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The eldest son, young as he was, obtained as wife the daughter of the Marquis de Varennes, and soon distinguished himself both in war and policy, so as to receive the title of Comte de Bourke. The French Church was called on to provide for the other two children. The daughter, Alice, became a nun in one of the Parisian convents, with promises of promotion.
If the first Assembly was allowed to accomplish its work, all that had been done to discredit one party and to conciliate another, all the fruit of Mirabeau's expensive intrigues, would be lost. The final determination that sent them along the road to Varennes was the treason hatched at Mantua. They ran the gauntlet to the Argonne in the cause of limited monarchy, to evade revolution and reaction.
Varennes is distant from Paris one hundred and eighty miles, and for this whole distance, by night and by day, with hardly an hour's delay for food or repose, the royal family were exposed to the keenest torture of which the spiritual nature is in this world susceptible. Every revolution of the wheels but brought them into contact with fresh vociferations of calumny.
The prisoners were far from despairing yet; they had no doubt that M. de Bouillé, warned by one of the officers whom he had stationed on the road, would march all night to their assistance; and they attributed his delay to the necessity of collecting a sufficient force to overpower the numerous troops of national guards whom the sound of the tocsin had summoned to Varennes.
Rene Gaultier de Varennes, lieutenant in the regiment of Carignan, married at Three Rivers, in 1667, the daughter of Pierre Boucher, governor of that place; the age of the bride, Demoiselle Marie Boucher, being twelve years, six months, and eighteen days.
Unfortunately I did not profit very long by the kindness of the count and the lessons. I was taught at his house, for hardly a year had passed at the chateau when we learned of the arrest of the king at Varennes.
"Allow me to present you, Monsieur de Catinat," said the Seigneur de Sainte Marie solemnly, "to my wife, Onega de la Noue de Sainte Marie, chatelaine by right of marriage to this seigneury, and also to the Chateau d'Andelys in Normandy, and to the estate of Varennes in Provence, while retaining in her own right the hereditary chieftainship on the distaff side of the nation of the Onondagas.
It was at this time that the formidable invasion under the Duke of Brunswick, consisting of 138,000 men, of whom 66,000 were under the King of Prussia in person, and 50,000 were Austrians under Prince Hohenlohe and Marshal Clairfait, marched to France, and menaced Dumouriez, who occupied the defiles of Varennes, with very inferior forces.
As night wore on, a number of officers collected: Choiseul and Goguelat, after their long ride from Pont de Somme-Vesle; the Count de Damas from Clermont; and at last Deslon, a captain of the German horse that Bouillé chiefly trusted. Choiseul's men, and some of those quartered at Varennes, were faithful, and it was thought possible to clear the street.
He would not have half a dozen shots fired to make a way for his coach over the bridge of Varennes; but he deserted, without a moment's scruple, his devoted Swiss guards, as we shall see; and as he refused to suffer with them, he may be considered answerable for their lives. The clang of bells was heard by the inmates of the palace, as they stood, this summer night, by the open windows.
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