Monsieur d'Eon Is a Woman: A Tale of Political Intrigue and Sexual Masquerade

by Gary Kates

"A fascinating book. Monsieur d'Eon Is a Woman is instructive and a delight to read all at the same time."―Quentin Crisp Born in 1728, French aristocrat Charles d'Eon de Beaumont had served his country as a diplomat, soldier, and spy for fifteen years when rumors that he was a woman began to circulate in the courts of Europe. D'Eon denied nothing and was finally compelled by Louis XVI to give up male attire and live as a woman, something d'Eon did without complaint for the next three decades. Although celebrated as one of the century's most remarkable women, d'Eon was revealed, after his death in 1810, to have been unambiguously male. Gary Kates's acclaimed biography of d'Eon recreates eighteenth-century European society in brilliant detail and offers a compelling portrait of an individual who challenged its conventions about gender and identity.

Genres: History, Biography, Nonfiction, France, British Literature, Gender, LGBT

400 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

Reviews

[Warwick · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Chevalier d'Éon was an ancien régime French diplomat and spy, who fought in the Seven Years War, worked undercover in Russia and served as a Plenipotentiary Minister in England. Then, in the 1770s, a dramatic secret emerged: ‘he’ was really a ‘she’, who, like a latter-day Joan of Arc, had disguised herself as a man to live a full military and political life. After a little time back in France, she retired to England where she was a minor celebrity and a vocal advocate for women's rights. Then, after she died in 1810, another shock: doctors who examined her post mortem realised that she was, in fact, anatomically completely male after all.

D'Éon's story is a complicated one, and has only become more complicated in recent years with the proliferating weight of discourse around gender. Other reviewers have taken a very dim view of Gary Kates's decision to use male pronouns throughout this book, and it certainly does appear inexact at times. But he explains his choice in detail, and it's clear that it's not done from any reactionary or trans-exclusionary impulse: he just believes, in the end, that it's genuinely more appropriate to think of d'Éon as male. ‘It is clear,’ he says – perhaps overstating it a bit – ‘that d'Eon was neither a transvestite nor a transsexual.’

And yes – probably to consider d'Éon as trans is at best anachronistic, and at worst runs the risk of being completely misleading; if the male pronouns seem odd, given this particular life story I think it would be just as problematic to use female pronouns. For the purposes of this review, I'm going to use the neutral neopronouns ze/zir, which are a bit ungainly, but at least highlight the uncertainty of d'Éon's gender in a way that's hopefully productive.

The point is that, ultimately, it is very unclear how exactly d'Éon thought of zirself. To read about the transition period, when a court in London and a proclamation from Louis XVI both officially declared d'Éon to be female, you'd almost think the whole thing was happening against zir will. There was no rush to finally ‘present’ as female – quite the reverse, d'Éon fought hard to be allowed to stay in male clothing and to retain a political career. When French authorities insisted that ze dress as a woman and give up zir political ambitions, d'Éon's compliance was extremely reluctant (ze described zirself in female clothes as a ‘prisoner of war’) and ze continued to act as socially ‘male’ in all kinds of ways – pouring drinks for ladies and performing other little acts of courtesy, speaking in a loud, ‘masculine’ voice, getting into coaches unaided, taking the stairs ‘four steps at a time’, urinating ‘standing up and without squatting’ (according to a newspaper) and even, in London, taking part in fencing competitions.

None of this seems like someone who was desperate to pass as female. Those who knew d'Éon as a woman in London described zir in confused, often horrified terms. Ze was ‘loud, noisy and vulgar’ according to Horace Walpole, ‘and her hands and arms appear not to have participated of the change of sexes’. Boswell, shocked, wrote in his diary, ‘She appeared to me a man in woman's clothes.’ Yet it's clear that – oddly – they never actually thought ze was a man dressed as a woman, but rather accepted zir as a woman who was vulgarly mannish.

One might almost suspect that the change of gender was something imposed upon d'Éon from above, for obscure reasons. But this doesn't fit either. The transformation from man to woman was something that came about as part of the repatriation negotiations, when d'Éon was trying to set the terms of zir return to France after falling from grace. Every generous offer of pensions and other perks was refused by d'Éon: the agreement had to include an official announcement that ze was a woman. Otherwise d'Éon wouldn't sign. So it seems that, despite zir later reluctance to adopt the forms of femininity, d'Éon set great importance by the idea of being thought of as female. In zir voluminous (unpublished) autobiographical writings, d'Éon always writes of zirself as grammatically female.

It feels like d'Éon somehow wanted, as Kates puts it, ‘the best of both worlds’ – not exactly to pass as a woman, but to pass as a woman who's passing as a man.

