related that during the time he was senior apprentice to a surgeon who
lived near the Porte Saint-Antoine, he was once taken to the Bastille to
bleed a prisoner. He was conducted to this prisoner's room by the
governor himself, and found the patient suffering from violent headache.
He spoke with an English accent, wore a gold-flowered dressing-gown of
black and orange, and had his face covered by a napkin knotted behind his
head."

This story does not hold water: it would be difficult to form a mask out
of a napkin; the Bastille had a resident surgeon of its own as well as a
physician and apothecary; no one could gain access to a prisoner without
a written order from a minister, even the Viaticum could only be
introduced by the express permission of the lieutenant of police.

This theory met at first with no objections, and seemed to be going to
oust all the others, thanks, perhaps, to the combative and restive
character of its promulgator, who bore criticism badly, and whom no one
cared to incense, his sword being even more redoubtable than his pen.

It was known that when Saint-Mars journeyed with his prisoner to the
Bastille, they had put up on the way at Palteau, in Champagne, a property
belonging to the governor. Freron therefore addressed himself to a
grand-nephew of Saint-Mars, who had inherited this estate, asking if he
could give him any information about this visit. The following reply
appeared in the 'Annee Litteraire (June 1768):--

"As it appears from the letter of M. de Sainte-Foix from which you quote
that the Man in the Iron Mask still exercises the fancy of your
journalists, I am willing to tell you all I know about the prisoner. He
was known in the islands of Sainte-Marguerite and at the Bastille as 'La