characters is no other than the mysterious Comte de Saint-Germain--
not, of course, the contemporary and normal French soldier and
minister, of 1707-1778, who bore the same name. I have found the
name, with dim allusions, in the unpublished letters and MSS. of
Prince Charles Edward Stuart, and have not always been certain
whether the reference was to the man of action or to the man of
mystery. On the secret of the latter, the deathless one, I have no
new light to throw, and only speak of him for a single reason.
Aristotle assures us, in his Poetics, that the best-known myths
dramatized on the Athenian stage were known to very few of the
Athenian audience. It is not impossible that the story of Saint-
Germain, though it seems as familiar as the myth of Oedipus or
Thyestes, may, after all, not be vividly present to the memory of
every reader. The omniscent Larousse, of the Dictionnaire
Universel, certainly did not know one very accessible fact about
Saint-Germain, nor have I seen it mentioned in other versions of
his legend. We read, in Larousse, "Saint-Germain is not heard of
in France before 1750, when he established himself in Paris. No
adventure had called attention to his existence; it was only known
that he had moved about Europe, lived in Italy, Holland, and in
England, and had borne the names of Marquis de Monteferrat, and of
Comte de Bellamye, which he used at Venice."
Lascelles Wraxall, again, in Remarkable Adventures (1863), says:
"Whatever truth there may be in Saint-Germain's travels in England
and the East Indies, it is undubitable that, for from 1745 to 1755,
he was a man of high position in Vienna," while in Paris he does
not appear, according to Wraxall, till 1757, having been brought
from Germany by the Marechal de Belle-Isle, whose "old boots," says
Macallester the spy, Prince Charles freely damned, "because they
were always stuffed with projects." Now we hear of Saint-Germain,
by that name, as resident, not in Vienna, but in London, at the
very moment when Prince Charles, evading Cumberland, who lay with
his army at Stone, in Staffordshire, marched to Derby. Horace
Walpole writes to Mann in Florence (December 9, 1745):
"We begin to take up people . . . the other day they seized an odd
man who goes by the name of Count Saint-Germain. He has been here
these two years, and will not tell who he is, or whence, but
professes that he does not go by his right name. He sings, plays
on the violin wonderfully, composes, is mad, and not very sensible.
He is called an Italian, a Spaniard, a Pole; a somebody that
married a great fortune in Mexico, and ran away with her jewels to
Constantinople; a priest, a fiddler, a vast nobleman. The Prince
of Wales has had unsatiated curiosity about him, but in vain.
However, nothing has been made out against him; he is released,
and, what convinces me he is not a gentleman, stays here, and talks
of his being taken up for a spy."
Here is our earliest authentic note on Saint-Germain; a note
omitted by his French students. He was in London from 1743 to
1745, under a name not his own, but that which he later bore at the
Court of France. From the allusion to his jewels (those of a
deserted Mexican bride), it appears that he was already as rich in
these treasures as he was afterwards, when his French acquaintances
marveled at them. (As to his being "mad," Walpole may refer to
Saint-Germain's way of talking as if he had lived in remote ages,
and known famous people of the past).
Having caught this daylight glimpse of Saint-Germain in Walpole,
having learned that in December, 1745, he was arrested and examined
as a possible Jacobite agent, we naturally expect to find our
contemporary official documents about his examination by the
Government. Scores of such records exist, containing the questions
put to, and the answers given by, suspected persons. But we vainly
hunt through the Newcastle MSS., and the State Papers, Domestic, in
the Record Office, for a trace of the examination of Saint-Germain.
I am not aware that he was anywhere left his trail in official
documents; he lives in more or less legendary memoirs, alone.
At what precise date Saint-Germain became an intimate of Louis XV.,
the Duc de Choiseul, Madame de Pompadour, and the Marechal de
Belle-Isle, one cannot ascertain. The writers of memoirs are the
vaguest of mortals about dates; only one discerns that Saint-
Germain was much about the French Court, and high in the favor of
the King, having rooms at Chambord, during the Seven Years' War,
and just before the time of the peace negotiations of 1762-1763.
The art of compiling false or forged memoirs of that period was
widely practiced; but the memoirs of Madame du Hausset, who speaks
of Saint-Germain, are authentic. She was the widow of a poor man
of noble family, and was one of two femmes de chambre of Madame de
Pompadour. Her manuscript was written, she explains, by aid of a
brief diary which she kept during her term of service. One day M.
Senac de Meilhan found Madame de Pompadour's brother, M. de
Marigny, about to burn a packet of papers. "It is the journal," he
said, "of a femme de chambre of my sister, a good, kind woman." De
Meilhan asked for the manuscript, which he later gave to Mr.
Crawford, one of the Kilwinning family, in Ayrshire, who later
helped in the escape of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette to
Varennes, where they were captured. With the journal of Madame du
Hausset were several letters to Marigny on points of historical
anecdote.[1]
[1] One of these gives Madame de Vieux-Maison as the author of a
roman a clef, Secret Memoirs of the Court of Persia, which contains
an early reference to the Man in the Iron Mask (died 1703). The
letter-writer avers that D'Argenson, the famous minister of Louis
XV., said that the Man in the Iron Mask was really a person fort
peu de chose, 'of very little account,' and that the Regent
d'Orleans was of the same opinion. This corroborates my theory,
that the Mask was merely the valet of a Huguenot conspirator, Roux
de Marsilly, captured in England, and imprisoned because he was
supposed to know some terrible secret--which he knew nothing about.
See The Valet's Tragedy, Longmans, 1903.
Crawford published the manuscript of Madame du Hausset, which he
was given by de Meilhan, and the memoirs are thus from an authentic
source. The author says that Louis XV. was always kind to her, but
spoke little to her, whereas Madame de Pompadour remarked, "The
King and I trust you so much that we treat you like a cat or a dog,
and talk freely before you."
As to Saint-Germain, Madame du Hausset writes: "A man who was as
amazing as a witch came often to see Madame de Pompadour. This was
the Comte de Saint-Germain, who wished to make people believe that
he had lived for several centuries. One day Madame said to him,
while at her toilet, "What sort of man was Francis I., a king whom
I could have loved?" "A good sort of fellow," said Saint-Germain;
"too fiery--I could have given him a useful piece of advice, but he
would not have listened." He then described, in very general
terms, the beauty of Mary Stuart and La Reine Margot. "You seem to
have seen them all," said Madame de Pompadour, laughing.
"Sometimes," said Saint-Germain, "I amuse myself, not by making
people believe, but by letting them believe, that I have lived from
time immemorial." "But you do not tell us your age, and you give
yourself out as very old. Madame de Gergy, who was wife of the
French ambassador at Venice fifty years ago, I think, says that she
knew you there, and that you are not changed in the least." "It is
true, Madame, that I knew Madame de Gergy long ago." "But
according to her story you must now be over a century old." "It
may be so, but I admit that even more possibly the respected lady
is in her dotage."
At this time Saint-Germain, says Madame du Hausset, looked about
fifty, was neither thin nor stout, seemed clever, and dressed
simply, as a rule, but in good taste. Say that the date was 1760,
Saint-Germain looked fifty; but he had looked the same age,
according to Madame de Gergy, at Venice, fifty years earlier, in
1710. We see how pleasantly he left Madame de Pompadour in doubt
on that point.
He pretended to have the secret of removing flaws from diamonds.
The King showed him a stone valued at 6,000 francs--without a flaw
it would have been worth 10,000. Saint-Germain said that he could
remove the flaw in a month, and in a month he brought back the
diamond--flawless. The King sent it, without any comment, to his
jeweler, who gave 9,600 francs for the stone, but the King returned
the money, and kept the gem as a curiosity. Probably it was not
the original stone, but another cut in the same fashion, Saint-
Germain sacrificing 3,000 or 4,000 francs to his practical joke.
He also said that he could increase the size of pearls, which he
could have proved very easily--in the same manner. He would not
oblige Madame de Pompadour by giving the King an elixir of life: "I
should be mad if I gave the King a drug." There seems to be a
reference to this desire of Madame de Pompadour in an unlikely
place, a letter of Pickle the Spy to Mr. Vaughan (1754)! This
conversation Madame du Hausset wrote down on the day of its
occurrence.
Both Louis XV. and Madame de Pompadour treated Saint-Germain as a
person of consequence. "He is a quack, for he says he has an
elixir," said Dr. Quesnay, with medical skepticism. "Moreover, our
master, the King, is obstinate; he sometimes speaks of Saint-
Germain as a person of illustrious birth."
The age was skeptical, unscientific, and, by reaction, credulous.
The philosophes, Hume, Voltaire, and others, were exposing, like an
ingenious American gentleman, "the mistakes of Moses." The Earl of
Marischal told Hume that life had been chemically produced in a
laboratory, so what becomes of Creation? Prince Charles, hidden in
a convent, was being tutored by Mlle. Luci in the sensational
philosophy of Locke, "nothing in the intellect which does not come
through the senses"--a queer theme for a man of the sword to study.
But, thirty years earlier, the Regent d'Orleans had made crystal-
gazing fashionable, and stories of ghosts and second-sight in the
highest circles were popular. Mesmer had not yet appeared, to give
a fresh start to the old savage practice of hypnotism; Cagliostro
was not yet on the scene with his free-masonry of the ancient
Egyptian school. But people were already in extremes of doubt and
of belief; there might be something in the elixir of life and in
the philosopher's stone; it might be possible to make precious
stones chemically, and Saint-Germain, who seemed to be over a
century old at least, might have all these secrets.
Whence came his wealth in precious stones, people asked, unless
from some mysterious knowledge, or some equally mysterious and
illustrious birth?
He showed Madame de Pompadour a little box full of rubies, topazes,
and diamonds. Madame de Pompadour called Madame du Hausset to look
at them; she was dazzled, but skeptical, and made a sign to show
that she thought them paste. The Count then exhibited a superb
ruby, tossing aside contemptuously a cross covered with gems.
"That is not so contemptible," said Madame du Hausset, hanging it
round her neck. The Count begged her to keep the jewel; she
refused, and Madame de Pompadour backed her refusal. But Saint-
Germain insisted, and Madame de Pompadour, thinking that the cross
might be worth forty louis, made a sign to Madame du Hausset that
she accept. She did, and the jewel was valued at 1,500 francs--
which hardly proves that the other large jewels were genuine,
though Von Gleichen believed they were, and thought the Count's
cabinet of old masters very valuable.
The fingers, the watch, the snuffbox, the shoe-buckles, the garter
studs, the solitaires of the Count, on high days, all burned with
diamonds and rubies, which were estimated, one day, at 200,000
francs. His wealth did not come from cards or swindling--no such
charges are ever hinted at; he did not sell elixirs, nor
prophecies, nor initiations. His habits do not seem to have been
extravagant. One might regard him as a clever eccentric person,
the unacknowledged child, perhaps, of some noble, who had put his
capital mainly into precious stones. But Louis XV. treated him as
a serious personage, and probably knew, or thought he knew, the
secret of his birth. People held that he was a bastard of a king
of Portugal, says Madame du Hausset. Perhaps the most ingenious
and plausible theory of the birth of Saint-Germain makes him the
natural son, not of a king of Portugal, but of a queen of Spain.
The evidence is not evidence, but a series of surmises. Saint-
Germain, on this theory, 'wrop his buth up in a mistry' (like that
of Charles James Fitzjames de la Pluche), out of regard for the
character of his royal mamma. I believe this about as much as I
believe that a certain Rev. Mr. Douglas, an obstreperous
Covenanting minister, was a descendant of the captive Mary Stuart.
However, Saint-Germain is said, like Kaspar Hauser, to have
murmured of dim memories of his infancy, of diversions on
magnificent terraces, and of palaces glowing beneath an azure sky.
