rter route than the carriage road, nearly two hours before
the king. He immediately communicated to a band of young men his
suspicions, and they, emulous of the glory of arresting their sovereign,
did not inform the authorities or arouse the populace, but, arming
themselves, they formed an ambush to seize the persons of the travelers.
It was half past seven o'clock of a cold, dark, and gloomy night, when
the royal family, exhausted with twenty-four hours of incessant anxiety
and fatigue, arrived at the few straggling houses in the outskirts of
the village of Varennes. They there confidently expected to find an
escort and a relay of horses provided by their careful friend, M.
Bouille.

A small river passes through the little town of Varennes, dividing
it into two portions, the upper and lower town, which villages
are connected by a bridge crossing the stream. The king, by some
misunderstanding, expected to find the relay upon the side of the river
before crossing the bridge. But the fresh horses had been judiciously
placed upon the other side of the river, so that the carriages, having
crossed the bridge at full speed, could more easily, with a change of
horses, hasten unmolested on their way. The king and queen, greatly
alarmed at finding no horses, left the carriage, and wandered about in
sad perplexity for half an hour, through the dark, silent, and deserted
streets. In most painful anxiety, they returned to their carriages, and
decided to cross the river, hoping to find the horses and their friends
in the upper town. The bridge was a narrow stone structure, with its
entrance surmounted by a gloomy, massive arch, upon which was reared
a tower, a relic of the feudal system, which had braved the storms of
centuries. Here, under this dark archway, Drouet and his companions had
formed their ambuscade. The horses had hardly entered the gloomy pass,
when they were stopped by a cart which had been overturned, and five or
six armed men, seizing their heads, ordered the travelers to alight and
exhibit their passports. The three body-guard seized their arms, and
were ready to sacrifice their lives in the attempt to force the passage,
but the king would allow no blood to be shed. The horses were turned
round by the captors, and the carriages were escorted by Drouet and his
comrades to the door of a grocer named Sausse, who was the humble mayor
of this obscure town. At the same time, some of the party rushed to the
church, mounte