Motives which hinder one from admitting the Existence, the Arrest and
the Imprisonment of a mysterious Son of Anne of Austria--The Period at
which he is said to have been handed over to Saint-Mars, according to
the Authors of this Theory, cannot be reconciled with any of the Dates
at which Prisoners were sent to this Gaoler--Other Considerations
which formally oppose even the Probability of the Theory that makes
the Man with the Iron Mask a Brother of Louis XIV.
Let us forget the scenes that have just been recalled. Let us cease
for an instant to take into account proofs brought forward and
considerations advanced, and consent to admit each of the assertions
previously combated. This mysterious son of Anne of Austria came into
the world either in 1629, having Buckingham for father; or, in 1631, on
account of the danger that the life of Louis XIII. was in; or else in
1638, some hours after the birth of a brother. He exists. Received by
an agent as devoted as discreet, he has been brought up in the country,
the resemblance which reveals his high origin has been successfully
hidden from every one, and his person placed in security from all
investigations. But at what period was he imprisoned, and for what
cause? Of his youth, of his early years, passed in the obscurity of a
retreat far from the court, there are no traces, and there is no reason
for surprise at this. But as soon as he becomes the famous prisoner
whom Saint-Mars brought in 1698 from the Isles Sainte-Marguerite to the
Bastille, we have the right to ask, and we must seek when, how, and
under what circumstances he was arrested and confided to his gaoler.
It would be to a certain extent probable that, left at liberty as long
as his mother was alive, he was imprisoned only after her death. But
Anne of Austria dies on January 20, 1666, and Saint-Mars receives no
prisoner. Does the arrest date, as Voltaire affirms, from the year
1661, when Mazarin died? But Saint-Mars was then, and was to remain
for three years, a brigadier of musketeers; and it is in December,
1664, that D’Artagnan, his captain, points him out to the choice of
Louis XIV. as governor of the prison of Pignerol, whither, a month
afterwards, Fouquet is taken and confided to his vigilant guardianship.
On August 20, 1669, a second prisoner, Eustache d’Auger, arrives; but
he is only an obscure spy, and is soon placed with Fouquet to serve him
as a domestic. Would one have charged with this care,--would one have
placed in the service of Fouquet, who, during the whole of his life
had lived near Louis XIV. and Anne of Austria, a prince whose features
recalled those of the King? No other prisoner is brought to Saint-Mars
until the arrival of the Count de Lauzun in 1671. Since then, and from
time to time, others are confided to him, but we know their crimes or
their offences, are not ignorant of the causes of their arrest, and see
them rather badly treated; and when, in 1681, Saint-Mars passes from
the governorship of Pignerol to that of the fortress of Exiles, he only
takes with him two prisoners, of whom he speaks contemptuously as “two
crows.”[108] At Exiles as at Pignerol--at the Isles Sainte-Marguerite,
of which Saint-Mars was in 1687 appointed governor, as at Exiles--if
fresh culprits are confided to him, we know to what motive to attribute
their detention, and nothing in their past, nothing in the treatment
of which they are the object, nothing in their actions, allows us to
suspect in any one of them a brother of Louis XIV. Certainly, one
would hardly expect to find a despatch designating one of Saint-Mars’
prisoners by the title of prince, and in order to be convinced we
do not exact anything of the kind. But when, examining, one by one,
each of the captives sent to the future governor of the Bastille, and
amongst whom is necessarily the one that he traversed France with in
1698, we account for the causes of their arrest, and penetrate into
their past; when a hundred authentic despatches[109] enable us to
affirm that there are no other prisoners besides these, are we not
justified in demanding where, then, is the son of Anne of Austria?
This famous despatch, a fragment of which was timidly quoted some
years ago in a work from which it has since been omitted,[110]--this
despatch, in the existence of which criticism had concluded to
disbelieve,[111] and which is of capital importance, actually does
exist and is authentic. It was dictated by Barbézieux,[112] and
addressed to Saint-Mars, at the moment when the latter had under his
guardianship the prisoner whom he was to take with him to the Bastille,
and who died there in 1703:--
“Monsieur--I have received, with your letter of the 10th of this
month, the copy of that which Monsieur de Pontchartrain has written to
you concerning the prisoners who are at the Isles Sainte-Marguerite,
upon orders of the King, signed by him, or of the late Monsieur de
Seignelay. You have no other rules of conduct to follow with respect to
all those who are confided to your keeping beyond continuing to look to
their security, _without explaining yourself to any one whatever about
what your old prisoner_ HAS DONE.”[113]
But what crime could this pretended brother of Louis XIV. have
committed, except, indeed, that of coming into the world? Is it
objected that a slight fault committed in prison may be referred to,
and that Barbézieux, in this despatch, alludes to a recent occurrence?
