After reading the arguments of the advocates of Mattioli, I could not
but perceive that, whatever captive died, masked, at the Bastille in
1703, the valet Dauger was the real source of most of the legends about
the Man in the Iron Mask. A study of M. Lair’s book ‘Nicholas Foucquet’
(1890) confirmed this opinion. I therefore pushed the inquiry into a
source neglected by the French historians, namely, the correspondence
of the English ambassadors, agents, and statesmen for the years 1668,
1669.* One result is to confirm a wild theory of my own to the effect
that the Man in the Iron Mask (if Dauger were he) may have been as great
a mystery to himself as to historical inquirers. He may not have
known WHAT he was imprisoned for doing! More important is the probable
conclusion that the long and mysterious captivity of Eustache Dauger,
and of another perfectly harmless valet and victim, was the mere
automatic result of the ‘red tape’ of the old French absolute monarchy.
These wretches were caught in the toils of the system, and suffered to
no purpose, for no crime. The two men, at least Dauger, were apparently
mere supernumeraries in the obscure intrigue of a conspirator known as
Roux de Marsilly.
*The papers are in the Record Office; for the contents see the
following essay, ‘The Valet’s Master.’
This truly abominable tragedy of Roux de Marsilly is ‘another story,’
narrated in the following essay. It must suffice here to say that, in
1669, while Charles II. was negotiating the famous, or infamous, secret
treaty with Louis XIV.--the treaty of alliance against Holland, and
in favour of the restoration of Roman Catholicism in England--Roux de
Marsilly, a French Huguenot, was dealing with Arlington and others, in
favour of a Protestant league against France.
When he started from England for Switzerland in February 1669, Marsilly
left in London a valet, called by him ‘Martin,’ who had quitted his
service and was living with his own family. This man is the ‘Eustache
Dauger’ of our mystery. The name is his prison pseudonym, as ‘Lestang’
was that of Mattioli. The French Government was anxious to lay hands on
him, for he had certainly, as the letters of Marsilly prove, come and
gone freely between that conspirator and his English employers. How much
Dauger knew, what amount of mischief he could effect, was uncertain.
Much or little, it was a matter which, strange to say, caused the
greatest anxiety to Louis XIV. and to his Ministers for very many years.
Probably long before Dauger died (the date is unknown, but it was more
than twenty-five years after Marsilly’s execution), his secret, if
secret he possessed, had ceased to be of importance. But he was now in
the toils of the French red tape, the system of secrecy which rarely
released its victim. He was guarded, we shall see, with such unheard-of
rigour, that popular fancy at once took him for some great, perhaps
royal, personage.
Marsilly was publicly tortured to death in Paris on June 22, 1669. By
July 19 his ex-valet, Dauger, had entered on his mysterious term of
captivity. How the French got possession of him, whether he yielded
to cajolery, or was betrayed by Charles II., is uncertain. The French
ambassador at St. James’s, Colbert (brother of the celebrated Minister),
writes thus to M. de Lyonne, in Paris, on July 1, 1669:* ‘Monsieur Joly
has spoken to the man Martin’ (Dauger), ‘and has really persuaded him
that, by going to France and telling all that he knows against Roux, he
will play the part of a lad of honour and a good subject.’
*Transcripts from Paris MSS. Vol. xxxiii., Record Office.
But Martin, after all, was NOT persuaded!
Martin replied to Joly that HE KNEW NOTHING AT ALL, and that, once in
France, people would think he was well acquainted with the traffickings
of Roux, ‘AND SO HE WOULD BE KEPT IN PRISON TO MAKE HIM DIVULGE WHAT HE
DID NOT KNOW.’ The possible Man in the Iron Mask did not know his own
secret! But, later in the conversation, Martin foolishly admitted that
he knew a great deal; perhaps he did this out of mere fatal vanity.
Cross to France, however, he would not, even when offered a safe-conduct
and promise of reward. Colbert therefore proposes to ask Charles to
surrender the valet, and probably Charles descended to the meanness.
