D’Eon charged with extravagance at the Embassy—Irritating correspondence—Influx of French visitors—Odious proposal to D’Eon—Is to return to subordinate duties on being superseded—His remonstrances—The Earl of Hertford—The Count de Guerchy’s arrival in England, and D’Eon’s letters of recall—Secret despatch from Louis XV.—Official recall on the plea of mental alienation—Disregard of the ministerial orders.
Simultaneously with the griefs that were being so vigorously laid before de Praslin, the Chevalier was indulging in a brisk interchange of letters with de Guerchy, in which he vindicated himself with no little dexterity against the charges of wanton extravagance as host at the embassy in London, for the general maintenance of which the count was solely responsible, the liberal allowance of a minister at one of the first Courts in Europe being enjoyed by him, though only ambassador in petto, and not by the minister plenipotentiary in situ. The spirit of satire and sarcasm in which D’Eon had latterly indited his letters to both those ministers was more than either could bear with; but, forgetting their dignity in the face of what, after all, was gross insubordination, they gave way to a feeling of resentment, the former in admonitions and threats, after receipt of the ‘churlish’ note; the latter, by being offensive and insulting, and persisting in peevish and unbecoming lamentations on the frequent requisitions to which his pocket was subjected. We cannot undertake to reproduce in full the mutual recriminations, brimming with scorn, that brought to a close the unseemly paper war which irrevocably sealed the fate of the Chevalier D’Eon; but we must at least find room for a few of the ugly things that were said by the strong, as well as by him who was on the defensive, and whom they were deliberately luring to his destruction.
The Duke de Praslin to the Chevalier D’Eon.
‘Paris, September 17, 1763.
‘Sir,—I never could have believed that the title of Minister Plenipotentiary would cause you so quickly to forget the point whence you have started, and I had no reason to expect that your aspirations would increase in proportion as you received new favours.... I cannot conceive the necessity for the extraordinary outlay at the expense of the Count de Guerchy, and which is quite out of place. I do not conceal from you my displeasure at your having involved in so great expenditure one to whom I am attached, and in whom I take such an interest, and who trusted in you on my recommendation.... I hope that you will take better care of other people’s money for the future, and that you will endeavour to be as useful to him as you have been to the Duke de Nivernois, &c. &c.’
This and much more was irritating matter enough, and might perhaps have been borne with patience by the Chevalier; but one other paragraph there was which placidly gave him the lie, and banished all hopes of relief out of his financial difficulties, so long as de Praslin remained at the Foreign Ministry.
‘I gave you no reason to expect the reimbursement of your former journey to Russia, because three of my predecessors upon whom you made a similar demand had not, it appeared, found it legitimate.’
It was not in D’Eon’s nature to receive this prevaricating statement with composure. He was not sufficiently cool-headed to make a perfectly good courtier. Smarting under insult and what he considered undeserved injury, he relieved his agitated mind in emphatic language such as this:—
‘London, September 25, 1763.
