where the former arrival of the queen as
dauphiness had been awaited in a far different temper. In short, the
hussars had to ride away, and leave the "treasure" to take its chance.
Thus all was confusion, expectation, and alarm along the road, for hours
before the berlin appeared: the very road by which the queen had entered
France, amidst cheers of welcome, in her bridal days!

It appeared afterwards that it was the king's wish to have these
soldiers in waiting along the road, while his advisers thought it would
be better to keep up the story of the Baroness de Korff till the party
actually drew near Montmedy. As it turned out, the king not only lost
his desired security, but, by his and the queen's management together,
the whole region beyond Chalons was in an uproar before they entered it.
Meantime, the party had travelled only sixty-nine of their two hundred
miles in twenty-two hours; and little Louis must have been sadly tired
before they had gone nearly half-way.

On and on they went, however, through the night and all the next day,
little knowing how fast messengers from Paris were racing all over the
kingdom, to give the news of their flight. Lafayette had been roused,
at six in the morning of the 21st, by a note from a gentleman who had
been informed that the king's rooms at the Tuileries were empty. The
whole city was in consternation, and Lafayette's life in great danger.
Tranquillity was preserved, however. Messengers galloped off in every
direction; and one of these it was who, going north-east, spread the
alarm which made the herb-man go and tell what he had seen in the wood
of Bondy. Little did the travelling party think how much faster the
mounted messengers were going than they: and on they lumbered, the
eleven horses whisking their tails, and the king taking his time in
walking up the hills, while the alarm was flying abroad.

It was near sunset on the second evening, when they had gone about one
hundred and seventy miles, that one of the body-guards, mounted and
dressed in yellow as a courier, came prancing into the village of Saint
Menehould. His dress attracted all eyes; and so did his proceedings.
The gazers saw that this odd courier did not know the post-house; for he
spurred past it, and had to inquire for it. The master of the post,
Drouet, of revolutionary politics, was in a very bad humour, and had
been so all day, having been angry about the mysterious hussars in the
morning, and no