Germany and a laird from Scotland, but Aramis takes the prize. He
knows the secret of the Mask, the most valuable of all to the
intriguers of the Company of Jesus.

Now, despite all the precautions of Louvois and Saint-Mars, despite
sentinels for ever posted under Dauger's windows, despite
arrangements which made it impossible for him to signal to people on
the hillside at Les Exiles, despite the suppression even of the
items in the accounts of his expenses, his secret, if he knew it,
could have been discovered, as we have remarked, by the very man
most apt to make mischievous use of it--by Lauzun. That brilliant
and reckless adventurer could see Dauger, in prison at Pignerol,
when he pleased, for he had secretly excavated a way into the rooms
of his fellow-prisoner, Fouquet, on whom Dauger attended as valet.
Lauzun was released soon after Fouquet's death. It is unlikely that
he bought his liberty by the knowledge of the secret, and there is
nothing to suggest that he used it (if he possessed it) in any other
way.

The natural clue to the supposed secret of Dauger is a study of the
career of his master, Roux de Marsilly. As official histories say
next to nothing about him, we may set forth what can be gleaned from
the State Papers in our Record Office. The earliest is a letter of
Roux de Marsilly to Mr. Joseph Williamson, secretary of Lord
Arlington (December 1668). Marsilly sends Martin (on our theory
Eustache Dauger) to bring back from Williamson two letters from his
own correspondent in Paris. He also requests Williamson to procure
for him from Arlington a letter of protection, as he is threatened
with arrest for some debt in which he is not really concerned.
Martin will explain. The next paper is endorsed 'Received December