Chapter IX: Part 9

“At the summit of all the towers of the Bastille a ledge projected some four or five feet beyond the wall. This we knew would cause any one using our ladder to swing about in the air, and in all probability to lose his hold from giddiness, and fall to the ground. We were obliged, there fore, to invent an apparatus for steadying the ladder, which was far too complicated to describe here. Suffice it to say, that it involved the use of another rope, some three hundred and sixty feet long; and this we actually made, together with shorter ropes for tying our ladder to a cannon, and for other necessities of the moment.

“When all these ropes were ready we measured them, and found they were fourteen hundred feet in length. Our ladders, all taken together, had two hundred and eight rounds.

“There was one other danger to be dreaded--the noise likely to be made by the friction of our ladders against the wall. We endeavoured to avoid this by carefully binding up the ladders with pieces of our dressing-gowns, etc., at the places where they were likely to touch the stonework.

“We had been employed some eighteen months in these preparations, and yet our work was not done. We had found a means of reaching the top of the tower, and for dropping into the ditch; but now other operations would be needed to enable us to leave the place. The first was to mount the parapet of the governor’s wall, which looks into the ditch of the Porte St. Antoine. But this parapet was always guarded by sentinels. We might choose a very rainy and dark night for our attempt; but then it might rain while we were leaving the chimney, and yet be perfectly fine by the time we reached the parapet and the sentinels. And, besides, there were not only the sentinels, but the guard going the grand rounds. To be seen by the latter was to be hopelessly lost.

“The second operation promised to be less of a danger than a difficulty. It consisted of making a passage through the wall separating the ditch of the Bastille from the Porte St. Antoine. It would necessitate the use of a couple of crowbars, and these we could easily obtain from our chimney.

“We fixed on Monday, the 25th of February, 1756, for our flight. The river had overflowed its banks, and there was water to the depth of four feet in the ditches of the Bastille. We judged it prudent, therefore, to pack up a change of clothes in a portmanteau, so that we might not run the risk of perishing of cold if we happened to be fortunate enough to escape from the prison.

“Immediately after our dinner hour, on the appointed day, we took our rope-ladder from its hiding-place beneath the floor, and having seen that all the rounds were in order, put it away again in a more convenient place for instant use. At the same time we tied the three pieces of the wooden ladder together, bound our crowbars in rags, to prevent the metal from coming in contact with the wall, and furnished ourselves with a small bottle of brandy for our sustenance during the nine hours we were to pass up to our necks in water in the ditch. This done, we waited impatiently for the hour of supper. It came at length, and our gaolers left us for the night.

“I was the first to mount the chimney. I was suffering from rheumatism in the left arm, but I paid very little attention to that. I was nearly suffocated, however, with the soot accumulated in the upper part of the chimney beyond the bars, and the rough brickwork tore open my elbows and my knees, and made them run with blood. I was in this state when I reached the roof; I nevertheless, without thinking of my wounds, dropped a rope down the chimney, and drew up the portmanteau, which Alègre had fastened to the end of it. In the same manner we conveyed the wooden ladder, the crowbars, and the other packets to the top of the roof. Alègre made the ascent more easily than I, thanks to my having lowered the rope ladder for him. We then slid down from the top of the chimney on the outside, and stood both together on the roof of the Bastille.

“We lost no time in preparing for our descent. Doubling up our rope ladder till it formed a kind of ball, we rolled it along the roof till we came to the Treasury Tower, where we tied one end of it to a cannon and let the other fall gently into the ditch. I then fastened the single rope round my body, and Alègre holding it, to steady me, I stepped on to the ladder. But I swayed about dreadfully, nevertheless, and became so giddy that once or twice I felt myself on the point of losing consciousness, and gave up all for lost. I reached the ditch, however, without serious accident; and when Alègre had lowered the things to me, I was lucky enough to find a little eminence to place them on, so that they did not get wetted. My companion then made the descent, but he had one advantage over me--I was at the bottom to hold the ladder for him, so that he did not suffer from giddiness nearly so much as I had done. When we had both reached the bottom we could not suppress a sigh of regret at being obliged to leave behind us the ladder it had cost so much pains to make.[D]

“It was not raining, and we could distinctly hear the footfall of a sentinel, at the distance of a few paces. We were obliged therefore, to give up the idea of reaching the parapet, and to turn our steps towards the governor’s garden. We accordingly shouldered our crowbars, and went straight to the wall between the ditches, where we began to work. But unfortunately, just at the spot we were obliged to choose, the ditch was deepest, so that we were up to our armpits in water, instead of being up to our breasts. There had been a thaw but a few hours previously, and the ditch was full of lumps of ice, yet we had to endure all this for more than nine hours, our strength exhausted by labour of the most fatiguing kind, and our limbs more than half frozen. Hardly had we began to work, when I saw on

