Man with the iron mask

The Homme with the iron mask is one of the Prisonnier the S most famous of the French history . The mystery surrounding its existence, as well as different the Film S and Romance whose it was the object ceased exciting imaginations. Inter alia, an adaptation to summer realized in the Man with the iron mask with Leonardo Dicaprio.

The starting point of the business is death, the November 19th 1703 with the Bastille, at the end of a long captivity, of a prisoner of which no one did not know the name nor the reason for its imprisonment. On this basis, the history was amplified considerably, the legend added strong details there, and the policy seized some, the Man with the becoming iron mask, under the feather of Voltaire, a symbol of the monarchical absolutism.

Historical facts

September 4th, 1687, in full reign of Louis XIV, a handwritten gazette, which was read under the coat, informed its readers that an officer, Mr. of Saint-March, had led “by order of the king” a prisoner of State at the height of the island Holy-Marguerite, in Provence. “Nobody knows who it is; there is defense to say its name and order to kill it if it had pronounced it; this one was locked up in a sedan-chair having a steel mask on the face and all that one could know of SAINT-MARS was that this prisoner was since long years with Pignerol and that people whom the public believes dead it are not. ”

Then, on September 29th, 1698, another gazette announced that “Mr. of Saint-March, which was governor of the islands of Saint-Honorat and Holy-Marguerite, has arrived here for a few days to take possession of the government of the Bastille, with which it was provided by His Majesty. ”

October 3rd, the same gazette added that “Mr. of Saint-March took possession of the government of the Bastille, where it made put a prisoner which it had with him, and it left of them another to Pierre-in-Cise, while passing to Lyon. ”

The second mention which was made of the prisoner to the iron mask finds in one little book anonymous: Secret memories to be used with the history as Persia (Amsterdam, 1745, in-12), which is only one satire of the political and gallant intrigues of the court of Louis XIV, under Persan names. One tells there a visit of the regent to a prisoner of masked State. This prisoner, transferred from the citadel of Ormnus (Holy-Marguerite islands) in that of Ispahan (the Bastille), is not other than the count de Vennandois, wire of Louis XIV and Miss of Vallière, imprisoned to have given bellows to the dolphin, and than one had made pass for dead from the plague. “The commander of the citadel of Ormus, say these Memories, treated his prisoner with the deepest respect; he served it itself and took the dishes with the door of the apartment of the hands of the cooks, of which none had never seen the face of Giafer (the count de Vermandois). The prince warned himself one day to engrave his name on the back of a plate with the point of a knife. A slave, between the hands of which fell this plate, believed to make his court while carrying it to the commander, and flattered himself to be rewarded about it; but this unhappy was misled in its hope, and one of offense at once, in order to bury with him a secrecy of so great importance. Giafer remained several years in the citadel of Ormus. One did not make him leave it, to transfer it in that from Is-pahan, that when Cha-Abbas (Louis XIV), in recognition of the fidelity of the commander, gave him the government of that of Is-pahan which had suddenly been occupied. One took the precaution, as much in Ormus that in Ispahan, to make put a mask to the prince when, due to disease or for any other subject, one was obliged to expose it to the sight. Several people worthy of faith affirmed to have seen more once this masked prisoner, and reported that it addressed as tu the governor who, on the contrary, returned infinite regards to him. ” (extracted the article the iron mask in the Large universal dictionary of the XIXe century Volume 10 page 1304).

It is Voltaire which will launch the legend by devoting to the “Man with the iron mask” part of chapter XXV of the Siècle of Louis XIV published in 1751. Affirming that the character was stopped in 1661, year of died of Mazarin, it is the first to mention the detail, suitable to excite imagination, of the “mask whose mentonnière had steel springs which left him freedom eat with the mask on the face” while adding: “There was order to kill it if he were discovered. ” He also affirms that the prisoner was treated with extraordinary regards, that one made music in his cell and that: “Its greater taste was for the linen of an extraordinary smoothness and for laces. ” In 1752, the republication of the Siècle of Louis XIV adds the anecdote of the money plate on which the prisoner registers his name and that it launches by the window of the prison; found by an illiterate fisherman, this last would have brought back it for the governor who would have said to him, after being assured that it had not been able to decipher the inscription: “, You Go are quite happy not to know to read. ”

