Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1916-06-24

Instant death was the penalty the
mysterious prisoner must pay should ne
ever reveal his face-this by royal COM
mand of Louis the Grand: he who boosted,
II am the state"
The only clue to the unfortunate's iden-
tity was this entry upon the register OF
the grim Bastille:
ION Thursday, the 18th of September.
1898, at o'clock Of the afternoon, Nj. de
Saint Mars, governor of the chateau OF
the Bastille, arrived for his first en-
trance into office, coming from his gov
eminent of the Islands of Sainte Margue-
rite. having brought with him in his lit
ter a former prisoner of his at Pigneroi,
whom he obliges to keep himself always
masked, and whose name is not told"
1t had been seventeen years since NJ. de
Saint Mars had left Pigneroi with his
masked prisoner, who, meanwhile, had
languished in the dungeons of Salnte-
Marguerite. So when the mysterious man
arrived at the Bastille he had already en-
dured his tortures through period IN
which many a maker of history has lived
a lifetime.
Twas rumored that his features had
to be forever hidden because they bore
resemblance that was compromising to
a parsonage of great rank. His jailers
were commanded to treat him always
with that respect which was due to royal
ty alone. Even NJ. de Saint Mars him
self had to stand bareheaded when ad-
dressing his charge.
The mask was of black velvet. So an
other entry in the prison register stated
According to Voltaire 1t had steel springs
at the chin piece. allowing the wearer to
eat without uncovering his face; but this
l1to ,e 70 hoy hAn mn of
the fruits of Voltaire's vivid imagination.
Yet it's suggestion yielded up the name
MAN of the Iron Mask" by which the
unfortunate sufferer has since been
known to history and to fiction.
He languiShed in the cruel Bastille five
years, two months and one day. Then
his tortured soul went up to his Creator
relieved of a hell of torment known to
have lasted twenty-five years and which
probably had covered u longer period of
agony. 1t left behind no clue as to his
identity or his antecedents. Only NJ. de
Saint Mars and the grand monarch could
tell; and their lips were sealed until the
Black Angel delivered them out of the
tortures which their conscience must
have endured on this victims account.
For dozen years after the masked
prisoner had died not even NJ. de. Saint
Mars brothers in arms. who had helped
to guard that wretched existence, dared
to ask themselves who their prisoner
might have been. Then Louis XIV went
up for his final judgment after more than
seventy years upon his throne. and men
dared to gossip behind closed DOORS But
the first published attempt to unravel the
mystery could be ventured only after that
cruel monarch had been molding in his
tomb for a generation. This was in the
| anonymous Memoirs of an author sup
posed to have been an intriguing court
belle. According to this authority, the
masked man had been the Due de Yer
| mandois, natural son of Louis XIV by
the beautiful Louise do IA Valliere. Dur
ing an outburst of anger he had dared
strike the Dauphin and had suffered
lifetime of torture for this attack upon
the heir to the throne.
Voltalre in his Century of Louis
XIV" later presented another key to
| the mystery, of which he said: 1T is
without example. and, what is no less
strange. all historians have been ig-
norant of it, Shortly after 1861, when
Cardinal MaZarin died and Louis XIV
took the government into his own
hands. "a prisoner of greater than or
binary stature, young and of most
handsome and noble form, was sent
under strict secrecy to the Island of
Sainte-Marguerite," Voltaire related
The kings minister. Louvois. went to
spoke to him. standing with every sign
of respect. According to this author,
the prisoner was a half brother of
Louis XIV, the son of that monarch's
uiolHei' IlduSHly Anne OF Austria,
and MaZarin.
This disclosure was shortly followed
by pamphlet emphatically stating that
this natural son OF Ann-nd Mazarin
had been put on the throne by Mazarin
in substitution for the real Louis XIV,
for whom he had been substituted; that
the parsonage who for more than sew
enty years enjoyed all of the prestige
of 1.-The grand monarch" was therefore
la pseudo king. and that the unknown
priSOner of the RaStilla was tho ri.
full ruler of France According to
further theory. that prisoner was
half brother Of Louis the Grand. but
his father was the English Duke of
Buckingham. rather than Cardinal
Mazarin. Others have maintained that
he was a twin brother of the grand
monarch and had been put away to
avoid complications. This was seized
upon by Dumas for the plot of his
novel, 1.-THE Man in the Iron Mask"
There was once circulated an ex-
travagant theory that this man of mys-
terry had been the rightful Louis xiv;
that he had been married upon the Is
land of nte-Marguerite to his jatler's
daughter. and That there had been