Mars, dated the 13th August 1691:--

"When you have any information to send me relative to the prisoner who
has been in your charge for twenty years, I most earnestly enjoin on you
to take the same precautions as when you write to M. de Louvois."

The Comte de Vermandois, the official registration of whose death bears
the date 1685, cannot have been twenty years a prisoner in 1691.

Six years after the Man in the Mask had been thus delivered over to
the curiosity of the public, the 'Siecle de Louis XIV' (2 vols. octavo,
Berlin, 1751) was published by Voltaire under the pseudonym of M.
de Francheville. Everyone turned to this work, which had been long
expected, for details relating to the mysterious prisoner about whom
everyone was talking.

Voltaire ventured at length to speak more openly of the prisoner than
anyone had hitherto done, and to treat as a matter of history "an event
long ignored by all historians." (vol. ii. p. 11, 1st edition, chap.
xxv.). He assigned an approximate date to the beginning of this
captivity, "some months after the death of Cardinal Mazarin" (1661); he
gave a description of the prisoner, who according to him was "young
and dark-complexioned; his figure was above the middle height and well
proportioned; his features were exceedingly handsome, and his bearing
was noble. When he spoke his voice inspired interest; he never
complained of his lot, and gave no hint as to his rank." Nor was the
mask forgotten: "The part which covered the chin was furnished with
steel springs, which allowed the prisoner to eat without uncovering
his face." And, lastly, he fixed the date of the death of the nameless
captive; who "was buried," he says, "in 1704., by night, in the parish
church of Saint-Paul."

Voltaire's narrative coincided with the account given in the 'Memoires
de Peyse', save for the omission of the incident which, according to
the 'Memoires', led in the first instance to the imprisonment of Giafer.
"The prisoner," says Voltaire, "was sent to the Iles Sainte-Marguerite,
and afterwards to the Bastille, in charge of a trusty official; he wore
his mask on the journey, and his escort had orders to shoot him if he
took it off. The Marquis de Louvois visited him while he was on the
islands, and when speaking to him stood all the time in a respectful
attitude. The prisoner was removed to the Bastille in 1690, where he
was lodged as comfortably as could be managed in that building; he was
supplied with