By July 19, at all events, Louvois, the War Minister of Louis XIV.,
was bidding Saint-Mars, at Pignerol in Piedmont, expect from Dunkirk a
prisoner of the very highest importance--a valet! This valet, now called
‘Eustache Dauger,’ can only have been Marsilly’s valet, Martin, who, by
one means or another, had been brought from England to Dunkirk. It is
hardly conceivable, at least, that when a valet, in England, is ‘wanted’
by the French police on July 1, for political reasons, and when by July
19 they have caught a valet of extreme political importance, the two
valets should be two different men. Martin must be Dauger.
Here, then, by July 19, 1669, we find our unhappy serving-man in the
toils. Why was he to be handled with such mysterious rigour? It is
true that State prisoners of very little account were kept with great
secrecy. But it cannot well be argued that they were all treated with
the extraordinary precautions which, in the case of Dauger, were not
relaxed for twenty-five or thirty years. The King says, according to
Louvois, that the safe keeping of Dauger is ‘of the last importance to
his service.’ He must have intercourse with nobody. His windows must be
where nobody can pass; several bolted doors must cut him off from the
sound of human voices. Saint-Mars himself, the commandant, must feed the
valet daily. ‘YOU MUST NEVER, UNDER ANY PRETENCE, LISTEN TO WHAT HE MAY
WISH TO TELL YOU. YOU MUST THREATEN HIM WITH DEATH IF HE SPEAKS ONE WORD
EXCEPT ABOUT HIS ACTUAL NEEDS. He is only a valet, and does not need
much furniture.’*
*The letters are printed by Roux Fazaillac, Jung, Lair, and others.
Saint-Mars replied that, in presence of M. de Vauroy, the chief officer
of Dunkirk (who carried Dauger thence to Pignerol), he had threatened
to run Dauger through the body if he ever dared to speak, even to him,
Saint-Mars. He has mentioned this prisoner, he says, to no mortal.
People believe that Dauger is a Marshal of France, so strange and
unusual are the precautions taken for his security.
A Marshal of France! The legend has begun. At this time (1669)
Saint-Mars had in charge Fouquet, the great fallen Minister, the richest
and most dangerous subject of Louis XIV. By-and-by he also held Lauzun,
the adventurous wooer of la Grande Mademoiselle. But it was not they, it
was the valet, Dauger, who caused ‘sensation.’
On February 20,1672, Saint-Mars, for the sake of economy wished to use
Dauger as valet to Lauzun. This proves that Saint-Mars did not, after
all, see the necessity of secluding Dauger, or thought the King’s fears
groundless. In the opinion of Saint-Mars, Dauger did not want to be
released, ‘would never ask to be set free.’ Then why was he so anxiously
guarded? Louvois refused to let Dauger be put with Lauzun as valet. In
1675, however, he allowed Dauger to act as valet to Fouquet, but with
Lauzun, said Louvois, Dauger must have no intercourse. Fouquet had then
another prisoner valet, La Riviere. This man had apparently been accused
of no crime. He was of a melancholy character, and a dropsical habit of
body: Fouquet had amused himself by doctoring him and teaching him to
read.
In the month of December 1678, Saint-Mars, the commandant of the prison,
brought to Fouquet a sealed letter from Louvois, the seal unbroken.
His own reply was also to be sealed, and not to be seen by Saint-Mars.
Louvois wrote that the King wished to know one thing, before giving
Fouquet ampler liberty. Had his valet, Eustache Dauger, told his other
valet, La Riviere, what he had done before coming to Pignerol? (de ce
a quoi il a ete employe auparavant que d’etre a Pignerol). ‘His Majesty
bids me ask you [Fouquet] this question, and expects that you will
answer without considering anything but the truth, that he may know what
measures to take,’ these depending on whether Dauger has, or has not,
told La Riviere the story of his past life.* Moreover, Lauzun was never,
said Louvois, to be allowed to enter Fouquet’s room when Dauger was
present. The humorous point is that, thanks to a hole dug in the wall
between his room and Fouquet’s, Lauzun saw Dauger whenever he pleased.
