Chapter VI: Latude (2)

"Do not do me the injustice of thinking that I have forgotten you,
my dear son, my loving son. Could I shut you out of my thoughts,
you whom I bear always in my heart? I have always had a great
longing to see you again, but to-day I long more than ever, I am
constantly concerned for you, I think of nothing but you, I am
wholly filled with you. Do not worry, my dear son; that is the only
favour I ask of you. Your misfortunes will come to an end, and
perhaps it is not far off. I hope that Madame de Pompadour will
pardon you; for that I am trying to win heaven and earth over to
your cause. The Lord is putting my submission and yours to a long
test, so as to make us better realize the worth of His favour. Do
not distress yourself, my son. I hope to have the happiness of
receiving you again, and of embracing you more tenderly than ever.
Adieu, my son, my dear son, my loving son, I love you, and I shall
love you dearly to the grave. I beg you to give me news of your
health. I am, and always shall be, your good mother,

DAUBRESPI, _widow_."

Is not this letter charming in its artless pathos? The son's reply is equally touching; but on reading it again one feels that it was to pass under the eyes of the lieutenant of police; on examining it closely, one sees the sentiments grimacing between the lines.

No one knew better than Danry how to play on the souls of others, to awake in them, at his will, pity or tenderness, astonishment or admiration. No one has surpassed him in the art, difficult in very truth, of posing as a hero, a genius, and a martyr, a part that we shall see him sustain for twenty years without faltering.

In 1759 there entered upon the office of lieutenant of police a man who was henceforth to occupy Danry's mind almost exclusively--Gabriel de Sartine. He was a fine sceptic, of amiable character and pleasing manners. He was loved by the people of Paris, who boasted of his administrative abilities and his spirit of justice. He exerted himself in his turn to render the years of captivity less cruel to Danry. "He allowed me," writes the latter, "what no other State prisoner has ever obtained, the privilege of walking along the top of the towers, in the open air, to preserve my health." He cheered the prisoner with genial words, and urged him to behave well and no longer to fill his letters with insults. "Your fate," he told him, "is in your own hands." He looked into Danry's scheme for the construction of public granaries, and when he had read it said, "Really, there are excellent things, most excellent things in it." He visited Danry in prison and promised to do his utmost to obtain his liberation. He himself put into the hands of Madame de Pompadour the _Grand Mémoire_ which Danry had drawn up for her. In this memorial the prisoner told the favourite that in return for a service he had rendered her in sending her a "hieroglyphic symbol" to put her on her guard against the machinations of her enemies, she had caused him to suffer unjustly for twelve years. Moreover, he would now only accept his freedom along with an indemnity of 60,000 livres. He added: "Be on your guard! When your prisoners get out and publish your cruelties abroad, they will make you hateful to heaven and the whole earth!" It is not surprising that this _Grand Mémoire_ had practically no result. Sartine promised that he would renew his efforts on his behalf. "If, unhappily, you should meet with some resistance to the entreaties you are about to make for me," wrote Danry, "I take the precaution of sending you a copy of the scheme I sent to the king." (This was the memorial suggesting that muskets should be given to the officers and sergeants.) "Now the king has been putting my scheme in operation for five years or more, and he will continue to avail himself of it every time we are at war." Sartine proceeded to Versailles, this marvellous scheme in his pocket. He showed it to the ministers and pleaded on behalf of this protégé of his who, from the depths of his dungeon, was doing his country service. But on his return he wrote to the major of the Bastille a note in regard to Danry, in which we read: "They have not made use, as he believes, of his military scheme."

Danry had asked several times to be sent to the colonies. In 1763 the government was largely occupied with the colonization of La Désirade. We find a letter of June 23, 1763, in which Sartine proposes to send Danry to La Désirade "with an introduction to the commanding officer." But nothing came of these proposals.

* * * * *

All his life, Danry sought to compass his ends by the aid of women. He was well aware of all the tenderness and devotion there is in these light heads; he knew that sentiment is always stronger in them than reason: "I was always looking out for women, and wished to find young women, for their gentle and loving soul is more susceptible of pity; misfortune moves them, stirs in them a more lively interest; their impressionability is less quickly dulled, and so they are capable of greater efforts."

While taking his walk on the towers of the Bastille in the fresh morning air, he tried by means of gestures and signals to open relations with the people of the neighbourhood. "One day I noticed two young persons working alone in a room, whose countenances struck me as pretty and gentle. I was not deceived. One of them having glanced in my direction, I wafted her with my hand a salutation which I endeavoured to make respectful and becoming, whereupon she told her sister, who instantly looked at me too. I then saluted them both in the same manner, and they replied to me with an appearance of interest and kindliness. From that moment we set up a sort of correspondence between us." The girls were two good-looking laundresses named Lebrun, the daughters of a wigmaker. And our rogue, the better to stimulate the little fools to enthusiastic service in his behalf, knocked at the door of their young hearts, willing enough to fly open. He spoke to them of youth, misfortune, love--and also of his fortune, prodigious, he said, the half of which he offered them. Glowing with ardour, the girls spared for him neither time, nor trouble, nor what little money they had.

