The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1874-08-22 00:00:00

band, embellished and eased to him the days of mis-
fortune, and has now boldly braved the waves and the
other dam:els of an escape, and brought it about with
the he of a y thful and rect.ilute brother. But the
Mars has a show n no lack of courage. When
his &liver 've him the signal 4 ten o'clock iii
the icg, h 'mself resolutely a quickly down
by th rope, itch tore handowau iho has
shown us himself his swollen and black and blue
hanits and the wound on his right shin). Three or
four times a high spouting wave seized him and threw
him against the rock, but the boat was reached, and no
further obstacle opposed the completion of the flight.
lipirshestay* dirthe Germanit, to`grflich a sive
time agn he was a dangerous and bloody for. The
wrongs done to him by his fellow-countrymen his
enemies cannot and will not make good, but the
countless misfortunes suffered by him will make them
forget what they reproached him with formerly. With
German chivalry they will reslieet the love which
his wife has shown by on beautiful and poetic a deeet"

chambers of St. James's. She besought the Duke
of St. Albans, the son of Nell Gwynn., to use his
influence il2 saving the life of one whose only
crime libi been his fidelity ao the House of Stuart..
Shh. fell ',tithe fret of Ges sr 1., suiikteoual for
us ; and ellen the boon onar • pu Cr.
to th, to of coat. sh he
r k
ssu p4.lg off, atisl, some , kicked ot
dasief*l by this cruel veinal. Lady Nithisdale exacted
a 14,411114 from Anne Duchess of Itucclench, the widow
of the unhappy Alomnouth, that she would ace ,mpany
her once more to the Palace of midnight. to make one
final effort to obtain mercy. But the noble dame liayl
anal* illitnit ia herriirnd: "WM two tristy female
confidante, Afro. Mills and Mts. Morgan. whom she
had instructed to cssticeal riding hoods and other female
gear beneath their apparel, she went off in a hackney
coach to tile Tower of. London. She and the two ladies
had beeegillowed constant access to Lord Nithsdale's
prison ; and the sentinels suffered them to pass
to end fro without hindrance. With astonishing
iienuity. and by means of a juslisuons outlay in
drink money, Laity Nithsdale contrived MSS to battle,
perplex, and obfuscate the guards that they lost all
count of how many ladies there were with the con-
demned peer; and, to increase their mental haziness,
the two confidants were instructed to keep up a con-
tinuous chorus of weeping and wailing ; for Lord
Nittisdale was to die on the morrow.- Ultimately
Lady Nitlisdale succeeded in dressing up her hue-
band in woman's clothes, and smuggling him past
twenty sentinels, and so out of the postern into
'l'sswer Hill and liberty. He was never recaptured;
but was destined to pass a long and mournful exist-
ence of exile and poverty in Italy. The Countess of
Nithadale, however, did not emain, as Madame de
Lavalette did, in the prison from which her husband
had fled. With wonderful skilfulness and present* of
mind she deluded the guard into believing that her
lord was still in his room; and, after bidding him a
sham farewell, else hurried downstairs, passed the
postern, and, entering a sedan chair, was carried to the
house of Monmssuth's grey widows. With the light
of victory in her face. she bade the astonished porter
bear her duty to the Ituchess, and tell het that she did
not need her aid, for that "God had done all for her,"
and then Dame Winifred Herbert dismissed ber sedan,
and, hiring a coach, %tent off to join her husband in
his hiding-place at a mean house near the 'rower
Wharf, where for days they heed on morsels of bread
and sips of wine which Mrs. Mills brought in her
pocket. "Oh keit la femme ?" why, she was there;
on the steps of the scaffold, and at the portals of the
Valley of the Shadow of Death, with the keys of
Safety and Deliverance in her Hlll an, strong hands.
Lady Nithsdale didnot 6.,,, mad. She lived to be very
, old, and miserable, and neglected by her ungrateful
husband; but, shortly after the memorable escape
from the Tower, she bore him a child, which, the
' Jacobite legends tell, was masked on the neck with
. the figure of a broad axe. Thus, from epoch to epoch,
' the same mission has been fulfilled—that of consoling
the afflicted and succouring those who are in peril. It
is only tube regretted that female sympathy andfemale
devotion are sometimes waited upon not very worthy
objects.

