At the same time it cannot be said that the latter were indifferent to the affairs of Italy. When, in 1627, the Dukes of Savoy and Guastalla, aided by the House of Austria, wished to secure to Charles de Gonzaga the Duke of Mantua’s inheritance, Louis XIII. loudly proclaimed the cause of this legitimate heir, and ensured the triumph of his rights. Rendered by victory master of the destiny of the House of Savoy, Richelieu did not allow himself to be dazzled by success. This incomparable politician understood that to dispossess an Italian dynasty and to establish himself on the other side of the Alps, would necessarily result in uniting the Italians to the Spaniards, in provoking against the French (who had suddenly become unpopular, even by their presence) a coalition sooner or later victorious, and creating, in fact, outside the natural sphere of action of France, incessant grounds of anxiety, jealousies, struggles, and alarms. Thus, in 1631, by the treaty of Cherasco, the skilful Minister, sacrificing many of the fruits of his victory, restored Piedmont and Savoy, contenting himself with retaining Pignerol, so as always to keep open one of the passes into Italy. To watch over her without alarming her, to be a protector of the rights of the Italian Princes without menacing their independence, to exact complete confidence from them in return, to baffle the intrigues of the Spaniards, and to allow them to accumulate on themselves hatred and resentment; to assume, in a word, an attitude passive yet vigilant, firm but not menacing, such was the judicious conduct of Richelieu towards Italy.
Louis XIV. long remained faithful to this policy. It was towards the North and East that he led his victorious armies, and by a succession of enterprises, happily conceived and wonderfully well-conducted, he extended the frontiers of France in the proper direction; and, arbitrator of Europe, at the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, and subsequently at that of Nimeguen, he inspired her with fear and admiration. In these two cities his will alone was the sole basis of the negotiations. While for every one the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle had never appeared to be aught but a truce, that of Nimeguen combined all the conditions of a definitive peace. But even before this famous treaty was signed, Louis XIV. had conceived ambitious projects on the other side of the Alps, and the possession of Pignerol and the neighbouring valleys no longer appeared to him sufficient for the part he was desirous of playing in Italy. The influence of his government had, however, been better accepted there, when it was more dissembled, and when everything that could give the slightest offence had been avoided with the greatest care. But, when the policy of Richelieu and Mazarin, scrupulously continued by De Lionne, had ceased to prevail—when the invading and impetuous Louvois established a sort of military diplomacy, which he directed as he pleased—the sentiments of the Italians, and in particular of the Piedmontese, became somewhat modified: confiding deference gave place to restrained apprehension, and led by degrees to a hatred which burst out against France at the moment she was oppressed by coalitions and defeats.
Charles-Emmanuel, Duke of Savoy, had just died, leaving as his successor a child, under the guardianship of a mother,[476] vain, ardent, and impassioned, and whom littleness of mind, as much as hastiness of character, led to exaggerated resistance, soon to be followed by humiliating concessions. Instead of showing himself the disinterested protector and sincere counsellor of Victor-Amadeus, Louis XIV. sought from that time forward to become powerful in Italy by profiting by the weakness of this government, the vanity of the Regent, the inexperience of her son, and by the passions aroused in this court around a frivolous and capricious woman. By an altogether opposite line of conduct he might have eternally attached to himself the young Duke, who, instead, was later to become his adversary, not the most formidable, but certainly the most inconvenient, and who was to contribute, above all others, to the diversion created in the South, to paralyze the power of France, and place her within an inch of her ruin. Victor-Amadeus has been represented, and with reason, as a perfidious enemy and unreliable ally. But, in the first place, it was the conduct of his mother, and afterwards that of Louis XIV., which early disposed this prince to dissimulation. Left in retirement by a hard and ambitious Regent, with his friends watched and suspected, and himself isolated, yet not a stranger to the interests of his States, taciturn, but thoughtful and observant, more patient than resigned, he was submitting with apparent indifference to a double and oppressive guardianship, from which he only awaited the opportunity to escape or to be revenged. From this moment Louis XIV. himself prepared those disasters which were to mark the end of his reign. Whilst those audaciously arbitrary decisions of the Chambres de Réunion for the aggrandisement of France by conquests made in full peace, profoundly irritated the North of Europe, he was about to agitate the South by pretensions equally extravagant, for a long time concealed, then boldly disclosed, and which tended to nothing less than to place a part of Italy under his exclusive dominion.
