Produced by David Widger.
*THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK [An Essay]*
_By_
*Alexandre Dumas, Pere*
_From the set of Eight Volumes of "Celebrated Crimes"_
1910
CONTENTS
*THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK [An Essay]*
*THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK [An Essay]*
(This is the essay entitled The Man in the Iron Mask, not the
novel
"The Man in the Iron Mask" [The Novel] Dumas
#28[nmaskxxx.xxx]2759])
For nearly one hundred years this curious problem has exercised the
imagination of writers of fiction--and of drama, and the patience of the
learned in history. No subject is more obscure and elusive, and none
more attractive to the general mind. It is a legend to the meaning of
which none can find the key and yet in which everyone believes.
Involuntarily we feel pity at the thought of that long captivity
surrounded by so many extraordinary precautions, and when we dwell on
the mystery which enveloped the captive, that pity is not only deepened
but a kind of terror takes possession of us. It is very likely that if
the name of the hero of this gloomy tale had been known at the time, he
would now be forgotten. To give him a name would be to relegate him at
once to the ranks of those commonplace offenders who quickly exhaust our
interest and our tears. But this being, cut off from the world without
leaving any discoverable trace, and whose disappearance apparently
caused no void--this captive, distinguished among captives by the
unexampled nature of his punishment, a prison within a prison, as if the
walls of a mere cell were not narrow enough, has come to typify for us
the sum of all the human misery and suffering ever inflicted by unjust
tyranny.
Who was the Man in the Mask? Was he rapt away into this silent seclusion
from the luxury of a court, from the intrigues of diplomacy, from the
scaffold of a traitor, from the clash of battle? What did he leave
behind? Love, glory, or a throne? What did he regret when hope had fled?
Did he pour forth imprecations and curses on his tortures and blaspheme
against high Heaven, or did he with a sigh possess his soul in patience?
The blows of fortune are differently received according to the different
characters of those on whom they fall; and each one of us who in
imagination threads the subterranean passages leading to the cells of
Pignerol and Exilles, and incarcerates himself in the Iles
Sainte-Marguerite and in the Bastille, the successive scenes of that
long-protracted agony will give the prisoner a form shaped by his own
fancy and a grief proportioned to his own power of suffering. How we
long to pierce the thoughts and feel the heart-beats and watch the
trickling tears behind that machine-like exterior, that impassible mask!
Our imagination is powerfully excited by the dumbness of that fate borne
by one whose words never reached the outward air, whose thoughts could
never be read on the hidden features; by the isolation of forty years
secured by two-fold barriers of stone and iron, and she clothes the
object of her contemplation in majestic splendour, connects the mystery
which enveloped his existence with mighty interests, and persists in
regarding the prisoner as sacrificed for the preservation of some
dynastic secret involving the peace of the world and the stability of a
throne.
And when we calmly reflect on the whole case, do we feel that our first
impulsively adopted opinion was wrong? Do we regard our belief as a
poetical illusion? I do not think so; on the contrary, it seems to me
that our good sense approves our fancy's flight. For what can be more
natural than the conviction that the secret of the name, age, and
features of the captive, which was so perseveringly kept through long
years at the cost of so much care, was of vital importance to the
Government? No ordinary human passion, such as anger, hate, or
vengeance, has so dogged and enduring a character; we feel that the
measures taken were not the expression of a love of cruelty, for even
supposing that Louis XIV were the most cruel of princes, would he not
have chosen one of the thousand methods of torture ready to his hand
before inventing a new and strange one? Moreover, why did he voluntarily
burden himself with the obligation of surrounding a prisoner with such
numberless precautions and such sleepless vigilance? Must he not have
feared that in spite of it all the walls behind which he concealed the
dread mystery would one day let in the light? Was it not through his
entire reign a source of unceasing anxiety? And yet he respected the
life of the captive whom it was so difficult to hide, and the discovery
of whose identity would have been so dangerous. It would have been so
easy to bury the secret in an obscure grave, and yet the order was never
given. Was this an expression of hate, anger, or any other passion?
Certainly not; the conclusion we must come to in regard to the conduct
of the king is that all the measures he took against the prisoner were
dictated by purely political motives; that his conscience, while
allowing him to do everything necessary to guard the secret, did not
permit him to take the further step of putting an end to the days of an
unfortunate man, who in all probability was guilty of no crime.
Courtiers are seldom obsequious to the enemies of their master, so that
we may regard the respect and consideration shown to the Man in the Mask
by the governor Saint-Mars, and the minister Louvois, as a testimony,
not only to his high rank, but also to his innocence.
For my part, I make no pretensions to the erudition of the bookworm, and
I cannot read the history of the Man in the Iron Mask without feeling my
blood boil at the abominable abuse of power--the heinous crime of which
he was the victim.
A few years ago, M. Fournier and I, thinking the subject suitable for
representation on the stage, undertook to read, before dramatising it,
all the different versions of the affair which had been published up to
that time. Since our piece was successfully performed at the Odeon two
other versions have appeared: one was in the form of a letter addressed
to the Historical Institute by M. Billiard, who upheld the conclusions
arrived at by Soulavie, on whose narrative our play was founded; the
other was a work by the bibliophile Jacob, who followed a new system of
inquiry, and whose book displayed the results of deep research and
extensive reading. It did not, however, cause me to change my opinion.
