The Sieur d’Eon sets so high a price on the surrender of the papers, of which he was the depositary, that all hope of recovering them must be abandoned for the present. But as it might be unwise to deprive him of all resources, by compelling him to make an ill use of the deposit, if your Majesty approves, things might be allowed to remain as they were on your Majesty’s accession to the throne. Louis XVI. said that he had never read “a more impertinent and ridiculous document than d’Eon’s statement, and but for the importance of the papers in his possession, he should certainly send him about his business.” Moreover, he thought it useless to spend 12,000 livres a year for the safety of a secret which was decreasing in value day by day. D’Eon accordingly remained in London. He must have owned to himself that he had seriously injured his prospects by showing too much avidity, but he would not admit it officially, and he hastened, as usual, to inform the public of the negotiation which had been opened with him and which had failed, according to a London paper, because “the Chevalier deemed all pecuniary satisfaction beneath his honour, gold being but a means and not the object of great souls.” It was, indeed, gold that d’Eon required. Harassed by his creditors, he resolved to pledge, and also to put in safe keeping, his precious correspondence, which he deposited with his friend Lord Ferrers, an English peer and an admiral. The latter advanced 100,000 livres on a sealed coffer containing the secret papers. This sum of money was not sufficient, however; in order to procure fresh supplies, and also, no doubt, to emerge from an inaction which weighed on him, he tried hard to obtain a situation. He even applied abroad, offering his services to the new Spanish ambassador, Prince Masseran, who replied declining his proposal. Continual failures and fresh disappointments revived in d’Eon, more and more persistently, the idea which had already occurred to him as a venturesome and quasi-heroic means of extricating himself from his quandary. It was a difficult way of recovering his vanishing popularity; but he had little to lose and everything to gain. The deception which circumstances had formerly suggested to him might well become his last resort; and consequently he allowed the report, which he was afterwards to turn to account, to spread without any further contradiction. When the public were tired of repeating that d’Eon was a woman the papers took up the tale; and a portrait even appeared of the “modern Minerva.” This was the engraving which d’Eon took care to send to his old friend, M. de la Rozière, then Governor of St. Malo, who, quite amazed, acknowledged its receipt: