The Man in the Iron Mask

Mysteries 6 Minutes

During the reign of King Louis XIV, a mysterious man was locked away in the notorious Bastille and other French prisons: the Man in the Iron Mask. Held captive from the end of the 17th century to the beginning of the 18th century, the enigmatic prisoner still conjures up images of political intrigue, deadly betrayal, and historical enigmas.

His unforgiving mask and threadbare cell were perhaps even more infamous than the man himself. But his anonymous face obviously led to questions about his identity later on. Was he a nobleman, a prince, a political rival, or just a valet in the wrong place at the wrong time?

Who was the Man in the Iron Mask, and why was he in prison?

The Man Behind the Mask

While we may never know the true identity of the Man in the Iron Mask, we can make a few guesses based on what we do know.

Before taking up residence at the dreaded Bastille, he was held in a small prison off the coast of Cannes called Sainte-Marguerite. It was first constructed in 1617, but it didn’t become a state prison until 1685. One of the most infamous prisoners was the Man in the Iron Mask, who was said to be held there sometime during the 1680s.

Under the watch of former musketeer Bénigne de Saint-Mars, the Man in the Iron Mask also spent time locked up in the Pignerol and Exilles fortresses.

In 1698, a Bastille official recorded that Saint-Mars finally arrived at the infamous prison with a mysterious inmate who was “always masked and whose name is never pronounced.”

Secrecy was the name of the game for the Man in the Iron Mask. Interestingly, the “iron” detail may have even been part of the legend added later, as some have claimed that the mask was actually made of velvet.

But regardless of the mask’s material, Saint-Mars refused to say a word to anyone about what his inmate did to end up in the slammer.

“You have only to watch over the security of all your prisoners, without ever explaining to anyone what it is that your prisoner of long standing did,” wrote a minister named Barbezieux to Saint-Mars in November 1697, according to The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations.

In any case, Saint-Mars achieved his goal. The true identity of the man, and the crimes for which he was punished, will probably never be known. But of course, that didn’t stop people from guessing.

The Prisoner’s Days in The Bastille

The storming of the Bastille — the prison that housed political dissidents of the powerful — is celebrated today on Bastille Day on July 14 in France. But before the Bastille became a symbol of the country’s freedom from hierarchical oppression, it was a hulking symbol of royal power.

The Man in the Iron Mask spent his final years here in this Parisian stronghold, watched over by Saint-Mars. However, the jailer was no great protector of his captive. Recent documents from 2015 suggest that the former musketeer diverted most of the funds for supporting the prisoner’s cell to his own pockets.

Allegedly, the Bastille cell only contained a mat for sleeping — so it could not have been a pleasant stay.

Even after his death in 1703, the very memory of the Man in the Iron Mask was subject to erasure. His clothes were promptly burned at dawn, and his cell was scraped and whitewashed to hide any trace of his identity that he may have left behind.

The French bureaucratic system worked very hard to ensure no one ever knew the real story behind the Man in the Iron Mask. But it didn’t take long for theories to emerge.

Theories About the Man In The Iron Mask

So, who was the Man in the Iron Mask? The guesses have numbered in the hundreds over the centuries, from the plausible to the far-fetched.

Historians point to two men as the most often suspected identities behind the iron mask: Ercole Matthiole and Eustache Dauger. The former was an Italian count who had betrayed Louis XIV politically in the 1670s.

His last name was so similar to an alias that was often used for the Man in the Iron Mask — “Marchioly.” On top of that, Louis XIV’s descendants Louis XV and Louis XVI had both claimed that the famous prisoner was an Italian nobleman. No wonder Matthiole was in the hot seat.

However, Matthiole died in 1694, which was years before the Man in the Iron Mask passed away. So that’s why many experts agree that Dauger is a more likely candidate.

As for Dauger, he was reportedly a valet arrested for unclear reasons in 1669. While some say the valet was somehow implicated in a political scandal, others say he wasn’t a valet at all. He’s also been painted as a debauched nobleman or even a failed assassin.

