[Facsimile of the entry in the Registers of the Church of Saint-Paul at Paris, recording the death of the Man with the Iron Mask.]

THE
MAN WITH THE IRON MASK.

By MARIUS TOPIN.

TRANSLATED AND EDITED
By HENRY VIZETELLY,
AUTHOR OF
“THE STORY OF THE DIAMOND NECKLACE.”

“No one must know what has become of this man.”
Order of Louis XIV.

LONDON:
SMITH, ELDER AND CO., 15, WATERLOO PLACE.
1870.

TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE.

M. Topin’s L’Homme au Masque de Fer, of which the present volume is a translation, has met with considerable attention in France, on the part both of historical students and the reading public; several editions of it having been called for in the course of a few months.

That a work which professes to give an authentic account of this almost legendary character, after having discussed in an exhaustive fashion the various theories that have been broached during a century and a quarter respecting his mysterious identity, should have been received with so large an amount of favour, is not surprising, for the story forms perhaps the most romantic episode of a reign more than ordinarily rich in dramatic incidents. But the extent of M. Topin’s historical knowledge, the painstaking nature of his researches, the subtlety of his reasoning, the skill which he has displayed in the grouping of his materials, combined with his life-like pictures of events far from commonly familiar, not only render his work highly amusing reading, but entitle it to take its place in the library, both as an historical study which has resolved beyond all doubt a problem that had long perplexed some of the acutest minds, and as a valuable contribution towards the history of Europe during the latter part of the seventeenth century.

During the progress of the translation M. Topin’s text has been carefully revised, and a few errors have been corrected. Additional notes, too, have been given whenever the subject-matter seemed to require elucidation, or where individuals little known to English readers make their appearance on the scene.

H. V.

Paris, April, 1870.

AUTHOR’S PREFACE.

If this book had been intended merely to satisfy a vulgar and commonplace curiosity, it would only have consisted of a few pages. My aim has been a loftier one. I have endeavoured, while concerning myself with the most famous and romantic of State-prisoners, to write the history of the principal individuals in whom people have beheld the Man with the Iron Mask. As regards some of these I have been compelled to lay bare the private life of Louis XIII. and Anne of Austria, and in order to refute the accusations with which the memory of this princess has been sullied, I have not hesitated to touch upon certain delicate points, and to follow her accusers on to the ground on which they have carried the discussion. But I have imposed upon myself the obligation of always respecting my readers, and of influencing their judgment without offending their taste. I have traced the others throughout their adventurous careers and agitated existences, and some of them even through their captivity, spent, sometimes in the monotonous inaction of solitude, sometimes with the resignation of the sage, or animated more frequently still by daring attempts at flight which the incessant vigilance of the most scrupulous of gaolers always foiled. Thus there will be found grouped together in this work Louis XIII. and Anne of Austria, the seductive Buckingham and the affecting Vermandois, the versatile Monmouth and the adventurous Beaufort, Lauzun the rash, and Fouquet, rendered admirable by his resignation and Christian virtues, the unfortunate Matthioly, and Saint-Mars, whose memory, and even existence, is inseparable from that of his prisoners.

The sole and firm ground-work of this book are the materials, for the most part unpublished, to be found in our Archives. For the space of two years I have been collecting them in the different depositories of manuscripts; and at the Ministries as at the Archives of the Empire, at the Imperial Library as well as at the Arsenal, at the Institute as at the Hôtel de Ville, I have everywhere met with the most cordial reception, the most unreserved liberality, and the most invaluable courtesy. It is my duty, and at the same time my pleasure, to testify my gratitude to MM. Camille Rousset, Gallet de Kulture, Margry, de Beauchesne, Lacroix, Ravaisson, Sage, Aude, and Read. The treasures of our Archives are not only rendered accessible by the goodwill of their Keepers, but are also made easy of consultation by the order which these gentlemen have introduced among the profusion of documents by means of classifications as clear as they are ingenious.

I have given in the text the more important documents of which I have made use, and in the notes those which are of less consequence, whilst I have contented myself with indicating the collections where those materials are to be found which are altogether of a secondary character. By this means the reader will have a complete check upon me. Without sacrificing anything of the strictest exactitude I have endeavoured to introduce into my account the spirit and the action proper to the individuals brought on to the scene, and, in a subject at once legendary and historical, to represent the faithful drawing of history under the seductive colouring of fiction.

Paris, November 8, 1869.

CONTENTS.

THE MAN WITH THE IRON MASK.

INTRODUCTION.

Arrival of the Man with the Iron Mask at the Bastille—His Death—General Reflections on this celebrated Prisoner—Motives which determined the present Writer to make fresh Researches concerning him—Plan and Object of the Work.

About three o’clock in the afternoon of September 18, 1698, the Sieur de Saint-Mars, coming from the Isles Sainte-Marguerite, made his entry into the château of the Bastille, of which fortress he had just been appointed governor. Accompanying him, and borne along in his litter, was a prisoner, whose face was covered with a black velvet mask, and of whom Saint-Mars, with an escort of several mounted men-at-arms, had been the inseparable and vigilant gaoler, throughout the long journey from Provence. Saint-Mars had halted at Palteau, an estate situated between Joigny and Villeneuve-le-Roi, which belonged to him, and for a long time the old inhabitants of Villeneuve used to recall having seen the mysterious litter traversing in the evening the principal street of their town. The remembrance of this apparition has been perpetuated in the district, and the singular incidents characterizing it, related by the former to each new generation, have been handed down to our own days. The care taken by Saint-Mars at meal-times to keep his prisoner with his back to the windows, the pistols which were always to be seen within reach, of the suspicious gaoler, the two beds which he caused to be placed side by side, so many precautions, so much mystery, excited the lively curiosity of the assembled peasants, and formed an incessant subject of conversation among them. At the Bastille, the prisoner was placed in the third room south of the Tower of La Bertaudière, prepared for him by the turnkey Dujonca, who, some days previous to his arrival, had received a written order to that effect from Saint-Mars.[1]

Five years afterwards, on Tuesday, November 20, 1703, at four o’clock in the afternoon, the drawbridge of the formidable fortress was lowered and gave passage to a sad and mournful train. A few men, bearing a dead body, having for sole escort two subordinate employés of the Bastille, silently issued forth and directed their steps towards the cemetery of the Church of Saint-Paul. Nothing could be more thrilling than the sight of this group gliding along furtively under shadow of the falling night. Nothing could be more utterly abandoned, and, in appearance, more obscure, than these unknown remains followed by two strangers, in a hurry to fulfil their task. Around the grave as, the evening before, around the bed of the dying man, there were no signs of sorrow or of regret. The prisoner of Provence had fallen ill on the Sunday. His illness having suddenly increased during the following day, the chaplain of the Bastille had been sent for; too late, however, to allow him time to go in quest of the last sacraments, yet still sufficiently early to enable him to address some rapid and common-place exhortations to the dying man. On the register of the Church of Saint-Paul he was inscribed under the name of Marchialy. At the Bastille he had always been known as the Prisoner of Provence.[2]

Such is the mysterious personage who, unknown and abandoned to the obscurity of a prison during the latter part of his existence, became, a few years after his death, celebrated throughout the entire world, and the romantic and piquant remembrance of whom has, for more than a century, charmed the imagination of all, attracted universal attention, and exercised uselessly the patience and sagacity of so many minds. Become the hero of the most famous of legends, he has had the rare privilege of everywhere exciting the curiosity of the public, without ever either wearying or satiating it. At all epochs and among all classes, in England, Germany, Italy, as well as France, in our own days, as in the time of Voltaire, people have manifested the utmost anxiety to penetrate the secret of this long imprisonment. Napoleon I. greatly regretted not being able to satisfy this desire.[3] Louis Philippe, too, discussed this problem, the solution of which he acknowledged himself ignorant of;[4] and, if other sovereigns[5] have pretended they were acquainted with it, their contradictory statements lead us to believe that they were no better informed, but that in their eyes the knowledge and transmission of the dark secret ought to be counted among the prerogatives of the crown.

In the long list of writers whom the Man with the Iron Mask, the sphinx of our history, has attracted and tempted, are many illustrious names, as well as some less known now-a-days. During thirty years, Voltaire, Fréron, Saint-Foix, Lagrange-Chancel, and Father Griffet took part in a brilliant joust, in which each of the adversaries succeeded a great deal better in overthrowing his opponent’s opinions than in securing the triumph of his own.

Many times, and in our own days even, has the debate been resumed, then momentarily abandoned, then recommenced again. Far and near new theories have been broached, invariably supported by vague and weak proofs, and soon overthrown by strong and valid objections. Fifty-two writers[6] have by turns endeavoured to throw light upon this question, but without success; and it can be affirmed that a century of controversy and of exertion has not yet dissipated the mysterious gloom in which Saint-Mars’ celebrated prisoner is enveloped.

So many successive checks, by still further stimulating curiosity, have caused it to be believed that it was impossible to arrive at an incontestable and definitive result. Every new explanation having been victoriously repelled almost as soon as started, people have despaired of ever attaining the truth, and some have even gone so far as to proclaim it as being beyond human reach. “The story of the Iron Mask,” says M. Michelet,[7] “will probably for ever remain obscure,” “The Man with the Iron Mask will very likely always be an insoluble problem,” has been said elsewhere;[8] and M. Henri Martin declares that “history has not the right of pronouncing an opinion on what will never emerge from the domain of conjecture.”[9]

If different methods of procedure had been adopted by the numerous writers who have attempted the solution of this problem, I should not have had the temerity to have added to their number; but an attentive study of their writings shows that they have all taken the same point of departure, and that they have all given themselves up to a single idea. All have kept fixed in their minds this observation of Voltaire’s:—“What redoubles one’s astonishment is, that at the time when this prisoner was sent to the Isles Sainte-Marguerite, no important personage had disappeared from Europe.”[10]

All have asked themselves if there really did not disappear from Europe some important personage, and they have immediately set themselves to discover some person of consideration, no matter who, that had disappeared during the period extending from 1662 to 1703. When by the aid of the very faintest resemblance they have fancied they have found their hero, they have forthwith adapted the mask of black velvet to him, and have seen in him the famous dead of November 20, 1703. Erecting their conjecture into a theory, they have become ardent propagators of it, and have adopted all that told in its favour with the same readiness with which they have energetically denied all that happened to be opposed to it. When the list of missing illustrious men belonging to this period was exhausted, certain writers, sooner than renounce seeing the Man with the Iron Mask in some person still alive in 1706, have had no other expedient than to delay for several years the death of Saint-Mars’ prisoner, in order not to abandon so dear a discovery.[11]

But many of these ingenious and inventive writers acted in good faith. Not perceiving the defects in their pleading, they only considered its feeblest parts, and in default of making a great number of converts, they invariably ended, as is easy enough, by convincing themselves.

Persuaded of the unsatisfactory nature of a method of procedure which had always produced such ephemeral results, I have thought that, extraordinary means having proved so inefficacious, more simple ones might perhaps lead to a new solution, (yet one hardly dared hope for it, when twenty-five hypotheses had already been put forward)—to a solution at once decisive, to an absolute conviction, to the certainty of not having to apprehend from the reader either doubt or objection. Commencing the study of this question without any fixed opinion, and with the firm resolution of seeking only the truth, I set about collecting from the whole of our archives authentic despatches relating to the State prisoners under Louis XIV. from the year 1660 to 1710. Without pre-occupying myself with the Ministers who signed them, or the prisoners whom they concerned; without limiting my researches to Saint-Mars, Pignerol, the Isles Sainte-Marguerite, or the Bastille, I arranged these despatches, of which more than three hundred are unpublished, in order of their dates. They then lent a material assistance; some explained others, and from this long and minute inquiry, slowly pursued through heaps of documents, has resulted, I hope, a definitive solution.

It was expedient this solution should be obtained.[12] In this century, when the historian’s resources are increased by the progress in certain sciences, by so many spectacles offered as an instruction to his fruitful meditations, by a more complete knowledge of institutions and facts, by the facility afforded of penetrating into collections which it had been believed would remain for ever inaccessible to investigators—in this century, which is literally the century of history, it behoved us not to leave in our annals, without solving it, a problem which had so frequently attracted the attention of foreigners. It is this which determined me to undertake a task which some may consider more curious than important. But to the interest peculiar to this subject has to be added that which is attached to the principal persons in whom by turns people have seen the prisoner of Saint-Mars. Before bringing on the scene the true Man with the Iron Mask, I shall examine rapidly, and with the aid of unpublished documents, the illustrious usurpers of this romantic title, so that this work may serve, not only to satisfy a trivial curiosity, but also to throw a new light upon some of the most singular points of the inner history of our country.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Estat de Prisonnies qui sont envoies par l’Ordre du Roy à la Bastille, à commenser du mescredy honsiesme du mois d’Octobre que je suis entré en possession de la charge de Lieutenant du Roy, en l’année 1690, by Dujonca, fol. 37, verso:—Archives of the Arsenal. Letter from Barbézieux, Minister of War, to Saint-Mars, dated July 19, 1698:—“You can write in advance to His Majesty’s lieutenant of this château to have a chamber ready to receive this prisoner on your arrival.”—Unpublished despatch from the Archives of the Ministry of War. Traditions collected at Villeneuve-le-Roi. Registers of the Secretary’s Office of the King’s Household.

[2] Estat de Prisonnies qui sortet de la Bastille à commenser de honsiesme du mois d’Octobre que je suis entré en possession, en l’année 1690, by Dujonca, fol. 80, verso:—Archives of the Arsenal. Registre des Baptêmes, Mariages, et Sépultures de la Paroisse de Saint-Paul, s. 1703-1705, vol. ii. No. 166:—Archives of the Hôtel de Ville. Registers of the Secretary’s Office of the King’s Household. Imperial Archives.

[3] Souvenirs de la Duchesse d’Abrantès, recueillis par M. Paul Lacroix (Bibliophile Jacob).

[4] I am indebted for this information to the kindness of M. Guizot.

[5] Especially Louis XVIII., whose language is in complete disaccord with that of Louis XV. But I shall refer to this point of debate hereafter.

[6] Voltaire, Prosper Marchand, Baron de Crunyngen, Armand de la Chapelle, Chevalier de Mouhy, Duke de Nivernais, La Beaumelle, Lenglet-Dufresnoy, Lagrange-Chancel, Fréron, Saint-Foix, Father Griffet, Hume, De Palteau, Sandraz de Courtilz, Constantin de Renneville, Baron d’Heiss, Sénac de Meilhan, De la Borde, Soulavie, Linguet, Marquis de Luchet, Anquetil, Father Papon, Malesherbes, Dulaure, Chevalier de Taulès, Chevalier de Cubières, Carra, Louis Dutens, Abbé Barthélemy, Quintin Craufurd, De Saint Mihiel, Bouche, Champfort, Millin, Spittler, Roux-Fazillac, Regnault-Warin, Weiss, Delort, George Agar Ellis, Gibbon, Auguste Billiard, Dufay, Bibliophile Jacob, Paul Lecointre, Letoumeur, Jules Loiseleur, De Bellecombe, Mérimée, Sardou; without counting the writers of general history, such as S. Sismondi, Henri Martin, Michelet, Camille Rousset, Depping, and all who have written articles on this question in cyclopædias.

[7] Histoire de France, vol. xii. p. 435.

[8] Art de Vérifier les Dates, vol. vi. p. 292.

[9] Histoire de France, vol. xiv. p. 564.

[10] Voltaire, Siècle de Louis XIV., p. 289.

[11] M. de Taulès, for instance, a partisan of the theory which makes Avedick, the patriarch of Constantinople, the Man with the Iron Mask, and to which I shall refer in the after-part of this book.

[12] About a year ago (Moniteur of September 30, 1868) àpropos of the fine collection of unpublished documents given to the world by M. Ravaisson, under the title of Archives de la Bastille, M. de Lescure expressed a wish to see this question definitively settled. I had been occupying myself with it for a considerable period, though not without having satisfied myself that the learned conservator of the Arsenal Archives contemplated no work on the Man with the Iron Mask, in continuation of his publication, not yet brought down to the epoch of the entry into the Bastille of this famous prisoner. Among contemporary authors, besides M. Paul Lacroix (Bibliophile Jacob), who in 1840 supported the theory that made Fouquet the celebrated prisoner, M. Jules Loiseleur, in the Revue Contemporaine of July 31, 1867, and M. de Bellecombe, in the Investigateur of May, 1868, have maintained, as the result of their labours, that the Man with the Iron Mask was an unknown and obscure spy, whose name would never be ascertained. We shall recur to the two studies of MM. Lacroix and Loiseleur, of which one is very ingenious, and the other exhibits a penetrating sagacity, while both display a varied and trustworthy erudition.

CHAPTER I.

Theory which supposes the Man with the Iron Mask to have been a Brother of Louis XIV.—Voltaire the first to support this Theory in his Siècle de Louis XIV., and in the Dictionnaire Philosophique—Certain Improbabilities in his Story—Account of the Man with the Iron Mask introduced by Soulavie into the Mémoires Apocryphes du Maréchal de Richelieu—The three different Hypotheses of the Theory which makes the Man with the Iron Mask a Brother of Louis XIV.

