Man in the iron mask

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The man with the iron mask (often just the iron mask ) († November 19, 1703 ) was an unknown French and mysterious state prisoner of Louis XIV , who was imprisoned from 1669 until his death in 1703. His identity is still the subject of speculation to this day.

captivity

The prison on the island of Sainte-Marguerite
"Iron Mask" prison cell on the island of Sainte-Marguerite

The first "public" mention of the man can be found in a letter from the Duchess of Orléans to the Electress Sophie of Hanover on October 15, 1711. She explicitly mentioned that he had to wear a mask all the time, even when eating and sleeping, but knew nothing of his identity. In the later published notes of the lieutenant in the Bastille du Junca, the latter reported in 1698 that an old prisoner had been admitted to the Bastille after the prison director Bénigne Dauvergne de Saint-Mars instructed him to always wear a mask.

Subsequent intensive archival studies that brought to light, among other things, the correspondence between the War Minister Louvois and Saint-Mars (albeit heavily censored by Louvois so that around 90% are missing) and which, for example, in the cited books by Marcel Pagnol , Mongredien or Andrew Lang , the following chronology of the prisoner is well documented.

The man in the mask was first imprisoned on August 24, 1669 in the fortress of Pinerolo (Pignerol) in Piedmont . In a July 19 letter, Louvois announced a servant named Eustache Dauger as a prisoner of the highest importance who was being brought from Dunkirk but had not yet been arrested. In Pignerol he was imprisoned with other high-ranking state prisoners such as Nicolas Fouquet and the Marquis de Lauzun and was also allowed to have contact with Fouquet. He was temporarily available to Fouquet as a servant when his actual servant La Rivarol was sick. When Fouquet asked for greater liberties in 1678, the king made it dependent on the answer to the question whether Dauger had entrusted anything to his servant Rivarol. The king was satisfied with the answer, and Fouquet was granted relief. After Fouquet's death in 1680, a hole was discovered between his and Lauzun's cell, and from then on the man in the mask and Fouquet's servant were strictly separated from Lauzun, who was released the following year. From 1681 the man in the mask, who now shared the cell with de Rivarol, came to the fortress of Exilles in the Alps ( Val di Susa ), 26 km away . In 1682, on Louvois's orders, the conditions of detention were tightened again and the two were separated. Rivarol died in 1687, and when the fortress of Exilles was threatened by war, the man in the mask was relocated to the island of Sainte-Marguerite on May 3, where initially only one other prisoner lived. In September 1698 he was taken to the Bastille in Paris , where he died on November 19, 1703. With each change of location, the prison director Saint-Mars was also transferred, who in this way rose to governor of the Bastille in 1698 - the man in the mask and several other prisoners always with him.

The unknown man had to wear a mask when walking in court and when dealing with strangers and was not allowed to contact anyone under the penalty of death for the confidant - the officer who transferred him from Dunkirk threatened to kill him immediately if he tried to confide something to him. Every time he went to prison, great care was taken to ensure that no one could hear his voice, see his face, or even speak to him. During the transport to Sainte-Marguerite he was transported in a sedan chair hermetically sealed with an oilcloth, so that he nearly suffocated. Italians from Turin were chosen as porters .

For his personal convenience, however, he was granted numerous perks. In Sainte-Margerite he got his linen changed twice a week, a furnished cell, received all the books he asked for as soon as he was posted, was allowed to play the lute and, if necessary, was given medical attention. For him and his servant, Saint-Mars received £ 12 a day for food.

No expense was spared to guard it. The sum that was spent building his prison cell on the island of Sainte-Marguerite, one of the Îles de Lérins off Cannes , was 5,000 livres. A special cell was built in Pignerol that had to be entered through three doors so that the guards could not hear anything. It had double-barred windows that could not be seen from the outside. He was also looked after personally by the prison director, who served him the food. There are testimonies that the officers took off their hats in his presence and only put them on again when asked.

It was Voltaire who said he was wearing an iron mask, but it was actually made of black velvet. Voltaire tried to learn as much as possible about the case when he was imprisoned in the Bastille in 1717. After Voltaire he was a brother of Louis XIV - which Alexandre Dumas also popularized in his novel - and was about 60 years old when he died. According to witnesses, he already had gray hair in Exilles in 1687.

Hypotheses about his identity

The attempts to identify the man with the mask are numerous and every hypothesis has its prominent and sometimes bitter supporters. However, it may be a mixture of rumors and facts about various prisoners of Louis XIV. This explanation was first proposed in 1801 by Pierre Roux-Fazillac (1746–1833), a French revolutionary deputy.

Twin brother of Louis XIV.

As already mentioned, Voltaire supported the thesis that the prisoner was a twin brother of Louis XIV, whom Anna of Austria and Mazarin grew up in a different place. Voltaire also claims that the prisoner was admitted as early as 1661, a few months after Mazarin's death, according to his theory shortly after Louis XIV found out about it. Even Marcel Pagnol claims he was a grown up in the countryside and then in England twin brother of Louis XIV., The king settled in a plot to overthrow entangle and was arrested on his return to Dunkirk. Around 50 people were present at the birth of Louis XIV; only a few hours later the queen withdrew with a midwife and a lady-in-waiting. According to this theory, a twin would have been born later, who, according to the law at the time, would have been the heir to the throne of his older twin and was therefore advised by Ludwig XIII. Cardinal Richelieu had been taken aside to avoid confusion and who therefore grew up with a foster family. Doubts about this theory are based, however, on the fact that another possible heir to the throne should have been most welcome in the child mortality of that time Richelieu. Pagnol's main argument seems to be that even in the 1690s strict instructions were given that the face should not be recognized. During the transfer to the Bastille, Louis XIV gave instructions that he would not be “seen and recognized” by anyone (“qu'il ne soit vu ni connu de personne”, instead of “recognized” for connu the translation “known” is also used possible; Pagnol provides arguments for the first version). The only person who would have been recognized immediately, so long after the arrest, would have been the king or his identical twin.

Illegitimate son of the queen

According to another theory, the man in the mask was an illegitimate child of Anna of Austria, who had been estranged from her husband for many years. For example, a liaison with Cardinal Mazarin (de Mihiel 1790), who was her prime minister during her long reign, or with the Duke of Buckingham (Luchet), or the musketeer officer Francois de Cavoye, who actually had a son Eustache Dauger born in 1637, was discussed . After that, Louis XIII's accidental overnight stay would be . in the Louvre, the queen's residence - an overnight stay during the course of which Louis XIV was verifiably conceived - was also arranged by Richelieu, as was Anna's liaison with a stranger at the same time. The baselessness of this theory lies in the fact that an illegitimate child Anna of Austria would have had no claim to the throne at all, since according to the old Salian inheritance law only the male line of the royal family counted. So this hypothetical arrangement would have been completely pointless for Richelieu.

Physical father of Louis XIV.

Williamson supports Lord Quickswood's theory that the mysterious prisoner was the father of Louis XIV. After that, Louis XIV would be Louis XIII himself. only been foisted (by Richelieu and Anna of Austria) in order to prevent Gaston d'Orléans' accession to the throne . The real father was sent into exile in what was then French Canada. But when he tried to capitalize on his knowledge, for example with the English King Charles II , who could have improved his negotiating position with Louis XIV, he was kidnapped and imprisoned. However, Quickswood himself points out that the prisoner would then have to have been well over 80 when he died, which contradicts witness statements.

The Grand Admiral François de Vendôme , Duke of Beaufort, who was very popular as a hero of the Fronde in France at the time, has also been brought into play in this context. This disappeared without a trace after a night battle during the siege of Candia by the Turks on Crete on June 25, 1669, in which the French took part in support of the Venetians. According to Hubert Monteilhet, he would have been appointed by the Turks at the request of the king as the lover of Anna of Austria and the true father of Louis XIV. The poet François Joseph de Lagrange-Chancel (1677–1758), who at the time of Louis XV. also caught on Sainte-Marguerite. However, at that time the Turks carried the Duke's head in triumph on Piken through Constantinople .

Confidante of the origin of Louis XIV.

Vernardeau holds the prisoner for Marc de Morelhie, the son-in-law of the personal physician Anna of Austria, who carried out the autopsy of Louis XIII. carried out, during which his infertility was determined. After that, the father-in-law would have confided this secret to Morelhie. Morelhie died in 1680. In addition, there is evidence that his father-in-law was not present at the autopsy, as he was not yet the Queen's personal physician.

