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 28, 1668, Mons. de Marsilly.’ As it is dated December 27, Marsilly must have been in England. The contents of this piece deserve attention, because they show the terms on which Marsilly and Arlington were, or, at least, how Marsilly conceived them.
(1) Marsilly reports, on the authority of his friends at Stockholm, that the King of Sweden intends, first to intercede with Louis XIV. in favour of the French Huguenots, and next, if diplomacy fails, to join in arms with the other Protestant Powers of Europe.
(2) His correspondent in Holland learns that if the King of England invites the States to any ‘holy resolution,’ they will heartily lend forces. No leader so good as the English King – Charles II! Marsilly had shown ARLINGTON’S LETTER to a Dutch friend, who bade him approach the Dutch ambassador in England. He has dined with that diplomatist. Arlington had, then, gone so far as to write an encouraging letter. The Dutch ambassador had just told Marsilly that he had received the same news, namely, that, Holland would aid the Huguenots, persecuted by Louis XIV.
(3) Letters from Provence, Languedoc, and Dauphine say that the situation there is unaltered.
(4) The Canton of Zurich write that they will keep their promises and that Berne IS ANXIOUS TO PLEASE THE KING OF GREAT BRITAIN, and that it is ready to raise, with Zurich, 15,000 men. They are not afraid of France.
(5) Zurich fears that, if Charles is not represented at the next Diet, Bale and Saint Gal will be intimidated, and not dare to join the Triple Alliance of Spain, Holland, and England. The best plan will be for Marsilly to represent England at the Diet of January 25, 1669, accompanied by the Swiss General Balthazar. This will encourage friends ‘TO GIVE HIS BRITTANIC MAJESTY THE SATISFACTION WHICH HE DESIRES, and will produce a close union between Holland, Sweden, the Cantons, and other Protestant States.’
This reads as if Charles had already expressed some ‘desire.’
(6) Geneva grumbles at a reply of Charles ‘through a bishop who is their enemy,’ the Bishop of London, ‘a persecutor of our religion,’ that is, of Presbyterianism. However, nothing will dismay the Genevans, ‘si S. M. B. ne change.’
Then comes a blank in the paper. There follows a copy of a letter as if FROM CHARLES II. HIMSELF, to ‘the Right High and Noble Seigneurs of Zurich.’ He has heard of their wishes from Roux de Marsilly, whom he commissions to wait upon them. ‘I would not have written by my Bishop of London had I been better informed, but would myself have replied to your obliging letter, and would have assured you, as I do now, that I desire…’
It appears as if this were a draft of the kind of letter which Marsilly wanted Charles to write to Zurich, and there is a similar draft of a letter for Arlington to follow, if he and Charles wish to send Marsilly to the Swiss Diet. The Dutch ambassador, with whom Marsilly dined on December 26, the Constable of Castille, and other grandees, are all of opinion that he should visit the Protestant Swiss, as from the King of England. The scheme is for an alliance of England, Holland, Spain, and the Protestant Cantons, against France and Savoy.
Another letter of Marsilly to Arlington, only dated Jeudi, avers that he can never repay Arlington for his extreme kindness and liberality. ‘No man in England is more devoted to you than I am, and shall be all my life.‘*
*State Papers, France, vol. 125, 106.
On the very day when Marsilly drafted for Charles his own commission to treat with Zurich for a Protestant alliance against France, Charles himself wrote to his sister, Madame (Henriette d’Orleans). He spoke of his secret treaty with France. ‘You know how much secrecy is necessary for the carrying on of the business, and I assure you that nobody does, nor shall, know anything of it here, but myself and that one person more, till it be fit to be public.‘* (Is ‘that one person’ de la Cloche?)
*Madame, by Julia Cartwright, p. 275.
Thus Marsilly thought Charles almost engaged for the Protestant League, while Charles was secretly allying himself with France against Holland. Arlington was probably no less deceived by Charles than Marsilly was.
The Bishop of London’s share in the dealing with Zurich is obscure.
It appears certain that Arlington was not consciously deceiving Marsilly. Madame wrote, on February 12, as to Arlington, ‘The man’s attachment to the Dutch and his inclination towards Spain are too well known.‘* Not till April 25, 1669, does Charles tell his sister that Arlington has an inkling of his secret dealings with France; how he knows, Charles cannot tell.** It is impossible for us to ascertain how far Charles himself deluded Marsilly, who went to the Continent early in spring, 1669. Before May 15/25 1669, in fact on April 14, Marsilly had been kidnapped by agents of Louis XIV., and his doom was dight.
*Madame, by Julia Cartwright, p. 281.
**Ibid. p. 285.
Here is the account of the matter, written to – by Perwich in Paris:
W Perwich to —
Paris, May 25, ‘69.
Honored Sir,
The Cantons of Switzerland are much troubled at the French King’s having sent 15 horsemen into Switzerland from whence the Sr de Maille, the King’s resident there, had given information of the Sr Roux de Marsilly’s being there negociating the bringing the Cantons into the Triple League by discourses much to the disadvantage of France, giving them very ill impressions of the French King’s Government, who was BETRAYED BY A MONK THAT KEPT HIM COMPANY and intercepted by the said horsemen brought into France and is expected at the Bastille. I believe you know the man… I remember him in England.
Can this monk be the monk who went mad in prison at Pignerol, sharing the cell of Mattioli? Did he, too, suffer for his connection with the secret? We do not know, but the position of Charles was awkward. Marsilly, dealing with the Swiss, had come straight from England, where he was lie with Charles’s minister, Arlington, and with the Dutch and Spanish ambassadors. The King refers to the matter in a letter to his sister of May 24, 1669 (misdated by Miss Cartwright, May 24, 1668.)*
‘You have, I hope, received full satisfaction by the last post in the matter of Marsillac [Marsilly], for my Ld. Arlington has sent to Mr. Montague [English ambassador at Paris] his history all the time he was here, by which you will see how little credit he had here, and that particularly my Lord Arlington was not in his good graces, because he did not receive that satisfaction, in his negotiation, he expected, and that was only in relation to the Swissers, and so I think I have said enough of this matter.’
*Madame, by Julia Cartwright, p. 264.
Charles