This is reported by Von Gleichen, who knew him very well, but
thought him rather a quack. Possibly he meant to convey the idea
that he was Moses, and that he had dwelt in the palaces of the
Ramessids. The grave of the prophet was never known, and Saint-
Germain may have insinuated that he began a new avatar in a cleft
of Mount Pisgah; he was capable of it.
However, a less wild surmise avers that, in 1763, the secrets of
his birth and the source of his opulence were known in Holland.
The authority is the Memoirs of Grosley (1813). Grosley was an
archaeologist of Troyes; he had traveled in Italy, and written an
account of his travels; he also visited Holland and England, and
later, from a Dutchman, he picked up his information about Saint-
Germain. Grosley was a Fellow of our Royal Society, and I greatly
revere the authority of a F.R.S. His later years were occupied in
the compilation of his Memoirs, including an account of what he did
and heard in Holland, and he died in 1785. According to Grosley's
account of what the Dutchman knew, Saint-Germain was the son of a
princess who fled (obviously from Spain) to Bayonne, and of a
Portuguese Jew dwelling in Bordeaux.
What fairy and fugitive princess can this be, whom not in vain the
ardent Hebrew wooed? She was, she must have been, as Grosley saw,
the heroine of Victor Hugo's Ruy Blas. The unhappy Charles II. of
Spain, a kind of "mammet" (as the English called the Richard II.
who appeared up in Islay, having escaped from Pomfret Castle), had
for his first wife a daughter of Henrietta, the favorite sister of
our Charles II. This childless bride, after some ghostly years of
matrimony, after being exorcised in disgusting circumstances, died
in February, 1689. In May, 1690 a new bride, Marie de Neuborg, was
brought to the grisly side of the crowned mammet of Spain. She,
too, failed to prevent the wars of the Spanish Succession by giving
an heir to the Crown of Spain. Scandalous chronicles aver that
Marie was chosen as Queen of Spain for the levity of her character,
and that the Crown was expected, as in the Pictish monarchy, to
descend on the female side; the father of the prince might be
anybody. What was needed was simply a son of the QUEEN of Spain.
She had, while Queen, no son, as far as is ascertained, but she had
a favorite, a Count Andanero, whom she made minister of finance.
"He was not a born Count," he was a financier, this favorite of the
Queen of Spain. That lady did go to live in Bayonne in 1706, six
years after the death of Charles II., her husband. The hypothesis
is, then, that Saint-Germain was the son of this ex-Queen of Spain,
and of the financial Count, Andanero, a man, "not born in the
sphere of Counts," and easily transformed by tradition into a
Jewish banker of Bordeaux. The Duc de Choiseul, who disliked the
intimacy of Louis XV. and of the Court with Saint-Germain, said
that the Count was "the son of a Portuguese Jew, WHO DECEIVES THE
COURT. It is strange that the King is so often allowed to be
almost alone with this man, though, when he goes out, he is
surrounded by guards, as if he feared assassins everywhere." This
anecdote is from the Memoirs of Gleichen, who had seen a great deal
of the world. He died in 1807.
It seems a fair inference that the Duc de Choiseul knew what the
Dutch bankers knew, the story of the Count's being a child of a
princess retired to Bayonne--namely, the ex-Queen of Spain--and of
a Portuguese-Hebrew financier. De Choiseul was ready to accept the
Jewish father, but thought that, in the matter of the royal mother,
Saint-Germain "deceived the Court."
A queen of Spain might have carried off any quantity of the
diamonds of Brazil. The presents of diamonds from her almost
idiotic lord must have been among the few comforts of her situation
in a Court overridden by etiquette. The reader of Madame
d'Aulnoy's contemporary account of the Court of Spain knows what a
dreadful dungeon it was. Again, if born at Bayonne about 1706, the
Count would naturally seem to be about fifty in 1760. The purity
with which he spoke German, and his familiarity with German
princely Courts--where I do not remember that Barry Lyndon ever met
him--are easily accounted for if he had a royal German to his
mother. But, alas! if he was the son of a Hebrew financier,
Portuguese or Alsatian (as some said), he was likely, whoever his
mother may have been, to know German, and to be fond of precious
stones. That Oriental taste notoriously abides in the hearts of
the Chosen People.[1]
[1] Voyage en Angleterre, 1770.
"Nay, nefer shague your gory locks at me,
Dou canst not say I did it,"
quotes Pinto, the hero of Thackeray's Notch on the Axe. "He
pronounced it, by the way, I DIT it, by which I KNOW that Pinto was
a German," says Thackeray. I make little doubt but that Saint-
Germain, too, was a German, whether by the mother's side, and of
princely blood, or quite the reverse.
Grosley mixes Saint-Germain up with a lady as mysterious as
himself, who also lived in Holland, on wealth of an unknown source,
and Grosley inclines to think that the Count found his way into a
French prison, where he was treated with extraordinary respect.
Von Gleichen, on the other hand, shows the Count making love to a
daughter of Madame Lambert, and lodging in the house of the mother.
Here Von Gleichen met the man of mystery and became rather intimate
with him. Von Gleichen deemed him very much older than he looked,
but did not believe in his elixir.
In any case, he was not a cardsharper, a swindler, a professional
medium, or a spy. He passed many evenings almost alone with Louis
XV., who, where men were concerned, liked them to be of good family
(about ladies he was much less exclusive). The Count had a grand
manner; he treated some great personages in a cavalier way, as if
he were at least their equal. On the whole, if not really the son
of a princess, he probably persuaded Louis XV. that he did come of
that blue blood, and the King would have every access to authentic
information. Horace Walpole's reasons for thinking Saint-Germain
"not a gentleman" scarcely seem convincing.
The Duc de Choiseul did not like the fashionable Saint-Germain. He
thought him a humbug, even when the doings of the deathless one
were perfectly harmless. As far as is known, his recipe for health
consisted in drinking a horrible mixture called "senna tea"--which
was administered to small boys when I was a small boy--and in not
drinking anything at his meals. Many people still observe this
regimen, in the interest, it is said, of their figures. Saint-
Germain used to come to the house of de Choiseul, but one day, when
Von Gleichen was present, the minister lost his temper with his
wife. He observed that she took no wine at dinner, and told her
that she had learned that habit of abstinence from Saint-Germain;
that HE might do as he pleased, "but you, madame, whose health is
precious to me, I forbid to imitate the regimen of such a dubious
character." Gleichen, who tells the anecdote, says that he was
present when de Choiseul thus lost his temper with his wife. The
dislike of de Choiseul had a mournful effect on the career of
Saint-Germain.
In discussing the strange story of the Chevalier d'Eon, one has
seen that Louis XV. amused himself by carrying on a secret scheme
of fantastic diplomacy through subordinate agents, behind the backs
and without the knowledge of his responsible ministers. The Duc de
Choiseul, as Minister of Foreign Affairs, was excluded, it seems,
from all knowledge of these double intrigues, and the Marechal de
Belle-Isle, Minister of War, was obviously kept in the dark, as was
Madame de Pompadour. Now it is stated by Von Gleichen that the
Marechal de Belle-Isle, from the War Office, started a NEW secret
diplomacy behind the back of de Choiseul, at the Foreign Office.
The King and Madame de Pompadour (who was not initiated into the
general scheme of the King's secret) were both acquainted with what
de Choiseul was not to know--namely, Belle-Isle's plan for secretly
making peace through the mediation, or management, at all events,
of Holland. All this must have been prior to the death of the
Marechal de Belle-Isle in 1761; and probably de Broglie, who
managed the regular old secret policy of Louis XV., knew nothing
about this new clandestine adventure; at all events, the late Duc
de Broglie says nothing about it in his book The King's Secret.[1]
[1] The Duc de Broglie, I am privately informed, could find no clue
to the mystery of Saint-Germain.
The story, as given by Von Gleichen, goes on to say that Saint-
Germain offered to conduct the intrigue at the Hague. As Louis XV.
certainly allowed that maidenly captain of dragoons, d'Eon, to
manage his hidden policy in London, it is not at all improbable
that he really intrusted this fresh cabal in Holland to Saint-
Germain, whom he admitted to great intimacy. To The Hague went
Saint-Germain, diamonds, rubies, senna tea, and all, and began to
diplomatize with the Dutch. But the regular French minister at The
Hague, d'Affry, found out what was going on behind his back--found
it out either because he was sharper than other ambassadors, or
because a personage so extraordinary as Saint-Germain was certain
to be very closely watched, or because the Dutch did not take to
the Undying One, and told d'Affry what he was doing. D'Affry wrote
to de Choiseul. An immortal but dubious personage, he said, was
treating in the interests of France, for peace, which it was
d'Affry's business to do if the thing was to be done at all.
Choiseul replied in a rage by the same courier. Saint-Germain, he
said, must be extradited, bound hand and foot, and sent to the
Bastille. Choiseul thought that he might practice his regimen and
drink his senna tea, to the advantage of public affairs, within
those venerable walls. Then the angry minister went to the King,
told him what orders he had given, and said that, of course, in a
case of this kind it was superfluous to inquire as to the royal
pleasure. Louis XV. was caught; so was the Marechal de Belle-Isle.
They blushed and were silent.
It must be remembered that this report of a private incident could
only come to the narrator, Von Gleichen, from de Choiseul, with
whom he professes to have been intimate. The King and the Marechal
de Belle-Isle would not tell the story of their own discomfiture.
It is not very likely that de Choiseul himself would blab.
However, the anecdote avers that the King and the Minister for War
thought it best to say nothing, and the demand for Saint-Germain's
extradition was presented at The Hague. But the Dutch were not
fond of giving up political offenders. They let Saint-Germain have
a hint; he slipped over to London, and a London paper published a
kind of veiled interview with him in June 1760.
His name, we read, when announced after his death, will astonish
the world more than all the marvels of his life. He has been in
England already (1743-17--?); he is a great unknown. Nobody can
accuse him of anything dishonest or dishonorable. When he was here
before we were all mad about music, and so he enchanted us with his
violin. But Italy knows him as an expert in the plastic arts, and
Germany admires in him a master in chemical science. In France,
where he was supposed to possess the secret of the transmutation of
metals, the police for two years sought and failed to find any
normal source of his opulence. A lady of forty-five once swallowed
a whole bottle of his elixir. Nobody recognized her, for she had
become a girl of sixteen without observing the transformation!
Saint-Germain is said to have remained in London but for a short
period. Horace Walpole does not speak of him again, which is odd,
but probably the Count did not again go into society. Our
information, mainly from Von Gleichen, becomes very misty, a thing
of surmises, really worthless. The Count is credited with a great
part in the palace conspiracies of St. Petersburg; he lived at
Berlin, and, under the name of Tzarogy, at the Court of the
Margrave of Anspach. Then he went, they say, to Italy, and then
north to the Landgrave Charles of Hesse, who dabbled in alchemy.
Here he is said to have died about 1780-85, leaving his papers to
the Landgrave but all is very vague after he disappeared from Paris
in 1760. When next I meet Saint-Germain he is again at Paris,
again mysteriously rich, again he rather disappears than dies, he
calls himself Major Fraser, and the date is in the last years of
Louis Philippe. My authority may be caviled at; it is that of the
late ingenious Mr. Van Damme, who describes Major Fraser in a book
on the characters of the Second Empire. He does not seem to have
heard of Saint-Germain, whom he does not mention.
Major Fraser, "in spite of his English (sic) name, was decidedly
not English, though he spoke the language." He was (like Saint-
Germain) "one of the best dressed men of the period. . . . He
lived alone, and never alluded to his parentage. He was always
flush of money, though the sources of his income were a mystery to
everyone." The French police vainly sought to detect the origin of
Saint-Germain's supplies, opening his letters at the post-office.
