The Valet's Tragedy, and Other Studies Part 1

The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories.

by Andrew Lang.

PREFACE

These studies in secret history follow no chronological order. The affair of James de la Cloche only attracted the author's attention after most of the volume was in print. But any reader curious in the veiled intrigues of the Restoration will probably find it convenient to peruse 'The Mystery of James de la Cloche' after the essay on 'The Valet's Master,' as the puzzling adventures of de la Cloche occurred in the years (1668-1669), when the Valet was consigned to lifelong captivity, and the Master was broken on the wheel. What would have been done to 'Giacopo Stuardo' had he been a subject of Louis XIV., ''tis better only guessing.' But his fate, whoever he may have been, lay in the hands of Lord Ailesbury's 'good King,' Charles II., and so he had a good deliverance.

The author is well aware that whosoever discusses historical mysteries pleases the public best by being quite sure, and offering a definite and certain solution. Unluckily Science forbids, and conscience is on the same side. We verily do not know how the false Pucelle arrived at her success with the family of the true Maid; we do not know, or pretend to know, who killed Sir Edmund Berry G.o.dfrey; or how Amy Robsart came by her death; or why the Valet was so important a prisoner. It is only possible to restate the cases, and remove, if we may, the errors and confusions which beset the problems. Such a tiny point as the year of Amy Robsart's marriage is stated variously by our historians. To ascertain the truth gave the author half a day's work, and, at last, he would have voted for the wrong year, had he not been aided by the superior acuteness of his friend, Mr. Hay Fleming. He feels morally certain that, in trying to set historians right about Amy Robsart, he must have committed some conspicuous blunders; these always attend such enterprises of rectification.

With regard to Sir Edmund Berry G.o.dfrey, Mr. A. W. Crawley-Boevey points out to me that in an unpublished letter of Mr. Alexander Herbert Phaire in 1743-44 (Addit. MSS. British Museum 4291, fol. 150) G.o.dfrey is spoken of in connection with his friend Valentine Greatrakes, the 'miraculous Conformist,' or 'Irish Stroker,' of the Restoration. 'It is a pity,' Mr.

Phaire remarks, 'that Sir Edmund's letters, to the number of 104, are not in somebody's hands that would oblige the world by publishing them.

They contain many remarkable things, and the best and truest secret history in King Charles II.'s reign.' Where are these letters now? Mr.

Phaire does not say to whom they were addressed, perhaps to Greatrakes, who named his second son after Sir Edmund, or to Colonel Phaire, the Regicide. This Mr. Phaire of 1744 was of Colonel Phaire's family. It does not seem quite certain whether Le Fevre, or Lee Phaire, was the real name of the so-called Jesuit whom Bedloe accused of the murder of Sir Edmund.

Of the studies here presented, 'The Valet's Master,' 'The Mystery of Sir Edmund Berry G.o.dfrey,' 'The False Jeanne d'Arc,' 'The Mystery of Amy Robsart,' and 'The Mystery of James de la Cloche,' are now published for the first time. Part of 'The Voices of Jeanne d'Arc,' is from a paper by the author in 'The Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research.'

'The Valet's Tragedy' is mainly from an article in 'The Monthly Review,'

revised, corrected, and augmented. 'The Queen's Marie' is a recast of a paper in 'Blackwood's Magazine'; 'The Truth about "Fisher's Ghost,"' and 'Junius and Lord Lyttelton's Ghost' are reprinted, with little change, from the same periodical. 'The Mystery of Lord Bateman' is a recast of an article in 'The Cornhill Magazine.' The earlier part of the essay on Shakespeare and Bacon appeared in 'The Quarterly Review.' The author is obliged to the courtesy of the proprietors and editors of these serials for permission to use his essays again, with revision and additions.*

*Essays by the author on 'The False Pucelle' and on 'Sir Edmund Berry G.o.dfrey' have appeared in The Nineteenth Century (1895) and in The Cornhill Magazine, but these are not the papers here presented.

The author is deeply indebted to the generous a.s.sistance of Father Gerard and Father Pollen, S.J.; and, for making transcripts of unpublished doc.u.ments, to Miss E. M. Thompson and Miss Violet Simpson.

Since pa.s.sing the volume for the press the author has received from Mr. Austin West, at Rome, a summary of Armanni's letter about Giacopo Stuardo. He is led thereby to the conclusion that Giacopo was identical with the eldest son of Charles II.--James de la Cloche--but conceives that, at the end of his life, James was insane, or at least was a 'megalomaniac,' or was not author of his own Will.

I. THE VALET'S TRAGEDY

1. THE LEGEND OF THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK

The Mystery of the Man in the Iron Mask is, despite a pleasant saying of Lord Beaconsfield's, one of the most fascinating in history. By a curious coincidence the wildest legend on the subject, and the correct explanation of the problem, were offered to the world in the same year, 1801. According to this form of the legend, the Man in the Iron Mask was the genuine Louis XIV., deprived of his rights in favour of a child of Anne of Austria and of Mazarin. Immured in the Isles Sainte-Marguerite, in the bay of Cannes (where you are shown his cell, looking north to the sunny town), he married, and begot a son. That son was carried to Corsica, was named de Buona Parte, and was the ancestor of Napoleon. The Emperor was thus the legitimate representative of the House of Bourbon.

