Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 14.djvu/388

 were congenital doubts of the sex of the infant, which is said—on perhaps insufficient authority—to have been put into girl's clothes at a very early age, and to have been, when three years old, publicly dedicated to the Virgin Mary under the feminine names of Charlotte Geneviève Louise Augusta Timothea, to which the name of Marie was added by the Archbishop of Seurre, when the child was confirmed. Up to the age of seven D'Éon wore the distinctive colours of Our Lady, though whether as a boy or girl is uncertain. Thenceforward his education was as a boy. He pursued his studies with diligence, took in due time the degree of doctor of law, and had probably some intention of practising as a lawyer, from which he would seem to have been diverted by the death of his father in 1749 and his being left in very reduced circumstances. He had, however, influential friends, among whom were the Prince de Conti, the Abbé (afterwards Cardinal) de Bernis, and the Marshal de Belle-Isle; and, after a few years, during which he seems to have held some employment as a secretary, he was in 1755 sent to St. Petersburg as a secret agent of the king and of the Prince de Conti, who was at that time at the head of the secret correspondence. The details of this mission are quite uncertain, but there is reason to believe that in carrying it out D'Éon resumed woman's clothes, and was received by the Empress Elizabeth as a woman (, p. 15). It has been said that he held for some months an appointment as the empress's lectrice; and, whether as lectrice or lecteur, was mainly instrumental in bringing Russia into the alliance then forming between France and Austria. In June 1756 he returned to France, carrying a private letter from Elizabeth to Louis XV, as well as her public consent to receive a French representative; and was shortly afterwards sent back to Russia as an attaché of the legation. In April 1757 he again left St. Petersburg with private letters from the empress to Maria Theresa and Louis XV, and, being at Vienna when the news of the battle of Prague (6 May) arrived, was immediately despatched by the French minister to carry the important news to Versailles. He executed the mission with extraordinary celerity, and, although his coach was upset and his leg broken, he reached his destination thirty-six hours before the special courier sent to the Austrian ambassador. His zeal was rewarded by the present of a gold snuff-box with the king's portrait, a gratuity in money, and a commission as lieutenant of dragoons. D'Éon was detained in Paris for some months by his broken leg, but in September he was sent back to St. Petersburg as secretary to the embassy, and was also instructed to correspond secretly with the king. He remained at St. Petersburg till August 1760, and, though the principal evidence of his exceptional merits is contained in a volume of ‘Lettres, Mémoires et Négociations particulières,’ published by himself in 1764, it incidentally appears from other writers that he won the favour both of the French ambassador, the Marquis de l'Hôpital, of Woronzoff, the Russian chancellor, and of the empress herself. He had meantime, in 1758, been promoted to the rank of captain of dragoons, and had found time to write and publish a small work bearing the imposing title of ‘Considérations historiques sur les Impôts des Egyptiens, des Babyloniens, des Perses, des Grecs, des Romains, et sur les différentes situations de la France par rapport aux finances depuis l'établissement des Francs dans la Gaule jusqu' à présent’ (2 tom. 12mo, 1758).

On his return to Paris he was laid up with a severe attack of small-pox, but the following year he was appointed on the staff of the Marshal de Broglie, and served in that capacity through the campaign of 1761. It was his only military service, and, though creditable in a high degree, cannot be considered as entitling him to pose, as he afterwards did, as, before all, a soldier. In September 1762, when the Duke de Nivernais was sent to England on a special mission to settle the preliminaries of the peace, D'Éon accompanied him as secretary; and in the following February was sent over to Paris with the ratification of the definite treaty. On this occasion, in addition to a handsome gratuity in money, the king conferred on him the cross of St. Louis, and he was sent back to London with the understanding that, as the Duke de Nivernais was returning to France, he was to continue there as chargé d'affaires until the arrival of the new ambassador, Count de Guerchy. But he also had instructions to continue the secret correspondence with the king, through the medium of the Count de Broglie and M. Tercier, a clerk in the ministry of foreign affairs. In this latter capacity he had to examine into and report on the details of a scheme for the invasion of England, which had been submitted by the Count de Broglie; and in this way a number of papers of the greatest importance and most compromising nature came into his hands. This, and the rank of minister plenipotentiary, which, on a question of precedence, was conferred on him, would seem to have swelled his vanity to an inordinate pitch. He launched out into expenses suit-