The Family Version
While riding through the streets of France, Louis XIV would be on the lookout for pretty girls suitable for his bed. If a girl was too young, he would give her mother an object to be brought to a party at the palace at a later time. She was to leave the given item so the king would know she was available. The girls were not allowed to bathe for months before the party.
One such girl was ridiculed by other young girls in the village. They knew she was not supposed to take a bath or get wet, so one day some of them pushed her into a puddle. Concerned, the girl’s mother went to the king’s mother for advice.
The king's mother asked how deep the puddle was, how long the girls was in it, and how many petticoats she had been wearing. It was determined that it would be alright, and she could still attend the party.
On the night of the party, she put on her best dress. She left the item that had been given to her. She was selected to spend that night with the king.
The Man in the Iron Mask
&
Rumpelstiltskin
The story of the man in the iron mask is very well-known due in large part to the movie, The Man in the Iron Mask, which starred Leonardo DiCaprio. In the movie, the man in the iron mask is actually the twin brother of King Louis XIV whom Louis keeps imprisoned. The story The Man in the Iron Mask was written by Alexandre Dumas and published in 1850, it is one of his books known as the D’Artagnan Romances. The Man in the Iron Mask was part of his tale The Vicomte of Bragelonne: Ten Years Later and features D’Artagnan and the three Musketeers from Dumas’ story The Three Musketeers.
In this book we have The Man in the Iron Mask and the fairy tale of Rumpelstiltskin together. In the family story, which you will read after the stories The Man in the Iron Mask and Rumpelstiltskin, both stories are connected.
The Man in the Iron Mask
Former musketeer Aramis is a bishop and confessor who visits a prisoner in the Bastille. The prisoner, it turns out, is Louis XIV’s secret twin brother Philippe. Philippe doesn’t know of his lineage until Aramis tells him. Aramis then tells Philippe that he wishes to help the prince escape from the Bastille and put him on the throne.
D’Artagnan goes to visit Porthos, whom he hasn’t seen in a fortnight, and finds him obsessing over clothes. Porthos has been invited to a party for the King and says he has nothing to wear. D’Artagnan points out that Porthos has out fifty fabulous suits and surely one of them would be suitable. According to Porthos, though, he has a horror of being measured so he had his servant be measured. Unfortunately, Porthos’ servant gained too much weight and the suits are too big for Porthos. D’Artagnan takes Porthos to the King’s tailor and talks him into making Porthos a suit for the King’s party. While at the tailor’s they meet Aramis who is there with a man who is an artist.
After visiting the tailor, Aramis puts his plan into action by getting an order for the release of a man sent to the governor at the Bastille. He then goes and dines with the governor who is an old friend, gets him drunk, and when the order arrives switches it for an identical one that has a different name. Prince Philippe is released and Aramis takes him into a forest in a carriage so that they may converse.
The night after the party, the king wakes in the night and is escorted from his room by armed and masked men. The masked men are Porthos and Aramis, they take the King to the Bastille and say that he is Marchiali and was released by mistake.
Philippe begins to settle into life as Louis XIV, til Aramis confesses to the superintendent of finances and a friend what he has done. The superintendent, Fouquet, is horrified and tells Aramis that he and Porthos should flee. Fouquet goes to the Bastille to have the King released while Aramis and Porthos escape to Fouquet’s fortress Belle-Isle.
Louis has Philippe arrested and his head covered in an iron mask, then sends D’Artagnan and a garrison to arrest Aramis and Porthos. Once on Belle-Isle, D’Artagnan doesn’t want to arrest his friends and resigns. Aramis and Porthos fight off a bunch of the men but Porthos is killed in an explosion; Aramis escapes in a small boat with a few servants. A while later, the King eventually talks D’Artagnan into returning to his service when he agrees to pardon Aramis and Porthos. D’Artagnan goes to Belle-Isle and finds out Porthos is dead and Aramis gone.
Former musketeer Athos has been living with his son, Raoul, who is in love with a woman who is also the King’s mistress. Raoul is sent to fight in Africa where he is killed. Athos finds out about the death of his son shortly after finding out about the death of Porthos, he dies from the shock of the deaths of his son and his friend so close together.