Twenty-four years of detention

To stick to the established facts, the November 19th 1703 died in the Bastille a prisoner thus mentioned on the register of nut of the prison, held by lieutenant Etienne of Junca (one respects his rather personal orthography here):

“Of the same day, Monday the 19th of November 1703, this always masked unknown prisoner of a black velvet mask, that Mr. of Saint-March, governor, had brought avecque him, while coming from the illes Holy-Marguerite, that it gardet for a long time, which being found a little badly while leaving the mass, he died the day of today over the ten hours of the evening and this unknown prisoner kept since so a long time was buried Tuesday at four o'clock in the afternoon, November 20th in the cemetery Saint-Paul, our parish; on the register mortuère one gave a name as unknown as Mr. de Rosarges, major, and Mr. Reil, surgeon, who signed on the register. ” with this addition in margin: “I learned since one had named it on the register Mr. de Marchiel, that 40 L were paid. of burial. ” The parochial register of Saint-Paul mentions for its part: “The 20, Marchioly Marchialy old of forty-five years approximately, is deceased in the Bastille, whose the body was buried in the cemetery of Saint-Paul his parish, the 20 of the present, in the presence of Mr. Rosage, major of the Bastille and Mr. Reghle major surgeon of the Bastille which have to sign. ”

In 1769, in its " Treated various kinds of evidence which is used to establish the truth in the histoire" , the Father Griffet (1698 - 1771) gave the following precise details.

“The memory of the masked prisoner had been preserved among the officers, soldiers and servants of this prison, and many eyewitnesses had seen it passing in the court to go to the mass. As soon as he had died, one had generally burned all that was with its use as linen, clothes, mattress, covers; one had regrated and bleached the walls of its room, changed the squares and makes disappear the traces from its stay, of fear qu it had not hidden some tickets or some mark which had made known its name.”

The prisoner had arrived with his geôlier, Bénigne Dauvergne of Saint-March, former musketeer and faithful of Louvois, when this one became governor of the Bastille in 1698. That is confirmed by another entry of the register of nut on September 18th, 1698: “From the Thursday the 18th from September to three hours afternoon, Mister of St-March, governor of the castle of the Bastille, arrived for its first entry coming from its Government of the illes Holy-Marguerite and Honnorat, having with him in its litter an former prisoner whom it had in Pignerol, which it makes always hold masked, whose name is not said which captive will be been useful by Mr. de Rosargues, that Mr. Governor will nourish”.

This reveals that the masked prisoner had followed Saint-March at the time of his successive changes: in the Holy-Marguerite island of Lérins (with broad of Cannes), where it had arrived on April 30th, 1687, and, before, with Exilles, where it was transferred in 1681 and to the Forteresse of Pignerol in Piedmont, that it ordered of 1665 to 1681.

At the time of its change with Exilles, Saint-March had been accompanied by two prisoners: “Its Majesty found good to grant the government to you of Exile where it will make transport those of the prisoners who are with your guard, that it will believe enough of consequence to put them in other hands only yours” (Letter of Louvois at Saint-March of May 12th, 1681). “I will have in guard two blackbirds which I have here, which do not have of another name only Sirs of the tower of in bottom” (Saint-March in Estrades, June 25th, 1681). These prisoners were considered to be sufficiently important so that one builds to them, in Exilles, a special prison, installations which delayed besides several months the transfer.

One of the two prisoners in question dies at the end of 1686 or at the beginning of 1687, just before Saint-March is transferred to Holy-Marguerite. The survivor arrives at Holy-Marguerite on April 30th, 1687 in a sedan-chair hermetically closed by an oil-cloth. One makes him arrange a special prison, giving on the sea and which one reaches only by crossing three successive doors.

The prisoner had arrived at Pignerol on August 24th, 1679. As of on July 19th, Louvois had written at Saint-March in connection with the prisoner that it sent to him: “it is of the derrnière importance that it is kept with a great safety and that he cannot give his news in null manner and by letter to anyone to make so that the days which the place will have where he will be does not give on spot which can be approached of anybody and which there are enough doors, closed ones on the others, so that your sentinels can nothing hear. It will be necessary that you carry even to this poor wretch, once by day, of what to live all the day and which you never listen to, under some pretext that it can be, which it will want to say to you, always threatening it to make it die if he never opens the mouth to you to speak to you about another thing that of his needs”.

