Accordingly, one day in the absence of the Governor, Madame Grotius went to call on his wife, who always received her kindly. ‘I am come,’ she said, ‘to ask you to help me. My husband is killing himself, poring over those dreadful folios, and making himself ill. We are both very grateful for the permission granted that he should have the use of his own library, but lately he has been working his brain, and tiring his head over those tremendously heavy volumes, heavy in every sense of the word, I want to send them away, and get others lighter and smaller. Now, of course, your word is as good as that of your husband in his absence. Do me the kindness to order your men to carry down the chest as usual to the water’s edge, and not demur because it is extra heavy. I have a perfect spite against those bulky volumes.’ The vice-regent of the commandant, ‘dressed in a little brief authority,’ made use of it to oblige her friend, and gave the order willingly. Maria went back to her own quarters. ‘Mother, dear,’ said Cornelia, the eldest of her children, ‘did you not say to-morrow was the Fair at Gorcum, and that you were told on such occasions even exiles and outlaws might appear in the town? Why should not dear father go there in that case?’ Surely out of the child’s mouth came a word of wisdom; she little knew that her remark was hailed as an omen by her parents. Maria von Grotius next sent for her maid, and asked her the startling question, ‘If we can conceal your master in the book-chest, will you take charge of it to Gorcum, and incur the whole risk?’—which was indeed great. The loving wife would gladly have undertaken the task herself, but she judged it would be more likely to avert suspicion if she remained in the castle. The brave girl pledged herself to carry out the directions of her mistress to the letter, and the two women began their arduous and dangerous preparations. It was the beginning of the week, and the month March 1621, that Grotius rose early and, kneeling down by the side of the empty trunk, prayed fervently for the success of the hazardous enterprise. He was dressed in soft linen and underclothing, and got into the chest, which was only four feet long, and narrow in proportion, he being a tall and strongly built man. His wife helped him to coil himself up, and then placed a large Testament as a pillow for the beloved head, the position of which she arranged so that the mouth should come opposite the small holes she had drilled to admit a little air. She closed the chest and sat on the top for a considerable time, to ascertain if her husband could possibly endure the confinement. Then lifting the lid once more, she knelt down and took a solemn farewell of him she best loved on earth, kissed him tenderly, locked the box, and gave the key to the maid. We can only guess at the feelings of anguish and tenderness which convulsed the heart of that noble woman at that supreme instant. Then she arranged her husband’s day-clothes on the chair, with his dressing slippers, and drew the curtains closely round the bed, into which she got hastily. After that she rang the bell, and when the servant who usually waited on them answered the summons, she looked out and said she was so sorry she could not go to Gorcum that day for she was not well herself, and did not like to leave her husband who was very ill; throwing out at the same time a hint that he was feverish, and there might be fear of infection. The servant said it was all the better she should not go, for the river was swollen and the wind was high, and in fact it was almost dangerous. ‘That is unfortunate,’ she said, ‘for my husband resolved that these heavy folios should go to-day; however, my maid is no coward, and she will take charge of them, even if the ferry should be rough.’ She then bade him go and summon the soldiers whom Madame Deventer had told off to carry the chest. They came, and on lifting it one of them said, ‘I believe the Arminian is inside, it is so confoundedly heavy.’
The poor wife trembling behind the closely drawn curtains made some tame jest about the relative weight of a man and those horrid books, and then the precious load was carried out of the room. But Lieschen had many terrible moments yet to come. The soldiers maintained, nothing but a man could weigh so heavily, and one of them said he would get a gimlet and run it into the Arminian, and another told anecdotes of how malefactors had been smuggled out of prison in a like manner. Poor Lieschen had to jest, while her heart quaked: ‘Your gimlet must be a long one,’ she said, ‘to reach my master in his bedroom in the castle.’ Then followed the awful question, whether Madame Deventer would consider it necessary to inspect the contents of the chest, which she fortunately declined. So on the soldiers went, grumbling at their heavy load, and when they arrived at the wharf, the maid entreated that a double plank might be placed to carry the chest on board, for, said she, ‘those books are to be returned to a learned Professor, and I shall never be forgiven if any mischance should befall them.’ At length the transport was effected, and the large box deposited on the deck beside Lieschen. The river was much swollen, the wind was raging, the vessel heeled over to one side, and the girl had to beseech the skipper to have the box secured with ropes, and down she sat beside it in an agony of terror, both for herself and her precious charge. She then threw a white handkerchief over her head and let the ends flutter in the breeze, the signal that had been agreed on between her and her mistress to show so far all was well and the vessel in motion; for a servant in the castle had added to the women’s accumulated terror by predicting that the captain would not embark in such a storm.
