The Road to Paris Part 30

Monsieur Necker began to question him, but he refused to disclose the slightest additional fact regarding the society. "It is enough," said d.i.c.k, "that its purpose is defeated through your being now on your guard for the future." He gave his name, though, with his St. Denis abode, and Necker made a note of them.

From the street below came the sound of a pistol-shot, and then of a carriage rattling off over the stones. Necker flung open a window, and saw the carriage fleeing in one direction, his own servant in another.

As d.i.c.k guessed, his guards had divined the errand of the servant leaving the house by a side door, and had sought their own safety, after having vainly tried to stop the messenger with a shot. It was a relief to d.i.c.k to know that the four were thus out of danger of arrest.

Seeing the present futility of questions, Necker took up the matter of d.i.c.k's own future safety from the Brotherhood. The two were in the midst of this discussion, when the tramp of several men was heard on the staircase, then in the corridor. Necker's face took on a peculiar light as the door opened and in came a uniformed official, followed by a squad of armed men and conducted by the servant who had been sent with the note.

"A moment, monsieur," said Necker to the officer, whereupon the newcomers all bowed and stood still. Necker proceeded to fill in the blank s.p.a.ces of a doc.u.ment he had meanwhile taken from a drawer in his desk, and to which a signature and seal were already affixed. He then held this out to the officer, who advanced to take it.

"You will send four of your men immediately as this gentleman's escort, to the place mentioned in that order," said Necker, speaking to the officer, but motioning towards d.i.c.k. "As for you and the rest of your force, remain here,--I shall have work for you."

While the officer, having read the written order, gave it with some whispered directions to one of his men, Necker addressed d.i.c.k thus:

"Young gentleman, you will not have to fear any present danger from this well-disposed society of which you have spoken. The place to which you are about to be conducted will be a safe refuge. I feel it is my duty to provide for your protection in this manner."

"I thank you, monsieur," said d.i.c.k, bowing.

The man who now held the written order, politely motioned d.i.c.k to go before him from the room. Preceded by two men, and followed by two, d.i.c.k went down the staircase and out to the rain-beaten street. There the party waited, while one of the men hastened off on some errand. He soon returned, sitting beside the driver, on a large carriage. The man in authority opened the carriage door, sent one comrade inside, then courteously begged d.i.c.k to enter, then followed in turn, and was finally joined by his remaining comrade. The man with the driver remained where he was. The man in command thrust his head out and shouted the destination to the driver, then closed the door. d.i.c.k gave a violent start.

"To the Bastile," was what the man had called out.

Why had d.i.c.k not thought of this possibility sooner?--he asked himself.

There were two very obvious reasons, if not more, why Necker should wish to keep him caged. First, imprisonment might induce him to break his silence as to the Brotherhood's place of meeting and as to what names his eye had caught during the signing of his own to the list. Secondly, his disclosure, with every attendant circ.u.mstance, might be suspected of being a ruse to gain favor, similar to that by which Latude had brought well-nigh a lifetime of captivity upon himself; for men who devise such ruses are to be held as dangerous.

Yes, imprisonment was the logical conclusion of this incident. d.i.c.k shuddered as the word "Bastile" repeated itself in his ears. It had a far more formidable sound than that of Newgate, though, thank heaven, a far more gentlemanly one. And so d.i.c.k was now about to round out his prison experience, begun in America as a prisoner of war, and resumed in London as a civil prisoner, by being a prisoner of state in France!

He sighed, and resigned himself to the inevitable. He looked not into the future. He might be out again in a day, or he might pine in his cage, purposely forgotten, the rest of his years. Well, well, no reason to be downcast! "Heart up, lad!" he said within himself, in the language of old Tom MacAlister; "wha kens the morrow's s.h.i.+ft of the wind of circ.u.mstance?"

After a long ride through streets of frowning houses, the carriage approached an open "place" or square, at one side of which d.i.c.k could make out, through the window, a huge rectangular building whose uniform towers, bulging out at regular intervals from straight stone walls, darkened the sky above an outer wall that enclosed the whole edifice.

That end of the building which fronted the square contained two of the towers. Towards this front the carriage drove, crossing a drawbridge, and stopping for the man in command to show his order to the guard officer.

d.i.c.k was then driven past the outer guard-house, crossed a second bridge, a court, and other enclosures, and finally arrived at a second guard-house, where he was put down and his name entered on the prison register. He was then given into the charge of a squad of men, and by these conducted to an interior paved court, to which an iron-grated gate opened, and which seemed like the bottom of a vast well. This was the inside of the rectangle bounded by the eight towers and their connecting walls.

