With his usual alacrity and wariness in anticipating difficulties, by strengthening the position into which he sometimes fancied he was forced by chance, the Chevalier took occasion to represent to Lord Halifax, at a special interview for which he had asked, that he could not consider his letters of recall as authentic. In the first place, they had been brought by the Count de Guerchy, which was absolutely contrary to all precedent, and in these letters he was styled, simply, Minister Plenipotentiary, the titles of Knight of the Order of Saint Louis and Captain of Dragoons being omitted, although they appeared in his credentials; and what was of most importance, they were not signed with the King’s own hand. Lord Halifax expressed surprise at these informalities, and said that any English minister rash enough to make use of the King’s signature under similar circumstances would be doing so at the risk of his head; the King of England signed with his own hand all letters to foreign princes, and all special instructions to his ministers. Such an expression of opinion was exactly what the Chevalier wanted.[132]

The Embassy archives received by de Guerchy were contained in the same four despatch-boxes in which they had been delivered to D’Eon by de Nivernois, and consisted only of the official cypher and ordinary correspondence; but on taking leave of Madame de Pompadour and the Minister for Foreign Affairs, de Guerchy had engaged to secure, not only the Chevalier’s person, but every scrap of paper in his possession. Failing to obtain them coaxingly, he imperiously demanded, in the many angry altercations on the subject, that all the documents which had passed into his hands during his term of office, should be immediately and unconditionally given up! D’Eon quietly persisted in his refusal to surrender all such other papers as he conceived he had a right to retain, unless he received orders to the contrary direct from the King, and on October 23 he furnished the ambassador with this decision in writing.

The nature of the papers they coveted was a mystery to de Pompadour, de Praslin, and de Guerchy, except that it was believed they incriminated D’Eon in a correspondence with the proscribed de Broglios. Such would certainly have been the case, but they also included the detailed plans for an invasion of England, contemplated, as we are aware, and being completed during the few months that had transpired since the treaty of peace had been signed.

Finding D’Eon intractable and resolute, de Guerchy was urgent in requiring him to present his letters of recall and return to France with the least possible delay; and meaning to hasten his departure, he requested the Secretary of State to obtain an audience for the minister plenipotentiary on the earliest day possible. The following communication was the result:—

D’Eon declined the Secretary of State’s invitation to take leave of the King on the 26th, but he attended his Majesty’s levée on that day, and a dinner party in the evening at Lord Halifax’s, where the company included Mr. Grenville, the Prime Minister, Lord Sandwich, and others, and several foreign representatives. Scarcely had he entered the room at Lord Halifax’s, than de Guerchy, advancing rapidly towards him, asked why he had not taken leave of the King at the appointed audience. The Chevalier made his usual laconic reply: ‘Because I am awaiting further instructions,’ which led to an agitated and unseemly disputation, until D’Eon brought it to a close by addressing himself to the three English ministers who happened to be conversing together. ‘The Count de Guerchy forces me to the honour of declaring to your Excellencies, that I do not take leave at any audience, because I am awaiting further instructions,’ which little speech ‘de Guerchy confessed he was quite unable to comprehend, being himself a novice in diplomatic matters.’ Lord Halifax showing some inclination to take de Guerchy’s part, D’Eon drew from his pocket the invitation to dinner he had received, and said to his lordship: ‘Your Excellency has invited the minister plenipotentiary to dinner; I entreat that it be not delayed. It is late, and personally, I wish to avail myself peaceably of the honour you have done me. I do not come here to excite a disturbance but to bring peace.’ For such bold words as these, Lord Halifax, who as yet knew but little of D’Eon, was scarcely prepared; but they sufficed to put him on his guard, as the sequel will show, for he was beginning to discover that he had to do with a somewhat strange, perhaps violent, and at any rate very singular character.

There called at the French Embassy one day in August, a tall, lean Frenchman, who announced himself as M. Treyssac de Vergy, a great friend of the Duke de Praslin and the Count de Guerchy, and other French ministers, and as having come to England to visit a country of which so little was known. The Chevalier D’Eon received him politely, but reminded him that it was customary to bring letters of introduction to a minister, and hoped that he would make it his business to do so; to which de Vergy replied that he did not consider such letters at all necessary from his being on terms of great intimacy with the Count de Guerchy, whom he had met at supper at the house of the Marquises de Villeroy, de Lirré, &c., and who was sure to embrace him on both cheeks the next time they met. He repeated his calls, still without producing any letters, until the Chevalier gave him clearly to understand, in the presence of several members of the Embassy, that he should have to refuse him admittance if he again made his appearance without some kind of recommendation.

On October 23 the Chevalier dined with de Guerchy, and in the course of the evening M. de Vergy was announced. The Countess de Guerchy asked D’Eon, aside, if he knew him. ‘No, Madame, but I have my suspicions about him.’ ‘Hush! M. D’Eon; pray do not speak so loud.’ De Guerchy then inquired of D’Eon if he was acquainted with de Vergy. ‘No, Monsieur le Comte, and I have already informed him that he must bring letters of recommendation.’ Then, turning to de Vergy, he said: ‘Here is the Count de Guerchy who you know so well, and with whom you have supped at the Marquise de Villeroy’s. I do not see that he flies to embrace you.’ An awkward silence of some moments was broken by de Guerchy: ‘Monsieur de Vergy, I do not know you at all, nor have I met you at supper at the Marquise de Villeroy’s, although I have the honour of knowing that lady, and have frequently supped at her house.’ Foolish de Guerchy! How dearly this utterance cost him, so untrue was it. De Vergy fixed his eyes steadily on the ambassador, made a profound obeisance, and said: ‘I beg your Excellency’s pardon, I thought I had the honour of being acquainted with you.’ Then, turning to D’Eon: ‘I have heard it said that you were a polite man; there never was a greater mistake. You do not know, M. D’Eon, the fate that awaits you in France.’ These last words he repeated a second time. The Chevalier, who was a perfect stranger to de Vergy’s business in England, took the latter by the arm. ‘My politeness does not extend to lying in behalf of others. I do not give you the lie, because you do not know what it is to tell the truth.... I have nothing with which to reproach myself, and am by no means anxious as regards my fate, in France or elsewhere.... Were we not in the presence of the ambassador and of his lady, I should very soon prove to you that I am not afraid of your threats.’ Other visitors being announced, the ambassador authoritatively put an end to the altercation, and to D’Eon’s great surprise, de Vergy was permitted to spend the evening in the general company.

On the morning of the 26th, whilst the Chevalier was absent from home attending the King’s levée, de Vergy called at his residence in Dover Street, and being informed, in answer to his inquiries, that D’Eon was always at home at nine o’clock, left word that he should call at that hour the following day, fully expecting to find him in. D’Eon took in the significance of this message, and in the evening, after dinner at Lord Halifax’s, he privately related to his lordship the whole of the de Vergy incidents, and the challenge openly left at his house that morning. For once, the Chevalier neglected his measures of prudence. Lord Halifax had scarcely time to forget the mild reproof D’Eon found the courage to administer to him that evening, before being unconcernedly told of an intended breach of the peace by one in whose own country duelling was forbidden under pain of death.[134]

