veral letters relating to
Matthioli, and published his Histoire de l'Homme au Masque de Fer (8vo).
This work was translated into English by George Agar-Ellis, and
retranslated into French in 1830, under the title 'Histoire authentique
du Prisonnier d'Etat, connu sons le Nom de Masque de Fer'. It is in this
work that the suggestion is made that the captive was the second son of
Oliver Cromwell.

In 1826, M. de Taules wrote that, in his opinion, the masked prisoner was
none other than the Armenian Patriarch. But six years later the great
success of my drama at the Odeon converted nearly everyone to the version
of which Soulavie was the chief exponent. The bibliophile Jacob is
mistaken in asserting that I followed a tradition preserved in the family
of the Duc de Choiseul; M. le Duc de Bassano sent me a copy made under
his personal supervision of a document drawn up for Napoleon, containing
the results of some researches made by his orders on the subject of the
Man in the Iron Mask. The original MS., as well as that of the Memoires
du Duc de Richelieu, were, the duke told me, kept at the Foreign Office.
In 1834 the journal of the Institut historique published a letter from M.
Auguste Billiard, who stated that he had also made a copy of this
document for the late Comte de Montalivet, Home Secretary under the
Empire.

M. Dufey (de l'Yonne) gave his 'Histoire de la Bastille' to the world in
the same year, and was inclined to believe that the prisoner was a son of
Buckingham.

Besides the many important personages on whom the famous mask had been
placed, there was one whom everyone had forgotten, although his name had
been put forward by the minister Chamillart: this was the celebrated
Superintendent of Finance, Nicolas Fouquet. In 1837, Jacob, armed with
documents and extracts, once more occupied himself with this Chinese
puzzle on which so much ingenuity had been lavished, but of which no one
had as yet got all the pieces into their places. Let us see if he
succeeded better than his forerunners.

The first feeling he awakes is one of surprise. It seems odd that he
should again bring up the case of Fouquet, who was condemned to
imprisonment for life in 1664, confined in Pignerol under the care of
Saint-Mars, and whose death was announced (falsely according to Jacob) on
March 23rd, 1680. The first thing to look for in trying to get at the
true history of the Mask is a sufficient reason of state to account for
the