the summer of 1755, and it is Captain Buchan Telfer's view that d'Éon
joined him, also as a political agent, in female apparel, on the road,
and that, while Douglas failed and left Russia by October 1755, d'Éon
remained at St. Petersburg, attired as a girl, Douglas's niece, and
acting as the _lectrice_ of the Empress, whom he converted to the
French alliance! This is the traditional theory, but is almost
certainly erroneous. Sometimes, in his vast MSS., d'Éon declares that
he went to Russia disguised in 1755. But he represents himself as then
aged twenty, whereas he was really twenty-seven, and this he does in
1773, before he made up his mind to pose for life as a woman. He had a
running claim against the French government for the expenses of his
first journey to Russia. This voyage, in 1776, he dates in 1755, but
in 1763, in an official letter, he dates his journey to Russia, of
which the expenses were not repaid, in 1756. That is the true
chronology. Nobody denies that he did visit Russia in 1756 attired as
a male diplomatist, but few now believe that in 1755 he accompanied
Douglas as that gentleman's pleasing young niece.
MM. Homberg and Jousselin, in their recent work,[42] declare that
among d'Éon's papers, which lay for a century in the back shop of a
London bookseller, they find letters to him, from June 1756, written
by Tercier, who managed the secret of Louis XV. There are no known
proofs of d'Éon's earlier presence in Russia, and in petticoats, in
1755.
[Footnote 42: _Le Chevalier d'Éon_, p. 18.]
He did talk later of a private letter of Louis XV., of October 4,
1763, in which the King wrote that he 'had served him usefully in the
guise of a female, and must now resume it,' and that letter is
published, but all the evidence, to which we shall return, tends to
prove that this paper is an ingenious deceptive 'interpolation.' If
the King did write it, then he was deceiving the manager of his
secret policy--Tercier--for, in the note, he bids d'Éon remain in
England, while he was at the same time telling Tercier that he was
uneasy as to what d'Éon might do in France, when he obeyed his
_public_ orders to return.[43] If, then, the royal letter of October
4, 1763, testifying to d'Éon's feminine disguise in Russia, be
genuine, Louis XV. had three strings to his bow. He had his public
orders to ministers, he had his private conspiracy worked through
Tercier, and he had his secret intrigue with d'Éon, of which Tercier
was allowed to know nothing. This hypothesis is difficult, if not
impossible, and the result is that d'Éon was not current in Russia as
Douglas's pretty French niece and as reader to the Empress Elizabeth
in 1755.
[Footnote 43: Broglie, _Secret du Roi_, ii. 51, note.]
In 1756, in his own character as a man and a secretary, he did work
under Douglas, then on his second visit, public and successful, to
gain Russia to the French alliance; 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'Éon'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'Éon 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'Éon 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'Éon in female costume, at the age of
twenty-five. If these attributions are correct, d'Éon 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'Éon 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'Éon
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'Éon 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'Éon 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 than he got
the 10,000 livres for his travelling expenses.
Thus early was he accommodated with a grievance, and because d'Éon had
not the wisdom to see that a man with grievances is a ruined man, he
overthrew, later, a promising career, in the violence of his attempts
to obtain redress. This was d'Éon's bane, and the cause of the ruinous
eccentricities for which he is remembered. In 1759 he ably seconded
the egregious Louis XV. in upsetting the policy which de Choiseul was
carrying on by the King's orders. De Choiseul's duty was to make the
Empress mediate for peace in the Seven Years' War. The duty of d'Éon
was to secure the failure of de Choiseul, without the knowledge of the
French ambassador, the Marquis de l'Hospital, of whom he was the
secretary. Possessed of this pretty secret, d'Éon was a man whom Louis
could not safely offend and snub, and d'Éon must therefore have
thought that there could scarcely be a limit to his success in life.
But he disliked Russia, and left it for good in August 1760.
