The official notification of the Earl of Hertford’s appointment, September 29, as ambassador to the Court of France, was quickly followed by the official nomination, October 3, of the Count de Guerchy. Speaking of the new minister, George III. asked the French plenipotentiary if he was a good officer as general of infantry, to which D’Eon replied that he was so good as never to have harmed anybody, and although a general of infantry he considered him better qualified to command cavalry, because at the battle of Minden he recommended the cavalry to be placed in the centre and infantry on the wings. De Guerchy arrived in London on October 17, and put up at Lord Holland’s. The Chevalier hastened to wait upon his new chief, and the two men stood face to face, not for the first time in their lives, de Guerchy at once betraying the spirit by which he was animated, in expressing his surprise at D’Eon not being present when he alighted from his coach, and then asking whether he did not regret having written to him his letter of September 25. ‘No, sir, and were you to write me such another letter as that of September 4, from Jouy, I should be obliged to send you a similar reply.’ De Guerchy added that he should preserve the original as long as he lived; to which D’Eon replied that if he feared to lose it he begged to offer copies in quadruplicate, with his own attestation _ne variatur_! And so ended the first interview in England between these two men, whose malignant hatred of each other was not even swallowed up in death. [Sidenote: LETTERS OF RECALL.] In the course of the evening, de Guerchy informed D’Eon that he had brought his letters of recall. ‘A la bonheur (_sic_), Monsieur le Comte!’ said the latter. ‘I will call for them in the morning, and at the same time hand over all papers likely to be of consequence to you.’ The following day, after de Guerchy had received the Embassy archives and assumed official charge, the Chevalier demanded his letters of recall. The ambassador, strangely agitated, searched drawers, portfolios, and elsewhere, and finding them at last in his pocket, gave them to D’Eon, at whose quiet acceptance of them he seemed disconcerted. D’Eon believed that the pretended search was to give him time to make some kind of apology for the past. _The Duke de Praslin to the Chevalier D’Eon._ ‘Versailles, October 4, 1763. ‘Sir,—The arrival of the King’s ambassador putting an end to the commission entrusted to you by his Majesty as his Minister Plenipotentiary, I send to you your letters of recall, which you will deliver to his Britannic Majesty according to custom, and with the least possible delay. You will herewith find a copy of that letter. You will quit London immediately after your audience, and you will at once proceed to Paris, whence you will report your arrival, and where you will await my instructions without coming to Court.’[123]