“My Lord Worcester, who all this time appeared to be in deep thought, asked to see the book, and after having read a few pages, said, ‘This man is not mad, and in my country, instead of being shut up in a lunatic asylum he would be laden with wealth. Take me to him, I wish to question him. He was conducted to his cell, but came back looking grave and sad. ‘Now he is quite mad,’ said he, ‘it is you who have made him so; misfortune and confinement have completely destroyed his reason; but when you put him into that cell you enclosed in it the greatest genius of your epoch.’ Thereupon we took our leave, and since then he speaks of no one but Salomon de Caus.[37] Adieu my dear and loyal Henry; return soon, and do not be so happy where you are, as to forget that a little love must be left for me. Marion Delorme.”
The success obtained by this fictitious letter was immense and lasting. The anecdote became very popular, and was copied into standard works, represented in engravings, chased on silver goblets, &c. At length some incredulous critics examined more closely into the matter, and found that not only had Salomon de Caus never been confined in a lunatic asylum, but that he had held the appointment of engineer and architect to Louis XIII. up to the time of his death, in 1630, while Marion Delorme is asserted to have visited Bicêtre in 1641!!
On tracing this hoax to its source, we find that M. Henri Berthoud, a literary man of some repute and a constant contributor to the Musée des Familles, confesses that the letter imputed to Marion, was in fact written by himself. The editor of this journal had requested Gavarni to furnish him with a drawing for a tale in which a madman was introduced looking through the bars of his cell. The drawing was executed and engraved, but arrived too late; and the tale, which could not wait, appeared without the illustration. However, as the wood-engraving was effective, and moreover was paid for, the editor was unwilling that it should be useless. Berthoud was therefore commissioned to look for a subject and to invent a story to which the engraving might be applied.
Strangely enough, the world refused to believe in M. Berthoud’s confession, so great a hold had the anecdote taken on the public mind; and a Paris newspaper went so far even as to declare that the original autograph of this letter was to be seen in a library in Normandy! M. Berthoud wrote again denying its existence, and offered a million of francs to any one who would produce the said letter.
From that time the affair was no more spoken of, and Salomon de Caus was allowed to remain in undisputed possession of his fame as having been the first to point out the use of steam in his work Les raisons des forces mouvantes. He had previously been employed as engineer to Henry Prince of Wales,[38] son of James I., and he published in London a folio volume, “La perspective, avec les raisons des ombres et miroirs.”
In his dedication of another work to the queen of England in 1614, we find some allusion made to the construction of hydraulic machines. On his return to France he, as we said before, was appointed engineer to Louis XIII., and was doubtless encouraged by Cardinal Richelieu, that great patron of arts and letters.
In the castle of Heidelberg we find another instance of the difficulty that exists in uprooting an historical error. There is in the Galerie des Antiquités of this castle a portrait on wood of Salomon de Caus. Above this portrait is exhibited a folio volume of this author, the Hortus Palatinus, Francofurti 1620, apud Joh. Theod. de Bry, with plates. A manuscript note that accompanies this volume, mentions that the letter of Marion Delorme describing the madman of Bicêtre was extracted from the Gazette de France of 3rd March 1834.
Is it not singular that Heidelberg still remains in ignorance of the truth respecting this absurd story, and that the extract from the Gazette de France is still permitted to mislead the public?
As recently also as the 30th September 1865, at a banquet given at Limoges, M. le Vicomte de la Guéronnière, a senator and a man of letters, who presided, made a speech which was reproduced in the Moniteur and in which he repeats the anecdote of Salomon de Caus and Bicêtre. The newspaper L’Intermédiaire, in its 45th number, of the 10th November 1865, designates this persistence in error as inept and stupid.
The works of de Caus were held in high estimation among learned men during the whole of the 17th century. He had however been anticipated in the discovery of the application of the power of steam for propelling large bodies.