The man with the iron mask

by Marius Topin

CHAPTER XXIII.

Behaviour of Charles IV., Duke of Mantua, towards his ex-Minister—His true Sentiments with reference to him—Precautions prescribed to Villebois and Laprade for the Prisoners left by Saint-Mars at Pignerol.—Change in Louis XIV.’s Position in Italy—Transfer of the Pignerol Prisoners to the Isles Sainte-Marguerite—Instructions given to Marshal de Tessé—Increase of Saint-Mars’ Watchfulness—Mystery surrounding the three Prisoners—Great Importance of one of them compared with the others—It is he who was the Man with the Iron Mask.

Matthioly was left by Saint-Mars at Pignerol, and the long silence concerning him preserved by Louvois and Saint-Mars from the time of the latter’s departure for Exiles, receives in that manner its natural explanation. When I had assured myself of this, I sought in the Archives of the Ministry of War for all the despatches addressed either by Louis XIV. or by the Minister to the Sieur de Villebois, Governor of the donjon, or to the Sieur Laprade, who, after the latter’s death, in April 1692, replaced him in these duties. Now, I have not only found in these despatches the confirmation of Matthioly’s presence at Pignerol, but also fresh proofs of the very strict precautions of which the prisoners left in this citadel continued to be the objects.

It has often been asked how it was that the Duke of Mantua should have remained indifferent to the fate of his old favourite, and not have inquired concerning him of Louis XIV., whom he ought to have known was alone in a position to furnish him with information. As the despatches from the Court of Mantua, published either by Delort or by others, do not mention Matthioly’s name after the date of his arrest, people have explained this silence by the frivolous indifference of the young duke, and it must be admitted that the character of this prince rendered such an explanation very probable. Moreover, this silence has very much contributed to diminish the importance of Count Matthioly, and we have been told many times that there could have been nothing very considerable in the position of a person who suddenly disappeared without his master even thinking of inquiring what had become of him. But this is an error. However light and careless Charles IV. may have been, he did occupy himself with the fate of Matthioly; but far from endeavouring to deliver him, he regarded his release as a danger. Indeed, by breaking off the project of the cession of Casale by his desertion, Matthioly had not only tricked Louis XIV., but had also profoundly incensed the Duke of Mantua, whom he had thus surrendered to the violent recriminations, and perhaps later, to the vengeance of the other Italian princes. If Louis XIV. had not had him carried off, Charles IV. would have charged himself with this care, and would have brought about the disappearance of the inconvenient witness of his intrigues with the Court of Versailles, the agent who had negotiated the sale of one of the keys of Italy, the confidant whose very existence was a reproach, whose words were an ever-threatened accusation, and whose testimony was invaluable to the enemies of the Duke of Mantua.

“M. de Mantua,” writes the Abbé d’Estrades to Pomponne, June 10, 1679, “shows uneasiness as to what can have become of Matthioly, whose conduct he blames.... I inform him concerning Matthioly that, although I do not know where he is, and for the last two months have had no news of him, I do not hesitate to assure him that he cannot interfere at all in our negotiation, and that he will not even have the least suspicion of it; that he may set his mind at rest concerning this, and that I pledge him my word for it.”[593]

Two years afterwards the Abbé Morel, the French ambassador, when about to proceed to Mantua, to Charles IV., with the view of renewing the project of surrender, writes from Turin to Louis XIV.:—

“Turin, August 9, 1681.

“I have no doubt that on my return to Mantua, the Duke will question me as to what will be done with Matioly after the execution of the treaty. Perhaps it would be as well to give me a line of information on this point.”[594]

And Louis XIV. himself replies in a manner to calm Charles IV.’s uneasiness, but still without revealing the place of Matthioly’s confinement:—

“Fontainebleau, August 21, 1681.

“I have already informed you that you may assure the Duke of Mantua that Mathioly will not leave the place where he is without the consent of that prince; and if there are any other measures to be taken for his satisfaction, you will inform me of them. On this, etc.”[595]

Can one have any doubt of the true sentiments of the Duke of Mantua after reading the following despatch?—

“The Duke of Mantua has learnt with much joy and with sentiments of lively gratitude, what it has pleased your Majesty to order me to inform him concerning Matthioli. He had intended to thank me this evening personally in an audience which he wished to accord me; but I have found it impossible to attend, owing to a very painful rheumatism in the neck, which has forced me to keep my bed during the last three days.”[596]

This joy of Charles IV. on learning that he no longer had to dread the sudden appearance of his accomplice is sadly significant. He could again treat with Louis XIV. without fearing lest his too well-informed ex-minister should proceed to impress upon the attention of the other princes the conditions to which the Duke of Mantua had agreed, by consenting to put himself under the complete control of the most dangerous of Italy’s enemies. Everything thus combined to perpetuate the confinement of the unfortunate Minister, and the interest of Charles IV. as much as the pride of Louis XIV. required that he who had deceived the one and humiliated the other should be removed from the world for ever.

