u Cardinal Mazarin avec
le Gazetier' (Brussels, 1649), says that she was infatuated about him,
and allowed him to visit her in her room. She even permitted him to take
off and keep one of her gloves, and his vanity leading him to show his
spoil, the king heard of it, and was vastly offended. An anecdote, the
truth of which no one has ever denied, relates that one day
Buckingham spoke to the queen with such passion in the presence of her
lady-in-waiting, the Marquise de Senecey, that the latter exclaimed, "Be
silent, sir, you cannot speak thus to the Queen of France!" According to
this version, the Man in the Iron Mask must have been born at latest in
1637, but the mention of any such date would destroy the possibility
of Buckingham's paternity; for he was assassinated at Portsmouth on
September 2nd, 1628.

After the taking of the Bastille the masked prisoner became the
fashionable topic of discussion, and one heard of nothing else. On the
13th of August 1789 it was announced in an article in a journal called
'Loisirs d'un Patriote francais', which was afterwards published
anonymously as a pamphlet, that the publisher had seen, among other
documents found in the Bastille, a card bearing the unintelligible
number "64389000," and the following note: "Fouquet, arriving from Les
Iles Sainte-Marguerite in an iron mask." To this there was, it was said,
a double signature, viz. "XXX," superimposed on the name "Kersadion."
The journalist was of opinion that Fouquet had succeeded in making his
escape, but had been retaken and condemned to pass for dead, and to wear
a mask henceforward, as a punishment for his attempted evasion. This
tale made some impression, for it was remembered that in the Supplement
to the 'Siecle de Louis XIV' it was stated that Chamillart had said that
"the Iron Mask was a man who knew all the secrets of M. Fouquet." But
the existence of this card was never proved, and we cannot accept the
story on the unsupported word of an anonymous writer.

From the time that restrictions on the press were removed, hardly a day
passed without the appearance of some new pamphlet on the Iron Mask.
Louis Dutens, in 'Correspondence interceptee' (12mo, 1789), revived the
theory of Baron Heiss, supporting it by new and curious facts. He proved
that Louis XIV had really ordered one of the Duke of Mantua's ministers
to be carried off and imprisoned in Pignerol. Dutens gave the name of
the victim as Girolamo Magni. He also quote