The beginnings of Mattioli’s tragedy were simple enough. They had their foundation, on the one hand, in the overweening ambition of Louis XIV in regard to Italy, where France had possessed Pinerolo since Cardinal Richelieu’s time; and, on the other hand, in the extravagance and debauchery—and the consequent need of money—of one of the most contemptible men who ever lived: Charles of Gonzaga, fourth Duke of Mantua and the owner of the Marquisate of Montferrat, with its strong place of Casale, that lay on the Po, between forty and fifty miles east of Turin. Thus, if Casale could only be brought within his power, the French King would be in a position to prevent any further advance of the Piedmontese into Italy by his own domination in Lombardy. It was his minister of war, the brilliant, if unscrupulous and personally immoral Louvois, who suggested to Louis in 1676 the idea of possessing himself of Casale, and so of making France the arbiter of Italian development. Nothing could have been more to the taste of the monarch whose appetite for Italy at that time was being whetted by his naval triumph over his Dutch and Spanish adversaries off Sicily, by which he enjoyed for a space the sovereignty of the Mediterranean. The only possible difficulty in the matter was that of inducing the owner of Casale, the Duke of Mantua, to make over the control of it to King Louis—a difficulty of which the astute Louvois undertook to dispose, without fail, by means of pressure in the right place. Thus reassured, his sovereign left the management of the affair entirely in the hands of Louvois. Louvois did not keep the King waiting long for further and most welcome news upon the subject of Casale and the Duke of Mantua. He had placed the matter, he reported, with the French representative in Venice, the Abbé D’Estrades, for investigation; and D’Estrades, an ambitious, intriguing man, only too anxious for an opportunity of distinguishing himself in the eyes of his master, had replied that he felt perfect confidence in his own ability to bring about the desired result. He was thoroughly informed, he said, of the Duke of Mantua’s affairs; and, so far as these were concerned, the success of the enterprise was a foregone conclusion.