Chevalier d'Eon
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Charles-Geneviève-Louis-Auguste-André-Timothée Éon de Beaumont (October 5, 1728 - May 21, 1810), usually known as the Chevalier d'Eon was a French diplomat, spy, soldier and Freemason who lived the first half of his life as a man and the second half as a woman.
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[edit] Early life
D'Eon Beaumont was born in Tonnerre. His father, Louis d'Eon de Beaumont, was an attorney and his mother, Françoise de Chavanson, was a noblewoman. Most of what we know about d'Eon's early life comes from his biography and its reliability is questionable. He later claimed that he had been born a girl but that he was raised as a boy because her father could inherit his in-laws only if he would have a son.
D'Eon excelled in school and graduated 1749 from Collège Mazarin in Paris. He worked as a secretary of the administrator of the fiscal department and as a royal censor.
[edit] D'Eon as a spy
In 1756 d'Eon joined the secret network of spies called Le Secret du Roi that worked only for King Louis XV. The monarch sent him on a secret mission to Russia in order to meet Empress Elizabeth and intrigue with the pro-French faction against the Habsburg Monarchy. Later tales claim that he disguised himself as a lady Lia de Beaumont to do so, and that he became a maid of honour to the Empress. D'Eon's career in Russia is the subject of one of Valentin Pikul's novels.
In 1761 d'Eon returned to France. The next year he became a captain of dragoons under the Marshal de Broglie and fought in the later stages of the Seven Years' War. He was wounded and received a Cross of Saint-Louis, which gave him the rank of chevalier.
In 1763 d'Eon became plenipotentiary minister in London and spied for the king. He collected information for a potential invasion. He formed connections with English nobility by sending them the produce of his own vineyards. When he was about to lose the post of plenipotentiary, he complained, and eventually decided to disobey orders to return to France. In his letter to the king, he claimed that the new ambassador had tried to drug him. Launching an effort to save his diplomatic post in London, he published most of the secret diplomatic correspondence about his recall under the title Lettres, mémoires, et négociations in 1764.
In 1766 Louis XV granted him a pension for his services and gave him a 12.000-livre annuity. He continued to work as a spy, but he lived in political exile in London.
[edit] D'Eon as a lady
Despite the fact that d'Eon wore his dragoon's uniform all the time, there were rumors that he was actually a woman. A betting pool was started on the London Stock Exchange regarding his gender. In 1774, after the death of Louis XV, d'Eon tried to negotiate his return. He also claimed that physically he was not a man, but a woman, and demanded that the government recognize him as a woman. King Louis XVI and his court complied and demanded that he wear women's clothing. D'Eon agreed, especially when the king granted funds for a new wardrobe. In 1777 d'Eon returned to France, and afterwards lived as a woman.
When France began to help the rebels during the American War of Independence, d'Eon asked to be able to join French troops in America. He was jailed below the castle of Dijon for 19 days, and spent the following six years with his mother in Tonnerre.
In 1779 Beaumont published his memoirs La Vie Militaire, politique, et privée de Mademoiselle d'Eon. They were ghostwritten by a friend named La Fortelle, and are probably embellished.
D'Eon returned to England in 1785. He lost his pension after the French Revolution and had to sell his library. In 1792 he sent a letter to the French National Assembly, offering to lead a division of women soldiers against the Habsburgs, but the offer was rebuffed. He participated in fencing tournaments until he was seriously wounded, in 1796. In 1805 he signed a contract for an autobiography, but the book was never published. He spent his last years with a widow, Mrs. Cole.
Chevalier d'Eon died in London. Doctors who examined him after death discovered that his body was anatomically male.
The term Eonism was coined to refer to similar cases of transgender behavior, but is now little used because of its ambiguity.
[edit] Books
- Gary Kates – Monsieur D'Eon Is a Woman : A Tale of Political Intrigue and Sexual Masquerade (2001) ISBN 0-8018-6731-2, Johns Hopkins University Press
[edit] See also
- Le Chevalier D'Eon, a 2006 anime loosely based on the Chevalier d'Eon.
