The Masked Man

by Paul Doherty

Genres: Historical Fiction; Historical Mysteries; Traditional Mysteries

Synopsis

During the reign of Louis XIV, a mysterious man was kept prisoner in Bastille. Who was he? The mysteries of 18th century France are explored in Paul Doherty's masterful novel, The Masked Man. Perfect for fans of C.J. Sansom and Susanna Gregory. Ralph Croft, an English rogue, is plucked from the dungeon of the Bastille to head an investigation to find the real identity of the infamous 'Masked Man'. But before he can discover the truth, he must face brutal imprisonment, threats and countless dangers... Will he live to complete the task? What readers are saying about Paul Doherty: 'Paul Doherty's books are a joy to read ' ' The sounds and smells of the period seem to waft from the pages of [Paul Doherty's] books' 'Mr. Doherty's research is only topped by his imagination '

Release date: July 11, 2013

Publisher: Headline

Print pages: 208

Sample

The story of the Man in the Iron Mask (besides Alexandre Dumas’ great classic) has inspired countless books on the subject.
It may come as a surprise to realise that the Man in the Iron Mask is not legend but based on sound historical fact. During
the reign of Louis XIV (the Sun King of France) a very important prisoner was kept incarcerated in a number of prison fortresses
throughout France from 1669 to 1703. No one except his gaoler was allowed access to him. He was kept under close confinement.
His gaolers, who were never changed, had orders to shoot him if he attempted to speak to anyone and, whenever he was transported
from one prison to another or took exercise, he wore either a velvet or an iron mask.


The simple facts are as follows. The masked man was arrested near Dieppe in 1669, taken to Pignerol under the custody of Saint
Mars who was to be his gaoler for the next thirty years. From Pignerol the masked man was moved to the prisons of Sainte Marguerite,
Les Exiles and, finally, the Bastille in Paris. His gaolers for 35 years were the same people and many of them died mysterious
deaths. The masked prisoner was buried in St Paul’s graveyard near the Bastille but rumour has it that the corpse was decapitated
and the coffin strewn with acid before it was interred.


Throughout the Masked Man’s imprisonment, his security was entrusted to no less a person than Louis XIV’s own Minister of War, who ensured that special cells were built at every prison the Masked Man stayed in. There are many
rumours of the true identity of this man. Was he the twin brother of Louis XIV? Was he Louis XIV himself and someone substituted
for the King? Was he the Duke of Monmouth, who was executed on Tower Hill in London after an abortive attempt to seize the
English throne? Was he the Duke of Lorraine? The idol of the secret order of the Templars.


This novel, The Masked Man, examines all these theories through the eyes of an English rogue, the forger, Ralph Croft, who is plucked from the dungeons
of the Bastille to head an investigation into the true identity of the masked man. Croft has to work with the mysterious archivist,
Monsieur Maurepas, his beautiful, enigmatic daughter, Marie, and the cold killer, Captain D’Estivet. Croft’s quest takes him
from the poverty of the slums of 18th century Paris to the opulent luxuries of the Louvre Palace. Croft has to face brutal
imprisonment, secret assassinations, threats and countless dangers before discovering the truth. The Masked Man is a detective novel based on original records and reaches an original solution which can be proved, for Doherty has decoded
a royal love letter which may reveal the true identity of the man in the iron mask, and reveals a mystery which, in its time,
would have rocked the throne of France.


My name is Scaramouche. No, I change my mind, it’s Scaramac, or is it James Stewart the lost King of England? Or Henrietta
Maria? Or even Admiral William Penn who sailed off across the Western Seas to find a new world? Nothing is real. We all live
behind masks. I will write in English for I am an Englishman. I am Ralph Croft, born in the year 1685 in the parish of St
Botolph near Tregoze in Cornwall, the only child of a careless father and a mother who lived long enough to give me birth.
I was not an intelligent boy but sharp-witted, a born mimic; someone who could pick up an accent, a trait, a mode of walking
as easy as any other child could a sweetmeat. I was eighteen when I ran away to London. Why, you may ask? Well, for three
reasons: first, I was bored. Secondly, I was frightened and, thirdly, I just wanted to escape from the full openness, the
green flatness of the south-western countryside. No real excitement there except for the fairs, the horse sales and, of course,
the sea, angry, boiling with fury, crashing violently against the rocks. I was frightened because the sea led me to the smugglers.
Somerset and Cornwall have two trades, agriculture and the import of fine wines, exquisite lace and the best of French brandy,
imported, of course, without custom and excise. Boat-loads of these were brought in at the dead of night when the sea whispered
far away along the strand and no one watched from the dark, forbidding cliffs.


