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indebted for it to my own exertions, I thought of nothing else than how to bring it about.

I saw every day an old ecclesiastic-confined, I was told, on a charge of heresy-walking in the garden belonging to the château. A brother clergyman from without, named the Abbé de St Sauveur, had permission, of which he often availed himself, to come and talk with him in the garden. Besides this, the captive priest gave lessons to the turnkey's children, so that they and his clerical visitor came and went without exciting much attention. The hour of these walks was pretty nearly the same as that in which, by M. Berryer's order, I was taken and left some time, for the good of my health, in a garden adjoining the other.

Two turnkeys generally came to take me out; but sometimes the elder of them would wait for me in the garden, while the younger came alone to open my door. I accustomed him for some days to see me get quickly before him down the stairs, and join his comrade, with whom he always duly found me when he reached the garden.

One day, when I had resolved, at whatever risk, to escape, he had hardly opened my door, ere I rushed out, and was at the bottom of the staircase before he had so much as thought of following me. There was a door there, which I bolted, to cut off all communication between him and his brother turnkey, and give me time to execute my project. I had four sentries to deceive; the first of them at an outer door leading from the tower, which was kept of course constantly shut, so that I had nothing for it but to knock. The sentry opened, and I eagerly inquired after the Abbé de St Sauveur. "Our priest has been waiting for him," said I, "these two hours in the garden, and I am running after him in vain everywhere; if I catch him, I'll make him pay for my chase!"

Thus saying, I kept moving rapidly on, and at the extremity of the archway, under the clock, I found a second sentry. I asked him as quietly as I could, "If it were long since M. de St Sauveur had left?" to which he replied that he knew nothing about him, and let me pass on. I put the same question to the third sentinel on the farther side of the drawbridge, and obtained the same reply. "Oh, I cannot fail soon to find him," exclaimed I, transported with joy. I ran, I skipped like a child towards the fourth sentry, who, far from so much as suspecting that he saw before him a prisoner, seemed to trouble his head as little as the others why I was so eagerly in chase of the good abbé. I crossed the threshold of the gate! I flew! I was soon out of sight, and free! What a sensation of pleasure! Every time this incident is recalled to my memory I feel my gratitude as lively, and experience afresh the intoxication of that blessed

moment.

It was on the 25th of June 1750, after nine months' deten

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tion at Vincennes, that I had the inconceivable luck to escape from it. I pursued my flight through the fields and vineyards, keeping at the greatest possible distance from the high roads I reached Paris at last, and shut myself up in al lodging, to enjoy the bliss of being at liberty after fourteen months' captivity.daiw This first burst of joy, however, was of short duration. Something must be done. That I should be strictly sought after there could not be a doubt; and were I to be retaken, ato was equally certain that a fresh punishment would await me for my escape. If I ventured to show myself, I was lost.igFlight was equally fraught with danger; besides, my station and habits gavd me a hankering to Paris. So my only alternative seemed too be to remain concealed, self-doomed to a captivity scarce less cruel than that I had left behind. un sazbal of ti quiwoda vd 192

My head, it will be seen, had hitherto proved but a sorry counsellor. I now consulted my heart, and with little better success. I judged of Madame de Pompadour by myselfy and idly fancied I might pique her into generosity by avowing the place of my retreat, and throwing myself on her clemency for pardon of the past. I little knew the person with whom I had to deal. But mad as was the project, I was unfortunate in its mode and execution. ཙྪཱི', io vazut sidsmite9ai

I drew up a memorial to the king, which, however respectfully worded towards the favourite, and however calculated, by its humble and penitent tone, to excite the compassion of both, I might have been sure, had my knowledge of life been greater, would doubly offend the lady, for its not being addressed directly to herself, and exposing her in the eyes of the monarch; while he again, accustomed to yield to her every suggestion, was sure to do so on an occasion when her private feelings were so deeply engaged. But I was young, and knew little of the hearts of men, far less of tyrants; and dearly did I pay for my fatal inexperience.

