After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal - Who Was the Man In The Iron Mask?

Episode Date: February 23, 2026

For decades a mysterious figure was held prisoner by Louis XIV. His face was covered, his identity was a secret beyond all others. Why? Who was this figure? How much of the story is myth and how much is fact? Maddy Pelling tells Anthony Delaney the story today.This episodes was edited by Tim Arstall. Produced by Stuart Beckwith and researched by Phoebe Joyce. The senior producer was Freddy Chick.You can now watch After Dark on Youtube! www.youtube.com/@afterdarkhistoryhitSign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.  You can take part in our listener survey here.All music from Epidemic Sounds.After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal is a History Hit podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If a daily mail article that says woke historian insists the man the Iron Mask was gay doesn't happen, I'll be disappointed. September 1687, night falls over the remote stone walls of Exile Fortress, high in the Alpine borderlands. A carriage grinds to a halt. Torches flicker. Orders are whispered. A man is led inside. Masked. Unnamed.

and watched. The door closes behind him with a final echoing thud. From this moment on, his life will be measured in silence. No visitors, no explanation, no mercy. Even his jailer is warned, this prisoner is unlike any other. Outside, France is being ruled by splendour and absolute power. Inside this cell, secrecy reigns, and questions begin to be asked. Who exactly has just been locked away, and why must the truth never be spoken? His face hidden, his name erased, his very existence a threat. For decades, a single prisoner was moved in silence through France's dark fortresses, guarded at all times and forbidden to speak. A man history would only remember as the man in the iron mask.

Join us as we plunge into one of Europe's most tantalizing mysteries. We'll hear the chilling firsthand testimony of his jailer, trace the suffocating paranoia of life under the absolute rule of Louis XIV, and unravel the rumors that refused to die. From a French prison cell, this is After Dark. My name is Anthony. And I'm Maddie. And today on After Dark, we're talking about a mystery that has endured for centuries,

not least because of a slightly dodgy 90s Leonardo DiCaprio film. But the central question of who was the man in the Iron Mask? It's still actually genuinely intriguing. So let's head back to the glitz and glamour of 17th century France, not to Versailles, but to the dark and murky, world of its prisons and to try and unmask this man. Now, in the presence of radical honesty, I just want to let everybody know. I know that I just want to let everybody know. I've entered the post-lunch slump. I've just had a nice lunch and sandwich, a nice soup and sandwich. And actually,

despite that lovely introduction, I'm like, Maddie, you're going to have to pull me out of the depths of this here. So like, it just helped me with this. Unfortunately, I've also had soup for lunch and far too much bread to go with it. What kind of soup did you have? It was kind of like a Panchetta tomatoy thing. Oh, she's fancy. It was kind of nice. Shane makes a very good open sandwich as well

and that's what I had. So I'm kind of full now. Nice. I just want to scroll on my phone, dog videos. I just want to see dog videos. Yeah. I have honestly spent the last hour before we filmed looking at this script, of course,

in preparation as a professional, but also just staring out of the window at the sky and I'm sort of ready for a nap. So we'll see how this goes. My sky is quite miserable. And I suppose here's the thing. Maddie has entered her lying in period, by the way. So we are, we're getting close to. Oh my God. Right. My husband's grandpa,

who is such a lovely old man, every time I see him, he says, good luck with your confinement. Oh my God. That's iconic. I love that. It's so cute. Well, you are. You're now you've entered your confinement. I mean, we're recording this remotely. So we're recording it remotely. That's that, sorry. Yes. That was the point I was making. Yes. And so it just, I think when we're in studio, we're like, we are working. We are on, we're let's go. But then when you're at home, you're like, why you take me away from my dog videos? What's happening? At this point of pregnancy, I am like genuinely outraged. Anyone's asking me to work.

Like, I am just shocked and angered that you all need to turn up. I'm not pregnant. Just a soup, just too much soup. Just a commut. Anyway, look, 1998, Leonardo DiCapriofilm aside, 1998, great year, by the way. What was going on? 1998, the very spice girls. I think Stop came out in 1998.

Oh, I saw the Spice Girls live for the first time. There's a bit of history in 1999. Oh, my God. What's your favorite song? From Spice Girls. ever. Oh, that could change daily. But today I'm going to say,

I really like spice up your life because, you know, iconic. I knew you were going to say that. Spice up your life. But I also really like holler. And that's the one people may not expect. Okay, you're a real fan. Like you've gone into it.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But go on, apart from the Spice Girls. Oh my God, we should do a history of the Spice Girls. Nobody wants that. Oh, my God. No, we should. I think the people would want that, Anthony.

The people. See what I mean? We are so distracted. Right, go. Tell me about this bloody prisoner, whatever's name is. We probably don't know. Right. The Man in the Iron Mask.

