"Without looking at the paper I offered, he said, "Suppose all the drums of the army were there, how should they help us to escape?"

"We do not want the drums of the army; but if, as I think, there is a hollow to conceal my ropes and the other implements we shall have occasion for, I will engage that we shall succeed."

"But before we talk of hiding our ropes, we must have them; and you know that it is impossible to get ten feet.”

"As to the ropes," said I, "give yourself no trouble about them, for in my trunk there is more than a thousand feet."

'He looked at me very earnestly, and said, "Faith! I believe you have lost your senses; I know the contents of your portmanteau. I am

certain there is not a foot of rope in it; and yet you tell me that it holds more than a thousand."

"Yes," I replied, "in that trunk are twelve dozen of shirts, six dozen pairs of silk stockings, twelve dozen pairs of under stockings, five dozen drawers, and six dozen napkins. Now, by unravelling my shirts, stockings, napkins, and drawers, I shall have more than enough to make a thousand feet of rope."

"True," said he; "but how shall we remove the iron bars in our chimney? for we have no instruments to accomplish so great an undertaking."

"The hand is the instrument," I answered, “of all instruments; it is that which makes every one of them. Men whose heads are capable of working, are never at a loss for resources. Look at the iron hinges of our folding-table. I will put each into a handle, give it an edge by whetting it on the tiled floor of our apartment. We have a steel; by breaking it I will manufacture a good knife, in less than two hours, to make the handles; and the penknife will serve for a thousand other purposes."

As soon as we had supped, we pulled one hinge from our table; with that we took up a tile from our floor, and set about digging so successfully, that in six hours we performed it, and found that there were two floors three feet distant from each other. From this moment we considered our escape as a certainty. We replaced the tile, which had no appearance of having been removed. Next day I broke our steel, and made a penknife of it; and with this instrument we formed handles to the hinges of our table; we gave an edge to each. we unravelled two of our shirts, having ripped them to the hems, drawing out one thread after the other. We braided these strings together, made a certain number of clews of an equal length; and the clews being finished, we divided them in two, which formed two large bottoms; there were fifty threads in each bot

Then

tom sixty feet long. We then twisted them, and formed a rope fifty-five feet long; and with the wood they brought us for firing made twenty rounds, which, connected by the rope, became a ladder twenty feet long.

At last we began the most difficult undertaking- the removal of the iron bars from the chimney. To accomplish this, we fastened our rope-ladder with a weight to the end of it, and by means of the steps, supported ourselves, while we displaced the bars. In a few months we loosened them all, but restored them to their places, ready to be removed at any time we wanted them. This was a troublesome piece of work. We never descended without bloody hands; and our bodies were so bruised in the chimney, that we could not renew our toil for an hour afterwards. This labour over, we wanted a wooden ladder of twenty feet, from the trench to reach the parapet, where the guards are posted, and that way to enter the governor's garden. Every day they gave us wood for firing, about twenty inches long. We still wanted blocks and many other things, and our two hinges were not fit for these purposes, much less to saw billets. In a few hours, with the other fragment of the steel, I made an excellent saw from an iron candlestick. With the penknife, the hinges, and the saw, we began to shape and

smooth our billets, to make at each end a kind of joint or mortise, and tenants to fix in one another, with two holes, one to receive a round, and one a peg, to prevent their shaking; and as fast as we finished a part of our ladder, we concealed it between the two floors. With these implements we made a pair of compasses, a square, a reel, blocks, steps, etc.

As the officers and turnkeys often entered our apartment in the daytime, when we least expected them, we were obliged not only to hide our tools, but the smallest chips and rubbish that we made, the least of which would have betrayed us. We had likewise given each of them a private name; for instance, we called the saw Faunus, the reel Anubis, the hinges Tubal Cain, the drum Polyphemus, in allusion to the fabulous grotto, the wooden ladder Jacob, the steps suckers, a rope a dove, etc. When any person was coming in, he who was next the door said to the other, Tubal Cain, Faunus, Anubis, Dove, etc., and the other threw his handkerchief over what was to be concealed, or removed it; for we were always on our guard.

'Not having materials sufficient to form two sides to our wooden ladder, it had only one pole twenty feet long, in which were inserted twenty rounds, fifteen inches long, that projected from the pole six inches on each side; and every round

with its peg was fastened with packthread, so that it was impossible to slip in using it by night. When this ladder was finished, we hid it in Polyphemus, that is, in the hollow of the floor; we then set to work about the ropes of the great ladder, which was to be 180 feet long. We unravelled our shirts, napkins, stockings, drawers, etc. As fast as we made a clew of a certain length, we hid it in Polyphemus; and when we had completed a sufficient number in one night, we twisted our capital rope.

'All round the Bastile is an entablature, which projects three or four feet. We were convinced that at every step of our descent the ladder would vibrate from side to side, and at those intervals the steadiest head might be overpowered. To prevent either of us from being crushed by a fall, we made a second rope 360 feet long, or twice the measure of the height of the tower. This rope was to pass through a kind of fixed pulley, that there might be no danger of its sticking between the sides and iron box of the latter; and thus either of us, whether above or below the tower, by means of this cord, might sustain his comrade in the air, and prevent his descending too fast. Besides these, we made shorter cords, to fasten our rope-ladder and our block to a piece of cannon, and for other unforeseen exigencies. When these cords were all ready,

their measure was 400 feet. We had still to make 200 steps for the great ladder and the wooden one; and to prevent the steps of the rope-ladder from rustling against the wall as we descended, we covered them with the linings of our bed-gowns, under-waistcoats, etc. These preparations cost us eighteen months' work, night and day.

