The Lock and Key Library: The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations: Real Life
Science
The Lock and Key Library: The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations: Real Life
Detective and mystery stories; Fiction; Parapsychology
Luggage is not usually carried in hermetically sealed sedan chairs,
but Saint-Mars has explained why, by surplus of precaution, he did
not use a litter. The litter might break down and Dauger might be
seen. A new prison was built specially, at the cost of 5,000
lires, for Dauger at Sainte-Marguerite, with large sunny rooms. On
May 3, 1687, Saint-Mars had entered on his island realm, Dauger
being nearly killed by twelve days' journey in a closed chair. He
again excited the utmost curiosity. On January 8, 1688, Saint-Mars
writes that his prisoner is believed by the world to be either a
son of Oliver Cromwell, or the Duc de Beaufort,[1] who was never
seen again, dead or alive, after a night battle in Crete, on June
25, 1669, just before Dauger was arrested. Saint-Mars sent in a
note of the TOTAL of Dauger's expenses for the year 1687. He
actually did not dare to send the ITEMS, he says, lest they, if the
bill fell into the wrong hands, might reveal too much.
[1] Duc de Beaufort whom Athos releases from prison in Dumas's
Vingt Ans Apres.
Meanwhile, an Italian news-letter, copied into a Leyden paper, of
August 1687, declared that Mattioli had just been brought from
Pignerol to Sainte-Marguerite. There was no mystery about
Mattioli, the story of his capture was published in 1682, but the
press, on one point, was in error; Mattioli was still at Pignerol.
The known advent of the late Commandant of Pignerol, Saint-Mars,
with a single concealed prisoner, at the island, naturally
suggested the erroneous idea that the prisoner was Mattioli. The
prisoner was really Dauger, the survivor of the two valets.
From 1688 to 1691 no letter about Dauger has been published.
Apparently he was then the only prisoner on the island, except one
Chezut, who was there before Dauger arrived, and gave up his
chamber to Dauger while the new cells were being built. Between
1689 and 1693 six Protestant preachers were brought to the island,
while Louvois, the Minister, died in 1691, and was succeeded by
Barbezieux. On August 13, 1691, Barbezieux wrote to ask Saint-Mars
about "the prisoner whom he had guarded for twenty years." The
only such prisoner was Dauger, who entered Pignerol in August,
1669. Mattioli had been a prisoner only for twelve years, and lay
in Pignerol, not in Sainte-Marguerite, where Saint-Mars now was.
Saint-Mars replied: "I can assure you that NOBODY HAS SEEN HIM BUT
MYSELF."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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