Mystery Files (2010–…): Season 1, Episode 11 - The Man in the Iron Mask - full transcript
In 18th century France,
King Louis XIV, scared
his twin brother
will steal his crown,
sentenceshim to a terrible fate.
Louis clamps his brothershead
into an iron mask.
He could never take it offunder
threat of being murdered.
But historians
haveargued ever since if this ever
really happened.
And for over 300 years,
theprisoner's real identity
has been in doubt.
In a quest whichleads
to the darkest dungeons
of Imperial France,
and exploresmodern medical knowledge,
and ancient documents
to search for the truth,
we open the mystery filesfrom
the man in the iron mask.
The man in the iron mask
is a phantom figure, who
exists in the shadows
of French history.
From the tantalizingevidence
that still exists,
historians think two peoplehold
the key to the story.
By investigating thecareers
of these two men,
experts now believe theycan
piece together the man
in the iron mask's life.
One is his guard,
professional jailer Benigne
d'Auvergne de Saint-Mars.
The other is one of
France'smost celebrated authors.
He goes by the single
name, Voltaire,
and is the first person
toput the story into print.
Roger Pearson is an
historian and an expert
on classic French literature.
Voltaire, from an early age, is
a critic of the
establishment, and he
loves being anti-establishment.
And his voice is always that
ofthe anti-establishment figure.
He has his own
political agenda and he
pursued it throughout his life.
His mission, ultimately,
is to have the power ofthe
Bourbon dynasty curbed,
and France regulated
by a constitution.
At the age of 23,
Voltaire'shatred of the political system
intensifies when he
becomes a victim of it.
In 17th and 18th century France,
the infamous instrument
ofoppression was the Lettre de
Cache, signed by the
kingand then counter-signed
by somebody in authority.
This letter was sufficientto
allow you to go and get
the police to arrest somebody.
The Lettre de Cache was first
enforced in the 13th century.
400 years later, Louis
XIV, the king of France,
exploits the policy
to his full advantage,
inflicting punishments rangingfrom
short, sharp shocks
to life sentences for thosewho
fall out of his favor.
Julian Swann is a historian
specializing in the
French judicial system
of the 17th and 18th century.
In France, under Louis XIV,
there was a very effective
functioning system of justice.
But, like even in moremodern
political systems,
there's still theopportunity for the state
to act in its self-defense.
Individuals could be locked
away without any chance
of a fair trial.
Or, indeed, of even being
ableto be sure why they had been
locked away.
Voltaire's
crimeagainst the establishment
is writing poems satirizingthe
regent Philippe II.
The regent clearly thoughtthat
he had gone too far,
and a Lettre de
Cache was issued,
and Voltaire was put
inprison, put in the Bastille.
That was his major experience,
at firsthand, of injustice.
King LouisXIV's
capacity for cruelty
would no doubt be
in Voltaire's mind
as his Bastille prison
door slammed shut.
Just over 40 years earlier,
a high profile scandal
had rocked France,
provoking a wave of arrests.
The Affair of the Poisonsis
one of the great causes
celebres of the 17th century.
Initially it started off withthe
trial, a spectacular trial,
of Madame de Brinvilliers,
a marquise, a woman
of high social background.
In a powerstruggle,
she and her lover
poisoned not only her
disapproving father,
but her two brothers.
Widespread hysteria
broke out, as more
members of the ruling class
areimplicated in poisoning plots.
There is even an
allegedconspiracy to poison Louis,
himself.
A witch hunt rooted
out anyone suspected
of these fiendish activities.
For many people it
wouldresult in imprisonment,
and even death.
In the course of
theinvestigations into the affair,
more than 100 people
were arrested.
Perhaps at least 30 executed.
Eventually, the treatmentof the prisoners
generates unfavorable
scrutiny of France
from other European powers,
so the inquisition is halted.
Once the investigations intothe
Affair of the Poisons end,
the government finds itselfin
a very difficult position.
It had at least
65 individuals who
knew a great deal about
what had happened,
and they were just
toodangerous to be allowed out.
The king banishedthem
to different fortresses
around his kingdom.
The Marquis de Louvois
was Louis XIV's
Secretary of State for War.
He instructs that
the prisoners must be
stripped of their identities.
Not even the prison guards
areallowed to know their names.
They were chained
to walls in dungeons
and left to rot.
Some of whom would still bealive
more than 40 years later.
Fortunately, for Voltaire,
he is spared this extreme fate.
He is only incarcerated inthe
Bastille for under a year,
yet it is enough to have
a serious effect on him.
He was in for 11 months,
and it changed him.
It really did.
