Each time Prosecutor Lecques read out a name, Hoche would peer through the open carriage window into the compartment, verifying the person’s facial features. Among all the officers and men, only Lieutenant Colonel Hoche had once served as a Guard at Versailles and the Tuileries, and had even met the royal couple—together with the Princess and the Dauphin—at close range.

  After receiving Lieutenant Colonel Hoche’s signal confirming there was no mistake, Prosecutor Lecques asked with evident satisfaction, “Honourable ladies and gentlemen, where are you preparing to travel?”

  “Brussels!” the governess, Madame Touzel, answered, trembling.

  “I’m afraid this road does not lead to Brussels. The only destinations ahead are Montmédy or Metz!” Hoche said bluntly, exposing the impostor “Russian Comtesse” on the spot.

  “Now then—Comtesse von Korff, and all of you ladies and gentlemen, or whatever more exalted identities you may claim—please step down at once.” As he spoke, the prosecutor ordered the soldiers to open the door.

  Two hours later, André also arrived at the village of Binarville. Almost at the same time came the entire infantry regiment led by Lieutenant Colonel Moncey, along with two accompanying horse-artillery batteries. The moment they arrived, Lieutenant Colonel Moncey took over the village’s outer defence, and had the two horse-artillery batteries’ nine 4-pound guns concealed near the stone bridge over the Aisne.

  André then went to the courtyard where Louis XVI was being held. It was a two-storey building: the ground floor housed the village’s only modest general shop, and it was filled with a strange mingled smell of cooking oil, sausage, and assorted seasonings.

  The King and Queen, the Princess and the Dauphin, the governess, and the Queen’s lady-in-waiting were all lodged on the second floor of the shop. There were only two sparsely furnished rooms, both worn and filthy, and the ceiling was so low that one might strike one’s head if careless. Yet in terms of food, Prosecutor Lecques—acting on André’s instructions—did not slight the royal family: white bread, grilled sausage, fresh cheese, a richly scented meat-and-vegetable soup, and champagne were all provided.

  When André went upstairs, the Princess and the Dauphin were already asleep in the adjoining room under Madame Touzel’s care. The King and Queen sat facing each other in the other room, while Prosecutor Lecques, like a prison warder, stood dutifully outside; the three of them—one within, two without—had not exchanged a single word.

  After the fugitives’ identities had been checked once more, André made a small gesture and had Lecques return with him to the ground floor. There was no need to pry into the royal couple’s privacy. With an infantry regiment and most of a cavalry regiment surrounding the place, these unarmed members of the royal house had no chance of escape. Moreover, France was still a constitutional monarchy; before Louis XVI was formally deposed, proper respect had to be maintained, lest one hand opponents an easy pretext.

  “You are Monsieur André Franck, are you not?”

  The lofty, indifferent voice belonged to a woman—a clever Queen, who could determine the true identity of an unexpected visitor from the smallest details.

  André paused only for an instant. His steps did not hesitate; he had no intention of speaking to them, nor of turning back to look. He and Lecques continued down to the ground floor.

  Inside the shop, André instructed Captain Wade and Second Lieutenant Lozère to jointly command the gendarmerie and secure the shop and its courtyard, inside and out. Apart from ensuring that the King and Queen and the other royal family members never left their sight, they were to accommodate any reasonable requests from these high-born royals, until the two Representatives from Paris arrived.

  André gave one final instruction: “Gentlemen, remember—unless I give permission, under no circumstances is anyone to go up to the second floor, nor speak a single word directly to the King, the Queen, the Princess, or the Dauphin. You will only accept written requests passed down by the lady-in-waiting.”

  After Second Lieutenant Lozère left, André smiled again and said to Lecques, “Monsieur Lecques, I am very satisfied with your attitude and your competence. So now, please return to Chalons-en-Champagne tonight, and, as Acting Mayor, take control of the city.”

