persistent concealment of the prisoner's features till his death; and
next, an explanation of the respect shown him by Louvois, whose attitude
towards him would have been extraordinary in any age, but was doubly so
during the reign of Louis XIV, whose courtiers would have been the last
persons in the world to render homage to the misfortunes of a man in
disgrace with their master. Whatever the real motive of the king's anger
against Fouquet may have been, whether Louis thought he arrogated to
himself too much power, or aspired to rival his master in the hearts of
some of the king's mistresses, or even presumed to raise his eyes higher
still, was not the utter ruin, the lifelong captivity, of his enemy
enough to satiate the vengeance of the king? What could he desire more?
Why should his anger, which seemed slaked in 1664, burst forth into
hotter flames seventeen years later, and lead him to inflict a new
punishment? According to the bibliophile, the king being wearied by the
continual petitions for pardon addressed to him by the superintendent's
family, ordered them to be told that he was dead, to rid himself of their
supplications. Colbert's hatred, says he, was the immediate cause of
Fouquet's fall; but even if this hatred hastened the catastrophe, are we
to suppose that it pursued the delinquent beyond the sentence, through
the long years of captivity, and, renewing its energy, infected the minds
of the king and his councillors? If that were so, how shall we explain
the respect shown by Louvois? Colbert would not have stood uncovered
before Fouquet in prison. Why should Colbert's colleague have done so?

It must, however, be confessed that of all existing theories, this one,
thanks to the unlimited learning and research of the bibliophile, has the
greatest number of documents with the various interpretations thereof,
the greatest profusion of dates, on its side.

For it is certain--

1st, that the precautions taken when Fouquet was sent to Pignerol
resembled in every respect those employed later by the custodians of the
Iron Mask, both at the Iles Sainte-Marguerite and at the Bastille;

2nd, that the majority of the traditions relative to the masked prisoner
might apply to Fouquet;

3rd, that the Iron Mask was first heard of immediately after the
announcement of the death of Fouquet in 1680;

4th, that there exists no irrefragable proof that Fouquet's death really
occurred in the above year.

The decree