"'I recommend that a sharper control be exercised on the station platform at Luxemberg as it is a simple matter to avoid the only control which is at the ticket gate, by simply not going out and therefore not having to come in.'"
XVI
DIPLOMATIC, SOCIAL, CHURCH SPIES
The so-called mystery of the notorious Chevalier d'Eon has long since been proved to have been no mystery at all. The question of his sex was, during his whole life, a matter of fierce dispute and much speculation in many countries. At his death in London, in the year 1810, an English doctor, Courthorpe by name, gave full attestation to the fact that the deceased Chevalier was neither a female nor an hermaphrodite, but a complete man. D'Eon, it is hardly to be disputed, must rank among the great diplomatic spies whom the world has produced and even in his own age, when the mystery attaching to his person made him an object of extraordinary social interest, all men were willing to bear testimony to his courage, physical energy, industry, audacity and wit. In all probability no one was ever made the confidant of his reasons for adopting female dress, but in every likelihood there was nothing more romantic in his peculiarity than the mania for being conspicuous and attracting attention, unless indeed, as has been suggested, he chose to wear woman's dress for the reason that it was more comfortable than that of man and had the advantage of making him appear taller than he really was. About the Chevalier it is known for a certainty that one Douglas, a Scottish diplomatic agent, when proceeding to Russia in 1755, on a mission to the Empress Elizabeth, in the interests of Louis XV., took the clever youth with him—at the suggestion of d'Eon himself—dressed him as a female and introduced him to the Court of Russia, where his knowledge of languages soon obtained for him a post as reader to the Empress, over whom for a short season he obtained an ascendancy which enabled him to turn her sympathies towards an alliance with France. Louis XV., as we remember, had never possessed any real political or diplomatic power within his own realm, and in order to offset his official impotence, thought out his famous private organisation of court and political intrigue-mongers, which eventually became known as "The King's Secret." Douglas was among the men employed in this body, the Prince de Conti, Duc de Broglie and many other nobles, both French and foreign, also assisting the King in the conduct of a conspiracy the real object of which is not very apparent, if it was not for the pure love of the mystery and intrigue surrounding the whole business.
The Chevalier d'Eon
After a painting by Angelica Kauffmann
Practical results were, however, achieved in the case of d'Eon. According to the Duc de Broglie, Douglas had proved himself an unacceptable person at the Russian Court and it was only through the employment of the services of the youthful Chevalier, then about eight and twenty years old, that he was enabled to attain his mission's object. Far from resenting the trick, when d'Eon, on asking to be released from his position in order to return to France, at the same time revealing the real nature of his sex, the Empress Elizabeth was delighted at the manœuvre and made her reader a handsome present on his departure. He was described about this time as highly educated and capable of writing with distinction on literary subjects; very much devoted to the study of law and philosophy, but, one is somewhat uneasy to hear, as indifferent to female beauty as was Frederick the Great. It is in 1759 that he is to be found working for Louis as a spy upon the official French envoys. In that year the Duc de Choiseul was sent to Russia with the object of inducing the Empress Elizabeth to mediate for peace in the Seven Years' War. The Chevalier was at the same time deputed to go to Russia, where his earlier exploits had given him favourable notice, and bring about the failure of Choiseul's mission. Accordingly d'Eon became possessed of an important French secret which Louis was not disposed to have revealed to his contemporaries; he was given at the successful issue of his mission, a sum equal to £1200 yearly of our money and was sent to the army of the Upper Rhine as aide-de-camp to Marshal de Broglie, where the King hoped a bullet might remove him. The Chevalier appears, however, to have exhibited prowess as a soldier, and in 1762 we find him secretary to the French Embassy in London, where he was instrumental in rifling the portfolio of an important English Foreign Office attaché by resorting to the somewhat vulgar expedient of giving the diplomat too much to drink, the inference being that the wine was drugged. His success must have been important, for in 1763 he was resident Minister in London. In this capacity he began to organise a scheme on behalf of Louis for the invasion of England, and as Horace Walpole states, the importance both of his rôle and position began to prove too great for his usually cool intelligence. As a result of a few sharp repartees to French visitors of rank whom he suspected of spying upon him, as in truth they were, the Chevalier soon found himself reduced to the rank of Secretary, the King, indeed, ordering his man to return to France, but not to present himself at Court. In what followed the intelligent observer begins to discern glimpses of that so-called "artistic temperament" with which we have become so familiar in these later days. D'Eon declared that Louis, far from wishing for his removal in an official capacity, had instructed him to resume female attire and keep up the game of espionage in England. The late Mr Andrew Lang declares his belief in the probability that Louis, realising that the little Chevalier's possession of so many important secrets made him a dangerous enemy, actually wrote the letter in question, fully aware how far the "artistic temperament" was likely to carry the disappointed minister. D'Eon indeed threatened to reveal so much to English statesmen that Louis deemed it better to compound with a pension equal to several thousands yearly and permission to correspond with himself. Up till the death of the King in 1774 the Chevalier indulged his old taste for espionage in the intrigues which sought to restore the Stuarts to the English throne. The new Government, probably with the prescience of unrest to come which should require the financial aid of England, sought to buy the Chevalier off, offering him a large sum in return for the documents regarding the projected invasion of England, an alleged condition of the contract being the extraordinary clause that d'Eon should return to France and continue during the rest of his life to wear woman's clothes. It was hoped by this means to deceive the public with the story that d'Eon was a lunatic woman if he ever should give way to his well-known petulance. At all events the Chevalier returned to France where, to the disgust of the connoisseurs, the lady showed signs too evident of the use of the razor, was as muscular as an athlete, wore high heels, but spoke like a musketeer, had her hair cut to the scalp and used to do the hall-room staircase at the unladylike rate of four steps to the jump. D'Eon soon lost his popularity in Paris and even his public offer "to become a nun" failed to tickle the quidnuncs. He returned to London, where he died, a faded old dowager-looking scarecrow with a very red nose, in 1810.