The Comte de Broglie, who naturally desired to have nothing to do with such a campaign, refrained from sending the funds which d’Eon so insolently solicited. Several months before he had ceased to submit to the King the claims of his secret agent; but this time, realising the imminence of the scandal which d’Eon was about to cause, he asked Louis XV. to allow him to proceed to London in person. The King agreed to the Comte de Broglie’s proposal, and sought for a plea on which to obtain M. de Praslin’s approval of this mission. The design was abandoned, however, owing to an incident which threatened his secret diplomacy and completely absorbed his attention. D’Eon’s valet, a man named Hugonnet, who had been employed formerly as courier by the Marquis de L’Hospital, and afterwards by the Duc de Nivernais, was arrested at Calais when bearing despatches from Drouet, private secretary to the Comte de Broglie. Long suspected of being the intermediary of the secret correspondence, of which the ministers had some inkling, he had succeeded hitherto in baffling the spies set to watch him. Less fortunate this time, he was forcibly detained on applying at the offices of the Admiralty for his passport. “Upon his stating his name,” d’Eon relates, “the naval commissioner at once pointed his sword at his breast saying that he made him a state prisoner. Two grenadiers took him to M. de la Bouillie, commandant of Calais, who seized the bundle of papers and caused the said Sieur Hugonnet to be placed in close custody. He was then made to undress, his clothes and even the heels of his boots ripped open. A week later an officer of police arrived from Paris who had Hugonnet fettered and handcuffed, and removed him to the Bastille, chained by the waist to the coach-box of a post chaise.” Hugonnet’s arrest brought about that of Drouet. The Duc de Praslin thought he had at last a proof of the Comte de Broglie’s correspondence with the criminal of the state, d’Eon, and he hastened to apprise the King of his discovery and his suspicions. Louis XV., seeing his secret again in danger, did not think of stopping the inquiry by simply expressing his will. He preferred the deplorable expedients to which his weakness had already led him to resort. Irresistibly attracted at all times by double-dealing, he contrived a comedy of which the subordinate agents of the ministers were to be at once the confidants and the actors. He sent for M. de Sartine, lieutenant of police, and ordered him “to lay aside all papers which might be seized in this affair concerning the Comte de Broglie, Durand, and Tercier.” Satisfied with this skilful, but still more strange, move, he wrote to Tercier making this admission, unexpectedly humble on the part of an absolute monarch: “I have unburdened myself and confided in de Sartine. He seemed pleased, and we must hope that his discretion and this mark of confidence will guide him aright. If we are disappointed, we will see what is to be done.”