The Man in the Iron Mask was first imprisoned in 1660's. He was guarded by a personal jailer named Benigne D'Auvergne de Saint-Mars (WOW!!! whata name). The man in the Iron Mask was transfered to the nearby prison in Exiles in 1681, and then to the island castle of Sainte Marguerite in 1687. The actual details of his life were exremely well hidden and covered. A death certificate states the prisoner's name was Marchioly, and he was about 45 years old when he died. This seems unlikely, particulalry he had been held in captivity for almost 40 years. One man who initiated many theories about the Man in the Iron masks roomate, and later this man was a resident of the jail, it was none other then Voltaire who had spoken to the mans captors. He revealed that the young man had been in jail since 1661, and was young, tall, and handsome when first captured. He was said to dress in exquisite clothing, had refined hobbies and tastes and, crucially, he looked very much like a memeber of the French Royal Family. The suggestion is that the prisoner (Man in the Iron Mask) was a twin brother of King Lous XIV lingered, and was adopted by Dumas for his novel. Despite the fact that an identical physical resemblance to the king would account for the man being permanenlty masked, it seems unlikely that such a monumental fact could have stayed a secret.

The king's birth did have some unusual qualities, and there is a strong possibility that the prisoner (man in the iron mask) may have been an illegitimate brother of Louis XIV.

Other theories of the masked man's idenitity include that he was actually the playwright Moliere, who had been imprisoned for fear of corrupting the king. This can be discounted because Moliere would have been to old to fit the dates recorded.

Also suggestions that he may have been Nicolas Fouquet, a envied wealthy French nobleman, or even an illegitmate love child of Charles II of England.

Saint Mars (the personal jail assistant until iron mask died) was said to call him "my prince", and his guarding soldiers referred to his as "Tower". It was even said that the soliders and guards when entered the man in the iron masks cell, they would remove their hat and sit when he motioned them too.

In 1711, Princess Palatine, the king's sister-in-law, wrote a letter about how the man was flanked at all times by two musketeers who had orders to immediatly kill him if he removed his mask. Also if he tried to talk or communicate with anyone.

CONCLUSION:::::!!!!

Many experts have wondered why, if he was such a threat to the French Royal Family, why he was not just killed or executed anyway instead of putting him through all this trouble and incognito. However, the fact remains he was allowed to live but only behind this mask. THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK IS NOW A FACT LOST IN TIME, AND THE TRUE STORY OF HIS LIFE IS PROBABLY A TALE WE WILL NEVER FULLY KNOW!!!

***** WHAT DO YOU ALL THINK??? **** it is very interesting, hope this post carries on for a while!

also i forgot to add, that their is very LITTLE evidence to see if he even exsisted at all... *ALL Out of the book.. 100 strangest mysteries of the world***!!

I don't know, I always thought of it as a fiction story, a romantic idea of a "prince" locked away never to obtain his right to be seen in the royal family.

I would think it odd that, if you so didn't want people to know the existence of such a child, why keep him alive. I would think it more humane than to have him locked up with an iron mask on all the time. Would've been easier too.

***** WHAT DO YOU ALL THINK??? ****
I really don't care
I've seen all the movies made on this one and read a few books
its extremely boring
but then being french thats not unusual

I think this comes under legends...

I didn't expect this from you lucid, I thought you were still trailing through weird facts about the Egyptian Pyramids...

weird facts ?
don't you mean weird aliens

Ah of course, my mistake. Lucid if you want a modern day example of the man in the iron mask, you should have watched smallville the other day.

Maybe they just wanted to torture him, to prove a point or something.

i thought maybe this post would have been good.. ok ED!! and MARDUK lemme research some of these other books I have... you two skeptics are really pi**in me off hahaha... marduk i think you need to get abducted by aliens then ull believe hahahah....

I'm a big fan of the movies I've seen dedicated to this legend.

I decided to research your question and discovered this: Excerpt: "The Man in the Iron Mask is a myth that developed after the death of a mysterious prisoner in the Bastille prison on November 19 1703. From then on, the identity of this man has been thoroughly discussed, mainly because no one ever saw his face, hidden by a black velvet mask (not iron as later fiction claimed)."
Source Link

Still, what a fascinating read! I can't imagine the horrors inflicted in history, such as this, given people had no access to those rights we so often take for granted today.

"get abducted by aliens"
been there
done that
got the t shirt

MARDUKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK i think i need t oline up wit ya on the football line.. haha tackle some sense ito ya... anyways.. GoddessWhisper.. so it was a myth, but the truth remains that a man was in a velet mask correct? and is it true that he was related to high royalty?

He was most likely a Baron who was a cousin to the King that tried to take the throne. The King had him imprisoned and hidden away to prove to his followers how powerful he was and to keep them from attempting a rescue and gaining the momentum for a revolution.

You have to remeber that at that time the King's posistion was not very stable. France had been in an off and on war with England for years. His father had been a very brutal king and the common people had no love for Royalty. France was constantly on the brink of revolution at that time so he had to be very careful how he dealt with things. The usual public execution would have made the Baron a martyr and given the people a figurehead to rally around.

So he did exsist then for sure??? people say this might have been a work of fiction, but it seems there is more evidence to back it up saying that it is a work of non-fiction can that be true?

maybe who ever was in mask was really butt butt ugly! the women and kids though he was monster!

hahahahhah he wasnt butt ugly, but then again i never met him.. but its said he was muscular, and handsome.. and he was part of the Royal Family.. i have a picture in my 100 strangiest mystery books of him.. i dont no if ITS HIM.. but i can tell ya hes wearing a velvet mask, and its a black and white photo... anyways also when the prison guards would arrive to his cell they would take their hats off, and when he motined them to sit they would.