‘I received, the day before yesterday, the private letter you did me the honour to write to me on the 17th inst.; I can only look upon it as a Testament ab irato.[117] The point whence I started, when very young, was my native town, Tonnerre, where I have a small property and a house fully six times larger than that occupied in London by the Duke de Nivernois. The point whence I started, in 1756, was the Hôtel d’Ons-en-Bray, Rue de Bourbon, Faubourg St. Germain. I am the friend of the owner of that mansion, and I left him, against his will, to make three journeys to Russia and to other Courts in Europe, to join the army, to come to England, to bring four or five treaties to Versailles, not as a courier, but as a man who had contributed to the framing of them. I have frequently travelled although sick to death, and upon one occasion with a broken leg; nevertheless, I am prepared to return to the point whence I started, if such be my fate. I can only certify, as a geometrician, that all points proceed from and should meet in a common centre. The points whence I started are those of being a gentleman, a soldier, and a secretary of embassy; all so many points which naturally lead to becoming a minister at foreign courts. The first gives a claim, the second strengthens consciousness and endues with the necessary firmness for such a post, but the third is the school for it. I acquitted myself so creditably in the latter, according to your own judgment, Monsieur le Duc, as to merit reward.... But whatever may have been the point whence I started, the King, my master, having chosen me to represent him, I should have forgotten everything, and kept in sight only the point I have reached. This is my rule of right, and you will remind me of it if I forget it.... I venture to assure you, that you were good enough to promise that you would again inquire into the matter of my first journey to Russia, and that you should do me justice.... At Vienna you told me that were you minister I should very soon be paid ... you repeated your promise the last time I had the honour of dining with you at Versailles ... the Duchess was present.... I reminded you that I had been paying interest for nearly nine[118] years on 10,000 livres borrowed for my first Muscovite journey. The Duchess’ heart was touched, and she said to you: “Really you should see that poor M. D’Eon, who has served his King so well, is paid.” You, also, were touched, and kindly replied: “I will make inquiries. I should be very glad to see that he is paid, but how is it to be done!” That same evening I left for England, and have remained crushed ever since under the burden of my debts.... It is no proof that my claims are groundless, because your predecessors failed to do me justice. They succeeded each other in office with such rapidity, as rarely to have had time to inquire into the many matters on hand, and it is precisely because they failed in their justice towards me, that I seek it at your hands.... Whether you be pleased or displeased, Monsieur le Duc, I will respectfully continue to appeal to your sense of justice ... and I will not cease to serve the King with my wonted zeal.... I respect your economy which is not disposed to pay my debts, but I have greater regard for your justice, which should pay them ... for mercy’s sake let me be paid my first expenses to Russia, that I may satisfy my creditors ...;’ then, defending himself against the charge of extravagance, he says: ‘Life and style of living in Paris is very different to what both are in London ... my accounts should be seen and examined.... I defy any housekeeper to find in my accounts a single item of useless expenditure of fifteen or twenty guineas throughout.... I have never been at the head of any house except that of my father, and in a twelvemonth it came to grief.... If you desire to know me, Monsieur le Duc, I tell you frankly that I am of use only for thinking, imagining, questioning, reflecting, comparing, reading, writing, or to run from east to west, from north to south, to fight on hill and dale. Had I lived in the time of Alexander or of Don Quixote, I should certainly have been Parmenion or Sancho Panza. If you remove me out of my element, I will squander the entire revenue of France in the course of a twelvemonth without committing a single folly, and afterwards present you with an able treatise on economy....’
One extract, I think, suffices as an illustration of the general character of de Guerchy’s letters to D’Eon:—
‘Jouy, September 4, 1763.
‘... The Duke de Nivernois informs me that he has lately written to you on the subject of your communication, having reference to the position to which chance has called you, and to your wishes therewith so soon as I shall have arrived in London.... I have shown the accounts you have sent to the Duke de Praslin ... we find the expenditure excessive, the half of my emoluments having been consumed ... nobody here expects you to keep up any state.... I do not approve of the numerous gratuities with which I am charged, and do not hold myself responsible for them....’
D’Eon’s Reply.
‘London, September 25, 1763.
