Philosophical Dictionary (Vol. 2)

The author of the Siècle de Louis XIV The Century of Louis XIV is the first to have spoken of the man in the iron mask in an authenticated history. It is because he was very well informed about this anecdote, which astonishes the present century, which will astonish posterity, and which is only too true. He had been misled regarding the date of the death of this unknown man, who was so singularly unfortunate. He was buried at Saint-Paul on March 3, 1703, and not in 1704.

He had first been imprisoned at Pignerol before being in the Sainte-Marguerite islands, and then at the Bastille, always under the guard of the same man, that Saint-Mars who saw him die. Father Grifet, a Jesuit, has communicated the Bastille journal to the public, which certifies the dates. He easily obtained this journal, since he had the delicate job of confessor to the prisoners held in the Bastille.

The man in the iron mask is a riddle of which everyone wants to guess the word. Some have said it was the Duke of Beaufort: but the Duke of Beaufort was killed by the Turks at the defense of Candia in 1669; and the man in the iron mask was at Pignerol in 1662. Moreover, how could the Duke of Beaufort have been arrested in the middle of his army? How could he have been transferred to France without anyone knowing anything about it? And why would they have put him in prison, and why this mask?

Others have dreamed of the Count of Vermandois, a natural son of Louis XIV, who died publicly of smallpox in 1683, at the army, and was buried in the city of Arras. (1)

(1) In the first editions of this work, it was said that the Duke of Vermandois was buried in the city of Aire. That was a mistake.

But whether it be in Arras or in Aire, it is always constant that he died of smallpox, and that they gave him magnificent funeral rites. One must be insane to imagine...