The True History of the State Prisoner, Commonly Called the Iron Mask

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: APPENDIX. No. I. ESTRADES TO LEWIS THE FOURTEENTH. Commencement of the Negociation.?State of the Court of Mantua.?Influence of the Spaniards there. Venice, Dec. 18th, 1677. Sire, As the grief I felt at having displeased your Majesty was extreme, so my joy is not less to learn from M. de Pomponne, that your...
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: APPENDIX. No. I. ESTRADES TO LEWIS THE FOURTEENTH. Commencement of the Negociation.?State of the Court of Mantua.?Influence of the Spaniards there. Venice, Dec. 18th, 1677. Sire, As the grief I felt at having displeased your Majesty was extreme, so my joy is not less to learn from M. de Pomponne, that your Majesty has had the goodness to pardon me my too great facility; and that you have been graciously pleased to listen to the reasons, which I took the liberty to offer to you, in justification of the innocence of my intentions; however, Sire, this misfortune willoblige me, in future, to act in all things with so great a circumspection, that your Majesty will, I hope, never have cause to be dissatisfied with my conduct. I have thus far deferred informing your Majesty of a project, which my anxiety for your service has suggested to me, because the success of it appeared so difficult that I did not venture to propose it, till I saw some chance of being able to accomplish it; but, as the affair is at present in a favourable state, I can almost assure your Majesty, that the conclusion of it will depend upon yourself. I shall now give you an exact account of it, in order that I may receive the orders it shall please you to send me; which I will take care to execute punctually. About four months ago, having become more particularly acquainted with the divisions at the Court at Mantua than before was the case, and having heard that the Duke of Mantua was not so abandoned to his pleasures but that he still had some ambition, and much chagrin at the state to which he was reduced by his mother, and his suspicions of the Spaniards; I hoped that it would not be impossible to detach him entirely from them, to induce him- to enter into the views of your Majesty, and to pers...