Description of Pignerol--Its Past, its Situation--Portrait of
Saint-Mars--His Scruples and his Integrity--Fouquet’s Arrival at
Pignerol--Brief Account of the Surintendant’s Career--His Error with
regard to Louis XIV., whom he betrays--Causes of Fouquet’s Fall--His
Arrest--His Trial--His Condemnation--No kind of Obscurity in this
Affair.
Of the principal personages in whom people have seen the Man with the
Iron Mask, we have first got rid of those imaginary beings, those
pretended brothers of Louis XIV., whom it was necessary to banish
to the domain of fiction. Afterwards entering into that of reality,
we have studied the lives of several princes whom people have also
covered with the mysterious mask,[336] but whom we have shown as
dying elsewhere than at the Bastille; as Vermandois before Courtray,
Monmouth on the scaffold, and Beaufort at the siege of Candia. These
accounts have been followed by the story of a great State prisoner
under Louis XIV., in whose favour very strong presumptions have been
advanced, but who was incarcerated neither at Pignerol nor at the
Isles Sainte-Marguerite, and who ended his days in liberty. Let us now
penetrate with Saint-Mars into Pignerol, and among the individuals
confided to his care, let us seek which of them, confined for a long
time in this fortress, next at the Isles Sainte-Marguerite, and lastly
conducted to the Bastille, where he died on November 19, 1703, is
really the Man with the Iron Mask.
At the entrance to the valleys of the Chisone and the Lemina, on the
slope of one of those hills in which by insensible gradations the
great chain of the Alps terminates on the side of Piedmont, there
arose in the form of an amphitheatre a little town which, from the
twelfth century, the Princes of Savoy had caused to be fortified for
the safety of their States, the approach to which it defended. At the
summit of the hill, formerly covered with a forest of pines, whence
the town received its name, a citadel, surrounded by fortifications,
had been constructed, which was commanded on the north alone by the
mountain of Sainte-Brigitte, soon to be itself covered with redoubts
and entrenchments. Having thus become a military position of the
greatest importance, and, as the key of Italy, able in turns to check
or favour foreign invasions, the position of Pignerol, coveted by the
Kings of France, and so precious to the Dukes of Piedmont, was long
disputed by arms, or claimed by diplomacy. Captured in 1532 by Francis
I. from the too feeble Duke Charles III., restored by Henry III. in
1574 to Philibert-Emmanuel,[337] attacked unsuccessfully in 1595 by
the Duke de Lesdiguières, it ended in 1630 by falling into the power
of Cardinal de Richelieu, who took possession of it at the head of
40,000 men, and placed it under the rule of the King of France, to
whom it was destined to belong until the disasters of the latter years
of Louis XIV. Richelieu, Mazarin, and Louvois contributed to render
its fortifications formidable. To-day there remain only a few ruins
of them, near to the cathedral of Saint-Maurice, whence there is a
charming view.[338] Very different, however, was the appearance of
Pignerol in 1664, the period at which Saint-Mars proceeded thither to
take possession of the donjon of the citadel, converted into a State
prison.[339] On the side of the hill were to be seen the houses of the
town with their low red-tiled roofs, their slight-looking campaniles,
and their chimneys in the form of turrets; here and there on certain
houses, battlements and loop-holes might be detected, the remains of
some old defence or a useful precaution against future attack. As one
raised the eyes life and action were seen to gradually disappear,
giving place to the dull monotonous service of a fortified post. On the
summit wide ditches isolated the citadel from the town, whilst beyond,
a double line of thick walls formed a vast parallelogram flanked by
four lofty towers; along the breastworks, near the drawbridges and on
the bastions, soldiers were on guard, and in the courtyards others were
lounging about; lastly, in the centre of all these fortifications,
was a large square donjon, silent yet appearing as though inhabited,
and having its windows covered with iron bars. Sombre and sinister
in aspect this black-looking mass towered to the skies. Such may we
picture to ourselves, after the lapse of a couple of centuries, was
the dwelling of those prisoners, some celebrated like Fouquet, others
mysterious like the Iron Mask, who have rendered Pignerol for ever
famous in history and legend.
