Having satisfied some of her creditors with the proceeds of the sale, D’Eon occupied herself in packing the remainder of her effects in fifteen cases for conveyance to France. War had been declared, and the Citoyenne Geneviève at once sent her nephew O’Gorman to Paris, with the offers of her services in the form of a petition addressed to the Legislative Assembly, an extract from which was read at a sitting of that body. It stated that although she had worn the dress of a woman for fifteen years, she had never forgotten that she was formerly a soldier; that since the Revolution she felt her military ardour revive, and demanded, instead of her cap and petticoats, her helmet, sabre, horse, and the rank in the army to which her seniority, her services, and her wounds entitled her; and she also requested permission to raise a legion of volunteers. Unconnected with any party, she had no desire to brandish her sword in procession in the streets of Paris, and wished for nothing but actual service—war nobly made and courageously supported.

This petition, the reading of which was interrupted by repeated bursts of applause, was ordered to be honourably mentioned in the minutes, and referred to the military committee.[370]

Early in the following year the Citoyenne Geneviève, in a transport of delight, informed her friend, M. Beauvais,[371] that in consequence of instructions received from the Minister of War for the Republic of France, she was about to proceed to Paris, thence to join the army of General Dumouriez,[372] and begged leave to forward to his care six cases for despatch to France, viâ Rouen or Havre de Grace, as she might determine after her arrival in that country. Nine other cases were at the same time sent to Mr. Christie, who had promised to find room for them. She was also invited by the ladies of Paris to return to them, the invitation, dated in the month of April, having been entrusted for personal delivery to her old friend, Captain Arden, of the Royal Navy. The Chevalière did not return to France, having been detained in all probability by her creditors, who would have acted with greater wisdom and profit to themselves had they trusted to her honour, and left her free to seek for better days under the changed fortunes of her country. It was doubtlessly her late surrender of State papers, and the nature of their contents,[373] that had influenced the administrators of the Republic in her favour; but her right to a pension was no longer recognised under the new form of Government in France, her property had been confiscated, and she was thus left without resources of any description, now verging on her sixty-fifth year. The Chevalière appears to have existed at this time chiefly upon the hospitality of her friends, there being amongst those who entertained her more frequently the names of Lady Constable, Mr. Christie, Lord and Lady Glencairn, Lady Wallis (sister to the Duchess of Gordon), Colonel and Mrs. Kemys-Tynte, General Melville, General Rainsford, at whose house she met Horne Tooke and Paine; Mr. Fitzmaurice (brother of Lord Lansdowne), Colonel Macbean, of the Artillery; Mr. Lockhart, banker, Pall Mall; Mr. Dent, banker, Clarges Street; Sir William Ffloyd, Count Zenobio, envoy from Venice; Colonel du Bathe, M. Hirsinger, Chargé d’Affaires from France, &c. &c.

By the end of the year 1792 the Chevalière’s remaining means and credit were completely exhausted, and there was no alternative but to make public exhibition of her pre-eminent skill in fencing, a resolution in which she appears to have been supported by Mrs. Bateman, the noted actress and female fencer. Her first appearance, in a series of performances, was at a déjeuner given by Mrs. Bateman in her house, Soho Square, to a party of English and French officers of both services, several ‘literary characters, and gentlemen of first-rate stage talents,’ upon which occasion, as announced in the papers,

January 22.—She was next invited to an Assaut d’armes with Captain Walmsley, at Mr. Towneley’s house in Devonshire Place, when one hundred guests were present, nearly all of whom were Roman Catholics.

February 11.—Fenced Captain Walmsley at the Club d’Armes, Brewer Street, and although very much indisposed, astonished numerous spectators with her science and activity. The captain was foiled four or five times successively, and it was not till the female Chevalier was nearly exhausted that he had the opportunity of a retort. Confident of success, Mademoiselle D’Eon refused the mask, of which her opponent availed himself.[374]

May 30.—Fences at the Haymarket on Mrs. Bateman’s benefit night. Never, since the death of Garrick, had the house been so full.

June 26.—Fences at the Ranelagh, in the presence of the Prince of Wales and Duke of Gloucester.

August 23.—Fences with Mr. Bateman and his son.

September.—Fences with Mrs. Bateman and an English officer, under the patronage of the Prince of Wales, who sat in the stage box (Brighton theatre) with Mrs. Fitzherbert and Miss Piggot.

October 19.—Fences at her own benefit in the theatre, Margate, a prologue being spoken by Mrs. Bateman.

November 2.—Fences at the Assembly Rooms, Deal.

November 11 and 21.—Fences at the theatre, Dover.

November 30.—Fences at the Fountain Inn, Canterbury.

After which, Mrs. Bateman[375] and the Chevalière, who had been on a professional tour together, returned to London.

