XVII.

Mary left Lady Sackvil with Padre Giulio, and went into the church to pray for the happy result of the interview. She had passed some time at the Lady chapel, with its brazen gates and oriental lamps, and before the jewel-incrusted high altar, and was kneeling in the chapel of the Blessed Sacrament, when she heard the door of the confessional behind her open, She looked round. Padre Giulio had entered the confessional; Lady Sackvil was kneeling at the grating.

She was sitting within the railing of the chapel when Amelia joined

her. Mary looked at the beautiful creature; there was a peaceful smile on her lips, a holy light in her eyes; the pride, the caprice, the egotism were not there; she looked like a penitent child.

As they passed through one of the sombre side aisles, Amelia paused before the crucifix hanging on the wall. "I have confessed my sins and received absolution," she said; “are you willing to kiss me?"

And so the sign of peace was exchanged before the image of the great reconciler; and they passed out from the shadows of those grand old arches into the sunshine of the Piazza.

THROUGH an oversight, the article on the Iron Mask in our March number, which had been lying on hand several months, was sent to the printer without its necessary complement, which we now publish.

In January, 1869, it was announced in the Moniteur Universel that M. Marius Topin, a young author who had already distinguished himself by a work of remarkable historical research, had succeeded, by dint of laborious examination and the intelligent study of a mass of old official documents, in unearthing the secret of that sphinx of history-the Man with the Iron Mask.

M. Topin did not at once make known the result of what he claimed to be his entirely triumphant solution of the enigma, and publish his work in book form. He doubtless reflected that, as the world had waited in patient expectation more than a hundred and fifty years for the revelation of the

mystery, it might readily summon up sufficient resignation to wait a few months longer. He accordingly announced that the successive chapters of his work would appear from time to time in Le Correspondant, a highly respectable Paris semi-monthly. The first number of his series was published on the 25th of February, 1869, and the last, making seven in all, on the 11th of November. We have received, as they appeared, all the numbers of the Correspondant, and are therefore enabled to present from the author's, own articles the following statement of the result of what he has written.

M. Topin could not deny himself that universal enjoyment of the storyteller-to hold his auditors in suspense and on tiptoe of expectation by proposing a varied succession of solutions of the mystery in hand, and dismissing them in turn with a-" Well, that's not it." He takes up, one after the other, the various prétendants to the honor

of the Iron Mask's living martyrdom, discusses all the claims in their favor, presents the objections, demonstrates that their position is untenable, orders them off the stage, and passes on to the next; thus successively eliminating them until he reaches his objective point.

M. Topin's first article is preceded by a sort of device, or motto, in the shape of a short extract from an order of Louis XIV.: Il faudra que personne ne sache ce que cet homme sera devenu, (no one must know what has become of this man.) It was noticed that the date of the order is not given. The article opens with a statement of the arrival of M. Saint Mars at the Bastille (Paris) at three P.M., on the 18th of September, 1698. St. Mars was the newly-appointed governor of that prison, and came accompanied by a prisoner whose face was concealed by a mask of black velvet. This prisoner died, and was buried on the 20th of November, 1703, under the name of Marchialy. The extraordinary precautions taken after the death of Marchialy are narrated in our previous number. The dates above given are important in determining the claims of other candidates, inasmuch as the facts and dates connected with the arrival, death, and burial of a masked prisoner at the Bastille are established beyond controversy by official documents, and must be considered in any case presented.

Our author then dilates upon the difficulties of the question, the fact that it has been unsuccessfully treated by fifty-two authors, and finally abandoned as hopeless by historians like Michelet, with the conclusion that the problem of the Man with the Iron Mask will never be solved. Betraying no anxiety whatever to make haste, M. Topin then discusses the merits of several of the most prominent theories and the manner in which they

have been presented. The claim that longest held its ground, and enlisted in its advocacy the greatest number of writers, was that made for a supposed and, as has been shown, entirely imaginary twin-brother of Louis XIV., the son of Anne of Austria, wife of Louis XIII. It is easy to understand why, in France, such a version as this should be the favorite one. It possessed every possible element of popularity, intrigue, mystery, illegitimacy, crime, a rightful heir defrauded of his throne, and the association of illustrious names. All these lent their fascinations; and from Voltaire to Alexander Dumas, from the Dictionnaire Philosophique to the Vicomte de Bragelonne, all the resources of writers of their tendency and calibre were called into play to give it currency.

M. Topin devotes nearly the whole of his first article to the demonstration of the fact that the prisoner of the Iron Mask was not and could not have been a son of Anne of Austria. The discussion is thorough, and the demonstration complete. Outside of the question of the Mask one good result is thus obtained. The innocence of Anne of Austria is fully established.

Time brings roses-and justice. Marie Antoinette was first vindicated from the foul aspersions of the "progeny of Voltaire." Now, Anne of Austria is acquitted; and going further back in time-the most distant case being, of course, the most difficultnext comes the turn of Mary Stuart, and her day, we believe, is not far distant.

The claim made for the Count of Vermandois, a son of Louis XIV. and Louise de la Vallière, is next taken up. As all the details of the last illness, death, and burial of the Count of Vermandois are matters of profuse official record, M. Topin has very little trouble in disposing of this case. Then we have the Duke of Monmouth,

a natural son of Charles II. of England. Defeated at the battle of Sedgmoor, where the forces under his command were arrayed in armed rebellion against James II., and afterward taken prisoner, he was beheaded in the Tower of London July 15th, 1685. The dispatches of various foreign ministers in London at the time fully establish the fact of his death.

