A few days later, Godfrey of Marsana, Count of Squillace and grand

admiral of the kingdom, was arrested by the king’s orders. His life was

promised him on condition of his delivering up Conrad of Catanzaro, one

of his relatives, accused of conspiring against Andre. The grand admiral

committed this act of shameless treachery, and did not shrink from

sending his own son to persuade Conrad to come to the town. The poor

wretch was given over to the king, and tortured alive on a wheel made

with sharp knives. The sight of these barbarities, far from calming the

king’s rage, seemed to inflame it the more. Every day there were new

accusations and new sentences. The prisons were crowded: Louis’s

punishments were redoubled in severity. A fear arose that the town, and

indeed the whole kingdom, were to be treated as having taken part in

Andre’s death. Murmurs arose against this barbarous rule, and all men’s

thoughts turned towards their fugitive queen. The Neapolitan barons had

taken the oath of fidelity with no willing hearts; and when it came to

the turn of the Counts of San Severino, they feared a trick of some

kind, and refused to appear all together before the Hungarian, but took

refuge in the town of Salerno, and sent Archbishop Roger, their brother,

to make sure of the king’s intentions beforehand. Louis received him

magnificently, and appointed him privy councillor and grand proto

notary. Then, and not till then, did Robert of San Severino and Roger,

Count of Chiaramonte, venture into the king’s presence; after doing

homage, they retired to their homes. The other barons followed their

example of caution, and hiding their discontent under a show of respect,

awaited a favourable moment for shaking off the foreign yoke. But the

queen had encountered no obstacle in her flight, and arrived at Nice

five days later. Her passage through Provence was like a triumph. Her

beauty, youth, and misfortunes, even certain mysterious reports as to

her adventures, all contributed to arouse the interest of the Provencal

people. Games and fetes were improvised to soften the hardship of exile

for the proscribed princess; but amid the outbursts of joy from every

town, castle, and city, Joan, always sad, lived ever in her silent grief

and glowing memories.

At the gates of Aix she found the clergy, the nobility, and the chief

magistrates, who received her respectfully but with no signs of

enthusiasm. As the queen advanced, her astonishment increased as she saw

the coldness of the people and the solemn, constrained air of the great

men who escorted her. Many anxious thoughts alarmed her, and she even

went so far as to fear some intrigue of the King of Hungary. Scarcely

had her cortege arrived at Castle Arnaud, when the nobles, dividing into

two ranks, let the queen pass with her counsellor Spinelli and two

women; then closing up, they cut her off from the rest of her suite.

After this, each in turn took up his station as guardian of the

fortress.

There was no room for doubt: the queen was a prisoner; but the cause of

the manoeuvre it was impossible to guess. She asked the high

dignitaries, and they, protesting respectful devotion, refused to

explain till they had news from Avignon. Meanwhile all honours that a

queen could receive were lavished on Joan; but she was kept in sight and

forbidden to go out. This new trouble increased her depression: she did

not know what had happened to Louis of Tarentum, and her imagination,

always apt at creating disasters, instantly suggested that she would

soon be weeping for his loss.

But Louis, always with his faithful Acciajuoli, had after many fatiguing

adventures been shipwrecked at the port of Pisa; thence he had taken

route for Florence, to beg men and money; but the Florentines decided to

keep an absolute neutrality, and refused to receive him. The prince,

losing his last hope, was pondering gloomy plans, when Nicholas

Acciajuoli thus resolutely addressed him:

"My lord, it is not given to mankind to enjoy prosperity for ever: there

are misfortunes beyond all human foresight. You were once rich and

powerful, and you are now a fugitive in disguise, begging the help of

others. You must reserve your strength for better days. I still have a

considerable fortune, and also have relations and friends whose wealth

is at my disposal: let us try to make our way to the queen, and at once

decide what we can do. I myself shall always defend you and obey you as

my lord and master."

The prince received these generous offers with the utmost gratitude, and

told his counsellor that he placed his person in his hands and all that

remained of his future. Acciajuoli, not content with serving his master

as a devoted servant, persuaded his brother Angelo, Archbishop of

Florence, who was in great favour at Clement VI’s court, to join with

them in persuading the pope to interest himself in the cause of Louis of

Tarentum. So, without further delay, the prince, his counsellor, and the

good prelate made their way to the port of Marseilles, but learning that

the queen was a prisoner at Aix, they embarked at Acque-Morte, and went

straight to Avignon. It soon appeared that the pope had a real affection

and esteem for the character of the Archbishop of Florence, for Louis

was received with paternal kindness at the court of Avignon; which was

far more than he had expected: when he kneeled before the sovereign

pontiff, His Holiness bent affectionately towards him and helped him to

rise, saluting him by the title of king.

Two days later, another prelate, the Archbishop of Aix, came into the

queen’s presence,—

"Most gracious and dearly beloved sovereign, permit the most humble and

devoted of your servants to ask pardon, in the name of your subjects,

for the painful but necessary measure they have thought fit to take

concerning your Majesty. When you arrived on our coast, your loyal town

of Aix had learned from a trustworthy source that the King of France was

proposing to give our country to one of his own sons, making good this

loss to you by the cession of another domain, also that the Duke of

Normandy had come to Avignon to request this exchange in person. We were

quite decided, madam, and had made a vow to God that we would give up

everything rather than suffer the hateful tyranny of the French. But

before spilling blood we thought it best to secure your august person as

a sacred hostage, a sacred ark which no man dared touch but was smitten

to the ground, which indeed must keep away from our walls the scourge of

war. We have now read the formal annulment of this hateful plan, in a

brief sent by the sovereign pontiff from Avignon; and in this brief he

himself guarantees your good faith.

