fortress to the other. The fine clothes and linen, the books, all
those luxuries in fact that were lavished on the masked prisoner, were
not withheld from Fouquet. The furniture of a second room at Pignerol
cost over 1200 livres (see letters of Louvois, 12th Dec. 1665, and 22nd
Feb, 1666).

It is also known that until the year 1680 Saint-Mars had only two
important prisoners at Pignerol, Fouquet and Lauzun. However, his
"former prisoner of Pignerol," according to Du Junca's diary, must
have reached the latter fortress before the end of August 1681, when
Saint-Mars went to Exilles as governor. So that it was in the interval
between the 23rd March 1680, the alleged date of Fouquet's death, and
the 1st September 1681, that the Iron Mask appeared at Pignerol, and yet
Saint-Mars took only two prisoners to Exilles. One of these was probably
the Man in the Iron Mask; the other, who must have been Matthioli, died
before the year 1687, for when Saint-Mars took over the governorship
in the month of January of that year of the Iles Sainte-Marguerite he
brought only ONE prisoner thither with him. "I have taken such good
measures to guard my prisoner that I can answer to you for his safety"
('Lettres de Saint-Mars a Louvois', 20th January 1687).

In the correspondence of Louvois with Saint-Mars we find, it is true,
mention of the death of Fouquet on March 23rd, 1680, but in his later
correspondence Louvois never says "the late M. Fouquet," but speaks of
him, as usual, as "M. Fouquet" simply. Most historians have given as a
fact that Fouquet was interred in the same vault as his father in the
chapel of Saint-Francois de Sales in the convent church belonging to
the Sisters of the Order of the Visitation-Sainte-Marie, founded in the
beginning of the seventeenth century by Madame de Chantal. But proof
to the contrary exists; for the subterranean portion of St. Francis's
chapel was closed in 1786, the last person interred there being Adelaide
Felicite Brulard, with whom ended the house of Sillery. The convent was
shut up in 1790, and the church given over to the Protestants in 1802;
who continued to respect the tombs. In 1836 the Cathedral chapter of
Bourges claimed the remains of one of their archbishops buried there
in the time of the Sisters of Sainte-Marie. On this occasion all the
coffins were examined and all the inscriptions carefully copied, but the
name of Nicolas Fouquet is absent.

Voltaire says in his 'Dictionnaire philosop