never paused for a moment from the pursuit of her object, never uttered a sentence of regret that she had engaged in it. Her regarded their remonstrances, and continued to plead the cause of humanity. When seven months pregnant, she went on husband, too, though less per-foot to Versailles, in the midst sonally active, has the merit of of winter; she returned home, having entirely coincided with exhausted with fatigue, and worn her in opinion, and aided her out with disappointment; she as far as he had the power. worked more than half the night to obtain subsistence for the following day, and then repaired again to Versailles. At the expiration of eighteen months she visited me in my dungeon, and communicated her efforts and her hopes. For the first time I saw my generous protectress ; I became acquainted with her exertions, and I poured forth my gratitude in her presence. She redoubled her anxiety, and resolved to brave everything. Often on the same day she has gone to Montmartre to visit her It is delightful to know that her noble labours were crowned with success. Her toils, and the result of them, are thus summed up by Latude, who has also narrated them at great length: 'Being thoroughly convinced of my innocence, she resolved to attempt my liberation; she succeeded, after occupying three years in unparalleled efforts and unwearied perseverance. Every feeling heart will be deeply moved at the recital of the means she employed, and the difficulties she surmounted. With-infant, which was placed there out relations, friends, fortune, or assistance, she undertook everything, and shrank from no danger and no fatigue. She penetrated to the levées of ministers, and forced her way to the presence of the great; she spoke with the natural eloquence of truth, and falsehood fled before her words. They excited her hopes and extinguished them, received her with kindness and repulsed her rudely; she reiterated her petitions, and returned a hundred times to the attack, emboldened by defeat itself. The friends her virtues had created trembled for her liberty, even for her life. She resisted all their entreaties, dis at nurse, and then came to the Bicêtre to console me and inform me of her progress. At last, after three years, she triumphed, and procured my liberty.' In the first instance, the boon of liberty could not be said to be more than half granted, Latude being ordered to fix his abode at Montagnac, and not to leave the town without the permission of the police officer of the district. As his fortune was entirely lost, a miserable pension of four hundred livres (about £16) was assigned for his subsistence. By the renewed exertions of Madame Legros, however, the decree of exile times worse treatment; for that he had been the cause of the sergeant who guarded him being hanged. This appalling news entirely overwhelmed him; he gave himself up to frantic despair, and incessantly accused himself as the murderer of the unfortunate man. In the course of a few days, however, a compassionate sentinel, who was moved by his cries and groans, relieved his heart by informing him that the sergeant was well, and had only been imprisoned. The kind-hearted governor sometimes visited Latude, but the information which he brought was not consolatory. He had tried to move M. de Sartine, and had found him inflexible. Sartine, however, sent to offer the prisoner his liberty, on condition that he would name the person who held his papers, and he pledged his honour that no harm should come to that person. Latude knew him too well to trust him. He resolutely answered, 'I entered my dungeon an honest man, and I will die rather than leave it a dastard and a knave.' Into the den where he was, as it were, walled up, no ray of light entered; the air was never changed but at the moment when the turnkey opened the wicket; the straw on which he lay was always rotten with damp, and the narrowness of the space scarcely allowed him room to move. His health, of course, rapidly declined, and his body swelled enormously, retaining in every part of it when touched the impression of the finger. Such were his agonies, that he implored his keepers as an act of mercy to terminate his existence. At last, after having endured months of intense suffering, he was removed to a habitable apartment, where his strength gradually returned. Though his situation was improved, he was still entirely secluded from society. Hopeless of escape, he pondered on the means of at least opening an intercourse with his fellow-prisoners. On the outer side of his chamber was the garden in which each of the prisoners, Latude alone being excluded, was daily allowed to walk by himself for a certain time. This wall was five feet thick; so that to penetrate it seemed almost as difficult as to escape. But what cannot time and perseverance accomplish! His only instruments were a broken piece of a sword and an iron hoop of a bucket, which he had contrived to secrete; yet with these, by dint of twenty-six months' labour, he managed to perforate the mass of stone. The hole was made in a dark corner of the chimney, and he stopped the interior opening with a plug formed of sand and plaster. A long