the parapet, some twelve feet above us, the soldiers of the grand round. Their lantern lit up the place where we were perfectly, and there was no way of avoiding discovery but to plunge down into the water, an operation which had to be repeated at each visit of the grand round--that is to say, every half-hour. At length after nine hours of labour and of terror, and after having picked stone from stone with inconceivable difficulty, we succeeded in making, through a wall four feet and a half in thickness, a hole large enough to admit of our passing, and we dragged ourselves through to the other side. Our souls were already full of joy, when we experienced a new and wholly unforeseen danger. We were now crossing the ditch of St. Antoine in order to gain the road to Bercy. We had hardly advanced twenty steps in the water when we fell into the aqueduct, which is in the middle of the ditch, and where we had ten feet of water above our heads; and beneath our feet some two feet of a thick purifying substance (for the most part salt) on which it was well-nigh impossible to walk. But for this latter circumstance, there could have been no difficulty in gaining the opposite side, for the aqueduct was only six feet in breadth. D’Alègre, when he found himself out of his depth, was foolish enough to clutch me convulsively. But I saw this must infallibly end in the ruin of us both, since if by any accident we should fall into the salt mud, we should not have strength enough to raise ourselves again. I therefore dealt D’Alègre a heavy blow with my fist, and having freed myself from him, I succeeded by a vigorous push in gaining the side of the aqueduct, and thus saving us both, for nothing was easier than to stretch out my hand and drag him ashore from my vantage-ground. It struck five when we emerged from the ditch: the sound of the bell had hardly died away, when we stood together on the main road--free men.

“Transported with the same sentiment, we threw ourselves into one another’s arms in a close embrace, and then fell upon our knees to express our gratitude to God. This first duty fulfilled, we began to think about a change of dress, and we then felt by what a happy inspiration of prudence and foresight, we had been prompted to furnish our portmanteau with some spare clothes. The cold had frozen our limbs, and, as I had anticipated, we suffered a good deal more now than during the nine hours we were in the water. Each of us had far too little control over his movements to be able to undress and dress himself, but by rendering some assistance to one another, we contrived at length to effect these operations. We then jumped into a fiacre and drove straight to the house of M. de Silhouette; the chancellor of the Duke of Orleans, but unfortunately we learned that he had gone to Versailles.”

They however, found an asylum with some friends, natives of Languedoc, like themselves, and, after hiding with them a month, left separately for Brussels. D’Alègre arriving first, was immediately arrested by the agents of the French government. He was taken back to France, and fifteen years later Latude found him at Charenton. He had become mad. As for Latude, during his stay in Brussels, he managed to avoid the snares laid for him by the French police, but he was finally arrested at Amsterdam, and conducted back to France, with irons on his ankles and wrists.

In 1764 he was transferred to Vincennes, and subjected to the most cruel treatment by order of M. de Sartines. After a time Guyonnet, the governor, released him from his cell, and gave him a furnished room to live in, at the same time permitting him to take exercise in the gardens of the chateau, two hours every day.

“What I valued most about this favour was that it promised to afford me sooner or later, the prospect of another escape. For eight months however, so carefully was I watched, I did not find a single opportunity of putting my project into execution, and I began to feel that I could owe my liberty only to some happy chance. Such a chance presented itself at length in a most unexpected manner.

“On the 23rd of November, 1765, I was walking in the garden at about four o’clock in the afternoon, when a thick fog suddenly rose from the ground. The idea of escape immediately occurred to me; but how was I to get rid of my guards? for, to say nothing of the many sentinels in the passages, I had two at my side, with a sergeant who never quitted me an instant. I could not attack them, nor could I glide quietly from their side, for their orders were to accompany me everywhere and to follow all my movements. I therefore addressed myself boldly to the sergeant, and called his attention to the fog which had come upon us so suddenly.

“‘What do you think of this weather?’ I asked.

“‘It is very bad, monsieur.’

“‘Do you think so?’ I replied in an instant, and in the calmest and most natural tone. ‘It seems to me, on the contrary, the very weather to favour my escape.’

“While uttering these words I raised my elbows suddenly and thrust the soldiers from me, and at the same time, giving the sergeant a violent push, I took to flight, passing a third sentinel, who did not seem to perceive what I was doing until I was at some distance from him. They all, however, rapidly recovered from their surprise, and pursued me with cries of ‘Stop him! stop him!’ The guard assembled: the windows began to open; everybody ran into the courtyard, and ‘Stop him! stop him!’ was heard on every side. How to escape? I did not remain long at a loss. There was nothing for it but to dash right into the midst of the crowd and take up their cry. ‘Stop thief! stop thief!’ I bawled louder than any of them, pointing in front of me at the same time. They took the bait admirably, following their noses in search of nothing at all with the most praiseworthy energy and zeal. I outran them easily; there was scarcely a step between me and liberty. I had reached the end of the royal court; there was but one sentinel to pass, but to pass him would not be easy, for, alarmed by the uproar, he would naturally be suspicious of the first comer in the crowd. I had, in fact, foreseen the exact state of things. At the first cry, the sentinel had placed himself in the middle of the pathway, which was very narrow in this place; and, to add to the ill luck of the situation, the man knew me. He was named Chenu. I came up; he stopped the way, and bade me stand still, or he would run me through with his bayonet.

