Note 279 — Chapter VIII · EUROPE PREPARES FOR WAR.

This episode of the recall of Vauguyon is treated at length by Grandmaison, L’Ambassade Française en Espagne pendant la Révolution, 21 ff. This author thinks that the suspicion originated with British emissaries in Paris, who wished to produce an estrangement between the Courts of France and Spain. This was, at least, its result. He quotes several letters that passed between Louis XVI and Charles IV regarding the matter. The Spanish King’s attitude unfortunately made it seem that there was some ground for the suspicion of Vauguyon. The French Court was considerably embarrassed thereby. There seems to be no doubt of the fact that Vauguyon was innocent, at least in so far as any complicity with the French Court was concerned.