I was a member of such a gang working at night, waist-high in cold, salty water as we pushed the lugger boats in and unloaded
their precious burdens on to waiting carts. Everyone knew because everyone was involved, be it squire, magistrate, parson
or landlord. But we became too greedy and London sent down a revenue officer, soldiers and mounted dragoons. At first they
kept watch but we slipped through them like eels between the rocks so they posted rewards all around the county and a traitor
was found. Good men were imprisoned, even better ones hanged or transported to the colonies in Virginia and New England. I
knew who the traitor was, William Bodmin, a lawyer’s clerk. One night in ‘The Sea Barque’, drunk till his face was flushed
red and his eyes glittered like cheap marbles, Bodmin leered at me across the taproom, his face devilish in the light of the
swinging lantern horns. I took out a pistol I always carried, walked across the taproom, raised the pistol and, cocking back
the hammer, pointed it straight at Bodmin’s head. I savoured a few seconds of triumph as the Judas’ flesh-lipped mouth sagged
with disbelief. God knows I only meant to frighten him but I, too, was drunk and my hand was slippery with sweat; the gun
was cocked, I let the hammer go and watched as the ball smashed Bodmin’s skull into a bloody mess. I fled because I did not
want to hang, be strung up in chains at some crossroads, black and tarred for the crows to feast on and little boys in the
parish to laugh at. I also wanted to get away from my father who had married again and my stepmother had a hard face with
a tongue to match, like a sword every ready to cut. So I was pleased to go. In a week I was in London and, within a month,
I was apprenticed to a parchment seller and printer who had one shop under the Red Sign near the Palace of Westminster and
another in Chancery Lane close to the courts.


I found I had a gift for writing in a courtly hand, be it in ink or copperplate, as well as for printing. At first, books,
bills of sale and notices, but again I became bored and drifted into the thieves’ kitchen in Alsatia where there were villains
ready to use my skills. Jacobites, men who supported the exiled Stewarts, the kings across the water; these rebels hated fat
George from Hanover and constantly plotted to bring him down. They needed their books and pamphlets and, when their cause
was defeated, forged papers and licences so they could slip easily back to France. Again greed brought me down and well does
Chaucer say how ‘Avarice is the root of all evil.’ I became careless over one customer, a sharp-eyed, thin-lipped cove. He,
too, wanted papers and a passport but he turned out to be a government spy, an agent out to trap the unwary. An acquaintance
in the Lord Chancellor’s office tipped me the wink that warrants would soon be out for my arrest. I took my gold and silver,
packed my inks, pens and my few belongings and three days later I was in Le Havre.


I thought of joining some mercenary troop, but who wants to die young? So I followed the Seine up to Paris. The English colony
there was large enough for a man to set up shop and do an honest day’s business but there is something perverse in me. I quickly
picked up the tongue and moved into that pimple on the arse of the world, the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, near the church of St
Paul’s which lies within spitting distance of the Bastille prison. What horrors I heard about that great, eight-towered medieval
fortress, gaunt and sombre; a perpetual shadow against the Parisian sky with its huge towers, muckstained curtain wall and
broad, slimy moat. I used to wonder what secrets it held, perhaps even then I had a presentiment of what was to come. Anyway,
I started my own printing press, forging notes, bills, anything the customer wanted. I acquired a modicum of wealth and a
spacious room above an apothecary’s shop.


Of course, I had my brushes with the law and eventually drew the attention of the Chief Provost of Police. I was arrested
on a list of counterfeit charges which read as long as a psalm and I was committed to the hell-hole of Montmartre prison.
Luckily I had enough wealth to buy a comfortable cell and even more gold to bribe my escape. I should have known better, gone
to earth like some fox and hid for a while, but not Ralph Croft. I strode around like some cock on a dunghill, celebrated
my escape, arranging parties, buying costly coats and turning up at the opera arm-in-arm with two of the capital’s costliest
whores. I love music, adore singing, especially the Italian mode, and I was grateful that the police at least waited until
the end of the last great chorus, before arresting me as I came out of my own privately hired box. This time I was taken back
to Montmartre, where my lovely coat and pantaloons were seized by an irate chief gaoler. I was loaded with chains and a week
later, dressed only in my drawers, I heard the gravelly voice of a judge pass sentence of death on me. I was not to be hanged
but broken at the wheel at Monfaucon.