The complacency, or at least the neutrality, which the vanity and weakness of the Regent assured to Louis XIV., in Piedmont, was rendered not less certain in Mantua by the frivolous indifference of Charles IV., its young duke. This prince, a degenerate representative of the House of Gonzaga, which has produced so many great men, and mingled its blood with the most illustrious families of Europe, showed himself unworthy of his rank and of his name, by the most extravagantly dissipated conduct. Careless and thoughtless, he was quite indifferent to the interests of his duchy, leaving its administration to incompetent favourites; and himself a non-resident duke, was in the habit of spending the greater part of his existence amidst the pleasures of Venice, and only dreaming of returning to Mantua, when the pressing need of money called him thither. A great gambler, and lavish in his expenditure, he had soon exhausted in fêtes and adventures the remnants of a fortune and of an equally broken constitution. Anticipating the revenues of his duchy, he had just obtained from some Jews advances on the taxes for several years.[477] This sum was soon squandered, and Charles IV. deprived of resources, but not less eager for pleasure, ruined, but not less anxious to assist at all the festivals given outside his States, was reduced to expedients, and in a manner compelled to sell himself. He was not long in finding a purchaser.
Under his authority was placed the marquisate of Montferrat—that rich and fertile country, so perpetually sought after, and the possession of which was frequently contested by arms. Taken by the Romans from the Goths, then by the latter from the Lombards, afterwards forming a portion of the Empire of the West, eventually becoming an hereditary fief, several times claimed by the House of Savoy, conquered by Charles Emmanuel, then evacuated, this country had at length been annexed to the Duchy of Mantua, from which vast States, nevertheless, separated it. Casale was its capital. This fortified place, situated on the Po, fifteen leagues to the east of Turin, was of the utmost importance, and especially to Piedmont. From very remote times the Court of Turin had coveted this natural dependency, which the defeats of Louis XIV. and the conduct of Victor Amadeus would one day secure to it.
That the Duke of Mantua should possess this territory, bordering on Piedmont, was no doubt an anomaly, but was scarcely dangerous. The King of France, on the contrary, being already master of Pignerol, on securing possession of Casale, would, in reality, enclose the Court of Turin between two formidable places, of which the one to the south-west gave access to the passage of the Alps, and the other, to the north-east, commanded the road to the Milanese. This was the project formed by Louis XIV. The intrigue was mysteriously commenced in 1676; but for a long time previously he had turned his attention to this important town. On September 17, 1665, a few days subsequent to the death of Charles III., the preceding Duke of Mantua, he had hastened to send to the Regent, mother[478] of Charles IV., the Sieur d’Aubeville, instructed to insist “that no change should be tolerated in the garrison of Casale during the minority of the young Duke”.[479] This demand, which was very natural on account of the contiguity of the Spaniards, seemed—and, perhaps, was, at the time—extremely disinterested. In 1676, however, he no longer troubled himself with the maintenance of a Mantuan garrison at Casale, but rather with throwing the place open to his own troops.
One of the great personages of Mantua was Ercole Antonio Matthioly. He was born at Bologna, December 1, 1640, and belonged to an old and distinguished family of the long robe. His grandfather, Constantino Matthioly, had been raised to the dignity of senator. One of his uncles, Ercole Matthioly, a Jesuit father, was a very celebrated orator.[480] He himself early attracted attention by obtaining, when only nineteen years of age, the prize in civil and canon law, and shortly afterwards the title of professor at the University of Bologna. He subsequently made himself still further known by several much-prized works; and after having formed an alliance with an honourable senatorial family of Bologna, established himself at Mantua, where his talents, dexterity, and early maturity caused him to be appreciated by Duke Charles III. de Gonzaga, one of whose Secretaries of State he became. After this prince’s death, his son, Charles IV. de Gonzaga, when he attained his majority, accorded his friendship to Matthioly, whom he named Supenumerary Senator of Mantua, a dignity to which the title of Count was attached. Filled with ambition, Matthioly not only hoped to reacquire the office of Secretary of State, but also to become the principal Minister of his young master. Knowing his position to be most precarious, he was ardently desirous of rendering him one of those signal services which justify the highest rewards, and an occasion offered itself during the latter months of the year 1677.
