his prisoner, who sat with his back to the dining-room windows, which
looked out on the court. None of the peasants whom I have questioned
were able to see whether the man kept his mask on while eating, but they
all noticed that M. de Saint-Mars, who sat opposite to his charge, laid
two pistols beside his plate; that only one footman waited at table, who
went into the antechamber to change the plates and dishes, always
carefully closing the dining-room door behind him. When the prisoner
crossed the courtyard his face was covered with a black mask, but the
peasants could see his lips and teeth, and remarked that he was tall, and
had white hair. M. de Saint-Mars slept in a bed placed beside the
prisoner's. M. de Blainvilliers told me also that 'as soon as he was
dead, which happened in 1704, he was buried at Saint-Paul's,' and that
'the coffin was filled with substances which would rapidly consume the
body.' He added, 'I never heard that the masked man spoke with an
English accent.'"

Sainte-Foix proved the story related by M. de Blainvilliers to be little
worthy of belief, showing by a circumstance mentioned in the letter that
the imprisoned man could not be the Duc de Beaufort; witness the epigram
of Madame de Choisy, "M. de Beaufort longs to bite and can't," whereas
the peasants had seen the prisoner's teeth through his mask. It appeared
as if the theory of Sainte-Foix were going to stand, when a Jesuit
father, named Griffet, who was confessor at the Bastille, devoted chapter
xiii, of his 'Traite des differentes Sortes de Preuves qui servent a
etablir la Verite dans l'Histoire' (12mo, Liege, 1769) to the
consideration of the Iron Mask. He was the first to quote an authentic
document which certifies that the Man in the Iron Mask about whom there
was so much disputing really existed. This was the written journal of M.
du Jonca, King's Lieutenant in the Bastille in 1698, from which Pere
Griffet took the following passage:--