Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Sarah Downey and bring the truck Reporting. And one
Speaker 1: of the funniest things about this podcast is when listeners
Speaker 1: seem to suddenly all be on the same wavelength. I mean,
Speaker 1: sometimes they know what we're about to research, which is
Speaker 1: super weird, or what we're about to record, what we're
Speaker 1: looking on. You get a request for a topic the
Speaker 1: very same day you are researching and recording. It really strange.
Speaker 1: But late this spring I received a suggestion, a listener suggestion,
Speaker 1: one that was really fascinating, one that was very unusual founding.
Speaker 1: It was from a listener named Jenny and the subject
Speaker 1: line of the suggestion was the patron Saint of Transvestites. Okay,
Speaker 1: so that's enough to catch your attention right there. But
Speaker 1: the email went on to outline the life of the
Speaker 1: Chevalier Dion, who was a French soldier, spy, and diplomat.
Speaker 1: About a month after that, and this is what I'm
Speaker 1: talking about when I'm saying listeners being in the same wavelength,
Speaker 1: we got another vote for the seemingly obscure Chevalier, this
Speaker 1: time from listener Marianne, and then another just a few
Speaker 1: days after that from Todd. Maybe they're all friends, and
Speaker 1: you know they were all friends that well, now people
Speaker 1: know the secret and they do this um. But it
Speaker 1: seemed that a portrait of this Chevalier had recently emerged,
Speaker 1: the sitter had long been misidentified as a woman, and
Speaker 1: it was causing a bit of a stir in the
Speaker 1: art world, Or at least that's what one of them
Speaker 1: later told me when she was explaining how so many
Speaker 1: people were thinking of the same person at the same time. Right. So,
Speaker 1: not long after they had written, the Chevalier story started
Speaker 1: making international news when London's National Portrait Gallery announced that
Speaker 1: it had acquired this portrait, the very first oil painting
Speaker 1: in their collection of a man in women's clothing. But
Speaker 1: like most art we discussed on the show, the portrait
Speaker 1: has its own mysterious backstory, which we're going to discuss
Speaker 1: in a second episode. But first we need to talk
Speaker 1: about the Chevalier's own fascinating life, which involves several things,
Speaker 1: including a nosey Madon de Pompadour, who, of course we've
Speaker 1: had a podcast on before. Black Mail is another thing
Speaker 1: that this involves and also something called the King's Secret
Speaker 1: and also the most outrageous immunity deal you've ever heard of,
Speaker 1: so plenty to come, truly outrageous. But our story starts
Speaker 1: in seventeen Antonair, Burgundy, and our subjects name, where are
Speaker 1: you going to do the full thing one time? Because
Speaker 1: this guy, thank goodness, so many names. He was born
Speaker 1: Charles gen Via Louis Auguste Andre Timote Dion de Beaumont.
Speaker 1: So fortunately for us, he later becomes to the Chevalier
Speaker 1: and will mostly be calling him Dale. But his family
Speaker 1: was noble, but they were also very poor, kind of
Speaker 1: like a lot of the subjects we talk about. It
Speaker 1: seems noble but poor. So he knew that he was
Speaker 1: going to have to work for a living, find some
Speaker 1: kind of patronage, preferably in government service, and he Fortunately
Speaker 1: for him, he was a very good student, very bright,
Speaker 1: got a great education, moved to Paris for schooling. Once
Speaker 1: he was done, he stayed put, stayed in Paris and
Speaker 1: started publishing books on royal finance and modern politics, before
Speaker 1: finally getting that first government position, also in finance, and
Speaker 1: then eventually becoming a royal censor. So of course I
Speaker 1: mean that's a pretty self explanatory job. But he would
Speaker 1: have to look through books, look through publications, uh, figure
Speaker 1: out if anything was inappropriate before they were printed. Um,
Speaker 1: I have to wonder he later became a very enthusiastic
Speaker 1: book collector. I have to wonder if some of that
Speaker 1: dates to being a real sensor. But then finally, after
Speaker 1: that job, he entered diplomatic service and he was from
Speaker 1: Mayor shipped off to Russia to work under a Scotsman
Speaker 1: named Chevalier Douglas. So, depending on the source, this is
Speaker 1: where some of that dressing in women's clothes stuff starts
Speaker 1: to come up. According to the National Portrait Gallery, he
