FRÈRE JACQUES: A SHRINE TO LOVE AND SORROW
FRÈRE JACQUES: A SHRINE TO LOVE AND SORROW
FRÈRE JACQUES: A SHRINE TO LOVE AND SORROW
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<strong>FRÈRE</strong> <strong>JACQUES</strong>: A <strong>SHRINE</strong> <strong>TO</strong> <strong>LOVE</strong> <strong>AND</strong> <strong>SORROW</strong><br />
Jacques d’Adelswärd-Fersen (1880-1923)<br />
Will H.L. Ogrinc (2006)<br />
In memoriam Heini J.A. Ogrinc (1946-1951)<br />
Revised and augmented version of the first edition, published inPaidika. The Journal of Paedophilia 3:2 (1994), pp. 30-<br />
58.Will H.L. A German version was published in Hamburg (MännerschwarmSkript Verlag) in 2005<br />
Some historians feel defeated when forced to silence by a paucity of source material. Others,<br />
perhaps with fewer scruples, look upon such lacunae as an opportunity to give free rein to their<br />
imagination. The conflict between these two approaches is mainly methodological, although we<br />
might observe that lack of evidence deters the scientific investigator, whereas perhaps inspiring the<br />
literary scholar.<br />
As a medievalist, I find that a lack of sources typifies the period, and one simply has to make the<br />
best of what one has. However, as a historian I find it painful when primary source material exists<br />
but is inaccessible because access is denied by legal restrictions. But my admiration grows for the<br />
"literati," who, faced with fragments, are inspired to piece words together, as an archaeologist<br />
assembles potsherds. (1)<br />
What we know about the French poet and novelist, Baron Jacques d'Adelswärd (2) consists very<br />
much of pieced together shards, some dubious, others probably assembled in the wrong positions,<br />
and many more simply missing. The image which emerges is thus full of guesswork, and will<br />
probably remain so.<br />
The first fragments I discovered were in Les Amitiés particulières (1943/1944), Les Amours<br />
singulières (1949), Du Vésuve à l’Etna (1952) and Notre amour (1967) by the French author Roger<br />
Peyrefitte (1907-2000). It was only in 1977 that I was able to examine a copy of his L'Exilé de<br />
Capri which had appeared in 1959. In reading that novel I became convinced that Jacques<br />
d'Adelswärd was, rather than a character in fiction, a real historical person. My curiosity was<br />
aroused. I decided to study in greater depth this writer who, following the publication of Peyrefitte's<br />
novel, had acquired a reputation as a pitiful poseur whose life had been one great melodrama.<br />
Having decided to study d'Adelswärd, I began to accumulate more fragments, mostly from<br />
secondary sources. During the 1980s my curiosity was further aroused by acquaintance with<br />
d'Adelswärd's own work which, because of the small editions in which it appeared, is difficult to<br />
locate. In the Royal Library in The Hague I found one volume of poetry, two novellas, and a<br />
virtually complete set of the magazine, Akademos, which d'Adelswärd edited in 1909. I was also<br />
able to examine a selection of d'Adelswärd's poetry which a Belgian collector had donated to the<br />
Dr. Edward Brongersma Foundation. (3) Confrontation with this authentic material came as<br />
something of a shock: it revealed d'Adelswärd as a far more energetic, sincere, and much less<br />
frivolous person than the character portrayed in Peyrefitte's novel (4) and in other secondary<br />
sources.<br />
The first, but least important, question I asked myself was what went wrong, starting with<br />
Peyrefitte? Soon I realized that Peyrefitte had probably just wanted to write a good novel, and that a<br />
novelist is not restricted by the rigorous standards of biography. But, then who was the historical<br />
person Jacques d'Adelswärd? I had to find additional primary sources, more of the author's own<br />
work, newspaper articles, archive materials, and observations about him by his contemporaries.<br />
Peyrefitte's novel proved to be very helpful. I often admired the balance it struck between being a<br />
readable story and dry biographical and bibliographical data. I discovered that Peyrefitte was doing<br />
his utmost to make the most responsible use of his material. That suspicion was further increased<br />
1
y reading the definitive version of L'Exilé de Capri. Although this edition lacks Cocteau's<br />
foreword (found only in the first edition), (5) it is often more detailed, and weaves more<br />
bibliographical information into the story. I considered this a generous gesture on the part of<br />
Peyrefitte towards his curious readers. However, in the novel, one incident still remains unclear: in<br />
1903 d'Adelswärd was brought before the court on morals charges involving a number of Parisian<br />
schoolboys. In both versions of his novel, Peyrefitte glosses over the actual facts of the affair which<br />
led up to d'Adelswärd's arrest and subsequent six months prison sentence, five years deprivation of<br />
civil rights, and 50 francs fine.<br />
In 1988, in the National Archives in The Hague, I came across some old inventories of important<br />
Parisian archives. I asked myself whether material concerning the d’Adelswärd case might still<br />
exist, and sent some letters to Paris. The Director of the Archives of the Préfecture de Police<br />
informed me at the end of March that a search of the archives had not revealed any relevant<br />
material. (6) In May, the chief custodian of the archives of the Paris and Ile-de-France region<br />
informed me that the dossier of the affair had "regrettably" been destroyed; (7) they could only<br />
furnish a photocopy of the sentence. Meanwhile, I had approached the Archives de France<br />
(formerly the Archives Nationales). In mid-March I was told that they did indeed have the material<br />
I had requested, but I was at the same time informed that there was a restriction on its being made<br />
public until 2003, and that I would have to apply to the director of the archive for access. My<br />
written request was refused in April 1988 with the statement that no reasonable arguments could be<br />
found to support such a request to the Ministère de la Justice (Ministry of Justice). (8) After a few<br />
days of discouragement, I decided not to be stopped by this decision. Had my French perhaps not<br />
been correct, or had faulty wording directed my request to the wrong person?<br />
I wrote a letter to the cultural attaché at the Dutch embassy in Paris asking him to intercede on my<br />
behalf. I received a positive and enthusiastic response. There followed negotiations with the<br />
Archives de France, and in October the cultural attaché informed me that a compromise had been<br />
reached: the Archives de France would not object to my inspecting the dossier provided I gave<br />
assurance in writing that I would publish nothing which might reveal the identity of the children<br />
involved. (9) After wrestling with this offer, I decided not to accept it, because I already knew the<br />
identity of a number of the boys from other sources, and above all because I was unable to obtain<br />
any guarantee that the Ministry of Justice would also respond positively to my request.<br />
L'Exilé de Capri<br />
It must first be said that Peyrefitte did outstanding research for his novel. He possessed all the<br />
writer's works; (10) he immersed himself in the secondary sources and visited places where<br />
d'Adelswärd had stayed; he spoke with many people, including family members, who had known<br />
the writer personally. Such efforts have, no doubt, given the novel its reputation for historical au-<br />
thenticity, a reputation neither entirely unjustified, nor fully deserved. (11) Peyrefitte did not want<br />
to limit himself to writing a historical biography or a biographical novel, as can be gathered from<br />
the remarks of Jean-Paul Sartre who, in 1958, spoke with Peyrefitte in Capri about the structure of<br />
the book. Sartre's evaluation, with which apparently the author agreed, was that, "The homosexual<br />
theme is very interesting. It also gives you the opportunity to portray the decadence of a whole<br />
society." (12)<br />
The final result, L'Exilé de Capri (fig. 1) is a distortion, however brilliant, perhaps revealing more<br />
about Peyrefitte and his times than about d'Adelswärd and his. It is a kind of homosexual gossip<br />
about a particular segment of that community at the turn of the century: who did it, might have<br />
done it, or perhaps could have done it, and with whom. The hero (and, in any case, the historical<br />
d'Adelswärd) finds himself thrown together with most of the "notorious" homosexuals of the finde-siècle<br />
and the belle époque, who are depicted as motivated principally by promiscuity. But<br />
perhaps Peyrefitte was really imposing his own world of the 1940s and 1950s upon d'Adelswärd.<br />
2
Figure 1 - Cover of the definitive edition (1974)<br />
The point is not that homosexuals of one era are more or less sexually driven than homosexuals of<br />
another era, but rather that the reasons for choosing a promiscuous life-style in 1900 were often<br />
different from the reasons in the 1950s. These differences are what Peyrefitte denies his readers. He<br />
misses the opportunity to provide essential information about the mentality of the people of that<br />
time, information that could help us to understand them. D'Adelswärd is to Peyrefitte merely a<br />
"phenomenon," a caricature with only a few essential features of his own to distinguish him from<br />
all those others who, since history began, have embraced "the love that dared not speak its name."<br />
As to the real personality of Jacques d'Adelswärd, Peyrefitte often maintains a malicious silence.<br />
One reads little in the novel about the long struggle, so persistent in d'Adelswärd's work, between<br />
woman and boy, between hetero- and homosexuality. One thing is clear in the novel: d'Adelswärd's<br />
ultimate choice was the adolescent boy, because he did not find mature men a likely alternative,<br />
and not (we might add) because he loathed women.<br />
Another objection I have is to the way Peyrefitte somehow manages to involve d'Adelswärd in the<br />
vicissitudes of famous homosexual contemporaries. Perhaps he does this to compensate for the fact<br />
that he does not define his hero very well, but the historically curious reader must here be on his<br />
guard. For instance, the presence of d'Adelswärd at the confrontation between a group of English<br />
tourists and Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas in the Hotel Quisisana in Capri in 1897 is<br />
extremely dubious. (13) Jacques d'Adelswärd did indeed admire Wilde, but there is not one scrap of<br />
evidence, as far as I know, that they ever saw each other, much less met.<br />
One final point. Considering the ethical norms of the period in which the novel is written and from<br />
which Peyrefitte has not been able completely to insulate himself, and considering also the still<br />
vigorous, small-minded secrecy in France about the events of 1903 and the decree that the Archives<br />
de France tried to impose upon me in 1988, it seems understandable that Peyrefitte chose either to<br />
give pseudonyms to a number of persons associated with d'Adelswärd or not to name them at all.<br />
(14) He certainly does not give the names of the Parisian schoolboys involved in the scandal; he<br />
only notes that in the sentence, reference is made to six boys of whom three were brothers.<br />
Strangely, however, earlier in the novel Peyrefitte gives a list of boys - even divided into the<br />
schools they attended! - who might possibly have participated in the events which led up to the<br />
3
trial. (15) All of these boys, later as adults, played important roles in French society. (16) I must<br />
admit that I do not understand Peyrefitte's intentions. A number of possibilities did occur to me.<br />
Did Peyrefitte not wish to give the names of the six boys actually involved in the case, either for<br />
ethical reasons or because they never became as famous as the boys he did list? Why did he include<br />
the names of boys not directly involved in the case? Was he just trying to magnify the<br />
respectability of their pedagogical institutions, or did the reputations of these boys have to be<br />
cleaned up, and, if so, why? Were these the names which are probably recorded in the dossier but<br />
which do not appear in the sentence? One of those on the list, Paul Morand, in his Venises (1971)<br />
recalled d'Adelswärd all too well, and Peyrefitte recently admitted that Morand was one of the more<br />
important informants for his novel. (17) Or was it just another vindictive act, common to many of<br />
Peyrefitte's books, listing the names to suggest that these boys had more to do with the affair than<br />
appeared?<br />
Jacques d'Adelswärd becomes Jacques d'Adelswärd-Fersen<br />
Of d'Adelswärd's mother, Louise Emilie Alexandrine Vührer (1855-1935), we only know that she<br />
came from a Catholic Alsatian family, and that her father, Thomas Michel Alexandre Vührer, is<br />
said to have been the founder of the Parisian newspaper Le Soir. (18)<br />
On his father's side, his family can be traced back to Baron Georges Axel d'Adelswärd, a Swedish<br />
officer who was captured by the French in 1793 and imprisoned in Longwy. There he married a<br />
daughter of the French notary Bernard; (19) according to Peyrefitte, this daughter was the oldest<br />
cousin of Count Hans Axel von Fersen (1755-1810). Before 1783, von Fersen, as aide-de-camp to<br />
General Rochambeau, fought with the French troops in the American War of Independence. Later,<br />
as a diplomat, he raised a storm in Versailles and arranged the escape of the French royal family to<br />
Varennes in 1791. He became the personal favorite of the Swedish King Gustavus III (murdered in<br />
1792) and his son Gustavus IV, who was forced to abdicate in 1809. He operated as a President of<br />
the University of Uppsala and was made a Swedish field-marshal in 1801. But in 1810, while<br />
singing the “Frère Jacques,” he was killed by a mob in Stockholm at the funeral of the new kingelect,<br />
Christian of Augustenberg: according to the people, von Fersen was to be blamed for the fact<br />
that the new king had suddenly died before his coronation. It is to this same von Fersen that<br />
Jacques dedicated his volume of poetry Chansons Légères (1901) (figs. 2 & 4) and whose name he<br />
later added to his own. (20)<br />
One descendent of the Protestant d'Adelswärd line was Jacques' grandfather, Renauld-Oscar<br />
(1811-1898), who became a naturalized French citizen in 1832 and married Amélie Steiner in 1843.<br />
After serving in the army, he founded the iron and steel industry in Longwy-Briey, bringing<br />
prosperity to the district. In 1848 he was appointed deputy for the Meurthe district in the National<br />
Assembly in Paris, where he befriended a deputy from Paris, none other than the famous writer,<br />
Victor Hugo. After the coup d'état of 1851, he and Hugo briefly shared exile on the island of<br />
Jersey. According to Peyrefitte, the only accomplishment of Renauld-Oscar's son, Axel<br />
d'Adelswärd (i.e., Jacques’ father, 1847-1887), was to die at an early age of yellow fever in<br />
Panama. (21)<br />
4
Figure 2 - Cover by Louis Morin<br />
Not much is known about Jacques' early youth. When he was born, his mother was twenty-four<br />
(according to Jacques’ birth registration: twenty-three) years old and his father thirty-two.<br />
Peyrefitte provides us with the name of Jacques’ guardian and friend of the family, Viscount [Elie<br />
Marie] Audoin de Dampierre, and mentions pleasant outdoor vacations with his grandfather on<br />
Jersey. Jacques found these much more interesting than the long summer days spent within the<br />
walls of Herserange, the family castle near Longwy (fig. 3), days interrupted only occasionally by<br />
visits to the steel mills. During one vacation on Jersey, Jacques seems to have had intimate relations<br />
with an unidentified blond Eton schoolboy. In the volume Chansons Légères. Poèmes de l'enfance<br />
(Light verses: Poems of childhood) his poem, "Treize ans" (Thirteen years old), seems to be<br />
dedicated to this youngster, though there is an ambivalence whether it is the poet or (as Timothy<br />
d'Arch Smith has suggested) the dedicatee who is thirteen (or both of them). (22) In the same<br />
collection Jacques describes in "A Grand-Père" (To Grandfather), the loving but rather remote<br />
relationship between himself and his grandfather. Jacques explained the fact that he hardly knew<br />
his grandfather by saying that as a boy he was preoccupied with exploring the world around him,<br />
catching butterflies, and picking flowers. (23)<br />
5
Figure 3 - Powerstation Herserange; to the right the d’Adelswärd family castle<br />
Jacques passed the greater part of the year in Paris, part of the time in boarding schools, and the<br />
rest of the time with his family which, after his father's death, consisted of his mother and two<br />
sisters, Germaine Juliette Fernande (1884-1973) and Jeanne Yvonne Marguerite (called “Solange,”<br />
1886-1942). Jacques remembers his little brother Renold, who died young, in a tender in memoriam<br />
poem. (24)<br />
Figure 4 - Jacques d’Adelswärd in his teens<br />
His secondary school years were characterized by a most tiresome tour of the very illustrious<br />
bulwarks of Parisian education: the Collège Sainte-Barbe-aux-Champs, the Lycée Michelet in<br />
Vanves, the Lycée Janson-de-Sailly (fig. 5), the Collège Rochefort, and the École Descartes.<br />
6
Sainte-Barbe-aux-Champs was chosen by his grandfather because of its noble tradition dating back<br />
to 1460. The reason for the rapid change of schools remains unclear. The educational system was<br />
probably much the same in all of them; the authoritarian approach could not have varied a great<br />
deal. Nancy Erber quotes Jacques’ own explanation during the trial: that he was called “a girl” by<br />
fellow pupils, and that he was horrified when a schoolmate took him to a brothel, which earned him<br />
the nickname “stupid kid.” Perhaps the best clues of the rapid change lie in Jacques' character.<br />
Considering the spirit of the times, he must have seemed a difficult pupil to his teachers: he had his<br />
own ideas about things, and was perhaps a bit egocentric, non-conformist, and rebellious against<br />
idle authority. (25) He gives a brilliant picture of the boredom of boarding school study hours in<br />
the poetry collection L’Hymnaire d'Adonis (The Hymnal of Adonis) (1902).This poem also bears<br />
the title "Treize Ans":<br />
Treize ans, blondin aux yeux précoces,<br />
Qui disent le désir et l'émoi,<br />
Lèvres, ayant je ne sais quoi<br />
De mutin, de vicieux, de gosse.<br />
Il lit; dans la salle ils sont<br />
Tous penchés à écrire un thème,<br />
Lui seul dans un coin lit quand même,<br />
Des vers de Musset, polissons;<br />
Le pion passe, vite il se cache,<br />
Semblant travailler avec feu,<br />
À quelque devoir nébuleux,<br />
Très propre, soigné et sans tache,<br />
Puis calmé, le moment d'après,<br />
Reprend tout rose sa lecture,<br />
Se met à changer de posture,<br />
Pour être de l'ombre plus près;<br />
Coule ses mains, sans qu'on devine,<br />
Dans sa poche percée d'un trou,<br />
Et là longuement fait joujou,<br />
Rêveur de voluptés félines!<br />
Thirteen<br />
Thirteen, blond, with knowing eyes,<br />
Flashing restlessness and desire,<br />
Street boys' lips tinged with<br />
The mischievous, even the vicious.<br />
He is reading: in the study hall<br />
The others are bent, writing an exercise,<br />
He alone, in a corner, reads<br />
Smutty poems by de Musset;<br />
The proctor passes by; quickly he hides himself,<br />
Pretending devoted concentration,<br />
At some nebulous task,<br />
Working properly, neatly, without stains,<br />
Calm again, the moment passed,<br />
Resumes his reading, flushing,<br />
Shifting slowly<br />
To be deeper in shadow;<br />
7
Slips his hands, unobserved,<br />
Into his pocket pierced by a hole,<br />
And there, for a while, fondles his toy,<br />
Lost dreaming in feline sensualities! (26)<br />
Figure 5 - Lycée Janson-de-Sailly (1991)<br />
L'Hymnaire d’Adonis, which swarms with young blond boys, contains many poems directly<br />
referring to Jacques' own school years. Were such contacts and meditations as are described in<br />
"Crépuscule" (Twilight), "Rêve triste" (Gloomy dream), and "Adieu Mièvre" (Frisky farewell) (27)<br />
to have come to light, they would no doubt have led to the immediate expulsion of those involved. I<br />
doubt that this happened in Jacques' case; if it had, Peyrefitte would almost certainly have<br />
discovered it.<br />
After initial difficulties with his final examinations, Jacques finally obtained the necessary<br />
baccalaureate to go to university. He enrolled at Geneva and there in 1898 he published his first<br />
