WHO WAS THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK?

 

 WHO WAS THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK? 

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 During the reign of King Louis XIV, a mysterious man was locked away in the notorious Bastille ~ the Man in the Iron Mask.

Interestingly, the 'iron mask' detail may have even been part of the legend added later ~ as some have claimed that the mask was actually made of velvet.

 The faceless prisoner still conjures up images of political intrigue, deadly betrayal, and historical enigmas, even today.

His mask and threadbare cell are perhaps even more infamous than the man himself, but his anonymous face obviously led to many questions about his true identity.

 The Man in the Iron Mask was held captive from the end of the 17th century to the beginning of the 18th century.

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

Was he a nobleman, a prince, a political rival, or just a valet in the wrong place at the wrong time?

 In 1698, a Bastille official recorded that musketeer Bénigne de Saint-Mars, arrived at the infamous prison with a mysterious inmate.

This inmate was 'always masked and whose name was never pronounced'

The Man in the Iron Mask spent his final years in the Bastille, until his death on 19th November 1703 ~ watched over by Bénigne de Saint-Mars.

Allegedly, the cell only contained a mat for sleeping.

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

Somebody was working 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.

 Historians point to two men as the most often suspected identities of the man behind the iron mask.
Ercole Matthiole and Eustache Dauger.

Ercole Matthiole was an Italian count who had politically betrayed Louis XIV, in the 1670s.
However, Matthiole died in 1694, which was years before the Man in the Iron Mask passed away.

 Eustache Dauger 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.

 Rumours that Louis XIV's wife, Queen Marie-Thérèse, had an illegitimate black daughter in 1664, were well known.

The girl's father was supposedly Nabo, Queen Marie-Thérèse's page ~ who was a black dwarf.
Nabo was removed from court by order of the king.

There are some claims that Nabo was incarcerated as the 'Man in the Iron Mask ~ under the pseudonym of 'Eustache Dauger!!!'

 However, Voltaire put forth a different theory.
He claims that the prisoner may have been a half brother of Louis XIV.

Louis de Bourbon was the illegitimate son of Louis XIV’s father.

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".

 During the 19th century, French author Alexandre Dumas tackled the question in his historical novels.

Dumas theorised that the prisoner was King Louis XIV’s twin brother Philippe.
Philippe was imprisoned to simplify the throne’s inheritance and keep Louis XIV in power.

 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 Tudor Intruders (and more)
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 Source~AllThatsInteresting.
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 Man in the Iron Mask c.1798
Anonymous artist.