These incidents, the attempts made to bribe his servants, the fact of a sedan being continually stationed at his door, although it was not ordered, convinced him of some bold design on his person and papers, and he resolved upon leaving his apartments in Dover Street, which he did on November 9, removing to the house of a Mr. Lautem, wine merchant, 32 Brewer Street, Golden Square, which became his abode for many years after. A puerile annoyance to which D’Eon had been subjected during the last few days of his stay in Dover Street, was a rapping and plaintive sounds at two o’clock every morning, which proceeded from the flue of a chimney communicating between his own bedroom, and the apartments in the floor below occupied by L’Escallier, private secretary to the ambassador, who, as the zealous auxiliary in the plots of his master, employed a young sweep to ascend the chimney and make ‘ghostly noises.’ The count was trying very hard to pass off D’Eon for a madman, and that he might obtain evidence to that effect, had conceived this bright idea for frightening the Chevalier, imagining that such noises and groans in the dark would terrify him, cause him to leave his bed and summon the servants. Monin, the count’s old tutor, who lodged in the room above L’Escallier and the other dependants devoted to him, would be able to depose that nothing was found; that there was no cause for alarm, and thus prove the minister plenipotentiary’s insanity, or at any rate his being a visionary, which would go far towards completing the success of the scheme for having him arrested and confined as a lunatic. ‘This incident of itself suffices to illustrate the meanness and wickedness of the count and his party.’[141] [Sidenote: MAD, OR NOT MAD?] Although a good deal of trouble was taken to persuade Louis XV. that his minister plenipotentiary in London was demented, he does not appear ever to have seriously believed in the accusation. After seeing D’Eon’s letters of September 25 to de Praslin and de Guerchy, we find the King writing to Tercier, October 11, 1763:— ‘ ... D’Eon has written several singular letters; it is apparently his office of Minister Plenipotentiary that has turned his head. M. de Praslin has in consequence proposed that he should be made to come here, when his condition will be inquired into. If he is mad, be on your guard lest he should divulge anything....’ In another letter, dated October 12:—‘... You will see D’Eon upon his arrival in Paris, and I authorise you to concert with him for taking every precaution that the secret be guarded....’ Again, October 21:—‘... You may send the letter to D’Eon if you are quite certain that he has not already taken his departure....’ Finally, December 30:—‘... M. D’Eon is not mad, but he is proud and a very extraordinary person....’[142]