*Lair, Nicholas Foucquet, ii. pp. 463, 464.
From the letter of Louvois to Fouquet, about Dauger (December 23, 1678),
it is plain that Louis XIV. had no more pressing anxiety, nine years
after Dauger’s arrest, than to conceal WHAT IT WAS THAT DAUGER HAD DONE.
It is apparent that Saint-Mars himself either was unacquainted with this
secret, or was supposed by Louvois and the King to be unaware of it. He
had been ordered never to allow Dauger to tell him: he was not allowed
to see the letters on the subject between Louvois and Fouquet. We still
do not know, and never shall know, whether Dauger himself knew his own
secret, or whether (as he had anticipated) he was locked up for not
divulging what he did not know.
The answer of Fouquet to Louvois must have satisfied Louis that Dauger
had not imparted his secret to the other valet, La Riviere, for Fouquet
was now allowed a great deal of liberty. In 1679, he might see his
family, the officers of the garrison, and Lauzun--it being provided that
Lauzun and Dauger should never meet. In March 1680, Fouquet died, and
henceforth the two valets were most rigorously guarded; Dauger, because
he was supposed to know something; La Riviere, because Dauger might have
imparted the real or fancied secret to him. We shall return to these
poor serving-men, but here it is necessary to state that, ten months
before the death of their master, Fouquet, an important new captive had
been brought to the prison of Pignerol.
This captive was the other candidate for the honours of the Mask, Count
Mattioli, the secretary of the Duke of Mantua. He was kidnapped on
Italian soil on May 2, 1679, and hurried to the mountain fortress of
Pignerol, then on French ground. His offence was the betraying of the
secret negotiations for the cession of the town and fortress of Casal,
by the Duke of Mantua, to Louis XIV. The disappearance of Mattioli was,
of course, known to the world. The cause of his enlevement, and the
place of his captivity, Pignerol, were matters of newspaper comment at
least as early as 1687. Still earlier, in 1682, the story of Mattioli’s
arrest and seclusion in Pignerol had been published in a work named ‘La
Prudenza Trionfante di Casale.’* There was thus no mystery, at the time,
about Mattioli; his crime and punishment were perfectly well known to
students of politics. He has been regarded as the mysterious Man in the
Iron Mask, but, for years after his arrest, he was the least mysterious
of State prisoners.
*Brentano, op. cit. p. 117.
Here, then, is Mattioli in Pignerol in May 1679. While Fouquet then
enjoyed relative freedom, while Lauzun schemed escapes or made insulting
love to Mademoiselle Fouquet, Mattioli lived on the bread and water of
affliction. He was threatened with torture to make him deliver up some
papers compromising to Louis XIV. It was expressly commanded that he
should have nothing beyond the barest necessaries of life. He was to
be kept dans la dure prison. In brief, he was used no better than the
meanest of prisoners. The awful life of isolation, without employment,
without books, without writing materials, without sight or sound of man
save when Saint-Mars or his lieutenant brought food for the day, drove
captives mad.
In January 1680 two prisoners, a monk* and one Dubreuil, had become
insane. By February 14, 1680, Mattioli was daily conversing with God and
his angels. ‘I believe his brain is turned,’ says Saint-Mars. In March
1680, as we saw, Fouquet died. The prisoners, not counting Lauzun
(released soon after), were now five: (1) Mattioli (mad); (2) Dubreuil
(mad); (3) The monk (mad); (4) Dauger, and (5) La Riviere. These two,
being employed as valets, kept their wits. On the death of Fouquet,
Louvois wrote to Saint-Mars about the two valets. Lauzun must be made
to believe that they had been set at liberty, but, in fact, they must be
most carefully guarded IN A SINGLE CHAMBER. They were shut up in one of
the dungeons of the ‘Tour d’en bas.’ Dauger had recently done something
as to which Louvois writes: ‘Let me know how Dauger can possibly have
done what you tell me, and how he got the necessary drugs, as I cannot
suppose that you supplied him with them’ (July 10, 1680).**
*A monk, who may have been this monk, appears in the following
essay.
