In December, 1652, Cardinal de Retz, who had played so considerable a part in the troubles of the Fronde, was wasting his time in fruitless negotiations with the ministers, when he was arrested at the Louvre and taken to Vincennes. He did not like his prison, and he had therefore to do what was very distasteful to him—namely, to make a humble appeal to the Archbishop of Paris, ere he could procure his transfer to the Chateau of Nantes, then under the governorship of Chalucet. From thence in due time he made his escape; and he gives us the following account of the exploit in his memoirs:—

“The Marshal de la Meilleraye and the First President de BelliÈvre came together to fetch me from Vincennes. As the marshal was a martyr to the gout he could not come upstairs, so that M. BelliÈvre alone came to my room, and this gave him an opportunity to tell me, as we were leaving it together, that I was to be sure not to give my parole when I was asked for it. I had no sooner reached the bottom of the staircase than the marshal demanded this pledge. I replied, that though I had heard of prisoners of war being required to give their parole, I did not know that the demand was customary in the case of prisoners of state. M. de BelliÈvre then struck in on my side and said, ‘You don’t understand one another. The cardinal will not refuse to give his word provided only that you (turning to the marshal) confide absolutely in him, and let him walk about without guards; but if you guard him, monsieur, of what use will his parole be, for a man who is guarded is free from all obligations of honour?’

“The First President knew very well what he was about in saying this, for he had heard the Queen make the marshal promise that they should never lose sight of me. ‘You know,’ replied the marshal, looking M. de BelliÈvre in the face, ‘whether or not I am able to do what you propose. But come,’ he continued, turning to me, ‘I must guard you, then, it seems; however, I will take care that you have nothing to complain of.’

“I remained there simply under the charge of M. de la Meilleraye, and he kept his word, for it would have been impossible to add to the kindness with which he treated me. I saw everybody; I had even all the amusements I desired, including a comedy almost every evening. All the ladies were there, and they supped with me very often. The fidelity of the guards to their trust was equal to their good nature. They never lost sight of me except when I entered my room, and the only door of this room was watched by six men, day and night. The window—a very high one—looked out on a courtyard, always filled with soldiers, and the six men appointed to look after me used to watch me from a terrace when I was taking exercise in a little garden planted in a kind of bastion or ravelin on a level with the water.

“I resolved, however, to devote all my energies to the recovery of my liberty. The First President urged me very strongly to make the attempt, and Montresor had sent me, through a lady of Nantes, a note containing the following words:—‘You are to be taken to Brest at the end of the month, if you don’t get away.’ But my task was by no means an easy one. The first thing was to amuse the marshal, and in doing that I did not forget that the most suspicious persons are often the most easily duped. I then spoke to M. de Brissac, who made journeys to Nantes from time to time, and who promised to help me. As he carried a great deal with him he invariably had a number of mules in his train, and it occurred to me that I might easily hide myself in one of the large trunks fastened to these creatures’ backs. A trunk was accordingly made for me somewhat larger than the rest, and with a hole or two in it to admit air. I tried it myself, and came to the conclusion that this means of escape was not only practicable, but that it was as easy as it was simple, and that it would not oblige me to share my secret with many persons.

“M. de Brissac, too, was very much in favour of it at first, but in the course of a journey to Machecoul he quite changed his opinion. On his return to Nantes he assured me that I could not fail to be suffocated in the trunk; but to convince me that his good intentions on my behalf remained the same, he told me that if I devised some other plan I might reckon on very effectual help from him in all that concerned the outside of the castle. We therefore began to take new measures on a plan which I formed myself the moment I became convinced that the other one could not be put into execution.

“I have already said that I used sometimes to take exercise on a kind of ravelin that gives on the river Loire. As we were in the month of August, and the river was very dry, the water did not quite touch the wall of the ravelin, but left a long strip of shore visible at the foot of it. Between the garden which was on the top of this bastion and the terrace where my guards took their station, there was a door, which Chalucet had had made to prevent the soldiers from stealing his grapes. This circumstance shaped my plan, which was to quietly fasten the door after me one day without letting the guards observe what I was doing, and then, while they could still see me through the open trellis-work, without being able to reach me if their suspicions should be aroused, to drop down from the wall by means of a rope provided for me by my doctor and the AbbÉ Rousseau, and to jump on horseback at the bottom of the ravelin with four gentlemen, whom I intended to make the companions of my flight. This plan was, of course, very difficult of execution. It could only be carried out in open day, between two sentries standing but thirty paces apart, and in full view of the six guards who could fire at me through the openings in the trellis-work. It was necessary again that the four gentlemen who were to accompany me and to favour my escape should be careful to be at the foot of the ravelin at exactly the proper time, for their presence there a moment too early would excite suspicions that might ruin all. If my object had merely been to get out of prison it would have been enough for me to have taken only such measures as I have already indicated; but I had very much more to do besides, for it was my intention to make my way to Paris and to appear there in public. And more than that, I had other pretensions that entailed difficulties of a still more formidable nature. It was desirable that I should travel from Nantes to Paris by diligence, for the couriers of the marshal would be certain to carry the alarm along every road, and it would be impossible for me to avoid observation and arrest if I travelled alone. And lastly, I should have to take care to inform my friends in Paris of my intentions while keeping my enemies there in ignorance of them. No event of our time would be more extraordinary than the success of an escape like mine, if the end of it were at the same time to free me from my fetters and to make me master of the capital of the kingdom.

