The Comte de Guerchy arrived on October 17. “He received me with hypocritical politeness,” d’Eon relates, “and asked me in a wheedling tone if I did not regret having sent him my letter of September 25. I replied quietly: ‘No, sir; my letter was perhaps a somewhat sharp, but a fair, rejoinder to your attack of September 4, and were you to address to me such another letter, I should be obliged to send you a similar reply.’ ‘Come, come, my dear M. d’Eon,’ he retorted. ‘I see you are rather a quarrelsome person.’ Thereupon he drew from his pocket my letters of recall, which he handed to me with a grieved air, expressing his regret and assuring me once more of his friendship and attachment. I answered him only with a look ... and bowing distantly I withdrew, taking with me that official document of my disgrace.” If d’Eon was as successful as he relates in concealing his mortification and in maintaining his composure, which was hardly his wont, the Duc de Praslin’s letter must have roused bitter reflections. Not only was he recalled to Paris, but he was forbidden to appear at court. This meant utter disgrace, exile and a severe check, if not an end, to his career. Too irritated to give way to despondency, and still hoping that Louis XV. would intervene on behalf of his secret agent, he determined upon awaiting events and deferring his departure as long as possible. His imagination, which was never at a loss for an expedient, supplied him with a complete plan of resistance in the scandalous contest which he did not hesitate to wage against the orders of his ambassador, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, and the King. The next day, upon delivering the papers of the embassy to de Guerchy, d’Eon informed him that he was not in the least hurry to obtain his audiences of leave. Being accredited by letters bearing the King’s signature, he could only be recalled, he contended, by an act in the same form. Regarding, therefore, as null and void the letters of recall which he had received, and which were signed with the stamp alone, he declared his intention of awaiting “further orders from his court.” De Guerchy pointed out to him in violent language the extreme impropriety of his behaviour, and the consequences to which it exposed him; then, growing gradually more and more heated, he told him—according to d’Eon—that “he should soon get the mastery over his obstinacy, and that, moreover, his ruin was already decided upon.”