collection of poems, Conte d’Amour (Tale of love). The same year, however, his grandfather died,<br />
and he was called back to France where he tried to get used to the fact that he had received a rich<br />
inheritance. In Paris he enrolled in a number of courses without taking any of them very seriously.<br />
After his compulsory military service was abridged to ten months, he returned to Paris on 20<br />
September 1902 and fell again into a rather directionless existence.<br />
Figure 6 - Jacques d’Adelswärd in his twenties<br />
8
He debated between taking up a career in diplomacy or going into politics, took courses at the<br />
École des Sciences Morales et Politiques at Saint-Germain-en-Laye and joined the Royalist Party.<br />
He also took courses in law and literature, and a course in experimental psychology at the<br />
Salpêtrière in Paris. His urge to show off was temporarily satisfied by the purchase of a royal blue<br />
Darracq automobile, driven by a liveried chauffeur. But establishing himself as a writer (fig. 6)<br />
offered the greatest promise: he had published two new collections of poems, Chansons Légères<br />
(1901) and L'Hymnaire d’Adonis (1902). He had also published a miscellaneous volume, Ébauches<br />
et Débauches (Drafts and dissipations) (1901), and a novel, Notre-Dame des Mers Mortes (Our<br />
Lady of the Dead Seas) (1902), the fruit of a visit to Venice. Meanwhile, he had become a welcome<br />
guest in Parisian literary salons: there the ladies, hoping for a casual flirt or merely seeking an ideal<br />
son, gushed over the promising but above all rich young dandy; some probably had never read a<br />
word he had written. A number of his fellow artists, however, expected better things from his<br />
young talent. (28)<br />
Baron Jacques and the Messes Noires of 1903<br />
In January d'Adelswärd leased a bachelor's apartment at 18 Avenue Friedland, just two doors away<br />
from his mother. The building still stands, and above the top floor windows one can read the<br />
incised initials "NC." This is not, however, an homage to Jacques' future boy-friend, Nino Cesarini,<br />
but simply the logo of the company that constructed the building, the Nationale Compagnie<br />
d'Assurances sur la Vie. It is now occupied by several medical specialists (fig. 7). 1903 was the<br />
year of Jacques' friendship with Loulou Locré, a pupil at the Lycée Carnot; (29) and of his<br />
ultimately disastrous association with Albert François de Warren (born in the same year as Jacques’<br />
brother Renold), who appears in Peyrefitte's novel as Hamelin and whose elder brother, René, was<br />
knighted by Pope Leo XIII in 1900. It was also the year of serious marriage plans involving<br />
Blanche de Maupéou, who came from a respected aristocratic family and whose father was a<br />
wealthy Protestant industrialist. (30) Nothing, however, was to come of those plans, for the long<br />
arm of the law intervened.<br />
Figure 7 - Avenue Friedland, Nr. 18 (1991)<br />
By order of the judge for the pretrial hearings, Charles de Valles, Jacques (fig. 8) was arrested by<br />
Messieurs Hamard, chief of the Sûreté, and his deputy Blot on 9 July on suspicion of indecent<br />
conduct with minors (figs. 9-10) and offending the public decency. He was brought to the Santé<br />
prison for questioning.<br />
9
Figure 8 - Cover with d’Adelswärd's portrait (1903)<br />
The newspapers and magazines were full of the case in the days that followed. (31) Jacques and<br />
Albert de Warren were supposed to have held orgies (called Messes Noires - Black Masses – by the<br />
press) in their homes twice a week, involving countless youngsters from the better circles of<br />
society, mostly recruited from Carnot, Chaptal, Condorcet, Janson-de-Sailly, and Saint-Joseph-des-<br />
Tuileries schools (figs. 5 & 11). Writing of a confrontation between his father and d'Adelswärd<br />
years later in Venice, Paul Morand described how his fellow pupils used to point out Jacques as he<br />
waited expectantly outside their school doors. (32)<br />
According to Peyrefitte, the alleged soirées involved the crème de la crème of Parisian high<br />
society, including Catholic priests: many prominent ladies and gentlemen came to gape at these<br />
exhibitionist tableaux vivants and poses plastiques, and some of the observers actually participated<br />
in them - the much admired courtesan Liane de Pougy, for example, posed as the Callipygian<br />
Venus. Nancy Erber quotes the amusing comment in the newspaper Gil Blas: “Two young Parisian<br />
gentlemen who hungered for novelty hosted a series of children’s parties at their home. This<br />
attracted the attention of the police. It seems that they were introducing the little schoolboys of our<br />
lycées to the sort of homework that had only a distant relation to the kind the Education Ministry is<br />
recommending. In addition, a certain number of ladies and gentlemen joined in these juvenile<br />
pastimes, which certainly must have flattered the children, who always long for adult attention…<br />
The principal of the lycée Carnot has assured us that in order to protect his charges from being<br />
accosted by ‘shady women’ at the end of the school day, he himself patrols the sidewalk outside the<br />
establishment. Alas! He hadn’t reckoned on ‘shady men’.” “Professional ephebes,” young rent<br />
boys, seem to have been present too. Erber quotes one of the participants: “We put on pink robes.<br />
Sometimes we took them off. Nothing more.” (33)<br />
According to Peyrefitte, scandal erupted following a failed blackmail attempt by Jacques' former<br />
valet, “Pierre G.” (fig. 12) who demanded 100,000 francs in return for his silence. When Jacques'<br />
mother refused to pay too, he went to the police, who at first refused to believe him. However,<br />
Pierre's story was confirmed by a certain “Perrin,” a blackmailer arrested by Inspector Roux and<br />
10
who seems to have been an intimate acquaintance of Albert de Warren. A number of schoolboys<br />
were shadowed and their activities observed, after which the police stepped in. Forewarned, de<br />
Warren had fled to the United States on 27 June (probably from Ostende), but d'Adelswärd's<br />
mother was forced to retain the famous lawyer, Charles Demange, who had defended Captain<br />
Alfred Dreyfus some years before.<br />
Figure 9 - Caricature by Kupka (1903)<br />
During his detention, Jacques was examined by three psychiatrists named Notet, Magnan and<br />
Vallon who, according to the newspaper Le Matin, diagnosed insanity, alcoholism, and epilepsy<br />
inherited from his grandparents. Vallon described attacks during Jacques' youth which had brought<br />
him to death's door, causing brain damage which, according to the psychiatrist, condemned him to<br />
lead the life of a congenital liar. Vallon even claimed that his residence in various boarding schools<br />
had only added to his lack of education in moral hygiene, and the psychiatrist concluded that<br />
Jacques had a damaged sense of responsibility. (34) In August, he was brought to the prison<br />
hospital in Fresnes (perhaps also because the regimen was less severe there) to undergo necessary<br />
medical treatment. It was at this time that he wrote a collection of poems entitled L’Amour enseveli<br />
(Love in burial costume), which appeared in Paris a year later. In October he was returned to the<br />
Santé; according to Peyrefitte, on the same day Albert de Warren, assisted by his counsel Maître<br />
Henri-Robert, voluntarily appeared before Judge de Valles.<br />
11
Figure 10 - "Two Removals" by Kupka (1903)<br />
The trial began on 28 November in the ninth chamber of the Tribunal de la Seine headed by Judge<br />
Bondoux, the court having decided that the proceedings would be held in camera. On 3 December<br />
the prosecution lawyer, Lescouvé, outlined the case for the prosecution followed by the statements<br />
for the defense by Demange and Henri-Robert. On the same day a guilty verdict was handed down:<br />
having already served five months d'Adelswärd was set free that evening. Albert de Warren stayed<br />
in prison and appealed to a higher court. (35)<br />
Considering that the trial was held in camera, it is easy to understand why so little was reported<br />
about it in the press. Grandgousier, in the republican newspaper Le Matin, managed to fill several<br />
columns with a piece on “noble deeds” discussed behind closed doors. (36)<br />
It must be observed that the court did not wish to deal with the charge of "offending public<br />
decency." The case was restricted to illegal conduct between a number of boys and two young men<br />
in their twenties, thus averting the widening of the case and the likelihood that steps would have<br />
had to be taken against other, perhaps older, participants. Moreover, according to the sentence,<br />
"indecent behavior" was cited with only six minors: Berecki, Boesch, Locré, and the three brothers<br />
Adalbert, Jacques, and René Croisé de Pourcelet, sons of a Parisian engineer of whom the oldest<br />
was fourteen (fig. 13). (37) In so doing, it was probably hoped that the affair could be contained<br />
and above all the public's appetite for sensation dampened.<br />
Whether this was indeed the intention of the court, or whether, as Peyrefitte suggests (following<br />
the defense of Maître Henri-Robert), this was the wish of other and more important people, the<br />
attempt failed. The degree to which the name d'Adelswärd-Fersen still stirs the public imagination<br />
is a result not of his literary output but rather of the fabrications circulated about him from 1903<br />
onwards. In 1904, for example, three years before Peyrefitte was born, the pornographer Alphonse<br />
Gallais, using the transparent pseudonym of Doctor A.-S. Lagail, brought out a strange book<br />
entitled Les Mémoires du Baron Jacques: Lubricités infernales de la noblesse décadente, in which<br />
he set out to kill two birds with one stone.<br />
12
Figure 11 - Lycée Carnot (1991)<br />
As often in Gallais' books, the nobleman was one target of satire, and this time homosexuality was<br />
the other. The writer of these apocryphal memoirs obviously had little affinity for, or experience<br />
with, the sexuality of children; whenever there is an opportunity, his frame of reference is the<br />
(hetero)sexual behavior of adults. But the real purpose of the book is to allow the author to cast<br />
asperions on every one around Jacques: he had intimate relations with Oscar Wilde, Pierre Loti,<br />
and Jean Lorrain; he had an incestuous relationship with his mother who took his virginity at an<br />
early age; Jacques, in turn, deflowered a number of young boys above the skeleton of his own<br />
mother. The piece ends with Jacques' death in the prison hospital at Fresnes as a result of "a<br />
delicate operation on his anus." The book also contains a poem of 14 stanzas with 8 lines each,<br />
entitled "Notre-Dame des Verges Fortes" (Our Lady of the sturdy cocks), a word play on Jacques'<br />
novel, Notre-Dame des Mers Mortes, of 1902. The poem is dedicated "to my friends de Barden (de<br />
Warren) and La Lorraine (Lorrain)."<br />
13
Figure 12 - Caricature by Hermann-Paul (1903)<br />
It is not surprising that this small book was condemned in the Cour d'Assises de la Seine on 11<br />
October 1913. (38) A few years later the author tried to resurrect it; using the pseudonym<br />
Grimaudin d'Echara, he republished the material in Chapter Four ("Chez le Baron d'Alderswald")<br />
of his Passions de Femmes. Roman vécu de moeurs féminines et autres. Luxures orgiaques et<br />
ordurières. Livre III. (39) Obviously the public way in which the affair was reported provided a<br />
rich source of nourishment for this kind of pulp.<br />
14
Figure 13 - First page of the sentence<br />
Of course, there were comments from higher literary levels too. In a letter to his brother, Pierre<br />
Louÿs condemned d’Adelswärd in private, and Paul Léautaud talked with the diseased Marcel<br />
Schwob about the affair. In the salon of Madame Marguerite de Pierrebourg, Marcel Proust had<br />
defended Jacques: when Paul Hervieu, member of the Académie Française, had cursed the<br />
“homosexual Adelsward” and had pleaded for the wrath of Themis, the goddess of Justice, Proust<br />
had contradicted him. He had pleaded for compassion, and, modifying the dictum about religion of<br />
the Prussian King Frederick II, he had insisted upon the right of every one to love in his own way.<br />
This reminds us of the end of Charles-Louis Philippe’s plea of tolerance, “Le Mouton à cinq<br />
pattes,” in the issue of July/August of Le Canard Sauvage: “each passion is right, great and normal,<br />
because it exists.” In the same issue, Alfred Jarry, the famous and notorious homosexual author of<br />
Ubu roi, took d’Adelswärd under his protection in his ironical contribution, “L’Âme ouverte à l’Art<br />
antique.” (40)<br />
The most extensive comment came from the previously-mentioned homosexual writer, Jean<br />
Lorrain (pseudonym of Paul Alexandre Martin Duval, 1856-1906). In his Pelléastres: Le Poison de<br />
la littérature, his tirade against what he termed bad taste in literature, he devoted many pages to<br />
d'Adelswärd. His description of Messes Noires reads like an eye-witness account; it is not unlikely<br />
that he was present at some of the gatherings, even though he disliked d’Adelswärd, and Peyrefitte<br />
15
expressly states that Lorrain had not been invited. Taken in context, it would seem that we are<br />
dealing with a literary settling of accounts. Here are two people perceived by the outside world as<br />
"friends" but who in fact lived in nearly separate worlds: a homosexual who worshipped at the<br />
shrine of muscle-bound sailors and similar types, and an aristocratic French "Uranian," hankering<br />
after loyal intimacy with the companions of his youth. (41) Lorrain's descriptions of d'Adelswärd<br />
are telling: not only is Jacques a "snob," but above all "puerile" and "pitiful." In his opinion, the<br />
Messes Noires do not deserve such a label because they had nothing in common with the Black<br />
Masses of Joris-Karl Huysmans, Abbé Guibourg, or Gilles de Rais. Besides, Lorrain added with a<br />
sneer, one cannot expect a Protestant ever to make a convincing parody of the Catholic mass.<br />
According to him, the Messes Noires were nothing more than ordinary literary salons held on the<br />
Avenue Friedland which degenerated into "banal" costume parties with d'Adelswärd at the center<br />
(are we supposed to think here of similar gatherings at the house of the German poet Stephan<br />
George?). The most shocking and, in light of Lorrain's personal preferences, "pitiful" thing which<br />
occurred during one of the gatherings was the appearance of “an adolescent, stark naked, lying on<br />
a white bearskin, his body covered with golden gauze, his forehead crowned with roses and his<br />
arms resting on a skull of polished ivory.” (42)<br />
Was this the "indecency" for which Jacques was condemned? Peyrefitte's description in L'Exilé de<br />
Capri, based largely upon Lorrain's report, gives us no further information; at the point where the<br />
reader might want clarification, the boys disappear behind a screen of discretion, in this case into<br />
the bathroom. What follows is one of the strongest passages in the novel; unfettered by details, the<br />
author skillfully uses suggestion to draw the reader to one conclusion: "It" happened in the<br />
bathroom. But what actually took place in that bathroom?<br />
When Peyrefitte came to write his memoirs, Propos Secrets, the screen of discretion came down.<br />
Pity for Jacques' family had prevented him from detailing in 1959 what he already knew: Jacques<br />
followed the boys, who were stimulated by the tableaux, to the bathroom and masturbated them.<br />
(43)<br />
After all the build-up, this revelation is not terribly spectacular. Peyrefitte, however, submitted<br />
that his information came from the declarations of those involved, such as can be found in the court<br />
documents. Peyrefitte claimed that a copy of the relevant dossier had been given him by “an<br />
important magistrate” through a lawyer, a certain Marcel Mirtil. (44) Upon questioning, the<br />
Director of the Archives de France assured me three times that no outsider had ever taken the<br />
dossier out of the archive, nor inspected it. What then of Peyrefitte's claim? The simplest<br />
explanation would be that one of the two parties was lying. I consider this the least likely<br />
alternative. If Peyrefitte had wanted to invent, he would have provided us with a more spectacular<br />
climax; and one cannot really expect the director of an archive to know the precise history of all the<br />
documents in his care. There is always the chance of a leak; some unscrupulous employee could<br />
have been bribed to make a clandestine copy of "Top Secret" material. A duplicate of the dossier<br />
might have come into the hands of the defense lawyer, Demange, and his copy might have been the<br />
one obtained by Peyrefitte. (45)<br />
Another aspect of the case has to be cleared up, one which is referred to neither in the sentence<br />
nor in Peyrefitte's novel: newspapers reported that during the police search of d'Adelswärd's<br />
apartment a number of pornographic photos were seized - Le Matin wrote of "sadistic photos." It<br />
was suspected that the photos had been made by a certain Tr., an amateur photographer and<br />
brother-in-law of de Warren, a regular guest at the Black Masses. Upon Jacques' arrest, Tr.<br />
disappeared. Le Temps reported that the police found only sports photos when they searched the<br />
photographer's atelier. According to Nancy Erber, obscene photos were also found in de Warren’s<br />
apartment (which is incorrect), and, during the trial, Jacques admitted the possession of<br />
pornographic photos, which he had also shown to the boys: “I considered them artistic. That’s why<br />
I displayed them openly in my home.” (46)<br />
16
Lord Lyllian<br />
There is another source which might provide us with some clarification of the events leading up to<br />
the trial, a novel written by d'Adelswärd in Ceylon and Capri in 1904 and published in 1905,<br />
entitled, Lord Lyllian. Messes Noires (fig. 14). Oddly enough it was dedicated to the juge<br />
d'instruction, that is to the judge for pretrial hearings. One of his strongest works, it consists of an<br />
astonishing mixture of fact and fiction. Only the last quarter of it deals with the affair of 1903; the<br />
remainder we must consider Jacques' apologia. It is a book full of mirrors and masks (much of it<br />
takes place in Venice) in which a layman, perhaps even a judge, must get lost. Maybe that is why<br />
the Dutch writer and essayist, Gerrit Komrij, even though he made a good attempt to unravel its<br />
mysteries, called it a "deafening mistake." (47)<br />
First of all, there is considerable juggling with names. When the reference is to contemporary<br />
events, the players assume their real names: Huysmans, Barrès, Louis of Bavaria. With those of<br />
d'Adelswärd's circle, and as events become more and more fantastic, the names take on their own<br />
masks: the German industrialist Supp (Friedrich Alfred Krupp), Sar Baladin (Sâr Mérodack =<br />
Joséphin Péladan), Montautrou (“the arse climber” = Robert de Montesquiou), Achille Patrac<br />
(Achille Essebac = Achille Bécasse), the painter Chignon (Édouard Chimot), Claude Skrimpton<br />
(Claude Simpson). Albert de Warren becomes Guy de Payen. The hero lives on Avenue d'Iéna<br />
(Friedland), and we can recognize Inspector Roux in the police agent Pioux. Jean Lorrain appears<br />
repeatedly as the chatter-box and sexual match-maker, Jean d'Alsace (probably a literary<br />
application of the Alsace-Lorraine conflict), who on one occasion even forgets his wig.<br />
17
Figure 14 - Cover by Claude Simpson<br />
The main character is Renold Howard Evelyn Monrose, Lord of Lyllian Castle in Scotland who at<br />
the age of seventeen lost his parents: first his adulterous mother and then his tender loving father.<br />
Following a tender puppy-love affair with a fourteen-year-old girl, the young orphan falls into the<br />
clutches of Harold Skilde (Oscar Wilde), the writer of The Portrait of Miriam Green (The Picture<br />
of Dorian Gray, of course). Skilde falls in love with the innocent youth, but perverts him and turns<br />
him into a simultaneous reincarnation of Adonis, Heliogabalus, and Narcissus. Countless men and<br />
women, mostly older, court him and bind him to serve their sexual needs. Following the suicide of<br />
one of his female worshippers during a night-time erotic performance by the Lord in the ruins of a<br />
Greek temple, he breaks off his relations with Skilde, who is immediately arrested in England and<br />
sentenced to "hard labour." Komrij rightly points out parallels between Lord Lyllian and Lord<br />
