Two events in the career of the Chevalier D’Eon, undisputed by his contemporaries, but controverted of late years, must ever give cause for despair to biographers, so long as they seek to determine, by written evidence alone—(1) That D’Eon went to St. Petersburg for the first time in 1755, appearing there in the disguise of a female. (2) That he declared himself to be a female, and permanently adopted female attire in the year 1777, solely in obedience to the commands of Louis XVI. and his ministers.

The objections raised by the non-contents to these earliest traditions is based uniquely on the complete absence of any documents in their direct support; how far such documents are indispensable the reader will judge in the face of much incidental evidence in their favour.

Boutaric (i. 81), writing in 1866, says: ‘About the year 1755 (vers 1755) was conducted a negotiation (during the interrupted diplomatic relations between France and Russia), from which the Count de Broglie was excluded, but wherein took part a personage whose name has become celebrated, the Chevalier D’Eon.’ It was with no greater precision, that the Archivist of the Empire was enabled to fix the date of the Chevalier Douglas’ departure for Russia (no great matter for surprise) seeing that neither amongst the national archives, nor at the ministry for foreign affairs, are to be found any papers whatever relating to Douglas’ first journey to Russia![393] A deficiency, however, that has been supplied by Vandal (p. 263), and at p. 12 of this book upon the authority of the British ambassador at St. Petersburg, the arrival at the Russian capital of the King of France’s secret agent having unquestionably taken place in October, 1755. That D’Eon went with Douglas appears from several of the Chevalier’s indirect statements to that effect, and by some fortuitous but very forcible testimony.

I would add under this head, for what it is worth, that the anecdotes related by D’Eon concerning himself in Russia have been taken from a note-book, ‘Recueil de mes Pensées,’ dated 1754.

The non-contents maintain, that until he became secretary of Embassy, nothing was known of D’Eon. I ask in reply: How came a young, untried, and unknown individual to be appointed secretary to the French Embassy in Russia, during a crisis in the affairs of the two countries?

A first incitement to the persuasion that D’Eon’s earliest introduction at St. Petersburg was in the character of a female, exists in the portrait by La Tour. When D’Eon was in his twenty-fifth (or more probably twenty-seventh[394]) year, La Tour was a greatly esteemed and general favourite; he had painted a full length picture of Louis XV., and portraits of Madame de Pompadour and many others at Court, and as it is scarcely credible, from what we know of his circumstances in those days, that D’Eon was in a position to employ an artist of established reputation to paint a fancy portrait of himself for himself, and this apart from his known innate dislike to any such travesty, we perhaps see personified in the comely young woman at page 14, a representation of le petit D’Eon, as he was expected, by the Prince de Conti, shortly to make his appearance at the Russian capital.

In recapitulating his services to the Duke de Praslin (June 5, 1763) D’Eon showed that when sent to Petersburg by M. Rouillé, in 1756, for secret and important motives, reasons of policy required that certain views entertained with regard to himself, and for which he felt some repugnance, should be abandoned; whereupon he received the minister’s orders to remain with Douglas until the arrival of the new ambassador. What but a repetition of the part he played in 1755 is to be understood from his repugnance to perform duties assigned to him! It was quite beyond D’Eon’s power to endure from others any allusion to his effeminate appearance or physical defects, and he studiously eschewed all reference to his assumption of female attire, by rarely specifying his first visit to St. Petersburg as having been in 1755, preferring to allude in general terms to his ‘earliest journeys to Russia.’ Instances there are, as we have shown, to the contrary, but this was at a time when there no longer existed any object in concealing the past so very carefully, and when admission to that effect was only too likely, as he thought, to turn to his advantage. See p. 247 note, and p. 267.

It was not his fault, he told the Count de Broglio, if the Princess Dashkoff assured people in England that he was a female; and it is true that after the arrival of that lady in London, fresh reports were circulated tending to confirm the suspicions already entertained that the Chevalier was indeed a woman.

There is preserved in the public library at Tonnerre a note from the old Marquis de l’Hôpital to D’Eon, written in a spirit of pleasantry, and although undated, is obviously of the last half of 1759, or of the first half of 1760.

Could Lia have been the name adopted by D’Eon during his disguise in 1755, or are we to believe that it was playfully applied by the ambassador to the secretary suffering from ophthalmia, because ‘Leah was tender-eyed?’

The secret autograph order of Louis XV., dated October 4, 1763 (p. 104), is sufficiently significative, and can only have reference to the Chevalier’s earliest connection with Russia, because from August, 1756, he was officially recognised as secretary of Embassy, until his final departure for France in August, 1760, after which he fell ill of small-pox. Early in 1761 he joined the army in the field, served as aide-de-camp to the de Broglios throughout the campaign of that year, and upon his return to France went on leave, whilst awaiting the appointment of minister plenipotentiary to Russia, which, he wrote to tell his colonel, the Marquis d’Autichamp, would take him to St. Petersburg for the fourth time. See ‘Lettres, Mémoires,’ &c.

