Part 6

This extraordinary scandal, brought about quite as much by the ambassador’s tactlessness as by the very undiplomatic excitement of his impetuous minister plenipotentiary, had its sequel the next day. D’Eon himself has written an account of it too graphic to be omitted.

“The affair passed without a blow being struck. My position was far more difficult than his, for I had promised not to molest him, and I could not foresee that the brave Vergy was the man to take alarm at my every movement. But when I secured the door, intending to detain him until the ambassador’s servants for whom I had sent arrived, he at once began to rush round the room, crying, ‘Do not touch me, do not touch me!’ ‘What!’ I replied, smiling, ‘you come to me in fighting trim, and are afraid lest I should touch you!’ A few dragoon-like expletives interlarded in this speech led him to mistake the window for the door; and noticing his pallor and his action, I said: ‘If you jump, I will push you; but take care, for you will find a moat and pikes below.’ This remark sufficed to stop him.

“Then, handing a paper to him, I said: ‘I require you to read this note and sign it in duplicate.’ He ran through it so hastily that on returning it to me he asked for a delay of three weeks in order that he might receive letters from Paris. ‘If your mind was not so confused,’ I replied, ‘you would see that I give you a month.’ And taking him by the arm, I led him to my bedroom, where my writing-table stands. Upon entering he cried out: ‘Do not kill me!’ I did not know what to make of this exclamation, when suddenly I saw de Vergy’s eyes fixed on my Turkish sabre and my cavalry pistols, which I had brought back from the war in Germany. I then understood the cause of his excessive alarm, and at once laid one of the pistols on the floor, putting my foot on it lest it should bite the so-called de Vergy. ‘You see I am not going to hurt you or even to come near you,’ I said. ‘Now, sign with a good grace.’ Thereupon he resigned himself gallantly to signing the note in duplicate, and—I think it necessary to add—he did so with his hat under his arm and one knee on the floor. He did not see fit to take a copy of the note, although I suggested that he should do so; he was in too great a hurry to reach the door.”

Vergy made straight for a justice of the peace, to whom he gave a dramatic account of what had just passed, and obtained a summons against d’Eon. The Chevalier, who still enjoyed diplomatic immunity, did not think fit to reply. Besides, he was far too preoccupied by his disputes with his ambassador, which were daily growing more serious. He accused de Guerchy of an attempt to poison him, declaring that on October 28, when he dined at the embassy for the last time, Chazal, the butler, had mixed with a certain brand of wine from Tonnerre, to which he was known to be partial, so strong a dose of opium “that he all but fell into a lethargy,” and was obliged to keep his room for several days. The following day the ambassador, accompanied by two of his secretaries, came to inquire after his health, and d’Eon imagined that de Guerchy wished to acquaint himself with the plan of his apartments, with a view to discovering the hiding-place of the secret papers. Upon his visitor being announced, he even hastened to the room of his cousin, d’Eon de Mouloize, and asked his secretary to come—“in order,” as he said, “to prevent a sudden attack.” He kept telling his friends of all these persecutions, and assured them he was constantly watched. His servant, having to put a new lock on the door of his lodging, naturally sent for the nearest locksmith, who happened to be the locksmith of the embassy. D’Eon then thought that he was at the mercy of the Comte de Guerchy, apprehending an attack upon his person, and the immediate seizure of his papers. Accordingly, driven to distraction and no longer able to contain himself, he discharged his servant, and convoked his faithful comrades to a secret meeting, at which it was resolved that he should move immediately. D’Eon, who was never prevented by any circumstance from indulging his mania for writing, has left us a kind of official report of the proceedings, which well depicts his state of mind: “The Council of Three,” he writes, “after discussing at some length the question of a change of lodgings, has decided that the furniture and clothes shall be conveyed to-morrow morning on a barrow, because everything can be removed in two or three journeys.... All these batteries are ready to be unmasked in case of need, and the garrison is fully determined, in the event of a capitulation, to leave the fortress, with drums beating, torches alight, and all the honours of war—_et operibus eorum cognoscetis eos_.”

D’Eon was not obliged to adopt the war-like proceedings with which he threatened his ambassador. He took up his residence in the house of Carrelet de la Rozière, his kinsman, and his colleague in the secret mission with which he was entrusted, bringing with him arms and baggage; and then, still suffering from the same obsession, he transformed his new habitation, situated in the very centre of London, into a real stronghold, occupied and commanded by soldiers.

