Man in the Iron Mask

by Alexandre Dumas

　　For nearly one hundred years this curious problem has exercised theimagination of writers of fiction--and of drama, and the patience ofthe learned in history. No subject is more obscure and elusive, andnone more attractive to the general mind. It is a legend to themeaning of which none can find the key and yet in which everyonebelieves. Involuntarily we feel pity at the thought of that longcaptivity surrounded by so many extraordinary precautions, and whenwe dwell on the mystery which enveloped the captive, that pity is notonly deepened but a kind of terror takes possession of us. It isvery likely that if the name of the hero of this gloomy tale had beenknown at the time, he would now be forgotten. To give him a namewould be to relegate him at once to the ranks of those commonplaceoffenders who quickly exhaust our interest and our tears. But thisbeing, cut off from the world without leaving any discoverable trace,and whose disappearance apparently caused no void--this captive,distinguished among captives by the unexampled nature of hispunishment, a prison within a prison, as if the walls of a mere cellwere not narrow enough, has come to typify for us the sum of all thehuman misery and suffering ever inflicted by unjust tyranny.Who was the Man in the Mask? Was he rapt away into this silentseclusion from the luxury of a court, from the intrigues ofdiplomacy, from the scaffold of a traitor, from the clash of battle?What did he leave behind? Love, glory, or a throne? What did heregret when hope had fled? Did he pour forth imprecations and curseson his tortures and blaspheme against high Heaven, or did he with asigh possess his soul in patience?The blows of fortune are differently received according to thedifferent characters of those on whom they fall; and each one of uswho in imagination threads the subterranean passages leading to thecells of Pignerol and Exilles, and incarcerates himself in the IlesSainte-Marguerite and in the Bastille, the successive scenes of thatlong-protracted agony will give the prisoner a form shaped by his ownfancy and a grief proportioned to his own power of suffering. How welong to pierce the thoughts and feel the heart-beats and watch thetrickling tears behind that machine-like exterior, that impassiblemask! Our imagination is powerfully excited by the dumbness of thatfate borne by one whose words never reached the outward air, whosethoughts could never be read on the hidden features; by the isolationof forty years secured by two-fold barriers of stone and iron, andshe clothes the object of her contemplation in majestic splendour,connects the mystery which enveloped his existence with mightyinterests, and persists in regarding the prisoner as sacrificed forthe preservation of some dynastic secret involving the peace of theworld and the stability of a throne.And when we calmly reflect on the whole case, do we feel that ourfirst impulsively adopted opinion was wrong? Do we regard our beliefas a poetical illusion? I do not think so; on the contrary, it seemsto me that our good sense approves our fancy's flight. For what canbe more natural than the conviction that the secret of the name, age,and features of the captive, which was so perseveringly kept throughlong years at the cost of so much care, was of vital importance tothe Government? No ordinary human passion, such as anger, hate, orvengeance, has so dogged and enduring a character; we feel that themeasures taken were not the expression of a love of cruelty, for evensupposing that Louis XIV were the most cruel of princes, would he nothave chosen one of the thousand methods of torture ready to his handbefore inventing a new and strange one? Moreover, why did hevoluntarily burden himself with the obligation of surrounding aprisoner with such numberless precautions and such sleeplessvigilance? Must he not have feared that in spite of it all the wallsbehind which he concealed the dread mystery would one day let in thelight? Was it not through his entire reign a source of unceasinganxiety? And yet he respected the life of the captive whom it was sodifficult to hide, and the discovery of whose identity would havebeen so dangerous. It would have been so easy to bury the secret inan obscure grave, and yet the order was never given. Was this anexpression of hate, anger, or any other passion? Certainly not; theconclusion we must come to in regard to the conduct of the king isthat all the measures he took against the prisoner were dictated bypurely political motives; that his conscience, while allowing him todo everything necessary to guard the secret, did not permit him totake the further step of putting an end to the days of an unfortunateman, who in all probability was guilty of no crime.Courtiers are seldom obsequious to the enemies of their master, sothat we may regard the respect and consideration shown to the Man inthe Mask by the governor Saint-Mars, and the minister Louvois, as atestimony, not only to his high rank, but also to his innocence.For my part, I make no pretensions to the erudition of the bookworm,and I cannot read the history of the Man in the Iron Mask withoutfeeling my blood boil at the abominable abuse of power--the heinouscrime of which he was the victim.A few years ago, M. Fournier and I, thinking the subject suitable forrepresentation on the stage, undertook to read, before dramatisingit, all the different versions of the affair which had been publishedup to that time. Since our piece was successfully performed at theOdeon two other versions have appeared: one was in the form of aletter addressed to the Historical Institute by M. Billiard, whoupheld the conclusions arrived at by Soulavie, on whose narrative ourplay was founded; the other was a work by the bibliophile Jacob, whofollowed a new system of inquiry, and whose book displayed theresults of deep research and extensive reading. It did not, however,cause me to change my opinion. Even had it been published before Ihad written my drama, I should still have adhered to the idea as tothe most probable solution of the problem which I had arrived at in1831, not only because it was incontestably the most dramatic, butalso because it is supported by those moral presumptions which havesuch weight with us when considering a dark and doubtful questionlike the one before us. It will, be objected, perhaps, that dramaticwriters, in their love of the marvellous and the pathetic, neglectlogic and strain after effect, their aim being to obtain the applauseof the gallery rather than the approbation of the learned. But tothis it may be replied that the learned on their part sacrifice agreat deal to their love of dates, more or less exact; to theirdesire to elucidate some point which had hitherto been consideredobscure, and which their explanations do not always clear up; to thetemptation to display their proficiency in the ingenious art ofmanipulating facts and figures culled from a dozen musty volumes intoone consistent whole.Our interest in this strange case of imprisonment arises, not alonefrom its completeness and duration, but also from our uncertainty asto the motives from which it was inflicted. Where erudition alonecannot suffice; where bookworm after bookworm, disdaining theconjectures of his predecessors, comes forward with a new theoryfounded on some forgotten document he has hunted out, only to findhimself in his turn pushed into oblivion by some follower in histrack, we must turn for guidance to some other light than that ofscholarship; especially if, on strict investigation, we find that notone learned solution rests on a sound basis of fact.In the question before us, which, as we said before, is a double one,asking not only who was the Man in the Iron Mask, but why he wasrelentlessly subjected to this torture till the moment of his death,what we need in order to restrain our fancy is mathematicaldemonstration, and not philosophical induction.While I do not go so far as to assert positively that Abbe Soulaviehas once for all lifted the veil which hid the truth, I am yetpersuaded that no other system of research is superior to his, andthat no other suggested solution has so many presumptions in itsfavour. I have not reached this firm conviction on account of thegreat and prolonged success of our drama, but because of the easewith which all the opinions adverse to those of the abbe may beannihilated by pitting them one against the other.The qualities that make for success being quite different in a noveland in a drama, I could easily have founded a romance on thefictitious loves of Buckingham and the queen, or on a supposed secretmarriage between her and Cardinal Mazarin, calling to my aid a workby Saint-Mihiel which the bibliophile declares he has never read,although it is assuredly neither rare nor difficult of access. Imight also have merely expanded my drama, restoring to the personagestherein their true names and relative positions, both of which theexigencies of the stage had sometimes obliged me to alter, and whileallowing them to fill the same parts, making them act more inaccordance with historical fact. No fable however far-fetched, nogrouping of characters however improbable, can, however, destroy theinterest which the innumerable writings about the Iron Mask excite,although no two agree in details, and although each author and eachwitness declares himself in possession of complete knowledge. Nowork, however mediocre, however worthless even, which has appeared onthis subject has ever failed of success, not even, for example, thestrange jumble of Chevalier de Mouhy, a kind of literary braggart,who was in the pay of Voltaire, and whose work was publishedanonymously in 1746 by Pierre de Hondt of The Hague. It is dividedinto six short parts, and bears the title, 'Le Masque de Fer, ou lesAventures admirables du Prre et du Fils'. An absurd romance byRegnault Warin, and one at least equally absurd by Madame Guenard,met with a like favourable reception. In writing for the theatre, anauthor must choose one view of a dramatic situation to the exclusionof all others, and in following out this central idea is obliged bythe inexorable laws of logic to push aside everything that interfereswith its development. A book, on the contrary, is written to bediscussed; it brings under the notice of the reader all the evidenceproduced at a trial which has as yet not reached a definiteconclusion, and which in the case before us will never reach it,unless, which is most improbable, some lucky chance should lead tosome new discovery.The first mention of the prisoner is to be found in the 'Memoiressecrets pour servir a l'Histoire de Perse' in one 12mo volume, by ananonymous author, published by the 'Compagnie des Libraires Associesd'Amsterdam' in 1745."Not having any other purpose," says the author (page 20, 2nd edit.),"than to relate facts which are not known, or about which no one haswritten, or about which it is impossible to be silent, we refer atonce to a fact which has hitherto almost escaped notice concerningPrince Giafer (Louis de Bourbon, Comte de Vermandois, son of LouisXIV and Mademoiselle de la Valliere), who was visited by Ali-Momajou(the Duc d'Orleans, the regent) in the fortress of Ispahan (theBastille), in which he had been imprisoned for several years. Thisvisit had probably no other motive than to make sure that this princewas really alive, he having been reputed dead of the plague for overthirty years, and his obsequies having been celebrated in presence ofan entire army."Cha-Abas (Louis XIV) had a legitimate son, Sephi-Mirza (Louis,Dauphin of France), and a natural son, Giafer. These two princes, asdissimilar in character as in birth, were always rivals and always atenmity with each other. One day Giafer so far forgot himself as tostrike Sephi-Mirza. Cha-Abas having heard of the insult offered tothe heir to the throne, assembled his most trusted councillors, andlaid the conduct of the culprit before them--conduct which, accordingto the law of the country, was punishable with death, an opinion inwhich they all agreed. One of the councillors, however, sympathisingmore than the others with the distress of Cha-Abas, suggested thatGiafer should be sent to the army, which was then on the frontiers ofFeidrun (Flanders), and that his death from plague should be givenout a few days after his arrival. Then, while the whole army wascelebrating his obsequies, he should be carried off by night, in thegreatest secrecy, to the stronghold on the isle of Ormus (Sainte-Marguerite), and there imprisoned for life."This course