The man with the iron mask

by Marius Topin

This narration, which for the first time presented to public curiosity the anecdote of the Man with the Iron Mask, at once furnished food for conversation and became the subject of the most lively controversies. Several distinguished critics hastened to adopt the opinion it expressed, while others combated it, and for a long time the Année Littéraire of Fréron was the theatre of a debate which had the savants and the curious of the whole world for attentive audience. Voltaire himself, in introducing for the first time the hypothesis which makes the Man with the Iron Mask a brother of Louis XIV., did not succeed in stifling an opinion which had secured a clever defender. Father Griffet, a patient disciple of Father Daniel, and the author of an excellent Histoire de Louis XIII., published in 1765, in his fine Traité des Différentes Sortes des Preuves qui servent à établir la Vérité dans l’Histoire, a long dissertation upon the Man with the Iron Mask, and in it pronounced resolutely for the Count de Vermandois. What proofs, or at least what probabilities, did he invoke?

He bases his argument upon the Mémoires de Mademoiselle de Montpensier, in which we read that “when Vermandois left for the siege of Courtray, he had not long returned to the court; that the King had been displeased with his conduct and would not see him, on account of his having been mixed up with parties of debauchery; that since that time he had lived in a very retired manner, and only went out to go to the Academy[123] and to mass in the morning; that those whose company he had been keeping were not agreeable to the King, which caused much grief to Mademoiselle de la Vallière, by whom he was well scolded.”[124] Father Griffet added that, long before the publication of the Mémoires Secrets de Perse, a rumour had spread that the Count de Vermandois had been guilty, before his departure for the army, of some great crime, such as a blow given to the Dauphin. “It had been generally spoken of,” says he, “on the strength of one of those traditions which have need, indeed, of being proved, but which are not necessarily false; the remembrance of this one had always been preserved, although there was not much noise made about it in the time of the late King, for fear of displeasing him; of this many people who lived under his reign can bear witness.” The learned historian found another argument in the very name under which the prisoner of Saint-Mars was inscribed in the registers of the Church of Saint-Paul, the letters which form this name of Marchiali being those of the two words hic amiral, and designating thus by an anagram the high dignity of the son of Mademoiselle de la Vallière. Finally, he published in the Année Littéraire a second tradition, according to which “on the very day the body of the Count de Vermandois was to be transported to Arras, there left the camp, by a by-way, a litter in which it was believed there was a prisoner of importance, although the rumour was spread that the military chest was enclosed in it.”

Of all these allegations, the only one that deserves to be discussed is that which, reposing upon special evidence, namely, the Mémoires de Mademoiselle de Montpensier, shows us the Count de Vermandois, fallen into disgrace with Louis XIV. for having mixed himself up in certain debaucheries, and starting almost at once for Courtray, where he was to meet his death. One certainly finds no allusion to “a great crime” committed by Vermandois upon the person of his legitimate brother, and this very silence would suffice to invalidate the pretended tradition invoked by Father Griffet. But as, from another point of view, these Mémoires furnish a kind of basis for his argument, reveal a stain on the memory of Vermandois, and indicate a period at which the offence might have been possible, it is essential the value of this evidence should be weighed.