In 1691, when Louvois dies, his/her son, Barbezieux, which succeeds to him, wrote at Saint-March to confirm these instructions: “When you have something with me mander of the prisoner who has been under your guard for twenty years, please use of the same precautions that you made when you follow to Mr. de Louvois. ”

Was the Man with the iron mask really masked?

The iron Mask ignited imaginations. Actually, nothing makes it possible to think that the prisoner was constantly masked. It seems more probable than it was compels to carry a mask only during the transfers, to prevent that a passer by can recognize it.

Still the wearing of a mask it is truly proven only in 1698, during the transfer to the Bastille: it is mentioned in the register of nut (V. above) like in an account (published in the literary Année on June 30th, 1778) of the stage of Saint-March in its Château of Palteau, made by its great nephew:

“In 1698, written Mr. de Palteau, Mr. of Saint-March passed from the government of Isles Holy-Marguerite to that of the Bastille. While coming in to take possession, it remained with its prisoner with his ground of Palteau. The man with the mask arrived in a litter which preceded that by Mr. of Saint-March; they étoient accompanied by several people with horse. The païsans went ahead of of their lord; Mr. de Saint- March ate with its prisoner, who avoit the back opposed to crossings dining room which gives on the court; the païsans that I questioned could not see whether it mangeoit with its mask; but they observed very well that Mr. of Saint-March, which étoit with table with respect to he, avoit two guns beside its plate. They do not swage for to serve that only one servant-of-room, which alloit to seek the dishes that one him apportoit in the anteroom, closing carefully on him carry dining room. When the prisoner traversoit court, it avoit always its black mask on the face; the païsans noticed that one him voyoit teeth and lips, that it étoit large and avoit them grey hair. Mr. of Saint-March slept in a bed that one him avoit drawn up near that of the man to the mask.”.

Interpretations

Tens of identifications were proposed since the XVIIe century (Francis Lacassin counted 48 of them). Was the iron Mask the twin brother of Louis XIV? The son of Louis XIV and Louise of Vallière? An undesirable son of Anne of Austria? duke of Beaufort, if one believes the dramatic poet of it Lagrange-Chancel, which itself had been imprisoned with the islands of Lérins, in a letter which he wrote with Fréron? James of the Bell, wire illegitimate of Charles II of England? Even Molière, as the scholar of Bordeaux supported it Anatole Loquin? Beautiful the Henri II of Own way, prince de Joinville and brother of Marie of Lorraine known as “Miss de Guise”? The mystery excited the imagination of the men, of which the novelist Alexandre Dumas.

A twin brother of Louis XIV?

The thesis of Voltaire, gradually supplemented and revealed, of the successive editions of the Century of Louis XIV and sound Supplement (1751, 1752,1753) with the Continuation of the Test on the general History (1763) and with the Questions about the Encyclopedia (1770 and 1771) is that the Man with the iron mask would have been a twin brother of Louis XIV and, to still add to pepper of the history, an elder brother , that, for a badly elucidated reason, Anne of Austria and Mazarin would have drawn aside from the throne and raise in a secret place until it that with died of Mazarin, Louis XIV discovers to it pot-with-pinks and decides to take additional precautions so that the business cannot be discovered.

Others affirm that the iron Mask would be well a twin but born as a second, and who would have been dissimulated to avoid any dispute on the holder of the throne.

According to other assumptions, the iron Mask would have been a bastard son of Anne of Austria, born for the ones from the duke from Buckingham (Luchet), for others of a monk of the name of Hackney carriage (with a birth in 1636), for others still of the Mazarin cardinal (with a birth in 1644, that is to say a long time after Louis XIV who did not have consequently any reason to imprison the interested party).

This identification inspires Alexandre Dumas in the Vicomte of Bragelonne (it turns however into to iron Mask a brother junior by Louis XIV, born a few hours afterwards) and in the Twins (unfinished drama, 1861), like Marcel Pagnol.