By the light of lanterns, d.i.c.k was led through a door at the side, and thence, through corridors and up steep stairways, to a large cell. The lantern's light showed a bare stone-floored chamber, with a table, a stool, a small bed, an empty fireplace, and in the wall an aperture in whose depths, though it was designed to serve the purpose of a window, d.i.c.k's sight was lost before coming to the outer end. Before he had time to ask a question, his conductors had closed the door upon him, turned its heavy lock, and left him alone in the darkness.

He had been searched in the guard-house, but not required to put on other clothes. Pleased at this, and at his not having been shackled, he groped his way to the bed, undressed, and fell into a deep sleep. So ended the, to him, eventful day of Wednesday, March 12, 1777.

He was visited on Thursday by Monsieur Delaunay, the governor of the Bastile, and on Friday by the lieutenant of police, each accompanied to the cell door by soldiers. Each tried by questions, vague promises, and implied threats, to make him speak of the Brotherhood. Their attempts failing, the governor visited him a week later, thinking imprisonment might have had effect upon him. The governor spoke incidentally of the dungeons, nineteen feet below the level of the courtyard, and five feet below that of the ditch, their only opening being a narrow loophole to the latter. But d.i.c.k only smiled. A fortnight elapsed before the governor's next appearance, and still d.i.c.k was as silent on the one topic as ever. The hint as to the dungeon was not carried out. Perhaps the worthy governor received more money for the food of a prisoner in an upper cell than for that of a prisoner in a dungeon, and consequently could make more by underfeeding him. The governor now allowed a month to pa.s.s before renewing his persuasions; after that, two months; and then he came no more.

Meanwhile, d.i.c.k had little to complain of. In fact, many an honest and hard-working man of talent nowadays might envy such a life as the ordinary prisoner in the Bastile could lead, especially in the reign of Louis XVI. Such a prisoner's state, in those old days of tyranny and oppression, was heavenly, compared with that of an innocent man merely awaiting trial in the prison of a police court in New York City in this happy age of liberty and humanity.

d.i.c.k was allowed to walk, under guard, not only in the interior court, but also in a small garden on one of the bastions, where the pure air was sweetened by the perfume of flowers. He was permitted to have books, some of which were lent him by the governor, the royal intendant, the surgeon, and other officers, and some of which were bought, at his request, out of money allowed for his food. Could he have afforded it out of his own purse, he might have hired a servant, furnished his room luxuriously, dressed in the height of fas.h.i.+on, eaten of the choicest delicacies, practised music and partic.i.p.ated in concerts got up under the governor's patronage, kept birds or cats or dogs, and otherwise brought to himself the world to which he was forbidden from going. The comforts of the Bastile, however, were at that time accessible to only about half a dozen prisoners besides d.i.c.k. In 1761 there had been only four. In 1789, when the Bastile was destroyed, there were only seven.

But d.i.c.k, who lived in an age when young men of talent did not set upon leisure the value they give it in this overworking period, pined for the open. He began to grudge the time lost in captivity, and the fear grew on him that he was doomed indeed to forgetfulness. Summer came and went.

The flowers in the elevated garden withered. Autumn winds howled around the towers, and winter snow was lodged on the lofty platforms. The beginning of December brought d.i.c.k, through the lieutenant of the Bastile garrison, the news that in America the British had taken Philadelphia, but that their Northern army, under Burgoyne, had surrendered at Saratoga, and that the glorious victory had been largely won by his own old commanders, Arnold and Morgan. Such tidings made d.i.c.k eager to be out in the world. At night he would fall asleep, gazing at the dying embers in his fireplace, and dream of broad fields, boundless stretches of varied country over which he could speed with bird-like swiftness, barely touching the ground with his feet. At last he resolved to uncage himself.

The aperture that served as his cell window was defended by iron bars an inch thick, so crossing one another that each open s.p.a.ce was but two inches square. There were three such gratings. As d.i.c.k was high up in the tower, the outer end of this aperture was at a great distance from the earth. d.i.c.k turned from this opening in despair, put out his fire, stooped into the fireplace, and examined the interior of the chimney. It was not very far from the bottom to the top, but the way was guarded by several iron bars and spikes, securely fixed in hard cement. They had the look of being less difficult to unfasten than the bars in the window seemed. d.i.c.k resolved to attack the obstructions in the chimney.

