a commission in the dragoons, for the little man's heart was really set on a military rather than a diplomatic career. However, as diplomat he ferreted out an important secret of Russian internal treachery, and rejected a bribe of a diamond of great value. The money's worth of the diamond was to be paid to him by his own Government, but he no more got that than he got the 10,000 livres for his travelling expenses.

Thus early was he accommodated with a grievance, and because d'Eon had not the wisdom to see that a man with grievances is a ruined man, he overthrew, later, a promising career, in the violence of his attempts to obtain redress. This was d'Eon's bane, and the cause of the ruinous eccentricities for which he is remembered. In 1759 be ably seconded the egregious Louis XV. in upsetting the policy which de Choiseul was carrying on by the king's orders. De Choiseul's duty was to make the Empress mediate for peace in the Seven Years' War. The duty of d'Eon was to secure the failure of de Choiseul, without the knowledge of the French ambassador, the Marquis de l'Hospital, of whom he was the secretary. Possessed of this pretty secret, d'Eon was a man whom Louis could not safely offend and snub, and d'Eon must therefore have thought that there could scarcely be a limit to his success in life. But he disliked Russia, and left it for good in August 1760.

He received a life pension of 2,000 livres, and was appointed aide-de-camp to the Maréchal de Broglie, commanding on the Upper Rhine. He distinguished himself, in August 1761, by a very gallant piece of service in which, he says, truly or not, he incurred the ill-will of the Comte de Guerchy. The pair were destined to ruin each other a few years later. D'Eon also declares that he led a force which 'dislodged the Highland mountaineers in a gorge of the mountain at Einbeck.' I know not what Highland regiment is intended, but d'Eon's orders bear that he was to withdraw troops opposed to the Highlanders, and a certificate in his favour from the Duc and the Comte de Broglie does not allude to the circumstance that, instead of retreating before the plaids, he drove them back to the English camp. It may therefore be surmised that, though d'Eon often distinguished himself, and was wounded in the thigh at Ultrop, his claim of a victory over a Highland regiment is an interpolation.' De Broglie writes, we purpose retreating. I send M. d'Eon to withdraw the Swiss and Grenadiers of Champagne, who are holding in check the Scottish Highlanders lining the wood on the crest of the mountain, whence

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23

they have caused us much annoyance.' The English outposts were driven in; but, after that was done, the French advance was checked by the plaided Gael: d'Eon did not

quell the mountaineer

As their tinchel quells the game.

Not a word is said about this triumph even in the certificate of the two de Broglies which d'Eon published in 1764.

In 1762, France and England, weary of war, began the preliminaries of peace, and d'Eon was attached as secretary of legation to the French negotiator in London, the Duc de Nivernais. who was on terms so intimate with Madame de Pompadour that she addressed him, in writing, as petit époux. In the language of the affections as employed by the black natives of Australia, this would have meant that de Nivernais was the recognised rival of Louis XV. in the favour of the lady; but the inference must not be carried to that length. There are different versions of a trick which d'Eon, as secretary, played on Mr. Robert Wood, author of an interesting work on Homer, and, with the Jacobite savant, Jemmy Dawkins, the explorer of Palmyra. The story as given by Nivernais is the most intelligible account. Mr. Wood, as undersecretary of State, brought to Nivernais, and read to him, a diplomatic document, but gave him no copy. D'Eon, however, opened Wood's portfolio, while he dined with Nivernais, and had the paper transcribed. To this d'Eon himself adds that he had given Wood more than his whack,' during dinner, of a heady wine grown in the vineyards of his native Tonnerre.

In short, the little man was so serviceable that, in the autumn of 1762, de Nivernais proposed to leave him in England, as interim Minister, after the Duc's own return to France. Little d'Éon is very active, very discreet, never curious or officious, neither distrustful nor a cause of distrust in others.' De Nivernais was so pleased with him, and so anxious for his promotion, that he induced the British ministers, contrary to all precedent, to send d'Eon, instead of a British subject, to Paris with the treaty, for ratification. He then received from Louis XV. the order of St. Louis, and, as de Nivernais was weary of England, where he had an eternal cold, and resigned, d'Eon was made minister plenipotentiary in London till the arrival of the new ambassador, de Guerchy.

Now de Guerchy, if we believe d'Eon, had shown the better part of valour in a dangerous military task, the removal of ammunition under fire, whereas d'Eon had certainly conducted the operation with courage and success. The two men were thus on

terms of jealousy, if the story is true, while de Nivernais did not conceal from d'Eon that he was to be the brain of the embassy, while de Guerchy was only a dull figure-head. D'Eon possessed letters of de Broglie and de Praslin in which de Guerchy was spoken of with pitying contempt; in short, his despatch-boxes were magazines of dangerous diplomatic combustibles. He also succeeded in irritating de Praslin, the French minister, before returning to his new post in London, for d'Eon was a partisan of the two de Broglies, now in the disgrace of Madame de Pompadour and of Louis XV.; though the Comte de Broglie, 'disgraced' as he was, still managed the secret policy of the French king.

D'Eon's position was thus full of traps. He was at odds with the future ambassador, de Guerchy, and with the minister, de Praslin; and would not have been promoted at all, had it been known to the minister that he was in correspondence with, and was taking orders from, the disgraced Comte de Broglie. But, by the fatuous system of the king, d'Eon, in fact, was doing nothing else. De Broglie, exiled from court, was d'Eon's real master, not de Guerchy and de Praslin, with Madame de Pompadour, who was not in the secret of her royal lover.