Speaker 1: was known to attend cross dressing balls abroad, and according
Speaker 1: to an Art Daily article, Dale even disguised himself as
Speaker 1: a woman in an official capacity, serving Empress Elizabeth of
Speaker 1: Russia as a maid of honor. But according to Jonathan Conlin,
Speaker 1: in History Today, while he was considered somewhat androgynous, there
Speaker 1: was no indication of day on dressing in women's clothing
Speaker 1: at this time, So a murky part of his history,
Speaker 1: one of many. So regardless, Dane and Douglas were in
Speaker 1: Russia on very special business in addition to their public
Speaker 1: diplomatic function, they were a small but important piece of
Speaker 1: something called secrete law or the King's secret. So, just
Speaker 1: to give you a little background on this, Louis the
Speaker 1: fifteenth of France, who of course is one of our
Speaker 1: favorite Bourbon subjects. We've covered him before. He of course
Speaker 1: had a public for foreign policy of his own, which
Speaker 1: was executed by his foreign minister, but beginning in the
Speaker 1: seventeen forties, he also had the secondary secret foreign policy,
Speaker 1: the aim of which was to place his cousin, the
Speaker 1: Prince de Conti, on the Polish throne. So privately, Louise
Speaker 1: agents for the Secret work to achieve this, while publicly
Speaker 1: Louis claimed this wasn't his goal at all. As a
Speaker 1: party to the secret, one of Douglas's tasks in Russia
Speaker 1: was to help gain the support of Empress Elizabeth for
Speaker 1: Conte's candidacy, something don as Douglas the Secretary, would have
Speaker 1: also been involved in. So I know, this seems like
Speaker 1: a lot of backstory on seventeen forties politics, especially for
Speaker 1: a tale that ultimately takes place in the seventeen seventies,
Speaker 1: But it's important because of the secret. Clearly, even though
Speaker 1: Louise's plan to place his cousin Conti on the Polish
Speaker 1: throne didn't ultimately work out. He didn't just go ahead
Speaker 1: and scrap that entire network, the entire secret network that
Speaker 1: had been established to make it happen. He must have thought,
Speaker 1: all right, well, maybe I can accomplish some other things
Speaker 1: with my secret dual foreign policy. And it's really easy
Speaker 1: to imagine how louise foreign policy became pretty muddled and
Speaker 1: confused pretty quickly, because, for one thing, his actual ministers,
Speaker 1: like his foreign minister, did not know about the secret
Speaker 1: The agenda of secret agents was usually opposite that of
Speaker 1: public policy, like it was for the placing the cousin
Speaker 1: on the throne attempt. And then finally, and this was
Speaker 1: kind of the real kicker, many of the agents of
Speaker 1: Lysocrette also had legitimate jobs in the Foreign Service, like
Speaker 1: Dale for example. So I mean you have double agents
Speaker 1: who are both working you know, they're working for Louis
Speaker 1: either way you cut it, but working to achieve different aims. So,
Speaker 1: as one very simplified example of the type of disconnect
Speaker 1: we're talking about here, Louis had agents in Lisocrete pursue
Speaker 1: anti Austrian alliances with Sweden, Prussia, Turkey and Poland, but
Speaker 1: then abandoned that plan to ally himself with Austria officially,
Speaker 1: so just completely opposite of of, you know, completely opposing
Speaker 1: ideas here. That alliance, which we talked about a bit
Speaker 1: in the Madame da Pompadour episode, ended up driving Louis
Speaker 1: into the disastrous Seven Years War against Great Britain and Prussia. This,
Speaker 1: by the way, was a shining moment for day On,
Speaker 1: not some for some super covert spying or business related
Speaker 1: to Lisacrete. He was a soldier and one who had
Speaker 1: fought really bravely at the Battle of Villinghausen and several
Speaker 1: other engagements, and that's something to kind of keep in
Speaker 1: mind as Lee as we talk about Dale, especially in
Speaker 1: the next episode. But it was after the Seven Years
Speaker 1: War was over that the Secret had arguably the biggest
Speaker 1: task in its twenty year existence, and that was to
Speaker 1: get revenge on Great Britain. And of course, at this
Speaker 1: point publicly France was in disgrace. It had lost many
Speaker 1: of its colonial possessions, it lost a lot of money,
Speaker 1: prestige in Central Europe. So clearly the official line was
Speaker 1: one of reconciliation, with Great Britain. We cannot afford to
Speaker 1: go back to war. We need to rebuild the country's navy.
