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
[Illustration: I saw on the parapet the soldiers of the grand round.]
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
[Illustration: Stop thief.]
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.
By great perseverance he persuaded the members of the Academy of
Sciences to appeal in favour of Haüy; and an order of liberation was
granted. Geoffroy brought it in great haste; and a few days after, Haüy
obtained from Tallien the same liberty for Lhomond that Geoffroy and the
Academy had obtained for himself. But several of Haüy’s colleagues were
still in prison. It was the day before the September massacres; and
though nothing of these wild projects was officially known to the
public, after the Brunswick manifesto something terrible was expected.
Geoffroy, at any price, was resolved on saving his masters from the
danger threatening them. On the 2nd of September, at the moment when the
massacres had already begun at the Abbaye and La Force, he disguised
himself as a commissary of the prisons, obtained access by this means to
the prisoners, and informed them of the means he had prepared to
facilitate their escape.
“No,” answered one of them, the Abbé D’Keranran; “no, we will not leave
our brethren; our flight would make their deaths more certain.”
This sublime refusal grieved Geoffroy, without discouraging him. At
night he took a ladder and went to St. Firmin, standing by an angle of
the wall that he had taken care to indicate to the Abbé D’Keranran and
his companion that same morning. He remained there for more than eight
hours without seeing a soul. At last a priest appeared, and was soon
safely out of the fatal place. Several others followed. One of them, on
climbing the wall too hastily, fell and hurt his foot. Geoffroy took him
in his arms, and carried him to a barn near by. He then ran back to his
post, and by his help more priests escaped. Twelve victims had thus been
snatched from death, when a shot was fired on Geoffroy from the garden,
and touched his clothes. He was then on the top of the wall; and,
entirely absorbed in his generous task, he did not perceive that the sun
was up. He was obliged to come down, and leave both the happy and the
miserable at once, for those that he had been unable to save he was
never to see again.--(_Life of Geoffroy St. Hilaire, by Isidore
Geoffroy._)
_DE CHATEAUBRUN._
1794.
M. de Vaublanc, in his “Memoirs,” relates the following circumstance:--
“A nobleman, named M. de Chateaubrun, having been condemned to death by
the revolutionary tribunal, had been placed on the fatal tumbril and
taken to the Place de la Revolution, to be put to death. After the
‘Terror’ he was met by a friend, who gave a cry of surprise; and,
scarcely able to believe the evidence of his senses, asked De
Chateaubrun, to explain the mystery of his appearance. The explanation
was given, and I heard it from his friend.