It should be noted that Louis XIV had an younger brother well, Mister, born two years after him.

Nicolas Fouquet?

According to Pierre-Jacques Arrèse, taking again a thesis of Paul Lacroix (1836), the iron Mask would not be other than the superintendent Nicolas Fouquet, imprisoned with Pignerol in 1665.

This one officially died of an attack of apoplexy to Pignerol at 65 years on March 23rd, 1680, twenty-three years before the iron Mask. But, according to holding of this thesis, this date would be false and the body of a fellow-prisoner, Danger, which was used as servant in Fouquet (V. below), would have been given for that of the superintendent. This setting in scene would have been organized by Colbert and Louvois in order to prevent the release of Fouquet, which was about to obtain its grace and whose they feared the skill and the influence.

The lieutenant-general of Bulonde?

In 1890, a commander, who studied the campaigns of Catinat, entrusted to the commander Etienne Bazeries, expert in Cryptanalyse for the French Army a whole of quantified papers . After three years of effort, the figure appearing particularly rebellious vis-a-vis modern technologies of deciphering, Bazeries affirmed “to have broken” the code and found, in a letter of Louvois with Catinat dated August 24th, 1691, the key of the enigma of the iron Mask. The figure in question is sometimes called “Large Figure of Louis XIV” or, more simply, Grand Figure.

According to him, the missive was translated as follows: “I suppose that it is not necessary to say to you with which displeasure Its Majesty accommodated the news of the categorical refusal of the Bulonde general obey his orders like with yours, by taking on him rising the head office of Coni. Its Majesty knows better than whoever the consequences of this act, and It also realizes of the gravity of the damage which the loss of the place will cause with our cause, a missed business which must be repaired during the winter. Its Majesty you mande to stop the Bulonde general immediately and to lead it to the fortress of Pignerol there to be écroué, police custody the night, and authorized to walk on the ramparts the day, the face covered with one 330.309”. Bazeries conjectured that the sequence 330.309, which was not nowhere elsewhere in papers of Catinat, meant “mask” and published in 1893 a book detailing its assumption.

According to him, the famous prisoner would thus have been Vivian Labbé, lord of Bulonde, lieutenant-general of the French Army. The facts reported on Bulonde and its insubordination to Coni (in Italian Cuneo) are veracious. Remains to be seen why quantify such an order, whereas Bulonde was guilty of disobedience? Why keep it with the secrecy, whereas the reason for its arrest was perfectly legitimate? Historians moreover showed that Bulonde was still alive in 1708, five years after the death of the iron Mask. Military experts of the figure called into question the conjectures of Bazeries (V. Emile-Arthur Soudart and André Lange, Traité cryptography , 2nd edition, 1935). Lastly, if it into 1691 that Bulonde was imprisoned in Pignerol, that is done well a long time that Saint-March and the mask of iron was not there any more.

Henri II of Own way?

Camille Bartoli (1977) identifies the iron mask with Henri II of Own way, Don Juan, adventurer, who did not hesitate in front of a duel or a military forwarding and competed with the Sun king by his disproportion and his splendor.

Molière?

In its book Molière in Bordeaux about 1647 and in 1656 with new considerations on its fine last in Paris in 1673. or perhaps in 1703 , the writer Anatole Loquin thinks that the man with the iron mask was actually Molière.

The main argument for Anatole Loquin is that the first biography relating to Molière goes back to 1705 is 2 years after the death of the iron mask. It is about " Life of Mr. de Molière (1705) " by Grimarest. Thus Louis XIV would have waited until Molière really died in 1703 (and not in 1673) to authorize the publication of a biography of this one.

D' Artagnan?

For the English historian Roger MacDonald (The Man in the Iron Mask, 2005) the iron mask would be the musketeer D' Artagnan. Wounded in Maastricht in 1673, it would have been sent in Pignerol, the mask of iron enabling him not to be recognized by the musketeers who kept the prisons.

The proof would be the quality of the book " Memories of Mr. d' Artagnan" writing by Gatien de Courtilz de Sandras (1644-1712). This one spent 9 years to the bastille between 1702 and 1711. According to Roger MacDonald, D' Artagnan would have inspired itself this book what would prove that it was with Gatien de Courtilz de Sandras with the Bastille.

