Customer Reviews

The Man in the Iron Mask

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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.

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.

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.

An enjoyable book, though it gets a bit bogged down in the middle with court intrigue. It begins with the famous A. C Doyle quote from Sherlock Holmes: "Once you've eliminated the impossible, what remains, however improbable, must be the truth." I would counter with Occam's Razor: "The simplest explanation is usually true." Was the Man in the Iron Mask really D'Artagnan? Probably not, but it's an interesting theory, none the less. I will leave more expert readers to tell why the theory doesn't hold water, but the book is a page turner, and the story is well told. And I was a bit surprised to find out how much of Dumas' novels were based on actual events and people. A good read, but don't take it as gospel.

I simply couldn't put it down. The whole book really gets you inside 17thC France and you can feel the evil that surrounds Louis XIV's Court. It's a complicated story but the author is such a master of his subject, you only have to pull slowly on the thread and the next clinching fact is revealed.

Take Eustache Danger for instance. He has been the last credible solution to the identity of the Iron Mask for some time, but MacDonald quietly demolishes this theory by showing exactly who Danger is: a poisoner working for the French war minister, Louvois, and who eventually commits suicide after Louvois has shut him up in the remote prison called Pignerol to keep him safely out of the way.

Once Danger is eliminated, in every sense, there HAS to be an alternative solution and the author shows how it can only be, incredible though it sounds, the great d'Artagnan. He knows far too much for his own good about Louis's dubious parentage and he is always objecting to some of the murkier practices at Court. His supposed death in 1673 at the siege of Maastricht is shown to be a put-up job and instead he, too, ends up in Pignerol. He is the only solution that really fits the facts. Louvois and the king can't kill him because d'Artagnan's jailer is his former sergeant, Saint-Mars, who owes d'Artagnan his job and has no intention of getting rid of the goose that lays him losts of golden eggs. D'Artagnan has to wear the iron mask to stop Saint-Mars's men, all former musketeers, from finding out and helping him escape.

Astonishingly, MacDonald shows how there were two secret prisoners for several years. The second was former finance minister Fouquet, tormented by Louis like a cat plays with a mouse. Fouquet was promised his freedom but Louis found he had seduced the king's second wife Francois Scarron and instead had him locked up again in secret.

Courtilz, d'Artagnan's first biographer, is by chance locked up in the Bastille at the same time as the Mask and realises who he is.

The book also has fascinating information about the Three Musketeers, how they came to fight the Cardinal's Guards with d'Artagnan's accidental help. Athos is later killed helping d'Artagnan, Aramis gets lucky and marries an heiress, and Porthos lives on to the ripe old age of 95!

The notes are packed with extra facts and are written in a hugely entertaining way, so you almost get two books for the price of one.