When not working in the chimney, Dick made additional rope, for that purpose unravelling all of his clothing and bedding that would not be missed by any who might enter his cell. He continued to borrow books, and as he now asked for such as he was already acquainted with,--either French works that he knew through translation, or French versions of English works,--he could talk so well of their contents that the officers he occasionally met supposed him to pass all his time in reading. So apparent was his seeming contentment, that no one suspected him of desiring to escape. But that desire increased daily. It was only stimulated by the news, in February, that France had recognized the independence of his country and formed an alliance with it. In less than eight months after setting to work, he had opened a way through the chimney. So slender was he, and so supple, that he found he had not to remove all the bars, for he could wriggle between some of them and the chimney wall. Those that he did unfasten he replaced loosely in position after each period of work. He now estimated that he had nearly two hundred feet of rope, and he had been told correctly that the towers of the Bastile were nearly two hundred feet high. By the first of August, 1778, all was ready; and Dick waited only for a dark and rainy night. Such a night came on Wednesday, August 5th. Dick had walked in the court that afternoon, under a steady downpour of the kind that lasts twenty-four hours or more, and he felt assured of a black sky for the night. He attached his rope in the usual manner, ascended the chimney, removed the loosely replaced iron bars, one by one, climbed by the rope to the highest of the bars he had left fast, squeezed through between that bar and the chimney wall, attached the rope's end to his waist, and then laboriously worked his way up the rest of the chimney with arms and legs, rubbing the skin off elbows and knees in doing so. At last he emerged from the top of the chimney, and, after resting a minute, dropped on the flat roof of the tower. For some time, the darkness and rain hid everything from Dick's sight. But at last, having meanwhile drawn the full length of rope after him from the chimney, he could make out vaguely the dark houses and streets stretching far away below. By sheer force of will, and by confining every thought and moment to his work, he kept himself from turning giddy at the height.