The Man in the Iron Mask by Roger MacDonald

Today I hotfooted it to a new half-price book store which is on Camelback near the Town & Country Shopping Center to see what it is like and what I could find. I found a book by Roger MacDonald called The Man in the Iron Mask. He has written a novel look at all the data that he could find regarding this story which was frankly fictional and manufactured by Alexander Dumas. But Voltaire had inadvertently or very well intentionally begun the entire process through his remarks when writing about the Grand Siecle during the reign of Louis XV.

I just checked to see what is available about this book at the discussion group and learned that Gary had written a few posts about it.

The author intends the reader to believe that because d'Artagnan, one of the famous musketeers, who Dumas claims he made up, is in fact the man in the iron mask, and the reason is that he knew that the king was not the son of Louis XIII but of another, and as of yet, I have not yet learned who it is that Roger MacDonald thinks is the father...most likely Cardinal Mazarin, as that is the most oft mentioned likely person to have been the king's paternal father according to some, but not all. I wondered if he had maybe thought that the musketeer would have been, but frankly Anne was so well supervised and watched that she could not have had a chance to have had an affair. She was deathly afraid of being sent out of the country so she minded her p's and q's. And there is no way that she would have had anything to do with a musketeer. Of that I am certain.

The point is that as I have only perused the book I cannot yet discuss it well. But I did read some parts of it to learn that the author did a lot of research and tried to find papers that others had overlooked to support his theory that the real man in the mask is that of d'artagnan.

Odd thing is that I had read a book once upon a time that claimed that the fictional name of d'artagnan is a cover for a real name which I have forgotten this long time since reading it.

So on that note alone, I found Roger MacDonald's premise to be a bit shoddy.

For that reason I did not buy it yet. I wanted to search the net now to find what it is that is available to know about it.

He makes some assertions that I do not believe at all. But then my entire point in my knowing of King Louis XIV is through spiritual means, the soul, and so bloodlines really do not matter anyway. The idea is that he is a bastard child and thus not a true line of the Bourbon family, which would make one wonder why if the king truly believed that the child is his, why he then impregnated his wife with another chance to bear a child which she did do, and his name is Philip.

I think that Roger MacDonald is a bit shakey in his theory anyway, but so what, bloodlines or not, as the king is the most knowledgeable about that of anyone according to what I have learned, that he most likely would have had other reasons than that to put d'artagnan in prison if that is in fact what had happened.

I have read that only the King knows the identity of the prisoner.

But my premise about my knowing all that there is to know about the king goes to my internal ability to return to a time period past and relive the life of a moment in his life which allows me to know his feelings, his emotions, and his state of mind.

The one thing that I enjoyed reading which sounds absurd to me but makes me know something that could be true, since I know that this kind of absurdity could be true, and that is that the little king at age 5 and one half decided that d'artagnan was too young to be a musketeer which turned the man against the little king. Now, is that preposterous or what? A kid calling the shots about d'artagnan is just a wee bit too much for me to believe, but the fact that his mother would do this to d'artagnan and pin it on the child is something that I can and do believe...that is so like the truth as I can honestly believe that part of this strange story.

I mean really!

But the other story I liked is that Louis is portrayed as a little drummer boy being seen with a group of drummers and d'artagnan did not recognize him in the pack as they were all dressed alike and poorly, but later when he sees him again, he is all cleaned up and dressed in a very proper and correct garment for a young prince.

Just an incredible story...

I would imagine that a dna test would prove something but I don't think that will ever happen. It is easier for me to prove that Louis XIV is the reincarnation of Alexander, Genghis, and others than to prove that he is the son of Louis XIII but he was accepted as the son of the King since had the King had any doubts, his wife's future was in his hands. He had made a devotion to the Virgin Mary and his prayers were answered, so there is little doubt that he believed the child to be his own son.

But Roger MacDonald has written an interesting book that contains a lot of information that is fascinating to me along with illustrations of maps and things. I am sure that there is a moral in the story about the people who the king had had imprisoned as well as had thrown to the gallows but at this time I won't get into that. In the cause of government, the people who are at the prison or the gallows are who determine the work or wellbeing of the laborers or prisoners, and the king is at the faraway distant place of signing an order regarding the disposition of the case. It is one of those chain of commands that makes the king aware but unaware at the same time of the persons involved.

In this case, the Man in the Iron Mask is the one case where I believe that the King is personally involved to the point that he would go to the Bastille to see the prisoner if he chose to do so. I know this as one of my memory sessions which I never fully discuss.

I have just always found it an irony that the key to the bastille is now at Mt. Vernon where it belongs.