black velvet mask, and whom M. de Saint-Mars brought with him from the
Iles Sainte-Marguerite, and whom he had so long in charge, felt slightly
unwell yesterday on coming back from mass. He died to-day at 10 p.m.
without having a serious illness, indeed it could not have been
slighter. M. Guiraut, our chaplain, confessed him yesterday, but as his
death was quite unexpected he did not receive the last sacraments,
although the chaplain was able to exhort him up to the moment of his
death. He was buried on Tuesday the 20th November at 4 P.M. in the
burial-ground of St. Paul's, our parish church. The funeral expenses
amounted to 40 livres."
His name and age were withheld from the priests of the parish. The entry
made in the parish register, which Pere Griffet also gives, is in the
following words:--
"On the 19th November 1703, Marchiali, aged about forty-five, died in
the Bastille, whose body was buried in the graveyard of Saint-Paul's,
his parish, on the 20th instant, in the presence of M. Rosarges and of
M. Reilh, Surgeon-Major of the Bastille.
"(Signed) ROSARGES.
"REILH."
As soon as he was dead everything belonging to him, without exception,
was burned; such as his linen, clothes, bed and bedding, rugs, chairs,
and even the doors of the room he occupied. His service of plate was
melted down, the walls of his room were scoured and whitewashed, the
very floor was renewed, from fear of his having hidden a note under it,
or left some mark by which he could be recognised.
Pere Griffet did not agree with the opinions of either Lagrange-Chancel
or Sainte-Foix, but seemed to incline towards the theory set forth in
the 'Memoires de Perse', against which no irrefutable objections had
been advanced. He concluded by saying that before arriving at any
decision as to who the prisoner really was, it would be necessary to
ascertain the exact date of his arrival at Pignerol.
Sainte-Foix hastened to reply, upholding the soundness of the views he
had advanced. He procured from Arras a copy of an entry in the registers
of the Cathedral Chapter, stating that Louis XIV had written with his
own hand to the said Chapter that they were to admit to burial the body
of the Comte de Vermandois, who had died in the city of Courtrai; that
he desired that the deceased should be interred in the centre of the
choir, in the vault in which lay the remains of Elisabeth, Comtesse de
Vermandois, wife of Philip of Alsace, Comte de Flanders, who had died in
1182. It is not to be supposed that Louis XIV would have chosen a family
vault in which to bury a log of wood.
Sainte-Foix was, however, not acquainted with the letter of Barbezieux,
dated the 13th August 1691, to which we have already referred, as a
proof that the prisoner was not the Comte de Vermandois; it is equally a
proof that he was not the Duke of Monmouth, as Sainte-Foix maintained;
for sentence was passed on the Duke of Monmouth in 1685, so that it
could not be of him either that Barbezieux wrote in 1691, "The prisoner
whom you have had in charge for twenty years."
In the very year in which Sainte-Foix began to flatter himself that his
theory was successfully established, Baron Heiss brought a new one
forward, in a letter dated "Phalsburg, 28th June 1770," and addressed to
the 'Journal Enclycopedique'. It was accompanied by a letter translated
from the Italian which appeared in the 'Histoire Abregee de l'Europe' by
Jacques Bernard, published by Claude Jordan, Leyden, 1685-87, in
detached sheets. This letter stated (August 1687, article 'Mantoue')
that the Duke of Mantua being desirous to sell his capital, Casale, to
the King of France, had been dissuaded therefrom by his secretary, and
induced to join the other princes of Italy in their endeavours to thwart
the ambitious schemes of Louis XVI. The Marquis d'Arcy, French
ambassador to the court of Savoy, having been informed of the
secretary's influence, distinguished him by all kinds of civilities,
asked him frequently to table, and at last invited him to join a large
hunting party two or three leagues outside Turin. They set out together,
but at a short distance from the city were surrounded by a dozen
horsemen, who carried off the secretary, 'disguised him, put a mask on
him, and took him to Pignerol.' He was not kept long in this fortress,
as it was 'too near the Italian frontier, and although he was carefully
guarded it was feared that the walls would speak'; so he was transferred
to the Iles Sainte-Marguerite, where he is at present in the custody of
M. de Saint-Mars.
This theory, of which much was heard later, did not at first excite much
attention. What is certain is that the Duke of Mantua's secretary, by
name Matthioli, was arrested in 1679 through the agency of Abbe
d'Estrade and M. de Catinat, and taken with the utmost secrecy to
Pignerol, where he was imprisoned and placed in charge of M. de
Saint-Mars. He must not, however, be confounded with the Man in the Iron
Mask.
