 Chapter 1, Part 1 of Celebrated Crimes, Volume 6, Part 2, by Alexander Dumas. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Russell Newton. Celebrated Crimes, Volume 6, Part 2, by Alexander Dumas. Chapter 1, Part 1. The Man in the Iron Mask. An Essay. For nearly 100 years, this curious problem has exercised the imagination of writers of fiction, and of drama, and the patience of the learned in history. No subject is more obscure and elusive, and none more attractive to the general mind. It is a legend to the meaning of which none can find the key, and yet in which everyone believes. Involuntarily, we feel pity at the thought of that long captivity surrounded by so many extraordinary precautions, and when we dwell on the mystery which envelop the captive, that pity is not only deepened, but a kind of terror takes possession of us. It is very likely that if the name of the hero of this gloomy tale had been known at the time, he would now be forgotten. To give him a name would be to relegate him at once to the ranks of those commonplace offenders who quickly exhaust our interest and our tears. But this being 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 his punishment, a prison within a prison, as if the walls of a mere cell were not narrow enough, would come to typify for us the sum of all the human misery and suffering ever inflicted by unjust tyranny. Who was the man in the iron mask? Was he wrapped away into this silent seclusion from the luxury of a court, from the intrigues of diplomacy, from the scaffold of a traitor, from the clash of battle? What did he leave behind, love, glory, or a throne? What did he regret when hope had fled? Did he pour forth implications and curses on his tortures and blaspheme against high heaven, or did he with a sigh possess his soul in patience? The blows of fortune are differently received according to the different characters of those on whom they fall, and each one of us who in imagination threads the subterranean passages leading to the cells of pinearole and exiles, and incarcerates himself in the ill Saint Marguerite and in the Bastille. The successive scenes of that long protracted agony will give the prisoner of form shaped by his own fancy and a grief proportioned to his own power of suffering. How he longed to pierce the thoughts and feel the heartbeats and watch the trickling tears behind that machine-like exterior, that impassable mask. Our imagination is powerfully excited by the dumbness of that fate borne by one whose words never reached the outward air, whose thoughts could never be read on the hidden features, by the isolation of forty years secured by two-fold barriers of stone and iron, and she closed the object over contemplation in majestic splendor, pierced the mystery which enveloped his existence with mighty interests, and persists in regarding the prisoner's sacrifice for the preservation of some dynastic secret involving the peace of the world and the stability of a throne. And when we calmly reflect on the whole case, do we feel that our first impulsively adopted opinion was wrong? Do we regard our belief as a poetical illusion? I do not think so. On the contrary, it seems to me that our good sense approves our fancy's flight, more natural than the conviction that the secret of the name, age, and features of the captive, which was so perseveringly kept through long years at the cost of so much care, was of vital importance to the government. No ordinary human passion, such as anger, hate, or vengeance, has so dogged and enduring a character. We feel that the measures taken were not the expression of a love of cruelty. For even supposing that Louis XIV were the most cruel of princes, must he not have chosen one of the thousand methods of torture ready to his hand before inventing a new and strange one? Moreover, why did he voluntarily burden himself with the obligation of surrounding a prisoner with such numberless precautions and such sleepless vigilance? Must he not have feared that in spite of it all, the walls behind which he concealed the dread mystery would one day let in the light? Was it not through his entire reign a source of unceasing anxiety? And yet he respected the life of the captive whom it was so difficult to hide, and the discovery of whose identity would have been so dangerous. It would have been so easy to bury the secret in an obscure grave, and yet the order was never given. Was this an expression of hate, anger, or any other passion? Certainly not. The conclusion we must come to in regard to the conduct of the king is that all the measures he took against the prisoner were dictated by purely political motives, and his conscience, while allowing him to do everything necessary to guard the secret, did not permit him to take the further step of putting an end to the days of an unfortunate man who in all probability was guilty of no crime. Courtiers are seldom obsequious to the enemies of their master, so that we may regard the respect and consideration shown to the man in the mask by the governor, St. Mars, and the minister, Levois, as a testimony, 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 without feeling my blood boil at the abominable abuse of power, the heinous crime of which he was the victim. A few years ago, Monsieur Fournier and I, thinking the subject suitable for a representation on the stage, undertook to read, before dramatizing it, all the different versions of the affair which had been published up to that time, which was successfully performed at the Odeon. Two other versions have appeared. One was in the form of a letter addressed to the Historical Institute by Monsieur Biliard, who upheld the conclusions arrived at by Sulavi, on whose narrative our play was founded. The other was a work by the bibliophile Jacob, who followed a new system of inquiry and whose book displayed the results of deep research and extensive reading. It did not, however, cause me to change my opinion. Even had it been published before I had written my drama, the idea as to the most probable solution of the problem which I had arrived at in 1831. Not only because it was incontestably the most dramatic, but also because it is supported by those moral presumptions which have such weight with us when considering a dark and doubtful question like the one before us. It will be objected, perhaps, that dramatic writers in their love of the marvelous and the pathetic neglect logic and strain after effect, their aim being to obtain the applause of the gallery rather than the approbation of the learned. But to this it may be replied that the learned on their part sacrifice a great deal to their love of dates, more or less exact. To their desire to elucidate some point which had hitherto been considered obscure, and which their explanations do not always clear up. To the temptation to display their proficiency in the ingenious art of manipulating facts and figures culled from a dozen musty volumes into one consistent whole. Our interest in this strange case of imprisonment arises not alone from its completeness and duration, but also from our uncertainty as to the motives from which it was inflicted where erudition alone cannot suffice, where bookworm after bookworm, disdaining the conjectures of his predecessors, comes forward with a new theory founded on some forgotten document he has hunted out only to find himself in his turn pushed into oblivion by some follower in his track. We must turn for guidance to some other light than that of scholarship, especially if on strict investigation we find that not one 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 was relentlessly subjected to this torture till the moment of his death, what we need in order to restrain our fancy is mathematical demonstration and not philosophical induction. While I do not go so far as to assert positively that Abbe Solevi has once and for all lifted the veil which hid the truth, I am yet persuaded that no other system of research is superior to his, and that no other suggested solution has so many presumptions in its favor. I have not reached this firm conviction on account of the great and prolonged success of our drama, but because of the ease with which all the opinions adverse to those of the Abbe may be annihilated by pitting them one against the other. The qualities that make for success being quite different in a novel and in a drama, I could easily have founded a romance on the fictitious loves of Buckingham and the Queen or on a supposed secret marriage between her and Cardinal Mazarene, calling to my aid a work by a San Miguel with the bibliophile declares he has never read, although it is assuredly neither rare nor difficult of access. I might also have merely expanded my drama, restoring to the personages therein their true names and relative positions, both of which the exigencies of the stage has sometimes obliged me to alter, and while allowing them to fill the same parts, making them act more in accordance with historical fact. No fable, however far-fetched, no grouping of characters, however improbable, can, however, destroy the interest which the innumerable writings about the iron mask excite, although no two agree in details, and although each author and each witness declares himself in possession of complete knowledge. No work, however mediocre, however worthless even, which has appeared on this subject has ever failed of success, not even, for example, the strange jumble of Chevalier de Mohi, a kind of literary braggart, who was in the pay of Voltaire and whose work was published anonymously in 1746 by Pierre de Haute of The Hague. It is divided into six short parts and bears the title Ulle Vincers Amourable du Père et du Fils An absurd romance by Renaud Warren, and one at least equally absurd by Madame Genard, met with a like-favorable reception. In writing for the theatre, an author must choose one view of a dramatic situation to the exclusion of all others, and in following out this central idea is obliged by the inexorable laws of logic to push aside everything that interferes with its development. A book, on the contrary, is written to be discussed. It brings under the notice of the reader all the evidence produced at a trial which has as yet not reached a definite conclusion, and which in the case before us will never reach it, unless, which is most improbable, some lucky chance should lead to some new discovery. The first mention of the prisoner is to be found in the Memoirs-Cerclits pour servir à l'histoire de Père in one volume by an anonymous author published by the compagnie de l'ébreuil Sossocies de Amsterdam in 1745. Not having any other purpose, says the author page 20, second edition, than to relate facts which are not known or about which no one has written. We refer it once to a fact which has hitherto almost escaped notice concerning Prince Giafer, Louis de Bourbon, Comte de Vérmendois, son of Louis XIV, and mademoiselle de la Vallière, who was visited by Ali Mamajou, the Duke d'Orléans, the regent, Prince of Ispahan, the Bastille, in which he had been in prison for several years. The visit had probably no other motive than to make sure that this Prince was really alive, he having been reputed dead of the plague for over 30 years, and his obsequies having been celebrated in presence of an entire army. Cha Abbas, Louis XIV, had a legitimate son, Seffi Mirza, Louis de France, and a natural son, Giafer. These two princes, as dissimilar in character as in birth, were always rivals, and always at enmity with each other. One day, Giafer so far forgot himself as to strike Seffi Mirza. Cha Abbas, having heard of the insult offered to the heir to the throne, assembled his most trusted counselors and laid the conduct of the culprit before them, conduct which, according to the law of the country, was punishable with death, an opinion in which they all agreed. One of the counselors, however, sympathizing more than the others with the distress of Cha Abbas, would be sent to the army, which was then on the frontiers of Fidrun, Flanders, and that his death from plague should be given out a few days after his arrival. Then, while the whole army was celebrating his obsequies, he should be carried off by night in the greatest secrecy to the stronghold