Major Fraser's knowledge of every civilized country at every period
was marvelous, though he had very few books. "His memory was
something prodigious. . . . Strange to say, he used often to hint
that his was no mere book knowledge. "'Of course, it is perfectly
ridiculous,'" he remarked, with a strange smile, "'but every now
and then I feel as if this did not come to me from reading, but
from personal experience. At times I become almost convinced that
I lived with Nero, that I knew Dante personally, and so forth.'"[1]
At the major's death not a letter was found giving a clew to his
antecedents, and no money was discovered. DID he die? As in the
case of Saint-Germain, no date is given. The author had an idea
that the major was "an illegitimate son of some exalted person" of
the period of Charles IV. and Ferdinand VII. of Spain.
[1] An Englishman in Paris, vol. i., pp. 130-133. London, 1892.
The author does not mention Saint-Germain, and may never have heard
of him. If his account of Major Fraser is not mere romance, in
that warrior we have the undying friend of Louis XV. and Madame de
Pompadour. He had drunk at Medmenham with Jack Wilkes; as Riccio
he had sung duets with the fairest of unhappy queens; he had
extracted from Blanche de Bechamel the secret of Goby de Mouchy.
As Pinto, he told much of his secret history to Mr. Thackeray, who
says: "I am rather sorry to lose him after three little bits of
Roundabout Papers."
Did Saint-Germain really die in a palace of Prince Charles of Hesse
about 1780-85? Did he, on the other hand, escape from the French
prison where Grosley thought he saw him, during the French
Revolution? Was he known to Lord Lytton about 1860? Was he then
Major Fraser? Is he the mysterious Muscovite adviser of the Dalai
Lama? Who knows? He is a will-o'-the-wisp of the memoir-writers
of the eighteenth century. Whenever you think you have a chance of
finding him in good authentic State papers, he gives you the slip;
and if his existence were not vouched for by Horace Walpole, I
should incline to deem him as Betsy Prig thought of Mrs. Harris.
The Man in the Iron Mask
I
THE LEGEND
The Mystery of the Man in the Iron Mask is, despite a pleasant
saying of Lord Beaconsfield's, one of the most fascinating in
history. By a curious coincidence the wildest legend on the
subject, and the correct explanation of the problem, were offered
to the world in the same year, 1801. According to this form of the
legend, the Man in the Iron Mask was the genuine Louis XIV.,
deprived of his rights in favor of a child of Anne of Austria and
of Mazarin. Immured in the Isles Sainte-Marguerite, in the bay of
Cannes (where you are shown his cell, looking north to the sunny
town), he married, and begot a son. That son was carried to
Corsica, was named de Buona Parte, and was the ancestor of
Napoleon. The Emperor was thus the legitimate representative of
the House of Bourbon.
This legend was circulated in 1801, and is referred to in a
proclamation of the Royalists of La Vendee. In the same year,
1801, Roux Fazaillac, a Citoyen and a revolutionary legislator,
published a work in which he asserted that the Man in the Iron Mask
(as known in rumor) was not one man, but a myth, in which the
actual facts concerning at least two men were blended. It is
certain that Roux Fazaillac was right; or that, if he was wrong,
the Man in the Iron Mask was an obscure valet, of French birth,
residing in England, whose real name was Martin.
Before we enter on the topic of this poor menial's tragic history,
it may be as well to trace the progress of the romantic legend, as
it blossomed after the death of the Man, whose Mask was not of
iron, but of black velvet. Later we shall show how the legend
struck root and flowered, from the moment when the poor valet,
Martin (by his prison pseudonym "Eustache Dauger"), was immured in
the French fortress of Pignerol, in Piedmont (August, 1669).
The Man, in connection with the Mask, is first known to us from a
kind of notebook kept by du Junca, Lieutenant of the Bastille. On
September 18, 1698, he records the arrival of the new Governor of
the Bastille, M. de Saint-Mars, bringing with him, from his last
place, the Isles Sainte-Marguerite, in the bay of Camnes, "an old
prisoner whom he had at Pignerol. He keeps the prisoner always
masked, his name is not spoken . . . and I have put him alone, in
the third chamber of the Bertaudiere tower, having furnished it
some days before with everything, by order of M. de Saint-Mars.
The prisoner is to be served and cared for by M. de Rosarges," the
officer next in command under Saint-Mars.[1]
[1] Funck-Brentano, Legendes et Archives de la Bastille, pp. 86,
87. Paris, 1898, p. 277, a facsimile of this entry.
The prisoner's death is entered by du Junca on November 19, 1703.
To that entry we return later.
The existence of this prisoner was known and excited curiosity. On
October 15, 1711, the Princess Palatine wrote about the case to the
Electress Sophia of Hanover, "A man lived for long years in the
Bastille, masked, and masked he died there. Two musketeers were by
his side to shoot him if ever he unmasked. He ate and slept in his
mask. There must, doubtless, have been some good reason for this,
as otherwise he was very well treated, well lodged, and had
everything given to him that he wanted. He took the Communion
masked; was very devout, and read perpetually."
On October 22, 1711, the Princess writes that the Mask was an
English nobleman, mixed up in the plot of the Duke of Berwick
against William III.--Fenwick's affair is meant. He was imprisoned
and masked that the Dutch usurper might never know what had become
of him.[1]
[1] Op. cit. 98, note I.
The legend was now afloat in society. The sub-commandant of the
Bastille from 1749 to 1787, Chevalier, declared, obviously on the
evidence of tradition, that all the Mask's furniture and clothes
were destroyed at his death, lest they might yield a clew to his
identity. Louis XV. is said to have told Madame de Pompadour that
the Mask was "the minister of an Italian prince." Louis XVI. told
Marie Antoinette (according to Madame de Campan) that the Mask was
a Mantuan intriguer, the same person as Louis XV. indicated.
Perhaps he was, it is one of two possible alternatives. Voltaire,
in the first edition of his "Siecle de Louis XIV.," merely spoke of
a young, handsome, masked prisoner, treated with the highest
respect by Louvois, the Minister of Louis XIV. At last, in
"Questions sur l'Encyclopedie" (second edition), Voltaire averred
that the Mask was the son of Anne of Austria and Mazarin, an elder
brother of Louis XIV. Changes were rung on this note: the Mask was
the actual King, Louis XIV. was a bastard. Others held that he was
James, Duke of Monmouth--or Moliere! In 1770 Heiss identified him
with Mattioli, the Mantuan intriguer, and especially after the
appearance of the book by Roux Fazaillac, in 1801, that was the
generally accepted opinion.
It MAY be true, in part. Mattioli MAY have been the prisoner who
died in the Bastille in November 1703, but the legend of the Mask's
prison life undeniably arose out of the adventure of our valet,
Martin or Eustache Dauger.
II
THE VALET'S HISTORY
After reading the arguments of the advocates of Mattioli, I could
not but perceive that, whatever captive died, masked, at the
Bastille in 1703, the valet Dauger was the real source of most of
the legends about the Man in the Iron Mask. A study of M. Lair's
book "Nicholas Fouquet" (1890) confirmed this opinion. I therefore
pushed the inquiry into a source neglected by the French
historians, namely, the correspondence of the English ambassadors,
agents, and statesmen for the years 1668, 1669.[1] One result is
to confirm a wild theory of my own to the effect that the Man in
the Iron Mask (if Dauger were he) may have been as great a mystery
to himself as to historical inquirers. He may not have known WHAT
he was imprisoned for doing! More important is the probable
conclusion that the long and mysterious captivity of Eustache
Dauger, and of another perfectly harmless valet and victim, was the
mere automatic result of "red tape" of the old French absolute
monarchy. These wretches were caught in the toils of the system,
and suffered to no purpose, for no crime. The two men, at least
Dauger, were apparently mere supernumeraries in the obscure
intrigue of a conspirator known as Roux de Marsilly.
[1] The papers are in the Record Office; for the contents see the
following essay, The Valet's Master.
This truly abominable tragedy of Roux de Marsilly is "another
story," narrated in the following essay. It must suffice here to
say that, in 1669, while Charles II. was negotiating the famous, or
infamous, secret treaty with Louis XIV.--the treaty of alliance
against Holland, and in favor of the restoration of Roman
Catholicism in England--Roux de Marsilly, a French Huguenot, was
dealing with Arlington and others, in favor of a Protestant league
against France.
When he started from England for Switzerland in February, 1669,
Marsilly left in London a valet called by him "Martin," who had
quitted his service and was living with his own family. This man
is the "Eustache Dauger" of our mystery. The name is his prison
pseudonym, as "Lestang" was that of Mattioli. The French
Government was anxious to lay hands on him, for he had certainly,
as the letters of Marsilly prove, come and gone freely between that
conspirator and his English employers. How much Dauger knew, what
amount of mischief he could effect, was uncertain. Much or little,
it was a matter which, strange to say, caused the greatest anxiety
to Louis XIV. and to his Ministers for very many years. Probably
long before Dauger died (the date is unknown, but it was more than
twenty-five years after Marsilly's execution), his secret, if
secret he possessed, had ceased to be of importance. But he was
now in the toils of the French red tape, the system of secrecy
which rarely released its victim. He was guarded, we shall see
with such unheard-of rigor that popular fancy at once took him for
some great, perhaps royal, personage.
Marsilly was publicly tortured to death in Paris on June 22, 1669.
By July 19 his ex-valet, Dauger, had entered on his mysterious term
of captivity. How the French got possession of him, whether he
yielded to cajolery, or was betrayed by Charles II., is uncertain.
The French ambassador at St. James's, Colbert (brother of the
celebrated Minister), writes thus to M. de Lyonne, in Paris, on
July I, 1669:[1] "Monsieur Joly has spoken to the man Martin"
(Dauger), "and has really persuaded him that, by going to France
and telling all that he knows against Roux, he will play the part
of a lad of honor and a good subject."
[1] Transcripts from Paris MSS., Vol. xxxiii., Record Office.
But Martin, after all, was NOT persuaded!
Martin replied to Joly that he knew nothing at all, and that, once
in France, people would think he was well acquainted with the
traffickings of Roux, "and so he would be kept in prison to make
him divulge what he did not know." The possible Man in the Iron
Mask did not know his own secret! But, later in the conversation,
Martin foolishly admitted that he knew a great deal; perhaps he did
this out of mere fatal vanity. Cross to France, however, he would
not, even when offered a safe-conduct and promise of reward.
Colbert therefore proposes to ask Charles to surrender the valet,
and probably Charles descended to the meanness. By July 19, at all
events, Louvois, the War Minister of Louis XIV., was bidding Saint-
Mars, at Pignerol in Piedmont, expect from Dunkirk a prisoner of
the very highest importance--a valet! This valet, now called
"Eustache Dauger," can only have been Marsilly's valet, Martin,
who, by one means or another, had been brought from England to
Dunkirk. It is hardly conceivable, at least, that when a valet, in
England, is "wanted" by the French police on July 1, for political
reasons, and when by July 19 they have caught a valet of extreme
political importance, the two valets should be two different men.
Martin must be Dauger.
Here, then, by July 19, 1669, we find our unhappy serving man in
the toils. Why was he to be handled with such mysterious rigor?
It is true that State prisoners of very little account were kept
with great secrecy. But it cannot well be argued that they were
all treated with the extraordinary precautions which, in the case
of Dauger, were not relaxed for twenty-five or thirty years. The
King says, according to Louvois, that the safe keeping of Dauger is
"of the last importance to his service." He must have intercourse
with nobody. His windows must be where nobody can pass; several
bolted doors must cut him off from the sound of human voices.
Saint-Mars himself, the commandant, must feed the valet daily.
"You must never, under any pretenses listen to what he may wish to
tell you. You must threaten him with death if he speaks one word
except about his actual needs. He is only a valet, and does not
need much furniture."[1]
[1] The letters are printed by Roux Fazaillac, Jung, Lair, and
others.
