[1] The word "iron" was in O. Eng. _iren_, _isern_ or _isen_, cf.
Ger. _Eisen_, Dut. _ysen_, Swed. _jarn_, Dan. _jern_; the original
Teut. base is _isarn_, and cognates are found in Celtic, Ir. _iarun_,
Gael, _iarunn_, Breton, _houarn_, &c. The ulterior derivation is
unknown; connexion has been suggested without much probability with
_is_, ice, from its hard bright surface, or with Lat. _ars_, _aeris_,
brass. The change from _isen_ to _iren_ (in 16th cent. _yron_) is due
to rhotacism, but whether direct from _isen_ or through _isern_,
_irern_ is doubtful. "Steel" represents the O. Eng. _stel_ or _stele_
(the true form; only found, however, with spelling _style_, cf.
_styl-ecg_, steel-edged), cognate with Ger. _Stahl_, Dut. and Dan.
_staal_, &c.; the word is not found outside Teutonic. Skeat (_Etym.
Dict._, 1898) finds the ultimate origin in the Indo-European base
_stak_-, to be firm or still, and compares Lat. _stagnum_,
standing-water.
[2] A "eutectic" is the last-freezing part of an alloy, and
corresponds to what the mother-liquor of a saline solution would
become if such a solution, after the excess of saline matter had been
crystallized out, were finally completely frozen. It is the
mother-liquor or "bittern" frozen. Its striking characteristics are:
(1) that for given metals alloyed together its composition is fixed,
and does not vary with the proportions in which those metals are
present, because any "excess metal," i.e. so much of either metal as
is present in excess over the eutectic ratio, freezes out before the
eutectic; (2) that though thus constant, its composition is not in
simple atomic proportions; (3) that its freezing-point is constant;
and (4) that, when first formed, it habitually consists of
interstratified plates of the metals which compose it. If the alloy
has a composition very near that of its own eutectic, then when
solidified it of course contains a large proportion of the eutectic,
and only a small proportion of the excess metal. If it differs widely
from the eutectic in composition, then when solidified it consists of
only a small quantity of eutectic and a very large quantity of the
excess metal. But, far below the freezing-point, transformations may
take place in the solid metal, and follow a course quite parallel
with that of freezing, though with no suggestion of liquidity. A
"eutectoid" is to such a transformation in solid metal what a
eutectic is to freezing proper. It is the last part of the metal to
undergo this transformation and, when thus transformed, it is of
constant though not atomic composition, and habitually consists of
interstratified plates of its component metals.
[3] Note the distinction between the "eutectic" or alloy of lowest
freezing-point, 1130 deg., B, with 4.30% of carbon, and the
"eutectoid," hardenite and pearlite, or alloy of lowest
transformation-point, 690 deg. S, with 0.90% of carbon. (See S 17.)
[4] The length of the blow varies very greatly, in general increasing
with the proportion of silicon and with the size of charge. Thus the
small Swedish charges with but little silicon may be blown in 5
minutes, but for a 20-ton charge the time is more likely to reach, or
exceed 10 minutes, and sometimes reaches 20 minutes or even more.
[5] A "billet" is a bar, 5 in. sq. or smaller, drawn down from a
bloom, ingot, or pile for further manufacture.
IRON MASK (_masque de fer_). The identity of the "man in the iron mask"
is a famous historical mystery. The person so called was a political
prisoner under Louis XIV., who died in the Bastille in 1703. To the mask
itself no real importance attaches, though that feature of the story
gave it a romantic interest; there is no historical evidence that the
mask he was said always to wear was made of anything but black velvet
(_velours_), and it was only afterwards that legend converted its
material into iron. As regards the "man," we have the contemporary
official journals of Etienne du Junca (d. 1706), the king's lieutenant
at the Bastille, from which we learn that on the 18th of September 1698
a new governor, Benigne D'Auvergne de Saint-Mars, arrived from the
fortress of the Isles Ste Marguerite (in the bay of Cannes), bringing
with him "un ancien prisonnier qu'il avait a Pignerol" (Pinerolo, in
Piedmont), whom he kept always masked and whose name remained untold.