What can it all mean? There was nothing psychosexual about it, at least as far as anyone can tell – d'Éon showed no sexual interest in either men or women, and more than likely remained a lifelong virgin. Kates's conclusion is that

d'Eon's switch was not a compulsion but an intellectual decision that he made…after careful thought and reading. …he chose to become a woman because he deeply admired the moral character of women and wanted to live as one of them.

It's hard to find this totally convincing as an explanation. Still, there was clearly something intellectual to it – d'Éon's colossal library included perhaps the biggest selection of books on female rights (what in French was called the querelle des femmes, or women's question) in Europe, obscure volumes and political writings going back to the Middle Ages. (Kates includes a very useful listing of some of these titles.) It was something ze had studied and thought about in unusual, almost unique, detail.

Kates's suggestion seems to be that d'Éon chose to embody a new kind of empowered femaleness, almost as a philosophical point – encouraged, perhaps, by a certain amount of expediency (there is an implication that becoming a woman would also extricate zir from certain financial and political difficulties). ‘I am humiliated and depraved among men,’ d'Éon wrote. ‘I am elevated and exalted among women.’

Reading through all this and trying to get my head round it, it's very hard to escape the sense that there's some huge piece of the puzzle here that we're just missing – whether personal, political, financial or psychological, I don't know. D'Éon's past as a spy meant that ze moved in a secret world of codes and hidden messages, so there may well be crucial parts of zir story that we just aren't privy to.

In any case, the fact that zir transition was playing out against a background of intense debate about gender roles makes it feel like an absolutely emblematic story, and Kates, for all the faults of this mid-90s account, brings out the background extremely well, summarising the swirl of ideas from Rousseau, Locke, Voltaire, British thinkers like Mary Wollstonecraft, and the impact of the Revolution, with great care. And now, of course, d'Éon has a resonance of a different kind, as a forerunner of the questioning and malleability of gender roles that the last few decades has seen. For whatever reason he, she or they did it, d'Éon got there first.

[Alana]

Chevalière d'Éon was a fascinating person that I would love to know more about. But I keep cringing at how many examples this book provides of how *not* to write about trans people -- including the Goodreads summary that describes a transwoman as "unambiguously male" thirty years after her transition. Are there any biographies of d'Éon written by a trans historian, or at least a better ally?

[Leah Tigers · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, let’s get the unfortunate out of the way: the author of this book, Gary Kates, is transphobic. I say this not because of his use of male pronouns for the book’s subject, a fascinating proto-trans woman type figure of the eighteenth century named Charlotte D’Eon. Pronouns are a relatively superficial thing. But in his uncommonly political preface defending this choice, we learn he considers transsexuals to be “fundamentally passive,” that “radical transgendered theorists” have “little historical sensibility,” and so on. His conception of transness as a whole here is a deeply medicalized one, divorced from the intellect, sourced mainly from clinical literature. When he briefly cites actual trans women providing an alternate perspective on transsexuality (Sandy Stone in endnote 20, pg. 297), it is only to disagree. Even for 2001, this preface was outdated. Perhaps this was just unfortunate phrasing from an ignorant, well-intentioned cis male scholar of early modern French history, but it is not an acceptable way to speak about or cite us, and should be chastised. And, as I will later suggest, it harms the overall text in a meaningful way.

But wait, all is not lost! Just as the antisemite often hates Jewish people conceptually, but loves the exceptional Jews in his life, we find Gary admires particular trans women he knows – usually well-to-do center- to right-wing libertarians, like Deirdre McCloskey, Virginia Prince, and, indeed, the subject of his book, Charlotte D’Eon herself. And in fact this book is invaluable: the depth of the historical research, the wealth of the translation work, and the intense if perhaps misguided desire to truly understand what was inside Charlotte’s head, are all genuine, and unparalleled in English. The archival work is especially genius: Charlotte left behind an enormous, extremely difficult archive, in multiple languages. As a transgender historian, I can truly affirm, the historian’s craft is on full display here, and Gary Kates is an excellent historian. Shame about the trans thing.

In the parts of this history that don’t particularly involve gender, then, this book shines. Charlotte D’Eon did more than what was essentially the first legal gender transition in Europe. She was a statesman (or stateswoman, as we like), involved in a huge number of royal court intrigues, treaty declarations, and the whole intellectual culture of the late Enlightenment. I had no idea that she was so deeply involved in such major pre-Napoleonic political events as the Diplomatic Revolution, or the Treaty of 1763. These events, not much in public consciousness today, are relayed admirably, and relatively easy to understand, with dates rarely if ever mislabeled (e.g. pg. 90: “the peace of 1713” should be “1763,” surely). Nor had I known Charlotte was rubbing shoulders with the likes of David Hume, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Pierre Beaumarchais, and Voltaire. Her affairs with these famous philosophes are related wonderfully, with sumptuous, crisply translated letters quoted in full, and for the historically inclined, they are a joy to read. It’s just, you know, a shame about the trans thing.