The unhappy wife was straining her eyes, dimmed by tears, between the bars of the window, while the maid sat shivering with cold and fear, her head between her hands; and on the top of the chest an officer of the garrison had taken up his post, and drummed and pommelled with his feet against the sides, and she dared not bid him desist from doing so—for what reason could she assign for interference? At last she bethought herself to ask him to get off, as there were not only books but fragile china in the chest, and he might break it by that constant shaking. The longest voyage, like the longest day, will have an end, and surely that voyage from Loevenstein to Gorcum must have seemed like one round the world to the terrified girl; yet her fears did not deaden her woman’s wit, and she was always ready with an answer. She bribed the skipper and his son to transport the chest themselves to its destination on a hand-barrow, beside which she walked. ‘Do you hear what my boy says?’ observed the captain; ‘he declares there is some living thing in your trunk, Miss.’ ‘No doubt,’ was the answer, with a forced laugh; ‘don’t you know that Arminian books are alive, full of motion and spirit?’ In this manner the three companions, with the fourth concealed, threaded the dense crowds of the fair at Gorcum, and made their way to a warehouse which Lieschen indicated. It belonged to a well-to-do tradesman (relative of a learned professor, a friend of the prisoner’s), and the wife was one of those whom Maria von Grotius frequently visited on her marketing expeditions to Gorcum. The bearers of the chest were exorbitant in their demands, but Lieschen was very anxious to be relieved of their presence, and made little haggling about the price. No sooner had they departed than the poor girl hastened into the shop where the ribbon-dealer and his wife were busy selling their wares, and stepping noiselessly up to the latter, whispered the truth in her astonished ear. The startled Vrouw became deathly pale, and seemed like to faint, but she left the shop with Lieschen, and then what a moment of condensed and mingled hope and terror! Lieschen kneeled down and knocked. ‘Master, dear master,’ she exclaimed. No answer. ‘Oh my God, he is dead,’ cried the girl, while her companion stood quaking with terror and calling out it was a bad business. But hark! A feeble cry from the inside, ‘Open quick, I was not sure of your voice.’ The chest was opened, and Grotius arose, almost as from a tomb. The still terrified shopwoman took Lieschen and her master into an upper room through a trap-door, and then began to tell him how alarmed she was, and that she feared, if he were found, her husband would be imprisoned in his stead, and all their property forfeited. ‘No, no,’ said Grotius, ‘before I got into this trunk I prayed earnestly to God, who has preserved me hitherto, but rather than ruin you and your husband, I would get into the box again, and go back to Loevenstein.’ ‘Oh no,’ said the kind-hearted woman, ‘we will do all in our power to serve you’; and off she flew to her brother-in-law, a clothier of Gorcum, whom she found in conversation with the very officer who had been Lieschen’s fellow-passenger, and who had annoyed her by sitting on the trunk. Drawing her relative aside, the mercer’s wife explained the whole state of the case, and bade him follow her to the warehouse without a moment’s delay, when she would introduce him to the fugitive.
The clothier was nothing loath to be instrumental in the escape of a man whom he greatly admired, being himself no mean scholar, and well acquainted with the writings of Grotius, on entering whose presence, he thus addressed him, ‘Are you, sir, that man with whose name the whole of Europe is now ringing?’
‘I am Hugo Grotius,’ was the reply, ‘and into your hands I commit my safety and my life.’
