269 [=271]

Lett. lxxiii. Letters Historical and Gal[l]ant 269

must be broke open; but besides it's [its] being too strong, and his having no utensils proper for it, it was to be feared that the noise he would be obliged to make, might discover the whole affair. So after all his reflections, he found no better way than to burn the door; and resolving to do it, he begg'd the goaler [gaoler] next morning to be so good as to let him [?] his own dinner in his chamber. He ask'd for eggs and coal to dress them, and payed largely to obtain this permission the more easily, after which, when he thought every one was in bed, he fix'd his coals under the door, blew them up, and managed so well that it took fire, and as soon as he had burned a hole large enough for him to get out of, having no mind to set the house on fire, he hind[e]red the flames from going farther, and borrowed assistance from his chamber pot to extinguish them. He had still a horrible smoak [smoke] to deal with, which he thought would have choked him, but he surmounted all those obstacles, and after passing through the breach got into that garret he longed so much for, from whence he hoped to procure entire liberty. The success answered his attempt, for tho he had no cords to slide down from the window, he found means to make some, by cutting the sheets of a number of mattresses that lay in that wardrobe, into strips. He tyed [tied] them to one another, and knotted one end to one of the posts of his bed, which he laid a cross [across?] near the window, and being much longer than the window was large, fastened the cord very well in the garret; after which, abandoning himself to his destiny, he hazarded that dangerous descent, and between the iron hooks which are fixed very thick in all the windows of five or six stories, he arrived at last about day break, all in tatters, and in great disorder, upon the quay of the Valley of Misery. The merchants who were beginning to open their shops saw him land, but took no pains to discover it. But he thought he was undone, by a crowd of blackguards who followed him shouting; and, if a hard shower of rain had not dispersed them would have infallibly discovered his march. He strove to get rid of them by making several turns backwards and forwards; he cross'd St. Eustachius and at last arrived near the temple, where under pretence of getting his breakfast, he ent[e]red into a tavern to hinder those that might follow, from tracking him. But hearing them talk of the badness of his equipage, he thought his escape was known already, and for fear of suspicion quickly payed the landlord and went out, not knowing what way to take. But all at once recollecting that a relation of one of his domesticks lived at the Sign of the Name of Jesus, near the Madelon[n]ettes, he went there for refuge; and framed a romance, telling her he came from Provence, and had been robbed and stripped in a forrest [forest], after which he gave her money to get him something to eat. But not thinking himself safe there, in case she should come to hear the truth of the story, he left her house that evening, and, the darkness being favourable to him, got into a surer asylum.

Had he done well, he would have quitted the kingdom immediately, but he had a mind to stay, to try to make his affair take a better turn, and to engage the Parliament to take cognizance of it. He pass'd nine months in useless applications, getting [?] presented to the King, in which he offered to surrender himself in the prisons of the Conciergerie, protesting he never would have made his escape out of those of Bishop's Fort, but because he was afraid he would have been forgotten there, and not be able to obtain the tryal [trial] of an affair, the consequences of which he was under no apprehensions of, if he was dealt with according to law. All his remonstrances were in vain; so finding at nine months end he had advanced no farther than the first day, he resolved to quit the kingdom. But this step he took at a bad juncture; for twas at the time that the party of the allies that had run off with His Majesty's first gentleman of the horse, miss'd their stroke, and the cheif [chief] of the party was himself arrested. This made them double the care they took to guard the avenues of the kingdom, and the Abbot de Buquoit was apprehended at Fere, as being a French refugee, and one of the English party that had escaped. He protested he was a foreign merchant; but notwithstanding they put him in a place of security, till they should know the truth of the matter, and wrote to Paris to those that he said were his correspondents, to find out whether it was really so or not. As he foresaw very well that their answers would not be conformable to what he had advanced, and was afraid of falling into the hands of the Court again, he resolved not to stay for them in prison, and attempted getting out by the [spouts?], as he had from Bishop's Fort, but the noise he made in the execution of his project was heard by the hostess. This made them take him for a great criminal; and to secure him better they put him into a dungeon. There he preserved however the desire and even the hopes of escaping, and as he had taken notice before he was so closely shut up, that the court of that prison lay over the town ditch, and had a heap of stones and dung in it, from whence with very little agility one might leap upon the wall. One day as he was crossing this court for his necessities, he all at once begged the goaler [gaoler] to fetch him some drink, and gave him money to be the better obeyed. The man made no difficulty to leave him in a court, that was shut up in the center of the house, and the other did not stop a moment from making the dangerous leap. But the fatal hostess, always destined to break his measures, cross'd the court swiftly as the Abbot was making