The governor, or captain of the castle, was in supreme charge. The ministers of state transmitted to him the orders of the King direct. He corresponded with them and in exceptional cases withthe King himself; but was answerable for the castle and the safe custody of the inmates. His power was absolute and he wielded it with military exactitude. We have seen in the list of earlier custodians, that the most distinguished persons did not feel the position was beneath them; but as time passed, it was thought safer to employ smaller people, the creatures of the court whose loyalty and subservience might be most certainly depended upon. After du Tremblay, who surrendered his fortress to the Fronde, came Broussel the elder, the member of Parliament who had defied Anne of Austria, with his son as his lieutenant. Then came La Louvière, who was commandant of the place when the “Grande Mademoiselle” seized it in aid of the great Condé. He was removed by the King’s order and when peace was declared one de Vennes succeeded him and then La Bachelerie. But De Besmaus, who had been a simple captain in Mazarin’s guard, was the first of what we may call the “gaoler governors.” He was appointed by the King in 1658 and held the post for nearly forty years. Through all the busy period when Louis XIV personally controlled the morals of his kingdom and used the castle to enforce his despotic will a great variety of prisoners came under his charge; political conspirators, religious dissidents, Jansenists and Protestants, free thinkers and reckless writers with unbridled libellous pens, publishers who dared to print unauthorised books which were tried in court andsentenced to committal to gaol for formal destruction, common criminals, thieves, cutpurses and highway robbers. De Besmaus has been described as a “coarse, brutal governor, a dry, disagreeable, hard-hearted ruffian;” but another report applauds the selection, declaring that his unshaken fidelity through thirty-nine years of office was associated with much gentleness and humanity. His honesty is more questioned, for it is stated that although he entered the service poor, he bequeathed considerable sums at his death. Monsieur de Saint Mars, who fills so large a place in the criminal annals of the times, from his connection with certain famous and mysterious prisoners, succeeded De Besmaus. He was an old man and had risen from the ranks, having been first a King’s musketeer, then corporal, then Maréchal de Logis, and was then appointed commandant of the donjon of Pignerol.
When Cardinal Mazarin died, the probable successor to the vacant office was freely discussed and choice was supposed to lie between Le Tellier, secretary of State for war, Lionne, secretary for foreign affairs, and Fouquet, superintendent of finances. Louis XIV soon settled the question by announcing his intention of assuming the reins of government himself. When leading personages came to him, asking to whom they should speak in future upon affairs of State, Louis replied, “To me. I shall be my own Prime Minister in future.” He said it with a decision that could not be questioned, and it was plain that the young monarch of twenty-two proposed to sacrifice his ease, to subordinate his love of pleasure and amusement to the duties of his high position—resolutions fulfilled in the main. In truth he had been chafing greatly at the vicarious authority exercised by Mazarin and was heard to say that he could not think what would have happened had the Cardinal lived much longer. People could not believe in Louis’s determination and predicted that he would soon weary of his burdensome task. Fouquet was the most incredulous of all. He thought himself firmly fixed in his place and believed that by humoring the King, by encouraging him in his extravagance and providing funds for his gratification, he would still retain his power. He sought, too, by complicating the business and confusing the accounts of his office, to disgust the King with financial details and blind him to the dishonest statements put before him. Fouquet thus prepared his own undoing, for Louis, suspecting foul play, was secretly coached by Colbert, who came privately by night to the King’s cabinet to instruct and pilot him through the dark and intricate pitfalls that Fouquet prepared for him. Louis patiently bided his time and suffered Fouquet to go farther and farther astray, to increase his peculations and lavish enormous sums of the ill-gotten wealth in ostentatious extravagance. Louis made up his mind to pull down and destroy his faithless minister. His insidious plans, laid with apatient subtlety, not to say perfidy, were the first revelation of the masterly and unscrupulous character of the young sovereign. He led Fouquet on to convict himself and show to all the world, by a costly entertainment on unparalleled lines, how deeply he had dipped his purse into the revenues of the State.
The fête he gave to the King and court at his newly constructed palace at Vaux was brilliant beyond measure. The mansion far outshone any royal residence in beauty and splendor. Three entire villages had been demolished in its construction so that water might be brought to the grounds to fill the reservoirs and serve the fountains and cascades that freshened the lawns and shady alleys and gladdened the eye with smiling landscapes. The fête he now gave was of oriental magnificence. Enchantment followed enchantment. Tables laden with luscious viands came down from the ceiling. Mysterious subterranean music was heard on every side. The most striking feature was an ambulant mountain of confectionery which moved amongst the guests with hidden springs. Molière was there and at the King’s suggestion wrote a play on the spot, “Les Facheux,” which caricatured some of the most amusing guests. The King was a prey to jealous amazement. He saw pictures by the most celebrated painters, grounds laid out by the most talented landscape gardeners, buildings of the most noble dimensions erected by the most famous architects. After the theatre there were fireworks, after the pyrotechnics a ball at which the King danced with Mademoiselle de la Vallière; after the ball, supper; and after supper, the King bade Fouquet good night with the words, “I shall never dare ask you to my house; I could not receive you properly.”