(Saint-Mars, it may here be noted, had been commandant at Pignerol from
the end of 1664 till 1681; he was in charge there of such important
prisoners as Fouquet, from 1665 to his death in 1680, and Lauzun, from
1671 till his release in 1681; he was then in authority at Exiles from
1681 to 1687, and at Ste Marguerite from 1687 to 1698). Du Junca
subsequently records that "on Monday the 19th of November 1703, the
unknown prisoner, always masked with a black velvet mask, whom M. de
Saint-Mars had brought with him from the islands of Ste Marguerite, and
had kept for a long time,... died at about ten o'clock in the evening."
He adds that "this unknown prisoner was buried on the 20th in the parish
cemetery of Saint Paul, and was registered under a name also
unknown"--noting in the margin that he has since learnt that the name in
the register was "M. de Marchiel." The actual name in the register of
the parish cemetery of Saint Paul (now destroyed, but a facsimile is
still in existence) was "Marchioly"; and the age of the deceased was
there given as "about 45."
The identity of this prisoner was already, it will be observed, a
mystery before he died in 1703, and soon afterwards we begin to see the
fruit of the various legends concerning him which presumably started as
early as 1670, when Saint-Mars himself (see below) found it necessary to
circulate "fairy tales" (_contes jaunes_). In 1711 the Princess Palatine
wrote to the Electress Sophia of Hanover, and suggested that he was an
English nobleman who had taken part in a plot of the duke of Berwick
against William III. Voltaire, in his _Siecle de Louis XIV_ (1751), told
the story of the mysterious masked prisoner with many graphic details;
and, under the heading of "Ana" in the _Questions sur l'encyclopedie_
(Geneva, 1771), he asserted that he was a bastard brother of Louis XIV.,
son of Mazarin and Anne of Austria. Voltaire's influence in creating
public interest in the "man in the mask" was indeed enormous; he had
himself been imprisoned in the Bastille in 1717 and again in 1726; as
early as 1745 he is found hinting that he knows something; in the
_Siecle de Louis XIV_ he justifies his account on the score of
conversations with de Bernaville, who succeeded Saint-Mars (d. 1708) as
governor of the Bastille, and others; and after Heiss in 1770 had
identified the "mask" with Mattioli (see below), Voltaire was not above
suggesting that he really knew more than he had said, but thought it
sufficient to have given the clue to the enigma. According to the Abbe
Soulavie, the duke of Richelieu's advice was to reflect on Voltaire's
"last utterances" on the subject. In Soulavie's _Memoires_ of Richelieu
(London, 1790) the masked man becomes (on the authority of an apocryphal
note by Saint-Mars himself) the legitimate twin brother of Louis XIV. In
1801 the story went that this scion of the royal house of France had a
son born to him in prison, who settled in Corsica under the name of "De
Buona Parte," and became the ancestor of Napoleon! Dumas's _Vicomte de
Bragelonne_ afterwards did much to popularize the theory that he was the
king's brother. Meanwhile other identifications, earlier or later, were
also supported, in whose case the facts are a sufficient refutation. He
was Louis, count of Vermandois, son of Louise de la Valliere (_Memoires
secrets pour servir a l'histoire de Perse_, Amsterdam, 1745);
Vermandois, however, died in 1683. He was the duke of Monmouth (_Lettre
de Sainte Foy_ ... Amsterdam, 1768), although Monmouth was beheaded in
1685. He was Francois de Vendome, duke of Beaufort, who disappeared (and
pretty certainly died) at the siege of Candia (1669); Avedick, an
Armenian patriarch seized by the Jesuits, who was not imprisoned till
1706 and died in 1711; Fouquet, who undoubtedly died at Pignerol in
1680; and even, according to A. Loquin (1883), Moliere!