I've never seen the DiCaprio film. Neither have I. No. No, I don't think it's particularly well reviewed. But write in and tell us if it's your favorite film of all time and if we should be watching it. Okay, so let's set the scene. Let's give a little bit of background info on this mystery. Okay, so this is the legend, the real history, the gaps in.

between of an unidentified French prisoner under the reign of Louis the 14th. Very excited to talk about Louis the 14th, by the way. A little bit obsessed. Are you, though? Are you saying that because we have to say it? No, genuinely. Okay, go on. Loved the BBC drama.

Was it called Versailles? Was it called something else? No, it's called Versailles. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Great theme music. Very well-acted.

Yeah, great theme music. Yeah, yeah. Love the costumes. Love the wigs. Yeah. Love everyone in the cast. gorgeous. Yeah, a bit of gay shit in there too.

Yeah, a bit of gay shit. We love a bit of gay shit. There was plenty of that. It was gorgeous. So if you're not familiar with Louis XIV, I would suggest... Oh, see, now I'm a little bit interested. Well done. That's good.

You've turned me into... Okay, good, yeah. I'm counteracting the soup. Right. Right. This prisoner, here is the bare bones of what we know, and they really are bare bones. We know that there is someone arrested in 1669, and that they are held for 34 years in different fortresses around France,

including famously the Bastille, and that this person dies in 1703. That is kind of it. What? Yeah. How are we going to get an episode out of this then? Okay, so there is one name that is associated with this prisoner. This is someone who, when they were arrested,

they were warranted under the name of Eustis Dogeir. And you're going to really enjoy my French pronunciation throughout this episode. It's going to be amazing. I will win awards. The French will not write in. I don't think there are any awards for French pronunciation, but if there were, you would win them. Put it that way. I mean, I'd win, like, the entry-level toddler award for being able to do this.

So apologies in advance. Okay, so this is a name that we have associated in the beginning. Always like... Yeah, sorry, I didn't know if you could hear. I'm getting a delivery. This is very exciting. I'm just going to narrate this. So there's a van outside.

I've been waiting for new glasses. I got a pair of sluttied-dye glasses. I was about to say, are these your sluttied little glasses? glasses because last time we're in the studio, it's taken so long. Yeah. Now, Shane is receiving the delivery right now. I actually hope they don't cut this. This is podcast gold.

This is podcast gold. And the dogs are losing their absolute shit. Oh my God. The door is opened. The dogs are on the delivery guy. They're ripping him apart. Anthony stopped them quick. Oh, he's a very cute old man that was delivering.

I don't mean, I don't fancy him. I just mean, ah, he's cute. He looks like Bell's dad from Beauty and the Beast. Oh, my God. A couple of days ago, I said to Maddie, Maddie, we need to be less. chaotic in these episodes. And now, hold on, I'm just going to call Shane to see if they're my glasses. What happened was Anthony sent me a voice note saying, we, as in you, need to stop being so chaotic in episodes. Me, I did not say that to you. I said it to me. I've said that

to me. I think the note was made very much for both of us. Shane, can you hear me? Were they my glasses that just arrived? Yes. They're my glasses. Okay, you're live on the podcast. Okay, I'm I'm going. Okay, now that's something to... Okay, now I'm so in this. Okay, talk to you in a minute. Bye. Thanks. Bye, bye, bye, bye. Right. My glasses have arrived. No, I did not say you need to calm down. I said, I need, I I will play those voice notes. Do not try to get me cancelled. Oh my God, right. No, stop. Okay, go. Yeah.

We have a lot of different theories about who the man in the mask was. Why he was imprisoned. And, you know, it's something that we're, we're all still, I say we all, Anthony, apparently not because he's had too much soup, but we're all still obsessed with this today. The one thing I will say from the outset is that the mask is not necessarily iron. Yeah, I know. So everything you know about this is kind of up in the air. So we have one reference that is contemporary to the imprisonment

that describes him as wearing a black velvet mask, which I think is so much chic. And a little bit sexy and more dramatic than an iron mask. Oh, I'm here for that. Yeah. That makes far more sense. But where did the iron mask cover? from then.

So I'm so glad you asked, Anthony. So we get the idea of the iron mask, as you can probably see in your notes, from the mid-1700s onwards, so the middle of the 18th century, when Voltaire, responsible for a lot of things, decides that it's iron. That's how he reports this story when he's writing about it. So we kind of have these conflicting accounts. There's lots of layers of myth. There's lots of layers of just downright lies.

But there is some real history here, and I really want to get to the bottom of it. So the questions we're asking, you know, is who was this man? Why was he imprisoned? Why was he in prison for so long? This is a really unusual thing to happen in France at this time. If you are an enemy of the state, you can just be killed. Like, there's no need to keep this person alive for this long. And why was he shielded from view?