on the Isle of Ormus, Se Magari, and there imprisoned for life. This course was adopted and carried out by faithful and discreet agents. The prince, whose premature death was mourned by the army, to the Isle of Ormus, was placed in the custody of the commandant of the island, who had received orders beforehand not to allow any person, whatever, to see the prisoner. A single servant, who was in possession of the secret, was killed by the escort on the journey and his face so disfigured by dagger thrusts that he could not be recognized. The commandant treated his prisoner with the most profound respect. He waited on him at meals himself, taking the dishes from the cooks at the door of the apartment, in the face of Giafair. One day it occurred to the prince to scratch his name on the back of a plate with his knife. One of the servants into whose hands the plate fell ran with it at once to the commandant, hoping he would be pleased and reward the bearer. But the unfortunate man was greatly mistaken, for he was at once made away with that his knowledge of such an important secret might be buried with himself. Giafair remained several years in the castle Ormus and was then transported to the fortress of Ispahan. Having received the governorship of Ispahan as a reward for his faithful service. At Ispahan, as at Ormus, whenever it was necessary on account of illness or any other cause to allow anyone to approach the prince, he was always masked and several trustworthy persons have asserted that they had seen the masked prisoner often and had noticed that he used the familiar to when addressing the governor while the latter showed his charge the greatest respect. As Giafair survived Shah Abbas and Sefi Mirza by many years, it may be asked why he was never set at liberty, but it must be remembered it would have been impossible to restore a prince to his rank and dignities whose tomb actually existed and of whose burial there were not only living witnesses, but documentary proofs, the authenticity of which it would have been useless to deny, so formless of the belief which had lasted down to the present day that Giafair died of the plague and camp when with the army on the frontiers of Flanders. Majou died shortly after the visit he paid to Giafair. This version of the story, which is the original source of all the controversy on the subject was at first generally received as true. On a critical examination, it fitted in very well with certain events which took place in the reign of Louis XIV. The Comte de Vimondois had in fact left the court for the camp very soon after his reappearance there, for he had been banished by the king from his presence some time before for having, in company with several young nobles, indulged in the most reprehensible excesses. The king says Mademoiselle de Montponsier Memoirs de Mademoiselle de Montponsier Volume 14, page 474 of Memoirs Relatives d'Histoire de France, second series published by Petito had not been satisfied with his conduct and refused to see him. The young prince had caused his mother much sorrow but had been so well lectured that it was believed that he had at last turned over a new leaf. He only remained four days at court, reached the camp before Courteray, early in November 1683, was taken ill on the evening of the 12th and died on the 19th of the same month of a malignant fever. Mademoiselle de Montponsier says that the Comte de Vimondois 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 struck the dolphin, everyone would have heard of the monstrous crime, and yet it is nowhere spoken of, except in the Memoirs de Pius. What renders the story of the blow still more improbable is the difference in age between the two princes. The dolphin who already had a son, the Duke de Borgogne, more than a year old, was born the 1st November 1661 and was therefore six years older than the Comte de Vimondois. But the most complete answer to the tale is to be found in a letter written by Barbazue to Saint-Mars, dated the 13th August 1691. When you have any information to send me, relative to the prisoner who has been in your charge for twenty years, I most earnestly enjoin on you to take the same precautions as when you write to Monsieur de la Voix. The Comte de Vimondois, the official registration of whose death bears the date 1685, cannot have been twenty years as a prisoner in 1691. Six years after the man in the mask had been thus delivered over to the curiosity of the public, the Cycle de Louis, the 14th, two volumes, Octavo Berlin, 1751, was published by Voltaire under the pseudonym of Monsieur de Franceville. Everyone turned to this work, which had been long expected for details relating to the mysterious prisoner about whom everyone was talking. Voltaire ventured at length to speak more openly of the prisoner than anyone had hitherto done and to treat as a matter of history an event long ignored by all historians. Vol. 2, page 11, first edition, Chapter 15. He assigned an approximate date to the beginning of this captivity some months after the death of Cardinal Mazarin, 1661. He gave a description of the prisoner who, according to him, was young and dark complexioned. His figure was above the middle height and well proportion. His features were exceedingly handsome and his bearing was noble. When he spoke, his voice inspired interest. He never complained of his lot and no hint as to his rank nor was the mask forgotten. The part which covered the chin was furnished with steel springs which allowed the prisoner to eat without uncovering his face. And lastly, he fixed the date of the death of the nameless captive who was buried, he says, in 1704 by night in the Paris Church of St. Paul. Voltaire's narrative coincided with the account given in the memoir de Paris, saved for the admission led in the first instance to the imprisonment of Giaferre. The prisoner, says Voltaire, was sent to the Île-Saint-Marguerite and afterwards to the Bastille in charge of a trusty official. He wore his mask on the journey and his escort had orders to shoot him if he took it off. The Marquis de Levoix visited him while he was on the islands and when speaking to him stood all the time in a respectful attitude. The prisoner was removed to the Bastille comfortably as could be managed in that building. He was supplied with everything he asked for especially with the finest linen and the costliest lace in both of which his taste was perfect. He had a guitar to play on, his table was excellent and the governor rarely sat in his presence. End of Chapter 1, Part 1. Chapter 1, Part 2 of Celebrated Crimes, Vol. 6, Part 2 by Alexandre Dumas. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Josh Kibbe. Celebrated Crimes, Vol. 6, Part 2 by Alexandre Dumas. Chapter 1, Part 2. Voltaire added a few further details which had been given him by Monsieur de Bruneville, the successor to Monsieur de Sainte-Marre and by an old physician of the Bastille who had attended the prisoner whenever his health required him but he had never seen his face although he had often seen his tongue and his body. He also asserted that Monsieur de Chamiar was the last minister who was in the secret and that when his son-in-law Marshal de la Fouillade besought him on his knees, de Chamiar being on his deathbed, to tell him the name of the man in the iron mask, the minister replied that he was under a solemn oath never to reveal the secret it being in a fairer state. In these details which the Marshal acknowledges to be correct, Voltaire adds a remarkable note. What increases our wonder is that when the unknown captive was sent to the Île-Saint-Magarite no percentage of note disappeared from the European stage. The story of the Compte de Vormendois in the Blow was treated as an absurd and romantic invention which does not even attempt to keep within the bounds of the possible by Baron C., according to P. Marchand, Baron Cringin in a letter inserted in the bibliothèque raisonnée des ouvragés des savants des d'Europe. June 1745 The discussion was revived somewhat later, however, and a few Dutch scholars were supposed to be responsible for a new theory founded on history. The foundations proving somewhat shaky, however, a quality which it shares, we must say, with all the other theories which have ever been advanced. According to this new theory, the masked prisoner was a young foreign nobleman groom of the chambers to Anne of Austria and the real father of Louis XIV. This anecdote appears first in a duodesimo volume printed by Pierre Martaud at Cologne in 1692 and which bears the title The Loves of Anne of Austria Concert of Louis XIII with Monsieur la CDR, the real father of Louis XIV, King of France. Being a minute account of the measures taken to give an heir to the throne of France, the influences at work to bring this to pass, and the denouement to the comedy. The title, reliable, ran through five editions, bearing dates successively 1692, 1693, 1696, 1722, and 1738. In the title of the edition of 1696, the words Cardinal de Richelieu are inserted in place of the initial CDR, but that this is only a printer's error everyone who reads the work will perceive. Some have thought that the three letters did for Compte Rivière, others for Compte Rochefort, whose memoirs compiled by Cendras de Cortiles supply these initials. The author of the book was an orange writer in the pay of William III and its object was, he says, to unveil the great mystery of iniquity which hid the true origin of Louis XIV. He goes on to remark that the knowledge of this fraud, although comparatively rare outside France, was widely spread within her borders. The well-known coldness of Louis XIII, the extraordinary birth of Louis Doudon, so called because he was born in the 23rd year of a childless marriage, and several other remarkable circumstances connected with the birth all point clearly to a father other than the Prince, whose great effrontery is passed off by his adherents as such. The famous barricades of Paris and the organized revolt led by distinguished men against Louis XIV on his accession to the throne proclaimed aloud the King's illegitimacy, so that it rang through the country, and as the accusation had reason on its side, hardly anyone doubted its truth. We give below a short abstract of the narrative, the plot of which is rather skillfully constructed. Cardinal Richelieu, looking with satisfied pride at the love of Gaston, Duc de Arlen, brother of the King, for his niece Parisiatis, Madame de Combele, formed the plan of uniting the young couple in marriage. Gaston, taking this suggestion as an insult, struck the cardinal. Per Joseph then, tried to gain the cardinal's consent and that of his niece to an attempt to deprive Gaston of the throne, which the childless marriage of Louis XIII seemed to assure him. A young man, the CDR of the book, was introduced into Anne of Austria's room, who though a wife in name, had long been a widow in reality. She defended herself, but feebly, and on seeing the cardinal next day said to him, well, you have had your wicked will, but take good care, sir cardinal, that I may find above the mercy and goodness which you have tried by many pious sophistries to convince me as awaiting me. Watch over my soul I charge you, for I have yielded. The queen, having given herself up to love for some time, the joyful news that she would soon become a mother began to spread over the kingdom. And this manner was born Louis XIV, the putative son of Louis XIII. If this installment of the tale be favourably received, says the pamphleteer, the sequel will soon follow, in which the sad fate of CDR will be related, who was made to pay dearly for a short-lived pleasure. Although the first part was a great success, the promised sequel never appeared. It must be omitted that such a story, though it never convinced a single person of the illegitimacy of Louis XIV, was an excellent prologue to the tale of the unfortunate lot of the man in the iron mask, and increased the interest and curiosity with which that singular historical mystery was regarded. But the views of the Dutch scholars thus set forth, met with little credence, and were soon forgotten in a new solution. The third historian to write about the prisoner of the Il Saint Magarite was Le Grand Chancel. He