So then, about the trans thing. Pretty much everyone today who cares about Charlotte D’Eon does so not because of her earlier political career, but because of a complex gender narrative which emerged in her later life. She was raised male since birth in 1728, recognized female by King Louis XVI in 1777, then re-recognized male by anatomists immediately after her death in 1810. In anachronistic terms, she sounds very much like a trans woman, although she presented to the public more like a trans man detransitioning. (There are fringe theories she was intersex; while intersexuality deserves far more consideration from historians, especially Gary here, there was still a transition, and the historical record still self-contradicts.) Achieving full legal recognition from the king, as such a public figure, at such an early moment of modernity, makes Charlotte a genuine historical anomaly. Although Gary, as a historian, attempts to explain her transition as a product of its time, he is unconvincing. Charlotte was undeniably exceptional, and that is why we remember her.

As I was reading these sections, I came to understand how the flaws of this book related to the much greater flaws of the preface. As a historian, Gary Kates is excellent. In everything else, not so much. As a biographer or narrativist, his story structure is awkward. There are simply too many spurious tangents about gender shenanigans in other courts or writing of the time; and more importantly, the text moves nonlinearly across Charlotte’s death, transition, birth, and career as a statesman in a confused, almost experimental way. It was a bad idea, and a straightforward biography would have been far more pleasurable to read and easy to understand.

The biggest issue is that as a gender theorist, Gary is incompetent. This book has a rich history of gender, but it has no theory of gender. This becomes an issue whenever the author speculates Charlotte’s true gender or motives in transition, which demand an order of abstraction. The book’s own views of Charlotte’s transsexuality are themselves inconsistent: while the preface states Charlotte is not transsexual because she is not “fundamentally passive,” pg. 52 directs us to consider her “later transsexualism”; while the preface states Charlotte is not a transvestite because she lacks the necessary “compulsion,” the text repeatedly discusses “the origins of D’Eon’s transvestism” (pg. 243).

In terms of the French aristocracy’s understanding of gender, which apparently induced transition in Charlotte, we get a wobbly, inconsistent picture. The picture is framed as a trip through Charlotte’s massive library, which is admittedly quite clever. The overriding theme seems to be that pre-Revolutionary France had androgynous, especially effeminate royalty: claims like those from Montesquieu that “there is only one sex left; we are all women in spirit” are misogynist not because they are untrue, but because these Enlightened men think that fact is to blame for the downfall of society. But this fundamental androgyny is constantly undercut by quotes from Diderot and other Enlightenment thinkers avowing la différence, that women are defined by her “organ [ovaries], peculiar to her sex” (pg. 199). Gary seems to want it all ways: gender in Charlotte’s time was patriarchal, no wait, it was egalitarian, no, wait, it was matriarchal, no, wait…

This wobbly, inconsistent picture of Enlightenment gender theory is wobbly and inconsistent because that’s how it really was. Gender is a discourse, and was in Charlotte’s time too, full of paradoxes, internally contradictory ideas, and competing beliefs. Theorists lie about this, but historians can’t afford to. Nowhere is this clearer than in D’Eon’s own “Christian feminism” in her last writings, which Gary tries all too quickly to explain at the end of the book. I think he would have done better to have picked up a little bit more from the structuralists, rather than the microhistorians (who he takes as his model in the preface), by admitting that he’s interpreting texts, rather than events. I would have enjoyed learning about what gender theory Charlotte was reading in her library or writing herself without the spurious suggestions of how she must have thought as much in order to transition, or the spurious political claims about the true meaning of transsexuality.

And what was Charlotte really thinking, anyway? We’ll never really know; all we have left is her vast, almost mythic archive. But, as the proverbial trans woman historian, I was struck by certain aspects of Charlotte’s gendered life which undeniably reminded me of my own. The intellectual dimension to her transition, with a huge number of protofeminist texts in her library, is extremely familiar to me, up to us sharing certain titles. Her vast hunger for personal liberty, which rose above service to the state and even family ties, is in many trans women I know. There were a few moments where she essentially narrated her own story with my thoughts on it: crying after a dress fitting with the grandmother of haute couture, Rose Bertin; telling off Pierre Beaumarchais’s “masculine anger” for mocking her in public; etc. The kind of confusion about desire, ambivalence or disdain about corsetry and female discomfort, attraction to androgyny, uncertainty about the weight of pre-transition life, mockery from men you once respected, lifelong pondering about what this all means – these all feel familiar! From across the centuries, as it were.

[The Idle Woman · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars.