More than once that night the King, sore at heart and humiliated at the gorgeous show made by a subject and servant of the State, would have arrested Fouquet then and there. The Queen Mother strongly dissuaded him from too hasty action and he saw that it would be necessary to proceed with caution lest he find serious, and possibly successful, resistance. Fouquet did not waste all his wealth in ostentation. He had purchased the island of Belle Ile from the Duc de Retz and fortified it with the idea, it was thought, to withdraw there if he failed to secure the first place in the kingdom, raise the standard of revolt against the King and seek aid from England. It was time to pull down so powerful a subject.
The measures taken for the arrest of Fouquet may be recounted here at some length. They well illustrate the young King’s powers of dissimulation and the extreme caution that backed his resolute will. He first assumed a friendly attitude and led Fouquet to believe that he meant to bestow on him the valued decoration of Saint d’Esprit. But he had already given it to another member of the Paris Parliament and a rule had been made that onlyone of that body should enjoy the honor. Fouquet was Procureur General of the Parliament and voluntarily sold the place so that he might become eligible for the cross, at the same time paying the price into the Treasury. Louis was by no means softened and still determined to abase Fouquet. Yet he shrank from making the arrest in Paris and invented a pretext for visiting the west coast of France for the purpose of choosing a site for a great naval depot. He was to be accompanied by his council, Fouquet among the rest. Although the Superintendent was suffering from fever, he proceeded to Nantes by the river Loire, where the King, travelling by the road, soon afterwards arrived. Some delay occurred through the illness of d’Artagnan, lieutenant of musketeers, who was to be charged with the arrest. The reader will recognise d’Artagnan, the famous fourth of the still more famous “Three Musketeers” of Alexandre Dumas. The instructions issued to d’Artagnan are preserved in the memorandum written by Le Tellier’s clerk and may be summarised as follows:—
“It is the King’s intention to arrest the Sieur Fouquet on his leaving the castle (Nantes) when he has passed beyond the last sentinel. Forty musketeers will be employed, twenty to remain within the court of the castle, the other twenty to patrol outside. The arrest will be made when Sieur Fouquet comes down from the King’s chamber, and he will be carried, surrounded by the musketeers, to theChamberlain’s room, there to await the King’s carriage which is to take him further on. Monsieur d’Artagnan will offer Monsieur Fouquet a basin of soup if he should care to take it. Meanwhile the musketeers will form a cordon round the lodging in which the Chamberlain’s room is situated. Monsieur d’Artagnan will not take his eyes off the prisoner for a single moment nor will he permit him to put his hand into his pocket so as to remove any papers, telling him that the King demands the delivery of all documents; and those he gets Monsieur d’Artagnan will at once pass on to the authority indicated. In entering the royal carriage Monsieur Fouquet will be accompanied by Monsieur d’Artagnan with five of his most trustworthy officers and musketeers. The road taken will be: the first day, to Oudon, the second day, to Ingrandes, and the third, to the castle of Angers. Extreme care will be observed that Monsieur Fouquet has no communication by word or writing or in any other possible way with any one on the road. At Oudon, Monsieur Fouquet will be summoned to deliver an order in his own hand to the Commandant of Belle Ile to hand it over to an officer of the King. In order that every precaution may be taken at Angers, its governor, the Count d’Harcourt, will receive orders to surrender the place to Monsieur d’Artagnan and expel the garrison. This letter will be forwarded express to Angers so that all may be ready on the arrival. At the same time a publicnotice shall be issued to the inhabitants of Angers requiring them to give every assistance in food and lodging to the King’s musketeers. Monsieur Fouquet will be lodged in the most suitable rooms which will be furnished with goods purchased in the town. The King will himself nominate thevalet de chambreand decide upon the prisoner’s rations and the supply of his table. Monsieur d’Artagnan will receive 1,000 louis for all expenses.”
