The Duc de Choiseul did not like the fashionable Saint-Germain.  He thought him a humbug, even when the doings of the deathless one were perfectly harmless.  As far as is known, his recipe for health consisted in drinking a horrible mixture called “senna tea”—­which was administered to small boys when I was a small boy—­and in not drinking anything at his meals.  Many people still observe this regimen, in the interest, it is said, of their figures.  Saint-Germain used to come to the house of de Choiseul, but one day, when Von Gleichen was present, the minister lost his temper with his wife.  He observed that she took no wine at dinner, and told her that she had learned that habit of abstinence from Saint-Germain; that he might do as he pleased, “but you, madame, whose health is precious to me, I forbid to imitate the regimen of such a dubious character.”  Gleichen, who tells the anecdote, says that he was present when de Choiseul thus lost his temper with his wife.  The dislike of de Choiseul had a mournful effect on the career of Saint-Germain.

In discussing the strange story of the Chevalier d’Eon, one has seen that Louis XV. amused himself by carrying on a secret scheme of fantastic diplomacy through subordinate agents, behind the backs and without the knowledge of his responsible ministers.  The Duc de Choiseul, as Minister of Foreign Affairs, was excluded, it seems, from all knowledge of these double intrigues, and the Marechal de Belle-Isle, Minister of War, was obviously kept in the dark, as was Madame de Pompadour.  Now it is stated by Von Gleichen that the Marechal de Belle-Isle, from the War Office, started a new secret diplomacy behind the back of de Choiseul, at the Foreign Office.  The King and Madame de Pompadour (who was not initiated into the general scheme of the King’s secret) were both acquainted with what de Choiseul was not to know—­namely, Belle-Isle’s plan for secretly making peace through the mediation, or management, at all events, of Holland.  All this must have been prior to the death of the Marechal de Belle-Isle in 1761; and probably de Broglie, who managed the regular old secret policy of Louis XV., knew nothing about this new clandestine adventure; at all events, the late Duc de Broglie says nothing about it in his book The King’s Secret.[1]

[1] The Duc de Broglie, I am privately informed, could find no clue to the mystery of Saint-Germain.

The story, as given by Von Gleichen, goes on to say that Saint-Germain offered to conduct the intrigue at the Hague.  As Louis XV. certainly allowed that maidenly captain of dragoons, d’Eon, to manage his hidden policy in London, it is not at all improbable that he really intrusted this fresh cabal in Holland to Saint-Germain, whom he admitted to great intimacy.  To The Hague went Saint-Germain, diamonds, rubies, senna tea, and all, and began to diplomatize with the Dutch.  But the regular French minister at The Hague, d’Affry, found out what