Modern criticism, however, has narrowed the issue. The “man in the mask” was either (1) Count Mattioli, who became the prisoner of Saint-Mars at Pignerol in 1679, or (2) the person called Eustache Dauger, who was imprisoned in July 1669 in the same fortress. The evidence shows conclusively that these two were the only prisoners under Saint-Mars at Pignerol who could have been taken by him to the Bastille in 1698. The arguments in favour of Mattioli (first suggested by Heiss, and strongly supported by Topin in 1870) are summed up, with much weight of critical authority, by F. Funck-Brentano in vol. lvi. of the Revue historique (1894); the claims of Eustache Dauger were no less ably advocated by J. Lair in vol. ii. of his Nicolas Foucquet (1890). But while we know who Mattioli was, and why he was imprisoned, a further question still remains for supporters of Dauger, because his identity and the reason for his incarceration are quite obscure.
It need only be added, so far as other modern theories are concerned, that in 1873 M. Jung (La Vérité sur la masque de fer) had brought forward another candidate, with the attractive name of “Marechiel,” a soldier of Lorraine who had taken part in a poisoning plot against Louis XIV., and was arrested at Peronne by Louvois in 1673, and said to be lodged in the Bastille and then sent to Pignerol. But Jung’s arguments, though strong destructively against the Mattioli theory, break down as regards any valid proof either that the prisoner arrested at Peronne was a Bastille prisoner in 1673 or that he was ever at Pignerol, where indeed we find no trace of him. Another theory, propounded by Captain Bazeries (La Masque de fer, 1883), identified the prisoner with General du Bulonde, punished for cowardice at the siege of Cuneo; but Bulonde only went to Pignerol in 1691, and has been proved to be living in 1705.
The Mattioli Theory.—Ercole Antonio Mattioli (born at Bologna on the 1st of December 1640) was minister of Charles IV., duke of Mantua, who as marquess of Montferrat was in possession of the frontier fortress of Casale, which was coveted by Louis XIV. He negotiated the sale of Casale to the French king for 100,000 crowns, and himself received valuable presents from Louis. But on the eve of the occupation of Casale by the French, Mattioli—actuated by a tardy sense of patriotism or by the hope of further gain—betrayed the transaction to the governments of Austria, Spain, Venice and Savoy. Louis, in revenge, had him kidnapped (1679) by the French envoy, J. F. d’Estrades, abbé of Moissac, and Mattioli was promptly lodged in the fortress of Pignerol. This kidnapping of Mattioli, however, was no secret, and it was openly discussed in La Prudenza trionfante di Casale (Cologne, 1682), where it was stated that Mattioli was masked when he was arrested. In February 1680 he is described as nearly mad, no doubt from the effects of solitary confinement. When Saint-Mars was made governor of Exiles in 1681 we know from one of his letters that Mattioli was left at Pignerol; but in March 1694, Pignerol being about to be given up by France to Savoy, he and two other prisoners were removed with much secrecy to Ste Marguerite, where Saint-Mars had been governor since 1687. Funck-Brentano emphasizes the fact that, although Eustache Dauger was then at Ste Marguerite, the king’s minister Barbezieux, writing to Saint-Mars (March 20, 1694) about the transfer of these prisoners, says: “You know that they are of more consequence (plus de conséquence), at least one” (presumably Mattioli), “than those who are at present at the island.” From this point, however, the record is puzzling. A month after his arrival at Ste Marguerite, a prisoner who had a valet died there.[1] Now Mattioli undoubtedly had a valet at Pignerol, and nobody else at Ste Marguerite is known at this time to have had one; so that he may well have been the prisoner who died. In that case he was clearly not “the mask” of 1698 and 1703. Funck-Brentano’s attempt to prove that Mattioli did not die in 1604 is far from convincing; but the assumption that he did is inferential, and to that extent arguable. “Marchioly” in the burial register of Saint Paul naturally suggests indeed at first that the “ancien prisonnier” taken by Saint-Mars to the Bastille in 1698 was Mattioli, Saint-Mars himself sometimes writing the name “Marthioly” in his letters; but further consideration leaves this argument decidedly weak. In any case the age stated in the burial register, “about 45,” was fictitious, whether for Mattioli (63) or Dauger (at least 53); and, as Lair points out, Saint-Mars is known to have given false names at the burial of other prisoners. Monsignor Barnes, in The Man of the Mask (1908), takes the entry “Marchioly” as making it certain that the prisoner was not Mattioli, on the ground (1) that the law[2] explicitly ordered a false name to be given, and (2) that after hiding his identity so carefully the authorities were not likely to give away the secret by means of a burial register.
