‘M. de Beaumarchais makes me aver, upon his own private authority, what I never thought of or said. When I deposited the iron safe with his lordship he never even asked to see the outside coverings of the papers. He trusted entirely to my word when I declared to him that it contained State papers, and the detailed list signed by M. de Beaumarchais has proved to his lordship that I told the truth.... I know how to conduct myself abroad, and especially amongst the natural enemies of France, with the prudence and policy acquired by long experience and a residence of twenty-two years in foreign lands. Mine was consequently an act of wisdom and prudence, in not revealing to an admiral, an English peer allied to the royal family, the fact of my holding secret correspondence with the King, and that the said voluminous correspondence was hidden beneath the flooring of my bed-chamber. It was for me alone to know this, and that the papers were near a mine of gunpowder which would have blown all into the air had any attempt been made to drive me out of my last retrenchment. How can M. de Beaumarchais distinguish by the name of deceit the reticence I have necessarily observed towards everybody except himself, coming to me as he did, in behalf of the King and of his minister? Should he not rather blush at having betrayed to an English nobleman, through a feeling of revenge, my secret, which was that of the late King, who commanded me not to breathe a word thereon to any living soul? But M. de Beaumarchais thinks that all secrets, even the most important of State secrets, are but green-room secrets.’[297] [Sidenote: BEAUMARCHAIS’ COVENANT WITH D’EON.] In the Covenant[298] between Beaumarchais and D’Eon, settling the terms for the surrender of the King’s papers, and the return of the latter to France, the emendations and alterations, as they appear in footnotes, are written in the Chevalier’s hand. ‘We, the undersigned, Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, specially entrusted with the private instructions of the King of France, dated Versailles, August 25, 1775, communicated to the Chevalier D’Eon in London, and of which a copy certified by me shall be annexed to the present act—on the one part: [Sidenote: STIPULATIONS IN THE COVENANT.]