In all the range of doubtful personalities there is hardly any one whom
convention has treated worse than it has the individual known in his
time--and after--as The Chevalier d’Eon. For about a hundred and fifty
years he has been written of--and spoken of for the first half century
of that time--simply as a man who masqueraded in woman’s clothes. There
seems to be just sufficient truth in this to save certain writers
on the subject from the charge of deliberate lying--a record which,
even if it is to be posthumous, no man of integrity aims at; but it
is abundantly evident that the rumour, which in time became a charge,
was originally set on foot deliberately by his political enemies, who
treated him and his memory without either consideration or even the
elements of honourable truth. To begin with, here are the facts of his
long life.
Charles-Genevieve--Louis-Auguste-Andre--Timothée d’Eon de Beaumont was
born in 1728 in Tonnerre in Yonne, a department of France in the old
province of Burgundy. His father, Louis d’Eon, was a parliamentary
barrister. As a youth he was so apt in his studies at the Collège
Mazarin that he received by special privilege his degree of Doctor in
Canon and Civil Law before the age appointed for the conferring of such
honour, and was then enrolled in the list of parliamentary barristers
in Paris. At first he had been uncertain which department of life he
should undertake. He swayed on one side towards the church, on the
other towards the world of letters and _beaux-arts_. He was by habit
an athlete, and was so good a swordsman that later on he had no rival
in fencing except the Chevalier de Saint-George. In his twenty-fifth
year he published two remarkable books. One was on the political
administration of ancient and modern people, and the other on Phases
of Finance in France at different times. (The latter was afterwards
published in German at Berlin in 1774, and so impressed the then King
of Prussia that he gave orders that its ideas were to be carried into
practical effect.)
[Illustration: THE CHEVALIER D’EON]
In 1755 the Prince de Conti, to whose notice the Chevalier had been
brought by the above books, asked the king (Louis XV) to send him to
Russia on a secret mission with the Chevalier Douglas; and from that
time till the king’s death in 1774 he was his trusted, loyal agent
and correspondent. D’Eon’s special mission was to bring the courts
of France and Russia closer than had been their wont, and also to
obtain for the Prince de Conti, who was seeking the Dukedom of Finland
and the Kingship of Poland, the favour of the Empress Elizabeth--a
difficult task, which had already cost M. de Valcroissant a spell
of imprisonment. In order to accomplish his mission, d’Eon disguised
himself as a woman, and in this guise he was able to creep into the
good graces of the Empress. He became her “reader” and was thus enabled
to prepare her for the reception of the secret purposes of his king.
In the following year he returned to France whence he was immediately
sent again to St. Petersburg with the title of Secretary of Embassy.
But this time he went in his man’s clothes and as the brother of the
pretended female reader. By this time he had been made a lieutenant of
dragoons. He came in spite of the Russian Chancellor Bestuchéf, who
saw in the young soldier-diplomat “_un subject dangereux et capable de
boulverser l’empire_.” This time his real mission was to destroy in
the mind of the Empress faith in Bestuchéf, who was trying to hold the
Russian army inactive and so deprive France of the advantages of the
Treaty of Versailles. This he did so well that he was in a position to
prove to the Empress that her chancellor had betrayed her interests.
Bestuchéf was arrested and his post conferred on Count Woronzow,
whose attitude was altogether favourable to France. The gratitude of
King Louis was shewn by his making d’Eon a captain of dragoons and
conferring on him a pension of 2400 livres; he was also made censor of
history and literature. D’Eon threw himself with his accustomed zeal
into the service of the army and distinguished himself by his courage
in the battles of Hoecht; of Ultrop, where he was wounded; of Eimbech
where he put the Scotch to flight; and of Osterkirk, where at the head
of 80 dragoons and 20 hussars he overthrew a battalion of the enemy.
No better conventional proof of the accepted idea of d’Eon’s military
worthiness can be given than the frequency and importance of the
occasions on which he was honoured by the carrying of despatches. He
brought news of his successful negotiations for the peace of Versailles
from Vienna in 1757. He was also sent with the Ratification of the
Treaty. He carried the despatches of the great victory of the troops of
Maria Theresa, forestalling the Austrian courier by a day and a half,
although he had a broken leg.
