Other special and fanciful suppositions have gained credence, but their mere statement is sufficient to upset them. One is the belief that the “Man with the Iron Mask” was the English Duke of Monmouth, the son of Charles II and Lucy Waters, who raised the standard of revolt against James II and suffered death on Tower Hill. It was pretended that a devoted follower, whose life was also forfeit, took his place upon the scaffold and was hacked about in Monmouth’s place by the clumsy executioner. The craze for ridiculous conjecture led to the adoption of Henry Cromwell, the Protector’s second son, as the cryptic personage, but there was never a shadow of evidence to support this story and no earthly reason why Louis XIV should desire to imprison and conceal a young Englishman. Nor can we understand why Louis should thus dispose of his own son by Louise de Vallière, the young Comte de Vermandois, whose death in camp at an early age was fully authenticated by the sums allotted to buy masses for the repose of his soul. The disappearance of the Duc de Beaufort’s body after his death on the field of Candia led to his promotion to the honor of the Black Mask, but his head was probably sent to the Sultan of Turkey, and in any case, although he was, as we have already seen, a noisy, vulgar demagogue, he had made his peace with the court in his later days. There was no mystery about Fouquet’s imprisonment. The story which has just been told to the time of his death shows conclusively that he could not be the “Man with the Iron Mask,” nor was there any sound reason to think it. The same may be said of the rather crazy suggestion that he was Avedik, the Armenian patriarch at Constantinople who, having incurred the deadly animosity of the Jesuits, had been kidnapped and brought to France. This conclusion was entirely vitiated by the unalterable logic of dates. The patriarch was carried off from Constantinople just a year after the mysterious person died in the Bastile.
Thus, one by one, we exclude and dispose of the uncertain and improbable claimants to the honors of identification. But one person remains whom the cap fits from the first; a man who, we know, offended Louis mortally and whose imprisonment the King had the best of reasons, from his own point of view, for desiring: the first, private vengeance, the second, the public good and the implacable will to carry out his set purpose. It is curious that this solution which was close at hand seems never to have appealed to the busy-bodies who approached the subject with such exaggerated ideas about the impenetrable mystery. A prisoner had been brought to Pignerol at a date which harmonizes with the first appearance of the unknown upon the stage. Great precautions were observed to keep his personality a secret; but it was distinctly known to more than one, and although guarded with official reticence, there were those who could have, and must have drawn their own conclusions. In any case the screen has now been entirely torn aside and documentary evidence is afforded which proves beyond all doubt that no real mystery attaches to the “Man with the Iron Mask.”
The exact truth of the story will be best established by a brief history of the antecedent facts. When Louis XIV was at the zenith of his power, supreme at home and an accepted arbiter abroad, he was bent upon consolidating his power in Northern Italy, and eagerly opened negotiations with the Duke of Mantua to acquire the fortress town of Casale. The town was a decisive point which secured his predominance in Montferrat, which gave an easy access at any time into Lombardy. The terms agreed upon were, first, a payment of 100,000 crowns by Louis to the Duke of Mantua and, second, a promise that the latter should command any French army sent into Italy; in exchange, the surrender of Casale. The transaction had been started by the French ambassador in Venice and the principal agent was a certain Count Mattioli, who had been a minister to the Duke of Mantua and was high in his favor. Mattioli visited Paris and was well received by the King, who sent him back to Italy to complete the contract. Now, however, unexplained delays arose and it came out that the great Powers, who were strongly opposed to the dominating influence of France in Northern Italy, had been informed of what was pending. The private treaty with France became public property and there could be no doubt but that Mattioli had been bought over. He had in fact sold out the French king and the whole affair fell through.
Louis XIV, finding himself deceived and betrayed, was furiously angry and resolved to avenge himself upon the traitor. It was pain and anguish to him to find that he had been cheated before all Europe, and in his discomfiture and bitter humiliation he prepared to avenge himself amply. On the suggestion of the French minister at Turin he planned that Mattioli should be kidnapped and carried into France and there subjected to the King’s good pleasure. Mattioli was a needy man and was easily beguiled by the Frenchman’s promises of a substantial sum in French gold, from the French general, Catinat, who was on the frontier with ample funds for use when Casale should have been occupied. Mattioli, unsuspecting, met Catinat not far from Pignerol, where after revealing the place where his papers were concealed he fell into the hands of the French. Louis had approved of the arrest and insisted only on secrecy, and that Mattioli should be carried off without the least suspicion in Casale. “Look to it,” he wrote, “that no one knows what becomes of this man.” And at the same time the governor of Pignerol, Saint Mars, was instructed by Louvois, the minister, to receive him in great secrecy and was told, “You will guard him in such a manner that, not only may he have no communication with anyone, but that he may have cause to repent his conduct, and that no one may know you have a new prisoner.” The secrecy was necessary because Mattioli was the diplomatic agent of another country and his arrest was a barefaced violation of the law of nations.
