Man in the Iron Mask in the mask. It has even been suggested that he was one of the other famous contemporary prisoners being held at Pignerol at the same time as Dauger. Voltaire claimed that the prisoner was a son of Anne of Austria and Cardinal Mazarin, and therefore an illegitimate half-brother of King Louis XIV. However, the sincerity of this claim is uncertain. In his history essay "Le Masque de fer", French novelist Marcel Pagnol, supporting his theory in particular on the circumstances of King Louis XIV's birth, claims that the Man in the Iron mask was indeed a twin but born second,
Man in the Iron Mask the Iron Mask is based mainly on correspondence between Saint-Mars and his superiors in Paris. Recent research suggests that his name might have been "Eustache Dauger", a man who was involved in several political scandals of the late 17th century, but this assertion still has not been completely proven. The National Archives of France has made available (online) the original data relating to the inventories of the goods and papers of Saint-Mars (one inventory, of 64 pages, was drawn up at the Bastille in 1708; the other, of 68 pages, at the citadel of Sainte-Marguerite in 1691). These documents have