was just twenty-nine years of age, when, excited by Frérin's hatred of Voltaire, he addressed a letter from his country-place, Antoniat, in Paragord, to the Aeneid Literaire, vol. 3, page 188, demolishing the theory advanced in the SIEC-La de Louis XIV, and giving facts which he had collected whilst himself imprisoned in the same place as the unknown prisoner twenty years later. My detention in the Il Saint Magarite, says Le Grand Chancel, brought many things to my knowledge, which a more painstaking historian than Monsieur de Voltaire would have taken the trouble to find out. For at the time when I was taken to the islands, the imprisonment of the man in the iron mask was no longer regarded as the state secret. This extraordinary event, which Monsieur de Voltaire places in 1662, a few months after the death of Cardinal Mezzarin, did not take place till 1669, eight years after the death of his eminence. Monsieur de la Mont-Gorain, commandant of the islands in my time, assured me that the prisoner was the Duke de Beaufort, who was reported killed at the Siege of Candia, but whose body had never been recovered, as all the narratives of that event are green-stating. He also told me that Monsieur de Saint-Marre, who succeeded Pignol's governor of the islands, showed great consideration for the prisoner that he waited on a table that the service was of silver and that the clothes supplied to the prisoner were as costly as he desired. That when he was ill and in need of a physician or surgeon, he was obliged of death to wear his mask in their presence, but that when he was alone, he was permitted to pull out the hairs of his beard with steel tweezers, which were kept bright and polished. I saw a pair of these, which had been actually used for this purpose in the possession of Monsieur de Fourmanois, nephew of Saint-Marre, and lieutenant of a free company raised for the purpose of guarding the prisoners. Several persons told me that when Saint-Marre who had been placed over the bestial conducted his charge thither, the latter was heard to say behind his iron mask the king designs on my life, to which Saint-Marre replied, No, my prince, your life is safe, you must only let yourself be guided. I also learned from a man called Dubesson, cashier to the well known Samuel Bernard, who, having been imprisoned for some years in the bestial, was removed to the Île-Saint-Margaret, where he was confined along with some others in a room exactly over the one occupied by the unknown prisoner. He told me that they were able to communicate with him by means of the flu of the chimney, but on asking him why he persisted in not revealing his name and the cause of his imprisonment, he replied that such an avowal would be fatal not only to him but to those to whom he made it. Whether it were so or not, today the name and rank of this political victim are secrets the preservation of which is no longer necessary to the state, and I have thought that to tell the public what I know would cut short the long chain of circumstances which everyone was forging according to his fancy, instigated there too by an author whose gift of relating the most impossible events in such a manner as to make them seem true, has won for all his writings such success, even for his vie to Charles XII. This theory, according to Jacob, is more probable than any of the others. Beginning with the year 1664 he says, the Duke de Beaufort had by his insubordination and levity endangered the success of several maritime expeditions. In October 1666, Louis XIV were menstruated with him with much tact, begging him to try to make himself more and more capable in the service of his king by cultivating the talents with which he was endowed, and ridding himself of the faults which spoiled his conduct. I do not doubt he concludes that he will be all the more grateful to me for this mark of my benevolence towards you when you reflect how few kings have ever shown their goodwill in a similar manner. Ouvre de Louis XIV, Volume 5, Page 388 Several calamities in the Royal Navy are known to have been brought about by the Duke de Beaufort. Monsieur Eugene Su, in his Histoire de la Marine, which is full of new and curious information, is drawn a very good picture of the position of the Roix d'Al, the king of the markets, in regard to Colbert and Louis XIV. Colbert wished to direct all the maneuvers of the fleet from his study, while it was commanded by the naval grandmaster in the capricious manner which might be expected from his factious character and love of bluster. Eugene Su, Volume 1, Pièce Justificavité. In 1699, Louis XIV sent the Duke de Beaufort to the relief of Candia, which the Turks were besieging. Seven hours after his arrival, Beaufort was killed in a sortie. The Duke de Nevaille, who shared with him the commander of the French squadron, simply reported his death as follows. He met a body of Turks who were pressing our troops hard, placing himself at the head of the latter, he fought valiantly, but had lengthed his soldiers, abandoned him, and we have not been able to learn his fate. Memoir du Duke de Nevaille, Book 4, Page 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 he would one day reappear as his body had never been recovered. Guy Patine mentions this belief, which he did not share in two of his letters. Several wagers have been laid that the Duke de Beaufort is not dead. Oh, Utenam! Guy Patine, September 26, 1669. It is said that M. de Beaufort has been granted by commission the post of Vice Admiral of France for 20 years. But there are many who believe that the Duke de Beaufort is not dead, but imprisoned in some Turkish island. Believe this, who may? I don't. He is really dead, and the last thing I should desire would be to be as dead as he. Ibn January 14, 1670. The following are the objections to this theory. In several narratives written by eyewitnesses of the Siege of Candia, says Jacob, it is related that the Turks, according to their custom, despoiled the body and cut off the head of the Duke de Beaufort on the field of battle, and that the latter was afterwards exhibited at Constantinople. And this may account for some of the details given by Sanders de Cortilles, in his memoir de Marquis de Montbran, and in his memoir d'Altanien, for one can easily imagine that the naked, headless body might escape recognition. Monsieur Eugene Su, in his Histoire de la Marraine, volume 2, chapter 6, had adopted this view, which coincides with the account left by Philippe de Gérée and the Marquis de Ville, the messengers of whose letters and memoir to be found in the bibliothèque du Roi. In the first volume, of the Histoire de la Detention de Phyllis-Sole fait des gens de lettre à la Bastille, etc., we find the following passage. Without dwelling on the difficulty and danger of an abduction, which an Ottoman cimetar might any day during this memorable siege render unnecessary, we shall restrict ourselves to declaring positively that the correspondence of Saint-Mar from 1669 to 1680 gives us no ground for supposing that the governor of Pignol had any great prisoner of state in his charge during that period of time, except Fouquet and Lausanne. While we profess no blind faith and the conclusions arrived at by the learned critic, we would yet add to the considerations on which he relies another, vis that it is most improbable that Louis XIV should ever have considered it necessary to take such rigorous measures against the Duke de Beaufort. Truculent and self-confident as he was, he never acted against the royal authority in such a manner as to oblige the king to strike him down in secret. And it is difficult to believe that Louis XIV, peaceably seated on his throne with all the enemies of his minority under his feet, should have revenged himself on the Duke as an old fronteur. The critic calls our attention to another fact also adverse to the theory under consideration. The man in the iron mask loved Fine Linen in rich lace. He was reserved in character and possessed of extreme refinement and none of this suits the portraits of the Wa de Al, which contemporary historians have drawn. Regarding the anagram of the name Marchiali, the name under which the death of the prisoner was registered, Hick Amaral, as a proof we cannot think that the jailer's opinion Aral amused themselves in propounding conundrums to exercise the keen intellect of their contemporaries. And moreover, the same anagram would apply equally well to the count of Armandois, who was made Admiral when only twenty-two months old. Abbe Pepon and his Romans through Provence, paid a visit to the prison in which the iron mask was confined and thus speaks. It was to the ill-scent margarite that the famous prisoner with the iron mask, whose name has never been discovered, headed at the end of the last century. Very few of those attached to his service were allowed to speak to him. One day, as Monsieur de Saint-Marre was conversing with him, standing outside his door in a kind of corridor so as to be able to see from a distance everyone who approached, the son of one of the governor's friends hearing the voices came up. Saint-Marre quickly closed the door of the room and rushing to meet the young man, asked him with an air of great anxiety if he had overheard anything that was said. Having convinced himself that he had heard nothing, the governor sent the young man away the same day and wrote to the father that the adventure was like to have cost the son dear and that he had sent him back to his home to prevent any further imprudence. I was curious enough to visit the room in which the unfortunate man was imprisoned on the 2nd of February, 1778. It is lighted by one window to the north, overlooking the sea about 15 feet above the terrace where the centuries paced to and fro. This window was pierced through a very thick wall and the embrasure barricaded by three iron bars, thus separating the prisoner from the sentries by a distance of over two fathoms. I found an officer of the free company in the fortress who was nigh on four score years old. He told me that his father, who had belonged to the same company, had often related to him how a friar had seen something white floating on the water under the prisoner's window. On being fished out and carried to Monsieur de Saint-Marre, it proved to be a shirt of very fine material loosely folded together and covered with writing from end to end. Monsieur de Saint-Marre spread it out and read a few words. Then turning to the friar who had brought it, he asked him in an embarrassed manner if he had been led by curiosity to read any of the writing. The friar protested repeatedly that he had not read a line, but nevertheless he was found dead in bed two days later. This incident was told so often to my informant by his father and by the chaplain of the 4th of that time that he regarded it as incontestably true. The following fact also appears to me to be equally well established by the testimony of many witnesses. I collected all the evidence I could on the spot and also in the Lorraine Monastery where the tradition is preserved. A female attendant being wanted for the prisoner, a woman of the village of Mangein offered herself for the place being under the impression that she would thus be able to make her children's fortune. But on being told that she would not only never be allowed to see her children again, but would be cut off from the rest of the world as well, she refused to be shut up with the prisoner whom it cost so much to serve. I may mention here that at the two outer angles of the wall of the fort which faced the sea, two centuries were placed with orders to fire on any boat which approached within a certain distance. The prisoner's personal attendant died in the Eel Saint Marguerite. The brother of the officer whom I mentioned above was partly in the confidence of Monsieur de Saint-Marre and he often told how he was summoned to the prison once at midnight in order to remove a corpse and that he carried it on his shoulders to the burial place feeling certain it was the prisoner who was dead. But it was only his servant and it was then that an effort was made to supply his place by a female attendant. Abba Pépong gives some curious details, heather too unknown to the public, but as he mentions