y possible device, but nothing could she obtain from
her father, who protested that the mystery should never escape his lips;
and he kept his word, he never did divulge it. I even imagine that the
king himself is ignorant of it, unless indeed the cardinal de Fleury
informed him of it." The marechal told me afterwards that he thought the
opinion adopted by Voltaire the most probable, viz: that this unknown
person was the son of the queen Anne of Austria, mother of Louis XIV.
These last words helped, in a measure, to resolve the enigma which comte
de la Marche had left me to unravel; and, with a view to satisfy myself
more positively on the subject, I availed myself of the first time I was
alone with the king, to lead the conversation to this story.

At the mention of the "Iron Mask," Louis XV started. "And do you really
credit such a fable?" asked he.

"Is it then entirely untrue?" inquired I.

"Certainly not," he replied; "all that has been said on the matter is
destitute of even common sense."

"Well," cried I, "what your majesty says only confirms what I heard from
the marechal de Richelieu."

"And what has he been telling you?"

"Very little, sire; he told me only, that the secret of who the 'Iron
Mask' really was had not been communicated to you."

"The marechal is a simpleton if he tells you so. I know the whole
affair, and was well acquainted with the unhappy business."

"Ah!" exclaimed I, clapping my hands in triumph, "just now you affected
perfect ignorance; you knew nothing at all about it, and now--"

"You are a very dangerous woman," cried the king, interrupting me by
loud fits of laughter, "and you are cunning enough even to surprise the
secrets of the state."

"'Tis you, rather, who could not resist the inclination to let me see
that you knew what the marechal had declared you ignorant of. Which of
us two is the more to blame, I wonder?"

"Myself, I think," answered the king; "for after all, you did but
act with the candor and curiosity of your sex: it was for me to
have employed more of the prudence of a king in my replies to your
interrogatories."

"Well, but," said I, "since you really do know all about this man with
the iron mask, you will tell it to me, will you not?"

"I should be very careful how I gratified your curiosity," said he;
"this is a point of history which must never be cleared up; state
reasons require that it should for ever remain a matter of doubt."

"And _I_ must have