IRON MASK (masque de fer). The identity of the "man in the iron mask," one of Louis XIV.'s political prisoners who died in the Bastille in 1703, is a famous historical mystery. In 1698, Saint-Mars, the new governor of the Bastille, brought with him from Pinerolo in Piedmont a prisoner whom he kept masked and whose real name was not known. This prisoner died on Nov. 19, 1703; and his name was entered in the register of Saint Paul as "Marchioly," "aged about 45." Even during his lifetime, legend grew up around this mysterious person, and Saint-Mars himself admitted circulating "fairy tales" (contes jaunes) about him. He was soon suspected of being connected with the royal family; whilst Voltaire added immensely to the legend by describing the mask as of iron, and the man as a natural brother of Louis XIV.— a theory which Dumas in the Vicomte de Bragelonne did much to popularize. It was even asserted that this Bourbon prince had a son who founded the Bonaparte family in Corsica; whilst other wild speculations identified him with Monmouth, Beaufort, Fou quet, and even Moliere.
It is now evident that the man in the mask was either Count Mattioli or "Eustache Dauger." Mattioli was the Mantuan min ister who attempted to sell to France the frontier fortress of Casale, but revealed the transaction at the last moment, and was eventually secured by Louis' agents. In spite of the support of M. Funck-Brentano and of the tempting argument from the name under which the prisoner was buried—in fact, almost certainly a false name—it is difficult to accept a solution which seeks to iden tify the mysterious "mask" with a man whose career and identity were so well and so generally known. The other candidate, much more likely, is Eustache Danger; but to admit his claim is only to postpone the difficulty. In fact, after the researches of Mon signor Barnes and Andrew Lang, the principal problem for the investigator remains : who was Dauger? Several theories have been put forward on very slight evidence. It seems clear that he was a
Catholic and not an Englishman; but the fact that at a time of emergency he was allowed to act as valet to Fouquet has drawn a red herring across the trail ; and Andrew Lang has used the phrase "he is only a valet" in a letter from Louvois to Saint-Mars as the basis of a theory identifying the man with the valet of a Huguenot emissary to England. It is, however, unlikely that the phrase referred to the masked prisoner at all. Monsignor Barnes has identified him with the Abbe Pregnani, involved in the re ligious affairs of Charles II., and for that reason possessing dan gerous information. That the prisoner was sent to Pinerolo from Dunkirk favours the idea of some connection with England ; and Monsignor. Barnes at first went on to claim that the abbe was a natural son of the English king. This hypothesis linked up the problem with a second—that of James de la Cloche—and soon proved untenable.
The problem is probably more difficult than important. The mask itself was of no harder material than velvet ; and the man would surely not have been used as a valet if he had been near to the blood royal. There is, however, a fascination in the pecul iarly interesting evidence, and in the possible theories which may be constructed from it. The period was one in which intrigue was at its height, and the affairs of individuals were so intertwined with those of states that every figure of importance appears as the centre of a labyrinth whose key may be anywhere in western Europe. Romantic imagination has done the rest.