Between the severe aspect of this donjon and the character of its
new commandant, there was a perfect similarity, and no one united in
himself more completely than Saint-Mars the necessary qualities for
fulfilling the duties confided to him. Bénigne d’Auvergne, Seigneur de
Saint-Mars, was a petty gentleman of Champagne, from the neighbourhood
of Montfort-l’Amaury, when he entered the first company of the King’s
Musketeers.[340] At thirty-four years of age, he had just attained
the rank of quartermaster,[341] when Fouquet was arrested at Nantes
in 1661. In this affair he shared the royal confidence with his
lieutenant, D’Artagnan, and whilst the latter was charged with the
arrest of the Surintendant, Saint-Mars had confided to him the mission
of arresting Pellisson and conducting him to Angers.[342] Selected by
Louis XIV., in 1664, as being capable of securely guarding Fouquet at
Pignerol, he was named Commandant of the donjon of this place, and
Captain of a free company.[343] He immediately proceeded to Pignerol,
and from that time devoted himself to those weighty duties of gaoler
with which he was to be occupied in various prisons, and last of all
at the Bastille, until his death, always with the same overpowering
sense of his responsibility which made him in reality the chief of
Louis XIV.’s State prisoners. He possessed the gaoler’s two principal
qualifications: a discretion which was proof against everything,
combined with a distrust such as the suspicious Louvois himself had
occasionally to restrain while he had but rarely to put him on the
alert. He was not, like D’Artagnan, an intelligent, generous, and
frank executer of the royal will. With a somewhat narrow and extremely
timid disposition, alike taciturn and restless, one thought alone
possessed and ruled him,--the servile accomplishment of the King’s
orders. To discuss them would have seemed a crime to him; to seek to
interpret them appeared superfluous. He answered for the prisoners
confided to his care. The height of the walls, the depth and width
of the moats, the vigilance of the sentinels, the carefulness of the
watchmen, the strength of the iron gratings, did not suffice to calm
the inquietude of his suspicious mind. In endeavouring to dissipate
it, he did not content himself with informing Louvois of the most
minute details, the most puerile circumstances; his scruples and
uneasiness were everlastingly reviving. Everything was in his eyes a
matter for suspicion, and his troubled imagination never ceased to
foresee pretended plans of flight. A stranger visiting Pignerol, and
regarding the citadel with a little attention, immediately became
an object of suspicion to him and was arrested, subjected to a long
examination, and imprisoned for a length of time.[344] Every month
he had a list drawn up of strangers arriving in the town,[345] with
the view of noticing the names which appeared in it too frequently.
The linen of his prisoners before leaving the donjon was carefully
plunged into a tub of water, and then dried at a fire in the presence
of officers charged in rotation to assure themselves of the absence of
all writing upon it.[346] The least change observed in the habits of
the prisoners was a source of painful worry to Saint-Mars, appearing to
him in the light of a mysterious signal designed to expedite a criminal
attempt; and one day, after his usual visit and long search in the
rooms of Fouquet and De Lauzun, not having been able to discover the
slightest sign of anything abnormal,[347] he was at first surprised
and then very much alarmed. This absence of signals doubtless seemed
to him a signal of itself. For the rest, an honest man,[348] greedy
of gain,[349] but seeking it only by legitimate means, insensible to
the reproaches of his prisoners, finding in the sentiment of having
done his duty sufficient strength to be able to disdain their abuse,
and acting humanely on the very rare occasions when their safety
did not seem to be compromised. After having perused his frank and
unaffected correspondence, in which one has a complete portrait of him,
one is almost tempted to pity Saint-Mars as much as his prisoners,
because, while enjoying as little liberty as they did, he was to some
extent their victim, being secretly preyed upon by the incessant and
painful fear of their escape. The continual inquietude by which he
was agitated rendered him a prematurely old man, and contemporaries
represent him as bent in figure, very thin, his head, hands, and entire
body[350] trembling; in a word, overwhelmed by the heavy burden of the
responsibility which weighed him down.
