Early in October, Beaumarchais wrote to M. de Vergennes: “Written promises to be good are not sufficient to arrest a head which enflames itself always at the simple name of Guerchy; the positive declaration of his sex and the engagement to live hereafter in the costume of a woman is the only barrier which can prevent scandal and misfortunes. I have required this and have obtained it.”
As a matter of fact, on the 5th of October, the Chevalier signed the famous contract, in which he promised to deliver the entire correspondence of the late King, declared himself a woman and engaged to “retake and wear the costume of that sex to the time of his death;” and he added with his own hand, “which I have already worn on divers occasions known to his Majesty.” The agent of the French Government on his side agreed to deliver a contract or pension of 12,000 francs, as well as “more considerable sums which shall be remitted for the acquittal of the debts of the Chevalier in England.” “Each of the contractants,” said Loménie, “reserved thus a back door; if the more considerable sums did not seem considerable enough, the Chevalier intended to keep a portion of the papers, so as to obtain still more funds. Beaumarchais, on his side, had no intention of paying all the debts which it should please the Chevalier to declare, and had demanded of the King the faculty to batailler to employ his own expression—with the demoiselle d’Eon, from 100,000 to 150,000 francs, reserving the right to give him the money in fractional parts, and to extend or retract the sum according to the confidence which that cunning personage should inspire.”
After the contract was signed, Beaumarchais still holding the money in reserve, demanded the papers of which it was questioned. The chest was produced. Suddenly realizing, however, that he had no authority to open the chest and to examine the contents, and having but small confidence in the veracity of the chevalier, he hastened back to Versailles, obtained the desired permission, and reappeared in London with his new commission. On opening the chest he found indeed that papers of but small importance were contained therein. D’Eon, blushing, confessed that the letters of which the French government desired to obtain possession were hidden under the floor of his room in London.
“She conducted me to her room,” wrote Beaumarchais, “and drew from under the floor five boxes, well sealed and marked, ‘Secret Papers to remit to the King alone’, which she assured me contained all the secret correspondence, and the entire mass of the papers which she had in her possession. I began by making an inventory, and marking them all so that none could be withdrawn; but, better to assure myself that the entire sequence was there contained, I rapidly ran over them, while she made the inventory.”
This want of honor in the Chevalier, whose security left with the Lord Ferrers had been proved of comparatively little value, dispensed Beaumarchais, so he considered, from the necessity of acquitting the full debt contracted by d’Eon. This was afterwards most bitterly reproached to him by the Chevalier. In a letter to Lord Ferrers, Beaumarchais wrote: “I have lived too long and know mankind too well to count upon the gratitude of anyone, or to feel the least annoyance when I see those fail whom I have the most obliged.” (From a letter dated Jan. 8, 1776, to Lord Ferrers,—Gaillardet.)
The note of 13,933 pounds sterling first addressed to M. de Vergennes had since been increased by 8,223 pounds sterling, of which d’Eon demanded the payment. Beaumarchais, however, true to the interest of the King and his minister, to their great satisfaction, terminated the transaction for a little less than 5,000 pounds sterling. From the determined refusal of Beaumarchais to increase the sum arose the wild fury of d’Eon, who saw his last hope escape him. His invectives against Beaumarchais, his abuse, all had their origin here.
“I assured this demoiselle,” wrote Beaumarchais to Vergennes, “that if she was prudent, modest and silent, and if she conducted herself well, I would render so good an account of her to the minister of the King, and even to His Majesty, that I hoped to obtain for her new advantages. I did this the more willingly because I had still in my possession nearly 41,000 francs, from which I expected to recompense every act of submission and of sobriety on her part, by acts of generosity approved successively by the King and by you, Monsieur le Comte, but only as favors, and not as acquittals. It was in this way that I hoped still to dominate and bring into subjection this fiery and deceitful creature.”
CHARLES DE BEAUMONT
dit Mademoiselle le Chevalier D’Eon
1728 - 1810