"We give you your full and entire liberty, and henceforth we shall only

endeavour to keep you among us by prayers and protestations. Go then,

madam, if that is your pleasure, but before you leave these lands, which

will be plunged into mourning by your withdrawal, leave with us some

hope that you forgive the apparent violence to which we have subjected

you, only in the fear that we might lose you; and remember that on the

day when you cease to be our queen you sign the death-warrant of all

your subjects."

Joan reassured the archbishop and the deputation from her good town of

Aix with a melancholy smile, and promised that she would always cherish

the memory of their affection. For this time she could not be deceived

as to the real sentiments of the nobles and people; and a fidelity so

uncommon, revealed with sincere tears, touched her heart and made her

reflect bitterly upon her past. But a league’s distance from Avignon a

magnificent triumphal reception awaited her. Louis of Tarentum and all

the cardinals present at the court had come out to meet her. Pages in

dazzling dress carried above Joan’s head a canopy of scarlet velvet,

ornamented with fleur-de-lys in gold and plumes. Handsome youths and

lovely girls, their heads crowned with flowers, went before her singing

her praise. The streets were bordered with a living hedge of people; the

houses were decked out; the bells rang a triple peal, as at the great

Church festivals. Clement VI first received the queen at the castle of

Avignon with all the pomp he knew so well how to employ on solemn

occasions, then she was lodged in the palace of Cardinal Napoleon of the

Orsini, who on his return from the Conclave at Perugia had built this

regal dwelling at Villeneuve, inhabited later by the popes.

No words could give an idea of the strangely disturbed condition of

Avignon at this period. Since Clement V had transported the seat of the

papacy to Provence, there had sprung up, in this rival to Rome, squares,

churches, cardinals’ palaces, of unparalleled splendour. All the

business of nations and kings was transacted at the castle of Avignon.

Ambassadors from every court, merchants of every nation, adventurers of

all kinds, Italians, Spaniards, Hungarians, Arabs, Jews, soldiers,

Bohemians, jesters, poets, monks, courtesans, swarmed and clustered

here, and hustled one another in the streets. There was confusion of

tongues, customs, and costumes, an inextricable mixture of splendour and

rags, riches and misery, debasement and grandeur. The austere poets of

the Middle Ages stigmatised the accursed city in their writings under

the name of the New Babylon.

There is one curious monument of Joan’s sojourn at Avignon and the

exercise of her authority as sovereign. She was indignant at the

effrontery of the women of the town, who elbowed everybody shamelessly

in the streets, and published a notable edict, the first of its kind,

which has since served as a model in like cases, to compel all

unfortunate women who trafficked in their honour to live shut up

together in a house, that was bound to be open every day in the year

except the last three days of Holy Week, the entrance to be barred to

Jews at all times. An abbess, chosen once a year, had the supreme

control over this strange convent. Rules were established for the

maintenance of order, and severe penalties inflicted for any

infringement of discipline. The lawyers of the period gained a great

reputation by this salutary institution; the fair ladies of Avignon were

eager in their defence of the queen in spite of the calumnious reports

that strove to tarnish her reputation: with one voice the wisdom of

Andre’s widow was extolled. The concert of praises was disturbed,

however, by murmurs from the recluses themselves, who, in their own

brutal language, declared that Joan of Naples was impeding their

commerce so as to get a monopoly for herself.

Meanwhile Marie of Durazzo had joined her sister. After her husband’s

death she had found means to take refuge in the convent of Santa Croce

with her two little daughters; and while Louis of Hungary was busy

burning his victims, the unhappy Marie had contrived to make her escape

in the frock of an old monk, and as by a miracle to get on board a ship

that was setting sail for Provence. She related to her sister the

frightful details of the king’s cruelty. And soon a new proof of his

implacable hatred confirmed the tales of the poor princess.

Louis’s ambassadors appeared at the court of Avignon to demand formally

the queen’s condemnation.

It was a great day when Joan of Naples pleaded her own cause before the

pope, in the presence of all the cardinals then at Avignon, all the

ambassadors of foreign powers, and all the eminent persons come from

every quarter of Europe to be present at this trial, unique in the

annals of history. We must imagine a vast enclosure, in whose midst upon

a raised throne, as president of the august tribunal, sat God’s vicar on

earth, absolute and supreme judge, emblem of temporal and spiritual

power, of authority human and divine. To right and left of the sovereign

pontiff, the cardinals in their red robes sat in chairs set round in a

circle, and behind these princes of the Sacred College stretched rows of

bishops extending to the end of the hall, with vicars, canons, deacons,

archdeacons, and the whole immense hierarchy of the Church. Facing the

pontifical throne was a platform reserved for the Queen of Naples and

her suite. At the pope’s feet stood the ambassadors from the King of

Hungary, who played the part of accusers without speaking a word, the

circumstances of the crime and all the proofs having been discussed

beforehand by a committee appointed for the purpose. The rest of the

hall was filled by a brilliant crowd of high dignitaries, illustrious

captains, and noble envoys, all vying with one another in proud display.

Everyone ceased to breathe, all eyes were fixed on the dais whence Joan

was to speak her own defence. A movement of uneasy curiosity made this

compact mass of humanity surge towards the centre, the cardinals above

raised like proud peacocks over a golden harvest-field shaken in the

breeze.

