In January 1816, a general condemned to death had to clear the tollgates of Paris without being recognized. Robert Wilson waited in his cabriolet outside the lodgings of Captain John Hely Hutchinson. The fugitive, the Count de Lavalette, wore an English uniform and a dark wig. Hutchinson mounted his horse; Michael Bruce and an officer named Elliston assisted in the enterprise. Lavalette had broken prison on 20 December 1815, disguised in his wife’s garments. Wilson and his associates were now tasked with conducting him beyond the borders of France.
Borrow’s account reproduces a letter addressed by Wilson to Lord Grey, acknowledged as authentic by its author. In it, Wilson recounts the preparations and the journey. Passports were procured from Sir Charles Stuart, the British ambassador, upon Wilson's application and under his personal responsibility. They were drawn in the names of a fictitious general and colonel. Elliston arranged the reservation of an apartment, a coach house, and relay horses for this imaginary colonel. Bruce secured Lavalette’s measurements, which Hutchinson conveyed to a tailor to fashion a greatcoat, waistcoat, and pantaloons. All were acutely aware that the condemned man’s countenance might betray him.
On the eve of their departure, Lavalette was brought to Hutchinson’s quarters. The person who conducted him did not enter the room. Wilson and Elliston withdrew for a moment to allow him to collect himself. The following morning, at half past seven, Wilson arrived with his cabriolet. Lavalette took his seat beside him; Hutchinson followed on horseback. They passed through the Clichy tollgate without drawing suspicion. At La Chapelle, four gendarmes watched them attentively while the horses were being changed. Hutchinson answered their inquiries, and the travelers proceeded along their route.
Warrants had already been distributed, and other gendarmes held descriptions of the fugitive. As they neared Compiègne, several strands of gray hair slipped out from beneath the dark wig. Wilson produced a pair of scissors and acted the barber. The travelers halted in a secluded quarter to await Elliston’s carriage, which had set out from Paris. When it arrived, Wilson ordered the carriage lamps lit, so as to give them, as he wrote, the air of travelers wholly at ease. They resumed their journey under arms, prepared, he recorded, to meet every obstacle.
At Cambrai, they were detained three hours at the gate, an impediment Borrow attributes to the British sentries. At Valenciennes, the travelers were subjected to three successive examinations, followed by a final inspection near the garrison. They at last reached Mons in time for dinner. Wilson arranged the remainder of the count’s journey, took his leave, and returned to Paris by another route. His absence had lasted sixty hours. The stratagem had succeeded, but the letter he dispatched to Grey detailing the affair was to prove his undoing.
The letter was intercepted by the French police. On 13 January, Ambassador Stuart wrote to the Duke de Richelieu to demand the grounds for the arrest. The Minister of Police replied by accusing Wilson, Bruce, and a third accomplice of having facilitated Lavalette’s escape, announcing that their trial would forthwith proceed. On 13 January and throughout the four subsequent days, police commissioners interrogated Wilson, who refused to answer. On 17 January, he was transferred to La Force prison, whither Bruce and Hutchinson were also conducted. They acknowledged their part in the flight, but rejected the political construction the police placed upon the correspondence.
The Paris Court of Assizes opened the trial on 22 April 1816 before a crowded chamber. Wilson appeared in his general’s uniform, decorated with his orders; Hutchinson wore the dress of an officer. Bruce presented himself simply as an English citizen. Though all three spoke French, the presiding judge appointed an interpreter, holding that the law must not deprive them of any means of defense. The accused also sought to enter an exception against the jury being composed entirely of Frenchmen. Bruce invoked reciprocity: in England, he observed, French defendants might demand a jury composed half of foreigners and half of subjects of the realm. The three men ultimately waived their demand for foreign jurors after the indictment division dismissed the charge of conspiracy; yet they did not wish this concession to establish a precedent prejudicial to other Englishmen. Their counsel moved that this reservation be entered into the record. The court refused, ruling that the acts alleged had taken place upon French soil and fell squarely under French law.
Upon examination, Bruce stated that Lavalette had entrusted him with his life, and that he could not find it in his heart to turn him away. He refused, however, to disclose the name of the friend who had introduced him to Wilson. Hutchinson admitted having sheltered the fugitive under his roof and escorted him on horseback. Wilson acknowledged having devised and executed the measures for his departure. These answers described an unbroken chain of initiative and mutual trust, without ever disavowing their active part in the escape.
Madame de Lavalette was called to the stand. The three Englishmen bowed to her. She looked upon them and declared she had never known nor even seen them before. She further swore that no one had assisted her in getting her husband out of prison, affirming that she had accomplished the deed entirely alone. This deposition in no way contradicted what Wilson, Bruce, and Hutchinson had just confessed. It established a distinction between two separate acts: the escape from the prison itself, and the journey organized by the Englishmen to convey Lavalette beyond the frontier. The distinction was material, for the Englishmen were prosecuted solely for having abetted his flight from France. The intercepted letter proved their agency upon the road; it did not show they had played any part in disguising Lavalette in his wife’s garments or in leading him from his cell.
At the hearing of 24 April, the defense advocate, Dupin, advanced two arguments: no criminal complicity bound the accused to the principal offender, and the deed laid to their charge ought not to be deemed a crime. Wilson then addressed the court. While acknowledging his political sympathy for Lavalette’s plight, he placed foremost the moral duty of aiding a condemned fellow creature, whatever the imprudence. He affirmed they would have rendered the same service to a stranger, or even to a fallen enemy. A conviction for having infringed the municipal laws of France, he maintained, would never cause them to regret having obeyed the higher dictates of humanity. Bruce declared he harbored no regret for his actions, while submitting himself to the verdict of the jury.
Following two hours of deliberation, the jury returned a verdict of guilty against all three defendants. The presiding judge read the applicable article of the penal code, which prescribed a term of imprisonment ranging from three months to two years. He pronounced the minimum sentence: three months’ imprisonment.