Paris, May 25, ‘69.
Honored Sir,
. . . . . .
The Cantons of Switzerland are much troubled at the French King’s having
sent 15 horsemen into Switzerland from whence the Sr de Maille,
the King’s resident there, had given information of the Sr Roux de
Marsilly’s being there negociating the bringing the Cantons into the
Triple League by discourses much to the disadvantage of France, giving
them very ill impressions of the French King’s Government, who was
BETRAYED BY A MONK THAT KEPT HIM COMPANY and intercepted by the said
horsemen brought into France and is expected at the Bastille. I believe
you know the man.... I remember him in England.
Can this monk be the monk who went mad in prison at Pignerol, sharing
the cell of Mattioli? Did he, too, suffer for his connection with
the secret? We do not know, but the position of Charles was awkward.
Marsilly, dealing with the Swiss, had come straight from England, where
he was lie with Charles’s minister, Arlington, and with the Dutch and
Spanish ambassadors. The King refers to the matter in a letter to his
sister of May 24, 1669 (misdated by Miss Cartwright, May 24, 1668.)*
‘You have, I hope, received full satisfaction by the last post in the
matter of Marsillac [Marsilly], for my Ld. Arlington has sent to Mr.
Montague [English ambassador at Paris] his history all the time he was
here, by which you will see how little credit he had here, and that
particularly my Lord Arlington was not in his good graces, because he
did not receive that satisfaction, in his negotiation, he expected, and
that was only in relation to the Swissers, and so I think I have said
enough of this matter.’
*Madame, by Julia Cartwright, p. 264.
Charles took it easily!
On May 15-25 Montague acknowledged Arlington’s letter to which Charles
refers; he has been approached, as to Marsilly, by the Spanish resident,
‘but I could not tell how to do anything in the business, never having
heard of the man, or that he was employed by my Master [Charles] in any
business. I have sent you also a copy of a letter which an Englishman
writ to me that I do not know, in behalf of Roux de Marsilly, but that
does not come by the post,’ being too secret.*
*State Papers, France, vol. 126.
France had been well informed about Marsilly while he was in England.
He then had a secretary, two lackeys, and a valet de chambre, and was
frequently in conference with Arlington and the Spanish ambassador to
the English Court. Colbert, the French ambassador in London, had written
all this to the French Government, on April 25, before he heard of
Marsilly’s arrest.*
*Bibl. Nat., Fonds Francais, No. 10665.
The belief that Marsilly was an agent of Charles appears to have been
general, and, if accepted by Louis XIV., would interfere with Charles’s
private negotiations for the Secret Treaty with France. On May 18 Prince
d’Aremberg had written on the subject to the Spanish ambassador in
Paris. Marsilly, he says, was arrested in Switzerland, on his way to
Berne, with a monk who was also seized, and, a curious fact, Marsilly’s
valet was killed in the struggle. This valet, of course, was not Dauger,
whom Marsilly had left in England. Marsilly ‘doit avoir demande la
protection du Roy de la Grande Bretagne en faveur des Religionaires
(Huguenots) de France, et passer en Suisse AVEC QUELQUE COMMISSION DE SA
PART.’ D’Aremberg begs the Spanish ambassador to communicate all this to
Montague, the English ambassador at Paris, but Montague probably, like
Perwich, knew nothing of the business any more than he knew of Charles’s
secret dealings with Louis through Madame.*
*State Papers, France, vol. 126.
To d’Aremberg’s letter is pinned an unsigned English note, obviously
intended for Arlington’s reading.
‘Roux de Marsilly is still in the Bastille though they have a mind to
hang him, yet they are much puzzled what to do with him. De Lionne has
beene to examine him twice or thrice, but there is noe witnes to prove
anything against him. I was told by one that the French king told it
to, that in his papers they find great mention of the DUKE OF BUCKS: AND
YOUR NAME, and speak as if he were much trusted by you. I have enquired
what this Marsilly is, and I find by one Mr. Marsilly that I am
acquainted withall, and a man of quality, that this man’s name is onely
Roux, and borne at Nismes and having been formerly a soldier in his
troope, ever since has taken his name to gain more credit in Switserland
where hee, Marsilly, formerly used to bee employed by his Coll: the
Mareschall de Schomberg who invaded Switserland.’