The following is the full text of the letter addressed hY
!wham !famine, from Spa, to the French Minister of the
otertor

-
"On any arrival here I find by the newspapers that
there have been several arrests in consequence of the
Marshal's escape. It had previously been my inten-
tion to write to you on the matter, and it has now
become my duty. Seek for no accomplices, f w there
are none. My nephew, M. Alvarez du Val, and I are
those who effected everything. On seeing that no
alteration would be made in the treatment of the cap-
tive Marshal, and that his life threatened to be
shortened, I detenrined to persuade him to escape.
I accordingly begged my nephew to help me,
which his independent position enabled him to
do, and we pledged each other to do every-
thing ourselves in order to compromise nobody.
I now communicate to you the exact details
of what oc :urred, hoping to clear up the truth and to
prevent innocent persons from languishing any longer
in dungeons. I left Spa on the 29th of July, accom-
panied by my nephew, whose devotion has stood every
test. We repaired to Genoa, where we arrived on the
sth of August. On Thursday, the 6th, we went to
the Peirano Danovaro Company for the purpose of
hiring a pleasure steamer under the pretext of wishing
to make a trip in the Mediterranean, and on condition
that the vessel should be entirely at our disposal.
About five in the morning of Saturday, the Bth, we
left Genoa harbour, and arrived in the course of the
morning at Port Maurice, where the bail Weather
forced us to stop for the night. On the next day,
the 9th, we went to San Remo and spent the day
there; about eight we directed the captain to pro-
ceed to Jouan Bay, telling him we wished to fetch
a man servant from a villa situate on the coast, for
the captain knew nothing of our plans. The Marshal
had been informed by words which I had written in
soy letters with sympathetic ink that he was to make
preparations to leave the island by night, immediately
after the arrival of a steamer in Jouan Bay. Thecap-
tain, wishing to proceed in order to have his papers
inspected in Jolla's Bay, asked us whether and at what
hour we would start. We told him we were going to
a villa in the neighbourhood to fetal' a man servant,
and, perhaps, also a maid servant, and should then
towards night turn back to Nice. We left the ship in
one of its boats about half-past seven, and landed in
the neighbourhood of La Croisette, in order not to
compromise the crew of the ship. We went thence to
La Croisette, where we hired a boat for a trip on
the se.. The sea was very rough. Neither of us
hardly knew how to row, so that we did not 'Tisch
the foot of the fort opposite Jouan till between
half past nine and ten. We there saw the M..rahal
descending by a rope, and to give him a sign where
the boat was we lighted a match. The Marshal
immediately answered by lighting a match to direct us
to the spot where he had climbed down. A little later
he jumped into the sea in order to reach the boat. My
nephew had to assist him into it, for he had received
contusions, and his strength was exhausted. Allthree
of us then tried to reach the steamer, which was to
wait for us at the spot where we had left it. With
notch difficulty we found it, went on board, and left
one of the sailors to take the boat back to the coast.
As soon as we were on board my nephew and I directed
the captain, it being already 1 a.m., to start im-
mediately for Genoa, where we landed on the 10th of
August about 11 a.m. This, Sir, is the truth, and I
have the honour to salute you."

In connection with the somewhat rental gable escape of
Marshal Mamine, the Doily Telegraph has the following
interesting leader .

