After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal - 18th Century France's Most Outrageous Spy

Episode Date: August 20, 2026

The Chevalier d’Éon was one of France’s most daring spies... until they began making headlines for all the wrong reasons.Armed with explosive state secrets and at the centre of a very public scandal over their identity, d’Éon went from trusted agent to international sensation.Join Anthony and Maddy as they explore this story of espionage, blackmail and disguise.This episode was edited by Anna Brant. The producer was Stuart Beckwith and McKenna Fernandez. The senior producer was Freddy Chick.UK listeners: voting is now open for the Listener's Choice Award at this year's Podcast Awards! Click to place your vote on the Spotify mobile app: https://open.spotify.com/s/xhg6PJaSign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.  You can take part in our listener survey here.All music from Epidemic Sounds.After Dark is a History Hit podcast.History Hit is part of Little Dot Studios, a Certified B Corp™Voting is now open for the Listener's Choice Award at this year's Podcast Awards. Click to place your vote on the Spotify mobile app: https://open.spotify.com/s/xhg6PJa Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello After Dark listeners. It is I, Anthony Delaney, one of your co-hosts from, of course, After Dark. Now listen, we have some good news. We have been shortlisted for the top 20 in the Listeners Choice Award category for this year's British Podcast Awards. Now, we made the top, I think it was five last year. So we are greedy historians and we want to make that top five again. This year, things are slightly different though. You can only vote for us in this long list in the Spotify app. And you'll find a link in this week's episode that'll take you to vote for us. As a matter of fact, you can vote for us three times. So if you feel so inclined, please do that. We want to make that top five. We're going to smash it this year. I think we're going to take it, he said, with absolutely no confidence. But lend us your vote and we'll see how well we get on. Heading for the top five, I know we can do it. London 1770. The Chevalier Dion was a French diplomat, a celebrated fencer and a secret agent who held explosive state secrets, someone who knew exactly where France's darkest plans were buried and threatened to expose them. But was the Chevalier-Déon a man

or a woman, and whose business was it anyway? Crowds placed their bets, coffee houses filled with rumors and newspapers, cooked up a scandal. In an age of war, deception and rigid ideas of identity, no one embodied the dangerous power of a disguise quite like the Chevalier Dale. Welcome to After Dark. Hello and welcome to After Dark, I'm Maddie. And I'm Anthony. Now, as with every spy story, success often depends on disappearing into another identity entirely. They become someone else. They adopt new names, new loyalties and even new faces. A few lives capture that idea more completely than that of the Chevalier deion.

Soldier, diplomat, spy and one of the 18th century's greatest enigmas. It's a story that Anthony covers in his book, Queer Georgians. Anthony, I feel like I'm interviewing you now. You are? When did you first come across this extraordinary life? Because I think for 18th centuryists, it's someone who is quite well known in our field.

but beyond that, maybe it's sort of enjoyed a renaissance in recent years, but it's still quite new to the public, I think. Yeah, I mean, I actually can't wait to get your take on this in the end because it's the Shvelia Dion is somebody who is very much in the periphery of, you know, if you Google them, they'll be there. If you, if you, you know, it's something that people may be slightly aware. If you see a picture going, oh, this is some kind of gender bending, swashbuckling kind of.

fencer type thing. And so... Yes, because it's the famous image of them in, I think in a dress, but fencing with a sword, fencing a man. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The Chevalier Saint-George.

That's the sort of the image that people might have in their minds. So it really, like, it was there, I knew there was some kind of gender non-conformity. And then I was like, well, I've got to have to look at this for the book. It wasn't part of my PhD, but then for the book I had to look at it.

And actually, One of the reasons why I can't wait to get your take on this now at the end is because I've I've fallen out of love with it a little bit since the book came out because not the book, this particular history, because it frustrates me because in its unknowability and we'll talk about some of that, what you see particularly online is that people fill in the blanks to serve a very modern narrative. and that is one of the problems that we find with social media histories, I think, where it's like that's just not factually grounded. Now, bear in mind, there is going to be things here that we can't ground in fact because we don't know. So this is why I find this history a bit frustrating at the same time. Okay, so there's nuance to be injected into this narrative. Talk to me then about how you in the book deal with the language that you use,

around the Chevalier's gender because I think often they are referred to specifically online as they them and you very much claimed as a trans history how are you how are you approaching that

in your work? I do the only thing I think that's historically responsible to do that I realised how egotistical that sounded. The Chevalier uses she, her pronouns

55% of the time and he him pronouns 45% of the time. That's a rough estimate but I did do the count for the PhD. Does that change throughout this person's life? Yes.

Okay, so it's not that the Chevalier lives half a life using male pronouns and then halves it as a few? Sorry, I misunderstood what you meant there. Yes, it does change but it is kind of half and half. There's elements at times

in the latter half of the life where it gets a bit fluffier where it's not quite as clear. In the first half of the life it's exclusively he, him pronouns. So I just follow his lead. When I'm talking about the first half of the life, I use he, him. When I'm talking about the second half of the life, I use

she, her. Our responsibility is to the past. The past doesn't owe us anything. So that's why I use the corresponding pronouns that he used or that she used depending on the time and the life. I just, yeah, it feels like too much of an imposition otherwise. Well, I like that approach. And I think it gives a sense of a life lived, actually, and change within that in terms of self-presentation, but also the wider societal reading. of that particular person and how they kind of slotted into the society.

This is a story of espionage as well. The Chevalier was a spy. Give me a bit of context. Obviously, the Chevalier is French. What's happening in Britain and France at this time? Politically, what's the landscape in which spying is taking place? So we have, and this is really key

for the whole of this history, I think, in its understanding. We have Britain and France who are really going at it in terms of wanting to stake claims to overseas territories, colonial territories in the Americas, in the Caribbean, across Europe to certain extent.