“‘Chenu,’ said I, ‘you know me; your duty is to arrest, not to kill me.’ I slackened my pace and drew near to him slowly, and when I was within a yard or two I suddenly threw myself upon him, and snatched his gun with so much and such unexpected violence that he fell to the ground. I leaped over his body, and hurled his gun as far from him as I could, for fear he should recover it and fire. And now I was free once more. I easily hid myself in the park, for I had at once avoided the main road; I leaped over the low wall, and I awaited the night to enter Paris.”

Having taken refuge with two girls, with whom he had

entered into correspondence from the top of the towers of the Bastille, and who had vainly tried to serve him by delivering letters to his friends, he could think of no better means of providing for his safety than that of writing to implore M. de Sartines to become his protector. It would seem that Latude’s active and acute spirit, which, while he was a captive, enabled him so well to calculate his opportunities of escape, and to profit by them, abandoned him the moment he was at liberty. Not content with having invited the attention of M. de Sartines, he could conceive of nothing wiser, fugitive and prison-breaker as he was, than to go to Fontainebleau, to see M. de Choiseul and M. de la Vallière, both ministers, and to recommend himself to them. He was, of course, re-arrested and taken back to Vincennes, where he was put in a cell, called the black hole. In 1775 he was transferred to Charenton, and he was set at liberty in 1777 by a _lettre de cachet_, ordering his exile to Montagnac, his native place. He delayed his departure some time, but at length he set out, only to be arrested once more, when he was some fifty leagues from Paris, and taken to the Bicêtre. He was then fifty-three years of age; and since his twenty-fourth year he had passed very little time out of prison. At length, in 1784, Madame Necker humanely exerted her influence to procure his total release.

_BENIOWSKI._

1771.

Count Beniowski, a magnate of Hungary and of Poland, was taken prisoner by the Russians, and sent to Kamtschatka. On the very day after his arrival in the little city of Bolska, or Bolchérietzkoi, which had been assigned him as a residence, he had persuaded seven of his companions in exile, to join with him in an attempt to escape. At first they thought only of procuring a boat for their attempted flight, but they afterwards found it necessary to make many material alterations in their plan. Beniowski was only thirty years old; and to the physical advantages of force, elegance, and address, he united that of a good education, which naturally placed him in the first rank among the other exiles, and he was chosen as their chief without one dissentient voice. The governor employed him as a teacher of languages to his three daughters, the youngest of whom, Aphanasia, fell desperately in love with her master. Beniowski dexterously took advantage of this passion to further his scheme.

The confederates, at first few in number, obtained additions to their ranks every day; but they had many difficulties to surmount. Their prime need, however, was money; and in this respect, chance and the cupidity of their guards came very opportunely to their aid. The three principal personages of Bolska were the governor, the chancellor, and the hetman of Cossacks. The two last had discovered Beniowski’s skill at chess, and they thought that by using him as a kind of _employé_, to play in their interest with the richest merchants of the district, they might make considerable additions to their income. He was obliged, for the sake of his companions and for the furtherance of his scheme, to lend himself to this discreditable trick; but he did not forget his own wants while he was filling the pockets of the hetman and the chancellor. The confederates already possessed some twelve thousand roubles, when the rage of one of Beniowski’s victims at the chess-board nearly led to the discovery of the entire plot.

A merchant, named Casarinow, who had lost considerable sums at the game, presented his conqueror with a quantity of poisoned sugar. On the 1st of January, 1771, the principal confederates assembled, according to custom, to take tea; but they had scarcely swallowed the first cup when they were all seized with frightful pains. One of them died during the night; the rest, escaping by a miracle, tested the sugar on various animals, and when they had satisfied themselves as to its poisonous properties they denounced Casarinow to the governor. The merchant was at once summoned, and when he came before the governor was offered a cup of unsweetened tea. He took it. “See,” said his host, offering him some of the poisoned sugar, “what good fellows these exiles are; they have given me all this, and only yesterday they received it as a present themselves.”

Casarinow grew pale, complained of a sudden illness, and asked to be allowed to retire. He was at once arrested, and, yielding to the evidence of facts, confessed his crime, alleging, as an excuse, that he had attempted it in order to punish Beniowski for plotting to arm the exiles and to escape with them from Kamtschatka. He was indebted for the information to Pianitsin, one of the confederates. Too irritated to pay due attention to this defence, the governor imprisoned Casarinow, and ordered the chancellor to take immediate steps for the confiscation of his property, and his despatch to the mines, according to law. But Beniowski had been present during the interview, though he was hidden in a cabinet, the law forbidding not only the functionaries, but simple citizens, to hold any communication with the exiles. He had, therefore, become acquainted with the guilt of Pianitsin; and on his return to the confederates, finding the traitor present, he denounced him. The unfortunate wretch was at once condemned, and was allowed only three hours to prepare for death. A priest who was in the plot prayed with him during that time, and he was then taken out of the village and shot.

Some time after, the authorities seemed willing to test the truth of Casarinow’s depositions; but they looked in vain for the only person who could enlighten them on the point--Pianitsin. They accordingly suffered the matter to rest, convinced that the whole story was nothing better than a fable, invented by the poisoner to serve his own ends.

