The Death of the Man in the Iron Mask

19 November 1703: The prisoner who was soon to become known to the world as The Man in the Iron Mask died at the Bastille. His passing was recorded by Etienne Du Junca, lieutenant du roi at the Bastille, who met this man upon his arrival and escorted him to the chamber he was to occupy for a short while. Du Junca never learned the man's name, nor did he know why he had been imprisoned.

Du Junca kept two private registers: in the first he recorded those who entered the Bastille; in the second he recorded those who left, either by being freed or by dying. His entry for the mysterious prisoner, who had long ago lost his name and his identity, reads:

'Monday 19 November 1703, the prisoner, unknown, always masked with a mask of black velvet, whom Monsieur de St Mars governor had brought with him upon coming from the isles St Marguerite whom he had guarded for a long time, the which feeling a little unwell yesterday upon leaving mass, he died today at ten o’clock in the evening without having had a serious illness; it could not have been more slight. M. Giraut our almoner confessed him yesterday is surprised by his death. He did not receive the sacraments, and our almoner exhorted him a moment before he died, and this unknown prisoner kept here for so long, was buried on Tuesday at four o’clock in the afternoon, 20 November in the cemetery of St Paul our parish. On the register of burial he was given a name also unknown; that Monsieur de Rosarges major and Arriel [sic] surgeon who have signed the register.'

In the margin, Du Junca added: ‘I have since learned that they named him on the register M de Marchiel; that they paid 40 livres for the funeral.'

The prisoner was indeed buried on 20 November 1703 in the churchyard of Saint-Paul-des-Champs. This was, as Du Junca noted, the parish church which served the Bastille, Situated on what is today the corner of the rue Saint-Paul and rue Neuve Saint-Pierre, it was closed in 1790 and its register was destroyed in a fire set by the Communards in May 1871. Happily, the register's contents had already been copied by historians. The entry for the Iron Mask's burial read:


'On the 19th [November], Marchioly, aged 45 years or thereabouts, died at the Bastille, whose body was buried in the churchyard of St. Paul, his parish, the 20th of the present month, in the presence of M. Reglhe [sic], surgeon major of the Bastille, who signed.’


It was then signed by Rosarges and Reilhe.

The Trial of Nicolas Foucquet Opens

Still: Le Roi, l'Écureuil et la Couleuvre

On 13 November 1664, Charles de Batz Castelmore, comte d'Artagnan, captain-lieutenant of the musketeers, entered a finely appointed chamber in the Bastille. He found Nicolas Foucquet sitting by the fire reading a book. Foucquet looked up and saw the man who had arrested him three years previously, a man who had since become his gaoler, his confidant and his friend. As the musketeer approached, Foucquet gave him a wan smile and announced that he was ready to face his judges. 

On the following day Nicolas Foucquet walked into the Arsenal in Paris as the first day of his trial was about to begin. He wore a simple black suit with a white collar and he sat down, not without protest, on the small wooden sallette that had been set out for him. Again under protest, he eventually took the oath. He did not recognise the jurisdiction of the chambre de justice and had taken the oath so that he could clarify points he had made over the past three years in his written defences.

Stills: 'Secrets d'Histoire: le soleil offusqué'

Foucquet was a brilliant magistrate. He habitually wore the long black robes of his office, and he apologised to the chamber for not appearing before them appropriately dressed. He had asked for his robes, he told them, but his request had been refused.


Over the next few weeks, he would expose the holes in the prosecution's case as he ably defended himself against a panel of judges that was packed against him, mainly with relatives and supporters of Colbert. The stakes were incredibly high. The king had made it clear that he wished and expected Foucquet to lose so that his former minister could be sentenced to death.