The Maiden of Tonnerre : The Vicissitudes of the Chevalier and the Chevali?re D'Eon

Chevalier d'Eon de Beaumont was born in 1728. Raised as a boy, he was educated as a lawyer and entered the service of Louis XV as a diplomat.

In 1756 he was sent to the Russian imperial court as a spy and was said to have dressed as a young woman to gain the confidence of the Empress Elizabeth.

He later served in Russia (as a man) as secretary to the French ambassador.

Returning to France in 1761, he was appointed a captain of the elite Dragoons, and after the Treaty of Paris in 1762 went to England as a diplomat and spy.

During that time persistent rumours that he was in fact a woman arose, and he did nothing to dispel them.

By 1777 he was officially recognized as female in both England and France.

Recalled to France, he was reluctantly compelled by Louis XVI to give up his male attire.

In 1785 he published his autobiography, which presented much of his experience in religious terms, and he moved back to London.

He lived there as a woman until his death in 1810, at which time his body was discovered to be unambiguously male. This volume includes the first English translations of d'Eon's autobiography (or "historical epistle") and other writings by d'Eon on his life, religious beliefs, and stories of women who concealed their sex to enter religious orders.

As historian Gary Kates notes in the introduction, d'Eon's writing can be read on at least two levels: while it ostensibly tells the story of a woman who spent half her life as a man, it is in fact also the story of a man who spent half his life as a woman.

As such it demonstrates both the construction and transgression of gender boundaries in personal and historical narrative.