Famous Imposters 29

Famous Imposters 29

Charles-Genevieve--Louis-Auguste-Andre--Timothée d’Eon de Beaumont was

born in 1728 in Tonnerre in Yonne, a department of France in the old

province of Burgundy. His father, Louis d’Eon, was a parliamentary

barrister. As a youth he was so apt in his studies at the Collège

Mazarin that he received by special privilege his degree of Doctor in

Canon and Civil Law before the age appointed for the conferring of such

honour, and was then enrolled in the list of parliamentary barristers

in Paris. At first he had been uncertain which department of life he

should undertake. He swayed on one side towards the church, on the

other towards the world of letters and _beaux-arts_. He was by habit

an athlete, and was so good a swordsman that later on he had no rival

in fencing except the Chevalier de Saint-George. In his twenty-fifth

year he published two remarkable books. One was on the political

administration of ancient and modern people, and the other on Phases

of Finance in France at different times. (The latter was afterwards

published in German at Berlin in 1774, and so impressed the then King

of Prussia that he gave orders that its ideas were to be carried into

practical effect.)

 

[Illustration: THE CHEVALIER D’EON]

 

In 1755 the Prince de Conti, to whose notice the Chevalier had been

brought by the above books, asked the king (Louis XV) to send him to

Russia on a secret mission with the Chevalier Douglas; and from that

time till the king’s death in 1774 he was his trusted, loyal agent

and correspondent. D’Eon’s special mission was to bring the courts

of France and Russia closer than had been their wont, and also to

obtain for the Prince de Conti, who was seeking the Dukedom of Finland

and the Kingship of Poland, the favour of the Empress Elizabeth--a

difficult task, which had already cost M. de Valcroissant a spell

of imprisonment. In order to accomplish his mission, d’Eon disguised

himself as a woman, and in this guise he was able to creep into the

good graces of the Empress. He became her “reader” and was thus enabled

to prepare her for the reception of the secret purposes of his king.

In the following year he returned to France whence he was immediately

sent again to St. Petersburg with the title of Secretary of Embassy.

But this time he went in his man’s clothes and as the brother of the

pretended female reader. By this time he had been made a lieutenant of

dragoons. He came in spite of the Russian Chancellor Bestuchéf, who

saw in the young soldier-diplomat “_un subject dangereux et capable de

boulverser l’empire_.” This time his real mission was to destroy in

the mind of the Empress faith in Bestuchéf, who was trying to hold the

Russian army inactive and so deprive France of the advantages of the

Treaty of Versailles. This he did so well that he was in a position to

prove to the Empress that her chancellor had betrayed her interests.

Bestuchéf was arrested and his post conferred on Count Woronzow,

whose attitude was altogether favourable to France. The gratitude of

King Louis was shewn by his making d’Eon a captain of dragoons and

conferring on him a pension of 2400 livres; he was also made censor of

history and literature. D’Eon threw himself with his accustomed zeal

into the service of the army and distinguished himself by his courage

in the battles of Hoecht; of Ultrop, where he was wounded; of Eimbech

where he put the Scotch to flight; and of Osterkirk, where at the head

of 80 dragoons and 20 hussars he overthrew a battalion of the enemy.

 

No better conventional proof of the accepted idea of d’Eon’s military

worthiness can be given than the frequency and importance of the

occasions on which he was honoured by the carrying of despatches. He

brought news of his successful negotiations for the peace of Versailles

from Vienna in 1757. He was also sent with the Ratification of the

Treaty. He carried the despatches of the great victory of the troops of

Maria Theresa, forestalling the Austrian courier by a day and a half,

although he had a broken leg.

 

When next sent to Russia, d’Eon was sent as minister plenipotentiary,

an office which he held up to 1762 when to the regret of the Empress

he was recalled. When he was leaving, Woronzow, the successor of

Bestuchéf, said to him, “I am sorry you are going, although your first

journey with Chevalier Douglas cost my sovereign 250,000 men and more

than 5,000,000 roubles.” D’Eon answered: “Your excellency ought to

be happy that your sovereign and his minister have gained more glory

and reputation than any others in the world.” On his return d’Eon

was appointed to the regiment d’Autchamp and gazetted as adjutant to

Marshal de Broglie. Then he was sent to Russia for the fourth time

as minister plenipotentiary in place of Baron de Breuteuil. But Peter

III was dethroned, so the out-going Ambassador remained in Russia,

and d’Eon went to England as secretary to the Embassy of the Duke de

Nivernais in 1762.

 

After the Peace of 1763 d’Eon was chosen by the King of England to

carry the despatches. He received for this office the Star of St. Louis

from the breast of the king, who on giving it said it was for the

bravery which he had displayed as a soldier, and for the intelligence

which he had shown in the negotiations between London and St.

Petersburg.

