The Savannah morning news., 1901-07-06
ESCAPE FROM CHATEAU DE Joux.
A Thrilling Tale From the Diary of
French RoyaIist.
From the Centul

- hhOSHhHb
From the Century
The narrative of the escape of four roy
alist prisoners from the Chateau de Joux,
near Neuchatel, written by Capt. Will
liam Girod, one Of the participants in
the events which it describes, is printed
! in the July Century by permission of
his son. also named William Girod, who
died in Brooklyn, ". Y, in 1896, at the
age of 3d. The text followed is a copy
of the original manuscript written by
| Capt. Girod for his son, and no change
| has been made in the manuscript except
| by way of omission of less interesting
details and in restoring the narrative to
the first person, it having been changed
to the third at the time that the present
owner made the copy from the original,
which has since been destroyed. The
members of the family have no knowl-
edge of any other narrative of these
events.
The Chateau de Joux has had many
noted prisoners within it's walls. In 1771
Mirabeau, while imprisoned there under
lettre-de-cachet, was allowed to visit
Pontarlier, where he met Nine Sophie de
Monnier, to whom he wrote the Letters
to SOPHIE" which were published in 1873
1t was also the place of the captivity and
death of the hero of the negro revolution
in Santo Domingo, Toussaint Louverture.
Capt Girods supposed offense was COM
plicity in the attempt to blow up the first
consul with an Internal machine in De-
cember, 1900. He and his fellow prisoners
first made a hole through the ten-foot
wall Of their casemate. The narrative
then continues:
The next operation was 20 manufacture
rope We had eight strong linen sheets,
nine feet long, each of which we slit into
eight strips which were first twisted sep
arately, and then two together. In addi-
ton TO this, we cut up very large coun-
terpane, a number of shirts, tableeloths,
towels-n short, everything that could be
used. When finished, our rope was found
20 be twelve times the length of our case
mate.
This was the most anxious period since
we began the work of escape. 1t was
necessary to hide everything. The sheets
might have been missed; they might have
come to change them. However, as we
always made our own beds, we took care
to cover them completely with the large
rugs with which each of us was furnish
ed, and thus everything passed without
a shadow of suspicion.
At length arrived the day of final de-
liverance-Jan. a. 1905. We took an affec-
tionate leave of our neighbor, NJ. de Ri
Were, who most cordially congratulated
us on tH6 HdPpy PiOSACSS Ol Jul
taking, and offered his sincerest wish for
the final success of our arduous attempt.
He was to dine with the commandant,
and he promised to ply him SO freely with
wine-to which he was known to be very
partial-as to render him by O'Clock,
the hour fixed for our. departure, altogeth-
er incapable of interfering with our de-
sign. AT the appointed time we,
taking silent farewell of
o,1r the work Of g.
tual deliverance. Having made the exter-
nal opening large enough for a man to
creep easily through, we placed the iron
bar across the hole. Round this the rope
was drawn without being tied. so that
we were obliged to slide down the double
rope to prevent its slipping. We threw
our great-coats and some small bundles
containing such clothes as we could ven
ture' to take with us through the hole
before US I had a small terrier, which
had been my companion in prison, as well
at the Temple as at Joux, for about two
| years. could not make up my mind to
| have it killed and had it been left behind
| alone, its cries, in all probability, would
| have led to a premature discovery of our
| escape. / therefore made a bag for it,
which l hung about my neck. and with it
1 descended the rope. The precise hight
of the FIRST descent could not be accurate
from 80 to 100 feet. However, we all got
| safely down, part of the end of the rope
| having broken with NJ. d Hauteroche, who
was stout, heavy man; but he was,
| fortunately, so near the bottom that he
| received no injury.
The rope was then disengaged from the
iron bar by pulling one end of it, and I
was dispatched to find the tree on the
| edge of the rock. 1t was easily found. but
| hafnra NM 10 o,,J
had got down, so thick fog came on that
/ could neither see the fort nor could my
companions see me. The moon came to
our assistance, and the others reached
| the tree, to which we tied one end of the
rope, slipping down 1t one after the
| other, sometimes on the shelv-
ing sides of the rock. covered with
snow, sometimes without any other sup
port, down the occasional but short preci-
pices, until we got a good footing on a
large projecting point, where we stopped.
and pulling forcibly, two together we
succeeded in breaking the rope pretty
high up. We again made It fast, descend
| ing in the same manner; again broke it.
and tied II a second and third time:
but 1t was eventually too short TO enable
| us to get quite down.
| We now found ourselves surrounded bv
| high mountains. without the appearance
OF a track in the snow. and were quite al
loss which way to proceed in order to
reach the highroad. Luckily, some pack
horses with bells passed by, and indi-
Gated the beaten road which was consid-
| erably above us. We reached ii with
the greatest difficulty. the snow being Ia
many places more than three feet deep
| Notwithstanding the GOODNESS of the
weather, we perspired freely from the
exertion necessary to extricate ourselves
| from our difficult poSition HAVING p-ain.
ed the road, we were at a loss to know
which way TO proceed. We were provid-
ed with a small compass, some finder
and matches, and steel and flint; but
we had been so long in the snow that our
finder was spoiled and II was so DARK
that we could not see which way to steer
We. however. discovered chapel by tn,
roadside, which we had not noticed or
our way from Pontarlier. and we there.
fore concluded that TO be the road, and
so II turned out