For a hundred miles the royal fugitives proceeded rapidly and without interruption.  One of the supposed couriers was on the box, another rode by the side of the carriage, and the third went on in advance to see that the relays were in readiness.  Before midday they reached Chalons, the place where they were to be met by the first detachment of De Bouille’s troops; and, when the well-known uniforms met her eye, Marie Antoinette for the first time gave full expression to her feelings.  “Thank God, we are saved!” she exclaimed, clasping her hands; the fervor of her exclamation bearing undesigned testimony to the greatness of the fears which, out of consideration for others, she had hitherto kept to herself; but in truth out of this employment of the troops arose all their subsequent disasters.

De Bouille had been unwilling to send his detachments so far forward, pointing out that the notice which their arrival in the different towns was sure to attract would do more harm than their presence as a protection could do good.  But his argument had been overruled by the king himself, who apprehended the greatest danger from the chance of being overtaken, and expected it, therefore, to increase with every hour of the journey.  De Bouille’s fears, however, were found to be the best justified by the event.  In more than one town, even in the few hours that had elapsed since the arrival of the soldiers, there had been quarrels between them and the towns-people; in others, which was still worse, the populace had made friends with them and seduced them from their loyalty, so that the officers in command had found it necessary to withdraw them altogether; and anxiety at their unexpected absence caused Louis more than once to show himself at the carriage window.  More than once he was recognized by people who knew him and kept his counsel; but Drouet, the postmaster at Ste. Menehould, a town about one hundred and seventy miles from Paris, was of a less loyal disposition.  He had lately been in the capital, where he had become infected with the Jacobin doctrines.  He too saw the king’s face, and on comparing his somewhat striking features with the stamp on some public documents which he chanced to have in his pocket, became convinced of his identity.  He at once reported to the magistrates what he had seen, and with their sanction rode forward to the next town, Clermont, hoping to be able to collect a force sufficient to stop the royal carriage on its arrival there.  But the king traveled so fast that he had quit Clermont before Drouet reached it, and he even arrived at Varennes before his pursuer.  Had he quit that place also he would have been in safety, for just beyond it De Bouille had posted a strong division which would have been able to defy all resistance.  But Varennes, a town on the Oise, was so small as to have no post-house, and by some mismanagement the royal party had not been informed at which end of the town they were to find the relay.  The carriage