no names his narrative cannot be considered as evidence. Voltaire never replied to Lagrange in cell who died the same year in which his letter was published. Ferron, desiring to revenge himself for the scathing portrait which Voltaire had drawn of him in the essays, called to his assistance a more redoubtable adversary than Lagrange in cell Saint-Foix had brought to the front a brand new theory founded on a passage by Hume in an article in the Année littéraire 1768, volume 4 in which he maintained that the man in the iron mask was the Duke of Monmouth, a natural son of Charles II who was found guilty of high treason and beheaded in London on the 15th July 1685. This is what the English historian says It is commonly reported in London that the Duke of Monmouth's life had been saved, one of his adherents who bore striking resemblance to the Duke, having consented to die in his stead, while the real culprit was secretly carried off to France, there to undergo a lifelong imprisonment. End of Chapter 1 Part 2 Chapter 1 Part 3 of Celebrated Crimes, Volume 6 Part 2 by Alexander Dumas. This is LibriVox Recording while capture recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Dave Gillespie Celebrated Crimes, Volume 6 Part 2 by Alexander Dumas Chapter 1 Part 3 The Great Affection which the English felt for the Duke of Monmouth and to his own conviction that the people only needed a leader to induce them to shake off the yoke of James II led him to undertake an enterprise which might possibly have succeeded had been carried out with prudence. He landed at Lyme in Dorset with only 120 men. 6,000 soon gathered around his standard. A few towns declared in his favor, he caused himself to be proclaimed king affirming that he was born in wedlock and that he possessed the proofs of the secret marriage of Charles II and Lucy Waiters his mother. He met the royalists on the battlefield and victories seemed to be on his side when just at the decisive moment his ammunition ran short. Lord Grey who commanded the cavalry beat a 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 personal appearance of the masked prisoner might have been taken as a description of Monmouth who possessed great physical beauty. Saint-Foy had collected every scrap of evidence in favor of his solution of the mystery making use even of the following passage from an anonymous romance called The Loves of Charles II and James II Kings of England. The night of the pretended execution of the Duke of Monmouth the king attended by three men came to the tower and summoned the Duke to his presence. A kind of loose cow was thrown over his head and he was put into a carriage into which the king and his attendants also got and was driven away. Saint-Foy also referred to the alleged visit of Saunders, Ambassador James II paid to the Duchess of Portsmouth after the death of that monarch when the Duchess took occasion to say that she could never forgive King James for consenting to Monmouth's execution in spite of the oath he had taken on the sacred elements at the deathbed of Charles II that he would never take his natural brother's life even in case of rebellion. This the priest replied quickly the king kept his oath. You also records the solemn oath but we cannot say that all the historians agree on this point. A universal history by Duthrie and Gray and the Histoire d'Angleterre by Rapin, Foira and de Barreau do not mention it. Further wrote Saint-Foy called Nellaton who frequented the café per cop much affected by men of letters often related that during the time he was senior apprentice to a surgeon who lived near Port Saint-Antoine he was once taken to the Bastille to bleed a prisoner he was conducted to this prisoner's room by the governor himself and found the patient suffering from violent headache he spoke with an English accent wore a gold flowered dressing gown of black and orange and had his face covered by a napkin knotted behind his head the story does not hold water it would be difficult to form a mask out of a napkin the Bastille had a resident surgeon of its own as well as a physician and apothecary no one could gain access to a prisoner without a written order from a minister even the viaticum could only be introduced by express permission of the lieutenant of police this theory met at first with no objections and seemed to be going to oust all the others thanks perhaps to the combative and restive character of its promulgator who bore criticism badly and to whom no one cared to incense his sword being even more redoubtable than his pen it was known that when Saint Marre journeyed with his prisoner to the Bastille they had put up on the way at Paltault in Champagne a property belonging to the Governor Frérin therefore addressed himself to her grand nephew of Saint Marre who had inherited this estate asking if he could give him any information about this visit the following reply appeared in the N.A. Literaire June 1768 as it appears from the letter of M. de Santoy from which you quote that the man in the iron mask still exercises the fancy of your journalists I am willing to tell you all I know about the prisoner he was known in the islands of Saint Marre and at the Bastille as Latour the Governor and all the other officials showed him great respect and supplied him with everything he asked for that could be granted to a prisoner he often took exercise in the yard of the prison but never without his mask on it was not till the siècle of M. de Valterre appeared that I learned that the mask was of iron and furnished with springs it may be that the circumstance was overlooked but he never wore it except when taking the air or when he had to appear before a stranger M. de Blaine Villier an infantry officer who was acquainted with M. de Saint Marre both at Pignereau and Saint Marguerite has often told me that the lot of Latour greatly excited his curiosity and that he had once borrowed the clothes and arms of a soldier whose turn it was to be sentry on the terrace under the prisoner's window he had sent Marguerite and undertaken the duty himself that he had seen the prisoner distinctly without his mask that his face was white that he was tall and well proportioned except that his ankles were too thick and that his hair was white although he appeared to be still in the prime of life he passed a whole of the night in question pacing to and fro in his room Blaine Villiers added that he was always dressed in brown and that he had plenty of fine linen and books and that the governor and the other officers always stood uncovered in his presence until he gave them leave to cover and sit down and that they often bore him company at table in 1698 M. de Saint Marre was promoted from the governorship of the ill Saint Marguerite in moving feather accompanied by his prisoner he made his estate of Paltot a halting place the masked man arrived in a litter which preceded that of M. de Saint Marre and several mounted men rode beside it the peasants were assembled to greet their liege lord M. de Saint Marre dined with his prisoner who sat with his back to the dining room windows which looked out on the court none of the peasants who might have questioned were able to see whether the man kept his mask on while eating but they all noticed that M. de Saint Marre who sat opposite to his charge laid two pistols beside his plate that only one footman waited at table who went into the interchamber to change the plates and dishes always carefully closing the dining room door behind him when the prisoner crossed the courtyard his face was covered with a black mask but the peasants could see his lips and teeth and remarked that he was tall and had white hair M. de Saint Marre slept in a bed placed beside the prisoners M. de Blaine Villière told me also that as soon as he was dead which happened in 1704 he was buried at St. Paul's and that the coffin was filled with substances which would rapidly consume the body he added I never heard that the masked man spoke with an English accent Saint Foix proved the story related by M. de Blaine Villière to be little worthy of belief showing by a circumstance mentioned in the letter that the imprisoned man could not be the Duke de Beaufort witnessed the epigram of Madame de Choisse M. de Beaufort longed to bite and can't whereas the peasants had seen the prisoners teeth through his mask it appeared as if the theory of Saint Foix were going to stand when a Jesuit father named Griffay who was confessor at the Bastille devoted chapter 13 of his trait a different sort de prévet to the consideration of the iron mask he was the first to quote an authentic document which certifies that the man in the iron mask about whom there was so much disputing really existed this was the written journal of M. de Johnca King's Lieutenant in the Bastille in 1698 from which Pierre Griffay took the following passage on Thursday, September the 8th 1698 at three o'clock in the afternoon M. de Saint-Marre the new governor of the Bastille entered upon his duties he arrived from the islands of Saint Marguerite bringing with him in a litter a prisoner whose name is a secret in whom he had had under his charge there and that pig neural this prisoner who was always missed was at first placed in the Bastille tower where he remained until the evening at nine o'clock p.m. I took him to the third room of the Bertaudier tower which I had already furnished before his arrival with all needful articles having received orders to do so from M. de Saint-Marre while I was showing him the way to his room I was accompanied by M. Rosarje who had also arrived along with M. de Saint-Marre and to his office it was to wait on the said prisoner whose table is to be supplied by the governor Dianca's diary records the death of the prisoner in the following terms Monday 19th October 1703 the unknown prisoner who always wore a black velvet mask in whom M. de Saint-Marre brought with him M. de Saint-Marre in whom he had so long in charge felt slightly unwell yesterday when coming back from miss he died today at 10 p.m. without having a serious illness indeed it could not have been slider M. Rero our chaplain confessed him yesterday but as his death was quite unexpected he did not receive the last sacraments the chaplain was able to exhort him up to the moment of his death he was buried on Tuesday the 20th November at 4 p.m. in the burial ground of St. Paul's our parish church the funeral expenses amounted to 40 lever his name and age were withheld from the priests of the parish the entry made in the parish register which Père Graffet also gives is in the following words on the 19th November 1703 Marcialli aged about 45 died in the Bastille whose body was buried in the graveyard of St. Paul's his parish on the 20th instant in the presence of M. Rosarje and of M. Reel surgeon major of the Bastille signed Rosarje Reel as he was dead everything belonging to him without exception was burned such as his linen, clothes bed and bedding rugs, chairs and even the doors of the room he occupied his service of plate was melted down the walls of his room were scoured and whitewashed and the very floor was renewed from fear of his having hidden a note under it or left some mark by which he could be recognized Père Graffet did not agree with the opinions of either Lyme Grange, Chancel or Saint-Foy but seemed to incline toward the theory set forth in the memoir The Purse against which no irrefutable objections had been advanced he concluded by saying that before arriving in any decision as to who the prisoner really was it would be necessary to ascertain the exact date of his arrival at Pigneirol. Saint-Foy hastened to reply upholding the soundness of the views he had advanced he procured from Eras a copy of an entry in the registers of the cathedral chapter stating that Louis XIV had written with his own hand to the said chapter that they were to admit to Burial the body of the Comte de Vermandois who had died in the city of Courtre that he desired that the deceased should be interred in the center of the choir in the vault in which lay the remains of Elizabeth, Comtesse de Vermandois wife of Philip of Alsac Comte de Flanders who had died in 1182 it is not to be supposed that Louis XIV would have chosen a family vault in which to