The Man in the Iron Mask [An Essay]

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CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE

BY ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

IN EIGHT VOLUMES


THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK [An Essay]

(This is the essay entitled The Man in the Iron Mask, not the novel
"The Man in the Iron Mask" [The Novel] Dumas #28[nmaskxxx.xxx]2759)


For nearly one hundred years this curious problem has exercised the
imagination of writers of fiction--and of drama, and the patience of the
learned in history. No subject is more obscure and elusive, and none
more attractive to the general mind. It is a legend to the meaning of
which none can find the key and yet in which everyone believes.
Involuntarily we feel pity at the thought of that long captivity
surrounded by so many extraordinary precautions, and when we dwell on the
mystery which enveloped the captive, that pity is not only deepened but a
kind of terror takes possession of us. It is very likely that if the
name of the hero of this gloomy tale had been known at the time, he would
now be forgotten. To give him a name would be to relegate him at once to
the ranks of those commonplace offenders who quickly exhaust our interest
and our tears. But this being, cut off from the world without leaving
any discoverable trace, and whose disappearance apparently caused no
void--this captive, distinguished among captives by the unexampled nature
of his punishment, a prison within a prison, as if the walls of a mere
cell were not narrow enough, has come to typify for us the sum of all the
human misery and suffering ever inflicted by unjust tyranny.

Who was the Man in the Mask? Was he rapt away into this silent seclusion
from the luxury of a court, from the intrigues of diplomacy, from the
scaffold of a traitor, from the clash of battle? What did he leave
behind? Love, glory, or a throne? What did he regret when hope had
fled? Did he pour forth imprecations and curses on his tortures and
blaspheme against high Heaven, or did he with a sigh possess his soul in
patience?

The blows of fortune are differently received according to the different
characters of those on whom they fall; and each one of us who in
imagination threads the subterranean passages leading to the cells of
Pignerol and Exilles, and incarcerates himself in the Iles
Sainte-Marguerite and in the Bastille, the successive scenes of that
long-protracted agony will give the prisoner a form shaped by his own
fancy and a grief proportioned to his own power of suffering. How we
long to pierce the thoughts and feel the heart-beats and watch the
trickling tears behind that machine-like exterior, that impassible mask!
Our imagination is powerfully excited by the dumbness of that fate borne
by one whose words never reached the outward air, whose thoughts could
never be read on the hidden features; by the isolation of forty years
secured by two-fold barriers of stone and iron, and she clothes the
object of her contemplation in majestic splendour, connects the mystery
which enveloped his existence with mighty interests, and persists in
regarding the prisoner as sacrificed for the preservation of some
dynastic secret involving the peace of the world and the stability of a
throne.

And when we calmly reflect on the whole case, do we feel that our first
impulsively adopted opinion was wrong? Do we regard our belief as a
poetical illusion? I do not think so; on the contrary, it seems to me
that our good sense approves our fancy's flight. For what can be more
natural than the conviction that the secret of the name, age, and
features of the captive, which was so perseveringly kept through long
years at the cost of so much care, was of vital importance to the
Government? No ordinary human passion, such as anger, hate, or
vengeance, has so dogged and enduring a character; we feel that the
measures taken were not the expression of a love of cruelty, for even
supposing that Louis XIV were the most cruel of princes, would he not
have chosen one of the thousand methods of torture ready to his hand
before inventing a new and strange one? Moreover, why did he voluntarily
burden himself with the obligation of surrounding a prisoner with such
numberless precautions and such sleepless vigilance? Must he not have
feared that in spite of it all the walls behind which he concealed the
dread mystery would one day let in the light? Was it not through his
entire reign a source of unceasing anxiety? And yet he respected the
life of the captive whom it was so difficult to hide, and the discovery
of whose identity would have been so dangerous. It would have been so
easy to bury the secret in an obscure grave, and yet the order was never
given. Was this an expression of hate, anger, or any other passion?
Certainly not; the conclusion we must come to in regard to the conduct of
the king is that all the measures he took against the prisoner were
dictated by purely political motives; that his conscience, while allowing
him to do everything necessary to guard the secret, did not permit him to
take the further step of putting an end to the days of an unfortunate
man, who in all probability was guilty of no crime.

