SPEAKER_00: Hello! From Wonder Media Network, I'm Jenny Kaplan, and this is Womanica. We're celebrating Pride Month with icons, supreme queens of queer culture. Some are household names. Others are a little more behind the scenes. All defied social norms and influenced generations of people to be unapologetically themselves. Today we're talking about someone who's seen as an early and important gender non-conforming public figure. After an impressive career as a spy and diplomat, she lived as a woman despite facing public scrutiny. Let's talk about Chevalier Dionne. On October 5, 1728, Chevalier Dionne was born Charles Genevieve Louis-Auguste-Andre-Timothy Dionne de Beaumont. Today, she's known by the French title for knight, Chevalier. Her family was aristocratic but also poor and lived in the Burgundy region of France. During the Chevalier's lifetime, the language around gender non-conformity was different. There's some evidence that she claimed she faced family pressure to live as a man in her early life. And there were also very public rumors about her gender identity. Some even placed bets on it. When Chevalier Dionne began dressing as a woman publicly later in life, she faced ridicule in the form of crude cartoons and her political status and career were stripped away. It's hard to know exactly how she felt about her gender at the time and her story is complicated. So we're going to refer to the Chevalier by the pronouns she used at the end of her life. To understand more about this later part of her life, however, we're going to start her story before she lived openly as a woman. From a young age, Chevalier Dionne proved to be an excellent student and a skilled writer. The Chevalier attended law school and secured a place in the French civil service. She became the secretary to the ambassador to Russia and spent time at the Russian royal court, all of which were roles only men could attain. In Russia, Chevalier Dionne likely experienced Empress Elizabeth's metamorphosis balls, where it was encouraged for men to don dresses and women to wear more masculine attire. Though she had an official public role, Chevalier Dionne also had a secret mission. King Louis XV had tapped her to join Le Secret du Roi, or the King's Secret. It was a network of spies created by the king to forward his political ambitions in foreign countries like Russia. It was so hush-hush that many top members of the French foreign ministry had no idea it existed. When the Seven Years' War broke out between France and Great Britain and their allies, Chevalier Dionne was called back to fight as a soldier. In 1762, the Chevalier was sent to London to help negotiate the Treaty of Paris, which brought an end to the war. This savvy as a diplomat earned her admittance to the Order of St. Louis, and she officially gained the title of Chevalier. France had lost a lot in the treaty, all of its North American colonies, and had a huge amount of debt from the war. King Louis wanted revenge, so he tasked his secret service, including Chevalier Dionne, with concocting a plot to invade Britain. The king gave Chevalier Dionne an official job as an ambassador to the British court, and a secret mission to scout around for witnesses in British defenses and find potential French allies in Parliament. But Chevalier Dionne quickly ran into problems with her assignment. She often clashed with other French civil service, and she also had expensive tastes. She was reprimanded for importing too much wine on the Crown's dime. Eventually, the Chevalier's insolence was too much. The king ordered her back to France, and she knew she risked being sent to the infamous Bastille prison. So she refused to return home, and the British foreign minister declared she could remain in London as a private citizen. King Louis was furious. His government attempted to kidnap the Chevalier and drag her back to France by force. But Chevalier Dionne pushed back, threatening to publicize her secret mission for the king. She even published a scandalous book with letters from her time as a diplomat. It was just enough to embarrass the king, and she had plenty more she could make public. The king agreed to pay her a yearly pension in exchange for her silence, and she could stay in London. The Chevalier's public feud with the French Crown made her a minor celebrity in England. Around this time, rumors began to fly about her gender. Soon, the speculation became so widespread that bookkeepers were organizing bets. Chevalier Dionne had to hire guards to escort her out of the house because people had started trying to tear off her clothes in public. By the mid-1770s, King Louis XV had died, and his son, Louis XVI, assumed the throne. He had a renewed interest in making the Secret du Roi disappear. So in 1775, a government representative set out to negotiate with Chevalier Dionne. She confessed to him that she was indeed a woman. As part of the negotiations, the king made it clear that the Chevalier Dionne was to return any and all papers about her spy work, and she must live publicly as a woman. She accepted and returned to France. In 1777, at the age of 49, she was formally presented at the Court of Versailles, reborn in the eyes of the French public in a powdered wig and an elaborate gown made by Marie Antoinette's dressmaker. But Chevalier Dionne's public life as a woman also meant an end to her political ambitions. The French government wouldn't let her fight in the American Revolution. When she continued to ask to form an all-female battalion, they arrested her. So Chevalier Dionne went back to London. She was skilled with a fencing sword and earned money by staging duels in salons around the city, always choosing to fight in a gown. She also became deeply invested in early feminist thought and curated one of the largest collections of feminist works in Europe at the time. Some feminists accepted her in return. Mary Wollstonecraft pointed to the Chevalier as a shining example of what women could achieve when given the opportunities men were always afforded. After the French Revolution erupted in 1789, Chevalier Dionne lost her pension, and she fell into poverty. When she died in 1810, at the age of 81, she had been living as a woman for more than three decades. In the centuries since her death, historians have continued to re-evaluate Chevalier Dionne's life story. Some believe her life as a woman was a calculated political move to help her get back in the French government's good graces. Others believe she was simply seeking to live authentically in a time before transgender identity was widely understood or accepted. All month, we're highlighting icons. For more information, find us on Facebook and Instagram at Womanica Podcast. Special thanks to Liz Kaplan, my favorite sister and co-creator. Talk to you tomorrow.
SPEAKER_02: Evidence-wise, we had virtually no evidence. In 1995, Detective Tony Richardson was trying to figure out who killed a fellow officer. The case comes down to who is believed and who is ignored.
SPEAKER_03: Oh my goodness, we did convict an innocent man. I'm Beth Shelburne from Lava for Good Podcasts. This is Ear Witness. Listen to Ear Witness on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
SPEAKER_02: It's Vegas. It's the can't-miss music event of the year. Our iHeartRadio Music Festival. Stream it live only on Hulu and listen on iHeartRadio stations Friday night and Saturday night starting at 10 p.m. Eastern, 7 p.m. Pacific. Harper Wild is creating a more comfortable world for womankind. Starting with the world's most comfortable bras and underwear, which are tested by real people with real bodies who say things like,
SPEAKER_04: it feels like clouds are holding up my ladies, or the holy grail of bras, and you'll have to pry these bras out of my cold dead hands. That comfortable. Get $15 off your order with code comfy at harperwild.com. That's code comfy at harperwild.com. Ticking. It's time for the new season of 60 Minutes. The CBS News Sunday night tradition is back for its 56th season with all new big name interviews, hard-hitting investigations, and epic adventures.
SPEAKER_01: No place. No one. No story is off limits. And you'll always learn something new. It's time for 60 Minutes. New episode airs Sunday, September 24th on CBS and streaming on Paramount+. Has all of that summer travel taken a toll on your sleep? Come home to the cool, comfortable sleep you deserve with Lisa.
SPEAKER_04: For a limited time, save up to $700 off select mattresses, plus two free pillows during Lisa's Labor Day sale. And use code IHART for an additional $50 off mattresses and select goods. Lisa's hybrid mattresses are designed to beat the heat so you can look forward to having a relaxing and peaceful night's sleep every night. Visit lisa.com and shop the Labor Day sale today. That's l-e-e-s-a dot com. Exclusions apply. See lisa.com for details.
