Chapter IV: Part 4

“Just as we came to the mill, we could see the miller, as I believed, sitting at the mill door, he being in white clothes, it being a very dark night. He called out, ‘Who goes there?’ Upon which Richard Penderell answered, ‘Neighbours going home,’ or some such like words, whereupon the miller cried out, ‘If you be neighbours, stand, or I will knock you down.’ Upon which we believing there was company in the house, the fellow bade me follow him close, and he run to a gate that went up a dirty lane, up a hill; and opening the gate the miller cried out, ‘Rogues, rogues.’ And thereupon some men came out of the mill after us, which I believed were soldiers. So we fell a-running both of us, up the lane as long as we could run, it being very deep and very dirty, till at last I bade him leap over a hedge, and lie still to hear if anybody followed us, which we did, and continued lying upon the ground about half an hour, when hearing nobody come, we continued our way on to the village upon the Severn, where the fellow told me there was an honest gentleman, one Mr. Woolfe, that lived in that town, where I might be with great safety, for that he had hiding-holes for priests. But I would not go in, till I knew a little of his mind whether he would receive so dangerous a guest as me, and therefore stayed in a field, under a hedge, by a great tree. Commanding him not to say it was I, but only to ask Mr. Woolfe whether he would receive an English gentleman, a person of quality, to hide him the next day, till we could travel again by night--for I durst not go but by night.

“Mr. Woolfe, when the country fellow told him it was one that had escaped from the battle of Worcester, said that for his part, it was so dangerous a thing to harbour anybody that was known, that he would not venture his neck for any man, unless it were the King himself. Upon which Richard Penderell, very indiscreetly, and without my leave, told him it was I. Upon which Mr. Woolfe replied, he should be very ready to venture all he had in the world to secure me. Upon which Richard Penderell came and told me what he had done, at which I was a little troubled; but then there was no remedy, the day being just coming in, and I must either venture that or run some greater danger.

“So I came into the house by a back way, where I found Mr. Woolfe, an old gentleman, who told me he was very sorry to see me there, because there were two companies of the militia sort at that time in arms in the town, and kept a guard at the ferry to examine everybody that came that way; and that he durst not put me into any of the hiding-holes of his house because they had been discovered, and consequently if any search should be made, they would certainly repair to these holes, and that therefore I had no other way of security but to go into his barn, and there lie behind his corn and hay. So after he had given us some cold meat that was ready, we, without making any bustle in the house, went and lay in the barn all the next day, when towards evening, his son who had been prisoner at Shrewsbury, an honest man, was released, and came home to his father’s house. And as soon as ever it began to be a little darkish, Mr. Woolfe and his son brought us meat into the barn, and then we discoursed with them whether we might safely get over the Severn into Wales, which they advised me by no means to adventure upon, because of the strict guards that were kept all along the Severn where any passage could be found, for preventing anybody escaping that way into Wales.

“Upon this I took resolution that night the very same way back again to Penderell’s house, where I knew I should hear some news what was become of my Lord Wilmot, and resolved again upon going for London.

“So we set out as soon as it was dark, but we came by the mill again; we had no mind to be questioned a second time there, and therefore asking Richard Penderell whether he could swim or no, and how deep the river was, he told me it was a scurvy river, not easy to be passed in all places, and that he could not swim. So I told him the river being but a little one, I would undertake to help him over. Upon which we went over some closes by the river-side and I entering the river first to see if I could myself go over, who knew how to swim, found it was but a little above my middle, and thereupon taking Richard Penderell by the hand, I helped him over. Which being done, we went on our way to one of Penderell’s brothers (his house not being far from White Lady’s), who had been guide to my Lord Wilmot, and we believed might by that time be come back again, for my Lord Wilmot intended to go to London upon his own horse. When I came to this house I inquired where my Lord Wilmot was, it being now towards morning, and having travelled these two nights on foot.

“Penderell’s brother told me he had conducted him to a very honest gentleman’s house, one Mr. Pitchcroft[A], not far from Wolverhampton, a Roman Catholic. I asked him what news. He told me that there was one Major Careless in the house, that was that countryman whom, I knowing, he having been a major in our army, and made his escape thither, a Roman Catholic also, I sent for him into the room where I was, and consulted him what we should do the next day. He told me that it would be very dangerous for me to stay in that house or go into the wood--there being a great wood hard by Boscobel; that he knew but one way how to pass the next day, and that was to get up into a great oak, in a pretty plain place, where we might see round about us; for the enemy would certainly search at the wood for people that had made their escape.

“Of which proposition of his, I approving, we (that is to say Careless and I) went, and carried up some victuals for the whole day; viz., bread, cheese, small beer, and nothing else, and got up into a great oak, that had been topped some three or four years before, and being grown out again very bushy and thick, could not be seen through, and here we stayed all the day. I having in the meantime sent Penderell’s brother to Mr. Pitchcroft’s, to know whether my Lord Wilmot was there or no; and had word brought me by him at night that my lord was there; that there was a very secure hiding-hole in Mr. Pitchcroft’s house, and that he desired me to come thither to him.

