D'Eon, under charge of libel, lived a fugitive and cloistered existence till the man who, he says, was to have assassinated him, de Vergy, sought his alliance, and accused de Guerchy of having suborned him to murder the little daredevil. A grand jury brought in a true bill against the French ambassador, and the ambassador's butler, accused of having drugged d'Eon, fled. But the English Government, by aid of what the Duc de Broglie calls a _noli prosequi_ (_nolle_ being usual), tided over a difficulty of the gravest kind. The granting of the _nolle prosequi_ is denied.[44] The ambassador was mobbed and took leave of absence, and Louis XV., through de Broglie, offered to d'Eon terms humiliating to a king. The Chevalier finally gave up the warrant for his secret mission in exchange for a pension of 12,000 livres, but he retained all other secret correspondence and plans of invasion. As for de Guerchy, he resigned (1767), and presently died of sheer annoyance, while his enemy, the Chevalier, stayed in England as London correspondent of Louis XV. He reported, in 1766, that Lord Bute was a Jacobite, and de Broglie actually took seriously the chance of restoring, by Bute's aid, Charles III., who had just succeeded, by the death of the Old Chevalier, to 'a kingdom not of this world.' [Footnote 44: _Political Register_, Sept. 1767; Buchan Telfer, p. 181.] The death of Louis XV., in 1774, brought the folly of the secret policy to an end, but in the same year rumours about d'Eon's dubious sex appeared in the English newspapers on the occasion of his book, _Les Loisirs du Chevalier d'Eon_, published at Amsterdam. Bets on his sex were made, and d'Eon beat some bookmakers with his stick. But he persuaded Drouet, an envoy from France, that the current stories were true, and this can only be explained, if explained at all, by his perception of the fact that, his secret employment being gone, he felt the need of an advertisement. Overtures for the return of the secret papers were again made to d'Eon, but he insisted on the restoration of his diplomatic rank, and on receiving 14,000_l._ on account of expenses. He had aimed too high, however, and was glad to come to a compromise with the famous Beaumarchais. The extraordinary bargain was struck that d'Eon, for a consideration, should yield the secret papers, and, to avoid a duel with the son of de Guerchy, and the consequent scandal, should pretend to be a woman, and wear the dress of that sex. In his new capacity he might return to France and wear the cross of the Order of St. Louis.