Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 October 1874 — The Escape of Lavalette. [ARTICLE]

The Escape of Lavalette.

The escape of Marshal Bafeaine recalls the escape of another celebrated French prisoner, the Count de Lavalette, which was probably both more unexpected and more daring. Marie Chamans de Lavalette was born in 1769. He ntered the army at the time of the revolution, served with great distinction, by and by became aide-de-camp to Napoleon, ana married the Emperor’s niece, Mlle, de Beauharnais. In 1812 he was appointed Post-master-General, lost his place on the restoration of the Bourbons in 1814, but was reinstated after the Emperor’s return from Elba, and bestirred himself so actively in the imperial cause during the Hundred Days that, after Waterloo, he shared the fate of Ney and was sentenced to death. It excited some wonder that the Bourbons should display such implacable severity toward a man who, after all, was but of secondary rank; but Lavalette wielded great social influence, ana M. de -Talleyrand was said to have denounced him as a partisan of unsuspected genius and more dangerous than half a dozen Marshals. So Louis XVIII. refused to grant a reprieve, and the execution was fixed for the 21st of December, 1815. Now Lavalette was confined in the Conciergerie, and the Princess de Vaudemont, the Countess de Chassenon, and M. Baudus, friends of Lavalette, conferring with the Countess, his wife, decided that it would be possible to save him by the Countess changing clothes with him in his cell. Mme. de Lavalette was allowed to dine with her husband every evening at five o’clock and remained till seven. It is necessary to remember that ladies’ bonnets were larger in those days and their cloaks ample, so that the idea of smuggling out a man in woman’s disguise under cover of the darkness was much more practicable than it would be in these times. At all events the experiment was tried on the evening ot the 20th of December, and it succeeded; but the escape was one of such hair-breadth kind that soriie historians are persuaded that there was more in the matter than appeared outwardly. ' The Countess, accompanied by her daughter Josephine, twelve years of age, arrived in her husband’s cell punctually at five o’clock. Their dinner was a sad one, as well it might be, and the prisoner’s chances were almost compromised at the last moment by a loquacious turnkey coming in at half-past six o’clock to otter consolation. He was not got rid of till twenty minutes to seven, and the next quarter of an hour was hurriedly occupied in arraying the prisoner in his wife’s bonnet, black silk gown, boa and shawl. Lavalette was a short man,. no taller than his wife, and had once been fat, but,luckily, confinement had thinned him, and the disguise was so complete that when he emerged from behind the screen where the change had been effected his child did not recognize him. This screen played a great part in the escape, for without it nothing could have been done. It was the custom of the turnkey to come into the prisoner’s cell every evening immediately after the Countess had left and if the Countess had not been able to conceal herself for a few r minutes behind the screen the turnkey must have immediately noticed the prisoner’s disappearance. As it Was, the instant Count Lavalette had fled from the cell, holding his daughter by the hand and keeping a handkerchief to his mouth, the turnkey came :n as usual, but hearing the Countess rummaging at the toilet-stand behind the screen, concluded the prisoner was washing his hands, and withdrew into the doorway, where he remained five minutes offering consolation as before, and being answered by what he took to be sobs. Meanwhile the fugitive had got to the end of the first passage and had passed five unsuspecting jailers, who rose and bared their heads; but before reaching t]ie open air he had to go down two more corridors, a flight of steps, the salle du greffe, or office, an inner gate, a large yard, and an outer gate—in all about 200 yards of ground. He reached the office in safety ; but here a dozen turnkeys were gathered round a stove, and one of them, coming close to the prisoner, laid a hand on his arm and said: “ Courage, madame.” Lavalette had drawn a gold piece for such an emergency; he dropped it, and the man in stooping to pick it up allowed him to sweep on across the gate and so into the courtyard, where twenty gendarmes were lounging outside the guard-room. It was almost a miracle that the Sergeant on duty did not come forward to identify the veiled figure, but perhaps compassion for the supposed Countess’s grief withheld him. He ordered the gate to be opened, and Lavalette, passing out into the grand court of the Palace of Justice, instantly entered the sedan chair that was waiting. But the chair porters were not present! Two minutes, which must have seemed two centuries, Lavalette waited, expecting every moment to see the Conciergerie door open; but at length the chair was suddenly lifted by unknown hands, and the porters set off at a swinging trot for the Rue de 1 Harlay, on the Quay des Orfevres, hard by. Here-M. Baudus was stationed in scab. Lavalette sprang out, leaving his daughter in the chair, and was whirled away toward the Pont Neuf, pulling off his disguise and donning a servant’s livery as he went. At the Pont- Neuf he alighted with his friend, and both started on foot for the Rue du*Bac. At the precise momentwhen they were entering the street six mounted gendarmes came tearing along at‘ full gallop. They were the first of a detachment which had been dispatched to all the gates of Paris to give notice of the prisoner’s escape. Lavalette, in truth, had had but five minutes’ start. Not hearing his prisoner stir at the end of five minutes, the turnkey had peeped behind the screen, and, perceiving the Countess there, had raised an alarm. But Mme. de Lavalette sprang upon him, and during % couple of minutes there was a desperate struggle between them,—the jailer only escaping at last by leaving the sleeve of his coat in the Countess’ hands. An instant afterward the alarm was given, and so rapidly was the pursuit organized that some gendarmes overtook the sedan chair bearing Josephine Lavalette before it had turned off the quay. But the most extraordinarv part of the escape'has yet to be told. "During three wSeks Lavalette was searched for with unparalleled ardor; a price was put on his head, a description of him was posted at street corners, all the hotels and more than a hundred private houses were ransacked, and as usual numbers of inoffensive persons were mistaken for him and apprehended at the gates of Paris. But all this time the prisoner was lurking in an attic of the Foreign Office, where the Due de Richelieu, the Prime Minister, resided. Nobodv thought of looking for him in the bedroom of a clerk, M. Bresson; but it happened that M. Bressson had himself been saved from death by some kind soul during the Terror, and to repay this

debt of gratitude he harbored Lavalette faithfully for three weeks. At the end of this time, the keenness of the chase having abated, the prisoner was smuggled out of the country, disguised as the servant of three Englishmen, Messrs. Wilson, Hutchison and Bruce.— Pall Mall Gazette.