ancien prisonnier,' 'my prisoner of long standing,' he obviously
means Dauger, not Mattioli--above all, if Mattioli died in 1694. M.
Funck-Brentano argues that 'mon ancien prisonnier' can only mean 'my
erstwhile prisoner, he who was lost and is restored to me'--that is,
Mattioli. This is not the view of M. Jung, or M. Lair, or M.
Loiseleur.

Friends of Mattioli's claims rest much on this letter of Barbezieux
to Saint-Mars (November 17, 1697): 'You have only to watch over the
security of all your prisoners, WITHOUT EVER EXPLAINING TO ANY ONE
WHAT IT IS THAT YOUR PRISONER OF LONG STANDING DID.' That secret,
it is argued, MUST apply to Mattioli. But all the world knew what
Mattioli had done! Nobody knew, and nobody knows, what Eustache
Dauger had done. It was one of the arcana imperii. It is the
secret enforced ever since Dauger's arrest in 1669. Saint-Mars
(1669) was not to ask. Louis XIV. could only lighten the captivity
of Fouquet (1678) if his valet, La Riviere, did not know what Dauger
had done. La Riviere (apparently a harmless man) lived and died in
confinement, the sole reason being that he might perhaps know what
Dauger had done. Consequently there is the strongest presumption
that the 'ancien prisonnier' of 1697 is Dauger, and that 'what he
had done' (which Saint-Mars must tell to no one) was what Dauger
did, not what Mattioli did. All Europe knew what Mattioli had done;
his whole story had been published to the world in 1682 and 1687.

On July 19, 1698, Barbezieux bade Saint-Mars come to assume the
command of the Bastille. He is to bring his 'old prisoner,' whom
not a soul is to see. Saint-Mars therefore brought his man MASKED,
exactly as another prisoner was carried masked from Provence to the
Bastille in 1695. M. Funck-Brentano argues that Saint-Mars was now