De Guerchy was accustomed by now to d’Eon’s ways, and yet this surreptitious and sudden departure filled him with amazement, and made him all the more anxious because he began to despair of settling the accounts which d’Eon owed him, but always deferred paying. On November 9, he wrote to him in his ambassador’s style, which the Duc de Praslin had so justly dreaded:

I learned yesterday that you had left the house which I rented for you and for those whom Lord Holland’s residence, which I occupy, was unable to accommodate. I do not know what can be the reason for so hasty a determination on your part, or why you omitted to inform me of it. The day that I came to inquire after your health, hearing you were unwell, I forgot to mention the account which you have to settle, for the various sums of money you have drawn on my credit. You told me, some time since, you would let me have it within two days, and I beg you will bring it or send it to me immediately.

D’Eon did not send the account required of him, but he proceeded to the King’s levee, and, as soon as his Majesty had retired, he approached the ambassador, saying: “I did not answer your letter of this morning, because I rose late. If I have any accounts to settle, I shall settle them with my court when I am asked to do so. The minister plenipotentiary of France has lived at the expense of the King, just as the ambassador now lives. I am delighted at the opportunity you have given me of stating that I never was, and never will be, your steward.” And, without giving de Guerchy time to reply, he made him a “deep bow,” and hastened back to his stronghold. Summoning his council, he exerted his utmost eloquence in convincing M. de la Rozière that, to judge by the turn of events, the secret documents were in imminent danger of being discovered. They were voluminous enough to prove embarrassing, and difficult to conceal in the event of a surprise visit. D’Eon spoke to such good purpose that de la Rozière offered to convey part of them to France. The mission was a perilous one, though his somewhat obscure office and the discreet attitude he had adopted made it easier for him than for anybody else. D’Eon entrusted him with a large number of the documents in his possession; but he was careful to keep the most important and the most compromising, those which could serve him as a weapon, or at any rate as a guarantee which he would know how to turn to account. These papers naturally included the minutes concerning the mission which kept him in England, the studying of plans for a military invasion.

Charged with the mysterious parcel, de la Rozière set out for Paris a few days later, taking with him, besides, in an envelope addressed to M. Tercier, letters which were to be delivered to the King and the Comte de Broglie. In them d’Eon told of all the plots which he imagined he had discovered; the attempts which had been made to poison, to abduct and to watch him. He even boasted of having “humiliated and mystified his ambassador,” and “of having fought like a dragoon for the King, his secret correspondence, and the Comte de Broglie.”

These letters, full of such obvious exaggerations, produced an effect in Paris contrary to that which d’Eon had expected. The King felt that in the keeping of such a hare-brained individual his correspondence might at any moment be seized by his ambassador, and sent to his ministers. The entire scheme of his secret diplomacy, which he had concealed so carefully, would thus be discovered. Without consulting the Comte de Broglie, or even M. Tercier, Louis XV. hastened to take his precautions.

He despatched a courier to his ambassador in London informing him that he had just countersigned a letter from the Duc de Praslin, demanding d’Eon’s extradition. In the event of d’Eon’s arrest, Guerchy was to take charge of “all the papers he might find in the Sieur d’Eon’s possession, without communicating their contents to anybody.” These documents were to be “kept entirely, and without exception, secret,” and, being first carefully sealed, were to remain in the keeping of the ambassador, who was to deliver them to the King in person on his next journey to Paris. The Sieur Monin, secretary to the Comte de Guerchy, and a friend of d’Eon, was entrusted with the mission of discovering the place where these papers had been deposited.

Louis XV. thought he had thus guarded against every event, expecting to make sure of Guerchy’s discretion by the semi-confidential attitude he had adopted towards him, and prevent him from imparting his discoveries to the Duc de Praslin. Tercier and the Comte de Broglie were dismayed by the hasty step taken by the King, who informed them of it the following day. They knew that Guerchy was blundering enough to reveal everything inadvertently, even if his attachment to the house of Choiseul did not tempt him to commit an indiscretion which would betray the secret of the King’s private policy. If such disclosures were necessarily mortifying for the King, they were to be dreaded by the secret agents, upon whom the ministers would assuredly vent their rage. Consequently, the Comte de Broglie, much alarmed, at once made known to the King his apprehensions with regard to the instructions sent to Guerchy, and Tercier communicated to him equally pessimistic reflections. Louis XV., relieved at having escaped so imminent a danger, made a point of reassuring his counsellors: “If Guerchy betrays the secret,” he wrote, “he betrays me, and will be a lost man. If he is a man of honour, he will not do so; if he is a knave, he deserves to be hanged. It is very clear that you and the Comte de Broglie are uneasy. Be reassured, I am quite calm.”

