The governor, or captain of the castle, was in supreme charge. The ministers of state transmitted to him the orders of the King direct. He corresponded with them and in exceptional cases with the King himself; but was answerable for the castle and the safe custody of the inmates. His power was absolute and he wielded it with military exactitude. We have seen in the list of earlier custodians, that the most distinguished persons did not feel the position was beneath them; but as time passed, it was thought safer to employ smaller people, the creatures of the court whose loyalty and subservience might be most certainly depended upon. After du Tremblay, who surrendered his fortress to the Fronde, came Broussel the elder, the member of Parliament who had defied Anne of Austria, with his son as his lieutenant. Then came La Louvière, who was commandant of the place when the "Grande Mademoiselle" seized it in aid of the great Condé. He was removed by the King's order and when peace was declared one de Vennes succeeded him and then La Bachelerie. But De Besmaus, who had been a simple captain in Mazarin's guard, was the first of what we may call the "gaoler governors." He was appointed by the King in 1658 and held the post for nearly forty years. Through all the busy period when Louis XIV personally controlled the morals of his kingdom and used the castle to enforce his despotic will a great variety of prisoners came under his charge; political conspirators, religious dissidents, Jansenists and Protestants, free thinkers and reckless writers with unbridled libellous pens, publishers who dared to print unauthorised books which were tried in court and sentenced to committal to gaol for formal destruction, common criminals, thieves, cutpurses and highway robbers. De Besmaus has been described as a "coarse, brutal governor, a dry, disagreeable, hard-hearted ruffian;" but another report applauds the selection, declaring that his unshaken fidelity through thirty-nine years of office was associated with much gentleness and humanity. His honesty is more questioned, for it is stated that although he entered the service poor, he bequeathed considerable sums at his death. Monsieur de Saint Mars, who fills so large a place in the criminal annals of the times, from his connection with certain famous and mysterious prisoners, succeeded De Besmaus. He was an old man and had risen from the ranks, having been first a King's musketeer, then corporal, then Maréchal de Logis, and was then appointed commandant of the donjon of Pignerol.