Page:History of The man with the iron mask (1).pdf/11

Rh should die without children. Can an extorted oath compel me to observe secrecy on a thing so incredible, but which ought to be left on record to posterity?” 3. The third opinion is, that he was a son of the queen by Cardinal Mazarin, born about a year after the death of her husband, Louis XIII.; that he was brought up secretly; and that, soon after the death of the cardinal on the 9th March 1661, he was sent to Pignerol. To this account, Father Griffet justly objects, “that it was needless to mask a face that was unknown; and, therefore, that this opinion does not merit discussion.” Indeed, it seems totally unaccountable that so much care should have been taken to conceal a child of the queen by the cardinal, who, whether they were privately married or not, could never have had the most distant claim to the crown of France. The conjectures advanced by other authors, that he was the Duke of Monmouth, the Count of Vermandois, or the Duke of Beaufort, &c., are still more improbable.