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  23 Ravaisson, volume IX, 168–169.

  24 Ibid., 170.

  25 Ibid., 171.

  26 Petitfils, Masque de fer, 70.

  27 Ravaisson, volume IX, 177.

  28 Marquis de Sourches, Mémoires du marquis de Sourches sur le règne de Louis XIV, volume III (Paris: Librairie Hachette et Cie, 1884), 436.

  29 Louis was currently engaged in the Nine Years’ War, or the War of the League of Augsburg.

  30 Petitfils, Masque de fer, 68; Furneaux, 106.

  31 See Petitfils, Masque de fer, 69.

  32 Major de Villebois died at Pignerol on April 20, 1692. He was succeeded on May 18 by Jean de La Prade, musketeer and lieutenant of Saint-Mars’s compagnie-franche.

  33 Barnes, 290; Ellis, 341–342; Delort (1825), 285; Roux-Fazillac, 117.

  34 Petitfils, Masque de fer, 73–74.

  35 Ibid., 71.

  36 Barnes, 290.

  37 Ibid., 290–291.

  38 In accordance with his secret treaty with Louis XIV, the duc de Savoie, Victor Amadeus II, agreed to the return of Pignerol to the Savoie. The treaty was signed on June 29, 1696. The following month, on September 19, the demolition of the donjon and fortifications of Pignerol began.

  39 Petitfils, Masque de fer, 75.

  40 Barnes, 292.

  41 Topin, 340.

  42 Barnes, 293.

  43 Barnes, 293–294; Topin, 342–344, note 24.

  44 Eustache is served first because he is Saint-Mars’s longest-serving prisoner, but he is also regarded as the most important.

  45 Barnes, 295.

  46 Topin, 61.

  47 Petitfils, Masque de fer, 162.

  48 Ibid., 162. The Peace of Ryswick was established in two treaties: one between France, Spain, and the maritime powers on September 20; the second between France, the emperor, and the empire on October 30.

  49 Petitfils, Masque de fer, 162 note.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN: THE BASTILLE

  1 Of Saint-Mars’s two sons, Antoine Bénigne died on July 29, 1693, at the battle of Neerwinden, at the age of twenty-one. André Antoine was still alive at this point. He would die on November 15, 1703, of wounds sustained in the battle of Spire at the age of twenty-four.

  2 Petitfils, Masque de fer, 163–164.

  3 Iung, 419. Barbezieux’s letter is dated June 15, 1698.

  4 Ibid., 419.

  5 Frantz Funck-Brentano, Legends of the Bastille, translated by George Maidment (London: Downey & Co. Limited, 1899), 58.

  6 This description of the Bastille is taken from Funck-Brentano, Bastille, 60–62.

  7 Ibid., 61–62.

  8 Charles VI reigned 1380–1422.

  9 Funck-Brentano, 63–64, quoting Bournon.

  10 Ibid., 79.

  11 Ibid., 86.

  12 Iung, 420.

  13 See Petitfils, Masque, 261–264.

  14 Formanoir de Corbest would inherit the château de Palteau from his uncle, and it was his son, born in 1712, who provided the information about the Man in the Iron Mask’s visit to Voltaire in 1763 and Fréron in 1768. See below, pp. 193–194, 223.

  15 Gazette, 1698, 396.

  16 The title of king’s lieutenant at the Bastille indicated an administrative post and should not be confused with the more general use of the title, which referred to the governor of a town, a city, or a province.

  17 Etienne Du Junca, Registres des entrées et des sorties de la Bastille, écrits par Du Junca, lieutenant du roi de la Bastille, manuscript written 1690–1705, two volumes; volume I, 37v. Documents relating to the arrest of prisoners were not kept, but were destroyed as soon as the prisoner was safely inside his or her chamber; see Funck-Brentano, 70.

  18 Petitfils, Masque, 23, notes.

  19 Constantin de Renneville, L’Inquisition Françoise, ou L’Histoire de la Bastille (Amsterdam: Chez Etienne Roger, 1715), tome I, 111.

  20 Hopkins, 338. Hopkins states that in December 1701, Tirmon was transferred to the Bicêtre prison “half-prison, half-madhouse.” He went insane after two years and died in 1709.

  21 Du Junca, volume 1, 60r; Ravaisson, volume x, 369.

  22 Ravaisson (volume X, 369, note 3) agrees that the ancien prisonnier must have been Eustache, but suggests that Du Junca meant that Maranville and Tirmon were put into the same tower as him, but not in the same chamber.

  23 Du Junca had himself once been reproached for talking too much with the prisoners, behavior of which Louis did not approve.

