Two beautiful fountains were playing on the afternoon when the Class made their visit. The sky was all rose and gold; the Seine flowed calmly along; the aspect of every thing seemed as foreign to any past association of war, tragedy, and pangs of human suffering as the figures of the Tritons and Nereids that were spouting water from the fishes in their hands.

Leaving the Place de la Concorde, which Master Lewis said he believed was constructed in part of stones of the old Bastile, the Class went to the public square where the Bastile had stood.

"The Place of the Bastile," said Master Lewis, "now adorned by

the Column of Liberty, is the site of the old Castle of Paris, which was built as a defence against the English. The castle became a prison for people who offended the French kings. The Man of the Iron Mask was confined here. It was regarded as an obstacle to liberty, and it was stormed by the people during the Revolution, and destroyed."

"Who was the Man of the Iron Mask?" asked Tommy Toby. "That is a question that used to be asked by all the statesmen of Europe, and that has been repeated and always will be by every reader of history. It has been answered in many different ways. Books, pamphlets, and essays have been written upon the subject. It is still a secret, and seems destined always to remain so. I will give you briefly the strange history of this State prisoner."

THE MAN OF THE IRON MASK.

During the reign of that voluptuous old monarch, Louis XIV. of France, there appeared on one of the Marguerite Islands, in the Mediterranean, a prisoner of State closely guarded, and entrusted to the especial care of a French governmental officer, De Saint Mars.

Although confined in this obscure spot in the sea, where but little was seen or heard save a distant sail and the dashing of waters, he became a marked man among the few who chanced to meet him, and the circumstance of his concealment was in danger of being noised abroad. He was consequently removed to Paris, and immured in the cells of the Bastile.

"From the time that he began to attract attention on the island in the Mediterranean to the close of his protracted life, no one but his appointed attendants is known to have seen his face.

"His head was enveloped in a black-velvet mask, confined by springs of steel, and so arranged that he could not reveal his features without immediate detection.

"His guardian, De Saint Mars, had been instructed by a royal order, or by an order from certain of the king's favorites, to take his life immediately, should he attempt to reveal his identity.

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During his confinement on the Marguerite island, De Saint Mars ate and slept in the same room with him, and was always provided with weapons with which to despatch him, should he attempt to discover the secret of his history. If report is true, De Saint Mars might well exercise caution, for it is asserted that he was to forfeit his own life if by any want of watchfulness he allowed the prisoner to reveal his identity.

"The prisoner himself seemed anxious to make the forbidden discovery. He once wrote a word on some linen, and succeeded in communicating what he wished to an individual not in the secret of the mystery. But the ruse was discovered, and the person that received the linen died suddenly, being taken off, it was supposed, by poison. He once engraved something, probably his name, on a piece of silver plate. The person to whom it was conveyed was detected in his knowledge of the secret, and soon after died, as suddenly and mysteriously as the one who had received the linen.

"These incidents indicate that the prisoner was a man of shrewdness and learning.

"He was attended, during his imprisonment in the Bastile, by the governor of the fortress, who alone administered to his wants; and when he attended mass he was always followed by a detachment of invalides (French soldiers), who were instructed to fire upon him in case he should speak or attempt to uncover his face.

"These circumstances, and many others of like character, show that he was a person of very eminent rank, and that those who thus shut him out from mankind were conscious that they were committing a crime of no ordinary magnitude.

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Who, then, was this person of mystery, familiarly known as the Man of the Iron Mask?