Alfred Douglas. Chapter Nine even begins with a letter from Skilde to Lord Lyllian which seems a<br />
paraphrase of Wilde's De Profundis even though this work was only published by Robert Ross in<br />
shortened version in 1905. (48)<br />
After protracted wanderings through Europe, filled with memories of his innocent youth and his<br />
loving father; after a number of new conquests (which he takes as his due) and the accompanying<br />
ennui; and after a short-term love affair with a Gypsy girl in Venice and a "true love" romance with<br />
the young Swedish poet Axel Ansen (who unfortunately dies young), Lord Lyllian finally settles<br />
down in Paris. There follows the well-known story resulting in the Messes Noires, though<br />
d'Adelswärd's perspective is that of the sensation-hungry public. All the ingredients are there: the<br />
schoolboys arrive (Lyllian's "choirboys"); a naked boy lies on an altar and is bedecked with white<br />
18
oses and black lilies, a skull in his hand; Lord Lyllian worships in front of him on his knees while<br />
reciting poetry. There even follows a scene in which a sword-wielding Lyllian chases a little boy.<br />
Someone in the public asks, "Is it true that he cuts the children's throats?" The writer's comment is<br />
short but crushing: Black Masses are the ease-loving substitutes of those who lack the capacity to<br />
be Rosicrucians! (49)<br />
Lord Lyllian has previously informed us that he only wanted to raise the ethical and aesthetic<br />
consciousness of the schoolboys and expose them to good poetry (Byron and Verlaine). He would<br />
guide them to experience the magnificent, consoling character of love and so stimulate them into<br />
seeking a deserving comrade with whom they would not be ashamed and could share the<br />
excitement of discovering life, beauty, and tenderness. (50) In the end Lord Lyllian betrays the<br />
boys; he renounces boy-love and abandons his friends to throw himself into the arms of his ultimate<br />
love - a young girl of noble birth. The hero is asked to justify himself by one of the schoolboys,<br />
André Lazeski (the young Berecki from the sentence), (51) and is subsequently killed in a mêlée.<br />
The boy also dies in the fight.<br />
The novel is a breathtaking mixture of truth and fiction providing some new information about<br />
pedagogical eros. Where the book is of exceptional value is in casting new light on the writer<br />
himself, his character, and his artistry. D'Adelswärd appears in the novel in at least four guises, and<br />
he even lets them carry on love affairs with each other. Most important, of course, is the decadent<br />
Lord Lyllian. He is offset by the chaste Renold (the name of d'Adelswärd's brother who died<br />
young). But he is also the sly old diplomat d'Herserange who bears the name of the d'Adelswärd<br />
family castle. Renold loses his chastity when he discovers his own body in a mirror; (52)<br />
d’Herserange tries to manipulate Lord Lyllian to serve his sexual needs. The fourth is an artist of<br />
his own age, Axel Ansen, with whom Lord Lyllian is only able to exchange a single kiss before the<br />
poet dies. When Lyllian tells the story to d’Herserange, he realizes that this young man was the first<br />
person in his life who loved him without reservation. Axel, of course, was the first name of<br />
d'Adelswärd's father. This is sufficient, I believe, to demonstrate the complexity of the novel, which<br />
is a virtually unique manifestation of narcissism. We can rightly conclude, I think, that the early<br />
deaths of his little brother Renold and his father placed an ineradicable stamp upon the character of<br />
the young Jacques d'Adelswärd.<br />
The Dossier d’Instruction of 1903<br />
In 2003 I finally got the opportunity to consult the dossier of the Archives de France. (53) At first<br />
glance, it seemed a complete mess! It took some time to restore the chronological order of the<br />
documents included. The dossier consists of 24 documents in handwriting, from several authorities,<br />
and covers the period of 10 July 1903 to 21 January 1904; especially the orthography of names<br />
turns out to be rather sloppy.<br />
Included are two letters concerning de Warren’s appeals, (54) and some correspondence between<br />
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the French General Consul at New York about the whereabouts<br />
of de Warren. There are some instructions to the police and notes of observations during the<br />
investigation; short notices about the findings in d’Adelswärd’s and de Warren’s homes during the<br />
police search, and statements by Blanche’s father, the Viscount de Maupéou, and the father of the<br />
Croisé de Pourcelet boys. Two documents refer to d’Adelswärd’s mental and physical<br />
examinations, but most of the dossier consists of résumés of interrogations. Of course, there were<br />
interviews with d’Adelswärd himself and some of the boys involved, including several rent boys.<br />
D’Adelswärd’s door-keeper, Adam, was also interviewed, as well as Jacques’ chauffeur, Bernedat,<br />
his former valet, Velpry, and the valet of his mother, Médard (the latter not included in the dossier).<br />
What do these documents add to our investigations so far?<br />
On 2 August 1903, the French General Consul at New York, de Magny, informed the Ministry of<br />
Foreign Affairs, that de Warren and his brother had arrived in New York on 4 July, traveling with<br />
19
the pseudonym Rossen because their name had also been divulged in the American press coverage<br />
of the scandal; they had departed for Liverpool and Queenstown on the steamer “Oceanic” on 29<br />
July, using the name Fernando. (55) From a letter of the Tribunal de la Seine of 10 July (appendix<br />
by the juge d’instruction, Charles de Valles), it appears that Jacques had been forwarned too! That<br />
is why he had stopped all the gatherings and the reception of youngsters at his home, and why he<br />
had fixed his engagement at an earlier date, intending to set out on a journey with Blanche and her<br />
family on 11 July.<br />
The story about the failed blackmail attempt by Jacques’ former valet “Pierre G.” (whose real<br />
name was Velpry) was probably invented by Peyrefitte. Velpry told de Valles about the<br />
frequentations of d’Adelswärd’s apartment by the brothers Croisé de Pourcelet, from April 1903<br />
onwards: after their departure, he had found obscene photos, left on the table, and handkerchiefs<br />
stained with sperm; he had informed Jacques’ mother about the situation, and had quit his job<br />
because he had become the laughing-stock of all domestics in the house, who knew of Jacques’<br />
moral conduct. On the contrary, it appears that Jacques had been blackmailed by several rent boys.<br />
During the investigations, three letters were discovered, one of them addressed to the Viscount de<br />
Maupéou, who received it just a few moments before Jacques’ arrest. When the viscount informed<br />
de Valles about the letter, he also expressed his joy about the fact that the family had received the<br />
revelations concerning Jacques before the marriage. The dossier does not reveal the name(s) of the<br />
blackmailer(s); the name “Perrin” is not mentioned at all. However, most close in pronunciation<br />
there is the name of Béret, a comrade of the fifteen-year-old rent boy Dascher. Maybe Peyrefitte<br />
mixed up this name with the name of Béchet, a close friend of de Warren. (56)<br />
In the dossier, we can find the names of six rent boys, with whom d’Adelswärd had sexual<br />
contacts: Béret, Dascher, twenty-one-year-old Kothé, Lefebvre, nineteen-year-old Leroy, and<br />
fifteen-year-old Verguet. Dascher declared that in March he had been hauled up from the<br />
boulevards and had been taken in Jacques’ automobile to Avenue Friedland; he had spent the night<br />
with d’Adelswärd, he had been masturbated and Jacques had oral sex with him too; the next day he<br />
had introduced his comrade, Béret, to Jacques. Kothé and Leroy also gave detailed information (not<br />
included in the dossier) about their sexual contacts with d’Adelswärd. It was probably from these<br />
contacts that he had catched several venereal diseases. During the physical examination of Jacques,<br />
the prison doctor, Socquet, diagnosed scabies, gonorrhoea and soft ulcer, which needed immediate<br />
medical treatment; Socquet spoke about a “deplorable pathological condition.”<br />
Jacques himself told de Valles that, after his military service in Charleville and Sedan, his former<br />
camp comrade, Édouard Chimot, engraver from Lille, had introduced him to the professional<br />
ephebes of the streets and other public spots. The germ of his “depravations” had to be traced back<br />
to the reading of licentious literature, and to the bad company of fellow pupils at the Collège<br />
Sainte-Barbe, the Lycées Michelet and Janson-de-Sailly, and the École Descartes. (57)<br />
A female friend of de Warren, Madame d’Aubusson, had encouraged Jacques to organize<br />
gatherings, such as were described in his L’Hymnaire d’Adonis, and in the books of Achille<br />
Essebac, Jean Lorrain, and Joséphin Péladan. Jacques told de Valles about the previouslymentioned<br />
Messe Noire described by Jean Lorrain. It took place at Avenue Friedland on 18 May.<br />
After the recitation of Baudelaire’s “La Mort des amants” (The Death of the lovers) from Les<br />
Fleurs du mal, and at the sounds of a funeral march, the guests defiled along the tableau vivant of<br />
“Youth and Death”: a skull amidst flowers and lights, and a nude fourteen-year-old boy, lying on<br />
the floor, his sex covered with a scarf. Jacques emphasized that the gathering had not a licentious<br />
character, nor the soirée in March and other mundane afternoon parties; moreover, college boys had<br />
not been present. Rent boy Kothé, who assisted at some of the gatherings, testified that usually<br />
three fourths of the guests consisted of pederasts known to him. The dossier only mentions two<br />
names of regular guests: Count Guy d’Harasat d’Etchegoyen and Abbé Marin. (58)<br />
As to the schoolboys, it must first be observed that the names of boys “not directly involved in the<br />
case” (from Peyrefitte’s above-mentioned list) do not occur in the dossier. (59) There is a list of<br />
20
schoolboys (as an appendix of a letter from the Tribunal de la Seine of 13 July 1903), which,<br />
compared with the remainder of the dossier, is incomplete. From all the documents in the dossier,<br />
one can compose the following list of schoolboys involved: Besnard (a young comrade of André<br />
Berecki), Raoul Clerc (probably a special friend of de Warren), Ramo-Braga, and a pupil of the<br />
“classe de rhétorique” (60) (no schools mentioned). From the École Saint-Joseph-des-Tuileries,<br />
about seventeen-year-old Starcelli. From the Lycée Carnot: seventeen-year-old André Berecki, son<br />
of the General Municipal Secretary of the XVIIth Arrondissement; fourteen-year-old Henri Boesch;<br />
fourteen-year-old Adalbert and Jacques Croisé de Pourcelet, and their younger brother, René (seven<br />
or eight years old); two brothers Jacquet (about fourteen years old); a boy de Laguerre; Loulou<br />
Locré; and a boy Ménard, son of Doctor Saint-Yves Ménard.<br />
Most of the boys were introduced to d’Adelswärd by Albert de Warren, who hauled them up in<br />
the Parc Monceau, in the vicinity of the Lycée Carnot. The boys were treated to light meals, with<br />
fancy cakes and liqueurs, to poetry, and rides in Jacques’ automobile. Sometimes Jacques picked<br />
the boys up at their school door; occasionaly accompanied by de Warren, at which time both of<br />
them, clearly being the subject of conversation of almost every one, were pointed out by a flock of<br />
other pupils.<br />
From the declarations of the boys we can infer that they did not attend d’Adelswärd’s soirées; they<br />
mostly visited him alone, or in couples, or met him at de Warren’s home. Acts of mutual<br />
masturbation between them and Jacques, were reported by André Berecki and the brothers Adalbert<br />
and Jacques Croisé de Pourcelet; both brothers testified that d’Adelswärd had performed oral sex<br />
on them as well. Saying that he was a collector, d’Adelswärd had made a drawing of Adalbert’s<br />
penis; and Henri Boesch declared that d’Adelswärd had measured his sex in a toilet, in the presence<br />
of the brothers Adalbert and Jacques. Especially Adalbert seems to be omnipresent (61) in the<br />
dossier: when on 12 June d’Adelswärd and de Warren picked up a fourteen-year-old boy at the<br />
Lycée Carnot, they drove to a confectioner’s shop at the Avenue de Villiers; there, as by chance,<br />
Adalbert turned up as well. It also seems that there was an erotic correspondence between<br />
d’Adelswärd and Jacques Croisé de Pourcelet; the latter received d’Adelswärd’s letters and postcards,<br />
under the initials J.C.P., poste restante at the office on the Rue Jouffroy. His brother René,<br />
who emerges from the dossier as a precocious young boy, testified that d’Adelswärd only once had<br />
touched his fly (which the accused denied).<br />
René declared that once or twice he had masturbated himself, after he had learned how to do it<br />
from the continuous conversations of his brothers about the subject in de Warren’s home, and after<br />
he had caught his brothers in the act. In the same document, de Warren is accused of having<br />
masturbated Jacques (who was thirteen at that time) in front of his brother Adalbert. Of course, the<br />
boys’ father was furious when he was informed about the attacks on the virtue of his overenthusiast<br />
sons. He threatened d’Adelswärd with violence, and yelled that he would find de Warren<br />
and kill him, if he was not arrested by the police. Hamard, the chief of the Sûreté, and de Valles had<br />
to do their utmost to appease him. In a document of 10 October 1903, de Valles observed that<br />
d’Adelswärd and de Warren had used no violence to the boys. Regarding Jacques’ physical<br />
condition, it is strange that there is no sign of concern about the health of the boys in the dossier.<br />
Compared with the sentence, there is something odd about the dossier. There is no résumé of an<br />
interrogation of Loulou Locré! In a document from the Tribunal de la Seine of 12 July 1903, the<br />
boy is once mentioned (spelled as “Locret”), (62) by the brothers Adalbert and Jacques, as a regular<br />
visitor of d’Adelswärd, whereas in the sentence (and in Peyrefitte’s novel) he plays a prominent<br />
part. From this document one cannot possibly understand why Loulou Locré should be mentioned<br />
in the sentence as a victim. However, the same document states that “Locret, Boesch, de Laguerre,<br />
Starcelli, and a pupil of the rhétorique” will be interviewed tomorrow. Unfortunately, there is no<br />
document concerning these interviews! (63) Has it been removed from the dossier? There is a small<br />
indication that this might be the case: on the original jacket of the dossier, there is a note “24<br />
21
pièces” (24 pieces); the note is in a recent handwriting. I am afraid, that we have to conclude that<br />
the dossier is incomplete. I do not dare to think of what else could have been removed.<br />
The Years of Exile<br />
Immediately upon his release, on 3 December 1903, Jacques tried to make amends for his past. He<br />
appeared with bouquet in hand at the door of his fiancée, Blanche de Maupéou, intending to explain<br />
all, but was sent away by a servant without a chance to speak with her. In despair, he decided to<br />
end his life with a bullet in the head, but his attempt failed. No longer feeling welcome in the<br />
Parisian salons, he decided to join the Foreign Legion. That came to nothing because of his delicate<br />
health, although Peyrefitte's version is that his rank would have been that of a common soldier<br />
because of his jail sentence. He could expect no support from his family, and so there was no<br />
choice for him but to leave France.<br />
Precisely why he established himself on Capri is not known. Many writers point to the long<br />
history of the island, from its beginnings with the supposed orgies in Villa Jovis of the Roman<br />
Emperor Tiberius. Others point to the fact that Marquis Donatien Alphonse de Sade and Lord<br />
Alfred Douglas (after Wilde's trial in 1895) had both fled there, and this cannot be excluded as a<br />
motivation. However, I believe there were more practical considerations: Jacques knew Capri from<br />
vacations during his adolescence; he was thus probably aware of the existence of its international<br />
colony of artists and expatriates which might have seemed at that moment his only safe haven, a<br />
place where he could build a new life, and, moreover, which he could use as a stage to profile<br />
himself. Jacques appears in the writings of a number of authors who lived and worked there: in the<br />
memoirs of the English writer Norman Douglas, Looking Back (1933), and in his novel South Wind<br />
(1917); in the memoirs of Edward Frederic Benson; and in the novels Vestal Fire (1927) and<br />
Extraordinary Women. Theme and Variations (1928) by Compton Mackenzie, in which<br />
d'Adelswärd appears as the dandy, Count Robert (Bob) Marsac Lagerström. The American author<br />
Edward Irenaeus Prime-Stevenson (better known with his pseudonym, Xavier Mayne), who lived<br />
for many years in Italy, stages d’Adelswärd as the protagonist, Dayneford, of his story “Out of the<br />
Sun” (1913). The Caprian writer and architect Edwin Cerio staged d’Adelswärd in his story “Il<br />
marchese di Pommery” (c.1927). (64)<br />
Jacques took up residence in the Hotel Quisisana and soon purchased land in the small valley of<br />
Unghia Murana on a hill opposite the ruins of Tiberius' palace. He commissioned his friend<br />
Édouard Chimot to design a villa and hired a local contractor to build it (fig. 15). As the time drew<br />
near for construction to begin, he departed with friends to the Far East to visit, among other places,<br />
Ceylon (Sri Lanka). He worked on Lord Lyllian during that trip; at the same time he began Le<br />
Sourire aux yeux fermés (The smile with closed eyes) which is imbued with Hinduism and the<br />
discovery of opium. He returned to Capri in the spring of 1904, residing temporarily in the Villa<br />
Certosella which, according to Peyrefitte, he filled with orchids,<br />
22
Figure 15 - Villa Lysis<br />
(see also at<br />
http://www.pbase.com/adalberto_tiburzi/capri<br />
oriental perfumes, jewels, ebony furniture, bronze and copper objects, and "suitcases full of<br />
opium." (65) He also hired three Caprian boys to help him in the house and garden.<br />
In July he had to flee temporarily to escape the wrath of the islanders who blamed d’Adelswärd<br />
when a local worker was killed by an accident during the construction of Villa Lysis. In Rome he<br />
met a fourteen-year-old construction worker selling newspapers, Nino Cesarini, (66) who<br />
immediately stole his heart. Jacques sounded out the boy's family and obtained their permission to<br />
take Nino with him as his secretary. The two of them were greeted with understandable suspicion<br />
on Capri. Nino, especially, was a problem: not because he was a boy but because he was from<br />
Rome and not from Capri.<br />
In the spring of 1905 they visited Sicily, according to Peyrefitte to make a pilgrimage to the grave<br />
of the German poet Count August von Platen Hallermünde (1796-1835) in Syracuse and to visit the<br />
photographer Baron Wilhelm von Gloeden (1856-1931) in Taormina. Both visit and pilgrimage are<br />
possible, even probable, but I can find no documentary evidence of either, nor for a meeting, later,<br />
between Jacques and Kuno von Moltke and Philipp zu Eulenburg-Hertefeld. (67) In Taormina<br />
d'Adelswärd began his novella, Une Jeunesse (A youth), which, together with Le Baiser de<br />
Narcisse (The Kiss of Narcissus), appeared in 1907. Le Baiser, dedicated to Germain Wenzel and<br />
in the opinion of the writer Rachilde really a minor masterpiece which deserved the Prix Goncourt,<br />
must be considered a failure; it is hopelessly mired in its own classical allusions: the principal<br />
character, Milès, even drowns in his own mirror image! The plot of Une Jeunesse revolves around<br />
the twenty-three-year-old French painter, Robert Jélaine (fig. 16), who is in love with Nino, a<br />
sixteen-year-old seminary student. The couple's antagonists are Father Seraphino, also in love with<br />
Nino, and a girl, Michaëla, whom Nino loves. Ultimately, the girl dies and Nino decides to become<br />
a priest. The novella is dedicated to "N[ino]. C[esarini]. More beautiful than the Roman light." (68)<br />
23
Figure 16 - Jacques d’Adelswärd<br />
The construction of the villa was finally completed in July: it was handed over by the contractor,<br />
