On the 8th of June, 1758, General (afterwards Lord) Amherst, with an army of twelve thousand men, in which General Wolfe served as a brigadier, landed on the island of Cape-Breton, in Canada, and commenced the siege of Louisbourg. This town was so strongly fortified that the French, believing it to be impregnable, left only two thousand eight hundred men for its defence. The military commander, the Chevalier de Drucourt, was a brave and resolute soldier, and made a gallant defence. The British, however, determined to make up for all their recent disasters, commenced the siege with more than ordinary vigour and energy. The Chevalier was ably assisted in the defence by his wife; who, appearing on the walls among the common soldiers, exhorted them to fight bravely in defence of the town. And not only did she thus cheer them by encouraging words; she carried round food and ammunition to the exhausted soldiers, and occasionally took her turn at the guns, which she loaded and fired with skill and rapidity. But the efforts of the Chevalier and his wife were of no avail against the superior numbers of the English. Louisbourg surrendered on the 26th of June; and the Chevalier and Madame de Drucourt were made prisoners. However, General Amherst treated his brave captives with the greatest respect and hospitality.
In 1759, when the British were besieging Guadaloupe, the native planters were incited to resist the invaders by M. Dutril, the French Governor. Amongst others, Madame Ducharmy, wife of a planter, armed her servants and negroes, and led them to an attack on the British forces.
Amongst the celebrities of the eighteenth century, none was more famous than the Chevalier d'Eon. Even before the strange question as to his real sex had been raised, the Chevalier was well known in every European court as a skilful diplomatist and a brave soldier. In 1761, having attained the summit of his glory in the political world, he sighed for military renown. As aide-de-camp to Marshal Broglio, he distinguished himself most highly against the British and Prussians. Being entrusted with the removal of the military stores from Hoxter, which the French were evacuating, he passed the Weser with several boats, under a heavy fire from the enemy, and saved all the baggage. Shortly after this he was wounded in the head and thigh in a skirmish at Ultrop.
On the 7th September, at the head of the Grenadiers de Champagne and the Swiss Guards, the Chevalier attacked a Highland regiment ("Montagnards Ecossais," Broglio styles them in his despatch) near the village of Meinsloff, and after a slight skirmish, drove them back to the British camp. At Osterwick, with about fifty dragoons and hussars, D'Eon charged a Prussian battalion six or seven hundred strong, which was intercepting the communications of the French with Wolfembutel. The Prussians, seized with a panic, threw down their arms, and surrendered. The capture of Wolfembutel by Marshal Saxe was the result of this brilliant action.
The preliminaries of peace in September, 1762, terminated the Chevalier's military career, and he returned to the political world, where he had already made himself so distinguished. He was sent to London, as Secretary of Legation under the Duc de Nivernois, the Ambassador-Extraordinary. On the return of the Duc to Paris, the Chevalier remained in London first as resident, and afterwards as minister plenipotentiary at the Court of St. James's. At this period his star was at its zenith. Fortune lavished her favours upon him with the most profuse liberality. Suddenly the wheel turned; and, without any reason being assigned, D'Eon was dismissed from all his appointments, and compelled to reside, disgraced, in London. The French ministers who had negotiated the peace now effected his ruin. The treaty had been considered disgraceful to France, both by the king and the people; and the negotiators, afraid of the Chevalier, who knew too much, found means to disgrace him. Louis XV., however, settled upon D'Eon a pension of twelve hundred livres.
During the Chevalier's residence in London, suspicions arose in the minds of several persons that D'Eon was a disguised woman. The notion soon reached the Continent; and both in England and abroad, some very extraordinary wagers were made on the subject. In July, 1777, a trial took place before Lord Chief Justice Mansfield on an action brought by a Mr. Hayes against a Mr. Jacques, the latter of whom had received several premiums of fifteen guineas, to return one hundred whenever it should be proved, beyond a doubt, that the Chevalier D'Eon was a woman. MM. Louis Legoux and de Morande deposed to this as a fact so thoroughly established, that the defendant's counsel actually pleaded that the wager was unfair, because the plaintiff knew, before it was laid, that the Court of France had treated with the Chevalier as a woman. The plaintiff, however, obtained a verdict, which was afterwards set aside on the ground of the bet being illegal.
Shortly after the conclusion of the trial, the Chevalier d'Eon, for some unaccountable reason, put on female attire, which he contrived to wear until his death.
Everybody now believed that D'Eon was a woman. Several portraits were published representing him in various characters—as an officer of dragoons, as a French minister, as a fashionable lady, etc. Mr. Hooper, of Ludgate-hill, published a mezzotinto engraving of the Chevalier as Pallas, a casque on her head, a lance in her right hand, and the ægis on her left arm. Round the edge of the shield were the words At nunc dura dedit vobis discrimina Pallas. On each side were drums, muskets, pyramids of cannon-balls, heavy pieces of ordnance, and a pair of colours on which were written, Impavidam serient ruinæ. In the middle distance might be seen a citadel and a camp. The lower part of the engraving contained representations of the principal events of the Chevalier's life, with a eulogy, in English, on his talents and virtues. After rapturously praising the genius, the courage, the personal beauty of D'Eon, this eulogy concludes by saying that "her military comrades offer this homage as an eternal monument of their affection."