‘... I take the liberty of observing to you on the subject of the position to which chance has called me, that Solomon said a long time ago—everything here below was chance, opportunity, good luck, happiness, and misfortune, and that I am more than ever persuaded Solomon was a great preacher. I will modestly add that the chance which gave the title of minister plenipotentiary to a man who has negotiated successfully during the past ten years, was in probability not one of the most mistaken. What has come to me by chance might come to another by good luck. He who becomes a minister or ambassador by chance can never countenance arrangements repugnant to himself, without giving but a poor idea of his heart and mind.... I am sorry that the expenditure should seem heavy, but it has been indispensable.... I appeal to ample written testimony to this effect ... there is a large staff here to be paid and boarded at the expense of the coming ambassador ... the chance which created me a minister should have been at the same time charitable enough to guarantee to me some kind of condition, because a minister who keeps no state is a being that has never existed.... I have been obliged to assume to myself certain state, just as all bodies take position according to respective gravitation. Not feeling the least remorse, I must be proof against reproach.... A man, no matter who, can only form an estimate of himself, even so far as his opinion goes, by comparing himself to one or more other men. There are several proverbs which serve to prove the truth of this. It is commonly said: He is as stupid as any thousand—he is as wicked as any four—he is as shabby as any ten—men. This is the only scale by which we can be guided, except in certain cases where men measure themselves by women. An ambassador, no matter who, may be worth half a man, a whole man, twenty, a thousand, or ten thousand men. It is necessary to determine how a minister plenipotentiary, who is a captain of dragoons, and has completed ten political campaigns (without counting campaigns in the field), stands relatively to an ambassador who is a lieutenant-general, and is making his début. Admitting proportions to be one to ten, the assessment would always be in favour of the minister plenipotentiary, papers being at hand, C.Q.F.D. Everybody will understand that domestics, horses, and secretaries have consumed and continue to consume the same amount of food under the management of the Plenipotentiary D’Eon as under that of the Duke de Nivernois. They have remained ever since under the same sky and with an equally good appetite.... There are occasions upon which gratuities must be distributed.... I had to do so on delivering my credentials, first as resident, then as minister plenipotentiary—on the King’s birthday, the day the Queen gave birth to Prince Frederick, and on the anniversary of the King’s coronation. You must give people something, otherwise they refuse to leave the door, make an abominable row, and end with obscene dances. Happily, I am a bachelor; but you will have to see to this when you arrive....’
In another letter to de Guerchy, the Chevalier writes:—
‘I dined with Lord Hertford to-day and met the diplomatic corps, Lords Sandwich and March, and several other noblemen.... Yesterday, the day of St. Louis, Lords Hertford and March did me the honour to call at the embassy with several illustrious Scotsmen, amongst them David Hume, who will ever be the ornament and glory of his country. Some members of the diplomatic corps had thought proper to tell me that they would call at the French Embassy to celebrate the day of St. Louis. I did not invite, I did not refuse to receive them, and I gave no extraordinary reception. If the minister finds fault with this, I am not to blame.... I could not have acted otherwise.’
Unyielding as the Duke de Broglie shows himself to be in his general condemnation of D’Eon, we find him admitting[119] that French persons of distinction abounded in London during several months after the re-establishment of peace, all eager to visit the country so little known and until then so little understood, and whose customs and literature had only just been brought into fashion by Voltaire and Montesquieu. It became the rage, as sometimes happens with society in Paris; and the idea that they were rendering homage to conquerors did not restrain any of the generation of that day, more interested in political and philosophical innovations than in national honour. The Countess de Boufflers[120] had given the signal, arriving with a number of literary people in her train.
‘I was obliged,’ again wrote D’Eon, ‘to acquit myself of my duty to the Countess de Boufflers, a thousand times more of a philosopher and more learned than I am, and quite a match for any academician; as well as to other persons of quality in London, without including Duclos, de la Condamine, Le Camus, Lalande, &c.’
Mistrustful, too, of the Chevalier’s veracity, the Duke de Broglie informs his readers that until he had seen the original letter to de Guerchy, dated September 25, in the official archives, he could not believe in the authenticity of the copy published by D’Eon himself in his ‘Lettres, Mémoires et Négotiations Particulières,’ the work to which we are frequently having recourse. The duke’s, and our own readers, will perhaps feel inclined to sympathise with his grace’s amazement at D’Eon’s audacity in holding such language towards his superiors, until they learn the vantage afforded by a vitiated and unscrupulous minister, when he again insulted the Chevalier by seeking his co-operation in an odious and dishonourable transaction. De Guerchy’s complaints of the Chevalier’s extravagance as his locum tenens became so loud and frequent that an idea—a most foul idea—was conceived by de Praslin for making good the supposed losses sustained by his old friend. Incredible as it appeared at the time, de Nivernois lent something more than his countenance in support, for it was he who first proposed it to D’Eon. His letter bore three dates, September 9, 10 and 11, which the Chevalier interpreted by saying that the late ambassador’s hand had refused its office twice, even his ink-horn had shrunk from him, until at last his noble heart had humbled itself to please old friends—the minister and ambassador.
