When the King Took Flight

by Timothy Tackett

  Presented with such requirements, Fersen set to work on the complex travel arrangements that had to be worked out if this small troop of people were to be transported in secret to the frontier. In order to establish a fictitious front, the Swede obtained the support of a Russian baroness de Korff, who was planning to leave France with her daughter in June. The baroness would claim that she had "accidentally destroyed" her passport and would then ask the authorities for a duplicate copy, the document to be used by the royal family. It was also de Korff who ordered the construction of a "ber- line"-the coach with large wheels and great coiled suspension springs, which was to take the royal party to safety. Supervised by a "friend" of the baroness-none other than Fersen himself-the specially designed vehicle took nearly three months to build and cost close to 6,ooo French pounds, a huge sum for the day, beyond the budget of all but the wealthiest individuals. Exceptionally large, painted black with a bright yellow frame, it was a true luxury model, fit for a king, though poorly conceived for inconspicuous travel. It came complete with leather and taffeta interior, padded seats, numerous built-in luggage compartments, picnic apparatus, bottle racks, an emergency repair kit, and a leather-covered chamber pot. A smaller, two-wheeled cabriolet was also prepared to carry the two nurses."

  To transfer all eleven people out of the Tuileries and onto the post road outside the city, Fersen devised a sophisticated movement of people, carriages, and horses with all the method and meticulousness of a military order of battle. Plans were made to employ an array of little-known corridors and empty rooms within the palace, the most important being a ground-floor chamber with a small door opening directly onto an exterior courtyard-a chamber vacated since April 18 by one of the king's gentlemen and designated as the family's secret assembly room for escape to the outside. The queen had an interior door opened up between this room and a stairway leading to the royal suites, supposedly to provide access for her first lady-in-waiting. Several of the royal chambers had also been remodeled to secure easier access to rear passages and to insulate the family's rooms further from the servants and guards who slept just outside.46

  In the meantime, the queen and a few trusted servingwomen set about devising disguises appropriate to the "de Korff family," including a small girl's dress for the five-year-old dauphin and the outfit of a financial agent for the king. Other than this special costume, the king seems to have taken only the magnificent red and gold suit worn during the trip to Cherbourg in 1786, which he planned to don when he took command of his loyal military on the frontier. A queen of France, however, could hardly be expected to live like a commoner, and Marie took great pains to smuggle out in advance not only an entire wardrobe, but most of her diamonds and jewelry, several items of furniture, and a specially constructed and fully stocked cosmetics case. Care was taken to cover these diverse arrangements with a variety of ploys and explanations. Unfortunately, however, the construction and shipping of the "necessary" for the queen's cosmetics was discovered and aroused the suspicions of one of her servants, a woman who was not only a patriot but also the mistress of an officer in the national guard. In the end, the family would make the fateful decision to postpone the escape by one day so that this woman would be off duty.47

  Indeed, if they were ever to hope to slip out unobserved, it was essential to catch the Revolutionaries off guard and unsuspecting. Through the first half of 1791, and especially after April 18, the royal couple consciously pursued a policy of deceit. While they denounced the Revolution at every opportunity in secret messages to foreign leaders, they did everything in their power to lull the patriots into thinking they now fully supported the National Assembly. On April i9 Louis went to the Assembly in person for the first time in over a year and reiterated his acceptance of the constitution, and four days later he sent a similar well-publicized message to all his ambassadors. Shortly thereafter the king and queen attended Easter mass with the constitutional clergy, despite the king's revulsion for the "schismatic" church. As Fersen explained to Breteuil, the king had resolved to "sacrifice everything for the execution of his plans and to lull the factious parties [the Revolutionaries] to sleep concerning his true intentions. Henceforth, he will give the appearance of recognizing and entirely embracing the revolution and the revo lutionary leaders. He will appear to rely entirely on their counsel and will anticipate the will of the mobs in order to keep them quiet and create the sense of confidence necessary for his escape from Paris."48

  During the same period, General Bouille was following a similar campaign of deception with the local patriots in his headquarters of Metz, some i8o miles to the east of Paris. Francois-Claude-Amour, marquis de Bouille, fifty-two years old, had already won considerable notoriety in France as veteran of the Seven Years' War and the American Revolution, and the hero-or archvillain, depending on one's point of view-in quelling the recent military mutiny in Nancy. Indeed, several Revolutionary political leaders had recently approached him as a potential ally. But since the bishop of Pamiers first brought him a letter from the king, requesting his assistance, he had, by his own account, entirely devoted his services to the monarch. After a visit by Fersen to Metz and after having sent his oldest son and aide-de-camp to Paris, he had developed an elaborate plan for the king's journey to the frontier.49

  The first and most pressing task had been to choose a fortified position to which the king could retreat. Although Bouille at first considered both Besancon and Valenciennes, he ultimately recommended the small citadel town of Montmedy, to the south and west of Luxembourg. Not only was this fortress under Bouille's direct command, but it had the advantage of strong fortifications directed toward the southwest, in the direction of Paris, as well as toward the northern frontier. However, the king would not be kept in the fortress itself, for fear he might be trapped by a siege, but in the chateau of Thonnelle, just north of Montmedy and less than two miles from the Austrian frontier. In all, the monarch would be protected by some ten thousand troops, both inside the fortifications and in adjacent positions."

