THE STORY OF DE LA TUDE.

ENRY MASÈRES DE LA TUDE was born on the 25th March 1725, at a château near Montagnac, in the south of France, the seat of his father, the Marquis de la Tude, a knight of the military order of St Louis, and lieutenant-colonel of a regiment of dragoons. Young Henry was educated in

manner befitting his rank, which, according to the custom of France at that time, made it a matter of course that he should follow his father's profession. His taste for mathematics led him to the engineering branch of military science; and, at the age of twenty-two, he was admitted a supernumerary othcer, under a friend of his father, the commandant of Bergen-op-Zoom.

Unfortunately for so ardent and restless a spirit, the peace of 1748 came to prevent his being actively employed; and he was sent in consequence to Paris, to perfect both his mathematical and general education. Had his laudable ambition confined itself to proficiency in these studies, when opportunity for their exercise should arrive, all his subsequent misfortunes might have been avoided; nor must pity of the sincerest kind for their unparalleled depth and bitterness, and just horror at the cruelty of the authors of them, blind us to their being, in the first instance, the consequence of attempting to rise in the world by crooked and unjustifiable means.

The profligate monarch who then ruled in France, Louis XV., was governed by a woman of the most imperious and vindictive character--the infamous Marchioness de Pompadour; who, while she did not hesitate to sacrifice, for the slightest offence, or most trifling personal reflection on herself, the chief ministers of the king and first personages in the state, thought nothing of recklessly dooming to perpetual imprisonment, and worse than death, whole hosts of minor offenders against her pride and ill-acquired power. It was on this woman's suspicious jealousy that La Tude built an ambitious speculation, which, cruelly turning against himself, formed the misfortune of his whole life; though its comparative harmlessness, and the boyish simplicity with which it was planned and conducted, would, in a less vindictive quarter,

have subjected him to no worse punishment than disappointment, or at most a severe reprimand.

One day, in the month of April 1749, when seated on a bench in the garden of the Tuileries, he overheard two men expressing in the most unmeasured terms the hatred and indignation then so general against Madame de Pompadour, and the project crossed his brain which he so fatally for himself proceeded to execute; namely, to gain, by the denunciation of a pretended plot against her life, her all-powerful protection. He accordingly put his scheme in execution. Its pretended revelations were too shallow to escape detection. The marchioness at once detected the trick attempted to be put on her, and revenged the affront by causing its unsuspicious author to be taken into custody. By one of those lettres de cachet (sealed orders from the crown) which she could procure at pleasure, La Tude was arrested on the 1st of May, and conducted to the Bastile, the prison-fortress of Paris; there, without form of trial, or means of communication with the world, to be immured for years, perhaps for life.

Overwhelming as was this incarceration, its evils were so softened to him by the kindness of the lieutenant of police, Monsieur Berryer, who granted him the society of a fellow-prisoner, and by the hopes, so natural to youth, of speedy emancipation, that he seems to have suffered far more acutely on his transfer, at the end of four months, to the prison of Vincennes-not only from the inference the removal gave rise to, of protracted captivity, but from its coming upon him in the deceptive guise of liberation.

In the month of September 1749, three turnkeys came into the prison, and one of them addressing La Tude, told him the order for his release had arrived; and, to do him justice, one of his first thoughts on obtaining his liberty was the hope of being able to procure the same boon for his companion in misfortune. His feelings on finding he had but exchanged one dungeon for another must be given in his own words, translated and abridged from the original narrative.

VINCENNES.

Hardly had I crossed the threshold of my prison, than I was told I was to be transferred to Vincennes. The despair and horror with which this intelligence overwhelmed me, it would be impossible to describe.

I soon fell sick in my new prison; but it was yet well with me, for the good M. Berryer came again to my relief. All he could do for me, he did. He gave me the most cheerful apartment in the fortress, from which I enjoyed a magnificent view; but what power had even this solace over one to whom the idea of perpetual imprisonment would have embittered the sweetest gratifications? My courage was only kept up by the hope of one day achieving my liberty; and being convinced I must be

indebted for it to my own exertions, I thought of nothing else than how to bring it about.

I saw every day an old ecclesiastic-confined, I was told, on a charge of heresy-walking in the garden belonging to the château. A brother clergyman from without, named the Abbé de St Sauveur, had permission, of which he often availed himself, to come and talk with him in the garden. Besides this, the captive priest gave lessons to the turnkey's children, so that they and his clerical visitor came and went without exciting much attention. The hour of these walks was pretty nearly the same as that in which, by M. Berryer's order, I was taken and left some time, for the good of my health, in a garden adjoining the other.

Two turnkeys generally came to take me out; but sometimes the elder of them would wait for me in the garden, while the younger came alone to open my door. I accustomed him for some days to see me get quickly before him down the stairs, and join his comrade, with whom he always duly found me when he reached the garden.

One day, when I had resolved, at whatever risk, to escape, he had hardly opened my door, ere I rushed out, and was at the bottom of the staircase before he had so much as thought of following me. There was a door there, which I bolted, to cut off all communication between him and his brother turnkey, and give me time to execute my project. I had four sentries to deceive; the first of them at an outer door leading from the tower, which was kept of course constantly shut, so that I had nothing for it but to knock. The sentry opened, and I eagerly inquired after the Abbé de St Sauveur. "Our priest has been waiting for him," said I, "these two hours in the garden, and I am running after him in vain everywhere; if I catch him, I'll make him pay for my chase!"

