We have terminated the preceding chapter by stating that M. Jules Loiseleur has pronounced a decisive judgment on the question of the Man with the Iron Mask, and we defy any attentive reader to study his work without becoming convinced that the problem will never be solved. But M. Loiseleur has made his inquiry merely with reference to the documents as yet published. “His demonstrations, so clear, luminous, and peremptory,” a critic has observed, “have exhausted the question, and, in default of fresh documents, no profound mind will again recur to it.”[572] It is these fresh documents which I am about to introduce into the discussion, and I will proceed to state how I was led to suppose their existence, and afterwards how I became the first to establish it. An unpublished despatch, addressed by Louvois to Saint-Mars, January 5, 1682, is thus conceived:-- “I have received your letter of the 28th of last month. You do not know what is advantageous for you, when you ask to exchange the governorship of Exiles for the command of the Château of Casale, which brings in only two thousand livres of salary. Consequently I do not advise you to think of it.”[573] At first this despatch appears insignificant enough. It seems to furnish but one proof more of Louvois’ kindly interest for Saint-Mars, an interest which was due to the Minister’s intense affection for his mistress, Madame Dufresnoy, sister-in-law to Saint-Mars, and also, which is perhaps a more legitimate reason, to the perfect devotion and tried fidelity of the gaoler of Fouquet and Lauzun. However, on reading it over again, I asked myself how Saint-Mars could dream, if Matthioly was one of his prisoners, of soliciting to be sent to Casale, to a town altogether Italian and even Mantuan, where Matthioly might certainly have succeeded, if not in escaping (we know that Saint-Mars’ prisoners could scarcely indulge in that hope), at least in giving information concerning himself, and revealing his situation. But the sole motive of Louvois’ refusal is, as we have just seen, the smallness of the salary given to the commandant of Casale. If Saint-Mars, to suppose what could never have happened, had misconceived the danger likely to be caused by Matthioly’s presence at Casale, even as a prisoner, it is beyond doubt that Louvois, naturally cautious (and here caution would have been a duty) would have written to him in something like the following words: “I am astonished that you should have formed the design of removing to Casale. It is necessary to give it up entirely.” But on the contrary, Louvois finds no other inconvenience in this plan than that of the inferiority of the salary attached to the duties of Casale, and he concludes with these words: “I do not advise you to think of it.” It is the friend full of solicitude who speaks, and not the Minister energetically rejecting a proposal so contrary to the interests confided to him.