The prisoner had put them in possession of several of his schemes, among others the military one, with letters for certain writers and persons of importance, and in addition a "terrible" indictment of Madame de Pompadour for the king, in which "her birth and her shame, all her thefts and cruelties were laid bare." He begged the girls to have several copies made, which they were then to send to the addresses indicated. Soon large black crosses daubed on a neighbouring wall informed the prisoner that his instructions had been carried out. Danry seems no longer to have doubted that his woes were coming to an end, that the gates of the Bastille were about to fly open before him, and that he would triumphantly leave the prison only to enter a palace of fortune: _Parta victoria!_[47] he exclaims in a burst of happiness.

And so we come to one of the most extraordinary episodes in this strange life.

In December, 1763, the Marquise of Pompadour was taken seriously ill. "An officer of the Bastille came up to my room and said to me: 'Sir, write four words to the Marquise de Pompadour, and you may be sure that in less than a week you will have recovered your freedom.' I replied to the major that prayers and tears only hardened the heart of that cruel woman, and that I would not write to her. However, he came back next day with the same story, and I replied in the same terms as on the previous day. Scarcely had he gone than Daragon, my warder, came into my room and said: 'Believe the major when he tells you that within a week you will be free: if he tells you so, depend upon it he is sure of it.' Next day but one the officer came to me for the third time: 'Why are you so obstinate?' I thanked him--it was Chevalier, major of the Bastille--for the third time, telling him that I would sooner die than write again to that implacable shrew.

"Six or eight days after, my two young ladies came and kissed their hands to me, at the same time displaying a roll of paper on which were written in large characters the words: 'Madame de Pompadour is dead!' The Marquise de Pompadour died on April 19, 1764, and two months afterwards, on June 19, M. de Sartine came to the Bastille and gave me an audience; the first thing he said was that we would say no more about the past, but that at the earliest moment he would go to Versailles and demand of the minister the justice which was my due." And we find, in truth, among the papers of the lieutenant of police, the following note, dated June 18, 1764: "M. Duval (one of the lieutenant's secretaries)--to propose at the first inspection that Danry be liberated and exiled to his own part of the country."

Returning to his room, Danry reflected on these developments; for the lieutenant of police to show so much anxiety for his liberation was evidently a sign that he was afraid of him, and that his memorials had reached their destination and achieved their end. But he would be a great ass to be satisfied with a mere liberation: "100,000 livres" would scarcely suffice to throw oblivion over the injustices with which he had been overwhelmed.

He revolved these thoughts in his head for several days. To accept freedom at the hands of his persecutors would be to pardon the past, a mistake he would never fall into. The door opened, the major entered, bearing in his hand a note written by de Sartine: "You will tell County Number 4 that I am working for his effectual liberation." The officer went out; Danry immediately sat down at his table and wrote to the lieutenant of police a letter replete with threats, insults, and obscenity. The original is lost, but we have an abstract made by Danry himself. He concluded with leaving to Sartine a choice: "he was either a mere lunatic, or else had allowed himself to be corrupted like a villain by the gold of the Marquis de Marigny, the Marquise de Pompadour's brother."

"When Sartine received my letter, he wrote an answer which the major brought and read to me, in which these were his very words: that I was wrong to impute to him the length of my imprisonment, that if he had had his way I should long ago have been set free; and he ended by telling me that there was Bedlam for the mad. On which I said to the major: 'We shall see in a few days whether he will have the power to put me in Bedlam.' He did not deprive me of my walk on the towers; nine days after, he put me in the cells on bread and water." But Danry was not easily put out. No doubt they were only meaning to put his assurance to the test. He went down to his cell singing, and for several days continued to manifest the most confident gaiety.

From that moment the prisoner made himself insufferable to his guardians. It was yells and violence from morning to night. He filled the whole Bastille with bursts of his "voice of thunder." Major Chevalier wrote to Sartine: "This prisoner would wear out the patience of the saintliest monk"; again: "He is full of gall and bitterness, he is poison pure and simple"; once more: "This prisoner is raving mad."

The lieutenant of police suggested to Saint-Florentin, the minister, to transfer Danry to the keep of Vincennes. He was conducted there on the night of September 15, 1764. We are now entering on a new phase of his life. We shall find him still more wretched than in the past, but constantly swelling his demands and pretensions, and with reason, for he is now, mark you, a nobleman! He had learnt from a sentinel of the Bastille of the death of Henri Vissec de la Tude, lieutenant-colonel of a dragoon regiment, who had died at Sedan on January 31, 1761. From that day he determined that he was the son of that officer. And what were his reasons? Vissec de la Tude was from his own part of the country, he was a nobleman and rich, and he was dead. These arguments Danry considered excellent. He was, however, in complete ignorance of all that concerned his father and his new family; he did not know even the name "Vissec de la Tude," of which he made "Masers de la Tude"; Masers was the name of an estate belonging to Baron de Fontès, a relation of Henri de Vissec. The latter was not a marquis, as Danry believed, but simply a chevalier; he died leaving six sons, whilst Danry represents him as dying without issue. It goes without saying that all that our hero relates about his father in his _Memoirs_ is pure invention. The Chevalier de la Tude never knew of the existence of the son of Jeanneton Aubrespy, and when in later years Danry asked the children to recognize him as their natural brother, his pretensions were rejected. Nevertheless our gentleman will henceforth sign his letters and memoirs "Danry, or rather Henri Masers d'Aubrespy," then "de Masers d'Aubrespy," then "de Masers de la Tude." When Danry had once got an idea in his head, he never let it go. He repeated it unceasingly until he had forced it upon the conviction of all about him--pertinacity which cannot fail to excite our admiration. In the patent of Danry's pension of 400 livres granted by Louis XVI. in 1784, the king calls the son of poor Jeanneton "Vicomte Masers de la Tude."