Modern criticism, however, has narrowed the issue. The "man in the mask"
was either (1) Count Mattioli, who became the prisoner of Saint-Mars at
Pignerol in 1679, or (2) the person called Eustache Dauger, who was
imprisoned in July 1669 in the same fortress. The evidence shows
conclusively that these two were the only prisoners under Saint-Mars at
Pignerol who could have been taken by him to the Bastille in 1698. The
arguments in favour of Mattioli (first suggested by Heiss, and strongly
supported by Topin in 1870) are summed up, with much weight of critical
authority, by F. Funck-Brentano in vol. lvi. of the _Revue historique_
(1894); the claims of Eustache Dauger were no less ably advocated by J.
Lair in vol. ii. of his _Nicolas Foucquet_ (1890). But while we know who
Mattioli was, and why he was imprisoned, a further question still
remains for supporters of Dauger, because his identity and the reason
for his incarceration are quite obscure.
It need only be added, so far as other modern theories are concerned,
that in 1873 M. Jung (_La Verite sur la masque de fer_) had brought
forward another candidate, with the attractive name of "Marechiel," a
soldier of Lorraine who had taken part in a poisoning plot against
Louis XIV., and was arrested at Peronne by Louvois in 1673, and said
to be lodged in the Bastille and then sent to Pignerol. But Jung's
arguments, though strong destructively against the Mattioli theory,
break down as regards any valid proof either that the prisoner
arrested at Peronne was a Bastille prisoner in 1673 or that he was
ever at Pignerol, where indeed we find no trace of him. Another
theory, propounded by Captain Bazeries (_La Masque de fer_, 1883),
identified the prisoner with General du Bulonde, punished for
cowardice at the siege of Cuneo; but Bulonde only went to Pignerol in
1691, and has been proved to be living in 1705.
_The Mattioli Theory._--Ercole Antonio Mattioli (born at Bologna on the
1st of December 1640) was minister of Charles IV., duke of Mantua, who
as marquess of Montferrat was in possession of the frontier fortress of
Casale, which was coveted by Louis XIV. He negotiated the sale of Casale
to the French king for 100,000 crowns, and himself received valuable
presents from Louis. But on the eve of the occupation of Casale by the
French, Mattioli--actuated by a tardy sense of patriotism or by the hope
of further gain--betrayed the transaction to the governments of Austria,
Spain, Venice and Savoy. Louis, in revenge, had him kidnapped (1679) by
the French envoy, J. F. d'Estrades, abbe of Moissac, and Mattioli was
promptly lodged in the fortress of Pignerol. This kidnapping of
Mattioli, however, was no secret, and it was openly discussed in _La
Prudenza trionfante di Casale_ (Cologne, 1682), where it was stated that
Mattioli was masked when he was arrested. In February 1680 he is
described as nearly mad, no doubt from the effects of solitary
confinement. When Saint-Mars was made governor of Exiles in 1681 we know
from one of his letters that Mattioli was left at Pignerol; but in March
1694, Pignerol being about to be given up by France to Savoy, he and two
other prisoners were removed with much secrecy to Ste Marguerite, where
Saint-Mars had been governor since 1687. Funck-Brentano emphasizes the
fact that, although Eustache Dauger was then at Ste Marguerite, the
king's minister Barbezieux, writing to Saint-Mars (March 20, 1694) about
the transfer of these prisoners, says: "You know that they are of more
consequence (_plus de consequence_), at least one" (presumably
Mattioli), "than those who are at present at the island." From this
point, however, the record is puzzling. A month after his arrival at Ste
Marguerite, a prisoner who had a valet died there.[1] Now Mattioli
undoubtedly had a valet at Pignerol, and nobody else at Ste Marguerite
is known at this time to have had one; so that he may well have been the
prisoner who died. In that case he was clearly not "the mask" of 1698
and 1703. Funck-Brentano's attempt to prove that Mattioli did _not_ die
in 1604 is far from convincing; but the assumption that he did is
inferential, and to that extent arguable. "Marchioly" in the burial
register of Saint Paul naturally suggests indeed at first that the
"ancien prisonnier" taken by Saint-Mars to the Bastille in 1698 was
Mattioli, Saint-Mars himself sometimes writing the name "Marthioly" in
his letters; but further consideration leaves this argument decidedly
weak. In any case the age stated in the burial register, "about 45," was
fictitious, whether for Mattioli (63) or Dauger (at least 53); and, as
Lair points out, Saint-Mars is known to have given false names at the
burial of other prisoners. Monsignor Barnes, in _The Man of the Mask_
(1908), takes the entry "Marchioly" as making it certain that the
prisoner was not Mattioli, on the ground (1) that the law[2] explicitly
ordered a false name to be given, and (2) that after hiding his identity
so carefully the authorities were not likely to give away the secret by
means of a burial register.
In spite of Funck-Brentano it appears practically certain that Mattioli
must be ruled out. If he was the individual who died in 1703 at the
Bastille, the obscurity which gathered round the nameless masked
prisoner is almost incomprehensible, for there was no real secret about
Mattioli's incarceration. The existence of a "legend" as to Dauger can,
however, be traced, as will be seen below, from the first. Any one who
accepts the Mattioli theory must be driven, as Lang suggests, to suppose
that the mystery which grew up about the unknown prisoner was somehow
transferred to Mattioli from Dauger.
_The Dauger Theory._--What then was Dauger's history? Unfortunately it
is only in his capacity as a prisoner that we can trace it. On the 19th
of July 1669 Louvois, Louis XIV.'s minister, writes to Saint-Mars at
Pignerol that he is sending him "le nomme Eustache Dauger" (Dauger,
D'Angers--the spelling is doubtful),[3] whom it is of the last
importance to keep with special closeness; Saint-Mars is to threaten him
with death if he speaks about anything except his actual needs. On the
same day Louvois orders Vauroy, major of the citadel of Dunkirk, to
seize Dauger and conduct him to Pignerol. Saint-Mars writes to Louvois
(Aug. 21) that Vauroy had brought Dauger, and that people "believe him
to be a marshal of France." Louvois (March 26, 1670) refers to a report
that one of Fouquet's valets--there was constant trouble about them--had
spoken to Dauger, who asked to be left in peace, and he emphasizes the
importance of there being no communication. Saint-Mars (April 12, 1670)
reports Dauger as "resigne a la volonte de Dieu et du Roy," and (again
the legend grows) says that "there are persons who are inquisitive about
my prisoner, and I am obliged to tell _contes jaunes pour me moquer
d'eux._" In 1672 Saint-Mars proposes--the significance of this action is
discussed later--to allow Dauger to act as "valet" to Lauzun; Louvois
firmly refuses, but in 1675 allows him to be employed as valet to
Fouquet, and he impresses upon Saint-Mars the importance of nobody
learning about Dauger's "past." After Fouquet's death (1680) Dauger and
Fouquet's other (old-standing) valet La Riviere are put together, by
Louvois's special orders, in one lower dungeon; Louvois evidently fears
their knowledge of things heard from Fouquet, and he orders Lauzun (who
had recently been allowed to converse freely with Fouquet) to be told
that they are released. When Saint-Mars is transferred to Exiles, he is
ordered to take these two with him, as too important to be in other
hands; Mattioli is left behind. At Exiles they are separated and guarded
with special precautions; and in January 1687 one of them (all the
evidence admittedly pointing to La Riviere) dies. When Saint-Mars is
again transferred, in May 1687, to Ste Marguerite, he takes his
"prisoner" (apparently he now has only one--Dauger) with great show of
caution; and next year (Jan. 8, 1688) he writes to Louvois that "mon
prisonnier" is believed "in all this province" to be a son of Oliver
Cromwell, or else the duke of Beaufort (a point which at once rules out
Beaufort). In 1691 Louvois's successor, Barbezieux, writes to him about
his "prisonnier de vingt ans" (Dauger was first imprisoned in 1669,
Mattioli in 1679), and Saint-Mars replies that "nobody has seen him but
myself." Subsequently Barbezieux and the governor continue to write to
one another about their "ancien prisonnier" (Jan. 6, 1696; Nov. 17,
1697). When, therefore, we come to Saint-Mars's appointment to the
Bastille in 1698, Dauger appears almost certainly to be the "ancien
prisonnier" he took with him.[4] There is at least good ground for
supposing Mattioli's death to have been indicated in 1694, but nothing
is known that would imply Dauger's, unless it was he who died in 1703.
