DUST OF THE PAST

Taranaki Daily News, 19 November 1932, Page 1 (Supplement)

DUST OF THE PAST

MAN IN THE IRON MASK

To-day .and the ensuing week bring back to the memory many events of the past. that have now become the world’s history.

Who was the man in the iron mask? That most famous of fortress prisons, the Bastille, which finally disappeared in the flames of. the French Revolution housed many mysterious prisoners, but none around whom romance has wrapped itself so. closely. as the man in ..the iron mask, whose death is recorded today. While the most searching .enquiry has failed to fix the identity of this famous captive, imagination has. not been idle on.the point. And what fitter subject for fancy than a closely guarded prisoner, masked, although the mask was not of iron, with ever a custodian by his side lest he' should betray the secret! Was it a nameless Frenchman of royal blood; Louis’ own twin brother; an' illegitimate offspring of the King; or the child of that half-legendary love affair, between Buckingham and Anne of Austria so picturesquely described in- Dumas’ “Three Musketeers”? In 1770 a claim was put forward for Ercolo Mattioli, the diplomatic agent of the Duke of Mantua, and the claim found zealous advocates. Mattioli certainly looked a possibility. Concerned in a conspiracy to sell a frontier fortress to Louis XTV, he was lured to the French frontier—and disappeared. But no valid proof has ever been produced, and the man.in the iron mask remains a mystery, a subject for the novelist, and a joy for ever to all who love a puzzle. Sir Thomas Gresham, merchant,- courtier; and founder of the Royal-Exchange died on November 21, 1579. His .name, in the city is still as green as ever. His father and his uncle were both titled merchants, so it is natural that a certain financial astuteness should have been the inheritance of Sir Thomas. As financial agent of the British Crown in, Antwerp his business ability was such that, we read, -lie not only “discharged all the King-’s debts; but made money plentiful.” For the same reasons he became very popular with Elizabeth, who, indeed, gave him his title. Lombard Street, in those days the centre of business London, had long become too small, and traders had to crowd into small shops and jostle under pent houses in all weathers. Sir Thomas offered to erect a Bourse at his own ex-pense-if the city-would provide a suitable plot of ground, arid the first brick was laid in 1566. As he eventually obtained a yearly rental of £7OO for the shops in the upper part of the building he would, appear to have had an eye to. his own interests as well as the general, good of the merchants. November 24, 1859, is one of the decisive dates in the history of - human thought! Darwin’s “Origin ,of Species” was published on that day—not only, published, but sold oUt on -the, day of publication, a detail demonstrating how the idea of evolution was stirring the minds of cultured Victorians., It had stir- ; red.in the brain.behind Darwin’s rugged’ brow since 1836 when-he closed his vby-. age as a naturalist round the world. Iri .1842 he. had sketched out his-theory Jn, manuscript, but spent 16 years collecting information in support of. it before he began the .writing of his book. .: Meanwhile Wallace, investigating the amazing variety <of animals and plants in the Dutch East Indies, had reached similar conclusions about.the gradual de- • velopment of new species in the. struggle for existence.: Wallace ; -sent .- his con- ■ elusions to Darwin. Darwin published them along with his own and then started to write a'decisive book for .the purpose of demonstrating, how one form,of life may and. does develop out. of .another, - The scientific public was.thus, in a way, prepared for the new doctrine; but many investigators resisted .it strenuously, although Darwin had only hinted at his conclusion, set ■ forth ■ twelve .years later in his -(‘Descent of Mari,” that the human race had developed by the same processes as lower animals. Resistance to his doctrines has not ceased even yet. but they have neverthe-. less became an essential part of - the mental outfit of civilised man. Whei?eour predecessors of 100 or 150 years ago conceived of immutable “laws,” physical and* ihoral, ‘ and of unchangeable species and institutions, the modern man thinks all the time of natural' history and of. human history as a continuous process of change and, according to popular belief which Darwin might riot have approved, of steady advance. This readiness to, accept change, improvement, experiment as natural, to regard political, religious and philosophical systems as right for their day and' generation but not necessarily perpetual, was the social outcome of Darwin’s solitary reflections. There began on November 25, 1812, one of the most terrible and dramatic episodes in the history of war, the crossing of the river Beresina by the French in their retreat from Moscow under. Napoleon. There is a story that Napoleon's great map of Europe, which he carried in his travelling coach on campaign, did not show the Beresina and' that, .consequently he had not prepared to get his army across it.' That cannot be true, but certainly the river proved a more terrible obstacle , than he could have expected. He reached the Beresina, flowing right across the route to Poland and safety, just as a sudden thaw had rent its Icy covering and as the Russians had captured the point where French troops had been left to cover a crossing. He was pinned against the river and surrender seemed the only escape. But a flash of his old audacity and the heroism of his engineers extricated him. He made a bluff of attempting to pass the river at one point, but set his engineers building two bridges at another. . Dooming themselves to .death .the engineers worked in the freezing water among the ice floes and had. built the bridges before the Russian army came up.

The Russians on the west side of the river were, lured away. The crossing began. Forty thousand. disciplined troops and as many stragglers, with woriien and children, had to cross the two narrow bridges, without even handrails to them. The passage took. thyee days. /At first it was orderly. Then'the pursuing Russians arrived, ranged their cannon jn a crescent and fired day and night on the bridges and the fugitives. One bridge broke. The rabble rushed pell-mell along the. other, thrusting each 1 other off, or being crushed by. the guns and waggons which were forced ruthlessly across. At a stated hour the French fired the bridge and hundreds of ■wretches on it perished. Napoleon had saved about 45,000 out of the 500,000 or more who had marched into Russia. Next soring two new islands appeared in the Beresina below the sites of the bridges—islands of human bones.