[IN the year 1749, De Latude, who was of a respectable family in Languedoc, and intended for the engineers, came to Paris, and being unsuccessful in obtaining an appointment, he formed a scheme to gain the good-will of Madame Pompadour, the king's mistress, by disclosing to her a pretended plot for poisoning her. This artifice being detected, he was seized and confined in the castle of Vincennes, from which he escaped after nine months' confinement, but was retaken and imprisoned in the Bastille. He had for a fellow-prisoner a young man of the name of D'Alegre, who had been in confinement, at the instance of Madame de Pompadour, for three years. These two unfortunate men occupied the same chamber. The then governor of the Bastille, Monsieur Berryer, treated them with humanity, and used his best endeavours to procure their discharge by forwarding and backing their memorials and petitions. At length, however, he was under the painful necessity of announcing to them, that, in consequence of Madame de Pompadour's positive orders never to be spoken to on their behalf, there was no prospect of their release, but with the death or disgrace of that implacable woman. D'Alegre was reduced to despair; but the courage of De Latude was raised by this intelligence, and he resolved to escape or perish in the attempt. We will now let him tell his own story:-]

"To any man who had the least notion of the situation of the Bastille, its extent, its towers, its discipline, and the incredible precautions which despotism had multiplied more surely to chain its victims, the mere idea of escaping from it would appear the effect of insanity, and would inspire nothing but pity for a wretch so devoid of sense as to dare to conceive it. A moment's reflection would suffice to show that it was hopeless to attempt an escape by the gates. Every physical impossibility was united to render this impracticable. We had no resource but by the outside. There was in our chamber a fire-place, the chimney of which came out in the extreme height of the tower-it was full of gratings and bars of iron, which in several parts of it scarcely left a free passage for the smoke. Should we be able to get to the top of the tower, we should have below us a precipice of great height, at the bottom of which was a fosse or broad ditch, surrounded by a very lofty wall, to be got over. We were without assistance, without tools, without materials, constantly watched night and day, and guarded besides by a great number of sentinels, who surrounded the outworks of the Bastille. So many obstacles, so many dangers did not deter me. I hinted my scheme to my comrade; he thought me a madman, and relapsed into despair. I was obliged alone to digest my plan, to anticipate the frightful host of difficulties which opposed its execution, and find the means of remedying them all. To accomplish our object we had to climb to the top of the chimney, notwithstanding the many iron gratings which were opposed to our ascent; and then, in order to descend from the top of the tower into the fossé, we required a ladder of eighty feet at least, and another ladder, necessarily of wood, to get out of the fossé. If I could get these 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 2ND QUARTER,

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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 stedfastly, 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 linentwelve 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 re-wound 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 month's

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 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 other, 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 jailors should be listening, to give feigned names for every thing 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-every thing 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 rope-maker 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 twine to D'Alegre: to this he attached the end of the rope to which our portmanteau was fastened. I drew it up, unfastened it, and threw it on the platform of the Bastille. In the same way we hoisted up the wooden ladder, the two iron bars, and all our other articles: we finished by the ladder of ropes, the end of which I allowed to hang down to aid D'Alegre in getting up, while I held the upper part by means of a large wooden peg which we had prepared on purpose. I passed it through the cord and placed it across the funnel of the chimney. By these means my companion avoided suffering what I did. This done, I came down from the top of the chimney, where I had been in a very painful position, and both of us were on the platform of the Bastille. We now arranged our different articles. We began by making a roll of our ladder of ropes, of about four feet diameter, and one thick. We rolled it to the tower called La Tour du Treson, which appeared to us the most favourable for our descent. We fastened one end of the ladder of ropes to a piece of cannon, and then lowered it down the wall; then we fastened the block, and passed the rope of 160 feet long through it. This I tied round my body, and D'Alegre slackened it as I went down. Notwithstanding this precaution I swung about in the air at every step I made. Judge what my situation was, when one shudders at the recital of it. At length I landed without accident in the fossé. Immediately D'Alegre lowered my portmanteau and other things. I found a little spot uncovered by water, on which I put them. Then my companion followed my example; but he had an ad

vantage which I had not had, for I held the ladder for him with all my strength, which greatly prevented its swinging. It did not rain; and we heard the sentinel marching at about four toises' distance, and we were therefore forced to give up our plan of escaping by the parapet and the governor's garden. We resolved to use our iron bars. We crossed the fossé straight over to the wall which divides it from the Port St. Antoine, and went to work sturdily. Just at this point there was a small ditch about six feet broad and one deep, which increased the depth of the water. Elsewhere it was about up to our middles; here, to our armpits. It had thawed only a few days, so that the water had yet floating ice in it: we were nine hours in it, exhausted by fatigue, and benumbed by the cold. We had hardly begun our work before the chief of the watch came round with his lantern, which cast a light on the place we were in: we had no alternative but to put our heads under water as he passed, which was every half-hour. At length, after nine hours of incessant alarm and exertion, after having worked out the stones one by one, we succeeded in making, in a wall of four feet six inches thick, a hole sufficiently wide, and we both crept through. We were giving way to our transports when we fell into a danger which we had not foreseen, and which had nearly been fatal to us. In crossing the fossé St. Antoine, to get into the road to Bercy, we fell into the aqueduct which was in the middle. This aqueduct had ten feet water over our heads, and two feet of mud on the side. D'Alegre fell on me, and had nearly thrown me down: had that misfortune happened we were lost, for we had not strength enough left to get up again, and we must have been smothered. Finding myself laid hold of by D'Alegre, I gave him a blow with my fist, which made him let go, and at the same instant throwing myself forward I got out of the aqueduct. I then felt for D'Alegre, and getting hold of his hair, drew him to me; we were soon out of the fossé, and just as the clock struck five were on the high road. Penetrated by the same feeling, we threw ourselves into each other's arms, and after a long embrace we fell on our knees to offer our thanks to the Almighty, who had snatched us from so many dangers."

93.-THE DEATH OF LORD FALKLAND.

CLARENDON.

In this unhappy battle of Newbury was slain the Lord Viscount Falkland; a person of such prodigious parts of learning and knowledge, of that inimitable sweetness and delight in conversation, of so flowing and obliging a humanity and goodness to mankind, and of that primitive simplicity and integrity of life, that if there were no other brand upon this odious and accursed Civil War, than that single loss, it must be most infamous and execrable to all posterity.

Before this Parliament, his condition of life was so happy, that it was hardly capable of improvement. Before he came to be twenty years of age, he was master of a noble fortune; which descended to him by the gift of a grandfather, without passing through his father or mother, who were then both alive. His education for some years had been in Ireland, where his father was Lord Deputy; so that when he returned into England, to the possession of his fortune, he was unentangled with any acquaintance or friends, which usually grow up by the custom of conversation, and therefore was to make a pure election of his company; which he chose by other rules than were prescribed to the young nobility of that time. And it cannot be denied, though he admitted some few to his friendship for the agreeableness of their natures, and their undoubted affection to him, that his familiarity, and friendship for the most part, was with men of the most eminent and sublime parts, and of untouched reputation in point of integrity; and such men had a title to his bosom,