CHAPTER XVI.

Remark of Fouquet’s Mother—The Prisoner’s Piety—Danger which he escapes at Pignerol—Incessant Supervision over him at La Pérouse, near Pignerol—Excessive Scruples of Saint-Mars—Precautions prescribed by Louvois—Espionage exercised over Fouquet by his Servants and his Confessor—Illnesses of the Prisoner—He devotes himself entirely to Study and to religious Meditations—Works to which he gives himself up—His new Motto—Interest which he continues to take in all his Relations and in Louis XIV.—Saint-Mars’ laconic Answers.

The fortitude with which Fouquet supported adversity has almost caused his contemporaries to forget how he had allowed himself to be blinded and led astray by prosperity. Without exhibiting this excessive indulgence, without going so far as to take the part of the victim against his judges, or to forget his errors and his faults, one cannot prevent oneself from owning that at Pignerol he nobly expiated them by his unceasing resignation, by his firmness and by the elevation of his sentiments.

When Fouquet’s mother heard of his arrest, she threw herself upon her knees, exclaiming: “It is now, O God, that I have hopes of my son’s salvation!”[384]This prayer of a pious woman whom the grandeur of the Surintendanthad never dazzled, and whom his dissipation had caused to mourn, was fully answered. If so unhappy as to survive her son and to be ignorant of none of his sufferings, her sorrow may at least have been softened by the thought that the prisoner of Pignerol sought consolation in religion and study. During the early period of his imprisonment at Angers, depressed by misfortune, but sustained by the remembrance of the counsels and the virtues of his mother, he had, in a touching letter imbued with the most pious[385]sentiments, requested a confessor. A terrible danger encountered by him at Pignerol six months after his arrival, and which he escaped as if by a miracle, went to confirm him more completely in these sentiments. In the middle of the month of June, 1665, a thunderbolt fell upon the donjon of the citadel and set fire to the powder-magazine. A portion of the donjon was blown down, and a large number of soldiers were entombed beneath the ruins. Fouquet’s chamber was reached by the explosion. Some of the walls fell and the furniture was shattered to pieces. Saint-Mars thought that his prisoner was killed. But he was found in the embrasure of a projecting window, and had not even received a bruise.[386]As the repairs in thedonjon necessitated by this disaster could not be completed in less than a year, Fouquet, by orders of Louis XIV. and Louvois,[387]was transferred for a time to the neighbouring château of La Pérouse.

Here commenced the attempts made by the prisoner, not so much to escape—he could not be mistaken as to the impossibility of succeeding in this—as to write to his mother and his wife, and to obtain from them letters expected in vain since his departure from Paris. “I have received the letters written by M. Fouquet,” Louvois informs Saint-Mars, July 26. “The King has seen the whole, and was not surprised that he should do his utmost to obtain news, and that you exert all your efforts to prevent his receiving it.”[388]“To give and receive news:” such, indeed, was Fouquet’s most lively and very natural desire. In order to satisfy it, he made the most industrious efforts and showed the most ingenious patience. With soot mixed with a few drops of water he made ink, a fowl’s bone served him for a pen, and he wrote upon a handkerchief, which he afterwards concealed in the back of his chair.[389]He managed even to compound an ink, which he employed to cover the marginof a book with some lines of writing that became visible only after being warmed.[390]But Saint-Mars’[391]vigilance frustrated these attempts. He soon discovered the hidden handkerchief, and not content with sending this alone to the King, also forwarded the clumsy implements fabricated andused by his prisoner.[392]The latter having afterwards written upon ribbons, black ones only were in future given him, and his garments were, moreover, lined with stuff of the same colour. From this period he became the object of a still closer surveillance, the proof of which we find in the numerous letters exchanged between Louvois and Saint-Mars. Like all timorous people, Saint-Mars was absolutely wanting in the spirit of initiation, and took delight in having recourse to his chief. He possessed no ambitious desire of exhibiting his zeal, but only an imperious need of dissipating his alarms and of relieving himself from responsibility. It did not suffice this timid gaoler to adopt the most minute precautions with respect to his prisoner. He recounted them in his correspondence with the Minister, with the view of obtaining fresh orders, or of receiving an approval which might calm his uneasiness. It was in this spirit that he begged Louvois to authorise him to have a salt-cellar made for Fouquet out of his two broken candlesticks.[393]It was in this spirit also that after having prevented his prisoner’s servant from giving an alms, considering it suspicious, he consulted the Minister on the subject, and solicited his advice.[394]

