By a strange coincidence, at the very moment of Matthioly’s death, his master, Charles IV., Duke of Mantua, arrived in Paris. But he--who had abandoned himself more and more to Louis XIV., to whom he had sold one of the keys of Italy, and had recently delivered up Mantua itself, besides having several times permitted him to pass through his States in order to invade the peninsula--was fêted as he deserved to be, and was received as a true Frenchman. He descended at the Palace of the Luxembourg, magnificently fitted up for him with the furniture of the Crown. Seven tables were constantly served at the King’s expense for the Duke and his suite, and brilliant fêtes were given him at Meudon and Versailles, where he received from Louis XIV. a splendid sword covered with diamonds.[651] It has been said[652] that it would have been extremely imprudent to have inscribed Matthioly’s real name upon the registers of Saint-Paul’s, at the date of the Duke’s arrival in Paris, since the latter might thus have become acquainted with his death. We know what kind of interest Charles IV. took in his ex-confidant, and we have seen that he only troubled himself with making sure of his positive disappearance. Instead, therefore, of the fact of this death being concealed from him, it is very possible that he was made acquainted with it, with the view of altogether dissipating his alarms. However this may be, history presents some singular meetings, and reality often surpasses in interest the most romantic fancies of the imagination. Of the two individuals who had played the principal part in the cession of Casale to Louis XIV., the Prince who had agreed to it contrary to his duty, in order to obtain a little money and satisfy his prodigality, was the object of gorgeous fêtes; while at the same moment, in the same town, and only a short distance off, his ex-Minister, whom he had created Senator and Count, who was allied to the most illustrious families of his country, and who had once also been magnificently received by Louis XIV. at Versailles, but who had afterwards for an instant arrested the monarch’s overwhelming ambition and delayed the servitude of Mantua, was dying far away from his friends, in a little chamber of the Bastille, after a captivity of four-and-twenty years; and the next day, at the fall of night, was obscurely borne to the neighbouring church, followed only by two subordinate officials belonging to the fortress. FOOTNOTES: [624] _Journal_, vol. i. p. 133. [625] _Mémoires de Mademoiselle de Montpensier_, vol. iii. p. 225. [626] _Mémoires de Saint-Simon_, vol. xiii. p. 16. [627] _Souvenirs de Madame de Caylus_. [628] _Correspondance Administrative sous Louis XIV._, vol. ii. p. 571. See also M. P. Clément, _La Police sous Louis XIV._, p. 89. [629] Chapter XXIII., pp. 347, 348, _ante_. [630] See Chap. XXIII., note 29, pp. 346, 347, _ante_.