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On November 19, 1703 the Man in the Iron Mask, a prisoner in the Bastille prison in Paris, died. From the article:
"Who Was the Real Man in the Iron Mask?
Rumors of a mysterious prisoner during the reign of King Louis XIV became legend after Alexandre Dumas wrote his famous tale. His true identity remains a subject of speculation.
By Carlos Blanco Fernández
In the 1680s, whispers about a mysterious prisoner began to spread through France. Details were hazy, but the tale was arresting: An anonymous man had been locked up on the express orders of the French king Louis XIV. His identity was unknown, and his face could not be seen because he was forced to wear an iron mask.
A gazette from 1687 mentions the prisoner’s transfer to the citadel of Sainte-Marguerite, a tiny Mediterranean island off the coast of Cannes in southern France, in the custody of a former musketeer, Bénigne de Saint-Mars. Both guard and his prisoner had previously lived at the fortresses of Pignerol and Exilles in the Alps.
The pair moved again in 1698, when Saint-Mars was appointed governor of the Bastille prison in Paris. The mysterious prisoner’s arrangements had not changed from earlier accounts: A Bastille official wrote in his memoirs of his surprise at the arrival of his new superior who was accompanied by a man “who is always masked and whose name is never pronounced.”
When he died in the Bastille in 1703, it was recorded that a man in his 50s was buried at the Saint-Paul Cemetery in Paris, and his belongings and clothes were burned at dawn. It was said that the walls of his cell were even scraped and whitewashed.
Cruel and Unusual Punishment
Life for those who had displeased Louis XIV and were sent to Pignerol Fortress (shown in this oil painting) was unremittingly bleak. The conditions imposed by Governor Bénigne de Saint-Mars on a nobleman, the Duke of Lauzun, for instance, were a kind of living death: no visitors, no contact with other inmates, no books, and no exercise.
Conspiracy Theories
The mysterious prisoner lived during the reign of Louis XIV. To his supporters, Louis was le Roi Soleil—the Sun King—in whose reign France expanded and strengthened her borders. To his detractors, he was a near tyrant, whose belief in absolutism—the idea that he ruled as God’s representative on Earth—had turned France into a police state.
To Enlightenment thinkers, the masked man embodied the worst vices of King Louis XIV, depicted on this bronze medal.
After his death, the unknown prisoner’s story began to take on a life of its own as gossips said that his punishment stemmed directly from the French throne. From the very outset, the “masked man” stories were more than just lurid tales: They played directly into anti-Louis propaganda. During the Nine Years’ War (1688-1697) the Dutch, fighting to protect their republic from French expansion, exploited the rumor to undermine the legitimacy of Louis XIV. Agents of the Dutch spread claims that the masked prisoner was a former lover of the queen mother, and was the king’s real father—which would make Louis illegitimate.
In France itself, suspicions about the man’s identity fell on several members of the extensive royal family. There was speculation that he was Louis de Bourbon, Count of Vermandois, son of the Sun King himself and his mistress Louise de La Vallière. Louis de Bourbon had been banished from court after being outed as a homosexual. De Bourbon then tried to regain his father’s favor in campaigns in Flanders, where he fell ill and almost certainly died. Conspiracy theorists speculated that he had, in fact, survived and was secretly imprisoned by his father.
Tall Tales
Another candidate for the masked man was François de Bourbon, Duke of Beaufort. A cousin of the king, François had been one of the leaders of the Fronde, the faction that conspired against the king early in his reign and hardened his tendency toward absolutism. Although François later died in battle, gossipmongers spread the (unlikely) tale of his kidnapping and imprisonment by the king.
By the 18th century the number of possible identities kept increasing. Some said the man in the iron mask was a bastard son of Anne of Austria (Louis’s mother) and half brother to the king. Some pamphleteers imagined that the mask was Louis XIV’s punishment for the lovers of his wife, Marie-Thérèse of Austria. One particularly fantastic suggestion is that the man was one Nabo, a pygmy page who had supposedly impregnated Louis’s queen."