and Nino was invited to put in place the stone with the inscription "In the year MCMV this villa<br />
was constructed by Jacques Count [sic] Adelswärd Fersen and dedicated to the youth of love." In<br />
the autumn they made a short visit to Paris to deliver the manuscript of the poetry volume, Le<br />
Danseur aux Caresses (The caressing dancer), which was published the following year. They<br />
probably went directly from there to Oxford where Une Jeunesse was completed in 1906. Back on<br />
Capri, Jacques took a fourth Caprian boy into service in order to depart immediately with Nino on a<br />
long journey to China. Towards the beginning of 1907, both returned to Italy, Jacques enriched<br />
with a collection of 300 opium pipes which he had assembled in China.<br />
Figure 17 - Nino Cesarini by Paul Höcker<br />
24
The years 1907 and 1908 seem in all respects to have marked a crisis in d'Adelswärd's life. In any<br />
case, he found it necessary to restore contact with his family; he visited his sister Germaine, who in<br />
the meantime (1906) had married the Marquis Alfredo Capece Minutolo di Bugnano, a young<br />
member of parliament from Naples. He invited his sisters and his mother to visit his new home on<br />
Capri, during which time Nino was temporarily installed elsewhere. Now seventeen, the boy was in<br />
Jacques' eyes in the full glory of his youthful bloom. Such beauty needed preservation, and Jacques<br />
commissioned a number of artists to immortalize him. Nino's portrait was painted by Umberto<br />
Brunelleschi (1879-1949), a young artist from Pistoia who was making an international furore and<br />
liked the company of "young poets." The sculptor Francesco Ierace (1854-1937) from Polistena,<br />
whose atelier was now in Naples and who had in the meantime achieved national fame, cast Nino's<br />
image in bronze after photos (c. 1906) by Guglielmo Plüschow (1852-1930), a cousin of Baron<br />
Wilhelm von Gloeden. A new painting of Nino (c. 1908) (fig. 17) was also executed by the German<br />
homosexual painter Paul Höcker (1854-1910), who had been forced to leave Germany because of a<br />
sexual scandal. The photo of Nino on the terrace of Villa Lysis (fig. 18) dates from about this time.<br />
The boy is wearing a toga, with a diadem around his head and in his left hand is holding a small<br />
Nike on a globe, symbols traditionally associated with the power of Roman gods and emperors.<br />
(69)<br />
Figure 18 - Glorification of Nino Cesarini<br />
Nino's attractiveness smote others as well. During a visit to Venice, Jacques was roaming about<br />
the Square of San Marco (where he met Paul Morand and his father), whereas Nino flirted with<br />
Alexandrine (Sacha) Ricoy Antokolsky, who found Nino so much to her taste that she even<br />
followed him to Capri and eventually seduced him. It almost seems a compensation of the Parisian<br />
schoolboys for the felony of Lord Lyllian. Jacques reacted furiously in a volume of poetry<br />
appropriately entitled Ainsi chantait Marsyas (So sang Marsyas), an exalted song of praise to his<br />
Nino who he felt was about to leave him. "How many tears must it take to wash away her kisses?"<br />
he asked in the poem "Ce matin, tu dormais comme un petit enfant" (This morning you slept like a<br />
25
small child). The poem "L'Icône" (The icon) is a vision of the future and begins with the<br />
conciliatory words, "Later, when you are no longer with me and have left me for another..." But in<br />
"La Fripeuse de Moëlle" (The crusher of the pith) the defiler of their common shrine is reproached<br />
and Nino receives a lecture on the nature of women: no matter what guise she may assume, Venus<br />
or Eve, a whore remains a whore, a vampire, and syphilis follows in her wake. (70)<br />
This explosion of passion can only be understood in light of Jacques' consuming fear of losing the<br />
boy and the jealousy aroused by that fear. I doubt that Nino really intended to leave his comfortable<br />
situation; rather he would have considered the dalliance as a small adventure and a pleasant<br />
distraction from life at Villa Lysis, which had become rather dull.<br />
After this affair the household domestics from Capri were discharged for failing to fulfill their<br />
responsibilities and Jacques wired Ceylon to ask that he be sent two Singhalese houseboys.<br />
The Expulsion from Italy<br />
D'Adelswärd's novel about Capri, Et le feu s'éteignit sur la mer… (And the fire was smothered by<br />
the sea), with the young sculptor Gérard Maleine as principal character, appeared in 1909 and<br />
caused a local sensation. The author spared hardly anyone in his exposure of island habits and<br />
morals. The book was much criticized and raised fiery discussions among the inhabitants of Capri;<br />
some of them, who recognized themselves in the book, attempted to prevent its distribution.<br />
According to Ettore Settanni, there was a kind of ostracism against the author, which had<br />
contributed to his eventual expulsion. Roberto Ciuni cites a formal decision of the Consiglio<br />
Comunale di Capri of 16 September 1909: to pursue the expulsion of the author of the book. (71)<br />
Nino was growing older and Jacques now sought pleasure with Neapolitan boys and in clouds of<br />
opium. According to Peyrefitte, he smoked at this time some 30 or 40 pipes a day which sounds<br />
like an absurdly high number but actually is not. (72)<br />
There is some evidence that d’Adelswärd also invited the boys from Naples to Capri. Peter<br />
Weiermair has published a reproduction of a photo of one of these boys by Guglielmo Plüschow.<br />
We can see a nude young boy, resting on a sofa; his bare buttocks are turned towards the viewer,<br />
and a skull is resting on a pillow above his head. To the left of the photo, the above-mentioned<br />
painting of Nino by Paul Höcker is hanging on the wall (fig. 19). The boy is definitely not Nino,<br />
because he is too young. Plüschow and d’Adelswärd must have known each other for some time.<br />
Although now living in Rome, Plüschow was a regular visitor of Naples and Capri, and maybe<br />
d’Adelswärd even placed Villa Lysis at his disposal as a studio. Plüschow made many photos of<br />
Nino; some of them have been published now. A frontal nude of Nino, possibly by Plüschow, was<br />
to be found on the Internet at an Italian site (fig. 20). Jean-Claude Féray even suggested, that<br />
Plüschow made Jacques and Nino acquainted with each other, which is possible, but of course there<br />
is no conclusive evidence. (73)<br />
26
Figure 19 - Interior of Villa Lysis with Höcker’s painting<br />
The “reputation” of Villa Lysis is also documented in the autobiography of Giorgio Amendola<br />
(1907-1980), the future leader of the P.C.I. (Italian Communist Party). As an eleven-year-old boy<br />
from Rome, he had constituted himself the leader of a small gang of boys and girls who roamed<br />
about Capri in 1918: “There were forbidden zones we were not supposed to set foot on. For<br />
instance, we were told never to draw near a white villa near [Monte] Tiberio, because (…) nasty<br />
things were happening there. Later I grasped that Fersen was meant, and his strange friendships. I<br />
was eleven years old, and the Caprian boys were of about my age. They knew very well the<br />
meaning of all these allusions.” (fig. 21). (74)<br />
Figure 21 - Bathing boys at Capri (c. 1900)<br />
Events associated with Nino's call-up for military service, and similar festivities at Villa Lysis<br />
forced d'Adelswärd to leave Capri. Jacques invented a pleasant skit for Nino's twentieth birthday in<br />
which the boy would be elevated to a "soldier of Mithras" (fig. 22). It was performed before a<br />
group of friends one night in the Matermània grotto by torchlight. According to local gossip,<br />
Jacques himself played an important part as the “handsome youth” Hypatos, whereas the “fat old<br />
cook” of his female friends, Kate and Saidee Wolcott-Perry, played the part of Tiberius; a barber<br />
27
played the part of the high-priest. (75) Peyrefitte minutely describes the twenty lashes which the<br />
Singhalese boys, playing the parts of slaves, administered at daybreak to Nino's bare buttocks. A<br />
passer-by gathering herbs could not understand what was happening; she informed her father, who<br />
lodged an official complaint of violation of public decency.<br />
Figure 20 - Frontal nude of Nino Cesarini<br />
Figure 22 - Nino Cesarini as a Roman soldier (c. 1910)<br />
28
The local authorities took advantage of this circumstance to rid themselves of d'Adelswärd.<br />
Fearing a new outburst in the press following the famous Krupp scandal in 1902, the police were<br />
kept out of the affair and Jacques' brother-in-law, the Marquis di Bugnano, was asked to intervene.<br />
(76) D'Adelswärd was summoned by the Marquis to Naples and given the choice of leaving the<br />
country voluntarily or being officially expelled. Jacques chose the former and returned to France.<br />
He briefly stayed in Paris, where he lived at 24 Rue Eugène Manuel.<br />
Jacques could now dedicate all his time to the cultural magazine, Akademos. Revue Mensuelle<br />
d'Art Libre et de Critique (fig. 23), which he had founded the previous year in Paris and which had<br />
appeared monthly from 15 January 1909. The foundation of the magazine was probably inspired by<br />
German forerunners. From visits to Germany, Jacques knew of Adolf Brand’s (1874-1945)<br />
magazine Der Eigene (1896-1931), and in 1907 the Belgian writer Georges Eekhoud (1854-1927)<br />
had established contacts between Jacques and Magnus Hirschfeld (1868-1935), who in 1899 had<br />
founded his Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen (1899-1923). Both magazines were the<br />
showcases of the German homosexual emancipation mouvement. (77)<br />
Whoever thumbs through the 2,000 odd pages of the 12 issues of Akademos which appeared must<br />
be impressed. The magazine was very well produced and contains countless interesting original<br />
stories, poems, plays, and critical essays, and a very impressive array of contributors, some of<br />
whom, it must be said, did not keep their promise to contribute. (78) Even Nino, actually in military<br />
service, appears as "M. le gérant" (the book-keeper), and in issue 10 there is a little joke: the author<br />
of Baiser de Narcisse, Jacques himself, is requested to make his name and address known to the<br />
editors! (79)<br />
The editors promised a point of view free of platitudes and preconceptions. They pledged a return<br />
to the tradition of Greek simplicity and natural paganism, and to Latin purity. According to the two<br />
editorial statements in the first issue, one probably written by Jacques, their greatest enemies were<br />
vulgarity, hypocrisy, obscurantism, and ugliness; French culture had to free itself from Slavic<br />
decadence, German heaviness, the [Anglo-]Saxon slang of thieves, and Judeo-Christian prejudices.<br />
(80) Since they did not wish to confine their vision to France alone, cultural activities in other<br />
countries were regularly reviewed and attention was given to what was being published elsewhere,<br />
including works by Elisar von Kupffer, Arthur Lyon Raile (Edward Perry Warren), John Henry<br />
Mackay, Walt Whitman, and Xavier Mayne (Edward Irenaeus Prime-Stevenson).<br />
There were, of course, a number of contributions by Editor Jacques d'Adelswärd (fig. 24) himself,<br />
either under his own name or the pseudonym Sonyeuse. (81) In the first issue there is his "In<br />
Memoriam" for the editorial secretary, Raymond Laurent, cousin of Fernand Gregh and friend of<br />
Marcel Proust, who had committed suicide in Venice under the hotel window of a young American<br />
(M. Langhorn Whistler) with whom he was hopelessly in love on 24 September 1908. According to<br />
d’Adelswärd, his still-warm body was found by none other than Vyvyan Holland, Oscar Wilde's<br />
son! (82)<br />
In order to promote the magazine and its concepts, d’Adelswärd even flirted for a while with the<br />
futurism of Emilio Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (1876-1944), the future literary champion of Italian<br />
fascism. In the second issue of Akademos Marinetti appeared with a poem, “Le Dompteur” (The<br />
Tamer), whereas Jacques at the same time published two poems, “Poème dans la rosée” (Poem in<br />
Dew) and “Tes Yeux…” (Your Eyes…), in Marinetti’s magazine Poesia. Rassegna<br />
Internazionale. After the publication of Marinetti’s Manifesto of Futurism, d’Adelswärd<br />
contributed two pieces to the next issue of Poesia: a short notice about Akademos and a letter of<br />
adherence in which he wrote: “I adhere to the principles of Futurism which will disengage man of<br />
all his slavery. If it is true that an Artist has to live in nostalgia, it would be better for him to cling<br />
to the divine essence of the future, instead of the human materialism of the past. (…) Young people<br />
have to tremble of unrest to ask for enthousiasm. (…) Let us abandon the twilights, the graveyards,<br />
the museums or the legends, in favour of the Nativities, the PROGRESS, the holy FORCE, and<br />
29
LIFE!” (83) But after only one year, Jacques had to stop publication of Akademos as it was<br />
consuming enormous sums of money and its circulation remained small. (84)<br />
Figure 23 – The first issue of Akademos<br />
Peyrefitte describes d’Adelswärd’s Sunday receptions of collaborators of Akademos and other<br />
important people during his sojourn in the Rue Eugène Manuel. (85) He also notes that, at that<br />
time, Jacques and Nino frequented bars, like Le Scarabée d’Or, Maurice, and Palmyre; in the latter<br />
d’Adelswärd once got so angry that the police had to be called in for assistance. (86) A letter from<br />
the Marquise Mathilde de Morny to her intimate friend Colette confirms “riots in the Palmyre, the<br />
bistro at Montmartre.” That night d’Adelswärd got so tight that he insulted all those present; the<br />
owner of the bar had boxed his ears, and Jacques had poured a glass of wine on her. Then all<br />
homosexuals present had risen “like one man (if I may say so)” to throw him out. One of them had<br />
plucked out a tuft of d’Adelswärd’s hair; that is why Jacques denounced the bar, at the police<br />
station, as “an odious tavern for lesbians and gays.” (87)<br />
The stay in Paris did not last very long. Since Jacques was now accustomed to a Mediterranean<br />
climate, he soon took up residence in the Villa Mezzomonte in Nice. Early in 1911 Nino was<br />
discharged from military service; the two of them set out for the Far East, returning to Nice in<br />
1912. In the meantime, Jacques had published a volume of poetry, Paradinya (1911); some of its<br />
poems are dedicated to his brothers in arms of Akademos (among them Laurent Tailhade, Georges<br />
Eekhoud, and Robert Scheffer), and Nino (“N.C.”) is pleased with an overt sexual literary assault:<br />
“Erotique.” (88) Jacques had also completed Le Sourire aux yeux fermés, which included a revised<br />
version of his essay "L'Extase" (Ecstasy) which had first appeared in Akademos. It was published in<br />
30
1912. In April 1913 Jacques finally obtained permission to return to Capri, which he celebrated in<br />
the long poem, "Ode à la Terre Promise" (Ode to the promised land), dedicated to the Prime<br />
Minister Luigi Luzzatti.<br />
The Final Years<br />
Figure 24 – Caricature of d'Adelswärd by Moyano (1909)<br />
With the outbreak of war in 1914, Jacques was asked to present himself for military service. In the<br />
French consulate in Naples, he was found unfit for combat and was sent to a hospital to be cured of<br />
addiction, though he secretly compensated for his abstinence from opium with the use of cocaine. It<br />
was during this period that he met the sculptor Vincenzo Gemito (1852-1929). (89)<br />
31
Figure 25 – Villa Lysis (1961)<br />
Nino was wounded in battle and sent to a hospital in Milan to recover. Jacques returned to Capri,<br />
his doctors having declared him incurably ill. In Villa Lysis (fig. 25), he took up his old habits and<br />
spent most of his time treading back and forth between his study and smoking room, in the<br />
newspaper Il Mattino nicknamed the Opiarium. His last published volume of poetry appeared in<br />
1921, Hei Hsiang. Le parfum noir (Hei Hsiang: The black perfume) (figs. 26-27), almost entirely<br />
devoted to opium. But life had one small surprise left in store for him: his acquaintance in 1920<br />
with fifteen-year-old Corrado Annicelli (1905-1984), son of a notary in neighboring Sorrento, who<br />
had come on vacation to Capri with his parents. (90) Corrado's mother and father had no objection<br />
to their son's association with a man of the world who knew many important people – including the<br />
painter Gennaro Favai (1882-1958) and the composer Ottorino Respighi (1879-1936) – (91) and<br />
who above all could stimulate the boy's fluency in French. In Peyrefitte's novel, Corrado is called<br />
Manfred, after the half-brother of the Hohenstaufen King Conrad IV.<br />
Figure 26 - Cover of d'Adelswärd's last book<br />
32
Initially, Corrado was more of a sly fox than a “petit faune” (little faun), as Jacques called him.<br />
The boy kept Jacques firmly in tow by expecting all sorts of things in return for his companionship:<br />
trips around Italy and the dedication of poems to himself. For the Christmas vacation of 1922, the<br />
boy tried to convince Jacques that he was unable to visit him, but Jacques insisted and was invited<br />
to come to Sorrento and fetch him. This sort of teasing was probably all part of their erotic play.<br />
Corrado also came to Capri, on his own initiative, for his Easter vacation in 1923. Jacques was still<br />
working on his poem cycle, La Neuvaine du petit faune (The little faun's novena), which was never<br />
published. The manuscript was still in Corrado's possession when Peyrefitte spoke with him years<br />
later. (92) For summer vacation, Corrado came again to Capri. Now seventeen, the boy was torn<br />
between feelings of sincere love for Jacques and compassion and an intense disgust for his drug<br />
addiction. On 15 September, Jacques brought the boy back to his parents in Sorrento, and on his<br />
return journey he visited his sister Germaine who, since her divorce, lived near Turin. Alarmed by<br />
Jacques' physical condition, she advised his mother to come at once. According to Peyrefitte,<br />
pressure was put on him to have his will drawn up. (93)<br />
Figure 27 - Autograph of d'Adelswärd<br />
It seems that on 15 October Jacques felt that his end was approaching. He departed hastily for<br />
Sorrento to pick up Corrado. According to Peyrefitte, the boy, by chance, was home sick from<br />
school that day. They immediately left for Sicily; again von Gloeden was visited in Taormina, and<br />
the grave of von Platen in Syracuse. (94) On their return journey to Capri, early in November, they<br />
briefly stayed in Sorrento. Because of his physical condition, Corrado’s parents advised Jacques to<br />
consult a doctor and pass the night in a local inn. But since Jacques intended to buy some new<br />
33
cocaine at the clandestine market in the Galleria Umberto, he and Corrado departed for Naples and<br />
passed the night together in the same suite in the Hotel Excelsior. The next day Nino picked them<br />
up and took them to Capri, Jacques by now gravely ill. Jacques died after supper that same evening<br />
- of an overdose of cocaine dissolved in a glass of champagne, leaving his friends in dismay. Most<br />
commentators have assumed that it was suicide. Norman Douglas noted that a thunderstorm burst<br />
out that night and it maintained its fury for twelve straight hours. (95)<br />
Figure 28 - Jacques d’Adelswärd<br />
Dr. Gatti (assisted by his colleagues Cuomo and Weber), who signed the death certificate, gives<br />
a heart attack as the cause of death. Jacques' devoted female friend Ephi Lovatelli, a princess of<br />
Greek origins, prepared the body with rouge and lipstick, sealing his lips with a gold Macedonian<br />
coin to be used to pay the boatman carrying him over the River Styx. In order to safeguard the<br />
inheritance, Jacques' family spread the rumor that Jacques (fig. 28) was poisoned by Nino out of<br />
jealousy. (96) His sister, Germaine, and his mother insisted on a post-mortem examination; it was<br />
carried out by the authorities in Naples and lent no support to their accusations. (97) Jacques' body<br />
was released and later cremated in Rome. The ashes were placed in the non-Catholic cemetery in<br />
Capri. His grave is on a hillside, opposite that of Norman Douglas, whose gravestone bears the<br />
inscription, "Omnes eodem cogimur" (We all gather at the same place).<br />
In accordance with Jacques’ stipulations, his mother was appointed executor of his last will and<br />
universal inheritor. “To bear witness and in recognition of all his benevolence to me, of his advice<br />
