Part 8
Blanche Gamond belonged to a Protestant family of Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux. After the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, when the Protestants were subjected to the most rigorous persecution, Mademoiselle Gamond, whose piety was of the most fervent and exalted kind, resolved to fly the kingdom. The city of Saint-Paul was closely invested, and the dragoons overran all the neighbouring country in search of the Protestants. Blanche left the city and wandered about for some time alone, and afterwards with her parents, who had joined her. At times they were exposed to all the hardships of forest life, and it was only at intervals that they could venture to show themselves in towns. In this manner they travelled through the greater part of Dauphiné; but they were obliged to separate at last, to escape the more easily from the dragoons; and our poor heroine was about to pass the frontier with her brother and her mother and sister, when she was taken near Goncelin. Her brother escaped from the soldiers, but her mother and her sister were brutally ill-treated by these wretches, and were taken to Grenoble and thrown into a horrible dungeon. Blanche Gamond was then twenty-one years of age. She was subjected for a long time to the most terrible tortures; but insulted, mercilessly beaten, dying of hunger, and sinking under a lingering illness, as she was, she bore all with the courage and the resignation of a martyr.
The following is her account of her attempt at escape, the consequences of which were most disastrous to her:--
“We were told to get ourselves ready in three days for a voyage to America; ‘and when,’ it was added, ‘you are once on shipboard you will be made to walk the plank, and will be thrust into the sea, so that the detested race of the Huguenots may perish with you.’
“‘It concerns me little,’ I replied, ‘whether my body be eaten by the fish in the sea or by the worms in the earth.’
“When they had left us alone, Susan de Montélimart said, ‘We might make our escape by this window if we could only break the bars.’
“‘We are at such a height from the ground,’ I replied, ‘that we should either kill or lame ourselves; and then we should only be recaptured and treated worse than before. If that should happen, I could never survive my sufferings. I prefer death, therefore, and will rather set out for America. God will deliver us, as he delivered the victims of La Rapine.’”
La Rapine, or D’Herapine, who had been formerly condemned for robbery, under his real name of Guichard, had become director of the hospital of Valence, where he was told to employ all the means in his power for the conversion of the Protestants--a commission which he executed with all the cynicism and the ferocity of one of the worst of scoundrels.
“Susan replied, ‘If they had done to me what they have done to you I should have died ere this; but they are killing us of hunger; and, besides, they are going to take us to America, and we shall be half dead when they throw us in the sea. We might get out of this window. We seem to be despising the means which God has placed within our reach; but, for my part, I mean to attempt to use them.’
“At length, by her persuasion, I joined her in cutting a piece of cloth into shreds, and sewing it together; and when we had made a long band in this manner we tied a piece of stone to the end of it and lowered it, to ascertain the height of the window from the ground. We were on the fourth storey, and we found that our band was too short; but we lengthened it, and finally the end touched the ground. I then put my head out of the window and said to my dear sisters, ‘Alas! we shall kill ourselves, for it almost frightens me to death to look down.’
“That same evening, when our guards were asleep, we crept to the window with bare feet, for we were afraid that the priest, whose chamber was beneath ours, would hear our footsteps. Susan was the first to get out, and she was followed by Mademoiselle Terrasson de Die, then by me and by Mademoiselle Anne Dumas, of La Salle, in Languedoc. When I got outside and began to lay hold of the band, my strength failed me, and I heard the bones of my arm crack. My dress caught in a hook outside the window, and I was obliged to support myself with one arm while I disengaged myself with the other. I no longer felt either strength or courage, and I cried, ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!’ But I seized the band with my teeth, and joining my two hands over it, I fell, rather than lowered myself, to the ground, striking against the stones with such violence that I cried, ‘Mercy! My God, I am either killed or maimed for life!’
“The dear sisters who were waiting for me ran up to me and asked me where I was hurt.
“‘Everywhere,’ I replied; ‘I am sure that I have broken my thigh,’ and I begged of them to tie it up for me with my apron. I then limped away, my two sisters supporting me on either side. I made sixty or seventy steps in great pain, and reached the gate of the Faubourg de Valence: but it was closed. They helped me to get upon the wall, but when I stood upon the top of it, and saw how high it was, I said to my three dear sisters, ‘This is a second precipice, and I am not brave enough to attempt to descend. Leave me and go alone.’
“They let me down from the wall and left me there, and then they tried to get down themselves, and succeeded after great trouble. When they had reached the other side, Mademoiselle Dumas cried out to me, ‘We are going. We are very sorry to leave you behind. God preserve you from our enemies. I wish you prosperity, and give you my blessing, and I beg of you to give me yours in return.’
“‘Who am I,’ I replied, ‘to give you my blessing? but I pray that God will give you his. I pray fervently that he will lead you in all his ways; and I conjure you to leave this place as quickly as you can, or all of us may be recaptured.’
