The Chevalier was at no loss to justify himself for having thus exposed the private correspondence of French ministers. When he saw that de Guerchy and de Praslin made it their business to despatch courier after courier to each other, and secretly spread reports upon the subject of his affairs, he made up his mind to publish what disconcerted their measures. Nobody was able to conceive how a young captain of dragoons could have the temerity to be the first to impugn an old lieutenant-general, Knight of the King’s Orders, his Majesty’s Ambassador Extraordinary, a friend of thirty years’ standing of the Ministers of France, a favourite of the King, and allied to several powerful houses; but everybody was able to perceive, without any difficulty, that it was the lieutenant-general and favourite ambassador who had commenced the attack, and that the captain, minister plenipotentiary, was obliged to defend himself. Was there cause for libel in writing against a poisoner, an assassin, who commenced by hiring scribblers to tarnish his reputation? Was there cause for libel in publicly defending, when openly and publicly assailed, one’s honour, life, and liberty? Every law, human and divine, justifies such defence. In every suit, in every contention, in every quarrel, the aggressor is specially to be distinguished from the aggressed, the oppressor from the oppressed! Offensive war is the act of a tyrant; he who defends himself is justified. Had the count given the Chevalier good wine at his table, in the place of poison, there never would have been any dissension between them. The chief cause of the Chevalier’s falling into disgrace with the French ambassador, lay in the former’s evil or good luck, in seeing the latter take to flight on the right bank of the Weser, when, being under fire of the English and Hanoverians at the passage of that river, the Marshal de Broglio’s order was delivered, directing him to give his support and distribute ammunition to the troops. The recollection of that incident must have been exceedingly disagreeable to the count, for when the Chevalier reminded him, upon the memorable evening at Lord Halifax’s, that they had served together during the war, de Guerchy told Lord Halifax, in the presence of the other English ministers, that he had never met D’Eon, nor was he at all concerned to know who were the aides-de-camp to the Count and the Duke de Broglio. In reply, D’Eon maintained that he might perhaps remember having entertained him at his head-quarters upon more than one occasion, to discuss the hot pastry for which his cook was famous, and that when retreating from Einbeck, his column having missed its way, he had put it on the right road to Northeim.[164]