materials I must hide them from every eye, must work without noise, deceive all our spies, and this for months together. Now for the details of my operations. Our first object was to find a place of concealment for our tools and materials, in case we should be so fortunate as to procure any. By dint of reflecting on the subject, a thought struck me which appeared to me a very happy one. I had occupied several different chambers in the Bastille, and had always observed, whenever the chambers either above or below me were inhabited, that I had heard very distinctly any noise made in either. On the present occasion I heard all the movements of the prisoner above but not of him below, nevertheless I felt confident there was a prisoner there. I conjectured at last that there might be a double floor with a space between each. I took the following means to satisfy myself on the point. There was in the Bastille a chapel, at which by special favour of Monsieur Berryer, we, as well as the prisoner below, in No. 3, were allowed to hear mass. I resolved to take advantage, when mass should be over, of a moment, before the prisoner below was locked up, to take a view of his chamber. I pointed out to D'Alegre how he was to assist me. I told him to put his tooth-pick case in his pocket handkerchief, and when we should be on the second floor, by pulling out his pocket handkerchief, to let his tooth-pick case fall all the way down-stairs, and then to request the turnkey to go and pick it up. My little plan succeeded, While the turnkey was going after the tooth-pick case, I ran quickly up to No. 3, I drew back the bolt of the door-I examined the height of the chamber from the floor, and found it about ten feet six inches. I shut the door, and from this room to ours I counted thirty-two steps, measured the height of one of them, and making my calculation, I came to the conclusion that there must be, between the floor of our chamber and the ceiling of that below, a space of five feet six inches, which could not be filled up either by stones or wood on account of their weight. As soon as we were shut up, and bolted in, I embraced D'Alegre with delight. My friend,' said I, 'patience and courage-we are saved! We can hide our ropes and materials-that is all that is wanted! We

are saved!' "What,' said he, 'have you not given up your dreams? Ropes and materials! where are they, and where shall we get them?' 'Ropes,' said I, 'why we have more than we want, that trunk (showing him mine) contains a thousand feet of them.' Looking at me steadfastly, he replied, 'My good friend, endeavour to regain your senses and to calm the frenzy which agitates you. I know the contents of your trunk, there is not a single inch of rope in it.' 'Ay,' said I, 'but have I not a large stock of linen-twelve dozen of shirts, a great number of napkins, stockings, nightcaps, and other things ;-will not they supply us We will unravel them, and we shall have ropes enough.' 'But how are we to extract the iron gratings of our chimney?' said D'Alegre; 'where are we to get the materials for the wooden ladder which we shall want? where obtain tools for all these works? we cannot create things.' 'My friend,' I replied, "it is genius which creates, and we have that which despair gives, that will guide our hands; once more, we are saved!' We had a flat table supported by iron legs; we gave them an edge by rubbing them on the tiled floor; of the steel of our tinder-box, we made, in less than two hours, a good knife with which we formed two handles to these iron legs; the principal use of these was to force out the gratings of our chimney. In the evening, the daily inspection being over, with these iron legs we raised some tiles of our floor, and by digging for about six hours we discovered that our conjectures were well founded, and that there was a vacant space between the floor and ceiling of about four feet. We replaced the tiles, so that they scarcely appeared to have been raised. This done, we ripped the seams and hems of two shirts, and drew out the threads of them one by one. These we tied together and wound them on a number of small balls, which we afterwards rewound on two larger balls, each of which was composed of fifty threads sixty feet long. We twisted these and formed a cord about fifty-five feet long, and with it constructed a rope-ladder, which was intended to support us aloft, while we drew out of the chimney the bars and spikes of iron with which it was armed. This was the most painful and troublesome of our labours, and