Among the numerous theories which attempt to explain the existence of the Man with the Iron Mask,[13] some have been imagined so carelessly, conceived with so much haste, and supported in so loose a manner, that they are not worthy of a serious examination, and simply to mention them will suffice to do them justice. But there are others, due to an ingenious inspiration, and sustained with incontestable talent, which, without being true, have at least many appearances of being so. Among others, the most devoid of proofs, but also the most romantic, is that which makes the Man with the Iron Mask a brother of Louis XIV. “There are many things which everybody says because they have been said once,” remarks Montesquieu.[14] This is especially true of things which border on the extraordinary and the marvellous. So, there are few persons who, on hearing the Man with the Iron Mask mentioned, do not immediately evoke a brother of Louis XIV. Whether the result of an intrigue between Anne of Austria and the Duke of Buckingham,[15] or a legitimate son of Louis XIII. and twin brother of Louis XIV., matters little to popular imagination. These are but different branches of a system which is profoundly engrafted in the public mind, and which it will not be unprofitable to overthrow separately, since it has still innumerable partisans, and touches upon the rights, moreover, the Bourbons have had to the throne of France.

By whom was this widely-spread opinion first put forward? And by whom has it been revived in our own days? What proofs, or, at least, what probabilities are invoked in its support? On what recollections, on what writings, is such a supposition based? Does it agree with official documents? Is it in accord with the character of Anne of Austria or with that of Louis XIII.? Is it founded on reason?

First Voltaire,[16] in his Siècle de Louis XIV., published in 1751, wrote the following lines, destined to excite a lively attention and to start a theory which he only completed in his Dictionnaire Philosophique:—

“Some months after the death of Mazarin,” he says, “an event occurred which has no parallel, and what is no less strange, all the historians have ignored it. There was sent with the greatest secresy to the château of the Isle Sainte-Marguerite, in the Sea of Provence, an unknown prisoner, above the average height, and of a most handsome and noble countenance. This prisoner, on the journey, wore a mask, the chin-piece of which was furnished with steel springs, which left him free to eat with the mask covering his face. Orders had been given to kill him if he should remove it. He remained in the island till a confidential officer, named Saint-Mars, governor of Pignerol, having been appointed governor of the Bastille in 1690, went to fetch him in the Isle Sainte-Marguerite and conducted him to the Bastille, always masked. The Marquis de Louvois went to see him in this island before his removal, and spoke to him standing, and with a consideration which betokened respect. This unknown individual was taken to the Bastille, where he was lodged as well as he could be in the château. Nothing that he asked for was refused him. His greatest liking was for linen of an extraordinary fineness and for lace; he played on the guitar. He had the very best of everything, and the governor rarely sat down in his presence. An old doctor of the Bastille, who had often attended this singular man in his illnesses, has stated that he never saw his face, although he had examined his tongue and the rest of his body. He was admirably made, said this doctor; his skin was rather brown: he interested one by the mere tone of his voice, never complaining of his state, and not letting it be understood who he could be. This stranger died in 1703, and was interred during the night in the parish church of Saint-Paul. What redoubles one’s astonishment is that at the period when he was sent to the Isle Sainte-Marguerite, there had disappeared from Europe no important personage. This prisoner was without doubt one, since this is what occurred shortly after his arrival in the island:—The governor himself used to place the dishes on the table, and then to withdraw after having locked him in. One day, the prisoner wrote with a knife on a silver plate, and threw the plate out of the window towards a boat which was on the shore, almost at the foot of the tower. A fisherman, to whom the boat belonged, picked up the plate and carried it to the governor. He, astonished, asked the fisherman: ‘Have you read what is written on this plate, and has any one seen it in your possession?’ ‘I do not know how to read,’ answered the fisherman; ‘I have just found it, and nobody has seen it.’ The peasant was detained until the governor had ascertained that he could not read, and that the plate had been seen by nobody. ‘Go,’ he then said to him, ‘you are very lucky not to know how to read!’”[17]

The following is the explanation by which, in his Dictionnaire Philosophique, Voltaire, under his editor’s name, afterwards completed this first story: “The Man with the Iron Mask was doubtless a brother, and an elder brother of Louis XIV., whose mother had that taste for fine linen on which M. de Voltaire relies. It was from reading the Mémoires of the period which relate this anecdote concerning the Queen, that, recollecting this very taste of the Man with the Iron Mask, I no longer doubted that he was her son, of which all the other circumstances had already convinced me. It is known that Louis XIII. had not lived with the Queen for a considerable time, and that the birth of Louis XIV. was only due to a lucky chance.” Voltaire proceeds to relate that previous to the birth of Louis XIV., Anne of Austria had been delivered of a son of whom Louis XIII. was not the father, and that she had confided the secret of his birth to Richelieu: he then goes on to say,—“But the Queen and the Cardinal, equally penetrated with the necessity of hiding the existence of the Man with the Iron Mask from Louis XIII., had him brought up in secresy. This was unknown to Louis XIV. until the death of the Cardinal de Mazarin. But this monarch, learning then that he had a brother, and an elder brother, whom his mother could not disavow, who, moreover, perhaps had characteristic features which betokened his origin, and reflecting that this child, born during marriage, could not, without great inconvenience and a horrible scandal, be declared illegitimate after Louis XIII.’s death, may have considered that he could not make use of wiser and better means to assure his own security and the tranquillity of the State than those which he employed, means which dispensed with his committing a cruelty which policy would have represented as being necessary to a monarch less conscientious and less magnanimous than Louis XIV.”[18]

What improbabilities, what contradictions, what errors accumulated in a few pages! This unknown, whom no one, not even his doctor, has ever seen unmasked, has his face described as “handsome and noble;” Saint-Mars, named governor of the Bastille in 1690, and traversing the whole of France in order to fetch a prisoner, for whom during eight-and-twenty years another gaoler had sufficed; this mask with steel springs covering day and night the face of the unknown without affecting his health; this resignation which prevented his complaining of his position and which did not allow him to give any one a glimmering as to who he was, and this eagerness to throw out of his window silver plates on which he had written his name; this peculiar taste for fine linen, which Anne of Austria also possessed, and which revealed his origin; this haste on her part to confess her adultery to her enemy, the Cardinal de Richelieu; the Queen of France making only the Prime Minister the confidant of her confinement; and these two events, the birth and the abduction of a royal child, so well concealed that no contemporary memoir makes mention of them: such are the reflections which immediately suggest themselves on reading this story.

No less improbable, and more romantic still, is the fictitious account given by the governor himself of the Man with the Iron Mask, and which Soulavie has introduced into the apocryphal memoirs of the Marshal de Richelieu.[19] “The unfortunate prince whom I have brought up and guarded to the end of my days,” says the governor,[20] “was born 5th September, 1638, at half-past eight in the evening, while the King was at supper. His brother, now reigning (Louis XIV.), was born at twelve in the morning, during his father’s dinner. But while the birth of the King was splendid and brilliant, that of his brother was sad and carefully concealed. Louis XIII. was warned by the midwife that the Queen would have a second delivery, and this double birth had been announced to him a long time previously by two herdsmen, who asserted in Paris that if the Queen was brought to bed of two Dauphins, it would be the consummation of the State’s misfortune. The Cardinal de Richelieu, consulted by the King, replied that, if the Queen should bring twin sons into the world it would be necessary to carefully hide the second, because he might one day wish to be King. Louis XIII. was consequently patient in his uncertainty. When the pains of the second labour commenced, he was overwhelmed with emotion.” The Queen is delivered of a second child “more delicate and more handsome than the first.” The midwife is charged with him, “and the Cardinal afterwards took upon himself the education of this Prince who was destined to replace the Dauphin if the latter should die. As for the shepherds who prophesied on the subject of Anne of Austria’s confinement, the governor did not hear them spoken of any more, whence he concludes that the Cardinal found a means of sending them away.”

“Dame Péronnette, the midwife, brought the Prince up as her own son, and he passed for being the bastard of some great lord of the time. The Cardinal confided him later to the governor to educate him as a King’s son, and this governor took him into Burgundy to his own house. The Queen-mother seemed to fear that if the birth of this young Dauphin should be discovered, the malcontents would revolt, because many doctors think that the last-born of twin brothers is really the elder, and therefore King by right. Nevertheless, Anne of Austria could not prevail upon herself to destroy the documents which established this birth. The Prince, at the age of nineteen, became acquainted with this State secret by searching in a casket belonging to his governor, in which he discovered letters from the Queen and the Cardinals de Richelieu and Mazarin. But, in order better to assure himself of his true condition, he asked for portraits of the late and present Kings. The governor replied that what he had were so bad that he was waiting for better ones to be painted, in order to place them in his apartment. The young man proposed to go to Saint-Jean de Luz, where the court was staying, on account of the King’s marriage with the Spanish Infanta, and compare himself with his brother. His governor detained him, and no longer quitted his side.

“The young Prince was then handsome as Cupid, and Cupid was very useful to him in getting him a portrait of his brother, for a servant with whom he had an intrigue procured him one. The Prince recognized himself, and rushed to his governor, exclaiming, ‘This is my brother, and here is what I am!’ The governor despatched a messenger to court to ask for fresh instructions. The order came to imprison them both together.”[21]

“It is at last known, this secret which has excited so lively and so general a curiosity!”[22] says Champfort, in noticing these fictitious Mémoires du Maréchal de Richelieu. This implacable and sceptic railer allowed himself to be really seduced by this interpretation. Many others were convinced with him, which exonerates them; and the version given by Voltaire was rather neglected for that of Soulavie.

In our own days, the theory which makes the Man with the Iron Mask a brother of Louis XIV. has been supported by four writers, who have powerfully contributed to revive it, and render it more popular still. The first two, by transferring to the stage,[23] and the third, by weaving into the plot of one of his most ingenious romances[24] the pathetic fate of the mysterious prisoner, have sought less to instruct than to interest their readers, and have completely succeeded in the purpose they had in view. The fourth writer, who, with MM. Fournier, Arnould, and Alexandre Dumas, has adopted the romantic theory, is an historian, M. Michelet.[25]

Before showing that this pretended brother of Louis XIV. could not be the unknown prisoner brought by Saint-Mars to the Bastille in 1698, let us seek when and how this theory could have been started, and, to the end that the refutation may be complete and definitive, let us see if his birth is not as imaginary as his adventures. There are three dates assigned for this birth—in 1625, after the visit to France of the Duke of Buckingham, who has been considered as the father of the Man with the Iron Mask; in 1631, a few months after the grave illness of Louis XIII., which caused the accession to the throne of his brother, Gaston of Orléans, to be feared; and lastly, September 5, 1638, a few hours after Louis XIV. came into the world.[26]

If, in this searching examination, we touch upon delicate points—if, in order to destroy the unjust accusations with which the memory of Anne of Austria has been defaced, we penetrate deeply into the details of her private life and that of her royal husband—we are drawn thither by those who, by carrying the debate on to this ground, compel us to follow them. We shall unhesitatingly touch upon each of the memories which they have not feared to recall, and nothing will be omitted that can throw light upon our proof. We shall, nevertheless, strive not to forget what is due to our readers, and the necessity of convincing them will not make us negligent of the obligation we are under of respecting them.

FOOTNOTES:

[13] We shall speak of these briefly further on. We believe it useless to mention, otherwise than in a short note, the opinion of those who, despairing of finding the solution of the Man with the Iron Mask, have taken upon themselves to deny his existence. All the documents which we have just cited (official despatches of the Ministry of War, Dujonca’s Journal, &c. &c.) clearly establish the fact that a prisoner was sent with Saint-Mars to the Bastille in 1698, and that he died there in 1703, without any one ever having known his name. The silence of the Mémoires de Saint-Simon, which is very thoughtlessly evoked in support of the theory in question, will be explained very naturally in the course of this work. Neither is there any need to enlarge upon an opinion put forward a short time since in certain journals, which makes the Man with the Iron Mask a son of Louis XIV. and the Duchess of Orléans. This opinion, which there is nothing whatever to prove, which rests upon no document, nor even upon any historical fact, is, moreover, set forth in an article filled with errors. The only cause of the disgrace of the Marquis de Vardes, exiled to his government of Aigues-Mortes, was an intrigue in which he played an important part, and which had for its object the overthrow of Mademoiselle de la Vallière and the substitution of another mistress for her. As to the death of the Duchess of Orléans, it is now demonstrated that it was not due to poison. M. Mignet, in his Négociations Relatives, à la Succession d’ Espagne (vol. iii. p. 206), was the first to deny this poisoning, relying principally on a very conclusive despatch from Lionne to Colbert, of the 1st July, 1670. Since then, M. Littré, in the second number of La Philosophie Positive, has incontestably established by the examination of the procès-verbaux, and of all the circumstances relating to the death of Henrietta of England, that it must be attributed to an internal disease, unknown to the physicians of that period. [The Duchess of Orléans here referred to is Henrietta-Maria, youngest daughter of Charles I. of England, who married Philip, younger brother of Louis XIV., and first Duke of the existing branch of the House of Orléans.—Trans.]

[14] Grandeur et Décadence des Romains, chap. iv.

[15] The grave English historian, David Hume, has re-echoed this theory, supported also by the Marquis de Luchet, in his Remarques sur le Masque de Fer, 1783.

[16] The Mémoires Secrets pour servir à l’ Histoire de Perse, Amsterdam, 1745, had already revealed the existence of Saint-Mars’ prisoner, and maintained that he was the Duke de Vermandois, a natural son of Louis XIV. and Mademoiselle de la Vallière. We shall recur to them when considering this theory, in the same way as we shall speak, with reference to the principal theories put forward, of the works which have discussed them, without regard to the period at which they have appeared.

[17] Siècle de Louis XIV., chap. xxv.

[18] Voltaire, Dictionnaire Philosophique, vol. i. p. 375, 376. Edition of 1771.

[19] London, 1790. It is known that Soulavie used the notes and papers of the Marshal de Richelieu with such bad faith, that the Duke de Fronsac launched an energetic protest against his father’s ex-secretary.

[20] “Account of the birth and education of the unfortunate prince removed by the Cardinals Richelieu and Mazarin from society, and imprisoned by order of Louis XIV., composed by the governor of the prince on his deathbed.” (Mémoires du Maréchal de Richelieu, vol. iii. chap. 4.)

[21] This story is closely reproduced in Grimm’s Correspondence, on the assumed authority of an original letter from the Duchess de Modena, daughter of the Regent d’Orléans, said to have been found by M. de la Borde, a former valet-de-chambre of Louis XV., among the papers of Marshal Richelieu, who was the Duchess’s lover.—See Corespondence Littéraire, Philosophique, &c., de Grunen et de Diderot, vol. xiv., pp. 419-23. Paris, 1831.—Trans.

[22] Mercure de France.

[23] Le Masque de Fer of MM. Arnould and Fournier, played with great success at the Odéon Theatre in 1831.

[24] Le Vicomte de Bragelonne, by Alexander Dumas.

[25] Histoire de France, vol. xii. p. 435. “If Louis XVI. told Marie-Antoinette that nothing was any longer known about him, it is because, understanding her well, he had little desire of this secret being sent to Vienna. Very probably the child was an elder brother of Louis XIV., and his birth obscured the question (important to them) of knowing if their ancestor, Louis XIV., had reigned legitimately.”

[26] I shall not examine in detail the hypothesis which makes him a child of Anne of Austria and Mazarin, since it is abandoned even by those who are the most eager to see a brother of Louis XIV. in the prisoner. “It is doubtful,” says M. Michelet, “if the prisoner had been a younger brother of Louis XIV., a son of the Queen and Mazarin, whether the succeeding kings would have kept the secret so well.” Moreover, the general arguments which I shall advance in Chapter V. will apply equally to a son of Mazarin, of Buckingham, or of Louis XIII.

CHAPTER II.

First Hypothesis—Portrait of Buckingham—Causes of his Visit to France—Ardour with which he was received—His Passion for Anne of Austria—Character of this Princess—Journey to Amiens—Scene in the Garden—The Remembrance that Anne of Austria preserved of it.

The Duke of Buckingham, charged by Charles I. with conducting Henrietta-Maria, the new Queen of England, to London, arrived in Paris, May 24, 1625.[27] This brilliant and audacious nobleman, who had known how to become and to remain the ruling favourite of two kings utterly different in character and mind, and who, from a very humble position, had raised himself to the highest posts in the State, enjoyed throughout the whole of Europe the most striking renown. He owed it, however, less to the favours with which James I. had loaded him, and which his son had continued, than to his attractive qualities and his romantic adventures. All that Nature could bestow of grace, charm, and the power of pleasing, he had received in profusion. Deficient in the more precious gifts which retain, he possessed all those which attract. He was well made, had a very handsome countenance,[28] was of a proud bearing without being haughty, and knew how to affect, according to circumstances, the emotion which he wished to communicate to others, but did not feel himself. During a long stay in France, he had succeeded in rendering exquisite those manners which were naturally delicate, and had become accomplished in all the arts which display the elegance of the body. He excelled in arms, showed himself a clever horseman, and danced with a rare perfection. The adventurous visit to Spain which he had made with the Prince of Wales[29] had increased his reputation for elegant frivolity, and the successes which his good looks and audacity had secured him made people forget the defects of the incautious negotiator. Already extravagant during his early poverty, he dissipated his fortune as if he had always lived in the opulence for which he seemed born, displaying a magnificence and a pomp unknown in a like degree before his time. Moreover, volatile and presumptuous, as inconstant as pliant, without profundity in his views, without connection in his projects, clever in maintaining himself in power, but disastrous to the sovereigns whom he governed, by turns insolently familiar and irresistibly attractive, sometimes admired by the crowd for his supreme distinction, at others execrated for his fatal authority, not low but impetuous in his caprices, not knowing either how to foresee or to accept an obstacle, and sacrificing everything to his fancy, he possessed none of the qualities of the statesman although he may have had all those which characterize the courtier.

