Queer Places:
Château de La Ferté-Vidame, Place du Vieux Marché, 28340 La Ferté-Vidame, France
102 Rue de Grenelle, 75007 Paris, France
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Claude de Rouvroy, duc de Saint-Simon (August 1607 – 3 May 1693), was a French soldier and courtier, and
from 1626 to 1636 favourite of Louis XIII of France, who created his dukedom for him. His only son Louis de Rouvroy, Duke of Saint-Simon (1675–1755) was the famous memoirist of the court of Louis XIV.
Claude de Rouvroy was the second son of Louis de Rouvroy, seigneur du Plessis (died 1643), who had been a warm supporter of Henry of Guise and the Catholic League. His mother was Denise de La Fontaine.
With his elder brother Charles (who later became the marquis de Saint-Simon), Claude de Rouvroy entered the service of Louis XIII as a page and found instant favour with the king.
Louis XIII's infatuation for Claude de Saint-Simon was a form of slumming, as Claude was not a sophisticated youth, but short and homely, with salty language and a way with horses. Claude's relationship with the king was intriguing; the king invented a coded language in which the pair could send romantic correspondence. Evidently, after Louis involved Claude in a love triangle with Marie de Hautefort, the boy urged his sovereign to just go ahead and bed the lovely young girl. There is no concrete proof of any physical sexual affair between Louis and Claude de Saint-Simon, who was heterosexual, and was often seen slipping away from Louis's quarters in 1634 to rendezvous with one of his 'wenches,' as Claude's casual liaisons were described. Louis was just as jealous of his male favorites' attachments to someone else as he was of the idea of Marie de Hautefort marrying anyone. . . The king remained enamored of Saint-Simon for a decade.
Named first equerry in March 1627, he became in less than three years the captain of the châteaux of St-Germain and Versailles, master of the hounds, first gentleman of the bed-chamber, royal councillor and governor of Meulan and of Blaye. On the fall of La Rochelle in 1628, he received lands in the vicinity valued at 80,000 livres. In 1635, his seigneurie of Saint-Simon in Vermandois was erected into a duchy, and he was created a peer of France. Despite the estrangement of later years, he had a true regard for the king, and he brought his son up to revere him as the model of kingship.[1] He was at first on good terms with Richelieu and was of service on the Day of Dupes (11 November 1630). Having suffered disgrace for taking the part of his uncle, the baron of Saint Léger, after the capture of Catelet (15 August 1636), he retired to Blaye. He fought in the campaigns of 1638 and 1639, and after the death of Richelieu returned to court, where he was coldly received by the king (18 February 1643). Thenceforth, with the exception of siding with Condé during the Fronde, he took small part in politics. By his first wife, Diane de Budos de Portes (1629-1670), a relative of Condé, whom he married in 1644 and who died in 1670, he had three daughters. By his second wife, Charlotte de l'Aubespine (1640-1725), whom he married in 1672, he had a son Louis, the "author of the memoirs".[1] Louis' godfather was none other than Louis XIV, with Queen Maria Theresa of Austria serving as godmother.
When Louis XIV died in 1715 the Duke of Orléans, a personal friend of Saint-Simon, became Regent to the young Louis XV. The time had come for the writer to put his political theories into practice. In September of that year he was appointed to the Regency Council. However, the death of the Duke of Orléans in 1723 put an end to his political career and to his favoured position at the court. Saint-Simon chose to retire to his château de La Ferté-Vidame, thirty miles from Chartres. In 1749 he finally completed his Memoirs, covering the period up to the death of the Regent in 1723. Saint-Simon died on 2 March 1755, in his Parisian townhouse on the Rue de Grenelle. His Memoirs were not published in full until 1829, at the initiative of his descendants. Marcel Proust and Stendhal were avid readers of Saint-Simon.
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