and his perpetual example of kindness, his indulgence and nobility, which his life has given to me,”<br />
Nino received 302 shares of the steel mills in Longwy, all credits of Jacques’ bank-accounts in<br />
Paris, Naples and Capri, and all the money in Jacques’ purse and in the villa at the moment of his<br />
death. Nino also received the right to inhabit the villa, and the right to rent it out; Germaine became<br />
the owner of the villa, without its contents. Jacques’ mother inherited the remainder of the capital in<br />
34
Paris, Lorraine and Switserland. Lawsuits, about the inheritance and the validity of Jacques’ will,<br />
were to continue for the next years. (98)<br />
As for Jacques' intimates, Loulou married and lived as the proud father of a daughter in a castle in<br />
the French countryside. Nino sold his rights to the villa to Germaine for 200,000 lira. His portrait<br />
by Brunelleschi and his statue by Ierace were sold to a Swiss antiquarian and have since<br />
disappeared. He returned to Rome, where he owned a newspaper kiosk and a bar, and died in<br />
middle-age in a Roman hospital in 1943. Corrado became a talented actor. (99)<br />
Editor's Note:<br />
Will H.L. Ogrinc is a Dutch author and medievalist. The author wishes to thank Raimondo Biffi,<br />
Patricia Marcoz, and Caspar Wintermans for their never-ceasing support, Paul Snijders for kind<br />
permission to use his library, Dré Leyten and Wolfram Setz for their criticism and photographic<br />
contributions, Ed Schilders for assistance with the translation of some obscure passages from the<br />
French, and the late Frank Torey for his translation from the Dutch.<br />
35
APPENDIX<br />
[dans la marge: Page première]<br />
MM.<br />
Bondoux, Président<br />
Chanson, Juge<br />
Coularou, Juge<br />
Lescouvé, substitut<br />
Weydert, greffier<br />
1.67.868<br />
68.067<br />
TRIBUNAL DE PREMIÈRE INSTANCE<br />
du Département de la Seine<br />
Police correctionelle Neuvième Chambre<br />
Audience publique du Jeudi Trois Décembre mil neuf cent trois<br />
Pour le Procureur de la République<br />
Dét[enu]: d’Adelsward Jacques, 23 ans, né à Paris, 8e arrondissement, le 20 février 1880, de Axel et de Louise Emilie<br />
Alexandrine Vuhrer, célibataire, demeurant à Paris, avenue Friedland, N° 18,<br />
Mandat de dépôt du 9 juillet 1903<br />
2e Mandat de dépôt du 10 juillet 1903<br />
Dét[enu]: de Warren Albert François , 22 ans, né à Saint-Dié (Vosges) le 12 août 1881, de Anthelme Stanislas Firmin<br />
Léon et de Pauline Louise Marie Huyn de Varnéville [= Verneville], demeurant à Paris, rue Alfred de Vigny N° 14,<br />
Mandat de dépôt du 17 octobre 1903<br />
Outrages publics à la pudeur; Excitation de mineurs à la débauche.<br />
Le Tribunal, après en avoir délibéré conformément à la loi; Attendu que, d’après la nature des faits reprochés à<br />
d’Adelsward et à de Warren, la publicité des débats pourrait être dangereuse pour la morale publique, Faisant droit aux<br />
réquisitions du Ministère Public, Vu l’article 87 de la Constitution du 4 novembre 1848, Ordonne que les débats<br />
auront lieu à Huis clos.<br />
[Signé] Coularou, Bondoux, Chanson, Weydert<br />
1bis.67.868<br />
68.067<br />
___<br />
Pour le Procureur de la République<br />
Dét[enu]: d’Adelsward Jacques, 23 ans, né à Paris, 8e arrondissement, le 20 février 1880, de Axel et de Louise Emilie<br />
Alexandrine Vuhrer, célibataire, demeurant à Paris, avenue Friedland N° 18,<br />
Mandat de dépôt du 9 juillet 1903<br />
2e Mandat de dépôt du 10 juillet 1903<br />
Dét[enu]: de Warren Albert François, 22 ans, né à Saint-Dié (Vosges) le 12 août 1881, [dans la marge: appèl de<br />
Warren (…) 17 Décembre 1903] de Anthelme Stanislas Firmin Léon et de Pauline Louise Marie Huyn de Varnéville [=<br />
Verneville], demeurant à Paris, rue Alfred de Vigny, [dans la marge: Page deuxième] Numéro 14<br />
Mandat de dépôt du 17 octobre 1903<br />
Outrages publics à la pudeur; Excitation de mineurs à la débauche.<br />
Le Tribunal après en avoir délibéré conformément à la loi, Attendu que de Warren et d’Adelsward sont poursuivis pour<br />
avoir en mil neuf cent trois à Paris, 1° à diverses reprises, commis des outrages publics à la pudeur en se livrant à des<br />
gestes ou à des actes obscènes en présence de mineurs de vingt et un ans; 2° ensemble et de concert, attenté aux mœurs<br />
en excitant, favorisant ou facilitant habituellement la débauche ou la corruption des sieurs Berecki, Boesch, de Pourcelet<br />
Adalbert, de Pourcelet Jacques, de Pourcelet Réné; que d’Adelsward est poursuivi également pour avoir à Paris, en mil<br />
neuf cent deux et mil neuf cent trois, attenté aux mœurs en excitant, favorisant ou facilitant habituellement la débauche<br />
ou la corruption du sieur Locré; sur ce premier chef de prévention: Attendu que l’inculpation d’outrage public à la<br />
pudeur n’est pas suffisamment établie à l’encontre d’Adelsward et de Warren; qu’en effet les actes obscènes auxquels<br />
ceux-ci se sont livrés, ont été commis dans un lieu privé d’où ils ne pouvaient être vus du dehors; que la présence de<br />
36
personnes qui y ont participé ou qui en ont été les témoins volontaires ne suffit pas pour constituer la publicité exigée<br />
par l’article 330 du Code Pénal; Renvoie de ce chef les prévenus des fins de la poursuite.<br />
Sur le deuxième chef de prévention: En ce qui concerne d’Adelsward: Attendu qu’il ressort de l’instruction et des<br />
débats la preuve que d’Adelsward, en mil neuf cent trois à Paris, a excité, facilité ou favorisé habituellement la<br />
débauche ou la corruption des sieurs Berecki, Boesch, Croisé de Pourcelet Adalbert, Croisé de Pourcelet Jacques,<br />
Croisé de Pourcelet Réné et Locré, mineurs de vingt et un ans, en se livrant à des actes de lubricité, à diverses reprises,<br />
à des époques différentes, en leur présence ou dans une chambre voisine et dans des conditions telles que les enfants ne<br />
pouvaient ignorer ce qui s’y passait; Attendu que pour parvenir à son but, d’Adelsward attirait ces mineurs par des<br />
goûters, leur lisait des poésies lascives et mettait sous leurs yeux des gravures licencieuses; qu’il allait attendre Berecki<br />
et Locré jusqu’à la sortie de leur lycée;<br />
En ce qui concerne de Warren: Attendu qu’il ressort également de l’instruction et des débats la preuve que de Warren,<br />
en mil neuf cent trois, à Paris, a excité, facilité ou favorisé habituellement la débauche ou la corruption de Croisé de<br />
Pourcelet Adalbert, Croisé de Pourcelet Jacques, Croisé de Pourcelet Réné, [dans la marge: Page troisième] mineurs de<br />
vingt et un ans, en se livrant à différentes reprises et à des époques différentes, en leur présence, à des actes immoraux;<br />
qu’il a de plus, dans un but de corruption, lié connaissance avec ces enfants au Parc Monceau, les a reçus chez lui, leur<br />
a offert des goûters et les a mis en rapport avec d’Adelsward; Attendu qu’il y a lieu en raison des circonstances de la<br />
cause de faire aux prévenus une application modérée de la loi; Attendu que les faits ci-dessus constituent le délit prévu<br />
et puni par les articles 334, paragraphe 1er et 339 du Code Pénal, dont lecture a été donnée par le Président et qui sont<br />
ainsi conçus (334) sera puni d’un emprisonnement de six mois à trois ans et d’une amende de cinquante francs à cinq<br />
mille francs 1° quiconque aura attenté aux mœurs en excitant, favorisant ou facilitant habituellement la débauche ou la<br />
corruption de la jeunesse de l’un ou de l’autre sexe au-dessous de l’âge de vingt et un ans; 2° [rature: quiconque, pour<br />
satisfaire les passions d’autrui, aura embauché, entraîné ou détourné, même avec son consentement, une femme ou fille<br />
mineure en vue de la débauche] (339). Les coupables d’un des délits mentionnés au précédent article seront interdits de<br />
toute tutelle ou curatelle et de toute participation aux conseils de famille savoir: les individus auxquels s’appliquent les<br />
paragraphes 1, 2, 3 et 4 de cet article pendant deux ans au moins et de cinq ans au plus, et ceux dont il est parlé dans le<br />
paragraphe suivant pendant six ans au moins et vingt ans au plus, si le délit a été commis par le père ou la mère le<br />
coupable sera de plus privé des droits et avantages à lui accordé sur la personne et les biens de l’enfant par le Code<br />
Civil, livre premier titre IX de la puissance paternelle [dans la marge: Dit qu’ils seront interdits pendant cinq années<br />
des droits de famille mentionnés à l’article 339 du Code Pénal]; dans tous les cas les coupables pourront en outre être<br />
mis, par l’arrêt ou le jugement en état d’interdiction de séjour en observant pour la durée de l’interdiction ce qui vient<br />
d’être établi par le premier paragraphe du present article.<br />
Condamne d’Adelsward et de Warren chacun à Six mois d’emprisonnement, et chacun et solidairement à Cinquante<br />
francs d’amende.<br />
Les condamne sous la même solidarité aux dépens liquides à mille trois cent soixante huit francs quatre vingt dix<br />
centimes plus trois francs pour droits de poste. Fixe au minimum la durée de la contrainte par corps s’il y a lieu de<br />
l’exercer pour le recouvrement des amendes et des dépens.<br />
[Signé] Coularou, Bondoux, Chanson, Weydert<br />
[Source: Paris, Archives de Paris. Transcription: Will H.L Ogrinc & Caspar Wintermans]<br />
37
NOTES<br />
1. The sub-title of this essay is a translation of the inscription "Amori et Dolori Sacrum" that d'Adelswärd placed on his<br />
villa in Capri (first called "La Gloriette" and later "Villa Lysis") in 1905. The line is taken from an inscription on the<br />
church of Santa Maria della Passione in Milan and at the same time served as title for a book by Augustin-Maurice<br />
Barrès (Paris: Félix Juven, 1902). The latter contains, among other things, recollections by Barrès of his youth in Nancy<br />
where, with the Marquis Stanislas de Guaita, he attended the lyceum. De Guaita founded the Ordre Kabbalistique de la<br />
Rose-Croix in 1884 (see my article "Boys in Art. The Artist and his Model: Ferdinand and Hector Hodler. A New<br />
Approach" in Journal of Homosexuality 20:1/2 (1990), p. 79). Barrès, a member of this order, and d'Adelswärd knew<br />
each other.<br />
2. The following variations appear: Jacques d'Adelsward(-)Fersen; (Jacques) de Fersen; Fersen; Count (de) Fersen;<br />
Baron Jacques. His own publications for the most part list the author as Jacques d'Adelswärd(-Fersen), whereas the<br />
court documents refer to him as Jacques d'Adelsward. Arvid Andrén, in his Capri. From the Stone Age to the Tourist<br />
Age (Göteborg: Paul Åströms Förlag, 1980), p. 161, mentions the incredible carelessness to which the writer's name has<br />
often been subject: "Fate willed that he, who could not tolerate a single misprint in his poems, had both his first and last<br />
names misspelt on his tombstone, which attests that it was raised over the Baron Jaques Adelswàrd Fersen." A photo of<br />
the tombstone is reproduced in À la Jeunesse d’Amour. Villa Lysis a Capri: 1905-2005 (Capri: Edizioni La Conchiglia,<br />
2005), p. 122 and R. Peyrefitte, L’Esule di Capri (Capri: Edizioni La Conchiglia, 2003), [no pagination]. Peyrefitte had<br />
previously pointed out in his L’Exilé de Capri. Édition définitive (Paris: Flammarion/Le Livre de Poche, 1974), p. 321,<br />
that the data on the tombstone were incorrect: his date of birth was not 20 February 1879, but 20 February 1880, and<br />
his date of death not 6 November 1923 but 5 November 1923. J. Money (Capri: Island of Pleasure. London: Hamish<br />
Hamilton, 1986, pp. 86, 310, n. 30) obviously overlooked this correction in the date of birth. Peyrefitte must have<br />
copied his correction from the sentence of 1903. It is confirmed by the Civil Registration of Paris: “Jacques<br />
d’Adelswärd” was born 20 February 1880, at 13.30 p.m. (Paris, Archives de Paris. État Civil du Huitième<br />
Arrondissement de Paris, 1880, Nr. 259). Meanwhile the typesetter has played his part in d'Adelswärd's<br />
commemoration. On a map of Capri which I bought there in 1985, Villa Lysis is identified as Villa Felsen; in an article<br />
by Boudewijn Büch the writer suddenly becomes "Fernsen" (see "Curieus Capri" in Avenue 21:8, 1986, p. 82); in<br />
Memorie di un Uomo Inutile by Francesco Caravita di Sirignano (Napoli: Fiorentino, 1990), p. 243, he is called Jacques<br />
Fersen d'Adelswar, whereas Claudia Salaris calls him Adelswärd de Fersne (see Marinetti editore. Bologna: Il Mulino,<br />
1990, p. 41). Even in the first edition of my essay, in the journal Paidika, the writer’s name was misspelt three times<br />
(Jacques d’Adelswärd-Fensen, Jacques d’Adelswärdt). Philip Core carries matters a bit too far in his Camp: The Lie<br />
that Tells the Truth (New York: Delilah Books, 1984), p. 83 by referring to the author as "Von Fersen, Baron<br />
D'Adleswaard" and above all by dating him a century earlier, listing the dates of birth and death of Hans Axel Count<br />
von Fersen ("le beau Fersen"), a personal friend and purported lover of Marie Antoinette, and instigator of the flight to<br />
Varennes. This is hardly "camp"; it is sheer laziness.<br />
3. The reference here is to a number of notebooks with a handwritten selection from d'Adelswärd's volumes of poetry<br />
in the Royal Library at Brussels. The copyist faithfully transcribed the various volumes and noted beside the titles of<br />
the poems he does not include in his selection the comment "s.i." ("sans intérêt" or "not interesting"). The copyist<br />
clearly made his selection on the basis of homosexual themes and is often sloppy in copying the punctuation.<br />
4. In 1987 Eric Wohl produced a very thorough study of the literary reception of Peyrefitte's, L’Exilé de Capri in his<br />
unpublished B.A. thesis, Mémoire de IVème Année (...) sur Interferences Morales dans le Domaine Esthétique: de<br />
Fersen à Peyrefitte (Memoir of the fourth year [of university] on moral interferences in the aesthetic domain: from<br />
Fersen to Peyrefitte) (Kensington, Australia: University of New South Wales, 1987). Wohl concluded that the criticism<br />
of Peyrefitte's novel rested more on moral prejudice than on the upholding of literary/aesthetic criteria. In light of this<br />
study the question remains why Peyrefitte depicted the hero of his novel as being so pitiful.<br />
5. As Peyrefitte later attested in Propos Secrets [1] (Paris: Albin Michel, 1977, pp. 157-158) and Propos Secrets 2<br />
(Paris: Albin Michel, 1980, p. 363), he scrapped Jean Cocteau's foreword following Cocteau's death and upon request<br />
of d'Adelswärd's nephew, Count Carlo di Bugnano. Peyrefitte, too, found the foreword not very appropriate, based as it<br />
was mainly upon Cocteau's jealousy of the aristocratic d'Adelswärd. See also R. Peyrefitte, Notre amour (Paris:<br />
Flammarion/J’ai Lu, 1975), p. 77.<br />
6. Letter of the Préfecture de Police, Cabinet du Préfet. Archive - Musée, Paris, 31 March 1988: "Research in our<br />
archives has not enabled us to discover any documents relating to Baron Jacques d'ADELSWARD (Fersen) and Albert<br />
de WARREN." The statement implied that either documents of the affair did not exist or that they could not be (were<br />
not permitted to be?) found. For further information, the letter referred me to the Ministry of Justice!<br />
7. Letter from the Direction des Services d'Archives de Paris, Paris, 26 May 1988.<br />
8. Letter from the Directeur Général des Archives de France, Paris, 20 April 1988.<br />
9. Letter from the Ambassade van het Kobninkrijk (sic) der Nederlanden, Hoofd Pers- en Culturele Zaken, Paris, 4<br />
October 1988. Within a year, the same cultural attaché was removed from his duties in Paris and sent to the Dutch<br />
embassy in Saudi Arabia (see NRC-Handelsblad 23 September 1989, p. 7)!<br />
38
10. R. Peyrefitte, Propos Secrets 2, p. 353.<br />
11. See, for example, J. Money, op. cit., pp. 255, 301. Although Money was aware that the novel is "a blend of fact and<br />
fancy," his study of d'Adelswärd's life is often untrue and unreliable in its details because he a) did not consult a<br />
number of sources; b) largely based his facts on Peyrefitte's novel which, above all, he sometimes wrongly interpreted<br />
or even read censoriously (perhaps the English translation which he used is here to blame); c) used Compton<br />
Mackenzie's novel set in Capri, Vestal Fire (1927) (London: Hogarth Press, 1985), and the communications of<br />
important Italians, as objective historical sources without considering the possibility that they had colored the facts. For<br />
instance, F. Caravita di Sirignano, op. cit., p. 184, refers to Nino Cesarini as "Cesarino Romano" (little Caesar from<br />
Rome).<br />
12. R. Peyrefitte, Propos Secrets [1], p. 195.<br />
13. R. Peyrefitte, L’Exilé de Capri, pp. 19-20; A. Andrén, op. cit., pp. 160-161; J. Money, op. cit., pp. 55, 310, n. 30.<br />
14. It definitely concerned persons who were still alive. Recently Peyrefitte had begun in his Propos Secrets to reveal a<br />
number of their names.<br />
15. R. Peyrefitte, L’Exilé de Capri, p. 80.<br />
16. Peyrefitte mentions pupils of the Carnot, Condorcet, and Janson-de-Sailly lycea. D'Adelswärd knew the latter from<br />
his own school years. I was able to document, among others, the following names from the Carnot school: André<br />
François-Poncet, politician, diplomat and writer who during the Second World War was interned in Germany; Gabriel<br />
Marcel (son of art historian Henry Marcel, after 1912 director of the Musées Nationaux), philosopher and writer and<br />
spokesman for Christian existentialism; Paul Morand (son of painter Eugène Morand, director of the École des Arts<br />
Décoratifs), diplomat and writer; Pierre-Etienne Flandin, repeatedly minister of several departments after 1924,<br />
including Minister of Foreign Affairs for the Vichy regime, arrested by Charles de Gaulle and in 1946, upon Winston<br />
Churchill's intercession, found innocent.<br />
17. See P. Morand, Venises (Paris: Gallimard, 1985), p. 39-40; R. Peyrefitte, Propos Secrets 2, p. 359.<br />
18. We must of necessity rely upon Peyrefitte for some information about Jacques' ancestry and youth. The newspaper,<br />
Le Soir, was established in 1867 and offered moderate opposition to the empire. Following the war of 1870/71 it<br />
supported the politics of Adolphe Thiers and the establishment of a conservative republic. In 1873 the paper was<br />
bought by the Orleanists.<br />
19. Ample discussions about Jacques' ancestry in J. Balteau, et al. (ed.), Dictionnaire de Biographie Française. I (Paris:<br />
Letouzey et Ané, 1933), p. 545. The biographical note about d’Adelswärd was composed by A. Jaulme, librarian at the<br />
Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. See also Arthur Dupin in Le Journal 13 July 1903 about the daughter of notary<br />
Bernard.<br />
20. R. Peyrefitte, L’Exilé de Capri, pp. 14-15. See also Note 2. L. Aressy, Les Nuits et les Ennuis du Mont-Parnasse<br />
(Paris: Jouve & Cie., 1929), p 142. For more information about Hans Axel von Fersen, see N.I. Garde (pseudonym of<br />
Edgar Leoni), Jonathan to Gide: The Homosexual in History (New York: Nosbooks, 1969), pp. 491-495; A. von<br />
Fersen, Rettet die Königin. Revolutionstagebuch 1789-1793 (München: Paul List, 1969), pp. 189-204; F. Kermina,<br />
Hans Axel de Fersen (Paris: Perrin, 2001).<br />
21. N. Erber, “Queer Follies: Effeminacy and Aestheticism in fin-de-siècle France, the Case of Baron d’Adelsward<br />
Fersen and Count de Warren” in: G. Robb and N. Erber (eds.), Disorder in the Court: Trials and Sexual Conflict at the<br />
Turn of the Century (New York: New York University Press, 1999), p. 195, incorrectly states that Jacques’ father had<br />
drowned during a yachting trip to the Far East. Axel d’Adelswärd died 10 July 1887 on the trading-ship “Olinde<br />
Rodrigues,” between Colón and La Guayra, and before arriving in Venezuela. See: R. Colas, “Les d’Adelsward” in<br />
Pays-Haut. Bulletin de l’Association des Amis du Vieux Longwy 2 (1969), p. 77; J. Perot, “Le Destin français d’une<br />
famille suédoise: les barons d’Adelswärd” in Bulletin du Musée Bernadotte de Pau 26 (1986), p. 22.<br />
22. The section "Un Souvenir pour une Larme" (A souvenir for a tear) in d'Adelswärd's poetry volume Les Cortèges<br />
qui sont passés (Corteges of the past) (Paris: Léon Vanier/Albert Messein, 1903), pp. 93 ff., is dedicated to this<br />
guardian. J. d'Adelswärd, Chansons Légères. Poèmes de l'enfance (Paris: Léon Vanier, 1901), p. 120; T. d'Arch Smith,<br />
Love in Earnest. Some Notes on the Lives and Writings of English 'Uranian' Poets from 1889 to 1930 (London:<br />
Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1970), p. 118. Concerning “Treize ans” see also R. Peyrefitte, Notre amour, p. 90.<br />
23. J. d'Adelswärd, Chansons Légères, pp. 156-158.<br />
24. Ibid., pp. 95-96: "À mon frère Renold" (To my brother Renold). In neither version of his novel does Peyrefitte<br />
