The Mammoth Book of Prison Breaks (24 page)

His plan was admirably simple: he would dig down to the ceiling of the room beneath him, then on the night he broke through, he would use his sheets as a rope to lower himself down, then hide under a table until the doors were opened the next morning. At that point, he would make a dash for freedom, using his dagger as a weapon to fend off any sentries.

Keeping the work from discovery was the first problem. Casanova had previously made a fuss about the state of the cell, and his jailer, Lawrence, now swept out the room to rid it of fleas each day. Once sufficient progress had been made with the hole, it would be obvious to anyone looking at their feet when the floor was swept, so Casanova carried out an elaborate charade to stop the sweeping, claiming that the disturbance of the dust made him ill. However, before he could start work properly, another prisoner was brought in to share his cell, who insisted on the cell being swept, so there was a further two-month delay before he got under way.

Once he was alone, Casanova was able to work quite speedily, digging away at the deal beam, removing the debris in a napkin and hiding it in the garret, and then placing his bed over the ever-increasing hole. He got through three layers of wood without encountering too many more difficulties, but then hit a layer of marble pebbling. He used a bottle of strong vinegar to weaken the cement that bound the marble together, and was able to chip through it before reaching the final board.

Casanova was on the point of breaking through that last obstacle when a new cellmate was brought in to share his small room, although luckily he was only there for a week. By 23 August, Casanova had completed his task, and decided that he would make his move four days later when he knew that the room adjoining the Inquisitors’ Hall would also be empty.

On 25 August, two days before he intended to escape, Casanova was moved to a new cell which his jailer thought he would prefer, since it had access to more light, something Casanova had complained about previously. The young lord couldn’t believe his bad luck – but at least his armchair, with his dagger still hidden inside, was brought along to his new lodgings. He then had a tense two-hour wait while his jailer went to fetch his other belongings, and, of course, found the hole in the floor when he moved the bed. Although his jailer threatened him, Casanova said that he would tell the authorities that he had received the implements to make the hole from the jailer unless he kept quiet. After a few days, the jailer accepted the situation.

It was clear to Casanova that he wouldn’t be allowed to try the same trick twice, and an examination of his surroundings made him realize that the only way out of this cell would be through the ceiling. Luck smiled on the young man once more: the jailer offered to exchange books for him with another prisoner. Using ink made from mulberries, Casanova started a correspondence with Marin Balbi, a portly monk, incarcerated in the cell next door; while Casanova didn’t trust Balbi’s discretion, he reasoned that he had little choice but to involve him in the escape.

The new plan was for Balbi to break through the ceiling of his own cell, go up into the eaves, and then break through the ceiling of Casanova’s cell from above. He could hide the hole in his cell behind pictures of saints that he would ask the jailer to obtain (shades of
The Shawshank Redemption!)
The only snag: the dagger was still in Casanova’s cell. A plate of pasta became an essential part of Casanova’s plan to pass it across.

Casanova had originally thought of hiding the implement inside a large Bible and asking the jailer to give the book to the monk. However, the dagger was a couple of inches too long, and stuck out either side of the binding. Casanova therefore asked permission to make a dish of pasta for his fellow prisoner as thanks for the books he was lending him, and borrowed a huge dish from the jailer to put it in. That evening, the jailer duly carried the pasta dish through, balanced on top of the bible, not noticing the bar sticking out from either end of the book.

Balbi broke through the ceiling in eight days, covering the hole with a picture of a saint pasted up with breadcrumbs. It took him eight more days to get through a wall that separated the two cells and within a couple of days, was nearly through the ceiling of Casanova’s cell. All that remained was to remove the final piece of board, hoist Casanova up, and then the pair, along with Balbi’s cellmate if he wanted to join them, could make a hole in the roof of the ducal palace. From there, Casanova was happy to rely on chance to find a way to get to the ground safely.

But once again Casanova’s planning was derailed. The afternoon before they were due to escape, a new cellmate, Soradici, was brought into Casanova’s cell. After a few days, during which Soradici had quickly proved himself untrustworthy, Casanova decided to play on the other man’s fears, and persuaded him that he had received a vision of the Virgin Mary. An angel was going to rescue Casanova from the cell in the next few days and he would take Soradici with him if he promised to give up spying. Soradici was gullible enough to fall for this story, particularly once he heard the sound of Balbi breaking through the ceiling as he prepared for the escape. Casanova was able to cow him into submission, threatening him with strangulation if he breathed any word of the escape attempt to their jailer.

