by Emily Hahn
It has been suggested that what motivated him was not charity so much as greed. He was confident d’Eon would get a large sum of money out of Louis XVI sooner or later. If Beaumarchais married the chevalier, beard and all, he would be sure to reap the benefits of the payment, whereas if he merely trusted in a gentleman’s agreement, he would get left. That is what Caron’s enemies said, and of course that theory, too, is quite plausible.
The subsequent antics of the two rascals would make an excellent comedy, quite as good as “The Barber” itself, were it not that transvestitism is such a difficult theme. They worked together for a while in perfect amity, and then, inevitably, they quarreled, and broke off their engagement. However, progress was made in the affair d’Eon versus the Crown. Little by little, the chevalier let go some of his cherished documents. Little by little, a satisfactory agreement was drawn up. D’Eon was to get a pension. He was to come home to France, as he wished, and live there, but he must relinquish his way of living, adopt feminine clothing, and give up all his masculine wardrobe. One uniform of dragoons he would be allowed to keep (but not to wear) for sentimental reasons.
Through all the negotiations Beaumarchais busily played the market, preparing to make a killing among the many people of London who were again wildly laying bets on the sex of the chevalier. It is almost certain that d’Eon himself had some money on it; perhaps that was one of the things they quarreled about afterward.
Louis’s insistence that d’Eon renounce his manhood and make public the fact that he was a woman was thoroughly consistent, for the King was a good Catholic, and the alleged lifelong masquerade of the demoiselle d’Eon deeply shocked him. But he had another more practical reason for laying down this law. D’Eon’s return to France in the ordinary way would cause trouble in the Guerchy family, and the late ambassador’s son would almost certainly call d’Eon out. However, as the chevalier was really a woman after all, young Guerchy’s hands would be tied. Everyone’s hands would be tied, even d’Eon’s. Peace would be maintained.
At last the agreement was settled, signed, and sealed. The chevalier was a chevalier no longer, but a demoiselle; it was time for him to become her, and go home to France like a perfect lady.
Understandably, the demoiselle at the last moment had a change of heart. He reflected sadly that he hated skirts. Was there no way out? Could he not trick the King? Reason replied that he could of course back down, but in that case he would sacrifice his pension. And, as usual, he was broke and in debt.
With a deep sigh, in August 1777, the chevalier became the demoiselle. She held a sort of dress rehearsal for a week at her house in Brewer Street, and friends and acquaintances thronged to see her holding court in black silk, with diamonds, her face carefully shaved and powdered. She did look like a woman, they said, marveling. Why had they never been sure before? That fair skin and plumpness above her bodice, that matronly figure!
In the meantime the bottom dropped out of the d’Eon betting market.
Came dawn of the day she was to set sail for France. A large crowd waited in the streets to see her off, and to see. But the demoiselle always had an eye for the dramatic. When she stepped out to the coach, a sigh of disappointment went up from the crowd, for she was the demoiselle no longer. Brave in green and gold, the chevalier appeared in his forbidden uniform, a captain of dragoons.
The rest of it is a sad story. Tied by her agreement, her legs hampered by petticoats, the Demoiselle Charlotte Geneviève Louisa Augusta Andrew Timothy d’Eon found her new existence very tedious. For a time she lived in Paris, and she was presented at court, upon which occasion she wore her Cross of St. Louis and performed a remarkably awkward curtsy. “She is not yet accustomed to the usual ceremonials established between the sexes,” wrote a correspondent to the Gentleman’s Magazine, “or rather it is obvious that having always, in her former state of life, shown great attention to the ladies, she finds it difficult to restrain it; at table when she sits near them she is always ready to fill their glasses; at coffee, no sooner has a lady emptied her cup, than d’Eon springs from her chair to hand it to the table.”
