ur of his solution of the
mystery, making use even of the following passage from an anonymous
romance called 'The Loves of Charles II and James II, Kings of
England':--

"The night of the pretended execution of the Duke of Monmouth, the king,
attended by three men, came to the Tower and summoned the duke to his
presence. A kind of loose cowl was thrown over his head, and he was put
into a carriage, into which the king and his attendants also got, and was
driven away."

Sainte-Foix also referred to the alleged visit of Saunders, confessor to
James II, paid to the Duchess of Portsmouth after the death of that
monarch, when the duchess took occasion to say that she could never
forgive King James for consenting to Monmouth's execution, in spite of
the oath he had taken on the sacred elements at the deathbed of Charles
II that he would never take his natural brother's life, even in case of
rebellion. To this the priest replied quickly, "The king kept his oath."

Hume also records this solemn oath, but we cannot say that all the
historians agree on this point. 'The Universal History' by Guthrie and
Gray, and the 'Histoire d'Angleterre' by Rapin, Thoyras and de Barrow, do
not mention it.

"Further," wrote Sainte-Foix, "an English surgeon called Nelaton, who
frequented the Cafe Procope, much affected by men of letters, often
related that during the time he was senior apprentice to a surgeon who
lived near the Porte Saint-Antoine, he was once taken to the Bastille to
bleed a prisoner. He was conducted to this prisoner's room by the
governor himself, and found the patient suffering from violent headache.
He spoke with an English accent, wore a gold-flowered dressing-gown of
black and orange, and had his face covered by a napkin knotted behind his
head."

This story does not hold water: it would be difficult to form a mask out
of a napkin; the Bastille had a resident surgeon of its own as well as a
physician and apothecary; no one could gain access to a prisoner without
a written order from a minister, even the Viaticum could only be
introduced by the express permission of the lieutenant of police.

This theory met at first with no objections, and seemed to be going to
oust all the others, thanks, perhaps, to the combative and restive
character of its promulgator, who bore criticism badly, and whom no one
cared to incense, his sword being even more redoubtable than his pen.

It was known that when Saint-Mars journeyed