st the king
harangued the municipal authorities, the queen, seated with her children
on her lap between two bales of goods in the shop, showed her infants to
Madame Sausse. "You are a mother, madame," said the queen; "you are a
wife; the fate of a wife and mother is in your hands--think what I must
suffer for these children, for my husband. At one word from you I shall
owe them to you; the queen of France will owe you more than her kingdom,
more than life." "Madame," returned the grocer's wife unmoved, with that
petty common sense of minds in which calculation stifles generosity, "I
wish it was in my power to serve you; you are thinking of the king; I am
thinking of M. Sausse. It is a wife's duty to think of her husband." All
hope is lost when no pity can be found in a woman's heart. The queen,
indignant and hurt, retired with Madame Elizabeth and the children into
two rooms at the top of the house, and there she burst into tears. The
king, surrounded by municipal officers and national guard, relinquished
all hope of softening them. He repeatedly mounted the wooden staircase
of the wretched shop; he went from the queen to his sister, from his
sister to his children; that which he had been unable to obtain from
pity she hoped to obtain from time and compulsion. He could not believe
that these men, who still showed something like feeling, and manifested
so much respect for him, would persist in their determination of
detaining him, and awaiting the orders of the Assembly. At all events he
felt certain that before the return of the couriers from Paris he should
be rescued by the forces of M. de Bouille, by which he knew he was
surrounded without the knowledge of the people. He was only astonished
that these succours should delay their appearance so long. Hour after
hour chimed, the night wore away, and yet they came not.

XIV.

The officer who commanded the squadron of hussars stationed at Varennes
by M. de Bouille was not entirely acquainted with the plan of action, or
its nature; he had merely been told that a large sum in gold would pass
through, and that it would be his duty to escort it. No courier preceded
the king's carriage, no messenger had arrived from Sainte Menehould to
warn him to assemble his troopers; MM. de Choiseul and de Guoguelas, who
were to be at Varennes before the king's arrival, and communicate to
this officer the last secret orders relative to his duty, were not
there; thus the officer was left