The Man in the Iron Mask Read online

  The troops stationed on the island, which Saint-Mars would inherit, comprised 180 men and two small companies of seventy men each. Occasionally, infantrymen would quarter on the island. These men were in addition to Saint-Mars’s own compagnie-franche.

  The fortifications had been established in 1560 by Charles IX on the ruined foundations of Roman buildings, with a tower being added some forty years later by a liegeman of Charles de Lorraine, duc de Guise. The new fortress had then been taken over by the Spanish, who occupied the island in the mid-1630s and strengthened it with demi-lunes, moats, bastions, and defensive walls. When it was returned to French hands shortly afterward, the new governor, the comte de Guitaut, reinforced these defenses. Now, as Saint-Mars prepared to transfer to the island, Vauban suggested further modification,8 although nothing came of these plans.

  Saint-Mars observed that the fortress had been intended primarily as a military installation, not a prison, so it had no purpose-built cells or chambers fit for guarding state prisoners. This, however, did not prevent prisoners from being held on the island from time to time, some of whom had been arrested on charges so obscure that Louvois was unaware of why they were there. Several years earlier, in a letter dated April 4, 1674, he had written to the commissioner and administrator, Lenfant, saying that he had been advised that Guitaut and Dampierre had custody of three or four people in the prisons of Sainte-Marguerite “without any legitimate motive.” He asked Lenfant to explain the presence of these people.9 Clearly, prisoners could, and did, become lost in the system. Of the captives of Sainte-Marguerite, only one remained upon Saint-Mars’s arrival on the island. This was the chevalier Benoît de Thésut, who had been held since September 1685 under a lettre de cachet issued by the king at the request of his family.

  For the next two weeks, Saint-Mars knocked on stone walls, rattled heavy wooden doors, and stamped on the floors of the fortress. He walked all over the island in a bid to identify areas that might be vulnerable to intruders or from which a prisoner might mount a successful attempt to escape. Eventually he set out his findings and recommendations in a note to Louvois. In his estimation, the most urgent consideration was to construct a new building, one specifically designed to serve as a prison, and which would include secure lodgings for Eustache. This work, he reckoned, would cost 5,026 livres.

  At Versailles, Louis and Louvois read Saint-Mars’s note with satisfaction. The cost was approved, and Louis issued a directive giving Saint-Mars leave to depart Exilles and take up his new posting as soon as he was ready, adding that this should be done as soon as possible after Easter.

  Louvois expressed his confidence that Saint-Mars had found a way to guard his prisoner securely while the new prison was being built. Just in case the jailer needed reminding, the minister outlined the precautions that had to be observed. As usual, the prisoner was to have no dealings with anyone, and Saint-Mars was to ensure that nothing could befall his charge while he was in the temporary prison. In other words, Eustache was to be prevented from talking to anyone, giving or receiving messages, escaping, or being liberated by anyone.

  As to the journey to the island, Louvois felt he did not need to remind Saint-Mars to watch over his prisoner very carefully, but he did so anyway. He was confident, he said, that Saint-Mars would not fail to do everything necessary to guard the prisoner on the road.10

  If Louvois expected events to run smoothly, he was about to be disappointed. Saint-Mars wrote back within the week to say that he had been on Sainte-Marguerite for the past thirty days, twenty-six of which he had spent in bed with a “continual fever.” He was eventually cured of his illness by taking powdered quinquina bark. Now that he was recovered, he had sent for his litter and he planned to leave the island in three days’ time. He awaited only Louvois’s command, upon the receipt of which, he assured the minister, “I shall set forth again with my prisoner, whom I promise to conduct here in all security, without anyone seeing or speaking to him. He shall not hear mass after he leaves Exilles, till he is lodged in the prison which is prepared for him here, to which a chapel is attached.” The letter is torn at this point, and only the words “I pledge my honor to you for the entire security of my prisoner” can be read.11 There was still concern to ensure that Eustache had no commerce with anyone except Saint-Mars or his appointed and approved lieutenant.