mention the boy! According to the Civil Registration of Paris, Renold was born 18 May 1881; he was registered with<br />
the Christian names Reinhold Harald (Paris, Archives de Paris. État Civil du Huitième Arrondissement de Paris, 1881,<br />
Nr. 726); he died in Paris 11 January 1882, at the age of 7 months and 24 days (communication from Laurent François,<br />
President of the Association “Les Amis d’Henri Duvernois,” who kindly furnished some genealogical data concerning<br />
Jacques’ family). Germaine’s year of death is to be found on the Internet<br />
(http://www.sardimpex.com/capece/capece%20minutolo.htm); her year of birth is here listed as 1888. A photo album<br />
of the d’Adelswärd family, probably from Germaine’s inheritance, is in the Archive of Pietro Tommasini Mattiucci at<br />
Città di Castello; it is to be found on the Internet (http://www.archiphoto.it:81). A good example of boarding school<br />
impressions is found in the poem “Innocence,” from d'Adelswärd's poetry collection, L’Hymnaire d’Adonis, à la façon<br />
de M. le Marquis de Sade. Paganismes (Paris: Léon Vanier, 1902), p. 118.<br />
39
25. On the French educational system at this time, see A. Prost, Histoire de l’Enseignement en France 1800-1967<br />
(Paris: Armand Colin, 1970), pp. 57 ff., 246 ff.. N. Erber, op. cit., p. 199.<br />
26. J. d'Adelswärd, L'Hymnaire, pp. 136-137. English translation by the author. Referring to this poem, Mirande Lucien<br />
(ed.), Akademos. Jacques d’Adelswärd-Fersen et «la cause homosexuelle» (Lille: Gay Kitsch Camp, 2000), p. 6, observed:<br />
“If Fersen has not the genius of Rimbaud, it looks like he has.”<br />
27. J. d’Adelswärd, op. cit., pp. 49, 114-115, 144-145. According to some authors, probably following A. Jaulme’s<br />
information, the publication of L’Hymnaire brought about d’Adelswärd’s first legal prosecution; I could not find any<br />
evidence. See: J. Balteau, et al. (ed.) , op. cit., p. 544; M. Lucien (ed.), op. cit., p. 7; G. Picq, Laurent Tailhade ou De la<br />
provocation considérée comme un art de vivre (Paris: Maisonneuve & Larose, 2001), p. 629.<br />
28. J. Balteau, et al. (ed.) , loc. cit.; R. Peyrefitte, L’Exilé de Capri, pp. 30, 46. During his military service, he first<br />
stayed at the fortress of Les Ayvelles (91th Infantry Regiment), and later in Charleville-Mézières and Sedan<br />
(Ardennes), where he rised to the rank of a corporal. According to Peyrefitte, d'Adelswärd read to bis camp comrades,<br />
including Édouard Chimot, engraver from Lille, passages from works by Rimbaud, Péladan, and Huysmans. It remains<br />
unclear whether Jacques was licensed at law: this was claimed in an anonymous article in Le Matin headed "Messes<br />
Noires en plein bacchanale," 11 July 1903, p. 2, but was denied by A. Jarry, "L'Âme ouverte à l'Art antique" in<br />
MESSES NOIRES. Le Canard Sauvage 1:19 (1903), [no pagination]. It has been suggested that d’Adelswärd had to<br />
finance himself the publication of his books, and that title page imprints, such as “third edition,” were often spurious,<br />
clearly intending to exaggerate his commercial success. However, I have seen myself different editions of some of his<br />
books. A recently discovered letter of d’Adelswärd of 19 August 1902 (Rome, Italy, Collection Raimondo Biffi),<br />
apparently written from Sedan to his publisher, confirms that there were several editions of Chansons Légères and<br />
Ébauches et Débauches, and that Jacques was expecting the payment of royalties.<br />
29. The poem, "Noëlleries" (Christmas tales), in the collection Les Cortèges, p. 16, is dedicated to this Loulou. R.<br />
Peyrefitte, op. cit., pp. 74-75, constructed the last name of Loulou, who lived on Rue de Berri, in the form of a puzzle.<br />
To solve the puzzle, one combines the data from P. Larousse, Grand Dictionnaire Universel du XIXe Siècle (Paris:<br />
Administration du Grand Dictionnaire Universel, 1865-1890), Volume IV, p. 526 and Volume X, p. 613, with the<br />
names in the sentence. Loulou was descended from the jurist Jean-Guillaume Locré, Baron de Roissy (1758-1840),<br />
author of the 31-volume work, Législation civile, commerciale et criminelle de la France (Paris: Treuttel et Würtz,<br />
1827-1832).<br />
30. Albert François de Warren, called Hamelin by his intimates, was born 12 August 1881 at Saint-Dié (Vosges). He<br />
married Marguerite Lévy in 1911 (see “Mariages” in Le Figaro 29 March 1911); the marriage was without children. He<br />
died at Amiens in 1928 (communication from Jean-Claude Féray). Jacques’ engagement with Blanche was reported in<br />
the press. One newspaper announced both the engagement and Jacques' arrest on the same day! See Regina, "La Vie de<br />
Paris. L'Ile de Puteaux" and (Anonymous) "Un scandale Parisien" in Le Figaro 10 July 1903, pp. 1, 4.<br />
31. See Note 30 and, among other sources, (Anonymous) "Messes Noires" in Le Matin 10 July 1903, p. 2;<br />
(Anonymous) "Messes Noires en plein bacchanale," loc. cit.; (Anonymous) "Un scandale" in Le Temps 12 July 1903, p.<br />
3; A. Jarry, "Le Périple de la littérature et de l'art. Héliogabale à travers les âges" in La Plume: littéraire, artistique et<br />
sociale bimensuelle 16:343 (1903), pp. 209-210; MESSES NOIRES. Le Canard Sauvage 1:19 (1903), the whole issue.<br />
The case was not overlooked by the foreign press. The report in the Berliner Tageblatt 10 July 1903 (taken directly<br />
from Le Matin) appears in I. Bloch, Das Sexualleben unserer Zeit in seinen Beziehungen zur modernen Kultur (Berlin:<br />
Louis Marcus Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1909), p. 698. Nancy Erber wrote an excellent article about the press coverage of<br />
the case (see N. Erber, op. cit.). Caspar Wintermans is preparing an annotated anthology of articles from the French<br />
press.<br />
32. P. Morand, op. cit., p. 40. Morand recalls the response of his school friends on a walk with his father over the<br />
Square of San Marco in Venice, during the course of which they suddenly encountered d'Adelswärd. His father refused<br />
Jacques' proffered hand on the grounds that he did not wish to shake hands with a pederast, much to the amusement of<br />
the young Morand who observed that his father, without realizing it, did so all day long! Morand must have been mis-<br />
taken here in the year he cites (1908), for the meeting can only have taken place in 1907.<br />
33. (Anonymous) “Cette Répugnante Aventure” in Gil Blas 11 July 1903; N. Erber, op. cit., pp. 190, 193.<br />
34. Grandgousier, "Un procès à huis clos. Les Messes Noires" in Le Matin 29 November 1903, p. 1.<br />
35. According to N. Erber, op. cit., p. 202, there “is no record of an appeal and no trace in the public record of de<br />
Warren’s life after his release.” However, in the margin of fol. 1 of the sentence (Ms. 3 December 1903, Paris,<br />
Archives de Paris. Tribunal de Première Instance du Département de la Seine. Police correctionelle Neuvième<br />
Chambre. Audience publique du Jeudi Trois Décembre mil neuf cent trois), there is a handwritten note “appèl de<br />
Warren (…) 17 Décembre 1903.” This date must be a mistake. Added to the Dossier d’Instruction of 1903 (Paris,<br />
Archives de France. BB18 2255, dr. 1468 A 1903) there are two letters from the Parquet de la Cour d’Appel de Paris. In a<br />
letter of 16 December, an appeal of de Warren of 12 December is mentioned. A letter of 21 January 1904 (referring to the<br />
decision of the Cour d’Appel of 12 January 1904) confirms the sentence of the Tribunal de la Seine of 3 December 1903,<br />
and states that de Warren has appealed to the Cour de Cassation (see also: “Gazette des Tribunaux. Nouvelles Judiciaires”<br />
in Le Figaro 13 January 1904).<br />
36. Grandgousier, loc. cit., and "Tribunaux. Les Messes Noires" in Le Matin 4 December 1903, p. 2.<br />
40
37. Ms. 3 December 1903, Paris, Archives de Paris, op. cit., fol. 1-3 (see Appendix).<br />
38. A.-S. Lagail, Les Mémoires du Baron Jacques: Lubricités infernales de la noblesse décadente (Priapeville:<br />
Librairie Galante, An IV du XXe siècle foutatif [=1904]). A clumsy English translation was published in Canada in<br />
1988; it had one positive result: the 1991 reprinting of the original text in France, now provided with page numbers,<br />
and the pages printed at last in proper sequence. See: A. Gallais, The Memoirs of Baron Jacques: The Diabolical<br />
Debaucheries of Our Decadent Aristocracy. Transl. and introd. by Richard West (Vancouver: Ageneios Press, 1988);<br />
P. Cardon (ed.), Dossier Jacques d’Adelsward-Fersen (Lille: Cahier Gai-Kitsch-Camp XX-4, 1991), pp. 63-95; P. Pia,<br />
Les Livres de l'Enfer. Bibliographie des ouvrages érotiques du XVIème siècle à nos jours. II (Paris: Coulet er Faure,<br />
1978), p. 441; L. Perceau, Bibliographie du roman érotique au XIXe siècle. II (Paris: Georges Fourdrinier, 1930), pp.<br />
41-43. Perceau, who described the work as "the most horrible of its kind," mis-states the title of the poem as (perhaps a<br />
Freudian error): "Notre-Dame des Vierges Fortes" (Our Lady of the sturdy virgins), instead of "Notre-Dame des Verges<br />
Fortes" (Our Lady of the sturdy cocks)!<br />
39. P. Pia, op. cit., pp. 535-536.<br />
40. J.-P. Goujon, Pierre Louÿs, une Vie Secrète (Paris: Seghers, 1988), p. 84; P. Léautaud, Journal littéraire. I. 1893–<br />
1906 (Paris: Mercure de France, 1954), p. 74. Léautaud talked with Schwob on 14 July 1903; about d’Adelswärd no<br />
further details are mentioned. M. Duplay, Mon ami Marcel Proust. Souvenirs intimes (Paris: Gallimard, 1972), pp. 136-<br />
137; C.-L. Philippe, “Le Mouton à cinq pattes” in MESSES NOIRES. Le Canard Sauvage 1:19 (1903), [no pagination];<br />
A. Jarry, “L'Âme ouverte à l'Art antique” in MESSES NOIRES. Le Canard Sauvage 1:19 (1903), [no pagination].<br />
Already in 1903, Jean de la Lune had sneered at d’Adelswärd in the story “Narva” in his Les Pantins (see: J. de la<br />
Lune, Les Pantins, Paris: Genonceaux, 1903, pp. 73-78, and Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen 7, 1905, pp. 887-<br />
888). On 17 February 1904, Roland Brévannes’ play, Messes noires, was performed in the Théâtre de la Bodinière in<br />
the Rue Saint-Lazare in Paris; the ‘quatrième tableau,’ entitled “La messe noire au XXe siècle: Les dégénérés,” with<br />
the protagonist Axel Wartz (= Adelsward), is about the Fersen affair (see R. Brévannes, Les Messes noires.<br />
Reconstitution dramatique en 3 parties et 4 tableaux, donnée au théâtre de la Bodinière, le 17 février 1904, Courbevoie:<br />
Impr. E. Bernard, [1904], pp. 23-31).<br />
41. de Fersen, Lord Lyllian. Messes Noires (Paris: Léon Vanier/Albert Messein, 1905), pp. 169-171.<br />
42. J. Lorrain, Pélleastres: Le Poison de la littérature (Paris: A. Méricant, 1910), p. 135. The book was posthumously<br />
published by Georges Normandy, the executor of Lorrain’s last will. The passages about d’Adelswärd were first<br />
published in serial form in Le Journal in 1903. In the last few years a lot of new studies have appeared on Gilles de<br />
Rais and Joris-Karl Huysmans. On the Black Masses of Abbé Guibourg, see U. K. Dreikandt (ed.), Schwarze Messen.<br />
Dichtungen und Dokumente (Herrsching: M. Pawlak Verlagsgesellschaft mbH., 1970), pp. 69-77, and R. Cavendish,<br />
Die schwarze Magie (Frankfurt/Main: G. B. Fischer Verlag, 1969), pp. 377-381. It is here revealed in passing that as<br />
early as 1889 the newspaper Le Matin had given special attention in its news coverage to "Black Masses." This study,<br />
on pages 46-49, gives some other details of the Black Masses of Abbé Boullan (1824-1893) who during the 1880s and<br />
1890s had captured the imagination of many in France. Huysmans and Stanislas de Guaita (see Note 1) were members,<br />
for shorter or longer periods, of his circle. Typical of all cited examples seem to be accusations of ritual child murder<br />
combined with orgiastic convocations. It almost seems as if Lorrain regretted that d'Adelswärd had spared the lives of<br />
his young friends!<br />
43. R. Peyrefitte, Propos Secrets 2, p. 362.<br />
44. Ibid., p. 361.<br />
45. The furnishing of duplicate copies of court dossiers for the benefit of the accused is a rather recent practice in many<br />
countries of Europe (communication from the late Edward Brongersma). It is unclear whether this began at an earlier<br />
period in France. In 2000, Michael Sibalis, Professor in History at Wilfrid Laurier University (Ontario, Canada),<br />
suggested to me that Marc Daniel (pseudonym of Michel Duchein) might have been the one who gave Peyrefitte the<br />
opportunity to see the dossier. Both, Peyrefitte and Daniel, were important members of “Arcadie,” the French gay<br />
association (1954-1982). Marc Daniel was a historian and archivist at the Archives Nationales.<br />
46. (Anonymous) "Messes Noires," loc. cit.; (Anonymous) "Messes Noires en plein bacchanale," loc. cit.;<br />
(Anonymous) "Un scandale," loc. cit. In the sentence there is only reference to "gravures licencieuses" (licentious<br />
engravings) which d'Adelswärd showed to the schoolboys. N. Erber, op. cit., pp. 194 and 200, is quoting Le Journal<br />
and Le Figaro of 11 July 1903, and Le Journal of 29 November 1903. The information about the findings in de<br />
Warren’s home is incorrect. In the Dossier d’Instruction, op. cit., there is a note of Charles de Valles (appendix of a<br />
letter from the Tribunal de la Seine of 10 July 1903), in which he states that nothing was found in de Warren’s home,<br />
because de Warren had destroyed all compromising evidence. However, “obscene photos” must have been present<br />
before. In a document from the Tribunal de la Seine of 12 July 1903 in the Dossier, Adalbert Croisé de Pourcelet<br />
testified that he had seen how a stark naked de Warren had left his bath, and had taken photos of Raoul Clerc, who was<br />
nude as well.<br />
47. See Note 41. G. Komrij, Verzonken Boeken (Amsterdam: Synopsis, 1986), p. 67.<br />
48. Ibid., p. 68; de Fersen, op. cit., pp. 78-83; R. Ellmann, Oscar Wilde (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1987), p. 551.<br />
49. de Fersen, op. cit., pp. 151-180. I have been unable to discover whether d'Adelswärd himself was a member of the<br />
Rosicrucians or only sympathized with them. In any case, Péladan and Barrès, leaders in the Ordre de la Rose-Croix<br />
41
Catholique (a secession of the Ordre Kabbalistique de la Rose-Croix), participated in d'Adelswärd's magazine<br />
Akademos in 1909. In my opinion, Lyllian's cryptic remark refers to concepts of Péladan about "The Worthy Subject"<br />
and "Ephebic Beauty" (see my article "Neither to Laugh nor to Cry. A Failure in the End: Charles Filiger (1863-1928)"<br />
in Paidika 1:4, 1988, pp. 38-41).<br />
50. de Fersen, op. cit., p. 162.<br />
51. Erroneously given by Komrij, op. cit., p. 67, as a "Hungarian poet." It was a seventeen-year-old Polish boy whom<br />
Lord Lyllian encouraged to write poetry. From the sentence it seems that not just Loulou Locré but also the Berecki<br />
boy had special bonds with d'Adelswärd. The Dossier d’Instruction, op. cit., also mentions the boy’s Christian name:<br />
André.<br />
52. de Fersen, op. cit, p. 27: at the threshold of puberty, the boy fondles himself in front of a mirror, fantasizing about a<br />
non-existent "brother"! Already in Notre-Dame des Mers Mortes (Venise) (Paris: P. Sevin et E. Rey, 1902), p. 215,<br />
d’Adelswärd’s principal character, Jacques de Liéven, is weeping when he recalls his deceased “little brother” Renold:<br />
“I love him since I do not have him any more.”<br />
53. Paris, Archives de France. BB18 2255, dr. 1468 A 1903.<br />
54. See Note 35.<br />
55. See also N. Erber, op. cit., p. 207, n. 26. According to Le Journal of 14 July 1903, his family had received a<br />
message of de Warren from the United States: that he had visited New York, Chicago and Philadelphia. He was<br />
expected home in three months.<br />
56. Béchet was a departmental chief of Le Petit Méridional in Paris; he was a close friend of de Warren since 1899.<br />
From the boy’s mother, he knew of a letter of d’Adelswärd to a boy-friend of de Warren, Raoul Clerc, which contained<br />
“obscene proposals.”<br />
57. During the trial, d’Adelswärd mentioned the writers he was introduced to at school, and whose works he most<br />
admired: Virgil, Plato, Theocritus, Shakespeare, and Huysmans. There he had found, in colourful and poetical<br />
descriptions, the same things which occured in his presence (see Grandgousier, “Un procès à huis clos. Les Messes<br />
Noires,” loc. cit.). N. Erber, op. cit., p. 199, adds the names of Baudelaire and Verlaine, and that Judge Bondoux had<br />
interjected: “Very unhealthy literature!” In a letter to an unknown addressee (Trouville-sur-Mer, 26 September 1902),<br />
now in the collection of Raimondo Biffi in Rome, d’Adelswärd already mentioned the authors Heinrich Heine,<br />
Alphonse de Lamartine, François de Malherbe, Clément Marot, Alfred de Musset, Pierre Ronsard, Albert Samain, and<br />
François Villon (pseudonym of François de Montcorbier).<br />
58. The dossier mentions another priest (who might have visited some of the gatherings): fifty-five-year-old Abbé Jean<br />
Baptiste Labeyrie, a former vicar of Saint-Philippe-du-Roule in Paris, and “nowadays Chaplain of the Military Hospital<br />
at Vincennes.” Because of his visits to the public toilets on the Boulevard Haussmann, the Rue Tronchet, and the<br />
Avenue des Champs-Elysées, Labeyrie had a reputation for pederasty, and he had already been subject of surveillance<br />
by the police. For many years he had been the private teacher of de Warren and his brother. In his home, the police<br />
seized about fifty letters of the fugitive de Warren, addressed to his teacher. In the letters, de Warren was on first-name<br />
terms with Labeyrie; he called him his very dear friend, expressed an ardent desire to have him near himself, and sent<br />
his “kisses” and his “caresses.”<br />
59. See Note 15.<br />
60. Except one, the highest form of the French lyceum.<br />
61. See also Note 46. According to Norman Douglas, Looking Back: An Autobiographical Excursion (London: Chatto<br />
and Windus, 1934), pp. 358-364, d’Adelswärd was a talented drawer.<br />
62. Due to a transcription error, Jean-Claude Féray, “L’exilé de Capri: un portrait très retouché” in Inverses. Littératures,<br />
Arts et Homosexualités 4 (2004), pp. 209-215, transposes the prominent role of Loulou Locré to Jacques Croisé de<br />
Pourcelet. However, the document of 12 July 1903 does not read “… seroient les Jacques Locret, Boesch, de Laguerre,<br />
Starcelli, …” but “… seraient les jeunes Locret, Boesch, de Laguerre, Starcelli, …” A Jacques Locré/Locret did not exist!<br />
The name Loulou means “doggy” or “darling.”<br />
63. Only a résumé of an interview of Henri Boesch is to be found in a document of 20 July 1903.<br />
64. J. Money, op. cit., pp. 86-88. Nino Cesarini, Jacques' later boy-friend, is recognizable in the novel, Vestal Fire, in<br />
the person of Carlo di Fiore, and Villa Lysis (named from Plato's dialogue on "the good" as the ultimate goal of all<br />
human desires) is called Villa Hylas, after the beloved of Herakles. E.[I.] Prime-Stevenson, “Out of the Sun” in Her<br />
Enemy, Some Friends - and Other Personages: Stories & Studies Mostly of Human Hearts (Florence: Obsner, 1913). In the<br />
protagonist of the story, Dayneford, we can recognize d’Adelswärd, and his lover Gino must be Nino. Reprinted in: M.<br />
Mitchell and D. Leavitt (eds.), Pages Passed from Hand to Hand. The Hidden Tradition of Homosexual Literature in<br />
English from 1748 to 1914 (Boston-New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1997), pp. 394-403. E. Cerio, Aria di Capri: il libro degli<br />
uomini. ([Portici]: Casella, [c.1936]); pp. 63-78 contain the short story “Il marchese di Pommery,” with d’Adelswärd as the<br />
protagonist Marchese Paolo de Pommery dei Lenormant d’Etoile.<br />
65. R. Peyrefitte, L’Exilé de Capri, p. 130.<br />
66. According to Jacques’ last will, Nino was born in Rome 30 September 1889 (see F. Esposito, I misteri di Villa<br />
Lysis. Testamento e morte di Jacques Fersen, Capri: Edizioni La Conchiglia, 1996, p. 62). According to Peyrefitte, op. cit.,<br />
pp. 137-142, they met each other for the first time on 9 July 1904, a year after Jacques’ arrest in Paris.<br />
42
67. R. Peyrefitte, op. cit., pp. 169-174, and my article, "Op het snijpunt van twee wegen - John Henry Mackay,<br />
anarchist en knapenminnaar" in Maatstaf 31:8 (1983), pp. 70-78.<br />
68. J. d'Adelswärd-Fersen, Une Jeunesse/Le Baiser de Narcisse (Paris: Léon Vanier/Albert Messein, 1907); Rachilde<br />
“Une Jeunesse” in Mercure de France 70:248 (16 October 1907), p. 700. The Uranian and expert on witchcraft,<br />
Montague Summers (1880-1948), wrote with great sympathy about d'Adelswärd and even dedicated a collection of his<br />
poetry to him, Antinous and Other Poems (London: Sisley's, [1907]). He incorrectly wrote that the novella took place<br />
