As early as 1745 the Mask was said, by an anonymous writer, to have been the count of Vermandois, one of the bastards of Louis XIV in 1759 M. Lagrange-Chaucel endeavoured to prove that he was the duke of Beaufort, a hero of the Fronde a few years afterwards M. St Foix conjectured that he was the duke of Monmouth, the English pretender of 1685 and others have laboured to show that he was either a son of the Protector Cromwell, or Fouquet, the minister of Louis XIV, or Avedick, the Armenian patriarch, whose treacherous imprisonment by the ambassador of France was one of the worst acts of that unscrupulous king. The claim, finally, of Ercolo Mattioli, a diplomatic agent of the duke of Mantua, was put forward in 1770, and since that time has found zealous advocates in MM. Roux-Fazillac, Delort, Topin, and in the late Lord Dover indeed, until lately it was generally thought that Mattioli was the mysterious captive.The claims, however, of none of these can stand the test of the searching inquiry which recent discoveries have made possible. Voltaire does not inform us who the Mask was his hint that he was an exalted personage is at variance with a remark of his on the same subject in a later work and as for the tale of the attempts made by the Mask to divulge his name and fate, these have been traced to a Huguenot pastor, imprisoned in the islands of Sainte Marguerite.
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