Her appearances in public attracted so much notoriety, and she was so annoyed by curious sight-seers, that she gave up Paris at last and retired for some years to her family home in Tonnerre. There she had leisure to write the pamphlets and quarrelsome letters which she enjoyed composing, and there she was free of Paul Prys. The town barber came up to the house every two days to shave her. He, at least, never believed for a moment that she was a woman, and most of Tonnerre agreed with him.
From time to time the unfortunate creature tried to escape. Once she wrote to the archbishop begging for permission, on the grounds of health, to wear men’s clothing on ordinary days. She promised she would always wear petticoats when she went to church or made journeys, but the archbishop refused her request. When France became embroiled in the American War of Independence, d’Eon tried to join up, and was promptly thrown into jail for wearing the forbidden uniform.
There came a break in the monotony at last. In 1785 d’Eon got permission to go again to England, in order to look after the books and other possessions she had left there, and to try to collect money she declared was owing to her. According to d’Eon, somebody always owed her money, and probably most of the time this was true. She had no success at her collecting, but in an odd way she hit on a new and original method of eking out income. One day, while acting as one of the judges at a fencing exhibition, held by special request of the Prince of Wales, the old Adam rose up in the demoiselle: she engaged an exhibition fencer in a bout, or, as it was called, an assault. The novelty of the sight much impressed the audience, and when d’Eon actually touched her adversary, a famous French fencer named the Chevalier de Saint-Georges, they grew wildly enthusiastic. So did Saint-Georges. This encounter led to others, until Mademoiselle was traveling all over England with the other chevalier, giving fencing exhibitions in all the main cities.
She earned money in this way, but when did d’Eon ever have enough? Times grew harder. The French Revolution cut off her pension. She sold her bits and pieces of property. She went on fencing—no mean feat, considering she was nearly sixty when she began the exhibitions—until a wound put a stop to that.
At the age of eighty she had to take to her bed. By that time she was accustomed to living on charity; the Prince of Wales once gave her money, and various noblemen sometimes remembered to send her something. She had lodged for years with another old woman, Mrs. Cole, who now waited on her, as the demoiselle was quite helpless.
Charles Geneviève died at the age of eighty-two. The comedy was finished; concealment was no longer possible. When the undertaker’s men discovered that he was a man, after all, most of his contemporaries were already dead and gone. It hardly mattered, by that time, to anyone. Only Mrs. Cole, poor old thing, was terribly shocked. It is a shame that no one in 1810 knew enough to come forward and explain things to her.
For that matter, it is a shame that no one was ever able to explain the chevalier to himself. At times during his long life he must have been pitifully bewildered.
*The True Story of the Chevalier d’Eon, by Vizetelly (Tylston and Ed-wards, 1895).
The Innocent Admiral
Nelson
The Nelson story is surprising in several respects. Perhaps the most surprising thing about it is that it should have happened to Nelson, of all people. That such an out-and-out ship’s man should have found himself mixed up with the diplomatic crowd was an accident which does happen now and again, but not often. He himself often complained that diplomacy wasn’t his long suit. I don’t suppose he believed it; like most of us, he probably thought he was pretty good at most things when he put his mind to it, but the fact is, he wasn’t a born diplomatist. He was too honest, too unsuspicious, and far, far too much of a specialist. Nelson was the Navy itself, the first genuine John Bull seaman. He made the pattern. He was not bluff, but he was terse; not swaggering but thoroughly self-respec
ting; not reckless, but fearless.
It’s no use going on with the list, I realize; it’s too easy and inconclusive. Nelson made the British Navy. If we accept the popular theory that courage is simply lack of imagination, then we can’t believe Nelson existed, for his genius lay in imagination and courage together. It seems inconsistent to add of this complicated character that he was simple as well, but he was.