We cannot give in detail the different episodes of this history of four months, during which the plot was several times on the point of being discovered. The confederates owed their safety to the presence of mind of their chief, and, above all, to the folly and the corruption of their guardians. But on one occasion certain suspicions excited by Beniowski’s conduct had nearly ruined all. Some days after the affair of Casarinow, poor Aphanasia, in presence of her father and of a crowd of persons invited to a fête, declared her passion for the count. Her father was at first in a great rage; but this did not last long; and eventually--it is not easy to say through whose good offices--he was induced to show Beniowski more kindness than ever. He, in fact, threw his house open to the exile, and allowed him to come and go as he pleased. All this soon got rumoured abroad, and one day, on entering his own house, Beniowski found himself confronted by four of the principal conspirators, who summoned him to the general assembly, to give an account of his suspicious intimacy with the authorities. He went at once; and on entering the council-room, found that it was guarded by two conspirators, sabre in hand. A cup of poison stood on the table. Beniowski was accused of intriguing for his liberty by the betrayal of his associates. He easily justified himself, and his accuser was the first to embrace him warmly, and to desire his pardon for having suspected him. In time, thanks to Beniowski’s influence with the governor, all the exiles were declared free as to residence within the country, and were allowed to form a colony in the district of Lopattka. He was thus slowly advancing towards his object, when the governor’s wife, Madame Nilow, insisted that his marriage with her daughter should take place at once; while one of the conspirators, named Stephanow, becoming enamoured of Aphanasia, attempted to kill her lover, and nearly revealed the plot. He was, however, terrified into silence, and then pardoned.

The conspirators were at last perfectly organized. They had arms and munitions, and they only awaited the breaking of the ice to embark in a vessel already prepared for them, when circumstances again rendered the authorities suspicious. Beniowski, learning from various signs that all might be compromised in a moment, engaged Aphanasia, to whom he had confided the secret of the plot, to send him a piece of red riband whenever she judged that danger was imminent. All the confederates, meanwhile, were ready and armed; but a day or two preceding that fixed for their departure, Beniowski received a piece of red riband from Aphanasia, while, at the same time, a sergeant brought him a note from the governor, asking him to breakfast. One may easily judge whether the daughter’s present inclined him to accept the father’s invitation. He pretended to be ill, and put off the visit till the next day. But the sergeant had the imprudence to tell him that he would do well to come by fair means, unless he wished to be dragged to the governor’s table by force.

“You had better confess yourself, friend,” replied the exile, haughtily, “before you bring me another message like that.”

At midday the hetman arrived at Beniowski’s house, and was very civilly received; but his air of confidence and of good nature, unskilfully assumed as it was, did not avail to conceal his real purpose from the penetrating glance of the exile. On Beniowski’s refusal to go to the fort, the poor hetman so far forgot his _rôle_ as to get into a violent passion, and to threaten the unwilling guest with his Cossacks. Beniowski laughed in his face, and the hetman called two of his men. Beniowski whistled, and in an instant five of his companions appeared, and hetman and Cossacks stood disarmed and bound.

At five o’clock in the evening the governor sent a message, urging Beniowski to throw himself on the clemency of the throne, and threatening him with death if he did not instantly set the captives at liberty. The count gave an evasive reply, in order to gain time, and meanwhile seized the chancellor’s nephew and two other persons, whose influence he feared. He would have seized the chancellor himself had he come within his reach. These acts marked the beginning of the insurrection.

On the next day the governor despatched four men and a corporal to arrest the count, who, however, managed to arrest them instead, and to shut them up in his cellar. These were duly followed by a regular detachment of troops, who approached the house with as much circumspection as though it had been a fortress. Beniowski went out to meet them, and killed three of their number; the rest ran away. Then came another detachment, with a cannon. The officer in command allowed Beniowski to approach within fifteen paces, as though willing to hold a parley; but when they had got so near, the confederates suddenly opened fire, and those of the soldiers who did not fall down in terror, ran away outright, so that the cannon became the property of the insurgents. The latter then re-formed their ranks and marched straight upon the fort. The sentinel, seeing the cannon in their hands, mistook them for the detachment which had left in the morning, and lowered the drawbridge. Beniowski, as soon as he found himself inside the place, ran to the governor’s room, with a view of saving him from the violence of the confederates; but the enraged official, incensed at finding himself outwitted, snapped a pistol in his preserver’s face, and sprang at Beniowski’s throat with such violence that the latter was about to defend himself, when one of the confederates spared him the trouble by shooting the unfortunate governor dead. Towards nightfall, however, the Cossacks approached the fort, and prepared to assault it; but their ladders were too short, and the flashes from their muskets serving to betray their position, the confederates were enabled to point their cannon upon them with very destructive effect. On the following day the exiles shut up in a church all the women and children of the city, to the number of about a thousand, and sent word to the eight hundred Cossacks who invested the place, that if they did not at once surrender their arms and give hostages for their peaceable behaviour, the building should be fired. The Cossacks accepted the conditions, and the insurgents remained masters of the place, the former having seven of their number seriously wounded, and nine killed.

Some days after, the exiles took possession of the war corvette, _St. Peter and St. Paul_; and after they had rendered the last honours of war to the poor governor, they occupied themselves in fitting out the vessel. The hostages were then sent back to the city, with the exception of the chancellor’s secretary, who was detained on board to serve as cook, as a punishment for his malicious intentions.

