The Sun.
London, England, 1856-05-28 00:00:00

ESCAPE OF FELICE ORSINI FROM AN

AUSTRIAN DUNGEON.

[The simple and unaffected account of his escape
from the Castle of St. Georgio, Mantua, which
Felice Orsini gives in the following letter, is full of
the most varied interest. The courage, resources,
awl self-reliance of Orsini himself are the first
things that strike the reader. Next comes the
rancorous cruelty of the Austrian Government as
is shown by the character of the cells in which
they immure their prisoners. But the most im-
portant truth revealed by the letter is the
moral isolation of the Austrians in their Italian
dominions. In descending from his prison win-
dow Orsini injured one of his feet so severely
that he was lamed. Day dawned, and the streets
became filled with passengers before he could
emerge from the Castle ditch. There could be no
doubt that he was a prisoner broke loose. Yet the
casual passers-by did not hesitate to help him out
of the ditch and allow him to go his way unchal-
lenged. From Mantua till he gained the frontier
was a journey of eight days. Strangers befriended
and concealed him—no one betrayed him. He
was an enemy of the Austrian—that was sufficient
recommendation to hospitality and protection.
mThe Austrians, it is clear, are surrounded by a
population who detest them. Among these ene-.
mies are men like Orsini, who can work their way
out of dungeons in which men of ordinary mould
would have abandoned themselves to despair, and
whose first use of their regained liberty is to renew
the internecine struggle with their hated tyrants.
Against such adversaries no combination of police
spies and military mercenaries can permanently
prevail.]
"Dear Friend,—l have already written to you
that I am free ; now I will give you the particulars
of my escape, the details of which have been sur-
- rounded by party journalism with uncertainty and
falsehood. I was arrested at Hermannstadt, in
Transylvania, on the 17th December, 1854, sub-
mitted to a long examination, and conveyed hea-
vily chained in a cart to Tienna on the sth January.
There I underwent three long examinations from
the police authorities. They knew my real name,
caused my portrait to be taken, and handed me
over in charge to the criminal tribunal. I did not
find that my late journeys in Lombardy told espe-
cially against me, but my whole antecedents since
1844 were known, and my constantly manifested
hatred to Austria was of great injury to me. They
knew everything concerning me. The Austrian.
police and her higher authorities receive re-
ports from all the other governments of Italy, as
well as from their own military commanders of the
Italian provinces, concerning all the individuals in
any way politically compromised. They were how-
ever, unable to condemn me legally, so they in-
formed me that I should again be put into the
hands of the police, and confined in some fortress,
and that the duration of my imprisonment -would
depend upon the peaceful or stormy course of events
in the political world, and upon the total inertia of
the revolutionists. Such is the name by which they
qualify all who either attempt political reforms or
seek the national independence.
" en the 25th March I was sent in charge of
two gendarmes and a superior police officer to
Mantua, where I was again examined by Baron
Sanches. I then learned that the documents re-
lating to the political mission I had fulfilled in
Milan in 1854 had fallen into the hands of the Aus-
strian Government when the Milanese committee
was arrested, and that I was doomed to die on the
scaffold. In Mantua I was examined at least 20
times.
" On reaching Mantua, we stopped in the large
courtyard of the Castle of St. Georgio. On each of
the four sides is a tower, and the castle is surround-
ed by a ditch 7or 8 yards wide and 6 deep. On
the side near the Bridge of St. Georgio is an arched
way passing under the street which leads from the
bridge to the city. By means of this arcade, when
the waters of the lake are high, the ditch round the
castle is filled with water. The whole is strongly
1 guarded on all sides by a large detachment of troops
with artillery.
"At the time of my escape orders were given
that all ingress and egress should be forbidden be-
tween the hours of 8 p.m. and 5 a.m.
" When political trials are going on, the pri-
soners most jealously guarded by Austria are
always sent to the Castle of St. Georgic), and after
the revolution of 1848 an express order was sent
from Vienna that the fortress be exclusively used
for the detention of political prisoners. The secret
cells are in the upper storey, and in the lower
storey are kept the archives of the city of Mantua.
All the cells, except Nos. 12 and 7, have at the
windows two rows of thick iron bars, about a yard
apart (which will give you an idea of the thick.
ness of the walls), and outside the outer row is a
thick grating of iron wire. The worst cells are
Nos. 3 and 4. No. 4, the smaller of the two, is
the one from which I escaped. It is about six
