AT THE COURT OF RUSSIA.

13

to present the King's subjects, and if he ever attempted such a thing, he would take it very ill; upon which the Swedish minister said that he should no longer meddle in the affair. Douglas then went to see Count Esterhazy, the Ambassador from Vienna, whose suspicions he immediately awakened by explaining his presence at St. Petersburg as due to the advice of his physicians that he should seek a cold climate for the benefit of his health. Finding all access to the Russian Court thus closed against him, Douglas precipitately left the capital and returned to France, bitterly complaining of Sir Hanbury's treatment in every town through which he passed.1

We are left quite in the dark as to the means by which D'Eon succeeded in obtaining admission at Court, but the matter was doubtless arranged by the ViceChancellor Woronzoff, friendly to France, through the Swedish minister, to whom Douglas had brought letters of introduction from the Swedish minister at Paris, or possibly through Michel, a French banker, as stated by La Messalière. There is good evidence in support of the tradition that D'Eon was received by the Empress in female habiliments, that in this disguise she ingratiated herself with her Majesty, gained her confidence, and interesting her in the object of his mission, had succeeded in reviving her old feelings of attachment towards France and towards Louis XV., her suitor of days gone by." It is certain that the ill-humour and coldness of the Russian Court towards England in the course of the year 1756, was of much earlier date than the Neutrality Convention between Prussia and England (January 16, 1756), and this was attributed by Sir Hanbury, together with the Empress's delay in signing the ratifications to her Treaty of Subsidies with Great Britain, entirely to the

1 Russia Correspondence, Public Record Office. 2 See Argument.

success of French influence after Douglas had first made his appearance; but Douglas not being at all in Russia between the end of October 1755, and the end of April 1756, such exercise of French influence could only have been due to elaborate intrigues on the part of D'Eon during the several months he spent at Court as reader (lecteur) to the Empress,2 an appointment conferred upon him, perhaps, with the design of cloaking his real profession.

In early life D'Eon was of peculiarly prepossessing appearance; his manners were gentle and engaging, his disposition soft and amiable, all of which, with his general physique, eminently adapted him to personify a female; and if there is no direct proof in substantiation of the oft-told tale that D'Eon appeared at the Court of Elizabeth in female attire, there is at least valuable evidence in support of it.

It may be mentioned in regard to D'Eon's looks, that during his second stay at St. Petersburg, when secretary of Embassy, a Russian officer one day observed to him that with his hair so neatly powdered he greatly resembled the infant Jesus. D'Eon, who throughout his career showed the greatest aversion to any kind of remark on his feminine appearance, and disliked, besides, all that was Russian, very pertly replied: Yes, you are right, for I happen to be in a very dirty manger.' 3

During Douglas' absence D'Eon was putting his intelligence and tact to the best use in the service of his master, his task being rendered somewhat easier by Elizabeth's kindly feelings towards France and the French, which had never entirely changed, even though

1 Russia Correspondence, Public Record Office. 2 Campan, i. 190 3 Note Book, dated 1754: Ch. MSS.

4 Elizabeth was much prepossessed in favour of the English. Being

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