This was done; and we have seen with what a mystery and with what an abundance of precautions and minute cares Villebois was charged to guard him at Pignerol, after Saint-Mars’ departure for Exiles. Villebois never once left his prisoner. On March 22, 1682,[597] actuated by a scruple similar to those which had often possessed Saint-Mars, Villebois asked the Minister, to whom he was to confide the care of his prisoners if he should fall ill? Louvois replied, “To the one in whom you have most confidence.” “The King approves,” wrote the Minister, April 13, 1682, “of your lending the prisoners with whose care you are charged the books of devotion which they ask of you, taking all due precautions that these may not serve to give them intelligence of any kind.”[598] “With reference to the priest whom the prisoners ask for,” we read in a despatch of December 11, 1683, “I have to tell you that they should only be allowed to confess once a year.”[599] “I have received your letter of the 14th of last month,” writes Louvois, May 1, 1684, “from which I perceive the rage of the Sieur Matthioly’s servant (valet)[600] towards you, and the manner in which you have punished him, which must certainly be approved of, and you ought always to act in the same manner on a like occasion.” On November 26, 1689, Louvois learns “that some one had come by night to a door of the bastion of Pignerol, where the apartments of the prisoners are situated, with the intention of getting in,” and he orders Villebois “to omit nothing to endeavour to discover those who have done so.”[601] On July 28, 1692, when the Sieur de Laprade is about to assume the governorship, left vacant by Villebois’ death, Barbézieux writes to him “that he cannot take too many precautions for the security of the prisoners with whose care he is charged.” The same instructions are addressed to him on October 31 following.[602] Despite these incessant precautions, and the vigilance of which he was the object, Matthioly still endeavoured to give tidings of himself, but it was only on the linings of his pockets that he managed to write a few words. He was discovered, and the Minister writes to Laprade, December 27, 1693, “You have merely to burn what remains of the little pieces of the pockets on which Matthioly and his man have written, and which you have found in the lining of their coats, where they had hidden them.”[603]

This care in destroying everything that might reveal Matthioly’s presence at Pignerol had at that time become especially necessary. It was no longer, as in 1679, merely Louis XIV.’s pride which exacted that the greatest mystery should surround his victim’s existence. Since the date of the abduction, the face of things in Italy had changed. The King of France could no longer hold forth there as a master; his armies had ceased to be constantly victorious, and he was expiating his impolitic and inopportune interference in the affairs of the peninsula. That petty Duke of Savoy, whom we saw twelve years previously submitting himself, with imprecations, to the yoke of his imperious neighbour, had, in 1693, attained a position which enabled him to exercise over the progress of events an influence much greater than that due to the extent of his territories. This Prince had succeeded in counterbalancing the weakness of his position by his duplicity in changing his alliances, by his dissembling language, and by his happy promptitude in making use of favourable circumstances. In his policy he had always preferred sharp practices to honest acts, and he deceived in turn and with equal perfidy both Louis XIV. and the enemies of the King of France. The latter was anxious for peace, with the view of directing all his efforts and all his attention towards the question of the Spanish succession, just about to open; and peace depended almost entirely upon Victor-Amadeus, who, at first so humble, and for a long time so despised, was now taking his revenge. “We are proud, and wish to make use of the necessity in which we know very well that the King is placed, in order to make a general peace for ourselves,” said the Marquis de Saint-Thomas,[604] Minister of Savoy, to Count de Tessé. So it was no longer the restitution of the conquests made in Piedmont, and the surrender of Caslae, that Victor-Amadeus demanded, but the possession of Pignerol, that valuable acquisition of Richelieu, a French town for the last sixty years, and whose surrender, which Louis XIV. finished by resigning himself, was a just expiation for his ambitious projects of aggrandisement. Possessing already one of the keys of Italy, he had wished to acquire the other, so as to keep under his control the Duke of Savoy, who would thus have been enclosed between two formidable towns, and he was now compelled to cede him Pignerol, and to withdraw his troops from Casale.