Even had it been published before I had written my drama, I should still
have adhered to the idea as to the most probable solution of the problem
which I had arrived at in 1831, not only because it was incontestably
the most dramatic, but also because it is supported by those moral
presumptions which have such weight with us when considering a dark and
doubtful question like the one before us. It will, be objected, perhaps,
that dramatic writers, in their love of the marvellous and the pathetic,
neglect logic and strain after effect, their aim being to obtain the
applause of the gallery rather than the approbation of the learned. But
to this it may be replied that the learned on their part sacrifice a
great deal to their love of dates, more or less exact; to their desire
to elucidate some point which had hitherto been considered obscure, and
which their explanations do not always clear up; to the temptation to
display their proficiency in the ingenious art of manipulating facts and
figures culled from a dozen musty volumes into one consistent whole.
Our interest in this strange case of imprisonment arises, not alone from
its completeness and duration, but also from our uncertainty as to the
motives from which it was inflicted. Where erudition alone cannot
suffice; where bookworm after bookworm, disdaining the conjectures of
his predecessors, comes forward with a new theory founded on some
forgotten document he has hunted out, only to find himself in his turn
pushed into oblivion by some follower in his track, we must turn for
guidance to some other light than that of scholarship; especially if, on
strict investigation, we find that not one learned solution rests on a
sound basis of fact.
In the question before us, which, as we said before, is a double one,
asking not only who was the Man in the Iron Mask, but why he was
relentlessly subjected to this torture till the moment of his death,
what we need in order to restrain our fancy is mathematical
demonstration, and not philosophical induction.
While I do not go so far as to assert positively that Abbe Soulavie has
once for all lifted the veil which hid the truth, I am yet persuaded
that no other system of research is superior to his, and that no other
suggested solution has so many presumptions in its favour. I have not
reached this firm conviction on account of the great and prolonged
success of our drama, but because of the ease with which all the
opinions adverse to those of the abbe may be annihilated by pitting them
one against the other.
The qualities that make for success being quite different in a novel and
in a drama, I could easily have founded a romance on the fictitious
loves of Buckingham and the queen, or on a supposed secret marriage
between her and Cardinal Mazarin, calling to my aid a work by
Saint-Mihiel which the bibliophile declares he has never read, although
it is assuredly neither rare nor difficult of access. I might also have
merely expanded my drama, restoring to the personages therein their true
names and relative positions, both of which the exigencies of the stage
had sometimes obliged me to alter, and while allowing them to fill the
same parts, making them act more in accordance with historical fact. No
fable however far-fetched, no grouping of characters however improbable,
can, however, destroy the interest which the innumerable writings about
the Iron Mask excite, although no two agree in details, and although
each author and each witness declares himself in possession of complete
knowledge. No work, however mediocre, however worthless even, which has
appeared on this subject has ever failed of success, not even, for
example, the strange jumble of Chevalier de Mouhy, a kind of literary
braggart, who was in the pay of Voltaire, and whose work was published
anonymously in 1746 by Pierre de Hondt of The Hague. It is divided into
six short parts, and bears the title, 'Le Masque de Fer, ou les
Aventures admirables du Prre et du Fils'. An absurd romance by Regnault
Warin, and one at least equally absurd by Madame Guenard, met with a
like favourable reception. In writing for the theatre, an author must
choose one view of a dramatic situation to the exclusion of all others,
and in following out this central idea is obliged by the inexorable laws
of logic to push aside everything that interferes with its development.
A book, on the contrary, is written to be discussed; it brings under the
notice of the reader all the evidence produced at a trial which has as
yet not reached a definite conclusion, and which in the case before us
will never reach it, unless, which is most improbable, some lucky chance
should lead to some new discovery.
The first mention of the prisoner is to be found in the 'Memoires
secrets pour servir a l'Histoire de Perse' in one 12mo volume, by an
anonymous author, published by the 'Compagnie des Libraires Associes
d'Amsterdam' in 1745.
"Not having any other purpose," says the author (page 20, 2nd edit.),
"than to relate facts which are not known, or about which no one has
written, or about which it is impossible to be silent, we refer at once
to a fact which has hitherto almost escaped notice concerning Prince
Giafer (Louis de Bourbon, Comte de Vermandois, son of Louis XIV and
Mademoiselle de la Valliere), who was visited by Ali-Momajou (the Duc
d'Orleans, the regent) in the fortress of Ispahan (the Bastille), in
which he had been imprisoned for several years. This visit had probably
no other motive than to make sure that this prince was really alive, he
having been reputed dead of the plague for over thirty years, and his
obsequies having been celebrated in presence of an entire army.
"Cha-Abas (Louis XIV) had a legitimate son, Sephi-Mirza (Louis, Dauphin
of France), and a natural son, Giafer. These two princes, as dissimilar
in character as in birth, were always rivals and always at enmity with
each other. One day Giafer so far forgot himself as to strike
Sephi-Mirza. Cha-Abas having heard of the insult offered to the heir to
the throne, assembled his most trusted councillors, and laid the conduct
of the culprit before them--conduct which, according to the law of the
country, was punishable with death, an opinion in which they all agreed.