Why was it so important that people couldn't see his face? Okay. Talk to me then a little bit about, we talked about the Bastille, and of course that's a famous, and later in French history it becomes iconic. But talk to me about the French prison system, spoken about the English system before, so we know what that kind of looks like, but what does the French prison system entail? French prison system is slightly hard to say. In this moment, at the end of the 17th century, going into the 18th century, it's really a system that's led by

politics, not by justice. Okay, so there's a sense or a focus, I suppose, on control. We are under the reign of Louis XIV at the end of the 17th century, and the king and the people around him can just send you to prison, okay? Like, they can literally be like, you're a pain. you have embarrassed us in some way, you've threatened us in some way, you are perceived as an enemy, off you go to jail for however long we decide. There's no trial necessary for imprisonment in this moment, and this is certainly how the man in the Iron Mask is held. He does not go to trial. We don't know anything about what his crimes were that he was accused of.

Prisons themselves range hugely in this moment, so there's, you know, there are prisons that are sort of local little prisons, there are workhouses. There are also these big fortresses. And fortresses are usually reserved for political prisoners, people who maybe have had access to state secrets, who have sold state secrets, who have threatened the state in some way. So the fact that the man in the Iron Mask ends up in fortresses around France, and he's moved regularly, and we're going to talk about this in a little while, but the fact that he's being held in these kinds of institutions without a trial and indefinitely. and he is held, as I say, for 34 years, this is all pointing to someone who is a political prisoner. It is. And yet there is this looming question, which you've already posed.

And it's really intriguing to me, which is, well, why isn't he bloody just dead then if they want to get him out of the way? Because it's not like they weren't doing that too. And it brings this person of Louis XIV into focus because he's so intriguing in many ways. Obviously, we concentrate on Louis XVIth, often because it's leading towards the revolution. and then it is the revolution, then the beheading and all the rest. But Louis XIV is so fascinating because without Louis the 14th, there is no Louis the 16th. There is no idea of absolutism.

Well, yes, literally, numerically and genes-wise, there is no. But it is, this idea of absolutism really reaches a pinnacle during Louis the 14th's idea. He becomes the sun king. And I saw, well, I didn't see this, the whole thing. Years ago, 20-odd years ago, I saw an ad for the ad for the, this film called Leroy Dance, which is basically on Louis XIV. And I have been struggling to find that movie for the last 20 years. So if anyone knows where I can watch it, let me know.

But give me a little bit of the context of Louis' world, who he is, how he is controlling this state. Okay, well, if anyone has watched the BBC Versailles, first thing I know is he has great hair and is extremely hot. Great hair. Fantastic, like, gorgeous hair. Gorgeous, gorgeous hair. Presumably a wig in that show, but stunning. Absolutely gorgeous. Louis the 14th is born in 1638.

And let's just say from the off, he is a little bit full of himself. His motto is La Tate Saint-Mois, which means I am the state, okay? Except it's rather more camp if you do a direct translation because it goes, The state, it's me. It's me. It's me. It's me. It's me. Yeah. The state, it's me. Love, love, love.

He becomes a king of France in 1643, so he's pretty young when that happens. And he continues to be the king until he. By pretty young, you mean five. Could not do the maths first enough. Well done. And he continues until his death in 1715. So he is on the throne for 72 years. He is the longest reigning monarch in history.

Is he? Of everyone rise? Okay, wow. Of everyone. That's crazy. According to the notes are in front of me. Yeah. His style of monarchy is absolutist.

So he is, I mean, he literally describes himself as a sunking. We'll talk about that imagery in a minute. but he, you know, he sees himself as the centre of the universe. Everything that he says goes. He controls political life, court life, and as it's fitting for the context of this episode, justice being meted out to people. He is, I think it's fair to say, a little bit of a control freak.

And as I say, he comes up with this image of being the sun king. He just thinks like he adopts the sun as his personal emblem. This appears on, you know, everything from his palace to his stationery to his clothing, whatever. He's always appearing at parties, dresses as Sun King, with amazing kind of golden rays coming out of his hair and that kind of thing. And the idea here is that he is otherworldly or sort of extraterrestrial. He is, you know, a divine power. He's literally a celestial body.