_Theories as to Dauger's Identity._--Here we find not only sufficient
indication of the growth of a legend as to Dauger, but also the
existence in fact of a real mystery as to who he was and what he had
done, two things both absent in Mattioli's case. The only "missing link"
is the want of any precise allusion to a mask in the references to
Dauger. But in spite of du Junca's emphasis on the mask, it is in
reality very questionable whether the wearing of a mask was an unusual
practice. It was one obvious way of enabling a prisoner to appear in
public (for exercise or in travelling) without betrayal of identity.
Indeed three years before the arrival of Saint-Mars we hear (_Gazette
d'Amsterdam_, March 14, 1695) of another masked man being brought to the
Bastille, who eventually was known to be the son of a Lyons banker.
Who then was Dauger, and what was his "past"? We will take first a
theory propounded by Andrew Lang in _The Valet's Tragedy_ (1903). As the
result of research in the diplomatic correspondence at the Record Office
in London[5] Mr Lang finds a clue in the affairs of the French Huguenot,
Roux de Marsilly, the secret agent for a Protestant league against
France between Sweden, Holland, England and the Protestant cantons of
Switzerland, who in February 1669 left London, where he had been
negotiating with Arlington (apparently with Charles II.'s knowledge),
for Switzerland, his confidential valet Martin remaining behind. On the
14th of April 1669 Marsilly was kidnapped for Louis XIV. in Switzerland,
in defiance of international right, taken to Paris and on the 22nd of
June tortured to death on a trumped-up charge of rape. The duke of York
is said to have betrayed him to Colbert, the French ambassador in
London. The English intrigue was undoubtedly a serious matter, because
the shifty Charles II. was at the same time negotiating with Louis XIV.
a secret alliance against Holland, in support of the restoration of
Roman Catholicism in England. It would therefore be desirable for both
parties to remove anybody who was cognizant of the double dealing. Now
Louvois's original letter to Saint-Mars concerning Dauger (July 19,
1669), after dealing with the importance of his being guarded with
special closeness, and of Saint-Mars personally taking him food and
threatening him with death if he speaks, proceeds as follows (in a
second paragraph, as printed in Delort, i. 155, 156):--
"Je mande au Sieur Poupart de faire incessamment travailler a ce que
vous desirerez, et vous ferez preparer les meubles qui sont
necessaires pour la vie de celui que l'on vous amenera, observant que
comme ce n est qu'un valet, il ne lui en faut pas de bien
considerables, et je vous ferai rembourser tant de la despenses des
meubles, que de ce que vous desirerez pour sa nourriture."
Assuming the words here, "as he is only a valet," to refer to Dauger,
and taking into account the employment of Dauger from 1675 to 1680 as
Fouquet's valet, Mr Lang now obtains a solution of the problem of why a
mere valet should be a political prisoner of so much concern to Louis
XIV. at this time. He points out that Colbert, on the 3rd, 10th and 24th
of June, writes from London to Louis XIV. about his efforts to get
Martin, Roux de Marsilly's valet, to go to France, and on the 1st of
July expresses a hope that Charles II. will surrender "the valet." Then,
on the 19th of July, Dauger is arrested at Dunkirk, the regular port
from England. Mr Lang regards his conclusion as to the identity between
these valets as irresistible. It is true that what is certainly known
about Martin hardly seems to provide sufficient reason for Eustache
Dauger being regarded for so long a time as a specially dangerous
person. But Mr Lang's answer on that point is that this humble
supernumerary in Roux de Marsilly's conspiracy simply became one more
wretched victim of the "red tape" of the old French absolute monarchy.
