Versailles_, a collation in the park, under great trees laden with the
freshest verdure of spring, a stag-hunt by moonlight, a brilliant
display of fireworks, then a supper in the banqueting hall of the
château. And still all went well. At least all thought so but Vatel; but
as for that prince of cooks, he was in despair. A frightful disaster had
occurred. After the days and nights of anxiety and care in preparing for
this grand occasion, for a failure now to take place, it was to him
unpardonable, unsupportable.
Tidings of his distress were brought to Condé. The generous prince
sought his room to console him.
"Vatel," said he, "what is this I hear? The king's supper was superb."
"Monseigneur," said Vatel, tears in his eyes. "The _rôti_ was wanting at
two tables."
"Not at all," replied the prince. "You surpassed yourself; nothing could
have been better; everything was perfect."
Vatel, somewhat relieved by this praise, sought his couch, and a morsel
of sleep visited his eyelids. But the shadow of doom still hung over his
career. By break of day he was up again. Others might lie late abed, but
there could be no such indulgence for him; for was not he the power
behind the throne? What would this grand fête be should his genius fail,
his powers prove unequal to the strain? King and prince, lord and lady
might slumber, but Vatel must be up and alert.
Fresh fish formed an essential part of the menu which he had laid out
for the dining-tables of the third day. He had ordered them from every
part of the coast. Would they come? Could the fates fail him now, at
this critical moment of his life? The anxious chief went abroad to view
the situation. His eyes lighted. A fisher-boy had just arrived with two
loads of fish, fresh brought from the coast. Vatel looked at them, and
then gazed around with newly disturbed eyes.
"Is that all?" he asked, his voice faltering.
"That is all, sir," answered the boy, who knew nothing about the
numerous orders.
Vatel turned pale. All? These few fish all he had to offer his multitude
of guests? Only a miracle could divide these so as to give a portion to
each. He waited, despair slowly descending upon his heart. In vain his
anxious wait; no more fish appeared. Vatel's anxiety was fast becoming
despair. The disaster of the night before, to be followed by this
terrible stroke--it was more than his artistic soul could bear; disgrace
had come upon him in its direst form; his reputation was at stake.
He met Gourville, a wit and factotum of the court, and told him of his
misfortune.
"It is disgrace, ruin," he cried; "I cannot survive it."
Gourville heard him with merry laughter. To his light mind the affair
seemed only a good joke. It was not so to Vatel. He sought his room and
locked himself in.
He was too soon, alas, too soon; for now fish are coming; here, there,
everywhere; the orders have been strictly obeyed, there is abundance
for all purposes. The cooks receive them, and look for Vatel to give
orders for their disposal. He is not to be seen. "He went to his room,"
says Gourville. They repair thither, knock persistently, but in vain,
and finding that no answer can be obtained, they break open the door and
enter.
A frightful spectacle meets their eyes. On the floor before them lies
poor Vatel, in a pool of his own blood, pierced through the heart. In
his ecstasy of despair at the non-arrival of the fish, he had fastened
his sword in the door, and thrown himself upon its deadly point. Thrice
he had done so, twice wounding himself slightly, the third time piercing
himself through the heart. Poor fellow! he was dead, and the fish had
arrived. It was a useless sacrifice of his life to his art.
The tidings of the tragedy filled the château with alarm and dismay. The
prince was in despair, the more so as the king blamed him for the fatal
occurrence. He had long avoided Chantilly, he said, knowing that his
coming would occasion inconvenience, since his host would insist on
providing for the whole of his suite. There should have been but two
tables, and there were more than twenty-five; the strain on poor Vatel
was the cause of his death and the loss of one of the ornaments of the
reign. He would never allow such extravagance again. Men like Vatel were
not to be so lightly sacrificed.
While the king thus petulantly scolded his great subject in the
time-honored "I told you so" fashion, the whole château buzzed with
opinions about the tragic event. "Vatel has played the hero," said some;
"He has played the idiot," said others. Some praised his courage and
devotion to his art; others blamed his haste and folly. But praise
prevailed over blame, for, as all conceded, "he had died for the honor
of his profession," and no soldier or martyr could do more.
But Vatel was gone, and dinner was not served. The dead was dead, but
appetite remained. What was to be done? Gourville sprang into the breach
and undertook to replace Vatel. The fish were cooked, the company dined,
then they promenaded, then they played piquet, losing and winning
largely, then they supped, then they enjoyed a moonlight chase of the
deer in the park of Chantilly. Mirth and gayety prevailed, and before
bedtime came poor Vatel was forgotten. The cook who had died for his art
was as far from their thoughts as the martyrs of centuries before.
Early the next day the king and his train departed, leaving Condé to
count the cost of the entertainment, which had been so great as to make
him agree with Louis, that hereafter two tables would be better than
twenty-five. Doubtless among his chief losses he counted Vatel. Money
could be found again, waste repaired, but a genius of the kitchen the
equal of Vatel was not to be had to order. Men like him are the growth
of centuries. He died that his name might live.
_THE MAN WITH THE IRON MASK._
In the year 1662, the first year of the absolute reign of Louis XIV.,
there occurred an event without parallel in history, and which still
remains shrouded in the mystery in which it was from the first involved.
There was sent with the utmost secrecy to the Château of Pignerol an
unknown prisoner, whose identity was kept secret with the most extreme
care. All that can be said of him is that he was young, well-formed and
attractive in appearance, and above the usual stature. As for his face,
whether it were handsome or ill-favored, noble or base, no man could
say, for it was concealed by an impenetrable mask, the lower portion of
which was made movable by steel springs, so that he could eat with it
on, while the upper portion was immovably fixed.
This mysterious state prisoner remained for a number of years at
Pignerol, under charge of its governor, M. de Saint Mars, an officer of
the greatest discretion and trustworthiness. He was afterwards removed
to the castle of the Isle of Sainte Marguerite, on the coast of
Provence, where he remained for years in the same mysterious seclusion,
an object of the greatest curiosity on the part of all the people of the
prison, and of no less interest to the people of the kingdom, to whose
love of the marvellous the secrecy surrounding him appealed. The mask
was never removed, day or night, so far as any one could learn, while
conjecture sought in vain to discover who this mysterious personage
could be.
This much was certain, no person of leading importance had disappeared
from Europe in the year 1662. On the other hand, the masked prisoner was
treated with a consideration which could be looked for only by persons
of the highest birth. The Marquis of Louvois, minister of war under the
"Grand Monarque," was said to have visited him at Sainte Marguerite, and
to have treated him with the respect due to one of royal birth. He spoke
to him standing, as to one far his superior in station, and showed him
throughout the interview the greatest deference.
In 1698, M. de Saint Mars was made governor of the Bastille. He brought
with him this mysterious masked prisoner, whose secret it was apparently
not deemed advisable to intrust to a new governor of Sainte Marguerite.
As to what took place on the journey, we have some interesting details
in a letter from M. de Formanoir, grand nephew of Saint Mars.
"In 1698, M. de Saint Mars exchanged the governorship of the islands
[Sainte Marguerite and Sainte Honnat] for that of the Bastille. When he
set out to enter on his new office he stayed with his prisoner for a
short time at Palteau, his estate. The mask arrived in a litter which
preceded that of M. de Saint Mars; they were accompanied by several men
on horseback. The peasants went out to meet their seigneur. M. de Saint
Mars took his meals with his prisoner, who sat with his back towards the
windows of the room, which looked into the court-yard. The peasants of
whom I made inquiry could not see if he had his mask on when eating; but
they observed that M. de Saint Mars, who sat opposite to him at table,
had a pair of pistols beside his plate. They were attended by a single
valet only, Antoine Ru, who took away the dishes set down to him in an
antechamber, having first carefully shut the door of the dining-room.
When the prisoner crossed the court-yard a black mask was always on his
face."
The extreme caution here indicated was continued until the prisoner
reached the Bastille. With regard to his life in this fortress we are
better informed, since it must be acknowledged that the record of his
previous prison life is somewhat obscure. All that seems well
established is that he was one of the "two prisoners of the Lower Tower"
at Pignerol, in 1681; that he was spoken of to Saint Mars as "your
ancient prisoner," and "your prisoner of twenty years' standing;" that
in 1687 he was removed from Exiles to Sainte Marguerite with the same
care and secrecy observed in the journey to the Bastille, his jailer
accompanying him to the new prison, and that throughout he was under the
care of the relentless Saint Mars.
