great a merit on your part in the eyes of the most generous and the greatest King in the world, who has testified to you himself the good-will he bears you for it; who has praised the address with which you have conducted the negociation; who has begun by giving you several marks of his esteem and liberality; and who has promised you besides such great advantages as would be sufficient to establish all your family, and to make you happy for the rest of your days. As his word has always been inviolable, you no doubt rely upon it implicitly: you must be aware, also, how dangerous it would be to deceive him, and that, after all the steps he has taken, and the measures he has agreed upon, you would expose his Highness, and yourself, to very great misfortunes, if his Majesty had reason to think that bad faith had been made use of towards him, after a treaty concluded in all the proper forms with himself, and founded upon a full power; the inexecution of which would only serve to ruin a Prince, who abandons himself to your councils, and who would be infallibly stripped by the Spaniards, who would be willing once for all to deliver themselves from the alarms which they have received from the reports spread about on all sides respecting this affair. I have already told you, Sir, that I believe you as well-intentioned as ever, and that it is not for the purpose of exciting you to return to these good sentiments, or to strengthen them, that I speak to you in this manner; but only lest a longer delay should diminish the good opinion entertained of you, and lest umbrage should be taken that an affair in which secrecy was so important, has been made public, although the King, and those who have the honour to serve him, have kept the secret so well that it cannot have been got at through them. I hope, nevertheless, that we shall soon be satisfied; and that I shall have the pleasure to see you worthily recompensed for your zeal: I assure you, Sir, that your interest, more than my own, though I have much in this affair, makes me desirous of it. THE ABBÉ D’ESTRADES.[261] [261] From the work of M. Roux (Fazillac). No. 73. LOUVOIS TO SAINT-MARS. St. Germain, March 26th, 1679. I have received your letter of the 21st of this month. You will have seen by my former ones, that the King approves of the officers of the citadel of Pignerol visiting your prisoners, and passing the mornings and afternoons with them when they desire it, in the presence of one of your own officers.[262] I can only now repeat the same thing to you, and tell you, that with regard to the governor, the officers, and the inhabitants of the town, you may act in the same manner by them, when you shall judge fit: not, however, until after the affair, for which the Sieur de Richemont is at Pignerol, shall have succeeded or failed.