1703: One of the Great Dates in French History!

On November 19, 1703, a prisoner whose identity and reason for incarceration were unknown died at the Bastille after a long captivity. The mysterious detainee, who had worn an iron mask over his face for 34 years, was buried in Saint-Paul cemetery under an alias, Marchiali, and a false indication of age.

The Man in the Iron Mask: one of the most famous prisoners in French history

The Man in the Iron Mask arrived at the Pignerol fortress in Piedmont on August 24, 1669, during the reign of Louis XIV. Imprisoned by Order of the King, he was placed under the personal supervision of a trusted officer, Bénigne de Saint-Mars, a former musketeer under Captain d'Artagnan. The prisoner was held in the strictest isolation, with no permission to speak to anyone, but benefited from preferential treatment in his detention conditions. He followed his jailer through all his assignments: from Pignerol to the Exiles prison, reserved for important prisoners, then to the fort on the island of Sainte-Marguerite in Provence in 1687, where a special cell was built for him, overlooking the sea, accessible only by passing through three successive doors. In 1698, when Saint-Mars was appointed governor of the Bastille, the Man in the Iron Mask, still kept in secret, accompanied him to the Parisian prison, which became his final resting place.

After his death, numerous hypotheses emerged regarding the identity of this illustrious prisoner. According to Voltaire, he was the twin brother of Louis XIV, excluded from the throne and then hidden to prevent any challenge to royal legitimacy. Other hypotheses identified him as an illegitimate son of Anne of Austria, Louis XIV, or even his wife, Queen Maria Theresa. For several historians, he was the superintendent of finances Nicolas Fouquet, dismissed by the king and arrested for embezzlement by d'Artagnan in 1661 before being sentenced to life imprisonment in Pignerol. Louis XV, the last king of France to know the truth, reportedly stated that he was the minister of an Italian prince, later identified as Count Ercole Mattioli, who had played a dubious intermediary role between the Duke of Mantua and Louis XIV. Although the enigma was never solved, the Man in the Iron Mask retrospectively became a symbol of French monarchical absolutism, capable of maintaining arbitrary detention for several decades.

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