I LIBRARY
I UNIVERSITY OF
I CALIFORNIA
i SAN DIEGO :
THE ROMANCE OF ESCAPES
MAJOR-GENERAL AVLMER L. HALDANE, C.B., D.S.O.
Frontispiece
THE
ROMANCE OF ESCAPES
STUDIES OF SOME HISTORIC FLIGHTS
WITH A PERSONAL COMMENTARY
BY TIGHE HOPKINS
AUTHOR or " THE DUNGEONS OF OLD PARIS," " THE MAN IV THE IRON
MASK," "THE SILENT GATE: A VOYAGE INTO PRISON," "WARDS
OF THE STATE : AN UNOFFICIAL VIEW OF PRISON AND
THE PRISONER," ETC., ETC.
WITH FRONTISPIECE
You have cause
(So have we all) of joy ; for our escape
Is much beyond our loss.
"Tempest," ii. 1.
It may be w^e shall touch the Happy Isles.
Tennyson.
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
1917
All rights ruerved
TO
MY DAUGHTER
MAY EILEEN
CONTENTS
PAGE
Introduction . . ... 13
PART I
THE SUBJECT VIEWED AT LARGE
CHAPTER
I. On the Art and Mystery of Escape
I. Where Fiction cannot Enter
II. Two Queens
III. The Splendid Role of the Women
IV. The Wonder-Girl of Siberia
V. Great Moments
21
21
25
30
41
46
49
VI. Escapes always Rare, and why nowa-
days Rarer than Ever
VII. Exceptional Conditions in the Eighteenth
Century : the Conditions of Sheppard,
Latude, and Trenck . . . 60
VIII. The Finest Napoleon Story in the
World . . ... 72
9
10 CONTENTS
PART II
NOTABLE ESCAPES SHOWN IN DETAIL
CHAPTER TAGE
II. From the Grip of the Inquisition . 8i
IS Casanova's escape from the piombi
A true history?
III. From Siberia to Paris . . . 143
the great flight of rufin pietrowski
IV. An Irish Middy in the Wars of Napo-
leon . . ... 169
the three flights of donat o'brien
V. Morgan of the Rough-riders . . 205
AN episode of the AMERICAN CIVIL
WAR
VI. Good-bye to Brother Boer ! . . 219
CAPTAIN HALDANE'S THREE HUNDRED
MILES FROM PRETORIA TO LORENZO
MARQUES
VII. From Exile to Empire . . . 257
PRINCE LOUIS NAPOLEON AT THE FOR-
TRESS OF HAM
VIII. Prisoner of War in Two Worlds . 287
THE LOG OF A JACK TAR
IX. From the Vengeance of Robespierre . 303
THE last avatar OF '* FAUBLAS "
CONTENTS II
CHAPTER PAGE
X. The Adventure of the Empress and
THE Dentist . ... 329
the empress Eugenie's elopement from
the tuileries
XI. An Irish 'Forty-eighter . . . 349
the hazards of JOHN MITCHEL BETWEEN
TASMANIA AND SAN FRANCISCO
XII. The First Man who Broke the Bastille 373
singular exploits OF THE ADVENTURER
AND PRISONER STYLED THE ABBE
COUNT DE BUQUOIT
INTRODUCTION
THE great escape expands into a drama. Plot
will not be wanting : choice and combination
of means ; cunning, endurance, boldness, and an atti-
tude for all hazards ; while of action there can seldom
be a stint . Plot and action shoul d be nicely balanced ;
and the end will show the man. Often, indeed, this
kind of adventure is a supreme touchstone of char-
acter. In every case it is the skill and daring of the
prisoner in the cage against the utmost that authority
can do to hold him there.
A game so energetic and exacting is not for the
spiritless or faint, and it need surprise us little that
the famous instances are few. " Have you had many
escapes from here ? " I asked a warder at Wormwood
Scrubbs. He pointed to the window of a cell rather
high up, and said : " Years ago — ten or twelve, I
think — an old lag let himself out there by his bed-
clothes. He's the only one I remember."
The soldier, we may take it, is of quite different stuff
from the habitual frequenter of gaols. His training
for the sharp conclusions of war quickens, as the
drill-book says, his powers of initiative, of self-con-
fidence, of self-restraint. He "must labour in his
vocation " to bear serenely and with a tutored mind
fatigue, privation, and the terrors and perils of the
day. He learns to see in the night-time, to make
nothing of obstacles, to use both brain and weapon
coolly and to the best advantage in a crisis. In war,
13
14 INTRODUCTION
then, we count on something handsome in escapes ;
yet this theatre itself furnishes but a very small num-
ber of historic exploits of the sort. Briefly (and con-
trary, I think, to the general belief), in war as in
peace the notable evasions are extremely rare. " We
that are in the van ward of our youth " may essay
the rampart, the tunnel, or the headlong dash : not
many others.
But for all this, the subject is of a very titillating
variety. No two escapes are ever quite alike. Half a
dozen men in half a dozen places may be burrowing
a path to freedom ; but scene, situation, implements
will in each place modify the effort, endue it with a
character of its own. If prison-breaking is always
a formidable design, it is sometimes more formidable
in the preparation, sometimes in the momentous
instant of doing. Would you delve with Colonel
Rose night by night in the airless and coffin-like
passage under Libby Prison, or stand with Prince
Kropotkin in the yard of the Military Hospital of
St. Petersburg, waiting the signal of the violin to
make a dash under the eyes of the sentry ? These
are both escapes of quality ; but the first is a giant's
task, while the second — everything, of course, being
made ready in advance — is done like lightning. If,
on the surface, most escapes seem a little of a pattern,
they present in reality an infinite diversity of plan
and detail ; and in every tale the reader is paid with
something new.
Sparse in history as the great flights are, from eras
the oldest to the campaign we are engaged in, there
are choice enough and scope enough for an effort at
fresh treatment of a topic which during five-and-
twenty years has been as good as lost to us. There is,
moreover, at this date a Httle to be said on it that has
INTRODUCTION 15
not and that could not have been said before. ** That
old bald cheater, Time," has been among the dust
of these adventurers, flinging up against some of them
an awkward thing or two. To a certain small batch
of escapes a classic rank has been assigned. Of these
the pre-eminent one is probably Latude's. At the
hands of the brilliant Funck-Brentano, Latude
receives at last his destined potion, and passes in
eclipse. To Latude, in classic station, would possibly
succeed Casanova. In charm, picturesqueness, raci-
ness, and sustained force of narrative the pair are
rivals, though the Italian is infinitely the more attrac-
tive. As to the faith to be reposed in Casanova's
absorbing legend, my mind had long been very dark.
In darkness, who but the god of it. Mercury himself,
descended on me. My Mercury is French, and a man
of science — and of all the sciences Mercury was also
god and patron. The seeker's providence led me
to Dr. Guede's enlightening, humorous, and destruc-
tive criticism in the " Mercure de France " — a deadly
court of appeal for defendants with a doubtful
docket. Comparing with my own hesitative notes
the results of Dr. Guede's examination on the very
scene of the amazing voyage, I gradually and easily
decided that he had written Casanova's epitaph. It
was earlier composed by Falstaff : " Lord, Lord,
how this world is given to lying ! "
The most ancient parts of the story of escapes are
at this day scarcely worth a glance. For all the facts
that we can glean from them, these records are as
water spilt on the ground. Was Aristomenes led out
of his ravine by a fox ? Did Hegesistratus cut his
foot off to release it from the fetter ? Did Caius
Marius, at the age of seventy, find the vessel equipped
to receive him ? Belief must here ripen into faith —
i6 INTRODUCTION
though we have it from a wise man of Greece that
knowledge may be lost by incredulity.
The most of my examples have been selected as
showing some special power or felicity in escape
(with or without aid given to the prisoner or the
fugitive) ; but I have gathered also whatever yields
an opening for criticism. The best of the modern
narratives, such as Donat O'Brien's, John Mitchel's,
Prince Kropotkin's, Captain Haldane's, are of a very
patent veracity : it is not so with some of the live-
liest and most engrossing of their predecessors. " Air
my hands clean or air they dirty ? " Mr. Scadder
asks ; and it will not do to set a magnifying-glass to
the pen-hand of certain entertainers in this class.
Time, however, is an efficient juge d' instruction ; and
time backed by the Archives will take considerable
beating. " Remember the Archives ! " should have
been whispered in the ear of every State prisoner of
the eighteenth century who had a mind to pluck
posterity by the nose. In all capitals of Europe at
this day the Archives lie open to the curious, and
these documents have brought to the test several
inflated reputations.
This carries me from Casanova to Buquoit.
Through the Archives of the Bastille Funck-
Brentano tracks Latude. Through his own and
Ravaisson's transcripts of these memorials I have
come to a fairly close reckoning with the " Abb6
Count de Buquoit." Precisely who this ingratiating
trickster was no one will ever now succeed in saying ;
and, in the phrase of the elder Mr. Weller, he has
" what the Italians call reg'larly flummoxed " the
few native students of his ingenious and perplexing
memoirs. I at least trace him (and this has not till
now been done) to the company of Defoe's
" Lords, whose parents were the Lord knows who."
INTRODUCTION 17
From any useful survey of the War I am, of course,
precluded. It is certainly not in the midst of a
struggle unparalleled that we shall look for a detailed
account of escapes on either side. The reason is plain.
To the comrades whom he leaves behind, the man on
the wing from detention camp or fortress is bound
by a soldier's debt of honour. Has someone helped
to free him ? For the friends' sake in durance he
keeps a close mouth on this. Has he invented some
new and happy plan ? He makes a discreet bequest
of it for the profit of the prisoner who may follow
him. Mr. Winston Churchill, baffling his guards
in Pretoria, at an early stage of the Boer War, very
properly persuades his readers to the notion that he
accomplished unassisted a splendid run to the
Portuguese frontier. Captain Haldane, breaking
from the Staats Model School some weeks later, and
taking, in the main, the same line of country (though
without inspiration from Mr, Churchill), gives us
first a taste of his venture in " Blackwood," waits
until the war has fallen, and then discloses to us,
point by point, how it all was done.
When the records of the War are complete it may
be possible to discuss the question, whether or not
the art of escape has declined. It need not be pre-
judged. Of the most heroic of the sallies from
captivity throughout the long crusade against
Napoleon we knew nothing until long after the drums
had ceased on the last march of the last of his im-
mortal legions. So far as the War has gone, the
rubber is ours. There is no note of any successful
flight from England ; and one German officer,
arrested, I think, on the borders of Cumberland, is
reported to have said that " escape from England
was impossible." Lieutenant Otto Koehn, a young
i8 INTRODUCTION
officer of the German mercantile marine, after four-
teen hours in a packing-case, was accidentally un-
packed at Tilbury. On the part of the enemy this
is the most sporting adventure that has been dis-
closed to us. Through Cardinal de Retz and Grotius
it takes us to the buck-basket of the " Merry Wives."
On our side we shall presently no doubt hear more
from Mr. Bernard Watkins, Lieutenant J. L. Hardy
(of the Connaught Rangers, who after a bold and
successful bid for liberty is again a captive), and
Sergeant Sydney Jaggers, whose diary, submitted
to me by him, condenses the experiences of a British
prisoner of war in Germany.
My old friend, Mr. A. Ashe Roberts, will permit
me to thank him for the untiring help he has lent
me in the reading-room of the British Museum.
Casanova and Buquoit will be little grateful to him.
My own gratitude can be but feebly expressed.
Major-General Haldane, commanding the 3rd
Division of the British Expeditionary Force in
France, has been most kindly at the pains of send-
ing me from the trenches a charming postscript to
his great adventure in South Africa.
The Librarian and Staff of the London Library
have spared no efforts for me.
For the copying of extracts my cordial thanks are
due to Mr. G. E. Simmonds.
T. H.
ON THE ART AND MYSTERY OF ESCAPE
" A lucky chance, that oft decides the fate." — Thomson.
" Endurance is the crowning quality." — LoweLlL.
" Ouvrez la marche ! " — Boileau.
ON THE ART AND MYSTERY OF
ESCAPE
I. WHERE FICTION CANNOT ENTER
LET US taste at once the surprises of the theme.
To be present as a spectator at the rehearsal
of one's own death by guillotine ; to watch the drip-
ping blade at work ; to say, " Two more, and it will
be I " ; and then, insensibly and at a breath, to drift
bodily from the scene, to leave it clean behind, to
find oneself tabled at a tavern and cracking a bottle
with a stranger : this is a passage of dreamland — or
the Reign of Terror.
The tumbril was creeping through Paris to San-
son's guillotine ; at a foot's pace, that the people
in the streets might have their afternoon's pleasure
of it. Other tumbrils had doubtless gone before
(Fouquier-Tinville was a very good stage-manager,
and the bill of the day could be relied on), for the
dusk was just beginning. There were fifteen or
twenty prisoners in the cart, their wrists secured at
the back. One of them was a nobleman named
Chateaubrun, on whom, for this instant of time,
history alights. He is not met with before, nor ever
again.
After twelve or fifteen executions some part of the
guillotine gave way, and a workman was sent for
to mend it. Chateaubrun, his hands tied behind
him, was standing close under the machine ; a crowd
of spectators at his rear. The workman came, and
21
22 THE ART AND MYSTERY OF ESCAPE
set about his task ; and now all the onlookers forgot
the prisoners who were to die, and watched the car-
penter patching the guillotine. Chateaubrun, pas-
sive and resigned but very weak and weary, leaned
on the persons nearest to him; the ranks opened
mechanically, and he sank mechanically through
them. Before he was aware of it he stood outside the
throng, and no one had taken the least notice of him.
The workman had finished his work ; Sanson
sheared another head ; and now it was almost dark.
Chateaubrun looked this way and that, and ran
as fast as he could to the Champs Elysees. Here he
met a man returning from the day's labour, to whom
he at once addressed himself. " Citizen," said
Chateaubrun, " pray don't laugh, though the plight
you see me in must look a little droll. Some friends
have played a joke on me. Tying my hands behind
me, they whisked off my hat, telling me to go and
find it. I propose to be even with them. Have you
a knife ? Ah ! Now perhaps you will do me the
favour of cutting this ridiculous cord."
The man seemed highly amused, and immediately
did as he was requested. " Thank you," said
Chateaubrun, " and now in return you must take
a glass with me." They went to one of the little
drinking-shops of the locality and Chateaubrun
called for wine. Sitting a while with his deliverer,
he pretended to be surprised at the non-appearance
of the comrades who had victimised him. Presently
he asked if the man would bear a note for him to
another friend ; "for," said he, "I've had enough of
walking without a hat ; and now I remember, those
other fellows have taken my purse as well." Off
went the innocent and amiable guest, and in half
an hour returned, bringing with him the good genius
THE TANKARD OF KEITH 23
to whom the note had been despatched ; and the
tragi-comedy was ended.
This " histoire merveilleuse," as the French narra-
tor rightly calls it, will be found in the memoirs of
the Comte de Vaublanc, who also, but for his own
adroitness, had been shaved by the national razor. ^
Take next the adventure in a London street of
Robert Hepburn, of Keith, a Jacobite of the 1715.
There were Jacobites who found it easier to elude
their gaolers than to perceive the axis of the earth
in the middle of a city unknown to them. Hepburn,
a man of immense strength, rapped his warder over
the sconce, snatched the bunch of keys, and let him-
self out. He was aware that his wife and some
friends of his faction were come to the capital in the
hope and with the notion of a rescue ; but in London
he was as wretchedly astray as he would have been in
the city of the Caliphs. Should he not ask his way ?
His Scots accent would betray him. At this pass,
straying hither and thither, salvation on a sudden
stared at him from a window. It was a notable
piece of plate, which in that situation made a sin-
gular bid for attention : an ancient treasure of the
family, the Tankard of Keith. Hepburn opened the
door, and his wife her arms.
Were I to choose as a text these two episodes,
essentially different, lying in the by-paths of history,
but surely of a rare quality, it would be an obvious
reflection that they are scarcely at all like the work
of the novelist. Would Dumas have risked a page
on Chateaubrun, or Scott a paragraph on Hepburn ?
Fiction, to be acceptable, must in some way try to
reduce to calculation the amount of credence to be
* " Memoires de M. le Comte deVaublanc, avec avant-propos et
notes par M. Fs. Barriere." Paris, 1857.
24 THE ART AND MYSTERY OF ESCAPE
given to events (the mathematical doctrine of prob-
abiHty) ; and so many of the escapes that make the
liveUest appeal to the fancy lie altogether in the
realm of the incalculable. When the novelist of
genius elects to dispense with calculation, he must
as a rule have recourse to his power of sheer hypno-
tisation. For the whole affair of the Chateau d'lf
in " Monte Cristo," magnificent is the only fitting
word ; but having swallowed it at a gulp, let us
hurry on with the story ; for it would never do to
cross-examine the great showman as to how Dantes
really got into and out of the sack. An inferior (but
by no means untalented) English artist, exploiting
for his novel a very fictitious Portland, depicts a
convict carrying into and secreting in his cell an
iron hook useful for grappling. I wondered, while
reading the book, whether the writer had ever wit-
nessed the search-parade of prisoners on coming off
the quarries, or the periodical turning-over of a cell
by the warders. Among the happiest strokes of
narrative in English fiction is the flight of two
prisoners of war in " Peter Simple " ; but to how
many of Marryat's readers is it known that he was
adapting (and very skilfully) the recent adventures
of Donat O'Brien ?
In a tale the most cunning and captivating, who
of us would heartily credit the toils of Trenck in his
dungeon of Magdeburg, or of Colonel Rose in the
tunnel under Libby Prison ; the escape of nine —
hanging on the very bell-rope — from the Bagne of
Brest ; the art of Arigonde (chained to a fellow-
sufferer in another Bagne) in slipping his ankle from
the ring and marching out of prison in broad
light ; the convenient madness of the governor of
St. Angelo in Benvenuto Cellini's time ; the disguise
ESCAPES ALWAYS FEW 25
of Louis Napoleon as a mason ; of Mary Queen of
Scots as a laundress (forgetting to stain those pearly
hands !) ; of Lavalette in the clothes of his wife ; the
audacity of " Abbe Bucquoy," who literally burns his
way out of For-l'Eveque ; the journey of Grotius
in the trunk in the care of the deftest of waiting-
women (though for this, to be sure, there is warrant in
Falstaff' s buck-basket) ; the pains of Blanche Gamond ;
the luck of Charles II and Charles Edward ; the
endurance of Latude ; the plight of the Empress in
the hands of the gallant dentist ; the force and swift-
ness of Jack Sheppard and Daniel Maiden ; the hoax
of Isaac Arnauld on the guards at Esslingen; the
ease with which Jean Bart evades the look-out on
the English guard-ship ; the saving of the twelve
priests by Geoff roy St. Hilaire on the eve of the
September Massacres; the case of Stanislaus of
Poland in the peasant's hut to which the Cossacks
come for breakfast ; and almost every incident in the
closing scenes of the romanesque achievement of
Beniowski ?
II. TWO QUEENS
Returning for a space to the French Revolution,
I may very briefly note one salient fact : that, while
this period is the epitome, reflection, and expression
of every known and conceivable vicissitude of human
fortune,^ the escapes are very few on the part of
those who were condemned at Fouquier-Tinville's
bar. The situation of Chateaubrun is doubtless
unique, but the chance by which he profited may
have fallen to many others. When the moment
arrives, presence of mind is everything. I recall,
^ If account be taken of the tragedy of the Little Dauphin in the
Temple prison (from which I think he was not released), these vicis-
situdes may be said to begin almost at the cradle.
26 THE ART AND MYSTERY OF ESCAPE
while unable to fix the circumstances, the instance
of another prisoner of the Terror who had received
his way-bill for the guillotine. Somehow he missed
his place in the cart ; visionless, stupefied with fright,
he followed after it, struggled his way blindly through
the crowd, intent on meeting death — and met it.
It is to this period that the two supreme failures
belong. The wretched ending of the famous flight
to Varennes lies solely at the door of Louis XVI.
Consider that he was not even arrested there, that
from the Paris Government no instructions about him
had been received. An ounce of Kingly wit, of Kingly
resolution, and he had brought that luckless carriage
with its luckless freight in safety to the frontier.^
To Marie Antoinette, in the long season of her
trial, resolution was never lacking ; but what could
the poor Queen do in her Temple prison ? Yet
there was one plot which, had a Fersen been at hand
to guide and control it, might not impossibly have
triumphed. Costumes had been smuggled in for the
ladies; the Little Dauphin (or Little King, he was,
at this date) was to be carried out in a basket.
Once beyond the prison, with but a few hours'
start, the fugitives might have reached the coast.
Lepitre^ tells us in his " Souvenirs " :
^ " O Louis ; O hapless Marie Antoinette, fated to pass thy Hfe
with such men ! Phlegmatic Louis, art thou but lay semi-animate
phlegm, then, to the centre of thee ? King, Captain-General,
Sovereign Frank ! if thy heart ever formed, since it began beating
under the name of heart, any resolution at all, be it now then, or
never in this world " (Carlyle, " The French Revolution").
* Jacques Francois Lepitre, one of the Commissioners on duty
at the Temple, was in the confidence of the Queen, and had charge
of the plot. This Lepitre, says Paul Gtiulot (" A Conspiracy under
the Terror "), had been a schoolmaster. " He had neither the phy-
sique nor the mind of a hero, yet he had enough imagination to be
one. He was a strange mixture of bravery, cautiousness, and even
faint-heartedness. ' '
A PLOT FOR THE QUEEN 27
" Our dispositions were such that no one could
have started in pursuit of us sooner than five hours
after our departure. We had calculated everything.
First, the servants did not go up to the tower before
nine o'clock to set the table and serve supper. The
Queen would have asked to have supper only at half-
past nine. They would have had to knock several
times at the door, and, being surprised at getting no
answer, they would question the sentry, who, having
been changed at nine o'clock, could not know what
had happened. Then they would have been obliged
to go down to the council room and inform the two
other members of their surprise. After this they
would have to go up a second time with the officers,
knock again, and call the previous sentries, from
whom they could only gather very scanty informa-
tion. A locksmith would have to be sent for to open
the doors, as one was of strong oak, covered with
large nails, and the second was made of iron. Both
had such strong locks that they would have had to
be smashed, or else a very large hole to be cut in the
main wall. After this the turret apartments would
have to be visited ; and Tison^ and his wife might
be strongly shaken without awakening them. The
servants would have again to go down to the council
room, write out a report, take it to the Communal
Council, which, supposing it was not yet over,
would have lost more time in futile discussion.
Lastly the police, the mayor, etc., would have to be
informed. . . . All these delays would give us time
to proceed on our flight. Our passports would be in
order, as I was then president of the Passport Com-
mittee, and could prepare them myself. We were
^ Tison and his wife, nominally in the service of the Queen, had
been placed by the Commune as informers at the Temple.
28 THE ART AND MYSTERY OF ESCAPE
thus left in no uneasiness concerning our journey so
long as we kept well in advance."
But it was the pusillanimity of Lepitre himself
that brought the plot to nothing. When the deed
was to do, he backed straight out of it ; and how
pathetic is this picture of the poor, proud, humbled
Queen, seeking to hearten the faint-heart by the
offer of a lock of her hair, with a little motto :
'* Small is their love who fear to love." Lepitre
preserved the hair, — and the head on his shoulders.
Not long afterwards, scissors were again at the fair
Greek neck^ of Marie Antoinette, wielded this time
by the executioner's assistant on the threshold of
the Conciergerie, Sanson himself busy in binding her
hands. *' My God ! Oh ! my God ! " the poor woman
cried aloud. ^
More greatly blest in her champion was that
mysterious enchantress, the puzzle of all historians,
she who if good was not conspicuously clever, and
who if bad was among the subtlest of her sex : Mary
Queen of Scots. Good or bad, few were they that
could resist the caresses of her voice, the cajolements
of her glance ; and the wonder is, not that she twice
^ " Her head, erect on her beautiful Greek neck, lent her as she
walked such an imposing, such a majestic air, that one seemed to see
a goddess in the midst of her nymphs" ("Memoirs of Madame
Lebrun ").
^ Lenotre, in his tragical but fascinating history, " The Last
Days of Marie Antoinette," mentions a project for her rescue by
Mme. Guyot. " Mme. Guyot, head nurse of the Hospice de I'Arche-
veche^ had formed a project for rescuing Marie Antoinette. To this
end she had caused a request to be made, on the pretext of illness,
for the removal of Her Majesty to the hospital established in the
Archbishop's Palace, where M. Ray, with the help of M. Giraud, the
surgeon at the Hotel-Dieu, had already broken and wrenched away
the bar of a window opening into ^ a covered way that led to the
Seine, in the direction of the lie Saint-Louis. The barbarous
Fouquier-Tinville, fearing lest his victim should escape him, would
never consent to the transference."
THE "LITTLE DOUGLAS" 29
made opportunity of flight, but that she made it
twice and no more. The story of the young Queen's
first attempt to leave Loch Leven in the attire of the
laundress who fetched her linen to the castle is not
of special importance. To the inveterate student
of these things it is of small moment that a well-
ordered effort at escape is by misadventure in the
end frustrated. Well-ordered it must be, however,
and in this instance a woman comes to grief in the
article in which, two hundred and seventy-eight
years later, a man, Louis Napoleon, was to show
himself an adept — I mean, in the article of toilet.
The second and successful flight is, of course, a
familiar history ; but it claims a tribute in virtue
of the uncommon prowess of its chief abettor, the
" Little Douglas." Here is an obscure, devoted,
and debonair lad of seventeen, ^ in whom resides
the genius itself of prison-breaking. The Queen is
in the straitest confinement in her chamber. She
does not even go down to supper, at which meal, she
excepted, the whole household is assembled. The
keys of the castle lie on the supper-board at the
Governor's right hand. How does the Little Douglas,
at the instant of replenishing the Governor's plate,
abstract them ? He runs with the keys to Mary's
room, releases her, leads her downstairs, " locking
every door behind him on his way," hands her into
the boat at the lake's edge, and in the middle of the
lake flings the keys into the water. Fished out of
it in 1805, or thereabouts, the keys are now at
Kinross, in witness. The " wild ride " to Seton's
house of Longniddry and the rest of the adventure
are in the pure romantic style ; but history appro-
» " William, a foundling lad of seventeen " (Lang, in the second
volume of his " History of Scotland ").
30 THE ART AND MYSTERY OF ESCAPE
priates the boy Douglas as the magician of this
hejira.
III. THE SPLENDID ROLE OF THE WOMEN
We are still in company of the ladies. If through
these adventures their role is more often ancillary
than principal, it is always a lively one ; and not
seldom the god in the bush of an escape that has
perplexed its generation is a goddess. Who but
Dame Hepburn thinks of carrying the Tankard of
Keith from Scotland to London, and setting it as
a beacon in the window of her lodging ? In the
twilight of the seventeenth century a certain
Duguay-Trouin, captain of the frigate La Diligente,
lay prisoner of war at Plymouth. In love with a
pretty young lady of the town was the English
captain of the guard, whose suit the Frenchman
undertook to advance. The lady and the interest-
ing captive had been but a little while on the footing
of friendship when she began to be warm about a
plan for his escape, and took counsel for him with
a Swedish skipper in the harbour. And it came to
pass that one evening, when the captain of the guard
imagined that his cause was pleading, the young
lady was assisting the prisoner over a garden wall,
on his way to the vessel of the Swede. In like
manner does Beniowski, prisoner of the Russians in
Kamtschatka, a gallant and engaging young aristo-
crat, profit by the passion for him of Aphanasia,
youngest daughter of the Governor ; but the tale,
wondrous in all its phases, is too long for us.
Among the Jacobite dames was Lady Nithisdale,
who, to the wit of Mrs. Hepburn, added the courage
of the true conspirator. Her husband. Earl of
Nithisdale, a Catholic lord of high connections and
LADY NITHISDALE 31
boundless wealth, had been cast for death. The
petition of the Countess, on her knees, had been
rejected by George I ; and on the morning of the
24th of February, 1715, Colonel D'Oyly, Deputy of
the Tower, waited on Nithisdale in his chamber, to
conduct him to execution. The room was empty.
A most excellent vanishing trick had been performed
the night before. The Countess, a resolute, blue-
eyed beauty of six-and-twenty, had contrived it all.
Leave had been granted her to bid her husband fare-
well on the eve of his death. Through snow and storm ,
on horseback and by coach, she had sped from the
North to London ; and at her first interview with
Nithisdale in the Tower had privily imparted to him
her design. She would dress him up as a woman,
and he should walk boldly through the guards. To
the Earl, a tall soldier of his inches, and bearded,
this seemed a very ladylike conceit ; but the brave
young wife scoffed at all peril. Of her few friends
in London were Miss Hilton, slender and of good
stature, and Mrs. Mills, of good stature and buxom,
with whom the Countess lodged in Drury Lane.
These heroines stepped fearlessly into the plot.
Razor, rouge, paste and wig Lady Nithisdale
(another who has the genius of escape in her blood !)
had left with her husband. On the afternoon of
February 23rd, Miss Hilton came to Mrs. Mills's,
and the ladies rehearsed their parts. Nithisdale, his
wife had decided, must attempt to leave the Tower
in the character of the tall and buxom Mrs. Mills ;
and among them they " were to try a scheme of
baffling, personation, and disguise."^ What follows
would be, indeed, not so much a Shakespearean
** Comedy of Errors " as a Palais Royal farce, were it
1 Hepworth Dixon. " Her Majesty's Tower."
32 THE ART AND MYSTERY OF ESCAPE
not that, comedy or farce, a man's life hangs upon
its fortunes ; and through the rapid scenes the heart-
beats of the wife resound. Miss Hilton " was to play
the part of Mrs. Catherine, Mrs. Mills to play the
part of Mrs. Betty. They would drive, with Evans
and herself, at dusk of evening, to the Tower. Evans
would wait near D'Oyly's door, but not so near as
to excite attention from the other guard. The other
women should go in and see the Earl. Miss Hilton,
who was slim, should wear two riding hoods, her
own and that of Mrs. Mills. She would go in as
Mrs. Catherine, drop her extra clothes, and leave as
quickly as she could. Mrs. Mills, who was rotund
and full, should then go in as Mrs. Betty, wearing a
riding hood to fit the Earl. Hilton was to step in
light and jaunty ; Mills was to mop in drowned in
tears, and with a kerchief at her face. Hilton was
to slip away unnamed ; but Mills, having shrunk in
size and changed her dress for that in which Hilton
entered, was to leave as Mrs. Catherine. All of it
turns upon the skill of Lady Nithisdale in befooling
the guards and sentries as to the identity of the per-
sons who enter and leave the Tower.
" On coming to the Tower, and entering Colonel
D'Oyly's house, they found some girls and women
in the Council Chamber who had come to see her
pass ; for many of the keepers' wives and daughters
feared, in spite of the report of pardon, that their
charming lady would not see the Earl alive next
night. The presence of these women filled the room
with noise, and helped to turn the sentries from
their careful watch. Lady Nithisdale took in Hilton
first, presenting her as Mrs. Catherine. Miss Hilton
shed the extra clothing to be worn by Mrs. Mills,
and then retired, accompanied to the staircase by
THE MOMENT 33
her ladyship, who said to her aloud at parting,
* Send my maid to me ; I must be dressed at once,
or I shall be too late with my petition.' Mrs. Mills
came up the stairs, a tall stout woman, great with
child, who held her kerchief to her eyes, and seemed
half dead with grief. The Countess called her
Mrs. Betty. In Lord Nithisdale's room she changed
her clothes and stayed some time, and then went
out with a lighter step, and head held up, attended
by the Countess, who was saying to her, ' Go, my
dear Mrs. Catherine, go in all haste, and send my
maid ; she certainly cannot reflect how late it is ;
she forgets that I am to present a petition to-night.
I shall be on thorns till she comes ! ' The women
sobbed with her, and one of the sentries, chatting with
these women, opened the door for Mills to leave."
This was first-rate, but the vital moment is now.
As to what had passed, were the guards in any way
suspicious ? A slender lady, brisk and jaunty, and
a big stout lady, all tears, had come and gone, and
the lady who had entered as Mrs. Betty had de-
parted as Mrs. Catherine. Had anyone smelled a
a rat ? "It was nearly dark, and keepers might
come in with lights. A candle would unveil them ;
they must act at once. The Countess, therefore,
shook down all her petticoats save one, and tied
them round her lord. Too dark to shave, he thrust
his chin into a muffler ; and his cheeks being painted
red, his ringlets twisted round his brow, his petti-
coats and hood put on, she raised the latch and led
him by the hand, as she had done the woman, but
with deeper misery of voice exclaiming, * For the
love of God, my dear Mrs. Betty, run, and bring her
with you. You know my lodgings, and if ever you
made despatch in your life, do it at present. I am
34 THE ART AND MYSTERY OF ESCAPE
almost distracted with this disappointment.' The
sentries let them pass, and one of these sentries ran
and opened the chamber door."
Beyond the farthest door, the maid Evans (a
hardy and devoted Welsh girl, who plays her anxious
part with address) pounced upon the Earl, and led
him off. Lady Nithisdale's own part was not yet
finished. All through the scene she has been
clamouring for Evans ; and now, alone in the empty
chamber of her husband, she bustles up and down
the floor; talking to him, answering for him "in a
manly voice"; until she thinks that. Heaven be-
friending, he must now be clear of the Tower pre-
cincts. Then, lifting the latch and stepping out,
she bids him a loud good night. She must and will
find Evans, she says ; will come again with word
of her petition — if not to-night, to-morrow morning.
" My lord is at his prayers ; do not disturb him ! "
she whispers to the guard, and vanishes. Estimat-
ing the duration of the scene in minutes, and the
exposure of every minute to the danger that might
result in loss, this is perhaps the most poignant
piece of acting in history.
Had the rising of 1715 been managed with genius,
there was a chance for it. For Charles Edward in
the '45 there was scarce a chance at all. A mournful
tale, this of the last throw of Jacobitism, which was
already little more than a thing of the past, " the
last word of feudalism and the Middle Ages." Yet
there are tingling and heroic moments in it ; and
Charles himself, with his delicate ** Sobieski face,"
his unfailing charm, his soldier's pluck and sports-
man's skill, ^ and the high and loyal heart he carries
• Lang, in " Prince Charles Edward," tells how he astonished
the Highlanders by shooting grouse on the wing.
PRINCE CHARMING 35
through adversity, is at this stage of his career the
true and irresistible fairy prince. Admirable also,
after Culloden, when a great price is on his head, is
the fealty of the hundreds of persons who are sharers
of his secret ; many of them poor wanderers and
outcasts like himself ; those seven robbers whose
cavern he inhabits for three weeks ; and lean and
hungry peasants by the score, no one of whom ever
gives a thought to the blood-money. Here again
rides to the rescue another of the women of history.
The name of Flora Macdonald is even now a peculiar
sweet savour ; the Nausicaa — an anonymous eulo-
gist calls her — of Charles's Odyssey. " Here," says
Mr. Lang, " romance reaches a happy moment.
The full moon, and the late lingering daylight,
showed to each other two persons whose names live
together as innocently as immortally : the fair and
beautiful girl, brave, gentle, and kind, and the way-
worn wanderer, the son of a line of kings. About
them were the shadowy hills, below them the vast
Atlantic plain. It was the crisis of Charles's wan-
derings, and he knew not how to escape from the
hunters on the island, and the cordon of vessels in
the creeks and along the shores. Here, in the doubt-
ful lights and in the dim shelling, he met his pre-
server." All know how the pair set forth together,
the noble Flora, and the Prince in the travesty of
Betty Burke the maid. Known also is the con-
clusion of the great adventure, when, after 'scapes,
hardships, and privations unsurpassed in history,
on the 19th day of September, from Loch Naruagh,
Charles, with Lochiel and Lochgarry, set sail for
France. It's
Farewell to Lochaber, farewell to my Jean.
36 THE ART AND MYSTERY OF ESCAPE
But it's also
My heart's in the Hielands, my heart is not here ;
My heart's in the Hielands a-chasing the deer.
If we now give a turn to the kaleidoscope, the
chance-medley which issues so brilliantly at the
Tower in 1715 is reproduced, with modifications,
in 1815 at the Paris Conciergerie. The Comtesse
Lavalette, we may be moderately sure, had never
heard of Lady Nithisdale, but the plot of the French
lady is curiously like that of her Scottish predeces-
sor. Lavalette himself is the historian.^ For his
part in the return from Elba he had been condemned
to death. Louis XVIII turned from the tears of the
wife as George I from the pleadings of Lady Nithis-
dale ; and there was no mercy in the Duchesse
d'Angouleme. " Utterly worn out," says Lavalette,
" she sank down on the stone steps of the palace,
stayed there an hour, hoping against hope for en-
trance. Passers-by looked on her, not daring to
show compassion. At last she left the palace, and
returned heart-broken to me in prison." This was
Tuesday evening, and Lavalette (who had been
arrested on the i8th of June, 1815) had learned that
he should die on Thursday morning. A scene in
the Tower repeats itself. "My wife came to dine
with me at six o'clock, and the moment we were
alone she said, ' There is nothing more to hope for.
We must make our own plan, and this is mine. At
eight o'clock to-morrow night you will go from here
dressed in clothes of mine. My cousin will accom-
pany you to my sedan chair at the door, and in the
chair you will be taken to the Rue des Saints-Peres,
1 " Mdmoires et Souvenirs." The book was published in three
volumes in London, 1831.
LAV ALETTE DONS THE PETTICOATS 37
where you will find M. Baudus waiting with a light
carriage. He will drive at once to a place prepared
for you, where you will remain till you can leave
France in safety.' "
Lavalette at first inclined to the petticoats as
little as Nithisdale had done, but the wife again had
her way. At five next evening she returned to the
prison, her intelligent young daughter with her, and
an old woman servant. She was garbed in merino,
lined with fur, and had brought in a bag a black
silk skirt. Dinner was served, Lavalette's last
should the plot go ill. ** We could not swallow a
morsel ; we did not exchange a word." At three-
quarters after six Mme. de Lavalette struck the bell,
and the valet Bonneville entered the room. The
scheme of evasion was a far simpler one than Lady
Nithisdale's, but identical at the centre, and Mme.
de Lavalette had overlooked nothing. She took
Bonneville aside, whispered a few words to him,
and added aloud, "Be sure to have the porters
ready, for I must leave very soon." Then she
summoned her husband to his toilet behind the
screen. " While dressing me with wonderful quick-
ness and skill, she ceased not to repeat, ' Don't for-
get to stoop as you pass under the doors. Walk
slowly through the outer chamber, as if grief had
overcome you.' In less than three minutes she had
finished dressing me."
Silently the little party advanced to the door;
then, as the bell was sounded for the warder, Mme.
de Lavalette sprang behind the screen. When the
warder opened the door, Lavalette passed out first,
the daughter followed, and the old woman servant
closed the march. On crossing the passage, " I
found myself opposite to five gaolers, sitting, loung-
38 THE ART AND MYSTERY OF ESCAPE
ing, standing, all along the way. I held my hand-
kerchief to my eyes, and waited for my daughter.
The child took me by the right arm, and the con-
cierge, descending the steps from his room on the
left, came towards me, and laid his hand upon my
arm. ' You are leaving early, Madame,' he said. He
seemed distressed, thinking, no doubt, that husband
and wife had spoken their last adieus. They said
afterwards that my daughter and I cried aloud,
though we scarcely dared to breathe a sigh. . . .
There are twelve steps to mount before you reach
the court, but the guard of gendarmes stands at the
foot of them. Some twenty soldiers, their officer
heading them, were there to see Madame de Lava-
lette go by. I got to the last step, and here was the
sedan chair." Yes, but where were the chairmen ?
Ten mortal minutes Lavalette sat in the sedan chair,
his eyes fixed on the gun of the sentry a few paces
off, " as those of a serpent on its prey." Then came
the breathless Bonneville, who had been scouring
the streets for porters. " At last I was lifted.
Across the great court went the chair, and to the
right we turned on issuing. In this direction we
proceeded to the Quai des Orfevres, over against
the tiny Rue du Harlay. There the chair stopped,
the door opened, and my good Baudus, offering his
arm, said, * You know, Madame, you have now
your visit to the President.' As I stepped out, he
motioned me to a gig waiting hard by in the dusky
little street. Into this I leapt, and away went the
horse at a hand-gallop." A glance over his shoulder,
and he saw his daughter Josephine watching from
the quay, " praying to God with all her soul." What
comes after in the flight is not too difficult ; and by
and by, in English uniform, Lavalette is conducted
TWO PEMBROKE LASSES 39
by General Wilson (the very gallant would-be de-
liverer of Marshal Ney) to the kindly soil of Belgium.
Yes, indeed : " Cherchez la femme," or, better,
the sweet line of Burns :
Oh whistle, an' I'll come tae ye, my lad !
is a sound motto on this quest. The prisoner of war,
in whose misfortunes there is often a direct romantic
appeal, is successful in putting what Ireland calls
the comether, the glamour of the eye, on sympathetic
ladies of his neighbourhood. We have seen how
happily it fared with Duguay-Trouin in the hands
of a belle of Plymouth. Dr. T. J. Walker^ cites
from a work which I have failed to discover an
incident as picturesque as any of its kind :
" Five hundred prisoners were confined in a build-
ing on Yoldon Hill, near Pembroke, and, as was the
custom, they were allowed to eke out the very
meagre allowance voted for their subsistence, by the
sale of toys, which they carved out of wood and
bone. Two Pembroke lasses were employed in
bringing the odds and ends requisite for this work,
and in carrying away refuse from the prison. These
girls, not having the law of nations or the high
policy of Europe before their eyes, dared to fall in
love with two of the Frenchmen, and formed a
desperate resolve not only to rescue their lovers, but
the whole of the prisoners in the same ward, one
hundred in number. It was impossible to smuggle
any tools into the prison, but a shin of horse beef
seemed harmless in the eyes of a Pembroke Cerberus.
With the bone extracted from this delicacy the
Frenchmen undermined the walls, the faithful girls
carrying off the soil in their refuse buckets. When
1 " The Depot for Prisoners of War at Norman Cross, Hunting-
donshire, 1796 to 1 816,"
40 THE ART AND MYSTERY OF ESCAPE
the subway was complete, the lasses watched until
some vessel should arrive. At length a sloop came
in loaded with a consignment of culm for Stackpole.
That night the liberated men made their way down
to the water, seized the sloop, and bound the crew
hand and foot, but unfortunately the vessel was
high and dry, and it was found impossible to get
her off. Alongside was a small yacht belonging to
Lord Cawdor which they managed to launch. This
would not take them all ; but the two women and
twenty-five men got on board, taking with them the
compass, water-casks, and provisions from the sloop.
In the morning there was a great hue and cry.
Dr. Mansel, a leading man in Pembroke, posted
handbills over the whole county, offering 500
guineas for the recovery of these two traitorous
women, alive or dead. In a few days the stern of
the yacht and other wreckage being picked up, the
patriotic party were satisfied that the vengeance of
Heaven had overtaken the traitors. They were,
however, mistaken, for the Frenchmen captured a
sloop laden with corn, and abandoning the yacht,
compelled the crew to carry them to France. When
they were safe, it is pleasant to read that the com-
missary and engineer married the girls. During the
short peace, the engineer and his wife returned to
Pembroke and told their story ; they then went to
Merthyr and obtained employment in the mines,
but on the renewal of hostilities went back to France,
where it is to be hoped they lived happily ever
afterwards."
Here perhaps, so wide a field lying forward of us,
I should leave this broken picture of the woman
as the provident and conspiring angel of the man
in his state of outlawry. It is a phase of the subject
THE WOMAN NEVER FAILS 41
harder to quit than it would be easy to pursue ;
for, since Rahab hides the spies on the roof of her
house among the stalks of flax, until a pretty girl
unknown seeks the rescue of an interesting prisoner
of the Boers (the story, innocent and charming, is
unconfirmed), the woman has been incomparably
the best and cleverest and most self-abandoned ally
of the man on the run for life. Is it a woman who
lays Troy in ashes, betrays the Capitol, loses Mark
Antony the world ? It is a thousand women who
laugh at the locks of prison for a husband, a lover,
or a friend.
IV. THE WONDER-GIRL OF SIBERIA
But let us see a woman, a young Russian woman
— she is but thirty or so to-day — figuring as heroine
in two of the boldest escapes from Siberia. Of the
pains of transportation to this region we have few
authentic records (Dostoievsky's tragic novel is in
essence a masterpiece of history), and the complete
narrative of a woman in this situation is a piece of
writing apart from the rest of literature. The simple
pages, with never a touch of rhetoric, in which Marie
Sukloff describes the progress of her party of con-
victs from Odessa prison to the frozen depths of
Asiatic Russia — herded in filthy trains, cold and
hungry in verminous wayside prisons, driven on
foot through the blizzard — carry the reader out of
himself, numbing and enthralling him. The whole
story has the Russian touch. ^
On the final stage of the journey the young con-
vict (she was just sixteen, and had been in charge of
a little revolutionary press at Kishinev) was separ-
^ " The Life Story of a Russian Exile." By Marie Sukloff.
Translated by Gregory Yarros.
42 THE ART AND MYSTERY OF ESCAPE
ated from her companions and carried alone to the
hamlet of Aleksandrovskoye. The peasant women
of the place gathered round her. " Poor girl, poor
girl ! " said they. " Your parents must have shed
bitter tears when you were taken from them in such
tender years." When they found that she could
read, the people brought letters from their soldier-
men in Manchuria, and begged her to write for them.
In this hamlet were no prison walls ; but, says
Marie Sukloff, " the purposeless life in a remote
Siberian village seemed to me worse than a prison."
Soon she began to whisper to herself, " You must
escape, you must escape from here." No woman, I
believe, had ever escaped from Siberia.
She obtained permission to go for a few days to
the town of Kansk. At Kansk she was told, " There
are only six politicals here, and they are all starving."
From Kansk she made her way to Irkutsk, and here
an old revolutionist furnished her with a hundred
roubles and a passport, in which she was described
as a merchant's daughter. With these treasures the
exile returned to Aleksandrovskoye, as she had
promised to do.
In the neighbouring village of Ribinskoye were
the Orloffs, prisoners like herself for life, with whom
she had made most of the journey from Odessa. The
Orloffs also were pining for freedom, but did not
know what to do with their little son. Said Marie :
" Listen. I will take your child with me, and you
will escape later. The police will look for me alone,
and for you with a child, and this change of parts
will save us all."
In a few hours the affair was settled. Marie was
to take the little Orloff to his grandparents at Vilna ;
and the next night she started with him. The hunt,
TERRORIST 43
of course, was soon afoot ; but, with her tiny com-
panion beside her, the fugitive sped onward unsus-
pected. A flight through the forest brought them to
Krasnoyarsk, and from this point it was necessary
to take train to Vilna. The child again proved the
best protection. " The spies who swarmed at every
big station did not pay the least attention to me."
The blessing was in due time deposited with his
grandparents ; and the young Nihilist whose safety
he had ensured, after a hurried visit to father and
mother, resumed her travels, and arrived in Switzer-
land.
At Geneva were living the leaders of the Russian
" fighting league " ; and to them Marie Sukloff, now
a resolved terrorist, betook herself. She left Geneva
with a mission to assassinate General Trepov. This
gentleman was inaccessible (if memory serves me,
he was afterwards shot by Vera Sassulitch) ; and
next on the black list of the league stood General
Kleigels. This second mission also failed. Kleigels,
doubtless warned, always drove abroad with his
wife and son ; and *' it was no part of our policy
to shed the innocent blood of women and children."
Victims, however, were seldom to seek ; and the
league now devoted to death Governor Khvostoff,
a famous satrap of Tchernigoff.
" I treasured," says Marie Sukloff, " the names
of those who had been shot or flogged to death by
him. I read and reread for the thousandth time the
simple narratives of the peasants about his terrible
crimes, and my heart bled for them. Hopefully I
looked in the direction of the shelf on which the
bomb lay."
Bomb in hand, one snowy New Year's afternoon,
she awaited Khvostoff on a bridge — as Sophy
44 THE ART AND MYSTERY OF ESCAPE
Perovskaya had tarried for a quarry more august.
When the governor's carriage drew level with her,
she flung the missile through the window — and was
herself nearly flung into eternity by the explosion.
A youth of eighteen found her lying in the snow in
the dark, with blood frozen on her hands and face,
and attempted a rescue in a sleigh. All night he
drove her aimlessly at full speed, and in the morning
the sleigh was stopped by soldiers and police.
The chief prisoner had no thought of denying her
crime, but neither her captors nor her judges knew
who she was ; and at the close of her trial at mid-
night the award of the court was, " * Unknown ' is
sentenced to death by hanging." She tells us how
she lay six days in her cell " in a state of exaltation,"
and every evening " I again prepared for death, and
waited." On the seventh day the sentence of the
judges was commuted ; and once again (and again
** for life ") Marie Sukloff set forth for Siberia.
One drab twelvemonth succeeds to another ; and
in the summer of 1910 we see Marie Sukloff in a cell
of Irkutsk prison, waiting for a surgical operation
at the hands of a drunken prison doctor. Weak
from this, she arose from her mattress with a new
plan of escape. Bej^ond the gates of this gaol " there
were neither the black forests of Akatui nor the bare
mountains of Maltzev." She had procured a boy's
costume, and secreted it beneath her pillow ; and
in this, her convict's cloak concealing it, Miss Marie
made a dash through the prison gate, braving the
bullets of guards within and without, and jumped
into the carriage held in readiness by friends at a
corner of the street.
All this is but a presage or foreshow of freedom ;
the starting-point in a history of trials, concealments,
"THE NEW ARABIAN NIGHTS" 45
disguises, flights by land and ocean, " hair-breadth
'scapes," — a history unmatched of its kind, and fit
for the pen of a Defoe, for it is pure reahsm through-
out. Readers of De Quincey will recall his inimitable
tale of " The Spanish Military Nun." Kate is a
jewel, but I would pit against her the slender
peasant girl of Russia, who has but just been lifted
from the operating-table. The modernity of the
setting lends to the whole adventure a piquancy. The
very first scene might be a chapter of Stevenson's
" New Arabian Nights." The bullets of the guards
have scarcely ceased pattering around her when the
carriage into which she has flung herself stops " in
front of a sumptuous residence, shaded by a row of
trees." The fugitive makes a dash at the bell. An
old lackey with a lifeless face opens the door. Marie
does not know the lackey and the lackey does not
know Marie. She has apparently been driven to
the wrong house. But she has a quick change of
clothes to effect, and here it must be managed. The
aged flunkey, dumb with fright, leads her upstairs ;
opens wardrobes and closets; and somehow the
fugitive sheds her boy's habiliments and resumes
her own sex. Speechless to the last, the old man
conducts her to a back door, and she slips out into
the hostile streets of Irkutsk.
Then take the scene of the dinner-party in another
house of the same city on the same evening. Marie
has encountered in the street a man with whose
address she had been furnished. He drives her to
the residence of a wealthy lady in secret sympathy
with the " politicals." This lady — a total stranger —
at once consents to receive the refugee as a waiting-
maid. That very night Marie had to carry soup into
the dining-room, filled with guests, "most of whom
46 THE ART AND MYSTERY OF ESCAPE
were high Government officials." Her picture was
in the evening papers ; and the son of the house,
who had brought one home, instantly recognised the
new waitress. Of such tense and throbbing moments
is the history woven.
In the garb of a Sister of Mercy (a revolver hidden
in the folds of her robe), she starts by train for the
Manchurian and Chinese borders ; reaches Man-
churia, and from here, strangest scene of all, travels
onward, dressed as a bride for her honeymoon, in
the society of another brave comrade, who has
voluntarily risked the pose of bridegroom. At
Genoa the prodigious flight was accomplished.
Has any other prisoner of Marie Sukloff's sex
escaped from Siberia ? Has any other prisoner of
either sex escaped twice ? It is a bewildering feat,
the highest and most extravagant recorded.
V. GREAT MOMENTS
In Stevenson's exquisite " Gossip on Romance "*
is this exquisite passage :
** The threads of a story come from time to time
together and make a picture in the web ; the
characters fall from time to time into some attitude
to each other or to nature, which stamps the story
home like an illustration. Crusoe recoiling from the
footprint, Achilles shouting over against the Trojans,
Ulysses bending the great bow, Christian running
with his fingers in his ears, these are each culminat-
ing moments in the legend, and each has been printed
on the mind's eye for ever."
In every fine escape there is some signal and
memorable moment, though it is not always, and
* R. L. Stevenson, " Memories and Portraits."
PERIL AND ALARM 47
need not be, the culminating one of the adventure.
There remained a good deal for Louis Napoleon to
do while he was crossing the courtyard of the prison
of Ham with the plank on his shoulder ; but I think
of him always at this crisis as stooping to pick up
under the eyes of the sentries the broken pieces of
the pipe that he has dropped. In front of Casa-
nova (is the story credible?), when he had
ascended from his cell in the " Piombi," lay a
myriad perplexities ; but for the reader rightly
attuned he is still astride the leaden roof, slippery
with fog, in the darkness of midnight, not knowing
if a step will pitch him headlong. I forget for an
instant the stifling toils of Colonel Rose in the
tunnel like a grave under Libby, when I see him,
surprised one evening and rushing up to his chamber,
seated at his table there and feigning a doze over
his pipe, while the guard goes the round. Amid the
escapes of youth (a scanty show, of course), we
should be on tenterhooks until we know that the
little Count of Flanders, his hawk upon his wrist,
has given the slip to the pursuit, and galloped clean
into France. Donat O'Brien again and again sends
a challenge to his life, but in my dreams he is poised
eternally on the ramparts of Bitche, holding between
his hands a rope that a monkey might hesitate to
climb. Amid the many alarms overtaking Trenck
in his subterranean workings, I watch him one night
stealing back through the sand of the gallery on the
sudden approach of the warders with their lanterns.
There are two high moments in the escape of Grotius
packed into the trunk. The first is when the maid-
servant in charge of the trunk, which is on its way
by canal to Gorcum, wrangles over it at the landing-
place, and insists on its being placed in a hand-
48 THE ART AND MYSTERY OF ESCAPE
barrow. The second is when Grotius, wheeled in his
trunk to the house of David Dazelaer, leaves it by
a back door in the dress of a mason. That is an un-
common fix of Count Arrivabene and his friends,
when, flying from the Austrian police in 1862, after
three days and three nights in a labyrinth of valleys,
they take shelter half dead at an inn, and see hang-
ing up by the kitchen fire the wet clothes of the
gendarmes who have been following them. At one
of the conjunctures of Charles Edward's flight we
have no thought but as to the figure he will cut and the
fate he will meet in the petticoats of Betty the maid.
Can we realise Bucquoy's situation, standing
before the door through which he has burned a hole
for escape in For-l'Eveque ? There is one realistic
touch in the position of the Empress Eugenie, thrust
into a hackney cab in the centre of a Paris that was
or was not on the point of revolt. Every step of the
two flights of Marie Sukloff is a doubt on which the
reader hangs a hope ; and, to pick yet another
modern instance, there is Mr. Winston Churchill, an
escaping prisoner in the Boer war, at large on the
veldt one midnight, clutching at and swinging him-
self into a passing train, that goes he knows not
whither. In all the great escapes, it is a handful
of strong life that we are contemplating ; and in
these adventures there is a medicine for character
that very few of the estates of man or woman are
capable of yielding.
Still, there are prisoners whom posterity congratu-
lates in that they have lacked ambition to climb the
wall. Bunyan, flung into Bedford Gaol, and held
there (with intervals of doubtful and precarious
liberty) for twelve years, is better engaged on his
" Pilgrim's Progress " than in sharpening file or
VICISSITUDES OF IMPRISONMENT 49
crowbar. Cervantes, ignominiously confined in the
" House of Medrano " in Argamasilla, is better en-
gaged in projecting his " Don Quixote " (it is now
pretty certain that he wrote no part of it there) than
in burrowing his way through the cellar. Raleigh
in the Tower is largely concerned to get on with his
" History of the World." Boetius, Theodoric's
prisoner at Ticinum (Pavia), would perhaps not
have troubled himself to quit his dungeon had the
door been opened for him. He had his " De Con-
solatione Philosophiae " to pen ; and, like some of
Louis XIV's literary prisoners in the Bastille and
Vincennes, found the cell a rather stimulating work-
shop. It was in the Dungeon of Vincennes that
Mirabeau wrote his flaming " Lettres de Cachet,"
which did its part in urging France to the Revolu-
tion. Of Grotius, whom Lord Acton honours as the
founder of the study of real political science, it has
been stated that he wrote in prison his pregnant
commentaries on the Scriptures. He had not the
time, I think, to do this ; but his days and nights in
Louvenstein were wholly studious, and it is quite
unlikely that he would ever have confided himself
to a trunk had his wife not suggested and coaxed
him to the plan.
VI. ESCAPES ALWAYS RARE, AND WHY NOW-
ADAYS RARER THAN EVER?
But when a few select and exceptional cases are
disposed of, cases in which we should not instinc-
tively hunt for romances of escape, we have the
slightly surprising spectacle of some thousands of
prisoners of every kind — at any given period and
in almost any given country — who, if they do not
50 THE ART AND MYSTERY OF ESCAPE
exactly contain their souls in patience, submit at
least to a fate that is always tedious and that is or
often has been hideous. Imprisonment has been of
all sorts. The pestilential Newgate of the eighteenth
century (testimonies of the driest — reports of Com-
missions, and so forth — clinch every detail of the
picture in Fielding's " Amelia ") was a rollicking
hotel for the trull, the highwayman, the murderer,
the half-pay captain, and the debtor, till the day
came when the Governor had milked them dry.
There were supper-parties, ladies enlivening them,
in the Dungeon of Vincennes. From the Bastille
itself issues the history of one of the rare authentic
amours of prison, that of Marguerite Delaunay and
the gentleman (afterwards so faithless) who lodged in
the opposite chamber. In the prison of the Inquisi-
tion in Venice, as late as the eighteenth century, it
was possible to lie for 3/ears in the " Pozzi," or
" Wells," with feet in the water or on a ledge just
above it, and the rats disputing the rations. The
prisoner of war, in our hulks and at Norman Cross,
and in France at Verdun and at Bitche, has had
every variety of entertainment ; from comfort in
apartments for the officer on parole to semi-starva-
tion of the common soldier and sailor.
But let the manner of imprisonment be what it
may : in a dark subterranean cavern with vermin
for company ; in a fortress cell, chained to floor or
wall ; in a black hole whence the victim was removed
to madhouse or tomb ; in the galleys under the
lash of the overseer ; in the chain-gangs of New
South Wales, under the knotted whip of the convict
scourger ; in Port Macquarie, Van Diemen's Land,
where, says Marcus Clarke,^ life was one continual
* " stories of Australia in the Early Days."
TRANSFORMATION 51
agony, and where a prisoner would sometimes con-
sent to be murdered by his fellow, so that the first
might win freedom by knife or bludgeon, and the
second by the hangman's cord ; in a loft of old
Dartmoor in the early nineteenth century, where
prisoners of war lived stark naked and fed on offal ;
in a " Little Ease " chamber of the ancient Paris
Chatelet, where one might neither stand erect nor
lie at full length ; laced in a canvas jacket until the
internal organs are crushed out of place ;^ in the
Bastille, where prisoners of means could live not
uncomfortably ;^ in Vincennes, where in the eigh-
teenth century existence could be very tolerable ;
in any of the prisons visited by John Howard (of
which the most were shocking) ; in unreformed New-
gate, where, according to his purse, the prisoner
might reel to bed or go there empty ; or in any
modern penal institution of our own, where penance,
ceasing to be savage, has turned to drabness and
dreariness and all unprofitableness — it matters not,
I say, what modes of imprisonment we have, or
have had : escape is of the very rarest.
So far, however, as our own prisons of to-day are
concerned, the situation of the prisoner in them has
undergone a great and complete transformation.
Some years ago, on a fiery afternoon of July, I was
going over Portland Prison with the Governor. We
were looking down into the hospital yard, in which,
under a warder's eye, the convict orderly was taking
his constitutional. Round and round the yard he
tramped, as briskly as a tourist with his knapsack,
^ Donald Lowrie, " My Life in Prison " (an American record.
Lx)wrie's statements are confirmed by another American work,
" Crime and Criminals, by the Prison Reform League.")
* Even Latude, as he tells us, was allowed seven bottles of wine
a week.
52 THE ART AND MYSTERY OF ESCAPE
and threw up at the Governor a soft and smiHng
eye. The man wore on his sleeve the crimson " L "
which means penal servitude for life. The Governor
did not quite remember how long this prisoner had
been with him ; eight or nine years perhaps, out of
the fourteen or fifteen he had already served. There
were in Portland that day some twelve hundred
convicts, and in the quarries and workshops I had
noted others with the " L " upon the right sleeve.
There are seldom fewer than three thousand men
in the several convict gaols, and in and out of the
local prisons is an annual flow of about two hundred
thousand.
Our newer prisons are somewhat slightly built.
A Portland or Dartmoor of this day, a Wormwood
Scrubbs, a Brixton, or a Wandsworth, stands no
comparison in the article of strength with a New-
gate, a Bastille, a Magdeburg, or a Bitche. But
escapes from these places are uncommon, exceed-
ingly uncommon. Why should it be harder to get
out of Portland or Wormwood Scrubbs than it was
to get out of any old German or Austrian prison,
or any prison of the French monarchy ? Our own
criminals of these days have well-nigh eschewed
prison-breaking. They spend their evenings on
petitions to a Home Secretary for the liberty they
will not often seek by any other means.
The common character of men is not heroic ; and
the prisoner whose heels begin to itch must ask him-
self what he can do, what endure, and just how
much he is prepared to risk for liberty. There is
scarcely such a thing as a downright simple escape.
I will not say there is no such thing, so great is or
has been the variety in the accidents of imprison-
ment ; but the felicitous escape that has a look of im-
"ARCHIE" OF THE "S.A." 53
promptu is never a blind dash for liberty. When Marie
Sukloff ducks beneath the prison gate in Siberia she
is wearing boy's clothes under her cloak and knows
that a carriage is waiting for her. When Prince
Kropotkin flings off his dressing-gown in the hospital
yard he is doing what he has practised over and over
again in his cell, and he does it because the violinist
hidden in the grey house opposite is scraping his
bow like a demon as the signal for the start, and a
thoroughbred horse is harnessed to a drosky, and
friends are at their posts the whole length of the
street beyond. When the quick-witted Cochot, a
prisoner of the Bagne, stole off one morning and
heard the alarm-guns firing around him, he laughed
at them. Cochot knew his game. He had remem-
bered that on the King's birthday salutes were fired
in the harbour ; for that day he had tarried ; and
as the guns of the Bagne and the guns for His Majesty
played one and the same tune, Cochot, unnoticed,
went quietly trotting through the fields. But con-
sider now an attempt that really is impromptu or
nothing. That amusing old burglar, " Archie "
(afterwards for many years in the prison service of
the Salvation Army), whose adventures Mr. Charles
Morley has so delightfully recounted, finding a war-
der's set of oilskins in a shed, promptly put them on,
and was taking his way out of prison. The warder
who arrested him tickled " Archie's " fancy with
the remark that oilskins and a sou'-wester were
not quite the ideal wear for a roasting day at Port-
land.
The prisoner of the itching heel does well if he
begins by persuading himself that there are no easy
escapes ; and unless the plan of the sudden rush has
something behind as well as something ahead, it is
54 THE ART AND MYSTERY OF ESCAPE
probably a foolish one. An illustration of the some-
thing behind is Louis Napoleon's choice of a day
when the Governor of Ham, being a little indisposed,
will be an hour or two late on his morning's round.
The something ahead in this case is the practical
certainty that the Prince's valet, Thelin, will be on
the high road with the cab hired in the town by him
the night before. The escape so simple seeming
that we begin by suspecting the help or connivance
of a gaoler has its origin in a flash of inspiration,
takes days or weeks to prepare, and is consummated
in one happy instant because thought has been taken
for every conceivable mischance.
But the heel continues to itch. Liberty I must
have. What is my plan ? Is it feasible ? If I must
throw it aside, can I invent another ? The sudden
escapes are somewhat rare : what toil, what danger,
am I willing to court ? In the most artistic of the
narratives of prisoners who have hewed their way
through stone and soil we may fancy a touch of
exaggeration here, a bit of embroidery there, a lie
or two for the hero's enhancement and the reader's
entertainment. The brilliant Casanova, plunging
into his " Memoirs," sticks at nothing that shall
amaze or amuse his audience. Baron Trenck, who
seems always within three fingers of madness, and
also, like Miss Squeers, to be " screaming out loud
all the time I am writing this," has been tripped up
by Carlyle, and escapes criticism at his most sen-
sational points merely because nothing has been
pigeon-holed against him — as almost everything
has been pigeon-holed against Latude. But the
prisoner with the itching heel must take note of
Casanova hanging between sky and earth, and of
Trenck, naked and chained to the wall, urging, a
NERVE AND MUSCLE 55
few inches at a stretch, a passage through the cell
intended for his tomb.
A task like Trenck's, common in the legends of
its class, brings up the questions, what tools the
prisoner can find or beg or hire, what art he can
iemploy in using and secreting them, and how far
his strength and temperament will carry him in
immense labour under conditions always unusual,
always exacting, and for the most part unwhole-
some. A push, a thrust, a tap may betray him ; he
is working with his nerves as much as with his
muscles. To the bare instruments of the prison-
breaker a whole chapter could go. The adept
burglar of these days, with his keys, his needles, his
blow-pipe, and the rest of his paraphernalia, asks
nothing but secrecy and time. The prisoner, his
ear straining for the gaoler's footfall, is doing his
business with half the blade of a penknife, an old
file, a broken bayonet, a gimlet, a saw made out of
a kitchen carver, a fragment of sword, a few twisted
wires, a crowbar wrenched from a window and
pointed by rubbing on the floor or wall ; and when
his toil of the day or night is ended he has to conceal
his instrument or instruments by any means short
of swallowing them. In no situation of civil life can
we match the crisis of Colonel Rose during his last
quarter of an hour in the tunnel under Libby Prison ;
of Latude and his companion in the moat of the
Bastille ; of Benvenuto Cellini at work on the iron
plates of his door ; of Captain Haldane and his two
companions for weeks under the flooring of the
Model School in Pretoria, — and each of these adven-
tures carries us back to a story of the successful use
of implements fitter for a cave man than for a
prison-breaker.
