George Agar Ellis

The true history of the State prisoner George Agar Ellis

HISTORY OF THE IRON MASK. The curiosity of the public has been now, for above a century, so much wrought upon by the, mystery which has enveloped the name of the Iron Mask, (or as the French more properly designate him, "the Man of the Iron Mask,"1) that the eagerness for discovery has thus been carried much farther than the real importance of the subject deserved. Numerous have been the papers written, and the conjectures hazarded in favour of different theories; almost all presenting, at first view, some semblance of probability; but all, without exception, crumbling to nothing when exposed to the researches of accurate inquiry. Under these circumstances, it is certainly satisfactory, that the question should be finally set at rest. It is singular, that among all the inquiries hitherto made respecting the Iron Mask, no one seems ever to have thought of recurring to the only source from whence true information could be derived-the archives of the French Government, during the reign of Lewis the Fourteenth. It was reserved for M. Delort to make these researches; which he did by the permission of the Count d'Hauterive, Keeper of the Archives of the office of Secretary of State for the Foreign department, and the result has been perfectly conclusive. In those archives, he found the continued correspondence of the French ministers, proving, beyond a doubt, that the Iron Mask was an Italian of the name of Matthioli; a personage who was first put on the list of candidates for that honour, in a pamphlet published in 1801, by M. Roux (Fazillac);2 who, however, was then unable to support his opinion with sufficient authorities.