ron 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 philosophique', article "Ana," "It is
most remarkable that no one knows where the celebrated Fouquet was
buried."

But in spite of all these coincidences, this carefully constructed theory
was wrecked on the same point on which the theory that the prisoner was
either the Duke of Monmouth or the Comte de Vermandois came to grief,
viz. a letter from Barbezieux, dated 13th August 1691, in which occur
the words, "THE PRISONER WHOM YOU HAVE HAD IN CHARGE FOR TWENTY YEARS."
According to this testimony, which Jacob had successfully used against
his predecessors, the prisoner referred to could not have been Fouquet,
who completed his twenty-seventh year of captivity in 1691, if still
alive.

We have now impartially set before our r