From this period, we hear no more of St. Mars and his prisoners in the published documents, for above three years; his next communication to Louvois being dated Dec. 23d, 1685; in which he informs him that his prisoners are still ill, and in a course of medicine. By the expression still being here used, it would seem as if their malady had been of considerable duration. He continues, “they are, however, perfectly tranquil.”[120] The mention of their present tranquillity is certainly an indication that their insanity had continued, at least at intervals.
Shortly after this, the Jacobin[121] died. Matthioli continued ill; and St. Mars, also finding his own health failing him, he[122] became convinced that the air of Exiles was unwholesome, and petitioned in consequence for a change of government.[123] Lewis upon this appointed him, in 1687, to that of the Islands of St. Margaret and St. Honorat, on the coast of Provence, near Antibes, and ordered him, as before, to take Matthioli with him.
As in the case of his removal to Exiles, so, upon the present occasion, St. Mars went first to look at and prepare the prison at St. Margaret, before he conveyed his prisoner there.[124] Previously, however, to leaving him for that purpose, he writes to Louvois, to assure him once more of the secrecy and security with which he is confined—“I have given such good orders for the guarding of my prisoner, that I can answer for his entire security; as well as for his not now, nor ever, holding any intercourse with my Lieutenant, whom I have forbidden to speak to him, which is punctually obeyed.”[125]
He afterwards writes again to the same Minister, from the Island of St. Margaret, “I promise to conduct my prisoner here in all security, without any one’s seeing or speaking to him. He shall not hear mass after he leaves Exiles, till he is lodged in the prison which is preparing for him here, to which a chapel is attached. I pledge my honour to you for the entire security of my prisoner.”[126]
St. Mars accordingly returned for Matthioli, and conveyed him to his new abode, in the manner he had proposed doing, in his letter to Louvois, of January 20th, 1687—“In a chair, covered with oil-cloth, into which there would enter a sufficiency of air, without its being possible for any one to see or speak to him during the journey, not even the soldiers, whom I shall select to be near the chair.”[127]
In spite of the expectations of St. Mars that, in this mode of conveyance, his prisoner would have air enough, it appears that he complained of the want of it, and soon fell ill in consequence. This is mentioned in a letter of St. Mars, dated May 3d, 1687, giving an account of their arrival at the Island of St. Margaret, and is the last of the correspondence between Louvois and St. Mars respecting Matthioli: “I arrived here the 30th of last month. I was only twelve days on the journey, in consequence of the illness of my prisoner, occasioned, as he said, by not having as much air as he wished. I can assure you that no one has seen him, and that the manner in which I have guarded and conducted him during all the journey, makes every body try to conjecture who my prisoner is.”[128]
It was probably, during this journey, that St. Mars first made use of a mask to hide the features of Matthioli.[129] Not as has been erroneously supposed a mask made of iron, which it will be evident, upon the slightest reflection, could not have been borne upon the face for any long continuance of time, but one of black velvet,[130] strengthened with whalebone, and fastened behind the head with a padlock, which did not prevent the prisoner from eating and drinking, or impede his respiration.[131]
The identity of Matthioli with the prisoner known by the name of “the Iron Mask,” is here very satisfactorily confirmed by circumstantial evidence. We have seen that Matthioli and the Jacobin were placed together at Pignerol; we have seen that they were designated as “the two prisoners in the lower part of the tower;” we have seen that “the two prisoners in the lower part of the tower” were the only ones who accompanied St. Mars when his government was transferred to Exiles; we have seen the death of the Jacobin at the latter place; and now we find St. Mars conveying a single prisoner, designated as “the prisoner,” with him to St. Margaret, with a repetition of the same precautions and of the same secrecy as on former occasions, to which are added the celebrated Mask. Who could this prisoner be but Matthioli? It is also observable, that in all the various accounts of the Iron Mask, though the dates are made to vary, he is always said to have been originally confined at Pignerol, subsequently at the island of St. Margaret, and finally to have accompanied St. Mars to the Bastille.
The prison of Matthioli, at the Island of St. Margaret, was a room lighted by a single window to the north, pierced in a very thick wall, guarded by bars of iron, and looking upon the sea.[132] During his residence in this place, his valet, who, as may be remembered, had been arrested by Estrades, and who had served his master ever since his confinement, died, and was buried at midnight, and with great secrecy. To supply his place, a woman of the neighbourhood was asked if she would undertake to wait upon the prisoner. At first she consented to accept of the place, imagining it might be a means of benefiting her family; but afterwards declined it, upon learning that she was to be cut off from all further intercourse with the world, and never even to see her family again.[133] Whether any one was eventually found to undertake the office, does not appear.