In order to treat this subject (that of the Iron Mask) methodically, I will begin with what the Duke de Choiseul has often related to me. Lewis the Fifteenth one day told him, that he was acquainted with the history of the prisoner with the Mask. The Duke begged the King to tell him who he was, but he could get no other answer from him, except, that all the conjectures which had been hitherto made with regard to the prisoner, were false. Some time afterwards, Madame de Pompadour, at the request of the Duke, pressed the King to explain himself upon this subject. Lewis the Fifteenth upon this told her, that he believed he was the Minister of an Italian Prince.
No. 132.
Extract from the article on the Iron Mask in the Work entitled “Mélanges d’Histoire et de Littérature;” by Mr. Quintin Craufurd.
Before the publication of the “Correspondance Interceptée,” I had heard it said, that M. de Choiseul had spoken to Lewis the Fifteenth on the subject of the masked prisoner; but that he had not been able to obtain any satisfactory answer. I addressed myself to the Abbé Barthelemi and to the Abbé Beliardi, who had both lived in intimacy with M. de Choiseul: they acquainted me that it was at their request the Duke de Choiseul had spoken upon this subject to Lewis the Fifteenth; that the King had answered him, that he believed the prisoner was a minister of one of the courts of Italy; but that the Duke observed that this conversation appeared to embarrass him. The Abbé Beliardi told me in proper terms, that the King wished to evade the subject. They then begged M. de Choiseul to engage Madame de Pompadour to speak to the King. She did so; but the answer of Lewis the Fifteenth to his mistress was not more instructive, than that which he had given to his Minister.
No. 133
Letter from the Baron de Heiss to the Authors of the “Journal Encyclopédique,” on the subject of the Iron Mask; published in that Journal, in 1770.
Gentlemen,
Since the publication of the anecdote respecting the Man in the Iron Mask, which M. de Voltaire has given us in his “Siècle de Louis XIV.,” I have been always very curious to discover who this prisoner could be; but all my researches had hitherto failed in giving me any information which could content me; chance has placed in my hands a detached number of a work, of which the title is “Histoire abrégée de l’Europe,” for the month of August 1687, printed that same year at Leyden, by “Claude Jordan.” At the article Mantua, I found the letter, which I have the honour to send you a copy of, translated from the Italian. It appears that this Secretary of the Duke of Mantua, who is there mentioned, might very well be the Man in the Iron Mask, transferred from Pignerol to the Islands of Saint Margaret, and from thence to the Bastille, in 1690, when M. de Saint-Mars was made governor of it. I am the more inclined to believe this, because, as M. de Voltaire, and all those who have made researches on this subject, have remarked, there did not at that time disappear any prince, or person of consequence in any part of Europe.