Catinat says of Matthioli in a letter to Louvois "No one knows the name
of this knave."
Louvois writes to Saint-Mars: "I admire your patience in waiting for an
order to treat such a rogue as he deserves, when he treats you with
disrespect."
Saint-Mars replies to the minister: "I have charged Blainvilliers to
show him a cudgel and tell him that with its aid we can make the froward
meek."
Again Louvois writes: "The clothes of such people must be made to last
three or four years."
This cannot have been the nameless prisoner who was treated with such
consideration, before whom Louvois stood bare-headed, who was supplied
with fine linen and lace, and so on.
Altogether, we gather from the correspondence of Saint-Mars that the
unhappy man alluded to above was confined along with a mad Jacobin, and
at last became mad himself, and succumbed to his misery in 1686.
Voltaire, who was probably the first to supply such inexhaustible food
for controversy, kept silence and took no part in the discussions. But
when all the theories had been presented to the public, he set about
refuting them. He made himself very merry, in the seventh edition of
'Questions sur l'Encyclopedie distibuees en forme de Dictionnaire
(Geneva, 1791), over the complaisance attributed to Louis XIV in acting
as police-sergeant and gaoler for James II, William III, and Anne, with
all of whom he was at war. Persisting still in taking 1661 or 1662 as
the date when the incarceration of the masked prisoner began, he attacks
the opinions advanced by Lagrange-Chancel and Pere Griffet, which they
had drawn from the anonymous 'Memoires secrets pour servir a l'Histoire
de Perse'. "Having thus dissipated all these illusions," he says, "let
us now consider who the masked prisoner was, and how old he was when he
died. It is evident that if he was never allowed to walk in the
courtyard of the Bastille or to see a physician without his mask, it
must have been lest his too striking resemblance to someone should be
remarked; he could show his tongue but not his face. As regards his age,
he himself told the apothecary at the Bastille, a few days before his
death, that he thought he was about sixty; this I have often heard from
a son-in-law to this apothecary, M. Marsoban, surgeon to Marshal
Richelieu, and afterwards to the regent, the Duc d'Orleans. The writer
of this article knows perhaps more on this subject than Pere Griffet.
But he has said his say."
This article in the 'Questions on the Encyclopaedia' was followed by
some remarks from the pen of the publisher, which are also, however,
attributed by the publishers of Kelh to Voltaire himself. The publisher,
who sometimes calls himself the author, puts aside without refutation
all the theories advanced, including that of Baron Heiss, and says he
has come to the conclusion that the Iron Mask was, without doubt, a
brother and an elder brother of Louis XIV, by a lover of the queen. Anne
of Austria had come to persuade herself that hers alone was the fault
which had deprived Louis XIII [the publisher of this edition overlooked
the obvious typographical error of "XIV" here when he meant, and it only
makes sense, that it was XIII. D.W.] of an heir, but the birth of the
Iron Mask undeceived her. The cardinal, to whom she confided her secret,
cleverly arranged to bring the king and queen, who had long lived apart,
together again. A second son was the result of this reconciliation; and
the first child being removed in secret, Louis XIV remained in ignorance
of the existence of his half-brother till after his majority. It was the
policy of Louis XIV to affect a great respect for the royal house, so he
avoided much embarrassment to himself and a scandal affecting the memory
of Anne of Austria by adopting the wise and just measure of burying
alive the pledge of an adulterous love. He was thus enabled to avoid
committing an act of cruelty, which a sovereign less conscientious and
less magnanimous would have considered a necessity.
After this declaration Voltaire made no further reference to the Iron
Mask. This last version of the story upset that of Sainte-Foix. Voltaire
having been initiated into the state secret by the Marquis de Richelieu,
we may be permitted to suspect that being naturally indiscreet he
published the truth from behind the shelter of a pseudonym, or at least
gave a version which approached the truth, but later on realising the
dangerous significance of his words, he preserved for the future
complete silence.
We now approach the question whether the prince who thus became the Iron
Mask was an illegitimate brother or a twin-brother of Louis XIV. The
first was maintained by M. Quentin-Crawfurd; the second by Abbe Soulavie
in his 'Memoires du Marechal Duc de Richelieu' (London, 1790). In 1783
the Marquis de Luchet, in the 'Journal des Gens du Monde' (vol. iv. No.
