[434] Saint-Simon relates that for fear he should be imposed upon with a false priest, to act as a spy upon him, Lauzun had asked for a capucin, and that as soon as he saw him he seized him by the beard and pulled it very hard, in order to assure himself that it was not false. Saint-Simon says he had this from Lauzun himself. _Mémoires_, vol. xiii. p. 73. [435] _Mémoires sur Nicolas Fouquet_, vol. ii. p. 450. [436] Letter from Louvois to Saint-Mars, October 18, 1672. [437] _Ibid._, April 10, 1674. [438] Letter of Madame de Sévigné, February 27, 1697. “Memorandum of the manner in which the King desires Monsieur de Saint-Mars to guard for the future the prisoners in his custody,” Jan. 20, 1679:--Archives of the Ministry of War. [439] Letters from Louvois to Saint-Mars, May 10 and 28, 1679. [440] Letter from the same to the same, December 18, 1679. [441] Letter from the same to the same, January 24, 1680. [442] _Mémoires de Mademoiselle de Montpensier_, vol. iv. pp. 401 and 473; Delort, _Histoire de la Détention des Philosophes_, p. 52. CHAPTER XVIII. Theory which makes Fouquet the Man with the Iron Mask--Arguments advanced by M. Lacroix--Some to be absolutely rejected and some discussed--Fouquet not in possession of a dangerous State Secret--Madame de Maintenon--Her Character--Her Youth--Her Relations with Monsieur and Madame Fouquet--Her honourable Reserve--The Affair of the Poisons--How Fouquet’s Name became mixed up in it--Probability of his Death being caused by an attack of Apoplexy--Weakness of the other Arguments advanced by M. Lacroix--Oblivion into which the Surintendant had fallen--Two mysterious Arrests. A writer of much knowledge and much imagination, M. Paul Lacroix, has collected, in a very ingenious and cleverly written work,[443] all the arguments that can be advanced in favour of the theory which makes Fouquet the Man with the Iron Mask. He begins by reminding us of the discovery, announced on August 13, 1789,[444] of a card found amongst the papers of the Bastille, bearing these words: “Fouquet, arriving from the Isles Sainte-Marguerite with an Iron Mask,” and signed with three X’s and the name of Kersadion. Nevertheless, M. Lacroix very properly abstains from counting amongst his proofs a paper, the existence of which is not certified by any official document, and which the wording, the strange manner in which it is said to have been found, and the improbability of any note of this character having been made, must equally cause to be rejected. The following are the more solid bases of M. Lacroix’s argument:-- “The precautions employed in guarding Fouquet at Pignerol resemble in every point,”[445] says he, “those adopted later for the Man with the Iron Mask at the Bastille and at the Isles Sainte-Marguerite. “The greater number of the traditions relating to the masked prisoner appear to apply to Fouquet.