the most striking perhaps which history affords, of a man possessed with that folly which precedes great falls, and accelerating by his insolence a catastrophe already rendered inevitable by so many other faults.[364] There is, indeed, nothing obscure in the causes of this catastrophe, whatever may have been said respecting it. How it came to pass, the circumstances which accompanied it, every one of the incidents of a trial which lasted three years, the accusations of the prosecution, as well as the arguments of the defence, have all been brought to light,[365] and it is impossible not to feel convinced that Saint-Mars’ first prisoner was justly punished for acknowledged and indisputable faults, and not for the possession of a State secret,[366] or for I know not what hidden crime which he would have mysteriously expiated by wearing, until his death, a velvet mask. It has been pretended, without any authentic proof being furnished, that Louis XIV. not only discovered in him a powerful and wealthy rival, but that the arrest of the Surintendant was simply a piece of revenge on the part of the royal lover of La Vallière.[367] Owing to the steadfast friendship of La Fontaine, and Madame de Sévigné, to their persistence in their illusions and to the eloquent sincerity of their complaints, Fouquet must always have many partisans. Even among his contemporaries, the touching devotion of his friends, the passionate attacks of some of his adversaries, and the length of his trial, induced a reaction; and while at first the indignant populace showed their exasperation against him by imprecations and threats,[368] by degrees, as often happens, public opinion changed into sympathy for the victim,[369] and to regarding his judges as persecutors. Lastly, that mysterious legend of the Man with the Iron Mask, which some persons wish to make the climax of Fouquet’s career, commences, according to them, from his arrest, and the minute precautions then taken by the King at once indicate and explain all those of which the famous masked prisoner was later to be the object.