But also that he is the thing around which everyone gravitates at court in France, in the world. He is the centre of all things. And I suppose, without trying to be too sort of particle about it, that, you know, all of this light, this blinding, extravagance of the sun king has to inevitably come with some darkness as well. It casts shadows. And that's what life in the Versailles court is like for a lot of people. They're, you know, under any absolute monarchy,

but certainly with Louis XIV, there's a sense or an understanding that you're constantly in danger. You must not go against him. You must not threaten his... reign in any way that he perceives as being a threat, whether you do that or not. You know, in reality, like, if you are perceived to be a problem, you could end up being taken away, being imprisoned. It's a world full of like secret networks and spies, the censorship. Like, this is very much a dangerous place at the court of the sight and one that, you know,

everyone's playing a dangerous game. It's so interesting you say that because I am living this to a certain extent at the moment because at the center of book two for me is the idea of absolute monarchy and how that manifests itself as God's representative on earth and how in order for that to be accepted by the subjects, there has to be kind of an unwritten agreement between those who rule and the ruled. And you find that one of the ways in which that happens is through cultures of fear, like you're mentioning there, Maddie,

but also the ways in which the monarch and those around, him or her in certain instances, craft the image, and it becomes this propaganda machine, I suppose, in some ways. And one of the reasons I'm so interested in that at the moment is that although we would not term some of the things we're seeing geopolitically at the moment in terms of absolute monarchy, there is still this idea of the strongman politic that is coming back on the rise, I think, where this creation of mythology around certain individuals is starting to become questioned again, in the same way that it eventually is, you know, a hundred years after this or around this time in Britain, for instance. But what we do know is

that these types of people, and we're seeing it in our own time, when they come up against opposition, because they are the rule of law themselves, there are really no checks and balances in theory, in an absolute monarchy, there can be no checks and balances on a king or on that leader. then what they are able to do is suppress any factions or sedition that comes up. So how does Louis XIV go about this in this particular time? And how is he managing things like opposition to his rule, which of course there always would be? Yeah, absolutely. So you're completely right.

He essentially can disappear people. He can send people to prison, as I say, without a trial. This can happen very rapidly. He just writes a royal order and is like Anthony Delaney is going to. straight to jail. Do not pass go. Do not collect 200 pounds. Off you trot. The thing that's unusual about the man in the Iron Mask is not so much that someone is anonymized and put into prison without a clear explanation of why, but simply the amount of time that he is kept there for. And the fact that it's impossible to know who he is, even in his own time.

Of course, what we know about these people, there's these strong men, leaders, be they absolute monarchs or not, that once opposition comes, they can subdue that very easily because they are the jury and executioner in many ways. And I'm just wondering, does this feed into this specific case in any way? You've mentioned before that, you know, this guy is kept for an awful long time? Why is he kept? Is this some kind of personal vendetta on behalf of Louis XIV? What's happening in this case specifically? So we know certainly the king would have enacted this arrest. Obviously, he wouldn't have arrested this prisoner himself. But he would have been behind this. He would have said yes to this. He would have potentially been the person to point the finger, whoever the man in the eye mask was,

and to say he needs to go to prison. Beyond that, you know, we are not, we don't have enough information, but certainly this character, this anonymous, mysterious character is absolutely at the heart of this, as you've described, kind of environment of fear, of oppression, of the absolute monarchy ruling over everything. And whoever he is, he's obviously taken a massive misstep and has made a mistake in this dangerous game, whether he is part of the court or the political sphere, whatever it is. And he's found himself in prison. So the absolute concrete evidence that we have for him comes mostly from his jailer, who's a man called Samar. And he becomes the governor of one of the first prison that this prisoner arrives in in 1669.

So we know this prisoner arrives at the same time as a prisoner called Eustace Doger. We don't necessarily know that they are the same person. Now, I will say that Eustace is imprisoned at the same moment and dies at the same moment as the man in the eye mask. Oh, okay. Isn't it really weird? I've never heard of Eustace DeJure. I've never studied this particular moment in history. Why is his name not more famous? It's really interesting, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah. what we get over the 34 years that this prisoner is in prison is a strange relationship between Sam Mar and the prisoner himself, the man in the Iron Mask, in that Samar is moved around from fortress to fortress as the governor of various prisons. So in 1681, we know, for example, he moves to the Exile Fortress, which is in what is nowadays modern Italy in the Alps,

which is incredibly sort of cinematic setting. In 1887, he becomes the governor of San Marguerite Island. and in 1698 he becomes the governor of the Bastille in Paris. Every single time he moves, the man in the Iron Mask moves with him. So he is in charge of this man. Has anyone questioned whether Sam Mar and the Man in the Iron Mask are lovers? And this is all just a ruse to spend their lives together depending on where they're going. This is a love story.

It's great. And he just was forced to wear an Iron Mask because we don't know. Yeah, yeah, and he kept him locked up. Why? I don't know. There might be holes in my theory, I'm just saying. 50 shades of Samar. I'm convinced at the end of the episode, like we've got there. We've figured it all out.