Unfortunately for this identification, it encounters at once a
formidable, if not fatal, objection. Martin, the Huguenot conspirator
Marsilly's valet, must surely have been himself a Huguenot. Dauger, on
the other hand, was certainly a Catholic; indeed Louvois's second letter
to Saint-Mars about him (Sept. 10, 1669) gives precise directions as to
his being allowed to attend mass at the same time as Fouquet. It may
perhaps be argued that Dauger (if Martin) simply did not make bad worse
by proclaiming his creed; but against this, Louvois must have _known_
that Martin was a Huguenot. Apart from that, it will be observed that
the substantial reason for connecting the two men is simply that both
were "valets." The identification is inspired by the apparent necessity
of an explanation why Dauger, being a valet, should be a political
prisoner of importance. The assumption, however, that Dauger was a valet
when he was arrested is itself as unnecessary as the fact is
intrinsically improbable. Neither Louvois's letter of July 19, 1669, nor
Dauger's employment as valet to Fouquet in 1675 (six years later)--and
these are the only grounds on which the assumption rests--prove anything
of the sort.
Was Dauger a valet? If Dauger was the "mask," it is just as well to
remove a misunderstanding which has misled too many commentators.
1. If Louvois's letter of July 19 be read in connexion with the
preceding correspondence it will be seen that ever since Fouquet's
incarceration in 1665 Saint-Mars had had trouble over his valets. They
fall ill, and there is difficulty in replacing them, or they play the
traitor. At last, on the 12th of March 1669, Louvois writes to
Saint-Mars to say (evidently in answer to some suggestion from
Saint-Mars in a letter which is not preserved): "It is annoying that
both Fouquet's valets should have fallen ill at the same time, but you
have so far taken such good measures for avoiding inconvenience that I
leave it to you to adopt whatever course is necessary." There are then
no letters in existence from Saint-Mars to Louvois up to Louvois's
letter of July 19, in which he first refers to Dauger; and for three
months (from April 22 to July 19) there is a gap in the correspondence,
so that the sequence is obscure. The portion, however, of the letter of
the 19th of July, cited above, in which Louvois uses the words "ce n'est
qu'un valet," does not, in the present writer's judgment, refer to
Dauger at all, but to something which had been mooted in the meanwhile
with a view to obtaining a valet for Fouquet. This is indeed the natural
reading of the letter as a whole. If Louvois had meant to write that
Dauger was "only a valet" he would have started by saying so. On the
contrary, he gives precise and apparently comprehensive directions in
the first part of the letter about how he is to be treated: "Je vous en
donne advis par advance, afin que vous puissiez faire accomoder un
cachot ou vous le mettrez surement, observant de faire en sorte que les
jours qu'aura le lieu ou il sera ne donnent point sur les lieux qui
puissent estre abordez de personne, et qu'il y ayt assez de portes
fermees, les unes sur les autres, pour que vos sentinelles ne puissent
bien entendre," &c. Having finished his instructions about Dauger, he
then proceeds in a fresh paragraph to tell Saint-Mars that orders have
been given to "Sieur Poupart" to do "whatever you shall desire." He is
here dealing with a different question; and it is unreasonable to
suppose. and indeed contrary to the style in which Louvois corresponds
with Saint-Mars, that he devotes the whole letter to the one subject
with which he started. The words "et vous ferez preparer les meubles qui
sont necessaires pour la vie de celui que l'on vous amenera" are not at
all those which Louvois would use with regard to Dauger, after what he
has just said about him. Why "celui que l'on vous amenera," instead of
simply "Dauger," who was being brought, as he has said, by Vauroy? The
clue to the interpretation of this phrase may be found in another letter
from Louvois not six months later (Jan. 1, 1670), when he writes: "Le
roy se remet a vous d'en uzer comme vous le jugerez a propos a l'esgard
des valets de Monsieur Foucquet; il faut seulement observer que si vous
luy donnez des valets que l'on vous amenera d'icy, il pourra bien
arriver qu'ils seront gaignez par avance, et qu'ainsy ils feroient pis
que ceux que vous en osteriez presentement." Here we have the identical
phrase used of valets whom it is contemplated to bring in from outside
for Fouquet; though it does not follow that any such valet was in fact
brought in. The whole previous correspondence (as well as a good deal
afterwards) is full of the valet difficulty; and it is surely more
reasonable to suppose that when Louvois writes to Saint-Mars on the 19th
of July that he is sending Dauger, a new prisoner of importance, as to
whom "il est de la derniere importance qu'il soit garde avec une grande
seurete," his second paragraph as regards the instructions to "Sieur
Poupart" refers to something which Saint-Mars had suggested about
getting a valet from outside, and simply points out that in preparing
furniture for "celui que l'on vous amenera" he need not do much, "comme
ce n'est qu'un valet."