“I was thus left quite alone, still suffering the cruel and violent pains which had never left me from the moment of my fall. It was not yet daybreak, and I lifted up my heart to God. But I fainted in the midst of my prayer, and did not come to myself for, at least, a quarter of an hour. I had no one to console me, or even to offer me a single drop of water; but as soon as I came to myself I cried out, ‘Lord, do not abandon me.’ I lay for a time without being able to make any movement, and then I thought that at daybreak they would be sure to find me, and then I should be recaptured and taken to the hospice. ‘O God,’ I prayed, ‘grant me this mercy that this day may see the last of my troubles, for death is better than life. I have lived enough. Take my soul to thee, O God. Oh grant, if it please thee, that I may be taken to the tomb, and not to the hospice this day.’
“Day then began to break. I had not enough strength to raise myself, so that those who passed by did not know that I was lamed. I was only just able to hide my face from them by covering it with my tappeta. I was interrupted during my prayers by the agony which I suffered from my broken thigh and dislocated ankle. After a time a gentleman came by, and said, ‘It would be better, mademoiselle, for you to be at your own house than to remain here, and it would certainly be more becoming.’
“‘If you knew who I was, sir,’ I replied, ‘you would not address me in such language.’
“In another moment they opened the gate of the Faubourg and the passers-by said very hard and cruel things about me, seeing me lying at full length in the road so early in the morning.”
She begged one of them to fetch Mademoiselle Marsilière, a Protestant converted to Catholicism, whom she knew, and she prayed God that this early friend might turn out a good Samaritan, but this prayer was not heard.
“Are you asking for me?” said Mademoiselle Marsilière, when she approached the poor wounded creature. “Yes, mademoiselle; save me--for mercy’s sake help me. Take me to some place where I may die, so that no one may witness my sufferings.”
“But Mademoiselle Marsilière replied that I should endanger her safety as well as my own. ‘I must go,’ she said, ‘before any one sees me, or I shall be put in prison myself.’
“I was wounded to the heart at this treatment from a co-religionist, and I asked her if she had the courage to leave me in this condition. ‘Help me, at least,’ I said, ‘to crawl behind this wall, so that I may not be seen by the passers-by.’”
But neither the prayers nor the sufferings of the unfortunate Blanche had the least effect on the prudent and charitable person whom she had called to her aid. Mademoiselle Marsilière went away, but returned shortly afterwards with the almoner of the religious house of which she was a member, who, without paying the least regard to the distressed condition of the wounded girl, began to address to her a series of questions about her escape and her accomplices. At length two men, seizing her by the shoulders and the feet, carried her to the hospice and laid her down upon the stones in the courtyard.
It is impossible to enter fully here into all the details of the rigorous punishment endured by the poor girl for some months after this. She bore all with her ordinary courage and patience, but the mere recital of such atrocities would give too much pain to the most unfeeling heart.
She was at last allowed to return to her parents, and she recovered her health after her long sufferings, and retired to Switzerland with her family.
_JEAN BART AND THE CHEVALIER DE FORBIN._
1689.
Jean Bart escorting a fleet of twenty merchantmen, had hoisted his flag on board the frigate _La Raileuse_, of twenty-eight guns, having for second in command under him the Chevalier de Forbin, captain of _Les Jeux_, a frigate of twenty-four. They were attacked by two English ships, one of forty-eight, and the other of forty-two guns, and they nobly sacrificed themselves to save the merchant fleet. Jean Bart lost nearly all his men and was slightly wounded in the head, but Forbin was still more unfortunate, for he received six wounds, and nearly all of his crew perished. They were compelled to surrender, but the fleet of merchantmen was saved, while all the English officers and a great number of the common seamen were killed.
They were taken to Portsmouth, where they of course expected to be treated as prisoners of war on parole, but the governor of the fortress would not even grant them this scanty honour. They were shut up in a sort of inn with barred windows, and sentinels were placed before their door. This wretched treatment naturally made them anxious to escape, and they did not even wait until their wounds were cured before they began to form their plans. An Ostend fisherman, a relation of Jean Bart--as some say, Gaspar Bart, his brother--having put in to Portsmouth, found means to gain admission to the prison, and to confer with his two friends on the project which occupied all their thoughts. On one of his visits he left a file behind him, with which they cut the bars before their windows, hiding the marks by covering them with pieces of moistened bread and soot.
It happened fortunately that the surgeon sent to attend them was a Fleming, himself a prisoner, and equally desirous with his two patients of recovering his liberty. In due time too, the men who had been appointed to wait on them were gained over by a liberal present, and by still more liberal promises. The great difficulty was to find means of putting to sea; but the attendants who alone had power to leave the prison undertook to make the necessary arrangements for the embarkation. They accordingly hailed one day a Norwegian shallop, the master of which was at the time lying in a drunken sleep in his cabin. He was quietly transferred from his own vessel to another; and this was no sooner done than the two attendants ran to tell the prisoners to prepare for instant flight.