As may well be imagined, the Vicomte de la Tude could not accept his liberty on the same terms as Danry. The latter would have been satisfied with 60,000 livres: the viscount demands 150,000 and the cross of St. Louis to boot. So he writes to the lieutenant of police. Sartine was too sensible a man to be long obdurate to the prisoner on account of these extravagances. "I was transferred to the keep of Vincennes on the night of September 15, 1764. About nine hours after, the late M. de Guyonnet, king's lieutenant, came and saw me in the presence of the major and the three warders, and said: 'M. de Sartine has instructed me to inform you, on his behalf, that provided you behave yourself quietly for a short time, he will set you free. You have written him a very violent letter, and you must apologize for it.'" Danry adds: "When all is said and done, M. de Sartine did treat me well." He granted him for two hours every day "the extraordinary promenade of the moats." "When a lieutenant of police," says Danry, "granted this privilege to a prisoner, it was with the object of promptly setting him free." On November 23, 1765, Danry was walking thus, in company with a sentinel, outside the keep. The fog was dense. Turning suddenly towards his keeper, Danry said, "What do you think of this weather?" "It's very bad." "Well, it's just the weather to escape in." He took five paces and was out of sight. "I escaped from Vincennes," writes Danry, "without trickery; an ox would have managed it as well." But in the speech he delivered later in the National Assembly, the matter took a new complexion. "Think," he cried, "of the unfortunate Latude, in his third escape, pursued by twenty soldiers, and yet stopping and disarming under their very eyes the sentinel who had taken aim at him!"

* * * * *

When Latude was at large, he found himself without resources, as at his first escape. "I escaped with my feet in slippers and not a sou in my pocket; I hadn't a thing to bless myself with." He took refuge with his young friends, the Misses Lebrun.

In their keeping he found a part of his papers, plans and projects, memorials and dissertations. He sent "a basketful" of these to Marshal de Noailles, begging him to continue to honour him with his protection, and imparting to him "four great discoveries he had just made; first, the true cause of the tides; secondly, the true cause of mountains, but for which the globe would be brought to a standstill and become speedily vitrified; thirdly, the cause of the ceaseless turning of the globe; fourthly, the cause of the saltness of sea-water." He wrote also to the Duke de Choiseul, minister of war, in order to obtain a reward for his military scheme; he wrote making overtures of peace to Sartine: in return for an advance of 10,000 crowns of the 150,000 livres due to him, he would overlook the past: "I was resolved," he says, "to stake all on one cast." In reply, he received a letter naming a house where he would find 1200 livres obtained for him by Dr. Quesnay. He proceeded to the address indicated--and was there captured.

He was at once taken back to Vincennes. He declares that he was about to be set at liberty at the moment of his escape: and now a new detention was commencing. We shall not relate in detail the life he was now to lead. Materially he continued to be well treated, but his mind became affected, his rages became more and more violent, reaching at last paroxysms of fury. Here are some extracts from letters and memorials sent to Sartine: "By all the devils, this is coming it too strong. It is true, sir, that I'd defy the blackest devils in all hell to teach you anything in the way of cruelty; and that's but poor praise for you." He writes on another occasion: "The crime of every one of us is to have seen through your villainies: we are to perish, are we? how delighted you would be if some one told you that we had all strangled ourselves in our cells!" Danry reminds the lieutenant of police of the tortures of Enguerrand de Marigni, adding: "Remember that more than a thousand wretches have been broken in the Place de Grève who had not committed the hundredth part of your crimes."... "Not a single person would be astonished to see you flayed alive, your skin tanned, and your carcase thrown into the gutters for the dogs to eat."... "But Monsieur laughs at everything, Monsieur fears neither God, nor king, nor devil, Monsieur swills down his crimes like buttermilk!"

In prison Latude wrote memoirs which he filled with calumnies on the ministers and the court. These memoirs are composed in the most dramatic style, with an inimitable accent of sincerity. It was known that the prisoner found a thousand means of sending them outside the walls, and it was feared that they might be circulated among the populace, whose minds--the year is 1775--were beginning to ferment. Latude had just been flung into a cell in consequence of a fresh outbreak against his jailers. "On March 19, 1775, the king's lieutenant entered, accompanied by the major and three warders, and said to me: 'I have obtained leave to let you out of the cell, but on one condition: that you hand over your papers.'

"'Hand over my papers! I tell you, sir, I'd rather be done to death in this cell than show the white feather so!'

"'Your trunk is upstairs in your room: I've only to say the word and the seals would be broken and your papers taken out.'

"I replied: 'Sir, justice has formalities to which you are bound to conform, and you are not allowed to commit such outrages.'