In his Traité des Différentes Sortes de Preuves qui servent à établir la Vérité dans l’Histoire, Father Griffet himself very judiciously remarks that before adopting the opinion of a writer upon an individual whose contemporary he had been, it is desirable to examine whether he had not a powerful interest either to praise or to blame him. Father Griffet displayed more prudent sagacity when he enunciated this excellent precept than when he neglected to apply it to the Mémoires de Mademoiselle de Montpensier. He ought to have shown this romantic princess in her true light, endowed with a too lively imagination, whose self-esteem rendered her extremely accessible to the influence of others and incapable of protecting herself against interested suggestions; whom Madame de Montespan and Madame de Maintenon, by incessant attentions and delicate and careful acts of civility, easily gained over to their long-time common cause; and, in a word, whose credulous mind was entrapped by Madame de Maintenon in favour of the children of whom she was governess, and whom Madame de Montespan had had by Louis XIV. To love these, and above all the awkward Duke du Maine, must have led her almost infallibly to repulse the highly-gifted son of Mademoiselle de la Vallière, who had the least intriguing and the most disinterested of the royal favourites for mother, whilst his brother, better seconded, received from those surrounding him advice suitable to gain the heart, and perhaps one day assure him the immense fortune,[125] of the opulent cousin of Louis XIV. To attain this object, to influence her, as was done, in favour of a child deprived of all attractive qualities, they did not hesitate dictating for her the most affectionate letters to the Duke du Maine, pointing out to him the steps most likely to please her, and suggesting to him filial sentiments for a Princess whom they ended by inspiring with a veritable maternal love, of which Mademoiselle de Montpensier had all the jealousy, at first provoked but afterwards spontaneous, and which led her to detest the brilliant rival of the very insignificant but attentive Duke du Maine. This sentiment breaks out in several parts of her Mémoires. “It seemed to me,” she remarks, “that it was in order to disparage M. du Maine people said that no one would ever equal M. de Vermandois.” And elsewhere, “I was not vexed at the death of M. de Vermandois, I was well pleased that M. du Maine had nothing to do with his affairs.”[126] How, after this, can we put faith in such suspicious testimony? There is nothing to prove and nothing to disprove that Vermandois may have been led away by youth into being present at some dissolute pleasure-party unknown to the King, and that he may have incurred the latter’s reproaches by this conduct. But his disgrace and the causes to which it is ascribed, his hasty departure, his father refusing to see him and banishing him from his presence, Mademoiselle de la Vallière in distress: all these circumstances, which are only to be found in the Mémoires of the adoptive mother of the Duke du Maine—must we accept them when impartial witnesses bestow unqualified praises upon the Count de Vermandois[127] and relate nothing that can tarnish his memory? Must we accept them when, some days after this pretended disgrace, and at the first news of what was thought to be only a slight indisposition, Louis XIV. writes to the Marquis de Montchevreuil to cause Vermandois to return at once to the court, in order that greater care may be taken of him and that he may more thoroughly recover.[128]

Is there any need to set forth the impossibility of admitting that of two sons of Louis XIV., one, the Grand-Dauphin, the heir to the crown, could have received from the other the gravest of insults, in the midst of the court and at the end of a violent discussion, without any contemporary writer having spoken of an event which would have had an inevitable celebrity? In order to make this circumstance appear less improbable, the Mémoires de Perse represent Vermandois as fiery, haughty, and unsubmissive to a brother who would one day be his king, whereas the most unexceptionable testimony[129] establishes the fact that he was mild, affable, full of deference, and only anxious to acquire glory. The author of these Mémoires, in order to render a dispute between the two brothers more plausible, asserts, in addition, that they were of the same age, instead of which there were six years between them; and, at the period when this passionate act is ascribed to him, Vermandois was barely sixteen, while the Dauphin was already the father of the Duke de Bourgogne.

There remains his premature death. Tacitus has said that when princes or extraordinary men die young, one finds it difficult to believe that they have been carried off by a natural course. This remark applies with justice to all epochs, and in our annals how many crimes are there, imagined by popular passion and credited through the ignorance of the time, of which a healthy criticism, aided by the progress of medical science,[130] has in our days acquitted the pretended authors? Is there, in the last moments of Vermandois and in the transport of his remains to Arras, where he was buried, the smallest circumstance that can allow the most credulous mind to retain a single doubt, and to suppose that he left the camp of Courtray alive to be confided to the guardianship of Saint-Mars?

On November 6, 1683, the Count de Vermandois takes to his bed at Courtray. Ill for several days before, he has concealed his condition in order not to quit the army, and to be able to assist at the attack on the faubourg of Menin, where he displayed the highest courage.