No time was lost. The clothier, who was acquainted with every one in Gorcum, found the man he could trust, a mason working on a scaffolding in the town. He beckoned him down, and told him there was an errand of mercy to be performed, to which a large reward was appended, and asked if he would undertake the task. The mason answered in the affirmative, and was then directed to procure a set of working-men’s clothes, which unfortunately proved too scanty for Grotius, and thus occasioned a new difficulty; the trunk-hose and sleeves were too short, the latter revealing the finely shaped white hand, whose hardest labour had hitherto been the work of the pen. The two women had much ado to patch up and lengthen out, and with dirt and clay, putty and plaster, they smeared the hands of the great philosopher, and sent him forth with fear and trembling, to run the gauntlet of many dangers. Next door was a library, which was the resort of learned professors, and book-lovers of all kinds, to many of whom Grotius was known by sight. He slouched his felt hat over his eyes, took his measuring-wand in his hand, and followed the mason through the streets to the bank of the river, where the friendly clothier met them. The weather was still boisterous, and the boatmen refused to ply, till the mason urged on them the necessity he was under of fulfilling a contract for buying stone for a large building at Altona, and assured them he would be a considerable loser by delay. These arguments were backed by the clothier, who put his hand into his pocket, and drew forth the most convincing of all arguments in the eyes of the boatmen. And at length the embarkation was effected; the ferry crossed in safety, and then the two masons walked to a neighbouring town, where they hired a carriage, and entering into confidential talk with the driver, informed him that the taller of the two was a disguised bankrupt flying from his creditors into foreign territory, and this, they said, would account for his wish to avoid observation as they passed through the towns. On went the little carriage, the driver of which was not long before he set down Grotius as a fool who soon ‘parted with his money,’ for of its value he showed a profound ignorance. In this respect we see that the driver differed in opinion from the rest of the world. They travelled through the night, and on the morrow, arriving early within a few leagues of Antwerp, they were met by a patrol of soldiers, who challenged them, asked for their passport, and inquired to whose service they belonged. Grotius evaded the question, and added jestingly, ‘As to my passport, that is in my feet.’ They fraternised, and the fugitive had now not only a military escort, but a good horse provided for his own riding; and in this manner entered the city of Antwerp. He alighted at the house of a banished friend, who proved to be in great anxiety on account of his wife’s illness, so the daughter of the family informed him; but no sooner did her parents learn the name of their unexpected visitor, than not only the master of the house, but the invalid herself hastened down to bid him welcome. The meeting was indeed a happy one, and although secrecy was deemed prudent, yet the news spread among a few compatriots, under the same sentence of proscription, who all flocked to the house, where a joyous little banquet was prepared, at which the illustrious journeyman mason, still in his working clothes, presided. Conversation flowed, and glasses clinked merrily that night to the health of Grotius and his gallant Maria, not forgetting the brave and faithful handmaiden. In the meantime how went affairs at Loevenstein? Madame Grotius had given out that her husband’s illness was infectious; but no sooner was she apprised of his safety, than she laughed her gaoler and his guards to scorn. ‘Here is the cage,’ she said merrily, ‘but the bird has flown!’ The commandant rained curses on her head, and increased the rigour of her imprisonment. He went across the river to browbeat the good shopwoman and her husband, but all this fuming and fretting did not bring back the prisoner. Madame Grotius sent a petition to the States-General and to the Stadtholder, to which neither were insensible. It was on this occasion that Prince Maurice (who was not wont to measure his words) made the ungallant speech—‘I thought that black pig would outwit us.’ We can fancy he said it with a grim smile, for very shortly afterwards Madame Grotius found herself at liberty, with the permission to carry away all that belonged to her in Loevenstein. Grotius, on his part, addressed a letter to the States-General before leaving Antwerp, in which he maintained that he had done his duty as Pensionary of Rotterdam, in the measures he had advocated, thereby incurring their censure, and he proceeded at length to propound his political views, and to offer suggestions for the restoration and maintenance of internal peace, concluding by justifying the means he had used for escape, having employed ‘neither violence nor corruption.’ And he furthermore declared that the persecutions he had suffered, and the hardships to which he had been exposed, could never diminish his love for his country, for whose prosperity he devoutly prayed.
Grotius remained some time at Antwerp, and then determined on proceeding to France, where his wife and family were allowed to join him; and Lieschen, good, brave Lieschen, who would not rejoice to hear that her fate was one usually reserved for the last page of a story-book—‘she lived happy ever afterwards,’ becoming the wife of her faithful fellow-servant, who had learned the rudiments of law from his master during their captivity,—a study which the good man continued on leaving Loevenstein, and rose step by step until he became a thriving and respected advocate in the tribunals of Holland.
But to return to Grotius: On his arrival in Paris he was kindly received by the French King, who granted him a provisional pension (very uncertain, by the way, in payment). In a pleasant country-house which had been lent him, in the environs of Senlis, he resumed his literary labours with great assiduity, working first at his ‘Apology,’ which he wrote in his mother-tongue, and sent off to Holland as soon as completed. This was a full and detailed exposition of the motives which had actuated his conduct, and of his religious and political sentiments. It produced the greatest possible excitement in Holland. The Government designated it as a foul and slanderous libel, reflecting on the honour of the States, of the Stadtholder, and all manner of bodies magisterial and municipal. The publication was interdicted, and every person forbidden, on pain of death, to retain it in their possession. In the meantime the ‘Apology’ was published, and eagerly read in Paris, and Grotius now set to work on his famous treatise on the Rights of Peace and War.