Courtiers are seldom obsequious to the enemies of their master, so that
we may regard the respect and consideration shown to the Man in the Mask
by the governor Saint-Mars, and the minister Louvois, as a testimony, not
only to his high rank, but also to his innocence.

For my part, I make no pretensions to the erudition of the bookworm, and
I cannot read the history of the Man in the Iron Mask without feeling my
blood boil at the abominable abuse of power--the heinous crime of which
he was the victim.

A few years ago, M. Fournier and I, thinking the subject suitable for
representation on the stage, undertook to read, before dramatising it,
all the different versions of the affair which had been published up to
that time. Since our piece was successfully performed at the Odeon two
other versions have appeared: one was in the form of a letter addressed
to the Historical Institute by M. Billiard, who upheld the conclusions
arrived at by Soulavie, on whose narrative our play was founded; the
other was a work by the bibliophile Jacob, who followed a new system of
inquiry, and whose book displayed the results of deep research and
extensive reading. It did not, however, cause me to change my opinion.
Even had it been published before I had written my drama, I should still
have adhered to the idea as to the most probable solution of the problem
which I had arrived at in 1831, not only because it was incontestably the
most dramatic, but also because it is supported by those moral
presumptions which have such weight with us when considering a dark and
doubtful question like the one before us. It will, be objected, perhaps,
that dramatic writers, in their love of the marvellous and the pathetic,
neglect logic and strain after effect, their aim being to obtain the
applause of the gallery rather than the approbation of the learned. But
to this it may be replied that the learned on their part sacrifice a
great deal to their love of dates, more or less exact; to their desire to
elucidate some point which had hitherto been considered obscure, and
which their explanations do not always clear up; to the temptation to
display their proficiency in the ingenious art of manipulating facts and
figures culled from a dozen musty volumes into one consistent whole.

Our interest in this strange case of imprisonment arises, not alone from
its completeness and duration, but also from our uncertainty as to the
motives from which it was inflicted. Where erudition alone cannot
suffice; where bookworm after bookworm, disdaining the conjectures of his
predecessors, comes forward with a new theory founded on some forgotten
document he has hunted out, only to find himself in his turn pushed into
oblivion by some follower in his track, we must turn for guidance to some
other light than that of scholarship; especially if, on strict
investigation, we find that not one learned solution rests on a sound
basis of fact.

In the question before us, which, as we said before, is a double one,
asking not only who was the Man in the Iron Mask, but why he was
relentlessly subjected to this torture till the moment of his death, what
we need in order to restrain our fancy is mathematical demonstration, and
not philosophical induction.

While I do not go so far as to assert positively that Abbe Soulavie has
once for all lifted the veil which hid the truth, I am yet persuaded that
no other system of research is superior to his, and that no other
suggested solution has so many presumptions in its favour. I have not
reached this firm conviction on account of the great and prolonged
success of our drama, but because of the ease with which all the opinions
adverse to those of the abbe may be annihilated by pitting them one
against the other.

The qualities that make for success being quite different in a novel and
in a drama, I could easily have founded a romance on the fictitious loves
of Buckingham and the queen, or on a supposed secret marriage between her
and Cardinal Mazarin, calling to my aid a work by Saint-Mihiel which the
bibliophile declares he has never read, although it is assuredly neither
rare nor difficult of access. I might also have merely expanded my
drama, restoring to the personages therein their true names and relative
positions, both of which the exigencies of the stage had sometimes
obliged me to alter, and while allowing them to fill the same parts,
making them act more in accordance with historical fact. No fable
however far-fetched, no grouping of characters however improbable, can,
however, destroy the interest which the innumerable writings about the
Iron Mask excite, although no two agree in details, and although each
author and each witness declares himself in possession of complete
knowledge. No work, however mediocre, however worthless even, which has
appeared on this subject has ever failed of success, not even, for
example, the strange jumble of Chevalier de Mouhy, a kind of literary
braggart, who was in the pay of Voltaire, and whose work was published
anonymously in 1746 by Pierre de Hondt of The Hague. It is divided into
six short parts, and bears the title, 'Le Masque de Fer, ou les Aventures
admirables du Prre et du Fils'. An absurd romance by Regnault Warin, and
one at least equally absurd by Madame Guenard, met with a like favourable
reception. In writing for the theatre, an author must choose one view of
a dramatic situation to the exclusion of all others, and in following out
this central idea is obliged by the inexorable laws of logic to push
aside everything that interferes with its development. A book, on the
contrary, is written to be discussed; it brings under the notice of the
reader all the evidence produced at a trial which has as yet not reached
a definite conclusion, and which in the case before us will never reach
it, unless, which is most improbable, some lucky chance should lead to
some new discovery.

