Page:History of The man with the iron mask (1).pdf/7

Rh were burnt; the walls of his room were scraped; the floor taken up, evidently from the apprehension that he might have found means of writing any thing that would have discovered who he was. Nay, such was the fear of his having left a letter, or any mark which might lead to a discovery, that his plate was melted down; the glass was taken out of the window of his room and pounded to dust; the window- frame and doors burnt; and the ceiling of the room, and the plaster of the inside of the chimney, taken down. Several persons have affirmed that the body was buried without a head; and M. de St Foix informs us in his Essais Historiques, that “a gentleman, having bribed the sexton, had the body taken up in the night, and found a stone instead of the head.” The natural inference from these extraordinary accounts, is, that the Iron Mask was not only a person of high birth, but must have been of great consequence; and that his being concealed was of the utmost importance to the king and ministry. Among the various conjectures that have been formed concerning the real name and condition of this remarkable personage, none appear to have any probability except the following that he was a son of Anne of Austria, queen to Louis XIII., and, consequently, that he was a brother of Louis XIV.; but whether a bastard brother, a brother-german, or a half-brother, is a question that has given rise to three several opinions, viz., 1. That the queen proved with child at a time when it was evident.it could not have been by her husband, who, for some months before, had never been with her in private. The supposed father of this child