The Road to Paris: A Story of Adventure

by Robert Neilson Stephens

For some time, the darkness and rain hid everything from Dick's sight. But at last, having meanwhile drawn the full length of rope after him from the chimney, he could make out vaguely the dark houses and streets stretching far away below. By sheer force of will, and by confining every thought and moment to his work, he kept himself from turning giddy at the height.

The lofty platform of the Bastile was surmounted by ordnance, even as in the days of the Fronde, when the "great Mademoiselle" had fired the guns on the soldiers of Turenne. Dick fastened his rope around one of these cannon, and threw the loose end over the battlement of a corner tower. He believed that the rope would reach down almost to the fosse, which separated the prison from the outer wall. This ditch was twenty-five feet deep, but was usually kept dry. Along the inside of the outer wall ran a wooden gallery, which was paced by sentinels and was reached from below by two flights of steps.

It was Dick's plan to drop from the rope's end to the fosse, slink up the steps under cover of darkness and rain, elude the sentinels, reach the top of the outer wall, and drop therefrom to the ground outside, trusting to his lightness and his luck to make this last fall an easy one. He had obtained his knowledge of his surroundings from a book of memoirs that he had read in his cell, written by a gentleman who had been imprisoned in the Bastile under the Regency.

He clambered over the battlement, took a good hold of his slender rope, or, rather, of one of the wooden rounds knotted to it, and let down his weight over the outer edge of the battlement, grasping at the same time the next lower round with his other hand. He had an instant of giddiness and weakness, at the discovery that the rope swung far out in the air, the wall being overhung by the battlements. He hardened his muscles and somewhat overcame this momentary feeling. But his arms trembled as he cautiously disengaged one hand and sought the next round below.

In this manner, swaying in the air, and feeling sometimes as if the tower were leaning over upon him, and at other times as if it were receding so as to leave him quite alone between earth and sky, he gradually made the descent. It began to seem as if the rope were endless, as if he were doomed forever to descend towards an earth that fell back from him as he approached. But at last his feet felt about for the rope below, in vain. His hands soon confirmed the discovery that he was at the rope's lower end, to which a stout piece of wood was attached. Yet he was still far from the fosse; indeed, he saw, with dismay, that he was a good distance above the level of the outer wall.

To drop from such a height would be suicide. To climb back to the top of the tower was impossible; his strength was almost gone.

Thanks to the darkness and to the noise of the rain, he had not been seen by the sentinels. It was a time for desperate expedients. He had noticed that, whenever the rope swung him close to the tower wall, it swung back to a corresponding distance outward. He now swung in, and, in rebounding, struck his feet against the tower in such manner as to propel him farther outward on the return swing. He next guided himself so as to swing clear of the rounded surface of the tower and yet so as to kick the tower in passing, and thus to gain additional space and force for his pendulum-like movement through the air. Continuing thus, and describing a greater arc at each swing, he found at last that his outward swing brought him almost directly above the outer wall. At the next swing, he let the rope go, with the hope of landing somewhere on the outer wall, which was so near that the fall would not be exceptionally dangerous.

Through the air he was hurled, far beyond the outer wall. He had miscalculated. For an instant he was aware of this, and gave himself up as a dead man. He knew that no human bones could withstand such a collision with solid earth as he was about to experience. He instinctively made himself ready for the shock. It came,—with a splash, an immersion, a gurgling, and a further descent through muddy water. He had dropped into the aqueduct of the Fosse St. Antoine.

The ten feet of water then in the aqueduct sufficiently broke his fall, and he rose to the surface in a state of amazement. As there was no demonstration from the wall over which he had swung, he inferred that the sound of the rain had drowned the splash of his contact with the water. He clambered up the bank, slunk along the outer wall of the Bastile, and emerged in the square before the Porte St. Antoine.

Westward lay the city proper, eastward the Faubourg St. Antoine, with highways leading to the open country. The first faint sign of dawn was appearing, so many hours had Dick been employed in his escape. The rain was still descending, and the water of the ditch was dripping from his clothes. He stood still for a moment, gazing at the dark roofs of Paris; then he turned his back upon them, and looked towards the two streets that opened before him. He chose that towards the right, and plunged into it. It led him southeastward.