Chevalier d'Eon: The True Story Of The Original Transvestite

The Chevalier d’Eon, a minor French diplomat, spy and renegade who died 200 years ago this month, was a man ahead of his time.

After a distinguished career as a man he lived the second half of his life as a woman in an era when cross-dressing was largely unknown.

A new book, The Chevalier d'Eon and his Worlds, produced by a team of academics centred on the University of Leeds, gives a new perspective of his career and portrayal in art and literature.

Contributors include art and costume historians, literary and gender scholars and historians. The result is a unique view of both d'Eon and the emergence of our own attitudes to masculinity and femininity.

Image credit: University of Leeds

D'Eon was the son of a minor provincial nobleman, and served with distinction in the military, diplomatic and espionage services of King Louis XV of France . In 1763, he was appointed Plenipotentiary Minister to London , but within months he quarrelled with the ambassador appointed to replace him in London , and was accused him of trying to murder him.

After escaping jail, he was forced to live in disguise in England after publishing controversial allegations and diplomatic correspondence. In early 1770, the first whispers about his true gender began circulating. It was said that he was a woman, with the story leading to a spate of betting on his gender.

Simon Burrows, Professor of Modern History at the University of Leeds , said: "D'Eon refused all offers to confirm or deny the rumour. He also demanded the French government pay off his debts and they agreed, terrified he would betray state secrets, including plans to invade England.

"In return he was forced to adopt female dress and retire to France . For several years he supported himself by touring Britain giving fencing displays dressed as a woman. He lived in London until his death on 21 May 1810. Only then was the truth discovered: he was anatomically completely male."

The Chevalier d'Eon and his Worlds shows that his decision to cross the gender barrier was driven by primarily political and religious motivations, but he also craved to remain in the public eye, as Europe 's most accomplished woman, and perhaps to escape assassination. d'Eon was known to be awkward in female clothes and never mastered walking in heeled shoes and yet in an age which set great store by appearances, he was readily accepted as a woman.

"What are we to make of his gender transformation?" asks Leeds-based Art Historian Dr Valerie Mainz. "Our book concludes that gender is far from a performance in front of a passive audience - D'Eon's contemporaries contributed to his transformation. They accepted that he really was a woman, despite all physical evidence the contrary. This in turn suggests that some ages have more fluid perceptions of gender than our own.

"Also, d'Eon's story suggests gender is not as absolute as we might think. Far from shifting in a single moment from male to female, his gender reassignment proceeded by haphazard phases across many years of struggle, anguish and experimentation".

The Chevalier d'Eon and his Worlds: Gender, Politics and Espionage in the Eighteenth Century, a set of essays based on a conference organised by the AHRC Research Centre CATH at the University of Leeds , was edited by Simon Burrows, Russell Goulbourne and Valerie Mainz of the University of Leeds and Jonathan Conlin of the University of Southampton . It was published by Continuum Books earlier this year.