When André saw Princess élisabeth transfer to the carriage of Comte de Provence, a faint smile touched the corner of his mouth. It was, in his view, a choice that benefited the Bourbon princess. As for the escape route arranged for Comte de Provence, André—through Hubert, whom he had planted as an undercover agent—had steered the Comte toward a route “prepared” by the enemy themselves.

  This, of course, was not because André wished to please the sans-culottes of Paris by seizing the fleeing Comte de Provence. Rather, he intended to quietly let the future Louis XVIII and his wife slip away, while ensuring that Princess élisabeth at his side—and the entire Demo? family, who had long wished to flee to the Low Countries—could also cross the frontier smoothly.

  “Is our Comtesse still keeping in touch with Berthier?” André raised his head and asked the intelligence aide.

  Second Lieutenant Lozère answered without concealment, “No. Ever since the Chief of Staff failed to dissuade the royal family from fleeing abroad, Comte de Provence has ceased all contact with Colonel Berthier. Instead, he has been discussing the safety of the route—and its uncertainties—with Marquis de Demo?.”

  André nodded with satisfaction. He picked up his quill, dipped it in ink, and swiftly wrote a letter on an official sheet. After sealing it with wax, he handed it to the intelligence aide and instructed him, “Go. Deliver this to the Chief of Staff. After Colonel Berthier finishes reading it, he must burn it at once—in front of you.”

  …

  On June nineteen, the Jacobin Club meeting did not end until late at night. Georges Danton was placed last by the club secretary, and by the time this Titan stepped down from the rostrum, it was already past eleven o’clock. He was very pleased with his speech, because he had thoroughly cursed that damned Commander Lafayette, that muddle-headed Mayor Bailly, and that ineffectual Deputy Sieyès. He felt his chest clear, and his whole body loosen, as if a fever had broken.

  In the final line of his address, Danton said, “Though the enemy’s plot has been exposed, and they have been beaten to within an inch of their lives, my dear comrades, none of us may doze—every man must remain alert to the danger that has begun to show its head…”

  As he left the club with his friends, Danton—seated in a carriage—asked Desmoulins and Fréron beside him, “Tell me, lads: compared with André’s speech in Chalons, whose was stronger tonight?”

  The stammering Desmoulins, as usual, said nothing. Fréron laughed loudly and replied, “Yours, of course, my friend! Your rank and standing now are no lower than André’s in Reims. If you wish it, a seat in the Legislative Assembly is there for the taking.”

  Danton smiled and clasped his friends’ arms, yet he remained perplexed: why did André’s speeches so often contain the very sentences Danton himself had wanted to say, but had never found the chance to put into words? Very well—Danton decided that André, like him, was a genius. And if they were both geniuses, then resemblance was only natural.

  At that moment, their carriage was passing the Tuileries and heading toward the Pont Royal. Without thinking, they glanced toward the palace.

  The June night in Paris was warm. The darkness was thick, and heavy clouds covered the full moon so tightly that the sky was almost black. In that darkness, only the Tuileries remained blazing, its lamps still brightly lit.

  Fréron chuckled. “That lunatic Marat actually claimed Louis XVI would flee today. How could that be?”

  Desmoulins took up the line at once, with unusual firmness. “V-very possible. Marat i-is not a lunatic. If Louis XVI does not flee today, then it will be tomorrow.”

  Danton, exhausted, was already half-asleep. He failed to catch the exchange between his friends.

  In truth, Marat’s prediction was not wrong. The date of the King’s flight was fixed on the late night of June nineteen. Unfortunately, Captain Lefebvre, in an accident, fell on a staircase and broke his leg. Unable to delay General Lafayette’s daily inspection of the Tuileries, he forced the escape to be postponed by another twenty-four hours.

  On June twenty, when night fell again over Paris, Queen Antoinette issued the order—on Louis XVI’s behalf—to flee to the camps at Metz or Montmédy.

  All those involved in the flight went to bed at their usual hours, as if nothing were amiss. At Queen Antoinette’s invitation, Lafayette came to the palace at eight that evening and sat with Louis XVI and the Queen, along with several Constitutionalists of noble birth, talking and dining. During the gathering, both King and Queen appeared weary, as though eager to retire early to their chambers. One by one, the guests rose and took their leave—Lafayette among them, though he was to conduct a late-night inspection. In fact, at no time were the King and Queen more wakeful than they were now.

  On the evening of June twenty, 1791, all seemed normal to outsiders. When Lafayette departed the palace, the National Guard stood dutifully at the gates; the servants had gone to their rooms for supper, and after the guests were sent away, the King and Queen did not return to their respective bedchambers.

