De Sartines had been directed by de Praslin to inquire into the statements made by Dufour, saying, ‘Nothing essential is to be omitted this time!’ The officer of police insisted that the woman was of very doubtful reputation; no evidence, therefore, she was able to adduce could be accepted, and before involving persons of so high consideration, as were the de Broglios, in an affair of this kind, it would be necessary to obtain a written order from the King that he himself, at least, might be protected against all responsibility. Such pleas were worthy of a poor perplexed detective, for since the Hugonnet business, de Sartines felt himself bound, whatever his proper sense of duty, to consult, in the first place, the sovereign’s private interests and obey his secret commands, and he discerned, plainly enough, that the present was an instance which called for the exercise of his utmost discretion and prudence. Too well persuaded, on his part, of the futility of applying to the King for the order suggested by the officer of police, de Praslin had to content himself with a simple re-examination of Dufour, from whom nothing more was to be learnt, and the summoning of Hugonnet, who declared his incompetence to supply any kind of information, as the woman was entirely unknown to him, nor had he ever heard of her. At the close of the inquiry, de Praslin said: ‘I am not being duped, because, as a fact, this affair causes me very little anxiety. It is not D’Eon who will ruin the State.’[234] [Sidenote: DEATH OF THE COUNT DE GUERCHY.] Although de Guerchy and D’Eon had become separated never again to meet on this earth; although their unprofitable bickerings had come to an end and the time for recriminations was over, to cast each other into oblivion was too impossible a task for either. Upon his return to France, de Guerchy entered on a course of persecution, selecting for his victim D’Eon’s aged mother, who was suddenly deprived of the enjoyment of certain free tenures, while the taxes on her little estate at Tonnerre where she was living in quiet retirement, were inordinately increased. The poor lady was in fact hunted to misery and despair. ‘De Guerchy died at Paris in September 1767 in great anguish of body and mind. May our merciful God spare his soul in heaven, as I spared his body on earth!’[235] D’Eon had sent the count a final challenge in the form of a letter, dated August 5, 1767, which reached him a few weeks only before his death, when his youthful son swore that he would some day avenge his father. This letter, in which all the events of the past were recapitulated, covered copies of the indictment, of the writ of _certiorari_, and of other documents connected with his trial in London, and called upon de Guerchy to justify himself.