paces long, and rather more than three broad.
The cells 2,3, and 4 open into a corridor guarded
by eight soldiers, changed every 24 hours. There
is a sentinel posted at the single door which leads to
all the prisons, and the others watch the doors of the
cells. At night all these regulations are even more
rigorously enforced, and there is a special sentinel for
the cells 2,3, and 4, who hears the slightest noise,
and reports it to the keepers, who sleep in a little
room opening out of the corridor which leads to
Nos. 2,3, and 4. This room has two doors, and
every night the door leading to the courtyard is
shut, and the inner door is always closed, and has a
sentinel posted on the inside. In the day-time
there are three keepers charged with the
surveillance and service of the prisoners.
These are changed at eight o' clock every
morning. One of these is responsible for the
prisoners, takes them their food, and makes the
daily and nightly visits, when he alone enters
the cells, another meanwhile guarding the door
with a chain. This last has charge of the keys of
the upper and outer door, which is, as I told you,
also guarded by a sentinel. No one can enter or
leave the castle without his special knowledge and
permission. Each of these various officers is bound
to keep watch that the others do their duty, and
has a separate responsibility in case of the escape
of any prisoner. Besides all these, there is the
capo custode, who has the surveillance over the
whole; sleeps in the castle, governs and orders all,
and has under him the corporal and all the men of
the guard. In the night-time he keeps all the
keys, and the keeper has to apply to him for them,
in order to make his nightly visits to the cells.
"The day visits are made at 6,8, 10, 12, 2,4,
and 6 o'clock ; the night visits at half-past 9 and
half-past 1. They then examine the state of the
irons of the windows, the walls, &c. In the
intervals of the regular visits the keeper
comes in and out at all hours, so that the poor
prisoner has never a moment of quiet.
" From these details you can see the impossibi-
lity of escaping even with the help of one guard—
at least three would have to be in the secret, and
even then false keys would be necessary, as the
keys are all kept by the capo custode ; and once
out one would find oneself in the midst of
Mantua, as the castle has only one entrance,
which leads into the city. There is, therefore,
no other mode of escape than the one I took,
of letting myself down from a height of thirty
yards into the ditch. But how did I contrive this
escape ? By patience, and the firm determination
to attempt and endure anything in order to free
myself to work again every possible injury in my
power to the detested Austrians. Animated by
this hatred to Austria, .I assumed a new character,
and, after seven months of solitary and most
rigorous confinement, durink which I was never
allowed a light, or even a glass to take the medi-
cine necessary for my fever, I contrived by my
quiet and uncomplaining conduct to make the
guards so satisfied with me that they ceased to take
the trouble to examine the bars of my windows. I
had obtained six little saws of the very finest steel,
but how I had obtained them the Austrian Govern-
ment will never know. If poor Colonel Calvi, who
was confined in cell No. 1, and with whom I had kept
up a correspondence of signs through the wall, had
not been so soon executed, he and I should have
escaped together from the castle. I had once asked
the capo custode, a German, if he thought the sen-
tence of death recorded against me would be put
in execution. He 'answered he should be sorry to
awaken illusive hopes—perhaps no, perhaps yea—
and that was all. '
"About the end of January I was put into cell
No. 4, the worst in the (Sadie, and I almost de-
spaired of ever being able to escape from it ; the
window was more than tw) yards from the ground,
and to work at it I was obliged to stand on the
back of my chair. The rows of iron bars were a
yard apart ; the outside grating being one-tenth of
the distance beyond. -The bars were extremely
thick, especially the inside ones, and the height
from the window to the level of the ditch was 30
yards—l myself measured it with a string.
" I could not work at night, because the noise
'
of the saws, though very quiet, would have been
heard by the sentinel, who, after the half-past nine
o'clock visit, came every five minutes to the door. I
worked therefore in the day lime, and my ear had
become se accustomed to the step of the sentinel that
before he opened the door I always contrived to get
down and put my chair in its place, and sometimes
I would be walking up and down humming. I co-
' vered over the marks of my work with brick-pow-
der mixed with black wax and bread. By thus
working in the day time in the intervals of the
visits, in 24 days I had cut away seven of the out-
side bars and one of the inside ones, where they
were fixed into the wall, and from the wall I had
eztre,ctecl eight bricks, whicla hid in the strata of