There was no iron in his cell, his scanty furniture being joined by wooden pegs. The stone of his cell floor was so soft that the first piece of it he succeeded in detaching crumbled like plaster against the hard cement of the chimney. What was he to do for an instrument with which to sc.r.a.pe free the iron bars from the cement in which they were set? His lucky star sent him an inspiration in the shape of a toothache.

By patiently and painfully forcing aside his gum with a chip of fire-wood, and by strong exertions of thumb and forefinger, he succeeded in extracting the tooth after several hours' excruciating pain and labor. With the tooth itself he hollowed out of a f.a.got's end a place in which afterward to set its root, which he then fastened securely in this handle by means of extemporized wooden wedges. He thus had a sc.r.a.per, so adjusted that he could apply his full strength in using it. This he hid in his bed.

He then unravelled underclothing, handkerchiefs, and cravat, and twisted the threads into a rope, to which he tied, at intervals of one foot, small wooden bars to serve as hand-holds and foot-rests. All this work was done at times when he was least likely to be visited by any official or attendant of the prison.

He tied a heavy f.a.got, six inches long, to the end of his rope, and by dint of much practice he finally managed to throw this end up the chimney and over one of the iron bars therein. He then swung his rope about until it was so entangled with the suspended f.a.got as to remain fast to the bar when he put his weight on it. Armed with his sc.r.a.per, he then mounted by the rope to the iron bar, undid and lowered the rope's end that had the f.a.got, thus giving himself a double rope to cling to, and began work with the sc.r.a.per on the cement that held one of the other bars than that over which the rope was thrown. Habit had taught him to see in the dimmest light, and his fingers to find their way in total darkness. To his joy he soon found that the hard enamel of his tooth had effect on the surface of the cement.

With what difficulty and pain he worked, supported by his fragile rope ladder, compelled to brace himself against the sides of the chimney, and often to find relief from his cramped position by hanging to the iron bar, is hardly to be imagined. When he desisted he had to descend by the double rope, then let go of one end and draw the rope by the other end over the bar, for the rope also had to be hidden in his bed when not in use.

When not working in the chimney, d.i.c.k made additional rope, for that purpose unravelling all of his clothing and bedding that would not be missed by any who might enter his cell. He continued to borrow books, and as he now asked for such as he was already acquainted with,--either French works that he knew through translation, or French versions of English works,--he could talk so well of their contents that the officers he occasionally met supposed him to pa.s.s all his time in reading. So apparent was his seeming contentment, that no one suspected him of desiring to escape. But that desire increased daily. It was only stimulated by the news, in February, that France had recognized the independence of his country and formed an alliance with it.

In less than eight months after setting to work, he had opened a way through the chimney. So slender was he, and so supple, that he found he had not to remove all the bars, for he could wriggle between some of them and the chimney wall. Those that he did unfasten he replaced loosely in position after each period of work. He now estimated that he had nearly two hundred feet of rope, and he had been told correctly that the towers of the Bastile were nearly two hundred feet high. By the first of August, 1778, all was ready; and d.i.c.k waited only for a dark and rainy night.

Such a night came on Wednesday, August 5th. d.i.c.k had walked in the court that afternoon, under a steady downpour of the kind that lasts twenty-four hours or more, and he felt a.s.sured of a black sky for the night. He attached his rope in the usual manner, ascended the chimney, removed the loosely replaced iron bars, one by one, climbed by the rope to the highest of the bars he had left fast, squeezed through between that bar and the chimney wall, attached the rope's end to his waist, and then laboriously worked his way up the rest of the chimney with arms and legs, rubbing the skin off elbows and knees in doing so. At last he emerged from the top of the chimney, and, after resting a minute, dropped on the flat roof of the tower.

For some time, the darkness and rain hid everything from d.i.c.k's sight.

But at last, having meanwhile drawn the full length of rope after him from the chimney, he could make out vaguely the dark houses and streets stretching far away below. By sheer force of will, and by confining every thought and moment to his work, he kept himself from turning giddy at the height.

The lofty platform of the Bastile was surmounted by ordnance, even as in the days of the Fronde, when the "great Mademoiselle" had fired the guns on the soldiers of Turenne. d.i.c.k fastened his rope around one of these cannon, and threw the loose end over the battlement of a corner tower.

He believed that the rope would reach down almost to the fosse, which separated the prison from the outer wall. This ditch was twenty-five feet deep, but was usually kept dry. Along the inside of the outer wall ran a wooden gallery, which was paced by sentinels and was reached from below by two flights of steps.