These excessive scruples sometimes caused him to be wanting in humanity. He one day considered it necessary to ask Louvois for an authorisation to have a sick prisoner bled, and the Minister, on according it twenty days afterwards, added: “Whenever such circumstances occur, you can have [the prisoner] treated and doctored as maybe needful without awaiting orders for it.”[395]The puerile questions and the demands for fresh instructions became so frequent, that the Minister was compelled to write to Saint-Mars: “I have received your two last letters. They oblige me to tell you that, as the King has charged you with the care of Mons. Fouquet, his Majesty has no new orders to give you to prevent his escape, or his sending or receiving letters.”[396]This outburst is so much the more significant as Louvois, very prone and qualified to enter into the slightest details, and an imperious and most exacting chief, accustomed all his subordinates to extreme deference, and to having incessant recourse to his authority. But in this case the Minister’s prejudices were outstripped, and Saint-Mars alone perhaps had the power to wear out by his pertinacity him who on ordinary occasions was most desirous of being consulted. Moreover, we must admit, it was the only instance in which the Minister manifested his displeasure. He habitually replied with care to every detail comprised in the letters from the commandant of Pignerol, and he sometimes even rivalled him in his want of confidence. Thus it was that in December, 1670, Fouquet, who was ill, having obtained authority to have a prescription drawn up by Pecquet, his former medical attendant, Louvois sent it to Saint-Mars with these words: “As soon as you have received it, you will make a very exact copy. You will show the original to M. Fouquet, and you and he will compare it with the copy which you will leave with him. You will then burn the original. By this means the said Sieur Fouquet having seen it will have no doubt,and you having burnt it will have no anxiety about it.”[397]On another occasion, when sending a chest of tea for Fouquet, Louvois prescribed to Saint-Mars: “To empty it into another receptacle, and to take away the chest, and the paper which may be within the chest, so as to leave to M. Fouquet the said tea only.”[398]Never were orders more agreeable or more faithfully executed. These precautions of Louvois encouraged Saint-Mars’ distrust, who thus found himself supported in his conduct by that authority, most persuasive when it emanates from one above us in station, namely, example.

Thus stimulated in suspicions to which he naturally inclined, Saint-Mars was not slow to conceive that his means of surveillance were insufficient. To see one’s prisoner often, to assure oneself with one’s own eyes that he communicates with nobody, to examine with care his furniture and effects, to multiply the difficulties of an escape, seem to constitute all the duties of a conscientious and vigilant gaoler. But the suspicious Saint-Mars was in no-wise satisfied with these precautions. Forgetting that the prisoner’s body alone was under his care, he wished to extend his surveillance even to Fouquet’s thoughts. To attain this end he had recourse both to his confessor and to the servant who waited upon him. Having, however, soon discerned the interest which the unfortunate prisoner inspired in his servant, Saint-Mars felt that he could not rely upon the sincerity of his reports, and he attached to the person of Fouquet a second valet, who was instructed to watch the first, and was himself the object of a secretsurveillance on the part of the latter.[399]As for the confessor, to control him was impossible, and in fact would have been unnecessary. We read in the correspondence of Louvois and Saint-Mars that “he was a good man,”[400]which is another proof how differently the conduct of men may be appreciated. In the eyes of Louvois and of Saint-Mars Fouquet’s confessor was agood man, because he consented to act as a spy; because, as Fouquet wrote later to his wife, “instead of having God in view, he acted the cowardly part of making his fortune at the expense of one in trouble.” He succeeded; for Saint-Mars obtained a promise from Louvois “that he should receive a living when he should cease to fulfil his office.”[401]The first instructions given to Saint-Mars authorised him to change the priest each time that Fouquet desired to confess. But when they had discovered this “good man,” they abandoned henceforth this useless precaution, and Fouquet in vain requested to be allowed to make a general confession to the Superior of the Jesuits, then to the Superiors of the Récollets and Capucines of Pignerol.[402]

