able, as he considered, to his exalted rank, and, when M. de Guerchy arrived, refused either to accept his orders of recall or to give up the papers with which he had been entrusted. He demanded that his private debts should be paid, that his expenses during his residence in England should be charged to De Guerchy, and—in terms more or less explicit—that his recall should be signed by the king, not merely stamped. In this he was to some extent warranted by a secret letter from the king, directing him to resume the dress of a woman and to withdraw from public notice, but to remain in England and to take care that none of the letters or papers connected with the secret correspondence should fall into other hands (autograph letter, Boutaric, i. 298). He remained in England, and he clung to the papers, both of the secret and of his official correspondence; but he did not put on a woman's dress, nor did he withdraw from the public position into which he had thrust himself. On the contrary, he devoted himself to a remarkably venomous correspondence with the Duke de Praslin, and still more with the Count de Guerchy, the copies of which, as afterwards published by D'Éon, are almost incredible, even though the authenticity of some of them is vouched for by the Duke de Broglie (Le Secret du Roi, ii. 129). The quarrel which followed appears in its modern presentment extremely grotesque, but was at the time extremely bitter, and culminated in D'Éon swearing that De Guerchy had attempted to hocus him and had bribed a certain Vergy to murder him while under the influence of the narcotic or at some other time. He supported the allegation by an affidavit obtained from Vergy, and De Guerchy was accordingly indicted for an attempt against D'Éon's life. The grand jury brought in a true bill, and D'Éon was jubilant. ‘That poisoner and scoundrel, Guerchy,’ he wrote to his patron, the Count de Broglie, ‘would be broken on the wheel, if justice was done to him in France; but here, in England, by God's mercy, he will only be hanged. … He will be thrown into the felon's gaol, and his friend Praslin may get him out if he can. As far as I see the only friend that can get him out will be the hangman.’ After all, however, it was held that the court had no jurisdiction, and the case was quashed, though the mob expressed itself very violently in favour of D'Éon, stopped De Guerchy's carriage, from which De Guerchy narrowly escaped, and smashed the windows of his house. It was several days before the ambassador or any of his family could venture outside. He then applied for leave and went over to France, leaving D'Éon master of the situation. The Count de Broglie was commissioned to negotiate with him, as though with an independent power; but it was not till after the death of Louis XV (10 May 1774) and the consequent revelation to the ministry of the secret correspondence, that definite steps were taken to settle the long-vexed question. To this end Beaumarchais was sent over to London, and eventually succeeded in bringing D'Éon to terms. His claims on the government, which he put at 14,000l. sterling, were brought down to 5,000l., and this sum was paid to Lord Ferrers, who, by a private understanding with D'Éon, held the papers in nominal pawn, and which he now surrendered. Finally all the papers, secret or otherwise, were given up; D'Éon entered into an agreement to seek no further quarrel, judicial or personal, with De Guerchy; he was to receive a pension of twelve thousand livres, or about 500l., a year; and was ordered to wear woman's clothes, on compliance with which the payment of the pension depended. The exact meaning of this order to resume woman's clothes cannot now be understood; for though it had been strongly suspected that D'Éon was a woman, and bets on the subject had been freely made, the fact was certainly not then verified, nor does the French government appear to have troubled itself about the truth or falsehood of the allegations. It was probably thought that they afforded a ready means of preventing any further mischief and of effectually taming an unruly spirit.
The news that D'Éon was on the point of returning to France spread dismay among those who had speculated on his sex. It appeared that the ‘policies,’ as they were called, amounted to upwards of 120,000l., payable on his being proved to be a woman; and though many holders of these ‘policies’ were willing to forfeit their interest rather than to come before the public as having engaged in such a disreputable sort of gambling, there were some who fancied they had a legal claim to satisfaction, and were disposed to insist on it. One Hayes, a surgeon, had paid to a broker, named Jacques, fifteen guineas, on the condition of receiving back fifteen hundred guineas whenever it should be proved that D'Éon was a woman. In June 1777 he maintained that he could prove it. The case was tried before Lord Mansfield, who charged the jury to the effect that the wager was not illegal, and the question for them to decide from the evidence was who had won. The jury gave a verdict for the plaintiff (Gent. Mag. xlvii. 346); and though it was afterwards decided that the ‘policy’ was legally
