The man with the iron mask

by Marius Topin

CHAPTER XIII.

The Chevalier de Taulès—How he was led to believe that Avedick was the Man with the Iron Mask—A clear Proof furnished him of the impossibility of his Theory—Taulès persists and accuses the Jesuit Fathers of Forgery—Examination of Dujonca’s Journal—Its complete Authenticity and the unaffected Sincerity of the Writer cannot be doubted—New Proofs of this Authenticity and of Dujonca’s Exactitude.

“I have discovered the Man with the Iron Mask, and it is my duty to render an account to Europe and to posterity of my discovery,” exclaims the Chevalier de Taulès,[277] with a conviction which posterity does not share, and a solemnity of manner so little justified by results, that an extreme reserve is imposed on those who venture after him to engage in a pursuit so fruitful in checks.

The intelligence of this discovery was at first received with a confidence which was explained by the position of the individual who claimed to have made it. Sprung from one of the oldest and most respectable families of Bearn; admitted, in 1754, into the gendarmes of the King’s Guard; starting, ten years afterwards, in the career of diplomacy, which he pursued always with honour, sometimes with success; sent successively to Switzerland, Poland, and later to Syria, as consul-general; corresponding on terms of friendship with Voltaire, who showed some deference for his opinions;[278] M. de Taulès enjoyed among his contemporaries an authority due as much to the qualities of his mind as to his honourable character. He had lived through the first Empire without desiring to re-enter the service of the State, and had devoted to historical studies the leisure which his independent spirit had created. It was the perusal of an unpublished manuscript memorandum of the Marquis de Bonnac, ambassador at Constantinople, that revealed to Taulès the existence of the Grand Patriarch, Avedick, and his abduction by Ferriol. The writer of this memorandum added that Avedick had been afterwards sent to the Isles Sainte-Marguerite, and then transferred to the Bastille, where he had died. “On reading this passage,” says Taulès, “the thought suddenly struck me that this individual might very well be the Iron Mask. Becoming subsequently more and more confirmed in this conjecture by a number of facts which the perusal of the memorandum had confusedly recalled to me, I said to myself, with fresh assurance, ‘Yes, it is himself: this is the Iron Mask!’”[279]

In truth, this very natural thought must arise in the mind of every one who reads this memorandum; and if Taulès believed that he at length possessed the solution of the problem, there were many others who would have felt equally self-persuaded. His only fault—but it was a great one—was that of obstinately holding to this opinion when a more complete study of the question would have shown him his error; and of endeavouring to support his theory when it was being shattered, by an accusation of forgery as grave as it was unjust.

Assuredly, the interest which Louis XIV. had in hiding the existence of such a prisoner as Avedick, the indispensability there was of shrouding from every eye the victim of so enormous a crime against the law of nations, the necessity, too, of removing from the ex-Patriarch every means of informing the Ottoman Porte of the country where he was detained, the clamour which his disappearance had caused throughout the entire East, the precarious situation in which the King of France then found himself, constrained as he was to treat Turkey with consideration, were all so many arguments that crowded upon the mind in favour of Taulès’ opinion. This theory presented, moreover, the advantage of explaining several circumstances, true or supposed, in the life of Saint-Mars’ mysterious prisoner. For instance, the silence almost constantly observed by him, which caused it to be continually said that he was condemned to it under pain of death, was accounted for by the Armenian Patriarch’s ignorance of our language. Again, that strange accent noticed by the surgeon Nélaton, in a visit made by him to the Bastille,[280] and which struck him in the few syllables articulated by the prisoner, finds its natural explanation in Avedick. The famous reply of Louis XV. to his valet-de-chambre, Laborde, who questioned him about the Man with the Iron Mask, “The imprisonment of this unfortunate individual has wronged nobody but himself,” applied sufficiently exactly to the Patriarch. Lastly, in default of those official despatches, which, to-day, a sovereign and indispensable proof, alone allow one to erect a theory upon a firm basis, the suggestion of Taulès united in its favour several strong presumptions, and did not at the outset meet with any fundamental objection.