Mattioli

According to information on Louis XV. go back, the man in the mask is Count Ercole Antonio Mattioli (* 1640), a minister of Ferdinando Carlo von Gonzaga-Nevers , Duke of Mantua and Montferrat, who was responsible for handing over the important Casale fortress for 100,000 Scudi to the Negotiated the French (treaty concluded in Paris on December 6, 1678), but then betrayed trade to Savoy, Austria, Spain, and Venice for further rewards. However, the betrayal was exposed and the angry Louis XIV had Mattioli kidnapped in 1679 by the French ambassador d'Estrades and locked up in Pignerol. Since Mattioli died in 1694 (apparently insanely for several years due to the harsh conditions of his captivity), this seems to be a mix-up or another part of the myth. Mattioli stayed in Pignerol until 1694 and when the fortress was threatened, he was taken to Sainte-Marguerite, where he died shortly afterwards. On the other hand, the prisoner with the mask who died in 1703 is said to have been buried under the name Marchioly in St. Paul. Mattioli himself was imprisoned as Lestang . Apparently Mattioli, who was treated much worse than the mask, is a misplaced lead. Although there is a letter from Louvois in which he indicates that it was also transferred to Exilles, this is clearly contradicted by a letter from Saint-Mars to d'Estrades from 1681, which is not part of the official correspondence. He stayed in Pignerole almost until his death.

Vivien Lallé de Bulonde

After the secret military correspondence of Louis XIV had been deciphered by Étienne Bazeries around 1893 , a letter to General Catinat dated August 24, 1691, in which he instructed General Vivien Lallé de Bulonde , who, according to the king, was at the siege, became known von Cuneo in Piedmont, out of cowardice, had endangered the campaign to arrest, imprison and put a mask on him. This could also be part of the myth, but Bulonde himself did not die until 1709. One argument against the identity of the man in the mask is that he had no secrets to reveal and the reason for his imprisonment was well known.