Speaker 1: We need to refill its coffers. Certainly not get revenge
Speaker 1: and renew war. At least that's what Louise foreign minister,
Speaker 1: the Comte Prelan, thought that France was trying to accomplish. Dale, however,
Speaker 1: knew there was a whole other game going on, and
Speaker 1: by seventeen sixty two and the war was sort of
Speaker 1: winding down to a close, his star was really rising,
Speaker 1: both inside his his role with the secret and outside
Speaker 1: in his official role as a diplomat. That's true. Prolonged
Speaker 1: appointed him secretary to the ambassador to London to help
Speaker 1: negotiate peace and to negotiate the war's end. While he
Speaker 1: didn't play a large part in the talks, Dale did
Speaker 1: carry the treaty back to Versailles, which was a high
Speaker 1: honor from George the Third or Great Britain. The next
Speaker 1: year he became chevalier, while he was inducted into the
Speaker 1: Order of St. Louis, which was one of France's highest honors,
Speaker 1: and shortly after that he was made a Minister to
Speaker 1: Great Britain and then Finally, as a party to Les
Speaker 1: Secret he was given a super hush hush task, and
Speaker 1: that was to plan for an armed invasion of Great Britain,
Speaker 1: specifically to oversee the secret agents who were scouting out
Speaker 1: the British coastline for landing spots. So on one hand
Speaker 1: he's making peace on on the public side of things,
Speaker 1: and on the other hand he's planning an armed invasion.
Speaker 1: Seems like it would be difficult to say the least
Speaker 1: what spies do anyway, and that's sort of what he
Speaker 1: is in this case. So it seemed though that the
Speaker 1: Chevalier's public and private careers and diplomacy were proceeding quite well.
Speaker 1: I mean, either way, it sounds like he's going to
Speaker 1: be one of the main guys on the in the
Speaker 1: diplomatic stage between France and Great Britain, and then Madame
Speaker 1: da Pompadour has to come into the picture and mess
Speaker 1: up things for him entirely like she does like she
Speaker 1: does sometimes if you remember from the show that we
Speaker 1: did on Madame da Pompadour lou the Fifteenth Mistress. Of course,
Speaker 1: this post war period was a really bad time for
Speaker 1: her because by the seventeen fifties she had gotten pretty
Speaker 1: heavily involved in France's politics, enough that Voltaire even jokingly
Speaker 1: referred to her as France's Prime Minister, and so her faction,
Speaker 1: and with her own influence too, she'd strongly encouraged Louis
Speaker 1: to ally himself with Austria, and that, of course was
Speaker 1: an alliance that eventually led to war, and that war
Speaker 1: led to disgrace for France. You know, all of the
Speaker 1: all of the money and possessions we've already talked about.
Speaker 1: So the public really hated Madame da Pompadour at this
Speaker 1: point and published cruel pamphlets about her, cartoons blaming her
Speaker 1: for the war. And so even though she sort of
Speaker 1: stepped back from some of her political responsibilities at this point,
Speaker 1: I mean she really would have had to. She also
Speaker 1: didn't leave court. She didn't just retire from public life.
Speaker 1: And on June tenth, seventeen sixty three, Madame da Pompadour
Speaker 1: stole the King's keys to his own private papers, poked
Speaker 1: around in his personal files that were hidden in his
Speaker 1: private rooms, maybe hoping to find something that could restore
Speaker 1: her influence. She did find something pretty important, and that
Speaker 1: was of course evidence of the secret as we already know,
Speaker 1: Pompadour had plenty of her own friends, even a contingent
Speaker 1: in the government, and since they were at this point
Speaker 1: really afraid that she was falling out of the King's favor,
Speaker 1: they started just frantically trying to figure out what was
Speaker 1: behind with secrets. If they had to have been really curious,
Speaker 1: I mean, what if you had spent your career in
Speaker 1: in service to Louis and you were realizing he might
Speaker 1: have this entire other foreign policy set up. Unfortunately, though,
Speaker 1: for our Chevalier, their main focus, the main focus of
Speaker 1: their investigation trying to get to the bottom of this
Speaker 1: was what was this guy, the Chevalier Deon, really doing
Speaker 1: in London. So this is the end of the first
Speaker 1: part of this episode. Next time we're going to talk
Speaker 1: about what happens as Pompadour's people move in and the
Speaker 1: Chevalier Deon refuses to back down gracefully. What he does
Speaker 1: next is really scandalous and brands him as a rogue
Speaker 1: spy to Louis and his ministers who are in the know. So,
Speaker 1: with the secret security at stake, a multi year showdown
Speaker 1: between the monarch and spy somehow results in a really
Speaker 1: strange turn of events, which we've kind of hinted at
Speaker 1: a cap and gown for dayon and an entirely new
Speaker 1: identity as a woman. Don't don't so that will be
Speaker 1: next time. You'll have to wait, just like Madame ta Pompadour,
Speaker 1: as people did, I guess, just like all France did,
Speaker 1: having to wait to see what what happens unless you
Speaker 1: just go read about it and spoiled the surprise. So
Speaker 1: you have some listener mail for us, Sarah, I do,
Speaker 1: and clearly I was immensely entertained by the emails we
Speaker 1: got regarding turn up last time. We're getting some good
Speaker 1: ideas we're getting. I might not get a pumpkin next year.
