THE MAN WITH THE IRON MASK.

Northland Age, Volume 4, Issue 3, 3 September 1907, Page 2

THE MAN WITH THE IRON MASK.

One of the still unsolved mysteries of history is “Who is the Man with the Iron Mask ?”

The facts are known regarding this remarkable person are as fofilows : In 1661, soon after Cardinal Mazarin’s death, there was sent to the island of Saint Marguerite, on the Mediterranean, an unknown prisoner. He was young of average height, and of a handsome, noble figure. On the journey he wore a mask of iron the lower part of which was furnished w’ith steel springs that allowed him to take of his meals without ever removing the mask. The orders to his guard were to kill him if he made known w r ho he was. He remained at the island for 29 years, a close prisoner, and was then removed to the Bastile in Paris, where he died in 1703, having spent 42 years in prison. ' He was buried at night, still wearing the iron mask, and there was no one to say who or what he had been.

At the time of his first imprisonment there was not missed 'rom Europe any one of note, such ns the

“man’’ would seem to have been. That he was someone of great importance was shown by the manner in which he was treated. The governor of the castle himself waited on him at meals, and never sat down in his presence without permission, and when Louis the Fourteenth’s Prime Minister visited him he never once sat down during the intervir.ws he had with him.