As soon as the surgeon came to pay his accustomed visit, he was told to give the Ostend fishermen notice to take everything necessary for a voyage of some days on board the Norwegian vessel. He lost no time in executing his commission, and the sloop was soon amply supplied with bread, cheese, beer, and other necessaries. It was then arranged that the surgeon should return at midnight with the fisherman and the two attendants, and as soon as he arrived beneath the prison window should signal his presence by throwing a small stone against the panes.
The signal was heard at the appointed hour. Jean Bart removed the bars in front of his window, fastened his bedclothes end to end, and sliding down the band, reached the ground in safety. The surgeon, the fisherman, and the two attendants led them at once to a little creek in which the vessel was moored, and they all embarked with the exception of the fisherman, who went quietly back to his own ship. In leaving Plymouth the fugitives had a narrow escape. They were seen by the look-out on the guard ship, and hailed with the customary “Who goes there?” By great good fortune Jean Bart knew a little English, and he replied, “Fishermen.” They were then suffered to pass.
The poor lieutenant had not been able to follow his captain. He had lost an arm; he was very corpulent; and as he could not have rendered the least assistance during the voyage, his presence would only have tended to compromise the safety of his friends. He took, therefore, the heroic resolution of remaining in prison, and of assisting the fugitives by keeping the guard amused while they were running away. He continued this subterfuge after Jean Bart had left the house, and pretended to be conversing with him in his room, until long after he had had time to effect his embarkation in safety. He then drew in the sheets which had served his commander as a rope, and quietly went to bed. He affected great surprise next day when he was informed of the escape of his fellow-prisoners, pretending to believe they had basely abandoned him, and cursing them very heartily in both English and French.
His gaolers were deceived by this _ruse_, and put several questions to him as to the conversations with his commander, in the hope of ascertaining the direction the fugitives had taken. “These traitors,” he replied, “have told me nothing; all that I know is that Bart lately had a pair of shoes made, and that he remarked when he tried them on, how useful they would be to any one who had to take a long walk.” This completely deceived them, and they sent horse soldiers out in all directions in the hope of recapturing the fugitives, who were then in the middle of the Channel.
Jean Bart at length sighted the coast of Brittany, and disembarked at a small village a few leagues from St. Malo. The journey from Plymouth had occupied forty-eight hours, and, this time included, he had not been in captivity more than eleven days. The party were received with transports of joy, for the merchantmen whom they had saved had spoken in the highest terms of their courage, but it was thought their patriotic devotion had cost them their lives. Jean Bart’s first care was to indemnify the Ostend fisherman whom the English had made responsible for his flight, and his next to purchase the liberty of his brave lieutenant, who was released a month after the escape of his commander.
_DUGUAY-TROUIN._
1694.
Duguay-Trouin, commanding the frigate _La Diligente_, of forty guns, was driven by a storm into the midst of a squadron of six English vessels, of from fifty to seventy guns each. After fighting five of them for several hours, and refusing to surrender, notwithstanding the urgent solicitations of his officers, he was struck by a spent shot, and rendered insensible. When he came to himself he was a prisoner in the hands of the English. He was at first sent to Plymouth; and he had already begun to make preparations for his escape, when orders were given that his confinement should be made more rigorous. The captain of a company on guard at the prison had fallen in love with a young woman of Plymouth, and had confided his passion to Duguay-Trouin, who had promised to use all his influence to induce the fair one to consent to marriage. He took advantage of the comparative freedom which he enjoyed through his good offices on the captain’s behalf, to come to a good understanding with the lady on his own account; and he was enabled by her aid to make arrangements with a Swedish captain for the hire of a vessel, properly provisioned and manned, for his intended flight. While the captain thought that Duguay-Trouin was pleading for him with the lady in a neighbouring inn, to which he had been permitted to extend his walks, the commander was leaping over the wall of the garden, with another officer who was to join him in trying to escape. The Swedish captain and six sailors were waiting for them at a neighbouring spot, and they all reached the little vessel in safety.
“We embarked,” he says in his “Memoirs,” “at about six in the evening. We had scarcely started when we ran almost between two English vessels, and were obliged to answer their inquiries as to our destination. We told them we were fishermen putting out to sea, and they allowed us to pass. At daybreak we came upon another English ship making for Plymouth. She was going to turn in pursuit of us, although we did not lie in her route, and we should certainly have been taken but for a sudden gust of wind, which carried us away from her almost without any effort of our own.
