the crowd made room for him. He went up to the carriage window, hat in hand, saluted the King and the Queen, and hailed them as Majesties. The people had measured true force and real majesty, and were indignant at the title being given away from them to whom it was due; they began to grumble and threaten.

The King had already learnt what this growl portended from hearing it around the house at Varennes.

"Sir Knight," he said to the old chevalier, "the Queen and myself are touched by this publicly expressed token of your devotion; but in God's name, get you hence – your life is not safe."

"My life is the King's, and the finest day of it will be when laid down for the King."

Hearing this speech, some growled.

"Retire," said the King. "Make way there, my friends, for Chevalier Dampierre."

Those near who heard the appeal, stood back. But unfortunately the horseman was squeezed in and used the whip and spur on the animal unable to move freely. Some trodden-on women screamed, a frightened child cried, and on the men shaking their fists the old noble flourished his whip. Thereupon the growl changed to a roar: the grand popular and leonine fury broke forth.

Dampierre was already on the edge of the forest of men; he drove in both spurs which made the steed leap the ditch where it galloped across the country. He turned, and waving his hat, cried: "God save the King!" – a final homage to his sovereign but a supreme insult to the people.

Off went a gun. He pulled a pistol from his holsters and returned the fire. Everyone who had firearms, let fly at him. The horse fell, riddled with bullets.

Nobody ever knew whether the man was slain outright or not by this dreadful volley. The multitude rushed like an avalanche where rider and steed had dropped, some fifty paces from the royal carriage: one of those tumults arose such as surge upon a dead body in battle: then, out of the disordered movements, the shapeless chaos, the gulf of yells and cheers, up rose a pike surmounted by the white head of the luckless Chevalier Dampierre.

The Queen screamed and threw herself back in the vehicle.

"Monsters, cannibals, assassins!" shouted Charny.

"Hold your tongue, count," said Billet, "or I cannot answer for you."

"What matters? I am tired of life. What can befall me worse than my poor brother?"

"Your brother was guilty and you are not," replied Billet.

Charny started to jump down from the box but the other Lifeguard restrained him, while twenty bayonets bristled to receive him.

"Friends," said the farmer in his strong and imposing voice, as he pointed to Charny, "whatever this man says or does, never heed – I forbid a hair of his head being touched. I am answerable for him to his wife."

"To his wife," muttered the Queen, shuddering as though one of the steel points menacing her beloved had pricked her heart, "why does he say to his wife?"

Billet could not have himself told. He had invoked the name of the count's wife, knowing how powerful such a charm is over a mob composed mainly of men with wives.

They were late reaching Chalons, where the King, in alighting at the house prepared for the family, heard a bullet whizz by his ear.

Was it an accident where so many were inexperienced in arms or an attempt at regicide?

"Some clumsy fellow," said he coolly: "gentlemen, you ought to be careful – an accident soon happens."

Apart from this shot, there was a calmer atmosphere to step into. The uproar ceased at the house door: murmurs of compassion were heard; the table was laid out with elegance astonishing the captives. There were servants also, but Charny claimed their work for himself and the other Lifeguards, hiding under the pretended humility, the intention to stay close to the King for any event.

Marie Antoinette understood this; but in her heart rumbled Billet's words about Charny's wife, like a storm brewing.

Charny, whom she had expected to take away from France, to live abroad with her, was now returning to Paris to see his wife Andrea again!

He was ignorant of this ferment in her heart, from not supposing she had heard the words; besides, he was busy over some freshly conceived hopes. Having been sent in advance to study the route he had conscientiously fulfilled his errand. He knew the political tone of even each village. Chalons had a royalist bias from it being an old town, without trade, work or activity, peopled by nobles, retired business men and contented citizens.

Scarcely were the royal party at table than the County Lieutenant, whose house they were in, came to bow to the Queen, who looked at him uneasily from having ceased to expect anything good, and said:

"May it please your Majesty to let the maids of Chalons offer flowers?"

"Flowers?" repeated she, looking with astonishment from him to Lady Elizabeth. "Pray, let them come."

