iance; for, dismissed in October 1755,
Douglas came back and publicly represented France at the Russian Court
in July 1756. This was, to the highest degree of probability, d'Eon's
first entrance into diplomacy, and he triumphed in his mission. He
certainly made the acquaintance of the Princess Dashkoff, and she, as
certainly, in 1769-1771, when on a visit to England, gave out that
d'Eon was received by Elizabeth in a manner more appropriate to a
woman than a man. It is not easy to ascertain precisely what the
tattle of the Princess really amounted to, but d'Eon represents it so
as to corroborate his tale about his residence at Elizabeth's Court,
as _lectrice_, in 1755. The evidence is of no value, being a biassed
third-hand report of the Russian lady's gossip. There is a mezzotint,
published in 1788, from what professes to be a copy, by Angelica
Kauffmann, of a portrait of d'Eon in female costume, at the age of
twenty-five. If these attributions are correct, d'Eon was masquerading
as a girl three years before he went to Russia, and, if the portrait
is exact, was wearing the order of St. Louis ten years before it was
conferred on him. The evidence as to this copy of an alleged portrait
of d'Eon is full of confusions and anachronisms, and does not even
prove that he thus travestied his sex in early life.

In Russia, when he joined Douglas there in the summer of 1756, d'Eon
was a busy secretary of legation. In April 1757, he went back to
Versailles bearing rich diplomatic sheaves with him, and one of those
huge presents of money in gold, to Voltaire, which no longer come in
the way of men of letters. While he was at Vienna, on his way back to
St. Petersburg, tidings came of the battle of Prague; d'Eon hurried to
Versailles with the news, and, though he broke his leg in a carriage
accident, he beat the messenger whom Count Kaunitz officially
despatched, by thirty-six hours. This unladylike proof of energy and
endurance procured for d'Eon a gold snuff-box (Elizabeth only gave
him a trumpery snuff-box in tortoiseshell), with the King's
miniature, a good deal of money, and a commission in the dragoons, for
the little man's heart was really set on a military rather than a
diplomatic career. However, as diplomat he ferreted out an important
secret of Russian internal treachery, and rejected a bribe of a
diamond of great value. The money's worth of the diamond was to be
paid to him by his own Government, but he no more got that t