point that Le Citoyen Roux (Fazaillac), writing in the Year IX. of
the Republic (1801), loses touch with the secret.* Roux finds, in
the State Papers, the arrival of Eustache Dauger at Pignerol in
1669, but does not know who he is, or what is his quality. He sees
that the Mask must be either Mattioli, Dauger, the monk, one
Dubreuil, or one Calazio. But, overlooking or not having access to
the letter of Saint-Mars of June 1681, Roux holds that the prisoners
taken to Les Exiles were the monk and Mattioli. One of these must
be the Mask, and Roux votes for Mattioli. He is wrong. Mattioli
beyond all doubt remained at Pignerol.

*Recherches Historiques, sur l'Homme au Masque de Fer, Paris. An
IX.

Mountains of argument have been built on these words, deux merles,
'two gaol-birds.' One of the two, we shall see, became the source
of the legend of the Man in the Iron Mask. 'How can a wretched
gaol-bird (merle) have been the Mask?' asks M. Topin. 'The rogue's
whole furniture and table-linen were sold for 1 pound 19 shillings.
He only got a new suit of clothes every three years.' All very
true; but this gaol-bird and his mate, by the direct statement of
Louvois, are 'the prisoners too important to be entrusted to other
hands than yours'--the hands of Saint-Mars--while Mattioli is so
unimportant that he may be left at Pignerol under Villebois.

The truth is, that the offence and the punishment of Mattioli were
well known to European diplomatists and readers of books. Casal,
moreover, at this time was openly ceded to Louis XIV., and Mattioli
could not have told the world more than it already knew. But, for
some inscrutable reason, the secret which Dauger knew, or was