This is the essay entitled The Man in the Iron Mask, not the novel
[The Man in the Iron Mask [The Novel] Dumas #28[nmaskxxx.xxx]2759] 

ALEXANDRE DUMAS 

THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK 

For nearly one hundred years this curious problem has exercised the
imagination of writers of fiction--and of drama, and the patience of
the learned in history.  No subject is more obscure and elusive, and
none more attractive to the general mind.  It is a legend to the
meaning of which none can find the key and yet in which everyone
believes.  Involuntarily we feel pity at the thought of that long
captivity surrounded by so many extraordinary precautions, and when
we dwell on the mystery which enveloped the captive, that pity is not
only deepened but a kind of terror takes possession of us.  It is
very likely that if the name of the hero of this gloomy tale had been
known at the time, he would now be forgotten.  To give him a name
would be to relegate him at once to the ranks of those commonplace
offenders who quickly exhaust our interest and our tears.  But this