The king's secret now (1763) included a scheme for the invasion of England, which d'Eon and a military agent were to organise, at the very moment when peace had been concluded. There is fairly good evidence that Prince Charles visited London in this year, no doubt with an eye to mischief. In short, the new minister plenipotentiary to St. James's, unknown to the French Government, and to the future ambassador, de Guerchy, was to manage a scheme for the ruin of the country to which he was accredited. If ever this came out, the result would be, if not war with England, at least war between Louis XV., his minister, and Madame de Pompadour, a result which frightened Louis XV. more than any other disaster.

The importance of his position now turned d'Eon's head, in the opinion of Horace Walpole, who, of course, had not a guess at the true nature of the situation. D'Éon, in London, entertained French visitors of eminence, and the best English society, it appears, with the splendour of a full-blown ambassador, and at whose expense? Certainly not at his own, and neither the late ambassador, de Nivernais, nor the coming ambassador, de Guerchy, a man far from wealthy, had the faintest desire to pay the bills. Angry and tactless letters, therefore, passed between d'Eon in London and de Guerchy, de Nivernais, and de Praslin in Paris.

De Guerchy was dull and clumsy; d'Eon used him as the whetstone of his wit, with a reckless abandonment which proves that he was, as they say, ' rather above himself,' like Napoleon before the march to Moscow. London, in short, was the Moscow of little d'Eon. When de Guerchy arrived, and d'Eon was reduced to secrétariser, and, indeed, was ordered to return to France, and not to show himself at Court, he lost all self-control. The recall came from the minister, de Praslin, but d'Éon, as we know, though de Praslin knew it not, was secretly representing the king himself. He declares that, at this juncture (October 11, 1763), Louis XV. sent him the extraordinary private autograph letter, speaking of his previous services in female attire, and bidding him remain with his papers in England disguised as a woman. The improbability

of this action by the king has already been exposed.

But when we consider the predicament of Louis, obliged to recall d'Eon publicly, while all his ruinous secrets remained in the hands of that disgraced and infuriated little man, it seems not quite impossible that he may have committed the folly of writing this letter. For the public recall says nothing about the secret papers of which d'Eon had quantities. What was to become of them, if he returned to France in disgrace? If they reached the hands of de Guerchy they meant an explosion between Louis XV. and his mistress, and his ministers. To parry the danger, then, according to d'Eon, Louis privately bade him flee disguised, with his cargo of papers, and hide in female costume. If Louis really did this (and d'Eon told the story to the father of Madame de Campan), he had three strings to his bow, as we have shown, and one string was concealed, a secret within a secret, even from Tercier. Yet what folly was so great as to be beyond the capacity of Louis?

Meanwhile d'Éon simply refused to obey the king's public orders, and denied their authenticity. They were only signed with a griffe, or stamp, not by the king's pen and hand. He would not leave London. He fought de Guerchy with every kind of arm, accused him of suborning an assassin, published private letters and his own version of the affair, fled from a charge of libel, could not be extradited (by virtue of what MM. Homberg and Jousselin call the law of Home Rule'!), fortified his house, and went armed. Probably there really were designs to kidnap him, just as a regular plot was laid for the kidnapping of de la Motte, at Newcastle, after the affair of the Diamond Necklace. In 1752 a Marquis de Fratteau was collared by a sham marshal court officer, put on board a boat at Gravesend, and carried to the Bastille !

D'Eon, under charge of libel, lived a fugitive and cloistered existence till the man who, he says, was to have assassinated him, de Vergy, sought his alliance, and accused de Guerchy of having suborned him to murder the little daredevil. A grand jury brought in a true bill against the French ambassador, and the ambassador's butler, accused of having drugged d'Eon, fled. But the English Government, by aid of what the Duc de Broglie calls a noli prosequi (nolle being usual), tided over a difficulty of the gravest kind. The granting of the nolle prosequi is denied.1 The ambassador was mobbed and took leave of absence, and Louis XV., through de Broglie, offered to d'Eon terms humiliating to a king. The chevalier finally gave up the warrant for his secret mission in exchange for a pension of 12,000 livres, but he retained all the other secret correspondence and plans of invasion. As for de Guerchy, he resigned (1767), and presently died of sheer annoyance, while his enemy, the chevalier, stayed in England as London correspondent of Louis XV. He reported, in 1766, that Lord Bute was a Jacobite, and de Broglie actually took seriously the chance of restoring, by Bute's aid, Charles III., who had just succeeded, by the death of the old Chevalier, to a kingdom not of this world.'

The death of Louis XV., in 1774, brought the folly of the secret policy to an end, but in the same year rumours about d'Eon's dubious sex appeared in the English newspapers on the occasion of his book, 'Les Loisirs du Chevalier d'Eon,' published at Amsterdam. Bets were made on a very large scale, and d'Eon beat some bookmakers with his stick. But he persuaded Drouet, an envoy from France, that the current stories were true, and this can only be explained, if explained at all, by his perception of the fact that, his secret employment being gone, he felt the need of an advertisement. Overtures for the return of the secret papers were again made to d'Eon, but he insisted on the restoration of his diplomatic rank, and on receiving £14,000 on account of expenses. He had aimed too high, however, and was glad to come to a compromise with the famous Beaumarchais. The extraordinary bargain was struck that d'Eon, for a consideration, should yield the secret papers, and, to avoid a duel with the son of de Guerchy, and the consequent scandal, should pretend to be a woman, and wear the dress of that sex. In his new capacity he might return to France and wear the cross of the Order of St. Louis.

Beaumarchais was as thoroughly taken in as any dupe in his own comedies. In d'Eon he saw a blushing spinster, a kind of

1 Political Register, Sept. 1767; Buchan Telfer, p. 181.