“Memorandum.--That, while we were in this tree we saw soldiers going up and down in the thicket of the wood, searching for persons escaped; we saw them now and then peeping out of the wood.

“That night Richard Penderell and I went to Mr. Pitchcroft’s, about six or seven miles off, when I found the gentleman of the house, and an old grandmother of his, and Father Hurlston, who had then the care, as governor, of bringing up two young gentlemen, who, I think, were Sir John Preston and his brother, they being boys. Here I spoke with my Lord Wilmot, and sent him away to Colonel Lane’s, about five or six miles off, to see what means could be found for my escaping towards London; who told my lord, after some consultation thereon, that he had a sister that had a very fair pretence of going hard by Bristol, to a cousin of hers, that was married to one Mr. Norton, who lived two or three miles towards Bristol, on Somersetshire side, and she might carry me there as her man, and from Bristol I might find shipping to get out of England.”

After various adventures, some of them attended with great danger, they arrived safely at the house of Mr. Norton, the king passing as the servant of Mrs. Lane. The next day while he was dining with the servants, one of them gave so accurate a description of the battle of Worcester, that Charles took him to be a soldier of Cromwell. He turned out, however, to have been a soldier of the royal army, and one of the regiment of guards. “I asked him what kind of man the King was, and he gave me an exact description of the clothes I wore at the battle, and of the horse I rode, adding that the King was at least three inches taller than I. I left the place hastily, being much alarmed to find that the man had been one of my own soldiers.” Charles learnt soon after that Pope, the butler, had recognised him, and having previously heard that the man was honest, and incapable of treason, he thought it best to confide in him, and accordingly mentioned his real name and rank. Pope at once put himself under his orders, and was of the greatest service to him.

Just at the very moment when the King was setting out for the house of one of his partisans, Mrs. Norton was taken with the pains of labour, and as she was cousin to Mrs. Lane, whose servant Charles pretended to be, that lady found it difficult to invent a pretext for quitting her. A letter written to announce that Mrs. Lane’s father was dangerously ill, however, answered this purpose, and the fugitives set out for the house of Frank Wyndham at Trent.

When they arrived there the bells were ringing merry peals, and inquiring the cause, they learned that one of the soldiers of Cromwell’s army had entered the town, boasting that he had killed the King. Wyndham, however, had provided a boat, and Charles, accompanied by that loyal gentleman and by Lady Coningsby, went to a place appointed for his reception. But as no vessel appeared, he set out for the neighbouring town. On arriving there he found the streets filled with red coats, the town being in possession of fifteen hundred of Cromwell’s troops. This sight somewhat alarmed Wyndham, “and he asked me,” says the King, “what we should now do? ‘We must go boldly,’ I said, ‘to the best inn, and ask for the best room,’ and we accordingly did so. We found the courtyard of the inn full of soldiers, and as soon as I alighted, I thought it would be best to walk boldly amongst them, and to take my horses to the stable. I did this, and they grew very angry at my rudeness.” When he arrived in the stable, Charles found himself confronted by a new danger. The ostler pretended to recognise him as an old acquaintance whom he had met at Exeter, but Charles had sufficient presence of mind to turn this to his own account. “True,” he replied, “I have been in the service of Mr. Potter, but I am just now in a great hurry, for my master is going straight to London; when he comes back we will renew the acquaintance over a mug of beer.” Shortly afterwards the King and his suite joined Lord Wilmot outside the city, but the master of the ship they had hired, yielding to the fears of his wife, refused to fulfil his engagement with them; Charles then once more took the Trent road.

Another vessel which had been procured at Southampton, had been seized by the authorities for the transport of troops, and certain mysterious rumours which began to circulate in the neighbourhood, made it dangerous for the King to stay any longer with Colonel Wyndham, at Salisbury; however, he found an asylum where he remained for five days, during which Colonel Gunter hired a boat at

New Shoreham, and Charles set out in haste for Brighton. While he was at supper there, with his attendants and with Tattershall, the owner of the boat, the latter fixed his eyes, upon the King, and took occasion after the meal to draw one of the royal attendants aside, and complain of his having been deceived. “The gentleman in the grey dress was the King; he knew him well, having been with him in 1648, when he was Prince of Wales, and commanded the royal fleet.” This information was promptly conveyed to Charles, who thought it the more prudent course to keep his companions drinking with him all night, in order to make sure of their holding no conversation that he did not overhear.

Just before their departure, and while he was alone in his room, Tattershall came in, and kissing his hand, which was resting on the back of a chair, said, “I suppose, if I live I shall be a lord, and my wife will be a lady.” Charles laughed, to show that he understood him, and joined the company in the other room. At four in the morning of the 16th of October they set out for Shoreham. When Charles and Wilmot, his sole companion, had entered the vessel, Tattershall fell upon his knees and swore to the King that whatever might be the consequence he would land him safe and sound on the coast of France.