“We had been rowing all the time, and we were very tired when we reached the open sea. We relieved one another at nightfall, and the master of the vessel and I tried to make out our way with the aid of a small compass, illumined by the feeble rays of a lantern. While thus engaged I was so overpowered with fatigue that I fell asleep; but I was soon awakened by the noise of a terrible gust of wind, which threw the little vessel on her side, and filled her with water in an instant. By a quick movement of the helm I was fortunate enough to avoid the threatened shipwreck--a disaster that must have proved fatal, as we were more than fifteen leagues from land. My companions, who were also asleep, were quite as suddenly awakened as myself by the waves beating about their heads. Our biscuit and our beer were quite spoiled by the seawater, and it took us a long while to bale out the water with our hats. At about eight o’clock on the following day we landed at a spot two leagues from Tréguier, on the coast of Brittany.”
_THE ABBÉ COUNT DE BUCQUOY._
1700-1702.
The Count de Bucquoy, who was originally an officer in the army, had become, under the combined influence of the Jesuits and the monks of La Trappe, a religious enthusiast, but had afterwards quarrelled with his priestly friends. He was of an active mind, and, if we may believe his own account of himself, he was too much addicted to the advocacy of advanced ideas. This, and his hostility to Louis XIV., caused him to be arrested at Sens, on a charge of having been heard to mutter disaffection at an inn. While he was being taken to Paris he tried to escape, but without success; and his account of the attempt shows that he did not then possess the skill in conducting that class of enterprises which he afterwards acquired.
He was sent to For-l’Évêque; and from the very first day of his imprisonment he began to consider how he could recover his liberty. He remembered that one of the body-guard, who had been imprisoned in the same place, had nearly made his escape through a window of a loft, which looked out upon one of the quays, then called the Valley of Misery, and that he had failed, owing solely to his terror at the sight of the precipice on which his prison was built.
Bucquoy, however, made up his mind to repeat this attempt. He tried at first to form a clear idea of the plan of this terrible place. He discovered that the loft in question served as a kind of antechamber to his small cell, and that it was, at the same time, the lumber-room of the prison. Wishing to make sure of everything before risking his life, he one day pretended to be ill, and asked to be led upstairs to breathe the air at a small window which over-looked that part of the building. The height from the quay was appalling; and, in addition to that, every one of the numerous window-gratings to which he would have to cling in making his descent was covered with short, sharp spikes. The sight was enough to strike terror into the stoutest heart.
When he had once more been locked up in his cell, he, however, confirmed himself in his resolution to escape through the loft. All that was necessary was to find means to leave the cell unobserved, and to reach a certain part of the antechamber.
To get out without the consent of the gaoler, he would have had to break the door down; but he soon saw that it would be impossible to do this, as he was wholly unprepared with tools, and as the noise of his operations would be certain to alarm his guards. It occurred to him, however, that he might burn away the door; and with this view he obtained permission to cook for himself in his own cell. He asked for a few eggs and some charcoal, and paid liberally for both, in order the more readily to induce the gaoler to supply them. All being ready, and the whole household asleep, he placed the brasier close to the door and fanned the flame until it ignited the ponderous timbers. When he had by this means burnt a hole large enough to admit his body, he passed through, first taking care to extinguish the flames, as it was not his wish to destroy the building. In this operation he was nearly suffocated by the smoke from the smouldering beams. He was without a rope to tie to the window of the loft, but he made a substitute for it by binding together a number of strips of webbing cut from a mattrass which he found among the furniture. He then fastened this band to a bedstead, which he dragged to the window, and, gliding gently down, was fortunate enough to pass the windows without receiving any fatal injury from the spikes, and to reach the quay. It was daybreak, and the market people opening their shops did not fail to observe him, all torn and bloody as he was, for many of the spikes had entered his flesh. But a greater danger threatened him, in the unwelcome attentions of a number of young men, who had only just risen from supper, and who chased him through the streets with drunken cries. A timely shower of rain, however, dispersed them, and he was saved.
In trying to avoid them he made many turns and doubles, and at last found himself at the door of a _café_, near the Temple, which he entered for the purpose of making some slight changes in his appearance, in case he should meet his tormentors again. His dress, however, began to excite remark among the customers, and fearing he was already known, he hastily paid his reckoning, and went out without knowing what direction to take. He at last took refuge at the house of a relation of one of his servants, to whom he told a plausible story to excuse the negligence of his attire. The woman fetched him some food at his request, but feeling he could not confide in her discretion, he soon left the house to seek a more secure asylum.
After spending some nine months in sending petition after petition from his various hiding-places, he tried to leave the kingdom, but choosing his time badly, was arrested at La Fère and sent to prison. He made two attempts to escape, and failed only by a hair’s breadth in the second, having scaled a wall and swum across a ditch before he was discovered. He was at length taken back to Paris, and imprisoned in the Bastille.