These proceedings, and the non-success of an attempt made in 1669 by an old servant of Fouquet’s,[403]whoendeavoured, by corrupting some soldiers, to place himself in communication with his master, induced the latter to give himself up entirely to study and religious meditations. He renounced the project of communicating with his relations and friends. The salvation of his soul and the care of his body alone occupied his thoughts. Deprived long since of all physical exercise, and having suddenly exchanged an existence, excited by travel, and adorned by everything that could make life attractive and sweet, for the solitude and inactivity of a prison, Fouquet had seen his health rapidly decay, and innumerable disorders seize on him.[404]“There is not a disease to which the body is liable,” he wrote to his wife, “of which mine has not experienced some symptom. I am no sooner quit of one than it is succeeded by another, and I can but suppose that these will only cease with my life. I should require a large volume to describe my sufferings in detail, but the principal one is that my stomach does not act in concert with my liver; what suits one is injurious to the other, and, what is more, my legs are always swollen.”... “The best thing to be done,” he says afterwards, “is to give up all care of the body, and to think of one’s soul. This is important to us, and yet we show more concern for the body.” In truth, he gave as much attention to one as to the other. Distrustful of the surgeon of the citadel, he compounded himself the remedies which suited him best; and in order, no doubt, that he might avail himself of his servant as an auxiliary, he instructed him in the art of dispensing.[405]The first books which Saint-Mars consented to give him after having received authority to do so, were the Bible and a history of France. Later, the works of Clavius and St. Bonaventura were added; and then, by desire of the prisoner, a dictionary of rhymes.[406]Poetry to him was nothing more than a relaxation, and he devoted himself above all to reading religious works and to the production of several lengthy treatises on morals. The remembrance of his former grandeur clashed in them with the impressions of his profound fall. The Christian preoccupied with his salvation, the philosopher enlightened by adversity, the recluse giving himself up to the contemplation of divine things, hold in their turn a language of sublime and unchangeable serenity. One finds in almost every page proof of this resignation in disgrace, and of this contentment in affliction which Christianity can alone inspire. He whose haughty motto, for a long time justified by events, had beenQuo non ascendam, now humbly submissive to his lot, adopted the touching emblem of the silkworm in his cocoon with these words:Inclusum labor illustrat!

However, Fouquet was not so detached from things terrestrial as not to interest himself in them at all. His mother, wife and several children, being still alive, his thoughts often turned towards these dearly beloved beings, and also, but without bitterness, towards Louis XIV. and his conquests, towards the Court and the Ministers. He often questioned Saint-Mars. The latter’s replies were brief, and so unprecise that he considered himself obliged to writeto Louvois and inquire in what sense he ought to answer.[407]Entirely master of his prisoner, sure of those who surrounded him, he believed that the barrier which he had erected around him was insuperable, and thought that he would be able to keep him apprised of contemporary events as he pleased, or else leave him in the most complete ignorance. Useless efforts and vain confidence in his power! The enterprising audacity and industrious perseverance of a prisoner recently brought to Pignerol, triumphed over even the innumerable precautions of the most suspicious of gaolers.