Lord Halifax thanked the plenipotentiary for the information he had communicated, and shortly invited the French ambassador into another room, where they remained closeted for some minutes, and on coming out again the two joined Mr. Grenville and Lord Sandwich in close conversation. Lord Halifax then asked the Chevalier to abandon his intention of meeting de Vergy. ‘I have no intention of going in search of de Vergy, but since he has appointed an hour to see me, I shall certainly await him.’ ‘Well, then,’ said Lord Halifax, ‘were you even the Duke of Bedford, I should have to give you in charge of the Guards.’ ‘I have not the honour of being the Duke of Bedford; I am M. D’Eon, and can take perfectly good care of myself;’ adding, wishing to escape all further interference: ‘I have an engagement at the play-house this evening, and beg to take leave of your Excellency.’ On turning to leave the room he was surprised to find the door locked, and said somewhat testily to the ministers, that he never could have believed it possible for a minister plenipotentiary from France to find himself a prisoner in England, in the house of a Secretary of State; whereupon Lord Halifax handed him a slip of paper, with the request that he would attach his signature to what was written on it. D’Eon read the note, and as he persisted in refusing to sign it, although repeatedly pressed to do so by the ministers, the door was thrown open, and a detachment of the Guards, with bayonets fixed, occupied the room in which the company was assembled, and the adjoining chambers as well. There were no means of retreat. On seeing the officer, D’Eon said: ‘Do your duty and I will do mine. If it is to see me home that you have come I need no soldiers, for I can go perfectly well alone and on foot.’ Then, addressing the ministers, he intimated that when his regiment again looked upon the uniform he was wearing, it should either be unsullied or drenched in blood! A compromise was effected, the soldiers were withdrawn, and the Chevalier signed the following declaration ‘in obedience to orders.’

Beyond reporting the circumstance of the Guards being summoned during the evening of October 26 to keep the peace, the daily papers gave no details of what passed in the reception-rooms of one of the King’s ministers;[135] a variety of inaccurate versions found easy credence, and one other blunder was added to the acts of a blundering ministry.

De Vergy was true to his tryst. ‘Here am I, sir, in fighting trim, only let me ask you a question. Are you minister plenipotentiary or a captain of dragoons? because if you are a minister I retire.’ ‘I am delighted to see you, for I have been expecting you. To you, I am simply a dragoon.’ D’Eon then secured the door, intending to detain his visitor until he had sent word to the Embassy that de Vergy was with him. ‘Do not touch me!’ cried de Vergy in alarm; ‘do not touch me!’ ‘What!’ said D’Eon smiling, ‘you come to me in fighting trim, and are afraid lest I should touch you? No. I merely intend that you shall be arrested.’ Then, leading him into his bed-chamber where were writing materials: ‘I require you to read this note, and sign it in duplicate.’ De Vergy started at seeing a brace of cavalry pistols and a sabre. ‘Do not kill me!’ D’Eon lay a pistol on the floor, and putting his foot on it said: ‘There, it won’t bite you. Now, sign with a will.’

De Vergy quickly put his name to both slips, and was making for the door when D’Eon stopped him. ‘I must trouble you to leave by the back way; my friends only pass through that door. Tell me who you are, or I shall hand you over to the Embassy.’ ‘M. D’Eon, do not detain me here or I am a lost man.’ ‘Well, Mr. Adventurer, you may go; I do not wish for the death of a sinner, but rather for his conversion. If you bring letters and prove to me that you are an honest man, I shall be a good friend to you.’ D’Eon at once sent the duplicate of de Vergy’s declaration to the ambassador, who complimented him upon his honourable behaviour; and de Vergy, having made the best of his way to the police-court, to lodge a complaint against the man who had been bullying him that morning, the Chevalier received the following notice in the course of the day:—

No notice was taken of this summons by the Chevalier, in the first place because it was not authenticated by any signature, and because as minister plenipotentiary he did not consider himself bound to answer it. The matter went no further.

Regardless of his dignity, the ambassador continued to importune D’Eon for the surrender of his papers, advances that were now met in that spirit of defiance the Chevalier thought himself safe in assuming, armed as he was with the King’s secret commands. De Guerchy was furious at D’Eon’s obstinacy and intractability, and resorted to endless expedients for injuring him in public and private estimation. Acting as he did, in concert with de Praslin, his first care was to circulate the report of the Chevalier’s insanity, which he even carried to the Princess Augusta at Court. He caused two damaging pamphlets to be published,[137] and further annoyed him in a hundred different ways, even to the jeopardy of his person, hoping to drive him out of the country and back to France. De Guerchy, however, was no match for his dexterous subordinate, and he so far forgot himself as to entreat the Duke de Choiseul to write a flattering and coaxing letter to the Chevalier, under the title of minister plenipotentiary, to invite him to repair to Versailles and lay his grievances before the King. ‘You will perhaps think me a fool for asking you to resort to means so little consonant with your character, but I do not see my way to anything else for the present.’[138]