The queen appeared, hand in hand with her uncle, the old Cardinal of

Perigord, and her aunt, the Countess Agnes. Her gait was so modest and

proud, her countenance so melancholy and pure, her looks so open and

confident, that even before she spoke every heart was hers. Joan was now

twenty years of age; her magnificent beauty was fully developed, but an

extreme pallor concealed the brilliance of her transparent satin skin,

and her hollow cheek told the tale of expiation and suffering. Among the

spectators who looked on most eagerly there was a certain young man with

strongly marked features, glowing eyes, and brown hair, whom we shall

meet again later on in our narrative; but we will not divert our

readers’ attention, but only tell them that his name was James of

Aragon, that he was Prince of Majorca, and would have been ready to shed

every drop of his blood only to check one single tear that hung on

Joan’s eyelids. The queen spoke in an agitated, trembling voice,

stopping from time to time to dry her moist and shining eyes, or to

breathe one of those deep sighs that go straight to the heart. She told

the tale of her husband’s death painfully and vividly, painted

truthfully the mad terror that had seized upon her and struck her down

at that frightful time, raised her hands to her brow with the gesture of

despair, as though she would wrest the madness from her brain—and a

shudder of pity and awe passed through the assembled crowd. It is a fact

that at this moment, if her words were false, her anguish was both

sincere and terrible. An angel soiled by crime, she lied like Satan

himself, but like him too she suffered all the agony of remorse and

pride. Thus, when at the end of her speech she burst into tears and

implored help and protection against the usurper of her kingdom, a cry

of general assent drowned her closing words, several hands flew to their

sword-hilts, and the Hungarian ambassadors retired covered with shame

and confusion.

That same evening the sentence, to the great joy of all, was proclaimed,

that Joan was innocent and acquitted of all concern in the assassination

of her husband. But as her conduct after the event and the indifference

she had shown about pursuing the authors of the crime admitted of no

valid excuse, the pope declared that there were plain traces of magic,

and that the wrong-doing attributed to Joan was the result of some

baneful charm cast upon her, which she could by no possible means

resist. At the same time, His Holiness confirmed her marriage with Louis

of Tarentum, and bestowed on him the order of the Rose of Gold and the

title of King of Sicily and Jerusalem. Joan, it is true, had on the eve

of her acquittal sold the town of Avignon to the pope for the sum of

80,000 florins.

While the queen was pleading her cause at the court of Clement VI, a

dreadful epidemic, called the Black Plague—the same that Boccaccio has

described so wonderfully—was ravaging the kingdom of Naples, and indeed

the whole of Italy. According to the calculation of Matteo Villani,

Florence lost three-fifths of her population, Bologna two-thirds, and

nearly all Europe was reduced in some such frightful proportion. The

Neapolitans were already weary of the cruelties and greed of the

Hungarians, they were only awaiting some opportunity to revolt against

the stranger’s oppression, and to recall their lawful sovereign, whom,

for all her ill deeds, they had never ceased to love. The attraction of

youth and beauty was deeply felt by this pleasure-loving people.

Scarcely had the pestilence thrown confusion into the army and town,

when loud cursing arose against the tyrant and his executioners. Louis

of Hungary, suddenly threatened by the wrath of Heaven and the people’s

vengeance, was terrified both by the plague and by the riots, and

disappeared in the middle of the night. Leaving the government of Naples

in the hands of Conrad Lupo, one of his captains, he embarked hastily at

Berletta, and left the kingdom in very much the same way as Louis of

Tarentum, fleeing from him, had left it a few months before.

This news arrived at Avignon just when the pope was about to send the

queen his bull of absolution. It was at once decided to take away the

kingdom from Louis’s viceroy. Nicholas Acciajuoli left for Naples with

the marvellous bull that was to prove to all men the innocence of the

queen, to banish all scruples and stir up a new enthusiasm. The

counsellor first went to the castle of Melzi, commanded by his son

Lorenzo: this was the only fortress that had always held out. The father

and son embraced with the honourable pride that near relatives may

justly feel when they meet after they have united in the performance of

a heroic duty. From the governor of Melzi Louis of Tarentum’s counsellor

learned that all men were wearied of the arrogance and vexatious conduct

of the queen’s enemies, and that a conspiracy was in train, started in

the University of Naples, but with vast ramifications all over the

kingdom, and moreover that there was dissension in the enemy’s army. The

indefatigable counsellor went from Apulia to Naples, traversing towns

and villages, collecting men everywhere, proclaiming loudly the

acquittal of the queen and her marriage with Louis of Tarentum, also

that the pope was offering indulgences to such as would receive with joy

their lawful sovereigns. Then seeing that the people shouted as he went

by, "Long live Joan! Death to the Hungarians!" he returned and told his

sovereigns in what frame of mind he had left their subjects.

Joan borrowed money wherever she could, armed galleys, and left

Marseilles with her husband, her sister, and two faithful advisers,

Acciajuoli and Spinelli, on the 10th of September 1348. The king and

queen not being able to enter at the harbour, which was in the enemy’s

power, disembarked at Santa Maria del Carmine, near the river Sebeto,

amid the frenzied applause of an immense crowd, and accompanied by all

the Neapolitan nobles. They made their way to the palace of Messire

Ajutorio, near Porta Capuana, the Hungarians having fortified themselves

in all the castles; but Acciajuoli, at the head of the queen’s

partisans, blockaded the fortresses so ably that half of the enemy were

obliged to surrender, and the other half took to flight and were

scattered about the interior of the kingdom. We shall now follow Louis

of Tarentum in his arduous adventures in Apulia, the Calabrias, and the

Abruzzi, where he recovered one by one the fortresses that the

Hungarians had taken. By dint of unexampled valour and patience, he at

last mastered nearly all the more considerable places, when suddenly

everything changed, and fortune turned her back upon him for the second

time. A German captain called Warner, who had deserted the Hungarian

army to sell himself to the queen, had again played the traitor and sold

himself once more, allowed himself to be surprised at Corneto by Conrad

Lupo, the King of Hungary’s vicar-general, and openly joined him, taking

along with him a great party of the adventurers who fought under his

orders. This unexpected defection forced Louis of Tarentum to retire to

Naples. The King of Hungary soon learning that the troops had rallied

round his banner, and only awaited his return to march upon the capital,

disembarked with a strong reinforcement of cavalry at the port of

Manfredonia, and taking Trani, Canosa, and Salerno, went forward to lay

siege to Aversa.

