The first postilion wished to raise his horses into a gallop. They both fell, but gained their feet again on the application of the whip. They wished to upset the carriage. The two horses under the guidance of the second postilion fell in their turn. They drew the postilion from under the horse he had been riding, with the loss of one of his boots. The horses picked themselves up, the postilion regained his boot, and, putting it on, he remounted his saddle. Off goes the carriage. The travelers breathe again. But as the postmaster had warned them of danger, in place of riding in front, M. de Valory took up his position by the side of the carriage. The fact of the horses having fallen one after the other, without any apparent reason, seemed to the Queen a presage of evil to come. As yet, however, they had escaped the consequences of recognition. The man who witnessed the arrival of the berlin had ran to the Mayor’s house; but that official was a Royalist. However, the witness swore that he recognised the King and the other members of the royal family; so the Mayor, driven into his last entrenchment, was forced to proceed forthwith to the Rue St. Jacques; but, happily, when he arrived there, he found that the carriage had started some five minutes before. Passing through the gates of the city, and noticing the ardor with which the postilion urged on their steeds, the Queen, and Madame Elizabeth gave vent each to the same cry:—“We are saved!” But at that very moment a man, arisen, as it were, suddenly from the very bosom of the earth, passed on horseback to the door of the carriage, and said, “Your measures are badly taken! You will be stopped!” It was never known who this man was. By good luck, they were distant only four leagues from Pont-de-Somme-Vesles, where M. de Choiseul was awaiting them with his forty hussars. Perhaps they should have sent M. de Valory to the rear, in order to prevent this. But the last warning had increased the Queen’s terrors, and she would not part with one of her defenders. They incited the postilions to greater speed. The four leagues were accomplished in an hour. They arrived at Pont-de-Somme-Vesles, a little hamlet, consisting of two or three houses. They pierced with their eyes the wood which overshadowed the farm to the left; and the trees which indicated the windings of the river on the right, formed, as it were, a curtain of green to hide the modest streamlet from the curious eye, but still no De Choiseul, no De Goguelot, no forty hussars were to be seen. On seeing that the place was desolate, the Queen uttered the words “We are lost!” In the meantime, let us explain why the hussars were not at their post. At eleven o’clock M. de Choiseul, still accompanied by Léonard, in tears, who knew not where they were taking him, and who believed himself to be the victim of some unjustifiable violence, arrived at Pont-de-Somme-Vesles.