He was expected, and was received in Paris with the most eager curiosity. “M. de Buckingham,” wrote Richelieu to the Marquis d’Effiat, “will find in me the friendship which he might expect from a true brother who will render him all the services which he could desire of any one in the world,”[30] and Louis XIII. caused to be said to him, “I assure you that you will not be considered a stranger here, but a true Frenchman, since you are one in heart, and have shown in this marriage negotiation such uniform affection for the welfare and service of the two crowns, that I think as much of it, so far as I am concerned, as the King your master. You will be very welcome here, and you will have access to me on all occasions.”[31]

From the day of his arrival, Buckingham really showed himself “a true Frenchman” by his manner of behaving, by the ease and freedom of his movements. “He entered the court,” says La Rochefoucauld, “with more splendour, grandeur, and magnificence than if he were King.”[32] Eight great lords and four-and-twenty knights accompanied him. Twenty gentlemen and twelve pages were attached to his person, and his entire suite was composed of six or seven hundred pages or attendants.[33] “He had all the treasures of the Crown of England to expend, and all its jewels to wear.”[34] He alighted at the splendid Hôtel de Luynes in the Rue Saint-Thomas-du-Louvre, which was then called the Hôtel de Chevreuse, “the most richly furnished hotel which France at present possesses,” says the Mercure, and for several days the people of Paris were dazzled by the extraordinary luxury displayed by the ostentatious foreigner.[35] The admiration at the court was quite as lively, and Buckingham there pushed liberality to extravagance. Each of his sumptuous costumes was covered with pearls and diamonds intentionally fastened on so badly that a great number fell off, which the duke refused to receive when they were brought to him. His prodigality, the importance of his mission, the seductiveness which enveloped his past life, and the amiability which he invariably displayed, his title of foreigner which rendered his perfectly French manners more piquant, that art of pleasing which was so easy to him, all contributed to make him alike the hero both of the town and of the court.

Giddy with a success which surpassed even his expectations, and dazzled by the splendour which he shed around him, he saw only the Queen of France worthy of his homage, and suddenly conceived for her the most vehement passion. Too frivolous to bury this sentiment in his heart, he displayed it with complacency, and his temerity increased with his ostentation. Anne of Austria was a Spaniard and a coquette. She understood gallantry such as her country-women had learned it from the Moors—that gallantry “which permits men to entertain without criminal intentions tender sentiments for women; which inspires in them fine actions, liberality, and all kinds of virtue.”[36] “She did not consider,” says one who best knew Anne of Austria, “that the fine talk, which is ordinarily called honest gallantry, where no particular engagement is entered into, could ever be blamable.”[37]

So she tolerated with indulgence and without astonishment a passion congenial to her recollections of her country and her youth, and which, while flattering her self-esteem, did not at all shock her virtue. She received this homage of vanity with the complacency of coquetry, knowing herself to be most beautiful, most powerful, and most worthy of being loved. On Buckingham’s side there was indiscreet persistence, multiplied signs of being in love, and eagerness to be near her; on hers, timid encouragement, gentle sternness, severity and pardon by turns in her looks appeared to Anne of Austria the natural and ordinary incidents of a gallantry where neither her honour nor even her reputation seemed exposed to any peril. Moreover, if numerous festivities gave them frequent opportunities of seeing one another, the court being always present at the many interviews of the Ambassador with the Queen, restrained and embarrassed the enterprising audacity of the one, but entirely justified the confidence of the other.

After a week devoted to ballets, banquets, and feats of horsemanship, the wife of Charles I. set out on June 2 for England, conducted by the Duke of Buckingham, the Earls of Holland and Carlisle, and the Duke and Duchess de Chevreuse. Louis XIII., who was ill, remained at Compiègne; but Anne of Austria, as well as Marie de Medicis, accompanied by a great number of French lords, proceeded to Amiens. There the brilliant assemblies recommenced, and the Duke de Chaulnes, governor of the province, gave the three Queens a most magnificent reception. During several days the whole of the nobility of the neighbourhood came to offer their homage and augment the brilliancy of the pleasure-parties and fêtes given by the governor. The town not containing a palace sufficiently large to receive the three Queens, they were lodged separately, each being accompanied by a train of intimates and lords, who formed a little court for her. Buckingham almost constantly deserted his new sovereign in order to show himself wherever Anne of Austria was. Attached to the abode of the latter was a large garden, near the banks of the Somme. The Queen and her court were fond of walking in it. One evening, attracted, as usual, by the beauty of the place, and tempted by the mildness of the weather, Anne of Austria, accompanied by Buckingham, the Duchess de Chevreuse, Lord Holland, and all the ladies of her suite, prolonged her promenade later than usual. Violently enamoured, and arrived at such a pitch of self-conceit that everything seemed possible, the Duke was very tender, and even dared to be importunate. The early departure of Henrietta Maria rendered their separation imminent. Favoured by the falling night, and taking advantage of a moment of isolation due to the winding of a path, he threw himself at the Queen’s feet, and wished to give way to the transports of his passion. But Anne, alarmed, and perceiving the danger that she ran, uttered a loud cry, and Putange, her equerry, who was walking a few steps behind her, rushed forward and seized the Duke. All the suite arrived in turn, and Buckingham managed to get away in the midst of the crowd.[38]

Two days afterwards Henrietta Maria quitted Amiens for Boulogne; Marie de Medicis and Anne of Austria accompanied her to the gates of the town. Anne of Austria was in a carriage with the Princess de Conti. It was there that Buckingham took leave of her. Bending down to bid her adieu, he covered himself with the window-curtain, in order to hide his tears, which fell profusely. The Queen was moved at this display of grief, and the Princess de Conti, “who gracefully rallied her, told her that she could answer to the King for her virtue, but that she would not do as much for her cruelty, as she suspected her eyes of having regarded this lover with some degree of pity.”[39]

Too passionately enamoured for separation to be able to cure him of his love, and excited still more to see Anne of Austria again by the recollection of his gross rashness, the Duke of Buckingham, whom unfavourable winds detained at Boulogne, returned suddenly to Amiens with Lord Holland, under pretence of having an important letter to deliver to Marie de Medicis, who, owing to a slight illness, had not quitted this town. “Returned again!” said Anne of Austria to Nogent-Bautru, on learning this news; “I thought that we were delivered from him.”[40] She had been bled that morning, and was in bed when the two English noblemen entered her chamber. Buckingham, blinded by his passion, threw himself on his knees before the Queen’s bed, embracing the coverings with ecstasy, and exhibiting, to the great scandal of the ladies of honour, the impetuous sentiments which agitated him. The Countess de Lannoi wished to force him to rise, telling him, with severity, that such behaviour was not according to French customs. “I am not French,” replied the Duke, and he continued, but always in the presence of several witnesses, to eloquently express his tenderness for the Queen. The latter, being very much embarrassed, could not at first say anything; then she complained of such boldness, but without a great deal of indignation; and it is probable that her heart took no part in the reproaches which she addressed to the duke. The next day he departed a second time for Boulogne, and never again saw the Queen of France.

Such is the famous scene at Amiens, which furnished opportunities for the gross liveliness of Tallemant des Réaux and the libertine imagination of the Cardinal de Retz.[41] The statements of La Porte, who was present, of Madame de Motteville, who collected her information from eye-witnesses, and of La Rochefoucauld, less likely to show partiality, leave no doubt of Anne of Austria’s innocence. Marie de Medicis, whose interest it then was to injure her with Louis XIII., and who often did so without scruple, could not on this occasion, says La Porte,[42] “avoid bearing witness to the truth, and telling the King that there was nothing in it; that if the Queen might have been willing to act wrongly, it would have been impossible, with so many people about her who were watching her, and that she could not prevent the Duke of Buckingham having esteem or even love for her. She related also a number of things of this kind which had happened to herself in her youth.”

Marie de Medicis might also have quoted examples from the life of Anne of Austria herself, who had previously loved the Duke de Montmorency and the Duke de Bellegarde without her honour having been tarnished by so doing.[43] The recollection of Buckingham’s love dwelt more profoundly in the memory of all, because his passion had been more fiery and had been manifested by incautious acts. But to the end of the Queen’s life, even after the death of Louis XIII., and during the regency, it was in her presence a subject of conversation which she listened to complacently, because it flattered her self-esteem, and which she would certainly not have tolerated, had any one dared to start it, if this recollection had been to her a cause for remorse. Far from this, people familiarly jested with her about it with grace, and without offending her, since they could thus remind her of a liking which had been sufficiently strong, but had not led her to commit any fault. Richelieu, presenting Mazarin to the Queen, said, “You will like him, madam, he has Buckingham’s manner.”[44] Much later Anne of Austria, when Regent, meeting Voiture walking along in a dreamy state, in her garden of Ruel, and asking him what he was thinking of, received in reply these verses, which did not at all offend her:—

“Je pensais que la destinée,
Après tant d’injustes malheurs,
Vous a justement couronnée
De gloire, d’éclat et d’honneurs;
Mais que vous étiez plus heureuse
Lorsque vous étiez autrefois,
Je ne veux pas dire amoureuse,
La rime le veut toutefois.
Je pensais (que nos autres poëtes
Nous pensons extravagamment)
Ce que, dans l’humeur où vous êtes,
Vous feriez si, dans ce moment,
Vous avisiez en cette place
Venir le Duc de Buckingham,
Et lequel serait en disgrâce,
De lui ou du père Vincent.”[45]

Everything combines to absolve Anne of Austria from the crime of which she was accused during the troubles of the Fronde, and in the midst of the unjust passions aroused by civil war. Louis XIII.’s conduct with respect to her, and his persistent coldness, alone seemed to condemn her. But does this coldness date from Buckingham’s stay in Paris? Were the isolation in which Louis XIII. often remained and his neglect of the Queen such as people have believed up to the present time? Must we admit, as has been maintained, the proof of a criminal infidelity on the part of this Princess, deliberately committed either with Buckingham in 1625, or with an unknown individual, in 1630, with the view of being able, at the instant of Louis XIII.’s death, which then seemed imminent, to reign in the name of a child of whom she should be enceinte, and who, after the unexpected recovery of the King, became the Man with the Iron Mask?

FOOTNOTES:

[27] Mercure Français, 1625, pp. 365, 366.

[28] Mémoires de Madame de Motteville, p. 15.

[29] The Prince of Wales had been on the point of espousing the Infanta Maria, Anne of Austria’s sister, and had proceeded to Spain with Buckingham, in order to hasten the conclusion of this project. See the very interesting Story of this negotiation in M. Guizot’s Un Projet de Mariage Royal.

[30] Collection of Unpublished Documents concerning the History of France. Lettres et Papiers d’État du Cardinal de Richelieu, published by M. Avenel, vol. ii. p. 55.

[31] Ibid. vol. ii. p. 71.

[32] Mémoires de la Rochefoucauld, p. 340.

[33] Hardwicke (State Papers), vol. i. p. 571. Documents quoted in M. Guizot’s work already cited, p. 332.

[34] Mémoires de Madame de Motteville, p. 16. Mercure Français, 1625, p. 366.

[35] Mercure Français, ibid.

[36] Mémoires de Madame de Motteville, p. 18. “In our time,” adds Madame de Motteville, “there has existed what the Spaniards call fucezas.” “This word,” remarks the commentator on these Memoirs, “appears to come from huso, a distaff. It seems to express the idea of spinning love.”

[37] Ibid.

[38] Mémoires de La Porte. Mémoires de Madame de Motteville, p. 16. Mémoires de la Rochefoucauld, p. 340.

[39] Mémoires de Madame de Motteville.

[40] Mémoires de La Porte, pp. 8, 9. Madame de Motteville assures us that her mistress was informed of this visit by Madame de Chevreuse, which is possible. It is the only point, and moreover, a very secondary one, in which La Porte’s account differs from Madame de Motteville’s. But we must not forget that the former was an eye-witness, whilst the latter, who entered the service of Anne of Austria afterwards, learnt the events, which she describes at the commencement of her Memoirs, long subsequent to their occurrence.

[41] Retz places the Amiens scene at the Louvre, and does not neglect the opportunity of blackening the Queen’s honour.

[42] Mémoires de La Porte, p. 10.

[43] Mémoires de Madame de Motteville, p. 18.

[44] Mémoires de Tallemant des Réaux, vol. i. p. 422.

[45] Père Vincent was the Queen’s confessor.—Mémoires de Madame de Motteville, vol. i. pp. 81, 82.

CHAPTER III.

Second Hypothesis—First Feelings of Anne of Austria towards Louis XIII.—Joy which she experienced on arriving in France—First Impressions of Louis XIII.—His Aversion to Spain—His Dislike to Marriage—Austerity of his Manners—His persistent Coldness—Means adopted to induce him to consummate the Marriage—Political Position of Anne of Austria—Louis XIII. and Richelieu—Watch kept by the Minister over the Queen—The King’s Illness at Lyons.

The political story of Louis XIII.’s marriage with Anne of Austria has been told; the motives which determined this union, the negotiations which preceded it, the great interests connected with it, and the powerful springs which put it in action, have all been set forth and weighed in a decisive manner.[46]

If, neglecting this grave examination, which is entirely foreign to our work, we occupy ourselves solely with the character and secret thoughts of the persons thus tied to one another, and whose private life has been ransacked in order to give a solution to the problem of the Man with the Iron Mask, we see that a very strong liking for France and for her King, on Anne of Austria’s part, was in accord with the necessities of policy. Contrary to what frequently happens in the case of royal marriages, the obligations imposed on the Infanta by her rank were not repugnant to the sentiments of the woman, and when she crossed the French frontier for the first time, she realized a hope long since conceived and dearly cherished in her heart. With only eight days between their births and at once betrothed to one another in public opinion, the Infanta and the Dauphin had been the object of the researches and predictions of all the astrologers of the time,[47] who proclaimed that, having come into the world under the same sign, they were destined to love each other, even though they might not be united. The Infanta had believed in this augury. She had early liked to hear the young King spoken of, she sought after his portraits, she preferred garments of French cut, she willingly wore ear-rings formed of fleurs-de-lis, and, the changes of the negotiation having for a moment fixed the choice of the two Governments on her sister Doña Maria,[48] Anne, then nine years old, declared, “that if it was to be thus, she was resolved to pass her life in a monastery without ever marrying.”[49] When, three years afterwards, the Duke de Mayenne, on quitting Madrid, whither he had come to sign the marriage contract of Anne and Louis XIII., asked the former what she wished him to say on her behalf to the King of France, she replied: “That I am extremely impatient to see him.” This answer having shocked the austere Countess d’Altamira, her governess, who exclaimed—“What! madam, what will the King of France think when M. de Mayenne tells him that you have made such a speech?”—the Infanta rejoined, “Madam, you have taught me that one should always be sincere; you should not be surprised then if I speak the truth.”[50]

The two years which elapsed before her departure saw no change in these sentiments. The 9th November, 1615, she parted at Fontarabia from her father, Philip III., with less sorrow than he showed in allowing her at length to leave, and it was with pride and contentment that the new Queen, radiant with youth and beauty,[51] crossed the Bidassoa, on her way to Bordeaux, where the French court was stopping. What kind of husband was she about to meet there?

Very different from those of the Princess Anne were the impressions of Louis XIII., concerning the marriage and the family to which he was going to unite himself. People had frequently, and at an early age, conversed with him about the project. The first replies of the Dauphin, questioned from his most tender infancy, would have no significance.[52] But as he advanced in age, his aversion to everything Spanish manifested itself with characteristic energy. Twice he replied in the negative to Henri IV., when the latter spoke to him of the Infanta as his future wife.[53] One day, on M. de Ventelet asking him if he liked the Spaniards, he answered, “No.” “And why, sir?” “Because they are papa’s enemies.” “And the Infanta?” added De Ventelet, “do you love her, sir?” “No.” “Why, sir?” “I don’t want any Spanish love.”[54] Later, when his chaplain was making him recite the Commandments, on coming to “Thou shalt not kill,” the Dauphin exclaimed: “What, not the Spaniards? Oh, yes, I shall kill the Spaniards, because they are papa’s enemies! I will beat them well!” And on his chaplain observing that they were Christians, he replied: “May I only kill Turks then?”[55]

To this aversion, a great deal more significant since it was contrary to a project generally acquiesced in by those about him, soon came to be added a certain distaste for marriage. Born with the ardent and lascivious temperament of his father, impelled to follow his example by conversations often loose, sometimes obscene, Louis XIII. succeeded in modifying these early tendencies by a force of will and a power of reflection truly rare. He was naturally an observer, he spoke little and laughed still less. He was usually serious and grave at times when his pages found cause for great merriment. All that he remarked became profoundly engraved on his mind, and enabled him years afterwards to reply with marvellous pertinency to questions which were sometimes embarrassing. His young imagination was early struck by the singular effects which the King’s conduct produced at the court. In his cradle he received frequent visits, not only from his mother, but also from Henri IV.’s repudiated wife,[56] and from his numerous mistresses. They all sometimes found themselves assembled around him, the latter proud of their master’s affection, Marie de Medicis irritated, jealous, and showing it. The issue of these very open intrigues, were the Dauphin’s companions; but he instinctively abhorred them. He struck them without motive; would not have them at his table; absolutely refused to call them brothers; and when Henri IV., after having beaten him without overcoming this insurmountable repugnance, asked him the reason of it, he answered, “Because they are not mamma’s sons.”[57]

This hatred for everything connected with illegitimacy was certainly the origin of the chaste reserve which was to characterize so particularly him who was the son of Henri IV. and the father of Louis XIV. From his illegitimate brothers, this aversion extended to their mothers, whom he qualified in very contemptuous terms, and to the intrigues in which they were engaged. “Shall you be as ribald as the King?” said his nurse to him one day. “No,” he answered, after a moment’s reflection. And on her asking him if he was in love, he replied, “No, I avoid love.”[58]

It was especially after Henri IV.’s death that the tendencies of the young king revealed themselves. He loved his father tenderly, a great deal more than Marie de Medicis did, who, moreover, never showed much affection for her elder son. He worthily wept his violent death,[59] and long afterwards, hearing at the Louvre, one of the late King’s songs, he went aside to sob.[60] But if, while yet a child, he had appreciated the glory of Henri IV., if he had shared his patriotic sentiments, if he was proud of his victories, he had silently blamed the licence which, in acts, and still more in language, then rendered the French Court one of the most gross in Europe. As King, he would not tolerate these excesses. He showed himself openly austere in his speech, and modest in his actions, forbade in his presence obscene songs and scandalous conversations, and in order to avoid any pretext for them, replied sharply to M. de Souvré, his governor, when he wished to talk with him about marriage: “Do not let us speak of that, sir; do not let us speak of that.”

