Note 1350 — Chapter VIII

He ‘committed the military defence of these provinces to the Marquis of Grana, the Austrian ambassador at Madrid, from the want of any Spanish commander whose courage or military endowments qualified him to repel such an enemy as the king of France.’ Dunlop's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 232. Compare, on the want of Spanish generals, Mémoires du Maréchal de Gramont, vol. ii. p. 82, edit. Paris, 1827. The opinion which Grana himself formed of the Spanish government, may be learned from a conversation which he held at Madrid, in 1680, with the French ambassadress, and which is preserved in her correspondence. Lettres de Madame la Marquise de Villars, Amsterdam, 1759, pp. 118, 119.