More theories

  • According to Louvois' letter (1669) to the prison commandant, the mask was sent to Pignerol as a servant named Eustache Dauger (or d'Auger, d'Oger). He was also used by the prison director Saint-Mars as a substitute servant for Nicolas Fouquet, who was imprisoned for life, in the event that his own servant was ill. But nothing else is known about a Dauger.
  • According to Andrew Lang , he is a servant named Martin who served the French Huguenot Roux de Marsilly in England. Roux de Marsilly was working in London on a large-scale uprising against Louis XIV, who was already persecuting the Huguenots at that time, but a friend betrayed this to the French ambassador. He fled to Switzerland, from where he was kidnapped by agents of Louis XIV and on June 22nd 1669 in Paris he was publicly whacked for four hours. The servant would then have known state secrets and was therefore lured to France and arrested. He would not have been the only prisoner who would have simply been forgotten afterwards. On the other hand, Louvois' continued instructions suggest that the prisoner was later in possession of important state secrets.
  • John Noone modifies Andrew Lang's thesis somewhat. According to this, he is a servant who happened to learn of a state secret (such as an intrigue by Louvois, the plan to assassinate Colbert is discussed, for example). According to Noone, Saint Mars would only have staged the masked theater in order to exaggerate its own importance and pursue a career after its main prisoners Lauzun and Fouquet were released or died.
  • Even according to the historian Jean-Christian Petitfils ( L'homme au masque de fer , Paris 1970) he is a prisoner of the state (a servant who knows some secrets), but the rest is just an invention or staging of Saint-Mars to his troops convince of the importance of guarding the remote fortress.
  • In 1669 secret negotiations between Louis XIV and the English King Charles II ( Treaty of Dover ) were in progress, which also involved a return to Catholicism in England with France's help, which Charles II for subsidies and support against promised the Netherlands. One of the many people involved (even if they were only servants, messengers, or accidental accomplices) may have been imprisoned to ensure silence. In this context, there are also assumptions that it is the alleged son of Charles II, James de la Cloche , who came to England in 1668 and was sent to Rome, where his trace is lost.
  • The son (Dauphin) of Louis XV. urged his father several times to reveal the secret to him. The king said that he had taken an oath to remain silent. He also said this to his minister, Choiseuil. Urged further, he said the mysterious prisoner was an insignificant person who capitalized on the resemblance to the king. When Madame de Pompadour urged the king with similar curiosity, he presented the Mattioli hypothesis as the solution to the riddle - the man in the mask was the secretary of an Italian prince. Also Louis XVI. commented accordingly to Marie Antoinette . Louis XVIII claimed to La Rochefoucault that he, like all successors of Louis XIV, took an oath not to betray anything in order not to tarnish the honor of this king.
  • The Duchess of Orléans wrote in a letter dated October 22, 1711 that it was an English nobleman who was involved in a Jacobite plot against William of Orange (part of the plot of Sir John Fenwick, who was executed for it in 1697 ). From today's perspective, this hypothesis is untenable. It is regarded as the starting point of efforts to bring an Englishman into play as a candidate for the identity of the man in the mask. The fact that he was arrested in the port city of Dunkirk and probably came by ship from England could be used as a further argument.
  • The masked prisoner is a son from the marriage of Louis XIV with his mistress Louise de La Vallière , a Count of Vermandois, who slapped the Dauphin and was therefore imprisoned for life. There was actually a son of this name (born 1667, died 1683) with La Valliere who was legitimized by Louis XIV in 1669, who had fallen out of favor with the king because of homosexuality.
  • The man in the mask was a half-brother of Louis XIV, in this hypothesis on the part of Louis XIII. Rupert Furneaux points to the similarity between Louis Oger de Cavoye (1640-1716) and the king. He had been close friends with the king and his Grand Marechal de Logis (palace marshal) from childhood . At Cavoye's request, the king had his brother Eustache arrested. This happened as early as 1668, and Eustache died eleven years later in Saint-Lazaire prison. Eustache was Lieutenant of the Guards. He killed a page and committed "debauchery" ( debaucheries ) on Good Friday (during which a priest baptized a pig, among other things), with the result that his family broke away from him. Pagnol thinks it is likely that the code name Eustache Dauger was chosen for the mask man from Louvois after this case.
  • The masked man is the Lorraine knight de Harmoises, who was at the head of a conspiracy against Louis XIV in the Spanish Netherlands. He was arrested in Péronne on March 29, 1673 and, according to this hypothesis, would have been so closely guarded because high nobles were accomplices of the conspiracy.
  • The man in the mask was said to have been Duke of Monmouth , on the assumption that James II did not have his own nephew Monmouth, who rebelled against him, executed in 1685, but replaced him with another. This hypothesis also seems to arise from an effort to necessarily present an Englishman as a candidate.
  • The mysterious prisoner was a son of Oliver Cromwell . This reading apparently goes back to a letter from Saint-Mars himself dated January 8, 1688, in which he stated that the world would believe the prisoner was either a son of Cromwell or the Duke of Beaufort. Richard Cromwell disappeared in 1671 to avoid persecution, but reappeared in 1680 and died in 1712. This version can be viewed as a false lead then laid.
  • The masked prisoner was Fouquet himself, whose apparent death was staged in Pignerol by Colbert and Louvet in order to prevent the prospect of rehabilitation. In his book, however, Pagnol convincingly proves that Fouquet died in prison; he was probably poisoned. The fact is that Fouquet's body is not in the family grave, but there may have been practical reasons for that.
  • Duvivier tries to prove in his book that the masked man was a professional poisoner who poisoned Fouquet before he was released. As evidence, he cites a strange letter from Louvois to Saint-Mars a few months after Fouquet's death, in which he asks for an unnamed item to be sent and asks where Dauger got the drugs that were needed to manufacture it.
  • The mysterious prisoner was the Armenian patriarch Avetik von Tokat († 1711) kidnapped by the French . In fact, he was imprisoned in Mont Saint-Michel and in the Bastille, but only from 1706, and was released again in 1711.
  • Other candidates were Duke Henri II of Guise , and the poet Molière and the role model for Dumas' fictional character d'Artagnan have even been considered.

Summary: the two main theses

Almost all hypotheses made about this “white whale” by historical trackers can today, after more than 200 years of intensive research, which began right at the end of the Ancien Régime , be considered refuted or are on weak feet. The last to know the solution to the riddle was apparently the French Minister of War Chamillart , who, as Voltaire narrates , took it with him to the grave in 1721 despite the requests of his son-in-law.

Relative of the king

The weak point of all those hypotheses that want to see a relationship between Louis XIV and the prisoner is that it was completely impossible for the royal mother Anna of Austria, due to the strict social surveillance, to have an affair. However, Anna was pregnant many times during their marriage, which is also against a supposed incapacity of Louis XIII. speaks. Both suggest that Anna of Austria only lived with Ludwig XIII. wrong. Since births in the French royal family traditionally took place in public, it is also impossible that a twin birth could be covered up. Since a total of several hundred people were present at the birth of Louis XIV, his birth is even extremely well documented in memoirs and letters, more extensively than in hardly any other person in history. For these reasons, such kinship theories have to be assessed as rather unrealistic. In addition, the temporary use of the prisoner as a servant almost certainly rules out a high birth.

servant

The weakness of the servant hypotheses lies in the fact that no expense was spared for the comfort of the prisoner and Louis XIV was personally interested in him. Besides, a common servant would probably have been killed. Pagnol considers the designation as servant to be a deception and believes that the “servant role” at Fouquet would have been more that of a secretary, which Dauger was granted as a privilege after a long solitary confinement.