It was nevertheless necessary to speak of it, and to set out for Bordeaux. Louis XIII., then in his fifteenth year, still possessed, and was to preserve for a long time, the tastes and predilections of his infancy. He gave himself up to them in order to divert his mind from the marriage festivities. He kept birds, armed his gentlemen, and enrolled them in a vigilant and disciplined troop; then he assisted at the Council, replied pertinently to the deputations presented to him, and thus mingled the simple amusements of the child with the grave accomplishment of his business as King.[61] Much less desirous of fulfilling his duties as husband, he nevertheless affected towards the Infanta, either from self-esteem, or from a sense of propriety towards the strangers who were bringing her to him, an attention which surprised and charmed the court. He went to meet the train which accompanied her, showed himself curious and pleased to see her, and was timid, but attentive and courteous, in the first interviews which he had with her.[62] This was all; and, if for an instant, he possessed the manners of a gallant and attentive cavalier, he by no means exhibited the behaviour of a lover. During the evening after the celebration of the ceremony, he remained insensible to the encouragements of M. de Grammont,[63] and Marie de Medicis had to exert her authority in order to induce him to go to Anne of Austria. Four years afterwards the marriage was not yet consummated; and this event, ardently desired by the Court of France, disconsolate at the King’s coldness; by the Court of Spain, which saw an insult in this disdain; by the Pope’s nuncio, and by the Court of Tuscany, which had so much contributed towards the union, became in some degree an affair of State.

Many efforts, many attempts were necessary to induce Louis XIII. to change his course of behaviour, of which the remote cause may be ascribed to his early impressions as Dauphin, and of which a more immediate one has been discovered by the Nuncio Bentivoglio.[64] Sometimes the King’s pride was attempted to be touched, and the politic Nuncio, availing himself of the marriage of the Princess Christine with the Duke of Savoy, asked Louis XIII., “If he wished to have the shame of seeing his sister have a son before he had a Dauphin.”[65] Sometimes recourse was had to influences still more direct.[66] At length, January 25, 1619, Albert de Luynes, after vainly begging him to cede to the wishes of his subjects, carried him by force into the Queen’s chamber.[67] The following day, all the ambassadors announced this event to their respective governments.

From that time, Louis XIII. was less scared, but almost as timid[68] as ever, and though, preserving all his repugnances, he sometimes overcame them as a matter of duty, and showed himself a tolerably ardent, but never very tender husband. In the month of December, 1619, there were reasons for hoping that the Queen was pregnant.[69] This hope, which soon vanished, was renewed at the commencement of 1622, but was again destroyed by a fall, which Anne of Austria had while playing with the Duchess de Chevreuse.[70] Buckingham’s rapid visit to France, if it left a profound remembrance in the Queen’s heart, certainly had no influence upon the King’s conduct. Nothing was changed in the intercourse of the two spouses, which was neither more frequent, nor ever entirely interrupted.[71] After, as before this visit, Louis XIII. almost invariably saw in the Queen the Spaniard in blood and affection; and when in May, 1621, he had to announce to her the death of her father, he did it in this wise: “Madam,” said he, “I have just now received letters from Spain, in which they write me word for certain, that the King your father is dead.” Then, mounting his horse, he set out for the chase.[72] It is undoubtedly true, moreover, that Anne of Austria, who was, to her eternal glory, to become thoroughly French on assuming the Regency, and perceiving the true interests of her young son, to serve them with patriotism, intelligence, and firmness, even in opposition to her old friends, was, during the life-time of Louis XIII., the natural centre of a secret but constant and implacable opposition to the system which Richelieu supported. Good, but proud, she had been galled by her husband’s indifference, humiliated by Richelieu’s chicanery and mistrust, and irritated at not possessing any influence, so that, in the midst of the war which divided Spain and France, she had not wished to dissimulate the attachment which she preserved for her own family and for her country. Badly advised by the frivolous and restless Duchess de Chevreuse, she had engaged in different enterprises by which, without betraying France, she had furnished her enemies with arms sufficiently powerful for them to be able to maintain her in disgrace with Louis XIII.

This Prince, who during his whole life longed for the moment when he should quit his state of tutelage,[73] and who, from being under the control of his governor, was to pass under his mother’s, then under Albert de Luynes’, and lastly, under Richelieu’s, joined to rather a fierce pride a true and just sense and exact knowledge of his inferiority. He detested the yoke, but he felt that it was necessary. Destined by his own incapacity to be for ever accomplishing the designs of others, he submitted to constraint, although constantly disposed to revolt. But he loved neither his mother, whom he discarded, nor De Luynes, whose death he did not regret. Richelieu alone, not only by the vast superiority of his genius, but especially by the obsequiousness of his language, by incessant precautions, by continually new artifices of humility, succeeded in seducing that unquiet and distrustful spirit, over which flattery had no power.[74] He ended by even attaching the King to himself, whatever may have been said about it, and by inspiring in him an affection which was bestowed quite as much upon the man as upon the indispensable Minister. Louis XIII. had the greatest solicitude for Richelieu, and paid him the most delicate attentions; and it can be affirmed, after a perusal of his letters, as yet unpublished, that these marks of lively friendship were not merely the result of self-interest.[75] Moreover, even when he was in possession of supreme authority, Richelieu, ever on the alert, showed himself to the last as studious in preserving it as he had been ingenious and supple in acquiring it. His efforts were constantly exerted to neutralize the influence of a Spanish Queen over a King whom he wished to maintain in the glorious policy of Henri IV. But he did not content himself with depriving the legitimate wife of his King of the whole of her power, which was a matter of no difficulty. Although incapable of criminal desires, since he could abstain from lawful pleasures, Louis XIII., sickly and morose as he was, reaping from love only jealousy and trouble, devoured by inquietudes and cares, had need of pouring out his complaints, of exposing his griefs, of unbosoming himself to a friendly heart, away from the pomp and noise which he fled. Richelieu always directed this inclination; and if he subjugated the King’s mind by the force of his own genius, if he fascinated him by the seductive power of his words, he watched over all his actions by means of spies, with whom he surrounded him, and governed even his soul through his confessors.[76] When the Prince’s affections, “purely spiritual, and enjoyments always chaste,” as says a contemporary, were bestowed on instruments, indocile to the directions of the ruling Minister, the latter knew how to conjure up scruples in the King’s mind, even for these pure connections, and which triumphed over his inclinations. To Madame de Hautefort succeeded, in the royal affections, Mademoiselle de la Fayette, to her Cinq-Mars, and these three individuals, whose relations with the King always continued perfectly irreproachable, but who rebelled against Richelieu’s imperious will, expiated their resistance—one in exile, another in a convent, and the third on the scaffold.

If, then, it was true that Anne of Austria had, in 1630, committed adultery in order to give an heir to her dying husband, how are we to admit that a Minister so suspicious and vigilant would not have been cognisant of it, and knowing it, would not, by informing the convalescent King of this crime, have brought about the ruin of a Queen whom he detested, and who, in union with Marie de Medicis, was then plotting his downfall? It is in vain to object that a feeling of propriety would have restrained the Cardinal:[77] he was incapable of any such sentiment. Inflexible towards his enemies, because he regarded them, with reason, as the enemies of the State, to unmask and ruin them he employed a stubbornness and a persistence which nothing could overcome. When it was necessary to persuade Louis XIII. of the communication which the Queen kept up with Spain, the implacable Minister could make the most minute search and put the most humiliating questions. He could cause her dearest servants to be arrested; he could confront her with spies; he could treat her as an obscure criminal; and the admirable devotion of Madame de Hautefort[78] could alone enable the Queen, very strongly suspected, but not entirely convicted, to escape from this grave danger. And yet people desire to maintain that Richelieu would have left Louis XIII. ignorant of a much greater crime, and one which touched more immediately the King’s honour! Moreover, where, when, how, and in what interest would this crime have been committed? To conjectures and vague insinuations let us oppose positive facts, which prove that Richelieu did not acquaint Louis XIII., because Anne of Austria had never ceased to be innocent.

The King fell ill at Lyons, not during the early part of August, as has been said, but on September 22, and here especially dates are of the utmost importance.[79] He was seized with a fever, which consumed him. The seventh day—the 29th—it was complicated by a dysentery, which exhausted him. The attack of this last complaint, produced by one of those medicines then much in vogue, was so violent, and its consequences so rapid, that by midnight the doctors despaired of saving him. Marie de Medicis had retired. Anne of Austria, who did not leave the royal patient, resolved to have him warned by his confessor of the danger he was in. But, at the first cautiously spoken words, Louis XIII. conjured Father Suffren, and those who surrounded him, not to hide the truth from him. He learned it with calmness and courage, confessed, communicated, and asked pardon of all for any wrong he might have done them; then, calling the Queen, he embraced her tenderly, and addressed to her a touching farewell. As she retired on one side in order to weep freely, the King prayed Father Suffren to go and find her, and again beg her from him “to pardon him all the unpleasantnesses he might have caused her the whole time of their married life.” He afterwards conversed with Richelieu, and offered a spectacle of the most edifying resignation. Towards the middle of the day, the Archbishop of Lyons was preparing himself to bring in the extreme unction, when the doctors, who had already bled this exhausted body six times in succession, ordered a seventh bleeding.[80] But then the true cause of the illness, which was unknown to them, was made clear; an internal abscess broke, and nature saved the patient at the moment when the intervention of his physicians promised to be fatal.[81] Louis XIII., soon re-established in health, left Lyons with the Queen, who did not cease to lavish on him the most tender cares, and whose sincere grief had touched him. In this crisis the two spouses had forgotten the past.[82] The repugnance and the coldness of the one, the wounded pride of the other, had disappeared, and they were naturally led to appreciate whatever goodness and amiability were to be found in each other’s natures.[83]

Strong in the unaccustomed sway which she exercised, but exaggerating its extent, Anne of Austria was not content with holding in the King’s heart the place which properly belonged to her. Aided by the ambitious and vindictive Marie de Medicis, after having occupied herself with her griefs as a wife, she desired to extend her censure to affairs of State, and to attack, in Richelieu, not only one who had kept alive the mistrust of herself, who had called suspicion into existence, and had separated King and Queen, mother and son, but also the stubborn pursuer of the great policy of Henri IV., who maintained abroad the pre-eminence of France over Spain, and the abasement of the House of Austria. We know how Louis XIII., who was incapable of vast projects, but who understood their value, was recalled by reasons of State to Richelieu, and, on a famous day, confirmed his authority at the very instant that it seemed annihilated.[84]

To what period are we to assign the commission of the fault resulting in Anne’s pregnancy of January, 1631? It cannot have been on September 30, 1630, when Louis XIII.’s life was in danger, for the Queen was delivered during the first five days of April, 1631.[85] Was it on the arrival of Louis XIII. at Lyons, at the commencement of August, 1630? But Anne of Austria did not then have the same interest in being a mother, which, according to her accusers, she would have on September 30, when the King was dying. Either the child was still-born, or else its conception dates from a period when Louis XIII. was its father. The origin of this pregnancy is suspected because Richelieu, in a journal attributed to him, and of which it has been said “that it lent to Voltaire’s supposition rather a serious ground of argument,”[86] was pleased to note the progress of the Queen’s condition, often sent to inquire after her health, carried off her apothecary, then returned him to her, forbade the Spanish ambassador to make too frequent visits to the Louvre, and, in a word, exercised over Anne of Austria a suspicious and unceasing vigilance. But if we admit the authenticity of this journal, which, probable enough in certain details, is much less so when taken as a whole, all the facts which it relates, the espionage which it chronicles, the suspicions which it insinuates, concern the Spaniard, irritated at Richelieu’s unexpected triumph and dreaming of overthrowing him, not the guilty spouse whose crime it is desired to prove. Accepting this last theory, why should Richelieu have restored to the Queen the medical attendant who could have aided her in concealing the consequences of her fault? Why was she not entirely separated from all her confidants? Why were not the visits of the Spanish ambassador altogether forbidden? Richelieu, it is true, caused the Countess de Fargis to be dismissed. But it was only because she had advised the Queen to espouse her brother-in-law, Gaston d’Orléans, if she became a widow, because she had inflamed Anne of Austria’s resentment, and because she was the soul of the opposition, of the political intrigues, and of the secret plots against the Cardinal. If everything in her long correspondence seized by the latter, and existing in the archives,[87] justifies him for having exiled the dangerous Countess, if we find in it traces of the hopes of the two Queens, of the affections which bind them to Spain, of the successes they desire, of the reverses they hope for, nothing can be discovered that sullies Anne of Austria’s honour. The Countess de Fargis appears in it as the active instigator of cabals, but not as the complacent accomplice and the confidant of a crime.

The truth is that enceinte for the third time, and fearing a third accident, Anne of Austria did not wish the news of her condition to be spread abroad, or to arouse in the minds of the people a hope which the remembrance of the past rendered very uncertain of fulfilment. That this pregnancy was due to the reconciliation arising from the King’s illness, Richelieu himself attests, not as the doubtful author of a journal which, however, does not contain a single line really accusing the Queen, but as the indisputable writer of those innumerable letters, papers, and authentic documents, which have passed from the hands of the Duchess d’Aiguillon, his niece, into the archives of the State.[88] “It is suspected, not without good reason, that the Queen is enceinte,” he writes. “If this happiness befalls France, it ought to receive it as a fruit of the blessing of God and of the good understanding which has existed between the King and the Queen, his wife, for some time past.”[89] The same care which Anne of Austria took to conceal a third miscarriage, she had already shown with regard to a second, which occurred March 16, 1622, and at that time “they had hidden from the King as long as possible the destruction of his hopes.”[90] But from the first day that Richelieu entered upon power, nothing escaped the penetrating regard of the attentive Minister. He watched, he observed, he knew everything. Every member of the royal family was surrounded by some of his agents. If from this incessant surveillance, and from the written evidence in which it stands revealed, springs the proof that the Queen had coquetted with Buckingham, been swayed by the counsels of the Duchess de Chevreuse,[91] and faithful to the last recommendations of her father, Philip III., had been always ready to support the Spanish interest near the King; if, in a word, Richelieu represents her as a Queen but little French, he never insinuates that she has been a guilty spouse; and history can scarcely hope to be better informed, and certainly ought not to show itself more rigorous than the clear-sighted and pitiless Minister.

FOOTNOTES:

[46] Les Mariages espagnols sous le règne d’Henri IV. et la Régence de Marie de Medicis, by M. Perrens, Professor at the Lycée Bonaparte.

[47] Manuscripts of the Imperial Library, fonds Harlay, 228, Nos. 14, 15; Court of Spain, Embassy of M. de Vaucellas, already quoted by M. Armand Baschet in his amusing work, very rich in rare documents, Le Roi chez la Reine.

[48] The Infanta Maria, married to Ferdinand III., King of Hungary, afterwards Emperor.

[49] Despatch from M. de Vaucellas, November 20, 1610. Manuscripts quoted above.

[50] Mercure Français, vol. ii. p. 549.

[51] Manuscripts of the Imperial Library, fonds Dupuy, 76, p. 145, and Archives of the Château of Mouchy-Noailles, No. 1706. Mariages des Rois et Reines, by M. Baschet in his book already quoted.

[52] Journal de Jean Héroard sur l’Enfance et la Jeunesse de Louis XIII. Manuscripts of the Imperial Library. It has just been published by Didot, having been edited by MM. Eud. de Soulié and Ed. de Barthélemy, with an intelligence, a carefulness, and an erudition on which they cannot be too strongly felicitated.

[53] Journal d’Héroard, November 3, 1604, and March 2, 1605.

[54] Ibid., April 4, 1605.

[55] Ibid., January 29, 1607.

[56] Marguerite de Navarre.

[57] Journal d’Héroard, passim.

[58] Ibid., June 9, 1604, and October 21, 1608.

[59] “Ha!” he said, when he was told of Ravaillac’s act, “if I had been there with my sword, I would have killed him.”—Journal d’Héroard, May 14, 1610.

[60] Another day, November 14, 1611, he proceeded to St. Germain. “He went there to visit his brother, who was ill of an endormissement, accompanied with slight convulsions. He awoke, and Louis XIII. said to him, ‘Bonsoir, mon frère.’ He replied, ‘Bonsoir, mon petit papa.’ At these words Louis XIII. commenced to weep, went away, and was not seen for the whole of the day.”—Journal d’Héroard, Nov. 14, 1611.

[61] Mémoires du Maréchal de Bassompierre.—Journal d’Héroard.

[62] Despatch from the ambassador of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Matteo Bartolini, December 4, 1615, quoted by M. A. Baschet. Journal d’Héroard, November 21, 1615.

[63] Journal d’Héroard, November 25, 1615.

[64] Despatch of the Nuncio Bentivoglio, January 30, 1619.

