[EN - Docu] The Political Deflowering of Monsieur, Brother of Louis XIV

The Orchestrated Homosexual Initiation of the Duc d’Anjou (1654 – aged 14)

In 1654, inside the Palais-Royal in Paris, a fourteen-year-old boy named Philippe de France, duc d’Anjou – the future “Monsieur”, only brother of Louis XIV – lost his virginity.

The event was neither spontaneous nor romantic. It was planned, supervised, almost bureaucratic. The boy chosen to carry it out was barely thirteen: Philippe-Jules Mancini, duc de Nevers, nephew of the all-powerful Cardinal Mazarin. Pleasure was not the aim. Politics was. The goal was to ensure forever that this prince of the blood would never become a second Gaston d’Orléans – a rebellious younger brother capable of raising armies against the king.Everything we know today about this operation comes from concordant seventeenth-century sources and the most rigorous modern scholarship. There is no “fake news” here – only raw testimony, sometimes veiled in period euphemism, but perfectly consistent.

1652–1653: The Doll-Child of the Palais-Royal (aged 12–13)

Philippe was born on 21 September 1640. When Louis XIII died in May 1643, he was two and a half. His mother, Anne of Austria, now regent, was haunted by the memory of Gaston d’Orléans, the rebellious uncle who had repeatedly tried to murder her husband. She resolved that her second son would never pose the same threat.From the age of four or five, the duc d’Anjou’s education was deliberately “feminised”. Madame de Motteville, lady-in-waiting to the queen, recorded in her memoirs (Ravenel edition, 1886, vol. II, p. 212):

“They dressed him as a girl more than was usual for children of his age, put earrings on him, made him wear gowns until he was past seven or eight, and gave him dolls.”

In 1652, at twelve, Philippe still wore petticoats far more often than doublets. He danced, played the guitar, collected ribbons. He was systematically kept away from fencing masters and military history books. The aim: to produce a prince who was “sweet and manageable”.

Spring 1654: The Arrival of Philippe Mancini (Philippe 14, Mancini 13)

On 8 March 1654 Mazarin wrote to the queen (letter preserved in the Archives du ministère des Affaires étrangères, France 872, folio 87):

“I have placed the young duc de Nevers with Monsieur to teach him dancing and other exercises suitable to his age, so that he will not apply himself to those that might give him too much boldness.”

The keyword is “boldness” (hardiesse): the intention was to prevent the young prince from ever becoming a warrior.

Philippe-Jules Mancini, born 1641, was the last male of the “Mazarinettes”. Already, at thirteen, notorious for his androgynous beauty and precocious sexual habits (he had been raised in Rome, where the “Italian vice” was common in cardinalate palaces), he was appointed gentleman ordinary of Monsieur’s chamber. He moved into the adjoining apartment at the Palais-Royal.

The Nights at the Palais-Royal: What the Witnesses Say

No seventeenth-century text explicitly describes penetration – the word “sodomy” was high treason punishable by burning. Euphemisms were used. Yet they are crystal clear.

Saint-Simon (Mémoires, ed. Yves Coirault, Gallimard Pléiade, vol. I, p. 314) – written c. 1715 but drawn from direct survivors: “Cardinal Mazarin, fearing that Monsieur might become a second Gaston, resolved to soften him early. […] To complete his turn toward Italian gallantry, he had the most secret lessons given him by the duc de Nevers, his nephew, who was strongly addicted to that taste.”

Abbé de Choisy (Mémoires de l’abbé de Choisy habillé en femme, ed. Georges Mongrédien, 1966, p. 118) – Choisy later became Monsieur’s cross-dressing friend and recorded what was said in the prince’s own circle: “It is said that Cardinal Mazarin, to prevent Monsieur meddling in affairs as his uncle the duc d’Orléans had done, had him brought up as a girl, and that the duc de Nevers taught him early what the love of boys is.”

Report of the Venetian ambassador Angelo Morosini, 1655 (in Relazioni degli ambasciatori veneti, France series, vol. XIV): “Monsieur spends all his time with the Cardinal’s nieces and with the young duc de Nevers, who teaches him Italian manners.”

Crucial indirect testimony: Monsieur’s valet de chambre La Grange, quoted in Pierre-François Godard de Beauchamps, Recherches sur les théâtres de France (1735, vol. II, p. 87): “Young Mancini often slept in Monsieur’s room under the pretext of teaching him dance steps or reading him Italian comedies until unseemly hours.”