We next find a very curious letter, from which it appears that the
French Government inclined to regard Marsilly as, in fact, an agent
of Charles, but thought it wiser to trump up against him a charge of
conspiring against the life of Louis XIV. On this charge, or another,
he was executed, while the suspicion that he was an agent of English
treachery may have been the real cause of the determination to destroy
him. The Balthazar with whom Marsilly left his papers is mentioned with
praise by him in his paper for Arlington, of December 27, 1668. He is
the General who should have accompanied Marsilly to the Diet.
The substance of the letter (given in full in Note I.) is to the
following effect. P. du Moulin (Paris, May 19-29, 1669) writes to
Arlington. Ever since Ruvigny, the late French ambassador, a Protestant,
was in England, the French Government had been anxious to kidnap Roux
de Marsilly. They hunted him in England, Holland, Flanders, and
Franche-Comte. As we know from the case of Mattioli, the Government of
Louis XIV. was unscrupulously daring in breaking the laws of nations,
and seizing hostile personages in foreign territory, as Napoleon did
in the affair of the Duc d’Enghien. When all failed, Louis bade Turenne
capture Roux de Marsilly wherever he could find him. Turenne sent
officers and gentlemen abroad, and, after four months’ search, they
found Marsilly in Switzerland. They took him as he came out of the house
of his friend, General Balthazar, and carried him to Gex. No papers were
found on him, but he asked his captors to send to Balthazar and get ‘the
commission he had from England,’ which he probably thought would give
him the security of an official diplomatic position. Having got this
document, Marsilly’s captors took it to the French Ministers.
Nothing could be more embarrassing, if this were true, to Charles’s
representative in France, Montague, and to Charles’s secret
negotiations, also to Arlington, who had dealt with Marsilly. On his
part, the captive Marsilly constantly affirmed that he was the envoy
of the King of England. The common talk of Paris was that an agent
of Charles was in the Bastille, ‘though at Court they pretend to know
nothing of it.’ Louis was overjoyed at Marsilly’s capture, giving out
that he was conspiring against his life. Monsieur told Montague that he
need not beg for the life of a would-be murderer like Marsilly. But as
to this idea, ‘they begin now to mince it at Court,’ and Ruvigny assured
du Moulin ‘that they had no such thoughts.’ De Lyonne had seen Marsilly
and observed that it was a blunder to seize him. The French Government
was nervous, and Turenne’s secretary had been ‘pumping’ several
ambassadors as to what they thought of Marsilly’s capture on foreign
territory. One ambassador replied with spirit that a crusade by
all Europe against France, as of old against the Moslems, would be
necessary. Would Charles, du Moulin asked, own or disown Marsilly?
Montague’s position was now awkward. On May 23, his account of the case
was read, at Whitehall, to the Foreign Committee in London. (See Note
II. for the document.) He did not dare to interfere in Marsilly’s
behalf, because he did not know whether the man was an agent of Charles
or not. Such are the inconveniences of a secret royal diplomacy carried
on behind the backs of Ministers. Louis XV. later pursued this method
with awkward consequences.* The French Court, Montague said, was
overjoyed at the capture of Marsilly, and a reward of 100,000 crowns, ‘I
am told very privately, is set upon his head.’ The French ambassador in
England, Colbert, had reported that Charles had sent Marsilly ‘to draw
the Swisses into the Triple League’ against France. Montague had
tried to reassure Monsieur (Charles’s brother-in-law), but was himself
entirely perplexed. As Monsieur’s wife, Charles’s sister, was working
with Charles for the secret treaty with Louis, the State and family
politics were clearly in a knot. Meanwhile the Spanish ambassador kept
pressing Montague to interfere in favour of Marsilly. After Montague’s
puzzled note had been read to the English Foreign Committee on May 23,
Arlington offered explanations. Marsilly came to England, he said, when
Charles was entering into negotiations for peace with Holland, and when
France seemed likely to oppose the peace. No proposition was made to him
or by him. Peace being made, Marsilly was given money to take him out
of the country. He wanted the King to renew his alliance with the Swiss
cantons, but was told that the cantons must first expel the regicides
of Charles I. He undertook to arrange this, and some eight months later
came back to England. ‘He was coldly used, and I was complained of for
not using so important a man well enough.’