bury a log of wood Saint-Foy was, however, not acquainted with the letter of Barbizou dated the 13th August 1691 to which we have already referred as a proof that the prisoner was not the Comte de Vermandois it is equally a proof that he was not the Duke of Monmouth as Saint-Foy maintained for a sentence was passed on the Duke of Monmouth in 1685 so that it could not be of him either the Barbizou wrote in 1691 the prisoner whom you have had in charge for 20 years in the very year in which Saint-Foy began to flatter himself that his theory was successfully established Baron Heiss brought a new one forward in a letter dated Falsberg 28th June 1770 and addressed to the Colonel Encyclopédic it was accompanied by a letter translated from the Italian which appeared in the Histoire Abregy de l'Europe by Jacques Bernard published by Claude Jordan Leiden 1685 to 1887 in detached sheets this letter stated that the Duke of Mantua being desirous to sell his capital to the king of France had been dissuaded there from by his secretary and induced to join the other princes of Italy in their endeavors to thwart the ambitious schemes of Louis XIV the Marquis Darcy French ambassador to the court of Savoy having been informed of the secretary's influence distinguished him by all kinds of civilities asked him frequently to table invited him to join a large hunting party two or three leagues outside Turin they sat out together but at a short distance from the city were surrounded by a dozen horsemen who carried off the secretary disguised him put a mask on him and took him to Pignol he was not kept long in this fortress as it was too near the Italian frontier and although he was carefully guarded it was feared that the walls would speak so he was transferred to the ill Saint Marguerite where he is at present in the custody of M. de Saint Marre this theory of which much was heard later did not at first excite much attention what is certain is that the Duke of Mantua's secretary by name Mathioli was arrested in 1679 through the agency of the Abbey de Straude and M. de Katana and was taken with the utmost secrecy to Pignol where he was imprisoned and placed in charge of M. de Saint Marre he must not however be confounded with a man in the iron mask Katana says of Mathioli in a letter to Leroy no one knows the name of this nave Leroy writes to Saint Marre I admire your patience in waiting for an order to treat such a rogue as he deserves when he treats you with disrespect Saint Marre replies to the minister I have charged Blainvilleier to show him a cudgel and tell him that with its aid we can make the forward meek again Leroy writes the clothes of such people must be made to last three or four years this cannot have been the nameless prisoner who was treated with such consideration before whom Leroy stood bareheaded who was supplied with fine linen and lace and so on all together we gather from the correspondence of Saint Marre that the unhappy man alluded to above was confined along with a mad Jacobin and the last became mad himself and succumbed to his misery in 1686 Voltaire who was probably the first to supply such inexhaustible food for controversy kept silence and took no part in the discussions but when all the theories had been presented to the public he set it out refuting them he made himself very murry in the seventh edition of questions, sir, the encyclopedia and form the addiction era over the complacence attributed to Leroy 14 enacting as police sergeant and jailer for James II, William III and Anne with all of whom he was at war persisting still and taking 1661 or 1662 as the date when the incarceration of the masked prisoner began he attacks the opinions advanced by LaGrange, Chancel and Père Griffith which they had drawn from the anonymous memoir Secret Pour Servire Alistoire des Pères having thus dissipated all these illusions, he says let us now consider who the masked prisoner was and how old he was when he died it is evident that if he was never allowed to walk in the courtyard of the Bastille or to see a physician without his mask it must have been lest his two striking resemblance to someone be remarked he could show his tongue but not his face as regards his age he himself told the apothecary at the Bastille a few days before his death that he thought he was about 60 this I have often heard from a son-in-law to this apothecary M. Marcel Mann surgeon to Marshal Richelieu and afterward to the region the Duke d'Orlin the writer of this article knows perhaps more on the subject than Père Griffith but he has said his said end of chapter 1 chapter 1 part 4 of celebrated crimes volume 6 part 2 by Alexander Dumas this is LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Dave Gillespie celebrated crimes volume 6 part 2 by Alexander Dumas chapter 1 part 4 this article in the questions on the encyclopedia was followed by some remarks from the pan of the publisher which are also however attributed by the publishers to Voltaire himself the publisher who sometimes calls himself the author puts aside without refutation all the fear is advanced including that of Baron Heiss and says he has come to the conclusion that the iron mass was without doubt a brother and an elder brother of LibriVox 14 by a lover of the Queen and of Austria had come to persuade herself that hers alone was the fault which had deprived LibriVox 13 of an heir but the birth of the iron mass undeceived her the cardinal to whom she confided her secret cleverly arranged 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 LibriVox 14 remained an ignorance of the existence of his half-brother till after his majority it was a policy of LibriVox 14 to effect a great respect for the Royal House so he avoided much embarrassment to himself and the scandal affecting the memory of Anne of Austria by adopting the wise and just measure of burying alive the pledge of an adulterous love he was thus enabled to avoid committing an act of cruelty which a sovereign less conscientious and less magnanimous would have considered a necessity after this declaration Voltaire made no further reference to the iron mass this latest version of the story upset that of Saint-Foix Voltaire having been initiated into the state secret by the Marquis de Richelieu we may be permitted to suspect that being naturally indiscreet he published the truth from behind the shelter of a pseudonym or at least gave a version which approached the truth but later on realizing the dangerous significance of his words he preserved for the future complete silence we now approach the question whether the prince who thus became the iron mask was an illegitimate brother or twin brother of Louis XIV the first was maintained by M. Quentin Crawford the second by Abbey Sulevi in his memoirs du Maruchel du Richelieu in 1783 the Marquis de Luchet in the journal de Jeanne du Mont awarded to Buckingham the honor of the paternity and dispute in support of this he quoted the testimony of a lady of the house of Saint Quentin who had been in mistresses of the minister Bar-Bazou and who died at Chartres about the middle of the 18th century she had declared publicly that Louis XIV had consigned his elder brother to perpetual imprisonment and that the mask was necessitated by the close resemblance of the two brothers to each other the Duke of Buckingham who came to France in 1625 in order to escort Henrietta Maria sister of Louis XIII to England where she was to marry the Prince of Wales made no secret of his ardent love for the Queen and it is almost certain that she was not insensible to his passion an anonymous pamphlet called Mazarin with La Gazatier says that she was infatuated about him and allowed him to visit her in her room she even permitted him to take off and keep one of her gloves and his vanity leading him to show his spoil the King heard of it and was vastly offended an anecdote the truth of which no one has ever denied relates that one day Buckingham had a passion in the presence of her lady in waiting the Marquise de Sénésie that the latter exclaimed be silent sir, you cannot speak thus to the Queen of France according to this version the man in the iron mask must have been born at latest in 1637 but the mention of any such date would destroy the possibility of Buckingham's paternity for he was assassinated at Portsmouth on September 2nd 1628 after the taking of the Bastille the masked prisoner became the fashionable topic of discussion the one heard of nothing else on the 13th of August 1789 it was announced in an article in a journal called Loissier during the Patriot Francais which was afterwards published anonymously as a pamphlet that the publisher had seen the documents found in the Bastille a card bearing the unintelligible number 6438900 in the following note Foquet arriving from L'Asile Saint Marguerite in an iron mask to this there was it was said a double signature is XXX superimposed on the name Cursadion the journalist was of opinion that Foquet had succeeded in making his escape but had been retaken and condemned to pass for death and to wear a mask hence forward as a punishment for his attempted evasion this tale made some impression for it was remembered that in the supplement to the Siakla de Lurie 14 it was stated that Chameleur had said that the iron mask was a man who knew all the secrets of M. Foquet but the existence of this card was never proven and we cannot accept a story when the unsupported word of an anonymous writer from the time that restrictions on the press were removed hardly a day passed without the appearance of some new pamphlet on the iron mask Louis Dutin in Correspondence Intercepté revived the theory of Baron Heiss supporting it by new and curious facts he proved that Louis 14 had really ordered one of the duke the man to his ministers to be carried off and in prison in Pignol Dutin gave the name of the victim as Girolamma Magni he also quoted from a memorandum which by the wish of the Marquis de Castellan by a certain Tsuchon probably the man whom Pappon questioned in 1778 this Tsuchon was the son of a man who had belonged to the free company maintained in the islands in the time of Saint-Marc and was 79 years old this memorandum gives a detailed account of the abduction of a minister in 1679 who was styled a minister of the empire and his arrival as a masked prisoner at the islands and states that he died there in captivity 9 years after he was carried off Dutin thus divests the episode of the element of the marvelous with which Voltaire had surrounded it he called to his aid the testimony of the Duke de Schwarzul who having in vain attempted to worm the secret of the iron mask out of Louis 15 begged Madame de Pompadour to try her hand and was told by her that the prisoner was the minister of an Italian prince at the same time that Dutin wrote there was no fact in history better established than the fact that the man in the iron mask was a minister of the Duke of Mantua who was carried off from Turin and Madame Quentin Crawford was maintaining that the prisoner was the son of Ann of Austria while a few years earlier a lawyer in his essay Sir Le Histoire de Provence 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 being dissipated the confusion became ever worse confounded in 1790 the memoir du Marichel de Richelieu appeared he had left his notebooks his library and his correspondence to Sulevi the memoirs are undoubtedly authentic and have if not certainty at least a strong moral presumption in their favor and gain the belief of men holding diverse opinions but before placing under the eyes of our readers extracts from them related to the iron mask let us refresh our memory by recalling two theories which had not stood the test of thorough investigation according to some MS notes left by M. de Bonac French Ambassador at Constantinople in 1724 the Armenian patriarch Arvadex and the instigator of the terrible persecutions to which the Roman Catholics were subjected was carried off into exile at the request of the Jesuits by a French vessel and confined in a prison once there was no escape his prison was the fortress of Saint Marguerite and from there he was taken to the Bastille where he died the Turkish government continually clamored for his release until 1723 but the French government