The man with the iron mask

by Marius Topin

[Facsimile of the entry in the Registers of the Church of Saint-Paul at Paris, recording the death of the Man with the Iron Mask.]

THE
MAN WITH THE IRON MASK.

By MARIUS TOPIN.

TRANSLATED AND EDITED
By HENRY VIZETELLY,
AUTHOR OF
“THE STORY OF THE DIAMOND NECKLACE.”

“No one must know what has become of this man.”
Order of Louis XIV.

LONDON:
SMITH, ELDER AND CO., 15, WATERLOO PLACE.
1870.

TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE.

M. Topin’s L’Homme au Masque de Fer, of which the present volume is a translation, has met with considerable attention in France, on the part both of historical students and the reading public; several editions of it having been called for in the course of a few months.

That a work which professes to give an authentic account of this almost legendary character, after having discussed in an exhaustive fashion the various theories that have been broached during a century and a quarter respecting his mysterious identity, should have been received with so large an amount of favour, is not surprising, for the story forms perhaps the most romantic episode of a reign more than ordinarily rich in dramatic incidents. But the extent of M. Topin’s historical knowledge, the painstaking nature of his researches, the subtlety of his reasoning, the skill which he has displayed in the grouping of his materials, combined with his life-like pictures of events far from commonly familiar, not only render his work highly amusing reading, but entitle it to take its place in the library, both as an historical study which has resolved beyond all doubt a problem that had long perplexed some of the acutest minds, and as a valuable contribution towards the history of Europe during the latter part of the seventeenth century.