‘De Guerchy has written to tell his friend (de Praslin) that I have threatened to thrust him out of the sanctuary afforded him by the embassy, which he profanes. This is absolutely false, but were it even true, is it not still more true that he has openly violated the dignity of the position confided to him by the King—(1) in causing a detachment of grenadiers to be summoned to arrest me, a minister of France, and in whose house? In that of the minister of the King of England. (2) In causing me to be poisoned, two days later, at his own table, to which he had invited me; (3) in wishing to pass me off for a lunatic; (4) in converting the embassy into a store for contraband goods. If our Lord chastised the Scribes and Pharisees, if He scourged the dealers out of the temple, if our holy father the Pope justly fulminates against the enemies and profaners of things sacred, does not de Guerchy deserve to be driven back all the way to Dover at a gallop, with a whip made of ass’s hide? I have read in the papers that the King has sent into the Gévaudan M. Antoine with a good pack of harriers to take the wild beast of Gévaudan.[191] I entreat you to represent to him that it would be worthy of his good heart to send hither a second M. Antoine, with a good pack of hounds, to drive out of England the Count de Guerchy, a thousand times more cruel and more dangerous than the monster of Gévaudan. Indeed, I cannot conceive how it is that the English, who have destroyed all the wolves in England, suffer this new man-wolf to exist in their midst.’[192] [Sidenote: IN DANGER OF BEING KIDNAPPED.]