Gabriel Banat is author of the most authoritative biography of Le Chevalier de Saint-Georges in English, The Chevalier de Saint-Georges: Virtuoso of the Sword and the Bow; Pendragon Press (2006). He recently alerted us to the existence of a portrait, “The Chevalier de Saint-George (1745-1799)” by Charles Jean Robineau, which is in the United Kingdom's Royal Collection, RoyalCollection.org.uk. The same collection includes a painting entitled: “The fencing-match between the Chevalier de Saint-George and the Chevalier d'Éon.”
The AfriClassical.com biography of Le Chevalier de Saint-Georges explains in Paragraph 30 that the fencing match did take place but the opponent faced by Saint-Georges was actually a man who dressed as a woman and who used the disguise to help him serve as a spy for the King of France. Here is an excerpt:
“The Prince of Wales arranged a friendly fencing demonstration in London between Saint-Georges, who was 42, and a 59-year-old French woman, La chevalière d'Éon.” “The chevalière was actually Charles d'Éon de Beaumont, a diplomat who dressed as a woman for many years to help him spy on foreign countries for the King of France. D'Éon was a multitalented man of letters, law, diplomacy and the military but had fallen out of favor with the royal court. He practiced fencing daily, in fear of his life.”
Royal Collection
The Chevalier de Saint-George (1745-1799)
The Fencing-Match
Chevalier d'Éon
Le Chevalier de Saint-Georges
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