Roger Peyrefitte
Encyclopedia
Roger Peyrefitte was a French diplomat
, writer of bestseller
novels and gossipy non-fiction, and a defender of gay rights.
, Tarn
to a wealthy family, Peyrefitte went to Jesuit and Lazarist boarding schools and then studied language and literature in Toulouse
. After graduating first of his year from Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris
in 1930, he worked as an embassy secretary in Athens
between 1933 and 1938. Back in Paris, he had to resign in 1940 for personal reasons before being reintegrated in 1943 and finally ending his diplomatic career in 1945. In his novels, he often treated controversial themes and his work put him at odds with the Roman Catholic church.
He wrote openly about his homoerotic experiences in boarding school in his 1944 first novel Les amitiés particulières
(Particular Friendships -- a term used in seminaries to refer to friendships seen as too close and exclusive, often incorrectly translated as "Special Friendships"), which won the coveted prix Renaudot
in 1945. The book was made into a film of the same name which was released in 1964. On the set, Peyrefitte met the 12 year old Alain-Philippe Malagnac d'Argens de Villèle
; Peyrefitte tells the story of their relationship in Notre amour ("Our Love" - 1967) and L'Enfant de cœur ("Child of the Heart" - 1978). Malagnac later married performer Amanda Lear
.
A cultivator of scandal, Peyrefitte attacked the Vatican
and Pope Pius XII
in his book Les Clés de saint Pierre (1953), which earned him the nickname of 'Pope of the Homosexuals'. The publication of the book started a bitter quarrel with François Mauriac
. Mauriac threatened to resign from the paper he was working with at the time, L'Express
if it did not stop carrying advertisements for the book. The quarrel was exacerbated by the release of the film adaptation of Les amitiés particulières
and culminated in a virulent open letter by Peyrefitte in which he accused Mauriac of homophile
inclinations and called him a tartuffe
. In April 1976, after Pope
Paul VI had condemned homosexuality
in a homily, Peyrefitte accused him of being a closet homosexual.
In Les Ambassades (1951), he revealed the ins and outs of diplomacy. Peyrefitte also wrote a book full of gossip about Baron Jacques d'Adelswärd-Fersen
's exile in Capri
(L'Exilé de Capri, 1959) and translated Greek gay love poetry (La Muse garçonnière (The Boyish Muse), Flammarion, 1973).
In his memoirs Propos Secrets, he wrote extensively about his youth, his sex life (homosexual mainly and a few affairs with women), his years as a diplomat, his travels to Greece and Italy and his troubles with the police for sexually harassing male teenagers. He also gave vent to his fierce love of snobbish genealogizing
and vitriolic well-documented gossip, writing about famous people of his time such as André Gide
, Henry de Montherlant
, Jean Cocteau
, Jean Genet
, Marcel Jouhandeau
, Marie-Laure de Noailles
, Gaston Gallimard
, Jean Paul Sartre, Charles de Gaulle
and Georges Pompidou
, among many others. Claiming he had reliable sources within the Vatican's "black aristocracy", once again he stated that three recent popes of the 20th century were homosexuals. He particularly loved to expose the hypocrisy
and vanity
of prominent people, to denounce fake aristocrat
s and to out
closet homosexuals.
Roger Peyrefitte wrote popular historical biographies about Alexander the Great and Voltaire
. In Voltaire et Frédéric II he polemically claimed that Voltaire had been the passive
lover of Frederick the Great.
In spite of his libertarian
views on sexuality, politically Peyrefitte was a conservative
bourgeois and in his later years he would support extreme right-winger Jean-Marie Le Pen
.
He died at 93 of Parkinson's disease
, after receiving the last rites
from the Church he had attacked so strongly.
Diplomat
A diplomat is a person appointed by a state to conduct diplomacy with another state or international organization. The main functions of diplomats revolve around the representation and protection of the interests and nationals of the sending state, as well as the promotion of information and...