The Chevalier d'Eon is one of the most fascinating figures of the 18th century: he lived the first 49 years of his life as a man and the last 33 as a woman, and his story is a remarkable testament to the power of self-fashioning in ancien regime France. But that story has been muddied by the Chevalier's own reinventions over time, and nowadays it can be difficult to get at the fact behind the legend. This book is the place to start. I agree, the title looks a bit sensationalist on first glance, but give the book a chance. Gary Kates is an academic historian who's published several books about France at the turn of the 19th century and, most importantly, he's probably the greatest expert on the Chevalier's life. He edited the Chevalier's memoirs for their first publication in 2001 and he has thought extensively and seriously about the social, political and gender contexts of the time. There is a lot of tosh out there about the Chevalier, but Kates goes back to original documents and carefully sifts fact from fiction. This means he can dismiss certain cherished notions - there's no evidence at all that he wore women's clothing before October 1777, when forced to do so by Louis XVI, so you can kiss goodbye to the stories about 'Lia de Beaumont' taking the Russian or English courts by storm. They're just that: stories. But the truth, in many ways, is even more amazing.

There's so much fascinating information here. Kates puts the Chevalier in context in every way: he discusses his library, his thoughts on Rousseau's philosophies, his deep Christian faith and the way that he gradually reinvented his own history to back up the female gender role he chose to fill. He makes good use of visual material, which is plentiful and, most importantly, he shows great sensitivity in allowing the Chevalier to exist as he was, without imposing any particular reading on him. He doesn't label him with modern definitions that would risk pigeonholing a figure whose main achievement was in carving out a defiantly individual identity. He isn't seeking to prove a point or to claim the Chevalier as a standard-bearer for any particular group. He just presents the evidence, from printed portraits to private letters to scandal-sheets, and lets it speak for itself. That's immensely refreshing. Incidentally, talking of the evidence, it turns out that the vast majority of the Chevalier's papers are nowadays in the Brotherton Library in Leeds. Leeds of all places! Who'd have thought it?

My only criticism of the book is that its structure is sometimes confusing, because Kates starts his biography with the Chevalier's death, which is when he was discovered to be a biological male, and then takes up the story halfway through the Chevalier's life, before going back to the start. It can make it difficult to remember where you saw something. But that's a minor quibble. The chapters are short and punchy; the writing very accessible; and the whole thing admirably researched. In short, this is the sanest book you're likely to find on the Chevalier d'Eon and the most reliable.

For the full review, please see my blog:
https://theidlewoman.net/2017/02/16/m...

[Tarah Luke · Rating 3 out of 5]

Such an interesting character! Completely fascinating, though ultimately we will most likely never know what made him decide to live half his life as a woman. Was he a transsexual? Was he just really impressed with how strong women are?

I think that, based on how dated this is (1995), it is fair to conclude that, from a reading of the quotes provided and nothing else, d’Eon was what 21st c. people would recognize as trans. I cringed at many of Kates’ descriptions and choices of pronouns, but it needs to be understood that times have changed, as have perceptions about human sexuality and gender. I would love to read a new interpretation from a gender historian examining this story, because I think in some ways Kates does a real disservice to d’Eon and her choice. I especially did not buy the whole Christian feminism argument as explanation, unless her faith gave her the courage to live as a woman in a time and society that was very much male-dominated and controlled.

Further, if she lived another 30 years, why does the book essentially end when she does make her transition? There are only a few chapters afterwards, and really only remark on her poverty. What about reactions to the Revolution’s attempts to first raise women to man’s level and then later pushing them back down? Surely she must have commented on that, or her lack of female education? Anyone?

Just fascinating.

[Manda · Rating 3 out of 5]

An incredibly curious figure, d'Eon was a man who was "discovered" to be really a woman who had been raised as a boy and was ordered by the king to return to France to live as a woman, only to be discovered upon his death as an émigré in England years later to have been a man all along. He seems to have gone along willingly with the French royal orders for his own reasons, even having gone so far as to encourage their outcome, and had a marked interest in early feminist theory, collecting early feminist works in his personal library, writing on the superiority of women to men, and calling out public figures on what he perceived as their misogynistic attitudes. For all d'Eon's outrageousness as a public figure, however, this book failed to capture the public excitement that the revelations about him provoked, and although it was full of interesting information, it read rather dryly.

[Isabel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very clearly written in the mid-90s, as the language is quite dated. But it’s an interesting read. I’m not sure I agree with the author’s reasoning for the pronouns he uses for D’Eon.

[LillyBooks · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an academic-style text on the life and motivation of the Chevalier d'Eon, who lived the first half of his life as a distinguished male soldier, then lived the second half as a woman (I am using the male pronoun, as used throughout this book). He claimed that he had been a woman all along, but was forced to adopt male clothing from infancy by his father. However, upon his death, an autopsy by no less than ten different doctors confirmed his was a perfectly healthy male. I enjoyed this book, even though I wasn't really in the mood for an academic-style text. The author uses a plethora of source material (d'Eon himself left over 2000 pages of writing), as is suitable for an academic text; but I found myself skimming most of it, especially as d'Eon's writings are repetitive. But it's still a fascinating, well told story.