But regardless of his former occupation, Dauger had been imprisoned in several fortresses — and he was once transported between prisons in a covered chair so that passersby would not see his face. And when he was first arrested, orders were given to jailers to “threaten him with death if he speaks one word except about his actual needs.”

Enlightenment thinker Voltaire put forth a different theory — that the prisoner may have been a brother of Louis XIV. Voltaire also specified that the mask was made of iron, describing it as such: “The chin of the mask was made of steel springs, allowing the prisoner to eat without removing it.”

Meanwhile, the Dutch people, who fighting the French during the Nine Years’ War, hoped to sow discord by spreading the rumor that the Man in the Iron Mask was the true father of the king. This rumor took root because Louis XIV was born very late into his parents’ marriage.

For some people, that was enough to convince them that his mother may have taken a lover to provide France with an heir.

This had the double effect of besmirching the king’s mother while also painting her son as a bastard, and by extension, an illegitimate ruler.

Yet another rumor suggested that it wasn’t Louis XIV’s father behind the Iron Mask, but instead his illegitimate son Louis de Bourbon.

While these theories would certainly explain why the king wouldn’t want the identity of the prisoner released, there’s never been any clear-cut evidence to prove that these ideas were true.

The Eternal Mystery

Although the iron (or velvet) mask was meant to condemn the prisoner with lifelong anonymity in his jail cell, it also gave him notoriety that still persists to this day. More than 300 years later, we still want to know the true story of the Man in the Iron Mask.

The question has inspired writers, actors, and other creatives to produce artwork illustrating their theories — to varying degrees of success.

During the 19th century, the French author Alexandre Dumas tackled the question in his historical novels. Dumas theorized that the prisoner was King Louis XIV’s twin brother Philippe, imprisoned to simplify the throne’s inheritance and keep Louis XIV in power.

Even though Dumas’ story was just based on one theory, it would eventually inspire more modern depictions of the Man in the Iron Mask — including a 1998 movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio.

In the film version, Louis XIV is portrayed as a villain interested only in money and bedding women while his country starves. In the movie, the royal is also completely responsible for the unique punishment of the mask.

The torturous device is doled out for the sin his brother commits — the sin of sharing his face.

Meanwhile, the TV series Versailles, which follows the early days of the magnificent French palace, portrays Louis XIV’s brother as being obsessed with the Man in the Iron Mask.

Actor Alexander Vlahos, who plays the King’s brother Philippe, commented, “When the writer came up to me and said that that was my storyline for the year, I thought: ‘How are we going to realize this?’ because obviously it’s so steeped in mythology, no one really knows who that person was, and why he was there.”

Vlahos hits the nail on the head. We’ll probably never know the answer to one of the most burning questions in modern history: Who was the Man in the Iron Mask? All we can do is guess.

SOURCE: ALLTHATSINTERESTING

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Published by pat frederick

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111 thoughts on “The Man in the Iron Mask”

  1. Morning All!
    lots to do in the next few days…cleaning and getting ready for company Tuesday evening. my son and daughter-in-law may have to postpone coming up till Wednesday if we get the wintery mix they are forecasting.
    my brother-in-law called yesterday and he wants to come up Friday for hunting, but he stays in his tow a long trailer he parks at the bottom of the driveway.

    Liked by 2 people

  6. Citizen 817
    Citizen 817
    November 19, 2023 12:27 am

    @realDonaldTrump

    10h
    This Rigged Case should be ended immediately. Proof has been conclusive. Businesses will never come back to New York—They’re all watching this Hoax! The Judge and Attorney General should be sanctioned. POLITICAL WITCH HUNT!

    @realDonaldTrump
    12h
    “Engoron’s ‘Co-Judge’ Law Clerk, Allison Greenfield, Attended Anti-Trump Events Endorsing Biden & Tish James, Spurred on By Impeachment Leader Dan Goldman.”

    https://thenationalpulse.com/2023/11/18/engorons-co-judge-law-clerk-allison-greenfield-attended-anti-trump-events-endorsing-biden-tish-james-spurred-on-by-impeachment-leader-dan-goldman/

    Liked by 2 people

    1. OK, this is clearly a re-do of one made for the 2020 election – at the :46 mark, he says “…that was true four years ago when Trump came out of nowhere to win the Presidency…”

      Liked by 1 person

  11. so ellison admits there was no evidence of a hate crime in the floyd death?