The boat made for the Isle of Wight, that being its ordinary course; but towards six o’clock in the evening, Charles, having previously arranged the matter with Tattershall, addressed the crew. He told them that his companion and himself were merchants, who were running away from their creditors, and asked them to join him in begging the captain to take them to France, backing his entreaties, at the same time, with a present of twenty shillings for drink. Tattershall raised a great many objections; but at last, with apparent repugnance, he turned the vessel’s head towards France. At daybreak they sighted the city of Fécamp. At the same time they discovered a suspicious-looking sail which they took for an Ostend pirate. Without waiting to test the truth of their suspicions, the two fugitives took to the ship’s boat and arrived safely in port. (_Guizot: Memoirs of Charles the Second; Lingard: History of England._)

_BLANCHE GAMOND._

1687.

Blanche Gamond belonged to a Protestant family of Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux. After the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, when the Protestants were subjected to the most rigorous persecution, Mademoiselle Gamond, whose piety was of the most fervent and exalted kind, resolved to fly the kingdom. The city of Saint-Paul was closely invested, and the dragoons overran all the neighbouring country in search of the Protestants. Blanche left the city and wandered about for some time alone, and afterwards with her parents, who had joined her. At times they were exposed to all the hardships of forest life, and it was only at intervals that they could venture to show themselves in towns. In this manner they travelled through the greater part of Dauphiné; but they were obliged to separate at last, to escape the more easily from the dragoons; and our poor heroine was about to pass the frontier with her brother and her mother and sister, when she was taken near Goncelin. Her brother escaped from the soldiers, but her mother and her sister were brutally ill-treated by these wretches, and were taken to Grenoble and thrown into a horrible dungeon. Blanche Gamond was then twenty-one years of age. She was subjected for a long time to the most terrible tortures; but insulted, mercilessly beaten, dying of hunger, and sinking under a lingering illness, as she was, she bore all with the courage and the resignation of a martyr.

The following is her account of her attempt at escape, the consequences of which were most disastrous to her:--

“We were told to get ourselves ready in three days for a voyage to America; ‘and when,’ it was added, ‘you are once on shipboard you will be made to walk the plank, and will be thrust into the sea, so that the detested race of the Huguenots may perish with you.’

“‘It concerns me little,’ I replied, ‘whether my body be eaten by the fish in the sea or by the worms in the earth.’

“When they had left us alone, Susan de Montélimart said, ‘We might make our escape by this window if we could only break the bars.’

“‘We are at such a height from the ground,’ I replied, ‘that we should either kill or lame ourselves; and then we should only be recaptured and treated worse than before. If that should happen, I could never survive my sufferings. I prefer death, therefore, and will rather set out for America. God will deliver us, as he delivered the victims of La Rapine.’”

La Rapine, or D’Herapine, who had been formerly condemned for robbery, under his real name of Guichard, had become director of the hospital of Valence, where he was told to employ all the means in his power for the conversion of the Protestants--a commission which he executed with all the cynicism and the ferocity of one of the worst of scoundrels.

“Susan replied, ‘If they had done to me what they have done to you I should have died ere this; but they are killing us of hunger; and, besides, they are going to take us to America, and we shall be half dead when they throw us in the sea. We might get out of this window. We seem to be despising the means which God has placed within our reach; but, for my part, I mean to attempt to use them.’

“At length, by her persuasion, I joined her in cutting a piece of cloth into shreds, and sewing it together; and when we had made a long band in this manner we tied a piece of stone to the end of it and lowered it, to ascertain the height of the window from the ground. We were on the fourth storey, and we found that our band was too short; but we lengthened it, and finally the end touched the ground. I then put my head out of the window and said to my dear sisters, ‘Alas! we shall kill ourselves, for it almost frightens me to death to look down.’

“That same evening, when our guards were asleep, we crept to the window with bare feet, for we were afraid that the priest, whose chamber was beneath ours, would hear our footsteps. Susan was the first to get out, and she was followed by Mademoiselle Terrasson de Die, then by me and by Mademoiselle Anne Dumas, of La Salle, in Languedoc. When I got outside and began to lay hold of the band, my strength failed me, and I heard the bones of my arm crack. My dress caught in a hook outside the window, and I was obliged to support myself with one arm while I disengaged myself with the other. I no longer felt either strength or courage, and I cried, ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!’ But I seized the band with my teeth, and joining my two hands over it, I fell, rather than lowered myself, to the ground, striking against the stones with such violence that I cried, ‘Mercy! My God, I am either killed or maimed for life!’

“The dear sisters who were waiting for me ran up to me and asked me where I was hurt.