[65] Ibid., January 16, 1619.

[66] Despatch of Contarini, ambassador from Venice, Jan. 27, 1619.

[67] Despatches of the Nuncio Bentivoglio, vol. i. pp. 157, 240, 300; and vol. ii. pp. 10, 31, 39, 40, 44, 80, 82, and 84. Despatch of Bentivoglio, January 30, 1619. See also despatches from the Venetian ambassador, January 27, and February 5, 1619; the Journal d’Héroard, January 25, 1619; Letter from Father Joseph to the Minister of Spain, February 14, 1619; and, lastly, the Mémoires de Bassompierre, vol. ii. p. 147.

[68] To the causes of Louis XIII.’s reserve, which we have just cited, may be added another, which the duty of not omitting anything causes us to indicate. According to the Rélation de Don Fernando Giron (Archives of Simancas), Louis XIII. held aloof from Anne of Austria “because he had been persuaded that if he had a son, while yet so young, it would cause a civil war in the kingdom.” Nothing, however, confirms this supposition, or renders it likely.

[69] Despatch of the Nuncio Bentivoglio, December 4, 1619.

[70] Mémoires de Bassompierre, confirmed by the Journal d’Héroard, March 26, 1622.

[71] Journal d’Héroard, passim, and especially June 8, and August 21, 1626.

[72] Ibid., May 10, 1621.

[73] “He was playing with some little balls, rolling them along his taper stand, and calling them soldiers. M. de Souvré reproved him, and told him that he was always amusing himself at childish games. ‘But, Monsieur de Souvré, these are soldiers; this is not a child’s game!’ ‘Sir, you will always be a child.’ ‘It is you who keep me one!’”—Journal d’Héroard, February 21, 1610.

[74] Several facts cited by Héroard prove that Louis XIII. was not at all sensible to flattery. (See particularly Oct 8, and Dec. 3, 1610.)

[75] Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Manuscripts. Original Letters of Louis XIII. Section France, 5.

[76] Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Manuscripts. Section France, vol. lxxxviii. fol. 99, and lxxxix. fols. 3, 23, 67, 78, and 103.

[77] M. Michelet indicates another motive which it is only necessary to cite in order to show its improbability. “Richelieu,” he says, “trusted in the weakness of the Queen’s nature, and, consequently, that one day or other she would be involved in some embarrassment or thoughtlessness which would leave her at his mercy.”

[78] Mémoires de La Porte, p. 370.

[79] Letter from Richelieu to Marshal de Schonberg, September 25, 1630; Letter from Father Suffren, Louis XIII.’s confessor, to Father Jacquinot, October 1, 1630.

[80] Letter from Father Suffren, already quoted. In one year Bouvart, Louis XIII.’s doctor, had him bled 47 times, made him take 212 medicines and 215 injections.—Archives Curieuses de l’Histoire de France, by Cimber and Danjou, 2nd series, vol. v. p. 63.

[81] Letter from Richelieu to Schonberg, September 30, 1630; Letter from Richelieu to d’Effiat, October 1, 1630.—Mémoires de Richelieu, book xi. vol vi. p. 296. Letter from Father Suffren, already quoted.

[82] A similar and as perfect return of lively affection and reciprocal tenderness was produced anew on the occasion of the illness of February, 1643, to which Louis XIII. succumbed. See the Mémoire fidèle des choses qui se sont passées à la mort de Louis XIII., written by Dubois, his valet-de-chambre. The ingenuousness and the precision in details which it exhibits does not permit us to doubt the exactitude and authenticity of this account. See also Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs: Mémoires Manuscrits de Lamothe-Goulas, Secrétaire des Commandements du Duc d’Orléans, vol. ii. p. 368.

[83] Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs: Mémoires Manuscrits de Lamothe-Goulas, Secrétaire des Commandements du Duc d’Orléans, vol. ii. p. 367.

[84] November 11, 1630—known in French history as “the Day of the Dupes”—when the Duke de Saint-Simon, father of the famous memoir writer, brought about a secret interview between Richelieu, who, in disgrace, was on the eve of retiring to Havre, and Louis XIII., then at his hunting-seat of Versailles. At the moment when every one believed the downfall of the once all-powerful Minister to be complete, the latter succeeded in recovering his lost influence over the King, of which he had been deprived through the intrigues of Marie de Medicis, who had demanded of her son whether he was “so unnatural as to prefer a valet to his mother.” Richelieu, when firmly reinstated in power, did not spare the queen-mother’s partisans, upon several of whom he avenged himself with his accustomed severity.—Trans.

[85] This date is given in Richelieu’s Journal, of which we are about to speak.

[86] M. Jules Loiseleur, Revue Contemporaine, of July 31, 1867, p. 223. This Journal has been published in the Archives Curieuses de l’Histoire de France, of Cimber and Danjou, 2nd series, vol. v.

[87] Imperial Library. Manuscripts, ancien fonds Français, No. 9241.

[88] Lettres et Papiers de Richelieu, published in the collection of Documents inédits de l’Histoire de France, by M. Avenel, Conservator of the Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève, with a profound knowledge of the period with which he is concerned, and an exactitude, an intelligence and a care for which one cannot too highly praise him.

[89] Lettres et Papiers de Richelieu, vol. iv. p. 115.

[90] Mémoires de Bassompierre.

[91] Marie de Rohan, Duchess de Chevreuse, who possessed so great an influence over Anne of Austria, was the daughter of Hercule de Rohan, Duke de Montbazon, Governor of Paris, and one of the first noblemen of France. In 1617, she espoused Albert de Luynes, favourite of Louis XIII., who on the occasion of the marriage created his confidant a duke and appointed his wife Superintendent of the Queen’s Household. Shortly after the death of her husband, in 1621, from fever caught at the siege of Montauban, she married Claude de Lorraine, Duke de Chevreuse, the son of that Duke de Guise whom Henry III. caused to be assassinated at Blois. The Duchess de Chevreuse was a charming and beautiful woman, gifted with extraordinary powers of intellect and proud of her high lineage, but incorrigibly given to intrigue.—Trans.

CHAPTER IV.

Third Hypothesis—Reconciliation of Louis XIII. and Anne of Austria—The Queen enceinte for the Fourth Time—Suspicions with which Royal Births have sometimes been received—Precautions adopted in France for the Purpose of avoiding these Suspicions—Story of Louis XIV.’s Birth—Impossibility of admitting the Birth of a Twin-brother—Richelieu’s Absence—Uselessness of abducting and concealing this pretended Twin-brother.

Seven years were to elapse before the realization of the wishes of the nation, which ardently desired a Dauphin, and was alarmed at the prospect of seeing the little-loved brother of Louis XIII. ascend the throne of France. Anne of Austria was enceinte anew, in January, 1638: not, as Voltaire has said, and as people have so frequently repeated after him, “in consequence of a reconciliation brought about by chance between the two spouses, who had lived separately for a long time.”[92] There was no longer any need either of a storm surprising Louis XIII., ready to set out for the chase, or the pressing entreaties of Mademoiselle de la Fayette, or the supplications of the Captain of his Guards, in order to induce the King to visit the Queen. Unquestionable documents[93] show that long before the month of December, 1637, Louis XIII. knew how to reconcile his duties as a husband with his ever-increasing passion for the chase, and that when this sport kept him away from the Louvre for too long a time, his habit was to send for the Queen. On September 5, 1638, the latter brought into the world a prince, who was afterwards Louis XIV. It is upon this day that the birth of the Man with the Iron Mask is fixed by those[94] who recognise in this personage not an adulterine son of Anne of Austria, but a legitimate twin-brother of Louis XIV., born some hours after him, and condemned, for his late arrival in the world, to a perpetual imprisonment.

There are few royal births that have not been the object of malevolent insinuations, and often of very plain accusations of criminal fraud. Such an event almost always destroys the right of some collateral heir, who has perhaps long coveted the crown. Sometimes even it ruins the projects of a whole party; and whilst it confirms the position of some, it suddenly throws down a hundred ambitions, and exposes those who are disappointed in their expectations to the temptation of gainsaying that which destroys their hopes. When, on June 21, 1688, Marie d’Este, second wife of James II., rendered him the father of a son,[95] William of Orange, then long married to the Princess Mary, the eldest daughter of the King of England, seeing his wife’s rights annihilated by this unexpected birth, refused to admit as real an event so fatal to him. He caused accusatory libels to be spread throughout Holland, and even in England,[96] in which it was represented that the Queen’s pregnancy was feigned, that the birth was imaginary, and that an unknown child, picked up at hazard, had been furtively introduced into the bed of its pretended mother.[97] Several English writers, and, at their head, the ardent Burnet, welcomed this opinion, and the scandal which they raised contributed, some months afterwards, to the success of the attempt made by William of Orange to seize on the throne at the very moment when he seemed to have been excluded from it for ever.

In France, doubts of this nature being rendered still more easy by the sceptical and fault-finding spirit of the nation, care has been taken at all times to avoid even a pretext for them, by infinite precautions and excellent customs. Not only had the birth of a prince the greatest personages of the State for obligatory witnesses, but the people themselves were also invited to be present at the advent to life of him whom a very old tradition happily designates as the Child of France. The doors were opened to the public, who penetrated freely into the royal dwelling at the solemn moment when the family of their rulers was perpetuated. They also entered there on certain occasions when the King allowed himself to be seen at table by his subjects. These two privileges were the only ones granted to them at that time, and, reasonably enough, they were not disposed to rest content with them for ever. The first, however, at least, offered the advantage of making them forget for an instant that they were nothing, and of associating them in some way with the greatest event connected with the reigning family. When Marie Antoinette gave birth to her first child, the concourse of people in her chamber was such that Louis XVI. broke a window to give air more quickly to the Queen, who was on the point of losing consciousness. From that day the people ceased to be admitted to the birth of the King’s children. But long before Louis XIV. came into the world, nothing was neglected that could give the greatest authenticity to this event, and the accurate Héroard[98] shows us the chamber of Marie de Medicis filled with spectators at the moment of the birth of Louis XIII.

It was the same at the birth of Louis XIV. The first signs of an approaching accouchement showed themselves on September 4, 1638, at eleven o’clock in the evening.[99] The next day, at five o’clock in the morning, Louis XIII., learning that the pains are increasing, visits the Queen, whom he does not quit till her delivery.[100] At six o’clock arrive successively at Saint-Germain, Gaston d’Orléans, so interested in watching the issue of an event which is, perhaps, to put him aside from the throne for ever; the Princess de Condé, Madame de Vendôme, the Chancellor, Madame de Lansac, the future governess of the royal child, and Mesdames de Senecey and de la Flotte, ladies of honour. Behind the canopy of the bed occupied by the Queen, is erected an altar, at which the Bishops of Lisieux, of Meaux, and of Beauvais, say mass in turns. Near the altar, and even in the adjoining room, press Mesdames de la Ville-aux-Clercs, de Liancourt, and de Mortemart; the Princess de Guéméné; the Duchesses de la Trémouille and de Bouillon; the Dukes de Vendôme, de Chevreuse, and de Montbazon; Messieurs de Souvré, de Liancourt, de Mortemart, de la Ville-aux-Clercs, de Brion, and de Chavigny: the Archbishop of Bourges; the Bishops of Metz, Châlons, Dardanie, and Mans; and, finally, an enormous crowd which invades the palace at an early hour, and soon completely fills it.[101] At eleven o’clock precisely Anne of Austria brings into the world a child, the sex of which the midwife at once causes to be verified by the princes of the royal family, and particularly by Gaston d’Orléans. This latter remains quite stunned at the sight, and cannot hide his vexation;[102] still the very visible signs of his discontent are almost unperceived in the general gladness, and amidst the noisy acclamations that arise on all sides. The joy of Louis XIII. is as lively as his melancholy and dreamy nature allows. He admires and makes those round him admire the shape of his son, who, from his birth, like his father at a similar moment, gives proofs of the extraordinary appetite[103] which characterizes his race. A short time after, in the very chamber of the Queen, and before the same spectators, the newly-born prince is baptized by the Bishop of Meaux, first almoner. Louis XIII. then sends the Sieur Duperré-Bailleul to Paris, charged with solemnly announcing the happy news[104] to the Corporation. But, borne by the joyous cry of the populace, the news has already traversed with surprising rapidity the distance which separates Saint-Germain from Paris, where it is known at noon. It excites a really sincere enthusiasm there, and the churches, for some months past filled by people who ask of heaven the birth of a Dauphin, at once resound with hymns of thanksgiving.

According to the romance of Soulavie a second son came into the world at eight o’clock in the evening, nine hours after the first, and, conformably to the advice of Richelieu, was hidden, brought up mysteriously, and then placed in confinement. Let us remark, in the first place, that the Cardinal de Richelieu, who is made to play such an important part at Saint-Germain on September 5, 1638, had been absent from that place since the end of July, and was then at Saint-Quentin, whence he only returned to Paris on October 2.[105] But do not let us stop at this first error. In cases of twins the presence of the second child is invariably denoted by signs impossible to be mistaken or passed over. Thus, even if the second birth did not at once follow the first, in which case it would have had for witnesses the whole of the persons assembled in the chamber, it would certainly have been anticipated, and an expectation such as this could not have been kept concealed from the crowd.[106]

But how can it be admitted that a fact of such importance was known to so many persons without any of them betraying the secret in a conversation which would have been eagerly seized upon by some contemporary writer, or in one of those memoirs which numerous great personages then delighted in leaving behind them? And yet they all preserve the most complete silence on this subject. Contemporaries have told us everything about the veritable actions as well as the imaginary acts of Anne of Austria. They have penetrated to the recesses of her private life, but nothing in their writings, not even the most indirect allusion, permits one to suspect such an important event.

Supposing, however, that, extraordinarily and contrariwise to what observation proves every day, this second birth took place nine hours after the first, and without having been previously announced by any revealing sign, and that the witnesses were very few in number and remarkably discreet, what interest had Louis XIII. in concealing this birth? Amongst the Romans, in France during the Middle Ages, as in modern times, the twin that first comes into the world has always been the eldest. Far, therefore, from being dismayed, as Soulavie relates,[107] at this second birth, Louis XIII. ought to have rejoiced at it, since it would have strengthened the direct line in his family.

There is nothing to disprove that a double birth may have been prophesied by the two shepherds. Popular imagination, lively excited by the universal desire for a Dauphin, and by the unexpected announcement of the Queen’s condition, welcomed a thousand superstitious predictions, that for some months served as food for conversation, and helped to soften the delay. But this is the sole incident which is not evidently false in the relation of Soulavie, which is refuted, for the rest, by the impossibility of hiding a second birth from the innumerable witnesses of the first, and by the absolute silence of contemporaries, as well as by the incontestable inutility of the removal and suppression of this younger brother of Louis XIV.

FOOTNOTES:

[92] Voltaire, Dictionnaire Philosophique, vol. i. p. 375.

[93] Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, section France, 5. There exists, amongst others, a letter of January 10, 1637, in which Louis XIII. writes to Richelieu “that he will have the Queen come to Saint-Germain, the evenings there being very long without company.”

[94] Dulaure, Histoire de Paris; Simonde Sismondi, Histoire des Français; Dufey de l’Yonne, Histoire de la Bastille; The Chevalier de Cubières, Voyage à la Bastille.

[95] The Old Pretender.—Trans.

[96] M. Topin is in error. William was, in fact, remonstrated with by the Whigs for having publicly acknowledged a birth which the great majority of the English people at that time believed to be a feigned one.—Trans.

[97] The child was said to have been brought in in a warming-pan.

[98] Journal d’Héroard, September 26, 27, 1601.

[99] Corps Universel Diplomatique du Droit des Gens, of Dumont, Supplement, vol. iv. p. 176. Letter from Chavigny to the Cardinal de Richelieu, September 6, 1638. Despatch from Louis XIII. to M. de Bellièvre, his ambassador in England, September 5, 1638.—Manuscripts of the Imperial Library, fonds Saint-Germain, Harlay, 364²⁷, fol. 170.

[100] “The King was present all the time, and his two attacks of fever have not in any way diminished his strength,” writes Chavigny in the letter in which he relates to Richelieu, then absent from the court, the birth of the Dauphin. This precise statement destroys that of M. Michelet, who, from an anonymous Life of Madame de Hautefort, says that “Louis XIII. would have consoled himself without difficulty at seeing his Spaniard die, and that during the pains he had history read to him to find an example of a King of France having married his subject.”—M. Michelet, Histoire de France, vol. xii. p. 211.

[101] Dumont, Corps Diplomatique du Droit des Gens, vol. iv. p. 176.

[102] Letter from Chavigny to the Cardinal de Richelieu, September 6, 1638. Louis XIII. made his brother a present of six thousand crowns, “which consoled him a little,” says Chavigny.

[103] Letters of Louis XIII.:—Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, section France, 5. Journal d’Héroard. Lettres Missives d’Henri IV., vol. v. p. 507.

[104] It is generally believed that the famous vow of Louis XIII., placing his kingdom under the protection of the Virgin, was made on account of Anne of Austria’s pregnancy. It was not so. The Queen’s condition was manifest in January, 1638, and “the declaration for the protection of the Virgin” is of December, 1637. It was made “on account of gratitude for so many evident favours accorded to the King.”—Lettres et Papiers de Richelieu, vol. v. p. 908.

