This revival of popularity was anything but displeasing to the vain
Chevalier, whom the ambassador’s death had reduced to a state of
comparative oblivion. He did not hesitate to brave ridicule, having
furnished sufficient proofs of virility, sword, sabre or pen in hand,
and took delight in being talked about. Ladies, especially, showed
curiosity, and seemed almost anxious to reckon the dashing Chevalier as
one of themselves. Their curiosity encouraged them to ask him point blank
for the answer to the enigma, as the daughter of Wilkes, the member of
Parliament, did, with audacious ingenuousness:
Miss Wilkes presents her compliments to Monsieur the Chevalier
d’Eon, and is very anxious to know if he is really a woman, as
everybody asserts, or a man. It would be extremely kind of the
Chevalier to impart the truth to Miss Wilkes, who earnestly
entreats to be informed of it. It would be kinder still of him
if he would come and dine with her and her papa, to-day or
to-morrow, or, in fact, as soon as he is able to do so.
If curiosity expressed so candidly was quite charming, the much more
practical interest which the uncertainty had awakened in the gambling
world was manifested with greater boldness and impatience. It was also
harder to baffle, and d’Eon soon experienced again the disadvantages
of celebrity. Not only did the papers report the wagers day by day,
but extremely satirical caricatures began to appear. Anxious to drive
d’Eon to extremities, those who had laid wagers became more and more
impertinent, and at last went so far as to assert that the Chevalier
shared in the insurance policies made on his sex. This insinuation
decided d’Eon to break the silence he had preserved until then, by making
an energetic protest. On March 20, he proceeded to the Exchange, and to
several neighbouring coffee-houses, and there, in uniform, walking-stick
in hand, he compelled “the money-broker Bird, who was the first to start
one of these impudent insurances, to beg his pardon.” Bird assured him,
in the face of his apologies, that, following an Act of Parliament, he
and other bankers besides had the right to effect the most extraordinary
wagers, even with regard to the royal family, except so far as concerned
the life of the King, the Queen and their children. D’Eon, who relates
this incident in a letter to the Comte de Broglie, adds: “Yielding
the choice of weapons, I challenged the most incredulous and the most
insolent of the entire assembly (which numbered several thousands) to
fight; but not one of those male adversaries in this great city dared
either to cross sticks or to fight me, although I stayed among them from
noon until two o’clock.” This swaggering tirade had not exactly the
desired effect; for although his antagonists, intimidated by so expert
a swordsman, did not accept the challenge, their curiosity was still as
intense as ever, and became so aggressive that the Chevalier was obliged,
a few days later, to furnish more obvious proofs “of a sex which he
stamped in a most virile fashion on the faces of two insolent fellows.”
Incessantly exposed to such impertinences, and informed that several
wealthy gamblers were determined to kidnap him, by stratagem or by force,
d’Eon realised that he could not hope to avoid so great a humiliation
by hiding himself in London, as he had formerly succeeded in doing, or
even by shutting himself up in his house in Brewer Street. Accordingly,
he resolved to follow the advice of his friend, Earl Ferrers, and to
accept that nobleman’s hospitality at his seat at Staunton Harold.
Thence he intended to repair to Ireland, to spend several months there,
and not to return until the disturbance had subsided. He therefore set
out without taking leave of any of his friends, and apprised only the
Comte de Broglie of his flight. In his letter he protested emphatically
against the reports accusing him of having an interest in the policies
of insurance, and concluded by this evidently sincere confession,
which fully explains many acts of his adventurous life: “I am terribly
mortified at being what nature has made me, and that the natural lack of
passion in my temperament, which has prevented my engaging in amorous
intrigues, should induce my friends in France, in Russia, and in England
to imagine, in their innocence, that I am of the female sex; and the
malice of my enemies has strengthened all this.”