The arrest was not limited to the Superintendent himself. His chief clerk Pellisson, who afterwards became famous in literature, was also taken to Saint Mandé. Fouquet’s house and his papers were seized; which his brother would have forestalled by burning the house but was too late. A mass of damaging papers fell into the hands of the King. One of these was an elaborate manuscript with the project of a general rising, treasonable in the highest degree. The scheme was too wild and visionary for accomplishment and Fouquet himself swore positively that it was a forgery. Fouquet did not remain long at Angers. He was carried to Amboise and afterwards to Vincennes, always under the strictest surveillance, being suffered to speak to no one en route but his guards and denied the use of writing materials. He left Amboise in December, 1661, for Vincennes, under the escort of eighty musketeers, and from time to time passed to and fro between the “Wood” and the Bastile as his interminable trial dragged along. He was firstinterrogated at Vincennes by an informal tribunal, the commission previously constituted to inquire into the malversation of finances, but he steadily refused to answer except in free and open court. After much persecution by his enemies with the King himself at their head, and the violation of all forms of law, he was taken again to the Bastile and arraigned before the so-called Chamber of Justice at the Arsenal, a tribunal made up mainly of unjust and prejudiced judges, some of whom hated the prisoner bitterly. The process was delayed by Fouquet’s dexterity in raising objections and involving others in the indictment. Louis XIV ardently desired the end. “My reputation is at stake,” he wrote. “The matter is not serious, really, but in foreign countries it will be thought so if I cannot secure the conviction of a thief.” The King’s long standing animosity was undying, as the sequel showed. Throughout, the public sympathy was with Fouquet. He had troops of friends; he had been a liberal patron of art and letters and all the best brains of Paris were on his side. Madame de Sévigné filled several of her matchless letters with news of the case. La Fontaine bemoaned his patron’s fate in elegant verse. Mademoiselle Scuderi, the first French novelist, wrote of him eloquently. Henault attacked Colbert in terms that might well have landed him in the Bastile, and Pellisson, his former clerk, from the depths of that prison made public his eloquent and impassioned justificationsof his old master. At last, when hope was almost dead, the relief was great at hearing that there would be no sentence of death as was greatly feared. By thirteen votes against nine, a sentence of banishment was decreed and the result was made public amid general rejoicing. The sentence was deemed light, although Fouquet had already endured three years’ imprisonment and he must have suffered much in the protracted trial. Louis XIV, still bearing malice, would not allow Fouquet to escape so easily and changed banishment abroad into perpetual imprisonment at home. The case is quoted as one of the rare instances in which a despotic sovereign ruler over-rode the judgment of a court by ordering a more severe sentence and personally ensuring its harsh infliction.
He was forthwith transferred to Pignerol, escorted again by d’Artagnan and a hundred musketeers. Special instructions for his treatment, contained in letters from the King in person, were handed over to Saint Mars. By express royal order he was forbidden to communicate in speech or writing with anyone but his gaolers. He might not leave the room he occupied for a single moment or for any reason. He could not use a slate to note down his thoughts, that common boon extended to all modern prisoners. These restrictions were imposed with the most watchful precautions and, as we may well believe, were inspired with the wish to cut him off absolutely from friends outside. Hewas supposed to have some valuable information to communicate and the King was determined it should not pass through. Fouquet’s efforts and devices were most persistent and ingenious. He utilised all manner of material; writing on the ribbons that ornamented his clothes and the linen that lined them. When the ribbons were tabooed and removed and the linings were all in black he abstracted pieces of his table cloth and manufactured it into paper. He made pens out of fowl bones and ink from soot. He wrote on the inside of his books and on his pocket handkerchiefs. Once he begged to be allowed a telescope and it was discovered that some of his former attendants had arrived in Pignerol and were in communication with him by signal. They were forthwith commanded to leave the neighborhood. He was very attentive to his religious duties at one time, and constantly asked for the ministrations of a priest. From this some clandestine work was suspected and the visits of the confessor were strictly limited to four a year. A servant was, however, permitted to wait on him but was presently replaced by two others, who were intended to act as spies on each other; although on joining Fouquet these were plainly warned that they would never be allowed to leave Pignerol alive.
After eight years the severity of his incarceration appreciably relaxed. The incriminated financiers outside were by this time disposed of or dead. He was given leave to write a letter to his wife and receive one in reply, on condition that they were previously read by the authorities. His personal comfort was improved and he was allowed tea, at that time a most expensive luxury. He had many more books to read, the daily gazettes and current news reached him, and when presently the Comte de Lauzun was brought a prisoner to Pignerol, the two were permitted to take exercise together upon the ramparts. By degrees greater favor was shown. Fouquet was permitted to play outdoor games and the privilege of unlimited correspondence was conceded, both with relations and friends. Fouquet’s wife and children were suffered to reside in the town of Pignerol and were constant visitors, permitted to remain with him alone, without witnesses. As the prisoner, who was failing in health, grew worse and worse, his wife was permitted to occupy the same room with him and his daughter lodged alongside. When he died in 1680, all his near relations were present. The fact has been questioned; and a tradition exists that Fouquet, still no older than sixty-six, was released and lived on in extreme privacy for twenty-three years. The point is of interest as illustrating the veil of secrecy so often thrown over events in that age and so often impenetrable.