When next sent to Russia, d’Eon was sent as minister plenipotentiary,
an office which he held up to 1762 when to the regret of the Empress
he was recalled. When he was leaving, Woronzow, the successor of
Bestuchéf, said to him, “I am sorry you are going, although your first
journey with Chevalier Douglas cost my sovereign 250,000 men and more
than 5,000,000 roubles.” D’Eon answered: “Your excellency ought to
be happy that your sovereign and his minister have gained more glory
and reputation than any others in the world.” On his return d’Eon
was appointed to the regiment d’Autchamp and gazetted as adjutant to
Marshal de Broglie. Then he was sent to Russia for the fourth time
as minister plenipotentiary in place of Baron de Breuteuil. But Peter
III was dethroned, so the out-going Ambassador remained in Russia,
and d’Eon went to England as secretary to the Embassy of the Duke de
Nivernais in 1762.
After the Peace of 1763 d’Eon was chosen by the King of England to
carry the despatches. He received for this office the Star of St. Louis
from the breast of the king, who on giving it said it was for the
bravery which he had displayed as a soldier, and for the intelligence
which he had shown in the negotiations between London and St.
Petersburg.
At this time all went well with him. But his good fortune was changed
by the bitter intrigues of his enemies. He was devoted to the king,
but had, almost as a direct consequence, the enmity of the courtesans
who surrounded him and wished for the opportunity of plucking him
at their leisure. He had an astonishing knowledge on all matters of
finance, and apprised the king privately of secret matters which his
ministers tried to hide from him. The Court had wind of that direct
correspondence with his majesty and therewith things were so managed
that the diplomatist got into trouble. Madame de Pompadour surprised
the direct correspondence between the king and d’Eon, with the result
that the latter was persecuted by the jealous courtiers who intrigued,
until in 1765 he was replaced at the Embassy of London by the Count de
Guerchy and he himself became the mark for all sorts of vexations and
persecutions. His deadly enemy, the Count de Guerchy, tried to have
him poisoned, but the attempt failed. D’Eon took legal steps to punish
the attempt; but every form of pressure was used to keep the case out
of Court. An attempt was made to get the Attorney General to enter a
_nolle prosequi_; but he refused to lend himself to the scheme, and
sent the matter to the Court of King’s Bench. There, despite all the
difficulties of furthering such a charge against any one so protected
as an ambassador, it was declared on trial that the accused was guilty
of the crime charged against him. De Guerchy accordingly had to return
to France; but d’Eon remained in England, though without employment. To
console him King Louis gave him in 1766 a pension of 12,000 livres, and
assured him that though he was ostensibly exiled this was done to cover
up the protection extended to him. D’Eon, according to the report of
the time, was offered a bribe of 1,200,000 livres, to give up certain
state papers then in his custody; but to his honour he refused. Be the
story as it may, d’Eon up to the time of the death of Louis (1774)
continued to be in London the real representative of France, though
without any formal appointment.
During this time one of the means employed with success by his enemies
to injure the reputation of d’Eon, was to point out that he had passed
himself as a woman; the disguise he wore on his first visit to Russia.
His clean shaven face, his personal niceties, the correctness of his
life, all came to the aid of that supposition. In England bets were
made and sporting companies formed for the purpose of verifying his
sex. Designs were framed for the purpose of carrying him off in order
to settle the vexed question by a personal examination. Some of the
efforts he had to repel by violence. In 1770 and in 1772 his friends
tried to arrange that he should be allowed to return to France; but he
refused all offers as the Ministers insisted on making it a condition
of his return that he should wear feminine apparel. After the accession
of Louis XVI he obtained leave to return, free from the embarrassing
restraint hitherto demanded. As he was overwhelmed with debts he placed
as a guarantee in the hands of Lord Ferrers an iron casket containing
important French state papers. The minister sent Beaumarcheus to redeem
them, and in 1771 the Chevalier returned to France. He presented
himself at Versailles in his full uniform of a captain of dragoons. The
Queen (Marie Antoinette) however, wished to see him presented in female
dress; so the Minister implored him to meet her wishes. He consented;
and thenceforward not only wore women’s clothes but called himself “La
Chevalière d’Eon.” In a letter addressed by him to Madame de Staël
during the French revolution he spoke of himself as “citizeness of the
New Republic of France, and of the old Republic of Literature.” On 2nd
September, 1777 he wrote to the Count de Maurepas, “Although I detest
changes of costume, yet they are hard at work at Mademoiselle Bertin’s
on my future and doleful dress, which however I shall cut in pieces at
the first sound of the cannon shots.” As a matter of fact when war with
England became imminent he demanded to be allowed to take in the army
the position which he had won by bravery and as the price of honourable
wounds. The only reply he got was his immurement for two months in the
Castle of Dijon. In 1784 he returned to England, which he never again
left. In vain he appealed to the Convention and then to the First
Consul to be allowed to place his sword at the service of his country;
but his prayer was not listened to. Used to the practice of the sword,
his circumstances being desperate, he then found in it a source of
income. He gave in public, assaults-at-arms with the Chevalier de
Saint-George, one of the most notable fencers of his time. At length he
was given a small pension, £40, by George III, on which he subsisted
during the remainder of his life. He died 23rd May, 1810.
