Beaumarchais, who, as we shall see presently, had a lively private interview with his opponent a little later, hastily returned to France to turn his advantage to account, while d’Eon consoled himself by publishing a work which was the fruit of his long years of inactivity, and which he entitled philosophically, _Les Loisirs du Chevalier d’Eon_. Studiously and patiently did he beguile his leisure. In his shady retreat in Petty France, the garden of which bordered on the park, he indulged in the gravest meditations, to judge by the subjects discussed in these thirteen octavo volumes. War, administration, general politics, foreign affairs, one after another, are studied at length; even finance is not neglected, and suggests to the author such judicious observations, such prudent measures of reform, that the King of Prussia took care, it is said, to point them out to his ministers. He is, at any rate, reported to have done so in a London newspaper! Very favourably received in Berlin, the work owed its success in London chiefly to a daring dedication, which, on the other hand, prevented its sale in the Paris booksellers’ shops, and, particularly, in that of Antoine Boudet, in the Rue Saint Jacques. The most eloquent petitions, the most influential recommendations failed to appease M. de Sartine’s wrath against a book published under the auspices of the Duc de Choiseul, whose signal disgrace had just created so great a sensation and aroused so much indignation. D’Eon had placed himself of his own accord under the duke’s patronage in the following terms:— “In dedicating this work to you, Monsieur le Duc, I was not seeking a protector, for I am sufficiently protected by my liberty and my innocence. I sought a great man, and I have found him in his retreat at Chanteloup.” If history has not ratified d’Eon’s judgment of Choiseul, it must be remembered how ungrateful and difficult was the task of a minister whose foreign policy was almost continually counteracted by the secret action of the sovereign, and whose initiative, often very happy, in home politics was well-nigh paralysed by the hostile caprices of the favourite. A victim of Madame du Barry’s resentment, whom his mordant wit had not spared, Choiseul bore serenely and proudly an exile during which the court, and even the royal princes, visited him. Such a fine attitude attracted d’Eon, and all the more because vanity made him compare the lot of the exile with his own, and regard the fallen minister as another victim of the same intrigues and the same favourites. Pride or, to be more correct, bravado had similarly prompted him to write to the duke, at the time of his disgrace, a letter evidently inspired by a desire of impressing the world by his noble sentiments: