Part 18

The business which called him to London was, indeed, a complicated one. For several years one of his creditors, to whose care he had confided his library and papers on leaving England, a man named Lautem, claimed from his debtor, who turned a deaf ear, the payment of a sum of £400. Obtaining nothing from d’Eon himself he had applied to the Comte de Vergennes, and had not omitted to enforce his request by a gentle threat: “D’Eon’s effects,” he said, “are a security and not a deposit; I could therefore have them sold, but I do not wish to sell state papers. Born at Brussels, a subject of his Imperial Majesty, an ally of the King of France, I have no desire to amuse Englishmen at the expense of a Frenchman who has been my tenant; but Mademoiselle d’Eon no longer deserves any consideration on my part.” The Minister for Foreign Affairs replied through the chief clerk, Durival, that “the arrangements which the King had deigned to authorise, in Mademoiselle d’Eon’s favour, for facilitating her return to France, and the fact that she had then surrendered her political correspondence, did not allow of the supposition that she had left any of value” in the keeping of the Sieur Lautem. It would seem, however, that the Comte de Vergennes was not quite sure, for though he did not send the £400 demanded he at least offered 200 louis. But Lautem did not accept these terms, and proceeded to advertise the sale by auction, in London, of all the papers belonging to the Chevalier. The effect of this announcement was immediate. D’Eon at once received permission to visit England in person for the purpose of winding up his affairs, and a sum of 6000 livres was given to him, for the payment of his creditors. He returned to London on November 18, 1785, and took up his old quarters in the house of the Sieur Lautem, displaying so little ill-feeling that it is difficult to believe that debtor and creditor had not come to an understanding on the matter. Besides his landlord, Lautem, d’Eon paid his most exacting creditors. Having recovered his books and documents, he was able to resume his literary labours, for to the end of his days he was an inveterate scribe. The events in which he had been mixed up increased in importance, in his accommodating imagination, as they became more remote, and formed the basis of statements constantly laid aside and then resumed, in a fresh, more grandiloquent and more elaborate form. He again issued pamphlets broadcast in English society, and entertained the public through the columns of the papers, which found in him at the same time a fertile and ingenious correspondent and an attraction to please readers eager for something out of the common. So anxious was he to bestir himself that he even consented to employ the adventurer Morande once again, though he had formerly treated him with scant courtesy. The latter, however, did not seem to bear him any malice. “I loved you sincerely,” he wrote, “and you seemed to be attached to me; an ill wind has passed over us, tossing us hither and thither for a space; but after ten years of calm we should be quite ourselves again.”

[Illustration: THE CHEVALIER D’EON

_From a Cast taken after Death_]

Morande was indeed quite himself again, for intrigue was his natural element, and he had lost nothing but dignity in his successive gyrations. It was he who acted as middleman between d’Eon and the London publishers, business men, and, occasionally, moneylenders. Not that the Chevalière d’Eon was bereft of acquaintances; she had many in good society, and even among people of high rank. Upon arriving in London d’Eon was received by M. Barthélemy, chargé d’affaires during the absence of the French ambassador, the Marquis de la Luzerne, to whom the Comte de Vergennes had especially recommended him. It would seem that honest Barthélemy never for a moment entertained a doubt upon the subject of d’Eon’s personality. Throughout his residence in London, he was particularly gallant and attentive to his illustrious countrywoman, continually sending his coach to fetch her to dine at the embassy, waiting upon her when she accepted the invitation of some member of the English nobility, and calling on her several times a week “to pay his court to her.” Between the years 1785-89 he wrote no fewer than a hundred and seventy-eight notes and letters to her, which were all found among the papers left by the Chevalier. The invitations are all couched in amiable and respectful terms, such as the following, addressed to “Mademoiselle la Chevalière d’Eon”:—

The Duc de Piennes and the Chevalier de Caraman, who have just returned from Newmarket, are coming to dine with me to-morrow. I cannot tell you, Mademoiselle, how anxious I am to hear that you are free and that you will be kind enough to join us. No entertainment is complete without you. We shall be a small party, for there is no time to invite others of our mutual acquaintance.

Moreover, the Bishop of Langres had recommended d’Eon very warmly to his brother, the Marquis de la Luzerne, the French ambassador, who, by a strange coincidence, happened to have met the Chevalier when in the army with Marshal de Broglie. The following letter, addressed to the Chevalière on her return to London, refers to their old intercourse in the days of their youth:—

The Bishop of Langres has been absent a long time in the country, Mademoiselle, and only delivered your letter to me when I was on the point of starting for England. I was much gratified to see that you thought of me, and that you remembered our youth. Be assured that I have followed your career since then with much interest, and that I have always deeply regretted that our different occupations have kept us apart. I shall be delighted to see you again in London, and to express to you by word of mouth my feelings of old and tender attachment.

