This seems a fitting opportunity to refer to a prison mystery belonging to this period, and originating in Pignerol, which has exercised the whole world for many generations. The fascinating story of the "Man with the Iron Mask," as presented by writers enamored of romantic sensation, has attracted universal attention for nearly two centuries. A fruitful field for investigation and conjecture was opened up by the strange circumstances of the case. Voltaire with his keen love of dramatic effect was the first to awaken the widespread interest in an historic enigma for which there was no plausible solution. Who was this unknown person held captive for five and twenty unbroken years with his identity so studiously and strictly hidden that it has never yet been authoritatively revealed? The mystery deepened with the details (mostly imaginery) of the exceptional treatment accorded him. Year after year he wore a mask, really made of black velvet on a whalebone frame, not a steel machine, with a chin-piece closing with a spring and looking much like an instrument of mediæval torture. He was said to have been treated with extreme deference. His gaoler stood, bareheaded, in his presence. He led a luxurious life; he wore purple and fine linen and costly lace; his diet was rich and plentiful and served on silver plate; he was granted the solace of music; every wish was gratified, save in the one cardinal point of freedom. The plausible theory deduced from all this was that he was a personage of great consequence,--of high, possibly royal birth, who was imprisoned and segregated for important reasons of State.
Such conditions, quite unsubstantiated by later knowledge, fired the imagination of inquirers, and a clue to the mystery has been sought in some exalted victim whom Louis XIV had the strongest reason to keep out of sight. Many suggested explanations were offered, all more or less far fetched even to absurdity. The first was put forward by at least two respectable writers, who affirmed that a twin son was born to Anne of Austria, some hours later than the birth of the Dauphin, and that Louis XIII, fearing there might be a disputed succession, was resolved to conceal the fact. It was held by certain legal authorities in France that the first born of twins had no positive and exclusive claim to the inheritance. Accordingly, the second child was conveyed away secretly and confided first to a nurse and then to the governor of Burgundy who kept him close. But the lad, growing to manhood, found out who he was and was forthwith placed in confinement, with a mask to conceal his features which were exactly like those of his brother, the King. Yet this view was held by many people of credit in France and it was that to which the great Napoleon inclined, for he was keenly interested in the question and when in power had diligent search made in the National archives, quite without result, which greatly chafed his imperious mind. A similar theory of the birth of this second child was found very attractive; the paternity of it was given, not to Louis XIII, but to various lovers: the Duke of Buckingham, Cardinal Mazarin and a gentleman of the court whose name never transpired. This is the wildest and most extravagant of surmises, for which there is not one vestige of authority. The first suggestion is altogether upset by the formalities and precautions observed at the birth of "a child of France," and it would have been absolutely impossible to perpetrate the fraud.