But the originator was not to experience for long an unmixed joy. His conviction was most firmly rooted. “Perhaps nothing,” he says, “has ever appeared to me so very plainly. I do not more clearly feel my existence than I recognize the Patriarch in all the features of the Iron Mask.”[281] All at once, the Minister of Foreign Affairs,[282] who had ordered researches to be made among his archives, caused the Chevalier de Taulès to be informed that an important Armenian personage had really been abducted from Constantinople and taken to France, but that as indisputable despatches established the fact that he was still in Turkey during the early part of 1706, he could not be the prisoner brought by Saint-Mars from the Isles Sainte-Marguerite to the Bastille on September 18, 1698, and who died in that fortress on November 19, 1703. Taulès at first accepted with resignation this truly startling revelation. His theory was completely overthrown, his reasoning destroyed, his discovery annihilated. He acknowledged it. He regretted not having sooner recalled that maxim which he had often heard repeated by D’Alembert himself, “In this world one must neither deny nor affirm anything.” He avowed his mistake, and the man of sense gracefully repaired the very excusable error committed by the historian. But his theory had become so profoundly and tenaciously impressed upon his brain, that he could not entirely rid himself of it. A germ remained which developed by degrees, and in a fashion which of itself deserves attention, independently of the interest which is inspired by everything that relates to the Man with the Iron Mask.

“Is it possible,” Taulès asks himself, “that a proof so powerful can yet leave me any resources? To argue in the train of a fact so destructive to my opinion, and the truth of which I am obliged to admit, would it not be endeavouring in a deliberate manner to push prejudice to its utmost length?”[283] We see that at first Taulès did not contest the accuracy of the two dates, and the impossibility of reconciling them with his theory; but by degrees he modifies the terms of the problem to be resolved. He no longer makes it his business to discover who was the Man with the Iron Mask, but to prove, in spite of a capital objection, that the Man with the Iron Mask was Avedick. This fact is worthy of remark, and the chain of Taulès’ successive ideas is here very significant. He does not commence by seeking if a forgery has been committed by the Jesuits, in order to establish afterwards that Avedick is the Man with the Iron Mask. No. It is the necessity in which he believes himself placed, of establishing this identity, that first gives him the idea of a forgery, then we have his inquiry, and then the certainty that this forgery has been committed. “However bold my observation may appear, I shall dare to make it, I feel hope revive in my soul, and in spite of all I have just avowed against myself, I do not renounce my discovery.... If I am deceiving myself, I shall deserve to be doubly confounded. But if, as everything assures me I shall do, I come victorious out of this struggle, confusion will altogether be the portion of those who have wished to deprive me of the honour of this discovery.”[284] From this time all Taulès’ efforts tended to destroy the positive information till then accepted by him. Not being able to deny the authenticity of the despatches of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs establishing that Avedick was still at Constantinople in 1706, and this obstacle being insurmountable, Taulès directed his attention towards Dujonca’s journal. Father Griffet was the first who quoted[285] the two pages of this journal relating to the mysterious prisoner and bearing the dates of September 19, 1698, the day of his arrival at the Bastille, and of November 18, 1703, the day of his death. But Father Griffet was a Jesuit. On this score, and in the interest, in his eyes superior to all other, of the order to which he belonged, might he not have been able to alter, to falsify this document, in such a manner that it might be opposed to those who should one day, perhaps, arise to accuse the Jesuits of the abduction of Avedick, and perhaps see in this individual the Man with the Iron Mask? This suspicion had scarcely entered the mind of Taulès before it took possession of it and ruled it, when everything immediately became for him an irresistible argument for, and formal proof of a falsification.

This journal is divided into two parts, each forming a volume. The first has for title: “List of prisoners who are sent by the King’s order to the Bastille, to commence from Wednesday the eleventh of the month of October, when I am entered into the office of Lieutenant of the King, in the year 1690,” and at the back of folio 37 we have word for word what follows:—

“On thursday 18th September 1698, at 3 o’clock of the afternoon, Monsieur de St.-Mars governor of the château of the bastille has arrived to enter upon his functions coming from his government of the isles St.-Marguerite honorat having brought with him in his litter an old prisoner whom he had at pignerol whom he always kept masked [and] whose name was not mentioned and having had him placed on leaving the litter in the first chamber of the tower of the bassinnière until the night in order to place him and conduct him myself at 9 o’clock of the evening with M. de rosarges one of the sergeants whom monsieur the governor had brought into the third chamber south of the tower of the Bretaudière[286] which I had had furnished with everything some days before his arrival having received Monsieur de St.-Mars’ order for it which prisoner will be subject to and served by Mr. de rosarge and provisioned by monsieur the Governor.”

The second part, of which the title is, “List of prisoners who left the Bastille, to commence from the eleventh of the month of October, when I am entered into possession in the year 1690,” contains, at the back of folio 80, what follows:—

“On the same day monday 19th november 1703——the unknown prisoner always masked with a mask of black velvet whom Monsieur de St.-Mars governor had brought with him on coming from the isles St.-Marguerite whom he had guarded since a long time [and] who having found himself yesterday rather ill on leaving mass died to-day at ten o’clock at night without having had any great illness he could not have had less. M. Giraut our chaplain confessed him yesterday [but] surprised by his death he has not received the sacraments and our chaplain exhorted him a moment before dying and this unknown prisoner so long detained was interred on tuesday 20th november at four o’clock of the afternoon in the cemetery of St-Paul our parish on the register of deaths

was also given a name unknown to monsieur de rosarges major and Mr. Reil surgeon who have signed the register.