Either at the house of his friend, Barthélemy, or at the ambassador’s, with whom he always kept up the pleasant intercourse so strangely renewed after an interval of several years, d’Eon met all the distinguished Frenchmen living in London or passing through it. Among them were the Duc de Chaulnes and the Marquis du Hallay, the Prince de la Trémoille and the Marquis d’Hautefort, Prince Rezzonico, nephew of Pope Clement XIII., M. de Calonne, and the former Abbé du Bellay, vicar-general of the diocese of Tréguier. He thus kept in touch with the best French society. Never neglecting an opportunity for putting pen to paper, he kept up, besides, a most voluminous correspondence. Several of his friends also informed him regularly of what was passing in France. Thus Drouet, his old colleague in the secret service, confided to the Comtesse Potocka a letter in which, after expressing his ardent desire to see him back again in France, tells of the great scandal of the day, the trial of Cardinal de Rohan—“l’affaire du collier”:

This important case has never been so much discussed as at the present moment. M. Cagliostro is making many partisans by a memorandum he has published. As many people regard him as a swindler, a charlatan, an empiric, and judge him by his conduct at Warsaw where he was staying in 1777, I went yesterday to see Count Rzewusky, who that same year was all-powerful in Poland. He told me that when Cagliostro arrived he did not conceal the fact that he had some knowledge of physics and medicine, and even of alchemy. A certain Prince Poninsky, experimenting in the latter, became very intimate with him, and having seen his wife he fell in love with her. Shortly afterwards he offered her some diamonds, which she refused. Thereupon he appealed to her husband, and succeeded, by dint of entreaties, in inducing him to allow his wife to accept the diamonds. Having failed to obtain what he desired from Madame de Cagliostro, and not wishing to be a dupe, Poninsky denounced Cagliostro as a swindler, and obtained permission to take back his diamonds which would have been returned to him had he asked for them.

A few days before the arrival of Cagliostro at Warsaw the sister of Count Rzewusky, fearing lest she should lose her sight on account of an eye-complaint which completely baffled the doctors, consulted Cagliostro, who cured her entirely in the course of a few days. This lady, who is very rich, offered him two thousand ducats, which he refused. She renewed her offer through her brother, who met with no better success; and neither the one nor the other has been able to persuade Cagliostro to accept the smallest token of gratitude.

The worthy Drouet concluded with Count Rzewusky, who declared that he was ready to sign a statement of all these facts with his own blood, that Cagliostro might well have been the victim of some plot; a hypothesis calculated to please d’Eon, who had become more and more inclined to see snares and pitfalls everywhere.

A little later the same Drouet sent news of his family: his brother-in-law, O’Gorman, had obtained the Cross of Saint Louis; his eldest nephew was doing very well. “Before long,” Drouet adds, “he will be promoted to the rank of lieutenant-colonel; and in three years’ time he will make a good marriage, which will render him independent. His two younger brothers went abroad last October for a two years’ cruise; at the end of the expedition they will both receive their commissions as lieutenants in the navy.” And Drouet exhorts “sa chère amie” to love her nephews as they thoroughly deserve it. He also begs her to be patient in the settlement of her affairs.

This liquidation was indeed a long business. No sooner had d’Eon arrived in London than he entered an action against the heirs of Lord Ferrers. He accused the late earl of not having employed for the payment of his debts, as stipulated by special mandate, the money remitted to him in exchange for the papers of the secret correspondence, in execution of the covenant signed, on October 5, 1775, by the Sieur Caron de Beaumarchais and the Demoiselle d’Eon. He won his suit as far as the main point was concerned, but the judgment could not be carried into effect on account of the impediments of every description raised by the heirs. Consequently d’Eon wrote, on April 1, 1787, to his friend M. de la Flotte, chief clerk at the Foreign Office, complaining that “this restitution of money which was to have made her happy and serene was becoming the worry of her life.” He expressed himself extremely sorry to be still living in England; but added that, as long as he could not return to France with honour, he would not return at all.

