At this juncture strange reports began to be circulated about d’Eon, which were countenanced at the embassy, always ready to be malignant. The reserved habits of the Chevalier and the total absence of feminine intrigues in his life had long since excited ironical curiosity. Even the least perfidious tongues mocked the weakness of his constitution, others suspected him of being a woman; but many, attracted by the unusual, ascribed both sexes to the Chevalier. However strange and absurd such an assertion may appear, there is no doubt that it was made, and that it met, at this time as well as later, with amazing credulity. Other less ridiculous but more formidable insinuations, emanating from the same enemies, attributed to him the authorship of a defamatory pamphlet, published in the form of an anonymous letter addressed to the Lord Chief Justice. D’Eon was obliged to protest, and published a reply haughty enough to refute such accusations; but public attention, which he had courted so frequently, was now fixed upon him so persistently that several of the satirical works which it was becoming the fashion to treat with rigour were laid to his account. He was regarded as the author of a “dialogue between Mr. Frugality and Mr. Truth,” the ambassador and the ex-minister plenipotentiary of France being easily recognised under these pseudonyms. In Paris it was thought his bitter style was discernible in a work in six parts entitled: _L’espion chinois ou l’envoyé secret de la cour de Pékin pour examiner l’état present de l’Europe._ This was attributing to d’Eon many more books than he could possibly have produced. Engrossed by the judicial proceedings he had instituted against his ambassador, he had, with the assistance of his secretary and his lawyers, collected and often suggested the depositions of his witnesses. The grand jury of the Old Bailey met on March 1, 1765, and found a true bill against the Comte de Guerchy for conspiracy against the life of the Chevalier d’Eon. The case caused an extraordinary sensation. M. de Guerchy was expecting to be arrested at any moment; his butler, Chazal, who was accused of having administered the poison, had just taken flight, and also one of the secretaries who had written some of the libels. The cabinets of London and Paris were exasperated; Louis XV. and the Comte de Broglie thought it inconceivable that an ambassador could be delivered up to foreign tribunals. De Guerchy’s situation was all the more serious because the English law was founded on a number of intricate and not very well-known precedents. The case in point had been provided for by an extremely old statute, which jurisprudence had had no occasion to revoke. Only one case could be cited as an exact parallel, a trial which had led to the execution of the Portuguese Ambassador in the time of Cromwell.