The Chevalier d'Eon was a diplomat and spy who made the perplexing decision to declare that she had always been a woman in a time when women were legally and socially marginalized. Her story took her through the halls of power, to defying the monarchy of France itself, and to becoming an international celebrity who fought fencing duels in London.
Sources:
Clark, Anna. 'The Chevalier d'Eon and Wilkes: masculinity and politics in the eighteenth century', Eighteenth-Century Studies, 32.1 (1998): 19–48.
Kates, Gary. Monsieur d'Eon is a Woman: A Tale of Political Intrigue and Gender Masquerade (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001).
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