Man in the Iron Mask
Recent research suggests that his name might have been Eustache Dauger, but this still has not been completely proven. He was held in the custody of the jailer, Bénigne Dauvergne de Saint-Mars. He died on 19 November 1703 under the name Marchioly, during the reign of Louis XIV of France. Dumas presented a review of the theories about the prisoner extant in his time in the chapter Lhomme au masque de fer in the sixth volume of his Crimes Célèbres. What little is known about the historical Man in the Iron Mask is based mainly on correspondence between Saint-Mars and his superiors in Paris and these documents have been searched for in vain for more than a century and were thought to have been lost. They were discovered only in 2015, among the 100 million or so documents of the Minutier central des notaires and they show that some of the 800 documents in the possession of the jailer Saint-Mars were analysed after his death. These documents confirm the reputed avarice of Saint-Mars, who appears to have diverted the funds paid by the king Louis XIV for the prisoner.
Among other things, for the first time we have a description of an occupied by the masked prisoner, which was miserable. In his letter, Louvois informed Saint-Mars that a prisoner named Eustache Dauger was due to arrive in the month or so. Louvois instructed Saint-Mars to prepare a cell with multiple doors, one closing upon the other, Saint-Mars himself was to see Dauger only once a day in order to provide food and whatever else he needed. Dauger was arrested by Captain Alexandre de Vauroy, garrison commander of Dunkirk, and taken to Pignerol, the first rumours of the prisoners identity began to circulate at this point. According to many versions of the legend, the prisoner wore the mask at all times. The prison at Pignerol, like the others at which Dauger was held, was used for men who were considered an embarrassment to the state, Fouquets cell was above that of Lauzun. Dauger was not always isolated from the other prisoners and important ones usually had manservants, Fouquet for instance was served by a man called La Rivière.
These servants, would become as much prisoners as their masters, since La Rivière was often ill, Saint-Mars applied for permission for Dauger to act as servant for Fouquet. It is an important point that the man in the served as a valet. After Fouquets death in 1680, Saint-Mars discovered a hole between Fouquet and Lauzuns cells. He was sure that they had communicated through this hole without detection by him or his guards, Louvois instructed Saint-Mars to move Lauzun to Fouquets cell and to tell him that Dauger and La Rivière had been released
Alexandre Dumas
Alexandre Dumas, known as Alexandre Dumas, père, was a French writer. His works have translated into nearly 100 languages, and he is one of the most widely read French authors. His novels have been adapted since the twentieth century for nearly 200 films. Dumas last novel, The Knight of Sainte-Hermine, unfinished at his death, was completed by a scholar and published in 2005 and it was published in English in 2008 as The Last Cavalier. Prolific in several genres, Dumas began his career by writing plays and he wrote numerous magazine articles and travel books, his published works totalled 100,000 pages. In the 1840s, Dumas founded the Théâtre Historique in Paris and his father, General Thomas-Alexandre Davy de la Pailleterie, was born in the French colony of Saint-Domingue to a French nobleman and an enslaved African woman. At age 14 Thomas-Alexandre was taken by his father to France, Dumas fathers aristocratic rank helped young Alexandre acquire work with Louis-Philippe, Duke of Orléans. He began working as a writer, finding early success, decades later, in the election of Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte in 1851, Dumas fell from favour and left France for Belgium, where he stayed for several years.
Upon leaving Belgium, Dumas moved to Russia for a few years before going to Italy, in 1861, he founded and published the newspaper LIndipendente, which supported the Italian unification effort. In 1864, he returned to Paris, though married, in the tradition of Frenchmen of higher social class, Dumas had numerous affairs. In his lifetime, he was known to have at least four illegitimate or natural children and he acknowledged and assisted his son, Alexandre Dumas, to become a successful novelist and playwright. They are known as Alexandre Dumas père and Alexandre Dumas fils, among his affairs, in 1866, Dumas had one with Adah Isaacs Menken, an American actress less than half his age and at the height of her career. The English playwright Watts Phillips, who knew Dumas in his life, described him as the most generous. He was the most delightfully amusing and egotistical creature on the face of the earth and his tongue was like a windmill – once set in motion, you never knew when he would stop, especially if the theme was himself.
Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie was born in 1802 in Villers-Cotterêts in the department of Aisne, in Picardy and he had two older sisters, Marie-Alexandrine and Louise-Alexandrine. Their parents were Marie-Louise Élisabeth Labouret, the daughter of an innkeeper, at the time of Alexandres birth, his father was impoverished. It is not known whether she was born in Saint-Domingue or in Africa, brought as a boy to France by his father and legally freed there, Thomas-Alexandre Dumas Davy was educated in a military school and joined the army as a young man. As an adult, Thomas-Alexandre used his mothers name, Dumas, as his surname after a break with his father, Dumas was promoted to general by the age of 31, the first soldier of Afro-Antilles origin to reach that rank in the French army
Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor
Charles V was ruler of both the Spanish Empire from 1516 and the Holy Roman Empire from 1519, as well as of the Habsburg Netherlands from 1506. He voluntarily stepped down from these and other positions by a series of abdications between 1554 and 1556, through inheritance, he brought together under his rule extensive territories in western and southern Europe, and the Spanish colonies in the Americas and Asia. As a result, his domains spanned nearly four square kilometers and were the first to be described as the empire on which the sun never sets. Charles was the heir of three of Europes leading dynasties, the Houses of Valois-Burgundy and Trastámara and he inherited the Burgundian Netherlands and the Franche-Comté as heir of the House of Valois-Burgundy. From his own dynasty, the Habsburgs, he inherited Austria and he was elected to succeed his Habsburg grandfather, Maximilian I, as Holy Roman Emperor, a title held by the Habsburgs since 1440. Charles was the first king to rule Castile and Aragon simultaneously in his own right, the personal union, under Charles, of the Holy Roman Empire with the Spanish Empire resulted in the closest Europe would come to a universal monarchy since the death of Louis the Pious.
France recovered and the wars continued for the remainder of Charless reign, enormously expensive, they led to the development of the first modern professional army in Europe, the Tercios. The struggle with the Ottoman Empire was fought in Hungary and the Mediterranean, after seizing most of eastern and central Hungary in 1526, the Ottomans’ advance was halted at their failed Siege of Vienna in 1529. A lengthy war of attrition, conducted on his behalf by his younger brother Ferdinand, in the Mediterranean, although there were some successes, Charles was unable to prevent the Ottomans’ increasing naval dominance and the piratical activity of the Barbary Corsairs. Charles opposed the Reformation and in Germany he was in conflict with the Protestant Princes of the Schmalkaldic League who were motivated by religious and political opposition to him. Once the rebellions were quelled the essential Castilian and Burgundian territories remained mostly loyal to Charles throughout his rule, Charles’s Spanish dominions were the chief source of his power and wealth, and they became increasingly important as his reign progressed.
In the Americas, Charles sanctioned the conquest by Castillian conquistadors of the Aztec, Castillian control was extended across much of South and Central America. The resulting vast expansion of territory and the flows of South American silver to Castile had profound long term effects on Spain. Charles was only 56 when he abdicated, but after 34 years of rule he was physically exhausted and sought the peace of a monastery. Upon Charles’s abdications, the Holy Roman Empire was inherited by his younger brother Ferdinand, the Spanish Empire, including the possessions in the Netherlands and Italy, was inherited by Charles’s son Philip II. The two empires would remain allies until the 18th century, Charles was born in 1500 as the eldest son of Philip the Handsome and Joanna of Castile in the Flemish city of Ghent, which was part of the Habsburg Netherlands. The culture and courtly life of the Burgundian Low Countries were an important influence in his early life and he was tutored by William de Croÿ, and by Adrian of Utrecht.
He gained a decent command of German, though he never spoke it as well as French, a witticism sometimes attributed to Charles is, I speak Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men and German to my horse
Fernando Rey
Fernando Casado Arambillet, best known as Fernando Rey, was a Spanish film and television actor, who worked in both Europe and the United States. The debonair Rey was described by French Connection producer Philip DAntoni as the last of the Continental guys and he achieved his greatest notoriety after he turned 50, Perhaps it is a pity that my success came so late in life, he told the Los Angeles Times. It might have been better to have been successful while young, your life is all before you to enjoy it. Rey was born in A Coruña, the son of Captain Casado Veiga and he studied architecture, but the Spanish Civil War interrupted his university studies which led him to his success. In 1936, Rey began his career in movies as an extra and it was that he chose his stage name, Fernando Rey. He kept his first name, but took his mothers surname, Rey. In 1944, his first speaking role was the Duke of Alba in José López Rubios Eugenia de Montijo, four years later, he acted the part of Felipe I el Hermoso, King of Spain, in the Spanish cinema blockbuster Locura de amor.