Brigadier-General (afterwards the famous Marshal) Catinat reports from Pignerol on May 3rd, 1679:—“I arrested Mattioli yesterday, three miles from here, upon the King’s territories, during the interview which the Abbe d’Estrades had ingeniously contrived between himself, Mattioli and me, to facilitate the scheme. For the arrest, I employed only the Chevaliers de Saint Martin and de Villebois, two officers under M. de Saint Mars, and four men of his company. It was effected without the least violence, and no one knows the rogue’s name, not even the officers who assisted.” This fixed beyond all doubt the identity, but there is a corroborative evidence in a pamphlet still in existence, dated 1682, which states that “the Secretary was surrounded by ten or twelve horsemen who seized him, disguised him, masked him and conducted him to Pignerol.” This is farther borne out by a traditionary arrest about that time.
When, thirty years later, the great sensation was first invented, its importance was emphasised by Voltaire and others who declared that at the period of the arrest no disappearance of any important person was recorded. Certainly Mattioli’s disappearance was not much noticed. It was given out that he was dead, the last news of him being a letter to his father in Padua begging him to hand over his papers to a French agent. They were concealed in a hole in the wall in one of the rooms in his father’s house, and when obtained without demur were forwarded to the King in Paris. There was no longer any doubt of Mattioli’s guilt, and Louis exacted the fullest penalty. He would annihilate him, sweep him out of existence, condemn him to a living death as effective as though he were poisoned, strangled or otherwise removed. He did not mean that the man who had flouted and deceived him should be in a position to glory over the affront he had put upon the proudest king in Christendom.
Exit Mattioli. Enter the “Man with the Iron Mask.” Pignerol, the prison to which he was consigned, has already been described, and also Saint Mars, his gaoler. The mask was not regularly used at first, but the name of Mattioli was changed on reception to Lestang. We come at once upon evidence that this was no distinguished and favored prisoner. The deference shown him, the silver plate, the fine clothes are fictions destroyed by a letter written by Louvois within a fortnight of the arrest. “It is not the King’s intention,” he writes, “that the Sieur de Lestang should be well treated, or that, except the necessaries of life, you should give him anything to soften his captivity.... You must keep Lestang in the rigorous confinement I enjoined in my previous letters.”
Saint Mars punctiliously obeyed his orders. He was a man of inflexible character, with no bowels of compassion for his charges, and Lestang must have felt the severity of the prison rule. Eight months later the governor reported that Lestang, likewise a fellow prisoner, a monk, who shared his chamber, had gone out of his mind. Both were subject to fits of raving madness. This is the only authentic record of the course of the imprisonment, which lasted fifteen years in this same prison of Pignerol. Saint Mars, in 1681, exchanged his governorship for that of Exiles, another frontier fortress, and was supposed to have carried his masked prisoner with him. This erroneous belief has been disproved by a letter of Saint Mars to the Abbe d’Estrades, discovered in the archives, in which the writer states that he has left Mattioli at Pignerol. There is no attempt at disguise. The name used is Mattioli, not Lestang, and it is clear from collateral evidence that this is the masked man.
Saint Mars was not pleased with Exiles and solicited another transfer which came in his appointment to the command of the castle on the island of Sainte-Marguerite, opposite Cannes and well known to visitors to the French Riviera. The fortress, by the way, has much later interest as Marshal Bazaine’s place of confinement after his trial by court martial for surrendering Metz. It will be remembered, too, that with the connivance of friends Bazaine made his escape from durance, although it may be doubted whether the French Republic was particularly anxious to keep him.
The time at length arrived for Mattioli’s removal from Pignerol. A change had come over the fortunes of France. Louis was no longer the dictator of Europe. Defeated in the field and thwarted in policy, the proud King had to eat humble pie; he was forced to give up Casale, which had come to him after all in spite of Mattioli’s betrayal. Pignerol also went back once more to Italian rule and it must be cleared of French prisoners. One alone remained of any importance, for Fouquet was long since dead and Lauzun released. This was Mattioli, whose illegal seizure and detention it was now more than ever necessary to keep secret. Extreme precautions were taken when making the transfer. A strong detachment of soldiers, headed by guides, escorted the prisoner who was in a litter. The governor of Pignerol (now one Villebois) by his side was the only person permitted to communicate with him. The locks and bolts of his quarters at Pignerol were sent ahead to be used at Sainte-Marguerite and the strictest discipline was maintained on the journey. Mattioli saw no one. His solitude was unbroken save by Saint Mars and the two lieutenants who brought him his food and removed the dishes.