D’Eon travelled in the north of England under an assumed name and, after
spending a few weeks in Scotland, was preparing to proceed to Ireland
when news reached him through the papers which obliged him to alter his
plans. His friends, alarmed at his disappearance and fearing that he had
fallen a victim to some attempt on the part of those interested in the
wagers, were causing inquiries to be made in London and had published his
description. His creditors, no less concerned, had just demanded that the
doors of his lodging should be sealed; lastly, he was publicly accused
of participation in the wagers. Dreading lest the indiscreet zeal of the
officers of the law should lead to the discovery of his papers, d’Eon
hastily returned to London. Upon his arrival he at once repaired to the
Mansion House, and delivered to the Lord Mayor a deposition under oath
to the effect that he was “not interested to the value of one shilling,
directly or indirectly, in the policies of insurance” made on his sex.
_The Public Advertiser_ published this affidavit the same evening, and
d’Eon, anxious to clear himself from such an imputation in the sight
of his chief, sent him an extract from the newspaper, not without
accompanying it by fresh protestations. “It is not my fault,” he wrote,
“if the rage for betting on all matters is a national failing among
Englishmen. I have given proof, and will again do so to their hearts’
content, that I am not only a man, but a captain of dragoons with sword
in hand.”
It is strange to find d’Eon claiming, in July 1771, so energetically
(for it was the last time that he did so without ambiguity) his real
sex. From that moment he began to entertain the idea of the audacious
farce which he only decided to enact some time later, and the plot of
which was suggested by his contemporaries themselves. His resolution to
transform himself into a woman was formed between the months of July
1771 and April 1772. If he still abstained for over a year from avowing
his supposed sex to his protectors, if he still hesitated to make his
transformation public, he proved more communicative with a friend, who
informed the secret minister, and so indirectly the King. D’Eon first
confided in Drouet, secretary to the Comte de Broglie, who happened to
be in London at the time. The latter had not omitted to rally d’Eon on
the subject of the sex which was already being ascribed to him in Paris
also, whereupon d’Eon exclaimed, and, to his interlocutor’s profound
astonishment, asserted that he really was a woman. His parents, he said,
misled at his birth by doubtful appearances, and being particularly
anxious, as in every noble family, to have a male heir, had compelled him
to assume a sex other than that which nature had bestowed upon him. His
disposition and education had enabled him to play his part in public,
and his talents to achieve a brilliant career. D’Eon exerted in support
of this theory all the eloquence of which he was capable, and as Drouet
remained incredulous he indulged in an unseemly comedy, which he revived
at a later period in the presence of the adventurer Morande, and thereby
managed entirely to convince the Comte de Broglie’s secretary. Upon his
return Drouet at once reported the unexpected discovery to his master,
who wrote to the King, in May 1772:
I must not forget to inform your Majesty that the suspicions
entertained on the sex of this extraordinary personage are
well founded. The Sieur Drouet, whom I had ordered to do his
best to verify them, has assured me, since his return, that
he has succeeded, and that he is able to certify ... that the
Sieur d’Eon is a woman and nothing but a woman, of whom he has
all the attributes.... He begged the Sieur Drouet to keep the
secret, justly observing that if discovered his occupation
was gone.... May I entreat your Majesty to be pleased to
permit that the confidence he has reposed in his friend be not
betrayed, and that he will have no cause to regret what he has
done....
It is difficult to believe that this letter can have sufficed to
convince so shrewd a monarch, who had long since taken d’Eon’s measure.
Like Voltaire, Louis XV. must have regarded all this as an absurd sham,
the first news of which had, some months previously, left him sceptical.
The very astonishment he had then shown disproves the assertion that the
sovereign was the Chevalier’s secret accomplice. But that is the theory
which Casanova has ventured to sustain in his _Mémoires_:
The King alone knew, and always had known, that d’Eon was a
woman, and the entire quarrel between the sham Chevalier and
the Foreign Office was a farce which the King allowed to be
played out for his own amusement.... Nobody ever possessed in a
more marked degree the great royal virtue called dissimulation.
Faithful guardian of a secret, he was delighted when he felt
certain that none but he was aware of it.