Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 10.djvu/891

* IRON MASK. 785 IRON ORES. of Austria. Louis XIV. first learned the exist- ence of his brother when he came of age, and put liim in confinement to guard against any possible unpleasant consequences. Linguet, in the Bas- tille dcvoiUc, ascribes his paternity to the Duke of Buckingham. Salnt-iliehel, in 17i)0, attempts to connect the prisoner with a supposedly secret marriage between C,)ucen Anne and Cardinal Jlazarin. What is remarkable is that the C'oui't continued to manifest an interest in the matter, and took eveiy means to keep tlie identity of the prisoner in the dark. When the Bastille fell, the prisoner's room vas eagerly searched and also the prison register; but all inquiry was vain. The Abbe Soulave, who published il<':- moires du marechal Richelieu- (London an'd Paris, 1790), tried to establish from a document alleged to have been written by the tutor of that un- fortunate prince that the ilan in the Iron Mask was a twin brother of Louis XIV., and that, to avoid the calamities of a disputed succession to the throne, Louis XIII. had caused the later born of the twins to be brought up in secret. Louis XIV. learned of his brother's existence only after the death of Mazarin, and the twin brother, hav- ing discovered his relation to the King by means of a portrait, was subjected to perjietual im- prisonment. This view of the matter was at one time almost universally prevalent. The first conjecture of what is still held by many to be the truth is contained in a letter dated 1770, w'rittcn by a Baron d'Heiss to the Journal Encyclopcdique. The same is repeated by Louis Dutens. who declares in his Intercepted Cor- respondence (1789) that there is no point of history better established than the fact that the prisoner in the iron mask was a minister of the Ihike of Mantua. This minister. Count Mat- thioli, had pledged himself to Louis XIV. to urge liis master, the Duke, to deliver up to the French the fortress of Casale, which gave access to the whole of Lombardy. Though largely bribed to maintain the French interests, he began to betray them ; and Louis XIV., having obtained conclusive proofs of his treacherj-. contrived to have Matthioli lured to the French frontier, where he was secretly arrested April 2.'?, 1G79, and conveyed to the fortress of Pignerol. which was his first prison. The conclusions of d'Heiss and Dutens were followed up by Roux-Fazillac, who pul)Iishcd a small work on the siibject in ISOl. This attempt to show that Jlatthioli was the Man in the Iron 5Iask, though clever, was not altogether successful ; but the documents later discovered and published by M. Delort and M. Marius Topin seemed to leave little doubt on the subject, and the public had apparently made up its mind that the secret was at last discov- ered, until a still more recent work by a French officer. ^I. Jung, seemed to show conclusively that Matthioli could not have been the mys- terious prisoner, and endeavored to prove that the 51an in the Iron Jfask was a soldier of fortune of Lorraine, Marechiel by name, who was the head of a widespread and formidable con- spiracy, working in secret for the assassination of Louis XIV. and some of his ablest ministers. In the course of his researches, M. .Tung ex- amined some seventeen hundred volumes of dis- patches and reports in the bureaii of the Min- istry of War. According to his story. Marechiel was arrested by order of T,ouvois in 1073. and after being brought to Paris was sent to Pignerol to be under the care of Saint Mars, who took him with him to Exilles (1089), Saint Mar- guerite, and finally to the Bastille (1095), where the prisoner died in 1703. The so-called iron mask, reallj' a velvet one, was burned with his clothes and elTects. Up to 1891 .Jung's theory was considered satisfactory, but in that year Captain Bazi6res, of the garrison at Xantes, pub- lished a translation of some of Louis XlV.'s ci])her dispatches to Louvois and the Minister's replies. From these it appeared that the mys- terious prisoner was Ceneral de Bulonde, who was punished for his mistalie or cowardice in raising the siege of Cuneo, by lifelong imprison- ment at Pignerol, and later in the Bastille. Dur- ing the la.st decade, however, there has been a reaction in favor of the Matthioli theory, due chiefly to the efforts of M. Funck-Brentano. Opinions still differ, and there is a tendency in many quarters toward regarding the Jlan in the lion Jlask as some obscure plotter, probably a valet possessed of a great secret, and t:hercfore held in the strictest confijiement. The whole question, however, is one of those mysteries of history that will probably never be satisfactorily solved, though it may be that the secret archives of the Vatican could throw light on the subject. The literature concerning the IMan in the Iron Mask is Acry large. L'p to 1870 fifty-two works had been written to elucidate the mystery, and since then over twenty more have appeared. The following list, therefore, is merely a selection of the best and most noteworthy contributions to the subject: Roux-Fazillac, Recherches histnriijucs stir I'homme au masque de fer (Paris, 1801); Delort, Histoire du masque de fer (ib., 1825) ; Topin, L'homme au masque de fer (ib., 1870) ; Jung, iff vcrite sur le masque de fer, IGGIfllOS (ib., 1873) : T-oiseleur, Trots inigmes historiques devant la critique modernc (ib., 1882) : Burgaud and Bazieres. Le masque de fer (ib., 1883); Funck-Brentano, ■'L'homme au masque de velours noir dit le masque de fer," in Revue Historique, vol. Ivi. (ib., 1894). The best work to consult in English is Hopkins, The Man in the Iron Mash (London, 1901). IRONMASTER, The. A dramatization of Ohnet's Mailir dcs forces, by Pinero (1884). IRON MOUNTAIN. One of the isolated knobs ot the ^aint Francois ilcmntains. in Saint Francois County, Mo. It is 81 miles south of Saint Louis, on the Iron Alountain Railroad, and is 1097 feet in elevation above the sea and 200 feet above the adjoining valley. This mountain contains famous deposits of s|)ecular or hema- tite iron ore. one of the purest and richest ores found in the X'nited States. The ore is mag- netic, and in places has a thickness of 50 feet. It has viclded up to the present time over 5.000,- 000 toiis of (ire. IRON MOUNTAIN. A city and the county, seat of Dickinson ("ounty, Mich., about 210 miles north of .Milwaukee. Wis.; on the Chicago and Northwestern and the Chicago. Jlilwaukee and Saint Paul railroads (Map: Michigan. F 3). It is noted for large iron-mining interests. Set- tled in 1879, Iron Mountain was incorporated in 1888. The government is administered by a mavor. elected annuallv. and a unicameral coxm- cil.' Population, in 1890. 8509; in 1900. 9242. IRON ORES. See Iron, section on Iron Ores.