643 



DEODAND D'EON. 



suggested by Mr Christian in rctVrcnco to the Athe- 

 nian law, does not seem to be the motive for the rule 

 of the common law of England, that whatever chattel 

 causes the death of a person, shall be forfeited. It 

 is an ancient doctrine mentioned by Bracton (Omnia 

 <fiue movent ad mortem sunt Deo danda. 1. 3. c. 5.), 

 and its origin is attributed to the notion, tliat where 

 a man was suddenly cut off in his sins, expiation 

 ought to be made for the benefit of his soul ; and, 

 accordingly, ilic chattel which occasioned lu's death, 

 should IK- tort'rked to the king, to be devoted by him 

 to pious uses. The statute of 4 Edward I. st. 2., 

 relating to coroners, provides that " horses, boats, 

 carts, mills, &c., whereby any are slain, that pro- 

 perly are called' deodands, shall be valued and de- 

 livered unto the towns," which thereupon became 

 answerable to the king for their value ; in whose 

 behalf the sheriff' might levy the amount upon the 

 inhabitants of the town. Accordingly, in all indict- 

 ments for homicide, in England, the grand jury 

 specify the instrument that immediately caused the 

 death, and its value, that the king may claim the 

 deodand ; for it is no deodand unless it is so found 

 by the jury. 



Though these forfeitures were originally incurred 

 to the king, yet he might grant them away to the 

 lord of the manor or territory upon which the death 

 happened, as he was accustomed to grant the right 

 of waifs and wrecks. The deodands have been 

 generally so granted ; and these grants may proba- 

 bly be the reason that this ancient singularity has so 

 long remained a part of the English law; for the right 

 to the forfeiture has thus become a subject of private 

 property, and so not liable to be impaired by the 

 legislature without compensation to the parties inter- 

 ested. 



The old books contain a good deal of quaint and 

 curious law on this subject. It will l>e observed, that 

 no distinction is made, whether the death is felonious, 

 excusable, justifiable, or purely accidental, or whe- 

 ther the instrument, by which it is occasioned, be- 

 longs to the person committing the homicide or to 

 another ; for, says the Doctor and Student, if a man 

 kills another with my sword, still the sword is for- 

 feited ; but if a person be killed by falling from a 

 thing standing still, as a cart, it is not forfeited ; if, 

 n the contrary, a horse, ox, or other animal, kill a 

 person by its own motion, by running over him or 

 otherwise, it is a deodand. It is said, however, that 

 if the instrument of the death is standing still, only 

 the part which immediately occasioned the death is 

 forfeited ; as, if one attempts to climb up the wheel 

 of a cart that is standing still, and falls, and is 

 thereby killed, only the wheel is forfeited ; but if it 

 be in motion, the entire cart is a deodand. Only 

 chattels are forfeited ; anything attached to the free- 

 hold, as the wheel of a mill, or a bell hanging in a 

 steeple, is not so ; and no deodand occurs, unless 

 the death happens within a year and a day after the 

 accident. A sale of the article does not exempt it 

 from forfeiture ; as if a horse strikes a man, and is 

 afterwards sold, and the man dies within the year 

 and day, the horse is forfeited. It is not surprising 

 that so whimsical a law should be very negligently 

 executed ; the juries are very apt to mitigate the 

 forfeitures by finding that only some trivial thing, or 

 only a part of an entire thing, was the occasion of the 

 death ; and the court has generally refused to inter- 

 fere in behalf of the lord of the franchise, to assist him 

 in enforcing his claim to the whole article. 



There are no deodands on the high seas, though it 

 has been said, that, if a man fall overboard from a 

 vessel in a fresh water river, and is drowned, the vessel 

 and cargo are strictly a deodand ; and the above sta- 

 uite of Edward I., we observe, mentions boats as one 



species of deodand. But in this case the jury would 

 probably find the death to have been occasioned by 

 the winds or the water, and would have a precedent 

 sufficiently analogous : for the books maintain tliat if 

 a man, riding over a river, is thrown off his horse 

 by the violence of the water, and drowned, the horse 

 is not a deodand, for the death was occasioned by the 

 current. 



D'EON (the chevalier). Eon de Beaumont, 

 Charles Genevieve Louise Auguste Andre Timothe'e 

 d', equerry to Louis XV., chevalier, doctor of law, 

 parliamentary advocate, military officer, royal censor, 

 diplomatist, &c., known until 1777 by the name of 

 the chevalier d'Eon, was born at Tonnerre, in 1728. 

 His brilliant qualities enabled him to act a conspi- 

 cuous part in the world, but he gained a greater 

 notoriety by the mystery long kept up in regard to liis 

 sex. While an advocate, he studied, in his leisure 

 horn's, politics and belles-lettres, and wrote an Essai 

 historique sur les differentes Situations de la France, 

 par Rapport aux Finances, followed by two volumes, 

 entitled Considerations politiques sur V Administra- 

 tion des Peuples anciens et modernes. To these 

 works he owed the honour- of being proposed, by the 

 prince of Conti, minister of Louis XV., as envoy on 

 a difficult mission to the Russian court. Here his 

 insinuating manners gained him the favour of the 

 empress Elizabeth, and for five years he was the 

 medium of a secret correspondence between her and 

 the king of France. In consequence of his services 

 at this court, he was made successively lieutenant 

 and captain of dragoons, and received a pension of 

 2400 livres. He returned to France in 1758, and 

 subsequently distinguished himself in the military 

 service. After the conclusion of peace, he went to 

 London as secretary of legation, under the duke of 

 Jsivernois, and obtained possession of some important 

 papers. On the return of the duke, he remained as 

 resident, and afterwards as minister plenipotentiary 

 in London. Everything seemed to favour him, when 

 secret intrigues suddenly disappointed his fair pros- 

 pects. France had concluded a disadvantageous 

 peace with England, and the negotiators of it were 

 fearful of having their conduct exposed. The che- 

 valier was the confident of Louis XV., and might 

 make the dreaded disclosures. This was reason 

 enough for ruining him. He was dismissed from his 

 employment, and lived fourteen years at London, in 

 a kind of banishment. Though the king had con- 

 sented to his disgrace, he assigned him a pension of 

 1200 livres. D'Eon still remained true to his native 

 land, and rejected several offers of the English court. 

 The king heard of his conduct, and wished to restore 

 him, but the chevalier insisted on having his inno- 

 cence publicly acknowledged, before accepting any 

 favours. In the mean time, Louis XV. died. 



During the residence of D'Eon in England, suspi- 

 cions arose as to his sex, which led to several extra- 

 ordinary wagers. In July, 1777, a curious trial took 

 place before lord chief-justice Mansfield, on an ac- 

 tion brought against Mr Jaques, a broker, who had 

 received several premiums of fifteen guineas, to re- 

 turn a hundred, whenever it should be proved that 

 the chevalier was a woman. M. Louis Legoux and 

 M. de Morande, on the trial, deposed to this as a 

 fact, which was supposed to be so well established, 

 that the defendant's counsel pleaded that the plain- 

 tiff at the time of laying the wager, knew that the 

 court of France, relative to the grant of a pension, 

 had treated with D'Eon as a woman ; and thence in- 

 ferred that the wager was unfair. This objection 

 was not held good, and Hayes, the plaintiff, obtained 

 a verdict. It was, however, afterwards set aside, on 

 the ground of the illegality of the wager. After the 

 decision of this cause, D'Eon put on female attire 



