Altogether, we gather from the correspondence of Saint-Mars that the
unhappy man alluded to above was confined along with a mad Jacobin, and
at last became mad himself, and succumbed to his misery in 1686.

Voltaire, who was probably the first to supply such inexhaustible food
for controversy, kept silence and took no part in the discussions. But
when all the theories had been presented to the public, he set about
refuting them. He made himself very merry, in the seventh edition of
'Questions sur l'Encyclopedie distibuees en forme de Dictionnaire
(Geneva, 1791), over the complaisance attributed to Louis XIV in acting
as police-sergeant and gaoler for James II, William III, and Anne, with
all of whom he was at war. Persisting still in taking 1661 or 1662 as the
date when the incarceration of the masked prisoner began, he attacks the
opinions advanced by Lagrange-Chancel and Pere Griffet, which they had
drawn from the anonymous 'Memoires secrets pour servir a l'Histoire de
Perse'. "Having thus 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