While waiting for the money that was owing to him he endeavoured to earn his living—for he must live—by some other means. In the intervals between the receptions to which he was invited, and at which he mixed in the best society, he occupied himself with every kind of business. Once he traced a young man who had run away to London; another time he assisted by his support and letters of introduction a countryman of his, the Sieur Petit, who wished to start a business house in the city. Shortly afterwards he devoted his attention to the sale of an estate, the marquisate of Cailly, in Normandy, which the Duchesse de Montmorency-Boutteville wished to part with, and for which d’Eon hoped to find a purchaser among his English friends. His intercourse with the duchess was quite of a friendly character, the latter writing to him, on March 30, 1788, that she kept a room ready for him in her house at Petit-Montreuil when he should return to France. A few months later d’Eon wrote to Barantin, the Keeper of the Seals, offering for sale a number of valuable manuscripts collected by himself during the course of his chequered life. The nucleus of the collection consisted of a valuable series of the Maréchal de Vauban’s papers, for which d’Eon asked so high a price that in 1791 he had not yet found a purchaser. He had somewhat exaggerated notions as to the interest and importance of the manuscripts.

But the correspondence of the versatile Chevalière was not connected only with money matters, for d’Eon had too complex a nature not to rise on occasion above material questions. Even during the time that he was struggling against misfortune he daily exchanged most humorous letters with all sorts of people. Some items of his correspondence were charming; it may suffice to quote that of the Abbé Sabatier de Castres, attached to the household of the Dauphin. It is not perhaps free from affectation, but is a perfect example of the style used between themselves by the most polite society of the time:

MADEMOISELLE,—M. de Lançon, who has been so good as to bring me your charming letter himself, will be rewarded for it by the pleasure of delivering my reply to you. He has just told me that he is going to leave for London to-morrow, and I hasten to take advantage of his journey to tell you how flattered I feel, and how grateful I am to you, for the ten pages to which you have treated me. I should complain less bitterly of your absence if it procured for me from time to time such epistles. Never has so sad a nation as the English been spoken of more gaily, neither has a gay and light-hearted nation such as ours been discussed more rationally and philosophically. You alone, Mademoiselle, possess the gift of expressing humorously profound and earnest thought. It is indeed a pity that you have not practised the art of Thalia! You would have been more successful than most of our present writers of comedy, who only excite the hilarity of the ignorant and the vicious, such as the author of the _Marriage of Figaro_, who (speaking of marriage) has just married his mistress in order to legitimatise a girl six or eight years old whom she had borne him. Now that he is rich, people assert that his wife, who, they say, is his fourth, will be happier with him than her predecessors.

I am sorry, but not surprised, that the brother and heir of Lord Ferrers is not like him as far as honesty is concerned; _sorry_ because it makes you suffer; _not surprised_ because of three of my brothers, whose fortunes I have made at the expense of my own, not one would sacrifice so much as a sovereign to oblige me, such is their ingratitude and love of money.

M. de Chalut, who enjoys good health and is in excellent spirits, notwithstanding his eighty-two years, was greatly touched by your kind offer, and would avail himself of it, if he did not know that the pictures he could sell are not worth half the money it would cost, in carriage and duty, to send them to England. The last time I saw him, he asked me to thank you again and pay his respects to you. No doubt you know that he has married his adopted daughter to M. Deville, who was formerly private secretary to the Comte de Vergennes and is now farmer-general, and that by the marriage settlement he gives him a hundred thousand crowns. M. de Lançon will tell you the rest, in case you are not acquainted with this event. I envy him, since he will see you in five or six days, and it follows that I should set out for England too were I not detained here by the necessity of supervising the illustrations and the printing of the work with which I have been entrusted for the Dauphin. I flatter myself that I shall not be forgotten in your libations. On Monday M. de Lançon and M. Le Vasseur dine with me, and it is to your health and that of the inestimable traveller that we shall quaff the champagne which I keep for great occasions. Sell your library at once, you have no need of it; your own ideas are better than those found in books. Try to get as much money as you can for it—money is necessary to those who make so noble a use of it as you do—and then come back to Paris where, no doubt, you will not find Princes of Wales to court you, but many persons who, without being heir-apparents, are none the less fully aware of your worth, and love you better than the best princes could.

Excuse this scribble. My wish to avail myself of M. Lançon’s departure has made me write in a hurry and with a bad pen, but it is thoughtfully and with all my heart that I repeat to you the assurance of the feelings of esteem, admiration, attachment, and respect which I have dedicated to you for life, and with which I am your most humble obedient servant,

THE ABBÉ SABATIER DE CASTRES.

D’Eon was busy paying off his last creditors, and preparing for his return to France, when grave news reached London. The Revolution was beginning, that at least was the general opinion in England, for in France many of those destined to fall victims of the emancipation of the people were still under the greatest illusions about it. A curious letter addressed to d’Eon, July 2, 1789, by M. de Tanlay, parliamentary councillor, supplies proof of it.

