Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1894-11-17

never be solved. But, in these days when
all the old state papers are open to eX-
animation, and the least bit of register or
manuscript is studied by professional his
torans the exact truth is almost sure to
come out sooner later, and NJ. Funck-
Brentano has found it for the Man of the
Iron Mask In a few weeks he will publish
all the known documents in the case,
with the story year by year of how the
various suppositions about it grew up. The
general reader may make up his mind in
the matter from the following summary,
which is the first to be published
The main fact is best told in the words
of the register of the Bastille containing
the entry made at the time of the .myS-
FERROUS prisoners commitment:
ION Thursday, the 18th of September,
$685. at ) o'clock of the afternoon, NJ. de
Saint-Mars, governor of the chateau of the
Bastille, arrived for his first entrance into
office, coming from his government of the
islands of Sainte-Marguerite having
brought with him in his litter a former
prisoner OF his at Pignerol, whom he
obliges to keep himself always masked,
and whose name is not told"
Masked and NnmeIcss.
The mask, another passage of the prison
register notes, was of black velvet.
This prisoner lives in the Bastile as he
had entered it, masked and nameless, and
communicating with no one, under the
governors special care, until the 10Th of
November, 1903, when he died and was
buried in the cemetery of Saint Paul.
Even the officers OF the Bastille had no
knowledge of who he was or why he had
been confined. They only knew he had
been long subjected to this strange con-
tnement, for NJ de Saint-Mars, whose
prisoner he had already been at Pienerol.
left that place ih' August. 1851, eNenteen
years before his corning to the Bastille.
The curiosity OF the officers regarding
the man whom the King kept so jealousy
separated from the rest of men naturally
communicated Itself to the public. Louis
XIV died in Ills, after a reign of more
than seventy years, and tongues could
triguing lady of the court printed an
onymously a book, whose scandals We're
thinly disguised under the name of Secret
Memoirs to Serve for the History of
Persia" She set down openly the names
of the courtiers Of, the preceding reign.
According to her, the man of the mask
was the Due De yermandois, the illegiti,
mate son of Louis XIV by the beautiful
Louise de la yalnere In a moment of
temper he struck the Dauphn. the legiti-
mate son and heir to the crown. and had
been punished with perpetual confinement.
yOltaire's Account.
Voltaire who had all the instincts of a
sensational journalist before journalism was
invented. saw at once the profit to be de-
rived frola the story Of the man with the
mask. He had himself just been shut UP
in the Bastille, so that he was something Of
an authority on the famous prison. He was
then bringing out his work on the Cen
fury of Louis XIV" He put into his book
a paragraph about an event which, he says,
lis without example and. what is no less
strange, all historians have been ignorant
of it." Without troubling himself to give
7. any authority for his story, he went on to
say that 1t happer ed shortly after 1861,
when Cardinal MaZarin died and Louis
XIV took the government into his own
hands. At that time a prisoner, of greater
than ordinary stature, young and of most
handsome and noble form, was sent under
strict secrecy to the Island of st. Margue-
rite. He wore mask. with steel springs
at the chin-piece, allowing him to eat with
the mask still covering his face. Orders
had been given to Kill him on the spot If he
unmasked himself The kings minister.
Louvois, went to see the prisoner on the
island, and spoke to lin standing, with
every sign of respect. In 1880 Saint-Mars,
an officer of confidence, brought him up to
the Bastille.
Voltaire left his readers to imagine who
such mysterious prisoner could be. AS
will be seen, all the dates of his story ut
terly disagree with the official register of
the Bastille, which, of course, was not then
open for inspection. His clever addition of
the steel springs to the mask gave the
NAME 10 the prisoner, WHICH HAS ldSltu L ne
Man of the Iron Mask had now become a
puzzle to the world.
The Various Theories.
Voltaire took advantage of the growing
legend and. in his next book, Questions
on the Encyclopedia" he insinuated that
he only reason for keeping the prisoner
constantly masked must have been that his
face wore a dangerous resemblance to some
one interested in securing his disappear
ance. In the next edition of his book he
wrote openly that the Man of the Iron
Mask was the half-brother of Louis XIV,
the son of his mother, Anne of Austria, by
Cardinal MaZarin.,
France was now In the midst of Louis
XV's dissolute and unbelieving reign, and
the tide of public feeling was already turn
ing against the Bourbon kings. The en-
cyClopedsts of Voltaire's set were the chief
agitators of public opinion. pamphlet
soon appeared in which 1t was roundly
asserted that the mysterious prisoner was
| the legitimate son of Anne of Austria by
| Louis XIII, WALLER Louis XIV was the
| spurious offspring substituted by Cardinal
| Mazarin and thessrrng queen for the right
| full heir. This was "a direct attack on the
| kings legitimacy,,1and it was continued
Under his successor until the revolution
But it was wsfheh the young Napoleon
Bonaparte appeagedr on the scene that the
! legend, inventedt asnwe have seen, by Vol
| then spread among the people that the Man
| of the Iron M8sk-,he who was the true
| heir to the throne of France-had been
| married n the island of Sant-Margurite to
| his jailor's daughter. From this union a
son was born who'ifad been struggled over
to Corsica with the mysterious charge that
he came from 's9ld part which in the
Italian of the island. is .'Buonaparte. IN
der this name the, Child grew up. and the
rising Napoleon" Bhonaparte Gas he still
spelled his nancy vas none other than the
grandson and heiri of the Man of the Iron
Mask, true heir Of the Bourbon blood.
Dumas Celebrated Romance.
1t is difficult to decide whether Napoleon
himsel countenanced this legend of his
origin. His enemies were certainly afraid
of It's Influence on the people of France, who
still cherished the memory Of Henry ",
the first of the Bourbon kings. The Roy
| alist Chouans in Brittany thought 1T neces-
sary to put out manifesto, warning their
adherents not to trust the general If he
promised to restore the throne to the Bour-
bons Everything shows that he is wait
ing only for the general peace to declare
himself, and that he wishes to found his
own claims on his birth from the child Of
the Iron Mask"
During all this time writers Of prom
inence, romancers ard dramatists went on