"He took five or six steps out of the cell, and as I did not call him back, he came back himself and said: 'Just hand them to me for ten days to examine them, and I give you my word of honour that at the end of that time I will have them returned to your room.'

"I replied: 'I will not let you have them for two hours even.'

"'All right,' he said; 'as you won't entrust them to me, you have only to stay where you are.'"

Latude relates in his _Memoirs_ with great indignation the story of a flute he had made, on which he used to play, his sole diversion during the long hours of solitude; his jailers had the barbarity to take it from him. The governor of the fortress, out of compassion, offered to restore it. "But it will only be on condition that you play by day only, and not at night." At this stipulation, writes Latude in his _Rêveries_, "I could not refrain from bantering him, saying, 'Why, don't you know, sir, that forbidding a thing is just the way to make me eager for it?'"

And so at Vincennes as at Paris they came to consider Danry as a madman. Among the books given him for his amusement there were some dealing with sorcery. These he read and re-read, and from that time onward he saw in all the incidents of his life nothing but the perpetual intervention of devils evoked by the witch Madame de Pompadour and her brother the magician, the Marquis de Marigny.

Sartine came again to see the prisoner on November 8, 1772. Danry begged him to send a police officer to make a copy of a memorial he had drawn up for his own justification; to send also an advocate to assist him with his advice, and a doctor, to examine the state of his health. The police officer arrived on the 24th. On the 29th, he wrote to the lieutenant of police: "I have the honour to report that in pursuance of your orders I proceeded to the château of Vincennes on the 24th curt., to hear from Danry something which, he asserts, concerns the minister: it is impossible to hear anything which concerns him less. He began by saying that to write all he had to tell me I should have to remain for three weeks with him. He was bound to tell me the story of 180 sorceries, and I was to copy the story, according to him, from a heap of papers he drew from a bag, the writing of which is undecipherable."

We know from Danry himself what passed at the visit of the advocate. He entered the prisoner's room about noon. Danry handed him two memorials he had drawn up and explained their purport. "Instantly he cut me short, saying, 'Sir, I have no belief whatever in witchcraft.' I did not give in, but said, 'Sir, I cannot show you the devil in bodily shape, but I am very certain I can convince you, by the contents of this memorial, that the late Marquise de Pompadour was a witch, and that the Marquis de Marigny, her brother, is at this very time still having dealings with the devil.'

"The advocate had read but a few pages when he stopped dead, put the manuscript on the table, and said, as though he had been wakened out of a deep sleep, 'Would you not like to get out of prison?' I replied: 'There's no doubt of that.' 'And do you intend to remain in Paris, or to go to your home?' 'When I am free, I shall go home.' 'But have you any means?' Upon this I took his hand and said: 'My dear sir, I beg you not to take offence at what I am going to say.' 'Speak on,' he said, 'say whatever you like, I shall not be offended.' 'Well then, I see very clearly that the devil has already got hold of you.'"

In the same year, Malesherbes made his celebrated inspection of the prisons. "This virtuous minister came to see me at the beginning of August, 1775, and listened to me with the most lively interest." The historian who has the completest knowledge of everything relating to the Bastille, François Ravaisson, believed that Malesherbes left the wretched man in prison out of regard for his colleague Maurepas. "One would have thought that Maurepas' first act on resuming office would have been to release his old accomplice." This conjecture is destroyed by a letter from Malesherbes to the governor of Vincennes: "I am busy, sir, with the examination of the papers relating to your various prisoners. Danry, Thorin, and Maréchal are quite mad, according to the particulars furnished to me, and the two first gave indubitable marks of madness in my presence."

In consequence, Danry was transferred to Charenton on September 27, 1775, "on account of mental derangement, in virtue of a royal order of the 23rd of the said month, countersigned by Lamoignon. The king will pay for his keep." On entering his new abode, Latude took the precaution to change his name a third time, and signed the register "Danger."

In passing from the fortress of Vincennes to the hospital of Charenton, Danry thought it was as well to rise still higher in dignity. So we see him henceforth styling himself "engineer, geographer, and royal pensioner at Charenton."

His situation was sensibly changed for the better. He speaks of the kindnesses shown him by the Fathers of La Charité.[48] He had companions whose society pleased him. Halls were set apart for billiards, backgammon, and cards. He had company at his meals and in his walks. He met Allègre, his old fellow-prisoner, whom he came upon among the dangerous lunatics in the dungeons; Allègre had been removed in 1763 from the Bastille, where he was shattering and destroying everything. His latest fancy was that he was God. As to Danry, he had taken so kindly to his rôle as nobleman that to see his aristocratic and well-to-do air, to hear his conversation, full of reminiscences of his family and his early life, no one could have doubted that he actually was the brilliant engineer officer he set up for, who had fallen in the prime of life a victim to the intrigues of the favourite. He hobnobbed with the aristocratic section of society at Charenton and struck up an intimacy with one of his associates, the Chevalier de Moyria, son of a lieutenant-colonel, and a knight of Saint-Louis.