Especially as he feels he, too,
is now the victim of injustice.
While of course he
had been in a sense
in the wrong to complainabout
the regent in print, um,
he was nevertheless voicingwhat
many people actually
thought about the regent.
He was not doing
things that were
different from other
people, and yet he
had been singled out
in this way and had
been given no opportunityto make his case.
From this
pointVoltaire is even more intent
on sabotaging the system.
And just over 30 years
later, he immortalizes
the story which will become oneof
France's greatest mysteries.
In 1751, Voltaire publishesa
history of Louis' reign
entitled "The age of Louis XIV."
It contains the
first reference ever
printed of a masked prisoner.
"This prisoner wore
a mask, the chin piece
of which had steel springs
toallow him to eat with it on,
and the order was to
killhim if he took it off."
Voltaire's
book details the ordeal.
He describes how
the convict's head
is sealed in iron
for 40 years, as he
is moved from prison to prison.
"An unknown
prisoner was conveyed
with the utmost secrecy."
Voltaire
writes that the offender
is escorted by an
officer entrusted
to keep his identity a secret.
Benigne d'Auvergne
de Saint-Mars.
He is the other
character historians
believe could help solve
themystery of the iron mask.
Saint-Mars was a
respected prison
officer in 17th century France.
His career guarding
high security prisoners
and transporting them from
jailto jail is well-documented.
Historian Robin
Briggs is an expert
in 17th-century Frenchhistory,
and is investigating
the man in the iron
mask and the jailer
assigned to watch over him.
Saint-Mars begins
as a musketeer,
and in 1664 the real
D'Artagnanrecommends him as the jailer
of a disgraced
finance minister who
is being sent to thisremote
fortress of Pignerol,
in the Alps.
Today the
town is on Italian soil,
and known as Pinerolo.
It bears no mark of thebuilding
Saint-Mars governed.
But in the 17th
century, Pignerol prison
is one of the most austere
andremote in the French system.
Pignerol is a fortress townin
the foothills of the Alps.
There, you have a
castle which has
several towers in its walls.
And a couple of thosetowers
had been fixed up,
so they providedaccommodation
for prisoners.
There still exists, in a series
of correspondence
betweenSaint-Mars and his boss,
the Marquis de Louvois.
Louvois is in charge
of the fortresses,
and ultimately responsiblefor
the career of Saint-Mars,
who he regards as
one of his trustees.
Their contactlasts
from Saint-Mars' time
at Pignerol until of
Louvois' death in 1691,
a key period when
prisoners are being held
in a series of different jails.
After Pignerol, around
from 1681 to 1687,
Saint-Mars is governor
of another mountain
prison, Exiles.
The journey from Pignerol
toExiles is only about 25 miles.
It would have been
quite a rough journey
through these mountains.
The fortress at Exiles dominates
the surrounding countryside.
Now, it is a museum.
But its presence today
isas daunting as back then.
This is a fairlydesolate part of the world.
Saint-Mars himself
didn't know whether he
would ever get another
promotionor be moved from there.
While for the prisoners,
itmust have seemed that this was
the place where
they would be locked
up for the rest of their lives.
A very depressing
prospect, I would have
thought, for all these parties.
More importantly,
a letter Louvois
writes to Saint-Mars on the2nd
of March 1682, corroborates
the cruel policy of
keeping the unfortunate
prisoners completely nameless.
The government likes
tooperate a policy of terror,
I think, by keepingeverything
as dark as it can.
"Since it is importantthat
the prisoners at Exiles,
who at Pignerol were called'the
prisoners of the lower
tower, ' have no
contact with anyone,
the king has ordered me
tocommand you to have them
guarded with such care
andstrictness that you can answer
to his majesty for them
beingunable to speak with anyone,
not only from outside,
but even amongst
the garrison of Exiles."
Historians have discovered
that whilst at Exiles,
Saint-Mars only
has two prisoners
with him, both of whom
he had bought from Pignerol.
We know that one of
theprisoners dies at Exiles,
and the other one is
taken to the Ile St.
Marguerite by Saint-Mars.
And therefore, this
must be the surviving
prisoner from Pigerol.
The island
of St. Marguerite
lies in the Mediterraneansea with a view
of the modern city of Cannes.
The Fort Royal,
where theprisoner is incarcerated,
overshadows the small island.
The garrison is now
a tourist attraction,
and the waters surroundingit
welcome a steady stream
of holidaymakers.
Visitors can
still see the cell where
he spends 11 solitary years.
This is not the end of
themysterious prisoner's torment.
His final destination is
theinfamous Bastille in Paris.
Voltaire confirms that
the masked prisoner
is transported by Saint-Mars.