23, p. 282, et seq.), awarded to Buckingham the honour of the paternity
in dispute. In support of this, he quoted the testimony of a lady of the
house of Saint-Quentin who had been a mistress of the minister
Barbezieux, and who died at Chartres about the middle of the eighteenth
century. She had declared publicly that Louis XIV had consigned his
elder brother to perpetual imprisonment, and that the mask was
necessitated by the close resemblance of the two brothers to each other.
The Duke of Buckingham, who came to France in 1625, in order to escort
Henrietta Maria, sister of Louis XIII, to England, where she was to
marry the Prince of Wales, made no secret of his ardent love for the
queen, and it is almost certain that she was not insensible to his
passion. An anonymous pamphlet, 'La Conference du Cardinal Mazarin avec
le Gazetier' (Brussels, 1649), says that she was infatuated about him,
and allowed him to visit her in her room. She even permitted him to take
off and keep one of her gloves, and his vanity leading him to show his
spoil, the king heard of it, and was vastly offended. An anecdote, the
truth of which no one has ever denied, relates that one day Buckingham
spoke to the queen with such passion in the presence of her
lady-in-waiting, the Marquise de Senecey, that the latter exclaimed, "Be
silent, sir, you cannot speak thus to the Queen of France!" According to
this version, the Man in the Iron Mask must have been born at latest in
1637, but the mention of any such date would destroy the possibility of
Buckingham's paternity; for he was assassinated at Portsmouth on
September 2nd, 1628.
After the taking of the Bastille the masked prisoner became the
fashionable topic of discussion, and one heard of nothing else. On the
13th of August 1789 it was announced in an article in a journal called
'Loisirs d'un Patriote francais', which was afterwards published
anonymously as a pamphlet, that the publisher had seen, among other
documents found in the Bastille, a card bearing the unintelligible
number "64389000," and the following note: "Fouquet, arriving from Les
Iles Sainte-Marguerite in an iron mask." To this there was, it was said,
a double signature, viz. "XXX," superimposed on the name "Kersadion."
The journalist was of opinion that Fouquet had succeeded in making his
escape, but had been retaken and condemned to pass for dead, and to wear
a mask henceforward, as a punishment for his attempted evasion. This
tale made some impression, for it was remembered that in the Supplement
to the 'Siecle de Louis XIV' it was stated that Chamillart had said that
"the Iron Mask was a man who knew all the secrets of M. Fouquet." But
the existence of this card was never proved, and we cannot accept the
story on the unsupported word of an anonymous writer.
From the time that restrictions on the press were removed, hardly a day
passed without the appearance of some new pamphlet on the Iron Mask.
Louis Dutens, in 'Correspondence interceptee' (12mo, 1789), revived the
theory of Baron Heiss, supporting it by new and curious facts. He proved
that Louis XIV had really ordered one of the Duke of Mantua's ministers
to be carried off and imprisoned in Pignerol. Dutens gave the name of
the victim as Girolamo Magni. He also quoted from a memorandum which by
the wish of the Marquis de Castellane was drawn up by a certain Souchon,
probably the man whom Papon questioned in 1778. This Souchon was the son
of a man who had belonged to the Free Company maintained in the islands
in the time of Saint-Mars, and was seventy-nine years old. This
memorandum gives a detailed account of the abduction of a minister in
1679, who is styled a "minister of the Empire," and his arrival as a
masked prisoner at the islands, and states that he died there in
captivity nine years after he was carried off.
Dutens thus divests the episode of the element of the marvellous with
which Voltaire had surrounded it. He called to his aid the testimony of
the Duc de Choiseul, who, having in vain attempted to worm the secret of
the Iron Mask out of Louis XV, begged Madame de Pompadour to try her
hand, and was told by her that the prisoner was the minister of an
Italian prince. At the same time that Dutens wrote, "There is no fact in
history better established than the fact that the Man in the Iron Mask
was a minister of the Duke of Mantua who was carried off from Turin," M.
Quentin-Crawfurd was maintaining that the prisoner was a son of Anne of
Austria; while a few years earlier Bouche, a lawyer, in his 'Essai sur
l'Histoire de Provence' (2 vols. 4to, 1785), had regarded this story as
a fable invented by Voltaire, and had convinced himself that the
prisoner was a woman. As we see, discussion threw no light on the
subject, and instead of being dissipated, the confusion became ever
"worse confounded."
