The Man Behind the Iron Mask (44 page)

Nor was that all. At the International Symposium held in Cannes in 1987, Stanislas Brugnon produced a document which until that time had been unknown to investigators of the Iron Mask mystery. A letter, unsigned but thought to be by Louis Fouquet, the Bishop of Agde, and written from Paris on 4 September 1687, a mere four months after the arrival of Saint-Mars and his prisoner at Sainte-Marguerite, it gives news of that arrival in even more sensational terms than those reported by the Abbé Mauvans:

Monsieur de Cinq-Mars (sic) has by order of the King transported a state prisoner from Pignerol to the island of Sainte-Marguerite. No-one knows who he is: there is an interdiction on speaking his name and an order to kill him if he should pronounce it … He was enclosed in a sedan-chair with a steel mask on his face, and all that one could learn from Cinq-Mars is that this prisoner was at Pignerol for many years and that all the people one believes to be dead are not.

Until this letter was uncovered by Brugnon, it was generally believed that the mask of iron was a myth invented or at least popularized by Voltaire. Now we know that it was not a myth at all, that Saint-Mars made use of just such a mask when he moved his prisoner from Exiles to Sainte-Marguerite. It seems scarcely imaginable that Saint-Mars could have gone so far in his pretence as to make the valet Danger wear a mask of steel, and yet this letter leaves no doubt about it. That Louvois could have ordered Saint-Mars to draw attention to his wretched prisoner in such a spectacular way is not within the realms of possibility. If hiding his face had indeed been necessary, then a sack pulled over his head would have done the job just as well, but that we know was not the real purpose of the mask. Saint-Mars had received no order telling him to hide the prisoner's face. The only concern ever voiced by Louvois was that the prisoner should be kept from speaking to anyone. If for extra security he had chosen to recommend anything at all it would have been a gag, not a mask. The idea of masking the prisoner was a ploy thought up by Saint-Mars to advertise the supposed secret of his prisoner's identity, and he chose to do it in such a theatrical way because he knew a steel mask would have greater impact on those who saw it than would a normal mask. From the suspense-publicity mounted before ever the prisoner left Exiles to the shock appearance of the star-product himself, with the altogether convincing sight of a sedan-chair and the altogether stupefying glimpse of a mask of steel, Saint-Mars conducted his campaign with all the flash and flair of a modern promoter. No wonder his invention
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, created to impress his public in 1687, survived as myth to bamboozle the public ever after.

Three days after reaching the island, Saint-Mars wrote to Louvois to announce that all was well. In fact his prisoner had been almost suffocated and rendered even more ill than usual by twelve days of sedan-chair and steel mask, but Saint-Mars was still enjoying the triumph of his new-found image. His choice of words betrays him: ‘I can assure you, my lord, that no one in the world saw him and that the way in which I guarded and conducted him throughout the journey left everyone guessing as to who my prisoner could be.' One must suppose that Louvois, reading these words, imagined that Saint-Mars had expressed himself badly, but we know that what he said was an accurate description of the situation he had gone to such pains to create. The way he had guarded and conducted his prisoner had indeed set everyone guessing as to who he might be, and later he could not resist revealing the high success of his endeavour. ‘Throughout the province,' he wrote to Louvois in January 1688, ‘they say that my prisoner is M. de Beaufort or that he is the son of the late Cromwell.'

Years before in Pignerol, when people had been curious to know why a special cell was needed for Danger, Saint-Mars had amused himself by telling ‘preposterous stories' about him and one can only wonder whether a new batch of ‘preposterous stories' was not responsible for this particular rumour that his prisoner was the Duc de Beaufort. The letter uncovered by Brugnon states quite specifically that Saint-Mars not only said that his prisoner had spent many years in Pignerol, but also implied that he was someone whom everyone believed to be dead. The Duc de Beaufort had disappeared at the siege of Candy just two months before Danger had been imprisoned at Pignerol, and rumous that Beaufort was not dead but in prison were still circulating at court as late as 1682. As a preposterous story it was not after all so preposterous, and Saint-Mars would have been aware of the possible deductions people were likely to make on the strength of such a suggestion. That the former keeper of Fouquet and Lauzun should also be the keeper of Beaufort was not in itself impossible; and Beaufort, being grandson of the King's royal grandfather and himself ‘King of the Market', was certainly noble enough and famous enough to be the mysterious prisoner who was treated in such an exceptional manner – masked with steel and carried all the way from Pignerol, a distance of more than 200 miles, in a sedan-chair. It was Lamotte-Guérin, the successor of Saint-Mars on Sainte-Marguerite, who assured Lagrange-Chancel that the prisoner was Beaufort.

