“The same day, Monday, 19th of November, 1703, the prisoner unknown, masked always with a mask of black velvet, whom M. de Saint-Mars, the governor, brought with him from the Isles of Sainte-Marguerite, and whom he had had for a long time, happening to be rather unwell yesterday on coming from Mass, died this day at about ten o’clock in the evening, without having had any serious illness; indeed, it could not have been slighter. M. Giraut, our chaplain, confessed him yesterday. Surprised by death, he did not receive the Sacraments, and our chaplain exhorted him for a moment before he died. And this unknown prisoner, confined for so long a time, was buried on Tuesday at four in the afternoon, in the cemetery of Saint Paul, our parish; on the register of burial he was given a name also unknown. M. de Rosarges, major, and Arreil, surgeon, signed the register.”
At the lower left-hand side of this entry in Du Junca’s prison-registry there is a note to the effect that:
“I have since learned that he was named on the register M. de Marchiel, and that the burial cost forty livres.”
As a matter of fact, the entry in the registry of Saint Paul’s runs as follows:
“On the 19th (November, 1703) Marchioly, aged forty-five or thereabouts, died in the Bastile, whose body was buried in the cemetery of Saint Paul, his parish, the 20th of this month in the presence of M. Rosage (sic), major of the Bastile, and of M. Reglhe (sic), surgeon-major of the Bastile, who signed:
“Signed: Rosarges, Reilhe.”
After seeing how Du Junca makes “Marcheil” where the sacristan of Saint Paul makes the name “Marchioly,” it is presumable that Du Junca learned it by word of mouth from some one or other; also that the name itself had been communicated to Du Junca’s informant in the same manner by Rosarges or Reilhe or the sacristan—in short, that, all along, the name was an unintentional corruption of “Mattioli.” And so good-bye to his competitors, in the popular imagination, to the title of “Man in the Iron Mask,” Vermandois, Monmouth, Vendôme, Fouquet, an unknown twin brother of Louis XIV, Avedick, the Armenian patriarch, General de Bulonde, and the rest. I would once more recommend to all interested in the subject Mr. Tighe Hopkins’ altogether admirable publication in which he traces and destroys the claims of each and every one of these candidates to be what he so aptly terms “The Sphinx of French History.”
CHAPTER XV A “CAUSE CÉLÈBRE”
The Defrêne Case, a Drama of Crime and of Justice—The Marquis Defrêne—Marie-Elizabeth du Tillay—Elopement—Bogus Marriage—Flight to England—Marriage Made Legal—The Marquis Tires of the Marriage State—Evil Plans—Marie-Elizabeth Forewarned—Adventures of Her Flight—The “Penitent” Defrêne—Compromising Letters—The Vindication of Marie-Elizabeth—A Judicial Separation.
The name of that same Duchess-Regent of Savoy, Maria Baptista of Nemours, the cause of Mattioli’s downfall in 1679, had figured in connection with another and now long forgotten “cause célèbre” some few years earlier, in 1672—the drama of crime and of justice known to legal annalists as the “Defrêne Case.”