  Louis XVI—heavy and vacant—sat at a writing desk. He had just changed into a green servant’s coat, and on his head sat a badly made wig. Yet soon he pushed aside the discomfort of the moment, resolved to write a letter—one meant for Lafayette and Bailly—to set down his anger, accumulated over more than two years, toward the Constituent Assembly, the Paris City Hall, and the National Guard.

  As for the Queen, she slipped deftly into a small room. With the help of her lady’s maid, she hurried into a grey silk jacket, set a black hat upon her head, and covered her face with a purple veil. Once dressed, she crossed the empty corridors, went to her daughter’s door, and softly woke her. After Madame Royale had put on her clothes, the Queen turned and entered her son’s room.

  In a bright, cheerful voice, the mother told the drowsy child, “Wake up—quickly! We’re going on a little journey. We’re going to play in a great castle where there are many lovely animals!”

  But the Dauphin was still half asleep. He muttered that he wanted only to hold his little black bear and be fed, and that otherwise he would go nowhere. Two minutes later, the Queen signalled the tutor waiting at the door to come in and dress the Dauphin in a pink girl’s outfit. The boy, now more awake, protested at once. Fortunately, his elder sister soothed him by saying they were all dressing up for an even more amusing masquerade; only then did he quiet down and allow the adults to arrange him as they pleased.

  At eleven o’clock, everything was ready. The Swedish Comte—disguised as a coachman—jumped down from the carriage and slipped once more through an unguarded small back door into the Tuileries. This access had been purchased with ten thousand livres, used to bribe a National Guard major in secret. The Swedish Comte exchanged no words with the royal couple. He simply lifted the two children in his arms and carried them out through the same door. Louis XVI and Queen Antoinette followed, along with the governess Madame Touzel, the barber loyal to the King, and the Queen’s lady’s maid.

  When the family reunited inside the large coach, they embraced tightly, all of them. At the front, Comte de Fersen personally drove the carriage, weaving through the twisting streets and narrow lanes. Paris at night was quiet, and no one seemed to notice the frenzied coach jolting and swaying through the Rue du Temple.

  Yet five hundred metres behind, a rider in plain night clothes followed at a distance. Every so often, another mounted man would appear to replace the previous tracker.

  About two hours later, the royal coach passed through the eastern gate of Paris. At the nearest posting station, the family and their attendants transferred into the grand coach prepared for the journey. Fersen, meanwhile, waved his farewell. They agreed to meet again at the camp of the German regiment near the frontier.

  By then, a pale trace of dawn had begun to show at the edge of the sky. At Fersen’s insistence, the servants acting as coachmen checked the vehicle once again; everything seemed sound, without any sign of trouble. As the luxurious coach carrying the King and the woman he loved began to roll forward, the devoted Swedish Comte raised his hand and called out loudly, “Farewell, Comtesse von Korff!”

  Comte Alexander von Korff was the Russian diplomat stationed in Paris. At considerable cost, the Swede had forged a passport for “Comtesse von Korff,” and Madame Touzel played the Comtesse, for only she spoke fluent Russian. The Princess and the Dauphin—dressed as a girl—were the Comtesse’s two daughters. Queen Antoinette posed as the Russian Comte’s governess. Louis XVI, in turn, wore the clothing of a French steward. The King’s barber sat in the coachman’s box as an utterly incompetent guide.

  This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  At the very moment the royal couple slipped out of Paris, Comte de Provence and his wife, together with Princess élisabeth, also set out without hesitation on the night of the twentieth, under the cover arranged by Hubert and his people. Their means of travel differed from the King’s party: Comte de Provence’s group went by merchant vessel, moving upriver along the Seine and the Marne, and thus leaving Paris.

  Their destination was the riverside village of Dormans, thirty-eight kilometres southwest of Reims—at the boundary between the Marne and the Aisne. Marquis de Demo?’s family would wait there for Comte de Provence and his wife, as well as for Princess élisabeth. In fact, this route had originally been prepared for the King, but the Queen deeply distrusted Marquis de Demo?, who had some connection to André, and so she yielded it to the King’s brother and to Princess élisabeth instead.

  …

  On June twenty, it was not only the Bourbons who stayed awake through the night, intent on reaching the frontier. In Reims, André likewise did not sleep. Seated in the office of the gendarmerie headquarters, he received a situation report from the Military Intelligence Office roughly every three to four hours.

  He had prepared for this day for nearly a year. He meant to use the King’s flight as a pretext that would appear lawful, and by it drive the tangled Royalist Party network completely out of the Marne, now under his control. Only at this moment did André feel he had become a player shaping the new history, rather than a wretched piece to be moved by other hands.