Literary processing

  • Anonymous: story of the man in the iron mask . Gehra, Neuwied 1790
  • Jean Baptiste S. de Saint-Mihiel: The real man in the iron mask . Verlag Johann Gottfried Hanisch, Hildburghausen 1792 (Original edition: Le véritable homme dit au masque de fer , Strasbourg 1790)
  • Jean d'Aillon : Le Dernier Secret de Richelieu . Edition du Masque, Paris 2005, ISBN 2-7024-9771-3 .
  • Anna Burg: The man with the iron mask. Story for the more mature youth . Rascher, Zurich 1934.
  • Alexandre Dumas the Elder : The Man in the Iron Mask ("Le Vicomte de Bragelonne ou L'homme au masque de fer"). Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-7466-1392-2 (the third volume of The Three Musketeers )
  • Elisabeth Guénard: L'homme au masque de fer ou les illustres jumeaux. Historically véritable . Locard & David, Paris 1821/28 (4 vol.)
  • Victor Hugo : Les Jumeaux (The Twins), drama unpublished during his lifetime, 1839
  • Maurice Leblanc : The hollow needle or the competitor of Arsène Lupine . Diogenes-Verlag, Zurich 1976, ISBN 3-257-20239-3 (first 1909, English edition online: [3] )
  • Charles de Mouhy: Le Masque de fer, ou les Aventures admirables du père et du fils. Romance l'espagnol . Desjonquères, Paris 1983, ISBN 2-904227-04-2 (repr. Of the Paris 1746 edition)
  • Marcel Pagnol : The Iron Mask. The Sun King and the secret of the great unknown ("Le masque de fer"). Piper, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-492-22775-9 (narrative fiction is only the final chapter in this non-fiction book).
  • Jean B. Regnault-Warin: The man with the iron mask ("L'homme au Masque de fer"). Verlag Fleischer, Leipzig 1804.
  • Alfred de Vigny : La prison (poem). In: œuvres . Edition du Seuil, Paris 1965.
  • Paul V. Wichmann: The iron mask. Historical novel from the archives of the Dukes of Conde and Rohan . Publishing house Costenoble, Jena 1887 (2 vol.)
  • Heinrich Zschokke : The man with the iron mask. Tragedy in 5 acts . (according to the twin brother thesis)

Film adaptations

The material was often filmed. The most famous film adaptations include:

Almost all film adaptations are based on the novel by Alexandre Dumas.

literature

  • Maurice Duvivier: Le Masque de Fer . Armand Collin, Paris 1952
  • Frantz Funck-Brentano : The Bastille in legend and according to historical documents ( Legendes et archives de la Bastille ). Schottlaender, Breslau 1899.
    • French edition Légend et archives de la Bastille , Paris, Hachette 1901 Archives
  • Frantz Funck-Brentano: L'Homme au masque de velours noir dit Le Masque de fer . In: Revue historique , vol. 55, 1894
  • David Kahn : The Man in the Iron Mask - Encore et Enfin . Cryptologia . Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. Taylor & Francis, Philadelphia PA 29.2005, pp. 43-94. ISSN  0161-1194
  • Andrew Lang : The Valet's tragedy and other studies . Longmans, Green, London 1903
  • Georges Mongrédien: Le masque du fer . Le Grand Livre du mois, Paris 1994, ISBN 2-7028-0321-0 (first 1932).
  • John Noone: The Man Behind the Iron Mask ( The man behind the iron mask ). Magnus-Verlag, Essen 2004, ISBN 3-88400-417-4 .
  • Marcel Pagnol : The Man in the Iron Mask. The Sun King and the Secret of the Great Unknown ( Le masque de fer ). Piper, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-492-22775-9 (first French 1965, quoted from dtv edition 1968)
  • August Riese: The iron mask. Based on the latest French archival research "La vérité sur la masque de fer d'après des documents inédits des archives de la guerre etc. etc. par Th. Jung, officier d'état-major, par 1873", as well as other French Sources . Publishing house Bamberg, Greifswald 1876.
    • Th. Jung La vérité sur la masque de fer , Paris 1873 Archives
  • Marius Topin: La homme au Masque de Fer . Didier, Paris 1870, Archives
  • Hugh R. Williamson: Who was the man with the iron mask and other historical mysteries . Penguin, London 2002, ISBN 0-14-139097-2 (Repr. Of the Historical enigmas edition , London 1974)

