FOOTNOTES:
[336] It is needless to say that I have put on one side the numerous opinions which are not worthy of being discussed, simply because they do not rest upon a pretext even. There was a period (that of the public disputes between Fréron, Saint-Foix, Lagrange-Chancel, Father Griffet, and Voltaire) when to imagine a solution of this problem was in fashion, and people suggested a name without troubling themselves with the proofs, or at least with the motives which might render this name probable. It is in this manner that two-and-twenty so-styled solutions have been put forward. I have discussed those which concern the brothers of Louis XIV. (son of Buckingham and Anne of Austria, son of Anne of Austria and an unknown person, son of Anne of Austria and Louis XIII., born some hours after Louis XIV.) I have subsequently refuted the Vermandois solution, and the Monmouth, Beaufort, and Avedick. I shall content myself with simply mentioning the opinions which make the Man with the Iron Mask a natural and adulterine son of Marie-Louise d’Orléans, wife of Charles II., King of Spain; a natural and adulterine son of Marie-Anne de Neubourg, second wife of Charles II., King of Spain, who would have been put out of the way by Louis XIV.; a natural son of the Duchess Henriette d’Orléans and Louis XIV.; a natural son of the same Princess and the Count de Guiche; a natural son of Marie-Thèrese, wife of Louis XIV. and of the negro servant whom she had brought with her from Spain; a son of Christine of Sweden and of her Grand Equerry Monaldeschi; a son of Cromwell; a lover of Louise d’Orléans, imprisoned when she became Queen of Spain; a woman; a pupil of the Jesuits incarcerated for an abusive distich, and sent to the Isles Sainte-Marguerite. All these opinions have, as may be seen, very little weight.
Lastly, it is proper to name the Chevalier Louis de Rohan, Master of the Hounds, condemned to death in 1674, as a conspirator, and who, according to one theory, had his life spared. M. Pierre Clément, in the work which he has devoted to this individual (Enguerrand de Marigny, Beaune de Semblançay, le Chevalier de Rohan, épisodes de l’Histoire de France), and in chapter vi. of his curious volume, La Police sous Louis XIV., has clearly established that the Chevalier de Rohan was beheaded. He was executed with his accomplices in front of the Bastille, November 27, 1674. The execution was public, and it was impossible to have substituted any one else. It was not because no effort was made to move the heart of Louis XIV.; but Louvois was always on the watch, and in this instance thought it desirable to renew the severities of Richelieu. Even supposing it were possible to prove that Louis XIV. had spared the life of this conspirator, it would also be necessary to prove that he was the Man with the Iron Mask, and not merely by showing the probabilities and indicating the possibilities. Such a process, indeed, sufficed in the last century to build up a theory; but historical criticism in our own times is rightly more exacting. It is essential now-a-days to establish the perfect conformity between the Chevalier de Rohan and the Man with the Iron Mask, by following the former from prison to prison, from the time that his life is said to have been spared until his death in 1703. But this is utterly impossible. One prisoner only was brought to Saint-Mars in 1674, but on April 18, long before the Chevalier’s trial: this prisoner was an insignificant and obscure monk. Now we are acquainted with all the prisoners confided to Saint-Mars since that time, we know the causes of their imprisonment, and there is no doubt, moreover, that he had no others. Numerous despatches attest this fact, and it has been established and recognized since a long time. The only doubtful point is which of Saint-Mars’ prisoners was the Man with the Iron Mask. But not one of them has, in his existence, his age, the manner in which he was treated, the time at which he was incarcerated, any feature which resembles the Chevalier de Rohan even in conjecture. See, besides the two volumes mentioned: Imperial Archives, Manuscript Registers of the Secretary’s office of the King’s Household, year 1674, pp. 133, 165, 184. Archives of the Ministry of War, letter from Louvois to the King, October 6, 1674. Mémoires Militaires de Louis XIV., vol. iii. p. 522; Basnage, chap. civ. p. 549; La Hode, book xxxv. p. 514; Limiers, book vi. p. 274; Lafare, chap. vii. p. 211; Sismondi, Histoire des Français, vol. xxv. pp. 280 and 282; Camille Rousset, Histoire de Louvois, vol. ii. p. 120.
[337] Cessione di Pinerolo, fatta da Enrico III. ad Emanuele Filiberto il Grande Duca di Savoia, Pinèrolo, 1858.
[338] Pinerolo antico e moderno e suoi dintorni, del Canonico G. Groset-Monchet; Veduta di S. Maurizio, dell’ Abate Car. Jacopo Bernardi, Pinerolo, 1858.
[339] Corografia fisica dell’ Italia, di Attilio Zuccagni-Orlandini.