"but its said he was muscular, and handsome.."
i get that he could visibly have been muscular which meant he was definately an aristo, but how in the hell do you get handsome ?
he had a mask on his entire life didn't he ??

no, not in the begining he didnt... and other then that, you could see through the mask like certain outlines or what.. you could see his eyes and mouth

you mean when he was the boy in the iron mask ?
You saying that you can tell if someones good looking by just seeing their eyes and lips
Lol
on a woman maybe
hehe

definitly on a women!!! green eyes.. brown hair.. *Drools*...

hehehe
you're a strange guy lucid you know that right
heres a pic for your private stash
aren't they both gorgeous
??

extremly gorgoues.... "SAVE IN PORN FOLDER" hahahahahha j/k!

he was baron von chickenpants...

lol roswell

What does your "moai" actually believe. and why have you got a maple leaf walking as a logo ?

i believe the maple leaf was a coke leaf and has left the building
thanks to marduk

I thought Moai ment Big Statue, does it not?

wheres lucid
i miss his aliens thoeries...

He's been abducted
he's probably being anal probed right about now

im sure he tell us all about it
and the man in the iron mask was a alien hybrid of a alien bred with aristocracy

ah news just in. The man in the iron mask was an early publicity stunt for George lucas's next movie

http://www.moviewavs.com/cgi-bin/moviewavs..._Wars=faith.wav
http://www.moviewavs.com/cgi-bin/moviewavs...Wars=father.wav

''Lucidelement, i am ur father''
hehe

i gotta anal probe in my butt!!! HELP!!!! MARDUK!!! *BENDS OVER***

what do you want me to do push it in or pull it out
or both in rapid succession

FYI: TMI. No need for an autobiographic description, Marduk. As they say, you'll go blind if you keep doing that!




The only thing I know about the MITIM is what I've read from Alexander Dumas's novel, and the movie of course. Both were very, very exciting!

Bends over.. ok marduk its ur call.... but if it probes out and goes thru ur head... then ull be growing on my ass =) .... ull then for sure be known as an asshhole.. =)

Yeah
and you'll have allowed yourself to be probed publically by an asshole
that sounds like a presidential debate ?

haha. The man in the iron mask wasn't really a man at all. It was actchually one of the kings concubines.

This was a topic a long long long time ago, back on Dec. 7. How do I know that? Cause I typed up the whole bloody story from a book of mine and I didn't want to waste my work and saved it to my HD. So here it is:

In July 1669, agents of King Louis XIV of France captured a man near the port of Dunkirk and sent him secretly to prison with stern instructions to the warden:

It is of the first importance that he is not allowed to tell what he knows to any living person... You must yourself take to him, once a day, the day's necessities and you must never listen, under any pretext whatever, to what he may want to reveal to you. You must threaten him with death if he ever opens his mouth to you on any subject but his day-to-day needs.

For 34 years the prisoner was transferred from one comfortable prison suite to another until he died in the Bastille at Paris in 1703. He always wore a black velvet mask. Once, it is said, he scratched a message on a silver plate and threw it from his window. The fisherman who found it and brought it to the gate was allowed to live only because he couldn't read!

All that is really known of the prisoner is contained in these facts: that is face was dangerously recognizable, that he was too valuable to dispose of but to threatening to set free, and that what he knew was so explosive that even a simple fisherman could have shaken France with the infomation. The best-known face in France, of course, was that of the king himself.

The Great writer and philosopher Voltaire had been imprisoned in the Bastille in 1717 when he was a young man. There he had a chance to talk with jailers who had known the masked man and all the gossip about him, but not his identity. Interested in discrediting the monarchy, Voltaire later concocted the theory that the masked man was Louis XIV's elder brother, imprisoned by the king to prevent disturbances over potential rival claimants to the throne.

In 1801, after the French Revolution, it was rumored that the prisoner was Louis XIV himself, displaced on the throne by his illegitimate half-brother. In prison he married (not uncommon ni those days), the story went on, and the fathered a son who was taken to Corsica, where he grew up and became the grandfather of Napoleon Bonaparte. This version, which served to link France's revolutionary decatur to the old regime, has never been taken seriously by scholars.
The most famous treatment of the story was that of Alexander Dumas pere, who altered Voltaire's version, making the prisoner the king's twin brother, and also changed the material of the mask. His romance, entitled "The Man in the Iron Mask", was published in 1848. Folklore and movies have propagated this story, although it has been totally dismissed by historians.

Another version is that the prisoner was the true father of Louis XIV. The birth of Louis XIV in 1638 was thought at the time to be something of a miracle. His mother, Anne of Austria, and his presumed father, Louis XIII, had been estranged for many years and had no children. Since the royal couple was faced with the need to produce an heir to the throne, and Louis XIII was ailing and quite likely impotent, it is possible that the surrogate father was arranged. This interpretation would explain why Louis XIV kept the mystery man a prisoner rather then having him killed, a deed which would have fixed on Louis the sin of patricide.

So many scholars and mystery lovers in the last 300 years have attempted to unravel the mystery that any conclusive evidence would surely have surfaced by now. None has. Thus it seems likely that people will continue to spin theories around the masked prisoner, who dropped out of history and into a legend in 1669.

whoa, zuda how did you come up with this idea... i have never heard such a thing.