Saint-Mars replied that, in presence of M. de Vauroy, the chief
officer of Dunkirk (who carried Dauger thence to Pignerol), he had
threatened to run Dauger through the body if he ever dared to
speak, even to him, Saint-Mars. He has mentioned this prisoner, he
says, to no mortal. People believe that Dauger is a Marshal of
France, so strange and unusual are the precautions taken for his
security.
A Marshal of France! The legend has begun. At this time (1669)
Saint-Mars had in charge Fouquet, the great fallen Minister, the
richest and most dangerous subject of Louis XIV. By-and-by he also
held Lauzun, the adventurous wooer of la Grande Mademoiselle. But
it was not they, it was the valet, Dauger, who caused "sensation."
On February 20, 1672, Saint-Mars, for the sake of economy, wished
to use Dauger as valet to Lauzun. This proves that Saint-Mars did
not, after all, see the necessity of secluding Dauger or thought
the King's fears groundless. In the opinion of Saint-Mars, Dauger
did not want to be released, "would never ask to be set free."
Then why was he so anxiously guarded? Louvois refused to let
Dauger be put with Lauzun as valet. In 1675, however, he allowed
Dauger to act as valet to Fouquet, but with Lauzun, said Louvois,
Dauger must have no intercourse. Fouquet had then another prisoner
valet, La Riviere. This man had apparently been accused of no
crime. He was of a melancholy character, and a dropsical habit of
body: Fouquet had amused himself by doctoring him and teaching him
to read.
In the month of December, 1678, Saint-Mars, the commandant of the
prison, brought to Fouquet a sealed letter from Louvois, the seal
unbroken. His own reply was also to be sealed, and not to be seen
by Saint-Mars. Louvois wrote that the King wished to know one
thing, before giving Fouquet ampler liberty. Had his valet,
Eustache Dauger, told his other valet, La Riviere, what he had done
before coming to Pignerol? (de ce a quoi il a ete employe aupravant
que d'etre a Pignerol). "His Majesty bids me ask you [Fouquet]
this question, and expects that you will answer without considering
anything but the truth, that he may know what measures to take,"
these depending on whether Dauger has, or has not, told La Riviere
the story of his past life.[1] Moreover, Lauzun was never, said
Louvois, to be allowed to enter Fouquet's room when Dauger was
present. The humorous point is that, thanks to a hole dug in the
wall between his room and Fouquet's, Lauzun saw Dauger whenever he
pleased.
[1] Lair, Nicholas Foucquet, ii. pp. 463, 464.
From the letter of Louvois to Fouquet, about Dauger (December 23,
1678), it is plain that Louis XIV. had no more pressing anxiety,
nine years after Dauger's arrest, than to conceal what it was that
Dauger had done. It is apparent that Saint-Mars himself either was
unacquainted with this secret, or was supposed by Louvois and the
King to be unaware of it. He had been ordered never to allow
Dauger to tell him; he was not allowed to see the letters on the
subject between Lauzun and Fouquet. We still do not know, and
never shall know, whether Dauger himself knew his own secret, or
whether (as he had anticipated) he was locked up for not divulging
what he did not know.
The answer of Fouquet to Louvois must have satisfied Louis that
Dauger had not imparted his secret to the other valet, La Riviere,
for Fouquet was now allowed a great deal of liberty. In 1679, he
might see his family, the officers of the garrison, and Lauzun--it
being provided that Lauzun and Dauger should never meet. In March,
1680, Fouquet died, and henceforth the two valets were most
rigorously guarded; Dauger, because he was supposed to know
something; La Riviere, because Dauger might have imparted the real
or fancied secret to him. We shall return to these poor serving
men, but here it is necessary to state that, ten months before the
death of their master, Fouquet, an important new captive had been
brought to the prison of Pignerol.
This captive was the other candidate for the honors of the Mask,
Count Mattioli, the secretary of the Duke of Mantua. He was
kidnaped on Italian soil on May 2, 1679, and hurried to the
mountain fortress of Pignerol, then on French ground. His offense
was the betraying of the secret negotiations for the cession of the
town and fortress of Casal, by the Duke of Mantua, to Louis XIV.
The disappearance of Mattioli was, of course, known to the world.
The cause of his enlevement, and the place of his captivity,
Pignerol, were matters of newspaper comment at least as early as
1687. Still earlier, in 1682, the story of Mattioli's arrest and
seclusion in Pignerol had been published in a work named "La
Prudenza Trionfante di Casale."[1] There was thus no mystery, at
the time, about Mattioli; his crime and punishment were perfectly
well known to students of politics. He has been regarded as the
mysterious Man in the Iron Mask, but, for years after his arrest,
he was the least mysterious of State prisoners.
[1] Brentano, op. cit., p. 117.
Here, then, is Mattioli in Pignerol in May, 1679. While Fouquet
then enjoyed relative freedom, while Lauzun schemed escapes or made
insulting love to Mademoiselle Fouquet, Mattioli lived on the bread
and water of affliction. He was threatened with torture to make
him deliver up some papers compromising Louis XIV. It was
expressly commanded that he should have nothing beyond the barest
necessaries of life. He was to be kept dans la dure prison. In
brief, he was used no better than the meanest of prisoners. The
awful life of isolation, without employment, without books, without
writing materials, without sight or sound of man save when Saint-
Mars or his lieutenant brought food for the day, drove captives
mad.
In January, 1680, two prisoners, a monk[1] and one Dubreuil, had
become insane. By February 14, 1680, Mattioli was daily conversing
with God and his angels. "I believe his brain is turned," says
Saint-Mars. In March, 1680, as we saw, Fouquet died. The
prisoners, not counting Lauzun (released soon after), were now
five: (1) Mattioli (mad); (2) Dubreuil (mad); (3) The monk (mad);
(4) Dauger, and (5) La Riviere. These two, being employed as
valets, kept their wits. On the death of Fouquet, Louvois wrote to
Saint-Mars about the two valets. Lauzun must be made to believe
that they had been set at liberty, but, in fact, they must be most
carefully guarded IN A SINGLE CHAMBER. They were shut up in one of
the dungeons of the "Tour d'en bas." Dauger had recently done
something as to which Louvois writes: "Let me know how Dauger can
possibly have done what you tell me, and how he got the necessary
drugs, as I cannot suppose that you supplied him with them" (July
10, 1680).[2]
[1] A monk, who MAY have been this monk, appears in the following
essay, p. 34, infra.
[2] Lair, Nicholas Foucquet, ii., pp. 476, 477.
Here, then, by July, 1680, are the two valets locked in one dungeon
of the "Tour d'en bas." By September Saint-Mars had placed
Mattioli, with the mad monk, in another chamber of the same tower.
He writes: "Mattioli is almost as mad as the monk," who arose from
bed and preached naked. Mattioli behaved so rudely and violently
that the lieutenant of Saint-Mars had to show him a whip, and
threaten him with a flogging. This had its effect. Mattioli, to
make his peace, offered a valuable ring to Blainvilliers. The ring
was kept to be restored to him, if ever Louis let him go free--a
contingency mentioned more than once in the correspondence.
Apparently Mattioli now sobered down, and probably was given a
separate chamber and a valet; he certainly had a valet at Pignerol
later. By May 1681, Dauger and La Riviere still occupied their
common chamber in the "Tour d'en bas." They were regarded by
Louvois as the most important of the five prisoners then at
Pignerol. They, not Mattioli, were the captives about whose safe
and secret keeping Louis and Louvois were most anxious. This
appears from a letter of Louvois to Saint-Mars, of May 12, 1681.
The jailer, Saint-Mars, is to be promoted from Pignerol to Exiles.
"Thither," says Louvois, "the king desires to transport such of
your prisoners as he thinks too important to have in other hands
than yours." These prisoners are "the two in the low chamber of
the tower," the two valets, Dauger and La Riviere.
From a letter of Saint-Mars (June, 1681) we know that Mattioli was
not one of these. He says: "I shall keep at Exiles two birds
(merles) whom I have here: they are only known as the gentry of the
low room in the tower; Mattioli may stay on here at Pignerol with
the other prisoners" (Dubreuil and the mad monk). It is at this
point that Le Citoyen Roux (Fazaillac), writing in the Year IX. of
the Republic (1801), loses touch with the secret.[1] Roux finds,
in the State Papers, the arrival of Eustache Dauger at Pignerol in
1669, but does not know who he is, or what is his quality. He sees
that the Mask must be either Mattioli, Dauger, the monk, one
Dubreuil, or one Calazio. But, overlooking or not having access to
the letter of Saint-Mars of June, 1681, Roux holds that the
prisoners taken to Les Exiles were the monk and Mattioli. One of
these must be the Mask, and Roux votes for Mattioli. He is wrong.
Mattioli beyond all doubt remained at Pignerol.
[1] Recherches Historiques sur l'Homme au Masque de Fer, Paris.
An. IX.
Mountains of argument have been built on these words, deux merles,
"two jail-birds." One of the two, we shall see, became the source
of the legend of the Man in the Iron Mask. "How can a wretched
jail-bird (merle) have been the Mask?" asks M. Topin. "The rogue's
whole furniture and table-linen were sold for 1l. 19s. He only got
a new suit of clothes every three years." All very true; but this
jail-bird and his mate, by the direct statement of Louvois, are
"the prisoners too important to be intrusted to other hands than
yours"--the hands of Saint-Mars--while Mattioli is so unimportant
that he may be left at Pignerol under Villebois.
The truth is, that the offense and the punishment of Mattioli were
well known to European diplomatists and readers of books. Casal,
moreover, at this time was openly ceded to Louis XIV., and Mattioli
could not have told the world more than it already knew. But, for
some inscrutable reason, the secret which Dauger knew, or was
suspected of knowing, became more and more a source of anxiety to
Louvois and Louis. What can he have known? The charges against
his master, Roux de Marsilly, had been publicly proclaimed. Twelve
years had passed since the dealings of Arlington with Marsilly.
Yet, Louvois became more and more nervous.
In accordance with commands of his, on March 2, 1682, the two
valets, who had hitherto occupied one chamber at Exiles as at
Pignerol, were cut off from all communication with each other.
Says Saint-Mars, "Since receiving your letter I have warded the
pair as strictly and exactly as I did M. Fouquet and M. Lauzun, who
cannot brag that he sent or received any intelligence. Night and
day two sentinels watch their tower; and my own windows command a
view of the sentinels. Nobody speaks to my captives but myself, my
lieutenant, their confessor, and the doctor, who lives eighteen
miles away, and only sees them when I am present." Years went by;
in January, 1687, one of the two captives died; we really do not
know which with absolute certainty. However, the intensified
secrecy with which the survivor was now guarded seems more
appropriate to Dauger and M. Funck-Brentano and M. Lair have no
doubt that it was La Riviere who expired. He was dropsical, that
appears in the official correspondence, and the dead prisoner died
of dropsy.
As for the strange secrecy about Dauger, here is an example.
Saint-Mars, in January, 1687, was appointed to the fortress of the
Isles Sainte-Marguerite, that sun themselves in the bay of Cannes.
On January 20 he asks leave to go to see his little kingdom. He
must leave Dauger, but has forbidden even his lieutenant to speak
to that prisoner. This was an increase of precaution since 1682.
He wishes to take the captive to the Isles, but how? A sedan chair
covered over with oilcloth seems best. A litter might break down,
litters often did, and some one might then see the passenger.
Now M. Funck-Brentano says, to minimize the importance of Dauger,
"he was shut up like so much luggage in a chair hermetically closed
with oilcloth, carried by eight Piedmontese relays of four."