  Lecques was overjoyed. Yet in the next moment, he hurriedly added, “Thank you, Deputy Chief Provincial Prosecutor! But I have a small confusion. Why not move Their Majesties and their entire family to Chalons-en-Champagne tonight, or simply escort them to Paris, instead of remaining here in the village? I worry that—”

  “Marquis de Bouillé’s German Legion.” André took over the sentence smoothly. “A few hours ago, the National Constituent Assembly passed a resolution assigning the deputies Pétion and Barnave to come to the Marne, to receive Louis XVI, Queen Marie, the Princess, and the Dauphin, and bring them back to Paris. In perhaps ten to twelve hours, they will arrive here. At Binarville, the two deputies will witness with their own eyes the shameless treason of Marquis de Bouillé and his German mercenaries, and the Assembly will punish it severely. And besides…”

  At this point André glanced at him and continued, “Our gendarmerie operations in Chalons, in Aumont, in Suippes, and in several other towns are not yet finished; in terms of timing, it will require at least ten hours. I have already printed thousands of copies of two official notices issued by the Assembly and by the Commander of the National Guard, and sent men to distribute them to every municipal office, National Guard camp, and relay station across the Meuse, ordering them to stop the German mercenaries’ plot to move south.

  “In these conditions, Marquis de Bouillé can bring at most 1,000 to 2,000 cavalry to attack Binarville. On our side, we already have a full infantry regiment and most of a cavalry regiment—2,000 troops—plus nine guns, lying in wait. And in ten hours, the two deputies will also bring thousands of National Guards and militia from various places to reinforce Binarville.”

  André had secretly planned this arrangement for more than a year. During that time, he had even had the intelligence bureau led by Penduvas repeatedly test the plan’s feasibility and every contingency response, leaving nothing unconsidered. If this golden opportunity still could not topple Marquis de Bouillé and his 30,000-strong German legion, then André might as well lay down his arms and surrender.

  …

  At dawn on the twenty-second, Marquis de Bouillé received a report from the dragoons: the King’s party had been detained by a local prosecutor at the border between the Marne and the Meuse, in the village of Binarville. At that moment, this loyal the Royalist Party General had just moved his headquarters eastward from Metz to Montmédy. Worse still, only two thousand dragoons were at his side; most of the German mercenaries remained in Metz because their pay was in arrears.

  Upon learning that the King was in danger, Marquis de Bouillé immediately ordered his adjutant to sound the assembly call. He sprang onto his horse and led the two thousand cavalry toward Binarville, some seventy kilometres away.

  Yet along the route, most villages and towns had already received André’s proclamation. Many residents spontaneously refused to sell food, drink, or fodder to Marquis de Bouillé and his troops, and set up roadblocks to slow the dragoons; some officers even mustered their National Guards and forcibly detained dragoons who had fallen behind. To prevent his rear from being cut off, Marquis de Bouillé had no choice but to keep splitting off detachments to hold key points and passes.

  By the time the Royalist Party General reached the far bank of the Aisne and could see Binarville in the distance, it was already close to noon. Fewer than 1,200 dragoons remained with him; both men and horses were exhausted, hungry, and parched, and could not fight at once.

  With no alternative, Marquis de Bouillé ordered a short halt in the woods. The cavalry were to eat and drink; the horses needed oats mixed with water and beaten eggs. Meanwhile, the anxious commander recruited more than ten volunteers among the cavalry who could speak French, and sent them across the stone bridge over the Aisne to scout the enemy.

  However, the German mercenaries were forced to stop before the bridge: its narrow span was completely blocked by discarded wine casks, felled trees, and other debris, and was impassable. Since the bridge was sealed, the cavalrymen abandoned their horses and prepared to swim across—only to be shouted at from the opposite bank.

  “Hey, you German bastards in yellow uniforms—don’t step into the river unless you want to taste French bullets!” As the voice rang out, a large mass of blue-uniformed soldiers suddenly surged from the woods, rifles raised and trained on the dragoons across the river, some thirty metres away, who were stripping off their clothes.