**Lair, Nicholas Foucquet, ii. pp. 476, 477.
Here, then, by July 1680, are the two valets locked in one dungeon of
the ‘Tour d’en bas.’ By September Saint-Mars had placed Mattioli, with
the mad monk, in another chamber of the same tower. He writes: ‘Mattioli
is almost as mad as the monk,’ who arose from bed and preached naked.
Mattioli behaved so rudely and violently that the lieutenant of
Saint-Mars had to show him a whip, and threaten him with a flogging.
This had its effect. Mattioli, to make his peace, offered a valuable
ring to Blainvilliers. The ring was kept to be restored to him, if ever
Louis let him go free--a contingency mentioned more than once in the
correspondence.
Apparently Mattioli now sobered down, and probably was given a separate
chamber and a valet; he certainly had a valet at Pignerol later. By May
1681 Dauger and La Riviere still occupied their common chamber in the
‘Tour d’en bas.’ They were regarded by Louvois as the most important
of the five prisoners then at Pignerol. They, not Mattioli, were the
captives about whose safe and secret keeping Louis and Louvois were most
anxious. This appears from a letter of Louvois to Saint-Mars, of May 12,
1681. The gaoler, Saint-Mars, is to be promoted from Pignerol to Exiles.
‘Thither,’ says Louvois, ‘the king desires to transport SUCH OF YOUR
PRISONERS AS HE THINKS TOO IMPORTANT TO HAVE IN OTHER HANDS THAN YOURS.’
These prisoners are ‘THE TWO IN THE LOW CHAMBER OF THE TOWER,’ the two
valets, Dauger and La Riviere.
From a letter of Saint-Mars (June 1681) we know that Mattioli was not
one of these. He says: ‘I shall keep at Exiles two birds (merles) whom
I have here: they are only known as THE GENTRY OF THE LOW ROOM IN THE
TOWER; MATTIOLI MAY STAY ON HERE AT PIGNEROL WITH THE OTHER PRISONERS’
(Dubreuil and the mad monk). It is at this point that Le Citoyen Roux
(Fazaillac), writing in the Year IX. of the Republic (1801), loses
touch with the secret.* Roux finds, in the State Papers, the arrival
of Eustache Dauger at Pignerol in 1669, but does not know who he is,
or what is his quality. He sees that the Mask must be either Mattioli,
Dauger, the monk, one Dubreuil, or one Calazio. But, overlooking or not
having access to the letter of Saint-Mars of June 1681, Roux holds that
the prisoners taken to Les Exiles were the monk and Mattioli. One
of these must be the Mask, and Roux votes for Mattioli. He is wrong.
Mattioli beyond all doubt remained at Pignerol.
*Recherches Historiques, sur l’Homme au Masque de Fer, Paris. An
IX.
Mountains of argument have been built on these words, deux merles, ‘two
gaol-birds.’ One of the two, we shall see, became the source of the
legend of the Man in the Iron Mask. ‘How can a wretched gaol-bird
(merle) have been the Mask?’ asks M. Topin. ‘The rogue’s whole furniture
and table-linen were sold for 1 pound 19 shillings. He only got a new
suit of clothes every three years.’ All very true; but this gaol-bird
and his mate, by the direct statement of Louvois, are ‘the prisoners
too important to be entrusted to other hands than yours’--the hands
of Saint-Mars--while Mattioli is so unimportant that he may be left at
Pignerol under Villebois.
The truth is, that the offence and the punishment of Mattioli were well
known to European diplomatists and readers of books. Casal, moreover,
at this time was openly ceded to Louis XIV., and Mattioli could not
have told the world more than it already knew. But, for some inscrutable
reason, the secret which Dauger knew, or was suspected of knowing,
became more and more a source of anxiety to Louvois and Louis. What can
he have known? The charges against his master, Roux de Marsilly, had
been publicly proclaimed. Twelve years had passed since the dealings of
Arlington with Marsilly. Yet, Louvois became more and more nervous.