One of the councillors, however, sympathising more than the others with
the distress of Cha-Abas, suggested that Giafer should be sent to the
army, which was then on the frontiers of Feidrun (Flanders), and that
his death from plague should be given out a few days after his arrival.
Then, while the whole army was celebrating his obsequies, he should be
carried off by night, in the greatest secrecy, to the stronghold on the
isle of Ormus (Sainte-Marguerite), and there imprisoned for life.
"This course was adopted, and carried out by faithful and discreet
agents. The prince, whose premature death was mourned by the army, being
carried by unfrequented roads to the isle of Ormus, was placed in the
custody of the commandant of the island, who, had received orders
beforehand not to allow any person whatever to see the prisoner. A
single servant who was in possession of the secret was killed by the
escort on the journey, and his face so disfigured by dagger thrusts that
he could not be recognised.
"The commandant treated his prisoner with the most profound respect; he
waited on him at meals himself, taking the dishes from the cooks at the
door of the apartment, none of whom ever looked on the face of Giafer.
One day it occurred to the prince to scratch, his name on the back of a
plate with his knife. One of the servants into whose hands the plate
fell ran with it at once to the commandant, hoping he would be pleased
and reward the bearer; but the unfortunate man was greatly mistaken, for
he was at once made away with, that his knowledge of such an important
secret might be buried with himself.
"Giafer remained several years in the castle Ormus, and was then
transported to the fortress of Ispahan; the commandant of Ormus having
received the governorship of Ispahan as a reward for faithful service.
"At Ispahan, as at Ormus, whenever it was necessary on account of
illness or any other cause to allow anyone to approach the prince, he
was always masked; and several trustworthy persons have asserted that
they had seen the masked prisoner often, and had noticed that he used
the familiar 'tu' when addressing the governor, while the latter showed
his charge the greatest respect. As Giafer survived Cha-Abas and
Sephi-Mirza by many years, it may be asked why he was never set at
liberty; but it must be remembered it would have been impossible to
restore a prince to his rank and dignities whose tomb actually existed,
and of whose burial there were not only living witnesses but documentary
proofs, the authenticity of which it would have been useless to deny, so
firm was the belief, which has lasted down to the present day, that
Giafer died of the plague in camp when with the army on the frontiers of
Flanders. Ali-Homajou died shortly after the visit he paid to Giafer."
This version of the story, which is the original source of all the
controversy on the subject, was at first generally received as true. On
a critical examination it fitted in very well with certain events which
took place in the reign of Louis XIV.
The Comte de Vermandois had in fact left the court for the camp very
soon after his reappearance there, for he had been banished by the king
from his presence some time before for having, in company with several
young nobles, indulged in the most reprehensible excesses.
"The king," says Mademoiselle de Montpensier ['Memoires de Mademoiselle
de Montpensier', vol. xliii. p. 474., of 'Memoires Relatifs d'Histoire
de France', Second Series, published by Petitot), "had not been
satisfied with his conduct and refused to see him. The young prince had
caused his mother much sorrow, but had been so well lectured that it was
believed that he had at last turned over a new leaf." He only remained
four days at court, reached the camp before Courtrai early in November
1683, was taken ill on the evening of the 12th, and died on the 19th of
the same month of a malignant fever. Mademoiselle de Montpensier says
that the Comte de Vermandois "fell ill from drink."
There are, of course, objections of all kinds to this theory.
For if, during the four days the comte was at court, he had struck the
dauphin, everyone would have heard of the monstrous crime, and yet it is
nowhere spoken of, except in the 'Memoires de Perse'. What renders the
story of the blow still more improbable is the difference in age between
the two princes. The dauphin, who already had a son, the Duc de
Bourgogne, more than a year old, was born the 1st November 1661, and was
therefore six years older than the Comte de Vermandois. But the most
complete answer to the tale is to be found in a letter written by
Barbezieux to Saint-Mars, dated the 13th August 1691:--
"When you have any information to send me relative to the prisoner who
has been in your charge for twenty years, I most earnestly enjoin on you
to take the same precautions as when you write to M. de Louvois."
The Comte de Vermandois, the official registration of whose death bears
the date 1685, cannot have been twenty years a prisoner in 1691.
Six years after the Man in the Mask had been thus delivered over to the
curiosity of the public, the 'Siecle de Louis XIV' (2 vols. octavo,
Berlin, 1751) was published by Voltaire under the pseudonym of M. de
Francheville. Everyone turned to this work, which had been long
expected, for details relating to the mysterious prisoner about whom
everyone was talking.
Voltaire ventured at length to speak more openly of the prisoner than
anyone had hitherto done, and to treat as a matter of history "an event
long ignored by all historians." (vol. ii. p. 11, 1st edition, chap.
xxv.). He assigned an approximate date to the beginning of this
captivity, "some months after the death of Cardinal Mazarin" (1661); he
gave a description of the prisoner, who according to him was "young and
dark-complexioned; his figure was above the middle height and well
proportioned; his features were exceedingly handsome, and his bearing
was noble. When he spoke his voice inspired interest; he never
complained of his lot, and gave no hint as to his rank." Nor was the
mask forgotten: "The part which covered the chin was furnished with
steel springs, which allowed the prisoner to eat without uncovering his
face." And, lastly, he fixed the date of the death of the nameless
captive; who "was buried," he says, "in 1704., by night, in the parish
church of Saint-Paul."
