The Chevalier d'Eon and his Worlds Gender, Espionage and Politics in the Eighteenth Century

by Burrows, Simon; Conlin, Jonathan; Goulbourne, Russell; Mainz, Valerie

• ISBN13: 9780826422781
• ISBN10: 0826422780
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-04-23
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic

Summary

These essays draw on new research into Charles d'Eon de Beaumont's unusual life, exploring how a gender identity could come to be negotiated over time.

Author Biography

Simon Burrows is Professor of Modern European History at the University of Leeds. Jonathan Conlin is Lecturer in Modern History at the University of Southampton. Valerie Mainz is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Fine Art, University of Leeds. She specialises in C18th French art and the French Revolution. Russell Golbourne is Professor of Early modern French literature at the University of Leeds.

Table of Contents

Illustrations	p. vii
Preface	p. ix
Acknowledgements	p. xiii
Introduction	p. 1
Career and Politics 1762-1785
The Chevalier d'Eon, Media Manipulation and the Making of an Eighteenth-Century Celebrity	p. 13
On the Art of Diplomacy and the Art of Describing Diplomacy: The Chevalier d'Eon and British Political Life at the End of the Seven Years' War	p. 25
'Faire le Wilkes': the Chevalier d'Eon and the Wilkites, 1762-1775	p. 45
Beaumarchais and d'Eon: What an Affair	p. 57
D'Eon and Tonnerre, 1779-1784	p. 73
Gender and Representation
A 'monster of metamorphosis': Reassessing the Chevalier/Chevalière d'Eon's Change of Gender	p. 81
Dressing d'Eon	p. 97
The Chevalier d'Eon and his Several Identities	p. 113
La Vie militaire, politique et privée de Melle d'Eon (1779): Biography and the Art of Manipulation	p. 133
Identity, Gender, Genre and Truth in The Maiden of Tonnerre: The Vicissitudes of the Chevalier and Chevalière d'Eon	p. 147
Heroes and Heroines
The Myth of the Amazons in the Eighteenth Century and the Legend of the Chevalier d'Eon	p. 161
Transvestite Traditions and Narrative Discontinuities: d'Eon and the abbé de Choisy	p. 177
The Chevalier d'Eon, Rousseau and New Ideas of Gender, Sex and the Self in the Late Eighteenth Century	p. 187
Louvet's Les Amours du Chevalier de Faublas: Sexual, Political and Textual Imbroglios	p. 201
An Eighteenth-Century French Commonwealthman? Exploring the Context of the Chevalier d'Eon's Translation of Marchamont Nedham's The Excellencie of a Free State	p. 215
A Note on the d'Eon Archive in the Brotherton Collection, Leeds University Library	p. 229
Afterword D'Eon: Christian, Woman and Autobiographer	p. 233
Index	p. 241
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