D’Eon had once more evaded Guerchy’s plots, and had laughed at the ambassador’s official steps as he did at his secret intrigues. He had beguiled Monin, de Guerchy’s secretary, with false confidences, and had let him believe that the important documents which he possessed were not in England. As for the police officers sent from Paris to carry him off, he intimidated them, only going out in the company of several people and remaining for the most part entrenched in his lodging. “His bedroom, sitting-room, study, and staircase were undermined; and he kept a lamp burning throughout the night.... The garrison consisted of several dragoons of his old regiment, and some deserters picked up in London, who occupied the ground-floor.” These precautions, which would appear to be a gross fabrication had they not been the work of an adventurer anxious above all to impress public opinion, were quite superfluous. English law was a surer protection to d’Eon than “the four brace of pistols, the two guns, and the eight sabres of his arsenal,” and Lord Halifax, when questioned as to the fate that awaited him, replied: “He had better keep quiet; tell him his behaviour is abominable, but his person inviolable.” [Illustration: MADEMOISELLE DE BEAUMONT _From a Caricature in the London Magazine, Sept. 1777_] Sure henceforth of being unmolested, d’Eon obstinately refused to come to terms, and de Guerchy, having exhausted his means of coercing a man who “put his minister’s letters of recall in his pocket and refused to return the ministerial papers,” decided upon drawing up an official statement of his refusal. He proceeded to d’Eon’s lodging towards the end of December, and the drawing-up of the report gave rise to a scene in which the Chevalier lost all self-control. Striding up and down the room, he gesticulated, and declared “that he would rather die than deliver up the King’s papers, and that they would have to take them at the muzzle of his gun.” D’Eon signed this statement, which was destined to furnish Versailles with a formal proof of his folly. Louis XV. had ceased, moreover, to take any interest in d’Eon, dreading his disputes and bitterly regretting “the choice of such an agent.” He determined upon keeping him at a distance, without appearing to desert him entirely; and if d’Eon obtained fresh favours in the sequel he owed them to the fear he inspired rather than to the esteem he had won by his former services. The King wrote to Tercier on December 30: “I do not believe that M. d’Eon is mad, but he is presumptuous and a very extraordinary person. I think we must allow some time to elapse and support him with a little money; let him remain where he is in safety, and above all let him refrain from fresh action.”