In the fortress of Ste. Marguerite three rooms had been placed at the
disposal of the prisoner, as well as a little terrace, which latter
was reached by a stone bridge with a wall on each side, and here stood
a sentinel, on the wall; but he could not see those who passed over
the bridge nor what went on upon the terrace, as the latter was partly
covered with an awning against the sun. On the terrace, to which led
several steps from the bridge, the Marshal had formed for himself a
little garden; and whilst working therein one day he found a choked
gutter intended for carrying off rain-water from the castle shoots; it
was bored through the rock; and he set to work to clear it. By means of
sympathetic ink he was able to maintain a correspondence with his wife;
and all was planned for his escape.
On the evening determined on he asked his gaoler, who usually
accompanied him for a stroll on the terrace after dinner, to allow him
to walk it alone, and this was readily permitted.
After a while Bazaine opened and slammed the gate, and the sentinel
supposed that he had passed out of the terrace garden, on his way back
to the prison. But that the Marshal, instead, had cleared the drain
hole and slipped through, he could not see, because the awning hid from
him all view of the terrace. In the drain was a rope, and this Bazaine
let down the face of the rock, making it fast to an iron bar crossing
the conduit. The descent was for eighty feet. Below burnt a light,
giving him notice that his wife was there awaiting him in a boat.
The descent was not a little arduous, and he scratched and bruised his
knuckles and knees against the rock, as a high wind was blowing at the
time. When he reached the bottom a voice across the water asked who was
there, and he struck a match and showed his face. The boat could not
come up under the cliff, and he was obliged to plunge into the water to
reach it. In the boat were his Creole wife and his nephew, a Mexican,
Don Alvarez de Rull. Mme. Bazaine had been in Genoa from August 3rd,
and had there hired a pleasure steam-yacht, the _Baron Ricasoli_, and
in this she had either remained in the harbour of Genoa or had gone
cruises in it, and had penetrated more than once to the Gulf of Saint
Juan. At La Croisette she and her nephew had been set ashore, nominally
that she might look at a villa, that she pretended she had an idea of
renting. There they hired a boat, and in this they rowed to the foot
of the cliff under the foot of the fortress, and awaited the arrival
of the Marshal. No sooner was he in the boat than they rowed to the
vessel, which had all steam up, and started at full speed for Genoa.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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