William Godwin's Diary

Events

The Comte de la Valette (1769-1830), who had been an officer in the French Revolutionary Army and a trusted aide to Napoleon, was imprisoned and sentenced to execution during the Bourbon resoration. However, during a visit by his daughter and wife, Mademoiselle Emilie de Beauharnais, niece of the Empress Josephine, he escaped from the prison wearing his wife's clothes, with his face obscured by a fur cloak, hat and handkerchief. He fled to Britain, then the Netherlands and finally Bavaria, while his wife remained in prison until the end of January 1816.

See Morning Chronicle, 29 December 1815.