About three o’clock in the afternoon of September 18, 1698, the Sieur de Saint-Mars, coming from the Isles Sainte-Marguerite, made his entry into the château of the Bastille, of which fortress he had just been appointed governor. Accompanying him, and borne along in his litter, was a prisoner, whose face was covered with a black velvet mask, and of whom Saint-Mars, with an escort of several mounted men-at-arms, had been the inseparable and vigilant gaoler, throughout the long journey from Provence. Saint-Mars had halted at Palteau, an estate situated between Joigny and Villeneuve-le-Roi, which belonged to him, and for a long time the old inhabitants of Villeneuve used to recall having seen the mysterious litter traversing in the evening the principal street of their town. The remembrance of this apparition has been perpetuated in the district, and the singular incidents characterizing it, related by the former to each new generation, have been handed down to our own days. The care taken by Saint-Mars at meal-times to keep his prisoner with his back to the windows, the pistols which were always to be seen within reach, of the suspicious gaoler, the two beds which he caused to be placed side by side, so many precautions, so much mystery, excited the lively curiosity of the assembled peasants, and formed an incessant subject of conversation among them. At the Bastille, the prisoner was placed in the third room south of the Tower of La Bertaudière, prepared for him by the turnkey Dujonca, who, some days previous to his arrival, had received a written order to that effect from Saint-Mars.[1] Five years afterwards, on Tuesday, November 20, 1703, at four o’clock in the afternoon, the drawbridge of the formidable fortress was lowered and gave passage to a sad and mournful train. A few men, bearing a dead body, having for sole escort two subordinate employés of the Bastille, silently issued forth and directed their steps towards the cemetery of the Church of Saint-Paul. Nothing could be more thrilling than the sight of this group gliding along furtively under shadow of the falling night. Nothing could be more utterly abandoned, and, in appearance, more obscure, than these unknown remains followed by two strangers, in a hurry to fulfil their task. Around the grave as, the evening before, around the bed of the dying man, there were no signs of sorrow or of regret. The prisoner of Provence had fallen ill on the Sunday. His illness having suddenly increased during the following day, the chaplain of the Bastille had been sent for; too late, however, to allow him time to go in quest of the last sacraments, yet still sufficiently early to enable him to address some rapid and common-place exhortations to the dying man. On the register of the Church of Saint-Paul he was inscribed under the name of Marchialy. At the Bastille he had always been known as the Prisoner of Provence.[2]