have enlarged it without a saw. The sides of this hole bristled with
points, liable to tear the clothes and lacerate the flesh. It was five
feet from the ground. Placing two chairs together under it we mounted
on them, and I pushed the monk through. Then I handed him our bundles,
and placing another chair on these two, I scrambled through the hole,
the monk dragging me, tearing my side and legs till the blood flowed in
streams. Going down two staircases, I opened a door at the bottom and
entered the passage, where the great gate of the royal staircase is
situate, and beside the door of the cabinet of the Savio alla Scrittura.
The great gate was fastened, and I saw at a glance I could not force it.
“Calm, resigned, and perfectly tranquil, I seated myself, telling the
monk to do the same. ‘My work is finished.’ said I; ‘the rest is now in
the hands of God and fortune.’
“‘Abbia chi regge il ciel cura del resto,
O la fortuna se non tocca a lui.’
“‘I don’t know whether the palace sweepers will come here either to-day,
All Saints’ Day, or to-morrow, All Souls Day. Should any one come I
shall save myself as soon as the door is opened, and do you follow me.
But if no one comes, here I remain, were I to die of hunger.’
“At this the poor man became furious: he called me mad, desperado, a
seducer, traitor, liar. Six o’clock struck. It was only an hour since I
awoke in the garret.
“What chiefly occupied my thoughts was, how to get a change of clothes.
Father Balbi was dressed as a peasant, and his clothes were intact;
while I could inspire only horror and pity, for I was covered with
blood, and my dress was in rags. Tearing up my handkerchief, I staunched
my wounds. I gathered my hair into my purse, drew on white stockings, a
lace shirt, and put on my fine coat. I then resembled a man who had
been at a ball and passed the night at a tavern and got disordered
there.
“Thus decked out, my fine hat, with Spanish lace and black plume on my
head, I opened a window. Some idlers in the court, not understanding how
one so dressed could be in such a place so early, ran to inform those
who were in charge. The doorkeeper immediately came and opened the door,
supposing he had locked somebody in the previous evening. Hearing him
coming, I told the monk to be silent, and placed close by the door.
“When the man opened it he was stupefied at my appearance. Profiting by
his confusion I passed out without saying a word. Without appearing to
fly, I took the magnificent staircase called the ‘Giants’, and passed on
without heeding the monk, who kept calling to enter the church. He knew
as well as I did that churches were no longer sanctuaries in Venice, but
in his terror he forgot the fact.
“I made my way at once for the frontier. I hastened straight to the
royal gate of the ducal palace, traversed the piazetta, and stepped with
the monk, who had followed me, into the first gondola I met, telling the
gondolier I wished to go to Fusine, and to call another rower.
“When we had passed the custom-house, I asked the gondolier if we could
reach Mestre before eight.
“‘But, sir,’ said he, ‘you told me to go to Fusine.’
“I told him he was mistaken. The other gondolier insisted he was not,
and the stupid monk joined them. I could have knocked his head off. But
I laughed, said probably I was wrong, but that I wished to go to Mestre,
and for Mestre we started.
“Arrived at Mestre I hired a carriage. I mounted; and as we were
starting I turned to make a remark to Father Balbi: he was not at my
side. I sent a stable-boy for him, but he was not to be found. I looked
into a tavern, and found him taking a cup of chocolate. Repressing my
indignation, I got him out, and we were getting into the carriage again,
when a man came up who knew me, and who had the reputation of being a
familiar of the inquisition of the republic. He saluted me, said he was
happy to see me, and asked how I had escaped.
“‘I have not escaped, sir; I have been discharged.’
“‘Impossible, sir; for only yesterday I was at Signor Grimani’s, and I
should have heard it there.’
“Descending from the carriage, I asked him to step aside with me behind
the house. There I seized him, and raised my crowbar to strike; but he
broke from me and ran away. When he had got at a safe distance he kissed
hands, in token that he wished me a happy voyage, and I thanked God I
had not taken his life.
