The same day[513] the Abbé d’Estrades urges upon the Government of Versailles the necessity of granting the authorisation to kidnap Matthioly.
“... I believe that what I have already had the honour of stating to the King proves Mattioli’s perfidy sufficiently clearly; he has been here for the last four days, and has come to see me with great precautions, as if he had much interest in concealing himself; nevertheless, every morning he has had conferences with a person named Tarin, who is the man that Madame R.[514] sent to Padua to ascertain what it was he had to communicate to her; he has insinuated a thousand falsehoods in his conversations with him; he has wished to have it believed that he saw me every day, although I have only spoken to him once; and that the Duke of Mantua had sent him here in order to declare to me that this Prince could not keep his word to his Majesty on the subject of the Casale treaty. Whilst I have been writing this despatch, Mattioli has again come to see me, and the manner in which he has spoken to me has so clearly shown me his bad faith, that, even if I could possibly have had any doubt concerning it, he would have left me in no uncertainty; he has proposed to me some ridiculous schemes which would tend only to involve his Majesty in fresh embarrassments; he has told me that he leaves to-morrow in order to have an interview with the governor of Casale, who was pressing him strongly to visit him, and who hoped that the place would soon be in the hands of the King; as he has assured me that he would return during the present week at the latest, and, as I know that a few days afterwards he is to go back to Venice, I have not time to await his Majesty’s orders to arrest him. It is, nevertheless, so important to do this, that there remains to me only to think of the means of executing the design without scandal, with the view that the rumours which would ensue should not revive those which have been caused by the affair which he was negotiating, and of its not being known what had become of him. I have thought that it was impossible for me to succeed in this, except by entrusting Madame Royale with the secret, since I could not make certain of the person of Mattioli in Turin or in the States of the Duke of Savoy, without resorting to a violence at which she would show herself offended, and by whatever pretext I might have wished to attract him towards Pignerol, this Princess, whom he informs of all that passes between himself and me, would have warned him, no doubt, to take care of himself; I have seen myself compelled to act thus, from what she said to me two days ago, that since Mattioli was here, he might dwell at Pignerol or take a stroll in France for longer than he imagined, I replied she was so enlightened that I thought I ought not to neglect the idea which she gave me; that I would reflect upon it, and that, meanwhile, I begged of her in the name of the King not to mention anything which could imperil the effect of the resolution which I might take for his Majesty’s service, but that I would not execute it without communicating with her. She promised me this, and, after having thanked me for having been so willing to act in concert with her, she charged me to behave in such a way that Mattioli should not be arrested on her territories, so that she might not have to reproach herself with having delivered up a man who, although guilty of a treason, had, nevertheless, confided in her. I was this morning with Madame Royale, and, after having represented to her that it was of extreme consequence that Mattioli should be put in a place where he could no longer pay his court to the Spaniards and Venetians by means of the false confidences which I knew him to be making to them every day, I have assured her that I would arrange my plans in such a way that he would be taken to Pignerol without his having any suspicion of it till he was out of the States of her Royal Highness, and on the point of entering the place; she has shown herself satisfied with my assurance, and she has said to me that I could plainly see that she was contributing as much as possible to what would be of service to the King, since she had not dissuaded Mattioli from the visit which he had made here, and of which he had advised her, although she had never had the smallest doubt of what would befall him through it.
“Besides the reasons, Sir, which I have already explained to you, I have since had some news tending to determine me to seize Mattioli; first, I know that he has been unwilling to give up to the Duke of Mantua the originals of the papers relating to the treaty, no matter what pressure this Prince, who has only copies of them, may have put upon him, and that he retains them in order to show them to those from whom he wishes to extract money, and who would not believe him upon slighter proofs. Juliani [Giuliani] has written to me that D. Joseph Varano, who stands very well with M. de Mantua, and who has always manifested his desire that his master should place himself under the King’s protection by means of the treaty of Casale, and to whom my letter will be delivered, and not to Vialardi, as I had informed you—having in writing used one name for the other—was to have an interview with him about this affair, and that he will assuredly not enter into any engagement whilst Mattioli is at liberty. Lastly, I have received information from Milan that the Duke of Mantua has asked the Spaniards for six hundred thousand crowns,[515] declaring to them that not being able to fortify Casale without it, he would not answer for the safe custody of this place, and that the Count de Melgar, who was willing to give them to him, was making useless efforts to raise them, and that he will not obtain them; so that it is probable that this Prince, who is only looking out for money, on losing the hope of getting it from Spain, will listen to the offers made him on behalf of the King, and that his Majesty will find himself in possession of an important place, which will always remain in his hands, through the death of the Duke of Mantua, whose health is so ruined by his debauches, by the incurable diseases produced by them, and by the poison which it is publicly stated was given him a little while since—that according to all appearances he cannot have long to live. One may add that if this Prince should happen to die before the execution of the treaty, his Majesty would have the right of doing himself justice by producing M. de Mantua’s letter, and the full powers which sufficiently authorise the articles which have been agreed on, but it is necessary for this purpose to get them out of Mattioli’s hands, which cannot be done if we do not make ourselves masters of his person, since he never carries them about with him.