56 THE ART AND MYSTERY OF ESCAPE
It is from Pretoria that Mr. Winston Churchill,
preceding Captain Haldane by some weeks, makes
his handsome elopement as a prisoner of war. In
his own narrative there is an affecting passage on
the prisoner's fret and ache for liberty ; and he goes
on to tell us, I think, how he devised and entered
on his own scheme of escape. In this yearning the
schemes of the great flights are born, but it is not
one prisoner in thousands who has grit enough to
bring them to the test. The odd man in the crowd
of undistinguished prisoners, lying now in Newgate,
now in the Bastille, now in Magdeburg, now in
Siberia, now in a keep of the Vosges, and now in a
Staats School of Dutch Africa, bethinks him day
and night of liberty, and is willing at any price to
taste of that again before he tastes of death. It is
then that we get a picture of the epic effort and the
epic flight, a gem of adventure equal to all but the
best in the supreme trial of war itself. Indeed, it is
the spirit bred in experience of war that gives quality
to so many of these performances. Our own soldier
is trained, not only to rely on himself at a pinch, but
to bear fatigue, privation, and danger with a lively
heart and a permanent notion that scrapes of life
and death are things he is sure to get out of. The
soldier or sailor, prisoner of war, putting in his blow
for the liberty that the lazy one sits down to wait for,
risks neck or limb over a rampart, lies like a wild
animal in a cave by day and steals out at night,
flounders in the dark through all weathers and over
every kind of country, chances a knock at the door
of a cottage for a draught of water, some broken
meats, or a little glow of lire in his bosom — and in a
glorious hour gets at last across the frontier.
When Sir Chtirles Monro was setting out in
THE SUPREME FLIGHTS 57
October last to direct our somewhat tangled affairs
in the Near East, a writer in the Press remarked of him :
"He knows his mind right through ; he has always
thought out every possibility beforehand ; he is
never hurried, never flustered, never taken by sur-
prise. He is prepared for as many sorts of failure
as there are chances of success, and he has the pre-
cise professional knowledge to estimate the breaking
strain on the weak links of his material. "^
These are among the virtues of the great prison-
breakers, and it should surprise us little that of such
adventurers the number is always few.
Amid the population of prisons, where the general
human stuff is inevitably poor, we shall very rarely
meet them ; but there are reasons definite and
special why escapes from these places are nowadays
uncommon.
If, then, evasions on the great scale have come to
be of quite exceptional occurrence, curiosities of
history almost, I must first repeat that they have
not at any time been frequent, and must next
remark, with all the emphasis possible, that in our
modern prisons — weaker in most respects than the
ancient ones — discipline and a perfected scheme of
surveillance have dispensed with the characteristic
defences of the past. The great romantic flights lie
more or less beyond the limits of the attainable.
System, with lesser bolts and thinner walls, and lower
ramparts does what the want of system, with triple
doors and cells three or five feet thick, and outer
walls and towers fifty to a hundred feet in height,
was often quite powerless to effect. The old prisons
were built like fortresses, but strength of masonry
is no longer the prime consideration.
* " Observer," October 24, 1915.
58 THE ART AND MYSTERY OF ESCAPE
" Let us take the matter a little in detail. ^ You
can no longer rely upon the unwitting aid of a lunatic
governor such as Benvenuto Cellini had to deal with
in the Castle of St. Angelo, in Rome. You cannot,
apparently, buy the direct assistance of a warder in
so big an affair as an attempted flight, for it is
evident that the warders have very little part in
these enterprises. You cannot spend days, weeks,
or months, like a Trenck or a Latude, in digging or
burrowing out of your cell, for you are never left
alone. You cannot, like a Casanova, convey to a
confederate a handy iron tool in a dish of macaroni,
because nothing bigger than a 6in. loaf is served for
dinner. You cannot, like Louis Napoleon, walk out
of prison disguised as a carpenter, because no hired
carpenters are allowed within the walls. You cannot
change dress with a visitor, because the friend who
is allowed to visit you stands in one cage and you in
another cage, and the warder sits in the space
between. You cannot very well contrive out of
paper a costume in imitation of a visiting inspector's
— a trick known to the old hands of the bagnes — for
your Bible and hymn-book and library book would
scarcely furnish the material. You cannot — another
device of the bagnes — build a hut or hole in the
yards or outlying works, in which to lie perdu till
the safe moment ; for not a spot of the ground is
left unexamined by the warders."
Indeed, I may reduce to an almost negative
quantity the chances of the prison-breaker of these
days. The iron method of the modern convict
prison, exact and precise in every detail, limits and
constrains him at every turn. The principle of the
* I am here borrowing a paragraph of my own from a chapter
I contributed to " L9n4on Stories " (Wilfred Whitten, Ed.).
THE "COMPLEAT BURGLAR" 59
prison rule of our day (and the small number of
escapes shows how well it works) is, that the warder
in charge of a batch of prisoners knows where each
member of the party is, and what he is doing, at
every hour of the day and night. Nothing is left to
chance. If the prisoner is allowed to quit his section
or party for a minute, a warder must accompany him.
Thus, as the order is established to-day — and this
military system, quite useless as a means of reform,
has been years in the making — the convict's best
chance of escape is the almost hopeless one of sudden
flight. In the bagnes, where the art of prison-break-
ing touched perfection, the unpremeditated burst
from the docks, the timber-yard, or the guard-room,
had no place in the unwritten rules of " evasions."
It was the desperate device of the tyro, it was
despised, and it almost always failed. To-day it
fails as surely, but the convict has httle other hope.^
If he does get out, it is all but sure as fate that he
will presently be recaptured (hence it is quite un-
necessary to shoot him), for the convict in his first
hour of liberty always falls to blundering. He is
thief, burglar, or forger — a criminal, that is to say,
whose trade is in towns. Freed, by some happy
stroke, in the wilds of Dartmoor, he is hopelessly
astray. He sneaks into the nearest house, to steal
a coat to cover his prison clothes, and then makes
straight for the nearest town. If he reaches it, he
^ Within half a century, how many escapes have there been
from Portland ? About five-and-forty years ago a convict from
this prison, flying down the long slope to the Chesil Beach, was shot
through the back by a sentinel of the military guard. At Dartmoor,
men working beyond the walls sometimes get away for a while
under cover of a sudden fog. In 1892 one William Bremner, black-
smith and carpenter by trade, made a remarkable escape from
Dundee prison. Such achievements are rare enough to be very long
remembered.
6o THE ART AND MYSTERY OF ESCAPE
makes straight for the docks or the thieves' quarter,
where the poHce are on the watch for him. These
town-bred criminals are not up to their caUing !
The " Compleat Burglar," were such a work on sale,
would instruct the prison-breaker in all that he at
present lacks. To escape is difficult ; to avoid being
retaken is twice as difficult. But, in such a tract as
Dartmoor, if one knew only the simplest arts of the
poacher, how easy it should be to maintain life in
comfort, without forcing a house to steal a coat, on
one's progress to the nearest town, where the police,
duly warned, are in waiting ! The town-bred bur-
glar, falling back on his manual, would take up the
life of the countryman. He would snare rabbits,
kill sheep, and tickle in the streams for trout. He
would know how to live in security and at ease
within gunshot of the prison. But, since he does
not know this, and runs inevitably into the hands of
the police, what end is served by shooting him on
sight ?
VII. EXCEPTIONAL CONDITIONS IN THE EIGH-
TEENTH CENTURY: THE CONDITIONS OF
SHEPPARD, LATUDE, AND TRENCK
Prisoners were not more prone to escape in the
past than they are in our own day. All older gener-
ations of prison-breakers had, however, one great
relative advantage : the watch was on the whole
indifferently kept. In the cases even of important
prisoners of State, concerning whom the instructions
to gaolers and sentries were precise and stringent,
we have curious revelations of laxity and venality ;
and on every hand we note the absence of that
methodised and unremitted vigilance which salts
JACK SHEPPARD 6i
the tail of the gaol-bird. It is, therefore, to these
less sophisticated days of the past, before the adminis-
tration of prison has been erected into an art, that
we must turn for examples of escape in the great
manner. With one such example the Newgate
Calendar is enriched.
A most unattractive youth. Jack Sheppard, but
an eminent demolisher of prison, and his fame has
been bruited up through continents. In the cell of
the condemned in Newgate, at the age of twenty-
two, a slender pale little fellow of about Napoleon's
inches, he sat for his picture to the great Sir James
Thornhill. Two hundred thousand people followed
him to Tyburn on the i6th of November, 1724, and
in some spot beneath the National Gallery his dust
mingles with that of the philanthropic Heriot. The
Press competed with the chapmen to exploit him,
and the pulpit outdid itself, parsons entreating
" their flocks to emulate him, in a spiritual sense,
by mounting the chimney of hope to the leads of
divine meditation." The stage was quick to per-
ceive in him a subject not caviare to the general.
" The * Harlequin Sheppard,' by John Thurmond,
was produced at Drury Lane in December, 1724 ;
and the ' Prison-Breaker,' written for Lincoln's Inn
Fields in 1725, was altered for Bartholomew Fair as
the * Quakers' Opera ' in 1728." Later he was
canonised in burlesque ; Mrs. Keeley personating him
for one generation. Miss Nellie Farren for another.
Fiction could scarcely overlook him ; and Ains-
worth's " Jack Sheppard," illustrated by Cruik-
shank at his best, is a careful and competent speci-
men of the picaresque. Quite as diligent have the
biographers been. To Defoe is attributed the " Nar-
rative of all the Robberies, Escapes, etc., of John
62 THE ART AND MYSTERY OF ESCAPE
Sheppard . . . written by himself during his con-
finement in the Middle Stone Room, 1724." This,
in 1725, was adapted in Amsterdam. Forty years
later a German account appeared at Leipsic ; and
from Sydney, New South Wales, in 1845, yet
another history was issued. My list is in no sense
exhaustive.
Lithe, sinewy, and of an extraordinarily active
habit, Sheppard owned an hereditary and acquired
skill in implements. His father (an upright Spital-
fields man), grandfather, and great-grandfather had
been carpenters ; and to the family trade he himself
was at one time apprenticed in Wych Street. In the
crimes of Sheppard there is "no d d nonsense "
of artistry. He was a highwayman, if the reader
pleases ; but among all the swaggerers and brag-
garts of the road, from Dick Turpin (who did not
ride to York) to WilHam Nevison, alias " Swift
Nick " (who most probably did), a genuine artist
in the mask is a phoenix for rarity ; and on the whole,
perhaps, the unqualified success of that " Beggars'
Opera " which " made Gay rich and Rich^ gay " is
rather to be wondered at. Sheppard, if highway-
man, was also sneak, thief, and footpad ; abstract-
ing here a watch, there a silver spoon, and anon a
roll of cloth. As became a sprig of " the Lane," he
had a pair of doxies, '' Edgeworth Bess " (Elizabeth
Lion, or Lyon) and " Poll Maggott," of whose talents
he availed himself in cracking both crib and prison.
His pal was Joseph Blake ('* Blueskin ") ; and
towards the close of his brief, volcanic day, when,
as he is reported to have said, " I took to robbing
almost everyone that stood in my way," he had the
mishap either to frighten or fall foul of Jonathan Wild.
* The producer of the piece at Covent Garden, January 29, 1728.
CARNIVAL OF CRIME 63
Certain dates and events in this career are con-
jectural, and sundry texts at variance. In " May,
1723," says one writer, "at the close of 1723," says
another, he was had on a warrant to St. Clement's
Round-house, whether as a runaway 'prentice, or on
a charge of picking pockets. In the spring of the
following year, 1724, he is lodged in St. Giles's
Round-house, from which it is said " he skilfully
made his escape." The truer story is, I think, that
at the St. Giles's lock-up he was visited by Bess,
who was detained on suspicion, and the pair were
committed to Newgate; for here, at the "Stone
Jug," in the month of May, sharing a chamber as
man and wife,^ they certainly were ; and this is the
theatre of his first signal flight.
Friends from " the Lane " looked in on Jack and
the lady — and left a useful present of a file. On the
morning of Whit Monday, May 25th, 1724, " having
filed off his fetters, he made a breach in the wall,
and took an iron bar and a large wooden one out
of the window ; then, having twenty-five feet to
descend, he tied some blankets and sheets together,
and fixing them to a remaining bar in the window,
Bess ventured, and he followed." In the prison
yard they had a wall of twenty-two feet to sur-
mount, but the bolts of the main gate gave them
footing, and over they went. It was a very credit-
able first disappearance.
In July, after a carnival of thefts, robberies,
and burglaries, embracing almost every day of
the early summer, he is seized on what may
be suspected as an information of Jonathan
Wild's, and we find him in Newgate under sen-
^ An amusing, risky scene in Fielding's " Amelia " shows how
easily this could be compassed.
64 THE ART AND MYSTERY OF ESCAPE
tence of death. He has his files, of course (no
authority teUs us how he got them, but there was
neither mystery nor difficulty about this in the
Newgate under notice) ; and the provident eye of
the thief has measured his surroundings. Bess and
Poll Maggott were quickly on the scene. Sheppard
contrived, or was allowed, to receive them within
the lodge of the prison, hard by the gate itself. In
a corner of the lodge turnkeys were at cards and
drink. Behind the petticoats of the girls (their own
necks in peril while they shielded him) he sliced off
a spike of the gate ;^ they tugged him through it ;
and again he dives into the warrens of Drury Lane.
This was on the 5th of September in Sheppard's
annus mirahilis, a year of wonders indeed with him,
during which he is alternately holding up the town
and reducing its greatest prison to pasteboard.
After a spell in Northamptonshire he returned to
London, and fell a prisoner to the turnkey Austin,
to whom he had but just given the slip. " In spite of
the heavy shackles with which he was now laden,
he managed to secrete a small file [found in his Bible]
and a complete set of tools [found in the rushes of
his chair]. He was consequently removed to a
stronger part of the prison, known as the * Castle,'
and chained with two ponderous iron staples to the
floor."
Sheppard in Wormwood Scrubbs or Wandsworth
at this day would not have been stapled to the floor,
but he would have been under watch every hour of
the twenty-four. In Newgate he seems to have been
* Of this episode there are two or three versions. One is to the
effect that Sheppard had previously filed the spike in preparedness
for the visit of Bess and the Maggot. The details of the escapes are
neither always clear nor always credible. The proof, however, lies
in the accomplishment.
DARKNESS 65
visited only once a day, and time was all he needed.
" On Thursday, 15th October, about two in the
afternoon, one of the keepers took him his dinner,
and, as usual, examined his irons, found all fast, and
so left him. He had hardly been gone an hour when
Jack set to work. The first thing he did was to
slip his hands out of the handcuffs, and then, with
a crooked nail which he found on the floor he opened
the great padlock that fastened his chain to the
staple. Next he twisted asunder a small link of the
chain between his legs, and, drawing up his feet-
locks as high as he could, he made them fast with
his garters,"
Ascending the chimney, he was brought to a stand-
still by a great iron bar. Down he went again, and,
from the outside, contrived to loosen and wrench
out the bar, which was now a very serviceable im-
plement. Getting into the " Red Room " overhead,
he tore off the plate from the bolt of the door, forced
the bolt with his hands, groped his way to a door in
the passage beyond, reached the lock of this door
by picking a hole in the wall, and thus — working
now with a silent frenzy in the dark — attained to
the chapel. From this spot he felt a path into an
entry betwixt the chapel and the lower leads. The
door of the entry was secured by one of the stoutest
locks he had yet encountered, and he had no longer
a glimmer to work by. " However, in half an hour,
by the help of the great nail, the chapel spike, and
the iron bar, he forced off the box of the lock and
opened the door, which led him to another yet more
difficult, for it was not only locked but barred and
bolted. When he had tried in vain to make this
lock and box give way, he wrenched the fillet from
the main post of the door, and the box and staples
66 THE ART AND MYSTERY OF ESCAPE
came off with it. . . . There was yet another door
between him and the lower leads ; but, being bolted
withinside, he opened it easily, and mounting to
the top of it, he got over the wall and so to the upper
leads."
There remained only the descent. This, however,
was formidable. " There was a house adjoining,
that of Mr. Bird, a turner, on to which he might
drop; but he deemed the leap too dangerous, and
coolly resolved to retrace his steps to the prison
chamber, from whence he had so laboriously issued,
and secure his blanket. Having accomplished this
risky service, he returned to the leads, made fast his
blanket, slid down it, entered the turner's house by
a garret window, and eventually, after some delay
and no little danger of detection, got away down
into the street."^
This is Sheppard's masterpiece. It merits its
celebrity. At twenty-two he had twice escaped
from Newgate, and his second flight lifts him high
among the prison-breakers. Sensational in every
detail, it stands examination by all contemporary
records ; and this is in itself unusual, for the prison-
breaker is veniably prone to brag. If his second and
most illustrious effort is in no sense a typical one,
the reason is that we can scarcely match it. Alone,
unaided, and in a space of hours — half of them dark —
the tiny wastrel of the slums equals a fable of Hercules.
From any prison, I think. Jack Sheppard might
have broken ; and it takes not a great deal from his
prowess that he is very indifferently guarded. But
the point is important in the history of escapes.
* " Newgate Calendar " ; " Tyburn Calendar " ; Griffiths :
" Chronicles of Newgate " ; Gordon : " The Old Bailey and New-
gate." " Die. Nat. Biog.," vol. 52.
LATUDE 67
The prisoner of these days is watched as a mouse by
a cat ; but in all older days — it matters not the least
at what period we begin — the prisoner who was
resolute on flight could profit by a feeble, uncertain,
and undeveloped system of supervision. This is, in
its degree at least, an explanation of the classical
escapes (the force of character, foresight, ingenuity,
patience, and power of endurance of the prisoner
being reckoned with) ; and it brings us to an episode,
rather widely famed, in the chronicles of the Bastille.
What seemly and sedate old gentleman is this,
taking the air of the Paris boulevards, stretching
his legs at Madame Legros's drawing-room fire in a
company of elegant and sympathetic ladies ? It is
Henri Masers de Latude, who is no more Henri
Masers de Latude than he is Prester John or the
Cham of Tartary: the most exquisite and artistic
rogue and charlatan in modern history, and half-
hero of an escape from the Bastille that is celebrated
above almost every other adventure of its kind.
To the pages of M. Funck-Brentano's " Legendes
et Archives de la Bastille "^ must the reader go who
would view this career aright. " Few historical
figures," he observes, "have taken a higher place in
the popular imagination than Masers de Latude. ^
' There is an excellent authorised translation, " Legends of the
Bastille," from the pen of Mr. George Maidment. Funck-Brentano
succeeded Fran9ois Ravaisson as keeper of the Archives of the
Bastille in the Arsenal Library, Paris.
* Born March 23, 1725, at Montagnac in Languedoc. His mother
was "a poor girl named Jeanneton Aubrespy." The child was
baptised " under the name of Jean Henri, given him by his god-
parents, Jean Bonheur and Jeanne Boudet. Surname the poor little
creature had none, for he was the illegitimate child of a father un-
known." Becoming an assistant surgeon in the army, " the young
man ingeniously transformed his double forename into Jean Danry."
It was during one of his sojourns in prison that he suddenly made
himself a nobleman, taking the style and title of Masers de Latude.
68 THE ART AND MYSTERY OF ESCAPE
That celebrated prisoner seems to have accumulated
in his life of suffering all the wrongs that spring
from an arbitrary government. The novelists and
playwrights of the nineteenth century have made
him a hero ; the poets have draped his woes in fine
mourning robes, our greatest historians have burned
for him the midnight oil ; numerous editions of his
* Memoirs ' have appeared in quick succession down
to our own days. Even by his contemporaries he
was regarded as a martyr, and posterity has not
plucked the shining crown of martyrdom from his
head, hoary with the snows of long captivity. His
legend is the creature of his own unaided brain."
Some books, says the Scottish laureate, " are lies frae
end to end." Of the thrice-celebrated "Memoirs"
of Latude, M. Funck-Brentano observes : " The
work is a tissue of calumnies and lies." In the
Archives of the Bastille are preserved the documents
relating to his case. " At the present time they are
to be found dispersed among various libraries, at
the Arsenal, at Carnavalet, at St. Petersburg." By
his dossier Latude is brought to book.
In this place, however, our sole concern is the
escape.^ Allowance being made for the slackness
of the watch, it is an affair of the most brilliant ;
but not in future will Latude himself shine in it as
the mighty figure the " Memoirs " have created for
us. To his fellow-prisoner, Allegre, Latude assigns
a secondary part in their doing. In the light of the
Archives, Allegre stands out as the master spirit of
the enterprise. A man of lively and cultivated mind,
he had kept school at Marseilles ; and, as prisoners,
fallen through a kind of greedy folly, the pair are
^ Readers of the " Memoirs " will understand that the reference
is to the chief escape.
THE GREAT ROPE LADDER 69
brought together by similarity of misfortune. An
insensate hope of exploiting the interest of Mme. de
Pompadour lures Allegre as it lures Latude, and each
sharper is taken in his own trap. Each blunders
into prison as the merest fool of fate.
But of their getting out of prison not quite enough
has been made by M. Funck-Brentano. By chimney
and chamber, up to and down from the roof of
Newgate, we have followed Jack Sheppard through
such a night of autumn as is perhaps not elsewhere
matched in history or report. In an afternoon and
evening this flight was begun and ended ; but
Latude and Allegre were some eighteen months at
their preparations, and yet their work was not done.
An extended history of the flight would take note
of much. What is the wardrobe-keeper of the Bas-
tille doing that she forgets to number the napkins,
sheets, and clothes that are sent into the chamber
of Latude and Allegre — out of which, in the main,
the great rope ladder, a work of amazing skill, is
constructed ? Who are the sentries on the terrace
who allow the masons and gardeners to leave their
tools lying about there of an evening ? Among the
moments of the escape itself two may be selected.
The first, when one or other of the prisoners is
swaying with a sense of sickness in a high wind on
the rope ladder strung to the wall of the Bastille.
The second, when both prisoners are to their arm-
pits in the water of the moat, with the soldiers of
the round some twelve feet above them, setting out
on a nine hours' task to pick the stones from a wall
four feet and a half in thickness. The scroll of years
is rolled up, and we find Allegre a madman in
Bicetre, and Latude a plump and hale old gentleman
of eighty taking the salutes of admirers on his
70 THE ART AND MYSTERY OF ESCAPE
morning's outing in the sun. In the summer of 1804
he addressed to the sovereigns of Europe and the
President of the United States a circular in which
he requested benefits for a plan to revolutionise the
army. He was always revolutionising something,
and always requesting benefits : his projects would
have founded a new Laputa. On January ist, 1805,
he died of pneumonia in Paris ; the best schemer
and the best and most plausible beggar of his
generation : a man whose life seems to have been
one of the longest of lies, and whose unveracious
memory centres in a fine escape from the Bastille,
wherein he bore but his part.
" The keys of all the doors," says Baron Trenck
in the citadel of Magdeburg, " were kept by the
governor ; the inner door was not opened, but my
bread and water were delivered through an aperture.
The prison was opened only once a week, on a Wed-
nesday, when the governor and town major paid
their visit, after my den had been cleaned." On
another occasion he remarks : " The window was
never strictly examined." Yet again, " Had they
altered the hour of their coming they must have
found me at work ; but this, during ten years,
never happened, for the governor and town major
were stupid creatures." Trenck, like Sheppard and
Latude, found his profit in a system that ignored
the systematic ; but we may by no means under-
rate his labours, his continuance in bearing and
suffering, his philosophic heroism in defeat, his un-
flinching returns to the assault on his dungeon, and
the courage that never ebbs. As revealed in his
phantasmagoric " Memoirs," the young man is a
character none too lovable, and we may fancy in
PADLOCKED AND NAKED 71
him more than a Httle of Munchausen ; but an
" extensively fabulous blockhead," as Carlyle dubs
him, he is not.
From Magdeburg, the place of his long captivity,
he never succeeded in escaping ; but it is, none the
less, at this citadel that he fascinates us ; and if the
half of his toils is a true history, we have scarcely
the fellow of it. From his first prison, Glatz, he
vanished three times ; and the descent of ninety
feet in one instance (with thongs sliced from a
leather portmanteau, and added to the bed sheets),
and the swimming of the Neiss in the second instance
— a wounded companion clinging to his neck — ^are
earliest among the feats that commend him to us.
At Glatz he tries to bring about a rebellion in the
prison itself (tries the same thing again at Magde-
burg), an incident of which I recall but one modern
parallel, a little-known episode of the Franco-
German War.
The tale of Trenck in Magdeburg would pass
belief, were we not assured on the one hand,
by constant proof, of his extraordinary physical
strength and quickness of recovery from fatigue ; and
on the other hand of the comparative ease with which
a prisoner supplied with money in such a garrison —
full of disaffected officers and subordinates — could
buy assistance in the matters of tools, letter-carrying,
hoodwinking of governors, and so forth. But no aid
that Trenck gets by bribery or cajolery spoils for a
moment the reader's interest in his own extravagant
pains ; fettered, padlocked, naked, bleeding, chok-
ing, and once for a space of hours buried alive under
the stones of his own excavating. Six months at
one time he is at it, eight months at another ; and
this, if we may believe him, goes on for years. In
72 THE ART AND MYSTERY OF ESCAPE
Magdeburg (after four battles for freedom at Glatz)
there are seven separate plans of escape, and one of
the least of them discloses the prisoner at work on
the fourth of four wooden doors, which in succession
he cuts through with a knife in four-and-twenty
hours. We draw breath — and leave him at it. Is
this whole history a fable ? There is not the slightest
reason for believing so. We have no other example
of efforts renewed and sustained as Trenck's were,
year after year, during ten years at least ; but from
first to last he had youth on his side, a constitution
of the finest, and in all situations a swaggering
resolve to get the better of his gaolers. Everything
that Trenck did had been done before, but no one
else was ever able to keep on doing it as long as he
did. Readers of his " Memoirs " will scarcely cavil
at the suggestion that, as the prisoner of Magdeburg,
he conquers fate in being conquered by it.
VIII. THE FINEST NAPOLEON STORY
IN THE WORLD
The return of Napoleon from Elba — for a trium-
phant return it was, much more than a flight — offers
very little of romantic interest. The painting of the
Emperor's brig, L' Inconstant, " like an English
vessel," is almost the only thing that suggests
escape. We have the little incident of Mariotti's
spy, the oil-seller ; but the oil-seller as a spy is a
feeble and foolish character. We have the shrewd
and persistent suspicions of Campbell^ ; but Camp-
bell is too late at the fair.
The preparations of Napoleon are patent. They
bear no resemblance to plot or conspiracy. Of plot
* Colonel Neil Campbell, English Commissioner at Elba.
"FRANCE! FRANCE!" 73
or conspiracy, indeed, it may be definitely said that
there was none. Napoleon, rightly gauging the
situation in France, had chosen the apt moment for
his descent.
The brig is docked, recoppered, careened, made
fit for sea, and victualled for one hundred and twenty
men. Vincent the groom dismounts and packs the
two berlines brought from France. Cartridges and
other munitions of war are placed on board. All
this goes on in the third week of February, 1814.
On the 25th of the month Napoleon held a recep-
tion of the notables of the island, whom he informed
that he was leaving them. Someone murmured a
word about Italy. Napoleon broke in with " France I
France!" and all doubts on the subject were
quashed. On the evening of this day, Saturday,
Madame Mere found her son pacing the garden with
rapid strides in the moonlight. He told her of
his project. At the Sunday morning's audience he
instructed everyone that he should leave Elba
that night. At 8 p.m. he was on board L'lncon-
stant. This was the hour precisely at which Camp-
bell and Captain Adye set foot on the British ship
of war, Partridge, in Leghorn roads.
The rest of the story is familiar. Napoleon ought
to have been caught, but was not. The light airs
favoured him, and the Inconstant and flotilla of
six smaller craft were wafted northwards. Two
French frigates were easily eluded. One of them,
the Zephyr, hailed the brig " and inquired how the
great man was. * Marvellously well,' came the reply,
suggested by Napoleon himself." Napoleon had the
oars out, but Adye in the Partridge lay at anchor
until four on Monday morning.
" If the wind had blown from the north or north-
74 THE ART AND MYSTERY OF ESCAPE
east with some strength, as it often does at that time
of the year, Napoleon would have been held fast at
Portoferraio, or at least would have been unable
to get out of the range of danger, while the Partridge
would have reached Elban waters in a very short
time. An encounter would have occurred, and the
Inconstant, in her crowded condition and with her
scratch crew, would have been no match for the
British ship. Napoleon would have been killed or
taken prisoner."
Campbell would certainly have been for no half-
measures ; and, had Adye shown some smartness with
his ship, Waterloo had probably been postponed.
" Napoleon might, no doubt, have escaped in a
balloon ; he might have floated away in a barrel ;
and he might have contrived to be thrown into the
sea in a sack, pretending that he was a corpse. The
famous Monte-Cristo story should be taken as a
Napoleonic allegory, evolved in the mind of Dumas
by his visit to Elba, and his fervent admiration for
the great Emperor. * I am a dead man,' Napoleon
kept saying until all believed it ; and it was as a
corpse thrown into the sea, and emerging alive, that
he succeeded in reaching the land, to startle the
world. "1
There is little in this adventure to strike the
beholder with wonder. It was skilfully conducted
throughout, but what ought chiefly to impress us is,
as Dr. Rose observes, " the imbecility of the old
Governments and of their servants." A Napoleonic
achievement more wonderful by far is the march
from the coast to the capital ; no battle fought, no
' De Coubertin, " France Since 1814 " ; Norwood Young,
" Napoleon in Exile : Elba (181 4-1 81 5) " ; J. Holland Rose, " Life
of Napoleon I," vol. ii. ; " Cambridge Modern History," vol. ix.,
" Napoleon."
THE INCOMPARABLE "DOUBLE" 75
drop of blood shed, not a musket snapped at the
invader : " one of the miracles of history."
What if there be in the career of Napoleon a
miracle surpassing this ? Suppose that he did not
die at St. Helena. Suppose that he never went there !
Remote posterity will believe with difficulty many
things recorded of him ; and perhaps in five hundred
years or so the exquisite jeu d' esprit of Archbishop
Whately, which proves to a nicety that Napoleon
never existed, ^ may come to be regarded as some-
thing other than one of the best and gravest of
literary jests. If posterity, or some part of posterity,
be agreed that Napoleon I never lived, it will be
comparatively easy for this part of posterity to
believe that he was never banished to St. Helena.
It is, however, necessary for the purpose of the
story to accept the premise of his existence. Pos-
terity will have ample time to decide the point.
The supreme crisis of his life being come, the fallen
Emperor, taking counsel with the few faithful who
remain to him, resolves that he will not go into
banishment. Why should he ? The Rock in the
Atlantic seems to offer little as a residence ; and
there he will be, no longer sovereign of a Lilliputian
Elba, but plain General Bonaparte, and a prisoner
to boot. True, he was not yet assured of his fate ;
but it must have been with some misgiving that he
weighed the policy of Lord Liverpool's Cabinet ;
and behind Lord Liverpool were Austria, Russia,
and Prussia. It would be better not to walk into the
parlour.
Now Napoleon had such a sosie, or " double," as
never was before. This man, a simple soldier, was
well known to the police of the Empire, and the
* " Historic Doubts Relative to Napoleon Bonaparte."
76 THE ART AND MYSTERY OF ESCAPE
Emperor had often made use of him. As is
known, Napoleon, being allowed to take three officers
with him, had chosen General Bertrand, General de
Montholon, and General Gourgaud, while the State
Councillor, Comte de Las Cases, was to go as Secre-
tary. With a devotion touching the sublime these
gentlemen lent themselves to the great deception;
and on July 15th, 1815, meekly and respectfully
followed the dummy Napoleon on board the Bellero-
phon. The incomparable double must have taken
pains to grow fat with his master, for, if the outline
sketch by Colonel Planat is correct, it is a very
pursy ex-Emperor who makes himself agreeable to
Captain Maitland on the quarter-deck, is next
received by Admiral Sir George Cockburn on the
Northumberland, sojourns a while at Jamestown,
plays with little Betsy Balcombe, and finally settles
at Longwood and enters on the immortal quarrel
with Sir Hudson Lowe. All these people are com-
pletely taken in. No one unmasks or is even puzzled
by the inscrutable double of Napoleon, the simple
soldier of the second class : suspicion sleeps at
wisdom's gate.
And Napoleon himself ? What is Napoleon doing
while the prince of doubles takes snuff with Captain
Maitland and teases the fairy child of merchant
Balcombe at the merchant's villa of the Briars ?
Napoleon goes quietly to Florence. The greatest
escape in history is executed with not a single hitch.
Into the gates of the beautiful city where Dante
was born " under the sign of the twins," the Man of
Destiny enters with thanksgiving.
Alas ! but he has his living to earn. To State and
Empire indeed he is dead. He has almost in effect
passed into that future life wherein the satirist
DISAPPEARS FROM FLORENCE 77
Rabelais gives to warriors and " those that had been
great lords and ladies here " the rewards due to
them. Alexander the Great is a darner of stockings.
Hector has become a scullion. Xerxes sells mustard.
Hannibal mends kettles. Cyrus has turned cow-
herd. Cleopatra hawks onions. Pope Julius cries
puddings up and down the thoroughfares of Hades.
Had Rabelais written in the twentieth century, what
trade had he assigned to Napoleon in the Shades ?
Napoleon in Florence buys the small business of
an optician, and plants his expanding waistcoat
behind the counter.
He gains the esteem of his neighbours, with whom
he chats familiarly in his shop and on his doorstep,
pinching the ear of a crony perhaps, as he would do
at the Tuileries. So extraordinary is the likeness
they remark in him to the hero whom the horrid
English have carried to St. Helena, that they nick-
name the optician " Napoleon." Clap him in the
grey coat, they say, give him the little three-cornered
hat, mount him on the charger in whose saddle he
bumped like a jack tar, and you would not know the
plump diminutive shopman from the terrible Em-
peror with the graven features and the snowy
hand.
One day he disappeared from Florence. In the
keeping of an intimate friend he left a letter addressed
to the King of France ; and the representative of
Louis XVIII distributed a sum of one hundred
thousand francs to purchase the silence of persons
who were, or were thought to be, in the secret
of " Napoleone " the affable optician.
At or about the same moment of time, a certain
man unknown, some fifty years of age, attempting
to climb into the park of Schoenbrunn, the prison-
7^ THE ART AND MYSTERY OF ESCAPE
home of Napoleon's son and heir, was shot dead by
a sentry.
And now we come to the kernel. The parish
register [les registres d'etat civil) of the village in
Lorraine where the inimitable and incredible sosie
was born, gives his obituary in three words : ** Mort
d Sainte-Helene"— ''Died at St. Helena." The
date is that of the death of Napoleon.*
* What manner of joke, the reader asks, is this ? It is, as I
gather, the serious contribution to Napoleonic annals of a French
pamphleteer of whose very name I am unaware. In the middle of
an article in the Paris Figaro (Nov. 25th, 191 2), discussing a
crazy Belgian theory of Shakespeare, I came upon a reference to
" une 6tude abondamment documentee, d'oi il r^sultait que
Napoleon I^' n'etait pas mort k Sainte-H616ne," etc. ; and this, in
a free rendering, I have a little expanded. The critic of Figaro
does not name the pamphleteer nor give the title of his pamphlet.
At the time I read it, the subject had no especial interest for me,
and the War has dispersed my literary helpers in Paris. Neither
the London Library nor the British Museum itself was able to put
me on any trace of the optician of Florence who addressed to
Louis XVIII what must have been the most surprising letter hia
corpulent Majesty ever received. I have therefore taken the liberty
of presenting the story as I found it. It seemed a pity to leave in
the pages of Figaro the escape of Napoleon from St. Helena. I
wrote an anonymous note on it in a weekly paper. This excepted,
the story is new in English.
Fabulous throughout, it is logical enough to confound a Paris
juge d' instruction, and if the documents are acceptable it must rank
among the curiosities of coincidence. How, one wonders, does the
author square his facts with those in which historians have acqui-
esced ? The daily life of the exiles at Longwood is known to us
in every detail. It was a life made wretched for everybody by the
deliberate policy which was presently to take shape in the great
Napoleonic Legend that ultimately conducts Napoleon III to the
throne of Napoleon I. Is it a common soldier of the ex-Emperor's
army who inspires and sustains this policy ? The essential literature
of the Rock is comprised in the " Memorials." Is it a man from the
ranks who dictates the " Memorials " ? Has Las Cases the patience
to write for four or five years with his tongue perpetually in his
cheek ? The literature of Napoleon surpasses that of the Man in
the Iron Mask (which runs to some thousands of volumes), and we
ought at the very least to have twenty biographies of the sentry
who shot him on the wall of Schoenbrunn.
II
FROM THE GRIP OF THE INQUISITION
IS CASANOVA'S ESCAPE FROM THE PIOMBI
A TRUE HISTORY?
" A Rake's Progress." — Hogabth.
" The hand of the Holy Office was outstretched against all."
Encyc. Brit.
" Plain language from truthful James." — Bret Harte.
FROM THE GRIP OF THE
INQUISITION
I
FORTUNE, unforeseen and unanticipated, has
shed a posthumous blessing on Giovanni
Jacopo Casanova de Seingalt. Lucky James ! No
critic could pretend to take for granted a reader's
knowledge of Casanova's " Memoirs " (the great
bulk of which remains to this day in the French), but
certain readers there must be, even in our own self-
conscious era, who would confess to a superficial
knowledge of those amazing five thousand pages.
Dismissed during many years to the topmost shelf,
as a work in which a great deal of the patently im-
proper was mixed with a great deal of the probably
mendacious, it awaited there the attentions of a
prurient or indifferent curiosity.
Less on a sudden than by stages, a curiosity of
another kind, a critical curiosity, began to be fas-
tened on the " Memoirs," and on their brilliant,
brazen and triumphant rogue of an author. Casa-
nova's book might be sadly wicked as a whole ; but
he had painted in it a very lifelike picture of manners
and customs and morals in the Europe of the eigh-
teenth century. He pretended to have rubbed
shoulders with kings and their mistresses, with
princes and nobles, with Voltaire and other high
literary gentlemen ; and to have travelled (some-
times even with ambassadorial credentials) from one
end of the Continent to the other. As to a cardinal
F 8l
82 FROM THE GRIP OF THE INQUISITION
episode of the " Memoirs," there seemed to be very
little question. Casanova had broken prison from
the " Piombi," or " Leads," of Venice.
This adventure has been classed among the
greatest and most romantic of its kind, and it started
Casanova on his career through Europe as the man
most a la mode of his day.
Suppose, then, that the " Memoirs " in the main
could be proved worthy of credence ? Suppose it
could be demonstrated that Casanova had been
received at this Court and the other, had penetrated
into exclusive literary circles, had hobnobbed with
and contradicted Voltaire, had really achieved
celebrity in all those celebrated capitals ? These
various facts established, the lively and shameless
" Memoirs " (for in modern literature there is no
other work, professedly and seriously autobio-
rraphical, in which the author has more compla-
cently written himself a blackguard) must at once
be classed, from the historian's standpoint, among
the vital and golden documents of their generation.
In a word, these facts attested, the book so
gratuitously and clamantly indecent, must begin
to live again in what Coleridge calls the faith of
reason.
It was to this end that scholars up and down
Europe, in all the places where the splendid and
soulless roue — with his volcanic passions and his
stony heart — claims to have done his amorous
prowlings and his casual businesses in literature
and politics, set themselves at last upon his
traces. The game proved worth the candle. Dur-
ing twenty years or more, substantial spoil in the
form of proofs has been gathered in the chase. In
respect of his most important claims on our belief
THE SEARCH FOR PROOFS 83
the credit of the great braggart has been restored
to him. Through the variegated tissue of erotic
intrigue and cosmopohtan adventure runs the clear
thread of an actual and demonstrable destiny.
Three countries have specially distinguished them-
selves by their emulation in research : Italy, for
Casanova is Venetian ; Germany, for on German
soil it was that he left his MSS. ; and France, for it
was in French that the " Memoirs " were composed.
But Casanovists have been delving also in the ar-
chives of Copenhagen, Madrid, Prague, and Constan-
tinople. Whithersoever he said that he had wan-
dered the snare has been set for him, and to the
gain of his own recital he has usually been taken
in it.
The large results of many separate and indepen-
dent perquisitions are dealt with by M. Edouard
Maynial in a critical volume of the liveliest charm
and interest.^ He has made his own investigations
too, and is no way dependent on the acquisitions of
other and friendly rivals in the field. Within the
compass of one small treatise M. Maynial has, of
course, attempted no reconstruction of that pro-
digious life of the senses in which Casanova seems to
incarnate the pagan and sensual elements of the
entire eighteenth century. But, having shown the
documentary worth of the " Memoirs," he proceeds
to exhibit Casanova in his manifold relations with
his age ; and we have vivid glimpses of the strange
and inexhaustible creature as diplomatist, man of
letters, sorcerer, thief, rip, gambler, and universal
charmer. It is an intensely live sketch of a type of
fortune-seeker, not less destructive than seductive,
for which the eighteenth century was peculiarly
^ " Casanova et son Temps," par Edouard Maynial.
84 FROM THE GRIP OF THE INQUISITION
responsible, if indeed it did not in a manner create
that type.
It is for me here to ask, in my readers' interest,
what credit shall be given to Casanova's history of
his escape from the prison of the Inquisition. Is it,
in the main, fact or '' f eerie " ? It has generally been
received as a classic of its kind. Is this its proper
station ?
II
Casanova tells us that in July, 1755, the Tribunal
of the Inquisition at Venice issued orders to " Messer
Grande " (the title borne by the Chief Archer of the
Republic) to capture him alive or dead. The elderly
patrician Bragadino, Senator amplissime, by whom
he was treated as a son, counselled him to fly.
Casanova made light of the matter.
On the 26th of the month the ** terrible Messer
Grande " seized him in his room. As to the cause
of the arrest Casanova is not too precise. He leads
us to suppose that a spy of the Inquisition had
denounced him for sorcery. He ridicules the charge,
but his apartment was full of treatises of magic, and
in this art he was all his life a dabbler.
Messer Grande carried him by gondola to the
prison of the Piombi (the Leads : the roof of the
building was mainly of lead), near the Bridge of
Sighs. He was placed first in a small, half-dark cell,
five feet and a half high, forming three-quarters of
a square, some two fathoms each way. Correspond-
ing to the missing quarter was a recess or alcove,
which would have held a bed ; " but bed there was
none, nor seat, nor table, nor furniture of any kind
save a pail, and a shelf a foot wide." There he flung
THE PRISON OF THE INQUISITION 85
the fine silk cloak and coat he had donned for the
journey, and placing his elbows on the grating of the
cell, saw the light falling into an attic next door,
where huge rats were playing.
Prison was an ugly remove for Casanova. He
was thirty years of age, an athletic and vigorous
young man, who had tasted life at many sources.
He had been priest, soldier, lawyer. He had travelled
through Italy, Grsecia Magna and Minor, Asia Minor,
Constantinople, " and the finest cities of France and
Germany." He had played high, turned night into
day, steeped himself in amorous adventure, and was
ready, he says, " to violate every law which might
baulk me of satisfaction, compensation, or revenge
for everything which I could interpret as an insult
or an injury." And here he sits in the prison of the
Inquisition.
Coming out of the frenzy which takes hold on so
many prisoners in the first hours of confinement, he
flung himself upon the bare boards and fell asleep.
Furniture was brought to him the next morning,
and he learned that his gaoler, one Laurent or
Lorenzo, would visit him only once a day, at sunrise.
It is pretty clear that Casanova's offence, if he
had committed any, was scarcely of a grievous kind ;
and though he had not been informed of the prob-
able duration of his imprisonment, he had made up
his mind that it would end with the term of office
of the Inquisitors, on the last day of September.
But September passed, and October ; and he was
neither brought to trial nor released. The colossus
of the Inquisition had set its foot upon him, and he
resolved to get from under it and liberate himself
by force.
" To enable the reader," he says, " to understand
86 FROM THE GRIP OF THE INQUISITION
my flight from such a place as these Piombi, I must
make him acquainted with the locahty. These
attics under the leads, in which State prisoners are
incarcerated, are nothing else than the lofts at the
top of the Ducal Palace, and derive their name from
the sheets of lead which form the roof. The only
entrance is either through the Palace doors, or
through the State prisons, or again by the Bridge of
Sighs already mentioned. The way up leads through
the room where the Inquisitors of State sit, and the
Secretary alone keeps the key, which he hands over
to the gaoler only for the short time — very early in
the morning — during which he waits on the prisoners.
This duty is performed at daybreak, because the
archers coming and going later in the day would be
seen by the persons who should happen to have
business with the Council of Ten ; since this as-
sembly meets daily in an adjoining room called
La Bussola, and the archers necessarily pass through
it every time they have been up to the attics.
" These prisons are divided on the opposite sides
of the Palace, three to the west — mine was one of
these — and three to the east. The gutter of the
roof on the western side runs down into the court-
yard ; the other is exactly over the canal called
Rio di Palazzo. On that side the dungeons are very
light, and high enough to stand upright in, which is
not the case in the prison where I was confined,
known as the Trave, from the huge beam which cut
off my light. The floor of my cell was exactly above
the ceiling of the Inquisitors' room, where they
commonly met only at night after the daily sitting
of the Council of Ten, of which all three are also
members.
" Knowing the locality as well as I did, and the
HOW TO ESCAPE? 87
regular habits of the Inquisitors, the only means of
escape, or at any rate the only means I thought
likely to succeed, was to pierce through the floor of
my room ; but I could not do this without tools,
and that was a difficulty in a place where all com-
munication with the outer world was forbidden,
and where no visits or letter- writing were allowed.
To bribe an archer would have needed a large sum,
and I had no money. Supposing even that the
gaoler and his two men would have allowed me to
throttle them — for I had no weapon but my hands —
there was always a third man-at-arms on guard at
the door of the corridor, which he kept locked, and
only opened when a comrade wishing to leave
gave him the password. In spite of all these ob-
stacles the only thing I thought of was how to
escape."
While he was considering the means a new
prisoner was brought to share his cell. At the end
of a month this man was transferred to another
chamber, and Casanova then began to get seriously
to work. He had a half-hour's walk every morning
in the attic, and here he lighted on a Crusoe's
treasure. Like the attic of Buquoit's first prison,
this was a kind of lumber-room ; and Casanova
found pieces of old furniture, boxes of papers, heaps
of uncut pens, balls of string, and other things
delightful to a man who lives in a cell and is seeking
how to escape from it. There were two great prizes,
and he picked up the first on one outing and the
second on another. The first was a little slab of
polished black marble. In his recent life in the
streets and brothels and gambling-houses of Venice
this would have been about as useful to him as the
Rosetta Stone or a tablet of Moses. He promptly
88 FROM THE GRIP OF THE INQUISITION
put it in his pocket. The second prize was a round
bolt of iron, and any prisoner is in luck who has an
iron to sharpen.
With his bit of marble for a hone he gave a point
to the bolt, and was then in possession of a practical
" jemmy," or crowbar. He decided that his easiest
scheme was to dig a hole through the floor under his
bed.
" I knew that the room to which this would con-
duct me was the one in which I had been received
on my arrival by the Secretary of the Inquisitors ;
and I fancied that, could I but hide under the council
table during the night, I might make a dash for it
when the door was opened in the morning. . . . But
it might take me two months to cut my way through,
and how meanwhile could I avoid discovery when the
guards came to sweep out my cell ? . . . I began by
telling them not to trouble themselves to do so, but
Lorenzo was inquisitive respecting this unusual
request. I told him that the dust raised by the
sweeping was peculiarly offensive to me. For a while
he seemed satisfied ; then he grew suspicious again,
and not only ordered the cell to be swept, but
examined it himself with a lighted candle every
morning,"
Casanova then pricked his finger, smeared his
handkerchief with the blood, and lay in bed to await
the coming of Lorenzo. The sweeping, he said, had
brought on so violent a fit of coughing that he must
have broken a blood-vessel. The doctor was sent
for, and this gentleman plays up to the prisoner in
a highly amusing manner. He must have seen at
once that no blood-vessel had been broken, but he
proceeded to bleed Casanova, and assured Lorenzo
that the inhaling of dust was a very dangerous
A LAMP 89
matter. Why, he knew of a young man who had
recently died from the same cause ! Poor Lorenzo
apologised profusely. It was a thing to be remem-
bered, he said ; though he could declare that all the
other distinguished gentlemen in his care enjoyed
the best of health — and their rooms had been swept
with tolerable regularity.
The days of winter in the dark upper chamber
were a torment. If he could but procure even a
miserable kitchen lamp ! A cup, a wick, oil, flint
and steel, tinder and matches : all these things were
needful. All of them, under one pretext and another,
were procured ; and again he was about to resume
his operations on the floor. Again he suffered inter-
ruption. A Jew was sent to bear him company, and
this unwelcome guest he had for two months. Every-
one, by the way, whom he brings upon the scene
Casanova sketches to the life, with a verve and
humour that keep his reader perpetually entertained.
The whole " Memoires " are a continuous stirring
and glittering masque and revel, a Fair of all the
Vanities.
On the departure of the Hebrew money-lender,
" a hare-brained creature, a huge gossip, ignorant
of everything but his trade," Casanova set to work
with redoubled energy. He had already cut into
the planks, and delay was full of risk. Pushing the
bed aside, he set the lamp on the floor, squatted
down, and began to hack at, or rather to chip away,
a wide plank of larch. After six hours of this
" fatigue drill " he gathered up the debris in a
towel or napkin, to be emptied on the morrow
behind the heap of papers in the outer room. On
the first day he got through a plank two inches
thick, but it took him three weeks to reduce the
90 FROM THE GRIP OF THE INQUISITION
three thicknesses of planks of which the floor was
composed. Then, to his horror, he came upon a
stratum of tesselated marble pavement. This
seemed a clencher ; but no : he recalled a story of
Hannibal's opening a passage through the Alps " by
breaking down the rocks with axes and other im-
plements softened in vinegar." He doubted, but
" proceeded to pour a bottle of strong vinegar, which
I had by me, into the hole ; and next day, whether
it was the result of the vinegar, or whether, rested
by the delay, I worked with greater energy and
patience, I found I should ultimately triumph over
this new difficulty, for there was no need to break
the stones, only to pulverize the cement in which
they were set with the point of my tool. And I soon
perceived with great delight that the surface of it
presented the only difficulty. In four days the
mosaic floor was destroyed without the slightest
injury to the point of my crowbar."
Beneath the marble pavement he encountered
another plank, but for this he was prepared. " I
had great difficulty, however, in cutting through it,
for as the hole in the planking was over ten inches
in depth, it was well-nigh impossible to use the
crowbar at the bottom of it, and I handled it awk-
wardly enough."
These efforts carried him to midsummer. On the
afternoon of the 25th of June he was working in the
hole, naked and bathed in sweat, when
" I heard — in such a passion of agony as can
scarcely be described — the grinding of bolts in the
corridor leading to my cell. What a moment !
Blowing out the lamp, leaving the crowbar in the
hole, pitching in after it the napkin filled with chips,
I dragged the bed into its place, and flung myself
IN THE HANDS OF THE THREE 91
upon it as though dead, at the very instant the door
flew open. Two seconds earUer and Lorenzo would
have surprised me in the act."
Lorenzo brought with him yet another companion,
the Abbe Count Fenarolo, a friend of Casanova's,
who was Hberated at the end of a week. The dark
Triumvirate of the Inquisition cast a pretty wide
net. There was a constant coming and going of
prisoners of all degrees. Some of these were mani-
festly in no very grievous case ; but in the hands
of the Three, who might predict his fate ? Casanova
at this date may or may not have had reason for
thinking that his imprisonment would be long : it
is clear that he was prepared to go far in the hope of
shortening it.
Commencing afresh, and steadily pursuing his
task, on the 23rd of August he beheld it finished.
He fixed on the 27th, St. Augustine's Eve, as the
day of his escape, because, as he says, on this day
there was to be a meeting of the Grand Council,
" and consequently there would be no one in the
Bussola adjoining the apartment through which I
must take my way out." On the 25th the scheme
was shattered.
At noon Casanova heard the noise of bolts. He
had a presentiment that a stroke was about to fall,
and sank with beating heart into his chair. Enter
Lorenzo, smiling. " I congratulate you, sir ! I
bring good news." Was Casanova, then, to be
enlarged ? But this, in the circumstances, would
be rather dreadful tidings ; for his excavation
would be laid bare — and the Three would revoke
their pardon.
No ; it was something very different.
" I am going to conduct you, sir," said the gaoler.
92 FROM THE GRIP OF THE INQUISITION
" from this wretched hole to a fine, Hght, lofty room
from which you will be able to see half Venice."
Almost fainting with apprehension, Casanova im-
plored Lorenzo to leave him where he was. " You
positively make me laugh, sir ! " returned the gaoler.
" Have you suddenly lost your wits ? You are to
be raised from hell into heaven, and you refuse !
Come, sir, you must obey ; you know you must.
Rise, rise. I'll give you an arm ; your clothes and
books shall follow you."
To " heaven," of course, he was forthwith trans-
lated ; and while Lorenzo returned to " hell " for
the prisoner's effects, the prisoner himself sat down
stoically enough in attendance on the next move in
the game.
** Motionless as a graven image I sat there. The
storm would burst upon my head, but I was indif-
ferent ; despair was too deep in me. Two hours I
sat there, seeing no one ; the door all this while
open. Then there were footsteps in a fury of haste,
and in broke Lorenzo, raging, blaspheming, foaming
at the lips.
" He began by ordering me to deliver up to him
the axe and all the tools I had used for working
through the floor, and to tell him the name of the
man who had furnished me with them. I replied,
without stirring and with perfect coolness, that I
did not know what he was talking about. At this
he commanded that I should be searched ; but
rising with a bold face I defied these scoundrels, and
taking off all my clothes : * Do your duty,' said I ;
' but do not lay a finger on me.'
"They examined my mattresses, emptied out the
straw mattress, and shook the cushions of my arm-
chair ; nothing was to be found.
LORENZO'S REVENGE 93
" ' You do not choose to tell me where the instru-
ments are with which you made the hole ? Well,
means can be found to make you speak.'
" ' If indeed I have made a hole anywhere, I shall
say that it was you who supplied me with the means
of doing so, and that I have returned everything to
you.'
" At this threat, which made his followers grin
with satisfaction — he had probably annoyed them
by some insult — he stamped his feet, tore his hair,
and rushed out like a madman. His people came
back bringing me all my property, excepting my
piece of marble and my lamp. Before leaving the
corridor, and after locking my cell, he closed the
two windows by which some fresh air came in. I
thus found myself confined in a narrow space with-
out a breath of air from anywhere. However, my
situation did not trouble me particularly, for I con-
fess on the whole I thought I had got off cheaply.
In spite of his knowledge of his business, it had
happily not occurred to him to turn my arm-chairs
bottom upwards, and so being still possessed of my
bolt, I returned thanks to Providence, and believed
I might even now be allowed to regard it as the
blessed instrument which, sooner or later, might
procure me my deliverance."
Hard on this we have a very curious interlude, the
significance of which (though Casanova's pen is diplo-
matically silent on it) the sequel may perhaps reveal
to us. Lorenzo for a brief spell was spiteful and
suspicious. His spitefulness was expressed in the
day's rations, which were scarcely eatable. His
suspicions he conveyed to Casanova through the
archer of the guard who was summoned to examine
and sound the room. Casanova, following with his
94 FROM THE GRIP OF THE INQUISITION
eyes the archer and his sounding-rod, noticed that
the ceihng was left untouched. The new and clean
ceiling was something that he at once began to
think about.
Little by little the moroseness of Lorenzo melted
into an awkward kindliness, and from this point
there is a notable change in the situation. Casanova
wanted, or pretended to want, certain books, and
was for commissioning Lorenzo to buy them.
Lorenzo said he could borrow them from another
prisoner ; and here the drama of the escape (together
with every question of the truth of it that awaits
analysis) in reality begins.
In a very short time Casanova received by the
hands of Lorenzo a volume from some prisoner un-
known. Here, thought he, was a chance " of open-
ing communications with someone who might join
me in a plan of escape — a plan of which the outline
was already in my mind." Opening the book the
instant he was alone, he found in a paraphrase of
Seneca's line : " Calamitosus est animus fuiuri
anxius " (" Unhappy that man who broods on mis-
fortunes to come "). Casanova composed some lines
in response, wrote out a list of the books in his
possession, and slid them down the back of the
borrowed work. This he handed next morning to
Lorenzo, saying he had read it through, and would
be glad of another. On the title page of the one he
was returning he had inscribed the word " Latet "
(" hidden "). In a few moments Lorenzo brought a
second volume.
" No sooner was I alone," says Casanova, " than
I opened the book and found a loose leaf, with words
to this effect written on it in Latin : ' We are two
in this prison, and we are delighted to find that the
BALBI 95
ignorance of our avaricious gaoler procures us a
privilege which is unexampled in this place. I who
write am Marino Balbi, a noble Venetian and a friar
of Somasco, and my companion is Count Andrea
Asquino, of Udine, the chief town of Friuh. He
bids me tell you that all the books he has, of which
you find the list in the back of this volume, are at
your service ; but I must warn you, Signore, that
we must take the greatest precautions to conceal
our communications from Lorenzo.'
" In the position in which we found ourselves, it
was not strange that we should both have had the
same idea — that of sending the list of our scanty
library, and of slipping it into the back of a book ;
this was an act of simple good sense ; but I thought
it strange that the counsel of caution should be
written on a loose leaf. It seemed unlikely that
Lorenzo should not open the book, and, as he could
not read, he would have put it in his pocket to get
someone to tell him the contents ; everything
would be discovered at the very beginning. This
led me to conclude that my correspondent was some-
what heedless.
" After reading the list of books, I wrote down who
I was, how I had been arrested, my ignorance of the
crime for which I was imprisoned, and the hopes I
had of finding my way out. Balbi responded in a
letter of sixteen pages. Count Asquino did not write;
the monk gave me the history of all his own mis-
fortunes. He had been a prisoner four years for
having broken his vows ; the first time he had been
admonished, the second time he had been threatened,
the third time he had been put in prison. The
Superior of his convent, however, sent him his
dinner every day. This letter in all its details
96 FROM THE GRIP OF THE INQUISITION
betrayed the writer ; I knew the man. He was
eccentric, illogical, spiteful, silly and ungrateful ;
I could detect all this in his letter ; for, after saying
how wretched he should be but for the society of
Count Asquino, who was seventy years of age, he
filled two pages with abuse of him, describing his
faults and absurdities. In the world I should have
taken no notice of such a man ; but under the leads
I was forced to make the most of every chance. I
found a pencil, pen, and some paper slipped into the
back of the binding, and this enabled me to write
at my ease.
" Balbi also sent me a history of all the prisoners
who were at present in these cells, and who had come
and gone during the four years he had spent there.
He told me that the archer who secretly brought him
whatever he asked for was named Niccolo ; he had
told him the names of the prisoners and all he knew
about them, and to prove the truth of this he
repeated all he had heard about the hole in my room.
He told me that I had been removed from my old
cell to make room for a patrician named Priuli, and
that it had cost Lorenzo two hours' work to repair
the mischief I had done ; that he had communicated
the secret to the carpenter, the locksmith, and the
archers on pain of death. One day more, the archer
had added, and Casanova would have escaped in so
ingenious a way that Lorenzo would have hung for
it ; for, though the gaoler had expressed great sur-
prise at the sight of the hole, there could be no doubt
that it was he who had supplied the necessary tools
for such a difficult piece of work.
" * Niccolo told me,' my correspondent added,
' that Signor Bragadino promised him a thousand
sequins if he could help you to make your escape ;
AN ACCOMPLICE 97
but that Lorenzo, having heard this, flatters himself
that he can gain the reward without any risk by
making his wife obtain your release from Signor
Diedo. Not one of the archers dares speak of what
has happened for fear that Lorenzo, if he should
succeed, should get him dismissed out of revenge.
He implored me to tell him all about it, and how I
had procured the tools, and to trust implicitly to his
discretion."
Monk Balbi, if all this is true, was plainly not the
discreetest of men. Casanova was none the less
inchned to humour him, for the fellow-captive might
be moulded to his purposes. He held counsel with
himself as follows :
" I must be free at whatever cost. The tool I
have is capital, but I cannot possibly make any use
of it, for my room is sounded all over every morning
by tapping with an iron bar, excepting on the ceihng.
Hence, if I am to hope to get out, it must be through
the ceihng, but to achieve this I must make a hole,
and I cannot do that from below, for it is not a
matter of a day's work. I must have an accomplice,
and he may escape with me. I had no choice, so I
could not employ anyone but the friar. He was
eight-and-thirty, and though not overburdened with
good sense, I fancied that the love of liberty, man's
first instinct, would give him enough determination
to enable him to carry out my instructions. To
begin with, I must make up my mind to tell him
everything, and then devise some means of sending
him my tool. These were two difficult matters.
" I began by asking him whether he pined for
liberty, and if he were prepared to run all risks to
secure it with me. He replied that there was nothing
which he and his comrade would not do to be quit
98 FROM THE GRIP OF THE INQUISITION
of their bonds ; but, he added, it was useless to
rack our brains over schemes which could not be
carried into execution. He filled four long pages
with the impossibilities which presented themselves
to his foolish mind, for the poor wretch saw no plan
of any kind which offered the remotest hope of
success. I answered that general difficulties did not
daunt me ; that, in making my plans, only difficulties
of detail had engaged my attention, that these could
certainly be conquered ; and I ended by giving him
my word of honour that he should be free if he
would pledge himself to follow my instructions to
the letter."
The promise being given, Casanova let the monk
into the secret of the " little crowbar, twenty inches
long." With this Balbi " was to break through the
ceiling of his room, and then to pierce a hole in the
wall that separated us." Having joined Casanova,
it would next be the monk's business to drive a hole
through Casanova's ceiling, and help him out thereby.
For all that was thereafter to be done Casanova
would make himself responsible. These details are
not as clear as they might be, but I am closely
following Casanova's own narrative. He addresses
himself again to Balbi :
" All you have to think of is how I may best
transmit to you the instrument of our safety, with-
out giving the bearer of it the faintest suspicion.
Meanwhile get your gaoler to bring you a couple of
score of pictures of the saints, large enough to cover
the walls and ceiling of your room. These pious
images will rouse no suspicions in Lorenzo, and will
avail to hide the gap you must make in the ceiling.
It will take you some days to work the opening, and
Lorenzo will not see what you have done each
THE DISH OF MACARONI 99
morning if you cover it up with a picture. If you
ask me why I do not do this myself, I reply that I
cannot, because I am an object of suspicion to our
warder, and you will no doubt think this a valid
objection."
The conveyance of the crowbar to Balbi brings us
to the celebrated comedy of the macaroni pie.
Casanova had desired Lorenzo to buy him a new
folio edition of the Bible ; less for his devotions than
as a vehicle for the transport of the " instrument of
safety." But the bolt was two inches longer than
the book. It was then that he had the inspiration
of the dish of macaroni.
" I told Lorenzo that I meant to keep Saint
Michael's day by having a dish of macaroni with
cheese, and that as I wished to do a little civility
to the gentleman who had been so kind as to lend
me the books, I wanted to send him a large dish of
it, and to prepare it with my own hands. Lorenzo
told me that the said gentleman was very curious
to see the big book which had cost three sequins.
This made matters easy. ' Very good,' said I, * I
will send it him with the macaroni, only, bring me
the largest dish you have in the place, for I want to
do things on a grand scale.'
" He promised to satisfy me. I wrapped my crow-
bar in paper and slipped it into the back of the
Bible, taking note that it stuck out no more at one
end than at the other. By placing a large dish of
macaroni very full of melted butter on the book, I
was sure that his eyes must be fixed on the rim of
the dish to avoid spilling the grease on the book.
I warned Father Balbi of all this, bidding him be care-
ful how he took the dish, and above all to take both
book and dish together, and not one before the other.
100 FROM THE GRIP OF THE INQUISITION
" On the day appointed Lorenzo came earlier than
usual, with a saucepan full of boiling macaroni, and
all the necessary ingredients for seasoning it. I
melted a quantity of butter, and after putting the
macaroni into the dish I poured butter on it till it
reached the very edge. The dish was a huge one,
much larger than the book on which I had placed
it. All this I did at the door of my cell, Lorenzo
standing outside.
*' When everything was ready I carefully lifted
the Bible with the dish, taking care to turn the back
of the volume to the bearer ; and I bid Lorenzo
hold his arms well apart and spread his hands, to
take great care not to spill the grease on the book,
and to carry it straight to its destination. As I gave
him the precious burthen I looked him in the face,
and was delighted to see that he never took his eyes
off the butter for fear of spilling it. He said he had
better take the dish iirst and come back for the
book ; but I said it would spoil all the value of the
gift, and that it must all go together. Then he com-
plained that I had put too much butter, and said
with a laugh that if he spoilt it he would not be
responsible for the damage.
" As soon as I saw the Bible safe in the clown's
hands I felt certain of success, for he could not see
the ends of the bolt without lurching very much to
one side, and I saw nothing to induce him to take
his eyes off the dish which he had to keep level. I
watched him till he went into the outer cell, leading
to the monk's, and I heard Balbi blow his nose three
times, the signal we had agreed on to show that every-
thing had arrived safely. And in a minute Lorenzo
returned to tell me so."
