In August 1794, the appearance of pos ters in Santafe de Bogota, then the discovery of a trans la tion of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789 caused the sourde rumeur of a widespread conspiracy in the Vice Royalty of New Granada. The judges at the court hearing saw in these actions proof of an accumulated bitterness mounting since the re volt of the Commun in 1789, a kind of gauge that served to measure the appeal of recent news from France. The pos ters of Cartagena, the little red flags of Quito and the satires of Cuenca reinforced this apprehension. Thus the viceroy Ezpeleta, eager to a vert the sus pi cion of having introduced the poison of French ideas, felt obliged to effect a separation, already achieved in Madrid, between absolutism and enlightenment. The discreet indulgence of the viceroy with the publicists Eugenio Espejo and Antonio Narino illustrates, however, that he continued to honor the friendship he had with such men of “value” since 1789.