This care in destroying everything that might reveal Matthioly’s presence at Pignerol had at that time become especially necessary. It was no longer, as in 1679, merely Louis XIV.’s pride which exacted that the greatest mystery should surround his victim’s existence. Since the date of the abduction, the face of things in Italy had changed. The King of France could no longer hold forth there as a master; his armies had ceased to be constantly victorious, and he was expiating his impolitic and inopportune interference in the affairs of the peninsula. That petty Duke of Savoy, whom we saw twelve years previously submitting himself, with imprecations, to the yoke of his imperious neighbour, had, in 1693, attained a position which enabled him to exercise over the progress of events an influence much greater than that due to the extent of his territories. This Prince had succeeded in counterbalancing the weakness of his position by his duplicity in changing his alliances, by his dissembling language, and by his happy promptitude in making use of favourable circumstances. In his policy he had always preferred sharp practices to honest acts, and he deceived in turn and with equal perfidy both Louis XIV. and the enemies of the King of France. The latter was anxious for peace, with the view of directing all his efforts and all his attention towards the question of the Spanish succession, just about to open; and peace depended almost entirely upon Victor-Amadeus, who, at first so humble, and for a long time so despised, was now taking his revenge. “We are proud, and wish to make use of the necessity in which we know very well that the King is placed, in order to make a general peace for ourselves,” said the Marquis de Saint-Thomas,[604] Minister of Savoy, to Count de Tessé. So it was no longer the restitution of the conquests made in Piedmont, and the surrender of Caslae, that Victor-Amadeus demanded, but the possession of Pignerol, that valuable acquisition of Richelieu, a French town for the last sixty years, and whose surrender, which Louis XIV. finished by resigning himself, was a just expiation for his ambitious projects of aggrandisement. Possessing already one of the keys of Italy, he had wished to acquire the other, so as to keep under his control the Duke of Savoy, who would thus have been enclosed between two formidable towns, and he was now compelled to cede him Pignerol, and to withdraw his troops from Casale.