Here’s how historical drama Versailles season 3 episode 1 plants the seeds of the Man in the Iron Mask plot. Beyond his lavish spending, womanizing ways and rampant narcissism, another thing people tend to associate with King Louis XIV of France is the mystery of the Man in the Iron Mask. The man was an unidentified prisoner who was incarcerated in various French jails – including the legendary Bastille – during the reign of Louis XIV and wore a mask that obscured his identity.
Exactly who the Man in the Iron Mask was remains one of the greatest historical mysteries but that doesn’t mean people haven’t speculated wildly over his identity. One theory proposes the masked prisoner was Louis XIV’s biological father – which also implied Louis was the product of an extramarital affair – while another suggests the mystery jailbird was his twin brother, unjustly imprisoned to avoid anyone questioning the legitimacy of Louis’ claim to the throne. The latter theory was popularized in Alexandre Dumas’ novel The Vicomte Of Bragelonne: Ten Years Later, parts of which were loosely adapted for the 1998 film The Man In The Iron Mask in which Leonardo DiCaprio played both Louis XIV and his supposed twin.
In Versailles season 3 episode 1 “Smoke And Mirrors”, the historical drama starts to addresses this much-discussed part of Louis XIV’s reign. The episode begins with Louis’ (George Blagden, Vikings) right-hand man Bontemps (Stuart Bowman) visiting the masked man in his cell, before switching to the king’s brother Philippe (Alexander Vlahos) returning victorious from the Franco-Dutch War. Philippe was not in a celebratory mood, however, and rebuffed his lover Chevalier’s (Evan Williams) advances while barely registering the fact his wife Liselotte (Jessica Clark) bore him a child while he was away at battle.
Seemingly at a loss since his return from war, Versailles season 3 episode 1 saw Philippe throw himself into a task handed to him by Louis which involved rounding up suitable convicts to send to French colonies in the Americas. While drawing up his list, Philippe came across a noble-sounding prisoner called Duc de Sullun whose whereabouts he couldn’t account for. Neither Louis nor his men knew of the prisoner (although judging by that opening scene, Bontemps certainly did), so Philippe resolved to find out who and where he was.
At the end of Versailles season 3 episode 1, an obsessed Philippe decided to venture into the bowels of Paris to the Bastille prison to locate the mystery prisoner, despite the protests of Bontemps who seemed vested in keeping the man’s identity a secret. Just as Phillipe discovered the very same masked man seen in the episode’s opening, he was thwacked over the head and knocked out. Exactly who the prisoner was and why Bontemps was so concerned with keeping Phillipe away from him would be revealed in later Versailles season 3 episodes.