Luggage is not usually carried in hermetically sealed sedan chairs,
but Saint-Mars has explained why, by surplus of precaution, he did
not use a litter. The litter might break down and Dauger might be
seen. A new prison was built specially, at the cost of 5,000
lires, for Dauger at Sainte-Marguerite, with large sunny rooms. On
May 3, 1687, Saint-Mars had entered on his island realm, Dauger
being nearly killed by twelve days' journey in a closed chair. He
again excited the utmost curiosity. On January 8, 1688, Saint-Mars
writes that his prisoner is believed by the world to be either a
son of Oliver Cromwell, or the Duc de Beaufort,[1] who was never
seen again, dead or alive, after a night battle in Crete, on June
25, 1669, just before Dauger was arrested. Saint-Mars sent in a
note of the TOTAL of Dauger's expenses for the year 1687. He
actually did not dare to send the ITEMS, he says, lest they, if the
bill fell into the wrong hands, might reveal too much.
[1] Duc de Beaufort whom Athos releases from prison in Dumas's
Vingt Ans Apres.
Meanwhile, an Italian news-letter, copied into a Leyden paper, of
August 1687, declared that Mattioli had just been brought from
Pignerol to Sainte-Marguerite. There was no mystery about
Mattioli, the story of his capture was published in 1682, but the
press, on one point, was in error; Mattioli was still at Pignerol.
The known advent of the late Commandant of Pignerol, Saint-Mars,
with a single concealed prisoner, at the island, naturally
suggested the erroneous idea that the prisoner was Mattioli. The
prisoner was really Dauger, the survivor of the two valets.
From 1688 to 1691 no letter about Dauger has been published.
Apparently he was then the only prisoner on the island, except one
Chezut, who was there before Dauger arrived, and gave up his
chamber to Dauger while the new cells were being built. Between
1689 and 1693 six Protestant preachers were brought to the island,
while Louvois, the Minister, died in 1691, and was succeeded by
Barbezieux. On August 13, 1691, Barbezieux wrote to ask Saint-Mars
about "the prisoner whom he had guarded for twenty years." The
only such prisoner was Dauger, who entered Pignerol in August,
1669. Mattioli had been a prisoner only for twelve years, and lay
in Pignerol, not in Sainte-Marguerite, where Saint-Mars now was.
Saint-Mars replied: "I can assure you that NOBODY HAS SEEN HIM BUT
MYSELF."
By the beginning of March, 1694, Pignerol had been bombarded by the
enemies of France; presently Louis XIV. had to cede it to Savoy.
The prisoners there must be removed. Mattioli, in Pignerol, at the
end of 1693, had been in trouble. He and his valet had tried to
smuggle out letters written on the linings of their pockets. These
were seized and burned. On March 20, 1694, Barbezieux wrote to
Laprade, now commanding at Pignerol, that he must take his three
prisoners, one by one, with all secrecy, to Sainte-Marguerite.
Laprade alone must give them their food on the journey. The
military officer of the escort was warned to ask no questions.
Already (February 26, 1694) Barbezieux had informed Saint-Mars that
these prisoners were coming. They are of more consequence, one of
them at least, than the prisoners on the island, and must be put in
the safest places." The "one" is doubtless Mattioli. In 1681
Louvois had thought Dauger and La Riviere more important than
Mattioli, who, in March, 1694, came from Pignerol to Sainte-
Marguerite. Now in April, 1694, a prisoner died at the island, a
prisoner who, like Mattioli, HAD A VALET. We hear of no other
prisoner on the island, except Mattioli who had a valet. A letter
of Saint-Mars (January 6, 1696) proves that no prisoner THEN had a
valet, for each prisoner collected his own dirty plates and dishes,
piled them up, and handed them to the lieutenant.
M. Funck-Brentano argues that in this very letter (January 6, 1696)
Saint-Mars speaks of "les valets de messieurs les prisonniers."
But in THAT part of the letter Saint-Mars is not speaking of the
actual state of things at Sainte-Marguerite, but is giving
reminiscences of Fouquet and Lauzun, who, of course, at Piguerol,
had valets, and had money, as he shows. Dauger had no money. M.
Funck-Brentano next argues that early in 1694 one of the preacher
prisoners, Melzac, died, and cites M. Jung ("La Verite sur le
Masque de Fer," p. 91). This is odd, as M. Jung says that Melzac,
or Malzac, "died in the end of 1692, or early in 1693." Why, then,
does M. Funck-Brentano cite M. Jung for the death of the preacher
early in 1694, when M. Jung (conjecturally) dates his decease at
least a year earlier?[1] It is not a mere conjecture as, on March
3, 1693, Barbezieux begs Saint-Mars to mention his Protestant
prisoners under nicknames. There are THREE, and Malzac is no longer
one of them. Malzac, in 1692, suffered from a horrible disease,
discreditable to one of the godly, and in October, 1692, had been
allowed medical expenses. Whether they included a valet or not,
Malzac seems to have been non-existent by March, 1693. Had he
possessed a valet, and had he died in 1694, why should HIS valet
have been "shut up in the vaulted prison"? This was the fate of
the valet of the prisoner who died in April, 1694, and was probably
Mattioli.
[1] M. Funck-Brentano's statement is in Revue Historique, lvi. p.
298. "Malzac died at the beginning of 1694," citing Jung, p. 91.
Now on p. 91 M. Jung writes, "At the beginning of 1694 Saint-Mars
had six prisoners, of whom one Melzac, dies." But M. Jung (pp.
269, 270) later writes, "It is probable that Melzac died at the end
of 1692, or early in 1693," and he gives his reasons, which are
convincing. M. Funck-Brentano must have overlooked M. Jung's
change of opinion between his p. 91 and his pp. 269, 270.
Mattioli, certainly, had a valet in December, 1693, at Pignerol.
He went to Sainte-Marguerite in March, 1694. In April, 1694, a
prisoner with a valet died at Sainte-Marguerite. In January, 1696,
no prisoner at Sainte-Marguerite had a valet. Therefore, there is
a strong presumption that the "prisonnier au valet" who died in
April, was Mattioli.
After December, 1693, when he was still at Pignerol, the name of
Mattioli, freely used before, never occurs in the correspondence.
But we still often hear of "l'ancien prisonnier," "the old
prisoner." He was, on the face of it, Dauger, by far the oldest
prisoner. In 1688, Saint-Mars, having only one prisoner (Dauger),
calls him merely "my prisoner. In 1691, when Saint-Mars had
several prisoners, Barbezieux styles Dauger "your prisoner of
twenty years' standing." When, in 1696-1698, Saint-Mars mentions
"mon ancien prisonnier," "my prisoner of long standing," he
obviously means Dauger, not Mattioli--above all, if Mattioli died
in 1694. M. Funck-Brentano argues that "mon ancien prisonnier" can
only mean "my erstwhile prisoner, he who was lost and is restored
to me"--that is, Mattioli. This is not the view of M. Jung, or M.
Lair, or M. Loiseleur.
Friends of Mattioli's claims rest much on this letter of Barbezieux
to Saint-Mars (November 17, 1697): "You have only to watch over the
security of all your prisoners, without ever explaining to anyone
what it is that your prisoner of long standing did." That secret,
it is argued, MUST apply to Mattioli. But all the world knew what
Mattioli had done! Nobody knew, and nobody knows, what Eustache
Dauger had done. It was one of the arcana imperii. It is the
secret enforced ever since Dauger's arrest in 1669. Saint-Mars
(1669) was not to ask. Louis XIV. could only lighten the captivity
of Fouquet (1678) if his valet, La Riviere, did not know what
Dauger had done. La Riviere (apparently a harmless man) lived and
died in confinement, the sole reason being that he might perhaps
know what Dauger had done. Consequently there is the strongest
presumption that the "ancien prisonnier" of 1697 is Dauger, and
that "what he had done" (which Saint-Mars must tell to no one) was
what Dauger did, not what Mattioli did. All Europe knew what
Mattioli had done; his whole story had been published to the world
in 1682 and 1687.
On July 19, 1698, Barbezieux bade Saint-Mars come to assume the
command of the Bastille. He is to bring his "old prisoner," whom
not a soul is to see. Saint-Mars therefore brought his man MASKED,
exactly as another prisoner was carried masked from Provence to the
Bastille in 1695. M. Funck-Brentano argues that Saint-Mars was now
quite fond of his old Mattioli, so noble, so learned.
At last, on September 18, 1698, Saint-Mars lodged his "old
prisoner" in the Bastille, "an old prisoner whom he had at
Pignerol," says the journal of du Junca, Lieutenant of the
Bastille. His food, we saw, was brought him by Rosarges alone, the
"Major," a gentleman who had always been with Saint-Mars. Argues
M. Funck-Brentano, all this proves that the captive was a
gentleman, not a valet. Why? First, because the Bastille, under
Louis XIV., was "une prison de distinction." Yet M. Funck-Brentano
tells us that in Mazarin's time "valets mixed up with royal plots"
were kept in the Bastille. Again, in 1701, in this "noble prison,"
the Mask was turned out of his room to make place for a female
fortune-teller, and was obliged to chum with a profligate valet of
nineteen, and a "beggarly" bad patriot, who "blamed the conduct of
France, and approved that of other nations, especially the Dutch."
M. Funck-Brentano himself publishes these facts (1898), in part
published earlier (1890) by M. Lair.[1] Not much noblesse here!
Next, if Rosarges, a gentleman, served the Mask, Saint-Mars alone
(1669) carried his food to the valet, Dauger. So the service of
Rosarges does not ennoble the Mask and differentiate him from
Dauger, who was even more nobly served, by Saint-Mars.
[1] Legendes de la Bastille, pp. 86-89. Citing du Junca's Journal,
April 30, 1701.
On November 19, 1703, the Mask died suddenly (still in his velvet
mask), and was buried on the 20th. The parish register of the
church names him "Marchialy" or "Marchioly," one may read it either
way; du Junca, Lieutenant of the Bastille, in his contemporary
journal, calls him "M. de Marchiel." Now, Saint-Mars often spells
Mattioli, "Marthioly."
This is the one strength of the argument for Mattioli's claims to
the Mask. M. Lair replies, "Saint-Mars had a mania for burying
prisoners under fancy names," and gives examples. One is only a
gardener, Francois Eliard (1701), concerning whom it is expressly
said that, as he is a prisoner, his real name is not to be given,
so he is registered as Pierre Maret (others read Navet, "Peter
Turnip"). If Saint-Mars, looking about for a false name for
Dauger's burial register, hit on Marsilly (the name of Dauger's old
master), that MIGHT be miswritten Marchialy. However it be, the
age of the Mask is certainly falsified; the register gives "about
forty-five years old." Mattioli would have been sixty-three;
Dauger cannot have been under fifty-three.
There the case stands. If Mattioli died in April, 1694, he cannot
be the Man in the Iron Mask. Of Dauger's death we find no record,
unless he was the Man in the Iron Mask, and died, in 1703, in the
Bastille. He was certainly, in 1669 and 1688, at Pignerol and at
Sainte-Marguerite, the center of the mystery about some great
prisoner, a Marshal of France, the Duc de Beaufort, or a son of
Oliver Cromwell. Mattioli was not mystery, no secret. Dauger is
so mysterious that probably the secret of his mystery was unknown
to himself. By 1701, when obscure wretches were shut up with the
Mask, the secret, whatever its nature, had ceased to be of moment.
The captive was now the mere victim of cruel routine. But twenty
years earlier, Saint-Mars had said that Dauger "takes things
easily, resigned to the will of God and the King."
To sum up, on July 1, 1669, the valet of the Huguenot intriguer,
Roux de Marsilly, the valet resident in England, known to his
master as "Martin," was "wanted" by the French secret police. By
July 19, a valet, of the highest political importance, had been
brought to Dunkirk, from England, no doubt. My hypothesis assumes
that this valet, though now styled "Eustache Dauger," was the
"Martin of Roux de Marsilly. He was kept with so much mystery at
Pigernol that already the legend began its course; the captive
valet was said to be a Marshal of France! We then follow Dauger
from Pignerol to Les Exiles, till January, 1687, when one valet out
of a pair, Dauger being one of them, dies. We presume that Dauger
is the survivor, because the great mystery still is "what he HAS
DONE," whereas the other valet had done nothing, but may have known
Dauger's secret. Again the other valet had long been dropsical,
and the valet who died in 1687 died of dropsy.