For a man as vain and ambitious as Saint-Mars, however, bluffing his way to the admiration and deference of the people around him was not enough. His dream was to be what he once had been, the keeper of prisoners of rank and consequence who were known to be in his charge; men of fame and former power living on in the faded gold of lost privilege and office, who received visits from their still gilded families and friends; who, though out of favour, retained influence and sympathy at court, who got themselves and their gaoler talked about; and who, knowing where their immediate best interests lay, were ready to flatter their gaoler with the consideration and respect he yearned to have. Following the orders of Louvois, he set about building new prison cells and in January 1688, when they were finished, he wrote to Louvois to describe them: ‘They are large, handsome and well-lit, and as for their excellence as prisons I do not think there could be any safer and sounder in Europe. This is especially so with regard to the danger of prisoners communicating orally with someone nearby or far off, and that could never be said for any of the places where I had charge of M. Fouquet after his arrest.' The reference to Fouquet is significant; Saint-Mars had space for another prisoner and was reminding the minister of his past glory in the hope that he would trust him with another prisoner of rank. ‘With relatively few precautions one can even have prisoners taking walks about the island without fear that they might escape or pass messages.' Since only prisoners of rank would ever be allowed such a privilege, the hint was obvious. ‘I take the liberty, my lord, to inform you in detail of the excellence of this place in the eventuality that you may have prisoners you wish to keep in complete security but with a reasonable degree of freedom.' Saint-Mars could exploit the mystery of Danger to give himself an appearance of importance, but to re-live the great days of Pignerol he needed more prisoners like Fouquet and Lauzun.

It would be wrong to underestimate the concern for Danger's security, which was shown by those responsible for his arrest and imprisonment, the fact that he was kept incommunicado from the beginning and, after his contact with Lauzun, incognito as well; the fact too that having been given in custody to Saint-Mars there seemed to be no question, at least until 1698, of entrusting him to anyone else. But it would be equally wrong to overestimate his importance with the claim that Saint-Mars built a special prison on Sainte-Marguerite to accommodate him and that it cost a great deal of money. That prison was certainly special, though it cost no more than the regular yearly allowance which Saint-Mars received for feeding a prisoner of rank like Fouquet or Lauzun, and it was not made solely for him. Saint-Mars initially constructed two cells and then added four more, all of which shared the same exceptional features of security. It was a model prison, deliberately planned by Saint-Mars, and possibly even intended by the minister, to serve for future prisoners of rank. As things turned out, however, those hopes for a prisoner of fame never materialised and that was at least partly the reason why there did materialise the fame of the prisoner known later as the Iron Mask.

Though the move to Sainte-Marguerite was for Saint-Mars a happy deliverance, it came too late. He was already sixty-one years of age and, when after a few years it became clear that the only other prisoners he was going to get were Protestant ministers and old lags from Pignerol, his aspirations for the future became centred upon his sons. For both boys he planned army careers and, as they came of age, he bought them commissions in the Dragoons. Such was the wealth that he had amassed, wheedling his superiors and cheating his prisoners, that he could afford to launch them well. In 1693, however, his eldest son, aged twenty-two and already a lieutenant-colonel, was killed in action and his youngest son, still only seventeen, was seriously wounded. Four years later his wife died, and when in the following year he was offered the most prestigious prison-command in France, the governorship of the Bastille, he hesitated to take it. He was too old to change his ways, too old to benefit from such an accolade. Through all the years of waiting he had bluffed and bought his way to an appearance of importance which he had been prepared to settle for. Not that he was wiser and more content. On the contrary, his urge to make money had become a compulsion and Barbezieux was able to persuade him to take the job by a description of the fabulous revenues it carried: over 21,000 livres per year for himself and whatever prison staff he employed, the amount he paid to them being left completely to his own discretion, and on top of that, to use the minister's own words, ‘the profit normally made on what is given for the upkeep of the prisoners, which being what it is, cannot be anything but considerable'.