He is ultimately promotedto
be governor of the Bastille
in 1698, which is when
theman in the mask makes his
appearance in the Bastille,
because Saint-Mars brings him
from the Ile St. Marguerite.
Yet in all the
lettersbetween the jailer, Saint-Mars,
and his superior, Louvois,
thereis not one mention of a mask.
At first, this seems to be
atodds with Voltaire's story.
But further investigationreveals a source
from the records
of the Bastille,
that endorses his account.
The storming of the
Bastille in 1789
brought about its
utter destruction.
Today all that remains ofthe
fortress that once loomed
threateningly over
Paris are a few stones
that were recovered oncethe
French Revolution had
died down.
The building itself
may have disappeared,
but some of its
records have survived.
TheBibliotheque de L'Arsenal
is part of the National
Library in Paris.
It holds many of the
documents that chronicle
the Bastille's murkypast,
including the diary
of one of its officers.
Well, Etienne de Junca is
alieutenant of the Bastille, who
was expected to guard andto
look over the prisoners
during their incarceration.
He is present
whenSaint-Mars arrives from St.
Marguerite with the prisoner.
De Junca keeps a
journal of everything
that happens in the
Bastilleduring his time there.
It's a daily record that allows
him to keep track of events.
Who's in the prison, why theyare
there, and when they leave.
In its pages
is the first eyewitness
reference to Saint-Mars'
prisoner being masked.
"On Thursday, September 18,at
3 o'clock in the afternoon,
the new governor
of the Bastille,
Monsieur de Saint-Mars,
made his official
entry into this prison.
He comes from the islandsof St. Marguerite,
And St. Honorat and hasbrought
with him in a letter
an old prisoner who he had
in custody in Pignerol,
and whom he kept alwaysmasked,
and whose name has not
been given to me, or recorded."
Here,
we have thefirst irrefutable evidence
that this namelessconvict is indeed masked,
and has been with Saint-Mars
throughout the majority
of his career as
a prison official.
This is the fate that intriguedand
terrified readers when
first published by Voltaire.
But using modern medicalknowledge
to test the story
throws up surprising results.
Musculoskeletal
surgeon, Mike Edwards,
reveals the likely
effects of being
cooped up decade afterdecade
in a solid iron mask.
Based on the story that a mancan
be encased in an iron mask
for 30 years, never
removing it, how likely
is it that he would survive?
In my opinion and on the
balance of probability
he wouldn't survive.
With the aid
of computer graphics,
Mike unravels what
wouldactually take place inside.
To understand what'shappening
beneath the mask,
it's best at this stage we
takethe mask away from the face.
Beneath the mask
there's an environment
that is warm, moist, and fatty.
Horrible for the
person in the mask,
but nirvana for bugs
suchas fungus and bacteria.
If the skin is damaged,
it opensa portal to the bloodstream.
Bacteria on the
outside are no problem.
Bacteria on the inside
are a big problem.
And the skin would break easily
when it rubs against the mask.
Once the bacteria get
into the bloodstream,
they multiply and precipitatea
very dangerous situation
known as a septicemia.
The bacteriatrigger
a chain reaction.
One by one the
organs in the body
begin to shut down as thebrain
steals blood from them.
The first place this
goes is in the skin.
The second is in the kidneys,
in the liver, the lungs,
and eventually the heart.
But when the heart goes,
that's the end of the line.
Julian Swann hascome
to the Chateau of Loches,
in the Loire Valley in
France to investigate
the conditions 17th
centuryprisoners were subjected to.
This is one of the
greatprisons of state in France
and it had initially beenused
by the French kings going
right back into medieval times.
But it was still
very much typical
of a French state prisonat
the time of Louis XIV.
Torture is common practice.
There were a number
of torture devices
that were used regularly aspart
of the judicial procedure.
One of the most infamous
is today euphemistically
called "water boarding."
The arms are tied togetherand
pulled up over the head.
Both feet are then drawn tightand
fastened to a solid object,
usually a wall.
And then they would be stretched
so they were at an
angle such as that,
with boards placed
underneath them.
What would happen
then, is they'd
have a linen mask
put over their face,
and they would take
a cow's horn which
would be put it in the mouth.
And then the
unfortunate individual
would have water poured
intothem, as much as 16 liters.
They would
haveexperienced excruciating pain,
and suffered the
agonizingsensation of drowning.
[GASPING
Grim reminders ofhow
unfortunate prisoners are
restrained are still evident.
In Loches, ordinary prisonerswere
chained to the walls.
Chains like this were
put around their neck.
And can you imagine how
difficult it would be?