    Todd Peterson
    @toddamtrib
    America burned for months because of anti-white hatred after George Floyd’s death. Race was THE issue in this case.

    Asked why Chauvin wasn’t charged with a hate crime, though, MN’s America-hating AG Keith Ellison admitted there was “no evidence” of it.

    Let that sink in.

    video in tweet

    Liked by 1 person

  12. i like this idea. it doesn’t violate the pendelton act of 1883 because it is a mass layoff…and a random set of people.

    Vivek Ramaswamy
    @VivekGRamaswamy
    On Day 1, *instantly* fire 50% of federal bureaucrats.

    Here’s how: if your SSN ends in an odd number, you’re fired.

    That downsizes government by half. Absolutely *nothing* will break as a result.

    It doesn’t violate civil service rules because mass layoffs are exempt.

    SHUT IT DOWN.

    Liked by 1 person

  13. Michael Weingardt
    @Michael_Wgd
    UEFA refused to organize a minute of silence before the start of the match between #Israel and Poland (under-21 team). In response, the two teams decided not to play the first minute of the match and observe a minute of silence in homage to the victims of #7October

    video in tweet

    Liked by 1 person

  16. Well, the cold hasn’t materialized yet…it was 33 when I got up at 4:45 and we still haven’t gotten any high winds either. Crossing my fingers that holds! Wheezer was sleeping on his chair and popped up when I took his food dish outside. Jake, of course, had to sit at the door and complain for a few minutes before moving to flop down on the center of the kitchen floor and start chasing his tail…sigh…have I mentioned that he’s not all that smart?!?

    Liked by 2 people

  17. Cactus
    November 19, 2023 9:14 am

    LIVE: PRESIDENT TRUMP VISITS THE BORDER AND OPERATION LONE STAR SERVICE MEMBERS – 11/19/23

    TODAY

    Join RSBN as President Trump and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott greet and serve meals to Texas National Guard soldiers, Texas Department of Public Safety troopers, and other service members stationed at the border over Thanksgiving.

    Following the meet and greet with border workers, President Trump and Gov. Abbott will give remarks at the South Texas International Airport in Edinburg, Texas.

    RSBN will be LIVE with full coverage on Sunday, Nov. 19, at 12:00 p.m. ET.

    As usual, RSBN will provide their excellent coverage.

    Liked by 1 person

      1. Well, for someone who likes to follow the Nascar circuit or horse-racing circuit or….any one of many reasons…I’d take it in a heartbeat, thank you!

        Liked by 2 people

          1. My Sis and I talked about one of those “when we win the lottery” kind of thing….rent a big motorhome, hire someone to drive it for us, and travel all over the US, following the weather patterns….we could have soooo much fun!!!

            Liked by 1 person

      1. Add a wheelchair lift for Sally Q and she could have the bottom floor with a roll in shower, a kitchen-snack bar, and I could have a bedroom- art studio-bath on the upper level.

        Liked by 2 people

  20. “Sunday Strip: Free Puppies—Just look into my eyes.”
    ROBERT W MALONE MD, MS
    NOV 19, 2023

    “Jill and I are in Romania and stepping out to get a video for this Substack would not be in “good taste,” so for today, this is it. Here in Romania, I have discovered that the Romanians are amazing. Their hospitality, their resistance against the totalitarianism and their spirit is inspiring.

    Tomorrow, we leave for home. We have responsibilities that we must meet, which is unfortunate – as there is a press conference that I will miss and “the team” wanted me to attend. But there it is – so many people, events, and the tyranny of the urgent. All this means another long flight tomorrow!”