In 1790 the 'Memoires du Marechal de Richelieu' appeared. He had left
his note-books, his library, and his correspondence to Soulavie. The
'Memoires' are undoubtedly authentic, and have, if not certainty, at
least a strong moral presumption in their favour, and gained the belief
of men holding diverse opinions. But before placing under the eyes of
our readers extracts from them relating to the Iron Mask, let us refresh
our memory by recalling two theories which had not stood the test of
thorough investigation.
According to some MS. notes left by M. de Bonac, French ambassador at
Constantinople in 1724, the Armenian Patriarch Arwedicks, a mortal enemy
of our Church and the instigator of the terrible persecutions to which
the Roman Catholics were subjected, was carried off into exile at the
request of the Jesuits by a French vessel, and confined in a prison
whence there was no escape. This prison was the fortress of
Sainte-Marguerite, and from there he was taken to the Bastille, where he
died. The Turkish Government continually clamoured for his release till
1723, but the French Government persistently denied having taken any
part in the abduction.
Even if it were not a matter of history that Arwedicks went over to the
Roman Catholic Church and died a free man in Paris, as may be seen by an
inspection of the certificate of his death preserved among the archives
in the Foreign Office, one sentence from the note-book of M. de Bonac
would be sufficient to annihilate this theory. M. de Bonac says that the
Patriarch was carried off, while M. de Feriol, who succeeded M. de
Chateauneuf in 1699, was ambassador at Constantinople. Now it was in
1698 that Saint-Mars arrived at the Bastille with his masked prisoner.
Several English scholars have sided with Gibbon in thinking that the Man
in the Iron Mask might possibly have been Henry, the second son of
Oliver Cromwell, who was held as a hostage by Louis XIV.
By an odd coincidence the second son of the Lord Protector does entirely
disappear from the page of history in 1659; we know nothing of where he
afterwards lived nor when he died. But why should he be a prisoner of
state in France, while his elder brother Richard was permitted to live
there quite openly? In the absence of all proof, we cannot attach the
least importance to this explanation of the mystery.
We now come to the promised extracts from the 'Memoires du Marechal de
Richelieu':
"Under the late king there was a time when every class of society was
asking who the famous personage really was who went by the name of the
Iron Mask, but I noticed that this curiosity abated somewhat after his
arrival at the Bastille with Saint-Mars, when it began to be reported
that orders had been given to kill him should he let his name be known.
Saint-Mars also let it be understood that whoever found out the secret
would share the same fate. This threat to murder both the prisoner and
those who showed too much curiosity about him made such an impression,
that during the lifetime of the late king people only spoke of the
mystery below their breath. The anonymous author of 'Les Memoires de
Perse', which were published in Holland fifteen years after the death of
Louis XIV, was the first who dared to speak publicly of the prisoner and
relate some anecdotes about him.
"Since the publication of that work, liberty of speech and the freedom
of the press have made great strides, and the shade of Louis XIV having
lost its terrors, the case of the Iron Mask is freely discussed, and yet
even now, at the end of my life and seventy years after the death of the
king, people are still asking who the Man in the Iron Mask really was.
"This question was one I put to the adorable princess, beloved of the
regent, who inspired in return only aversion and respect, all her love
being given to me. As everyone was persuaded that the regent knew the
name, the course of life, and the cause of the imprisonment of the
masked prisoner, I, being more venturesome in my curiosity than others,
tried through my princess to fathom the secret. She had hitherto
constantly repulsed the advances of the Duc d' Orleans, but as the
ardour of his passion was thereby in no wise abated, the least glimpse
of hope would be sufficient to induce him to grant her everything she
asked; I persuaded her, therefore, to let him understand that if he
would allow her to read the 'Memoires du Masque' which were in his
possession his dearest desires would be fulfilled.
"The Duc d'Orleans had never been known to reveal any secret of state,
being unspeakably circumspect, and having been trained to keep every
confidence inviolable by his preceptor Dubois, so I felt quite certain
that even the princess would fail in her efforts to get a sight of the
memoranda in his possession relative to the birth and rank of the masked
prisoner; but what cannot love, and such an ardent love, induce a man to
do?
