If at Faust You Don`t Succeed

CHAPTER 10

Emile Drouet, postmaster of Saint-Menehould, sat in his chair in the window of his bedroom, late at night, still awaiting messengers from Paris. The night was cool and quiet, a welcome relief from the exciting day. There had been such news from the Paris Committees! And all day, flights of nobility had passed through the village en route to the frontier! Drouet's thoughts were practical, though. He was wondering how the coming revolution would affect the postal service. He had told his wife earlier in the day, "Governments may come and governments will go, but no matter who runs them, they will need a reliable postal service." But was that true? Drouet and his fellows had worked hard to make it so. They had complicated the existing postal system in many ingenious ways, so that no new staff could understand it. "They'll need us to straighten it out for them." But still he wasn't entirely sure. Revolutions were queer things…

Citizen Mack, for so it was, swung down from the saddle and set his revolutionary cap firmly on his head. He looked around keenly, expecting to see nothing much but surprised all the same. Behind him another horse came into town, more slowly. Marguerite sat on this one.

Mack brought the horse to a halt under M. Drouet's window. He said, "M. Drouet, I have something to show you that you may find of interest."

"And who, sir, are you?" Drouet demanded.

"I," Mack said, "am a special envoy from the Council in Paris. I need you to come with me at once."

Drouet slipped on wooden sabots, wrapped himself in a long dark raincoat, and came downstairs.

"Where are we going?"

"I'll show you. Marguerite, stay here with the horses."

Mack led him through the village and out the back side, past the livery stable, the public latrine, and the maypole, coming at last to a little-used road in the woods.

"What is this?" Drouet asked.

"This is the back way through Saint-Menehould," Mack told him.

"But my dear sir, no one comes this way."

Mack was well aware of that. He also knew that just about now the great yellow coach with the king and queen should be passing through Saint-Menehould by the main road. By taking Drouet to this little-used detour, he expected to forestall any possibility of Drouet's even getting near the king, much less recognizing him.

"Sir, this is madness," Drouet said. "Nobody comes this way!"

"Not usually," Mack said. "But soft! Hear you not hoofbeats coming as from a distance and riding hard?"

Drouet listened, and Mack listened with him. It was odd how the imagination worked. Standing in this quiet place, with no sound but the gentle susurrus of the wind passing overhead through the soft boughs of chestnut and oak, he could swear he was hearing the distant sound of hooves. It was only his imagination, of course.

"Yes, I hear it," Drouet said excitedly.

Prematurely, as it turned out, for now the sound became louder, and it was accompanied by a telltale squeak that could only be the springs on the royal carriage protesting as they jounced along the deeply rutted and high-crowned bypass road.

The little leaves shimmered in indistinct moonlight. Drouet stared, transfixed, as the sounds grew louder.

And then the coach came rolling up, glimmering faintly in the moonlight. It drew up to them, moving slowly now because of the curvy schematics of the road. Glancing inside as it went by, Drouet gave a violent start of amazement at what he saw.

"Your Majesty!" he exclaimed.

"What the hell?" Mack said under his breath.

And then the coach had gone by.

"Did you see him?" Drouet asked. "It was King Louis, plain as day. I remember seeing him at the royal levee held for postmasters from all over France last year. And the queen was there, too!"

"It must have been someone else," Mack said. "There are a lot of people in France today who look like those two."

"This was them, I tell you!" Drouet cried. "Thanks, citizen, for leading me to this seldom-used byway. I must return to the village and give the alarm!"

He turned to go. Mack didn't know what had happened, but he knew that this turn of events needed instant action. He had a sandbag in his pocket, something no experienced mugger is ever without. As Drouet turned to go, Mack pulled out the sandbag and swung it, catching Drouet on the back of the skull. Drouet dropped noiselessly onto the mossy forest floor.

Moments later, a lone horseman came galloping up, his crimson cape billowing behind him. It was Mephistopheles, looking every inch the fiend from Hell on a tall black horse with fiery eyes. "Did you see the royal coach go past?" he cried.

"I did," Mack said. "What were they doing here?"

"I rerouted them," Mephistopheles said proudly. "Got them off the main road entirely so they wouldn't be seen by Drouet. I told you I'd help."

"All you've done is mess everything up," Mack said. "I told you I could handle it myself."

"I was merely trying to help," Mephistopheles said sulkily, and vanished, horse and all.

Mack turned to the unconscious Drouet. He looked as if he'd stay unconscious for quite a while. Mack dragged his body into the shrubbery and covered it with ferns. Then he hurried back to Marguerite and the horses. He still had one chance left to save the royal party. The bridge at Varennes! And with Drouet unconscious here in Saint-Menehould, he should be able to keep the bridge open, letting them escape into Belgium!