hique', article 'Ana,' "It
is most remarkable that no one knows where the celebrated Fouquet was
buried."

But in spite of all these coincidences, this carefully constructed
theory was wrecked on the same point on which the theory that the
prisoner was either the Duke of Monmouth or the Comte de Vermandois
came to grief, viz. a letter from Barbezieux, dated 13th August 1691,
in which occur the words, "THE PRISONER WHOM YOU HAVE HAD IN CHARGE FOR
TWENTY YEARS." According to this testimony, which Jacob had successfully
used against his predecessors, the prisoner referred to could not have
been Fouquet, who completed his twenty-seventh year of captivity in
1691, if still alive.

We have now impartially set before our readers all the opinions which
have been held in regard to the solution of this formidable enigma. For
ourselves, we hold the belief that the Man in the Iron Mask stood on
the steps of the throne. Although the mystery cannot be said to be
definitely cleared up, one thing stands out firmly established among
the mass of conjecture we have collected together, and that is, that
wherever the prisoner appeared he was ordered to wear a mask on pain of
death. His features, therefore, might during half a century have brought
about his recognition from one end of France to the other; consequently,
during the same space of time there existed in France a face resembling
the prisoner's known through all her provinces, even to her most
secluded isle.

Whose face could this be, if not that of Louis XVI, twin-brother of the
Man in the Iron Mask?

To nullify this simple and natural conclusion strong evidence will be
required.

Our task has been limited to that of an examining judge at a trial, and
we feel sure that our readers will not be sorry that we have left
them to choose amid all the conflicting explanations of the puzzle. No
consistent narrative that we might have concocted would, it seems to
us, have been half as interesting to them as to allow them to follow the
devious paths opened up by those who entered on the search for the heart
of the mystery. Everything connected with the masked prisoner arouses
the most vivid curiosity. And what end had we in view? Was it not to
denounce a crime and to brand the perpetrator thereof? The facts as they
stand are sufficient for our object, and speak more eloquently than if
used to adorn a tale or to prove an ingenious theory.