François de Bassompierre, Cologne, 1665 (Google Books, 1692)

François de Bassompierre (1579-1646), colonel general of the Swiss (1614), Marshal of France (1622), and several times an Ambassador extraordinary, was imprisoned February 25, 1631  following ‘the day of the Dupes’ (10 and 11 November 1630).  

This whimsical title was given on the occasion of the triumph of Cardinal Richelieu over his enemies, who imagined that they had succeeded in destroying his power and influence with King Louis XIII. Bassompierre, arrested for his minor role in the attempted coup, spent the next twelve years imprisoned in the Bastille, only released upon Richelieu’s death.  It was there Bassompierre wrote his memoirs or life journal.   He declared he would write

Un papier-journal de ma vie [qui] m’eut servi d’une mémoire artificielle, non seulement des lieux où j’ay passé lors que j’ay esté aux voyages, aux ambassades, ou à la guerre, mais aussy des personnes que j’y ay pratiquées, de mes actions privées et publiques, et des choses plus notables que j’y ay veues et ouïes, dont la connoissance me seroit maintenant très utile, et le souvenir doux et agréable.

Bassompierre’s work is invaluable for understanding the politics of the period.