So far as the Chevalier was personally concerned, he felt that all he had to reproach in the Duke de Nivernois was the Italian shrewdness of his great-uncle the Cardinal Mazarin, and the extreme weakness and tenderness of his poor nerves and understanding. He thought the duke must have been endowed to a marvellous extent with a natural fund of honesty, for it was a wonderful fact that, although he had been the friend of three illustrious rascals during the past thirty years, the purity of his soul had never become contaminated by so long and so close a friendship, by so foul and unnatural an alliance. The astounding virtue of the amiable duke reminded him of that of St. Ives. _Sanctus Ivo erat advocatus et non latro. O res miranda!_[121] One other mortification, the climax to the persecution he was undergoing, the Chevalier was about to endure, and when we shall have become acquainted with it, there will no longer be room for surprise at the bold and unflinching attitude he had been assuming, and at the factious spirit in which he had been addressing his superiors. [Sidenote: DISCOURAGING INTELLIGENCE.] When the Chevalier’s credentials as Resident reached England, de Nivernois, perceiving that his _protégé’s_ mission was to end with the appearance of a new ambassador, took occasion to express himself in unmistakable terms to de Praslin on the unfairness of the arrangement, and urged, considering the past valuable services of his secretary and the conditions upon which he had accepted his appointment the preceding autumn, that promotion, to which he was fully entitled, should be permanent. Never ceasing to concern himself in all that related to ‘his little D’Eon,’ de Nivernois, although no longer ambassador, continued his exertions long after returning to France, with the success only of receiving intimation from the minister that the Chevalier was shortly to become minister plenipotentiary, when he should have to abandon his old claim to travelling expenses in Russia; but that upon de Guerchy’s arrival he must return to his duties as secretary of Embassy. Whatever the occasion, however, of the ambassador’s absence from his post in the future, D’Eon should be left in charge with the temporary rank of resident; and this was all he could expect. Feeling how unpalatable such news would be, de Nivernois earnestly recommended the Chevalier to accept the situation and hope for better days. It was true that in again becoming secretary after having been minister plenipotentiary, he was descending from a bishopric to become a miller, but millers who had been bishops were not to be found by the dozen! He warned him against further disposition to rebel, repeating what he had already said more than once: ‘I know the man with whom you will have to deal’—an opinion of de Guerchy much of the same substance as that expressed by the Count de Broglio.