They'd find it almostimpossible
to get comfortable
or even to lie down.
And for years on
end, they might find
themselves in this situation.
Yet, whilst evidenceof
these terrible treatments
are still visible,
there isnone of anyone being tormented
with a mask made of iron.
Yet, both de Junca,
thelieutenant at the Bastille,
and Voltaire,
claim thatit was a real punishment.
In November, 1703,
de Junca again
recalls the masked prisoner,
when he describes his death.
"On Monday the 19th
of November, 1703,
the unknown prisoner
whomMonsieur de Saint-Mars had
brought with him from theislands of St.
Marguerite,
and had kept for a long
time, died at about
10 o'clock in the evening."
However,
an exacttranslation of the text
reveals that the
prisoner is in fact--
"--always masked with
a black, velvet mask."
The clinical investigation
shows how it would bevirtually
impossible to survive
in a mask made of metal,
soperhaps there never was one.
Even though this is not
theonly incident of prisoners
whose faces are hidden.
What we have with this storyof
the man in the iron mask is,
I think, is a set of
dramatic improvisations
and additions to a
rathersimple original story.
Which is that of somebody,
who having become
a criminal of state,
for obscure reasons
which we can only guess at,
isthen trapped in this system.
In theirobsession
for utter secrecy,
the authorities would
mask prisoners in public
to ensure identities are
kept completely hidden.
Maybe Saint-Mars' convict
isjust another victim condemned
and subsequently
lost in the system,
like so many other
unfortunatesouls during this period
in French history.
We have other people in masks.
It's all part of a generalsystem
in which once you become
a state prisoner
you can just vanish,
and there's no reason whyanybody
should know who you are
or where you are once
you're being held in it.
Whilst to have been disguised,
he is probably
someone of high rank,
his sentence appears
not to be unique.
The quest to understand
how a common practice,
unremarkable at the time,
becomes this exceptional tale
of terror, leads
back to the author
who first wrote aboutit,
Voltaire, the man who
wants to end Louis' tyranny.
Voltaire continues
toinfuriate the authorities
with his risky writing,
makingit increasingly dangerous
for him to remain in France.
So he very cleverly moved
justacross the border from Geneva
into what is, in fact, France.
And he buys this very
large, ruined kind
of semi-fortress, really,
and completely rebuilds it.
And that is then his
Chateau de Ferney.
So he's found, geographically,
the ideal position.
It's in France,
so he's notbothered by the Genevans,
but it's close enough to
Geneva that if he were
to hear of any police peoplecoming
from Paris to get him,
he could simply slip across
theborder into Geneva and be safe.
Voltaire lives in his hideaway
until the year he dies.
Safe from capture heresumes
his subversive work.
And once it found that, then he
could, in fact,
start saying things
that he wanted to say before.
And it is whilsthe
is out of harm's way
that he further
embellishes his story.
In a work entitled
"Questionson the Encyclopedia,"
Voltaire implies that
the man in the iron mask
is none other than
Louis' brother.
The accusation is
designed to bring
King Louis and his Bourbondynasty
into more disrepute.
Yet, experts question the
truthbehind Voltaire's plot line.
The idea that the man in
themask is Louis XIV's brother
seems impossible,
because a royal birth
is such a public event
in 17th century France.
The queen is surrounded
by dozens of people,
and even after the
birth there would still
be a substantial number
of people around her.
And therefore, the
secret couldn't possibly
have been kept had there
been a second birth.
So this coreelement
of Voltaire's story
appears to be fabricated.
He simply makes up these
scandalous allegations.
It is just another part
of his greater plan.
He may precisely be usingthis
story for his own ends,
and the ends clearly would
beto undermine the legitimacy
of the Bourbon monarchy.
A deliberate
attempt to perpetuate
the myth of the man
in the iron mask,
and draw attention to
KingLouis' sadistic behavior.
The masked prisoneris
a powerful symbol of how
brutal the system can be,
andone which Voltaire no doubt
realizes will undermine
the king and capture
the imagination of his readers.
In February, 1778,
Voltairecomes home to Paris
after nearly 25 years and
istreated as a returning hero.
Historians claim that
Voltaire'santagonistic propaganda
provokes public animositytowards
their despotic leaders.
And although he doesn't
live to witness it,
he helps trigger theFrench
Revolution of 1789.
I think in a way Voltaireis
the person who begins
to tear the Bastille down.
That's to say, that the Bastilleis
a symbol of this oppression,
which of course,
was eventually torn
down in the revolution itself.
The unjust and oppressive
Bourbon monarchs are deposedand
replaced by the republic.
