When the King Took Flight (5 page)

For the citizens of Varennes, the appearance of Goguelat and the
hussars marked a turning point in more ways than one. Through
this threat of violent action, the inhabitants were more convinced
than ever that the king's flight represented not simply the monarch's
effort to find refuge from Paris for himself and his family, but a vast
and dangerous conspiracy involving foreign soldiers and perhaps
foreign armies. Moreover, the effect on the town leader Sauce must
have been particularly strong. Only a few days earlier the baron had
lured him with vigorous professions of patriotism into presenting a
general report on the town and the national guard, even while other
citizens had been far more suspicious. Now it dawned on the grocer
that he had been manipulated by a noble, that he had been made a
fool. "Under the veil of patriotism," as he wrote later, "Goguelat
concealed from me his black treachery. I can only express my deep est resentment."21 The experience may well have been crucial in
Sauce's change of position toward the king.

In any case, not long thereafter reinforcements began arriving
from every direction. About a half hour after midnight someone
had dispatched three or four mounted constables, who were soon
shouting "To arms, to arms!" from village to village. Shortly afterward Sauce sent messages for armed assistance from Verdun, the
largest military center in the region: "Quick! Come with your national guards and with cannons. The king and the royal family are
here. Quick, quick! Come to our aid!"22 Even before the couriers
arrived, some neighboring villages had heard the Varennes church
bells ringing, and people were out in the streets; and in short order,
peasant militias were marching to Varennes, drums beating, flags
unfurled. In Montblainville, just two miles to the north, the first
messenger arrived about one o'clock. Although there was some
confusion as to the exact meaning of the emergency-the courier
had galloped off to warn other villagers before the message had
been clearly understood-the men sounded the call to arms and a
hundred or so marched off on foot, arriving in Varennes a little after half past one. Once they had learned the true nature of the crisis, they took up positions ready for battle. As in previous mobilizations, the women with children in tow followed soon afterward,
bringing wagons of food and supplies."

Montfaucon, on a nearby hill in the Argonne, received word toward three in the morning. Villagers later remembered how calm
everything had seemed the evening before and how stunned they
had been by "this message, as unbelievable as it was unexpected."
But they, too, set off immediately with whatever weapons they
could muster, arriving in Varennes about dawn. By a quarter past
five the news had arrived in Verdun, and the district leaders relayed
it on before dispatching some four hundred guardsmen and regular
French soldiers. Triaucourt, twenty miles to the south, received
couriers about the same time; Autry, on the west side of the Argonne, got word an hour or so later, both directly from Varennes
and indirectly via two other villages. Indeed, as soon as they learned of the emergency, many communities set their own church
bells ringing and sent out additional messengers to warn friends and
family in other farms and hamlets, so that a chain reaction was set
in motion, passing the news with amazing speed. By morning militia were arriving in Varennes from Cuisy, Septsarges, and Bethin-
court, just beyond Montfaucon; from Dannevoux and Sivry, on the
Meuse River; and from Damvillers, well beyond the Meuse. That
same morning, the word had spread to Saint-Dizier, some forty-five
miles to the south, and to Chalons-sur-Marne and Reims, over seventy miles to the west. By afternoon Metz and Thionville, an equal
distance to the east, had also received the news. All these towns rapidly dispatched armed contingents to Varennes.z4

By the morning of June 22 several thousand people had converged on the small town in the Argonne: guardsmen with muskets,
peasants armed with whatever they could find, women doing their
best to prepare food and bake bread for the men. Although a few
less-disciplined citizens began breaking into the homes of local inhabitants, looking for food and drink, most of the arrivals maintained themselves in good order, waiting for the attack they were
sure would come. An elderly patriot nobleman, a former officer in
the king's army, appeared on the scene and set to work organizing a
systematic defense. Barricades were placed around most of the
town's perimeter, and the wooden bridge at the center of Varennes
was partly dismantled. Shortly after dawn another sixty-five hussars
had arrived from the north, but the people were now prepared with
a line of loaded muskets, and the cavalry was forced to wait outside
the town, with only the commander, Captain Deslon, allowed to
enter and speak with the king.25

In the meantime the municipal council, meeting in emergency session with other town notables and the judges of the local tribunal,
was agonizing over what should be done with the king. The little
group of men, shopkeepers, merchants, and small-town lawyers by profession, found themselves weighed down with the responsibilities of a veritable supreme court, with the fate of the nation perhaps
in their hands. Soon after reconvening at about two in the morning,
they had sent off a messenger-the master barber Mangin-to notify the National Assembly of the king's presence and to ask its
advice. But they knew it might be days before they received a
response from Paris, and they could not postpone their decision
indefinitely. They had initially promised to help the monarch and
his family travel on. But the arrival of the cavalry and the aggressive threats of their officers to carry off the king by force had substantially diminished the spirit of cooperation and goodwill-especially after they spotted Goguelat as one of the commanders and
realized the extent of his trickery and deceit.

Moreover, through their own reflection and through the insistent
advice of the Jacobins and other patriots present in the town hall,
the council members came to reflect on the full portent of the king's
flight. Louis had told them he would not leave the kingdom and
would remain in Montmedy, but was the king really in control of
the situation? They were surprised by the king's version of the atmosphere in Paris, which did not match their own understanding,
garnered from newspapers and from the correspondence of their
mayor. Most of them had heard reports of Louis' unreliable councilors and of the ease with which he could be influenced, however
worthy his intentions might be. What would be the consequences
for their town if it were subsequently determined that the king
had been misled? Could they themselves be accused of treason, as
Drouet claimed? And even if the king were not to cross the frontier, what would his absence from Paris mean for the survival of the
National Assembly and the new constitution, which most of them
supported as fervently as they supported the king? The potentials
for civil war and perhaps foreign invasion were only too obvious,
particularly for a town like Varennes, obsessed by its proximity to
the frontier.

