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From the time that restrictions on the press were removed, hardly a day passed without the appearance of some new pamphlet on the Iron Mask. He proved that Louis XIV had really ordered one of the Duke of Mantua's ministers to be carried off and imprisoned in Pignerol. Dutens gave the name of the victim as Girolamo Magni.
This theory, of which much was heard later, did not at first excite much attention. What is certain is that the Duke of Mantua's secretary, by name Matthioli, was arrested in 1679 through the agency of Abbe d'Estrade and M. de Catinat, and taken with the utmost secrecy to Pignerol, where he was imprisoned and placed in charge of M. de Saint-Mars.
Pontchartrain, who came and reasoned with her, was even less successful than I, for he excited her by threats and menaces. M. le Prince himself supported us having no longer any hope for himself, and fearing, above all things, M. de Mantua's marriage with a Lorraine and did all he could to persuade Madame de Lesdiguieres to give in.
Happily the king, who had just repulsed the Marquis of Mantua's attack, perceived what was going on behind him, and riding back at all possible speed to the succour of the centre, together with the gentlemen of his household fell upon the Stradiotes, no longer armed with a lance, for that he had just broken, but brandishing his long sword, which blazed about him like lightning, and either because he was whirled away like Bourbon by his own horse, or because he had allowed his courage to take him too far he suddenly found himself in the thickest ranks of the Stradiotes, accompanied only by eight of the knights he had just now created, one equerry called Antoine des Ambus, and his standard-bearer.
In the first place, half of her household was in bed, ladies and servants alike were suffering from a feverish epidemic which had attacked the whole court; and in the second place, many preparations were necessary if she were to appear at Milan in state worthy of the Marquis of Mantua's wife.
It seems to me he must have had a sense of musical rhythm, for there has remained in my ear ever since a stanza of his which I caught as he read it to a little coterie of students. There is nothing in it save its melody. "The while amid the greenwood Whistled the summer breeze Fair Mantua's maiden swore to wed Her loving Genoese."
Pontchartrain, who came and reasoned with her, was even less successful than I, for he excited her by threats and menaces. M. le Prince himself supported us having no longer any hope for himself, and fearing, above all things, M. de Mantua's marriage with a Lorraine and did all he could to persuade Madame de Lesdiguieres to give in.
There, too, was Galeotto Prince of Mirandola, the husband of the gifted Bianca d'Este, and Rodolfo Gonzaga, the Marquis of Mantua's uncle, and, conspicuous by their lofty stature and martial air, the four Sanseverino brothers.
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