ard beat to arms: the king and queen were prisoners.

How they were allowed to remain so is still, after all the explanations
that have been given, incomprehensible. Two officers with sixty hussars,
all well disposed and loyal, were in a side street of the town waiting for
their arrival, of which they were not aware. Six of the troopers actually
passed the travelers in the street as they were proceeding to the mayor's
house, but no one, not even the queen, appealed to them for succor; or
they could have released them without an effort, for Drouet's whole party
consisted of no more than eight unarmed men. And when, an hour afterward,
the officers in command learned that the king was in the town in the hands
of his enemies, instead of at once delivering him, they were seized with a
panic: they would not take on themselves the responsibility of acting
without express orders, but galloped back to De Bouille to report the
state of affairs. In less than an hour three more detachments, amounting
in all to above one hundred men, also reached the town; and their
commanders did make their way to the king, and asked his orders. He could
only reply that he was a prisoner, and had no orders to give; and not one
of the officers had the sense to perceive that the fact of his announcing
himself a prisoner was in itself an order to deliver him.

One word of command from Louis to clear the way for him at the sword's
point would yet have been sufficient; but he had still the same invincible
repugnance as ever to allow blood to be shed in his quarrel. He preferred
peaceful means, which could not but fail. With a dignity arising from his
entire personal fearlessness, he announced his name and rank, his reasons
for quitting Paris and proceeding to Montmedy; declaring that he had no
thought of quitting the kingdom, and demanded to be allowed to proceed on
his journey. While the queen, her fears for her children overpowering all
other feelings, addressed herself with the most earnest entreaties to the
mayor's wife, declaring that their very lives would be in danger if they
should be taken back to Paris, and imploring her to use her influence with
her husband to allow them to proceed. Neither Strausse nor his wife was
ill-disposed toward the king, but had not the courage to comply with the
request of the royal couple whom, after a little time, the mayor and his
wife could not have allowed to proceed, however much they might have
wished it; for t