Loud acclamations followed this speech.  M. de Bouille distributed 500 or 600 louis amongst the soldiers, and the regiment marched forward.

Stenay is at least nine leagues from Varennes, and the road very hilly and bad.  M. de Bouille, however, used all possible dispatch, and at a little distance from Varennes he met the advanced guard of the regiment, halted at the entrance of a little wood, defended by a body of the national guard.  M. de Bouille ordered them to charge, and putting himself at the head of the troop, arrived at Varennes at a quarter to nine, closely followed by the regiment.  Whilst reconnoitring the town, previous to an attack, he observed a troop of hussars, who appeared also to watch the town.  It was the squadron from Dun, commanded by M. Derlons, who had passed the night here, awaiting reinforcements.  M. Derlons hastened to inform the general that the king had left the town more than an hour and a half; he added, the bridge was broken, the streets barricaded; that the hussars of Clermont and Varennes had fraternised with the people, and the commanders of the detachments, MM. de Choiseul, de Damas, and de Guoguelas, were prisoners.  M. de Bouille, baffled, but not discouraged, resolved to follow the king, and rescue him from the hands of the national guard.  He despatched officers to find a ford by which they could pass the river; but, unfortunately, although one existed, they were unable to find it.

Whilst thus engaged, he learnt that the garrisons of Metz and Verdun were advancing with a train of artillery to the aid of the people.  The country was swarming with troops and national guards.  The troops began to show symptoms of hesitation; the horses, fatigued by nine leagues over a bad road, could not sustain the speed necessary to overtake the king at Sainte Menehould.  All energy deserted them with hope.  The regiment turned round, and M. de Bouille led them back in silence to Stenay; thence, followed only by a few of the officers most implicated, he gained Luxembourg, and passed the frontier amidst a shower of balls, and wishing for death more than he shunned the punishment.

XXIV.

The royal carriages, however, rolled rapidly along the road to Chalons, attended by the national guard, who relieved each other in order to escort them on; the whole population lined the road on either side, to gaze upon a king brought back in triumph by the nation that believed itself betrayed.  The pikes and bayonets of the national guards could scarcely force them a passage through this dense throng, that at each instant grew more and more numerous, and who were never weary of uttering cries of derision and menace, accompanied by the most furious gestures.