In Book III of Cæsar’s Commentaries on the Gallic War (MS. edition, Alexandria), it is stated that, after the defeat of Veridovix by G. Titullius Sabinus, the chief of the Caleti was brought before Cæsar and that, for his ransom, he revealed the secret of the Needle—
The Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte, between Charles the Simple and Rollo, the chief of the Norse barbarians, gives Rollo’s name followed by all his titles, among which we read that of Master of the Secret of the Needle.
The Saxon Chronicle (Gibson’s edition, page 134), speaking of William the Conqueror, says that the staff of his banner ended in a steel point pierced with an eye, like a needle.
In a rather ambiguous phrase in her examination, Joan of Arc admits that she has still a great secret to tell the King of France. To which her judges reply, “Yes, we know of what you speak; and that, Joan, is why you shall die the death.”
Philippe de Comines mentions it in connection with Louis XI., and, later, Sully in connection with Henry IV.: “By the virtue of the Needle!” the good king sometimes swears.
Between these two, Francis I., in a speech addressed to the notables of the Havre, in 1520, uttered this phrase, which has been handed down in the diary of a Honfleur burgess; “The Kings of France carry secrets that often decide the conduct of affairs and the fate of towns.”
All these quotations, all the stories relating to the Iron Mask, the captain of the guards and his descendant, I have found to-day in a pamphlet written by this same descendant and published in the month of June, 1815, just before or just after the battle of Waterloo, in a period, therefore, of great upheavals, in which the revelations which it contained were likely to pass unperceived.
What is the value of this pamphlet? Nothing, you will tell me, and we must attach no credit to it. And this is the impression which I myself would have carried away, if it had not occurred to me to open Cæsar’s Commentaries at the chapter given. What was my astonishment when I came upon the phrase quoted in the little book before me! And it was the same thing with the Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte, with the Saxon Chronicle, with the examination of Joan of Arc, in short, with all that I have been able to verify up to the present.
Lastly, there is an even more precise fact related by the author of the pamphlet of 1815. During the French campaign, he being then an officer under Napoleon, his horse dropped dead, one evening, and he rang at the door of a castle where he was received by an old knight of St. Louis. And, in the course of conversation with the old man, he learnt that this castle, standing on the bank of the Creuse, was called the Château de l’Aiguille, that it had been built and christened by Louis XIV., and that, by his express order, it was adorned with turrets and with a spire which represented the Needle. As its date it bore, it must still bear, the figure 1680.
1680! One year after the publication of the book and the imprisonment of the Iron Mask! Everything was now explained: Louis XIV., foreseeing that the secret might be noised abroad, had built and named that castle so as to offer the quidnuncs a natural explanation of the ancient mystery. The Hollow Needle! A castle with pointed bell-turrets standing on the bank of the Creuse and belonging to the King. People would at once think that they had the key to the riddle and all enquiries would cease.