Casanova had decided to make his breakout on All Hallows Eve, when he knew that the Inquisitors wouldn’t be sitting, and therefore there was no chance of any new prisoners being brought either into his or Balbi’s cell. He instructed Balbi to make the final breakthrough at midday, and warned Soradici that he would be required to cut the beards of both Casanova and the angel. At noon exactly, Balbi entered the cell as if by divine intervention, through the ceiling. The awe-struck Soradici made the necessary adjustment to the two men’s beards, then Casanova went to see if Balbi’s cellmate was going to join them. It was obvious that the old man wouldn’t be able to deal with the rigours of the climb, so he agreed to remain in his cell, praying for the escapees.

After reconnoitring the roof space, and confirming that it would be easy to get out onto the roof itself, Casanova then spent four hours cutting up sheets and blankets, and threading them together to form ropes – he claimed that he was able to create 100 fathoms (600 feet) from everything in the cell, although 100 feet seems more likely. He and Balbi then made the hole in the roof, and levered the sheet of lead out of the way, only to discover that the moon was bright enough to cast shadows. If they went straightaway, they would easily be seen from St Mark’s Square.

It was at this point that Balbi realized that for all of Casanova’s posturing, the young nobleman really didn’t have much of a clue how to proceed once they were on the roof, and both he and his cellmate tried to persuade Casanova to give up the escape. Soradici lost what little courage he had during this time, and elected not to join the other two as they crossed the rooftops, particularly as a fog was descending. Casanova and Balbi divided the rope and parcels containing their personal belongings, between them, and then, at 11 p.m., they went out onto the roof.

Once they were on the exterior of the ducal palace, Soradici pulled the lead sheet back into place. The two escapees inched their way on hands and knees across more than a dozen lead sheets, which were treacherous in the night air, up onto the apex of the roof. Casanova left Balbi sitting there while he went to find somewhere to tie the rope, so they could let themselves down to ground level.

The problem was that nothing presented itself, and Casanova was on the verge of giving up when he spotted a light in a garret room. Sliding down the roof to the level of the room, he saw a window with a grate protecting it. As midnight struck, his resolve was hardened, and he used his handy dagger to remove the grate. He then lowered Balbi into the room, but with nowhere to tie the rope to, was unable to let himself down – and the room was far too high for him to risk jumping to the floor. Another examination of his surroundings produced a 12-foot ladder, which, after some manhandling, he was able to manoeuvre into the room and use to reach the floor.

After Casanova grabbed a quick power nap to regain his strength, the two men examined their new surroundings, and discovered that they were in the state archives. At 5 a.m., no one else was stirring, and they were quickly able to descend to the ducal chancery, which looked out over the little courtyards around St Mark’s Square. They broke through the door of the chancery, but were defeated by the main door leading to the grand staircase.

Casanova got changed back into his best clothes, in which he had been arrested the year before, but was spotted when he looked out of the window. The gatekeeper opened up the room, thinking he’d locked someone in, and Casanova and Balbi barged past him, and ran for the canal, where they hailed a gondola, and loudly stated their destination was Fusina. As soon as they were under way, Casanova apparently changed his mind, and asked to go to Mestre, in the opposite direction.

When they reached Mestre, Casanova hired a coach to take him to Trevisa, only to discover that Balbi had disappeared into a café for a cup of hot chocolate! The delay retrieving him meant that Casanova was accosted by an old acquaintance who he was convinced would give him up to the authorities. He tried to bluff that he had been released but when the man refused to listen, Casanova took him out of sight, and prepared to kill him. Luckily for both of them, the man wriggled out of Casanova’s grasp and ran for the hills.

