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