CHAPTER XXXIII.
AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE TURNS UP.
Nothing important passed between Varennes and St. Menehould. The illustrious prisoners, starting at every new noise, lost in a measure, as they approached the latter town, every hope of succor.
The first thing they encountered was a sort of rebuke from the dead. Of course, I allude to the interment of the man shot in the evening by the sentinels.
The royal carriages stopped in order to allow the funeral procession to pass. Two kings found themselves face to face with each other—a living majesty and the King of Death. The living King recognised the power of King Death, and bowed down before him.
St. Menehould was crowded. The National Guard poured in from all points, those from Châlons coming in public or private vehicles. In fact, the affluence of people was such that they feared a lack of provisions.
In the midst of all these people coming and going, I recognised, mounted on a little pony, M. Dampierre, our old chasseur of the Forest of Argonne. He knew me, and came to me, trying to force the line of guards on duty at the side of the gates.
It was I who repulsed him, because he did not count on my resistance.
“Pardon, M. le Comte,” said I; “you cannot pass!”
“Why can I not pass?” asked he.
“Because it is ordered that none shall be allowed to approach the King’s carriage.”
“Who gave that order?”
“Our Captain, M. Drouet.”
“A revolutionist!”
“Possibly so, M. le Comte; but he is our commander, and we are bound to obey him.”
“Is it forbidden to cry ‘Vive le Roi?’”
“No, M. le Comte; we are all Royalists.”
M. de Dampierre lifted his hat as high as his length of arm would permit him, raised himself in his stirrups, and cried “Vive le Roi!”
The King put his head out of the window, and without any expression of gratitude or remembrance, bowed to him.
M. de Dampierre retreated out of the crowd with trouble, being obliged to make his horse go backwards. I remember him as well as if the events occurred but yesterday. He wore gray trousers, long riding boots, a white waistcoat, a three-cornered hat, trimmed with gold lace. As usual with him, he carried, slung over his shoulder, a little single-barrelled gun.
I lost sight of him. I fancied that he took the direction of the Rue de l’Abreuvoir.
During this time, the Mayor and members of the municipality had advanced as far as the bridge of the Aisne, situate at the extremity of the Porte au Bois, to meet the royal family.
A municipal officer then took occasion to speak, and to tell the King what alarms his flight had caused in France.
Louis XVI was contented to reply, with an ill-tempered air, “I never intended to leave my kingdom.”
The crowd was so great that we took half an hour to go five hundred yards.
About half-past eleven, the King mounted the steps of the Hotel de Ville, his garments covered with dust, and his face altered and careworn.
The Queen dressed in black. She had changed her robe at M. Sauce’s, and held the Dauphin by the hand.
Louis XVI and his children were hungry.
As for the Queen, in the same manner, as she cared not to sleep, she now seemed to care not to eat.
A breakfast had been prepared through the forethought of the municipal council, but as they were a long time serving it, a gendarme named Lapointe brought some cherries in his hat for Madame Royale.
The royal family had likewise need of rest.
The Mayor, M. Dupuis de Dammartin, offered them hospitality; they accepted it; only M. Dupuis de Dammartin observed to the King that it would be just as well if the Queen and the Dauphin showed themselves to the people.
The King made no difficulty. He showed himself first. Afterwards the Queen appeared in her turn, holding the Dauphin in her arms. The window of the Hotel de Ville—the only one which had a balcony—was so narrow that the King and Queen could not both show themselves at the same time.
A municipal officer then announced to the people that the King, being fatigued, intended to honor the citizens of St. Menehould by sleeping within their walls.
The carriages had already been taken to the stables, and the news of a halt for twenty-four hours was not less agreeable to us, who had been marching seven or eight leagues under a burning sun, than it was to the royal family, when the National Guards from the adjacent towns and villages, who filled the hotels and cafés, rushed into the place, crying “Aristocrats! Traitors!” and saying that the royal family were far too near the frontier to be allowed to halt.
In consequence, they ordered the immediate departure of the King and his family.
The King, having informed himself of the cause of the tumult, said, with his usual impassibility, “Very well; let us go.”
The Queen then reappeared on the balcony holding her son by the hand. She pointed out the National Guards to him, saying some words in a whisper.
An inhabitant of St. Menehould, who was at an adjoining window, assured me that the following were the words that she spoke. “Do you see those blue toads? It is they who wish us to set out!”
It is needless to say that the National Guards wore the blue uniform.
As the royal family crossed the hall of the Hotel de Ville, into which opened the door of the chapel, where the prisoners had heard mass, the Queen perceiving the captives, distributed among them five louis—the King ten.
At two o’clock the carriages started for Châlons. From the time that the King had been recognised he took the place of honor in the vehicle.
MM. de Malden, de Moustier, and de Valory, sat on the box, but they were not strapped to it as some people have said.