So we know about the existence of this prisoner and his movements because Samar has, his correspondence survives, right? So we have a letter from 1669, which is when the prisoner first arrives at Pineral, which is the first prison. And he says, I have a pinroll, a prisoner of great importance, whom I am ordered to keep in the strictest secrecy. He is always alone. Sounds gay to me.

He is always alone and I have instructions that no one may speak to him nor he to anyone. So this person, whoever they are, is being kept in isolation in solitary and is not allowed to speak to anyone. Nobody's speaking to him. I mean, and he's got this mask on his face. Well, we don't know that at this point from this letter, but that's, you know, the myth that builds up around. it. Who is he? A prisoner of great importance, Samar says. That's all we have to go on. But we have

more of his letters. There are letters written by Samar to the king, to state secretaries. There's a lot of correspondence that references this particular prisoner, this man specifically. My question is, straight away, did St. Ma know who the prisoner was? Because if you're the governor of the prism. Are you going to be made aware of who this is other than being told this is someone of great importance? Had he ever seen him without the mask on? Yeah, he has because when you're kissing people, you have to take their masks off. So he's definitely... Unless he had like a matching mask. Yeah. Or maybe they'd just kissed with masks on. He will have known. I mean, come on, natural human curiosity, especially if it's not an iron mask that's locked with a key, that is just a black velvet

mask. You're going to be like, here, put his hands behind his back there and I'm just going to peep underneath that. Tom Holland does Spider-Man, whoever it is. But it's like, you know, you're going to do that, right? Curiosity would get the better of you. Surely, surely. But one thing that he does is he protects the identity of the prisoner from being discovered by anyone else. So we have a letter.

Just like a lover would. God, I need to stop. Okay, sorry. You're making this history, very gay. Stop making history gay, Anthony. There was no way of history. Be quiet. There's going to be, if a daily mail article that says,

woke historian insists the man in the Iron Mask was gay, does happen, I'll be disappointed. Anyway, go on. Yeah, if you know anyone writing for the mail, please don't get in touch. Definitely not. Okay, so there is one letter written in September 1687 by Samar that talks about the prisoners' transfer

to San Marguerite Island. And he describes how he's going to move the prisoner, basically. He is explaining what his process will be, the sort of safeguarding features that are in place. And he says, I shall take him in a small litter, that's the kind of carriage, enclosed in such a way that he will not be seen by anyone. He will wear a mask of black velvet

And I shall place a man at his side with orders to kill him If he removes it Bit much Bit much So the one thing that we know about France In this time in political prisoners Is that other prisoners were transferred often With masks on

To hide their identities So is it just a case that he's been transferred in the mask? Is he having to live in the mask always? Oh, we don't even know that I don't think it's particularly clear. Certainly, as I say, with the later accounts that come in written by Voltaire in the middle of the 18th century, it's an iron mask, it's just figuring his face, it's never taken off, you know, blah, blah, but this is actually someone who is just being moved with a velvet mask over their face to cover their identity, and then once he's installed in his new prison, he's put in solitary and he can just live his life, take the mask off, and it's fine. We don't know. More interesting, maybe then, is this idea that he's being moved constantly. that there is some reason why he can't stay in places too long because like we said, curiosity will get the better of people

and they might be fine for a couple of months going, I don't actually care who the man in the velvet mask is, but actually if there was a velvet mask at all. But eventually they'll be like, here, who's your man? But now, is that the case? This doesn't in many ways make sense. I don't know how we don't know who this is. People will have known,

and that kind of shit tends. to get out. What I think's really interesting is that Samar is, you know, he's a career governor of prisons. He's moving around, he is presumably looking after other prisoners building his own profile as a governor. And yet he always moves with the man in the Iron Mask. And I just think it's fascinating that the two lives are so intertwined that he is essentially responsible for this person above all others.

And, you know, you mentioned the thing around the prisoner being moved such a lot. why is that? Is it because people would get curious? Is it as well that he's so high profile and so valuable in some way to maybe the enemies of the state, the enemies of the king, that there is risk that he would be rescued? Is that why he's moved? Yeah. But like, okay, so we can theorise on all this. We'll obviously never get an answer. But what I want you to do now is tell me who we think this person might be. And by we, I don't just mean you and I. But I mean, Like, who have people speculated that this man is? And then I'll tell you whether I think they're right or wrong based on absolutely no facts.

Amazing. Okay, well, time to meet Bachelor number one. Oh, yay. Every episode I'm on is a gay episode, let's be honest. That's true. And it's all the richer for it. The main theory, and this is the theory that's taken up by the classic 1990s movie, is that the man in the Iron Mask is, in fact, drum roll.

and I want sounds of shock and horror when you hear this. Louis XIV's twin brother. It's giving soap opera. Yeah, go on. Why do we, is there any basis for that? Like that would be really recorded if the queen had given birth to two children.

