hen a Jesuit
father, named Griffet, who was confessor at the Bastille, devoted
chapter xiii, of his 'Traite des differentes Sortes de Preuves qui
servent a etablir la Verite dans l'Histoire' (12mo, Liege, 1769) to the
consideration of the Iron Mask. He was the first to quote an authentic
document which certifies that the Man in the Iron Mask about whom there
was so much disputing really existed. This was the written journal of
M. du Jonca, King's Lieutenant in the Bastille in 1698, from which Pere
Griffet took the following passage:--

"On Thursday, September the 8th, 1698, at three o'clock in the
afternoon, M. de Saint-Mars, the new governor of the Bastille, entered
upon his duties. He arrived from the islands of Sainte-Marguerite,
bringing with him in a litter a prisoner whose name is a secret, and
whom he had had under his charge there, and at Pignerol. This prisoner,
who was always masked, was at first placed in the Bassiniere tower,
where he remained until the evening. At nine o'clock p.m. I took him
to the third room of the Bertaudiere tower, which I had had already
furnished before his arrival with all needful articles, having received
orders to do so from M. de Saint-Mars. While I was showing him the way
to his room, I was accompanied by M. Rosarges, who had also arrived
along with M. de Saint-Mars, and whose office it was to wait on the said
prisoner, whose table is to be supplied by the governor."

Du Jonca's diary records the death of the prisoner in the following
terms:--

"Monday, 19th November 1703. The unknown prisoner, who always wore a
black velvet mask, and whom M. de Saint-Mars brought with him from the
Iles Sainte-Marguerite, and whom he had so long in charge, felt slightly
unwell yesterday on coming back from mass. He died to-day at 10
p.m. without having a serious illness, indeed it could not have been
slighter. M. Guiraut, our chaplain, confessed him yesterday, but as
his death was quite unexpected he did not receive the last sacraments,
although the chaplain was able to exhort him up to the moment of his
death. He was buried on Tuesday the 20th November at 4 P.M. in the
burial-ground of St. Paul's, our parish church. The funeral expenses
amounted to 40 livres."

His name and age were withheld from the priests of the parish. The entry
made in the parish register, which Pere Griffet also gives, is in the
following words:--

"On the 19th November 1703, Marchiali, aged about forty-five, died in