John Buchan

“ The tempest, which had increased, favoured the escape. Once more successfully evading the sentry, they quickly gained the street corner where Wogan and O'Toole were kicking their heels, consumed with fear and anxiety. They reached the inn, drenched to the skin, with but one slight misadventure. Clementina, mistaking a floating wisp of hay for a solid log of wood, slipped and plunged over the ankles into a channel of half-melted snow. At the inn she eagerly swallowed a cup of hot spiced wine and changed her soaking garments. ”

“ At midnight, according to plan, Châteaudoux was in readiness, and Jeanneton, clad in a shabby riding hood and female surtout, was successfully smuggled into the sleeping chamber of the Princess. Wogan and O'Toole waited at the street corner ready to convoy the Princess to the inn. There was a lengthy farewell scene between the Princess and her mother. The two having wept and embraced each other, Clementina excused herself for her hurried departure on the plea that nothing in heaven or earth must stand in the way between her and her husband. ”

“ Mrs. Misset accompanied her husband, together with her maid Jeanneton, but neither of the women was told the real nature of the undertaking. Jeanneton was to play a conspicuous part in the escape of Clementina. Wogan's plan was that the maid should change places with the Princess, and generally impersonate her till she had made good her escape. The light-headed girl was told a cock-and-bull story about O'Toole having fallen violently in love with a beautiful heiress, and Wogan played to such a tune on her sense of the romantic that she gleefully entered into the plot of the "elopement." ”