This legend was circulated in 1801, and is referred to in a proclamation of the Royalists of La Vendee. In the same year, 1801, Roux Fazaillac, a Citoyen and a revolutionary legislator, published a work in which he a.s.serted that the Man in the Iron Mask (as known in rumour) was not one man, but a myth, in which the actual facts concerning at least two men were blended. It is certain that Roux Fazaillac was right; or that, if he was wrong, the Man in the Iron Mask was an obscure valet, of French birth, residing in England, whose real name was Martin.

Before we enter on the topic of this poor menial's tragic history, it may be as well to trace the progress of the romantic legend, as it blossomed after the death of the Man, whose Mask was not of iron, but of black velvet. Later we shall show how the legend struck root and flowered, from the moment when the poor valet, Martin (by his prison pseudonym 'Eustache Dauger'), was immured in the French fortress of Pignerol, in Piedmont (August 1669).

The Man, IN CONNECTION WITH THE MASK, is first known to us from a kind of notebook kept by du Junca, Lieutenant of the Bastille. On September 18, 1698, he records the arrival of the new Governor of the Bastille, M. de Saint-Mars, bringing with him, from his last place, the Isles Sainte-Marguerite, in the bay of Cannes, 'an old prisoner whom he had at Pignerol. He keeps the prisoner always masked, his name is not spoken...

and I have put him, alone, in the third chamber of the Bertaudiere tower, having furnished it some days before with everything, by order of M. de Saint-Mars. The prisoner is to be served and cared for by M. de Rosarges,' the officer next in command under Saint-Mars.*

*Funck-Brentano. Legendes et Archives de la Bastille, pp. 86, 87, Paris, 1898, p. 277, a facsimile of this entry.

The prisoner's death is entered by du Junca on November 19, 1703. To that entry we return later.

The existence of this prisoner was known and excited curiosity. On October 15, 1711, the Princess Palatine wrote about the case to the Electress Sophia of Hanover, 'A man lived for long years in the Bastille, masked, and masked he died there. Two musketeers were by his side to shoot him if ever he unmasked. He ate and slept in his mask.

There must, doubtless, have been some good reason for this, as otherwise he was very well treated, well lodged, and had everything given to him that he wanted. He took the Communion masked; was very devout, and read perpetually.'

On October 22, 1711, the Princess writes that the Mask was an English n.o.bleman, mixed up in the plot of the Duke of Berwick against William III.--Fenwick's affair is meant. He was imprisoned and masked that the Dutch usurper might never know what had become of him.*

* Op. cit. 98, note 1.

The legend was now afloat in society. The sub-commandant of the Bastille from 1749 to 1787, Chevalier, declared, obviously on the evidence of tradition, that all the Mask's furniture and clothes were destroyed at his death, lest they might yield a clue to his ident.i.ty. Louis XV. is said to have told Madame de Pompadour that the Mask was 'the minister of an Italian prince.' Louis XVI. told Marie Antoinette (according to Madame de Campan) that the Mask was a Mantuan intriguer, the same person as Louis XV. indicated. Perhaps he was, it is one of two possible alternatives. Voltaire, in the first edition of his 'Siecle de Louis XIV.,' merely spoke of a young, handsome, masked prisoner, treated with the highest respect by Louvois, the Minister of Louis XIV. At last, in 'Questions sur l'Encyclopedie' (second edition), Voltaire averred that the Mask was the son of Anne of Austria and Mazarin, an elder brother of Louis XIV. Changes were rung on this note: the Mask was the actual King, Louis XIV. was a b.a.s.t.a.r.d. Others held that he was James, Duke of Monmouth--or Moliere! In 1770 Heiss identified him with Mattioli, the Mantuan intriguer, and especially after the appearance of the book by Roux Fazaillac, in 1801, that was the generally accepted opinion.

It MAY be true, in part. Mattioli MAY have been the prisoner who died in the Bastille in November 1703, but the legend of the Mask's prison life undeniably arose out of the adventure of our valet, Martin or Eustache Dauger.

2. THE VALET'S HISTORY

After reading the arguments of the advocates of Mattioli, I could not but perceive that, whatever captive died, masked, at the Bastille in 1703, the valet Dauger was the real source of most of the legends about the Man in the Iron Mask. A study of M. Lair's book 'Nicholas Foucquet'

(1890) confirmed this opinion. I therefore pushed the inquiry into a source neglected by the French historians, namely, the correspondence of the English amba.s.sadors, agents, and statesmen for the years 1668, 1669.* One result is to confirm a wild theory of my own to the effect that the Man in the Iron Mask (if Dauger were he) may have been as great a mystery to himself as to historical inquirers. He may not have known WHAT he was imprisoned for doing! More important is the probable conclusion that the long and mysterious captivity of Eustache Dauger, and of another perfectly harmless valet and victim, was the mere automatic result of the 'red tape' of the old French absolute monarchy.