THE BASTILE.

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I had told my enemies where to find me, and it was not long ere they had me back in the Bastile; though at first they pretended it was only to get from me the way in which I had escaped from Vincennes, to obviate the possibility of its hap pening again. If there had been any one to blame in the transaction, they should never have extorted the confession, but as I had been the sole agent in my deliverance, I honestly told them how I had brought it about. I was still simple enough to expect my freedom as the promised reward of my frankness. I did not then know that similar promises were the official jargon of all state prisons; designed only to enhance, by the hopes to which they gave birth, the bitterness of fresh incarceration,

seils was now,b for the first time, in a literal dungeon, whose

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horrors, however, were as yet mitigated by the compassion of the good M. Berryer, who, though he could not remove me from it, allowed me my former diet; and, as a small loophole afforded me the light of day, authorised my being supplied, should I wish it with pen, ink, and paper, its prodil to gresif to saild 901 These formed for a long time a solace to my woes. But at the tend gofa six months they became insupportable; and the horrors of suspense, and my despair of release, so acted on my naturally fiery temperament, that I had the madness to inscribe on the margin of a book, which had been lent me, some satirical lines on the authoress of my misery. The book, strictly examined, like everything else within the walls, was carried to the governor; and he was not one to forego the opportunity of ingratiating himself by showing it to Madame de Pompadour. Her rage, amounting to frenzy fat this fresh outrage, may easily be imagined. It knew no bounds; and if it could hardly add to the wretchedness of my situation, it at least insured its permanence.

9I remained eighteen months in my dungeon [ere M. Berryer even dared to take upon him to transfer me to an upper Chamberdin addition to which kindness, he granted me the expense being willingly defrayed by my sorrowing father-the inestimable luxury of a domestic. But even this solace of human speech and human sympathy for the lad shared as well as soothed my sorrows was destined to become a source of bitter anguish to me. The poor fellow, at the end of three months, sunk under the evils of confinement. He wept, pined, and fell sick; and though it needed but a breath of free air, and a taste of freedom to revive and save him, yet the cruel prison rules having doomed to the same captivity any servant attaching himself to a prisoner, it was in vain we both pleaded, and I implored in his behalf. His murderers chose to add to my torments the spectacle of this poor faithful creature expiring for me, and beside me; nor was he removed from my chamber till in the act of breathing his last sigh!

I nearly sunk under the blow; and M. Berryer, to divert my gloomy thoughts, once more allotted me a companion in a man of about my own age, full of activity, talent, and spirit: guilty of the same crime, and the victim of the same persecution. He too had written to Madame de Pompadour, and his aim had been still vainer than mine; namely, to point out to that worthless favourite a line of conduct by which she might disarm public censure, nay, even, by conducting the king aright, gain something like popularity. Three years had young D'Alegre-a native like myself of the south of France-deplored in the Bastile the consequences of his rash advice, dirett

One day our mutual friend Berryer, who regarded D'Alegre with affectionate interest, in reply to the intreaties with which we jointly assailed him to procure our liberation, let the dreadful truth escape, that our exasperated persecutress had vowed against

us undying revenge, and that nothing short of her death or disgrace could possibly break our fetters.

For two young men thus circumstanced there seemed to remain but two alternatives-to die, or save themselves. To any one, again, who has the slightest idea of the situation of the Bastile-its enclosures, its lofty towers, and the incredible precautions with which despotism had surrounded it—the bare thought of escape from it could only appear the result of insanity. I was nevertheless quite sane when it first occurred to me; and it may perhaps be allowed that it required no common soul, and a pretty strong head, to conceive, mature, and execute such a design.