  At around six in the morning on the twenty-first, the household servants who managed the daily routines suddenly sensed something was wrong. Louis XVI, Queen Antoinette, and the two children were not in their rooms. The royal family had vanished from the Tuileries as if into thin air.

  Paris, the Commercial Courtyard—Danton’s private apartment.

  At seven in the morning, Gabrielle was jolted awake by the shrill metallic clatter of the bell, while her husband, Danton, still slept heavily. These days had been relentless: Paris Commune affairs, compounded by joint activity between the two political clubs, had driven him to the edge. Then she heard the maid arguing loudly at the door with the visitor, trying to prevent anyone from disturbing the master and mistress. It did not work. Rapid footsteps pounded up the stairs, and soon someone was hammering at the bedroom door. Before Gabrielle could rise to open it, the door was forced open.

  “Fréron—what has happened? Have you lost your mind?” Gabrielle cried when she saw him, leaping to the bedside. Behind Fréron, the neighbours—Desmoulins and his wife—followed in, helping to calm the frightened Gabrielle.

  Danton continued to snore thunderously, oblivious to everything. When shouting proved useless, Fréron seized a half-bucket of water from the balcony and, before Gabrielle could stop him, poured it over Danton’s face.

  Fréron bellowed at him as he hovered between sleep and waking. “Damn it, Georges—Georges! Wake up! Louis XVI, his Austrian Queen, and the two children have fled Paris!”

  Danton’s eyes snapped open. By the time he sat up on the bed, he was fully awake—no doubt thanks to the water. The stench was unholy.

  In a rough, thick voice, Danton said, “Damn Lafayette. He was responsible for the Tuileries. Either Louis XVI bought him, or he’s an idiot and a fool. Now—where has that damned Louis Capet and his Austrian woman fled?”

  Desmoulins explained, “Many witnesses say an unidentified carriage left the city gates before dawn, heading northeast. They must be fleeing toward Metz or Montmédy, seeking the protection of Marquis de Bouillé’s German regiment.”

  At that, Danton suddenly sprang up, drove his fist into Fréron’s shoulder hard enough to knock him down onto the floor, and roared with laughter as he cursed, “You bastard—why have you thrown a bucket of children’s piss over my head? And you—my dear, charming wife—prepare bathwater, and bring me some clean clothes!”

  “What can we do now?” Desmoulins stepped forward, urgent. “If the King reaches the frontier and returns with foreign troops, any of us could be killed!”

  “Yes—we must act,” Fréron added as he climbed back to his feet.

  Danton had already unbuttoned his shirt, exposing his hairy chest, but at their anxiety, he only laughed. “The guillotine for us? Perhaps. But not today—and we will not be the first. There is a man who will do everything in his power to stop Louis XVI and his family from getting away.”

  “Who?” they demanded together.

  “André Franck,” Danton said. “If the King reaches Metz or Montmédy and Marquis de Bouillé rises, the first man they will destroy is him—the Deputy Prosecutor of the Marne.”

  As he spoke, the Paris Commune’s representative frowned. He had realised a serious problem: André’s authority extended only over Reims and its immediate surroundings. He could not exercise enforcement power fifty kilometres away in Chalons-en-Champagne or elsewhere—unless he received an emergency authorisation from the National Constituent Assembly.

  At once, Danton stopped and began issuing orders. “Fréron—you go to the General Council of the Paris Commune. Desmoulins—you go to the Cordeliers Club and find Marat and Legendre. You will unite the forty-eight district electors and the General Council of the Commune, and together submit an emergency motion to the Constituent Assembly: grant General André Franck—commander of the Champagne Composite Brigade and Deputy Prosecutor of the Marne—the authority to command and mobilise all armed forces in the Marne and the surrounding départements, by every necessary means, to bring Louis XVI, the Queen, and the two children back to Paris.”

  After Fréron and the Desmoulins couple hurried downstairs, Gabrielle followed Danton into the bath. Worried, she asked, “Do you truly think André can bring Louis XVI back?”

  Unlike the gravity of moments earlier, Danton now looked utterly relaxed. He sank into the water and rose again, then said to his wife, “Don’t worry. André will catch them. Other than me, no one is cleverer than that man.”

  Gabrielle caught the tone at once. Quick-minded, she pressed him. “So you already knew this would happen—or rather, you deliberately helped it happen?”

  With his wife, Danton did not hide much. “Two months ago, André and I agreed to wait for this day. He needs the momentum to begin a new purge in the Marne and remove his enemies. And I need the impact of this affair to prepare my path into the ministry—or the Legislative Assembly. But now, I almost pity the unlucky King. From the day Louis Capet became King, he has never stopped ruining things.”