‘... Give me leave to tell you, my dear friend,’ wrote de Nivernois after a three days’ struggle with his conscience, ‘that you are wrong in dissipating nearly one-half of M. de Guerchy’s monthly allowances. But it is not enough to find fault, we must appeal to facts and find a remedy.... I think that a gratuity, be it in your name or in that of M. de Guerchy, but in either case for his benefit, will serve to fill up the gap made by your dinners, and nothing more will be said on the matter....’ ‘There are remedies that are worse than the disease,’ was the Chevalier’s reply, also of September 25: ‘Are not those you propose, Monsieur le Duc, of this kind? ... application to be made to the King for a gratuity in my behalf, but which is to be for the benefit of another man’s pocket! I could not conscientiously agree to such an expedient, unless I were furnished with a duly legalised receipt; for I am a man of order, and think it preferable to leave open the gap made by my dinners rather than to stop it up with such a plug.... I will never consent to the King being asked for a gratuity in my name for the benefit of another....’
So far as the Chevalier was personally concerned, he felt that all he had to reproach in the Duke de Nivernois was the Italian shrewdness of his great-uncle the Cardinal Mazarin, and the extreme weakness and tenderness of his poor nerves and understanding. He thought the duke must have been endowed to a marvellous extent with a natural fund of honesty, for it was a wonderful fact that, although he had been the friend of three illustrious rascals during the past thirty years, the purity of his soul had never become contaminated by so long and so close a friendship, by so foul and unnatural an alliance. The astounding virtue of the amiable duke reminded him of that of St. Ives. Sanctus Ivo erat advocatus et non latro. O res miranda![121]
One other mortification, the climax to the persecution he was undergoing, the Chevalier was about to endure, and when we shall have become acquainted with it, there will no longer be room for surprise at the bold and unflinching attitude he had been assuming, and at the factious spirit in which he had been addressing his superiors.
When the Chevalier’s credentials as Resident reached England, de Nivernois, perceiving that his protégé’s mission was to end with the appearance of a new ambassador, took occasion to express himself in unmistakable terms to de Praslin on the unfairness of the arrangement, and urged, considering the past valuable services of his secretary and the conditions upon which he had accepted his appointment the preceding autumn, that promotion, to which he was fully entitled, should be permanent. Never ceasing to concern himself in all that related to ‘his little D’Eon,’ de Nivernois, although no longer ambassador, continued his exertions long after returning to France, with the success only of receiving intimation from the minister that the Chevalier was shortly to become minister plenipotentiary, when he should have to abandon his old claim to travelling expenses in Russia; but that upon de Guerchy’s arrival he must return to his duties as secretary of Embassy. Whatever the occasion, however, of the ambassador’s absence from his post in the future, D’Eon should be left in charge with the temporary rank of resident; and this was all he could expect. Feeling how unpalatable such news would be, de Nivernois earnestly recommended the Chevalier to accept the situation and hope for better days. It was true that in again becoming secretary after having been minister plenipotentiary, he was descending from a bishopric to become a miller, but millers who had been bishops were not to be found by the dozen! He warned him against further disposition to rebel, repeating what he had already said more than once: ‘I know the man with whom you will have to deal’—an opinion of de Guerchy much of the same substance as that expressed by the Count de Broglio.
It was very singular, thought the Chevalier, that when engaged in war he was at peace with everybody, but since he had toiled at the re-establishment of peace, he seemed to be at war with everybody.
The Chevalier D’Eon to the Duke de Nivernois.
‘August 1, 1763.
