Gary Kates

The disguise, and the name Lia de Beaumont, appear mostly in d'Eon's own telling, written decades later.

The historian Gary Kates, who has read her papers more closely than anyone, believes she invented the disguise after the fact, as a way of explaining the woman she had become.

Other historians keep the story.

Nobody can prove it either way.

So hold it lightly.

A woman could not hold a commission.

Declaring d'Eon female meant she could never again be a threat.

Some historians think Louis XVI simply believed the rumors.