Sir William Hamilton, on whose life he was to have such an effect, was the opposite of the admiral in many respects. His background, his work, and his world were not conducive to Nelson’s kind of brave originality. Methods may have changed since the eighteenth century, but Foreign Offices do not lightly give up their traditions, and envoys are still a race apart. British envoys then as now were generally incorruptible in more than one sense. Against tremendous odds, most of them won their battle to remain exactly the same, regardless of where they were posted or how long they stayed there. A really good British ambassador ought not to be adaptable. Diplomacy is no career for a chameleon. British envoys go on being British. French diplomats, Americans—even Germans may sometimes amuse themselves by bending just a little, absorbing the spirit of some foreign land, joining in with the native life of whatever community they’re quartered upon, but you seldom find an Englishman behaving in such fashion if he holds an important diplomatic post abroad. It was the same in the eighteenth century.
Sir William, though he had been so long in Naples, remained an Englishman. I do not claim he was conventional, because he was not; he was an eccentric. But he was eccentric in a thoroughly English way, and at a time when such eccentrics were, if I may be allowed to scramble a phrase, very much the normal thing. Had he been less extreme as a specimen of the type he represented, Nelson’s fate would have been different. Had Sir William been a family man, Nelson might not have been a father at all. But Nelson—and no doubt Sir William as well—had happier lives the way things turned out, and the common cause of all this was Emma Hamilton. Sir William would have hated having a child. Lady Nelson might have kept her husband had it not been for Emma, but the admiral would have missed his chances of paternity, and very likely he would not have become quite so good a friend, either, of the Queen of Naples. His daughter Horatia meant a good deal more to Nelson than Maria Carolina of the Two Sicilies did, but it is Maria Carolina rather than Horatia who seems at this distance in time to stand out. Gossip, piqued at not having known from the beginning about Horatia, turned attention to the Queen instead. It is a dubious compliment to accuse a Queen of a hole-and-corner affair, even with Nelson. Fortunately for the peace of whatever ghost Maria Carolina may have left on the earth, it is now obvious that not a word of the story was true.
Emma Hamilton, blacksmith’s daughter, who was known before her marriage as Emmy Lyon, and also as Amyly or Emyly Hart, had a beauty no generation would deny. The record is full and clear, for she was painted many times by Romney; she was his favorite professional model.
Like the Princess Talleyrand, another study of ours, Emmy lost her reputation as soon as she grew up. About her morals in that early youth, versions differ. Considering everything, one could hardly say that Emmy was ruined, exactly. It depends on what you call ruin. Like many another poor girl she found herself better off when she began selling sex instead of domestic labor. In her class virtue wasn’t a talisman against ruin, nor was there a prejudice against a woman when she lost it.
Emmy’s first adventure with sex seems to have taken place soon after she went out, at the age of fourteen, to work as a nursemaid. Her employers moved to London, taking Emmy with them, and she promptly started a baby. Naturally, the employers, belonging as they did to a wealthier social group, did not approve of the baby; they had prejudices which Emmy’s mother, fortunately for the girl, could not afford to possess. Emmy lost her job, but her people rallied round and helped. The baby, a girl, was pushed out of sight, as illegitimate babies usually were, and grew up in the country. Emmy remained in London, where Romney picked her up, recognized her beauty, and painted her again and again—as a bacchante, as Circe, as herself.
From eminence in a studio to eminence as a kept woman was not much of a journey. Emmy Lyon inevitably became sophisticated, and assumed the more grown-up name of Emma Hart. She met men of fashion who dropped in on Romney to get a thrill out of bohemian life and to watch the lovely girl he had found. Some one of them took her on as mistress, and when the first gave her up there must have been another eager and waiting, as there always is for a woman who becomes the vogue. The life suited her and she suited it. If one comes to think of it, being kept in the way Emma was is a good, solid means of livelihood. It never goes out of fashion; mechanization cannot reduce its appeal to clients. Without education or training in any trade, Emmy Lyon had made good, and found security not only for herself but her mother, Mrs. Cadogan, as well as various relations who seem to have clung through life to the chariot of the erstwhile nursemaid. Emma Hamilton’s is a success story, but it was not one of your sudden, flashy successes. She moved slowly and carefully at first.
