FOOTNOTES:
[277] L’Homme au Masque de Fer: Mémoire Historique par le Chevalier de Taulès, ancien consul-général en Syrie, p. 1.
[278] From 1752 to 1768, Taulès and Voltaire had a long and interesting correspondence, published by Gaultier-Laguionie (Paris, 1825), at the end of various memoirs of Taulès.
[279] L’Homme au Masque de Fer: Mémoire Historique, p. 21.
[280] This has already been referred to in Chapter VIII. of this work. See page 93 ante.
[281] L’Homme au Masque de Fer, p. 61.
[282] M. de Vergennes.
[283] L’Homme au Masque de Fer, p. 62.
[284] L’Homme au Masque de Fer, p. 63.
[285] In his Traité des Differentes Sortes de Preuves qui servent à établir la Vérité dans l’Histoire.
[286] This and the tower mentioned just above are supposed to have been named after their builders.—Trans.
[287] Archives of the Library of the Arsenal, Manuscript Journal of Dujonca.
[288] Archives of the Hôtel de Ville, Registres des Baptêmes, Mariages et Sépultures de la Paroisse de Saint-Paul: Saint-Paul 5, 1703-1705, vol. ii No. 166.
[289] I have found among the Archives of the Arsenal another document also emanating from the pen of Dujonca, whose journal up to the present time was alone known. These are notes in which he enumerates the heavy occupations that weighed him down. This document throws a certain light upon the interior arrangements of the Bastille. It is the same large writing as that of the Journal, with the same faults of language, the same simple-mindedness. It is too long to be quoted here. I merely extract the statement of everything that Dujonca had to do.
“For more than a year since I have entered the Bastille I have been obliged to perform the service which follows:—
“To rise every morning the first and to go to bed the last—To place the guard very often instead of the officers of Monsieur de Besemaux; to make the round and the visit every evening in the uncertainty as to whether these gentlemen will do it; to close the doors very often, not being able to rely upon any one—To take every care of the guard of the château, being unable either to trust or rely upon the governor’s two officers, who do only what pleases them, and render account of what passes only to Monsieur de Besemaux—When Monsieur de la Venice or other commissaries come to interrogate prisoners, it is necessary to go and take them from their chamber and to lead them into Monsieur de Besemaux’s room, traversing all the courts, and it is necessary to wait outside the door very often for eight hours at a time, in order to retake possession of the prisoner, and conduct him back to the place whence he had been taken—The prisoners to whom it is permitted to see visitors it is also necessary to go and take from their chambers, to lead them through all the courts into the common room, where the relations or friends await them, and it is very often necessary to remain with them quite as long as they wish, being obliged to keep them in sight, and afterwards to take them back again—It is necessary to have the same care and application for certain people of the reformed religion, who are seen and talked to by Father Bordes, M. Latour Dalier and Madame Chardon, in order to convert them—To follow and guard the prisoners who have permission to go and walk in the garden and on the terrace from time to time. All the sick prisoners it is necessary to go and visit often, and to take care of them—Those who have need of the doctor and apothecary, it is necessary to conduct where the sick go; and in order to be more assured of what passes and of the remedies which they are ordered to take, it is necessary to be present when they are brought to them—For the prisoner who is very ill and in danger of death, it is necessary to redouble all these cares in order to make him confess and receive all the sacraments, and when he is dead it is necessary to fulfil all the duties of a good Christian—On the arrival of a prisoner who is to be confined it is necessary to commence by examining and searching him all over, as well as the whole of his clothing, and to conduct him to the chamber assigned to him. Moreover, it is necessary to take care to have given and brought to him all that is essential for the furnishing of his chamber, paying very dearly for it to Monsieur de Besemaux’s upholsterer, or else the maîtresse d’autel—It is necessary, also, to search all the confined prisoners who obtain their entire liberty, and to examine their clothes before they leave in consequence of the great communication which exists between the prisoners. It is necessary also to take the same care in searching the prisoners who are confined in order to place them in the liberty of the court, which happens sufficiently often—To visit all the chambers and to search everywhere, even all the prisoners and their clothing—It is also necessary to examine everything which comes from without for the prisoners confined here, and their clothing that goes out, in order to be mended or washed—Amongst the number of prisoners there are some who daily find themselves in necessity or need of something, or else of some complaint of their food, or of the bad usage of the turnkeys who attend upon them, which prisoners in their distress are compelled to beat their doors so as to give notice of their wants; these are occasions which often happen and cause a great noise, so that it is necessary to go and make frequent visits—It is necessary to pay attention to the food given the prisoners, being very often bad, with bad wine and dirty table-linen—To frequently examine all the plate usually used for the prisoners confined here, who very often write on the dishes and plates in order to give news of themselves to one another—To keep guard over and carefully observe all the persons who enter the Bastille, especially the women and girls who come to see the prisoners who are in the liberty of the court—On the principal festivals of the year it is necessary to take every care to make those prisoners who are allowed by orders to do so, confess, hear mass, and communicate—To go several times during the day and the evening on to the platforms outside the château, in order to prevent the prisoners in one tower talking to those in another, and to send soldiers in the neighbourhood of the Bastille in order to arrest the persons who make signs to the prisoners whom they know, and very often these are prisoners who have received their liberty wishing to render service to those who remain, there being communication everywhere, and the cause of all these disorders.”
[290] A single example will suffice. The person confined in the Bastille a few days before the Iron Mask is, according to Dujonca, the famous Madame Guyon, and a letter from Count de Pontchartrain to Saint-Mars, of November 3, 1698, says: “As for Madame Guyon, it is not necessary to do anything with reference to her except by the advice of the Archbishop:”—Imperial Archives, Registers of the Secretary’s office of the King’s Household.