The pretty country-house in which he lived was the resort of men of letters, and among his frequent visitors was the learned De Thou, who gave him the free use of his valuable library. In 1625, on the death of Prince Maurice, the exile wrote to the new Stadtholder, Frederic Henry, asking permission to return, but without success. He then sent his wife into Holland, and through her judicious management and the exertions of his friends, the reversal of the decree of confiscation was obtained, and his property and effects were restored to him. At length he ventured back to his own country in person, and first proceeded to Rotterdam, where he was cordially received in private, but the authorities would not sanction his appearance in public, and the same reception awaited him at Amsterdam and Delft. The States-General, of whom he disdained to ask pardon (‘for,’ said he, ‘in what have I offended?’) were exasperated at his boldness in venturing back without permission, and orders were given to seize his person, and give notice to the Government, while a reward of 2000 florins was offered for his capture; but Grotius was too much beloved; no one was found to betray him. Still his position was undoubtedly perilous, and joining his wife on her return from Zeeland, they took up their abode for the summer and winter in or near the town of Hamburg.
Grotius was now overwhelmed with proposals of employment, and overtures of all descriptions from foreign powers—Spain, Poland, the Duchy of Holstein, and the hero Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, for whom our philosopher had the profoundest veneration. With this monarch’s envoy at the French Court, Benedict Oxenstiern, a relative of the celebrated Chancellor, Grotius had formed an intimate friendship, and when they were both residing at Frankfort, they became almost inseparable. The King of Sweden died, and was succeeded by his daughter, the eccentric Christina, whose admiration for the fame of Grotius even exceeded that of her father. Through the medium of Oxenstiern she made him numerous offers, but Grotius declined all but one employment. He volunteered to return to Paris as the Swedish Ambassador, provided the Queen would allow him a sufficient salary to maintain his position as her representative, which nomination was most distasteful to Richelieu, who was then Prime Minister. But after a time his opposition was overruled, and Grotius made his public entry into the French capital, where the crooked and tortuous policy pursued by Richelieu, and continued by his successor, Cardinal Mazarin, was most distasteful to Christina’s envoy, added to which he was weary of politics, diplomacy, and Court life, and earnestly solicited his recall. Christina acquiesced in the demand, but desired him to repair to Stockholm, where she joined him. Her Majesty did all in her power by promises of provision and favour for himself, his wife, and family, to induce Grotius to become a resident in her country. But he withstood all her tempting offers. Many difficulties to his departure were thrown in his way, but at last he embarked on a vessel bound for Lubeck. He had not been long at sea before a tremendous storm arose, and after three days continual tossing, and constant danger of shipwreck, the passengers landed on the coast of Pomerania, about fourteen miles from Dantzig. Grotius was far from well when he left Stockholm; the climate had proved too cold for him. He had been very ill on the voyage, and after travelling sixty miles in an open wagon, exposed to violent wind and rain, he arrived at Rostock in a most enfeebled condition. No sooner had he arrived than he sent for the doctor and the clergyman, who thus describes his interview in a letter: ‘If you are anxious to know how that Phœnix of literature, Hugo Grotius, behaved in his last moments, I will tell you. He sent for me at night. I found him almost at the point of death, and told him how deeply I regretted that I had never seen him in health, to benefit by his conversation. “God has ordered it otherwise,” he said. I then bade him prepare for a happier life; to acknowledge and repent his sins, and, chancing to allude to the Pharisee and the publican, “I am that publican,” he exclaimed. When I told him to have recourse to Jesus Christ, without whom is no salvation, he answered: “In Him alone I place my trust.” Then I repeated aloud the German prayer that begins, “Herr Jesu.” He followed in a low voice with clasped hands. I inquired if he understood all, and he said, “Quite well.” I continued to read passages of the Word of God for dying persons.’ Thus expired this great and good man, far from the kindred he loved, his heart still true to the country which had rejected and expelled him, his deathbed watched by strangers. His body was embalmed and transported to his native city of Delft, where it was interred with great pomp by his fellow-citizens, who at first proposed to erect a statue in his honour, similar to that of Erasmus at Rotterdam, but the idea was abandoned. It was reserved for his descendants to raise a monument to his memory in the said church. We transcribe the modest epitaph written by Grotius on himself—