Let us hasten to say that he has completely succeeded. There is no need for us to return to that one of these two theories which makes the Man with the Iron Mask a brother of Louis XIV.[559] But with reference to the other, which represents Matthioly as being the masked prisoner, M. Loiseleur’s refutation of it is very remarkable; and the researches which we have made, as well as the new documents which we have brought to light, confirm what his clear-sighted sagacity had enabled him to discover. “December 23, 1685,” says M. Loiseleur, “Saint-Mars writes from Exiles to Louvois, ‘My prisoners are always ill and taking remedies. For the rest, they are very quiet.’ We possess no official document relating to what passed at Exiles during the year 1686; but it was in this year, as we are about to establish, that Matthioly’s death took place. On January 20, 1687, Saint-Mars learns that the King has just conferred on him the governorship of the Isles Honorat and Sainte-Marguerite. He hastens to thank Louvois for it, and adds, ‘I shall give my orders for the care of my prisoner so well,’ &c. &c.”
Thence M. Loiseleur concludes that either in 1686, or in January, 1687, one of the two prisoners had died.[560] He also adduces the testimony of Father Papon, of the Oratory, who, visiting the Isles Sainte-Marguerite, in 1778, questioned an officer there named Claude Souchon, then seventy-nine years old, and whose father had formed one of the free company of the islands in the time of Saint-Mars. Now, both in a memorandum drawn up at the request of the Marquis de Castellane, governor of the islands, and in his replies to Father Papon, the Sieur Souchon said he had heard from his father that the envoy of the Empire—the Duke of Mantua was a prince of the Empire—carried off by order of Louis XIV., died nine years after his arrest—that is to say, in 1688.[561] Muratori relates this tradition, and it is also confirmed by the fact “that the name of Matthioly disappeared entirely from Saint-Mars’ correspondence previous to his departure from Exiles.”
The following despatches from Louvois to Saint-Mars, till now unpublished, justify M. Loiseleur’s suppositions:—
“Fontainebleau. October 9, 1686.
“I have received the letter that you have written to me the 26th of last month, which requires no answer except to say that you should have named to me which of your prisoners it is that has become dropsical.”
“Fontainebleau, November 3, 1686.
“I have received your letter of the 4th of last month. It is right to cause that one of your two prisoners who has become dropsical to confess, when you perceive the appearance of an approaching death. Till then neither he nor his companion must have any communication.”
“Versailles, January 13, 1687.
“I have received your letter of the 5th of this month, by which I learn the death of one of your prisoners. I do not reply to you concerning your desire to change your government, because you have since learnt that the King has granted you one more important[562] than yours, with a good climate, at which I am delighted, and I rejoice again with you at the share which I have taken in what concerns you.”[563]
Thus we see that the death of one of the two prisoners brought by Saint-Mars from Pignerol to Exiles is undeniable. Supposing that we reject the testimony of the Sieur Souchon—which, although not possessing the character of an official document, does not the less deserve the most serious attention—supposing that we are not absolutely convinced that the prisoner who died of dropsy was Matthioly, it is, nevertheless, necessary to admit that the fact of this death places in the greatest uncertainty and almost entirely destroys the value of the theory put forward by Baron d’Heiss, De Chambrier, Reth, Roux-Fazillac, Delort, Depping, and Rousset. How, in fact, can one now insist that Matthioly was the Man with the Iron Mask, who mysteriously entered the Bastille September 18, 1698, when we see that he was confided to the care of Saint-Mars along with another prisoner; that one of the two captives died in 1687; and that from this time the name of the Mantuan Minister altogether disappears from the correspondence of Louvois and Saint-Mars? After having attentively read M. Loiseleur’s work, and especially after having found the despatches confirming the essential portions of it, I by no means arrived at the conclusion that Catinat in 1681 abducted some spy, the fact of whose arrest or even existence is altogether devoid of proof; but I acquired the conviction that this problem would never receive a definitive solution, and that it was impossible to disperse the mysterious gloom with which the Man with the Iron Mask was surrounded.