"Ou e-xl In femme ?" was the question invariably
asked by the wily and cynical diplomatist when he was
told of the occurrence of any drama of tragedy or
intrigue. There was a great deal of wit, but more
malice and not alittle exaggeration, in the insinuation.
Of course Helen was the cause of all the woes of Troy,
and, indirectly, of the wanderings of Ulysses and the
murder of Agarnemnon.e But might we not at the same
time, bestow some little thought on the devotedness of
Andromache, and the unalterable fidelity of Penelope?
Of course, but for the ambition of Lady
Macbeth, her lord might have eontented himself
with the rank .4 Thane of Cawdor, and have
ended Isis days highly respected by the county
families ; but slit Ophelia incite Hamlet to
deeds of wickedness, sc was she his meek and me
complaining victim? The world is never tired of
libelling women; it sneers at matrimony, arid thee
rushes off to get married. It talks of the vanity and
the gossiping propensities of women; and then pro-
ceeds to chatter seandal in the club smoking-roem.
"On rot in fetione 1" is an iiiterrouatoiy which may
he very pertinently propounded with reference to the
recent evasion of an e4.-Maovlial f France from the
Isle Ste. Marguerite. The French press are just at
present much seandalised at the ingratitude, the
Indelicacy, and the pusillanimity of the quondam
Commander of the Army of the Rhine, in showing
his gaolers is clean pair of heels ; but, without
for the moment deciding the propriety or impro-
priety of a prisoner taking the earliest oppor-
tunity of elopite, from his dungeon, we cannot ignore
tins 0011Spit711, PUS part enacted by 'la feitane " in the
uielodrania sir the farce, whichever it may prove to be,
which has just been played in the Gulf of Juan. "La
femme "is Madame Bazaine. We have yet to learn
whether the stories of her hiring the fle-bottomed
boat from Marius the canotier, of her takine off her
waterproof, seining the oars, and rowing away towards
the island, like Spenser's Lady on the Idle Lake, are
true or false. Amidst a throng of conflicting ac-
counts and contradictory rumours, there seems to
be an universal agreement as to the active part
she teok in aiding and abetting her consort in
making his escape; and there appears to us little
reason to doubt that, but for her energy and devotion.
M. Bazaine would at this moment still be a captive
clapped up between four strong waltz. The Republi-
can papers will scarcely stigmatise as indelicate, as un-
grateful, or as pusillanimous the conduct of a lady who
uses her utmost endeavours to rescue the man she loves
best in the world—even if he were worthless—from
captivity and misery • and, if the wife of the late
Marshal has erred, it has been in the very best of his-
torical company.
That which Madame Bazaine did had been done
before by Emilie de Beauharnais, Countess of Lava-
lette, and by Winifred Herbert, Countess of Nithsdale.
We will recall the former story as the more recent
one. In 1815, after Waterloo and the Second Re-
storation, Cousin de Lavalette, an ardent and un-
scrupulous Bonapartist, was tried and found guilty
of the crime of high treason against Louis XVIII.,
and deservedly sentenced to death. Had he been
an Engliehetan he would most undoubtedly have
been hanged, drawn, and quartered. He had not i
only been a prime mover n the Bonapartist con-
spiracies of 1814, but at the dawn of the Hun-
dred Days he had committed an overt act of rebellion
against the established Government of his country by
making a raid on the General Post Office, turning out the
legitimate Director, and installing himself imhis place.
If Ney deserved death us a traitor, Lavalette cer-
tainly merited it as a rebel. Be was tried by a civil
tribunal and sentences! to be guillotined. On the eve
of the day appointed for his execution his heroic wife
made him assume her own garments, and, thus dis-
guised, he was safely conveyed in a Sedan chair out of
the Conciergerie. But to escape from the prison was
one thing; to escape from Paris, strictly guarded as
were all its gates by English, Austrian, Russian and
Prussian soldiery, amid by the French gendarmerie, was
a much more arduous task After long lurking in holes
and corners, the friends of the unhappy fugitive were
fain to solicit the assistanee of a person who had been
one of the bitterest and the most mischievous of
Napoleon's enemies. This was the gallant General Sir
Robert Wilson, who, with the chivalrous generosity
which was his leading characteristic, at once took the
distressed Bonapartist under his protection. With the
co-operation oi two other brave English gentlemen,
Messrs. Bruce and Hutchinson, Sir Robert dressed up
Lavalette in an English uniform, put him into a
cabriolet, passed him through the barriers, and got him
safe over the frontier into Belgium. The English gen-
tlemen were arrested in Paris and tried before the
Court of Assizes of the Seine for helping the condemned
Imperialist to escape. They were sentenced to a brief
term of imprisonment ; but they found their reward
in the cheers and the embraces of the epectators in
court, and in the applause of all Liberal France.
As for Sir Robert Wilson, he was severely censured
for his conduct by the Conenander-in-Chief in
England ; and the ilielike oonceived by the Prince
Regent towards a man who had dared to save the
head of a Bonapartist culminated, five year.;
later, in the hatred which led George IV. to expel
tire Rebett Wilson from the Army, and to
deprive him of his orders, for a trifling indiscretion
of which he had been guilty on the 0C3114i011 of the
funeral of Queen Caroline. The Bourbon Govern-
ment had the inconceivable meanness to detain
Mist-lance she Lavalette for a lengthened period in prison
a punishment for her devotedness towards her
rum-bane ; but they slid not venture to bring her to
trial. After a while the was released; but the shock
of that terrible evening had been too much for the
poor lady's brain. She became insane, stud, although
in after years she partially recovered her reason, she
reineMad, until the close of her life, a confirmed
invalid.

Just one hundred years before, there had been done
in England a deed of womanly heroism to the full
as elevated and as touching as that which roused
the Muse of Byron to enthusiasm, and which has
given lasting renown to the name of Madame de
Lavalette. Late in the year 1715 a dolorous caval-
cade entered London from the North. Escorted
by a strong forse of mounted anddismounted dragoons,
a posse of Jacobite prisoners were marched through
the streets. Their arms were tied behind them ; the
bridles had been taken off their horses, which were
led by soldiers. These were the captive, taken after
the abortive rebellion of the Earl of Mar in the High-
lands of Scotland, and of Forster In the northern
counties of England. The private gentlemen among
the prisoners were sent to Newgate, the nobles
were taken to the Tower; and among the latter
were the Earls of Derwentwater, Kenmure, and
Nithsdale. These Lords were all tried in due
course before their peers in Westminster Hall,
and sentenced to death. The sentence in the
case of Lords Derwentwater and Kenmure were,
as is well known, carried out; and they died on
tha scaffold on Tower Hill. Lady Nithadale a
daughter of the illustrious family of Herbert, moved
heaven and earth, so to speak, to obtain a pardon, or
at least a reprieve, for her husband. She besieged the
lobbies of the Parliament House and the ante-

THE STOURBRIDGE OBSERVER.

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