Time brings roses—and justice. Marie Antoinette was first vindicated from the foul aspersions of the "progeny of Voltaire." Now, Anne of Austria is acquitted; and going further back in time—the most distant case being, of course, the most difficult—next comes the turn of Mary Stuart, and her day, we believe, is not far distant.
The claim made for the Count of Vermandois, a son of Louis XIV. and Louise de la Vallière, is next taken up. As all the details of the last illness, death, and burial of the Count of Vermandois are matters of profuse official record, M. Topin has very little trouble in disposing of this case. Then we have the Duke of Monmouth, a natural son of Charles II. of England. Defeated at the battle of Sedgemoor, where the forces under his command were arrayed in armed rebellion against James II., and afterward taken prisoner, he was beheaded in the Tower of London July 15th, 1685. The dispatches of various foreign ministers in London at the time fully establish the fact of his death.
To Monmouth succeeds Francis of Vendôme, Duke of Beaufort. As grand admiral of France, Beaufort commanded the naval expedition sent out to aid the Venetians in their defence of Candia against the Turks in 1669. As in the cases of the two sons of Louis XIV., and Monmouth, the surrounding circumstances give M. Topin the fullest opportunity of indulging in court anecdotes, intrigues, and festivities, mingled with biographical sketches of distinguished personages, so in the case of Beaufort, his history warrants our author in going into all the details of the siege and military and naval operations against the army of the sultan. Beaufort is believed to have been killed in an attack upon the enemy's works, and was last seen in the thickest of a hand-to-hand struggle in the intrenchments. As his body was never recovered, this fact gave the mystery-mongers an advantageous margin. But Beaufort was born in 1616, and the Iron Mask was buried in 1703. Supposing him to be the "Mask," this would make him eighty-seven years old at his death, which, of itself, puts him out of the question.
In his third number, M. Topin introduces the so-called Armenian Patriarch, Avedick. Why he did so is best known to himself; for the case of Avedick has never been presented as one that would give him any right to rank among the claimants for the distinction of the Iron Mask. Taules, and the German historian Hammer, are referred to as authorities for Avedick's claim; but on being examined, they are found totally insufficient as warrants for such a theory. The essential pivot of the question of identity of the Iron Mask is the death and burial of its wearer in 1703. Now, Avedick was still in Turkey in 1706, and that settles his claim beyond question. Avedick was seized by order of the Marquis of Ferriol in the Grecian Archipelago, May, 1706, carried forcibly to France, retained in confinement in various places until September, 1710, when he was liberated. He died in Paris in July, 1711. This was most certainly a case of shameful violation of the law of nations, of power, and of humanity. A case of abominable personal cruelty it also certainly was—but it was not a case of "Iron Mask." Two such outrages as those on the persons of Marchialy and Avedick are quite enough of themselves; to say nothing of certain diplomatic arrangements with the Grand Turk which endangered Christianity and the public peace in Europe—to settle one's opinion as to the genuineness of the glories of the reign of Louis XIV., a Grand Monarque who was not great.
But to return, M. Topin's chapter on the Avedick case, appearing in Le Correspondant of the 10th June, 1869, was followed by an article from the pen of Rev. Father Turquand, S.J., in the September (10th) number of the same periodical, severely attacking the statements of Avedick's case by M. Topin, and vindicating his (Turquand's) society from certain imputations cast upon it in connection with the seizure of Avedick.
In his fourth number, (Oct. 10th,) M. Topin takes up the claim made for Fouquet, whose case differs from all the others in the fact that he was a prisoner of state by sentence of a judicial tribunal. Fouquet's claims were warmly pressed by a very able literary advocate, Paul Lacroix, (Bibliophile Jacob,) in a work published in 1830. But here again the difficulty of dates is insurmountable. Fouquet died in 1680, and there is no proof of the appearance of the Man with the Iron Mask until after that period.
We pass on to another. In the year 1677, the Duke of Mantua was Charles IV. of the illustrious house of Gonzaga. He was young, careless, dissipated, and extravagant. Spending most of his time in Venice, he seldom visited his duchy, except for the purpose of raising money. He gradually fell into the hands of usurious lenders, and continued to obtain the sums he wanted by anticipating, through them, the receipt of the taxes and imposts of his duchy by several years. The Marquisate of Montferrat was among his dependencies. Its little capital, Casal, a fortified place on the Po, fifteen leagues east of Turin, was a point of great strategic importance, and essential to the safety of Piedmont. The court of Turin would not, of course, consent to its possession by France. But to France it was of the highest value, as with Pignerol and Casal it would be master of the situation. This place Louis XIV. wanted to buy, and Charles IV. was perfectly willing to sell it. Ercolo (Hercules) Antonio Mattioli, a young nobleman of the court of Mantua, at this time thirty-seven years of age, was high in favor with the reigning duke. Through Giuliani, an Italian journalist, D'Estrades, Louis XIV.'s ambassador at Venice, sounded Mattioli, and finally, through him, succeeded in opening a negotiation with the duke for the sale of Casal to France.
All three met at Venice in March, 1678, discussed terms, and agreed upon one hundred thousand crowns as the price of the cession. Mattioli then went to Paris to sign the treaty in the name of his master the duke. The treaty was completed in December, 1678, and after its signature, Mattioli was received by Louis XIV. in secret audience, presented by the king with a rich diamond ring and four hundred double Louis d'or, with the promise of a far greater amount of money, the appointment of his son among the royal pages, and a valuable endowment for his mother. The intrigue and negotiation had been admirably managed and crowned with perfect success. Of all who had any interest opposed to the French possession of Casal, not one had the slightest suspicion, and it would have been difficult to imagine the existence of the smallest element of failure in the enterprise.
But the best-laid schemes of men, mice, and monarchs here below oft come to naught. Two months after Mattioli's visit to Paris, the courts of Turin, of Madrid, and of Vienna, the Spanish governor of the Milanese provinces, and the state inquisitors of the Venetian republic—that is to say, all and every one most interested against the execution of the treaty—not only knew of its existence, but were fully advised of every detail concerning it, the names of the negotiators, the date of the instruments, the price of cession, when it was to be made, etc. In short, they knew every thing concerning it. Well they might. Mattioli himself had told them! His motive is a subject of dispute. One theory is, interested motive; another, patriotism. Certain it is he had more to gain—as a mere question of interest—by keeping than by betraying the secret. On this point, though, we do not undertake to judge him. In February, 1679, the Duchess of Savoy advised Louis XIV. that she was in possession of Mattioli's information. The disappointment, the mortification, and the anger of the French king can easily be imagined. He was placed in a position not only dangerous; but what was almost worse, ludicrous. Mattioli had the king's signature to the treaty in his possession, and it was all-important to recover it. The king in Paris, and his minister D'Estrades, both conceived the same idea for remedy in the matter. On the 28th of April, 1679, Louis sent the order to have Mattioli arrested, and on arrival of the order, Mattioli had already (May 2d) been carried off a prisoner. D'Estrades had managed to decoy him across the frontier, at a point where he had a detachment of dragoons waiting, and in a few hours the Italian was a prisoner at Pignerol, the commencement of a captivity that was to endure four and twenty long years. M. Topin then continues the discussion of Mattioli's case, and closes the article, leaving the reader under the impression that he decides against the claim of Mattioli.
Indeed he goes further; for he more than intimates that there is very little probability of ever penetrating the mystery surrounding the Man with the Iron Mask.