“Arrived at Trevisa, I ordered a post carriage for ten o’clock; but I
had no intention of using it, for I had not the means to pay for it; and
I feared, hungry as I was, I did not even dare to break my fast.
“Passing out of the gate of the city I took to the fields, determined
not to get on the road again while in the territories of the republic.
For safety sake, to avoid any ambuscades that might lie in wait for me
on the shortest route, I everywhere took the longest way. After three
hours’ walking I threw myself on the ground exhausted, and sent the monk
to a neighbouring farmer’s house for food, and a good dinner was soon
sent me by a girl. After walking for four hours more we sat down, and I
told the monk we must separate to pass the frontiers, but that we should
meet again at Borgo di Val Sugana, and I directed him how to go, making
him a present of my cloak. Giving him all the money that remained to me,
I appointed finally a place for meeting in two days. He refused to leave
me, reminding me of the promise I had made when inducing him to help my
escape--that I would never separate from him. I rose with much effort,
took his measure, and began to dig a hole, without answering his
questions. After a quarter of an hour’s work I told him to prepare his
soul, for I was going to bury him, if he drove me to it by his
obstinacy. He still refused to go; but at length, either from fear or
reflection, he consented, and we embraced one another. When he had gone,
I approached a shepherd, asked the name of the village and the owners of
several houses, and decided to apply for a night’s lodging at the house
of the chief of the sbirri, inquiring from a child playing in the yard
where her father was.”
The child called its mother, who mistook Cassanova for Signor Vitturi,
who had promised to become godfather to her child. She told him her
husband had been summoned to search for two prisoners who had escaped
from the leads, and that she did not expect him back for two or three
days. He explained that he had received his hurts in a fall from his
horse, and the mother of his hostess eagerly dressed them. He was served
an excellent supper, and after twelve hours’ refreshing sleep, set out
again at five in the morning. After five hours’ travelling he heard a
bell, and remembering it was All Souls’ Day, he entered the church, and
met there one he had thought his friend. This friend was very eager to
hear the story of his escape, but refused him any assistance. At an
isolated farmhouse, however, he was well entertained, and again at a
Capuchin convent. At the house of another friend he was refused even a
drink of water; but,
[Illustration: I told him I was going to bury him.]
crowbar in hand, he extorted six sequins. He passed the night at a
farmhouse. In the morning he bought some old clothes and an ass, and on
its back he passed the frontier, without being even asked his name. He
arrived early at Borgo, where he found the monk, who told him, by way of
welcome, that he had not expected him.
_LATUDE._
1750-1784.
Masers de Latude was born in 1725, at the castle of Craiseih, near
Montagnac, in Languedoc. His father, the Marquis de Latude, was an
officer in high rank, and the young Latude was destined for the military
profession. While, however, he was studying at Paris, in 1749, he
unfortunately conceived the idea of having recourse to subterfuge, in
order to attract the notice of Madame de Pompadour, and to obtain her
protection. He accordingly placed a small cardboard box in the post
containing a harmless powder, and addressed to the marchioness, and then
went straight to Versailles with the information that two individuals
wished to poison the royal favourite, and that he had discovered their
secret. The marchioness at first thanked him in the warmest terms; but
he had scarcely left her presence when she began to suspect that she had
been the victim of a shameful fraud. She obtained a few lines in his own
handwriting from her pretended preserver; and comparing them with the
address on the box, had her suspicions confirmed. Some few days after
that, Latude found himself in the Bastille.
When he had remained there four months, he was taken to the castle of
Vincennes, and he had every reason to fear that his imprisonment was to
last for life, for the enraged woman proved inexorable to every appeal
in his favour.