    Memes: https://rwmalonemd.substack.com/p/sunday-strip-free-puppies

    Liked by 1 person

  21. “Thomas Jefferson Warned Us About Massive National Debts—A 1789 letter from Thomas Jefferson to James Madison has lessons for our bankrupt nation”
    EMERALD ROBINSON
    NOV 19, 2023

    EXCERPT: “The following letter from Thomas Jefferson to James Madison (dated September 6th, 1789) has been known as “The earth belongs to the living” letter to generations of American historians. With America’s national debt standing at more than $33 trillion dollars, the letter’s topicality has never been more urgent. Jefferson anticipated the nightmare of a monstrous national debt which no later generation could fully repay: “I am not among those who fear the people. They, and not the rich, are our dependence for continued freedom. And, to preserve their independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. ”
    (NF: I’m editing the spacing)

    DEAR SIR,

    — I sit down to write to you without knowing by what occasion I shall send my letter. I do it because a subject comes into my head which I would wish to develop a little more than is practicable in the hurry of the moment of making up general dispatches.

    The question Whether one generation of men has a right to bind another, seems never to have been started either on this or our side of the water. Yet it is a question of such consequences as not only to merit decision, but place also, among the fundamental principles of every government. The course of reflection in which we are immersed here on the elementary principles of society has presented this question to my mind; and that no such obligation can be transmitted I think very capable of proof.

    I set out on this ground which I suppose to be self evident, “that the earth belongs in usufruct to the living;” that the dead have neither powers nor rights over it. The portion occupied by an individual ceases to be his when himself ceases to be, and reverts to the society. If the society has formed no rules for the appropriation of its lands in severalty, it will be taken by the first occupants. These will generally be the wife and children of the decedent.

    If they have formed rules of appropriation, those rules may give it to the wife and children, or to some one of them, or to the legatee of the deceased. So they may give it to his creditor. But the child, the legatee or creditor takes it, not by any natural right, but by a law of the society of which they are members, and to which they are subject. Then no man can by natural right oblige the lands he occupied, or the persons who succeed him in that occupation, to the payment of debts contracted by him. For if he could, he might during his own life, eat up the usufruct of the lands for several generations to come, and then the lands would belong to the dead, and not to the living, which would be reverse of our principle.

    What is true of every member of the society individually, is true of them all collectively, since the rights of the whole can be no more than the sum of the rights of individuals. To keep our ideas clear when applying them to a multitude, let us suppose a whole generation of men to be born on the same day, to attain mature age on the same day, and to die on the same day, leaving a succeeding generation in the moment of attaining their mature age all together. Let the ripe age be supposed of 21 years, and their period of life 34 years more, that being the average term given by the bills of mortality to persons who have already attained 21 years of age. Each successive generation would, in this way, come on and go off the stage at a fixed moment, as individuals do now. Then I say the earth belongs to each of these generations during its course, fully, and in their own right….”

    https://www.emerald.tv/p/thomas-jefferson-warned-us-about

    Liked by 1 person

  29. interesting…didn’t watch… will watch tomorrow morning

    TheseTruths
    TheseTruths(@thesetruths)Online
    Wolf
    November 19, 2023 14:37

    WATCH: Unseen Footage By Doctors Who Treated JFK Destroys ANOTHER Key Government Narrative Regarding His Assassination

    The Gateway Pundit reported two months [ago] that 88-year-old John F. Kennedy assassination witness Paul Landis gave an exclusive interview where he exposed the Warren Commission’s “magic bullet theory” as a lie. Now another key part of the official story regarding the 35th president’s death has fallen apart thanks to first hand accounts of seven doctors who tried to save his life at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas.

    The Daily Mail on Sunday shared exclusive footage from a documentary airing Sunday evening in the United Kingdom called JFK Assassination: What Happened in the Trauma Room? which show these interviews. The medics first spoke out in 2013 but the interviews were kept hidden until now as the Mail notes so the filmmaker, Jacque Leuth, could interview Jim Jenkins, the only surviving member of the JFK autopsy team. She was able to do so in 2021.

    There is a 2.5-minute video at the link above. Here is the Daily Mail link:
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12762435/JFK-doctors-1963-assassination-challenge-official-narrative-Lee-Harvey-Oswald.html

    Liked by 1 person

  30. are we taking odds that this happens?