Matthioly, who had played the principal part in the early negotiations relating to the latter place, suffered in the obscurity of his prison the consequence of this sudden change in Italian affairs; since he was one of the three State-prisoners whom the King of France caused to be transferred from Pignerol to the Isles Sainte-Marguerite, March 19, 1694. Not that his name was then mentioned. After the despatch of December 27, 1693, concerning what he had written on his coat-pockets, he was no longer named. Indeed, it was more than ever necessary to hide from every one this victim of an audacious and inexcusable offence against international law. The discontent of Europe against Louis XIV. being extremely strong, and the interests of his policy requiring him to calm it at any price, it was then especially essential to cover with impenetrable mystery an existence which recalled at once the menacing ambition, the audacity, and also the defeat of a great king. So there have, perhaps, never been so many minute precautions imposed for a journey of this nature. At the same time that Laprade was receiving the most circumstantial and precise instructions with reference to the transfer, the Marquis d’Herleville, Governor of Pignerol, and the Count de Tessé, commanding the French troops in that place, had orders “to furnish escorts and advance all the money required for the expenses of the journey.” Tessé was instructed not to inquire the names of the prisoners, and to absolutely overcome every temptation to a dangerous curiosity.[605] The following unpublished despatch is a proof of this:—

“Turin, March 27, 1694.

“I do not reply to you concerning that which you have done me the honour to write me with your own hand, with reference to the prisoners of the donjon, except that I shall conduct myself according to your orders and instructions with the greatest secrecy, entire circumspection, and every possible measure for the security of these prisoners, without having the slightest temptation to the least petty curiosity.”[606]

But, no matter how great the precautions taken may have been, no matter how reserved from that date Barbézieux and Saint-Mars may have shown themselves in their despatches, these still disclose something; and, fine as may be the thread which will permit us to follow Matthioly to his death, it is nevertheless visible.

The prisoners delivered over by Laprade to Saint-Mars were old captives, whom the latter had already had in charge at Pignerol. This is clear: 1st, from a despatch, dated January 11, 1694, in which the Minister asks Saint-Mars the name of one of Laprade’s prisoners who had just died;[607] 2nd, from the conclusion of the first despatch, announcing to Saint-Mars the approaching arrival of the prisoners at Pignerol: “I do not inform you of the number, persuaded that you know it;”[608] 3rd, from that significant phrase which we have already quoted from the second despatch relating to the transfer of these prisoners: “You know that they are of more consequence, or at least one of them, than those who are now at the Islands, and you ought to place them by preference in the surest prisons.”[609] Now it is quite certain, that at the time of his departure from Pignerol to Exiles, Saint-Mars had no other considerable prisoner except Matthioly, Fouquet being dead and Lauzun set at liberty. We may remark, too, that it is in Villebois’ care that he leaves him, Villebois who, with Catinat, had been charged with the mission of arresting Matthioly on the road to Turin.[610] When Villebois dies, it is another of Saint-Mars’ confidential lieutenants—the Sieur de Laprade, who is sent from the Islands to command in the donjon of Pignerol.[611] Consequently Saint-Mars—and this is an essential point to establish,—did not cease to be acquainted with Matthioly’s fate, and it is his own lieutenants who have replaced him for a time in guarding this prisoner.

We have shown, in the preceding chapter,[612] the evident obscurity of the insignificant prisoner brought by Saint-Mars from Exiles to the Isles Sainte-Marguerite. His furniture and effects are only worth thirteen crowns; his gaoler leaves him without scruple; he is designated as “a crow.” A new prisoner, “of more consequence than the others,” arrives at the Islands. From that moment Saint-Mars does not quit them; but immediately imagines fresh measures for the safety of his prisoners, which the Minister approves, July 20, 1694.[613]

It is about this period that we find, in the official despatches, the name of the Sieur Favre, whom the most unquestionable tradition represents as having been chaplain of the prison at the time that the Man with the Iron Mask was confined there.[614] Barbézieux, who previously had not been troubled with this anxiety, all at once thinks of what would happen if Saint-Mars should fall ill, and, with anxious solicitude, inquires[615] immediately what would be done if this should occur.[616] On January 15, 1696, we find a new despatch from Barbézieux, expressing, in the King’s name and his own, the satisfaction experienced on learning the precautions adopted.[617] On October 29, 1696, the Minister causes the locks of the donjon of Pignerol to be sent to the Isles Sainte-Marguerite, in order to render the confinement of the prisoners more secure.[618]

But there follows a despatch more significant still. Its existence was first revealed, then contested, and historical criticism finished by no longer believing in it, and by rejecting it altogether. Nevertheless it exists, and I have reproduced it in Chapter V.[619] It concludes thus: “Without explaining yourself to any one whatever about what your old prisoner has done.”

