brated
Superintendent of Finance, Nicolas Fouquet. In 1837, Jacob, armed with
documents and extracts, once more occupied himself with this Chinese
puzzle on which so much ingenuity had been lavished, but of which no
one had as yet got all the pieces into their places. Let us see if he
succeeded better than his forerunners.

The first feeling he awakes is one of surprise. It seems odd that
he should again bring up the case of Fouquet, who was condemned to
imprisonment for life in 1664, confined in Pignerol under the care of
Saint-Mars, and whose death was announced (falsely according to Jacob)
on March 23rd, 1680. The first thing to look for in trying to get at the
true history of the Mask is a sufficient reason of state to account for
the persistent concealment of the prisoner's features till his death;
and next, an explanation of the respect shown him by Louvois, whose
attitude towards him would have been extraordinary in any age, but was
doubly so during the reign of Louis XIV, whose courtiers would have been
the last persons in the world to render homage to the misfortunes of
a man in disgrace with their master. Whatever the real motive of the
king's anger against Fouquet may have been, whether Louis thought he
arrogated to himself too much power, or aspired to rival his master in
the hearts of some of the king's mistresses, or even presumed to raise
his eyes higher still, was not the utter ruin, the lifelong captivity,
of his enemy enough to satiate the vengeance of the king? What could he
desire more? Why should his anger, which seemed slaked in 1664, burst
forth into hotter flames seventeen years later, and lead him to inflict
a new punishment? According to the bibliophile, the king being
wearied by the continual petitions for pardon addressed to him by the
superintendent's family, ordered them to be told that he was dead, to
rid himself of their supplications. Colbert's hatred, says he, was the
immediate cause of Fouquet's fall; but even if this hatred hastened the
catastrophe, are we to suppose that it pursued the delinquent beyond the
sentence, through the long years of captivity, and, renewing its energy,
infected the minds of the king and his councillors? If that were so, how
shall we explain the respect shown by Louvois? Colbert would not have
stood uncovered before Fouquet in prison. Why should Colbert's colleague
have done so?

It must, however, be confessed that of all existing theories, this one,
thank