At length, on the 11th, Beniowski went on board, raised the flag of the confederation of Poland, which was saluted by the guns of the corvette, and quitted Kamtschatka--not as a prisoner escaping, but like a sovereign leaving one of the ports of his empire.

_ESCAPE OF TWELVE PRIESTS, SAVED BY GEOFFROY ST. HILAIRE._

1792.

On the 13th of August, 1792, Haüy, Lhomond, and the other professors at the college of Cardinal Lemoine, were arrested as non-jurors, and were shut up in the seminary of St. Firmin, temporarily converted into a prison. Near St. Firmin lived a young student, Geoffroy St. Hilaire, who was destined soon to become one of the stars of France. He had pursued his studies at the college of Lemoine; and not less devoted to his professors than passionately fond of science, without giving a thought to the danger to which he exposed himself, he resolved on saving Haüy and his companions.

By great perseverance he persuaded the members of the Academy of Sciences to appeal in favour of Haüy; and an order of liberation was granted. Geoffroy brought it in great haste; and a few days after, Haüy obtained from Tallien the same liberty for Lhomond that Geoffroy and the Academy had obtained for himself. But several of Haüy’s colleagues were still in prison. It was the day before the September massacres; and though nothing of these wild projects was officially known to the public, after the Brunswick manifesto something terrible was expected. Geoffroy, at any price, was resolved on saving his masters from the danger threatening them. On the 2nd of September, at the moment when the massacres had already begun at the Abbaye and La Force, he disguised himself as a commissary of the prisons, obtained access by this means to the prisoners, and informed them of the means he had prepared to facilitate their escape.

“No,” answered one of them, the Abbé D’Keranran; “no, we will not leave our brethren; our flight would make their deaths more certain.”

This sublime refusal grieved Geoffroy, without discouraging him. At night he took a ladder and went to St. Firmin, standing by an angle of the wall that he had taken care to indicate to the Abbé D’Keranran and his companion that same morning. He remained there for more than eight hours without seeing a soul. At last a priest appeared, and was soon safely out of the fatal place. Several others followed. One of them, on climbing the wall too hastily, fell and hurt his foot. Geoffroy took him in his arms, and carried him to a barn near by. He then ran back to his post, and by his help more priests escaped. Twelve victims had thus been snatched from death, when a shot was fired on Geoffroy from the garden, and touched his clothes. He was then on the top of the wall; and, entirely absorbed in his generous task, he did not perceive that the sun was up. He was obliged to come down, and leave both the happy and the miserable at once, for those that he had been unable to save he was never to see again.--(_Life of Geoffroy St. Hilaire, by Isidore Geoffroy._)

_DE CHATEAUBRUN._

1794.

M. de Vaublanc, in his “Memoirs,” relates the following circumstance:--

“A nobleman, named M. de Chateaubrun, having been condemned to death by the revolutionary tribunal, had been placed on the fatal tumbril and taken to the Place de la Revolution, to be put to death. After the ‘Terror’ he was met by a friend, who gave a cry of surprise; and, scarcely able to believe the evidence of his senses, asked De Chateaubrun, to explain the mystery of his appearance. The explanation was given, and I heard it from his friend.

“He was taken away with twenty other unhappy victims. ‘After twelve or fifteen executions,’ he said, ‘one part of the horrible instrument broke, and a workman was sent for to mend it. M. de Chateaubrun was, with the other victims, near the scaffold, with his hands tied behind his back. The repairing took a long time. The day began to darken; the great crowd of spectators were far more intent on watching the repairing of the guillotine than on looking at the victims who were to die; and all, even the gendarmes themselves, had their eyes fixed on the scaffold. Resigned, but very weak, the condemned man leant, without meaning it, on those behind him; and they, pressed by the weight of his body, mechanically made way for him, till gradually, and by no effort of his own, he came to the last ranks of the crowd. The instrument once repaired, the executions began again, and they hurried to the end. A dark night concealed both executioners and spectators. Led on by the crowd, De Chateaubrun was at first amazed at his situation, but soon conceived the hope of escaping. He went to the Champs Elysées and there, addressing a man who looked like a workman, he told him, laughingly, that some comrades with whom he had been joking had tied his hands behind his back, and taken his hat, telling him to go and look for it. He begged the man to cut the cords, and the workman pulled out a knife and did so, laughing all the while at the joke. M. de Chateaubrun then proposed going into one of the small wineshops in the Champs Elysées. During a slight repast he seemed to be expecting his comrades to bring back his hat; and seeing nothing of them, he begged his guest to carry a note to some friend, whom he knew would lend him one, for he could not go bareheaded through the streets. He added that his friend would bring him some money, for his comrades, in fun, had taken away his purse. The poor man believed every word M. de Chateaubrun told him, took the note, and returned in half an hour, accompanied by the friend, who embraced Chateaubrun, and gave him all the help he required.’"--(_Memoirs of M. de Vaublanc._)

_SYDNEY SMITH._

1797.