Shortly after, twelve young ladies, the prettiest they could find in the town, tripped up to the threshold where the Queen held out her arms to them. One of them who had been taught a formal speech, was so effected by this warm greeting that she forgot it all and stammered the general opinion:

"Oh, your Majesty, what a dreadful misfortune!"

The Queen took the bunch of flowers and kissed the girl.

"Sire," whispered Charny to the King meanwhile, "something good may be done here; if your Majesty will spare me for an hour, I will go out and inquire how the wind turns."

"Do so, but be prudent," was the reply: "I shall never console myself if harm befalls you. Alas, two deaths are enough in one family."

"Sire, my life is as much the King's as my brothers'."

In the presence of the monarch his stoicism could be worn but he felt his grief when by himself.

"Poor Isidore," he muttered, while pressing his hand to his breast to see if he still had in the pocket the papers of the dead handed him by Count Choiseul, which he had promised himself to read as he would the last will of his loved one.

Behind the girls came their parents, almost all nobles or members of the upper middle class; they came timidly and humbly to crave permission to offer their respect to their unfortunate sovereigns. They could hardly believe that they had seen the unfortunate Dampierre hewn to pieces under their eyes a while before.

Charny came back in half an hour. It was impossible for the keenest eye to read the effect of his reconnoitre on his countenance.

"All is for the best, Sire," replied he to the King's inquiry. "The National Guard offer to conduct your Majesty to-morrow to Montmedy."

"So you have arranged some course?"

"With the principal citizens. It is a church feast to-morrow so that they cannot refuse your request to go to hear service. At the church door a carriage will be waiting which will receive your Majesties; amid the cheering you will give the order to be driven to Montmedy and you will be obeyed."

"That is well," said Louis: "thank you, count, and we will do this if nothing comes between. But you and your companions must take some rest; you must need it more than we."

The reception was not prolonged far into the night so that the Royal Family retired about nine. A sentinel at their door let them see that they were still regarded as prisoners. But he presented arms to them. By his precise movement the King recognized an old soldier.

"Where have you served, my friend?" he inquired.

"In the French Guards, Sire," answered the veteran.

"Then I am not surprised to see you here," returned the monarch; for he had not forgotten that the French Guards had gone over to the people on the 13th July, 1789.

This sentinel was posted at their sleeping room door. An hour afterwards, he asked to speak with the leader of the escort, who was Billet, on his being relieved of guard-mounting. The farmer was taking supper with the rustics who flocked in from all sides and endeavoring to persuade them to stay in town all night. But most of them had seen the King, which was mainly what led them, and they wanted to celebrate the holiday at home. He tried to detain them because the aristocratic tendency of the old town alarmed him.

It was in the midst of this discussion that the sentinel came to talk with him. They conversed in a low voice most lively.

Next, Billet sent for Drouet, and they held a similar conference. After this they went to the postmaster, who was Drouet's friend, and the same line of business made them friendlier still.

He saddled two horses and in ten minutes Billet was galloping on the road to Rheims and Drouet to Vitry.

Day dawned. Hardly six hundred men remained of the numerous escort, and they were fagged out, having passed the night on straw they had brought along, in the street. As they shook themselves awake in the dawn they might have seen a dozen men in uniform enter the Lieutenancy Office and come out hastily shortly after.

Chalons was headquarters for the Villeroy Company of Lifeguards, and ten or twelve of the officers came to take orders from Charny. He told them to don full dress and be on their horses by the church door for the King's exit. These were the uniformed men whom we have seen.

Some of the peasants reckoned their distance from home in the morning and to the number of two hundred more or less they departed, in spite of their comrades' pleadings. This reduced the faithful to a little over four hundred only.

To the same number might be reckoned the National Guards devoted to the King, without the Royal Guards officers and those recruited, a forlorn hope which would set the lead in case of emergency.

Besides, as hinted, the town was aristocratic.

When the word was sent to Billet and Drouet to hear what they said about the King and the Queen going to hear mass, they could not be found and nothing therefore opposed the desire.