Consumed by fever, he is at length compelled to separate from the first corps-d’armée, which is about to form the camp of Harlebeck. Marshal d’Humières had had the intention of causing him to be transported to Lille, and with this object had already made arrangements with the Marquis de Montchevreuil.[131] But a speedy aggravation of the invalid’s condition hinders the execution of this project. On the 8th bleeding relieves him;[132] but, on the 12th, Marshal d’Humières writes to Louvois that there are grounds for considerable uneasiness.[133] On the 13th Boufflers writes to the court that, the head of Vermandois commencing to be affected by the disease, bleeding from the feet has become necessary.[134] On the 14th Marshal d’Humières, who had come to Courtray from the camp of Rousselaer, of which he is commander, finds Vermandois at the worst, the doctors very undecided, “and not daring to resort to extreme remedies.” They determine to try them, however, but, doubtless, too late; for, after a tolerably favourable day, during which the fever seemed to diminish and the brain to become clearer, a violent agitation ensues, abundant perspiration exhausts the patient,[135] and, on the 16th, Boufflers announces that Vermandois has just received the last communion,[136] and that there is no longer any hope except in his youth. At the moment that he was writing this letter, Madame de Maintenon wrote to Madame de Brinon:[137] “M. de Vermandois is very ill; have our great saint prayed to for him.” Vain hope, useless prayers! On November 18 the son of La Vallière died of a malignant fever, surrounded by Marshal d’Humières, whom he had begged to remain near him, the Marquis de Montchevreuil, and Lieutenant-General Boufflers.[138] In the camp the grief was general, and the troops wept for him, for the good which he had done and the great things he had promised. At the court the impressions were various. The Hôtel de Condé deeply regretted this death, because the Prince was betrothed to Mademoiselle de Bourbon. The Princess de Conti, sister to Vermandois, was inconsolable.[139]

Louis XIV., much more sensitive than tender, and whose grief relieved itself all at once in a flood of tears which was of very short duration, had, moreover, already shown in favour of the children he had had by Madame de Montespan a sentiment of predilection which was to survive their mother’s disgrace, and which Madame de Maintenon, their former governess, carefully cherished. As to Mademoiselle de la Vallière, Voltaire has said,[140] and it has been often repeated after him, that she exclaimed on learning the fatal news: “It is not his death that I should lament, but his birth.” This exclamation is not true; it is not that of a mother. That the pious Carmelite offered as a sacrifice this new blow that smote her, that she accepted it as an additional expiation for her faults, one may admit. But that her tears only flowed because she had brought Vermandois into the world, that, at the announcement of the most painful of afflictions, she was so little crushed by it as to be able to utter such words, is what no mother will believe. How much more acceptable is that testimony which Madame de Sevigné bears in saying “that she perfectly tempered her maternal love with that of the spouse of Jesus Christ.” “Mademoiselle de la Vallière is all day at the foot of the crucifix,” says the Présidente d’Osembray[141] on December 22. This is the true language of two mothers speaking of another mother who had just lost her son.

Pompous obsequies were performed over the remains of the son of Louis XIV. On November 21, the King sent word to the Chapter of Arras that the body of the Count de Vermandois would be transported to that town and buried in the choir of its cathedral church.[142] On the 24th, the mayors and échevins, bearing wax tapers, proceed to the Méaulens Gate, where are already assembled the governors of the town and citadel, all the officers of the staff, the clergy of the different parishes, and the friars of the mendicant orders. The infantry line the road from the entrance of the town to the cathedral.[143] At noon the roar of cannon and the tolling of bells announces the arrival of the remains, which are contained in a coach hung with black cloth, and escorted by the cavalry of the garrison. The Bishop of Arras, clothed in his pontifical robes, and his chapter, advance in procession and receive the body, which, removed from the coach, is borne by canons, and followed by the officers of the Council of Artois, those of the bailiwick, and all the other dignitaries of the county. Until Saturday the 27th, the day fixed for the solemn service, masses were said without intermission from six o’clock till noon in the Chapel of Saint-Vaast, where the body had been placed, and the canons and chaplains succeeded each other in praying there, the first during the day, the others during the night.[144] They selected, in the middle of the choir of the cathedral, in the place of “the angel,” the spot that appeared most distinguished for the inhumation, for, five hundred years before, it had served for the interment of Isabelle de Vermandois, wife of Philip d’Alsace, Count of Flanders, and descendant in the direct line of Henri I., King of France. The last ceremony was worthy, in its pomp and splendour, of the King who had commanded it, and of the Prince in whose honour it was performed. The choir and the nave of the cathedral, entirely hung with black velvet, upon which shone silver escutcheons emblazoned with the arms of Vermandois, the lugubrious harmony of the service, the funereal light of the tapers, the sad and silent troops, the spectators all clothed in mourning, and, still more than these external signs, a sincere grief manifesting itself, especially amongst the gentlemen of the Prince’s suite, in tears and sobs; such is the spectacle that the interior of the cathedral church of Arras presents on November 27, 1683.