halted while M. Valory was making the necessary inquiries; and, while it was standing still, Drouet rode up and forbade the postilions to proceed.  He himself hastened on through the town, collected a few of the towns-people, and with their aid upset a cart or two on the bridge to block up the way; and, having thus made the road impassable, he roused the municipal authorities, for it was nearly midnight, and then, returning to the royal carriage, he compelled the royal family to dismount and follow him to the house of the mayor, a petty grocer, whose name was Strausse.  The magistrates sounded the tocsin:  the National Guard beat to arms:  the king and queen were prisoners.

How they were allowed to remain so is still, after all the explanations that have been given, incomprehensible.  Two officers with sixty hussars, all well disposed and loyal, were in a side street of the town waiting for their arrival, of which they were not aware.  Six of the troopers actually passed the travelers in the street as they were proceeding to the mayor’s house, but no one, not even the queen, appealed to them for succor; or they could have released them without an effort, for Drouet’s whole party consisted of no more than eight unarmed men.  And when, an hour afterward, the officers in command learned that the king was in the town in the hands of his enemies, instead of at once delivering him, they were seized with a panic:  they would not take on themselves the responsibility of acting without express orders, but galloped back to De Bouille to report the state of affairs.  In less than an hour three more detachments, amounting in all to above one hundred men, also reached the town; and their commanders did make their way to the king, and asked his orders.  He could only reply that he was a prisoner, and had no orders to give; and not one of the officers had the sense to perceive that the fact of his announcing himself a prisoner was in itself an order to deliver him.

One word of command from Louis to clear the way for him at the sword’s point would yet have been sufficient; but he had still the same invincible repugnance as ever to allow blood to be shed in his quarrel.  He preferred peaceful means, which could not but fail.  With a dignity arising from his entire personal fearlessness, he announced his name and rank, his reasons for quitting Paris and proceeding to Montmedy; declaring that he had no thought of quitting the kingdom, and demanded to be allowed to proceed on his journey.  While the queen, her fears for her children overpowering all other feelings, addressed herself with the most earnest entreaties to the mayor’s wife, declaring that their very lives would be in danger if they should be taken back to Paris, and imploring her to use her influence with her husband to allow them to proceed.  Neither Strausse nor his wife was ill-disposed toward the king, but had not the courage to comply with the request of the royal couple whom, after a little time,