Balbi began forthwith to ply the crowbar. Having
SORADACI loi
delved his way through the ceihng he covered the
opening with a pious print stuck on by means of
bread-crumb. Towards the middle of October he
had dislodged thirty-six bricks from the wall. On
the morning of the i6th Casanova heard a stamping
of feet overhead, followed by three light taps — the
signal that all was going well. The next day Balbi
wrote that the completion of his task was now but
a question of hours. Casanova determined to escape
on the next day but one.
" On this very day— it was Monday — while Balbi
was striking his last blows— I heard the opening of
a door close to my cell. The blood congealed in my
veins, but I had the presence of mind to give the
two raps that warned Balbi to retreat to his cell and
put everything in order. In a moment Lorenzo en-
tered, and asked pardon for thrusting on me a very
undesirable companion. This was a little lean ugly
chap of fifty or so, very indifferently attired, with a
black crop wig awry on his head. He looked the
villain from crown to heel, and when Lorenzo
assured him that he was one he didn't turn a
hair."
Again and again was this venture smitten at the
core ; but since the Tribunal was master in its own
prison Casanova resigned himself to the fatality that
seemed to steer him. Having proved in his adroit
and quiet way (he has told us how he had tried his
hand at lawyering) the feelings of the man in the
black crop wig, he proceeded to play upon them.
The black crop was as hungry as a rat, as thirsty as
Egypt, and as superstitious as a fakir. Casanova
gorged him with food, made him drunk, and then
tackled and tickled his superstitions. The man,
Soradaci by name, calling himself a barber, was a
102 FROM THE GRIP OF THE INQUISITION
spy in the pay of the RepubHc. He had foolishly
and clumsily played false with his employers.
Messer Grande thereupon had clapped Messer Sora-
daci into prison. He was for God and the Republic,
a bottle of wine and a crucifix. He talked of his
father, a warder of galley-slaves ; of his wife, " a
Legrenzi, the daughter of a clerk to the Council of
Ten," who would be in despair at not knowing what
had become of him. He cried for holy water and a
print of the Virgin ; for wine and garlic. Grovelling
at Casanova's feet, he kissed his hand. He was a
very good spy, he said, and a scourge of criminals ;
he was a good barber, too ; and, taking one thing
with another, he did not quite know why he was in
prison, and hoped he would soon be out. By wile
on wile Casanova reduces and subdues this devotee
of the bottle, the Republic, and the Virgin ; and the
drama advances.
Soradaci was taken out, examined, and brought
back ; and Casanova conjectured that the barber-
spy would share his lodging for some time to come.
It was the last week of October, and in the first
week of November the Inquisitors and the Secretary
were in the habit of taking a three days' trip into
the country. On the nights of their absence Lorenzo
was religiously and ecstatically drunk, and not too
punctual thereby on his morning rounds. Herein
salvation might lie for Casanova and the monk. He
tells us farther that, having consulted a page of
Ariosto, under guidance of certain cabalistic for-
mulae, he had lighted on the verse : " Fra il fin
d'ottohre e il capo di novembre " (" Betwixt the end
of October and the beginning of November ").
And now the best means of bamboozling Sora-
daci ?
TERROR OF SORADACI 103
The spy had already done a traitorous turn to
Casanova, handing over to the Secretary a letter
confided to him by his fellow-prisoner. This missive
was of no significance whatever ; Casanova had
composed it as a test of Soradaci's probity. On its
betrayal, however, he had affected to hold the spy
in horror ; and in particular had invoked on him
the direst vengeance of his friend the Virgin. In the
hour of these imprecations Soradaci had fled to his
mattress ; frighted, like Sancho, out of his seven
senses, and prepared to take his corporal oath that
the days of his years were numbered. This was the
season to take him in hand again, and Casanova
resumed his parable in these terms :
" ' Your frightful treachery has cost me a sleepless
night, for the letter I gave you might well ensure
my condemnation to perpetual imprisonment. My
sole consolation, I confess, was the certainty that
in less than three days you would perish in torments
under my gaze. With my heart full of this wicked
thought — unworthy of a Christian — weariness at
last brought sleep to me ; and as I slept I had a
vision of the Blessed Virgin, whose image you there
behold. She said to me : '* Soradaci is a devotee of
my Sacred Rosary and under my protection. I
desire you will forgive him ; then the curse now
laid on him will cease to act. As the reward of your
generosity, I will send one of my angels in human
form to descend from heaven and open the roof of
your prison and take you out in five or six days.
The angel will begin his labours to-day exactly at
noon, and cease at half an hour before sunset, for
he must return to heaven by daylight. When you
go, following the angel, take Soradaci with you, and
drovide for him, on condition of his giving up the
104 FROM THE GRIP OF THE INQUISITION
business of a spy. Tell him all this." With these
words she vanished and I awoke.'
" Preserving perfect gravity and my prophetic
tone, I kept an eye on the traitor's face ; he seemed
quite petrified. I then took my Book of Hours, I
sprinkled the cell with holy water, and began to
pretend to be praying, kissing the image of the
Virgin from time to time. An hour later this
creature, who till now had not opened his lips,
asked me point-blank at what hour the angel would
come down from heaven, and whether we should
hear the noise he must make to open the cell. I
replied that I was certain that he would come at
noon precisely, and that we should hear him at work,
and that he would stop at the hour specified by the
Virgin.
" ' You may have been dreaming,' said he.
" * I am sure I was not. Do you feel capable of
vowing to renounce the business of a spy ?
" But instead of answering me he fell asleep, and
only awoke two hours later to ask whether he might
put off taking the pledge I required of him.
" ' You may put it off,' said I, * until the angel
comes in to release me ; but if you then do not swear
to renounce the atrocious trade which has brought
you to this pass, and which will certainly bring you
to the gallows, I shall leave you here ; for so the
Virgin has commanded, and she will deprive you
of her protection."
As I watched him, I read on his ugly face the satis-
faction he felt, for he firmly believed that the angel
would never come. He looked as though he pitied
me. I only longed for the clock to strike ; the whole
farce amused me hugely, for I was sure that the ar-
rival of the angel would utterly bewilder his miser-
"THE ANGEL IS THERE!" 105
able intellect. I knew that there could be no failure
unless Lorenzo had forgotten to deliver the book,
which was hardly possible.
" An hour before noon I insisted on dining ; I
drank nothing but water, and Soradaci drank all
the wine, and he afterwards ate all the garlic I had,
which added to his excitability. The instant I
heard the first stroke of nineteen, I fell on my knees,
desiring him, in a voice of thunder, to do the same.
He obeyed, looking at me wildly. When I heard the
noise of the priest behind the wall, ' The angel is
there ! ' cried I, lying down flat on my face, and
giving him a vigorous punch to make him take the
same attitude. The noise of scraping was loud, and
for a quarter of an hour I had the patience to remain
in my uncomfortable position. Under any other
circumstances I should have laughed to see the
creature lie like a log ; but I did not laugh, for I did
not forget my laudable purpose of driving the animal
mad, or at least reducing him to helplessness. His
perverted soul could only be recalled to decent
humanity by abject terror. As soon as I rose I
knelt down, allowing him to do the same, and for
three hours and a half I kept him at his beads. He
fell asleep now and then, fatigued by his position
rather than by the monotony of his occupation ;
but he never once interrupted me. Now and then
he raised a furtive eye to the ceiling, and with
stupidity stamped on every feature he bowed and
nodded to the image of the Virgin, and all in a way
too comical for words. When the clock struck half-
past twenty-three, * Fall on your face,' said I, in a
tone of solemn devotion ; * the angel is departing.'
'* Balbi went down into his cell again, and we
heard no more."
io6 FROM THE GRIP OF THE INQUISITION
With complete satisfaction Casanova saw that
bewilderment and terror mingled in the foolish face
of Soradaci. Then he fell a- wondering to which
of his virtues could be ascribed the tender zeal of
the Virgin in his behalf. '* And you, sir," he con-
tinued ; " what use could you make of a clown like
me ? and where should we live, for we could not
stay in Venice ? " " I'll take you for my servant,"
Casanova replied ; " and the angel will lead us to
some place that does not belong to St. Mark." He
went on :
" ' To-morrow, when Lorenzo comes, you must
lie still on your mattress with your face to the wall
without stirring, without even looking at him. If
he speaks to you you must tell him, without looking
at him, that you have been unable to sleep, and
that you want rest. Will you promise me this ? '
" ' I promise to do exactly as you bid me.'
" ' Swear it before this holy image at once.'
" * I swear. Blessed Mother of God, that when
Lorenzo comes in I will not look at him, nor stir on
my mattress.'
" ' And I, Most Holy Mother, swear by your
Sacred Son that if I see Soradaci make the smallest
movement, or look at Lorenzo, I will rush on him
and strangle him without mercy, to your honour
and glory.' "
With this for encouragement, Casanova gave the
man his supper, and then bade him go back to bed.
" As soon as he was asleep I wrote for two hours.
I told Balbi the whole story, saying that if his work
was far enough advanced he need only come to the
ceiling of my cell, to break through the last boards,
and come in. I notified to him that we were to
escape on the night of the 31st of October, and that
THE ANGEL'S BEARD 107
we should be four, including his messmate and mine.
It was now the 28th."
On the following morning Balbi wrote to say that
the passage between the two cells was ready, and that
the forcing of the last plank would be the affair of
but four or five minutes.
When Lorenzo came in he did not so much as
glance at the spy — fast in his beauty sleep. During
this day, however, the poor dolt had one instant's
glimmer of sense. Did not his patron think it rather
strange that an angel should need such " everlasting
of time " to get into a cell of the Piombi ? ** The
ways of heaven," Casanova solemnly replied, " are
inscrutable to mortals. It is clear that this thrice-
blessed messenger, who could open the ceiling with
a single breath, is working not in celestial but in
human guise. Doubtless he takes the form of a man
out of pity for us, who could not endure to look
upon his true glory."
On the 31st they had their last interview with
Lorenzo. As usual, Casanova handed him the book,
which contained a final message for Balbi. The
monk was to break through the ceiling towards
midday. At that hour the plot should march un-
hindered, for Lorenzo would be off the scene, and
the Inquisitors and Secretary were off to the country.
" I must tell you," said Casanova to Soradaci,
when the gaoler had left them, " that we may now
in a very short time expect the angel. He will bring
with him, by the way, a pair of scissors, and it will
be your ineffable privilege (think how you are blest
in being a barber !) to clip his beard. You will
afterwards clip mine."
** What ! The angel wears a beard ? "
** I really believe he does. When you have per-
io8 FROM THE GRIP OF THE INQUISFflON
formed your office we shall all ascend together. We
shall vanish through the topmost roof, drop divinely
into the Piazza of St. Mark, and proceed on our way
to Germany."
As the hour struck, the angel could be heard
spreading his wings overhead. Soradaci was about
to prostrate himself. " It was no longer necessary,"
said Casanova ; and Soradaci thereupon returned
to his breakfast. In three minutes or so Balbi
flopped through the ceiling, and into the arms of
Casanova. " Your work is done," was Casanova's
greeting of him ; " and mine now begins." Soradaci
dropped his dish, not knowing if he were gazing on
angel, man, or demon. His senses rapt, he took the
scissors from Balbi, and cut the beards of both con-
spirators.
Eager to reconnoitre the position, Casanova gave
the spy into Balbi's hands, and mounted at once
into the cell above, where he found the Count, an
elderly and amiable gentleman, so cumbered with
flesh that he could have escaped from the Piombi
only on the pinions of Soradaci's angel. The Count
began timorously to argue with Casanova on the
recklessness of his plan. Yes ; it was reckless
enough, said Casanova ; but to plan or death he
was now committed, and to the plan he would stick.
He left the Count, and climbed as near as he could
to the top of the prison. Arrived at a loft, he found
that the rotten rafters yielded almost at a touch to
his crowbar. In less than an hour he could make
an opening through them. Returning to his cell, he
sliced up his bedclothes and every other scrap of
drapery he could find, and out of this material
twisted the kind of practical rope of which in these
pages we have so many fortifying glimpses.
THE HOLE IN THE ROOF 109
The rope finished, Casanova made a bundle of his
clothes ; and then, with Balbi and Soradaci, mounted
again into the Count's chamber. Soradaci could be
hoaxed to no farther purpose, and Casanova had
thrown off the mask of the visionary. " Get your
bundle ready," he said to Balbi, and went up to
finish the hole in the roof.
" At two hours after sunset the hole was finished ;
I had worked the rafters to powder, and the opening
was twice as large as was needful. I could touch
the sheet of lead outside. I could not raise it single-
handed because it was riveted ; the friar helped me,
and by pushing the crowbar between the gutter and
the sheet of lead I detached it, then, raising it on
our shoulders, we bent it up high enough to allow
of our squeezing through the opening. Putting my
head out to reconnoitre, I saw with dismay how
bright the moon was, now in the first quarter. It
was a check which we must endure with patience,
and wait till midnight to escape, when the moon
would have gone to light up the Antipodes. On such
a glorious night all Venice would be out on the Piazza
below, and we dared not venture out on the roof ;
our shadows cast on the ground would have attracted
attention ; our extraordinary appearance up there
would excite general curiosity, and above all, that
of Messer Grande and his spies, the sole guards of
Venice. Our fine scheme would soon have been
disturbed by their odious interference. I therefore
decided positively that we were not to creep out
till the moon had set. I invoked the aid of God, and
I asked for no miracle. Exposed as we were to the
caprice of Fortune, I was bound to give her as few
chances as possible, and if my enterprise was to fail,
at any rate I would not have to reproach myself
no FROM THE GRIP OF THE INQUISITION
with having made a false move. The moon would go
down by about twelve o'clock, we should have seven
hours of total darkness in which to act, and though
we had a hard struggle before us, in seven hours we
ought to get through it."
On the brink of the adventure Soradaci declined
it, and well pleased must Casanova have been, for
the terrors of the barber on the ascent to the leads
might have knocked the bottom out of everything.
Balbi's resolution held, and with him the conspirator
in chief prepared to go aloft.
Ill
Now this is a prodigious history. In the comedy
of escapes it has a colour and atmosphere of its own,
and is probably unique. What is the attitude of
the reader towards it ?
Sundry Casanovists, refusing to be spellbound,
have probed the narrative at one point and another ;
but the most powerful searchlight by far has been
that of Dr. Guede in the " Mercure de France " (1912).
Dr. Guede, it may at once be said, knows more of
Casanova than any other living man. He has
tracked him over Europe. He went to Venice, in
the spirit of a " juge d' instruction," or examining
magistrate, to reconstruct the scenes of the evasion.
Dr. Guede enunciates a general law of escapes.
For my own part I have found it difficult to frame
any law on the subject, but Dr. Guede 's is to this
effect : That when the celebrated escapes (with
certain exceptions) are analysed, it is found that, in
addition to the adroit combinations, superhuman
efforts, patience, and perseverance, all the prisoners
have had the connivance of persons within or without
A POINT OF INTEREST iii
the prison. He instances, among others, the cases
of Mary Queen of Scots, Grotius, Isaac Arnauld,
Cardinal de Retz, Jean Bart and Forbin, Quiqueran
de Beaujeu, Trenck, and Lavalette (to all of whom
some reference will be found in these pages).
It may be remarked in passing that we seem to
have a few rather notable departures from the rule.
So far as we may tell, Buquoit frees himself un-
aided from For-l'Eveque. In getting out of the
Bastille he works with fellow-prisoners, and Latude
in the same place works with Allegre. But when
two or more fellow-prisoners are concerned in a plot
for freedom the interest of the affair is usually much
enhanced. All of them are courting a risk, and the
risk is often of life itself. Jack Sheppard in the
greatest of his flights from Newgate seems to have
had no help whatever ; and the inquiry might be
extended. Benvenuto Cellini's escape is open to
doubt. Clearly, then, it is not without peril that
we shall seek to lay down a law on the subject.
The learned French critic infers (at least, I think
he does) that, when we have distinct proof of con-
nivance, the virtue of romance has gone from the
enterprise. This I am quite unable to admit. For
every interest of romance it suflices that the prison-
breaker, or the fugitive in act of flight, keeps the
centre of the stage, and is continuously in danger,
whether of mere rearrest and reimprisonment, or of
his very life. Had half a dozen warders in Bitche
or the Bastille winked at the stratagems of Donat
O'Brien or Buquoit, the soul of the first still hung
by his wretched little rope, and of the second by his
frail supports of osier.
Occasionally indeed it happens that when the
whole truth of an escape is revealed to us every
112 FROM THE GRIP OF THE INQUISITION
shred of the romantic falls from it. This is rare,
but let me cite in point the most curious of modern
instances. It is that of the Fenian " Head Centre,"
James Stephens, confined in the Richmond Bride-
well, Dublin, in 1865. This was a year that really
did seem to promise something for Fenianism. The
Civil War in America was practically over ; many
Fenian officers of regiments hastened to Ireland ;
Cluseret, a conspirator of signal ability (he was
afterwards in the Commune), arrived from France ;
and from Italy came Fariola. Had there been a
leader of genius in Ireland, a blow might have been
struck ; but in the various comings and goings there
was little secrecy ; and an informer (one Nagle,
employed as a folder in the office of the " Irish
People ") was steadily feeding the Government with
information.
Stephens's flight from the Bridewell was long
regarded as the one great romance of a not over-
romantic episode ; and he himself was thought the
equal as a prison-breaker, not, of course, of Casanova,
Trenck, or Latude, but at least of Louis Napoleon.
As is now, however, matter of history, the Head
Centre was simply slipped out of gaol. Two of the
Bridewell warders, Byrne and Breslin, were in the
plot, and, unless I am mistaken, a duplicate key from
a wax impression had been manufactured by a
Dublin Fenian — possibly a ticket-collector at West-
land Row Station. The two warders, says Mr.
James Glover,^ " were able to arrange that on one
of their rounds the door of Stephens's cell was to be
left unlocked ; the Head Centre was to be led to the
prison wall. At a certain hour two pebbles from the
outside would indicate the readiness of the rescuing
1 " Jimmy Glover : His Book."
FLIGHTS ASSISTED 113
party, and the reply from Byrne and Breslin inside
was a sod of grass thrown over the same wall.
Stephens, with the aid of a rope, was then passed
over into the welcome arms of his friends, which
included my father." Stephens passed the remainder
of the night at the Glovers' house in Kingstown.
Later he escaped to France (whether in a small
fishing-smack from Malahide or in a lugger from
Skerries is no longer of much importance) ; but the
Fenians as a body soon turned him over, and the
control of the movement passed into other hands.
Here is an escape in which the principal performer
has but to walk straight out of his cell.
In the flight of Mary of Scots from Loch Leven
the role of the Queen herself is insignificant ; but
how delightful to the onlooker are the manifold
devices of the Little Douglas. But for the presence
and expedients of Dr. Conneau and the valet Thelin,
Prince Louis Napoleon might have had to linger in
Ham until the Government chose to release him ;
but he has a central and high part in the under-
taking, and sustains it worthily. John Mitchel
might have failed to take his way unaided through
the bush of Tasmania. This arduous, headlong
course is facilitated at every stage ; but Mitchel
himself is always in the foreground of the picture,
galloping in darkness over a wild country unknown
to him — step by step it is a toss-up if he founders.
And how kindly and affecting are the glimpses
afforded us of shelter in a shepherd's hut, of the
blazing fire in the farmhouse kitchen in that nook
of far Tasmania that smells of old Ireland. These
things are the gilding of the scenes of jeopardy. It
was possible, perhaps — I do not know — for Captain
Haldane and Lieutenant Le Mesurier to finish with-
114 FROM THE GRIP OF THE INQUISITION
out help their formidable journey to Lorengo
Marques ; but the encountering by the wanderers
of the kraal of the friendly Kaffirs is an incident
the most agreeable ; and what reader does not re-
joice in their greeting by the managers of the mine,
and welcome the coming of good Dr. Gillespie, with
his trap and his pair of bonny greys ?
What, again, of the flight of Charles II after
Worcester ? There are no brighter or more animated
scenes, none that yield better entertainment to the
reader ; but the young sovereign in his hour of dis-
comfiture draws help from every quarter of the com-
pass. From dawn on September 3rd, 165 1, to sun-
rise on October 15th, Charles was fleeing for his life.
In his progress from Worcester to the sea he traversed
ten counties and five hundred miles of ground. It
is one of the most daring and romantic runs in
history ; one of the most perilous, too ; an older
man would scarcely have endured the six weeks'
tremendous strain. But Charles was barely twenty-
one, and a very different cavalier from the battered
and cynical prince of later days. Flying and hiding
he displayed a royal spirit, and was usually in very
merry pin. If only for his intrepidity, endurance,
and humour Prince Charlie deserved the fortune he
enjoyed.
This memorable escape has given us one historic
emblem. " King Charles's Oak " passed into a
symbol of loyalty. The scene of the oak comes early
in the drama : the young King, in a rude disguise,
and with his hair cropped, squatting on a pillow
amid the dripping branches, and the good woman
who brings a " messe of milk " and other nourish-
ment. All along his route Charles was fortunate in
making friends.
COOK-MAID AND SPIT ii5
Between September 3 and October 15 the iden-
tity of the fugitive sovereign became known, either
by accident or design, to a vast number of persons ;
but neither the lavish reward offered by Parhament,
nor the threats of condign punishment which accom-
panied it, could tempt sterling men and women like
the inn-keepers at Charmouth, Broadwindsor, Mere,
Salisbury, and Brighton to betray him.^
Eminent and hazardous parts were played in the
escape by ladies, and chiefly by those two devoted
ones. Mistress Jane Lane and Mistress Juliana
Coningsby. The first of these journeyed with him,
often in extreme peril, from Bentley to Bristol.
They shared a nag between them, the King passing
as the servant of the lady, who rode behind him on
a pilHon, and addressed him as " Will Jackson."
Under the name of '* Will Jackson," or '' Mr. Jack-
son," King Charles was known to his intimates (and
in correspondence) throughout the period of his
exile in France. With Dame Lane His Majesty had
adventures. Among these the best known is the
episode of the cook-maid and the spit, facetiously
told in the " Royal Oake " broadside.
These interludes, not one of which misses its
element of risk, are diversified by real dangers of
every kind. Now that we have it fully laid out, the
flitting from Worcester to the sea coast presents
itself as a series of pitfalls evaded by handsbreadths.
The Roundheads, or their spies, or their supporters
are the host in the land, through which the tiny band
of Royalists, with the stripling King as its centre, is
1 " The Royal Miracle," a collection of rare tracts, broadsides,
letters, prints, and ballads, concerning the wanderings of Charles II
after the battle of Worcester (September 3-October 15, 1 651). With
a preface, historical introduction, appendix, bibUography, and illus-
trations, by A. M. Broadley.
ii6 FROM THE GRIP OF THE INQUISITION
mysteriously guided — galloping, floundering, cower-
ing, and swanking it ; detection almost sure in
every town, imminent in every hamlet, and threaten-
ing in every brake and bush along the road. Nothing
comes nearer to our common notion of the provi-
dential than the sudden turning of the runaways
out of the Dorchester and Bridport main road into
Lee Lane (whereby they escaped capture), which
Fuller celebrates as the " Miraculous Divergence."
Of some of the chief performers in this aftair there
are descendants at the present day. The family of
Penderel-Brodhurst traces directly to the " Faithful
Brothers " Penderel, the " heroes of the Royal Oak "
at Boscobel.
Let us be quite candid on the subject of aid to
the fugitive. Fugitive and prison-breaker must
play up in proper style, not to the gallery, but to the
critical spectator who has studied the rules of the
game. They must in some degree be inventors in
their business, must face every hazard as it arises,
must show a courage for any fate, and " endure the
toothache patiently." These conditions, taken to-
gether, are all the trial that we need to impose — a
trial to which not a prisoner in thousands is equal.
If the conditions are met, it will be found much
oftener than not that whatever help can be drawn
to the escape heightens the charm of the recital,
and takes nothing from the credit due to the pro-
tagonists.
We have now to see, or try to see, whether Casa-
nova had help in the Piombi, and, if so, of what kind
or kinds. In the simple and unstudied records of
escapes, the whole occurrence (filling the most of
one of six substantial volumes) has passed almost
unquestioned. More than this, in the literature to
A QUESTION OF PROBABILITY 117
which the adventure belongs it has been assigned
a place of classical importance. On such evidence
as can be gathered, we have to ask whether Casanova
has played his part to our satisfaction, or whether
his appeal is to the gallery. The question will be
seen to resolve itself into one of probability.
By his fascinating and audacious Memoirs, we
know the man himself. Under his own pen he is
braggart, gamester, thief, a taker of all chances in
a career that is a revel or a nightmare of escapade,
physically bold in all situations, and able on occasion
to rise to the spurious moral valour of the rake who
has reduced to a code his every concern of gallantry.
That is, for instance, a situation without an analogue
in any chronicle of amours, where Casanova, in
lodgings at Madrid, thinking to make love to a pretty
woman opposite, is one evening summoned to her
private door and lured upstairs to remove from her
bedroom the corpse of the lover whom she has just
murdered. Casanova shoulders and carries out the
corpse, pitches it into the river, slinks home to his
rooms, and is the next day arrested by the police.
He faces anything, shrinks from nothing ; and, to
amuse us or enthral us, will stretch a point, or a
hundred points, about everything.
At the age of thirty he is laid hold of by the In-
quisition and thrust into the prison of the Piombi.
After a detention of fourteen months or so he in
some way escapes. This escape is a signal part of the
moral capital with which he sets out on his new
adventures in Europe. With his abounding natural
genius, his buoyancy of temperament, his effrontery,
his resolve to be always — as the butler phrased it —
" in the climax of society," he carries himself from
capital to capital of the fashionable world of his day
ii8 FROM THE GRIP OF THE INQUISITION
as the man, condemned for no offence, who has freed
himself by his own ingenuity from the clutches of
the Tribunal. Thirty-two years after the event, when
he is librarian to a German prince without a library,
Casanova sits down to rehearse it for posterity. The
credibility of this rehearsal is the one thing of
moment to us.
Not until he persuades himself that his detention
in the Piombi may be of long duration does Casanova
begin seriously to meditate an escape. In the cham-
ber in which he is allowed to take exercise is a medley
of objects thrown pell-mell ; and here he discovers
two veritable treasures : a round iron bolt and a
piece of marble whereon to sharpen it. The bolt,
which is to be used as a crowbar, he hides in his
easy-chair. He resolves to make a hole with it in
the flooring underneath his bed. This task is very
far advanced — almost completed — when Casanova
is suddenly transferred to a better and roomier
lodging. The excavations in his old cell are now at
once laid bare. The gaoler is furious, and for a
short time will hold no friendly intercourse with his
prisoner. Every morning an archer is brought in
to sound the walls of the new chamber, but Casanova
notices that the man does not touch the ceiling, and
decides to go to work at that spot. His bolt or crow-
bar is still concealed in the padding of his arm-chair,
where the gaoler has not thought of searching for it.
On a sudden the behaviour of the gaoler is greatly
modified. Not only does he relent, he even makes
overtures to Casanova ; and this notwithstanding
that he has but just had a very practical warning as
to the kind of prisoner with whom he is dealing.
This brings us to the episode of the interchange of
books. The reader will not have failed to remark
THE LETTER-BOX OF THE PIOMBI 119
that the books passing between Casanova and Balbi
become a sort of letter-box ; and Lorenzo, the gaoler
of the Inquisition, is the postman. Now, books are
a well-known medium of communication between
prisoners, and every work circulated in our own
prisons has the fore and end leaves, margins, and all
blank spaces stamped over with the '' broad arrow."
Casanova has already been detected in a daring
attempt to break out of the Piombi ; yet the very
gaoler who has detected him is now daily carrying
books to and fro between this prisoner and another,
and never thinking to examine them for contraband
matter.
Balbi is now taken into partnership. Betwixt cell
and cell an active correspondence goes forward.
Projects are considered and debated.^ The escape
is to be made by the ceiling. Casanova cannot pierce
his own because his walls are sounded every day by
the archer. He will, however, despatch his crowbar
to Balbi, who is to deceive Lorenzo as to his work by
bestrewing all the place with pictures of saints. On
arriving above Casanova's ceiling, Balbi will break
through the wall of separation of the two cells, and
then make a hole in Casanova's ceiling. This accom-
plished, Casanova undertakes the rest.
But how to get the crowbar into Balbi's hands ?
Casanova thinks of sending it in the back of a folio
of the Scriptures. This will not do, for the bolt is
a couple of inches too long. Then he has the notion
of the monster dish of macaroni, to be placed on top
of the Bible ; and we have seen how the least sus-
picious and most obliging of gaolers carries the double
^ I have, of course, been compelled to present in a very condensed
form the voluminous narrative of Casanova. He would have us
believe that many letters travelled between Balbi and himself.
120 FROM THE GRIP OF THE INQUISITION
offering to Casanova's friends. Balbi, now in posses-
sion of the precious implement, begins operations,
and rapidly achieves, without let or hindrance, a
labour that, in the circumstances, would have broken
the heart of a master mason. For, be it remembered,
Casanova had not succeeded in bringing away from
his first cell the indispensable bit of marble, and the
magical crowbar must long ere this have been blunter
than any poker.
These, to the point arrived at in the narrative,
are our main heads : I need no farther recapitulate.
Here truly are portentous goings on in a prison
administered by the dragons of the Inquisition. On
the side of control, is this habitual carelessness, is
this dull or humorous indifference a probable char-
acter of the management of such a place ? At the
period of Casanova's detention we shall not find in
Europe any methodical government of gaols ; but
is the Piombi, the State prison of the alert, severe,
and prepotent Inquisition under such sickly super-
vision as this ? Is there no governor of the Piombi ?
Casanova's narrative does not refer us to any superior
ofiicer. Is the prison of the Inquisition — an unscru-
pulous and omnipotent oligarchy in the bosom of a
Republic — at the mercy of Lorenzo, who is the
clown of Casanova's racy chronicle ? Have we no
more in his pages than the matter of a new " Beggar's
Opera " ? Is Casanova's Piombi on a level with
Gay's Newgate ? Lorenzo may be the finest num-
skull that ever turned key in lock ; and to the
credibility of Casanova's history it is essential that
he was. But was he ?
The first pieces in the case are the slab of marble
and the round iron bolt. With these the story starts,
and on these in great measure it depends. Dr. Guede
DID THEY DIG? 121
will have nothing to say to either of them ; dismisses
both. He admits that, amid the lumber of an attic
on an upper floor of the prison, a disused iron bolt
of a cell might very easily be found ; but, on con-
sideration, he rejects it as a fiction of Casanova's.
With the interesting and useful piece of marble he
has no patience at all. It could not possibly, he says,
have been conveyed from the basement of the
palace (of which the prison was a part) to the floor
above. The scrap of marble is, in Casanova's story,
the complement of the iron bolt ; and it is with
these two instruments that the digging begins.
Dr. Guede is firmly convinced that there was no
digging at all.
It is a shrewd conjecture, and the learned doctor
may be right. But to me it seems that, with the
exception of the breaking up of the layer of mosaic,
there is not in the first part of Casanova's story any
vital improbability. Of course there should have
been no iron bolt in the attic, and no complementary
bit of marble. But the bolt, at least, may well have
been flung there by some careless hand ; and if, as
we are told, there were bits of old furniture in the
place, is it not at all events possible that a small
slab of marble was (by mere accident, if the reader
pleases) carried up among them ? Lorenzo, to be
sure, ought to have seen and pounced on both ; but
prisoners before and after Casanova's day have made
very lucky finds. Was Captain Haldane, when he
looked into the cupboard at the Staats Model School,
expecting a booty of files, screw-drivers, and wire-
cutters ?
Casanova, contemplating flight, may not at first
know or suspect that help of the right, golden sort
is to be furnished to him. If, then, he has really
122 FROM THE (;RIP OF TIIJl INOUISniON
picked up, under Lorenzo's very nose, the bolt and
the blessed touchstone, what is more natural for
him to do than to start delving ? Given the situation,
this is, in fact, his proper course.
If, however, there is no digging, we must seek a
solution elsewhere. Persuaded as he is that almost
never does a prisoner escape without assistance
inside or outside the prison, Dr. Guede examines the
case from this point of view. He decides that not
Casanova's crowbar but somebody's golden sequins
are at work. He decides for bribery and corruption.
Who is the briber ? None but the Senator amplis-
sime, Bragadino. Who is the party bribed ? Chiefly
Lorenzo.
Here undoubtedly, I think, Dr. Guede smites the
right nail on the head. Under this theory is ex-
plained well-nigh everything in the narrative that is
dubious, and everything that seems downright im-
possible. Let us have the truth of it, though we
sacrifice the rarest tale of its kind that ever yet was
written. Bragadino, pining for tlie gay companion-
ship of his adopted son, will go to any length to get
him out of the Piombi. From the first the old man
has been attentive to him, sending now a basket of
sweet lemons, now " a nice roast fowl," and on New
Year's Day a dressing-gown lined with fox-skin, a
coverlet of wadded silk, and a bear-skin foot-muff.
Having no doubt felt his path with caution, he begins
actively bribing. Balbi, writing with amazing rash-
ness to Casanova, tells him that Bragadino had
promised to an archer named Niccolo " a thousand
sequins' if he could help you to make your escape ;
but Lorenzo, having heard this, flatters himself that
• A very fair tjnm, if tlic scquiij vvu;i worth between uiiie and ten
shillings.
THE GO-BETWEEN 123
he can gain the reward without any risk by making
his wife obtain your release from Signor Diedo."
This plan, if attempted, is not brought off ; but
Lorenzo, taking a greater risk, will now put himself
in direct communication with the gentleman who
is so lavish of his sequins. After all, cannot he,
Lorenzo, do a great deal more for the prisoner than
any archer ?
Do we begin to see daylight ? It is still, as I con-
tend, a plausible suggestion that Casanova has been
at his digging, and that the terrified gaoler has flown
into a passion over it. Surprisingly soon, however,
his passion has evaporated. He ceases to be the
sulky, jealous, and watchful keeper of a bird that
has tried to shatter its cage, and that will doubtless
try again. He grows friendly, and in his friendliness
does what no prudent warder, in the common situa-
tion of warders, would for a moment dream of doing.
He makes himself a go-between in a matter of books,
and never peeps into them. But the situation has
changed. It is no longer a common situation of
warders. From the coffers of Bragadino to the
pockets of Lorenzo the sequins have begun to flow ;
and from this beatific hour everything conforms to the
theory of handsome bribery. We have no more dis-
coveries of gaping holes, no more tempests of passion.
Three quiet prisoners of a literary or studious turn
solace their captivity with books of a curious or
pious nature (some of Casanova's titles are delicious) ;
and the kindest of turnkeys takes on him the oflice
of librarian. Quite the sedatest and happiest little
family the terrible Piombi can ever have contained !
Consider now the propositions of the great dish
of macaroni and the sacred pictures on the ceiling
of Balbi and the fat Count. No reader, I trust, has
124 FROM THE GRIP OF THE INQUISITION
a stomach for the M'Arony.^ Sorry as we may be
for Balbi and Count Asquino, I think we must con-
sider that this refection was not set before them.
Casanova, his history of the escape being what it is,
has no choice but to exhibit Lorenzo as a Partridge
at the play. But a Lorenzo fingering the gold pieces
of the Senator is under no necessity of playing the
egregious fool. And the pictures on the ceiling ?
I have wandered through many prisons, and shall
mildly say that this form of decoration is distress-
ingly unusual. Holy emblems for his walls the monk
(who, by the way, proclaims himself the father of
three illegitimate children) might by favour of
Lorenzo have procured ; but does a prisoner, by
plastering it with prints, implore attention to the
ceiling he is piercing ? and does a warder come in
every morning, and admire these works, and walk
out again ? It is a beautiful and fascinating story.
But the moon has sunk in the heavens. All dark
and misty Venice lies. It is time to decamp. There
are " pippins and cheese to come."
IV
" I crawled out first ; Balbi following. Soradaci,
who had accompanied us to the roof, was ordered
to pull the sheet of lead down again and then to go
and pray to Saint Francis. Crawling on my knees
on all fours, I gripped my crowbar, and, stretching
as far as I could, I slipped it obliquely between the
points of the sheets ; then, grasping the edge of the
sheet I had turned up, I dragged myself up to the
ridge of the roof. The friar, to follow me, inserted
' Thackeray's " Yellowplush Papers."
THE SUMMIT OF THE ROOF 125
the fingers of his right hand into the belt of my
breeches. Thus I had the double task of a beast
which drags and carries both at once, and that on a
steep roof, made slippery by a dense fog. Half-way
up this dreadful climb Balbi bid me stop, for one of
his parcels had fallen, and he hoped it might not
have gone further than the gutter. My first impulse
was to give him a kick and send him after his bundle ;
but, God be praised, I had enough self-command not
to do this, for the punishment would have been too
severe for both of us, since I alone could never have
escaped.
" After having with infinite pains surmounted
some fifteen or sixteen sheets of lead, we reached
the summit of the roof. I seated myself comfortably
astride it, and Balbi followed suit. Behind us lay
the little isle of San Giorgio Maggiore, and some
two hundred paces in front we beheld the many
cupolas of Saint Mark.
" Right and left I peered for some minutes ; then,
bidding Balbi await my return, I advanced, crowbar
in hand, with very little difficulty along the roof.
For an hour or more I pushed to and fro, prying
vainly here and there. Nowhere did I see anything
to which a cord could be attached. My perplexity
was extreme. I could not for a moment think of
the canal, nor of the palace courtyard, and among
the many cupolas of the church I saw nothing but
precipitous walls leading to no open space. To get
beyond the church to the Canonica I should have
had to surmount such steep slopes that I had no
hope of achieving it, and it was natural that I should
reject as impossible everything that did not seem
feasible. The situation in which I found myself
required daring, but absolutely no rashness. It was
126 FROM THE GRIP OF THE INQUISITION
such a dilemma as I imagine can have no parallel
for difficulty in any moral question.
" However, I had to come to some conclusion ; I
must either get away or return to my cell, never
probably to leave it again ; or, again, throw myself
into the canal. In this predicament a great deal
must be left to chance, and I must begin somewhere.
I fixed my eyes on a dormer window on the side
towards the canal, and about two-thirds of the way
down. It was far enough from the spot we had
started from to make me think that the loft it
lighted was not connected with the prison I had
broken out of. It could light only an attic, inhabited
or vacant, over some room in the palace, where,
when day should dawn, the doors no doubt would
be opened. I was morally certain that the atten-
dants in the palace, even those of the Doge himself,
who should happen to see us, would be eager to
favour our escape rather than place us in the hands
of justice, even if they had recognised us as the
greatest of State criminals, so horrible was the
Inquisition in their eyes.
" With this idea I decided on inspecting that
window, so, letting myself slip gently down, I soon
was astride on the little roof. Then, resting my
hands on the edge, I stretched my head out and
succeeded in seeing and touching a little barred
grating, behind which there was a window glazed
with small panes set in lead. The window did not
trouble me, but the grating, slight as it was, seemed
to me an insurmountable difficulty, for without a
file I could not get through the bars, and I only had
my crowbar. I was checked, and began to lose heart,
when a perfectly simple and natural incident revived
my spirit.
THE CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT 127
" It was the clock of St. Mark's striking midnight.
The sound was as a spoken charm, summoning me
to action and promising success. Lying flat on the
roof, with my head over the edge, I pushed my bar
in above the frame which held the grating, deter-
mined to dislodge it bodily. In a quarter of an hour
I had succeeded ; the grating was in my hands un-
broken, and having laid it by the side of the dormer
I had no difficulty in breaking in the window, though
the blood was flowing from a wound I had made in
my left hand.
" By the help of my bar I got back to the ridge of
the roof in the same way as before, and made my
way back to where I had left my companion. I
found him desperate and raging ; he abused me
foully for having left him there so long. He declared
he was only waiting for seven to strike to go back to
prison.
" * What did you think had become of me ? '
" * I thought you had fallen down some roof or
wall.'
** ' And you have no better way of expressing
your joy at my return than by abusing me ? '
" ' What have you been doing all this time ? '
" * Come with me and you will see.'
" Having gathered up my bundles, I made my
way back to the window. When we were just over
it I explained to Balbi exactly what I had done, and
consulted him as to how we were to get into the loft
through the window. The thing was quite easy for
one of us ; the other could let him down. But I did
not see how the second man was to follow him, as
there was no way of fixing the rope above the window.
By going in and letting myself drop I might break
my legs and arms, for I did not know the height of
128 FROM THE GRIP OF THE INOUISITION
the window above the floor. To this wise argument,
spoken with perfect friendliness, the pig rephed in
these words :
" ' Let me down, at any rate, and when I am in
there you will have plenty of time to find out how
you can follow me.'
" I confess that in my first impulse of indignation
I was ready to stab him with my crowbar. A good
genius saved me from doing so, and I did not even
utter one word of reproach for his selfishness and
baseness.
" On the contrary, I at once unrolled my bundle of
rope, and fastening it firmly under his armpits I
made him lie flat on his face, his feet outwards, and
then let him down on to the roof of the dormer.
When he was there, I made him go over the edge
and into the window as far as his hips, leaving his
arms on the sill. I next slipped down to the little
roof, as I had done before, lay down on my stomach,
and holding the rope firmly, told the monk to let
himself go without fear. When he had landed on
the floor of the attic he undid the rope, and I, pulling
it up, found that the height was above fifty feet.
To jump this was too great a risk. As for the monk,
now he was safe, after nearly two hours of anguish
on a roof, where, I must own, his situation was far
from comfortable, he called out to me to throw in the
ropes, and he would take care of them. I, as may be
supposed, took good care not to follow this absurd
injunction. Not knowing what to do, and awaiting
some inspiration, I clambered once more to the ridge,
and my eye falling on a spot near a cupola, which I
had not yet examined, I made my way thither. I
saw a little terrace or platform covered with lead,
close to a large window closed with shutters. There
THE LADDER 129
was here a tub full of wet mortar with a trowel, and
by the side a ladder, which I thought would be long
enough to enable me to get down into the attic
where my comrade was. This settled the question.
I slipped my rope through the top rung, and dragged
this awkward load as far as the window. I then had
to get the heavy load into the window. It was
twelve of my cubits [douze de mes brasses] in length.
The difficulty I had in doing it made me repent of
having deprived myself of Balbi's assistance. I
pushed the ladder along till one end was on the level
of the dormer and the other projected by a third
beyond the gutter. Then I slid down on to the
dormer roof ; I drew the ladder close to my side
and fastened the rope to the eighth rung, after which
I again allowed it to slip till it was parallel with the
window. Then I did all I could to make it slip into
the window, but I could not get it beyond the fifth
rung because the end caught against the inner roof
of the dormer, and no power on earth could get it
any further without breaking either the ladder or
the roof. There was nothing for it but to tilt the
outer end, then the slope would allow it to slide in
by its own weight. I might have placed the ladder
across the window and have fastened the rope to it
to let myself down, without any risk ; but the
ladder would have remained there, and next morning
would have guided the archers and Lorenzo to the
spot where we might still be hiding.
" I would not run the risk of losing by such an act
of imprudence the fruit of so much labour and peril,
and to conceal all our traces the ladder must be got
entirely into the window. Having no one to help me,
I decided on getting down to the gutter to tilt it,
and attain my end. This in fact I did, but at so great
130 FROM THE GRIP OF THE INQUISITION
a risk that but for a sort of miracle I should have
paid for my daring with my life. I ventured to leave
go of the cord that was attached to the ladder with-
out any fear of its falling into the canal, because it
was caught on the gutter by the third rung. Then,
with my crowbar in my hand, I cautiously let my-
self slide down to the gutter by the side of the ladder ;
the marble ledge was against my toes, for I let myself
down with my face to the roof. In this attitude I
found strength enough to lift the ladder a few inches,
and I had the satisfaction of seeing it go a foot
further in. As the reader will understand, this
diminished its weight very perceptibly. What I now
wanted was to get it two feet further in, by lifting
it enough ; for after that I felt sure that, by climbing
up to the roof of the dormer once more, I could,
with the help of the rope, get it all the way in. To
achieve this, I raised myself from my knees ; but
the force I was obliged to use to succeed made me
slip, so that I suddenly found myself over the edge
of the roof as far as my chest, supported only by my
elbows.
" It was an awful moment, which to this day I
shudder to think of, and which it is perhaps impos-
sible to conceive of in all its horror. The natural
instinct of self-preservation made me almost un-
consciously lean with all my might, supporting
myself on my ribs, and 1 succeeded — miraculously,
I felt inclined to say. Taking care not to relax my
hold, 1 managed to raise myself with all the strength
of my wrists, leaning at the same time on my stomach.
Happily there was nothing to fear for the ladder, for
the lucky — or rather the unlucky push which had
cost me so dear, had sent it in more than three feet,
which fixed it firmly.
A FRIGHTFUL MOMENT 131
" Finding myself resting on the gutter literally
on my wrists and my groin, I found that by moving
my right side I could raise first one knee and then
the other on to the parapet. Then I should be safe.
However, my troubles were not yet over, for the
strain I was obliged to exert in order to succeed
gave me such a nervous spasm that a violent attack
of painful cramp seemed to cripple me completely.
I did not lose my head, and remained perfectly still
till the spasm was over, knowing that perfect still-
ness is the best cure for nervous cramps — I had often
found it so. It was a frightful moment. A few
minutes after I gradually renewed my efforts. I
succeeded in getting my knees against the gutter,
and as soon as I had recovered my breath I carefully
raised the ladder, and at last got it to the angle where
it was parallel with the window. Knowing enough
of the laws of equilibrium and the lever, I now
picked up my crowbar, and climbing in my old
fashion, I hauled myself up to the roof and easily
succeeded in tilting in the ladder, which the monk
below received in his arms. I then flung in my
clothes, the ropes, and the broken pieces, and got
down into the attic, where Balbi received me very
heartily and took care to remove the ladder."
Together, and as best they could in the dark, they
proceeded to a survey of the room. It measured,
says Casanova, about thirty paces by twenty. At
one end they came upon a folding-door barred with
iron. It promised badly, but yielded to a little
pressure. Traversing the next apartment they
knocked up against a large table. Groping on, they
came to a window, opened it, and had a dim vision
of precipices between the cupolas. Closing the win-
dow, they made their way back to the spot where
132 FROM THE GRIP OF THE INQUISITION
they had left their packages. Here Casanova, his
forces spent, drooped to the floor, and fell fast asleep.
Three hours and a half he slept, when the monk in
alarm shook him into consciousness. He rose up
refreshed, and glanced around. The light was grow-
ing. " This is no prison," exclaimed Casanova ;
" there must be an easy way out."
In a corner opposite the iron door he espied another
door, and his fingers fell upon the keyhole. Insert-
ing the crowbar, he wrenched the door open, and
now they were in a small room where a key lay on
the table. With this key he opened another door
opposite, and they passed into a gallery where many
recesses were stored with papers. These were the
archives. Next they discovered a little stone stair-
case, down which they crept ; another, and this
also they descended. At the bottom was a glass
door, which let Casanova into a room that he recog-
nised. It was the chancery office of the Doge.
He tried a lock of the door, and, failing to pierce
it, decided on breaking through a panel.
" In half an hour the hole was large enough,
luckily, for to make it wider a saw would have been
needed. The edges of the gap were all jagged, and
horrid to behold. It was five feet from the ground.
Placing two chairs beneath it, we mounted on them,
and I pushed the monk through. It was still some-
what dark, but I now knew where we were. Hand-
ing our bundles out to Balbi, I placed a third chair
on top of the first two, and told him to grip and haul
me through, even though he tore me to pieces in
doing so. My legs and thighs were, indeed, so lacer-
ated that the blood flowed from them. I was, how-
ever, on the right side at last. Picking up my bundle,
and descending two flights of steps, I had no trouble
MACAIRE AND JACQUES STROP 133
with the door below. This leads to the corridor
where is the great entrance to the royal staircase,
and beside it the door of the Savio alia scritlura. A
glance assured me that nothing but a catapult or a
mine would level these barriers ; and my good
crowbar seemed to tell me that my work was finished.
" Resigned and absolutely tranquil, I sat me
down, making a sign to the monk to do the same.
' My task is done,' said I. * The rest is with God or
fortune. Whether the sweepers will come here
to-day — All Saints' Day — or to-morrow — All Souls'
Day — I know not. This I do know, should anyone
at all come, I am up, off, and away the very instant
the door is open. Follow me, you. If there come
no one, here I bide ; yes, though I die of hunger.'
" At this discourse the poor wretch fell to raving,
called me madman, liar, betrayer. I let him rave ;
there was no moving me."
The next thing to think of was a change of raiment.
Balbi, says Casanova, had the air of a peasant, but
his clothes were at any rate intact. As for Casanova
himself, he was tattered and gory. With handker-
chiefs torn into bandages he gave first aid to his
wounds ; then gathered his hair into a bag or purse,
pulled on white stockings, and donned the holiday
coat with which in bravado he had entered the
Piombi. He must have looked, as he remarks, like
a gallant who had begun the night at a ball, wound
it up at a gaming-house, and issued thence the worse
for his share in a rough-and-tumble. His silken
cloak he draped around the shoulders of Balbi, who
had now the style of a thief in a hurry. Robert
Macaire and Jacques Strop to the life !
Thus happily geared for the road, Casanova
boldly throws up a window.
134 FROM THE GRIP OF THE INQUISITION
" My face was at once observed by some idlers in
the palace courtyard, who, puzzled to imagine how
such a person could be at that window so early in
the morning, went to inform the keeper of the key.
The door-keeper, fancying that he must have locked
someone in the day before, went to fetch his keys,
and came to open. I was vexed at having shown
myself at the window, not knowing that in this
fortune had befriended me ; and I was sitting by the
monk, who was talking nonsense, when the rattle of
keys fell on my ear. Greatly excited, I rose, and
putting my eye to a crack which happily divided
the hinges of the door, I saw one man only, slowly
coming up the steps with a bunch of large keys in
his hand. I desired Balbi very earnestly not to say
a word, to keep behind me, and follow me closely. I
took my crowbar, holding it in my right hand hidden
in my coat, and I placed myself in such a position
with regard to the door as that I could fly the in-
stant it was opened, and rush down the steps. I
prayed heaven that the man might not show fight,
for if he had I must have struck him down, and I
was fully determined to do so.
" The door was opened, and on seeing me the poor
man stood petrified. Taking advantage of his
amazement, without pausing, without speaking a
word, I quickly went down the steps, the monk
following me. Without looking as if I were running
away, but walking at a good pace, I went by the
magnificent Giant's Staircase, not listening to
Balbi, who kept calling to me : ' Come into the
church ! '
" The door of the church is not twenty yards from
the great stairs ; but the churches of Venice were
no longer, even then, a sanctuary for criminals, and
THE FRONTIER AT LAST 135
no one took refuge there. This Balbi knew, but in
his terror he had lost his memory. He told me after-
wards that what urged him to press me to go into
the church was a religious impulse which drew him
to the altar.
" ' Why did you not go alone, then ? '
" * I would not forsake you.'
" Better had he said : ' I would not lose sight of
you.' "
The asylum divined of Casanova lay well beyond
the frontiers of the Most Serene Republic. He
penetrated to it ; and since the final passages, full
as they are of chance and charm, entail no new
arrest, it is time, in releasing Casanova, to release
the reader. We have a flight by gondola to Mestre.
At Mestre a carriage is hired for Treviso, and the
start is delayed while Casanova stalks Balbi to a
bar and a barmaid. There are other quarrels on the
road ; and at one place Casanova proposes to slay
and bury the monk instanter. They separate, fall
together once again at Borgo di Valsugnano (the
first town beyond the Republic) ; and at this stage
Balbi vanishes from Casanova's pages, and we never
meet him again. He is a live creature in the record ;
and in the plot itself — whatever the plot amounts to
— his part may have been better than we know. It
is the prime business of Casanova to seize and keep
the centre of the stage, and to drop the lights on
everybody else. On foot and by donkey-back he
fares to Munich ; and presently turns up in Paris. ^
^ Where long extracts have been made for me, I have had
partial recourse (after comparing it with Casanova's French) to an
excellent translation by Miss Clara Bell.
136 FROM THE GRIP OF THE INQUISITION
V
I have suggested that some of the most enlivening
and original escapes are exceedingly unlike the work
of the novelist. The escape of Casanova, on the
other hand, where it does not strike the reader as
pure extravaganza, is in the manner and has the
atmosphere of pure romance. Never for a moment
does the spirit of the story droop or falter ; but the
foot it trips upon is always of the airiest, and
the whole adventure is perilously close to un-
reality.
The scene on the leads is equal to the best of
Dumas. Casanova has written up this situation for
all that he is worth, and every stroke tells. It goes
straight to the nerves. It is filled with the horror
of the empty air.
Alas ! it is all a fetch, a flam, a diddle. The un-
bashful gamester has cheated at play. He has
cogged the dice, and cozened us.
In what way he really did leave the Piombi is now
past the wit of man to say. But it was not in the way
that he pretends. For if Casanova has dished his
readers, he now in turn (in what dim hinterland of
life he bides) is dished by Dr. Guede.
Note-book in hand. Dr. Guede makes his leisurely
ascent to the leads, surveys these interesting heights,
takes measurements, interviews workmen on the
spot, weighs up the hazards and the chances of that
pregnant night of mists, and says, in effect : "I am
sorry, gentlemen Casanovists, but beyond a doubt
James has again been at his tricks. This scarifying
performance on the roof is the greatest taradiddle
of all. Jamie iss an awfu' leear ! "
In truth, if the reader's intelligence has not been
THE MAGISTRAL NOTE-BOOK 137
quite stormed by Casanova's breathless record of
the flight, there are things in it that must have set
him gaping. When Balbi has been lowered by the
rope through the window, and touches to the floor of
the room, Casanova jauntily remarks to us that the
height was " more than fifty feet." Everything, in
short, is on a scale to dazzle us. But has Giovanni
Jacopo no eye at all to posterity — or at least to
Dr. Guede and his magistral note-book ? For the
floor of the lowest storey of the Piombi is only some
half-dozen metres, or, say, nineteen feet and a half,
below the top of the roof !
But this is a bagatelle to the prowess of Casanova
with the ladder. This he says categorically was
twelve of his cubits. Exactly what we are to under-
stand by this measurement — " douze de mes brasses "
— it is hard to surmise. Another French critic,
Bernard, preceding Guede by many years, thinks
that cubit here tallies with the cordwainer's cubit.
But this gives us a ladder two hundred and forty-
seven yards long. This would be a simple and proper
appendage of the doll's house of little Glumdal-
clitch ; but we are not now in the confines of Brob-
dingnag ; we are on the roof of the Piombi, and in
need of such a ladder as a fugitive of mortal inches
may manipulate. Is any ladder constructed of the
length, not of two hundred and forty-seven yards,
but of one hundred and thirty or one hundred and
forty yards ? But the man is not of our planet who
raises and propels with his own hands and arms a
ladder of this size. It is a new labour of Hercules.
** You are a devil at everything," cries Sancho to
Don Quixote, ** and there is no kind of thing in the
'versal world but what you can turn your hand to."
It is what Casanova himself would hint to posterity ;
138 FROM THE GRIP OF THE INQUISITION
his tongue in his cheek, in the Hbrary of the German
prince who has not a book on his shelves.
His getting downstairs with Balbi detains us a
moment. How does he attack a keyhole with a
blunted crowbar ? How, with a blunted crowbar,
does he make a round hole (with jagged edges) in the
solid panel of a door ? He is here, it would seem, in
domestic parts of the palace, and day has long
dawned, and servants must be stirring ; but no one
hears him pounding on the door.
That is a rather tempting word of his own con-
cerning the archives in the corridor, but no paper has
been discovered on the topic of this flight. The
pungent and absorbing memoirs of the man himself,
with the soundings of them by a few critics of con-
sideration, are all the data we can go by. He escaped
from the Piombi. This is as much as we know.
How far Lorenzo was in it at the last we cannot
tell.
But what became of Lorenzo ? This is a point,
of more than secondary concern in the history,
which Dr. Guede does not notice. If Lorenzo helps
Casanova out of the Piombi, as almost certainly he
does, who helps out Lorenzo ? For Lorenzo could
not remain there a day after him. He stands within
the danger of the Inquisitors, the proceedings of
whose court were conducted with the utmost secrecy,
and who disposed of their prisoners as they pleased.
There were subterranean dungeons of the prison,
the " Piozzi," mere wells, in which the prisoner
contested life with rats and the waters of the canal.
There were the galleys. There was sudden and
secret execution by any means. Lorenzo, in a word,
loosing Casanova, must instantly vacate the premises.
Is Bragadino the man behind it all ? If so, having
LORENZO 139
freed Casanova, he takes charge of Lorenzo, and
wafts him somewhere out of Venice.
Time, it has been said, is an " unsportsmanhke
operator," and Casanova's grave is spoiled. But
he has at least composed for us an inimitable tale.
His wit and charm are a kind of possession ;
and thus much may be laid in tribute on his " ex-
hilarating tombstone."
Ill
FROM SIBERIA TO PARIS
THE GREAT FLIGHT OF RUFIN PIETROWSKI
" Thy spirit, Independence, let me share ;
Lord of the lion heart and eagle eye.
Thy steps I follow with my bosom bare
Nor heed the storm that fioivls along the sky."
Smollett's Ode to Independence,
" Eas'd the putting off
These troublesome disguises which we wear."-
-MlLTON.
FROM SIBERIA TO PARIS
IN the year 1842 Rufin Pietrowski, a young Pole
of noble birth, lay sick in the Paris hospital of
La Pitie. From this extreme outpost of exile he had
long meditated a secret return to his own country.
Pietrowski was a soldier of the '31. In 1831 he had
contended against Russia in the rebellion that ended
so wretchedly for Poland. Emigrating, or rather
banishing himself, to France, he had lived in Paris
for twelve years. He was sick, and homesick.
In his ward of the hospital Pietrowski made friends
with an American patient, to whom he disclosed his
project. To reach Poland from Paris a passport,
genuine or counterfeit, was indispensable ; and this
Open Sesame of road and frontier Pietrowski had
never managed to procure. A passport was secretly
got for him by the American ; and on January 9,
1843, the exile set out from Paris. The passport he
carried was an Enghsh one, made out in the name of
" Joseph Catharo, native of La Valette (Malta),
aged 36."
** I could desire nothing better," says Pietrowski.
"In my situation an English passport was prefer-
able to any other. I spoke Italian perfectly, English
very imperfectly ; but my supposed Maltese ante-
cedents would make good any failings on that score."
For the needs of his immense journey he had
scraped together a sum of about £6.
143
144 FROM SIBERIA TO PARIS
Through Strasburg, Stuttgart, Munich, Salzburg
and Vienna, Pietrowski took his route to Pesth ;
and from Pesth, after a month's sojourn — the
£6 ebbing daily — he completed the pilgrimage
on foot. His goal was Kaminie^, in Podolia ; and
into this town he entered on the 22nd of March.
A Pole in Paris, Pietrowski was a Frenchman in
Kaminieg. With his native tongue clattering around
him, he did not as yet dare to utter a word of it.
He pushed his fortune as a teacher of languages,
secured appointments, became known — as " the
Frenchman " — to everyone ; and stealthily revealed
himself to a small number of his compatriots. For
nine months Pietrowski lived this dubious and dan-
gerous life in Kaminieg ; delighting in it, and ignor-
ing the dangers of it ; because, although perpetually
in hiding, he was still at home. As a fighter on the
Polish side in the revolution of 1831, he was liable
to arrest as a criminal by the Russian Government.
Rumours against him spread from St. Petersburg.
He was seized, tried, and condemned to death.
" This sentence, which was long and minutely
drawn up, finished with ' the pain of death,' com-
muted, however, by Prince Bibikov, for that of
penal servitude in Siberia for the term of my natural
life. I was, in addition, degraded from the ranks of
the nobility, and I was to make the journey in fetters.
After having heard this document, I was ordered to
write at the bottom of the paper the following
words : ' Rutin Pietrowski heard this sentence on
the 29th of July, O.S., 1844.' "
On the evening of this day Pietrowski started for
Siberia.
BY KIBITKA 145
II
As a noble, he was exempted from trudging on
foot those infinite miles from his Russian prison to
his unknown destination in Siberia. Common
criminals condemned to hard labour (among whom
were many women) travelled in this way under
escort from station to station, day by day through
all seasons ; and if their goal were the mines of
Nertchinsk, in the remote government of Irkoutsk,
scarcely could they attain it in two years. Pietrow-
ski on his own journey met many of these caravans ;
Cossacks riding slowly up and down the line ; "a
mournful silence reigning in the groups, broken only
by the dull noise of their chains."
Compared with the lot of this " herd of the lost "
his own state, he says, was endurable; but in the
kihitka in which he was rapidly driven from one
convict posting-house to another the rings of his
fetters, too tightly fastened, pained him incessantly,
and he suffered from constant sickness. Sometimes,
half-dazed at one of his stopping-places, he was
vaguely aware of the compassionate glances of by-
standers of both sexes, and little presents of cakes,
dried fish, or fruits were surreptitiously thrust upon
him. Now and again, during the long stages of day
or night, the guards on either side of him in the
carriage fell fast asleep, and at rough places in the
road he caught the caps as they were jerked from
their heads. At one halting-place the postmaster
combined this character with that of village priest
(pope) ; tippling brandy, he alternately denounced
and gave his blessing to the weary prisoner. Save
for meals and the changing of horses, Pietrowski's
progress knew no stoppage along the road by which
146 FROM SIBERIA TO PARIS
ten thousand prisoners of the Czar were every year
transported. ** Day and night we drove."
*' Going at the rate of about sixty-six verstes or
kilometres a day, I had traversed in succession the
governments of Tchernigov, Orel, Toula, Riazan,
Vladimir, Nijni-Novgorod, Kazan, Viatka and Perm;
I had passed the mountain chains of Oural and To-
bolsk, and I found myself, at the end of twenty days,
transported from the fertile plains of Poland to the
very centre of Siberia- West."
On a night of August he was received into " a sort
of castle," where he had for gaoler a handsome
young French-speaking officer who, in chat with his
prisoner, unrolled before him a complete map of
Siberia.
** This I examined with feverish curiosity ; I had
all the marks explained to me ; I studied and strove
to fix in my memory the different routes and water-
sheds of the country. My heart beat violently, and
I could not take my eyes off the map. At last the
officer noticed my agitation. ' Ah ! ' he said, * I
fear you meditate an evasion ; pray, pray do not
think of it ; it is perfectly impossible. Many of
youi countrymen have tried it, and those may be
said to have been happy who, tracked on every side,
tortured by hunger, and maddened by despair, have
yet been able to escape the consequences of their
crazy undertaking by a timely suicide. The conse-
quences are certain to be the knout, and a life of
misery such as I have no words to describe to you.
For God's sake, put all such thoughts from your
mind ! ' "
It was at this station, Omsk, that Pietrowski
received his final marching orders and way-bill.
Prince Gortchakov, Governor-General of Siberia,
THE CONVICT HELLS 147
assigned him his settlement. The hell of the Siberian
convict had many circles in those days ; and Pietrow-
ski, sitting in an ante-chamber, debated with him-
self his chances of the mines of Nertchinsk. He
was informed that he would be sent to the works at
the Government distilleries, at Ekaterinski-Zavod,
in the district of Tara, on the banks of the Irtiche,
some three hundred kilometres from Omsk. At
this place he arrived on a raw morning in October.
Ill
In an office of the works, while awaiting the orders
of the inspector, Pietrowski was greeted with silent
emotion by two young Polish clerks, exiles and
convicts like himself. '* They conjured me to show
myself patient and submissive in every way. It
was only thus that I could arrive in time at being
employed in the ofhce, instead of having to do the
hard and severe work of the factory itself ; and at
this price, above all, I could purchase an immunity
from those corporal punishments to which every
labouring convict is liable. I cannot describe what
was the character of this broken and breathless
colloquy, or the shiver which ran through my frame
when I heard Polish lips speaking, as a matter of
course, of their fear of blows and of the rods."
Prince Gortchakov had given instructions that
" a special watch must be kept upon Pietrowski,"
and the inspector in consequence ordered him to
work with chains on his feet. He had for overseer
a convict who was branded on the forehead and on
both cheeks ; and among his associates were two
murderers who, having lived through the punish-
ment of the knout, were to end their days in Siberia.
148 FROM SIBERIA TO PARIS
In his affecting and fascinating " Story of a Si-
berian Exile " the young PoHsh noble is seen work-
ing patiently with felons ; sweeping yards, drawing
water, hewing wood for fagots and stacking the
fagots in symmetrical piles ; ** and this last employ-
ment in the open air, in the autumnal and winter
months, in rain and snow, and in the icy tempera-
ture of Siberia, was the most trying of any."
The whole population of Ekaterinski-Zavod con-
sisted of the descendants of former convicts ; and
in the works in which Pietrowski was employed all
the prisoners save a few political offenders like
himself " were really malefactors." He says that
in his enforced daily intercourse with them he had
neither a false shame nor a misplaced pride ; he
talked to them, listened to their strange and moving
histories, and studied their different characters.
In the course of a year, at the good pleasure of
the inspector, he passed into the service of the
lessees of the establishment, and was presently
admitted — without his chains — to the counting-
house. This department ** was the rendezvous of
many travellers, who frequented it both for the sale
of grain and for the purchase of spirits. They were
peasants, townsfolk, merchants, Russians, Tartars,
Jews, and Kirghis. If I was very scant of speech,
and short in my communication with the official,
with the other convicts, and with the custom-house
officers, I acquired, on the contrary, with a curiosity
that never flagged, from all these passing travellers,
everything that could be learnt concerning the
peculiarities of Siberia. I spoke to men some of
whom had been to Berezov, others at Nertchinsk,
others had penetrated to the frontiers of China, to
Kamschatka, to the steppes of the Kirghis, even
THOUGHTS OF FLIGHT 149
into Boukhara. Thus, without passing the threshold
of my office, I learned to know Siberia, its nearest
and its furthest details. The knowledge thus gained
was to be of great value to me afterwards in shaping
my plan of escape."