In very fact Chevalier d’Eon is historically a much injured man. His
vocation was that of a secret-service agent of a nation surrounded with
enemies, and to her advantage he used his rare powers of mind and body.
He was a very gallant soldier, who won distinction in the field and
was wounded several times; and in his endurance and his indifference
to pain whilst carrying despatches of overwhelming importance he set
an example that any soldier might follow with renown. As a statesman
and diplomatist, and by the use of his faculties of inductive
ratiocination, he averted great dangers from his country. If there were
nothing else to his credit he might well stand forth as a diplomatist
who had by his own exertions overthrown a dishonest Russian Chancellor
and an unscrupulous French Ambassador. Of course, as he was an agent of
secret service, he had cognisance of much political and international
scheming which he had at times to frustrate at the risk of all which he
held dear. But, considering the time he lived in, and the dangers which
he was always in the thick of, in a survey of his life the only thing
a reader can find fault with is his yielding to the base idea of the
flighty-minded Marie Antoinette. What, to this irresponsible butterfly
of fashion, was the honour of a brave soldier or the reputation of an
acute diplomatist who had deserved well of his country. Of course to
her any such foolery as that to which she condemned d’Eon was but the
fancy of an idle moment. But then the fancies of queens at idle moments
may be altogether destructive to someone. That they may be destructive
to themselves is shown in the record of the terrible atrocities of the
Revolution which followed hard on the luxurious masquerades of Trianon
and Versailles. Even to the Queen of France, the Chevalier d’Eon
should have been something of a guarded, if not an honoured, person. He
was altogether a “king’s man.” He had been for many years the trusted
and loyal servant of more than one king; and from the king’s immediate
circle the proper consideration should have been shown.
There is something pitiful in the spectacle of this old gentleman of
nearly eighty years of age, who had in his time done so much, being
compelled to earn a bare livelihood by the exploitation of the most
sordid page in his history--a page turned more than half a century
before, and then only turned at all in response to the call of public
duty.
In his retirement d’Eon showed more of his real nature than had been
possible to him in the strenuous days when he had to be always vigilant
and ready at an instant’s notice to conceal his intentions--his very
thoughts. Here he showed a sensitiveness with which even his friends
did not credit him. He had been so long silent as to matters of his
own concern that they had begun to think he had lost the faculty not
only of making the thought known, but even of the thought itself. The
following paragraph from the London _Public Advertiser_ of Wednesday,
16th November, 1774, shows more of the real man than may be found in
any of his business letters or diplomatic reports:--
“The Chevalier d’Eon with justice complains of our public prints; they
are eternally sending him to France while he is in body and soul fixed
in this country; they have lately confined him in the Bastille, when he
fled to England as a country of liberty; and they lately made a Woman
of him, when not one of his enemies dared to put his manhood to the
proof. He makes no complaints of the English Ladies.”
In an issue of the same paper 9th November, of the same year, it is
mentioned that the Rt. Hon. Lord Ferrars, Sir John Fielding, Messrs.
Addington, Wright and other worthy magistrates and gentlemen and
their ladies did the Chevalier d’Eon the honour to dine with him in
Brewer St., Golden Square (common proof that the Chevalier d’Eon is
not confined in the Bastille). D’Eon was much too wily and too much
accustomed to attack to allow diplomatic insinuations to pass unheeded.
He was now beginning to apply his garnered experience to his own
protection.
From the above extract of 16th November one can note how the allegation
as to his sex was beginning to rankle in the soldier’s mind, and how
an open threat of punishment is conveyed in diplomatic form. Indeed
he had reason to take umbrage at the insinuation. More than once had
attempts been made to carry him off for the purpose of settling bets
by a humiliating personal scrutiny. From something of the same cause
his friends on his death caused an autopsy to be made before several
witnesses of position and repute. Amongst these were several surgeons
including Père Elisée, First Surgeon to Louis XVIII. The medical
certificate ran as follows:
“Je certifie, par le présent, avoir inspecté le corps du chevalier
d’Eon, en présénce de M. Adair, M. Wilson et du Père Elysée, et avoir
trouvé les organs masculins parfaitement formés.”