FOOTNOTES:
[527] Louvois writes to Saint-Mars, May 15, 1679: “It is not the intention of the King that the Sieur de Lestang [the name given to Matthioly after his arrest] should be well treated, nor that, except the absolute necessaries of life, anything should be given to him that would enable him to pass his time agreeably.” Again, on May 22, he writes: “You must keep the individual named Lestang in the severe confinement I enjoined in my preceding letters, without allowing him to see a physician unless you know him to be in absolute need of one.” In July he is allowed pen and ink “to put into writing whatever he may wish to say.” In February, 1680, Saint-Mars writes to Louvois that Lestang “complains that he is not treated as a man of his quality and the minister of a great prince ought to be,” to which Louvois replies in the July following: “With regard to the Sieur de Lestang, I wonder at your patience, and that you should wait for an order to treat such a rascal as he deserves when he is wanting in respect to you:”—Louvois to Saint-Mars and vice versâ, Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.—Trans.
[528] “Sir,” said he to him, “here is a ring which I make a present to you, and which I beg of you to accept.” It was no doubt the diamond given to Matthioly by Louis XIV.
[Saint-Mars wrote to Louvois: “I believe he made him this present as much from fear as from any other cause: this prisoner having previously used very violent language towards him, and written abusive sentences with charcoal on the walls of his room, which had obliged that officer to threaten him with severe punishment, if he was not more decorous and moderate in his language for the future. When he was put in the tower with the Jacobin, I charged Blainvilliers to tell him, at the same time showing him a cudgel, that it was with that the unruly were rendered manageable, and that if he did not speedily become so, he could easily be compelled. This message was conveyed to him, and some days afterwards, as Blainvilliers was waiting upon him at dinner, he said, ‘Sir, here is a little ring which I wish to give you, and I beg you to accept of it?’ Blainvilliers replied ‘that he only took it to deliver it to me, as he could not receive anything himself from the prisoners.’ I think it is well worth fifty or sixty pistoles:”—Letter from Saint-Mars to Louvois, October 26, 1680, quoted by Roux-Fazillac.—Trans.]
[529] La Prudenza Triomfante di Casale con l’Arni sole de trattati e negotiati di Politici della M. Chr., small duodecimo, 58 pp.
[530] This was printed at Leyden by Claude Jordan.
[531] Annali d’Italia, Milan edition, vol. xi. pp. 352-354.
[532] Vol. vi. part i. p. 182., Letter from Baron d’Heiss, June 28, 1770.
[533] Journal de Paris, p. 1470.
[534] Vol. v. p. 369.
[535] This is a collection of letters interchanged between the Marquis de L. and the Chevalier de B., in which the latter gives an account of his travels in France, Italy, Germany, and England, from September 5, 1782, to January 29, 1788. In it, Matthioly is confounded with another agent named Girolamo Magni.
[536] Mémoires de l’Académie de Berlin, 1794 and 1795, Division of Belles-Lettres, pp. 157-163.
[537] January 31, 1800.—Trans.
[538] Pp. 814-816.
[539] In this list I do not include the Hon. George Agar Ellis, whose work was translated into French and published by Barbeza, (Paris, 1830), because his book is itself only the almost literal reproduction of Delort’s.
[540] We have already seen that Delort had examined, in the Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, only a portion of the sections Venice and Mantua, and that of Savoy not at all. As to the despatches interchanged between the Minister of War and Saint-Mars, he had inspected the rather numerous letters in the Archives of the Empire, but not the drafts which are at the Ministry of War.
[541] “We share the opinion of those who think that the Man with the Iron Mask was no other than Matthioly:”—Histoire de Louvois, vol. iii. p. 111, note.
[542] Despatch from Louvois to Saint-Mars, January 30, 1675.
[543] Unpublished despatch from Louvois to Saint-Mars, April 18, 1674:—Archives of the Ministry of War.