We have at the start of the story we have Louis XIV who is King in France and Louis sets up and I think this is the pivotal part of this history and I want to hear you disagree or not disagree with this as we go through because people do disagree with me on this. Louis 15th sets up

an organisation called the Secret de Roy which is the King's Secret. It is a spy network. Great name. I know. And they are reporting, this cachet of men are reporting directly to Louis the 15th or a very, very close group of people around men again, around Louis, right? But that means that his ministers, his governmental ministers who are carrying out the official statecraft of France on his behalf do not know what these spies are doing. They are not involved in this. So it's very, very secret and very directly to the king. So that is the next. network that you have. And contemporaries at the time are saying the right hand is working against the left. This doesn't work. Yes, you have two systems at play at the time and two, I suppose, systems of information being circulated. Also, it's interestingly say that spies are almost exclusively

or if not exclusively men. Yeah. Because, you know, we're going to be talking about spies a lot in this month. And I think we're going to find out that, you know, women often make very good spies for various reasons, not least of which is they are largely in history invisible to men. And there are French female spies at this time, no doubt. But within this cabal, it's, it's almost, I'm struggling to think of an example. But then again, we don't know who all the members were. There's also that. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, there's a really interesting spy, I think who's just referred to as X, possibly, in the royal papers relating to George III. And nobody has been able to work out who that person is. And I just love that. We still have these mysteries. And, you know, we have like handwritten notes

from this person and information. And we can kind of trace the work they were doing, but we don't know who they were. So that is just so tantalizing. Let's meet our character then, the Chevalier. Give me a bit of background information. Born in Tonaire. The family home is still there.

It was a very small, very bizarre little museum for a while. You could see some of his clothing and later her clothing and some swords. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, my gosh. I know it's remarkable. That's really incredible. Yeah. It closed down now, so you couldn't, if you're in Tonnet, don't bother.

What's happened to the... I think it's probably still there. It's just a private home. It's just owned by the family still. Or, I mean, it's probably not direct relations. So this is in Burgundy and we're talking about 1728 when he's born. He's born into noble status. It's not that the upper echelons of society.

He studies law. The family are merchants. They're making... There's money, but it's not, you know, utter, utter privilege. But I mean, certainly better than an awful lot of the peasant class are dealing with. He goes to the Collage de Caternation in Paris. And while he's there, he excels in intellectual pursuits, rhetorical pursuits. He starts to stand out.

He's getting the notes. People are noticing that he's really good at making those arguments, but also really good at fencing. His really good physical prowess is also within his remit. So he's standing out as a kind of a beacon of manliness, actually, in many ways. In certainly in terms of early 18th century, France in particular. Which is interesting considering what's about to come further down the line. But we know that then by 1756, so somebody do the maths on that, I guess he's almost 30, is he? Is that how that works?

That's when he's recruited to the secret de choi. Okay, so he is, he stands out enough that he is brought in. And that's how this secret network works in terms of recruitment that people are just sort of tapped on the shoulder. I suppose a bit like how MI5 and six still do it, do they? I know you can sit in exam nowadays. It's an entrance exam. Yeah, he definitely didn't have to do that.

But it was very tapy on shouldery though. Yes. It was like, it was somebody who knew somebody and it was like, oh, I'm actually adjacent to the secret. Like, they also had people who had links to, so there was the secret du Roy, and then they had people who had links to the secret story. So they weren't all necessarily in the inner circle,

but he gets in there in 1756. Okay, so he's born, you know, to respectability, but not enormous wealth. Yeah. He goes to Paris. He's making a name for himself. He is educated. He has this physical prowess. He's standing out because of these attributes.

He's an interesting and eye-catching person. And then he's recruited to the Secret Service. I mean, that in itself is quite a journey for anyone. I don't think he could have planned that. You know what I mean? It just his ability made him stand out. Yeah. Interesting. So 1756, he enters the Secret Service as it, you know.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sounds a bit American, but sure. Talk to me about the kind of things he was then recruited to do. Well, lots of different things, but the main first thing, I suppose, that people maybe have heard about when they talk about the Chevalier is almost immediately he goes to Russia. So Britain and France at this time are on the verge of what becomes known as the Seven Years' War. and this is what I was talking about earlier about battling for territory basically

and one of the things that France wants to do is shore up relationships with Russia and with the Empress Elizabeth, particularly to directly put a contact between the Empress Elizabeth and Louis the 15th so this is the guy who started the secret to secret de Roy. Now, he goes in under kind of as part of a diplomatic cohort.

So the, the, the middle. ministers just think he's going over as a diplomat. But Louis the 15th and the secret have given him the task to be the direct link between the Empress Elizabeth and Louis XIV. Can I ask as a historian what the evidence is for this? I'm not for a second doubting that this is true. But in terms of archivably, so we presumably know we can see that he went as a diplomat, how do we know that he was part of the secret network?

That thing. Well, for me personally, there is. is correspondence that shows, from the secret, that shows that there is a link to what he's doing is directly related to Elizabeth, as opposed to the diplomatic core that he's supposed to be there. So he's discussing a slightly separate mission. Yes. But one of the things that I find most compelling is the confusion that his presence there causes ministers. And the same in Britain later where they're like, what? Why is this guy?

We don't even necessarily know. So the confusion that he causes, it draws attention to him. But there's definitely, he is definitely there as part of the, as part of Louis the 15th's intent rather than the diplomatic intent. One might argue that having the ability to draw attention to yourself is not a great attribute for a spy. Now, I do know the recruitment for the secret services in Britain, you have to be very nondescript looking. You can't be too tall. You can't be too handsome, too pretty. You have to be completely not memorable.

