In his retirement d’Eon showed more of his real nature than had been possible to him in the strenuous days when he had to be always vigilant and ready at an instant’s notice to conceal his intentions--his very thoughts. Here he showed a sensitiveness with which even his friends did not credit him. He had been so long silent as to matters of his own concern that they had begun to think he had lost the faculty not only of making the thought known, but even of the thought itself. The following paragraph from the London _Public Advertiser_ of Wednesday, 16th November, 1774, shows more of the real man than may be found in any of his business letters or diplomatic reports:-- “The Chevalier d’Eon with justice complains of our public prints; they are eternally sending him to France while he is in body and soul fixed in this country; they have lately confined him in the Bastille, when he fled to England as a country of liberty; and they lately made a Woman of him, when not one of his enemies dared to put his manhood to the proof. He makes no complaints of the English Ladies.” In an issue of the same paper 9th November, of the same year, it is mentioned that the Rt. Hon. Lord Ferrars, Sir John Fielding, Messrs. Addington, Wright and other worthy magistrates and gentlemen and their ladies did the Chevalier d’Eon the honour to dine with him in Brewer St., Golden Square (common proof that the Chevalier d’Eon is not confined in the Bastille). D’Eon was much too wily and too much accustomed to attack to allow diplomatic insinuations to pass unheeded. He was now beginning to apply his garnered experience to his own protection. From the above extract of 16th November one can note how the allegation as to his sex was beginning to rankle in the soldier’s mind, and how an open threat of punishment is conveyed in diplomatic form. Indeed he had reason to take umbrage at the insinuation. More than once had attempts been made to carry him off for the purpose of settling bets by a humiliating personal scrutiny. From something of the same cause his friends on his death caused an autopsy to be made before several witnesses of position and repute. Amongst these were several surgeons including Père Elisée, First Surgeon to Louis XVIII. The medical certificate ran as follows: “Je certifie, par le présent, avoir inspecté le corps du chevalier d’Eon, en présénce de M. Adair, M. Wilson et du Père Elysée, et avoir trouvé les organs masculins parfaitement formés.” X. THE BISLEY BOY A. PROLEGOMENON