The Chevalier’s popularity, chiefly amongst those who interested themselves in the politics of the day, had never waned since his first introduction into English society, much of the favour he enjoyed being due to his genial and agreeable manners, his openness of character, and the dignity and spirit of independence with which he bore his trials; but in the year we have reached—1769—his name, somewhat more freely canvassed, began to attain unenviable notoriety, for doubts were being seriously entertained as to the nature of his sex, and what was at first whispered from mouth to ear became openly revealed, until public opinion had fairly fastened on the idea that the Chevalier D’Eon was not a man at all but a woman! And when the Princess Dashkoff, who chanced to arrive in England at this juncture, related that D’Eon, whom she perfectly well knew at St. Petersburg, had been received and entertained by the Empress Elizabeth with all the intimacy to which his believed in sex admitted him, further doubts existed in the minds of a few only; and what had been suspected was boldly advanced as a certainty, the Count de Châtelet, French ambassador in London, among the number, writing to tell Louis XV. he was persuaded that the Chevalier was a _fille_. According to a biographical memoir in the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine,’ vol. liii., the first indications that led to a suspicion of D’Eon’s sex was a wound received in a duel. John Taylor, the author of ‘Monsieur Tonson,’ who had met the Chevalier in advanced life, was assured by a very old friend of his father, one well acquainted with D’Eon at this period, that his manners were captivating and that he might have married most advantageously, as several ladies of good family and with large fortunes had made overtures to him at their country seats where he visited; but that upon all such occasions he immediately left the house, whence it was inferred he quitted the place on account of his being really of the female sex.[254] It was the fashion in England for all matters of dispute to become the subject of betting, and gambling transactions attained extraordinary proportions, the lead being taken at Brooks’s, White’s, and other clubs, as Walpole relates in some curious anecdotes. The uncertainty of the sex of a noted character was too fair an opportunity to be wasted, and gambling policies of insurance were effected to large amounts, as shown in the opposite statement, giving an idea of the extent to which such transactions were carried within the first few months of their being started, reaching, as they subsequently did, considerably larger proportions. _Insurance on the Sex of Monsieur the Chevalier D’Eon._[256] DR.