“‘Everywhere,’ I replied; ‘I am sure that I have broken my thigh,’ and I begged of them to tie it up for me with my apron. I then limped away, my two sisters supporting me on either side. I made sixty or seventy steps in great pain, and reached the gate of the Faubourg de Valence: but it was closed. They helped me to get upon the wall, but when I stood upon the top of it, and saw how high it was, I said to my three dear sisters, ‘This is a second precipice, and I am not brave enough to attempt to descend. Leave me and go alone.’

“They let me down from the wall and left me there, and then they tried to get down themselves, and succeeded after great trouble. When they had reached the other side, Mademoiselle Dumas cried out to me, ‘We are going. We are very sorry to leave you behind. God preserve you from our enemies. I wish you prosperity, and give you my blessing, and I beg of you to give me yours in return.’

“‘Who am I,’ I replied, ‘to give you my blessing? but I pray that God will give you his. I pray fervently that he will lead you in all his ways; and I conjure you to leave this place as quickly as you can, or all of us may be recaptured.’

“I was thus left quite alone, still suffering the cruel and violent pains which had never left me from the moment of my fall. It was not yet daybreak, and I lifted up my heart to God. But I fainted in the midst of my prayer, and did not come to myself for, at least, a quarter of an hour. I had no one to console me, or even to offer me a single drop of water; but as soon as I came to myself I cried out, ‘Lord, do not abandon me.’ I lay for a time without being able to make any movement, and then I thought that at daybreak they would be sure to find me, and then I should be recaptured and taken to the hospice. ‘O God,’ I prayed, ‘grant me this mercy that this day may see the last of my troubles, for death is better than life. I have lived enough. Take my soul to thee, O God. Oh grant, if it please thee, that I may be taken to the tomb, and not to the hospice this day.’

“Day then began to break. I had not enough strength to raise myself, so that those who passed by did not know that I was lamed. I was only just able to hide my face from them by covering it with my tappeta. I was interrupted during my prayers by the agony which I suffered from my broken thigh and dislocated ankle. After a time a gentleman came by, and said, ‘It would be better, mademoiselle, for you to be at your own house than to remain here, and it would certainly be more becoming.’

“‘If you knew who I was, sir,’ I replied, ‘you would not address me in such language.’

“In another moment they opened the gate of the Faubourg and the passers-by said very hard and cruel things about me, seeing me lying at full length in the road so early in the morning.”

She begged one of them to fetch Mademoiselle Marsilière, a Protestant converted to Catholicism, whom she knew, and she prayed God that this early friend might turn out a good Samaritan, but this prayer was not heard.

“Are you asking for me?” said Mademoiselle Marsilière, when she approached the poor wounded creature. “Yes, mademoiselle; save me--for mercy’s sake help me. Take me to some place where I may die, so that no one may witness my sufferings.”

“But Mademoiselle Marsilière replied that I should endanger her safety as well as my own. ‘I must go,’ she said, ‘before any one sees me, or I shall be put in prison myself.’

“I was wounded to the heart at this treatment from a co-religionist, and I asked her if she had the courage to leave me in this condition. ‘Help me, at least,’ I said, ‘to crawl behind this wall, so that I may not be seen by the passers-by.’”

But neither the prayers nor the sufferings of the unfortunate Blanche had the least effect on the prudent and charitable person whom she had called to her aid. Mademoiselle Marsilière went away, but returned shortly afterwards with the almoner of the religious house of which she was a member, who, without paying the least regard to the distressed condition of the wounded girl, began to address to her a series of questions about her escape and her accomplices. At length two men, seizing her by the shoulders and the feet, carried her to the hospice and laid her down upon the stones in the courtyard.

It is impossible to enter fully here into all the details of the rigorous punishment endured by the poor girl for some months after this. She bore all with her ordinary courage and patience, but the mere recital of such atrocities would give too much pain to the most unfeeling heart.

She was at last allowed to return to her parents, and she recovered her health after her long sufferings, and retired to Switzerland with her family.

_JEAN BART AND THE CHEVALIER DE FORBIN._

1689.

Jean Bart escorting a fleet of twenty merchantmen, had hoisted his flag on board the frigate _La Raileuse_, of twenty-eight guns, having for second in command under him the Chevalier de Forbin, captain of _Les Jeux_, a frigate of twenty-four. They were attacked by two English ships, one of forty-eight, and the other of forty-two guns, and they nobly sacrificed themselves to save the merchant fleet. Jean Bart lost nearly all his men and was slightly wounded in the head, but Forbin was still more unfortunate, for he received six wounds, and nearly all of his crew perished. They were compelled to surrender, but the fleet of merchantmen was saved, while all the English officers and a great number of the common seamen were killed.

