Part 12 (2/2)
Not a word is said about his triumph even in the certificate of the two de Broglies which d'eon published in 1764.
In 1762, France and England, weary of war, began the preliminaries of peace, and d'eon was attached as secretary of legation to the French negotiator in London, the Duc de Nivernais, who was on terms so intimate with Madame de Pompadour that she addressed him, in writing, as _pet.i.t epoux_. In the language of the affections as employed by the black natives of Australia, this would have meant that de Nivernais was the recognised rival of Louis XV. in the favour of the lady; but the inference must not be carried to that length. There are different versions of a trick which d'eon, as secretary, played on Mr. Robert Wood, author of an interesting work on Homer, and with the Jacobite _savant_, Jemmy Dawkins, the explorer of Palmyra. The story as given by Nivernais is the most intelligible account. Mr. Wood, as under secretary of state, brought to Nivernais, and read to him, a diplomatic doc.u.ment, but gave him no copy. D'eon, however, opened Wood's portfolio, while he dined with Nivernais, and had the paper transcribed. To this d'eon himself adds that he had given Wood more than his 'whack,' during dinner, of a heady wine grown in the vineyards of his native Tonnerre.
In short, the little man was so serviceable that, in the autumn of 1762, de Nivernais proposed to leave him in England, as interim Minister, after the Duc's own return to France. 'Little d'eon is very active, very discreet, never curious or officious, neither distrustful nor a cause of distrust in others.' De Nivernais was so pleased with him, and so anxious for his promotion, that he induced the British Ministers, contrary to all precedent, to send d'eon, instead of a British subject, to Paris with the treaty, for ratification. He then received from Louis XV. the order of St. Louis, and, as de Nivernais was weary of England, where he had an eternal cold, and resigned, d'eon was made minister plenipotentiary in London till the arrival of the new amba.s.sador, de Guerchy.
Now de Guerchy, if we believe d'eon, had shown the better part of valour in a dangerous military task, the removal of ammunition under fire, whereas d'eon had certainly conducted the operation with courage and success. The two men were thus on terms of jealousy, if the story is true, while de Nivernais did not conceal from d'eon that he was to be the brain of the emba.s.sy, and that de Guerchy was only a dull figure-head. D'eon possessed letters of de Broglie and de Praslin, in which de Guerchy was spoken of with pitying contempt; in short, his despatch-boxes were magazines of dangerous diplomatic combustibles. He also succeeded in irritating de Praslin, the French minister, before returning to his new post in London, for d'eon was a partisan of the two de Broglies, now in the disgrace of Madame de Pompadour and of Louis XV.; though the Comte de Broglie, 'disgraced' as he was, still managed the secret policy of the French King.
D'eon's position was thus full of traps. He was at odds with the future amba.s.sador, de Guerchy, and with the minister, de Praslin; and would not have been promoted at all, had it been known to the minister that he was in correspondence with, and was taking orders from, the disgraced Comte de Broglie. But, by the fatuous system of the King, d'eon, in fact, was doing nothing else. De Broglie, exiled from Court, was d'eon's real master, he did not serve de Guerchy and de Praslin, and Madame de Pompadour, who was not in the secret of her royal lover.
The King's secret now (1763) included a scheme for the invasion of England, which d'eon and a military agent were to organise, at the very moment when peace had been concluded. There is fairly good evidence that Prince Charles visited London in this year, no doubt with an eye to mischief. In short, the new minister plenipotentiary to St. James's, unknown to the French Government, and to the future amba.s.sador, de Guerchy, was to manage a scheme for the ruin of the country to which he was accredited. If ever this came out, the result would be, if not war with England, at least war between Louis XV., his minister, and Madame de Pompadour, a result which frightened Louis XV.
more than any other disaster.