Meanwhile the Parlement, which sent a commission every year to inspect the Charenton asylum--a commission before which Danry appeared on two separate occasions--did not decide that he ought to be set at liberty. But one fine day in September, 1776, the prior of the Fathers, who took a quite exceptional interest in the lot of his pensioner, meeting him in the garden, said to him abruptly: "We are expecting a visit from the lieutenant of police; get ready a short and taking address to say to him." The lieutenant of police, Lenoir, saw Danry, and listened to him attentively, and as the prior's account of him was entirely favourable, the magistrate promised him his liberty. "Then Father Prudentius, my confessor, who was behind me, drew me by the arm to get me away, fearing lest, by some imprudent word, I might undo the good that had been decided on"--a charming incident, much to the honour of Father Prudentius.

But on consideration it appeared dangerous to fling so suddenly upon society a man who would be at a loss how to live, having neither relatives nor fortune, having no longer the means of gaining a livelihood, and a man, moreover, whom there was only too much reason to mistrust. Lenoir asked the prisoner if, once set at liberty, he would find the wherewithal to assure his existence; if he had any property; if he could give the names of any persons willing to go bail for him.

What did this mean--_if_ he had any property, _if_ he could find sureties? He, Masers de Latude! Why, his whole family, when the Marquise de Pompadour had him put in the Bastille, was occupying a brilliant position! Why, his mother, of whose death he had had the agony to hear, had left a house and considerable estates! Latude took his pen, and without hesitation wrote to M. Caillet, royal notary at Montagnac: "My dear friend, I would bet ten to one you believe me dead; see how mistaken you are!... You have but to say the word and before the carnival is over we shall eat a capital leveret together." And he speaks to his friend the notary of the fortune left by his mother, and of his family, who all of them cannot fail to be interested in him. Latude himself was not greatly astonished at receiving no reply to this epistle: but it must have passed under the eyes of the lieutenant of police, and what more did he want?

Latude's new friend, the Chevalier de Moyria, had already been for some time at liberty. The prisoner hastened to send him a copy of his letter to the notary. "The reply is a long time coming, M. Caillet is dead, doubtless." What is to become of him? These twenty-eight years of captivity have endangered his fortune, have made him lose his friends; how is he to find the remnant of his scattered family? Happily there remains to him a friendship, a friendship still recent, but already strong, in which he places his whole confidence. "Chevalier, it would only need your intervention to deliver me, by inducing your good mother to write to M. Lenoir." The Chevalier de Moyria sent an amiable reply. Danry wrote another and more urgent letter, with such success that not only the Chevalier's mother, but also an old friend of the Moyria family, Mercier de Saint-Vigor, a colonel, and controller-general of the queen's household, intervened, and made applications at Versailles. "On June 5, 1777, King Louis XVI. restored to me my freedom; I have in my pocket the warrant under his own hand!"

* * * * *

On leaving Charenton, Danry signed an undertaking to depart immediately for Languedoc, an undertaking which he did not trouble to fulfil. Paris was the only city in France where a man of his stamp could thrive. He was now fifty-two years old, but was still youthful in appearance, full of go and vigour; his hair, as abundant as it had been in youth, had not become white. He soon found means of borrowing some money, and then we see him opening a campaign, exerting himself to get in touch with the ministers, gaining the protection of the Prince de Beauvau, distributing memorials in which he claimed a reward for great services rendered, and launched out into invectives against his oppressors, Sartine in particular. Minister Amelot sent for him, and in tones of severity notified him that he was to leave the city at once. Latude did not wait for the command to be repeated. He had reached Saint-Bris, about a hundred miles from the capital, when he was suddenly arrested by the police officer Marais. Brought back to Paris, he was locked up in the Châtelet on July 16, 1777, and on August 1 conducted to Bicêtre. The first use he had made of his liberty was to introduce himself to a lady of quality and extort money from her by menaces. The officer found a considerable sum in his possession.

Bicêtre was not a state prison like the Bastille and Vincennes, or an asylum like Charenton; it was the thieves' prison. On entering, Danry took the precaution of changing his name a fourth time, calling himself Jedor. He is, moreover, careful in his _Memoirs_ to give us the reason of this fresh metamorphosis: "I would not sully my father's name by inscribing it on the register of this infamous place." From this day there begins for him a truly wretched existence; huddled with criminals, put on bread and water, his lodging is a cell. But his long martyrdom is nearing its end: the hour of his apotheosis is at hand!

Louis XVI. had now been on the throne for several years, and France had become the most impressionable country in the world. Tears flowed at the slightest provocation. Was it the sentimental literature, which Rousseau made fashionable, that produced this moving result, or contrariwise, was the literature successful because it hit the taste of the day? At all events, the time was ripe for Latude. His recent unlucky experience was not to dishearten him. On the contrary, it is with a greater energy, a more poignant emotion, and cries still more heartrending, that he resumes the story of his interminable sufferings. The victim of cruel oppressors, of cowardly foes who have their own reasons for smothering his voice, he will not bend his head under his abominable treatment; he will remain proud, self-assured, erect before those who load him with irons!

