Produced by Chris Curnow, Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) PRINCES AND POISONERS _BY THE SAME AUTHOR AND TRANSLATOR_ LEGENDS OF THE BASTILLE. BY FRANTZ FUNCK-BRENTANO. With an Introduction by VICTORIEN SARDOU. Translated by GEORGE MAIDMENT. 1899. Crown 8vo. Cloth, 6_s._ CONTENTS.--I. The Archives; II. History of the Bastille; III. Life in the Bastille; IV. The Man in the Iron Mask; V. Men of Letters in the Bastille; VI. Latude; VII. The Fourteenth of July. LONDON: DOWNEY AND CO., LIMITED. [Illustration: PORTRAIT OF GABRIEL NICOLAS DE LA REYNIE LIEUTENANT-GENERAL OF POLICE (_Engraved by Van Schuppen, after the painting by Mignard_)] Princes and Poisoners STUDIES OF THE COURT OF LOUIS XIV BY FRANTZ FUNCK-BRENTANO TRANSLATED BY GEORGE MAIDMENT [Illustration: colphon] LONDON _DUCKWORTH and CO._ 3 HENRIETTA STREET, W.C. 1901 _Second Impression, May 1901_ _All rights reserved._ PREFATORY NOTE Twelve months ago I had the honour of introducing M. Frantz Funck-Brentano to the English public by my translation of his _Légendes et Archives de la Bastille_, and in my preface to that book I gave a rapid sketch of his career which need not be repeated. If history is to be continually reconstructed, or rather, perhaps, to undergo a process of destructive distillation, there is no one more competent than M. Funck-Brentano to perform the feat. We lose our illusions with our teeth; the fables that charmed our childhood dissolve in the modern historian's test-tube, and the mysteries that fascinated our forebears become clear with a few drops of his critical acid.