So from the first d’Eon found himself engaged in delicate and confidential affairs. He formed part of that secret ministry which the King, with the assistance of the Prince de Conti, the Comte de Broglie, and M. Tercier, chief clerk at the Foreign Office, directed in person, and employed to support, or more frequently to oppose and secretly to ruin, the official policy which he discussed with the ministers of State. What this strange and mysterious policy was, this conspiracy against himself, by means of which Louis XV. apparently desired to take his revenge for the insignificant part in the management of important affairs to which his indolence and timidity had reduced him, has been made known since Boutaric’s curious publication of the secret correspondence, and the interesting work written later by the Duc de Broglie from the material in the archives of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and the papers of his ancestor. The deplorable result of this secret diplomacy, which did not repair any, or hardly any, of the blunders of the official policy, and was finally reduced to impotence by its own conflicting intrigues, is also known, and will appear in part in these pages. But what will never be known are the endless windings of this labyrinth, which had blind alleys even for the most initiated, and in which the King himself at times lost his way; for, writing one day to Tercier to give him his instructions, he was obliged to confess that he was becoming somewhat perplexed by the intricacies of all these affairs. The secret diplomacy mysteriously superseded the official diplomacy, and extended wherever the King’s representatives were sent. Sometimes the ambassador himself was admitted into the secret service, and so found himself confronted by the difficult task of reconciling the instructions—frequently at variance—of the King and of the Minister for Foreign Affairs; more often, a secretary of the embassy, or some subordinate agent, was selected to play this part, becoming thus the spy of his own chief. While ministers and official ambassadors were as a rule chosen by the favourite of the time, the agents of the secret correspondence were enlisted by the King himself, who, out of excessive mistrust or a stirring of pride, often selected them from among the enemies of the reigning mistress. All the correspondents of this obscure policy were paid, or rather suborned, by the King out of his privy purse. The secret minister, who was first the Prince de Conti and afterwards the Duc de Broglie, answered for their discretion; their reports were despatched by safe and indirect means, and then forwarded through the medium of Tercier and Lebel, the valet, to the King, who took as much pleasure in reading, annotating and answering them as he showed weariness when he presided at a cabinet council.