He received a life pension of 2,000 livres, and was appointed
aide-de-camp to the Maréchal de Broglie, commanding on the Upper
Rhine. He distinguished himself, in August 1761, by a very gallant
piece of service in which, he says, truly or not, he incurred the
ill-will of the Comte de Guerchy. The pair were destined to ruin each
other a few years later. D'Éon also declares that he led a force which
'dislodged the Highland mountaineers in a gorge of the mountain at
Einbeck.' I know not what Highland regiment is intended, but D'Éon's
orders bear that he was to _withdraw_ troops opposed to the
Highlanders, and a certificate in his favour from the Duc and the
Comte de Broglie does not allude to the circumstance that, instead of
retreating before the plaids, he drove them back to the English camp.
It may therefore be surmised that, though D'Éon often distinguished
himself, and was wounded in the thigh at Ultrop, his claim of a
victory over a Highland regiment is--'an interpolation.' De Broglie
writes, 'we purpose retreating. I send M. d'Éon to withdraw the Swiss
and Grenadiers of Champagne, who are holding in check the Scottish
Highlanders lining the wood on the crest of the mountain, whence they
have caused us much annoyance.' The English outposts were driven in;
but, after that was done, the French advance was checked by the
plaided Gael: d'Éon did not
quell the mountaineer
As their tinchel quells the game.
Not a word is said about his triumph even in the certificate of the
two de Broglies which d'Éon published in 1764.
In 1762, France and England, weary of war, began the preliminaries of
peace, and d'Éon was attached as secretary of legation to the French
negotiator in London, the Duc de Nivernais, who was on terms so
intimate with Madame de Pompadour that she addressed him, in writing,
as _petit époux_. In the language of the affections as employed by the
black natives of Australia, this would have meant that de Nivernais
was the recognised rival of Louis XV. in the favour of the lady; but
the inference must not be carried to that length. There are different
versions of a trick which d'Éon, as secretary, played on Mr. Robert
Wood, author of an interesting work on Homer, and with the Jacobite
_savant_, Jemmy Dawkins, the explorer of Palmyra. The story as given
by Nivernais is the most intelligible account. Mr. Wood, as under
secretary of state, brought to Nivernais, and read to him, a
diplomatic document, but gave him no copy. D'Éon, however, opened
Wood's portfolio, while he dined with Nivernais, and had the paper
transcribed. To this d'Éon himself adds that he had given Wood more
than his 'whack,' during dinner, of a heady wine grown in the
vineyards of his native Tonnerre.
In short, the little man was so serviceable that, in the autumn of
1762, de Nivernais proposed to leave him in England, as interim
Minister, after the Duc's own return to France. 'Little d'Éon is very
active, very discreet, never curious or officious, neither distrustful
nor a cause of distrust in others.' De Nivernais was so pleased with
him, and so anxious for his promotion, that he induced the British
Ministers, contrary to all precedent, to send d'Éon, instead of a
British subject, to Paris with the treaty, for ratification. He then
received from Louis XV. the order of St. Louis, and, as de Nivernais
was weary of England, where he had an eternal cold, and resigned,
d'Éon was made minister plenipotentiary in London till the arrival of
the new ambassador, de Guerchy.
Now de Guerchy, if we believe d'Éon, had shown the better part of
valour in a dangerous military task, the removal of ammunition under
fire, whereas d'Éon had certainly conducted the operation with courage
and success. The two men were thus on terms of jealousy, if the story
is true, while de Nivernais did not conceal from d'Éon that he was to
be the brain of the embassy, and that de Guerchy was only a dull
figure-head. D'Éon possessed letters of de Broglie and de Praslin, in
which de Guerchy was spoken of with pitying contempt; in short, his
despatch-boxes were magazines of dangerous diplomatic combustibles. He
also succeeded in irritating de Praslin, the French minister, before
returning to his new post in London, for d'Éon was a partisan of the
two de Broglies, now in the disgrace of Madame de Pompadour and of
Louis XV.; though the Comte de Broglie, 'disgraced' as he was, still
managed the secret policy of the French King.
D'Éon's position was thus full of traps. He was at odds with the
future ambassador, de Guerchy, and with the minister, de Praslin; and
would not have been promoted at all, had it been known to the minister
that he was in correspondence with, and was taking orders from, the
disgraced Comte de Broglie. But, by the fatuous system of the King,
d'Éon, in fact, was doing nothing else. De Broglie, exiled from Court,
was d'Éon's real master, he did not serve de Guerchy and de Praslin,
and Madame de Pompadour, who was not in the secret of her royal lover.
The King's secret now (1763) included a scheme for the invasion of
England, which d'Éon and a military agent were to organise, at the
very moment when peace had been concluded. There is fairly good
evidence that Prince Charles visited London in this year, no doubt
with an eye to mischief. In short, the new minister plenipotentiary to
St. James's, unknown to the French Government, and to the future
ambassador, de Guerchy, was to manage a scheme for the ruin of the
country to which he was accredited. If ever this came out, the result
would be, if not war with England, at least war between Louis XV., his
minister, and Madame de Pompadour, a result which frightened Louis XV.
more than any other disaster.
The importance of his position now turned d'Éon's head, in the
opinion of Horace Walpole, who, of course, had not a guess at the true
nature of the situation. D'Éon, in London, entertained French visitors
of eminence, and the best English society, it appears, with the
splendour of a full-blown ambassador, and at whose expense? Certainly
not at his own, and neither the late ambassador, de Nivernais, nor the
coming ambassador, de Guerchy, a man far from wealthy, had the
faintest desire to pay the bills. Angry and tactless letters,
therefore, passed between d'Éon in London and de Guerchy, de
Nivernais, and de Praslin in Paris. De Guerchy was dull and clumsy;
d'Éon used him as the whetstone of his wit, with a reckless
abandonment which proves that he was, as they say, 'rather above
himself,' like Napoleon before the march to Moscow. London, in short,
was the Moscow of little d'Éon. When de Guerchy arrived, and d'Éon was
reduced to _secrétariser_, and, indeed, was ordered to return to
France, and not to show himself at Court, he lost all self-control.
The recall came from the minister, de Praslin, but d'Éon, as we know,
though de Praslin knew it not, was secretly representing the King
himself. He declares that, at this juncture (October 11, 1763), Louis
XV. sent him the extraordinary private autograph letter, speaking of
his previous services in female attire, and bidding him remain with
his papers in England disguised as a woman. The improbability of this
action by the King has already been exposed. (Pp. 242, 243 _supra_.)
But when we consider the predicament of Louis, obliged to recall d'Éon
publicly, while all his ruinous secrets remained in the hands of that
disgraced and infuriated little man, it seems not quite impossible
that he may have committed the folly of writing this letter. For the
public recall says nothing about the secret papers of which d'Éon had
quantities. What was to become of them, if he returned to France in
disgrace? If they reached the hands of de Guerchy they meant an
explosion between Louis XV. and his mistress, and his ministers. To
parry the danger, then, according to d'Éon, Louis privately bade him
flee disguised, with his cargo of papers, and hide in female costume.
If Louis really did this (and d'Éon told the story to the father of
Madame de Campan), he had three strings to his bow, as we have shown,
and one string was concealed, a secret within a secret, even from
Tercier. Yet what folly was so great as to be beyond the capacity of
Louis?
Meanwhile d'Éon simply refused to obey the King's public orders, and
denied their authenticity. They were only signed with a _griffe_, or
stamp, not by the King's pen and hand. He would not leave London. He
fought de Guerchy with every kind of arm, accused him of suborning an
assassin, published private letters and his own version of the affair,
fled from a charge of libel, could not be extradited (by virtue of
what MM. Homberg and Jousselin call 'the law of _Home Rule_!'),
fortified his house, and went armed. Probably there really were
designs to kidnap him, just as a regular plot was laid for the
kidnapping of de la Motte, at Newcastle, after the affair of the
Diamond Necklace. In 1752 a Marquis de Fratteau was collared by a sham
marshal court officer, put on board a boat at Gravesend, and carried
to the Bastille!