“Such, Sir, are the motives which oblige me not to allow him to escape, and in order to succeed in the affair, I have written to M. de Catinat that it is necessary that we should see one another at the beginning of the present week; I shall inform him at length of the state in which matters are, and shall tell him to select me a place near to Pignerol, whither I can proceed with Mattioli on a given day, when he shall have returned from the visit which he has paid to Casale, and to send there secretly a few men well armed, because I know that he always carries two pistols in his pockets with two others and a poignard in his belt; I shall conduct him to this place in my carriage under the pretext of having a conference with M. Catinat, and I have already so well inclined him to it that he has testified to me his desire for it; as I have spoken to him in such a way as to remove all kind of suspicion, and as he affects to fear lest the intercourse which we have with one another here should be discovered, he has of himself entered into all the precautions that I have wished to take, and we have agreed, in order to avoid the accidents which might happen, that we will only meet M. Catinat [at a spot] both out of sight of Pignerol and of the States of the Duke of Savoy; it is there also that I hope to place him in good hands, and I have no doubt but that M. de Saint-Mars will be very willing to receive him on M. Catinat’s report and my word, at least until it shall have pleased his Majesty to order otherwise.
“I am, etc.
“L’Abbé D’Estrades.”
On April 29[516] D’Estrades returns to the charge, and adduces the strong reasons which he considers ought to determine Matthioly’s arrest:—
“Juliany (Giuliani) has told me that he has spoken to Don Joseph Varano, who has promised him to do his utmost to renew the affair of Casale, but that at present M. de Mantua did not wish to hear anything spoken of except capturing or killing Mattioli, who, he complains, has betrayed him. He has learnt from this same Varano that what most disquieted M. de Mantua was, that Mattioli had made him ratify the treaty, and that he had kept possession of the ratification with all the other papers concerning this affair; so that when we are masters of Mattioli’s person, we will compel him to give up this ratification together with the rest. And so, Sir, you see of what consequence it is to arrest him. I no longer hesitate, moreover, about doing it, especially since I have seen that M. Catinat, with whom I had an interview two days ago, and with whom I have taken all the necessary measures, considered, after what I had told him concerning everything, that the execution of this resolution ought not to be delayed. I hope that in four or five days’ time it will be a settled affair, and I shall inform you of the manner in which it has been accomplished. It seems to me that when one has obliged Mattioli to deliver up among the other papers the ratification of M. de Mantua, if he has indeed given it to this man, the King will have the right to demand the execution of the ratified treaty, in the event of this Prince not wishing to take the ways of agreeableness and negotiations.”
At length, on April 28, Louis consents to the arrest.[517] But when his orders arrive at Turin, Matthioly had already been carried off since May 2.
“I must inform you,” wrote D’Estrades to Pomponne, “in what manner I have brought Mattioli into a secure place. I have already had the honour to acquaint you that I had been studious to exhibit towards him entire confidence, and to cause him to entertain the desire of having an interview with M. Catinat; Giuliani, who arrived here three or four days ago, and whose fidelity to speak truly deserves to be taken into consideration, furnished me with a new means which was very useful. He told me that Mattioli had informed him that the expenses of numerous journeys, and the presents which he had been obliged to give to M. de Mantua’s mistresses in order to render them favourable, had exhausted his resources, and that he was at present without money; Giuliani did not hesitate to promise that I would let him have what he might require, and on this intelligence I told him [Matthioly] in confidence that we had only to seek expedients to renew our affair; and that provided the Duke of Mantua still had the same sentiments, it would not be difficult for us to promptly execute the treaty, since M. Catinat not only possessed the power to cause the troops destined for that purpose to arrive and to command them, but that he also had a very considerable sum to meet all the expenses that he might consider necessary, that Giuliani had represented to me the state in which he was, and that I would cause to be given to him whatever he might desire. I added that there was no need to have any false delicacy about it; that it was neither my money nor M. Catinat’s which I was offering him, but his Majesty’s, who did not believe that he could employ it better than for so important an affair. As he is one of the greatest rogues who have ever lived, this proposition made him extremely impatient to see M. Catinat; and he pressed me with reasons which he at once concocted not to delay the conference that we were to have with him; we made an appointment for the following day, Tuesday, the 2nd of the present month; and I gave him a rendezvous half a mile from Turin in a church, whither I was to proceed and take him up in my carriage at six o’clock in the morning; unfortunately there had been three days of very bad weather; it was still raining heavily on that day, and as the streams of this country easily become swollen, we found one called the Guisiola, three miles from the place to which we had to go, the waters of which were so high that the horses could only cross it by swimming; there was only a single bridge, which was half destroyed, and I was in despair at this hindrance. When after having perceived that it was absolutely necessary to repair the bridge with planks in order to be able to cross on foot, Mattioli worked at it with so much zeal, that in an hour we put it into a state to make use of it.