Now that I have obeyed the King’s commands by resuming female attire on the feast day of St. Ursula; now that I am living in tranquillity and peace in the habit of a vestal, and that I have completely forgotten Caron and his boat, judge of my surprise in receiving an epistle from the said Caron, enclosing copies, duly certified, of a letter he addressed to you, and of your reply. Although I know my Beaumarchais by heart, I must admit, Monseigneur, that his imposture and the way he sets about causing its acceptance have nevertheless astonished me. Was it not M. de Beaumarchais who, unable to persuade me to be dishonest and to support him in his speculations on my sex, spread the report all over Paris that he was to marry me after I had spent seven months at the Abbey of the Ladies of St. Anthony, when, as a fact, he was within an inch of being espoused to my cane, while in London? But his name alone is a remedy against nuptial love; the acheronic ring about it would frighten any _dragonne_, however resolute she might be. I must warn you, Monseigneur, that fictitious Demoiselles d’Eon, wearing the order of Saint Louis, have made their appearance in more than one fashionable house in Paris. They were jesters who said the most absurd things about all the acquaintances of the real Chevalière d’Eon, but chiefly with reference to the agreeable, honourable, and courageous Pierre-Augustin-Caron de Beaumarchais.... This scene, of which there have been an infinite number of variations, was repeated, I am told, last week, while I was quietly working and sleeping in my retreat at Petit-Montreuil. Does M. de Beaumarchais, so fond of hoaxing others, desire to have the monopoly of such a privilege?... Let me tell you, Monseigneur, that all the integrity of the four ministers joined to your own, even adding to it that of the chief clerks, would fail to make an honest man of M. de Beaumarchais in this business. The searching light which his past conduct throws on his character has compelled me much to my regret to class him with those by whom one must be hated in order to retain any self-respect. To add further to the irony of this curious epistle, and to win over to his cause the sex whose heroine he flattered himself he had become, d’Eon, assuming the tone of an outraged woman, ended the letter with a most fantastic invocation which he entitled: _The Appeal of Mademoiselle d’Eon to her Contemporaries_