And it's still very clear who the heir is. The air would just be the first one, the first of the two twins. So there'd be no discrepancy there. Go on. Oh, right, go on. So, okay, so the theory is that Louis has a secret twin brother and that the brother is born slightly before him

and is therefore the natural heir to the throne and that Louis is born second as the pair of twins. And, you know, therefore, this prisoner might be a rallying point for resistance against the sunking. Obviously, we know. Throughout history, royal births were closely monitored. They were witnessed by multiple people. I mean, poor royal women who had to give birth,

with their feet in the air and 20 courtiers. looking up the fannies. That's a thing I just said. I'm so glad I wasn't the person to say that. Oh God, let's keep that in. There's no record of Louis having a twin. It's extremely unlikely. But this again is something that Voltaire popularized in the 18th century.

Volta has a lot to answer for. She needs to calm down, Volta. I understand she's not a she. Don't write. I don't tell us it's worth. But I suppose the thing that this theory gives us is the idea the king is so involved in this, right? That this is why he's so keen to keep this prisoner for so long.

And also why he doesn't kill him. Yeah, I mean, royal members of the family kill each other. It happens. It's not, this is way more unusual than just killing him. You know what I mean? Like, it would make more sense that he would kill him. But so, okay, we've solved that. It's not him.

So who else do people think it is? Well, I will also say on just on terms of that theory as well, like thinking about the face being covered, that, you know, everyone would reach in their pocket and pull out a coin with Louis's face on it. So everyone would know. what his twin brother would look like. So you can kind of imagine

why the face would need to be covered in that respect as well. But it's very, very, very unlikely slash impossible slash a load of nonsense. So, Bachelor number two. Is, here we go, gearing up for the French pronunciation. Oh.

Okay, this is a gentleman called Louis de Bourbon, the Comte de Vermadoir. Now, there is a suggestion that Louis XIV and his mistress have a child, one of his many mistresses. And there are some accounts that are later popularised in fiction and, you know, various kind of propaganda, that this child is kept for a little while, but he has an altercation with the Dofan, Louis's legitimate heir, of course, and he strikes him, he hits the Dofan, the future king of France. And so Louis is like, banished, not like,

that's naughty child behaviour. Come here, darling, we don't hit. Instead, he's like banished to prison with you immediately child. We know, however, the reality of Louis de Bourbon's existence is not that he becomes the man in the Iron Mask, but actually that he's sent to fight in Flanders when he is just 16 years old, where he sadly contracts an illness at the Siege of Cortre and he dies in 1683. So he's gone. He cannot be the man in the Iron Mask. But this particular theory does have a long afterlife.

And it continues well into the 18th century. And what we have here, Anthony, is an image that I'm going to make you describe from 1789 into 1790 around that time. What's happening in France in 1789, my friend? A petit revolution. Just a small little one. So it's kind of interesting that they're looking back at the history of, you know, the Sun King, absolute monarchy is a bad thing.

And they're like, look at this man in the eye mask. This guy who's imprisoned and, you know, completely oppressed for 34 years. Isn't the monarchy a bad thing? let's guillotine the lot of them. So you can see how this becomes like propaganda, even though it's from, you know, the previous century. And it really perpetuates this myth that Louis de Bourbon is potentially the person who is this prisoner. Describe, please. It's really interesting. It's a really interesting image. We have at the centre, a man who is seated. He is dressed in finery. He is shackled to himself and his hands and feet are shackled.

But he is definitely wearing an iron mask. It looks for all intents and purposes like an iron. man mask actually or like a motorbike helmet or something like that. It does a bit, isn't it? And yeah, it's very robotic looking. He is in a cell of some sort. It is relatively basic. He's got a bed that has a pillow. He's got some, you know, tankards for drinking from and there's an urn and stuff, but the

walls are bare. But there is to kind of indicate his elite status, there is a kind of a swag of of expensive green material over the bed just to be like. Yes, good. He's used to comfort him and we're giving him a little bit of that. Then coming in the door is, I suppose, a version of Mar, the guy, the prison keeper,

he's coming in with a candle in a torch thing and he's coming in with some food for him. It's all very polite in many ways. It doesn't look that rough, although it's supposed to probably, you know, look dark and dingy and all the rest of it. But certainly there's this thing of secrecy, of look what they do, basically.

