finding in Europe some other
prince whose detention it would have been of the very highest importance
should not be known. M. de Saint-Foix is right, if he means to speak
only of princes whose existence was known; but why has nobody yet
thought of supposing that the iron mask might have been an unknown
prince, brought up in secret, and whose existence it was important
should remain unknown?

The Duke of Monmouth was not for France a prince of such great
importance; and one does not see even what could have engaged this
power, at least after the death of this duke and of James II., to make
so great a secret of his detention, if indeed he was the iron mask. It
is hardly probable either that M. de Louvois and M. de Saint-Mars would
have shown the Duke of Monmouth the profound respect which M. de
Voltaire assures they showed the iron mask.

The author conjectures, from the way that M. de Voltaire has told the
facts, that this celebrated historian is as persuaded as he is of the
suspicion which he is going, he says, to bring to light; but that M. de
Voltaire, as a Frenchman, did not wish, he adds, to publish point-blank,
particularly as he had said enough for the answer to the riddle not to
be difficult to guess. Here it is, he continues, as I see it.

"The iron mask was undoubtedly a brother and an elder brother of Louis
XIV., whose mother had that taste for fine linen on which M. de Voltaire
lays stress. It was in reading the Memoirs of that time, which report
this anecdote about the queen, that, recalling this same taste in the
iron mask, I doubted no longer that he was her son: a fact of which all
the other circumstances had persuaded me already.

"It is known that Louis XIII. had not lived with the queen for a long
time; that the birth of Louis XIV. was due only to a happy chance
skilfully induced; a chance which absolutely obliged the king to sleep
in the same bed with the queen. This is how I think the thing came to
pass.

"The queen may have thought that it was her fault that no heir was born
to Louis XIII. The birth of the iron mask will have undeceived her. The
cardinal to whom she will have confided the fact will have known, for
more than one reason, how to turn the secret to account; he will have
thought of making use of this event for his own benefit and for the
benefit of the state. Persuaded by this example that the queen could
give the king children, the plan which produced the chance of one bed
for th