And the uprising
ends the tyranny
of the Lettres desCaches, which are finally
abolished once and for all.
King Louis XIV, scared
his twin brother
will steal his crown,
sentenceshim to a terrible fate.
Louis clamps his brothershead
into an iron mask.
He could never take it offunder
threat of being murdered.
But historians
haveargued ever since if this ever
really happened.
And for over 300 years,
theprisoner's real identity
has been in doubt.
In a quest whichleads
to the darkest dungeons
of Imperial France,
and exploresmodern medical knowledge,
and ancient documents
to search for the truth,
we open the mystery filesfrom
the man in the iron mask.
The man in the iron mask
is a phantom figure, who
exists in the shadows
of French history.
From the tantalizingevidence
that still exists,
historians think two peoplehold
the key to the story.
By investigating thecareers
of these two men,
experts now believe theycan
piece together the man
in the iron mask's life.
One is his guard,
professional jailer Benigne
d'Auvergne de Saint-Mars.
The other is one of
France'smost celebrated authors.
He goes by the single
name, Voltaire,
and is the first person
toput the story into print.
Roger Pearson is an
historian and an expert
on classic French literature.
Voltaire, from an early age, is
a critic of the
establishment, and he
loves being anti-establishment.
And his voice is always that
ofthe anti-establishment figure.
He has his own
political agenda and he
pursued it throughout his life.
His mission, ultimately,
is to have the power ofthe
Bourbon dynasty curbed,
and France regulated
by a constitution.
At the age of 23,
Voltaire'shatred of the political system
intensifies when he
becomes a victim of it.
In 17th and 18th century France,
the infamous instrument
ofoppression was the Lettre de
Cache, signed by the
kingand then counter-signed
by somebody in authority.
This letter was sufficientto
allow you to go and get
the police to arrest somebody.
The Lettre de Cache was first
enforced in the 13th century.
400 years later, Louis
XIV, the king of France,
exploits the policy
to his full advantage,
inflicting punishments rangingfrom
short, sharp shocks
to life sentences for thosewho
fall out of his favor.
Julian Swann is a historian
specializing in the
French judicial system
of the 17th and 18th century.
In France, under Louis XIV,
there was a very effective
functioning system of justice.
But, like even in moremodern
political systems,
there's still theopportunity for the state
to act in its self-defense.
Individuals could be locked
away without any chance
of a fair trial.
Or, indeed, of even being
ableto be sure why they had been
locked away.
Voltaire's
crimeagainst the establishment
is writing poems satirizingthe
regent Philippe II.
The regent clearly thoughtthat
he had gone too far,
and a Lettre de
Cache was issued,
and Voltaire was put
inprison, put in the Bastille.
That was his major experience,
at firsthand, of injustice.
King LouisXIV's
capacity for cruelty
would no doubt be
in Voltaire's mind
as his Bastille prison
door slammed shut.
Just over 40 years earlier,
a high profile scandal
had rocked France,
provoking a wave of arrests.
The Affair of the Poisonsis
one of the great causes
celebres of the 17th century.
Initially it started off withthe
trial, a spectacular trial,
of Madame de Brinvilliers,
a marquise, a woman
of high social background.
In a powerstruggle,
she and her lover
poisoned not only her
disapproving father,
but her two brothers.
Widespread hysteria
broke out, as more
members of the ruling class
areimplicated in poisoning plots.
There is even an
allegedconspiracy to poison Louis,
himself.
A witch hunt rooted
out anyone suspected
of these fiendish activities.
For many people it
wouldresult in imprisonment,
and even death.
In the course of
theinvestigations into the affair,
more than 100 people
were arrested.
Perhaps at least 30 executed.
Eventually, the treatmentof the prisoners
generates unfavorable
scrutiny of France
from other European powers,
so the inquisition is halted.
Once the investigations intothe
Affair of the Poisons end,
the government finds itselfin
a very difficult position.
It had at least
65 individuals who
knew a great deal about
what had happened,
and they were just
toodangerous to be allowed out.
The king banishedthem
to different fortresses
around his kingdom.
The Marquis de Louvois
was Louis XIV's
Secretary of State for War.
He instructs that
the prisoners must be
stripped of their identities.
Not even the prison guards
areallowed to know their names.
They were chained
to walls in dungeons
and left to rot.
Some of whom would still bealive
more than 40 years later.
Fortunately, for Voltaire,
he is spared this extreme fate.
He is only incarcerated inthe
Bastille for under a year,
yet it is enough to have
a serious effect on him.
He was in for 11 months,
and it changed him.
It really did.
Especially as he feels he, too,
is now the victim of injustice.
