French diplomat, soldier and spy Charles, Chevalier d’Éon de Beaumont was BOTD in 1728. Born in Tonnerre, Burgundy to an impoverished aristocratic family, he was educated in Paris, graduating in civil and canon law from the Collège Mazarin. He became secretary to the Intendant of Paris, and was later appointed as a Royal censor for history and literature. In 1756, he was appointed by King Louis XV to the Secret du Roi spy ring, and despatched to spy on Empress Elizabeth of Russia, apparently disguising himself as a woman and serving as a maid of honour in the Empress’ court. In 1761, he resumed male dress and became a dragoons captain, fighting in the last stages of the Seven Years War, and was sent to London to negotiate a peace treaty. Returning to Paris in 1863, he was elevated to the aristocracy, styled as Chevalier d’Éon. The King ordered his return to London, collecting information for a potential French invasion of Britain. After a quarrel with French ambassador the Comte de Guerchy, d’Éon disobeyed orders to return to France. The British government declined a French request to extradite him; meanwhile, d’Éon published his diplomatic correspondence, condemning de Guerchy as unfit for public office and later suing him for attempted murder. Louis XV recalled de Guerchy to France and agreed to pay d’Éon a generous pension to buy his silence, allowing him to continue spying in London. He became a cult figure in London society, with the London Stock Exchange running betting pools about his true gender. After the King’s death in 1774, the Secret du Roi was abolished, and d’Éon negotiated his return to France, assisted by the writer Pierre de Beaumarchais. For reasons that remain unclear, d’Éon demanded that France recognise him as a woman. The new King Louis XVI complied with d’Éon’s request, provided that he dress appropriately in women’s clothing. News that he was leaving England sent London’s stockmarket into a panic, sparking a series of legal cases calling in bets about d’Éon’s true gender, prompting the Lord Chief Justice to declare d’Éon legally female. In 1779, d’Éon published his (heavily embellished) memoirs, La Vie Militaire, politique, et privée de Mademoiselle d’Éon (The Military, Political and Private Life of Mademoiselle d’Éon) to great success. He returned to England in 1785, though lost his fortune four years later at the outbreak of the French Revolution. To make money, he participated in fencing tournaments, dressed in female attire, until he was seriously wounded in 1796. Deeply in debt, he spent five months in a debtors’ prison, signing a contract for an English-language biography which was never published. He became paralysed after an accident, spending his last years as an invalid, dying in poverty in 1810 aged 81. An autopsy performed two days after his death certified him as biologically male. In 1920, the sexologist Havelock Ellis coined the term “Eonism” as a sexual deviation in which men adopt female address. He remains a popular folk hero in France and England, inspiring innumerable popular songs, poems, plays and films. In recent years, queer academics have argued that d’Éon was and should be referred to as transgender.