"To reward her goodness the regent gave the documents into her hands,
and she forwarded them to me next day, enclosed in a note written in
cipher, which, according to the laws of historical writing, I reproduce
in its entirety, vouching for its authenticity; for the princess always
employed a cipher when she used the language of gallantry, and this note
told me what treaty she had had to sign in order that she might obtain
the documents, and the duke the desire of his heart. The details are not
admissible in serious history, but, borrowing the modest language of the
patriarchal time, I may say that if Jacob, before he obtained possession
of the best beloved of Laban's daughters, was obliged to pay the price
twice over, the regent drove a better bargain than the patriarch. The
note and the memorandum were as follows: "'2. 1. 17. 12. 9. 2. 20. 2. 1.
7. 14 20. 10. 3. 21. 1. 11. 14. 1. 15. 16. 12. 17. 14. 2. 1. 21. 11. 20.
17. 12. 9. 14. 9. 2. 8. 20. 5. 20. 2. 2. 17. 8. 1. 2. 20. 9. 21. 21. 1.
5. 12. 17. 15. 00. 14. 1. 15. 14. 12. 9. 21. 5. 12. 9. 21. 16. 20. 14.
8. 3.
"'NARRATIVE OF THE BIRTH AND EDUCATION OF THE UNFORTUNATE PRINCE WHO WAS
SEPARATED FROM THE WORLD BY CARDINALS RICHELIEU AND MAZARIN AND
IMPRISONED BY ORDER OF LOUIS XIV.
"'Drawn up by the Governor of this Prince on his deathbed.
"'The unfortunate prince whom I brought up and had in charge till almost
the end of my life was born on the 5th September 1638 at 8.30 o'clock in
the evening, while the king was at supper. His brother, who is now on
the throne, was born at noon while the king was at dinner, but whereas
his birth was splendid and public, that of his brother was sad and
secret; for the king being informed by the midwife that the queen was
about to give birth to a second child, ordered the chancellor, the
midwife, the chief almoner, the queen's confessor, and myself to stay in
her room to be witnesses of whatever happened, and of his course of
action should a second child be born.
"'For a long time already it had been foretold to the king that his wife
would give birth to two sons, and some days before, certain shepherds
had arrived in Paris, saying they were divinely inspired, so that it was
said in Paris that if two dauphins were born it would be the greatest
misfortune which could happen to the State. The Archbishop of Paris
summoned these soothsayers before him, and ordered them to be imprisoned
in Saint-Lazare, because the populace was becoming excited about them--a
circumstance which filled the king with care, as he foresaw much trouble
to his kingdom. What had been predicted by the soothsayers happened,
whether they had really been warned by the constellations, or whether
Providence by whom His Majesty had been warned of the calamities which
might happen to France interposed. The king had sent a messenger to the
cardinal to tell him of this prophecy, and the cardinal had replied that
the matter, must be considered, that the birth of two dauphins was not
impossible, and should such a case arrive, the second must be carefully
hidden away, lest in the future desiring to be king he should fight
against his brother in support of a new branch of the royal house, and
come at last to reign.
"'The king in his suspense felt very uncomfortable, and as the queen
began to utter cries we feared a second confinement. We sent to inform
the king, who was almost overcome by the thought that he was about to
become the father of two dauphins. He said to the Bishop of Meaux, whom
he had sent for to minister to the queen, "Do not quit my wife till she
is safe; I am in mortal terror." Immediately after he summoned us all,
the Bishop of Meaux, the chancellor M. Honorat, Dame Peronete the
midwife, and myself, and said to us in presence of the queen, so that
she could hear, that we would answer to him with our heads if we made
known the birth of a second dauphin; that it was his will that the fact
should remain a state secret, to prevent the misfortunes which would
else happen, the Salic Law not having declared to whom the inheritance
of the kingdom should come in case two eldest sons were born to any of
the kings.
"'What had been foretold happened: the queen, while the king was at
supper, gave birth to a second dauphin, more dainty and more beautiful
than the first, but who wept and wailed unceasingly, as if he regretted
to take up that life in which he was afterwards to endure such
suffering. The chancellor drew up the report of this wonderful birth,
without parallel in our history; but His Majesty not being pleased with
its form, burned it in our presence, and the chancellor had to write and
rewrite till His Majesty was satisfied. The almoner remonstrated, saying
it would be impossible to hide the birth of a prince, but the king
returned that he had reasons of state for all he did.