While of course he
had been in a sense
in the wrong to complainabout
the regent in print, um,
he was nevertheless voicingwhat
many people actually
thought about the regent.
He was not doing
things that were
different from other
people, and yet he
had been singled out
in this way and had
been given no opportunityto make his case.
From this
pointVoltaire is even more intent
on sabotaging the system.
And just over 30 years
later, he immortalizes
the story which will become oneof
France's greatest mysteries.
In 1751, Voltaire publishesa
history of Louis' reign
entitled "The age of Louis XIV."
It contains the
first reference ever
printed of a masked prisoner.
"This prisoner wore
a mask, the chin piece
of which had steel springs
toallow him to eat with it on,
and the order was to
killhim if he took it off."
Voltaire's
book details the ordeal.
He describes how
the convict's head
is sealed in iron
for 40 years, as he
is moved from prison to prison.
"An unknown
prisoner was conveyed
with the utmost secrecy."
Voltaire
writes that the offender
is escorted by an
officer entrusted
to keep his identity a secret.
Benigne d'Auvergne
de Saint-Mars.
He is the other
character historians
believe could help solve
themystery of the iron mask.
Saint-Mars was a
respected prison
officer in 17th century France.
His career guarding
high security prisoners
and transporting them from
jailto jail is well-documented.
Historian Robin
Briggs is an expert
in 17th-century Frenchhistory,
and is investigating
the man in the iron
mask and the jailer
assigned to watch over him.
Saint-Mars begins
as a musketeer,
and in 1664 the real
D'Artagnanrecommends him as the jailer
of a disgraced
finance minister who
is being sent to thisremote
fortress of Pignerol,
in the Alps.
Today the
town is on Italian soil,
and known as Pinerolo.
It bears no mark of thebuilding
Saint-Mars governed.
But in the 17th
century, Pignerol prison
is one of the most austere
andremote in the French system.
Pignerol is a fortress townin
the foothills of the Alps.
There, you have a
castle which has
several towers in its walls.
And a couple of thosetowers
had been fixed up,
so they providedaccommodation
for prisoners.
There still exists, in a series
of correspondence
betweenSaint-Mars and his boss,
the Marquis de Louvois.
Louvois is in charge
of the fortresses,
and ultimately responsiblefor
the career of Saint-Mars,
who he regards as
one of his trustees.
Their contactlasts
from Saint-Mars' time
at Pignerol until of
Louvois' death in 1691,
a key period when
prisoners are being held
in a series of different jails.
After Pignerol, around
from 1681 to 1687,
Saint-Mars is governor
of another mountain
prison, Exiles.
The journey from Pignerol
toExiles is only about 25 miles.
It would have been
quite a rough journey
through these mountains.
The fortress at Exiles dominates
the surrounding countryside.
Now, it is a museum.
But its presence today
isas daunting as back then.
This is a fairlydesolate part of the world.
Saint-Mars himself
didn't know whether he
would ever get another
promotionor be moved from there.
While for the prisoners,
itmust have seemed that this was
the place where
they would be locked
up for the rest of their lives.
A very depressing
prospect, I would have
thought, for all these parties.
More importantly,
a letter Louvois
writes to Saint-Mars on the2nd
of March 1682, corroborates
the cruel policy of
keeping the unfortunate
prisoners completely nameless.
The government likes
tooperate a policy of terror,
I think, by keepingeverything
as dark as it can.
"Since it is importantthat
the prisoners at Exiles,
who at Pignerol were called'the
prisoners of the lower
tower, ' have no
contact with anyone,
the king has ordered me
tocommand you to have them
guarded with such care
andstrictness that you can answer
to his majesty for them
beingunable to speak with anyone,
not only from outside,
but even amongst
the garrison of Exiles."
Historians have discovered
that whilst at Exiles,
Saint-Mars only
has two prisoners
with him, both of whom
he had bought from Pignerol.
We know that one of
theprisoners dies at Exiles,
and the other one is
taken to the Ile St.
Marguerite by Saint-Mars.
And therefore, this
must be the surviving
prisoner from Pigerol.
The island
of St. Marguerite
lies in the Mediterraneansea with a view
of the modern city of Cannes.
The Fort Royal,
where theprisoner is incarcerated,
overshadows the small island.
The garrison is now
a tourist attraction,
and the waters surroundingit
welcome a steady stream
of holidaymakers.
Visitors can
still see the cell where
he spends 11 solitary years.
This is not the end of
themysterious prisoner's torment.
His final destination is
theinfamous Bastille in Paris.
Voltaire confirms that
the masked prisoner
is transported by Saint-Mars.
