At this juncture, de Broglio bethought him of making fresh proposals to the Chevalier. He invited him to forget the past, to desist in the future from all allusion to de Guerchy, whether for good or for evil—to forget the action for libel—the trial for attempt to murder, &c. &c.; and upon these conditions he should obtain the King’s sanction to entrust him anew with the secret correspondence, whereby he would be required to report on the state of public opinion in England, and what the members of the opposition were about. This species of capitulation coming from no less a person than the Count de Broglio, served to swell still more the Chevalier’s sense of his own importance, and he replied:— ‘Your friendship for me is as great as my assurance in maintaining a secret correspondence in the position in which I happen to be. You risk nothing in enlisting my zeal, whereas I risk a great deal in following the natural inclinations of my inviolable fidelity to the sacred person of his Majesty. But it is as sad, as it is inconceivable, that you should forbid me, in the name of the King, to complain of having been poisoned.’ D’Eon concluded by insisting that de Guerchy should be permanently recalled, and that in his stead should be appointed an ambassador to whose hands he might confidingly entrust what he still held in his charge.[228] [Sidenote: TARDY JUSTICE.] But even before de Broglio’s, had come a letter from Louis XV. D’Eon, ever generous towards the shortcomings of the monarch he adored, thus accounts for the King’s having refrained from any kind of interference or expression of opinion during the period of his own grave strife with the ambassador:—