Oh, God knows, I would hang but I had not visualised the horrors of being strapped to a huge wheel and slowly turned whilst
two thugs smashed my limbs to a bloody pulp. The judge had also heard about my escape from Montmartre and ordered me to be
kept in the Bastille until sentence was carried out. Loaded with chains, a squad of soldiers took me from the Palais de Justice
back through my old haunts in Saint Antoine, up across the great drawbridge and into the courtyard of the Bastille where skinny
chickens pecked amongst piles of refuse. The place smelt as sweet as a dirty whore’s breath. However, I kept smiling because
I was frightened, especially when the sentries on duty took off their hats and covered their faces the moment they saw me.
A strange custom for the soldiers are forbidden to look directly at any prisoner; first, so that faces can never be remembered. Secondly, soldiers are superstitious animals
and anyone bound for the Bastille had the mark of death on him.


A turnkey unlocked my chains and pushed me up some steps into the governor’s chamber. This was a large, circular room, the
floor covered with stained carpets, the walls draped with blue damask, holed and moth-eaten, its gold fringes dirty and worn.
The governor stood in front of a roaring fire and inspected me like some cold-eyed crow does a wandering worm. A skinny, short
man with the face of a tired horse and manners to boot. At first he received me politely enough, reaching out a trembling
hand which felt like a lump of dirty ice. A bad sign, I thought to myself. Death himself is greeting me. The governor took
the judge’s sentence which the turnkey now carried, read it carefully and his manner changed dramatically enough. I suppose
he realised I would not be staying long and there would be little profit to be had from me.


‘Take him away!’ he squeaked. ‘The lowest cell in the Treasure Tower!’ And, before I could protest, I was bundled out of the
room.


My dungeon was simply hell on earth; cold, wet and black with no windows or vents for air, whilst the floor was covered by
a greenish-black mess which seeped in from the moat. I was thrown there and, after two days of fighting huge rats which swam
like fish, execution at Monfaucon did not seem too dreadful. Oh, yes, I blubbered. I begged for mercy but no bastard heard
me. I prayed to God but ended up cursing him. I wished for Cornwall, its green hills sloping down to the rocky coast, but
I remembered my stepmother’s hatchet face and I thought again. I hummed a ditty from the opera, dreamt of Danielle, a sweet
girl whom I had pursued like a lecher. I woke to find a rat squirming on my leg, staring at me in the dim light, its huge
ears back against its black, slimy head, and its eyes, two pebbles of red, gleaming hate. So I screamed, it scurried away and I began to pray
again.


I was supposed to be there a week before I was executed. I made scratches on the wall to mark the days and wondered when eight
had passed what had happened. Perhaps a pardon? Perhaps they had just forgotten about me?


I lost control of my soul and my mind, unhinged, drifted like a masterless ship into the great sea of madness. I thought I
saw Abigail (she was a girl I had married in London, who took my gold and fled) standing in the far corner of my cell. She
was as sweet and treacherous as ever. She smiled and talked to me but I cursed her. One day Abigail came back dressed in strange
clothes so I swore at her, lashing out and hitting her on the chest. Then I blinked, laughing wildly, as I realised this was
no phantasm but flesh and blood. I struck again and received a stinging slap across my face. I sobered, gathered my wits and
looked up at an officer dressed in the uniform of the Swiss mercenaries who man the Bastille. The fellow smiled at me, struck
me once, twice across the face and ordered me to follow him. After that, well as Saint Paul says, (remember I did attend Sunday
School at St Botolph’s) I was changed ‘in a twinkling of an eye.’ I was dragged out of the dungeon, shouting foul obscenities
at the phantasms which lurked there, and bundled up into the courtyard.


Christ, it was freezing but delightful; air as fresh as wine just uncorked, the chickens looked as splendid as princes and
the dungheaps were only fresh powder for Mother Nature’s succulent body. I was stripped naked as a babe and washed down by
two grinning, burly musketeers before being pushed into a wash-house where I was dumped into a tub of greasy hot water. Some
clothes were thrown at me and a bowl of chicken broth and a cup of watered wine were thrust into my hands. A soldier watched me eat and drink before telling me in guttural French to sleep in the soldier’s dormitory. I slept
like a baby. My optimism which springs continually in my blackened heart told me something was about to happen. I was free
of my stepmother, not going to Monfaucon and, above all, out of that dreadful dungeon.


I was roused long after dark by a soldier, a captain of the royal musketeers by . . .