The Chevalier did lay his grievances before the King, but in a manner very different to that intended by de Guerchy, for he reported in a long despatch, taken to Versailles by his kinsman and collaborator, de la Rosière, the treatment he had received at the hands of the ambassador, and his own conduct under the circumstances. We give a few extracts only, such as are indispensable to our narrative:—

These incidents, the attempts made to bribe his servants, the fact of a sedan being continually stationed at his door, although it was not ordered, convinced him of some bold design on his person and papers, and he resolved upon leaving his apartments in Dover Street, which he did on November 9, removing to the house of a Mr. Lautem, wine merchant, 32 Brewer Street, Golden Square, which became his abode for many years after.

A puerile annoyance to which D’Eon had been subjected during the last few days of his stay in Dover Street, was a rapping and plaintive sounds at two o’clock every morning, which proceeded from the flue of a chimney communicating between his own bedroom, and the apartments in the floor below occupied by L’Escallier, private secretary to the ambassador, who, as the zealous auxiliary in the plots of his master, employed a young sweep to ascend the chimney and make ‘ghostly noises.’ The count was trying very hard to pass off D’Eon for a madman, and that he might obtain evidence to that effect, had conceived this bright idea for frightening the Chevalier, imagining that such noises and groans in the dark would terrify him, cause him to leave his bed and summon the servants. Monin, the count’s old tutor, who lodged in the room above L’Escallier and the other dependants devoted to him, would be able to depose that nothing was found; that there was no cause for alarm, and thus prove the minister plenipotentiary’s insanity, or at any rate his being a visionary, which would go far towards completing the success of the scheme for having him arrested and confined as a lunatic. ‘This incident of itself suffices to illustrate the meanness and wickedness of the count and his party.’[141]

Although a good deal of trouble was taken to persuade Louis XV. that his minister plenipotentiary in London was demented, he does not appear ever to have seriously believed in the accusation. After seeing D’Eon’s letters of September 25 to de Praslin and de Guerchy, we find the King writing to Tercier, October 11, 1763:—

It is possible that the representations of the French ministers on D’Eon’s mental condition, received some support from Walpole’s chit-chat to the Earl of Hertford, ambassador in Paris.

As Walpole was not present at Lord Halifax’s the evening of October 26, he probably obtained these details from his friend de Guerchy.

Thwarted at all points by the Chevalier, who was proving himself to be his superior in shrewdness and audacity, and indeed in every other quality that the circumstances during their sensational disputes necessitated, and dreading the certain exposure, by his intended victim, of the criminal act of which he had been guilty, the ambassador, miserably perplexed, entreated his valued friend de Praslin to extricate him out of a position which had become quite unendurable. The result was a joyous one to de Guerchy, a special courier having brought a request to the British Government for the extradition of D’Eon and the seizure of all his papers; but with his habitual foresight and caution, the King took care to forestall the ministers by despatching a secret messenger with written instructions to his ambassador and to his minister plenipotentiary, neither of whom was to be made aware of the communication received by the other.

Thus was the Chevalier about to be dealt with as an ordinary malefactor for having braved the fury of de Praslin and of the ambassador, losing also his best friend de Nivernois, in his intense devotion to the King whose secret correspondence and interests in England he was protecting; and because his freedom was imperilled by the ministers of France, the selfish, vacillating, and weak monarch was secretly scheming for the transfer of the compromising papers into the custody of the very man from whom it had cost D’Eon so much to withhold them, and for doing which he had been fast ensuring his own ruin. The King was feeling that the step he had taken threatened imminent danger to the other secret agents immediately concerned—the Count de Broglio and Tercier, but his conscience was easily relieved, and in addressing a few words of explanation and comfort to the latter, he fancied he was justifying his course of action, and reassuring those who were serving him far more faithfully than he deserved.

De Broglie was of an entirely different opinion. Upon hearing of what the King had done, he declared to Tercier, in a note he wrote from his place of exile, that de Guerchy would assuredly divulge the secret, and that his wife was as assuredly already acquainted with it.[145]