This seems a fitting opportunity to refer to a prison mystery belonging to this period, and originating in Pignerol, which has exercised the whole world for many generations. The fascinatingstory of the “Man with the Iron Mask,” as presented by writers enamored of romantic sensation, has attracted universal attention for nearly two centuries. A fruitful field for investigation and conjecture was opened up by the strange circumstances of the case. Voltaire with his keen love of dramatic effect was the first to awaken the widespread interest in an historic enigma for which there was no plausible solution. Who was this unknown person held captive for five and twenty unbroken years with his identity so studiously and strictly hidden that it has never yet been authoritatively revealed? The mystery deepened with the details (mostly imaginery) of the exceptional treatment accorded him. Year after year he wore a mask, really made of black velvet on a whalebone frame, not a steel machine, with a chin-piece closing with a spring and looking much like an instrument of mediæval torture. He was said to have been treated with extreme deference. His gaoler stood, bareheaded, in his presence. He led a luxurious life; he wore purple and fine linen and costly lace; his diet was rich and plentiful and served on silver plate; he was granted the solace of music; every wish was gratified, save in the one cardinal point of freedom. The plausible theory deduced from all this was that he was a personage of great consequence,—of high, possibly royal birth, who was imprisoned and segregated for important reasons of State.
Such conditions, quite unsubstantiated by later knowledge, fired the imagination of inquirers, and a clue to the mystery has been sought in some exalted victim whom Louis XIV had the strongest reason to keep out of sight. Many suggested explanations were offered, all more or less far fetched even to absurdity. The first was put forward by at least two respectable writers, who affirmed that a twin son was born to Anne of Austria, some hours later than the birth of the Dauphin, and that Louis XIII, fearing there might be a disputed succession, was resolved to conceal the fact. It was held by certain legal authorities in France that the first born of twins had no positive and exclusive claim to the inheritance. Accordingly, the second child was conveyed away secretly and confided first to a nurse and then to the governor of Burgundy who kept him close. But the lad, growing to manhood, found out who he was and was forthwith placed in confinement, with a mask to conceal his features which were exactly like those of his brother, the King. Yet this view was held by many people of credit in France and it was that to which the great Napoleon inclined, for he was keenly interested in the question and when in power had diligent search made in the National archives, quite without result, which greatly chafed his imperious mind. A similar theory of the birth of this second child was found very attractive; the paternity of it was given, not to Louis XIII, but to variouslovers: the Duke of Buckingham, Cardinal Mazarin and a gentleman of the court whose name never transpired. This is the wildest and most extravagant of surmises, for which there is not one vestige of authority. The first suggestion is altogether upset by the formalities and precautions observed at the birth of “a child of France,” and it would have been absolutely impossible to perpetrate the fraud.
Other special and fanciful suppositions have gained credence, but their mere statement is sufficient to upset them. One is the belief that the “Man with the Iron Mask” was the English Duke of Monmouth, the son of Charles II and Lucy Waters, who raised the standard of revolt against James II and suffered death on Tower Hill. It was pretended that a devoted follower, whose life was also forfeit, took his place upon the scaffold and was hacked about in Monmouth’s place by the clumsy executioner. The craze for ridiculous conjecture led to the adoption of Henry Cromwell, the Protector’s second son, as the cryptic personage, but there was never a shadow of evidence to support this story and no earthly reason why Louis XIV should desire to imprison and conceal a young Englishman. Nor can we understand why Louis should thus dispose of his own son by Louise de Vallière, the young Comte de Vermandois, whose death in camp at an early age was fully authenticated by the sums allotted to buy masses for the repose of hissoul. The disappearance of the Duc de Beaufort’s body after his death on the field of Candia led to his promotion to the honor of the Black Mask, but his head was probably sent to the Sultan of Turkey, and in any case, although he was, as we have already seen, a noisy, vulgar demagogue, he had made his peace with the court in his later days. There was no mystery about Fouquet’s imprisonment. The story which has just been told to the time of his death shows conclusively that he could not be the “Man with the Iron Mask,” nor was there any sound reason to think it. The same may be said of the rather crazy suggestion that he was Avedik, the Armenian patriarch at Constantinople who, having incurred the deadly animosity of the Jesuits, had been kidnapped and brought to France. This conclusion was entirely vitiated by the unalterable logic of dates. The patriarch was carried off from Constantinople just a year after the mysterious person died in the Bastile.