It was out of the question to dream for a moment of escaping across the threshold of the Bastile: the air was consequently our sole resource. We had in our room a chimney, which rose to the height of the topmost tower in the building; but, like all others in the prison, it was full of tiers of bars and gratings, which in some places hardly left room even for the passage of the smoke. Granting we could reach its summit, there would remain beneath us a couple of hundred feet of sheer descent, with a deep fosse at the bottom of it, from which rose an excessively high wall it would be indispensable to our safety to scale. Now, we were alone, without tools, without materials, watched every hour of the day and night by spies, and surrounded by sentries, with whom the fortress seemed actually encompassed.

All these difficulties and dangers, while they appalled and discouraged my comrade, had an opposite effect upon me. But his apathy threw on me alone the burden of devising the scheme, forestalling its thousand frightful obstacles, and finding means to overcome them. There was first the chimney to climb, in spite of its many bars and gratings. Then to drop from the tower to the ditch required a rope-ladder at least two hundred feet long, and a second one of wood was necessary to scale the wall; and granting that I could procure materials, I had to conceal these bulky requisites from every eye, to work without noise, and to deceive, for months together, the most incessant vigilance. What do I say ?—to foresee and meet a host of obstacles and impediments springing up afresh from day to day to the execution of the boldest plan perhaps which imagination could conceive, or human industry achieve. This, reader, was what I accomplished!

The first object of solicitude was to find a hiding-place for our tools and materials, supposing we had the ingenuity to procure any. By dint of reflection I hit on a lucky thought. Having inhabited, at different times, various rooms in the Bastile, I generally heard equally well any noises made by those beneath me and those overhead. Now, though aware from other circumstances that, in my present domicile, there was some one in the room below mine, I could never hear him move; and on calculation, it occurred to me that there must probably be a double flooring, with some interval between.

The plan I fell on to ascertain this was as follows. The permission to attend mass, in a chapel containing four little closets, where the prisoners could neither see nor be seen by the priest, was a rare privilege in the Bastile, and had been granted by M. Berryer to D'Alégre, myself, and the inhabitant of the room below ours. In returning from the chapel, I instructed D'Alégre to draw out with his handkerchief, and suffer to roll down the steps, some little article from his pocket; and while he sent the turnkey to recover it, I should have a moment's opportunity for a hasty glance into the room No. 3. It sufficed to show me that its height did not exceed ten feet; and on reckoning up thirty-two steps, each about half a foot high, from its threshold to ours, I became convinced that there must be, between our floor and its ceiling, a vacant space of about five feet in depth. No sooner were our bolts drawn on us, than I took D'Alégre round the neck, and embraced him in all the intoxication of hope and confidence. "Courage and patience, my friend," I exclaimed, “and we are saved; for we can now conceal our materials!"

"What! dreaming still?" replied he sadly. "You talk of materials; where on earth are they to be found?"

"Why, as for ropes, that trunk of mine contains more than a thousand feet of them!" answered I, full of my own ideas, and talking like one inspired. "Don't you know it is stuffed full of linen-thirteen dozen and a half of shirts, a quantity of towels, stockings, nightcaps, and other things?* We have only to unravel them to have lots of rope!"

D'Alégre, roused as with a thunder-clap, shook off his lethargy, and entered into all my plans and ideas. But he was far from keeping pace with them, and inquired how we could create all that we so much required?

"My friend," said I," it is the office of genius to create, and we have in despair a powerful auxiliary. Once more, I tell you

we are saved!"

We had a camp table, supported on two iron clamps, which we sharpened to an edge on the stones of the hearth. Out of the steel of a tinder-box we fashioned, in a couple of hours, a very tolerable knife, with which we made handles to our clamps, the chief use of which would be to extract the iron bars from the chimney. At eight, when the last inspection for the day was over, we raised by their means a square of the tiled floor, and dug away so manfully at the support on which it rested, that in six hours we had ascertained the truth of my conjecture, and found a hollow of about four feet between the two storeys. We then replaced the square, which had no appearance of ever having been moved.

We now set to work to unrip the sewing of two shirts, which

* The French have great quantities of linen; possibly for the purpose of avoiding frequent washing.-ED.

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