On approaching Warsaw he met an imposing procession, “the main part of which was made up of twenty-three berlins and twenty-three waggons.” Couriers, equerries and numerous liveried servants were crowding round the luxuriously appointed coaches, astonishing the peasants, unaccustomed to the sight of so resplendent a pageant. It was the embassy of the Marquis de L’Hospital, who was on his way to St. Petersburg, where he was to take the place of Douglas. No expense had been spared to make that mission as famous for the rank of the secretaries attached to it as for the splendour of the carriages by which it was conveyed. The ambassador was escorted by the Marquis de Bermond, the Marquis de Fougères, the Baron de L’Hospital, the Baron de Wittinghoff, M. de Teleins, and the Comte de La Messelière, whose account of the journey has been handed down to us. Availing himself of this chance meeting, d’Eon retraced his steps as far as Bialestock, and accompanied the Marquis de L’Hospital to the house of the great Polish General Branicky. On the way he gave the ambassador the latest news of the Russian court, informed him that the annulment of the secret clause was an accomplished fact, doubtless without concealing the active part he had taken in the successful transaction, and left him overjoyed at not having so unpleasant a matter to settle on entering upon his functions at St. Petersburg. D’Eon then urged on the six horses which he had attached to his chaise, and crossed the plateaux of Moravia and Silesia post-haste. Stopped on the road by a band of four hundred Prussian deserters, he threw to them part of the Czarina’s ducats, and reached Vienna at nightfall. Here, despite his furious protestations, the customs’ officials prevented him from entering the city, and he had to resign himself to waiting in a guard-room of hussars until he could obtain a pass from the embassy. He was thinking of staying at Vienna for the arrival of the Comte de Broglie, the new secret minister, who was on his way to his post in Poland, when news came of the Austrian victory won at Prague, on May 6, over the King of Prussia. He at once set out again, never halting, exhausting his horses, and driving at such reckless speed that he fell headlong and broke his leg. Barely allowing time to have his injury attended to he continued his journey with the same hot haste, and arrived at Paris, prostrate, and burnt up with fever, but outstripping by thirty-six hours the courier sent by Prince Kaunitz to the Austrian ambassador at the court of France, and so bringing simultaneously the first tidings of two happy events.