, writer of bestseller
Bestseller
A bestseller is a book that is identified as extremely popular by its inclusion on lists of currently top selling titles that are based on publishing industry and book trade figures and published by newspapers, magazines, or bookstore chains. Some lists are broken down into classifications and...
novels and gossipy non-fiction, and a defender of gay rights.
Life and work
Born in CastresCastres
Castres is a commune, and arrondissement capital in the Tarn department and Midi-Pyrénées region in southern France. It lies in the former French province of Languedoc....
, Tarn
Tarn
Tarn is a department of 5,758 km2 in the Midi-Pyrénées region in the southwest of France, named after the Tarn River. It was formed in 1790 of the three dioceses of Albi, Castres and Lavaur, belonging to the province of Languedoc. In 1906, the population was 330,533...
to a wealthy family, Peyrefitte went to Jesuit and Lazarist boarding schools and then studied language and literature in Toulouse
Toulouse
Toulouse is a city in the Haute-Garonne department in southwestern FranceIt lies on the banks of the River Garonne, 590 km away from Paris and half-way between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea...
. After graduating first of his year from Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris
Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris
The Institut d'études politiques de Paris , simply referred to as Sciences Po , is a public research and higher education institution in Paris, France, specialised in the social sciences. It has the status of grand établissement, which allows its admissions process to be highly selective...
in 1930, he worked as an embassy secretary in Athens
Athens
Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...
between 1933 and 1938. Back in Paris, he had to resign in 1940 for personal reasons before being reintegrated in 1943 and finally ending his diplomatic career in 1945. In his novels, he often treated controversial themes and his work put him at odds with the Roman Catholic church.
He wrote openly about his homoerotic experiences in boarding school in his 1944 first novel Les amitiés particulières
Les amitiés particulières
Les amitiés particulières is a 1943 novel by French writer Roger Peyrefitte, probably his best known work today, which won the coveted prix Renaudot...
(Particular Friendships -- a term used in seminaries to refer to friendships seen as too close and exclusive, often incorrectly translated as "Special Friendships"), which won the coveted prix Renaudot
Prix Renaudot
The Prix Théophraste-Renaudot or Prix Renaudot is a French literary award which was created in 1926 by ten art critics awaiting the results of the deliberation of the jury of the Prix Goncourt....
in 1945. The book was made into a film of the same name which was released in 1964. On the set, Peyrefitte met the 12 year old Alain-Philippe Malagnac d'Argens de Villèle
Alain-Philippe Malagnac d'Argens de Villele
Alain-Philippe Malagnac d'Argens de Villèle was the adopted son of French writer Roger Peyrefitte, their amorous relationship being a subject of several of the latter's works...
; Peyrefitte tells the story of their relationship in Notre amour ("Our Love" - 1967) and L'Enfant de cœur ("Child of the Heart" - 1978). Malagnac later married performer Amanda Lear
Amanda Lear
Amanda Lear is a French singer, lyricist, composer, painter, TV presenter, actress and novelist....
.
A cultivator of scandal, Peyrefitte attacked the Vatican
Holy See
The Holy See is the episcopal jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in Rome, in which its Bishop is commonly known as the Pope. It is the preeminent episcopal see of the Catholic Church, forming the central government of the Church. As such, diplomatically, and in other spheres the Holy See acts and...
and Pope Pius XII
Pope Pius XII
The Venerable Pope Pius XII , born Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli , reigned as Pope, head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of Vatican City State, from 2 March 1939 until his death in 1958....
in his book Les Clés de saint Pierre (1953), which earned him the nickname of 'Pope of the Homosexuals'. The publication of the book started a bitter quarrel with François Mauriac
François Mauriac
François Mauriac was a French author; member of the Académie française ; laureate of the Nobel Prize in Literature . He was awarded the Grand Cross of the Légion d'honneur .-Biography:...