“I kept up my courage,” he says in his “Memoirs,” “with the hope that I
should one day obtain my liberty, and that I should owe it to my own
exertions alone, not to the favour of my gaolers. I was constantly
forming plans. Among my fellow-prisoners I noticed an aged ecclesiastic,
who appeared at a particular time every day in the garden of the
chateau. He had been deprived of his liberty a long while on account of
Jansenism. He was frequently visited by the abbé of St. Sauveur, and he
devoted a great deal of his leisure to teaching the children of the
officers to read and write. He was allowed to go almost wherever he
pleased when in the company of his little pupils. He usually took his
walk at about the time when I was led into a small garden adjoining the
one I have spoken of--an indulgence granted me through the kindness of
M. Berryer, the lieutenant of police. Two turnkeys used to accompany me
on my leaving the cell, and on my return; but sometimes the elder of the
two would wait for me in the garden, while the younger came up alone to
let me out. I gradually accustomed the latter to see me run down the
stairs in advance of him, and join his comrade in the garden, so that he
always moved in the most leisurely manner when he came to fetch me.
“On a certain day I had resolved, at any price, to make an effort for
liberty. As soon, therefore, as he came into my cell I ran downstairs
with inconceivable swiftness, and hastily bolting the door on the
outside, left him a prisoner within. There were then four sentinels to
deal with. The first was on the other side of a door which led from the
donjon, and which was always closed. I knocked; the door was opened.
‘Where is the abbé of St. Sauveur?’ I asked, hurriedly. ‘Our priest has
been waiting for him in the garden over two hours, and I have been
looking for him everywhere.’ I ran forward, as I spoke, till I came to a
second sentinel, to whom I put the same question, and who allowed me to
pass in the same way; and to a third, posted on the other side of the
drawbridge, with whom I was equally fortunate. The fourth sentinel did
not for a moment suspect I was a prisoner, seeing I had passed the
others. I crossed the threshold of the outermost gate; I ran forward and
was lost to view: I was free.
“I made my way across the fields, avoiding the high road as much as
possible, and at length I came to Paris, where I took furnished
lodgings, and tasted to the full the joys of liberty, with an appetite
sharpened by fourteen months of captivity.”
Having had the imprudence to write to the king to excuse his fault, and
to urge that he had already made sufficient expiation for it, Latude was
again arrested and taken to the Bastille, where he was confined in a
very strong cell. After remaining there eighteen months, however, he was
removed, by M. Berryer’s orders, to a tolerably comfortable room, which
he occupied jointly with a young man of his own age, named Alègre, whose
crime was also that of having given offence to Madame de Pompadour.
“Under such circumstances, young men could come to but one
resolution--to escape, or perish in the attempt. But every one able to
form the slightest idea of the Bastille will conceive that this project
had in it a touch of the wildness of delirium. In adopting it, however,
I knew what I was about, and I hope I shall be credited with a soul a
little above the common for having invented, formed, and carried it out.
“It was now no longer of any use to think of escaping from the Bastille
by the gates. Every physical impossibility tended to render that idea
impracticable. The ground being thus denied me, there was but one other
way--to mount into the air. There was in our room a chimney running to
the top of the tower; but, like every other in the place, it was so
fortified with bars of iron as scarcely to leave a free passage to the
smoke; and any one making his way to the top of the tower would find
himself cut off from all communication with surrounding buildings, and
with a ditch, commanded by a high wall some two hundred feet beneath
him. Yet all these obstacles, all these dangers, could not daunt me. I
communicated my ideas to my companion, but his timorous soul at first
shrunk from the possible sufferings they involved. He chose to regard me
as a madman, and for a time I thought and worked alone.
“There were many things to provide for, and to do: to climb to the top
of the chimney, in spite of the iron bars; to make a ladder long enough
to reach to the foot of the tower, and a second one (of wood) for
mounting the ditch on the other side. In order to do all this I should
have to procure tools and materials, and to use them in secret, yet, as
it were, under the gaoler’s eyes.