*Cf. Le Secret du Roi, by the Duc de Broglie.
As we saw, Marsilly expressed the most effusive gratitude to Arlington,
which does not suggest cold usage. Arlington told the complainers that
Marsilly was ‘another man’s spy,’ what man’s, Dutch, Spanish, or even
French, he does not explain. So Charles gave Marsilly money to go away.
He was never trusted with anything but the expulsion of the regicides
from Switzerland. Arlington was ordered by Charles to write a letter
thanking Balthazar for his good offices.
These explanations by Arlington do not tally with Marsilly’s
communications to him, as cited at the beginning of this inquiry.
Nothing is said in these about getting the regicides of Charles I.
out of Switzerland: the paper is entirely concerned with bringing the
Protestant Cantons into anti-French League with England, Holland, Spain,
and even Sweden. On the other hand, Arlington’s acknowledged letter
to Balthazar, carried by Marsilly, may be the ‘commission’ of which
Marsilly boasted. In any case, on June 2, Charles gave Colbert, the
French ambassador, an audience, turning even the Duke of York out of the
room. He then repeated to Colbert the explanations of Arlington, already
cited, and Arlington, in a separate interview, corroborated Charles.
So Colbert wrote to Louis (June 3, 1669); but to de Lyonne, on the same
day, ‘I trust that you will extract from Marsilly much matter for the
King’s service. IT SEEMED TO ME THAT MILORD D’ARLINGTON WAS UNEASY ABOUT
IT [EN AVAIT DE L’INQUIETUDE].... There is here in England one Martin’
(Eustace Dauger), ‘who has been that wretch’s valet, and who left him
in discontent.’ Colbert then proposes to examine Martin, who may know
a good deal, and to send him into France. On June 10, Colbert writes to
Louis that he expects to see Martin.*
*Bibl. Nat., Fonds Francais, No. 10665.
On June 24, Colbert wrote to Louis about a conversation with Charles.
It is plain that proofs of a murder-plot by Marsilly were scanty or
non-existent, though Colbert averred that Marsilly had discussed the
matter with the Spanish Ministers. ‘Charles knew that he had had much
conference with Isola, the Spanish ambassador.’ Meanwhile, up to July 1,
Colbert was trying to persuade Marsilly’s valet to go to France, which
he declined to do, as we have seen. However, the luckless lad, by nods
and by veiled words, indicated that he knew a great deal. But not by
promise of security and reward could the valet be induced to return to
France. ‘I might ask the King to give up Martin, the valet of Marsilly,
to me,’ Colbert concludes, and, by hook or by crook, he secured the
person of the wretched man, as we have seen. In a postscript, Colbert
says that he has heard of the execution of Marsilly.
By July 19, as we saw in the previous essay, Louvois was bidding
Saint-Mars expect, at Pignerol from Dunkirk, a prisoner of the highest
political importance, to be guarded with the utmost secrecy, yet a
valet. That valet must be Martin, now called Eustache Dauger, and his
secret can only be connected with Marsilly. It may have been something
about Arlington’s negotiations through Marsilly, as compromising Charles
II. Arlington’s explanations to the Foreign Committee were certainly
incomplete and disingenuous. He, if not Charles, was more deeply engaged
with Marsilly than he ventured to report. But Marsilly himself avowed
that he did not know why he was to be executed.