Guerchy, to do him justice, does not appear to have abused the King’s confidence. Whether he perceived the danger to which disclosures exposed him, or whether he preferred to regard the King’s letter as a mark of confidence of which he wished to prove himself worthy, he divulged the matter only to Madame de Guerchy, who kept the secret loyally. The ambassador was glad enough, moreover, to have at his disposal fresh weapons against d’Eon, for he was at a loss to know what he should do next. Threats having failed, he had tried flattery, suggesting to the Duc de Choiseul that he should write a letter full of promises to d’Eon. The minister had consented, couching his letter in the most affectionate terms:

Whatever detains you in England, my dear d’Eon? Abandon the diplomatic career and your ministerial disputes with M. de Guerchy, and join me here, where I intend to employ you usefully in the army. I promise you will be quite free from annoyance in my service. As the military contract will shortly expire, I have requested M. de Praslin to recall you. Nothing should prevent you from coming now, and you will please me greatly by joining me at Versailles without delay. I await you, my dear d’Eon, with the great interest which, as you know, I take in you.

In spite of the alluring terms of this letter, d’Eon was not tempted to relinquish the barren and interminable contest which he had undertaken against his ambassador, in order to seek again, on real battlefields, successes worthier of his brilliant past. Fully aware of the reception which awaited him in France, he limited himself to declining the Duc de Choiseul’s proposals respectfully and gratefully.

He was determined not to quit London, where every citizen’s residence was protected so effectually by law. Such a safeguard was indeed calculated to astonish a Frenchman of the eighteenth century, and de Guerchy was not yet accustomed to it. So unused was he to English customs that he could not save his government from an unpleasant miscalculation. Hardly had he received the King’s further instructions than he hastened to submit to the English ministers the demand for extradition transmitted to him by the Duc de Praslin. However great their desire to deliver the unfortunate ambassador out of his embarrassments, the English ministers did not consider they were justified in coming, on their own initiative, to a decision so contrary to the laws and spirit of their country, and they referred the matter to the Privy Council. Guerchy made a second still more urgent application to the secretaries of state, but in vain; and the King of England only expressed to the ambassador “his regret at being unable to comply with the request of his cousin, the King of France, since the laws of his kingdom did not empower him to do so.”

The defeat was the more mortifying for Guerchy as he had involved his government in these unskilful tactics, and he found but slight compensation in the formal discharge which the chamberlain of the King of England caused to be delivered to d’Eon:

SIR,—The King your master has informed the King my master that you are no longer his Minister at the Court of St. James’, and has at the same time required of the King to forbid you the court, and I deeply regret to have to inform you that I have this morning received orders from the King my master to communicate to you his intentions on that point.

I have the honour to be ...

GOWER, Chamberlain to the King of England.

This polite, but explicit, note marks the end of the Chevalier d’Eon’s ordered career, confirming, in the name of the King of England, the revocation of the minister plenipotentiary of the King of France, brought about by his excessive ambition. Officially repudiated by the sovereign who had sent him and by the sovereign who had received him, d’Eon was now divested of his dignity. Anybody else would have given way to despondency, and asked pardon. The Chevalier, however, became more insolent and intractable than ever. Unable to believe his patrons had deserted him, and relying, in spite of everything, on the secret support of the King, d’Eon deemed himself still capable of holding his own against Guerchy. It was, in fact, the latter who was obliged to own himself beaten, and to give an account of his defeat to the King in person:

I have been expecting to execute the orders contained in the letter your Majesty did me the honour to address to me from Fontainebleau on November 4, before replying to it, but I have found it quite impossible to do so, notwithstanding the various means employed. Your Majesty will have been informed, by my despatch, of the obstacles I meet in my endeavours to possess myself of d’Eon’s papers, for he persistently refuses to deliver them to me, in spite of the order he has received from M. de Praslin in the name of your Majesty. This shows his lack of wisdom, which, however, is not elsewhere apparent. Your Majesty will also have been informed that the court of St. James’ has authoritatively refused my request, replying that it is against the laws of the country. Nevertheless, the King of England and his ministers are extremely anxious to get rid of d’Eon. I have found it impossible to seize him, either by force or by stratagem, because he no longer lives in my house, nor has he been here since running to such extremes....

I am deeply grieved, Sire, at being unable to furnish your Majesty upon this occasion with proofs of the fervent zeal by which I shall be actuated throughout my life....