It was under the care of this man that Fouquet was to pass the last
sixteen years of his life. It was with him that the imprisonment of
the Surintendant was in reality about to commence. From the day of his
arrest, indeed, until his arrival at Pignerol, a thousand intrigues
had been brewing around him. The threats of his enemies, the pressing
exertions of his friends, by turns the danger of capital punishment
and the hope of being saved, with constant changes of prison[351]
and the preoccupations of the trial, had absorbed his existence and
abridged the length of the four years which had elapsed. But when he
found himself at Pignerol in a chamber into which the light penetrated
only through osier-screens fixed on enormous bars of iron, waited upon
by unknown individuals who were removed so soon as he endeavoured to
interest them in his misfortunes, and who were continued in his service
if they consented to act as spies over him; when the only visits he
received were those of his gaoler coming every day to carefully examine
his furniture, rummage over his effects, consult his countenance, and
surprise his thoughts; when all correspondence was forbidden him, and
when he might believe himself for ever separated from those who were
dearest to him; then, and then alone, there appeared to him in all
its reality the horror of his lot, rendered still more bitter by the
recollection of past splendours. How often in his isolation did he
invoke the dazzling picture of his unprecedented fortune! How many
times did he recount to himself the great part he had played during
the Fronde, the legitimate influence acquired over Anne of Austria and
Mazarin, whose devoted auxiliary he had been, so many and such high
functions united in his own person, a great part of the court at his
feet, friends like Corneille and Molière, Madame de Sévigné, Pellisson,
and La Fontaine, dwellings much more splendid than the King’s,[352]
a formidable fortified place for refuge,[353] an island in America
for an asylum,[354] the right of sovereignty over many towns,[355]
joined to immense riches, the most ardent passions satiated, and the
most unbridled ambition satisfied: then a thunderbolt overwhelming in
an instant all this greatness and precipitating the daring man into
the abyss! “There is no greater sorrow,” says Dante, “than to recall
when in misery our time of happiness.”[356] But how much greater
still, when the eyes, at length seeing distinctly, can perceive the
imprudences and the faults committed! Rendered more clear-sighted
by adversity, Fouquet might remember with bitterness Louis XIV.’s
generous conduct towards him on his taking possession of power after
the death of Mazarin. “I knew,” says the King in his _Mémoires_,[357]
“that he possessed intelligence, and had a great knowledge of the home
affairs of the State, which made me imagine that, provided he would
avow his past faults and promise amendment, he might render me good
service.” Louis XIV. sincerely desired to continue to employ Fouquet.
He conferred with him a long time, begged that he might be informed of
everything, and that nothing of the true state of the finances might
be concealed from him. On these conditions he consented to forget the
past, and in future to consider only the services rendered by the
Surintendant entering on a legal and regular course of proceeding and
foregoing further peculations.[358]
But, like many others at the court, Fouquet had deceived himself as
to the character of the young King. The latter had announced his
resolution to govern by himself, to preside in person over the Council,
to sign everything after having seen everything, and to gradually
enlighten himself upon the administration of his kingdom, with the
view of always being able to direct it properly.[359] Very few had
believed in the permanence of this resolution of a young King of
two-and-twenty, to which, however, he was faithful till his death, and
even Anne of Austria herself had derided it.[360] Conceiving himself
master of the King’s mind through those who surrounded him, and
imagining that, thanks to his numerous spies, he was acquainted with
every one of his plans; convinced, moreover, that his master, occupied
with his pleasures, would be quickly repelled by irksome labour,
Fouquet had persisted in his criminal conduct, and had remained deaf to
the warnings of his friends.[361] But whilst he daily presented Louis
XIV. with falsified accounts, in which the expenses were increased and
the receipts diminished, Colbert, to whom they were sent every evening,
examined them carefully, indicated the embezzlements, and enlightened
the King upon the persevering audacity of his Minister. At the same
time Fouquet continued to fortify his towns, to extend his influence,
to fabricate loans to the King, to secure for himself under other
names the farming of several taxes, and to appoint his creatures to
the most important offices, which he secretly bought for them in the
hope of soon rendering himself the sovereign ruler of the State.[362]
This was not all. This individual, who aspired to replace Mazarin, to
whom he was so inferior, because, unlike him, he was not prompted by
true national interests, possessed moreover only the lofty aims of the
ambitious, but neither tact nor clear-sightedness. With a keen mind and
