Ste.-Menehould

The Town of Sainte-Menehould

 I was twenty-eight that summer. I was young and foolish – and melancholy enough to think that the best days of my life had already come and gone. As a very young man I had taken a post with the army. My family had long worked with horses, and so the role of a cavalry officer presented itself to me naturally. I enjoyed the work; I had the opportunity to travel, being assigned for a time to Paris and later to Versailles. At Versailles I had even seen the Queen, several times, which my fellow soldiers seemed to consider a great honour. I had served seven years, and was well on my way to a good career, when my father died. My widowed mother called me back to my childhood home to serve as postmaster at the royal relay-post she had once run with my father. And so it was that I found myself in Sainte-Menehould the summer before the Republic was finally declared.

The first developments occurred on an unbearably hot morning in late June – or the first décade of Messidor, if you prefer. I was in my small office, perched on a well-worn stool, at a desk that had once been my father's. As usual, our expenditures seemed to be doing their best to exceed our income, but I was determined to set things straight. I could hear the general bustle of a summer morning - the post-riders and stable boys grooming and watering the horses, small birds chirping in the trees, children playing in the Place Royale, the open square in front of our elegant town hall. I was deeply involved in my thoughts when there came a deafening clatter of hooves on cobblestones, and one of the stable-boys rushed into my office, panting for breath.

“Monsieur Drouet!” He panted, heat rolling off his body in a way that made the close little room even more miserable.

I sighed, not too loudly, and tried to keep my voice civil. “Is there a customer, Philippe?” I asked.

The boy shook his head, sweaty locks of brown hair seeming to fly through the still air. “No, sir. But guess what is in the Place Royale! A whole cavalry unit!”

I made a Herculean effort not to sigh again in front of the boy. “A whole cavalry unit? I am doubtful, Phillipe. Why would the Prince de Condé send a cavalry unit somewhere as boring as Sainte-Menehould?”

Philippe shook his head again. “But they are not dressed as servants of the Prince. They are dressed like normal soldiers.”

“Then perhaps some of my old comrades are among them!” I said, excitedly. “I must find Jean-Chrysostome!” Leaving my accounting on the table, I rushed into the square, Phillipe eagerly following at my heels.

Phillipe had been right – the cavalry officers were dressed in blue and white, not in the yellow livery of the Prince de Condé, and there seemed to be quite a number of them. They fairly blocked the entire Place Royale, nosily laughing and taunting the townspeople.

I did not see a man among the soldiers whom I recognized, but that was not my goal, not yet. First, I wished to find an old friend, Jean-Chrysostome Guillaume. Guillaume had been a childhood friend, and had not only joined the army with me, but also laid down the colours at the same time I had. Fortunately, Guillame was easy to find, leaning against the stone wall of the only pâtisserie in the square, eyeing the horsemen balefully.

“Well, Drouet,” he asked as I approached, “What do you think of all this? Odd, no?”

I shrugged, but had to agree. “Those are national troops, are they not?”

“Of course they are. And what do you suppose that means?” Guilliaume asked, eyeing me.

“I suppose it means that the National Assembly are of the opinion something is about to happen in Sainte-Menehould. You don't imagine that the Prince de Condé intends to send his army to extricate the King from Paris, do you?”

Guillaume laughed, a fly buzzing lazily around his head. “Condé is a fool, but not so great a fool as to commit suicide by marching on Paris.”

“It would not be suicide if the Queen's brother threw the might of Austria behind Condé,” I commented. It would not be wise for the people to forget that Marie-Antoinette's older brother was the Emperor in Vienna. If he decided he wanted to crush the current revolution, then crushed it would be; I was under no illusions on that score.

“True. Either way, you'd do well to be careful tonight, Drouet.” Guillaume tipped his tricorne, and walked off, not waiting for my reply.

It was only then that I noticed young Philippe was still with me. He stared after Guillaume, mouth open in thought.

“Monsieur Drouet?”

“Yes, Philippe?”

“Why would the Prince de Condé want to take the King from Paris? The King is the King. If he wanted to go, he wouldn't need the Prince de Condé to take him.”

It is not kind to laugh at a child. Unfortunately, I succeeded only in turning my laugh into a snort, which caused the boy's face to fall just as much.

“I do not believe that the King can afford to leave Paris,” I explained. “Already, all of the National Assembly and most of the people are against him. If he were fool enough to abandon France now, the remainder of his supporters would turn against him – as well they should. Any man who would desert his country in a situation such as this deserves any punishment he receives.”

“Oh” replied Philippe, leaning against the wall.

“Any institution which does not suppose the people good, and the magistrate corruptible, is evil,” I clarified, “And the royalty is such an institution.” I cleared my throat loudly, in hopes of being rid of the child. “I believe it is time for your lunch, lad.”

Philippe did not respond. With a sigh, I fished around in my pocket, and came up with a scrap of paper – the new money, printed with Louis' face on it despite being issued by the Assembly rather than the King.

“Go, have your lunch. Here is a whole livre,” I waved the note in front of the boy's nose, “And you may spend it any way you wish.”

Philppe's eyes grew wide. I was not known for buying my stable-boys their lunches. Then he snatched the bill from my hand, and was gone in a flash.

I, however, stuck around the Place Royale a little longer, sulking in the shadows, watching the cavalrymen. They were not, in my opinion, well-trained. It was no time at all before they had taken to drunken carousing – which proved a great benefit to me, because it loosened their tongues. The town militia had to be assembled, to keep the peace. As the evening descended into twilight, I wandered freely among them, militia and professional soldiers both, half-hidden by the sleepy horses, listening to their talk. It was then that I heard about the parcel – a thing of great value, soon to arrive, and of great importance to the soldiers.

I slept poorly that evening. In part, it was due to the heat. Even the lightest bed-covering was oppressive, and I was soon soaked with sweat, my pillow sodden. Even if it had been cooler, I would not have slept well. I tossed and turned, my head filled with the images of the drunken cavalrymen, and my uncertainty as to their purpose. It seemed, to my fevered brain, that at any moment a foreign army would march upon the town, bent on destruction – or, even more likely, the uneasy truce between the cavalrymen and the nervous town militia would break down in a volley of gunshots. I listened for the tocsin to call the town to arms, but the bells never rang, and just before dawn I fell into an uneasy sleep.