He was born at
Montagnac in
Gascony. He received a military education and went to
Paris in 1748 to study
mathematics. He led a dissipated life and endeavoured to curry favor with
Madame de Pompadour by secretly sending her a box of poison and then informing her of the supposed plot against her life, hoping that he could earn a reward of cash for warning her. The ruse was discovered, and Mme de Pompadour, not appreciating the humor of the situation, had Latude put in the Bastille on May 1, 1749. He was later transferred to Vincennes, from which he escaped on June 25, 1750. He then stayed in Paris where he wrote a letter asking for clemency which he gave to
François Quesnay for delivery to
Louis XV. Latude included his address in the letter leading to his arrest and reimprisonment in the Bastille. He made a second escape on February 25, 1756 by fashioning a ladder, depicted in his portrait by
Antoine Vestier, from firewood for rungs and rope made from shirts and bed sheets which he, along with an accomplice, used to scale down the walls of the Bastille. Latude and his accomplice then used iron bars, taken from their fire place, to carve out stones in the outer wall for nine hours while standing in chest high icy water ducking underwater when the sentry passed on the wall above them. After breaching the wall the fugitives fell into an aqueduct outside the walls and almost drowned. Letude then traveled to
Amsterdam arriving on April 20, 1756. He was then arrested and reinterned in the Bastille on June 9th, 1756 where he was placed in the dungeon with his hands and feet shackled. While in the dungeon he composed military and financial projects and when he was deprived of paper he composed them on sheets of bread crumbs congealed with his own saliva. He was again transferred to Vincennes in 1764, and the next year made a third escape and was a third time recaptured. He was put into the
Charenton asylum by
Malesherbes in 1775, and discharged in 1777 on condition that he should retire to his native town. He remained in Paris, however, and he was again imprisoned. A certain Madame Legros became interested in him through a chance reading of one of his memoirs, and, through vigorous agitation on his behalf, secured his release in 1784. His considerable ability for mimicry and intrigue were evidenced throughout his long captivity; he posed as a brave military officer, a son of the non-existent marquis de La Tude, and as a victim of Pompadour's nefarious intrigues. He was lauded and pensioned during the Revolution, and, in 1793, the
Convention compelled the heirs of Madame de Pompadour to pay him 60,000 francs in damages. He died wealthy but in obscurity in Paris in 1805. == Work ==