  As for the escape itinerary of the king and his family, Bouille had initially proposed the most direct road through Reims, Vouziers, and Stenay-to the north of the route actually taken. Not only was it the most direct road, but it passed primarily through poor and sparsely inhabited countryside, largely avoiding the major radical strongholds. But Louis had traveled a portion of this route for his coronation in Reims, and he seemed obsessively frightened that he might be recognized by local Revolutionaries. In the end, a more southerly road was chosen: through Montmirail, Chalons-surMarne, Sainte-Menehould, and Clermont, though carefully avoiding the town of Verdun, reputed to be particularly "extremist."" Once the itinerary had been selected, Bouille enlisted Francois de Goguelat to reconnoiter the 15o-mile journey by making the trip with watch in hand in one of the regular postal coaches. Forty-five years old and trained as an army engineer and mapmaker, Goguelat was an exalted monarchist who had once been personal secretary to the queen. Since the king's party would have to travel as rapidly as possible and change horses frequently, Goguelat also took note of each of the relay posts along the way. After Clermont, however, the travelers would turn north to avoid Verdun and leave the royal post road. So plans had to be made to prepare fresh horses from the army itself for the last leg of the journey, positioning them in a secluded spot just outside the town of Varennes. Since the conspirators had little knowledge of the political atmosphere in Varennes, Goguelat quietly-but awkwardly, as we have seen-interviewed several citizens there, including the deputy mayor Sauce, and concluded that the town was entirely "safe." Bouille himself would be waiting with horses and a large escort at the final relay near Dun, about fifteen miles beyond Varennes and an equal distance south of Montmedy.sz

  [To view this image, refer to the print version of this title.]

  Marquis Francois-Claude-Amour de Bouille.

  The issue of a military escort for the king posed a particular problem for the planners. They all wished to provide Louis
with protection as soon as possible after he left Paris, but it was dangerous to send troops too close to the capital. Moreover, if a military escort were positioned too long in advance, it might actually attract attention to the royal family's carriage. Ultimately, in agreement with the king and queen, it was decided to dispatch a relatively small number of cavalrymen a few hours before the family's arrival. If need be, they would explain to the local population that the troops had been sent to escort a shipment of money for the pay of the soldiers. But in general, all such detachments would be instructed to watch from afar and to follow well behind the royal carriages, intervening directly only if the king were recognized and appeared to be in trouble.53 The extent to which soldiers should intervene or not was perhaps the most delicate question of the entire operation. And here Bouille was forced to rely on the discretion of his younger field officers, many of them to be informed of the king's arrival only at the last moment.

  After some debate, it was decided to establish the most advanced escort brigade near the relay post of Somme-Vesle, a village just east of Chalons. Among his other duties, the commander of this brigade was to send a courier notifying detachments farther along the route as soon as the royal party had passed. Perhaps equally important, he must post a rear guard across the road after the king had gone by, blocking any messengers from Paris who might attempt to spread the alarm .51 As commander of this key position, Bouille made the curious choice of duke Claude-Antoine-Gabriel de Choiseul-Stainville, only thirty years old and relatively inexperienced. Although everyone recognized Choiseul's loyalty and honored his aristocratic pedigree, both Fersen and the queen were wary of his reputation for flightiness and urged the general to find someone else. Fersen referred to him in one letter as "a muddleheaded young man."55

  Yet Bouille worried far less about his officers than about the loyalty of the troops they would be asked to lead. Throughout the winter and spring of I791 local patriotic clubs had been vigorously recruiting the French soldiers garrisoned in their localities and casting doubt on the loyalty and motivation of their commanding officers-officers who, almost without exception, were members of an increasingly mistrusted nobility. Commanders everywhere watched helplessly as their subordinates became more unruly and undisciplined, sometimes announcing their intention of following only orders that they themselves had approved. Under such conditions, Bouille felt no choice but to make plans based entirely on the use of foreign mercenaries.56 He appealed to the Tuileries for funds to ensure that his Swiss and German troops were all well paid and that extra money would be available for the day of reckoning. Fersen and the queen managed to scrape together nearly a million French pounds-much of it from Fersen's own fortune-which they audaciously shipped to Metz wrapped in bolts of white taffeta. Plans were further jeopardized in the spring, however, when the new pro-Revolutionary minister of war moved some of the general's best foreign troops to another province."