On the birth of the Dauphin, Louis XVI. resolved to admit his wretched prisoners to a share of his joy and to pronounce a great number of pardons. A special commission, composed of eight counsellors of the Châtelet and presided over by Cardinal de Rohan, sat at Bicêtre. Danry appeared before it on May 17, 1782. His new judges, as he testifies, heard his story with interest. But the decision of the commission was not favourable to him. He was not so much surprised at this as might be supposed: "The impure breath of vice," he wrote to the Marquis de Conflans, "has never tainted my heart, but there are magistrates who would let off guilty men with free pardons rather than expose themselves to the merited reproach of having committed injustice of the most revolting kind in keeping innocence for thirty-three years in irons."

Giving rein to the marvellous activity of his brain, he composed at Bicêtre new schemes, memorials, and accounts of his misfortunes. To the Marquis de Conflans he sends a scheme for a hydraulic press, "the homage of an unfortunate nobleman who has grown old in irons"; he induces the turnkeys to carry memorials to all who may possibly interest themselves in him. The first to take compassion on him was a priest, the Abbé Legal, of the parish of St. Roch, and curate of Bicêtre. He visited him, consoled him, gave him money, showed him attentions. Cardinal de Rohan also took much interest in him, and sent him some assistance through his secretary. We are coming at last to Madame Legros. This wonderful story is so well known that we shall tell it briefly. A drunken turnkey chanced to lose one of Latude's memorials at a corner of the Rue des Fossés-Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois: it was picked up and opened by a woman, a haberdasher in a small way. Her heart burned within her as she read of these horrible sufferings, depicted in strokes of fire. She inspired her husband with her own emotion; henceforth it was to be the aim in life of these worthy people to effect the unhappy man's deliverance, and Madame Legros devoted herself to the self-imposed task with indefatigable ardour, courage, and devotion. "A grand sight," cries Michelet, "to see this poor, ill-clad woman going from door to door, paying court to footmen to win entrance into mansions, to plead her cause before the great, to implore their support!" In many houses she was well received. President de Gourgues, President de Lamoignon, Cardinal de Rohan, aided her with their influence. Sartine himself took steps on behalf of the unhappy man. Two advocates of the Parlement of Paris, Lacroix and Comeyras, devoted themselves to his cause. Copies were made of the prisoner's memorials and distributed in every drawing-room; they penetrated even into the boudoir of the queen. All hearts were stirred by the accents of this harrowing voice.

The Marquis de Villette, who had become celebrated through the hospitality he showed to Voltaire when dying, conceived a passionate enthusiasm for Danry. He sent his steward to Bicêtre to offer him a pension of 600 livres on the sole condition of the prisoner's leaving his case entirely in the Marquis's hands. Latude received this singular proposal with becoming dignity. "For two years a poor woman has been devoting herself to my cause. I should be an ungrateful wretch if I did not leave my fate in her hands." He knew that this pension would not escape him, and it was not for 600 livres that he would have consented to rob his story of the touching and romantic features it was increasingly assuming.

Further, the French Academy actually intervenes! D'Alembert is all fire and flame. From this time a stream of visitors of the highest distinction flows through the squalid prison. At length the king himself is led to look into the affair. He has the documentary evidence brought to him and examines it carefully. With what anxiety everyone awaits his decision! But Louis XVI., now acquainted with the case, replies that Latude will be released--_never_! At this decree, to all appearance irrevocable, all the prisoner's friends lose heart, except Madame Legros. The queen and Madame Necker are on her side. In 1783, Breteuil, the queen's man, comes into power; on March 24, 1784, the release is signed! The Vicomte de Latude receives a pension of 400 livres, but is exiled to his own part of the country. New importunities, new applications; at last they succeed: Latude is free to live in Paris!

This is the grandest period in the life of a great man! Latude is soon in occupation of a modest but decent and well-ordered suite of rooms on the fourth floor. He lives with his two benefactors, M. and Madame Legros, petted, spoilt in a thousand ways. The Duchess of Beauvau has obtained for Madame Legros from Calonne, out of funds intended for the support of distressed gentlefolk, a pension of 600 livres: the Duchess of Kingston[49] grants a pension of the same amount. In addition to the royal pension, Latude receives 500 livres a year from President Dupaty and 300 from the Duke d'Ayen. Moreover, a public subscription is opened, and the list is filled with the greatest names in France. An agreeable competency is assured to the Legros couple and their adopted son. At its sitting on March 24, the French Academy solemnly awarded the Montyon prize to the valiant little haberdasher. "The Dame Legros came to receive the medal amid the acclamations of the whole assembly."

The name of Latude is on everyone's lips; he wins admiration and pity on all sides. Ladies of the highest society are not above mounting to the fourth story, accompanied by their daughters, to bring the poor man "aid in money, with their tears." The hero has left a complacent description of the throng: duchesses, marchionesses, grandees of Spain, wearers of the cross of St. Louis, presidents of the Parlement, all these met at his house. Sometimes there were six or eight persons in his room. Everyone listened to his story and lavished on him marks of the most affectionate compassion, and no one failed before going away "to leave a mark of his sensibility." The wives of Marshals de Luxembourg and de Beauvau, the Duchess de la Rochefoucauld, the Countess de Guimont, were among the most zealous. "Indeed," says our hero, "it would be extremely difficult for me to tell which of these countesses, marchionesses, duchesses, and princesses had the most humane, the most compassionate heart."