[544] Letter from Louvois to Saint-Mars, July 19, 1669. We have already mentioned that the same precautions were adopted (ante, p. 234) even for the Protestant ministers who were confined at the Isles Sainte-Marguerite later. See Depping: Correspondance Administrative sous Louis XIV.
[545] Buticary was set at liberty at Saint-Mars’ request. The following extract from a despatch proves that he ought not to be confounded with Caluzio, as M. Loiseleur has done: “In the correspondence of Saint-Mars,” he says (Revue Contemporaine, July 31, 1867, p. 202, note), “Caluzio is sometimes called Buticary. One of the two names is a surname.” Now, September 14, 1675, Louvois writes to Saint-Mars: “You have done right to give a sergeant and two soldiers to take the Sieur Caluzio to Lyons, and as to the Sieur Buticary, when the King is at Saint-Germain, I will willingly speak in his favour and endeavour to obtain his release.”
[546] Delort, Histoire de la Détention des Philosophes, vol. i. and Roux-Fazillac.
[547] Letter from Louvois to Saint-Mars, May 12, 1680.
[548] Letter from Catinat to Louvois, May 3, 1679.
[549] Letter from Louvois, August 16, 1680, and from Saint-Mars, September 7 of the same year.
[550] Problèmes Historiques, Paris. Hachette.
[551] Revue Contemporaine, July 21, 1867, pp. 194-239.
[552] Revue Contemporaine, p. 206.
[553] François Michel le Tellier, Marquis de Louvois, whose name occurs so frequently throughout this work, was Louis XIV.’s Secretary of State for War and Prime Minister. He is responsible for the barbarous devastation of the Palatinate, and for the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. After having served his Sovereign faithfully for six-and-thirty years, he fell under his displeasure, and was only saved from disgrace by a sudden death, which occurred in 1691, it is said from poison.
[554] M. Loiseleur afterwards brings forward two arguments which are as little conclusive as those which have just been discussed. “Saint-Mars was so persistently left in ignorance,” he says, “that after having confided to his lieutenant the care of recovering the important documents concealed at Padua, Catinat thought better of it, and charged a trusty servant of the Abbé d’Estrades with this mission.... When Louvois requested the list of the prisoners imprisoned at Pignerol, with the reasons for which they were detained, he added to his letter, ‘with reference to the two of the lower tower you need only indicate them by this name, without putting anything else.’” If Giuliani was charged, as we have mentioned in the preceding chapter, to seek at Padua the papers in the possession of Matthioly’s father, it was because, being supposed a friend of Matthioly, he would inspire no suspicion, while it would have been very different if this mission had been confided to Saint-Mars’ lieutenant. As for the letter in which Louvois requests from Saint-Mars the names of his prisoners, the dispensing with information concerning the prisoners in the lower Tower can be explained in a very simple manner—by the fact that Louvois knew all about them, since a short time previously they had been referred to in the correspondence.
[555] Delort, p. 206.
[556] Louvois writes to Saint-Mars, September 20, 1681:—“The King does not disapprove of your going from time to time to see the last prisoner that you have in your care, when he is settled in his new prison.” M. Loiseleur concludes from this that at this period there was only one prisoner, and as two are again spoken of afterwards, he infers that a new prisoner was confided to Saint-Mars. We shall hereafter concern ourselves with this despatch, the meaning of which we shall explain.
[557] Archives of the Ministry of War; Mémoire de Chamlay on the events of 1678 to 1688:—Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, sections Mantua and Savoy.
[558] Revue Contemporaine, p. 238.
[559] See Chapters [I]. to [V]. of the present work.
[560] Revue Contemporaine, p. 209, et seq.
[561] This is within a year of the date that M. Loiseleur states, and the exactness of which we are about to confirm. M. Loiseleur observes with reason that the error of a year in an old man’s early reminiscences is very probable.
[562] The governorship of the Isles Sainte-Marguerite-Saint-Honorat.
[563] Unpublished despatches from Louvois to Saint-Mars:—Archives of the Ministry of War.