This is the kind of bullshit that we're having to put up with as long as we have a monarchy, it's this kind of ridiculous statecraft and stagecraft at the same time. Interestingly as well, then there's a lot of shadow and light going on here. So there's shadows being cast on doors, there's light across people's face. There's different shoots. It's like a theatre scene. It's like it's happening on stage, right? Which is very typical of prints in this moment, certainly in France, I would say, this kind of idea of political theatre at a moment when everything's kicking off. What I think is interesting about this print is

the fact that the man in the eye mask is depicted as an elite gentleman of some kind, right? He's in beautiful silk clothes, let you say, there's the kind of bougie bedding going on. And he's being brought things, food and drink, by the prison guards. Like, this is not someone who's being necessarily mistreated, even though obviously the subtext here is, the monarchy has mistreated political prisoners in the past. Yes. This, he is depicted as someone who is, you know, he's not living at his days in, in Rags. And this is another one of the theories that actually he might have been some kind of elite person,

maybe a disgraced general, a nobleman, a minister of some kind. There are theories that he was a disgraced Marshal of France, that he was the disgraced president of the parliament. There's a theory that he was the Duke of Beaufort, a man called William Russell. And he gets confused later with another William Russell who's executed for political crimes. Don't get them confused. I won't. Yeah, please don't. It's embarrassing.

Also, potentially the former superintendent of finance in France is suggested. Although, in his case, he dies while the man in the eye mask is still in prison. So it's very unlikely to be him. What's so interesting is that Samar himself, the governor of the prison, who's moved around all the time with the man in the unmask, he admits to starting a lot of these rumors himself. So he's trying to control the narrative and keep people guessing. And I think partly that is maybe, you know, to try and brush people off.

the scent of finding out who this person really is, but also Sam Mar is loving his celebrity status as the keeper of the man in the Iron Mask. Like he is stepping into the limelight and trying to, you know, keep over those 34 years to keep engagement with this mystery to keep people guessing. So I think he's a fascinating figure in and of his own right. Other theories include, well, I suppose the sort of the broadest theory is that he is some kind of political prisoner. And I think that's fair, given the fact that he's kept in fortresses, the fact that his face is hidden, there is obviously, he's obviously, it represents a threat in some way.

And there is this link as well. So we're talking about something that's concealed, we're talking about conspiracy theories in many ways because it's all of these guesses of who it is and why they might be there. But there is another event in French history that this is linked to sometimes too, around the affair of the poisons. Yeah, so the affair of the poisons is a scandal in the 16th, 70s that basically uncovers a underground prison network stretching from the city out to the court of the site itself that includes poisoners, obviously, assassins, abortionist, fortune tellers. Have we covered this on the podcast before? I feel like we need to do the affair of the poisons. Okay, we really need to. Because it's absolutely fascinating. It basically unmasks, see who I did there, a whole industry, a subculture of, sedition, of subversion, of people trying to survive this oppressive court life, and also just the absolute squalor and scandal in which people lived, you know, they're trying to poison enemies, lovers, it's just a complete nightmare. And there are some people who may be

tie the prisoner under Samar with the affair of the poisons. Maybe he's something to do with that. But don't forget, I mean, that's a scandal that happens in the 16th, 70s. And the prisoner first centres of the prison in 1669. So is that a little bit too early? Is he one of the first people to be caught out in this scandal? I don't know. I don't buy that personally. I think he's too early in terms of the arrest. I mean, it's almost too obvious for me to ask this question, but I'm going to do it anyway, Maddie. Do you think that the legacy of this story, despite very few facts to hang our hats on. Is it because of that very thing? Because we can fill in the blanks ourselves? Like, when does that start happening? When does this kind of storified version start emerging if

we're talking about the 1660s to 1690s of the actuality of it? So, I mean, as I've mentioned, we have Voltaire in the 1750s and 1751 who publishes the age of Louis the 14th, which kind of brings this story into the public imagination, you know, sort of rather reminds people of it. You know, obviously people were aware. when it was happening at the end of the 17th century. But this is where the iron mask kind of mythology comes from. This is, as I say, an idea of a man who is always anonymized, always wearing the mask, this mask that if he takes it off, he will be killed.

It is disfiguring his face. You know, it's sitting on his skin on his face over 34 years. He's not allowed to take it off to eat or drink or anything like that. You know, it's really restrictive. It's horrific. So there's that version. And then really we have Dumas, the novelist in the 19th century, Tomar Andre Dumas, to thank for what comes next. So obviously, you know, very famous for writing The Three Musketeers.

And in the final part of the Three Musketeers, we find the man in the Iron Mask. He enters the story. And he really becomes a character within this sort of swashbuckling world of, you know, action-packed drama, sword fighting, mysteries, political intrigue, all of the. And in the Musketeer's story, we go with the twin brother theory. So this is something that's then continued by Hollywood later on, and it's what we find in the 1998 version. So it kind of romanticizes the story. It makes the man in the eye mask into, yeah, sort of romantic figure. Because he's anonymous, obviously we can kind of put anything, any version of the story on him that we want.

