‘Three weeks or one month from the date hereof should suffice to enable you to determine upon the line of conduct it is your intention to pursue. There are but two courses—justice, or an appeal to arms. Failing a reply at the expiration of the time stated, I will be persuaded of the hardness of your heart, and conclude that the world is to judge between us.’ No answer came, and D’Eon sent his letter to Amsterdam to be printed in the form of a pamphlet by his friend Wan, the publisher. Whilst it was in the press, Wan heard of de Guerchy’s death, and wrote (September 23) to ask the Chevalier whether the publication was still to be proceeded with. The reply was in the affirmative, because he owed a full and complete justification to the King his master, to his country, to himself, to his family, to his protectors, and to the position he had held in England. ‘The ashes of a dead man should not be disturbed, and I am aware that to recall him to memory for the sake of retracing his ignominy is the measure of barbarism; but if the evil he wrought has influenced to such an extent the misfortunes of one who has survived him, as to make it appear that his parched bones perpetuate them even out of the depths of the tomb, personal interest, which is the first law of nature, requires, however reluctantly, that the corpse should be summoned to appear before the tribunal of mankind, not for the purpose of being defamed, but that the survivor may justify himself against the reproach cast upon him. Did not the Egyptians, so reverential towards their dead, summon, judge, and condemn the manes even of their monarchs? Let the inevitable therefore be answerable for whatever is done against M. de Guerchy, though he be dead. Even in his grave he is guilty of the ills that are being endured. Had he made any reparation his death would have been respectfully considered, although his acts would have been abhorred.’[236] _Hatred usually ends with the death of the one hated_, says Boccaccio; it was not so, however, with D’Eon, who to the close of his days never forgot, though he had long forgiven, the enemy that had been the cause of all his troubles. [Sidenote: AN UNWAVERING WITNESS.] Treyssac de Vergy died at Blackheath in October 1774.[237] Two magistrates, at the request of Sir John Fielding, attended to receive his dying statements, when, after confirming the depositions he had made upon oath, he said that being benevolently forgiven by the Chevalier D’Eon, who was present, for all the injury he had done to him, he met death with great pleasure. In his will, dated July 21 of the same year, and proved at Doctors’ Commons on October 10, we find him strictly adhering to the substance of the evidence he had given ten years previously.