  With Louvois’s blessing, Saint-Mars set out from Exilles with Eustache in tow on April 18, 1687, just as the winter snows were beginning to give way to the delights of the Alpine spring. As Louis had decreed, the prisoner traveled in a chair covered with oiled or waxed cloth. This was carried by eight porters who had brought the chair from Turin. Saint-Mars paid them 203 livres, which included the hire of the chair; he was careful to point out to Louvois that he had paid this money out of his own pocket.

  The journey took them through Briançon, Embrun, Grasse, and on to Cannes, where a boat carried them the short distance to Sainte-Marguerite.12 Upon disembarking at the landing stage on the western shore of the island, a short and winding path took them to the new buildings Saint-Mars had ordered to be built.13 It had been a relatively pleasant journey, at least for Saint-Mars, but it had not been without incident. The cloth that swathed the chair had been so tight that its unhappy occupant did not have “as much air as he wished,” with the consequence that he was frequently unwell. As a result, the party spent twelve days on the road and arrived on Sainte-Marguerite on April 30.14

  As he wrote to Louvois upon his arrival on the island, Saint-Mars could not resist indulging in a little self-congratulation on his success at concealing the identity of his prisoner: “I can assure you, Monseigneur, that no one has seen him, and that the manner in which I have guarded and conducted him during the journey makes everybody try to conjecture who he is.”15

  Louvois must have read these lines with dismay. Surely, the whole object of carrying the prisoner inside a covered chair was to hide him from prying eyes, yet here was Saint-Mars, who ought to have known better, gloating over the attention his prisoner had attracted on their lengthy journey. Not only had the mysterious prisoner roused interest in the local populace through whose towns and villages he passed while encased in his makeshift portable prison, but word of his existence was already beginning to spread far and wide.

  Among those who were intrigued by this mysterious man in Saint-Mars’s custody were four people who were touring France’s Mediterranean coastline that spring. Louis de Thomassin-Mazaugues, a counselor of the Parlement of Aix, was traveling in a felucca with his wife, his sister-in-law, and a friend, the abbé de Mauvans. Happily, the abbé kept a journal of their expedition, which took them in stages from Saint-Tropez to Genoa, hugging the coast all the way.

  The small group had decided to stop overnight on Saint-Honorat, the smaller of the Lérin islands, and disembarked at the landing stage on Sainte-Marguerite to request the necessary permit. This was duly granted by Dampierre, who went on to show them the new fortifications that were being built at the direction of Saint-Mars. He explained that the new governor had just left the island to collect an unknown prisoner, who was to be escorted with so many precautions, and to whom it was made known directly that if ever he was weary of life, he had only to say his name, because there were orders to shoot him in the head immediately if he did so. Dampierre added that they were providing lodgings for this prisoner, which would match those of Saint-Mars. It had been arranged, moreover, that the new governor would be the only person to see the prisoner, that he would give him his food himself, and he would be almost his only jailer and his guard.16

  Within five months, the mysterious Eustache had become a talking point among the Jansenist clergy in Paris. They were even able to read all about him in their handwritten gazette, a document that was copied and circulated among them with impressive speed.17

  The text in question is a short article attributed to Louis Foucquet, bishop of Agde, who had been exiled for being a Jansenist, and who was one of half a dozen or so editors of t
he gazette. The article18 noted that Saint-Mars, here erroneously referred to as Cinq-Mars, had taken a state prisoner to Sainte-Marguerite from Pignerol on the orders of the king. No one knew who this prisoner was who was forbidden to speak his own name and would be killed if he did so. It noted that the prisoner traveled in an enclosed sedan chair with a mask of steel on his face. All that anyone could get out of Saint-Mars was that the prisoner was for many years at Pignerol “and that all the people one believes to be dead are not.”

  This is a fascinating article. It is the first historical document to claim that Saint-Mars’s prisoner wore a mask—and it was not an iron mask, but steel. As such, it would be useful to look at this a little more closely to see what can be made of it.

