The Man in the Iron Mask Page 15
In the plan of Exilles dating from the time Saint-Mars knew it, the Tour Grosse was, like the other towers, circular. Accessed by a door that opened onto the courtyard in front of Saint-Mars’s lodgings, it featured a spiral staircase, which ran up the inside of the wall. The chamber itself, which Eustache and La Rivière were to call home, had a window that overlooked the village, but the wall in which this was set was so thick that very little light came in.36 Since it faced west, the chamber was dismal for much of the day, brightening up only for a short time when the setting sun reached it in the evenings.
One of Saint-Mars’s earliest surviving letters from Exilles is dated December 4, 1681. In it, he speaks of his prisoners, one of whom is always ill, and who gives him “as much occupation as I have ever had with any of those I have hitherto guarded.”37 This unfortunate captive, although afflicted with illness, was considered to be more of a problem to his jailer than Foucquet, who was also frequently ill and who gave Saint-Mars great concern over his invisible ink, and Lauzun with his escape attempts. Fortunately for the prisoners, Saint-Mars had already engaged a doctor to attend to them whenever they had need of medical care.
Winter, with its frosts, snows, and bitter winds, seemed to fall harder at Exilles than it had at Pignerol, and by December Saint-Mars recognized that Eustache and La Rivière were both in need of warmer clothes. He wrote to Louvois asking permission to shop for the various items the men needed. Louvois wrote back to remind Saint-Mars that clothes for “these sorts of people” should be expected to last for three or four years.38
The presence of new prisoners and, more especially, the compagnie-franche attracted attention in the village of Exilles. People were naturally curious, and some even ventured out to peer at the fortress in a bid to see who might be inside and what they were doing. Louvois was informed of this activity from his mysterious source who had followed Saint-Mars to Exilles. This was not the first time Louvois had learned of what the villagers were getting up to, and he had already written to Saint-Mars about it, warning him to ensure they could not discover anything. Now, Louvois felt the need to write again, to remind the jailer that:
As it is important to prevent the prisoners who are at Exiles, who were called at Pignerol “of the Lower Tower,” from having any dealings [with anyone], the king has ordered me to command you to guard them so harshly and to take such precautions that you can answer to His Majesty that they cannot speak with anyone, not only from outside but even from the garrison of Exiles.39
Under the circumstances, this was a perfectly reasonable order, but Saint-Mars was piqued at the implication that he was neglecting to perform his duty as well as might be expected.
He replied, thanking Louvois for taking the time to write to him, but he was anxious for Louvois and Louis to know that he was well aware of what was required of him and that he was doing everything in his power to maintain the security of his prisoners: “Since the last time you, Sir, gave me this order, I have guarded these two prisoners, who are under my care, as severely and exactly as I formerly did Messieurs Foucquet and Lauzun, who could not boast that they had either sent or received any news, while they were in confinement.”40
Here, Saint-Mars is being more than a little disingenuous, for he knew full well that both Foucquet and Lauzun had successfully sent and received messages despite Saint-Mars’s best efforts to stop them. He went on to explain that his two prisoners could hear the people speaking as they passed along the road that ran by the foot of their tower, but they were unable to make themselves heard. At the same time, they could see people on the mountain, but they could not be seen because of the bars that were placed across their windows.
Saint-Mars had stationed two sentinels, who were on duty day and night, at either side of the Tour Grosse, but at a reasonable distance from it. They watched the prisoners’ windows from an oblique angle and were under orders to ensure that no one spoke to the men within and that the prisoners did not cry out from their windows. Any passersby who wanted to stop on the footpath or on the mountainside were made to move on. Moreover, as Saint-Mars explained, his own room adjoined the tower, and his own windows overlooked the path below. From this vantage point, he could hear and see everything, even his two sentinels, “who are by this means always kept alert.”