Commodore William Sydney Smith, afterwards admiral, had been made prisoner at the mouth of the Seine, where he had ventured in his frigate, then stationed at Havre. This enterprise seemed so daring that the English sailor was suspected of having wished to favour a royalist attempt, and of being a dangerous spy. The suspicions as to the nature of his mission seemed confirmed by the fact that his secretary was an exile, named De Trommelin, who had been with him a long time, in the hopes of being in some way useful

to the royal cause. If the nationality of this man had been recognised, he would have been instantly put to death, according to the law then existing in France; but the commodore passed him as his servant. In vain England begged the exchange of Sydney Smith; the Directory refused, knowing how dangerous an enemy to France he was. Imprisoned at the Abbaye, then at the Temple, he was more than once on the point of escaping, in spite of the vigilance of the police. Several ladies, as well as Trommelin, attempted to aid him at various periods. Trommelin’s wife--who could, at least, invoke duty as the motive of her conduct--came to Paris, and hired a house near the Temple. A mason was bribed to open a communication between this house and the Temple, by way of the cellar, and everything seemed sure of success, when the fall of a few stones gave the alarm. The prisoners were more strictly watched than ever. In a short time Trommelin, having a better fate than a man deserves who carries arms against his country, was exchanged; but Sydney Smith was obliged to forego that advantage. After the 18th Fructidor, he was still more rigorously treated; but the moment of his freedom was drawing nigh.

Among the royalists then hidden and conspiring in Paris, was an officer named Philippeaux, formerly the fortunate rival of Bonaparte at the military school, and, since that time, his sworn enemy. Certainly without any idea that Sydney Smith and himself would, two years afterwards, be together in the presence of General Bonaparte at St. Jean d’Acre, and without any other motive than that of injuring the republic, Philippeaux determined to deliver the commodore. He associated himself with other royalists, and notably with an opera dancer, named Boisgirard; and he entered into relations with the daughter of one of the Temple gaolers, by whose aid he succeeded in deceiving her father. Disguised as a prison commissary, and accompanied by his accomplices, wearing the uniform of gendarmes--one of whom, Boisgirard, represented a general--Philippeaux went at night to the Temple. Boisgirard, at the gate, showed an order of release, signed by the minister of foreign affairs, and demanded that the prisoner might be given up. Either bribed, or deceived by appearances, the gaolers and director of the prison obeyed, and Sydney Smith was brought out. Playing his part perfectly, he affected great surprise; and on hearing his immediate transfer to another prison spoken of, he vehemently protested against it. Then, feigning obedience, he followed his liberators, and entered a carriage that conveyed him to Rouen, from whence he crossed to Havre. There he succeeded in getting on board an English ship, the _Argo_, which took him to London. The English captain, Brenton, certifies, in his “History of the Navy,” that he knows, from good authority, that £3000 sterling (75,000 francs), given by the English government, opened the doors of Sydney Smith’s prison, and smoothed all obstacles as far as the coast. He adds that Lord St. Vincent (Jervis) assured him he had seen the order from the Treasury.

_PICHEGRU, RAMEL, BARTHELEMY, DELARUE, ETC._

1797.

A short time after the 18th Fructidor, a certain number of those who had taken part in the counter-revolutionary riots were transported to Guiana. They all belonged, more or

less, to the royalist party. Among them were--Pichegru, one of the greatest soldiers and one of the worst citizens France ever produced; Barthélemy, a member of the Directory; Ramel, adjutant-general, commander of the grenadiers of the Corps Législatif; Delarue, a member of the council of the Five Hundred; and generals Aubry and Willot, who had been among the first arrested. To the names of these party-men it is but right to add that of Letellier, Barthélemy’s servant, who having begged, as a favour, that he might be allowed to follow his master to prison, accompanied him in his exile, and died, at last, the victim of his devotion. At Cayenne, and then at Sinnamary, the deputies saw, with sorrow, several of their companions struck down by the influence of the climate; and, to fly from a similar fate, they resolved on escaping and making their way to Dutch Guiana. Of this adventure we have two very different versions--one by Ramel, who, on his return to London, published the journal of his escape; and the other by Delarue, who, long after, under the restoration, wrote a “History of the 18th Fructidor,” where this escape is related. Seen from our point of view, Ramel’s journal is, in all probability, nothing more than a romance; while the narrative of Delarue, far simpler, seems to be the expression of truth. We give both, beginning with the first:--

“We were accustomed to walk,” says Ramel, “on the ramparts along the river. We often contemplated, with deep sighs, the western coast, but saw nothing, either on land or water, that could give us the faintest hope of escape. At the foot of the bastion, outside the fort and on the edge of the river, there was a small boat, used for conveying the guard to and fro. This little boat, with its moorings, was consigned to the care of the sentinel placed near the battlements of the fort, in which the guards were stationed. We had often looked with longing eyes at this boat; but it was only by degrees, and when impelled by despair, that we became accustomed to the idea of venturing out to sea in so frail a skiff. None of us knew how to manage a boat; we had no compass, and should have been obliged to trust ourselves to some Indian or sailor.”

