FOOTNOTES:
[443] Histoire de l’Homme au Masque de Fer, by M. Paul Lacroix (Bibliophile Jacob). Paris, 1840.
[444] Loisirs d’un Patriote Français, number of August 13, 1789. This card found amongst the papers of the Bastille, and which the journalist attests having seen, also bore the number 64,389,000.
[445] Histoire de l’Homme au Masque de Fer, p. 175.
[446] “The King having ordered me to have one Eustache d’Auger taken to Pignerol, it is of the utmost importance that on his arrival he should be guarded with great security, and not allowed to give information of his whereabouts in any manner whatever. I give you notice of this in advance in order that you may prepare a cell in which you will confine him securely, taking care to arrange that the openings for light of the place, in which he will be, may not look upon places where any one may come, and that there be enough closed doors so that our sentinels may not be able to hear anything:”—Letter from Louvois to Saint-Mars, July 19, 1669.
These infinite precautions were indeed a form of style. They are to be found in the orders given to Marshal d’Estrades, in those which are contained in the Registers of the Secretary’s Office of the King’s Household, and in those which are found in the Correspondance Administrative sous Louis XIV. See this correspondence published by Depping in the collection of the Documents inédits pour l’Histoire de France. See also, Imperial Library, manuscripts, Papiers d’Estrades, vol. xii., and Registers of the Secretary’s Office, 6653.
[447] M. Camille Rousset gives a number of proofs of the extreme pleasure that Louvois found in a combination and excess of precautions. (See notably vol. iii. p. 38, et seq. of his Histoire de Louvois.)
[448] Chapter V. of the present work. See [pp. 62, 63,] ante.
[449] Histoire de l’Homme au Masque de Fer, p. 233.
[450] Ibid., p. 229.