was adopted, and carried out by faithful and discreetagents. The prince, whose premature death was mourned by the army,being carried by unfrequented roads to the isle of Ormus, was placedin the custody of the commandant of the island, who, had receivedorders beforehand not to allow any person whatever to see theprisoner. A single servant who was in possession of the secret waskilled by the escort on the journey, and his face so disfigured bydagger thrusts that he could not be recognised."The commandant treated his prisoner with the most profound respect;he waited on him at meals himself, taking the dishes from the cooksat the door of the apartment, none of whom ever looked on the face ofGiafer. One day it occurred to the prince to scratch, his name onthe back of a plate with his knife. One of the servants into whosehands the plate fell ran with it at once to the commandant, hoping hewould be pleased and reward the bearer; but the unfortunate man wasgreatly mistaken, for he was at once made away with, that hisknowledge of such an important secret might be buried with himself."Giafer remained several years in the castle Ormus, and was thentransported to the fortress of Ispahan; the commandant of Ormushaving received the governorship of Ispahan as a reward for faithfulservice."At Ispahan, as at Ormus, whenever it was necessary on account ofillness or any other cause to allow anyone to approach the prince, hewas always masked; and several trustworthy persons have asserted thatthey had seen the masked prisoner often, and had noticed that he usedthe familiar 'tu' when addressing the governor, while the lattershowed his charge the greatest respect. "As Giafer survived Cha-Abasand Sephi-Mirza by many years, it may be asked why he was never setat liberty; but it must be remembered it would have been impossibleto restore a prince to his rank and dignities whose tomb actuallyexisted, and of whose burial there were not only living witnesses butdocumentary proofs, the authenticity of which it would have beenuseless to deny, so firm was the belief, which has lasted down to thepresent day, that Giafer died of the plague in camp when with thearmy on the frontiers of Flanders. Ali-Homajou died shortly afterthe visit he paid to Giafer."This version of the story, which is the original source of all thecontroversy on the subject, was at first generally received as true.On a critical examination it fitted in very well with certain eventswhich took place in the reign of Louis XIV.The Comte de Vermandois had in fact left the court for the camp verysoon after his reappearance there, for he had been banished by theking from his presence some time before for having, in company withseveral young nobles, indulged in the most reprehensible excesses."The king," says Mademoiselle de Montpensier ('Memoires deMademoiselle de Montpensier', vol. xliii. p. 474., of 'MemoiresRelatifs d d'Histoire de France', Second Series, published byPetitot), "had not been satisfied with his conduct and refused to seehim. The young prince had caused his mother much sorrow, but hadbeen so well lectured that it was believed that he had at last turnedover a new leaf." He only remained four days at court, reached thecamp before Courtrai early in November 1683, was taken ill on theevening of the 12th, and died on the 19th of the same month of amalignant fever. Mademoiselle de Montpensier says that the Comte deVermandois "fell ill from drink."There are, of course, objections of all kinds to this theory.For if, during the four days the comte was at court, he had struckthe dauphin, everyone would have heard of the monstrous crime, andyet it is nowhere spoken of, except in the 'Memoires de Perse'. Whatrenders the story of the blow still more improbable is the differencein age between the two princes. The dauphin, who already had a son,the Duc de Bourgogne, more than a year old, was born the 1st November1661, and was therefore six years older than the Comte de Vermandois.But the most complete answer to the tale is to be found in a letterwritten by Barbezieux to Saint-Mars, dated the 13th August 1691:--"When you have any information to send me relative to the prisonerwho has been in your charge for twenty years, I most earnestly enjoinon you to take the same precautions as when you write to M. deLouvois."The Comte de Vermandois, the official registration of whose deathbears the date 1685, cannot have been twenty years a prisoner in1691.Six years after the Man in the Mask had been thus delivered over tothe curiosity of the public, the 'Siecle de Louis XIV' (2 vols.octavo, Berlin, 1751) was published by Voltaire under the pseudonymof M. de Francheville. Everyone turned to this work, which had beenlong expected, for details relating to the mysterious prisoner aboutwhom everyone was talking.Voltaire ventured at length to speak more openly of the prisoner thananyone had hitherto done, and to treat as a matter of history "anevent long ignored by all historians." (vol. ii. p. 11, 1stedition, chap. xxv.). He assigned an approximate date to thebeginning of this captivity, "some months after the death of CardinalMazarin " (1661); he gave a description of the prisoner, whoaccording to him was "young and dark-complexioned; his figure wasabove the middle height and well proportioned; his features wereexceedingly handsome, and his bearing was noble. When he spoke hisvoice inspired interest; he never complained of his lot, and gave nohint as to his rank." Nor was the mask forgotten: "The part whichcovered the chin was furnished with steel springs, which allowed theprisoner to eat without uncovering his face." And, lastly, he fixedthe date of the death of the nameless captive; who "was buried," hesays, "in 1704., by night, in the parish church of Saint-Paul."Voltaire's narrative coincided with the account given in the'Memoires de Peyse', save for the omission of the incident which,according to the 'Memoires', led in the first instance to theimprisonment of Giafer. "The prisoner," says Voltaire, "was sent tothe Iles Sainte-Marguerite, and afterwards to the Bastille, in chargeof a trusty official; he wore his mask on the journey, and his escorthad orders to shoot him if he took it off. The Marquis de Louvoisvisited him while he was on the islands, and when speaking to himstood all the time in a respectful attitude. The prisoner wasremoved to the Bastille in 1690, where he was lodged as comfortablyas could be managed in that building; he was supplied with everythinghe asked for, especially with the finest linen and the costliestlace, in both of which his taste was perfect; he had a guitar to playon, his table was excellent, and the governor rarely sat in hispresence."Voltaire added a few further details which had been given him by M.de Bernaville, the successor of M. de Saint-Mars, and by an oldphysician of the Bastille who had attended the prisoner whenever hishealth required a doctor, but who had never seen his face, althoughhe had "often seen his tongue and his body." He also asserted thatM. de Chamillart was the last minister who was in the secret, andthat when his son-in-law, Marshal de la Feuillade, besought him onhis knees, de Chamillart being on his deathbed, to tell him the nameof the Man in the Iron Mask, the minister replied that he was under asolemn oath never to reveal the secret, it being an affair of state.To all these details, which the marshal acknowledges to be correct,Voltaire adds a remarkable note: "What increases our wonder is, thatwhen the unknown captive was sent to the Iles Sainte-Marguerite nopersonage of note disappeared from the European stage."The story of the Comte de Vermandois and the blow was treated as anabsurd and romantic invention, which does not even attempt to keepwithin the bounds of the possible, by Baron C. (according to P.Marchand, Baron Crunyngen) in a letter inserted in the 'Bibliothequeraisonnee des Ouvrages des Savants de d'Europe', June 1745. Thediscussion was revived somewhat later, however, and a few Dutchscholars were supposed to be responsible for a new theory founded onhistory; the foundations proving somewhat shaky, however,--a qualitywhich it shares, we must say, with all the other theories which haveever been advanced.According to this new theory, the masked prisoner was a young foreignnobleman, groom of the chambers to Anne of Austria, and the realfather of Louis XIV. This anecdote appears first in a duodecimovolume printed by Pierre Marteau at Cologne in 1692, and which bearsthe title, 'The Loves of Anne of Austria, Consort of Louis XIII, withM. le C. D. R., the Real Father of Louis XIV, King of France; being aMinute Account of the Measures taken to give an Heir to the Throne ofFrance, the Influences at Work to bring this to pass, and theDenoument of the Comedy'.This libel ran through five editions, bearing date successively,1692, 1693, 1696, 1722, and 1738. In the title of the edition of1696 the words "Cardinal de Richelieu" are inserted in place of theinitials "C. D. R.," but that this is only a printer's error everyonewho reads the work will perceive. Some have thought the threeletters stood for Comte de Riviere, others for Comte de Rochefort,whose 'Memoires' compiled by Sandras de Courtilz supply theseinitials. The author of the book was an Orange writer in the pay ofWilliam III, and its object was, he says, "to unveil the greatmystery of iniquity which hid the true origin of Louis XIV." He goeson to remark that "the knowledge of this fraud, althoughcomparatively rare outside France, was widely spread within herborders. The well-known coldness of Louis XIII; the extraordinarybirth of Louis-Dieudonne, so called because he was born in thetwenty-third year of a childless marriage, and several otherremarkable circumstances connected with the birth, all point clearlyto a father other than the prince, who with great effrontery ispassed off by his adherents as such. The famous barricades of Paris,and the organised revolt led by distinguished men against Louis XIVon his accession to the throne, proclaimed aloud the king'sillegitimacy, so that it rang through the country; and as theaccusation had reason on its side, hardly anyone doubted its truth."We give below a short abstract of the narrative, the plot of which israther skilfully constructed:--"Cardinal Richelieu, looking with satisfied pride at the love ofGaston, Duc d'Orleans, brother of the king, for his niece Parisiatis(Madame de Combalet),formed the plan of uniting the young couple inmarriage. Gaston taking the suggestion as an insult, struck thecardinal. Pere Joseph then tried to gain the cardinal's consent andthat of his niece to an attempt to deprive Gaston of the throne,which the childless marriage of Louis XIII seemed to assure him. Ayoung man, the C. D. R. of the book, was introduced into Anne ofAustria's room, who though a wife in name had long been a widow inreality. She defended herself but feebly, and on seeing the cardinalnext day said to him, "Well, you have had your wicked will; but takegood care, sir cardinal, that I may find above the mercy and goodnesswhich you have tried by many pious sophistries to convince me isawaiting me. Watch over my soul, I charge you, for I have yielded!"The queen having given herself up to love for some time, the joyfulnews that she would soon become a mother began to spread over thekingdom. In this manner was born Louis XIV, the putative son ofLouis XIII. If this instalment of the tale be favourably received,says the pamphleteer, the sequel will soon follow, in which the sadfate of C. D. R. will be related, who was made to pay dearly for hisshort-lived pleasure."Although the first part was a great success, the promised sequelnever appeared. It must be admitted that such a story, though itnever convinced a single person of the illegitimacy of Louis XIV, wasan excellent prologue to the tale of the unfortunate lot of the Manin the Iron Mask, and increased the interest and curiosity with whichthat singular historical mystery was regarded. But the views of theDutch scholars thus set forth met with little credence, and were soonforgotten in a new solution.The third historian to write about the prisoner of the Iles Sainte-Marguerite was Lagrange-Chancel. He was just twenty-nine years ofage when, excited by Freron's hatred of Voltaire, he addressed aletter from his country place, Antoniat, in Perigord, to the 'AnneeLitteraire' (vol. iii. p. 188), demolishing the theory advanced inthe 'Siecle de Louis XIV', and giving facts which he had collectedwhilst himself imprisoned in the same place as the unknown prisonertwenty years