These words: “Your old prisoner,” have grammatically but one meaning—that is to say, the prisoner whom you formerly had in your care, and who has been again confided to you. Besides, I may remark, that if there should be any doubt about the meaning, this phrase cannot possibly apply to the prisoner brought by Saint-Mars from Exiles, since he arrived at the island in April, 1687. For, how can we imagine that the inhabitants of Sainte-Marguerite would have waited ten years, before concerning themselves with the causes of his confinement? This curiosity of the inhabitants of the island, this astonishment, the prime origin of the legend which became current in the district, is very naturally explained by the arrival of the prisoners from Pignerol, surrounded by a strong escort, guarded by Saint-Mars’ confidential men, placed, one at least, in the most secure prison, and the importance of whom was attested by the preparations, repairs, and purchases executed at the time by Saint-Mars. There is nothing striking in the treatment of the prisoner brought from Exiles, nothing which could excite surprise, and, anyhow, there is the positive certainty that this surprise would have been produced in any case during the early years of his residence at the Isles Sainte-Marguerite.

Pignerol was restored to the Duke of Savoy a short time after the arrival of the new prisoners at the islands. I have carefully looked through all the despatches exchanged between Lamothe-Guérin, Saint-Mars’ successor at the Islands, and the Court of Versailles, during the ten years (1698 to 1708) which followed the latter’s departure for the Bastille.[620] Not one of them contains the name of Matthioly, or makes mention of an important prisoner, left behind by Saint-Mars. Matthioly was still at Pignerol on December 27, 1693, a few months previous to the transfer of the three prisoners to the Isles Sainte-Marguerite. They were all old captives formerly in the care of Saint-Mars. The latter, we have seen, was ignorant of the causes of their detention, save of Matthioly’s alone. The logical conclusion of our preceding remarks is, therefore, that these words: “Without explaining yourself to any one whatever about what your old prisoner has done,” are applicable to what the Government of Versailles termed the treason of Matthioly. ] If this be admitted—and we trust that our readers will have no doubt with reference to it—if it be admitted that the despatch of November 17, 1697, is applicable to Matthioly, the only prisoner, we must again repeat, whose crime Saint-Mars was acquainted with, the identity of the Man with the Iron Mask is established.

On March 1, 1698, Barbézieux offers Saint-Mars the nomination to the Governorship of the Bastille.[621] He accepts this offer, and, on June 17, 1698, the Minister replies:—

“Versailles, June 17, 1698.

“I have remained a long time without answering the letter which you have taken the trouble to write me the 8th of last month, because the King has not explained his intentions to me earlier. I shall now tell you that his Majesty has seen with pleasure that you are determined to come to the Bastille in order to be its governor. You can arrange everything so as to be ready to leave when I shall write to you, and bring your old prisoner with you in all safety.

“I have agreed with Mons. Saumery that he shall give you two thousand crowns for your expenses in moving your furniture.”

The 19th July following, Barbézieux wrote again:—

“Marly, July 19, 1698.

“I have received the letter that you have taken the trouble to write me the 9th of this month. The King approves of your leaving the Isles Sainte-Marguerite to come to the Bastille with your old prisoner, taking your precautions to prevent his being seen or known by any one. You can write in advance to his Majesty’s Lieutenant of this château to have a chamber ready to place this prisoner in on your arrival.”

We thus find, in the two despatches sent to Saint-Mars on the eve of his departure for the Bastille, at that very important moment when he is about to commence his journey across France, these same characteristic words:—“Your old prisoner.” This is not all. What I have termed the perfect agreement, the exact correspondence between the prisoner who entered the Bastille, September 18, 1698, and Matthioly, is rendered more complete and more exact still by the only document concerning the Man with the Iron Mask, besides despatches, which has as yet been admitted without controversy—viz., Dujonca’s Journal. If we refer to Chapter XIII.[622] of the present work we shall perceive that he too terms the prisoner who accompanied Saint-Mars “his old prisoner whom he had at Pignerol.” At the Bastille he was called merely the “prisoner from Provence,”[623] because it was in Provence that he was confided to Saint-Mars, and Dujonca is none the less exact in terming him the old prisoner from Pignerol, since Matthioly had been two years at Pignerol under the care of Saint-Mars. Of all the captives of whom Saint-Mars was the gaoler, Matthioly is thus the only one who reconciles the two apparently contradictory features of the Man with the Iron Mask, whom an undoubted tradition represents as having been brought to Saint-Mars at the Islands, and whom indisputable documents show to have also been imprisoned at Pignerol. The general error has been to represent the Iron Mask as going from Pignerol to Exiles, the name of which was never mentioned by Dujonca, and not to pay sufficient attention to this fact, viz., that tradition as well as rare contemporary documents assign only three prisons, and not four, to the mysterious captive: Pignerol, the Isles Sainte-Marguerite, and the Bastille.