  Elsewhere, Lafayette—also dragged from sleep—was hurrying to the Tuileries. By the time he arrived, large crowds of Parisians had gathered before the palace’s iron gates, shouting and chanting, every voice raised against the King. One busybody of a craftsman had even made a wooden sign and hung it on the railings of the Tuileries. It read: “To Let,” and the onlookers burst into laughter.

  When the guards struggled to force a path through the crowd for their commander, whistles and jeers rose around General Lafayette, and abuse flew freely:

  “Look what you’ve done!”

  “Damned noble—you let the King escape!”

  “Don’t worry—when Louis XVI comes back to Paris, he’ll send Lafayette to the gallows too!”

  …

  Lafayette, his face dark with anger, answered nothing. Escorted by soldiers, he entered the great hall of the palace. Mayor Bailly and the principal officials of the Paris City Hall had already arrived.

  Wearing the tricolour sash, Bailly held out an unfolded letter to Lafayette. “This is a public letter left for us by the King. All the officials of City Hall and I have read it. Now it is your turn.”

  Perhaps Louis XVI believed he would certainly escape and obtain the safety he had long craved. The timid King tore away the last of his masks and declared openly that, throughout this special period since 1789, most of the decrees and laws he had signed had been forced upon him under the coercion of “rebels.” He swore that when the Church was restored to respect, when the foundations of monarchy were firm again… he would return to France, to Paris, accompanied by Marquis de Bouillé’s forces.

  When Lafayette finished reading, he raised his head and looked from one municipal official to another. Bailly understood what his old friend was thinking. He sighed and said, “Don’t waste your effort. That letter was already outside the palace an hour ago. The Paris Commune has likely heard it by now. There is no sealing this.”

  The Commander-in-Chief of the National Guard fell silent. He paced the hall, back and forth, as if weighing an immense decision. Before long, Lafayette stopped, motioned his aide to sit at a desk, and ordered, “Write down what I dictate—word for word, without omission.”

  At once, Lafayette’s voice rang through the hall. “On June twenty, a band of enemies of the French nation, by the most despicable means, plotted to kidnap the royal family and flee toward the frontier, and now I, in the name of—”

  “This is not kidnapping,” Bailly interrupted, stepping forward. “It is flight. It is the King’s shameless betrayal of the people!”

  Lafayette did not flinch. He shot back, “Then what would you have me do? Declare the King a traitor at once, turn the great King of France into the pretext for a mob-ruled republic; let the streets of Paris run with blood and corpses; or prepare to face the intervention armies of the European monarchs?”

  Bailly and the City Hall officials wilted. No one stopped the National Guard commander from twisting the facts.

  “Continue,” Lafayette said. “Now, in the name of the Commander-in-Chief of the National Guard of the realm, I require all local guards to intercept this band of robbers and to return the kidnapped King and his family to Paris, safe and unharmed. These facts—and all consequences arising from them—are borne by me personally, Lafayette. Read it back… good. Bring it to me for signature.”

  After Lafayette signed, he refused to let Bailly and the others add their names to the document.

  At around nine o’clock, the National Constituent Assembly received an emergency motion submitted by representatives from the forty-eight districts of Paris and the Paris Commune. It demanded authorisation for General André—commander of the Champagne Composite Brigade and Deputy Prosecutor of the Marne—to employ all necessary, or such measures as he judged necessary, to bring the King and Queen and their two children safely back to Paris.

  After announcing another matter, the presiding speaker, Buharest, addressed the more than 600 deputies in the hall: “Gentlemen—the King has fled. Now we vote.”

  In less than two minutes, Buharest saw that most hands were already raised. He declared publicly, “The motion is adopted.” Thereupon, the speaker and several secretaries below co-signed the text, making it an immediately effective provisional law, to remain in force until Louis XVI and his family returned to Paris.

  An hour later, Danton arrived at the Jacobin Club with his friends. The moment he took the platform, the aggressive Danton turned toward General Lafayette and said, in his habitual tone of cutting mockery:

  “Honourable Marquis, not long ago, you swore you would pledge your own head as guarantee. Will you now fulfil your promise? You said the King would not flee. Yet the conclusion before us is clear: either you have betrayed France, or you are so foolish that you cannot answer for your own words—one or the other, and there is no third. You have shown, beyond doubt, that you have no ability to lead Paris or to lead us. That is already a very courteous way of putting it… Do you wish to be a truly great man? Then resign at once. Become an ordinary citizen. Only when you leave Paris can the French people be free…”