Page:Book of the Riviera.djvu/251

Rh Marguerite. On August 10th, 1874, the director of the prison, named Marchi, found Bazaine's prison empty. The first thought in France, when this news was spread by the telegraph, was that he had been allowed to escape by the connivance of MacMahon. Then details were published which put a romantic gloss on the evasion. In the fortress of Ste. Marguerite three rooms had been placed at the disposal of the prisoner, as well as a little terrace, which latter was reached by a stone bridge with a wall on each side, and here stood a sentinel, on the wall; but he could not see those who passed over the bridge nor what went on upon the terrace, as the latter was partly covered with an awning against the sun. On the terrace, to which led several steps from the bridge, the Marshal had formed for himself a little garden; and whilst working therein one day he found a choked gutter intended for carrying off rain-water from the castle shoots; it was bored through the rock; and he set to work to clear it. By means of sympathetic ink he was able to maintain a correspondence with his wife; and all was planned for his escape. On the evening determined on he asked his gaoler, who usually accompanied him for a stroll on the terrace after dinner, to allow him to walk it alone, and this was readily permitted. After a while Bazaine opened and slammed the gate, and the sentinel supposed that he had passed out of the terrace garden, on his way back to the prison. But that the Marshal, instead, had cleared the drain hole and slipped through, he could not see, because the awning hid from him all view of the terrace. In the drain was a rope, and this Bazaine let down the face of the rock,