{"id":27524,"date":"2023-08-09T07:03:44","date_gmt":"2023-08-09T05:03:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.historyextra.com\/?p=238809"},"modified":"2023-08-09T20:12:51","modified_gmt":"2023-08-09T18:12:51","slug":"chevalier-deon-the-tale-of-an-18th-century-gender-non-conforming-spy","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/rss_feed\/chevalier-deon-the-tale-of-an-18th-century-gender-non-conforming-spy\/","title":{"rendered":"Chevali\u00e8r d\u2019\u00c9on: the tale of an 18th-century gender non-conforming spy"},"content":{"rendered":"

What happens when a spy becomes the subject of other people\u2019s investigations? Nige Tassell delves into the life of the Chevalier d\u2019\u00c9on \u2013\u00a0the French master of disguise who defied conventional notions of gender <\/p>

By Elinor Evans\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Wednesday, 09 August 2023 at 05:03 AM<\/p>

\n\n

After decades of speculation, gossip and even gambling on the matter, in 1810 it was an elderly Londoner called Mrs Cole who finally discovered the truth. For the previous 14 years, this widow had shared an apartment with a French spinster, the Chevali\u00e8re d\u2019\u00c9on. During the last few of those years, the chevali\u00e8re \u2013 the female equivalent of a chevalier, or knight \u2013 was largely bedbound. Both women were in their early eighties; both also lived in poverty and suffered poor health. Now, on 21 May 1810, at the age of 81, the Frenchwoman was dead.<\/p>\n

Unsurprisingly, it was Mrs Cole who found the body. Mourning the passing of her friend and flatmate, she solemnly began to prepare the corpse to receive visitors, aiming to provide some dignity in death. As she changed the deceased\u2019s clothes, Mrs Cole made a startling revelation: the chevali\u00e8re was very much in possession of male genitalia.<\/p>\n

The French flatmate had told a convincing tale: that they had been born female but \u2013 due to social restrictions of the time \u2013 had been raised as a boy. As an adult, they had fought as a soldier, and had been free to revert to \u2018her\u2019 biological sex only after retiring from public life. Now it appeared that the opposite had been true. This was the final twist in an action-packed life.<\/p>\n

Mrs Cole sought a second opinion \u2013 a dozen opinions, actually, including those of surgeons and professors of anatomy who visited the property. Yes, her friend had narrow, feminine hips and an unobtrusive Adam\u2019s apple, but all of these experts came to the same conclusion: that the chevali\u00e8re had actually been a chevalier all along.<\/p>\n

Who was the Chevali\u00e8r d\u2019\u00c9on?<\/h2>\n

Charles-Gen\u00e8vieve-Louis-Auguste-Andr\u00e9-Timoth\u00e9e d\u2019\u00c9on de Beaumont had been born in 1728 in the small Burgundy town of Tonnerre. His was a noble family, albeit a comparatively poor one. After a childhood of little note, he followed his attorney father into legal training, graduating in both civil law and canon law in Paris before taking on positions within the civil service. By the age of 30, he had risen sufficiently through the ranks to become a royal censor for history and literature.<\/p>\n

By then, though, d\u2019\u00c9on had already embarked on the first of his double lives, having been recruited into Le Secret du Roi (The King\u2019s Secret), an undercover network of spies that, under the direct command of Louis XV, operated without the knowledge of the ministries of the French government. These spies often worked directly against government policy \u2013 at least, whenever opposing the official line worked in the king\u2019s favour.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>
A 1748 portrait of King Louis XV. The monarch operated a spy network without the knowledge of the French government. (Image by Getty Images)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

An early mission for d\u2019\u00c9on \u2013 albeit one that may have been, at the very least, exaggerated when he recounted it in his memoirs, as the episode was never documented elsewhere \u2013 involved travelling to Russia to elicit the support of the Empress Elizabeth. Support was sought for the placing of Louis XV\u2019s cousin, the Prince of Conti, onto the Polish throne. The empress was known for refusing to meet with French ambassadors so, in order to infiltrate the imperial court as well as evade the attention of the British who only permitted women and children across the Russian border, d\u2019\u00c9on took advantage of his comparatively androgynous looks to disguise himself as a fictitious French noblewoman, Lia de Beaumont. The ruse was successful, with his female persona apparently gaining the trust of the empress and allegedly serving as one of her maids of honour. At the same time, under his biological sex, d\u2019\u00c9on was employed as secretary to the French embassy in St Petersburg.<\/p>\n