Of the life of this remarkable state prisoner in the Bastille we have
more detailed accounts. Dujunca, the chief turnkey of that prison, has
left a journal, which contains the following entry: "On Thursday, the
18th September, 1698, at three o'clock in the afternoon, M. de Saint
Mars, the governor, arrived at the Bastille for the first time from the
islands of Sainte Marguerite and Sainte Honnat. He brought with him in
his own litter an ancient prisoner formerly under his care at Pignerol,
and whose name remains untold. This prisoner was always kept masked, and
was at first lodged in the Basinière tower.... I conducted him
afterwards to the Bertaudière tower, and put him in a room, which, by
order of M. de Saint Mars, I had furnished before his arrival."
Throughout the life of this mysterious personage in the Bastille, the
secrecy which had so far environed him was rigidly observed. So far as
is known, no one ever saw him without his mask. Aside from this, and his
detention, everything that could be was done to make his life enjoyable.
He was given the best accommodation the Bastille afforded. Nothing that
he desired was refused him. He had a strong taste for lace and linen of
extreme fineness, and his wishes in this particular were complied with.
His table was always served in the most elegant manner, while the
governor, who frequently attended him, seldom sat in his presence.
During his intervals of ailment he was attended by the old doctor of the
Bastille, who, while often examining his tongue and parts of his body,
never saw his face. He represents him as very finely shaped, and of
somewhat brownish complexion, with an agreeable and engaging voice. He
never complained, nor gave any hint as to who he was, and throughout his
whole prison life no one gained the least clue to his identity. The only
instance in which he attempted to make himself known is described by
Voltaire, who tells us that while at Sainte Marguerite he threw out from
the grated window of his cell a piece of fine linen, and a silver plate
on which he had traced some strange characters. This, however, is an
unauthenticated story.
The detention of this mysterious prisoner in the Bastille was not an
extended one. He died in 1703. Dujunca's journal tells the story of his
death. "On Monday, the 19th of November, 1703, the unknown prisoner, who
had continually worn a black velvet mask, and whom M. de Saint Mars had
brought with him from the island of Sainte Marguerite, died to-day at
about ten o'clock in the evening, having been yesterday taken slightly
ill. He had been a long time in M. de Saint Mars' hands, and his illness
was exceedingly trifling."
There is one particular of interest in this record. The "iron mask"
appears to have been really a mask of black velvet, the only iron about
it being the springs, which permitted the lower part to be lifted.
The question now arises, Who was the "man with the iron mask"? It is a
question which has been long debated, without definite conclusion.
Chamillard was the last minister of Louis XIV. who knew this secret.
When he was dying, his son-in-law, Marshal de Feuillade, begged him on
his knees to reveal the mystery. He begged in vain. Chamillard answered
that it was a secret of state, which he had sworn never to reveal, and
he died with it untold.
Voltaire, in his "Age of Louis XIV.," was the first to call special
attention to this mystery, and since then numerous conjectures have been
made as to who the Iron Mask really was. One writer has suggested that
he was an illegitimate son of Anne of Austria, the queen-mother. Another
identifies him with a supposed twin brother of Louis XIV., whose birth
Richelieu had concealed. Others make him the Count of Vermandois, an
illegitimate son of Louis XIV.; the Duke of Beaufort, a hero of the
Fronde; the Duke of Monmouth, the English pretender of 1685; Fouquet,
Louis's disgraced minister of finance; a son of Cromwell, the English
protector; and various other wild and unfounded guesses. After all has
been said, the identity of the prisoner remains unknown. Mattioli, a
diplomatic agent of the Duke of Mantua, who was long imprisoned at
Pignerol and at Sainte Marguerite, was for a long time generally thought
to be the Iron Mask, but there is good reason to believe that he died in
1694.
