The Salt Smugglers (28 page)

VI. THE FINAL ESCAPE ATTEMPTS OF THE ABBÉ DE BUCQUOY

The abbé and Grandville set to work on the wall; they had almost broken through it by demolishing an ancient bricked-up window when suddenly their labors were interrupted by the arrival of two new guests, one of whom was the chevalier de Soulanges, a trustworthy fellow whom the abbé de Bucquoy had previously met. They exchanged embraces. As for the fourth individual, he was a queer duck by the name of Gringalet who was suspected of being an informer, one of those spies whom the authorities always placed in the larger cells. But they made his life so disagreeable that he asked to be transferred out of the room and was soon replaced by someone else.

The four prisoners, recognizing that they were all men of honor and brothers in arms, held a council in which they discussed strategies for escape; in no time the abbé's plan was unanimously agreed upon.

The plan was simple: to saw through the window bars and to lower themselves into the moat in the middle of the night by means of ropes. The abbé had managed to hold on to a few of the wicker ropes he had woven with the baron de Peken and he explained to his companions how to fabricate more of them and how to melt metal into hooks.

As for sawing through the bars, he showed them a tiny file that he always kept ready at hand and that would nicely do the job.

His recent escape attempts having been so often
foiled, the abbé had grown somewhat distrustful of his accomplices; he therefore requested that everybody formally promise not to betray the others. To this effect, he wrote out passages from the Gospels with a pen made of straw and ink made of diluted soot and demanded that everybody solemnly swear upon the Bible.

They argued, however, as to how best approach the counterscarp once they had made it to the moat.

The abbé thought it made better sense to climb up the counterscarp that lay on the rue Saint-Antoine side of the prison; the others were for « cutting across the demilune of the moat that runs just outside the gate ».

Opinions were so divided on this matter that they had to name someone president of their council . . . In the end they resolved that, once in the moat, each individual would just follow the escape route that suited him best.

It was on the 5th of May at two in the morning that the escape finally took place.

To support the ropes, they needed to affix a hook to the window which would project out and thus provide the necessary clearance. They had constructed something that resembled a sundial which they attached to a rod and stuck out the window, the hope was the sentries would get used to the sight of this contraption. Then they had to stain the ropes black using soot and hang them off the hook that projected from the window. Since they ran the risk of being seen as they dangled in the front of the window of the floor below, they had taken the precaution of hanging out a large blanket which they pretended to be drying.

The abbé de Bucquoy was the first to make his way down. It had been agreed that he would observe the back-and-forth movements of the sentry and then inform his comrades by jerks of the rope whether it was a good moment or not to descend. He lay there waiting in the tall weeds for over two hours without seeing anyone come down.

Things had been delayed because Grandville's girth was such that he was unable to pass through the opening they had made in the bars and which they were now frantically trying to enlarge.

At long last two of the prisoners made it down the ropes and informed the abbé de Bucquoy that Grandville, unable to squeeze through the bars, had decided to sacrifice himself to the common good, saying « that it was better if just a single one of them perished. »

The abbé's mind, however, was entirely on the sentry; he offered to take him out of commission, seeing as how his comings and goings were seriously threatening their escape route over the counterscarp on the rue Saint-Antoine side. His friends disagreed, however, saying they would rather flee in another direction and take advantage of the cover provided by the weeds.

The abbé, never one to vacillate, stuck to his guns and remained where he was, waiting for the sentry to move away before he climbed over the wall and dropped into another moat. Once he had crossed this moat, he found himself at the top of a drain pipe which connected onto the rue Saint-Antoine. All he then had to do was to clamber down the roof of a building that housed butcher stalls.

As he was preparing to slip down the drainpipe, he wanted to check on his comrade's progress; but all he heard was a rifle shot, which led him to conclude that theyhad unsuccessfully attempted to disarm the sentry.

As he was sliding down the drainpipe, the abbé de Bucquoy had cut himself on a metal flange, opening a gash in his arm. But paying no attention to his wound, he hastened down the rue Saint-Antoine, then turned onto the rue des Tournelles and, crossing all of Paris, finally arrived at the porte de la Conférence at the home of one of his acquaintances from the café Laurent. There he hid out for several days. This time, however, he did not make the mistake of remaining in Paris: adopting a disguise, he traveled through Burgundy and finally reached Switzerland. There is no record of his having stopped along the way to deliver speeches to the salt smugglers.

The abbé's escape had serious repercussions on the remaining prisoners in the Bastille. Up to that point popular opinion had it that it was impossible to escape from the place . . . Bernaville was so upset by the abbé's exploit that he ordered all the trees cut down in the prison garden and in the street just beyond the ramparts. Then, having learned from Corbé of the means by which some of the prisoners were communicating with the outside, he had all the pigeons and crows that nested on the top of the towers killed, and even slaughtered the sparrows and robins who provided such solace to the inmates.

Corbé was suspected of having been bribed by the abbé de Bucquoy into neglecting his duties. His behavior toward the female prisoners had also earned him several reprimands.

He had fallen desperately in love with the wife of an Irishman by the name of Odricot; she had been locked up in the Bastille without her husband even knowing she was now his neighbor. Corbé and Giraut (the prison chaplain) were most attentive to this lady, who ended up pregnant . . . but by whom, it was impossible to know.

