Page:A Book of Escapes and Hurried Journeys.pdf/29

 house close up to the kerb, and nothing else could be seen in the desolate grey-green countryside. On the Chalons side there was a slight rise and beyond that a hill, so that dwellers at the post-house had no long prospect of the road to the west. Had the configuration of the land been otherwise, history might have been written differently.

Now at Somme-Vesle the first of Bouillé's cavalry guards were to meet and form up behind the King. The posse was under the Duke de Choiseul, and consisted chiefly of German mercenaries. It professed to be an escort for a convoy of treasure, but the excuse was lame. What treasure could be coming that way, and if it was a cavalry patrol from Bouillé's army, why was it flung out towards the base and not towards the enemy?

According to the time-table drawn up by Fersen and Choiseul, the King would arrive at Somme-Vesle at one o'clock, man Choiseul, with his half-troop of German hussars, arrived in time and waited anxiously through the grilling afternoon. Long afterwards he told the story to Alexandre Dumas, the novelist. At first, apart from his fifty mercenaries, there was no one there except the ostlers in the post-house and a few peasants in the fields. Presently suspicion grew.