United States

The prolific pen and far-flung imagination of Alexandre Dumas created his enduring story THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK from a strange legend which persisted throughout Europe dung the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The Legend of a mysterious political prisoner, encased always in a hideous mask of iron and who was spirited from prison to prison under close guard, his features never revealed to public gaze. Dumas spun into this legend an intricate web of adventure, romance and intrigue at the court of King Louis XIV of France; conceiving the idea that the masked man was none other than Philippe, assumed-dead twin brother to the King and who was spirited into obscurity from birth for political motives. His destiny on coming-of-age: to assume the Throne in place of Louis, an effete, foppish Monarch with little regard for the affairs of State, a limp-wristed playboy manipulated by Fouquet, his scheming Minister of Finance. Captain of Musketeers d'Artagnan together with Colbert, the King's Home Affairs Minister, plan together to restore the wilting fortunes of the Throne by substituting Philippe for the King at a sumptuous Ball held in the Monarch's honour at Fouquet's magnificent Chateau Vaux-le-Vicomte built from the miss appropriation of millions from the public purse. The plan succeeds. Philippe assumes the Throne. And his brother is condemned to perpetual imprisonment encased in a mask of iron.