Show MYSTERIES TH THE E WORLD HAS NEVER SOLVED the man han of the IRON MASK by MADOO OWENS death was the I 1 penalty the mysterious prisoner must pay should he ever reveal his face this by royal command of louis loui s the grand he who boasted 1 1 I am the state the only clue to the unfortunates tu identity was this entry upon the register of the grim bastille on thursday the eighteenth of september 1698 at 3 of the afternoon M de saint mars governor of tho the chateau of the bastille arrived for his first entrance into office coming from his government of the islands of sainte marguerite having brought with him in his utter a former prisoner ot of his at pig nerol whom he obliges to keep himself always masked and whose name Is not told it had been 17 years since M de saint mars had left Pig nerol with his masked prisoner who meanwhile had languished in the dungeons of sainte marguerite so when the mysterious man arrived at the bastille he had already endured his tortures through a period in which many a maker of history has lived a lifetime resembled grand blon monarch arch rumored that his features had to be forever hidden because they bore a resemblance that was compromising to the grand monarch he must have been a personage of great rank he hd languished in the cruel bastille five years two months and one day then his tortured soul went up to his creator rell relieved eved of 0 a hell of torment known to have lasted for 22 years and which probably had covered a longer period of agony it left behind no clues as to hia identity of his antecedents only M de saint mars and the grand monarch could tell and their lips were sealed until the black angel delivered them out of the tortures which their conscience must have endured on this victims account guards fear to speak for a dozen years after the masked prisoner had died not even M de saint mars brot brothers herz in arms who had helped him guard that wretched existence dared to ask themselves who their prisoner might have been then louis XIV went up for his final judgment after more than 70 years upon his throne and men dared to gossip behind closed doors but the first published attempt to unravel the mystery could be ventured only after that cruel monarch had been molding in his tomb tor for a generation this was in the anonymous memoirs of an author supposed to have been been an intriguing court belle according to this put authority hority the masked man had been the due de Verman dols natural son of louis XIV by the beautiful louise de la valliere voltaire in his century of 0 louis XIV later presented another key to the mystery of which he said it is without example and what is no less strange all historians have been ignorant of it shortly after 1651 1601 when cardinal mazarin died and louis XIV took the government into his own hands a prisoner of greater than ordinary stature young and of most handsome and noble form was sent un der strict secrecy to the island of sainte marguerite voltaire related the kings minister louvolo louvois Lou vois vols went to see the prisoner on an the island and spoke to him standing with every sign of respect according to this author the prisoner was a halt half brother of louis XIV the son of that monarchs m mother 0 t h e r haughty anne of austria and mazarin Mazar ln this disclosure was shortly followed by a pamphlet emphatically stating that this natural son of anne and mazarin had been put on the throne by mazarin in substitution for the real louis XIV for whom he had been substituted that the personage who for more than 70 years enjoyed all the prestige of the grand monarch was therefore a pseudo king and that the unknown prisoner of the bastille was the rightful ruler of france according to a further theory that prisoner was a half brother of louis the grand but his fath father e r was the english duko duke of buckingham rather than cardinal mazarin others have maintained that he was a twin bro brother ther of the grand monarch and had been put away to avoid complications this was seized upon by dumas tor for the plot of his novel the man in n the iron mask blar married ried jailers daughter there was once circulated an extravagant trava gant theory that this man of mystery had been the rightful louis XIV that he had been married upon the island of sainte to his jailers daughter and that there had been hern born to this union a son who wa was s smuggled over avei to corsica where his foster parents were stra ply told that he be came from good part which assurance translated into frence gave him the name bounaparte 1 that the man of the iron mask was a personage of less than royal blood has been persistently maintained in more recent years but these theories do not account for the fact that he was treated with the deference due only to td blood royal some authorities claim that he was the french officer Bu londe who had displeased his royal master during a military others that he was M de marchiel March lel a french soldier of fortune who led a conspiracy for the assassination of louis XIV that he ha was count mat toll the duke of manthus Man taus minister of state who left a disappearance mystery behind him VIRGINIA DARE what was her fate A BLACK wall of mystery I 1 JL IL faced the jamestown colonists when they landed in virginia in 1607 sir walter raleigh had charged them to seek virginia dare the first native white american and her fellow colonists upon whom the forest primeval had so mysteriously closed some 20 years before but only the pines and the hemlocks in the depths of that leafy wilderness could tell whither these lost ones had so strangely vanished and until raleight Ra leighs head fell upon the block of the executioner lt it weis was troubled with wonder as to the fate of his lost roanoke colony those men women and children he had sent to virginia to found an agricultural state in 1587 in three ships they had sailed gaily out of plymouth on a balmy morning of april but they did not touch their restless feet to the sands of roanoke island until the sun of late july had scorched it their governor john white brought with him his daughter eleanor and her husband ananias dare the colonists had hardly hewn their cabins out of the woods when they had occasion to celebrate the birth of a daughter to eleanor and ananias and the governor christened his little granddaughter the first child of english parents born in the new world virginia dare in honor of the new province and of britaina Brit ains virgin queen made blade friends with indians having upon his arrival found skeletons of an english colony that had preceded him governor white wisely determined to cultivate the friendship of the indians so chief manteo who lived some distance away upon croatan island w was a 8 given the title of baron and lord of roanoke thus receiving the first and last peerage ever created on our soil at the same time manteo accepted the rite of the christian baptism it soon became necessary for the ships that had brought the colony to return to england for supplies and governor white went along to hasten their return he left behind him 89 men 17 women and 2 chil dren on his way home he stopped at ireland where he gave the populace some potatoes the first of that kind ever seen in europe lie he started back with two ships laden with the needed supplies appalling discovery landing upon roanoke island upon a hot day late in the summer of 1590 he was appalled to find an absolute desolation his heart sank the entire colony had disappeared and even their houses had all been removed carved upon a birch tree however he found the one word croatan apparently the christianized Christiani zed manteo lord of roanoke had taken pity upon the starving colonists and brought them to his island stronghold there to live with his people the governor prepared to visit that home of his frie friend nd the indian baron but the superstitious crews of his ships ter stricken by the sight of deserted wastes around them refused to embark m in that direction they forced him to return to england one tradition has it that chief manteo massacred all of the colony except four men two boys and virginia dare who became the bride of one of his braves according to another story the entire colony was taken up the cape fear river where the whites later intermarried inter married with the indians of central north carolina capt john smith penetrating into the mainland came upon an indian village where he saw a halfbreed boy with yellow hair and he believed the child to be that of one of his colonists intermarried inter married with a red man the fate of virginia dare our first colonial dame remains a mystery quite as dark as it was three centuries ago O service |