k, it was for fear that in his
features might be recognized some too striking resemblance. He might
show his tongue, and never his face. As regards his age, he himself said
to the Bastille apothecary, a few days before his death, that he thought
he was about sixty; and Master Marsolan, surgeon to the Marechal de
Richelieu, and later to the Duc d'Orleans, regent, son-in-law of this
apothecary, has repeated it to me more than once.

Finally, why give him an Italian name? he was always called Marchiali!
He who writes this article knows more about it, maybe, than Father
Griffet, and will not say more.

PUBLISHERS NOTE[18]

It is surprising to see so many scholars and so many intelligent and
sagacious writers torment themselves with guessing who can have been
the famous man in the iron mask, without the simplest, most natural,
most probable idea ever presenting itself to them. Once the fact as M.
de Voltaire reports it is admitted, with its circumstances; the
existence of a prisoner of so singular a species, put in the rank of the
best authenticated historical truths; it seems that not only is nothing
easier than to imagine who this prisoner was, but that it is even
difficult for there to be two opinions on the subject. The author of
this article would have communicated his opinion earlier, if he had not
believed that this idea must already have come to many others, and if he
were not persuaded that it was not worth while giving as a discovery
what, according to him, jumps to the eyes of all who read this anecdote.

However, as for some time past this event has divided men's minds, and
as quite recently the public has again been given a letter in which it
is claimed as proved that this celebrated prisoner was a secretary of
the Duke of Mantua (which cannot be reconciled with the great marks of
respect shown by M. de Saint-Mars to his prisoner), the author has
thought it his duty to tell at last what has been his opinion for many
years. Maybe this conjecture will put an end to all other researches,
unless the secret be revealed by those who can be its guardians, in such
a way as to remove all doubts.

He will not amuse himself with refuting those who have imagined that
this prisoner could be the Comte de Vermandois, the Duc de Beaufort, or
the Duke of Monmouth. The scholarly and very wise author of this last
opinion has well refuted the others; but he had based his own opinion
essentially merely on the impossibility of