The Iron Mask [pp. 754-757]

756 The Jron Mask.
"I had," said he, "the curiosity to died carefully the costume of The Man
enter the chamber of the upfortunate with the fron Mask and he who playman. It was lighted only by a win- ed in the drama by this name, M.
dow to the north, inclosed in a thick Lockroy, is still alive. He personatwall and cased by three gratings of ed the prisoner, and was clothed in
iron placed at equal distances. This black velvet, with black stockings and
window overlooked the sea. I found buckled shoes. He wore the double
in the citadel an officer of the French mask of velvet with steel springs over
company, about sixty-nine years old. his lips.
He told me that his father had often In this piece, that all Paris went to
told him in secret that a watchman see, Chilly represented Louis XIII.;
one day perceived under the window Delaistre, M. de St. Mars; and Ligier,
of the prisoner something white float- who was afterward the Duke of Glouing on the water.... It was a cester and the Louis XI. of Casimir
very fine shirt, plaited with negligence, Delavigne, took the part of the proand upon which the prisoner had tector of the unfortunate reduse.
written from one end to the other. Again, under another name-The
"The watchman took means to re- rrisoner of the 13astiile-the same stocover it, and carried it to M. de St. ry has been dramatized, and fresh inMars, the governor of the Isle Ste. terest added by an imaginary converMarguerite. sation between the captive and Louis
"He protested that he had read no- XIV.
thing; but two days afterward he was
found dead in his bed." It is easily seen that the most gene ral opinion of the Iron Mask consider It is said that the Regent of Orleans ed him the twin-brother of Louis
~ft the secret of the name of the Iron XIV., kept out of the way f9r fear of
Mask with his daughter. We give future trouble and collision in the
what he related to her, this authority government of France.
being a pretended governor of the in- Some authors affirm, too, that he
teresiing captive. His account may must have been defbn~ed, his face
te found in the archives of the Eng- distorted, or with some physical inlish g@v~rnment firmity that it was necessary to con
"The`inlortunate prince that I raised ceal.
and guarded," said he, "until the end of Others have thought that the bromy days, was born the 6th of September, ther of Louis XIV., being born the.
1638, at eight o'clock in the evening, during last, was the elder by right, if the
the supper of the king, Louis XIII. Hts
brother, now reigning, Louis XIV., had ~prnion of physicians and legislators
been born in the morning at twelve o'clock, is to be consulted; and that the tenduring the dinner hour of his father; but as derness inspired by the first born of
the birth of the first child was splendid and the two brothers occasioned the act
brilliant, that of his brother was most sad of ostracism, which history has sought
and carefully concealed; for the king, advised by the midwife that the queen would in vain for a hundred years to elucibring forth a second child, caused to remain date.
in her chamber the chancellor of France,
the midwife, the first almoner, the confessor In 1837, there appeared a remarkaof the queen, and raysel~ to ~be witnesses ble Jissertation on the Iron Mask, by
of what might~happen, aiid~ what he would
do, if this child should be torn alive." M. Paul Lacroix. He says that he
who bore the name of Marchiali dur Actors have for many years stu- ing his lifetime was not the twin-bro