During the winter of 1635, Isaac Arnauld was governor of Philipsburg—a place well fortified by earthworks and a large ditch (the water of which was constantly frozen), but very insufficiently garrisoned. “The Imperialists, who were well informed of everything,” says the AbbÉ Arnauld, in his “Memoirs,” “had little difficulty in forming their plan of attack and putting it into execution.” When they entered the place they found the garrison under arms, but too weak to sustain a general assault. All the courage and conduct of the governor availed him nothing but to make a desperate defence and to sell his liberty dearly, after nearly all the garrison had been put to the sword. He was obliged to surrender, with a few companions who survived the slaughter; and after having been imprisoned in several places, was at length taken to Esslingen.

To add to the miseries of his situation, he was doomed to hear that he was openly accused, at the Court of France, of having lost Philipsburg by his negligence. From that moment he had but one thought—namely, how he could escape and clear his character before his sovereign; and with this view he steadily refused to become a prisoner on parole. His design was not easy of execution, for he was constantly guarded by soldiers, who accompanied him, even in his walks in the grounds of the fortress, and slept outside the door of his room at night. These difficulties, however, served only to give a stimulus to his invention. He carefully measured with his eye the exact height of his window which opened on the ditch of the fortress, and he became convinced that he had only to make the descent in safety to gain his liberty. He began by gaining the connivance of some French cavalry soldiers who were in the service of the Emperor, with the promise of giving them employment in his own regiment of carabineers, on his return to France; and he afterwards kept his word. The great and almost the only difficulty was to find rope for the descent, for there was but little to fear from the watchfulness of the garrison, the ditch beneath his window being very poorly guarded. To that end he always urged his confederates, when he was taking exercise, to pretend to be amusing themselves with various games, which they were always the more ready to do as he never failed to encourage them with liberal supplies of drink. After a short time, indeed, they proposed the games themselves, and seemed to take a real pleasure in them. One of these games, called Girding the Ass, was peculiarly favourable to his design, for it involved the use of a cord for binding the principal player. Arnauld always found a piece of silver for the purchase of this cord, and never asked for the change. When the game was over, the cord, being too small to seem worth keeping, used to be thrown away, and those who were in the prisoner’s interest took care to pick it up and give it him without attracting attention. When he had as many pieces as he judged necessary for his purpose, he put his scheme into execution, and escaped with the soldiers who had helped him; and he used such diligence that his friends first received the news of his liberty from his own lips.

On his arrival at Paris he constituted himself, by his own act, a prisoner in the Bastille, and demanded a full inquiry into the allegations against him. He remained there several months, until he had cleared his character, and he then consented to be set free. (Memoirs of the AbbÉ Arnauld.)