Dispatched to London<\/h2>\n

Returning to France in the autumn of 1760, d\u2019\u00c9on was appointed as a dragoon captain the following spring, seeing service for a portion of the remaining two years of the Seven Years\u2019 War<\/a>. Having been wounded in battle, he was removed from the frontline and dispatched to London where his legal training would be put to good use: he was charged with helping to draft the peace treaty that would bring the war to a close. For his service in creating the conditions that would bring peace to Europe, d\u2019\u00c9on was awarded the Order of Saint Louis in 1763. The honour was the French equivalent of a knighthood and he could now use the title Chevalier d\u2019\u00c9on.<\/p>\n

The new chevalier remained in London, becoming the embassy\u2019s charg\u00e9 d\u2019affaires before a promotion to the position of minister-plenipotentiary. Such appointments offered great opportunities to bolster his usefulness to Louis XV by supplying significant intelligence to the king. One example of this was overseeing covert surveys of the British coastline in preparation for Louis\u2019s misconceived plan of invading Britain, a scheme that only a small number of the king\u2019s very closest associates were aware of.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>
A satirical engravingof d\u2019\u00c9on from the 1770s. According to historian Gary Kates, the spy \u201cdeeply admired the moral character of women and wanted to live as one\u201d. (Image by Getty Images)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

The privileges that came with being interim ambassador didn\u2019t last. Within three months, a permanent ambassador, the Comte de Guerchy, was appointed and d\u2019\u00c9on\u2019s role reduced to that of secretary. He didn\u2019t take this demotion lightly. Having been instructed to return to Paris for his protestations (and fearing the Bastille to be his destination once back on home ground), he resisted orders, instead writing directly to the king to accuse Guerchy of attempting to poison him at an ambassadorial dinner. The French government\u2019s request to have\u00a0him deported fell on deaf British ears.<\/p>\n

D\u2019\u00c9on retaliated to the French government\u2019s threats by publishing a swathe of secret correspondence from missions as part of Le Secret du Roi, causing Paris to retreat somewhat from its aggressive actions towards the chevalier. They now realised he was a politically dangerous man. D\u2019\u00c9on was a sharp thinker and, by not publishing the correspondence concerning Louis XV\u2019s secret and undeniably controversial invasion plans, he knew the king could not lend his support to the government\u2019s attempts to discipline d\u2019\u00c9on.<\/p>\n

After Guerchy sued d\u2019\u00c9on for libel, the chevalier went into hiding in London where he became something of a folk hero to the British public who enjoyed the French government being undermined by one of their own. He remained a spy in Britain where, with the invasion correspondence as his personal insurance policy, he continued to receive a handsome annuity from Louis XV.<\/p>\n

Salacious rumours<\/h2>\n

In London, the chevalier\u2019s androgynous looks meant that rumours abounded about his sex, with many observers holding the opinion that d\u2019\u00c9on was actually a woman masquerading as a man. Indeed, such was the fervour over the chevalier\u2019s biology that a betting pool was even launched on the very matter on no less an institution than the London Stock Exchange. No pay-outs were forthcoming though as d\u2019\u00c9on refused to be medically examined to provide a definitive answer. One school of thought would later suggest that the chevalier declined to settle the argument because, to help pay off mounting debts from an extravagant lifestyle, he was in receipt of payments from betting houses keen to keep the book open.<\/p>\n

Such was the fervour over the chevalier\u2019s biology that a betting pool was even launched on the matter <\/blockquote> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n<\/div>

The mystery surrounding the chevalier remained, although one French nobleman viewed the interminable chatter about d\u2019\u00c9on\u2019s sex as sufficient confirmation in itself that the chevalier was actually a chevali\u00e8re. \u201cAll the world says it,\u201d he announced. \u201cFinal incontestable proof!\u201d<\/p>\n

In 1774, Louis XV died \u2013 and with him went Le Secret du Roi. No longer operating along these secret channels, and concerned about a possible loss of that annuity underwritten by the late king, d\u2019\u00c9on sought to end his exile in London and return to France. An agreement was drawn up: the chevalier could return to his homeland, and he could retain his pension, if he surrendered all the correspondence involving Le Secret du Roi.<\/p>\n