cost us six months' toil, the recollection of which makes one shudder. We could only work by bending our bodies in the most painful positions; an hour at a time was all we could well bear, and we never came down without hands covered with blood, The iron bars were fastened with an extremely hard mortar which we had no means of softening, but by blowing water with our mouths into the holes as we worked them. Judge what this work must have been, when we were well pleased, if, in a whole night, we had worked away the eighth of an inch of this mortar. When we got a bar out we replaced it in its holes, that when we were inspected, the deficiency might not appear, and so as to enable us to take all of them out at once should we be in a situation to escape. After six months of this obstinate and cruel work, we applied ourselves to the wooden ladder which was necessary to mount from the fosse upon the parapet, and from thence into the governor's garden. This ladder required to be twenty feet long. We devoted to this part of our work nearly all our fuel; it consisted of round logs about eighteen or twenty inches long. We found we should want blocks or pulleys, and several other things, for which a saw was indispensable. I made one with an iron candlestick, by means of half of the steel of the tinder-box from which I had made the knife; with this piece of the steel, the saw, and the iron legs of our table, we reduced the size of our logs; we made tenons and mortices in them to join them one into the others, with two holes through each, and two joints, to prevent swagging. We made the ladder with only one upright, through which we put twenty rounds, each round being fifteen inches. long. The upright was three inches diameter, so that each round projected, clear, six inches on each side of the upright. To every piece of which the ladder was composed, the proper round of each joint was tied with a string, to enable us to put it together readily in the dark. As we completed each piece we concealed it between the two floors. With the tools we had made we completed the tools of our workshop. We had a pair of compasses, a square, a carpenter's rule, &c., &c., and hid them in our magazine."

De Latude goes on to detail the precautions which he and his companion in misfortune took, in case any of the jailers should be listening, to give feigned names for everything they used in their work, and states the names used by them for each article. He then proceeds with his narrative :—

"These things being complete, we set about our principal ladder, which was to be at least eighty feet long. We began by unravelling our linen; shirts, napkins, nightcaps, stockings, drawers, pocket-handkerchiefs-everything which could supply thread or silk. As we made a ball we concealed it in Polyphemus, (the name they called the hiding-place,) and when we had a sufficient quantity we employed a whole night in twisting it into a rope; and I defy a ropemaker to have done it better. The upper part of the building of the Bastille overhangs three or four feet. This would necessarily occasion our ladder to wave and swing about as we came down it, enough to turn the strongest head. To obviate this, and to prevent our fall, we made a second rope 160 feet long. This rope was to be reeved through a kind of double block without sheaves, in case the person descending should be suspended in the air without being able to get down lower. Besides these we made several other ropes of shorter lengths, to fasten our ladder to a cannon, and for other unforeseen occasions. When all these ropes were finished we measured them-they amounted to 1400 feet. We then made 208 rounds for the rope and wooden ladders. To prevent the noise which the rounds would make against the wall during our descent, we gave them coverings formed of pieces of the linings of our morning gowns, of our waistcoats, and our under-waistcoats. In all these preparations we employed eighteen months, but still they were incomplete. We had provided means to get to the top of the tower, to get into and out of the fossé: two more were wanting-one to climb upon the parapet; from the parapet into the governor's garden; from thence to get down into the fossé of the Port St Antoine; but the parapet which we had to cross was always well furnished with sentinels. We might fix on a dark and rainy night, when the sentinels did not go their rounds, and escape by those means, but it might rain when we climbed our chimney, and might clear up at the very moment

when we arrived at the parapet: we should then meet with the chief of the rounds, who constantly inspected the parapet, and he being always provided with lights, it would be impossible to conceal ourselves, and we should be inevitably ruined. The other plan increased our labours, but was the less dangerous of the two. It consisted in making a way through the wall which separates the fossé of the Bastille from that of the Port St Antoine. I considered that in the numerous floods, during which the Seine had filled this fossé, the water must have injured the mortar, and rendered it less difficult, and so we should be enabled to break a passage through the wall. For this purpose we should require an auger to make holes in the mortar, so as to insert the points of the two iron bars to be taken out of our chimney, and with them force out the stones, and so make our way through. Accordingly, we made an auger with one of the feet of our bedsteads, and fastened a handle to it in the form of a cross. We fixed on Wednesday the 25th February 1756, for our flight: the river had overflowed its banks: there were four feet of water in the fossé of the Bastille, as well as in that of the Port St Antoine, by which we hoped to effect our deliverance. I filled a leathern portmanteau with a change of clothes for both, in case we were so fortunate as to escape.

"Dinner was scarcely over when we set up our great ladder of ropes, that is, we put the rounds to it, and hid it under our beds; then we arranged our wooden ladder in three pieces. We put our iron bars in their cases to prevent their making a noise; and we packed up our bottle of usquebaugh to warm us, and restore our strength during our work in the water, up to the neck, for nine hours. These precautions taken, we waited till our supper was brought up. I first got up the chimney. I had the rheumatism in my left arm, but I thought little of the pain: I soon experienced one much more severe. I had taken none of the precautions used by chimney sweepers. I was nearly choked by the soot; and having no guards on my knees and elbows, they were so excoriated that the blood ran down on my legs and hands. As soon as I got to the top of the chimney I let down a piece of