Unlikely Allies Read online

  Some scholars doubt whether any of this actually occurred, since the archives of the French Foreign Ministry contain no evidence that d’Eon was sent to Russia disguised as a young Frenchwoman. It makes sense, however, that the French Foreign Ministry would have no record of d’Eon’s service in Russia. Louis XV and Prince de Conti specifically kept the foreign ministry in the dark about the activities of the Secret. The king could not risk having anyone know that France had placed a secret agent in the court of the Russian empress. The British government had spies all over Paris, and if they discovered that France was seeking an alliance with Russia they would have reacted swiftly.

  We have only fragments from which we can try to piece together the true story of d’Eon’s life, and all of this evidence is contestable. A copy of a letter—possibly a forgery—from Louis XV to d’Eon dated 1763 reads: “You have served me as usefully in the garments of a woman as in those which you now wear.” Similarly, the memoirs of the daughter of a French official in the foreign ministry mentions d’Eon’s having penetrated the Russian court in the disguise of a young Frenchwoman. D’Eon’s own correspondence to Louis XV refers to having worn dresses in the service of the king. And as early as 1771, d’Eon complained to the Comte de Broglie, who eventually replaced Prince de Conti as chief of the Secret, that “It is not my fault if the Court of Russia . . . has assured the English Court that I am a woman.” If Louis XV and Broglie disagreed with d’Eon’s recollections, their protests were not recorded. Perhaps the most intriguing evidence of d’Eon’s secret mission is a portrait of the youthful d’Eon drawn by Louis XV’s own portraitist, Maurice Quen tin de la Tour. The drawing depicts d’Eon as a beautiful young woman with a rosy complexion, elegant pearl earrings, a fancy lace cap, and a neckline revealing ample breasts. Why would the king’s portraitist have sketched d’Eon as a young woman, and for whom? Portraits of women were typically drawn or painted as an expression of affection between men and women. One possibility is that it was drawn for the Prince de Conti, who may himself have had romantic designs on the young d’Eon. While none of this evidence proves indisputably that d’Eon actually disguised himself as a woman while he was serving the king in Russia, it does suggest that in his youth d’Eon had appeared in women’s clothing.

  What is indisputable is that in the summer of 1756, Louis XV sent d’Eon and Sir Alexander (Mackenzie) Douglas, a Scotsman working as a spy for France, on a secret mission to Russia. Louis XV wanted to open up relations with Russia. The king knew that the English were seeking an alliance with Russia against France, and there was little time to spare. Sir Douglas posed as a British geologist examining mines in Russia for investors. When the British ambassador’s spies reported that Douglas was a French agent, the British ambassador informed Chancellor Bestuchef. Terrified of being imprisoned, Douglas fled Russia, leaving the young d’Eon behind.

  A few months later the Seven Years’ War had erupted, and by then, Russia and France, once fierce rivals, were now allied against Prussia and England. What had happened in the intervening months to transform Franco-Russian relations? During this time, d’Eon was alone in St. Petersburg, and when Douglas returned to St. Petersburg as France’s minister plenipotentiary in the spring of 1757, he was warmly received by the empress, and diplomatic relations with France were fully restored. Apparently, during the five-month hiatus, between Douglas’s hasty departure and triumphant return, the twenty-seven-year-old d’Eon had smoothed relations between France and Russia behind the back of the suspicious Russian chancellor. It is unclear how d’Eon reached the empress and accomplished this rapprochement. D’Eon later wrote that whatever happened during his time alone in St. Petersburg was “secret, lengthy, and warrants a long chapter.”

  According to one version of d’Eon’s story, he remained in Russia disguised as Sir Douglas’s French niece, “Mademoiselle Lia de Beaumont.” It may be that d’Eon invented this story years later, but it seems probable that d’Eon must have disguised himself to avoid arrest as a French spy. D’Eon later claimed that disguised as Mlle. Beaumont, he met the empress, who was delighted by the lovely French “girl” who spoke with such intelligence and wit. Empress Elizabeth retained Mlle. Beaumont in her retinue of ladies-in-waiting as a French tutor and secret envoy from Versailles. Once d’Eon had won the empress’s confidence, he told Elizabeth that he was a man and that he was carrying a secret message from Louis XV. D’Eon produced a letter from the king, which d’Eon had secreted in the binding of a volume of Montesquieu’s De l’esprit des lois. The empress, far from expressing outrage that she had been duped into permitting a Frenchman into her private circle, was amused by d’Eon’s daring.

