The Chevalier Charles D'Eon of France was born on October 5, 1728, and was
given the name Charles Genevieve Louise Auguste Andre Timothee Deon de Beaumont.
He was born of a noble family.
Although his sex was being questioned, he became a Freemason in 1766 in the
Lodge of Immortality No. 376, which met at the Crown and Anchor in the Strand,
London. He served as Junior Warden in 1769 and 1770. He had many talents; he was
an export fencer and an able diplomat who successfully negotiated the Treaty of
1763 ending the Seven Years' War.
He had an effeminate appearance and occasionally masqueraded as a woman.
His enemies in France accused him of being a woman masquerading as a man. Masons
wondered whether a woman had been initiated into the Craft. The controversy
about his sex caused considerable gambling and the speculation got out of hand.
Finally an insurance company filed a suit to have the matter adjudicated.
Witnesses testified that he was a woman. About this time he accepted an offer of
Louis XVI to accept a pension, return to France, and resume the garb of a woman.
From this time on he wore women's cloths with rare exception. When he died on
May 21, 1810, a competent physician performed an autopsy and clearly proved that
D'Eon was a man.