. Mauriac threatened to resign from the paper he was working with at the time, L'Express
L'Express (France)
L'Express is a French weekly news magazine. When founded in 1953 during the First Indochina War, it was modelled on the US magazine TIME.-History:...
if it did not stop carrying advertisements for the book. The quarrel was exacerbated by the release of the film adaptation of Les amitiés particulières
Les amitiés particulières (film)
Les amitiés particulières is a 1964 film adaptation of the Roger Peyrefitte novel Les amitiés particulières directed by Jean Delannoy. It starred Francis Lacombrade as Georges, Didier Haudepin as Alexandre and Michel Bouquet as Père de Trennes. It was released in English as This Special Friendship...
and culminated in a virulent open letter by Peyrefitte in which he accused Mauriac of homophile
Homophile
The word homophile is an alternative to the word for homosexual or gay. The homophile movement also refers to the gay rights movement of the 1950s and '60s....
inclinations and called him a tartuffe
Tartuffe
Tartuffe is a comedy by Molière. It is one of his most famous plays.-History:Molière wrote Tartuffe in 1664...
. In April 1976, after Pope
Pope
The Pope is the Bishop of Rome, a position that makes him the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church . In the Catholic Church, the Pope is regarded as the successor of Saint Peter, the Apostle...
Paul VI had condemned homosexuality
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
in a homily, Peyrefitte accused him of being a closet homosexual.
In Les Ambassades (1951), he revealed the ins and outs of diplomacy. Peyrefitte also wrote a book full of gossip about Baron Jacques d'Adelswärd-Fersen
Jacques d'Adelsward-Fersen
Baron Jacques d'Adelswärd-Fersen was a novelist and poet of the early 20th century; his modern fame is based on a mid-century fictionalised biography by Roger Peyrefitte....
's exile in Capri
Capri
Capri is an Italian island in the Tyrrhenian Sea off the Sorrentine Peninsula, on the south side of the Gulf of Naples, in the Campania region of Southern Italy...
(L'Exilé de Capri, 1959) and translated Greek gay love poetry (La Muse garçonnière (The Boyish Muse), Flammarion, 1973).
In his memoirs Propos Secrets, he wrote extensively about his youth, his sex life (homosexual mainly and a few affairs with women), his years as a diplomat, his travels to Greece and Italy and his troubles with the police for sexually harassing male teenagers. He also gave vent to his fierce love of snobbish genealogizing
Genealogy
Genealogy is the study of families and the tracing of their lineages and history. Genealogists use oral traditions, historical records, genetic analysis, and other records to obtain information about a family and to demonstrate kinship and pedigrees of its members...
and vitriolic well-documented gossip, writing about famous people of his time such as André Gide
André Gide
André Paul Guillaume Gide was a French author and winner of the Nobel Prize in literature in 1947. Gide's career ranged from its beginnings in the symbolist movement, to the advent of anticolonialism between the two World Wars.Known for his fiction as well as his autobiographical works, Gide...
, Henry de Montherlant
Henry de Montherlant
Henry de Montherlant or Henry Marie Joseph Frédéric Expedite Millon de Montherlant was a French essayist, novelist and one of the leading French dramatists of the twentieth century.- Works :...
, Jean Cocteau
Jean Cocteau
Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau was a French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, playwright, artist and filmmaker. His circle of associates, friends and lovers included Kenneth Anger, Pablo Picasso, Jean Hugo, Jean Marais, Henri Bernstein, Marlene Dietrich, Coco Chanel, Erik Satie, María...
, Jean Genet
Jean Genet
Jean Genet was a prominent and controversial French novelist, playwright, poet, essayist, and political activist. Early in his life he was a vagabond and petty criminal, but later took to writing...
, Marcel Jouhandeau
Marcel Jouhandeau
Marcel Jouhandeau was a French writer.-Biography:Marcel Jouhandeau grew up in a world of women presided over by his grandmother. Under the influence of a young woman from the Carmel of Limoges, he embraced a mystical form of Catholicism and for a time thought to enter the orders...