In accordance with commands of his, on March 2, 1682, the two valets,
who had hitherto occupied one chamber at Exiles as at Pignerol, were
cut off from all communication with each other. Says Saint-Mars, ‘Since
receiving your letter I have warded the pair as strictly and exactly
as I did M. Fouquet and M. Lauzun, who cannot brag that he sent out
or received any intelligence. Night and day two sentinels watch their
tower; and my own windows command a view of the sentinels. Nobody speaks
to my captives but myself, my lieutenant, their confessor, and the
doctor, who lives eighteen miles away, and only sees them when I am
present.’ Years went by; on January 1687 one of the two captives died;
we really do not know which with absolute certainty. However, the
intensified secrecy with which the survivor was now guarded seems more
appropriate to Dauger; and M. Funck-Brentano and M. Lair have no doubt
that it was La Riviere who expired. He was dropsical, that appears in
the official correspondence, and the dead prisoner died of dropsy.
As for the strange secrecy about Dauger, here is an example.
Saint-Mars, in January 1687, was appointed to the fortress of the Isles
Sainte-Marguerite, that sun themselves in the bay of Cannes. On January
20 he asks leave to go to see his little kingdom. He must leave Dauger,
but HAS FORBIDDEN EVEN HIS LIEUTENANT TO SPEAK TO THAT PRISONER. This
was an increase of precaution since 1682. He wishes to take the captive
to the Isles, but how? A sedan chair covered over with oilcloth seems
best. A litter might break down, litters often did, and some one might
then see the passenger.
Now M. Funck-Brentano says, to minimise the importance of Dauger, ‘he
was shut up like so much luggage in a chair hermetically closed with
oilcloth, carried by eight Piedmontese in relays of four.’
Luggage is not usually carried in hermetically sealed sedan chairs, but
Saint-Mars has explained why, by surplus of precaution, he did not use
a litter. The litter might break down and Dauger might be seen. A new
prison was built specially, at the cost of 5,000 livres, for Dauger at
Sainte-Marguerite, with large sunny rooms. On May 3, 1687, Saint-Mars
had entered on his island realm, Dauger being nearly killed by twelve
days’ journey in a closed chair. He again excited the utmost curiosity.
On January 8, 1688, Saint-Mars writes that his prisoner is believed
by the world to be either a son of Oliver Cromwell, or the Duc de
Beaufort,* who was never seen again, dead or alive, after a night battle
in Crete, on June 25, 1669, just before Dauger was arrested. Saint-Mars
sent in a note of the TOTAL of Dauger’s expenses for the year 1687. He
actually did not dare to send the ITEMS, he says, lest they, if the bill
fell into the wrong hands, might reveal too much!
*The Duc de Beaufort whom Athos releases from prison in Dumas’s
Vingt Ans Apres.
Meanwhile, an Italian news-letter, copied into a Leyden paper, of August
1687, declared that Mattioli had just been brought from Pignerol to
Sainte-Marguerite. There was no mystery about Mattioli, the story of
his capture was published in 1682, but the press, on one point, was
in error: Mattioli was still at Pignerol. The known advent of the late
Commandant of Pignerol, Saint-Mars, with a single concealed prisoner, at
the island, naturally suggested the erroneous idea that the prisoner
was Mattioli. The prisoner was really Dauger, the survivor of the two
valets.
From 1688 to 1691 no letter about Dauger has been published. Apparently
he was then the only prisoner on the island, except one Chezut, who was
there before Dauger arrived, and gave up his chamber to Dauger while
the new cells were being built. Between 1689 and 1693 six Protestant
preachers were brought to the island, while Louvois, the Minister, died
in 1691, and was succeeded by Barbezieux. On August 13, 1691, Barbezieux
wrote to ask Saint-Mars about ‘the prisoner whom he had guarded for
twenty years.’ The only such prisoner was Dauger, who entered Pignerol
in August 1669. Mattioli had been a prisoner only for twelve years, and
lay in Pignerol, not in Sainte-Marguerite, where Saint-Mars now was.