This was the start of a career in film, theatre. Rey was a dubbing actor in Spanish television. In fact, Rey acted in four different film versions of Don Quixote in different roles, if one counts the Welles version. However, in the term, Buñuels disconcerting public remark on Reys performance in other Bardems film, Sonatas, I love how this actor plays a corpse. Nevertheless, eventually Rey became Buñuels preferred actor and closest friend, Reys first international performance was in The Night Heaven Fell a 1958 French-Italian film directed by Roger Vadim, where he acted alongside Stephen Boyd, Marina Vlady and Brigitte Bardot. Previously he had played in an American TV series, It happens in Spain, the story of the exploits of a detective, operating out in Spain. In 1959, Rey co-starred with Steve Reeves and Christine Kaufmann in the Italian sword and it was his work with Orson Welles and Luis Buñuel during the 1960s and 1970s that made Rey internationally prominent, becoming the first international Spanish actor.
Rey starred in Buñuels Viridiana, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, for Welles, Rey performed in two completed films, Chimes at Midnight and The Immortal Story. Rey played memorably the French villain Alain Charnier in William Friedkins The French Connection, Rey was hired after he flew to New York to be met by a surprised Friedkin. Reys English and French were not perfect, but Friedkin discovered that Rabal spoke neither of them, and opted to keep Rey, along 1970s and 1980s Rey played in many international co-productions, some of his appearances being cameos. One of Reys greater successes in years was Elisa, vida mía
HM Prison Dartmoor
HM Prison Dartmoor is a Category C mens prison, located in Princetown, high on Dartmoor in the English county of Devon. Its high granite walls dominate this area of the moor, the prison is owned by the Duchy of Cornwall, and is operated by Her Majestys Prison Service. In 1805, Great Britain was at war with Napoleonic France, construction started in 1806, taking three years to complete. In 1809 the first French prisoners arrived, and were joined by American POWs taken in the War of 1812, at one time the prison population numbered almost 6,000. Many prisoners died and were buried on the moor, both French and American wars were concluded in 1815, and repatriations began. The prison lay empty until 1850, when it was largely rebuilt, with the establishment of the prison farm in about 1852, all the prisoners remains were exhumed and re-interred in two cemeteries behind the prison. Although the war ended with the Treaty of Ghent in December 1814, from the spring of 1813 until March 1815 about 6,500 American sailors were imprisoned at Dartmoor.
These were naval prisoners, and impressed American seamen discharged from British vessels, whilst the British were in charge of the prison, the prisoners created their own governance and culture. They had courts which meted out punishments, there was a market, a theatre. About 1,000 of the prisoners were black Americans and it took several weeks for the American agent to secure ships for their transportation home, and the men grew very impatient. On 4 April, a contractor attempted to work off some damaged hardtack on them in place of soft bread and was forced to yield by their insurrection. The commandant, Captain T. G. Shortland, suspected them of a design to break out of the gaol. This was the reverse of the truth in general, as they would lose their chance of going on the ships, but a few had made threats of the sort, and the commandant was very uneasy. About 6,00 pm of the 6th, Shortland discovered a hole from one of the five prisons to the yard near the gun racks. Some prisoners were outside the fence, noisily pelting each other with turf, Shortland was convinced of a plot, and rang the alarm bell to collect the officers and have the men ready.
This precaution brought back a crowd just going to quarters, just a prisoner broke a gate chain with an iron bar and a number of the prisoners pressed through to the prison market square. After attempts at persuasion, Shortland ordered a charge which drove some of the prisoners in and those near the gate, hooted at and taunted the soldiery, who fired a volley over their heads. The crowd yelled louder and threw stones, and the soldiers, probably without orders, they continued firing at the prisoners, many of whom were now struggling to get back inside the blocks
Strasbourg
Strasbourg is the capital and largest city of the Grand Est region of France and is the official seat of the European Parliament. Located close to the border with Germany in the region of Alsace. In 2014, the city proper had 276,170 inhabitants, Strasbourgs metropolitan area had a population of 773,347 in 2013, making it the ninth largest metro area in France and home to 13% of the Grand Est regions inhabitants. The transnational Eurodistrict Strasbourg-Ortenau had a population of 915,000 inhabitants in 2014, Strasbourg is the seat of several European institutions, such as the Council of Europe and the Eurocorps, as well as the European Parliament and the European Ombudsman of the European Union. The city is the seat of the Central Commission for Navigation on the Rhine, Strasbourgs historic city centre, the Grande Île, was classified a World Heritage site by UNESCO in 1988, the first time such an honour was placed on an entire city centre. The largest Islamic place of worship in France, the Strasbourg Grand Mosque, was inaugurated by French Interior Minister Manuel Valls on 27 September 2012.
