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There was no mystery about Mattioli, the story of his capture was published in 1682, but the press, on one point, was in error; Mattioli was still at Pignerol. The known advent of the late Commandant of Pignerol, Saint-Mars, with a single concealed prisoner, at the island, naturally suggested the erroneous idea that the prisoner was Mattioli.
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.
These prisoners are "the two in the low chamber of the tower," the two valets, Dauger and La Riviere. 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.
They hunted him in England, Holland, Flanders, and Franche-Comte. As we know from the case of Mattioli, the Government of Louis XIV. was unscrupulously daring in breaking the laws of nations, and seizing hostile personages in foreign territory, as Napoleon did in the affair of the Duc d'Enghien. When all failed Louis bade Turenne capture Roux de Marsilly wherever he could find him.
Laprade alone must give them their food on the journey. The military officer of the escort was warned to ask no questions. They are of more consequence, one of them at least, than the prisoners on the island, and must be put in the safest places." The "one" is doubtless Mattioli.
A half-brother of Louis XIV., as Voltaire maintained, or Mattioli, the Italian minister, as the modern critics declare? Hang it, those are questions of the very first interest!" "Later, later," protested Beautrelet, feverishly turning the pages, as though he feared that the book would fly out of his hands before he had solved the riddle. "But " said Massiban, who doted on historical details.
There was thus no mystery, at the time, about Mattioli; his crime and punishment were perfectly well known to students of politics. He has been regarded as the mysterious Man in the Iron Mask, but, for years after his arrest, he was the least mysterious of State prisoners. Brentano, op. cit., p. 117. Here, then, is Mattioli in Pignerol in May, 1679.
Whether they included a valet or not, Malzac seems to have been non-existent by March, 1693. Had he possessed a valet, and had he died in 1694, why should HIS valet have been "shut up in the vaulted prison"? This was the fate of the valet of the prisoner who died in April, 1694, and was probably Mattioli. M. Funck-Brentano's statement is in Revue Historique, lvi. p. 298.
In 1681 Louvois had thought Dauger and La Riviere more important than Mattioli, who, in March, 1694, came from Pignerol to Sainte- Marguerite. Now in April, 1694, a prisoner died at the island, a prisoner who, like Mattioli, HAD A VALET. We hear of no other prisoner on the island, except Mattioli who had a valet.
Mattioli, in Pignerol, at the end of 1693, had been in trouble. He and his valet had tried to smuggle out letters written on the linings of their pockets. These were seized and burned. On March 20, 1694, Barbezieux wrote to Laprade, now commanding at Pignerol, that he must take his three prisoners, one by one, with all secrecy, to Sainte-Marguerite.