  24 Jean-Baptiste Colbert, marquis de Torcy (1665–1746), secretary of state for foreign affairs.

  25 Du Junca, volume 1, 71v; Ravaisson, volume x, 423 and note.

  26 Renneville, 32–33.

  27 Ibid., 78–79.

  28 Du Junca, volume 2, 80v. Rosarges was not a major but a sergeant, and the surgeon’s name was Reilhe.

  29 The church of Saint-Paul-des-Champs is not to be confused with the church Saint-Paul-Saint-Louis in the rue Sainte-Antoine.

  30 Funck-Brentano, 117.

  CHAPTER TWELVE: LEGENDS OF THE IRON MASK

  1 The letters, dated October 10 and 22, 1711, are printed in Funck-Brentano, Bastille, 125.

  2 Renneville (tome I, xlvii) thought he had seen the mysterious prisoner in 1705, but this was clearly impossible if the man he had seen was indeed Eustache.

  3 Renneville, xlvii–l. There were three turnkeys at the Bastille: Antoine Ru, or Larue, Boutonnière, and Bourgouin (Albert Savine, La Vie á la Bastille: Souvenirs d’un prisonnier [Paris: Louis-Michaud, 1908), 51], all of whom worked under the supervision of L’Ecuyer, the chief turnkey. They were not confined to any particular tower, but performed their duties wherever and whenever they were required. They were obliged to be gentle and polite with the prisoners, and were forbidden to accept gifts from them.

  4 Alicia C. Montoya, Medievalist Enlightenment: From Charles Perrault to Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Cambridge, UK: DS Brewer, 2013), 47. Voltaire identified four stages of light in all. The first was that of Alexander and Pericles; the second was the age of Caesar and Augustus; the third was the Italian Renaissance. That of Louis XIV was the fourth.

  5 OCV, vol. 13C, 165.

  6 Petitfils, Masque de fer, 210.

  7 Voltaire, The Age of Louis XIV (London: J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd; New York: E. P. Dutton & Co. Inc., 1935), 260–262.

  8 Chamillart died in 1721.

  9 Voltaire, Supplément, 24–25; OCV, vol. 13C, 165.

  10 La Feuillade was related to Lauzun, who had also encountered the mysterious prisoner while at Pignerol. At that point, however, the prisoner had been put to work in the service of Foucquet. There is nothing to suggest that, after his release, Lauzun equated Foucquet’s valet with the masked prisoner, if indeed he and la Feuillade had ever discussed him.

  11 The prisoner’s apparent love of linen and lace may have come from the memory of Mme Le Bret, mother of the governor of Provence, who would obtain such items for Mme de Saint-Mars. See Furneaux, 29.

  12 Laurent Angliviel de La Beaumelle was a Protestant writer and contemporary of Voltaire.

  13 Voltaire, Supplément, 24; OCV, vol. 13C, 165.

  14 Voltaire, Supplément, 25.

  15 Joseph La Grange-Chancel, “Lettre à Fréron,” L’Année littéraire, 1759, tome III, 188–195.

  16 Germain François Poillain de Saint-Foix, “Lettre de M. de Saint-Foix au sujet de l’Homme au masque de fer,” L’Année littéraire, 1768, tome IV, 73–85. Saint-Foix wrote about his findings in a letter to Elie-Catherine Fréron, editor of L’Année littéraire, who in turn summarized the theories that had so far come to Saint-Foix’s attention.

  17 Guillaume Louis Formanoir de Palteau, “Lettre du 19 juin 1768,” L’Année littéraire, tome IV, 351–354.

  18 Henri Griffet, Histoire de La Vie de Louis XIII, Roi de France et de Navarre (Paris: Chez Saillant, Libraire, 1758), 295–300.

  19 René Jourdin de Launay had been on the staff at the Bastille since 1710 and became governor in 1718. His son, Bernard-René Jourdan de Launay, wa
s governor at the time of the storming of the Bastille in 1789 and was murdered by the crowd.

  20 Ravaisson, volume III, 208; see above, pp. 79, 80–81.

  21 Baron de Heiss, “Lettre au sujet de l’homme au masque de fer,” Journal encyclopédique, 15 août 1770, tome VI, 132–133.

  22 Voltaire, Questions sur l’encyclopédie, tome 1, 251–254.

  23 Voltaire, Dictionnaire philosophique, 78–79; OCV, volume 38 (II), 301–303.

  24 Griffet, tome 3, 374–376; Wilkinson, 7–8.

  25 Chrétien Guillaume de Lamoignon de Malesherbes was president of the Cour des aides and director of the royal library.

  26 Funck-Brentano, 122.

  27 Jean-Pierre Papon, Voyage littéraire en Provence (Paris: Chez Barrois l’âiné, 1780), 246–249.

  28 See above, pp. 155, 182, 195, 200.

  29 Charpentier, La Bastille dévoilée, ou Recueil de pièces authentiques pour servir à son histoire, neuvième livraison (Paris: Chez Desenne, 1790), 36–37, 95–96, 141, 122–170.