Saint-Mars replied: ‘I can assure you that nobody has seen him but
myself.’
By the beginning of March 1694, Pignerol had been bombarded by the
enemies of France; presently Louis XIV. had to cede it to Savoy. The
prisoners there must be removed. Mattioli, in Pignerol, at the end of
1693, had been in trouble. He and his valet had tried to smuggle out
letters written on the linings of their pockets. These were seized and
burned. On March 20, 1694, Barbezieux wrote to Laprade, now commanding
at Pignerol, that he must take his three prisoners, one by one, with all
secrecy, to Sainte-Marguerite. Laprade alone must give them their food
on the journey. The military officer of the escort was warned to ask
no questions. Already (February 26, 1694) Barbezieux had informed
Saint-Mars that these prisoners were coming. ‘They are of more
consequence, one of them at least, than the prisoners on the island, and
must be put in the safest places.’ The ‘one’ is doubtless Mattioli.
In 1681 Louvois had thought Dauger and La Riviere more important than
Mattioli, who, in March 1694, came from Pignerol to Sainte-Marguerite.
Now in April 1694 a prisoner died at the island, a prisoner who, like
Mattioli, HAD A VALET. We hear of no other prisoner on the island,
except Mattioli, who had a valet. A letter of Saint-Mars (January
6, 1696) proves that no prisoner THEN had a valet, for each prisoner
collected his own dirty plates and dishes, piled them up, and handed
them to the lieutenant.
M. Funck-Brentano argues that in this very letter (January 6, 1696)
Saint-Mars speaks of ‘les valets de messieurs les prisonniers.’ But in
that part of the letter Saint-Mars is not speaking of the actual state
of things at Sainte-Marguerite, but is giving reminiscences of Fouquet
and Lauzun, who, of course, at Pignerol, had valets, and had money, as
he shows. Dauger had no money. M. Funck-Brentano next argues that early
in 1694 one of the preacher prisoners, Melzac, died, and cites M. Jung
[‘La Verite sur le Masque de Fer,’ p. 91). This is odd, as M. Jung says
that Melzac, or Malzac, ‘DIED IN THE END OF 1692, OR EARLY IN 1693.’
Why, then, does M. Funck-Brentano cite M. Jung for the death of the
preacher early in 1694, when M. Jung (conjecturally) dates his decease
at least a year earlier?* It is not a mere conjecture, as, on March 3,
1693, Barbezieux begs Saint-Mars to mention his Protestant prisoners
under nicknames. There are three, and Malzac is no longer one of them.
Malzac, in 1692, suffered from a horrible disease, discreditable to one
of the godly, and in October 1692 had been allowed medical expenses.
Whether they included a valet or not, Malzac seems to have been
non-existent by March 1693. Had he possessed a valet, and had he died
in 1694, why should HIS valet have been ‘shut up in the vaulted prison’?
This was the fate of the valet of the prisoner who died in April 1694,
and was probably Mattioli.
*M. Funck-Brentano’s statement is in Revue Historique, lvi. p. 298.
‘Malzac died at the beginning of 1694,’ citing Jung, p. 91. Now on P. 91
M. Jung writes, ‘At the beginning of 1694 Saint-Mars had six prisoners,
of whom one, Melzac, dies.’ But M. Jung (pp. 269, 270) later writes, ‘It
is probable that Melzac died at the end of 1692, or early in 1693,’ and
he gives his reasons, which are convincing. M. Funck-Brentano must have
overlooked M. Jung’s change of opinion between his P. 91 and his pp.
269, 270.
Mattioli, certainly, had a valet in December 1693 at Pignerol. He went
to Sainte-Marguerite in March 1694. In April 1694 a prisoner with
a valet died at Sainte-Marguerite. In January 1696 no prisoner at
Sainte-Marguerite had a valet. Therefore, there is a strong presumption
that the ‘prisonnier au valet’ who died in April 1694 was Mattioli.