persistently denied having taken any part in the abduction even if it were not a matter of history Arvadex went over to the Roman Catholic Church and died a free man in Paris as may be seen by an inspection of the certificate of his death preserved among the archives in the foreign office one sentence from the notebook of M. de Bonac is sufficient to annihilate this dirt M. de Bonac says that the patriarch was carried off M. de Ferriol who succeeded M. de Chatonouf in 1699 was ambassador to Constantinople that was in 1698 that Saint Mar arrived at the Bastille with his masked prisoner several English scholars have sided with Given in thinking that the man in the iron mask might possibly have been Henry the second son of Oliver Cromwell who was held as a hostage by Louis XIV by not coincidence the second son of Lord Protector does not entirely disappear from the page of history in 1659 we know nothing of where he afterward lived nor where he died but why should he be a prisoner of state in France while his elder brother Richard was permitted to live there quite openly in the absence of all proof we cannot attach the least importance to this explanation of the mystery we now come to the promised extracts of the memoirs de Marichel de Richelieu under the late king there was a time when every class of society was asking who the famous personage really was who went by the name of the iron mask but I noticed that this curiosity abated somewhat after his arrival at the Bastille with Saint Mar when it began to be reported that orders had been given to kill him should he let his name be known Saint Mar also let it be understood that the secret would share the same fate this threat to murder both the prisoner and those who showed too much curiosity about him made such an impression that during the lifetime of the late king people only spoke of the mystery below their breath the anonymous author of Les Memoirs de Perce which were published in Holland 15 years after the death of Louis XIV he dared to speak publicly of the prisoner and relate some anecdotes about him since the publication of that work Liberty of Speech and the freedom of the press have made great strides in the shade of Louis XIV having lost its terrors the case of the iron mask is freely discussed and yet even now at the end of my life in 70 years after the death of the king I was asking who the man in the iron mask really was this question was one I put to the adorable princess beloved of the region who inspired in return only aversion and respect all her love being given to me as everyone was persuaded that the region knew the name the course of life and the cause of the imprisonment of the masked prisoner in my curiosity than others tried through my princess to fathom the secret she had hitherto constantly repulsed the advances of the Duke d'Orlin but as the ardor of his passion was thereby and no wise abated the least glimpse of hope would be sufficient to induce him to grant her everything she asked I persuaded her therefore to let him understand that if he would allow her to read the memoirs du masque which were in his possession his dearest desires would be fulfilled the Duke d'Orlin had never been known to reveal any secret of state being unspeakably circumspect and having been trained to keep every confidence inviolable by his preceptor Dubois so I felt quite certain that even the princess would fail in her efforts to get a sight of the memoranda in his possession relative to the birth and rank of the masked prisoner but what cannot love and such an ardent love 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 to the cipher which according to the laws of historical writing I reproduce in its entirety vouching for its authenticity for the princess always employed a cipher when she used the language of gallantry and this note told me what treaty she had to sign in order that she might obtain the documents and the Duke the desire of his heart the details were not admissible in serious history but borrowing the modest language of the patriarchal time I may say that if Jacob before he obtained possession of the best beloved of Laban's daughters was obliged to pay the price twice over the regent drove a better bargain than the patriarch the note and the memorandum were as follows two one seventeen twelve nine two twenty two one seven fourteen twenty ten three twenty one one eleven fourteen one fifteen sixteen twelve seventeen fourteen two one twenty one eleven twenty seventeen twelve nine fourteen nine two eight twenty five twenty two two seventeen eight one two twenty nine twenty one twenty one one five twelve seventeen 15, 0, 0, 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 who was separated from the world by Cardinals Rishalup and Mazarin and imprisoned 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 to almost the end of my life, was born on the 5th September 1638, the 830 o'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 at dinner. But whereas his birth was splendid and public, that of his brother was sad and secret. For the king being informed by the midwife that the queen was about to give birth to a second child, ordered the chancellor, the midwife, the chief almaner, the queen's confessor, and myself to stay in her room to be witnesses of whatever happened 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 his wife would give birth to two sons, and some days before certain shepherds had arrived in Paris saying they were divinely inspired, so that it was said in Paris that if two Dauphans were born it would be the greatest misfortune which could happen to the state. The Archbishop of Paris summoned these soothsayers before him and ordered them to be imprisoned in St. Lazarus because the populace was becoming excited about them, a circumstance which filled the king with care as he foresaw much trouble to his kingdom. What had been predicted by the soothsayers happened, whether they had really been warned by the constellations or whether providence by whom his majesty had been warned of the calamities which might happen to France interposed. The king had sent a messenger to the cardinal to tell him of this prophecy, and the cardinal had replied that the matter must be considered, that the birth of two Dauphans was not impossible. And should such a case arrive, the second must be carefully hidden away. Less than the future desiring to be king, he should fight against his brother in support of a new branch of the royal house and come at last to ring. The king and his suspense felt very uncomfortable, and as the queen began to utter cries, we feared a second confinement. We sent to inform the king who was almost overcome by the thought that he was about to become a father of two Dauphans. He said to the bishop of Moe whom he had sent for to minister to the queen, do not quit my wife so she is safe. I am in mortal terror. Immediately after he summoned us all, the bishop of Moe, the chancellor, M. Honorat, they imperinated the midwife and myself, and said to us in presence of the queen so that she could hear, we would answer to him with our heads if we made known the birth of a second Dauphan. That it was his will that the fact should remain a state secret, to prevent them as fortunes which would else happen. The Salic law not having declared to whom the inheritance of the kingdom should come in case two eldest sons were born to any of the kings. What had been foretold happened. The queen, while the king was at supper, gave birth to a second Dauphan, more dainty and more beautiful than the first, but who wept and wailed unceasingly, as if he regretted to take up that life in which he was afterward to endure such suffering. The chancellor drew up the report of this wonderful birth without parallel in our history, but his majesty not being pleased with its form burned it in our presence, and the chancellor had to write and rewrite so his majesty was satisfied. The almaner remonstrated saying that it would be impossible to hide the birth of a prince, but the king returned that he had reasons of state for all he did. Afterward, the king made his register a oath. The chancellor signed in the first, then the queen's confessor and I last. The oath was also signed by the surgeon and midwife who attended on the queen. And the king attached this document to the report, taking both away with him. And I never heard any more of either. I remember that his 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 the midwife. And as they were always afraid she would babble about his birth, she just told me that they often threatened her with death should she ever mention it. We were also forbidden to speak even to each other of the child whose birth we had witnessed. Not one of us has as yet violated his oath, for his majesty dreaded nothing so much as a civil war brought about by the two children born together. And the cardinal who afterward got the care of the second child into his hands kept that fear alive. The king also commanded us to examine the unfortunate prince my new clean. He had a wart above the left elbow, a mole on the right side of his neck, and the tiny work on his right thigh. For his majesty was determined and rightly so, that in case of the deceased of the first born, the royal infant whom he wasn't trusting to our care should take his place. Wherefore, he required our sign manual to the report of the birth, to which a small royal seal was attached in our presence. And we all signed it after his majesty, according as he commanded. As to the shepherds who had foretold the double birth, never did I hear another word of them, but neither did I inquire. The cardinal who took the mysterious infant in charge probably got them out of the country. All through the infancy of the second prince, Dame Peronet treated him as if he were her own child. Giving out that his father was a great nobleman, for everyone saw by the care she lathered on him and the expense she went to, that although unacknowledged, he was the cherished son of rich parents and well cared for. When the prince began to grow up, Cardinal Mazarin, who succeeded Cardinal Richelieu in the charge of the prince's education, gave him into my hands to bring up in a manner worthy of a king's son, but in secret. Dame Peronet continued in his service till her death, and was very much attached to him. And he still wore to her. The prince was instructed in my house in Burgundy, with all the care due to the son and brother of a king. End of chapter one, part four, chapter one, part five of Celebrated Crimes, volume six, part two, by Alexander Dumas. This is a LibriVox recording, all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Dave Gillespie. Celebrated Crimes, volume six, part two, by Alexander Dumas, chapter one, part five. I had several conversations with the Queen Mother during the Troubles in France, and Your Majesty always seemed to fear that if the existence of the prince should be discovered during the lifetime of his brother, the young king, malcontents would make it a pretext for rebellion, because many medical men hold that the last born of twins is in reality the elder, and if so, he was king by right, while many others have a different opinion. In spite of this dread, the Queen could never bring herself to destroy the written evidence of his birth, because in case of the death of the young king, she intended to have his twin brother proclaimed. She told me often that the written proofs were in her strongbox. I gave the ill-starred prince such an education as I should have liked to receive myself, and no acknowledged son of a king ever had a better. The only thing for which I have to reproach myself is that without intending it, I caused him great unhappiness. For when he was 19 years old, he had a burning desire to know who he was, and as he saw that I was determined to be silent, growing more firm, the more he tormented me with questions. He made up his mind, henceforward, to disguise his curiosity, and make me think that he believed himself a love child of my own. He began to call me father, although when we were alone, I often assured him that he was mistaken. But at length I gave up combating this belief, which he perhaps only feigned to make me speak, and allowed him to think he