quick understanding, he very rapidly discerned the surface of things,
but was wanting in the Cardinal’s penetrating sagacity and depth of
vision, and whilst the latter, with a less vulgar ambition, occupied
himself much more with the reality than with the semblance of power,
Fouquet, vain and frivolous, could not resist the puerile satisfaction
of making a parade of his authority and wealth. We are acquainted
with the scandalous pomp of the fête given in the Château of Vaux,
“that anticipated Versailles,”[363] with its magnificent galleries,
its splendid gardens, and its shameless luxury. We have this example,
the most striking perhaps which history affords, of a man possessed
with that folly which precedes great falls, and accelerating by his
insolence a catastrophe already rendered inevitable by so many other
faults.[364]
There is, indeed, nothing obscure in the causes of this catastrophe,
whatever may have been said respecting it. How it came to pass, the
circumstances which accompanied it, every one of the incidents of a
trial which lasted three years, the accusations of the prosecution,
as well as the arguments of the defence, have all been brought to
light,[365] and it is impossible not to feel convinced that Saint-Mars’
first prisoner was justly punished for acknowledged and indisputable
faults, and not for the possession of a State secret,[366] or for I
know not what hidden crime which he would have mysteriously expiated
by wearing, until his death, a velvet mask. It has been pretended,
without any authentic proof being furnished, that Louis XIV. not only
discovered in him a powerful and wealthy rival, but that the arrest
of the Surintendant was simply a piece of revenge on the part of the
royal lover of La Vallière.[367] Owing to the steadfast friendship
of La Fontaine, and Madame de Sévigné, to their persistence in their
illusions and to the eloquent sincerity of their complaints, Fouquet
must always have many partisans. Even among his contemporaries, the
touching devotion of his friends, the passionate attacks of some of his
adversaries, and the length of his trial, induced a reaction; and while
at first the indignant populace showed their exasperation against him
by imprecations and threats,[368] by degrees, as often happens, public
opinion changed into sympathy for the victim,[369] and to regarding his
judges as persecutors. Lastly, that mysterious legend of the Man with
the Iron Mask, which some persons wish to make the climax of Fouquet’s
career, commences, according to them, from his arrest, and the minute
precautions then taken by the King at once indicate and explain all
those of which the famous masked prisoner was later to be the object.
Louis XIV. was naturally inclined to dissimulation. Mazarin not only
set him the example of “this cunning and necessary virtue,”[370] but
advised him to practise it,[371] and never, it must be remembered,
was this counsel more strictly followed than during the few months
which preceded Fouquet’s fall. From the time it was resolved upon,
Louis XIV., aided by Colbert and Le Tellier, prepared in detail and
in secret everything that could assure the punctual execution of his
orders and anticipate the slightest difficulty. It cannot be denied
that he lulled the Surintendant into security, and cradled him with
deceptive hopes, and that with infinite art he never treated him
more graciously than after he had decided upon his ruin. Fouquet, as
Procureur-général to the Parliament, could only be judged by that body.
His acquittal would thus have been nearly certain, since he had a great
number of partisans in it. It was therefore essential that he should
resign this position[372] in order that he might be brought before a
chamber of justice. It was Colbert, his ardent enemy, who ventured to
give him this pernicious advice, and who, with a skill inspired by
hatred, prevailed on the Surintendant without exciting his mistrust.
Louis XIV. facilitated Colbert’s task by hinting to the vain-glorious
Fouquet that the collar of the order and the dignity of Prime Minister
would be irreconcilable with the functions of Procureur-général.[373]
At the same time he exhibited towards him an unusual confidence, often
called him into his presence, followed his advice, and overwhelmed his
brother, the Bishop of Agde, with favours. The grand blow of the arrest
was to be struck in Brittany, as it was thought that the presence of
the King there would render resistance on the part of the fortified
places in the Surintendant’s power more difficult, and the idea of
advising this journey was suggested to him. The minute precautions
taken at the time of the arrest;[374] those musketeers assembled under
the pretext of a royal hunt and placed at the disposal of D’Artagnan;
the troops occupying the roads and allowing no one but the royal
couriers to pass; those long private interviews of Louis XIV., first
with Le Tellier and then with D’Artagnan;[375] the most improbable
obstacles foreseen and the care taken to leave nothing to chance:
all this offers, it is true, the singular spectacle of an absolute
monarch conspiring the fall of one of his subjects. But how can one be
astonished at it when this subject is Fouquet, alone able to dispose
of immense wealth in the midst of general distress, and counting
devoted pensioners even amongst the officers surrounding the King?