  But Bouille was also concerned about the reliability of the king himself. The inclusion of the marquis d'Agoult in the escape party had been conceived to compensate the monarch's lack of experience in traveling by himself. Then, at the last minute, the royal family removed d'Agoult to make room for the royal governess Madame de Tourzel, who had insisted on traveling with her charges as soon as she learned of the escape plan. Bouille was also haunted by the fear that the monarch would never summon the determination and constancy to go through with such a bold plan, that he would back out at the last minute, leaving the conspirators unprotected and vulnerable to arrest for treason.58 Such fears were only increased by the king's repeated postponement of his departure date. First scheduled for late May, then early June, the flight was put off successively to June 12, 15, and 19.59 More unfortunate still, Bouille learned only on June 15 that the royal family had rescheduled its departure yet again to the twentieth. By this time all the general's instructions had been issued, and his troops were moving into position. The necessary changes in orders, cobbled together at the last moment, would cause several minor mistakes and inconsistencies that measurably affected the success of the enterprise. Perhaps most serious of all, a number of cavalry contingents would be forced to bivouac an extra day in towns along the way, arousing great nervousness and suspicion among the local inhabitants."

  Despite the elaborate plans developed for the king's escape, remarkably little attention seems to have been given to what the king would do when he actually arrived in Montmedy. Bouille claimed that he was never informed of the king's intentions. Louis may have planned to establish a provisional government with his conservative ex-minister, the baron Breteuil, as prime minister. Breteuil was asked to draft a policy paper from his exile in Switzerland and to join the king in Montmedy as soon as possible. But the draft, sent ahead to Luxembourg for delivery to the monarch, was never opened and was apparently destroyed.6' To judge from the declaration left on his desk at the time of his departure-and from his speech of June 23, 1789, to which the declaration referred-Louis would probably have maintained the National Assembly. But he continued to refer to the Assembly as the "Estates General," and he suggested that the nobles would play a dominant role within that body and regain most of their former privileges. And in other ways he indicated his intention of dismantling most of the Revolution, reclaiming the greater part of his former royal powers, abrogating the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, returning the church property seized by the Revolutionaries, and generally repudiating all laws passed since October 1789. In Louis' mind, this sweeping "counterrevolution" would be peacefully "negotiated" between the fatherking in Montmedy and his recalcitrant subjects, whom he graciously promised to forgive for all the humiliations he had suffered. When the situation had calmed, he would return from his frontier fortress and choose a residence a safe distance from Paris-perhaps in the palace of Compiegne, some seventy-five miles north of the "former" capital."

  The Stakes

  But would the king's subjects docilely accept the settlement that Louis proposed? Given their reactions in the days following the flight, it seems certain that a large segment of the population would not. It is difficult to imagine that the king's successful escape would not have led to a civil war. Both the queen and General Bouille presumed this would be the case. Moreover, Marie and the general also assumed that Louis would soon have to retire into Austrian territory for his own safety, and they were already making plans to persuade him to do so.63 Despite his long-stated intention of remaining within his kingdom, the king would almost certainly have crossed into foreign territory, only a short distance away, once it was evident that his family was in danger-and once those around him, who knew so well how to manipulate him, began exerting pressure. Although Louis may have imagined he was acting only for the good of his people, it is more than likely that a successful escape would have ignited a full-scale civil war and probably an international war as well-with the prospect of untold suffering for the very people the king called "his children."

  The Austrian ambassador, Mercy-Argenteuil, had no doubts on this score. In a long series of letters written through the winter and spring, Mercy had begged the queen to reflect on the consequences of flight, and on what would transpire if the escape were to fail. The king and queen, Mercy argued, had greatly underestimated the extent of popular support for the Revolution: "escape has become impossible at this time. Every village could be an insurmountable barrier to your passage. And I tremble to think of the catastrophe that would arise if the enterprise fails." He understood that the situation was frustrating and unhappy and that the king had lost much of his former power. But the family would do far better, the Austrian diplomat argued, to wait out the storm. "If only you persist where you are, you can be certain that sooner or later the mad creations of the Revolutionaries will collapse by themselves"; in contrast, choosing "the extreme solution [of flight] will inevitably decide, for better or for worse, the fate of the king and the kingship."64

  These, then, were the stakes, if Louis should attempt an escape. And th
e stakes were high indeed. Success could well mean civil war. Failure might bring "catastrophe" and perhaps the end of the monarchy.

  CHAPTER 3

  The King Takes Flight

  THE ROYAL COUPLE'S CHALLENGE on that last day before their flight was clear and sobering: to extricate themselves and their entire family undetected from a palace staffed by no less than two thousand people-national guardsmen, domestics, and government workers-whose lives centered entirely on the presence of the king and queen. The task was all the more daunting in that rumors of just such an escape plan had been circulating in Paris for some time. Following the denunciation by the queen's servingwoman, extra guards had been established in and around the Tuileries. Indeed, with suspicion in the air, it was particularly important that the royal family maintain their systematic deception to the final moment. Thus the queen scrupulously maintained her usual schedule throughout the day. She attended mass; she had her hair done; she went out for a drive with her children and several courtiers to the Tivoli palace; she dined with the family, including the king's brother and sister, before retiring for the night. Yet her daughter, the twelve-year-old "Madame Royale"-as she was called-sensed that her parents were unusually tense. She was especially mystified when all her attendants, with the exception of the chief nurse, Madame Brunier, were sent away for the day on the pretense that the princess was sick.'