Charles-Geneviève de Beaumont, chevalier d'ÉON (1728-1810). L.A. (minute), [late April ? 1792, to the President of the National Assembly]; 3pages in-4. Remarkable draft, much crossed out and corrected, asking to come and defend France, in men's clothing, after the "Declaration of war against the Emperor & the King of Prussia". ..."The Declaration of War, this act of necessity and wisdom on the part of the King and the National Assembly, will soon make us know our friends and enemies [...] Brought up from my youth in the field of Mars, glory and liberty, I beg you and the Auguste Assemblée Nationale to ask the King for permission to leave the garments of Minerva and take up those of Mars, my first master-at-arms, and end my life as I began it". She sends the Assembly her saber, on the blade of which can be read her "profession of constitutional faith written in letters of gold [...] It is a hundred times more engraved in my heart". She will come to retrieve this sword "& to shed again the rest of my blood for the salvation of my country and the glory of my King". She recalls that she cooperated in the reunion of Russia and France, waged war in Germany, and worked in London to make the peace of 1763, but was stripped of her plenipotentiary character "by the Pompadour faction. The victorious resistance I opposed to this ancient satrapic despotism was my main glory"... Louis XVI, "the King of men & Kings", had given £5,000 to a Lord to pay D'Éon's debts, but she was robbed of it by that Lord's heir. "I have sold everything I own to honor my creditors. I only have two dresses left - I sold the best one to buy back my sword"...