They were taken to Portsmouth, where they of course expected to be treated as prisoners of war on parole, but the governor of the fortress would not even grant them this scanty honour. They were shut up in a sort of inn with barred windows, and sentinels were placed before their door. This wretched treatment naturally made them anxious to escape, and they did not even wait until their wounds were cured before they began to form their plans. An Ostend fisherman, a relation of Jean Bart--as some say, Gaspar Bart, his brother--having put in to Portsmouth, found means to gain admission to the prison, and to confer with his two friends on the project which occupied all their thoughts. On one of his visits he left a file behind him, with which they cut the bars before their windows, hiding the marks by covering them with pieces of moistened bread and soot.

It happened fortunately that the surgeon sent to attend them was a Fleming, himself a prisoner, and equally desirous with his two patients of recovering his liberty. In due time too, the men who had been appointed to wait on them were gained over by a liberal present, and by still more liberal promises. The great difficulty was to find means of putting to sea; but the attendants who alone had power to leave the prison undertook to make the necessary arrangements for the embarkation. They accordingly hailed one day a Norwegian shallop, the master of which was at the time lying in a drunken sleep in his cabin. He was quietly transferred from his own vessel to another; and this was no sooner done than the two attendants ran to tell the prisoners to prepare for instant flight.

As soon as the surgeon came to pay his accustomed visit, he was told to give the Ostend fishermen notice to take everything necessary for a voyage of some days on board the Norwegian vessel. He lost no time in executing his commission, and the sloop was soon amply supplied with bread, cheese, beer, and other necessaries. It was then arranged that the surgeon should return at midnight with the fisherman and the two attendants, and as soon as he arrived beneath the prison window should signal his presence by throwing a small stone against the panes.

The signal was heard at the appointed hour. Jean Bart removed the bars in front of his window, fastened his bedclothes end to end, and sliding down the band, reached the ground in safety. The surgeon, the fisherman, and the two attendants led them at once to a little creek in which the vessel was moored, and they all embarked with the exception of the fisherman, who went quietly back to his own ship. In leaving Plymouth the fugitives had a narrow escape. They were seen by the look-out on the guard ship, and hailed with the customary “Who goes there?” By great good fortune Jean Bart knew a little English, and he replied, “Fishermen.” They were then suffered to pass.

The poor lieutenant had not been able to follow his captain. He had lost an arm; he was very corpulent; and as he could not have rendered the least assistance during the voyage, his presence would only have tended to compromise the safety of his friends. He took, therefore, the heroic resolution of remaining in prison, and of assisting the fugitives by keeping the guard amused while they were running away. He continued this subterfuge after Jean Bart had left the house, and pretended to be conversing with him in his room, until long after he had had time to effect his embarkation in safety. He then drew in the sheets which had served his commander as a rope, and quietly went to bed. He affected great surprise next day when he was informed of the escape of his fellow-prisoners, pretending to believe they had basely abandoned him, and cursing them very heartily in both English and French.

His gaolers were deceived by this _ruse_, and put several questions to him as to the conversations with his commander, in the hope of ascertaining the direction the fugitives had taken. “These traitors,” he replied, “have told me nothing; all that I know is that Bart lately had a pair of shoes made, and that he remarked when he tried them on, how useful they would be to any one who had to take a long walk.” This completely deceived them, and they sent horse soldiers out in all directions in the hope of recapturing the fugitives, who were then in the middle of the Channel.

Jean Bart at length sighted the coast of Brittany, and disembarked at a small village a few leagues from St. Malo. The journey from Plymouth had occupied forty-eight hours, and, this time included, he had not been in captivity more than eleven days. The party were received with transports of joy, for the merchantmen whom they had saved had spoken in the highest terms of their courage, but it was thought their patriotic devotion had cost them their lives. Jean Bart’s first care was to indemnify the Ostend fisherman whom the English had made responsible for his flight, and his next to purchase the liberty of his brave lieutenant, who was released a month after the escape of his commander.

_DUGUAY-TROUIN._

1694.

Duguay-Trouin, commanding the frigate _La Diligente_, of forty guns, was driven by a storm into the midst of a squadron of six English vessels, of from fifty to seventy guns each. After fighting five of them for several hours, and refusing to surrender, notwithstanding the urgent solicitations of his officers, he was struck by a spent shot, and rendered insensible. When he came to himself he was a prisoner in the hands of the English. He was at first sent to Plymouth; and he had already begun to make preparations for his escape, when orders were given that his confinement should be made more rigorous. The captain of a company on guard at the prison had fallen in love with a young woman of Plymouth, and had confided his passion to Duguay-Trouin, who had promised to use all his influence to induce the fair one to consent to marriage. He took advantage of the comparative freedom which he enjoyed through his good offices on the captain’s behalf, to come to a good understanding with the lady on his own account; and he was enabled by her aid to make arrangements with a Swedish captain for the hire of a vessel, properly provisioned and manned, for his intended flight. While the captain thought that Duguay-Trouin was pleading for him with the lady in a neighbouring inn, to which he had been permitted to extend his walks, the commander was leaping over the wall of the garden, with another officer who was to join him in trying to escape. The Swedish captain and six sailors were waiting for them at a neighbouring spot, and they all reached the little vessel in safety.

