Then came a change.
‘A man came to me one morning, and said to me privately that the Duke of Rovigo, minister of Police in France, authorized by the Emperor, had sent him to propose to me that I should let him arrange for me to get out of England, and return to France. I distrusted him, for I had heard of the tricks of escape Agents, and said I would first consult my friend, Colonel Stoffel. I did so. Stoffel said it was a bonâ fide offer, but the emissary had brought no money with him, and it would cost probably 200 guineas.’
Where was the baron to get such a sum? He went to Baudins, a merchant, and asked him for a loan, and at a ball that night Baudins signalled that the loan was all right. Farnell was at the ball, and the baron describes his comical assumption of dignity as the guardian of the French prisoners. Baudins lent Baron Le Jeune the money in gold without asking interest on it.
‘I was invited to a grand dinner by General Hastings the very evening we were to start, and I duly appeared at it. The evening passed very brightly, and at dessert, after the ladies had retired, the men remained behind to drink wine together, beginning with a toast to the ladies. As a matter of taste, as well as of design, I kept my head clear, and when my companions were sufficiently exhilarated by the fumes of the claret they had drunk, they returned with somewhat unsteady steps to the drawing-room, where tea had been prepared by the ladies.’
The baron won the goodwill of all and was invited to return the next day.
At 11 p.m., it being very dark, he slipped out through the park to meet Colonel Stoffel and a guide. He waited an hour, but at last they arrived in a post-chaise, and they drove off. Passing through Northants, North Middlesex [sic], London, and Reigate, they came to Hythe, where they stopped the next night. They pretended to be invalids come for a course of sea baths, and the baron was actually assisted out of the carriage by Custom-house officers. The chaise dismissed, tea was ordered while the guide went to make inquiries about Folkestone. He returned with a horror-struck face, and wrote on a slate: ‘Pay at once and let us be off.’ Le Jeune gave the girl of the house a guinea, and told her to keep the change, which made her look suspicious, as if the money had not been honestly come by. No time was to be lost, for Hythe was full of troops. The guide advised the baron to drop the erect bearing of a soldier, and assume a stoop. They got away, and hid in a wheat-field during the day while the guide again went into Folkestone. He was away seventeen hours. At length they got to Folkestone, and Le Jeune was introduced to a smuggler named Brick, a diabolical-looking man, who said he would take them safely over to France.
Brick asked the Baron for 200 guineas, and got them. The wind was contrary, he said, but he would lodge them well. A decent room was hired with a trap-door under the bed for escape, and here they remained thirteen days. Le Jeune became impatient, and at last resolved to risk weather and everything else and go. ‘Well! follow me! like the others!’ growled Brick ferociously to the sailor with him. But the woman of the house implored Le Jeune and Stoffel not to go with Brick: they remained determined, but she persisted and held them back, and so, now persuaded that she had good reasons for her action, and she seeming a decent body, they remained. Later on they learned how close to danger they had been, for the woman told them that Brick had taken the money of a score of fugitives like themselves, promising to land them in France, hiding them under nets to avoid the coast-guard, and as soon as they were well out, murdering them and flinging their bodies overboard with stones tied to them, knowing that transportation awaited him if he was caught aiding prisoners to escape.
They asked the woman to help them, for now they had no money. The baron told the sailor that he would give him fifty livres at Boulogne, if he landed them there. He was an honest fellow, brought them a sailor’s clothes, and went along the beach with them, replying, ‘Fishermen’ to the many challenges they got. Finding a small boat, they shoved it off, and got in, so as to board a fishing-smuggling smack riding outside. It was a foul night, and three times they were hurled back ashore, wet to the skin; so they returned. The next day the weather moderated and they got off, under the very lee of a police boat, which they deceived by pretending to get nets out. In six hours they were within sight of Boulogne, but were obliged to keep off or they would be fired upon, until they had signalled and were told to come in.
At this time England sent by smugglers a quantity of incendiary pamphlets which the French coast-guard had orders to seize, so that Le Jeune and Stoffel were searched and, guarded by armed men, marched to the Commissary of Police, ‘just as if’, Le Jeune said, ‘we were infected with the plague.’
Luckily, the Commissary was an old friend of the baron, so they had no further trouble, but paid the sailor his fifty livres, and went to Paris. At an interview with the Emperor, the latter said to Le Jeune, ‘And did you see Lefebvre-Desnouettes?’