This sort of amusement was followed so industriously that in a few days a kind of rampart was erected in front of the casemate of the fortress, behind which, by stooping a little, a man of ordinary height could easily creep along unseen by the sentinel.

While pursuing his work of modelling in snow, the Marquis de Prerolles had taken care to observe the goings and comings of the civilian contractor, who, wearing a tall hat and attired in a black redingote, departed regularly every day at half-past four, carrying a large portfolio under his arm.  To procure such a costume and similar accessories for himself was easy, since the Marquis’s orderly spoke the language of the country; and to introduce them into the prison, hidden in a basket of provisions, was not difficult to accomplish.

To execute all this required only four trips to and fro.  At the end of forty-eight hours, the necessary aids to escape were in the proper place, hidden under the snow behind the bastion.  More than this, the clever Alsatian had slipped a topographical map of the surrounding country between two of the plates in the basket.  According to the scale, the frontier was distant only about five leagues, across open country, sparsely settled with occasional farms which would serve as resting-places.

By that time, the plan of escape was drawn up.  Upon the day fixed for his flight, the Marquis assumed his disguise, rolled up his own uniform to look like a man asleep in his bed, lying after the fashion of a sleeping soldier; and pleading a slight illness as an excuse for not dining that evening, and, not without emotion, curled himself up behind the snowy intrenchment which his jailer himself had helped to fashion.  That worthy man, only too glad to be able to rejoin his ‘liebe frau’ a little earlier than usual, peeped through the half-open door of the prisoner’s room and threw a glance at the little cot-bed.

“Good-night, Commander!” said the honest fellow, in a gentle voice.

Then he double-locked the door, according to custom, and disappeared whistling a national air.  A quarter of an hour later the contractor left the place, and as soon as the functionary who had seen him depart was relieved by another, the prisoner left his hiding-place, crossed the drawbridge in his turn, simulating the gait of his twin, and, without any hindrance, rejoined his orderly at the place agreed upon.  The trick was played!

A matter of twenty kilometres was a mere trifle for infantry troopers.  They walked as lightly as gymnasts, under a clear sky, through the fields, guided by the lights in the farmhouses, and at nine o’clock, having passed the frontier, they stumbled upon a post of Cossacks ambuscaded behind a hedge!

Unfortunately, at that time the Franco-Russian alliance was still in embryo, and an agreement between the two neighboring States interdicted all passage to Frenchmen escaping from the hands of their conquerors.  The two deserters were therefore conducted to the major of the nearest garrison, who alone had the right to question them.