The first attempt proved fruitless. Pichegru having tried to win over an Indian, who sold vegetables to the fort, this latter spread abroad suspicions which the general’s half offer had created in his mind. But this check was only a temporary one. A person at that time in the fort, whom Ramel does not otherwise specify, gave them much information as to the road they should take, and as to the proper means of insuring their flight. They procured passports under supposed names, and ripened their plans, without divulging them to those of their companions who were not in the plot, and several of whom inspired them with a not unfounded mistrust.

A pirate captain, named Poisvert, having captured an American ship, commanded by a certain Tilly, the owner of the cargo, brought his capture to Sinnamary, and lodged the crew and their captain in the fort. The American captain soon found out Pichegru, Ramel, and their companions, with whom he was well acquainted, and gave them news of their families and friends. They informed him of their plans, and showed him the boat. After trying to convince them of the impossibility of putting out to sea, and attempting a journey of several days in such a vessel; and seeing, at last, that they were fully determined to perish rather than remain at Sinnamary, the brave Tilly resolved on joining his fate to theirs. “I give up all,” he said, “to save you. I will take my pilot, Barrick, with me, and we will set out together.”

Everything was settled, when they learnt that Tilly was to be immediately transferred to Cayenne. He went away, leaving them Barrick in his place, who soon disappeared, and remained hidden in the wood near by for thirty-six hours, perched on a tree, to escape from the serpents. “It had been agreed that the following day, the 3rd of June, at nine in the evening, he should go down to the edge of the river near the fort, and should jump into the boat on seeing us appear.”

Everything seemed in favour of the fugitives. Captain Poisvert gave a dinner on board the American capture to the commander of the place; and the wine soon began to flow freely both on the ship and in the fort--soldiers, officers, convicts, even, were at the feast. All were soon drunk, except the eight conspirators, who simply feigned intoxication, and quarrelled, to ward off suspicion.

“Night came on. We saw the commander taken home quite insensible, and carried as if he were dead. Silence had succeeded to songs and drunken shouts; soldiers and slaves were lying here and there; the service was forgotten; the guard-house left empty.

“The final hour of our stay at Sinnamary rang at last. At nine o’clock Dessonville, who was watching, warned each of us. We went out and met at the gate of the fort, the bridge of which was not yet taken up. Everything was profoundly quiet. I went with Pichegru and Aubry to the top of the guard-house, and walked straight to the sentinel. He was a wretched drummer, who had worried us to his utmost. I asked him what time it was; he raised his eyes to the stars; I sprang at his throat; Pichegru disarmed him; and we dragged him away, tightening our hold to prevent his crying out. We were on the parapet; the man struggled violently, slipped from us, and fell into the river. We joined our companions at the foot of the rampart, and seeing no one in the guard-house, we ran in and took out arms and cartridges, left the fort, and flew into the boat. Barrick was there, and carried us into the skiff. Barthélemy, an infirm man, and not so active as we were, fell and stuck in the mud. Barrick, with his strong arm, caught him, pulled him out, and placed him in the boat. The cable was cut; Barrick took the helm; motionless and silent we drifted with the current. The tide and the current together impelled our frail vessel. We listened, but could hear nothing but the murmur of the waters, and the land breeze, which soon swelled our little sail. We were then unable to distinguish the tower of Sinnamary. On approaching the watch on the point we took down the sail, so as to make ourselves less visible. We knew that the eight men on guard there had received their full share of the captain’s bounty, and that, consequently, they must be as drunk as their comrades. We were not hailed; the tide carried us across the bar. We left on our right our brave friend Tilly’s ship, and passed close to _The Victoire_, just come from Cayenne, and commanded by Captain Brochet, who was much pleased at our escape, and who certainly would not have opposed it.

“The breeze freshened, the sea was calm; but in going out far we ran the risk of losing ourselves; while, hugging the coast too closely, we were in danger of wrecking the ship on the rocks, which extend as far as Iracouba. The moon shone out suddenly, as if to light up our path. The moment was delicious; we congratulated ourselves; we thanked Providence and our generous pilot, Barrick, who was in a dreadful state from the mosquito bites. We sailed safely on for about two hours, when we heard three cannon-shots--two from the Sinnamary fort, and one from the Point. Soon after the watch at Iracouba repeated the three reports. We could no longer doubt of our escape being discovered. We did not now fear direct pursuit from Sinnamary, where there was not a single boat they could arm; besides, we had a good start. The only thing we dreaded was the detachment from Iracouba, composed, as we knew, of twelve men. They could only have met us in a boat similar to ours, with eight or ten men. We kept sailing on near the coast, all the while preparing our arms, and fully determined on defending ourselves if they attacked, or attempted to bar the passage under the fort of Iracouba.

“At four in the morning two cannon-shots were heard towards the east, and were immediately responded to by a report close to our ears. We were in front of the fort. It was still dark; but at daybreak we found ourselves to windward of Iracouba. We had nothing more to fear from pursuit; the dangers of the sea were all we had to overcome.”

In such a vessel, which was so small, and so light that the waves filled it at every moment, and had to be baled incessantly with a gourd, the fugitives were in imminent danger of perishing. A movement of Ramel’s, who wished to catch his hat, which fell in the water, almost upset the boat; and Pichegru, who had been unanimously chosen captain, severely reprimanded him. Without a compass, and without the necessary instruments to show them the way, without food, and with two bottles of rum as their sole sustenance, if Ramel is to be believed, they suffered acutely from hunger for eight days. But their moral strength kept them up, and they even had the courage to joke about their misery and their hunger, which they bore with great patience.

