The Man in the Iron Mask [Hardcover]

Roger Macdonald (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 15, 2005

Alexandre Dumas said that his famous Three Musketeers never existed, but Athos, Aramis and Porthos were flesh and blood. Their supposedly fictional duel with Cardinal Richelieu's guards actually took place in 1640 and Charles d'Artagnan, a teenager on his first day in Paris, fought alongside the Musketeers. According to Oxford historian Macdonald, several other elements of the tale are also based in fact — the Cardinal's agent, Milady de Winter, really was an English aristocrat, and against all odds, the country boy without influence, d'Artagnan, did succeed in becoming Captain of the King's Musketeers, the only man whom Louis XIV could trust to arrest his over-mighty minister, Fouquet. It was d'Artagnan who escorted Fouquet to the feared Alpine fortress of Pignerol, wherein lived the most mysterious of all prisoners, the Man in the Iron Mask. Macdonald has spent five years unraveling fact from fiction to reveal the true story of the Musketeers and their link with the Man in the Iron Mask. It is a reality more extraordinary than anything Dumas could devise. Honor and heroism, betrayal and intrigue, are set amidst the lust, jealousy, and deadly poisons that made the Sun King's court a world of glittering paranoia.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Roger Macdonald is a writer, journalist and television producer. He studied history at Oxford, specialising in the French Ancien Regime. His many books include a historical guide to Provence and the Cote d’Azur.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Da Capo Press; 1ST edition (November 15, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786716061
• ISBN-13: 978-0786716067
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,475,261 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A great movie but bad history, November 27, 2005

By 

Gary McCollim (RESTON, VA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Man in the Iron Mask (Hardcover)

Roger MacDonald's book as published in the United States is entitled The Man in the Iron Mask. He traces the history of the real D'Artagnan who arrived in Paris in 1640 to enter history. MacDonald shows that not only did D'Artagnan really exist but so did Athos, Porthos, and Aramis. And some of the material in the novel The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas actually happened under different circumstances. MacDonald, despite his claims to be the first researcher to find this, joins a line of authors who have traced this story before.

MacDonald's major difference is that he uses information in the pseudo-memoirs of D'Artagnan to guide his research. These pseudo-memoirs, which Dumas claims as his source for the novel, were actually written by Gatien Courtilz de Sandras and published in 1700 or 27 years after everyone believe D'Artagnan had died. Courtilz de Sandras served in the French army in the 1660s and may even have been a musketeer. In any case, he knew D'Artagnan whose reputation was kingdom-wide.

MacDonald claims, without one shred of evidence, that D'Artagnan did not die from his wounds at the siege of Maastrich in June 1673. Instead his wounded body was taken into custody and his enemies at court and in the musketeers plotted to hide this fact from the king. D'Artagnan, says MacDonald, was really the man in the iron mask. This would make a great movie, even though it is completely false history.

The effort to identify the man in the iron mask has produced more than 1000 articles and books since that unfortunate prisoner excited the interest of Voltaire in the eighteenth century. Yes, Virginia, there was a masked prisoner whose fate inspired so many authors. His mask was not made of iron, but he existed according to some evidence that cannot be discounted. He accompanied Benigne Dauvergne de Saint-Mars in September 1698 when the latter arrived to take his post as governor of the Bastille. The journal of Saint-Mars' second-in-command records his arrival saying that he had been Saint-Mars' prisoner since the latter was at Pignerol but no one was allowed to know his name. The same journal reports that the prisoner who wore a black velvet mask died on 19 November 1703.

Researchers have probed the correspondence between Saint-Mars and his boss, the war minister Louvois, to try to identify this masked prisoner. Books proliferate in French but MacDonald has added his guesstimation to the shorter list of books in English. MacDonald is the first author to identify D'Artagnan as the masked prisoner. Unfortunately, MacDonald surmises without proof, discounts or ignores evidence that is inconvenient to his thesis, and plays on the willful gullibility of his reader. For example, although MacDonald tells us that Saint-Mars had orders to kill the masked prisoner should he talk to anyone or attempt to communicate, he guesses that the former soldier and musketeer Courtilz de Sandras who was imprisoned in the Bastille from 1693 to 1699, probably had conversations with the masked prisoner. These conversations inspired Courtilz to compose his pseudo-memoirs in 1700. The pseudo-memoirs talk about things that happened in D'Artagnan's youth and his years in the musketeers but fail to mention that he has spent 27 years as a prisoner wearing a mask. While Courtilz might have been afraid to mention that fact in print, there is no proof that he ever talked about it to anybody.

Unfortunately, MacDonald conveniently omits the probability that Saint-Mars, who was also a former musketeer and companion of D'Artagnan's, might have spoken with Courtilz de Sandras about things that happened while they were both serving in the French army, i.e., with D'Artagnan. Saint-Mars was known to entertain his prisoners, especially those with connections. The Bastille was a prison that specialized in prisoners from the uppercrust of French society.

MacDonald spurns using footnotes saying that footnoting is an art that discounts the value of the evidence. Instead, he has a whole chapter discussing the general sources he used in each chapter of the book. This is a convenient way to prevent anyone from following his research.

The best book on this subject is in French by Jean-Christian Petitfils entitled Le Masque de fer. The best book in English is by John Noone entitled The Man Behind the Iron Mask. I hesitate to mention good books in a review of such a shoddy piece of work as MacDonald's. I gave him two stars because it was a fun read, but I got bored with him at the end because he was piling one guess on top of another with little to prove anything. He even goes so far as to say that the masked prisoner did not die on 19 November 1703 as so many believe but lived on until 1711. Again, he provides no proof for any of this.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The Man in the Iron Mask, March 11, 2010

By 

Nancy T. Doty "cougmumby" (mount vernon, wa, usa) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Man in the Iron Mask (Hardcover)

There is little point in repeating what other reviewers have already said. I looked up the Amazon reviews; because the book, after 9 chapters of entertaining me highly, infuriated me in the end. I fully agree with the reviewer who cited the "footnotes" chapter as a highlight of the book. But MacDonald has concocted his denouement based on no evidence whatsoever. He bases his entire theory--which he never presents as "theory", but delivers as fact--that The Mask is d'Artagnan-- because although there were many witnesses to the death of that historical figure his body was never found on the field at Maastricht. As for motivation for secluding the legendary captain of Musketeers under such duress and for so long, it seems to be entirely based on his potentia threat to the war minster Louvois's position and d'Artagnan's discovery that Louis XIV was illegitimate. This is nonsense. Everyone hated Louvois and at least half the French nobility knew that Louis XIII did not sire the child who became his heir. As for the "evidence" of the Courtilz book, reliable sources cite that document as pure fiction. MacDonald's "Man in the Iron Mask" was entertaining, even funny, up to a point; but his so-called revelations are hog-wash. I wasted three days on this book and am glad I was able to purchase it at a remaindered price.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars unreliable, October 14, 2006

By 

miakhky "miakhky" (S.B. CA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Man in the Iron Mask (Hardcover)

This book is a mass of allegations and assertions and ignores inconvenient facts in favor of sensationalized storytelling based mainly on gossip and cognitive leapfrog. Entertaining, yes, if you love history but enjoy the peculiar experience of having your blood pressure raised by seeing it badly reinterpreted. There are far better and more reliable works on this time period and this subject.