It has been contended that it could not have been Fouquet; since the Iron Mask’s death is recorded in the register of the Bastille, where he was confined for the last five years of his life in November 1703, and Fouquet, at that date, would have been in extreme old age, which this prisoner was still short of. Not being Fouquet, was it Count Matthioli accused of betraying the French Government, in the matter of putting a French garrison into Casale to defend it against Spain? Was it the Duke of Monmouth, after all not beheaded in England? Was it the child of Buckingham, the bitter fruit of his intrigue with Anne of Austria? Was it the twin brother she was said to have borne with Louis XIV., as Dumas tells—he who was taken by d’Artagnan from the Bastille, and placed on the throne of France, while the other Louis was shut up in his stead, the substitution remaining undiscovered, so great was the resemblance between the two—undetected by the queen, Maria Théresa, herself. The romance is well founded, but even for the great master of romance it goes far. Was it—No; the mystery, like Sheridan’s quarrel, is “a very pretty mystery as it stands. We should only spoil it by trying to explain it.” Ninon was troubled at this time with an unsatisfactory, rather casual admirer, Monsieur le Comte de Choiseul, an individual of whom it was difficult for her to decide whether his pertinacity or his supreme self-conceit predominated. Monsieur Précourt, the celebrated dancer, an intimate acquaintance of hers, whom she one morning invited to breakfast with her, did her the good service of finally relieving her of de Choiseul’s incommoding presence. The breakfast was laid for two, and Choiseul, entering, was about to seat himself, whereupon Précourt claimed the place at table, and Choiseul, declining to stir, Précourt invited him to adjourn to the neighbouring boulevard with him, and settle the matter at the sword’s point. Choiseul replied that he did not fight with mountebanks. That was as well, Précourt retorted, since they might make him dance; and the unwelcome one took his hat, went out from the house, and did not return. The _liaison_ of Louis with Mademoiselle de la Vallière was now generally known; and notwithstanding the warning of the disgrace and banishment of St Evrémond, satirical rhymes began to circulate at the expense of the royal favourite and her lover _Deodatus_. How fortunate he was, said Bussy Rabutin, “in pressing his lips on that wide beak, which stretched from ear to ear”; and forthwith the poet found himself lodged in the Bastille.