Thus, one by one, we exclude and dispose of the uncertain and improbable claimants to the honors of identification. But one person remains whom the cap fits from the first; a man who, we know, offended Louis mortally and whose imprisonment the King had the best of reasons, from his own point of view, for desiring: the first, private vengeance, the second, the public good and the implacable will to carry out his set purpose. It is curious that this solution which was close at hand seemsnever to have appealed to the busy-bodies who approached the subject with such exaggerated ideas about the impenetrable mystery. A prisoner had been brought to Pignerol at a date which harmonizes with the first appearance of the unknown upon the stage. Great precautions were observed to keep his personality a secret; but it was distinctly known to more than one, and although guarded with official reticence, there were those who could have, and must have drawn their own conclusions. In any case the screen has now been entirely torn aside and documentary evidence is afforded which proves beyond all doubt that no real mystery attaches to the “Man with the Iron Mask.”
The exact truth of the story will be best established by a brief history of the antecedent facts. When Louis XIV was at the zenith of his power, supreme at home and an accepted arbiter abroad, he was bent upon consolidating his power in Northern Italy, and eagerly opened negotiations with the Duke of Mantua to acquire the fortress town of Casale. The town was a decisive point which secured his predominance in Montferrat, which gave an easy access at any time into Lombardy. The terms agreed upon were, first, a payment of 100,000 crowns by Louis to the Duke of Mantua and, second, a promise that the latter should command any French army sent into Italy; in exchange, the surrender of Casale. The transaction had been started by the French ambassadorin Venice and the principal agent was a certain Count Mattioli, who had been a minister to the Duke of Mantua and was high in his favor. Mattioli visited Paris and was well received by the King, who sent him back to Italy to complete the contract. Now, however, unexplained delays arose and it came out that the great Powers, who were strongly opposed to the dominating influence of France in Northern Italy, had been informed of what was pending. The private treaty with France became public property and there could be no doubt but that Mattioli had been bought over. He had in fact sold out the French king and the whole affair fell through.
Louis XIV, finding himself deceived and betrayed, was furiously angry and resolved to avenge himself upon the traitor. It was pain and anguish to him to find that he had been cheated before all Europe, and in his discomfiture and bitter humiliation he prepared to avenge himself amply. On the suggestion of the French minister at Turin he planned that Mattioli should be kidnapped and carried into France and there subjected to the King’s good pleasure. Mattioli was a needy man and was easily beguiled by the Frenchman’s promises of a substantial sum in French gold, from the French general, Catinat, who was on the frontier with ample funds for use when Casale should have been occupied. Mattioli, unsuspecting, met Catinat not far from Pignerol, where after revealing the placewhere his papers were concealed he fell into the hands of the French. Louis had approved of the arrest and insisted only on secrecy, and that Mattioli should be carried off without the least suspicion in Casale. “Look to it,” he wrote, “that no one knows what becomes of this man.” And at the same time the governor of Pignerol, Saint Mars, was instructed by Louvois, the minister, to receive him in great secrecy and was told, “You will guard him in such a manner that, not only may he have no communication with anyone, but that he may have cause to repent his conduct, and that no one may know you have a new prisoner.” The secrecy was necessary because Mattioli was the diplomatic agent of another country and his arrest was a barefaced violation of the law of nations.
Brigadier-General (afterwards the famous Marshal) Catinat reports from Pignerol on May 3rd, 1679:—“I arrested Mattioli yesterday, three miles from here, upon the King’s territories, during the interview which the Abbe d’Estrades had ingeniously contrived between himself, Mattioli and me, to facilitate the scheme. For the arrest, I employed only the Chevaliers de Saint Martin and de Villebois, two officers under M. de Saint Mars, and four men of his company. It was effected without the least violence, and no one knows the rogue’s name, not even the officers who assisted.” This fixed beyond all doubt the identity, but there is a corroborative evidence in a pamphlet still in existence, dated1682, which states that “the Secretary was surrounded by ten or twelve horsemen who seized him, disguised him, masked him and conducted him to Pignerol.” This is farther borne out by a traditionary arrest about that time.
When, thirty years later, the great sensation was first invented, its importance was emphasised by Voltaire and others who declared that at the period of the arrest no disappearance of any important person was recorded. Certainly Mattioli’s disappearance was not much noticed. It was given out that he was dead, the last news of him being a letter to his father in Padua begging him to hand over his papers to a French agent. They were concealed in a hole in the wall in one of the rooms in his father’s house, and when obtained without demur were forwarded to the King in Paris. There was no longer any doubt of Mattioli’s guilt, and Louis exacted the fullest penalty. He would annihilate him, sweep him out of existence, condemn him to a living death as effective as though he were poisoned, strangled or otherwise removed. He did not mean that the man who had flouted and deceived him should be in a position to glory over the affront he had put upon the proudest king in Christendom.
