It is difficult to say with any degree of certainty on what grounds this charge was based, since Bassompierre himself throws no light upon the subject. But it would appear from a manuscript of Dupuy in the Bibliothèque Nationale that, during the marshal’s embassy to Madrid, the Spanish Government had proposed to him a commercial treaty between France and Spain, and that in 1623 Bassompierre had presented a memorial to Louis XIII in favour of this project. In the margin of his copy of this memorial Dupuy gives his own opinion of the proposed treaty, and while praising the ability with which Bassompierre has stated the case in its favour, he foresees several objections, and among them, the following:-- “Without doubt this proposition of the King of Spain contains some hidden artifice, which his Majesty will not discover until after he has completely committed himself, and then it will be too late to remedy it.” It is therefore not improbable that, at the beginning of the following year, La Vieuville had seized the pretext of this memorial to accuse Bassompierre of having accepted money from the Court of Madrid to advocate a proposal which was to the disadvantage of France. However that may be, La Vieuville was very active in the matter, and in May caused the arrest of one Alphonso Lopez, a Spanish Moor, who had long resided in Paris, where he carried on an extensive trade in jewellery, tapestries, and _objets d’art_, and who, in the course of his business, was a frequent visitor to Bassompierre’s house, “imagining that by his means,” says the marshal, “he might discover something against me.” Bassompierre demanded an audience of Louis XIII, who was at Compiègne, in order that he might have an opportunity of defending himself; but his Majesty did not seem anxious to grant it. “At length, the King promised to speak to me one evening in June, on the rampart which is near his cabinet.... I said to him what God inspired me to say in favour of my innocence and against the calumny of La Vieuville; in such fashion that I stood very well with him, and he [La Vieuville] very ill. And, the better to conceal our game, the King desired me not to speak to him in public, save when I came to take the password from him, when he [Illustration: CHARLES, MARQUIS DE LA VIEUVILLE. From a contemporary print.] would be able to say a few words to me, and I to him. And he said that he intended to seem displeased with me, and that I must not show any appearance of having been reconciled with him, and that if I had anything to say to him, it should be through the medium of Toiras, Beaumont, or the Chevalier de Souvré. Finally, after I had spoken to the King, I had no longer any doubt that La Vieuville would be completely ruined.”