‘... This is a difficult and an impossible negotiation, and when I had the honour to tell you that I considered the rank of Minister Plenipotentiary to be a misfortune, rather than a benefit, I was right. I never sought the title nor did I wish for it. It was bestowed upon me, and having been obliged to assume it, I cannot again become a secretary, then minister, again secretary, and so on.... I should be a general laughing-stock, and no longer in a position to serve the King usefully.... Should my letters of recall not be sent, and I am permitted to retain my title, without, however, discharging the office except at certain intervals, I shall remain and cheerfully do my duty under the Count de Guerchy’s orders, and the Duke de Praslin may allot any such salary as he thinks proper. I am tractable as regards money, but intractable on points of honour. ... I have made every effort to please you, the Duke de Praslin and the Count de Guerchy, and after mature reflection and having well weighed every circumstance, I cannot but be persuaded that what is demanded of me is an impossibility and not in my power to agree to, without compromising the dignity of the King, a matter of great moment to me, and without compromising the title of Minister Plenipotentiary.... I shall certainly serve the Count de Guerchy with zeal and attachment equal to that I entertain towards the Duke de Nivernois, because when I serve, I do not say with the priests, ad utilitatem quoque nostram. I serve solely for honour and for the greater glory of the King.... My heart is deeply touched at the trouble you have been kind enough to take, and at the advice you give ... your counsels may be useful at Versailles, but suffer me to say that they will not do in London.’
D’Eon further informed the duke that his loins were not sufficiently supple to enable him to vault politically, at one time on the mule of a bishop, at another on the ass of a miller!
Without seeking to justify the Chevalier’s conduct in addressing such flippant letters to his superiors, even to those he loved so well, some indulgence may be claimed under provocation of no ordinary character. His pension, ever in arrear, was irregularly paid; his salary as resident was fixed at the inadequate sum of 12,000 livres, and he was to live at the charge of the ambassador, whose pocket, by desire of de Praslin and de Nivernois, should be spared to the utmost, and for whose sole benefit a gratuity was to be obtained from the King, by a fraud in which it was expected he would connive. It was too true that de Guerchy was totally unfitted for the high office he had been called upon to fill, but ‘little D’Eon, experienced, zealous, and useful,’ would be retained to do the work, and steer the count clear of all eventual troubles; not, however, with the title of minister or resident, to which he had been raised, but as secretary of Embassy, to which he would have to descend, resuming the former rank at such times only as the ambassador might be absent from his post. ‘Little D’Eon, an easy, good-natured fellow,’ would have peaceably resigned himself almost to any arrangement in accordance with the pleasure of ministers; but the prospect of degradation to secretary, at the same Court at which he had become plenipotentiary, was more than his proud spirit could bear. This was the open wound that never healed.... He had been directed by the King to receive his instructions from Tercier as if they came from himself; he accordingly wrote to Tercier for guidance, received expressions of sympathy and confessions of indignation, and being supported by further secret orders from his sovereign, he determined on his course of action.
For several months past an ambassador to France had been talked about, and so early as April 14, D’Eon had intimated to de Guerchy that it was commonly believed Lord Hertford would be named, accompanying the information, as was his custom, with a sketch of that nobleman. The earl was a Knight of the Garter, the father of six sons and six daughters all living, without counting those to come, for her ladyship was still young and in an interesting condition. His lordship spoke French well, and was just the man to preserve the peace so happily arranged between the two nations. He was a very courteous and amiable man, and of the same illustrious family as the beautiful Seymour, one of the empty-headed wives of a heartless king—he alluded to Henry VIII.[122]
The official notification of the Earl of Hertford’s appointment, September 29, as ambassador to the Court of France, was quickly followed by the official nomination, October 3, of the Count de Guerchy. Speaking of the new minister, George III. asked the French plenipotentiary if he was a good officer as general of infantry, to which D’Eon replied that he was so good as never to have harmed anybody, and although a general of infantry he considered him better qualified to command cavalry, because at the battle of Minden he recommended the cavalry to be placed in the centre and infantry on the wings. De Guerchy arrived in London on October 17, and put up at Lord Holland’s. The Chevalier hastened to wait upon his new chief, and the two men stood face to face, not for the first time in their lives, de Guerchy at once betraying the spirit by which he was animated, in expressing his surprise at D’Eon not being present when he alighted from his coach, and then asking whether he did not regret having written to him his letter of September 25. ‘No, sir, and were you to write me such another letter as that of September 4, from Jouy, I should be obliged to send you a similar reply.’ De Guerchy added that he should preserve the original as long as he lived; to which D’Eon replied that if he feared to lose it he begged to offer copies in quadruplicate, with his own attestation ne variatur! And so ended the first interview in England between these two men, whose malignant hatred of each other was not even swallowed up in death.