So you would make war on us again in England? It would be very ill-advised. I think the English people need peace as much as we do, and we are taking measures which will give France more national energy than she has ever had, for we shall manage our affairs and those of the King for ourselves. I can understand that others may base their hopes upon a momentary revolution of our system of government, but when the nation has everything to gain by it, when it is seen to be animated by patriotism such as is guiding us at the present moment, when a monarch makes so many sacrifices of his glory for the welfare of his people, it is in no wise the time to think of obtaining an advantage over us. I trust that this temporary effervescence will subside, and that we shall be permitted peacefully to establish a form of government which will for ever ensure the happiness of France, provided the work of reform be well directed, as there is good reason to believe it will be.

M. de Tanlay’s idyllic dreams were not realised: the Bastille was taken, the Tuileries invaded, and war declared. His correspondent did not fail, however, to applaud “the victories of liberty.” The Chevalière d’Eon became the Citoyenne Geneviève, and—whether from conviction or, perhaps, too, with a view to increasing her fame by this new means of courting popularity—posed on every occasion as the most ardent Jacobin.

At her instigation a great number of Frenchmen living in London assembled at Turnham Green, on July 14, 1790, “to celebrate publicly the anniversary of the glorious Revolution, and to take the civic oath.” D’Eon read a speech written in the declamatory and sentimental style of the time, and his harangue was so highly appreciated that all the English papers reproduced it immediately.

At the same time as the French gathering over six hundred Englishmen met under the auspices and presidency of Lord Stanhope, to celebrate the glorious anniversary and to express “their desire for an eternal alliance between the English and French nations, which would for ever ensure peace, liberty, and happiness throughout the whole world.”

D’Eon was unable to attend the English meeting, being detained among his countrymen, but he sent a present, the arrival of which excited the greatest enthusiasm. It consisted of “a stone taken from the arch of one of the principal gates of the Bastille, which has endured the musketry volleys of our brave Parisians.”

The very next day he received a most grateful acknowledgment from Lord Stanhope.

I have to return you many thanks for your valuable gift and the kind letter which you have done me the honour of writing to me. We held a meeting yesterday of six hundred and fifty-two friends of the indefeasible rights of man, to celebrate the brilliant victory which liberty has lately won in France over despotism and tyranny. By a unanimous resolution we expressed the desire which has animated us, ever since your glorious Revolution, to ally ourselves with France. Nothing was wanting yesterday but a stone from the Bastille; we became aware of our need only when we had the pleasure of receiving it from you, and our satisfaction was all the greater in that it was sent from one so famous in history.

By such striking proofs of civism d’Eon felt sure of concentrating upon himself the attention of French patriots. He had also sent his nephew to offer his services to the Legislative Assembly, and had entrusted him with the presentation of a petition. The “Citoyenne d’Eon” stated that although she had worn the dress of a woman for fifteen years, she had never forgotten that she was formerly a soldier; that since the Revolution she felt her military ardour revive and that, ready to abandon her cap and petticoats, she demanded her helmet, her sword, her horse, and her rank in the army.

In my eager impatience (she wrote) I have sold everything but my uniform, and the sword which I wore during my first campaign. My library is reduced to manuscripts by Vauban, which I have preserved as an offering to the National Assembly, for the glory of my country, and the instruction of the brave generals employed in her defence.

The reading of the above was interrupted several times by bursts of applause, and, mention having been made of it in the minutes, the petition was referred to the War Committee, where it has remained buried for ever.

But if d’Eon appealed in vain to the Republic to accept his services, he was, on the other hand, urgently invited to side with the King and to join at Coblentz the army of those emigrants among whom the ungrateful Convention had included him. He received from one of the faithful royalists who had followed the princes beyond the frontiers the following curious letter:—

Is it possible, my dear heroine, that you still hesitate to join the French nobility who are gathering together from Coblentz to Houdenarde? At the moment of writing there is nobody left in France but infirm old nobles and children. What will all the others say if they do not see you arrive either at Mons, Ath, Brussells, or Coblentz? If you wait much longer you will not come in time to reap much glory, and then all the brave knights of France will say to you what Henri IV. said to Crillon: “Go hang yourself, brave Crillon!” Many are surprised not to see you where true honour leads, and among those who do not know you some call you a demagogue. Upon hearing such an odious accusation I laid my hand on the sword which you had made for me, and told them that I answered for it on the said weapon which you gave me, that they would see you ere long, and if not, the same weapon would be sent to you together with a spindle. I do not tell you that, my dear heroine, in order to excite your enthusiasm, for I believe you to be too well disposed to require it, but really to assure you that I am and wish ever to be your valiant knight.