Real Women: Charlotte-Genevieve-Louise-Auguste-Andree-Timothee d'Eon de Beaumont
I have a working computer again! Have a post.
Today I got back to watching anime, with the first episode of Le Chevalier d'Eon. It's beautifully animated, the voice acting is much better than I've come to expect from a dub, and the story is very engaging so far. It's not exactly one hundred percent historically accurate, though...and maybe it's a little odd that, in a vampire/ghost/zombie(?) pre-French Revolution story, the thing that's really bothering me is that the main character is unambiguously voiced by a man. (Except when he's possessed by his sister.)
I mean, it's not like I even know for sure that Charles-Geneviève-Louis-Auguste-André-Timothée/Charlotte-Genevieve-Louise-Auguste-Andree-Timothee d'Eon de Beaumont was a...
Real Woman.
(Yeah, I was going to do another one of these posts two months ago, but I lost all the pictures I'd collected when my computer died. Sorry, Doris Day, we're going historical.)
D'Eon was born in 1728 in Tonnerre, Burgundy. According to the story she gave out much later, she was raised as a boy so that, by presenting a male heir, her father could inherit some money that otherwise would have gone to other relatives.
D'Eon was an excellent student, graduating from College Mazarin with law degrees (civil and canon law) at age twenty-one. She made a name for herself and soon became a secretary to the administrator of the fiscal department in Paris. She was also a skilled fencer, despite being known as a delicate-looking young man.
In 1756, d'Eon joined Le Secret du Roi, the king's personal, secret spy network. Louis XV was trying to make some political headway with Empress Elisabeth of Russia, which wasn't going so well, what with the English refusing to let any Frenchmen cross the border.
So Charles d'Eon de Beaumont's "sister," Lea (or Lia) de Beaumont, moved her extremely well-dressed self to Moscow and became one of the Empress's maids of honour. She convinced Elisabeth that having a French ambassador in the country would maybe not be such a terrible thing.
D'Eon spent the next couple of years serving, as Charles, as that ambassador's secretary, while also serving the Empress as Lia.
She left Russia to serve as a captain of dragoons in the Seven Years War, as one does, and, after taking a wound, became the secretary to the Duke de Nivernois, the special ambassador to England. Charles d'Eon was known as a highly accomplished gentleman who helped draft the peace treaty between France and England; his sister Lia de Beaumont became a fixture at court and in society, and was famous as the lady fencer who challenged all the best swordsmen in London and, presumably, kicked their asses.
Much like Superman and Clark Kent, they were never seen in the same place at the same time.
After the signing of the treaty, the Duke de Nivernois returned to Paris, recommending that d'Eon serve as ambassador until someone more permanent was found. Both monarchs were amenable. I assumed this was because Charles II wanted to sleep with Lia, but then I realized that I was off by a century. (In my defense, he was not the kind of guy who would let being dead for seventy-eight years stand in his way.) George III, who was actually king at that time, was the one who never took a mistress, so, boy do I feel silly.
Anyway, d'Eon served well both in her official job as ambassador, and as a spy collecting information for an invasion of England, which Louis XV was planning to do despite that being really, really stupid.
But soon, the king sent Claude Louis François Régnier de Guercy to London as his permanent ambassador. D'Eon was bumped back down to her old position as secretary. She was definitely humiliated by Count de Guercy; she later accused the count of drugging and attempting to murder her. That may or may not have been true, but people tended to believe her when the count, instead of denying it, just said, "Fuck you, I'm an ambassador."
Disobeying orders, d'Eon decided to ditch her job and return to France. But before that, she published most of the secret spy papers relating to her recall. Louis XV was not pleased by this dick move, but she had kept back the evidence of his secret invasion plans, and there was not much he could do to her while she was holding that over his head.
So he paid her some hush money and let her live in exile in England.
She lived as a man, wearing her dragoon uniform, but it began to be speculated that the Chevalier d'Eon was really a woman. There was even a betting pool on the London Stock Exchange. She was asked to confirm one way or the other, but she declined to do so.
