[540] [The "Man in the Iron Mask," or, more correctly, the "Man in the
Black Velvet Mask," has been identified with Count Ercole Antonio
Mattioli,
Secretary
of State at the Court of Ferdinando Carlo Gonzaga,
Duke of Mantua.
Byron
Lecky,
1887, iii. 233-255. For a series of articles (by W. Fraser Rae) against
this theory, see _Athenaeum_, 1888, ii. 192, 258, 319. The question is
still being debated. See _The Francis Letters_, with a note on the
Junius Controversy, by C. F. Keary, 1901.)]
[hk] _A doctor, a man-midwife_----.--[MS. erased.]
[hl] {514}_Till curiosity became a task_.--[MS. erased.
]
[540] [The "Man in the Iron Mask," or, more correctly, the "Man in the
Black Velvet Mask," has been identified with Count Ercole Antonio
Mattioli,
Secretary
of State at the Court of Ferdinando Carlo Gonzaga,
Duke of Mantua.
Mattioli was convicted of high treason, and at the
instance of Louis XIV. was seized by the Marechal Catinat, May 2, 1679,
and confined at Pinerolo. He was deported to the Iles Sainte-Marguerite,
March 19, 1694, and afterwards transferred to the Bastille, September
18, 1698. He died November 19, 1703. Baron Heiss was the first to solve
the mystery. Chambrier, Roux-Fazillac, Delort, G. A. Ellis (see a notice
in the _Quart. Rev_., June, 1826, vol. xxxiv. p. 19), and others take
the same view. (See, for confirmation of this theory, an article
_L'Homme au Masque de Velours Noir_, in the _Revue Historique_, by M.
Frantz Funck-Brentano, November, December, 1894, tom.