How can one be astonished, moreover, when Louis XIV. could not even
place confidence in the captain of his guards?[376] when we know that
Fouquet could do as he pleased with the Mediterranean fleets through
the Marquis de Créqui, general of the galleys,[377] and with those of
the Ocean through the Admiral de Neuchèse,[378] when Brittany had in
some degree become his kingdom,[379] and most of the places in the
North had his creatures for commandants? How can one be astonished,
above all things, after having read the famous plan of resistance found
among the Saint-Mandé papers,[380] a veritable plan of a civil war long
meditated, written entirely by Fouquet, and one in which he braves and
defies the authority of his sovereign? The parts to be played in the
revolt are distributed among his friends; the chiefs are designated;
the places of refuge indicated. Fouquet makes known what arms are to be
employed, what hostages it will be necessary to secure; all the means
of agitation are advised. Through his two brothers, the coadjutor of
Narbonne and the bishop of Agde, the clergy are to be stirred up. By
means of certain members of the Parliament, disturbances are to be
excited in Paris, and the war of pamphlets kindled anew. By means of
the Governors, the public treasures are to be seized, and the garrisons
are to be sent forth on to the highways. Lastly, supreme treason,
foreign help is not to be lost sight of, and Lorraine, as well as
Spain, is to be summoned to enter France.[381]
So much audacity and such an exaggerated pride sufficiently explain the
dissimulation and the minute solicitude of Louis XIV., without one’s
seeking the cause elsewhere. But if he matured this _coup-d’état_ in
secret, and accomplished it with a prudence, without which he would
have certainly failed, none of the crimes which rendered it necessary
were hidden from contemporaries. The preparations for the arrest
were alone mysterious. During the three following years, every one
of the documents relating to the trial was presented to the judges,
communicated to Fouquet,[382] and was the subject of long discussions.
From this there resulted the proof of his skill in argument, but not
at all of his innocence. On account of his extortions and of his plan
of revolt, he had, according to the laws and customs of the time,
deserved death. The majority of his judges condemned him to banishment,
a punishment rightly considered too lenient by Louis XIV., who changed
it into perpetual imprisonment. But long before his condemnation the
numerous _mémoires_ which the accused composed in order to defend
himself had been secretly printed by his friends,[383] and circulated
among the people. There had thus been nothing ignored or left in
obscurity. There is nothing imaginary or hypothetical in the account
of what preceded and brought about Fouquet’s imprisonment. It is
essential to establish this first of all. Let us now see if, during his
stay at Pignerol, any event occurred which, sixteen years after his
condemnation, could all at once have determined Louis XIV. to simulate
Fouquet’s death, and to make of a captive, long since inoffensive and
forgotten, that mysterious and nameless prisoner who is to come from
the Isles Sainte-Marguerite to die obscurely in the Bastille.
FOOTNOTES:
[336] It is needless to say that I have put on one side the numerous
opinions which are not worthy of being discussed, simply because they
do not rest upon a pretext even. There was a period (that of the
public disputes between Fréron, Saint-Foix, Lagrange-Chancel, Father
Griffet, and Voltaire) when to imagine a solution of this problem was
in fashion, and people suggested a name without troubling themselves
with the proofs, or at least with the motives which might render this
name probable. It is in this manner that two-and-twenty so-styled
solutions have been put forward. I have discussed those which concern
the brothers of Louis XIV. (son of Buckingham and Anne of Austria, son
of Anne of Austria and an unknown person, son of Anne of Austria and
Louis XIII., born some hours after Louis XIV.) I have subsequently
refuted the Vermandois solution, and the Monmouth, Beaufort, and
Avedick. I shall content myself with simply mentioning the opinions
which make the Man with the Iron Mask a natural and adulterine son of
Marie-Louise d’Orléans, wife of Charles II., King of Spain; a natural
and adulterine son of Marie-Anne de Neubourg, second wife of Charles
II., King of Spain, who would have been put out of the way by Louis
XIV.; a natural son of the Duchess Henriette d’Orléans and Louis XIV.;
a natural son of the same Princess and the Count de Guiche; a natural
son of Marie-Thèrese, wife of Louis XIV. and of the negro servant whom
she had brought with her from Spain; a son of Christine of Sweden and
of her Grand Equerry Monaldeschi; a son of Cromwell; a lover of Louise
d’Orléans, imprisoned when she became Queen of Spain; a woman; a pupil
of the Jesuits incarcerated for an abusive distich, and sent to the
Isles Sainte-Marguerite. All these opinions have, as may be seen, very
little weight.
