‘“And if I may be permitted to add a respectful demand to these conditions, I would venture to observe that, at the moment I am about to obey his Majesty in consenting to abandon for ever my male attire, I am entirely destitute of everything—linen, clothing, and apparel suited to my sex, and that I have no money to procure even ordinary necessaries, M. de Beaumarchais being well aware who is to receive the amount destined in part payment of my debts, and of which I do not wish to touch one sou. Consequently, although I have no right to expect further favours from his Majesty, I do not refrain from soliciting at his hands the gift of a sum of money for the purchase of my female outfit, this unexpected, extraordinary, and compulsory expense not being my own idea, but uniquely in obedience to his orders.” [Sidenote: BEAUMARCHAIS’ CONCESSIONS.] ‘And I, Caron de Beaumarchais, still as above styled, I leave with the said Demoiselle D’Eon de Beaumont the original letter conferring so much distinction, which the late King wrote to her from Versailles, April 1, 1766, when awarding her a pension of twelve thousand livres in acknowledgment of faithful services. ‘I further leave with her M. Durand’s original document. Neither of these papers can be taken from her by me without harshness that would ill accord with the benevolent and equitable intentions at present entertained by his Majesty towards the said Demoiselle D’Eon de Beaumont. As to the cross of Saint Louis, which she desires to retain with the right of wearing it in female attire, I must admit that, notwithstanding the exceeding kindness with which his Majesty has deigned to trust to my prudence, zeal, and intelligence in the conduct of this affair, I am afraid I should be exceeding my powers in determining so delicate a question. ‘Considering, on the other hand, that the cross of the royal and military order of Saint Louis has ever been regarded uniquely as the proof of, and reward for, valour, and that several officers who were thus decorated, having abandoned the military career for the church or the law, continued to wear on their new garments this honourable evidence that they had worthily performed their duties in a calling fraught with greater dangers; I do not think that there can be any objection to a like indulgence being granted to a valorous maiden who, having been brought up in male attire by her parents, and having courageously fulfilled all the perilous duties imposed by the profession of arms, may not have been aware of the impropriety of adopting the attire in which she had been compelled to live, until it became too late to change, and is therefore not in the least to blame for not having done so until now.