In the Chevalière’s journals, from which the above dates are taken,[376] there appear two entries only during the year 1794 of her having publicly exhibited—at Ranelagh on May 26, and at the Brighton theatre on August 8. In 1795, she fenced at the Lower Rooms (Bath?) on April 24, at Birmingham on July 6, and at Worcester on August 13. In January 1796, she performed in the Lower Rooms, Bath, under the patronage of the colonel and officers of the Essex Dragoons, whose band was in attendance, Bath still being what it had been for many years, incomparably the most fashionable and favourite watering-place in England, and frequented by people of all classes of society. After giving four performances, D’Eon travelled to Oxford for April 22 and three other evenings, thence to Southampton to keep an engagement on August 26, when an unlucky accident brought to an end, for ever, these exhibitions of her skill.

In receiving a thrust from her adversary that evening, the foil broke off, inflicting a serious wound, by which she was completely disabled. It is well to reproduce her address to the public upon that occasion, and the surgical certificate given to satisfy that public; the first, because it so very clearly, and in her own words, exposes her sad necessities; the second, because it is evident that the physician and surgeons who examined the wound were satisfied with regard to the sex of their patient.

D’Eon had to keep her bed for four months, and after being removed to London was confined, through great debility, to the house, which she left four times only during the next four years, and then only in a coach. She spent her long convalescence with Mrs. Mary Cole[378] at her own invitation, an old friend from whom she never again parted, and these two thereafter shared alike in each other’s sorrows, for of joys they had none! ‘My life was spent in eating, drinking, and sleeping, praying, writing, and at work with Mrs. Cole, repairing linen, gowns, and head-dresses.’

The Chevalière was in the habit of pawning her diamonds from time to time when hard pressed, taking care to redeem and keep them in reserve until she could dispose of them at a fair price. In 1799, being absolutely obliged to part with those jewels, after failing to treat with Rundell and his friend Sharp, the well-known jewellers, she made some satisfactory arrangement with a Mr. Moses, who called to see them. After this, it may be said that D’Eon lived entirely upon charity. Forced to give up the chambers she had occupied in Brewer Street during thirty-three years, she went to stay for a time with Colonel Thornton, on the Surrey side of the Thames, and then took up her residence permanently with Mrs. Cole, first at 33 Westminster Bridge Road, then at 5 Mead’s Place, opposite to the Apollo Gardens, and near the Asylum, Lambeth, and finally at 26 New Milman Street, Foundling Hospital. Her two nephews, Major O’Gorman, and Captain Augustus O’Gorman of the 18th regiment of foot, called to see her occasionally, but it does not appear that they ever afforded any relief or comfort to their aged aunt, who had been in the habit of assisting them very materially in their younger days.

D’Eon had never abandoned the idea of possibly returning to France, the Treaty of Amiens and the First Consulate seeming to afford a glimmer of hope. She had made some kind of declaration before M. Otto, the French minister plenipotentiary, on the 7th Fructidor (August 24), 1802, which resulted in her being supplied with a passport to Paris and Tonnerre, good for three decades (thirty days), dated the 25th Brumaire (November 15) of the same year, and she received five pounds from Mr. R. Slade ‘to enable her to return to her country;’ but she remained hopelessly involved, as appears from several touching entries in her note-book, of which we quote two. M. Blacher, the exiled curé of St. Martin le Gérard in the diocese of Constance, called at the house of the sheriff’s officer for Surrey, on November 15, 1804, and inquired if it was true that Mademoiselle D’Eon was in detention. Upon learning that she had been in custody five months, and only just set at liberty, the curé asked to see her, and being shown into the Chevalière’s chamber, said that he had come at the instance of an English lady to know the particulars of her arrest. On taking his leave, and pleading that he also was an exile and poor, he quietly placed on the table a gold seven-shilling piece which he refused to take up again, although pressed to do so by D’Eon. Acknowledging the receipt of ten guineas from the Marchioness Townshend, D’Eon wrote, July 18, 1805:—

The note was signed: Chevalier D’Eon, who has not quitted his bed, his room, or his house nine times during the last nine years.

Writing to Major Clive, M.P.,[379] she complains of her reduced circumstances, and of having lost her all by the French Revolution, she cannot say, why?

Amongst those who occasionally supplied her with funds, or whose attentions the Chevalière more particularly appreciated, were Mrs. Crawford, of Hertford Street, Mayfair, a daughter of Mrs. Holland; the Misses Dodwell; Mrs. Tryon, of Glaston, Uppingham; Colonel Kemys-Tynte; and Miss Shirley, a natural daughter of Admiral Shirley. The good Queen Charlotte had never forgotten her, and she enjoyed an annuity of fifty pounds from the Duke of Queensberry.