In 1774, after the death of Louis XV, d'Eon decided she'd had enough of England and she was coming home. King Louis XVI was okay with this as long as she handed over all the secret correspondence and agreed to stay in her hometown of Tonnerre. She also came out as a woman and demanded that the government recognize her as such. The king agreed, but only if she would live as a woman, including dressing "appropriately" in women's clothing that he, the king, would provide.
She was cool with that.
During the American Revolutionary War, d'Eon wanted to join the French soldiers who came over here to help us out, but that conflicted with the "be a woman and never leave Tonnerre" deal, so she didn't.
But then the French Revolution happened, so she moved back to England, where she had all kinds of adventures with the Scarlet Pimpernel in my head. In 1792, she wrote to the French National Assembly offering to lead a division of female soldiers against the Habsburgs (the family of the recently imprisoned, soon to be executed Marie Antoinette, with whom France was at war.) This didn't go over too well, so she just stayed in England, dueling anyone who came her way until she was seriously injured and had to retire from fencing at the age of sixty-eight.
Mademoiselle d'Eon died in 1810, in poverty, at the age of eighty-two. Doctors who examined the body after her death found that she did, in fact, have a penis.
I use female pronouns here because she chose to identify herself as a woman consistently for the last thirty-three years of her life. Every source I've found identifies her as "really" a man, and for all I know, Charles d'Eon de Beaumont was just a dude trolling the world every time he put on a dress. But there comes a point where you just have to take someone's word for it. She was certainly not entirely truthful about having been (physically speaking) a girl raised as a boy, but on an emotional level, disregarding the money excuse, it may have felt very true to her.
At that time, there was no word for a trans woman. Such a word was coined by Havelock Ellis in 1920. That word was "eonist." (Warning: link refers to barely-post-Victorian sexology. Triggers abound.)
The Beaumont Society also takes its name from the Chevalier.
In fiction, she has inspired several books and plays that I know nothing about, and one lovely anime that I do.
She was cool.
Today I got back to watching anime, with the first episode of Le Chevalier d'Eon. It's beautifully animated, the voice acting is much better than I've come to expect from a dub, and the story is very engaging so far. It's not exactly one hundred percent historically accurate, though...and maybe it's a little odd that, in a vampire/ghost/zombie(?) pre-French Revolution story, the thing that's really bothering me is that the main character is unambiguously voiced by a man. (Except when he's possessed by his sister.)
I mean, it's not like I even know for sure that Charles-Geneviève-Louis-Auguste-André-Timothée/Charlotte-Genevieve-Louise-Auguste-Andree-Timothee d'Eon de Beaumont was a...
Real Woman.
(Yeah, I was going to do another one of these posts two months ago, but I lost all the pictures I'd collected when my computer died. Sorry, Doris Day, we're going historical.)
D'Eon was born in 1728 in Tonnerre, Burgundy. According to the story she gave out much later, she was raised as a boy so that, by presenting a male heir, her father could inherit some money that otherwise would have gone to other relatives.
D'Eon was an excellent student, graduating from College Mazarin with law degrees (civil and canon law) at age twenty-one. She made a name for herself and soon became a secretary to the administrator of the fiscal department in Paris. She was also a skilled fencer, despite being known as a delicate-looking young man.
In 1756, d'Eon joined Le Secret du Roi, the king's personal, secret spy network. Louis XV was trying to make some political headway with Empress Elisabeth of Russia, which wasn't going so well, what with the English refusing to let any Frenchmen cross the border.
So Charles d'Eon de Beaumont's "sister," Lea (or Lia) de Beaumont, moved her extremely well-dressed self to Moscow and became one of the Empress's maids of honour. She convinced Elisabeth that having a French ambassador in the country would maybe not be such a terrible thing.
D'Eon spent the next couple of years serving, as Charles, as that ambassador's secretary, while also serving the Empress as Lia.
