Or more accurately, the Man in the Black Velvet Mask. An unidentified prisoner who was held in a number of jails in France during the second half of the Seventeenth Century. There are a number of theories as to who he was, but so far there is no definite answer to this mystery.

The basics on the wiki page;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_in_the_Iron_Mask


Anyone have a theory of their own?

Ah, as in the magnificent 1976 film starring Richard Chamberlain, Louis Jordan, Ralph Richards, Jenny Agutter and Ian Holm?

A splendour of acting and cinematography! They don't make e'm like that any more?

I agree. They used Fontainbleu for some scenes and, in this one, Patrick McGoohan plays Foucault in a scene shot in the real Foucault's actual ballroom of his chateau, Vaux-le-Vicomte.

From his arrest at Dunkirk in 1669, this unidentified prisoner was the subject of extraordinary precautions designed to keep his identity secret. So he must have been a threat to the establishment.

Yet no-one in the public eye was unaccounted for? So who was he? The true father of Louis XIV?

Louis XIII and Anne of Austria had had no children in 22yrs of marriage, mostly living apart during this time. But Cardinal Richelieu, the effective ruler of France, brokered a formal reconciliation between the royal couple. Suddenly the queen bore a son in 1638!

So in order to secure a legitimate heir, did Richeleiu effect a liaison between Queen Anne and one of the many royal bastards of Henry of Navarre (half-brother of Louis XIII) so obviating the need to breed outside the royal line? Someone maleable and pliant of the Bourbon line? Perhaps Richelieu persuaded Anne that there was no other way to secure her line?

Johnny Hus wrote:

From his arrest at Dunkirk in 1669, this unidentified prisoner was the subject of extraordinary precautions designed to keep his identity secret. So he must have been a threat to the establishment.

Yet no-one in the public eye was unaccounted for? So who was he? The true father of Louis XIV?

This was the storyline given in Versailles the television drama series from Canal+. In previous seasons the BBC also broadcast a short supplementary program called Inside Versailles which would be shown following each episode. This was fronted by Professor Kate Williams and historian Greg Jenner and would give the historical background to the episode just broadcast. They would normally also be joined by a guest expert on a particular relevant topic.

For some reason, however, the BBC has decided to drop Inside Versailles from the third season so we're deprived of historical debate on the Man in the Iron Mask (or the Man in the Velvet Mask) and other things. This is somewhat disappointing. Quite apart from anything else we're also deprived of the catchphrase of Inside Versailles which was given at the end of each broadcast and would involve Kate and Greg smiling at camera and wishing the viewers a wide-eyed and leering "Bonsoir!".

If anyone is interested in the reign of Louis XIV there are a couple of blogs I discovered [url=partylike1660.com/]partylike1660.com/[/url] and http://julesharper.com which give a realistic (or so it seemed to me at least) background to the Versailles series, though it seems season 3 (of Versailles) has strayed from what really happened more than the previous two.  There are other items about Louis XIV's reign on those websites; not just critiques of the series.  BBC did a lightweight series The Musketeers a few years ago (based on the Dumas books) and Queen Anne had a dalliance at least with Aramis according to that (not that I would take anything based on a Dumas book as gospel).  I was quite surprised when reading the "partylike1660" blog that there was at least a real-life D'Artagnan (not sure about the other Dumas musketeers) though Dumas' D'Artagnan probably didn't bear much resemblance to real D'Artagnan.