He is ultimately promotedto
be governor of the Bastille
in 1698, which is when
theman in the mask makes his
appearance in the Bastille,
because Saint-Mars brings him
from the Ile St. Marguerite.
Yet in all the
lettersbetween the jailer, Saint-Mars,
and his superior, Louvois,
thereis not one mention of a mask.
At first, this seems to be
atodds with Voltaire's story.
But further investigationreveals a source
from the records
of the Bastille,
that endorses his account.
The storming of the
Bastille in 1789
brought about its
utter destruction.
Today all that remains ofthe
fortress that once loomed
threateningly over
Paris are a few stones
that were recovered oncethe
French Revolution had
died down.
The building itself
may have disappeared,
but some of its
records have survived.
TheBibliotheque de L'Arsenal
is part of the National
Library in Paris.
It holds many of the
documents that chronicle
the Bastille's murkypast,
including the diary
of one of its officers.
Well, Etienne de Junca is
alieutenant of the Bastille, who
was expected to guard andto
look over the prisoners
during their incarceration.
He is present
whenSaint-Mars arrives from St.
Marguerite with the prisoner.
De Junca keeps a
journal of everything
that happens in the
Bastilleduring his time there.
It's a daily record that allows
him to keep track of events.
Who's in the prison, why theyare
there, and when they leave.
In its pages
is the first eyewitness
reference to Saint-Mars'
prisoner being masked.
"On Thursday, September 18,at
3 o'clock in the afternoon,
the new governor
of the Bastille,
Monsieur de Saint-Mars,
made his official
entry into this prison.
He comes from the islandsof St. Marguerite,
And St. Honorat and hasbrought
with him in a letter
an old prisoner who he had
in custody in Pignerol,
and whom he kept alwaysmasked,
and whose name has not
been given to me, or recorded."
Here,
we have thefirst irrefutable evidence
that this namelessconvict is indeed masked,
and has been with Saint-Mars
throughout the majority
of his career as
a prison official.
This is the fate that intriguedand
terrified readers when
first published by Voltaire.
But using modern medicalknowledge
to test the story
throws up surprising results.
Musculoskeletal
surgeon, Mike Edwards,
reveals the likely
effects of being
cooped up decade afterdecade
in a solid iron mask.
Based on the story that a mancan
be encased in an iron mask
for 30 years, never
removing it, how likely
is it that he would survive?
In my opinion and on the
balance of probability
he wouldn't survive.
With the aid
of computer graphics,
Mike unravels what
wouldactually take place inside.
To understand what'shappening
beneath the mask,
it's best at this stage we
takethe mask away from the face.
Beneath the mask
there's an environment
that is warm, moist, and fatty.
Horrible for the
person in the mask,
but nirvana for bugs
suchas fungus and bacteria.
If the skin is damaged,
it opensa portal to the bloodstream.
Bacteria on the
outside are no problem.
Bacteria on the inside
are a big problem.
And the skin would break easily
when it rubs against the mask.
Once the bacteria get
into the bloodstream,
they multiply and precipitatea
very dangerous situation
known as a septicemia.
The bacteriatrigger
a chain reaction.
One by one the
organs in the body
begin to shut down as thebrain
steals blood from them.
The first place this
goes is in the skin.
The second is in the kidneys,
in the liver, the lungs,
and eventually the heart.
But when the heart goes,
that's the end of the line.
Julian Swann hascome
to the Chateau of Loches,
in the Loire Valley in
France to investigate
the conditions 17th
centuryprisoners were subjected to.
This is one of the
greatprisons of state in France
and it had initially beenused
by the French kings going
right back into medieval times.
But it was still
very much typical
of a French state prisonat
the time of Louis XIV.
Torture is common practice.
There were a number
of torture devices
that were used regularly aspart
of the judicial procedure.
One of the most infamous
is today euphemistically
called "water boarding."
The arms are tied togetherand
pulled up over the head.
Both feet are then drawn tightand
fastened to a solid object,
usually a wall.
And then they would be stretched
so they were at an
angle such as that,
with boards placed
underneath them.
What would happen
then, is they'd
have a linen mask
put over their face,
and they would take
a cow's horn which
would be put it in the mouth.
And then the
unfortunate individual
would have water poured
intothem, as much as 16 liters.
They would
haveexperienced excruciating pain,
and suffered the
agonizingsensation of drowning.
[GASPING
Grim reminders ofhow
unfortunate prisoners are
restrained are still evident.
In Loches, ordinary prisonerswere
chained to the walls.
Chains like this were
put around their neck.
And can you imagine how
difficult it would be?
They'd find it almostimpossible
to get comfortable
or even to lie down.
