D’Eon becomes Resident and Chargé d’Affaires at the British Court—Also the King’s special secret agent—Plans for the invasion of England—Nicknames to secret correspondents—Louis XV.’s letter to D’Eon on the survey of England—De Pompadour discovers the secret correspondence—The King’s vexation—D’Eon advanced to be Minister Plenipotentiary—How he received his new honours—De Broglio’s anxiety for the safety of the King’s papers—De Pompadour’s conspiracy to ruin D’Eon—Claims against the Crown—Letter of State in favour of D’Eon. The appointment, dated April 17, of the Chevalier D’Eon as Resident and Chargé d’Affaires, relieved de Nivernois of his functions and left him free to return to his home and ‘get rid of the violent and well-seasoned cold from which he was suffering—an English cold that seemed to have no end;’ but he delayed his departure for the purpose of proceeding to Oxford and receiving the degree of Doctor, _in facultate juris_. The duke, who had never been in England before, declared the journey had been most instructive to him. He saw some of the finest things in the world, was greatly astonished at the general high state of cultivation, and at the absence of poor people in the districts through which he travelled—the poorest seemed well to do, and would pass for burgesses in any small French provincial town. De Nivernois left London in May, travelling leisurely to Dover, chiefly in consequence of the state of his health, but also from a wish to see places on the road, and especially Chatham dockyard, and was no doubt the identical French ambassador of whom Smollett, who posted over the same ground a week or two later, relates in one of his letters that he was charged forty pounds by a knave of a publican at Canterbury for a supper that was not worth forty shillings! On leaving for England, D’Eon had become the secret correspondent of Louis XV., with whom and with the Count de Broglio and Tercier he was to communicate, in cypher or otherwise, as occasion might require, his instructions being similar in every particular to those he received when on his earliest journey to St. Petersburg in 1755.