But the real quarrel was between Soult and King Joseph. The first was in a sullen and captious mood, because the King had caused him to evacuate his much-prized viceroyalty in Andalusia, by refusing to join him there in September. But Joseph was at a much higher pitch of passion; not only did he still remember all Soult’s disobedience in July and August, which (as he thought) had led to the unnecessary loss of Madrid, but he had a new and a much more bitter grievance. Some time before the Army of the South reached Valencia, he had become possessed of the dispatch to the minister of war which Soult had written on August 12th, in which he hinted that the King was meditating treachery to his brother the Emperor, and had opened up negotiations with the Cortes in order to betray the French cause[112]. This document--as has been explained above--had been given by Soult to a privateer captain bound from Malaga to Toulon, who had been forced to run into the harbour of Valencia by the British blockading squadron. Not knowing the contents of the document, the captain had handed it over to the King, when he found him at Valencia. Thus Joseph was aware that the Marshal had accused him, on the most flimsy evidence, of betraying his brother. He was justly indignant, and had contemplated, in his first outburst of rage, the arrest and supersession of Soult. His next impulse had been to send off his confidential aide-de-camp Colonel Deprez, to seek first the minister of war at Paris, and then the Emperor himself in Russia[113], with his petition for vengeance. ‘Je demande justice. Que le Maréchal Soult soit rappelé, entendu, et puni[114].’ If his enemy had appeared at Valencia early in September, he would probably have taken the most extreme measures against him. But three weeks had gone by, his anger had had time to cool, and he could realize the danger of attempting to seize and deport a marshal whose army was double the size of his own and Suchet’s combined, and who had a powerful faction to support him among his own generals. Joseph hoped that a mandate for Soult’s recall and disgrace would soon be on its way from Russia, and meanwhile curbed his temper, ignored the Marshal’s recent charges of treachery, and contented himself with treating him with coldness, and overruling many of his proposals, on the mere formal ground of discipline. He was the commander-in-chief, and could accept or reject the suggestions of a subordinate as he pleased. Soult was no longer three hundred miles away, as he had been in June, and orders given by a superior on the spot could be enforced, unless the Marshal were prepared to break out into open insubordination.