During the winter of 1635, Isaac Arnauld was governor of Philipsburg—a place well fortified by earthworks and a large ditch (the water of which was constantly frozen), but very insufficiently garrisoned. “The Imperialists, who were well informed of everything,” says the Abbé Arnauld, in his “Memoirs,” “had little difficulty in forming their plan of attack and putting it into execution.” When they entered the place they found the garrison under arms, but too weak to sustain a general assault. All the courage and conduct of the governor availed him nothing but to make a desperate defence and to sell his liberty dearly, after nearly all the garrison had been put to the sword. He was obliged to surrender, with a few companions who survived the slaughter; and after having been imprisoned in several places, was at length taken to Esslingen.
To add to the miseries of his situation, he was doomed to hear that he was openly accused, at the Court of France, of having lost Philipsburg by his negligence. From that moment he had but one thought—namely, how he could escape and clear his character before his sovereign; and with this view he steadily refused to become a prisoner on parole. His design was not easy of execution, for he was constantly guarded by soldiers, who accompanied him, even in his walks in the grounds of the fortress, and slept outside the door of his room at night. These difficulties, however, served only to give a stimulus to his invention. He carefully measured with his eye the exact height of his window which opened on the ditch of the fortress, and he became convinced that he had only to make the descent in safety to gain his liberty. He began by gaining the connivance of some French cavalry soldiers who were in the service of the Emperor, with the promise of giving them employment in his own regiment of carabineers, on his return to France; and he afterwards kept his word. The great and almost the only difficulty was to find rope for the descent, for there was but little to fear from the watchfulness of the garrison, the ditch beneath his window being very poorly guarded. To that end he always urged his confederates, when he was taking exercise, to pretend to be amusing themselves with various games, which they were always the more ready to do as he never failed to encourage them with liberal supplies of drink. After a short time, indeed, they proposed the games themselves, and seemed to take a real pleasure in them. One of these games, called Girding the Ass, was peculiarly favourable to his design, for it involved the use of a cord for binding the principal player. Arnauld always found a piece of silver for the purchase of this cord, and never asked for the change. When the game was over, the cord, being too small to seem worth keeping, used to be thrown away, and those who were in the prisoner’s interest took care to pick it up and give it him without attracting attention. When he had as many pieces as he judged necessary for his purpose, he put his scheme into execution, and escaped with the soldiers who had helped him; and he used such diligence that his friends first received the news of his liberty from his own lips.
On his arrival at Paris he constituted himself, by his own act, a prisoner in the Bastille, and demanded a full inquiry into the allegations against him. He remained there several months, until he had cleared his character, and he then consented to be set free. (Memoirs of the Abbé Arnauld.)
THE DUKE OF BEAUFORT.
1648.
The Duke of Beaufort, one of the chiefs of the party of the Fronde, was accused of having tried to assassinate Cardinal Mazarin, and was arrested at the Louvre, by order of Anne of Austria, and imprisoned in the tower of Vincennes. He remained there five years, but at length made his escape by the aid of his friends. The story is best told in the words of Madame de Motteville:—
“On the Day of Pentecost, the 1st of June, 1648, the Duke of Beaufort, who had been confined for five years at Vincennes, escaped from his prison at about twelve at noon. He found means to break his fetters, through the skill of his friends and of some of his own people, who served him faithfully on this occasion. He was closely watched by an officer of the body-guard, and by seven or eight soldiers, who slept in his room and had orders never to lose sight of him. He was waited on, besides, by the King’s own servants, and was not allowed to have one of his own men near him; and, moreover, Chavigny, the Governor of Vincennes, was unfriendly to him. The officer in charge of him, La Ramée, yielding to the request of some companions, had secretly given an asylum in the prison to a certain person, who alleged that he had fought a duel and that he wished to escape the penalty of his offence. There is some reason, however, to believe that he had been taken to Vincennes by the creatures of Beaufort, and probably with the knowledge of the officer; but I cannot speak positively as to this circumstance, and I am unwilling to deceive myself by mere appearances.
“At first this man, willing to make himself useful, played more zeal than any one else in his self-imposed service of watching the prisoner, and even did not shrink from rudeness, as the Queen was informed when this story was told to her. But whether he was at first there for the Duke of Beaufort, or against him, he presently allowed himself to be gained over by that prince, and he became useful to him by communicating with his friend and informing him of the schemes that were on foot for his release. When the time was ripe for the execution of their designs, the confederates expressly chose the Day of Pentecost, because every one was engaged in Divine service during that solemn fête. While the guards were at dinner, the Duke of Beaufort asked La Ramée to allow him to take a walk in a gallery, to which he had sometimes been permitted to have access. This gallery, although lower than the donjon in which the duke was confined, was, nevertheless, at a great height from the ditch, on which it looked. La Ramée followed his prisoner in his walk, and remained alone with him in the gallery. Meanwhile, the man whom the duke had gained had gone to dinner with the others, but, after taking a little wine, he feigned illness and left the table, as though to seek the fresh air of the gallery, taking care, on his way, to fasten several doors that were between his companions and their prisoner. As soon as he had joined the duke, the two threw themselves upon La Ramée so suddenly that he had not time to cry out. He was easily overpowered, for the duke alone was a very strong man. They were unwilling to take his life, though prudence might have dictated that course; but they gagged and bound him very securely, and left him on the floor. They then tied a cord to the window and slid, one after the other, to the ground, the man going first, as the one who would have been the most severely punished if their flight had been prevented. The depth of the ditch is so great, that although their rope was a very long one, they were obliged to drop a considerable distance. The servant suffered no injury from the fall, but the duke came to the earth with such violence that he fainted, and it took some time to bring him to himself. When he was sufficiently recovered, four or five of his people, who were on the other side of the ditch, and who had witnessed his sufferings with an anxiety that may easily be conceived, threw another rope to the fugitives, and by means of it drew them up by sheer force of arm to their own side—the servant taking precedence of his master, as before, in accordance with the engagement between them, which the duke most faithfully observed throughout the affair. When he reached the bank, the duke was in a very poor plight, for he had not only been wounded in falling, but his flesh had been cruelly pressed and cut by the tightened rope. But having a little recovered his strength, as much by his own natural force of will as by his fear of losing the reward of all his exertions, he raised himself and walked into a neighbouring wood, where he found a troop of fifty horsemen ready to do his bidding. One of his gentlemen, who was with him at the time, has since told me that the duke’s joy at seeing himself again at liberty and among his friends was such that it seemed to cure him in an instant, and that he leaped on horseback and vanished like a flash of lightning, as though he were mad with joy at the idea of being able to breathe the air without restraint, and to say with King Francis, when he set foot in France, on his return from Spain, ‘I am free!’ A woman gathering herbs by the side of the ditch, with her little son, saw all that passed; but the men in ambush had so threatened them, and they had besides, so little interest in preventing the escape of the duke, that they were perfectly still and became passive spectators of all that passed. As soon, however, as the fugitives were gone the woman ran with the news to her husband, the gardener of the place, and the two together alarmed the guard. But it was too late; it was not for man to change what God had ordained, for the stars, which seem sometimes to register the decrees of sovereigns, had already informed many persons, through an astrologer, named Goësel, that the duke would leave the chateau that very day. The news had a great effect on the whole court, and particularly on those who knew something of the duke’s plans. The minister was, no doubt, a good deal annoyed at the success of the little plot; but, true to his old habit, he did not make any display of his feelings.”
Madame de Motteville afterwards adds, “The Queen and Cardinal Mazarin talk very good-naturedly about it, and say laughingly, that M. de Beaufort has done right.”