8, 1688, Saint-Mars writes that his prisoner is believed by the world to be either a son of Oliver Cromwell, or the Duc de Beaufort,[1] who was never seen again, dead or alive, after a night battle in Crete, on June 25, 1669, just before Dauger was arrested.  Saint-Mars sent in a note of the total of Dauger’s expenses for the year 1687.  He actually did not dare to send the items, he says, lest they, if the bill fell into the wrong hands, might reveal too much.

[1] Duc de Beaufort whom Athos releases from prison in Dumas’s Vingt Ans Apres.

Meanwhile, an Italian news-letter, copied into a Leyden paper, of August 1687, declared that Mattioli had just been brought from Pignerol to Sainte-Marguerite.  There was no mystery about Mattioli, the story of his capture was published in 1682, but the press, on one point, was in error; Mattioli was still at Pignerol.  The known advent of the late Commandant of Pignerol, Saint-Mars, with a single concealed prisoner, at the island, naturally suggested the erroneous idea that the prisoner was Mattioli.  The prisoner was really Dauger, the survivor of the two valets.

From 1688 to 1691 no letter about Dauger has been published.  Apparently he was then the only prisoner on the island, except one Chezut, who was there before Dauger arrived, and gave up his chamber to Dauger while the new cells were being built.  Between 1689 and 1693 six Protestant preachers were brought to the island, while Louvois, the Minister, died in 1691, and was succeeded by Barbezieux.  On August 13, 1691, Barbezieux wrote to ask Saint-Mars about “the prisoner whom he had guarded for twenty years.”  The only such prisoner was Dauger, who entered Pignerol in August, 1669.  Mattioli had been a prisoner only for twelve years, and lay in Pignerol, not in Sainte-Marguerite, where Saint-Mars now was.  Saint-Mars replied:  “I can assure you that nobody has seen him but myself.”

By the beginning of March, 1694, Pignerol had been bombarded by the enemies of France; presently Louis XIV. had to cede it to Savoy.  The prisoners there must be removed.  Mattioli, in Pignerol, at the end of 1693, had been in trouble.  He and his valet had tried to smuggle out letters written on the linings of their pockets.  These were seized and burned.  On March 20, 1694, Barbezieux wrote to Laprade, now commanding at Pignerol, that he must take his three prisoners, one by one, with all secrecy, to Sainte-Marguerite.  Laprade alone must give them their food on the journey.  The military officer of the escort was warned to ask no questions.  Already (February 26, 1694) Barbezieux had informed Saint-Mars that these prisoners were coming.  They are of more consequence, one of them at least, than the prisoners on the island, and must be put in the safest places.”  The “one” is doubtless Mattioli.  In 1681 Louvois had thought Dauger and La Riviere more important than Mattioli,