The Man in the Iron Mask — Epilogue. — Footnotes

1 (return) [ “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.]

2 (return) [ In the five-volume edition, Volume 4 ends here.]

3 (return) [ 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.]

4 (return) [ 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.]

5 (return) [ Dumas here, and later in the chapter, uses the name Roncherat. Roncherolles is the actual name of the man.]

6 (return) [ In some editions, “in spite of Milady” reads “in spite of malady”.]

7 (return) [ “Pie” in this case refers to magpies, the prey for the falcons.]

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

9 (return) [ Madame de Montespan would oust Louise from the king’s affections by 1667.]

10 (return) [ De Guiche would not return to court until 1671.]

11 (return) [ 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.]

12 (return) [ This particular campaign did not actually occur until 1673.]

13 (return) [ Jean-Paul Oliva was the actual general of the Jesuits from 1664-1681.]

14 (return) [ 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; God had resumed the souls.” Dumas made the revision in later editions.]