Sarah Madry

Sarah Brandes Madry was born in Oxford, Mississippi. In 1963, so that her father could do on-site library research at the Bibliothèque nationale on the oratory of the French Revolution, she sailed on the French cruise ship Liberté to Le Havre and lived for six months in Paris where she attended a French private high school, the Cours Charles de Foucauld. She obtained a B.A. in French (1971) and an M.Ed. in Educational Media (1981) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She was a writer for internal publications and radio, graphic artist, and web designer for the General Electric Company and the University of North Carolina. She travels frequently in Europe with her husband, especially in Burgundy where her husband has done archeological and ethnographic fieldwork since 1978. She is fluent in French, and researches French history using published and unpublished French manuscripts and secondary sources in French and American national libraries and archives.

Today (1/16/26) I have learned that the French Planète+ channel will broadcast the documentary in which I appear as scholar "Iron Mask: the Enigma of the Sun King" on February 4, 2026, at 20:55 pm French time (Masque de fer : l’énigme du Roi Soleil). It will be available to people in France and Canada.

All four 32-minute episodes will be broadcast that evening and then rebroadcast in the weeks and months to come. They will likely also be available for replay on the Canal+ group's platform.

An English version is in production.

Monographs

Second Son, the Man in the Iron Mask. 2024.

Well Worth a Shindy: The Architectural and Philosophical History of the Old Well at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2004.

Articles on the Man in the Iron Mask

“The Valet: The Marquis de Louvois’ Invited Guest in the Mystery of the Man in the Iron Mask.” Cahiers du Dix-Septième: An Interdisciplinary Journal. Vol. 17 (2016). (Peer-review journal)