George Dover - The True History of the State Prisoner, commonly called the Iron Mask

The unhappy prisoner, in his phrensy and despair, sometimes used very violent language to his keepers, and wrote abusive sentences with charcoal on the walls of his prison; on which account St. Mars ordered his lieutenant, Blainvilliers, to threaten him with punishment, and even to show him a cudgel, with which he was to be beaten, if he did not behave better.

These menaces so far intimidated Matthioli, that a few days afterwards, while Blainvilliers was serving him at dinner, he, in order to propitiate him, took a valuable ring from his finger and offered it to him. Blainvilliers told him he could accept nothing from a prisoner, but that he would deliver it to St. Mars; which he accordingly did. 95St. Mars estimates the ring at fifty or sixty pistoles: and M. Delort conjectures it to have been the one given to him by Lewis the Fourteenth, during his stay at Paris. St. Mars inquires from Louvois 96what he is to do in consequence; and the latter returns for answer, that he “must keep the ring, which the Sieur Matthioli has given to the Sieur de Blainvilliers, in order to restore it to him, if it should ever happen that the King ordered him to be set at liberty.” 97

Matthioli apparently expressed a wish to confess to a priest; and Louvois desires that he may be only allowed to do so once in the year. 98It appears that St. Mars had at this time in his custody a Jacobin monk, with whose crime, as well as name, we are unacquainted; but in the correspondence of St. Mars and Louvois, he is designated as “the Jacobin in the lower part of the tower.” This man was mad; very possibly had been made so, like Matthioli, by solitary confinement and ill-usage. St. Mars advised the putting Matthioli with him, in order to avoid the necessity of sending for a priest for each prisoner. 99To this proposal Louvois returned the following answer: “I have been made acquainted, by your letter of the 7th of this month (August 1680), with the proposal you make, to put the Sieur de Lestang with the Jacobin, in order to avoid the necessity of having two priests. The King approves of your project, and you have only to execute it when you please.” 100

St. Mars, in a letter of the 7th of September, 1680, thus details the results of the execution of his plan: —

“Since you permitted me to put Matthioli with the Jacobin in the lower part of the tower, the aforesaid Matthioli was, for four or five days, in the belief that the Jacobin was a man that I had placed with him to watch his actions. Matthioli, who is almost as mad as the Jacobin, walked about with long strides, with his cloak over his nose, crying out that he was not a dupe, but that he knew more than he would say. The Jacobin, who was always seated on his truckle bed, with his elbows resting upon his knees, looked at him gravely, without listening to him. The Signior Matthioli remained always persuaded that it was a spy that had been placed with him, till he was one day disabused, by the Jacobin’s getting down from his bed, stark naked, and setting himself to preach, without rhyme or reason, till he was tired. I and my lieutenants saw all their manœuvres through a hole over the door.” 101

It appears to have been very entertaining to St. Mars and his lieutenants, to witness the ravings of these two unhappy maniacs; and there are probably many gaolers who would experience the same feelings upon a similar occasion: what cannot, however, but strike us with horror, is the fact that there was found a minister, nay, a king, and that king one who piqued himself upon professing the Christian religion, 102to sanction such a proceeding. It is indeed most painful to think, that power should have been placed in the hands of men, who could abuse it by such needless acts of cruelty.

We have no farther particulars of the state of Matthioli’s mind: but, being more than half-mad at the time he was placed with the Jacobin, who was quite so, it is probable the company of the latter increased and perpetuated his phrensy. It is even not impossible that such may have been the intention of St. Mars, as, while Matthioli continued insane, it was of course more reasonable and plausible to continue the extraordinary rigour of his confinement.

Nor were mental sufferings the only ones which the barbarity of Lewis and his minister obliged Matthioli to undergo. We have before seen, from the letters of Louvois to St. Mars, that the latter was desired generally to treat Matthioli with great severity; afterwards he writes to him upon the subject of his clothing, “You must make the clothes of such sort of people as he is last three or four years.” 103Some idea may also be formed of the kind of furniture of his dungeon, from the circumstance, mentioned by St. Mars, that, upon the removal of his prisoner from the fort of Exiles to the Island of St. Margaret in 1687, his bed had been sold, because it was so old and broken as not to be worth the carriage; and that all his furniture and linen being added to it, the sum produced by the sale was only thirteen crowns. 104

It may be worth remarking here that the letter of Louvois, respecting Matthioli’s clothes, is a sufficient answer to the absurd stories with regard to the richness of the lace, &c. worn by the Iron Mask; and the relations from St. Mars himself of his threats to his prisoner, of even corporal punishment, no less disprove the erroneous accounts of the extraordinary respect shown to him.

In the year 1681, St. Mars was offered the government of the citadel of Pignerol, which he declined accepting, for what reasons we are not told: Lewis, who was anxious to recompense his services as a gaoler of State prisoners, then gave him the government of Exiles, 105a strong fortress and pass near Susa, on the frontier of Piedmont and the Briançonnois, which was vacant by the death of the Duke de Lesdiguières; at the same time augmenting the salary attached to that situation, so as to make it equal to that of the towns in Flanders. 106Louvois, in a letter dated May 12th, 1681, acquaints St. Mars with his appointment; and informs him that “the two prisoners in the lower part of the tower” are the only ones of those under his care at Pignerol, whom the King wishes to accompany him to Exiles. 107“The two prisoners in the lower part of the tower,” signify, as we have before seen, Matthioli and the monk.

An additional proof indeed, if any were wanted, that Matthioli was one of the two prisoners conveyed to Exiles, is given in the following extract from a letter of Louvois, dated June 9th, 1681: – “With regard to the effects belonging to the Sieur Matthioli which are in your possession, you will have them taken to Exiles, in order to be given back to him, if ever his Majesty should order him to be set at liberty.” 108

It is to be remarked, that this is the last time Matthioli is mentioned by name in the correspondence between Louvois and St. Mars – in consequence, it appears, of what is said by the former in his letter before quoted of the 12th of May, where he desires a list of the names of all the prisoners then under the guard of St. Mars to be sent to him, and adds – “with regard to the two who are in the lower part of the tower, you need only designate them in that manner, without adding any thing else.” 109This precaution was evidently enjoined lest the list should fall into other hands, while it also shows that the necessity for concealment was still considered as strong as ever.

This is also proved by the precautions ordered to be taken during the journey of the two prisoners, lest they should be seen or spoken to by any one; and by the repeated orders for their strict confinement. – “The intention of his Majesty is, that, as soon as the room at Exiles, which you shall judge the most proper for the secure keeping of the two prisoners in the lower part of the tower, shall be in a state to receive them, you should send them out of the citadel of Pignerol in a litter, and conduct them there under the escort of your troop.” 110“His Majesty expects that you will guard the two before-mentioned prisoners, with the same exactitude you have made use of hitherto.” 111To these instructions St. Mars returned an answer in the same strain, dated from Pignerol, as he was on the point of setting off for Exiles. – “In order that the prisoners may not be seen (at Exiles), they will not leave their chamber when they hear mass; and in order that they may be kept the more securely, one of my lieutenants will sleep above them, and there will be two sentinels night and day, who will watch the whole round of the tower, without its being possible for them and the prisoners to see and to speak to one another, or even to hear any thing of one another. They will be the soldiers of my company, who will be always the sentinels over the prisoners. There is only a confessor, about whom I have my doubts; but if you do not disapprove, I will give them the curate of Exiles instead, who is a good man, and very old; whom I will forbid, on the part of his Majesty, to inquire who these prisoners are, or their names, or what they have been, or to speak of them in any way, or to receive from them by word of mouth, or by writing, either communications or notes.” 112