In most self-respecting cinematic chronicles of the French Revolution we are given fleeting shots of the aristos' stage coaches as they pound out of revolution's way, mowing down peasants as they fly. La Nuit de Varennes offers another point of view, one from inside the coach. This witty and sumptuous approach to the Revolution takes as its focal point one crucial night in 1791, when Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette fled Paris for the German border, only to be taken prisoner by the townspeople in Varennes. However, it is not the King's coach that captures the imagination of Italian director Ettore Scola but one following close behind it, carrying a disparate host of fictional and historical characters. The players in this 18th Century Stagecoach include an aging Casanova (Marcello Mastroianni), his wilting spirit now haunted by the reputation that precedes him; the journalist Restif (Jean-Louis Barrault), a writer of plebian pens?s who is variously known as a "Rousseau of the gutter" and "the chambermaid's Voltire"; Citizen Tom Paine (Harvey Keitel) come to watch and cheer on the Revolution; and an aristocratic lady-in-waiting (Hanna Schygulla), anxious and earnest and a locus for the film's ironic affection for His Nibs. In the course of the journey they come to realize that what they are witnessing is not merely the flight or even the demise of one richly pantalooned royal body, but the beginning of a new era-as we see from the film's brilliant last pan, the modern era. Like Scola's best films (We All Loved Each Other So Much, La Terrazza), La Nuit de Varennes is infused with the warmth of individuals confused and/or bemused by the vectors of time and change.