The news fell like a thunder-clap on Joan and her husband. The Hungarian

army consisted of 10,000 horse and more than 7000 infantry, and Aversa

had only 500 soldiers under Giacomo Pignatelli. In spite of the immense

disproportion of the numbers, the Neapolitan general vigorously repelled

the attack; and the King of Hungary, fighting in the front, was wounded

in his foot by an arrow. Then Louis, seeing that it would be difficult

to take the place by storm, determined to starve them out. For three

months the besieged performed prodigies of valour, and further

assistance was impossible. Their capitulation was expected at any

moment, unless indeed they decided to perish every man. Renaud des Baux,

who was to come from Marseilles with a squadron of ten ships to defend

the ports of the capital and secure the queen’s flight, should the

Hungarian army get possession of Naples, had been delayed by adverse

winds and obliged to stop on the way. All things seemed to conspire in

favour of the enemy. Louis of Tarentum, whose generous soul refused to

shed the blood of his brave men in an unequal and desperate struggle,

nobly sacrificed himself, and made an offer to the King of Hungary to

settle their quarrel in single combat. We append the authentic letters

that passed between Joan’s husband and Andre’s brother.

"Illustrious King of Hungary, who has come to invade our kingdom, we, by

the grace of God King of Jerusalem and Sicily, invite you to single

combat. We know that you are in no wise disturbed by the death of your

lancers or the other pagans in your suite, no more indeed than if they

were dogs; but we, fearing harm to our own soldiers and men-at-arms,

desire to fight with you personally, to put an end to the present war

and restore peace to our kingdom. He who survives shall be king. And

therefore, to ensure that this duel shall take place, we definitely

propose as a site either Paris, in the presence of the King of France,

or one of the towns of Perugia, Avignon, or Naples. Choose one of these

four places, and send us your reply."

The King of Hungary first consulted with his council, and then replied:—

"Great King, we have read and considered your letter sent to us by the

bearer of these presents, and by your invitation to a duel we are most

supremely pleased; but we do not approve of any of the places you

propose, since they are all suspect, and for several reasons. The King

of France is your maternal grandfather, and although we are also

connected by blood with him, the relationship is not so near. The town

of Avignon, although nominally belonging to the sovereign pontiff, is

the capital of Provence, and has always been subject to your rule.

Neither have we any more confidence in Perugia, for that town is devoted

to your cause.

"As to the city of Naples, there is no need to say that we refuse that

rendezvous, since it is in revolt against us and you are there as king.

But if you wish to fight with us, let it be in the presence of the

Emperor of Germany, who is lord supreme, or the King of England, who is

our common friend, or the Patriarch of Aquilea, a good Catholic. If you

do not approve of any of the places we propose, we shall soon be near

you with our army, and so remove all difficulties and delays. Then you

can come forth, and our duel can take place in the presence of both

armies."

After the interchange of these two letters, Louis of Tarentum proposed

nothing further. The garrison at Aversa had capitulated after a heroic

resistance, and it was known only too well that if the King of Hungary

could get so far as the walls of Naples, he would not have to endanger

his life in order to seize that city. Happily the Provencal galleys had

reached port at last. The king and the queen had only just time to

embark and take refuge at Gaeta. The Hungarian army arrived at Naples.

The town was on the point of yielding, and had sent messengers to the

king humbly demanding peace; but the speeches of the Hungarians showed

such insolence that the people, irritated past endurance, took up arms,

and resolved to defend their household gods with all the energy of

despair.

CHAPTER VIII

While the Neapolitans were holding out against their enemy at the Porta

Capuana, a strange scene was being enacted at the other side of the

town, a scene that shows us in lively colours the violence and treachery

of this barbarous age. The widow of Charles of Durazzo was shut up in

the castle of Ovo, and awaiting in feverish anxiety the arrival of the

ship that was to take her to the queen. The poor Princess Marie,

pressing her weeping children to her heart, pale, with dishevelled

locks, fixed eyes, and drawn lips, was listening for every sound,

distracted between hope and fear. Suddenly steps resounded along the

corridor; a friendly voice was heard; Marie fell upon her knees with a

cry of joy: her liberator had come.

Renaud des Baux, admiral of the Provencal squadron, respectfully

advanced, followed by his eldest son Robert and his chaplain.

"God, I thank Thee!" exclaimed Marie, rising to her feet; "we are

saved."

"One moment, madam," said Renaud, stopping her: "you are indeed saved,

but upon one condition."

"A condition?" murmured the princess in surprise.

"Listen, madam. The King of Hungary, the avenger of Andre’s murderers,

the slayer of your husband, is at the gates of Naples; the people and

soldiers will succumb, as soon as their last gallant effort is spent—the

army of the conqueror is about to spread desolation and death throughout

the city by fire and the sword. This time the Hungarian butcher will

spare no victims: he will kill the mother before her children’s eyes,

the children in their mother’s arms. The drawbridge of this castle is up

and there are none on guard; every man who can wield a sword is now at

the other end of the town. Woe to you, Marie of Durazzo, if the King of

Hungary shall remember that you preferred his rival to him!"

"But have you not come here to save me?" cried Marie in a voice of

anguish. "Joan, my sister, did she not command you to take me to her?"

"Your sister is no longer in the position to give orders," replied

Renaud, with a disdainful smile. "She had nothing for me but thanks

because I saved her life, and her husband’s too, when he fled like a

coward before the man whom he had dared to challenge to a duel."

Marie looked fixedly at the admiral to assure herself that it was really

he who thus arrogantly talked about his masters. But she was terrified

at his imperturbable expression, and said gently—

"As I owe my life and my children’s lives solely to your generosity, I

am grateful to you beyond all measure. But we must hurry, my lord: every

moment I fancy I hear cries of vengeance, and you would not leave me now

a prey to my brutal enemy?"

"God forbid, madam; I will save you at the risk of my life; but I have

said already, I impose a condition."