“My first care was to find out a place in which I could hide my
implements and the other things as soon as I should obtain them. Through
thinking earnestly about it, I at length hit on a happy idea. I had been
in several rooms in the Bastille, and I had always been able to
ascertain whether the one below or above me happened to be occupied, by
the noise the prisoner made. On this occasion I heard sounds from above,
but none from below, and yet I knew that some one was in the room
beneath me. This led me to believe that there was a double thickness of
boards between us; and I took the following means to test the
correctness of my conclusion:--
“There was a chapel in the Bastille, where mass was said once a day
during the week, and three times on Sunday. Permission to be present on
these occasions was a favour very rarely granted, and obtained with no
little difficulty. Both myself and my companion, however, with the
prisoner in the room beneath us, were allowed to attend the service.
“I resolved to seek the opportunity of our leaving the chapel together,
to obtain a hasty glimpse of this prisoner’s room, and I told Alègre how
he could help me. He was to let his knife case fall down stairs, as
though by accident, in drawing out his pocket-handkerchief, so that one
of the turnkeys would be obliged to run back to pick it up. All this was
managed to perfection. The turnkey went down to find the case; and I, in
the meantime, hurried away to our fellow-prisoner’s room. The ceiling
was a very low one, and measuring it and the height of the entire storey
with my eye, I judged that there was an unoccupied space of about five
feet between the two chambers. ‘My friend,’ said I to Alègre on my
return, ‘we are saved; we have hiding-place enough for a whole workshop
full of things.’ ‘But how are we to get them?’ he asked impatiently.
‘Well, as for materials, this trunk of mine will supply us with more
rope than we are likely to want.’ ‘Trunk! rope! why, the thing does not
contain a single yard of rope!’ ‘What! have I not a quantity of
linen--several dozens of shirts, and a number of napkins, stockings, and
other things? We have only to tear them up into strips to make a ladder
of any length we please.’
“There was a folding table in our room with a good deal of iron work
about it; and, by cutting away part of this iron work with our pocket
knives, we soon obtained a kind of rough chisel for loosening the bars
of the chimney. As soon as our guards had left us for the night, we
prized up a portion of the flooring with this implement, and we then
began to pick a hole in the brickwork beneath. After we had worked in
this way for some six hours, I found that my hasty calculation had not
deceived me. There was a clear space of four feet between our floor and
the ceiling below. This was work enough for one day; so we carefully
swept all the rubbish into the hole, and replaced the piece of flooring
that had been torn up.
“Our next operation was to unstitch two of my shirts--carefully
preserving the thread--and by cutting them in pieces, and tying or
stitching them together, we made a ladder some twenty feet long, which
enabled us to move from place to place in the chimney while we were
removing the bars. This part of the undertaking was of the most painful
and trying character, and its execution cost us six months of an agony
which even now I shudder to think of. We were obliged to work in the
most uncomfortable and torturing positions, and we had scarcely struck a
dozen strokes before our hands were covered with blood. The bars were
fixed in an extremely hard cement, on which we could make no impression
with our tools till we had moistened it with water, and the water had to
be carried up in our mouths. Our progress was so slow that we were well
satisfied when we removed a single square inch of the cement in the
course of a night. As soon as we had loosened one bar we left it in its
place, not daring to remove it until the very last moment, for fear the
chimney should be examined in the meantime.
“When this odious labour was at length completed, we set to work upon
the wooden ladder, by means of which we were to make our way into the
governor’s garden that lay beyond the ditch. It had to be from twenty to
twenty-five feet in length; and to make it, we set aside the pieces of
wood sent up as firing, using part of an old chandelier, notched with
our pocket knives for a saw. With this and another rude tool, made from
the ironwork of the table, we cut our logs of wood into smaller pieces,
which we fastened together with small bits of metal and bolts of wood,
that served as hinges and screws. Through the single pole thus made we
placed the rounds of the ladder, which projected some six inches on
either side. The whole thing could be taken to pieces easily, and
therefore we had no difficulty in hiding it beneath the flooring of our
room.
“Our little subterranean workshop (as I may call it) was now quite
nicely furnished, and its contents were known to none but ourselves. We
had contrived to avoid detection in a most wonderful manner, but there
was one danger which still gave us particular uneasiness. It was the
custom with the officers of the Bastille, not only to make irregular and
unexpected visits to the cells, but even to set spies upon the
prisoners’ most secret hours. We had to take care therefore to do all
our work by night, and not to leave the faintest trace of it behind us.