The first mention of the prisoner is to be found in the 'Memoires secrets
pour servir a l'Histoire de Perse' in one 12mo volume, by an anonymous
author, published by the 'Compagnie des Libraires Associes d'Amsterdam'
in 1745.

"Not having any other purpose," says the author (page 20, 2nd edit.),
"than to relate facts which are not known, or about which no one has
written, or about which it is impossible to be silent, we refer at once
to a fact which has hitherto almost escaped notice concerning Prince
Giafer (Louis de Bourbon, Comte de Vermandois, son of Louis XIV and
Mademoiselle de la Valliere), who was visited by Ali-Momajou (the Duc
d'Orleans, the regent) in the fortress of Ispahan (the Bastille), in
which he had been imprisoned for several years. This visit had probably
no other motive than to make sure that this prince was really alive, he
having been reputed dead of the plague for over thirty years, and his
obsequies having been celebrated in presence of an entire army.

"Cha-Abas (Louis XIV) had a legitimate son, Sephi-Mirza (Louis, Dauphin
of France), and a natural son, Giafer. These two princes, as dissimilar
in character as in birth, were always rivals and always at enmity with
each other. One day Giafer so far forgot himself as to strike
Sephi-Mirza. Cha-Abas having heard of the insult offered to the heir to
the throne, assembled his most trusted councillors, and laid the conduct
of the culprit before them--conduct which, according to the law of the
country, was punishable with death, an opinion in which they all agreed.
One of the councillors, however, sympathising more than the others with
the distress of Cha-Abas, suggested that Giafer should be sent to the
army, which was then on the frontiers of Feidrun (Flanders), and that his
death from plague should be given out a few days after his arrival.
Then, while the whole army was celebrating his obsequies, he should be
carried off by night, in the greatest secrecy, to the stronghold on the
isle of Ormus (Sainte-Marguerite), and there imprisoned for life.

"This course was adopted, and carried out by faithful and discreet
agents. The prince, whose premature death was mourned by the army, being
carried by unfrequented roads to the isle of Ormus, was placed in the
custody of the commandant of the island, who, had received orders
beforehand not to allow any person whatever to see the prisoner. A
single servant who was in possession of the secret was killed by the
escort on the journey, and his face so disfigured by dagger thrusts that
he could not be recognised.

"The commandant treated his prisoner with the most profound respect; he
waited on him at meals himself, taking the dishes from the cooks at the
door of the apartment, none of whom ever looked on the face of Giafer.
One day it occurred to the prince to scratch, his name on the back of a
plate with his knife. One of the servants into whose hands the plate
fell ran with it at once to the commandant, hoping he would be pleased
and reward the bearer; but the unfortunate man was greatly mistaken, for
he was at once made away with, that his knowledge of such an important
secret might be buried with himself.

"Giafer remained several years in the castle Ormus, and was then
transported to the fortress of Ispahan; the commandant of Ormus having
received the governorship of Ispahan as a reward for faithful service.

"At Ispahan, as at Ormus, whenever it was necessary on account of illness
or any other cause to allow anyone to approach the prince, he was always
masked; and several trustworthy persons have asserted that they had seen
the masked prisoner often, and had noticed that he used the familiar 'tu'
when addressing the governor, while the latter showed his charge the
greatest respect. As Giafer survived Cha-Abas and Sephi-Mirza by many
years, it may be asked why he was never set at liberty; but it must be
remembered it would have been impossible to restore a prince to his rank
and dignities whose tomb actually existed, and of whose burial there were
not only living witnesses but documentary proofs, the authenticity of
which it would have been useless to deny, so firm was the belief, which
has lasted down to the present day, that Giafer died of the plague in
camp when with the army on the frontiers of Flanders. Ali-Homajou died
shortly after the visit he paid to Giafer."

This version of the story, which is the original source of all the
controversy on the subject, was at first generally received as true. On a
critical examination it fitted in very well with certain events which
took place in the reign of Louis XIV.