2. But this is not all. If Dauger had been originally a valet, he might
as well have been used as such at once, when one was particularly
wanted. On the contrary, Louvois flatly refused Saint-Mars's request in
1672 to be allowed to do so, and was exceedingly chary of allowing it in
1675 (only "en cas de necessite," and "vous pouvez donner le dit
prisonnier a M. Foucquet, si son valet venoit a luy manquer et non
autrement"). The words used by Saint-Mars in asking Louvois in 1672 if
he might use Dauger as Lauzun's valet are themselves significant to the
point of conclusiveness: "Il ferait, ce me semble, un bon valet."
Saint-Mars could not have said this if Dauger had all along been _known_
to be a valet. The terms of his letter to Louvois (Feb 20, 1672) show
that Saint-Mars wanted to use Dauger as a valet simply because he was
_not_ a valet. That a person might be used as a valet who was not really
a valet is shown by Louvois having told Saint-Mars in 1666 (June 4) that
Fouquet's old doctor, Pecquet, was not to be allowed to serve him "soit
dans sa profession, soit dans le mestier d'un simple valet." The fact
was that Saint-Mars was hard put to it in the prison for anybody who
could be trusted, and that he had convinced himself by this time that
Dauger (who had proved a quiet harmless fellow) would give no trouble.
Probably he wanted to give him some easy employment, and save him from
going mad in confinement. It is worth noting that up to 1672 (when
Saint-Mars suggested utilizing Dauger as valet to Lauzun) none of the
references to Dauger in letters after that of July 19, 1669, suggests
his being a valet; and their contrary character makes it all the more
clear that the second part of the letter of July 19 does not refer to
Dauger.
In this connexion it may be remarked (and this is a point on which
Funck-Brentano entirely misinterprets the allusion) that, even in his
capacity as valet to Fouquet, Dauger was still regarded an as
exceptional sort of prisoner; for in 1679 when Fouquet and Lauzun were
afterwards allowed to walk freely all over the citadel, Louvois
impresses on Saint-Mars that "_le nomme Eustache_" is never to be
allowed to be in Fouquet's room when Lauzun or any other stranger, or
anybody but Fouquet and the "_ancien valet_," La Riviere, is there, and
that he is to stay in Fouquet's room when the latter goes out to walk in
the citadel, and is only to go out walking with Fouquet and La Riviere
when they promenade in the special part of the fortress previously set
apart for them (Louvois's letter to Saint-Mars, Jan. 30, 1670).
_Was Dauger James de la Cloche?_ In _The Man of the Mask_ (1908)
Monsignor Barnes, while briefly dismissing Mr Lang's identification with
Martin, and apparently not realizing the possibility of reading
Louvois's letter of July 19, 1669, as indicated above[6] deals in detail
with the history of James de la Cloche, the natural son of Charles II.