later."My detention in the Iles-Saint-Marguerite," says Lagrange-Chancel,"brought many things to my knowledge which a more painstakinghistorian than M. de Voltaire would have taken the trouble to findout; for at the time when I was taken to the islands the imprisonmentof the Man in the Iron Mask was no longer regarded as a state secret.This extraordinary event, which M. de Voltaire places in 1662, a fewmonths after the death of Cardinal Mazarin, did not take place till1669, eight years after the death of His Eminence. M. de La Motte-Guerin, commandant of the islands in my time, assured me that theprisoner was the Duc de Beaufort, who was reported killed at thesiege of Candia, but whose body had never been recovered, as all thenarratives of that event agree in stating. He also told me that M.de Saint-Mars, who succeeded Pignerol as governor of the islands,showed great consideration for the prisoner, that he waited on him attable, that the service was of silver, and that the clothes suppliedto the prisoner were as costly as he desired; that when he was illand in need of a physician or surgeon, he was obliged under pain ofdeath to wear his mask in their presence, but that when he was alonehe was permitted to pull out the hairs of his beard with steeltweezers, which were kept bright and polished. I saw a pair of thesewhich had been actually used for this purpose in the possession of M.de Formanoir, nephew of Saint-Mars, and lieutenant of a Free Companyraised for the purpose of guarding the prisoners. Several personstold me that when Saint-Mars, who had been placed over the Bastille,conducted his charge thither, the latter was heard to say behind hisiron mask, 'Has the king designs on my life?' To which Saint-Marsreplied, ' No, my prince; your life is safe: you must only letyourself be guided.'"I also learned from a man called Dubuisson, cashier to the well-known Samuel Bernard, who, having been imprisoned for some years inthe Bastile, was removed to the Iles Sainte-Marguerite, where he wasconfined along with some others in a room exactly over the oneoccupied by the unknown prisoner. He told me that they were able tocommunicate with him by means of the flue of the chimney, but onasking him why he persisted in not revealing his name and the causeof his imprisonment, he replied that such an avowal would be fatalnot only to him but to those to whom he made it."Whether it were so or not, to-day the name and rank of thispolitical victim are secrets the preservation of which is no longernecessary to the State; and I have thought that to tell the publicwhat I know would cut short the long chain of circumstances whicheveryone was forging according to his fancy, instigated thereto by anauthor whose gift of relating the most impossible events in such amanner as to make them seem true has won for all his writings suchsuccess--even for his Vie de Charles XII"This theory, according to Jacob, is more probable than any of theothers."Beginning with the year 1664.," he says, "the Duc de Beaufort had byhis insubordination and levity endangered the success of severalmaritime expeditions. In October 1666 Louis XIV remonstrated withhim with much tact, begging him to try to make himself more and morecapable in the service of his king by cultivating the talents withwhich he was endowed, and ridding himself of the faults which spoilthis conduct. 'I do not doubt,' he concludes, 'that you will be allthe more grateful to me for this mark of my benevolence towards you,when you reflect how few kings have ever shown their goodwill in asimilar manner.'" ( 'Oeuvres de Louis XIV', vol. v. p. 388).Several calamities in the royal navy are known to have been broughtabout by the Duc de Beaufort. M. Eugene Sue, in his 'Histoire de laMarine', which is full of new and curious information, has drawn avery good picture of the position of the "roi des halles," the "kingof the markets," in regard to Colbert and Louis XIV. Colbert wishedto direct all the manoeuvres of the fleet from his study, while itwas commanded by the naval grandmaster in the capricious manner whichmight be expected from his factious character and love of bluster(Eugene Sue, vol. i., 'Pieces Justificatives'). In 1699 Louis XIVsent the Duc de Beaufort to the relief of Candia, which the Turkswere besieging. Seven hours after his arrival Beaufort was killed ina sortie. The Duc de Navailles, who shared with him the command ofthe French squadron, simply reported his death as follows: "He met abody of Turks who were pressing our troops hard: placing himself atthe head of the latter, he fought valiantly, but at length hissoldiers abandoned him, and we have not been able to learn his fate"('Memoires du Duc de Navailles', book iv. P. 243)The report of his death spread rapidly through France and Italy;magnificent funeral services were held in Paris, Rome, and Venice,and funeral orations delivered. Nevertheless, many believed that hewould one day reappear, as his body had never been recovered.Guy Patin mentions this belief, which he did not share, in two of hisletters:--"Several wagers have been laid that M. de Beaufort is not dead!'O utinam'!" (Guy Patin, September 26, 1669)."It is said that M. de Vivonne has been granted by commission thepost of vice-admiral of France for twenty years; but there are manywho believe that the Duc de Beaufort is not dead, but imprisoned insome Turkish island. Believe this who may, I don't; he is reallydead, and the last thing I should desire would be to be as dead ashe",(Ibid., January 14, 1670).The following are the objections to this theory:"In several narratives written by eye-witnesses of the siege ofCandia," says Jacob, "it is related that the Turks, according totheir custom, despoiled the body and cut off the head of the Duc deBeaufort on the field of battle, and that the latter was afterwardsexhibited at Constantinople; and this may account for some of thedetails given by Sandras de Courtilz in his 'Memoires du Marquis deMontbrun' and his 'Memoires d'Artagnan', for one can easily imaginethat the naked, headless body might escape recognition. M. EugeneSue, in his 'Histoire de la Marine' (vol. ii, chap. 6), had adoptedthis view, which coincides with the accounts left by Philibert deJarry and the Marquis de Ville, the MSS. of whose letters and'Memoires' are to be found in the Bibliotheque du Roi."In the first volume of the 'Histoire de la Detention des Philosopheset des Gens de Lettres a la Bastille, etc.', we find the followingpassage:--"Without dwelling on the difficulty and danger of an abduction, whichan Ottoman scimitar might any day during this memorable siege renderunnecessary, we shall restrict ourselves to declaring positively thatthe correspondence of Saint-Mars from 1669 to 1680 gives us no groundfor supposing that the governor of Pignerol had any great prisoner ofstate in his charge during that period of time, except Fouquet andLauzun.'"While we profess no blind faith in the conclusions arrived at by thelearned critic, we would yet add to the considerations on which herelies another, viz. that it is most improbable that Louis XIV shouldever have considered it necessary to take such rigorous measuresagainst the Duc de Beaufort. Truculent and self-confident as he was,he never acted against the royal authority in such a manner as tooblige the king to strike him down in secret; and it is difficult tobelieve that Louis XIV, peaceably seated on his throne, with all theenemies of his minority under his feet, should have revenged himselfon the duke as an old Frondeur.The critic calls our attention to another fact also adverse to thetheory under consideration. The Man in the Iron Mask loved finelinen and rich lace, he was reserved in character and possessed ofextreme refinement, and none of this suits the portraits of the 'roides halles' which contemporary historians have drawn.Regarding the anagram of the name Marchiali (the name under which thedeath of the prisoner was registered), 'hic amiral', as a proof, wecannot think that the gaolers of Pignerol amused themselves inpropounding conundrums to exercise the keen intellect of theircontemporaries; and moreover the same anagram would apply equallywell to the Count of Vermandois, who was made admiral when onlytwenty-two months old. Abbe Papon, in his roamings through Provence,paid a visit to the prison in which the Iron Mask was confined, andthus speaks:--"It was to the Iles Sainte-Marguerite that the famous prisoner withthe iron mask whose name has never been discovered, was transportedat the end of the last century; very few of those attached to hisservice were allowed to speak to him. One day, as M. de Saint-Marswas conversing with him, standing outside his door, in a kind ofcorridor, so as to be able to see from a distance everyone whoapproached, the son of one of the governor's friends, hearing thevoices, came up; Saint-Mars quickly closed the door of the room, and,rushing to meet the young man, asked him with an air of great anxietyif he had overheard anything that was said. Having convinced himselfthat he had heard nothing, the governor sent the young man away thesame day, and wrote to the father that the adventure was like to havecost the son dear, and that he had sent him back to his home toprevent any further imprudence."I was curious enough to visit the room in which the unfortunate manwas imprisoned, on the 2nd of February 1778. It is lighted by onewindow to the north, overlooking the sea, about fifteen feet abovethe terrace where the sentries paced to and fro. This window waspierced through a very thick wall and the embrasure barricaded bythree iron bars, thus separating the prisoner from the sentries by adistance of over two fathoms. I found an officer of the Free Companyin the fortress who was nigh on fourscore years old; he told me thathis father, who had belonged to the same Company, had often relatedto him how a friar had seen something white floating on the waterunder the prisoner's window. On being fished out and carried toM. de Saint-Mars, it proved to be a shirt of very fine material,loosely folded together, and covered with writing from end to end.M. de Saint-Mars spread it out and read a few words, then turning tothe friar who had brought it he asked him in an embarrassed manner ifhe had been led by curiosity to read any of the, writing. The friarprotested repeatedly that he had not read a line, but nevertheless hewas found dead in bed two days later. This incident was told sooften to my informant by his father and by the chaplain of the fortof that time that he regarded it as incontestably true. Thefollowing fact also appears to me to be equally well established bythe testimony of many witnesses. I collected all the evidence Icould on the spot, and also in the Lerins monastery, where thetradition is preserved."A female attendant being wanted for the prisoner, a woman of thevillage of Mongin offered herself for the place, being under theimpression that she would thus be able to make her children'sfortune; but on being told that she would not only never be allowedto see her children again, but would be cut off from the rest of theworld as well, she refused to be shut up with a prisoner whom it costso much to serve. I may mention here that at the two outer angles ofthe wall of the fort which faced the sea two sentries were placed,with orders to fire on any boat which approached within a certaindistance."The prisoner's personal attendant died in the Iles Sainte-Marguerite. The brother of the officer whom I mentioned above waspartly in the confidence of M. de Saint-Mars, and he often told howhe was summoned to the prison once at midnight and ordered to removea corpse, and that he carried it on his shoulders to the burial-place, feeling certain it was the prisoner who was dead; but it wasonly his servant, and it was then that an effort was made to supplyhis place by a female attendant."Abbe Papon gives some curious details, hitherto unknown to thepublic, but as he mentions no names his narrative cannot beconsidered as evidence. Voltaire never replied to Lagrange-Chancel,who died the same year in which his letter was published. Frerondesiring to revenge himself for the scathing portrait which Voltairehad drawn of him in the 'Ecossaise', called to his assistance a moreredoubtable adversary than Lagrange-Chancel. Sainte-Foix had broughtto the front a brand new theory, founded on a passage by Hume in anarticle in the 'Annee Litteraire (1768, vol. iv.), in which hemaintained that the Man in the Iron Mask was the Duke of Monmouth, anatural son of Charles II, who was found guilty