Although provided with passports that should have assured freedom from all kind of molestation or delay, the Customs’ officers refused to allow him to enter the city without first searching his effects. Obstinately objecting to submit to what he considered a gross indignity, but feeling himself under the circumstances to be the weakest, he made up his mind to pass the night outside the walls. A sergeant of hussars going his rounds offered the stranger a shelter in the guard-room. There being no French ambassador at Vienna, D’Eon sent, in the early morning, an account of his night’s adventure to Baron de Toussaint, a favourite of the Emperor, which resulted in the dismissal of the two Customs’ officers and the promotion of the sergeant to the rank of lieutenant.[27] [Sidenote: TIMELY ARRIVAL AT VIENNA.] At Vienna D’Eon found the Count de Broglio, French minister to Poland, who had received orders to pass through that capital, and there concert such alterations as might be considered advisable in the plan prepared by Marshal D’Estrées for the ensuing campaign; a measure facilitated by D’Eon’s timely appearance with the Russian plan of operations and his intimate knowledge of Russian affairs, which proved of invaluable service to the count. During his hurried stay at Vienna, news were received of the battle of Prague (May 6), ‘the bloodiest battle of the age,’ as Frederick called it, and de Broglio at once despatched him to carry the gratifying intelligence to Versailles. The hot haste in which he had travelled from St. Petersburg was not to be compared to the diligence he employed in bearing such additional good tidings; he managed to outstrip by thirty-six hours the special courier sent by Prince Kaunitz to Count Staremberg, Austrian ambassador at Paris, although he reached his destination with a broken leg, caused by the overturning of the coach in his headlong journey; the accident and its cause only serving to intensify the interest already felt in the young secretary, who was attended by the King’s own surgeon immediately upon arrival. D’Eon met with a most flattering reception by the Cardinal de Bernis, Foreign Minister, and Marshal de Belle-Isle, Minister of War, and a month or two later he received a handsome gold snuff-box, with portrait, from the King, inside which he found a gratuity from the privy purse, and, what he prized most, a commission as lieutenant of dragoons. D’Eon’s employment being still secret, and chiefly so in the King’s service, as well as public in the quality of Secretary of Legation, he was bound to apply for permission to convey to the Prince de Conti the message entrusted to him at St. Petersburg. It was granted by the King. _Louis XV. to Tercier._ ‘July 20, 1757.