Conjecture has exhausted itself, and yet the identity of this strange
captive remains a mystery, and is likely always to continue so. The
fact that all the exalted personages of the day can be traced renders it
probable that the veiled prisoner was really an obscure individual, whom
the caprice of Louis XIV. surrounded with conditions intended to excite
the curiosity of the public. There are on record other instances of
imprisonment under similar conditions of inviolate secrecy, and it is
not impossible that the king may have endeavored, for no purpose higher
than whim, to surround the story of this one with unbroken mystery. If
such were his purpose it has succeeded, for there is no more mysterious
person in history than the Man with the Iron Mask.
_VOLTAIRE'S LAST VISIT TO PARIS._
Never had excitable Paris been more excited. Only one man was talked of,
only one subject thought of; there was no longer interest in rumors of
war, in political quarrels, in the doings at the king's court; all
admiration and all sympathy were turned towards one feeble old man, who
had returned to Paris to die. For twenty-seven years he had been absent,
that brilliant writer and unsurpassed genius, the versatile Voltaire.
His facile pen had given its greatest glory to the reign of Louis XV.,
yet for more than a quarter of a century he had been exiled from the
land he loved, because he dared to exercise the privilege of free speech
in that land of oppression, and to deal with kings and nobles as man
with man, not as reverent worshipper with divinity. Now, in his
eighty-fourth year of age, he had ventured to come back to the city he
loved above all others, with scarcely enough life left for the journey,
and far from sure that power would not still seek to suppress genius as
it had done in the past.
If he had such fears, there was no warrant for them. Paris was ready to
worship him. The king himself would not have dared to interfere with the
popular idol in that interval of enthusiastic ebullition. All Paris was
prepared to cast itself at his feet; all France was eager to do him
honor; all calumny, jealousy, hatred were forgotten; a nation had risen
to welcome and honor its greatest genius, and the splendors of the court
paled before the glory which seemed to emanate from that feeble,
tottering veteran of the empire of thought, who had come back to occupy,
for a brief period, the throne of his old dominion.
The admiration, the enthusiasm, the glory were too much for him. He was
dying in the excitement of joy and triumph. Yet, with his wonderful
elasticity of frame and mind, he rose again for a fuller enjoyment of
that popular ovation which was to him the wine of life. The story of his
final triumph has been so graphically told by an eye-witness that we
cannot do better than to quote his words.
"M. de Voltaire has appeared for the first time at the Academy and at
the play; he found all the doors, all the approaches, to the Academy
besieged by a multitude which only opened slowly to let him pass, and
then rushed in immediately upon his footsteps with repeated plaudits and
acclamations. The Academy came out into the first room to meet him, an
honor it had never yet paid to any of its members, not even to the
foreign princes who had deigned to be present at its meetings.
"The homage he received at the Academy was merely the prelude to that
which awaited him at the National theatre. As soon as his carriage was
seen at a distance, there arose a universal shout of joy. All the
curb-stones, all the barriers, all the windows, were crammed with
spectators, and scarcely was the carriage stopped when people were
already on the imperial and even on the wheels to get a nearer view of
the divinity. Scarcely had he entered the house when Sieur Brizard came
up with a crown of laurels, which Madame de Villette placed upon the
great man's head, but which he immediately took off, though the public
urged him to keep it on by clapping of hands and by cheers which
resounded from all parts of the house with such a din as never was
heard.
"All the women stood up. I saw at one time that part of the pit which
was under the boxes go down on their knees, in despair of getting a
sight any other way. The whole house was darkened with the dust raised
by the ebb and flow of the excited multitude. It was not without
difficulty that the players managed at last to begin the piece. It was
'Irene,' which was given for the sixth time. Never had this tragedy been
better played, never less listened to, never more applauded. The
illustrious old man rose to thank the public, and, a moment afterwards,
there appeared on a pedestal in the middle of the stage a bust of this
great man, and the actresses, garlands and crowns in hand, covered it
with laurels.
"M. de Voltaire seemed to be sinking beneath the burden of age and of
the homage with which he had just been overwhelmed. He appeared deeply
affected, his eyes still sparkled amidst the pallor of his face, but it
seemed as if he breathed no longer save with the consciousness of his
glory. The people shouted, 'Lights! lights! that everybody may see him!'
