Later, especially after the execution of the treaty, the old grievances disappeared, and if an incessant surveillance was maintained, useless severity was dispensed with. Moreover, these harsh, coarse, and painful expressions were only too familiar to Louvois, and in some of his despatches he has scarcely shown himself milder with reference to Fouquet and De Lauzun. Lastly, Voltaire declares that he had heard “from the Sieur Marsolan, the son-in-law of the apothecary of the Bastille, that the latter, a short time previous to the death of the masked prisoner, learnt from him that _he believed himself to be about sixty years old_.” Now Matthioly, born in 1640, was, in reality, sixty-three years of age when he died. He died, and the registers of the Church of Saint-Paul[645] bear the name of _Marchialy_. The dissertations on this name have been as numerous as ingenious. Some persons--Father Griffet,[646] for instance--have discovered in it the letters forming the words _hic amiral_ (Vermandois and Beaufort were Admirals of France), as if the employment of an anagram was probable under such circumstances! Others[647] have beheld in it the word _mar_, which in the Armenian tongue signifies _Saint_, and in the East would be applied to the patriarchs, and the word _Kialy_, the Armenian diminutive of _Michael_, which was Avedick’s Christian name. Is it not more simple and natural to regard this word as standing for Matthioly’s name itself, which in several despatches Louvois writes Marthioly?[648] No one can be ignorant of the negligence with which proper names were then spelt?[649] Here there is only one letter changed; how many examples do we not come across of much more important modifications? No one could have any suspicion of the date of Count Matthioly’s death. People were ignorant that Dujonca kept a journal, and it was only afterwards, that guided by its statements they thought of searching among the registers of the Church of Saint-Paul for the date of November 20, 1703, which he had assigned for the burial of the masked prisoner. But it must at least be admitted that at the time of this burial there was nothing which could serve to attract attention towards the registration of November 20. Moreover, all danger of his imparting any confidence, all fear of a revelation of an odious violation of international law, had disappeared with the possessor of Louis XIV.’s secret, with the victim of this violation. To inscribe his name upon the register of an obscure church, where no one had the means of seeking for it, was therefore natural, and presented no danger. Everything that was essential or indispensable had been done. The abduction was accomplished with the greatest mystery; Matthioly’s presence at Pignerol, and afterwards at the Islands, was known only to his gaoler; his name merely mentioned in despatches which might be presumed to be placed for ever beyond investigations, then this name disappearing in its turn, and every