So thoroughly was the secret maintained that after four months even the late ambassador, the Duke de Nivernois, who was on the most intimate and friendly terms with all at Court, expressed his surprise at D’Eon’s having quitted the Embassy. ‘Why do you always wish to live by yourself and remain in loneliness?’ he wrote; ‘how can you live separated from your work, and where can your work be, but under the ambassador’s roof?’ The Chevalier quotes Psalm cii. 7, and adds cynically: ‘I prefer the solitude of my little library to the society of the great. Men are not good for much. Knaves or fools; so much for three-fourths of them; as for the other fourth, they stay at home.’ [Sidenote: D’EON’S FALL DECREED.] The Marquise de Pompadour had condemned the Chevalier D’Eon for acts he had not committed—he had not betrayed his connection with the de Broglios, he refused to betray the King his master—both ever existing grievances in her mind, and she decreed his fall and disgrace. Men willing to stoop to do her will, and sufficiently powerful to carry it out, were not wanting at Versailles. With such as the Duke de Praslin, the Count d’Argental, and the Count de Guerchy, pretexts could never fail, and the Chevalier’s epistolary dissensions with de Praslin on certain monetary claims against the State, which he honestly persisted in making, as also his just resentment of de Guerchy’s censures on what the latter considered excessive outlay at his expense, during the term of D’Eon’s office as French representative in London, readily made up the sum of heavy charges wherewith to crush him. We would avoid anticipating events, but let us say here, that designs even on the life of the minister plenipotentiary were contemplated by two, at the least, of the triumvirate which had bound itself to wreck him.[114] When D’Eon was first sent on secret service to Russia, he had to contract a loan of ten thousand livres on his own account to meet his expenses. Ordered by M. Rouillé, Minister for Foreign Affairs, when despatched to Russia for the second time officially, to remain with the Chevalier Douglas until the arrival of the ambassador, Douglas considered it desirable, in view of the coming changes, that D’Eon’s application for reimbursement should not be made except to his own Court, feeling persuaded that sooner or later his claim would be acknowledged by the latter. Acquiescing in this, D’Eon deferred pressing for money, and contented himself by zealously carrying out what he knew to be the wishes of M. Rouillé, who had frequently and authoritatively promised him promotion and rewards, should the mission upon which he was employed turn out a success; but upon his return to France that minister was no longer in office, and when he solicited the Cardinal de Bernis and the Duke de Choiseul for a settlement, was met by each with the reply, ‘You should have obtained payment of my predecessor.’ [Sidenote: CREDITORS KEPT AT BAY.]