“I began my flight on Saturday the 8th of April, at five o’clock in the evening. The little garden door closed, so to speak, quite naturally after me, and I slid down easily (with a stick between my legs) from the bastion, which was forty feet high. My valet de chambre, Fromentin, who is with me still, kept the guards occupied by giving them drink, and they became quite absorbed in the amusement of watching a Jacobin, who had got out of his depth in the river and was drowning under the castle walls. The sentinel who was but seventy paces from me, but in such a position that he could not reach me, hesitated to fire, because the moment I saw him getting his match ready I called out to him that he would be hanged if he did me harm, and he afterwards declared that this led him to believe I was escaping with the connivance of the marshal. Two little pages, who were bathing, and who saw me hanging by the rope, cried out lustily that I was trying to get away, but no attention was paid to them, because it was thought that they were merely calling for help for the drowning Jacobin. The four gentlemen were waiting for me at the bottom of the ravelin, where they pretended to be watering their horses as though they were just getting ready for the chase. To be brief, I was on horseback myself before the least alarm had been given, and as I had forty relays placed between Nantes and Paris, I should infallibly have reached the capital had not an accident occurred which I may say has exercised a fatal influence over the rest of my life.

“The moment I got to horse I took the road to Mauve—which is, if I am not mistaken, at about five leagues from Nantes by the river. It was agreed that M. de Brissac and the Chevalier de SÉvignÉ should be in readiness there with a boat to carry me over. La Ralde, master of the horse to the Duke de Brissac, who preceded me, told me that I must gallop very fast, so as not to give the marshal’s guards time to close the gate of a little street in their quarter through which we should have to pass. I was mounted on one of the best horses in the world, which had cost M. de Brissac a thousand crowns, but I did not let him have his head, because the pavement was very bad and very slippery. We were making great speed when one of my gentlemen having suddenly warned me to take to my pistols because two of the marshal’s guards were approaching—who, however, were not paying the least attention to us—I unfortunately followed his advice, and was in the act of presenting the pistol at the nearest guard, when it exploded and frightened my horse, which reared and threw me. I fell with great violence against a door-post and broke my left shoulder. Another of my gentlemen, named Beauchesne, lifted me up and put me on horseback again: and though I endured such frightful sufferings that I was obliged every now and then to pull my hair to save myself from fainting, I finished my ride of five leagues before the grand-master, who followed at full speed with all the couriers of Nantes, could come up with me. I found M. de Brissac and the Chevalier de SÉvignÉ at the appointed place by the river, but I fainted the moment I entered the boat. They brought me to myself by throwing water in my face. I wanted to get on horseback again when we had passed the river, but I lacked the strength; and Monsieur de Brissac was obliged to put me in a stack of hay, where he left me with one of my gentlemen, named Montet, who held me in his arms. He took Joly away with him, who, with Montet, had alone been able to follow us, the horses of the others having broken down: and he went straight to Beaupreau, with the intention of assembling the nobility there to come to my aid.

“I was hidden there above seven hours, suffering agonies such as I can hardly describe. My shoulder was put out of joint, and I was covered with terrible bruises. I was seized with a fever at about nine o’clock in the evening, and the pain that gave me was cruelly aggravated by the heat of the hay. I did not dare drink, although I was on the bank of the river, because if Montet and I had quitted our hiding-place there would have been no one to arrange the hay after us; and this circumstance would have put our pursuers on our track. As it was, we heard the horse-soldiers passing to right and left of us. M. de la Poise St. Offanges, a gentleman of some distinction in the district, whom M. de Brissac had informed of my plight, came at about two o’clock in the morning to take me away from the stack as soon as he had remarked that there were no more horse-soldiers in the neighbourhood.

“Monsieur d’Offanges put me upon a hand-barrow and had me wheeled by two peasants to a barn at about two leagues from the place, where I was again covered with hay; but as I now had something to drink I found myself in a state of almost perfect comfort.

“In about seven or eight hours Monsieur and Madame Brissac came to fetch me with about fifteen or twenty horses, and they took me to Beaupreau, where I only remained one night, while the nobility were being called together. In this short time M. de Brissac had assembled more than two hundred gentlemen, who were joined at about four leagues from the place by three hundred gentlemen under M. de Retz. We passed almost within sight of Nantes, from which place some of the marshal’s guards came to intercept us. They were vigorously repulsed and driven within the barrier, and we arrived at Machecoul, which is in the district of De Retz, in perfect safety.”

From Machecoul, Cardinal de Retz was taken, not without difficulty, to Belle-Isle; and some days after he reached San Sebastian, whence he went with Spanish passports to Rome. (Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz.)