Man in the Iron Mask the queen to be left alone with her midwife to give birth to the second child. To make the context clearer, it should be remembered that there was a controversy at that time over which one of twins was the elder: the one born first or the one who, being born second, would have, as was then thought, been conceived first. In such a situation, the reigning twin would face a serious threat to his throne. Also supporting the theory of King Louis XIV's twin, a thorough examination of the French Kings' genealogy shows many twin births, in the Capetian
The Man in the Iron Mask (1998 film) told that if he wants the final promotion he was on the point of earning, he had better go and win it on a foreign field: in the later war against Holland, he is finally awarded promotion to the supreme command, only to be killed while reading the notice of his promotion at the siege of Maastricht. In the 1929 silent version, "The Iron Mask" starring Douglas Fairbanks as D'Artagnan, the King is depicted favorably and the twin brother as a pawn in an evil plot whose thwarting by D'Artagnan and his companions seems more appropriate. In the 1998 film,