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.
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.”