 

At this time all went well with him. But his good fortune was changed

by the bitter intrigues of his enemies. He was devoted to the king,

but had, almost as a direct consequence, the enmity of the courtesans

who surrounded him and wished for the opportunity of plucking him

at their leisure. He had an astonishing knowledge on all matters of

finance, and apprised the king privately of secret matters which his

ministers tried to hide from him. The Court had wind of that direct

correspondence with his majesty and therewith things were so managed

that the diplomatist got into trouble. Madame de Pompadour surprised

the direct correspondence between the king and d’Eon, with the result

that the latter was persecuted by the jealous courtiers who intrigued,

until in 1765 he was replaced at the Embassy of London by the Count de

Guerchy and he himself became the mark for all sorts of vexations and

persecutions. His deadly enemy, the Count de Guerchy, tried to have

him poisoned, but the attempt failed. D’Eon took legal steps to punish

the attempt; but every form of pressure was used to keep the case out

of Court. An attempt was made to get the Attorney General to enter a

_nolle prosequi_; but he refused to lend himself to the scheme, and

sent the matter to the Court of King’s Bench. There, despite all the

difficulties of furthering such a charge against any one so protected

as an ambassador, it was declared on trial that the accused was guilty

of the crime charged against him. De Guerchy accordingly had to return

to France; but d’Eon remained in England, though without employment. To

console him King Louis gave him in 1766 a pension of 12,000 livres, and

assured him that though he was ostensibly exiled this was done to cover

up the protection extended to him. D’Eon, according to the report of

the time, was offered a bribe of 1,200,000 livres, to give up certain

state papers then in his custody; but to his honour he refused. Be the

story as it may, d’Eon up to the time of the death of Louis (1774)

continued to be in London the real representative of France, though

without any formal appointment.

 

During this time one of the means employed with success by his enemies

to injure the reputation of d’Eon, was to point out that he had passed

himself as a woman; the disguise he wore on his first visit to Russia.

His clean shaven face, his personal niceties, the correctness of his

life, all came to the aid of that supposition. In England bets were

made and sporting companies formed for the purpose of verifying his

sex. Designs were framed for the purpose of carrying him off in order

to settle the vexed question by a personal examination. Some of the

efforts he had to repel by violence. In 1770 and in 1772 his friends

tried to arrange that he should be allowed to return to France; but he

refused all offers as the Ministers insisted on making it a condition

of his return that he should wear feminine apparel. After the accession

of Louis XVI he obtained leave to return, free from the embarrassing

restraint hitherto demanded. As he was overwhelmed with debts he placed

as a guarantee in the hands of Lord Ferrers an iron casket containing

important French state papers. The minister sent Beaumarcheus to redeem

them, and in 1771 the Chevalier returned to France. He presented

himself at Versailles in his full uniform of a captain of dragoons. The

Queen (Marie Antoinette) however, wished to see him presented in female

dress; so the Minister implored him to meet her wishes. He consented;

and thenceforward not only wore women’s clothes but called himself “La

Chevalière d’Eon.” In a letter addressed by him to Madame de Staël

during the French revolution he spoke of himself as “citizeness of the

New Republic of France, and of the old Republic of Literature.” On 2nd

September, 1777 he wrote to the Count de Maurepas, “Although I detest

changes of costume, yet they are hard at work at Mademoiselle Bertin’s

on my future and doleful dress, which however I shall cut in pieces at

the first sound of the cannon shots.” As a matter of fact when war with

England became imminent he demanded to be allowed to take in the army

the position which he had won by bravery and as the price of honourable

wounds. The only reply he got was his immurement for two months in the

Castle of Dijon. In 1784 he returned to England, which he never again

left. In vain he appealed to the Convention and then to the First

Consul to be allowed to place his sword at the service of his country;

but his prayer was not listened to. Used to the practice of the sword,

his circumstances being desperate, he then found in it a source of

income. He gave in public, assaults-at-arms with the Chevalier de

Saint-George, one of the most notable fencers of his time. At length he

was given a small pension, £40, by George III, on which he subsisted

during the remainder of his life. He died 23rd May, 1810.

 

In very fact Chevalier d’Eon is historically a much injured man. His

vocation was that of a secret-service agent of a nation surrounded with

enemies, and to her advantage he used his rare powers of mind and body.

He was a very gallant soldier, who won distinction in the field and

was wounded several times; and in his endurance and his indifference

to pain whilst carrying despatches of overwhelming importance he set

an example that any soldier might follow with renown. As a statesman

and diplomatist, and by the use of his faculties of inductive

ratiocination, he averted great dangers from his country. If there were

nothing else to his credit he might well stand forth as a diplomatist

who had by his own exertions overthrown a dishonest Russian Chancellor

and an unscrupulous French Ambassador. Of course, as he was an agent of

secret service, he had cognisance of much political and international

scheming which he had at times to frustrate at the risk of all which he

held dear. But, considering the time he lived in, and the dangers which

he was always in the thick of, in a survey of his life the only thing

a reader can find fault with is his yielding to the base idea of the

flighty-minded Marie Antoinette. What, to this irresponsible butterfly

of fashion, was the honour of a brave soldier or the reputation of an

acute diplomatist who had deserved well of his country. Of course to

her any such foolery as that to which she condemned d’Eon was but the

fancy of an idle moment. But then the fancies of queens at idle moments

may be altogether destructive to someone. That they may be destructive