[1] Barbezieux to Saint-Mars, May 10, 1694: “J’ai reçu la lettre que vous avez pris la peine de m’écrire le 29 du mois passé; vous pouvez, suivant que vous le proposez, faire mettre dans la prison voûtée le valet du prisonnier qui est mort.” It may be noted that Barbezieux had recently told Saint-Mars to designate his prisoners by circumlocutions in his correspondence, and not by name.
[2] He cites Bingham’s Bastille, i. 27.
[3] It was the common practice to give pseudonyms to prisoners, and this is clearly such a case. Mattioli’s prison name was Lestang.
[4] Funck-Brentano argues that “un ancien prisonnier qu’il avait à Pignerol” (du Junca’s words) cannot apply to Dauger, because then du Junca would have added “et à Exiles.” But this is decidedly far-fetched; du Junca would naturally refer specially to Pignerol, the fortress with which Saint-Mars had been originally and particularly associated. Funck-Brentano also insists that the references to the “ancien prisonnier” in 1696 and 1697 must be to Mattioli, giving ancien the meaning of “late” or “former” (as in the phrase “ancien ministre”), and regarding it as an expression pertinent to Mattioli, who had been at Pignerol with Saint-Mars but not at Exiles, and not to Dauger, who had always been with Saint-Mars. But when he attempts to force du Junca’s phrase “un ancien prisonnier qu’il avait à Pignerol” into this sense, he is straining language. The natural interpretation of the word ancien is simply “of old standing,” and Barbezieux’s use of it, coming after Louvois’s phrase in 1691, clearly points to Dauger being meant.
[5] This identification had been previously suggested by H. Montaudon in Revue de la société des études historiques for 1888, p. 452, and by A. le Grain in L’Intermédiaire des chercheurs for 1891, col. 227-228.
[6] The view taken by Monsignor Barnes of the phrase “Ce n’est qu’un valet” in Louvois’s letter of July 19, is that (reading this part of the letter as a continuation of what precedes) the mere fact of Louvois’s saying that Dauger is only a valet means that that was just what he was not! Monsignor Barnes is rather too apt to employ the method of interpretation by contraries, on the ground that in such letters the writer always concealed the real facts.
IRON MOUNTAIN, a city and the county-seat of Dickinson county, Michigan, U.S.A., about 50 m. W. by N. of Escanaba, in the S.W. part of the Upper Peninsula. Pop. (1900) 9242, of whom 4376 were foreign-born; (1904) 8585; (1910) 9216. It is served by the Chicago & North Western and the Chicago, Milwaukee & Saint Paul railways. The city is situated about 1160 ft. above sea-level in an iron-mining district, and the mining of iron ore (especially at the Great Chapin Iron Mine) is its principal industry. Iron Mountain was settled in 1879, and was chartered in 1889.
IRONSIDES, a nickname given to one of great bravery, strength or endurance, particularly as exhibited in a soldier. In English history Ironside or Ironsides first appears as the name of Edmund II., king of the English. In the Great Rebellion it was first given by Prince Rupert to Cromwell, after the battle of Marston Moor in 1644 (see S. R. Gardiner’s History of the Great Civil War, 1893, vol. ii. p. 1, and Mercurius civicus, September 19-26, 1644, quoted there). From Cromwell it was transferred to the troopers of his cavalry, those “God-fearing men,” raised and trained by him in an iron discipline, who were the main instrument of the parliamentary victories in the field. This (see S. R. Gardiner, op. cit. iv. 179) was first given at the raising of the siege of Pontefract 1648, but did not become general till later.