The King was delighted to hear of the absence but Charny shook his head: he did not know Drouet's character but he knew Billet's.

Nevertheless all the augury was favorable, and indeed the King not only came out of church amid cheers but the royalist gathering had assumed colossal proportions.

Still it was not without apprehension that Charny encouraged the King to make up his mind.

He put his head out of the carriage window and said:

"Gentlemen, yesterday at Varennes, violence was used against me; I gave the order to be driven to Montmedy but I was constrained to go towards a revolted capital. Then I was among rebels, but now I am among honest subjects, to whom I repeat, 'To Montmedy!'"

"To Montmedy!" echoed Charny and the others shouted the same, and to the chorus of "Long live the King!" the carriage was turned round and retook the road it had yesterday travelled.

In the absence of Billet and Drouet the rustics seemed commanded by the French Guardsman who had stood sentry at the royal door. Charny watched and saw that he made his men wheel and mutely follow the movement though the scowls showed that they did not approve of it. They let the National Guards pass them, and massed in their rear as a rearguard. In the foremost ranks marched the pike and spear-men: then fifty who carried muskets and fowling pieces manœuvring so neatly that Charny was disquieted: but he could not oppose it and he was unable to understand it.

He was soon to have the explanation.

As they approached the town gates, spite of the cheering, they heard another sound like the dull rolling of a storm. Suddenly Charny turned pale and laid his hand on the Lifeguard next him.

"All is lost," he gasped: "do you not hear that drum?"

They turned the corner into a square where two streets entered. One came from Rheims the other from Vitry, and up each was marching a column of National Guards; one numbered eighteen hundred, the other more than two thousand. Each was led by a man on horseback. One was Billet, the other Drouet.

Charny saw why they had disappeared during the night. Fore-warned no doubt, of the counteraction in preparation, they had gone off for reinforcements. They had concerted their movements so as to arrive simultaneously. They halted their men in the square, completely blocking the road. Without any cries, they began to load their firearms. The procession had to stop.

"What is the matter?" asked the King, putting his head out of the window, of Charny, pale and gritting his teeth.

"Why, my lord, the enemy has gone for reinforcements and they stand yonder, loading their guns, while behind the Chalons National Guards the peasants are ready with their guns."

"What do you think of all this?"

"That we are caught between two fires, which will not prevent us passing, but what will happen to your Majesty I cannot tell."

"Very well, let us turn back. Enough blood has been shed for my sake and I weep bitter tears for it. I do not wish one drop more to flow. Let us return."

"Gentlemen," said Charny, jumping down and taking the leader horse by the bridle, "the King bids us turn back."

At the Paris Gate the Chalons National Guards, become useless, gave place to those from Rheims and Vitry.

"Do you not think I behaved properly, madam?" inquired Louis of his wife.

"Yes – but I think Count Charny obeyed you very easily," was her comment.

She fell into one of those gloomy reveries which was not entirely due to the terrible situation in which she was hedged in.

CHAPTER XX.
MIRABEAU'S SUCCESSOR

The royal carriage sadly travelled the Paris Road, watched by the two moody men who had forced it to alter its direction. Between Epernay and Dormans, Charny, from his stature and his high seat, could distinguish a four-in-hand coach approaching from the way of Paris.

He guessed that it brought grave news of some important character.

Indeed, it was hailed with cheers for the National Assembly, and contained three officials. One was Hatour Maubourg, Lafayette's right hand man, Petion and Barnave, members of the House.

Of the three the oldest stepped up to the royal carriage, leaving his own, and roughly opening the door, he said:

"I am Petion, and these Barnave and Latour, members of the Assembly, sent by it to serve you as escort and see that the wrath of the populace does not anticipate justice with its own hand. Close up there to make room for me."

The Queen darted on all three one of those disdainful glances which the haughty daughter of Maria Theresa deigned to let fall from her pride. Latour was a gentleman of the old school, like Lafayette, and he could not support the glance. He declined to enter the carriage on the ground that the occupants were too closely packed.

