As long as the Demoiselle d’Eon contented herself with writing ill of me to you in reference to the services I rendered her in England, or of sending word to you to the same effect, I treated her ingratitude with silent contempt, as you are aware, regretting her folly without complaining. I concealed her faults and attributed them to the weakness of a sex to which all is forgiven.... Now she no longer tries to injure me from a distance, nor in writing; but in Paris, in the best houses, where she is received out of curiosity, and even at dinner, before lacqueys, she is base enough to accuse me of having appropriated 60,000 livres, which sum, she says, was a portion of the money confided to me for her use.... I do not wish the Demoiselle d’Eon to be punished, I pardon her; but I entreat his Majesty to permit me to make my justification as public as the insult which has been offered to me. Beaumarchais had no trouble in obtaining the vindication which he desired. M. de Vergennes wrote to him a most flattering letter, giving him permission to publish it; making acknowledgments to the great scrupulousness of the negotiator who “without claiming the reimbursement of his personal expenses, had, throughout the transaction, shown no other interest than that of facilitating the Demoiselle d’Eon’s return to her native land.” Beaumarchais was too well pleased with this testimony not to hasten to publish it, adding thereto, by way of postscript, an open letter addressed to d’Eon, in which he showed himself disdainful if generous: May this gentle treatment, which you so little deserve, make you reflect seriously and teach you to govern yourself, since the many services rendered by me have neither inspired you with justice nor with gratitude. Such a change of conduct is necessary to your own peace of mind, believe me, who while pardoning would rue the day when first I met you, if it were possible to regret having placed ingratitude personified under obligation. The author of _The Barber of Seville_ had only sought to justify himself before the public by issuing those documents, for he knew his adversary too well to entertain the hope of reducing him so easily to silence. Brought before the tribunal of public opinion, whose approval he had ever courted, stung to the quick by Beaumarchais’ disdain, humiliated by the minister’s offensive language, d’Eon replied at once with malicious irony. His letter to the Comte de Vergennes is too long to be cited here in full; but a few passages will be sufficient to indicate the tone: