The Arrest of King Louis XVI

In Varennes, on the evening of 21 June 1791, the safety of the king and his family hangs on a quarter of an hour and a hundred metres or so.

On 21 June, at around 11 p.m., two carriages enter the sleeping town of Varennes: a cabriolet carrying Mesdames Brunier and de Neuville, the queen's chambermaids, and an enormous berline carrying the royal family and the governess of the children of France. They had left Paris that same day at 2:30 a.m. This overly slow journey had multiplied acts of carelessness, negligence and hesitation.

In the scenario agreed upon between the fugitives, the governess, Madame de Tourzel, plays the part of the Baroness de Korff. Marie-Antoinette is Madame Rochet, governess to Madame de Korff's children. Louis-Charles, the dauphin disguised as a girl, is Aglaé. Marie-Thérèse, Madame Royale, is Amélie. Madame Elisabeth, the king's sister, is the lady-in-waiting.

Half an hour behind them, Drouet and Guillaume, who believe they identified them at the Sainte-Menehould relay stop, set off in pursuit.

Jean-Baptiste Drouet is postmaster at Sainte-Menehould. He believes, as he himself will recount in his report, that he recognised “the queen's features” and the king himself, whose profile appears on the assignats.

Guillaume, known as “La Hure”, is a clerk at the district administration. Like Drouet, he served at Versailles in a dragoon regiment, and like him, he knows the roads and shortcuts of the region very well.

The relay stop was initially planned at the entrance to Varennes but, as a security measure, the horses are moved to the Grand Monarque inn, sheltered by the bridge, which seems easy to barricade.

The travellers, who had not been informed of this change, stop in the upper part of Varennes in front of the house of Monsieur de Bigault de Préfontaine, former steward of the Prince of Condé's estates in the Clermontois. They lose half an hour in fruitless searching. No hussars, no relay.

Meanwhile, Drouet and Guillaume catch up with the carriages and enter the town, where they raise the alarm.

Finally, the postilions agree to press on to the Grand Monarque, where the king hopes to find the relay. The carriages head down towards the lower part of the town and travel a little over two hundred metres to the archway where they are awaited...

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