In 1688, Dauger, at Sainte-Marguerite, is again the source and
center of myths; he is taken for a son of Oliver Cromwell, or for
the Duc de Beufort. In June 1692, one of the Huguenot preachers at
Saint-Marguerite writes on his shirt and pewter plate and throws
them out of the window.[1] Legend attributes these acts to the Man
in the Iron Mask, and transmutes a pewter into a silver plate.
Now, in 1689-1693, Mattioli was at Pignerol, but Dauger was at
Sainte-Marguerite, and the Huguenot's act is attributed to him.
Thus Dauger, not Mattioli, is the center round which the myths
crystallize: the legends concern him, not Mattioli, whose case is
well known, and gives rise to no legend. Finally, we have shown
that Mattioli probably died at Sainte-Marguerite in April, 1694.
If so, then nobody but Dauger can be the "old prisoner" whom Saint-
Mars brought, masked, to the Bastille, in September, 1698, and who
died there in November, 1703. However suppose that Mattioli did
not die in 1694, but was the masked man who died in the Bastille in
1703, then the legend of Dauger came to be attributed to Mattioli:
these two men's fortunes are combined in the one myth.
[1] Saint-Mars au Ministre, June 4, 1692.
The central problem remains unsolved.
What had the valet, Eustache Dauger, done?[1]
[1] One marvels that nobody has recognized, in the mask, James
Stuart (James de la Cloche), eldest of the children of Charles II.
He came to England in 1668, was sent to Rome, and "disappears from
history." See infra, "The Mystery of James de la Cloche."
III
THE VALET'S MASTER
The secret of the Man in the Iron Mask, or at least of one of the
two persons who have claims to be the Mask, was "What had Eustache
Dauger done?" To guard this secret the most extraordinary
precautions were taken, as we have shown in the foregoing essay.
And yet, if secret there was, it might have got wind in the
simplest fashion. In the "Vicomte de Bragelonne," Dumas describes
the tryst of the Secret-hunters with the dying Chief of the Jesuits
at the inn in Fontainebleau. They come from many quarters, there
is a Baron of Germany and a laird from Scotland, but Aramis takes
the prize. He knows the secret of the Mask, the most valuable of
all to the intriguers of the Company of Jesus.
Now, despite all the precautions of Louvois and Saint-Mars, despite
sentinels for ever posted under Dauger's windows, despite
arrangements which made it impossible for him to signal to people
on the hillside at Les Exiles, despite the suppression even of the
items in the accounts of his expenses, his secret, if he knew it,
could have been discovered, as we have remarked, by the very man
most apt to make mischievous use of it--by Lauzun. That brilliant
and reckless adventurer could see Dauger, in prison at Pignerol,
when he pleased, for he had secretly excavated a way into the rooms
of his fellow prisoner, Fouquet, on whom Dauger attended as valet.
Lauzun was released soon after Fouquet's death. It is unlikely
that he bought his liberty by the knowledge of the secret and there
is nothing to suggest that he used it (if he possessed it) in any
other way.
The natural clew to the supposed secret of Dauger is a study of the
career of his master, Roux de Marsilly. As official histories say
next to nothing about him, we may set forth what can be gleaned
from the State Papers in our Record Office. The earliest is a
letter of Roux de Marsilly to Mr. Joseph Williamson, secretary of
Lord Arlington (December, 1668). Marsilly sends Martin (on our
theory Eustache Dauger) to bring back from Williamson two letters
from his own correspondent in Paris. He also requests Williamson
to procure for him from Arlington a letter of protection, as he is
threatened with arrest for some debt in which he is not really
concerned. Martin will explain. The next paper is indorsed
"Received December 28, 1668, Mons. de Marsilly." As it is dated
December 27, Marsilly must have been in England. The contents of
this piece deserve attention, because they show the terms on which
Marsilly and Arlington were, or, at least, how Marsilly conceived
them.
(1) Marsilly reports, on the authority of his friends at Stockholm,
that the King of Sweden intends, first to intercede with Louis XIV.
in favor of the French Huguenots, and next, if diplomacy fails, to
join in arms with the other Protestant Powers of Europe.
(2) His correspondent in Holland learns that if the King of England
invites the States to any "holy resolution," they will heartily
lend forces. No leader so good as the English King--Charles II.!
Marsilly had shown ARLINGTON'S LETTER to a Dutch friend, who bade
him approach the Dutch ambassador in England. He has dined with
that diplomatist. Arlington had, then, gone so far as to write an
encouraging letter. The Dutch ambassador had just told Marsilly
that he had received the same news, namely, that, Holland would aid
the Huguenots, persecuted by Louis XIV.
(3) Letters from Provence, Languedoc, and Dauphine say that the
situation there is unaltered.
(4) The Canton of Zurich write that they will keep their promises
and that Berne is anxious to please the King of Great Britain, and
that it is ready to raise, with Zurich, 15,000 men. They are not
afraid of France.
(5) Zurich fears that, if Charles is not represented at the next
Diet, Bale and Saint Gall will be intimidated, and not dare to join
the Triple Alliance of Spain, Holland, and England. The best plan
will be for Marsilly to represent England at the Diet of January
25, 1669, accompanied by the Swiss General Balthazar. This will
encourage friends "to give His Britannic Majesty the satisfaction
which he desires, and will produce a close union between Holland,
Sweden, the Cantons, and other Protestant States."
This reads as if Charles had already expressed some "desire."
(6) Geneva grumbles at a reply of Charles "through a bishop who is
their enemy," the Bishop of London, "a persecutor of our religion,"
that is, of Presbyterianism. However, nothing will dismay the
Genevans, "si S. M. B. ne change."
Then comes a blank in the paper. There follows a copy of a letter
as if from Charles II. himself, to "the Right High and Noble
Seigneurs of Zurich." He has heard of their wishes from Roux de
Marsilly, whom he commissions to wait upon them. "I would not have
written by my Bishop of London had I been better informed, but
would myself have replied to your obliging letter, and would have
assured you, as I do now, that I desire. . . ."
It appears as if this were a draft of a kind of letter which
Marsilly wanted Charles to write to Zurich, and there is a similar
draft of a letter for Arlington to follow, if he and Charles wish
to send Marsilly to the Swiss Diet. The Dutch ambassador, with
whom Marsilly dined on December 26, the Constable of Castille, and
other grandees, are all of opinion that he should visit the
Protestant Swiss, as from the King of England. The scheme is for
an alliance of England, Holland, Spain, and the Protestant Cantons,
against France and Savoy.
Another letter of Marsilly to Arlington, only dated Jeudi, avers
that he can never repay Arlington for his extreme kindness and
liberality. "No man in England is more devoted to you than I am,
and shall be all my life."[1]
[1] State Papers, France, vol. 125, 106.
On the very day when Marsilly drafted for Charles his own
commission to treat with Zurich for a Protestant alliance against
France, Charles himself wrote to his sister, Madame (Henriette
d'Orleans). He spoke of his secret treaty with France. "You know
how much secrecy is necessary for the carrying on of the business,
and I assure you that nobody does, nor shall, know anything of it
here, but myself and that one person more, till it be fit to be
public."[1] (Is "that one person" de la Cloche?)
[1] Madame, by Julia Cartwright, p. 275.
Thus Marsilly thought Charles almost engaged for the Protestant
League, while Charles was secretly allying himself with France
against Holland. Arlington was probably no less deceived by
Charles than Marsilly was.
The Bishop of London's share in the dealing with Zurich is obscure.
It appears certain that Arlington was not consciously deceiving
Marsilly. Madame wrote, on February 12, as to Arlington, "The
man's attachment to the Dutch and his inclination towards Spain are
too well known."[1] Not till April 25, 1669, does Charles tell his
sister that Arlington has an inkling of his secret dealings with
France; how he knows, Charles cannot tell.[2] It is impossible for
us to ascertain how far Charles himself deluded Marsilly, who went
to the Continent early in spring, 1669. Before May 15-25, 1669, in
fact on April 14, Marsilly had been kidnaped by agents of Louis
XIV., and his doom was dight. Here is the account of the matter,
written to ---- by Perwich in Paris:
[1] Ibid., p. 281.
[2] Ibid., p. 285.
"W. Perwich to ----
"Paris, May 25, '69.
"Honored Sir,
"The Cantons of Switzerland are much troubled at the French King's
having sent fifteen horsemen into Switzerland from whence the Sr de
Manille, the King's resident there, had given information of the Sr
Roux de Marsilly's being there negotiating the bringing the Cantons
into the Triple League by discourses much to the disadvantage of
France, giving them very ill impressions of the French King's
Government, who was betrayed by a monk that kept him company and
intercepted by the said horsemen brought into France and is
expected at the Bastille. I believe you know the man. . . . I
remember him in England."
Can this monk be the monk who went mad in prison at Pignerol,
sharing the cell of Mattioli? Did he, too, suffer for his
connection with the secret? We do not know, but the position of
Charles was awkward. Marsilly, dealing with the Swiss, had come
straight from England, where he was lie with Charles's minister,
Arlington, and with the Dutch and Spanish ambassadors. The King
refers to the matter in a letter to his sister of May 24, 1669
(misdated by Miss Cartwright, May 24, 1668.)[1]
[1] Madame, by Julia Cartwright, p. 264.
"You have, I hope, received full satisfaction by the last post in
the matter of Marsillac [Marsilly], for my Ld. Arlington has sent
to Mr. Montague [English ambassador at Paris] his history all the
time he was here, by which you will see how little credit he had
here, and that particularly my Lord Arlington was not in his good
graces, because he did not receive that satisfaction, in his
negotiation, he expected, and that was only in relation to the
Swissers, and so I think I have said enough of this matter."
Charles took it easily!
On May 15/25 Montague acknowledged Arlington's letter to which
Charles refers; he has been approached, as to Marsilly, by the
Spanish resident, "but I could not tell how to do anything in the
business, never having heard of the man, or that he was employed by
my Master [Charles] in any business. I have sent you also a copy
of a letter which an Englishman writ to me that I do not know, in
behalf of Roux de Marsilly, but that does not come by the post,"
being too secret.[1]
[1] State Papers, France, vol. 126.
France had been well-informed about Marsilly while he was in
England. He then had a secretary, two lackeys, and a valet de
chambre, and was frequently in conference with Arlington and the
Spanish ambassador to the English Court. Colbert, the French
ambassador in London, had written all this to the French
Government, on April 25, before he heard of Marsilly's arrest.[1]
[1] Bibl. Nat., Fonds. Francais, No. 10665.
The belief that Marsilly was an agent of Charles appears to have
been general, and, if accepted by Louis XIV., would interfere with
Charles's private negotiations for the Secret Treaty with France.
On May 18 Prince d'Aremberg had written on the subject to the
Spanish ambassador in Paris. Marsilly, he says, was arrested in
Switzerland, on his way to Berne, with a monk who was also seized,
and, a curious fact, Marsilly's valet was killed in the struggle.
This valet, of course, was not Dauger, whom Marsilly had left in
England. Marsilly "doit avoir demande la protection du Roy de la
Grande Bretagne en faveur des Religionaires (Huguenots) de France,
et passer en Suisse avec quelque commission de sa part."
D'Aremberg begs the Spanish ambassador to communicate all this to
Montague, the English ambassador at Paris, but Montague probably,
like Perwich, knew nothing of the business any more than he knew of
Charles's secret dealings with Louis through Madame.[1]
[1] State Papers, France. vol. 126.
To d'Aremberg's letter is pinned an unsigned English note,
obviously intended for Arlington's reading.