Well, that's you and me out. Well, obviously, darling. But you're saying the Chevalier draws attention constantly. Yeah, that's interesting, actually. I never thought about it like that. But like, he definitely has the ability to, whether he can switch it on, switch it off. I actually don't think he can. Like, from what I know of him, he can't switch it off.

You say that. And at the same time, you know who came into my head there? Roll doll. Because he was a spy. and he was very attention-grabbing. He turned heads every time he walked into a room because he was tall, he was handsome. He was, so I guess there are certain,

totally, that is the rule. But I guess there are exceptions who are charismatic enough who go, oh well, yeah, all eyes go to him. And then maybe that person can infiltrate with the upper echelons of society because they're charismatic.

There, somebody you want to know. In this particular context that is useful. Okay, so he goes to Russia with this mission from the French king to improve relations and he's reporting directly back to Louis. Talked me then about going to London. You mentioned that he goes to London as well

and that he also stands out there. So when is he doing that? What is his mission there? And we've spent a lot of time, I think, on this podcast and in our own lives in early to mid-18th century, London specifically. So I feel like it's a place that we know reasonably well,

but how does the Chevalier fit into that world? Well, the first thing to say, I suppose, is that the mission that he has in Russia is relatively successful. Okay. So that's why he seems to be then a good candidate for this. That's why he gets other commissions. Yeah.

Now, I will say, we're skipping forward a little bit here because I said when he goes to Russia, they're on the brink of the Seven Years' War, then the Seven Years' War happens. Okay. And he goes to Britain post and he's fighting in that. Okay, so there's a whole war in between. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Then he goes to Britain afterwards. And he goes as part of the diplomatic corps again, ostensibly, to help create that peace treaty that's going to come about and to settle things over after a difficult time. And at this point, are those other diplomats like, oh, yeah, sure, there's Chivalier's here. Or are they still like, why is this guy included? No. At this time, it's making sense because he's proved himself really worthwhile in the war. He's also already had a diplomatic posting. And this time, and this is actually important, he is the secretary to the French ambassador to be.

begin with. So he's in a kind of a junior, not junior, but he's in a, he's not the main guy, put it that way. Yeah, he's not main character to end. Yeah, yeah. So he's going as part of the delegation, but he has also been given another secret task. So his spycraft comes in here and this is, France are not happy at having essentially lost the seven years war. You wouldn't be. No. And they now are planning, well, Louis and the secret are now planning an invasion of Britain. And cool, cool, cool, cool, And the Chevalier is to gather coastal information from the people at court about where best would be to land and to attack and to infiltrate the kingdom from on France's behalf. Where does he pick, do you know? No, we never get that for. Spoiler.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's a fact-finding mission at that point when he's when he's there. But he's also fulfilling that secretary role as well. Imagine the absolute panic that reform voters would have. The Chevalier deion of all people. planning an invasion who got this guy

yeah no no no they they you know nobody tell Nigel nobody tell Nigel oh god that's a t-shirt and yeah

no he's but he's doing his job but he's doing the other job behind and that's reporting directly back to Louis 15th so the Chevalier is doing his two missions he's working as a secretary to the ambassador he is gathering this information

secretly sending it back to the king what happens now we have a sort of change in personnel don't we I think, again, remember I said, it all hinges on the secret. And I think this is the point at which the whole story shifts and forever changes how we understand. I think this is my interpretation. So the ambassadors recalled, nothing overly dramatic just has to go back.

And the Chevalier kind of steps up in that space and is creating essentially an ambassadorial role for himself while the new ambassador is being assigned. But he hopes to be the new ambassador. Okay. So he's hoping to get that. because, you know, it's a big gig in this time. It's a big gig now, too. It's a big gig now, absolutely. We're talking 1763, by the way,

but they do assign a new guy, the Comte de Gersie. And Gersie is not, let me say this very clearly. Gersie is not de Gersie is not part of the secret de Roy, but he has links to it. So there is certainly a flow of information here. Will he know that the Chevalier is in the secret? Hmm, good question that I can't fully answer. My instinct on it, though, if I had to give you an opinion,

would be if he doesn't know now, he's about to know. Okay. That's what I would say. Yeah, yeah, I think the evidence is there. But tell me as we go through this, because you'll start to see the picture come together a little bit more. Tell me what you think. Anyway, Dion's not happy about this. He was like, I am supposed to be the ambassador.

Yeah, he put himself forward, essentially. Yeah. So he's not happy about this. and relationships between the Chevalier and France start to deteriorate significantly. And he starts essentially bribing them saying if you don't make me the ambassador, and DeGercy's already doing the job. But if you don't give me this role, then I am going to start telling the British that you're planning to invade. I don't think that's a bribe, baby.

I think that's a threat. Do you know what? This is so interesting. I was giving a talk about this and Shane was in the audience and he said exactly that. He was like, you need to understand what a bribe means and what a threat means. I was like, oh, yeah, that's true. Good Lord. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, yes, you're absolutely right. He's threatening. He's saying, I'm going to release because he has the documentation. He has the letters back and forth. I think that is a remarkable move for someone who has built a career at the absolute center of power, albeit secretly. And, you know, has risked himself again and again for his country because he hasn't got a job that he wanted, you know, an important job. Yeah.

He's now threatening to betray his country and the king. I mean, that's treason, surely even threaten that. Yeah, yeah. Is he still in Britain at this point? Still in Britain. What on earth is going to happen to him now? I mean, surely, surely there's a bounty on his head at this point if he's threatening to become a traitor.