"What is it?" said Marie, with forced calm.

"That you marry my son on the instant, in the presence of our reverend

chaplain."

"Rash man!" cried Marie, recoiling, her face scarlet with indignation

and shame; "you dare to speak thus to the sister of your legitimate

sovereign? Give thanks to God that I will pardon an insult offered, as I

know, in a moment of madness; try by your devotion to make me forget

what you have said."

The count, without one word, signed to his son and a priest to follow,

and prepared to depart. As he crossed the threshold Marie ran to him,

and clasping her hands, prayed him in God’s name never to forsake her.

Renaud stopped.

"I might easily take my revenge," he said, "for your affront when you

refuse my son in your pride; but that business I leave to Louis of

Hungary, who will acquit himself, no doubt, with credit."

"Have mercy on my poor daughters!" cried the princess; "mercy at least

for my poor babes, if my own tears cannot move you."

"If you loved your children," said the admiral, frowning, "you would

have done your duty at once."

"But I do not love your son!" cried Marie, proud but trembling. "O God,

must a wretched woman’s heart be thus trampled? You, father, a minister

of truth and justice, tell this man that God must not be called on to

witness an oath dragged from the weak and helpless!"

She turned to the admiral’s son; and added, sobbing—

"You are young, perhaps you have loved: one day no doubt you will love.

I appeal to your loyalty as a young man, to your courtesy as a knight,

to all your noblest impulses; join me, and turn your father away from

his fatal project. You have never seen me before: you do not know but

that in my secret heart I love another. Your pride should be revolted at

the sight of an unhappy woman casting herself at your feet and imploring

your favour and protection. One word from you, Robert, and I shall bless

you every moment of my life: the memory of you will be graven in my

heart like the memory of a guardian angel, and my children shall name

you nightly in their prayers, asking God to grant your wishes. Oh, say,

will you not save me? Who knows, later on I may love you—with real

love."

"I must obey my father," Robert replied, never lifting his eyes to the

lovely suppliant.

The priest was silent. Two minutes passed, and these four persons, each

absorbed in his own thoughts, stood motionless as statues carved at the

four corners of a tomb. Marie was thrice tempted to throw herself into

the sea. But a confused distant sound suddenly struck upon her ears:

little by little it drew nearer, voices were more distinctly heard;

women in the street were uttering cries of distress—

"Fly, fly! God has forsaken us; the Hungarians are in the town!"

The tears of Marie’s children were the answer to these cries; and little

Margaret, raising her hands to her mother, expressed her fear in speech

that was far beyond her years. Renaud, without one look at this touching

picture, drew his son towards the door.

"Stay," said the princess, extending her hand with a solemn gesture: "as

God sends no other aid to my children, it is His will that the sacrifice

be accomplished."

She fell on her knees before the priest, bending her head like a victim

who offers her neck to the executioner. Robert des Baux took his place

beside her, and the priest pronounced the formula that united them for

ever, consecrating the infamous deed by a sacrilegious blessing.

"All is over!" murmured Marie of Durazzo, looking tearfully on her

little daughters.

"No, all is not yet over," said the admiral harshly, pushing her towards

another room; "before we leave, the marriage must be consummated."

"O just God!" cried the princess, in a voice torn with anguish, and she

fell swooning to the floor.

Renaud des Baux directed his ships towards Marseilles, where he hoped to

get his son crowned Count of Provence, thanks to his strange marriage

with Marie of Durazzo. But this cowardly act of treason was not to go

unpunished. The wind rose with fury, and drove him towards Gaeta, where

the queen and her husband had just arrived. Renaud bade his sailors keep

in the open, threatening to throw any man into the sea who dared to

disobey him. The crew at first murmured; soon cries of mutiny rose on

every side. The admiral, seeing he was lost, passed from threats to

prayers. But the princess, who had recovered her senses at the first

thunder-clap, dragged herself up to the bridge and screamed for help,

"Come to me, Louis! Come, my barons! Death to the cowardly wretches who

have outraged my honour!"

Louis of Tarentum jumped into a boat, followed by some ten of his

bravest men, and, rowing rapidly, reached the ship. Then Marie told him

her story in a word, and he turned upon the admiral a lightning glance,

as though defying him to make any defence.

"Wretch!" cried the king, transfixing the traitor with his sword.

Then he had the son loaded with chains, and also the unworthy priest who

had served as accomplice to the admiral, who now expiated his odious

crime by death. He took the princess and her children in his boat, and

re-entered the harbour.

The Hungarians, however, forcing one of the gates of Naples, marched

triumphant to Castel Nuovo. But as they were crossing the Piazza delle

Correggie, the Neapolitans perceived that the horses were so weak and

the men so reduced by all they had undergone during the siege of Aversa

that a mere puff of wind would dispense this phantom-like army. Changing

from a state of panic to real daring, the people rushed upon their

conquerors, and drove them outside the walls by which they had just

entered. The sudden violent reaction broke the pride of the King of

Hungary, and made him more tractable when Clement VI decided that he

ought at last to interfere. A truce was concluded first from the month

of February 1350 to the beginning of April 1351, and the next year this

was converted into a real peace, Joan paying to the King of Hungary the

sum of 300,000 florins for the expenses of the war.

After the Hungarians had gone, the pope sent a legate to crown Joan and

Louis of Tarentum, and the 25th of May, the day of Pentecost, was chosen

for the ceremony. All contemporary historians speak enthusiastically of

this magnificent fete. Its details have been immortalised by Giotto in

the frescoes of the church which from this day bore the name of

L’Incoronata. A general amnesty was declared for all who had taken part

in the late wars on either side, and the king and queen were greeted

with shouts of joy as they solemnly paraded beneath the canopy, with all

the barons of the kingdom in their train.