  “Don’t shoot—we’re only looking for a missing comrade!” a German officer hurriedly explained, producing a convenient excuse.

  “Damn it—what a shameless lie.” André stood on the roof of a house diagonally opposite the stone bridge. At that moment, Barnave and Pétion, serving as envoys of the Assembly, were beside him.

  “André, can your men hold?” Barnave asked tensely. “Shall we commit the National Guards and militia I brought as well?” Pétion, standing to one side, kept nodding in agreement. They had no idea that, despite his 30,000 German mercenaries on paper, Marquis de Bouillé had in fact brought only a little over a thousand dragoons this time.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  At their request, André was inwardly amused.

  It was not said without reason: the “reinforcements” brought by the two deputies were of such poor quality that, before they had even entered the village, they had already clashed several times with the gendarmerie responsible for discipline. André was so angered that he ordered Hoche’s cavalry regiment to reinforce the position, and announced that anyone who crossed the line would be shot on the spot.

  Even so, André reassured the two deputies: “No need. You should take the King’s party back to Paris first. My men will hold Marquis de Bouillé and his troops here.”

  Barnave nodded. Without a word, he turned and went downstairs, preparing to return to the shop’s second floor to receive Louis XVI, Queen Marie, the Princess, and the Dauphin back into the great carriage bound for Paris.

  “And you truly have confidence you can hold Marquis de Bouillé’s German Legion?” Pétion asked with concern.

  André nodded, and whispered into Pétion’s ear, “Keep an eye on Barnave.”

  Pétion hesitated for a moment, then patted André on the shoulder. Without a word, he turned and left.

  On the far side of the Aisne, the dragoons, unable to advance or retreat, heard the shouting again from the opposite bank: “Hey, Germans—go tell your commander, Marquis de Bouillé, that General André Franck will be waiting for him on the stone bridge.”

  About a quarter of an hour later, the infantry of Moncey’s regiment cleared a narrow passage across the bridge. On the other side, Marquis de Bouillé arrived as promised. Perhaps trusting André’s character, General Marquis de Bouillé came to the foot of the bridge with only a single major at his side.

  “This is my adjutant, Major Pirotto!” Bouillé had barely finished the introduction when the adjutant, who was holding the Marquis’s horse, shot General André Franck a vicious glare. A father’s death could not be forgiven.

  General André Franck understood at once what had happened, and with a face full of contrived regret, he explained hypocritically, “The affair of Comte de Saizia was a tragedy no one could have foreseen. He merely did something that seemed wrong, at the wrong time and in the wrong place.”

  General Marquis de Bouillé impatiently waited for André to finish his nonsense, and to introduce his own adjutant—courtesies expected among senior officers in Europe, even if the Marquis personally did not recognise André’s ridiculous National Guard rank of General.

  “My apologies, Marquis. My adjutant, Captain Davout, is constructing positions for the two artillery batteries’ nine guns.” As he spoke, General André Franck waved a hand. A young captain ran out; after barking a series of orders, nine 4-pound guns were pushed forward, their muzzles aimed directly at the bridge and the river on both sides of it.

  General Marquis de Bouillé’s heart sank. He had already noticed that these nine guns were all the same calibre—light Marat guns—able to accompany mounted infantry and be redeployed to another battlefield at any time. For dragoons attacking without artillery cover, it would be a suicidal catastrophe. Plainly, this not-very-wide Aisne had become an unbridgeable chasm in his military career.

  General André Franck continued, “Behind these houses and this gun line is an infantry regiment under Lieutenant Colonel Moncey. And a few kilometres upstream, Lieutenant Colonel Hoche’s cavalry will ford the Aisne within two hours, to turn your flank. Marquis, tell me—what price are your 1,200 dragoons prepared to pay, and how much time will you spend, to seize our position; to rescue the King and Queen and their two children without suffering losses at the hands of tens of thousands of militia; and then, under pursuit by our cavalry regiment, and under harassment and interception by National Guards and militia along the road, how will you withdraw intact? …Ah—don’t ask me how I know your true strength.”

