the Cardinal found a means of sending them away.” “Dame Péronnette, the midwife, brought the Prince up as her own son, and he passed for being the bastard of some great lord of the time. The Cardinal confided him later to the governor to educate him as a King’s son, and this governor took him into Burgundy to his own house. The Queen-mother seemed to fear that if the birth of this young Dauphin should be discovered, the malcontents would revolt, because many doctors think that the last-born of twin brothers is really the elder, and therefore King by right. Nevertheless, Anne of Austria could not prevail upon herself to destroy the documents which established this birth. The Prince, at the age of nineteen, became acquainted with this State secret by searching in a casket belonging to his governor, in which he discovered letters from the Queen and the Cardinals de Richelieu and Mazarin. But, in order better to assure himself of his true condition, he asked for portraits of the late and present Kings. The governor replied that what he had were so bad that he was waiting for better ones to be painted, in order to place them in his apartment. The young man proposed to go to Saint-Jean de Luz, where the court was staying, on account of the King’s marriage with the Spanish Infanta, and compare himself with his brother. His governor detained him, and no longer quitted his side. “The young Prince was then handsome as Cupid, and Cupid was very useful to him in getting him a portrait of his brother, for a servant with whom he had an intrigue procured him one. The Prince recognized himself, and rushed to his governor, exclaiming, ‘This is my brother, and here is what I am!’ The governor despatched a messenger to court to ask for fresh instructions. The order came to imprison them both together.”[21] “It is at last known, this secret which has excited so lively and so general a curiosity!”[22] says Champfort, in noticing these fictitious _Mémoires du Maréchal de Richelieu_. This implacable and sceptic railer allowed himself to be really seduced by this interpretation. Many others were convinced with him, which exonerates them; and the version given by Voltaire was rather neglected for that of Soulavie. In our own days, the theory which makes the Man with the Iron Mask a brother of Louis XIV. has been supported by four writers, who have powerfully contributed to revive it, and render it more popular still. The first two, by transferring to the stage,[23] and the third, by weaving into the plot of one of his most ingenious romances[24] the pathetic fate of the mysterious prisoner, have sought less to instruct than to interest their readers, and have completely succeeded in the purpose they had in view. The fourth writer, who, with MM. Fournier, Arnould, and Alexandre Dumas, has adopted the romantic theory, is an historian, M. Michelet.[25]