was my son, contradicting him no more. While he continued to dwell on this subject, he was meantime making every effort to find out who he really was, two years past thus, when, through an unfortunate piece of forgetfulness on my part, for which I greatly blamed myself, he became acquainted with the truth. He knew that the king had lately sent me several messengers, and once having carelessly forgotten to lock up a casket containing letters from the queen and the cardinals, he read part and divined the rest through his natural intelligence, and later confessed to me that he had carried off the letter, which told most explicitly of his birth. I can recall that from this time on, his manner to me showed no longer that respect for me in which I had brought him up, but became hectoring and rude, and that I could not imagine the reason for the change, for I never found out that he had searched my papers, and he never revealed to me how he got at the casket, whether he was aided by some workmen, or he did not wish to betray, or had employed other means. One day, however, he unguardedly asked me to show him the portraits of the late and the present king. I answered that those that existed were so poor that I was waiting till better ones were taken before having them in my house. This answer, which did not satisfy him, called forth the request to be allowed to go to Dijon. I found that afterward that he wanted to see a portrait of the king which was there, and to get to the court, which was just then at Saint John de Luz, because of the approaching marriage with the Infantene, so that he might compare himself with his brother and see if there were any resemblance between them. Having knowledge of his plan, I never let him out of my sight. The young prince was at this time as beautiful as Cupid, and through the intervention of Cupid himself, he succeeded in getting hold of a portrait of his brother. One of the upper servants of the house, young girl, had taken his fancy and he lavished such caresses on her and inspired her with so much love that although the whole household was strictly forbidden to give him anything without my permission, she procured him a portrait of the king. The unhappy prince saw the likeness at once, indeed no one could help seeing it, for the one portrait would serve equally well for either brother, and the 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 a letter from Cardinal Mazaran, which he had stolen from me, and making a great commotion in my house. The dread, lest the prince should escape and succeed in appearing at the marriage of his brother, made me so uneasy that I sent off a messenger to the king to tell him that my casket had been opened and asking for instructions. The king sent back word through the Cardinal that we were both to be shut up till further orders, and that the prince was to be made to understand that the cause of our common misfortune was his absurd claim. I've since shared his prison, but I believe that a decree of release has arrived from my heavenly judge, and for my soul's health, and for my ward's sake. I make this declaration that he may know what measures to take in order to put an end to his ignominious estate, should the king die without children. Can any of imposed under threats oblige one to be silent about such incredible events, which is nevertheless necessary that posterity should know? Such were the contents of the historical document given by the region to the princess, and it suggests a crowd of questions. Who was the princess governor? Was he a Burgundian? Was he simply a landed proprietor with some property in the country house in Burgundy? How far was his estate from Dijon? He must have been a man of note, for he enjoyed most intimate confidence at the court of Louis XIII, either by virtue of his office, or because he was a favorite of the king, the queen, and cardinal Richelieu. Can we learn from the list of the nobles of Burgundy what member of their body disappeared from public life, along with a young ward whom he had brought up in his own house, just after the marriage of Louis XIV? Why did he not attach his signature to the declaration, which appears to be a hundred years old? Did he dictate it when so near death that he had not strength to 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, cannot undertake to affirm that the document is genuine. Abyssalavi relates that he one day pressed the marshal for an answer to some questions on the matter, asking, amongst other things, if it were not true that the prisoner was an elder brother of Louis XIV, born without the knowledge of Louis XIII, the marshal appeared very much embarrassed, and although he did not entirely refuse to answer, what he said was not very explanatory. He have heard that this important personage was neither the illegitimate brother of Louis XIV, nor the Duke of Monmouth, nor the Comte d'Ivermondois, nor the Duke de Beaufort, and so on, as so many writers had asserted. He called all their writings mere inventions, but added that almost every one of them had got hold of some true incidents, as for instance the order to kill the prisoner, should he make himself known. Finally, he acknowledged that he knew the state secret and used the following words. All that I can tell you, Rabi, is that when the prisoner died at the beginning of the century, at a very advanced age, he had ceased to be of such importance as when, at the beginning of his reign, Louis XIV shut him up for weighty reasons of state. The above was written down under the eyes of the Marshal, and when Abbey Sulavi entreated him to say something further, which, while not actually revealing the secret, would yet satisfy his questioner's curiosity, the Marshal answered, read M. de Walters' latest writings on the subject, especially his concluding words, and reflect on them. With the exception of Dular, all the critics have treated Sulavi's narrative with the most profound contempt, and we must confess that if it was an invention, it was a monstrous one, and that the concoction of the famous note and cipher was abominable. Such was the great secret in order to find out, I had to allow myself five, twelve, seventeen, fifteen, fourteen, one, three times by eight, three. But unfortunately for those who would defend the morals of Mademoiselle de Valois, it would be difficult to reduce the character of herself, her lover, and her father, for what one knows of the trio justifies one in believing that the more infamous the conduct imputed to them, the more likely it is to be true. We cannot see the force of the objection that Lavois would not have written in the following terms to Saint Marre in 1687 about a bastard son of Anne of Austria. I see no objection to your removing Chevalet de Faizout from the prison in which he is confined, and putting your prisoner there till the one you are preparing for him is ready to receive him. And we cannot understand those who ask of Saint Marre following the example of the minister would have said of a prince until he is installed in the prison which is being prepared for him here which has a chapel adjoining. Why should he have expressed himself otherwise? Does it evidence an abatement of consideration to call a prisoner a prisoner in this prison a prison? A certain M. de Saint-Michel published in a V.O. Volume in 1791 at Strasbourg in Paris entitled The wording of the title will give an idea of the bizarre and barbarous jargon in which the whole book is written. It would be difficult to imagine the vanity and self-satisfaction which inspire this new reader of riddles. If he had found the philosopher stone or met a discovery which would transform the world he could not exhibit more pride and pleasure. All things considered the incontestable proofs of his theory do not decide the question definitely or place it above all attempts at refutation any more than does the evidence or in which the other theories which preceded and followed his rest. But what he lacks before all other things is the talent for arranging and using his materials. With the most ordinary skill he might have evolved a theory which would have defied criticism at least as successfully as the others and he might have supported it by proofs which have not incontestable for no one has produced such had at least moral presumption in their favor which has great weight in such a mysterious and obscure affair. In trying to explain which one can never leave on one side the respect shown by Levoix to the prisoner to whom he always spoke standing and with uncovered head. According to M. Saint Mihail the man in the iron mask was a legitimate son of Anne of Austria and Mazaran. He avares that Mazaran was only a deacon and not a priest. When he became cardinal have he never taken priest's orders? According to the testimony of the Princess Palantyne consort of Philip I Duc d'Orlin and that it was therefore possible for him to marry and that he did marry Anne of Austria in secret. Old Madame Bovet principal woman of the bed chamber to the queen mother knew of this ridiculous marriage and as the price of her secrecy obliged the queen to comply with all her rins to the circumstance the principal bed chamber remin owe the extensive privileges accorded them ever since in this country. The queen mother consort of Louis XIII had done worse than simply to fall in love with Mazaran. She had married him for he had never been an ordained priest. He had only taken deacons orders. If he had been a priest his marriage would have been impossible. He grew terribly tired of the good queen mother and did not live happily with her. Which was only what he deserved for making such a marriage. She, the queen mother was quite easy in her conscience about Cardinal Mazaran. He was not in priest orders and so could marry. The secret passage by which he reached the queen's rooms every evening still exists in the Palais Royale. The queen's manner of conducting affairs is influenced by the passion which dominates her. When she and the Cardinal converse together their ardent love for each other is betrayed by their looks and gestures. It is plain to see that when obliged to part for a time they do it with great reluctance. If what people say is true that they are properly married and that their union has been blessed by pair Vincent, the missioner there is no harm in all that goes on between them either in public or in private. The man in the iron mask told the apothecary in the best two that he thought he was about 60 years of age. Thus he must have been born in 1644 just at the time when Ann of Austria was invested with the royal power or was really exercised by Mazaran. Can we find any incident recorded in history which lends support to the supposition that Ann of Austria had a son whose birth was kept as secret as her marriage to Mazaran? In 1644 Ann of Austria being dissatisfied with her apartments in the Louvre moved to the Palais Royale which had been left to the king by Richelieu. Shortly after taking up residence there she was very ill with a severe attack of jaundice which was caused in the opinion of the doctors by worry, anxiety and overwork and which pulled her down greatly. This anxiety caused by the pressure of public business was most probably only dwell toy as a pretext for a pretended attack of illness. Ann of Austria had no cause for worry and anxiety until 1649. She did not begin to complain of the depotism of Mazaran till toward the end of 1645. She went frequently to the theater during her first year of widowhood but took care to hide herself from view in her box. Abby Sulevi in volume six of the memoir de Richelieu published in 1793 controverted the opinions of Ann de Saint-Michel and again advanced those which you'd published sometime before supporting them by a new array of reasons. The fruitlessness of research in the archives of the Bastille and the importance of the political events which were happening diverted the attention of the public for some years from the subject. In the year 1800 however the magazine Encyclopédique published an article entitled Memoir sur le problème historique et la méthode de la résorde appliquée à sa vie qui concerne la masque de fer signed CDO in which the author maintained that the prisoner was the first minister of the Duke