IRON MASK, Tin MAN WITII TIIE. The story of the prisoner so called, confined in the Bastile and other prisons in the -reign of Louis XIV., has long kept up a romantic interest. The first notice of him was given in a work entitled Memoires Secrets pour s3roir Ristoire de Perse (Anist. 1745-46). According to this writer, be was the duke Of Vermaudois, a natural son of Louis XIV. and De la ValHere, who, having given a box on the ear to his half-brother, the grand dauphin, had to expiate it with imprison ment for life. The assertion was without foundation, for the duke of Vermandois died in camp in 1683; but the confidence with which it was made caused a deep sensation, mind the romance of Mouhy, Homme au Masque de Per, which immediately .followed 1746), was read with all the more avidity that it was prohibited. Voltaire, in his Siecle de Louis XIV., treats the anecdote historically. According to him, the prisoner was young, and of a noble figure. In journeying from one prison to another, lie wore a mask, and was at last transferred to the Bastile, where he was treated with great distinction; and so on.
The first authentic information with regard to the iron mask was given by the Jesuit Griffet, who acted for nine years as confessor in the Bastile, in his Traite des dt:Iferentes Sortes de Preuees qui sercent u itablir la Write dans C Ridoire (Liege, 1769). He brought forward the MS. journal of Dujonca, the lieut. of the Bastile, according to which Saint Mars arrived, on Sept. 18, 1098, from the isle de Sainte-Marguerite, bringing with him in a litter a prisoner whom he had already had in custody at Pignerol. The prisoner's name was not mentioned, and his face was always kept concealed by a mask of black velvet. The journal mentions his death on Nov. 19, 1703. and that lie was buried in the cemetery of St. Paul. This is coufirmed by the register of burials for the parish of St. Paul's, where the prisoner is mentioned under the name of Marchiali.
After long silence Voltaire returned to the subject in his Essai cur les Meurs, but lie brought forward nothing. new. In the seventh edition of the Dietionnaire PhRosophique he related the story anew, under the head Anna, corrected his errors as to time from the journal of Dujonea, and concluded with the assurance that lie knew more about the matter than Griffet, but chose, as a Frenchman, to be silent. An addition to the article,
apparently by the editor of the work, freely states the opinion that the mask was an elder brother of Louis XIV. The writer makes Anne of Austria to have had this son by a favorite, and being thus undeceived as to her supposed barrenness, to have brought about a meeting with her husband. and in consequence bore Louis XIV. Louis is held to have first learned the existence of this brother when lie came of age, and to have put him in confinement, to guard against any possible unpleasant consequences. Linguet, in the Bastille Moodie ("The Bastile Exposed"), ascribes this paternity to the duke of Buckingham. Saint-Michel published it book in 1790, in which he relates the story of the unfortunate being, and points to a secret marriage between queen Anne and cardinal Mazarin. What is remarkable is that the court continued to manifest an interest in the matter, and took every means to keep the identity of the prisoner in the dark. When the Bastile fell the prisoner's room was eagerly searched, and also the prison register; but all inquiry was vain. The abbe Soulavie, who published Memoires de Marechal Richelieu (Loud. and Par. 1790), tries to make out from a document written by the tutor of that unfortunate prince that the -iron mask was a twin-brother of Louis XIV. A prophecy had announced disaster to the royal family from a double birth, and to avoid this, Louis XIII. had caused time last born of the twins to be brought up in secret. Louis XIV. learned of his brother's existence only after the death of Mazarin, and that brother having discovered his relation to the king by means of a portrait, was subjected to perpetual imprisonment. This view of the matter was that almost universally prevalent till the time of the revolution. It is al4) followed in Zschokke's German tragedy, and in Fournier's drama, founded on the story.