Not a single shout for the King, except that which Dampierre uttered, as we have before mentioned, was used at either his arrival or departure. The only shouts raised were “Vive la nation!” “Vivent les patriotes!”
About nine or ten in the morning the Comte de Haus arrived at St. Menehould, exasperated by the news of the arrest of the King.
Many persons had heard him say, “The King is arrested! We are all lost! But the King shall know that he still has some faithful subjects!”
I have said that, after speaking to me, I had seen him go round to the side of the horse-pond.
As the royal carriage passed, he presented arms to the august prisoners, after the fashion of a sentinel.
The King recognised him, pointed him out to the Queen, and returned his salute.
M. Dampierre then put his horse to a gallop, and disappeared at the Rue de l’Abreuvoir so as to get in advance of the King’s carriage, stopped in the most public part of the town, at the corner of the Rue de l’Abreuvoir, and presented arms afresh.
The King saluted him a third time.
Then pushing his horse through the crowd on the side where I was, he approached the carriage.
It was going at this time up the Fleurion at a foot pace.
“Sire,” said he, “you see before you one of your most faithful servants. My name is Duval de Dampierre, Comte de Haus. I have married a lady of the House of Legur, a relative of the minister of that name, and a niece of M. d’Allonville.”
“All these names are known to me,” replied the King; “and I am touched at the proof of fidelity which you give me.”
This whispered conversation, after the pretence of the Comte in presenting arms to the King on his road, was a direct provocation to that crowd who were taking him who had wished to escape back to Paris.
In the meantime the Comte had been gently pushed on one side, and darting off, he disappeared in the distance.
The head of the procession reached the end of the town, and arrived at the decline of Dammartin la Planchette.
As they left the city, M. de Dampierre reappeared, and followed their route, keeping himself on the other side of the hedge and ditch. He wished, by some means, to get on to the top of the King’s carriage, from whence he could hold communication with the royal party inside. These signs, as they could easily understand them, excited defiance.
They believed that in the few words exchanged at the door of the carriage, a project for a rescue had been broached; they closed round the carriage, and the words “Be on the alert!” circulated through the ranks of the National Guards.
M. de Dampierre tried to approach the carriage once again, and was repulsed, not only with murmurs, but with menaces; the guards crossing their muskets across the door to prevent his holding any communication with the King.
This almost insolent persistence on his part had exasperated even the most temperate.
Seeing that his efforts were useless, M. de Dampierre resolved to finish with an act of bravado.
Having accomplished two-thirds of the descent, at a spot called La Grevières, M. de Dampierre called out a second time “Vive le Roi!” fired off his gun in the air, and plunging his rowels into his steed, darted off at a gallop.
A wood was situated about half a league from the road. They believed that some troops were in ambuscade there, and that the discharge of the gun was a preconcerted signal for them.
Five or six horsemen dashed off in pursuit of M. de Dampierre; ten or twelve shots were fired at him at the same time, but none of the bullets touched him.
M. de Dampierre, still at a gallop, waved his arm in a triumphant manner in the air.
I rushed off like the others, though on foot, not to capture M. de Dampierre—heaven forbid!—but, on the contrary, to help him if needful.
M. de Dampierre had already galloped more than five hundred yards, and he had almost escaped from his pursuers, when his horse, in leaping a ditch, stumbled, and fell.
But, with the aid of the bit and bridle, he managed to raise him up again, and once more set off at a gallop. His gun was left in the ditch.
At this moment a solitary gun was discharged.
It was fired by a peasant, mounted on a horse belonging to one of the hussars, which he had captured the evening before.
It was easy to see that M. de Dampierre was wounded. He fell backwards on the croup of his horse, which reared.
Then, in a moment, with the rapidity of lightning, on the little bridge of St. Catherine, by the borders of the ditch, the waters of which pass under the bridge, a horrible scene took place, which I saw in all its dreadful details, but was unable to oppose.
The peasant who had fired the shot, followed by about forty men, caught up the Comte de Haus, dealt him a blow with his sabre, and then unhorsed him. I saw no more. I heard the report of about twenty guns, into the suffocating smoke of which I dashed.
They were firing at M. de Dampierre.
I arrived too late. Had I reached the mob sooner, it would have been to have died with him, for I could not have saved him.
His body was riddled with bullets, and gashed with bayonets; his face, scratched by the peasants’ hob-nailed boots, was unrecognisable.
His watch was dashed to pieces by a ball which had penetrated his fob.
There was nothing to be done. I threw my gun over my shoulder, and, with tears in my eyes and sweat on my brow, I rejoined my rank.
The royal berlin continued its route slowly and sorrowfully under a sweltering sun, along that unbending route which crosses like a pencil line that sorrowful portion of France called the Paltry Land.