Previous to quitting the capital, D’Eon went to Peterhof to take leave of the Empress, who required he should promise to return to Russia so soon as he had recovered his health. In parting from Woronzoff, the colleague with whose aid he had accomplished so much, the Grand Chancellor said:— ‘I am sorry you are going away, even though your first trip here, with Douglas, cost my Sovereign more than two hundred thousand men and fifteen million roubles.’ ‘I agree,’ replied D’Eon, ‘but your Excellency should at the same time admit, that your Sovereign and your Excellency yourself have thereby acquired fame and glory that will last as long as the world.’[59] D’Eon carried away with him a souvenir from the Empress, consisting of a snuff-box with her cipher in diamonds. Sick and faint, D’Eon left St. Petersburg for the third and last time in August 1760, taking with him the ratifications to the Treaty of December 30, 1758, and the ratifications to the Maritime Convention concluded between Russia, Sweden, and Denmark. Travelling through Finland, Livonia, Courland, Poland, and Hungary, as fast as horses could carry him, he reached Vienna completely exhausted and scarcely able to move. His friend, the Count de Choiseul,[60] received him in comfortable quarters and supplied all his wants; but he was restless and impatient to complete his journey, which he did in equally imprudent haste. Sickening of small-pox at Paris, a long illness and convalescence entirely unfitted him during several months for any kind of employment. Upon his recovery, D’Eon was received by the King, who was pleased to confer upon him a life pension of two thousand livres, under warrant dated December 24, 1760, ‘in acknowledgment of his zeal and ability as secretary of Embassy in Russia, a post he has held for several years,’[61] and by the following February he was well enough to be able to realise his dearest and long-deferred wish, that of active service on the field. He requested the Minister for War to transfer him from his own regiment, the dragoons of the Colonel-General, doing duty on the coasts of France, to the regiment of dragoons of the Marquis d’Autichamp, in the army on the Upper Rhine, and applied for permission to serve as aide-de-camp to the Marshal and the Count de Broglio, with both of which solicitations the Minister readily complied, the King specially approving of D’Eon’s being on the staff of those officers, remarking that they should know where to find him if he were wanted.[62] This appointment was a great compliment, for the marshal was intractable in the selection of officers to serve on his staff, and most punctilious in surrounding himself with scions of the noblest families.[63] [Sidenote: DISTINGUISHED MILITARY SERVICES.]