FOOTNOTES:
[624] Journal, vol. i. p. 133.
[625] Mémoires de Mademoiselle de Montpensier, vol. iii. p. 225.
[626] Mémoires de Saint-Simon, vol. xiii. p. 16.
[627] Souvenirs de Madame de Caylus.
[628] Correspondance Administrative sous Louis XIV., vol. ii. p. 571. See also M. P. Clément, La Police sous Louis XIV., p. 89.
[629] Chapter XXIII., pp. [347, 348], ante.
[630] See Chap. XXIII., note 29, pp. [346, 347], ante.
[631] This mask would, however, have been of a different kind to that which Matthioly was afterwards compelled to wear. The latter was no doubt secured in such a way that it could not be removed by the wearer.—Trans.
[632] Despatch from Louvois to Saint-Mars, June 9, 1681.
[633] Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, section Mantua, 27-29.
[634] Michelet.
[635] Chapter V., [p. 62], ante.
[636] Mémoires de Saint-Simon, vol. viii. p. 66.
[637] Dutens, in his Correspondance Interceptée, relates that “Louis XV. said one day to the Duke de Choiseul, that he was acquainted with the story of the masked prisoner. The Duke begged the King to tell him what it was. But he could obtain no other reply save that all the conjectures as yet formed concerning this prisoner were mistaken ones.” As Madame Dubarry caused the Duke de Choiseul to be disgraced in 1770, the conversation narrated must have taken place previous to this date. Now it was only on June 28, 1770, that Baron d’Heiss was the first person in France to advance, in a letter addressed to the authors of the Journal Encyclopédique, as we have stated in Chapter xxi., p. 295, ante, the theory which makes Matthioly the Man with the Iron Mask, and this letter was inserted in the part for August 15, 1770. The abduction of Matthioly had been narrated at Leyden in 1687,[638] but it was only in August, 1770, that the theory began to be known and debated. Louis XV.’s reply to the Duke de Choiseul can therefore be very well reconciled with the theory.
Dutens adds that some time afterwards Madame de Pompadour pressed the King to give an explanation with reference to this subject, and that Louis XV. told her that he believed it was a minister of an Italian prince.
M. Giraud (of the Institute) has often heard Madame de Boigne relate the following anecdote which he has given me authority to publish. Madame de Boigne was the daughter of the Marquis d’Osmond, who held a high position at the court of Louis XVI. In one of her conversations with the Marquis, Madame Adelaide related the check which her curiosity had received with reference to the Iron Mask. She had persuaded her brother the Dauphin to question the King concerning this famous prisoner, so that he might tell her the secret afterwards. The Dauphin was then very young, and at the first word that he uttered, Louis XV. inquired, smiling: “Who has charged you to ask me this question?” The Dauphin acknowledged that it was his sister. The King refused to give a complete answer, but observed that the secret had never been of great importance, and at that time no longer possessed any interest.
The same anecdote has been related to us in almost identical words by M. Guillaume Guizot, who also had it from Madame de Boigne.
In page 47 of the Souvenirs du Baron de Gleichen recently published by M. Grimblot, we read that the Duke de Choiseul had vainly made researches among the Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in order to discover the secret of the Iron Mask. There is nothing very surprising in this. These Archives contain all the documents that we have reproduced or quoted, treating of Matthioly’s abduction. They also contain, spread among a number of series and volumes, the despatches which prove the evident interest that the Duke of Mantua had in the definitive disappearance of his ex-confidant. But if these documents, of which the greater portion were unpublished, have furnished me with arguments for the support of the Matthioly theory, it is not in these Archives but in those of the Ministry of War that I have discovered the despatches which have enabled me to establish the complete agreement between the individual carried off May 2, 1679, and the prisoner who arrived at the Bastille with Saint-Mars, September 18, 1698, and died there November 19, 1703. Researches made solely in the Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, would have led to nothing. It was necessary to make them in all the collections, and afterwards to compare the various results, the combination of which alone enables us to obtain a solution of the problem.
[638] In a work entitled Histoire abrégée de l’Europe, which, after speaking of Matthioly’s proceedings with reference to the treaty for the surrender of Casale and describing his capture and imprisonment, goes on to say: “At Pignerol he was thought to be too near Italy, and, though he was guarded very carefully, it was feared that the walls might tell tales; he was therefore removed thence to the Isles Sainte-Marguerite, where he is at present, under the care of M. de Saint-Mars, the governor.”—Trans.
[639] This objection has often been made.
[640] This is one of the points on which Father Griffet relies most of all in order to prove the excessive importance of this prisoner. The quotation which we have given from Dujonca’s notes, establishes the fact that he was obliged to act thus for all the prisoners. But besides these notes, as yet unpublished, the Journal de Dujonca furnishes several proofs of what we advance.
[641] We have given these notes in Chapter XIII. pp. 167-169, ante.
[642] Taulès was the first to put forward this objection.
[643] The reader will remember that this was Matthioly’s supposititious name.
[644] Despatch from Catinat to Louvois, May 6, 1679. Given by Delort, p. 214.
[645] The following is a literal translation of the entry in the Register in question, a facsimile of which forms the frontispiece to the present volume:—
“The 19th Marchialy aged forty-five years or about has died in the bastile, whose body has been buried in the cemetery of st. Paul his parish the 20th of the present [month] in the presence of Monsieur Rosage major of the bastile and Mr. Reglhe surgeon-major of the bastile who have signed.
]“Rosarges.” “Reilhe.”
In La Bastille Dévoilée, a work of doubtful authenticity, as also in the Mélanges d’Histoire et de Littérature of Mr. Quintin Craufurd, who professes to make the statement on the authority of M. Delaunay, the unfortunate governor of the Bastille in the reign of Louis XVI., it is asserted that the prisoner “was buried in a winding-sheet of new linen; and for the most part everything that was found in his chamber was burnt, such as every part of his bed, including the mattresses, his tables, chairs, and other utensils, which were all reduced to powder and to cinders, and thrown into the drains. The rest of the things, such as the silver, copper, and pewter, were melted. This prisoner was lodged in the third chamber of the tower Bertaudière, which room was scraped and filed quite to the stone, and fresh whitewashed from the top to the bottom. The doors and windows were burnt like the rest.”—Trans.
[646] Dissertation on the Man with the Iron Mask, in his Traité des Différentes Sortes de Preuves.
[647] Mémoires de Mallet du Pan.
[648] The name is written in several ways. I have chosen the orthography most generally adopted in the despatches. We find Matioli, Matheoli, and Marthioly. [Also Mattioli, Matioly, and Matthioli. Louis XIV. writes it indiscriminately Mathioly, Matthioli, and Matthioly—in different ways even in the same despatch.—Trans.]
[649] M. P. Clément quotes a curious example of this negligence in his Police sous Louis XIV., p. 102, note 1. The correct name of the Italian, accomplice of Sainte-Croix in the Affaire des Poisons, was Egidio, but in the documents he is called Exili.
[650] Unpublished despatch:—Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, section Savoy, 68. It is from this despatch that the motto of the present work has been taken.
[651] Mémoires de Saint-Simon, vol. iii. pp. 70, 108, 109.
[652] M. Jules Loiseleur, Revue Contemporaine, p. 236.
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