An English track?

It is the Palatine Princesse, sister-in-law of Louis XIV, who, in a written letter on October 22nd, 1711 with his aunt Sophie of Bavaria, but only published in 1896, affirms: “I have just learned which was the masked man who died in the Bastille. If it carried a mask, it was not by cruelty: it was an English mylord which had been interfered with the business with the duke Berwick against king Guillaume. He died thus so that this king could never learn what he had become. ”

The Palatine Princess wants to undoubtedly refer to the conspiracy of Fenwick to assassinate Guillaume III in 1696, because one knows no plot implying the duke of Berwick against this monarch. The assumption is not very probable but one did not have any more to let foresee with certain researchers an English track.

Barnes (1908) affirmed that the iron Mask was James of the Bell, wire illegitimate but recognized Charles II of England, which would have been used as secret intermediary between his/her father and the court of France and which Louis XIV would have made imprison. Others evoked a natural son of Cromwell or the duke of Monmouth.

The count Ercole Mattioli (or Antoine-Hercules Matthioli)?

With Madam de Pompadour, which questioned it on the revelations of Voltaire, Louis XV answered that the iron Mask was “a minister of a prince of Italy”. Louis XVI, to satisfy the curiosity of Marie-Antoinette, had, not finding anything in secret papers, questioned oldest of its ministers, Maurepas, which had made him the same answer by specifying that the Italian prince in question was the duke of Mantoue.

This indication was at the origin of the thesis identifying the Mask of iron to the count Ercole Mattioli (or Antoine-Hercules Matthioli), former Secretary of State of the duke of Mantoue Charles II. The name of the prisoner related on the register of nut of the Bastille and to the parochial register of Saint-Paul exact, though slightly would thus have been deformed. This thesis, become traditional, was defended by Marius Topin and the historian Frantz Funck-Brentano.

Matthioli was actually held in Pignerol under the guard of Saint-March. Its imprisonment resulted, with the surplus, of a personal order of Louis XIV. Indeed, thwarted by the abbot of Estrades, ambassador of France with Venice, Matthioli had persuaded the duke of Mantoue to secretly sell in France thestrong one of Casal, with fifteen miles of Turin. The business failed the last moment in front of the hostility of the courses of Turin, Venice, Madrid and Vienna, which had been prevented by same Matthioli. The double game of this one had ridiculed Louis XIV who had written to him in person, the January 12th 1678, to thank it for its mediation. The abbot of Estrades, which had been appointed ambassador in Turin, managed to attract Matthioli in a maisonnette of the surroundings where commando directed by the captain Catinat removed it the May 2nd 1679 to lead it in the fortress close to Pignerol.

The Secretary of State of the Foreign affairs, Pomponne, by giving the approval of Louis XIV to the operation, had taken care to specify: “Will be needed that nobody knows what this man will have become. ” It was indeed not very in conformity with the diplomatic uses to thus make remove and imprison a minister of a foreign prince. This reason could give an account of the severe secrecy to which was compels the prisoner.

For as much, several elements appear to contradict this identification:

  • correspondence between Louvois and Saint-March preserved at the files of the ministry for the War - where Matthioli is initially indicated under the name of Lestang - watch which it was not treated with the regards allotted to the iron Mask: “The intention of the king is not that the sior of Lestang is well treated” (May 25th, 1679). If Matthioli were been used for Pignerol by its servant, it is because the latter, which had been charged to recover its papers, had had to be imprisoned with him for not that it can reveal the secrecy of his imprisonment.

  • After the transfer of Casal in France in 1682, the duke of Mantoue was informed of the arrest of Matthioli. The secrecy did not have thus any more a raison d'être maintained, and the prisoner was appointed besides under his true name in the correspondence of Louvois and Saint-March.
  • Matthioli did not follow Saint-March to Exile in 1681 but it remained in Pignerol until April 1694, date on which it was transferred to Holy-Marguerite following the transfer from Pignerol in Savoy. This is attested by a letter of Saint-March to the abbot of Estrades of June 25th, 1681 (“Matthioli will remain here with two other prisoners”) and by several letters of Louvois to the successors from Saint-March in Pignerol.
  • Matthioli died shortly after its transfer to Holy-Marguerite, undoubtedly on April 29th, 1694. It is known indeed that on this date a prisoner is deceased who was been useful by his servant. However Matthioli was the only prisoner who, in Holy-Marguerite, could then enjoy this privilege.