  Unfortunately, there is little documentary proof to support this story apart from d’Eon’s own writing, and, as we shall see, d’Eon sometimes constructed facts to serve his own purposes. While it is possible that d’Eon conducted these negotiations dressed as a man, it is hard to see how it would benefit him to invent the story of Mlle. Beaumont. In the absence of any conclusive evidence explaining how France reestablished diplomatic relations with Russia during this period, d’Eon’s story is at least plausible.

  Once the empress agreed to an alliance with France and Austria against Britain, d’Eon wanted to tell Louis XV himself. On his way to Versailles, his coach overturned, and he suffered a broken leg, but he was undeterred. When d’Eon arrived with the news of his diplomatic success, Louis XV was delighted, and the king rewarded d’Eon for his secret service with a commission as a captain in the elite Royal Dragoons. As Prince de Conti had predicted, d’Eon’s star was rising rapidly, though Conti himself would soon fall out of Louis XV’s favor.

  IN 1761, d’Eon quit his diplomatic post in order to fight Britain during the Seven Years’ War. D’Eon proved to be a fierce and intrepid warrior. He was wounded in the head and thigh and crushed when his horse fell on him at the battle of Ultrop; he risked his life saving a large store of cartridges under fire at Höxter; and he led a vastly outnumbered detachment of eighty dragoons in a charge on a Prussian battalion at Rhes and took them prisoner. He performed with remarkable valor and withstood overwhelming military attacks and life-threatening wounds fearlessly.

  The king recalled d’Eon to Paris in 1762 with the intention of naming the thirty-three-year-old d’Eon ambassador to Russia. However, the recent death of Empress Elizabeth I meant it was not the right time to name a new ambassador. Instead, d’Eon was appointed as secretary to the ambassador to Britain, the Duc de Niver nais, to head the peace talks. D’Eon, who had made his diplomatic career negotiating the alliance with Russia against Britain, and his military career fighting the British, was now charged with negotiating the peace with Britain.

  In the treaty negotiations with Britain, France had little bargaining power. Britain had crushed France in the Seven Years’ War, and no French diplomat, however resourceful, could alter that brutal reality. The peace imposed by England was deeply humiliating to France. The British demanded that France destroy its harbor at Dunkirk in order to prevent France from attacking England in the future. D’Eon had steadfastly rejected this demand and succeeded in winning this concession. Perhaps the greatest compliment paid to d’Eon’s diplomatic skill was that some English politicians believed that the treaty d’Eon had negotiated was still too generous to France and even charged that the French had bribed British negotiators.

  After the treaty was signed in 1763, d’Eon remained in London as secretary to the ambassador. At the same time, without the ambassador’s knowledge, d’Eon continued to be employed as a spy by the Secret. Louis XV and Comte de Broglie, who was now the chief of the Secret, were conspiring in an audacious and ill-considered plot to invade England and repudiate the treaty, even before the ink had dried. Louis XV wrote to d’Eon, instructing him that he must “keep this affair strictly secret and that he never mention anything of it to any living person, not even to my ministers.” Even the foreign minister knew nothing about the plan. D’Eon’s job was to identify possible l
anding sites for a French armada and forward the information to Broglie in code. D’Eon faithfully followed his orders, thereby planning to destroy with one hand the treaty he had crafted with the other. The invasion plan had not the slightest chance of success: France was nearly insolvent and possessed only a remnant of its navy, while Great Britain was a naval and economic superpower. Fortunately for France, other events would intervene to prevent Louis XV from launching his ludicrous invasion plan.

  When d’Eon returned to Paris for instruction from Comte de Broglie in March 1763, he was knighted “Chevalier” and for his efforts was awarded France’s highest military honor, the Croix de Saint-Louis. The king publicly awarded the cross for d’Eon’s courage as a captain of the dragoons in the Seven Years’ War, but it was also a private acknowledgment of d’Eon’s secret service to the king in Russia and England. D’Eon wore the cross proudly on his chest for the rest of his life, long after his king abandoned him.