Web links

(Hypothesis of the twin brother of Louis XIV, after Jean-Louis Giraud-Soulavie 1790)

Individual evidence

  1. As well as October 22nd. Printed for example in Der Hof Ludwigs XIV. In eyewitness reports , dtv 1981, p. 369, and Pagnol p. 37
  2. quoted in Andrew Lang, Funck-Brentano
  3. This is what the future confessor of the Bastille Griffet and one of his guards in Saint-Margerite, Blainvilliers, said. Incidentally, the latter's statement is the first mention in the documents that he was wearing a mask.
  4. ^ According to Pagnol, 1 pound was equivalent to about 12 new francs in 1965
  5. quoted by Formanoir 1768
  6. However, it is said to have had steel parts to enable him to eat while he was carrying it.
  7. Both the Bastille doctor, Griffet, who later became the Bastille's confessor, and Guillaume, the Formanair (Année litteraire 1768, quoted in Pagnol, p. 52) say this. Formanair was the grandson of the Formanair who served and inherited Saint-Mars.
  8. ^ Siecle de Louis XIV. 1751 and in supplements up to 1771, further developed in Essai sur l histoire generale 1763, Questions sur l encyclopedie , 1770/1, article Anna in his Dictionnaire philosophique. All passages are cited in Pagnol, pp. 45ff
  9. This was particularly represented by Soulavie in 1790 (editor of Richelieu's memoirs), that is to say already at the time of the revolution, when the Ancien Régime was wanted to be defamed. Also Melchior Grimm took 1,789 this thesis, which he allegedly learned of an old servant.
  10. Marie Madeleine Mast 1974
  11. Au royaume des ombres 2003
  12. Le medecin de la Reine (The Queen's Doctor) 1934
  13. Also in Enciclopedia italiana, a book by Pierre Roux-Fazillacs: Recherches historiques et critiques sur le homme au masque fer , Edition Valade, Paris 1801 and Heiss 1770, Senac de Meilhan Oeuvres philosophiques et littéraires , Hamburg 1795, Delort Histoire de l'homme au masque de fer Paris 1825, Topin L'homme au masque du fer Paris 1869, Camille Rousset Histoire de Louvois , several volumes, Paris 1879
  14. According to Lang, the burying of his prisoners under a false mystifying name was common at Saint Mars. For example, there is a letter from Saint-Mars to Louvois that Mattioli, delusional and to complain, invoked his kinship with the king. Pagnol already suspects here that Mattioli is a code for the man in the mask.
  15. Pagnol, p. 154
  16. ^ Emile Burgaud, Bazeries Le Masque de fer, révélation de la correspondance chiffrée de Louis XIV, étude appuyée de documents inédits des archives du dépôt de la guerre , Paris, Firmin Didot, 1893. The Grand Cipher consisted of code words for syllables. The cryptography historian David Kahn Cryptologia January 2005, paid online at doi : 10.1080 / 0161-110591893753 , reports that Bazeries' identification of the word mask is likely wrong (there were only 587 code words, and the ones in question only appeared once), as the French cryptologist Soudart pointed out in his 1935 book. Incidentally, Kahn could no longer find the correspondence in question in the Vincennes military archive.
  17. However, it cannot have been a "corpse in the cellar" of Louvois alone, since imprisonment enjoyed undiminished priority even after his death in 1691.
  18. Barnes The man of the mask 1908
  19. Senac de Meilhan
  20. Anonymous: Memoires secrets , 1745/6 Amsterdam, as well as Griffet Traité des différentes sortes des preuves qui servent à établir la vérité dans l'histoire , Liège 1769. The Jesuit Griffet was 1745–1764 confessor in the Bastille and published the diaries of this prison .
  21. ^ The man behind the mask 1954
  22. ^ Jung La vérité sur le masque de fer , Paris 1873, German Greifswald 1876. The author was a general in the French general staff and intensively examined the military archives.
  23. ^ So B. Jacob L'homme au masque de Fer , Paris 1840, and later Pierre Jacques Arrèse 1970
  24. Pagnol p. 148
  25. ^ Anatole Loquin, Actes Academie Bordeaux 1895, 1896
  26. ^ Roger MacDonald The man in the iron mask 2005
  27. (online here: [1] )
  28. (online here: [2] )