It was d.i.c.k's plan to drop from the rope's end to the fosse, slink up the steps under cover of darkness and rain, elude the sentinels, reach the top of the outer wall, and drop therefrom to the ground outside, trusting to his lightness and his luck to make this last fall an easy one. He had obtained his knowledge of his surroundings from a book of memoirs that he had read in his cell, written by a gentleman who had been imprisoned in the Bastile under the Regency.

He clambered over the battlement, took a good hold of his slender rope, or, rather, of one of the wooden rounds knotted to it, and let down his weight over the outer edge of the battlement, grasping at the same time the next lower round with his other hand. He had an instant of giddiness and weakness, at the discovery that the rope swung far out in the air, the wall being overhung by the battlements. He hardened his muscles and somewhat overcame this momentary feeling. But his arms trembled as he cautiously disengaged one hand and sought the next round below.

In this manner, swaying in the air, and feeling sometimes as if the tower were leaning over upon him, and at other times as if it were receding so as to leave him quite alone between earth and sky, he gradually made the descent. It began to seem as if the rope were endless, as if he were doomed forever to descend towards an earth that fell back from him as he approached. But at last his feet felt about for the rope below, in vain. His hands soon confirmed the discovery that he was at the rope's lower end, to which a stout piece of wood was attached. Yet he was still far from the fosse; indeed, he saw, with dismay, that he was a good distance above the level of the outer wall.

To drop from such a height would be suicide. To climb back to the top of the tower was impossible; his strength was almost gone.

Thanks to the darkness and to the noise of the rain, he had not been seen by the sentinels. It was a time for desperate expedients. He had noticed that, whenever the rope swung him close to the tower wall, it swung back to a corresponding distance outward. He now swung in, and, in rebounding, struck his feet against the tower in such manner as to propel him farther outward on the return swing. He next guided himself so as to swing clear of the rounded surface of the tower and yet so as to kick the tower in pa.s.sing, and thus to gain additional s.p.a.ce and force for his pendulum-like movement through the air. Continuing thus, and describing a greater arc at each swing, he found at last that his outward swing brought him almost directly above the outer wall. At the next swing, he let the rope go, with the hope of landing somewhere on the outer wall, which was so near that the fall would not be exceptionally dangerous.

Through the air he was hurled, far beyond the outer wall. He had miscalculated. For an instant he was aware of this, and gave himself up as a dead man. He knew that no human bones could withstand such a collision with solid earth as he was about to experience. He instinctively made himself ready for the shock. It came,--with a splash, an immersion, a gurgling, and a further descent through muddy water. He had dropped into the aqueduct of the Fosse St. Antoine.

The ten feet of water then in the aqueduct sufficiently broke his fall, and he rose to the surface in a state of amazement. As there was no demonstration from the wall over which he had swung, he inferred that the sound of the rain had drowned the splash of his contact with the water. He clambered up the bank, slunk along the outer wall of the Bastile, and emerged in the square before the Porte St. Antoine.

Westward lay the city proper, eastward the Faubourg St. Antoine, with highways leading to the open country. The first faint sign of dawn was appearing, so many hours had d.i.c.k been employed in his escape. The rain was still descending, and the water of the ditch was dripping from his clothes. He stood still for a moment, gazing at the dark roofs of Paris; then he turned his back upon them, and looked towards the two streets that opened before him. He chose that towards the right, and plunged into it. It led him southeastward.

By full dawn he had pa.s.sed through some open fields to the country, for the great circular wall completed under Napoleon had not then been even authorized. Regaining the highway, he proceeded towards Charenton, making on this occasion more haste on the road _from_ Paris than he had ever made on the road thereto.

He was moneyless, hatless, clad in outer garments only, his inner ones having gone to make rope. As the morning advanced, people on the road stared at him with curiosity. Near Charenton he stepped aside to let a post-carriage pa.s.s towards Paris. To his surprise, the occupant of the carriage, having observed him in pa.s.sing, thrust a good-natured face out of the window, ordered the postilion to stop, and called to d.i.c.k:

"My friend, you look wet!"

"I _am_ wet," replied d.i.c.k, who had not moved since the carriage had gone by.

"Haven't I seen you somewhere before?" asked the gentleman in the carriage.

"The same question was on the tip of my tongue," said d.i.c.k. "But I have already answered it." And then he spoke in English. "Good morning, Lord George!"

"Why, damme if it isn't Wetheral!" Lord George Winston also spoke English now, and a very pleased and friendly expression came over his face.

"Yes, it is Wetheral, and in much the same condition as when he first had the honor of meeting you."