She left Russia to serve as a captain of dragoons in the Seven Years War, as one does, and, after taking a wound, became the secretary to the Duke de Nivernois, the special ambassador to England. Charles d'Eon was known as a highly accomplished gentleman who helped draft the peace treaty between France and England; his sister Lia de Beaumont became a fixture at court and in society, and was famous as the lady fencer who challenged all the best swordsmen in London and, presumably, kicked their asses.
Much like Superman and Clark Kent, they were never seen in the same place at the same time.
After the signing of the treaty, the Duke de Nivernois returned to Paris, recommending that d'Eon serve as ambassador until someone more permanent was found. Both monarchs were amenable. I assumed this was because Charles II wanted to sleep with Lia, but then I realized that I was off by a century. (In my defense, he was not the kind of guy who would let being dead for seventy-eight years stand in his way.) George III, who was actually king at that time, was the one who never took a mistress, so, boy do I feel silly.
Anyway, d'Eon served well both in her official job as ambassador, and as a spy collecting information for an invasion of England, which Louis XV was planning to do despite that being really, really stupid.
But soon, the king sent Claude Louis François Régnier de Guercy to London as his permanent ambassador. D'Eon was bumped back down to her old position as secretary. She was definitely humiliated by Count de Guercy; she later accused the count of drugging and attempting to murder her. That may or may not have been true, but people tended to believe her when the count, instead of denying it, just said, "Fuck you, I'm an ambassador."
Click to viewDisobeying orders, d'Eon decided to ditch her job and return to France. But before that, she published most of the secret spy papers relating to her recall. Louis XV was not pleased by this dick move, but she had kept back the evidence of his secret invasion plans, and there was not much he could do to her while she was holding that over his head.
So he paid her some hush money and let her live in exile in England.
She lived as a man, wearing her dragoon uniform, but it began to be speculated that the Chevalier d'Eon was really a woman. There was even a betting pool on the London Stock Exchange. She was asked to confirm one way or the other, but she declined to do so.
In 1774, after the death of Louis XV, d'Eon decided she'd had enough of England and she was coming home. King Louis XVI was okay with this as long as she handed over all the secret correspondence and agreed to stay in her hometown of Tonnerre. She also came out as a woman and demanded that the government recognize her as such. The king agreed, but only if she would live as a woman, including dressing "appropriately" in women's clothing that he, the king, would provide.
She was cool with that.
During the American Revolutionary War, d'Eon wanted to join the French soldiers who came over here to help us out, but that conflicted with the "be a woman and never leave Tonnerre" deal, so she didn't.
But then the French Revolution happened, so she moved back to England, where she had all kinds of adventures with the Scarlet Pimpernel in my head. In 1792, she wrote to the French National Assembly offering to lead a division of female soldiers against the Habsburgs (the family of the recently imprisoned, soon to be executed Marie Antoinette, with whom France was at war.) This didn't go over too well, so she just stayed in England, dueling anyone who came her way until she was seriously injured and had to retire from fencing at the age of sixty-eight.
Mademoiselle d'Eon died in 1810, in poverty, at the age of eighty-two. Doctors who examined the body after her death found that she did, in fact, have a penis.
I use female pronouns here because she chose to identify herself as a woman consistently for the last thirty-three years of her life. Every source I've found identifies her as "really" a man, and for all I know, Charles d'Eon de Beaumont was just a dude trolling the world every time he put on a dress. But there comes a point where you just have to take someone's word for it. She was certainly not entirely truthful about having been (physically speaking) a girl raised as a boy, but on an emotional level, disregarding the money excuse, it may have felt very true to her.
At that time, there was no word for a trans woman. Such a word was coined by Havelock Ellis in 1920. That word was "eonist." (Warning: link refers to barely-post-Victorian sexology. Triggers abound.)
The Beaumont Society also takes its name from the Chevalier.
In fiction, she has inspired several books and plays that I know nothing about, and one lovely anime that I do.
She was cool.