Finally, what is one to think of the attentions, respect, particular care, evidences of an humble deference, all the accessory circumstances that have been invoked in favour of an opinion which nothing certain justifies? Amongst the incidents upon which so much stress has been laid, and which form, in some degree, the romantic _dossier_ of the Man with the Iron Mask, some are exact, and will find their natural explanation further on. Others, such as the visit of Louvois to the Isles Sainte-Marguerite, have been invented at pleasure by popular imagination, and too easily welcomed by a complaisant credulity. It has been said, and is repeated every day, that the Minister visited this island, and there spoke to the prisoner “with a degree of consideration which partook of respect,”[114] styling him “monseigneur.” Now Louvois was only absent from the court in 1680 for a few weeks in order to go to Baréges. We have, day for day, the names of the towns he passed through.[115] The Isles Sainte-Marguerite, where, by the way, Saint-Mars did not arrive till seven years later, do not figure in the itinerary; and, after this journey, Louvois never returned again to the South of France. As to the dramatic episode of the silver dish thrown out of the window, which exposes the fisherman who finds it at his feet to a great danger, it has its origin in a similar attempt made by a Protestant minister confined, in 1692, at the Isles Sainte-Marguerite. This minister tried to interest people in his lot, by writing his complaints, not on a silver dish, which he did not have at his disposition, but upon a pewter plate, which determined Saint-Mars to give him only earthenware for the future.[116] The fact has been applied later to the Man with the Iron Mask, to whom, as to all legendary heroes, the adventures of very different personages are ascribed. A careful examination of all the despatches collected will enable one to trace back each of these rumours to its origin, and separate what is purely legendary from what is really historical.