“The queen’s, manner of conducting affairs is influenced by the passion which dominates her.  When she and the cardinal converse together, their ardent love for each other is betrayed by their looks and gestures; it is plain to see that when obliged to part for a time they do it with great reluctance.  If what people say is true, that they are properly married, and that their union has been blessed by Pere Vincent the missioner, there is no harm in all that goes on between them, either in public or in private” (’Requete civile contre la Conclusion de la Paix, 1649).

The Man in the Iron Mask told the apothecary in the Bastille that he thought he was about sixty years of age (’Questions sur d’Encyclopedie’).  Thus he must have been born in 1644, just at the time when Anne of Austria was invested with the royal power, though it was really exercised by Mazarin.

Can we find any incident recorded in history which lends support to the supposition that Anne of Austria had a son whose birth was kept as secret as her marriage to Mazarin?

“In 1644, Anne of Austria being dissatisfied with her apartments in the Louvre, moved to the Palais Royal, which had been left to the king by Richelieu.  Shortly after taking up residence there she was very ill with a severe attack of jaundice, which was caused, in the opinion of the doctors, by worry, anxiety, and overwork, and which pulled her down greatly” (’Memoire de Madame de Motteville, 4 vols. 12mo, Vol i. p. 194).

“This anxiety, caused by the pressure of public business, was most probably only dwelt on as a pretext for a pretended attack of illness.  Anne of Austria had no cause for worry and anxiety till 1649.  She did not begin to complain of the despotism of Mazarin till towards the end of 1645” (Ibid., viol. i. pp. 272, 273).

“She went frequently to the theatre during her first year of widowhood, but took care to hide herself from view in her box.” (Ibid., vol. i. p. 342).

Abbe Soulavie, in vol. vi. of the ‘Memoires de Richelieu’, published in 1793, controverted the opinions of M. de Saint-Mihiel, and again advanced those which he had published some time before, supporting them by a new array of reasons.

The fruitlessness of research in the archives of the Bastille, and the importance of the political events which were happening, diverted the attention of the public for some years from this subject.  In the year 1800, however, the ‘Magazin encyclopedique’ published (vol. vi. p. 472) an article entitled ’Memoires sur les Problemes historiques, et la methode de les resoudre appliquee a celui qui concerne l’Homme au Masque de Fer’, signed C. D. O., in which the author maintained that the prisoner was the first minister of the Duke of Mantua, and says his name was Girolamo Magni.

In the same year an octavo volume of 142 pages was produced by M. Roux-Fazillac.  It bore the title ’Recherches historiques et critiques sur l’Homme au Masque de Fer, d’ou resultent des Notions certaines sur ce prisonnier’.  These researches brought to light a secret correspondence relative to certain negotiations and intrigues, and to the abduction of a secretary of the Duke of Mantua whose name was Matthioli, and not Girolamo Magni.