The Man in the Iron Mask (1998 film) Louis XIV and attempts to explain the mystery of the Man in the Iron Mask, using a plot more closely related to the flamboyant 1929 version starring Douglas Fairbanks, "The Iron Mask", and the 1939 version directed by James Whale, than to the original Dumas book. Like the 1998 version, the two aforementioned adaptations were also released through United Artists. In 1662, the Kingdom of France faces bankruptcy from King Louis XIV's wars against the Dutch Republic, which has left the country's agriculture impeded by a heavy tax burden and forced the citizens to live on rotten food. Though the
Man in the Iron Mask that they had been provoked by the boy, who was drunk, but the fact that the killing took place near a castle where the king was staying meant that this was not a good enough explanation and, as a result, Dauger was forced to resign his commission. Dauger's mother died shortly afterwards. In her will, written a year previously, she passed over her eldest surviving sons, Eustache and Armand, leaving the bulk of the estate to their younger brother Louis. Eustache was restricted in the amount of money to which he had access, having built up considerable debts, and left