is the "Eustache Dauger" of our mystery. The name is his prison
pseudonym, as "Lestang" was that of Mattioli. The French
Government was anxious to lay hands on him, for he had certainly,
as the letters of Marsilly prove, come and gone freely between that
conspirator and his English employers. How much Dauger knew, what
amount of mischief he could effect, was uncertain. Much or little,
it was a matter which, strange to say, caused the greatest anxiety
to Louis XIV. and to his Ministers for very many years. Probably
long before Dauger died (the date is unknown, but it was more than
twenty-five years after Marsilly's execution), his secret, if
secret he possessed, had ceased to be of importance. But he was
now in the toils of the French red tape, the system of secrecy
which rarely released its victim. He was guarded, we shall see
with such unheard-of rigor that popular fancy at once took him for
some great, perhaps royal, personage.

Marsilly was publicly tortured to death in Paris on June 22, 1669.
By July 19 his ex-valet, Dauger, had entered on his mysterious term
of captivity. How the French got possession of him, whether he
yielded to cajolery, or was betrayed by Charles II., is uncertain.
The French ambassador at St. James's, Colbert (brother of the
celebrated Minister), writes thus to M. de Lyonne, in Paris, on
July I, 1669:[1] "Monsieur Joly has spoken to the man Martin"
(Dauger), "and has really persuaded him that, by going to France
and telling all that he knows against Roux, he will play the part
of a lad of honor and a good subject."


[1] Transcripts from Paris MSS., Vol. xxxiii., Record Office.