Exit Mattioli. Enter the “Man with the Iron Mask.” Pignerol, the prison to which he was consigned, has already been described, and also Saint Mars, his gaoler. The mask was not regularly usedat first, but the name of Mattioli was changed on reception to Lestang. We come at once upon evidence that this was no distinguished and favored prisoner. The deference shown him, the silver plate, the fine clothes are fictions destroyed by a letter written by Louvois within a fortnight of the arrest. “It is not the King’s intention,” he writes, “that the Sieur de Lestang should be well treated, or that, except the necessaries of life, you should give him anything to soften his captivity.... You must keep Lestang in the rigorous confinement I enjoined in my previous letters.”
Saint Mars punctiliously obeyed his orders. He was a man of inflexible character, with no bowels of compassion for his charges, and Lestang must have felt the severity of the prison rule. Eight months later the governor reported that Lestang, likewise a fellow prisoner, a monk, who shared his chamber, had gone out of his mind. Both were subject to fits of raving madness. This is the only authentic record of the course of the imprisonment, which lasted fifteen years in this same prison of Pignerol. Saint Mars, in 1681, exchanged his governorship for that of Exiles, another frontier fortress, and was supposed to have carried his masked prisoner with him. This erroneous belief has been disproved by a letter of Saint Mars to the Abbe d’Estrades, discovered in the archives, in which the writer states that he has left Mattioli at Pignerol. There is no attempt at disguise. The name used isMattioli, not Lestang, and it is clear from collateral evidence that this is the masked man.
Saint Mars was not pleased with Exiles and solicited another transfer which came in his appointment to the command of the castle on the island of Sainte-Marguerite, opposite Cannes and well known to visitors to the French Riviera. The fortress, by the way, has much later interest as Marshal Bazaine’s place of confinement after his trial by court martial for surrendering Metz. It will be remembered, too, that with the connivance of friends Bazaine made his escape from durance, although it may be doubted whether the French Republic was particularly anxious to keep him.
The time at length arrived for Mattioli’s removal from Pignerol. A change had come over the fortunes of France. Louis was no longer the dictator of Europe. Defeated in the field and thwarted in policy, the proud King had to eat humble pie; he was forced to give up Casale, which had come to him after all in spite of Mattioli’s betrayal. Pignerol also went back once more to Italian rule and it must be cleared of French prisoners. One alone remained of any importance, for Fouquet was long since dead and Lauzun released. This was Mattioli, whose illegal seizure and detention it was now more than ever necessary to keep secret. Extreme precautions were taken when making the transfer. A strong detachment of soldiers, headed by guides, escorted the prisoner who was in a litter. Thegovernor of Pignerol (now one Villebois) by his side was the only person permitted to communicate with him. The locks and bolts of his quarters at Pignerol were sent ahead to be used at Sainte-Marguerite and the strictest discipline was maintained on the journey. Mattioli saw no one. His solitude was unbroken save by Saint Mars and the two lieutenants who brought him his food and removed the dishes.
One other change awaited the prisoner, the last before his final release. High preferment came to Saint Mars, who was offered and accepted the governorship of the Bastile. He was to bring his “ancient prisoner” with him to Paris; to make the long journey across France weighted with the terrible responsibility of conveying such a man safely in open arrest. We get a passing glimpse of the cortège in a letter published by the grandnephew of Saint Mars, M. Polteau, who describes the halt made for a night at Polteau, a country house belonging to Saint Mars.
“The Man in the Mask,” he writes, in 1768, “came in a litter which preceded that of M. de Saint Mars. They were accompanied by several men on horseback. The peasants waited to greet their lord. M. de Saint Mars took his meals with his prisoner, who was placed with his back to the windows of the dining room which overlooked the courtyard. The peasants whom I questioned could not see whether he wore his mask while eating, butthey took notice of the fact that M. de Saint Mars who sat opposite to him kept a pair of pistols beside his plate. They were waited on by one manservant who fetched the dishes from the anteroom where they were brought to him, taking care to close the door of the dining room after him. When the prisoner crossed the courtyard, he always wore the black mask. The peasants noticed that his teeth and lips showed through, also that he was tall and had white hair. M. de Saint Mars slept in a bed close to that of the masked man.”
