ft through the two Coach-doors: "Mesdames, your
Passports?"--Alas! Alas! Sieur Sausse, Procureur of the
Township, Tallow-chandler also and Grocer is there, with official
grocer-politeness; Drouet with fierce logic and ready wit:--The
respected Travelling Party, be it Baroness de Korff's, or persons of
still higher consequence, will perhaps please to rest itself in M.
Sausse's till the dawn strike up!

O Louis; O hapless Marie-Antoinette, fated to pass thy life with such
men! Phlegmatic Louis, art thou but lazy semi-animate phlegm then, to
the centre of thee? King, Captain-General, Sovereign Frank! If thy
heart ever formed, since it began beating under the name of heart, any
resolution at all, be it now then, or never in this world: "Violent
nocturnal individuals, and if it were persons of high consequence?
And if it were the King himself? Has the King not the power, which all
beggars have, of travelling unmolested on his own Highway? Yes: it is
the King; and tremble ye to know it! The King has said, in this one
small matter; and in France, or under God's Throne, is no power that
shall gainsay. Not the King shall ye stop here under this your miserable
Archway; but his dead body only, and answer it to Heaven and Earth. To
me, Bodyguards: Postillions, en avant!"--One fancies in that case
the pale paralysis of these two Le Blanc musketeers; the drooping of
Drouet's under-jaw; and how Procureur Sausse had melted like tallow
in furnace-heat: Louis faring on; in some few steps awakening
Young Bouille, awakening relays and hussars: triumphant entry, with
cavalcading high-brandishing Escort, and Escorts, into Montmedi; and the
whole course of French History different!

Alas, it was not in the poor phlegmatic man. Had it been in him, French
History had never come under this Varennes Archway to decide itself.--He
steps out; all step out. Procureur Sausse gives his grocer-arms to the
Queen and Sister Elizabeth; Majesty taking the two children by the hand.
And thus they walk, coolly back, over the Marketplace, to Procureur
Sausse's; mount into his small upper story; where straightway his
Majesty 'demands refreshments.' Demands refreshments, as is written;
gets bread-and-cheese with a bottle of Burgundy; and remarks, that it is
the best Burgundy he ever drank!

Meanwhile, the Varennes Notables, and all men, official, and
non-official, are hastily drawing on their breeches; getting their
fighting-gear. Mortals half-dressed tumble o