Lord Mansfield expressed his abhorrence of the whole transaction, and the more so, for their bringing it into a Court of Justice, when it might have been settled elsewhere; wishing it had been in his power, in concurrence with the jury, to have made both parties lose; but, as the law had not expressly prohibited it, and the wager was laid, the question before them was, who had won? His Lordship remarked that the indecency of the proceeding arose more from the unnecessary questions asked, than from the case itself; that the witnesses had declared they perfectly knew the Chevalier d’Eon to be a woman; if she is not a woman, they are certainly perjured: there was, therefore, no need of inquiring how, or by what methods they knew it, which was all the indecency. As to the fraud suggested, of the plaintiff’s knowing more than the defendant, he seemed to think there was no foundation for it. His Lordship then recited a wager entered into by two gentlemen, in his own presence, about the dimensions of the Venus de Medicis, for £100. One of the gentlemen said, “I will not deceive you; I tell you fairly, I have been there, and measured it myself.” “Well,” says the other, “and do you think I should be such a fool, as to lay if I had not measured it?... I will lay for all that.” His Lordship then went on to state to the jury, that this Chevalier had publicly appeared as a man, had been employed by the Court of France, as a man, as a military man, in a civil office, and as a Minister of State here, and in Russia; there was all the presumption against the plaintiff, and the _onus probandi_ lay upon him, which might never been come at; for it appeared, the only proposition of a discovery of sex that had been made to the Chevalier, by some gentlemen on an excursion, had been resented by d’Eon, who had instantly quitted their company on that account: it might, therefore, never have been in his power to have proved his wager, but for some accidental quarrels between d’Eon and some of her countrymen. His Lordship was, therefore, of opinion that the jury should find a verdict for the plaintiff. The jury, without hesitation, gave a verdict for the plaintiff, £700, and 40s. Yet, when d’Eon died, in London, in 1810, _it was proved, without a shadow of a doubt, that he was a man_. CHAPTER XII Gluttonous Wager—Walk to Constantinople and back—Sir John Lade and Lord Cholmondeley—Other Wagers—Betting on Napoleon—Bet on a Coat—Lord Brougham—Brunel and Stephenson—Captain Barclay—Story by Mr Ross—The Earl of March’s Coach—Selby’s drive to Brighton—White’s betting book.