Economically, Strasbourg is an important centre of manufacturing and engineering, as well as a hub of road, the port of Strasbourg is the second largest on the Rhine after Duisburg, Germany. Before the 5th century, the city was known as Argantorati, a Celtic Gaulish name Latinized first as Argentorate, after the 5h century, the city became known by a completely different name Gallicized as Strasbourg. That name is of Germanic origin and means Town of roads, Strasbourg is situated on the eastern border of France with Germany. This border is formed by the River Rhine, which forms the eastern border of the modern city. The historic core of Strasbourg however lies on the Grande Île in the River Ill, which flows parallel to, and roughly 4 kilometres from. The natural courses of the two eventually join some distance downstream of Strasbourg, although several artificial waterways now connect them within the city. This section of the Rhine valley is an axis of north-south travel, with river traffic on the Rhine itself.
The city is some 400 kilometres east of Paris, in spite of its position far inland, Strasbourgs climate is classified as Oceanic, with warm, relatively sunny summers and cold, overcast winters. Precipitation is elevated from mid-spring to the end of summer, but remains largely constant throughout the year, on average, snow falls 30 days per year. The highest temperature recorded was 38.5 °C in August 2003. The lowest temperature recorded was −23.4 °C in December 1938. Nonetheless, the disappearance of heavy industry on both banks of the Rhine, as well as effective measures of traffic regulation in and around the city have reduced air pollution
Embrasure
In military architecture, an embrasure is the opening in a crenellation or battlement between the two raised solid portions or merlons, sometimes called a crenel or crenelle. In domestic architecture this refers to the outward splay of a window or arrow slit on the inside, a loophole, arrow loop or arrowslit passes through a solid wall and was originally for use by archers. The purpose of embrasures is to allow weapons to be fired out from the fortification while the remains under cover. The splay of the wall on the inside provides room for the soldier and his equipment, excellent examples of deep embrasures with arrow slits are to be seen at Aigues-Mortes and Château de Coucy, both in France. The etymology of embrasure expresses widening, the invention of the arrowslit is attributed to Archimedes during the siege of Syracuse in 214–212 BC. From Polybiuss The Histories, Archimedes had had the walls pierced with large numbers of loopholes at the height of a man, the invention was forgotten until reintroduced in the 12th century.
By the 19th century, a distinction was made between embrasures being used for cannon, and loopholes being used for musketry, in both cases, the opening was normally made wider on the inside of the wall than the outside. A distinction was made between horizontal and vertical embrasures or loopholes, depending on the orientation of the formed in the outside wall. Vertical loopholes—which are much more common—allow the weapon to be raised and lowered in elevation so as to cover a variety of ranges easily. However to sweep from side to side the weapon must bodily move from side to side to pivot around the muzzle, horizontal loopholes, on the other hand, facilitate quick sweeping across the arc in front, but make large adjustments in elevation very difficult. They were usually used in circumstances where the range was very restricted anyway, another variation had both horizontal and vertical slits arranged in the form of a cross, and was called a crosslet loop or an arbalestina since it was principally intended for arbalestiers.
A series of perpendicular steps tapering to the gun port ensured that any incoming fire would be stopped by a vertical impact, arrowslit This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Hugh, ed. article name needed
Alcatraz Island
Alcatraz Island is located in San Francisco Bay,1.25 miles offshore from San Francisco, United States. The small island was developed with facilities for a lighthouse, a fortification, a military prison. In 1972, Alcatraz became part of a recreation area. Today, the facilities are managed by the National Park Service as part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Visitors can reach the island by ferry ride from Pier 33, near Fishermans Wharf, hornblower Cruises and Events, operating under the name Alcatraz Cruises, is the official ferry provider to and from the island. According to a 1971 documentary on the history of Alcatraz, the island measures 1,675 feet by 590 feet and is 135 feet at highest point during mean tide, the total area of the island is reported to be 22 acres. Over the years, the Spanish version Alcatraz became popular and is now widely used, in August 1827, French Captain Auguste Bernard Duhaut-Cilly wrote. Covered with a number of these birds. A gun fired over the feathered legions caused them to fly up in a great cloud, the California brown pelican is not known to nest on the island today.
