Despite d'Éon habitually wearing a dragoon's uniform, there were rumours that he was actually a woman, and a betting pool was started on the London Stock Exchange about his true sex. D'Éon was invited to join, but declined, saying that an examination would be dishonouring, whatever the result. After a year without progress, the wager was abandoned. In 1774, after the death of Louis XV, the secret du roi was abolished, and d'Éon tried to negotiate a return from exile. The French government's side of the negotiations was handled by the writer Pierre de Beaumarchais. The resulting twenty-page treaty permitted d'Éon to return to France and keep his ministerial pension, but required that d'Éon turn over the correspondence regarding the secret du roi.
The Chevalier d'Éon claimed to be physically not a man, but a woman, and demanded recognition by the government as such. She claimed to have been born anatomically female, but to have been raised as a boy because Louis d'Éon de Beaumont could only inherit from his in-laws if he had a son. King Louis XVI and his court complied, but demanded that d'Éon dress appropriately and wear women's clothing, although she was allowed to continue to wear the insignia of the Order of Saint-Louis. She agreed, especially when the king granted the chevalière funds for a new wardrobe. In 1777, after fourteen months of negotiation, d'Éon returned to France, and was banished to Tonnerre for six years.
When France began to help the rebels during the American War of Independence, d'Éon asked to join the French troops in America, but his banishment prevented him from doing so.
In 1779, d'Éon published the memoirs La Vie Militaire, politique, et privée de Mademoiselle d'Éon. They were ghostwritten by a friend named La Fortelle, and are probably embellished.
She was allowed to return to England in 1785. The pension which had been granted by Louis XV was lost because of the French Revolution necessitating the sale of d'Éon's personal library, jewellery and plate. The family's properties in Tonnerre were confiscated by the revolutionary government. In 1792, she sent a letter to the French National Assembly, offering to lead a division of women soldiers against the Habsburgs, but the offer was rebuffed. D'Éon participated in fencing tournaments until being seriously wounded in Southampton in 1796. Her last years were spent with a widow, Mrs. Cole.
In 1804 d'Éon was sent to a debtors' prison for five months, and signed a contract for a biography to be written by Thomas William Plummer. The book was never published, because d'Éon became paralyzed following a fall. Her final four years were spent bedridden, and on 21 May 1810 she died in poverty in London at the age of 81.
Doctors who examined the body after death discovered that the Chevalier was anatomically male.[6] She was buried in the churchyard of St Pancras Old Church. Her remaining possessions were sold by Christie's in 1813.
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