in the first edition of his "Siecle de Louis XIV.," merely spoke of
a young, handsome, masked prisoner, treated with the highest
respect by Louvois, the Minister of Louis XIV. At last, in
"Questions sur l'Encyclopedie" (second edition), Voltaire averred
that the Mask was the son of Anne of Austria and Mazarin, an elder
brother of Louis XIV. Changes were rung on this note: the Mask was
the actual King, Louis XIV. was a bastard. Others held that he was
James, Duke of Monmouth--or Moliere! In 1770 Heiss identified him
with Mattioli, the Mantuan intriguer, and especially after the
appearance of the book by Roux Fazaillac, in 1801, that was the
generally accepted opinion.

It MAY be true, in part. Mattioli MAY have been the prisoner who
died in the Bastille in November 1703, but the legend of the Mask's
prison life undeniably arose out of the adventure of our valet,
Martin or Eustache Dauger.


II

THE VALET'S HISTORY


After reading the arguments of the advocates of Mattioli, I could
not but perceive that, whatever captive died, masked, at the
Bastille in 1703, the valet Dauger was the real source of most of
the legends about the Man in the Iron Mask. A study of M. Lair's
book "Nicholas Fouquet" (1890) confirmed this opinion. I therefore
pushed the inquiry into a source neglected by the French
historians, namely, the correspondence of the English ambassadors,