# La Tour du Masque

> This file is a plain-text rendition of a page on mytuur.com, generated from the same data as the HTML version.

Canonical page: https://mytuur.com/en/city/cannes/spot/la-tour-du-masque/

Content updated: 2026-06-22

La Tour du Masque is a stone tower within Cannes’s old fortifications, associated with the city’s medieval defences. It dates from the twelfth century and served observation and surveillance purposes.

The tower formed part of the citadel’s defences, which guarded Cannes against threats approaching from the sea. Its discreet form contrasts with the winding alleys and historic buildings of Le Suquet. Above the main door, a representation of the Man in the Iron Mask gives the tower its name. The masked prisoner remains an unidentified historical figure.

Legend says he escaped from Sainte-Marguerite and found refuge inside these stone walls during his final years. No proposed identity for the prisoner has ever been confirmed. More than sixty candidates have been suggested, while the story has remained linked to political imprisonment and royalty. Voltaire and Alexandre Dumas helped carry the legend into wider literature.

The old town places the tower among Cannes’s earliest streets and buildings, where defensive history meets a persistent mystery. La Tour du Masque preserves that connection between architecture, the citadel, and the Man in the Iron Mask.

- City: [Cannes](https://mytuur.com/en/city/cannes/)

## Photos

- ![](https://mytuur-bucket.s3.amazonaws.com/image_LaTourduMasque_683dba43f44f54dc86b74024_0.jpg) — [Image: wikimedia](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tour_du_Masque,_Cannes_-_panoramio.jpg)
- ![](https://mytuur-bucket.s3.amazonaws.com/image_LaTourduMasque_683dba43f44f54dc86b74024_1.jpg) — [Image: wikimedia](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tour_du_Masque,_Cannes,_Provence-Alpes-Côte_d'Azur,_France_-_panoramio.jpg)
- ![](https://mytuur-bucket.s3.amazonaws.com/image_LaTourduMasque_683dba43f44f54dc86b74024_2.jpg) — [Image: wikimedia](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tour_du_Masque,_Cannes,_Provence-Alpes-Côte_d'Azur,_France_-_panoramio_\(1\).jpg)
- ![](https://mytuur-bucket.s3.amazonaws.com/image_LaTourduMasque_683dba43f44f54dc86b74024_3.jpg) — [Image: wikimedia](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cannes_hombre_de_la_mascara_de_hierro.jpg)
- ![](https://mytuur-bucket.s3.amazonaws.com/image_LaTourduMasque_683dba43f44f54dc86b74024_4.jpg) — [Image: wikimedia](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cannes_-_1ère_Rue_du_Barri.jpg)

Spots like this one are the stops myTuur strings into tours through Cannes. In the app, each story begins where you stand: walk up to a spot and it starts, read it on screen or listen as you go, then follow the route to the next one.

## What is myTuur?

myTuur is a free city-guide app. Its tours are built from spots, and each spot carries a story that starts when you get there, to read or to listen to as you like.