, Marie-Laure de Noailles
Marie-Laure de Noailles
Marie-Laure de Noailles, Vicomtesse de Noailles , was one of the 20th century's most daring and influential patrons of the arts, noted for her associations with Salvador Dalí, Balthus, Jean Cocteau, Man Ray, Luis Buñuel, Francis Poulenc, Jean Hugo, Jean-Michel Frank and others as well as her...
, Gaston Gallimard
Gaston Gallimard
Gaston Gallimard was a French publisher.He founded La Nouvelle Revue Française in 1908, together with André Gide and Jean Schlumberger....
, Jean Paul Sartre, Charles de Gaulle
Charles de Gaulle
Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first President from 1959 to 1969....
and Georges Pompidou
Georges Pompidou
Georges Jean Raymond Pompidou was a French politician. He was Prime Minister of France from 1962 to 1968, holding the longest tenure in this position, and later President of the French Republic from 1969 until his death in 1974.-Biography:...
, among many others. Claiming he had reliable sources within the Vatican's "black aristocracy", once again he stated that three recent popes of the 20th century were homosexuals. He particularly loved to expose the hypocrisy
Hypocrisy
Hypocrisy is the state of pretending to have virtues, moral or religious beliefs, principles, etc., that one does not actually have. Hypocrisy involves the deception of others and is thus a kind of lie....
and vanity
Vanity
In conventional parlance, vanity is the excessive belief in one's own abilities or attractiveness to others. Prior to the 14th century it did not have such narcissistic undertones, and merely meant futility. The related term vainglory is now often seen as an archaic synonym for vanity, but...
of prominent people, to denounce fake aristocrat
Aristocracy (class)
The aristocracy are people considered to be in the highest social class in a society which has or once had a political system of Aristocracy. Aristocrats possess hereditary titles granted by a monarch, which once granted them feudal or legal privileges, or deriving, as in Ancient Greece and India,...
s and to out
Outing
Outing is the act of disclosing a gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender person's true sexual orientation or gender identity without that person's consent. Outing gives rise to issues of privacy, choice, hypocrisy, and harm in addition to sparking debate on what constitutes common good in efforts...
closet homosexuals.
Roger Peyrefitte wrote popular historical biographies about Alexander the Great and Voltaire
Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, free trade and separation of church and state...
. In Voltaire et Frédéric II he polemically claimed that Voltaire had been the passive
Anal sex
Anal sex is the sex act in which the penis is inserted into the anus of a sexual partner. The term can also include other sexual acts involving the anus, including pegging, anilingus , fingering, and object insertion.Common misconception describes anal sex as practiced almost exclusively by gay men...
lover of Frederick the Great.
In spite of his libertarian
Libertarianism
Libertarianism, in the strictest sense, is the political philosophy that holds individual liberty as the basic moral principle of society. In the broadest sense, it is any political philosophy which approximates this view...
views on sexuality, politically Peyrefitte was a conservative
Conservatism
Conservatism is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports, at the most, minimal and gradual change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism...
bourgeois and in his later years he would support extreme right-winger Jean-Marie Le Pen
Jean-Marie Le Pen
Jean-Marie Le Pen is a French far right-wing and nationalist politician who is founder and former president of the Front National party. Le Pen has run for the French presidency five times, most notably in 2002, when in a surprise upset he came second, polling more votes in the first round than...
.
He died at 93 of Parkinson's disease
Parkinson's disease
Parkinson's disease is a degenerative disorder of the central nervous system...
, after receiving the last rites
Last Rites
The Last Rites are the very last prayers and ministrations given to many Christians before death. The last rites go by various names and include different practices in different Christian traditions...
from the Church he had attacked so strongly.
