‘Miss Wilkes presents her compliments to Monsieur the Chevalier D’Eon, and is very anxious to know if he is really a woman as everybody asserts, or a man. It would be very kind of Monsieur the Chevalier D’Eon to communicate the truth to Miss Wilkes, who entreats, with all her heart, to be informed of it. It would be still more kind of him if he would come and dine with her and her papa, to-day or to-morrow, or, in fact, as soon as he is able to do so.’[323] [Sidenote: THE COUNT DE VERGENNES’ EXPOSTULATIONS.] By some the Chevalier was accused of being a spy in disguise, who should be made to appear in the garments proper to her sex. By others she was suspected of being a natural daughter of Louis XV.; and one night a party of stragglers broke the windows and wrenched off several bars of the railing in front of her house in Brewer Street, violence repeated the second night after, the perpetrators not being discovered, even though D’Eon offered a reward of twenty guineas for their apprehension.[324] His aversion to the assumption of female attire was insurmountable, but he was pledged to it and had been strengthening his mind for the inevitable, the essential point ever present to his imagination being the driving of every bargain to his own special advantage. He sought to resume the negotiations of 1774-1775 for his return from exile, by direct communication with the Count de Vergennes, and claimed that if he were absolutely required to dress as a female, there should at least be inserted, in the written order to that effect, the words _as had been required of her in the reign of the late King_, after the words, ‘to resume immediately the garments of her sex never again to lay them aside.’ In making this request it was clearly the object of D’Eon, now about to enter upon the world’s stage, openly and permanently, in the character of a female, to shield _herself_ against the imputation of having of _her_ own accord, and at any time disguised _her_ sex to pass the life of a brave and distinguished man, and he shrank from accepting the smallest responsibility in his approaching compulsory transformation. The minister found it impossible to accede, and Beaumarchais was instructed to explain to the Chevalière the impracticability of her request being entertained, which he did, by repeating, textually, the minister’s own words, after saying that he wished the Count de Vergennes had employed some person less odious than he must be to her, to communicate his reply:—