Not yet. Not yet. Now, okay, let me caveat some of this. He's very skillful with this. This is where his spy craft comes into it. So his direct line to Louis the 15th is going, I'm on your side me and you are still me and you are still bros

we're going to be tight to the ministers who are not fully aware of what the hell is going on here he's going you better pay up and he's looking for the equivalent of millions

as well because he's racked up so much debt so he wants money from them he doesn't just want to be ambassador now I will say this is where

I think it's undeniable that Deon has an ego that he sees himself in a position of power, you know what I mean? He can see that for himself. And when they're not playing ball, the following year of 1764,

again, quite cleverly, he has damning evidence that he could publish about the French government and the king. But he doesn't. He publishes the secondary stuff. That's still not great, but it's a warning shot,

I interpret it as. And he goes, I have so much more of this. You know I do. Here's some out into the press in England. And then England falls. in love with him. They are like, this is what we want from our people here. Yes, you are on our side. And he gets a little addicted to that, I think, and starts giving a little bit more here

and there. So he does kind of reveal what France was planning. He doesn't reveal the invasion attempt. So what he reveals is the fracturing within the upper echelons of French government. He reveals the fracturing between the secret and the ministers. He reveals that it's divided in terms of The divisions is what he reveals first, the divisions in the upper part of French society. So that's what he reveals first. Okay, it's sort of remarkable to me just how far he has climbed and what a sort of high opinion he has of himself. And fair enough, I suppose, but, you know, to have come from a respectable but not hugely important family in Burgundy to then make his way to Paris, then make his way to, you know, to be in the king's inner circle. and to be putting himself forward for the ambassadhip

to feel that he is owed that to get into huge amounts of debt presumably living this lifestyle and sort of he's got big main character energy hasn't he? Yeah, totally. He's fully egotistical kind of off the graph really. But then to, I mean, I've sort of struggling to pin him down and that's the thing with the Chevalier, right, that they are just so kind of fluid in all these different ways.

but in terms of him in this moment that as I say he's risks so much of himself for his country and to then do this and to be giving to feed this information to the British because it means he is being adored he is getting attention from the British that you know I find that so interesting

but just to clarify I suppose when you talk about the British liking him and giving him attention do you mean in the media Is he becoming a celebrity in this moment? He's becoming a celebrity. So most of these letters are, they're not just going into the hands of the government in Britain. They're getting into newspapers and print.

So everyone's funny. And he is doing that. He's sending it to or to people who then pass it on. Okay. Okay. So presumably France are not happy with this. They're not delighted. What's their next move?

So they kind of, they tell them to stop, obviously. and tell him that he's not going to get that job and that's kind of it. DeGersi, meanwhile, has it out for him. These are two rivals now. Right, to be fair, if you just come into the role as ambassador and there's someone who hates you automatically

because you've taken the job you wanted, and then is undermining you while you do that job, absolutely. You would be annoyed. Of course. I mean, it's understandable. And so what, and this is my theory on this, but we know this for a fact.

It's around now. in this kind of two-year period, that we see rumors start to circulate about the gender of the Chevalier deion. Oh, interesting. And it is my theory. People disagree with me. But it is my theory. Those rumors are orchestrated by the French government more generally, the secret possibly specifically, in order to discredit the credibility. You don't need to say discredit and credibility at the same time, but okay.

to discredit the Chevalier Dian and what he's saying. And what is an interesting way to do that if you're in the 18th century? Say he is a woman. So this is when we start to see in the 1760s we start to see those rumors. Now those rumors are backdated. So what we hear. Well, that was my next question really. How, you know, is there evidence that the Chevalier is dressing as a woman,

assuming that identity at any point before this? is this part of this person's life? So there is a rumor that comes out now that he dressed as a woman in Russia. Remember when he was there first? But it only emerges now, not at the time. And there are some documents that try to link it to contemporary evidence,

but historians are not convinced that that's a real early document. But let's say it was. Let's say that that's from the time in Russia. We know the 18th century can be a time of cross-dressing and masquerade balls. Yes. There are, cross-dressing has a place for men.

There is a way to do it as a man and a man in a position of authority that does not undermine you and that can be sort of separated from the rest of your life. And it's not necessarily a reflection of your individual gender or sexuality. It's a form of play. It's a form of play. And it's happening all the time. Like any form of masquerade, you're getting cross-dressing there.

And it doesn't mean that person is saying sex attracted. It doesn't mean that person is gender non-conforming. I remain unconfined that that even ever happened in Russia. I'm not convinced by that supposed evidence. But the rumor mill tries to take it back that far. Okay. So we have these rumors swirling around and these, I mean, accusations, essentially. What is the reaction of the show?

Chevalier when this news breaks how is the chevalier react how do they deal with this? I'll tell you right after this break. So we've got these rumours swirling around. We've got these accusations. How is the Chevalier going to respond to them? With bewilderment. I was not expecting you to say that. Were you not?

Yeah, yeah. He's like, what? No, I wasn't. I wasn't. So the story goes, this is the story. The story goes that the Chevalio was born female in Tonner. And that the family needed an air. So because they needed a male heir at birth, they just said, now she's a man.

She's a boy. And therefore he was raised as a boy and lived his life as a man. But the Chevalier is going, that did not happen. What are you talking about? This is insane. I have no idea why you would say this. That's actually not true. I'm lying about my own.

This is one of the pivotal pieces of information for me, actually, is there is a letter that he sends back to one of the members of the secret der Roy. And he says, this is a bit later on, but I'll bring it in here for just for context. He says, I know where these rumors are coming from. It's because he is, this is a translation quote, as nature intended me, i.e. he's still a virgin. He's never had sex with either male or female. and he's not drawn to have sex with either male or female. So this to me, potentially,

and you know, I studied gender and sexuality, that's what I do. I think it's one of the earliest examples we have of what we would now understand as as sexuality. And he says they use that kind of area that he occupies that's not binary

to feed this idea that, well, he must be a woman then because men have that sex drive. You know what I mean? So this must be a female. male thing then. And I suppose the way that he's living is so on show as a

diplomat in both Russia and then Britain and he's being watched all the time and you mentioned him racking up debts and obviously life is very performative in that role then if he's not seen to be pursuing women or sleeping with them or how you know sort of displaying a healthy

straight male sexual appetite that maybe yeah I mean people would maybe potentially ask questions or notice that I suppose that is so, okay, that's so interesting. But it's one thing to suggest that someone is dressing as a woman, but then to say that the Chevalier was born female and then is transformed by their own family into a boy.

I mean, that's extraordinary. And how in this moment does someone like the Chevalier refute those claims? Well, there's a trial. There's a trial. There's a trial. There's a trial. But what is the accusation for it to go to trial? Yeah, the trial is not about the gender.

But of course it is. But of course, absolutely, of course it is. The trial is about the London Stock Exchange starts to take bets on the biological sex of the Chevalier deion. Yeah. Do you know, that's actually giving me chills. I mean, that is so disgusting. and horrifying. There's going to be a lot of disgusting things that happen from now on.

Wow. And it speaks to the public nature of these debates in this moment. And also just how, in what low regard women were held that the worst accusation you could make against a man to undermine his authority and strip him of that is to say, well. That's what I think. He's a woman. Other people don't agree with me on that, but that is what I think. That's my reading of the two. That's from how you're presenting this to me, this is what I'm...

Yeah, granted. Everyone bear in mind, have your critical thinking caps on. This is coming through me and I have a perspective on this. But that does read true for me. At least that is an aspect of this, right? And that, okay, I mean, that is... Tell me more because I am shocked already. So there is a trial, but the trial is to settle these bets.

because they go on for years. This is not just happening over the course of a couple of weeks. Well, this is a sort of thing that once it's attached to an individual, it's not going away, unfortunately.

And the chival... I mean, the why the chivalier has to answer any of these rumours is completely ridiculous. But of course, in this context,

in this role, occupying the space that he does in the world, he has to. Well, he tries not to. And he does a decent job. He keeps just denying it. He's like,

no, this isn't true. And the trial takes place without him being there. So the trial is all about settling the bets, right? So that's what we're here to determine who gets the money that they've placed on this bet. But the only way they can do that... Oh, because of course they can't find out the truth.

Well, they're about to. And what they do is they have a trial, they call witnesses to determine the biological sex of the Chevalier deion. And the witnesses that they call are almost exclusively, definitely the vast majority, French. and many of them, again, this is a real, this is a distinction that historians do debate with me on. They are not necessarily members of the secret deroy, but you can draw links back to the secret deroy. But to be honest, I think it's compelling anyway that they're French. The fact that they're even French is compelling. Because he's held in such disdain by the French in this moment.

Exactly. And then there's the testimony. So we have a doctor, a French doctor, who comes in to say, I am that person's physician. I have examined her because she is biologically female. That's one of them. Another guy comes in and says, I've had sex with her. And she definitely has female anatomy. She is a biological woman.

And there are now pamphlets going all over London with the Chevalier with a bare bum and loads of old women around him examining his biological sex. And the Chevalier is kind of looking old. his shoulder, he's got his cap on, his military cap on, but he's bare like a, like a Venus almost, you know what I mean? It's very, that kind of a bodily look. And the outcome is the trial rules that the Chevalier deon was born biologically female and anyone who bet on that side is to get their money. I don't think they all do in the end, but that's the, that's the outcome. As a historian when you came to this history and you're, you are met with those witness

testimonies, what do you do with that? You know, is there a, you know, is there a, you know, presumably some historians have read that and taken that as truth. So how do you deal with that information compared to how the Chevalier self describes in this moment? I mean, there are so many kind of complications and untruths and there's so much gossip and there's so many kind of declarations that are happening all over the place that are completely contradictory.

how do you know that the witnesses are lying? Well, you don't in that moment, right? And it actually seems very compelling. We do know, I do have a piece of evidence at the end of this episode that tells you they are lying. But at the moment you don't know, and neither do the people in England or France, they are being told by medical professionals in some cases that this is a biological woman. So they are believing it. But now, the Chevalier.

is disgraced in London. They still like him, but he feels like he's a laughing stock. And so a conversation starts to occur. A lot is going on behind the scenes between him and France. And they're settling financial things. And he has to send back some of the letters because they don't want him to have them.

But now we enter into a conversation where he's like, I need to leave. This is embarrassing. Can I come back to France? Are they going to let him? I mean... Yes. So now we're on to the reign of Louis,

the 16th, yes. Okay, so there's a change in the future, I mean, continuity. The secret to Roy is gone now, officially. He has disbanded the secret to Roy. He's like, so who the 16th doesn't inherit this or continue it? He inherits it, but he gets rid of it pretty quickly.

He's just like, this isn't useful. It's too contradictory. It's all over the shop. And he goes... I suppose as well, he's seen what's happened with the Chevalier as one of his agents. He's like, this isn't worth it. And he goes, yeah, yeah, of course you can come back.

