Northern Wisconsin advertiser. [volume] (Wabeno, Wis.) 1898-1925, 1900-09-20

mantle tale of a princely person, says
Miss Dempster, whom as the "Mau
in the Iron Mask" he has rendered
famous. All through the eighteenth
century the legend grew. Few facts
being known about it, imagination haa
free scope. Louvois. who sent him to
the island prison, says of him:
Though obscure, he was none the less
a person of consequence; that he was
a prodigious scoundrel, who, on a very
important matter had cozened many
persons of Distinction" that he was
"to be hardly treated and jealousy Sc
cluded from every eye," and you are
to give him only the things necessary
for life, with no comforts whatever"
This harsh treatment marked out for
him endears him the more to the dra-
matlst. 1t is not true, says Miss Demp-
ster, that his mask was of iron. It was
made of black voivet, but it had a steel
spring in it. II is also fiction that ne
wrote his mare on silver plate and
threw it out OF his window, to be
picked up by boatman of Cannes He
was over the middle height, tall and
we'll made, and toward the close of his
life he told the governors servant that
he was 60 years of age. He spoke
French, but with a foreign accent,
sang ana was fond of music.
Who Was He?
Who was he? Historians, or would
be searchers into the mystery, give IL
different personages as the man who
was masked in the prison of St. Mar
guerite. History is treated rather
rudely at times in the works of these
writer's The first of the eleven hy-
potheses is the Count de Vermandois
son of Louis XIV and of Louise de la
Valliere. He died of smallpox while
still a young man and free. The Duke
de Beaufort comes next. He died at
Gambia on board the ship Monarque,
while the masked man died in .4e bas-
tile at Paris. The duke of Monmouth
is third on this list He was the il
legitimate son of the English monarch
Charles ii and Lucy Waters. His head
was cut off on the scaffold while still a
y mail. uG al lICllldll pau Gil
Avedic, who is fourth, may be dis
missed as improbable to a degree
Nicholas Fouquet, the superintendent
who had been the right hand of MAJ
arms government, comes next, but
though he was in Jail under the gov
ernor Saint Mars, it was not he 1t is
needless to go through the list, which
includes a son of Mazarin and Anne OF
Austria, son of Cromwell and a son
of Anne of Austria and the duke of
Buckingham; in fact, the imagined IL
legitimate sons of the highest person
ages of the period.
Baron Gleichen's Theory.
The most ingenious of all the theories
as to the personality of the iron mask
is assuredly that Of the Baron de
Gleichen. He strives to show that the
prisoner was the true heir to the crown,
who had been shut up for the benefit o:
child said to be the offspring of Card
inal Richelieu and the queen. These
having become the masters of France
after the death of the king, had substi-
tuted their child for the genuine Dau-
phin-hence the extreme resemblance
between the two children. The conse-
quences of this absurd story are at
once evident-the annulment of the
legitimacy of the later Bourbons.
Imagination did not halt here. The
story developed under the first empire.
Pamphlets appeared in which the YER
sion of Gleichen was repeated. Louis
XIV was said to be Legitimate, the
son of strangers; the lawful heir was
shut up in the prison of ST. Marguerite,
where he had married the keeper s
daughter. A son born from this
marriage was, as soon as he was
weaned, brought over to Corsica, hav-
ing been confided to a sure person, as "A
child coming from a good part,
which in Italian is "buona parte."
From this child the great emperor de-
scended directly, as any one might see.
The legitimate claim of Napoleon / to
the thrcne of France depending upon
the Man in Tie Iron Mask, is, says VI.
Funck-P-cntano, who relates the story
in his Legendes ct Archives de la Bas-
tile, better than anything which the
great Dumas has given us.
The Real Man.
The real Man in the Iron Mask was.
according to the most probable ev1-
dence-an evidence which is eminently
conclusive-a certain Count Creole An
tonic Mattioli, who was born at Bolog-
ma Dec. l, 1910, of distinguished fam
lily. He had been brilliant as stu
dent, and in his twentieth year had
been appointed professor in the Univer-
sity of Bologna. Later he went to Mau-
tua, where he gained the confidence OF
the reigning duke Charles III, who APP
pointed him his secretary of state. The
duke who succeeded, Charles ", kept
Mattioli as minister of state, and NOM
mated him supernumerary senator, i
dignity which carried with it the title
of count.
Louis XIV, King of France, had an
ambassador at Venice, the Able
dEstrades. This man, seeing the am
bilious and intriguing nature of Mat
toll, entered into negotiations with
him for the purchase of the town OF