of high treason andbeheaded in London on the 15th July 1685.This is what the English historian says :"It was commonly reported in London that the Duke of Monmouth's lifehad been saved, one of his adherents who bore a striking resemblanceto the duke having consented to die in his stead, while the realculprit was secretly carried off to France, there to undergo alifelong imprisonment."The great affection which the English felt for the Duke of Monmouth,and his own conviction that the people only needed a leader to inducethem to shake off the yoke of James II, led him to undertake anenterprise which might possibly have succeeded had it been carriedout with prudence. He landed at Lyme, in Dorset, with only onehundred and twenty men; six thousand soon gathered round hisstandard; a few towns declared in his favour; he caused himself to beproclaimed king, affirming that he was born in wedlock, and that hepossessed the proofs of the secret marriage of Charles II and LucyWaiters, his mother. He met the Royalists on the battlefield, andvictory seemed to be on his side, when just at the decisive momenthis ammunition ran short. Lord Gray, who commanded the cavalry, beata cowardly retreat, the unfortunate Monmouth was taken prisoner,brought to London, and beheaded.The details published in the 'Siecle de Louis XIV' as to the personalappearance of the masked prisoner might have been taken as adescription of Monmouth, who possessed great physical beauty.Sainte-Foix had collected every scrap of evidence in favour of hissolution of the mystery, making use even of the following passagefrom an anonymous romance called 'The Loves of Charles II and JamesII, Kings of England':--"The night of the pretended execution of the Duke of Monmouth, theking, attended by three men, came to the Tower and summoned the duketo his presence. A kind of loose cowl was thrown over his head, andhe was put into a carriage, into which the king and his attendantsalso got, and was driven away."Sainte-Foix also referred to the alleged visit of Saunders, confessorto James II, paid to the Duchess of Portsmouth after the death ofthat monarch, when the duchess took occasion to say that she couldnever forgive King James for consenting to Monmouth's execution, inspite of the oath he had taken on the sacred elements at the deathbedof Charles II that he would never take his natural brother's life,even in case of rebellion. To this the priest replied quickly, " Theking kept his oath."Hume also records this solemn oath, but we cannot say that all thehistorians agree on this point. 'The Universal History' by Guthrieand Gray, and the 'Histoire d'Angleterre' by Rapin, Thoyras and deBarrow, do not mention it."Further," wrote Sainte-Foix, "an English surgeon called Nelaton, whofrequented the Caf‚ Procope, much affected by men of letters, oftenrelated that during the time he was senior apprentice to a surgeonwho lived near the Porte Saint-Antoine, he was once taken to theBastille to bleed a prisoner. He was conducted to this prisoner'sroom by the governor himself, and found the patient suffering fromviolent headache. He spoke with an English accent, wore a gold-flowered dressing-gown of black and orange, and had his face coveredby a napkin knotted behind his head."This story does not hold water: it would be difficult to form a maskout of a napkin; the Bastille had a resident surgeon of its own aswell as a physician and apothecary; no one could gain access to aprisoner without a written order from a minister, even the Viaticumcould only be introduced by the express permission of the lieutenantof police.This theory met at first with no objections, and seemed to be goingto oust all the others, thanks, perhaps, to the combative and restivecharacter of its promulgator, who bore criticism badly, and whom noone cared to incense, his sword being even more redoubtable than hispen.It was known that when Saint-Mars journeyed with his prisoner to theBastille, they had put up on the way at Palteau, in Champagne, aproperty belonging to the governor. Freron therefore addressedhimself to a grand-nephew of Saint-Mars, who had inherited thisestate, asking if he could give him any information about this visit.The following reply appeared in the 'Annee Litteraire (June 1768):--"As it appears from the letter of M. de Sainte-Foix from which youquote that the Man in the Iron Mask still exercises the fancy of yourjournalists, I am willing to tell you all I know about the prisoner.He was known in the islands of Sainte-Marguerite and at the Bastilleas 'La Tour.' The governor and all the other officials showed himgreat respect, and supplied him with everything he asked for thatcould be granted to a prisoner. He often took exercise in the yardof the prison, but never without his mask on. It was not till the'Siecle' of M. de Voltaire appeared that I learned that the mask wasof iron and furnished with springs; it may be that the circumstancewas overlooked, but he never wore it except when taking the air, orwhen he had to appear before a stranger."M. de Blainvilliers, an infantry officer who was acquainted with M.de Saint-Mars both at Pignerol and Sainte-Marguerite, has often toldme that the lot of 'La Tour' greatly excited his curiosity, and thathe had once borrowed the clothes and arms of a soldier whose turn itwas to be sentry on the terrace under the prisoner's window atSainte-Marguerite, and undertaken the duty himself; that he had seenthe prisoner distinctly, without his mask; that his face was white,that he was tall and well proportioned, except that his ankles weretoo thick, and that his hair was white, although he appeared to bestill in the prime of life. He passed the whole of the night inquestion pacing to and fro in his room. Blainvilliers added that hewas always dressed in brown, that he had plenty of fine linen andbooks, that the governor and the other officers always stooduncovered in his presence till he gave them leave to cover and sitdown, and that they often bore him company at table."In 1698 M. de Saint-Mars was promoted from the governorship of theIles Sainte-Marguerite to that of the Bastille. In moving thither,accompanied by his prisoner, he made his estate of Palteau a halting-place. The masked man arrived in a litter which preceded that of M.de Saint-Mars, and several mounted men rode beside it. The peasantswere assembled to greet their liege lord. M. de Saint-Mars dinedwith his prisoner, who sat with his back to the dining-room windows,which looked out on the court. None of the peasants whom I havequestioned were able to see whether the man kept his mask on whileeating, but they all noticed that M. de Saint-Mars, who sat oppositeto his charge, laid two pistols beside his plate; that only onefootman waited at table, who went into the antechamber to change theplates and dishes, always carefully closing the dining-room doorbehind him. When the prisoner crossed the courtyard his face wascovered with a black mask, but the peasants could see his lips andteeth, and remarked that he was tall, and had white hair. M. deSaint-Mars slept in a bed placed beside the prisoner's. M. deBlainvilliers told me also that 'as soon as he was dead, whichhappened in 1704, he was buried at Saint-Paul's,' and that 'thecoffin was filled with substances which would rapidly consume thebody.' He added, 'I never heard that the masked man spoke with anEnglish accent.'"Sainte-Foix proved the story related by M. de Blainvilliers to belittle worthy of belief, showing by a circumstance mentioned in theletter that the imprisoned man could not be the Duc de Beaufort;witness the epigram of Madame de Choisy, "M. de Beaufort longs tobite and can't," whereas the peasants had seen the prisoner's teeththrough his mask. It appeared as if the theory of Sainte-Foix weregoing to stand, when a Jesuit father, named Griffet, who wasconfessor at the Bastille, devoted chapter xiii, of his 'Traite desdifferentes Sortes de Preuves qui servent a etablir la Verite dansl'Histoire' (12mo, Liege, 1769) to the consideration of the IronMask. He was the first to quote an authentic document whichcertifies that the Man in the Iron Mask about whom there was so muchdisputing really existed. This was the written journal of M. duJonca, King's Lieutenant in the Bastille in 1698, from which PereGriffet took the following passage:--"On Thursday, September the 8th, 1698, at three o'clock in theafternoon, M. de Saint-Mars, the new governor of the Bastille,entered upon his duties. He arrived from the islands of Sainte-Marguerite, bringing with him in a litter a prisoner whose name is asecret, and whom he had had under his charge there, and at Pignerol.This prisoner, who was always masked, was at first placed in theBassiniere tower, where he remained until the evening. At nineo'clock p.m. I took him to the third room of the Bertaudiere tower,which I had had already furnished before his arrival with all needfularticles, having received orders to do so from M. de Saint-Mars.While I was showing him the way to his room, I was accompanied byM. Rosarges, who had also arrived along with M. de Saint-Mars, andwhose office it was to wait on the said prisoner, whose table is tobe supplied by the governor."Du Jonca's diary records the death of the prisoner in the followingterms:--"Monday, 19th November 1703. The unknown prisoner, who always wore ablack velvet mask, and whom M. de Saint-Mars brought with him fromthe Iles Sainte-Marguerite, and whom he had so long in charge, feltslightly unwell yesterday on coming back from mass. He died to-dayat 10 p.m. without having a serious illness, indeed it could not havebeen slighter. M. Guiraut, our chaplain, confessed him yesterday,but as his death was quite unexpected he did not receive the lastsacraments, although the chaplain was able to exhort him up to themoment of his death. He was buried on Tuesday the 20th November at4 P.M. in the burial-ground of St. Paul's, our parish church. Thefuneral expenses amounted to 40 livres."His name and age were withheld from the priests of the parish. Theentry made in the parish register, which Pere Griffet also gives, isin the following words:--"On the 19th November 1703, Marchiali, aged about forty-five, died inthe Bastille, whose body was buried in the graveyard of Saint-Paul's,his parish, on the 20th instant, in the presence of M. Rosarges andof M. Reilh, Surgeon-Major of the Bastille.(Signed) ROSARGES."REILH."As soon as he was dead everything belonging to him, withoutexception, was burned; such as his linen, clothes, bed and bedding,rugs, chairs, and even the doors of the room he occupied. Hisservice of plate was melted down, the walls of his room were scouredand whitewashed, the very floor was renewed, from fear of his havinghidden a note under it, or left some mark by which he could berecognised.Pere Griffet did not agree with the opinions of either Lagrange-Chancel or Sainte-Foix, but seemed to incline towards the theory setforth in the 'Memoires de Perse', against which no irrefutableobjections had been advanced. He concluded by saying that beforearriving at any decision as to who the prisoner really was, it wouldbe necessary to ascertain the exact date of his arrival at Pignerol.Sainte-Foix hastened to reply, upholding the soundness of the viewshe had advanced. He procured from Arras a copy of an entry in theregisters of the Cathedral Chapter, stating that Louis XIV hadwritten with his own hand to the said Chapter that they were to admitto burial the body of the Comte de Vermandois, who had died in thecity of Courtrai; that he desired that the deceased should beinterred in the centre of the choir, in the vault in which lay theremains of Elisabeth, Comtesse de Vermandois, wife of Philip ofAlsace, Comte de Flanders, who had died in 1182. It is not to besupposed that Louis XIV would have chosen a family vault in which tobury a log of wood.Sainte-Foix was, however, not acquainted with the letter ofBarbezieux, dated the 13th August 1691, to which we have alreadyreferred, as a proof that the prisoner was not the Comte deVermandois; it is equally a proof that he was not the Duke ofMonmouth, as Sainte-Foix maintained; for sentence was passed on theDuke of Monmouth in 1685, so that it could not be of him either thatBarbezieux wrote in 1691, "The prisoner whom you have had in chargefor twenty years."In the very year in which Sainte-Foix began to flatter himself thathis theory was successfully established, Baron Heiss brought a newone forward, in a letter dated "Phalsburg, 28th June 1770," andaddressed to the 'Journal Enclycopedique'. It was accompanied by aletter