#I mean this post is more about gaillardet than d’eon but its a interesting story

[amphibious-thing]

The Memoirs of Chevalier d'Eon translated by Antonia White

So lets talk about The Memoirs of Chevalier d'Eon translated by Antonia White. This book is not a translation of d’Eon’s memoirs as you may have assumed from the title. If you want to read a translation of her (uncompleted) memoirs you’re looking for The Maiden of Tonnerre translated by Roland A. Champagne, Nina Ekstein, and Gary Kates. This is a translation of the book Memoires du Chevalier d'Éon by Frédéric Gaillardet.

I’ve alluded to this book in the past but I thought I should write a post on it so people know whats up.

So basically Frédéric Gaillardet was from Tonnerre, the same town d’Eon was from. In 1835 Gaillardet obtained form a family member of d’Eon “manuscripts, printed matter and various papers” as well as her baptismal certificate, death certificate, and papers relating to her autopsy. He also got permission to search the archives of foreign affairs where he found papers relating to d’Eon.

But something surprised him about d’Eon’s papers; the complete lack of evidence that d’Eon had ever sex with, well, anyone. He just couldn’t believe that d’Eon had never had sex, “a fault explained by my youth and the kind of literature in which I had tried myself”, Gaillardet explains “I was twenty-five years old ... I dreamed only of complicated adventures, tragic loves and dark secrets.”

Gaillardet let his imagination get the better of him and became convinced that d’Eon must have had a life full of secret love affairs, and so he decided to add a fictional part to his book consisting of all these sexual encounters he imagined d’Eon must have had. This resulted in a book that “consisted of an authentic part and a romantic part.” And so the mix of fact and fiction that was Memoires du Chevalier d'Éon was published in 1836. Despite the fictional additions, “or perhaps because of it, it sold a lot”.

Gaillardet seems to have believed that it was clear what parts of his book were fact and which were fiction. But then “an unexpected incident” occurred that showed Gaillardet that he had “relied too much on the perspicacity of certain readers.” In 1861 another book about d’Eon Un Hermaphrodite by Louis Jourdan was published. “This publication piqued my curiosity little, because its title was in my eyes a label of pure fantasy” recalls Gaillardet, “having met one day in the offices of the Press with M. Jourdan, whom I had not had the honour to know until then, I approached him, named myself and said to him “I've learned that you have published a book in which you speak of the Chevalier d’Eon. As I myself published two volumes on this character twenty-five years ago, I would be curious to read yours. Send him to me.”

Jourdan surprised and embarrassed responded "I did not know you had returned from the United States, that is why I did not send you my volume, but I will send it to you, if you will give me your address.”

Gaillardet replied that “he could simply have the book dropped off for me at the Press, where I came every day.”

“A week, a month passed, and I received nothing. I said to myself then that my colleague had probably recoiled from an expense of three francs, and I promised myself to buy what he did not believe he should offer me. But I was obliged by my health to leave Paris, and I forgot M. Jourdan and his book.”

However later while in a reading room Gaillardet recalled Un Hermaphrodite and asked for a copy. “I was at first a little surprised, even a little piqued, in my self-esteem, not to see the slightest allusion to the Memoirs published by me and containing so many documents on the same subject.” Recalls Gaillardet “But I consoled myself, thinking that I was certainly going to be taught completely new things about a time that they said to have been studied with a magnifying glass”.

But Gaillardet was surprised to find almost a complete reproduction of his own work “not only in substance, but also in form, not only in their authentic part, but also and especially in their fictitious part.” In fact is was above all what Gaillardet had invented that “seduced the author” of Un Hermaphrodite which reproduced the numerous fictional love affairs from Memoires du Chevalier d'Eon including a love affair with a completely fictitious character of Gaillardet creation.

Upset by this blatant plagiarism Gaillardet determined to do two things; the first was to demand justice for this blatant disregard of his intellectual property. The second was to publish a new edition of his Memoirs on d’Eon this time sticking to the “the strict historical truth”.

Gaillardet brought civil action against Jourdan. In response to this he received a letter from Jourdan containing an unlikely story. A young man had come to him needing money. He advised the young man to research the life of the Chevalière d'Eon, promising to “review his work, correct it and sign it, so that the book could find a publisher.” The young man brought to him “a long manuscript, written entirely in his hand, assuring me that this work, as to form, was his own, that he had done research, etc., etc.”

Jourdan begged Gaillardet for forgiveness and requested that they sort the matter out of court. Gaillardet was at first unconvinced by this story but then the young man who wrote the book stepped forward to take responsibility for his mistake. The young man explained that in taking Gaillardet’s work as historical fact he believed that it was public domain and thus fine for him to reproduce in his own book. Gaillardet ended up forgiving Jourdan and the young man for the whole misunderstanding.

In working on his new book Gaillardet “with a magnifying glass in his hand” as the author of Un Hermaphrodite would say, came to a new conclusion: d’Eon was a virgin.

Gaillardet goes on to cite some of the evidence which lead him to this conclusion which I think is interesting enough to repeat here as it is not only evidence of d’Eon’s virginity but also of her asexuality.

The evidence is “a series of letters from the Marquis de l'Hospital, enamelled with Gallic jokes about the scandalous chastity of his embassy secretary [d’Eon]” and “the repeated confessions” of d’Eon herself “who wrote, in 1763,” to her friend Sainte-Foix that she "has always lived without horses, without a cabriolet, without a dog, without a cat, without a parrot and without a mistress".

And in 1771 d’Eon wrote to the Comte de Broglie:

I am mortified enough to still be as nature made me, and that the calm of my natural temperament never having brought me to pleasures, this resulted in the innocence of my friends to imagine, both in France and Russia and England, I was the female gender; the malice of my enemies has fortified everything.

It’s interesting to note that d’Eon denies being a woman in this letter considering she was telling people as early as 1772 that she was a woman, and evidence suggests is was most likely her that started the rumours in the first place. However this may perhaps be part of her ruse, she may not have wanted to seem too keen to admit she was a woman, as this would not suit the narrative she had created.

Gaillardet ends up publishing his new book Mémoires Sur La Chevalière d'Éon in 1866 this one based strictly on historical fact.

Why the English translation was based on the first (and factually inaccurate) edition I can not tell you. But be aware that The Memoirs of Chevalier d'Eon are not actually her memoirs.

I haven’t actually read either French editions of this book (beyond google translating a few bits and pieces). And I haven’t read the English translation cover to cover, because honestly I have no desire to read a semi-erotic fanfic about d’Eon fucking seemingly every woman she met. However the events talked about in this post are covered by Gaillardet himself in the preface and epilogue of Mémoires Sur La Chevalière d'Éon, as well as in the introduction of the English translation.

All of the quotes in this post are from Mémoires Sur La Chevalière d'Éon and were translated with google translate.