In the course of the evening, de Guerchy informed D’Eon that he had brought his letters of recall. ‘A la bonheur (sic), Monsieur le Comte!’ said the latter. ‘I will call for them in the morning, and at the same time hand over all papers likely to be of consequence to you.’ The following day, after de Guerchy had received the Embassy archives and assumed official charge, the Chevalier demanded his letters of recall. The ambassador, strangely agitated, searched drawers, portfolios, and elsewhere, and finding them at last in his pocket, gave them to D’Eon, at whose quiet acceptance of them he seemed disconcerted. D’Eon believed that the pretended search was to give him time to make some kind of apology for the past.
The Duke de Praslin to the Chevalier D’Eon.
‘Versailles, October 4, 1763.
‘Sir,—The arrival of the King’s ambassador putting an end to the commission entrusted to you by his Majesty as his Minister Plenipotentiary, I send to you your letters of recall, which you will deliver to his Britannic Majesty according to custom, and with the least possible delay. You will herewith find a copy of that letter. You will quit London immediately after your audience, and you will at once proceed to Paris, whence you will report your arrival, and where you will await my instructions without coming to Court.’[123]
The Chevalier was recalled, and yet expressly forbidden to appear at Court! There was apprehension lest he should bring to light the iniquities of which he was the victim! He was greatly moved at the contents of this letter, for even the despatch he had received some days previously, through the hands of a secret courier, had scarcely prepared him for so overwhelming a blow.
To the Chevalier D’Eon, my Minister Plenipotentiary, London.
‘Versailles, October 4, 1763.
‘You have served me as usefully in the guise of a female as in the dress you now wear. Reassume it immediately, and withdraw into the city. I warn you that the King has this day signed, not with his hand, but with the stamp, the order to compel you to return to France; but I command you to remain in England, with all your papers, until such time as you receive further instructions from me. You are not in safety at your residence, and here you will find powerful enemies.[124]
‘Louis.’
‘I have frequently heard the Chevalier D’Eon repeat to my father,’ says Madame Campan, ‘the contents of this letter, in which Louis XV. thus separated his individuality from the person of the King of France. The Chevalier or Chevalière had kept all the King’s letters ...’[125] yet the Duke de Broglie refuses to acknowledge its authenticity, and labours to prove that it is an imposture.[126]
No sooner had the Chevalier read de Praslin’s letter than it fell from his hands. He began to suspect, for the first time, the evils that menaced him. What was he to hope from the strength of character of a monarch who deserted him when he had done nothing but obey his commands, and whose only exhibition of courage consisted in signing away his downfall with the stamp instead of with the sign-manual. Unable to adopt and digest the idea that the King would submit himself to the will of others, and sacrifice one who was dear to him and whom he supported in secret, the Chevalier concluded that the affixing of a stamped signature could only have been an act of momentary weakness, a concession to temporary necessities, and he felt that he should be the more surely justified, from having been so unjustly condemned. Reflections such as these gave him courage and hope; he resumed his habitual gaiety, his usual indifference, and resolved upon adhering to all the King’s instructions, whatever the damaging situations in which they might place him. He did not, however, resign himself to this sort of humiliation without a struggle, being specially sensitive on points of honour and self-esteem, feelings to which he was prone, and which were readily excited within him.... He awaited his enemies with resignation, having made up his mind to yield, step by step, inch by inch, and make them pay dearly for a triumph he some day hoped to avenge.[127]
It had become de Praslin’s object to crush the Chevalier, first by degrading him, then seizing his person, when he would have thrown him in all probability into the Bastille. To effect this, he showed D’Eon’s two letters of September 25 to the King—the one to himself, the other to de Guerchy—and maintained that both sufficiently betrayed aberration of wind in the plenipotentiary, who could not possibly continue at a foreign court. It was under pressure such as this that Louis XV., feigning to believe in the imputation, suffered the despatch of the letter of recall, signed, not with his hand, but with the stamp.