But you have to re-adopt your female personhood. before we'll let you back to court. I beg your pardon. So that's the condition. And the Chevalier kind of goes, yeah, I mean, you're not going to make me do that, but I do need to go, like, right,

you're not going to actually make me do that. And they're just like, no, no, we will, but come back, yeah, that's fine. Is that a way of controlling and humiliating the Chevalier? I think so. Other people disagree with me, but I think what else? But why would he, why would the Chevalier ever agree to that? He doesn't.

If, okay. Yeah, he doesn't. He goes back. in his male attire, he goes to Tener, and then he's, then he goes to court, then he goes to Versailles, and he's told, in his male attire, and he's like, get out, you're not a man. You can't be here. If you dress in female clothing, then you can come into court. And like, we know this. He tells us this. The Shvelia tells us this himself at this point. And in order to kind of gain access, he thinks that, okay, I feel like I'd just do it and do it once, Well, I'm inferring there.

But he says, okay, I'll do it. And what we get is Madame Bertan, who's the dressmaker for Marie Antoinette, is assigned to him. And this is the Chevalier's own literary flourish. I doubt this was really said, but this is what he says was said. That it's instructed to him that the bad boy must become a good girl.

Oh. Right? I think that says volumes. I think if you were to read into that what the gender politics of that sentence alone, that tells you everything you need to know about this history. And so, yeah, he therefore adopts female attire and he is received publicly as a woman. Now I'll switch pronouns now because this is where she starts to switch pronouns. But she is received publicly.

So the Chevalier now steps into this identity. as a way to access court potentially? Yeah, but not even full time. I mean, one thing to say is she's also placed under house arrest because she doesn't keep the female attire all the time. So this isn't one day on this, the next day on that. There is still resistance going on to this, but she's placed under house arrest.

And then in order to kind of come out of that, she will re-adopt female attire. And so this is not a comfortable, you know when we talk about trans identities, and there are what we would now, understand as trans identities in my book. Brilliant Mary Jones at the end, who I adore, and it's probably my favourite person in the book.

We did an episode on her. Yeah, yeah. Fantastic. But like we talk about those histories as coming into oneself. And it feels recognisably modern to us. That's part of the sort of the conversations that we as a society are having now, I suppose. Not that it even owes us that, but it does.

It does. I mean, I absolutely do feel from what you're saying that this, this history has such an 18th century specific context to it. That maybe has been stripped back a little bit in terms of our kind of public discourse. Okay, so the bad boy must become a good girl. I mean, that is that repulsus me. Can I ask you to get your art history cap on? And this also feeds into hoax.

So this feeds into your gig. So we have an image here of the Shevelian. Now, this is an English image, not a French image. But give us a rundown, paddy melling. Okay, so this is an image of the chevalier in female attire. And yeah, it's an image that I came across when I was writing my book for reasons it will become clear. But in the centre of this image is what looks very much like a female person, the chevalier in other portraits and satire is often portrayed as extremely male,

sometimes with stubble or a beard even when wearing female clothing and this is not that this looks like a woman you know as we would kind of expect in this moment and the dress is you know very ornate

there's sort of your beautiful bows on the arms and incredible detailing and importantly there's also Masonic symbol on the apron which is he was amazing yeah yes and this figure

has very ornate hairstyle with some kind of I do know what is that on the head a sort of cap of some sort again very ornate and it's you know has sort of big diamond drop earrings and things this is very the accoutrements of femininity

in this moment but they're also holding in one hand what looks to be a stick or a staff and in the other a sword presumably a fencing sword I'm guessing that's a reference to the fencing intriguingly there are so many clues in this image So to one side of this female figure is the coat of a man discarded and hung on what looks like the back of a chair. And on the right there's a table with books and some parchment that's written on.

Above the head of this woman is a tricorn hat and a sword. Again, this sense of, you know, the coat's been discarded. The male attire has been hung up on the wall. and this is where my interest in this image comes in because on the background are two images in sort of frames and paintings I suppose one is of Mary Toft famously the woman who gave birth to rabbits

a hoax from the early 18th century in which a lower class woman Mary Toft claimed that she was giving birth to rabbits and you know they really were coming out of her body the logistics of that are complicated the politics are that complicated. It's a dark story actually.

And on the other side is the bottle conjurer, which was a hoax, again, from the first half of the 18th century, which, for anyone who hasn't read my book, do your homework, it's an event in London in which there was advertised that a man was going to fit himself into a wine bottle and sing the national anthem and tell people's fortunes from inside the bottle. people bought tickets everyone turned up at the theatre

the conjurer never turns up people get pissed off riot burn the theatre almost to the ground so there's a there's so much going on here there's so much duality and it's leaning into this idea of sort of ambiguity of being

aware that there is a trick that you are seeing that maybe you're not fully understanding and the chevalier in this context in you so it's an English image It's putting the Chevalier into a dialogue with these other tricksters, this sense of lies circulating, of nefarious activity,

but also something of the performance of sort of playfulness. It's, I mean, it's a very complex image. There's a lot going on in it. How do you read this? Yeah, the same as what you said, I suppose the only thing I would add is that it seems to present that the Chevalier is at the heart of the deception in the way that Toft and the bottle singing is. I mean, I think that's just to say on that point, I think that's very interesting because what I found when writing hoax was, you know, I look at three women hoaxes. And actually, it's the people around them who are the liars and not those women themselves.

But that is very much the dialogue that happens in the 18th century and the century afterwards, really, when these stories are told again and again. The other thing just to say, interestingly, is thinking of the Mary Toft scenario, that's so much to do with womanhood, female anatomy, complete misunderstanding of women's health. But, you know, the body of that woman is completely at the center of that story, the idea of sort of monstrous reproduction. And of course, in the Chevalier's story, so much is linked to this idea of he or she being monstrous, right? Absolutely. of sort of there's so much mockery and so much sort of darkness there. And that is very much at the heart of the hoaxes that I have looked at, where, you know, there's a sort of a lighthearted satirical take on these.