translated from the Italian which appeared in the 'HistoireAbregee de l'Europe' by Jacques Bernard, published by Claude Jordan,Leyden, 1685-87, in detached sheets. This letter stated (August1687, article 'Mantoue') that the Duke of Mantua being desirous tosell his capital, Casale, to the King of France, had been dissuadedtherefrom by his secretary, and induced to join the other princes ofItaly in their endeavours to thwart the ambitious schemes of LouisXVI. The Marquis d'Arcy, French ambassador to the court of Savoy,having been informed of the secretary's influence, distinguished himby all kinds of civilities, asked him frequently to table, and atlast invited him to join a large hunting party two or three leaguesoutside Turin. They set out together, but at a short distance fromthe city were surrounded by a dozen horsemen, who carried off thesecretary, 'disguised him, put a mask on him, and took him toPignerol.' He was not kept long in this fortress, as it was 'toonear the Italian frontier, and although he was carefully guarded itwas feared that the walls would speak'; so he was transferred to theIles Sainte-Marguerite, where he is at present in the custody of M.de Saint-Mars.This theory, of which much was heard later, did not at first excitemuch attention. What is certain is that the Duke of Mantua'ssecretary, by name Matthioli, was arrested in 1679 through the agencyof Abbe d'Estrade and M. de Catinat, and taken with the utmostsecrecy to Pignerol, where he was imprisoned and placed in charge ofM. de Saint-Mars. He must not, however, be confounded with the Manin the Iron Mask.Catinat says of Matthioli in a letter to Louvois "No one knows thename of this knave:Louvois writes to Saint-Mars: "I admire your patience in waiting foran order to treat such a rogue as he deserves, when he treats youwith disrespect."Saint-Mars replies to the minister: "I have charged Blainvilliers toshow him a cudgel and tell him that with its aid we can make thefroward meek."Again Louvois writes: "The clothes of such people must be made tolast three or four years."This cannot have been the nameless prisoner who was treated with suchconsideration, before whom Louvois stood bare-headed, who wassupplied with fine linen and lace, and so on.Altogether, we gather from the correspondence of Saint-Mars that theunhappy man alluded to above was confined along with a mad Jacobin,and at last became mad himself, and succumbed to his misery in 1686.Voltaire, who was probably the first to supply such inexhaustiblefood for controversy, kept silence and took no part in thediscussions. But when all the theories had been presented to thepublic, he set about refuting them. He made himself very merry, inthe seventh edition of 'Questions sur l'Encyclopedie distibuees enforme de Dictionnaire (Geneva, 1791), over the complaisanceattributed to Louis XIV in acting as police-sergeant and gaoler forJames II, William III, and Anne, with all of whom he was at war.Persisting still in taking 1661 or 1662 as the date when theincarceration of the masked prisoner began, he attacks the opinionsadvanced by Lagrange-Chancel and Pere Griffet, which they had drawnfrom the anonymous 'Memoires secrets pour servir a l'Histoire dePerse'. "Having thus dissipated all these illusions," he says, "letus now consider who the masked prisoner was, and how old he was whenhe died. It is evident that if he was never allowed to walk in thecourtyard of the Bastille or to see a physician without his mask, itmust have been lest his too striking resemblance to someone should beremarked; he could show his tongue but not his face. As regards hisage, he himself told the apothecary at the Bastille, a few daysbefore his death, that he thought he was about sixty; this I haveoften heard from a son-in-law to this apothecary, M. Marsoban,surgeon to Marshal Richelieu, and afterwards to the regent, the Ducd'Orleans. The writer of this article knows perhaps more on thissubject than Pere Griffet. But he has said his say."This article in the 'Questions on the Encyclopaedia' was followed bysome remarks from the pen of the publisher, which are also, however,attributed by the publishers of Kelh to Voltaire himself. Thepublisher, who sometimes calls himself the author, puts aside withoutrefutation all the theories advanced, including that of Baron Heiss,and says he has come to the conclusion that the Iron Mask was,without doubt, a brother and an elder brother of Louis XIV, by alover of the queen. Anne of Austria had come to persuade herselfthat hers alone was the fault which had deprived Louis XIII [thepublisher of this edition overlooked the obvious typographical errorof "XIV" here when he meant, and it only makes sense, that it wasXIII. D.W.] of an heir, but the birth of the Iron Mask undeceivedher. The cardinal, to whom she confided her secret, cleverlyarranged to bring the king and queen, who had long lived apart,together again. A second son was the result of this reconciliation;and the first child being removed in secret, Louis XIV remained inignorance of the existence of his half-brother till after hismajority. It was the policy of Louis XIV to affect a great respectfor the royal house, so he avoided much embarrassment to himself anda scandal affecting the memory of Anne of Austria by adopting thewise and just measure of burying alive the pledge of an adulterouslove. He was thus enabled to avoid committing an act of cruelty,which a sovereign less conscientious and less magnanimous would haveconsidered a necessity.After this declaration Voltaire made no further reference to the IronMask. This last version of the story upset that of Sainte-Foix.Voltaire having been initiated into the state secret by the Marquisde Richelieu, we may be permitted to suspect that being naturallyindiscreet he published the truth from behind the shelter of apseudonym, or at least gave a version which approached the truth, butlater on realising the dangerous significance of his words, hepreserved for the future complete silence.We now approach the question whether the prince who thus became theIron Mask was an illegitimate brother or a twin-brother of Louis XIV.The first was maintained by M. Quentin-Crawfurd; the second by AbbeSoulavie in his 'Memoires du Marechal Duc de Richelieu' (London,1790). In 1783 the Marquis de Luchet, in the 'Journal des Gens duMonde' (vol. iv. No. 23, p. 282, et seq.), awarded to Buckingham thehonour of the paternity in dispute. In support of this, he quotedthe testimony of a lady of the house of Saint-Quentin who had been amistress of the minister Barbezieux, and who died at Chartres aboutthe middle of the eighteenth century. She had declared publicly thatLouis XIV had consigned his elder brother to perpetual imprisonment,and that the mask was necessitated by the close resemblance of thetwo brothers to each other.The Duke of Buckingham, who came to France in 1625, in order toescort Henrietta Maria, sister of Louis XIII, to England, where shewas to marry the Prince of Wales, made no secret of his ardent lovefor the queen, and it is almost certain that she was not insensibleto his passion. An anonymous pamphlet, 'La Conference du CardinalMazarin avec le Gazetier' (Brussels, 1649), says that she wasinfatuated about him, and allowed him to visit her in her room. Sheeven permitted him to take off and keep one of her gloves, and hisvanity leading him to show his spoil, the king heard of it, and wasvastly offended. An anecdote, the truth of which no one has everdenied, relates that one day Buckingham spoke to the queen with suchpassion in the presence of her lady-in-waiting, the Marquise deSenecey, that the latter exclaimed, "Be silent, sir, you cannot speakthus to the Queen of France!" According to this version, the Man inthe Iron Mask must have been born at latest in 1637, but the mentionof any such date would destroy the possibility of Buckingham'spaternity; for he was assassinated at Portsmouth on September 2nd,1628.After the taking of the Bastille the masked prisoner became thefashionable topic of discussion, and one heard of nothing else. Onthe 13th of August 1789 it was announced in an article in a journalcalled 'Loisirs d'un Patriote francais', which was afterwardspublished anonymously as a pamphlet, that the publisher had seen,among other documents found in the Bastille, a card bearing theunintelligible number "64389000," and the following note: "Fouquet,arriving from Les Iles Sainte-Marguerite in an iron mask." To thisthere was, it was said, a double signature, viz. "XXX," superimposedon the name "Kersadion." The journalist was of opinion that Fouquethad succeeded in making his escape, but had been retaken andcondemned to pass for dead, and to wear a mask henceforward, as apunishment for his attempted evasion. This tale made someimpression, for it was remembered that in the Supplement to the'Siecle de Louis XIV' it was stated that Chamillart had said that"the Iron Mask was a man who knew all the secrets of M. Fouquet."But the existence of this card was never proved, and we cannot acceptthe story on the unsupported word of an anonymous writer.>From the time that restrictions on the press were removed, hardly aday passed without the appearance of some new pamphlet on the IronMask. Louis Dutens, in 'Correspondence interceptee' (12mo, 1789),revived the theory of Baron Heiss, supporting it by new and curiousfacts. He proved that Louis XIV had really ordered one of the Dukeof Mantua's ministers to be carried off and imprisoned in Pignerol.Dutens gave the name of the victim as Girolamo Magni. He also quotedfrom a memorandum which by the wish of the Marquis de Castellane wasdrawn up by a certain Souchon, probably the man whom Papon questionedin 1778. This Souchon was the son of a man who had belonged to theFree Company maintained in the islands in the time of Saint-Mars, andwas seventy-nine years old. This memorandum gives a detailed accountof the abduction of a minister in 1679, who is styled a "minister ofthe Empire," and his arrival as a masked prisoner at the islands, andstates that he died there in captivity nine years after he wascarried off.Dutens thus divests the episode of the element of the marvellous withwhich Voltaire had surrounded it. He called to his aid the testimonyof the Duc de Choiseul, who, having in vain attempted to worm thesecret of the Iron Mask out of Louis XV, begged Madame de Pompadourto try her hand, and was told by her that the prisoner was theminister of an Italian prince. At the same time that Dutens wrote,"There is no fact in history better established than the fact thatthe Man in the Iron Mask was a minister of the Duke of Mantua who wascarried off from Turin," M. Quentin-Crawfurd was maintaining that theprisoner was a son of Anne of Austria; while a few years earlierBouche, a lawyer, in his 'Essai sur l'Histoire de Provence' (2 vols.4to, 1785), had regarded this story as a fable invented by Voltaire,and had convinced himself that the prisoner was a woman. As we see,discussion threw no light on the subject, and instead of beingdissipated, the confusion became ever "worse confounded."In 1790 the 'Memoires du Marechal de Richelieu' appeared. He hadleft his note-books, his library, and his correspondence to Soulavie.The 'Memoires' are undoubtedly authentic, and have, if not certainty,at least a strong moral presumption in their favour, and gained thebelief of men holding diverse opinions. But before placing under theeyes of our readers extracts from them relating to the Iron Mask, letus refresh our memory by recalling two theories which had not stoodthe test of thorough investigation.According to some MS. notes left by M. de Bonac, French ambassador atConstantinople in 1724, the Armenian Patriarch Arwedicks, a mortalenemy of our Church and the instigator of the terrible persecutionsto which the Roman Catholics were subjected, was carried off intoexile at the request of the Jesuits by a French vessel, and confinedin a prison whence there was no escape. This prison was the fortressof Sainte-Marguerite, and from there he was taken to the Bastille,where he died. The Turkish Government continually clamoured for hisrelease till 1723, but the French Government persistently deniedhaving taken any part in the abduction.Even if it were not a matter of history that Arwedicks went over tothe Roman Catholic Church and died a free man in Paris, as may beseen by an inspection of the certificate of his death preserved amongthe archives in the Foreign Office, one sentence from the note-bookof M. de Bonac would be sufficient to annihilate this theory. M. deBonac says that the