After being fired at on their passage in front of fort Orange, because they would not hoist their flag, they were thrown by a storm upon the coast. On the following day they were reconnoitred by some Dutch soldiers. There was at first some slight difficulty as to their admission to the Dutch territory; but that being soon settled, they found themselves the objects of the most generous hospitality.--(_Journal of the Adjutant-General Ramel._)

According to Delarue, the convicts enjoyed great liberty at Sinnamary: they could go about, so long as they kept within certain limits; they had guns and ammunition, and could shoot. The post of Sinnamary, guarded by a few soldiers, had no resemblance whatever to a fort; it was only a poor village, inhabited by Indian or Creole fishermen; and the boat they used for their escape belonged to a German, whom they knew to be engaged in smuggling between Surinam and Cayenne. It was thought that such a state of things did not guarantee much for the security of the convicts, and it was decided to transport them to a much less healthy part of Guiana. By the advice of Tilly, who could not accompany them, as he was being transferred to Cayenne, and with the certainty of the help of Barrick, his pilot, they determined to escape. They quietly went one night with their firearms to a wood, where Barrick awaited them, without all the attending circumstances of revelling Ramel speaks of. They had no sentinel to disarm, but only to give help to a negro, who was trying to master a turtle. The boat contained provisions--scanty, it is true, but still more than sufficient to last them till their arrival in the Dutch possessions. So they did not suffer a week from hunger, as Ramel says: they heard no cannon fired, to signal their departure; in short, they escaped without most of those episodes with which Ramel has thought proper to embellish his recital.

_COLONEL DE RICHEMONT._

In the year 1807 the Baron de Richemont, a French colonel, was taken by an English privateer in the ship bringing him from the Mauritius to Europe. The town of Chesterfield was assigned to him for a residence. Richemont had been in England about eighteen months, and every proposal of exchange had been refused, when one morning he saw something in his newspaper which made a deep impression on his mind. “I had just been reading,” he says in his memoirs, “an account of Colonel Crawford who had escaped from Verdun, where he was a prisoner on parole, and who, not being willing to take the command of his regiment, until his conduct had been approved of, had appealed to a jury. The jury had declared, that he being detained prisoner against the law of nations, had acted rightly in breaking through the obligation imposed on him. This narrative interested me very much, and I read it several times over with deep attention. I found all the details of the escape plainly set forth, with an account of the ruse to which he had recourse to ensure without fail the success of his plan. He had petitioned the French Government for permission to drink the waters of Spa, promising to return and deliver himself prisoner again at Verdun, and he had taken advantage of this favour, granted with the confidence always inspired by the word of a gentleman, to return to England.

“The various thoughts that such a recital gave rise to in my mind are more easily felt than described. I also was detained against the law of nations, and my position admitted of a far different statement from that of the English colonel’s, a decree of the high court of admiralty having declared neutral the ship on which I had been arrested. I had officially protested against the injustice of my detention. I was moreover free from any kind of engagement by the declaration of the jury who had pronounced the acquittal of Colonel Crawford. I was not troubled now with the slightest scruple of delicacy.”

Having made up his mind, Richemont joined himself to a Frenchman, a marine officer who had already proposed to him to escape. They first decided on their plan, and then Richemont wrote a letter to the gentlemen of the transport-office, in which he declared his intention of leaving England, at the same time giving his reasons, and reminding his gaolers of the verdict of their own countrymen in the Verdun case. “This letter, posted two hours after my departure from Chesterfield, reached the gentlemen of the transport-office on the day that I arrived in London, and I only left England eight or ten days afterwards. I evidently gave them all the necessary time to make their search; but in all conscience they could not expect me to surrender myself to their generosity.” The two fugitives, calling themselves Spaniards, and having a well-filled purse, reached the capital without any difficulty. They then immediately posted to Folkstone to the house of a certain smuggler, about whom Richemont had very precise information. “I knocked, and went in. The girl who had opened the door showed me into a very clean and comfortably furnished parlour, where I found the man alone, smoking his pipe, with a glass of grog before him. I nodded to him, and asked if I had the honour of speaking to Mr. W. G----.

“‘Yes sir,’ he said; ‘I am the man.’

“Then going straight to the subject, I told him that we were two Frenchmen, who looked to him for the means to return to France.

“‘What do you take me for?’ said he in an angry tone.

“‘Master,’ I answered directly, ‘don’t let us get angry; talk coolly. If you have to complain of me in any way, you will always be free to do as you please, but listen to me first. We are two honourable and discreet gentlemen, who only wish to deal pleasantly with you; but I ought to tell you, that I have taken measures to make you pay dearly, if necessary, for an obstinate refusal, for I have about me all the documents to prove that, at such a time, you came to Chesterfield, took Captain X---- away in your post chaise, kept him hidden so many days in your house, and at last carried him in your vessel to the other side of the channel. I have now to offer you one hundred pounds sterling, and the gratitude and friendship of two men of heart and loyalty besides.’