[Moloch · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un aprile ben misero, in quanto a letture: sono stata distratta da questo e da quello, e ho impiegato un mese per finire "appena" due libri, e temo anche di non aver dedicato loro la dovuta concentrazione.

Non so ricostruire il percorso che mi ha portato alla lettura di questo saggio, sicuramente ho appreso la curiosa e affascinante vicenda del Cavaliere d'Eon da una pagina di Wikipedia, ma non ricordo se vi ero giunta per caso o per altri collegamenti. La biografia scritta da Gary Kates è stata acquistata in un maxi-ordine on line del 2010 su IBS, forse il mio maggior "colpo": fatto approfittando di una di quelle promozioni sui Remainders, libri che quasi ti tirano dietro, per cui più ne acquistavi più aumentava lo sconto, e questo l'avrò preso con lo sconto dell'80% o giù di lì. Poi è rimasto a prendere polvere per anni, ma la sfida della "parola del mese" su Goodreads Italia (viene scelta una parola, bisogna leggere entro il mese un libro che la contenga nel titolo) l'ha riportato alla ribalta (la parola era "donna").

La storia del cavaliere D'Eon fu uno dei più chiacchierati "scoop" del XVIII secolo; D'Eon, proveniente da una famiglia della piccola nobità della Borgogna, ufficiale dell'esercito francese, distintosi per coraggio e abilità nella guerra dei sette anni, fu per lunghi anni una spia al servizio di Luigi XV, dapprima in Russia, quindi a Londra. Negli anni sessanta del Settecento, a causa di complicate congiunture politiche, si ritrovò improvvisamente in disgrazia col suo Ministero degli Esteri, sospettato di tradimento e praticamente in esilio in Inghilterra. Proprio mentre questa situazione si andava lentamente e faticosamente ricomponendo, si fece sempre più strada, fino ad acquistare la parvenza della verità, quello che all'inizio era un pettegolezzo di incerta origine (ma probabilmente messo in circolo da D'Eon stesso), e cioè che egli fosse in realtà una donna, allevata fin dall'infanzia come un maschio. Nel 1776, infine, fu lo stesso Luigi XVI a sancire che sì, D'Eon era effettivamente una donna. Riabilitato dal suo governo, D'Eon poté tornare in patria, smise gli abiti da uomo e visse tutti gli ultimi anni della sua vita come una donna. Ma quando morì, nel 1810, di nuovo a Londra dove aveva trascorso gli ultimi anni quasi in miseria, ecco la sconcertante scoperta che sparigliò nuovamente le carte in tavola: D'Eon era, invece, senza ombra di dubbio un maschio.

Di donne che si travestirono da uomini, generalmente per sfuggire alle limitazioni imposte alla loro condizione e/o perseguire carriere politiche o militari, la Storia è piuttosto prodiga di esempi, ci dice l'autore. Il caso di un uomo che consapevolmente sceglie di "trasformarsi" in una donna è, invece, più unico che raro: Kates indaga quindi su cosa possa aver spinto D'Eon a intraprendere questa decisione radicale.
Chi si aspettava una storia piccante (e, lo ammetto, nel gruppo c'ero anch'io) rimane però sorpreso, anche perché Kates mette subito le cose in chiaro: nella scelta di D'Eon non hanno influito le preferenze sessuali (anzi, al riguardo D'Eon sembra essere stato per nulla interessato al sesso, vergine o comunque castissimo), non fu un travestito (non risulta che avesse mai avvertito, prima della "trasformazione", l'esigenza di vestirsi da donna e anzi, anche dopo che venne dichiarato "ufficialmente" tale, resistette a lungo prima di abbandonare a malincuore l'amata uniforme del corpo dei Dragoni) né un transessuale.