wooden peg rather shorter than the hole was inserted into it, that, in case of the external opening being noticed and sounded, it might seem to be not more than three inches in depth. For a signal to the prisoner walking in the garden, he tied several pieces of wood so as to form a stick about six feet long, at the end of which hung a bit of riband. The twine with which it was tied, was made from threads drawn out of his linen. He thrust the stick through the hole, and succeeded in attracting the attention of a fellow-captive, the Baron de Venac, who had been nineteen years confined for having presumed to give advice to Madame de Pompadour. He successively became acquainted with several others, two of whom were also the victims of the marchioness. One of them had been seventeen years in prison, on suspicion of having spoken ill of her; the other had been twenty-three years because he was suspected of having written against her a pamphlet, which he had never even seen. The prisoners contrived to convey ink and paper to Latude through the hole. He opened a correspondence with them, encouraged them to write to each other, and became the medium through which they transmitted their letters. The burden of captivity was much lightened to him by this new occupation. An unfortunate change for the prisoner now took place. The benevolent and amiablemannered Guyonnet was succeeded by Rougemont, a man who was a contrast to him in every respect. He was avaricious, flinty-hearted, brutal, and a devoted tool of M. de Sartine. The diet which he provided for the captives was of the worst kind; and their scanty comforts were as much as possible abridged. That he might not be thwarted in the exercise of his tyranny, he dismissed such of the prison attendants as he suspected of being humane, and replaced them by men whose dispositions harmonized with his own. How utterly devoid of feeling were the beings whom he selected, may be judged by the language of his cook. This libel on the human race is known to have said, 'If the prisoners were ordered to be fed on straw, I would give them stable-litter;' and on other occasions he declared, 'If I thought there was a single drop of juice in the meat of the prisoners, I would trample it under my foot to squeeze it out!' Such a wretch would not have scrupled to put poison into the food, had not his master had an interest in keeping the captives alive. When any one complained of the provisions, he was insultingly answered, 'It is but too good for prisoners;' when application for the use of an article, however insignificant, was made, the reply was, 'It is contrary to the rules.' So horrible was the despotism of the governor, that within three months four of the prisoners strangled themselves in despair. 'The Inquisition itself,' says Latude, might envy his proficiency in times worse ti he had been sergeant who harged. Th: entirely overw gave himself spair, and in himself as the unfortunate m of a few days, passionate se moved by his relieved his he him that the s and had only t The kind-h sometimes visit information wh was not conso! tried to move and had found Sartine, howeve the prisoner his dition that he v person who held he pledged his harm should co son. Latude k well to trust hi lutely answered, dungeon an hone will die rather t dastard and a kn Into the den as it were, walled light entered; th changed but at the the turn 4 easy to be m besides, he & bafing his He had remaining 2. Tonatium pot scene oil, sent m with a wick. He ne, which he coiled up stune in the shape of a eave With another portion raw he made a sort of stick the tetong, with a bit of linen tead of it. The turnkey says obliged to bring his ce: and while he was he second portion, Laut the stick, ob from the candle, per and then vered over with 2 When he RAJIT hooded he lamp, and wrote a second 15. main for a few months. These were the very same words which had been spoken to him when he was sent from the Bastile to Vincennes; and knowing their meaning but too well, they almost palsied his faculties. His enemies had been busily at work. By gross misrepresentations, and by forging in his name an extravagant memorial to the king, they had induced M. de Malesherbes to believe that the prisoner's intellects were disordered, and that he could not be immediately released without peril. It was to the hospital of Charenton, the Parisian bedlam, that the officers were removing Latude. When he was about to quit Vincennes, he heard the brutal Rougemont describe him to them as a dangerous and hardened criminal, who could not be too rigorously confined. It was also hinted that the prisoner was gifted with magical powers, by virtue of which he had thrice escaped in an extraordinary manner. When he was turned over to the monks, called the Brothers of Charity, who had the management of Charenton, these particulars were faithfully reported to them, and he was introduced under the name of moment when he ima-Danger,' in order to excite an free, an officer idea of his formidable character. ude had been more than years at Vincennes when der arrived for his release. eart beat high with exultabut he was doomed to * severe disappointment. |