It was in vain that I reminded her of the numerous turnkeys with whom she was surrounded every evening when she left me; the jailer who handed her to her sedan-chair; the impossibility of my being sufficiently disguised to deceive them;* and finally my invincible reluctance to leave her in the hands of the prison keepers. “What will they do,” I said, “when they discover that I am gone? These brutes, in their blind rage, will they not forget themselves and perhaps strike you?”*
I was going on, but I soon saw, by the paleness of her countenance and the movements of convulsive impatience that were beginning to agitate her, that I ought to put an end to all objections. I remained silent for a few minutes, at the end of which I continued thus: “Well, then, I shall do as you please; but if you want to succeed, permit me to make at least one observation. The cabriolet is too far off. I shall be scarcely gone when my flight will be discovered, and I shall most undoubtedly be stopped in the chair, for near an hour is required to go to the Rue des Saints-Pères. I cannot escape on foot with your clothes.” This reflection seemed to strike her. “Change,” I added, “that part of your plan. The whole of to-morrow is still at our disposal: I promise to do to-morrow all you wish.”*
From ‘Memoirs of Count Lavalette, Adjutant and Private Secretary to Napoleon etc.’ (1894), by Antoine Marie Chamant, comte de Lavalette (1769-1830).
* The Count was well-built, though he had lost weight under the stress of his arrest and confinement. Émilie, moreover, had neglected to cover her face on her way in, so the Count could not very well assume a veil without attracting notice; and her hat had feathers in it, likely to catch on any door lintel when worn on the head of a tall man, and thus give him away to any sharp-eyed turnkey. The escape seems almost as miraculous as that of St Peter: see Jailbreak.
* The Countess was treated so badly that she suffered a mental breakdown. She was released on January 23rd, 1816, “after six weeks’ ill-usage” as her husband named it. Though she improved enough to enjoy a life of quiet seclusion, she remained uncomfortable in company and subject to episodes of depression and abstraction ever after.
* The plan worked, with the help of a party of British adventurers led by General Sir Robert Wilson and John Hely-Hutchinson, 3rd Earl of Donoughmore. They brought the Count as far as Mons; on reaching Worms, a German city some forty miles south of Frankfurt, he learnt that his wife had been detained in the Conciergerie and that Wilson had also been arrested after a letter to Charles, 2nd Earl Grey, was intercepted; with some reservations, Wilson had kept his mission secret from his Commander-in-Chief, Prince Frederick Augustus, Duke of York and Albany, and had liaised with the Earl instead. From Worms, the Count made his way to Bavaria.