(acknowledged privately as such by the king) in whom he attempts to
unmask the personality of Dauger. Mr Lang, in _The Valet's Tragedy_, had
some years earlier ironically wondered why nobody made this suggestion,
which, however, he regarded as untenable. The story of James de la
Cloche is indeed itself another historical mystery; he abruptly vanishes
as such at Rome at the end of 1668, and thus provides a disappearance of
convenient date; but the question concerning him is complicated by the
fact that a James Henry de Bovere Roano Stuardo, who married at Naples
early in 1669 and undoubtedly died in the following August, claiming to
be a son of Charles II., makes just afterwards an equally abrupt
appearance; in many respects the two men seem to be the same, but
Monsignor Barnes, following Lord Acton, here regards James Stuardo as an
impostor who traded on a knowledge of James de la Cloche's secret. If
the latter then did _not_ die in 1669, what became of him? According to
Monsignor Barnes's theory, James de la Cloche, who had been brought up
to be a Jesuit and knew his royal father's secret profession of Roman
Catholicism, was being employed by Charles II. as an intermediary with
the Catholic Church and with the object of making him his own private
confessor; he returned from Rome at the beginning of 1669, and is then
identified by Monsignor Barnes with a certain Abbe Pregnani, an
"astrologer" sent by Louis in February 1669 to influence Charles II.
towards the French alliance. Pregnani, however, made a bad start by
"tipping winners" at Newmarket with disastrous results, and was quickly
recalled to France, actually departing on July 5th (French 15th). But he
too now disappears, though a letter from Lionne (the French foreign
secretary) to Colbert of July 17 (two days before Louvois's letter to
Saint-Mars about Dauger) says that he is expected in Paris. Monsignor
Barnes's theory is that Pregnani _alias_ James de la Cloche, without the
knowledge of Charles II., was arrested by order of Louis and imprisoned
as Dauger on account of his knowing too much about the French schemes in
regard to Charles II. This identification of Pregnani with James de la
Cloche is, however, intrinsically incredible. We are asked to read into
the Pregnani story a deliberate intrigue on Charles's part for an excuse
for having James de la Cloche in England. But this does not at all seem
to square with the facts given in the correspondence, and it is hard to
understand why Charles should have allowed Pregnani to depart, and
should not have taken any notice of his son's "disappearance." There
would still remain, no doubt, the possibility that Pregnani, though not
James de la Cloche, was nevertheless the "man in the mask." But even
then the dates will not suit; for Lionne wrote to Colbert on July 27,
saying, "Pregnani has been so slow on his voyage that he has only given
me (_m'a rendu_) your despatch of July 4 several days after I had
already received those of the 8th and the 11th." Allowing for the French
style of dating this means that instead of arriving in Paris by July 18,
Pregnani only saw Lionne there at earliest on July 25. This seems to
dispose of his being sent to Pignerol on the 19th. Apart altogether,
however, from such considerations, it now seems fairly certain, from Mr
Lang's further research into the problem of James de la Cloche (see LA
CLOCHE), that the latter _was_ identical with the "Prince" James Stuardo
who died in Naples in 1669, and that he hoaxed the general of the
Jesuits and forged a number of letters purporting to be from Charles II.
which were relied on in Monsignor Barnes's book; so that the theory
breaks down at all points.
The identification of Dauger thus still remains the historical problem
behind the mystery of the "man in the mask." He was not the valet
Martin; he was not a valet at all when he was sent to Pignerol; he was
not James de la Cloche. The fact nevertheless that he was employed as a
valet, even in special circumstances, for Fouquet, makes it difficult to
believe that Dauger was a man of any particular social standing. We may
be forced to conclude that the interest of the whole affair, so far as
authentic history is concerned, is really nugatory, and that the
romantic imagination has created a mystery in a fact of no importance.
AUTHORITIES.--The correspondence between Saint-Mars and Louvois is
printed by J. Delort in _Histoire de la detention des philosophes_
(1829). Apart from the modern studies by Lair, Funck-Brentano, Lang
and Barnes, referred to above, there is valuable historical matter in
the work of Roux-Fazaillac, _Recherches historiques sur l'homme au
masque de fer_ (1801); see also Marius Topin, _L'Homme au masque de
fer_ (Paris, 1870), and Loiseleur, _Trois Enigmes historiques_ (1882).
(H. Ch.)