And he becomes so tantalizing. I think what is so fascinating about this history is, of course, the fact that we can't really uncover it. And, you know, there are people out there who do Man in the Iron Mask studies. And, you know, I think there was maybe in the early 2000s some more documentation that was found about him that had been previously unknown. So there may be more stuff out there to find in an archive somewhere, a dusty archive in France, where nobody's digitized it yet. It's just sat in a box that nobody's got round to cataloguing. That would be amazing. Yeah, it really would.

But in the meantime, one of the places that I would encourage readers to find out more about, his links to the musketeers in real life is the muskahounds. I don't know if you remember that cartoon when I was younger, certainly. It was one for Orlando for one musca hounds are always ready. And rather than Dark Tanyan, it was Dog Tanyan. And let me tell you this. I'm sure I was of secondary school age before I realized his name wasn't actually Doug Tanyan. Oh. Because he is a dog in the, they're all dogs in the in the cartoon. And it is, I used to, I, why? was obsessed with it. It's so cute.

That's the historical source. You should go straight to him. But actually, maybe that's a good note to end on, Maddie. Forget about the dogs. As a way of rounding this up, what do we actually know about this man? The cold hard facts, as opposed to all the theories you've covered there.

What do we know? A really small amount. We know that he dies on the 19th of November 1703. And his death is simply recorded as being caused by a malady ordinaire. So an ordinary illness, that's the only information we get. So, you know, something run of the mill in prison. We have the letters of Samar who, you know, do acknowledge a prisoner in his care for 34 years,

who at some point were at least, we know, a velvet mask when transferred, possibly a mask during imprisonment, whether it was ever metal. I'm not sure that he ever says that. So, you know, there is a gap there initially. I think it's well, we need to circle back to this idea. of Eustace Dogeir, the guy whose name is attached to the warrant of the arrest of this man. If it is him, why is he arrested and why is he not killed? Why has this man kept alive for so long? Why is he that important and that delicate to prisoner that he can't be put to death?

I think you're right, but it just doesn't seem to add up. And it then starts to become this thing of, well, what are we missing? But actually probably getting more to the core of the point. It's what have we been misled on in the 18th century? Exactly. What layers have they put on this? It's so hard to cycle back through it. And you know, in terms of material evidence, a lot of these fortresses don't survive anymore.

Or certainly the prison environments themselves don't survive. We also don't have a mask surviving. You know, I mean, I was thinking recently about the VNA's Marianne's Marianne exhibition in which they had one of the three blades used as a guillotine blade in the revolution. and the terror that followed. And, you know, potentially was one of three that would have cut Marie Antoinette's head off and Louis the 16th head.

And that kind of material tangibility really brings history to life and it really kind of connects you to that moment and makes it seem so visceral. And we don't have any of this for the man in the iron mask. Even though it is a very visceral history, it's, you know, kind of steeped in this sort of environment of the prison itself,

in this idea of him being transferred at night all this secrecy. You can hear the chains clinking. You can kind of hear the grind of the mask as he maybe moves, you know, but it's all cinematic. It's all mythological. We don't have access to a concrete record that's going to give us the answers, I'm afraid. But that is, of course, why the mystery still appeals to people. It is endlessly fascinating. And, you know, I'm holding out for someone one day finding something in an archive that blows this wide open. Well, until then, thank you for listening to After Dark. We hope. hope you've enjoyed this episode. This has been interesting because it's one of those histories

that is so hard to get at and yet continues to fascinate. For all those reasons that you've said, one thing that we want to say is that this, over the kind of last six to 12 months, we have had huge influx of new followers. And we're so glad that you're here for this year for 2026. We have lots of new and exciting plans ahead. So I hope you've enjoyed what you've heard so far. And it's great to have you with us. And we're so excited that this show is continuing to grow. reaching its audiences. So please keep spreading the word. Leave us a five-star review wherever you get your podcasts. And of course, you can get in touch with any episode ideas that you might have for us. It's afterdark at history hit.com. That's afterdark at history hit.com. And until next time,

happy listening. Okay, so this is a name that we have associated in the beginning. Always like, yeah, sorry, I didn't know if you could hear. I'm getting a delivery. This is very exciting. I'm just going to narrate this. So there's a van outside. I've been waiting for new glasses. I got a pair of slutty little glasses. I was supposed to say are these your sluttie little glasses? Because last time we're in the studio, you... It's taken so long. Yeah. Now, Shane is receiving the delivery right now. I actually hope they don't cut this. This is podcast gold. This is podcast gold. And the dogs are losing their absolute shit. Oh my God. The door is opened. The dogs are on the delivery guy. They're ripping him apart. Anthony stopped them quick. Oh, he's a very cute old man that was delivering. I don't

I mean, I don't fancy him. I just mean, ah, he's cute. He looks like Bell's dad from Beauty in the Beast. Oh, my God.