Security within the tower also received due attention. Saint-Mars had arranged things so that the priest who came to say mass for the prisoners could not see them, “on account of a curtain I have made, which covers their double doors.” At mealtimes, servants would carry the food and utensils to a small table outside the chamber door. Saint-Mars’s lieutenant would then take the items inside. Saint-Mars assured Louvois that “No one speaks to them except myself, my officer, M. Vigneron [the confessor], and [the] physician from Pragelas, which is six leagues from hence, who only sees them in my presence.” He added that, with regard to linen and other necessities, “I take the same precautions which I did with my former prisoners.”
The two sentinels stationed at the foot of the tower must have further aroused the curiosity of the local population. It is little wonder that they should amble along the path or linger on the side of the mountain gazing eagerly at the forbidding tower that had suddenly become more interesting of late. Security, however, remained tight and no news leaked out about the two new prisoners. It was as though Eustache and La Rivière had vanished from the face of the earth.
Louis read Saint-Mars’s latest letter with satisfaction, but one item gave him cause for concern. Louvois duly sent off a note to inform the jailer that only the lieutenant who was accustomed to speaking with the prisoners was to have any dealings with them.41 This was Jean de La Prade, a musketeer and lieutenant of the compagnie-franche.42
With only three prisoners to guard, time lay heavily on Saint-Mars’s hands. He had hoped to fill it with the occasional visit to Casale, but he complained that he dared not leave Exilles in case Louvois sent him a packet of correspondence for the marquis de Pianesse, a minister of the court of Turin.43 Not only was Saint-Mars a jailer, he was now a messenger acting as a postman between the courts of France and Turin, but it was also dawning on him that he was a virtual prisoner at Exilles. That April, he sought permission to go to pay his respects to the duc de Savoie. Louis raised no objection as long as the security of the prisoners was not compromised, and they could have no contact with anyone other than Saint-Mars’s appointed lieutenant and that nothing could befall them during his absence.44
A month later, Saint-Mars asked permission to leave the fortress once again, this time on personal business. “I cannot see the king allowing you to absent yourself from the command he has been pleased to give you,” wrote Louvois. “Therefore, you must put your affairs in order without leaving the place where you are.”45
The next surviving letter, which dates from June 1683, shows that Saint-Mars had revised the arrangements regarding the confession of the prisoners. Where previously they were allowed to confess once a year, they were now to be allowed to see a chaplain only following a direct order from the king or unless they were in imminent peril of death; “that is what you will observe, please,” wrote Louvois.
This change had come about as a result of the death of the abbé Antoine Rignon, the chaplain who had attended the prisoners in the donjon of Pignerol. He had traveled to Exilles once each year to provide his services to Eustache and La Rivière. Upon his death, in the late spring of 1683, he appears not to have been replaced. Saint-Mars regretted the death of the old chaplain, but Louvois had told him bluntly that such sentiments were unnecessary. The minister had long harbored doubts about Rignon’s fidelity toward the king and believed that he had betrayed the trust of Saint-Mars, particularly with regard to Foucquet and Lauzun.46
Up to this point, Saint-Mars had written very little about the prisoners under his care. “It is a long time since you have mentioned your prisoners,” wrote Louvois. “Please send me word of how you manage them and how they are.” Louvois was particularly inte
rested in La Rivière, and wanted to know under what circumstances he had been placed into Foucquet’s service.47 This letter provides confirmation that the two gentlemen of the Lower Tower, whom Saint-Mars took with him to Exilles, were indeed Eustache and La Rivière, two of Foucquet’s former valets who had been hidden away together.