Corbé nonetheless convinced himself that he was indeed the father and managed, through his connections, to obtain a pardon for his lady Odricot, a lovely lass indeed, if slightly too red-headed. Corbé was quite avaricious and so greedy for money that it was generally suspected that he had allowed a Protestant minister by the name of Cardel to starve to death just so that he could inherit some of the silverware that this poor man owned. But his lady Odricot so dominated him that he ruined himself to buy her a carriage and to supply her with servants and all the outward appearances of great wealth. After a great number of well-founded complaints were lodged against him, he was finally dismissed and everything would indicate that he did not meet a happy end.

Bernaville, who was such a glutton for gold that it was estimated he was making a profit of six hundred thousands francs a year off his prisoners, was eventually replaced by Delauney just before the death of Louis XIV. The last notable prisoner to be consigned to his care was the young Fronsac, duke of Richelieu, who had been caught one day hiding under the bed of the duchess of Burgundy, wife of the heir apparent to the crown . . . The wags of the period quipped that it was a shame that the duke of Burgundy's bed of laurels had not protected him from this affront. As it turned out, he died shortly thereafter, leaving Fénelon to regret all the flowery phrases he had concocted to instruct his royal pupil in the fine art of ruling.

We have shown the abbé de Bucquoy escaping from the Bastille, no mean feat. It would be tedious at this point to recount his various travels through those German-speaking lands towards which he directed himself upon leaving Switzerland. The count of Luc, to whom J.-B. Rousseau addressed a celebrated ode, was France's ambassador there and attempted to smooth things out with the court. But he had little success, no more than did the abbé's aunt, the dowager de Bucquoy, who addressed a petition to the king that began as follows:

« The widow of the count de Bucquoy very humbly protests to Your Majesty that the honorable abbé de Bucquoy, nephew of my husband the count, was so unfortunate as to be falsely arrested in the vicinity of Sens, having been mistaken for the abbé de La Bourlie, suspected of being an agent of M. de Marlborough sent to encourage the salt smuggling of the
fauxçonniers
of Burgundy and Champagne and thereby to foment rebellion. »

The countess underscored the miscarriage of justice that had led to this unfortunate arrest and depicted the sufferings undergone by this faithful subject of the king, the count abbé de Bucquoy, who had been confused with the abovementioned rebels and had initially been held in the prison of Soissons alongside those individuals guilty of kidnapping M. de
Beringhem
.
¹⁴

The countess subsequently attempts to show just how much bravery it took for her nephew to escape from the Bastille,
in the most discreet manner
, on the fifth of May, having put a great deal of sweat and blood into this exploit . . . Now that he finds himself on foreign soil, however, he requests that his innocence be recognized, protesting that he is one of the king's most zealous subjects, indeed « one those subjects
à la Fénelon
who goes straight to the truth, a truth in which the king finds a glory whose brilliance is grounded only in virtue . . . »

The countess furthermore requests that « his prison records be entirely erased and expunged,
at Sens, at Fort-l'Évêque, and the Bastille
, and that all his rights, honors, prerogatives, and titles, etc. be restored and that the six hundred pistoles taken from him during his various imprisonments be repaid ». She goes on to observe that her nephew's valet and serving woman, Fourier and Louise Duputs, had also conspired to run off with two thousand écus of his when he escaped.

The dowager de Bucquoy concludes by requesting that her nephew be rewarded with an honorable employment either in the armies of the king or in the church, he being entirely open to whatever
order
one might want to place him in, disposed as he is « to find everything acceptable, as long as he can contribute to the common good ».

The petition was dated July 22, 1709.

It met with no response.

When in Switzerland, it is quite easy to descend the Rhine, be it on ordinary boats or on those timber rafts which often carry entire villages downstream on their planks of pine. The many canals into which the branches of the Rhine feed in turn facilitate access to the Low Countries.

We know not how the abbé de Bucquoy made it from Switzerland to Holland, but it is certain that he was welcomed there by the
grand pensionary
Heinsius who, being a philosopher, received him with open arms.

The abbé de Bucquoy had already traced out an entire project for a republic, one which was applicable to France and which included the means necessary to eliminate the monarchy. He entitled his proposal:
Anti-Machiavellianism, or Metaphysical Reflections on Authority in General and Arbitrary Power in Particular.

« One could say, he observed in this proposal, that republics are merely reforms that now and then occur when time has caused abuses to creep into the administration of a nation. »

Probably to be fair to both sides, the abbé de Bucquoy adds that monarchies may likewise often offer a violent remedy against the excesses of republics . . . «
Nature
expresses itself in both of these forms of government, the republican and the monarchical, but far more
spontaneously
in the former. »

He admits that monarchical power in the hands of a sage would be the most perfect of all systems, but where find such a sage?... All things considered, the republican state strikes him as the lesser of two evils.

«
Arbitrary power
(which for the abbé meant the government of Louis XIV) makes all too frequent appeals to God only, but why? To cover its own injustices . . . It can amaze the multitudes or so stun them with visions of
Gehenna
that their dumbfoundment seems a form of applause; but caution should be exercised . . . All it takes is a few stalwart men, or the right moment or stroke of luck, or some small fortuitous turn of events, in order to awaken a people from its supposed slumbers.

« And how sure can you be, the abbé adds, of all the
hidden atheists
in your midst who, not unlike you, think only of themselves? Don't expect them to come to your assistance when push comes to shove. “They shall follow the times and leave you astounded that they were the first to abandon you.” »