Voltaire's narrative coincided with the account given in the 'Memoires
de Peyse', save for the omission of the incident which, according to the
'Memoires', led in the first instance to the imprisonment of Giafer.
"The prisoner," says Voltaire, "was sent to the Iles Sainte-Marguerite,
and afterwards to the Bastille, in charge of a trusty official; he wore
his mask on the journey, and his escort had orders to shoot him if he
took it off. The Marquis de Louvois visited him while he was on the
islands, and when speaking to him stood all the time in a respectful
attitude. The prisoner was removed to the Bastille in 1690, where he was
lodged as comfortably as could be managed in that building; he was
supplied with everything he asked for, especially with the finest linen
and the costliest lace, in both of which his taste was perfect; he had a
guitar to play on, his table was excellent, and the governor rarely sat
in his presence."
Voltaire added a few further details which had been given him by M. de
Bernaville, the successor of M. de Saint-Mars, and by an old physician
of the Bastille who had attended the prisoner whenever his health
required a doctor, but who had never seen his face, although he had
"often seen his tongue and his body." He also asserted that M. de
Chamillart was the last minister who was in the secret, and that when
his son-in-law, Marshal de la Feuillade, besought him on his knees, de
Chamillart being on his deathbed, to tell him the name of the Man in the
Iron Mask, the minister replied that he was under a solemn oath never to
reveal the secret, it being an affair of state. To all these details,
which the marshal acknowledges to be correct, Voltaire adds a remarkable
note: "What increases our wonder is, that when the unknown captive was
sent to the Iles Sainte-Marguerite no personage of note disappeared from
the European stage."
The story of the Comte de Vermandois and the blow was treated as an
absurd and romantic invention, which does not even attempt to keep
within the bounds of the possible, by Baron C. (according to P.
Marchand, Baron Crunyngen) in a letter inserted in the 'Bibliotheque
raisonnee des Ouvrages des Savants de d'Europe', June 1745. The
discussion was revived somewhat later, however, and a few Dutch scholars
were supposed to be responsible for a new theory founded on history; the
foundations proving somewhat shaky, however,--a quality which it shares,
we must say, with all the other theories which have ever been advanced.
According to this new theory, the masked prisoner was a young foreign
nobleman, groom of the chambers to Anne of Austria, and the real father
of Louis XIV. This anecdote appears first in a duodecimo volume printed
by Pierre Marteau at Cologne in 1692, and which bears the title, 'The
Loves of Anne of Austria, Consort of Louis XIII, with M. le C. D. R.,
the Real Father of Louis XIV, King of France; being a Minute Account of
the Measures taken to give an Heir to the Throne of France, the
Influences at Work to bring this to pass, and the Denoument of the
Comedy'.
This libel ran through five editions, bearing date successively, 1692,
1693, 1696, 1722, and 1738. In the title of the edition of 1696 the
words "Cardinal de Richelieu" are inserted in place of the initials "C.
D. R.," but that this is only a printer's error everyone who reads the
work will perceive. Some have thought the three letters stood for Comte
de Riviere, others for Comte de Rochefort, whose 'Memoires' compiled by
Sandras de Courtilz supply these initials. The author of the book was an
Orange writer in the pay of William III, and its object was, he says,
"to unveil the great mystery of iniquity which hid the true origin of
Louis XIV." He goes on to remark that "the knowledge of this fraud,
although comparatively rare outside France, was widely spread within her
borders. The well-known coldness of Louis XIII; the extraordinary birth
of Louis-Dieudonne, so called because he was born in the twenty-third
year of a childless marriage, and several other remarkable circumstances
connected with the birth, all point clearly to a father other than the
prince, who with great effrontery is passed off by his adherents as
such. The famous barricades of Paris, and the organised revolt led by
distinguished men against Louis XIV on his accession to the throne,
proclaimed aloud the king's illegitimacy, so that it rang through the
country; and as the accusation had reason on its side, hardly anyone
doubted its truth."
We give below a short abstract of the narrative, the plot of which is
rather skilfully constructed:--
"Cardinal Richelieu, looking with satisfied pride at the love of Gaston,
Duc d'Orleans, brother of the king, for his niece Parisiatis (Madame de
Combalet), formed the plan of uniting the young couple in marriage.
Gaston taking the suggestion as an insult, struck the cardinal. Pere
Joseph then tried to gain the cardinal's consent and that of his niece
to an attempt to deprive Gaston of the throne, which the childless
marriage of Louis XIII seemed to assure him. A young man, the C. D. R.
of the book, was introduced into Anne of Austria's room, who though a
wife in name had long been a widow in reality. She defended herself but
feebly, and on seeing the cardinal next day said to him, 'Well, you have
had your wicked will; but take good care, sir cardinal, that I may find
above the mercy and goodness which you have tried by many pious
sophistries to convince me is awaiting me. Watch over my soul, I charge
you, for I have yielded!' The queen having given herself up to love for
some time, the joyful news that she would soon become a mother began to
spread over the kingdom. In this manner was born Louis XIV, the putative
son of Louis XIII. If this instalment of the tale be favourably
received, says the pamphleteer, the sequel will soon follow, in which
the sad fate of C. D. R. will be related, who was made to pay dearly for
his short-lived pleasure."
