IRON MASK, THE MAN OF THE, was the designation applied to a remarkable personage whose real name was unknown. He was so called because of a black mask which completely concealed his face. This mask was of black velvet, and so constructed by means of springs that the wearer never required to take it off, not even while eating. He was kept in the Castle of Pignerol, from which he was taken (in 1681) to Exelles; thence (in 1687) to the island of St Marguerite; and lastly (in 1698) to the Bastille in Paris. At each of these places he was attended by the same keeper, M. de St Mars. When taken from place to place, armed attendants on horseback were ready to despatch him if he made any attempt to escape, or even to show his face. That the prisoner thus guarded was a person of no small importance is evident from the precautions taken to keep him from being recognised. During his captivity in the Bastille, he was always treated with the greatest consideration. His fare was sumptuous, and his accommodation was the best that could be obtained in the prison. He had a great predilection for lace and extremely fine linen, which were supplied him; indeed he got whatever he asked. He read extensively, and was a good player on the guitar. The physician who attended him at the Bastille
Iron Mask describes him (according to Voltaire) as remarkably well made, with skin rather brown, and tone of voice interesting from the fact that he never complained of his fate, nor dropped any hint of what he might be. The physician at times examined his tongue and various parts of his body, but never saw his countenance. Besides these incidents, there are some interesting anecdotes, showing how important it was considered to keep the man with the mask unknown. It is related that while he was at St Marguerite, he carved with a knife some words on a silver plate, which he threw from a window upon the shore. The plate was picked up by a fisherman, who brought it to the governor of the jail. The words must have contained a complete revelation of the mystery connected with the prisoner, for the governor of the jail (M. de St Mars) detained the fisherman to ascertain whether he had shown the plate to any one. The fisherman assured him that he had not, but it was equally important that he should not have read the words himself; accordingly, the jailer did not let him go till he was certain of the man's inability to read at all. Upon setting him at liberty, M. de St Mars said to him—"It is well for you that you cannot read!" Upon another occasion, the man with the mask had covered a shirt with writing, and got it somehow thrown into the water. It was picked up by a boy and brought to the governor. The boy was asked if he had read any of the writing, but he denied having done so. However, in a few days afterwards he was found dead in his bed. According to another anecdote, a prisoner confined in the apartment immediately above that of the man with the mask, succeeded in carrying on a conversation with him by means of the chimneys. When pressed to tell who he was, the mask replied that his life, and not only his, but the lives of all who might become possessed of the secret, would be sacrificed should he make known the mystery. When about to be removed from St Marguerite to the Bastile, he inquired of his keeper (M. de St Mars) if his life were in danger. The keeper was overheard to answer, "No, Prince, your life is safe," &c. This accords with the respect uniformly paid him, for his governor never sat in his presence. The mysterious individual died in the Bastile on the 19th November 1703. He fell suddenly ill one day after attending mass, and at 10 o'clock on the evening of the following day he died. He was buried on the next day, in the cemetery of St Paul, under the false name of Marchialy. He was considered as being about 45 years of age. Everything belonging to him, his clothes, bed, &c., were committed to the flames. The apartment in which he had been kept was searched to see that he had not concealed any notice by which he might be identified. The walls were scraped and whitewashed anew, and the tiles of the floor changed. To discover the person who was for so many years concealed behind the black mask, was one of the most curious problems in history. All the possible (and some impossible) personages have been successively declared to be the same as this great unknown. In an anonymous book published at Amsterdam in 1745, under the title Secret Memoirs for the History of Persia, the man with the mask was declared to be the Duke of Vermandois, the natural brother of the dauphin. The duke was represented as having given a personal affront to the dauphin, for which offence he was condemned to perpetual imprisonment. These so-called secret memoirs were in reality a history of the intrigues of the French court after the death of Louis XIV., and the persons who figured in the book were disguised under imaginary and Persian names. In 1746 another book appeared with the title of The Man with the Iron Mask, and although it contained an enumeration of adventures not at all applicable to the person of whom we have been speaking, yet from this time he became specifically designated by the title as given above. In 1751 Voltaire's work, The Age of Louis XIV., appeared at Berlin, and contained an account of the unknown person with the mask. The leading parti-
culars of this account, relating to treatment in the Bastile, &c., we have already given. Voltaire takes credit to himself as being the first who had given any proper historical account of the man with the mask. He draws attention to the important fact that, at the time when St Mars and his charge went to St Marguerite, no person of distinction had disappeared in Europe. In 1759, Lagrange-Chaucel endeavoured to show that the unknown was the Duke de Beaufort. In 1768, St Foix threw out the conjecture that the person concerned was the Duke of Monmouth, who was openly executed in London! In 1769 some particulars were brought to light by Griffet in the discovery of the manuscript journal of Dujonca, a lieutenant du roi in the Bastile in 1698. These particulars related to the death, burial, &c., of the unknown, which we have given already. In 1770 an attempt was made by Baron d'Heiss to identify him as Matthioli, secretary to the Duke of Mantua, who had been seized and confined in the Castle of Pignerol. Voltaire appeared again on the subject in the seventh edition of the Dictionnaire Philosophique, in which he corrected some inaccuracies into which he had formerly fallen, but throws no new light on the subject. It has, indeed, been asked how Voltaire should come to know so much about the man with the mask as he pretends? It has been suggested that he was the author of the Persian Memoirs, although he afterwards called it a contemptible and obscure tract; and that his inaccuracies regarding dates, &c., in his Age of Louis XIV. (which was published under the assumed name of Francheville), were intentional, his purpose being, if possible, to draw out such as might possess any authentic documents on the subject. If so, in failing to clear up one mystery, he seems willing to have created another, for he concludes the notice of which we are speaking by the remarkable sentence—"He who writes this perhaps knows more about the subject than Father Griffet, and will say no more about it." The editor of the said dictionary suggests that the unknown may have been an elder brother of Louis XIV., an illegitimate son of Anne of Austria, by Cardinal Mazarini or the Duke of Buckingham, brought up secretly in order to prevent scandal in the royal family and dissensions in the kingdom. In 1789 a document was passed off as having been discovered at the Bastile, oracularly settling the question by the words, "Fouquet arriving from St Marguerite with an iron mask . . .," in a mass of unintelligible notes. Cubière suggested that the unknown prisoner was a twin-brother of Louis XIV., and in 1790 appeared the Memoirs of Cardinal Richelieu, which contained a document with the following title:—"Account of the birth and education of the unfortunate Prince, abducted from society by the Cardinals Richelieu and Mazarin, and confined by order of Louis XIV.; drawn up by the governor of this Prince on his death-bed." According to the narrative the Prince, who was educated secretly by order of his father, one day saw a portrait of Louis XIV., and at once perceived its likeness to himself. He was immediately masked and imprisoned as before described. It need scarcely be added that there is great difficulty in the way of accepting the document under consideration as authentic. In 1800 the claims of Matthioli were revived by Roux-Fazillac, and defended by Delort in 1825. Several of the persons already mentioned were also again successively supposed to be the mysterious prisoner; new names, however, such as that of Henry Cromwell, being added to the list. In 1837 some able researches were published by Jacob, in which the belief is supported that the statesman Fouquet was the prisoner. It is contended that the prosecutions taken in the case of Fouquet were precisely similar to those taken in the case of the prisoner with the mask; and that it was immediately after the pretended death of Fouquet that the prisoner with the mask appeared. More recently Lord Dover took up the subject, and supported the belief that Count Matthioli, before-mentioned, was the mysterious unknown.