But the best-laid schemes of men, mice, and monarchs here below oft come to naught. Two months after Mattioli's visit to Paris, the courts of Turin, of Madrid, and of Vienna, the Spanish governor of the Milanese provinces, and the state inquisitors of the Venetian republic--that is to say, all and every one most interested against the execution of the treaty--not only knew of its existence, but were fully advised of every detail concerning it, the names of the negotiators, the date of the instruments, the price of cession, when it was to be made, etc. In short, they knew every thing concerning it. Well they might. Mattioli himself had told them! His motive is a subject of dispute. One theory is, interested motive; another, patriotism. Certain it is he had more to gain--as a mere question of interest--by keeping than by betraying the secret. On this point, though, we do not undertake to judge him. In February, 1679, the Duchess of Savoy advised Louis XIV. that she was in possession of Mattioli's information. The disappointment, the mortification, and the anger of the French king can easily be imagined. He was placed in a position not only dangerous; but what was almost worse, ludicrous. Mattioli had the king's signature to the treaty in his possession, and it was all-important to recover it. The king in Paris, and his minister D'Estrades, both conceived the same idea for remedy in the matter. On the 28th of April, 1679, Louis sent the order to have Mattioli arrested, and on arrival of the order, Mattioli had already (May 2d) been carried off a prisoner. D'Estrades had managed to decoy him across the frontier, at a point where he had a detachment of dragoons waiting, and in a few hours the Italian was a prisoner at Pignerol, the commencement of a captivity that was to endure four and twenty long years. M. Topin then continues the discussion of Mattioli's case, and closes the article, leaving the reader under the impression that he decides against the claim of Mattioli. Indeed he goes further; for he more than intimates that there is very little probability of ever penetrating the mystery surrounding the Man with the Iron Mask. The case made for Mattioli has always been the strongest, even before the publication of the work of Mr. J. Delort, which was mostly appropriated by Ellis in his _True History of the State Prisoner_. Mr. Loiseleur has also discussed the Mattioli claim with great force; so successfully, indeed, that a very large number of critical scholars were satisfied with his adverse demonstration. M. Topin discusses at great length the facts and the reasoning of Mr. Loiseleur, and, as we have just stated, concludes his sixth article by a decision against Mattioli. But in his concluding chapter (_Correspondant_, Nov. 10th) he comes to a right-about face, takes up some of Mr. Loiseleur's proofs, adds some new dispatches, and decides that--Mattioli is the French prisoner of state known as the Man with the Iron Mask.