In this sad and soul-killing settlement on the banks
of the Irtiche, Pietrowski mounted rapidly from the
lowest to the highest status to which a Siberian
convict can ascend. He was given permission to
live out of barracks, and dwelt henceforth with two
fellow-clerks and fellow-countrymen in a wooden
hut which one of them, Siesieke, had constructed.
It was unfinished, not even roofed in. " The wind
whistled through numberless chinks, but as wood
cost next to nothing, we piled up a great fire on
the hearth every night ; and there we could feel not
only that we were at home, but that we were de-
livered from the horrible company of the common
criminals. . . . Ah ! if that little house is still
standing, and shelters perhaps at this moment some
unhappy and deported brother, let him know that
he is not the first or the only one who within its
modest walls has wept as he invoked a distant and
beloved land ! "
His mind was ceaselessly occupied with the
thought of flight. True, the lot of Pietrowski and
his fellow " politicals " was less terrible than that
of many others in the savage depths of Siberia.
Worse than Ekaterinski-Zavod were the mines of
Nertchinsk ; worse than Nertchinsk was Oren-
bourg ; worst of all was the fortress of Akatouia,
the very name of which, throughout Siberia, " is
pronounced with an indescribable terror."
But the life was one of daily suffering and ignominy.
Political offenders and common criminals ahke were
150 FROM SIBERIA TO PARIS
despised by the inhabitants of the country ; and
the exile often heard himself insulted with the name
of varnak, an expression " which conveys a con-
centrated notion of abjectness and infamy." The
exile had no civil rights ; his deposition was refused
in a court of justice ; his wife, if he had left one
behind, was at liberty to contract a second marriage
— the exile being reckoned with the dead.
Yet, for all the temptation to flight, rarely was it
embraced by a political exile or a Pole. Failure was
rewarded with the knout ; a prisoner of delicate
or sensitive habit would lose consciousness at the third
stroke, and life itself sometimes at the fifth. Again, the
Polish prisoner in flight was at a grievous disadvan-
tage with the Russian peasant. His knowledge of
the language, manners, and routes of the country
was imperfect. A stranger in a land of boundless
woods and wilds, where, through the long winter,
trees become frozen to the heart and rivers to their
depth, and snowstorms overwhelm both man and
beast, he must feel his way league by league over
immense and unfamiliar tracts, reaching and cross-
ing the confines of another continent, pursued by
soldiery and police, and everywhere visited with
suspicion.
From this immeasurable enterprise Pietrowski
did not shrink.
IV
" At the very moment," he says, " at which I
had signed at Kiow the formula of the sentence
which condemned me to convict labour for the rest
of my natural life, I had formed the determination
of Hying from such an accursed sojourn and lot ;
and a vague hope of being again seen in the land of
ANOTHER PASSPORT 151
the living and among free men had entered my
mind."
In the summer of 1845 he made two unsuccessful
attempts.
In the month of June he had noticed on the banks
of the Irtiche a little skiff which was often left out
at night and in which he thought that he might
drift down stream to Tobolsk. Unfastening the
boat one night, he had just stepped in and taken up
the oars, when he heard the voice of the inspector
on the bank, " and crept gently back to land."
In the following month, adventuring once more
in the same tiny craft, he lost his way in a fog, and
was lucky in being able to return undiscovered to
his hut.
From this time, " I abandoned every thought
of confiding myself to the uncertain waters of the
Irtiche, but set myself not less persistently to ripen
and consolidate the plans for my intended flight."
Having duly considered all possible routes, their
several dangers, and the distances to be traversed,
he finally resolved to seek his liberty by way of the
north. His venture thus lay across the Oural
Mountains, and over the wide, elevated and undulat-
ing zones of the steppes of Petchora and Archangel,
to the borders of the White Sea itself. In that
district of the uttermost North, at Archangel, there
must surely be found, among the four or five thou-
sand sail in port, one bark hailing from a friendly
foreign shore, that would receive and shelter a Polish
outcast fleeing from the pains of Siberia. It was to
be tried, at all events.
And now once again a passport must be procured.
This, among the articles indispensable to the voyage,
figured as of first importance. Two of these docu-
152 FROM SIBERIA TO PARIS
merits Pietrowski succeeded in forging : a passport
for short and a passport for long distances ; the
second carrying " a capital seal with the arms of
his imperial majesty " on a sheet of stamped paper
abstracted from the counting-house.
Then the prisoner began to let his beard grow,
and to collect the materials for a disguise, not for-
getting a real Siberian wig of sheepskin such as the
natives use against the searching cold. Little by
little also he put together some 200 francs in paper
currency.
Such preparations as he could make were com-
plete in the first week of February, 1846, and on the
8th of the month he set out.
*' I had on three shirts, the coloured one being,
after the Russian fashion, pulled over the trousers.
I had a waistcoat and trousers of thick cloth, and
over all a little burnous (armiak) of sheepskin, well
tallowed, which hung down to my knees, while great-
boots with tops strongly tarred completed my
costume. A girdle of red, white, and black worsted
was tied round my waist, and over my wig I had one
of those red velvet caps, edged with fur, which are
worn on holidays by well-to-do Siberian peasants,
and by commercial travellers. Besides all this, I was
wrapped in a wide pelisse, of which the collar, turned
up and tied by a red handkerchief round the neck,
served less to keep out the cold than to hide my
face. I carried a bag in my hand, and in it I had
put a second pair of boots, a fourth shirt, a pair of
blue trousers such as are worn in the country in
summer, some bread and some dried fish. A large
dagger was slipped into the sheath of my right boot ;
and my money was under my waistcoat."
He was bound at the outset for Terbite, at the
ROBBED OF HIS PASSPORT 153
foot of the Ourals. At Terbite there was held at
this season one of those great fairs of Eastern
Russia to which merchants and pleasure-seekers
alike flocked in multitudes. Travellers and count-
less trains of all manner of merchandise overspread
the roads ; and in this concourse and this mass of
traffic the fugitive might well hope to make, unper-
ceived and unmolested, the first stage of the most
perilous excursion ever undertaken from Ekaterinski-
Zavod. Before him — leagues unnumbered — lay
Archangel and the White Sea and the vision of a
kindly ship : behind him the moral certitude of a
death under the knout or a living death in the
recesses of the fortress of Akatouia.
Under cover of the long February night, he stole
away by a cross-road from his settlement, sped
across the frozen Irtiche, was picked up by a sledge
on the high road, and carried as far on his way as
the little posting-town of Tara. At Tara he hired
his own sledge, missed his way in a snowstorm,
passed the night in a forest, discovered the road
next morning, and journeyed thus from one little
town or village to another, until, at a place called
Soldatskaia, he was robbed at an inn of his principal
passport, the memorandum on which he had traced
his route to Archangel, and a great part of his paper
money.
The loss of his chief passport left Pietrowski at
the mercy of the first official who should ask for it ;
but retreat was now impossible, and he struck on
foot into the high road to Terbite, and was presently
in the swarm and bustle of the fair. He passed as a
commercial traveller, a clerk who was waiting for
his master.
Escaping from the fair, he took the road again,
154 FROM SIBERIA TO PARIS
and was now a workman in search of a job. " As a
general rule I avoided the villages, but when it was
necessary to pass one, I walked straight along the
street, as if I belonged to the country, and did not
require to ask my way. When I felt hungry, I pulled
a piece of frozen bread from my bag and ate it as I
walked along, or sat resting at the foot of a tree in
the most remote part of a wood. . . . When night
fell, I sought the heart of the forest, and there pre-
pared a sleeping-place for myself."
One night, when he had been granted a bed in a
cabin on the road, he was roused from sleep by some
suspicious peasants who demanded a sight of his
passport, and whom he had to drive by threats from
his bed. After this experience, he says, it was but
three or four times that he ventured " to crave
hospitality for the night in some lonely hut ; and
that was only because I was exhausted by some
fifteen or twenty days passed in the forest, and my
strength was so far gone that I was hardly conscious
of what I was, what I said, what I did. All the
other nights I contented myself with digging an
earth for sleeping in."
To the eastern slopes of the Ourals the spectres of
cold and famine chased him, and on his wanderings
by night in frozen forests he was never free from
the fear of that sudden sleep of death which rode on
every wind.
Early in March he reached Solikamsk, at the foot
of the western declivity of the Ourals. From this
point he toiled onwards by the steppe of Petchora
towards Veliki-Oustiong ; encountering, as before,
illimitable wastes of snow, deep woods, and storms
of wind and ice. In this locality, however, he had
the happiness of observing that the few travellers
NUMBED AND STARVING 155
who passed there were in the habit of kindUng a fire
in the woods at night and keeping it ablaze till day-
break. In the depths of one of these woods, at some
distance from Solikamsk, he lost himself completely,
was whirled to and fro in a hurricane of snow (liter-
ally compelled, as he says, to dance a pirouette in it),
until at length it cast him to the ground, and he lay
there praying for death. Stumbling forward again
at dawn, numbed and starving, for his wallet was
empty, he dropped at the foot of a tree, his face
bathed in tears, and fainted. A trapper roused him
from his swoon, gave him bread and dried fish and
a mouthful of brandy, and put him in the way to an
inn. These griefs he bore to Veliki-Oustiong, where
he came in mid-April. Since quitting Ekaterinski-
Zavod he had lived, through two months of snow
and ice and tempest, the life of a man of the
wilds.
At Veliki-Oustiong he took on a new existence.
The habit of pilgrimage is strong among the Rus-
sians, and no scrupulous person omits a visit of
devotion to the holy images of the convent of
Solovetsk, in the White Sea. This was in Pietrow-
ski's direct line of travel to Archangel, and he now
therefore adopted the manners and attributes of a
pilgrim, a hohomolets, or " worshipper of God." A
man of simple, sincere piety, he seems to have hesi-
tated a while before assuming this disguise ; but
among the crowd of professed pilgrims gathering
at his new resting-place there was no more earnest
soul than the convict in flight from Siberia. He
himself tells us frankly :
" I was induced to adopt this disguise as much by
the hope of uniting myself to some one of the pilgrim
bands as by the universal respect paid to their char-
156 FROM SIBERIA TO PARIS
acter, and by the small chance that under their
dress I should be exposed to any demands for my
passport. While traversing the steppes of Petchora
I had met several such companies on the way to
Veliki-Oustiong, but while claiming fellowship with
them I carefully avoided incorporating myself into
their ranks. Too great an acquaintance might, I
feared, betray me to them ; but I had the oppor-
tunities of furtively studying their devotional habits.
At last, having reached Veliki-Oustiong, I thought
myself sure enough of my part to be able without
risk of detection to attempt a way of life in common
with one of these bands of ' worshippers of God.'
We were in the town, and I found myself sufficiently
embarrassed as I stood alone in the great market-
place, where, by good luck, a young man in a
citizen's dress stepped out of a shop, and came up
to me as he said :
'* ' You are a bohomolets going to Solovetsk ? '
" ' Yes.'
" * Well, I am going there too ; have you got a
lodging ? '
" ' Not yet ; I have only just arrived.'
" ' Then come along with me. There are a good
many of us, you know, but we shall find room for
you. Our woman of the house is a good sort ;
cooks for us, and bakes our bread. I've just been
buying some flour and groats ' ; and he pointed to
the sack on his shoulder."
Pietrowski went with the young man to his izba,
where were crowded together some twenty other
pilgrims of both sexes. Here, from day to day, he
had to bear his part in all their religious exercises ;
singing canticles through his nose, joining in matins
and evensong, carrying lighted candles, and kissing
THE PILGRIM'S ARK 157
the hands of the popes. His religious feehngs, he
says, suffered somewhat '' from this mummery."
The pilgrims were held at Veliki-Oustiong until
the thawing of the Dvina. Pietrowski learned that
while the boat-owners gave a free passage between
Oustiong and Archangel to all bohomolets who could
victual themselves for the voyage, they also paid a
fee of fifteen roubles to any man willing to take an
oar. Having spent just fifteen roubles on his journey,
he promptly offered his services as a rower ; and on
the first day on which the Dvina was navigable he
found himself installed in the clumsy barge for
Archangel, with his hand on one of the " small fir
trees " that did duty for oars. *' We carried our
baggage on board in the evening, and slept there all
the first night, till, at daybreak, the nosnik — that
is to say, the master of the vessel — cried, with a loud
voice, ' Be seated, and pray to God ! ' Everyone
then assembled on the deck, and after preserving
for a moment a devotional attitude, worthy of a
Mussulman, each man rose, crossed himself repeat-
edly, and made his poklong. When the prayers were
finished, every living soul on board, from the
master to the poorest of the bohomolets, threw a
piece of copper money into the stream, to render
the Dvina propitious to their course along its
breast."
In a fortnight the ark of the pilgrims made haven
in the quarters of the north. Pietrowski had got to
Archangel. " I touched the shores of that bay of
the White Sea, which in all my weary wanderings
in the Ourals, had appeared to my mind's eye as
the harbour of refuge ! I now beheld those flags
fluttering on vessels of deliverance, of which a vague
and fairy like impression had often risen, like a
158 FROM SIBERIA TO PARIS
fata morgana, to cheer me on my Ostiak couch in the
heart of the lonely forest."
But here at Archangel, in a day or two, hope fell
from him ! These sails, just mustering in the port
at the opening of the season, were not the sails of
deliverance. On every deck " walked a Russian
soldier, a vigilant witness whose eye it was impossible
to elude, for this watch was not taken off even at
night ; while sentries posted at short distances from
one another formed an invincible barricade along the
quays, and obliged all who came and all who went
to give an account of themselves." Up and down
the harbour he wandered, afraid, in his pilgrim's
dress, to accost any seafaring man in French or
German. Once he ventured a few words in French
to some seamen who were fastening a ship to the
pier ; tried them next in German ; " till, finally,
they burst into a loud laugh, and I had to slip away
as quietly as I might, for a crowd had already col-
lected around me." On another day, hoping to
approach a ship on the point of sailing, he stripped
and bathed in the ice-cold water. For Archangel he
had striven ; the hope and prospect of Archangel
had lured him through danger and privation ; and
from Archangel he had now to fly.
Separating himself gradually from the pilgrims
whom he had accompanied, he struck into a bare,
flat, and marshy country, wooded here and there,
in a season in which night was distinguishable from
day only by the greater stillness that reigned over
the face of nature. The attempt at Archangel
having failed him, no safe road was open but that
which led to Onega.
" I do not say that I yet saw what I ought to do
on reaching Onega ; but after the mistake about
"I AM YOUR MAN!" 159
Archangel I was not inclined to make any great
plans, or to think of the morrow. I therefore reso-
lutely pursued my way, skirting the western edge of
the promontory, and walking for several days along
a path which was bounded, on the one side, by the
sea, on the other by a low range of hillocks densely
covered with wood." From Onega, where he was
tempted to no more experiments among the foreign
ships at anchor in the port, Pietrowski pushed to-
wards the south ; and at Vytiegra the chance opened
of a passage by boat to St. Petersburg.
A peasant addressed him on the quays, asking
where he was going.
" I am a bohoraolets," replied the fugitive. " I am.
returning from the monastery of Solovetsk and on
my way to adore the sacred hones at Novgorod and at
Kiow."
*' * Then,' returned the peasant, * I am your man.
I will carry you to St. Petersburg. My boat is small,
but I have only my horse to take with me, and you
can help me to row ... it is not heavy.'
" ' I am up to that sort of work, and I know that
it isn't light. What will you give me ? '
*' We wrangled a long time over the price, the sly
villain having every mind to get the use of my arms,
and not to pay for it. But at last we agreed that he
should give me dressed victuals for the whole time
of our voyage, and so pleased was he with his bar-
gain that he took me straight to a pothouse to drink
a glass with him."
To go to St. Petersburg was to risk arrest in the
very capital of the Emperor Nicholas, who had no
excessive fondness for Polish refugees at large from
Siberia ; but Pietrowski, arguing with himself that
a great city was in some respects safer than a small
i6o FROM SIBERIA TO PARIS
provincial town, had faith once again in the star of
Providence, and took his place at the oar in the
dirty little boat. Her master picked up along the
shores an occasional frowsy passenger ; and one of
these, tipsy, Pietrowski fished out of the river. Pre-
sently came on board an old peasant woman, faring,
somewhat dazedly, for the first time in her life, to
St. Petersburg, where her daughter was employed
at a laundry. This unsophisticated crone Pietrowski
took forthwith into his care ; and the old lady
repaid him her best. For, when the boat one morning
drew to shore opposite the Nevski Perspective,
Pietrowski knew neither what to do with himself
nor in what direction to adventure. " Bide here
with me," said the dame. " I have sent word to my
girl, and she will soon be down to fetch me. She'll
tell you where to get a decent cheap lodging." This
was pat to the anxious traveller's book. The laun-
dress appeared ; " kissed her mother affectionately,
and took up her trunk, which she and I then carried
between us on a stick across our shoulders. Thus
we set off, preceded by the good old soul herself,
who carried on her head the earthen jar which had
contained her food." In this trim the Polish noble
entered the city of all the Czars.
During some hours he lay close in the lodging
found for him by the laundress. Then, since he was
bound to take the road again as speedily as possible
from the hostile capital of Nicholas, he ventured
forth in quest of some propitious vessel. He had
heard that one sailed on certain days from St.
Petersburg to Havre ; but where she lay, or when
she put out, he knew not. Up and down the Neva
he wandered, reading by stealth (for the peasant,
the mere " Russian man," had no right to letters !)
TO RIGA i6i
the different red and yellow bills posted up on this
steamer and on that.
"One would be 'the vessel of His Majesty the
Emperor,' another ' of His Highness the Prince
Imperial,' * of the Grand Duke Michael,' ' of Her
Majesty the Empress, and the ladies of her Court,'
etc." — not peculiarly in the line of the protege of
laundresses.
** Suddenly my eyes fell on an advertisement in
large letters, which, stuck up near the mast of a
steamboat, announced that the vessel was to sail
for Riga on the following morning . . . ! "
As he stood gazing at this ship, his heart tossing
between hope and fear, a man like a pilot hailed
him from the deck :
" * Don't happen to want to go to Riga, do
you? '
" * Yes, I do ; but how's a poor chap like me to
travel in the steamer ? That costs money.'
" ' It won't cost much to a moujik of the likes of
you.'
" ' Well, how much ? ' "
The man named a reasonable sum, and seeing
that Pietrowski still hesitated, went on to ask :
" * Well, what's the matter with you now ? '
" ' I am only just arrived here, and haven't
handed in my passport to the police.'
" ' Oh ! You'll have a three days' job of it with
that, and we sail to-morrow morning.'
" ' Well, what am I to do ? '
" ' Let's look at your passport.' "
Pietrowski drew from his pocket the pass which,
after the Russian plan, was carefully wrapped in a
silk handkerchief ; but the pilot did not so much as
glance at it.
i62 FROM SIBERIA TO PARIS
** Come to-morrow morning, at seven sharp," he
said. " If you don't find me here, wait for me."
At seven the next morning Pietrowski was on
board the steamer. Like a man in a dream, he
heard the bell ring three times, watched the last of
the passengers hurrying in, and saw the paddles
turning round. He had escaped from St. Petersburg.
The passage to Riga was without incident ; save
that once, stupefied by sea-sickness, Pietrowski
found himself in the first-class cabin, from which he
was ignominiously driven as a moujik who might
give its occupants the plague.
For his journey from Riga, across Courland and
Lithuania, to the Prussian frontier, he adopted yet
another calling — his fourth since the start from
Ekaterinski-Zavod. He now proposed, he says,
" to pass for a stchetinnik, this being the name
given to the Russian peasants so often met with in
those districts, as well as in Lithuania and in the
Ukraine, who, going from one village to another,
buy hogs' bristles on behalf of the merchants of
Riga. This trade suited me admirably, for under
pretence of inquiring whether my article was to be
had or not, it allowed me to knock at many doors,
and to ask my way."
It was summer, the month of July ; pleasanter
for sleeping beneath the stars than in the icy bosom
of Siberia. The traveller in hogs' bristles donned
the suit of blue cotton which he had brought with
him, renewed his linen and his boots, and exchanged
his pelisse *' with a tapster, for a great-coat and a
little cap."
His chief anxiety at present was to learn with what
care the Russians watched their frontier. He had
decided to pass into Prussia between Polonga and
THE FIFTH DISGUISE 163
Kurszany. A casual chat with a Russian soldier
instructed him that the Prussians took very little
trouble at the frontier ; and he then realised that it
would be safer to attempt to cross the boundary line,
not, as he had intended to do, by night, but in the
daytime. The afternoon of the same day he slipped
in among the corn. " Then, spying from the top of
the rampart the moment during which both sentries
turned their backs on each other, I leaped the first
of the three ditches which marked the frontier. No
noise was made ; I clambered through the brush-
wood, but as I reached the second ditch I was per-
ceived. Shots were fired from guns on both sides,
when, hardly conscious of what I was about, I
slipped into the third ditch, then climbed up and
leaped again. I lost sight of the soldiers, and was
in a little wood. I was in Prussia ! "
Under a soft rain he lay for hours exhausted in
the thicket. Then it was time to think of pastures
new — and yet another disguise. He was in Prussia,
and between this country and Russia there was a
convention — a " cartel " — for the handing over of
fugitives. So now (his fifth transformation in this
extraordinary drama !) Pietrowski ceased to be a
Russian moujik, shaved his beard, and changed
himself into a French cotton-spinner returning to
his own country.
Walking by day and sleeping by night at the sign
of the stars, he passed Memel and Tilsit, and came
on the 27th of July to Konigsberg. No one molested
him, no one was inquisitive about his transport. To
the merchants whom he met he was just the French
cotton-spinner going back to France.
In Konigsberg harbour he saw a vessel that was
to sail next day for Elbing. This would transport
i64 FROM SIBERIA TO PARIS
him cheaply, and the footsore man had tramped it
far enough. During a part of the evening he strolled
to and fro in the town, reflecting on the history of
all those painful journeyings since February 8th,
anticipating with some tranquillity of mind the
simple adventure of the morrow. Six months of
nightmare wanderings, and a dawn of summer now
gently breaking on them. He seated himself " on a
heap of stones near a dismantled house," thinking
by-and-by to seek the cornfields for the night. He
had not reckoned with his weariness of body, and
was soon fast asleep.
Out of slumber, towards midnight, Pietrowski
was rudely shaken. A Prussian night watchman
demanded to know who and what he was. Pietrow-
ski's " infamous German " was unequal to a satis-
fying statement of his case; and at the hour at
which he should have been pacing the deck of the
ship for Elbing he was in a cell of a police station in
Konigsberg.
** The feeling which came over me when once
more I found myself in prison was one of shame,
far more than of sadness or despair. To have es-
caped from the Katorga, to have crossed the Oural
Mountains, to have slept for months in the snow in
Ostiak earths, to have endured so many sufferings
and privations, to have leapt the Russian boundary
line under the bullets of soldiers, and now to be
arrested by a Prussian night constable ! "
Arrested he was, however, and had to play again
the dismal farce of pretending to be somebody
else. To his examiners at the office of police
Pietrowski protested that he was a Frenchman
who had lost his passport, gave addresses both
in France and in Russia, and demanded to be sent
THE BLUE TOWER 165
back to his country. He was remanded to the
Blue Tower, kept there for a month, and then again
brought before the pohce. The addresses that he
had given were, of course, absurd, and he now
lay under very grave suspicions. Sick of deception,
he asked for a private interview with two persons
of high authority in the town. To them he confessed
himself, and left in their hands his fate. " Miser-
able man ! " they exclaimed, when his story was
ended. " We must give you up to Russia. The
convention is decisive. Why, oh ! why did you
come here ? "
They sent him back to prison, having no choice
in the matter.
One day " a gentleman, a merchant of Konigs-
berg," presented himself in Pietrowski's cell. He
begged the prisoner to accept his bail. " Astonished
as well as touched at this unexpected offer, I asked
for an explanation of it, and then learnt that the
report of the arrest of a Pole who had escaped from
Siberia had spread through the town, and caused a
general and lively emotion." Konigsberg, in a
word, had bestirred itself for the fugitive, who was
forthwith set free on bail.
In a week he was again invited to attend at the
police office. Orders had come from Berlin, said
the magistrates, that he must be given up to Russia.
Pietrowski bowed to the magistrates. The magis-
trates, smiling, announced that they had found a
way for him. They would give him time to fly at
his own peril. " I was profoundly touched," he
says, " by their generous proceedings, and pro-
mised to do my utmost to save them any further
trouble."
On the following morning, the 9th of September,
i66 FROM SIBERIA TO PARIS
he was on his way to Dantzig. Within one day of a
fortnight he was back again in Paris. It was the
22nd of September, 1846. He had been four years
in peril of a hfe of slavery, and eight months in close
and curious touch with death in the wilds or by
torment. He was a familiar figure in Paris while
Europe was devouring the book of his adventures.
IV
AN IRISH MIDDY IN THE WARS
OF NAPOLEON
THE THREE FLIGHTS OF DONAT O'BRIEN
" A company of warm young men." — Dbyden.
*' Fieldes Ivave eies and woods have eares." — Heywood.
" Slog on ! Slog on ! " — Captain Scott to his sledgo party.
AN IRISH MIDDY IN THE WARS
OF NAPOLEON
I
THE total wreck on the Saintes rocks (February
8th, 1804) of the luckless Hussar frigate
serves as prelude to the three epical adventures
of Donat Henchy O'Brien. These adventures are
a summary of the best and worst fortunes of a fugi-
tive on foreign soil in time of war. The Hibernian
touch and humour in them are exquisite, and perhaps
unequalled. This broth of an Irish middy was a
County Clare boy, and through all his flights we
may hear the pulse of youth singing its inimitable
tune. A character in one of R. L. Stevenson's most
fantastic tales speaks of looking forward to the perils
of escape (from some Mormon terror, I think) with
a taste of the joy of battle ; and in like vein does
Donat O'Brien three times take fate and fortune by
the beard.
If any sailor or soldier ** hath his bellyful " of
adventure it is young Donat ; for no sooner does
he fall captive than he is again on the break ; and
the *' throbbing terror of pursuit," though it find him
with lacerated feet, a drenched back, and an empty
stomach, yet at no crisis, in no situation, exhibits
him unequal to adversity. He wears the rose of
youth ; he wears it as finely as Napoleon had done,
whose prisoner he is through these exploits.
169
170 AN IRISH MIDDY
Sometimes it is the getting out of prison that
costs the most. Louis Napoleon was moderately
safe when he had crossed the drawbridge of Ham.
Mary Queen of Scots, with her palfrey, and Lord
Seaton for escort, on the farther side of the lake, had
but a gallop of it to Niddry. Benvenuto Cellini had
faced the worst in clambering out of St. Angelo.
Isaac Arnould had jumped his perils in eluding the
garrison of Esslingen. Quiqueran de Beaujeu, Knight
of Malta and one of the first seamen of his time, had
little to fear when his nephew had received him into
the skiff at the base of the Seven Towers of Con-
stantinople. The extremest risks of Lavalette were
over at the moment that he walked out of the Con-
ciergerie in the black silk skirt and bonnet of his
wife (who had supped with him there the night
before he was to die), and stepped into her sedan at
the prison door.
But the prisoner of war in a foreign country, after
digging through or climbing over his prison, or
evading his conductors on the march, had then
most commonly to make his way alone, or with com-
panions as ignorant as himself, for hundreds of
miles through a hostile people, to a port or frontier
of which he rarely knew the whereabouts, with or
without compass, with or without provisions or
arms, and, at best, with none but a stranger's habit
of the language. O'Brien, evading at his third
attempt a fortress securer and under closer guard
than the Bastille, addresses himself at once, with a
wet wind of evening in his nostrils, to a new trial of
affairs ; not faintly, but whorooing in his Irish way
at the exhilarating prospect.
YEARNING FOR FREEDOM 171
II
After a vain effort at escape in a fishing-boat with
twenty-five men under his command, O'Brien sur-
rendered as prisoner of war to the French Admiral
at Brest. On the i8th of February he and his
sailors began their march into the interior. On the
28th of March, completing in thirty-nine days a
tramp of 700 miles, they arrived at Givet, " the
Gateway of France," a town dominated by the
fortress of Charlemont. In July, O'Brien was trans-
ferred to Verdun, a famous place of confinement
for English naval and military officers during the
long Napoleonic wars.^
To persons of means Verdun offered the distrac-
tions of horse-racing and rouge et noir (with others
of a shyer sort) ; but O'Brien expended his abundant
leisure on the study of French, Italian, and fencing.
From July, 1804, until August, 1807, he continued
quietly in lodgings at Verdun, observing his parole,
and rarely quitting the town. Then his spirits
dulled, and he yearned for freedom. He tells us^
that he lay during some days in a state bordering on
stupefaction, from which he was roused only by the
bold counsels of two fellow-prisoners, midshipmen
Ash worth and Tuthill ; they also meditating flight.
But all the boys were nice on the point of honour,
and would not go behind their parole. They managed
easily to forfeit it by missing the appel, or roll-call,
^ Other war prisons of note were at Amiens, Auxonne, Dunkirk,
Saumur, Saarlouis, Tours, and Tangiers ; and for deserters and
refractory subjects the dreaded dungeon of Bitche.
* " My Adventures During the Late War : A Narrative of Ship-
wreck, Captivity, Escapes from French Prisons, and Sea Service in
1804-14." Donat Henchy O'Brien, Capt. R.N. Edited by Charles
Oman.
\']Z AN IRISH MIDDY
and two or three times staying late out of town* ; and
having lost their " permissions " they could dispense
with scruple. As mere lodgers in the town they had
no difticulty in providing themselves with files, saws,
and gimlets ; and each of the trio had procured his
few fathoms of rope for the scaling of the ramparts.
On the eve of the essay Lieutenant Esscl of the Navy
was admitted to the plot. They could divide among
them a little fortune in gold (Essel's contribution
was ;^5o), and in the hour of departure O'Brien may
have blessed the evenings he had given to the
acquisition of French.
On the night of the jgth of August (they had
failed on the 28th) the four slipped over and down
the ramparts, extricated themselves from the moat,
and set their faces NAV. Somewhere about Etaples
they thought " to procure a boat." It was nothing
to them that they were at \'erdun in Lorraine, and
that Etaples (will any reader glance at the map ?)
lay on the coast of Picardy.
The first mishap was O'Brien's. In leaping a dike,
to avoici a village directly in their track, he t\\isted
his right knee in the joint, and on the marches of
four or five succeeding nights was a burden in the
arms of his friends. At the end of a week, O'Brien
growing sound again, Essel fell sick ; and the day
came when on any terms he must be sheltered for
a while. They tried an inn where peasants were
dancing ; scrambled on to a farmhouse at the
banks of the Oise, Essel lagging behind ; found no
admittance there ; and pursued their journe}' till,
in a hamlet two leagues from St. Ouentin. they got
leave from an elderly danie to deposit their com-
' The gates were shut at 9 p.m., and ever^- officer below the rank
of Ucutenant had to sign his name twice a day.
HARVEST-HOME 173
panion in her hay-loft. Taking them for conscripts
(she had a brother in the Army) , the old lady tended
the refugees for twenty-four hours, and repaired the
garments that had suffered by branch and brake. A
night or so later they were the guests of a sympa-
thetic publican, who said that he too had once
quitted the ranks as a conscript and remembered
what it was to lie concealed by day. Forward they
went again the next evening, through mud and bog
and quagmire ; for the fugitive must keep neither
decent company nor the decent highway. Essel
continued in the poorest case, and now O'Brien was
troubled with swollen feet ; but friends arose on
the one hand or the other. After the dame and the
publican it was a good-natured baker, over whose
kindling hearth they warmed themselves, and who
even found beds for them to sleep in. The third
week of September brought a hint of grey frosts, but
the hazel was yielding nuts and there were orchards
to make free with. A farmer led them into his
kitchen where a feast of harvest-home was toward,
telling the young officers that he well knew they
were soldiers of France going to fight under the
eagles of the Emperor. Such bounties were enjoyed
on somewhat anxious terms !
The wanderers were now, as they judged, not
above seven leagues or so from Etaples, and this
distance they resolved to cover in one night. At
midnight they passed the strong town of Hesdin,
and at dayspring of the 17th were about three
leagues short of their goal. Near the bourg or
municipal town of Nieuville they came to an inn
kept by a shepherd ; and here they were but just
accommodated with a snug private chamber when
they learned that in an adjoining room was a gen-
174 AN IRISH MIDDY
darme " in the disguise of a peasant." His presence
sharpened the wits of our friend, and on the entry of
the taverner-shepherd they admitted him to their
secret, offering a round sum for conveyance across
the Channel. Essel had lost on the way his gold
coin to the amount of £45, but O'Brien and the
others could still make a purse between them. The
host left the house on this mission. Returning, he
informed his visitors with excess of caution that not
a boat was to be had ; that, moreover, they would
do well to make themselves scarce, since he was
obliged to account to the mayor for every stranger
who spent a night beneath his roof. Indeed, no
sooner had they paid for their refreshment than
the rovers were turned forth upon the night,
their funds diminished, their prospects deeper in
eclipse.
Whiles their course was in debate, they were
overtaken by the daughter of the inn, who
amiably directed them to a house where, she
said, they would find a serviceable person. And,
to be sure, at the place indicated was an obhging
individual with a boat ; for it was necessary or
advisable to cross the Canche river. The obliging
individual put them over, and showed from the bank
a hut at which other aid might be entreated. But
the wayfarers had taken toll enough of providence
that evening. For the hut proved a most uncivil
one. A man and a woman were within, who har-
boured the officers for no longer than the time it
took to plead their wants and miserable situation.
As well might they, exclaims O'Brien, have bespoken
two Egyptian mummies. Rain fell as though the
heavens and earth would meet : all was one to the
churl and his vixen ; not the shelter of cow-house
A FATAL THIRST 175
or pigsty had they for four such dubious foreign
characters, dry or soaked.
On they fared, stumbHng at last into an open
barn, with a noble provision of hay. Bedded and
burrowed in this they lay until the following fore-
noon, Friday, September i8th. And now, within
the very skirts of Etaples, the touchstone of the
enterprise drew near. Thus far in the main be-
friended, it was now comprised in touch and go.
Spying from their barn, the adventurers perceived
by all the tokens of the road that they had unluckily
fallen on a market-day. The whole district was in
motion towards the ferry-boat. There was nothing
for it but to mingle and trudge with the crowd.
** We kept advancing towards the sand-hills with
all the appearance of carelessness and confidence, but
with a quick, and, as far as we could assume appear-
ances, a bold and firm step ; and we arrived at last
at a poor, sorry village, through which we had to pass.
We had actually got to the very last house, when our
poor friend Ashworth felt extremely exhausted, and
expressed that his parching thirst obliged him to
ask for a draught of water. On all such occasions
every one of the party was consulted, and the
majority of votes constituted the ultimatum, or
decision ; and whether a long train of success, or a
long succession of narrow escapes, had made us
vainly confident, I cannot say, but not one of us
saw the slightest danger in Ashworth 's entering
this house. It was impossible to suppose that so
wretched a village could contain either troops or
gendarmes ; and as we had passed through the place
without attracting any notice whatever, we did not
imagine that there could be any danger in entering
the last house at its extremity. The glorious sea.
176 AN IRISH MIDDY
with all its inspirations, was before us, and we laughed
at what we had undergone ; for our hearts were
light, and our minds full of the glad prospects of
attaining to all our wishes."^
In Ashworth's tumbler of water the expedition
was drowned.
His friends loitered in the neighbourhood of the
house until anxiety grew into alarm, and Tuthill
went back to hail and hurry him. What were the
sensations of O'Brien and Essel when, a few moments
later, they beheld Ashworth and Tuthill advancing
towards them — concern in their faces — between two
dingy uniforms ! This had the air of downfall, for
the uniforms proclaimed that inquisitorial customer,
the Excise. Ashworth and the lieutenant, in short,
were the prisoners of two douaniers, or customs men
— wildfowl whom our own birds of passage had not
until now encountered.
Some pretext must be advanced on the instant ;
for the polite officials were politely eager to know
what fortune had wafted ces messieurs to Staples.
That explained, their welcome would, of course, be
the warmer . But for a con j uncture of this sort O ' Brien
and his friends, who had many times rehearsed the
scene, were not unprepared. They were Captain
Cox and company (mate, supercargo, and a pas-
senger) of the ship Favourite, of New York, cast
away near Marseilles, all hands perished save them-
selves, who were awaiting transport to their country.
O'Brien had the fable pat, and delivered it with a
most engaging frankness. The douaniers shed their
pity on the survivors of the Favourite — and returned
to business. The gentlemen had given themselves
the trouble of procuring passports ? Passports !
* " My Adventures," etc., p. 93.
ARRESTED 177
The gentlemen had thought them of no consequence
at all ; they were natives of a great and free country
in which every citizen came and went as it pleased
him. " Ah ! . . .in America . . . yes . . . certainly
. . . but in France." Still, of what consequence ?
for the office of the mayor was but just round the
corner, if one might say so ; — and what a pleasure
to his worship to furnish passports to the survivors
of the Favourite ! For the survivors of the Favourite
the look-out was growing remarkably blue. They
had now, in the company of the douaniers, entered
Etaples itself — a quicksand of which there seemed
no getting to windward — and what to do with the
things in their pockets they did not know. Their
captors had taken note of the frail estate of Essel,
and suggested that the gentleman might be little
the worse for a pint of wine. For themselves ? Well,
yes ; they were douaniers, as everybody knew ;
they were officers of the Emperor ; but it would be
a happiness to drink to the safe return to America
of ces messieurs of that unfortunate Favourite.
Escape from the tavern — a vague hope of O'Brien's
— was impossible ; and they were marched as friends
to the captain of the customs men, and the captain
at once sent a message to the mayor. The mayor
had fetched with him, says O'Brien in italics, " an
American gentleman," who was unkind enough to
suspect the nationality of his compatriots. A raking
cross-examination brought their pretensions to the
dust. They were searched, and the contents of their
pockets shattered the fiction of New York. At this
they gave in, and revealed themselves. The court
melted in sympathy, but had its duty to perform.
The prisoners must be sent to Boulogne. At the
prison of Boulogne they were received by a gaoler
178 AN IRISH MIDDY
whom in their distress they had forgotten to bribe,
and who provided them for bed ** two small sheaves
of straw," and for supper a bucket of water.
Ill
This gaoler was an odd fish. Condemned some
years earlier to perpetual imprisonment in chains,
he was still in a manner working out his sentence,
for he lived closely in the prison, and wore small
bracelets and anklets of silver. On a promise of liberal
payment he set food before his wayworn lodgers.
They were, of course, to be returned to Verdun,
and took the road on the morning of the 22nd.
General Wirion had despatched expresses to all
stages on the route, with instructions that the
prisoners be not leniently treated ; and the
second day their guards clapped on them both
fetters and handcuffs. The countryfolk observing
them in this wretched travesty, accounted for it
by the legend that they were British spies, who
would be shot at their journey's end. A tender-
hearted landlady at Landrecies, where they stayed
for a meal, shed tears over their manacles, and fed
the youths with her own hands.
At all halting-places Wirion's mandate procured
for them the very sorriest accommodation that
could be had. Thus, at Landrecies they shared a
dungeon with a mad murderer who had cut both his
parents in pieces ; at Hirson they were thrust into
a subterranean cell — and here, by the way, the
gaolers made a prize of their little store of files,
gimlets, the stock of a double-barrelled pistol, and
so forth. How these articles had escaped the inqui-
sition of Boulogne O'Brien omits to inform us.
THE DUNGEON OF BITCHE 179
At daybreak on October 2nd, the highroad
having fallen into a state of slough, they were
chained in a cart ; and thus by sad and heavy
stages they came in the latter end of the month to
Verdun.
O'Brien was placed in a cell with another prisoner
suspected of spying ; and in this companionship his
own situation seemed more than ever dangerous.
Evidently he was regarded as the chief of the con-
spiracy : might he not also be selected as its chief
victim — and confronted with the muskets of a
firing-party ? He was examined separately, and in
rigorous fashion. The court tried to fasten on him
the charge of a design against the life of the Em-
peror, and sifted him minutely respecting the pistol-
stock. Their case collapsed, but of one offence the
prisoner stood plainly convicted. He had broken
loose from Verdun, and must make ready for a
sojourn at Bitche.
" In a week we were ordered to prepare ourselves
for a march to the fortress of Bitche, in Lorraine, a
wretched place, well known to many of our unhappy
countrymen ; a place in the dreadful caverns of
which many a valuable British subject had ter-
minated his existence in all the agony that illness,
despondency, and ill-usage could create. This was
my transition from the wretched fate of being shot.
And here, in some wretched souterrain, we were
to remain during the war ; nay, they even asserted
that it was Bonaparte's own decree."^
But under this distressful stroke his mind begins
forthwith to probe the future. He already medi-
tates another dash. In what quarter can he raise
^ " My Adventures," etc., p. 114.
i8o AN IRISH MIDDY
the wind ? A bountiful fellow-prisoner, the Rev. C.
Launcelot Lee,^ Fellow of New College, Oxford,
tenders his purse. Thus equipped, O'Brien bates no
jot of heart or hope.
In a caravan under a strong escort of gendarmerie
O'Brien and his comrades, to whom were joined
eight other culprits, began their transit to that
dismal fastness in the Vosges. By Mars-la-Tour,
Metz, Sarrelouis, and Sarreguemines they jolted
onwards. At Sarreguemines the cavalcade was but
a few leagues from Bitche ; and on setting out thence
the guards so far slackened in vigilance as to ease the
prisoners of their shackles. If this were not the
finger of a smiling fate, what was it ! O'Brien whis-
pered his companions ; and when the caravan had
drawn out of the town, he, with Ashworth, Tuthill,
and young Baker of the merchant service, got leave
to stretch their legs beside it. Poor Essel, still
ailing, kept his place in the waggon.
" We had not got more than two or three miles,"
says O'Brien, " when I discovered a wood at about
one hundred and fifty yards from the road : our
guards were about fifty yards behind us, and on
horseback. In so unequal a chase, a chase between
man and horse, we might be overtaken in our run
to the wood ; but if we could once reach that point,
we were safe, for, although there were no leaves on
the trees, we were certain that our mounted guards
could not pursue us without a great deal of difiiculty,
owing to the branches and underwood ; and, should
^ There seem to have been several Enghsh clergymen in bond at
Verdun. One of them, the Rev. John Hopkinson, Rector of Alvval-
ton, near Peterborough, left a brief, interesting narrative, which
Dr. T. J. Walker reproduces in his volume, " The Depot for Prisoners
of War at Norman Cross."
SEVEN HUNDRED MILES i8i
they dismount, accoutred as they were, and with
their heavy boots, we knew that we could outrun
them with the greatest ease."
In a flash they were away. The guards might
have sat in their saddles and laughed ; the freak
must have looked so childish. But an escape of the
hare-brained Britishers would land the guards them-
selves within the danger of the galleys ; and instead
of laughing, they gave tongue and chase. In a
ploughed field Baker came to earth, a facile prey.
Some minutes later O'Brien, effaced behind a tree,
watched the guards plunging to and fro in the wood,
and his friends dodging their pistol shots. From
him the pursuit was withdrawn ; and stealing
through the wood he took to his heels across an
extensive plain, hearing on every side as he ran the
cries of the peasants who had sprung " like wolves
to the hunt." Yet another space, and silence fell
around him ; and he realised that, if for the moment
free, he was utterly alone.
Plain and stubble and fallow lands lay all about
him, and to the south the unfordable Sarre. In a
tiny vale between two brooks he found a miniature
islet ; and in this muddy paradise, weary and
famished, but with a virtuous and delicious sense
of liberty, he slept a part of Sunday — the tocsin or
alarm-bell of the parish flinging an unwonted lullaby.
With the descent of night he rose up for the march. ^
His immediate course was as vague as the unillu-
mined sky above him. Seven hundred miles and
more away lay the city of Salzburg, in Austria ; and
this was the nearest seat of refuge for a tourist who
had neither guide, nor companion, nor compass, nor
^ Ashworth and Tuthill had not a much longer run of it than
Baker. We shall meet them cieain.
i82 AN IRISH MIDDY
food, nor conveyance ; and on whose head was set
the customary price of two pounds one and eight
pence sterhng. Towards Salzburg at dusk on Sun-
day he adventured. His first sally, after a rest in a
copse among rats and moles, brought him to a hut
where an elderly man taxed him at a venture with
his escape. He left a gold piece as an apology, and
stepped it again, floundering through gully and
morass, and lighting on a kitchen garden, where he
ate greedily of cabbages and turnips. He felt his
old trouble of blistered feet, and was weak and
faint. He continued his journey, as he thought,
towards the Rhine. A gendarme on horseback
shouted the " Qui vive ? " and O'Brien cowered in
a gravel-pit. At half -past two on an icy morning
he saw a glimmer of light in a hovel on the edge of a
wood, and drawing near, he espied through the key-
hole a woman spinning at her fire. He felt himself
looking into heaven. A surly man answered his
clatter on the door, and let him in. Would they
give him a drink ? There was a pail of water on the
floor, and the man silently ladled out a draught. At
this uncommon hour a tailor arrived on a day's work
for the family, who hinted at the escape from Bitche
— the gossip now of the whole countryside — and
asked O'Brien if he had a passport. O'Brien de-
manded to know what sort of tattling rascal this
was — and betook himself as quickly as possible
into the storm without.
November was taxing him to the utmost. He was
never dry ; he was feeding on roots plucked from
the fields ; he was shelterless. His indomitable
heart of youth sustained him.
There are visions of him in a great cave under a
rock, the habitat of wild hogs : in another cave
NIGHTMARE 183
near the summit of a precipice, which he scales only
to roll down it again in a nightmare dream, crying
aloud on his former comrades to rise and fly with
him : crossing a chain of barren mountains, stop-
ping to wring the water out of his coat, sleeping and
being awakened by the chattering of a jay : ven-
turing by times into a cottage to beg a bite or sup,
or, with what nonchalance he might — to seek
directions towards his goal : running almost through
a night (feet, notwithstanding, so sore and swollen,
that he takes off boots and runs in the dark in his
stockings) : and being brought to a sudden stand
by the walls of a town unknown. This town, Hague-
nau, was girdled by a river ; and on an evening of
bitter frost O'Brien stripped to the skin and swam
it. In the small hours of next morning he fell in
company with a butcher going somewhere to buy
cattle, who told him he was three leagues from
Strasbourg. The butcher leaving him, he sank
awhile in a field for the ease of those tortured feet ;
then dragged his boots over them (skin pealing off
as he did so), and stood in freezing water to cool
them. Through a spell of fog he groped his way to
the borders of a village, and into a house where two
kindly German girls were spinning flax. They gave
him milk, and instantly wanted to send for their
mayor, who spoke French really quite well, and
But O'Brien was not for the society of any
French-speaking mayor ; he would on no account
disturb his worship, and beat a civil and very
brisk retreat.
We have glimpsed him and his lost companions
at their surreptitious snatches of fruit and nuts.
He says now : '* I had an opportunity this day of
getting an excellent supply of turnips. This part of
i84 AN IRISH MIDDY
the country abounds in them ;^ they are the prin-
cipal food of their cattle ; and the peasantry were
busily employed in piling them in heaps, and cover-
ing them with earth, as the winter store of provender.
In one respect, at least, I might have thought myself
reduced very much to the condition of Nebuchad-
nezzar, for both my food and shelter resembled
those of four-footed animals."
Nebuchadnezzar seems at any rate to have grazed
unmolested. O'Brien ate his turnips in trepidation,
with his loins girded, and an eye watchful of every
point of the compass. Within span or thereabouts
of the Rhine he passed one of his strangest nights :
rain searching him to the marrow ; limping in utter
darkness through a region of bogs ; overtaken by
sleep against a willow on the edge of a dyke. Sleep-
ing always in fear of surprise, the rustle of a hare
among twigs would arouse him ; and he awoke on
a tread of footsteps. A peasant was walking briskly
past him, and O'Brien jumped up and followed.
The pair dropped at once into companionable chat,
and O'Brien, with his fluent knack of improvisation,
straightway became a Swiss conscript who had
deserted from the army because they would not
grant him leave for home on the death of his parents.
He was sick of the French army, and France might
be damned. Confidence for confidence. O'Brien's
casual fellow-traveller was a Russian by birth, who
in his turn had given Napoleon the slip. He con-
ducted O'Brien to within a little of the gates of
Strasbourg, and pointed him a safe place on the
banks of the Rhine.
^ O'Brien's observations are everywhere to the point. He had
a keen eye, an unfailing memory, and — had their years agreed —
would have been a very competent collaborator of Arthur Young
in the famous " Travels in France."
BANQUETS ON OLYMPUS 185
This happy morn was a Sunday, the eighth day
of his nomad's existence since taking leave of the
caravan. The Russian had bade him look for some
fishermen's huts, and while prowling on the bank he
caught sight of and beckoned to a boat, the two
occupants of which turned out to be armed officials.
In this new predicament O'Brien's nimble Irish
tongue again prevailed (he was now from Wirtem-
berg, had been an ensign in the service of the English
King, and so forth), and the officers told him where
to bide till he could get across the Rhine. They
wished him well, but dared not take him over. On
Monday his chance came. At Kehl bridge a great
herd of oxen was being driven to the German side
of the river. Quick as thought, O'Brien slipped in
among the beasts. French and German sentries
were posted at intervals along the bridge, but every
man stood muffled in his box ; and in fifteen minutes
the outlaw had put the splendid breadth of the
Rhine betwixt himself and the territory of France.
On the soil he now trod, he aimed at passing for
a Frenchman. Under what laws and conventions
the crossing of the Rhine had brought him, he knew
not ; but, without the shield of a passport, there
was need of all circumspection. He slept in peace
between two feather-beds of an inn on the road to
Friburg, doctored his feet with candle-grease, and
felt himself a prince in descending to order breakfast.
It seemed to him that never in his life before had he
commanded a meal ; and the coffee at this place,
the milk-soup flavoured with pepper at another,
and even the cheese and thin wine at a third were
so many banquets on Olympus. One well-wisher,
perspicacious enough to detect in the Irishman a
French cloth merchant on a round of visits to his
i86 AN IRISH MIDDY
customers, carried him a fair piece on the road in
his Httle wicker carriage. Taking a circuitous
course around Friburg (the gate being kept by a
giant of a grenadier), O'Brien set his face for Con-
stance, some nineteen leagues to compass.
Crossing the lake by ferry-boat to Meersburg he
was all but upset in a squall. At the dawn of another
Sunday, November 29th, he was in his course for
Lindau. His heart was high, the bruised feet were
healing, and all day he walked through fairy villages
on the banks of the lake. Towards five Lindau rose
up at a distance of a few miles. Till seven he dallied
in a wayside shanty ; and a short while afterwards
had passed the gate and sentinel unchallenged. " I
was safe," he cries, " my sufferings were rewarded,
and a glorious triumph filled my imagination even
to ecstasy. Lameness was forgotten ; and I was,
if I may use the term, tripping along full of visions
of the little I should have to undergo, of the little
time that would elapse ere I should be again upon
England's element, under her glorious flag, and in
the exercise of all my duties of a naval officer."
Some paces beyond the gate, a meddlesome old
gentleman detained him with an inquiry for his
passport. Ready as ever — though his heart began
to give — O'Brien responded that he had lost all his
papers and most of his money whilst crossing the
lake the previous evening. His fancy at work in a
crack, he added that he was due at Innspriick, where
he had friends, and was minded to follow his nose
without farther hindrance. Were his papers the
concern of every passer-by ? Up came the guard
of the gate. Going to Innspriick ? Innspriick was
perhaps at a greater distance than the French
gentleman imagined ; , and, as it was growing rather
A TRAP WELL LAID 187
late, he might find it inconvenient to go on without
his papers : no knowing what questions might be
asked. For the matter of papers, answered O'Brien,
he would put his luck to the test ; and was in the
act of making a valiant exit when he found himself
surrounded by soldiers. The trap was well laid,
and he was conducted to the quarters of the com-
mandant of Lindau.
The commandant, attired for a visit to the opera,
came grumbling on the scene. Having no French,
he must summon his secretary ; and the examina-
tion proceeded in form. O'Brien, requested to
account for himself, boggled at nothing, and flew
his fences with his wonted verve. His name was
Louis Gallique. His father, now unhappily no more,
had been a surgeon in Rouen, where the deponent
had a brother of the same honourable profession,
and two sisters. Through his brother's interest he
had got his discharge from the army. He was going
to stay with friends at Innspriick, and the goal of
his journey was Vienna, where it was as good as
certain that he would enter as clerk in a counting-
house. Who were his German friends at Innspriick ?
He gave them the promptest French baptism : they
were all of French extraction. And his pocket-book
and papers ? "In crossing a branch of the lake, a
puff of wind was near oversetting the boat ; my
■pocket-book must have dropped out as I was leaning
over." This ingenuous history was interpreted by
his secretary to the commandant, who possibly
found it a trifle too well-pieced, or possibly was
annoyed at the thought of his empty box at the
opera. He dismissed O'Brien as a dubious character
to the guard-house. From this pound he was shifted
to the common gaol ; and his second flight comes
i88 AN IRISH MIDDY
to an end. He was to be returned to France as an
escaped prisoner of war. Deposited in a cell at the
gaol, his dreams were of another break for liberty.
None the less, his immediate prospect was of the
gloomiest. To Bitche they would indubitably pack
him ; Bitche, where very rude consideration might
be looked for ; Bitche, out of whose dungeons none
had ever freed himself ; Bitche, on whose battle-
ments sat fate.
For the present, his detainers at Lindau, deeming
nudity a more effectual restraint than irons, stripped
their prisoner to the skin, and left the stout young
heart to its reflections.
Before the light on the thirteenth day the gaoler
entered with breakfast and the clothes ; and while
O'Brien was still intent upon his food two soldiers
intruded on him ; " the foremost holding in his
hands an immense iron chain with shackles or
fetters, and a large padlock." Thus decorated, in
despite of protest, he was brought forth like a male-
factor to his doom ; beholding, as he issued, " an
immense concourse of people assembled, to catch
a sight of the unfortunate prisoner whom the com-
mandant had thought proper thus twice or triply
to secure. The wondering crowd came to view
what they thought a monster ; for such reports had
been spread of my miraculous escapes, and such
exaggerated and fabulous accounts had been given
of what I had achieved that the ignorant populace
believed I was some demon, or at least a magician
in disguise." He adds that the gaoler's wife shed
tears over him as if she were losing a son.
North towards Strasbourg he was driven. For
the second time he crossed the Kehl bridge, where,
for all his finery of bilboes, the sentries insisted on
BACK TO BITCHE 189
searching him. It pleased him to remind them that
they had once been less diligent on his account. In
the military gaol of Strasbourg he learned that he
should travel next day to Bitche in the company of
eleven Corsican soldiers, under sentence of death
for desertion. Into this sad fellowship he duly
entered, and was chained and handcu^ed to the
eleventh man. These poor Corsicans, whom each
revolution of the waggon-wheels brought nearer to
the grave, seemed to feel their own appalling plight
less sorely than O'Brien's ; for the escort, apprised
of his skill and daring in evasion, had nearly strangled
him with the chain and screwed on the handcuffs
until his wrists were torn. Within four days of
Christmas the waggon drew up beneath the towers
of Bitche.
IV
The hour of O'Brien's reception in the fortress
chanced to be that at which its inmates, his afflicted
countrymen, were fetched for a brief airing from
their subterranean cells. There stood the twelve
new-comers in a row, young Donat and the doomed
Corsicans, their chains still garnishing them. No
one recognised the Irishman. " He must have been
the head of some banditti ! " he heard one of his
former comrades say. " He looks like it," observed
another. " Perhaps," hazarded a third, ''he is the
captain of the soldiers he is chained to." " Heavens
alive ! " a fourth ejaculated, " it is O'Brien ! "
In a breath Ashworth and Tuthill were to the
fore, followed by Baker of the merchant service.
Where, asked O'Brien eagerly, was Essel ? Alas !
the ill-starred lieutenant had taken his last earthly
flight. In a notable attempt to scale the walls of
igo AN IRISH MIDDY
Bitche — who had ever done it ! — Essel had fallen,
and dashed himself in pieces.
The colloquy was brief, being flat against the
rules. O'Brien's new turnkeys raked him \rith no
very amiable eye. Through him it was — or so they
averred — that certain gendarmes of the escort from
\'erdun had gone to the galleys ; and he was speedily
conducted to a black, filthy, and miasmatic keep
fifty feet below the courtyard, where, nature sup-
porting him, he would abide for thirty-one days.
In this hold he found messmates who were strangers
to him : Worth, a midshipman, and Brine, a captain
of the merchant service. *' They were on a door,
which they had managed to unhinge, and which lay
as a platform to keep them out of the excrement
and wet, that were more than ankle deep : they had
a little straw and a blanket." These two, \\ith three
others at present in the surgeon's hands, had been
concerned in the fatal venture of Essel.
The Corsicans were seen no more of O'Brien, to
whom a side-%\-ind conveyed it that the eleven had
been shot. For himself, he lay in ill case enough.
It would scarcely be for nothing that he had twice
derided the custody of Napoleon. Some form of
trial awaited him, the upshot of which was con-
jectural : the galleys, a blindfold interview with the
marksmen of Bitche, or the guillotine itself. Nay,
one might come to death by mere neglect in the
putridity of the dungeon ; for not once, Worth and
Brine protested to him, had they tasted air since the
hour they were carried below.
So be it ! For a third time he must be fortune's
suppliant. But what way of wooing her in Bitche ?
Even as he stood on the threshold O'Brien had
swiftly remarked that mighty masonry : a sight to
CHISEL V. ROCK 191
bring frosts of despair upon the heart. On the second
night, over a flask of smuggled brandy and illumined
by an end of smuggled candle, his new brethren
enlarged somewhat on their terrible abode. There
was not in France a stronger fortification. Ram-
parts, redoubts, entrenchments, and what not of
military engineering : while, within and without,
no prisoner could surmise the strength and quality
of the guard. Of the three ramparts on one side of
the fortress, the first had an altitude of near 100
feet, the second of 40 to 50 feet, and the third
of 25 to 30 feet. Altogether, before achieving the
fosse or moat (with its cordon of sentries), the
prisoners, with what feeble rope they might pro-
cure, must account for about 180 feet of wall ; and,
should it come to a sudden and sheer drop, the easiest
would possibly be of 30 feet. No hope was crazier
or more forlorn — and the earth of the prison grave
fresh above the broken body of Essel !
O'Brien and the pair with him were ardent to
essay this unessayable.
They somehow found themselves in chisels and
hammers, which must be secreted about their per-
sons by day. Their expedient was the herculean one
of hewing a passage through the walls. " We hung
an old coat up against that part of the rock that
we intended to begin upon. Rope was necessary
to descend the ramparts after we had got out of the
dungeon ; we accordingly, through some friends,
who had obtained permission to come and see us,
contrived to purchase some stout linen for shirts
(which we really much wanted), and from the shoe-
makers among the prisoners we got now and then
a ball of twine. We procured needles, bees'-wax,
etc., by degrees, and made a rope of four or five
192 AN IRISH MIDDY
fathoms for each, which we marled with the remain-
der of the twine, and passed tight round our bodies
underneath the shirt."
But the design of a passage through the walls was
dropped as quite unprofitable.
Late in January they were transferred to another
black-hole, where Ashworth and Tuthill and half a
hundred other English were entombed. O'Brien's
thought worked like a shuttle on some more feasible
mode of deliverance ; and, as prisoners of an older
day had done,^ he wore continually around his waist
his portion of the scaling rope. In the first days of
July the favour of the commandant franked him to
a higher and more wholesome chamber of the fortress,
where Brine, Ashworth, and Tuthill were of the
company. In mid-month, by the whisper of a young
seaman, he got wind of an imminent plot of escape.
The exit was to be from the cave he had newly
quitted, and now what stratagem would serve for
re-descending ? That nimble Irish fancy was not
long about it. He got the ear of one Buch6, the
gendarme of the night, and him he cajoled with a
legend of a birthday supper in the souterrain (so
likely a celebration in Bitche !), at which he wanted
to be present. Buche was not proof against
the blarney ; and Ashworth, Tuthill, and Brine
were allowed to descend with O'Brien. Behind the
rattle of a concert and merrymaking, surely the
most singular ever improvised, went the noise of the
chisels and saws of the prison-breakers. They were
forcing a door, they were mining a path beneath
another door. The aim of the workers was a deep-
seated passage, known to exist, which led up out of
the fortress. " This was a very intricate communi-
' Notably De Beaujeu.
ONE OTHER CHANCE 193
cation, and we had to feel our way to those sHght
doors, as it was dangerous to have candle-light. . . .
Our over-eagerness in forcing the third door shot the
bolt back, which caused a noise that was overheard
by the sentinels outside."
The guard was aroused — and the plot lay bare.
V
O'Brien had an incredible shave of it. He sprang
into the bed of a tipsy American ; at the summary
roll-call Brine (who must in any case have fallen
prisoner) was mistaken for him ; and he succeeded
in mounting to his own quarters. The rest made
a forced march to Metz, were there tried for " con-
spiracy," and sentenced to various terms at the
galleys. This monstrous award was reversed, but
there was luck in the reversal, for Napoleon cer-
tainly held some of our people — both soldiers and
sailors — as galley-slaves until the conclusion of the
war. On returning to Bitche the whole party were
of course again relegated to the dungeon. O'Brien,
for his part, stood absolutely at the discretion of
Buche ; but (although Buche himself suffered eight
days' punishment) the worthy man abstained from
peaching.
Thus it came about that the indomitable Donat —
flouting the galleys as before — got another chance.
He had now for chamber-mates Hewson and Butter-
field, midshipmen ; Batley, a dragoon officer of the
East India Company ; and Barklimore, a surgeon.
Butterfield was on the sick list ; but the other three
listened with avidity to Donat's newest project.
Hewson and Barklimore had already made one
attempt. Their present situation in the fortress
194 AN IRISH MIDDY
allowed of no undertaking less desperate than an
imitation of that which had cost Essel his life at the
foot of the ramparts. No one of the four shrank
from it, albeit O'Brien's rope (now smothered in a
handkerchief) for climbing and sliding down from
those terrific walls, was little stouter than pack-
thread.
Their door being locked at dusk they had, it
seems, some means of unlocking it ; and on the
night of the 13th of September, 1808, they stood for
six hours at the edge of the yard in a whelming rain,
their eyes on the sentries, not one of whom stirred
from his post. The next evening beheld them again
on the alert. Towards seven the soldier nearest to
them stepped into his box, and O'Brien moved
noiselessly across the yard, attached the slender
rope to a palisade, and let himself down the first
rampart. Hewson followed, and " In a few minutes,
to my inexpressible satisfaction, we were all four at
the bottom of the first wall." Two walls were still
to be essayed. " We all clapped on to the rope,
and crawled up with our feet against the wall, until
we got a good height. We then swung off together,
when the rope broke, and we fell upon one another,
leaving in our hands enough to enable us to descend
the next rampart. We made this piece fast to one
of the upper stones of the embrasure, and again
descended. We had now to repeat our haul upon
the rope, and it again broke, leaving a piece of
sufficient length for our future purpose, the descent
of the third and last rampart." They had wisely
provided themselves with hooks, and for the final
drop of thirty feet these proved invaluable, as they
could find no other hold for the rope. All four
crouched safe at last in the fosse below the third
"ALMOST MIRACULOUS" 195
rampart ; then, at the turn of the sentry on his
beat, crawled up the scarp and rolled themselves
down the glacis. On the Strasbourg road, with
bounding hearts, they ran for hfe, scarcely stopping
in an hour.
" We now turned round to take, as we hoped, a
final view of the Mansion of Tears, the name that
had been so long given to this detestable fortress by
the unfortunate prisoners, many of whom had shed
an abundance, or showers of them, within its horrid
cells and dungeons. We spontaneously returned our
thanks to Almighty God for our deliverance, and
shook each other cordially by the hand, overwhelmed
with exultation at our almost miraculous success.
When we looked at the stupendous heights of the
rock and fortress, it seemed as if a miracle alone
could have enabled us to descend them, suspended
by so slight and ill-made a cord as that which we
had been enabled to construct out of our shirt-linen
and a little cobbler's twine."
At the dimmest of day on the 15th they clambered
into a steep wood ; and, as morning grew, looked
down upon the flight of mounted guards, unleashed
from Bitche, — the van of the pursuit.
All night of the 15th they trod an eastern course
to the Rhine, under pilotage of the stars ; and it was
on the starlit morn of the 19th that the vagrants
touched these welcome banks. Nay, their feet were
somehow guided towards the very boat that they
had prayed for. Hewson and O'Brien fashioned a
pair of simple oars, and they rowed themselves
across, staking the boat carefully on the farther
shore, and in two minds to leave a coin at bottom
for the owner.
Twice now had O'Brien carried himself out of
196 AN IRISH MIDDY
France ; and he and his friends shogged along,
carolHng, towards the Black Forest. So elated were
they that at the first inn upon the road they called
for a barber, and were turned into gentlemen, and
sat down to a regal breakfast. Batley, the dragoon,
fallen utterly lame, was their principal concern ; and
at a village on the other side of Rastadt they had
to leave him in the hands of a benevolent innkeeper,
who pledged his utmost service.
By the third week of September, O'Brien, Hewson,
and Barklimore (the last incessantly at grips with
ague) had penetrated to the borders of the Black
Forest. *' I never in my life," says O'Brien, " beheld
a country so mountainous, dismal, and barren " ;
but adversity is rarely shorn of comforts, and at a
post-house of Kriemhieldsach the " three French
travellers " were pressed into a dance, and Hewson
— with the gusto of abstinence — waltzed till his
bones ached. A fortnight's travel from this point,
and they were toiling under the first snows of autumn.