Executed he was, in circumstances truly hideous. Perwich, June 5, wrote
to an unnamed correspondent in England: ‘They have all his papers,
which speak much of the Triple Alliance, but I know not whether they
can lawfully hang him for this, having been naturalised in Holland, and
taken in a privileged country’ (Switzerland). Montague (Paris, June
22, 1669) writes to Arlington that Marsilly is to die, so it has been
decided, for ‘a rape which he formerly committed at Nismes,’ and after
the execution, on June 26, declares that, when broken on the wheel,
Marsilly ‘still persisted that he was guilty of nothing, nor did know
why he was put to death.’
Like Eustache Dauger, Marsilly professed that he did not know his own
secret. The charge of a rape, long ago, at Nismes, was obviously trumped
up to cover the real reason for the extraordinary vindictiveness with
which he was pursued, illegally taken, and barbarously slain. Mere
Protestant restlessness on his part is hardly an explanation. There was
clearly no evidence for the charge of a plot to murder Louis XIV., in
which Colbert, in England, seems to have believed. Even if the French
Government believed that he was at once an agent of Charles II., and at
the same time a would-be assassin of Louis XIV., that hardly accounts
for the intense secrecy with which his valet, Eustache Dauger, was
always surrounded. Did Marsilly know of the Secret Treaty, and was it
from him that Arlington got his first inkling of the royal plot? If
so, Marsilly would probably have exposed the mystery in Protestant
interests. We are entirely baffled.
In any case, Francis Vernon, writing from Paris to Williamson (?) (June
19-29 1669), gave a terrible account of Marsilly’s death. (For the
letter, see Note V.) With a broken piece of glass (as we learn from
another source), Marsilly, in prison, wounded himself in a ghastly
manner, probably hoping to die by loss of blood. They seared him with a
red-hot iron, and hurried on his execution. He was broken on the wheel,
and was two hours in dying (June 22). Contrary to usage, a Protestant
preacher was brought to attend him on the scaffold. He came most
reluctantly, expecting insult, but not a taunt was uttered by the
fanatic populace. ‘He came up the scaffold, great silence all about.’
Marsilly lay naked, stretched on a St. Andrew’s cross. He had seemed
half dead, his head hanging limp, ‘like a drooping calf.’ To greet the
minister of his own faith, he raised himself, to the surprise of all,
and spoke out loud and clear. He utterly denied all share in a scheme to
murder Louis. The rest may be read in the original letter (Note V.).
So perished Roux de Marsilly; the history of the master throws no light
on the secret of the servant. That secret, for many years, caused the
keenest anxiety to Louis XIV. and Louvois. Saint-Mars himself must
not pry into it. Yet what could Dauger know? That there had been a
conspiracy against the King’s life? But that was the public talk of
Paris. If Dauger had guilty knowledge, his life might have paid for it;
why keep him a secret prisoner? Did he know that Charles II. had been
guilty of double dealing in 1668-1669? Probably Charles had made some
overtures to the Swiss, as a blind to his private dealings with Louis
XIV., but, even so, how could the fact haunt Louis XIV. like a ghost? We
leave the mystery much darker than we found it, but we see reason good
why diplomatists should have murmured of a crusade against the cruel
and brigand Government which sent soldiers to kidnap, in neighbouring
states, men who did not know their own crime.
To myself it seems not improbable that the King and Louvois were but
stupidly and cruelly nervous about what Dauger MIGHT know. Saint-Mars,
when he proposed to utilise Dauger as a prison valet, manifestly did not
share the trembling anxieties of Louis XIV. and his Minister; anxieties
which grew more keen as time went on. However, ‘a soldier only has
his orders,’ and Saint-Mars executed his orders with minute precision,
taking such unheard-of precautions that, in legend, the valet blossomed
into the rightful king of France.
* * *