But guards have ears as well as eyes. We were, of course, talking over
our projects incessantly; and since we could not avoid the necessity for
doing this, we had to invent a language intelligible only to ourselves.
This was easily done; the saw was called _faun_; a hook, _Tubal Cain_;
the hole in the floor, _Polyphemus_; the wooden ladder, _Jacob_; and the
rounds, _sprigs_; the ropes, _doves_ (from their whiteness); the pocket
knife, _puppy_, and so forth. We were constantly on our guard, however,
in using even this gibberish, and we succeeded perfectly in keeping our
guards in the dark.
“When the operations already spoken of were completed, we began to think
about our great ladder. We calculated that it would have to be at least
one hundred and eighty feet in length; and to find material for it we
had to sacrifice shirts, napkins, stockings, flannels--in short, nearly
the whole of our underclothing. As soon as we had made a hank, or twist,
out of the shreds, we hid it away in ‘Polyphemus.’ When we had a
sufficient number of these, we spent the whole night in binding them
together; and I would defy any ropemaker to produce a stouter cable (of
its size) than the one we then possessed.
“At the summit of all the towers of the Bastille a ledge projected some
four or five feet beyond the wall. This we knew would cause any one
using our ladder to swing about in the air, and in all probability to
lose his hold from giddiness, and fall to the ground. We were obliged,
there fore, to invent an apparatus for steadying the ladder, which was
far too complicated to describe here. Suffice it to say, that it
involved the use of another rope, some three hundred and sixty feet
long; and this we actually made, together with shorter ropes for tying
our ladder to a cannon, and for other necessities of the moment.
“When all these ropes were ready we measured them, and found they were
fourteen hundred feet in length. Our ladders, all taken together, had
two hundred and eight rounds.
“There was one other danger to be dreaded--the noise likely to be made
by the friction of our ladders against the wall. We endeavoured to avoid
this by carefully binding up the ladders with pieces of our
dressing-gowns, etc., at the places where they were likely to touch the
stonework.
“We had been employed some eighteen months in these preparations, and
yet our work was not done. We had found a means of reaching the top of
the tower, and for dropping into the ditch; but now other operations
would be needed to enable us to leave the place. The first was to mount
the parapet of the governor’s wall, which looks into the ditch of the
Porte St. Antoine. But this parapet was always guarded by sentinels. We
might choose a very rainy and dark night for our attempt; but then it
might rain while we were leaving the chimney, and yet be perfectly fine
by the time we reached the parapet and the sentinels. And, besides,
there were not only the sentinels, but the guard going the grand rounds.
To be seen by the latter was to be hopelessly lost.
“The second operation promised to be less of a danger than a difficulty.
It consisted of making a passage through the wall separating the ditch
of the Bastille from the Porte St. Antoine. It would necessitate the use
of a couple of crowbars, and these we could easily obtain from our
chimney.
“We fixed on Monday, the 25th of February, 1756, for our flight. The
river had overflowed its banks, and there was water to the depth of four
feet in the ditches of the Bastille. We judged it prudent, therefore, to
pack up a change of clothes in a portmanteau, so that we might not run
the risk of perishing of cold if we happened to be fortunate enough to
escape from the prison.
“Immediately after our dinner hour, on the appointed day, we took our
rope-ladder from its hiding-place beneath the floor, and having seen
that all the rounds were in order, put it away again in a more
convenient place for instant use. At the same time we tied the three
pieces of the wooden ladder together, bound our crowbars in rags, to
prevent the metal from coming in contact with the wall, and furnished
ourselves with a small bottle of brandy for our sustenance during the
nine hours we were to pass up to our necks in water in the ditch. This
done, we waited impatiently for the hour of supper. It came at length,
and our gaolers left us for the night.
“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]