GLR January-February 2025

ESSAY

Sodomy at the Court of Louis XIV L AURENCE S ENELICK

T HE MAN IN THE IRON MASK never existed. A prisoner of state under Louis XIV, he spent 34 years in the Bastille and may have been made to wear a velvet mask. Seventy years later, Voltaire alleged that the mask was iron and the prisoner had been the king’s elder, illegitimate brother. But it was Alexandre Dumas in the last novel in his D’Artagnan trilogy, Le Vicomte de Bragelonne (1840), who added the twist that the masked inmate was the King’s twin brother Philippe. In its adaptations, Hollywood distorted Louis into a tyrant who had to be replaced by his virtuous sibling with the aid of the mus keteers. Louis Hayward was convincing in the double role in 1939, Leonardo DiCaprio less so in 1998. M ONSIEURAS M ADAME L OUIS XIV DID INDEED have a younger brother named Philippe, but the king was never at risk of being supplanted. Philippe I, Duc d’Orléans, known as Monsieur, is one of history’s most notorious effeminates, whose affections and fortune were lav ished on male favorites, from courtiers to opera dancers. In an

age of fluctuating sexual identities and noblesse oblige , hewas dutifully married twice and sired several children. Neverthe less, “the silliest woman in the world,” as he was called, was never taken seriously politically. From childhood, he was mad about female fripperies but did not dare dress as a woman in public because of his rank. Short and tubby, he wore as many rings, bracelets, precious stones, and ribbons as fashion al lowed; his wig was enormous, black, and powdered, and rouge was discreetly applied. In private, he would put on lace caps, earrings and beauty spots, losing no opportunity to “drag it up” at costume balls, where his greatest pleasure seemed to derive from being humiliated, threatened, and mocked by his current paramour. His relationship with the Chevalier de Lorraine has been characterized as basically sado-masochistic. Unscrupulous, nar cissistic, and notoriously jealous, Lorraine kept making greater and more brutal demands while Philippe delighted in the abase ment and abjection. Ultimately, Louis had Lorraine locked up in a chateau in Lyon and then in the remote Château d’If (famous from The Count of Monte Cristo ). Philippe blamed his young wife for insisting on his favorite’s imprisonment, and when she died the next year, rumor ran (falsely) that she had been poi soned by Lorraine. The Chevalier was recalled from exile. Louis himself had a strong appetite for women and was fond of his bastards, ennobling them and promoting their careers. He often expressed his detestation for sodomites. Nevertheless, when his confessor urged him to evict them from his court, the King sighed: “Where am I to begin? With my own brother?” So he often turned a blind eye to Philippe and the many courtiers who shared his tastes. Following the Affair of Poisons, which revealed the aris tocracy to be riddled with crime and debauchery, the king fi nally decided to purge society of vice. The highborn sodomites began to panic, including those in the entourage of Monsieur, who moved his residence from Versailles to Paris. The Church was calling for heads, and Louis, turning toward piety as he aged, was inclined to comply. However, his Minister of War Louvois showed more political savvy and dissuaded Louis from punishing the sodomites. “It would be better for His Majesty than if they loved women, for when they have to go to war and battle, we couldn’t detach them from their mistresses ... while, if they have other inclinations, they would be quite ready to leave the ladies and go on campaign with their male lovers.” Besides, he pointed out, if the vice were to be punished, they would have to start with the Jesuits. Whether or not Louvois was thinking of the famous Sacred Band of Thebes, Louis realized that he could not deprive his Laurence Senelick is author of The Changing Room: Sex, Drag and Theatre and editor of Lovesick: Modernist Plays of Same-sex Love .

Philippe d’Orléans, “Monsieur,” brother of Louis XIV. Portrait by Pierre Mignard.

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