1. THE LEGEND OF THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK

The Mystery of the Man in the Iron Mask is, despite a pleasant
saying of Lord Beaconsfield's, one of the most fascinating in
history. By a curious coincidence the wildest legend on the
subject, and the correct explanation of the problem, were offered to
the world in the same year, 1801. According to this form of the
legend, the Man in the Iron Mask was the genuine Louis XIV.,
deprived of his rights in favour of a child of Anne of Austria and
of Mazarin. Immured in the Isles Sainte-Marguerite, in the bay of
Cannes (where you are shown his cell, looking north to the sunny
town), he married, and begot a son. That son was carried to
Corsica, was named de Buona Parte, and was the ancestor of Napoleon.
The Emperor was thus the legitimate representative of the House of
Bourbon.

This legend was circulated in 1801, and is referred to in a
proclamation of the Royalists of La Vendee. In the same year, 1801,
Roux Fazaillac, a Citoyen and a revolutionary legislator, published
a work in which he asserted that the Man in the Iron Mask (as known
in rumour) was not one man, but a myth, in which the actual facts
concerning at least two men were blended. It is certain that Roux
Fazaillac was right; or that, if he was wrong, the Man in the Iron
Mask was an obscure valet, of French birth, residing in England,
whose real name was Martin.

Before we enter on the topic of this poor menial's tragic history,
it may be as well to trace the progress of the romantic legend, as
it blossomed after the death of the Man, whose Mask was not of iron,