“Is it possible,” Taulès asks himself, “that a proof so powerful can yet leave me any resources? To argue in the train of a _fact so destructive to my opinion_, and the truth of which I am obliged to admit, would it not be endeavouring in a deliberate manner to push prejudice to its utmost length?”[283] We see that at first Taulès did not contest the accuracy of the two dates, and the impossibility of reconciling them with his theory; but by degrees he modifies the terms of the problem to be resolved. He no longer makes it his business to discover who was the Man with the Iron Mask, but to prove, in spite of a capital objection, that the Man with the Iron Mask was Avedick. This fact is worthy of remark, and the chain of Taulès’ successive ideas is here very significant. He does not commence by seeking if a forgery has been committed by the Jesuits, in order to establish afterwards that Avedick is the Man with the Iron Mask. No. It is the necessity in which he believes himself placed, of establishing this identity, that first gives him the idea of a forgery, then we have his inquiry, and then the certainty that this forgery has been committed. “However bold my observation may appear, I shall dare to make it, _I feel hope revive in my soul_, and in spite of all I have just avowed against myself, I do not renounce my discovery.... If I am deceiving myself, I shall deserve to be doubly confounded. But if, as everything assures me I shall do, I come victorious out of this struggle, confusion will altogether be the portion of those who have wished to deprive me of the honour of this discovery.”[284] From this time all Taulès’ efforts tended to destroy the positive information till then accepted by him. Not being able to deny the authenticity of the despatches of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs establishing that Avedick was still at Constantinople in 1706, and this obstacle being insurmountable, Taulès directed his attention towards Dujonca’s journal. Father Griffet was the first who quoted[285] the two pages of this journal relating to the mysterious prisoner and bearing the dates of September 19, 1698, the day of his arrival at the Bastille, and of November 18, 1703, the day of his death. But Father Griffet was a Jesuit. On this score, and in the interest, in his eyes superior to all other, of the order to which he belonged, might he not have been able to alter, to falsify this document, in such a manner that it might be opposed to those who should one day, perhaps, arise to accuse the Jesuits of the abduction of Avedick, and perhaps see in this individual the Man with the Iron Mask? This suspicion had scarcely entered the mind of Taulès before it took possession of it and ruled it, when everything immediately became for him an irresistible argument for, and formal proof of a falsification.