Louis XV. to George III.
‘Sir, my Brother,—The arrival of the Count de Guerchy, my ambassador at your Court, causing the functions of my Minister Plenipotentiary to cease, I do not delay to divest him of his office, and to require his immediate presence in France; but as he is not in a condition to present his letters of recall, in person, I instruct the Count de Guerchy to deliver them to you, and to renew to you upon this occasion the assurances of the inviolable friendship with which you have inspired me, and of my sincere desire to render it for ever durable.[128]
‘I am Sir, my Brother,
‘Your good Brother,
‘Louis.’
‘Fontainebleau, October 3, 1763.’
‘Instead of bringing the Chevalier to trial and proving his guilt, de Praslin contented himself by causing forged letters of recall to be presented to the King of England by the Count de Guerchy. There was nothing in this to manifest the majesty of ministerial justice—it was the feeble apology of a desperate cause.’[129]
It was enough for the Chevalier to have learnt from the King himself that his letters of recall were not signed with the sign-manual; he felt assured that his Majesty could not be prevailed upon to sign away, with his own hand, his perdition, whilst want of firmness and feebleness of character had precluded him from fairly interposing in the action of his minister, and he refused to recognise the authenticity of the document.[130]
‘My letters of recall in the form of disgrace,’ he wrote, ‘not having been preceded on the part of the Duke de Praslin by necessary investigation, inquiry, or complete knowledge of all circumstances, whence the decision may be imputed to his own free act and will, are manifestly obreptitious, void, and of no effect. A decision of so great gravity would never have prevailed if truth, in seeking to approach the throne, had not been checked by innumerable obstacles. To have the right to persecute, one should be in the right, and to be in the right, it is sufficient not to be in the wrong. Ministers, like priests, are never in the wrong, and especially when they are strong enough to prove that they are in the right. Pompadour, who imagined that Louis XV. was unable to think, without her permission—those great ministers at Versailles who fancied that the King could do nothing without them, would be greatly astonished were I to prove to them, as clearly as is the light of the sun, and in the King’s own handwriting, that he mistrusted them all as he would a band of robbers; that he avoided them as he would a body of spies; and wishing to enjoy a little domestic peace, he allowed them to go the way of their own follies, for which he would afterwards try to make amends secretly. He had a hundred times more esteem, friendship, and real confidence in the intelligence, wisdom, and probity of the Count de Broglio, and in the valiant qualities of his little D’Eon, than in the whole of his mistresses and ministers put together, the majority of whom he kept about him from the same force of habit, largeness of heart, and regal grandeur, which induced him to keep other strange animals in his menagerie. When, under a despotic monarch, ministers and other great people at Court are corrupt and of prejudiced minds, no other alternative is left to oppressed innocence than an appeal to the King and to God. Under a republic, it is possible to appeal to God, to the people and to the sword; this last appeal being frequently attended with success, when battalions are strong, well disciplined, and artillery is well served.’[131]
Had D’Eon gone on to state how injured innocence was to reach a despotic monarch, his experience would have been of service to many, even in this the last but one decade of the nineteenth century; for the absolutism of his adored master, his Most Christian Majesty Louis XV., is not to be compared to that of one Christian ruler of these our times, the Imperial ruler, who, whatever the disposition of his heart, is condemned by tradition and long custom to spend his days in lonely grandeur, invisible and unapproachable to all but one or two dissembling and unfaithful ministers, too often shunned by even his nearest relatives, and therefore unjustly mistrusted and despised by his subjects of every class.