Although the first part was a great success, the promised sequel never
appeared. It must be admitted that such a story, though it never
convinced a single person of the illegitimacy of Louis XIV, was an
excellent prologue to the tale of the unfortunate lot of the Man in the
Iron Mask, and increased the interest and curiosity with which that
singular historical mystery was regarded. But the views of the Dutch
scholars thus set forth met with little credence, and were soon
forgotten in a new solution.
The third historian to write about the prisoner of the Iles
Sainte-Marguerite was Lagrange-Chancel. He was just twenty-nine years of
age when, excited by Freron's hatred of Voltaire, he addressed a letter
from his country place, Antoniat, in Perigord, to the 'Annee Litteraire'
(vol. iii. p. 188), demolishing the theory advanced in the 'Siecle de
Louis XIV', and giving facts which he had collected whilst himself
imprisoned in the same place as the unknown prisoner twenty years later.
"My detention in the Iles-Saint-Marguerite," says Lagrange-Chancel,"
brought many things to my knowledge which a more painstaking historian
than M. de Voltaire would have taken the trouble to find out; for at the
time when I was taken to the islands the imprisonment of the Man in the
Iron Mask was no longer regarded as a state secret. This extraordinary
event, which M. de Voltaire places in 1662, a few months after the death
of Cardinal Mazarin, did not take place till 1669, eight years after the
death of His Eminence. M. de La Motte-Guerin, commandant of the islands
in my time, assured me that the prisoner was the Duc de Beaufort, who
was reported killed at the siege of Candia, but whose body had never
been recovered, as all the narratives of that event agree in stating. He
also told me that M. de Saint-Mars, who succeeded Pignerol as governor
of the islands, showed great consideration for the prisoner, that he
waited on him at table, that the service was of silver, and that the
clothes supplied to the prisoner were as costly as he desired; that when
he was ill and in need of a physician or surgeon, he was obliged under
pain of death to wear his mask in their presence, but that when he was
alone he was permitted to pull out the hairs of his beard with steel
tweezers, which were kept bright and polished. I saw a pair of these
which had been actually used for this purpose in the possession of M. de
Formanoir, nephew of Saint-Mars, and lieutenant of a Free Company raised
for the purpose of guarding the prisoners. Several persons told me that
when Saint-Mars, who had been placed over the Bastille, conducted his
charge thither, the latter was heard to say behind his iron mask, 'Has
the king designs on my life?' To which Saint-Mars replied, 'No, my
prince; your life is safe: you must only let yourself be guided.'
"I also learned from a man called Dubuisson, cashier to the well-known
Samuel Bernard, who, having been imprisoned for some years in the
Bastile, was removed to the Iles Sainte-Marguerite, where he was
confined along with some others in a room exactly over the one occupied
by the unknown prisoner. He told me that they were able to communicate
with him by means of the flue of the chimney, but on asking him why he
persisted in not revealing his name and the cause of his imprisonment,
he replied that such an avowal would be fatal not only to him but to
those to whom he made it.
"Whether it were so or not, to-day the name and rank of this political
victim are secrets the preservation of which is no longer necessary to
the State; and I have thought that to tell the public what I know would
cut short the long chain of circumstances which everyone was forging
according to his fancy, instigated thereto by an author whose gift of
relating the most impossible events in such a manner as to make them
seem true has won for all his writings such success--even for his Vie de
Charles XII"
This theory, according to Jacob, is more probable than any of the
others.
"Beginning with the year 1664.," he says, "the Duc de Beaufort had by
his insubordination and levity endangered the success of several
maritime expeditions. In October 1666 Louis XIV remonstrated with him
with much tact, begging him to try to make himself more and more capable
in the service of his king by cultivating the talents with which he was
endowed, and ridding himself of the faults which spoilt his conduct. 'I
do not doubt,' he concludes, 'that you will be all the more grateful to
me for this mark of my benevolence towards you, when you reflect how few
kings have ever shown their goodwill in a similar manner.'" ( 'Oeuvres
de Louis XIV', vol. v. p. 388). Several calamities in the royal navy are
known to have been brought about by the Duc de Beaufort. M. Eugene Sue,
in his 'Histoire de la Marine', which is full of new and curious
information, has drawn a very good picture of the position of the "roi
des halles," the "king of the markets," in regard to Colbert and Louis
XIV. Colbert wished to direct all the manoeuvres of the fleet from his
study, while it was commanded by the naval grandmaster in the capricious
manner which might be expected from his factious character and love of
bluster (Eugene Sue, vol. i., 'Pieces Justificatives'). In 1699 Louis
XIV sent the Duc de Beaufort to the relief of Candia, which the Turks
were besieging. Seven hours after his arrival Beaufort was killed in a
sortie. The Duc de Navailles, who shared with him the command of the
French squadron, simply reported his death as follows: "He met a body of
Turks who were pressing our troops hard: placing himself at the head of
the latter, he fought valiantly, but at length his soldiers abandoned
him, and we have not been able to learn his fate" ['Memoires du Duc de
Navailles', book iv. P. 243)
The report of his death spread rapidly through France and Italy;
magnificent funeral services were held in Paris, Rome, and Venice, and
funeral orations delivered. Nevertheless, many believed that he would
one day reappear, as his body had never been recovered.
