[261] From the work of M. Roux (Fazillac).
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.
I address to you a packet for the Abbé d'Estrades, which you will send him, if you please, by one of your officers, with a direction in your hand-writing; and when he shall have despatched to you his answer, you will send it to me by the return of the same courier, whom, in the meanwhile, you will keep concealed in the prison.
[262] Saint-Mars only commanded in that part of the citadel of Pignerol which was appropriated to the use of a State-prison.
The King is extremely anxious for the success of the affair of the Duke of Mantua. We have heard nothing from M. d'Asfeld, and, therefore, can have no doubt of his being prisoner in the Milanese. The news which you received of his being arrested at La Canonica, was doubtless as true as that of his being released again was the reverse. We shall now see if the firmness of the Duke of Mantua, which has thus far resisted the efforts of the Count Carrossa, and of the Republic of Venice, will continue to the end: we cannot be long without having this point cleared up, if, as you mention in your letter of the 11th, he had set off the night before to go to Casale. Your next letters will, of course, bring us fresh intelligence upon the subject.
[264] From the Archives of the Office for Foreign Affairs, at Paris.
I have received your letter of the 18th of March, which shows the bad state in which, according to the Count Matthioli's own accounts, the affair of Mantua is: he is very possibly, as you say, the sole author of all the accidents and impediments in it, which he writes word, in his letter to Giuliani, have happened. Your next letters will give us still clearer intelligence on this subject; but we have many reasons for apprehending that this negociation, which appeared so much advanced, may fail at last, when we were in the immediate expectation of seeing it happily concluded. * *
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