How long they grappled with these questions, agonizing over the
dilemma of divided loyalties, we do not really know. At some point, however-probably about the time Sauce sent out his call for help
from Verdun-they clearly ceased thinking of accompanying the
king to Montmedy and sought rather to play for time and wait for
the arrival of sufficient forces to defend the town. At any rate, toward the end of the night, Sauce and a portion of the council felt
obliged to return to Louis and explain their change of heart. It was
an extraordinary scene. A grocer and a tanner and a small-town
judge informed the king of France that they must reject his orders,
that they could not allow him to continue his journey. Struggling to
express themselves in the royal presence, they told Louis of "their
tender but anxious feelings, as members of a great family who had
just found their father, but who now feared they might lose him
again." They assured him "that he was adored by his people, that
the strength of his throne was in everyone's heart and his name on
everyone's lips; but that his residence was in Paris, and that even
those living in the provinces eagerly and anxiously called him to return there." They also expressed their fears of "the bloody events
which his departure might cause" and their conviction "that the salvation of the state depended on the completion of the constitution,
and that the constitution depended on his return." The council's
conclusions were reduced to their essence by the persistent cries of
the ever-greater crowds of men, women, and children gathering
outside Sauce's house: "Long live the king! Long live the nation!
To Paris, to Paris!"26

At first the king and the queen seemed not to understand, not
even to listen, and they continued to ask that the horses and escort
be prepared so they could pursue their journey. Marie-Antoinette
even appealed to Sauce's wife to influence her husband, telling her
of the great benefits that the town would reap from its support of
the king. Madame Sauce replied, as the townspeople remembered it,
that she truly loved her king, but that she also loved her husband,
and that he was responsible, and that she was afraid he might be
punished if he let the party pass. Another story-perhaps true, perhaps apocryphal-told of Louis' appeal to old Geraudel, one of the
guardsmen present and a simple woodcutter by profession. The king vowed once again that he would never leave the country and
that he only wanted the good of the nation. But Geraudel was said
to have replied, "Sire, we're not certain we can trust you."27 Two
years of Revolution had changed everything.

When Captain Deslon arrived at the Sauce house about five in
the morning, he immediately asked the king what he should do. But
Louis now seemed resigned and fatalistic: "I have no orders to give
you," he replied; "I am a prisoner." Deslon then tried to speak with
the queen and one of the other officers in German-the queen's native tongue-broaching once again a possible military action to extricate the royal family. But the townsmen in the room immediately
shouted out "No German!" and Deslon returned to wait with his
troops outside town for orders that never came.28 In any case, the
situation was entirely transformed about an hour later, when two
couriers, dispatched by the National Assembly and General Lafayette the previous morning, arrived in Varennes. Bayon, an officer in
the Paris national guard, and Romeuf, one of the general's assistants, had been traveling day and night in pursuit of the king and
his family-still uncertain whether they had left on their own accord or had been abducted. Their orders were formal and addressed
"to all public officials and members of the national guard or the line
army." If the couriers succeeded in reaching the royal family, "officials would be held to take all necessary measures to halt any abduction, to prevent the royal family from pursuing its route, and to
notify the legislature immediately."29 Confronted with contradictory orders from the two central authorities of the new Revolutionary state-the will of the king and the will of the National Assembly-the people of Varennes opted without hesitation for the
Assembly. The couriers then climbed to the second floor of Sauce's
home and presented the decree to the king and queen. Marie-Antoinette appeared outraged. "What insolence!" she sneered, and she
threw the decree to the floor. Louis, more phlegmatic but saddened
nevertheless, said only: "There is no longer a king in France.""

In fact the National Assembly only specified that the king and
queen must be stopped and the Assembly notified. But the people of Varennes had no doubts on the matter: the family must be sent back
to Paris immediately. Beyond the constitutional requirement that
king and Assembly remain in close proximity, everyone was anxious
about the local military situation. They were still expecting an attack from General Bouille, and they could only hope that their town
might be spared if the king were sent elsewhere. And so at half past
seven, the sun already high and becoming hot, the municipal leaders
and the royal party approaching exhaustion from their night without sleep, the two carriages were turned about and driven through
the archway and back up the hill out of town. Accompanied now by
thousands of national guardsmen, the king, the queen, and the royal
children began the long trek back to Paris.

THE NIGHT the king suddenly appeared in a small town in northeastern France is arguably one of the most dramatic and poignant
moments in the entire French Revolution. For the local inhabitants
the experience was unforgettable, and in some cases it would entirely reshape their lives. Drouet would soon find himself elected to
the National Convention, largely on the basis of his actions that
night. Sauce would be tracked for years by fanatical royalists for
whom he became the embodiment of evil. His wife would fall to
her death as she attempted to hide in a well to escape the invading
foreign armies in 1792. Indeed, the whole town would be periodically threatened with annihilation by various counterrevolutionary groups. "Varennes, unhappy Varennes," wrote one prophet of
doom: "your ruins will soon be plowed into the earth."31 By contrast, patriots from all over France flooded the town with letters of
gratitude. An enormous sum of close to 200,000 French pounds
was offered by the National Assembly as a reward to be divided
among various local citizens. Engravings and flags and handpainted dishes would hail the town and its people, "from the nation, in grateful recognition," and the state would erect a memorial
tower at the site of the inn of the Golden Arm, where the royal
family had been stopped by the national guard. Novelists and historians would make pilgrimages to Sauce's small upstairs apartment throughout the nineteenth century, until it and the whole center of
town were destroyed by the German invasion in August 1914-and
battered once again by the Americans four years later in the Battle
of the Argonne 32