At last, after waiting eighteen days, Baudus came with the joyful news that certain Englishmen in Paris were willing to give their help in furthering the escape. A Mr. Michael Bruce was the first to move in the business. He was well received in the best French society, and he was approached by certain great ladies, chief among them the Princesse de Vaudémont. Bruce was delighted when invited to assist a distinguished but unfortunate person, unjustly condemned to death, and he at once took into his confidence a British general, Sir Robert Wilson, who had already chivalrously essayed to save the life of Marshal Ney. In common with many of his countrymen he had felt that the hard fate meted out to Napoleon’s chief adherents was a disgrace to the country which had played so large a part in the Emperor’s overthrow. Wilson readily agreed, and took upon himself to make the necessary arrangements. Bruce did not appear; his known sympathy for Ney would have laid him open to suspicion, and he might have drawn the attention of the police to his movements and exposed La Valette to detection. Sir Robert Wilson sought assistants among the younger officers of the Army of Occupation, and finally chose Captain Allister of the Fifth Dragoon Guards and Captain Hely-Hutchinson of the Grenadier Guards, afterwards the third Earl of Donoughmae. After some discussion it was settled that La Valette should assume the disguise of a British officer, and as such should travel to the frontier by the Valenciennes road to Belgium, that generally taken by the English officers then in Paris. Some little difficulty was found in obtaining the necessary uniform, but it was at last made to La Valette’s measure by the master tailors of his Majesty’s guards.
On the evening of the ninth of January, 1816, La Valette bade farewell to the hosts, who had so nobly protected him and walked as far as the rue de Grenelle, where he found a cabriolet awaiting him, driven by the same faithful friend, the Comte de Chasseuon, by whose aid he had escaped from the Conciergerie. They passed the tall railings of the Tuileries gardens, and laughed at the long series of sentinels, any one of whom would have gladly checked their progress, and at length reached the rue du Hilder, where Captain Hely-Hutchinson had an apartment. His three English friends, Sir Robert Wilson, Hely-Hutchinson and Michael Bruce, were there to welcome him, and they all sat down to talk rapidly over the important adventure fixed for the following day. The general was very precise in his instructions. They must be moving early, awake and up at 6 o’clock. La Valette was as spruce and smart as became a captain in the guards. “I shall call for you at 8 A. M. in my own open cabriolet, as I mean to drive you myself as far as Compiègne,” said he. “Hutchinson, here, will accompany us on horseback.”