"Have you read what is written on the bottom of this silver plate?" asked the governor.
"No, sir," replied the fisherman; "I cannot read."
This reply saved the poor man, who doubtless would have paid with his liberty, and even his life, for the possession of the terrible secret, if he had been sufficiently educated to have discovered it.
Another historian, the Abbé Papon, does not believe that the governor said to the fisherman, "Go; you are happy in not being able to read!" He states that, instead of a silver plate, the mysterious prisoner used a white shirt, covered from one end to the other with the written history of his life.
"I had," said he, "the curiosity to enter the chamber of the unfortunate man. It was lighted only by a window to the north, inclosed in a thick wall and cased by three gratings of iron placed at equal distances. This window overlooked the sea. I found in the citadel an officer of the French company, about sixty-nine years old. He told me that his father had often told him in secret that a watchman one day perceived under the window of the prisoner something white floating on the water.... It was a very fine shirt, plaited with negligence, and upon which the prisoner had written from one end to the other.
"The watchman took means to recover it, and carried it to M. de St. Mars, the governor of the Isle Ste. Marguerite.
"He protested that he had read nothing; but two days afterward he was found dead in his bed."
It is said that the Regent of Orleans left the secret of the name of the Iron Mask with his daughter. We give what he related to her, this authority being a pretended governor of the interesting captive. His account may be found in the archives of the English government:
"The unfortunate prince that I raised and guarded," said he, "until the end of my days, was born the 6th of September, 1638, at eight o'clock in the evening, during the supper of the king, Louis XIII. His brother, now reigning, Louis XIV., had been born in the morning at twelve o'clock, during the dinner hour of his father; but as the birth of the first child was splendid and brilliant, that of his brother was most sad and carefully concealed; for the king, advised by the midwife that the queen would bring forth a second child, caused to remain in her chamber the chancellor of France, the midwife, the first almoner, the confessor of the queen, and myself, to be witnesses of what might happen, and of what he would do, if this child should be born alive."