  Faced with André’s aggressive posture, Bouillé clenched his fists, his expression furious. He answered with ringing force: “Even if I must face death, my loyalty will compel me to choose correctly, General André Franck!”

  General André Franck shook his head in regret. “But it is not a wise choice—especially when your men are hardly eager to follow you into a battle that is certain death and devoid of meaning.”

  At that moment, loud laughter burst out from the woods behind the direction from which Bouillé had come. A faint smile also touched André’s lips.

  “What have you done? Have you already declared war?” Bouillé took two steps back and drew his sabre.

  Under the bridge, Second Lieutenant Lozère and the other guards, seeing this, drew their pistols and prepared to rush forward to protect their commander, only to be sharply ordered back by André.

  André said to Bouillé without the slightest resentment, “Rest assured, Marquis. There is no ill intent over there. My cavalry are simply too enthusiastic: seeing your dragoons hungry and thirsty, they took it upon themselves to send food and wine. If you insist on fighting, I will order my light cavalry regiment to keep away from your dragoons for the next two hours.”

  A battle was no longer possible. Even without that little episode of enemy cavalry merrymaking together, Marquis de Bouillé would not launch a meaningless battle—one that was certain death. If pressed too far, the German mercenaries would not have minded cooperating with André’s light cavalry, turning their weapons on Bouillé instead.

  As that thought struck him, despair washed over Marquis de Bouillé. His vision darkened; he staggered and sank to one knee on the bridge facing Paris, and the sabre in his hand clattered onto the stone. Major Pirotto, stationed on one side, hurried over and steadied the Marquis, supporting him firmly.

  Once again, André stopped the guards from approaching. He looked at his former formidable opponent with pity. This brave General, fearless in battle, had at last fallen at André’s feet—not through a fair contest between two armies, nor because of André’s supposed brilliance, but because General Bouillé had attached himself to a weak sovereign who could not be carried.

  In that instant, André felt none of the joy of victory. Instead, he felt sorrow for an opponent worthy of respect. He walked slowly to the now-recovered Marquis de Bouillé, and motioned for Major Pirotto to remain under the bridge, for the commanders’ conversation was not yet finished.

  “Go to the Caribbean—to Saint-Domingue, Marquis,” André said softly. “There, you may continue to wield your sabre, and continue to serve France on the battlefield, rather than remaining on the European continent to prepare a civil war that later generations will inevitably mock.”

  In another timeline, after failing to rescue Louis XVI, Marquis de Bouillé refused, before the Battle of Verdun, to continue participating in the Prusso-Austrian Coalition and the émigré forces’ invasion of French soil. He went alone to North America and lived in seclusion in the wilderness, never able to return to France.

  As one of the very few right-wing conservative leaders whom André truly admired, André hoped that Marquis de Bouillé could realise his value again on the battlefield of the colony of Saint-Domingue, and fulfil his loyalty to the French homeland. André did not mind Saint-Domingue becoming a gathering place for the Right—so long as it remained French.

  Thirty minutes later, Marquis de Bouillé and his adjutant, Major Pirotto, returned to the dragoons’ temporary camp, and led the well-fed, smiling mercenaries back to the garrison at Montmédy, seventy kilometres away.

  In early August, after every soldier of the mercenary legion had received his final arrears of pay at the Montmédy camp, this brave General announced publicly that the 30,000-strong German (French) Royal Legion was, from that day forward, formally dissolved.

  As for Bouillé himself, he, his family, his friends, and his loyal subordinates—more than 500 in total—crossed the border from Montmédy into the Duchy of Luxembourg, paused briefly, and then continued north. Along the way, Bouillé spoke little; he was lost in thought, keeping his counsel, until they reached the merchant port of Rotterdam in the United Provinces.