Thus Latude became one of the lions of Paris: strangers flocked to his lodging, hostesses ran off with him. At table, when he spoke, all voices were hushed with an air of deference and respect; in the drawing-room you would find him seated in a gilt chair near the fireplace where great logs were blazing, and surrounded by a thick cluster of bright, silky, rustling robes. The Chevalier de Pougens, son of the Prince de Conti, pressed him to come and stay at his house; Latude graciously consented. The American ambassador, the illustrious Jefferson, invited him to dinner.

Latude has himself described this enchanted life: "Since I left prison, the greatest lords of France have done me the honour of inviting me to eat with them, but I have not found a single house--except that of the Comte d'Angevillier, where you could meet men of wit and learning in scores, and receive all sorts of civilities on the part of the countess; and that of M. Guillemot, keeper of the royal palaces, one of the most charming families to be found in Paris--where you are more at your ease than with the Marquis de Villette.

"When a man has felt, as I have felt, the rage of hunger, he always begins by speaking of his food. The Marquis de Villette possesses a cook who is a match for the most skilful in his art: in a word, his table is first-rate. At the tables of the dukes and peers and marshals of France there is eternal ceremony, and everyone speaks like a book, whereas at that of the Marquis de Villette, men of wit and learning always form the majority of the company. All the first-class musicians have a cover set at his table, and on at least three days of the week he gives a little concert."

On August 26, 1788, died one of the benefactresses of Latude, the Duchess of Kingston, who did not fail to mention her protégé in her will. We see him dutifully assisting at the sale of the lady's furniture and effects. He even bought a few things, giving a _louis d' or_ in payment. Next day, the sale being continued, the auctioneer handed the coin back to Latude: it was bad. Bad! What! did they take the Vicomte de Latude for a sharper? The coin bad! Who, he would like to know, had the insolence to make "an accusation so derogatory to his honour and his reputation?" Latude raised his voice, and the auctioneer threatened to bundle him out of the room. The insolent dog! "Bundle out rogues, not gentlemen!" But the auctioneer sent for the police, who put "the Sieur de Latude ignominiously outside." He went off calmly, and the same day summoned the auctioneer before the Châtelet tribunal, "in order to get a reparation as authoritative as the defamation had been public."

In the following year (1789) Latude made a journey into England. He had taken steps to sue Sartine, Lenoir, and the heirs of Madame de Pompadour in the courts in order to obtain the damages due to him. In England, he drew up a memorandum for Sartine, in which he informed the late lieutenant of police of the conditions on which he would withdraw his actions. "M. de Sartine, you will give me, as compensation for all the harm and damage you have made me suffer unjustly, the sum of 900,000 livres; M. Lenoir, 600,000 livres; the heirs of the late Marquise de Pompadour and Marquis de Menars, 100,000 crowns; in all, 1,800,000 livres;" that is to say, about £160,000 in English money of to-day.

_From the Painting by Vestier (Hôtel Carnavalet)._]

The Revolution broke out. If the epoch of Louis XVI., with its mildness and fellow-feeling, had been favourable to our hero, the Revolution seems to have been ordained on purpose for him. The people rose against the tyranny of kings: the towers of the Bastille were overthrown. Latude, the victim of kings, the victim of the Bastille and arbitrary warrants, was about to appear in all his glory.

He hastened to throw into the gutter his powdered peruque and viscount's frock; listen to the revolutionist, fierce, inflexible, indomitable, _uncompromising_: "Frenchmen, I have won the right to tell you the truth, and if you are free, you cannot but love to hear it.

"For thirty-five years I meditated in dungeons on the audacity and insolence of despots; with loud cries I was calling down vengeance, when France in indignation rose up as one man in one sublime movement and levelled despotism with the dust. The will to be free is what makes a nation free; and you have proved it. But to preserve freedom a nation must make itself worthy of it, and that is what remains for you to do!"

In the Salon of 1789 there were two portraits of Latude with the famous ropeladder. Below one of these portraits, by Vestier, a member of the Royal Academy, these lines were engraved:--

Instruit par ses malheurs et sa captivité
A vaincre des tyrans les efforts et la rage,
Il apprit aux Français comment le vrai courage
Peut conquérir la liberté.[50]

In 1787 the Marquis de Beaupoil-Saint-Aulaire had written, inspired by Latude himself, the story of the martyr's captivity. Of this book two editions appeared in the same year. In 1789 Latude published the narrative of his escape from the Bastille, as well as his _Grand Mémoire_ to the Marquise de Pompadour; finally, in 1790 appeared _Despotism Unmasked, or the Memoirs of Henri Masers de Latude_, edited by the advocate Thiéry. The book was dedicated to La Fayette. On the first page we see a portrait of the hero, his face proud and energetic, one hand on the ropeladder, the other extended towards the Bastille which workmen are in the act of demolishing. "I swear," says the author at the commencement, "that I will not relate one fact which is not true." The work is a tissue of calumnies and lies; and what makes a most painful impression on the reader is to see this man disowning his mother, forgetting the privations she endured out of love for her son, and ascribing the credit of what little the poor thing could do for her child to a Marquis de la Tude, knight of St. Louis, and lieutenant-colonel of the Orleans Dragoons!

