The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1871-11-24
~, TENNESSEE, NOVEMBER 81. 1871.

! t1OH pIOpOb6u d MP OF BID@TIISy aUO
| freshened by that, they worked for
several hours at the breach till II
I grew large enough. The wall was
four and half feet thick. La Tude
instantly made D'Alegre get through,
while he fetched the portmanteau.
| They left their ladders and etc, glad
| ly behind, stepped down In to The dry
! moat, and were free.
! Yet even here dangers still await
ed them. Sixty steps from the moat,
! on the road to Bercey, the two men,
carrying the portmanteau between
| them, fell in the darkness into an
aqueduct six feet deep and five feet
wide. D'Alegre, frightened, in his
/ first alarm dropped the portmanteau
and cIung to La Tude, who, jerking
| him off, clung to the other side, and
| dragged out his friend by the hair of
the head. Afterward they scrambled
out the portmanteau, which luckily
foated. The horrors OF that dread
full night had ended. The two friends
embraced each other, and fell on their
knees TO thank God for their deliver
ance from so many periIs. All had
gone well. The clothes had escaped
the wet, and, cold and shiYering, the
two men helped each other to dress.
AS they emerged from the moat il
struck four o'clock. They took the
first backney-coach they met; and
La Tude, not finding his friend NJ.
silhouette, Chancellor OF the Duke
Of Orleans, at Versailles, they both
fed for refuge to the Abbey Of st.
German des PREF. After hiding g
month he and D'Alegre,a disguised
as peasants, made separately for the
frontier. DAlegre Was arrested at
Brussels; La Tude, In june, at Am
sterdam.
Reconsigned to the Bastile, La Tude
was thrown into q dungeon, chained
hand and foot, and had only straw for
a bed. Still ingenious, hopeful, and
peFseyering, the poor prisoner made
"a fageOlet out OF q reed, and tanned
the rats which freQueHted his cell.
He also wrote on casks OF dry bread.
with his blood, scheme of reform that
might be useful to the government
and excite their pity. Pere Grifet,
the cOnfessOT ofthe Bastile, at last
touched by his sufferings, procured
him paper and ink to write petitions
In 1853 he devised a plan for adding
to the army twenty-five thousand
men. In the same year he proposed
to prevent bankruptcies by establish
ing public granaries This was some
how to add twelve millions to the
French revenue. In 1862 he wrote
to Madame De Pompadour, who was
still infexible: " have suffered for
fourteen.years let all De buried for
ever in the blood ofJesus Madame,
be a woman, feel some pity for my
tears, and those of a poor, desolate
mother seventy years old" But the
woman had no mercy; she turned
away her cruel face, and passed on to
the ball room, that echoed with music
music that drowned the reCollec-
ton OF such mems groans. Restless
at invention, La Tude now contriyed
to write on scraps of paper, which
blew from his barred window to the
house of some ladies in the Rue de
st. Antoine, who, one April morning
in 1864, showed at their window
piece of paper, which was written, in
large characters ---7
YESTERDAY, THE II, DIED MADAME
THE MARQUIsE DE PoMPADoUR.
La Tude at once wrote to the min
lister, asking for his liberty. On his
refusing toname his informant he
was agin thrown into dungeon, and
in August was removed in chains to
Vincinnes.. One foggy day in No
vembeP, 1855, La Tude, while walk
ing in the fosse, pushed through his
guards, disarmed q sentinel, and es-
capped. Trusting to the mercy of the
minister, Choiseul, with untiring
hopefulness, La Tude was seized and
reconsigned to his Yincennes dunge-
on. On the accession Of Louis the
MRlesheTbes became inter
ested in La TudP, but was told that he
was mad. La Tude was then sent to
Charenton for two years, finally re- |
leased, and banished from Paris. !
Foolish enough to return, he was |
thrown into the Chatelet, and in l777 |
sent to a dungeoniin Bicetre. At the |
prison deliverances at the birth of the |
the Cardinal Rohan (Rfter- |
ward entangled with the fatal dia- |
mond necklsce) found La Tude ten /
feet unC er-ground, his beard foot |
and hall long, his clothes rags, his !
food bread and water but, assured /
he was mad, the cardinal passed on to
his court intrigUes. A memorial of /
La Tude's sufferings, written by him
at the request Of a president Of the1
was lost by careless or
drunken commiesionnaiTe. Provi-
denee, however, threw it into the
hands Of a MRdame lie GrOB, who |
found it lying in the mud in the Rue /
des Fosses, st. German PAuxerrois. !
She was q warm hearted and cner-
getic woman, and set herself heart
and soul to the task of releasing the I
victim OF despotism. She won the 4
wife of the Swiss Of the Cardinal Ro-
han. then his secretary, atlast the gay 7
cardinal, then ri. La Tour Dupin, Z
next Madame Neckar. The revolu- /
ton was letting light into many dun
geOns. La Tude was at last liberat-
ed, March the 18th, 1884, but banish- |
ed, with small pension, to Afontag- |
nae. OF this exile brave Madame lie |
Gros also obtained the revocation, /
and the same year the French Acade- |
my bestowed on her the Afontyon /
prize of virtue. After the capture of
the Bastile La Tude became the lion
Of the hour and the text for patriotic 4
speeches. His papers, ladders, and (
tools were exhibited, with bis por-
trait, In q court OF the Louvre. In !
1892 he received a gift from the As
sembly of three thousand francs, and I
in 1893 obtained 3 judgement against
the heirs of Madame De POmpadour
of sixty thousand liyres, but Of this
sum he never touched more than ten
thousand Iivres. He wrote his Mem
oirs, and n 1893 plan 0ffinancial re-
form, aud q scheme Of saving the Re
oublic in three months, The idol Of
a ffay then sank into entire oblivion,
and died in 1905, aged eighty. After
aII, the dungeon does not seeIn adj t
verse to longevity.
The most affecting paragraph of this /
r...,r. m an, & llnIinrralhlvf fs flan fnI.l