But d\u2019\u00c9on insisted on another condition. Claiming to have been born female, the chevalier requested that the French authorities and the new king Louis XVI officially recognise this. D\u2019\u00c9on\u2019s story involved being raised as a boy because his father could only receive an inheritance from his wife\u2019s family if he fathered a son. The new king agreed to d\u2019\u00c9on\u2019s request, although insisted that the chevalier must always present as a woman. Louis XVI even provided d\u2019\u00c9on with a clothing budget. The deal was known as \u2018The Transaction\u2019.<\/p>\n

\"Louis<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>
Louis XVI (pictured) provided d\u2019\u00c9on with a clothing budget as part of a covert pension deal dubbed \u2018The Transaction\u2019. (Image by Getty Images)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

In his book Monsieur d\u2019\u00c9on is a Woman<\/em>, d\u2019\u00c9on\u2019s biographer Gary Kates describes the journey back to France as one seen to be loaded with symbolism. \u201cIt marked as well his maiden voyage across the gender boundary, a barrier much better defended and more impenetrable than any national border. As far as the world knew, d\u2019\u00c9on was returning both to his original country and to his original sex.\u201d Not everyone was convinced by these claims of being born female. In November 1777, the newly retitled Chevali\u00e8re d\u2019\u00c9on was \u2013 after four hours of preparation \u2013 presented at court at Versailles, with one female observer announcing: \u201cShe had nothing of our sex but the petticoats and the curls which suited her horribly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Giving fencing displays was one modest source of income, but time was nonetheless spent in a debtors\u2019 prison <\/blockquote> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n<\/div>

When France began to assist the anti-British rebels in the American Revolutionary War<\/a>, d\u2019\u00c9on requested to join the cause, but was rebuffed by the French government. Further requests ended in arrest and being held in a dungeon for three weeks, before being sent back to Tonnerre, to which d\u2019\u00c9on was confined. Here, a collection of \u2013 possibly amplified and embellished \u2013 memoirs was embarked upon. Eventually, in 1785, small-town life proved too stifling and the chevali\u00e8re successfully petitioned to be allowed to return to London.<\/p>\n

These weren\u2019t to be happy years. The French Revolution<\/a> had put paid to the pension previously authorised by successive kings and d\u2019\u00c9on fell on hard times. Family-owned land and property in Burgundy was also being seized by the revolutionary government, forcing d\u2019\u00c9on to sell personal possessions to make ends meet. Giving fencing displays was one source of modest income, but some time was nonetheless spent in a debtors\u2019 prison<\/a>. A couple of years after release, d\u2019\u00c9on was paralysed by a fall and was largely confined to bed for those final years. It was a sad, rather tragic end to a life spent colourfully both in the uniform of a dragoon captain on the frontline of war and dressed to the nines for the collective gaze of the Versailles set.<\/p>\n

Ever the secret-keeping spy, d\u2019\u00c9on had kept the personal mystery intact right up to death. But then, with the body still warm, Mrs Cole made her discovery.<\/p>\n

Why did the Chevalier\u00a0d\u2019\u00c9on present as a woman?<\/h2>\n

There were likely a multitude of reasons behind the spy\u2019s identity switch\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

In 1777, the Chevalier d\u2019\u00c9on returned to France from exile in London but only on the condition that the claim of being born female was recognised by the French government and crown, despite it eventually being revealed not to be true. In his book Monsieur d\u2019\u00c9on is a Woman<\/em>, d\u2019\u00c9on\u2019s biographer Gary Kates offers several reasons for the double life.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cD\u2019\u00c9on\u2019s switch was not a compulsion but an intellectual decision that he made between 1766 and 1776 after careful thought and reading,\u201d says Kates, suggesting that d\u2019\u00c9on chose to present as a woman \u201cbecause he deeply admired the moral character of women and wanted to live as one.\u201d Also, despite his military combat, d\u2019\u00c9on was ill at ease with hypermasculine ideals. Informed by the Enlightenment thinkers, he was \u201cheavily influenced by early modern feminist writing that called into question patriarchal gender roles\u201d.<\/p>\n

Kates argues that d\u2019\u00c9on\u2019s declining influence on public life may have been a contributing factor, too. \u201cThe \u2018cause\u2019 of d\u2019\u00c9on\u2019s transformation was his alienation from French political life. His career as a diplomat and spy having reached a dead end, he searched for a way to win back his honour and regenerate his own soul.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p><\/div> <\/section>

This article first appeared in the August 2023 issue of BBC History Revealed<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n

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