Friday October 6, 2006 SGN.org |
 |
Volume 34 Issue 40 |
 |
|
Sunday, Sep 07, 2008
|
 |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
|
||||||||
 |
Past Out by Liz Highleyman |
|
 |
|
| Who was Chevalier d'Eon? | |
| by Liz Highleyman
- SGN Contributing Writer
Chevalier d'Eon, an 18th-century spy and diplomat who inspired sexologist Havelock Ellis to coin the term "eonism" for cross-dressing, was the subject of much speculation about his gender both during his lifetime and in the decades since his death. Charles Eon de Beaumont was born in the Burgundy region of France in October 1728, the child of an attorney and a noblewoman. In a ghostwritten 1779 autobiography, d'Eon claimed he was born a girl, but was passed off as a boy in order to assuage his father's grief over a son who had died, and to claim an inheritance designated for a male heir. "My father wanted me to become a bad boy and my mother wanted me to become a good girl," he wrote. Later researchers say he was born male, but his mother often dressed him as a girl. An excellent student, d'Eon graduated in 1749 from College Mazarin in Paris, where he studied law. After completing school, he worked as secretary to the administrator of the city's fiscal department and as a royal censor. Though slender and somewhat delicate in appearance, there is little indication that d'Eon was regarded as particularly effeminate as a young adult. D'Eon joined a secret network of spies working for King Louis XV, and in 1756, the king sent him on a mission to re-establish an alliance with Empress Elisabeth of Russia against the rival Hapsburg monarchy. It was widely rumored that d'Eon disguised himself as a woman to win the empress's confidence (according to one version, the king hit upon the idea after mistaking a cross-dressed d'Eon for a lady at a masquerade ball); there is little contemporary evidence, however, to support this tale. In the early 1760s, d'Eon returned to France and became a captain of the dragoons, a light cavalry regiment. After he was wounded in battle toward the end of the Seven Years' War, he was awarded the Cross of Saint-Louis and given the rank of Chevalier. D'Eon then went to London, where he worked as a diplomatic minister. During this time, he enjoyed a lavish lifestyle, amassed a large library, and cemented his connections by bestowing gifts from his family's vineyards. Scandal ensued a few years later when d'Eon, fearing that he was about to be removed from his position by a new ambassador, claimed in a letter to the king that the ambassador had attempted to drug and kidnap him; he also published a book of secret diplomatic correspondence, which led to his exile in England. Although d'Eon typically wore a dragoon officer's uniform and was a talented swordsman, rumors about his gender persisted. After the death of Louis XV in 1774, d'Eon negotiated his own return to France, as well as a generous pension for past service. According to one version of events, d'Eon claimed that he was physically a woman and demanded that the government recognize him as such. The successor king, Louis XVI, agreed and went further, decreeing that henceforth d'Eon must only wear women's clothing. Another version, however, holds that the king declared d'Eon to be legally a woman and compelled him to dress accordingly, against his wishes. In either case, the king granted d'Eon the funds to purchase a new wardrobe, while Queen Marie Antoinette lent the services of her chief dressmaker. Gamblers in England and France wagered large sums that d'Eon was really a woman, or, alternatively, undoubtedly a man; still others thought he was a hermaphrodite. In 1777, an English court entered the fray to settle a bet, ruling that d'Eon was a woman; the judge, disgusted at having to deal with such a case, said he wished he could make both parties lose. More recently, biographer Gary Kates posited that d'Eon reinvented himself as a woman after he had made political enemies in high places and gotten himself deeply in debt. For his part, d'Eon seemed to relish the confusion, sometimes claiming to have been born male, sometimes female. After living with his mother for a time at the family estate in Tonnerre, d'Eon returned to England in 1785. He embraced Christianity and, according to Kates, seemed to regard living as a woman as a form of "moral purification." D'Eon never married, and there is no record of any sexual relationships with either women or men. Although d'Eon continued to dress as a woman, most reports suggest he did not pass very convincingly. Member of Parliament Horace Walpole noted that "her hands and arms seem not to have participated of the change of sexes, but are fitter to carry a chair than a fan." Added nobleman James Boswell, "She appeared to me a man in woman's clothes." In 1796, d'Eon was seriously wounded in a fencing match. Although an autopsy after his death in May 1810 revealed that d'Eon was a biologically normal male, he has nevertheless remained a subject of considerable fascination: Was d'Eon a Transgender woman who spent half her life as a man, or a man who spent half his life as a woman? Liz Highleyman is a freelance writer and editor who has written widely on health, sexuality, and politics. She can be reached care of this publication or at PastOut@qsyndicate.com. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
International Readers |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
 It's new! and live from Bumbershoot! |
 |
 |
|
|
working for the freedom to
|
copyright Seattle Gay News - DigitalTeamWorks 2006