At their centre, there is something deeply troubling to the people who are viewing them from a distance, as well as those who are involved. Well, when we come back after this short break, we are going to find that the Chevalier comes back to Britain, and the history gets even more complex. Okay, so the Chevalier has gone back to France initially and she now has been allowed into court only when wearing female attire and living as a woman

in the moments when the Chevalier does not do that and takes up male attire again, they are punished, there's house arrest, there's a rejection from those spaces of power. Now the Chevalier is back in Britain. Why? What is going on? I mean, considering the humiliate, that the Chevalier faced last time they were there. Yeah, I mean, now she's facing humiliation everywhere she goes.

So it's well, I might as well be free in England and humiliated as opposed to confined in France and humiliated. So she goes back. She's still very patriotic, I would just say, in the background. She still loves France. And at a point in the future, we'll offer to fight for France during the revolution, although we'll be laughed out of But what we find when we go back is that she is destitute financially living in fairly bad conditions. This is somebody who's gone from court life now to really bad. And I've gone to where she lived in London.

And even now they're not great. Do you know what I mean? I think that's such a classic 18th century arc. You know, we think about like the cycles of Hogarth's progresses and this idea of, you know, you come to the big city in the Chevrolet's case, Paris, not London. and you make something of yourself and then you make some errors along the way or you make some enemies

and then things go tits up and you end up the lowest of the low and that's such a sort of a thing in this century of you know as cities are growing and fortunes are there to be made and to be lost that so many people kind of have those strange journeys that are you know

the ups and downs of them are really extraordinary so again it's just such an 18th century story in every single way so is And then she comes back. And this is where we come back to what we talked about at the very beginning. And it's a nice kind of way to start coming towards the end of this history. Because the image you have of her, most people will have of her, is in this black gown, fencing the Chevalier-S-George, who was a black musician.

And so in his own right is, you know, remarkable person in this moment in time. she fences for the Prince of Wales and the Prince of Wales's Catholic wife, secret Catholic wife at the time and the Prince of Wales is in the background of that portrait. So there's lots of like society, celebrity, but because she's destitute, she's having to eke out that living as a celebrity,

as a fencing celebrity and goes on tour and goes all around the country, goes to Ireland and is appearing because of her notoriety. She's using her notoriety now. Can I ask you a question? Because this surprised me when I stumbled across it

in the research of the book. On that tour, which I know, you might not know the details of all the tour, but how do you imagine her presenting on that tour? I'm sort of fascinated

that she does it at all. And again, this is something that I find with hoaxes that certainly in one of the stories that that woman goes on tour and leans into the notoriety even though it has made her power

and it was thrust upon her by other people. And I think this is, from what you've told me, the same in this story, really. So I imagine that the Chevalet is presenting as a woman and leaning into that identity. But it shocks me because has there ever been any kind of autonomy in that decision? And so why would the Chevalierreux want to do that in this moment? Well, I think this was new. in my book, I don't know. Somebody tell me if it's not.

But I know for a fact she was not presenting as a woman at all of these matches. Because I found playbills advertising for, I think I have three. So it's not loads, but it's three. And in each of those three, it says wearing her soldier's dragoon outfit. So she is in male attire. So she's playing all the games. This is gone Shakespeare now in terms of the cross-dressing and then cross-dressing. and then cross-dressing, you know, I'm thinking of like...

So she's selling it as a going, I am biologically female. And I'm dressing as a man. I'm now dressing as a man. Okay, so there's a sense that... Oh, there's so like double reversals going on here. And, you know, that is part of that... I mean, obviously, these are matches, not necessarily on stage,

but there's a kind of theatrical tradition there from at least Shakespeare's era, if not the mumming plays of earlier centuries, this idea of men on stage playing the female part and then within the context of a play and a story, those female characters dressing as men and so you get that kind of, you know, there's so many layers of that.

And kind of interesting when you think about, you know, the fact that the Chevalier is a spy and there's sort of tradition of becoming a double spy and all of that. So there's so much to try and hold in your mind in this. There's so much we don't know here. Yeah. But in terms of, I suppose,

we can look at the choices. the chevalier makes, to return to Britain, to lean into this identity, to make some money out of it, to exhibit themselves in some kind of way, whether it is wearing female attire or male attire. In terms of the documented evidence we have from the chevalier himself, herself, what pronouns are they using? And is it, if this identity of a woman has been thrust upon the chevalier, Is it right at all to use she, her pronouns? So, and this is the place to end because this is, well, this is this place to penultimately go, I suppose. She is so broke, so she gets a fencing accident on tour.

She can't fence anymore. And she sells her biography and that she's going to write. And in that biography, she says, I am biologically a woman. I the she she sells the story that the French government perpetrated in the 1760s

my father needed a male heir and she says the way that she was discovered was she fell off her horse on London Bridge or one of the bridges in London and her sword pierced her in the groin

and she was attended and then they saw that did not happen so what we see in this biography that never gets published in her own time as she doesn't finish it is invention

we know she lies all the time in it. She's a spy. She is a spy. She invents. She invents. She invents because it's financially lucrative. She is starving. She says in other letters to people,

I eat when I can. I'm in bed most of the time to keep warm. She's old at this point now, remember. She's living with another woman called Mrs. Cole, by the way. And I often think Mrs. Cole has been overlooked, as women so often are, because I do wonder sometimes if actually Mrs. Cole might be some kind of partner, But because they're supposedly two women living together, then that's overlooked as another just two spinsters living together.