La crisi personale che D'Eon visse negli anni sessanta (gli intrighi politici sono piuttosto complessi, ma, per quanto ho capito io, le cose andarono così: esisteva in Francia una rete di ambasciatori e diplomatici "ufficiali" che faceva capo al re e al Ministero degli Esteri... e contemporaneamente anche un'altra di spie e agenti segreti selezionatissimi, chiamata appunto il "Segreto", che faceva capo direttamente al re Luigi XV e al potente Principe di Conti, che spesso e volentieri perseguiva obiettivi anche in contrasto con la politica "ufficiale": in questa situazione abbastanza paradossale, D'Eon si trovava in Inghilterra in veste duplice di funzionario del ministro degli Esteri e agente del Segreto... da ciò la sua difficoltà nel districarsi fra ordini contraddittori e istruzioni riservate, e il suo apparentemente "inspiegabile" rifiuto di ubbidire al Ministro degli Esteri quando questi, inconsapevolmente, si metteva contro le direttive del Segreto... Lo so, non si capisce, Kates ha a disposizione pagine e pagine per spiegarlo, io solo poche righe), la sua condizione di "traditore della patria" (mentre il re sapeva benissimo il motivo della sua apparente "insubordinazione"!), gli intrighi dei suoi tanti nemici a corte contribuirono ad alimentare in lui una profonda disillusione e disaffezione verso la politica dell'ancien régime. A un certo punto dovette sembrargli che l'unica possibilità per "ripartire da zero", ricostruirsi una reputazione immacolata e venire riaccolto in patria fosse cancellare definitivamente la sua identità precedente, sviare l'attenzione e "rinascere" come donna: da figura ambigua e sospetta a singolarissima eroina che per anni aveva servito il proprio sovrano in mezzo ai pericoli di un mondo dominato dagli uomini. Nel testo si afferma che tutti i tentativi di D'Eon di mistificare le sue origini, raccontando, nei tanti scritti autobiografici che lasciò, di essere nato femmina ma di essere stato educato come un maschio per volere del padre, sono assolute falsità, il cavaliere stesso si costruì il suo "mito".
Tuttavia, la motivazione per il "cambio di sesso" può essere stata contingente... ma dall'analisi di Kates emerge che il cavaliere non vi arrivò "per caso", e che anzi da tempo le sue riflessioni e i suoi studi (egli non fu solo un militare e un diplomatico, ma anche un uomo di lettere) vertevano sulla questione femminile, sul ruolo delle donne nella società.

La vicenda si colloca in un momento, il Settecento, in cui l'influenza delle donne nella politica e negli affari di Stato raggiunse forse il culmine, e in cui anche lo stesso mondo maschile (si parla, naturalmente, sempre e solo delle classi più alte) stava andando incontro a un processo di "femminilizzazione"; sono tanti gli esempi possibili, dalle organizzatrici dei salotti in cui si riuniva il fiore dell'intellighenzia del tempo, alle celebri figure di sovrane come Caterina II e Maria Teresa: il caso più vicino alla vicenda di D'Eon, anche perché i rapporti con quella che egli considerava sua acerrima nemica furono fondamentali nel determinare gli eventi della sua vita, è naturalmente quello di Madame de Pompadour, amante e consigliera di Luigi XV, per lunghi anni arbitra della politica francese e delle fortune e sfortune di ministri e funzionari a lei graditi o meno. Paradossalmente, i maggiori critici di questa situazione sono proprio coloro che meno ci saremmo aspettati, i philosophes illuministi (Rousseau ad esempio, anche se il suo pensiero in alcuni punti è ambiguo) e, più tardi, la Rivoluzione francese, che, almeno in alcune delle sue fasi, giocò un ruolo importante nel propagandare gli ideali di domesticità, mitezza e confinamento nella sfera privata della donna che poi sarebbero stati dominanti nel XIX secolo.

Analizzando l'enorme biblioteca di D'Eon, Kates scopre quindi che le riflessioni sulla condizione femminile, la cosiddetta Querelle des femmes che impegnava molti intellettuali francesi fin dai tempi di Christine de Pizan nel XV secolo, appassionavano molto il cavaliere. Molti scrittori, uomini e donne, nel corso del tempo avevano preso la penna in mano per sostenere che la donna non era in alcun modo inferiore per virtù all'uomo, e che, se non riusciva ad ottenere gli stessi risultati nella sfera pubblica, ciò era dovuto non all'incapacità ma alla situazione di oggettivo svantaggio, in termini di istruzione e opportunità, in cui era posta dalla società tradizionale. In Francia, poi, un modello importante cui appoggiarsi, e cui sicuramente D'Eon si ispirò per adattare (a posteriori, quando aveva già deciso di far credere di essere nata donna) la propria biografia, fu quello della celebre eroina nazionale, Giovanna d'Arco, giovane donna, vergine, che indossò l'armatura e combatté come un uomo per servire il proprio re e il proprio paese.

Quello che è interessante è che D'Eon, anche se la decisione di farsi considerare una donna fu forse, almeno in parte, un espediente per venir fuori da una situazione personale senza via sbocchi, non per questo considerò a quel punto chiusa la sua carriera: per anni continuò a rivendicare, senza successo, lo stesso ruolo nella diplomazia e anche nell'esercito francese che aveva avuto fin quando era stato considerato un uomo, sostenendo di non capire perché non potesse continuare a servire il suo Paese anche in quanto donna (anche alla luce di ciò, secondo Kates, va interpretata la sua estrema riluttanza a decidersi a rinunciare all'uniforme dei Dragoni e a indossare in modo definitivo abiti femminili, che avrebbero sancito anche esteriormente la sua uscita di scena dal palcoscenico della vita pubblica).

