The Valet's Tragedy, and Other StudiesLang, Andrew
History
The Valet's Tragedy, and Other Studies
Lang, Andrew
History; World history
Luggage is not usually carried in hermetically sealed sedan chairs, but
Saint-Mars has explained why, by surplus of precaution, he did not use
a litter. The litter might break down and Dauger might be seen. A new
prison was built specially, at the cost of 5,000 livres, for Dauger at
Sainte-Marguerite, with large sunny rooms. On May 3, 1687, Saint-Mars
had entered on his island realm, Dauger being nearly killed by twelve
days’ journey in a closed chair. He again excited the utmost curiosity.
On January 8, 1688, Saint-Mars writes that his prisoner is believed
by the world to be either a son of Oliver Cromwell, or the Duc de
Beaufort,* who was never seen again, dead or alive, after a night battle
in Crete, on June 25, 1669, just before Dauger was arrested. Saint-Mars
sent in a note of the TOTAL of Dauger’s expenses for the year 1687. He
actually did not dare to send the ITEMS, he says, lest they, if the bill
fell into the wrong hands, might reveal too much!
*The Duc de Beaufort whom Athos releases from prison in Dumas’s
Vingt Ans Apres.
Meanwhile, an Italian news-letter, copied into a Leyden paper, of August
1687, declared that Mattioli had just been brought from Pignerol to
Sainte-Marguerite. There was no mystery about Mattioli, the story of
his capture was published in 1682, but the press, on one point, was
in error: Mattioli was still at Pignerol. The known advent of the late
Commandant of Pignerol, Saint-Mars, with a single concealed prisoner, at
the island, naturally suggested the erroneous idea that the prisoner
was Mattioli. The prisoner was really Dauger, the survivor of the two
valets.
From 1688 to 1691 no letter about Dauger has been published. Apparently
he was then the only prisoner on the island, except one Chezut, who was
there before Dauger arrived, and gave up his chamber to Dauger while
the new cells were being built. Between 1689 and 1693 six Protestant
preachers were brought to the island, while Louvois, the Minister, died
in 1691, and was succeeded by Barbezieux. On August 13, 1691, Barbezieux
wrote to ask Saint-Mars about ‘the prisoner whom he had guarded for
twenty years.’ The only such prisoner was Dauger, who entered Pignerol
in August 1669. Mattioli had been a prisoner only for twelve years, and
lay in Pignerol, not in Sainte-Marguerite, where Saint-Mars now was.
Saint-Mars replied: ‘I can assure you that nobody has seen him but
myself.’
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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