For Danger, in the meantime, the years spent on Sainte-Marguerite, eleven of them in all, were dragged out with no apparent change. He continued to live in solitary confinement, having contact with no one except Saint-Mars and his lieutenants, a doctor when he was ill and at set times a confessor. However, though the minister's orders regarding his custody did not change, the minister himself did and the consequences of that were significant. On 16 July 1691 Louvois died and was succeeded by his son Barbezieux who had been only two years old at the time of Danger's arrest and clearly did not care to lose sleep over an old problem which to all intents and purposes had been resolved. For instance, in his view, Danger was less important than at least one, if not all, of the prisoners who were then at Pignerol.
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On 20 March 1694, when preparations were being made to move these prisoners to Sainte-Marguerite, he wrote to Saint-Mars: ‘since you know that they are more important, at least one of them, than those who are at present on the islands, you must give them priority and put them in the most secure of your prison cells.' The only occasion on which Barbezieux ever showed concern over Danger was in 1697 when he was annoyed to hear that Pontchartrain, the Controller of Finance, had been questioning Saint-Mars about his prisoners and the reasons why they had been arrested. In fact he was not upset because of any risk this might have posed to Danger's security; he simply resented the interference of another minister in his domain. As it was, Saint-Mars was at that time answerable to Pontchartrain for a number of prisoners in his charge, those arrested as Protestants, and in the event he became answerable to Pontchartrain for all his prisoners, including Danger, when he moved to the Bastille the following year.

Danger's importance in the eyes of the authorities in Paris diminished so much in the time he was on Sainte-Marguerite that, when in 1698 they offered Saint-Mars the post of governor of the Bastille, the idea of transferring him too did not occur to them. Saint-Mars received the offer in a letter from Barbezieux written on 1 May and he replied on 8 May. This reply is now lost, but from what Barbezieux said when he in turn replied on 15 June it seems reasonable to deduce that, along with his acceptance of the post, Saint-Mars pleaded the importance of his longtime prisoner and the necessity of transferring him as well. ‘I have been a long time replying to the letter which you took the trouble to write to me on the 8th of last month,' Barbezieux explained, ‘because the King did not inform me of his intentions sooner. You can make your dispositions to be ready to leave when I instruct you to do so, and (you can)
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bring with you your longtime prisoner under safe guard.'

The fact that the King took a month to grant his permission gives reason to believe that he did not consider the prisoner to be as important as Saint-Mars made him out to be, and this is confirmed by a letter from Barbezieux to Saint-Mars written on 4 August. ‘His Majesty has not judged it necessary to send the order you requested to commandeer lodging on your journey to Paris: it will suffice for you to find and pay for the most convenient and secure lodging possible in the places you decide proper to stay.' Saint-Mars and his prisoner were to travel to Paris by regular roads stopping at ordinary post-houses along the way, just as Capain de Vauroy had done on his journey with Danger to Pignerol. Nor did Saint-Mars have more than half a dozen men to serve as escort and they were the motley crew who later at the Bastille were to be described by Renneville as nothing better than a gang of louts and bullies, thieves and thugs: Corbé, Rosarges, L'Ecuyer, Ru, the Abbé Giraut and possibly Jacques La France. For the transfer from Pignerol to Exiles and from Exiles to Sainte-Marguerite, Saint-Mars had been at the head of his own Free Company, a troop of over forty men, but these he had been obliged to leave behind on the island. So far as the King and his minister were concerned, major security measures were no longer necessary for Danger's safekeeping. Far from being more important than he had ever been before, as the move to the Bastille in a mask would seem to imply, Danger was a good deal less important. The length of his captivity, which by that time was twenty-nine years, had reduced the danger his secret represented and without the intervention of Saint-Mars he would have finished his days on the island of Sainte-Marguerite under the custody of Lamotte-Guérin.