  That same year, the king named d’Eon his envoy to Britain with title of “Minister Plenipotentiary.” Though the post was only temporary (pending the arrival of a new ambassador), the appointment was proof that d’Eon, at thirty-five, was a dazzling new star in France’s diplomatic firmament. Within a few short months in London, d’Eon became a favorite of King George III and was a familiar guest in the homes of the most powerful men in Britain. (He was, in fact, so close to the royal family that one of his biographers made the extravagant claim that d’Eon had an affair with Queen Charlotte and fathered George IV!) He earned a colorful reputation among London’s high society for his good looks and witty conversation.

  Yet, d’Eon’s diplomatic popularity came at a cost. The French Foreign Ministry balked at the astounding bills he presented to support his luxurious lifestyle and his extravagant gifts. He spent a small fortune on his wardrobe and furnishings and accumulated an impressive library of books in several languages. The chevalier was famous for lavishly entertaining celebrated and powerful men like Horace Walpole, David Hume, the Duke of Grafton, and Lords Hertford, March, Sandwich, and Villiers. D’Eon liked to present his friends with crates of the finest Burgundy that was grown near his birthplace in Tonnerre. In a single day d’Eon purchased 2,800 bottles of the best Burgundy, costing about 150 pounds (roughly $28,000 today). D’Eon imported so much wine that the British prime minister warned d’Eon that the British government might be compelled to impose tariffs on his wine imports—in contravention of the legal principle that diplomats are immune from paying tax on their personal property.

  The French foreign minister, the Duc de Praslin, wrote to d’Eon several times during the summer of 1763, questioning his expenses and ordering him to economize. At that point, d’Eon claimed he was owed almost 90,000 livres, (nearly $700,000 today) by the French government and defended his expenses to Praslin, pointing out the high cost of living in London. “When I was secretary of embassy I went about plainly dressed in my uniform and cambric cuffs; now, much against my will, I must wear a few decent clothes and a little lace.” D’Eon continued, “If the King’s [financial] affairs are in a bad state, mine are going from bad to worse.” His debts, he wrote, were distracting him from his duties and threatening his mental and physical health.

  The tone of d’Eon’s letters triggered a sharp reproach from Praslin. He warned d’Eon not to let the title of Minister Plenipotentiary go to his head. “If you are not yet satisfied, I shall be obliged to discontinue employing you, for fear of being unable to recompense your services adequately. . . . I hope that you will be more circumspect in your demands in the future, and more sparing in your use of other people’s money.”

  If d’Eon had dropped the matter there, the history of Anglo-French relations and the fate of the American Revolution might have turned out very differently. But d’Eon could neither restrain his pride nor curb his expenses. His correspondence with Praslin grew increasingly antagonistic. D’Eon’s reaction to a relatively minor question of reimbursements was uncharacteristic for the loyal soldier and the patient diplomat. He poured forth a torrent of intemperate letters. His friends cautioned him to be reasonable and tone down his rhetoric. But d’Eon seemed incapable of calming down. Clearly, the issue was no longer about his allowance. Some sort of psychological wall had been breached. D’Eon warned a friend who served as the chief clerk at the foreign ministry, “I will always go my own way, fate has determined that; the bomb must burst; the fuse is at the end of the wick.”

  HIS EXTRAVAGANCE QUICKLY depleted the allowance provided by the French government for the newly appointed ambassador to London, the Comte de Guerchy, who had not yet arrived. D’Eon had served with Lieutenant-General Comte de Guerchy during the Seven Years’ War. Guerchy was as arrogant as he was talented. Once, on the battlefield, he had refused to carry out an order from the commanding officer and had left it to d’Eon instead. From this single incident d’Eon harbored a deep resentment toward the comte. D’Eon knew that the principal reason for Guerchy’s promotion to the rank of ambassador over him was the result of Guerchy’s close relationship to Madame de Pompadour, the king’s mistress. Guerchy had ingratiated himself to Pompadour in the most servile manner—even to the point of carrying her slippers. Though Guerchy had distinguished himself by his military service, he had no qualifications or instincts to function as a diplomat. D’Eon viewed his appointment as an insult.