D'Éon, under charge of libel, lived a fugitive and cloistered
existence till the man who, he says, was to have assassinated him, de
Vergy, sought his alliance, and accused de Guerchy of having suborned
him to murder the little daredevil. A grand jury brought in a true
bill against the French ambassador, and the ambassador's butler,
accused of having drugged d'Éon, fled. But the English Government, by
aid of what the Duc de Broglie calls a _noli prosequi_ (_nolle_ being
usual), tided over a difficulty of the gravest kind. The granting of
the _nolle prosequi_ is denied.[44] The ambassador was mobbed and took
leave of absence, and Louis XV., through de Broglie, offered to d'Éon
terms humiliating to a king. The Chevalier finally gave up the warrant
for his secret mission in exchange for a pension of 12,000 livres, but
he retained all other secret correspondence and plans of invasion. As
for de Guerchy, he resigned (1767), and presently died of sheer
annoyance, while his enemy, the Chevalier, stayed in England as London
correspondent of Louis XV. He reported, in 1766, that Lord Bute was a
Jacobite, and de Broglie actually took seriously the chance of
restoring, by Bute's aid, Charles III., who had just succeeded, by the
death of the Old Chevalier, to 'a kingdom not of this world.'
[Footnote 44: _Political Register_, Sept. 1767; Buchan Telfer, p.
181.]
The death of Louis XV., in 1774, brought the folly of the secret
policy to an end, but in the same year rumours about d'Éon's dubious
sex appeared in the English newspapers on the occasion of his book,
_Les Loisirs du Chevalier d'Éon_, published at Amsterdam. Bets on his
sex were made, and d'Éon beat some bookmakers with his stick. But he
persuaded Drouet, an envoy from France, that the current stories were
true, and this can only be explained, if explained at all, by his
perception of the fact that, his secret employment being gone, he felt
the need of an advertisement. Overtures for the return of the secret
papers were again made to d'Éon, but he insisted on the restoration of
his diplomatic rank, and on receiving 14,000_l._ on account of
expenses. He had aimed too high, however, and was glad to come to a
compromise with the famous Beaumarchais. The extraordinary bargain was
struck that d'Éon, for a consideration, should yield the secret
papers, and, to avoid a duel with the son of de Guerchy, and the
consequent scandal, should pretend to be a woman, and wear the dress
of that sex. In his new capacity he might return to France and wear
the cross of the Order of St. Louis.
Beaumarchais was as thoroughly taken in as any dupe in his own
comedies. In d'Éon he 'saw a blushing spinster, a kind of Jeanne d'Arc
of the eighteenth century, pining for the weapons and uniform of the
martial sex, but yielding her secret, and forsaking her arms, in the
interest of her King. On the other side the blushless captain of
dragoons listened, with downcast eyes, to the sentimental compliments
of Beaumarchais, and suffered himself, without a smile, to be compared
to the Maid of Orleans,' says the Duc de Broglie. 'Our manners are
obviously softened,' wrote Voltaire. 'D'Éon is a Pucelle d'Orléans who
has not been burned.' To de Broglie, d'Éon described himself as 'the
most unfortunate of unfortunate females!' D'Éon returned to France,
where he found himself but a nine days' wonder. It was observed that
this _pucelle_ too obviously shaved; that in the matter of muscular
development she was a little Hercules; that she ran upstairs taking
four steps at a stride; that her hair, like that of Jeanne d'Arc, was
_coupé en rond_, of a military shortness; and that she wore the shoes
of men, with low heels, while she spoke like a grenadier! At first
d'Éon had all the social advertisement which was now his one desire,
but he became a nuisance, and, by his quarrels with Beaumarchais, a
scandal. In drawing-room plays he acted his English adventures with
the great play-writer, whose part was highly ridiculous. Now d'Éon
pretended to desire to 'take the veil' as a nun, now to join the
troops being sent to America. He was consigned to retreat in the
Castle of Dijon (1779); he had become a weariness to official mankind.
He withdrew (1781-85) to privacy at Tonnerre, and then returned to
London in the semblance of a bediamonded old dame, who, after dinner,
did not depart with the ladies. He took part in fencing matches with
great success, and in 1791 his library was sold at Christie's, with
his swords and jewels. The catalogue bears the motto, from Juvenal,
Quale decus rerum, si virginis auctio fiat,
no doubt selected by the learned little man. The snuff-box of the
Empress Elizabeth, a gift to the diplomatist of 1756, fetched 2_l._
13_s._ 6_d._! The poor old boy was badly hurt at a fencing match in
his sixty-eighth year, and henceforth lived retired from arms in the
house of a Mrs. Cole, an object of charity. He might have risen to the
highest places if discretion had been among his gifts, and his career
proves the _quantula sapientia_ of the French Government before the
Revolution. In no other time or country could 'the King's Secret' have
run a course far more incredible than even the story of the Chevalier
d'Éon.