In spite of Funck-Brentano it appears practically certain that Mattioli must be ruled out. If he was the individual who died in 1703 at the Bastille, the obscurity which gathered round the nameless masked prisoner is almost incomprehensible, for there was no real secret about Mattioli’s incarceration. The existence of a “legend” as to Dauger can, however, be traced, as will be seen below, from the first. Any one who accepts the Mattioli theory must be driven, as Lang suggests, to suppose that the mystery which grew up about the unknown prisoner was somehow transferred to Mattioli from Dauger.
The Dauger Theory.—What then was Dauger’s history? Unfortunately it is only in his capacity as a prisoner that we can trace it. On the 19th of July 1669 Louvois, Louis XIV.’s minister, writes to Saint-Mars at Pignerol that he is sending him “le nommé Eustache Dauger” (Dauger, D’Angers—the spelling is doubtful),[3] whom it is of the last importance to keep with special closeness; Saint-Mars is to threaten him with death if he speaks about anything except his actual needs. On the same day Louvois orders Vauroy, major of the citadel of Dunkirk, to seize Dauger and conduct him to Pignerol. Saint-Mars writes to Louvois (Aug. 21) that Vauroy had brought Dauger, and that people “believe him to be a marshal of France.” Louvois (March 26, 1670) refers to a report that one of Fouquet’s valets—there was constant trouble about them—had spoken to Dauger, who asked to be left in peace, and he emphasizes the importance of there being no communication. Saint-Mars (April 12, 1670) reports Dauger as “resigné à la volonté de Dieu et du Roy,” and (again the legend grows) says that “there are persons who are inquisitive about my prisoner, and I am obliged to tell contes jaunes pour me moquer d’eux.” In 1672 Saint-Mars proposes—the significance of this action is discussed later—to allow Dauger to act as “valet” to Lauzun; Louvois firmly refuses, but in 1675 allows him to be employed as valet to Fouquet, and he impresses upon Saint-Mars the importance of nobody learning about Dauger’s “past.” After Fouquet’s death (1680) Dauger and Fouquet’s other (old-standing) valet La Rivière are put together, by Louvois’s special orders, in one lower dungeon; Louvois evidently fears their knowledge of things heard from Fouquet, and he orders Lauzun (who had recently been allowed to converse freely with Fouquet) to be told that they are released. When Saint-Mars is transferred to Exiles, he is ordered to take these two with him, as too important to be in other hands; Mattioli is left behind. At Exiles they are separated and guarded with special precautions; and in January 1687 one of them (all the evidence admittedly pointing to La Rivière) dies. When Saint-Mars is again transferred, in May 1687, to Ste Marguerite, he takes his “prisoner” (apparently he now has only one—Dauger) with great show of caution; and next year (Jan. 8, 1688) he writes to Louvois that “mon prisonnier” is believed “in all this province” to be a son of Oliver Cromwell, or else the duke of Beaufort (a point which at once rules out Beaufort). In 1691 Louvois’s successor, Barbezieux, writes to him about his “prisonnier de vingt ans” (Dauger was first imprisoned in 1669, Mattioli in 1679), and Saint-Mars replies that “nobody has seen him but myself.” Subsequently Barbezieux and the governor continue to write to one another about their “ancien prisonnier” (Jan. 6, 1696; Nov. 17, 1697). When, therefore, we come to Saint-Mars’s appointment to the Bastille in 1698, Dauger appears almost certainly to be the “ancien prisonnier” he took with him.[4] There is at least good ground for supposing Mattioli’s death to have been indicated in 1694, but nothing is known that would imply Dauger’s, unless it was he who died in 1703.