The prisoner arrived at the Bastile on the 18th of September, 1698, and the authentic record of his reception appears in the journal of the King’s lieutenant of the castle, M. du Junca, still preserved in the Arsenal Library. “M. de Saint Mars, governor of the Chateau of the Bastile, presented, for the first time, coming from his government of the Isle of Sainte-Marguerite, bringing with him a prisoner who was formerly in his keeping at Pignerol.” The entry goes on to say that the newcomer was taken to the third chamber of the Bertandière tower and lodged there alone in the charge of a gaoler who had come with him. He was nameless in the Bastile and was known only as “the prisoner from Provence” or “the ancient prisoner.”
His isolation and seclusion were strictly maintained for the first three years of his imprisonment in the Bastile and then came a curious change. He is no longer kept apart. He is associated with otherprisoners, and not of the best class. One, a rascally domestic servant, who practised black magic, and a disreputable rake who had once been an army officer. Nothing is said about the mask, but there can no longer be much secrecy and the mystery might be divulged at any time. It is evident that the reasons for concealment have passed away. The old political intrigue has lost its importance. No one cared to know about Casale. Louis XIV had slaked his vindictiveness and the sun of his splendor was on the decline. Nevertheless it was not till after his death that the prisoner’s real name transpired. He died as he had lived, unknown. Du Junca enters the event in the register:—
“The prisoner unknown, masked always ... happening to be unwell yesterday on coming from mass died this day about 10 o’clock in the evening without having had any serious illness; indeed it could not have been slighter ... and this unknown prisoner confined so long a time was buried on Tuesday at four in the afternoon in the cemetery of St. Paul, our parish. On the register of burial he was given a name also unknown.” To this is added in the margin, “I have since learnt that he was named on the register M. de Marchiali.” A further entry can be seen in the parish register. “On the 19th of November, 1703, Marchioly, of the age of forty-five or thereabouts, died in the Bastile ... and was buried in the presence of the major and the surgeon of the Bastile.” “Marchioly” is curiously like “Mattioli” and it is a fair assumption that the true identity of the “Man with the Iron Mask” bursts forth on passing the verge of the silent land.
Lauzun, a third inmate of Pignerol about this period, calls for mention here as a prominent courtier whose misguided ambition and boundless impudence tempted him seriously to affront and offend the King. The penalties that overtook him were just what a bold, intemperate subject might expect from an autocratic, unforgiving master. This prisoner, the Count de Lauzun, was rightly styled by a contemporary “the most insolent little man that had been seen for a century.” He had no considerable claims to great talents, agreeable manners or personal beauty, but he was quick to establish himself in the good graces of Louis XIV. He was one of the first to offer him the grateful incense of unlimited adulation. He worshipped the sovereign as a superior being, erected him into a god, lavished the most fulsome flattery on him, declaring that Louis by his wisdom, wit, greatness and majesty took rank as a divinity. Yet he sometimes forgot himself and went to the other extreme, daring to attack and upbraid the King if he disapproved of his conduct. Once he sided with Madame de Montespan when she was first favorite and remonstrated with Louis so rudely that the King cast him at once into the Bastile. But such blunt honesty won the King’s respect and speedy forgiveness.Lauzun was soon released and advanced from post to post, each of successively greater value, so that the hypocritical courtier, who had made the most abject submission, seemed assured of high fortune. As he rose, his ambition grew and he aspired now to the hand of the King’s cousin, Mademoiselle de Montpensier, who began to look upon him with favor. This was the same “Grande Mademoiselle,” the heroine of the wars of the Fronde, who was now a wealthy heiress and who at one time came near being the King’s wife and Queen. The match was so unequal as to appear wildly impossible, but De Lauzun was strongly backed by Madame de Montespan and two nobles of high rank were induced to make a formal proposal to the King.
Louis liked De Lauzun and gave his consent without hesitation. The marriage might have been completed at once but the bold suitor, successful beyond his deserts and puffed up with conceit, put off the happy day so as to give more and more éclat to the wedding ceremony. While he procrastinated his enemies were unceasingly active. The princes of the blood and jealous fellow courtiers constantly implored the King to avoid so great a mistake, and Louis, having been weak enough to give his consent, was now so base as to withdraw it. De Lauzun retorted by persuading Mademoiselle de Montpensier to marry him privately. This reckless act, after all, might have been forgiven, but he was full of bitterness against those who had injured himwith the King and desired to retaliate. He more especially hated Madame de Montespan, whom he now plotted to ruin by very unworthy means. He thus filled his cup and procured the full measure of the King’s indignation. He was arrested and consigned to Pignerol, where in company with Fouquet he languished for ten years.