The Abbé d’Estrades,[481] then ambassador of Louis XIV. to the Venetian Republic, was as ambitious and as restless as Matthioly. Belonging to a family of diplomates, and anxious to become illustrious in his turn, he had the cunning to enter resolutely into the views of the Court of Versailles, and knowing very well, moreover, that his conduct would be approved, to concoct the intrigue which was to end in the cession of Casale to the King of France. Having long since been acquainted with the condition of the Court of Mantua and with the individuals holding the chief rank in it, he cast his eyes upon Matthioly as being, from his character, the most likely to embrace the project of surrender, and by using his influence over his master, to induce him to adopt it. But before entering directly into communication with Matthioly, he sent to Verona, where the latter frequently resided, one Giuliani,[482] a perfectly sure man, whom his occupation of journalist obliged to travel from place to place to collect news, and whose stay at Verona consequently would not excite suspicion. Giuliani had Matthioly watched, and, observing him himself, ascertained his aversion to the Spaniards, from whom he had never received anything but hopes. By degrees the connection became closer, and Giuliani was able to indicate to him without danger the plans of the Abbé d’Estrades, the pecuniary advantages which the Duke of Mantua would derive from the surrender of Casale to Louis XIV., and the security as well as the honour of an alliance with so powerful a sovereign. Matthioly leapt at the proposition,[483] and undertook to expound it to the Duke, whom he had no great difficulty in convincing. The intercourse soon became more direct. Giuliani saw Charles IV. at Mantua, and it was agreed that an interview between the latter and the Abbé d’Estrades might take place at Venice with all the more secrecy, “as, in consequence of the Carnival, every one, even the Doge, the oldest Senators, the Cardinals, and the Nuncio, goes about masked.”[484] Louis XIV. and M. de Pomponne, his Minister,[485] congratulated the Abbé d’Estrades with effusion on the propitious commencement of this delicate negotiation,[486] and on January 12, 1678, the King himself did not disdain to write to Count Matthioly, in order to thank him.[487]
Matthioly and Charles IV., in fact, proceeded to Venice. They first discussed with the Abbé the price of the surrender, which was fixed at 100,000 crowns,[488] payable after the exchange of the ratifications of the treaty, and in two sums at three months’ interval. At midnight on March 13, 1678,[489] the Ambassador of the King of France and the Duke of Mantua met, as if by chance, in the middle of a public square on leaving a ball, and there, away from every inquisitive ear, and concealed from every glance by a mask similar to those then worn by all noblemen at Venice, conversed for quite an hour concerning the conditions of the treaty, the payments of the stipulated price, and the manner in which Louis XIV. should defend Charles IV. against the effects of the resentment of the Venetian Republic and the Spaniards. Distrustful as were the Italian princes, disposed as the Venetian Republic may have been to suspect an intrigue, and prevent so dangerous an intervention as that of the King of France in the north of Italy, numerous and accomplished as were the spies who swarmed in Venice, it was in this same city, almost under the very eyes of the representatives of the different powers, that the bases of a treaty which was one of the most menacing to the independence of the Peninsula, were settled, in a mysterious and impenetrable manner.
With the same precautions, and always without attracting the attention of the other princes, Charles IV. saw the Abbé d’Estrades several times afterwards. It was arranged between them that Matthioly should proceed secretly to France, and that he should sign at Versailles, in the name of his master, the definitive treaty which would permit Louis XIV. to penetrate into the north of Italy. This journey of Matthioly’s was delayed for some months, first by a rather lengthened illness, which kept him at Mantua, then by Louis XIV.’s desire to defer till the following spring,—that is, till April, 1679,—the despatch of his troops to Casale.[490] At the end of October, 1678, Count Matthioly and Giuliani, in order to avert suspicion, announced their intention of paying a visit to Switzerland, and, in fact, proceeded thither, traversed it,[491] and arrived in Paris on November 28. At once placed in communication with M. de Pomponne, Minister of Exterior Relations, they discussed, and drew up in the most profound secrecy, the treaty of cession, which was signed on December 8,[492] and which stated:—