But the day’s joy was impaired by an accident which to a superstitious

people seemed of evil augury. Louis of Tarentum, riding a richly

caparisoned horse, had just passed the Porta Petruccia, when some ladies

looking out from a high window threw such a quantity of flowers at the

king that his frightened steed reared and broke his rein. Louis could

not hold him, so jumped lightly to the ground; but the crown fell at his

feet and was broken into three pieces. On that very day the only

daughter of Joan and Louis died.

But the king not wishing to sadden the brilliant ceremony with show of

mourning, kept up the jousts and tournaments for three days, and in

memory of his coronation instituted the order of ’Chevaliers du Noeud’.

But from that day begun with an omen so sad, his life was nothing but a

series of disillusions. After sustaining wars in Sicily and Apulia, and

quelling the insurrection of Louis of Durazzo, who ended his days in the

castle of Ovo, Louis of Tarentum, worn out by a life of pleasure, his

health undermined by slow disease, overwhelmed with domestic trouble,

succumbed to an acute fever on the 5th of June 1362, at the age of

forty-two. His body had not been laid in its royal tomb at Saint

Domenico before several aspirants appeared to the hand of the queen.

One was the Prince of Majorca, the handsome youth we have already spoken

of: he bore her off triumphant over all rivals, including the son of the

King of France. James of Aragon had one of those faces of melancholy

sweetness which no woman can resist. Great troubles nobly borne had

thrown as it were a funereal veil over his youthful days: more than

thirteen years he had spent shut in an iron cage; when by the aid of a

false key he had escaped from his dreadful prison, he wandered from one

court to another seeking aid; it is even said that he was reduced to the

lowest degree of poverty and forced to beg his bread. The young

stranger’s beauty and his adventures combined had impressed both Joan

and Marie at the court of Avignon. Marie especially had conceived a

violent passion for him, all the more so for the efforts she made to

conceal it in her own bosom. Ever since James of Aragon came to Naples,

the unhappy princess, married with a dagger at her throat, had desired

to purchase her liberty at the expense of crime. Followed by four armed

men, she entered the prison where Robert des Baux was still suffering

for a fault more his father’s than his own. Marie stood before the

prisoner, her arms crossed, her cheeks livid, her lips trembling. It was

a terrible interview. This time it was she who threatened, the man who

entreated pardon. Marie was deaf to his prayers, and the head of the

luckless man fell bleeding at her feet, and her men threw the body into

the sea. But God never allows a murder to go unpunished: James preferred

the queen to her sister, and the widow of Charles of Durazzo gained

nothing by her crime but the contempt of the man she loved, and a bitter

remorse which brought her while yet young to the tomb.

Joan was married in turn to James of Aragon, son of the King of Majorca,

and to Otho of Brunswick, of the imperial family of Saxony. We will pass

rapidly over these years, and come to the denouement of this history of

crime and expiation. James, parted from his wife, continued his stormy

career, after a long contest in Spain with Peter the Cruel, who had

usurped his kingdom: about the end of the year 1375 he died near

Navarre. Otho also could not escape the Divine vengeance which hung over

the court of Naples, but to the end he valiantly shared the queen’s

fortunes. Joan, since she had no lawful heir, adopted her nephew,

Charles de la Paix (so called after the peace of Trevisa). He was the

son of Louis Duras, who after rebelling against Louis of Tarentum, had

died miserably in the castle of Ovo. The child would have shared his

father’s fate had not Joan interceded to spare his life, loaded him with

kindness, and married him to Margaret, the daughter of her sister Marie

and her cousin Charles, who was put to death by the King of Hungary.

Serious differences arose between the queen and one of her former

subjects, Bartolommeo Prigiani, who had become pope under the name of

Urban VI. Annoyed by the queen’s opposition, the pope one day angrily

said he would shut her up in a convent. Joan, to avenge the insult,

openly favoured Clement VII, the anti-pope, and offered him a home in

her own castle, when, pursued by Pope Urban’s army, he had taken refuge

at Fondi. But the people rebelled against Clement, and killed the

Archbishop of Naples, who had helped to elect him: they broke the cross

that was carried in procession before the anti-pope, and hardly allowed

him time to make his escape on shipboard to Provence. Urban declared

that Joan was now dethroned, and released her subjects from their oath

of fidelity to her, bestowing the crown of Sicily and Jerusalem upon

Charles de la Paix, who marched on Naples with 8000 Hungarians. Joan,

who could not believe in such base ingratitude, sent out his wife

Margaret to meet her adopted son, though she might have kept her as a

hostage, and his two children, Ladislaus and Joan, who became later the

second queen of that name. But the victorious army soon arrived at the

gates of Naples, and Charles blockaded the queen in her castle,

forgetting in his ingratitude that she had saved his life and loved him

like a mother.

Joan during the siege endured all the worst fatigues of war that any

soldier has to bear. She saw her faithful friends fall around her wasted

by hunger or decimated by sickness. When all food was exhausted, dead

and decomposed bodies were thrown into the castle that they might

pollute the air she breathed. Otho with his troops was kept at Aversa;

Louis of Anjou, the brother of the King of France whom she had named as

her successor when she disinherited her nephew, never appeared to help

her, and the Provencal ships from Clement VII were not due to arrive

until all hope must be over. Joan asked for a truce of five days,

promising that, if Otho had not come to relieve her in that time, she

would surrender the fortress.

On the fifth day Otho’s army appeared on the side of Piedigrotta. The

fight was sharp on both sides, and Joan from the top of a tower could

follow with her eyes the cloud of dust raised by her husband’s horse in

the thickest of the battle. The victory was long uncertain: at length

the prince made so bold an onset upon the royal standard, in his

eagerness to meet his enemy hand to hand, that he plunged into the very

middle of the army, and found himself pressed on every side. Covered

with blood and sweat, his sword broken in his hand, he was forced to

surrender. An hour later Charles was writing to his uncle, the King of

Hungary, that Joan had fallen into his power, and he only awaited His

Majesty’s orders to decide her fate.