of Mantua and says that his name was Girolamo Magni. In the same year an octavo volume of 142 pages was produced by M. Roof Fazalak. It bore the title Récerche's historique a critique sur le masque de fer due resultant de la notion sur le temps sur ce prisonier. These researches brought to light a secret correspondence relative to certain negotiations and intrigues and to the abduction of a secretary of the Duke of Mantua whose name was Mathioli and not Girolamo Magni. In 1802 an octavo pamphlet contained in 11 pages of which the author was perhaps Baron Levière but which was signed Reth was published. It took the form of a letter to General Jourdan and was dated from Turin and gave many details about Mathioli and his family. It was entitled Verita Black Clef de l'historique de la masque de fer. It proved that the secretary of the Duke of Mantua was carried off masque and imprisoned by order of Louis XIV in 1679. But it did not succeed in establishing as an undoubted fact that the secretary in the Manning Dyer masque were one and the same person. It may be remembered that M. Crofer writing in 1798 had said in his Louis-Douard de la Bastille I cannot doubt that the man in the iron mask was the son of Anne Vostriev but and unable to decide whether he was a twin brother of Louis XIV or was born while the king and queen lived apart or during her widowhood. M. Crofer in his Mélanger de l'Histoire et de Literature Thérèse de Porta Thule demolished the theory advanced by Rue's Fazelat. In 1825 M. de Lourre discovered in the archives several letters relating to Matthewle and published his Histoire de l'homme au Mesteferre. This work was translated into English by George Agar Ellis and re-translated into French in 1830 under the title Histoire Authentique de prisonier de Ta Canusson's L'Enom de Masque de Ferre. It is in this work that the suggestion is made that the captive was the second son of Oliver Cromwell. In 1826 M. de Thule wrote that in his opinion the masked prisoner was none other than the Armenian patriarch but six years later the great success of my drama at the Odeon converted nearly everyone to the version which Sulavi was the chief exponent. The bibliophile Jacob is mistaken in asserting that I follow the tradition preserved in the family of the Duke de Chrois-Soul. M. Le Duke de Besano sent me a copy made under his personal supervision of a document drawn up from Napoleon containing the results of some research is made by his orders on the subject of the man in the iron mask. The original M.S. as well as that of the memoir de Duke de Richelieu were, the Duke told me kept it the foreign office. In 1834 the Journal of the Institute Historic published a letter from M. Auguste Biliard who stated that he had also made a copy of this document for the late Comte de Montelivet Home Secretary under the Empire. M. du Faye gave his Histoire de la Bastille to the world in Saint-Bierre and was inclined to believe that the prisoner was a son of Buckingham. Besides the many important personages on whom the famous mask had been placed there was one whom everyone had forgotten although his name had been put forward by the minister Chamolillard. This was the celebrated superintendent of finance Nicholas Fouquet. In 1837 Jacob armed with documents and extracts once more occupied himself with this Chinese puzzle in which so much ingenuity had been lavished but of which no one had as yet got all the pieces into their places. Let us see if he succeeded better than his forerunners. The first feeling he awakes is one of surprise. It seems odd he should again bring up the case of Fouquet. Who was condemned to imprisonment for life in 1664 confined in Pignerall under the care of Saint Marre. Andrew's death was announced falsely according to Jacob on March 23rd 1680. The first thing to look for in trying to get at the true history of the mask is a sufficient reason of state to account for the persistent concealment of the prisoner's features till his death and next an explanation of the respect shown him by Lebois whose attitude toward him would have been extraordinary in any age but was doubly so during the reign of Louis XIV whose courtiers would have been the last persons in the world to render homage to the misfortunes of a man in disgrace with their master. Whatever the real motive of the king's anger against Fouquet may have been whether Louis XIII aggregated to himself too much power or aspired to rival his master in the hearts of some of the king's mistresses or even presumed to raise his eyes higher still was not the utter ruin the lifelong captivity of his enemy enough to satiate the vengeance of the king what could he desire more? Why should his anger which seemed slaked in 1664 burst forth into hotter flames 17 years later and lead him to inflict a new punishment according to the bibliophile the king being wearied by the continual petitions for pardon addressed to him by the superintendent's family ordered them to be told that he was dead to rid himself of their supplications Colbert's hatred he said was the immediate cause of Fouquet's fall but even if this hatred hastened the catastrophe are we to suppose that it pursued the delinquent beyond the sentence through the long years of captivity and renewing its energy infected the minds of the king and his counselors if that were so how should we explain the respect shown by Levoix? Colbert would not have stood uncovered before Fouquet in prison why should Colbert's colleague have done so? It must however be confessed that of all existing theories this one thanks to the unlimited learning and research of the bibliophile has the greatest number of documents with the various interpretations thereof the greatest perfusion of dates on its side for the certain first that the precautions taken when Fouquet was sent to Pignereaux resembled in every respect those employed later by the custodians of the iron mask both at the eel sent marguerite and at the best deal second that the majority of the traditions relative to the masked prisoner might apply to Fouquet third that the iron mask was first heard of immediately after the announcement of the death of Fouquet in 1680 fourth that there exists no irrefragable proof that Fouquet's death really 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 the opinion that it would be dangerous to let the said Fouquet leave the country in consideration of his intimate knowledge of the most important matters of state consequently the sentence of perpetual banishment was commuted into that of perpetual imprisonment the instructions signed by the king and remitted to Saint Marre forbid him to permit Fouquet to hold any spoken or written communication with anyone whatsoever or to leave his apartments for any cause not even for exercise the great mistrust felt by Levoix pervades all his letters to Saint Marre the precautions which he ordered to be kept up were quite astringent as in the case of the iron mask the report of the discovery of his shirts covered with writing by a friar which Abby Pépin mentions they perhaps be traced to the following extracts from two letters written by Levoix to Saint Marre your letter has come to hand with a new handkerchief on which M Fouquet has written you can tell him that if he continues to employ his table linen as note paper he must not be surprised if you refuse to supply him with any more Per Pépin asserts that a valet who served the mass prisoner died in his master's room now the man who waited on Fouquet and two like him was sentenced to lifelong imprisonment died in February 1680 echoes of incidents which took place at Pigneurall might have reached the eel Saint Marguerite when Saint Marre transferred his former prisoner from one fortress to the other the fine clothes and linen the books all those luxuries in fact that were lavished on the mass prisoner were not withheld from Fouquet the furniture of a second room at Pigneurall cost over 1200 lever is also known that until the year 1680 Saint Marre had only two important prisoners at Pigneurall Fouquet and Lausanne however is former prisoner of Pigneurall according to the latter fortress before the end of August 1681 when Saint Marre went to exile as governor so that it was in the interval between the 23rd of March 1680 he alleged the date of Fouquet's death and the 1st of September 1681 that the iron mask appeared at Pigneurall and yet Saint Marre took only two prisoners to exile one of these was probably the man in the iron mask the other who must have been Matthew Lee died before the year 1687 for when Saint Marre took over the governorship in the month of January of that year of the eel Saint Marguerite he brought only one prisoner thither with him I've taken such good measures to guard my prisoner that I can answer to you for his safety in the correspondence of Levoix with Saint Marre refined it is true mention of the death of Fouquet on March 23rd 1680 but in his later correspondence Levoix never says the late M. Fouquet but speaks of him as usual as M. Fouquet simply most historians have given as a fact that Fouquet was interred in the same vault as his father in the chapel of Saint François the sale in the convent church belonging to the sisters of the order of the visitation Saint Marie found in the beginning of the 17th century by Madame du Chantal but proof to the contrary exists for the subterranean portion of Saint Francis Chapel was closed in 1786 the last person interred there being Adelaide Felicity Brillard with whom ended the House of Ciliary the convent was shut up in 1790 and the church given over to the Protestants in 1802 who continued to respect the tombs in 1836 the cathedral chapter of Bourges claimed the remains of one of their archbishops buried there in the time of the sisters Saint Marie on this occasion all the coffins were examined and all the inscriptions carefully copied but the name of Nicholas Fouquet is absent Walter says in his Dixionnaire Philosophique article Anna it is most remarkable that no one knows where the celebrated Fouquet was buried but in spite of all these coincidences this carefully constructed theory was wrecked on the same point on which the theory that the prisoner was either the Duke of Mammoth or the comp de Mimmerndois came to grief this a letter from Barbersieu dated 13 August 1691 in which occur the words the prisoner whom you have had in charge for 20 years according to this testimony which Jacob had successfully used against his predecessors the prisoner referred to could not have been Fouquet who completed his 27th year of captivity in 1691 if still alive we now have impartially set before our readers all the opinions which have been held in regard to the solution of this formidable enigma for ourselves we hold the belief that the man in the iron mask stood on the steps of the throne although the mystery cannot be said to be definitely cleared up one thing stands out firmly established among the mass of conjecture we have collected together and that is that wherever the prisoner appeared he was ordered to wear a mask on pain of death his features therefore might during half a century have brought about his recognition from one end of France to the other consequently during the same space of time there existed in France a face resembling the prisoners known through all her provinces even to her most secluded isle whose face could this be if not that of Louis the 14 twin brother of the man in the iron mask to nullify this simple and natural conclusion strong evidence will be required 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 left them to choose amid all the conflicting explanations of the puzzle no consistent narrative that we might have concocted would it seems to us have been half as interesting to them as to allow them to follow the devious paths opened up by those who entered on the search for the heart of the mystery everything connected with the masked prisoner arouses the most vivid curiosity and what ends had we in view was it not to denounce a crime and to brand the perpetrator thereof the facts as they stand are sufficient for our object and speak more eloquently than if used to adorn a tale or to prove an ingenious theory end of chapter one part five end of the man in the iron mask and essay