‘There was in 1773, and there still is, in England, a libelling adventurer named Théveneau de Morande, the counterpart of the Sieur Goudard described by me elsewhere. He had set up a newspaper called “Le Gazetier Cuirassé,” a sort of laboratory for defamation of character, in which he abused everybody and dealt in slander. Before printing “Le Gazetier Cuirassé,” he wrote to all those persons (including M. de Voltaire) whom it was his intention to defame, to demand a certain sum of money if they did not wish such abominations to be made public. The Marquis de Villette, one of those to whom he had written, replied:— ‘“You scoundrel! You demand fifty louis that you may not publish certain facts in which I am concerned; if you give me one hundred, I will supply you with many other facts far more curious and private, which you can add to your manuscript. I await your answer.” ‘2. In a letter dated July 6, 1773, Louis XV. and his secret minister, the Count de Broglio, instructed the Chevalier D’Eon to find out whether M. de Morande was really at work on “Notes on the Life of Madame la Comtesse Dubarry,”[287] and what sum would suffice to induce M. de Morande to give up his MS. and the publication of it.’ To which the Chevalier D’Eon replied, under date of July 13-18, 1773:— ‘You could not have recourse to anybody more able to assist and bring to a satisfactory termination the affair you have mentioned to me, M. Morande being a countryman of mine, who boasts of being connected with a branch of my family in Burgundy.... For two months I refused to make his acquaintance for very good reasons. He has so frequently called since, that I have occasionally received him rather than be annoyed by a young man of an exceedingly turbulent and impetuous disposition, who knows no bounds, and without any respect for things sacred or profane. Such is the man.... _Fœnum habet in cornu, tu Romane, caveto._ This is why I keep him at a certain distance.... ‘He is a man who swindles several rich people in Paris through fear of his pen. He has produced the most outrageous libel it is possible to conceive against the Count de Lauraguais, with whom he picked a quarrel. The King of England (himself so frequently attacked in the papers) asked, with reference to this affair, what he thought of English liberty.’ ‘I have nothing to complain of, Sire,’ replied the count, ‘it treats me like a King.’