With another reminder from Louvois to keep him apprised of what went on with his prisoners, Saint-Mars took to writing even if he had little to say. “The letter written in your own hand on the 21st of this month has been handed to me,” Louvois wrote at the end of January 1685. “I see from its contents what your prisoners have said to you, which is of no consequence.”48
Saint-Mars was now approaching sixty years old. Exilles was damp and unpleasant, and he longed to get away for a time. That January, he asked permission to travel to Paris in order to deliver a message he claimed was too sensitive to place into the hands of a courier. Louvois, however, was having none of it. He cast doubt on the likelihood of Louis granting the jailer’s request and told Saint-Mars instead to place the message inside two envelopes, the inner one of which would be marked that it was confidential and for Louvois personally. The outer envelope would have the usual address.49
Undaunted, Saint-Mars tried again. This time, he asked if he could leave the fortress for a short while so he could recover his health. Louis was amenable and agreed that he should “take the air where you judge it suitable for your health.” The usual precautions had to be taken for the security of the prisoners, particularly to ensure that no one could communicate with them during his absence.50 Such measures were standard.
Where Saint-Mars spent his precious time away is not known, but he had returned to Exilles by the end of May. He was refreshed but he had unsettling news for Louvois: one of his prisoners wished to write his will. The minister asked for details of the prisoner’s intentions. He assured Saint-Mars that all would be treated with due confidence: “If you put on the letter that it is to be handed to me, no one will open it.”51
Although neither Saint-Mars nor Louvois mention the name of this prisoner, there is every reason to believe that the man in question was La Rivière. The valet-turned-prisoner had come to terms with the reality that he would never be allowed to return home. He now knew that he would die in prison.
La Rivière’s wages had initially been paid to Foucquet, who had kept the money until such time as the valet might leave or be dismissed. At the time of the failed attempt to rescue Foucquet from prison, the valet’s wages had been suspended,52 but they appear to have been reinstated. Following Foucquet’s death, La Rivière should have received this money; but, of course, fate had intervened. Once a prisoner, he would never be in a position to spend the money, a significant sum that he now wished to dispose of in his will.53
By the end of 1685, Saint-Mars wrote to say that the prisoners of Exilles were ill and had been put on a course of medicine.54 He does not specify if all three of his prisoners were unwell, or whether it was La Rivière and Eustache, who continued to share a chamber. A doctor, Stéphane Perron, attended the patients, but he lived at Pragelas, which was some forty-two kilometers away by the shortest route. The man had to travel the rough mountain roads in deep snow and biting winds, but his services were appreciated by the prisoners, who, despite their afflictions were reported to be “perfectly tranquil.”55
This situation was not to last, however, for within the year, La Rivière had taken a turn for the worse. He had developed dropsy, and a deeply concerned Saint-Mars wanted to clarify procedure regarding his confession. “It is right that you should have the one of your prisoners who has dropsy confessed when you see that he is approaching death,” Louvois wrote in November 1686. “Until then, neither he nor his companion should have any communication [with anyone].”56 Within a few short weeks, La Rivière’s torment came to an end. Saint-Mars announced the death on January 5, 1687. Louvois’s letter, in which he acknowledged news of La Rivière’s death, mentioned no name. La Rivière had become nothing more than “one of your prisoners.”57
La Rivière’s death left Eustache alone in the Tour Grosse and without a companion for the first time in many years. Cut off from the world, the grinding monotony of his days was broken by infrequent visits from Saint-Mars or La Prade, neither of whom was truly sympathetic to his plight.
The cold loneliness of Exilles was cruel indeed, but it was not only the prisoners who were affected: Saint-Mars felt it, too. As much a prisoner as those he guarded, he had tried to alleviate his boredom and sense of isolation with the occasional visit to Turin and the court of the duc de Savoie, but he longed to leave Exilles and return to the world. As impossible as it must have seemed to him at that point, his wish would be granted, and much sooner than he could ever had imagined.
TEN The Île Sainte-Marguerite
The island of Sainte-Marguerite basked in golden sunshine, its shores washed by the gentle warm waters of the Mediterranean. The scent of pine trees filled the air, blending with the perfumes arising from the eucalyptus, orange, and olive trees. Myriad flowers carpeted the woodland floor. It was an island paradise, the beauty of which concealed its mundane function as a military outpost and, when necessity called, a prison.