  There, three Dutch merchant ships had long been waiting. They would carry General Bouillé and his friends and family to the capital of the French colony of Saint-Domingue in the Caribbean: Cap-Fran?ais. Bouillé ultimately accepted André’s suggestion. With his intellect, it was not hard to see that France could not restore royal power in the short term; better, then, to withdraw from the storm and go to the New World—at least there he could still fight for his country.

  Because he had organised, planned, and carried out the royal family’s flight, Marquis de Bouillé’s reputation at home collapsed; at any moment he might become a wanted man. At the same time, the royalists, which had taken refuge in Coblenz, also bitterly hated Marquis de Bouillé: to conceal their own incompetence, they blamed the failure of the King’s escape on this loyal and courageous General.

  From this perspective, Marquis de Bouillé had become an object of universal condemnation—whether from the Left, the Right, or the so-called neutral. Unless a miracle occurred, he would carry this heavy infamy for more than a hundred years, until a famous biographer in the twenty-first century wrote his life and finally cleared his name.

  André’s desire to send Bouillé to French Saint-Domingue was not a sudden impulse. In truth, even with victory already in hand, André had no intention of destroying Bouillé once and for all. On the one hand, in 1790 André had promised that within three years he would gradually transfer Saint-Cyr and others back from overseas colonies to metropolitan France; on the other, the colonies’ finances were on the verge of collapse, unable to bear the high costs of defence. In such circumstances, it was necessary to have a responsible, resolute, experienced General from the homeland to unite, build, and lead an efficient centralised military government in the French colonies, to secure France’s presence in the Caribbean.

  All of the above was the core content of the final half-hour of André’s meeting with Bouillé on the stone bridge. André advised Bouillé that, after returning to Montmédy, he could write a letter to the National Constituent Assembly, taking all responsibility upon himself. In that way, with a face-saving exit available, the Assembly would no longer pursue the royal couple’s crime of flight, and the matter would be reduced and quietly settled.

  “And you are not afraid that, once I and the royalists have established ourselves in Saint-Domingue, we will raise forces against you Republican elements?” Bouillé asked petulantly—plainly convinced in his heart, but unwilling to yield in words.

  To this, André answered with unrestrained confidence: “No. In the future, under my leadership, the French army will be stronger and greater than in the age of the Sun King. Within ten years, we will chastise the feudal monarchs of all Europe; I have no fear of the threat of a mere overseas colony. In short, my demand is simple: I only ask that you employ every necessary means—or every means you deem necessary—to keep Saint-Domingue, that pearl of the sea, within France’s territory. As for whether it will belong to the Royalist Party or to the Republicans in the end, let us speak of that ten years from now.”

  André could quietly let Comte de Provence go; he could point Marquis de Bouillé toward a path of return. Yet toward Louis XVI and his Queen he was far less friendly. The King and Queen would be a crucial step on André’s climb to the summit of power. Everything André did now was preparation for the European wars to come. And should the world ever become peaceful, the first man to spit blood in rage would likely be André himself.

  …

  On the other side, the King and Queen repeatedly delayed the return to Paris, clinging to the hope of Marquis de Bouillé’s 30,000 reinforcements—yet they never came. The National Guards and militia responsible for escorting the royal couple grew furiously impatient, shouting at the carriage: “Either get back to Paris, or we’ll beat you to death inside the carriage right now.”

  Fortunately, after persuasion from the two deputies, the King and Queen finally agreed to turn the carriage around and head toward Paris, to quell the people’s anger. Perhaps from this very day, Louis XVI would no longer be a King, and Marie-Antoinette would no longer be a Queen; the fate of France shifted once again in a decisive way.

  …

  One additional note: the real Marquis de Bouillé was not as noble as legend claims. He was merely a man with limits. He also participated in the 1792 invasion of France; he was only outraged by the Prusso-Austrian Coalition’s abuses, and ultimately left Europe without taking leave.