The Man in the Iron Mask is a name given to a prisoner arrested as Eustache Dauger in 1669 or 1670, and held in a number of jails, including the Bastille and the Fortress of Pignerol (today 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 of Marchioly, during the reign of Louis XIV of France (1643–1715). The possible identity of this man has been thoroughly discussed and has been the subject of many books, as no one ever saw his face because it was hidden by a mask of black velvet cloth.
Writer and philosopher Voltaire claimed (in the second edition of his Questions sur l'Encyclopédie, published in 1771) that the prisoner wore an iron mask and was the older, illegitimate brother of Louis XIV. In the late 1840s, writer Alexandre Dumas elaborated on the theme in the final installment of his Three Musketeers saga: here the prisoner is forced to wear an iron mask and is Louis XIV's identical twin. Dumas also presented a review of the ideas about the prisoner extant in his time (circa 1840) in the chapter "L'homme au masque de fer" of the sixth volume of his Crimes Célèbres.
What facts are known about this prisoner are based mainly on correspondence between his jailer and his superiors in Paris.
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