Death of the Man in the Iron Mask
- When
- 1703
- Where
- Bastille
- Episodes
- 1
The Man in the Iron Mask, an unidentified prisoner of state under Louis XIV, died in the Bastille on 19 November 1703. His burial certificate listed the name 'Marchioly', and he had been held in custody for 34 years following his 1669 arrest.
Episodes
Background and detail
Background. The Bastille was a medieval fortress in Paris that served as a state prison for French kings. Detention there was often indefinite and secretive, a context symbolized by the mysterious prisoner known as the Man in the Iron Mask.
Imprisonment. Warranted for arrest in 1669 as 'Eustache Dauger', the prisoner was apprehended near Calais and held for 34 years. He was kept in the custody of Bénigne Dauvergne de Saint-Mars across four prisons, including the Bastille.
Death. The prisoner died in the Bastille on 19 November 1703. His burial certificate bore the name 'Marchioly', leading some historians to identify him as the Italian diplomat Ercole Antonio Mattioli, though his true identity remains unknown.
People involved
- Man in the Iron Mask · Unidentified prisoner of state
- Bénigne Dauvergne de Saint-Mars · Custodian of the prisoner
Sources
- Man in the Iron Mask Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-18
- Bastille Wikipedia
Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.