[380] Manuscripts of the Imperial Library (500 de Colbert, No. 235, fo. 86 et seq.) This plan has been published by M. P. Clément almost entire in vol. i. p. 41, et seq., of his Histoire de Colbert, and entire by him in the introduction of vol. ii. of the Lettres de Colbert, and in his Police sous Louis XIV., p. 33, et seq. M. Chéruel has also reproduced it entire in Appendix No. vi. of vol. i. of his Mémoires sur Nicolas Fouquet, pp. 488-501. This plan is incontestably authentic, and Fouquet has never denied having written it.
[381] All these facts are in great part proved by the plan, and by other papers found at Saint-Mandé, which are now in the Imperial Library.
[382] Mémoires sur Nicolas Fouquet, pp. 367 to 386.
[383] Histoires de la Détention des Philosophes et des Gens de Lettres, by Delort, vol. i. p. 21.
CHAPTER XVI.
Remark of Fouquet’s Mother—The Prisoner’s Piety—Danger which he escapes at Pignerol—Incessant Supervision over him at La Pérouse, near Pignerol—Excessive Scruples of Saint-Mars—Precautions prescribed by Louvois—Espionage exercised over Fouquet by his Servants and his Confessor—Illnesses of the Prisoner—He devotes himself entirely to Study and to religious Meditations—Works to which he gives himself up—His new Motto—Interest which he continues to take in all his Relations and in Louis XIV.—Saint-Mars’ laconic Answers.
The fortitude with which Fouquet supported adversity has almost caused his contemporaries to forget how he had allowed himself to be blinded and led astray by prosperity. Without exhibiting this excessive indulgence, without going so far as to take the part of the victim against his judges, or to forget his errors and his faults, one cannot prevent oneself from owning that at Pignerol he nobly expiated them by his unceasing resignation, by his firmness and by the elevation of his sentiments.
When Fouquet’s mother heard of his arrest, she threw herself upon her knees, exclaiming: “It is now, O God, that I have hopes of my son’s salvation!”[384] This prayer of a pious woman whom the grandeur of the Surintendant had never dazzled, and whom his dissipation had caused to mourn, was fully answered. If so unhappy as to survive her son and to be ignorant of none of his sufferings, her sorrow may at least have been softened by the thought that the prisoner of Pignerol sought consolation in religion and study. During the early period of his imprisonment at Angers, depressed by misfortune, but sustained by the remembrance of the counsels and the virtues of his mother, he had, in a touching letter imbued with the most pious[385] sentiments, requested a confessor. A terrible danger encountered by him at Pignerol six months after his arrival, and which he escaped as if by a miracle, went to confirm him more completely in these sentiments. In the middle of the month of June, 1665, a thunderbolt fell upon the donjon of the citadel and set fire to the powder-magazine. A portion of the donjon was blown down, and a large number of soldiers were entombed beneath the ruins. Fouquet’s chamber was reached by the explosion. Some of the walls fell and the furniture was shattered to pieces. Saint-Mars thought that his prisoner was killed. But he was found in the embrasure of a projecting window, and had not even received a bruise.[386] As the repairs in the donjon necessitated by this disaster could not be completed in less than a year, Fouquet, by orders of Louis XIV. and Louvois,[387] was transferred for a time to the neighbouring château of La Pérouse.
Here commenced the attempts made by the prisoner, not so much to escape—he could not be mistaken as to the impossibility of succeeding in this—as to write to his mother and his wife, and to obtain from them letters expected in vain since his departure from Paris. “I have received the letters written by M. Fouquet,” Louvois informs Saint-Mars, July 26. “The King has seen the whole, and was not surprised that he should do his utmost to obtain news, and that you exert all your efforts to prevent his receiving it.”[388] “To give and receive news:” such, indeed, was Fouquet’s most lively and very natural desire. In order to satisfy it, he made the most industrious efforts and showed the most ingenious patience. With soot mixed with a few drops of water he made ink, a fowl’s bone served him for a pen, and he wrote upon a handkerchief, which he afterwards concealed in the back of his chair.[389] He managed even to compound an ink, which he employed to cover the margin of a book with some lines of writing that became visible only after being warmed.[390] But Saint-Mars’[391] vigilance frustrated these attempts. He soon discovered the hidden handkerchief, and not content with sending this alone to the King, also forwarded the clumsy implements fabricated and used by his prisoner.[392] The latter having afterwards written upon ribbons, black ones only were in future given him, and his garments were, moreover, lined with stuff of the same colour. From this period he became the object of a still closer surveillance, the proof of which we find in the numerous letters exchanged between Louvois and Saint-Mars. Like all timorous people, Saint-Mars was absolutely wanting in the spirit of initiation, and took delight in having recourse to his chief. He possessed no ambitious desire of exhibiting his zeal, but only an imperious need of dissipating his alarms and of relieving himself from responsibility. It did not suffice this timid gaoler to adopt the most minute precautions with respect to his prisoner. He recounted them in his correspondence with the Minister, with the view of obtaining fresh orders, or of receiving an approval which might calm his uneasiness. It was in this spirit that he begged Louvois to authorise him to have a salt-cellar made for Fouquet out of his two broken candlesticks.[393] It was in this spirit also that after having prevented his prisoner’s servant from giving an alms, considering it suspicious, he consulted the Minister on the subject, and solicited his advice.[394]
These excessive scruples sometimes caused him to be wanting in humanity. He one day considered it necessary to ask Louvois for an authorisation to have a sick prisoner bled, and the Minister, on according it twenty days afterwards, added: “Whenever such circumstances occur, you can have [the prisoner] treated and doctored as may be needful without awaiting orders for it.”[395] The puerile questions and the demands for fresh instructions became so frequent, that the Minister was compelled to write to Saint-Mars: “I have received your two last letters. They oblige me to tell you that, as the King has charged you with the care of Mons. Fouquet, his Majesty has no new orders to give you to prevent his escape, or his sending or receiving letters.”[396] This outburst is so much the more significant as Louvois, very prone and qualified to enter into the slightest details, and an imperious and most exacting chief, accustomed all his subordinates to extreme deference, and to having incessant recourse to his authority. But in this case the Minister’s prejudices were outstripped, and Saint-Mars alone perhaps had the power to wear out by his pertinacity him who on ordinary occasions was most desirous of being consulted. Moreover, we must admit, it was the only instance in which the Minister manifested his displeasure. He habitually replied with care to every detail comprised in the letters from the commandant of Pignerol, and he sometimes even rivalled him in his want of confidence. Thus it was that in December, 1670, Fouquet, who was ill, having obtained authority to have a prescription drawn up by Pecquet, his former medical attendant, Louvois sent it to Saint-Mars with these words: “As soon as you have received it, you will make a very exact copy. You will show the original to M. Fouquet, and you and he will compare it with the copy which you will leave with him. You will then burn the original. By this means the said Sieur Fouquet having seen it will have no doubt, and you having burnt it will have no anxiety about it.”[397] On another occasion, when sending a chest of tea for Fouquet, Louvois prescribed to Saint-Mars: “To empty it into another receptacle, and to take away the chest, and the paper which may be within the chest, so as to leave to M. Fouquet the said tea only.”[398] Never were orders more agreeable or more faithfully executed. These precautions of Louvois encouraged Saint-Mars’ distrust, who thus found himself supported in his conduct by that authority, most persuasive when it emanates from one above us in station, namely, example.