Page:Memoirs of Vidocq, Volume 1.djvu/160

was even told that it was easy to get out of the rooms and climb the outside walls. I learnt this from a man named Blondy, who had once escaped this way from the Bagne at Brest, and hoping to profit by this information, I made arrangements to avail myself of the first opportunity. We sometimes had loaves given to us, weighing eighteen pounds each, and on quitting Morlaix, I had hollowed out one of these and filled it with a shirt, a pair of trowsers, and some handkerchiefs. It was a new kind of portmanteau, and passed unsuspected. Lieutenant Thierry had not given me to a special watch, on the contrary, having learnt the grounds of my condemnation, he had told the commissary, when speaking of me, that with men as orderly as I was, he could manage the chain as easily as a girls' school. I had then inspired no mistrust, and looked about me to execute my project. I, at first, contemplated cutting through the wall of the room in which I was placed. A steel chisel left by accident on the foot of my bed by a turnkey prisoner, who rivetted the ancle cuffs, served me to make the opening, whilst Blondy cut my irons. This completed, my comrades made a figure of straw, which they put in my place, to deceive the vigilance of the argousins on guard, and soon, clothed in the garments I had concealed, I got into the court-yard of the depôt. The walls which environed it were at least fifteen feet high, and to climb them I found I must get something like a ladder, a pole served as a proxy, but it was so heavy and so long that it was impossible for me to drag it over the wall, to aid my descent on the other side. After many trials, as vain as they were painful, I was compelled to risk the leap, in which I succeeded so badly and came down with so much violence on my legs that I could scarcely drag myself into a bush that was near. I hoped, that when the pain had somewhat abated, I could escape before daybreak, but it became more excessive, and my feet swelled so prodigiously, that I was compelled to give up all hopes of escape. I