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Updated: June 7, 2025
I send M. d'Éon to withdraw the Swiss and Grenadiers of Champagne, who are holding in check the Scottish Highlanders lining the wood on the crest of the mountain, whence they have caused us much annoyance. The English outposts were driven in; but, after that was done, the French advance was checked by the plaided Gael: d'Éon did not quell the mountaineer As their tinchel quells the game.
"I remember a ludicrous circumstance arising from the Queen's innocent curiosity, in which, if there were anything to blame, I myself am to be censured for lending myself to it so heartily to satisfy Her Majesty. "When the Chevalier d'Eon was allowed to return to France, Her Majesty expressed a particular inclination to see this extraordinary character.
The official order for the Chevalier's return to France was actually delivered to the King's Council; but Louis XV. delayed the departure of the courier who was to be its bearer, and sent off another courier privately, who gave the Chevalier d'Eon a letter in his own writing, in which he said, "I know that you have served me as effectually in the dress of a woman as in that which you now wear.
Resume it instantly; withdraw into the city; I warn you that the King yesterday signed an order for your return to France; you are not safe in your hotel, and you would here find too powerful enemies." I heard the Chevalier d'Eon repeat the contents of this letter, in which Louis XV. thus separated himself from the King of France, several times at my father's.
The money's worth of the diamond was to be paid to him by his own Government, but he no more got that than he got the 10,000 livres for his travelling expenses. Thus early was he accommodated with a grievance, and because d'Éon had not the wisdom to see that a man with grievances is a ruined man, he overthrew, later, a promising career, in the violence of his attempts to obtain redress.
The Chevalier, or rather the Chevalaere d'Eon had preserved all the King's letters. Messieurs de Maurepas and de Vergennes wished to get them out of his hands, as they were afraid he would print them.
Beaumarchais was as thoroughly taken in as any dupe in his own comedies. In d'Éon he 'saw a blushing spinster, a kind of Jeanne d'Arc of the eighteenth century, pining for the weapons and uniform of the martial sex, but yielding her secret, and forsaking her arms, in the interest of her King.
He was at odds with the future ambassador, de Guerchy, and with the minister, de Praslin; and would not have been promoted at all, had it been known to the minister that he was in correspondence with, and was taking orders from, the disgraced Comte de Broglie. But, by the fatuous system of the King, d'Éon, in fact, was doing nothing else.
This Chevalier d'Eon was a handsome woman who had been an advocate and a captain of dragoons before entering the diplomatic service; she served Louis XV. as a valiant soldier and a diplomatist of consummate skill. In spite of her manly ways I soon recognized her as a woman; her voice was not that of a castrato, and her shape was too rounded to be a man's.
The author was industrious, but not invariably happy in his translations of French originals. D'Éon himself drew up various accounts of his adventures, some of which he published.
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