The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-04-08

well move about the country without exciting |
suspicion, to watch and to sound him at We
roma Gluliani was not long in ascertaining
Matthioly's aversion to the Spaniards,
from whom he had never been able to
obtain more than empty promises, and the two
soon came to an understanding; the Duke OF
Mantua was as easily persuaded, and meet
ing was accordingly agreed upon between him
and dEssrades. 1t was arranged that this
meeting should take place at Venice during
the carnival, when every one, including even
the Doge, the Senators, and the Papal Nunoio,
went abroad masked, and there seemed, there
fore, no possibility of suspicion attaching to
the plotters. Thus, strangely enough, this
long and eventful negotiation began as 1t
ended, in masquerade but little could the
unhappy Matthioly have OWNED in what sort
Of masquing it would terminate
The Duke of Mantua and dEstrades met on
the 18th March, 1878, as if by chance, in the
open street at midnight after q ball, and there,
in disguise, safely discussed the prelimina-
ries. In the following month of October,
Matthjoly and Giuliani, after success
fully eiuding the vigilance of foreign
spies, and pretending journey to
Switzerland, started for Paris, where they
signed treaty, the conditions of which were
| the following:-1st. That the Duke of Mantua
| should admit French troops into Casale.
3D. That he should be appointed Commander
in-Chief of any army which Louis might send
| into Italy; and Sd. That when the provisions
of the treaty were carried out, sum of
1000 crowns should be paid to him.
On the signature of the treaty, Matthioly
was received in q private audience by Louis
| XIV. He was treated with the most fattering
marks of distinction; in memory of his jour
ney, the King offered him valuable dia-
| mond, and a sum of 400 double louis, and
further promised that, on the ratification of the
| treaty, a much larger sum should be paid to
| him, that his son should be appointed page at
the French Court, and that his brother
should receive valuable living.
Never as M. Topin observes, had any in
trigue been resskilfully devised, nor had a
| fairer prospect of success The powers with
| whose interests the scheme clashed were still
| in utter ignorance of it's existence, the con-
| tracting parties fully agreed in every point,
| and the negotiators on both sides, to all ap
| pearance, equally interested sn its fulflment.
| Notwithstanding this, it is an undoubted
| fact that two months after Matthioly's jour
ney to Paris, all the governments interested
| in the failure of the project-namey those
| of Turin, Madrid, Vienna, and Venice-were
fully informed of every particular; and they
| were so owing to the fact that they had at
| various times received detailed statements on
| the subject from the principal agent in the
| intrigue Count Matthioly himself.
His motive for this conduct it is, indeed,
bard to guess. M. Topin supposes that,
although willing in the first instance to sell
his country to France, Matthioly may perhaps
| afterwards have had qualms of conscience,
and, moved by tardy patriotism, may have
| wished to undo his own work by betraying
| the plot while it was yet time This con-
| lecture, we own, seems to rest on no solid
foundation. In the first place, patriotism was
not in vogue among the Italian statesmen of
those days. Secondly, the state of affairs in
Al.,A, nlroxx
his country from the clutches of one spoiler
he must have known that he was merely
placing her at the mercy of another; for Italy 8
chains were then firmly riveted that q
change in her condition implied no more than
a change of jailers and thus she would pass
from the tyranny and cupidity of one foreigner
to those of another,
'Per servir sempre, o vncitrice vinta."
Less improbable does it seem that the
urgent wants of the rapacious and needy
gamester whom he served obliged Matthioly
to sell his secret to any one likely to pay
for it, and in some such reason as this
we must find the key to his strange,
reckless and suicidal conduct. To what
extent he was his masters anne dGmnee, may
easily be gathered from the foregoing; that
he did not fully trust his master we may per-
ceive from the fact that he withheld from him
the original documents touching the negotia,
tions and kept them concealed; that in the
end he was sacrificed to his masters exi.
gencies as we'll as to Louis resentment, we
can not well doubt. even if we do not attach
Importance to the facts that Charles and Louis
were afterwards fully reconciled, and that the
sudden illness and death of Matthioly in the
Bastile conceded somewhat ominously with
the Duke of Mantua's visit to Paris. Distrus
of each other, moreover, was an element
which, among negotiators constituted as they
must have been, was likely to enter largely
, into the incentives which determined theil
conduct; for it must be recollected that Louis
! who, as regards common honor and honesty
appears of all parties to the least disadvantag,
on the occasion, had himself not scrupled t.
break almost every internati onal engagement
into which he had entered; that his character
therefore, for good faith can hardly hav'
: stood high from the manner in which he hat
observed the stipulations of the treaties o
the Pyrenees and of AK.
The Duchess of Savoy was the first persol
[ whom Matthioly informed of his dealing
) with France. On the 31st of December
that is, Just twenty three days after the sigma
! ture of the treaty-she received from Matthi
oily all the original documents connecte
I with the negotiation, of which ihe KEEP
5 copies. Fully alive to the fact that of al
9 Italian governments her own had most t
o fear from Louis resentment, and concluding
@ that the other governments interested ha
g been equally apprifed, she hastened to In
Q form him of what was passing He wa
}, thunderstruck on receiving these tidings
j which reache him in February, 1879, for a
v the arrangements made for the seizure O
Casale were in full progress. Baron dAsfel