    TheseTruths
    TheseTruths(@thesetruths)Online
    Wolf
    November 19, 2023 14:26

    MTG Demands Speaker Johnson to Form a New January 6th Select Committee: “There Needs to Be Investigations and Accountability for All of the Lies, Deceit, and Lives Ruined”

    …The Congresswoman’s call for accountability extends to every member of the original Jan 6th committee, including Nancy Pelosi, as well as agencies like the FBI, DOJ, and both DC and Capitol Police. She insists that those who provided false testimony during the Jan 6 investigations should be subpoenaed.

    The corrupt Department of Justice (DOJ), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the media, and the January 6th Witch Hunt Committee bear the responsibility for the mental and emotional strain placed on these individuals under false premises.

    The intense scrutiny, public shaming, and legal pressures have created an unbearable environment for those awaiting trial or serving sentences, which contributed to a sense of hopelessness and isolation, ultimately leading to tragic outcomes.

     :wpds_arrow: Greene’s statement further demands the drafting of criminal referrals, advocating for prosecutions to be conducted under a DOJ led by the Trump administration. She argues that this is crucial for ensuring justice and addressing the alleged wrongdoings in the handling of the Jan 6th aftermath.

    On Saturday, Julie Kelly, an investigative journalist, joined Steve Bannon on The War Room, shared the same sentiment, and called for a new Congressional investigation committee into the events of that day.

    Steve Bannon agreed and insists investigators will find “brazen criminality” committed by the committee members in their sham investigation and fraudulent report.

    Kelly specifically targeted the testimony of four police officers – Aquilino Gonell, Michael Fanone, Dan Hodges, and Harry Dunn – who had previously testified before Nancy Pelosi’s sham January 6 Committee. Kelly accused these officers of lying under oath in their testimony and in court, claiming that the new footage contradicts their accounts. She argued that their false statements led to longer prison sentences for some defendants due to allegations of racism and violence.

    Liked by 1 person

  32. Wheezer just spent a good ten minutes rolling around on my lap, sucking up the lovin’!! But it’s only 48 out there and raining so I had to come inside to refill his food dish and warm up!

    Liked by 1 person

  33. EXCERPT: “UnitedHealthcare, the largest health insurance company in the US, is allegedly using a deeply flawed AI algorithm to override doctors’ judgments and wrongfully deny critical health coverage to elderly patients. This has resulted in patients being kicked out of rehabilitation programs and care facilities far too early, forcing them to drain their life savings to obtain needed care that should be covered under their government-funded Medicare Advantage Plan.

    That’s all according to a lawsuit filed this week in the US District Court for the District of Minnesota. The lawsuit is brought by the estates of two deceased people who were denied health coverage by UnitedHealth. The suit also seeks class-action status for similarly situated people, of which there may be tens of thousands across the country.

    The lawsuit lands alongside an investigation by Stat News that largely backs the lawsuit’s claims. The investigation’s findings stem from internal documents and communications the outlet obtained, as well as interviews with former employees of NaviHealth, the UnitedHealth subsidiary that developed the AI algorithm called nH Predict.

    “By the end of my time at NaviHealth I realized: I’m not an advocate, I’m just a moneymaker for this company,” Amber Lynch, an occupational therapist and former NaviHealth case manager, told Stat. “It’s all about money and data points,” she added. ‘It takes the dignity out of the patient, and I hated that.” …..

    https://arstechnica.com/health/2023/11/ai-with-90-error-rate-forces-elderly-out-of-rehab-nursing-homes-suit-claims/

    Liked by 1 person

  41. Retired dogwalker bequeathed ‘lost masterpiece’ by famous painter gets nasty auction shock
    Mark Herman was given the Chuck Close painting by his former employer, lawyer Isidore Silver
    The piece was part of a banned exhibition by Close in the 1960s
    The painting sold for $40,000 at an auction house in Dallas earlier this week

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12766519/dog-walker-bequeathed-lost-painting-Chuck-Close-auction.html

    It’s ugly be glad you got that amount

    Liked by 1 person

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