The day dawned on the 25th of May. The curé of Ham was to say mass at the fortress, in the chapel on the ground floor. Very early in the morning the prince wrote this note to him: “M. Dean, I should be glad to have you put off until to-morrow or the next day the mass you were to celebrate to-day at the chateau; for, as I suffered great pains on rising, I am obliged to take a bath to alleviate them.” This curé of Ham under the reign of Napoleon III was made a bishop and almoner of the Tuileries. At half-past six o’clock in the morning the workmen were already at work renewing the paint on the staircase. The captive abandoned himself to his destiny and assumed his disguise. The future emperor darkened his complexion and shaved off his mustache. Superstitious, and a fatalist, he concealed, under his apparel, a portfolio containing two letters, one from his uncle, the great Emperor, and the other from the Empress Josephine, his grandmother. These letters he regarded as talismans. It was a grave imprudence to take them, for if the fugitive had been arrested on his way they would have betrayed him. His disguise accomplished, Prince Louis Napoleon put a pipe between his teeth and a plank on his shoulder. This plank, inscribed with the letter “N,” was one of his library shelves; he believed it would bring him good luck—it was the plank of his salvation. “If the escape is a failure,” he says, “I will not survive; if it succeeds I shall become master of France.” Romantic and eager for emotion, this man of calm and gentle manner delighted in thus braving fortune. Charles Thelin asked the workmen to take a drink; they accepted and followed him into a room on the ground floor. Two wardens, however, were on duty; the prince passed down the stairs putting the plank before his face as he met one of the wardens at the foot. He passed the whole length of the court, keeping the plank constantly between himself and the sentinels. In passing the first sentry he let his pipe fall, stooped to pick up the pieces and then walked on. He met the officer of the guard who happened to be reading a letter and did not notice him. He passed under the commandant’s window to the only door of the fortress; the soldiers at the guard-house looked carelessly at the workman as he came near them; the drums rolled several times; the orderlies opened the door; the fugitive was outside the fortress. Just then, two workmen looking at him attentively, he shifted his plank to the shoulder next to them and heard one of them say: “It is Bertrand.”