The Man in the Iron Mask Part 115

Footnotes

[Footnote 1: "He is patient because he is eternal." is how the Latin translates.

It is from St. Augustine. This motto was sometimes applied to the Papacy, but not to the Jesuits.]

[Footnote 2: In the five-volume edition, Volume 4 ends here.]

[Footnote 3: It is possible that the preceding conversation is an obscure allegorical allusion to the Fronde, or perhaps an intimation that the Duc was the father of Mordaunt, from Twenty Years After, but a definite interpretation still eludes modern scholars.]

[Footnote 4: The dictates of such a service would require Raoul to spend the rest of his life outside of France, hence Athos's and Grimaud's extreme reactions.]

[Footnote 5: Dumas here, and later in the chapter, uses the name Roncherat.

Roncherolles is the actual name of the man.]

[Footnote 6: In some editions, "in spite of Milady" reads "in spite of malady".]

[Footnote 7: "Pie" in this case refers to magpies, the prey for the falcons.]

[Footnote 8: Anne of Austria did not die until 1666, and Dumas sets the current year as 1665.]

[Footnote 9: Madame de Montespan would oust Louise from the king's affections by 1667.]

[Footnote 10: De Guiche would not return to court until 1671.]

[Footnote 11: Madame did die of poison in 1670, shortly after returning from the mission described later. The Chevalier de Lorraine had actually been ordered out of France in 1662.]

[Footnote 12: This particular campaign did not actually occur until 1673.]

[Footnote 13: Jean-Paul Oliva was the actual general of the Jesuits from 1664-1681.]

[Footnote 14: In earlier editions, the last line reads, "Of the four valiant men whose history we have related, there now no longer remained but one single body; G.o.d had resumed the souls." Dumas made the revision in later editions.]