FILM 1561: THE MAN IN THE IRON
MASK
TRIVIA: There was a real masked
prisoner at La Bastille, but rather than a twin brother, more recent conspiracy
theories have him being Louis XIV's biological father. The official story of
Louis' conception was that King Louis XIII, long separated from Queen Anne, was
going to his hunting lodge and had packed stuff that he would need. It started
raining and since the Queen had the only bed suitable for the King they slept
together, conceiving the heir. The conspiracy theory is that Cardinal Richelieu
convinced the Queen to have an affair with a "sperm donor," who then
was sent off to Canada, but later returned to France and tried to extort money
for his silence. The motive for the plan was that Richelieu feared that civil
war would break out if the King died childless to be succeeded by his foolish
brother Gaston. But the sperm donor theory is just hearsay and probably not
true. Queen Anne might have had an affair, but she and Richelieu did not work
together because they hated each other. Louis XIV also resembled Louis XIII
enough to ensure to most people that he was a true biological son.
Each of the four Musketeers are
played by actors with different nationalities. Jeremy Irons is English, John Malkovich is
American, Gérard Depardieu is French
and Gabriel Byrne is Irish.
Aramis' statement, "I am a
genius, not an engineer," is a pun in the original French ("Je suis
un génie, pas un ingénieur").
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