“Madame,” said he, addressing the Queen, and not Madame Tourzel, “if you are really Madame de Korff—that is to say, a Swiss, and consequently a stranger—how is it that you have sufficient influence to command a military escort consisting of a detachment of dragoons at St. Menehould, and another at Clermont; also a first detachment of hussars at Pont-de-Somme-Vesles, and a second at Varennes?” To end a fatiguing discussion, and one in which M. Drouet feared that the Procureur, an honest man enough, but not equal to any great situation, would eventually yield, he put his hand into the carriage as a support for the Queen, and said, “Will you be so kind, madame, as to descend?” To tell the truth, the Procureur was most dreadfully embarrassed. Encouraged by M. Drouet’s invitation to the Queen, and hearing the tocsin begin to ring, he, however, approached the door—from which he had been turned to make place for M. Drouet—with great humility, his hat in his hand. “The Municipal Council is deliberating,” said he, “whether it would be advisable to allow you to continue your route; but a report, wrong or otherwise, has been spread about that it is the King and his august family whom we have the honor of receiving in our walls. I beg you, therefore, to accept the shelter of my house, in all amity, until such time as the council shall have finished their deliberation. Against our will the tocsin has been sounded. The concourse of the inhabitants of the city is increased by the entry of the country people; and, perhaps, the King—if, in truth, I have the honor of addressing a King—may be exposed to insults which we should be unable to prevent, and which would fill us with unmitigated grief!” It was no use his resisting. The Low Town was evidently ignorant of what was passing in the High Town. No succor arrived, or, indeed, appeared likely to arrive. The three young gentlemen dressed as couriers had no other arms than their _couteaux de chasse_, and could not undertake to fight with thirty men armed with guns. The tocsin still vibrated in the air, and found an echo in every heart. The King set the example, and alighted. I then had a good view of him, and my astonishment at seeing a king in such a costume was great. He wore a drab gray coat, a satin waistcoat, and a pair of gray trousers, gray stockings, shoes with buckles, and a three-cornered hat. In descending, he knocked his head against the top of the door, and his hat fell off. His hair was in tresses on the top of his head, and was fixed there with an ivory comb. In a word, his costume corresponded with the title of a steward, which he bore in the passport of Madame Korff. I picked up the hat, and handed it to him. The Queen descended next, and after her, Madame Royale and the Dauphin, who was disguised as a little girl; then came Madame Elizabeth, and, last, Madame de Tourzel.