Man in the Iron Mask Man in the Iron Mask The Man in the Iron Mask (French: "L'Homme au Masque de Fer"; c. 1640 – 19 November 1703) is the name given to an unidentified prisoner who was arrested in 1669 or 1670 and subsequently held in a number of French prisons, including the Bastille and the Fortress of Pignerol (modern Pinerolo, Italy). He was held in the custody of the same jailer, Bénigne Dauvergne de Saint-Mars, for a period of 34 years. He died on 19 November 1703 under the name "Marchioly", during the reign of King Louis XIV of France (1643–1715). Since no
Man in the Iron Mask in a newspaper at the time and that he was released after just a few months. His death is also recorded as happening in 1709, six years after that of the man in the mask. In 1801, revolutionary legislator Pierre Roux-Fazillac stated that the tale of the masked prisoner was an amalgamation of the fates of two separate prisoners, Ercole Antonio Mattioli (see below) and an imprisoned valet named "Eustache D'auger". Andrew Lang, in his "The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories" (1903), presented a theory that "Eustache Dauger" was a prison pseudonym of a man called "Martin", valet of the