The coachman was entreated to go at a walk, and thus he was accompanied
by cheering and the crowd as far as Pont Royal."
This was a very different greeting from that which Voltaire had received
fifty years before, when a nobleman with whom he had quarrelled had him
beaten with sticks in the public street, and, when Voltaire showed an
intention of making him answer at the sword's point for this outrage,
had him seized and thrown into the Bastille by the authorities. This was
but one of the several times he had been immured in this gloomy prison
for daring to say what he thought about powers and potentates. But time
brings its revenges. The Chevalier de Rohan, who had had the poet
castigated, was forgotten except as the man who had dishonored himself
in seeking to dishonor Voltaire, and the poet had become the idol of the
people of Paris, high and low alike.
Voltaire was not the only great man in Paris at this period. There was
another as great as he, but great in a very different fashion,--Benjamin
Franklin, the American philosopher and statesman, as famous for common
sense and public spirit as Voltaire was for poetical power and satirical
keenness. These two great men met, and their meeting is worthy of
description. The American envoys had asked permission to call on the
veteran of literature, a request that was willingly granted when
Voltaire learned that Franklin was one of the number. What passed
between them may be briefly related.
They found the aged poet reclining on a couch, thin of body, wrinkled of
face, evidently sick and feeble; yet his eyes, "glittering like two
carbuncles," showed what spirit lay within his withered frame. As they
entered, he raised himself with difficulty, and repeated the following
lines from Thomson's "Ode to Liberty," a poem which he had been familiar
with in England fifty years before.
"Lo! swarming southward on rejoicing suns,
Gay colonies extend, the calm retreat
Of undisturbed Distress, the better home
Of those whom bigots chase from foreign lands;
Not built on rapine, servitude, and woe,
And in their turn some petty tyrant's prey;
But bound by social Freedom, firm they rise."
He then began to converse with Franklin in English; but, on being asked
by his niece to speak in French, that she and others present might
understand what was said, he remarked,--
"I beg your pardon. I have, for the moment, yielded to the vanity of
showing that I can speak in the language of a Franklin."
Shortly afterwards, Dr. Franklin presented him his grandson, whereupon
the old man lifted his hands over the head of the youth, and said, "My
child, God and liberty! Recollect those two words."
This was not the only scene between Franklin and Voltaire. Another took
place at the Academy of Sciences at one of the meetings of that body.
The two distinguished guests sat side by side on the platform, in full
view of the audience.
During the proceedings an interruption occurred. A confused cry arose,
the names of the two great visitors alone being distinguishable. It was
taken to mean that they should be introduced. This was done. They rose
and acknowledged the courtesy by bowing and a few words. But such a
formal proceeding was far from enough to satisfy the audience. The noise
continued. Franklin and Voltaire shook hands. This gave rise to
plaudits, but the confused cries were not stilled; the audience wanted
some more decided demonstration.
"Il faut s'embrasser, à la Françoise" ["You must embrace, in French
fashion"], they cried.
John Adams, who witnessed the spectacle, thus describes what followed:
"The two aged actors upon this great theatre of philosophy and
frivolity, embraced each other by hugging one another in their arms, and
kissing each other's cheeks, and then the tumult subsided. And the cry
immediately spread through the whole kingdom, and, I suppose over all
Europe, 'How charming it was to see Solon and Sophocles embrace.'"
A month later Voltaire lay dead, his brilliant eyes closed, his active
brain at rest. The excitement of his visit to Paris and the constant
ovation which he had received had been too much for the old man. He had
died in the midst of his triumph, vanished from the stage of life just
when his genius had compelled the highest display of appreciation which
it was possible for his countrymen to give. As for the church, which his
keen pen had dealt with as severely as with the temporal powers, it
could not well forget his incessant and bitter attacks. That he might
obtain Christian burial, he confessed and received absolution from the
Abbé Gaultier; but, with his views, this was simply a sacrifice to the
proprieties; he remained a heathen poet to the end, a born satirist and
scoffer at all tradition and all conventionality.