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Thus saying, I kept moving rapidly on, and at the extremity of the archway, under the clock, I found a second sentry. I asked him as quietly as I could, "If it were long since M. de St Sauveur had left?" to which he replied that he knew nothing about him, and let me pass on. I put the same question to the third sentinel on the farther side of the drawbridge, and obtained the same reply. Oh, I cannot fail soon to find him," exclaimed I, transported with joy. I ran, I skipped like a child towards the fourth sentry, who, far from so much as suspecting that he saw before him a prisoner, seemed to trouble his head as little as the others why I was so eagerly in chase of the good abbé. I crossed the threshold of the gate! I flew! I was soon out of sight, and free! What a sensation of pleasure! Every time this incident is recalled to my memory I feel my gratitude as lively, and experience afresh the intoxication of that blessed

moment.

It was on the 25th of June 1750, after nine months' deten

tion at Vincennes, that I had the inconceivable luck to escape from it. I pursued my flight through the fields and vineyards, keeping at the greatest possible distance from the high road. Í reached Paris at last, and shut myself up in a lodging, to enjoy the bliss of being at liberty after fourteen months' captivity.

This first burst of joy, however, was of short duration. Something must be done. That I should be strictly sought after, there could not be a doubt; and were I to be retaken, it was equally certain that a fresh punishment would await me for my escape. If I ventured to show myself, I was lost. Flight was equally fraught with danger; besides, my station and habits gave me a hankering to Paris. So my only alternative seemed to be to remain concealed, self-doomed to a captivity scarce less cruel than that I had left behind.

success.

My head, it will be seen, had hitherto proved but a sorry counsellor. I now consulted my heart, and with little better I judged of Madame de Pompadour by myself, and idly fancied I might pique her into generosity by avowing the place of my retreat, and throwing myself on her clemency for pardon of the past. I little knew the person with whom I had to deal. But mad as was the project, I was unfortunate in its mode and execution.

I drew up a memorial to the king, which, however respectfully worded towards the favourite, and however calculated, by its humble and penitent tone, to excite the compassion of both, I might have been sure, had my knowledge of life been greater, would doubly offend the lady, for its not being addressed directly to herself, and exposing her in the eyes of the monarch; while he again, accustomed to yield to her every suggestion, was sure to do so on an occasion when her private feelings were so deeply engaged. But I was young, and knew little of the hearts of men, far less of tyrants; and dearly did I pay for my fatal inexperience.

THE BASTILE.

I had told my enemies where to find me, and it was not long ere they had me back in the Bastile; though at first they pretended it was only to get from me the way in which I had escaped from Vincennes, to obviate the possibility of its happening again. If there had been any one to blame in the transaction, they should never have extorted the confession; but as I had been the sole agent in my deliverance, I honestly told them how I had brought it about. I was still simple enough to expect my freedom as the promised reward of my frankness. I did not then know that similar promises were the official jargon of all state prisons; designed only to enhance, by the hopes to which they gave birth, the bitterness of fresh in

carceration.

I was now, for the first time, in a literal dungeon, whose

horrors, however, were as yet mitigated by the compassion of the good M. Berryer, who, though he could not remove me from it, allowed me my former diet; and, as a small loophole afforded me the light of day, authorised my being supplied, should I wish it, with pen, ink, and paper.

These formed for a long time a solace to my woes. But at the end of six months they became insupportable; and the horrors of suspense, and my despair of release, so acted on my naturally fiery temperament, that I had the madness to inscribe on the margin of a book, which had been lent me, some satirical lines on the authoress of my misery. The book, strictly examined, like everything else within the walls, was carried to the governor; and he was not one to forego the opportunity of ingratiating himself by showing it to Madame de Pompadour. Her rage, amounting to frenzy at this fresh outrage, may easily be imagined. It knew no bounds; and if it could hardly add to the wretchedness of my situation, it at least insured its permanence.

I remained eighteen months in my dungeon ere M. Berryer even dared to take upon him to transfer me to an upper chamber; in addition to which kindness, he granted me-the expense being willingly defrayed by my sorrowing father-the inestimable luxury of a domestic. But even this solace of human speech and human sympathy-for the lad shared as well as Soothed my sorrows-was destined to become a source of bitter anguish to me. The poor fellow, at the end of three months, sunk under the evils of confinement. He wept, pined, and fell sick; and though it needed but a breath of free air, and a taste of freedom, to revive and save him, yet the cruel prison rules having doomed to the same captivity any servant attaching himself to a prisoner, it was in vain we both pleaded, and I implored in his behalf. His murderers chose to add to my torments the spectacle of this poor faithful creature expiring for me, and beside me; nor was he removed from my chamber till in the act of breathing his last sigh!

I nearly sunk under the blow; and M. Berryer, to divert my gloomy thoughts, once more allotted me a companion in a man of about my own age, full of activity, talent, and spirit: guilty of the same crime, and the victim of the same persecution. He too had written to Madame de Pompadour, and his aim had been still vainer than mine; namely, to point out to that worthless favourite a line of conduct by which she might disarm public censure, nay, even, by conducting the king aright, gain something like popularity. Three years had young D'Alégre-a native like myself of the south of France-deplored in the Bastile the consequences of his rash advice.

One day our mutual friend Berryer, who regarded D'Alégre with affectionate interest, in reply to the intreaties with which we jointly assailed him to procure our liberation, let the dreadful truth escape, that our exasperated persecutress had vowed against