M. du Barry had at last thought it advisable to look to the honour of his house. He had sent to London an emissary selected from among the hangers-on of his set, assisted by the police. This adventurer was as ill-noted as Morande himself, but less cunning, and he regarded his mission chiefly as an opportunity for a pleasant, well-remunerated journey. As soon as he arrived in London he had an interview with Morande, during the course of which he astounded him by his influential acquaintances, his fictitious post in the household of the Comte d’Artois, and dazzled him by the brilliancy of his promises. Morande raised his price proportionately, at once broke with d’Eon, and introduced everywhere in London the emissary who had been sent to him. But after a few weeks the Sieur de Lormoy, having squandered the sum of money with which he had been provided, and being unable to persuade Morande to moderate his new demands, left London surreptitiously, without having done anything but incur debts to the amount of a thousand pounds. Morande, disappointed and extremely irritated, was on the point of publishing his work, when the du Barry family sent another negotiator, chosen this time by M. de Sartine himself—Caron de Beaumarchais, the pamphleteer, who was not yet the successful author of the _Mariage de Figaro_, but merely the boisterous and litigious antagonist of President Goëzman. D’Eon has left another version of that mission which is neither likely nor in good taste, and appears to have been inspired by the bitter hatred he entertained against Beaumarchais to the end of his days. “The Sieur Caron de Beaumarchais,” he says, “under censure of the Parliament of Paris, and on the point of being arrested in accordance with the judgment, takes refuge in the King’s wardrobe, an asylum worthy of such a personage. M. de Laborde, the King’s valet, confides to Beaumarchais, in the gloom of the wardrobe, that the King’s heart is saddened by a scurrilous libel on the love affairs of the charming du Barry, which is being written in London by the scoundrel Morande. “Forthwith, the romantic and gigantic heart of the Sieur Caron swells with idle fancies; his ambition rises to the height of the waves of the sea which he will have to cross.... He communicates to Laborde his idea of going to London, and secretly bribing with gold the corrupt Morande. This project is imparted by Laborde to Louis XV., who deigns to give his approval. Accordingly, the Sieur Caron de Beaumarchais arrives in London _incognito_, escorted by the Comte de Lauraguais _in publico_.”