Man in the Iron Mask

From Barbara Cooper's Introduction toThe Man in the Iron Mask It is not at all surprising that Dumas, like Vigny, Hugo, and other writers of their day, would be drawn to the story of a masked prisoner held in isolation and accorded special consideration and respect by his jailors. As Victor H. Brombert demonstrated in his studyThe Romantic Prison: The French Tradition, the prison occupied a significant place in the Romantic imagination. On the one hand, it offered Romantic writers the opportunity to exploit some of the dark atmospherics and melodramatic villainy traditionally associated with the Gothic novels of Ann Radcliffe and others. On the other hand, it also provided them with a space in which to explore the inner being and the superior nature of an exceptional individual. Dumas's early novels, fromLe Chevalier d'HarmentaltoGeorges, already included prison episodes. So didThe Three MusketeersandTwenty Years After. But Dumas's most famous fictional prisoner prior toThe Man in the Iron Maskwas, of course, Edmond Dantes, better known as the count of Monte Cristoa name Dantes adopted after his escape from the Chateau d'If. There are some superficial similarities between Dantes and the Mask. Both men are held in solitary confinement. Both are eventually visited in prison by priests and are finally able to leave their cells as a result of that encounter, although the circumstances of their flight are totally different. Far more important than these rather facile parallels is the fact that both men are innocent victims of arbitrary decisions designed to protect another individual's political and personal future. Those decisions lead not only to the prisoners' unjust incarceration, but also to the erasure of their identity (Dantes's name is replaced by a number so as to prevent others from locating him, and the Maskwhom we eventually learn is Louis XIV's twin brother, Philippeis given the name Marchiali and is later [in chapter 52] forced to wear an iron mask).3 Beyond that, however, the stories Dumas tells about Dantes and the Mask are more different than they are alike. Dantes uses the wealth he acquires after his escape from prison to undertake an elaborate scheme of revenge against those who wronged him. Philippe is returned to prison after a very brief period of contact with those who are responsible for his fate and is subject to even greater isolation. The story of the fictitious masked prisoner might have been little more than another of the many interpolated episodes found in Dumas'sMusketeerstrilogy (for example, Milady's sequestration in and escape from her brother-in-law's castle in England) were it not so clearly an illustration of the political and historical struggles that are central toBragelonne.4 Indeed, in this final volume of the trilogy generally, and inThe Man in the Iron Maskin particular, the focus is not only on the eponymous Viscount Bragelonne, son of the Comte de la Fere (known in his Musketeer days as Athos), but also on the rise to power of King Louis XIV.5 Long subject to the tutelage of his mother, Anne of Austria (widow of Louis XIII of France), and of his prime minister, Cardinal Mazarin (successor to Cardinal Richelieu), young Louis has also had to overcome the efforts of a faction of rebellious French aristocrats known as La Fronde who wished to place his uncle Gaston d'Orleans on the throne. In his minority, then, the young king not only lacked control over his political destiny but also was subject to personal humiliation. He likewise had little influence over royal finances that were managed principalDumas, Alexandre is the author of 'Man in the Iron Mask ', published 2005 under ISBN 9781593082338 and ISBN 1593082339.