The King has been informed by the Sieur de Pinchesne, of all the measures which you have taken with him and with M. d’Asfeld, for the execution of the affair, which has been conducted by your labours, and of the time which the Duke of Mantua has arranged for being at Casale. He is, besides, aware that M. d’Asfeld was to leave Venice some days earlier, according to the agreement that you had made together; but as he learns by his letters from Piedmont, that it is very possible he may have been arrested in his passage through the Milanese, and placed in the Castle of Milan, he has judged it right to supply his place with the person who will deliver you this letter; it is the same whom he has honoured principally with his confidence for the execution and the conduct of all that shall be to be done with you and the Duke of Mantua, after the arrival of that Prince at Casale. Therefore you will, if you please, place entire confidence in him, and particularly in the assurances which he will give you of the good-will of his Majesty for you, and of his sense of the service you are rendering to him. For myself, Sir, I intreat you to believe me with the most perfect truth, &c. POMPONNE.[260] [260] From the Archives of the Office for Foreign Affairs, at Paris. No. 72. ESTRADES TO MATTHIOLI. Complaints of the Delays in the Conclusion of the Negociation. Turin, March 24th, 1679. I have thought it my duty, Sir, to give you advice of my arrival at this court, in order that you may be able to let me know whatever you shall judge necessary; and that whatsoever remains to be done, for the termination of what has been already resolved, may be the more easy of execution, from the proximity of the places at which we respectively are. You cannot doubt its being with this view, that the wish has been expressed for my coming here; and I have been the more glad to come, because I hoped that I should not be long without seeing the effect of the engagements which you have entered into with the king. If I was not aware of your probity and of your zeal for the interests of His Majesty, and for the advantage of the Prince to whom you are attached, I should have been dreadfully uneasy at the delay of our affair, which ought without fail, and at the latest, to have been concluded at the commencement of this month. But though we are already at the 24th, and that all you can desire on our part is entirely ready, I cannot persuade myself that the intentions of his Highness and your own are other than they always were. You have been so well aware, how much this affair would be useful to him at present, and glorious for the future, and you have made him so well comprehend this, that I cannot have any suspicions on this head; neither can I, when I represent to myself the very considerable interest you have in completing an affair of this importance, of which the conclusion will be considered so