which I will order to be paid to him punctually every six months, in whatsoever country he may be (except during a time of war, among my enemies), and will continue to do so until I think proper to give him some post whose appointments are larger than his pension.
At the commencement of the year 1770 the rumour spread from one to the other that d’Eon was a woman. Several years elapsed before anybody was willing to believe it, but after a while few could be found to contradict it. It is incorrect that an order intimated to D’Eon by the French government that he was to assume feminine attire gave rise to these rumours; on the contrary, the rumours occasioned the order, which D’Eon did not obey, indeed, till some years later. It is probable that these rumours originated, in the first instance, from the names given to D’Eon at the baptismal font, and by many traits of his character, which had something feminine about them; it is also possible that nothing in his face, stature, or mode of life contradicted them; and that, moreover, the numerous enemies he had made carefully propagated them. Still there is considerable mystery as to the motives that could determine the French government to order d’Eon to assume female attire, as well as the reasons that led him to obey the order. If it be admitted that Louis XV. considered this mystification the best way of attenuating the effect of certain indiscretions committed by D’Eon, and that a feminine garb appeared to D’Eon himself an excellent protection against the numerous enmities of which he was the object,—I cannot, for all that, refrain from a suspicion that there must have been some other cause which compelled him to wear female clothing, and it may have been for the purpose of lulling suspicions which might be aroused in some minds, were it not for this supposition. The thing was not absolutely believed, but the number of those who took D’Eon for a woman was far larger than that of the sceptics, and, during the latter years of his life, there were very few who doubted the fact of his being a woman.
An immense number of wagers was made on this vexed question, and it is a very remarkable fact that the French were persuaded D’Eon was a woman, while in England he was persistently stated to be a man. These bets gave cause to several trials, and in 1777 the Court of King’s Bench had to settle the case of Surgeon Hayes v. Baker Jacques in this matter. The latter had received from the adverse party fifteen guineas, on the undertaking that he would pay him back five hundred on the day it was proved that D’Eon was a woman. The jury considered the testimony produced by Hayes so conclusive that they gave a verdict in his favour. Other trials of the same nature were stopped by a declaration of the court that wagers of this description were contrary to the law; and it was asserted at the time that this judicial decision produced England a saving of 75,000l. , which otherwise must have been paid to the French bettors. D’Eon declared his determination to have no act or part in the wagers laid as to his real sex. He left England, and proceeded to France, whither the Count de Vergennes had summoned him. He at first appeared in man’s clothes, was kindly welcomed, but soon received from Louis XVI. an order to reassume his female attire,—an order which that king, with his strict ideas on matters of morality and decency, would hardly have given unless he had been convinced that D’Eon was really a woman.
D’Eon at first refused obedience, but finally consented to what was asked of him, and went about everywhere in petticoats, with the Cross of St. Louis on his bosom, and calling himself the Chevalière d’Eon. As all doubts had not been removed as to his true sex, this travestissement attracted upon him many jests, and even challenges, which the government found no other means of putting a stop to, than by imprisoning him for some time in the citadel of Dijon. D’Eon left his prison in 17S3, and then returned to England, whence it appears that he maintained a correspondence with Baron de Bréteuil, at that time Minister of Foreign Affairs. When the revolution broke out in France, D’Eon hastened back, and sent in a petition to the National Assembly, in which he asked leave to resume his rank in the army, for “his heart revolted against cap and petticoats.” This offer being declined, he returned to England, and lost his pension by being placed on the list of emigrés. He was compelled to part with his library and jewels, and fell into such a state of distress, that he was reduced to the necessity of making a livelihood of the celebrity attaching to his name: in 1795, he set up a fencing school, in which he gave lessons dressed in female clothing. D’Eon was a very fine fencer, and gave several public assaults of arms with the Chevalier de St. Georges, who was considered the first swordsman of the day. It is, therefore, probable that his very necessities prevented D’Eon from lifting the veil of that mystery, which urgent considerations caused him to favour at an earlier period of life. In the correspondence of Anna Seward, there is a passing allusion to D’Eon, whom that lady saw at Lichfield. With her tendency to romance, the once fair Anna tells us that she (or rather he), appeared to possess a noble and undaunted spirit, and her (his) martial appearance, activity, and strength were marvellous in a person of the age of sixty-seven.
When old age and its sad train of maladies and infirmities began to press heavily on D’Eon, he only subsisted on the scanty charity bestowed by a few rare friends. In 1809, M. de Flassan, who was thoroughly initiated in all relating to French diplomacy, still firmly believed that D’Eon was a woman, but the mystery was cleared up at his death, which took place on May 21, 1810. The autopsy which was made by Dr. Copeland, in the presence of Mr. Adam Wilson, and Father Elysée, first surgeon to Louis XVIII., proved that D’Eon was a man. In a work of thirteen volumes, containing a great number of political and historical dissertations, and entitled “Loisirs du Chevalier D’Eon,” which he published at Paris, in 1775, not a single allusion is met with to the strange part he consented to play. As I said at the beginning of this article, the Memoir published in D’Eon’s name are apocryphal.
Lascelles Wraxall.