Patriarch was carried off, while M. de Feriol,who succeeded M. de Chateauneuf in 1699, was ambassador atConstantinople. Now it was in 1698 that Saint-Mars arrived at theBastille with his masked prisoner.Several English scholars have sided with Gibbon in thinking that theMan in the Iron Mask might possibly have been Henry, the second sonof Oliver Cromwell, who was held as a hostage by Louis XIV.By an odd coincidence the second son of the Lord Protector doesentirely disappear from the page of history in 1659; we know nothingof where he afterwards lived nor when he died. But why should he bea prisoner of state in France, while his elder brother Richard waspermitted to live there quite openly? In the absence of all proof,we cannot attach the least importance to this explanation of themystery.We now come to the promised extracts from the 'Memoires du Marechalde Richelieu':"Under the late king there was a time when every class of society wasasking who the famous personage really was who went by the name ofthe Iron Mask, but I noticed that this curiosity abated somewhatafter his arrival at the Bastille with Saint-Mars, when it began tobe reported that orders had been given to kill him should he let hisname be known. Saint-Mars also let it be understood that whoeverfound out the secret would share the same fate. This threat tomurder both the prisoner and those who showed too much curiosityabout him made such an impression, that during the lifetime of thelate king people only spoke of the mystery below their breath. Theanonymous author of 'Les Memoires de Perse', which were published inHolland fifteen years after the death of Louis XIV, was the first whodared to speak publicly of the prisoner and relate some anecdotesabout him."Since the publication of that work, liberty of speech and thefreedom of the press have made great strides, and the shade of LouisXIV having lost its terrors, the case of the Iron Mask is freelydiscussed, and yet even now, at the end of my life and seventy yearsafter the death of the king, people are still asking who the Man inthe Iron Mask really was."This question was one I put to the adorable princess, beloved of theregent, who inspired in return only aversion and respect, all herlove being given to me. As everyone was persuaded that the regentknew the name, the course of life, and the cause of the imprisonmentof the masked prisoner, I, being more venturesome in my curiositythan others, tried through my princess to fathom the secret. She hadhitherto constantly repulsed the advances of the Duc d' Orleans, butas the ardour of his passion was thereby in no wise abated, the leastglimpse of hope would be sufficient to induce him to grant hereverything she asked; I persuaded her, therefore, to let himunderstand that if he would allow her to read the 'Memoires duMasque' which were in his possession his dearest desires would befulfilled."The Duc d'Orleans had never been known to reveal any secret ofstate, being unspeakably circumspect, and having been trained to keepevery confidence inviolable by his preceptor Dubois, so I felt quitecertain that even the princess would fail in her efforts to get asight of the memoranda in his possession relative to the birth andrank of the masked prisoner; but what cannot love, and such an ardentlove, induce a man to do?"To reward her goodness the regent gave the documents into her hands,and she forwarded them to me next day, enclosed in a note written incipher, which, according to the laws of historical writing, Ireproduce in its entirety, vouching for its authenticity; for theprincess always employed a cipher when she used the language ofgallantry, and this note told me what treaty she had had to sign inorder that she might obtain the documents, and the duke the desire ofhis heart. The details are not admissible in serious history, but,borrowing the modest language of the patriarchal time, I may say thatif Jacob, before he obtained possession of the best beloved ofLaban's daughters, was obliged to pay the price twice over, theregent drove a better bargain than the patriarch. The note and thememorandum were as follows:"'2. 1. 17. 12. 9. 2. 20. 2. 1. 7. 1420. 10. 3. 21. 1. 11. 14. 1. 15. 16. 12.17. 14. 2. 1. 21. 11. 20. 17. 12. 9. 14.9. 2. 8. 20. 5. 20. 2. 2. 17. 8. 1. 2. 20.9. 21. 21. 1. 5. 12. 17. 15. 00. 14. 1. 15.14. 12. 9. 21. 5. 12. 9. 21. 16. 20. 14.8. 3."'NARRATIVE OF THE BIRTH AND EDUCATION OF THE UNFORTUNATE PRINCE WHOWAS SEPARATED FROM THE WORLD BY CARDINALS RICHELIEU AND MAZARIN ANDIMPRISONED BY ORDER OF LOUIS XIV."'Drawn up by the Governor of this Prince on his deathbed."'The unfortunate prince whom I brought up and had in charge tillalmost the end of my life was born on the 5th September 1638 at 8.30o'clock in the evening, while the king was at supper. His brother,who is now on the throne, was born at noon while the king was atdinner, but whereas his birth was splendid and public, that of hisbrother was sad and secret; for the king being informed by themidwife that the queen was about to give birth to a second child,ordered the chancellor, the midwife, the chief almoner, the queen'sconfessor, and myself to stay in her room to be witnesses of whateverhappened, and of his course of action should a second child be born."'For a long time already it had been foretold to the king that hiswife would give birth to two sons, and some days before, certainshepherds had arrived in Paris, saying they were divinely inspired,so that it was said in Paris that if two dauphins were born it wouldbe the greatest misfortune which could happen to the State. TheArchbishop of Paris summoned these soothsayers before him, andordered them to be imprisoned in Saint-Lazare, because the populacewas becoming excited about them--a circumstance which filled the kingwith care, as he foresaw much trouble to his kingdom. What had beenpredicted by the soothsayers happened, whether they had really beenwarned by the constellations, or whether Providence by whom HisMajesty had been warned of the calamities which might happen toFrance interposed. The king had sent a messenger to the cardinal totell him of this prophecy, and the cardinal had replied that thematter, must be considered, that the birth of two dauphins was notimpossible, and should such a case arrive, the second must becarefully hidden away, lest in the future desiring to be king heshould fight against his brother in support of a new branch of theroyal house, and come at last to reign."'The king in his suspense felt very uncomfortable, and as the queenbegan to utter cries we feared a second confinement. We sent toinform the king, who was almost overcome by the thought that he wasabout to become the father of two dauphins. He said to the Bishop ofMeaux, whom he had sent for to minister to the queen, " Do not quitmy wife till she is safe; I am in mortal terror." Immediately afterhe summoned us all, the Bishop of Meaux, the chancellor M. Honorat,Dame Peronete the midwife, and myself, and said to us in presence ofthe queen, so that she could hear, that we would answer to him withour heads if we made known the birth of a second dauphin; that it washis will that the fact should remain a state secret, to prevent themisfortunes which would else happen, the Salic Law not havingdeclared to whom the inheritance of the kingdom should come in casetwo eldest sons were born to any of the kings."'What had been foretold happened: the queen, while the king was atsupper, gave birth to a second dauphin, more dainty and morebeautiful than the first, but who wept and wailed unceasingly, as ifhe regretted to take up that life in which he was afterwards toendure such suffering. The chancellor drew up the report of thiswonderful birth, without parallel in our history; but His Majesty notbeing pleased with its form, burned it in our presence, and thechancellor had to write and rewrite till His Majesty was satisfied.The almoner remonstrated, saying it would be impossible to hide thebirth of a prince, but the king returned that he had reasons of statefor all he did."'Afterwards the king made us register our oath, the chancellorsigning it first, then the queen's confessor, and I last. The oathwas also signed by the surgeon and midwife who attended on the.queen, and the king attached this document to the report, taking bothaway with him, and I never heard any more of either. I remember thatHis Majesty consulted with the chancellor as to the form of the oath,and that he spoke for a long time in an undertone to the cardinal:after which the last-born child was given into the charge of themidwife, and as they were always afraid she would babble about hisbirth, she has told me that they often threatened her with deathshould she ever mention it: we were also forbidden to speak, even toeach other, of the child whose birth we had witnessed."'Not one of us has as yet violated his oath; for His Majesty dreadednothing so much as a civil war brought about by the two children borntogether, and the cardinal, who afterwards got the care of the secondchild into his hands, kept that fear alive. The king also commandedus to examine the unfortunate prince minutely; he had a wart abovethe left elbow, a mole on the right side of his neck, and a tiny warton his right thigh; for His Majesty was determined, and rightly so,that in case of the decease of the first-born, the royal infant whomhe was entrusting to our care should take his place; wherefore herequired our signmanual to the report of the birth, to which a smallroyal seal was attached in our presence, and we all signed it afterHis Majesty, according as he commanded. As to the shepherds who hadforetold the double birth, never did I hear another word of them, butneither did I inquire. The cardinal who took the mysterious infantin charge probably got them out of the country."'All through the infancy of the second prince Dame Peronete treatedhim as if he were her own child, giving out that his father was agreat nobleman; for everyone saw by the care she lavished on him andthe expense she went to, that although unacknowledged he was thecherished son of rich parents, and well cared for."'When the prince began to grow up, Cardinal Mazarin, who succeededCardinal Richelieu in the charge of the prince's education, gave himinto my hands to bring up in a manner worthy of a king's son, but insecret. Dame Peronete continued in his service till her death, andwas very much attached to him, and he still more to her. The princewas instructed in my house in Burgundy, with all the care due to theson and brother of a king."'I had several conversations with the queen mother during thetroubles in France, and Her Majesty always seemed to fear that if theexistence of the prince should be discovered during the lifetime ofhis brother, the young king, malcontents would make it a pretext forrebellion, because many medical men hold that the last-born of twinsis in reality the elder, and if so, he was king by right, while manyothers have a different opinion."'In spite of this dread, the queen could never bring herself todestroy the written evidence of his birth, because in case of thedeath of the young king she intended to have his twin-brotherproclaimed. She told me often that the written proofs were in herstrong box."'I gave the ill-starred prince such an education as I should haveliked to receive myself, and no acknowledged son of a king ever had abetter. The only thing for which I have to reproach myself is that,without intending it, I caused him great unhappiness; for when he wasnineteen years old he had a burning desire to know who he was, and ashe saw that I was determined to be silent, growing more firm the morehe tormented me with questions, he made up his mind henceforward todisguise his curiosity and to make me think that he believed himselfa love-child of my own. He began to call me 'father,' although whenwe were alone I often assured him that he was mistaken; but at lengthI gave up combating this belief, which he perhaps only feigned tomake me speak, and allowed him to think he was my son, contradictinghim no more; but while he continued to dwell on this subject he wasmeantime making every effort to find out who he really was. Twoyears passed thus, when, through an unfortunate piece offorgetfulness on my part, for which I greatly blame myself, he becameacquainted with the truth. He knew that the king had lately sent meseveral messengers, and once having carelessly forgotten to lock up acasket containing letters from the queen and the cardinals, he readpart and divined the rest through his natural intelligence; and laterconfessed