  The most obvious observation is that the article is not based on eyewitness testimony but relates a secondhand story from an anonymous source. It contains several discrepancies: it mistakenly refers to Saint-Mars as Cinq-Mars, but this could be a simple spelling error because both versions could sound very similar. More seriously, it states that the mysterious prisoner was taken to Sainte-Marguerite directly from Pignerol, completely omitting the six years he had spent at Exilles. This may be accounted for by Saint-Mars’s apparent assertion that the prisoner had been at Pignerol for many years, with the anonymous writer thinking it unnecessary to make mention of Exilles. The article mistakenly asserts that the prisoner had been forbidden to speak his name. As to the steel mask, we recall Saint-Mars, in his letter to Louvois, said that the prisoner did not have as much air as he had wished. We might infer that this was owing to the oiled or waxed cloth that was tightly wound around the chair in which the prisoner was carried. Saint-Mars, it is important to point out, said nothing of his prisoner wearing a mask of any material. Having said that, it could be argued that Saint-Mars might have forced his prisoner to wear a mask on the journey from Exilles to Sainte-Marguerite to ensure none of the soldiers or others in the entourage would recognize him. Some of them would have seen him in Foucquet’s company, and they had been told that he had been released upon the death of his master.

  The article then speaks of someone who was believed to have died while in Saint-Mars’s care, but who may not be dead after all. The most recent death among Saint-Mars’s prisoners was La Rivière. As a valet from an obscure background, the public would not have been acquainted with this man and so would probably not have formed a belief about him one way or another. The only dead prisoner who had been well known to the public was Nicolas Foucquet. However, in a letter to Louvois, Saint-Mars noted that he did not carry his prisoner’s few possessions to Sainte-Marguerite as he had intended because of their condition. “My prisoner’s bed is so old and worn out,” he explained, “as well as everything he had used, such as table linen and furniture, that it was not worth the trouble of bringing it here; they sold for only thirteen écus.”19 Since the furniture and linens used by Foucquet had been supplied by the king and were of a quality appropriate for a man of his social rank, it is clear that these items could not have belonged to the former superintendent. Nevertheless, that this speculation is mentioned at all lends poignancy to the article because of its attribution to Louis Foucquet: the bishop was the late Nicolas Foucquet’s younger brother and godson; if he was the author of the article, it is possible that there was some speculation or wishful thinking on his part regarding Nicolas’s possible survival.

  What this document really amounts to is a buzz of excitement surrounding a high-security prisoner, originating with a jailer who teased local townsfolk about a mysterious man under his guard. It may have originated with, or been informed by, the abbé Mauvans or one of his party. His journal contains snippets of information concerning Saint-Mars’s mystery prisoner, which originated with the staff on Sainte-Marguerite who were awaiting their exciting new guest and who mentioned “so many precautions” under which he was being escorted. The gossip then spread, acquiring new and more imaginative details as it went. The prisoner, whom we recall was wrapped up so securely in oiled or waxed cloth that he found it difficult to breathe, had no need of a mask to conceal his features. Indeed, had Saint-Mars thought of using such a device, he would probably have boasted about it to Louvois in his letter. It is telling that he did not.

  As soon as he arrived on Sainte-Marguerite, Eustache was lodged in temporary accommodation, the security of which Saint-Mars could confidently vouch. The Mediterranean climate had not proved beneficial to him, however, for he remained unwell. As the year 1688 dawned, the new prison building was declared ready to receive its first guest, and Eustache was moved into the chamber that was to become his permanent home.

  Saint-Mars was proud of the new prison chambers he had built ranged along the cliff top that overlooked the sea and the small village of Cannes beyond. He described them as “large, fine and light, and as to their quality, I do not believe that there are any stronger or more secure in Europe.”20 He was certain that his prisoner would not be able to send out or receive messages from near or far, which was something “that could not be found in the places where I had the custody of the late Monsieur Foucquet from the moment he was arrested.” Here, Saint-Mars is recalling a time when he served as d’Artagnan’s sergeant when the lieutenant-captain of the Musketeers acted as Foucquet’s first jailer. Despite apparently tight security, Foucquet had managed to smuggle out the occasional message to friends and members of his family.

