prisoner." He was, on the face of it, Dauger, by far the oldest
prisoner. In 1688, Saint-Mars, having only one prisoner (Dauger),
calls him merely "my prisoner. In 1691, when Saint-Mars had
several prisoners, Barbezieux styles Dauger "your prisoner of
twenty years' standing." When, in 1696-1698, Saint-Mars mentions
"mon 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 anyone
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.