The Spanish built several buildings on the island and other minor structures. Julian Workman is the name of William Workman, co-owner of Rancho La Puente. Later in 1846, acting in his capacity as Military Governor of California, frémont, champion of Manifest Destiny and leader of the Bear Flag Republic, bought the island for $5,000 in the name of the United States government from Francis Temple. Frémont and his heirs sued for compensation during protracted but unsuccessful legal battles that extended into the 1890s. S, Army began studying the suitability of Alcatraz Island for the positioning of coastal batteries to protect the approaches to San Francisco Bay. In 1853, under the direction of Zealous B, the United States Army Corps of Engineers began fortifying the island, work which continued until 1858, eventuating in Fortress Alcatraz. The islands first garrison at Camp Alcatraz, numbering about 200 soldiers and 11 cannons, at this time it served as the San Francisco Arsenal for storage of firearms to prevent them falling into the hands of Confederate sympathizers.
Alcatraz, built as a fortified military site on the West Coast, formed a triangle of defense along with Fort Point and Lime Point. The island was the site of the first operational lighthouse on the West Coast of the United States, Alcatraz never fired its guns offensively, though during the war it was used to imprison Confederate sympathizers and privateers on the west coast. Because of its isolation from the outside by the cold, hazardous currents of the waters of San Francisco Bay, following the war in 1866, the army determined that the fortifications and guns were being rapidly rendered obsolete by advances in military technology
Prison
Besides their use for punishing crimes and prisons are frequently used by authoritarian regimes against perceived opponents. Prisons often have facilities that are designed with long term confinement in mind in comparison to jails. In times of war, prisoners of war or detainees may be detained in prisons or prisoner of war camps. The use of prisons can be traced back to the rise of the state as a form of social organization, corresponding with the advent of the state was the development of written language, which enabled the creation of formalized legal codes as official guidelines for society. The best known of early legal codes is the Code of Hammurabi. Some Ancient Greek philosophers, such as Plato, began to develop ideas of using punishment to reform instead of simply using it as retribution. Imprisonment as a penalty was used initially for those who could not afford to pay their fines, since impoverished Athenians could not pay their fines, leading to indefinite periods of imprisonment, time limits were set instead.
The prison in Ancient Athens was known as the desmoterion, the Romans were among the first to use prisons as a form of punishment, rather than simply for detention. A variety of existing structures were used to house prisoners, such as cages, basements of public buildings. One of the most notable Roman prisons was the Mamertine Prison, the Mamertine Prison was located within a sewer system beneath ancient Rome and contained a large network of dungeons where prisoners were held in squalid conditions, contaminated with human waste. Forced labor on public projects was a common form of punishment. In many cases, citizens were sentenced to slavery, often in ergastula, during the Middle Ages in Europe, castles and the basements of public buildings were often used as makeshift prisons. Another common punishment was sentencing people to slavery, which involved chaining prisoners together in the bottoms of ships. However, the concept of the modern prison largely remained unknown until the early 19th-century, Punishment usually consisted of physical forms of punishment, including capital punishment, flagellation and non-physical punishments, such as public shaming rituals.
However, an important innovation at the time was the Bridewell House of Corrections, located at Bridewell Palace in London and these houses held mostly petty offenders and the disorderly local poor. In these facilities, inmates were given jobs, and through prison labor they were taught how to work for a living, by the end of the 17th century, houses of correction were absorbed into local prison facilities under the control of the local justice of the peace. From the late 17th century and during the 18th century, popular resistance to public execution, rulers began looking for means to punish and control their subjects in a way that did not cause people to associate them with spectacles of tyrannical and sadistic violence. They developed systems of mass incarceration, often with hard labor, the prison reform movement that arose at this time was heavily influenced by two somewhat contradictory philosophies