The Comte de Vermandois had in fact left the court for the camp very soon
after his reappearance there, for he had been banished by the king from
his presence some time before for having, in company with several young
nobles, indulged in the most reprehensible excesses.

"The king," says Mademoiselle de Montpensier ('Memoires de Mademoiselle
de Montpensier', vol. xliii. p. 474., of 'Memoires Relatifs d'Histoire
de France', Second Series, published by Petitot), "had not been satisfied
with his conduct and refused to see him. The young prince had caused his
mother much sorrow, but had been so well lectured that it was believed
that he had at last turned over a new leaf." He only remained four days
at court, reached the camp before Courtrai early in November 1683, was
taken ill on the evening of the 12th, and died on the 19th of the same
month of a malignant fever. Mademoiselle de Montpensier says that the
Comte de Vermandois "fell ill from drink."

There are, of course, objections of all kinds to this theory.

For if, during the four days the comte was at court, he had struck the
dauphin, everyone would have heard of the monstrous crime, and yet it is
nowhere spoken of, except in the 'Memoires de Perse'. What renders the
story of the blow still more improbable is the difference in age between
the two princes. The dauphin, who already had a son, the Duc de
Bourgogne, more than a year old, was born the 1st November 1661, and was
therefore six years older than the Comte de Vermandois. But the most
complete answer to the tale is to be found in a letter written by
Barbezieux to Saint-Mars, dated the 13th August 1691:--

"When you have any information to send me relative to the prisoner who
has been in your charge for twenty years, I most earnestly enjoin on you
to take the same precautions as when you write to M. de Louvois."

The Comte de Vermandois, the official registration of whose death bears
the date 1685, cannot have been twenty years a prisoner in 1691.

Six years after the Man in the Mask had been thus delivered over to the
curiosity of the public, the 'Siecle de Louis XIV' (2 vols. octavo,
Berlin, 1751) was published by Voltaire under the pseudonym of M. de
Francheville. Everyone turned to this work, which had been long
expected, for details relating to the mysterious prisoner about whom
everyone was talking.

Voltaire ventured at length to speak more openly of the prisoner than
anyone had hitherto done, and to treat as a matter of history "an event
long ignored by all historians." (vol. ii. p. 11, 1st edition, chap.
xxv.). He assigned an approximate date to the beginning of this
captivity, "some months after the death of Cardinal Mazarin" (1661); he
gave a description of the prisoner, who according to him was "young and
dark-complexioned; his figure was above the middle height and well
proportioned; his features were exceedingly handsome, and his bearing was
noble. When he spoke his voice inspired interest; he never complained of
his lot, and gave no hint as to his rank." Nor was the mask forgotten:
"The part which covered the chin was furnished with steel springs, which
allowed the prisoner to eat without uncovering his face." And, lastly,
he fixed the date of the death of the nameless captive; who "was buried,"
he says, "in 1704., by night, in the parish church of Saint-Paul."

Voltaire's narrative coincided with the account given in the 'Memoires de
Peyse', save for the omission of the incident which, according to the
'Memoires', led in the first instance to the imprisonment of Giafer.
"The prisoner," says Voltaire, "was sent to the Iles Sainte-Marguerite,
and afterwards to the Bastille, in charge of a trusty official; he wore
his mask on the journey, and his escort had orders to shoot him if he
took it off. The Marquis de Louvois visited him while he was on the
islands, and when speaking to him stood all the time in a respectful
attitude. The prisoner was removed to the Bastille in 1690, where he was
lodged as comfortably as could be managed in that building; he was
supplied with everything he asked for, especially with the finest linen
and the costliest lace, in both of which his taste was perfect; he had a
guitar to play on, his table was excellent, and the governor rarely sat
in his presence."

Voltaire added a few further details which had been given him by M. de
Bernaville, the successor of M. de Saint-Mars, and by an old physician of
the Bastille who had attended the prisoner whenever his health required a
doctor, but who had never seen his face, although he had "often seen his
tongue and his body." He also asserted that M. de Chamillart was the
last minister who was in the secret, and that when his son-in-law,
Marshal de la Feuillade, besought him on his knees, de Chamillart being
on his deathbed, to tell him the name of the Man in the Iron Mask, the
minister replied that he was under a solemn oath never to reveal the
secret, it being an affair of state. To all these details, which the
marshal acknowledges to be correct, Voltaire adds a remarkable note:
"What increases our wonder is, that when the unknown captive was sent to
the Iles Sainte-Marguerite no personage of note disappeared from the
European stage."

