hich appears to be a hundred years old? Did he dictate it
when so near death that he had not strength to sign it? How did it find
its way out of prison? And so forth.

There is no answer to all these questions, and I, for my part, cannot
undertake to affirm that the document is genuine. Abbe Soulavie relates
that he one day "pressed the marshal for an answer to some questions on
the matter, asking, amongst other things, if it were not true that the
prisoner was an elder brother of Louis XIV born without the knowledge of
Louis XIII. The marshal appeared very much embarrassed, and although
he did not entirely refuse to answer, what he said was not very
explanatory. He averred that this important personage was neither the
illegitimate brother of Louis XIV, nor the Duke of Monmouth, nor the
Comte de Vermandois, nor the Duc de Beaufort, and so on, as so many
writers had asserted." He called all their writings mere inventions, but
added that almost every one of them had got hold of some true incidents,
as for instance the order to kill the prisoner should he make himself
known. Finally he acknowledged that he knew the state secret, and used
the following words: "All that I can tell you, abbe, is, that when the
prisoner died at the beginning of the century, at a very advanced age,
he had ceased to be of such importance as when, at the beginning of his
reign, Louis XIV shut him up for weighty reasons of state."

The above was written down under the eyes of the marshal, and when
Abbe Soulavie entreated him to say something further which, while
not actually revealing the secret, would yet satisfy his questioner's
curiosity, the marshal answered, "Read M. de Voltaire's latest writings
on the subject, especially his concluding words, and reflect on them."

With the exception of Dulaure, all the critics have treated Soulavie's
narrative with the most profound contempt, and we must confess that if
it was an invention it was a monstrous one, and that the concoction of
the famous note in cipher was abominable. "Such was the great secret; in
order to find it out, I had to allow myself 5, 12, 17, 15, 14, 1, three
times by 8, 3." But unfortunately for those who would defend the
morals of Mademoiselle de Valois, it would be difficult to traduce the
character of herself, her lover, and her father, for what one knows of
the trio justifies one in believing that the more infamous the conduct
imputed to them, the more likely it is to be true.