D’Eon applied for permission to resign on the score of ill-health, and to be allowed to join his regiment, but his departure was necessarily postponed until a suitable successor could be found. For his own part de Choiseul became convinced that de l’Hôpital was no longer fitted for the post of ambassador at St. Petersburg, an opinion shared by the King for quite different reasons, which need not be entered into here. De l’Hôpital, however, was an old and faithful servant to the Crown and deserving of every consideration, so that it was felt to be impossible to recall him abruptly, and such a step was likely to give offence to the Empress, who had taken a fancy to him, and received him at her Court with favour and distinction. As a solution of the difficulty, de Choiseul conceived the idea of appointing a colleague to the marquis with subordinate rank, who should eventually succeed him on his resignation, which, considering his age and increasing infirmities, could not long be delayed. This colleague should be a personal friend of his own, to whom he might confide and entrust his policy and intentions, and he nominated the Baron de Breteuil, a young man of twenty-seven, of distinguished appearance and refined manners. The Count de Broglio, however, also had his candidate, M. Durand, a gentleman attached to the Embassy at Warsaw, the King’s secret agent in that capital, initiated in the system, well conversant in Russian affairs, and therefore eminently qualified to serve the King’s private interests at the Court of Russia in the room of D’Eon. This nomination the duke resolutely refused to entertain. He had undeniably good cause to suspect the existence of some occult influence to his disadvantage, having already found himself thwarted in his plans, in various quarters, without being able to trace the obstruction to its source, and had determined upon carrying his point, which he completely succeeded in doing, by prevailing upon the King to sign the Baron de Breteuil’s credentials as minister plenipotentiary. No sooner had the minister’s choice become an irrevocable fact, than the Count de Broglio and Tercier urged upon the King the expediency of admitting the baron to the secret correspondence, and informing him that he should best be pleasing his master by not carrying out the orders of the minister. The King had great objection to the admission of new disciples, but there appeared to be no alternative, and after a little hesitation his Majesty yielded to the recommendations of his advisers.[53] [Sidenote: THE BARON DE BRETEUIL.] _Louis XV. to the Baron de Breteuil._ ‘February 26, 1760.