I have described the requisites we needed to get through our chimney on the platform of the Bastile, to descend thence into the trench, to get up the parapet, and enter the governor's garden, to descend again by means of our wooden ladder, or another, into the great trench by the gate of St. Anthony, the spot that was to bless us with our liberty. We required, besides, a dark, stormy night: yet a dreadful evil might intervene; it might happen to rain from five in the evening till nine or ten, and then the weather might become fair. In that case, the sentinels walking round the Bastile from one post to another would see us, and not only all our toil would be lost, but instead of receiving consolation, we should be sent to the dungeon, and while the marchioness continued in power, be watched with additional rigour. We were much alarmed with the apprehension of this danger; but by reflecting on it, I discovered the means of its removal. informed my companion, that since the building of this wall, the Seine had overflowed at

I

least 300 times; that its waters must have dissolved the salts contained in the mortar, the depth of half an inch every time, and that consequently it would be easy for us to perforate a hole in it, by which we might escape with less hazard. In order to obtain a gimlet, we could draw a screw out of our bedstead, to which we would fix a good cross handle; and with it might make some holes in the joining of the stones, to stick in them our iron bars, by which we might remove more than five tons weight with the purchase of the lever; and so might easily pierce the wall that separates the trench of the Bastile from that of St. Anthony's gate. There would be a thousand times less risk in issuing by this method, than by getting out on the parapet, and passing under the very noses of the sentinels, etc. M. D'Alegre agreed to this, and said, that should we be foiled in this perforation, it would be still less hazardous than to scale a corner of the wall, as we had heretofore intended, by the parapet,-a resource that would be left us should our other attempt be frustrated by insurmountable obstacles. Accordingly, we made wrappers for our iron bars, we drew out the bed-screw and made a gimlet of it; in short, when our apparatus was ready, though the river had overflowed, and the water was three or four feet deep in each trench, we resolved to depart

the next evening, the 25th of February 1756.

'Besides my trunk, I had a large leathern portmanteau ; and not questioning that all the clothes on our backs would be soaked by working in the water, we filled this portmanteau with a complete suit, not omitting the best of every article left us. Next day, as soon as we had dined, we fitted up our great ladder, with its flight of steps, and then hid it under our beds, that it might not be discovered by the turnkey when he brought our supper. We next adjusted our wooden ladder, then made up the rest into several bundles, being free from the apprehension of any visit till the usual hour of five. The two iron bars for which we had occasion were pulled down, and put into their wrappers, both to prevent a noise and that we might handle them more conveniently. We had provided a bottle of usquebaugh, to keep us warm and recruit our strength, should we be obliged to work in the water. This proved a very necessary precaution, for without the assistance of that liquor we should never have been able to stand up to the neck in the wet for six hours.

'The critical moment now arrived. Our supper was scarcely brought, when, in spite of a rheumatic pain in my left arm, I set about climbing up the chimney, and had a hard struggle to reach the top. I was almost smothered with the soot, not be

arm their elbows and loins with defensives, and put a sack over their heads to secure them from the dust; my elbows and knees were accordingly flayed; the blood streaming from my elbows to my hands, and from my knees down my legs. At last I got to the top of the chimney, where I placed myself astride, and thence unwound a ball of packthread, to the end of which my companion had agreed to fasten the strongest rope that held my portmanteau; by this I drew it up and lowered it on the platform. I returned the rope, to which my companion tied the wooden ladder. I drew it up; in the same manner the two iron bars and the rest of our parcels. When I had these, I again let down my packthread to raise the rope-ladder, drawing up the superfluous length, that by the end my companion might mount the chimney with more facility than I had done; and at his signal I fastened it. He ascended with ease; we finished drawing up the remainder, and hung the whole in such a manner across the chimney, that we descended both at once on the platform, serving for a counterpoise to each other.

'Two horses would not have been able to remove all our luggage. We began with rolling up our rope-ladder, which made a volume five feet high and a foot thick, and we wheeled this kind of millstone on the tower of the treasury, which we thought

We fastened this ladder securely to a piece of cannon, and then let it gently down into the trench, In the same manner we fastened our block, passing through it the rope 360 feet long; and when we had moved aside all our other parcels, I tied my thigh securely to the rope of the block, got on the ladder, and in proportion as I descended its steps, my comrade let out the rope of the block; but, notwithstanding this precaution, every time I moved, my body resembled a kite dancing in the air, so that, had this happened by daylight, of a thousand persons who might have seen me reeling, not one but would have given me over for lost; yet I arrived save in the trench.

'Immediately my companion lowered my portmanteau, the iron bars, the wooden ladder, and all our equipage, which I placed high and dry, on a little rising above the surface of the water at the foot of the tower. He next fastened the rope of the block at the other end above his knee, and, when he had given me a signal, I performed the same manœuvre below which he had done for me above, to sustain me in the air and prevent a fall. I took the further precaution to place the last step under my thighs by sitting on it, to spare him the disagreeable vibration which I had experienced. He got down to me, though, during the whole time,