authority for dishonouring the most faithful of his servants, and because apprehensive of the fate of his papers, and fancying he is no longer able to protect the custodian of them, secretly puts him on his guard, and although he recommends him to save himself if he can, remains carelessly indifferent to what might befall him; turns to his ambassador, admits him into the secret as the sole alternative that presents itself for ensuring himself from being compromised, directs him to secure the papers, to keep their existence and his possession of them a profound secret, and retain them until such time as he shall return to France, when he is to deliver them in person; this ambassador being the very man who, from the beginning, was the confidant and tool of de Pompadour and de Praslin, and against whose acquisition of the royal documents the plenipotentiary had long and successfully struggled, braving the hostility of ministers until he had effected his own ruin. Had D’Eon been so inclined he might, solitary outcast as he was, have constituted himself master of the situation, and dictated his own terms. Offers amounting to forty thousand pounds were now made, if he would say what he knew regarding the late peace. Lords Bute, Egremont, and Halifax, the Duke of Richmond, Count Viri, and even the Princess of Wales, were accused, in the general excitement, of having received bribes from the French Court for their share in the negotiations; so great indeed was the popular indignation against the Duke of Bedford, who had conducted them at Versailles as the King’s ambassador, that he seldom dared to appear in the streets of London, where he had been hissed, and worse might have befallen him. It was believed, and with good reason, that the Chevalier D’Eon was in a position to settle any doubts on the matter, and it was sought to take advantage of his abandoned and penniless situation by tempting him with plenty; but the love of lucre was not a trait in the Chevalier’s character. ‘I am intractable as regards my honour,’ he wrote more than once; and even though his royal master, for whom he was enduring all things, should forsake him in time of greatest need, he loved his country too well to expose it to danger and to the scorn of the world, by betraying the King. No sooner had the Chevalier received from M. Nort the Count de Broglio’s letter and substantial succour from the King—for it should be remembered that his emoluments and pension were stopped—than, brimful of emotion, and believing that in this material assistance he saw fresh earnest of interest in his behalf on the part of the monarch, now no longer trammelled by de Pompadour,[179] he expressed his heartfelt gratitude in these words:—