Balbi was determined to stay with Casanova, regarding their fates as linked. Casanova knew full well that any search would be for the pair of them together, since they made an unusual, and very distinctive, combination. He therefore told Balbi to make his own way to an agreed rendezvous, and when the monk initially refused, started to dig a hole in the ground. After working for fifteen minutes, he casually pointed out to Balbi that he should make his peace with God, as he was about to bury him there, dead or alive. Balbi took the hint and the two men made their separate ways across country. Casanova was eventually able to rid himself of Balbi after arranging a new billet for him in Bologna. Balbi disgraced himself there, was recaptured, spent two further years in the Leads, and was then returned to his monastic order. Eventually the Pope released him from his monastic vow, and he lived it up in Venice for the rest of his life.

Casanova reached Paris in January 1757, and had to regale audiences with the tale of his escape. He was finally able to return to Venice in September 1774 after he carried out a few pieces of commercial espionage for the Inquisitors, but life wasn’t the same for him. He died in Bohemia in 1798.

Sources:

Casanova, Giacomo (translated by Arthur Machen):
The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt 1725–1798
(The University of Adelaide Library, 2012)

Kelly, Ian:
Casanova: Actor, Lover, Priest, Spy
(Tarcher, 2011)

While many convicts might wish to become known by this nickname, it was first awarded to one of the most daring characters featured in this volume: Jack Sheppard. Although he was only twenty-two when he was hanged at Tyburn in London on 16 November 1724, he left behind a legacy of prison breaks, immortalized in print by no less an author than Robinson Crusoe and Moll Flanders creator Daniel Defoe, and the subject of a sermon which has been passed down the centuries in which the details of his escape were used as an analogy for living a godly life. His exploits inspired John Gay’s
The Beggar’s Opera,
which itself became the basis of
The Threepenny Opera,
and a novel by William Harrison Ainsworth that on its first publication outsold Dickens’
Oliver Twist.
During his lifetime, he captured the imagination of early eighteenth-century London, and ironically may even have lost a chance at cheating the hangman one more time because of the mob’s affection for him.

Most of the information we have on Sheppard derives from the
Newgate Calendar,
a collection of biographical accounts that started off as a monthly bulletin of executions produced by the Keeper of Newgate Prison in London, but which developed into a highly readable anthology of tales from the cells. It may not necessarily have always been accurate – various pieces of editorializing in its pages suggest that it often followed the maxim attributed to Mark Twain: “Never let the truth get in the way of a good story” – but it provided vicarious thrills for eighteenth and early nineteenth century audiences. In the case of Sheppard it certainly borrowed material from the prison breaker’s own ghost-written account, to the extent that modern editions often directly quote Sheppard’s text in place of those parts of the
Calendar
.

Of course, Jack Sheppard wasn’t the only person to try to escape from Newgate, although he was definitely the most famous. In 1450, one keeper, Alexander Manning, was jailed himself after being found guilty of negligent custody of his prisoners over the previous years, and allowing a mutiny to take place.

In the aftermath of the 1715 rebellion, one of the Jacobites by the name of Barlow had tried to get out from the Red Room that Sheppard would break into during his own escape, “close-shaved and neatly dressed in female clothes”, according to the
Calendar,
with a crowd of women surrounding him. He got as far as the keepers’ lodge before one of the warders grew suspicious and threw him to the ground. Barlow tried to keep up the pretence, as the women told the prison officer off for such behaviour, and might have got away with it if the Special Commissioner who was dealing with the rebels hadn’t arrived at that moment. Carleton Smith wouldn’t take the bribe that Barlow offered, and ensured that he was returned to the cells. Barlow was hanged around the same time that Sheppard was gaining a reputation for himself.

Born in 1702, Jack Sheppard’s path to a criminal career began about six years after his father died, when he and his brother were very young. Sheppard began drinking in the Black Lion alehouse in Drury Lane, and became very close to some of the prostitutes who frequented the pub, including Elizabeth Lyon, also known as Edgworth Bess, who would eventually become commonly regarded as his wife, and Polly Maggot. Sheppard had been apprenticed as a carpenter, and although he initially behaved honestly, after a time he began stealing from his workplaces, and then branched out into housebreaking. He eventually quarrelled with his master, and became a freelance carpenter, casing places by day and robbing them by night. Not long after he carried out a raid in Mayfair, Lyon was arrested, and placed in the roundhouse at St Giles; when he was refused entry to visit her, Sheppard knocked down the beadle in charge, smashed the door and carried her away.