dissipated all these illusions," he says, "let us
now consider who the masked prisoner was, and how old he was when he
died. It is evident that if he was never allowed to walk in the
courtyard of the Bastille or to see a physician without his mask, it must
have been lest his too striking resemblance to someone should be
remarked; he could show his tongue but not his face. As regards his age,
he himself told the apothecary at the Bastille, a few days before his
death, that he thought he was about sixty; this I have often heard from a
son-in-law to this apothecary, M. Marsoban, surgeon to Marshal Richelieu,
and afterwards to the regent, the Duc d'Orleans. The writer of this
article knows perhaps more on this subject than Pere Griffet. But he has
said his say."

This article in the 'Questions on the Encyclopaedia' was followed by some
remarks from the pen of the publisher, which are also, however,
attributed by the publishers of Kelh to Voltaire himself. The publisher,
who sometimes calls himself the author, puts aside without refutation all
the theories advanced, including that of Baron Heiss, and says he has
come to the conclusion that the Iron Mask was, without doubt, a brother
and an elder brother of Louis XIV, by a lover of the queen. Anne of
Austria had come to persuade herself that hers alone was the fault which
had deprived Louis XIII [the publisher of this edition overlooked the
obvious typographical error of "XIV" here when he meant, and it only
makes sense, that it was XIII. D.W.] of an heir, but the birth of the
Iron Mask undeceived her. The cardinal, to whom she confided her secret,
cleverly arranged to bring the king and queen, who had long lived apart,
together again. A second son was the result of this reconciliation; and
the first child being removed in secret, Louis XIV remained in ignorance
of the existence of his half-brother till after his majority. It was the
policy of Louis XIV to affect a great respect for the royal house, so he
avoided much embarrassment to himself and a scandal affecting the memory
of Anne of Austria by adopting the wise and just measure of burying alive
the pledge of an adulterous love. He was thus enabled to avoid
committing an act of cruelty, which a sovereign less conscientious and
less magnanimous would have considered a necessity.

After this declaration Voltaire made no further reference to the Iron
Mask. This last version of the story upset that of Sainte-Foix