Morel de Calais, 1780.
1780. Proyol prisonnier nee natif de bourbonnais (?).
With the Peace of 1814 came the jail-delivery, and it caused one of the weirdest scenes known in that old High Street so inured to weird scenes. The French prisoners were marched down by torchlight to the transport at Leith, and thousands of citizens lined the streets. Down the highway went the liberated ones, singing the war-songs of the Revolution—the Marseillaise and the Ça ira. Wildly enthusiastic were the pale, haggard-looking prisoners of war, but the enthusiasm was not exhausted with them, for they had a great send-off from the populace.
In Sir T. E. Colebrooke’s Life of Mountstuart Elphinstone, Mr. John Russell of Edinburgh writes that when he first knew Mountstuart, his father, Lord Elphinstone, was Governor of Edinburgh Castle, in which were confined a great number of French prisoners of war. With these prisoners the boy Mountstuart loved to converse, and, learning from them their revolutionary songs, he used to walk about singing the Marseillaise, Ça ira, and Les Aristocrates à la Lanterne, much to the disgust of the British officers, who, however, dared not check such a proceeding on the part of the son of the Governor. Mountstuart also wore his hair long in accordance with the revolutionary fashion.
CHAPTER XX
LOUIS VANHILLE: A FAMOUS ESCAPER
I devoted Chapter VII to the record of Tom Souville, a famous ship-prison-breaker, and in this I hope to give quite as interesting and romantic an account of the career of Louis Vanhille, who was remarkable in his method in that he seemed never to be in a hurry to get out of England, but actually to enjoy the power he possessed of keeping himself uninterfered with for a whole year in a country where the hue and cry after him was ceaseless.
At the outset I must make my acknowledgement to M. Pariset of the University of Nancy, for permission to use his monograph upon this really remarkable man.
Louis Vanhille, purser of the Pandour privateer, was sent to Launceston on parole May 12, 1806. He is described as a small man of thirty-two, of agreeable face and figure, although small-pox marked, fair as befitted his Flemish origin, and speaking English almost perfectly. He was socially gifted, he painted and caricatured, could dress hair, and could make mats, and weave bracelets in seventeen patterns. He was well-off to boot, as the Pandour had been a successful ship, and he had plenty of prize money.
In Launceston he lodged with John Tyeth, a pious Baptist brewer. Tyeth had three married daughters and two unmarried, Fanny and a younger, who kept the Post Office at Launceston. Although Tyeth was a Baptist, one of his daughters was married to Bunsell, the Rector of Launceston, so that decorum and preciseness prevailed in the local atmosphere, to which Vanhille politically adapted himself so readily as to become a convert to Tyeth’s creed. In addition he paid marked attention to Miss Fanny, who was plain-looking but kept the Post Office; an action which occasioned watchfulness on the part of Tyeth père, who, in common with most Englishmen of his day, regarded all Frenchmen as atheists and revolutionaries. Vanhille’s manner and accomplishments won him friends all round. Miss Johanna Colwell, an old maid, a sentimental worker of straw hats, who lived opposite the brewery, pitied him. Further on, at Mr. Pearson’s, lodged Vanhille’s great friend, Dr. Derouge, an army surgeon, who cured Vanhille of small-pox. Then there was Dr. Mabyn of Camelford, Dr. Frankland, R.N., John Rowe the tailor, Dale the ironmonger, who, although tradesmen, were of that well-to-do, highly respectable calibre which in old-time country towns like Launceston placed them on a footing of friendliness with the ‘quality’. Vanhille seems to have settled himself down to become quite Anglicized, and to forget that he was a prisoner on parole, and that any such individual existed as Mr. Spettigue, the Agent. He went over to Camelford to dine with Dr. Mabyn; he rode to Tavistock on the Tyeth’s pony to visit the Pearces, ironmongers of repute, and particularly to see the Misses Annie and Elizabeth Penwarden, gay young milliners who spoke French. He was also much in the society of Fanny Tyeth, made expeditions with her to see ‘Aunt Tyeth’ at Tavistock, and was regarded as her fiancé.
Dr. Derouge began to weary of captivity, and tried without success to get exchanged. The reason given for his non-success was that he had got a girl with child. Launceston was scandalized; only a Frenchman could do such a thing. The authorities had to find some one to pay for the child’s subsistence as the mother could not afford to, and so Proctor, Guardian of the Poor, and Spettigue, the Agent, fastened it on Dr. Derouge, and he was ordered to pay £25. But he could not; so Vanhille, who had come into some money upon the death of his mother, paid it. What followed is not quite clear. In a letter dated December 5, 1811, Spettigue, in a letter to the Admiralty, says that Derouge and Vanhille tried to escape, but were prevented by information given by one Burlangier, ‘garde-magasin des services réunis de l’armée de Portugal.’ He reported their absences at Camelford, and finally they were ordered to Dartmoor on December 12, 1811. The Transport Office instructed Spettigue to keep a watch on Tyeth and others. Launceston was angry at this; it missed Derouge and Vanhille, and went so far as to get the Member of Parliament, Giddy, to address the Transport Office on the matter, and request their reinstatement on parole, but the reply was unsatisfactory.