Anyway, but they're living in penury. And Mrs. Cole is very loyal and very, Mrs. Cole's there throughout the final era. The Chevalier dies eventually. And this is, so she's feeding into this invention of personhood. But then, and here's the real kicker you talked about discussed earlier, the Chevalier dies. And suddenly there's a huge press around this little tenement flat. And they all come in, the establishment come in, take the body and perform an autopsy and say, oh, he was biologically male all along.

And there are images of the autopsy with the white sheet being held up over his genitalia. And the genitalia is depicted and spread all across London. and it's signed by those who like, we finally crack the code, we blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so we know, remember when I said that there are the testimony at the trial earlier in London, that's how we know it's factually incorrect.

But you mentioned earlier, and I was holding on to this, because it, you said, you know, it's so, how do historians interpret this? Well, at one point, in the 50s, I think it was 1950s, somebody wrote to a sexologist and said, as they were known at the time, and said, is it possible for human beings,

this was such a confusing history, is it possible for human beings to biologically transfer from one biological sex to another because it's the only explanation that she must have been female and then he must have died male because we have the testimony from the medical professionals that she was female

and now we have the autopsy that he's male. And they just couldn't and the sexologist wrote back going literally I've no example of that that's ever happened and why are you so obsessed I'm paraphrased but so yeah yeah it's it's I for me

this is far more of a troublesome and when I see this is yesterday when we're talking about Jack Shepherd I was like I got a can't get on board with this and then afterwards I said to you I don't really even I'm not that looking forward to doing the Chevalio because it's draining every time I

see him present it in certain ways in the public imagination. And I find it very frustrating. And so I'm starting to go off the history where I'm like, do you know, I don't want to, I don't want to be involved there. It's a shame. I actually think this would be the most incredible film. I know. Shilok, I know.

It's incredible. But it doesn't fit neatly into what anyone needs it to serve as. And that's why I'm, this is my example of they owe us nothing, the people from the past. Yes. and I think the Chevalier in particular has been used over the centuries and in their own moment

in so many different ways that we probably owe the chevalier something to look at this with the nuance that it deserves. I mean I think the thing for me with this history is that it is distinctly 18th century as we've said you know the 18th century is such a weird time it's not the kind of bright

world of enlightenment and you know science and rationality that thought of itself as being in that moment and that we've kind of simplified it as being over the centuries since that it's this kind of gnarly, strange, twisty,

shape-shifting, sometimes dark, sometimes grey-aried, world in which the boundaries of everything, gender, sex, religion, death, life, race,

power, everything, is being drawn, but being negotiated and experimented with and shifted constantly. And I think the Chevalier exists within that and is sort of a product and a victim of it that this kind of constant movement of boundaries kind of, I mean, defines their life actually. I just feel really sad having heard that history. This isn't for me, you know, one of those triumphant, what we would now understand, us trans histories. I don't read it like that. You talk in the book and you've spoken around the

book about this idea of queer joy and about, you know, looking back at the past and not just spending time in the darkness and the oppression and the violence because that all happened and it has to be acknowledged. But there is also joy and your book is full of these moments of, you know, love. This is bleak, but yeah. Yeah. Your book does have these moments of real joy. And I do think she's queer, by the way. You know, she's potentially what we would understand as a I think that's fascinating. Yeah. She's definitely gendered unconforming, whether she wants to be or not.

So there's a queerness there. And she obviously plays with that as well. 100%. There's, you know, it's not the case that this is a, you know, a straight man who wants to live as a man and has been forced simply to wear women's clothes as a way to humiliate them and and hates it. That might be an element of it. But there's also an embracing to a certain extent, a using that as a tool. to then navigate the world and their existence and to survive and to survive

and all of that and to entertain and to make a living. So I think it's incredibly complicated. Ultimately, I think it's a really difficult history. I think it's really, I mean, even as 18th century, I think it's incredibly hard to get to grips with it. I think it's so difficult. Thank you for doing this though,

because it's fascinating. And I think I very much came into this with the kind of popular history version of this story in my head. And, you know, some of the sort of iconic images of the Chevalier. And you've really complicated that for me. And it's depressing and intriguing in equal measure. And I think actually the thing we should, we should, that I will maybe take away from this story is the Chevalier is a spy.

And this idea that they held something of themselves back always. There was a self-protection there. There's stuff bubbling under the surface that was not visible at the time because of the performance. because of the profession of being a spy and is not visible now. And this idea of sort of disguise and deception is in this story. And I would like to put some of the autonomy back on the Chevalier themselves and say maybe the truth was withheld then and is withheld now and it lies with them. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

That's me too. Yeah. Thank you. No, listen, it's, I find it a difficult one. And sometimes I don't want to revisit it very often because I'm just like, it draws the wrong kind of attention from every quarter, by the way. Not just, you know, I see it used on kind of flippantly on queer history things online. And it frustrates me because you don't want to be the person that's going,

well, actually, it's not quite that. Do you know what I mean? And also you don't want to take away a trans history, but. Yeah, I don't see this as that. I give you another one, though, in queer Georgians. Absolutely. Read at the back of the book because Mary Jones is a absolutely star. And we have a whole episode on that.

And we have a whole episode about it. Well, if you've, well, where's going on. If you've enjoyed this episode, if you want to hear more queer stories, more stories in the 18th century, more stories about spies, stories that challenge our perceptions of reality then and now, you can get in touch with us at Afterdark at historyhit.com. Thank you for watching on YouTube or listening wherever you get your podcasts. Leave us a five-star review or comment below.