Speaker 1: You might have nine fingers then next. That's being generous
Speaker 1: after overestimating my knife skills. Well, actually, so far we
Speaker 1: haven't heard any really scary turnip carving stories, but I
Speaker 1: just thought I would share a few more because these
Speaker 1: really are awesome. One guy we even inspired him to
Speaker 1: carve turn ups this year. He said he's been listening
Speaker 1: for a long time. This was listener Eric, and he
Speaker 1: gave some tips on the turnip carving process. But since
Speaker 1: you know, we've already gone through some of those suggestions.
Speaker 1: I thought I would share the result because he had
Speaker 1: pretty amazing sounding results. He said, for Halloween, I let
Speaker 1: the turnip lanterns with those little electric tea lights and
Speaker 1: placed them along the front walk. Sadly only a few
Speaker 1: tricker treaters came to my neighborhood this year, but for
Speaker 1: those that did, the turnip lanterns made it clear that
Speaker 1: mine was the house to come to. One tricker treater gush, quote,
Speaker 1: your mini pumpkins are amazing as I opened the door.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I like that kind of response from
Speaker 1: tricker treaterers. Um, so thank you Eric for for sharing this,
Speaker 1: and I also liked He wrote a little note about
Speaker 1: how initially he listened to the podcast based only on
Speaker 1: the topics that sounded interesting to him, and this is
Speaker 1: so flattering, But he said that soon enough he figured
Speaker 1: out that he enjoyed all the episodes even if the
Speaker 1: topic didn't immediately appeal to him, and listed McCarthyism as
Speaker 1: a as an example of that something that had quote
Speaker 1: creeped him out, but decided to give it a go
Speaker 1: and found it to be something really interesting. I think
Speaker 1: that's actually the case for us to really. I mean,
Speaker 1: we try to choose ones that interest us somewhat at
Speaker 1: least going into them. But um, sometimes you're not thinking
Speaker 1: you're really gonna get into a topic, but then something
Speaker 1: clicks and it just becomes pretty fascinating. So the other
Speaker 1: note we got this one is not turnip related, but
Speaker 1: it's pretty close. It's from listener Rebecca and she wrote
Speaker 1: to say still and listening to your podcast from the
Speaker 1: collection stores on the Natural History Museum in Dublin. And
Speaker 1: I thought I would weigh in on the Halloween discussions
Speaker 1: and she even did Halloween with the apostrophe in it.
Speaker 1: Pretty classy, She wrote, I really did have to giggle
Speaker 1: at the listener mail about carving turnups for Irish English Halloween.
Speaker 1: I grew up in the nineteen eighties and nineties and
Speaker 1: I don't remember pumpkins being easily got, but we didn't
Speaker 1: offer turnups either. Where I grew up in Ireland, one
Speaker 1: of the main crops was sugar beet and Carla Town
Speaker 1: there was a big sugar factory that only closed down
Speaker 1: few years ago, and every autumn the roads would be
Speaker 1: littered with beats that had fallen from the tractor trailers
Speaker 1: during the campaign, which she said that's the year or sorry,
Speaker 1: that's the word that they used for the harvest and
Speaker 1: delivery period. She said that her uncle grew sugar beat
Speaker 1: is a good source of fodder for his animals. I
Speaker 1: don't remember ever being allowed to carve one myself, but
Speaker 1: every year someone in my class would be brave enough.
Speaker 1: So that's going to be Blina clearly next year trying
Speaker 1: to carve beats. I don't know. If you had an
Speaker 1: accident with beats, nobody would know too, because there would
Speaker 1: already be like red beet juice everywhere they know. I'd
Speaker 1: make sure they knew. Um, So it's it's fun. We've
Speaker 1: also heard from a few people who tried baking soul
Speaker 1: cakes to um. Everybody's trying new Halloween traditions, apparently thanks
Speaker 1: to thanks to some of these old timy ideas. Very fun. Well,
Speaker 1: if you have any more ideas for us that you
Speaker 1: would like us to perhaps try, or would like to
Speaker 1: caution us against trying in case we're not very good
Speaker 1: with sharp objects, you can write to us at History
Speaker 1: Podcast at Discovery dot com. We're also on Facebook and
Speaker 1: you can look up on Twitter at Miston History and
Speaker 1: remember to to uh. Tune back in for our second
Speaker 1: part of the Chevalier's Fascinating Story. If you want to
Speaker 1: learn a little bit more about chevaliers in general, or nights,
Speaker 1: as we might call. We do have an article called
Speaker 1: home in the Work, and you can find that by
Speaker 1: searching on our homepage at www. Dot how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics.
Speaker 1: Is it how stuff works dot com. M