"I will get into the following one," he said.

"Get in where you like," said Petion; "my place is with the King and the Queen, and in I go."

He stepped in at the same time. He looked one after another at the King, the Queen and Lady Elizabeth, who occupied the back seat.

"Excuse me, madam," he said to the last, "but the place of honor belongs to me as representative of the Assembly. Be obliging enough to rise and take the front seat."

"Whoever heard of such a thing?" muttered the Queen.

"Sir!" began the King.

"That is the way of it; so, rise, madam, and give your place to me."

Lady Elizabeth obeyed, with a sign of resignation to her brother and sister.

Latour had gone to the cab to ask the ladies to let him travel with them. Member Barnave stood without, wavering about entering the conveyance where seven persons were.

"Are you not coming, Barnave?" asked Petion.

"Where am I to put myself?" inquired the somewhat embarrassed man.

"Would you like my place?" demanded the Queen tartly.

"I thank you, madam," rejoined Barnave, stung; "a seat in the front will do for me."

It was made by Lady Elizabeth drawing the Princess Royal to her side while the Queen took the Dauphin on her knee. Barnave was thus placed opposite the Queen.

"All ready," cried Petion, without asking the King, "on you go!"

The vehicle resumed the journey, to cheers for the National Assembly.

It was the people who stepped into the royal carriage with their representatives.

There was silence during which each studied the others except Petion who seemed in his roughness to be indifferent to everything.

Jerome Petion, alias Villeneuve, was about thirty-two; his features were sharply defined; his merit lay in the exaltation, clearness and straightforwardness of his political opinions. Born at Chartres, he was a lawyer when sent to Paris in 1789, as member of the Assembly. He was fated to be Mayor of Paris, enjoy popularity effacing that of Bailly and Lafayette and die on the Bordeaux salt meadow wastes, devoured by wolves. His friends called him the Virtuous Petion. He and Camille Desmoulins were republicans when nobody else in France knew the word.

Pierre Joseph Marie Barnave was born at Grenoble; he was hardly thirty; in the Assembly he had acquired both his reputation and great popularity, by struggling with Mirabeau as the latter waned. All the great orator's enemies were necessarily friends of Barnave and had sustained him. He appeared but five-and-twenty, with bright blue eyes, a largish mouth, turned-up nose and sharp voice. But his form was elegant; a duelist and aggressive, he looked like a young military captain in citizen's dress. He was worth more than he seemed.

He belonged to the Constitutional Royalist party.

"Gentlemen," said the King as he took his seat, "I declare to you that it never was my intention to quit the kingdom."

"That being so, the words will save France," replied Barnave, looking at him ere he sat down.

Thereupon something strange transpired between this scion of the country middle class and the woman descended from the greatest throne of Europe. Each tried to read the other's heart, not like two political foes, hiding state secrets, but like a man and a woman seeking mysteries of love.

Barnave aimed in all things to be the heir and successor of Mirabeau. In everybody's eyes Mirabeau passed for having enjoyed the King's confidence and the Queen's affection. We know what the truth was. It was not only the fashion then to spread libels but to believe in them.

Barnave's desire to be Mirabeau in all respects is what led him to be appointed one of the three Commissioners to bring back the Royal Family.

He came with the assurance of the man who knows that he has the power to make himself hated if he cannot make himself loved.

The Queen divined this with her woman's eye if she did not perceive it.

She also observed Barnave's moodiness.

Half a dozen times in a quarter of an hour, Barnave turned to look at the three Lifeguards on the box, examining them with scrupulous attention, and dropping his glance to the Queen more hard and hostile than before.

Barnave knew that one of the trio was Charny, but which he was ignorant of: and public rumor accredited Charny as the Queen's paramour. He was jealous, though it is hard to explain such a feeling in him; but the Queen guessed that, too.

From that moment she was stronger; she knew the flaw in the adversary's breastplate and she could strike true.

"Did you hear what that man who was conducting the carriage said about the Count of Charny?" she asked of Louis XVI.

