‘17. He was profuse in his offers to be of service at Versailles, and I accepted. Like a drowning man abandoned, so to say, by the late King and his private minister for high reasons of state, to the current of an infected river, I hung on for an instant to the boat of Caron as I would to a red-hot rod of iron. Although I took the precaution to protect my hands with gauntlets, I had my fingers burnt after all....’ [Sidenote: BEAUMARCHAIS’ HEART TOUCHED.] According to Loménie,[290] D’Eon _solicited the assistance of Beaumarchais_, and that he might the more effectively enlist his sympathies, confessed to him, with tears, that he was a female, which, never doubting, and delighted at the prospect of obliging a woman become interesting by her daring courage, political talents and misfortunes, and wishing also to bring to a successful issue a somewhat difficult task, Beaumarchais wrote some touching words to Louis XVI. in favour of his client. ‘When it is considered that this creature, so persecuted, is of a sex to which all is forgiven, the heart is moved with sweet compassion.... I venture to assure you, Sire, that in treating this wonderful creature with tact and gentleness, even though she be soured by twelve years of misfortune, she will be easily prevailed upon to submit herself, and give up the whole of the late King’s papers on reasonable conditions.’ Having familiarised himself with D’Eon’s story, his difficulties and necessities, Beaumarchais returned to Versailles, and exaggerating the importance of the hidden secret correspondence, although he had not seen any of it, pleaded the cause of his new client, and secured for himself the congenial employment of treating for the King’s papers by instructions contained in a letter from the Count de Vergennes, in which allusion is made for the first time to the Chevalier’s change of sex, although spoken of throughout in the masculine gender.