And for years on
end, they might find
themselves in this situation.
Yet, whilst evidenceof
these terrible treatments
are still visible,
there isnone of anyone being tormented
with a mask made of iron.
Yet, both de Junca,
thelieutenant at the Bastille,
and Voltaire,
claim thatit was a real punishment.
In November, 1703,
de Junca again
recalls the masked prisoner,
when he describes his death.
"On Monday the 19th
of November, 1703,
the unknown prisoner
whomMonsieur de Saint-Mars had
brought with him from theislands of St.
Marguerite,
and had kept for a long
time, died at about
10 o'clock in the evening."
However,
an exacttranslation of the text
reveals that the
prisoner is in fact--
"--always masked with
a black, velvet mask."
The clinical investigation
shows how it would bevirtually
impossible to survive
in a mask made of metal,
soperhaps there never was one.
Even though this is not
theonly incident of prisoners
whose faces are hidden.
What we have with this storyof
the man in the iron mask is,
I think, is a set of
dramatic improvisations
and additions to a
rathersimple original story.
Which is that of somebody,
who having become
a criminal of state,
for obscure reasons
which we can only guess at,
isthen trapped in this system.
In theirobsession
for utter secrecy,
the authorities would
mask prisoners in public
to ensure identities are
kept completely hidden.
Maybe Saint-Mars' convict
isjust another victim condemned
and subsequently
lost in the system,
like so many other
unfortunatesouls during this period
in French history.
We have other people in masks.
It's all part of a generalsystem
in which once you become
a state prisoner
you can just vanish,
and there's no reason whyanybody
should know who you are
or where you are once
you're being held in it.
Whilst to have been disguised,
he is probably
someone of high rank,
his sentence appears
not to be unique.
The quest to understand
how a common practice,
unremarkable at the time,
becomes this exceptional tale
of terror, leads
back to the author
who first wrote aboutit,
Voltaire, the man who
wants to end Louis' tyranny.
Voltaire continues
toinfuriate the authorities
with his risky writing,
makingit increasingly dangerous
for him to remain in France.
So he very cleverly moved
justacross the border from Geneva
into what is, in fact, France.
And he buys this very
large, ruined kind
of semi-fortress, really,
and completely rebuilds it.
And that is then his
Chateau de Ferney.
So he's found, geographically,
the ideal position.
It's in France,
so he's notbothered by the Genevans,
but it's close enough to
Geneva that if he were
to hear of any police peoplecoming
from Paris to get him,
he could simply slip across
theborder into Geneva and be safe.
Voltaire lives in his hideaway
until the year he dies.
Safe from capture heresumes
his subversive work.
And once it found that, then he
could, in fact,
start saying things
that he wanted to say before.
And it is whilsthe
is out of harm's way
that he further
embellishes his story.
In a work entitled
"Questionson the Encyclopedia,"
Voltaire implies that
the man in the iron mask
is none other than
Louis' brother.
The accusation is
designed to bring
King Louis and his Bourbondynasty
into more disrepute.
Yet, experts question the
truthbehind Voltaire's plot line.
The idea that the man in
themask is Louis XIV's brother
seems impossible,
because a royal birth
is such a public event
in 17th century France.
The queen is surrounded
by dozens of people,
and even after the
birth there would still
be a substantial number
of people around her.
And therefore, the
secret couldn't possibly
have been kept had there
been a second birth.
So this coreelement
of Voltaire's story
appears to be fabricated.
He simply makes up these
scandalous allegations.
It is just another part
of his greater plan.
He may precisely be usingthis
story for his own ends,
and the ends clearly would
beto undermine the legitimacy
of the Bourbon monarchy.
A deliberate
attempt to perpetuate
the myth of the man
in the iron mask,
and draw attention to
KingLouis' sadistic behavior.
The masked prisoneris
a powerful symbol of how
brutal the system can be,
andone which Voltaire no doubt
realizes will undermine
the king and capture
the imagination of his readers.
In February, 1778,
Voltairecomes home to Paris
after nearly 25 years and
istreated as a returning hero.
Historians claim that
Voltaire'santagonistic propaganda
provokes public animositytowards
their despotic leaders.
And although he doesn't
live to witness it,
he helps trigger theFrench
Revolution of 1789.
I think in a way Voltaireis
the person who begins
to tear the Bastille down.
That's to say, that the Bastilleis
a symbol of this oppression,
which of course,
was eventually torn
down in the revolution itself.
The unjust and oppressive
Bourbon monarchs are deposedand
replaced by the republic.
And the uprising
ends the tyranny
of the Lettres desCaches, which are finally
abolished once and for all.