The importance of his position now turned d'eon's head, in the opinion of Horace Walpole, who, of course, had not a guess at the true nature of the situation. D'eon, in London, entertained French visitors of eminence, and the best English society, it appears, with the splendour of a full-blown amba.s.sador, and at whose expense? Certainly not at his own, and neither the late amba.s.sador, de Nivernais, nor the coming amba.s.sador, de Guerchy, a man far from wealthy, had the faintest desire to pay the bills. Angry and tactless letters, therefore, pa.s.sed between d'eon in London and de Guerchy, de Nivernais, and de Praslin in Paris. De Guerchy was dull and clumsy; d'eon used him as the whetstone of his wit, with a reckless abandonment which proves that he was, as they say, 'rather above himself,' like Napoleon before the march to Moscow. London, in short, was the Moscow of little d'eon. When de Guerchy arrived, and d'eon was reduced to _secretariser_, and, indeed, was ordered to return to France, and not to show himself at Court, he lost all self-control.
The recall came from the minister, de Praslin, but d'eon, as we know, though de Praslin knew it not, was secretly representing the King himself. He declares that, at this juncture (October 11, 1763), Louis XV. sent him the extraordinary private autograph letter, speaking of his previous services in female attire, and bidding him remain with his papers in England disguised as a woman. The improbability of this action by the King has already been exposed. (Pp. 242, 243 _supra_.)
But when we consider the predicament of Louis, obliged to recall d'eon publicly, while all his ruinous secrets remained in the hands of that disgraced and infuriated little man, it seems not quite impossible that he may have committed the folly of writing this letter. For the public recall says nothing about the secret papers of which d'eon had quant.i.ties. What was to become of them, if he returned to France in disgrace? If they reached the hands of de Guerchy they meant an explosion between Louis XV. and his mistress, and his ministers. To parry the danger, then, according to d'eon, Louis privately bade him flee disguised, with his cargo of papers, and hide in female costume.
If Louis really did this (and d'eon told the story to the father of Madame de Campan), he had three strings to his bow, as we have shown, and one string was concealed, a secret within a secret, even from Tercier. Yet what folly was so great as to be beyond the capacity of Louis?
Meanwhile d'eon simply refused to obey the King's public orders, and denied their authenticity. They were only signed with a _griffe_, or stamp, not by the King's pen and hand. He would not leave London. He fought de Guerchy with every kind of arm, accused him of suborning an a.s.sa.s.sin, published private letters and his own version of the affair, fled from a charge of libel, could not be extradited (by virtue of what MM. Homberg and Jousselin call 'the law of _Home Rule_!'), fortified his house, and went armed. Probably there really were designs to kidnap him, just as a regular plot was laid for the kidnapping of de la Motte, at Newcastle, after the affair of the Diamond Necklace. In 1752 a Marquis de Fratteau was collared by a sham marshal court officer, put on board a boat at Gravesend, and carried to the Bastille!
D'eon, under charge of libel, lived a fugitive and cloistered existence till the man who, he says, was to have a.s.sa.s.sinated him, de Vergy, sought his alliance, and accused de Guerchy of having suborned him to murder the little daredevil. A grand jury brought in a true bill against the French amba.s.sador, and the amba.s.sador's butler, accused of having drugged d'eon, fled. But the English Government, by aid of what the Duc de Broglie calls a _noli prosequi_ (_nolle_ being usual), tided over a difficulty of the gravest kind. The granting of the _nolle prosequi_ is denied.[44] The amba.s.sador was mobbed and took leave of absence, and Louis XV., through de Broglie, offered to d'eon terms humiliating to a king. The Chevalier finally gave up the warrant for his secret mission in exchange for a pension of 12,000 livres, but he retained all other secret correspondence and plans of invasion. As for de Guerchy, he resigned (1767), and presently died of sheer annoyance, while his enemy, the Chevalier, stayed in England as London correspondent of Louis XV. He reported, in 1766, that Lord Bute was a Jacobite, and de Broglie actually took seriously the chance of restoring, by Bute's aid, Charles III., who had just succeeded, by the death of the Old Chevalier, to 'a kingdom not of this world.'
[Footnote 44: _Political Register_, Sept. 1767; Buchan Telfer, p.
181.]
