D’Eon attributed his good luck to the kindness of the King of England, of Lord Bute, Count Viri, the Duke de Nivernois, and to his own _savoir-faire_. ‘He brings me luck,’ said Louis XV., who received him warmly, and shortly afterwards conferred upon him the Cross of the Royal and Military Order of Saint Louis, a gratuity of six thousand livres, and raised his salary to the maximum of one thousand crowns. De Praslin was delighted, said D’Eon was a good-looking fellow, a hard worker who had performed his mission with great diligence, and awarded him a gratuity of two thousand crowns. Even the Marquise de Pompadour expressed her satisfaction, in a letter to de Nivernois, at seeing one who it was said was an excellent person, and had served his King in several countries, employed to bring the Treaty to France. She considered it a great act of politeness on the part of the English to entrust him with the Treaty. She liked the King of England, who was full of candour and humanity, and possessed every virtue that constituted a good king.[89] [Sidenote: THE COUNT DE GUERCHY.] It had been arranged from the beginning that the Duke de Nivernois’ embassage should end with the completion of the negotiations, the minister nominated to succeed him being the Count de Guerchy, with whom we are already acquainted. ‘I must do him the justice to say,’ wrote the British ambassador in Paris, ‘that de Guerchy has a universal good character as a soldier and a man of honour.’[90] But the Duke of Bedford was greatly led into error in this estimate of the character of a nobleman who was selected regardless of any qualification but that of rank, his strongest recommendation being his marriage with a lady of the House of Harcourt, and his only claims to the highest ambassadorial post in the gift of the King being the favour of the Marquise de Pompadour and a short period of obscure service in the war. He is described by Gaillardet as one of those gentlemen who live nobly in noble idleness, who are charitable until their own purse is touched, ostentatious until called upon to spend, ambitious of high office for the sake of the title, and of the title for the sake of the emolument; esteeming a good estate preferable to a good education; and persuaded that one always knows enough when of good birth, in good health, and possessing a good income. De Praslin’s own opinion of the man he was about to employ as ambassador in London is best gathered from what he says of him to de Nivernois:—