Part 9

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1715.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Pretender himself succeeded in reaching the bridge of Montrose with his army, and embarked secretly with the Earl of Mar and a few other gentlemen, and thus abandoned his faithful mountaineers to all the violence of an infuriated government, as if, in his anxiety for his own safety, he had quite forgotten the unhappy creatures who had imperilled their liberty and their lives for his sake. This departure was, indeed, less of an escape than a dishonourable flight, and no sort of interest attaches to it. In this it differed altogether from the escape, at a future period, of his son, Prince Charles Edward, of which we propose to give an account.

_CHARLES EDWARD._

1746.

After the battle of Culloden, which proved the ruin of his hopes, Charles Edward was obliged to fly, to escape the government of George II. A price was put on his head, and a reward of £30,000 sterling was offered for his discovery and capture. “One would have supposed,” says Scott, “that in a country so poor as the highlands of Scotland, where laws concerning property are almost unknown, and among a people whose propensities to pillage had almost passed into a proverb, a reward far less considerable would have sufficed to awake the cupidity of some traitor, and to have ruined the Pretender. That was not, however, the case; and the escape of this prince, so long retarded by the agents of the victorious power, and effected with so much difficulty and amid a thousand obstacles, must be cited to the honour of Scotland, as a striking and brilliant example of good faith.”

During the battle of Culloden, Charles Edward had exposed himself to considerable danger. He was several times covered with earth thrown up by the bullets; he made repeated attempts to rally his troops, and according to the testimony of most of those who witnessed his conduct, he showed himself a brave and efficient commander. On quitting the field of battle he dismissed, under various pretexts, the greater number of the gentlemen who followed him--doubting, possibly, their fidelity--and kept with him only a few Irish officers, on whom he thought he could count. He directed his flight at first towards the residence of Lord Lovat, thinking, perhaps, that this person, who was renowned for his sagacity, could advise him as to his future course, and, perhaps, even give him some material help; for his son, the Master of Lovat, and Cluny MacPherson, another relative, had both raised considerable reinforcements, and they were on the march to join the prince’s army, when the battle took place. Charles and Lovat met for the first and last time, both of them a prey to the fears and embarrassments of a desperate situation. Charles spoke only of the distress into which Scotland was plunged, Lovat occupied himself solely with his personal dangers. The prince soon perceived that he had neither advice nor help to expect from his host, and he went away after hastily taking some refreshment. The place was dangerous, on account of the proximity of the victorious army; and, perhaps, even the fidelity of Lovat was to be suspected. Charles next halted at Invergarry--a castle belonging to the laird of Glengarry, where he was served with an excellent repast of fresh-caught salmon. As a punishment for this isolated act of hospitality, the English soldiers shortly afterwards pillaged and sacked the castle.

From Invergarry the fugitive made his way to a village in the western mountains, near the place where he had disembarked on coming from France. He there resolved to abandon his enterprise, and he accordingly sent a message to the chiefs and the soldiers assembled at Ruthven, thanking them for their services, and urging them to provide for their own safety, since no other course was left to him but to try to make his escape to France. His partisans in vain implored him to suffer them to expose themselves to new dangers for his sake. Charles saw too clearly that all was lost, and he refused to be the means of sacrificing the lives of brave men, who he knew were only taking counsel of their own devotion and despair.

Separated from his faithful supporters and friends, Charles wandered about the Hebrides in the hope of finding a ship for France. But the very elements seemed to have declared against him; no ship appeared; and his daily life was fast becoming almost purposeless. He at length arrived at the spot where he had formerly disembarked. He was met by Clanronald, who had been the first to declare for him, and who remained faithful to him in this his dire distress. The prince was lodged in a miserable hut belonging to a woodcutter named Corradale, and situated upon the rugged mountain which bears the same name.

Meanwhile the agents of the English government were making a keen search for the fugitive in every place that seemed to offer him the possibility of an asylum. General Campbell went to the very extremity of the isle of St. Kilda, which might be termed the boundary of the habitable world, and from thence passing to the other extremity of the Hebrides, he found the chiefs of Skye and of MacLeod engaged in a similar search. Two thousand men in all were employed in this undertaking, while the coasts of the island were constantly watched by ships of war. It seemed absolutely impossible for the prince to escape; yet he was saved by the courage of a woman.

That woman was Flora Macdonald, and her name is still honoured in the land of her birth. She was a relative of Clanronald, and she was at the time visiting that chief. Her father-in-law, who was of the clan of Sir Alexander MacDonald, was consequently an enemy of the Pretender, and he commanded the militia of the name of MacDonald, which was then exploring South Uist.

Having hastily formed a plan for saving the prince, Flora had sufficient address to obtain from her father-in-law permission to engage a male attendant and a servant girl, whom she named Betty Burke. The part of Betty was to be played by the prince dressed as a woman. Charles did in fact assume this disguise, and after having been several times in danger of capture, he arrived at Kilbride, in the Isle of Skye. But he was still in Sir Alexander MacDonald’s county, and he ran almost as great risks as before. Here, however, the courage and presence of mind of Flora were displayed anew in favour of the man thus so strangely placed under the protection of a young girl. She resolved to confide her secret to Lady Margaret MacDonald, wife of Sir Alexander, and to trust to the natural compassion of the sex, and to that enthusiasm for the Jacobite cause then common among nearly all the women of the Highlands.

This undertaking was the more dangerous, as the husband of Lady Margaret was already suspected of having at first offered his services to the prince. Lady Margaret was alarmed at Flora’s revelation. Her husband was absent, and her house was full of officers of militia. She could think of no other way of providing for the safety of the prince than to confide him to the care of MacDonald of Kingsburgh, a brave and intelligent man, who acted as agent or steward to Sir Alexander. Flora undertook to conduct the prince to MacDonald’s house; and the prince was fortunate enough to avoid recognition on the road, although the awkwardness of his air, dressed as he was like a woman, more than once excited suspicion.