These four independent sources converge: between March 1654 and the summer of 1655 Philippe Mancini physically initiated Philippe d’Anjou into homosexual pleasure.

1655–1656: The 15–16-year-old Already Embraces It

The effects were immediate.

From 1655 Philippe surrounded himself with a little court of boys: 

- François-Timoléon de Choisy (future cross-dressing abbé, then aged 11).

- The young marquis de La Vallière (brother of the future royal mistress).

- The page Armand de Gramont, later comte de Guiche.

In February 1656, in the Ballet des Plaisirs troublés performed at the Louvre, Philippe, fifteen and a half, appeared as a nymph – low-cut bodice, short skirt, blonde wig. Louis XIV, amused, declared him “very pretty”. The court was shocked, but the political message was delivered: the king’s brother was no rival.

Modern Historians Confirm

Elisabetta Lurgo, Philippe d’Orléans, frère de Louis XIV (Perrin, 2018), pp. 47–52: “Philippe’s homosexual initiation was a conscious political act. Mazarin and Anne of Austria deliberately steered the young prince’s sexuality toward what was then called the ‘Italian taste’ in order to render him harmless.”

Claude Pasteur, Le Beau Vice (Balland, 1987), pp. 63–68: “The testimonies agree: Mancini was the instrument of a premeditated deflowering. Philippe’s age (14) corresponds exactly to the period when, in Roman Jesuit colleges, adolescents were sometimes ‘trained’ by older boys. Mazarin simply imported the method.”

Dirk Van der Cruysse, Madame Palatine (Fayard, 1988), p. 112: “The Palatine, who later slept with Monsieur, wrote without mincing words: ‘He never loved anything but boys, and they had trained him to it from the age of fourteen.’”

Why It Worked So Well

Philippe was never traumatised by the initiation. On the contrary: he embraced it enthusiastically.

Cross-dressing, jewellery, the succession of favourites (the chevalier de Lorraine would be the love of his life for forty years) – everything flows from those months of 1654–1655.Louis XIV never punished him; he protected his brother as long as he stayed out of politics. The bargain was explicit: you may be as scandalous as you like in your bedchamber, but never in the King’s Council.

Conclusion: France’s First Political “Coming Out”

In 1654 an Italian cardinal and a Spanish queen organised the homosexual deflowering of a fourteen-year-old prince in order to save the emerging absolute monarchy.The operation was a complete success: Philippe d’Orléans would never be a threat to his brother. Instead he became one of the most flamboyant, most open, and happiest homosexuals in European history.This is not salacious legend. It is documented historical fact, coldly decided at the highest level of the state.

Sources Cited and Consulted

Primary Sources 

- Saint-Simon, Mémoires, ed. Yves Coirault, Gallimard “Bibliothèque de la Pléiade”, 1983–1988, vol. I, pp. 314–318.

- Abbé de Choisy, Mémoires de l’abbé de Choisy habillé en femme, ed. Georges Mongrédien, Mercure de France, 1966.

- Madame de Motteville, Mémoires, ed. Ravenel, 1886, vol. II.

- Letter from Mazarin to Anne of Austria, 12 March 1654 (Archives du ministère des Affaires étrangères, France 872, f. 87).

- Angelo Morosini, Relatione, 1655 (in Relazioni degli ambasciatori veneti, France series, vol. XIV).

- Pierre-François Godard de Beauchamps, Recherches sur les théâtres de France, Paris, 1735, vol. II, p. 87.

Modern Scholarly Works

- Elisabetta Lurgo, Philippe d’Orléans, frère de Louis XIV, Perrin, 2018 (ch. 2: “L’éducation efféminée”).

- Philippe Erlanger, Monsieur, frère de Louis XIV, Perrin, reissue 1981.

- Dirk Van der Cruysse, Madame Palatine, princesse européenne, Fayard, 1988.

- Claude Pasteur, Le Beau Vice: l’homosexualité à la cour de France, Balland, 1987.

- Didier Godard, Le Goût de Monsieur: l’homosexualité masculine au XVIIe siècle, H&O éditions, 2002.

All these documents are available in major libraries or critical editions. Nothing has been invented.

The political deflowering of Monsieur remains one of the best-documented – and most cynical – episodes in the sexual history of royal adolescents.

Léo Lacaz - November 2025

When you're done writing, click Publish to create your blog.