Louis XIV and thelettre de cachet—Society corrupt—Assassination common—Cheating at cards—Shocking state of Paris—“The Court of Miracles”—Prisons filled—Prisoners detained indefinitely—Revived persecution of the Protestants—General exodus of industrious artisans—Inside the Bastile—Sufferings of the prisoners—The Comte Pagan—Imprisonment for blasphemy, riotous conduct in the streets and all loose living—Kidnapping of the Armenian Patriarch, Avedik—His sudden death—Many heinous crimes disgrace the epoch—Plot of the Chevalier de Rohan—Its detection—De Rohan executed.
The three notable cases of arrest and imprisonment given in the last chapter are typical of the régime at last established in France under the personal rule of a young monarch whom various causes had combined to render absolute. The willing submission of a people sick of civil war, the removal or complete subjection of the turbulent vassals, his own imperious character,—that of a strong willed man with a set resolve to be sovereign, irresponsible master,—all combined to consolidate his powers. Louis was the incarnation of selfishness. To have his own way with everyone and in everything, to gratify every whim and passion was the keynoteof his sensuous and indulgent nature. No one dared oppose him; no one stood near him. His subjects were his creatures; the greatest nobles accepted the most menial tasks about his person. His abject and supple-backed courtiers offered him incense and dosed him with the most fulsome flattery. He held France in the hollow of his hand and French society was formed on his model, utterly corrupt and profligate under a thin veneer of fine manners which influenced all Europe and set its fashions.
The worst example set by Louis was in his interference with personal liberty. The privilege of freedom from arrest had been won by the Parliament, in the Fronde. They had decreed that any one taken into custody one day must be produced for trial the next and his detention justified. This safeguard was shortlived. The law was defied and ignored by Louis XIV who invented thelettres de cachet, or sealed warrants, which decreed arbitrary arrest without reason given or the smallest excuse made for the committal. It came to be a common thing that persons who were not even suspected of crimes, and who had certainly never been guilty of crimes, were caught up and imprisoned indefinitely. They might lie for years in the Bastile or Vincennes, utterly uncared for and forgotten, kept in custody not because anybody was set upon their remaining but because nobody was interested in their release. In the absence of any statementof the offense no one could say whether or not it was purged and no one was concerned as to whether the necessity for punishment still survived. Theselettres de cachetwere abundantly in evidence, for they were signed in blank by the King himself and countersigned by one of his ministers whenever it was desired to make use of one.
It may be well to explain here that it was customary for the King of France to make his sovereign will known by addressing a communication to the various State functionaries in the form of a letter which was open or closed. If the former, it was a “patent,” it bore the King’s signature, it was countersigned by a minister and the great Seal of State was appended. This was the form in which all ordinances or grants of privileges appeared. These “letters patent” were registered and endorsed by the Parliament. But there was no check upon the closed letter orlettre de cachet, famous in the history of tyranny, as the secret method of making known the King’s pleasure. This was folded and sealed with the King’s small seal, and although it was a private communication it had all the weight of the royal authority. It became the warrant for the arbitrary arrest, at any time and without any reason given, of any person who, upon the strength of it, was forthwith committed to a State prison. The chief ministers and the head of the police had alwayslettres de cachetin stock, signed in blank, but all in due form, andthey could be completed at any time, by order, or of their own free will, by inserting the name of the unfortunate individual whose liberty was to be forfeited. Arrest on alettre de cachet, as has been said, sometimes meant prolonged imprisonment purposely or only because the identity of the individual or the cause of the arrest was forgotten.
Society was horribly vicious and corrupt in the time of Louis XIV. Evil practices prevailed throughout the nation. Profligacy was general among the better classes and the lower ranks committed the most atrocious crimes. While the courtiers openly followed the example set by their self-indulgent young monarch, an ardent devotee of pleasure, the country was over-run with thieves and desperadoes. Assassination was common, by the open attack of hired bravos or secretly by the infamous administration of poison. Security was undermined and numbers in every condition of life were put out of the way. The epoch of the poisoners presently to be described is one of the darkest pages in the annals of the Bastile. Cheating at cards and in every form of gambling was shamelessly prevalent, and defended on the specious excuse that it was merely correcting fortune. Prominent persons of rank and fashion such as the Chevalier de Gramont and the Marquis de Saissac won enormous sums unfairly. The passion for play was so general and so engrossing that no opportunity of yielding to it was lost; people gambled whereverthey met, in public places, in private houses, in carriages when travelling on the road. Cheating at play was so common that a special officer, the Grand Provost, was attached to the Court to bring delinquents immediately to trial. Many dishonest practices were called in to assist, false cards were manufactured on purpose and cardmakers were a part of the great households. Strict laws imposed heavy penalties upon those caught loading dice or marking packs. Fraud was conspicuously frequent in the Italian and most popular game ofhocaplayed with thirty balls on a board, each ball containing a number on a paper inside.