At this time the council of the Duke of Mantua, headed by his mother,[9] an Austrian Archduchess, was entirely in the interests of the Court of Spain; while the young Duke, plunged in pleasures and excesses of every kind, took little apparent interest in politicks. The great difficulty, therefore, which Estrades had to encounter in the prosecution of this intrigue, was the establishment of a channel of communication with the Duke; who, as has been stated, was surrounded by persons in the Spanish interest. If he could once enter into secret relations with that Prince, he hoped to be able to bribe him into a concurrence in his designs; for Ferdinand Charles was both needy and unprincipled. He had, besides, discovered, as he writes word to Lewis, in his first letter[10] to him, dated Venice, Dec. 18th, 1677, that the Duke was not so abandoned to his pleasures, but that he still had some ambition, and much chagrin at the state of subjection in which he was kept by his mother; joined to a great distrust of the Spaniards, who were supposed to foment the divisions of the Court of Mantua, with the view of, eventually, themselves obtaining possession of Casale and the rest of the Montferrat. The desired channel of communication Estrades thought he had found in Matthioli, who was a complete master of Italian politicks, as well as much in the Duke’s good graces. Before, however, he proceeded to enlist him in his service, he deemed it necessary to discover what was the bent of his inclinations. This he effected ingeniously enough, by sending a certain Giuliani, in whom he appears to have placed implicit confidence, to Verona, where Matthioli then was, to act as a spy upon him. The report of Giuliani, upon his return to Venice, was so favourable, both with regard to the discontent of Matthioli against the Spaniards, “who had always amused him with hopes, and afterwards abandoned him,”[11] and his wish to enter into the service of the French Monarch, that Estrades lost no time in sending him (Giuliani) back again for the purpose of conferring with Matthioli upon the subject of the proposed negociation.