[340] Mémoires de D’Artagnan, by Sandraz de Courtilz, Cologne, 1701, vol. iii. pp. 222 and 385; Annales de la Cour et de Paris, for the years 1697 and 1698, vol. ii. p. 380.
[341] Order of Le Tellier to d’Artagnan, December 3, 1661:—Archives of the Ministry of War.
[342] Ibid.
[343] Despatches from Louvois to Saint-Mars, January 17, 23, and 29, 1665. Saint-Mars espoused the sister of Louvois’ mistress, whose acquaintance he made, not in one of his journeys to Paris (for these were extremely rare), but at Pignerol itself. The Sieur Damorezan (and not De Morésant, as MM. Paul Lacroix and Jules Loiseleur have written it), muster-master at Pignerol, had two sisters, one of whom, Madame Dufresnoy, became mistress of Louvois, and through his influence, lady of the bed-chamber to the Queen, while the other married Saint-Mars. The latter had 6,000 livres (240l.) salary, plus gratuities, which were often very considerable. He alone commanded in the donjon, and his authority was independent of that of the Marquis d’Herleville, governor of the town of Pignerol, and of M. Lamothe de Rissan, Lieutenant of the King in the citadel. There were, however, between the latter and Saint-Mars occasional jealousies which Louvois sought to remove, but not always with success.
[344] Unpublished letter from Saint-Mars to Louvois, May 6, 1673:—Archives of the Ministry of War, vol. cccliv. fo. 214.
[345] Unpublished letter from Saint-Mars to Louvois, March 17, 1673:—Ibid., vol. cccliv. fo. 230.
[346] Unpublished letter from Saint-Mars to Louvois, February 20, 1672:—Ibid., vol. ccxcix. fo. 67.
[347] Unpublished letter from Saint-Mars to Louvois, April 22, 1673:—Ibid., vol. cccliv. fo. 193.
[348] This is the testimony which Madame de Sévigné gives about him in a letter dated January 25, 1675: “He was a discreet man and very exact in duty,” say the Mémoires de D’Artagnan.
[349] An unpublished letter, written June 4, 1689, by Seignelay to Saint-Mars, who was then at the Isles Saint-Marguerite, furnishes a proof of this eagerness for gain:—Archives of Ministry of Marine, Lettres des Secrétaires d’État, 1689. Saint-Mars, like all the governors of the Bastille, left a large fortune. The profits realized in this position were, however, in no degree prejudicial to the prisoners’ nourishment, the expenses being defrayed on a very liberal footing, as M. Ravaisson has perfectly established in his learned introduction to the Archives de la Bastille, p. xxviii. et seq. He received presents from Louis XIV., one of which one day amounted to 10,000 crowns (1,250l.):—Letter from Louvois to Saint-Mars, January 11, 1677.
[350] Histoire de la Bastille of Constantin de Renneville, vol. i. p. 32.
[351] Nantes, Angers, Amboise, Vincennes, Moret, Fontainebleau, the Bastille.
[352] Versailles was not yet built.
[353] Belle-Isle. [Off Quiberon on the Breton coast.—Trans.]
[354] The island of Santa Lucia, then called Sainte-Alouzie. [One of the Caribbee Islands.—Trans.]
[355] By himself or his friends, Fouquet ruled over Havre, Calais, Amiens, Hesdin, Conearneau, Guingamp, Guérande, Mount Saint-Michel, and Croisic.
“Nessun maggior dolore,
Che ricordarsi del tempo felice
Nella miseria.”—Inferno, v. 41.
[357] Mémoires de Louis XIV. Dreyss’s edition, vol. ii. p. 388.
[358] Mémoires de Choisy. Michaud and Poujoulat’s edition, p. 581.
[359] Mémoires de Louis Henri de Loménie, Comte de Brienne, vol. ii. pp. 155 and 157; Mémoires de Choisy, p. 582.
[360] Mémoires de Louis XIV., vol. i. p. 37; Mémoires de Choisy, p. 582.
[361] Mémoires de Choisy, p. 581.
[362] Mémoires de Louis XIV., vol. ii. p. 525.
[363] M. Sainte-Beuve, Causeries du Lundi, vol. v.
[364] Fouquet, who had purchased the Vicomté of Melun, replaced the old château by a magnificent edifice, which has become celebrated from the fête given there to Louis XIV. It is the chef-d’œuvre of the architect Le Vau, and astounds one by its grand and noble proportions. The exterior is profusely covered with sculpture, and the splendour of the interior is fully in keeping with that of the outside, the decorations of the principal apartments having been entrusted to the most celebrated painters of the age. The pleasure-grounds, which cover several hundred acres, were planted by Le Nôtre, and are laid out in straight lines, after the usual custom of the seventeenth century.
