‘Sire,—I am innocent, and have been condemned by your ministers; but from the moment that your Majesty wishes it, I place my life, and the recollection of every outrage I have experienced from the Count de Guerchy, at your Majesty’s feet. Be persuaded, Sire, that I will die your faithful subject....’ His behaviour was very different towards the Count de Broglio, in whose letter he found no reference whatever to his contentions with de Guerchy; his solicitations for redress against the injuries he had suffered at the hands of the ambassador remained unheeded, nor was there one word of encouragement that might be construed into probable consideration of the services he had rendered, privately to the King, and to his country. It simply contained a proposition that he should surrender the papers in his possession for a sum of money not stated, and as to his prospects in the future, they were left undetermined. He returned the count’s letter to Nort, under cover of a written declaration that he refused to consider it. ‘I gave him to understand that I was not being dealt with fairly, that the turn the count was pleased to give to my affairs, in connection with the King, was by no means agreeable to me, and not in the least in conformity with facts and with the consequences of the secret order of June 38, 1763, and secret instructions relating thereto, which had obliged me not to take my leave at an audience, but to remain in London. The count passes over, with inconceivable indifference, the complaints I have laid at the foot of the throne against M. de Guerchy, treating them as petty quarrels, money matters, delicate questions to arrange, when he conscientiously knew the contrary to be the case.... I was being innocently sacrificed to policy and expediency. The count was leaving me, like the goat in the fable, at the bottom of the well into which the King’s and his own political orders, and the mutual hatred of the Broglios and Guerchiens had cast me; but I was delighted to see him, like the fox, climb on to my shoulders to escape from exile, and out of the precipice in which I remained, awaiting with confidence and steadiness the pleasure of God and the King.’[180]