Paul-Antoine QuiquÉran de Beaujeu, Knight of Malta, had acquired the reputation of one of the first seamen of his time by the number and success of his fights against the Turks. In the month of January, 1660, he was driven by a storm into one of the worst ports of the Archipelago, where he was blockaded and attacked by thirty galleys of Rhodes, commanded by the Capitan Pacha Mazamet in person. He stood out against an overpowering fire for an entire day, and only yielded when he had spent all his ammunition and lost three-fourths of his crew. He was put into irons and carried away in triumph; but the victorious fleet was assailed with a new storm of such violence that Mazamet was obliged to have recourse to the superior seamanship of his captive. M. de Beaujeu saved him, and so won the gratitude of the Turk that the latter, with a view to rescue his preserver, placed him for concealment among the lowest slaves. The grand vizier, however, who had probably been informed of this stratagem, demanded the illustrious prisoner by name; and recognising Beaujeu by his haughty air, he picked him out from among the slaves and sent him to the Seven Towers, bidding him give up all hope of ransom or of exchange. The Porte rejected every proposal made for his release, although the King interceded for him, and the Venetians sought in vain to have his name included in the terms of the Treaty of Candia. One of his nephews, about twenty-two years of age, then formed a plan for effecting his release and he executed it in the most brilliant and successful manner. He first went to Constantinople with M. de Nointel, the ambassador of France, and there he was allowed to see the prisoner—that permission being freely granted to every one on account of the supposed safety of the place. No other precaution was taken than that of searching the visitors, who were obliged, before seeing the prisoners, to give up their arms, their pocket-knives, and even their keys.

M. de Beaujeu was at first alarmed at a proposal which threatened to have very dangerous results; but eleven years of imprisonment, his natural taste for hazardous enterprises, and the contagious example of the young man’s courage and enthusiasm soon decided him to give his consent to the attempt. His nephew then began to carry him at each visit a small piece of rope, which he placed round his body; and when he thought he had enough of it for his purpose, he fixed on the day, the hour, and the signal for his departure. When the signal was given, the chevalier slid down from the walls; but finding the rope somewhat too short, he let himself drop into the sea, which washes the base of the Seven Towers. The splash of the falling body was heard by some Turks passing in a brigantine, and they made towards the fugitive; but the nephew, reaching him first in a well-armed skiff, drove them off, picked up his uncle, and took him on board one of the King’s ships, commanded by his friend the Count d’Apremont. The vessel carried him safely to France, where he lived a long while in the bosom of his family, as Commandant of Bordeaux.

The Governor of the Seven Towers was put to death for permitting his escape.