“We embarked,” he says in his “Memoirs,” “at about six in the evening. We had scarcely started when we ran almost between two English vessels, and were obliged to answer their inquiries as to our destination. We told them we were fishermen putting out to sea, and they allowed us to pass. At daybreak we came upon another English ship making for Plymouth. She was going to turn in pursuit of us, although we did not lie in her route, and we should certainly have been taken but for a sudden gust of wind, which carried us away from her almost without any effort of our own.

“We had been rowing all the time, and we were very tired when we reached the open sea. We relieved one another at nightfall, and the master of the vessel and I tried to make out our way with the aid of a small compass, illumined by the feeble rays of a lantern. While thus engaged I was so overpowered with fatigue that I fell asleep; but I was soon awakened by the noise of a terrible gust of wind, which threw the little vessel on her side, and filled her with water in an instant. By a quick movement of the helm I was fortunate enough to avoid the threatened shipwreck--a disaster that must have proved fatal, as we were more than fifteen leagues from land. My companions, who were also asleep, were quite as suddenly awakened as myself by the waves beating about their heads. Our biscuit and our beer were quite spoiled by the seawater, and it took us a long while to bale out the water with our hats. At about eight o’clock on the following day we landed at a spot two leagues from Tréguier, on the coast of Brittany.”

_THE ABBÉ COUNT DE BUCQUOY._

1700-1702.

The Count de Bucquoy, who was originally an officer in the army, had become, under the combined influence of the Jesuits and the monks of La Trappe, a religious enthusiast, but had afterwards quarrelled with his priestly friends. He was of an active mind, and, if we may believe his own account of himself, he was too much addicted to the advocacy of advanced ideas. This, and his hostility to Louis XIV., caused him to be arrested at Sens, on a charge of having been heard to mutter disaffection at an inn. While he was being taken to Paris he tried to escape, but without success; and his account of the attempt shows that he did not then possess the skill in conducting that class of enterprises which he afterwards acquired.

He was sent to For-l’Évêque; and from the very first day of his imprisonment he began to consider how he could recover his liberty. He remembered that one of the body-guard, who had been imprisoned in the same place, had nearly made his escape through a window of a loft, which looked out upon one of the quays, then called the Valley of Misery, and that he had failed, owing solely to his terror at the sight of the precipice on which his prison was built.

Bucquoy, however, made up his mind to repeat this attempt. He tried at first to form a clear idea of the plan of this terrible place. He discovered that the loft in question served as a kind of antechamber to his small cell, and that it was, at the same time, the lumber-room of the prison. Wishing to make sure of everything before risking his life, he one day pretended to be ill, and asked to be led upstairs to breathe the air at a small window which over-looked that part of the building. The height from the quay was appalling; and, in addition to that, every one of the numerous window-gratings to which he would have to cling in making his descent was covered with short, sharp spikes. The sight was enough to strike terror into the stoutest heart.

When he had once more been locked up in his cell, he, however, confirmed himself in his resolution to escape through the loft. All that was necessary was to find means to leave the cell unobserved, and to reach a certain part of the antechamber.

To get out without the consent of the gaoler, he would have had to break the door down; but he soon saw that it would be impossible to do this, as he was wholly unprepared with tools, and as the noise of his operations would be certain to alarm his guards. It occurred to him, however, that he might burn away the door; and with this view he obtained permission to cook for himself in his own cell. He asked for a few eggs and some charcoal, and paid liberally for both, in order the more readily to induce the gaoler to supply them. All being ready, and the whole household asleep, he placed the brasier close to the door and fanned the flame until it ignited the ponderous timbers. When he had by this means burnt a hole large enough to admit his body, he passed through, first taking care to extinguish the flames, as it was not his wish to destroy the building. In this operation he was nearly suffocated by the smoke from the smouldering beams. He was without a rope to tie to the window of the loft, but he made a substitute for it by binding together a number of strips of webbing cut from a mattrass which he found among the furniture. He then fastened this band to a bedstead, which he dragged to the window, and, gliding gently down, was fortunate enough to pass the windows without receiving any fatal injury from the spikes, and to reach the quay. It was daybreak, and the market people opening their shops did not fail to observe him, all torn and bloody as he was, for many of the spikes had entered his flesh. But a greater danger threatened him, in the unwelcome attentions of a number of young men, who had only just risen from supper, and who chased him through the streets with drunken cries. A timely shower of rain, however, dispersed them, and he was saved.

In trying to avoid them he made many turns and doubles, and at last found himself at the door of a _café_, near the Temple, which he entered for the purpose of making some slight changes in his appearance, in case he should meet his tormentors again. His dress, however, began to excite remark among the customers, and fearing he was already known, he hastily paid his reckoning, and went out without knowing what direction to take. He at last took refuge at the house of a relation of one of his servants, to whom he told a plausible story to excuse the negligence of his attire. The woman fetched him some food at his request, but feeling he could not confide in her discretion, he soon left the house to seek a more secure asylum.