Years later, D’Artagnan is a count and is put in command of an army in a war with Holland. His army is very successful and the King, pleased at the news, decides to make D’Artagnan a marshal and sends a messenger to D’Artagnan with a chest. When D’Artagnan goes to receive the chest from the messenger while in the midst of battle, his is struck in the chest by a cannonball and killed.
Rumpelstiltskin
Once upon a time there was a poor miller who had a beautiful daughter. One day he had to go and speak with the King, and in an attempt to make himself appear more important, told the King he had a daughter who could spin straw into gold. This pleased the King and he told the miller to bring the girl to him the following day. The King took the girl to a room that had a spinning wheel and was full of straw, and told her if she did not spin all the straw into gold by early the next morning she would be executed.
The miller’s daughter, not really knowing how to spin straw into gold, sat down and began to cry. Suddenly, a little man appeared and inquired as to why the girl was crying. She tells him she has to spin all the straw into gold by early the next morning and doesn’t know how. The little man asks what she will give him if he does it for her and she says her necklace. The little man takes the necklace and spins the straw into gold.
When the King sees all the gold, he is delighted and greedy for more. The girl is taken to a room bigger than the other that is full of straw and demands she spin all the straw into gold in one night. The girl sits down and starts to cry, and once more the little man appears and asks what she will give him if he spins the straw into gold for her. She gives him a ring that she has and he sits down and spins all the straw into gold.
The King is ecstatic when he sees all the gold. He takes the girl into an even larger room full of straw, there he tells her if she spins all the straw into gold in one night he’ll make her his wife. As soon as the girl is alone, the little man appears and asks what she will give him in return for spinning the straw into gold. The girl replies she has nothing to give, and he asks that if she becomes Queen for her to give him her first child. She agrees, and he spins the straw into gold.
When the King sees all the straw has been spun into gold, he takes the girl and makes her his Queen. After about a year, the Queen gives birth to a beautiful baby and has forgotten about her promise to the little man. Suddenly, the little man appears in the Queen’s room and demands the baby. The Queen protests and starts to cry, and the little man tells her that if she can guess his name in three days she can keep her baby.
The first two days, the Queen guesses names and each time the little man tells her that is not his name. On the third day, one of the Queen’s messengers tells her that he spotted a little house at the edge of a forest and a little man outside dancing around the fire singing:
“Today I bake, tomorrow brew,
The next I’ll have the young Queen’s child.
Ha! Glad am I that no one knew
That Rumpelstiltskin I am styled.”
The Queen rejoices at hearing this. Later, when the little man appears, she guesses a couple names and then Rumpelstiltskin. The little man stomps his foot in anger and his foot goes right into the ground, when he tries to pull it out he pulls so hard that he rips himself in two.
The Family Story
The Man in the Iron Mask and Rumpelstiltskin are linked because they are about the
same event.
The King was bald and didn’t want anyone to know; he always wore a wig to hide his baldness. Whenever he slept with a girl, he would sleep in his bed hidden behind curtains and she would have to sleep on a separate bed. One night, a girl he slept with realized she had left something in the King’s bed. Upon going to retrieve the item, she pulled back the curtains and saw the King was bald. One of the servants witnessed this and later told the King. The girl was questioned about who she had told, at first she said no one but then admitted she had told her parents. Since the girl’s father was an important noble, they didn’t worry about him telling anyone, but questioned the girl’s mother. At first, the mother said she hadn’t told anyone but then said she’d told a few people.
The mother’s tongue was cut out for the offense, and since the King liked her daughter he cut out her eyes for her daughter’s eyes having seen something so bad. The mother was sent to a prison, after a cell was padded and filled with straw to keep her from hurting herself. She had to wear a mask at any time another person might see her, since she was officially being held as a man.
As for the girl, her father told the King that she could make very fine wigs of human hair. So, the girl made wigs for the King. Everyone loved the King’s wigs so much that the girl was made to make wigs for everyone who wanted one.
The Woman in the Iron Mask Page 3