‘LOUIS.’ * * * * * _Louis XV. to the Chevalier D’Eon._ ‘Fontainebleau, November 4, 1763. ‘I warn you that a demand for extradition, having reference to your person and signed with my stamp, has this day been addressed to Guerchy to be transmitted by him to the ministers of his Britannic Majesty, the said demand being accompanied by police officers to assist in its execution. If you cannot make your escape, save at least your papers, and do not trust M. Monin, Guerchy’s secretary and your friend. He is betraying you.[143] ‘LOUIS.’ Thus was the Chevalier about to be dealt with as an ordinary malefactor for having braved the fury of de Praslin and of the ambassador, losing also his best friend de Nivernois, in his intense devotion to the King whose secret correspondence and interests in England he was protecting; and because his freedom was imperilled by the ministers of France, the selfish, vacillating, and weak monarch was secretly scheming for the transfer of the compromising papers into the custody of the very man from whom it had cost D’Eon so much to withhold them, and for doing which he had been fast ensuring his own ruin. The King was feeling that the step he had taken threatened imminent danger to the other secret agents immediately concerned—the Count de Broglio and Tercier, but his conscience was easily relieved, and in addressing a few words of explanation and comfort to the latter, he fancied he was justifying his course of action, and reassuring those who were serving him far more faithfully than he deserved. ‘I am writing to Guerchy, and order him to keep the secret from everybody. I am instructing him to keep all the papers sealed, until his return to Paris upon the annual trip he proposes taking.... If Guerchy betrays the secret, he betrays me, _and will be a lost man_. If he is a man of honour, he will not do so; if he is a knave, he deserves to be hanged. It is very clear that you and the Count de Broglio are uneasy. Be reassured, I am much more unconcerned.... Having so freely entrusted Guerchy with the secret, he will keep it.... The case is different with Madame de Guerchy. I hope he will not tell his wife anything about it....’[144] De Broglie was of an entirely different opinion. Upon hearing of what the King had done, he declared to Tercier, in a note he wrote from his place of exile, that de Guerchy would assuredly divulge the secret, and that his wife was as assuredly already acquainted with it.[145] CHAPTER VIII.