THE 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 musketeers. Louis Hayward was convincing in the double role in 1939, Leonardo DiCaprio less so in 1998.
Monsieur as Madame
Louis 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 lavished on male favorites, from courtiers to opera dancers. In an age of fluctuating sexual identities and noblesse oblige, he was dutifully married twice and sired several children. Nevertheless, “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 allowed; 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.
Portrait by Pierre Mignard.
His relationship with the Chevalier de Lorraine has been characterized as basically sado-masochistic. Unscrupulous, narcissistic, and notoriously jealous, Lorraine kept making greater and more brutal demands while Philippe delighted in the abasement 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 poisoned 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.
Portrait by Baldassare Franceschini.
Following the Affair of Poisons, which revealed the aristocracy to be riddled with crime and debauchery,
Laurence Senelick is author of The Changing Room: Sex, Drag and Theatre and editor of Lovesick: Modernist Plays of Same-sex Love.