FOOTNOTES:[384]Mémoires de Choisy, p. 590.[385]M. Feuillet de Conches,Causeries d’un Curieux, vol. ii. p. 529. “M. d’Artagnan told me,” says Olivier d’Ormesson in hisJournal, “that M. Fouquet, during the first three weeks, was very unquiet and amazed, but that his mind grew calmer, and that he became very self-possessed afterwards, giving himself up largely to devotion; that he fasted every week on Wednesday and Friday, and besides this, lived on Saturday on bread and water; that he rose before seven o’clock, said his prayers, and after that worked till nine o’clock; that he subsequently heard mass.”—Journal d’Olivier d’Ormesson, vol. ii. p. 52.[386]Letters from Louvois to Saint-Mars, June 29, 1665, and from Colbert to the same, on the same day. People at Paris as well as at Pignerol did not fail to say that heaven had judged him innocent whom men had condemned. SeeLettres de Madame de Sévigné et de Guy Patin;Journal d’Olivier d’Ormesson, vol. ii. p. 372;Œuvres de Fouquet, vol. xvi.[387]Order of Louis XIV., countersigned by Le Tellier, and dated from Saint-Germain, June 29, 1665. It was Saint-Mars who, with his free company as escort, took Fouquet to La Pérouse, and continued to guard him there till the month of August, 1666, at which period he brought him back to Pignerol.[388]Delort,Histoire de la Détention des Philosophes, vol. i. p. 103.[389]Letters from Louvois to Saint-Mars, July 26 and December 18, 1665.[390]Louvois inquired in vain as to the manner in which Fouquet had been able to compound this sympathetic ink. “It is necessary,” he wrote to Saint-Mars on July 26, 1665, “that you should endeavour to find out from Monsieur de Fouquet’s servant how [his master] has written the four lines which appeared upon the book on warming it, and of what he has composed this writing.”[391]The following is one of the first letters written from Pignerol by Saint-Mars. It is one of the rare letters addressed to Colbert. Saint-Mars made some progress in orthography after this, and the later despatches which we have of his show a rather less imperfect knowledge of the French language:—“At Pignerol, this 13 February, 1665.“Monseigneur—I have nothing fresh to tell you; everything is going on all right, in my humble opinion. I had been assured that there was a man of M. Fouquet’s here in the town. I had him sought for by the major, he has not been found; he has not shown himself before the prisoner’s windows, and I have taken care to say everywhere that I would not advise him to appear before the donjon, and that [if he did] it would not be a case of live and let live. I believe that this has frightened him. I thank you very humbly, Monseigneur, for the care and kindness that you have for me. I have received, by the last post, an account for the subsistence here for the present month which I am about to draw. My company arrived here on the 9th, and has already mounted guard. There is so much work to do here for the safety of a prisoner that I shall not be altogether settled for three weeks. M. Fouquet wishes to confess every month. I have given him a confessor who is of the household of one M. d’Amorclan, a man altogether devoted to Mgr. le Tèlier. For myself, I should approve of him; but as I have received orders to change him continually, I shall not allow him to confess until I receive your commands. I shall always await them with impatience, having no stronger desire than to please you, and to call myself all my life, Monseigneur, your very humble,” &c.—Manuscripts of the Imperial Library, Volumes in Green, C.[392]Letter from Louvois to Saint-Mars, August 24, 1665.[393]Ibid., August 2, 1665.[394]Ibid., March 26, 1669.[395]Letter from Louvois to Saint-Mars, September 25, 1669.[396]Ibid., December 25, 1665.[397]Letter from Louvois to Saint-Mars, December 13, 1670.[398]Ibid., November 27, 1677.[399]Letter from Louvois to Saint-Mars, February 14, 1667.[400]Ibid., February 24, 1665. See also letters of February 20 and April 24, 1665.[401]Letter of April 17, 1670. Moreover, the King from time to time granted him gratuities. See among others, in Delort, a letter of June 4, 1666.[402]Letter from Louvois to Saint-Mars, October 1, 1668.[403]Named Laforest. Five soldiers received money and were severely punished. Laforest was arrested, condemned to death, and executed on the spot. Despatches from Louvois to Saint-Mars, December 17, 1669, and January 1, 1670.[404]Letters of Louvois to Saint-Mars, November 21, 1667, October 9, 1668, January 2, 1670, April 15, 1675, and July 3, 1677.[405]Delort,Histoire de la Détention des Philosophes, vol. i. p. 33.[406]Despatches from Louvois to Saint-Mars, March 3, September 12, 1665, October 23, 1666, and April 8, 1678.[407]Letter from Louvois to Saint-Mars, November 22, 1667 and March 1, 1673. “There is no great inconvenience,” writes Louvois to Saint-Mars, “in M. Fouquet’s knowing that the King has made war 011 the Dutch. So do not persuade yourself that you have been deficient in any way in giving him a book which has apprised him of this.”—Letter from Louvois to Saint-Mars, July 2, 1673. “I have received your letter of the 16th of this month, which requires no answer except to say that the King approves your informing M. Fouquet of the current news, according as his Majesty has already permitted you.”—Letter of April 25, 1678.

[384]Mémoires de Choisy, p. 590.

[385]M. Feuillet de Conches,Causeries d’un Curieux, vol. ii. p. 529. “M. d’Artagnan told me,” says Olivier d’Ormesson in hisJournal, “that M. Fouquet, during the first three weeks, was very unquiet and amazed, but that his mind grew calmer, and that he became very self-possessed afterwards, giving himself up largely to devotion; that he fasted every week on Wednesday and Friday, and besides this, lived on Saturday on bread and water; that he rose before seven o’clock, said his prayers, and after that worked till nine o’clock; that he subsequently heard mass.”—Journal d’Olivier d’Ormesson, vol. ii. p. 52.

[386]Letters from Louvois to Saint-Mars, June 29, 1665, and from Colbert to the same, on the same day. People at Paris as well as at Pignerol did not fail to say that heaven had judged him innocent whom men had condemned. SeeLettres de Madame de Sévigné et de Guy Patin;Journal d’Olivier d’Ormesson, vol. ii. p. 372;Œuvres de Fouquet, vol. xvi.

[387]Order of Louis XIV., countersigned by Le Tellier, and dated from Saint-Germain, June 29, 1665. It was Saint-Mars who, with his free company as escort, took Fouquet to La Pérouse, and continued to guard him there till the month of August, 1666, at which period he brought him back to Pignerol.

[388]Delort,Histoire de la Détention des Philosophes, vol. i. p. 103.

[389]Letters from Louvois to Saint-Mars, July 26 and December 18, 1665.

[390]Louvois inquired in vain as to the manner in which Fouquet had been able to compound this sympathetic ink. “It is necessary,” he wrote to Saint-Mars on July 26, 1665, “that you should endeavour to find out from Monsieur de Fouquet’s servant how [his master] has written the four lines which appeared upon the book on warming it, and of what he has composed this writing.”

