“... 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,