  Saint-Mars added that, with the appropriate precautions in place, he thought that it would be safe enough to allow prisoners to walk anywhere on the island. With that in mind, he boasted to Louvois of “the value of this place, for when you have some prisoners to place in all security with honest liberty.”21 Saint-Mars was again harking back to the days when he had guarded Foucquet, arguably his most illustrious prisoner, and hinting for another important prisoner, someone equal in rank to Foucquet.

  Yet, despite Saint-Mars’s blustering overconfidence, news had leaked to the mainland that an important prisoner was being held on the island. He referred to the gossip as he closed his letter: “In all this province people are saying that my prisoner is Monsieur de Beaufort, and others say that he is the son of the late Cromwell.” He enclosed a note with his letter outlining the previous year’s expenses, adding that he did not write down the details so that he could conceal as much as possible from anyone who might handle and read the note. That letter was dated January 8, 1688, several months after his arrival on Sainte-Marguerite with his prisoner. Eustache is no longer referred to by name; he has even lost his epithet, La Tour or La Tour d’en bas. Now, he is simply referred to as mon prisonnier, “my prisoner.”

  Eustache lived in great tranquility on Sainte-Marguerite, just as he had done at Pignerol, where he was at peace with God and the king. Meanwhile, Saint-Mars’s assurances about the security of the island had not gone unnoticed. Within a short while, he was to receive several more prisoners, even though they were not of a quality he might have expected.

  For several years, Louis had been running a systematic campaign of persecution against the Huguenot population of France. Seeing their faith, and their adherence to it, as heretical and schismatic, the king had imposed penalties on the Huguenots with increasing severity in a bid to force them to convert to Catholicism. By 1685 Louis had come to believe that so few Huguenots remained in the kingdom that there was no need to observe the protected status they had been granted by his grandfather, Henri IV. The edict of Nantes, issued in 1598, was an enlightened piece of legislation that had granted freedom of conscience to Huguenots and supported their rights with military and political guarantees.22 Now Louis rescinded the edict, making Huguenotism illegal. Huguenot ministers were obliged to convert to Catholicism or else leave France; if they defied this imperative, they faced being sent to the galleys. A number of ministers left the kingdom to minister to the French Huguenots who had chosen to settle in England, Holland, Switzerland, and the New World. Some, however, later returned from exile to continue their ministries in
secret. Those who were caught were imprisoned in the Bastille, the château de Vincennes, or any one of a number of other strongholds scattered across the kingdom, including the fortress on the Île Sainte-Marguerite. The first of the ministers to arrive at Sainte-Marguerite was Paul Cardel.

  Saint-Mars was warned to expect Cardel in a letter dated April 19, 1689. Louvois described him as “a man deserving of death and who could not be treated too severely.” He ordered Saint-Mars to take “all necessary precautions so that no one knows that he is in your hands,” and he asked to be kept informed of Cardel’s behavior by letter every month.23

  In effect, Louvois was acting beyond his jurisdiction. The Huguenot minister, although imprisoned on Sainte-Marguerite, came under the authority of the marquis de Seignelay, who was secretary of state for the royal house, la Maison du roi. There was, therefore, a conflict of interest between the two men. Perhaps this was what lay behind a letter Louvois sent to Saint-Mars the following month. In it, he told Saint-Mars that whenever he had some information to give him regarding Cardel, he must use the precaution of putting his letter into a double envelope, so that no one but Louvois would know what it contained.24

  These precautions inevitably extended to those who came to look after the prisoners. When Cardel fell ill and needed to be bled, Saint-Mars was unsure of how to proceed and wrote to Louvois for clarification. Louvois in turn, consulted the king before replying that should the prisoner stand in urgent need of bleeding, Saint-Mars could arrange for a surgeon to come to the island to perform the procedure in his presence, “taking all necessary precautions that the surgeon does not know who [the prisoner] is.”25

  Within a few months, Cardel was joined by another minister, Pierre de Salves, who appears in the official correspondence under the name Valsec. In time, more ministers would arrive on the island, and all were lodged in the range of which Saint-Mars was so proud. Eustache occupied the chamber closest to the château in which Saint-Mars had set up home. The ministers were given adjoining chambers, the windows of which featured three layers of strong iron bars. These, however, proved to be no obstacle to the ministers, who communicated with each other by shouting through them.26