Show THE IRON MASK recent explorations exploration a amon among 9 g the french archives aroh ivea threaten to have a disapio disappointing inting effect upon the long treasured mystery as to the identity of the man in the iron mask romance and history have been busy tor for centuries with the incident and the books that have been written to solve it would make a small email library among the more familiar guesses as to tb identity of the mysterious prisoner the reader will probably remember the following that he was the son of 01 anne A one of austria queen of louis louie XIII and the duke of buck buckingham ing ham whose luve love affairs made some scandal andal ec that he wasa was a twin brother of louis XIV born a few bou hours relater later and thus disposed ol of to avoid the chance of a dispute over the kingdom that he was the count ot of a son soc of louie XIV and la Vai valliere liere that he be was the duke ot monmouth son eon of charles 11 II ol of anglad and lucy walterp walter that he was the duke of beaufort a leader in the insurrection ot of the fronde that he was Fou fouquet the minister of finance whom louis replaced by the great genius Colbert that be was ercole Matth ioli a secret agent of the duke of mantua who divulged a intrigue of the french mou monarch arch these and halt half a d zen other conjectures have been worked out assiduously by students of history each and all these theories have been punctured urea by a reference to chronology anu ant certain well known and undisputed historical facie A y accurate commentator can die buee of them consecutively thattie that abe prisoner could not have been the duke of monmouth is proved not by the alleged fad fact of his beheading in 1686 for he be might have been spared that bat doom but by the discovery that the mysterious prisoner began to serve his hie sentence at least six years before and it is now believed 16 years before the case of Matth ioli appeared the strongest for a long time but that too was spoiled by dates which are insuperable evidences what has been pretty well proved is that one daina mars commandant at pig atrol nero a fortress lort reec on the borders of bakoy for 16 years yeam vr previous brevious was in 1681 transferred to exiles fort on the frontier of piedmont and then brought with him two prisoners prison sonere err borne in a litter jitter closely guarded that thai one of these died before J january andary 1657 and ana that the remaining one went with him with the same care to the island of lite kite marguerite and that whop when saint mars became governor of the bastile Basti leg in 1698 such a prisoner bib face covered with a black velvet mask fastened by steel springs accompanied him the latest hypothesis however Is based as stated upon discoveries in the archives of the french ministry of war the saturday review quotes a letter written in cipher and only now DOW deciphered from louis XIV to lou vois voi his bin minister in this letter the th king orders louvale to arrest general de Bur londe for having rallied the siege of conti without permission to send rend him tu Pig nerol and to conceal his features feat urea under a loup or black velvet mask the order was executed and the presumption la is therefore violent that the be man in the iron mask it as a black velvet one with iron springs was gen de Bur londe the story tallies with the known fact that the prisoner made repeated attempts to communicate his name to that he be was waa treated with respect by his hill military jailers and that louis XV who knew the truth of the whole affair declared it to le be a matter of no importance the difficulty in ia to dig cover the kings motive for or such a pro pre caution but he may have feared discontent among his great officers or the soldiery it must however be possible to discover from the lists in the war office whether gen de bur londe was recorded as missing or beau adeaul about the right time of this there does not at present seem to be any doubt and the mystery of the affair seems accordingly to have been at last solved |