The governor of this idyllic garrison, Guillaume de Pechpeyrou-Comminges, comte de Guitaut, had recently died of a fever while traveling to Paris. His post was currently being run by a captain-major, Pierre de Bussy, seigneur de Dampierre, but this was a temporary arrangement. Very soon a new governor would arrive: M. de Saint-Mars.
It was in early January 1687 that Saint-Mars received news that he had been appointed governor of the Îles de Lérins, which comprised the islands of Sainte-Marguerite and its smaller companion, Saint-Honorat. Louvois instructed Saint-Mars to journey to Sainte-Marguerite to make an assessment of the work necessary to enable him to guard his prisoners securely. Once he had surveyed the buildings, he was to draw up a plan and an account of the costs involved. He was then to return to Exilles to await the king’s orders concerning the conducting of the prisoners to the islands. Louvois added: “I believe it is unnecessary for me to recommend that you take such measures that, during the time that you will be going to the Île Sainte-Marguerite, and returning from there, the said prisoners will be guarded in such a manner that nothing can befall them, and that they have no dealings with anyone.”1
Louvois also wrote to the clerk of the post at Grenoble, enclosing another letter for Saint-Mars. The instructions were to have it sent by express delivery, and for the reply to be handled with the same urgency.2 This letter crossed one from Saint-Mars, in which the jailer informed him of the death of La Rivière. In his reply, Louvois again refers to “one of your prisoners” but does not name him.3
Saint-Mars was very happy about his new position. For too long the inclement weather and unpleasant conditions at Exilles had undermined his health, and he had asked several times for a new posting. He wrote to Louvois to express his gratitude that his dearest wish was being fulfilled and he would be leaving the dreary fortress of Exilles for good.4 He was already looking forward to beginning the next stage of his career on Sainte-Marguerite and had begun to plan the route he would take as he prepared to embark upon his fact-finding mission. “I would request to be permitted to take the road through Piedmont,” he said, “on account of the great quantity of snow that there is between here and Embrun.” As for his return journey, “which shall be as quick as I can make it,” he hoped Louvois would approve of his making a detour on the way out so that he might pay a visit to the duc de Savoie, “from whom I have always received so much kindness.”
Saint-Mars reassured the minister, and through him the king, that his prisoner would be well guarded during his absence. The security surrounding Eustache was such that he was forbidden even to converse with Saint-Mars’s lieutenant, who, of course, obeyed his orders precisely. As for transporting Eustache to the island, Saint-Mars had given that some thought, too. In his opinion, “the most secure conveyance will be
a chair covered with oil cloth, in which there would be a sufficiency of air, without its being possible for anyone to see or speak to him during the journey, not even the soldiers whom I shall select to be near the chair. This conveyance will be less embarrassing than a litter,” he explained, “which can often break.”
Louvois’s response was that Saint-Mars could indeed follow the route to Sainte-Marguerite that he had identified as being the most appropriate as long as he made it his priority, once he arrived on the island, to examine the buildings and identify the work that needed to be done in order to ensure his prisoner’s security. As to the means by which the prisoner was to be transported, Louis wanted Saint-Mars to use a wheeled chair covered over in a manner suggested by the jailer, or any other method he might deem appropriate providing he could answer for it.5 With his arrangements in place, Saint-Mars set out on his long journey a week or so later. As he had planned, he made a detour to Turin, where he paid his respects to the duke before going on to the islands. He arrived on February 19.
Situated some two kilometers off the coast of Cannes, then a small fishing village,6 Sainte-Marguerite, its new governor saw, was so secure that prisoners could be held there without fear of escape. It boasted an already established garrison, and its agreeable climate made a sharp contrast to the icy winds and cruel snows of the Alps. He was greeted by the acting governor, Dampierre, who showed him the island’s facilities and introduced him to the personnel stationed at the fortress. There was an officer who looked after the artillery and stores, a captain of the post, four gunners, an almoner, and a surgeon assisted by fraters, or barbers.7