"Roux de Marsilly is still in the Bastille though they have a mind
to hang him, yet they are much puzzled what to do with him. De
Lionne has beene to examine him twice or thrice, but there is noe
witnes to prove anything against him. I was told by one that the
French king told it to, that in his papers they find great mention
of the Duke of Bucks: and your name, and speak as if he were much
trusted by you. I have enquired what this Marsilly is, and I find
by one Mr. Marsilly that I am acquainted withall, and a man of
quality, that this man's name is onely Roux, and borne at Nismes
and having been formerly a soldier in his troope, ever since has
taken his name to gain more credit in Switserland where hee,
Marsilly, formerly used to bee employed by his Coll: the Mareschall
de Schomberg who invaded Switserland."
We next find a very curious letter, from which it appears that the
French Government inclined to regard Marsilly as, in fact, an agent
of Charles, but thought it wiser to trump up against him a charge
of conspiring against the life of Louis XIV. On this charge, or
another, he was executed, while the suspicion that he was an agent
of English treachery may have been the real cause of the
determination to destroy him. The Balthazar with whom Marsilly
left his papers is mentioned with praise by him in his paper for
Arlington, of December 27, 1668. He is the General who should have
accompanied Marsilly to the Diet.
The substance of the letter (given in full in Note I.) is to the
following effect. P. du Moulin (Paris, May 19/29 1669) writes to
Arlington. Ever since, Ruvigny, the late French ambassador, a
Protestant, was in England, the French Government had been anxious
to kidnap Roux de Marsilly. They hunted him in England, Holland,
Flanders, and Franche-Comte. As we know from the case of Mattioli,
the Government of Louis XIV. was unscrupulously daring in breaking
the laws of nations, and seizing hostile personages in foreign
territory, as Napoleon did in the affair of the Duc d'Enghien.
When all failed Louis bade Turenne capture Roux de Marsilly
wherever he could find him. Turenne sent officers and gentlemen
abroad, and, after four months' search they found Marsilly in
Switzerland. They took him as he came out of the house of his
friend, General Balthazar, and carried him to Gex. No papers were
found on him, but he asked his captors to send to Balthazar and get
"the commission he had from England," which he probably thought
would give him the security of an official diplomatic position.
Having got this document, Marsilly's captors took it to the French
Ministers. Nothing could be more embarrassing, if this were true,
to Charles's representative in France, Montague, and to Charles's
secret negotiations, also to Arlington, who had dealt with
Marsilly. On his part, the captive Marsilly constantly affirmed
that he was the envoy of the King of England. The common talk of
Paris was that an agent of Charles was in the Bastille, "though at
Court they pretended to know nothing of it." Louis was overjoyed
at Marsilly's capture, giving out that he was conspiring against
his life. Monsieur told Montague that he need not beg for the life
of a would-be murderer like Marsilly. But as to this idea, "they
begin now to mince it at Court," and Ruvigny assured du Moulin
"that they had no such thoughts." De Lyonne had seen Marsilly and
observed that it was a blunder to seize him. The French Government
was nervous, and Turenne's secretary had been "pumping" several
ambassadors as to what they thought of Marsilly's capture on
foreign territory. One ambassador replied with spirit that a
crusade of all Europe against France, as of old against the
Moslems, would be necessary. Would Charles, du Moulin asked, own
or disown Marsilly?
Montague's position was now awkward. On May 23, his account of the
case was read, at Whitehall, to the Foreign Committee in London.
(See Note II. for the document.) He did not dare to interfere in
Marsilly's behalf, because he did not know whether the man was an
agent of Charles or not. Such are the inconveniences of a secret
royal diplomacy carried on behind the backs of Ministers. Louis
XV. later pursued this method with awkward consequences.[1] The
French Court, Montague said, was overjoyed at the capture of
Marsilly, and a reward of 100,000 crowns, "I am told very
privately, is set upon his head." The French ambassador in
England, Colbert, had reported that Charles had sent Marsilly "to
draw the Swisses into the Triple League" against France. Montague
had tried to reassure Monsieur (Charles's brother-in-law), but was
himself entirely perplexed. As Monsieur's wife, Charles's sister,
was working with Charles for the secret treaty with Louis, the
State and family politics were clearly in a knot. Meanwhile, the
Spanish ambassador kept pressing Montague to interfere in favor of
Marsilly. After Montague's puzzled note had been read to the
English Foreign Committee on May 23, Arlington offered
explanations. Marsilly came to England, he said, when Charles was
entering into negotiations for peace with Holland, and when France
seemed likely to oppose the peace. No proposition was made to him
or by him. Peace being made, Marsilly was given money to take him
out of the country. He wanted the King to renew his alliance with
the Swiss cantons, but was told that the cantons must first expel
the regicides of Charles I. He undertook to arrange this, and some
eight months later came back to England. "He was coldly used, and
I was complained of for not using so important a man well enough."
[1] Cf. Le Secret du Roi, by the Duc de Broglie.
As we saw, Marsilly expressed the most effusive gratitude to
Arlington, which does not suggest cold usage. Arlington told the
complainers that Marsilly was "another man's spy," what man's,
Dutch, Spanish, or even French, he does not explain. So Charles
gave Marsilly money to go away. He was never trusted with anything
but the expulsion of the regicides from Switzerland. Arlington was
ordered by Charles to write a letter thanking Balthazar for his
good offices.
These explanations by Arlington do not tally with Marsilly's
communications to him, as cited at the beginning of this inquiry.
Nothing is said in these about getting the regicides of Charles I.
out of Switzerland: the paper is entirely concerned with bringing
the Protestant Cantons into anti-French League with England,
Holland, Spain, and even Sweden. On the other hand, Arlington's
acknowledged letter to Balthazar, carried by Marsilly, may be the
"commission" of which Marsilly boasted. In any case, on June 2,
Charles gave Colbert, the French ambassador, an audience, turning
even the Duke of York out of the room. He then repeated to Colbert
the explanations of Arlington, already cited, and Arlington, in a
separate interview, corroborated Charles. So Colbert wrote to
Louis (June 3, 1669); but to de Lyonne, on the same day, "I trust
that you will extract from Marsilly much matter for the King's
service. It seemed to me that milord d'Arlington was uneasy about
it [en avait de l'inquitetude]. . . . There is here in England one
Martin" (Eustace Dauger), "who has been that wretch's valet, and
who left him discontent." Colbert then proposes to examine Martin,
who may know a good deal, and to send him into France. On June 10,
Colbert writes to Louis that he expects to see Martin.[1]
[1] Bibl. Nat., Fonds. Francais, No. 10665.
On June 24, Colbert wrote to Louis about a conversation with
Charles. It is plain that proofs of a murder-plot by Marsilly were
scanty or non-existent, though Colbert averred that Marsilly had
discussed the matter with the Spanish Ministers. "Charles knew
that he had had much conference with Isola, the Spanish
ambassador." Meanwhile, up to July 1, Colbert was trying to
persuade Marsilly's valet to go to France, which he declined to do,
as we have seen. However, the luckless lad, by nods and by veiled
words, indicated that he knew a great deal. But not by promise of
security and reward could the valet be induced to return to France.
"I might ask the King to give up Martin, the valet of Marsilly, to
me," Colbert concludes, and, by hook or by crook, he secured the
person of the wretched man, as we have seen. In a postcript,
Colbert says that he has heard of the execution of Marsilly.
By July 19, as we saw in the previous essay, Louvois was bidding
Saint-Mars expect, at Pignerol from Dunkirk, a prisoner of the
highest political importance, to be guarded with the utmost
secrecy, yet a valet. That valet must be Martin, now called
Eustache Dauger, and his secret can only be connected with
Marsilly. It may have been something about Arlington's
negotiations through Marsilly, as compromising Charles II.
Arlington's explanations to the Foreign Committee were certainly
incomplete and disingenuous. He, if not Charles, was more deeply
engaged with Marsilly than he ventured to report. But Marsilly
himself avowed that he did not know why he was to be executed.
Executed he was, in circumstances truly hideous. Perwich, June 5,
wrote to an unnamed correspondent in England: "They have all his
papers, which speak much of the Triple Alliance, but I know not
whether they can lawfully hang him for this, having been
naturalized in Holland, and taken in a privileged country"
(Switzerland). Montague (Paris, June 22, 1669) writes to Arlington
that Marsilly is to die, so it has been decided, for "a rape which
he formerly committed at Nismes," and after the execution, on June
26, declares that, when broken on the wheel, Marsilly "still
persisted that he was guilty of nothing, nor did know why he was
put to death."
Like Eustache Dauger, Marsilly professed that he did not know his
own secret. The charge of a rape, long ago, at Nismes, was
obviously trumped up to cover the real reason for the extraordinary
vindictiveness with which he was pursued, illegally taken, and
barbarously slain. Mere Protestant restlessness on his part is
hardly an explanation. There was clearly no evidence for the
charge of a plot to murder Louis XIV., in which Colbert, in
England, seems to have believed. Even if the French Government
believed that he was at once an agent of Charles II., and at the
same time a would-be assassin of Louis XIV., that hardly accounts
for the intense secrecy with which his valet, Eustache Dauger, was
always surrounded. Did Marsilly know of the Secret Treaty, and was
it from him that Arlington got his first inkling of the royal plot?
If so, Marsilly would probably have exposed the mystery in
Protestant interests. We are entirely baffled.
In any case, Francis Vernon, writing from Paris to Williamson (?)
(June 19/25, 1669), gave a terrible account of Marsilly's death.
(For the letter, see Note V.) With a broken piece of glass (as we
learn from another source), Marsilly, in prison, wounded himself in
a ghastly manner, probably hoping to die by loss of blood. They
seared him with a red-hot iron, and hurried on his execution. He
was broken on the wheel, and was two hours in dying (June 22).
Contrary to usage, a Protestant preacher was brought to attend him
on the scaffold. He came most reluctantly, expecting insult, but
not a taunt was uttered by the fanatic populace. "He came up the
scaffold, great silence all about," Marsilly lay naked, stretched
on a St. Andrew's cross. He had seemed half dead, his head hanging
limp, "like a drooping calf." To greet the minister of his own
faith, he raised himself, to the surprise of all, and spoke out
loud and clear. He utterly denied all share in a scheme to murder
Louis. The rest may be read in the original letter (p. 51).
So perished Roux de Marsilly; the history of the master throws no
light on the secret of the servant. That secret, for many years,
caused the keenest anxiety to Louis XIV. and Louvois. Saint-Mars
himself must not pry into it. Yet what could Dauger know? That
there had been a conspiracy against the King's life? But that was
the public talk of Paris. If Dauger had guilty knowledge, his life
might have paid for it; why keep him a secret prisoner? Did he
know that Charles II. had been guilty of double dealing in 1668-
1669? Probably Charles had made some overtures to the Swiss, as a
blind to his private dealings with Louis XIV., but, even so, how
could the fact haunt Louis XIV. like a ghost? We leave the mystery
much darker than we found it, but we see good reason why
diplomatists should have murmured of a crusade against the cruel
and brigand Government which sent soldiers to kidnap, in
neighboring states, men who did not know their own crime.
To myself it seems not improbable that the King and Louvois were
but stupidly and cruelly nervous about what Dauger MIGHT know.
Saint-Mars, when he proposed to utilize Dauger as a prison valet,
manifestly did not share the trembling anxieties of Louis XIV. and
his Minister; anxieties which grew more keen as time went on.
However, "a soldier only has his orders," and Saint-Mars executed
his orders with minute precision, taking such unheard-of
precautions that, in legend, the valet blossomed into the rightful
kind of France.
ORIGINAL PAPERS IN THE CASE OF ROUX DE MARSILLY.[1]
[1] State Papers, France, vol. 126.
I. Letter of Mons. P. du Moulin to Arlington.
Paris, May ye , 1669.