Lastly, it is proper to name the Chevalier Louis de Rohan, Master of
the Hounds, condemned to death in 1674, as a conspirator, and who,
according to one theory, had his life spared. M. Pierre Clément, in
the work which he has devoted to this individual (_Enguerrand de
Marigny, Beaune de Semblançay, le Chevalier de Rohan, épisodes de
l’Histoire de France_), and in chapter vi. of his curious volume, _La
Police sous Louis XIV._, has clearly established that the Chevalier
de Rohan was beheaded. He was executed with his accomplices in front
of the Bastille, November 27, 1674. The execution was public, and it
was impossible to have substituted any one else. It was not because
no effort was made to move the heart of Louis XIV.; but Louvois was
always on the watch, and in this instance thought it desirable to
renew the severities of Richelieu. Even supposing it were possible
to prove that Louis XIV. had spared the life of this conspirator, it
would also be necessary to prove that he was the Man with the Iron
Mask, and not merely by showing the probabilities and indicating the
possibilities. Such a process, indeed, sufficed in the last century to
build up a theory; but historical criticism in our own times is rightly
more exacting. It is essential now-a-days to establish the perfect
conformity between the Chevalier de Rohan and the Man with the Iron
Mask, by following the former from prison to prison, from the time that
his life is said to have been spared until his death in 1703. But this
is utterly impossible. One prisoner only was brought to Saint-Mars
in 1674, but on _April_ 18, long before the Chevalier’s trial: this
prisoner was an insignificant and obscure monk. Now we are acquainted
with all the prisoners confided to Saint-Mars since that time, we know
the causes of their imprisonment, and there is no doubt, moreover, that
he had no others. Numerous despatches attest this fact, and it has been
established and recognized since a long time. The only doubtful point
is which of Saint-Mars’ prisoners was the Man with the Iron Mask. But
not one of them has, in his existence, his age, the manner in which he
was treated, the time at which he was incarcerated, any feature which
resembles the Chevalier de Rohan even in conjecture. See, besides the
two volumes mentioned: Imperial Archives, Manuscript Registers of the
Secretary’s office of the King’s Household, year 1674, pp. 133, 165,
184. Archives of the Ministry of War, letter from Louvois to the King,
October 6, 1674. _Mémoires Militaires de Louis XIV._, vol. iii. p.
522; Basnage, chap. civ. p. 549; La Hode, book xxxv. p. 514; Limiers,
book vi. p. 274; Lafare, chap. vii. p. 211; Sismondi, _Histoire des
Français_, vol. xxv. pp. 280 and 282; Camille Rousset, _Histoire de
Louvois_, vol. ii. p. 120.
[337] _Cessione di Pinerolo, fatta da Enrico III. ad Emanuele Filiberto
il Grande Duca di Savoia_, Pinèrolo, 1858.
[338] _Pinerolo antico e moderno e suoi dintorni_, del Canonico G.
Groset-Monchet; _Veduta di S. Maurizio_, dell’ Abate Car. Jacopo
Bernardi, Pinerolo, 1858.
[339] _Corografia fisica dell’ Italia_, di Attilio Zuccagni-Orlandini.
[340] _Mémoires de D’Artagnan_, by Sandraz de Courtilz, Cologne, 1701,
vol. iii. pp. 222 and 385; _Annales de la Cour et de Paris_, for the
years 1697 and 1698, vol. ii. p. 380.
[341] Order of Le Tellier to d’Artagnan, December 3, 1661:--Archives of
the Ministry of War.
[342] _Ibid._
[343] Despatches from Louvois to Saint-Mars, January 17, 23, and 29,
1665. Saint-Mars espoused the sister of Louvois’ mistress, whose
acquaintance he made, not in one of his journeys to Paris (for these
were extremely rare), but at Pignerol itself. The Sieur Damorezan (and
not De Morésant, as MM. Paul Lacroix and Jules Loiseleur have written
it), muster-master at Pignerol, had two sisters, one of whom, Madame
Dufresnoy, became mistress of Louvois, and through his influence, lady
of the bed-chamber to the Queen, while the other married Saint-Mars.
The latter had 6,000 livres (240_l._) salary, _plus_ gratuities, which
were often very considerable. He alone commanded in the donjon, and his
authority was independent of that of the Marquis d’Herleville, governor
of the town of Pignerol, and of M. Lamothe de Rissan, Lieutenant of
the King in the citadel. There were, however, between the latter and
Saint-Mars occasional jealousies which Louvois sought to remove, but
not always with success.
[344] Unpublished letter from Saint-Mars to Louvois, May 6,
1673:--Archives of the Ministry of War, vol. cccliv. fo. 214.
[345] Unpublished letter from Saint-Mars to Louvois, March 17,
1673:--_Ibid._, vol. cccliv. fo. 230.
[346] Unpublished letter from Saint-Mars to Louvois, February 20,
1672:--_Ibid._, vol. ccxcix. fo. 67.
[347] Unpublished letter from Saint-Mars to Louvois, April 22,
1673:--_Ibid._, vol. cccliv. fo. 193.
[348] This is the testimony which Madame de Sévigné gives about him in
a letter dated January 25, 1675: “He was a discreet man and very exact
in duty,” say the _Mémoires de D’Artagnan_.
[349] An unpublished letter, written June 4, 1689, by Seignelay to
Saint-Mars, who was then at the Isles Saint-Marguerite, furnishes a
proof of this eagerness for gain:--Archives of Ministry of Marine,
_Lettres des Secrétaires d’État_, 1689. Saint-Mars, like all the
governors of the Bastille, left a large fortune. The profits realized
in this position were, however, in no degree prejudicial to the
prisoners’ nourishment, the expenses being defrayed on a very liberal
footing, as M. Ravaisson has perfectly established in his learned
introduction to the _Archives de la Bastille_, p. xxviii. _et seq._ He
received presents from Louis XIV., one of which one day amounted to
10,000 crowns (1,250_l._):--Letter from Louvois to Saint-Mars, January
11, 1677.
[350] _Histoire de la Bastille_ of Constantin de Renneville, vol. i. p.
32.
[351] Nantes, Angers, Amboise, Vincennes, Moret, Fontainebleau, the
Bastille.
[352] Versailles was not yet built.
[353] Belle-Isle. [Off Quiberon on the Breton coast.--_Trans._]
[354] The island of Santa Lucia, then called Sainte-Alouzie. [One of
the Caribbee Islands.--_Trans._]
[355] By himself or his friends, Fouquet ruled over Havre, Calais,
Amiens, Hesdin, Conearneau, Guingamp, Guérande, Mount Saint-Michel, and
Croisic.
[356]
“Nessun maggior dolore,
Che ricordarsi del tempo felice
Nella miseria.”--_Inferno_, v. 41.
[357] _Mémoires de Louis XIV._ Dreyss’s edition, vol. ii. p. 388.
[358] _Mémoires de Choisy._ Michaud and Poujoulat’s edition, p. 581.
[359] _Mémoires de Louis Henri de Loménie, Comte de Brienne_, vol. ii.
pp. 155 and 157; _Mémoires de Choisy_, p. 582.
[360] _Mémoires de Louis XIV._, vol. i. p. 37; _Mémoires de Choisy_, p.
582.
[361] _Mémoires de Choisy_, p. 581.
[362] _Mémoires de Louis XIV._, vol. ii. p. 525.
[363] M. Sainte-Beuve, _Causeries du Lundi_, vol. v.
[364] Fouquet, who had purchased the Vicomté of Melun, replaced the
old château by a magnificent edifice, which has become celebrated from
the fête given there to Louis XIV. It is the _chef-d’œuvre_ of the
architect Le Vau, and astounds one by its grand and noble proportions.
The exterior is profusely covered with sculpture, and the splendour
of the interior is fully in keeping with that of the outside, the
decorations of the principal apartments having been entrusted to the
most celebrated painters of the age. The pleasure-grounds, which cover
several hundred acres, were planted by Le Nôtre, and are laid out in
straight lines, after the usual custom of the seventeenth century.
The _mémoires_ of the time are filled with accounts of Fouquet’s fête
to Louis XIV., August 17, 1661; and La Fontaine has described it both
in prose and verse. Fouquet’s fall had long since been prepared by
LeTellier and Colbert, and was already resolved upon when Louis XIV.
went to seat himself at his table; but the luxury of this abode and the
splendour of the reception singularly increased the irritation of the
monarch, who was well aware that it was paid for out of money of which
the State had been defrauded. Fouquet was arrested on September 5, only
eighteen days after this fête.
