‘The possession of a name and noble descent, of which the origin is lost in obscurity, has ever been considered amongst civilised nations a more respectable title than one of recent date, owed to the favour of a king—favour accorded more frequently to weakness than to courage, to vice than to virtue. We know the secret motives by which kings are guided in their public acts, since the time that they have become attended by valets, mistresses, ministers, cabinet ministers, and historiographers.’[2] On the first page of a well-thumbed devotional pamphlet in MS., given to D’Eon de Beaumont upon his entering the Collège Mazarin, at Paris, in 1740, appears the following in that person’s own hand:— ‘I was born on the 5th, and baptised on October 7, 1728, at the parish church of Notre Dame, Tonnerre. I was confirmed in front of the high altar of the parish church of St. Sulpitius in Paris; and on Thursday, June 18, 1744, I communicated for the first time in the chapel of the Virgin at the parish church of St. Sulpitius, Paris.’[3] The baptismal certificate is as follows:— ‘On October 7, 1728, was baptised Charles-Geneviève-Louis-Auguste-André-Thimothée, son of the noble Louis Déon de Beaumont, director of the King’s demesnes, and of dame Françoise de Charenton, his father and mother legitimately married, born on the 5th of the present month. His godfather is M. Charles Regnard, advocate of Parliament, bailiff of Cruzy; and godmother, dame Geneviève Déon, wife of M. Mouton, wine merchant at Paris, all of whom affix their signatures:— ‘G. DÉON. ‘C. REGNARD. ‘MOUTON. ‘BORDES, Dean of Tonnerre.’ [Sidenote: PARENTAGE AND EARLY YEARS.] Louis Déon de Beaumont was advocate in Parliament, King’s counsellor, sub-delegate of the Intendance of the generality of Paris, and for some time mayor of Tonnerre. His brothers were André-Thimothée Déon de Tissey, advocate in Parliament, censor-royal, chief secretary of police in Paris, and principal secretary to H.R.H. the Duke d’Orleans; Jacques Déon de Pommard, advocate in Parliament, one of the first secretaries to the Count d’Argenson, Minister of War; Michel Déon de Germigny, knight of the Royal and Military Order of St. Louis, one of the twenty-five gentlemen of the King’s Scottish Guard. They were the four sons of André Déon, advocate in Parliament, who died in 1720; whose father was Louis Déon, lord of Ramelu, esquire, captain of infantry: all of whom lie interred within the church of L’Hôpital Notre Dame de Fontenilles, at Tonnerre.[4] In the preamble to her holograph will, headed ‘Soli Deo Honor et Gloria,’ in which she styles herself Charlotte-Geneviève-Louise-Augusta-Andrée-Timothea-Marie D’Eon de Beaumont, it is stated:—