“

I have since learnt that he was named on the register M. de Marchiel [and] that 40 l. were paid for his burial.”[287]

For every unprejudiced and impartial reader, these unaffected pages are conclusive, and do not inspire any doubt. But it is not the same for Taulès. According to him, Father Griffet himself, and not Dujonca, is the author of this document, in which, with infinite art, he has introduced several points of obscurity, and succeeded in misleading for ever all those who should be tempted to raise the veil. He has commenced by imagining the two dates of 1698 and 1703, so that it would be impossible to apply them to Avedick, who was still at Constantinople in 1706. It is designedly that, with an infinity of precautions, he has drawn attention to this fact which he had invented at will: “Saint-Mars had this prisoner at Pignerol,” a point on which he insists by saying further on: “This prisoner whom he had guarded since a long time.” To make Dujonca twice affirm that the Man with the Iron Mask was first detained at Pignerol of course absolutely sets Avedick aside. The affectation of speaking several times of the Abbé Giraut, chaplain of the Bastille, is equally significant to Taulès, in so much that it reveals the cunning intention of carefully avoiding having to name the Jesuits, even when it concerns the Bastille, to which one of them was constantly attached. It is true that the registers of the Church of Saint-Paul confirm Dujonca’s journal, since the interment of the prisoner is related in them under the date of November 20, 1703.[288] But this objection does not embarrass Taulès. Without going so far as to suppose that these registers have also been falsified, he is very willing to accept them as authentic. “But,” says he, “this prisoner interred November 20, 1703, is not the one brought by Saint-Mars to the Bastille. It is some obscure stranger, and Father Griffet finding on the registers of this church the proof of his death in 1703, has used it as a basis on which to erect his falsehoods, and by attracting to him the exclusive attention of posterity, has turned it aside from Avedick, and has necessarily rendered ulterior investigations fruitless.”

But it is nothing of the kind. In this painful episode of Louis XIV.’s reign, the Jesuits have their share of responsibility, owing to the pressure which they put upon Ferriol, but they are completely innocent of the forgeries of which they have been accused.

The perfect authenticity of Dujonca’s journal is shown by many proofs. It suffices to have read it and assured oneself that it is not composed of detached leaves afterwards bound together, but has been written all entire by the same incorrect and simple pen, in order to be convinced of the impossibility of the least alteration. Either it is a forgery from beginning to end, or the pages relating to the Iron Mask have for their author that kind of general superintendent of the Bastille, sometimes too pompously styled Lieutenant of the King, sometimes fulfilling the humble functions of turnkey, devoted to his multifarious duties,[289] who ought to be believed for his ignorance of certain things as much as for his complete knowledge of others, for the unfeigned simplicity of his language, and the tone of sincere assurance that runs uniformly throughout the entire journal. Moreover, not only is all that concerns the other prisoners corroborated by indisputable despatches deposited in other archives,[290] but the most reliable documents absolutely confirm the dates, and even some of the points indicated in the two accounts we have just quoted. Dujonca says in the first: “I had had his chamber furnished with everything some days before his arrival, having received M. de Saint-Mars’ order for it.” Now a despatch as yet unpublished and of especial importance contains what follows: “Barbézieux to Saint-Mars.—Marly, July 19, 1698—I have received the letter which you have taken the trouble to write to me the 9th of this month. The King finds it good that you should leave the Isles Sainte-Marguerite to go to the Bastille with your old prisoner, taking your precautions to prevent his being either seen or known by any one. You can write in advance to His Majesty’s Lieutenant of this château to have a chamber ready so as to be able to place your prisoner in it on your arrival.”

This despatch cannot be questioned. It exists in the archives of the Ministry of War. It was written by the Minister, Barbézieux, a short time previous to Saint-Mars’ departure for the Bastille, and like many others which we shall quote hereafter, it establishes in a formal manner that in 1698, and not later, the Man with the Iron Mask entered the Bastille, and that no alteration has consequently been made in Dujonca’s journal.

But to these definitive proofs let us add others drawn from Avedick’s very singular end. Let us return to this individual at the moment when he treads the French soil for the first time, and let us follow him to his death, less in order to complete our demonstration that he is not the Man with the Iron Mask—which would be superfluous—than to throw every light upon this little-known individual, and pursue to its dénoûment the story of this extraordinary crime.