[105] Richelieu left Ruel at the end of July, and went successively to Amiens, Abbeville, Ham, and Saint-Quentin. It was in this last town that he learnt the happy event and went at once to the church with a grand cortège. “He heard mass sung there by his chaplain, then the Te Deum and the Domine salvum.” He then wrote to the King and Queen to congratulate them.—Gazette de France, p. 535; Lettres et Papiers de Richelieu, vol. vi. p. 75, et seq. The 2nd October, Richelieu left the army to return to Saint-Germain. “The King arrived on Wednesday at Saint-Germain, whither the Cardinal-duke repaired from our armies the same day and almost the same hour as his Majesty, whom he found in the room of Monseigneur the Dauphin, where the Queen also was. It would be difficult to express with what transports of joy his eminence was seized on seeing between the father and the mother this admirable child, the object of his desires and the limit of his content.”—Gazette de France, p. 580.

[106] At this part of his work, M. Topin has thought it necessary for his argument to dwell on certain medical details, which, out of delicacy to English readers, I have preferred to suppress.—Trans.

[107] In the account we have reproduced in Chap. I. See p. 15 ante.

CHAPTER V.

Motives which hinder one from admitting the Existence, the Arrest and the Imprisonment of a mysterious Son of Anne of Austria—The Period at which he is said to have been handed over to Saint-Mars, according to the Authors of this Theory, cannot be reconciled with any of the Dates at which Prisoners were sent to this Gaoler—Other Considerations which formally oppose even the Probability of the Theory that makes the Man with the Iron Mask a Brother of Louis XIV.

Let us forget the scenes that have just been recalled. Let us cease for an instant to take into account proofs brought forward and considerations advanced, and consent to admit each of the assertions previously combated. This mysterious son of Anne of Austria came into the world either in 1629, having Buckingham for father; or, in 1631, on account of the danger that the life of Louis XIII. was in; or else in 1638, some hours after the birth of a brother. He exists. Received by an agent as devoted as discreet, he has been brought up in the country, the resemblance which reveals his high origin has been successfully hidden from every one, and his person placed in security from all investigations. But at what period was he imprisoned, and for what cause? Of his youth, of his early years, passed in the obscurity of a retreat far from the court, there are no traces, and there is no reason for surprise at this. But as soon as he becomes the famous prisoner whom Saint-Mars brought in 1698 from the Isles Sainte-Marguerite to the Bastille, we have the right to ask, and we must seek when, how, and under what circumstances he was arrested and confided to his gaoler.

It would be to a certain extent probable that, left at liberty as long as his mother was alive, he was imprisoned only after her death. But Anne of Austria dies on January 20, 1666, and Saint-Mars receives no prisoner. Does the arrest date, as Voltaire affirms, from the year 1661, when Mazarin died? But Saint-Mars was then, and was to remain for three years, a brigadier of musketeers; and it is in December, 1664, that D’Artagnan, his captain, points him out to the choice of Louis XIV. as governor of the prison of Pignerol, whither, a month afterwards, Fouquet is taken and confided to his vigilant guardianship. On August 20, 1669, a second prisoner, Eustache d’Auger, arrives; but he is only an obscure spy, and is soon placed with Fouquet to serve him as a domestic. Would one have charged with this care,—would one have placed in the service of Fouquet, who, during the whole of his life had lived near Louis XIV. and Anne of Austria, a prince whose features recalled those of the King? No other prisoner is brought to Saint-Mars until the arrival of the Count de Lauzun in 1671. Since then, and from time to time, others are confided to him, but we know their crimes or their offences, are not ignorant of the causes of their arrest, and see them rather badly treated; and when, in 1681, Saint-Mars passes from the governorship of Pignerol to that of the fortress of Exiles, he only takes with him two prisoners, of whom he speaks contemptuously as “two crows.”[108] At Exiles as at Pignerol—at the Isles Sainte-Marguerite, of which Saint-Mars was in 1687 appointed governor, as at Exiles—if fresh culprits are confided to him, we know to what motive to attribute their detention, and nothing in their past, nothing in the treatment of which they are the object, nothing in their actions, allows us to suspect in any one of them a brother of Louis XIV. Certainly, one would hardly expect to find a despatch designating one of Saint-Mars’ prisoners by the title of prince, and in order to be convinced we do not exact anything of the kind. But when, examining, one by one, each of the captives sent to the future governor of the Bastille, and amongst whom is necessarily the one that he traversed France with in 1698, we account for the causes of their arrest, and penetrate into their past; when a hundred authentic despatches[109] enable us to affirm that there are no other prisoners besides these, are we not justified in demanding where, then, is the son of Anne of Austria?

This famous despatch, a fragment of which was timidly quoted some years ago in a work from which it has since been omitted,[110]—this despatch, in the existence of which criticism had concluded to disbelieve,[111] and which is of capital importance, actually does exist and is authentic. It was dictated by Barbézieux,[112] and addressed to Saint-Mars, at the moment when the latter had under his guardianship the prisoner whom he was to take with him to the Bastille, and who died there in 1703:—

“Monsieur—I have received, with your letter of the 10th of this month, the copy of that which Monsieur de Pontchartrain has written to you concerning the prisoners who are at the Isles Sainte-Marguerite, upon orders of the King, signed by him, or of the late Monsieur de Seignelay. You have no other rules of conduct to follow with respect to all those who are confided to your keeping beyond continuing to look to their security, without explaining yourself to any one whatever about what your old prisoner HAS DONE.”[113]

But what crime could this pretended brother of Louis XIV. have committed, except, indeed, that of coming into the world? Is it objected that a slight fault committed in prison may be referred to, and that Barbézieux, in this despatch, alludes to a recent occurrence? But, if he recommends Saint-Mars not to explain himself to any one whatever, it is evident that curiosity had been excited, and that every one on the island trying to satisfy it, the Minister thought it right to recommend, more energetically than ever, an absolute discretion. Would this discretion have been necessary, and would Saint-Mars have been questioned, if only an insignificant breach of the internal rules of the prison had been in question?

Finally, what is one to think of the attentions, respect, particular care, evidences of an humble deference, all the accessory circumstances that have been invoked in favour of an opinion which nothing certain justifies? Amongst the incidents upon which so much stress has been laid, and which form, in some degree, the romantic dossier of the Man with the Iron Mask, some are exact, and will find their natural explanation further on. Others, such as the visit of Louvois to the Isles Sainte-Marguerite, have been invented at pleasure by popular imagination, and too easily welcomed by a complaisant credulity. It has been said, and is repeated every day, that the Minister visited this island, and there spoke to the prisoner “with a degree of consideration which partook of respect,”[114] styling him “monseigneur.” Now Louvois was only absent from the court in 1680 for a few weeks in order to go to Baréges. We have, day for day, the names of the towns he passed through.[115] The Isles Sainte-Marguerite, where, by the way, Saint-Mars did not arrive till seven years later, do not figure in the itinerary; and, after this journey, Louvois never returned again to the South of France. As to the dramatic episode of the silver dish thrown out of the window, which exposes the fisherman who finds it at his feet to a great danger, it has its origin in a similar attempt made by a Protestant minister confined, in 1692, at the Isles Sainte-Marguerite. This minister tried to interest people in his lot, by writing his complaints, not on a silver dish, which he did not have at his disposition, but upon a pewter plate, which determined Saint-Mars to give him only earthenware for the future.[116] The fact has been applied later to the Man with the Iron Mask, to whom, as to all legendary heroes, the adventures of very different personages are ascribed. A careful examination of all the despatches collected will enable one to trace back each of these rumours to its origin, and separate what is purely legendary from what is really historical.

But because the exactitude of many of the acts attributed to the Man with the Iron Mask is disproved by this examination, one would be wrong in concluding that he never existed, or that, at least, there was not a great interest in concealing his existence. It is incontestable that Saint-Mars did, in 1698, escort to Paris a prisoner who died there five years later, who was known at the Bastille only under the name of “the prisoner from Provence,” and whose mysterious memory was perpetuated in the redoubtable fortress, to spread rapidly afterwards through the entire world. These are the real data of the problem. Although freed from all the foreign elements that have been mixed up with it, it exists and it remains to be solved. It is true that in the eyes of some, to take away the seductive figure of a brother of Louis XIV. is greatly to diminish the interest. But, addressing ourselves to those for whom truth alone has a sovereign and incomparable charm, we say to them: The Man with the Iron Mask is not a son of Anne of Austria, because to the impossibility of fixing the date of his birth is added the not less evident impossibility of proving his incarceration. If, in order to show that his birth is imaginary, we have touched upon many delicate points, it is because the gravity of the accusations with which, in our days, the memory of Anne of Austria has been stigmatized, render such justifications necessary. In addition to which, even should these researches be indiscreet, it is much less blamable to have made them for the purpose of defence rather than of accusation, and to have raised certain veils, in order to let innocence shine forth in place of calumniating it.

FOOTNOTES:

[108] All these facts come from official documents, authentic and transcribed by us. We shall give them further on when we introduce Saint-Mars into the story.

[109] Archives of the Ministry of Marine; Archives of the Ministry of War; Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Imperial Archives; Registers of the Secretary’s Office of the King’s Household.

[110] Biographie Universelle of Michaud, article on the “Man with the Iron Mask,” by Weiss. The second edition does not give the extract from this despatch, given in the first.

[111] See, amongst others, the opinion of M. Jules Loiseleur, Revue Contemporaine, article already cited.

[112] Louis François Le Tellier, Marquis de Barbézieux, many of whose despatches are quoted in the course of this work, succeeded his father Louvois as Minister of War, on the death of the latter in 1691.—Trans.

[113] Archives of the Ministry of Marine; Archives of the Ministry of War; Imperial Archives; Registers of the Secretary’s Office of the King’s Household.

[114] Voltaire, Siècle de Louis XIV., chap. xxv.

[115] Louvois had broken his leg the 3rd August, 1679. To complete the cure, which was slow, the doctors advised the Minister to go to Baréges. (See vol. iii. p. 513 et seq. of the excellent Histoire de Louvois of M. Camille Rousset).

[116] Despatches from Seignelay to Saint-Mars; Archives of the Ministry of Marine; Imperial Archives; Registers of the Secretary’s Office of the King’s Household.

CHAPTER VI.

The Count de Vermandois—His Portrait—Mademoiselle de la Vallière, his Mother—Anecdote from the Mémoires Secrets pour servir à l’Histoire de Perse—Father Griffet adopts its Conclusions—Arguments that he advances—Motives which render certain of Mademoiselle de Montpensier’s Appreciations suspicious—Improbability of the Story in the Mémoires de Perse—Illness of the Count de Vermandois—Reality of his Death attested by the most authentic Despatches—Magnificence of his Obsequies—Pious Endowments at Arras.

Those whose minds are naturally inclined to the romantic, but whom even a superficial examination of the question of the Man with the Iron Mask has determined to put the hypothesis which makes him a son of Anne of Austria, on one side,[117] willingly see in him the Count de Vermandois, natural son of Louis XIV. and Mademoiselle de la Vallière. This opinion is a kind of compromise between the impossibility of accepting an imaginary being for hero, and the desire of seeing in the mysterious prisoner a very high personage. After having sacrificed to truth this unfortunate brother of Louis XIV., called to the throne by his origin, and kept away from it by a perpetual detention, they take refuge in an intermediary system, undoubtedly less tempting, but of which the attraction is still very exciting, and which, in a certain degree, reconciles the exigencies of truth with the taste for the romantic.

It is no longer the question of a prince of whose very birth we are ignorant. The present one actually existed, and such interest as he inspires from the moment he comes into the world he owes to her who gave him birth. He is the son of that La Vallière, equally touching in her heroic resistance to the inclination which impels her towards Louis XIV., and in her yielding, whom one esteems even when she succumbs, and whom one admires when she rises again to flee from the peril; who, long virtuous, always upright and disinterested, lives entirely absorbed in her passion, then takes refuge in penitence, and powerful without having desired it; ignorant or careless of her influence, strong in her very weakness, subjugates without art and without study the most imperious of kings; who, after having charmed all her contemporaries by her sweet and simple grace, and passed from the torments of a love unceasingly combated to the voluntary rigours of an expiation courageously submitted to for thirty years, has remained the most pleasing and most interesting character of this great reign, and will seduce even the most remote posterity.

Louis de Bourbon, Count de Vermandois, inherited his mother’s grace. He was tall and well made, and, like her, instinctively possessed that gift of pleasing which is never so engaging as when all about it is natural and nothing appears to depend upon art. Good and liberal, he had ways of obliging that were peculiar to himself,[118] and the most sensitive of men could not feel offended at his kindnesses. With such as these, when he wished to aid them, he made bets which he was certain to lose, or he sent them money by a hand which remained unknown. He was suspected of acts of generosity, which he never acknowledged himself the author of, and those whom he obliged had their necessities relieved without being required to testify their gratitude. His proud bearing and the air of supreme distinction which he inherited from his royal father, drew attention towards him still more than his high origin. To these outward charms, to these sentiments of exquisite delicacy and natural kindliness, which attached to him the soldier as much as the officer, Vermandois united a ready wit, a well-proved courage, a lively wish to distinguish himself, and to merit by splendid achievements the high dignity[119] to which, at the age of two years, he had been raised by the affection and pride of Louis XIV. Whilst still very young, and already in the midst of the army of Flanders, he had concealed a severe illness in order not to miss the noble rendezvous of an attack.[120] Like many of those destined to die prematurely, and who appear to foresee it, Vermandois hastened as it were through life, and seemed to strive, in endeavouring to render himself early illustrious, to anticipate the blow that was about to strike him. But sufficient time to attain glory was to fail him, and it was his destiny to leave behind him only the touching souvenir that attaches itself to beautiful hopes suddenly dissipated by death.

An unforeseen amende was, nevertheless, reserved for his memory. Sixty years after his sad end an idea suddenly sprang up of adding twenty years of captivity to his short existence, and with the view of rendering his destiny still more lamentable, of representing him as the mysterious victim of the rigours of Louis XIV.

In 1745 there appeared at Amsterdam the Mémoires Secrets pour servir à l’Histoire de Perse,[121] which, under supposititious names, contain the anecdotic history of the Court of France. This book, which had a prodigious success, and the editions of which were rapidly multiplied, owed in a great measure its celebrity to the following narration: “Cha-abas (Louis XIV.) had a legitimate son, Sephi-Mirza (Louis, Dauphin of France), and a natural son, Giafer (Louis de Bourbon, Count de Vermandois). Almost of the same age, they were of opposite characters. The latter did not allow any occasion to escape of saying that he pitied the French being destined some day to obey a prince without talent, and so little worthy to rule them. Cha-abas, to whom this conduct was reported, was fully sensible of its danger. But authority yielded to paternal love, and this absolute monarch had not sufficient strength to impose his will upon a son who abused his kindness. Finally, Giafer so far forgot himself one day as to strike Sephi-Mirza. Cha-abas is at once informed of this. He trembles for the culprit, but, however desirous he may be of feigning to ignore this crime, what he owes to himself and to his crown, combined with the noise this action has made at court, will not allow him to pay regard to his affection. He assembles, not without doing violence to his feelings, his most intimate confidants, allows them to see all his grief, and asks their advice. In view of the magnitude of the crime and conformably to the laws of the State, every one is in favour of inflicting the punishment of death. What a blow for so tender a father! However, one of the Ministers, more sensitive to the affliction of Cha-abas than the rest, tells him that there is a method of punishing Giafer without depriving him of life; that he should be sent to the army, which was then upon the frontiers of Feldran (Flanders); that shortly after his arrival, rumours could be spread that he was attacked by the plague, in order to alarm and keep away from him all those who might wish to see him; that at the end of several days of feigned illness, he should be made to pass for dead, and that, whilst in the presence of the whole army obsequies worthy of his birth were performed for him, he should be transferred by night with great secrecy to the citadel of the island of Ormus (Isle Sainte-Marguerite). This advice was generally approved of, and above all by an afflicted father. Faithful and discreet people were chosen for the management of the affair. Giafer starts for the army with a magnificent train. Everything is carried out as had been projected, and whilst the death of this unfortunate prince is being lamented in the camp, he is conveyed by by-roads to the island of Ormus, and placed in charge of the governor, who had received in advance the order of Cha-abas not to let his prisoner be seen by any one whatever. A single servant, who was in the secret, was sent with the Prince. But, having died upon the journey, the leaders of the escort disfigured his face with dagger-strokes in order to prevent his being recognized, left him lying upon the road, and after having stripped him as a further precaution, continued their route. Giafer was transferred to the citadel of Ispahan (the Bastille) when Cha-abas bestowed the governorship of it upon the governor of the island of Ormus as a recompence for his fidelity. The precaution was taken at the island of Ormus, as at the citadel of Ispahan, to put a mask over the face of Giafer, when on account of illness, or other causes, it was necessary to let him be seen by any one.”[122]

This narration, which for the first time presented to public curiosity the anecdote of the Man with the Iron Mask, at once furnished food for conversation and became the subject of the most lively controversies. Several distinguished critics hastened to adopt the opinion it expressed, while others combated it, and for a long time the Année Littéraire of Fréron was the theatre of a debate which had the savants and the curious of the whole world for attentive audience. Voltaire himself, in introducing for the first time the hypothesis which makes the Man with the Iron Mask a brother of Louis XIV., did not succeed in stifling an opinion which had secured a clever defender. Father Griffet, a patient disciple of Father Daniel, and the author of an excellent Histoire de Louis XIII., published in 1765, in his fine Traité des Différentes Sortes des Preuves qui servent à établir la Vérité dans l’Histoire, a long dissertation upon the Man with the Iron Mask, and in it pronounced resolutely for the Count de Vermandois. What proofs, or at least what probabilities, did he invoke?