But, if he recommends Saint-Mars not to explain himself to any one
whatever, it is evident that curiosity had been excited, and that every
one on the island trying to satisfy it, the Minister thought it right
to recommend, more energetically than ever, an absolute discretion.
Would this discretion have been necessary, and would Saint-Mars have
been questioned, if only an insignificant breach of the internal rules
of the prison had been in question?
Finally, what is one to think of the attentions, respect, particular
care, evidences of an humble deference, all the accessory circumstances
that have been invoked in favour of an opinion which nothing certain
justifies? Amongst the incidents upon which so much stress has been
laid, and which form, in some degree, the romantic _dossier_ of the
Man with the Iron Mask, some are exact, and will find their natural
explanation further on. Others, such as the visit of Louvois to the
Isles Sainte-Marguerite, have been invented at pleasure by popular
imagination, and too easily welcomed by a complaisant credulity. It has
been said, and is repeated every day, that the Minister visited this
island, and there spoke to the prisoner “with a degree of consideration
which partook of respect,”[114] styling him “monseigneur.” Now Louvois
was only absent from the court in 1680 for a few weeks in order
to go to Baréges. We have, day for day, the names of the towns he
passed through.[115] The Isles Sainte-Marguerite, where, by the way,
Saint-Mars did not arrive till seven years later, do not figure in
the itinerary; and, after this journey, Louvois never returned again
to the South of France. As to the dramatic episode of the silver
dish thrown out of the window, which exposes the fisherman who finds
it at his feet to a great danger, it has its origin in a similar
attempt made by a Protestant minister confined, in 1692, at the Isles
Sainte-Marguerite. This minister tried to interest people in his lot,
by writing his complaints, not on a silver dish, which he did not
have at his disposition, but upon a pewter plate, which determined
Saint-Mars to give him only earthenware for the future.[116] The fact
has been applied later to the Man with the Iron Mask, to whom, as to
all legendary heroes, the adventures of very different personages are
ascribed. A careful examination of all the despatches collected will
enable one to trace back each of these rumours to its origin, and
separate what is purely legendary from what is really historical.
But because the exactitude of many of the acts attributed to the Man
with the Iron Mask is disproved by this examination, one would be wrong
in concluding that he never existed, or that, at least, there was not
a great interest in concealing his existence. It is incontestable that
Saint-Mars did, in 1698, escort to Paris a prisoner who died there five
years later, who was known at the Bastille only under the name of “the
prisoner from Provence,” and whose mysterious memory was perpetuated
in the redoubtable fortress, to spread rapidly afterwards through the
entire world. These are the real data of the problem. Although freed
from all the foreign elements that have been mixed up with it, it
exists and it remains to be solved. It is true that in the eyes of
some, to take away the seductive figure of a brother of Louis XIV. is
greatly to diminish the interest. But, addressing ourselves to those
for whom truth alone has a sovereign and incomparable charm, we say
to them: The Man with the Iron Mask is not a son of Anne of Austria,
because to the impossibility of fixing the date of his birth is added
the not less evident impossibility of proving his incarceration. If, in
order to show that his birth is imaginary, we have touched upon many
delicate points, it is because the gravity of the accusations with
which, in our days, the memory of Anne of Austria has been stigmatized,
render such justifications necessary. In addition to which, even should
these researches be indiscreet, it is much less blamable to have made
them for the purpose of defence rather than of accusation, and to have
raised certain veils, in order to let innocence shine forth in place of
calumniating it.
FOOTNOTES:
[108] All these facts come from official documents, authentic and
transcribed by us. We shall give them further on when we introduce
Saint-Mars into the story.
[109] Archives of the Ministry of Marine; Archives of the Ministry of
War; Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Imperial Archives;
Registers of the Secretary’s Office of the King’s Household.
[110] _Biographie Universelle_ of Michaud, article on the “Man with the
Iron Mask,” by Weiss. The second edition does not give the extract from
this despatch, given in the first.
[111] See, amongst others, the opinion of M. Jules Loiseleur, _Revue
Contemporaine_, article already cited.
[112] Louis François Le Tellier, Marquis de Barbézieux, many of
whose despatches are quoted in the course of this work, succeeded
his father Louvois as Minister of War, on the death of the latter in
1691.--_Trans._
[113] Archives of the Ministry of Marine; Archives of the Ministry of
War; Imperial Archives; Registers of the Secretary’s Office of the
King’s Household.
[114] Voltaire, _Siècle de Louis XIV._, chap. xxv.
[115] Louvois had broken his leg the 3rd August, 1679. To complete
the cure, which was slow, the doctors advised the Minister to go to
Baréges. (See vol. iii. p. 513 _et seq._ of the excellent _Histoire de
Louvois_ of M. Camille Rousset).
[116] Despatches from Seignelay to Saint-Mars; Archives of the Ministry
of Marine; Imperial Archives; Registers of the Secretary’s Office of
the King’s Household.