Peasants came in from the fields; a little knot of men gathered; rumours went about. In those days all the French had evil words for the foreign mercenaries in the army. Some of the more ignorant of the field-workers began whispering that they were a press-gang, that they had come to seize men for the service. The better instructed were far more suspicious of something far more probable. Three o’clock passed, and there began to be some pressure upon the mounted men. A few were hustled; the gathering of peasants grew. Beyond all essentials was it essential, thus far from any support, to avoid a rumour of the truth, or at least the spreading of it; and for Choiseul to prevent any conflict between his little line of Germans and the gathering peasantry about. And in one of those agonies that soldiers always feel, whether the command be great or small, when synchrony fails and when they are waiting hopelessly for something that never comes, torn as soldiers always are in such delays between two necessities, Choiseul as the afternoon still drew on and the road for miles still showed quite empty, decided for the more immediate duty. A little longer, and his troop would have suffered assault, and the king, if after such inexplicable delay he did come at all, would come to find a country-side beginning to rise and his chances ruined. But was the king coming? How often had not Choiseul been told of the perils, of the necessities, of the last moment of the repeated postponements! How well did he not know himself the chances of a postponement, he who had left Paris as a forerunner just before, and who had a good eye for the faults of the court! Hour after hour had passed; the king could not be coming, and to linger longer with his little German troop was in any case to ensure failure. He would ride away with his men across Argonne and join the main body at Varennes. He would not further rouse the growing talk of the fields by swelling the contingents to the east with his own, and by showing more soldiers than [Illustration: THE RETURN TO PARIS _To face p. 78_ ] need be along the road. He would cut across the plain and through the woods. He rode away, and his men after him.