It thus seems that the dead prisoner with the Bastille in 1703 was not Matthioli and that it is only in the intention to scramble the tracks that the name of the latter (or a close name) was related to the registers.

Eustace Danger

Eustace Danger is stopped close to Dunkirk in July 1679 and is locked up in Pignerol, with the absolute secrecy. Saint-March had thought of giving it as servant of Lauzun, interned in the fortress of 1671 to 1681, but had run up against the categorical refusal of Louvois. This last accepted nevertheless that it is employed as servant of Nicolas Fouquet, after the death of one of its two servants, Champagne, but by giving this instruction: “You must abstain from putting it with Mr. de Lauzun, nor with anyone other that Mr. Fouquet. ” Thereafter, Louvois will multiply the precautions in the same direction, going until writing directly in Fouquet, on November 23rd, 1679, by promising to him an easing of its mode of detention if Fouquet indicates to him: “If named Eustace that one gave you to be useful oneself did not speak in front of the other servant who serves to you as it with what it was employed before to be in Pignerol. ”

With died of Fouquet, in 1680, Saint-March discovers that a gallery, dug by Lauzun, made it possible to the two prisoners to meet as they wanted it without the guards of the prison knowing anything of it and that thus, it is not possible to ensure that Lauzun and Danger were not in contact. Louvois then orders at Saint-March to make accept Lauzun that Danger and the other servant of Fouquet, the River, was released, but of “the referm both in a room where you can answer His Majesty that they will not have communication with anyone, of sharp voice or written and which Mr. de Lauzun will not be able to realize that they are contained. ”

Lauzun will be released on April 22nd, 1681, but Danger and the River - while at the same time this last was not in Pignerol as prisoner but as servant, there having entered voluntarily in 1667 - will remain locked up with the absolute secrecy. In the correspondence between Louvois and Saint-March, they will be indicated only by the periphrasis: “Sirs of the tower of in bottom”. The River could be seen reproaching only one thing: to have learned antecedents from Danger, that Fouquet also knew. Lauzun had also learned them, but Louvois did not have the means of preventing its release, that the Grande Miss had obtained from Louis XIV.

Danger had been stopped close to Dunkirk in July 1679 on the basis of lettre de cachet whose Jean-Christian Petitfils showed that it was sullied with many irregularities. Any watch which its arrest was thoroughly organized by Louvois, then Secretary of State of his father, Michel Tellier.

Nothing of this Danger is known. In the letter which it sends to Saint-March to make prepare its dungeon with Pignerol, Louvois indicates: “it is only one servant”. The interested party could however read since it was authorized to receive devotional books. Consequently, if the identification between the Mask of iron and Danger is from now on most generally allowed, the speculations went on the true identity of Danger and the secrecy which it held:

  • Marcel Pagnol ( the iron Mask, 1965) thus supported that Danger was a twin brother of Louis XIV. He would thus have been born in 1638, which explains with difficulty that one did not stop it why in 1679.

  • Pierre-Jacques Arrèse supported that Nicolas Fouquet had been substituted for the true Danger after his official death in 1680.
  • According to Maurice Duvivier, Danger would be Eustace de Cavoye, imprisoned to be themselves delivered to the vice one Good Friday and to have killed a page. What does not explain the extraordinary precautions taken to keep it.
  • According to Rupert Furneaux (The man behind the mask, 1954), Louis XIII would be the father of Louis and Eustace Oger de Cavoye. Rupert Furneaux found a table representing Louis Oger de Cavoye. Between Louis XIV resembles and Louis Oger de Cavoye would be the preuvre of a blood tie between Louis XIV and the brothers of Cavoye.
  • According to Marie Madeleine Mast (the iron Mask a solution revolutionist 1974), François de Cavoye, captain of the musketeers of Richelieu, was the lover of Anne of Austria and would be the true father of Louis XIV. Thus Eustace Dauger de Cavoye (born on August 30th, 1637) would be thus the half-brother of Louis XIV and much resembled to him what would explain its setting with the secrecy.