to me that he had carried off the letter which told mostexplicitly of his birth."'I can recall that from this time on, his manner to me showed nolonger that respect for me in which I had brought him up, but becamehectoring and rude, and that I could not imagine the reason of thechange, for I never found out that he had searched my papers, and henever revealed to me how he got at the casket, whether he was aidedby some workmen whom he did not wish to betray, or had employed othermeans,"'One day, however, he unguardedly asked me to show him the portraitsof the late and the present king. I answered that those that existedwere so poor that I was waiting till better ones were taken beforehaving them in my house."'This answer, which did not satisfy him, called forth the request tobe allowed to go to Dijon. I found out afterwards that he wanted tosee a portrait of the king which was there, and to get to the court,which was just then at Saint-Jean-de-Luz, because of the approachingmarriage with the infanta; so that he might compare himself with hisbrother and see if there were any resemblance between them. Havingknowledge of his plan, I never let him out of my sight."'The young prince was at this time as beautiful as Cupid, andthrough the intervention of Cupid himself he succeeded in gettinghold of a portrait of his brother. One of the upper servants of thehouse, a young girl, had taken his fancy, and he lavished suchcaresses on her and inspired her with so much love, that although thewhole household was strictly forbidden to give him anything withoutmy permission, she procured him a portrait of the king. The unhappyprince saw the likeness at once, indeed no one could help seeing it,for the one portrait would serve equally well for either brother, andthe sight produced such a fit of fury that he came to me crying out,"There is my brother, and this tells me who I am!" holding out aletter from Cardinal Mazarin which he had stolen from me, and makinga great commotion in my house."'The dread lest the prince should escape and succeed in appearing atthe marriage of his brother made me so uneasy, that I sent off amessenger to the king to tell him that my casket had been opened, andasking for instructions. The king sent back word through thecardinal that we were both to be shut up till further orders, andthat the prince was to be made to understand that the cause of ourcommon misfortune was his absurd claim. I have since shared hisprison, but I believe that a decree of release has arrived from myheavenly judge, and for my soul's health and for my ward's sake Imake this declaration, that he may know what measures to take inorder to put an end to his ignominious estate should the king diewithout children. Can any oath imposed under threats oblige one tobe silent about such incredible events, which it is neverthelessnecessary that posterity should know?'"Such were the contents of the historical document given by the regentto the princess, and it suggests a crowd of questions. Who was theprince's governor? Was he a Burgundian? Was he simply a landedproprietor, with some property and a country house in Burgundy? Howfar was his estate from Dijon? He must have been a man of note, forhe enjoyed the most intimate confidence at the court of Louis XIII,either by virtue of his office or because he was a favourite of theking, the queen, and Cardinal Richelieu. Can we learn from the listof the nobles of Burgundy what member of their body disappeared frompublic life along with a young ward whom he had brought up in his ownhouse just after the marriage of Louis XIV? Why did he not attachhis signature to the declaration, which appears to be a hundred yearsold? Did he dictate it when so near death that he had not strengthto 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, cannotundertake to affirm that the document is genuine. Abbe Soulavierelates that he one day "pressed the marshal for an answer to somequestions on the matter, asking, amongst other things, if it were nottrue that the prisoner was an elder brother of Louis XIV born withoutthe knowledge of Louis XIII. The marshal appeared very muchembarrassed, and although he did not entirely refuse to answer, whathe said was not very explanatory. He averred that this importantpersonage was neither the illegitimate brother of Louis XIV, nor theDuke of Monmouth, nor the Comte de Vermandois, nor the Duc deBeaufort, and so on, as so many writers had asserted." He called alltheir writings mere inventions, but added that almost every one ofthem had got hold of some true incidents, as for instance the orderto kill the prisoner should he make himself known. Finally heacknowledged that he knew the state secret, and used the followingwords: "All that I can tell you, abbe, is, that when the prisonerdied at the beginning of the century, at a very advanced age, he hadceased to be of such importance as when, at the beginning of hisreign, Louis XIV shut him up for weighty reasons of state."The above was written down under the eyes of the marshal, and whenAbbe Soulavie entreated him to say something further which, while notactually revealing the secret, would yet satisfy his questioner'scuriosity, the marshal answered, "Read M. de Voltaire's latestwritings on the subject, especially his concluding words, and reflecton them."With the exception of Dulaure, all the critics have treatedSoulavie's narrative with the most profound contempt, and we mustconfess that if it was an invention it was a monstrous one, and thatthe concoction of the famous note in cipher was abominable. "Suchwas the great secret; in order to find it out, I had to allow myself5, 12, 17, 15, 14, 1, three times by 8, 3." But unfortunately forthose who would defend the morals of Mademoiselle de Valois, it wouldbe difficult to traduce the character of herself, her lover, and herfather, for what one knows of the trio justifies one in believingthat the more infamous the conduct imputed to them, the more likelyit is to be true. We cannot see the force of the objection thatLouvois would not have written in the following terms to Saint-Marsin 1687 about a bastard son of Anne of Austria: "I see no objectionto your removing Chevalier de Thezut from the prison in which he isconfined, and putting your prisoner there till the one you arepreparing for him is ready to receive him." And we cannot understandthose who ask if Saint-Mars, following the example of the minister,would have said of a prince "Until he is installed in the prisonwhich is being prepared for him here, which has a chapel adjoining"?Why should he have expressed himself otherwise? Does it evidence anabatement of consideration to call a prisoner a prisoner, and hisprison a prison?A certain M. de Saint-Mihiel published an 8vo volume in 1791, atStrasbourg and Paris, entitled 'Le veritable homme, dit au MASQUE DEFER, ouvrage dans lequel on fait connaitre, sur preuvesincontestables, a qui le celebre infortune dut le jour, quand et ouil naquit'. The wording of the title will give an idea of thebizarre and barbarous jargon in which the whole book is written. Itwould be difficult to imagine the vanity and self-satisfaction whichinspire this new reader of riddles. If he had found thephilosopher's stone, or made a discovery which would transform theworld, he could not exhibit more pride and pleasure. All thingsconsidered, the "incontestable proofs" of his theory do not decidethe question definitely, or place it above all attempts atrefutation, any more than does the evidence on which the othertheories which preceded and followed his rest. But what he lacksbefore all other things is the talent for arranging and using hismaterials. With the most ordinary skill he might have evolved atheory which would have defied criticism at least as successfully, asthe others, and he might have supported it by proofs, which if notincontestable (for no one has produced such), had at least moralpresumption in their favour, which has great weight in such amysterious and obscure affair, in trying to explain, which one cannever leave on one side, the respect shown by Louvois to theprisoner, to whom he always spoke standing and with uncovered head.According to M. de Saint-Mihiel, the 'Man in the Iron Mask was alegitimate son of Anne of Austria and Mazarin'.He avers that Mazarin was only a deacon, and not a priest, when hebecame cardinal, having never taken priest's orders, according to thetestimony of the Princess Palatine, consort of Philip I, Ducd'Orleans, and that it was therefore possible for him to marry, andthat he did marry, Anne of Austria in secret."Old Madame Beauvais, principal woman of the bed-chamber to the queenmother, knew of this ridiculous marriage, and as the price of hersecrecy obliged the queen to comply with all her whims. To thiscircumstance the principal bed-chamber women owe the extensiveprivileges accorded them ever since in this country" (Letter of theDuchesse d'Orleans, 13th September 1713)."The queen mother, consort of Louis XIII, had done worse than simplyto fall in love with Mazarin, she had married him, for he had neverbeen an ordained priest, he had only taken deacon's orders. If hehad been a priest his marriage would have been impossible. He grewterribly tired of the good queen mother, and did not live happilywith her, which was only what he deserved for making such a marriage"(Letter of the Duchesse d'Orleans, 2nd November 1717)."She (the queen mother) was quite easy in her conscience aboutCardinal Mazarin; he was not in priest's orders, and so could marry.The secret passage by which he reached the queen's rooms everyevening still exists in the Palais Royal" (Letter of the Duchessed'Orleans, 2nd July 1719)The queen's, manner of conducting affairs is influenced by thepassion which dominates her. When she and the cardinal conversetogether, their ardent love for each other is betrayed by their looksand gestures; it is plain to see that when obliged to part for a timethey do it with great reluctance. If what people say is true, thatthey are properly married, and that their union has been blessed byPere Vincent the missioner, there is no harm in all that goes onbetween them, either in public or in private" ('Requete civile contrela Conclusion de la Paix, 1649).The Man in the Iron Mask told the apothecary in the Bastille that hethought he was about sixty years of age ('Questions surd'Encyclopedie'). Thus he must have been born in 1644, just at thetime when Anne of Austria was invested with the royal power, thoughit was really exercised by Mazarin.Can we find any incident recorded in history which lends support tothe supposition that Anne of Austria had a son whose birth was keptas secret as her marriage to Mazarin ?"In 1644, Anne of Austria being dissatisfied with her apartments inthe Louvre, moved to the Palais Royal, which had been left to theking by Richelieu. Shortly after taking up residence there she wasvery ill with a severe attack of jaundice, which was caused, in theopinion of the doctors, by worry, anxiety, and overwork, and whichpulled her down greatly" ('Memoire de Madame de Motteville, 4 vols.12mo, Vol i. p. 194)."This anxiety, caused by the pressure of public business, was mostprobably only dwelt on as a pretext for a pretended attack ofillness. Anne of Austria had no cause for worry and anxiety till1649. She did not begin to complain of the despotism of Mazarin tilltowards the end of 1645" (Ibid., viol. i. pp. 272, 273)."She went frequently to the theatre during her first year ofwidowhood, but took care to hide herself from view in her box "(Ibid., vol. i. p. 342).Abbe Soulavie, in vol. vi. of the 'Memoires de Richelieu', publishedin 1793, controverted the opinions of M. de Saint-Mihiel, and againadvanced those which he had published some time before, supportingthem by a new array of reasons.The fruitlessness of research in the archives of the Bastille, andthe importance of the political events which were happening, divertedthe attention of the public for some years from this subject. In theyear 1800, however, the 'Magazin encyclopedique' published (vol. vi.p. 472) an article entitled 'Memoires sur les Problemes historiques,et la methode de les resoudre appliquee a celui qui concerne l'Hommeau Masque de Fer', signed C. D. O., in which the author maintainedthat the prisoner was the first minister of the Duke of Mantua, andsays his name was Girolamo Magni.In the same year an octavo volume of 142 pages was produced by M.Roux-Fazillac. It bore the title 'Recherches historiques etcritiques sur l'Homme au Masque de Fer, d'ou resultent des Notionscertaines sur ce