CHAPTER I.

Theory which supposes the Man with the Iron Mask to have been a Brother of Louis XIV.--Voltaire the first to support this Theory in his _Siècle de Louis XIV._, and in the _Dictionnaire Philosophique_--Certain Improbabilities in his Story--Account of the Man with the Iron Mask introduced by Soulavie into the _Mémoires Apocryphes du Maréchal de Richelieu_--The three different Hypotheses of the Theory which makes the Man with the Iron Mask a Brother of Louis XIV. 9