For the two last years of her life, D’Eon was almost bed-ridden through infirmity, but affectionately nursed and tended by Mrs. Cole. About a year before her death she sent for Père Elisée, formerly surgeon to the ‘Pères de la Charité’ at Grenoble, who was enjoying a comfortable allowance from the Duke of Queensberry as his grace’s physician, and with whom he dined almost daily.[381] Elisée and Dr. Perigalese attended her as her strength failed from day to day, and until she quietly expired at 10 P.M. of May 21, 1810.

When the last offices were being performed to the remains of her deceased friend, Mrs. Cole learnt for the first time, and to her utter astonishment, that her late most intimate companion was a man. Upon making his appearance the following morning, Père Elisée equally expressed his great surprise, and at once recommended the expediency of the Chevalier’s sex being professionally determined; the body was accordingly dissected in the presence of several medical gentlemen, the Earl of Yarborough, Sir Sidney Smith, the Honourable Mr. Lyttleton, Mr. Douglas, and other persons of consideration, the following certificate being forthwith made public:—

In the Slade collection of autograph papers at the British Museum is preserved this letter:—

The body was privately interred in the churchyard of St. Pancras on the morning of May 28, the coffin being inscribed, ‘Charles Geneviève Louis Auguste André Timothée D’Eon de Beaumont. Né 17 Octobre, 1727, mort 21 Mai, 1810.’

Before the devastating spade and shovel of the Midland Railway Company had commenced its work in 1868, to make a cutting through the churchyard at St. Pancras, a slab, in situ, was to be seen bearing this inscription:

CHARLES GENEVIEVE LOUISE AUGUSTE ANDRE
TIMOTHEE D’EON DE BEAUMONT,
Died, May 21; Buried, May 28, 1810,
Aged 83 Years.[383]

but, like numerous other monuments, it has disappeared,[384] ‘and the place thereof shall know it no more.’

A cast was taken after death, of which an engraving was made, and a tinted engraving of the torso, from a drawing by C. Turner, was also published, with the surgical attestation as to sex. The body presented unusual roundness in the formation of limbs; the appearance of a beard was very slight, and hair of so light a colour as to be scarcely perceptible on the arms, legs, and chest. The throat was by no means masculine; shoulders square and good; breast remarkably full; arms, hands, and fingers, those of a stout female; hips very small, and legs and feet corresponding with arms.

So early as 1763, D’Eon had a tendency to being round-shouldered, a deformity induced by much sedentary work, but that did not greatly increase with years, or interfere with his carriage, which was good. The low body, in red cloth, lined with coarse canvas, of one of the last gowns he wore, exhibits dimensions showing the obesity of his condition at death.

This garment is stiffened with seven whalebones; three being in front, one upon each side, from arm-pit to waist, and two behind for lacing.[385]

D’Eon left a holograph will of some length, preceded by a preamble, and appointed Sir Sidney Smith to be his executor, but the will was unsigned. The preamble is headed, Soli Deo Gloria et Honor, and the testament commencing, Mors mihi lucrum, ends with these four lines:—

The preamble directs:—

After bequeathing his estates (?) at Chambeaudon, Tissey, and at the chapel Flogny, to his native town, Tonnerre, for a certain purpose distinctly specified, he leaves to his three nephews O’Gorman the sum of sixty thousand livres, owed to him by their father, his brother-in-law, the Chevalier O’Gorman.

On August 14, 1811, administration of the goods and chattels (value 300l.) of the Chevalier D’Eon, bachelor, deceased, was granted to Thomas William Plummer, Esq., the lawful attorney of Lewis Augustus O’Gorman, residing at Cadiz, the nephew and one of the next of kin of the deceased. The sale of his library, which included five hundred editions of Horace (see note, p. 323), was held at Mr. Christie’s rooms on February 19, 1813, the proceeds amounting to 313l. This library and his own MSS. included all the Chevalier’s possessions. The latter, refused in all probability by Mr. O’Gorman at Cadiz, on account of the expense that would be entailed in their transport, appear to have been divided amongst Père Elisée, Mr. Christie, and others who had most befriended the destitute exile.

What further remains to be said of the Chevalier D’Eon will be briefly and exhaustively done.

Writing to the Bishop de Langres, Seigneur de Montmorin, D’Eon sums up very curtly a sketch of himself:—

Let us now turn to one of his contemporaries and to those personally acquainted with him, and see what they have recorded.

John Taylor had met the Chevalier in his advanced life at Mr. Angelo’s, when he found that his former captivating manners must have undergone great alteration, for, although dressed as a woman, he spoke and acted with all the roughness of a veteran soldier. He was generally considered to be most intelligent, full of anecdote and fertile conversation, and it was believed that his name and extraordinary appearance would never be forgotten.

