The Chevalier de Dampierre was killed near the King’s carriage upon leaving Varennes.  A poor village cure, some leagues from the place where the crime was committed, was imprudent enough to draw near to speak to the King; the cannibals who surrounded the carriage rushed upon him.  “Tigers,” exclaimed Barnave, “have you ceased to be Frenchmen?  Nation of brave men, are you become a set of assassins?” These words alone saved the cure, who was already upon the ground, from certain death.  Barnave, as he spoke to them, threw himself almost out of the coach window, and Madame Elisabeth, affected by this noble burst of feeling, held him by the skirt of his coat.  The Queen, while speaking of this event, said that on the most momentous occasions whimsical contrasts always struck her, and that even at such a moment the pious Elisabeth holding Barnave by the flap of his coat was a ludicrous sight.

The deputy was astonished in another way.  Madame Elisabeth’s comments upon the state of France, her mild and persuasive eloquence, and the, ease and simplicity with which she talked to him, yet without sacrificing her dignity in the slightest degree, appeared to him unique, and his heart, which was doubtless inclined to right principles though he had followed the wrong path, was overcome by admiration.  The conduct of the two deputies convinced the Queen of the total separation between the republican and constitutional parties.  At the inns where she alighted she had some private conversation with Barnave.  The latter said a great deal about the errors committed by the royalists during the Revolution, adding that he had found the interest of the Court so feebly and so badly defended that he had been frequently tempted to go and offer it, in himself, an aspiring champion, who knew the spirit of the age and nation.  The Queen asked him what was the weapon he would have recommended her to use.

“Popularity, Madame.”

“And how could I use that,” replied her Majesty, “of which I have been deprived?”

“Ah!  Madame, it was much more easy for you to regain it, than for me to acquire it.”

The Queen mainly attributed the arrest at Varennes to M. de Goguelat; she said he calculated the time that would be spent in the journey erroneously.  He performed that from Montmedy to Paris before taking the King’s last orders, alone in a post-chaise, and he founded all his calculations upon the time he spent thus.  The trial has been made since, and it was found that a light carriage without any courier was nearly three hours less in running the distance than a heavy carriage preceded by a courier.

The Queen also blamed him for having quitted the high-road at Pont-de-Sommevelle, where the carriage was to meet the forty hussars commanded by him.  She thought that he ought to have dispersed the very small number of people at Varennes, and not have asked the hussars whether they were for the King or the nation; that, particularly, he ought to have avoided taking the King’s orders, as he was previously aware of the reply M. d’Inisdal had received when it was proposed to carry off the King.