He bases his argument upon the Mémoires de Mademoiselle de Montpensier, in which we read that “when Vermandois left for the siege of Courtray, he had not long returned to the court; that the King had been displeased with his conduct and would not see him, on account of his having been mixed up with parties of debauchery; that since that time he had lived in a very retired manner, and only went out to go to the Academy[123] and to mass in the morning; that those whose company he had been keeping were not agreeable to the King, which caused much grief to Mademoiselle de la Vallière, by whom he was well scolded.”[124] Father Griffet added that, long before the publication of the Mémoires Secrets de Perse, a rumour had spread that the Count de Vermandois had been guilty, before his departure for the army, of some great crime, such as a blow given to the Dauphin. “It had been generally spoken of,” says he, “on the strength of one of those traditions which have need, indeed, of being proved, but which are not necessarily false; the remembrance of this one had always been preserved, although there was not much noise made about it in the time of the late King, for fear of displeasing him; of this many people who lived under his reign can bear witness.” The learned historian found another argument in the very name under which the prisoner of Saint-Mars was inscribed in the registers of the Church of Saint-Paul, the letters which form this name of Marchiali being those of the two words hic amiral, and designating thus by an anagram the high dignity of the son of Mademoiselle de la Vallière. Finally, he published in the Année Littéraire a second tradition, according to which “on the very day the body of the Count de Vermandois was to be transported to Arras, there left the camp, by a by-way, a litter in which it was believed there was a prisoner of importance, although the rumour was spread that the military chest was enclosed in it.”

Of all these allegations, the only one that deserves to be discussed is that which, reposing upon special evidence, namely, the Mémoires de Mademoiselle de Montpensier, shows us the Count de Vermandois, fallen into disgrace with Louis XIV. for having mixed himself up in certain debaucheries, and starting almost at once for Courtray, where he was to meet his death. One certainly finds no allusion to “a great crime” committed by Vermandois upon the person of his legitimate brother, and this very silence would suffice to invalidate the pretended tradition invoked by Father Griffet. But as, from another point of view, these Mémoires furnish a kind of basis for his argument, reveal a stain on the memory of Vermandois, and indicate a period at which the offence might have been possible, it is essential the value of this evidence should be weighed.

In his Traité des Différentes Sortes de Preuves qui servent à établir la Vérité dans l’Histoire, Father Griffet himself very judiciously remarks that before adopting the opinion of a writer upon an individual whose contemporary he had been, it is desirable to examine whether he had not a powerful interest either to praise or to blame him. Father Griffet displayed more prudent sagacity when he enunciated this excellent precept than when he neglected to apply it to the Mémoires de Mademoiselle de Montpensier. He ought to have shown this romantic princess in her true light, endowed with a too lively imagination, whose self-esteem rendered her extremely accessible to the influence of others and incapable of protecting herself against interested suggestions; whom Madame de Montespan and Madame de Maintenon, by incessant attentions and delicate and careful acts of civility, easily gained over to their long-time common cause; and, in a word, whose credulous mind was entrapped by Madame de Maintenon in favour of the children of whom she was governess, and whom Madame de Montespan had had by Louis XIV. To love these, and above all the awkward Duke du Maine, must have led her almost infallibly to repulse the highly-gifted son of Mademoiselle de la Vallière, who had the least intriguing and the most disinterested of the royal favourites for mother, whilst his brother, better seconded, received from those surrounding him advice suitable to gain the heart, and perhaps one day assure him the immense fortune,[125] of the opulent cousin of Louis XIV. To attain this object, to influence her, as was done, in favour of a child deprived of all attractive qualities, they did not hesitate dictating for her the most affectionate letters to the Duke du Maine, pointing out to him the steps most likely to please her, and suggesting to him filial sentiments for a Princess whom they ended by inspiring with a veritable maternal love, of which Mademoiselle de Montpensier had all the jealousy, at first provoked but afterwards spontaneous, and which led her to detest the brilliant rival of the very insignificant but attentive Duke du Maine. This sentiment breaks out in several parts of her Mémoires. “It seemed to me,” she remarks, “that it was in order to disparage M. du Maine people said that no one would ever equal M. de Vermandois.” And elsewhere, “I was not vexed at the death of M. de Vermandois, I was well pleased that M. du Maine had nothing to do with his affairs.”[126] How, after this, can we put faith in such suspicious testimony? There is nothing to prove and nothing to disprove that Vermandois may have been led away by youth into being present at some dissolute pleasure-party unknown to the King, and that he may have incurred the latter’s reproaches by this conduct. But his disgrace and the causes to which it is ascribed, his hasty departure, his father refusing to see him and banishing him from his presence, Mademoiselle de la Vallière in distress: all these circumstances, which are only to be found in the Mémoires of the adoptive mother of the Duke du Maine—must we accept them when impartial witnesses bestow unqualified praises upon the Count de Vermandois[127] and relate nothing that can tarnish his memory? Must we accept them when, some days after this pretended disgrace, and at the first news of what was thought to be only a slight indisposition, Louis XIV. writes to the Marquis de Montchevreuil to cause Vermandois to return at once to the court, in order that greater care may be taken of him and that he may more thoroughly recover.[128]

Is there any need to set forth the impossibility of admitting that of two sons of Louis XIV., one, the Grand-Dauphin, the heir to the crown, could have received from the other the gravest of insults, in the midst of the court and at the end of a violent discussion, without any contemporary writer having spoken of an event which would have had an inevitable celebrity? In order to make this circumstance appear less improbable, the Mémoires de Perse represent Vermandois as fiery, haughty, and unsubmissive to a brother who would one day be his king, whereas the most unexceptionable testimony[129] establishes the fact that he was mild, affable, full of deference, and only anxious to acquire glory. The author of these Mémoires, in order to render a dispute between the two brothers more plausible, asserts, in addition, that they were of the same age, instead of which there were six years between them; and, at the period when this passionate act is ascribed to him, Vermandois was barely sixteen, while the Dauphin was already the father of the Duke de Bourgogne.

There remains his premature death. Tacitus has said that when princes or extraordinary men die young, one finds it difficult to believe that they have been carried off by a natural course. This remark applies with justice to all epochs, and in our annals how many crimes are there, imagined by popular passion and credited through the ignorance of the time, of which a healthy criticism, aided by the progress of medical science,[130] has in our days acquitted the pretended authors? Is there, in the last moments of Vermandois and in the transport of his remains to Arras, where he was buried, the smallest circumstance that can allow the most credulous mind to retain a single doubt, and to suppose that he left the camp of Courtray alive to be confided to the guardianship of Saint-Mars?

On November 6, 1683, the Count de Vermandois takes to his bed at Courtray. Ill for several days before, he has concealed his condition in order not to quit the army, and to be able to assist at the attack on the faubourg of Menin, where he displayed the highest courage.

Consumed by fever, he is at length compelled to separate from the first corps-d’armée, which is about to form the camp of Harlebeck. Marshal d’Humières had had the intention of causing him to be transported to Lille, and with this object had already made arrangements with the Marquis de Montchevreuil.[131] But a speedy aggravation of the invalid’s condition hinders the execution of this project. On the 8th bleeding relieves him;[132] but, on the 12th, Marshal d’Humières writes to Louvois that there are grounds for considerable uneasiness.[133] On the 13th Boufflers writes to the court that, the head of Vermandois commencing to be affected by the disease, bleeding from the feet has become necessary.[134] On the 14th Marshal d’Humières, who had come to Courtray from the camp of Rousselaer, of which he is commander, finds Vermandois at the worst, the doctors very undecided, “and not daring to resort to extreme remedies.” They determine to try them, however, but, doubtless, too late; for, after a tolerably favourable day, during which the fever seemed to diminish and the brain to become clearer, a violent agitation ensues, abundant perspiration exhausts the patient,[135] and, on the 16th, Boufflers announces that Vermandois has just received the last communion,[136] and that there is no longer any hope except in his youth. At the moment that he was writing this letter, Madame de Maintenon wrote to Madame de Brinon:[137] “M. de Vermandois is very ill; have our great saint prayed to for him.” Vain hope, useless prayers! On November 18 the son of La Vallière died of a malignant fever, surrounded by Marshal d’Humières, whom he had begged to remain near him, the Marquis de Montchevreuil, and Lieutenant-General Boufflers.[138] In the camp the grief was general, and the troops wept for him, for the good which he had done and the great things he had promised. At the court the impressions were various. The Hôtel de Condé deeply regretted this death, because the Prince was betrothed to Mademoiselle de Bourbon. The Princess de Conti, sister to Vermandois, was inconsolable.[139]

Louis XIV., much more sensitive than tender, and whose grief relieved itself all at once in a flood of tears which was of very short duration, had, moreover, already shown in favour of the children he had had by Madame de Montespan a sentiment of predilection which was to survive their mother’s disgrace, and which Madame de Maintenon, their former governess, carefully cherished. As to Mademoiselle de la Vallière, Voltaire has said,[140] and it has been often repeated after him, that she exclaimed on learning the fatal news: “It is not his death that I should lament, but his birth.” This exclamation is not true; it is not that of a mother. That the pious Carmelite offered as a sacrifice this new blow that smote her, that she accepted it as an additional expiation for her faults, one may admit. But that her tears only flowed because she had brought Vermandois into the world, that, at the announcement of the most painful of afflictions, she was so little crushed by it as to be able to utter such words, is what no mother will believe. How much more acceptable is that testimony which Madame de Sevigné bears in saying “that she perfectly tempered her maternal love with that of the spouse of Jesus Christ.” “Mademoiselle de la Vallière is all day at the foot of the crucifix,” says the Présidente d’Osembray[141] on December 22. This is the true language of two mothers speaking of another mother who had just lost her son.

Pompous obsequies were performed over the remains of the son of Louis XIV. On November 21, the King sent word to the Chapter of Arras that the body of the Count de Vermandois would be transported to that town and buried in the choir of its cathedral church.[142] On the 24th, the mayors and échevins, bearing wax tapers, proceed to the Méaulens Gate, where are already assembled the governors of the town and citadel, all the officers of the staff, the clergy of the different parishes, and the friars of the mendicant orders. The infantry line the road from the entrance of the town to the cathedral.[143] At noon the roar of cannon and the tolling of bells announces the arrival of the remains, which are contained in a coach hung with black cloth, and escorted by the cavalry of the garrison. The Bishop of Arras, clothed in his pontifical robes, and his chapter, advance in procession and receive the body, which, removed from the coach, is borne by canons, and followed by the officers of the Council of Artois, those of the bailiwick, and all the other dignitaries of the county. Until Saturday the 27th, the day fixed for the solemn service, masses were said without intermission from six o’clock till noon in the Chapel of Saint-Vaast, where the body had been placed, and the canons and chaplains succeeded each other in praying there, the first during the day, the others during the night.[144] They selected, in the middle of the choir of the cathedral, in the place of “the angel,” the spot that appeared most distinguished for the inhumation, for, five hundred years before, it had served for the interment of Isabelle de Vermandois, wife of Philip d’Alsace, Count of Flanders, and descendant in the direct line of Henri I., King of France. The last ceremony was worthy, in its pomp and splendour, of the King who had commanded it, and of the Prince in whose honour it was performed. The choir and the nave of the cathedral, entirely hung with black velvet, upon which shone silver escutcheons emblazoned with the arms of Vermandois, the lugubrious harmony of the service, the funereal light of the tapers, the sad and silent troops, the spectators all clothed in mourning, and, still more than these external signs, a sincere grief manifesting itself, especially amongst the gentlemen of the Prince’s suite, in tears and sobs; such is the spectacle that the interior of the cathedral church of Arras presents on November 27, 1683.

The evidences of the King’s piety, and of the eagerness of the Chapter to satisfy it, did not end here. On January 24, 1684, M. Chauvelin, Intendant of the province, drew up with the Chapter, in the name of Louis XIV., a deed in which it was stipulated “that the prelate, dean, and canons should say every day, each in his turn and during the year following the inhumation, a low requiem mass in the chapelle ardente,[145] prepared and hung with mourning for this purpose; that on the 18th November of every year, or in case of hindrance on another day near that date, there should be celebrated in perpetuity in their church a solemn service, preceded by vigils of nine psalms and nine lessons; that the Chapter should distribute annually to fifty poor people, who were to be present at these offices, five sols each, and an eight-pounds loaf; that there should also be given every year by the Chapter on the day of the service, to the poor Clairisses[146] of the city of Arras, a sum of six livres, in order that their community might pray for the soul of the Count de Vermandois, and that all the bells should be tolled on the day, and on the evening before, as is customary at the obits of the bishops.” In order to indemnify the Chapter for the expenditure imposed by him, Louis XIV. bestowed upon it, in addition to magnificent presents, a sum of 10,000 livres, which served to purchase at the village of La Coutaie, near Béthune, a farm, since then, and for that cause, known as the Ferme de Vermandois. Until the year 1789, the stipulations contained in this deed were faithfully executed, and, during more than a century, November 25 witnessed a renewal of the alms of the Chapter, the prayers of the clergy, the assemblage of all the magistrates and municipal officers, and, in this manner, the remembrance of the son of La Vallière.

In supposing that Vermandois could have given way to such a violent and hasty act towards the Dauphin, without the proof of it being handed down to us; that Louis XIV. was cruel enough to condemn a beloved son to perpetual imprisonment; and, finally, that it was possible to keep his abduction secret in the midst of the troops, how can we possibly admit that ceremonies, which the pious monarch always regarded as sacred, could have been ordered by him to deceive his subjects and take advantage of their credulity? How can we admit that this illness, of which we have traced all the phases, was feigned; that the despatches that have been analysed were false; that Louis XIV. had for the accomplices of his stratagem men such as the Lieutenant-General Boufflers, Marshal d’Humières, and the Marquis de Montchevreuil; that, not content with making them take part in such a singular project, he made a mockery of religion the better to mask it? How can we admit that this bier, round which prayers ascended and tears flowed, was empty,[147] and that the Prince, of whom pompous epitaphs vaunt the qualities, was then in rigorous confinement at Pignerol? Finally, how explain, if not as the testimony of his sincere piety and affection, this solemn service, founded in perpetuity by Louis XIV., and which, in prolonging it, would have aggravated an impious derision, and perpetuated the memory of a profane fraud?

FOOTNOTES:

[117] In the preceding chapters we have made no mention of a Mémoire de M. de Saint-Mars sur la Naissance de l’Homme au Masque de Fer, published in vol. iii. of the Mémoires de Tous (Levasseur, 1835, 8vo). According to this document, “copied by M. Billiard from the Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” M. de Saint-Mars had been the governor of the mysterious son of Anne of Austria, whose high origin was carefully hidden from him. But this brother of Louis XIV. having discovered it, was sent to the Isles Sainte-Marguerite, the command of which was then (in 1687) confided to his governor. If we have not spoken of this document, it is because its authenticity has already been completely disproved. It is nothing else than a copy of the apocryphal narrative of Soulavie, which we have transcribed and refuted in the first part of our work (see page 15). The author of this copy has contented himself with substituting Saint-Mars for the “anonymous governor of the unfortunate prince.” He did not think that he thereby added a fresh impossibility to those contained in the narrative of Soulavie. For how could Saint-Mars, before 1687, have been the governor of a brother of Louis XIV., when a hundred despatches establish the fact that, from 1664, he was successively governor of the donjon of Pignerol and of Exiles? As to the presence of this document in the Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, there is no reason for astonishment. It is explained, like the presence of so many other documents in our archives, by the seizure of the papers of great personages after their deaths, or, more commonly, by having been transmitted by some ambassador inhabiting the country in which these apocryphal writings circulated freely. But the place where they are found gives them no authenticity. At all periods, and to-day even, ambassadors send to the Government copies of anonymous memoirs, pamphlets, and different papers, which remain joined to their despatches, but to which no historical value can be ascribed. It has been the same with this pretended Mémoire de Saint-Mars, of which, in addition, a mere perusal demonstrates the untruth to any one acquainted with the usual style of the illiterate governor of the Isles Sainte-Marguerite. One sometimes hears it related—and this fact has been repeated to ourselves—that a great personage of a former Government introduced one of his friends, with much precaution, into the galleries of the Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and there showed him a document which contained the secret of the Man with the Iron Mask. It is doubtless the document attributed to Saint-Mars that is referred to in this anecdote.

[118] Letter of Madame la Présidente d’Osembray to Bussy-Rabutin, dated December 22, 1683:—Lettres de Roger de Rabutin, Comte de Bussy, vol. vi. p. 135, edition of 1716. Testimony of Lauzun in the Mémoires de Mademoiselle de Montpensier, vol. vii. pp. 90, 92.

[119] That of High Admiral. See amongst the papers of Colbert, MSS. of the Imperial Library, a curious memorandum drawn up by him, “to know what name and title it is necessary to give to M. le Comte de Vermandois.” Vermandois was endowed on November 12, 1669, at the age of twenty-two months, with this office of High Admiral of France, which, suppressed in 1626 by Richelieu, and changed by him into the office of “Grand Master, Chief, and General Superintendent of the Navigation and Commerce of France,” had been held successively by the Cardinal himself; his nephew Armand de Maillé-Brézé, Duke de Fronsac; Anne of Austria; César, Duke de Vendôme; and his son François de Vendôme, Duke de Beaufort.

[120] Letter of the Présidente d’Osembray, already cited.

[121] Published by the Compagnie des Libraires Associés (Company of Associated Booksellers) in 12mo.

[122] Mémoires Secrets pour servir à l’Histoire de Perse.

[123] The academy here mentioned is not the present French Academy, but a kind of gymnasium, where the nobles met to learn riding, fencing, dancing, &c. It is frequently referred to in the memoirs of the time.—Trans.

[124] Mémoires de Mademoiselle de Montpensier, vol. vii. p. 91.

