Who Was the Chevalier ’Eon? \| Pride Month Book Recommendation
June 14, 2017
June is #PrideMonth making it the perfect month to tell the story of the titular character in M.C. Hobbs novel The Chevalier.
The Chevalier is based on the life of the Chevalier d’Eon de Beaumont (1728-1810) who was a spy, swordsman and a seductress. For 49 years d’Eon lived as a man in France working as the French King’s personal spy. He was a popular figure within international politics and high society, and was responsible for negotiating the Peace of Paris which ended the Seven Years War.
But the Chevalier was most well known for being a cross dresser, and spending the remaining 33 years of his life living as a woman in London.
After retiring from espionage d’Eon left France for England, where he attempted to blackmail the King of France, by revealing state secrets to the British. To silence d’Eon, King Louis XVI gave him an official pension and added an unexpected condition that d’Eon should henceforth dress only as a woman, a condition that the Chevalier fully agreed too.
In England d’Eon took up a career, as a woman, fencing. He would perform fencing demonstrations in dresses alongside other men and became famous for it. So much so that renowned feminists Mary Robinson and Mary Wollstonecraft called d’Eon an example of ‘female fortitude’.
By the end of the Chevalier’s life in 1810 many did not know he was anatomically a man, a British court had even officially declared d’Eon a woman years before. It was only when a mortician came to embalm the body that the truth of his gender was revealed, giving the Chevalier d’Eon a posthumous celebrity status as the first openly-transvestite and transgender person in British history.
The Chevalier by M.C. Hobbs, which is based on d’Eon’s life, is set during the period that d’Eon first chose to openly dress as a woman and was sent as a spy from France to Russia by King Louis, during a time when Russia did not allow men to cross the border. The story details not only the Chevalier’s deception of the Tsarina of Russia, but also the daring and valour of d’Eon in the 18th century who used his sexuality for the good of his country.
A portrait of the Chevalier d’Eon, the first of an openly cross-dressing gentleman, is on display in the National Portrait Gallery.
The Chevalier by M.C. Hobbs is out now.