Editing Man in the Iron Mask (section)

===Historians of the Man in the Iron Mask===

In his historical essay published in 1965 and expanded in 1973, Marcel Pagnol praised a number of historians who consulted the archives with the goal of elucidating the enigma of the Man in the Iron Mask: Joseph Delort (1789–1847), Marius Topin (1838–1895), Théodore Iung (1833–1896), Maurice Duvivier (18??–1936), and Georges Mongrédien (1901–1980).{{sfn|Pagnol|1973|pp=14–18}} Along with Pierre Roux-Fazillac (1746–1833), François Ravaisson (1811–1884), Jules Loiseleur (1816–1900), [[Jules Lair]] (1836–1907), and [[Frantz Funck-Brentano]] (1862–1947), these historians uncovered and published the bulk of historical documents that enabled some progress to be made towards that goal.{{sfn|Mongrédien|1961|pp=234–254}}{{sfn|Pagnol|1973|pp=14–18}}

In particular, Mongrédien was the first to publish (1952) a complete reference of historical documents on which previous authors had relied only selectively.{{sfn|Mongrédien|1961|pp=7–8}} He was also one of the few historians who did not champion any particular candidate,{{efn|name=fewhist}} preferring instead to review and analyse objectively the facts revealed by {{em|all}} the documents.{{sfn|Mongrédien|1961|pp=8–9}} Giving full credit to Jules Lair for being the first to propose the candidacy of "Eustache Dauger" in 1890,{{sfn|Mongrédien|1961|p=181}} Mongrédien demonstrated that, among all the state prisoners who were ever in the care of Saint-Mars, only the one arrested under that name in 1669 could have died in the Bastille in 1703, and was therefore the only possible candidate for the man in the mask. Although he also pointed out that no documents had yet been found that revealed either the real identity of this prisoner or the cause of his long incarceration, Mongrédien's work was significant in that it made it possible to eliminate all the candidates whose vital dates, or life circumstances for the period of 1669–1703, were already known to modern historians.{{sfn|Mongrédien|1961|p=18}}{{sfn|Mongrédien|1961|pp=181-201,227–231}}

In October 1965, Mongrédien published a review, in the journal ''La Revue des Deux Mondes'', of the first edition of Pagnol's essay. At the end of this review, Mongrédien mentioned being told that the [[Defence Historical Service|Archives of the Ministry of Defense]] located at the Château de Vincennes still held unsorted and uncatalogued bundles of Louvois's correspondence. He speculated that, if this were the case, then these bundles might contain a letter from July 1669 revealing the reasons for "Eustache Dauger{{" '}}s arrest near Dunkirk.{{sfn|Mongrédien|1965|p=427}}