Treachery and Treason: The Death of Roux de Marcilly

22 June 1669.

Roux de Marcilly was a Protestant from Nîmes in the Languedoc. Although his real name was Claude Roux, for reasons that will become clear, he usurped the identity of a certain M. de Marcilly, a soldier serving in the army of the maréchal de Schomberg, and who had once been sent to Switzerland on assignment.

   Roux had taken up residence in London, where he made contact with Molina and Lisola, respectively the ambassadors of Spain and the Holy Roman Empire. With France at war with Spain, and much of the fighting taking place in the Habsburg-controlled Spanish Netherlands, Roux activities came to the attention of the French ambassador, Henri de Massué, marquis de Ruvigny, who made it his business to find out what Roux was up to.

   Ruvigny learned that Roux claimed to be a member of the Committee of Ten, a secret political organisation based in Geneva, hence his adoption of de Marcilly’s name. The Committee of Ten was committed to the overthrow of Louis XIV and his government, with a view to establishing a republic in France. Already several French regions with large Huguenot populations had shown an interest, but it was recognised that the plan could not succeed without foreign military support.

   By this time, England, Holland and Sweden had formed a defensive league against France, known as the Triple Alliance, and the Committee of Ten was working to extend the league to include Spain, Austria and the Swiss Cantons. The intention was to use their combined power to initiate a revolution in France. The Swiss were keen to get involved, and it was Roux’s task to persuade England and, if possible, Spain to join in, while concealing from them the true extent of the conspiracy. He had already held tentative talks in England with various ambassadors, among them Lord Arlington, one of Charles II’s ministers, using his valet, a man named Martin, as a messenger.

   This, then, was Roux’s story, but he was quickly recognised as a fraud by the English, who threw him out of the country. Meanwhile, he and Martin had fallen out and while Roux made his way to Switzerland, Martin remained behind in London.

   A few months later, Hughes de Lionne, Louis XIV’s secretary of state for foreign affairs, learned that Roux had returned to London. He wrote to Colbert de Croissy, who had replaced Ruvigny as ambassador, instructing him to place Roux under surveillance and to find out when and by which route he planned to return to Switzerland so that the French authorities could track and seize him. Unfortunately, the cautious Roux managed to avoid capture and arrived safely in Geneva once again. Undaunted, Lionne simply arranged for Roux to be kidnapped, much to the consternation of the Swiss.

   The Swiss had every right to be angry with the French, for by seizing Roux on their territory, Lionne had violated international law. Moreover, the operation had not gone smoothly. Roux’s valet de chambre, thinking the kidnappers were robbers, shot at them and was seriously wounded when they returned fire. With his man left for dead on the wayside, Roux was placed on a horse, his wrists bound to the pommel of the saddle and his ankles tied beneath the girth as he and his kidnappers galloped away. His unfortunate valet was found barely alive but died of his wounds a few days later.

   Having caught their man, the French authorities smuggled him out of Switzerland, taking him by stages through France to Paris, where he was thrown into the Bastille. Meanwhile, back in Switzerland, his lodgings had been raided and certain papers were found bearing the names of high-ranking men in Charles II’s court, among them the Duke of Buckingham and Lord Arlington. A message was sent to Colbert de Croissy in London ordering him to break the news of Roux’s arrest to members of the English court, beginning with Lord Arlington, and to watch closely as he did so to see how they reacted. Whatever explanation the Englishmen offered to justify the presence of their names in Roux’s correspondence seems to have been accepted, albeit with certain reservations.

   Roux was condemned to death by being broken on the wheel. A particularly gruesome, painful and protracted way to die, it entailed tying the victim face-up on a large wheel and then beating him repeatedly with iron bars until the bones of his arms, legs and back were broken. He would then be left to die. Before the sentence was carried out, however, it was decided that he should be put to the question; that is, tortured, to see if he had anything more of interest to reveal. There were also efforts to persuade his former valet, Martin, to return to France to be interviewed. Martin, now settled in England with his wife and children, refused to leave his new home. He feared that should he set foot on French soil he would be seized and imprisoned and made to divulge information he did not have.

   Roux, meanwhile, terrified at the prospect of being tortured, made several unsuccessful attempts to take his own life in his prison cell by various methods, including self-mutilation, hanging and starvation. These repeated assaults had left him so weak that his execution had to be brought forward lest he escape the attentions of the executioners. Strapped to the wheel, he was asked for a final time if he had anything to confess, but he defiantly used his last moments to ‘spit out a thousand blasphemies against the King’s [Louis’s] sacred person with as much strength of mind and body as if he had remained unscathed by his fast of many days and all the injuries he had done himself.’

   Following Roux’s execution, there seemed little point in proceeding with Martin’s extradition order. The former valet was left to live out the rest of his life in peace; whatever secrets he knew concerning Roux’s conspiracy would go with him to the grave.