respect by all who approached him. Already, in the Castle of Sainte-Marguerite, he had been visited by the Duke de Louvois, whose intimacy with the king had probably gained for him a knowledge of the identity so much disputed in later times; and this nobleman, whose haughtiness was proverbial, remained uncovered and standing throughout the interview, and is even said to have addressed the prisoner as “mon Prince.” M. de Saint-Mars—a man of repulsive exterior, harsh manners, and dubious principles, but whose devotion to the king was entire and unhesitating—invariably remained standing in the presence of his captive; and, on the day when he entered the Bastille as its governor, himself waited upon him at table. The apartment occupied by the prisoner was richly furnished; his apparel was of the most sumptuous description: and he was supplied with the most luxurious viands, served up in silver plate. Of his avocations during his long confinement no record remains, except that he amused himself with playing on the guitar.
On Sunday, Nov. 18th, 1703, the masked prisoner, “on his return from mass,” was taken ill, and died on the following day. As soon as he expired, his head was severed from his body, and cut to pieces, to prevent his features from being seen. The headless trunk, registered under the designation of “Marchiali, aged forty-five,” was interred on the 20th inst. in the cemetery of the Church of St. Paul, in the presence of De Rosargues, and of M. Reihl, Surgeon-Major of the Bastille. The mutilated remains of the head were buried in different places, in order the more effectually to disappoint curiosity. Immediately after his decease, an order was given to destroy everything that had been used by him. His clothes, linen, mattresses, bedding, and furniture were burned; the plate which had been used at his table was melted down; the walls of the apartment in which he had been confined were carefully scraped and then whitewashed, its doors and windows were destroyed, and its flooring was taken up to make sure that no scrap of paper, no distinctive relic, or mark of any kind, had been hidden beneath it by its mysterious occupant.
It will be seen, from this rapid sketch of the life of the unhappy individual in question, that while little, beyond the mere fact itself, has been gleaned by the above-mentioned writers respecting his imprisonment at Pignerol, no trace whatever of his existence previous to that event has been discovered by them; and yet, as Voltaire has pertinently remarked in commenting upon this fact, no political character of sufficient importance to justify the precautions exercised with regard to the masked prisoner, and the efforts made, after his death, to blot out, if possible, his very remembrance from among the living, had disappeared in Europe at the period when he was sent to Pignerol.
Entire silence appears to have been maintained on the subject of the masked captive, by the persons to whom this singular State-secret was confided; and the successors of Louis XIV. have invariably maintained the same attitude with regard to it. M. de Chamillard seems to have been the last person, out of the royal family of France, who was entrusted with this secret. The second Marshal de la Feuillade, who married his daughter, and who had always been tormented by the desire to penetrate the mystery, conjured his father-in-law, on his knees, when M. de Chamillard was on his death-bed, to reveal to him the name of the prisoner then, as now, known by the name of “The Man in the Iron Mask.” But the expiring minister refused to satisfy his curiosity, declaring that it was a secret of State, and that he had sworn never to reveal it.
Louis XV. to whom the secret is said to have been revealed by the Regent, remarked, on one occasion, when certain courtiers had been discussing this subject in his presence: “Let them dispute; no one has yet said the truth upon this matter.”
M. de Laborde, first valet to Louis XV., and who stood high in the favour and confidence of his master, once besought him to tell him the secret of this imprisonment; when the king replied, “I am sorry that it happened; but the confinement of that unfortunate man did no wrong to any one but himself, and saved France from great calamities;” adding, “You are not to know who it was.”
Among the legends which sprang up around the prison-homes of the mysterious individual in question, is one that tells how, while at Sainte-Marguerite, the prisoner one day wrote something with the point of a knife, on one of the silver plates used at his table, and flung it out of the window towards a boat that stood near the bank, almost at the foot of the tower. A fisherman, who owned the boat, took up the plate, and carried it to the governor, when the latter, with great surprise, asked the fisherman, “Have you read what was written on this plate? Or has anybody else seen it in your hands?”
“I cannot read,” replied the fisherman, “I have but just found it, and nobody else has seen it.”
The fisherman was detained until Saint-Mars was well assured that he could not read, and that no one else had seen the plate; when he was dismissed by the governor with these words:—
“Go, then; it is lucky for you that you do not know how to read.”
A similar story is told by the Abbé Papon, who claims to have gained his information respecting the mysterious captive in the Island of Sainte-Marguerite itself. This writer was informed by an officer of la Franche Comté, that his father, who had served in the same company, and had enjoyed the confidence of Saint-Mars, had assured him that a “frater” (barber’s boy), belonging to the corps, one day perceived something white floating under the prisoner’s window; that he took it up, and carried it to Saint-Mars; that it was a very fine shirt, neatly folded up, on which something was written. That Saint-Mars, having unfolded it, asked, with a face expressive of great embarrassment—“if the boy had had the curiosity to read what was written on it?” That the boy solemnly protested he had read nothing; but that, two days afterwards, he was found dead in his bed; and that he (the officer), had often heard his father relate this incident to the chaplain of the fortress, as an undoubted fact.
