EXACTLY two hundred and twenty years ago this month one of the most bizarre meetings ever to take place in Southampton sparked a mystery that was to take years to solve.

It was April 1796 and Southampton was at its height of success as a fashionable health spa resort.

There was the spa, its baths, dances and balls, card-playing and other social events.

During the season, Southampton was crowded with the aristocracy, and even members of the royal family were known to visit and enjoy the sea air.

The visitors were always looking for entertainment, and when the entertainment had a whiff of scandal, then so much the better.

News swept through Southampton that a fencing contest was to take place between two famous French sword experts, M de Launay and the Chevalier d’Eon.

De Launay was indeed an import figure in the sport, but interest in him paled to insignificance compared with that lavished on Chevalier d’Eon, diplomat, soldier, spy and the finest fencer in Europe.

All these attributes had made him famous, but it was the unknown that attracted the attention of the crowds. Was Chevalier d’Eon a man or a woman?

There had long been talk about the Chevalier.

The delicate matter had been discussed before he permanently adopted women’s clothes.

Large amounts of money had even been wagered on the subject of his sex, and many attempts had been made at kidnap in order that the question could be answered once and for all.

Long before the start of the match, eager spectators gathered to make sure they had a good view.

At the appointed time, according to the history books, de Launay – a striking, athletic man – made his entrance, but it was his opponent the crowd were waiting to see.

Then there appeared “a little old woman, between 60 and 70, in a much-worn gown of black satin with white frills at the throat, her head wrapped in a white cap, obviously a sufferer from rheumatism, yet carrying on her breast a single notable ornament, the cross of the Order of St Louis, and in her hand her fencing sword”.

“What could this frail little old woman, encumbered by her dress and handicapped by age and ailments do against this brilliant master of fencing?”

The opponents took up their positions and the duel began. There were a few thrusts and parries, and the crowd became excitable, with neither fencer giving ground.

“It then became apparent that the queer little old lady is overcoming the stiffness of her ageing joints, but that she has an eye like a hawk, a wrist of steel and the capacity to lunge and guard.”

The Chevalier tripped over the long skirt and the opponent’s blade pierced her body, resulting in a four-month stay in a Southampton hospital.

Never to fence again the Chavalier lived in poverty until he died on May 10, 1810.

“Then at last, at an autopsy, his long-cherished secret, which, so it would seem, was not even discovered by the Southampton doctors, is revealed,” says the history book.

“This strange creature, who had been dressed as a girl by his mother, was proved to be a man.”