"Who Was the Real Man in the Iron Mask?
Rumors of a mysterious prisoner during the reign of King Louis XIV became legend after Alexandre Dumas wrote his famous tale. His true identity remains a subject of speculation.
By Carlos Blanco Fernández
In the 1680s, whispers about a mysterious prisoner began to spread through France. Details were hazy, but the tale was arresting: An anonymous man had been locked up on the express orders of the French king Louis XIV. His identity was unknown, and his face could not be seen because he was forced to wear an iron mask.
A gazette from 1687 mentions the prisoner’s transfer to the citadel of Sainte-Marguerite, a tiny Mediterranean island off the coast of Cannes in southern France, in the custody of a former musketeer, Bénigne de Saint-Mars. Both guard and his prisoner had previously lived at the fortresses of Pignerol and Exilles in the Alps.
The pair moved again in 1698, when Saint-Mars was appointed governor of the Bastille prison in Paris. The mysterious prisoner’s arrangements had not changed from earlier accounts: A Bastille official wrote in his memoirs of his surprise at the arrival of his new superior who was accompanied by a man “who is always masked and whose name is never pronounced.”
When he died in the Bastille in 1703, it was recorded that a man in his 50s was buried at the Saint-Paul Cemetery in Paris, and his belongings and clothes were burned at dawn. It was said that the walls of his cell were even scraped and whitewashed.
Cruel and Unusual Punishment
Life for those who had displeased Louis XIV and were sent to Pignerol Fortress (shown in this oil painting) was unremittingly bleak. The conditions imposed by Governor Bénigne de Saint-Mars on a nobleman, the Duke of Lauzun, for instance, were a kind of living death: no visitors, no contact with other inmates, no books, and no exercise.
Conspiracy Theories
The mysterious prisoner lived during the reign of Louis XIV. To his supporters, Louis was le Roi Soleil—the Sun King—in whose reign France expanded and strengthened her borders. To his detractors, he was a near tyrant, whose belief in absolutism—the idea that he ruled as God’s representative on Earth—had turned France into a police state.
To Enlightenment thinkers, the masked man embodied the worst vices of King Louis XIV, depicted on this bronze medal.
After his death, the unknown prisoner’s story began to take on a life of its own as gossips said that his punishment stemmed directly from the French throne. From the very outset, the “masked man” stories were more than just lurid tales: They played directly into anti-Louis propaganda. During the Nine Years’ War (1688-1697) the Dutch, fighting to protect their republic from French expansion, exploited the rumor to undermine the legitimacy of Louis XIV. Agents of the Dutch spread claims that the masked prisoner was a former lover of the queen mother, and was the king’s real father—which would make Louis illegitimate.
In France itself, suspicions about the man’s identity fell on several members of the extensive royal family. There was speculation that he was Louis de Bourbon, Count of Vermandois, son of the Sun King himself and his mistress Louise de La Vallière. Louis de Bourbon had been banished from court after being outed as a homosexual. De Bourbon then tried to regain his father’s favor in campaigns in Flanders, where he fell ill and almost certainly died. Conspiracy theorists speculated that he had, in fact, survived and was secretly imprisoned by his father.
Tall Tales
Another candidate for the masked man was François de Bourbon, Duke of Beaufort. A cousin of the king, François had been one of the leaders of the Fronde, the faction that conspired against the king early in his reign and hardened his tendency toward absolutism. Although François later died in battle, gossipmongers spread the (unlikely) tale of his kidnapping and imprisonment by the king.
By the 18th century the number of possible identities kept increasing. Some said the man in the iron mask was a bastard son of Anne of Austria (Louis’s mother) and half brother to the king. Some pamphleteers imagined that the mask was Louis XIV’s punishment for the lovers of his wife, Marie-Thérèse of Austria. One particularly fantastic suggestion is that the man was one Nabo, a pygmy page who had supposedly impregnated Louis’s queen."
who-was-the-man-in-the-iron-mask-dumas
Posted from nationalgeographic.com
World History
Monarchy
Punishment
Law
Posted 4 y ago
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