My Lord,
Ever since that Monsieur de Ruvigny was in England last, and upon
the information he gave, this King had a very great desire to seize
if it were possible this Roux de Marsilly, and several persons were
sent to effect it, into England, Holland, Flanders, and Franche
Compte: amongst the rest one La Grange, exempt des Gardes, was a
good while in Holland with fifty of the guards dispersed in
severall places and quarters; But all having miscarried the King
recommended the thing to Monsieur de Turenne who sent some of his
gentlemen and officers under him to find this man out and to
endeavor to bring him alive. These men after foure months search
found him att last in Switzerland, and having laid waite for him as
he came out from Monsr Baithazar's house (a commander well knowne)
they took him and carryed him to Gex before they could be
intercepted and he rescued. This was done only by a warrant from
Monsieur de Turenne but as soone as they came into the french
dominions they had full powers and directions from this court for
the bringing of him hither. Those that tooke him say they found no
papers about him, but that he desired them to write to Monsr
Balthazar to desire him to take care of his papers and to send him
the commission he had from England and a letter being written to
that effect it was signed by the prisoner and instead of sending it
as they had promised, they have brought it hither along with them.
They do all unanimously report that he did constantly affirme that
he was imployed by the King of Great Brittain and did act by his
commission; so that the general discourse here in towne is that one
of the King of England's agents is in the Bastille; though att
Court they pretend to know nothing of it and would have the world
think they are persuaded he had no relacion to his Majesty. Your
Lordship hath heard by the publique newes how overjoyed this King
was att the bringing of this prisoner, and how farr he expressed
his thanks to the chiefe person employed in it, declaring openly
that this man had long since conspired against his life, and
agreeable to this, Monsieur, fearing that Mylord Ambr. was come to
interpose on the prisoner's behalfe asked him on Friday last att
St. Germains whether that was the cause of his coming, and told him
that he did not think he would speake for a man that attempted to
kill the King. The same report hath been hitherto in everybody's
mouth but they begin now to mince it att court, and Monsieur de
Ruvigny would have persuaded me yesterday, they had no such
thoughts. The truth is I am apt to believe they begin now to be
ashamed of it: and I am informed from a very good hand that
Monsieur de Lionee who hath confessed since that he can find no
ground for this pretended attempting to the King's life, and that
upon the whole he was of opinion that this man had much better been
left alone than taken, and did look upon what he had done as the
intemperancy of an ill-settled braine. And to satisfy your
Lordship that they are nettled here, and are concerned to know what
may be the issue of all this, Monsieur de Turenne's secretary was
on Munday last sent to several foreigne Ministers to pump them and
to learne what their thoughts were concerning this violence
committed in the Dominions of a sovereign and an allye whereupon he
was told by one of them that such proceedings would bring Europe to
the necessity of entering into a Croisade against them, as formerly
against the infidels. If I durst I would acquaint your Lordship
with the reflexions of all publique ministers here and of other
unconcerned persons in relation to his Majesty's owning or
disowning this man; but not knowing the particulars of his case,
nor the grounds his Maty may go upon, I shall forbeare entering
upon this discourse. . . .
Your Lordships' &c.
P. DU MOULIN.
II. Paper endorsed "Mr. Montague originally in Cypher. Received
May 19, '69. Read in foreigne Committee, 23 May. Roux de
Marsilli."[1]
[1] State Papers, France, vol. 126.
I durst not venture to sollicite in Monsr Roux Marsilly's behalfe
because I doe not know whether the King my Master hath imployed him
or noe; besides he is a man as I have been tolde by many people
here of worth, that has given out that he is resolved to kill the
French king at one time or other, and I think such men are as
dangerous to one king as to another: hee is brought to the Bastille
and I believe may be proceeded against and put to death, in very
few daies. There is great joy in this Court for his being taken,
and a hundred thousand crownes, I am told very privately, set upon
his head; the French Ambassador in England wacht him, and hee has
given the intelligence here of his being employed by the King, and
sent into Switzerland by my Master to draw the Swisses into the
Triple League. Hee aggravates the business as much as hee can to
the prejudice of my Master to value his owne service the more, and
they seeme here to wonder that the King my Master should have
imployed or countenanced a man that had so base a design against
the King's Person, I had a great deal of discourse with Monsieur
about it, but I did positively say that he had noe relation to my
knowledge to the King my Master, and if he should have I make a
question or noe whither in this case the King will owne him.
However, my Lord, I had nothing to doe to owne or meddle in a
business that I was so much a stranger to. . . .
This Roux Marsilly is a great creature of the B. d'Isola's, wch
makes them here hate him the more. The Spanish Resident was very
earnest with mee to have done something in behalfe of Marsilly, but
I positively refused.
III. [A paper endorsed "Roux de Marsilli. Read in for. Committee,
23d May."][1]
[1] State Papers, France, vol. 126.
Roux de Marsilly came hither when your Majesty had made a union
with Holland for making the Peace betwix the two Crownes and when
it was probable the opposition to the Peace would bee on the side
of France.
Marsilly was heard telling of longe things but noe proposition made
to him or by him.
Presently the Peace was made and Marsilly told more plainly wee had
no use of him. A little summe of money was given him to returne as
he said whither he was to goe in Switzerland. Upon which hee
wishing his Maty would renew his alience wth the Cantons hee was
answered his Maty would not enter into any comerce with them till
they had sent the regicides out of their Country, hee undertooke it
should bee done. Seven or eight months after wth out any
intimation given him from hence or any expectation of him, he comes
hither, but was so coldly used I was complained off for not using
so important a man well enough. I answered I saw noe use the King
could make of him, because he had no credit in Switzerlande and for
any thing else I thought him worth nothing to us, but above all
because I knew by many circumstances HEE WAS ANOTHER MAN'S SPY and
soe ought not to be paid by his Majesty. Notwithstanding this his
Maty being moved from compassion commanded hee should have some
money given him to carry him away and that I should write to
Monsieur Balthazar thanking him in the King's name for the good
offices hee rendered in advancing a good understanding betwixt his
Maty and the Cantons and desiring him to continue them in all
occasions.
The man was always looked upon as a hot headed and indiscreete man,
and soe accordingly handled, hearing him, but never trusting him
with anything but his own offered and undesired endeavours to gett
the Regicides sent out of Switzerland.
IV. Letter of W. Perwich to ----.[1]
[1] State Papers, France, vol. 126.
Paris: June 5, 1669.
Honored Sir,
Roux Marsilly has prudently declared hee had some what of
importance to say but it should bee to the King himselfe wch may be
means of respiting his processe and as he hopes intercession may
bee made for him; but people talk so variously of him that I cannot
tell whether hee ought to bee owned by any Prince; the Suisses have
indeed the greatest ground to reclayme him as being taken in
theirs. They have all his papers which speake much of the Triple
Alliance; if they have no other pretext of hanging him I know not
whether they can lawfully for this, hee having been naturallised in
Holland and taken in a priviledged Country. . . .
V. Francis Vernon to [Mr. Williamson?].[1]
[1] State Papers, France, vol. 126.
Paris: June 19/25, 1669.
Honored Sir,
My last of the 26th Currt was soe short and soe abrupt that I fear
you can peck butt little satisfaction out of it.
I did intend to have written something about Marsilly but that I
had noe time then. In my letter to my Lord Arlington I writt that
Friday 21 Currt hee wounded himself wch he did not because hee was
confronted with Ruvigny as the Gazettes speake. For he knew before
hee should dye, butt he thought by dismembering himself that the
losse of blood would carry him out of the world before it should
come to bee knowne that he had wounded himselfe. And when the
Governor of the Bastille spied the blood hee said It was a stone
was come from him which caused that effusion. However the governor
mistrusted the worst and searcht him to see what wound he had made.
So they seared him and sent word to St. Germaines which made his
execution be hastened. Saturday about 1 of the clock he was
brought on the skaffold before the Chastelet and tied to St.
Andrew's Crosse all wch while he acted the Dying man and scarce
stirred, and seemed almost breathless and fainting. The Lieutenant
General prest him to confesse and there was a doctor of the Sorbon
who was a counsellr of the Castelet there likewise to exhort him to
disburthen his mind of any thing which might be upon it. Butt he
seemed to take no notice and lay panting.
Then the Lieutenant Criminel bethought himself that the only way to
make him speake would bee to sende for a ministre soe hee did to
Monsr Daillie but hee because the Edicts don't permitt ministres to
come to condemned persons in publique but only to comfort them in
private before they goe out of prison refused to come till hee sent
a huissier who if he had refused the second time would have brought
him by force. At this second summons hee came butt not without
great expectations to bee affronted in a most notorious manner
beeing the first time a ministre came to appeare on a scaffold and
that upon soe sinister an occasion. Yet when he came found a great
presse of people. All made way, none lett fall soe much as a
taunting word. Hee came up the Scaffold, great silence all about.
Hee found him lying bound stretched on St. Andrew's Crosse naked
ready for execution. Hee told him hee was sent for to exhort him
to die patiently and like a Christian. Then immediately they were
all surprized to see him hold up his head wch he lett hang on one
side before like a drooping calfe and speake as loud and clear as
the ministre, to whom he said with a cheerful air hee was glad to
see him, that hee need not question butt that hee would dye like a
Christian and patiently too. Then hee went and spoke some places
of Scripture to encourage him which he heard with great attention.
They afterward came to mention some things to move him to
contrition, and there hee tooke an occasion to aggravate the
horrour of a Crime of attempting against the King's person. Hee
said hee did not know what hee meant. For his part hee never had
any evill intention against the Person of the King.
The Lieutenant Criminel stood all the while behind Monsieur Daillie
and hearkened to all and prompted Monsr Daillie to aske him if hee
had said there were 10 Ravillacs besides wch would doe the King's
businesse. Hee protested solemnly hee never said any such words or
if hee did hee never remembered, butt if hee had it was with no
intention of Malice. Then Monsieur Daillie turned to the people
and made a discourse in vindication of those of the Religion that
it was no Principle of theirs attempts on the persons of King[s]
butt only loyalty and obedience. This ended hee went away; hee
staid about an hour in all, and immediately as soon as he was gone,
they went to their worke and gave him eleven blows with a barre and
laid him on the wheele. He was two houres dying. All about Monsr
Daillie I heard from his own mouth for I went to wait on him
because it was reported hee had said something concerning the King
of England butt hee could tell mee nothing of that. There was a
flying report that he should say going from the Chastelet--The Duke
of York hath done mee a great injury. The Swisses they say
resented his [Marsilly's] taking and misst but 1/2 an hour to take
them which betrayed him [the monk] after whom they sent. When he
was on the wheele he was heard to say Le Roy est grand tyrant, Le
Roy me traitte d'un facon fort barbare. All that you read
concerning oaths and dying en enrage is false all the oaths hee
used being only asseverations to Monsr Daillie that he was falsely
accused as to the King's person
Sr I am &c
FRANS. VERNON.
VI. The Ambassador Montague to Arlington.[1]
[1] State Papers, France, vol. 126.
Paris: June 22, 1669.
My Lord,
The Lieutenant criminel hath proceeded pretty farre with Le Roux
Marsilly. The crime they forme their processe on beeing a rape
which he had formerly committed at Nismes soe that he perceiving
but little hopes of his life, sent word to the King if hee would
pardon him he could reveale things to him which would concerne him
more and be of greater consequence to him, than his destruction.
VII. The same to the same.
Paris: June 26, '69.
My Lord,
I heard that Marsilly was to be broke on the wheel and I gave order
then to one of my servants to write Mr. Williamson word of it, soe
I suppose you have heard of it already: they hastened his execution
for feare he should have dyed of the hurt he had done himself the
day before; they sent for a minister to him when he was upon the
scaffold to see if he would confesse anything, but he still
persisted that he was guilty of nothing nor did not know why he was
put to death. . . .