GLR January-February 2025

and women, making him as many enemies as friends. Conti was sent into forced residence with his family in Chantilly and forever forfeited the monarch’s favor. (Louis had never cared much for this highly gifted young man, perhaps out of jealousy.) At first intending to execute the culprits, the King gave in to the pleas of their families and settled for ex pelling them from court and stripping them of their posts. The chief victims of the royal displeasure were exiled to their estates or their regiments. The Cheva lier de Lorraine was ordered to keep away from Ver sailles lest he corrupt the Dauphin. La Ferté was reprimanded, Tilladet threatened with banishment from France at his first relapse, and the Chevalier de Colbert was slapped publicly by his father. As for the Marquis de Biran, one of the “grand masters,” his fa ther found a worse punishment—he married him off. Only the ringleader, the Duc de Gramont, escaped the storm. Louis explained that he had become so de testable that whatever he did left the King indifferent, and to take notice would honor him too much. Since by law sodomy was punishable by death at the stake, this was surprisingly indulgent for Louis, who insisted he loathed sodomy and proved ruthless to Protestants and Jansenists. The first two decades of his reign had been a time of courtly frolicking. Spectacles and amusements, hunts and balls, card parties and gal lantries had made up much of a courtier’s life; but now Louis fell under the influence of the dévotes , anultra Catholic religious faction. Order and discretion were his goals. After morganatically marrying his children’s governess, the prudish Mme de Maintenon, he for mally withdrew the court from Paris to Versailles. To be con spicuously pious was now the fashion, though it often served as a smokescreen. While a fortress mentality prevailed at Ver sailles, prostitution and homosexuality came to center around Monsieur’s former residence in Paris, the Palais-Royal. Young, good-looking valets and pages and wigmakers’ apprentices re mained fair game for the displaced courtiers. Monsieur eventually retired to his château in Saint-Cloud, attended by his favorites. He died of apoplexy in 1701 at age 61. In the streets they sang: If he’d died as he’d lived, if truth be told, He’d have died with a prick up his bum hole. R EFERENCES Hammond, Nicholas. Gossip, Sexuality and Scandal in France (1610 1715). Peter Lang, 2011. Lever, Maurice. Les bûchers de Sodome. Histoire des “infâmes.” Fayard, 1985. Rohr, Zita Eva and Jonathan W. Spangler, eds.. Significant Others : As pects of Deviance and Difference in Premodern Court Cultures. Routledge, 2022. On the Cover: Supposed portrait of Guy Armand de Gramont, Comte de Guiche, cradling a bust of Caracalla. Attributed to Sébastien Bourdon. Philippe has died a bottle in hand; The proverb therefore fails to stand Which says as a man lives so he dies; The opposite in this case applies,

Philippe Duc de Vendôme. Portrait by Jacob Friedrich Voet.

were capable of something so horrible.” The brothel-keeper complained to minister Colbert and promised to go the King if he didn’t discipline his son. Colbert had the burn victim nursed and recompensed and hushed up the affair. But two or three months later, when talk had died down, a lackey of one of these scoundrels was arrested for theft. Under threat of torture, he ad mitted he had never forgiven himself for helping Colbert Jr tear down the crucifix. This admission saved him. Colbert feared that a death sentence would bring out the truth, so he pardoned the valet and personally thanked him for his discretion. An even more revolting scandal then followed. In a brothel on Rue aux Ours, the gang of villains, “drunk as swine,” ab ducted off the street a little waffle-vendor whose looks appealed to them and tried to rape him. When the boy fought them off, one drew his sword and cut off his genitals. The murderer ran off while the victim died wallowing in blood. The King was immediately informed. As soon as Louis heard of the brotherhood, he summoned his son Vernandois. Legend has it that he had him whipped in his presence, but in fact he questioned him “as a king and a father.” Like many in such a situation, Vernandois claimed to have been led astray and named a great many names. He was then sent to the Flemish front, where he died of a fever. The King waxed particularly wrathful when he heard that the young prince de Conti had been solicited for the brother hood. Age sixteen with a charming face, a gentle smile, blue eyes, and wavy hair, graceful and witty, he flirted with both men

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