After spending some nine months in sending petition after petition from his various hiding-places, he tried to leave the kingdom, but choosing his time badly, was arrested at La Fère and sent to prison. He made two attempts to escape, and failed only by a hair’s breadth in the second, having scaled a wall and swum across a ditch before he was discovered. He was at length taken back to Paris, and imprisoned in the Bastille.

To enter the Bastille was almost to abandon hope, for escape seemed impossible. But even while he was passing the gates of the prison, Bucquoy was reconnoitering it to find means to effect his escape. He took particular notice of the drawbridge and the counterscarp, but he was not allowed much time for his observations; for he was at once hurried away to the Bretignière tower.

After passing a few days in one of the lowest dungeons of this tower, he was placed in a cell, shared by a number of prisoners in common. He proposed that they should make a joint effort to recover their liberty, but he was denounced by one of their number, an abbé. He was then once more shut up in his dungeon. He was suffered to leave it, however, on feigning to be ill and at the point of death. He was believed to be paralytic, and as it was thought there was no further danger of his attempting to carry out his plans, he was once more sent to the common room. In course of time he had made the circuit of nearly all the towers of the building, never failing to study the plan of each of them attentively; and he was at length sent to the Bertaudière, where he had for companion a German baron, whom he undertook to convert from the Lutheran faith, and whom he persuaded to aid him in his attempt to escape. They had already commenced operations on an old window which had long been closed up, when they were betrayed by another prisoner. Bucquoy was adroit enough to exculpate himself, and to throw the blame upon his betrayer, but he was removed to a cell in the tower, La Liberté, together with the baron, whose _conversion_ he represented was not quite complete.

They then began to renew their preparations, this time with the view of reaching the ditch of the Porte Saint Antoine. They made a hole in the wall by means of certain jagged pieces of iron and brass, old nails and knife-blades, which the abbé had carefully collected in the course of his long sojourn in the prison; and which, by the aid of the fire in the room, they fashioned into tools. At the same time they began to make a ladder, using for this purpose the strips of osier in which their wine bottles were enveloped, and telling the gaoler they were collecting them to serve as fuel. A hole which they had scooped out under the flooring of their cell served to conceal all these things.

Working steadily every day, and never losing sight of their design, they contrived in a short time to make a tolerable ladder. All was now nearly ready, and they were on the very point of making their attempt, when on visiting their subterranean cupboard one day, it gave way beneath them, and precipitated them into a room on the floor below occupied by a jesuit. The poor man’s mind was ill at ease, and this terrible accident made him quite mad. The abbé was taken back to his cell by a gaoler, but he was not allowed to remain there long, and he was thus doomed to lose almost in a moment the fruits of long months of most trying exertion. He found means, however, to get rid of his German baron, who was no further use to him, as he could not be persuaded to embark in another attempt. But the baron had abjured his religion, and this gained the abbé such a reputation as a converter of heretics, that he was sent to attempt the reformation of a certain Protestant, named Grandville, who was considered a very excellent boon companion by his fellow prisoners, and who was known to be most anxious to make his escape.

Two other prisoners were placed in the same cell with them, and the abbé soon found means to come to an understanding with all his companions in misfortune. After he had bound them to him by the most solemn oaths, he informed them that he had a small file concealed in his clothes, which had hitherto escaped the closest search, and he proposed that they should cut through the bars of their windows with it, and make their way into the courtyard. He had managed to keep some pieces of osier that he and the German had plaited, and by the aid of his new confederates, he soon added largely to his store. They laboured together like the workmen of the tower of Babel, for they were almost as much hindered by differences of opinion, as the others were by differences of speech. At last they made up their minds to take the only course possible to them: viz. to descend by the ladder into the ditch. Once there, it was agreed that each should look after himself.

On the appointed day--or, rather, night--they removed the bars as soon as they found all was silent in the fortress. Fearing that their suspended bodies might be seen from the other cells, they first let down a long white sheet, which covered all the windows between their cell and the ground. As it was necessary to prevent the ladder from falling close to the wall, the abbé had some days previously erected a kind of sundial at the end of a long pole, and the sentinels had already learned to regard it without suspicion. After they had taken all these precautions, and had smeared the white ropes of their ladder with soot, the abbé asked to be allowed to be first to make the descent, promising to await his companions in the ditch. He was, at the same time, to warn them of the approach of the sentinels by pulling a smaller rope, falling from the window to the ground. When all had been thus arranged he got out of the window, and reached the ditch in safety; but he remained there two hours without receiving a sign from his companions. He pulled the rope repeatedly, to no purpose, and he began to fear they were engaged in some new dispute, when he saw them lowering some cumbrous machine they had constructed to aid them in their flight. Two of them came down, but the rest had not at first been able to pass through the window, and this had been the cause of the delay. When they found, at length, they could force themselves through, they were still willing to stay with the unfortunate Grandville, whose obesity compelled him to remain behind, but he generously refused to allow them to make this useless sacrifice on his behalf.