Brave it as they would, every town was still an
object of alarm ; and, like the thief of Shakespeare,
they saw in every bush an officer. By mountain pass,
through forest and morass, they came to Neubeuern,
overjoyed to learn that another fifteen leagues would
bring them to Salzburg. Here on a branch of the
Inn was a ferry-boat, and while they awaited the
pleasure of the ferryman an elderly hatter seated
himself beside them and fell to gossiping. Fain
would the fugitives have asked whether passports
were called for at that spot ; but the ferryman had
finished his dinner and was approaching, accom-
panied by a soldier with so terrific a feather in his
hat " that it seemed ominous of our capture and
subsequent fate." Should this man accost them,
TOUCH-AND-GO 197
O'Brien and his friends were prepared to make off
in different directions ; but he passed on towards
the high road without the condescension of a glance ;
and in the company of the hatter they were ferried
unquestioned over the Inn.
Twelve leagues were covered this day ; there was
but one more Bavarian town, Reichenhall, to get
clear of ; the xA.ustrian frontier must be almost in
sight. " We advanced apace, but with precaution,
knowing how particular they generally are on the
frontiers. We also agreed, if we could get immedi-
ately safe into Austria, to avoid Salzburg altogether
and make directly for Trieste. Barklimore was
becoming exhausted. The roads were rough and
dreary, not a village or human dwelling was to be
seen, even to the utmost verge of the horizon. As
we drew near to Reichenhall, we overtook two
waggons, and prevailed upon one of the waggoners
to give a lift to our lame and disabled companion.
Never was an arrangement more fortunate, for no
sooner had he got accommodated in the waggon
than two Bavarian gendarmes came in view. Hew-
son and myself sought concealment on the other
side of the road, and thus did we escape detection."
Within a couple of miles of Reichenhall, Barkli-
more set foot to ground ; and here it was that the
most signal perils of the enterprise must be met or
evaded. They dared not try in the gathering dark-
ness to feel their way on the outside of the town ;
and, compassed with mountains as they were, what
chance existed of groping a passage through them
to the frontier before morning ? They resolved on
one more night at a Bavarian inn.
" At the dawn of day on the 17th of October we
rose, ordered a cup of coffee each, and pushed for-
198 AN IRISH MIDDY
ward with great circumspection for the town of
Reichenhall, and saw very few people moving.
Everything, we imagined, favoured us ; but the
next moment we discovered a bridge, which we
inevitably must pass ; at the end of it was a turn-
pike and the Bavarian colours, blue and white,
which we were tolerably well acquainted with. There
were two men who appeared at a short distance from
the turnpike. We were on the bridge. The two men
entered a house close to the turnpike. We advanced
rapidly. Supposing it to be a most favourable
opportunity, we passed the turnpike very fortun-
ately, and turned short round to the right, which
led us directly as we wished, and also clear of the
town. We then passed another barrier, where there
was not a house to be seen, and being so near to that
we just passed, we conjectured that both were
superintended by the same people.
*' Having anticipated all aggravations of diffi-
culty as we approached the frontier, we were over-
joyed at finding the system of police not so strict as
we expected : we now considered ourselves safe.
We advanced a mile, and thought ourselves in the
Austrian territories. Our happiness was inconceiv-
able. Our dangers, we thought, were over, and we
were now in a country which, though not in alliance
with England, had been subsidised on former occa-
sions to the extent of so many millions by her, and
had so common a cause with us in putting down the
general enemy. We felt almost as if we were at
home. So secure were we that we began to be less
attentive to dangers of any sort."
In less than an hour all three were under arrest.
O'Brien and Barklimore, taking a short cut
through fields, lost sight for a while of Hewson, who
ARRESTED AGAIN 199
kept to the high road. All at once O'Brien, a little
distance in front of Barklimore, discovered to his
extreme alarm that they were still in Bavarian
territory ; for there before him stood a turnpike
with the blue and white symbol of peril. Not a
creature of the official sort was in sight ; he got
safely past, and a rearward glance told him that
Barklimore had been as fortunate. But what of
Hewson ? As they halted in trepidation, the mid-
shipman came flying towards them. On the very
line of demarcation an Austrian had requested him
to produce his papers. These, he had replied, were
in the keeping of the friends behind him.
This was the most embarrassing posture since
Etaples. The Austrian barrier confronting them,
the Bavarian at their tail : a fine blind alley they
were tumbled into ! One of them espied a by-path
skirting a precipitous ascent, and that way they
incontinently fled. Running, skulking, crawling,
and scrambling, they made neither pause nor turn
till the minutes of their flight gave them the certainty
that they had well overpassed the frontier line of
Austria. Drawing breath at last on a broad high
road, they were once again rendering thanks, when
O'Brien was aware of three rifle-barrels covering
their three heads, while a fourth polite person doffed
his hat. " This was very like the scene in Gil Bias,
when the beggar piteously implored the traveller in
the name of the Holy Virgin to drop a marvadie in
his cap, whilst he kept his carbine aimed at his head,
as a broad hint of what he was to suffer if he were
uncharitable."
These, however, were not brigands in the guise of
alms-seekers. They were very well-mannered Aus-
trian soldiers, whose sergeant, still cap in hand,
200 AN IRISH MIDDY
remarked that duty compelled him to take the
gentlemen before his officer. " We are in the Em-
peror's dominions, in Kaiserland, are we not ? "
asked O'Brien. " Ya, Mynheer." This assurance
made happy prisoners of the three ; and, in presence
of the young officer, O'Brien had resort to the
American trick of Etaples, modified for a crisis in
Austria. '' We made him understand as well as we
could that we were Americans, who had escaped
from the Danes at Altona, and were making the best
of our way to Trieste, where we expected to procure
a passage to our native country." The dread of the
prisoners was that the young officer, a little nettled
at their manifest endeavour to evade him and his
guard, would give them walking orders to Bavaria.
He decided instead for Salzburg.
VI
At Salzburg they arrived in the early afternoon
of October 17th, and were lodged with no incivility
in the Town House. Here they underwent a cour-
teous interrogation by the chief of police, who re-
garded them as spies. It was an obvious rejoinder
that spies would scarcely be imprudent enough to
travel without passports, and they had not in their
possession a morsel of paper or a lead pencil. O'Brien
stuck to it that they belonged to an American ship
which had been taken by the Danes. Their examiner
began to be impressed, and observed that were they
even Englishmen they had nothing to fear from the
Austrian Government. " My God ! " exclaims O'Brien,
" I never felt more happy than at hearing these
words." On the point of making a clean breast of
it for all of them, he decided that it might be as well
"SUPERLATIVELY HAPPY" 201
for the present to persevere with the American
figment. The chief of poHce allowed them to go to
a tavern for the night, and requested that each
would set on paper a detailed statement of his case.
The taverner received them as honest Yankees ;
they supped on his best cheer, and were " super-
latively happy."
But now, with statements to prepare in writing,
were it not both honest and politic to out with the
whole truth ? This was O'Brien's counsel, and
Barklimore and Hewson acquiesced. O'Brien was
again deputed spokesman, and he entrusted the
chief of police with their history in full. " I related
the whole of our history. He regretted much that
he could not instantly grant us passports, since it
was necessary to acquaint the Government at
Vienna, and have their sanction, but he said we
should have an answer in fifteen days at most ; and
he jocosely added, * You have been five years nearly
in France, so you cannot have any objection to
remain among us for a few days.' He was exces-
sively kind ; and I could not avoid communicating
to him that our finances were reduced to the lowest
ebb. The kind old man soon comforted me on this
score, by stating that, whilst we were detained, the
Austrian Government would allow us a certain sum
per diem, in proportion to our respective ranks.
He begged that we would make ourselves as com-
fortable as possible at our inn, told us to dismiss all
care and anxiety from our minds, and requested,
rather than ordered us, to keep ourselves within
doors, until we heard further from him."
In ten days word came from Vienna that the
Austrian Government acknowledged the refugees as
English subjects, and would grant them passports
202 AN IRISH MIDDY
to proceed where they pleased. " Good and gracious
God ! what intelHgence to people who have been
nearly five years in severe and bitter slavery ! "
Behold them next in the diligence ; passports and
money in their pockets ; the storms of fate silenced ;
safe on the road to Trieste. This port was not
reached until the evening of the 4th of November,
when O'Brien, remembering his friends in bondage,
despatched a letter to Tuthill and Ashworth. This
secret missive, containing all particulars of the flight,
achieved its destination, and assisted the two mid-
shipmen to escape. O'Brien, Hewson, and Barkli-
more were picked up by the Amphion, in which
O'Brien had sailed in 1802. Almost the first person
they met on board was the dragoon, Batley, who had
steered his way out of Baden. Our six heroes of
Bitche are thus accounted for.
O'Brien rose to the rank of rear-admiral, and died
May 13th, 1857, at Yew House, Hoddesden, in his
seventy-third year.
V
MORGAN OF THE ROUGH-RIDERS
AN EPISODE OF THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR
". . . To waite, to ride, to ronne." — Spenser.
" Turning his face to the deiv-dropping south.^'
" Romeo and Juliet."
" There's rue for you." — " Hamlet."
MORGAN OF THE ROUGH-RIDERS
THE American Civil War brought to the front
no bolder or more skilful leader of cavalry in
the Army of the South than General John H. Morgan
of the Mounted Riflemen, or Rough-Riders. Swift
and venturesome in surprising the enemy, he was no
less cunning and adroit in eluding him. No antago-
nist ever knew where Morgan would be found or
what tactics he would adopt. In the wildest and
most difficult region he seemed perfectly at home ;
and could keep, as it were, " in his head " any coun-
try in which he was operating.
Morgan's command, moreover, was a splendid
one. Few men in his division were above twenty-
five years of age ; fine horsemen all ; keen and
hardy in the saddle ; willing to stick there till they
dropped out of it asleep or numb with cold : and to
every man the General was a hero. The division
had been engaged in almost daily combat, against
all arms, and under all conditions of the campaign.
In the summer of 1863 Morgan was selected by
General Bragg to make a diversion in Kentucky.
He was to destroy the railroads, capture what
depots of supplies he could, and keep the Federals
on the move. Some 2500 men were detailed for
the expedition.
Morgan had carte blanche to go where he pleased
in the State of Kentucky, but his orders were not
205
2o6 MORGAN OF THE ROUGH-RIDERS
to extend the raid beyond the Ohio River. He
privately resolved to disobey General Bragg's in-
structions, and to lead his troops across the Ohio
River and invade Indiana and Ohio. They would
probably, he thought, be captured ; but he was
even more convinced that in no other way could he
give substantial assistance to the forces of the South.
If, in a manner, this was the greatest — the most
heroic at any rate — of Morgan's raids, it resulted in
little less than disaster. Starting the first week of
July, he was in the toils before the month was ended.
The Ohio River, which had risen very suddenly,
was up ; but here, if at all, Morgan must cross. He
was well-nigh over, when, seeing that the mass of
his troops would be left on the Ohio side, he made
his wa}^ back. Breaking for the interior like a fox
for cover, he was at large six days more. Exhausted,
and no longer able to defend himself, he surrendered
on the 26th of July near the Pennsylvania line, with
three hundred and sixty-four men. By the failure
of the expedition (though it was undoubtedly of
some immediate benefit) General Bragg lost a grand
division of cavalry, and Morgan not a little of his
prestige.
It remained for him to effect, as a prisoner of war,
an escape of extreme ingenuity and daring.
II
On the last day of July, General Morgan, General
Basil Duke, and sixty-eight other officers of Morgan's
command were relegated as prisoners to the Ohio
State Penitentiary at Columbus.
" We were placed," says Colonel Thomas Plines,
one of the party, " each in a separate cell in the first
PROJECT OF FLIGHT 207
and second tiers on the south side in the east wing
of the prison. General Morgan and General Duke
were on the second range, General Morgan being
confined in the last cell at the east end, those who
escaped with General Morgan having their cells in
the first range.
" From five o'clock in the evening until seven
o'clock in the morning we were locked into our cells,
with no possible means of communication with one
another ; but in the day, between these hours, we
were permitted to mingle together in the narrow
hall, twelve feet wide and one hundred and sixty
long, which was cut off from the other portion of
the building, occupied by the convicts, by a blank
partition, in one end of which was a wooden door.
At each end of the hall, and within the partitions,
was an armed military sentinel, while the civil
guards of the prison passed at irregular intervals
among us, and very frequently the warden or his
deputy came through in order to see that we were
secure and not violating the prison rules."
The prisoners of war were, of course, allowed no
intercourse with the convicts ; nor could they see
a relative or friend except upon a written order and
in the presence of a guard.
The talk by day ran chiefly on the means of escap-
ing, and towards the end of October Colonel Hines
worked out the plan that was carried into execution.
" It was this : I had observed that the floor of
my cell was upon a level with the ground upon the
outside of the building, which was low and flat, and
also that the floor of the cell was perfectly dry and
free from mold. It occurred to me that, as the rear
of the cell was to a great extent excluded from the
light and air, this dryness and freedom from mold
2o8 MORGAN OF THE ROUGH-RIDERS
could not exist unless there was underneath some-
thing in the nature of an air-chamber to prevent the
dampness from rising up the walls and through the
floor. If this chamber should be found to exist, and
could be reached, a tunnel might be run through
the foundations into the yard, from which we might
escape by scaling the outer wall, the air-chamber
furnishing a receptacle for the earth and stone to be
taken out in running the tunnel."
The air-chamber was found, as Colonel Hines had
calculated ; a contrivance six feet wide by four
feet high, running the whole length of the range of
cells.
On the 4th of November, with the approval of
General Morgan, work was begun at the back part
of Hines's cell, under the rear end of his cot. To
prevent the daily inspection of the cell, Hines
obtained leave to sweep it out himself. Five officers
of the rank of captain were chosen to help in the
enterprise. From the hospital were smuggled " some
table-knives made of flat steel files," and with these
a passage was cut through six inches of cement to
the air-chamber. The progress of the conspirators
was here arrested. " We found the chamber heavily
grated at the end, against which a large quantity
of coal had been heaped, cutting off any chance of
exit in that way." A tunnel was their next task.
" We cut through the foundation wall, five feet
thick, of the cell block ; through twelve feet of
grouting, to the outer wall of the east wing of the
prison ; through this wall, six feet in thickness ; and
four feet up near the surface of the yard, in an un-
frequented place between this wing and the female
department of the prison."
Colonel Hines sat on guard at the entrance to his
WAYS AND MEANS 209
cell, pretending to be absorbed in Gibbon's " Decline
and Fall." The workers below, who were relieved
every hour, adopted a system of signals by taps on
the floor over the chamber. While they were dili-
gently running the tunnel. Colonel R. C. Morgan, a
brother of the General, was engaged on a rope of
bed- tic king, thirty-five feet in length. The same
artist converted the iron poker of the hall stove into
a hook to serve as a grappling iron.
** The work was now complete with the exception
of making an entrance from each of the cells of those
who were to go out. This could be done with safety
only by working from the chamber upward, as the
cells were daily inspected. The difficulty presented
in doing this was the fact that we did not know at
what point to begin in order to open the holes in the
cells at the proper place. To accomplish this a
measurement was necessary, but we had nothing to
measure with. Fortunately the deputy warden
ignorantly aided us. I got into a discussion with
him as to the length of the hall, and to convince me
of my error he sent for his measuring line, and after
the hall had been measured, and his statement
verified. General Morgan measured the distance from
centre to centre of the cells — all being of uniform
size — and marked it upon the stick used in my cell
for propping up my cot. With this stick, measuring
from the middle of the hole in my cell, the proper
distance was marked off in the chamber for the holes
in the other cells. . . . We cut from underneath
upwards, until there was only a thin crust of the
cement left in each of the cells."
At this stage the party had to consider the question
of ways and means, and from a sister in Kentucky
Colonel Hines obtained a remittance of Federal
210 MORGAN OF THE ROUGH-RIDERS
money, pasted into the back of a book. An old con-
vict in the prison was bribed to bring in a newspaper,
which yielded information as to trains southwards
from Columbus. All that was now necessary, within
the prison, was to ascertain the easiest place at
which to scale the outer wall. There was a ladder
in the hall from the top of which a view could be
obtained, but to climb this would be to arouse
suspicion.
'* Fortunately the warden came in while we were
discussing the great strength and activity of Captain
Samuel Taylor, who was very small of stature, when
it was suggested that Taylor could go hand over
hand on the under side of the ladder to the top, and
with a moment's rest return in the same way. To
the warden this seemed impossible, and to convince
him, Taylor was permitted to make the trial, which
he did successfully."
From the top of the ladder Taylor perceived the
double gate in the outer wall which the conspirators
would have to scale.
Favoured by clouds, on the night of November 27th
they crept one by one from their cells, descended to
the air-chamber, passed through the tunnel, and
came out close beneath the wall, over which they
cast their grappling-iron. Mounting by means of
the rope of bed-ticking, they crawled from the wing
wall to the outer wall, and cut the connecting-cord
of the prison bell. From the outer wall they slid
to the ground outside the prison, " within sixty
yards of where the prison guards were sitting round
the fire and conversing."
Colonel Hines had left in his cell the following
note addressed to the warden, or governor, of the
Penitentiary, whose name was Merion :
DISGUISES 211
" Castle Merion, Cell No. 20, November 27, 1863. —
Commencement, November 4, 1863 ; conclusion,
November 24, 1863 ; number of hours for labour
per day, five ; tools, two small knives. La patience
est amere, mais son fruit est dotix. By order of my
six honorable Confederates. — Thomas H. Hines."
Under the wall of the prison the comrades split
for safety into two parties. General Morgan and
Colonel Hines made for the railway station, caught
a train for Cincinnati, jumped from it on the out-
skirts of the town, and, furnished with a guide at
the house of friends, were presently making their
way across country. Scurrying from point to point,
they were cattle-dealers at one place, and at another
citizens on the hunt for stolen horses.
In the small hours of December ist, they stopped,
hesitating, at the house of a Mr. Pollard, uncertain
to which side this gentleman inclined. They roused
him, and he took them into the family room, where
a lamp burned dimly on the centre table. " On the
light being turned up, I discovered a Cincinnati
' Enquirer ' with large displayed headlines announc-
ing the escape of General Morgan, Captain Hines,
and five other officers from the Ohio Penitentiary.
The fact that this newspaper was taken by Mr.
Pollard was to me sufficient evidence that he was a
Southern sympathiser. Glancing at the paper, I
looked up and remarked, ' I see that General Morgan,
Hines, and other officers have escaped from the
penitentiary.' He responded, ' Yes ; and you are
Captain Hines, are you not ? ' I replied, ' Yes ; and
what is your name ? ' ' Pollard,' he answered.
' Allow me, then, to introduce General Morgan.'
I found that I had not made a mistake."
Their host set the fugitives on the path again,
212 MORGAN OF THE ROUGH-RIDERS
and on the morning of December 6th they had pene-
trated as far south as the road from Burkesville to
Sparta, in Tennessee. Emerging from the woodland
at this spot, Morgan and Hines observed a woman
at the door of her dwelHng who waved them back.
They retreated, and in a few minutes the woman
signalled them again.
" She informed us that a body of Federal cavalry
had just passed, going in the direction of Burkes-
ville, and that the officer in command informed her
that he was trying to intercept General Morgan. We
followed the Burkesville road something like a mile,
and in sight of the rear guard. We crossed Obey's
River near the mouth of Wolf, and halted for two
days in the hills of Overton County, where we came
upon forty of our men, who had been separated from
the force on the expedition into Indiana and Ohio.
These men were placed under my command, and thence
we moved directly towards the Tennessee River,
striking it about fifteen miles below Kingston, at
Bridge's Ferry, December 13. There was no boat
to be used in crossing, and the river was very high
and angry, and about one hundred and fifty yards
wide. We obtained an axe from a house near by,
and proceeded to split logs and make a raft on which
to cross, and by which to swim our horses. We had
learned that two miles and a half below us was a
Federal cavalry camp. This stimulated us to the
utmost, but notwithstanding our greatest efforts we
were three hours in crossing over five horses and
twenty-five men. At this juncture the enemy
appeared opposite, and began to fire on our men."
Morgan had a good horse under him, but refused
to part company with the dismounted men. Hines
insisted that the safety of all depended upon the
"I'LL HANG YOU FOR IT!" 213
instant flight of the General ; and, thus admonished,
Morgan, in the company of Hines himself and the
four other mounted men, went away at the gallop.
Hines's advice was sound ; for the rest of the party,
scattering and sheltering among the mountains,
made good their way to the Confederacy.
Morgan and his companions on horseback, having
crossed a spur of the mountains, were racing through
a ravine when they saw coming full tilt down on
them a body of the enemy's cavalry. Hines in a
moment realised that his own chance of escape was
slender, and that only by a ruse could he assist the
flight of Morgan. Spurring to the head of the Federal
column, he shouted :
" Hurry up. Major, or the rebels will escape you ! "
" Who are you ? " returned the enemy olflcer.
" I belong to the home-guard company in the
bend down there. Hurry, or they'll be gone."
Wheeling round beside the major in command of
the cavalry, Hines rode ahead with him.
" We dashed on, I riding by the major at the head
of the column about half a mile, when we came to
where a dry branch crossed the road, and as it had
been raining that day it was easily seen from the
soil that had washed down from the side of the
mountain that no one had passed there since the
rain."
In a twinkling the officer perceived that Hines
had tricked him. " I'll hang you for it," said he;
and Hines felt a halter about his neck and saw the
end of it slung over the limb of a tree.
" Seeing that the officer was desperately in earnest,
I said : ' Major, before you perform this operation,
allow me to make a suggestion.' ' Be quick about
it, then.' ' Suppose that was General Morgan, as
214 MORGAN OF THE ROUGH-RIDERS
you insist. Wouldn't I, as a member of his command,
deserve to be hanged if I had not done what you
charge me with ? ' He dropped his head for a
moment, looked up with a more pleasant expression,
and said, * Boys, he's right ; let him alone.' "
General Morgan made good his escape.
[The South received him with enthusiasm, but his
breach of discipline in crossing the Ohio was neither
forgotten nor forgiven. His next command found
him short of troops, and the men were strangers to
his methods and had known too little of him to be
devoted to his fortunes. He led them on his last
Kentucky raid, which was no success. At Cynthiana
he met a superior force and was defeated. A month
or two later, September 4, 1864, he was shot at
Greeneville, Tennessee, in the garden of the house
where he and his staff were quartered. It was at or
about daybreak, during or at the close of an extra-
ordinary thunderstorm. His generous and brilliant
memory is cherished.]
The devoted Hines passed on amid his captors.
Carried to Kingston, he was there informed that he
would be sent next to Knoxville, Tennessee. This
was the headquarters of General Burnside, a station
at which Hines knew that he could scarcely escape
recognition. Along with three fellow-prisoners, en-
countered at Kingston, he resolved upon another
bid for freedom.
" It was perfectly clear, the moon about full,
making the camp almost as light as day ; and as the
moon did not go down until a short time before
daylight, we decided to await its setting. The door
of the cabin was fastened by a latch on the inside.
The night was cold. We had only pretended to
sleep, awaiting our opportunity. When the moon
A DASH THROUGH THE DOOR 215
was down we arose, one after another, from our
couches, and went to the fire to warm us. We en-
gaged the guards in pleasant conversation, detaihng
incidents of the war. I stood with my right next
the door, facing the fire and the three guards, and
my comrades standing immediately on my left.
While narrating some incident in which the guards
were absorbed, I placed my right hand upon the
latch of the door, with a signal to the other prisoners,
and, without breaking the thread of the narrative,
bade the guards good night, threw the door open,
ran through the guards in front of the door, passed
the sentinel at the camp limits, and followed the
road we had been brought in to the mountains.
The guards in front of the door fired upon me, as
did the sentinel on his beat, the last shot being so
close to me that I felt the fire from the gun. Un-
fortunately and unwittingly I threw the door open
with such force that it rebounded and caught my
comrades on the inside. The guards assaulted them
and attempted to bayonet them, but they grappled,
overpowered, and disarmed the guards, and made
terms with them before they would let them up.
All three of these prisoners, by great daring, escaped
before they were taken North to prison."
There was bridling, saddling, and mounting in the
camp ; but Hines, well up meanwhile on the moun-
tain side, sat and watched his pursuers on the scurry.
Travelling then, somewhat at ease, by the morning
star, he slipped by and by into a sedge-grass field,
where upon the frozen ground he lay till sundown.
" During the day the soldiers in search of me fre-
quently passed within thirty steps, so close that I
could hear their conjectures as to where I was most
likely to be found. I remained so long in one posi-
2i6 MORGAN OF THE ROUGH-RIDERS
tion that I thawed into the frozen earth ; but the
cool of the evening coming on, the soil around me
froze again, and I had some difficulty in releasing
myself."
In the dark, at the foot of the mountain, he
stumbled on a cottage, entered it at hazard, and
asked for supper. As he was feeding, the man of
the house came in, rifle on shoulder. Hines took
him coolly ; said that he was buying horses for the
Federal Government, and had an appointment next
morning with a person at Kingston who had horses
for sale : could he hire a canoe to paddle down the
river ?
A canoe was found, but the river was conveniently
high, and there was no possibility of landing Hines
at the house he pretended to seek. " Put me on the
bank somewhere near it," he said to his conductor,
" and wait for me." Once on the bank, he made
again for the mountains.
" For eight days," at the round-off of his admir-
able narrative, " I travelled by night, taking my
course by the stars, lying up in the mountains by
day, and getting food early in the evening wherever
I could find a place where there were no men. On
the 27th of December I reached the Confederate
lines near Dalton, Georgia."
VI
GOOD-BYE TO BROTHER BOER!
CAPTAIN HALDANE'S THREE HUNDRED MILES FROM
PRETORIA TO LORENZO MARQUES
" Ahiit, excessit, evasit, erupit,"
" Tout vient d point d qui sait attendre."
" Go7ic to ground."
" No sun, no moon, no morn, no noon.
No dawn, no dusk, no proper time of day." — Hood.
GOOD-BYE TO BROTHER BOER!
AMONG the curiosities of the Staats Museum,
J~\ Pretoria (once described as the Boer Tower of
London), is there by chance any fragment of " Wil-
son's death-trap " ? Within a few weeks of the
opening of the Boer War, Dr. Gunning, the Superin-
tendent of the Museum, appealed to all fighting
burghers, through the columns of the " Standard and
Diggers' News," to be " on the look-out for any
relics likely to be of interest — such as flags, lances,
helmets, swords, etc." A morsel of " Wilson's
death-trap " would have been worth keeping as a
witness to the excellence of Boer marksmanship.
And what— so far behind us seems the Boer War
to lie — was " Wilson's death-trap " ?
In Estcourt camp the name had been given to a
certain " moribund engine of war," the armoured
train so-called. It was made up of a locomotive,
five waggons, an aged 7-pounder muzzle-loading gun,
and carried some 120 men. Unattended beyond the
line of outposts, this " second-hand coffin " used to
wheeze out of a morning, " heralding, by agonised
gasps and puffs, and clouds of smoke and steam, its
advent to the far-sighted, long-hearing Boer." It
never did anything of the least account, but day by
day enjoyed extraordinary luck, crawling back un-
injured to the siding it had quitted at daybreak.
In command of the death-trap on the morning of
219
220 GOOD-BYE TO BROTHER BOER !
November 15th, 1899, was Captain Aylmer Haldane,
D.S.O., 2nd Batt. Gordon Highlanders ; thirty-seven
years of age and standing six feet one. As recently
as October 21st Captain Haldane had been severely
wounded at Elandslaagte, and had left hospital but
just able to walk. At Estcourt, attached for duty
to the second battalion of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers,
he had been waiting his turn for the death-trap, and
the death-trap had been waiting to do something
quite worthy of its title. On the 15th of November
a very fair record was achieved. At 5.30 a.m. —
ordered to reconnoitre towards Chievely — the train
pulled out from camp ; at 8.50 a.m., the Boers,
tearing it with shrapnel at six hundred yards, had
laid the engine a wreck on the banks of a cutting.
Mr. Winston Churchill, a passenger in his capacity
of war correspondent of the " Morning Post," has
touched the episode finely in his narrative, " London
to Ladysmith."
" I have had," he says, " the advantage, if it be
an advantage, of many strange and varied experi-
ences, from which the student of realities might
draw profit and instruction. But nothing was so
thrilling as this : to wait and struggle amid these
clanging, rending iron boxes, with the repeated
explosions of the shells and the artillery, the noise
of the projectiles striking the cars, the hiss as they
passed in the air, the grunting and puffing of the
engine — poor, tortured thing, hammered by at least
a dozen shells, any one of which, by penetrating the
boiler, might have made an end of all — the expecta-
tion of destruction as a matter of course, the realisa-
tion of powerlessness, and the alternations of hope
and despair — all this for seventy minutes by the
clock, with only four inches of twisted ironwork to
CARRIED TO PRETORIA 221
make the difference between danger, captivity, and
shame on the one hand, safety, freedom, and
triumph on the other."
" Shame," of course there was none. The ar-
moured train, in a situation hopeless from the outset,
had made a stand that astonished the Boers.
Wearily, on foot and by train, the prisoners were
carried to Pretoria, President Kruger's capital. Their
treatment on the journey. Captain Haldane says,
was handsome enough. In their sheds or tents at
night they heard the enemy singing his " Old Hun-
dredth." At railway stations, when they had got
to the dignity and ease of a train, Dutch wives made
love to them for a button from their uniforms. They
were asked : " Do you think we are savages,
after all ? "
At Pretoria they were lodged in the Staats Model
School.
From stage to stage on the progress from the point
of capture Captain Haldane had pondered the chance
of escape. At one juncture there was a possible leap
from the train in a tunnel, but a peep from the win-
dow revealed any number of hairy men with rifles,
and their well-trained eyes on every carriage.
II
The arrival at Pretoria of Captain Haldane,
Mr. Winston Churchill, and some fifty others,
launches us on a history of escape which in one
important detail holds a place apart. For a flight
of many leagues through an enemy country, wild,
unknown, dangerous in itself, and almost trackless,
it would be prudent to go into training for a bit, or
222 GOOD-BYE TO BROTHER BOER !
at any rate to start in as good fettle as possible.
By and by we shall see Captain Haldane and his
two companions driven to prepare themselves for
the adventure of their lives by three weeks of exist-
ence under conditions not less than appalling. This
prelusory period of trial (issue of an accident unfore-
seen and not to be coped with), these endless, noisome
days and nights of waiting in a narrow grave under
the flooring of a bedroom, give to the whole enter-
prise a definite something of strangeness, of terror,
of uniqueness. In the long chronicle of escapes a
situation of absolute novelty is not easily discovered.
Here is one, and it scarcely endures to be thought
on.
When a flight is in contemplation it is important
to have a clear notion of one's bearings. Fortunately
for our friends, Pretoria (** named after Pretorius,
the first governor of the South African Republic ")
is not a difficult town for the stranger who desires to
get out of it. Planned in parallelograms, the sides
forming them run nearly due north and south, east
and west.
The men of the party of prisoners were marched
to the race-course on the outskirts of the town, the
officers were taken to the Staats Model School.
This, " a substantial single-storeyed red brick edifice,
is built at the corner of one of the parallelograms
into which the town is subdivided, its length running
approximately north and south. It is, as its name
implies, an educational establishment for the youth
of Pretoria, and is divided into a number of school-
rooms and lecture-halls. It contains in all sixteen
rooms in the body of the building, including two at
each end. A long central passage runs almost
THE SCHOOL PRISON 223
throughout its length, terminated by the end rooms,
and across this is the passage from the front entrance
to the door into the yard or playground. On both
sides of the building is a verandah which extends
along the exterior of the six central rooms, and this
again is overlapped by the four end rooms. One of
these end rooms is fitted up as a gymnasium, and
another was used by us as a fives-court. Outside, a
railing breast-high ran round the west and south
sides, the two remaining sides being enclosed by a
corrugated iron paling six feet and a half high. In
addition to these, a wire netting ten feet high ran
parallel to the paUng but close to the building, and
through this an opening immediately facing the
back door led to the grass-covered backyard. Across
the yard, in which were the tents of our soldier
servants and the police guard, were some low build-
ings, which at the time of our arrival were connected
with the corrugated iron pahng previously referred
to. A double row of trees ran close to the eastern
paling. At night this yard was hghted by four
electric lights. On the two sides of the building
which did not look upon the street were private
houses in gardens, that on the north side being used
as a Red Cross Hospital, with a door of communi-
cation in the iron paling which opened into the
school yard. The houses across the streets were
occupied."
As for the guard, there were twenty-seven men
and three corporals of the South African Republic
Police, from whom were furnished nine well-armed
sentries in reliefs of four hours. In every street of
Pretoria were posted special constables armed with
revolvers, " and in some cases accompanied by their
canine friends." Detectives came frequently to
224 GOOD-BYE TO BROTHER BOER !
observe the prisoners at exercise, and it will presently
be seen that they were careful note-takers.
Even with the aids of quoits, rounders, Sandow's
exercises, and cards, it was none too easy to chase
monotony at the Model School. " Sometimes," says
Mr. Churchill, " we get a little fillip of excitement.
One evening, as I was leaning over the railings, more
than forty yards from the nearest sentry, a short
man with a red moustache walked quickly down the
street, followed by two collie dogs. As he passed,
but without altering his pace in the slightest, or even
looking towards me, he said quite distinctly, * Methuen
beat the Boers to hell at Belmont.' That night the
air seemed cooler and the courtyard larger."
The best food for the mind was the project of
escape. With this in view from the first. Captain
Haldane and some others had contrived to get suits
of dark cloth in place of the mustard-coloured
reach-me-downs with which most of the party had
been supplied. Attempts at bribing the sentries
having failed, the prisoners fell back on their own
resources. One plan after another was discussed.
Forged passports could be bought at a price, and
with these it would be possible to travel by rail, but
for fugitives ignorant of Dutch this must be a
dangerous device. There was, however, the chance
of boarding a coal train by night, and thus reaching
the Portuguese frontier.
On the 7th of December two soldier servants
belonging to the i8th Hussars got out, were captured
at no great distance from Pretoria, and lodged in
jail. " The escape of these men," says Captain
Haldane, " made one feel that no time was to be
lost, and all that was required was a slack and un-
observant sentry, one who would during the dinner-
WINSTON CHURCHILL'S CHANCE 225
hour move a few paces from his post and provide the
necessary opportunity."
By the middle of the following week a scheme was
ripe for execution, but the only man to profit by it
was Churchill/ who had an instant's chance, and
seized it.
Things without remedy
Should be without regard : what's done is done.
Captain Haldane stayed upon events, and gave
his mind to other plans.
Up to the date of Mr. Churchill's break there had
been no roll-calls at the Model School, " and no
apparent record kept of the number of prisoners."
This was slovenly enough, for the officers were not
on parole. 2 But the Churchill affair was sensational,
the Government went wild, the fugitive's description
was telegraphed everywhere, and the lines were
drawn more tightly around the Model School.
The appetite of the plotters merely grows a little
keener. Captain Haldane smells out some cup-
boards, raids and rifles them, and carries off a prize of
three screw-drivers, two triangular files, and a pair
of wire-cutters. These are to be of use, but not just
^ Mr. Winston Churchill's artistic narrative in " London to
Ladysmith " is incomplete. At the time of writing he was not at
liberty to speak fully of the help he had received on the journey.
In Captain Haldane's original story in " Blackwood " there are
similar gaps. This history, when the Boer War drew to a close, was
rewritten on a larger scale ; and the volume, " How We Escaped
from Pretoria," constitutes, I believe, the one detailed and veridical
account of a flight from the enemy's capital. It has long been out
of print.
'' It was once or twice said, at or about the date of the escape,
that Mr. Churchill had broken his parole. This is totally untrue.
There were a few very special occasions (the funeral of an officer,
for instance, when the old President rose up from his verandah, took
his long pipe from his mouth, and doffed his tall hat to the proces-
sion) on which the inmates of the Model School were placed on their
word of honour. Within the School there was no parole.
226 GOOD-BYE TO BROTHER BOER !
yet. The second plot is spade-work, the traditional
and tedious business of digging by stealth. On
Mr. Churchill's departure there were five occupants
of Captain Haldane's room, and these were joined,
at their invitation, by Lieutenant Le Mesurier
of the Dublin Fusiliers — a man of considerable
inches, a great digger, and his companion in the
escape.
Dividing themselves into three reliefs, and estab-
lishing a system of signals, the party of six went to
work a few days before Christmas.
"Several detectives and the inspector of police in-
spected the building and surroundings with a view to
prevent a recurrence of the event of the 12th, and the
result of their visit showed itself after a few days. The
offices at the back of the yard, originally connected
with the paling, were isolated, so that the sentries
could pass behind and prevent anyone from climbing
over ; the lower branches of the trees were cut off
so that no dark place remained ; and the reflectors
of the electric lights were adjusted in such a way
that no spot was now in shade."
" The scheme was to sink a shaft about twelve
feet deep by five in length and three in width, and
from the bottom of this to drive a tunnel diagonally
under the street on the western side of the building
for about one hundred feet. This would bring us
under a kitchen-garden, whence we could easily
escape after dark, unseen. For digging implements
we used our screw-drivers, and succeeded in break-
ing through some three feet of caked earth as hard
as concrete. After this was penetrated the work
became easier ; but to our dismay, though not sur-
prise, two feet deeper landed us in water. After
many ineffectual attempts to get rid of it, by carry-
THE MAN WITH THE DOG 227
ing it to the most distant of the five compartments,
we found that the inflow, especially after rain,
greatly exceeded what we could bale out, and our
second plan accordingly fell through."
Patience waited another day. Captain Haldane
got hold of a tourist's map of South Africa, and laid
out on paper the whole country between Pretoria
and the border. There was talk of a general rising
of the prisoners (I have alluded elsewhere to the
practical impossibility of a scheme of this sort), but
they could in no way arm themselves. Through the
nights of the New Year Captain Haldane was un-
remittingly on the watch to climb the railings of the
School, but the most amiable sentry on the beat
declined a note of £100.
Here comes in the first touch of the romantic.
" We had noticed a man who occasionally passed
the Model School, generally accompanied by a
St. Bernard's dog. From his manner he seemed
sympathetic and anxious to communicate with us,
and he sometimes muttered some words as he passed.
As time went on he took to signalling to us by the
Morse code with his stick. As the police seemed very
suspicious of him, he could not send more than a
word or two, such as " British victory." The sen-
tries became more suspicious of him, and I believe
he was told not to pass the School. For a time, at
any rate, he rarely was seen. At length a system of
communication was arranged with him through the
medium of the hospital, and we found out that we
were indebted for our news to Mr. Patterson, one of
the principal telegraphists in Pretoria. Matters were
soon on a better footing. Our sympathetic signaller
took to visiting a certain house, inhabited by Mr.
Cullingworth and his family, and in the afternoon
228 GOOD-BYE TO BROTHER BOER !
he sent many messages to us from the verandah.
As, however, his duties prevented him from coming
daily, and his presence at this house was calculated
to arouse suspicion, he instructed two young ladies,
who, we imagined, were daughters of our opposite
neighbour, in the art of signalling, and they under-
took the risky work of transmitting to us the news
with which he supplied them.
" Standing well inside the door, one would signal
with a white flag, while the other, seated on the
verandah, gave warning when a sentry or passer-by
was approaching. By this means we now received,
twice daily, the latest news, from the Boer point of
view, of what went on at the front ; and I believe
that we were the recipients of the same telegrams
which were laid before his Honour President Kruger."^
Towards the middle of February, 1900, rumour
ran that the officers were to be moved to a new build-
ing from which escape would be more than ever
difficult. Someone now suggested the extinguishing
of the lights of the whole district by cutting the
wires, and at nine on the drizzling night of Feb-
ruary 23rd our conspirators were assembled on the
verandah of the School, "ladder in hand," ready to
creep forth. " Suddenly the lights in the building
and yard went out, and like a flash we made for the
gate through the wire netting ; but scarcely had we
reached the barrier of wire when the buildings and
yard were again illuminated." Back they crept to
the verandah. Their accomplice in the plot of the
lights had met with an accident and failed to com-
plete his job.
» Until close on the end of the war the names of the CuUing-
worths and Mr. Patterson were, of course, not revealed. After peace
was made Lord Roberts called on them, and the ollicers presented
them witli uieuiuntoes.
GONE TO GROUND ! 229
What was to be done now ? Another day or two
passed, and the report grew definite that the move
to the new abode would be made immediately. The^
three who had resolved on an escape, Captain Hal-
dane, Le Mesurier, and Sergeant-Major A. Brockie
of the Imperial Light Horse (believed by his captors
to be a lieutenant in the Natal Carabineers), were
seated in their room in deep confabulation. " I
have it ! " exclaimed Haldane. " Let us go below.
Let us hide beneath the floor." In a few moments
the proposal was adopted.
" While they collected a few necessary articles,
and with great difficulty began reopening the trap-
door, which had been tightly screwed down, I went
round the occupants of the room, all of whom readily
consented to preserve the secret of our hiding-place.
What we three hoped for was that the Boers would
think that we had taken advantage of the darkness,
bribed a sentry, and so made off. This was exactly
what occurred, and strange to say, despite the pre-
cautions taken by the commandant to prevent such
an occurrence, he concluded that we had gone. For
once the mistrust which one Dutchman has of
another stood us in good stead. We had the satis-
faction of baffling the whole talent of the Pretoria
police."
The trap-door was unscrewed and raised, and the
trio descended forthwith to the noisome scene of
their excavations. When they were safely ensconced
the door was again secured. The conspirators had
burnt their ships.
Ill
The charnel where they had literally buried them-
selves, the strangest and most dreadful dwelling we
230 GOOD-BYE TO BROTHER BOER !
have glimpsed or shall glimpse in these adventures,
is described by Captain Haldane.
" The floor was about two feet and a half above
the ground, and the space below, which corresponded
with the room above, was divided into five narrow
compartments by four transverse stone walls on
which the cross beams that carried the flooring were
laid. Each chamber was about eighteen feet in
length and three feet and a half in breadth and there
were man-holes in the walls. A certain amount of
air came into this damp space through small venti-
lators under the verandah, but the atmosphere was
very close, and one could not see except by candle-
light."
But for four-and-twenty hours what mattered it !
Sweet would the veldt smell in four-and-twenty
hours. In four-and-twenty hours the stars would
be lighting them to liberty.
It was on the night of the 26th of February that
the friends went to ground, and at roll-call next
morning their absence was known. Guards, police,
detectives tramped over the Model School ; walls
and floors were sounded ; but, though the trap-
door should have furnished a hint, no Vidocq of the
party thought of the cavity beneath it. Gradually
the search drew off. A saw that Captain Haldane
had used was the only booty. ^
The telegraph began to click :
" 8.20 a.m., 27th February, 1900.
" Yesterday evening three officers, prisoners of
war, escaped from the Staats Model School, viz. :
" Captain Haldane. — About 6 feet i inch in
height, walks with a slight stoop, thin, com-
^ This relic of the enterprise, General Haldane informs me, is
now in the possession of Mr. Winston Churchill.
AN AWFUL SITUATION 231
plexion and moustache dark, wears a dark-coloured
suit.
" Lieutenant Brockie. — About 5 feet 9 inches in
height, erect, complexion and moustache fair. Has
a habit of raising his eyebrows when talking. Has
a long-shaped face, and wears a chocolate-brown
suit.
" Lieutenant Le Mesurier. — About 5 feet 9 inches
in height, strongly built, round face, complexion
and moustache fair, small eyes. Wears a grey suit.
Muscles powerfully developed, blinks his eyes."
The descriptions, it will be remarked, are good ;
the detectives had made their notes with care.
Four-and-twenty-hours ? Alas ! the three were
presently at the seventh day of their terrible cap-
tivity. Being but scantily supplied with food, they
had to seek the aid of their principal ally overhead.
This was the devoted Falkland of the Dublin Fusi-
liers, who contrived a small daily convoy of pro-
visions. In the veritable *' Little Ease " in which
they lay (and, save perhaps in the dungeons of the
Inquisition, there can seldom have been a worse),
the prisoners were now suffering severely both from
the lack of air and from the irremediable constraint
of position. Creeping and crawling — their sole
possible exercise — they developed in turn a form of
" housemaid's knee " ; and, living mainly in dark-
ness, every man's head was bruised against beam
and wall. Dirt was another misery, since they
could receive through the trap-door no suffiicient
quantity of water for washing. Dark, stifled,
hungry, dirty, and reduced to motion on all fours,
the situation passes belief. For the seven days drag
into fourteen, and still there is neither release nor
the prospect of it.
232 GOOD-BYE TO BROTHER BOER !
But in the pages of "How We Escaped from
Pretoria " never a whine rises out of this inferno.
Latude, in his fetching and artistic way, is alter-
nately lachrymose or vicious over sorrows or in-
juries of his own invention ; and Trenck's top note
is shrill, tireless, and wearisome. Inimitable Tommy
in the war of to-day chalks up " Savoy Hotel " over
his dug-out, and " Piccadilly Circus " at a crossways
in the trenches. And Captain Haldane, giving the
slip to sentiment, tells us what books he read by
tallow candle, what games of patience they played,
what cigarettes Le Mesurier smoked ; how (to the
common danger) one of them talked in his sleep and
another snored, and how they had sometimes to
smother their laughter over a joke. He would
persuade us, against every tittle of the evidence of
his diary, that they had exchanged the tedium of
the School yard for a rest-cure in a grotto.
Reading between Captain Haldane's lines, we
perceive how desperate the situation was growing,
and that as the month of March advanced the im-
prisoned men must either perish or procure their
release.
" Sometimes we felt a half regret that we had
undertaken what was proving itself to be so futile
and disagreeable an attempt to gain our freedom.
Our friends above urged us to come up and live in
the roof, or at least occasionally emerge into the room
overhead and get some fresh air ; but we set our
faces against such proposals. The fewer who
know a secret the better. Others would get to know
it, and as many of the sentries understood English,
they might easily overhear and understand some
indiscreet remark as to our whereabouts. We
hardened our hearts, and decided to remain where
EIGHTEEN DAYS ENTOMBED 233
we were until the prisoners were exchanged, the
campaign concluded, or ourselves too ill to bear it
any longer."
Illness was now, however, a menace no longer to
be played with ; and at this pass Captain Haldane
sent up from underground a letter to pastor Hof-
meyer, another and a friendly prisoner in the School,
urging him to pretend to the Dutch commandant
that, as the officers were on the point of rising, it
would be prudent to remove them at once to the new
building. Hofmeyer worked to his utmost on the
suggestion, with no results. Captain Haldane and
his two comrades set to work again on digging ;
but this labour they were able soon to abandon,
for in a moment the prospect of freedom opened
out. Their friends above were to be transferred at
once to the new building.
The three in hiding had been seventeen days and
nights below, and had still some twenty-four hours
to pass, but their hearts were fixed now on the
journey that was to come.
" Friday, i6th March. — Day at length came, a
day that will live long in the memory of my two
companions and myself. For the last time we heard
the commandant going his rounds, and wondered
anxiously if all were present. By 7.0 a.m. we had
not heard of any one having hidden, and all seemed
busy packing. Breakfast at 8, and then the pre-
arranged signal was heard, and we knew that all
were present. A little later we heard Frankland's
voice saying, * All's well ; good-bye ! ' "
By a quarter past ten all the officers had left the
School and were on their way to the new habitation.
By midday the baggage had been carried out and
the servants were marched off. The cabined three
234 GOOD-BYE TO BROTHER BOER !
stayed in their lair till nightfall, and then walked
out of an empty prison. " Le Mesurier's legs gave
way and he fell down ; and all of us, when we tried
to walk, reeled like drunken men. Several minutes
passed before we dared leave the room, and it was
not till we were some distance from Pretoria that
our limbs regained their wonted strength."
IV
The escapes of prisoners of State or war show us
so great a variety of disguises that we may note
with interest how nakedly in this respect Captain
Haldane and his comrades set foot upon the veldt.
Brockie, to give himself the appearance of a wounded
Boer, carried his left arm in a white sling, and wore
the Dutch colours round his hat. This was the sole
form of travesty among them, and Captain Haldane
says : " We looked more like three moonlighters
than anything else I can think of."
Le Mesurier and Brockie took the middle of the
road, Haldane following at a short distance on the
pathway.
Near the outskirts of the town a special constable
eyed them with suspicion, but on Brockie's exposing
his " wounded " arm he let them pass unchallenged,
and in a little while they were clear of Pretoria and
its suburbs. " Straight before us, high up in the
eastern sky, shone the moon, dimming the bril-
liancy of the evening star which followed closely
in her wake ; to the right the Southern Cross, and
low down in the north-east Orion's Belt." These
glorious guides the trio followed, walking in single
file along a railway, listening to the baying of dogs
all around them, now turning aside to avoid a
LE MESURIER FALLS LAME 235
Kaffir kraal, and now dropping into a ditch almost
under the eyes of a sentry. Le Mesurier, stumbling
among boulders, twisted an ankle, but limped on
with his comrades until they drew near to the first
station on the line, thirteen miles out of Pretoria.
Here it was decided to halt until next evening.
They had made a good start for men in poor con-
dition ; Le Mesurier, moreover, was lame ; and, as
the reader will remember, the hue and cry had long
ceased.
Sorely did they suffer from mosquitoes that night,
but in the morning they beheld the sun for the first
time during nearly three weeks.
" When darkness at length came, we sallied forth
from our retreat, crossed the river, then the railway,
and reached the road. By the small scale map we
possessed the railway appeared to make a con-
siderable bend to the south-east, and as the road
seemed to form the chord of the arc it would be
shorter to follow it. But Transvaal roads are not
as other roads, and are as unlike their counterpart
in England as a lane in Devonshire is unlike the
turnpike to Bath. Looking at a map of the Trans-
vaal you are tempted to believe that once on the
road, so clearly defined on paper, you have only to
shut your eyes and go ahead. Try it, and you will
find a close resemblance between yourself and the
blind led by the blind. The highways in the South
African Republic are innocent of metal — Macadam
is a name unknown : they consist of nothing but
deeply indented wheel-tracks left by the clumsy,
ponderous transport of the country — the ox-waggon.
As a Dutchman in wet weather leaves the main
track where it has become swampy and marks, out
a line for himself, the natural consequence is that in
236 GOOD-BYE TO BROTHER BOER !
time the vicinity of a road becomes a maze of
tracks, and to find your way in the dark and in an
unknown district is nigh impossible."
This second night they were hunted by dogs;
the dogs roused a patrol, and before the danger was
over Captain Haldane and Le Mesurier were cower-
ing to their necks in an icy stream, and Brockie
was missing. Issuing from the water, which had
done wonders for Le Mesurier's ankle, they waited
for the sergeant-major until there could be no
question that he was irretrievably lost to them.
Brockie, however, was in one respect the best able
of the three to take care of himself, being ready in
the Dutch and the Kaffir tongues. The captain
and lieutenant settled for the remainder of the night
in a clump of bracken, and took a prophylactic of
opium and quinine — soaked to the skin, five thou-
sand feet above the sea-level, and battling incessantly
with mosquitoes. At daybreak they were stiff
with rheumatism, their whisky-flask had vanished,
their provisions were water-logged, matches and
tobacco ruined. But they had now made wide their
bounds of freedom, and looked only to the success
of the adventure.
Dropping at dawn into a valley, and seeking the
railway by the lightning flashes of a coming storm,
they halted somewhere on a hill, where Haldane,
searching his pockets for a wet match, discovered
that he had left his money-belt and compass at the
last hiding-place.
" The risk of returning to look for them was too
great, for on quitting our hiding-place we had
noticed many lights in the neighbourhood, and the
probability of finding the clump of ferns in the
pitchy darkness was remote. Besides which, both
RATIONS GIVING OUT 237
Le Mesurier and I were even now not entirely
devoid of money, and it was doubtful if we should
require what we still had. We therefore pushed on
till by the light of the moon we saw in front of us a
Kafhr kraal, and found that we were walking past
a field of water-melons. The opportunity was too
good to be lost. Since we left our hiding-place we
had had no water save that which a shower had left
in the hoof-marks of some cattle. We now sat
down and simply gorged this thirst-quenching pulp."
Kraal dogs surprised them at their meal ; Captain
Haldane rolled up a melon in his handkerchief, and
they stole away. In the weariness of the march
Haldane has a waking dream of Brockie.
" Brockie was in my thoughts, and I was wonder-
ing where he was and if by any chance we should
meet him to-night at Elands River, for we had
talked with him of making for that place. On the
ground a little to my left I saw what seemed to be a
man lying at full length, his elbows resting on the
ground, his head between his hands. Telling Le
Mesurier what I saw, we went nearer, but the
vision of my fancy had gone ; yet it was so clear
that I can recall it and the spot where it occurred
with the utmost distinctness."
Sleeplessness, short commons, want of water, and
the sheer difficulties of the country began to tell
upon the wanderers, and in four anxious nights
they had covered only thirty-six miles. Le Mesurier
had preserved an army emergency ration (one tin of
pemmican and another of cocoa, sufficient to support
a soldier for thirty-six hours) , and Captain Haldane
had a scrap of biltong. Seated by a welcome pool,
they broke into their last reserve, of which they ate
about one-third in the raw state. They had reckoned
238 GOOD-BYE TO BROTHER BOER !
on a steady supply of mealies throughout the
journey, but that harvest had just been gathered :
" not one single corn-spike remained."
Supper ended (" and seldom," observes the Cap-
tain, " have I enjoyed a meal so much ") the pair
resumed their dubious way. Captain Haldane had
been told by a colonial that the grass at its longest
would hide a man from view, and had therefore
anticipated no difficulty with regard to hiding-
places. But the grass was never tall enough for
shelter, and often they lay for rest by the hour in a
swamp alive with fever germs. One terror of the
veldt was spared to them (and, by the way, they
seem never to have met with snakes).
'* I have often since thought," says Captain
Haldane, ** that in our wanderings on the veldt we
were fortunate to escape a grass fire, an everyday
occurrence in these regions. Had it happened that
one had come our way — and the tell-tale smoke we
sometimes saw afar off showed how possible that was
— nothing would have remained but to seek safety
in flight, a course which would inevitably have led
to discovery."
The hour pretty quickly came when they had
finished every scrap of solid food, and were living on
occasional draughts of water. At this extremity
they walked boldly (in a thunderstorm) into a
Kaffir hut against a coal-siding. Five ebon natives
were eating dry mealie-meal porridge out of a
cauldron, and without a word save " Saca-hona ? "
(" How do you do ? ") our friends squatted down
beside them and phmged their liands into the mess.
The Kaffirs were phlegmatic but friendly, and the
Englishmen contrived to make known to them that
they were running from the Boers, and must get to
THE FRIENDLY BAAS 239
Delagoa Bay. Learning that the baas, or employer,
of their hosts was an EngUshman, they made signs
that they wished to be taken to him. The baas
was the manager of the Douglas Colliery, a Dane ;
and as Captain Haldane said that his own name was
of Danish origin, they were soon on a cordial footing.
In these circumstances it was easy for Captain
Haldane to explain that his companion and himself
" wanted to travel to Delagoa Bay concealed in a
coal-truck " : could the manager help them ? The
manager would, at any rate, do his utmost, and do
it forthwith. His own mine was sending no coals
to the coast, but at a small colliery close by three
trucks were to be loaded next morning for Lorenzo
Marques, and he would try to have the loading post-
poned to nightfall, so that the runaways could reach
their hiding-place unseen. Meanwhile he would
place his visitors in the hands of the storekeeper of
the mine ; and this gentleman, Mr. Moore, took
them to his heart and house. For the lean and
footsore pilgrims of the veldt it was creation's
dawn. They fed to repletion, had not a prick to
fear from mosquitoes, and folded their hands to
sleep. They slept till the day was warm.
"At 10 o'clock we were told that the medical
man who had charge of the miners, and happened
to be making one of his occasional visits, was coming
in to see us. Dr. Gillespie, one of those fortunate
beings whose voice and manner at once inspire
confidence, now entered the shed. He told us that,
purely on chance of hearing some news at the mine,
he had driven over from Brug Spruit on the previous
day, and stopping the night had chanced to hear in
the morning that the escaped prisoners, of whom
every one knew, had at length arrived.
240 GOOD-BYE TO BROTHER BOER !
" The extraordinary chain of circumstances which
had brought us to the mine, exactly at the right
time, was now made evident to us. Had not Le
Mesurier delayed us owing to his sprained ankle,
had not the thunderstorm driven us to the Kaffir's
hut, we should probably never have heard of Dr.
Gillespie. It was not his usual day for visiting the
mine. He now told us his plans for getting us
safely over the border. To my amazement he said
that he and some others had managed it for Churchill,
and they would do the same for us. He told us to
say nothing to any one of the fact that they had
helped Churchill, and that when it grew dark he
would drive us to another mine, where plans for the
future would be matured. He added that we
might now consider ourselves out of the country,
our further movements would be so devoid of risk.
Bidding us farewell till evening, and saying that the
coal-truck plan was now at an end, he left us."
After supper that same evening Moore led them
across the veldt to the spot where they were to meet
Gillespie. He was waiting for them in a light, two-
wheeled cart with an efficient pair of greys between
the shafts. " Climbing up beside him, we took our
places on the front seat, and the hood of the trap
was raised. We bade farewell to Moore, and,
taking with us his earnest good wishes for our
freedom, started."
Dr. Gillespie's goal was the colliery of the Trans-
vaal Delagoa Bay Company, a drive of fourteen
miles. The road in many places was as usual a
mere maze of tracks, and so inky the night that
the greys had scarce a chance of showing off their
paces. For the most part they were going at a walk,
and even at this pace the driver had often much
THE MAN WITH THE DOG AGAIN 241
ado to keep the trap from overturning. At a point
where he crossed the railway the doctor cautioned
Haldane to squeeze down behind the splash-board.
At 1.30 in the morning of Saturday, March 24th,
Gillespie reined in his greys near the office of
the colliery. Here the passengers w^ere to be handed
over to Mr. Jno. E. Howard, who had managed
Churchill's escape, and Dr. Gillespie was to return
home.
" All was silent and deserted, except for the
presence of the two Kaffir boys on guard outside
the office. Dr. Gillespie got down a short way from
the office, going on in advance to see if the coast
was clear, and after a few minutes returned and
conducted us into a room behind it. Here the
occupant of the room and I mutually recognised
one another. It was no other than the Englishman
whom, as I related before, I had seen, with another,
walk past the Staats Model School. That other
very soon joined us, and was introduced to us as
Mr. Burnham, the manager of the mine store. The
first, whose name was Addams, was resident secre-
tary of the mine. They now told me that they had
passed the School, wondering how they could com-
municate with us to help some of us to escape.
Addams left the room in search of the manager,
who lived a short distance from the office. When
he knocked at the door of Mr. Howard's room a
voice said, * Anything wrong ? ' The reply, ' Pumps
broken down,' was given. Mr. Howard afterwards
told us that he instinctively said to himself, ' They've
come at last.' He had made up his mind that we
should somehow reach his coal-mine, and had kept
Kaffirs out night after night near the railway
watching for us. He also had for nights past played
Q
242 GOOD-BYE TO BROTHER BOER !
* God Save the Queen ' on his piano, with the
windows open, lest we passing that way should hear
and crave admittance."
Howard himself next appeared, and a new plan
was speedily arranged. Howard was to feign
illness for a few days, and remain within doors,
Haldane and Le Mesurier taking up their quarters
with him. Here, by the way, they had news of
Brockie, for whom, on his arrival at the same
friendly spot, a passport had been procured as far
as Kaapmuiden. Thence to the border, forty-six
miles distant, an Englishman was to provide him
with a Kaffir guide.
For Captain Haldane and Le Mesurier the scheme
was this : A certain quantity of wool was still being
sent to Lorengo Marques, and goods-trucks were
often detached at Middelburgh, a short distance off.
Concealed in one of these they could leave the country
without involving Burnham in suspicion. Failing
a convenient truck at Middelburg, Burnham would
buy wool enough for one load, and send the
runaways with it ; he himself accompanying them,
as he had accompanied Mr. Churchill. This was
devotion indeed, for should anything discover the
plot, Burnham, Howard, and the rest ran the risk
of being shot.
Captain Haldane and the lieutenant passed the
hours of daylight indoors, blinds down, and they
both felt the need of rest. Haldane had lost in
weight a stone and a half, and Le Mesurier was lame
and sick.
While these two lay behind the blinds, Addams
and Burnham, smelling out the railway line and its
opportunities, were quietly at their policy, which
was in some degree a game of bluff. In the end it
THE ROMANCE OF IT 243
was decided that Burnham should buy up a truck-
load of wool, and an offer of the consignment was
wired forthwith to a firm at Lorengo Marques. To
heighten the romance of the situation, nothing was
needed but this indispensable commercial touch
of the little affair in wool. A certain firm in Lorengo
Marques will buy sixteen bales of wool, or will not.
On this very commonplace transaction hangs for
the moment the fate of two British prisoners of war,
and behind the deal we have some half-dozen dis-
interested gentlemen prepared to take the chance
of being shot for their part in it.
The firm at Lorenco Marques replied, accepting
the truck-load of wool.^
From a station a little way up the line the truck
arrived on the 26th of March, and through their
blinds Haldane and Le Mesurier watched how
Burnham and Addams loaded it for their conceal-
ment.
" In order that the reader may better understand
the kind of place we were to occupy for sixty-three
hours, I will describe it in as few words as I can.
The bales of wool, weighing each four hundred
pounds, were in size about five feet long by two feet
and a half broad and the same in depth. There
were in all, I think, sixteen to be loaded into the
truck. The truck itself was an empty coal-waggon,
about eighteen feet long and seven wide, with sides
of some three feet in height. Three bales of wool
were laid end on at one side of the truck and three
on the other. Above these were laid three parallel
1 General Haldane writes me : " The firm — a German one —
afterwards repudiated their telegram. The wool lay unsold at
Loren90 Marques, and the price meantime fell. Eventually it was
sold at a loss of ;^75, which I paid to Burnham."
244 GOOD-BYE TO BROTHER BOER !
rows of three bales each ; and as there were only
two rows on the floor of the truck, occupying a total
breadth of five feet, there remained a kind of tunnel
down the centre of the truck. Other bales were
placed above those already in position, and when
all was done there remained a space for us to sit in
at the end of the truck three feet by seven. This
space was available because the waggon was eigh-
teen feet long, and three bales endwise occupied
only fifteen feet."
We are at the moment of another start ; and
behind the blinds Haldane and Le Mesurier, while
turning their garments inside out, are debating the
hazards of the stage before them. They had beaten
their way through the veldt, but once inside the
truck no line of retreat would be open to them.
At 5 a.m. they climbed into the vehicle which was
to be their habitation for two days and a half.
Some thirty minutes of darkness had been spent in
storing supplies and making all snug. Their kind
friends had provided them with a week's larder —
roast duck and chicken, smoked beef, bread and
butter and jam ; nine bottles of cold tea, two of
water, and one of whisky.
The tarpaulin was made fast, and for the next
five hours the stowaways lay extended on the floor
of their abode. At ten o'clock Mr. Howard came
along again, asking if all were well, and taking a
final leave of the guests he had so well befriended.
He had but just got rid of Field-cornet Pretorius,
who had shown himself mighty suspicious con-
cerning the tablecloth in Howard's dining-room,
ADDAMS ON TENTERHOOKS 245
and seemed only half satisfied with the manager's
tale of a little dinner and card party.
It was noon, or past it, when the wool-truck was
taken by a colliery engine to Whitbank Station.
Here, though the captain and lieutenant knew
nothing of it, they might easily have been discovered.
On the look-out at Whitbank were Addams and
Burnham, who, to their extreme alarm, saw the
Dutch driver and stoker stroll up to and lean
against the precious truck. A word or a sneeze
from the inside and the whole plot would have been
blown upon. Addams, telling the story afterwards,
said :
" This was more than I could bear with equanimity,
and I strolled over to them and invited them to
come with me across the line and have a drink.
They declined, stating that they could not leave
the engine ; and presently the driver took a sheet
of paper from his pocket, and flattening it out on
the smooth side of the truck, began to write a letter.
My anxiety was intense, for the slightest noise
would have been heard, and I walked past on the
other side and tried by some words which I mut-
tered to give you warning to keep still. While the
shunting operations prior to your departure were
going on, one of the station employees undid the
tarpaulin and looked into the truck.''
All this while, however, Haldane and Le Mesurier
lay tight between the bales of wool, mum as mum.
At 2.30 they were attached to a passenger train,
and by mid-afternoon were alternately climbing
and gliding down the beautiful wild steeps of the
veldt, smelling at last like the gardens of liberty.
At a place called Waterfall Boven the train drew
up for the night, starting again at 6.20 next morn-
246 GOOD-BYE TO BROTHER BOER !
ing. This da3/'s progress brought them to the last
station in the Transvaal, Komati Port. Here, if
anywhere, the wool-truck would be searched,^ and
here therefore they flung overboard the most of
their provender. " We fully thought that, having
got so close to the border, we should be in Portu-
guese territory this day ; and on reaching the
frontier station it was a bitter disappointment to
find ourselves detached and pushed into a siding."
In anticipation of a search the refugees had
withdrawn into their tunnel, whence they could
hear Kaffirs chattering in the siding a few yards
away. So sure did Captain Haldane make of a
perquisition of the truck, that — bent on bribing the
first-comer — he drew from his pocket a bag con-
taining a hundred sovereigns, and then tore from
his diary a few pages of compromising matter.
" The next moment a chill shot through me, and
my thoughts returned to Pretoria. We heard the
rattle of the links as the ropes of the tarpaulin which
were tied to them at our end of the truck were un-
loosened. The moments that followed defy de-
scription : so many thoughts were crowded into
one's mind, thoughts of recapture and ruin to all
hopes of seeing more of the campaign. Soon the
tarpaulin was lifted up and thrown back over the
top of the truck. What happened neither of us
occupants will ever know, for we dared not move
to look ; but the daylight from above and from
the end of the tunnel flooded in upon us, and we
^ General Haldane sends me the following copy of the original
telegram in his possession : " Actg. -Commissioner, Pretoria, to
Supdt. Komati Pt. — ' In continuation of my telegram re escaping
officers, you are ordered to let no goods or passenger trains in which
arc goods, pass before the same have been immediately searched.
This is to hold good till further orders.' "
THE PILLAR OF FREEDOM 247
felt that discovery was unavoidable. The search
must have been most perfunctory, though in our
excited imaginations it seemed to last an age. Then
the tarpaulin was returned to its place, the ropes
made fast, and the Kaffirs resumed their chattering."
Had the officers been seen or not ? To this day
General Haldane can give no answer to the question.
It may well have chanced that they were spied by a
Kaffir (the order as to searching is plain enough),
who, perceiving two stalwart white men, judged it
prudent to retire.
Stifling in their hole under the tarpaulin they
passed hours of suspense. Nothing happened. Even-
ing deepened into night, and night — wretched
and mosquito-haunted — broadened at last into
morning. It was Saturday, and by Friday they
had hoped to be in the Portuguese lines. Food
and drink, so much had they cast away, were
running short. At 9.40 the train steamed off, and a
minute later, in the middle of Komati bridge, the
friends grasped each other by the hand. Five
minutes more, and, peeping through the tarpaulin,
they beheld the white conical pillar which marks
the boundary between the Transvaal and Portu-
guese territories. It was the pillar of freedom.
For Captain Haldane and his companion their
Anabasis was at an end.
At Ressano Garcia, the first Portuguese station,
the train came to a stand ; but the two passengers
in whom we have an interest did not alight.
Plagued with thirst, they waited in their miserable
hold until the dusk had fallen, and then crept out
from and beneath the truck. At a Kaffir kraal
within a handsbreadth of the station they learned
that the Ressano Garcia hotel was kept by two
248 GOOD-BYE TO BROTHER BOER !
Englishmen, and thither they dragged themselves.
Is there a reader who will grudge the champagne
opened by the proprietors in their privy parlour ?
There is no more to tell. From the village of
Ressano Garcia the hardy comrades took easy
train to Lorenzo Marques, where, at the Cardoza
Hotel, everyone seemed in possession of the secret
of their flight from Pretoria. " That evening," says
Captain Haldane, " I gave Mr. Douglas, the cour-
teous correspondent of the * Times,' a brief account
of our adventures, omitting everything about our
having hidden under the floor of the Model School.
My reason for doing so was that Le Mesurier,
Brockie, and I had, in the interests of those who
had helped us and fed us and remained behind,
bound ourselves to say nothing about that part of
our story until the end of the war."
Everything was in some degree fortunate in this
escape, which at any stage might have been frus-
trated ; but, with all the help they got, it depended
mainly on the pluck and endurance of the adven-
turers. They paid some penalt}^ Le Mesurier was
down at once with enteric and afterwards with
malarial fever. Brockie spent some weeks in hospital.
Captain Haldane had two attacks of malarial fever.
But they obtained their desire, getting back to duty
in the Boer War.
From General Haldane in France I have received
this interesting and pathetic postscript :
" Of my two companions in the escape from
Pretoria, both are dead. Sergeant Brockie, I
believe, rejoined the Imperial Light Horse, and after
serving through the remainder of the campaign,
held some appointment in one of the Rand mines.
GENERAL HALDANE'S POSTSCRIPT 249
There he lost his hfe a few years later, being crushed
to death by a mass of ore which fell upon him.
" Captain Neil Le Mesurier whom, in the years
succeeding our wanderings on the veldt, I met
from time to time, also went through the remainder
of the campaign. Thereafter he left the Army and
entered the Colonial service. The last time we met
was in London, where he was studying law, during
his leave from West Africa. In November, 1914,
I was able to assist him to rejoin his old regiment —
the Royal Dublin Fusiliers — the 2nd Battalion of
which formed part of the loth Infantry Brigade,
which I was then commanding. Before his arrival,
however, I had been transferred to the command of
a division. My intention was to take him on my
staff as aide-de-camp so soon as I had a vacancy,
and in the interim I had his name registered for
another staff appointment. But fate willed that we
should not again meet in this life. When the Ger-
mans made their attack with gas in April, 1915,
my old brigade, with other troops, was moved from
the south to assist in repelling it. The brigade was
heavily engaged east of Ypres and suffered verj/
severe losses, and on the 29th April I heard with
deep regret that my old friend was missing and
believed to be among the killed. This proved to be
true, and the only details I have been able to gather
are that he fell at the head of his company, and that
his fearless behaviour in face of the enemy was such
that for him to have escaped death would have been
miraculous.
" Lieutenant T. Frankland, also of the Royal
Dublin Fusiliers, who was taken prisoner on the
armoured train, though he did not leave Pretoria
when we did, very materially assisted us in doing
250 GOOD-BYE TO BROTHER BOER i
so. Some time before the present war began he was,
at my request, appointed Staff Captain of my
brigade, and served with me until the 6th Septem-
ber, 1914, when, being the senior officer of the 2nd
BattaHon Royal Dublin Fusiliers, he, at his own
request, resigned his appointment in order to
command it. For this good service in the field he
was twice mentioned in despatches and promoted
brevet-major ; later he was appointed brigade-
major of an infantry brigade and accompanied the
expedition to the Dardanelles. There he lost his
life while making a reconnaissance soon after the
troops carried out their difficult and hazardous
landing. He was an officer who displayed great
coolness under fire, and possessed accomplishments
much above the average, and from the time I first
knew him in South Africa I felt that he would go
far in his career."
The following profoundly interesting details of
Major-General Haldane's military career have been
very kindly furnished to me by a friend :—
Major-General James Aylmer Lowthorpe Haldane,
only son of the late D. R. Haldane, m.d., ll.d., of
the ancient family of Haldane of Gleneagles, in the
county of Perth ; was born in 1862. Educated at
the Edinburgh Academy and Wimbledon School.
He subsequently entered the Royal Military College,
Sandhurst, from which he passed out with honours,
and joined the 2nd Battalion Gordon Highlanders
in 1882.
He served for three and a half years as adjutant,
and obtained his captaincy in 1892. In 1893 he
exchanged to the ist Battalion of his regiment
stationed at Rawal Pindi, India, having passed his
final examination at the Staff College in the same year.
GENERAL HALDANE'S CAREER 251
He served in Waziristan, 1894-95 (medal and
clasp), under Lieut. -General Sir William Lockhart
as orderly officer, and remained with him as A.D.C.
from 1896-99 ; served with ist Battalion Gordon
Highlanders in Chitral, 1895 (medal and clasp) ;
in Tirah, 1897-98, as D.A.A.G., Headquarters Staff
— actions of Chagrukotal, Dargai, Saransir, Dwatoi,
capture of Sampagha and Arhanga passes ; opera-
tions against Chamkanis, and in Bara and Bazar
Valleys (despatches, D.S.O., and two clasps). On
the outbreak of hostilities with the Boers in the
latter part of 1899, Captain Haldane obtained
permission from Sir William Lockhart — then Com-
mander-in-Chief in India — to rejoin his regiment.
Both battalions of the Gordon Highlanders were
ordered to South Africa, and Captain Haldane
served with the 2nd Battalion, which formed part
of the reinforcements sent from India to Natal.
He took part in the Battle of Eelandslaagte on
2ist October, 1899, was severely wounded and sent
down to Pietermaritzburg. As soon as he was well
enough to get about. Captain Haldane asked and
obtained permission to proceed to Estcourt, where
he was attached for duty to the 2nd Battalion
Royal Dublin Fusiliers ; and on November 15th
he was placed in charge of the armoured train,
which on that date was derailed by the Boers under
Joubert, near Chieveley, when on its return to
Estcourt.
In the first volume of the " Officers' History of
the War " in South Africa there is a full account
of the incident, showing how splendidly Captain
Haldane and the men with him behaved in a disaster
which had come about by no fault of theirs.
General Buller, in commenting subsequently on
252 GOOD-BYE TO BROTHER BOER !
this unlucky affair, recorded his opinion that " the
officer in command acted in trying circumstances
with great judgment and coolness." Captain Hal-
dane was slightly wounded on this occasion, and
taken prisoner with another officer.
The captured officers were confined in the State
Model School in Pretoria, whence Captain Haldane
escaped. On rejoining the 2nd Battalion Gordon
Highlanders he took part in the operations in Natal,
at Laing's Nek, those in the Transvaal east of Pre-
toria, from July to November, igoo, and in the
actions at Belfast and Lydenburg.
For his services in South Africa he was mentioned
in despatches, awarded the Queen's medal with four
clasps, and a brevet-lieutenant-colonelcy, to take
effect the day after attaining his regimental majority,
which was obtained on July 23rd, 1902.
In February, 1904, Lieutenant-Colonel Haldane
was appointed military attache with the Japanese
army, Russo-Japanese War, 1904-5 ; he was present
at the battles of Liao-Yang, Sha Ho, and Mukden,
receiving the war medal and clasp and the Order of
the Sacred Treasure and being decorated with the
C.B., in 1906, for his services.
After holding several appointments on the General
Staff at the War Office he was made Brigadier-
General, General Staff, Eastern Command, in Octo-
ber, 1909, and in March, 1912, selected to command
the loth Infantry Brigade and troops at Shorn-
cUffe.
Br.-General Haldane commanded this brigade
during the retreat from Mons, and in the subsequent
advance to the Aisne on 26th October, 1914, he was
promoted Major-General for Distinguished Service
in the Field, and on the 21st November appointed
GENERAL HALDANE'S CAREER 253
to command the 3rd Division of the British Ex-
peditionary Force. His name has thrice appeared
in despatches during the present campaign. General
Haldane is a Knight of Grace of St. John of Jeru-
salem, and an officer of the Legion of Honour.
VII
FROM EXILE TO EMPIRE
PRINCE LOUIS NAPOLEON AT THE FORTRESS
OF HAM
" Vicissitudes oj fortune." — Gibbon.
" Strait is the gate and narrow is the ivay." — Matthew vii. 14.
" Tie up the knocker ! Say I'm sick, I'm dead." — Pope.
FROM EXILE TO EMPIRE
AT daybreak on Easter Sunday, 1831, a lady,
i\ very pretty, very elegant, and of the most
marked distinction, entered a carriage at the door
of her hotel in Ancona, and was driven at a brisk
pace from the town. What lay upon the lady's mind
on Easter morning ? — for she had explained and
excused this matutinal start by the statement that
she wished to hear mass at Lore to. On the box
rode a young footman ; and he also, perhaps, had
a conscience to purge at Loreto, for his face was
extremely pale. A second carriage followed, con-
taining a lady's maid and another footman ; and it
might almost have been thought that the whole
party were in quest of ghostly counsel and consola-
tion at Loreto, for all wore a look of concern.
In 1831, Italy (moved in degree by the recent
example of Paris, which had despatched King
Charles X on his inglorious travels) was here and
there in insurrection. The secret society of the
Carbonari had been active, and more active at this
date were the Austrians — of whom the Peninsula has
bitter and terrible memories. As the lady's carriage
drew near to the Austrian lines she peeped forth
anxiously into the growing day. But the lady was
furnished with a passport (nay, with passports) ;
and, murmuring ". . . to hear Mass at Loreto," she
was allowed to pass. Reaching Loreto, however,
R 257
258 FROM EXILE TO EMPIRE
she continues her journey at the same rapid rate ;
does not stay for Mass at all.
Through the Papal States she drove with speed,
her hand often in her purse for relays of post-horses.
The Tuscan territory was now to be traversed. By
way of Siena, Pisa, Lucca, and so on (how exquisite
a journey in Italian springtide for travellers at their
ease !), the lady was bound apparently for distant
Genoa and Nice. At Camoscia (or Carnoscia) there
is a most uncommon incident. Post-horses were not
forthcoming, the hour was late, the lady must tarry.
But the pale-faced footman conceived a sudden
objection to the hotel, which, to be sure, was crowded
with political refugees. Was ever mistress kinder,
more complaisant ? For, if the lackey, looking
sickly enough, would pass the night on a stone bench
in the street, the lady, for her part, would pass it in
the carriage. And in this way indeed the night was
spent.
Even more curious is it when for the second time
the Tuscan frontier has been crossed. The footman
of the pale visage, who moves with an invalid's gait,
disappears for a space ; returns in spruce attire, and
takes his place by the side of the charming lady.
Through Massa, through Genoa, the two carriages
whirl towards the French frontier. By Antibes, by
Cannes, France at last is entered : France from which,
for nearly sixteen years, the pair in the flying
carriage have been exiled. With a burst of tears the
beautiful lady sinks on the shoulder of the youth.
Thus, to unfold the slight mystery, did Hortense
de Beauharnais (tenderest if not wisest of mothers),
Duchessc dc St. Len, ex-Queen of Holland, daughter
of Napoleon's Josephine, stepdaughter and niece of
Napoleon, snatch from Austrian bullets or a possible
DESTINED TO ROMANCE 259
halter, the sole surviving of her three sons, Prince
Louis Napoleon, aged twenty-three, the future
Napoleon III.
Carbonaro or not (the point is unsettled, but Car-
bonaro in all likelihood he was), the young Prince
had borne himself in Romagna with courage worthy
of his name ; and had he fallen captive to the Aus-
trians it had certainly gone ill with him. The trium-
phant flight, here but outlined, owed everything to
the skill, coolness, and daring of the devoted mother
— whom Napoleon I had not admired for nothing.
This first appearance of Louis Napoleon in Italy has
an interest rather personal than political. It is his
debut on that stage of romance where he was to
play so astonishing a part.
II
The law was not rescinded that ruled the Bona-
partes out of France, and Paris was closed to them.
King Louis-Philippe received Hortense with friend-
liness, — and ousted her without delay. She took her
son to England, where they stayed three months ;
and in the latter days of summer they were back at
her retreat of Arenenberg on the Lake of Constance.
Here, amid the mountains of Switzerland, a lovely
and melancholy haven, Louis Napoleon lived and
brooded five years. He studied and wrote ; dallied
and played the lover. Had he married the gifted
and radiant Mathilde, his cousin, fate might have
played him fewer tricks. But for romance, if ever
it were mortal's destiny, this man was born ; and
from the winsome and gracious Mathilde he was
gradually and inevitably sundered. From a dehile
habit in boyhood and youth he grew into a strong,
26o FROM EXILE TO EMPIRE
contained, inflexible, and imperturbable man ; nurs-
ing his Napoleonic Idea ; willing and prepared to en-
counter for it opposition, obloquy, disaster. On these
terms with fortune, and in the winning society of his
mother, Louis Napoleon lived five years at Arenenberg.
In the summer of 1836 he was a little over twenty-
eight, and France was scarcely aware of his exist-
ence. On the evening of the 24th of October,
bidding his mother good night, he spoke of his in-
tention to join a hunting-party next morning. He
had been at Baden for a few days, and Hortense was
doubtless aware that he had had a meeting with his
new friend Persigny. Perhaps she suspected some-
thing more than a hunting-trip ; at any rate, she
drew from her finger and placed on her son's the
most precious of her jewels, the ring with which the
Emperor had wedded her mother. It was almost
their last earthly meeting.
On the morning of the 25th, accompanied by his
valet, Charles Thelin, the Prince set out to " catch
the dying rays of the sun of St. Helena " : in simpler
terms, to seize the throne of King Louis-Philippe.
From Strasburg he was to march on Paris, as
Napoleon had descended from Elba. Fifteen ad-
herents unknown to fame were picked up by appoint-
ment (Persigny was in advance of the party) ; and
at dusk on the 28th the Gilbertian force advanced
on Strasburg. Colonel Vaudrey, commanding the
3rd and 4th Artillery regiments (the 4th was
Napoleon's old regiment), had already been won
over.^ It may have been of moment, it may have
been of none, that, on Persigny's advice, it was
resolved to postpone action to the 30th. The 4th
1 The comedy of Colonel Vaudrey and Mme. Gordon in this
affair is entertaining, but the space for it is wanting.
STRASBURG 261
regiment was stationed in the Austerlitz Barracks ;
and to this place, at about six on the morning of the
30th, the Prince and his desperate fifteen proceeded.
In the dark morning, a thin snow drifting here and
there, Vaudrey was ready for them ; the 4th
saluted the Emperor's nephew with shouts of
" Vive I'Empereur ! " and he marched out of barracks
at their head. One of his friends ran off to seize the
printing offices and print the proclamation. Crowds
began to gather in the streets. At the Place d'Armes
Louis Napoleon made a personal call on General
Voirol, governor of Strasburg, who, refusing to join
him, was placed under arrest. He escaped almost
immediately. The prefect of the town had been
made prisoner by Persigny.
The regiment next to be considered was the 46th,
in the Finkmatt Barracks. Here for a while all went
well. On a sudden someone at the back of the court-
yard shouted to the soldiers that they had been
befooled, that the Prince they were acclaiming was
not the nephew of the Emperor.
" Instantly the whole aspect of affairs was altered.
The faithful were confirmed in their resistance, the
waverers rallied to the voice of authority. For the
Prince it was a paralysing blow. Had he so wished
he might by this time have been in command of
150 pieces of cannon ; instead, he had preferred
to rely solely on the magic of his name. And now
in a moment this weapon was struck from his hand.
To some extent it was even turned against him :
for of the 46th, it was just the men who had been
most ready to welcome the descendant of the Em-
peror who were most furious that they should have
been tricked by the vain use of his name "^
^ F. A. Simpson, " The Rise of Louis Napoleon."
262 FROM EXILE TO EMPIRE
Briefly, by eight o'clock the fiasco of Strasburg was
complete. It was to have been another bloodless
progress from Elba. Had Louis Napoleon had beside
him in the Finkmatt Barracks a brother of the
superior courage and resource of Lucien Bonaparte,
it might have been a second i8th of Brumaire. But
the affair of Strasburg, the young Pretender's first
coup d'etat, had toppled in two hours. " So un-
expected had been its sudden collapse, and so bright
had seemed its prospect of success, that the messen-
ger to whom Louis had entrusted his two letters to
his mother had already despatched the one an-
nouncing the success of the undertaking, "^
The Pretender had a taste of the Prefecture of
Police in Paris, but the Government decided not to
bring him to trial. His accomplices in the con-
spiracy appeared before the ordinary Court of Assize
at Strasburg, and a local jury acquitted them. This
in itself went some way to redeem the failure of their
chief.
By Louis himself these tidings were received on
the day he landed in America, whither by the ad-
visers of Louis-Philippe he had been incontinently
shipped. In the States he had settled but two
months when news alarming and distressing was
conveyed to him : the illness of his mother. He
hurried back to Europe, ^ to the joy of the woman
who had loved him as tenderly as he loved her. In
the son's arms the mother died. Her death left
him at odds with the world, for on the morrow of
Strasburg the family had discarded him.
' Simpson.
* For many years it was thrown in his teeth that he had broken
his parole. This was not true. The French Government had made
no conditions whatever.
"PRINCE FLORESTAN" 263
In the autumn of 1838 he was again a refugee in
England (after turning very adroitly to his own
account the quarrel over him between France and
Switzerland) ; and at this date it might have been
conjectured of an adventurer whose design was less
consummate and far-reaching, and whose purpose
was less resolute, that he had come to the end of
his political tether. Disraeli, who has sketched
Louis Napoleon with cleverness and sympathy in
" Endymion," was one of the few persons in London
who recognised in the fashionable and easy-going
" Prince Florestan " — an adventurer, in truth, like
his own brilliant self — a man with a purpose in the
world. From the beginning of 1840, in a word,
Louis was meditating his second coup d'etat, the
adventure of Boulogne. As was usual with him, he
worked out the details alone.
At about 9 a.m. on August 4th the steamer
Edinburgh Castle (belonging to the Commercial
Steam Navigation Company : James Crow captain),
chartered for a month's " pleasure trip," left London
Bridge. All afternoon she lay off Gravesend, await-
ing her Prince, who had been dodging the police in
London. He came ; and at Margate and Ramsgate
certain others were taken on board. When at last
she made for the French coast the Edinburgh Castle
carried a very mixed crew and a queer assortment
of merchandise. " We were sixty- two sworn con-
federates," says Baron d'Ambes,^ who was of the
party, but the number is almost everywhere else
given as fifty-six. Some twenty-four, says Mr.
Cheetham, " were what may be termed gentlemen,
and the rest (thirty-one in number) servants. The
^ " Intimate Memoirs of Napoleon III."
264 FROM EXILE TO EMPIRE
* gentlemen,' however, were rather a mixed com-
pany, and included the Prince's professor of fencing,
his secretary, and a * Polish captain.' "^ Mr. Simp-
son says, " A certain number of Poles." D'Ambes
has no mention of Poles. Undoubtedly the most
interesting person, after the Pretender himself, was
General Montholon, now in his 58th year. Mon-
tholon had shared the tragi-comedy of St. Helena,
and was there when Napoleon died. Lord Rose-
bery very rightly speaks of him as a " correct and
kindly man of the world, "^ and his manner was full
of charm.
There were in the hold muskets from Birmingham ;
uniforms, new or second-hand, from Paris ; horses
and fine equipages ; some dozens of wine, brandy,
liqueurs, and ginger-beer ; and, " that no touch of
auspicious absurdity should be lacking to the scene,
fastened to the mast was a live eagle, forlornly sur-
veying the seasick saviours of France."
According to the evidence at the trial, not more
than four or five of the conspirators knew, when the
Edinburgh Castle left England, either to what port
they were steaming or on what mission ; but
Thirria roundly declares^ that everyone at the trial
was fibbing.
In four boat-loads the reckless half-hundred (a
good many of them hearty with tipple) landed at
Wimereux, a league to the north of Boulogne. It
was dawn of the 5th of August. Some Customs
officers who refused to join the expedition were
left unmolested. This was Louis's first mistake.
1 F. H. Cheetham, " Louis Napoleon and the Genesis of the
Second Empire."
* " Napoleon ; the Last Phase."
» " Napoleon III avant I'Empire."
THE THREE MISTAKES 265
He was met at Wimereux by Aladenize, a lieu-
tenant of the 42nd Infantry, who led the party at
5 a.m. into the slumbering town of Boulogne.
Somewhere in the lower town a sergeant and his
four men were stationed ; and these, like the
Customs officers, dechned the blandishments of the
Pretender. They were left at their post, and this
was Louis's second mistake. Next was encountered
one Maussion, also of the 42nd, who, being pressed
into the ranks of the insurgents, was presently
allowed to slip away ; and this was Louis's third
mistake.
At the barracks of the 42nd the Prince and his
merry men were allowed to march in ; but even
now the game was nearly up. For sub-lieutenant
Maussion had pelted straight to the quarters of
Captain Col-Puggelier, commandant of the detach-
ment at Boulogne ; and he, arriving at this instant,
succeeded in ejecting the conspirators and getting
the gates of the barracks closed on them. The
Prince was now in a tight place. '* Alas ! " exclaims
d'Ambes, " neither army nor population seconded
us. . . . Perhaps it would have been wise to do no
more. Bataille and Mesonan proposed to go to the
Colonne de la Grande-Armee on the downs above
the town and unfurl the Imperial flag. But a
squad of men from the 42nd of the line had been
detached, and these fell upon us. The Prince showed
himself a hero, and was for dying there, at the
foot of the column. ... I make a last attempt to
raise the citizens, and so find myself separated from
my friends, who reach the shore." But the Edin-
burgh Castle lay a mile off ; and as Louis and his
followers threw themselves into the sea the National
Guard, in hot pursuit from the column of the Grand
266 FROM EXILE TO EMPIRE
Army, opened fire and peppered them like waterfowl.
One man was shot dead, and Louis himself received
a slight wound. He lodged that night a prisoner in
the Chateau of Boulogne ; was carried early on
August 8th, in a closed carriage with an officer at
his side — a strong escort before and behind — to the
Fortress of Ham ; and on the 12th was taken in
the same manner to Paris, and placed in a cell of
that oldest of prisons, the Conciergerie.
He was set for trial before the Court of Peers on
September 28th. " A little man dressed in black,
slightly built, pale-faced, with a calm manner and
a dreamy eye — this was the first vision which the
Court of Peers had of their future Emperor." ^ Louis
Philippe and his Government were weary of clemency.
On October 6th " Charles Louis Napoleon Bona-
parte " was condemned to " perpetual imprison-
ment " in a fortress situated within the continental
territory of France.
Ill
On October 7th, 1840, the very day that the
Belle Poule frigate touched at St. Helena to bring
back to Paris the body of Napoleon I, the future
Napoleon III passed once more within the shades of
Ham.
" Far away in the north-west of France, among
the marshes of the Somme, lies the little town of
Ham, which at that time contained a formidable
fortress. "2
" A picturesque and romantic building, it dates
from Louis XL The Connetable de Saint-Pol,
* Simpson.
* Father Lewis C. Price, " Archbishop Darboy and some French
Tragedies : 1 8 1 3-1 871."
HAM A PROLOGUE 267
Louis of Luxembourg, who built it in the fifteenth
century, gave it its gloomy aspect, which the rust
of ages has heightened. Imagination, with slight
help from the inspiration of history, can picture it
the scene of all the incidents of feudal ages. What
subjects for legend and ballad — towers, donjons,
underground chambers, oubliettes even. Nothing
is lacking of mediaeval glamour. The fortress
itself is a huge square building with a round tower
at each corner. Curtain-walls connect these towers.
The castle is entered by a drawbridge."^
The captivity of Saint Helena, says Imbert de
Saint-Amand in epigram, is an epilogue ; that of
Ham a prologue.' The prologue at first was rigorous
enough. The State prison was an insalubrious
place in an insalubrious region ; and the new
prisoner was soon to be affected with rheumatism,
headache, and severe pains in the eyes. His quar-
ters were dilapidated ; and gaoler Demarle (the
very officer who had arrested Louis at Boulogne)
was for a while so strait in his government that the
captive could obtain neither books nor writing
materials. By and by the regime grew milder.
Before the end of October Louis's confinement was
shared by Montholon and that other staunch friend.
Dr. Conneau (he had been secretary to Louis
Napoleon's father. King Louis, and medical man to
Hortense), who had printed with his own hand the
Boulogne proclamations. Montholon had been sen-
tenced to twenty years of " detention," Conneau to
five of " imprisonment." The constant Thelin,
acquitted by the Court of Peers, had begged leave
to follow his master to Ham, and was incarcerated
1 D'Ambes.
* " Louis Napoleon and Mademoiselle de Montijo."
268 FROM EXILE TO EMPIRE
in May, 1841. St. Helena, as all records show, had
not proved quite an ideal retreat ; but Montholon
— growing stiff, to be sure — found Ham a good deal
worse.
At Ham, none the less, time crept onwards ; and
Louis, in a situation wretched as could be, and dim
as to all outlook, showed himself a prisoner of char-
acter and quality. He could confront with a mind
more equable and elevated than Napoleon's an
immediate condition of adversity and a prospect of
redemption about as real as the fabric of a dream.
In any chapter on the recreations of prisoners
Louis would claim an honest and interesting page.
He wrote much, and planned to write much more.
He dabbled at this and that in an amateur's labora-
tory. He gardened industriously in a garden where
nothing would grow. He rode a horse to admiration
within the circle of a circus-rider. He made love ;
and the history of "La Belle Sabotiere," Alexan-
drine (or Eleonara) Vergeot, the handsome daughter
of the clog-maker, is still rehearsed at Ham.
It has been remarked upon as curious that a man
so determined as Louis Napoleon allowed himself
to live five and a half years in prison — five years
and seven months. But he had excellent and hon-
ourable reasons for doing so. While his comrades
of Boulogne were under lock he could make no
attempt to liberate himself. In November of 1845
all had been released save Montholon and Conneau ;
and Louis's thoughts turned to freedom. Negotia-
tions with the Government (Lord Malmesbury was
one of the first to befriend him^) came to nothing,
and he decided to escape.
1 Malmesbury (Earl of), "Memoirs of an ex-Minister : an Auto-
biography."
ASTONISHING 269
IV
" In the history of celebrated escapes," says
Saint- Amand, " none is more astonishing than that
of the prisoner of Ham. . . . Failure seemed in-
evitable, and one still wonders how a man could be
rash enough to attempt such an enterprise. Anyone
who glances at a plan of the fortress of Ham will
find that the way in which the prisoner succeeded
in getting out without the connivance of a single
jailer or soldier is a miracle.^ Some fortuitous
circumstances, of which Louis Napoleon availed
himself with unheard-of audacity " — and which
will be plain in the narrative — " could alone have
rendered this miracle possible.
"The Prince's prison, guarded by three jailers,
two of whom were always on duty, was on one side
of the barracks, near the dungeon, at the back of
the court. To go out of the only door of the fortress
it was necessary in the first place to pass in front of
the two jailers, cross the entire length of the court,
go under the windows of the commandant, who
lodged near the drawbridge, and through the wicket,
where there were an orderly, a sergeant, a gate-
keeper, a sentry, and lastly a post of thirty men."
There is very little exaggeration in this. Louis
Napoleon had gradually conceived the notion of
^ Queen Victoria {v. " The Letters of Queen Victoria ") was but
one among a host of lesser persons who fancied that " the authori-
ties," if they had no hand in this flight, must certainly have con-
nived at it. There is no trustworthy evidence in support of this
view. All trustworthy evidence, on the contrary, goes to show that
the Prince's escape was bond fide in every particular. The literature
(good and bad) of this part of the story is considerable. The most
trustworthy guidance is furnished by the rather prolix narrative
of F. T. Brififault. In writing " The Prisoner of Ham " (1846) he
had the assistance of the Prince himself, who gave him documents.
270 FROM EXILE TO EMPIRE
walking out of prison alone, in broad daylight,
within sight of everybody in and around the fortress.
The escape is one of the simplest, one of the adroitest
and most artistic in history. " C'est Men joue " —
'*It was neatly done," said Paris and France, when
the flight was a fact achieved.
That he might not emerge a pauper (for Boulogne
and its consequences had beggared him : he had
paid or pensioned everyone to the uttermost),
Louis had secured through his friend Count Orsi a
loan of £6000 from that eccentric of eccentrics
among exiles, the Duke of Brunswick, whose stock
has furnished England with kings, and whose
jewel-box provided Europe with a story that is not
surpassed in Stevenson or Dumas.
To Degeorge^ (or Degeorges ; several names in
the narrative are variously spelled) the Prince
wrote : " The desire to see my father once more in
this world has urged me to the most audacious enter-
prise I have ever attempted ; one that demanded
more courage and determination than Strasburg or
Boulogne, since I was resolved not to endure the
ridicule attaching to a man arrested under a dis-
guise, and a failure would have been insupportable."
There were three persons in the prison whom
Louis might make privy to his project : his fellow-
captives. General Montholon and Dr. Conneau, and
the devoted valet, Thelin. To Montholon, for whom
he left a letter, and who was offended that Louis
had given him no other good-bye, not a word was
breathed. Conneau was taken into Louis's confidence
when it was no longer possible to exclude him :
Conneau's aid was indispensable. The plan was
• Editor of the " Progres du Pas-de-Calais," to which paper, from
Ham, the I'rince had been a contributor.
"TOTALLY IMPOSSIBLE" 271
impossible, said Conneau. It was so totally impos-
sible, urged Louis, that nothing could prevent it
from succeeding ; — what, then, could Dr. Conneau
do but throw himself on the prisoner's side ? He
did so ; and between them they devised the scheme
of the great evasion.
Chief among the " fortuitous circumstances " to
which Saint- Amand makes allusion was the presence
in the fortress of a gang of workmen engaged on a
repairing job. Well, what if the Prince should turn
workman for the nonce ? Ham was not exactly the
place to climb out of, and the means of digging one-
self out were not available. But were it possible
simply to stroll out ? Louis may never have read a
history of the Bagnes, though these prisons (sup-
planters of the galleys) were in existence, I fancy,
until the year that he ascended the throne. But
the notion came to him which had haunted the
brain of many 2i for fat of the Bagne (and that irre-
pressible prison-breaker, Victor Desbois, had tested
it with eminent success) : that a happy disguise may
serve a shrewder turn than file, rope-ladder, or pickaxe.
It must have been at this stage that Thelin was
added to the Prince's council. The valet, who at
first had been subjected to a very close confinement,
enjoyed at this date complete liberty of egress and
ingress. He went on errands into Ham ; could
absent himself for hours. Thelin could buy in Ham
a workman's costume ; Dr. Conneau in the labora-
tory could reduce it to an honest shabbiness.^
One thing is important to remember at this point.
The commandant of the fortress had no suspicions
of his prisoner. Quietly and on the whole very
^ Thelin procured the whole disguise for 25 f. 25 c.: a sovereign
and some halfpence.
272 FROM EXILE TO EMPIRE
studiously he had lain all these years at Ham, and
not only the Commandant but the Government in
Paris seem to have been of the opinion that he was
not anxious to release himself. In five years and
more he had attempted nothing. On the other hand,
it was always more or less on the Commandant's
mind that, as BrifiEault says, " partisans from with-
out might make an effort to release him." Strict
orders were therefore issued " to prevent all per-
sons whatsoever from approaching the fortress, and
from stationing themselves under its walls ; and
during the first years, especially, the sentinels'
orders were not to obstruct persons going out, but
carefully to prevent any from coming in . " Manifestly
this was something that favoured the plan of escape.
Since, however, the fortress, though stout enough,
was but a little place, it could from the ramparts be
at all points easily commanded ; hence a disguise
of some sort was, on the whole, indispensable.
Day by day, while the workmen were at their job
(a little over a week), the Prince and Dr. Conneau
studied them closely, overlooking not a detail that
might serve their scheme. They noticed that some
old timber was now and then carried out from the
place. This was another inspiration. To conceal
his features as he crossed the prison yard, it would
help the Prince if he carried a plank on his shoulder,
and he had the very thing at hand : a loose shelf of
his little library.
This agreed on, Briffault condenses the plot for
us in these terms :
" Charles Thelin, as he had several times done
before, asked permission to go to St. Quentin ; he
was to go and hire a cabriolet for the purpose.
As he was leaving the prison to go and find his
" TWO ADVANTAGES " 273
cabriolet, the Prince was to go out at the same time,
in the disguise of a workman. This combination
had two advantages ; it left Thelin at liberty to
turn aside the attention of the keepers and soldiers
from the pretended workman, by playing with Ham,
the Prince's dog, which was well known, and a great
favourite with the garrison ; and, moreover, it gave
him an opportunity of always addressing himself
to those who, taking the Prince for a workman,
might be disposed to speak to him."
Here I may pause for a moment to show exactly
where the Prince was installed in the fortress, for
the position of his lodging complicated the diffi-
culties of the escape. From Hachet-Souplet^ we
learn that Louis and Montholon and the doctor
were placed in this way :
Ground Floor
Door.
No. I. Room used as a chapel.
„ 2. Montholon's study.
,, 3. Bathroom.
,, 4. General Montholon's bedroom.
,, 5 & 6. Guardrooms.
Staircase.
Story Above
No. 7. Louis Napoleon's study.
8. Dr. Conneau's bedroom.
,, 9. Louis Napoleon's bedroom.
,, 10 & II. Rooms of which the doors were walled
up.
„ 12. Laboratory.
Staircase.
1 " Louis-Napol6on, Prisonnier au fort de Ham." A book of
interesting detail, not always to be relied upon.
s
274 FROM EXILE TO EMPIRE
Thus, before carrying his plank out of prison, the
Prince had first of all to carry it downstairs. On
certain days, Conneau had remarked, one of the
two guardians on regular duty at the foot of the
stairs went out for the newspapers, and was absent
from his post for about a quarter of an hour. This
would leave but one man for the valet to parley
with, and this must be the moment of escape.
Due note had been taken of the extraordinary
precautions adopted in respect of the coming and
going of the considerable body of workmen. On
their " passing through the first wicket, as they
entered, they were obliged to defile one by one, and
to pass under the inspection of a sergeant's guard,
and a keeper especially appointed for that purpose.
The same form was observed, and the same atten-
tion paid on their going out in the evening, besides
then the Commandant himself was always present.
They observed, moreover, that whenever any of the
workmen went alone to any retired part of the
citadel they were strictly watched, but when they
went out for the purpose of fetching tools or materials
of any description, by following the direct road, and
thus exposing themselves to view for a considerable
distance, they excited no distrust, and were allowed
freely to pass through the wicket and over the draw-
bridge. The Prince, therefore, determined to adopt
the last-mentioned plan — the boldest, it is true, but
offering the greatest chance of success."
The plot was no sooner knit up than it must be
executed, for the workmen were finishing their
task.
The chances of the moment being allowed for, the
plotters had a margin or time-limit of two hours,
from six to about eight in the morning ; and here
THE PASSPORT 275
again a " fortuitous circumstance " helped them, for
Commandant Demarle, usually abroad at sunrise,
was crippled with the rheumatism of Ham.
Everything was devised for Saturday morning,
the 23rd of May. On Friday evening Demarle, over
a hand at whist in the Prince's room, announced
that two English friends had been granted leave to
call on him the next morning. Visitors more un-
welcome could scarcely have dropped into the town ;
but to deny them would be impolitic. They came,
and their profit to the Prince was a passport that his
diplomacy extracted from them. His valet, he said,
wanted to take a little journey. Would his friends
be kind enough to lend him the passport of their
courier ? It was given at once, and proved service-
able. By this delay the plot was two days to the
bad, and the situation grew hourly more serious ;
for the workmen in the fortress had got nearly to
the end of their repairs, and there might be few
coming in on Monday. Monday, again, for another
slight reason, would be a worse day than Saturday,
since the workmen would be wearing their clean
clothes, and Dr. Conneau had treated Thelin's pur-
chase for an exit at the end of the week. But it
must be Monday, or never ; for by evening of this
day the hired men would be out of the prison, and
the run of life there as usual.
Sunday was a long day of anxiety. Louis Napoleon
had twice risked his life in rather high adventure-
Twice he had miscalculated everything, and each
miscalculation had made him sacred to the unsparing
ridicule of France. The printed caricatures of the
two bids for empire are a witty and merciless mock
of him. His very pride appeals to us in this situa-
tion ; and the new risk he runs ; for a failure to
276 FROM EXILE TO EMPIRE
escape in a ludicrous disguise must bring a " catar-
act of laughter " on him.
Very early on Monday, in the bedchamber of the
Prince, what a scene of quiet and intensely dramatic
interest. Behind the close-drawn curtains the three
conspirators are at their stealthy final preparations.
Dr. Conneau and Th61in, Briffault remarks, have
drawn off their shoes " in order to avoid noise."
Through the blinds they are watching for the coming
of the workmen.
" All was still silent in the interior of the court —
the sentinels alone paced slowly up and down before
their sentry-boxes. By a singular accident the only
soldier in the garrison whom they were anxious to
avoid was this very morning on duty before the
Prince's door. This man . . . was accustomed to
exercise a very scrupulous surveillance over the
workmen ; and the Prince had already remarked
him examining all their movements with the greatest
attention, looking narrowly at their persons, and
asking them where they were going."
In ordinary, this man would have remained at
his post until seven ; but, by another happy acci-
dent, " the hours of mounting guard had been
changed in consequence of a review on Sunday,"
and at six o'clock the unpersuadable grenadier was
removed.
The workmen had already entered the fortress,
passing between two files of armed soldiers. They
were fewer in number than usual, and, the day being
Monday, were all in clean array. As it was a beau-
tiful and dry morning, none of the men wore sabots,
and the watchers had duly noticed that there was
no joiner among them. Now it was in the disguise
of a joiner that Louis proposed to leave his prison.
THE DISGUISE 277
and sabots were included in the costume. The
sabots he especially needed, for he was to pull them
over his high-heeled boots, thereby increasing his
height to the extent of three or four inches. He
decided for the sabots, and obviously the rest of the
costume must be used as it stood. Thelin, razor in
hand, stood ready to shave off his master's mous-
taches. But if the moustaches went, and anything
now happened to mar the plot, the loss of those
embellishments would at once betray it to De-
marle. Risk all, gain all ; and the razor went to
work.
" It had been arranged," Briffault informs us,
" that after having brought the labourers and artisans
into the dining-room to give them a morning dram,
Thelin should go before the Prince, on the stairs, in
order to turn away the attention of the keepers.
The Prince once in the courtyard, Thelin was to
follow him closely, in order, as has been said, to call
to him any person who might seem disposed to speak
to the Prince." To get the warders clean out of the
way was impossible. On the previous evening
Demarle, going his rounds, and finding some of his
guard absent from their posts, had given the
straitest orders that one at least should always be
at the wicket, while a workman remained on the
premises.
But it was now full time to dress for the part.
Rheumatism or no rheumatism, the Commandant
would doubtless be abroad betwixt seven and eight
o'clock. Thelin himself has left us the best descrip-
tion of the Prince's travesty :
" The Prince put on his usual dress, grey panta-
loons and boots ; then he drew over his waistcoat
a coarse linen shirt, cut off at the waist, a blue cotton
278 FROM EXILE TO EMPIRE
handkerchief, and a blouse, not merely clean, but
somewhat elegant in its cut ; and, finally, he drew on
a pair of large trousers of coarse blue linen, which had
been worn and were very dirty. Under these he con-
cealed the lower part of the first blouse, and finally
put on, over all, a second blouse, as much worn and
dirty as the pantaloons. The rest of his costume
consisted of an old blue linen apron, a long black-
haired wig, and a bad cap. Being thus apparelled,
and his hands and face painted with red and black,
the moment of action being at hand, all emotion had
ceased ; and the Prince breakfasted as usual with
a cup of coffee, put on his sabots, took a common
clay pipe in his mouth, hoisted a board upon his
shoulders, and was in readiness to set out."
Under his apparel the Prince had slipped a poniard
(it is certain that he meant this cast to be decisive)
and a small portfolio containing his twofold talisman
— the last letter written to him by his mother, and
Napoleon's letter to Hortense on his birth. These
letters, to be sure, would identify him were he taken ;
but Louis was a fatalist. He was a seer, says
Thirria, and had seen his escape. Should he be
seized, he would kill himself.
There were workmen engaged on the stairs ; and
Thelin, hovering on the threshold of the Prince's
room, hailed and accosted them. Such a rare morn-
ing : wouldn't the comrades take a pick-me-up with
him ? It was a rare morning, and they would.
Saint- Amand remarks that they ** empty several
bottles." While the first bottle is circulating Thelin
hastens upstairs and gives the word to his master.
" But the two warders, Dupin and Issali, are on
duty at the door, and how is their vigilance to be
eluded ? Thelin, who has gone down again and is
OUT OF THE FORTRESS 279
chatting with them, observes that the Prince was
seriously ill during the night. "^
The seriously ill, meanwhile, was at this moment
leisurely descending the stairs with his plank.
Thelin held the two warders in parley, and the
Prince passed out at the door.
** Now he is in the court, the whole length of
which he has to traverse. He keeps the plank con-
stantly between himself and the sentries and other
persons whom he meets. When passing in front of
the first sentry he lets his pipe fall, stops a moment
to pick up the pieces, and walks on again. Next he
meets the officer of the guard, who, however, is
reading a letter and does not notice him. The
Prince passes under the Commandant's windows,
close to the only door of the fortress. Until now he
has not been recognised. But will it be so at the
wicket ? The soldiers at the guard-house seem sur-
prised at the dress of the pretended mason. The
drum rolls several times. The orderlies, however,
open the door, and the fugitive is outside the
fortress. "2
Not quite out of danger, though, for a few yards
beyond the gate he encountered two workmen, who
regarded him, as he fancied, with attention. The
Prince shifted his plank to the other shoulder, and,
as he did so, one of the men said : " Oh ! it's
Bertrand."
Still bearing his plank, he continued his way along
the rampart ; and Thelin, who had followed him
out of the fortress, now hurried on to fetch the
carriage he had hired the night before — " from one
Fontaine."
As far as the Saint-Quentin gate the Prince guided
^ Saint- Amand. * Saint-Amand,
28o FROM EXILE TO EMPIRE
himself by the rampart, then took the faubourg of
Saint-Sulpice, and after that the high road. At a
cemetery a mile and a half from the fortress Thelin
should join him. Arrived at this spot he flung the
plank into a ditch. On the 6th of the next month
he was to write to his friend Vieillard (once his
brother's tutor) : " When about half a league from
Ham, while awaiting Charles, I found myself oppo-
site the cemetery cross, and fell on my knees before
it, and gave thanks to God. ... Do not laugh !
There are instincts stronger than all philosophic
arguments."
Scarcely had he finished his prayer when the
fortunate Charles drove up with Fontaine's cabriolet,
and now they had less than an hour's spurt to
Saint-Quentin. At this blest conjuncture (if d'Ambes
may be trusted). Prince and man shared a meat pie,
which the best of valets had bought in the town.
On the outskirts of Saint-Quentin Louis sloughed
all of the workman that was possible ; and, in some
degree himself again, walked openly through the
streets, while Thelin went to secure a post-chaise.
He applied, says Briffault, at the post-house, whence
the postmaster, Abric, had just come out ; but
Thelin was well known to Madame Abric ; he told
her he was obliged to go with all speed to Cambray,
to return early, and begged her to order a post-chaise
and horses, with all possible haste, while he would
leave at her house his horse and cabriolet. The kind
Madame Abric showed the greatest alacrity to have
Thelin served, and ordered horses to be put to her
husband's small chaise. She pressed him very much
to stay for breakfast ; but, perceiving that he was
anxious to proceed, she did not venture to urge her
request. The traveller, however, with great polite-
PROCUREUR DU ROI 281
ness, praised the remains of a cold pate, which was
on the table, of which she begged him to accept a
slice, and which being carefully wrapped up, soon
afterwards furnished an excellent breakfast for the
Prince, for which his long walk had provided an
excellent appetite.
** In spite of his impatience Thelin dared not to
hurry too much the post-people, for fear of awaking
suspicions, yet the Prince had for some time arrived
at the other end of the town of St. Quentin, and was
waiting, not without some concern, for the carriage
which was to overtake him. He laboured for a
moment under fear of having been left behind
while examining the town ; but seeing a gentleman
coming in a carriage from the Cambray road, he
asked him whether he had not met with a post-
chaise ? This gentleman, who answered him in the
negative, was the Procureur du Roi of St. Quentin " —
who, by the way, had the Prince suffered capture,
would have been charged with the prosecution.
Five minutes later, Abric's little carriage, with two
good horses, drove up. It was not yet nine o'clock,
and there was evidently no pursuit. The next stage
was Valenciennes, reached at two in the afternoon.
Passports ? Yes, of course ; and the Prince pro-
duced the lucky one he had received on Saturday
from those tiresome English friends. And now, the
train to Brussels ? Alas ! the train to Brussels did
not leave till four. Two hours to wait ; and Demarle
might have paid his morning call on his prisoner,
and the telegraph might be at work. And here at
the railway station was another peril : an official of
some sort, who had been warder at the fortress or
policeman in Ham, recognised Thelin, and had ques-
tions to ask and a rigmarole to tell, Also, he wanted
282 FROM EXILE TO EMPIRE
to know all about the Prince, who, through the whole
of this tedious and parlous interlude, was standing
at the man's elbow. But the train drew in, and drew
out ; and Eouis and Thelin had taken their seats.
They crossed the frontier, alighted at Brussels, and
Louis Napoleon was out of the clutches of Louis
Philippe. From Brussels they took train again to
Ostend ; and within four-and-twenty hours of the
nervous dash from prison Louis was in England, and
at the Brunswick Hotel, Jermyn Street, under the
name of Count d'Arenenberg. " In the street he
ran against his Enghsh friend and visitor at Ham,
Lord Malmesbury. Malmesbury, that same night,
met one of the attaches of the French Embassy at
dinner. ' Have you seen him ? ' he asked. * Who ? '
* Louis Napoleon ; he has just arrived in London.' "^
The attache left his dinner in a hurry, and ran to tell
his chief.
But, through the hours since 7.15 or so on Monday
morning, what of Dr. Conneau at Ham ? It was
his day of days for this quiet and discreet conspirator,
and he rose above himself — not greatly to his liking.
Till evening, or till late in the afternoon, Demarle
must be kept from the Prince's room by a tale of his
sudden sickness in the night. To the first message
of Demarle, just after breakfast, Conneau returned
an answer that the Prince had fallen into a heavy
sleep. Then he set to work and made a dummy, and
laid it in the Prince's bed. " At one Demarle re-
turned. Conneau met him on the stairs. The Prince
was easier but extremely tired ; still, he would go
and ask him if he would like to see the Governor. He
went in and asked the dummy, and returned with
the Prince's apologies ; he was afraid he was still
VICTORIOUS 283
too unwell to see anyone. The Governor retired,
and did not return until a quarter past seven. "^ It
was needless to prolong the comedy, for Conneau
guessed that the Prince was now well beyond the
frontier. The Governor was allowed to enter the
room on tiptoes. He took the liberty of turning
down the Prince's bedclothes ; and at this point
the curtain drops on the history of Louis Napoleon's
escape. Madame Demarle, it is said, took the affair
more to heart than her husband. What had induced
the Prince to leave them so suddenly ? Was it
possible he had grown tired of her cooking ?
The rest of the tale is familiar. In Ham he de-
veloped and perfected his conspirator's instinct, and
the prison (which he afterwards called his Univer-
sity) was the vestibule of the Tuileries. From his
escape in 1846 until the latter days of February,
1848, Louis Napoleon remained in London. Amid
the stress of the revolution he was elected by
four departments ; in December, 1848, he was voted
President by five and a half million votes — and from
that date the conspirator's course was clear. He had
never the least intention of resigning the power that
universal suffrage had conferred on him, and the
coup d'etat aimed at Empire. The guerdon and crown
of Empire came, perhaps, a little before his thoughts,
and there was some very clever engineering in the
business. Even at this day it is not to be said with
certainty how far he had conspired to the end that
he had dreamed of. A dozen histories are at vari-
ance.
The Empire, to which Louis Napoleon had accus-
tomed the mind of France by astute gradations, was
proclaimed in the closing days of December, 1852 ;
^ Simpson.
284 FROM EXILE TO EMPIRE
and in January, 1853, the Emperor-adventurer had
married in the eye of Europe the woman of his heart,
a mere beauty of old Spain (who in her turn was to
be a fugitive). Thus far victorious the second Man
of Destiny had got.
VIII
PRISONER OF WAR IN TWO WORLDS
THE LOG OF A JACK TAR
" / would give all my fame for a pot of ale and safety."
" King Henry V."
PRISONER OF WAR IN TWO WORLDS
THAT delightful old salt, James Choyce, master
mariner, swinging idly at his moorings —
which means, I take it, his arm-chair by the fire —
rounds off the famous history of his life and adven-
tures, and bursts into song :
" Read this book and then you'll know
What adventures sailors undergo.
By sea and land I've travell'd many miles,
And visited many desolate isles —
About whose shores seals and fishes roam.
And legions of birds there find a home.
Scenes like this I oft have seen,
And many times among savages have been ;
Where human flesh they do devour,
But I am not now within their power.
Though my timber's sound, my spars are decayed,
So to set much sail I am afraid.
But as this port from rocks and sands seems clear,
I now have cast my anchor here.
In hopes my troubles now may cease.
That here I may remain in peace.
To sing or say I have safe got back.
So pray remember honest Jack."
This launched, he declines into prose :
** I was brought up in the farming line at a place
called Finchley. My father, dying, left a widow
with seven children, of which I was the eldest but
one, and as charity schools were not so plenty as
287
288 PRISONER OF WAR
they have been since, I and my brothers and sisters
had A B C f or our education and the wide world for
our inheritance."
Having Httle taste for the plough, James, at
sixteen, bound himself apprentice in the Southern
Whale Fishery, and early in 1793 sailed from London
in the ship London, Christopher Horner, master.
Save for an escape from a French privateer (these
were the days of the French Revolution) the voyage
was uneventful, and in the autumn of 1795 Choyce
was again in England. In December of the same
year he embarked with Captain Horner in the
Lydia, bound to the South Seas. After a trip of
about thirteen months they were entrapped by
the Spaniards at Payta, made prisoners of war, and
sent up country. Here it is that the adventures of
James Choyce in reality begin.
Tied on mules the prisoners journeyed inland,
halting at Indian villages where the most part of
the inhabitants had never before beheld an English-
man. In all this region of South America the
natives " had heard such unaccountable stories
about Englishmen, which their priests had con-
firmed and their superstition taught them to believe,
that they thought we were not made like other people,
and many of them expressed surprise, saying that
although we were not Christians we looked the same
as Christians." Being Protestants they could no-
where get themselves ranked as Christians. They
were " Jews," " Turks," " Infidels " ; and one
priest told them he had heard that they confessed
to a hole bored in a tree. At one place the prisoners
were thrust into " a small dungeon called a cala-
boose," where they had to strip off their clothes to
escape suffocation. At another they were regaled
THE CITY JAIL 289
at the house of the governor, who served them a
dinner on silver dishes. Orders came to forward
them to Lima ; and due south they travelled,
through rivers, over mountains and rocks, by wood
and plain. Among the party was one Bell, whose
tipsy freaks, whenever he could come at liquor,
were so often expiated in the stocks that the progress
of his comrades was sore delayed. Not till they had
been three months on the road did the shipmates
fetch their goal.
" We entered Lima by a long, populous street,
chiefly inhabited by Indians and Sambos, who
seemed to pity our condition ; the women in par-
ticular came out from nearly every house with bread,
cheese, fruit, meat, wine, etc. . . . After crossing
the bridge we came into a large square, and were
all drawn up in a line before the palace to await the
viceroy's pleasure."
The viceroy remanded them to the Carcal Ciudad,
or city jail, where they found the crew of another
English ship, the Betsy. Two reals a day were given
them for victuals, and to provide themselves with
clothes the prisoners fell to making straw hats.
The viceroy of Lima, " an old Irishman, between
seventy and eighty years," allowed the best of his
prisoners the liberty of the town to sell their hats,
and those who did not return at sunset found them-
selves in the stocks for a day or two.
At Lima, Choyce formed his first plan of escape ;
and towards midnight of the day selected he, with
eight shipmates, set off for the coast, seized a fine
twelve-oared boat, and made away in her. Water
and provisions failed them before they had been
long afloat ; and on landing at a spot near a river
they were perhaps fortunate in being taken by a
290 PRISONER OF WAR
body of thirty or forty Spaniards. To Lima the
adventurers were again despatched, and a new
period of captivity began for them. It was two
years since they had tramped the same road from
Payta.
Once more the prisoners were set upon the march ;
this time to Sierra de Pasco, a busthng city in the
midst of silver mines. At this place Choyce attached
himself to a party of eleven who had resolved to
make their way back to Lima. Yet again, after an
anxious flight of several days, the}^ were captured ;
but Choyce himself did eventually succeed in steal-
ing through to Lima ; and from Lima made still
another bid for liberty, enticing with him a few of
his trustiest companions. But no star befriended
these luckless mariners ; and on their new voyage
they fell a prey to the brig African and were carried
ashore.
"As we paddled towards the shore I reflected
upon the various adventures of a sailor's life, and
looking at my countrymen seated naked on these
bundles of rushes, each with a black guide, I thought
perhaps we may now be crossing the river Styx ;
but seeing the surf rolling mountains high in front
of me took all other thoughts out of my mind, and
I only cared about getting safe to the beach, not
regarding what might follow."
Safe to the beach they got, and in his next prison,
at Truxillo, Choyce's earliest experience was an
earthquake. " We jumped up and got in the middle
of the yard for fear the prison should fall on us,
the Spaniards singing psalms as loud as they could
bawl." Within a fortnight " we were started off
for Lima again " ; in nine days arrived there,
" and were at once put in the town jail." By this
IN THE CALABOOSE 291
time Choyce seems to have settled down in the
conviction that a burst for Hberty was at least as
good an occupation as working for his captors ; so
by and by we observe him quietly sawing through
his window bars ; and thereafter, with eighteen
to bear him company, bidding farewell once more
to prison, " in the hope never to see it again." But
if in those latitudes at that era there was one valiant
prison-breaker whose fate ordained his return to
bondage, James Choyce was his name. Hiding in
swamps, foraging in plantations at daybreak, pur-
sued by horsemen, they were presently run to earth
by dogs, and fell into the hands of negroes. " They
tied our hands and drove us back to the plantation,
where we were put in the stocks." The prison they
had so lately quitted, " in the hope never to see it
again," opened its doors anew to them ; and the
governor had before him a sorry and dejected parcel
of travellers, *' in the negroes' broad-brimmed hats
and lousy blue shirts, as coarse as hop-sacks."
His worship " ordered us to be put in the cala-
boose, and the next morning we were put in chains
two and two together, with a chain a fathom long
with a ring in the middle, through which they rove
another long chain called the corriente. Of these
there were two, both made fast to the lower wall of
the prison, and padlocked to a post in the guard-
house. On these chains were strung together every
night about a hundred and sixty thieves, murderers,
and robbers of all colours, and outside the bars of
the prison a guard of soldiers was always in readiness
in the guard-house.
" These convicts were mostly employed in the
King's storehouses from eight in the morning till
four in the afternoon, when they had liberty to be
292 PRISONER OF WAR
in the small yard till vespers, when we were ordered
inside into this den of filth, misery, and wickedness,
where the noise made by reeving the corriente
through the big chains was enough to stun one.
Thus we were all safely moored in four tiers for the
night, and in the morning there was the same din
in unreeving the corriente. Before we had been
there long some of us caught fever and were sent
to the hospital, where we were somewhat better off,
for we were put in single chains, so no one could
move about without dragging one's mate with him.
There was a corriente in the hospital also at the foot
of the beds, and all the unhappy patients were
chained to it in the same manner as in the calaboose."
After two months in this limbo light dawned
again upon the captives. They learned that many
of the English prisoners were receiving passports
from the Spaniards, and dollars for their passage
to Panama, whence they might ship to England.
The " old Irish viceroy " of Lima harangued them
on this subject, and after his oration " we were
taken before the secretary and had to make an oath
not to fight against Spain during this present war."
This done, " we were told if we were taken in any
armed vessel we should be treated as pirates, and
then, giving us seventeen dollars apiece, they sent
us to Santa Catalina, where some of our countrymen
still remained."
In the spring of 1800 Choyce set foot in Valparaiso.
Adventure now succeeds adventure. Choyce was
fixed in his resolve to get to England. He shipped
on a Spanish vessel loading wheat for Lima, and went
in her to Callao. Here he seems to have comman-
deered a leaky old craft which, in his breezy style,
he christened the Lucky Escape ; and away with
A MERE SKELETON 293
her he goes — though in what direction one does not
clearly understand. Somewhere on the passage the
fellow-travellers over whom he has a nominal
authority tell him that if land is not made in three
days he will be thrown overboard ; but before this
crisis is well past he has the fortune to be run down
by the English ship Henry, whose captain takes him
** as a lawful prize for the benefit of all concerned."
The Henry, in turn, has to lower her colours to the
Spanish Castor ; and to Choyce, at any rate, the
clasp of the irons (" we were clapped in irons ") was
familiar.
" After we had been a few days on board, the
Irish lieutenant came on board the hulk and asked
if any of us boys had a mind to enter on board the
Castor. As this seemed the only way to get another
chance for liberty I said I would make one."
But he had no intention of sailing, and took the
first opportunity of deserting. We follow him next
to the plantation of one Gallagher, a friendly Irish-
man, who had offered temporary shelter, and
behold him planting cotton under a negro overseer.
Here, with a fellow-refugee from the Castor, Gardi-
ner, he was soon in the grip of ague ; and, being free
to leave when he pleased, started to drag himself
and his companion out of the pestilential bush.
" About noon my companion began to flag, being
worn down to a mere skeleton, and soon after he was
seized with a shivering fit of ague and laid down
under the shade of a tree while I sat by him not
knowing how soon I might be in the same case.
The mosquitoes finding us out, I got a branch of a
tree to drive these little torments away, and I began
to think whether, as some say, the all-wise Creator
has preordained the destiny of man, if He had
294 PRISONER OF WAR
created me in order to endure all these troubles,
while there are some in the world who do not suffer
so many hardships in their whole life as I have often
endured in one day."
But through these sufferings also the mariner was
brought ; and in January, 1801, we encounter him
in Panama, with his passport sewn into the crown
of his old straw hat. The holders of passports were
allowed to leave only in certain vessels, but Choyce
secured a passage in a pilot brig, " and in two days
arrived at Cartagena, where we were confined in the
citadel in company with three or four hundred
more Englishmen who had been captured in various
ships." Here the fortunes of Choyce underwent a
sudden and dramatic change. He was put on
board a cutter which took him to Port Royal,
Jamaica ; and from Port Royal he was sent to the
Melampus frigate of forty-four guns. " I now found
myself," says James, not too cheerfully, '' once more
under the British flag, and also under the lash of
the boatswain's cat." He had, in fact, been pressed
on board the frigate, while, as the holder of a pass-
port from the Spaniards, he was pledged not to
fight against them. Regarding himself, therefore,
as the prisoner of his own countrymen, he made up
his mind to quit them as soon as possible — and at
Vera Cruz he did so. Sent on shore in the yawl, he
gave his midshipman the slip, climbed into a tree,
and descending from it at nightfall, made his way
to a house near by, where he told his Spanish hosts
that he had left his ship because his countrymen
were " no Christians."
The man of the house, congratulating him on his
escape from the heretics, directed the wanderer to a
plantation about a league distant, where for live days
A PRIVATEER 295
he lay concealed. A week or so later he shipped on
the Lanzerote, bound to Cadiz ; and in her, February,
1802, sailed from Vera Cruz with a cargo of indigo
and cochineal. He reached port at Cadiz in the
latter end of April. In the middle of June he
obtained a berth " on board the ship Mary Ann of
Pool, Samuel Wood, master, and by the end of the
month arrived in London, after having been absent
six and a half years ; but finding all my relations
dead, I might say :
' I at length in England landed,
And left the roaring main.
But found all relations stranded.
So I off to sea again.' "
II
In the summer of 1802 Choyce sailed in the ship
Diana on a whaling voyage to the South Atlantic.
" In December, 1803, we touched at St. Helena,
and there we heard the unwelcome news that war
had broken out again between France and England.
Leaving St. Helena we touched at Ascension, where
we caught some turtle and then steered for England.
On the 26th of February we encountered a heavy
gale, and carried away our bowsprit, and owing to this
loss we were captured on the 4th of March in latitude
48° N. and longitude 12° W., by the Blonde, a
privateer belonging to Bordeaux.
" This was the beginning of all my worst troubles,
and I often thought of what Captain Silvester had
told me on my leaving the San Pedro at Valparaiso,
every word of which seemed likely to come true, for
I had been on board of a British man-of-war, and was
now going to a French prison."
296 PRISONER OF WAR
Some seven other vessels became the booty of
the adventurous Blonde, and towards the end of
the month James was, with two hundred other
prisoners, in the hold of a small schooner, " with the
hatches on." At St. Juan de Luz, the French town
nearest to the Spanish frontier, they were taken out
half dead, and lodged in the fort till morning ; then,
handcuffed and tied together with cords, were put
on the road for Bayonne, where they arrived the
same evening. At Bayonne the prisoners were
registered, and James gave himself out a Spaniard,
for, says he, "I knew that any name was better
than an English one.''
From Bayonne to Pau, Tarbes, and Meran ; and
the mariner' began to think that it was time to cut
his lucky. With two Jerseymen he laid a simple
plan.
" The day we left Meran it was very wet, and after
we had gone about five leagues the road led by the
side of a wood, so we all three made a bold attempt
for liberty by jumping over a deep ditch and getting
into the wood, but not without being seen by some
of the soldiers, who pursued us, but as it was raining
very fast and the bushes were very wet they soon
gave up the chase. We lay close in the wood until
near four o'clock, and then set out in the direction
of the Pyrenees, keeping on all night and shunning
the high roads as much as possible."
By hazard the fugitives learned that the peasants
of the countryside were not unsympathetic towards
deserters from Napoleon's army, and this character
in consequence they assumed. Their design was to
cross the Pyrenees, and a friendly weaver by whom
they had been fed and harboured guided them at
night to a sheltered path. On the summit of the
CAPTIVE AGAIN 297
mountains they nearly foundered in the snow. So
intense was the cold at this altitude that they did
not dare to wait for darkness, and began in full
daylight their descent of the stair-like path. At a
hamlet on the mountain side the trio were accosted
in Spanish, and this heartened them not a little,
for they knew that they must now be passing rapidly
out of the enemy's land. " At last we were told
that St. John's [in Catalonia] was but two leagues
away, and that there was only one more village in
French territory. This welcome news made us put
our best foot foremost, and hurry along in the hope
to get out of France before nightfall."
Just then came along a man in a cocked hat, and
on the hat a button, and on the button the legend
" Douane." Custom-house ! Nervously the run-
aways saluted him, wondering whether they could
clear the village before the Customs man gave the
alarm. St. John's, or San Juan, lay so near !
" He followed after us, keeping us well in sight,
and as we got near the end of the village we saw
that we had to pass through a gate, as there was a
high wall across the valley from one side to the other.
Knowing how critical our position was we made a
run and actually got through the gate, but at that
moment nine or ten men came out from the guard-
house hard by, with muskets in their hands, and said
they would shoot us unless we stopped, so we were
obliged to submit. Here ended our delusive hopes
of liberty."
Their new captors were not long in discovering
that James and the Jerseymen had no passports.
Worse, there was found among them an English
check shirt. Hereupon they were taxed with being
English spies. At this they gave in. They were
298 PRISONER OF WAR
English prisoners of war, they said, who had been
taken by the Blonde, and had escaped from their
convoy near Meran.
From this village in sight of Catalonia the footsore
three, with a chain padlocked round their necks,
had to trudge it back to Tarbes. Here they were
riveted to three others of the same feather ; and the
six, struggling along under buffets by day, and at
night thrown into some verminous cell on their line
of march (dragging with them a comrade sick of
fever), were driven presently to Limoges.
At Limoges, or soon after leaving it, Choyce
himself caught fever and was three weeks in hospital.
He was well looked after, he says, " by the sisters
who did the nursing. These scaurs, or sisters, I was
told, had been nuns at the time of the Revolution,
and attended in the hospital without pay or reward."
From Limoges to Orleans, and thence to the famous
war prison at Verdun.
As the gang of prisoners approached this place
Choyce was amazed to see the roads thronged with
English people of fashion, on foot, on horseback,
and in carriages : half London, it seemed to him,
had come to Verdun ; and in the town itself ** as
complete dandies as one would see in Bond Street
or the piazzas of Co vent Garden." He was told
that '* they were some of those who had come to
France before the war, some to spend their own
money and some, no doubt, that of their creditors ;
and that when war broke out Bonaparte had laid
an embargo on them all, and sent them to Verdun
as prisoners of war. They were only allowed to
leave the town when given a passport by the general ;
and that all those that we had seen were going to
some races about five or six miles away which were
ON BREAD AND WATER 299
much patronised by Lord Yarmouth and many of
his friends."
The dandies had perhaps indifferent luck on the
race-course, for in the alms-stocking that Choyce
and the others hung out on a gate of their
prison they collected " from those benevolent Eng-
lish gentlemen the enormous sum of eleven sous,
or fivepence-half penny English."
In the barracks to which Choyce was transferred
he found several masters of English merchant ships,
who, liberated on parole, were eking out their
allowance from the French Government in the call-
ings of stablemen, shoeblacks, coach-washers, and
servants of the English " Nabobs." He was moved
on to the new depot of Sarre Libre ; having now, he
tells us, journeyed on foot in France a thousand
and eighty-nine miles on a diet of bread and water.
In the state of misery to which the prisoners of
Sarre Libre were reduced — hungry and half naked
— despairing of peace, despairing of exchange,
many of them, Choyce among the number, volun-
teered into the French service. Choyce, consenting
to enter their navy, was sent to L'Orient.
" I left Sarre Libre one cold snowy day,
And for L'Orient I bent my way,
In hopes once more my liberty to gain
By forsaking of the British name.
But if I get clear, which I hope I will,
A Briton I am and shall be still,
Though to my country I am now opposed
I'll always face old England's foes."
The volunteer was used on the road like a common
rogue. ** After many sufferings and much ill-usage,
300 PRISONER OF WAR
I arrived at L'Orient, my long-looked-for haven of
rest, after having marched, chained Hke a dog or
felon, seven hundred and eight miles, and being
thirty-eight days on the road and sixty-three
confined in various prisons."
At L'Orient, without ceremony, he was bundled
on to the 74-gun ship D'HautpouU, among whose
crew were Danes, Swedes, Prussians, and Americans.
The port was blockaded by English ships of war,
and Choyce clung to hope. Napoleon was to visit
the ships and fortifications along the coast ; " and
in order the better to clean and paint the ships it
was ordered that their crews should live ashore in
tents made of sails."
Choyce in this situation did not miss his oppor-
tunity ; and opportunity prevailed. He noticed
that the fishermen on the coast went crab-hunting
in slender mud-boats, and that the boats were left
among bushes on an island. In one of these crazy
little things, with a countryman, Watts, for his
second in command, he escaped on a short night of
summer, 1808. Strength was failing the two paddlers
when, in a hazy dawn, they were sighted by the
British Theseus, of 74 guns.
" Our vessel was hoisted in ; the bottoms made
two mess-tables for the lower deck, and the re-
mainder was given to the cook to put in the copper
fire. Thus ended my troubles and adventures in
France."
IX
FROM THE VENGEANCE OF ROBESPIERRE
THE LAST AVATAR OF "FAUBLAS"
" Escape for thy life." — Genesis xix. 17.
" The Guillotine goes not ill, ' Guillotine ne va pas maV " — Caklyle.
" You know the Frayice that men call gay,
The ' Entente Cordiale ' France, you knoiv." — " Punch."
FROM THE VENGEANCE OF
ROBESPIERRE
I
ON the 24th of June, 1793, a man and a woman
were in flight from Paris. From Paris they
were in flight, and from the guillotine. The man
was outlawed ; and the woman's fate, were they
taken, was not less certain than his.
Three weeks earlier, Sunday, June 2nd, the six
weeks' death-wrestle of the party of the Mountain
and the party of the Gironde had ended in the
triumph of the Mountain : the Girondist Deputies,
swept down, proscribed, were expelled from the
Convention. Some of them as yet lay hidden in
Paris, others had fled to Normandy. All their heads
were greatly desired by Robespierre.
No Girondist head did Robespierre covet more
than that of Jean Baptiste Louvet, his personal
foe ; Jean Baptiste who had had the temerity to
attempt his impeachment. And Jean Baptiste at
this moment was faring secretly but quietly out of
Paris ; his dear and devoted Lodoiska beside him.
No pair needs this day a safer road out of Paris.
Louvet at this date was a few days over thirty-
three. On the occasion of his first notable appear-
ance in the Convention, ladies in the gallery had
craned their necks for a peep at him. All of them
had read his famous romance of " Faublas " : a
303
304 FROM VENGEANCE OF ROBESPIERRE
top-shelf romance, perhaps (though such by no means
in the eighteenth century), but a wonderful and
penetrating affair, not in the least meriting Carlyle's
contemptuous description. In Louvet, as he stepped
to the bar of the Assembly, the ladies in the gallery
thought to get a glimpse of Faublas himself, the
brilliant hero of those curious and amorous esca-
pades. What they beheld was a little lean, pale-
faced man, of a rather stern aspect, decidedly bald,
nothing of remark about him save his fine magnetic
eyes. Novelist, dramatist, journalist, pamphleteer,
orator, and a leader among men whose political
talents were considerable, Louvet had preserved
both a clear mind and a clean heart in those crises
of the French Revolution through which, without a
trace of fear, he had already passed ; and at any
season, in urging what he believed to be the claims
of justice and humanity, he would brave the wrath
of foe and friend alike. There is something appeal-
ing, something to trust, in the one acceptable
portrait that we have of him.
Lodoiska he had named after a heroine of " Fau-
blas." From his delicate childhood he had en-
veloped her in a passionate and worshipping affec-
tion. Her parents had married Lodoiska at sixteen
to one Cholet, a wealthy jeweller of the Palais
Royal, but she had followed with a love as constant
as his the variegated fortunes of Jean Baptiste.
Escaping Cholet (by process of divorce) at the end
of 1792, she was about to wed her lover.
Meanwhile, on a summer's day, in a hired vehicle
of some sort, they were fleeing Paris, and Robe-
spierre — and the " national razor."
LODOiSKA 305
II
At Meulan, where they had to take another
carriage, their new Jehu was a furious disciple of
Marat, who never ceased to denounce " these
villainous Deputies who want to set fire to the
Departments/' At Evreux next morning they met
a brother outlaw, the eloquent young barrister
Guadet, gaunt and footsore after tramping nearly
fifty miles in a day. Guadet urged the perils of the
road, which he said no woman ought to share with
them ; and Louvet by and by added his voice
reluctantly to his friend's, imploring Lodoiska to
return to Paris. Weeping, she consented. When
she had set out alone, Louvet repented that he had
let her go ; and in his " Memoires " he exclaims :
" Had I brought her on the way, we should now per-
haps be in America."
Guadet and Louvet reached Caen on the 26th.
Everything here was in brisk insurrectionary move-
ment ; volunteers enrolling in an army that should
march on Paris. At Caen were other outlawed
Girondists — among them, Buzot, Salle, Gorzas, Pe-
tion, and the handsome Barbaroux, who had found
time to fall in love with a pretty Marquise.
By the Council-General of the Department a
lodging was assigned to the Girondists in what had
been the Hotel de I'lntendance ; a comely old
balconied mansion with an extraordinary roof, up-
standing at this day. Immediately opposite was the
house of a certain Mme. de Bretheville, with whom
was living a gracious and beautiful young woman
whose memorable, brief history has echoed round the
world.
Accompanied by an old man-servant she called
3o6 FROM VENGEANCE OF ROBESPIERRE
one morning at the Hotel de I'lntendance and re-
quested to see Barbaroux. Her name ? The young
lady gave the name of Charlotte Corday. She
wanted possession, she said, of some papers in the
keeping of the Minister of the Interior in Paris.
Enough for us that from Caen, furnished with Bar-
baroux's introduction, Charlotte Corday started for
the capital on the errand wherein two lives were
presently extinguished : the squalid Marat's by
Charlotte Corday, and Charlotte Corday's by the
executioner Sanson.
The Girondist dream of a rising of the Departments
against Paris was very quickly dissolved ; and now
Louvet and his friends were contemplating another
run for safety. Tidings oozed from Paris that the
victorious Mountain was making fresh arrests there ;
and Louvet, knowing how agreeable it was to Robes-
pierre to strike an enemy through a woman whom
he loved, suffered torments of anxiety for Lodoiska.
He was marching concealed in the friendly ranks of
the Breton volunteers (the first stage of his second
flight) ; had got as far as Vire ; and, weary as could
be, had gone to bed at six o'clock. At midnight a
servant called him. " A lady downstairs was asking
for him." '' Cetait elle I " It was she, Lodoiska.
Louvet is fond of admitting the reader to his trans-
ports of soul, but over this reunion he passes with a
single cry of joy. At Caen they were married.
The bride was for seeking shelter in America.
Louvet said he could not yet desert the cause ; and
towards Bordeaux they pressed, Lodoiska in a car-
riage with other ladies in advance of the Finistere
battalion. At D61 they had to charge into the
town ; at Dinan they enjoyed a brief welcome.
Here they separated from the volunteers ; and nine-
ADVENTURES MANY 307
teen of the Gironde, variously armed, with six picked
men of the battahon as guides, started across
country to Quimper. We have gHmpses of them
supping in haste at a soHtary farm, where the board
has been spread by a timid host who does not show
himself ; sitting hungry by the road while a scout
seeks provender ; wet to the skin under scourging
rains ; surprised in a barn at 2 a.m. by a company
of National Guards ; singing the Carmagnole on the
march, to deceive the countryside ; halting for a
Barbaroux with sprained ankle, a Cussy in the
torments of gout, a Riouffe who must remove his
boots for a while, his feet soaked in blood. Thus
they toiled, mile after mile. They got at last to
Quimper.
A mile away Lodoiska had found a pretty cottage,
and thither stole the bridegroom for the briefest
interlude of love. All this region was beset with
perils, and in a space of days Louvet was again
flying from the emissaries of the Mountain. Lodo-
iska must to Paris once more ; there to gather, were
it possible, the remnant of their slender fortune :
at Bordeaux, perchance, they might wind up the
honeymoon.
For the friendly owners of the ship Industrie,
scorning hazards, were prepared to carry to Bor-
deaux such Girondist Deputies as lay concealed in
and about the skirts of Quimper. Of these we ob-
serve Louvet taking horse one evening for a thirty-
mile ride to the coast. How did Louvet, who had
probably never before set foot in stirrup, compass
ten leagues in the dark on horseback ? In these
adventures for life the adventurer seems to rise, and
with the barest effort, clean above himself. He
delves, burrows, climbs, swims, suffers heat and cold.
3o8 FROM VENGEANCE OF ROBESPIERR
lives upon air, walks or rides or sails without com-
pass, becomes invisible and intangible, does what
no man can do except a fairy-man of Boiardo or
Ariosto — and does it naturally, and in the way of
genius. Louvet and his horse, strangers till that
strange evening, found or felt their way to the tryst-
ing-place some minutes before midnight. The
others of the small party who were to take ship in
the l7idustrie received them there.
By' midnight at latest they should have been on
board, for the Inditstrie made one of a convoy ;
but no Industrie was in sight, and at one in the morn-
ing, in a smack they had laid hands on, the fugitives
were stealthily seeking her up and down the Brest
roads. She was caught towards eight in the morning ;
and the old Scottish skipper, who for hours had been
tacking to and fro, fretting and fuming, hoisted his
passengers on deck, and raced after the convoy.
In the lull of a storm the brig doubled the headland
of La Coubre, entered the Gironde, saw the hills of
Medoc and the glistening cliffs of Saintonge, and
through the reeds and swamps of the Bee d'Ambes
Louvet and his companions waded into the haven
of their hopes. What a haven ! Their foes of the
Mountain had outstepped them ; the Gironde was
athirst for the blood of the Girondists.
Ill
Yes, in Bordeaux itself Terror was now " the
order of the day." At the Bee d'Ambes Guadet's
father-in-law, the banker, Dupeyrat, had a small
estate ; and in the banker's absence Guadet locked
his companions in the house, and betook himself
to Saint-Emilion, his birthplace, where he thought
THE TERROR 309
to find them some safer refuge. " For a long time,"
says M. Lenotre/ " he wandered round his family
home, situated outside the walls of the town, amid
vines, on the Coutras road. At midnight he crept
into his father's house, threw himself at his feet,
and begged him to give shelter to his companions.
The old man, much agitated, consented to receive
his son and one of his friends, but not more, having
no * hiding-place ' where he could lodge the others."
From house to house, to thirty houses in all, Guadet
trudged, imploring succour. But the Terror was
abroad. Against the victims of the Mountain all
prudent doors were sealed.
Hourly at the Bee d'Ambes, meanwhile, the
plight of the prisoners in the banker's house grew
deadher. On the night of the 27th of September a
breathless messenger cast in at the window the warn-
ing that the village was rapidly filling with soldiers.
Not another moment to spare, and in the dark, they
crept from the house against which, ten minutes
later, soldiers were pointing two pieces of artillery.
Next night the wanderers found themselves at
Libourne, where they must somehow cross the
Dordogne. At the landing-stage they stumbled on
a sentry fast asleep at his post ; and while some went
to beat up the ferryman, the rest crouched at a little
distance from the soldier, intently watching his
slumbers. Forty-five minutes passed ; the ferry-
man was discovered, the farther shore was reached ;
and the sentry slumbered on.
And now for two weeks the wretched Girondists
went to and fro, hardly knowing from one day to
another in what direction their steps were bent.
" Like outlawed or excommunicated persons in the
^ " Romances of the French Revolution," vol. ii.
310 FROM VENGEANCE OF ROBESPIERRE
Middle Ages, they found all doors closed against
them. Like wolves they prowled from Pomerol to
Saint-Genez, from Montpeyroux to Castillon, sleep-
ing in the vineyards, the woods or the quarries.
Their presence in the country was known, and their
presence was shunned as though they were savage
beasts ; they carried ' the contagion of anguish,' and
their appearance alone sufficed to frighten the
peasants. . . . Those were the days of the Great
Terror."^
A brave woman living at Fontainebleau heard of
these sufferers, and straightway resolved to be-
friend them. This was Madame Bouquey, daughter
of old Dupeyrat, Guadet's father-in-law. The old
gentleman (he was nearly eighty years of age) had
written his daughter an account of the pains of
Lou vet and his fellow Girondins. He told "how
they were being tracked like wolves from lair to lair ;
how they were without guides, often without food,
without hope in the world; and how with bleeding
feet they dragged themselves from friend to friend,
begging for shelter, only to find all doors shut in
their faces. "^
Bidding good-bye to her husband (he had been
pyocureur du roi at Saint-Emilion), Therese Bouquey
forthwith took diligence, and, at the speed of that
conveyance, journeyed to Saint-Emilion, where she
had a country house. Within a few hours of her
arrival she found means, says Lenotre, " to let
Salles and Guadet know that her house was open
to them. They came, but not without some com-
punction, for Barbaroux, Louvet, and Valady had
no place of refuge. * Let them all three come,' said
* I.cnotre.
^ John Kivers, " Louvet, Revolutionist and Romance- Writer."
THE ANGEL OF THE OUTLAWS 311
the brave woman. The following night the three
outlaws arrived, tired out, their clothes exhausted.
They reported that Buzot and Petion had been
obliged to change their hiding-place nine times in
fifteen days, and that they were reduced to the last
extremity. * Let them come, too,' said Mme.
Bouquey, but she advised that they be warned not
to come in the daytime. At midnight — it was
October 12th, 1793 — the seven fugitives were assem-
bled in her house. She wept for joy at seeing this
disconsolate band — 'her brood of children' — and,
quite happy, she regaled with a copious supper
these fierce men, who for weeks past had never met
with a basin of hot broth or a welcome smile."
Saint-Emilion town scatters itself over a wide
hill, and at the summit stands the Bouquey house
where ** Marinette," as she was fondly called, played
the angel to her forlorn ones. " Nothing is changed.
The old panes are still in the windows, the doors
are of thick oak, the locks have their old keys — those
keys which used to dangle in a bunch at Marinette's
apron."
A famous place it was for concealment. Saint-
Emilion's hill is pierced throughout with huge caves
and galleries, in immediate communication with which
was Mme. Bouquey 's house. ** There are two ways
of descending into the caverns. The first and
easiest method is by ladder down a disused water
chute ; but the outlaws were seldom able to avail
themselves of this means, as the descent is exposed
to observation from the windows of the adjoining
houses. The second method was that which the
fugitives generally employed, and a very perilous
method it was.
" In the garden opposite the kitchen window is
312 FROM VENGEANCE OF ROBESPIERRE
a square well a hundred feet deep, and in the
masonry of two of the opposite sides a series of
superimposed holes have been cut, about two feet
apart. These rude steps are always wet and
slippery ; but by carefully moving the feet from
niche to niche, and supporting themselves by the
hands against the sides of the well, the outlaws were
able to descend to a depth of twenty feet below the
surface, where there is a large recess opening into a
spacious cavern, which is, in turn, undermined by a
deeper cave, reached by slipping through a hole.
The visitor's blood runs cold at the very idea of this
gymnastic feat, which the unhappy men were
reduced to performing every day."^
But '93 was growing wintry, and Louvet could not
for long endure the icy air of citoyenne Bouquey's
" grotto." She guarded him whenever possible in
her own house, whence, at danger signal, he would
have to dislodge himself and sink below ground.
Terrible were the shifts to which the bright, devoted
woman was put to feed her hungry covey, and many
a day must she herself have gone with scarce a bite ;
but, says Louvet, " She sat in our midst like a mother
surrounded by her children, for whom it was a joy
to sacrifice herself."
Here, then, not without alarums, but in happier
case than aforetime, the escaped of the Convention
lay until the night of November 13th. That evening,
mounting for supper, they found Marinette in tears.
It was known, or, if not, was about to be known,
that the Girondins were in cover at Saint-Emilion.
Vengeance threatened in the town, Louvet and his
friends were not the men to imperil their heroic
little " mother " ; and even before she had sobbed
^ Rivers.
FAREWELL TO MARINETTE 313
out her story they were up and bidding her farewell.
That same night, winter in the black sky above
them, they plunged anew into the France of the
" Great Terror/'^
IV
The dance of life and death strikes up again. At a
cross-roads, an hour or so beyond midnight, Louvet,
Guadet, and Salles parted company with Valady,
who, soon after leaving them, was haled to the
guillotine from the threshold of a relative. Louvet,
with Guadet and Salles, passed the day in a quarry,
marching the next night through a whipping rain
till they came to a house where Guadet had, as he
fancied, a friend. The friend denied them her door,
denied them " a little vinegar and a glass of water "
for Louvet, who had dropped in a faint on the road.
Roused from his stupor, Louvet, a sudden vision of
Lodoiska animating him, took another resolution.
Friendships of all kinds had failed these pilgrims of
the Terror ; friend was but bringing friend into
deeper danger : Louvet would make for Paris and
Lodoiska alone. " I know," he says, in a curious
passage, " that I have but a slender chance of getting
there, but my duty is to attempt it." They divided
the little paper money that was left to them, and
Louvet addressed himself to the night.
With limbs benumbed he dragged himself into
Montpont at sunrise. A sentinel was propped
* The splendid little woman, Theresa Bouquey, thirty-one years
of age, an almost unknown heroine of the Revolution, died on the
scaffold in the summer of the following year. Consummate to the
end in self-sacrifice, she begged leave to be the last to ascend the
platform, that her husband might not look upon the blood of his
wife. Bordeaux has its monument " To the Memory of the Giron-
dins." There is none to the memory of Marinette.
314 FROM VENGEANCE OF ROBESPIERRE
against a wall, and Louvet fumbled for his forged
passport. He held his breath, nearing the sentinel,
but the sentinel did not move. Louvet got abreast
of him, and stopped. The man was as dead in sleep
as the guard at the ferry of Libourne, and Louvet
stepped across his musket and walked on into the
town. When parting from his friends he had put
off all clothing that could be dispensed with, and was
now disguised in redingote nationale and " a little
Jacobin peruke " which he had held in reserve.
His courage and resolution, he would have us know,
were at their highest : "a man at grips with fortune,
alone amid a world of enemies." What troubled
him the most was weariness of limb, and a fiery
rheumatism tormented his left ankle.
Over the charcoal in his room at the first inn
chanced upon he began to tinker at his passport :
a surprising document on which four or five pens
had previously worked, certifying that the hrave
sansculotte " Larcher " was proceeding honourably to
Paris. Louvet's own pen made the document just
good enough to pass him through the villages, but
for towns it was valueless. No matter ; towns must
be shunned.
At three in the afternoon, warmed, and with food
in him, he pushed on to Mussidan, hoping to reach
before nightfall a hamlet on the outskirts of the town.
But here the country road was deep in mud, and
there overlaid with sharp stones ; his left leg swelled
and burned, and at intervals of five minutes he had
to pause and lean upon his stick. Night was at hand,
and Mussidan not yet in sight.
Here, however, was a providential ale-house, with
a kindly host and his kindly wife; and under this
roof he stayed and rested two whole days. On the
"OUR MAYOR!" 315
bitter road once more, the pains in his leg increased,
the fire mounted to his thigh : the bold man's heart
began to fail him. " What shall I do ! " he cried.
" What shall I do ! A mile or two a day — what hope
for me ? I shall be two months on the road — how
can I avoid discovery ? "
But he passed in safety through Mussidan, and at
the first village beyond it made his way to the inn,
where he was nearly trapped. A sly hostess, posing
as royalist, plied him with questions. Wasn't
Charlotte Corday fine ? What a scoundrel that
Marat ! What did the gentleman think of the
guillotining of all these noblemen and priests and
merchants ? Louvet, for his part, played the fero-
cious Jacobin. " I threatened her with nothing less
than the guillotine — but it didn't altogether take " ;
and that night he was careful to put his weapons
under the pillow. At nine next morning the land-
lady roused him to ask if he were for the road.
'' I told her she had made me so comfortable that I
was much disposed to dine with her. It was no
fault of hers that I ever dined again."
For the woman presently fetched in a bumpkin
whom she introduced as '' our Mayor," and the
Mayor would like to see the honest gentleman's
passport. Louvet at once produced that amazing
instrument of travel, and was little displeased to
observe that his worship could barely read. Louvet
called for wine, and launched upon an anecdote ;
he told a story not less delightfully than he wrote
one. The Citizen Mayor liked the wine and the
anecdote, and the vicious landlady saw her guest
slipping through her fingers. "I'll go fetch the
Citizen Procureur Syndic," said she. " He can
read all the writing that ever was wrote." In came
3i6 FROM VENGEANCE OF ROBESPIERRE
the Citizen Procureur Syndic. He also was willing
to push the bottle about, and laughed and vowed
he had never heard such stories as the gentleman's.
The passport was forgotten. Like Rabelais's Bishop
Homenas, listening to praise of the " sacrosanct
Decretals," Louvet called for more wine, and more.
The landlady, despairing of her reward for the
betrayal, summoned a Citizen Municipal Officer.
He proved as gifted a toper and cheerful a listener
as the mayor and the syndic ; and all afternoon
the frowsy inn kept carnival. Louvet, in fine,
caroused the trio till they could have sworn to forty
signatures on the passport (which was never again
demanded), and, hastily settling his score, got clear
of the death-trap.
A day followed bare of all accident : itself an
accident of note in Louvet's progress ! On the mor-
row, shunning Perigueux, where danger lay, he took
the road to Limoges, and came, when night had
well fallen — weary as ever — to the hamlet of Les
Tavernes. The landlord was preparing for bed.
" Passport, citizen ? " said he. " Ah ! from Li-
bourne, I see ; but you've passed Perigueux without
giving the magistrates a call. Well, you'll have to
go back there to-morrow." The jaded traveller
pleaded his condition ; and a jolly-looking carrier,
finishing his supper, threw in a word for him.
** Seems to me," said he to the surly Boniface, " if
you'm a-goin' to be allays a-plaguin' travellers this
a-way, you'll make 'em that sick o' travellin' that
they 'ont travel at all no more. Wat foUers ?
This 'ere : you'll go an' you'll a-ruin innkeepers,
an' trade, an' France, an' carriers. Now, I ast you,
mister " " He'll have to go back, anyhow,"
said Boniface ; and farther to mark his disapproval
THE JOLLY CARRIER 317
of a customer so lax in matter of passports, he laid
him a supper of dry bread and a mug of sour wine.
" Ugh ! " said the jolly carrier, and passed across
the greasy table to Louvet the remains of his own
pullet. " Stow that away, mister, an' damn the
feller's swipes, I say ! "
" And so," observes Louvet, " we got in talk."
The honest carrier, manifestly not the warmest
friend of government by Terror, had goods to deliver
at Limoges next day ; and Louvet should take a
jaunt there in his cart.
But Louvet spent a miserable night on a miserable
bed (all rural inns in France at this date were pitiful
beyond description) ; and, falling at daybreak
from one sickly doze into another, awoke to find
that the carrier had harnessed and was off. Setting
forth on foot he saw the landlord mounting his nag.
''Bon voyage!" said the landlord sarcastically.
" Lm off to Perigueux."
To Perigueux ? He must be going there to de-
nounce the outlawed Louvet ! So, of every pedes-
trian he encountered, the outlawed Louvet asked :
" Tell me, citizen, have you seen a man in a grey
cloak on a black horse ? "
Presently he overtook the carrier, whose multi-
farious errands, from door to door, speeded him in-
differently. That wintry morning the sick, dejected
Louvet, ever dragging his swollen leg, saw an enemy
in every living creature. He grew suddenly suspi-
cious of his friend of overnight. But the jolly
carrier laughed away suspicions. Louvet must get
into the cart at once ; he was not fit to walk ; and
into the cart he clambered. While they jogged
the carrier turned about and gave his passenger a
broad stare. " Wat I says, I says," said he. "I
3i8 FROM VENGEANCE OF ROBESPIERRE
said it afore, and I says it ag'in. You bain't no
thief."
This obUque testimonial took poor Louvet slightly
aback. It was the sole compliment the jolly carrier
vouchsafed him, and at frequent intervals he re-
peated it. The simple, good man was seemingly
unable to conceive of any mortal foe save and except
a thief. Soon, from his copious gossip, the fact
detached itself that the landlord had suspected
Louvet of thievery and prowlery. Not as Royalist,
therefore, but as thief and footpad had he gone to
Perigueux to inform against him. " But there —
you bain't no thief."
Louvet in hearty terms protested that, on the
contrary, he did not like thieves in the very least.
** Why," continued he, without a blush, " they
drove me out of business in Bordeaux ! " " See
there ! Druv y' outer business in Bordeaux. Blast
'em ! An' meself, same as I'm a-setting 'ere, I knaws
a thing er two consarnin' they sort. Took an'
stole a 'orse off o' me ! Took an' stole me
'orse, they did ; and used 'im that sinful as the
pore delooded critter give over an' died. Stood me
in a matter o' twenty pun, did that 'orse. But you
ain't no thief ! You jog along o' me. Thar bain't a
one in these contaigious pairts but knaws me, an'
I knaws 'im, an' I says to 'em youm bain't wunner
these yere thieves." ^
The jolly carrier and his wayworn fare were now
wholly of a mind ; and in the respectability of the
one the other basked luxuriously, sitting up serenely
in the cart, his lame leg swathed in the horse-cloth,
nodding and smiling at the countryfolk on the
' In Louvet's French the carrier talks dialect. I have broadened
it a httle.
"PASSPORT!" 319
sodden road, and only now and again burying
himself under the ragged tarpaulin.
In one unguarded moment Louvet was very near
destruction. The cart was jolting into the dirty
little town of Aixe-sur-Vienne, four miles or so
from Limoges. " There bain't no guard at Aixe,"
said the carrier (adding that Louvet was no thief).
" Sit where you be " ; and Louvet kept his perch
in the forepart of the little van. But at Aixe they
had recently established a guard-house, and a
shaveling sentry, with shaveling recruits eyeing him
on the other side of the road, called for the passport.
Louvet had grown wise enough to refuse nothing to
necessity, but he was getting desperately bored with
passports, and the carrier was a safe escort. " Pass-
port ! " he bawled, flinging up his lame leg ; " there's
your passport ! Go and get one like it, you lazy
young devil, you ! Wounded — can't you see ? —
wounded in La Vendee. Go and get your own silly
leg smashed there, and if that doesn't passport you
to the other side of nowhere, Lm a negro ! And now
Lm off." So was the carrier. Whipping up his
horse in pretended rage (" the first time," says
Louvet, " he had even grazed him with the whip "),
the jolly carrier went hurry-scurry through Aixe.
Limoges. At Limoges, as the good carrier divined
(though all this while the trustful man was ignorant
of his wayfarer's identity), it would be unsafe for
Louvet to descend at any decent inn ; so to his own
house he carried him. Here the Girondin stayed
three days, quitting his bed only to bathe the
swollen leg. Late the third day the carrier came
home with joyful countenance. He had found
another carrier, even a bosom friend, who would
see Louvet safe to Paris. This other carrier had
320 FROM VENGEANCE OF ROBESPIERRE
been privily informed that the lame gentleman (no
thief !) was " contraband " : didn't mind that
nohow; and was one that could keep his mouth
tight. Thus had fortune opened one more door to
Louvet.
Before two on the following morning my true-
hearted host had him out of bed ; his own kind hands
had got breakfast ready : a flagon of wine, a savoury
mess of chitterlings (andouille), a pot of coffee. And
now, as the hour of parting neared, the jovial
carrier was quite disordered ; tears fell from him,
and Louvet's mingled in the flow. Then in the dark
the pair set out (the wife, a nervous little body, had
been afraid to sleep at home that night), and the
carrier led his unknown friend by dim, secure ways
to an inn a mile or so beyond Limoges. Here,
surely enough, was the new conductor habited for
the Paris road ; and here, therefore, with tears
renewed, Louvet bade farewell to the best of carriers.
The wain for Paris was a huge, lumbering concern,
canopied, with ample space for human freight and
merchandise ; and Louvet sighed as he reflected
that the speed of this ark would breed no dangers.
And now picture the scene as the sturdy carrier,
waving his lantern, went to and fro on this forlorn
winter's morning, and his passengers — chance-met,
shivering, and grumbling — assembled for the jour-
ney. Apprehensively enough did the Girondin,
holding back a little, peer at them. Seven he
counted, men and women ; sworn Jacobins all (this
much he seems to have known) ; and somewhat quick
in quarrel. Yet, for all anxiety of heart, he was
grateful to these folk ; and assuredly the seven
hasty Jacobins were seven not uncharitable souls,
since they were already in a conspiracy to shield
THE NEW ADVENTURE 321
him by the way. Thereby, moreover, the risk
that the Jacobins incurred was supreme. That the
Httle lame pale-faced man was one of the proscribed
Girondins they did not know, of course ; but they
knew that for some cause he was travelling incognito ;
and under the Terror the guillotine fell alike on
suspects and shelterers of suspects.
But fate had wound Louvet up for the fresh
adventure. On the second day's travel he had all
the seven Jacobins in love with him, men and women.
His unquenchable humour, his fund of stories, his
cheerfulness under manifest suffering captivated
everybody ; and the carrier, perceiving how he
swayed the little crowd, nudged him and whispered
that, were he the devil himself, to the gates of Paris
he should come !
It had been agreed that when papers were in-
spected Louvet should lie full length on the floor of
the wain, protected by the wraps and bundles of
the Jacobins. But the passport, though no doubt
the gravest, would not be the only jeopardy. The
fellow-voyagers seemed of a substantial bourgeois
class; bent on alighting, for meals and bed, at the
snuggest hostelries en route. Now Louvet, albeit
his Jacobins surmised it not of the pallid little high-
hearted man, was a character of exceeding fame
in revolutionary France. His news-sheet, La Senti-
nelle, placarded far and wide on walls up to the day
of his proscription, had blown his name throughout
the country. In any place of general resort he might
easily be recognised ; and recognition would limit
his term of life to four-and-twenty hours.
The first stage was uneventful.
At Le Bois-Remont, a hamlet of five or six cot-
tages, the misadventure of Aixe was but just avoided.
322 FROM VENGEANCE OF ROBESPIERRE
It was a freezing day, and Louvet had got down to
warm his blood with a feeble trot. He plumped
into a National Guard. " Warmish, eh ? " said
Louvet. ** Ah ! " observed the guard. " And if
you'd like to see me a bit warmer maybe you'll
stand me a glass." "I will, by gad! " said Louvet,
and limped into the inn at which the caravan had
halted. He sent out a glass, loitering at the bar,
watching furtively the business of the passports.
When that was done he strolled back to the carrier,
who saluted him with a most approving wink.
At Chateauroux news was wafted to the travellers
of the execution of Madame Roland ; and from
this hour until the journey's end Louvet did not
cease to tremble for the fate of Lodoiska, whom
the beautiful and heroic Roland had loved exceed-
ingly. And now indeed, one anxious and distressful
stage succeeding to another, he had every day the
tidings of some dear, devoted head fallen to the
guillotine ; and all the while he must maintain un-
checked his flow of spirits, his sallies and his quips.
In an inner pocket he preserved a tiny phial of
opium ; but the unfading image of Lodoiska rose
for ever in his mind, subduing the impulse to suicide.
** 6 mon epouse idolatree ! Lodoiska ! "
Into Orleans, with its burden of Jacobins and
their heterogeneous fardels, the wain rolled at
sunrise. Here the hazards of the Girondin were
multiplied. He had entered the chief city of the
Department that had chosen him as its representa-
tive in the National Assembly ; and he entered it
'' fugitif, deguise, proscrit " ; buried among the
packages in a carrier's cart, and devoutly hoping
one thing only — that Orleans would suffer him to
crawl out as he had crawled in, with a head still
"ALL GET OUT!" 323
fixed in the common way to his shoulders. The
scaffold in Orleans' market-place was running with
the blood of his adherents — daily sacrificed under
the now ignominious nickname of Louvetins.
Amid this rabid population Louvet, whose life
in Orleans was scarcely worth ten minutes' purchase,
tarried four hours, while the carrier went here and
there on his customary errands.
At the barrier of the town the caravan was
challenged.
The carrier cried out impatiently that the pass-
ports had been shown and were in order.
** Never mind about passports," said the guard.
" Let all of you get out ! " A Jacobiness thrust her
face through the canvas. " What's the meaning
of this ? " asked she. ** Let all of you get out,"
repeated the guard. There was nothing for it but
obedience. Louvet, at the first summons, had
begun his celebrated vanishing trick and was now
flat in the cart. The women, to keep their garments
spread about him, clung in their seats. " Women,
too ! " persisted the guard. Somebody again pro-
tested that the passports " Who's talking of
passports ? " shouted the guard. " It's faces I want,
not passports. Now, are you going to get out, or
have we got to fetch you ? "
The thought swam into Louvet's mind that, for
the sake of the seven Samaritans whose lives he was
imperilling, he should reveal himself. It was too
late. As the last of the party stepped reluctantly
out of the cart the officer jumped into it. Some
straw and a portion of a cloak were all the covering
that remained to Louvet, who slipped a pistol from
his pocket and placed the muzzle in his mouth.
" I heard, I felt him, getting into the cart. He
324 FROM VENGEANCE OF ROBESPIERRE
touched my thigh with his foot. He stooped and
groped among the parcels this way and that, and
kicked them over and over. His hands never once
came near me, his eyes must have strayed over me,
and never saw me."
There was one great pistol-shot in the French
Revolution (or is this even yet among the mysteries ?)
and a second would have sundered Louvet and
Lodoiska. The guard had the unconscious grace to
avert it by descending that moment from the waggon.
The carrier, says Louvet, was white and shaking
when he took up the reins.
The agitations of the journey began anew at
every town, every village, every collection of huts
where there was question of any sort to be posed and
answered. At Etampes an "inquisitive Jacobin
climbed on the step, and put his head into the waggon
to read the passports ; and, looking round, reckoned
on his fingers to satisfy himself that the papers
tallied with the number of the passengers." At
Longjumeau some guest in the public dining-room
glanced at Louvet and began to hum a song of
his.
As Paris loomed on them, his Jacobins — who,
since the moment of departure from Limoges, had
held his life at their disposal — were more than ever
tender for his safety. " The notion of the stoppage
at the barriers affrighted us. Our precautions were
redoubled." There was no need of them. The great
waggon creakedunmolested, almost unheeded,through
the gate. It was the 6th of December, 1793. Sum-
mer, autumn, winter, Louvet had been a hundred
and sixty-five days on the run for life. In the Rue
d'Enfer, against the walls of the Chartreux monas-
tery, he felt the soil of Paris beneath his foot. Equal
IN PARIS 325
to any stress of fortune, Louvet had tears to drown
the wind ; and this tribute he paid anew in wringing
hands with the seven faithful Jacobins who had
been swapping hves with him since Limoges.
He took the carrier aside, pressed on him his last
hundred francs of paper money and a gold watch
worth six times that amount, and said : — but we
know how charmingly (and tearfully) he would say it.
He had now but to seek Lodoiska in the lodging
he remembered. It might be thought that he was
running into the lion's den, but he was " safer being
meek than fierce," and found in the Paris of these
days an inviolable shelter. With Lodoiska he opened
shop as a publisher and bookseller. The town,
crowding to stare at them, found a rather plain-
looking young woman and a weakly little short-
sighted and slovenly man. But they were heroine
and hero, for all the disappointment of their looks ;
and vengeance in the end was Louvet 's, for he
survived Robespierre and died in his bed.
X
THE ADVENTURE OF THE EMPRESS
AND THE DENTIST
THE EMPRESS EUGENIE'S ELOPEMENT FROM THE
TUILERIES
" Sceptre and Crown
Must tumble down." — Shirley.
" She's heautijul." — " King Henry VI."
" Go, call a coach, and let a coach he called.
And let the man that calls it he the caller ! "
" BOMBASTES FtlRIOSO.
THE ADVENTURE OF THE EMPRESS
AND THE DENTIST
I
DURING six weeks the Empress Eugenie, acting
as Regent for the Emperor Napoleon III,
had scarcely laid her head on the pillow. For
nearly a week she had not taken off her black cash-
mere dress. The Second Empire existed only in
name, and to the Regent in the palace of the Tuil-
eries every hour of every day brought a telegram
announcing some fresh defeat of the French troops
at the hands of the Germans.
On the heels of defeat came disaster. Some time
in the afternoon of Saturday, September 3rd, 1870,
the Minister of the Interior silently handed to the
Empress a despatch from the Emperor : " The army
is overthrown and captive. I myself am a prisoner."
It was the news of Sedan.
At the sitting of the Chamber that evening Jules
Favre laid on the table a motion for the deposition
of the Imperial dynasty.
Her last night at the Tuileries the Empress is said
to have passed almost or entirely alone. For a
fortnight she had been kept up with the aid of strong
coffee, turning to chloral when she sought sleep.
There were no murmurs of the city to disquiet her
through the hours between dark and dawn. Paris,
familiar enough with the clash and reek of revolu-
tion, was ignorant as yet that 82,000 Frenchmen
329
330 THE EMPRESS AND THE DENTIST
had just gone into captivity. Paris that lovely
night lay mute beneath a starlit azure in which the
moon glided behind the towers of Notre-Dame.
A romantic young aristocrat, on his way from the
momentous meeting of the Chamber, tells us (years
later) that as he crossed the Carrousel he glanced at
the Tuileries where the lovely Empress sat watching
out her last night of royalty. " Above the illumin-
ated vestibule, above the guard whose bayonets
glittered in the light, a ray shining from a window
marked the spot where were the private apartments
of Eugenie. And, sad at heart, I thought of that
poor woman who, far from her captive husband, far
from her isolated son, was weeping and keeping
watch during her last night of sovereignty." But
other wives, other mothers were soon to be weep-
ing and watching, whose husbands, whose sons
kept their bivouac between the lances of the
Uhlans.
Some sense of danger lured Paris from bed in the
earliest hours of Sunday, the historic 4th. The
faubourgs began to be astir. After the sitting of
the Chamber, when General de Palikao, in words that
smote the Assembly dumb, had very briefly re-
counted the great capitulation, the newspaper
presses had been working at top speed ; and scarcely
was the sun risen on a warm and singularly beautiful
morning, when the newsboys were rousing the Rue
de Rivoli with the cry : " The Emperor a prisoner ! "
It gathered Paris in great, silent, wondering swarms
from the borders of the city to the centre.
Even before this day, many days before it, Paris
had presented a strange appearance to the Parisians.
The first reverses of the French troops — who had
gone to the war, almost literally, without food.
THE END OF EMPIRE 331
without shoes, without arms — had created, not a
panic, but the rumours of a siege ; and the environs
of the capital had emptied themselves into it. The
peasants had harvested in haste ; through every
gate of Paris they had come with their crops and
provisions ; barges on the Seine had brought wine
and grain and cattle ; thousands of vehicles had
driven in, loaded with women and children, with
household utensils, with sacks of corn and potatoes,
with cupboards transformed into hen-coops or
rabbit-hutches. It had cost five hundred francs a
day to hire a furniture van for transport, and
families had been seen travelHng cheerfully into
Paris in hearses, with their goods and chattels piled
around them.
It is said that the crowd which on Sunday morn-
ing swept slowly but ceaselessly from the rim of
the town to the seats of government was not so much
hostile as curious and inquisitive ; but no one in
authority could know this ; and less perhaps than
anyone else could the Empress herself know it.
Sedan meant the end of Empire ; the Emperor (not
a dozen of his subjects being aware that he had
set out on the campaign a sick and hopeless man)
would be held responsible ; the Empress was his
representative at the Tuileries — and crowned heads
had had reason to beware the wrath of Paris.
We may fancy the Empress, on her way to private
Mass this anxious Sunday morning, wondering dis-
tractedly what course to take. She was, unfortu-
nately, on bad terms with General Trochu, whom
Napoleon had appointed Governor of Paris, and
whom indeed Her Majesty had grievously slighted.
Should she fly from Paris ? She may have remem-
bered that in 1848 King Louis PhiHppe had done so
332 THE EMPRESS AND THE DENTIST
— in a hackney cab — under the style of " Mr.
WilHam Smith," The beautiful Spaniard was not
only a brave woman, she was a woman of high
courage ; and those who were about her at this
crisis have declared that she never had a thought of
saving herself. As she took her way to Mass — at
what hour we know not — her ear must have drawn
in some echo of the gatherings in the streets, now
growing noisier. Well, should she face the tumult ?
As yet, at any rate, there could be no such terrible
ordeal as Marie Antoinette's last journey through
the streets of Paris, bound in a tumbril. The
Empress looked superb on horseback : should she
ride through the capital, appeal to the generosity
of the people, or offer resistance to rioters ? She
may have thought of all these measures ; it is said
that she did : what seems certain is that Her
Majesty had no very definite plan of any kind.
Of the events of the earlier hours of Sunday
several versions have come down to us, and they are
not all in harmony. One story is to the effect that
the Empress was going to hear the grand'messe at
St. Germain-l'Auxerrois ; that while she was wait-
ing to be dressed for the service her devoted friend
Mme. Lebreton, arrived in haste with news of the
proclamation of the Republic ; that the two ladies
presently perceived themselves alone in the palace,
the whole staff having fled ; that they roamed the
Tuileries for an hour in increasing terror, and then,
rushing into the street, took possession of a passing
cab, Mme. Lebreton discovering in her purse a
providential five-franc piece wherewithal to pay the
fare.
But this is the wrong story altogether.
There were, in fact, several persons on duty at
THE WHIRLWIND 333
the palace (while the staff seems to have remained
at least as long as the Empress did) on Sunday
morning : to wit, General de Montebello, Admiral
Jurien de la Graviere, the Marquis de la Grange,
Mesdames de Renneval and de Sauley, the Com-
tesse Aguado, the Marechale Canrobert, and Mes-
dames de la Poeze and de la BedoUiere.
In so desperate a collision of circumstances these
official ornaments of an imperial household were
naturally worse than useless, and some of them
probably much more frightened than the Empress,
whose nerve — chloral notwithstanding — was still
unsinking. But as to the state and mind of Paris
she was not left too long in doubt. Between twelve
and one on Sunday afternoon the Chamber was in
session. The debate was not well begun when the
Deputies were invaded by a mob from the streets ;
the very semicircle of the Chamber was swamped ;
and Gambetta, Jules Favre, and General de Palikao
vanished or were driven out in the hubbub. In
something like a whirlwind the Empire was blown
out of France and the Republic proclaimed. Then
appeared at the Tuileries a perplexed and not very
coherent deputation from the Chamber, requesting
the Empress to resign the throne. " I accept de-
position," she said quietly, " but I refuse to be a
deserter. If the preservation of my power is con-
sidered an obstacle to the defence [of Paris], would
it be too much for a woman who has of her own free
will descended from the throne to ask the Chamber
to grant her the right to remain in Paris ? I care
not where I live or what rank I hold, if only I may
share the suffering, the peril, the anguish of our
besieged capital."
No deputation could perhaps have acceded to
334 THE EMPRESS AND THE DENTIST
this request. " Workmen were already knocking
down the gilded eagles on the gates of the Tuileries."
The crowd outside the gardens had become dense
and menacing. " The dramatist, Victorien Sardou,
was seen among them, demanding the officers of the
Guard to let the soldiers be withdrawn, * as the
Tuileries belonged to the people.' "
The Empress stooped to necessity.
From the room in which she had received the
deputation from the Chamber she passed into a
private apartment where were assembled the few
ladies-in-waiting. The Empress ** had nothing on
her head, and still held in her hand the cambric
handkerchief with which she had dried her eyes,
red with weeping, and had somewhat effaced, or
smeared on her cheeks, the little touches of black
crayon with which she was wont to line her eyes
by way of making them appear larger — Spanish
fashion."
The ladies-in-waiting, visibly affected, were stand-
ing up, and approached one after another to kiss
the hand of their sovereign, who said to them :
" In France one has no right to be unhappy."
Meanwhile, there had arrived at the Tuileries the
Austrian and Italian Ambassadors, Prince Metter-
nich and Chevalier Nigra, who urged upon the
Empress the duty, nay necessity, of instant flight.
The palace, they declared, was no longer safe ; and
added — with a touch of exaggeration — that the
rioters were preparing to seize it. The poor lady,
indeed, was almost pushed out of the home where
for seventeen years she had reigned in splendour.
She was utterly unready for so swift a setting-out.
Not a trunk, not a bag was packed ; no one thought
of asking if the fugitive were furnished with money.
THE EXIT FROM THE PALACE 335
and she had not in her possession the smallest bank-
note. " She threw a dark mantle over her shoulders
and feverishly tied the strings of a black bonnet
under her chin." Another chronicler says : " The
too conspicuous pelerine by Worth was exchanged
for a more sombre cloak, and the Empress hastily
imprisoned her magnificent hair beneath a little
black capote belonging to Mme. Virot." " In her
reticule she hurriedly put a purse, a handkerchief,
and a notebook."
Yet another says : ** The Empress snatched up a
waterproof, a hat with a brown veil, and some
portraits." Thus the flight began.
One lady, Mme. Lebreton, sister of General
Bourbaki, had insisted on sharing the fortunes of
her mistress ; and Chevalier Nigra, giving her his
arm, led the way. The Empress followed, on the
arm of Prince Metternich. ** It had been decided
that the party should go through the Imperial
apartments, across the Louvre, and thus reach the
gate towards the Place Saint-Germain I'Auxerrois.
They rapidly crossed the left wing of the Tuileries,
passed through the Museum gate and the picture-
gallery " — some of the galleries of the palace, by
the way, had been converted into hospitals for
wounded soldiers, and the Empress had visited them
daily — ** down the stairs leading to the Assyrian
Palace, and eventually reached the gateway that
gave on to the square. The ex-Regent quitted the
Louvre, while a huge crowd assembled at the oppo-
site side ; she still leant on Metternich's arm.
Nigra and Mme. Lebreton accompanied her. They
halted. ' Wait for me here,' said Richard [Metter-
nich] to the two women. * I am going to fetch my
carriage. It is a plain one, with no coat of arms ;
336 THE EMPRESS AND THE DENTIST
it is drawn by a white horse.' Metternich and Nigra
proceeded in search of the brougham. During their
prolonged absence the crowd grew greater and more
violent. Madame Lebreton hailed a passing cab,
pushed her Sovereign into it, and gave the coachman
the address of one of her friends — ' Besson, State
Councillor, Boulevard Haussman.' The rest is
common history — the drive to the Avenue de Wag-
ram in search of Piennes, Chamberlain to the Em-
press, who was also out, and eventually Eugenie's
arrival at the house of Dr. Evans, Avenue du Bois
de Boulogne."
Another historian of the exodus tells us that
Metternich had instructed his coachman to be in
readiness, that the carriage was missing, and that
he went alone in search of it. As the little group —
the Empress, Mme. Lebreton, and Nigra — waited
for him, the crowd in the street grew denser. An
urchin in cap and blouse, recognising the Empress,
exclaimed : " Tiens I Voild l' Imperatrice ! N'est
elle pas jolie ? " and was instantly silenced by Nigra.
Her Majesty must, one fancies, have been veiled ;
for who in Paris was unfamiliar with her splendid
beauty ? Yet the crowd had hitherto taken no note
of her. Nigra, however, was now more alarmed,
and certainly the moment was critical. " Just then
... an unoccupied -fiacre jolted by. Securing it,
Nigra pushed the Empress and her companion into
the cab, saying : ' Get in, Madame. We cannot
wait for Metternich' s brougham.' "
By whomsoever hailed, there is no doubt whatever
about the fiacre, or hackney cab. It figures in all
the records. Willy-nilly, the Empress had followed,
after all, the inglorious example of Louis Philippe.
She had fled in a four-wheeler.
THE GOOD FAIRY 337
Also, as has been seen, Her Majesty had vanished
into this humble conveyance unmolested ; but —
what shall be said of the pair of Ambassadors, Metter-
nich and Nigra, these squires of Imperial beauty in
distress ? Have we in history a more ungallant
pair ? Carelessly they sent her drifting in a cab —
one or both of them — through the streets of an un-
friendly Paris, through the streets of a Paris which,
for all they could know, intended mischief to the
woman whose husband the popular voice had just
cast from his throne. Look at it any way, this
comes very near to poltroonery. A princely Metter-
nich or so, renowned in the social and diplomatic annals
of Europe, should have been glad of his grave that
Sunday afternoon ; and this Metternich, and the
gifted and superlatively handsome Nigra, had both
of them long been rivals at Court for the friendship
of the Empress whose reputation was unsullied.
Let us dismiss them — with a passing glance at the
memory of Marie Antoinette's Count Fersen, and
Mary of Scots' "Little Douglas" who wafted her
out of Loch Leven. All said, Ambassadors may
save their skin — and these paltry two pass un-
honoured from the story.
The good fairy of the piece is an American dentist.
Dr. Thomas W. Evans, at whose house the Empress
and her dame de compagnie drew up towards six on
Sunday evening. At two or three doors she had
knocked unavailingly ; though, had the persons who
led or hustled her from the Tuileries preserved their
wits, or obeyed the commonest sense of chivalry,
nothing should have been easier than to find for the
Empress some secure or temporary shelter within
a stone's throw of the palace. The district was thick
with the residences of rich and loyal courtiers.
338 THE EMPRESS AND THE DENTIST
The keeper of the silver at the Tuileries, Maillard,
has recorded in his register that the Empress left
the palace by the Louvre entrance at half -past one
on Sunday afternoon. The first stage of the flight —
a ten minutes' drive the day before — had thus
occupied her some four hours and a half.
II
Dr. Evans, with a fine house in the Avenue
Malakoff,^ was a man of fortune, heart, courage,
and European reputation. " Later," says d'Heris-
son, '* when the sufferings and privations of the
siege began, he instituted and maintained at his own
expense the American Ambulance." " A man with
a golden heart and a European reputation," is
Frederic Loliee's description of him.
*' There are two ladies in the library who wish to
see you, sir," said Dr. Evans's servant. =^ " They
have not given their names . . . and have been
waiting for you more than an hour."
In the library Dr. Evans, his mind bare of any
notion of adventure — no hint of the flight from the
Tuileries had been conveyed to him — found the
Empress and Mme. Lebreton. '* I have come to
you," said the Empress, " for protection and assist-
ance, because I have full confidence in your devotion
to my family " — and she summarised the history of
her day. " She stopped speaking, and tears filled
her eyes."
Had her Majesty a plan ? Dr. Evans asked.
1 Or was it the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne ? Two residences
at least have been assigned to Dr. Evans.
* Dr. Evans's narrative in the " Century Magazine," October,
1905.
EXAMINATION OF THE PASSPORTS 339
Yes ; Her Majesty wished to go to England ;
wished to start at once. " At first she suggested
that at about ten o'clock that evening I should take
her in my carriage as far as Poissy, some fifteen
miles from Paris, saying that we might meet there
a night-train which would leave the Gare St. Lazare
at a quarter before one o'clock in the morning, and
would reach Poissy at half-past one o'clock, and
arrive in Havre a little before eight o'clock. She
added that we could stop in Havre the next day
(Monday), and take the boat which would leave for
Southampton in the evening. The objections to
adopting this course were pointed out, and other
suggestions were offered. The questions to be con-
sidered were too important to be decided hastily.
I wished to reflect upon the subject, and so asked to
be excused for a short time."
Dr. Evans sought the counsel of a friend and
compatriot, Dr. Crane, and together they considered
the best and safest means of getting the Empress
out of France. At the quiet seaside resort of Deau-
ville Mrs. Evans was taking a holiday, and to this
point it was decided to travel in Dr. Evans's own
carriage. Relays of horses could probably be found
along the route, and a vessel of some sort at Deau-
ville. The Empress accepted the plan and agreed
to start early the next morning.
** The passports which the Empress had brought
with her were now examined, and one of them was
found to have been obtained at the British Embassy.
In it, all whom it might concern were * requested
and required to allow Dr. C (British subject),
going to England accompanied by a patient, Mrs.
B (also a British subject), to pass freely, also
without let or hindrance, and to afford them every
340 THE EMPRESS AND THE DENTIST
assistance and protection of which they may stand
in need.' "
This passport, dated August 13, and signed
" Lyons," had been " viseed " and stamped, on
the same date, at the Prefecture of PoUce. " It
was exactly what we wanted : it was not only a
passport to England, but its terms were such as to
enable us to complete our plan and justify it in the
most plausible manner possible. Dr. Crane would
personate the physician, Dr. C ; the Empress,
the patient ; I, her brother ; and Mme. Lebreton
the nurse." It may be added that this lucky pass-
port was a genuine affair made out for a well-known
English physician and his patient. It had not been
called for, and had been sent to the Tuileries, " to
be used, if needed."
When the Empress and her companion had re-
tired for the night. Dr. Crane went out to reconnoitre.
Returning towards i a.m. he reported all quiet
in the neighbourhood. Dr. Evans made a recon-
naissance in the direction of the Porte Maillot, the
gate through which in a few hours they were, if
possible, to escape from Paris. He remarked " that
cabs and carriages were permitted to pass in and out
without apparently being subjected to much, if any,
inspection on the part of the guard on duty."
Through what remained of the night the two gentle-
men kept vigil together.
About five in the morning the host had a light
breakfast prepared, and before five-thirty they were
all in the carriage. Over her black cashmere dress
the Empress wore '* a dark-coloured, thin, waterproof
cloak or mackintosh. A narrow white collar about
the neck, dark gloves, and a round black Derby
hat" — Mrs. Evans's, I think — "to which was
"ALLEZ!" 341
attached a plain black veil, completed her costume.
Not the slightest attempt had been made to disguise
her identity, beyond such concealment as might be
afforded by a dress too simple and common to
attract attention." Mme. Lebreton occupied the
back seat on the right ; the Empress the seat on the
left, where she would be partly out of sight of the
guards at the Porte Maillot. Dr. Crane seated
himself opposite to Mme. Lebreton, and Dr. Evans
faced the Empress. The " faithful coachman,
Celestin," was told to drive to Saint-Germain.
On this fair September morning they saw the
sweepers in the streets, shopkeepers already taking
down their shutters, milk-carts and the market-
waggons coming in from the country. The life of
Paris, in a word, was beginning as if no revolution
were in progress.
Arrived at the gate, " we were ordered to halt.
As the officer of the guard approached, I let down
the window at my right, and on his coming close to
the door of the carriage and asking me where we were
going, I leaned forward, and partly filling the open-
ing with my head and shoulders, told him that I was
going with my carriage, horses, and coachman into
the country to spend the day with the friends who
were with me ; that I was an American ; that I
lived in Paris, and was well known to everybody in
the neighbourhood. He did not ask my name. Had
he done so I probably should have given it. My
reply to his question seemed to be satisfactory, for,
stepping back, he looked up at the coachman and
said: 'Allez!'"
In a moment they had passed the outpost and
sentries, were out of Paris, and on the road to the
coast.
342 THE EMPRESS AND THE DENTIST
As they drove at a good pace through the suburbs
of Bougival, Marly, and Le Pecq, where the gardens
were still resplendent, the Empress was by turns
animated and tearful. She spoke of the Emperor's
despatch of Saturday, the surrender at Sedan, the
Emperor himself a prisoner. "It is terrible ! I
cannot think of it — and I myself am here a fugitive."
Saint-Germain-en-Laye came in sight. " We
had come again to a place where caution was neces-
sary, because, before entering the city, we had to
pass the toll-gate where the octroi officials were
stationed ; and an inspection of our carriage for
the purpose of seeing whether we had with us any
articles subject to the city toll, was certain to take
place. . . . Remembering that near Saint-Germain
there lived an English lady, one of my acquaint-
ances, who was very well known, and was loved by
all the inhabitants on account of her kindness to the
poor, I had decided to state, should I be asked where
we were going, or if any trouble should arise, that
we were friends of Lady Trotter. I was nearly
certain that any of her friends would be respected,
while at the same time I was persuaded that a few
words to that lady would be sufficient to make her
enter into my plans for the safety of the Empress."
But there was no trouble at Saint-Germain. The
travellers had not the air of chicken-smugglers,
and their carriage was allowed to pass. The tension
of the journey was now sensibly relaxed. It was
pretty clear that Paris was not aware of the Empress's
escape with her dentist ; there was no pursuit, and
no telegram to arrest the party had reached Saint-
Germain. At this stage, indeed, their anxiety was
chiefly for the condition of the horses, now showing
signs of distress. From Poissy — famed as the birth-
UNPURSUED 343
place of Louis IX — they took the road to Mantes,
along the right bank of the Seine. Twelve miles
from Mantes they stopped at a wayside inn to water
the horses and get a little food for themselves.
Mme. Lebreton and the gentlemen, at any rate,
were famished, though the Empress made light of
refreshment. Wine and a yard or two of bread,
cheese and Bologna sausage were despatched in
haste ; and the Empress, who did not leave the
carriage, was persuaded to use Dr. Crane's pocket-
knife on a slice of the " polony," which she " pro-
nounced excellent."
Mantes was entered at eleven on a radiant morn-
ing, and now it was plain that the doctor's horses
would get no farther. Evans set off on foot to seek
fresh ones and another carriage. The day's journals
had just come down from Paris, and at a stationer's
shop he scanned the Figaro for any reference to the
Empress. Curiously, there was not a word of her
flight from the Tuileries, and on went the doctor
again for horses and a carriage. At the omnibus
office he hired for thirty francs " a very comfortable
and decent-looking affair," which was to be relin-
quished at Pacy. At Pacy, said the proprietor, it
would be easy to hire another conveyance to Evreux.
Celestin had orders to take his horses back when
they were rested, and through the outskirts of
Mantes the new jehu conducted his fares to the
Route Imperiale (name shortly to be changed !) on
Evreux road. The route to Deauville and the sea
was now by Pacy-sur-Eure, Evreux, La Riviere de
Thibouville, Lisieux, and Pont I'Eveque. At a little
place called La Commanderie the village nags gave
out, and Dr. Evans, on another voyage of discovery,
found " under a shed a barouche which must have
344 THE EMPRESS AND THE DENTIST
seen the Allies. A peasant offered to go into the
fields in search of horses, and, his offer having
been accepted, two old screws were at length har-
nessed to the venerable trap." The Empress, who
had the royal knack of adaptation, took all in the
best part.
" At Evreux the road lay right through the middle
of the garrison, who were drawn up in the middle of
the principal square, and surrounded by the entire
population. The new Prefect, just arrived from
Paris, and backed by the municipal council, was in
the act of proclaiming the Republic." Dr. Evans,
putting a bold face on the matter, requested the
Prefect's permission to pass on without waiting for
the conclusion of this patriotic ceremony. Per-
mission granted, they sped on, " thousands of eyes
watching the progress of the venerable barouche,
wherein lay hidden the wife of Caesar."
It was a wearing journey for the four cooped in
the barouche ; and though the peril of the Empress
was scarcely that of Marie Antoinette on the road
to Varennes, there were certain risks throughout.
Her composure, her spasmodic gaiety, underwent
transformations of hysteria ; and " in a little ditch
at the side of the road " we have a glimpse of Dr.
Evans washing and wringing out a tiny cambric
handkerchief, which is afterwards hanging at the
carriage window to dry in the breeze.
D'Herisson says that the journey from Paris to
Deauville was ended at four in the afternoon. It
was not ; and, with the means at the runaways'
disposal, it could not have been. Towards midnight
they stopped at another of the wretched inns of
rural France (wretched, for the most part, since the
Middle Ages), where the landlord offered one spare
LAST ACT OF THE DRAMA 345
room with two beds. " Why, we are all brothers
and sisters," said the Empress, " and we must have
two rooms." A second chamber was equipped, and
under this roof they passed the night. Deauville
was gained at noon next day.
Mrs. Evans at this haven had been premonished
of the coming of her guest, and was prepared.
** Thank heaven ! " exclaimed the Empress, " I am
safe ! "
At Deauville also was Sir John Burgoyne, owner
of the cutter-yacht Gazelle, who takes the stage in
the fourth and last act of the drama. Dr. Evans,
hunting for a vessel, had introduced himself to
Sir John, who did not know him and was disposed to
reject as crazy his account of the flight from Paris.
" I acknowledge," says he, " that I did not believe
him, and told him so ; but asked him to go into
the cabin and speak to Lady Burgoyne." Lady
Burgoyne, by good hap, had some acquaintance
with Dr. Evans, and Sir John, apprised of this, no
longer hesitated. At twelve o'clock that night he
received the Empress on board the Gazelle — having,
one hour earlier, got rid of an inquisitive police agent.
At seven in the morning the little cutter sailed
quietly from Deauville harbour ; white ensign at the
mainsail-peak (her owner was not for sneaking off) ;
and " another white ensign at the topmast-head, to
show that we had someone of importance on board."
In a gale that became terrific as the English coast
was approached ("I had not before," says the skip-
per, " seen a worse sea "), Sir John Burgoyne bore
the Empress to Ryde.
When the yacht had made the harbour, " the
party landed at once and went to the Pier Hotel,
the proprietor of which, at the sight of two drenched,
346 THE EMPRESS AND THE DENTIST
shabby-looking, dishevelled women, accompanied by
a man even more thoroughly drenched than they
were, shut his door. They took refuge in the York
Hotel, where they were received without any display
of eagerness."
On the afternoon of this day the flight ended at
Hastings.
Forty-four years are unfolded ; and on an after-
noon of autumn, 1914, an aged ex-Empress, widowed
and childless, leans on her stick at the gate of her
English park, and watches the tramp of a company
of German prisoners of war.
XI
AN IRISH 'FORTY-EIGHTER
THE HAZARDS OF JOHN MITCHEL BETWEEN
TASMANIA AND SAN FRANCISCO
" Through thick and thin, both over bank and bush." — Spenser.
" There's something in a flying horse." — Wordsworth.
" A wet sheet and a flowing sea." — Cunningham.
*' Erin go bragh ! "
AN IRISH TORTY-EIGHTER
A STERLING and impressive figure of a rebel
is John Mitchel.^ In the middle of the last
century he personified rebellion in Ireland as did
no other foe of British Governments. A rebel " from
principle," in Burke's expressive phrase, Mitchel
was no hedge-fighter, no " moonlighter " ; he came
out into the sun to do battle. It is, perhaps, with
him that the modern struggle in Ireland begins.
His policy, more diplomatically conceived, more
adroitly applied, was Parnell's in a later genera-
tion.
In Irish political warfare there is little to compare
with the brilliantly audacious wit of Mitchel' s cam-
paign against the Government. Daniel O'Connell
had thought that Repeal of the Union could be
won, as Catholic Emancipation had been won. His
advocacy of " moral force principles," of warfare
" within the lines of the constitution," palled upon
his followers as the weight of years bore him under.
The party of Young Ireland, whose aims differed
widely from those of Conciliation Hall, began to
talk of an armed struggle ; and newspapers, attain-
^ Born at Camnish, near Dungiven, Co. Derry, November 3rd,
1 81 5. His father was the Rev. John Mitchel, at that time Presby-
terian minister of Dungiven, " and a good patriot, too, having been
— as we learn from a statement casually made by Mr. Mitchel in
Conciliation Hall — one of the United Irishmen of 1798." (" Speeches
from the Dock," edited by T. D. and D. B. Sullivan.)
349
350 AN IRISH 'FORTY-EIGHTER
ing as they echoed these hints to a circulation not
before approached in Ireland, gave, willingly or not
willingly, an extraordinary impetus to the move-
ment.
Gavan Duffy and Thomas Davis in the " Nation "
lent no aid to the friends of moral force ; and when
death removed Davis, and his place was taken by
Mitchel, it began to be war to the knife against the
weaker brethren. Amid the suffering and terrors
of the Famine, Mitchel determined to bring matters,
if possible, to a crisis of violence. He withdrew from
the " Nation " at the close of 1847, and founded
the " United Irishman." The title was significant,
and more significant was the aphorism appropriated
as a motto from Wolfe Tone. " Our independence
must be had at all hazards. If the men of property
will not support us, they must fall ; we can support
ourselves by the aid of that numerous and respect-
able class of the community, the men of no property."
For the whips of the " Nation " the " United Irish-
man " offered scorpions.
John Mitchel began to lay it on in the very first
number. Sedition, unmasked and of a mordant
humour, flowed from the most gifted and intrepid
pen in Ireland. The first editorial was a letter from
Mitchel to the Viceroy, ** The Right Hon. the Earl
of Clarendon, Englishman, calling himself Her
Majesty's Lord Lieutenant-General and General
Governor of Ireland." The struggle engaged in by
Tone and Emmet was to be renewed, said Mitchel ;
** the Holy War, to sweep this island clear of the
English name and nation." The conspiracy of '98
had been a secret one, betrayed by spies and in-
formers, as is the fate of almost every hidden plot
in Ireland. That of 'Forty-eight, declared Mitchel,
THE GOVERNMENT ASSAILED 351
was to be an absolutely open one, and Lord Clarendon
was informed that he could " have a Castle detective
about the ' United Irishman ' office in Trinity Street
. . . provided the man be sober and honest." This
extraordinary and terrible address concluded in
these terms :
" In plain English, my Lord Earl, the deep and
irreconcilable disaffection of this people to all
British laws, lawgivers, and law administrators shall
find a voice. That holy Hatred of foreign dominion
which nerved our noble predecessors fifty years ago
for the dungeon, the field and the gallows (though
of late years it has worn a vile nisi prius gown, and
snivelled somewhat in courts of law and on spouting
platforms) still lives, thank God ! and glows as fierce
and hot as ever. To educate that holy Hatred, to
make it know itself, and avow itself, and, at last,
fill itself full, I hereby devote the columns of the
* United Irishman.' "
For some weeks he went on in this tremendous
strain, urging the peasant farmers, " Above all, let
the man among you who has no gun sell his garment
and buy one " ; and presently saluting the Viceroy
as " Her Majesty's Executioner-General and General
Butcher of Ireland." Mitchel, of course, knew well
that his voice would soon be silenced, and he made
the most of his time. Never before had the Govern-
ment been so mercilessly assailed. In the spring of
'48 they resolved to close with him, and in May he
took his stand in the dock. He was tried for ** trea-
son-felony," which was then the newest crime in the
calendar. A jury of Irishmen, impartially selected,
must have been impressed by the defence of the
veteran Robert Holmes, Emmet's brother-in-law ;
but the Government were taking no risks that day.
352 AN IRISH 'FORTY-EIGHTER
and (as Lord Clarendon afterwards admitted) the
box had been most carefully packed. Mitchel says :
" In short, the cause of ' civilisation ' and of British
Law and Order required that I should be removed
to a great distance from Ireland, and that my office
and printing materials should become the property
of Her Majesty. Though the noble old Robert
Holmes, who advocated the prisoner's cause that
day, had had the tongue of men and of angels, he
could have made no impression there. A verdict of
' Guilty,' and a sentence of fourteen years' trans-
portation, had been ordered by the Castle : and it
was done."
He was laid away in the penal settlement of
Bermuda. Here, therefore, begins the " diary kept
in a cell " ; albeit Mitchel's cell was a hutch to him-
self on one of the three hulks of the convict station.
He wore his own clothes, was waited on by a convict
servant, and was allowed to put on paper his reflec-
tions, observations and implacable sentiments touch-
ing England and the English. His confinement,
while not cruel, was close enough, solitary enough ;
and he began to be a prey to asthma. He bore all
sufferings uncomplainingly, obeyed all rules un-
flinchingly, and was respected from the first by
governors, doctors, and gaolers. He writes thus of
his condition and circumstances :
" Indeed, weak as I am in body, I feel stronger in
soul than ever I was ; for which I sincerely thank
Almighty God. Many foul shadows that seemed
threatening to rise up between me and the sun have
scattered themselves and sunk. I have risen into a
clearer atmosphere, and feel myself more in accord
with whatsoever is good in this world. ... I be-
think me, that if there be work for me to do on the
VAN DIEMEN'S LAND 353
earth, the Almighty will keep me alive to do it, and
draw me out of this pit in His own time — that if not,
He knows what is best for every one of us."
Providence, in the guise of a good doctor, drew him
" out of this pit " in the very nick of time. Half
dead, he was despatched with a shipload of convicts
to the Cape. The Cape, with howls of indignation,
rejected the cargo of felonry (though Mitchel, it
seems, might have landed, had he chosen), which
from there was borne to what at this date was classic
soil for expatriated British crime. Van Diemen's
Land.
II
The first entry in Mitchel's " Jail Journal "
(the greatest literary performance, I think, of any
prisoner in any language) is this :
" May 27, 1848. — On this day, about four o'clock
in the afternoon, I, John Mitchel, was kidnapped,
and carried off from Dublin, in chains, as a con-
victed ' Felon.' "
Nearly two years pass, covering one period of
ten months' solitary confinement in Bermuda and
another of eleven months' and seventeen days'
cruising in the Neptune ; and on the 6th of April,
1850, we have another entry :
" The mountainous southern coast of Van Diemen's
Land ! It is a soft blue day ; soft airs, laden with
all the fragrances of those antarctic woods, weave
an atmosphere of ambrosia around me. . . .
" Old Ocean smiles — that multitudinous rippling
laugh seen in vision by the chained Prometheus.
Even my own sick and weary soul (so kind and
bounteous is our Mother Earth) feels lightened, re-
freshed, uplifted. Yet there, to port, loom the moun-
354 AN IRISH 'FORTY-EIGHTER
tains, whereunto I am to be chained for years, with
a vulture gnawing my heart. Here is the very place,
the Kaf , or Caucasus, where I must die a daily death
and make a nightly descent into hell."
It was scarcely so bad as this.^ Mitchel in Tas-
mania was not a convict. He is more properly
described as a political exile. Somewhere in the
" Jail Journal " he speaks of the free settlers as the
aristocracy of the island. But the rebels banished
from Ireland, the most honest foes whom the English
Government of that day had encountered, were the
aristocracy of the prisoners of Australasia. Mitchel,
accepting a ticket-of-leave, had permission to live
at large in any ** police district " he might select ;
and in the middle of April, 1850, he takes possession
of a snug homestead, Nant Cottage, some three
miles from the village of Bothwell : a paradise in a
valley, with the little river Clyde running through
it — a prison-paradise. He was a farmer with a farm
of two hundred acres, good pasturage for sheep and
cattle, woods to roam through, and kangaroo-
hunting. His wife came from Ireland to join him.
His lot at Bothwell was shared by John Martin,
who, transported some months earlier, had made as
great a mark as Mitchel in the Ireland that was at
odds with England. Martin had studied medicine
and surgery in Dublin, had lived as a country gentle-
^ The extreme horrors of banishment to this region were over
in Mitchel's day. The " Jail Journal " reflects nothing of them.
Port Macquarie, on the western coast of Tasmania, or Van Diemen's
land, the deepest circle of the whole Australian inferno, the place
of which the history is a thirteen years' nightmare, had ceased to
be a penal settlement in 1833. Had Mitchel even heard of it, or had
an authentic story of it, the " Journal " would have blazed into a
page or two of very proper indignation. Histories and official re-
ports are well summarised in Ives's recent " History of Penal
Methods."
A HINT FROM NEW YORK 355
man on his estate at Longhorne, had visited America,
and had returned to Ireland and DubHn to take his
part in the fray as founder and first editor of the
"Irish Felon." The "Irish Felon" made the
Government uncomfortable for a month or so, and
was raided and quashed, and John Martin went over
the seas. Among the rebel brotherhood of Tasmania
he was known as " John Knox."
Throughout the vast region which in the annals
is rather vaguely distinguished as Botany Bay, there
were at this date not a few exiled Irish, resolute
enemies of England and all English Governments,
but men of character and moral worth. Of such were
Mitchel, Martin, Smith O'Brien, Kevin O'Doherty,
Clarence Mangan, Meagher, and others. These
banished rebels were for the most part settling in
their seats of ejectment under the Southern Cross.
Not many of them were men for an escape. To
Ireland, deep imaged in all their souls, they could
go home no more — as refugees, that is to say, from
British bonds. In one indifferent essay at flight
Smith O'Brien had been foiled.
But there is always the man who is bent on doing
it. If he be fit for an arduous escape he is far from
contemning risks ; but, having well weighed, em-
braces them. Return to Ireland was as impossible
for John Mitchel as for Smith O'Brien, but to a man
of Mitchel's literary genius America was an open
door. It was not a refuge, it was a fresh career.
New York was a Dublin where juries were not
packed for opposition writers. And from New
York to the cottage in Tasmania came the hint of
liberty.
In the summer of 1853 certain Irishmen in America
were taking measures to effect the release of certain
356 AN IRISH 'FORTY-EIGHTER
Irishmen in Van Diemen's Land, and on this mission
" Pat " Smyth sailed from New York. Arrived at
Tasmania, the emissary had a secret interview with
Mitchel, O'Brien, and Kevin O'Doherty. His in-
structions from the Irish Directory were to pro-
cure the escape of Mitchel and O'Brien, " or either
of us, if both could not go." As O'Brien was trans-
ported for life, Mitchel and O'Doherty urged him
to take the first chance. O'Brien declined, insisting
that he had had his chance and failed ; " and the
expenses incurred by it had been defrayed by public
money." Mitchel then said that he would make the
attempt himself. " Already," he notes in the
" Journal," " I begin to sniff the air of the upper
world, and to see daylight through the opening
gates of Hades." It was next decided that " John
Knox " (Martin) should fly with him.
Smyth at once set off for Melbourne, to seek a
ship. Good horses being essential to the business,
Mitchel had the humorous notion of buying from
the police magistrate of the district, Mr. Davis ;
and this gentleman innocently sold him his white
half-Arab, Donald, fleet and of great endurance.
By the 9th of April all seemed propitious. Smyth
had made arrangements with John Macnamara,
owner of the brigantine Waterlily ; and Mitchel and
" John Knox " were told that they had merely to hold
themselves in readiness. On the nth the plot was
blown to the moon. Smyth's plan, indeed, had been
known to the Governor for days ; the spot of em-
barkation, the signals to be used, everything.
Smyth had been arrested, and, after a night's jour-
ney with the police in an open spring-waggon, was
lying ill of a fever.
Two months went by. Early in June, Smyth was
PAROLE RESIGNED 357
well again, and an inmate of Nant Cottage ; the
second scheme was afoot. This centred in the hope
of a vessel bound for Sydney, which was to sail im-
mediately from Hobart Town. ** John Knox" had
finally decided on keeping out of the affair ; " be-
cause," says Mitchel, "if we miss the vessel at
Hobart Town, we might then have to spend several
weeks on the island, and be subjected to much hard-
ship (for it is now the depth of winter), and assume
various disguises — for which he is not well adapted."
Mitchel 's prime duty now was to rid himself of
his parole by formal act of resignation. Taking
leave of his wife (who from the first had abetted the
enterprise) he started, accompanied by Smyth, to
ride into Bothwell. On the way, a messenger coming
at a gallop from Hobart Town stopped them with
the tidings that the vessel, afraid of delaying longer,
had sailed for Sydney. "As we now stood, there-
fore, there was no arrangement for escaping out of
the island at all ; and if we got clear of the police
office, it was a matter of indifference to me whether
I should ride north, south, or east. Westward lay
impassable wilderness." On they rode into the
township, past the police-barrack, and to the office
of magistrate Davis.
" We dismounted. I walked in first, through the
little gate leading into the court, through the door,
which opened into a hall or passage, and thence into
the court-room, where I found his worship sitting
as usual. Near him sat Mr. Robinson, the police
clerk.
" ' Mr. Davis,' I said, * here is a copy of a note
which I have just despatched to the governor ; I
have thought it necessary to give you a copy.' The
note was as follows :
358 AN IRISH 'FORTY-EIGHTER
BoTHWELL, Hh June, 1853.
To THE LIEUT.-GOV., ETC.
Sir, — I hereby resign the ' ticket-of-leave,' and
withdraw my parole.
I shall forthwith present myself before the
police magistrate of Bothwell, at his office, show
him a copy of this note, and offer myself to be
taken into custody.
Your obedient servant,
John Mitchel.
" Mr. Davis took the note ; it was open. ' Do you
wish me,' he said, ' to read it ? ' * Certainly ; it
was for that I brought it.' He glanced over the
note, and then looked at me."
At this moment Smyth entered the office and
placed himself at Mitchel's side. Both to the magis-
trate and his clerk " Pat " was known as the corre-
spondent of the famous " New York Tribune " :
known also as the man who had come expressly
from America to get one or more of the expatriated
Irishmen out of Van Diemen's Land. So com-
pletely was Mr. Davis taken aback that he sat
speechless in his chair. Mitchel, as cool as possible,
suggested that the magistrate should take him forth-
with into custody. His worship, staring at Mitchel,
made no move, gave no order. Smyth, hand in
pocket, was toying with the butt of his revolver.
Mitchel had a brace of pistols in his breast-pocket,
and carried a heavy riding-whip. " Well, good
morning, sir ! " said Mitchel, putting on his hat.
" The moment I said ' Good morning,' Mr. Davis
shouted, * No — no ! stay here ! Rainsford ! Con-
stables ! ' The police clerk sat at his desk, looking
TO HORSE! 359
into vacancy. We walked out together through the
hall ; the constable in the district constable's office,
who generally acts as his clerk, now ran out, and
on being desired to stop us, followed us through the
court, and out into the street, but without coming
very near. At the little gate leading out of the court
into the street we expected to find the man on guard
on the alert between us and our horses. But this
poor constable, though he heard the magistrate's
orders, and the commotion, did not move. He was
holding two horses, one with each hand, and looked
on in amazement, while we passed him, and jumped
into our saddles."
Away they went ; residents of Bothwell, who quite
understood the situation, chuckling on the pathway ;
and boys at the corner, admiring the stride of the
Arab, shouting : " Three to one on the white 'un ! "
This was Mitchel's last impression of Bothwell on the
banks of the Tasmanian Clyde.
They galloped on till they were fairly in the forest ;
then, dismounting, exchanged horses and jackets,
and a temporary farewell ; Smyth fleeing due north
on Fleur-de-lis, and Mitchel on white Donald shaping
a farther course into the woods. Presently he met
by appointment a certain J H , son of an
English settler of those parts, who knew the bush
like a native. They struck over the mountains to
Westbury district, inhabited chiefly by Irish immi-
grants. The coast lay a hundred and thirty miles
northwards, but their mounts were fresh and in the
best fettle. It was mid- winter, and the night black
and frosty. High among the mountains they had
to plunge three miles through an icy marsh. Light-
ing on a shepherd's hut, they were advised by the
three occupants to proceed no farther that night ;
36o AN IRISH 'FORTY-EIGHTER
but Bothwell was not yet far enough in the rear,
and with a shepherd for guide they felt their way
again along an indistinguishable track. The kindly
guide lost himself, and the pair of travellers.
" Neither backwards nor forwards could we move
one yard : and there, within three miles of our pro-
posed shelter for the night, we were forced to make
our dismal bivouac. We lighted a fire with some
dead branches (for no true bushman goes without
matches) ; tied our poor horses to a honeysuckle
tree ; looked to our pistols ; picked the least poly-
gonal stones to sit down upon ; lighted our pipes,
and prepared to spend eight hours as jovially as
possible. Soon sleep overtook us, from utter ex-
haustion, and we would lie a few minutes on the
sharp stones by the fire until awakened by the
scorching of our knees, while our spinal marrow was
frozen into a soHd icicle. Then we would turn our
backs to the fire, and sleep again ; but, in five
minutes, our knees and toes were frozen ; our
moustaches stiff with ice, our spinal marrow dis-
solving in the heat. Then up again — another smoke,
another talk."
But Mitchel, robust and sinewy and thirty-five,
was the man of men for his adventure ; and the
dawn found him and his young companion fit, and
their horses fit : they pricked on to breakfast at the
shanty of another shepherd, " old Job." Job, it
seems, was not unused to the business of escapes ;
so, while the wife cooked a great breakfast, the
husband *' presented me with a razor, looking-glass,
basin, and soap, wherewith I made a complete
transfiguration of myself." The entry in the
" Journal " runs on : "I wrote a short note to my
wife, to tell her which way I had taken, and without
"ALL TRACE OF ME IS LOST!" 361
the least hesitation entrusted it to Job Sims, who
was to go over to Bothwell the next day with some
cattle for Mr. Russell [Job's employer], and who
undertook to deliver the note personally at Nant.
This man is an Englishman, and has been an old
prisoner ; yet I know he would not sell that note to
the enemy for a thousand pounds."
From Job's hut, after breakfast and the comple-
tion of his first disguise, Mitchel took horse again ;
H still riding with him, over a rough mountain
of which the track was well outlined. They were
destined now for the house of a Mr. Grover,^ whose
son was ready to help in the affair. Grover himself
was a magistrate of the colony, and neither Mitchel
nor H was acquainted with him, but they had
no hesitation in riding up to the house. They met
young Grover in the way. '* I am glad I met you,"
he said, " because it will save you the necessity of
caUing at my father's house ; the governor, you
know, is a magistrate, and it is as well not to run
risks." H had played his handsome part, and
now left Mitchel in the hands of Grover. Grover
led him out of the mountain region, and entrusted
him to a Mr. Wood, who carried him to the farm of
the Burkes at Westbury.
There is an entry in the " Journal " dated June
1 6th : " The Westbury police are patrolling night
and day, for my sake ; but this is no more than the
constables of all other districts are doing ; evidently
all trace of me is lost ; and the Government folk
have no reason for supposing me to be in this dis-
1 A fictitious name, as Mitchel says. There are several fictitious
names in the history of the escape. The true names are lost, and I
have discovered no trace whatever of them. Some parish record in
Tasmania might furnish a clue (the dates being not less historical
than the itinerary of Mitchel), and it would be slightly interesting.
362 AN IRISH 'FORTY-EIGHTER
trict, rather than any other. At any rate, in any
case, whatever may befall me, I feel absolutely out
of the enemy's power. The end of the enterprise
now must be America or a grave."
Ill
At the end of a week, during which he had kept
the strictest privacy of the Burkes' farmhouse,
Mitchel received a note from Smyth. The brigantine
Don Juan, belonging to Mr. Macnamara, sailing
shortly from Hobart Town for Melbourne, would
try to put in at some lonely bay on the north side
of the island. To such a rendezvous Mitchel must
make his way as best he could. On the 22nd of June
it was learned that the vessel would call " at Emu
Bay, five days hence." The journey to this spot was
not above eighty miles ; but it was now midwinter,
the floods were out, and by land at all events Emu
Bay had become " totally inaccessible." At all cost,
however, the effort must be made ; and it was
thought that, could the Don Juan come eastwards
a little towards Port Sorel, Mitchel and his escort
might attain that point.
At ten on the night of the 24th he rode away with
a cavalcade of seven — two Burkes, Wood and his
brother, O'K , O'Mara, and a Tipperary giant
named Foley. Their first halt was at the house of
O'K , where beefsteaks hissed on a roaring fire ;
and here, in the heart of the Tasmanian bush, it was
as though they had alighted in a corner of old
Ireland.
" One of the peculiarities of Westbury district is
that you find Irish families, and whole Irish neigh-
bourhoods, associating together and seldom meeting
SHIP GONE! 363
foreigners : for even the assigned convict-servants
whom these people select are all Irish. Thus they
preserve, even in the second generation, Irish ways
and strong Irish accents ; and but a few weeks have
gone by since, in this very house, on the death of
O'K 's old mother, a regular wake was held, and
experienced crones raised a true caome over the
corpse, startling the cockatoos with their wild and
unwonted ululu."
The moon went down : to horse again. By hill
and frozen marsh, by deep creeks with rotten banks,
they rode in darkness. From one peril at least the
fugitive and his stalwart seven were secure ; through
those wildernesses in winter no police would follow
them. Mitchel himself was at this time an adept
at bush riding, but never before, he says, had he
encountered such a task for horsemen. In the red
dawn of the 25th they were at one moment extri-
cating O'K 's horse from a morass, and at
another assisting both O'Mara and his steed from a
flooded creek in which they were all but swept away.
Late that evening they came out from the hills upon
the tide-water of the Tamar. x\voiding the little
settlement of York in Devon, the midmost of the
three northern counties, they made for the woods,
and bivouacked there through the night. Daybreak
saw them again in the saddle ; another four miles
of difficult journeying, and then they caught the
sound of the sea. " We scaled the sand-hills ; and
there was the blessed sea — but, as far as the eye
could sweep it, not a sail ! "
What to do next ? Where they were they could
stay no longer, for their food was out, and the party
must break up. For Mitchel there was the dismal
prospect of retreating to some station among the
364 AN IRISH 'FORTY-EIGHTER
north-western mountains, where he might tarry as
a stock-keeper until the spring.
Meanwhile, Wood proposed to carry him on the
evening of this day to the dwelling of ** a gentleman
named Miller," an Englishman, long resident in
London, at present established on the shore of Port
Sorel inlet.
" Half a mile from Miller's we halted, and Wood
rode on to make sure that no strangers were about
the place. Miller himself returned with Wood. He
had never seen me before ; but seemed delighted
that we had come to him. He assured us that as
he had no servants at that time, and as his house
was quite off all tracks and roads, I might, if neces-
sary, remain three months there unsuspected. On
the other side of Port Sorel inlet, which is not half
a mile wide at the mouth, stands a township, with
police office, magistrate, and the rest of the appara-
tus ; and Miller says the last stranger who appeared
at his house was a constable from Launceston, bear-
ing the despatch a fortnight ago to all the stations
along that coast, announcing my departure from
Bothwell and enjoining vigilance for my sake.
" ' All special messengers,' said he, * bearing
despatches from Launceston, must come to me, and
request me to put them across the water in my boat,
which is the only boat on this side. So, you see, it
is all right ; you can stay here in perfect safety.
" O'K declared he could not see how this
made all right, for, said he, * If our journey in this
direction comes to be known, as it must be in a few
days, your next visitor will be another express con-
stable.'
" * The very thing,' said Miller, * that we want.
The fellow can't go over without my help : I can
BAFFLED AGAIN ! 365
make him drunk here, and take the despatch from
him, or bribe him to return and say he deUvered it ;
or drown him, if you Uke, in the passage.' "
To all but the drowning of the despatch-bearer
Mitchel agreed ; and his friends went off, though not
without promise to return at need. For a week or
so he was sheltered by his new host, and then the
Burkes turned up again with another scheme of
escape. Mitchel was to go with them to Launceston,
and thence by steamer to Melbourne. His passage
had been secured, and he would go on board dis-
guised as a priest, " Father Macnamara." Farewell
at once, then, to his kind English host and hostess ;
and once more in the saddle. On the 6th of July
Mitchel and the Burkes slept at a hut in the woods,
and on the 7th completed the sixty miles to Launces-
ton. Here Mitchel " got rigged up instantly as a
Catholic priest — shaved from the eyes to the throat ;
dressed in a long black coat, with upright collar, the
narrow white band round the neck, and a broad black
hat." But in the end the captain was afraid to take
him on board at Launceston ; so greatly, since
Mitchel's flight from Bothwell, had the rigour of
searching been increased. There was nothing for it
but to go by open boat forty-five miles below Laun-
ceston to Georgetown ; and on this new voyage,
weary with sixty miles of riding, he entered at night-
fall.
On the following day he was back at Launceston,
baffled again !
Aided by yet another friendly stranger, Mr.
Barrett, he had got within sight of Georgetown.
Here in the woods of the western bank he lay while
Barrett went off to reconnoitre. No sooner had
Barrett gone than Mitchel perceived the steamer
366 AN IRISH 'FORTY-EIGHTER
rounding a promontory three miles away. She
stopped, and the pohce-boat rowed out to overhaul
her. To the utter dismay of Mitchel, the instant the
police had done their work the vessel resumed her
course for Melbourne. As she started, Barrett re-
turned with the four-oared gig ; Mitchel, gathering
his clerical skirts around him, leaped in, and the
men pulled for life. It was too late, the steamer
was four miles ahead ; the chance was lost. Back
to Launceston they toiled all night through a shriek-
ing storm which laid them twice on reefs. The
captain of the steamer had never seen them, and had
been afraid to wait for Mitchel after the departure of
the police-boat.
Mitchel's friends began to think that Heaven had
pronounced against him. Not so thought Mitchel,
whose heart melted no jot ; and he astonished them
with a declaration that he would now go by public
coach to Hobart Town, a distance of a hundred and
twenty miles. The coach road traversed seven or eight
townships, in which at least a dozen police stations
must be reckoned with.
At every stage of this flight some brother unmet
before is encountered. The Burkes, a Wood, a
Miller, a Barrett, rise up out of the bush as Mitchel
goes stealthily but steadfastly through it. The
cases of Charles II and Prince Charles Edward ex-
cepted, no escape is forwarded by so many agents
to whom the escaper is in effect unknown. It is
one Connellan who takes places in the night mail
for himself and Mitchel.
As " Father Blake " Mitchel travelled by coach
to Hobart Town. In the conveyance he says :
" I found, besides Connellan, two other passengers
inside, one of them a man whom I had met and
"THE REV. MR. BLAKE" 367
talked with, at least once before, and who certainly
would have known me had I been less effectually
disguised. He is T. MacDowell, late Attorney-
General for the colony — a dangerous neighbour.
Not that I believe it would have been running any
risk to confide the matter to him, but there was
another stranger. Mr. MacDowell tried to draw me
into conversation, asked me about * my bishop,'
but I was shy, unsatisfactory, Jesuitical.
** Towards morning we passed the point of the
mail road nearest to Bothwell ; within sixteen
miles ; and I gazed wistfully up at the gloomy ridge
of the Den Hill. Beyond that hill, embowered among
the boscages of Bothwell, lies my little quasi-home,
which my eyes will never see again, with all its
sleeping inmates lulled by the murmuring Clyde."
Horses were changed at a place called Greenponds,
where Mitchel was known by sight to everyone. It
was four o'clock of a winter's morning, but special
constables were on duty. For all that Mitchel knew,
they had risen early on his account, but no one recog-
nised the Rev. Mr. Blake. At Bridgewater, not
venturing to drive up in daylight to the Ship Inn at
Hobart Town, he got down from the coach, passed
the hours until evening in strolling to and fro along
the Derwent, dined at the solitary inn, and stepped
into the night mail. Within a few miles of Hobart
Town, Kevin O'Doherty, who had come out to meet
him, climbed the coach and plumped into the oppo-
site seat. O'Doherty knew that Mitchel was to
travel as a priest, but not a glance of recognition
passed from his eyes. At Connellan's house in
Collins Street, Hobart Town, Smyth received him
just as unknowingly. His disguise was perfect.
Connellan came in, and within an hour a fresh
368 AN IRISH 'FORTY-EIGHTER
plan was struck out. The passenger-brig Emma was
about to sail for Sydney. Owner and agent were
well disposed, and Mitchel could be taken in her as
contraband. On the evening of July i8th he stepped
aboard as '* Mr. Wright." With a shiver of delight
he saw his wife and children sitting on the poop in
the moonlight.
The Emma gUded northwards to Sydney. At
Sydney, Smyth, who had accompanied them, took
lodgings for the family ; and on the 28th of July
they went on board the Orkney Lass, bound for San
Francisco. There was a difficulty in getting away,
and a day or two later we have this entry in the
Journal :
" August 2nd. — On board. The complement of
our crew is made up. We lifted our anchor at eleven
o'clock. Very faint breeze, and that rather against
us. The ship was to be searched at the Heads — the
last searching.
" — It is over. The man five feet ten in stature,
with dark hair, was recognised by no enemy. We
cleared the Heads about four o'clock ; and a fresh
breeze sprang up from the north ; and now the sun
is setting beyond the blue mountains ; and the
coast of New South Wales, a hazy line upon the
purple sea, is fading into a dream. Whether I ever
was truly in Australia at all, or whether in the body
or out of the body — I cannot tell ; but I have had
bad dreams."
On October 9th Mitchel and his little family and
the devoted Smyth (who deserves a chapter to him-
self, for there is no more loyal confederate in an
escape) sailed into the Golden Gate. They were
three weeks in California, and journeyed thence to
New York, into which Mitchel, at heart the simplest
MAYOR OF NEW YORK 369
of men, the devoutest of rebels, was made to enter
with a kind of splendour. Our part in him is here
at an end, but his life is of moment to its close. His
grandson, Mr. John P. Mitchel, was Mayor of New
York in 1913.
2 A
XII
THE FIRST MAN WHO BROKE THE
BASTILLE
SINGULAR EXPLOITS OF THE ADVENTURER AND
PRISONER STYLED THE ABB^ COUNT DE BUQUOIT
" Fringed with fire." — Tennyson.
" We can frame a ladder." — Longfellow.
" A dark horse." — Disraeli.
" You are not like Cerberus, three gentlemen at once, are you ? "
Sheridan.
THE FIRST MAN WHO BROKE
THE BASTILLE
I
THERE is no new thing. Latude, the tearful
and vindictive, whose naughty but captivat-
ing narrative has touched the sensibilities of five
generations of the credulous, was not the first
prisoner who defeated the terrible Bastille. Forty-
nine years earlier, if the evidence to be produced
admits of so precise a reckoning, another person
took the hazard of his life on an outer wall of this
fortress. With Latude, in the light of the most
recent French criticism, we have come to a very
intimate acquaintance. His sufferings are great,
his prowess as a prison-breaker is immense ; but
the man himself we are bidden, on the clearest proofs,
not merely to condemn but to contemn.
His predecessor in one chamber and another of
the Bastille is not at all so plain a character. If
there is charm in a puzzle of identity, here, I make
bold to say, is one which no scrutiny will resolve
for us. It is a puzzle, moreover (though I would
not overrate its interest), which until this moment
has escaped attention. The few French writers
whom the subject has engaged (and the far fewer
English ones who copy them) have received as
history some fantastic and not unaffecting state-
ments which I have rather easily traced to the fancy
of the inventor. Here, however, my slender credit
373
374 THE MAN WHO BROKE THE BASTILLE
gives out ; for in the end the reader will perceive
that with the inventor himself I stand on a footing
of the haziest. The question to entertain us is,
who was the prisoner that escaped from the Bastille
forty-nine years before Latude ?
With this preamble I introduce the protean man
who makes a faint mark in French annals under
the style and title of the Abbe Count de Buquoit.
We are first to imagine him an orphan at the age
of four. An uncle, the Count de Bouquoit,^ takes
indifferent charge of his studies. He tells us that
at seventeen he entered the army, and, disgracing
or committing himself in some way (his Memoirs,
in the third person, are cryptic enough at points),
he quitted or was cashiered from the service, and
betook himself to penance in a retreat of the Jesuits.
The Jesuits were too close to the world for him, and
the penitent decided for the Trappists. Into this
brotherhood of the mute he entered, and here he
stayed until his health declined. The notion then
took him of the life of a wandering monk, and he
started on foot for Paris. The life contemplative
was not, he had decided, for him.
Enfeebled by the rigours of the monastery he
strayed into a vineyard and began a meal of grapes.
While at this refection he was insulted, he says, by
a peasant, who had possibly remarked that the grapes
had an owner. In an instant La Trappe and all its
exhortations were forgotten, and drawing the sword
he had borne in the service of the king, Buquoit
fell on his reprover. The man fled and his assailant
was seized with remorse. He was wearing a rich
coat (and seems altogether, for a travelling re-
Ligieux, to have taken the road in somewhat dubious
* Spelled also Buquoy, Bucquoit, Bucquoy, etc.
SEIZED AS A SMUGGLER 375
guise), and this, to mortify himself, he bestowed on
the first beggar whom he met.
Whither or how far the wanderer got we know
not, and there falls in his broken narrative a gap of
two years or so. Then we find him, still bent on
renouncing the world, teaching in a seminary at
Rouen, where youths were being prepared for the
parish priesthood. His zeal and his eloquence in
these modest seats attracted the notice of the Jesuits
of Rouen, who vainly sought to entice him among
them. He returned to Paris, fell sick again, and
tells us that he lay two years betwixt life and
death.
Recovering, he organised (on principles of his own)
a community of priests in a house hired by him in
the faubourg St. Antoine ; was plagued and pro-
ceeded against for so doing ; and, his health once
more succumbing, he became at this wretched
crisis a prey to religious doubt, and gradually re-
solved upon re-entering the world ('* // devint moms
devot, et meme it resolut de rentrer dans le monde ").
Getting in touch again with his family he felt a
sudden desire to return to the army, and informs
us that he was even on the point of raising a regi-
ment. Meanwhile, faring into Burgundy on some
business not very plain to the reader, he was there
arrested on the curious charge of having promoted
or aided a rising of faux-sauniers — smugglers, or
unlicensed dealers in salt.^ He cleared himself
with little difficulty, but his day of trouble was
^ Concerning the one-time notorious gabelle, or salt tax, a main
source of revenue in France up to the era of the Revolution, no
reader wrill be very eager for information. In the newest " History
of France," Mr. Moreton Macdonald's, pubhshed in the autumn of
1915, the subject is discussed. In itself the gabelle was not an im-
proper tribute, but its incidence was very unequal, and the mode of
376 THE MAN WHO BROKE THE BASTILLE
dawning anew. Setting out again for Paris he
encountered at Sollien two friends who were ex-
claiming against the terrible taxes of Louis XIV.
During dinner at the inn Buquoit launched out on
the same topic, broached a scheme of government
under which all were to be happy, and was warmly
applauded, not only by his two hosts, but by every-
body in the room who heard him. This brave dis-
course, he whispers us, was presently to be used to
his injury.
Continuing his journey to the capital he entered
a little hostel in a village near Sens and called for
food. A bowl of soup, a fatal bowl, was set before
him. *' Rather salt, this," says Buquoit, tasting it.
" Salt seems cheap in these parts. You've had a
visit from the smugglers, I suspect ! " The landlady
declared with vehemence that she " never had no
dealings with them sort " ; and proceeded to tell
her guest of the dreadful fate of the whole band.
All but thirty had been cut " in pieces," and the
thirty cast into prison. " Poor devils, ah ! poor
devils," exclaimed Buquoit. " They should have
had a man like me at their head. I'd have brought
them out of it ! "
In this strain he went on, denouncing taxes and
the rest of it, until a bailiff of the place (" recors "),
who chanced to be breakfasting at the next table,
demanded to know who this orator might be. Re-
ceiving a snub for answer the bailiff went scowling
out, returning presently with another limb. The
levying it unjust in the extreme. In the districts where the impost
was heaviest (" pays de grandes gabelles "), the burden of it was
intolerable, and Mr. Macdonald states that under Louis XIII "a
man was obliged to do with less than one-third of the salt that he
consumes to-day." The smuggler carried on his trade with the sup-
port of the whole country-side.
CHAINED TO THE BED 377
other limb had a following of five or six at his heels,
and in a trice Buquoit was a prisoner.
Next came the provost of Sens. The provost
was civil enough ; but, said he, since the gentleman
had not his papers of identification on him, he must
for the moment pass gaolwards. That evening, in
brief, Buquoit found himself the guest of the prison
of Sens, grievously suspected of having traduced
the King's majesty, and of being leagued in Heaven
knows what manner with the turbulent smugglers
of salt.
There was a hostile Archbishop of Sens, with
whom Buquoit had had passages at law, and his
grace suggested that inquisition be made along all
the route traversed by the prisoner since the hour
of his departure from Paris. By this means every
scrap of valiant talk on the traveller's part, his
denunciations of unjust and unequal taxes and of
government, came up to his hurt ; and plainer and
plainer it grew that the case of this conspirator was
not for the tribunal of Sens. To Paris it and he must
go. So at two a.m. on a certain morning Buquoit
was snatched from bed, ironed as to wrists and ankles,
thrown into a carriage, and driven off under escort
of a dozen archers.
From Sens he had twice attempted to free himself,
and at Melun, on this progress to Paris, he made as
worthy a bid as the situation allowed of : chained
by one leg to his bed, and a guard sleeping or feign-
ing sleep on the floor. Even at this first venture
he seems to have shown something of Sheppard's
knack in disposing of a manacle. But flight from
the bedroom at Melun was in the main impossible,
and Buquoit is as yet but a gifted novice.
The twelve King's archers brought him quite
^y^ THE MAN WHO BROKE THE BASTILLE
safely to Paris, depositing him there at one of its
oldest prisons (these many years demolished), Fort-
I'Eveque.^
The escape of Buquoit from Fort-l'Eveque com-
mends us to this one point at least, that the new
will now and then transcend the old. In its chief
and best particular it admits no parallel. The reser-
vations must be made that the detail is Buquoit's
own, and that it staggers us a little.
No sooner was he in, he says, than he set to work
upon a plan for getting out.
The natural difficulties of the prison were extra-
ordinary. It stood on a kind of precipice, and sheer
and far below the rim of the walls lay one of the
quays of Paris, known as the Valley of Misery,
From Buquoit's window the view of the precipice
was frightful ; and in the prison a story was tradi-
tional of a former captive who after climbing to the
top, and looking out, had retreated in dismay.
* Or For-l'fiveque, or Fors-r6veque. The name, at first sight
curious, signifies the Bishop's Prison (" forum episcopi," the bishop's
forum, the bishop's court). In its eariiest days it was the seat of
jurisdiction of the Bishop of Paris, whose legal representative had
a lodging there at will. Later it was a pen for debtors and " refrac-
tory comedians " (" comediens recalcitrants ") ; and in its associ-
ations with the theatre we discover the sole amusing episode in the
chronicles of Fort-l'^veque. During the reign of Louis XV, the
players of the Comedie frangaise quarrelled with and sent to Coven-
try a member of the company who would not pay his debts. On
the night that they refused to act with him there was a tremendous
to-do in the theatre ; and next day, or a day or two later, the whole
troupe was conveyed to Fort-l'fiveque. One of the party was that
commanding and seductive actress. Mile Clairon, who held a little
court in her cell every afternoon. The punishment lasted a week ;
and when the comedians were released they gave permission to the
debtor to resign his membership of the theatre. — Duban (" Les
Prisons de Paris sous la Revolution ") says that Fort-l'liveque was
standing early in the nineteenth century. Dulaure (" Histoire
Civile, Physique et Morale de Paris ") states very precisely that,
" becoming useless," it was demolished in 1780. This we may
accept, for there is no IP.^n.tion of Fort-l'^vgque among the prisons
of the Revolution.
BURNING HIS WAY OUT 379
Buquoit took time to get his bearings, and came to
think that the impossible might yield to diligence.
Under pretence of faintness he had persuaded a
warder to take him up to a window in the loft or
lumber-room of the prison, and thence he had sur-
veyed the scene. Returning to his cell he debated
on the means of leaving it again unobserved. Of
the implements of the prison-breaker he had none,
and he sat in his cell and stared at his door and his
walls. An inspiration of the suddenest informed him.
He would escape as no one had ever before escaped.
He would burn his way through the door of his cell !
A day or two to revolve this project, and we see
him getting leave to roast his eggs over his own
charcoal fire in his cell. The prison asleep, he
plants his brazier beneath the door and waits upon
the flame. It mounts (we must take this as we
choose) ; and when the door is partly in ashes
Buquoit creeps through the fire and smoke. No one
stirs, not a nose in the prison is ravaged by the
smell. But the fire must be quenched or it will
spread. Buquoit 's device baulks his English trans-
lator, but readers of Swift will recall the prowess
(so indifferently rewarded !) of Captain Lemuel
Gulliver at the burning of the palace of Lilliput. It
seems a trifle inadequate ; but the prison escaped
the fire, and Buquoit escaped the prison.
From the corridor he mounted easily to the loft ;
but now there was the precipice to face which had
cooled the resolution of that other fugitive. Im-
mense iron spikes protruding at intervals from the
prison wall multiplied the pains and terrors of the
descent. Buquoit, moreover, was without a rope.
What light he had I know not, but we are to under-
stand that in the loft was stored a pile of mattresses.
38o THE MAN WHO BROKE THE BASTILLE
and on these the prisoner went furiously to work
till he had torn from the coverings strips sufficient
for his purpose. The passage that follows in the
narrative is not wanting in obscurity.^
What does this mean ? He could scarcely have
dragged his bed up to the loft. Does he, after twist-
ing the strips into a rope, return with it to his cell
and make his exit thence? Apparently not, for
" lucarne " is commonly rendered an attic window,
a window in a roof, or a sky-light ; and sky-light or
window in a roof is plainly the meaning imposed on
us by the context. This refers us to a loft or top
chamber, rather than to a cell underneath. It seems
probable that Buquoit, a deft and ready man, had
the forethought to carry up with him some part of
the wood or iron of his bed, for use at need.
What is certain is that he got out.
Towards the point of morn he alighted on the
quay of the Vale of Misery. Steering himself as best
he could over the spikes projecting from the wall and
window, he had saved neither clothes nor skin ;
and stood there torn, bleeding, panting, and shaken.
Barely recovering his wind, having no fixed course
to shape, he made off at hazard. Early shopkeepers
gazed at him from their doors. A parcel of roy-
sterers from some night-house, stumbling on the
scarecrow man, who dripped blood as he ran,
started immediately in pursuit. A lucky downpour
scattered them, and again Buquoit was saved.
Turning and doubling he traversed St. Eustache
and came to a cafe near the Temple. Here he
entered, not without misgiving. From the Vale of
^ " II les attacha [the strips of canvas] les unes aux auires, et en
accrocha un bout qu'il noua a une des colonncs de son lit. II mit cette
colonne en travers prds de la lucarne, et la corde se trouva surement
accrochSe dans le grenier."
LOUIS XIV 381
Misery he had issued — and looked, as he was aware,
a proper denizen of the same. The man of the
house surveyed him with astonishment, and Buquoit
gave one timid glance around and slunk off.
Whither now ? He called to mind a relative of
one of his servants, a woman who lodged near by
at the unheard-of sign of the " Nom de Jesus." To
her he went with a legend of a night's journey from
the country and an attack by robbers in a wood.
He had money, and this in such harbourage was
doubtless his best passport.
Under shelter of the Name of Jesus he stayed
until nightfall, and then judged it prudent to de-
camp. Should he fly the country — if this were
possible ? Or should he remain and seek aid in high
quarters — even, perhaps, redress ? An Abbe Count
de Buquoit might take this course. Should he not
appeal to '' le parlement," or even to the King
himself ?
From this period, the vain efforts of nine un-
propitious months can be comprised in a few sen-
tences. Into one asylum and another in turn he
dives, despatching from each petition after petition
to Louis XIV. This was a monarch whose policy,
at whatever juncture, very seldom knew the weak-
ness of sentiment or pity. Is it the affair of a dis-
carded mistress ? The beautiful and gentle La
Valliere, the one woman who loved this stony little
piece of high-heeled regal pomposity, dies un-
heeded in her convent of the Carmelites. Is it the
affair of a prisoner of State ? The Man in the Mask,
after twenty-four years of imprisonment, droops
into a coffin in the Bastille. Buquoit, Abbe and
Count, late of Fort-l'Eveque, directed his petitions
to the wrong address !
382 THE MAN WHO BROKE THE BASTILLE
Nine months elapsing, and hope changing to a
phantom, he made a desperate attempt to leave the
country. Arrested at La Fere he was consigned to
prison, suspected of this and that. From this crib
(on a second essay) he effected an escape worthy of
the hero of Fort-rEveque ; was retaken ; carried
back to Paris, as from Sens — and this time over the
drawbridge of the Bastille.
II
And now, who is this problematic prisoner, for I
have already hinted at a mystery ? Not to break
the narrative, but for a moment to divert it into
quite another channel, let us try to come at the man
himself, whom a cell of the Bastille is about to
swallow. We have surprised him in sundry postures,
for the most part rather uncommon. Within the
purview of adventure, transformations of guise and
character answering to these are rare enough. Here,
to begin, is a young officer of noble birth in the army
of Louis XIV. By and by, he either rids himself of
the army or the army rids itself of him, and he comes
under the influence of the Jesuits. He is now a
penitent, and in this humour finds the Jesuits too
worldly for him. He goes over to the Trappists.
The austerities of La Trappe are greater than he can
bear, and he sets out on a pious march through
France. At Rouen he is teacher or pupil in a semi-
nary of budding priests. Returning to Paris, he opens
a religious house of his own. Re-entering the world,
he has passages that bring suspicion on him as a
friend of the salt smugglers and a fearless critic of
King Louis. He is seized and imprisoned. From
Fort-l'Eveque in Paris he makes a perilous and
SOURCES 383
brilliant escape. All eccentricities embraced, he
seems a rash, half-balanced, honest character, mixed
of the most inconsistent qualities. Who is he ? Who
is the Abbe Count de Buquoit ?
Under the name Buquoit, in the Catalogue of the
British Museum, enquirers are referred to ** Archam-
baud (Jean A. D.) Count de." Under this latter we
have two entries :
" Histoire Singuliere de I' Abbe de Buquoit, prison-
nier de la Bastille, 1788. Svo." And
" Bvenement des plus rares, ou l' histoire du S' Abbe
Comte de I'Abbe Comte de Buquoy. Singulierement
son evasion du Fort-V^veque — VAllemand d cote,
revue et augmentee, Deuxieme Edition, Avec plusieurs
de ses Ouvrages, Vers et Proses, et se vend chez Jean
de la Franchise, rue de la Reforme d V Esperance d
Bonnefoy. 1719."
It will be observed that the " Histoire Singuliere "
bears a date nearly seventy years later than the
" Evenement." There are no other dates in either
work. Both volumes are practically anonymous,
and I can trace no other book on the subject. My
reason for believing that there is no other will
presently be stated. The British Museum possesses
no autographical authority, no memoir whatever in
the first person. The two Buquoit volumes on its
shelves, such as their worth is, are probably of great
rarity. In the splendid collection of the London
Library there is not a copy of either.
In the " Histoire Sijtguliere " and the " Evenement "
we have, I think, the source of the few accounts of
Buquoit published in French. In English there are,
I am pretty sure, no original notices of any kind. The
man himself made no such stir as Latude did, and
his name soon dropped out of history.
384 THE MAN WHO BROKE THE BASTILLE
From a first and rapid examination of their con-
tents I received the impression that Buquoit, and
he alone, was the author of both works. He had,
I thought, at an interval of sixty-nine years (he
lived, it is said, to the age of ninety), taken in hand
again the " Evenement " of 1719, and transformed
it into the " Histoire Singuliere " of 1788. This im-
pression, I am now convinced, is erroneous. It is
wellnigh as certain as may be that we have of
Buquoit 's nothing but the " Evenement."
As a specimen of printing and binding this is an
elegant little 12 wo ; a lovely bit of genuine old
calf (a thing not easy to come by in these days),
smelling delicately ; an exquisite fount of type, very
small and close. The German version runs side by
side with the French. As a literary affair, on the
other hand, the " Evenement " is a rag-bag. There
is here no attempt at the calculated, artistic, emo-
tional appeal of that notable performer Latude.
Buquoit's style, if a foreigner can pronounce on it,
is loose and undistinguished, not always even quite
grammatical. The thing as a whole is a hotch-potch
and full of matter quite irrelevant. Buquoit seems
to have thrown together what he regarded as his
finest compositions ; with (as I at first thought) a
series of letters exchanged between two ladies, one
at Paris, the other at the Hague. It is from these
epistles that we are enabled to erect the fabric of
Buquoit's astonishing adventures. Not one of them
is dated, and in this circumstance arose my doubts
concerning them.
A word now as to the " Histoire Singuliere," the
1788 volume which also, as I have said, I attributed
to Buquoit. Here we have a simple and plain-
going narrative of the escapes, extracted (verbatim
-MRS. HARRIS" 385
for the most part) from the " Evenement " letters of
ces dames of Paris and the Hague. The mass of
extraneous and superfluous stuff, including poor
Buquoit's finest compositions, has gone by the
board.
These, then, are the two works, and I should now
say why I at last satisfied myself that they consti-
tute the sole original sources. A raid on French
encyclopaedias and dictionaries of biography revealed
the fact (and none other of consequence) that the
authors of articles on Buquoit have based them
entirely and unreservedly on the *' Evenement " and
the " Histoire." They have discovered no other
fountain. It will be sufficient to indicate Firmin
Didot's fearsome publication in sixty volumes of
small type, and the not less familiar " Biographic
Universelle." Here are in the main the same state-
ments, with the same attribution.
Presumably therefore the Bibliotheque Nationale
in Paris has nothing more to show than our own
British Museum, and the two volumes are the
spring of the streamlet that has flowed from them.
What has appeared in EngUsh on Buquoit's ac-
count is negligible. Davenport, in his " History of
the Bastille " (1892), has merely translated, without
acknowledgment, the article in the " Biographie
Universelle."
As to the two works, I submit, on final examina-
tion of both, that the " Evenement " is unquestion-
ably Buquoit's own, and that he has no part in the
second. The letters of the lady of Paris and the
lady of the Hague are a game he plays with the reader.
Both ladies are of the celebrated family of Sarah
Gamp's Mrs. Harris. There was no sich parties.
The device on Buquoit's part has a touch of clumsi-
2 B
386 THE MAN WHO BROKE THE BASTILLE
ness, but it gives him an advantage — unimportant
enough. Challenged on this point or that, he can say
that the story is told by one lady for the entertain-
ment of another, and is nowhere meant to be brought
to the bar of history.
Sixty-nine years later some anonymous literary
person in Paris, owning or getting possession of the
" Evenement," sets out to make a new version of it,
and the " Histoire Singuliere " is the result. The
volume of 1719 we may suppose to have been long
out of print ; it has not in itself life enough for a
season. Out of the letters of this volume the tran-
scriber unknown digs a new history of the escapes ;
and both works have passed as Buquoit's own.
This I conjecture to be the truth of the matter.
But we are now coming to the interest of dis-
covery. In the sparse French notices of Buquoit
there is never a hint that he is not the man who
poses for us in the letters of the " Evenement."
From first to last he has been taken at his own
valuation : devotee, novice of the Jesuits, Trappist,
soldier, founder of a religious house, defender of the
rights of the people, and what not. All this while,
in that vast repository, magazine or chronicle of
crime, misdemeanour, and misfortune, the Archives
of the Bastille, there have lain a few dry sentences
condensing for us the true history of the " Abbe
Count de Buquoit." The most pregnant of these I
here for the first time reproduce. In Funck-Bren-
tano's transcription of the Archives is this entry : ^
Du Bucquoy on Du Bucquoit de Maurican {I'abM
Jean Pierre ^), ci-devant prieur de Nogent-sur -Seine —
Entre le 9 Juin, 1707, snr ordre contresigne Ponchar-
^ Register of the Bastille, M. 1991.
* This should be Jean Albert, I think.
EXIT "ABBE COUNT DE BUQUOIT" 387
train. Arrete comnie espion de Malhorough [sic].
J. P. Duhusquoit, dit de Monceaux, dit de Maurican,
dit Becquei, dit Besquef, dit Dudois du le More. Ar-
rets d Sens pour faux-saulnage, transfere au Fort-
VEveque, d'ou il sevada la nuit du 24-25 Septembre,
1706. Arrete de nouveau a La Fere le it Mai, 1707.
Transfere d la Bastille le 9 Juin, 1707, d'ou il s'est
sauve le 5 Mai, 1709. Arrete de nouveau d La Fere le
II Mai, 1709.
In English :
Du Bucquoy or Du Bucquoit de Maurican (the
abbe Jean Pierre), one-time Prior of Nogent-on-
Seine. Entered June 9, 1707, on an order counter-
signed by Ponchartrain. Arrested as one of Marl-
borough's spies. J. P. Dubusquoit, alias de Mon-
ceaux, alias de Maurican, alias Becquet, alias
Besquet, alias Dudois du le More. Arrested at
Sens for salt-smuggling. Sent on to Fort-l'Eveque,
whence he escaped on the night of the 24-25th
September, 1706.^ Rearrested at La Fere, May nth,
1707. Transferred to the Bastille, June 9th, 1707,
from which he disappeared May 5th, 1709. Ar-
rested again at La Fere, May nth, 1709. ^
Exit at this point, under his panoply of aliases,
the " Abbe Count de Buquoit " ! Here is no Abbe,
here is no Count, here is no Buquoit, or Bucquoy, or
Archambaud. But we must detain him a moment
longer. His dossier, or docket, is not yet complete.
^ The clerk of the register is summary in his style, and saves his
literary labours. The entry begins with Buquoit's reception at the
Bastille, on seizure for espionage. His earlier arrest at Sens carries
us back to the salt business.
* This, I think, is a slip of the clerk's pen, or he has forgotten or
neglected to amend his entry. A traveller, s'aspected of being
Buquoit, was arrested on this date and almost immediately afterwards
released. Buquoit himself, quite safe at this hour, seems never again
to have been in custody.
388 THE MAN WHO BROKE THE BASTILLE
I turn to Ravaisson's edition of the Archives, which
is fuller than Funck-Brentano's.^ Here we discover
the State correspondence on the subject. It runs to
some fifty letters, long and short. Out of these I
cull one of the very briefest. It is from the Abbe of
La Trappe to the minister d'Argenson.
" Du Bucqtwy, au sujet duquel vous m'avez fait
I'honneur de mecrire, ne se trouve pas siir nos registres.
II aurait pu dire Vannee de sa retraite, son surnom,
celui du pere maitre des novices, et autres fnarques.
A. Br
In English :
" Du Bucquoy, concerning whom I am honoured
by your letter, is not entered on our books. It would
be interesting to know the year in which he came to
us, his domestic name, the name of the priest re-
sponsible for the novices at that date — and other
particulars."
Thus also in his turn vanishes the Trappist !
The case, at the end of such a hearing as has been
possible, leaves on our hands a man of no identity.
Priest, soldier, adventurer of whatever kind, he has
laughed at us, not very wittily, and to no apparent
purpose ; but he has kept his mask, and it is im-
penetrable. No one knows, or will know, who was
the " Abbe Count de Buquoit."
After his discomfiture as a man, I am now again
* Space availing, it would be possible, I tiiink, to interest the
reader in the history of these documents, a history quite exceptional.
In boxes in a hall of the Bastille the chronicle of the fortress from
the year 1659 was carefully disposed. Thousands of papers had
been arranged, classified, and docketed. On the day of the taking
of the Bastille, and for two days afterwards, these registers were
kicked about the courtyard of the prison, ransacked, and pillaged.
The Electoral Assembly appointed commissioners to collect them.
In the last century the labour of classification was uiidertaken by
Fran(,:ois Kavaisson. Ravaisson was succeeded by Funck-Brentano,
who devoted thirteen years to his task.
THE BASTILLE 389
to show him as a prison-breaker, who, if he has rivals
in the art, is on a footing of equahty with the masters.
Ill
It was on the 9th of June, 1707, that the Governor
of the Bastille received this picaresque hero of the
six or seven aliases. Of prisoners of no particular
estate the Bastille was at all times a touch contemp-
tuous, and Buquoit was placed in the basement of
the tower which he calls the Bretigniere. This I con-
ceive to be the Baziniere, for there was no tower
named Bretigniere.^
In the dungeon of the Baziniere he stayed to under-
go his first interrogation. This completed, he was
removed to a chamber on the third floor where were
several other prisoners. Buquoit began at once to
sound them on a project of escape. He had money
and jewels, said he, and would divide them among
the comrades who got away with him. One of the
party (" another abbe," says Buquoit complacently)
^ The Bastille had eight circular towers, connected by curtains
of equal height, which gave to the fortress its appearance of a gigantic
sarcophagus. Each tower had its name. " There were," says
Funck-Brentano, " the Corner, the Chapel, and the Well towers,
names readily accounted for by their position or by details of their
construction. Then came the Bertaudiere and Baziniere towers,
baptized by the names of former prisoners. The Treasure tower
was so called because it had received on many occasions . . . the
custody of the public money. . . . The seventh was known as the
County tower, owing its name ... to the feudal dignity called the
County of Paris [every reader will here recall a character in " Romeo
and Juliet "]." The eighth bore the discordant name of the Tower
of Liberty. Here, however, were lodged favoured and exceptional
prisoners, " in the liberty of the court." Funck-Brentano, whose
style is always delightful, may have depicted the Bastille in colours
too delicate ; but the fables of Latude and Linguet (the chief
offenders, perhaps) have been pierced, and in the eighteenth century,
at any rate, it was none too dismal a dwelling for prisoners of any
social standing. Does this suggest that the regime was a little snob-
bish ? Well, it was. Voltaire once spent twelve days there as a
390 THE MAN WHO BROKE THE BASTILLE
betrayed the plot to the Governor ; and Buquoit
himself was carried again to his dungeon. In order
to leave it, he feigned illness and was presently put
back " into society." Under this pretext and that
he succeeded in making the circuit of all the towers
of the Bastille, and in the course of time became an
inmate of the Bertaudiere. His new quarters he
shared with a German baron von Peken and "an
Irishman." Taking a dislike to the Irishman,
Buquoit induced the warders to remove him.
Having the baron to himself, he proposed in the
first instance to transform him from a Lutheran
into a Catholic, and in the second to take him as
partner in a flight from the Bastille. In the one
proposal and the other von Peken acquiesced, and
while Buquoit argued the merits of Catholicism they
both tried their hands on an old window of the cell.
Yet again was Buquoit wide of his fate. The baron,
long a guest of the Bertaudiere, had been in the habit
of talking through the chimney to prisoners on the
floor above. In these conversations Buquoit had
prisoner, and was ordered by the lieutenant of police to be treated
" with all the consideration due to his genius." The supreme romance
of the Bastille is that of Mdlle de Launay, who found a lover within
the walls, and said long afterwards, " My imprisonment was the
happiest time in my life." As the supreme tragedy of the Bastille,
having regard to all the circumstances of the history, I am disposed
to mention the unheeded death— November 19th, 1703 — of the
prisoner whom we believe to be the Man in the Iron Mask. The note
in the journal of Du Junca, King's lieutenant at the Bastille
(" M. Giraut, our chaplain, confessed him yesterday, is surprised at his
death," etc.), is one of the saddest little pages ever written. But
for Paris in general the Bastille (how little soever worthy of its
reputation) stood as the ogre in stone of the city ; and this character
it kept until, on a day in the dawn of the Revolution, it was suddenly
and swiftly and with scarce an effort overthrown. Restif de la
Bretonne, a writer at once curious and licentious and speculative,
with a niche of his own in French literature, says in his " Nuits de
Paris " : " It was a nightmare, that fearful Bastille ; and as I
passed it, evening by evening, on my way down the Rue Saint-Gilles,
I turned my eyes from its walls."
THE MAD JESUIT 391
had some part, but being little acquainted with the
comrades overhead he had kept his counsel on the
scheme of evasion. Not so the German, whose secret
was divulged by one " Joyeuse," son of a magistrate
of Cologne. The consequences of the disclosure were
less grave than they might have been. The author
of the plot was transferred to the Liberty tower, but
his baron was allowed to accompany him, for the
Governor seems seriously to have believed that
Buquoit was making a convert.
In Liberty the pair went to work afresh. There
was human possibility, Buquoit thought, of de-
scending to the ditch or moat of the Porte Saint-
Antoine. In his comings and goings through the
fortress he had contrived to bring together (and
convey from tower to tower) quite a little armoury
of nails and knife-blades, bits of iron and copper,
all of which he had sharpened up on his pitcher.
For a ladder, they stripped the wicker casings of
their wine bottles, eking them out with scraps of
sheets and napkins. This precious store, when
Buquoit and the baron were not at work, was buried
in a hole scooped in the floor of the cell.
The preparations were rounded off ; the hour of
flight seemed almost due. On a sudden the flooring
gave way, and the two comrades were precipitated
into the room below, where a Jesuit lay ill. This
poor fellow was disordered in his wits, and the ap-
parition of Buquoit and von Peken hurled from on
high drove him clean mad. Buquoit fell to conjur-
ing him in Latin, and the Jesuit passed from terror
to terror. The entry of a warder did less to relieve
than to complicate the situation. Buquoit and the
baron were, of course, reconducted to their own
apartment ; but here, with a gaping floor, it was
392 THE MAN WHO BROKE THE BASTILLE
unlikely they would long remain. To what new
cell or chamber they were taken Buquoit does not
tell us. Von Peken by this time had had a surfeit
of adventure ; and, chagrin merging in despair, he
one night opened a vein with a penknife. Buquoit
awoke to find him in a drizzle of blood. His clamours
on the door brought aid upon the scene, and Peken' s
attempted suicide led him straight to liberty. The
Governor had in fact received orders to release him,
but had proposed to do a little further bleeding of
the prisoner for his private ends. He was healed,
and set at large.
Buquoit had lost his labour, and now they thrust
him up to the very dome of the tower. This in the
summer months was a very passable residence, but
the rule of winter had begun ; and Buquoit, seeing
thin and haggard faces in every corner, thought the
Governor had sent him there to die. He had
reached, as he fancied, a passage leading nowhere ;
but it was in a strait of this kind that he always
found an inspiration. He should certainly die in
the attic of the tower, he said ; but if the Governor
would give him leave to step down a stage or two
he would willingly undertake the spiritual cure of
another prisoner, a Protestant, Granville by name,
whose conscience a pious warder had told him was
opening to the beauties of Catholicism. Of this
Granville, or Grandville, Buquoit had just got wind
as a prisoner ready and pining to take the road.
The model of a pious Governor, scenting another
chance of conversion, did not hesitate to put Buquoit
and Granville together. Two other prisoners were
sent to keep them company. Buquoit — his hand on
the Bible offered by the Governor to compose the
doubts of Granville — bound the little company in
THE DESCENT FROM THE WALLS 393
an oath, which they signed with a straw dipped in
the soot of the chimney.
The leader then informed them that he had still
a " corps de reserve " — a small file, with which he
proposed at once to try conclusions on the grating of
the window. He had also preserved, as he showed
them, some portions of the osier ladder, his own
and Peken's handiwork. Using the file in turn
they discussed the future of the enterprise ; and it
was agreed that, should they arrive at the moat,
each man had then better look to himself.
On the night chosen for the attempt, all being
hushed in the fortress (but were there no warders
on duty !), the conspirators removed their window-
bars and prepared to descend. Fearing that their
forms suspended in the air might be seen from the
cells below, they let down a long sheet which
covered all the windows to the ground. Next there
was the ladder to fix, and this seems to have been
made fast, not to the wall, but to a kind of sundial,
which Buquoit had constructed some days previously
and which the sentries had already learned to regard
without suspicion. These precautions taken, the
ladder was smeared with soot, and all they now asked
was a drowsy guard and a descent without a fall.
Buquoit, as chief of the expedition, was allowed
to go first. 1 Once below it would be his business to
keep an eye on the sentries and, at need, to send
warning up by pulling on a light cord suspended
from the window of the cell. He climbed dovv^n
without the least mishap. In the moat, he tells us,
he waited two hours, receiving no sign whatever
from the comrades above. Vainly he twitched the
^ " Pour recevoir les machines qu'on devoit lui jeter, et dont chacun
devoit se servir a sa maniere '' — whatever that may mean.
394 THE MAN WHO BROKE THE BASTILLE
signal-cord ; no one answered him. Had some
dispute arisen at the last moment ? They were very-
prone, he says, to quarrels.
No ; here comes lumbering through the window,
far above, one of those " machines " to which
reference is made in the footnote. What it was I
cannot say, nor why Buquoit's companions feared
to use the ladder that had supported him. Perhaps
they were not ill-advised, for two of them got safely
to ground. They had had some difficulty in forcing
themselves through the window of the cell, and device
after device had been tried : hence the inordinate
delay. Unfortunate Granville, a man of avoirdu-
pois, had altogether failed to launch himself. His
two remaining cell-mates, a nameless pair, had
offered to abandon their flight : he would not hear
of it.
There were now three fugitives in the moat, and
Buquoit — or so he tells us — had a scheme prepared.
The other two disliking it he decided to trust to his
own resources. He had with him one small osier
ladder. With this he climbed out of the moat at the
moment when a sentry had turned on his beat.
Again he had to mount (the counterscarp, presum-
ably), and on he went until he reached a deep
gutter, whence he leaped or dropped into the Rue
St. Antoine, nearly lacerating an arm on a hook
outside a butcher's shop.
His own escape was achieved, but where were the
two who had refused to follow him ?
His story at this point is, that at about the in-
stant of getting clear of the fortress he heard a cry as
of a half-strangled person, followed almost instan-
taneously by a musket-shot. Had a sentry sur-
prised the fellow-fugitives whom Buquoit had left
MYSTERY 395
behind ? He never knew ; but the impression
clung to him through Hfe that they had met their
fate at the closing stage of the adventure.
For himself, he did what a prudent man with a skin
to save would do. He took to his heels. Making
half the circuit of Paris, he stayed his flight at the
house of a friend, who admitted him with cordiality,
tendered his purse with generosity — and counselled
a speedy departure from Paris and France. In
Switzerland Buquoit found a refuge. What did or
did not afterwards happen to him is a history with-
out a clue. We may believe, if we please, that in
Hanover he was pensioned by George I "for the
versatility of his talents."
Did he confide to the king (who could get a step
or two further in French than he ever got in English)
that his essential "talent " lay in the bursting of a
king's prison ? In this exceptional art our interest
in him begins ; in this it terminates. If, as to the
most of his career, he has beguiled us with fibs, we
may still take leave of him without resentment, for
he leaves no malice in his grave. Over a flagon
of wine — and he seems not to have cared an ounce
whether the curtains were drawn or the company
to his choosing — Buquoit was a man to talk with you,
and in these unruffled hours he had nothing to con-
ceal. Taking to his anonymous pen, it has pleased
him to conceal almost everything. Had he a reason
for hoaxing us ? Beyond his dust may lie some
mystery that has slipped with him across the great
horizon.
Who was he P
THE END
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