The arrest of Louis XVI
In Varennes, on the evening of 21 June 1791, the fate of the king and his family came down to a quarter of an hour and a hundred metres.
At around 11 p.m. on 21 June, two carriages entered the sleeping town of Varennes: a cabriolet carrying Mesdames Brunier and de Neuville, the queen's chambermaids, and a large berline carriage conveying the royal family and the governess of the royal children. They had left Paris at 2:30 that same day. This painfully slow journey was marked by a series of careless mistakes, oversights and delays.
In the plan agreed upon by the fugitives, the governess, Madame de Tourzel, pretended to be Baroness de Korff. Marie-Antoinette was Madame Rochet, governess to Madame de Korff's children. Louis-Charles, the Dauphin disguised as a girl, was Aglaé. Marie-Thérèse, known as Madame Royale, was Amélie. Madame Elisabeth, the king's sister, was the lady-in-waiting.
Half an hour behind them, Drouet and Guillaume, who believed they had spotted them at the relay station in Sainte-Menehould, were in hot pursuit.
Jean-Baptiste Drouet was the postmaster in Sainte-Menehould. As he himself would later recount in his report, he believed he had recognised “the queen’s features” and the king himself, whose profile appeared on the assignats.
Guillaume, known as "La Hure", was an official in the district administration. Like Drouet, he had served in a dragoon regiment at Versailles, and like him, he knew the roads and shortcuts of the region extremely well.
The change of horses was initially planned at the entrance to Varennes, but for safety reasons, the horses had been moved to the Grand Monarque inn, away from the bridge, which seemed easy to barricade.
The travellers, who had not been informed of this change, stopped in upper Varennes in front of the house of Monsieur de Bigault de Préfontaine, former administrator of the Prince of Condé’s estates in the Clermont region. They wasted half an hour in a futile search. No hussars. No horses.
Meanwhile, Drouet and Guillaume caught up with the carriages and entered the town, raising the alarm.
Finally, the postilions agreed to carry on as far as the Grand Monarque, where the king hoped to find the relay. The carriages descended to the lower part of the town and covered a little more than two hundred metres to the archway beneath the bridge where they were expected...
By escaping from the Tuileries, Louis XVI wanted to escape the surveillance of the National Guard and the people of Paris and place himself under the protection of his loyal army and the good people of the provinces.
For, in his own mind, Louis XVI had not accepted the Revolution, nor the new organisation of society and government established during the summer of 1789. The absolute monarch had become, against his will, a constitutional king. Neither his education nor his convictions had prepared him to accept a form of power he considered illegitimate.
This refusal of the Revolution and its effects first became clear on 6 October 1789, when the king and his family were forced by a hungry and hostile crowd to leave Versailles for Paris and the "golden prison" of the Tuileries.
In this palace, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette felt like prisoners and believed they were under constant surveillance. The queen, nicknamed "the Austrian" by the people, faced growing hostility from the populace and worried for the safety of her husband and children. She probably played a decisive role in convincing Louis XVI to leave Paris, even though the king initially saw this "flight" as an an abdication.
Several plans were proposed to the king, from Mirabeau's proposal of a discreet departure from the Tuileries to Bouillé's suggestion of a dignified withdrawal under the protection of loyal troops. After hesitating for some time between Valenciennes, Besançon and Montmédy, Louis XVI finally settled on the latter. After several postponements, the date of departure was set for 20 June 1791.
The journey to Montmédy was meticulously prepared. This stronghold, under the command of the Marquis de Bouillé, was located within the kingdom, close to the Luxembourg border, then under the control of the Emperor of Austria, Marie-Antoinette's brother. Bouillé had concentrated an army of 10,000 men there, officially charged with guarding the border. In reality, they were to escort and protect the royal family.
The queen refused to be separated from her husband and children: "If we are to be saved, it must be all together or not at all," she said. This determination meant travelling in a heavy six- to eight-seater berline, whose construction was supervised by Axel de Fersen. This impressive carriage would not go unnoticed, especially as it would be escorted by three bodyguards – Messieurs de Moustiers, de Malden and de Valory – and preceded by the cabriolet carrying the queen's two maids.
The route chosen by Louis XVI avoided Reims, the coronation city, and Verdun, considered too revolutionary. It left Paris and, after Châlons, crossed the Argonne. At Clermont, it branched off towards Dun via Varennes, a total of 280 kilometres and 19 stopping points.
The posting houses provided all the changes of horses (eleven horses and several drivers and postilions each time), except at Varennes, where Choiseul was responsible for supplying the necessary horses. From Pont-de-Somme-Vesle onwards, the royal family was to be under the protection of Bouillé's troops.