Barnave gave a start which did not escape the Queen, whose knees was touching his.

"He declared, did he not, that he was responsible for the count's life?" rejoined the sovereign.

"Exactly, and that he answered for his life to his wife."

Barnave half closed his eyes but he did not lose a syllable.

"Now the countess is my old friend Andrea Taverney. Do you think, on our return to Paris, that it will be handsome to give him leave to go and cheer his wife. He has run great risks, and his brother has been killed on our behalf. I think that to claim his continued service beside us would be to act cruelly to the happy couple."

Barnave breathed again and opened his eyes fully.

"You are right, though I doubt that the count will accept it," returned the King.

"In that case we shall both have done our duty – we in proposing it and the count in refusing."

By magnetic sympathy she felt that Barnave's irritation was softening. At the same time that his generous heart understood that he had been unfair to her his shame sprang up.

He had borne himself with a high head like a judge, and now she suddenly spoke the very words which determined her innocence of the charge which she could not have foreseen, or her repentance. Why not innocence?

"We would stand in the better position," continued the Queen, "from our not having taken Count Charny with us, and from my thinking, on my part, that he was in Paris when he suddenly appeared by the side of our carriage."

"It is so," proceeded the monarch; "but it only proves that the count has no need of stimulant when his duty is in question."

There was no longer any doubt that she was guiltless.

How was Barnave to obtain the Queen's forgiveness for having wronged her as a woman? He did not dare address her, and was he to wait till she spoke the first? She said nothing at all as she was satisfied with the effect she had produced.

He had become gentle, almost humble; he implored her with a look, but she did not appear to pay him any heed.

He was in one of those moods when to rouse a woman from inattention he would have undertaken the twelve labors of Hercules, at the risk of the first being too much for him.

He was beseeching "the Supreme Being," which was the fashionable God in 1789, when they had ceased to believe in heaven, for some chance to bring attention upon him, when all at once, as though the Ruler, under whatever title addressed, had heard the prayer, a poor priest who waited for the King to go by, approached from the roadside to see the august prisoner the nearer, and said as he raised his supplicating hands and tear-wet eyes:

"God bless your Majesty!"

It was a long time since the crowd had a chance of flying into anger. Nothing had presented itself since the hapless Knight of St. Louis, whose head was still following on the pike-point. This occasion was eagerly embraced.

The mob replied to the reverence with a roar: they threw themselves on the priest in a twinkling, and he was flung down and would have been flayed alive before Barnave broke from his abstraction had not the frightened Queen appealed to him.

"Oh, sir, do you not see what is going on?"

He raised his head, plunged a rapid look into the ocean which submerged the priest, and rolled in growling and tumultuous waves up to the carriage; he burst the door with such violence that he would have fallen out if the Princess Elizabeth had not caught him by the coat.

"You villains!" he shouted. "Tigers, who cannot be French men! or France, the home of the brave, has become a den of assassins!"

This apostrophe may appear bombastic to us but it was in the style of the period. Besides, the denunciator belonged to the National Assembly and supreme power spoke by his voice. The crowd recoiled and the old man was saved.

He rose and said:

"You did well to save an old man, young sir – he will ever pray for you."

He made the sign of the cross, and went his way, the throng opening to him, dominated by the voice and attitude of Barnave, who seemed the statue of Command. When the victim was gone from sight, the young deputy simply and naturally retook his seat, as if he were not aware he had saved a human life.

"I thank you, sir," said the Queen.

These few words set him quivering over all his frame. In all the long period during which we have accompanied Marie Antoinette, though she had been more lovely, never had she been more touching.

He was contemplating so much motherly grace when the prince uttered a cry of pain at the moment when Barnave was inclined to fall at the knees of dying Majesty. The boy had played some roguish trick on the virtuous Petion, who had deemed it proper to pull his ears. The King reddened with anger, the Queen turned pale with shame. She held out her arms and pulled the boy from between Petion's knees, so that Barnave received him between his. She still wished to draw him to her but he resisted, saying: