Part 18

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“‘It is very bad, monsieur.’

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

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

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

Having taken refuge with two girls, with whom he had

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

_BENIOWSKI._

1771.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1792.

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