The fury of Louis XIV at being thus exhibited to the world in his true
character of intriguer and brigand—and a feeble one at that—together
with the explanations and personal untruths in which he now found
himself involved (neither explanations nor personal untruths being at
all to his proud taste) may be more easily imagined than described.
Also his wrath with D’Estrades and Pinchesne for letting themselves be
made fools of by Mattioli. The former of these, however, instantly took
steps to assuage his master’s anger by submitting a plan of revenge; he
proposed that Mattioli should be kidnapped and imprisoned for so long
or so short a time as the King might please.
To this Louis consented, insisting only that the thing should be
done with the utmost secrecy; Mattioli was to be lured on to French
soil beyond the frontier of Piedmont and incarcerated in a dungeon
at Pinerolo. Except his gaoler there—one Saint-Mars, baptised
Benignant—and Catinat, no one was to know the prisoner’s name. As the
offended Louis put it to D’Estrades, “Look to it that no one knows what
becomes of this man.” So that it was now, as Americans say, “up to”
D’Estrades to carry out the abduction of Mattioli.
Oddly enough, Mattioli had not the least inkling of his peril; he
had no idea that the Duchess of Savoy had made known his transaction
with her to Louis XIV, and so he was all unsuspecting of the advances
with which D’Estrades continued to ply him. Indeed, he was now in
Turin, trying to get more money out of the French representatives, on
the ground of the expenses incurred by him in promoting King Louis’
interests in Italy. To that, on D’Estrades’ telling him that Catinat
was at Pinerolo with funds for the express purpose of reimbursing him,
Mattioli agreed to meet D’Estrades early in the morning of May 2, 1679,
at a spot outside the city, whence they were to drive together to a
place on the frontier near Pinerolo.
Mattioli kept the appointment; D’Estrades was waiting for him at the
place set, and away the carriage rolled with its burden of revenge, and
treachery, and greed, along the country roads to where, at the end of
some seventeen miles, Catinat was waiting for them.
And so the meeting took place and, all unwittingly, Mattioli stepped
in between the very teeth of the trap set for him by D’Estrades; and at
once the teeth snapped to, never again to open for the unhappy man. At
two o’clock that same afternoon, in Mr. Hopkins’ words, “Saint-Mars had
him under lock in the dungeon of Pignerol—the French name for Pinerolo.
There, for fifteen years, Mattioli was confined under circumstances
of every severity; his name was changed, officially, to Lestang, in
order that none might know his identity saving only that same Benignant
Saint-Mars—as timorous and heartless a creature as ever passed for a
man.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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