All the while the real purposes of Chevalier Douglass were in microscopic characters on the sheet of thin paper concealed in the false bottom of a tortoise shell snuff box. Every time he took a pinch of snuff he thought of his mission. Also he was sure that if he should be suspected and searched that the snuff box would escape attention and confiscation. But as the days went by the charming niece was seized with a desire to see the Empress, not in a public, but in a private audience.
How was this to be accomplished?
The French banker who was acting as host to the queer couple was acquainted with the Vice Chancellor, who had no love for the Chancellor. So he invited the first named personage to his house to meet Douglass and his “adorable niece.” The Vice Chancellor was delighted with the newcomers and readily agreed to present the niece privately to the Empress.
The meeting took place in one of the large rooms of the palace and as soon as they were alone the fascinating young woman exclaimed:
“Your Majesty, I am not what I seem. I am the Chevalier D’Eon sent to you as the special messenger of Louis XV. It was necessary to come to you in this guise to outwit your court officers who were determined that no message from the King should reach you.”
At first amazed, the Empress afterwards felt flattered that such extraordinary means should be employed to obtain her attention, and she made the supposed female sit down and tell her the story of how the ruse had been planned and executed. After that D’Eon told of the desire of the King to resume diplomatic relations with the Russian Court. Her Majesty was greatly flattered. The manner in which she had been approached appealed to her imagination, and she agreed that the deception of her ministers should be continued. In order that the scheme might be facilitated, she appointed D’Eon her reader, which not only gave him a reason for being about the Court, but also furnished him with ready access to her at all times.
In a very short time she gave him a written statement in which she expressed a willingness to receive and to accord “respectful treatment for any envoy of the King of France who would bring with him sufficient powers to sign a treaty.” With this precious paper in his possession Douglass hastened to Paris to give it to the King. D’Eon, in the meantime, remained in St. Petersburg in order to see that there were no unexpected developments that would militate against King Louis XV. There can be no doubt but that it was the secret influence which Douglass and D’Eon had with the Empress which led her to neglect the treaty with England which the Chancellor had fully expected her to sign.
“I am sorry to say,” writes the English Ambassador to Lord Holderness, “that it is impossible for the Chancellor to get her Majesty to put her signature to the treaty which we so much desire. He appears to be very much in awe of her.” Little did the diplomats suspect that their carefully laid plans had been upset by the “charming niece” of the Chevalier Douglass.
In the meantime other events were occurring in other parts of the world which served to make still further impossible the thing which England had so ardently desired. King George had become alarmed over the unexpected delay and entered into a defensive alliance with the King of Prussia. By this the Prussian monarch agreed to defend Hanover. This treaty was signed at Westminster on January 16, 1756. The news was sent to the English Ambassador at St. Petersburg, who promptly communicated it to the Chancellor Bestuzhev.
That aged, if not venerable, diplomat swore violently. And little wonder, for it meant that his long-sought scheme to humiliate Frederick of Prussia and to gain England as an ally, had collapsed. After he had partially recovered his self-possession he exclaimed: