Editing Man in the Iron Mask (section)

====King's elder brother====
During his two sojourns in the Bastille in 1717–18 and 1726,{{efn|name=voltaire}} Voltaire became aware of the traditions and legends circulating among the staff at the fortress.{{sfn|Mongrédien|1961|pp=40–41}} On 30 October 1738, he wrote to the [[Jean-Baptiste Dubos|Abbé Dubos]]: "I am somewhat knowledgeable about the adventure of the Man in the Iron Mask, who died at the Bastille; I spoke to people who had served him."{{sfn|Mongrédien|1961|pp=41, 237}} In the second edition of his {{lang|fr|Questions sur l'Encyclopédie}} (1771), Voltaire claimed that the prisoner was an illegitimate first son of Anne of Austria and an unknown father, and therefore an older half-brother of Louis XIV.{{sfn|Mongrédien|1961|pp=47–48}} This assertion was partly based on the historical fact that the birth of Louis XIV on 5 September 1638 had come as a surprise: since [[Louis XIII]] and Anne of Austria had been childless for 23 years, it was believed they were unable to conceive, despite evidence to the contrary of the Queen's well-known miscarriages.{{efn|name=annemisc}}{{sfn|Mongrédien|1961|pp=47–49}} In fact, the royal couple had been living for years in mutual distrust and had become estranged since the mid-1620s. Furthermore, in August 1637, the Queen had been found guilty of treasonable correspondence with Spain and had been placed under house arrest at the [[Louvre Palace]].{{sfn|Noone|1988|p=42}} However, contemporary accounts nonetheless indicate that the royal couple shared a bed and conceived the future Louis XIV, either in early December 1637{{efn|name=dec1637}} or, as historians deem more likely, sometime during the previous month.{{efn|name=nov1637}}{{sfn|Kleinman|1993|p=194}}{{sfn|Mansel|2022|p=17}} The Queen's pregnancy was made public on 30 January 1638.{{sfn|Mansel|2022|p=17}}

Based on the assumption that the royal couple were unable to conceive, Voltaire theorised that an earlier, secret birth of an illegitimate child persuaded the Queen that she was not infertile, in turn prompting [[Cardinal Richelieu]] to arrange an outing during which the royal couple had to share a bed, which led to the birth of Louis XIV.{{sfn|Voltaire|1770–1771}}{{sfn|Carra|1789|pp=315–321}}{{sfn|Craufurd|1790|pp=254–356}}{{sfn|Mongrédien|1961|pp=40–49}}

The theme of an imagined elder brother of Louis XIV resurfaced in 1790, when French historian Pierre-Hubert Charpentier asserted that the prisoner was an illegitimate son of Anne of Austria and [[George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham]], supposedly born in 1626, two years before the latter's death.{{sfn|Charpentier|Manuel|1790|pp=140–162}}{{sfn|Mongrédien|1961|p=50}}{{sfn|Noone|1988|pp=43–45}} Louis XIV was presumed to have had this elder brother imprisoned upon the Queen's death in 1666. According to Charpentier, this theory had originated with a certain Mademoiselle de Saint-Quentin, a mistress of the [[Louis François Marie Le Tellier|Marquess of Barbezieux]], son of Louvois and his successor as War Minister to Louis XIV in 1691.{{sfn|Mongrédien|1961|p=50}} A few days before his sudden death on 5 January 1701, Barbezieux had told her the secret of the prisoner's identity, which she disclosed publicly to several people in [[Chartres]] towards the end of her life in the mid-1700s. Charpentier also stated that Voltaire had heard this version in [[Geneva]], but chose to omit Buckingham's name when he began to develop his own variant of this theory in the first edition of ''[[The Age of Louis XIV]]'' (1751),{{sfn|Charpentier|Manuel|1790|pp=140–162}} finally revealed in full in {{lang|fr|Questions sur l'Encyclopédie}} (1771).{{sfn|Charpentier|Manuel|1790|pp=140–162}}