Madame Campan had frequently heard the Chevalier repeat to her father, M. Genest, the contents of Louis XV.’s order, in which that monarch separated his individuality from the person of the King of France. She had special opportunities afterwards, as lady-in-waiting to the queen, for becoming acquainted with D’Eon’s character during his two years’ residence at the Court of Marie Antoinette and in its precincts, and she long survived him, dying in 1822; we may therefore legitimately assume that had his veracity been generally mistrusted, or had she doubted the existence of such an order, she would assuredly have qualified his statement, unless she had cause to be satisfied that the order, which it is pretty certain she never saw, was indeed in the King’s own hand.

Dutens’ version is to this effect. The King had a secret minister at the several Courts, who carried out his views without the knowledge of his ambassador. This was the position at the Court of Russia of the Chevalier D’Eon, sent thither upon the recommendations of the Prince de Conti, who was not even aware of his sex. He spent several months at St. Petersburg, and was clever enough to secure presentation to the Empress Elizabeth in the character of a female, and conclude in fifteen days an affair upon which the ambassador had been for a long time engaged.

The earliest intimation of D’Eon’s somewhat familiar intercourse with Elizabeth appears in the work of de la Fortelle, of whom the Chevalier says:—‘Il m’a élevé un monument de gloire dans son grand ouvrage.’ According to this author, D’Eon was received at the Russian Court in a secret capacity, and having succeeded in making himself agreeable in the sight of the Empress, and secured the good-will of her favourite minister, his consummate tact enabled him to approach the sovereign, to converse with and gradually interest her, and having secured her Majesty’s confidence, he prepared her mind to receive impressions favourable to the cause he had at heart.

Did D’Eon permanently adopt female attire in 1777, solely in obedience to the commands of Louis XVI. and his ministers?

In Kirby’s ‘Wonderful and Eccentric Museum’ is quoted from the ‘Gazette de Santé,’ a periodical of the day, an article that appeared soon after the Chevalier’s decease, and which we feel bound to give at length.

From this kind of declaration D’Eon never swerved, always maintaining that he was forced to pass for a woman, and it will be remembered that when resisting the pressure put upon him by Beaumarchais, he reminded that unyielding negotiator that it was Louis XV. and the Duke d’Aiguillon, Louis XVI. and the Count de Vergennes, and the de Guerchy family who demanded his metamorphosis.

The theory put forward by Gaillardet, that D’Eon himself confirmed the general belief in his being a female, is based upon two passages in letters to Beaumarchais: ‘I admit with pleasure, although with the pain, the shame, and the tears that the avowal and admission of my own weakness have wrung from me,’ and, ‘I have made known to you the mystery of my sex.’ That Beaumarchais seriously believed D’Eon to be a woman is beyond any manner of doubt, but that D’Eon confessed so much to him spontaneously, the idea having emanated from himself, is anything but proved, if proof rests solely on the above two short extracts. Dutens, styled by D’Eon, ‘mon honorable ami,’ and who was well acquainted with Beaumarchais (‘j’ai beaucoup connu Beaumarchais’), was told by the dramatic writer that he was perfectly assured of the sex of the extraordinary woman—but that was all! And he relates, as he had heard it, the cause which led to the Chevalier’s change of sex.

The Countess de Guerchy attributed the death of her husband to grief, consequent upon the ridicule with which he had been covered by the Chevalier D’Eon, and she warned the Count de Maurepas that if D’Eon dared to land in France, her son should await him at Calais to fight him, and if her son fell, she had a son-in-law ready to take his place. Greatly amused at hearing this, D’Eon was reported to have said: ‘Very well, I will put an end to all this. I declare I am a woman.’ Unfortunately, Dutens does not give his authority for this story, the latter part of which is entirely inconsistent with the impatience we have seen exhibited by D’Eon to fight young de Guerchy, and to afford him the opportunity for avenging his father.

If we look at the order of Louis XVI., dated August 25, 1775, instructing Beaumarchais to recover the papers out of D’Eon’s hands, we find the latter named in the masculine gender; and although Beaumarchais distinctly individualises D’Eon as being a woman, in none of de Vergennes’ despatches is he spoken of otherwise than as if he were a man, and that minister goes so far as to say that if the Chevalier would disguise himself—‘si M. D’Eon voulait se travestir’—all should be well. (See p. 239.)