As to the tastes and habits of our subject, he certainly through life eschewed low society of whatsoever class. He was fond of good living, and in his palmy days kept his cellar well stocked with expensive Burgundies and Champagnes. He was hospitable and charitable, never forgetting more especially his poor relations; but it does not appear that he ever had the generosity to admit a fault to his neighbour, although frequently confessing his imperfections to God. He was an accepted free-mason at the Lodge of Immortality at the Crown and Anchor in the Strand, not very zealous in his attendance. As a woman he rarely left the house except when socially called, was a confirmed smoker, and no doubt employed cosmetics and wore feminine garments other than stays, as we are led to believe by the numerous cuttings of newspaper advertisements he has left behind. (A small red cross marked every piece of linen.) He spent his leisure indulging largely in writing, and in the study of his favourite authors, such as Cicero, Lucretius, Sallust, Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Juvenal, Tacitus—La Fontaine, Boileau, Racine, and Voltaire—Swift, and Addison from whom I have found quoted the apothegm that must have been like salve to his turbulent spirit: ‘A disturbed liberty is preferable to quiescent slavery.’ He was fond of reading the Psalms, frequently transcribing passages adapted to his changed condition and circumstances, and had perhaps realised—but how much too late!—his neglect of the admonition: ‘Put not your trust in princes’ ... when, in writing his will, he expressed the hope that he might be able to retire to the Hermitage at Friburg, there to forget the world, and devote himself solely to God, ‘alone worthy of his homage.’

A few extracts from the voluminous MSS. on sacred subjects in the Christie collection, should suffice to persuade us that D’Eon had indeed studied the Holy Scriptures, and faithfully interpreted, generally speaking, the doctrine of our Lord; but without entirely divesting himself of some of the teachings of the Church of Rome, upon whose servants he unsparingly casts obloquy similar to that heaped upon their successors at the present day, in both hemispheres; for there is no exaggeration whatever in asserting that it is in Great Britain alone, where the spirit of ‘fair play’ rules every heart, that the Romish priesthood enjoys anything like consideration at the hands of its fellow subjects at large.

About the year 1764 D’Eon wrote:—

And later, in 1777, upon assuming the garb of a female:—

The most perfect stranger to Charles XII. was Love! They had never nudged one another! This was not the case with the Chevalier D’Eon, who resembled Swift perhaps in more ways than one. In Mademoiselle Constance de Courcelles and the Countess de Rochefort (the latter, by the way, was a young widow), D’Eon had his Stella (short of wedlock) and Vanessa. Of the scenes of their love, we know nothing. He may have had a dozen Varinas, but I very much doubt it. Of Mademoiselle de Courcelles’ letters he preserved a large packet for twenty years, and it may be, for longer, after their correspondence had ceased upon his assuming female attire. The Duke de Nivernois was in the habit of teasing him by introducing the name of the Countess, but this was the shortest-lived flirtation of the two, because the Chevalier remained in England and the Countess resided chiefly in France. Without actually avoiding the society of ladies, he never sought it—he could not speak of that he did not feel—and was never known, in the course of his career, to have been engaged in any amorous adventure or affair of gallantry as it was termed, whether at Court or in the camp, and this in an age when courtiers, like their sovereigns, were strangely given to profligacy. The old Marquis de l’Hôpital, an antiquated debauchee, who will be remembered as French ambassador at St. Petersburg, frequently twitted D’Eon on his cold temperament, but the latter preferred close application to his duty, working early and late, with fencing for recreation, to any kind of unsavoury indulgence. He never sought to wrong the decencies of life.

I am not aware that Swift’s unfeeling treatment of the two women he after a fashion loved has ever been satisfactorily explained; whereas D’Eon himself, upon various occasions, assigns to physical causes his state of insensibility. Two examples will probably suffice:—

Most accounts agree, the one being taken from the other, that D’Eon’s attainments included an acquaintance with ancient and modern languages. That this was not the case is evidenced by the contents of his library and the almost complete absence, amongst his MSS., of any note or quotation except in French or Latin; while forty years’ residence in England did not suffice to teach him English.

A few reflections, written at intervals of time, might assist us in passing judgment on a life of so rare adventure, for t’were well, if we would be just, to estimate each touch of character at its true proportions, for entry whether on the credit or on the debtor side of the moralist’s ledger.

And here we have a reflection after Raphael Aben-Ezra’s own heart!

From the first moment when society, not in England only, stood perplexed at the enigma presented in the person of the Chevalière D’Eon, a variety of fugitive pieces, some acrimonious, others laudatory, of which she was the subject, appeared in the public prints on both sides of the Channel. With the necessarily limited selections for which we can find space, because we believe they form a fit sequel to the history of our archetype, we gratefully take leave of the reader, who will have had the kindness to accompany us thus far.

Verses believed to have been written by an eminent Doctor of Divinity of the University of Oxford, and addressed to a friend of the Chevalier.