  30 Louis Dutens, Correspondance interceptée (London: s.n., 1789), 26–32; Mémoires d’un voyageur qui se repose; contenant des anecdotes historiques, politiques et littéraires, relatives à plusieurs des principaux personnages du siècle (Paris: Bossange, Masson et Besson, 1806), 204–210.

  31 Dutens, Correspondance, 33–34.

  32 Friedrich Melchior Grimm, Correspondance littéraire, nouvelle édition, tome quatorzième 1788–1789 (Paris: Chez Furne et Ladrange, 1831), tome IV, 419–423.

  33 Jeanne Louise Henriette de Campan, Memoirs of Madame de Campan on Marie Antoinette and her Court (Boston: J. B. Millet Company, 1909), volume 1, 171–172.

  34 Furneaux, 42.

  35 There have been a great many books published over the past decades in which the various candidates have been discussed. Usually, the author presents the candidates in the order in which they were imprisoned and offers the reasons why he could not have been the Man in the Iron Mask before offering their solution in the final chapters. The most recent books of this type, in English and in French respectively, are The Man in the Iron Mask by John Noone and Le Masque de fer by Jean-Christian Petitfils. Both are well worth reading.

  36 The theory that Foucquet was the Man in the Iron Mask first appeared in newssheets that were published following the fall of the Bastille. It later found support with writers such as Paul Lacroix and Pierre-Jacques Arrese.

  37 The Jacobin monk was the candidate of Domenico Carutti. Molière was proposed by Marcel Diamant-Berger despite the fact that the playwright’s death was well attested.

  38 Boutry explored these theories in an article, “Une mystification diplomatique,” before settling on Matthioli.

  39 Funck-Brentano, Le Masque de fer, 22.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN: THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK

  1 Lair, volume II, 454.

  2 Adrien Huguet, Le Marquis de Cavoye: Un grand maréchal des logis de la maison du Roi (Paris: Édouard Champion, 1920), 27.

  3 Ibid., 135.

  4 Emile Laloy, Enigmes du Grand Siècle: Le Masque de fer, Jacques de La Cloche, l’abbé Prignani, Roux de Marsilly (Paris: Librairie H. Le Soudier, 1912), 209–210.

  5 Ravaisson, volume VI, 375.

  6 Laloy, 214–219.

  7 Noone, 229.

  8 Petitfils, Masque, 144.

  9 Caire, 43.

  10 Petitfils (Masque, 167) points out that the sculptor, Pierre-Jean David, is known as David d’Angers because of his place of birth.

  11 Petitfils, Masque, 166–167.

  12 Furneaux, 43.

  13 Delort (1829), volume I, 286–288.

  14 Ellis, 248–249.

  15 Ellis, 255–256; Delort (1825), 217; Roux-Fazillac, 67.

  16 Ravaisson, volume IX, 168–169.

  17 Ibid., 171.

  18 Barnes, 293.

  19 Courtilz de Sandras, volume III, 72.

  20 See, for example, Delort (1829), volume I, 182.

  21 Robert Ambelain, La Chapelle des damnés: La véritable Affaires des poisons, 1650–1703 (Paris: Éditions Robert Laffont, 1983), 113.

  22 Barnes, 288. There is also the question of Eustache’s clothing, which Louvois said should last for three or four years (see above, p. 135). This suggests that Eustache was not considered to be a person of quality. Certainly, his social status was not equal to that of Foucquet or Lauzun.

  23 Duvivier, 216–217.

  24 Petitfils, Masque, 144.

  25 Marie-Thérèse of Austria, although Spanish, was descended from the Habsburgs, as was Louis’s own mother, Anne of Austria. The two queens were aunt and niece and became mother- and daughter-in-law upon Louis’s marriage to Marie-Thérèse.

  26 England had not yet adopted the Gregorian calendar, and so was ten days behind the rest of Europe.

  27 Cyril Hughes Hartmann, Charles II and Madame (London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1934), 233.

  28 Ibid., 264.

  29 Ibid., 227.

  30 Ibid., 230.

  31 Ibid., 228.

  32 Ibid., 230.

  33 Ibid., 243, 246.

  34 Ibid., 246.

  35 Henriette gave birth to her second daughter, Anne-Marie, who would become duchesse de Savoy, on August 27, 1669.

  36 Hartmann, 267.

  37 Ibid., 275–276.

  38 Ibid., 281.

  39 Jacqueline Duchêne, Henriette d’Angleterre, duchesse d’Orléans (Paris: Librairie Arthème Fayard, 1995), 342.

  40 Petitfils, Masque, 176.

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