Nell'ammirazione di D'Eon per il sesso femminile ebbero una parte importante anche la sua interpretazione della fede cristiana, che abbracciò con slancio in tarda età, e la sua lettura di alcuni passi di Agostino e san Paolo; nella sua visione (non pienamente sistematica, poiché non era un filosofo, e le sue riflessioni erano anche in parte un modo per razionalizzare la propria singolarissima vicenda biografica) Dio aveva creato l'umanità senza distinzione di sesso, ma era stato in particolare il genere maschile ad allontanarsi maggiormente dalla volontà divina, mentre le donne avevano meglio coltivato le virtù cristiane e l'ideale di purezza e alta spiritualità di questo essere umano "prima della Caduta".

Per tornare a un livello più terra terra, molte pagine sono dedicate agli anni di "incertezza", quando le voci sul cavaliere sono ormai l'argomento di conversazione più succulento fra Londra e Parigi e nell'Europa intera. L'enorme curiosità suscitata dalla sua vicenda attirò ovviamente su D'Eon l'interesse quasi "morboso" dell'opinione pubblica e della stampa, che prese a perseguitarlo in tutti i modi: naturalmente a Londra fiorirono le scommesse sul suo sesso, le stampe, gli opuscoli osceni, le canzonature, le intrusioni nella sua privacy da parte di persone interessate a scoprire il suo segreto, ma anche si profilarono scenari ben più inquietanti come il rischio di essere rapito o addirittura ucciso (da emissari del suo governo decisi a recuperare i documenti riservati in suo possesso, da scommettitori che volevano accertare in modo definitivo se fosse uomo o donna)... e, insomma, in queste pagine, dopo aver letto in lungo e in largo dei mille intrighi della diplomazia, tocchiamo con mano anche il lato più umano e privato della vicenda: dal libro e dai brani delle sue lettere si avverte chiaramente che, per un uomo così riservato e anche intriso di una alta opinione di sé e della propria dignità, dovettero essere anni molto sofferti e umilianti.

Ultima nota a margine nella lettura è l'interessante contrasto fra il sistema politico inglese, avanzatissimo per l'epoca e già garante di numerosi diritti del cittadino, e quello francese: si veda lo stupore in Francia per il fatto che il re inglese non potesse semplicemente a suo arbitrio far arrestare D'Eon ed estradarlo oltre Manica, visto che... non aveva violato alcuna legge.

Un libro che, come dicevo all'inizio, ho trascinato più a lungo del previsto, che ha sorpreso le mie aspettative, in parte positivamente (gli spunti interessanti annotati qua sopra), in parte no (a onor del vero le macchinazioni politiche e gli intrighi dietro alla caduta in disgrazia di D'Eon, dopo un po', sono diventati piuttosto indigesti): spero di averlo riassunto e analizzato in modo quanto meno comprensibile, perché a volte alcuni passaggi sono apparsi poco chiari anche a me.

3/5

http://moloch981.wordpress.com/2013/0...

[Malcolm · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Chevaliere d'Eon is one of history's most fascinating figures. A captain of the dragoons. A war hero. A member of a secret French ring of spies reporting directly to the King.

They lived a life worthy of an Errol Flynn movie. Finally, they became estranged from their king in the 1770s amid swirling rumors in their post at London that they were a woman disguised a man. Bets begin to be placed with London bookies. Outrage breaks out in Versailles. d'Eon travels in secret for fear of being kidnapped or murdered to obtain definitive proof for these bets. Finally negotiations between d'Eon and the King of France end and d'Eon goes back to France and is legally recognized as a woman. d'Eon's womanhood is used to completely end their political career and the Chevaliere slowly slips into abject poverty and dies living in London living with a London widow.

The widow does her best to clean and prepare d'Eon's body for disposal and makes a quite unexpected discovery.

So, right off the bat: This book is telling d'Eon's story through a 1950s understanding of gender and it is.. not good. The book starts by discarding the idea that d'Eon may have been transgender because it defines transgender as "hatred of one's genitals." So.. yeah. It definitely is showing the lack of 70 years of scholarship in this regard and its understanding of trans issues is really, really bad. The book insistently uses masculine pronouns for d'Eon and it's really jarring to read that in 2021 when, at least at the end of their life, d'Eon had lived as a woman for decades and definitely seemed to prefer to be thought of as a woman. The book does touch on the possibility that d'Eon may have been asexual. The late 18th century was a time where public trysts and affairs were pretty commonly known yet d'Eon, despite her rougish character, is not known to have had any such encounters or have pursued any interest in sex or romance. And d'Eon was a celebrity figure in London both famed and reviled at different points in her life and if she had had any such flings they would have been written about. Kates also dismisses the idea that d'Eon was intersex but I've read that the doctors who examined her body found intersex traits so I am unsure how they arrive at this pronouncement. But this is all speculation about someone who cannot give us any answers.