The mémoires of the time are filled with accounts of Fouquet’s fête to Louis XIV., August 17, 1661; and La Fontaine has described it both in prose and verse. Fouquet’s fall had long since been prepared by LeTellier and Colbert, and was already resolved upon when Louis XIV. went to seat himself at his table; but the luxury of this abode and the splendour of the reception singularly increased the irritation of the monarch, who was well aware that it was paid for out of money of which the State had been defrauded. Fouquet was arrested on September 5, only eighteen days after this fête.
The château of Vaux, which, save the ravages of time, is still in much the same state as Fouquet left it, is situated about four miles to the north-east of Melun, on the road from Paris to Meaux.—Trans.
[365] See Histoire de Colbert, by M. Pierre Clément, vol. i.; Mémoires sur Nicolas Fouquet, by M. Chéruel; La Police sous Louis XIV., by M. P. Clément, pp. 1-61, and the Appendices to vols. viii. and ix. of M. Chéruel’s edition of the Mémoires de Saint-Simon, vol. viii. p. 447, and vol. ix. p. 414.
[366] We shall prove this hereafter.
[367] As M. Chéruel has remarked (Mémoires sur Nicolas Fouquet, vol. ii. p. 173, note 3) the letter which is relied on in order to support this allegation is far from authentic. It has been transcribed in the Manuscrits Conrart (vol. xi. folio, p. 152), with many other letters “which are said to have been found in Fouquet’s casket.” But we know what took place with reference to this famous casket. Greedy of scandal, and not finding sufficient in the real letters which were published at that time, the courtiers invented a very great number, attributing them to ladies of the court, whose names they gave. They were collected with care, in the papers of Conrart and Vallant, and have thus been handed down to us: (Manuscripts of the Arsenal for the Papiers de Conrart and of the Imperial Library for those of Vallant). Such was the publicity given to these letters, that at the commencement of the trial the Chancellor Séguier thought it his duty to declare to the court that they were forgeries: See M. Chéruel’s work already referred to, vol. ii. p. 289, et seq., and M. Feuillet de Conches’ Causeries d’un Curieux, vol. ii. p. 518, et seq.
[368] “Do not fear that he will escape,” said they at Angers to D’Artagnan: “we will strangle him first:”—Journal d’Olivier d’Ormesson, published by M. Chéruel in the Collection des Documents Inédits sur l’Histoire de France, vol. ii. p. 99. The same hatred manifested itself at Tours, whence it was necessary to set out with Fouquet at three o’clock in the morning to escape the threats of the people. At Saint-Mandé and Vincennes it was the same: Récit Officiel de l’Arrestation de Fouquet, by the Registrar Joseph Foucault:—Imperial Library, Manuscripts, No. 235-245 of the 500 of Colbert.
[369] Mémoires sur Nicolas Fouquet, vol. ii. p. 386.
[370] So Madame de Motteville terms it in her Mémoires.
[371] Mémoires de Choisy, p. 189.
[372] The office was sold in 1661 to M. de Harlay. See on the subject of the reports of this sale, Lettres de Guy-Patin, July 12 and 15, 1661.
[373] Mémoires de Brienne, vol. ii. p. 178.
[374] Order of arrest given to D’Artagnan, with the memorandum published by Ravaisson in his Archives de la Bastille, vol. i. p. 347-351: Letters of the Marquis de Coislin to the Chancellor Séguier, September 5, 1661:—Ibid. p. 351-355.
[375] Procès-verbal of the Registrar Foucault, already referred to; Mémoires de Brienne; Mémoires de l’Abbé de Choisy.
[376] The Marquis de Gesvres, whom Louis XIV. did not dare to entrust with the mission of arresting Fouquet.
[377] Défenses de Fouquet, vol. iii. p. 357. Edition of 1665.
[378] Mémoires sur Nicolas Fouquet, vol. i. p. 398.
[379] This is the title which Fouquet’s friends gave to this province.
[380] Manuscripts of the Imperial Library (500 de Colbert, No. 235, fo. 86 et seq.) This plan has been published by M. P. Clément almost entire in vol. i. p. 41, et seq., of his Histoire de Colbert, and entire by him in the introduction of vol. ii. of the Lettres de Colbert, and in his Police sous Louis XIV., p. 33, et seq. M. Chéruel has also reproduced it entire in Appendix No. vi. of vol. i. of his Mémoires sur Nicolas Fouquet, pp. 488-501. This plan is incontestably authentic, and Fouquet has never denied having written it.
[381] All these facts are in great part proved by the plan, and by other papers found at Saint-Mandé, which are now in the Imperial Library.
[382] Mémoires sur Nicolas Fouquet, pp. 367 to 386.
[383] Histoires de la Détention des Philosophes et des Gens de Lettres, by Delort, vol. i. p. 21.