The Philosophy of Voltaire - Collected Works: Treatise On Tolerance, Philosophical Dictionary, Candide, Letters on England, Plato's Dream, Dialogues, The Study of Nature, Ancient Faith and Fable…. Вольтер
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their infatuation. Religion, ill-understood, is a fever which the smallest occurrence raises to frenzy. It is the property of fanaticism to heat the imagination. When a few sparks from the lire that keeps their superstitious heads a-boiling, fall on some violent and wicked spirit—when some ignorant and furious man thinks he is imitating Phineas, Ehud, Judith, and other such personages, he has more accomplices than he is aware of. Many incite to murder without knowing it. Some persons drop a few indiscreet and violent words; a servant repeats them, with additions and embellishments; a Châtel, a Ravaillac, or a Damiens listens to them, while they who pronounced them little think what mischief they have done; they are involuntary accomplices, without there having been either plot or instigation. In short, he knows little of the human mind who does not know that fanaticism renders the populace capable of anything.
The author of the "Siècle de Louis XIV" ("Age of Louis the Fourteenth") is the first who has spoken of the Man in the Iron Mask in any authentic history. He was well acquainted with this circumstance, which is the astonishment of the present age, and will be that of posterity, but which is only too true. He had been deceived respecting the time of the death of this unknown and singularly unfortunate person, who was interred at the church of St. Paul March 3, 1703, and not in 1704.
He was first confined at Pignerol, before he was sent to the Isles of Ste. Marguerite, and afterwards to the Bastille, always under the care of the same man, that St. Marc, who saw him die. Father Griffet, a Jesuit, has communicated to the public the journal of the Bastille, which certifies the dates. He had no difficulty in obtaining this journal, since he exercised the delicate office of confessor to the prisoners confined in the Bastille.
The Man in the Iron Mask is an enigma which each one attempts to solve. Some have said that he was the duke of Beaufort, but the duke of Beaufort was killed by the Turks in the defence of Candia, in 1669, and the Man in the Iron Mask was at Pignerol in 1672. Besides, how should the duke of Beaufort have been arrested in the midst of his army? How could he have been transferred to France without some one's knowing something about it? and why should he have been imprisoned? and why masked?
Others have imagined that he was Count Vermandois, natural son to Louis XIV., who, it is well known, died of smallpox when with the army, in 1683, and was buried in the town of Arras.
It has since been supposed that the duke of Monmouth, who was publicly beheaded by order of King James, in 1685, was the Man in the Iron Mask. But either the duke must have come to life again, and afterwards changed the order of time, putting the year 1662 for the year 1685, or King James, who never pardoned any one, and therefore merited all his misfortunes, must have pardoned the duke of Monmouth, and put to death in his stead some one who perfectly resembled him. In the latter case, a person must have been found kind enough to have his head publicly cut off to save the duke of Monmouth. All England must have been deceived in the person; then King James must have begged of Louis XIV. that he would be so good as to become his jailer. Louis XIV., having granted King James this small favor, could not have refused to show the same regard for King William and Queen Anne, with whom he was at war; but would have been careful to maintain the dignity of jailer—with which King James had honored him—to the end of the chapter.
All these illusions being dissipated, it remains to be known who this constantly-masked prisoner was, at what age he died, and under what name he was buried. It is clear that, if he was not permitted to walk in the court of the Bastille, nor to see his physician—except in a mask—it was for fear that some very striking resemblance would be discovered in his features. He was permitted to show his tongue, but never his face. As for his age, he himself told the apothecary of the Bastille, a little before his death, that he believed he was about sixty. The apothecary's son-in-law, Marsolam, surgeon to Marshal de Richelieu, and afterwards to the duke of Orleans the regent, has repeated this to me several times. To conclude: Why was an Italian name given to him? He was always called Marchiali The writer of this article, perhaps, knows more on the subject than Father Griffet, though he will not say more.