D’Eon had once more evaded Guerchy’s plots, and had laughed at the ambassador’s official steps as he did at his secret intrigues. He had beguiled Monin, de Guerchy’s secretary, with false confidences, and had let him believe that the important documents which he possessed were not in England. As for the police officers sent from Paris to carry him off, he intimidated them, only going out in the company of several people and remaining for the most part entrenched in his lodging. “His bedroom, sitting-room, study, and staircase were undermined; and he kept a lamp burning throughout the night.... The garrison consisted of several dragoons of his old regiment, and some deserters picked up in London, who occupied the ground-floor.” These precautions, which would appear to be a gross fabrication had they not been the work of an adventurer anxious above all to impress public opinion, were quite superfluous. English law was a surer protection to d’Eon than “the four brace of pistols, the two guns, and the eight sabres of his arsenal,” and Lord Halifax, when questioned as to the fate that awaited him, replied: “He had better keep quiet; tell him his behaviour is abominable, but his person inviolable.”

[Illustration: MADEMOISELLE DE BEAUMONT

_From a Caricature in the London Magazine, Sept. 1777_]

Sure henceforth of being unmolested, d’Eon obstinately refused to come to terms, and de Guerchy, having exhausted his means of coercing a man who “put his minister’s letters of recall in his pocket and refused to return the ministerial papers,” decided upon drawing up an official statement of his refusal. He proceeded to d’Eon’s lodging towards the end of December, and the drawing-up of the report gave rise to a scene in which the Chevalier lost all self-control. Striding up and down the room, he gesticulated, and declared “that he would rather die than deliver up the King’s papers, and that they would have to take them at the muzzle of his gun.” D’Eon signed this statement, which was destined to furnish Versailles with a formal proof of his folly. Louis XV. had ceased, moreover, to take any interest in d’Eon, dreading his disputes and bitterly regretting “the choice of such an agent.” He determined upon keeping him at a distance, without appearing to desert him entirely; and if d’Eon obtained fresh favours in the sequel he owed them to the fear he inspired rather than to the esteem he had won by his former services. The King wrote to Tercier on December 30: “I do not believe that M. d’Eon is mad, but he is presumptuous and a very extraordinary person. I think we must allow some time to elapse and support him with a little money; let him remain where he is in safety, and above all let him refrain from fresh action.”

Harassed by these several persecutions to which his pride had exposed him, and openly blamed in Paris and at Versailles, d’Eon found himself deserted, even by his friends. The little Burgundian town which had never ceased to follow his career with interest, while predicting a brilliant future for him, now re-echoed the general reprobation. His relatives began to doubt if he was in his right senses, and his aged mother was thinking of coming to London herself, to implore his submission to the King’s orders. But d’Eon wrote to her at the end of this eventful year, with his wonted triumphant self-assurance:

I have received, my dear mother, all the woeful and piteous letters you have taken the trouble to write to me. Why weepest thou, woman of little faith? as Scripture says. What is there in common between your affairs at Tonnerre and my political affairs in London? Go on planting your cabbages in peace, weeding your garden, and eating its fruit; drink the milk of your cows and the wine of your vines, and spare me the idle chatter of Paris and Versailles, and your tears, which grieve but do not comfort me. Not that I am in need of consolation, for I am not in the least sad, and my heart plays the violin and even the double-bass, as I have already written to you, because I do my duty, and my enemies, who call themselves great men, do not perform theirs—being guided in their actions by caprice and personal interests, and not in the least by the interests of justice and the welfare of the King and country. Let them do as they please, I will do as I think proper.... I do not fear the thunderbolts of these little Jupiters, be they far or near. That is all I have to say; therefore set your mind at ease, as mine is, and if you come to see me in London I shall be delighted, and I will take as good care of you as I do of the court despatches and the accounts of the Comte de Guerchy, which he will not have except on good grounds, with colours flying, ammunition at hand, and drums beating. He shall not even have the envelopes of the letters, I swear it to you by all that is sacred, unless he brings to me an authentic order from the King, my master and his, and this is what he has not been able to effect hitherto.

... If you wish to do what is best, remain quietly in your charming retreat at the gate of Tonnerre, and do not return to Paris unless the court pays your travelling expenses in some surer way than it has mine, and remember that, whether men praise or blame you, you are none the better or the worse. _The glory of the righteous is in their conscience, and not in the praise of men._

V

LAWSUITS AND A PENSION