Theories as to Dauger’s Identity.—Here we find not only sufficient indication of the growth of a legend as to Dauger, but also the existence in fact of a real mystery as to who he was and what he had done, two things both absent in Mattioli’s case. The only “missing link” is the want of any precise allusion to a mask in the references to Dauger. But in spite of du Junca’s emphasis on the mask, it is in reality very questionable whether the wearing of a mask was an unusual practice. It was one obvious way of enabling a prisoner to appear in public (for exercise or in travelling) without betrayal of identity. Indeed three years before the arrival of Saint-Mars we hear (Gazette d’Amsterdam, March 14, 1695) of another masked man being brought to the Bastille, who eventually was known to be the son of a Lyons banker.
Who then was Dauger, and what was his “past”? We will take first a theory propounded by Andrew Lang in The Valet’s Tragedy (1903). As the result of research in the diplomatic correspondence at the Record Office in London[5] Mr Lang finds a clue in the affairs of the French Huguenot, Roux de Marsilly, the secret agent for a Protestant league against France between Sweden, Holland, England and the Protestant cantons of Switzerland, who in February 1669 left London, where he had been negotiating with Arlington (apparently with Charles II.’s knowledge), for Switzerland, his confidential valet Martin remaining behind. On the 14th of April 1669 Marsilly was kidnapped for Louis XIV. in Switzerland, in defiance of international right, taken to Paris and on the 22nd of June tortured to death on a trumped-up charge of rape. The duke of York is said to have betrayed him to Colbert, the French ambassador in London. The English intrigue was undoubtedly a serious matter, because the shifty Charles II. was at the same time negotiating with Louis XIV. a secret alliance against Holland, in support of the restoration of Roman Catholicism in England. It would therefore be desirable for both parties to remove anybody who was cognizant of the double dealing. Now Louvois’s original letter to Saint-Mars concerning Dauger (July 19, 1669), after dealing with the importance of his being guarded with special closeness, and of Saint-Mars personally taking him food and threatening him with death if he speaks, proceeds as follows (in a second paragraph, as printed in Delort, i. 155, 156):—
“Je mande au Sieur Poupart de faire incessamment travailler à ce que vous désirerez, et vous ferez préparer les meubles qui sont nécessaires pour la vie de celui que l’on vous aménera, observant que comme ce n est qu’un valet, il ne lui en faut pas de bien considérables, et je vous ferai rembourser tant de la déspenses des meubles, que de ce que vous désirerez pour sa nourriture.”
Assuming the words here, “as he is only a valet,” to refer to Dauger, and taking into account the employment of Dauger from 1675 to 1680 as Fouquet’s valet, Mr Lang now obtains a solution of the problem of why a mere valet should be a political prisoner of so much concern to Louis XIV. at this time. He points out that Colbert, on the 3rd, 10th and 24th of June, writes from London to Louis XIV. about his efforts to get Martin, Roux de Marsilly’s valet, to go to France, and on the 1st of July expresses a hope that Charles II. will surrender “the valet.” Then, on the 19th of July, Dauger is arrested at Dunkirk, the regular port from England. Mr Lang regards his conclusion as to the identity between these valets as irresistible. It is true that what is certainly known about Martin hardly seems to provide sufficient reason for Eustache Dauger being regarded for so long a time as a specially dangerous person. But Mr Lang’s answer on that point is that this humble supernumerary in Roux de Marsilly’s conspiracy simply became one more wretched victim of the “red tape” of the old French absolute monarchy.
Unfortunately for this identification, it encounters at once a formidable, if not fatal, objection. Martin, the Huguenot conspirator Marsilly’s valet, must surely have been himself a Huguenot. Dauger, on the other hand, was certainly a Catholic; indeed Louvois’s second letter to Saint-Mars about him (Sept. 10, 1669) gives precise directions as to his being allowed to attend mass at the same time as Fouquet. It may perhaps be argued that Dauger (if Martin) simply did not make bad worse by proclaiming his creed; but against this, Louvois must have known that Martin was a Huguenot. Apart from that, it will be observed that the substantial reason for connecting the two men is simply that both were “valets.” The identification is inspired by the apparent necessity of an explanation why Dauger, being a valet, should be a political prisoner of importance. The assumption, however, that Dauger was a valet when he was arrested is itself as unnecessary as the fact is intrinsically improbable. Neither Louvois’s letter of July 19, 1669, nor Dauger’s employment as valet to Fouquet in 1675 (six years later)—and these are the only grounds on which the assumption rests—prove anything of the sort.