[391]The following is one of the first letters written from Pignerol by Saint-Mars. It is one of the rare letters addressed to Colbert. Saint-Mars made some progress in orthography after this, and the later despatches which we have of his show a rather less imperfect knowledge of the French language:—“At Pignerol, this 13 February, 1665.“Monseigneur—I have nothing fresh to tell you; everything is going on all right, in my humble opinion. I had been assured that there was a man of M. Fouquet’s here in the town. I had him sought for by the major, he has not been found; he has not shown himself before the prisoner’s windows, and I have taken care to say everywhere that I would not advise him to appear before the donjon, and that [if he did] it would not be a case of live and let live. I believe that this has frightened him. I thank you very humbly, Monseigneur, for the care and kindness that you have for me. I have received, by the last post, an account for the subsistence here for the present month which I am about to draw. My company arrived here on the 9th, and has already mounted guard. There is so much work to do here for the safety of a prisoner that I shall not be altogether settled for three weeks. M. Fouquet wishes to confess every month. I have given him a confessor who is of the household of one M. d’Amorclan, a man altogether devoted to Mgr. le Tèlier. For myself, I should approve of him; but as I have received orders to change him continually, I shall not allow him to confess until I receive your commands. I shall always await them with impatience, having no stronger desire than to please you, and to call myself all my life, Monseigneur, your very humble,” &c.—Manuscripts of the Imperial Library, Volumes in Green, C.

“At Pignerol, this 13 February, 1665.

“Monseigneur—I have nothing fresh to tell you; everything is going on all right, in my humble opinion. I had been assured that there was a man of M. Fouquet’s here in the town. I had him sought for by the major, he has not been found; he has not shown himself before the prisoner’s windows, and I have taken care to say everywhere that I would not advise him to appear before the donjon, and that [if he did] it would not be a case of live and let live. I believe that this has frightened him. I thank you very humbly, Monseigneur, for the care and kindness that you have for me. I have received, by the last post, an account for the subsistence here for the present month which I am about to draw. My company arrived here on the 9th, and has already mounted guard. There is so much work to do here for the safety of a prisoner that I shall not be altogether settled for three weeks. M. Fouquet wishes to confess every month. I have given him a confessor who is of the household of one M. d’Amorclan, a man altogether devoted to Mgr. le Tèlier. For myself, I should approve of him; but as I have received orders to change him continually, I shall not allow him to confess until I receive your commands. I shall always await them with impatience, having no stronger desire than to please you, and to call myself all my life, Monseigneur, your very humble,” &c.—Manuscripts of the Imperial Library, Volumes in Green, C.

[392]Letter from Louvois to Saint-Mars, August 24, 1665.

[393]Ibid., August 2, 1665.

[394]Ibid., March 26, 1669.

[395]Letter from Louvois to Saint-Mars, September 25, 1669.

[396]Ibid., December 25, 1665.

[397]Letter from Louvois to Saint-Mars, December 13, 1670.

[398]Ibid., November 27, 1677.

[399]Letter from Louvois to Saint-Mars, February 14, 1667.

[400]Ibid., February 24, 1665. See also letters of February 20 and April 24, 1665.

[401]Letter of April 17, 1670. Moreover, the King from time to time granted him gratuities. See among others, in Delort, a letter of June 4, 1666.

[402]Letter from Louvois to Saint-Mars, October 1, 1668.

[403]Named Laforest. Five soldiers received money and were severely punished. Laforest was arrested, condemned to death, and executed on the spot. Despatches from Louvois to Saint-Mars, December 17, 1669, and January 1, 1670.

[404]Letters of Louvois to Saint-Mars, November 21, 1667, October 9, 1668, January 2, 1670, April 15, 1675, and July 3, 1677.

[405]Delort,Histoire de la Détention des Philosophes, vol. i. p. 33.

[406]Despatches from Louvois to Saint-Mars, March 3, September 12, 1665, October 23, 1666, and April 8, 1678.

[407]Letter from Louvois to Saint-Mars, November 22, 1667 and March 1, 1673. “There is no great inconvenience,” writes Louvois to Saint-Mars, “in M. Fouquet’s knowing that the King has made war 011 the Dutch. So do not persuade yourself that you have been deficient in any way in giving him a book which has apprised him of this.”—Letter from Louvois to Saint-Mars, July 2, 1673. “I have received your letter of the 16th of this month, which requires no answer except to say that the King approves your informing M. Fouquet of the current news, according as his Majesty has already permitted you.”—Letter of April 25, 1678.

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