It is true that Nicholas Fouquet, superintendent of the finances, had many friends in his disgrace, and that they persevered even until judgment was passed on him. It is true that the chancellor, who presided at that judgment, treated the illustrious captive with too much rigor. But it was not Michel Letellier, as stated in some editions of the "Siècle de Louis XIV.", it was Pierre Seguier. This inadvertency of having placed one for the other is a fault which must be corrected.
It is very remarkable that no one knows where this celebrated minister died. Not that it is of any importance to know it, for his death not having led to any event whatever, is like all other indifferent occurrences; but this serves to prove how completely he was forgotten towards the close of life, how worthless that worldly consideration is which is so anxiously sought for, and how happy they are who have no higher ambition than to live and die unknown. This knowledge is far more useful than that of dates.
Father Griffet does his utmost to persuade us that Cardinal Richelieu wrote a bad book. Well, many statesmen have done the same. But it is very fine to see him strive so hard to prove that, according to Cardinal Richelieu, "our allies, the Spaniards," so happily governed by a Bourbon, "are tributary to hell, and make the Indies tributary to hell!" Cardinal Richelieu's "Political Testament" is not that of a polite man. He alleges:
That France had more good ports on the Mediterranean than the whole Spanish monarchy (this is an exaggeration); that to keep up an army of fifty thousand men it is best to raise a hundred thousand (this throws money away); that when a new tax is imposed the pay of the soldiers is increased (which has never been done either in France or elsewhere); that the parliaments and other superior courts should be made to pay the taille (an infallible means of gaining their hearts and making the magistracy respectable); that the noblesse should be forced to serve and to enroll themselves in the cavalry (the better to preserve their privileges); that Genoa was the richest city in Italy (which I wish it were); that we must be very chaste (the testator might add—like certain preachers—"Do what I say, not what I do"); that an abbey should be given to the holy chapel at Paris (a thing of great importance at the crisis in which your friend stood); that Pope Benedict XI. gave a great deal of trouble to the cordeliers, who were piqued on the subject of poverty (that is to say, the revenues of the order of St Francis); that they were exasperated against him to such a degree that they made war upon him by their writings (more important still and more learned!—especially when John XXII. is taken for Benedict XI. and when in a "Political Testament" nothing is said of the manner in which the war against Spain and the empire was to be conducted, nor of the means of making peace, nor of present dangers, nor of resources, nor of alliances, nor of the generals and ministers who were to be employed, nor even of the dauphin, whose education was of so much importance to the State, nor, in short, of any one object of the ministry).
I consent with all my heart, since it must be so, that Cardinal Richelieu's memory shall be reproached with this unfortunate work, full of anachronisms, ignorance, ridiculous calculations, and acknowledged falsities. Let people strive as hard as they please to persuade themselves that the greatest minister was the most ignorant and tedious, as well as the most extravagant of writers; it may afford some gratification to those who detest his tyranny. It is also a fact worth preserving in the history of the human mind that this despicable work was praised for more than thirty years, while it was believed to be that great minister's, and quite as true that the pretended "Testament" made no noise in the world until thirty years after the Cardinal's death; that it was not printed until forty-two years after that event; that the original, signed by him, has never been seen; that the book is very bad; and that it scarcely deserves to be mentioned.
Did Count de Moret, son of Henry IV., who was wounded in the little skirmish at Castelnaudari, live until the year 1693 under the name of the hermit Jean Baptiste? What proof have we that this hermit was the son of Henry IV.? None.
Did Jeanne d'Albret de Navarre, mother of Henry IV., after the death of Antoine, marry a gentleman named Guyon, who was killed in the massacre of St. Bartholomew? Had she a son by him, who preached at Bordeaux? These facts are detailed at great length in the "Remarks on Bayle's Answers to the Questions of a Provincial," folio, page 689. Was Margaret of Valois, wife to Henry IV., brought to bed of two children secretly after her marriage?
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