The theories of Maurice Duvivier, Rupert Furneaux and Marie Madeleine Mast in common have the fact of considering that Eustace Dauger (or of Oger or Oger) of Cavoye and Eustace Dauger de Pignerol are the same person. Discovered by Maurice Duvivier, Eustace Dauger de Cavoye is the son of François Dauger de Cavoye (death in 1641) and of Marie de Sérignan. In 1664, he is disavowed and disinherited by its family is 5 years before the arrival of Eustace Dauger in Pignerol. Is this the same person? Officially Eustace Dauger de Cavoye died in the prison of Saint-Lazare in 1680 what seems to exclude this assumption even if one can notice that it is into 1680 that Eustace Dauger de Pignerol perhaps became the iron mask.

  • Andrew Lang ( The Valet' S Tragedy and Other Stories , 1903), supports that Danger was actually certain Martin, servant of the huguenot Roux of Marsilly who was stopped and condemned to the wheel in 1669, and that one would have put at the secrecy because it knew some too much about the conspiracy of his Master.

  • According to John Noone (The Man behind the Iron Mask 1994) the iron mask would be a handling of Saint-March. Having lost as of 1681 its two more important prisoners Lauzun (released in 1681) and Fouquet (death in 1680), Saint-March will make believe that Dauger became very dangerous because, in contact with Fouquet and Lauzun, it would have learned much from things in addition to its own secrecies.
  • According to Hubert Monteilhet (With the kingdom of the shades, 2003), be-saying it Dauger would have been in fact François de Vendôme, duke of Beaufort, captured (and not killed) with the seat of Crystallized in 1669, then secretly delivered by the Turks at the request of Louis XIV. The duke, of royal blood by Henri IV, in 1637 would have mitigated the incapacity of Louis XIII to give a heir to the throne to France, and would have been the true father of Louis XIV. Put at the current after the death of his mother Anne of Austria, the Sun king would have thus made put his probable parent at the secrecy in order to choke the scandal and to avoid any dispute as for his legitimacy, while not daring to be solved with a possible parricide. Beaufort, very known and extremely popular, would have been held with the port of the mask in order to prevent that it is recognized it and that the fable of its death in front of Candie crumbles. The use of the name of " Dauger" would be a skilful smoke screen installed by Louvois in order to scramble the tracks.
  • According to the historian Jean-Christian Petitfils, the Mask of iron would be in fact… only one simple servant that the geôlier the marquis of Saint-March would have masked in order to make accept his troops which it dealt with prisoner of importance. A simple masquerade thus, assembled by a governor in lack of recognition. This thesis is most probable today. There remains nevertheless a mystery as for the identity even of this Eustace Danger and with the reasons of its imprisonment. The servant would certainly have been holder of a secrecy of State, preventing the authorities from judging it in public. But which? Servant of Fouquet, it could have known about a project of assassination of Colbert by Louvois. Servant of the Court of England, the possible conversion of the king… Without valid evidence, the mystery remains whole.

Works of fiction inspired by the history of the Man to the iron mask

Novels

  • Baron de Mouhy, the iron Mask, or the admirable Adventures of the father and the son , 1746

  • Jean-Joseph Regnault-Warin, the Man with the iron Mask , 1804
  • Alexandre Dumas, the Viscount of Bragelonne , 1848-1850
  • Maurice Leblanc, the Needle Digs , 1909 (short allusion)
  • Jean d' Aillon, the Last Secrecy of Richelieu , 1998
  • Hubert Monteilhet, With the Kingdom of the shades , 2003
  • Jean-Paul Desprat, the Secrecy of the Bourbons , 1991

Poems

  • Alfred de Vigny, " Prison" , 1822

Plays

  • Victor Hugo, the Twins , unfinished drama, writing in 1839, published posthumous in 1933

  • Maurice Rostand, the iron Mask, part in 4 acts in worms, created at Paris, Cora-Laparcerie theater, on October 1st 1923

Catalog of films

Several films were based on the history of the iron Mask, all exploiting the assumption of a twin brother of Louis XIV:

References

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