[115] Louvois had broken his leg the 3rd August, 1679. To complete the cure, which was slow, the doctors advised the Minister to go to Baréges. (See vol. iii. p. 513 _et seq._ of the excellent _Histoire de Louvois_ of M. Camille Rousset). [116] Despatches from Seignelay to Saint-Mars; Archives of the Ministry of Marine; Imperial Archives; Registers of the Secretary’s Office of the King’s Household. CHAPTER VI. The Count de Vermandois--His Portrait--Mademoiselle de la Vallière, his Mother--Anecdote from the _Mémoires Secrets pour servir à l’Histoire de Perse_--Father Griffet adopts its Conclusions--Arguments that he advances--Motives which render certain of Mademoiselle de Montpensier’s Appreciations suspicious--Improbability of the Story in the _Mémoires de Perse_--Illness of the Count de Vermandois--Reality of his Death attested by the most authentic Despatches--Magnificence of his Obsequies--Pious Endowments at Arras. Those whose minds are naturally inclined to the romantic, but whom even a superficial examination of the question of the Man with the Iron Mask has determined to put the hypothesis which makes him a son of Anne of Austria, on one side,[117] willingly see in him the Count de Vermandois, natural son of Louis XIV. and Mademoiselle de la Vallière. This opinion is a kind of compromise between the impossibility of accepting an imaginary being for hero, and the desire of seeing in the mysterious prisoner a very high personage. After having sacrificed to truth this unfortunate brother of Louis XIV., called to the throne by his origin, and kept away from it by a perpetual detention, they take refuge in an intermediary system, undoubtedly less tempting, but of which the attraction is still very exciting, and which, in a certain degree, reconciles the exigencies of truth with the taste for the romantic.