After December 1693, when he was still at Pignerol, the name of
Mattioli, freely used before, never occurs in the correspondence. But we
still often hear of ‘l’ancien prisonnier,’ ‘the old prisoner.’ He
was, on the face of it, Dauger, by far the oldest prisoner. In 1688,
Saint-Mars, having only one prisoner (Dauger), calls him merely ‘my
prisoner.’ In 1691, when Saint-Mars had several prisoners, Barbezieux
styles Dauger ‘your prisoner of twenty years’ standing.’ When, in
1696-1698, Saint-Mars mentions ‘mon ancien prisonnier,’ ‘my prisoner of
long standing,’ he obviously means Dauger, not Mattioli--above all,
if Mattioli died in 1694. M. Funck-Brentano argues that ‘mon ancien
prisonnier’ can only mean ‘my erstwhile prisoner, he who was lost and is
restored to me’--that is, Mattioli. This is not the view of M. Jung, or
M. Lair, or M. Loiseleur.
Friends of Mattioli’s claims rest much on this letter of Barbezieux
to Saint-Mars (November 17, 1697): ‘You have only to watch over the
security of all your prisoners, WITHOUT EVER EXPLAINING TO ANY ONE
WHAT IT IS THAT YOUR PRISONER OF LONG STANDING DID.’ That secret, it is
argued, MUST apply to Mattioli. But all the world knew what Mattioli had
done! Nobody knew, and nobody knows, what Eustache Dauger had done.
It was one of the arcana imperii. It is the secret enforced ever since
Dauger’s arrest in 1669. Saint-Mars (1669) was not to ask. Louis XIV.
could only lighten the captivity of Fouquet (1678) if his valet, La
Riviere, did not know what Dauger had done. La Riviere (apparently a
harmless man) lived and died in confinement, the sole reason being that
he might perhaps know what Dauger had done. Consequently there is the
strongest presumption that the ‘ancien prisonnier’ of 1697 is Dauger,
and that ‘what he had done’ (which Saint-Mars must tell to no one) was
what Dauger did, not what Mattioli did. All Europe knew what Mattioli
had done; his whole story had been published to the world in 1682 and
1687.
On July 19, 1698, Barbezieux bade Saint-Mars come to assume the command
of the Bastille. He is to bring his ‘old prisoner,’ whom not a soul is
to see. Saint-Mars therefore brought his man MASKED, exactly as another
prisoner was carried masked from Provence to the Bastille in 1695. M.
Funck-Brentano argues that Saint-Mars was now quite fond of his old
Mattioli, so noble, so learned.
At last, on September 18, 1698, Saint-Mars lodged his ‘old prisoner’
in the Bastille, ‘an old prisoner whom he had at Pignerol,’ says the
journal of du Junca, Lieutenant of the Bastille. His food, we saw, was
brought him by Rosarges alone, the ‘Major,’ a gentleman who had always
been with Saint-Mars. Argues M. Funck-Brentano, all this proves that the
captive was a gentleman, not a valet. Why? First, because the Bastille,
under Louis XIV., was ‘une prison de distinction.’ Yet M. Funck-Brentano
tells us that in Mazarin’s time ‘valets mixed up with royal plots’ were
kept in the Bastille. Again, in 1701, in this ‘noble prison,’ the Mask
was turned out of his room to make place for a female fortune-teller,
and was obliged to chum with a profligate valet of nineteen, and a
‘beggarly’ bad patriot, who ‘blamed the conduct of France, and approved
that of other nations, especially the Dutch.’ M. Funck-Brentano himself
publishes these facts (1898), in part published earlier (1890) by M.
Lair.* Not much noblesse here! Next, if Rosarges, a gentleman, served
the Mask, Saint-Mars alone (1669) carried his food to the valet, Dauger.
So the service of Rosarges does not ennoble the Mask and differentiate
him from Dauger, who was even more nobly served, by Saint-Mars.
*Legendes de la Bastille, pp. 86-89. Citing du Junca’s Journal,
April 30, 1701.