  Praslin wrote to d’Eon that the budget could not support having both an ambassador and a minister plenipotentiary. As a result, when Ambassador Guerchy arrived in London in October, d’Eon would be demoted to his former title as secretary to the new ambassador. D’Eon’s pride was deeply wounded. He had proven himself adept as a spy, a soldier, and a diplomat. He was a tough man when the king needed him to be a man, and he was a charming woman when the king needed him to be a woman.

  The chevalier would not accept this demotion. To the Comte de Guerchy, who was still packing to leave France, d’Eon wrote presumptuously that “the chance which gave the title of minister plenipotentiary to a man who has negotiated successfully during the last ten years was perhaps not one of the blindest.” He then added this pointed insult: “What has come to me by chance might come to another by good luck.” If there were any possibility that d’Eon might have been able to serve as secretary to Guerchy, d’Eon was determined to destroy that: “A man, no matter who, can only form an estimate of himself by comparison with one or many men,” d’Eon continued. “[E]xcept,” he added, “in certain cases where men measure themselves by women.” Was d’Eon implying that Guerchy was less than a man, or was d’Eon slyly hinting about his secret service to Louis XV? D’Eon’s language was so inflammatory that Guerchy might have suspected that d’Eon either was indulging too freely in his beloved Burgundy, or he was going mad.

  As d’Eon’s angry rhetoric escalated, the king and Comte de Broglie, as chief of the Secret, became more concerned about d’Eon’s stability. They concluded that d’Eon’s position in London threatened relations with Britain. Even if firing d’Eon meant the end of the secret plan to invade England, the king could not risk the very real chance that d’Eon would expose the whole operation and trigger war with Britain before France was ready.

  FOUR

  BLACKMAIL

  London, 1763-1771

  The Comte de Guerchy arrived in London in early October 1763, and moved into the embassy, which was located in Monmouth House, on Soho Square, a few blocks from d’Eon’s residence. Monmouth House was a grand columned Georgian mansion built in 1682 by Christopher Wren. Guerchy carried with him a letter from Praslin recalling d’Eon to Versailles, but when he presented it to d’Eon, the chevalier refused to leave London. He insisted that since the letter was not personally signed by Louis XV, it had no effect. He politely informed the British secretary of state that contrary to what the French ambassador was saying about him, he would remain as the minister plenipotentiary. Even more boldly, he continued to take his meals in Monmouth House at the ambassador’s table. Not knowing how
to respond to d’Eon’s insolent behavior, Ambassador Guerchy shared meals with d’Eon in stony silence.

  Louis XV had an embarrassing crisis to confront: two ministers in London, both claiming to speak for him, but neither speaking civilly to the other. Neither Ambassador Guerchy nor Foreign Minister Praslin knew what Louis XV and Broglie knew: d’Eon possessed certain incriminating letters that Louis XV had sent to him while he was the secretary to the ambassador in London, instructing d’Eon to scout out landing sites for a surprise attack by French troops on London. Now Louis XV was desperate to keep this correspondence secret. It clearly violated the letter and spirit of the treaty d’Eon had negotiated ending the Seven Years’ War, promising peaceful relations with Britain. The publication of these documents would have given Britain grounds for war, and France could ill afford another crushing military defeat. Louis XV tried to silence d’Eon by ordering to have him arrested, kidnapped, or assassinated, but d’Eon survived every attempt by the king’s agents. Conscious of the growing threat to his life, d’Eon felt pushed to his emotional limits.

  IN MARCH 1764, d’Eon published in London a 200-page history in French of his dispute with the French government and his recall, including reprints of secret correspondence concerning his expenditures and his title. Never before had anyone published diplomatic correspondence. For the first time, the public could glimpse the inner workings of diplomacy. It was an overnight sensation. Within the week, 1,500 copies sold out—perhaps a record for a diplomatic history. Publication of secret government documents was considered criminal, and the book was instantly banned in France. D’Eon’s papers depicted an embarrassing tale of petulant French officials threatening each other over expenditures and titles. At the same time, d’Eon portrayed himself as a popular hero taking on a corrupt and ineffectual bureaucratic elite.