Jeanne must procure a
model of the key that locked her cell and other doors. By dint of
staring at the key in the hands of the nuns who looked after the
prisoners, Jeanne, though unable to draw, made two sketches of it,
and sent them out, the useful soldier managing all communications. How
Jeanne procured the necessary pencil she does not inform us. Practical
locksmiths may decide whether it is likely that, from two amateur
drawings, not to scale, any man could make a key which would fit the
locks. The task appears impossible. In any case, in a few days the
soldier pushed the key through the hole in the wall; Jeanne tried it
on the door of her cell and on two doors in the passages, found that
it opened them, and knelt in gratitude before her crucifix. In place
of running away Jeanne now wrote to ladies of her acquaintance,
begging them to procure the release of Angelica. Her nights she spent
in writing three statements for the woman, each occupying a hundred
and eighty pages, presumably of gilt-edged paper. Soon she heard that
the King had signed Angelica's pardon, and on May 1 the woman was
released.
The next move of Jeanne was to ask her unknown friend outside to send
her a complete male costume, a large blue coat, a flannel waistcoat, a
pair of half boots, and a tall, round-shaped hat, with a switch.
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