Not stopping there, the note also insisted that Tuscany should be evacuated by the French troops, who were not needed, and had become an intolerable burden, so that the country was reduced to the utmost misery. Next, King Charles demanded that Parma and Piacenza should be surrendered to the King of Etruria, to whom they belonged as the heir of the late Duke of Parma. Finally, the note closed with a complaint even more grave in substance than any of the rest:—
- "The King my master could have wished also a little more friendly frankness in communicating the negotiations with England, and especially in regard to the dispositions of the Northern courts, guarantors of the treaty of Amiens; but as this affair belongs to negotiations of another kind, the undersigned abstains for the moment from entering into them, reserving the right to do so on a better occasion."
Beurnonville, the French minister at Madrid, tried to soothe or silence the complaints of Cevallos; but found himself only silenced in return. The views of the Spanish secretary were energetic, precise, and not to be met by argument.[1] "I have not been able to bring M. Cevallos to any moderate, conciliatory, or even calm expression," wrote Beurnonville to Talleyrand; "he has persistently shown himself inaccessible to all persuasion." The Prince of Peace was no more manageable than Cevallos: "While substituting
- ↑ Beurnon to Talleyrand, 24 Prairial, An xi. (June 13, 1803); Archives des Aff. Étr., MSS.