These wretches were caught in the toils of the system, and suffered to no purpose, for no crime. The two men, at least Dauger, were apparently mere supernumeraries in the obscure intrigue of a conspirator known as Roux de Marsilly.

*The papers are in the Record Office; for the contents see the following essay, 'The Valet's Master.'

This truly abominable tragedy of Roux de Marsilly is 'another story,'

narrated in the following essay. It must suffice here to say that, in 1669, while Charles II. was negotiating the famous, or infamous, secret treaty with Louis XIV.--the treaty of alliance against Holland, and in favour of the restoration of Roman Catholicism in England--Roux de Marsilly, a French Huguenot, was dealing with Arlington and others, in favour of a Protestant league against France.

When he started from England for Switzerland in February 1669, Marsilly left in London a valet, called by him 'Martin,' who had quitted his service and was living with his own family. This man is the 'Eustache Dauger' of our mystery. The name is his prison pseudonym, as 'Lestang'

was that of Mattioli. The French Government was anxious to lay hands on him, for he had certainly, as the letters of Marsilly prove, come and gone freely between that conspirator and his English employers. How much Dauger knew, what amount of mischief he could effect, was uncertain.

Much or little, it was a matter which, strange to say, caused the greatest anxiety to Louis XIV. and to his Ministers for very many years.

Probably long before Dauger died (the date is unknown, but it was more than twenty-five years after Marsilly's execution), his secret, if secret he possessed, had ceased to be of importance. But he was now in the toils of the French red tape, the system of secrecy which rarely released its victim. He was guarded, we shall see, with such unheard-of rigour, that popular fancy at once took him for some great, perhaps royal, personage.

Marsilly was publicly tortured to death in Paris on June 22, 1669. By July 19 his ex-valet, Dauger, had entered on his mysterious term of captivity. How the French got possession of him, whether he yielded to cajolery, or was betrayed by Charles II., is uncertain. The French amba.s.sador at St. James's, Colbert (brother of the celebrated Minister), writes thus to M. de Lyonne, in Paris, on July 1, 1669:* 'Monsieur Joly has spoken to the man Martin' (Dauger), 'and has really persuaded him that, by going to France and telling all that he knows against Roux, he will play the part of a lad of honour and a good subject.'

*Transcripts from Paris MSS. Vol. x.x.xiii., Record Office.

But Martin, after all, was NOT persuaded!

Martin replied to Joly that HE KNEW NOTHING AT ALL, and that, once in France, people would think he was well acquainted with the traffickings of Roux, 'AND SO HE WOULD BE KEPT IN PRISON TO MAKE HIM DIVULGE WHAT HE DID NOT KNOW.' The possible Man in the Iron Mask did not know his own secret! But, later in the conversation, Martin foolishly admitted that he knew a great deal; perhaps he did this out of mere fatal vanity.

Cross to France, however, he would not, even when offered a safe-conduct and promise of reward. Colbert therefore proposes to ask Charles to surrender the valet, and probably Charles descended to the meanness.

By July 19, at all events, Louvois, the War Minister of Louis XIV., was bidding Saint-Mars, at Pignerol in Piedmont, expect from Dunkirk a prisoner of the very highest importance--a valet! This valet, now called 'Eustache Dauger,' can only have been Marsilly's valet, Martin, who, by one means or another, had been brought from England to Dunkirk. It is hardly conceivable, at least, that when a valet, in England, is 'wanted'

by the French police on July 1, for political reasons, and when by July 19 they have caught a valet of extreme political importance, the two valets should be two different men. Martin must be Dauger.

Here, then, by July 19, 1669, we find our unhappy serving-man in the toils. Why was he to be handled with such mysterious rigour? It is true that State prisoners of very little account were kept with great secrecy. But it cannot well be argued that they were all treated with the extraordinary precautions which, in the case of Dauger, were not relaxed for twenty-five or thirty years. The King says, according to Louvois, that the safe keeping of Dauger is 'of the last importance to his service.' He must have intercourse with n.o.body. His windows must be where n.o.body can pa.s.s; several bolted doors must cut him off from the sound of human voices. Saint-Mars himself, the commandant, must feed the valet daily. 'YOU MUST NEVER, UNDER ANY PRETENCE, LISTEN TO WHAT HE MAY WISH TO TELL YOU. YOU MUST THREATEN HIM WITH DEATH IF HE SPEAKS ONE WORD EXCEPT ABOUT HIS ACTUAL NEEDS. He is only a valet, and does not need much furniture.'*

*The letters are printed by Roux Fazaillac, Jung, Lair, and others.