To Monmouth succeeds Francis of Vendôme, Duke of Beaufort. As grand admiral of France, Beaufort commanded the naval expedition sent out to aid the Venetians in their defence of Candia against the Turks in 1669. As in the cases of the two sons of Louis XIV., and Monmouth, the surrounding circumstances give M. Topin the fullest opportunity of indulging in court anecdotes, intrigues, and festivities, mingled with biographical sketches of distinguished personages, so in the case of Beaufort, his history warrants our author in going into all the details of the siege and military and naval operations against the army of the sultan. Beaufort is believed to have been killed in an attack upon the enemy's works, and was last seen in the thickest of a hand-to-hand struggle in the intrenchments. his body was never recovered, this fact gave the mystery-mongers an advantageous margin. But Beaufort was born in 1616, and the Iron Mask was buried in 1703. Supposing him to be the "Mask," this would make him eighty-seven years old at his death, which, of itself, puts him out of the question.

As

In his third number, M. Topin introduces the so-called Armenian Patriarch, Avedick. Why he did so is best known to himself; for the case of Avedick has never been presented as one that would give him any right to rank among the claimants for the distinction of the Iron Mask. Taules, and the German historian Hammer,

are referred to as authorities for Avedick's claim; but on being examined, they are found totally insufficient as warrants for such a theory. The essential pivot of the question of identity of the Iron Mask is the death and burial of its wearer in 1703. Now, Avedick was still in Turkey in 1706, and that settles his claim beyond question. Avedick was seized by order of the Marquis of Ferriol in the Grecian Archipelago, May, 1706, carried forcibly to France, retained in confinement in various places until September, 1710, when he was liberated. He died in Paris in July, 1711. This was most certainly a case of shameful violation of the law of nations, of power, and of humanity. A case of abominable personal cruelty it also certainly was-but it was not a case of "Iron Mask." Two such outrages as those on the persons of Marchialy and Avedick are quite enough of themselves; to say nothing of certain diplomatic arrangements with the Grand Turk which endangered Christianity and the public peace in Europe -to settle one's opinion as to the genuineness of the glories of the reign of Louis XIV., a Grand Monarque who was not great.

But to return, M. Topin's chapter on the Avedick case, appearing in Le Correspondant of the 10th June, 1869, was followed by an article from the pen of Rev. Father Turquand, S.J., in the September (10th) number of the same periodical, severely attacking the statements of Avedick's case by M. Topin, and vindicating his (Turquand's) society from certain imputations cast upon it in connection with the seizure of Avedick.

In his fourth number, (Oct. 1oth,) M. Topin takes up the claim made for Fouquet, whose case differs from all the others in the fact that he was a prisoner of state by sentence of a judicial tribunal. Fouquet's claims were

advocate, Paul Lacroix, (Bibliophile Jacob,) in a work published in 1830. But here again the difficulty of dates is insurmountable. Fouquet died in 1680, and there is no proof of the appearance of the Man with the Iron Mask until after that period.

We pass on to another. In the year 1677, the Duke of Mantua was Charles IV. of the illustrious house of Gonzaga. He was young, careless, dissipated, and extravagant. Spending most of his time in Venice, he seldom visited his duchy, except for the purpose of raising money. He gradually fell into the hands of usurious lenders, and continued to obtain the sums he wanted by anticipating, through them, the receipt of the taxes and imposts of his duchy by several years. The Marquisate of Montferrat was among his dependencies. Its little capital, Casal, a fortified place on the Po, fifteen leagues east of Turin, was a point of great strategic importance, and essential to the safety of Piedmont. The court of Turin would not, of course, consent to its possession by France. But to France it was of the highest value, as with Pignerol and Casal it would be master of the situation. This place Louis XIV. wanted to buy, and Charles IV. was perfectly willing to sell it. Ercolo (Hercules) Antonio Mattioli, a young nobleman of the court of Mantua, at this time thirty-seven years of age, was high in favor with the reigning duke. Through Giuliani, an Italian journalist, D'Estrades, Louis XIV.'s ambassador at Venice, sounded Mattioli, and finally, through him, succeeded in opening a negotiation with the duke for the sale of Casal to France.

All three met at Venice in March, 1678, discussed terms, and agreed upon one hundred thousand crowns

then went to Paris to sign the treaty in the name of his master the duke. The treaty was completed in December, 1678, and after its signature, Mattioli was received by Louis XIV. in secret audience, presented by the king with a rich diamond ring and four hundred double Louis d'or, with the promise of a far greater amount of money, the appointment of his son among the royal pages, and a valuable endowment for his mother. The intrigue and negotiation had been admirably managed and crowned with perfect success. interest opposed to the French possession of Casal, not one had the slightest suspicion, and it would have been difficult to imagine the existence of the smallest element of failure in the enterprise.

Of all who had any

But the best-laid schemes of men, mice, and monarchs here below oft come to naught. Two months after Mattioli's visit to Paris, the courts of Turin, of Madrid, and of Vienna, the Spanish governor of the Milanese provinces, and the state inquisitors of the Venetian republicthat is to say, all and every one most interested against the execution of the treaty-not only knew of its existence, but were fully advised of every detail concerning it, the names of the negotiators, the date of the instruments, the price of cession, when it was to be made, etc. In short, they knew every thing concerning it. Well they might. Mattioli himself had told them! His motive is a subject of dispute. One theory is, interested motive; another, patriotism. Certain it is he had more to gain-as a mere question of interest-by keeping than by betraying the secret. On this point, though, we do not undertake to judge him. In February, 1679, the Duchess of Savoy advised Louis XIV. that she was in