On November 19, 1703, the Mask died suddenly (still in his velvet mask),
and was buried on the 20th. The parish register of the church names him
‘Marchialy’ or ‘Marchioly,’ one may read it either way; du Junca, the
Lieutenant of the Bastille, in his contemporary journal, calls him ‘Mr.
de Marchiel.’ Now, Saint-Mars often spells Mattioli, ‘Marthioly.’
This is the one strength of the argument for Mattioli’s claims to the
Mask. M. Lair replies, ‘Saint-Mars had a mania for burying prisoners
under fancy names,’ and gives examples. One is only a gardener, Francois
Eliard (1701), concerning whom it is expressly said that, as he is a
State prisoner, his real name is not to be given, so he is registered as
Pierre Maret (others read Navet, ‘Peter Turnip’). If Saint-Mars, looking
about for a false name for Dauger’s burial register, hit on Marsilly
(the name of Dauger’s old master), that MIGHT be miswritten Marchialy.
However it be, the age of the Mask is certainly falsified; the
register gives ‘about forty-five years old.’ Mattioli would have been
sixty-three; Dauger cannot have been under fifty-three.
There the case stands. If Mattioli died in April 1694, he cannot be the
Man in the Iron Mask. Of Dauger’s death we find no record, unless he
was the Man in the Iron Mask, and died, in 1703, in the Bastille. He was
certainly, in 1669 and 1688, at Pignerol and at Sainte-Marguerite, the
centre of the mystery about some great prisoner, a Marshal of France,
the Duc de Beaufort, or a son of Oliver Cromwell. Mattioli was no
mystery, no secret. Dauger is so mysterious that probably the secret of
his mystery was unknown to himself. By 1701, when obscure wretches were
shut up with the Mask, the secret, whatever its nature, had ceased to
be of moment. The captive was now the mere victim of cruel routine.
But twenty years earlier, Saint-Mars had said that Dauger ‘takes things
easily, resigned to the will of God and the King.’
To sum up, on July 1, 1669, the valet of the Huguenot intriguer, Roux
de Marsilly, the valet resident in England, known to his master as
‘Martin,’ was ‘wanted’ by the French secret police. By July 19, a valet,
of the highest political importance, had been brought to Dunkirk, from
England, no doubt. My hypothesis assumes that this valet, though now
styled ‘Eustache Dauger,’ was the ‘Martin’ of Roux de Marsilly. He was
kept with so much mystery at Pignerol that already the legend began its
course; the captive valet was said to be a Marshal of France! We then
follow Dauger from Pignerol to Les Exiles, till January 1687, when one
valet out of a pair, Dauger being one of them, dies. We presume that
Dauger is the survivor, because the great mystery still is ‘what he
HAS DONE,’ whereas the other valet had done nothing, but may have known
Dauger’s secret. Again, the other valet had long been dropsical, and the
valet who died in 1687 died of dropsy.
In 1688, Dauger, at Sainte-Marguerite, is again the source and centre
of myths; he is taken for a son of Oliver Cromwell, or for the Duc
de Beaufort. In June 1692, one of the Huguenot preachers at
Sainte-Marguerite writes on his shirt and pewter plate, and throws them
out of window.* Legend attributes these acts to the Man in the Iron
Mask, and transmutes a pewter into a silver plate. Now, in 1689-1693,
Mattioli was at Pignerol, but Dauger was at Sainte-Marguerite, and the
Huguenot’s act is attributed to him. Thus Dauger, not Mattioli, is the
centre round which the myths crystallise: the legends concern HIM,
not Mattioli, whose case is well known, and gives rise to no legend.
Finally, we have shown that Mattioli probably died at Sainte-Marguerite
in April 1694. If so, then nobody but Dauger can be the ‘old prisoner’
whom Saint-Mars brought, masked, to the Bastille, in September 1698, and
who died there in November 1703. However, suppose that Mattioli did not
die in 1694, but was the masked man who died in the Bastille in 1703,
then the legend of Dauger came to be attributed to Mattioli: these two
men’s fortunes are combined in the one myth.
*Saint-Mars au Ministre, June 4, 1692.
The central problem remains unsolved,