The existence of this prisoner was known and excited curiosity. On
October 15, 1711, the Princess Palatine wrote about the case to the
Electress Sophia of Hanover, "A man lived for long years in the
Bastille, masked, and masked he died there. Two musketeers were by
his side to shoot him if ever he unmasked. He ate and slept in his
mask. There must, doubtless, have been some good reason for this,
as otherwise he was very well treated, well lodged, and had
everything given to him that he wanted. He took the Communion
masked; was very devout, and read perpetually."

On October 22, 1711, the Princess writes that the Mask was an
English nobleman, mixed up in the plot of the Duke of Berwick
against William III.--Fenwick's affair is meant. He was imprisoned
and masked that the Dutch usurper might never know what had become
of him.[1]


[1] Op. cit. 98, note I.


The legend was now afloat in society. The sub-commandant of the
Bastille from 1749 to 1787, Chevalier, declared, obviously on the
evidence of tradition, that all the Mask's furniture and clothes
were destroyed at his death, lest they might yield a clew to his
identity. Louis XV. is said to have told Madame de Pompadour that
the Mask was "the minister of an Italian prince." Louis XVI. told
Marie Antoinette (according to Madame de Campan) that the Mask was
a Mantuan intriguer, the same person as Louis XV. indicated.
Perhaps he was, it is one of two possible alternatives. Voltaire,