XII
_SAINT-GERMAIN THE DEATHLESS_
Among the best brief masterpieces of fiction are Lytton's _The
Haunters and the Haunted_, and Thackeray's _Notch on the Axe_ in
_Roundabout Papers_. Both deal with a mysterious being who passes
through the ages, rich, powerful, always behind the scenes, coming no
man knows whence, and dying, or pretending to die, obscurely--you
never find authentic evidence of his decease. In other later times, at
other courts, such an one reappears and runs the same course of
luxury, marvel, and hidden potency.
Lytton returned to and elaborated his idea in the Margrave of _A
Strange Story_, who has no 'soul,' and prolongs his physical and
intellectual life by means of an elixir. Margrave is not bad, but he
is inferior to the hero, less elaborately designed, of _The Haunters
and the Haunted_. Thackeray's tale is written in a tone of mock
mysticism, but he confesses that he likes his own story, in which the
strange hero, through all his many lives or reappearances, and through
all the countless loves on which he fatuously plumes himself, retains
a slight German-Jewish accent.
It appears to me that the historic original of these romantic characters
is no other than the mysterious Comte de Saint-Germain--not, of course,
the contemporary and normal French soldier and minister, of 1707-1778,
who bore the same name. I have found the name, with dim allusions, in
the unpublished letters and MSS. of Prince Charles Edward Stuart, and
have not always been certain whether the reference was to the man of
action or to the man of mystery. On the secret of the latter, the
deathless one, I have no new light to throw, and only speak of him for
a single reason. Aristotle assures us, in his _Poetics_, that the
best known myths dramatised on the Athenian stage were known to very
few of the Athenian audience. It is not impossible that the story of
Saint-Germain, though it seems as familiar as the myth of Oedipus or
Thyestes, may, after all, not be vividly present to the memory of
every reader. The omniscient Larousse, of the _Dictionnaire Universel_,
certainly did not know one very accessible fact about Saint-Germain,
nor have I seen it mentioned in other versions of his legend. We read,
in Larousse, 'Saint-Germain is not heard of in France before 1750, when
he established himself in Paris. No adventure had called attention to
his existence; it was only known that he had moved about Europe, lived
in Italy, Holland, and in England, and had borne the names of Marquis
de Montferrat and of Comte de Bellamye, which he used at Venice.'
Lascelles Wraxall, again, in _Remarkable Adventures_ (1863), says:
'Whatever truth there may be in Saint-Germain's travels in England and
the East Indies, it is indubitable that, for from 1745 to 1755, he was
a man of high position in Vienna,' while in Paris he does not appear,
according to Wraxall, till 1757, having been brought from Germany by
the Maréchal de Belle-Isle, whose 'old boots,' says Macallester the
spy, Prince Charles freely damned, 'because they were always stuffed
with projects.' Now we hear of Saint-Germain, by that name, as
resident, not in Vienna, but in London, at the very moment when Prince
Charles, evading Cumberland, who lay with his army at Stone, in
Staffordshire, marched to Derby. Horace Walpole writes to Mann in
Florence (December 9, 1745):
'We begin to take up people ... the other day they seized an odd man
who goes by the name of Count Saint-Germain. He has been here these
two years, and will not tell who he is, or whence, but professes that
he does not go by his right name. He sings, plays on the violin
wonderfully, composes, is mad, and not very sensible. He is called an
Italian, a Spaniard, a Pole; a somebody that married a great fortune
in Mexico, and ran away with her jewels to Constantinople; a priest, a
fiddler, a vast nobleman. The Prince of Wales has had unsatiated
curiosity about him, but in vain. However, nothing has been made out
against him; he is released, and, what convinces me he is not a
gentleman, stays here, and talks of his being taken up for a spy.'