Guy Patin mentions this belief, which he did not share, in two of his
letters:--
"Several wagers have been laid that M. de Beaufort is not dead! 'O
utinam'!" (Guy Patin, September 26, 1669).
"It is said that M. de Vivonne has been granted by commission the post
of vice-admiral of France for twenty years; but there are many who
believe that the Duc de Beaufort is not dead, but imprisoned in some
Turkish island. Believe this who may, I don't; he is really dead, and
the last thing I should desire would be to be as dead as he",(Ibid.,
January 14, 1670).
The following are the objections to this theory:
"In several narratives written by eye-witnesses of the siege of Candia,"
says Jacob, "it is related that the Turks, according to their custom,
despoiled the body and cut off the head of the Duc de Beaufort on the
field of battle, and that the latter was afterwards exhibited at
Constantinople; and this may account for some of the details given by
Sandras de Courtilz in his 'Memoires du Marquis de Montbrun' and his
'Memoires d'Artagnan', for one can easily imagine that the naked,
headless body might escape recognition. M. Eugene Sue, in his 'Histoire
de la Marine' (vol. ii, chap. 6), had adopted this view, which coincides
with the accounts left by Philibert de Jarry and the Marquis de Ville,
the MSS. of whose letters and 'Memoires' are to be found in the
Bibliotheque du Roi.
"In the first volume of the 'Histoire de la Detention des Philosophes et
des Gens de Lettres a la Bastille, etc.', we find the following
passage:--
"Without dwelling on the difficulty and danger of an abduction, which an
Ottoman scimitar might any day during this memorable siege render
unnecessary, we shall restrict ourselves to declaring positively that
the correspondence of Saint-Mars from 1669 to 1680 gives us no ground
for supposing that the governor of Pignerol had any great prisoner of
state in his charge during that period of time, except Fouquet and
Lauzun.'"
While we profess no blind faith in the conclusions arrived at by the
learned critic, we would yet add to the considerations on which he
relies another, viz. that it is most improbable that Louis XIV should
ever have considered it necessary to take such rigorous measures against
the Duc de Beaufort. Truculent and self-confident as he was, he never
acted against the royal authority in such a manner as to oblige the king
to strike him down in secret; and it is difficult to believe that Louis
XIV, peaceably seated on his throne, with all the enemies of his
minority under his feet, should have revenged himself on the duke as an
old Frondeur.
The critic calls our attention to another fact also adverse to the
theory under consideration. The Man in the Iron Mask loved fine linen
and rich lace, he was reserved in character and possessed of extreme
refinement, and none of this suits the portraits of the 'roi des halles'
which contemporary historians have drawn.
Regarding the anagram of the name Marchiali (the name under which the
death of the prisoner was registered), 'hic amiral', as a proof, we
cannot think that the gaolers of Pignerol amused themselves in
propounding conundrums to exercise the keen intellect of their
contemporaries; and moreover the same anagram would apply equally well
to the Count of Vermandois, who was made admiral when only twenty-two
months old. Abbe Papon, in his roamings through Provence, paid a visit
to the prison in which the Iron Mask was confined, and thus speaks:--
"It was to the Iles Sainte-Marguerite that the famous prisoner with the
iron mask whose name has never been discovered, was transported at the
end of the last century; very few of those attached to his service were
allowed to speak to him. One day, as M. de Saint-Mars was conversing
with him, standing outside his door, in a kind of corridor, so as to be
able to see from a distance everyone who approached, the son of one of
the governor's friends, hearing the voices, came up; Saint-Mars quickly
closed the door of the room, and, rushing to meet the young man, asked
him with an air of great anxiety if he had overheard anything that was
said. Having convinced himself that he had heard nothing, the governor
sent the young man away the same day, and wrote to the father that the
adventure was like to have cost the son dear, and that he had sent him
back to his home to prevent any further imprudence.
"I was curious enough to visit the room in which the unfortunate man was
imprisoned, on the 2nd of February 1778. It is lighted by one window to
the north, overlooking the sea, about fifteen feet above the terrace
where the sentries paced to and fro. This window was pierced through a
very thick wall and the embrasure barricaded by three iron bars, thus
separating the prisoner from the sentries by a distance of over two
fathoms. I found an officer of the Free Company in the fortress who was
nigh on fourscore years old; he told me that his father, who had
belonged to the same Company, had often related to him how a friar had
seen something white floating on the water under the prisoner's window.
