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The Chevalier D'Eon meets bankers in a London office or coffee-house to discuss wagers placed on whether D'Eon was a man or a woman. Engraving, 1771. Wellcome Collection. Public Domain Mark. Source: Wellcome Collection.
The print imputes to D'Eon complicity in the gambling craze of the summer in 1771, when large sums of money were bet on the question whether D'Eon was a man or a woman. D'Eon denied having anything to do with the bets
"Scene in a stockbroker's office, or perhaps in Jonathan's or Lloyd's, a room with a small writing-desk (right) and on the wall a 'Table of Interest'. The Chevalier d'Eon enters from the left, and is greeted by a stockbroker who points with his right to other brokers who watch the entry, some with dismay, others with pleasure. ... Although this particular plate is dated 1 September 1771, it refers back to events earlier in the year, during May and June 1771. Widespread betting had taken place in London on the question of whether the Chevalier d'Eon was a man or a woman .... By May 1771, according to the London Evening Post, the amount of money wagered on the issue exceeded £60,000. D'Eon stood aloof, refusing to indulge the prurient speculation by making a public statement on the matter. The Chevalier in a letter to their patron, the Comte de Broglie, at around this date, marvelling at 'all the extraordinary reports coming from Paris, London and even Saint Petersburg about the uncertainty of my sex' and complaining that there was gambling 'for considerable sums at the Court and in the City on so indecent a subject'. It was not the indecent subject, though, which eventually angered the Chevalier. Due to d'Eon's refusal to engage with the issue, the newspapers were whipping up suspicions that personally - and perhaps also friends of the Chevalier, such as John Wilkes - were benefitting financially from the numerous policies being taken out on the issue. This is the theme of this print, in which d'Eon visits the stockbroker to gloat with him at their joint success in fleecing the gullible public. It was this suspicion of complicity that finally provoked d'Eon to action, though not in the way the Chevalier's critics had hoped. Instead, on 23 March 1771 d'Eon arrived in a tavern near the stock exchange in a fury, in their Dragoon Captain's uniform, and confronted a banker named Bird who had been among the first to take bets on the subject, challenging him to a duel. D'Eon was persuaded to calm down, but this provided more grist to the mill for the satirical press. The mystery was exacerbated when d'Eon vanished without warning for around six weeks in late May and early June 1771. The Chevalier's disappearance was advertised in the newspapers and, when no news could be had, a caveat was entered at Doctors Commons against his goods (in late May 1771, as reported in the 'Gentleman's Magazine' of that year, p. 236). Satirical printmakers claimed that d'Eon had gone into confinement to give birth .... Those with outstanding bets, however, were convinced that this disappearance was proof of d'Eon's complicity in the scam, designed to render it null and void. 'The Oxford magazine' in June 1771, vol. vi, p. 193, reports that an appeal had been made to the Lord Mayor to control the excesses of gambling in his jurisdiction, with particular reference to the bets and policies made about d'Eon's sex. Becoming aware of the growing scandal, d'Eon presently returned to London. On 29 June 1771 d'Eon swore an oath at London's City Hall before the Mayor, affirming first no involvement in personally placing bets on the matter; second that no bribes had been received by the Chevalier; and third, that their absence from London had not been taken on anyone else's suggestion. While this officially quashed rumours of d'Eon's involvement, suspicion evidently persisted, as this print published in September shows. It is worthy of note that d'Eon's oath at City Hall did not in any way settle the question, and that this would not be settled (for the purposes of the betting) until 1777"--Vowles, loc. cit.
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