The author of the attractive and somewhat laborious work, ‘Beaumarchais et son Temps,’ calls attention to the piquancy in D’Eon’s letters to Beaumarchais, acting admirably, as he does, the part of a woman concealed under the guise of a man; at the same time adopting an ambiguous style, as if with the view of making it clear at any such time eventually as his fraud would be discovered, that he had been duping so astute a man as the author of ‘Le Barbier de Seville,’ and that whilst duping him, to his face, he was also making fun of him, without his being sensible of it. On the other hand, Beaumarchais amused himself at the expense of the love-sick vieille dragonne, becoming the more confirmed in his error, as D’Eon continued to counterfeit the wrath of an offended old maid.

The Chevalier’s letters to Louis XVI. (Ch. MSS.) make it sufficiently clear that the King could not have been positively assured on his sex. In one letter D’Eon informs his Majesty that he continued to maintain silence in respect to his position, which was so singular and extraordinary, as to be without parallel in ancient or modern history. He had kept his secret profoundly, because it was the secret of secrets of the late King, and he entreated his Majesty either to allow two Councillors of State, in whom he had implicit confidence, to write down his depositions and the proofs to them, before he returned to France, or permit him to publish his defence.

In another letter, the King is told that the question of sex will soon be decided, after the Court will have restored the honour and money due to him. ‘I can then think of settling down, and in marrying, make known to which sex I belong.’

In a third letter, the Chevalier points out that negotiations for his return to France were conducted from 1770 to 1775, and that his letter to the Count de Broglio of January 1775, was sent under flying seal to the Count de Vergennes, to enable that minister to become well acquainted with the validity of some of his arguments, and communicate them for his Majesty’s consideration.

Lacretelle, Taylor, and others, are unable to account for the Chevalier’s change of sex, otherwise than that it was produced by some unexplained intrigue, and that he was directed by the French Government to appear as a woman, for reasons which have never been satisfactorily determined. Voltaire wrote, that the whole affair puzzled him. He was unable to picture to himself either D’Eon, or the ministers of his day, or the acts of Louis XV., or what was passing then (1777). He knew nothing of any of them. In returning, however, to the pages of Madame Campan, we seem to find the key to the situation.

Might not every secret in which this mystery was involved have been hidden in the valise containing ‘papers that had belonged to the King and Court,’ given to the French minister plenipotentiary by D’Eon, on February 1, 1792? (See note, p. 264, p. 324.)

The Count de Vergennes, the minister immediately responsible for the ludicrous innovation, confessed to Beaumarchais his concern lest D’Eon should make his appearance in France as a man, his enemies being on the alert, and not likely to forgive him easily for all he had said of them; and when writing to the Chevalier, two years later, he impressed upon him the conditions, should he think of returning to his native land. (See p. 283.)

The question has also arisen—Granted that D’Eon was obliged to appear as a woman, by command of King and ministers, such being the stipulation for his receiving the royal grant of twelve thousand livres, annually; why, after the fall of the monarchy and having lost all by the French Revolution, did he continue in the anomalous character of a female? We, in England, are able to understand, that to one who had spent so many years of his life in this country, and had become familiar with the sentiments and susceptibilities of English men and women, there was no choice. It had long been known and admitted that the Chevalière had been treated by French ministers with peculiar harshness, and she was seen to be reduced to absolute want at the advanced age of sixty-four! Under circumstances such as these, he must have felt that so long as he was believed to be a female, commiseration and assistance were to be expected; but to declare himself a man, after having adopted female attire and been admitted into the intimacies of female society over a period of sixteen years, would have been to expose himself—to summary castigation? That he did not fear; but to what would have been dreaded infinitely more than famine by one with his antecedents—the ridicule and scorn of all who knew anything about him; and so he elected to continue to the end of his days, dressing, writing, and speaking as if he were a woman, but otherwise conducting himself in all respects with the freedom belonging to a man.

We adhere to our engagement not to judge the individual who presents such startling episodes in his life, and contrasts in his character. It has hitherto been his fate to be classed, it may be said, amongst the adventurers of which the last century was sufficiently prolific; these pages will perhaps assist to remove him out of that order and place him where he should stand—alone, as a physiognomical marvel. We would in a measure plead for him, in Johnson’s words in behalf of poor Goldsmith—‘Let not his failings be remembered’—for his faults were but failings. Of this victim to envy, malice, and all uncharitableness, we have read clearly enough how sinned against he was, far more than he had ever himself sinned against others. All he suffered he had to endure for serving an ungrateful King too faithfully, oblivious that promesse des grands n’est pas héritage, while his attachment to his country was sublime, entitling him amongst his countrymen at home to Florian’s epitaph,

Loyal beyond compare, he ever continued true to one and the other, frequently under unexceptionably trying circumstances, repeating and again repeating: ‘Comme Français, je puis regarder le sacrifice de ma fortune comme la dette de mon amour pour le Roi. Comme militaire et Chevalier de Saint Louis, je dois même lui sacrifier ma vie; mais pour celui de mon honneur, il n’est pour personne!’