(Concluded from the last Number.)
De Latude goes on to detail the precautions which he and his companion
in misfortune took, in case any of the jailers should be listening, to
give feigned names for every thing they used in their work, and states
the names used by them for each article. He then proceeds with his
narrative: “These things being complete, we set about our principal
ladder, which was to be at least eighty feet long. We began by
unravelling our linen, shirts, napkins, nightcaps, stockings, drawers,
pocket handkerchiefs--every thing which could supply thread or silk. As
we made a ball we concealed it in Polyphemus, (the name they called the
hiding-place,) and when we had a sufficient quantity we employed a whole
night in twisting it into a rope; and I defy a rope-maker to have done
it better.[1] The upper part of the building of the Bastille overhangs
three or four feet. This would necessarily occasion our ladder to wave
and swing about as we came down it, enough to turn the strongest head.
To obviate this, and to prevent our fall, we made a second rope 160 feet
long. This rope was to be reeved through a kind of double block without
sheaves, in case the person descending should be suspended in the air
without being able to get down lower.[2] Besides these we made several
other ropes of shorter lengths, to fasten our ladder to a cannon, and
for other unforeseen occasions. When all these ropes were finished, we
measured them--they amounted to 1400 feet. We then made 208 rounds for
the rope and wooden ladders. To prevent the noise which the rounds would
make against the wall during our descent, we gave them coverings formed
of pieces of the linings of our morning gowns, of our waistcoats, and
our under-waistcoats. In all these preparations we employed eighteen
months, but still they were incomplete. We had provided means to get to
the top of the tower, to get into and out of the fossé: two more were
wanting--one to climb up on the parapet; from the parapet into the
governor’s garden; from thence to get down into the fossé of the Port
St. Antoine; but the parapet which we had to cross was always well
furnished with sentinels. We might fix on a dark and rainy night, when
the sentinels did not go their rounds, and escape by those means, but it
might rain when we climbed our chimney, and might clear up at the very
moment when we arrived at the parapet: we should then meet with the
chief of the rounds, who constantly inspected the parapet, and he being
always provided with lights, it would be impossible to conceal
ourselves, and we should be inevitably ruined. The other plan increased
our labours, but was the less dangerous of the two. It consisted in
making a way through the wall which separates the fossé of the Bastille
from that of the Port St. Antoine. I considered that in the numerous
floods, during which the Seine had filled this fossé, the water must
have injured the mortar, and rendered it less difficult, and so we
should be enabled to break a passage through the wall. For this purpose
we should require an augur to make holes in the mortar, so as to insert
the points of the two iron bars to be taken out of our chimney, and with
them force out the stones, and so make our way through. Accordingly we
made an augur with one of the feet of our bedsteads, and fastened a
handle to it in the form of a cross. We fixed on Wednesday the 25th
February, 1756, for our flight: the river had overflowed its banks:
there were four feet of water in the fossé of the Bastille, as well as
in that of the Port St. Antoine, by which we hoped to effect our
deliverance. I filled a leathern portmanteau with a change of clothes
for both, in case we were so fortunate as to escape.
“Dinner was scarcely over when we set up our great ladder of ropes, that
is, we put the rounds to it, and hid it under our beds; then we arranged
our wooden ladder in three pieces. We put our iron bars in their cases
to prevent their making a noise; and we packed up our bottle of
usquebaugh to warm us, and restore our strength during our work in the
water, up to the neck, for nine hours. These precautions taken, we
waited till our supper was brought up. I first got up the chimney. I had
the rheumatism in my left arm, but I thought little of the pain: I soon
experienced one much more severe. I had taken none of the precautions
used by chimney-sweepers. I was nearly choked by the soot; and having no
guards on my knees and elbows, they were so excoriated that the blood
ran down on my legs and hands. As soon as I got to the top of the
chimney I let down a piece of twine to D’Alegre: to this he attached the
end of the rope to which our portmanteau was fastened. I drew it up,
unfastened it, and threw it on the platform of the Bastille. In the same
way we hoisted up the wooden ladder, the two iron bars, and all our
other articles: we finished by the ladder of ropes, the end of which I
allowed to hang down to aid D’Alegre in getting up, while I held the
upper part by means of a large wooden peg which we had prepared on
purpose. I passed it through the cord and placed it across the funnel of
the chimney. By these means my companion avoided suffering what I did.
This done, I came down from the top of the chimney, where I had been in
a very painful position, and both of us were on the platform of the
Bastille. We now arranged our different articles. We began by making a
roll of our ladder of ropes, of about four feet diameter, and one thick.
We rolled it to the tower called La Tour du Treson, which appeared to us
the most favourable for our descent. We fastened one end of the ladder
of ropes to a piece of cannon, and then lowered it down the wall; then
we fastened the block, and passed the rope of 160 feet long through it.
This I tied round my body, and D’Alegre slackened it as I went down.
Notwithstanding this precaution I swung about in the air at every step I
made. Judge what my situation was, when one shudders at the recital of
it. At length I landed without accident in the fossé. Immediately
D’Alegre lowered my portmanteau and other things. I found a little spot
uncovered by water, on which I put them. Then my companion followed my
example; but he had an advantage which I had not had, for I held the
ladder for him with all my strength, which greatly prevented its
swinging. It did not rain; and we heard the sentinel marching at about
four toises distance; and we were therefore forced to give up our plan
of escaping by the parapet and the governor’s garden. We resolved to use
our iron bars. We crossed the fossé straight over to the wall which
divides it from the Port St. Antoine, and went to work sturdily. Just at
this point there was a small ditch about six feet broad and one deep,
which increased the depth of the water. Elsewhere it was about up to our
middles; here, to our armpits. It had thawed only a few days, so that
the water had yet floating ice in it: we were nine hours in it,
exhausted by fatigue, and benumbed by the cold. We had hardly begun our
work before the chief of the watch came round with his lantern, which
cast a light on the place we were in: we had no alternative but to put
our heads under water as he passed, which was every half-hour. At
length, after nine hours of incessant alarm and exertion; after having
worked out the stones one by one, we succeeded in making, in a wall of
four feet six inches thick, a hole sufficiently wide, and we both crept
through. We were giving way to our transports when we fell into a danger
which we had not foreseen, and which had nearly been fatal to us. In
crossing the fossé St. Antoine, to get into the road to Berey, we fell
into the aqueduct which was in the middle. This aqueduct had ten feet
water over our heads, and two feet of mud on the side. D’Alegre fell on
me, and had nearly thrown me down: had that misfortune happened we were
lost, for we had not strength enough left to get up again, and we must
have been smothered. Finding myself laid hold of by D’Alegre, I gave him
a blow with my fist, which made him let go; and at the same instant
throwing myself forward I got out of the aqueduct. I then felt for
D’Alegre, and getting hold of his hair, drew him to me; we were soon out
of the fossé, and just as the clock struck five were on the high road.
Penetrated by the same feeling, we threw ourselves into each other’s
arms, and after a long embrace we fell on our knees to offer our thanks
to the Almighty, who had snatched us from so many dangers.”
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Footnote 1:
This is really no exaggeration.
Footnote 2:
This part of the narrative is by no means clear.
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