I do not understand why so many writers persist in calling her an adventuress. There was nothing adventurous about Emma Hamilton. She was a good, solid type, domestically inclined. She was, indeed, very like her mother, except that she was amazingly beautiful and Mrs. Cadogan evidently wasn’t. She was so little adventurous that she never cut the silver cord; she and her mother remained inseparable through life, just two simple, good-hearted women getting along as best they could. Admittedly they made silly remarks when they were out of their intellectual depth; who doesn’t? But as for being adventuresses—no, decidedly not The Lyons were every bit as conventional in their way as Nelson’s wife was in hers.
Of course one cannot say that Emma never caused her mother a moment’s uneasiness. She did make a few mistakes at the beginning. She cheated on one important protector; at least he was sure she did, and he threw her out for it, but any girl might have done the same before she learned policy and principle. Fortunately, Emma landed on her feet after this mishap. She became Mr. Charles Greville’s girl.
Greville educated Emma. He thought her beauty worth accompanying graces like music and dancing and conversation, and as he had little to do otherwise, he set himself seriously to work on this Galatea. Emma learned music from professors he employed; she learned to play the harp and the pianoforte, and to sing. That is, her admirers say that she learned to sing; her detractors say she didn’t. She learned to walk and to act. She had already learned to pose, in Romney’s studio. And she reacted well to all this encouragement. She did not become pretentious: she remained, to a surprising degree, unaffected. Her conversation had never been inhibited and Greville seems to have been wise enough not to suppress it. Emma chattered gaily, verbally and on paper, never pausing too long in order to correct a slip in grammar or the spelling of a word.
Was the young woman in love with Greville? It seems very likely that she was; her letters indicate it. At any rate she respected him: she worked hard for his approval, and thought that they were good friends. In Emma’s position it is more important than love, perhaps, to feel friendliness and confidence in one’s protector and teacher. Unwittingly, Greville taught her something apart from music and deportment. The fact that he worked so hard at his task seems to have given Miss Lyon a new idea—a justified one too, everything considered—of her own importance and worth. Then something happened which administered a severe jolt to her recently acquired complacency.
We are not sure why Greville behaved as he did, but we can give a good guess. He was no doubt merely tired of his lady. What really mystifies us is how any gentleman could so coldly and openly behave like a pimp. However, codes change and we should try to understand that. Today it is not a pretty story, but then, in 1785 when Emma was about twenty-one, it was probably a reasonably ordinary thing to have done. Greville handed Emma over to his uncle. It was a more complicated procedure than it sounds as I describe it, but that was his intention and his d
eed.
The uncle, Sir William Hamilton, lived in Naples and had been His Majesty’s ambassador there for some years. Ambassadors for unimportant posts like this one were selected from the ranks of moneyed gentlemen who wanted such appointments and could afford them. If they found themselves well suited, the authorities left them there indefinitely. Sir William, a childless widower, loved Naples. He was a dilettante and antiquary in an era when gentlefolk were making a great fuss about marbles from Italy; he collected vases and coins and statuary, lived in a palace in the country, and had things in general his own way in Naples. Greville was his heir. Nephew wrote to aesthete uncle about Emma, describing her, much as an ancient Roman might have done about some rarely beautiful slave he intended to bestow on a kinsman. She was making great progress, he said, in her music, and the two men agreed that it might look better if Sir William told Naples society he was importing the girl as a protégée, to finish her training under Italy’s artistically sunny sky, rather than that he was taking his nephew’s castoff mistress on approval.
Emma didn’t know she was being dumped. Settled in at Naples with her mother, she waited for Greville, who did not come. When Sir William began making passes, she wrote anxiously to her erstwhile owner, begging him to hurry and extricate her from a position which grew hourly more embarrassing, and she was angry when she realized, at last, what had happened, that the men had agreed on a transfer of property. At least she claimed to be angry, and I really do not see why she shouldn’t have been sincere in this reaction. If Greville did not keep his promise to join her, she wrote, she would have her revenge; she would marry the older man.
