In which Coll. Moulin and Captains de Frotté, Girod, & d'Hauteroche were confimed for eleven months and fourteen days at the end of which they effected their escape by working a passage through the walls of their dungeon. It was axcessively damp and dark and received so little light that often they were obliged to have the candles lighted at midday. Their food was brought to them every twenty four hours, they were by great favor allowed to walk in a court yard of the Fort once or twice a week surrounded by a Serjeant & six Men with loaded Firelocks and fixed Bayonets!!.
From a Drawing by W. M.Craig Engraved by C. Turner.
London Pubd for the Proprietors Octr. 16 1809. by E. Orme, Printseller, Bond Street.
Coloured aquatints 370 x 330mm. Trimmed to plate, faint creases in title.
The first image shows mountainous wintery landscape with four figures absailing down the side of a steep cliff, escaping from the fortress. The second four men, Colonel Moulin, the Captains de Frotté, Girod and d'Hauteroche and a dog confined in a prison, one reading to the others from a book inscribed 'Baron Trench', sitting at a table, with beds at either side of the arched space and a kettle on a fireplace at left. Fort-de-Joux, at the summit of snow-clad mountain peaks, in the Jura Mountains, served as a prison for successive French Governments and was where Toussaint L'Ouverture died of neglect and starvation in 1803. Moulin, de Frotté, Girod, & d'Hauteroche 'effected their miraculous escape, on 27th January, 1805, after a severe Captivity of eleven months and 14 days. They resolved to obtain their liberty, & succeeded by making a hole in the wall of their cell, which was 3 feet 1/2 thick and then had to work through another wall 9 feet thick & after ten nights of anxiety & fatigue they descended the Rock almost perpendicular on which the Fort stands near 700 feet in height, by the help of a Rope they made with their linen & bed clothes after having proceeded on foot to Neufchatel, they separated, and journied to Vienna, and from thence set off on their way to England, where three of men arrived safely two months after their escape!' [E.extract from Whitman:708.]
Whitman:707.708
[Ref: 1412] £550.00
London Pubd for the Proprietors Octr. 16 1809. by E. Orme, Printseller, Bond Street.
Coloured aquatints 370 x 330mm. Trimmed to plate, faint creases in title.
The first image shows mountainous wintery landscape with four figures absailing down the side of a steep cliff, escaping from the fortress. The second four men, Colonel Moulin, the Captains de Frotté, Girod and d'Hauteroche and a dog confined in a prison, one reading to the others from a book inscribed 'Baron Trench', sitting at a table, with beds at either side of the arched space and a kettle on a fireplace at left. Fort-de-Joux, at the summit of snow-clad mountain peaks, in the Jura Mountains, served as a prison for successive French Governments and was where Toussaint L'Ouverture died of neglect and starvation in 1803. Moulin, de Frotté, Girod, & d'Hauteroche 'effected their miraculous escape, on 27th January, 1805, after a severe Captivity of eleven months and 14 days. They resolved to obtain their liberty, & succeeded by making a hole in the wall of their cell, which was 3 feet 1/2 thick and then had to work through another wall 9 feet thick & after ten nights of anxiety & fatigue they descended the Rock almost perpendicular on which the Fort stands near 700 feet in height, by the help of a Rope they made with their linen & bed clothes after having proceeded on foot to Neufchatel, they separated, and journied to Vienna, and from thence set off on their way to England, where three of men arrived safely two months after their escape!' [E.extract from Whitman:708.]
Whitman:707.708
[Ref: 1412] £550.00