Legacy
After his death, the city of Capri dedicated a plaque to him which is mounted near Villa Lysis and the inscription of which reads: A Roger Peyrefitte autore de L'esule di Capri per aver esaltato e diffuso il mito, la cultura e la bellezza dell'isola nel mondo. — "For Roger Peyrefitte, author of L'Exile de Capri, for having exalted and diffused the myth, the culture, and the beauty of this island in the world." http://www.capripress.com/article.php?cod=11Press cuttings
- Obituary in The TimesThe TimesThe Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
, 7 November 2000, page 25. "In the minds of many, Roger Peyrefitte's reputation as a genuinely literary novelist is based on one novel. Les Amitiés Particulières (1944), which was also his first. He wrote many others, but none really matched the meritLiterary meritLiterary merit is a quality generally applied to the genre of literary fiction. A work is said to have literary merit if it is a work of quality, that is if it has some aesthetic value....
of the first, and the author seemed increasingly to seek a succès de scandaleSuccès de scandaleSuccès de scandale is French for "success from scandal", i.e. when a success derives from a scandal.It might seem contradictory that any kind of success might follow from scandal: but scandal attracts attention, and this attention is sometimes the beginning of notoriety and/or other successes...
rather than any serious critical consideration."
- Obituary by James KirkupJames KirkupJames Falconer Kirkup, FRSL was a prolific English poet, translator and travel writer. He was brought up in South Shields, and educated at South Shields Secondary School and Durham University. He wrote over 30 books, including autobiographies, novels and plays...
in The IndependentThe IndependentThe Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
: The Tuesday Review, 7 November 2000, page 6. "Peyrefitte was a skilled manipulator of the media. He was charismatic to the point of absurdity, with his dramatic gestures and outrageous behaviour, so that in the end no one took any notice of his often ludicrous fabrications, though they were always delivered with great style and conviction, and with an effrontery that was amusingly malicious. {...} Peyrefitte acknowledges the courage of his great predecessors André GideAndré GideAndré Paul Guillaume Gide was a French author and winner of the Nobel Prize in literature in 1947. Gide's career ranged from its beginnings in the symbolist movement, to the advent of anticolonialism between the two World Wars.Known for his fiction as well as his autobiographical works, Gide...
, Marcel ProustMarcel ProustValentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust was a French novelist, critic, and essayist best known for his monumental À la recherche du temps perdu...
, Jean CocteauJean CocteauJean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau was a French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, playwright, artist and filmmaker. His circle of associates, friends and lovers included Kenneth Anger, Pablo Picasso, Jean Hugo, Jean Marais, Henri Bernstein, Marlene Dietrich, Coco Chanel, Erik Satie, María...
and Oscar WildeOscar WildeOscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...
, while regretting the timidity of Marcel JouhandeauMarcel JouhandeauMarcel Jouhandeau was a French writer.-Biography:Marcel Jouhandeau grew up in a world of women presided over by his grandmother. Under the influence of a young woman from the Carmel of Limoges, he embraced a mystical form of Catholicism and for a time thought to enter the orders...
and many of the contemporary French writers, whether gay or straight, in pursuing the cause of homosexual (and heterosexual) rights."
- Obituary by Douglas Johnson in The GuardianThe GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, 15 November 2000, page 24. "André Gide, who had attempted to defend homosexuality in a much earlier work, was prophetic in his congratulations to Peyrefitte. He did not think that Les Amitiés Particulières would win the Goncourt prize, but he did believe it would still be read a century later."
External links
- "The Importance of Being Peyrefitte", an article in Guide Magazine by Roger Moody, May 2002
- Roger Peyrefitte: Alexander is my Destiny, by B. John Zavrel, 1996
- Ribaldry in Rome — 1957 Time magazineTimeTime is a part of the measuring system used to sequence events, to compare the durations of events and the intervals between them, and to quantify rates of change such as the motions of objects....
review of The Keys of St. Peter - The Rothschilds & The Mind — 1965 Time magazineTimeTime is a part of the measuring system used to sequence events, to compare the durations of events and the intervals between them, and to quantify rates of change such as the motions of objects....
review of The Jews - Roger Peyrefitte in the GLBTQ Encyclopedia
- Roger Peyrefitte TV appearances at the INA archives
- Peyrefitte obituary