It was a fine May morning: the queen was under guard in the castle of

Aversa: Otho had obtained his liberty on condition of his quitting

Naples, and Louis of Anjou had at last got together an army of 50,000

men and was marching in hot haste to the conquest of the kingdom. None

of this news had reached the ears of Joan, who for some days had lived

in complete isolation. The spring lavished all her glory on these

enchanted plains, which have earned the name of the blessed and happy

country, campagna felite. The orange trees were covered with sweet white

blossoms, the cherries laden with ruby fruit, the olives with young

emerald leaves, the pomegranate feathery with red bells; the wild

mulberry, the evergreen laurel, all the strong budding vegetation,

needing no help from man to flourish in this spot privileged by Nature,

made one great garden, here and there interrupted by little hidden

runlets. It was a forgotten Eden in this corner of the world. Joan at

her window was breathing in the perfumes of spring, and her eyes misty

with tears rested on a bed of flowery verdure; a light breeze, keen and

balmy, blew upon her burning brow and offered a grateful coolness to her

damp and fevered cheeks. Distant melodious voices, refrains of

well-known songs, were all that disturbed the silence of the poor little

room, the solitary nest where a life was passing away in tears and

repentance, a life the most brilliant and eventful of a century of

splendour and unrest.

The queen was slowly reviewing in her mind all her life since she ceased

to be a child—fifty years of disillusionment and suffering. She thought

first of her happy, peaceful childhood, her grandfather’s blind

affection, the pure joys of her days of innocence, the exciting games

with her little sister and tall cousins. Then she shuddered at the

earliest thought of marriage, the constraint, the loss of liberty, the

bitter regrets; she remembered with horror the deceitful words murmured

in her ear, designed to sow the seeds of corruption and vice that were

to poison her whole life. Then came the burning memories of her first

love, the treachery and desertion of Robert of Cabane, the moments of

madness passed like a dream in the arms of Bertrand of Artois—the whole

drama up to its tragic denouement showed as in letters of fire on the

dark background of her sombre thoughts. Then arose cries of anguish in

her soul, even as on that terrible fatal night she heard the voice of

Andre asking mercy from his murderers. A long deadly silence followed

his awful struggle, and the queen saw before her eyes the carts of

infamy and the torture of her accomplices. All the rest of this vision

was persecution, flight, exile, remorse, punishments from God and curses

from the world. Around her was a frightful solitude: husbands, lovers,

kindred, friends, all were dead; all she had loved or hated in the world

were now no more; her joy, pain, desire, and hope had vanished for ever.

The poor queen, unable to free herself from these visions of woe,

violently tore herself away from the awful reverie, and kneeling at a

prie-dieu, prayed with fervour. She was still beautiful, in spite of her

extreme pallor; the noble lines of her face kept their pure oval; the

fire of repentance in her great black eyes lit them up with superhuman

brilliance, and the hope of pardon played in a heavenly smile upon her

lips.

Suddenly the door of the room where Joan was so earnestly praying opened

with a dull sound: two Hungarian barons in armour entered and signed to

the queen to follow them. Joan arose silently and obeyed; but a cry of

pain went up from her heart when she recognised the place where both

Andre and Charles of Durazzo had died a violent death. But she collected

her forces, and asked calmly why she was brought hither. For all answer,

one of the men showed her a cord of silk and gold....

"May the will of a just God be done!" cried Joan, and fell upon her

knees. Some minutes later she had ceased to suffer.

This was the third corpse that was thrown over the balcony at Aversa.

*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 impossible 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:—

"Monday, 19th November 1703. The unknown prisoner, who always wore a

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.

"’Afterwards the king made us register our oath, the chancellor signing

it first, then the queen’s confessor, and I last. The oath was also

signed by the surgeon and midwife who attended on the queen, and the

king attached this document to the report, taking both away with him,

and I never heard any more of either. I remember that His Majesty

consulted with the chancellor as to the form of the oath, and that he

spoke for a long time in an undertone to the cardinal: after which the

last-born child was given into the charge of the midwife, and as they

were always afraid she would babble about his birth, she has told me

that they often threatened her with death should she ever mention it: we

were also forbidden to speak, even to each other, of the child whose

birth we had witnessed.

"’Not one of us has as yet violated his oath; for His Majesty dreaded

nothing so much as a civil war brought about by the two children born

together, and the cardinal, who afterwards got the care of the second

child into his hands, kept that fear alive. The king also commanded us

to examine the unfortunate prince minutely; he had a wart above the left

elbow, a mole on the right side of his neck, and a tiny wart on his

right thigh; for His Majesty was determined, and rightly so, that in

case of the decease of the first-born, the royal infant whom he was

entrusting to our care should take his place; wherefore he required our

signmanual to the report of the birth, to which a small royal seal was

attached in our presence, and we all signed it after His Majesty,

according as he commanded. As to the shepherds who had foretold the

double birth, never did I hear another word of them, but neither did I

inquire. The cardinal who took the mysterious infant in charge probably

got them out of the country.

"’All through the infancy of the second prince Dame Peronete treated him

as if he were her own child, giving out that his father was a great

nobleman; for everyone saw by the care she lavished on him and the

expense she went to, that although unacknowledged he was the cherished

son of rich parents, and well cared for.

"’When the prince began to grow up, Cardinal Mazarin, who succeeded

Cardinal Richelieu in the charge of the prince’s education, gave him

into my hands to bring up in a manner worthy of a king’s son, but in

secret. Dame Peronete continued in his service till her death, and was

very much attached to him, and he still more to her. The prince was

instructed in my house in Burgundy, with all the care due to the son and

brother of a king.