On being fished out and carried to M. de Saint-Mars, it proved to be a
shirt of very fine material, loosely folded together, and covered with
writing from end to end. M. de Saint-Mars spread it out and read a few
words, then turning to the friar who had brought it he asked him in an
embarrassed manner if he had been led by curiosity to read any of the,
writing. The friar protested repeatedly that he had not read a line, but
nevertheless he was found dead in bed two days later. This incident was
told so often to my informant by his father and by the chaplain of the
fort of that time that he regarded it as incontestably true. The
following fact also appears to me to be equally well established by the
testimony of many witnesses. I collected all the evidence I could on the
spot, and also in the Lerins monastery, where the tradition is
preserved.
"A female attendant being wanted for the prisoner, a woman of the
village of Mongin offered herself for the place, being under the
impression that she would thus be able to make her children's fortune;
but on being told that she would not only never be allowed to see her
children again, but would be cut off from the rest of the world as well,
she refused to be shut up with a prisoner whom it cost so much to serve.
I may mention here that at the two outer angles of the wall of the fort
which faced the sea two sentries were placed, with orders to fire on any
boat which approached within a certain distance.
"The prisoner's personal attendant died in the Iles Sainte-Marguerite.
The brother of the officer whom I mentioned above was partly in the
confidence of M. de Saint-Mars, and he often told how he was summoned to
the prison once at midnight and ordered to remove a corpse, and that he
carried it on his shoulders to the burial-place, feeling certain it was
the prisoner who was dead; but it was only his servant, and it was then
that an effort was made to supply his place by a female attendant."
Abbe Papon gives some curious details, hitherto unknown to the public,
but as he mentions no names his narrative cannot be considered as
evidence. Voltaire never replied to Lagrange-Chancel, who died the same
year in which his letter was published. Freron desiring to revenge
himself for the scathing portrait which Voltaire had drawn of him in the
'Ecossaise', called to his assistance a more redoubtable adversary than
Lagrange-Chancel. Sainte-Foix had brought to the front a brand new
theory, founded on a passage by Hume in an article in the 'Annee
Litteraire (1768, vol. iv.), in which he maintained that the Man in the
Iron Mask was the Duke of Monmouth, a natural son of Charles II, who was
found guilty of high treason and beheaded in London on the 15th July
1685.
This is what the English historian says:
"It was commonly reported in London that the Duke of Monmouth's life had
been saved, one of his adherents who bore a striking resemblance to the
duke having consented to die in his stead, while the real culprit was
secretly carried off to France, there to undergo a lifelong
imprisonment."
The great affection which the English felt for the Duke of Monmouth, and
his own conviction that the people only needed a leader to induce them
to shake off the yoke of James II, led him to undertake an enterprise
which might possibly have succeeded had it been carried out with
prudence. He landed at Lyme, in Dorset, with only one hundred and twenty
men; six thousand soon gathered round his standard; a few towns declared
in his favour; he caused himself to be proclaimed king, affirming that
he was born in wedlock, and that he possessed the proofs of the secret
marriage of Charles II and Lucy Waiters, his mother. He met the
Royalists on the battlefield, and victory seemed to be on his side, when
just at the decisive moment his ammunition ran short. Lord Gray, who
commanded the cavalry, beat a cowardly retreat, the unfortunate Monmouth
was taken prisoner, brought to London, and beheaded.
The details published in the 'Siecle de Louis XIV' as to the personal
appearance of the masked prisoner might have been taken as a description
of Monmouth, who possessed great physical beauty. Sainte-Foix had
collected every scrap of evidence in favour of his solution of the
mystery, making use even of the following passage from an anonymous
romance called 'The Loves of Charles II and James II, Kings of
England':--
"The night of the pretended execution of the Duke of Monmouth, the king,
attended by three men, came to the Tower and summoned the duke to his
presence. A kind of loose cowl was thrown over his head, and he was put
into a carriage, into which the king and his attendants also got, and
was driven away."
Sainte-Foix also referred to the alleged visit of Saunders, confessor to
James II, paid to the Duchess of Portsmouth after the death of that
monarch, when the duchess took occasion to say that she could never
forgive King James for consenting to Monmouth's execution, in spite of
the oath he had taken on the sacred elements at the deathbed of Charles
II that he would never take his natural brother's life, even in case of
rebellion. To this the priest replied quickly, "The king kept his oath."
Hume also records this solemn oath, but we cannot say that all the
historians agree on this point. 'The Universal History' by Guthrie and
Gray, and the 'Histoire d'Angleterre' by Rapin, Thoyras and de Barrow,
do not mention it.
"Further," wrote Sainte-Foix, "an English surgeon called Nelaton, who
frequented the Cafe Procope, much affected by men of letters, often
related that during the time he was senior apprentice to a surgeon who
lived near the Porte Saint-Antoine, he was once taken to the Bastille to
bleed a prisoner. He was conducted to this prisoner's room by the
governor himself, and found the patient suffering from violent headache.
He spoke with an English accent, wore a gold-flowered dressing-gown of
black and orange, and had his face covered by a napkin knotted behind
his head."
This story does not hold water: it would be difficult to form a mask out
of a napkin; the Bastille had a resident surgeon of its own as well as a
physician and apothecary; no one could gain access to a prisoner without
a written order from a minister, even the Viaticum could only be
introduced by the express permission of the lieutenant of police.