Their sad story ended, the abbé urged them, with all the eloquence of which he was master, to follow his plan of escape; but not being able to persuade them he began to look to his own safety. He had only a small osier ladder; with this he contrived to gain the top of the ditch as soon as the sentinel’s back was turned; he then climbed the counterscarp and reached a deep gutter, and passing over another wall and ditch, finally dropped into the Rue St. Antoine, nearly lacerating his arm on a hook outside a butcher’s shop in his fall. Before leaving the wall he looked round for his comrades, and hearing the cry of a half-strangled person, followed rapidly by a musket-shot, he concluded that they had tried to carry out their intention of seizing the guard but had been overpowered; and as he never heard of the unfortunate creatures again he remained all his life confirmed in this impression. Not caring to await a similar fate, he ran rapidly from the Rue St. Antoine to the Rue des Journelles; and after making half the circuit of Paris he arrived at the house of some friends, who furnished him with the means of leaving the country.

_FORSTER, MACINTOSH, ROBERT KEITH, NITHSDALE, AND OTHER CHIEFS OF THE JACOBITE INSURRECTION._

1715.

During the Jacobite insurrection of 1715 a great number of the partisans of the Pretender, who had been made prisoners at Preston, were taken to London, and lodged in Newgate and other gaols of the metropolis. Among these unfortunate men were Thomas Forster, of Bamborough, a man of excellent family and a member of Parliament for the county of Northumberland, who had been commander-in-chief of the insurrection in the north of England; Brigadier Macintosh, a highland gentleman, who had learnt the art of war in the service of France; Robert Hepburn, of Keith, one of the first lairds who had raised the standard of the chevalier; Charles Radcliffe, brother of the Earl of Derwentwater, a chief of the insurrection in England; and the Earls of Nithsdale and of Winton, who had played the same in Scotland.

Like almost all their companions in misfortune, they had cherished the hope that the fact of their having surrendered at discretion would have saved their lives. But when they saw so many around them condemned for high treason they resolved to escape. The means at their command, their numerous friends in the capital, and the faulty construction of the gaols in which they were imprisoned afforded them a reasonable prospect of success.

Accordingly, on the 10th of April, 1716, Thomas Forster, having procured false keys, simply opened the door of his prison and escaped in a manner the very reverse of dramatic, but, beyond doubt, perfectly satisfactory to himself. Everything was prepared for his flight, and he arrived safely in France.

On the 10th of May following, Brigadier Macintosh, having succeeded in removing his irons and in reaching the lower storey of the prison, placed himself near the door, and the moment it opened for the admission of a servant, who had stayed out late, hurled the gaoler to the ground and passed out, with fourteen of his companions. Some of the fugitives were re-arrested in the streets, not knowing where to fly for safety, but Macintosh was not so unfortunate. Among the prisoners who escaped at about the same time was Robert Hepburn, of Keith. He overpowered the gaoler by his immense strength, and, taking the keys away from him, succeeded in gaining the street without being pursued. He was aware that his wife and a number of his own people were in London, ready to come to his aid; but he did not know how to find them in that immense city, living, as they probably were, under an assumed name. While wandering about in this state of uncertainty, fearing to betray his nationality by asking a question, he saw in a window a piece of plate which had long been in possession of his family, and which was called the Tankard of Keith. Without a moment’s hesitation, the fugitive entered the house and was received in the arms of his wife and children. Informed of his intention to escape, they had taken a lodging as near the prison as they could; and, not daring to confide the secret of their retreat to any stranger, they had had recourse to this means of making it known to the head of the family. Hepburn of Keith succeeded in reaching France.

Charles Radcliffe and Lord Winton, who were condemned to death, also contrived to regain their freedom at about the same time--whether through the mere carelessness or the deliberate neglect of their guards it is not easy to say. But the escape which made the most noise at the time was that of the Earl of Nithsdale, who, like his companions, had been condemned to suffer the extreme penalty of the law.

The most strenuous exertions had been made to obtain a pardon for this unfortunate gentleman, but in vain. Lady Nithsdale, his wife, had thrown herself at the feet of George II., imploring mercy, but the king had refused to listen to her. She, however, obtained permission to bid her husband adieu on the night before his execution; and she accordingly went to the Tower, accompanied by two women, who were in her confidence. One of these women had on two suits of outer garments; and after leaving a suit in the earl’s chamber she immediately quitted the prison. The second woman gave the earl her clothes and put on those which the first had just taken off. Wrapped up in a long cloak, and with a handkerchief to his eyes, the prisoner then passed through the midst of the sentinels, left the Tower, and at once took ship for France. Lady Nithsdale, who remained behind, ran some risk of suffering in her husband’s stead, but her life was spared, and she soon regained her liberty.