All these formalities having been completed, the governor, with that feeling for good form which characterized the men of the ancien régime, had the man who had been his guest served for the last time with an excellent dinner. If the prisoner was a man of good society, the governor would even go so far as to invite him to his own table, and then, the meal over and the good-byes said, he placed his own carriage at the prisoner’s disposal, and often entered it himself to accompany him to his destination.
More than one prisoner thus restored to the world must have felt greatly embarrassed before a day was past, and have been at a loss what to do or where to go. The administration of the Bastille sometimes gave money to one and another to enable them to get along for a time. In December, 1783, a certain Dubu de la Tagnerette, after being set at liberty, was lodged in the governor’s house for a fortnight until he had found apartments that would suit him. Moreover, many of the prisoners were actually annoyed at being dismissed: we could cite examples of persons who sought to get themselves sent to the Bastille; others refused to accept their liberty, and others did their best to get their detention prolonged.
“Many come out,” says Renneville, “very sad at having to leave.” Le Maistre de Sacy and Fontaine affirm that the years spent at the Bastille were the best years in their lives. “The innocent life we lived,” says Renneville again, “Messieurs Hamilton, Schrader, and myself, seemed so pleasant to M. Hamilton that he begged me to write a description of it in verse.” The Memoirs of Madame de Staal represent her years at the Bastille as the happiest she ever knew. “In my heart of hearts, I was very far from desiring my liberty.” “I stayed at the Bastille for six weeks,” observes the Abbé Morellet, “which sped away—I chuckle still as I think of them—very pleasantly for me.” And later, Dumouriez declares that at the Bastille he was happy and never felt dull.
Such was the rule of the celebrated state prison. In the last century there was no place of detention in Europe where the prisoners were surrounded with so many comforts and attentions: there is no such place in these days.
But in spite of these very real alleviations, it would be absurd to pretend that the prisoners were in general reconciled to their incarceration. Nothing is a consolation for the loss of liberty. How many poor wretches, in their despair, have dashed their heads against the thick walls while wife and children and concerns of the utmost gravity were summoning them from without! The Bastille was the cause of ruin to many; within its walls were shed tears which were never dried.
An eighteenth-century writer thus defined the state prison: “A bastille is any house solidly built, hermetically sealed, and diligently guarded, where any person, of whatever rank, age, or sex, may enter without knowing why, remain without knowing how long, hoping to leave it, but not knowing how.” These lines, written by an apologist for the old state prison, contain its condemnation, without appeal, before the modern mind.
CHAPTER IV.
THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK.
FOR two centuries no question has excited public opinion more than that of the Man in the Iron Mask. The books written on the subject would fill a library. People despaired of ever lifting the veil. “The story of the Iron Mask,” says Michelet, “will probably remain for ever obscure,” and Henri Martin adds: “History has no right to pronounce judgment on what will never leave the domain of conjecture.” To-day, the doubt no longer exists. The problem is solved. Before disclosing the solution which criticism has unanimously declared correct, we propose to transcribe the scanty authentic documents that we possess on the masked man, and then to state the principal solutions which have been proposed, before arriving at the true solution.
1. The Documents.
The Register of the Bastille.—To begin with, let us quote the text which is the origin and foundation of all the works published on the question of the Iron Mask.