This theory met at first with no objections, and seemed to be going to
oust all the others, thanks, perhaps, to the combative and restive
character of its promulgator, who bore criticism badly, and whom no one
cared to incense, his sword being even more redoubtable than his pen.
It was known that when Saint-Mars journeyed with his prisoner to the
Bastille, they had put up on the way at Palteau, in Champagne, a
property belonging to the governor. Freron therefore addressed himself
to a grand-nephew of Saint-Mars, who had inherited this estate, asking
if he could give him any information about this visit. The following
reply appeared in the 'Annee Litteraire (June 1768):--
"As it appears from the letter of M. de Sainte-Foix from which you quote
that the Man in the Iron Mask still exercises the fancy of your
journalists, I am willing to tell you all I know about the prisoner. He
was known in the islands of Sainte-Marguerite and at the Bastille as 'La
Tour.' The governor and all the other officials showed him great
respect, and supplied him with everything he asked for that could be
granted to a prisoner. He often took exercise in the yard of the prison,
but never without his mask on. It was not till the 'Siecle' of M. de
Voltaire appeared that I learned that the mask was of iron and furnished
with springs; it may be that the circumstance was overlooked, but he
never wore it except when taking the air, or when he had to appear
before a stranger.
"M. de Blainvilliers, an infantry officer who was acquainted with M. de
Saint-Mars both at Pignerol and Sainte-Marguerite, has often told me
that the lot of 'La Tour' greatly excited his curiosity, and that he had
once borrowed the clothes and arms of a soldier whose turn it was to be
sentry on the terrace under the prisoner's window at Sainte-Marguerite,
and undertaken the duty himself; that he had seen the prisoner
distinctly, without his mask; that his face was white, that he was tall
and well proportioned, except that his ankles were too thick, and that
his hair was white, although he appeared to be still in the prime of
life. He passed the whole of the night in question pacing to and fro in
his room. Blainvilliers added that he was always dressed in brown, that
he had plenty of fine linen and books, that the governor and the other
officers always stood uncovered in his presence till he gave them leave
to cover and sit down, and that they often bore him company at table.
"In 1698 M. de Saint-Mars was promoted from the governorship of the Iles
Sainte-Marguerite to that of the Bastille. In moving thither,
accompanied by his prisoner, he made his estate of Palteau a
halting-place. The masked man arrived in a litter which preceded that of
M. de Saint-Mars, and several mounted men rode beside it. The peasants
were assembled to greet their liege lord. M. de Saint-Mars dined with
his prisoner, who sat with his back to the dining-room windows, which
looked out on the court. None of the peasants whom I have questioned
were able to see whether the man kept his mask on while eating, but they
all noticed that M. de Saint-Mars, who sat opposite to his charge, laid
two pistols beside his plate; that only one footman waited at table, who
went into the antechamber to change the plates and dishes, always
carefully closing the dining-room door behind him. When the prisoner
crossed the courtyard his face was covered with a black mask, but the
peasants could see his lips and teeth, and remarked that he was tall,
and had white hair. M. de Saint-Mars slept in a bed placed beside the
prisoner's. M. de Blainvilliers told me also that 'as soon as he was
dead, which happened in 1704, he was buried at Saint-Paul's,' and that
'the coffin was filled with substances which would rapidly consume the
body.' He added, 'I never heard that the masked man spoke with an
English accent.'"
Sainte-Foix proved the story related by M. de Blainvilliers to be little
worthy of belief, showing by a circumstance mentioned in the letter that
the imprisoned man could not be the Duc de Beaufort; witness the epigram
of Madame de Choisy, "M. de Beaufort longs to bite and can't," whereas
the peasants had seen the prisoner's teeth through his mask. It appeared
as if the theory of Sainte-Foix were going to stand, when a Jesuit
father, named Griffet, who was confessor at the Bastille, devoted
chapter xiii, of his 'Traite des differentes Sortes de Preuves qui
servent a etablir la Verite dans l'Histoire' (12mo, Liege, 1769) to the
consideration of the Iron Mask. He was the first to quote an authentic
document which certifies that the Man in the Iron Mask about whom there
was so much disputing really existed. This was the written journal of M.
du Jonca, King's Lieutenant in the Bastille in 1698, from which Pere
Griffet took the following passage:--
"On Thursday, September the 8th, 1698, at three o'clock in the
afternoon, M. de Saint-Mars, the new governor of the Bastille, entered
upon his duties. He arrived from the islands of Sainte-Marguerite,
bringing with him in a litter a prisoner whose name is a secret, and
whom he had had under his charge there, and at Pignerol. This prisoner,
who was always masked, was at first placed in the Bassiniere tower,
where he remained until the evening. At nine o'clock p.m. I took him to
the third room of the Bertaudiere tower, which I had had already
furnished before his arrival with all needful articles, having received
orders to do so from M. de Saint-Mars. While I was showing him the way
to his room, I was accompanied by M. Rosarges, who had also arrived
along with M. de Saint-Mars, and whose office it was to wait on the said
prisoner, whose table is to be supplied by the governor."
Du Jonca's diary records the death of the prisoner in the following
terms:--