But d’Eon would not listen to advice, urging that a minister plenipotentiary of France and a knight of the Order of Saint Louis could not “run away like so many despicable Frenchmen who had duped the generous English.” “He had promised,” he added, “never to quit the island before he had met his engagements.” The Marquis de Prunevaux concluded that his mission was at an end, and returned to Paris, bringing back nothing but a letter, at once humble and threatening, in which d’Eon permitted himself to state his own terms for returning to the King and the minister. He asked that he should be reinstated, if only temporarily, in the diplomatic rank and title he had held, and that the indemnities included in the enclosed detailed statement should be paid to him in full. It was, as M. de Loménie has justly remarked, the most impertinent _compte d’apothicaire_ (exorbitant bill) conceivable. Not only did d’Eon claim his captain’s pay for a period of fifteen years, as well as the reimbursement of his extravagant expenses during his ostentatious administration _ad interim_, but even the reimbursement of the “great expenses occasioned by his twelve years’ residence in London,” which amounted to the modest sum of 100,000 livres. His claims became completely farcical when the sum of 6000 livres was demanded for having refused Prince Poniatowsky’s present of a diamond of that value. Item (the Chevalier continued)—the Comte de Guerchy dissuaded the King of England from making the present of a thousand guineas to M. d’Eon which he confers upon ministers plenipotentiary who reside at his court 24,000 livres Item for several family papers lost by Hugonnet at the time of his arrest 27,000 livres Item, to having been unable to look after his vineyards in Burgundy from 1763 to 1773 15,000 livres When a few other no less imaginary monetary payments are added to the above, the sum total amounted to between 200,000 and 250,000 livres. VIII METAMORPHOSIS The Comte de Vergennes, astounded and indignant, was obliged, although regretfully, to communicate to the King the extraordinary bill he had just received. It is only remarkable (he wrote to his master) for its diffuseness and for the presumption and avidity which it reveals: it is throughout a fresh example of his extraordinary eccentricity. I wish I could spare your Majesty the perusal of this lucubration; but I cannot refuse the demands of this strange person without your Majesty’s orders.