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No courier preceded the king's carriage, no messenger had arrived from Sainte Menehould to warn him to assemble his troopers; MM. de Choiseul and de Guoguelas, who were to be at Varennes before the king's arrival, and communicate to this officer the last secret orders relative to his duty, were not there; thus the officer was left with nothing but his own conjectures to guide him.
And lastly the patriots had discovered who the traveller was; the postmaster of Ste Ménehould had recognised the King, had ridden on ahead, had roused the national guard of Varennes and now the game was up.
Drouet was certain to arrive before the king; for the road from Sainte Menehould to Varennes forms a considerable angle, and passes through Clermont, where a relay of horses was stationed; whilst the direct road, accessible only to horsemen, avoids Clermont, runs in a straight line to Varennes, and thus lessens the distance between this town and Menehould by four leagues.
The news of the retreat of Dumouriez from the Argonne passes, and of the panic flight of some divisions of his troops, spread rapidly throughout the country; and Kellerman, who believed that his comrade's army had been annihilated, and feared to fall among the victorious masses of the Prussians, had halted on his march from Metz when almost close to St. Menehould.
Instigated by Bouillé, the queen asked her brother to lend some regiments to act with the royal forces as auxiliaries in case of resistance. She wished for 30,000 men. That is the significant fact that justifies the postmaster of St. Ménehould and the patriots of Varennes. The expedition to Montmédy was a first step towards civil war and foreign invasion.
The hero of the day, the author of the king's arrest, Drouet, son of the post-master of Sainte Menehould, appeared before it, and gave the following evidence: "I have served in Condé's regiment of dragoons, and my comrade, Guillaume, in the Queen's dragoons.
That object once attained, the Germans held on there, consolidated the occupied terrain, fortified their new positions and prepared for another push forward. It was thus by a process of nibbling the French trenches bit by bit that the Germans hoped to attain the Verdun-Ste. Ménéhould line.
At such a moment even a man of Drouet's fortitude might well have stretched a point in the endeavour to cast off odium. Therefore the account recorded by Fersen has not supplanted the popular tradition. But it is confirmed by Romeuf, who says, distinctly, that the postmaster of St. Ménehould was warned by the message sent on by Baillon.
Menehould, and another ten brought us to the front in the sector of Divisional-General H. A fine soldier this, and heaven help Germany if he and his division get within its borders, for he is, as one can see at a glance, a man of iron who has been goaded to fierceness by all that his beloved country has endured.
They relied on Goguelat, on Choiseul, on d'Andouins who commanded at St. Ménehould, on Damas at Clermont, and above all on the promised courier, who was to ride an hour ahead to warn them in time. But they expected no warning that night. If there was any watchfulness in them, it was put to sleep by Léonard, who had gone through an hour before with Choiseul's fatal letter.
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