The man with the iron mask

by Marius Topin

FOOTNOTES:

[13] We shall speak of these briefly further on. We believe it useless to mention, otherwise than in a short note, the opinion of those who, despairing of finding the solution of the Man with the Iron Mask, have taken upon themselves to deny his existence. All the documents which we have just cited (official despatches of the Ministry of War, Dujonca’s Journal, &c. &c.) clearly establish the fact that a prisoner was sent with Saint-Mars to the Bastille in 1698, and that he died there in 1703, without any one ever having known his name. The silence of the Mémoires de Saint-Simon, which is very thoughtlessly evoked in support of the theory in question, will be explained very naturally in the course of this work. Neither is there any need to enlarge upon an opinion put forward a short time since in certain journals, which makes the Man with the Iron Mask a son of Louis XIV. and the Duchess of Orléans. This opinion, which there is nothing whatever to prove, which rests upon no document, nor even upon any historical fact, is, moreover, set forth in an article filled with errors. The only cause of the disgrace of the Marquis de Vardes, exiled to his government of Aigues-Mortes, was an intrigue in which he played an important part, and which had for its object the overthrow of Mademoiselle de la Vallière and the substitution of another mistress for her. As to the death of the Duchess of Orléans, it is now demonstrated that it was not due to poison. M. Mignet, in his Négociations Relatives, à la Succession d’ Espagne (vol. iii. p. 206), was the first to deny this poisoning, relying principally on a very conclusive despatch from Lionne to Colbert, of the 1st July, 1670. Since then, M. Littré, in the second number of La Philosophie Positive, has incontestably established by the examination of the procès-verbaux, and of all the circumstances relating to the death of Henrietta of England, that it must be attributed to an internal disease, unknown to the physicians of that period. [The Duchess of Orléans here referred to is Henrietta-Maria, youngest daughter of Charles I. of England, who married Philip, younger brother of Louis XIV., and first Duke of the existing branch of the House of Orléans.—Trans.]

[14] Grandeur et Décadence des Romains, chap. iv.

[15] The grave English historian, David Hume, has re-echoed this theory, supported also by the Marquis de Luchet, in his Remarques sur le Masque de Fer, 1783.

[16] The Mémoires Secrets pour servir à l’ Histoire de Perse, Amsterdam, 1745, had already revealed the existence of Saint-Mars’ prisoner, and maintained that he was the Duke de Vermandois, a natural son of Louis XIV. and Mademoiselle de la Vallière. We shall recur to them when considering this theory, in the same way as we shall speak, with reference to the principal theories put forward, of the works which have discussed them, without regard to the period at which they have appeared.

[17] Siècle de Louis XIV., chap. xxv.

[18] Voltaire, Dictionnaire Philosophique, vol. i. p. 375, 376. Edition of 1771.

[19] London, 1790. It is known that Soulavie used the notes and papers of the Marshal de Richelieu with such bad faith, that the Duke de Fronsac launched an energetic protest against his father’s ex-secretary.

[20] “Account of the birth and education of the unfortunate prince removed by the Cardinals Richelieu and Mazarin from society, and imprisoned by order of Louis XIV., composed by the governor of the prince on his deathbed.” (Mémoires du Maréchal de Richelieu, vol. iii. chap. 4.)

[21] This story is closely reproduced in Grimm’s Correspondence, on the assumed authority of an original letter from the Duchess de Modena, daughter of the Regent d’Orléans, said to have been found by M. de la Borde, a former valet-de-chambre of Louis XV., among the papers of Marshal Richelieu, who was the Duchess’s lover.—See Corespondence Littéraire, Philosophique, &c., de Grunen et de Diderot, vol. xiv., pp. 419-23. Paris, 1831.—Trans.

[22] Mercure de France.

[23] Le Masque de Fer of MM. Arnould and Fournier, played with great success at the Odéon Theatre in 1831.

[24] Le Vicomte de Bragelonne, by Alexander Dumas.

[25] Histoire de France, vol. xii. p. 435. “If Louis XVI. told Marie-Antoinette that nothing was any longer known about him, it is because, understanding her well, he had little desire of this secret being sent to Vienna. Very probably the child was an elder brother of Louis XIV., and his birth obscured the question (important to them) of knowing if their ancestor, Louis XIV., had reigned legitimately.”

[26] I shall not examine in detail the hypothesis which makes him a child of Anne of Austria and Mazarin, since it is abandoned even by those who are the most eager to see a brother of Louis XIV. in the prisoner. “It is doubtful,” says M. Michelet, “if the prisoner had been a younger brother of Louis XIV., a son of the Queen and Mazarin, whether the succeeding kings would have kept the secret so well.” Moreover, the general arguments which I shall advance in Chapter V. will apply equally to a son of Mazarin, of Buckingham, or of Louis XIII.