“There was one other danger to be dreaded—the noise likely to be made by the friction of our ladders against the wall. We endeavoured to avoid this by carefully binding up the ladders with pieces of our dressing-gowns, etc., at the places where they were likely to touch the stonework.
“We had been employed some eighteen months in these preparations, and yet our work was not done. We had found a means of reaching the top of the tower, and for dropping into the ditch; but now other operations would be needed to enable us to leave the place. The first was to mount the parapet of the governor’s wall, which looks into the ditch of the Porte St. Antoine. But this parapet was always guarded by sentinels. We might choose a very rainy and dark night for our attempt; but then it might rain while we were leaving the chimney, and yet be perfectly fine by the time we reached the parapet and the sentinels. And, besides, there were not only the sentinels, but the guard going the grand rounds. To be seen by the latter was to be hopelessly lost.
“The second operation promised to be less of a danger than a difficulty. It consisted of making a passage through the wall separating the ditch of the Bastille from the Porte St. Antoine. It would necessitate the use of a couple of crowbars, and these we could easily obtain from our chimney.
“We fixed on Monday, the 25th of February, 1756, for our flight. The river had overflowed its banks, and there was water to the depth of four feet in the ditches of the Bastille. We judged it prudent, therefore, to pack up a change of clothes in a portmanteau, so that we might not run the risk of perishing of cold if we happened to be fortunate enough to escape from the prison.
“Immediately after our dinner hour, on the appointed day, we took our rope-ladder from its hiding-place beneath the floor, and having seen that all the rounds were in order, put it away again in a more convenient place for instant use. At the same time we tied the three pieces of the wooden ladder together, bound our crowbars in rags, to prevent the metal from coming in contact with the wall, and furnished ourselves with a small bottle of brandy for our sustenance during the nine hours we were to pass up to our necks in water in the ditch. This done, we waited impatiently for the hour of supper. It came at length, and our gaolers left us for the night.
“I was the first to mount the chimney. I was suffering from rheumatism in the left arm, but I paid very little attention to that. I was nearly suffocated, however, with the soot accumulated in the upper part of the chimney beyond the bars, and the rough brickwork tore open my elbows and my knees, and made them run with blood. I was in this state when I reached the roof; I nevertheless, without thinking of my wounds, dropped a rope down the chimney, and drew up the portmanteau, which Alègre had fastened to the end of it. In the same manner we conveyed the wooden ladder, the crowbars, and the other packets to the top of the roof. Alègre made the ascent more easily than I, thanks to my having lowered the rope ladder for him. We then slid down from the top of the chimney on the outside, and stood both together on the roof of the Bastille.
“We lost no time in preparing for our descent. Doubling up our rope ladder till it formed a kind of ball, we rolled it along the roof till we came to the Treasury Tower, where we tied one end of it to a cannon and let the other fall gently into the ditch. I then fastened the single rope round my body, and Alègre holding it, to steady me, I stepped on to the ladder. But I swayed about dreadfully, nevertheless, and became so giddy that once or twice I felt myself on the point of losing consciousness, and gave up all for lost. I reached the ditch, however, without serious accident; and when Alègre had lowered the things to me, I was lucky enough to find a little eminence to place them on, so that they did not get wetted. My companion then made the descent, but he had one advantage over me—I was at the bottom to hold the ladder for him, so that he did not suffer from giddiness nearly so much as I had done. When we had both reached the bottom we could not suppress a sigh of regret at being obliged to leave behind us the ladder it had cost so much pains to make.[D]
“It was not raining, and we could distinctly hear the footfall of a sentinel, at the distance of a few paces. We were obliged therefore, to give up the idea of reaching the parapet, and to turn our steps towards the governor’s garden. We accordingly shouldered our crowbars, and went straight to the wall between the ditches, where we began to work. But unfortunately, just at the spot we were obliged to choose, the ditch was deepest, so that we were up to our armpits in water, instead of being up to our breasts. There had been a thaw but a few hours previously, and the ditch was full of lumps of ice, yet we had to endure all this for more than nine hours, our strength exhausted by labour of the most fatiguing kind, and our limbs more than half frozen. Hardly had we began to work, when I saw on
