"'To Versailles,' was his shuddering answer.

"Nothing could now detain me. After one or two helpless efforts to rise
from my bed, and an hour or two of almost despair, I succeeded in
getting on my feet, and procuring a horse. Versailles was now my only
object. I knew all the importance of arriving at the palace at the
earliest moment; I knew the unprotected state of the king, and knew that
it was my place to be near his person in all chances. I was on the point
of sallying forth in my uniform, when the precaution of my friend forced
me back; telling me, truly enough, that, in the ferment of the public
mind, it would be impossible for me to reach Versailles as a _garde du
corps_, and that my being killed or taken, would effectually prevent me
from bearing any information of the state of the capital. This decided
me; and, disguised as a courier, I set out by a cross-road in hope to
arrive before the multitude.

"But I had not gone above a league when I fell in with a scattered
platoon of the mob, who were rambling along as if on a party of
pleasure; tossing their pikes and clashing their sabres to all kinds of
revolutionary songs. I was instantly seized, as a 'courier of the
Aristocrats.' Their sagacity, once at work, found out a hundred names
for me:--I was a 'spy of Pitt,' an 'agent of the Austrians,' a
'disguised priest,' and an 'emigrant noble;' my protestations were in
vain, and they held a court-martial, on me and my horse, on the road;
and ordered me to deliver up my despatches, on pain of being piked on
the spot. But I could give up none; for the best of all possible
reasons. Every fold of my drapery was searched, and then I was to be
piked for _not_ having despatches; it being clear that I was more than a
courier, and that my message was too important to be trusted to pen and