The book takes an exhaustive look at d'Eon's activities in the 1750s through to the mid 1770s. After d'Eon is recalled to France and begins living as a woman, the book's pace hits light speed. Part of this is, I think, that one of the book's major conjectures is that d'Eon's decision to openly live as a woman was politically motivated. That they hoped to revive their political career through gender transformation. The time speed up allows them to ignore the case that this practical reason for changing her gender doesn't hold up. D'Eon lived as a woman until she died. If the identity were not what they believed themselves to be why did they maintain it for decades after it stopped being useful to them? The French government stopped paying d'Eon and her political career was dead. She no longer lived in France and the king with which she signed the agreement to live as a woman died under the guillotine's blade. Why continue living as a woman, a state d'Eon openly acknowledged had fundamentally fewer rights and was maligned by 18th century society? Why maintain the guise unless that was how she saw herself and the truth she lived? The pace quickens so you don't ask questions like that.

It's otherwise a very good overview of d'Eon's complicated life and legacy. It provides tons of details and some of the parts I especially liked were its casting on d'Eon as an 18th century feminist. d'Eon while in London acquired the largest library of then-current feminist literature in Europe and read extensively on gender rights and had hoped to use their war hero and political status to expand rights for women in France. It refers to d'Eon's letters extensively and reprints several correspondence in full. It really does help build a fantastic portrait of d'Eon right up intil the mid 1780s when she left for England again. Kates even tells us that d'Eon was an extremely productive writer during this time but generally only brings up things to do with d'Eon's christianity and discounts the majority of their autobiographical writings from this time because d'Eon didn't end up publishing them and therefore didn't really agree with what she had written.

It's a good introduction to d'Eon but suffers in some crucial ways in its analysis of her and I would love to see another book on d'Eon through the lens of a more modern understanding of gender.

[Scott Gerlt · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Monsieur d’Eon Is a Woman” by Gary Kates is an detailed and balanced analysis of a very complex historical character that spans Louis XV and XVI and over lapping the US and French revolutions. Chevalier d’Eon was among other things a war hero, spy, politician and a man masquerading as a woman who’s pretending to be a man. In the second half of his life, he dons female garb and lives his day as a female. The Chevalière is a very public and influential person. He meets with Kings, Prime Ministers, and the power players of the day at first as a man and later as a woman. There are vast sums of money wagered on his true gender. Only at his death does the public confirm that the Chevalier was indeed a biological male. Given that story line, it is easy to envision a “surfacey” look at his life, or to relegate him to solely a trans hero (which he certainly is). But much to Gary Kates’ credit he dives into the serous woman’s rights activism, profound theology of feminism, and intellectual authorship that was part of d’Eon’s life. The biography was fascinating, held my attention, certainly caused me to evaluate my own views on gender, politics, feminism, theology. Thank you Gary Kates for your respectful and thoughtful biography of a unique historical character.

[Cate · Rating 2 out of 5]

not sure I buy the authors premise about d'Eon's Christian feminism, but still a very interesting life well described.

[Olivia Funk · Rating 5 out of 5]

absolutely fucking stunning.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was interesting to learn more about d'Eon and the time period before the American and later French revolutions. I will say it felt a bit dated (being from 1995) in how it referred to d'Eon (in terms of pronouns and other language) especially after her transformation into a woman. The author makes it clear that he struggled with the idea that d'Eon could be female if she was born with a male body and preferred clothing typical for men of her time. So overall an ok read but be forewarned about its struggles in the language department.

[Kelly Shannon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amazing account of the 18th century Chevalier who elected at mid-life to live as a woman after a successful espionage career in Russia. mid-career. D'Eon was declared to be legally a woman by Louis XVI in 1776. D'Eon explained that he had been born female but raised as a male by a father desperate for a son. At his death, 35 years later, it was discovered that d'Eon was really a man. This book was thoroughly and meticulously researched. D'Eon's story is truly remarkable.

[Viridian5 · Rating 3 out of 5]

I felt that the book didn't prove all its points and that it wandered too far away on tangents in some sections, but it's an interesting look at politics and gender roles in Europe of the time. D'Eon's dual life as diplomat and spy even before he officially declared himself a woman is sometimes brainbending to read and most have been stressful to live. I was surprised by what the research shows about how women lived their lives and what some of them wrote about it.

[Gail · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read for my Ordinary People course.

[Liviu]

this looked really interesting but the prose is so dull...