prisonnier'. These researches brought to light asecret correspondence relative to certain negotiations and intrigues,and to the abduction of a secretary of the Duke of Mantua whose namewas Matthioli, and not Girolamo Magni.In 1802 an octavo pamphlet containing 11 pages, of which the authorwas perhaps Baron Lerviere, but which was signed Reth, was published.It took the form of a letter to General Jourdan, and was dated fromTurin, and gave many details about Matthioli and his family. It wasentitled 'Veritable Clef de l'Histoire de l'Homme au Masque de Fer'.It proved that the secretary of the Duke of Mantua was carried off,masked, and imprisoned, by order of Louis XIV in 1679, but it did notsucceed in establishing as an undoubted fact that the secretary andthe Man in the Iron Mask were one and the same person.It may be remembered that M. Crawfurd writing in 1798 had said in his'Histoire de la Bastille' (8vo, 474 pages), "I cannot doubt that theMan in the Iron Mask was the son of Anne of Austria, but am unable todecide whether he was a twin-brother of Louis XIV or was born whilethe king and queen lived apart, or during her widowhood." M.Crawfurd, in his 'Melanges d'Histoire et de Litterature tires dunPortefeuille' (quarto 1809, octavo 1817), demolished the theoryadvanced by Roux-Fazillac.In 1825, M. Delort discovered in the archives several lettersrelating to Matthioli, and published his Histoire de l'Homme auMasque de Fer (8vo). This work was translated into English by GeorgeAgar-Ellis, and retranslated into French in 1830, under the title'Histoire authentique du Prisonnier d'Etat, connu sons le Nom deMasque de Fer'. It is in this work that the suggestion is made thatthe captive was the second son of Oliver Cromwell.In 1826, M. de Taules wrote that, in his opinion, the masked prisonerwas none other than the Armenian Patriarch. But six years later thegreat success of my drama at the Odeon converted nearly everyone tothe version of which Soulavie was the chief exponent. Thebibliophile Jacob is mistaken in asserting that I followed atradition preserved in the family of the Duc de Choiseul; M. le Ducde Bassano sent me a copy made under his personal supervision of adocument drawn up for Napoleon, containing the results of someresearches made by his orders on the subject of the Man in the IronMask. The original MS., as well as that of the Memoires du Duc deRichelieu, were, the duke told me, kept at the Foreign Office. In1834 the journal of the Institut historique published a letter fromM. Auguste Billiard, who stated that he had also made a copy of thisdocument for the late Comte de Montalivet, Home Secretary under theEmpire.M. Dufey (de l'Yonne) gave his 'Histoire de la Bastille' to the worldin the same year, and was inclined to believe that the prisoner was ason of Buckingham.Besides the many important personages on whom the famous mask hadbeen placed, there was one whom everyone had forgotten, although hisname had been put forward by the minister Chamillart: this was thecelebrated Superintendent of Finance, Nicolas Fouquet. In 1837,Jacob, armed with documents and extracts, once more occupied himselfwith this Chinese puzzle on which so much ingenuity had beenlavished, but of which no one had as yet got all the pieces intotheir places. Let us see if he succeeded better than hisforerunners.The first feeling he awakes is one of surprise. It seems odd that heshould again bring up the case of Fouquet, who was condemned toimprisonment for life in 1664, confined in Pignerol under the care ofSaint-Mars, and whose death was announced (falsely according toJacob) on March 23rd, 1680. The first thing to look for in trying toget at the true history of the Mask is a sufficient reason of stateto account for the persistent concealment of the prisoner's featurestill his death; and next, an explanation of the respect shown him byLouvois, whose attitude towards him would have been extraordinary inany age, but was doubly so during the reign of Louis XIV, whosecourtiers would have been the last persons in the world to renderhomage to the misfortunes of a man in disgrace with their master.Whatever the real motive of the king's anger against Fouquet may havebeen, whether Louis thought he arrogated to himself too much power,or aspired to rival his master in the hearts of some of the king'smistresses, or even presumed to raise his eyes higher still, was notthe utter ruin, the lifelong captivity, of his enemy enough tosatiate the vengeance of the king? What could he desire more? Whyshould his anger, which seemed slaked in 1664, burst forth intohotter flames seventeen years later, and lead him to inflict a newpunishment? According to the bibliophile, the king being wearied bythe continual petitions for pardon addressed to him by thesuperintendent's family, ordered them to be told that he was dead, torid himself of their supplications. Colbert's hatred, says he, wasthe immediate cause of Fouquet's fall; but even if this hatredhastened the catastrophe, are we to suppose that it pursued thedelinquent beyond the sentence, through the long years of captivity,and, renewing its energy, infected the minds of the king and hiscouncillors? If that were so, how shall we explain the respect shownby Louvois? Colbert would not have stood uncovered before Fouquet inprison. Why should Colbert's colleague have done so?It must, however, be confessed that of all existing theories, thisone, thanks to the unlimited learning and research of thebibliophile, has the greatest number of documents with the variousinterpretations thereof, the greatest profusion of dates, on itsside.For it is certain--1st, that the precautions taken when Fouquet was sent to Pignerolresembled in every respect those employed later by the custodians ofthe Iron Mask, both at the Iles Sainte-Marguerite and at theBastille;2nd, that the majority of the traditions relative to the maskedprisoner might apply to Fouquet;3rd, that the Iron Mask was first heard of immediately after theannouncement of the death of Fouquet in 1680;4th, that there exists no irrefragable proof that Fouquet's deathreally occurred in the above year.The decree of the Court of justice, dated 20th December 1664,banished Fouquet from the kingdom for life. "But the king was of theopinion that it would be dangerous to let the said Fouquet leave thecountry, in consideration of his intimate knowledge of the mostimportant matters of state. Consequently the sentence of perpetualbanishment was commuted into that of perpetual imprisonment "('Receuil des defenses de M. Fouquet'). The instructions signed bythe king and remitted to Saint-Mars forbid him to permit Fouquet tohold any spoken or written communication with anyone whatsoever, orto leave his apartments for any cause, not even for exercise. Thegreat mistrust felt by Louvois pervades all his letters to Saint-Mars. The precautions which he ordered to be kept up were quite asstringent as in the case of the Iron Mask.The report of the discovery of a shirt covered with writing, by afriar, which Abbe Papon mentions, may perhaps be traced to thefollowing extracts from two letters written by Louvois to Saint-Mars:"Your letter has come to hand with the new handkerchief on which M.Fouquet has written" (18th Dec. 1665 ); "You can tell him that if hecontinues too employ his table-linen as note-paper he must not besurprised if you refuse to supply him with any more" ( 21st Nov.1667).Pere Papon asserts that a valet who served the masked prisoner diedin his master's room. Now the man who waited on Fouquet, and wholike him was sentenced to lifelong imprisonment, died in February1680 (see letter of Louvois to Saint-Mars, 12th March 1680). Echoesof incidents which took place at Pignerol might have reached the IlesSainte-Marguerite when Saint-Mars transferred his "former prisoner"from one fortress to the other. The fine clothes and linen, thebooks, all those luxuries in fact that were lavished on the maskedprisoner, were not withheld from Fouquet. The furniture of a secondroom at Pignerol cost over 1200 livres (see letters of Louvois, 12thDec. 1665, and 22nd Feb, 1666).It is also known that until the year 1680 Saint-Mars had only twoimportant prisoners at Pignerol, Fouquet and Lauzun. However, his"former prisoner of Pignerol," according to Du Junca's diary, musthave reached the latter fortress before the end of August 1681, whenSaint-Mars went to Exilles as governor. So that it was in theinterval between the 23rd March 1680, the alleged date of Fouquet'sdeath, and the 1st September 1681, that the Iron Mask appeared atPignerol, and yet Saint-Mars took only two prisoners to Exilles. Oneof these was probably the Man in the Iron Mask; the other, who musthave been Matthioli, died before the year 1687, for when Saint-Marstook over the governorship in the month of January of that year ofthe Iles Sainte-Marguerite he brought only ONE prisoner thither withhim. "I have taken such good measures to guard my prisoner that Ican answer to you for his safety" ('Lettres de Saint-Mars a Louvois',20th January 1687).In the correspondence of Louvois with Saint-Mars we find, it is true,mention of the death of Fouquet on March 23rd, 1680, but in his latercorrespondence Louvois never says "the late M. Fouquet," but speaksof him, as usual, as "M. Fouquet" simply. Most historians have givenas a fact that Fouquet was interred in the same vault as his fatherin the chapel of Saint-Francois de Sales in the convent churchbelonging to the Sisters of the Order of the Visitation-Sainte-Marie,founded in the beginning of the seventeenth century by Madame deChantal. But proof to the contrary exists; for the subterraneanportion of St. Francis's chapel was closed in 1786, the last personinterred there being Adelaide Felicite Brulard, with whom ended thehouse of Sillery. The convent was shut up in 1790, and the churchgiven over to the Protestants in 1802 ; who continued to respect thetombs. In 1836 the Cathedral chapter of Bourges claimed the remainsof one of their archbishops buried there in the time of the Sistersof Sainte-Marie. On this occasion all the coffins were examined andall the inscriptions carefully copied, but the name of NicolasFouquet is absent.Voltaire says in his 'Dictionnaire philosophique', article "Ana,""It is most remarkable that no one knows where the celebrated Fouquetwas buried."But in spite of all these coincidences, this carefully constructedtheory was wrecked on the same point on which the theory that theprisoner was either the Duke of Monmouth or the Comte de Vermandoiscame to grief, viz. a letter from Barbezieux, dated 13th August1691, in which occur the words, "THE PRISONER WHOM YOU HAVE HAD INCHARGE FOR TWENTY YEARS." According to this testimony, which Jacobhad successfully used against his predecessors, the prisoner referredto could not have been Fouquet, who completed his twenty-seventh yearof captivity in 1691, if still alive.We have now impartially set before our readers all the opinions whichhave been held in regard to the solution of this formidable enigma.For ourselves, we hold the belief that the Man in the Iron Mask stoodon the steps of the throne. Although the mystery cannot be said tobe definitely cleared up, one thing stands out firmly establishedamong the mass of conjecture we have collected together, and that is,that wherever the prisoner appeared he was ordered to wear a mask onpain of death. His features, therefore, might during half a centuryhave brought about his recognition from one end of France to theother; consequently, during the same space of time there existed inFrance a face resembling the prisoner's known through all herprovinces, even to her most secluded isle.Whose face could this be, if not that of Louis XVI, twin-brother ofthe Man in the Iron Mask?To nullify this simple and natural conclusion strong evidence will berequired.Our task has been limited to that of an examining judge at a trial,and we feel sure that our readers will not be sorry that we have leftthem to choose amid all the conflicting explanations of the puzzle.No consistent narrative that we might have concocted would, it seemsto us, have been half as interesting to them as to allow them tofollow the devious paths opened up by those who entered on the searchfor the heart of the mystery. Everything connected with the maskedprisoner arouses the most vivid curiosity. And what end had we inview? Was it not to denounce a crime and to brand the perpetratorthereof? The facts as they stand are sufficient for our object, andspeak more eloquently than if used to adorn a tale or to prove aningenious theory.