"’I had several conversations with the queen mother during the troubles

in France, and Her Majesty always seemed to fear that if the existence

of the prince should be discovered during the lifetime of his brother,

the young king, malcontents would make it a pretext for rebellion,

because many medical men hold that the last-born of twins is in reality

the elder, and if so, he was king by right, while many others have a

different opinion.

"’In spite of this dread, the queen could never bring herself to destroy

the written evidence of his birth, because in case of the death of the

young king she intended to have his twin-brother proclaimed. She told me

often that the written proofs were in her strong box.

"’I gave the ill-starred prince such an education as I should have liked

to receive myself, and no acknowledged son of a king ever had a better.

The only thing for which I have to reproach myself is that, without

intending it, I caused him great unhappiness; for when he was nineteen

years old he had a burning desire to know who he was, and as he saw that

I was determined to be silent, growing more firm the more he tormented

me with questions, he made up his mind henceforward to disguise his

curiosity and to make me think that he believed himself a love-child of

my own. He began to call me ’father,’ although when we were alone I

often assured him that he was mistaken; but at length I gave up

combating this belief, which he perhaps only feigned to make me speak,

and allowed him to think he was my son, contradicting him no more; but

while he continued to dwell on this subject he was meantime making every

effort to find out who he really was. Two years passed thus, when,

through an unfortunate piece of forgetfulness on my part, for which I

greatly blame myself, he became acquainted with the truth. He knew that

the king had lately sent me several messengers, and once having

carelessly forgotten to lock up a casket containing letters from the

queen and the cardinals, he read part and divined the rest through his

natural intelligence; and later confessed to me that he had carried off

the letter which told most explicitly of his birth.

"’I can recall that from this time on, his manner to me showed no longer

that respect for me in which I had brought him up, but became hectoring

and rude, and that I could not imagine the reason of the change, for I

never found out that he had searched my papers, and he never revealed to

me how he got at the casket, whether he was aided by some workmen whom

he did not wish to betray, or had employed other means.

"’One day, however, he unguardedly asked me to show him the portraits of

the late and the present king. I answered that those that existed were

so poor that I was waiting till better ones were taken before having

them in my house.

"’This answer, which did not satisfy him, called forth the request to be

allowed to go to Dijon. I found out afterwards that he wanted to see a

portrait of the king which was there, and to get to the court, which was

just then at Saint-Jean-de-Luz, because of the approaching marriage with

the infanta; so that he might compare himself with his brother and see

if there were any resemblance between them. Having knowledge of his

plan, I never let him out of my sight.

"’The young prince was at this time as beautiful as Cupid, and through

the intervention of Cupid himself he succeeded in getting hold of a

portrait of his brother. One of the upper servants of the house, a young

girl, had taken his fancy, and he lavished such caresses on her and

inspired her with so much love, that although the whole household was

strictly forbidden to give him anything without my permission, she

procured him a portrait of the king. The unhappy prince saw the likeness

at once, indeed no one could help seeing it, for the one portrait would

serve equally well for either brother, and the sight produced such a fit

of fury that he came to me crying out, "There is my brother, and this

tells me who I am!" holding out a letter from Cardinal Mazarin which he

had stolen from me, and making a great commotion in my house.

"’The dread lest the prince should escape and succeed in appearing at

the marriage of his brother made me so uneasy, that I sent off a

messenger to the king to tell him that my casket had been opened, and

asking for instructions. The king sent back word through the cardinal

that we were both to be shut up till further orders, and that the prince

was to be made to understand that the cause of our common misfortune was

his absurd claim. I have since shared his prison, but I believe that a

decree of release has arrived from my heavenly judge, and for my soul’s

health and for my ward’s sake I make this declaration, that he may know

what measures to take in order to put an end to his ignominious estate

should the king die without children. Can any oath imposed under threats

oblige one to be silent about such incredible events, which it is

nevertheless necessary that posterity should know?’"

Such were the contents of the historical document given by the regent to

the princess, and it suggests a crowd of questions. Who was the prince’s

governor? Was he a Burgundian? Was he simply a landed proprietor, with

some property and a country house in Burgundy? How far was his estate

from Dijon? He must have been a man of note, for he enjoyed the most

intimate confidence at the court of Louis XIII, either by virtue of his

office or because he was a favourite of the king, the queen, and

Cardinal Richelieu. Can we learn from the list of the nobles of Burgundy

what member of their body disappeared from public life along with a

young ward whom he had brought up in his own house just after the

marriage of Louis XIV? Why did he not attach his signature to the

declaration, which appears to be a hundred years old? Did he dictate it

when so near death that he had not strength to sign it? How did it find

its way out of prison? And so forth.

There is no answer to all these questions, and I, for my part, cannot

undertake to affirm that the document is genuine. Abbe Soulavie relates

that he one day "pressed the marshal for an answer to some questions on

the matter, asking, amongst other things, if it were not true that the

prisoner was an elder brother of Louis XIV born without the knowledge of

Louis XIII. The marshal appeared very much embarrassed, and although he

did not entirely refuse to answer, what he said was not very

explanatory. He averred that this important personage was neither the

illegitimate brother of Louis XIV, nor the Duke of Monmouth, nor the

Comte de Vermandois, nor the Duc de Beaufort, and so on, as so many

writers had asserted." He called all their writings mere inventions, but

added that almost every one of them had got hold of some true incidents,

as for instance the order to kill the prisoner should he make himself

known. Finally he acknowledged that he knew the state secret, and used

the following words: "All that I can tell you, abbe, is, that when the

prisoner died at the beginning of the century, at a very advanced age,

he had ceased to be of such importance as when, at the beginning of his

reign, Louis XIV shut him up for weighty reasons of state."

The above was written down under the eyes of the marshal, and when Abbe

Soulavie entreated him to say something further which, while not

actually revealing the secret, would yet satisfy his questioner’s

curiosity, the marshal answered, "Read M. de Voltaire’s latest writings

on the subject, especially his concluding words, and reflect on them."