The death of Louis XV., in 1774, brought the folly of the secret policy to an end, but in the same year rumours about d'eon's dubious s.e.x appeared in the English newspapers on the occasion of his book, _Les Loisirs du Chevalier d'eon_, published at Amsterdam. Bets on his s.e.x were made, and d'eon beat some bookmakers with his stick. But he persuaded Drouet, an envoy from France, that the current stories were true, and this can only be explained, if explained at all, by his perception of the fact that, his secret employment being gone, he felt the need of an advertis.e.m.e.nt. Overtures for the return of the secret papers were again made to d'eon, but he insisted on the restoration of his diplomatic rank, and on receiving 14,000_l._ on account of expenses. He had aimed too high, however, and was glad to come to a compromise with the famous Beaumarchais. The extraordinary bargain was struck that d'eon, for a consideration, should yield the secret papers, and, to avoid a duel with the son of de Guerchy, and the consequent scandal, should pretend to be a woman, and wear the dress of that s.e.x. In his new capacity he might return to France and wear the cross of the Order of St. Louis.
Beaumarchais was as thoroughly taken in as any dupe in his own comedies. In d'eon he 'saw a blus.h.i.+ng spinster, a kind of Jeanne d'Arc of the eighteenth century, pining for the weapons and uniform of the martial s.e.x, but yielding her secret, and forsaking her arms, in the interest of her King. On the other side the blushless captain of dragoons listened, with downcast eyes, to the sentimental compliments of Beaumarchais, and suffered himself, without a smile, to be compared to the Maid of Orleans,' says the Duc de Broglie. 'Our manners are obviously softened,' wrote Voltaire. 'D'eon is a Pucelle d'Orleans who has not been burned.' To de Broglie, d'eon described himself as 'the most unfortunate of unfortunate females!' D'eon returned to France, where he found himself but a nine days' wonder. It was observed that this _pucelle_ too obviously shaved; that in the matter of muscular development she was a little Hercules; that she ran upstairs taking four steps at a stride; that her hair, like that of Jeanne d'Arc, was _coupe en rond_, of a military shortness; and that she wore the shoes of men, with low heels, while she spoke like a grenadier! At first d'eon had all the social advertis.e.m.e.nt which was now his one desire, but he became a nuisance, and, by his quarrels with Beaumarchais, a scandal. In drawing-room plays he acted his English adventures with the great play-writer, whose part was highly ridiculous. Now d'eon pretended to desire to 'take the veil' as a nun, now to join the troops being sent to America. He was consigned to retreat in the Castle of Dijon (1779); he had become a weariness to official mankind.
He withdrew (1781-85) to privacy at Tonnerre, and then returned to London in the semblance of a bediamonded old dame, who, after dinner, did not depart with the ladies. He took part in fencing matches with great success, and in 1791 his library was sold at Christie's, with his swords and jewels. The catalogue bears the motto, from Juvenal,
Quale decus rerum, si virginis auctio fiat,
no doubt selected by the learned little man. The snuff-box of the Empress Elizabeth, a gift to the diplomatist of 1756, fetched 2_l._ 13_s._ 6_d._! The poor old boy was badly hurt at a fencing match in his sixty-eighth year, and henceforth lived retired from arms in the house of a Mrs. Cole, an object of charity. He might have risen to the highest places if discretion had been among his gifts, and his career proves the _quantula sapientia_ of the French Government before the Revolution. In no other time or country could 'the King's Secret' have run a course far more incredible than even the story of the Chevalier d'eon.
XII
_SAINT-GERMAIN THE DEATHLESS_
Among the best brief masterpieces of fiction are Lytton's _The Haunters and the Haunted_, and Thackeray's _Notch on the Axe_ in _Roundabout Papers_. Both deal with a mysterious being who pa.s.ses through the ages, rich, powerful, always behind the scenes, coming no man knows whence, and dying, or pretending to die, obscurely--you never find authentic evidence of his decease. In other later times, at other courts, such an one reappears and runs the same course of luxury, marvel, and hidden potency.
Lytton returned to and elaborated his idea in the Margrave of _A Strange Story_, who has no 'soul,' and prolongs his physical and intellectual life by means of an elixir. Margrave is not bad, but he is inferior to the hero, less elaborately designed, of _The Haunters and the Haunted_. Thackeray's tale is written in a tone of mock mysticism, but he confesses that he likes his own story, in which the strange hero, through all his many lives or reappearances, and through all the countless loves on which he fatuously plumes himself, retains a slight German-Jewish accent.
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