But the book vibrates with an incomparable accent of sincerity and of that profound emotion which Latude knew so well how to infuse into all those with whom he had to do. In 1793, twenty editions had been exhausted, the work had been translated into several languages; the journals had no praise strong enough for the boldness and genius of the author; the _Mercure de France_ proclaimed that henceforth it was a parent's duty to teach his children to read in this sublime work; a copy was sent to all the departments, accompanied by a model of the Bastille by the architect Palloy. With good reason could Latude exclaim in the National Assembly: "I have not a little contributed to the Revolution and to its consolidation."

Latude was not the man to neglect opportunities so favourable. To begin with, he sought to get his pension augmented, and presented to the Constituent Assembly a petition backed by representative Bouche. But Camus, "rugged Camus," president of the committee appointed to investigate the matter, decided on rejection; and at the sitting of March 13, 1791, deputy Voidel delivered a very spirited speech; his view was that the nation had unhappy folk to succour more worthy of their concern than a man whose life had begun with roguery and villainy. The Assembly sided with him; not only was Latude's pension not increased, but on consideration, the pension granted by Louis XVI. was altogether withdrawn.

Horror and infamy! "What madness has seized on the minds of the representatives of the most generous nation in the world!... To slay a hapless wretch the mere sight of whom awakens pity and warms into life the most sluggish sensibility ... for death is not so terrible as the loss of honour!" The valiant Latude will not abide the stroke of such an insult. Ere long he has brought Voidel to retract; in the heart of the Assembly he gains an influential supporter in the Marshal de Broglie. The Constituent Assembly is replaced by the Legislative, and Latude returns to the charge. He is admitted to the bar of the House on January 26, 1792; the matter is re-committed and gone into a second time on February 25. We should like to be able to quote at length the speech which Latude himself composed for his advocate; here is a portion of the peroration:--

"That a man, without any outside assistance, should have been able to escape three times, once from the Bastille and twice from Vincennes, yes, gentlemen, I venture to say he could not have succeeded except by a miracle, or else that Latude has more than extraordinary genius. Cast your eyes on this ladder of rope and wood, and on all the other instruments which Latude constructed with a mere knife, which you see here in the centre of this chamber. I resolved to bring before your own eyes this interesting object, which will for ever win admiration from men of intelligence. Not a single stranger comes to Paris without going to see this masterpiece of intelligence and genius, as well as his generous deliverer, Madame Legros. We have resolved to give you, gentlemen, the pleasure of seeing this celebrated woman, who unremittingly for forty months set despotism at defiance, and vanquished it by dint of virtue. Behold her there at the bar with M. de Latude, behold that incomparable woman, for ever to be the glory and the ornament of her sex!"

It is not surprising that the Legislative Assembly was deeply moved by this eloquent harangue and this exhibition of the lady, as touching as unexpected. It unanimously voted Latude a pension of 2000 livres, without prejudice to the pension of 400 livres previously awarded. Henceforth Latude will be able to say: "The whole nation adopted me!"

However, the little mishap in the Constituent Assembly was to be the only check that Latude suffered in the course of his glorious martyr's career. Presented to the Society of "Friends of the Constitution," he was elected a member by acclamation, and the Society sent a deputation of twelve members to carry the civic crown to Madame Legros. The leader of the deputation said, in a voice broken by emotion, "This day is the grandest day of my life." A deputation from the principal theatres of Paris offered Latude free admission to all performances, "so that he might go often and forget the days of his mourning." He was surrounded by the highest marks of consideration; pleaders begged him to support their cases before the tribunals with the moral authority bestowed on him by his virtue. He took advantage of this to bring definitively before the courts his claims against the heirs of the Marquise de Pompadour. Citizen Mony argued the case for the first time before the court of the sixth arrondissement on July 16, 1793; on September 11 the case came again before the magistrates: Citizens Chaumette, Laurent, and Legrand had been designated by the Commune of Paris as counsel for the defence, and the whole Commune was present at the hearing. Latude obtained 60,000 livres, 10,000 of which were paid him in cash.

And now his life became more tranquil. Madame Legros continued to lavish her care on him. The 50,000 livres remaining due to him from the heirs of the Marquise were paid in good farm lands situated in La Beauce, the profits of which he regularly drew.

Let us hasten to add that France did not find in Latude an ungrateful child. The critical situation in which the nation was then struggling pained him deeply. He sought the means of providing a remedy, and in 1799 brought out a "Scheme for the valuation of the eighty departments of France to save the Republic in less than three months," and a "Memoir on the means of re-establishing the public credit and order in the finances of France."

When the estates of Madame de Pompadour were sequestrated, the farms Latude had received were taken from him; but he induced the Directory to restore them. He was less fortunate in his requisition for a licence for a theatre and a gaming-house. But he found consolation. The subsidies he went on extorting from right and left, the proceeds of his farms, the sale of his books, and the money brought in by the exhibition of his ropeladder, which was exhibited by a showman in the different towns of France and England, provided him with a very comfortable income.

The Revolution became a thing of the past. Latude hailed the dawning glory of Bonaparte, and when Bonaparte became Napoleon, Latude made his bow to the emperor. We have a very curious letter in which he marks out for Napoleon I. the line of conduct he should pursue to secure his own welfare and the good of France. It begins as follows:--