The château of Vaux, which, save the ravages of time, is still in much
the same state as Fouquet left it, is situated about four miles to the
north-east of Melun, on the road from Paris to Meaux.--_Trans._
[365] See _Histoire de Colbert_, by M. Pierre Clément, vol. i.;
_Mémoires sur Nicolas Fouquet_, by M. Chéruel; _La Police sous Louis
XIV._, by M. P. Clément, pp. 1-61, and the Appendices to vols. viii.
and ix. of M. Chéruel’s edition of the _Mémoires de Saint-Simon_, vol.
viii. p. 447, and vol. ix. p. 414.
[366] We shall prove this hereafter.
[367] As M. Chéruel has remarked (_Mémoires sur Nicolas Fouquet_, vol.
ii. p. 173, note 3) the letter which is relied on in order to support
this allegation is far from authentic. It has been transcribed in
the _Manuscrits Conrart_ (vol. xi. folio, p. 152), with many other
letters “which are said to have been found in Fouquet’s casket.” But
we know what took place with reference to this famous casket. Greedy
of scandal, and not finding sufficient in the real letters which were
published at that time, the courtiers invented a very great number,
attributing them to ladies of the court, whose names they gave. They
were collected with care, in the papers of Conrart and Vallant, and
have thus been handed down to us: (Manuscripts of the Arsenal for the
_Papiers de Conrart_ and of the Imperial Library for those of Vallant).
Such was the publicity given to these letters, that at the commencement
of the trial the Chancellor Séguier thought it his duty to declare
to the court that they were forgeries: See M. Chéruel’s work already
referred to, vol. ii. p. 289, _et seq._, and M. Feuillet de Conches’
_Causeries d’un Curieux_, vol. ii. p. 518, _et seq._
[368] “Do not fear that he will escape,” said they at Angers to
D’Artagnan: “we will strangle him first:”--_Journal d’Olivier
d’Ormesson_, published by M. Chéruel in the _Collection des Documents
Inédits sur l’Histoire de France_, vol. ii. p. 99. The same hatred
manifested itself at Tours, whence it was necessary to set out with
Fouquet at three o’clock in the morning to escape the threats of
the people. At Saint-Mandé and Vincennes it was the same: _Récit
Officiel de l’Arrestation de Fouquet_, by the Registrar Joseph
Foucault:--Imperial Library, Manuscripts, No. 235-245 of the 500 of
Colbert.
[369] _Mémoires sur Nicolas Fouquet_, vol. ii. p. 386.
[370] So Madame de Motteville terms it in her _Mémoires_.
[371] _Mémoires de Choisy_, p. 189.
[372] The office was sold in 1661 to M. de Harlay. See on the subject
of the reports of this sale, _Lettres de Guy-Patin_, July 12 and 15,
1661.
[373] _Mémoires de Brienne_, vol. ii. p. 178.
[374] Order of arrest given to D’Artagnan, with the memorandum
published by Ravaisson in his _Archives de la Bastille_, vol. i. p.
347-351: Letters of the Marquis de Coislin to the Chancellor Séguier,
September 5, 1661:--_Ibid._ p. 351-355.
[375] _Procès-verbal_ of the Registrar Foucault, already referred to;
_Mémoires de Brienne_; _Mémoires de l’Abbé de Choisy_.
[376] The Marquis de Gesvres, whom Louis XIV. did not dare to entrust
with the mission of arresting Fouquet.
[377] _Défenses de Fouquet_, vol. iii. p. 357. Edition of 1665.
[378] _Mémoires sur Nicolas Fouquet_, vol. i. p. 398.
[379] This is the title which Fouquet’s friends gave to this province.
[380] Manuscripts of the Imperial Library (500 _de Colbert_, No. 235,
fo. 86 _et seq._) This plan has been published by M. P. Clément almost
entire in vol. i. p. 41, _et seq._, of his _Histoire de Colbert_,
and entire by him in the introduction of vol. ii. of the _Lettres de
Colbert_, and in his _Police sous Louis XIV._, p. 33, _et seq._ M.
Chéruel has also reproduced it entire in Appendix No. vi. of vol.
i. of his _Mémoires sur Nicolas Fouquet_, pp. 488-501. This plan is
incontestably authentic, and Fouquet has never denied having written it.
[381] All these facts are in great part proved by the plan, and by
other papers found at Saint-Mandé, which are now in the Imperial
Library.
[382] _Mémoires sur Nicolas Fouquet_, pp. 367 to 386.
[383] _Histoires de la Détention des Philosophes et des Gens de
Lettres_, by Delort, vol. i. p. 21.