MAN IN IRON'MASK

New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12425, 20 April 1926, Page 12

MAN IN IRON'MASK

A FAMOUS LEGEND MYSTERIOUS PRISONER IN FORTRESS. That mysterious, almost legendary figure, which appears in the history of Louis XIV • period—the Man in the Iron Mask—was the subject of an interesting lecture given recently. The story, whether .viewed as fact or legend. originated in two entries made by the governor of the fortress prison of the Saint Marguerite in his diary, and the ingenuity of Voltaire swiftly turned the mysterious element to practical account in that age of unrest and revolution. The facts as stated by the governor were not in themselves extraordinary. A distinguished stranger had been brought as prisoner to the fortress in the year 169 S with orders that he was to be regally cared for at the expense of Louis XIV. Voltaire, in his Preface to the Encyclopaedia and his ciiecle de Louis Quartorze, clothed these facts with deep significance. By means of Ihe subtlest suggestion he conveyed to the receptive minds of the people that this mysterious prisoner was none other than an elder brother of Louis XIV., the son of Mazarin and Anne of Austria, w'hose identity the king was concealing through fear of being branded as a usurper. This idea was seized upon with avidity by the populace, eager for an excuse to rebel, and when it was hinted that Napoleon was a direct descendant of the royal house of France through a son of the Man in the Iron Mask, born while the father was imprisoned, the cause of Louri was considered utterly futile. It had since been defiritely established that these stories were mere fabrications, and that the prisoner was one Matteoli, secretary of the court of Mantua, w*ho was imprisoned on account of political intrigues.