On and on they went, however, through the night and all the next day, little knowing how fast messengers from Paris were racing all over the kingdom, to give the news of their flight. Lafayette had been roused, at six in the morning of the 21st, by a note from a gentleman who had been informed that the king's rooms at the Tuileries were empty. The whole city was in consternation, and Lafayette's life in great danger. Tranquillity was preserved, however. Messengers galloped off in every direction; and one of these it was who, going north-east, spread the alarm which made the herb-man go and tell what he had seen in the wood of Bondy. Little did the travelling party think how much faster the mounted messengers were going than they: and on they lumbered, the eleven horses whisking their tails, and the king taking his time in walking up the hills, while the alarm was flying abroad. It was near sunset on the second evening, when they had gone about one hundred and seventy miles, that one of the body-guards, mounted and dressed in yellow as a courier, came prancing into the village of Saint Menehould. His dress attracted all eyes; and so did his proceedings. The gazers saw that this odd courier did not know the post-house; for he spurred past it, and had to inquire for it. The master of the post, Drouet, of revolutionary politics, was in a very bad humour, and had been so all day, having been angry about the mysterious hussars in the morning, and no less angry at seeing the village now full of dragoons, from another quarter, whose business here he could not understand. These dragoons, strolling through the streets, touched their helmets to the party in the carriage, which the waiting-maid of the baroness acknowledged with remarkable grace. The dragoon officer, Dandoins, at first delighted to see the party arrive, presently did not like what he saw, and was pretty sure the village had taken the alarm. He looked full at the pretended courier, from the side pavement, as much as to say, "Be quick! Make haste to change horses, and be off." The dull fellow, not understanding what he meant, came up to him, to know whether he had anything to say. All which was observed by a hundred eyes. Drouet's eyes were the quickest. He thought that the waiting-maid's face was like somebody he had seen somewhere in Paris; and the valet, how very like the king! He called to a friend to bring him, quick, a new assignat. [Note: A promissory note which passed as money, like a bank-note. It bore an engraving of the king's head.] The king's head there, and the valet's head in the carriage, were exactly alike. Now Drouet understood the meaning of his village being filled with hussars in the morning, and dragoons in the afternoon.