The story of the Comte de Vermandois and the blow was treated as an
absurd and romantic invention, which does not even attempt to keep within
the bounds of the possible, by Baron C. (according to P. Marchand, Baron
Crunyngen) in a letter inserted in the 'Bibliotheque raisonnee des
Ouvrages des Savants de d'Europe', June 1745. The discussion was revived
somewhat later, however, and a few Dutch scholars were supposed to be
responsible for a new theory founded on history; the foundations proving
somewhat shaky, however,--a quality which it shares, we must say, with
all the other theories which have ever been advanced.

According to this new theory, the masked prisoner was a young foreign
nobleman, groom of the chambers to Anne of Austria, and the real father
of Louis XIV. This anecdote appears first in a duodecimo volume printed
by Pierre Marteau at Cologne in 1692, and which bears the title, 'The
Loves of Anne of Austria, Consort of Louis XIII, with M. le C. D. R., the
Real Father of Louis XIV, King of France; being a Minute Account of the
Measures taken to give an Heir to the Throne of France, the Influences at
Work to bring this to pass, and the Denoument of the Comedy'.

This libel ran through five editions, bearing date successively, 1692,
1693, 1696, 1722, and 1738. In the title of the edition of 1696 the
words "Cardinal de Richelieu" are inserted in place of the initials "C.
D. R.," but that this is only a printer's error everyone who reads the
work will perceive. Some have thought the three letters stood for Comte
de Riviere, others for Comte de Rochefort, whose 'Memoires' compiled by
Sandras de Courtilz supply these initials. The author of the book was an
Orange writer in the pay of William III, and its object was, he says, "to
unveil the great mystery of iniquity which hid the true origin of Louis
XIV." He goes on to remark that "the knowledge of this fraud, although
comparatively rare outside France, was widely spread within her borders.
The well-known coldness of Louis XIII; the extraordinary birth of
Louis-Dieudonne, so called because he was born in the twenty-third year
of a childless marriage, and several other remarkable circumstances
connected with the birth, all point clearly to a father other than the
prince, who with great effrontery is passed off by his adherents as such.
The famous barricades of Paris, and the organised revolt led by
distinguished men against Louis XIV on his accession to the throne,
proclaimed aloud the king's illegitimacy, so that it rang through the
country; and as the accusation had reason on its side, hardly anyone
doubted its truth."

We give below a short abstract of the narrative, the plot of which is
rather skilfully constructed:--

"Cardinal Richelieu, looking with satisfied pride at the love of Gaston,
Duc d'Orleans, brother of the king, for his niece Parisiatis (Madame de
Combalet), formed the plan of uniting the young couple in marriage.
Gaston taking the suggestion as an insult, struck the cardinal. Pere
Joseph then tried to gain the cardinal's consent and that of his niece to
an attempt to deprive Gaston of the throne, which the childless marriage
of Louis XIII seemed to assure him. A young man, the C. D. R. of the
book, was introduced into Anne of Austria's room, who though a wife in
name had long been a widow in reality. She defended herself but feebly,
and on seeing the cardinal next day said to him, 'Well, you have had your
wicked will; but take good care, sir cardinal, that I may find above the
mercy and goodness which you have tried by many pious sophistries to
convince me is awaiting me. Watch over my soul, I charge you, for I have
yielded!' The queen having given herself up to love for some time, the
joyful news that she would soon become a mother began to spread over the
kingdom. In this manner was born Louis XIV, the putative son of Louis
XIII. If this instalment of the tale be favourably received, says the
pamphleteer, the sequel will soon follow, in which the sad fate of C. D.
R. will be related, who was made to pay dearly for his short-lived
pleasure."

Although the first part was a great success, the promised sequel never
appeared. It must be admitted that such a story, though it never
convinced a single person of the illegitimacy of Louis XIV, was an
excellent prologue to the tale of the unfortunate lot of the Man in the
Iron Mask, and increased the interest and curiosity with which that
singular historical mystery was regarded. But the views of the Dutch
scholars thus set forth met with little credence, and were soon forgotten
in a new solution.