[125] We shall see, in the course of this work, that they succeeded in securing at least a portion of this enormous fortune, thanks to the imprisonment of Lauzun, the husband of Mademoiselle de Montpensier.

[126] Mémoires already cited, vol. vii. p. 92.

[127] Such as Lauzun, who was present at the siege of Courtray, and the Présidente d’Osembray.—See Lettres de Bussy-Rabutin, already cited, vol. vi. p. 13.

[128] Dated November 4, 1683. The King to the Marquis de Montchevreuil. “Monsieur le Marquis de Montchevreuil—I have received the letter which you wrote to me from the camp of Courtray. I am very well pleased with what you tell me of my son, the Count de Vermandois. But I am not the less uneasy, as the Sieur d’Aquin has told me that the fever has become continuous. You have done well to take him to Lille” (we shall see that they did not have the time to remove him to Lille); “he may remain there as long as may be needful for his health; but as soon as it allows him to travel I shall be pleased at his returning here. Having nothing else to add, except that I am always very well pleased at your conduct, I pray God to take you, Monsieur le Marquis de Montchevreuil, into his holy keeping.—Louis.”

[129] See ante, p. 67.

[130] See, amongst others, the excellent work of M. Jules Loiseleur, Problèmes Historiques; the review, La Philosophie Positive, of M. Littré; the fourth volume of the Histoire de Louvois, of M. Camille Rousset, already cited; the very curious appendices given by M. Chéruel at the end of each volume of his fine edition of the Mémoires de Saint-Simon, &c.

[131] Archives of the Ministry of War; Letter from Marshal d’Humières to Louvois, “Camp of Courtray, November 7, 1683.”

[132] Ibid. Marshal d’Humières to Louvois, “Camp of Harlebeck, November 8, 1683.”

[133] Ibid. D’Humières to Louvois, “Camp of Rousselaer, November 12, 1683.”

[134] Ibid. Boufflers to Louvois, “Courtray, November 13, 1683.”

[135] Ibid. D’Humières to Louvois, “Courtray, November 14, 15, 1683,” and Boufflers to Louvois, “Courtray, November 15, 1683.”

[136] Ibid. Boufflers to Louvois, “Courtray, November 16, 1683.”

[137] Letter from Madame de Maintenon to Madame de Brinon, of November 15, 1683.

[138] Archives of the Ministry of War; Boufflers to Louvois, “Courtray, November 19, 1683.”

[139] Letter of Madame d’Osembray, December 22, 1683.

[140] Siècle de Louis XIV.

[141] Lettres de Bussy-Rabutin, vol. vi. p. 135.

[142] The letter which we extract is from a learned article of Baron de Hautecloque, ex-mayor of Arras, published in the Chroniques Artésiennes of M. P. Roger, member of the Society of Antiquarians of Picardy; of the Count d’Allonville, Councillor of State, and of M. Dusevel, Inspector of Historical Monuments for the Department of the Somme:—

“Very dear and well-beloved—Having learnt with very sensible sorrow, that our very dear and well-beloved son, the Duke de Vermandois,[A] Admiral of France, has lately died in the town of Courtray in Flanders, and desiring him to be placed in the cathedral church of our town of Arras, we send word to the Sieur Bishop of Arras to receive the body of our said son, when it is brought to the said church, and to have it buried in the choir of the said church with the ceremonies observed at the burial of persons of his birth.

[A] This title may appear singular, but an old and curious book “Les Estats de France,” which contains the genealogies of all the nobles of this period, describes him as “the Count de Vermandois, duke and peer of France.”—Trans.

“All of which we have desired to make known to you by this letter, and to state that our intention is that you should conform to our will in this and assist in a body at this ceremony as is customary, on such occasions; and assuring ourselves that you will satisfy us in this, we do not make this present letter longer or more express; do not fail; for such is our pleasure.

“Given at Versailles, the xix[B] November, 1683. Signed, “Louis,” and lower down, “Le Tellier.”

[B] We think, with M. de Hautecloque, that this date should be the 21st. In the registers of the chapter it is in Roman figures, and there is reason to suppose that a clumsy copyist has inverted the order of them and put xix for xxi. The comparison of dates and the very expressions of the King’s letter indicate it sufficiently.

[143] Register of the Hôtel de Ville of Arras and of the Chapter.

[144] Ibid.

[145] [Chapel in which a dead person lies in state.—Trans.] The cathedral in which Vermandois was interred no longer exists. Devastated and greatly mutilated during the revolutionary period, it was almost in ruins, and was later completely demolished. The Church of Saint-Nicolas was built upon the site which it occupied in that part of Arras styled the Cité, formerly completely distinct from the town properly so called. The Chapel of Saint-Vaast, in which the body of Vermandois was first deposited, formed part of the Abbey of Saint-Vaast. This chapel is the present cathedral of Arras.

[146] Nuns of the order of Sainte-Claire.—Trans.

[147] In 1786, Louis XVI., moved with the rumour referring to this supposition, ordered the coffin to be opened. A procès-verbal drawn up December 16, 1786, in the presence of the Bishop of Arras, the provost of the cathedral, the head of the vestry, and the procureur-général, verified the existence “of an entire and well-shaped body.” See the very interesting Vie de Madame Elizabeth, of M. de Beauchesne, vol. i. p. 543. To this decisive proof we have felt bound to add others for those who might be tempted to believe that another body than that of Vermandois had been enclosed in the coffin.

CHAPTER VII.

Causes which render the Theory probable that makes Monmouth the Man with the Iron Mask—Political Position of Monmouth—His Portrait—He is persuaded to revolt against his Uncle James II.—He lands near Lyme Regis—His first Successes—Enthusiasm with which he is received—His premature Discouragement—His Defeat at Sedgemoor—His shameful Flight—He is captured and taken to London—Cowardly Terrors of the Prisoner—His Interview with James II.

“It has been asserted,” says M. de Sévelinges, in an article of the Biographie Universelle,[148] “that the famous Man with the Iron Mask was no other than the Duke of Monmouth. Of all the conjectures that have been made upon this subject, it is perhaps one of the least unreasonable.” M. de Sévelinges says truly that in favour of this candidate for the honour of being the Man with the Iron Mask, if we cannot invoke one of those decisive proofs which enforce conviction, there are at least several indications which seem to unite in designating him, and in forming what the English call cumulative evidence. The greatness of the crime to be punished, the powerful interest there was to effect the disappearance of this leader of revolt, and carry him off for ever from his partisans, the persistent incredulity of the people respecting his death, his near relationship to James II., which renders the penalty of perpetual imprisonment more probable than that of death, are so many circumstances which, in certain respects, justify the opinion put forth in the last century by Saint-Foix, and explain the obstinacy of this publicist in defending it.

Monmouth is one of those historical personages who have been very variously, and in some degree contradictorily, appreciated. Placed at the head of a party which, from the first days of the reign of James II., sought to overthrow a king who remained a Catholic in the midst of a nation almost entirely Protestant; having attempted in 1685 a revolution which, three years later, was to be accomplished with perfect success by a prince better endowed and much more apt in playing this great part, Monmouth has incurred the blind enmity of the Catholics, and met with excessive praise from their adversaries. Unjustly vilified by the one party, insulted beyond measure by the other, he has been represented on the one side as an adventurer devoid of all qualities, and rashly engaging against his uncle in a mad enterprise fatally condemned to insuccess. Others have seen in him the glorious defender of the interests of the Anglican religion, threatened by the sovereign, the worthy precursor of William of Orange, the champion of the true faith, whose failure is to be ascribed to unforeseen circumstances and the incapacity of his lieutenants. The same contradiction that exists in the judgments passed upon his attempt is to be found in the opinions given by his biographers as to his origin. Whilst some deny that he was the natural son of Charles II., and give us to understand that Lucy Walters was already pregnant with him when she became the mistress of the exiled Stuart, others are inclined to see in Monmouth his legitimate offspring, the issue of a regular marriage contracted during his exile by a king deprived of his crown, very thoughtless, and madly in love. As always is the case, the truth lies between these two extremes of disparagement and favour. Charles II. constantly showed the love of a father for Monmouth; but if a marriage had united him to Lucy Walters, the proofs would not have remained hidden in the famous “black box” in which Monmouth’s friends supposed them to be. Brought to light, they would have allowed Charles II., deprived of other legitimate descendants, to indulge his fondness for a son, an accomplished gentleman, and already the object at Whitehall of several distinctions reserved only for royal princes,[149] and to whom only legitimacy was wanting for him to be universally received as the heir-presumptive to the throne. During his father’s reign he enjoyed, in fact, a popularity which not even great defects had been able to compromise, and which the hatred inspired by the Duke of York increased. People detected in the latter a future king entirely devoted to the Papists, and loved still more in Monmouth a prince of engaging and courteous manner, distinguished without haughtiness, sometimes familiar, but without lowering himself, less effeminate in his manners than his royal father,[150] and whose libertinage, fiery character, and acts of violence, were pardoned in remembrance of his brilliant military exploits, in consideration of his past, and the hopes that were based upon him. But the position at which he had arrived was far above his merits. His birth and the attractions of his person had raised him to it. As long as his father lived he maintained himself in it, supported by the interested affection of the Whigs, and never having to display any qualities but those he was liberally endowed with. When, at the death of Charles II., it was necessary for him to exhibit not only the gifts which had made him the idol of the people, but the talents requisite to accomplish a revolution, and to seize upon a crown, the mediocrity of his faculties soon became apparent. Intrepid upon the field of battle, he lacked decision in the council, and wavered irresolute between contrary suggestions. His natural kindness, which had won him the love of the people, sometimes degenerated into weakness. Of a very malleable disposition, he yielded too easily to the influence of others, and was often only the executant of their will. His ardour in action, above all, arose from the contact of those surrounding him. He hardly ever derived it from his own powers, and, left to himself, he readily sank into indolence. When he learnt in Holland the accession of James II., which closed England to him, he could form no manly resolution, and forgot[151] in the company of a loved woman[152] that he was the hope of a numerous party, the support of a great cause, the pretender to a throne. This inaction had its source in his carelessness and in his indolence of mind, much more than in a taste for obscurity; for he did not long resist the prayers of his friends when they came to drag him from his retreat and arm him against James II.,[153] and not having had sufficient energy to conceive the enterprise himself, he equally lacked the resolution to object to it. Such was the man whose coming a notable part of the English nation longed for, who was about to shake a throne, but without succeeding in overthrowing it; because he had neither the profound views nor the persevering audacity with which great ambitions ripen and execute their projects.

On June 11, 1685, Monmouth, accompanied by eighty men well armed, landed on the coast of Dorsetshire, near the little port of Lyme. The result of this expedition is a matter of history. There is no need to recount the triumphant march to Taunton, the enthusiasm of the West, the fatal field of Sedgemoor, and the ignominious flight of the leader of the insurgents.[154] Some days afterwards a man in tattered garments, with haggard face and hair prematurely white, is dragged from a ditch, at the bottom of which he was crouching, half hidden by the long grass and nettles, trembling and livid with fear, his pockets filled with peas gathered to satisfy the cravings of ravenous hunger. It was the darling of Charles’s court, the hero of Bothwell Brig, “King Monmouth.”

Finding himself in the power of a monarch whom he had come to overthrow, whose real faults he had not only pointed out, but whom he had also calumniated by accusations as infamous as unmerited, Monmouth did not understand that he was lost, and that James II., always inexorable, would not feel for his most cruel enemy a pity that was unknown to him. Self-respect and his own dignity should have prohibited the vanquished from appealing to the clemency of his conqueror, even had this clemency been at all probable. But mere reason indicated that to ask mercy of James II. would only be a useless abasement, and that there was nothing left but to prepare for death. Monmouth had neither the courage nor the wisdom to reject the thought of an unavailing humiliation. He wrote to James II. in the most abject terms.[155] His letter was that of a man crushed by the approach of death, and who sacrifices to the desire of living his past, his honour, those whom he had sought to gain over without succeeding, as well as the partisans whom he had conducted to their ruin. This was not all: no longer able to arrest himself in his ignominious descent, he desired to see James II., and the latter was sufficiently inhuman to consent to an interview, which it was his unalterable will should remain sterile. Not to spare such an enemy was justified to a certain extent by the violence of his attacks; but to admit him to his presence without pardoning him was a refinement of vengeance and harshness. He enjoyed the barbarous pleasure of seeing his redoubtable adversary confounded, falling at his feet, embracing his knees, shedding bitter tears, vainly trying to hold out his fettered hands to him, acknowledging and cursing his crime, offering to abjure his religion, and become a Catholic,[156] beseeching pardon, pardon at any price. To this eagerness for life, to these supplications James II. only opposed silence, and turning away his head he terminated an interview, in which we hardly know whether to feel most indignant at the cold cruelty of the conqueror or at the degrading terror and cowardly humiliation of the vanquished.

It is at this moment that Saint-Foix, introducing Monmouth into this problem, gives him Louis XIV. for a guardian, Saint-Mars for a gaoler, and the prison of Pignerol for a residence.

FOOTNOTES:

[148] Biographie Universelle of Michaud, article “Monmouth.”

[149] He resided in the King’s palace, had pages, and when he travelled was everywhere received like a prince. Charles II. created him successively Earl of Orkney, Knight of the Garter, and Duke of Monmouth.

[150] Grammont says of Monmouth in his Mémoires: “His face and the graces of his person were such that Nature has perhaps never formed any more accomplished. His countenance was perfectly charming. It was the face of a man; nothing insipid, nothing effeminate about it. Every feature had its attraction and its especial delicacy. A marvellous inclination for all kinds of exercises, an engaging manner, an air of grandeur—in short, all bodily advantages pleaded in his favour; but he had no sentiment except such as was inspired by others.”

[151] Letter from Monmouth to James, dated from Ringwode, quoted by Macaulay, Histoire d’Angleterre depuis l’Avénement de Jacques II., translation of M. de Peyronnet, vol. i. p. 398.

[152] Lady Henrietta Wentworth.—Trans.

[153] Burnet, vol. i. p. 630.

[154] M. Topin’s narrative has been here condensed, as it was hardly necessary to repeat to English readers the well-known story of Monmouth’s futile enterprise, more especially as it has no kind of bearing on the point as to whether he was or was not the Man with the Iron Mask.—Trans.

[155] Original Letters of Sir H. Ellis; Newspapers of the period; Despatch of the French Ambassador Barillon, July 13, 1685.

[156] Letter of James II. to the Prince of Orange, July 14, 1685; Sir J. Bramston’s Memoirs, related by Macaulay; Burnet, vol. i. p. 644.

CHAPTER VIII.

Bases on which Saint-Foix has founded his Theory—Disputes of Saint-Foix and Father Griffet—The Recollection of Monmouth becomes Legendary in England—Ballads announcing his Return—Indisputable Proofs of Monmouth’s Death in 1685—Interview of Monmouth with his Wife and Children—He is conducted to the Scaffold—His Firmness—The Last Words which he utters—Awkwardness of the Executioner.

In an anonymous libel, published in Holland under the title of Amours de Charles II. et de Jacques II., Rois d’Angleterre, we read “that in 1688, a few days after the departure from London of King James II., overthrown by William of Orange, Earl Danby sent to seek Colonel Skelton, who had formerly been Lieutenant of the Tower, which post the Prince of Orange had taken away from him, in order to give it to Lord Lucas. ‘Mr. Skelton,’ said Earl Danby to him, ‘yesterday, when supping with Robert Johnston, you told him that the Duke of Monmouth was alive, and that he was imprisoned in some castle in England.’ ‘I have not said that he was alive, and imprisoned in any castle, since I know nothing about it,’ answered Skelton; ‘but I have said that the night after the Duke of Monmouth’s pretended execution, the King, accompanied by three men, came to remove him from the Tower; that they covered his head with a kind of hood, and that the King and the three men entered a carriage with him.’”[157]

With the exception of this story, in the exactitude of which Saint-Foix himself has not very great confidence, since he says, “These are books whose authors seek only to amuse those who read them,”[158] he invokes for the establishment of his theory merely vague conversations, confused reports which he has collected, and the testimony of public rumour. “A surgeon,” he tells us, “named Nélaton, who was in the habit of going every morning to the Café Procope, related there several times, that when first assistant to a surgeon near the Porte Saint-Antoine, he was sent for one day to bleed a person, and that he was taken to the Bastille, where the governor introduced him into the chamber of a prisoner, who had his head covered with a long napkin, tied behind the neck; that this prisoner complained of bad headaches; that his dressing-gown was yellow and black, with large gold flowers; and that from his accent he recognized him to be English.” “Father Tournemine,” adds Saint-Foix,[159] “has often repeated to me that, having gone to pay a visit to the Duchess of Portsmouth with Father Sanders, formerly King James’s confessor, she had said to them, in a succession of conversations, that she should always reproach that Prince’s memory with the execution of the Duke of Monmouth, after Charles II., in the hour of death, and ready to communicate, had made him promise, in the presence of the host, which Huldeston, a Catholic priest, had secretly brought in, that, whatever rebellion the Duke of Monmouth might attempt, he would never have him punished with death. ‘Nor did he do so,’ replied Father Sanders, with animation.” In order to explain how Monmouth could have been carried off alive, and how the people were deceived by this sham execution, Saint-Foix furnishes a proof not a whit less uncertain than the preceding. “It was reported about London,” he says, “that an officer of his army, who closely resembled him, being made prisoner, and certain of being condemned to death, had received the proposal to personate him with as much joy as if he had been accorded life, and that, on this being reported abroad, a great lady, having gained over those who could open his coffin, and having looked at his right arm, exclaimed, ‘Ah! this is not Monmouth!’”[160]