disposed to accept another tending to upset it: so let us try the method for Beaufort in his turn. FOOTNOTES: [173] “Several persons here wish to wager,” wrote Guy-Patin, September 26, 1669, “that M. de Beaufort is not dead. _O utinam!_” And in another letter, January 14, 1670: “It is said that M. de Vivonne has, by commission, the office of Vice-Admiral of France for twenty years; but there are still those who insist that M. de Beaufort is not dead, and that he is only a prisoner.” [174] _Mémoires de la Duchesse de Nemours_, vol. xxxiv.; _Mémoires de Brienne_, and of Conrat, Montglat, and of La Rochefoucauld. “He formed,” says the Duchess de Nemours, “a kind of jargon of words so vulgar or so badly arranged, that it rendered him ridiculous to everybody, although these words, which he arranged so badly, would perhaps have appeared very good if he had known how to have arranged them better, being bad only in the places where he put them.” [175] _Mémoires du Cardinal de Retz_, p. 9. [176] It was thus that she then designated him. [177] The Queen’s party.--_Trans._ [178] He was imprisoned there in 1645, and escaped in 1649. It was referring to this escape that Condé, incarcerated in his turn at Vincennes, on being recommended the _Imitation of Jesus Christ_ in order to beguile his captivity, answered that he preferred the _Imitation of the Duke de Beaufort_. [179] It is known that he one day asked President Bellièvre if he would not change the face of affairs by giving a box on the ears to the Duke d’Elbœuf? “I do not think,” answered the magistrate, in a grave tone, “that would change anything except the face of the Duke d’Elbœuf.” [180] _Année Littéraire_: Letter of Lagrange-Chancel to M. Fréron on the subject of the Man with the Iron Mask. [181] _Art de Vérifier les Dates_, vol. vi. pp. 273 and 277. [182] _Œuvres de Louis XIV._, vol. v. p. 388 _et seq._ [183] _Relation de Gigéry, faite au Roi par M. de Gadagne, Lieutenant-Général_:--Imperial Library, Manuscripts. [184] Cæsar de Vendôme, natural son of Henri IV. and Gabrielle d’Estrées, and of whom the Duke de Beaufort was the second son, born in January, 1616:--_Art de Vérifier les Dates_, vol. xii. p. 521. [185] Such as Lenglet-Dufresnoy, _Plan de l’Histoire Générale et Particulière de la Monarchie Française_, vol. iii. p. 268 _et seq._ Paris, 1754. [186] _Mémoire de M. de Gadagne_, already quoted. [187] Marie de Savoie, Duchess de Nemours, wife of Alphonso VI., King of Portugal. [188] _Réponse de Saint-Foix et Recueil de tout ce qui a été écrit sur le Prisonnier Masqué_, p. 20, 1770. [189] Amongst others, M. Paul Lacroix (Bibliophile Jacob), _Histoire de l’Homme au Masque de Fer_, 1840, p. 161. CHAPTER X.