in Venice, whereas it actually was set near Taormina and in Verona. See M. Summers, The Galanty Show. An<br />
Autobiography by Montague Summers (London: Cecil Woolf, 1980), p. 236. Summers also was a secretary to the<br />
department for the study of homosexuality of the British Society for the Study of Sex Psychology (see also Note 77).<br />
The supposition made by T. d'Arch Smith, op. cit., p. 156, that Rachilde (pseudonym of Marguerite Aymery Vallette)<br />
used Jacques' name for the two incestuous homosexual brothers Fertzen in her novel, Les Hors nature. Moeurs<br />
contemporaines (Paris: Mercure de France, 1897), must be corrected: in 1897 Jacques had not yet acquired his<br />
"reputation"! Possibly Rachilde was referring to Hans Axel von Fersen (see Note 20).<br />
69. A photo of the dedication stone of Villa Lysis is reproduced in À la Jeunesse d’Amour, op. cit., p. 74. For a<br />
description of Brunelleschi’s painting, see F. Esposito, op. cit., p. 91. For reproductions of the statue of Nino cast by<br />
Francesco Ierace, see J. Money, op. cit., p. 95; P. Cardon (ed.), Dossier Jacques d’Adelsward-Fersen (Lille: Cahiers<br />
Gai-Kitsch-Camp 21, Curiosa 3, 1993), p. 14; À la Jeunesse d’Amour, op. cit., pp. 36 (photo by Guglielmo Plüschow),<br />
37, 46-47; Amori et Dolori Sacrum, introd. by Roger Peyrefitte (Capri: Libreria «La Conchiglia», 1990), pp. 23 and 45;<br />
T.G. Natter and P. Weiermair (eds.), Et in Arcadia ego (Zürich: Oehrli, 2000), pp. 18 and 19 (photos by Guglielmo<br />
Plüschow!). R. Peyrefitte, L’Esule di Capri (Capri: Edizioni La Conchiglia, 2003), [no pagination], includes<br />
reproductions of a photo of the statue by Ierace, and photos of Nino by Guglielmo Plüschow (c. 1906) which seem to<br />
have been used by Ierace as a model for his statue. These photos are also reproduced in À la Jeunesse d’Amour, op. cit.,<br />
p. 101-102, and in P. Weiermair, Guglielmo Plüschow (Köln: Benedikt Taschen, 1993), pp. 30 and 33. The photo of<br />
Nino on the terrace is to be found in À la Jeunesse d’Amour, op. cit., p. 103, Amori et Dolori Sacrum, op. cit., p. 41,<br />
and M. Hirschfeld, Geschlechtskunde. IV (Stuttgart: Julius Püttmann, 1930), p. 632. With respect to the photo, the<br />
same symbols - although in mirror image - can be found on a drinking vessel from the First Century B.C. on which<br />
Emperor Augustus is shown in all his majesty, and on a Fourth Century A.D. coin on which the Emperor Constantius II<br />
is depicted as Perpetuus Augustus. The closest resemblance with the photo is found in Second and Third Century A.D.<br />
depictions of Zeus Nicephorus, see A. Dimitrova-Milcheva, Antique Engraved Gems and Cameos in the National<br />
Archeological Museum in Sofia (Sofia: Septemviri Publishing House, 1981), pp. 32-33, Nrs. 13-14a. The photo differs<br />
in the following respects: standing posture, lack of scepter, and a Christian cross around Nino's neck. Recently there<br />
has been published a reproduction of a painting of Nino (c. 1908) by the German artist Paul Höcker (Professor at the<br />
Academy of Arts in Munich and co-founder of the “Munich Secession”), which is now in the private collection of Inka<br />
Nero in Switserland (see Good bye to Berlin? 100 Jahre Schwulenbewegung, Berlin: Verlag rosa Winkel, 1997, pp. 62,<br />
78-79). Nino, more or less undressed, was painted several times by Höcker. One of these paintings, “Roman<br />
Youngster,” appeared on the title page of Number 26 of the magazine Jugend (1904) (see also: A. Sternweiler (ed.),<br />
Selbstbewusstsein und Beharrlichkeit. Zweihundert Jahre Geschichte, Berlin: Schwules Museum, 2004, pp. 69-70). Fausto<br />
Esposito, loc. cit., describes another painting of a dressed Nino, hanging in the “camera goyesca” of Villa Lysis, and<br />
signed with “Paul.” In 1897 Höcker had fled to Italy, when it became common knowledge in Germany that he had used<br />
a rent boy from Munich, with whom he had an intimate relationship, as a model for a painting of a Madonna.<br />
70. J. d'Adelswärd-Fersen, Ainsi chantait Marsyas.... Poèmes (Florence and Paris: Léon Vanier/Albert Messein, 1907),<br />
pp. 15-16, 23-28. The photo of Jacques in J. Money, loc. cit., dates from this time and gives evidence of d'Adelswärd's<br />
increasing use of opium.<br />
71. On the response of the residents of Capri, see: J. Money, op. cit., pp. 109-111; E. Settanni, Scrittori stranieri a<br />
Capri ([Napoli]: La Conchiglia, 1986), pp. 30-31; R. Ciuni, I peccati di Capri (Roma: New Deal, 1998), p. 99. One of<br />
Jacques' friends suggested that readers might have mis-read the implications of the dots following "mer," which of<br />
course means that they interpreted it as "merde" (shit).<br />
72. The use of opium - following the Chinese Chandu method - was very popular with a number of artists, especially<br />
since the drug was easily obtainable in European apothecaries, even after the First World War. W. Schmidbauer and J.<br />
vom Scheidt, Handbuch der Rauschdrogen (München: Nymphenburger, 1975), pp. 139-146, states that the smoking of<br />
20 to 40 pipes (6 to 7 grams) per day was common for the average user (10 grams of opium contain approximately 1<br />
gram morphine, of which 0.2 to 0.3 grams come directly into the blood with smoking). A. Hayther, Opium and the<br />
Romantic Imagination (London: Faber and Faber, 1968), goes deeply into the influence which the drug had on various<br />
artists. Jacques' attraction to this particular drug can be explained in part by the fact that from ancient times opium has<br />
been used in various mystery cults and initiation ceremonies.<br />
73. For reproductions of the photo of the Neapolitan boy, see: À la Jeunesse d’Amour, op. cit., p. 43, E. Cooper, Fully<br />
Exposed. The Male Nude in Photography (London: Unwin Hyman, 1990), p. 157, P. Weiermair, op. cit., p. 69, Amori<br />
et Dolori Sacrum, op. cit., pp. 31 and 39 (divided into two parts!), and R. Peyrefitte, op. cit., [no pagination]. In the<br />
early 1870s the German Guglielmo (= Wilhelm Eduard Hermann Gottlieb) Plüschow lived as a photographer in Naples<br />
(Mergellina district). Between 1892 and 1909 he operated in Rome. In the aftermath of the Krupp scandal, he was<br />
43
accused of sexual match-making, the seduction of minors, and the production and distribution of “obscene” photos. He<br />
was arrested 14 May 1907 because he had made photos of a twelve-year-old Roman boy, Ernani Marinelli, in “a pose<br />
not in accordance with the laws of decency” (see: “L’arresto di un fotografo tedesco” in Il Messaggero 15 May 1907, p.<br />
4; “Il fotografo arrestato” in La Tribuna 16 May 1907, p. 3; “Un fotografo corruttore” in La Tribuna 15 May 1907; “Il<br />
fotografo tedesco arrestato” in Il Messaggero 16 May 1907, p. 4; “Un processo scandaloso” in Il Messaggero 15 June<br />
1907; “Fotografi corruttori” in Bollettino della Lega per la Moralità Pubblica 13:2, 1908, pp. 6-7; and L. Ferriani, “E<br />
lo scandalo del fotografo?” in Battaglie d’oggi 3:14, 1907, pp. 1-2). During the police raid of Plüschow’s apartment, a<br />
famous German concert singer was found in his home with a young “civus [= civis] romanus” (Roman citizen) in a<br />
compromising situation (see Xavier Mayne, The Intersexes. A History of Similisexualism as Problem in Social Life,<br />
Naples: [Privately printed, c.1910], p. 486). Recently Enrico Oliari has published the complete transcription of the<br />
sentence of the Corte Penale di Roma of 4 April 1908 (http://www.oliari.com/ricerche/sentenzaplueschow.html).<br />
Xavier Mayne’s “civus romanus” can now be identified as the Roman boy, Amedeo Moretti, and the German concert<br />
singer, “Dott[ore] Wulmer Luigi,” must be Dr. Ludwig Wüllner (1858-1938) (see Spemanns goldenes Buch der Musik,<br />
Berlin-Stuttgart: Verlag W. Spemann, 1900, Nr. 1390, which also contains a photo of the concert singer). Plüschow<br />
was sentenced to seven months and fifteen days prison, and a big fine. After 1910 he returned to Germany (see U.<br />
Pohlmann, Guglielmo Plüschow (1852-1930). Ein Photograph aus Mecklenburg in Italien, Grevesmühlen: NWM-<br />
Verlag, 1995, pp. 8-11). Reproductions of Plüschow’s photos of Nino are to be found in the following books: U.<br />
Pohlmann, op. cit., Inv. Nr. 89/74-84 “Rückenakt eines männlichen Modells” (Nude back of a male model); Inv. Nr.<br />
89/74-78 “Porträt eines jungen Mannes” (Portrait of a young man); and Inv. Nr. 89/13-45 “Männlicher Akt mit<br />
‘Heiligenschein’” (Male nude with a ‘nimbus’). The latter is also reproduced in À la Jeunesse d’Amour, op. cit., p. 100,<br />
Amori et Dolori Sacrum, op. cit., p. 35, on the cover of F. Esposito, op. cit., in R. Peyrefitte, op. cit., [no pagination],<br />
and in P. Weiermair, op. cit., the first photo of the book. According to Pohlmann, these photos are from about 1900,<br />
which is dated too early. D. Leddick, The Male Nude (Köln: Taschen, 1998), p. 134, reproduces a photo of Nino as a<br />
nude Roman soldier, and in Wilhelm von Gloeden, Wilhelm von Plüschow, Vincenzo Galdi. Italienische Jünglings-<br />
Photographien um 1900 (Berlin: Janssen, 1991), p. 37, we can find a nude back-pose of Nino, playing with a<br />
tambourine. R. Peyrefitte, op. cit., has more photos of Nino by Plüschow, including several nudes (c. 1906). These are<br />
also to be found in À la Jeunesse d’Amour, op. cit., pp. 99, 104-105 (see also P. Weiermair, op. cit., pp. 10, 13, 21, 91).<br />
J.-C. Féray, loc. cit. If the supposition, made by Féray, is correct, it casts a new and less romantic light on the<br />
acquaintance than in Peyrefitte’s novel: Nino would be one of the boys possibly exploited by Plüschow. The editors of<br />
À la Jeunesse d’Amour, op. cit., p. 12, claim that Nino already was a model of Plüschow, and Féray’s supposition is<br />
additionally supported: in the above-mentioned sentence of the Corte Penale di Roma, we can find a quote from the<br />
seized correspondence of Plüschow, in which a certain Geofray is looking at a photo of Nino (Cesarini?), and recalls<br />
the beautiful moments he had with the boy. Another boy, Rodolfo Consorti, testified that he was introduced by<br />
Plüschow in Capri to the “passive pederast” Fersen, who had made “obscene” proposals which the boy had rejected.<br />
From all this, it seems obvious, that Plüschow was not only selling photos, but also selling boys.<br />
74. G. Amendola, Una scelta di vita (Milano: Rizzoli, 2001), p. 33.<br />
75. A. Andrén, op. cit., p. 161. (Anonymous) "Le triste héros des messes noires Jacques d'Adelsward meurt<br />
mystérieusement à Capri" in Le Matin 10 December 1923, p. 1, prints sensationalistic reports from the local rumor mill:<br />
the residents of Capri crossed themselves when strange sounds and lights came from similar nocturnal “orgies” held in<br />
Villa Lysis. During the Plüschow scandal (see Note 73), the Italian press even referred to a note of the Carabinieri of 7<br />
June 1907: in his “small villa at Capri (…), D.F.” (= De Fersen) not only received “molti ragazzi” (many boys);<br />
“celebrations, similar to the ones he was condemned for by the Tribunal de la Seine,” took place: “messe nere” (Black<br />
Masses). Reference is also made to his “Roman lover C.A.” (= Antonio [= Nino] Cesarini) (see “Un processo<br />
scandaloso”, op. cit.; also to be found on: http://www.oliari.com/ricerche/plueschow.html).<br />
76. See Note 67. According to Edwin Cerio (L’Ora di Capri, Capri: La Conchiglia, 2000, pp. 208-209), the course of<br />
events had turned out differently: the performance was brutally terminated by the police. The preparations of the<br />
celebration had raised suspicions of the local priest, who feared for an orgy, and the mayor, who hoped for a scandal:<br />
“So when, one night, the whole heretical and erotic company of the island disappeared into the grotto by torchlight, for<br />
both of them there was no doubt, and the intervention of the Carabinieri was decided.” D’Adelswärd and others were<br />
arrested and a list was made of seized objects. By intervention on high authority (mention was made of “diplomatic<br />
pressure”) the scandal vanished into smoke.<br />
77. In a letter of 8 December 1907, d’Adelswärd thanked Eekhoud for the contacts with the “leaders of the German<br />
party.” See: P. Cardon (ed.), op. cit., pp. 64-65; M. Lucien (ed.), op. cit., p. 15; P. Snijders, “De komeet van Fersen. Het<br />
literaire tijdschrift Akademos (1909)” in De Parelduiker 1:1 (1996), p. 43. Der Eigene was founded by Adolf Brand<br />
and Benedict Friedländer (1866-1908), and was clearly influenced by the philosophy of the German anarchist<br />
pedagogue and philosopher Max Stirner (pseudonym of Kaspar Schmidt, 1806-1856), centering upon the selfdevelopment<br />
of the individual. In 1897, the psychiatrist and sexologist Hirschfeld had founded in Berlin the first<br />
association of the German gay liberation, the “Wissenschaftlich-humanitäres Komitee” (1897-1933), with a special<br />
branch in the Netherlands (“Nederlandsch Wetenschappelijk Humanitair Komitee,” 1912-1940). Together with the<br />
Alsatian jurist Numa Praetorius (pseudonym of Eugen Daniel Wilhelm, 1866-1951), Hirschfeld also published the<br />
44
quarterly Vierteljahrsberichte des Wissenschaftlich-humanitären Komitees, in fact a follow-up of the Jahrbuch für<br />
sexuelle Zwischenstufen. In the presence of, among others, Numa Praetorius and the Swiss psychologist Camille Spiess,<br />
d’Adelswärd attended a “crowded” meeting in the building of the Sociétés Savantes in Paris on 26 February 1910,<br />
during which Hirschfeld, by request of the Cercle International d’Études Sociales et Littéraires, read a lecture on “the<br />
deviations of the sexual instinct, with special attention to the homosexual question” (see Vierteljahrsberichte des<br />
Wissenschaftlich-humanitären Komitees 1, 1909/1910, p. 342). Praetorius stayed for a longer time in Paris (see Numa<br />
Praetorius, “Homosexuelle Pissoirinschriften aus Paris” in Anthropophyteia 8, 1911, pp. 410-422). During 1909, Spiess<br />
figured on the list of collaborators of Akademos, but he never made a contribution to the magazine. Spiess (1878-?) was<br />
a friend of d’Adelswärd and a visitor of Villa Lysis (see C. Spiess, Mon Autopsie. Éjaculations autobiographiques, Nice:<br />
Athanor, 1938, pp. 109-112, 129). A site on the Internet (http://www.multimania.com/jgir/fersen.htm) suggested that<br />
d’Adelswärd also might have been a member of the “Order of Chaeronea.” The name of this worldwide secret society<br />
was inspired by the battle of Chaeronea in 338 B.C., when 300 members of the Sacred Band of Thebes (composed<br />
entirely of friends and lovers) were slaughtered by the army of Philip of Macedonia. The Order was founded in 1897 by<br />
the homosexual Edwardian poet and author, George Cecil Ives (1867-1950), co-founder of the British Society for the<br />
Study of Sex Psychology (1914), and most famous of his study The Graeco-Roman View of Youth (London: Cayme<br />
Press, 1926). Its aim was to promote the end of the oppression of homosexuals.<br />
78. The following are some of the best known names: Paul Adam, Henri Barbusse, Maurice Barrès, Jules Bois, Norman<br />
Douglas, Georges Eekhoud, Achille Essebac, Claude Farrère, Jean Ferval (pseudonym of Roger Charbonnel), Anatole<br />
France, Henry Gauthier-Villars and his wife Colette Willy (pseudonym of Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette), Maxim Gorky<br />
(pseudonym of Alexey Maximovich Peshkov), Robert d'Humières, Pierre Loti, Maurice Maeterlinck, F.T. Marinetti,<br />
Octave Mirbeau, Robert de Montesquiou, Jean Moréas, Joséphin Péladan, Laurent Tailhade and his close friend Robert<br />
Scheffer, Emile Verhaeren, Renée Vivien, Eugene (sic) [Daniel] Wilhelm. For a more detailed evaluation of the<br />
magazine, see the article of Paul Snijders, op. cit., pp. 39-51.<br />
79. (Anonymous "N.D.L.R."), "Note de la Direction" in Akademos 1:10 (1909), p. 640.<br />
80. "Inaugural" and "Notre But" (Our Aim) in Akademos 1:1 (1909), pp. 1-2, 113. Though he was listed as a<br />
collaborator, Norman Douglas, op. cit., p. 363, knew only this issue of the magazine. J. Money, op. cit., pp. 109, 311-<br />
312, knew of 10 of the 12 issues but only consulted six.<br />
81. Jacques borrowed this pseudonym from the book by Jean Lorrain, Sonyeuse (Paris: Charpentier, 1891).<br />
82. Vyvyan Holland’s part is not mentioned in the press articles I found: “Il suicidio di uno sconosciuto” in La Gazetta<br />
di Venezia 25 September 1908, and “Il suicida francese R. Laurent” in La Gazetta di Venezia 27 September 1908. See<br />
also: C. Arnaud, Jean Cocteau (Paris: Gallimard, 2003), p. 45.<br />
83. F.T. Marinetti, “Le Dompteur” in Akademos 1:2 (1909), p. 176; J. d’Adelswärd-Fersen, “Poème dans la rosée” and<br />
“Tes Yeux…” in Poesia. Rassegna Internazionale 5:1-2 (1909), pp. 43, 77. On page 75, in the same issue of Poesia,<br />
there is a poem by Robert Scheffer, “Visions de Minuit,” dedicated to “J. de Fersen.” Together with Victor Litchfousse,<br />
the French writer Robert Scheffer (1864-1926) was interim editor of Akademos. Marinetti’s Manifesto was<br />
simultaneously published in Poesia and Le Figaro (20 February 1909). Fersen, “Akademos” in Poesia. Rassegna<br />
Internazionale 5:3-6 (1909), p. 49; J. Adelswärd de Fersen, “Mon cher Poète” in Poesia. Rassegna Internazionale 5:3-6<br />
(1909), p. 8. In a letter to Marinetti of 5 July 1909 (New Haven, USA, Yale University. Beinecke Rare Book and<br />
Manuscript Library. Marinetti Collection GEN MSS 130, Series III, Box 7, Folder 79), Jacques again praised the<br />
Manifesto, and invited Marinetti to send new contributions to Akademos.<br />
84. Although, on 10 May 1909, d’Adelswärd was still confident, and even intended a bimonthly publication of the<br />
magazine (starting in January 1910), in the same letter to Georges Eekhoud (who made several contributions to<br />
Akademos) he complained about the “ludicrous rarity” of subscriptions, and that he felt himself abandoned by other<br />
“adonisiens” (worshippers of Adonis) who, out of fear, had turned their back upon him (“perhaps by custom?” Jacques<br />
added with a sneer), instead of helping him. See P. Cardon (ed.), op. cit., pp. 66-67. The letter is part of a collection of<br />
six letters (and a post-card for New-Year 1908) from d’Adelswärd to Eekhoud, preserved in the Royal Library Albert I,<br />
Archives et Musée de la Littérature, at Brussels. A reproduction of the post-card is to be found in M. Lucien (ed.), op.<br />
cit., p. 142.<br />
85. R. Peyrefitte, L’Exilé de Capri, pp. 221-225.<br />
86. R. Peyrefitte, op. cit., pp. 227-228.<br />
87. J. Thurman, Colette. Roman ihres Lebens (Berlin: Berlin Verlag, 2001), pp. 873-874. Mathilde de Morny<br />
(nicknamed “Monsieur le Marquis,” “Missy,” or “Oncle Max”) not only financially supported the publication of<br />
Akademos; together with her partner Colette, she also frequented d’Adelswärd’s salons, went with him for dinner, or<br />
visited the cinema (see C. Francis and F. Gontier, Mathilde de Morny. La scandaleuse marquise et son temps, Paris:<br />
Perrin, 2000, pp. 260-262).<br />
88. J. d’Adelswärd-Fersen, Paradinya (Paris: Edition de , 1911), p. 23.<br />
89. J.H. van Epen, Compendium Drugverslaving en Alcoholisme. Diagnostiek en behandeling (Amsterdam:<br />
Agon/Elsevier, 1974), p. 90, cites Freud's experiments with curing opium addiction by administering cocaine. This<br />
resulted in the patient becoming psychotic. On Gemito, see my article "Street-Urchins: Antonio Mancini (1852-1930)"<br />
in Paidika 2:3 (1991), pp. 31-47, passim. According to F. Esposito, op. cit., p. 90, Jacques possessed a bronze statuette<br />
45
of a nude ephebe on a pedestal of agate, made by Gemito. In a new edition of an Italian translation (1959) of L’Exilé de<br />
Capri, we can find a portrait by Gemito (1920) of a moustached Nino with a turban, now in the collection of Lino<br />
Maesano (see: R. Peyrefitte, L’Esule di Capri, back of the cover, and À la Jeunesse d’Amour, op. cit., p. 107). J.<br />
Money, op. cit., pp. 124-126, 134, has d'Adelswärd undertake in 1913/14 another trip to the Far East, with Nino and<br />
some female friends from the colony at Capri. This trip is only mentioned by E.F. Benson and Compton Mackenzie and<br />
is probably based upon fantasy.<br />
90. R. Peyrefitte, Propos Secrets 2, p. 355. J. Money, op.cit., pp. 159, 170, describes Nino after 1918 as a young man<br />
who "at last" was set on the straight and narrow path through his war experiences; he was not only decorated with the<br />
cross of war but seems to have suddenly taken on Anglo-Saxon morals. He is supposed to have stayed with<br />
d'Adelswärd only out of compassion for the "madman"; "they were now 'just friends,' and Fersen's attempts to revive<br />
the old sexual relationship were rejected." This is a concatenation, perhaps based upon wishful thinking, of absurdities<br />
and suspicions presented as fact which is based in no respect upon existing documentation. Above all, because of<br />
Jacques' preference for ephebes, we may assume that the sexual component of the relationship had ended years before.<br />
91. See: M. Kietsvi Favai, Vita con Gennaro (Milano: Ceschina, 1965), pp. 147-155; E. Respighi, Ottorino Respighi: dati<br />
biografici ordinati da Elsa Respighi (Milano: Ricordi, [1954]), p. 138.<br />
92. R. Peyrefitte, loc. cit. A copy of La Neuvaine du petit faune is in the collection of Alexandre de Villiers<br />
(Peyrefitte’s godson and executor of his last will) in Paris. It is not clear whether this is the original manuscript, given<br />
by Corrado to his friends Romolo Valle and Giorgio de Lullo, directors of the Teatro Eliseo in Rome, with whom<br />
Peyrefitte spoke on Capri.<br />
93. In fact, Jacques himself had his last will drawn up in French in Villa Lysis 21 November 1921; after the recitation<br />
of the Italian version on 16 November 1923, it was registered by the notary Aniello Paturzo from neighbouring Piano di<br />
Sorrento on 23 November 1923 (see: F. Esposito, op. cit., p. 62-63; À la Jeunesse d’Amour, op. cit., pp. 163-164).<br />
94. According to Peyrefitte's novel; I can find no other documentation. Peyrefitte's opinion is highly probable. It raises<br />
the question of why d'Adelswärd visited von Gloeden with Corrado just as he had with Nino years before. He must<br />
have been fond of von Gloeden’s photos, and perhaps he wanted both youngsters preserved in the work of the most<br />
famous photographer of boys at that time. Perhaps these photos will some day come to light! R. Peyrefitte, L'Exilé de<br />
Capri, pp. 292, 298, says that d'Adelswärd also had sketches made of Nino and Corrado by the sculptor Vincenzo<br />
Gemito (see also Note 89). The imprint (lower left corner) on d’Adelswärd’s photo, sent as a gift to Georges Eekhoud,<br />
and now in the Archives et Musée de la Littérature at Brussels (see M. Lucien, op. cit., cover), testifies that there also<br />
were contacts between d’Adelswärd and the Bohemian photographer Rudolph Lehnert and his German assistant Ernst<br />
Landrock, famous of their photos (and post-cards) of (nude) oriental boys (see: Ph. Cardinal, L’Orient d’un<br />
photographe. Lehnert & Landrock, Lausanne-Paris: Favre, 1987; Winckelmann [pseudonym], “Lehnert & Landrock.<br />
Photographers of the Orient” in Gayme 3:2, 1997, pp. 26-33).<br />
95. F. Esposito, op. cit., pp. 67-68. N. Douglas, op. cit., p. 365. It remains unclear whether Jacques died on 5 November<br />
or 6 November. Peyrefitte, without giving any evidence, expressly states that it was on 5 November (see Note 2),<br />
whereas the Italian press and Nino’s testimonies have 6 November.<br />
96. (Anonymous) "Le triste héros des messes noires Jacques d'Adelsward meurt mystérieusement à Capri," loc. cit.<br />
97. On 8 December 1923, in the presence of Judge Ferrara, the autopsy was carried out by Vincenzo Maione, Professor<br />
in Forensic Medicine at the University of Naples, and Vincenzo Gianturco, Professor in Pathological Anatomy, and<br />
lasted from 11.30 a.m. to 15.30 p.m. See: “L’autopsia del cadavere del barone De Fersen” in Il Messaggero 8 December<br />
1923, and “Sulla morte del Barone De Fersen. L’autopsia eseguita ieri confermerebbe la morte per sincope” in Il<br />
Mezzogiorno 8/9 December 1923.<br />
98. F. Esposito, op. cit., pp. 62-63, reprints the Italian translation of Jacques’ will in facsimile and in partial<br />
transcription. The document does not mention any shares of foreign railway-companies, often referred to by the Italian<br />
press. Concerning the lawsuits, see pp. 75-80. A British professor, who, in his youth, was the lover of the photographer<br />
Algernon Islay de Courcy Lyons, told Raimondo Biffi an odd story. In a deposit in New York there had been a huge<br />
quantity of photos, books, and letters from d’Adelswärd and his friends from Capri. It was part of Lyons’ inheritance to<br />
his adopted Thai son, Manop Charoensuk. Lyons had been the last lover of the Scottish writer Kenneth Macpherson,<br />
husband of the lesbian and millionaire writer “Bryher” (Annie Winifred Ellerman), the lifelong partner of the poetess<br />
Hilda Doolittle. Bryher supported her husband and his friend in Capri, and also stipulated that they should take into<br />
their home the aging Norman Douglas. The material of d’Adelswärd’s circle most probably came from Douglas. It was<br />
inherited by Macpherson, who left everything to his lover Lyons. Charoensuk sold it to an American millionaire. A few<br />
years ago, the complete collection was offered by Sotheby’s in London to the American antiquarian David Deiss, but<br />
was bought by an unknown British dealer.<br />
99. J. Money, op. cit., pp. 172, 315; R. Peyrefitte, op. cit., p. 314; Propos Secrets 2, loc. cit. Giuseppina Messanelli told<br />
James Money that Nino died in 1939 (see F. Esposito, op. cit., p. 76). A site on the Internet of Jacques Girard has 1943<br />
as year of death (http://www.multimania.com/jgir/fersen.htm); the latter is confirmed by Giovanbattista Brambilla, who<br />
is preparing a book about Nino Cesarini, and who recently discovered his grave at a Roman cemetery, the Campo<br />
Verano. In 2001, Nino’s grand-nephew still owned the same newspaper kiosk on the Via Veneto in Rome<br />
(communication from Raimondo Biffi). After Nino’s death, his family destroyed all his letters from d’Adelswärd, most<br />
46
of the photos representing Nino as a nude boy, as well as oriental erotic objects, deposited by Nino in a private case in a<br />
Roman bank. In R. Peyrefitte, L’Esule di Capri, there are some photos of objects from Nino’s inheritance, now in the<br />
possession of his heirs, the Maesano family (see Note 89). These are also reproduced in À la Jeunesse d’Amour, op.<br />
cit., pp. 158-161. The Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com) even lists 23 films (between 1930 and 1970), in<br />
which Corrado played a part.<br />
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY<br />
Primary Sources: Jacques d’Adelswärd<br />
Books<br />
1898 - Conte d'amour. (Genève) [further bibliographical information unknown].<br />
1901 - Chansons Légères. Poèmes de l'enfance. Préfaces d'Edmond Rostand et de Fernand Gregh. Les Images par Louis<br />
Morin. (Paris: Léon Vanier) [with a portrait of d'Adelswärd; at least four editions].<br />
- Ébauches et Débauches. Préface de François Coppée. (Paris: Léon Vanier) [in collaboration with Jean-Louis<br />
Vaudoyer; at least eight editions; with a portrait of d’Adelswärd].<br />
1902 - L'Hymnaire d'Adonis, à la façon de M. le Marquis de Sade. Paganismes. (Paris: Léon Vanier) [with cover by<br />
George Auriol and a reproduction by Laurens; at least three editions. Reprint: S.l.: Elibron Classics, 2005].<br />
- Musique sur tes lèvres. (Paris: Albert Messein) [only bibliographical information; probably the same contents as<br />
Ébauches et Débauches].<br />
- Notre-Dame des Mers Mortes (Venise). (Paris: P. Sevin et E. Rey) [with cover by Louis Morin and a portrait of<br />
d’Adelswärd; at least four editions].<br />
1903 - Les Cortèges qui sont passés. (Paris: Léon Vanier/Albert Messein) [with a portrait of d'Adelswärd on the cover].<br />
1904 - L'Amour enseveli. Poèmes. (Paris: Léon Vanier/Albert Messein).<br />
1905 - Lord Lyllian. Messes Noires. (Paris: Léon Vanier/Albert Messein) [with cover by Claude Simpson; at least three<br />
editions].<br />
1906 - Le Danseur aux Caresses. (Paris: Léon Vanier/Albert Messein).<br />
- Le Poison dans les fleurs. (Paris: Léon Vanier/Albert Messein) [same contents as the previous title] .<br />
1907 - Ainsi chantait Marsyas…. Poèmes. (Florence and Paris: Léon Vanier/Albert Messein).<br />
- Une Jeunesse/Le Baiser de Narcisse. (Paris: Léon Vanier/Albert Messein) [dedicated to "N[ino]. C[esarini]. Plus<br />
beau que la lumière romaine"].<br />
1909 - Et le feu s'éteignit sur la mer… (Paris: Léon Vanier/Albert Messein/Édition de la Revue »Akademos«).<br />
1911 - Paradinya. (Paris: Édition de ) [with frontispiece by Ciolkowski].<br />
1912 - Le Baiser de Narcisse. Illustré de seize compositions de E. Brisset. (Reims: L. Michaud) [only 220 copies].<br />
- Le Sourire aux yeux fermés. (Paris: Librairie Ambert) [illustration by Ernest Marie Brisset].<br />
1913 - Choix de poèmes 1901-1913. (Paris: Léon Vanier/Albert Messein) [illustration by Ernest Marie Brisset].<br />
- L'Essor vierge. (Paris: Librairie Ambert) [only bibliographical information].<br />
- Ode à la Terre Promise. (Paris: Collection de chez Figuière) [French original and Italian prose translation<br />
»À l'Italie« by Hermès Bertolazzi].<br />
1921 - Hei Hsiang. Le parfum noir. (Paris: Albert Messein) [cover by Ernest Marie Brisset; only 505 copies].<br />
1990 - Oppio: poesie scelte. (Napoli: A. Caròla) [selection and Italian translation from Hei Hsiang by Mariano Bàino, with<br />
a comment by Ada Negri].<br />
1991 - E il fuoco si spense sul mare. (Capri: La Conchiglia) [Italian translation of Et le feu s’éteignit sur la mer by Romano<br />
Paolo Coppini and Rolando Nieri].<br />
2005 - Black Masses – Lord Lyllian. ([North Pomfret]: Asphodel Editions) [English translation introd. by Jeremy Reed;<br />
only 500 copies].<br />
2006 - Lord Lyllian. (Hamburg: MännerschwarmSkript Verlag) [German translation by Wolfgang Wiebe and Wolfram<br />
Setz].<br />
Poems and Articles<br />
1909 - 'L'Extase' in Akademos 1:9 (1909), pp. 321-326.<br />
- 'Ode au Pape et au Roi' in Akademos 1:11 (1909), pp. 656-659.<br />
- ‘Poème dans la rosée’ in Poesia. Rassegna Internazionale 5:1-2 (Febr./March 1909), p. 43.<br />
- 'Sur la glorification du [sic!] Vierge dans la religion d'Oscar Wilde' in Akademos 1:10 (1909), pp. 547-550.<br />
- 'Sur l'Opium (Causerie faite au Gymnase)' in Akademos 1:4 (1909), pp. 557-559 [d’Adelswärd only wrote the<br />
inserted ‘Requiem’; the remainder was written by Olivier Seylor].<br />
- ‘Tes yeux…’ in Poesia. Rassegna Internazionale 5:1-2 (Febr./March 1909), p. 77.<br />
- 'Trois Poèmes' in Akademos 1:12 (1909), pp. 825-827.<br />
1910 - ‘Paganismes (Poèmes)’ in Pan. Revue libre 3:7 (1910), pp. 455-456 [three poems, dedicated to Giorgino, Giacintho<br />
47
Benavente, and Robert Scheffer].<br />
1914 - ‘À la petite lampe’ in Mercure de France 108:404 (1914), p. 722.<br />
- ‘À quelque pipe mandarine’ in Mercure de France 108:404 (1914), p. 720.<br />
- ‘Au pavot de la Sonde’ in Mercure de France 108:404 (1914), p. 721.<br />
- ‘Au pavot du Gange’ in Mercure de France 108:404 (1914), p. 719.<br />
- ‘Au pavot du Yun-nan’ in Mercure de France 108:404 (1914), p. 721.<br />
- ‘L’eunuque’ in Mercure de France 108:404 (1914), p. 719.<br />
- ‘Initiation’ in Mercure de France 108:404 (1914), p. 718.<br />
- ‘Sur la guitare à deux cordes’ in Mercure de France 108:404 (1914), p. 720.<br />
1920 - Several anonymously published poems (among them ‘L’excuse des rêveurs’ and ‘Les instants du sage’) in Edwin<br />
Cerio’s magazine Pagine d’Isola.<br />
1970 - Curieux d'Amour. Transl. by Ian Young with an illustration by [Gaston] Goor. (London-Toronto: Privately printed)<br />
[English language translation from L'Hymnaire d'Adonis].<br />
1984 - Liedekerke, A. de. La Belle époque de l’opium. Anthologie littéraire de la drogue de Charles Baudelaire à Jean<br />
Cocteau. (Paris: Éd. de la Différence), pp. 311-315 [contains poems from Hei Hsiang. Le parfum noir].<br />
1990 - Amori et Dolori Sacrum. Jacques Fersen – La scelta di Capri. Poesie ed immagini. Introd. by Roger Peyrefitte.<br />
(Capri: Libreria «La Conchiglia») [selection of poetry and prose fragments in Italian translation along with a<br />
collection of photos of d’Adelswärd’s Capri, including photos of Nino by Guglielmo Plüschow. A limited number of<br />
special copies contain a facsimile of the poem ‘Les instants du sage’ and a reproduction of a nude portrait of Nino].<br />
- Iezzi, B. (transl.). ‘Les instants du sage’ in Almanacco Caprese 1 (1990), pp. 80-81 [facsimile with Italian<br />
translation; reprinted in: Esposito, R. (ed.). Versocapri. Antologia poetica del Novecento. (Capri: La Conchiglia,<br />
1991), pp. 75-85].<br />
1992 - The Eternal Flame. A World Anthology of Homosexual Verse (c. 2000 B.C.-c. 2000 A.D.). I. Ed. by Anthony<br />
Reid. (Elmhurst: Dyanthus Press), pp. 437-439 [English language translations from Chansons Légères and<br />
L'Hymnaire d'Adonis].<br />
2000 - Lucien, M. (ed.). Akademos. Jacques d’Adelswärd-Fersen et «la cause homosexuelle». (Lille: Gay Kitsch Camp)<br />
[reprints Ainsi chantait Marsyas… . Poèmes and d’Adelswärd’s contributions to the magazine Akademos; with a<br />
photo of d’Adelswärd on the cover (with the imprint of Lehnert & Landrock), dedicated to “George (sic) Eekhoud”].<br />
Poems and Articles with the Pseudonym "Sonyeuse"<br />
1909 - 'Daménos' in Akademos 1:5 (1909), p. 708.<br />
- 'L'Immarscessible' in Akademos 1:7 (1909), p. 65.<br />
- 'In Memoriam: Raymond Laurent' in Akademos 1:1 (1909), pp. 66-71 [reprinted in: Joecker, Souvenir, pp. 18–21].<br />
- 'Sur une Amphore Grecque' in Akademos 1:8 (1909), pp. 233-234.<br />
- ‘TΩ ПAIΔI ’EPΩTI’ [To Paidi Eroti] in Akademos 1:8 (1909), p. 268.<br />
Reviews and Criticism<br />
1909 - ‘Akademos’ in Poesia. Rassegna Internazionale 5:3-6 (April/July 1909), p. 49.<br />
- ‘Mon cher Poète’ in Poesia. Rassegna Internazionale 5:3-6 (April/July 1909), p. 8 [letter of d’Adelswärd to the<br />
editor of the Italian magazine, Emilio Filippo Tommaso Marinetti].<br />
- ‘Les Poèmes’ in Akademos 1:10 (1909), pp. 587-592.<br />
- 'Les Poèmes' in Akademos 1:12 (1909), pp. 969-974.<br />
- 'Les Romans' in Akademos 1:1 (1909), pp. 124-128.<br />
- 'Les Romans' in Akademos 1:2 (1909), pp. 276-279.<br />
- 'Les Romans' in Akademos 1:3 (1909), pp. 437-442.<br />
- 'Les Romans' in Akademos 1:5 (1909), pp. 742-744.<br />
- 'Les Théâtres' in Akademos 1:4 (1909), pp. 600-605.<br />
Archive Materials<br />
- Dammarie-lès-Lys, France, Archives Départementales de Seine-et-Marne. 129 J 64, Nr. 3 [letter of d’Adelswärd to Th.<br />
Peters, [Paris] 12 November 1901].<br />
- The Hague, The Netherlands, Collection Paul Snijders. Fersen-letter [letter of d’Adelswärd to Édouard Deverin, Capri 9<br />
September 1909].<br />
- New Haven (CO), USA, Yale University. Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Marinetti Collection GEN MSS<br />
130, Series III, Box 7, Folder 79 [letter of d’Adelswärd to Emilio Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Capri 5 July 1909].<br />
- Paris, Archives de France. BB18 2255, dr. 1468 A 1903 [file concerning the offence against public morals by Albert de<br />
Warren and Jacques d'Adelswärd, involving the Parisian high society and some pupils of the Lycée Carnot].<br />
- Paris, Archives de Paris. État Civil du Huitième Arrondissement de Paris, 1880, Nr. 259 [birth registration of Jacques].<br />
- Paris, Archives de Paris. État Civil du Huitième Arrondissement de Paris, 1881, Nr. 726 [birth registration of Jacques’<br />
brother].<br />
48
- Paris, Archives de Paris. Tribunal de Première Instance du Département de la Seine. Police correctionelle Neuvième<br />
Chambre. Ms. 3 December 1903, fol. 1-3: Audience publique du Jeudi Trois Décembre mil neuf cent trois.<br />
- Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, site Richelieu. Nouvelles Acquisitions Manuscrits Français 15307, fol. 8-9 [two<br />
letters of d’Adelswärd to Robert de Montesquiou, 17 December 1908 and [15] January [1909]].<br />
- Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, site Richelieu. Nouvelles Acquisitions Manuscrits Français 15307, fol. 10 [letter<br />
of Nino Cesarini concerning Robert de Montesquiou].<br />
- Paris, Collection Alexandre de Villiers. Fersen-letter [letter of d’Adelswärd (to Édouard Chimot?), Capri 1 February<br />
1906].<br />
- Rome, Italy, Collection Raimondo Biffi. Carte Pneumatique [short notice of d’Adelswärd to Paul Deverin, [Paris] February<br />
1900].<br />
- Rome, Italy, Collection Raimondo Biffi. Fersen-letter [letter of d’Adelswärd about the royalties for Chansons Légéres and<br />
Ébauches et Débauches, Sedan 19 August 1902].<br />
- Rome, Italy, Collection Raimondo Biffi. Fersen-letter [letter of d’Adelswärd to an unknown addressee, Trouville-sur-Mer<br />
26 September 1902].<br />
- Rome, Italy, Collection Raimondo Biffi. Fersen-letter [letter of d’Adelswärd to an unknown contributor to Akademos, 17<br />
January 1909].<br />
Secondary Sources<br />
Printed Matter<br />
À la Jeunesse d’Amour. Villa Lysis a Capri: 1905-2005. (Capri: Edizioni La Conchiglia, 2005) [contains a selection from<br />
Le Danseur aux Caresses, Et le feu s’éteignit sur la mer…, Paradinya, and Hei Hsiang in Italian translation, and many<br />
photos, including photos of d’Adelswärd and Nino Cesarini].<br />
Aldrich, R. The Seduction of the Mediterranean. Writing, Art and Homosexual Fantasy. (London: Routledge, 1993) [with<br />
many inaccuracies].<br />
Aldrich, R. and G. Wotherspoon (eds.). Who is Who in Gay and Lesbian History. From Antiquity to World War II.<br />
(London-New York: Routledge, 2001), p. 5.<br />
Alexandrian, [S.] Histoire de la littérature érotique. (Paris: Seghers, 1989).<br />
Amendola, G. Una scelta di vita. (Milano: Rizzoli, 2001), p. 33.<br />
‘Ancora della morte di Fersen d’Adelswaerd. Il Cesarini si presenterà alle nostre autorità di P.S.’ in Il Giorno 8 December<br />
1923.<br />
‘Ancora il mistero della morte del barone De Fersen’ in Don Marzio 7/8 December 1923.<br />
Andreis, M.L. de. Capri 1939. (Roma: In-Edit-A, 2002).<br />
Andrén, A. Capri. From the Stone Age to the Tourist Age. (Göteborg: Paul Åströms Förlag, 1980).<br />
Angelis Bertolotti, R. de. Capri. La natura e la storia. Fotografie di Alessandro Bertolotti. (Bologna: Zanichelli, 2000),<br />
pp. 137-140.<br />
[Anonymous] Catalogus van de Bibliotheek van het Nederlandsch Wetenschappelijk Humanitair Komitee. ('s-Gravenhage:<br />
NWHK, 1922).<br />
[Anonymous] Catalogus van het Nederlandsch Wetenschappelijk Humanitair Komitee, IVe Supplement. ('s-Gravenhage:<br />
NWHK, 1936).<br />
[Anonymous] ‘Cette Répugnante Aventure’ in Gil Blas 11 July 1903.<br />
[Anonymous] in Akademos 1:5 (1909), p. 796.<br />
[Anonymous] 'Messes Noires' in Le Matin 10 July 1903, p. 2.<br />
[Anonymous] 'Messes Noires en plein bacchanale' in Le Matin 11 July 1903, p. 2.<br />
[Anonymous "N.D.L.R."] 'Note de la Direction' in Akademos 1:10 (1909), pp. 639-640.<br />
[Anonymous] 'Un scandale' in Le Temps 12 July 1903, p. 3.<br />
[Anonymous] 'Un scandale Parisien' in Le Figaro 10 July 1903, p. 4.<br />
[Anonymous] 'Le triste héros des messes noires Jacques d'Adelsward meurt mystérieusement à Capri' in Le Matin 10<br />
December 1923, p. 1 [with a portrait of d'Adelswärd].<br />
Arbour, R. Les revues littéraires ephemères paraissant à Paris entre 1900 et 1914. (Paris: Corti, 1956), p. 9.<br />
Arch Smith, T. d'. Love in Earnest. Some Notes on the Lives and Writings of English 'Uranian' Poets from 1889 to 1930.<br />
(London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1970).<br />
Aressy, L. Les Nuits et les Ennuis du Mont-Parnasse. (Paris: Jouve & Cie., 1929), pp. 142-148 [with a drawing of<br />
d'Adelswärd by Édouard Deverin; includes a letter of d’Adelswärd to Jean Lorrain].<br />
‘L’autopsia del barone De Fersen confermerebbe la morte per sincope’ in Corriere della Sera 12 December 1923.<br />
‘L’autopsia del cadavere del barone De Fersen’ in Il Messaggero 8 December 1923.<br />
‘L’autopsia del cadavere del barone De Fersen’ in Il Messaggero 9/10 December 1923.<br />
‘Le avventure parigine del barone De Fersen’ in Il Giornale d’Italia 18 December 1923.<br />
Balteau, J., et al. (ed.) Dictionnaire de Biographie Française. I (Paris: Librairie Letouzey et Ané, 1933), pp. 544-545.<br />
49
Barbedette, G. and M. Carassou. Paris Gay 1925. (Paris: Presses de la Renaissance, 1981), pp. 211-224 [reprint of the text<br />
by Ituriel].<br />
‘Il Barone de Fersen muore misteriosamente a Capri’ in Don Marzio 6/7 December 1923.<br />
Basch, S. Paris – Venise 1887–1932. (Paris: Honoré Champion, 2000).<br />
Bastet, F.L. ‘Een dichter’ in Manuscript in een roze smoking gevonden. (Utrecht: Kwadraat/Broese Kemink, 1988), pp. 27-<br />
37.<br />
Bastet, F. [L.]. Funérailles. (Amsterdam: Querido, 1993), pp. 133, 158-166.<br />
Bender, H. and H. G. Schwark (eds.). Capri. Ein Lesebuch. (Frankfurt/Main: Insel, 1988), pp. 93-95.<br />
Benson, E.F. Final Edition: Informal Autobiography. (London: Longman, 1940), pp. 112-113.<br />
Berlière, J.M. La Police des Moeurs sous la IIIe République. (Paris: Seuil, 1992).<br />
Beurdeley, C. L'Amour Bleu. Die homosexuelle Liebe in Kunst und Kultur des Abendlandes. (Köln: DuMont, 1977), pp.<br />
213-215 [contains reprints from MESSES NOIRES. Le Canard Sauvage].<br />
Bloch, I. Das Sexualleben unserer Zeit in seinen Beziehungen zur modernen Kultur. (Berlin: Louis Marcus<br />
Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1909), p. 698.<br />
Bragaglia, C.L. Bragaglia racconta Bragaglia: carosello di divagazioni, saggi e ricordi. (Milano: All’Insegna del Pesce<br />
d’Oro, 1997).<br />
Brévannes, R. Les Messes noires. Reconstitution dramatique en 3 parties et 4 tableaux, donnée au théâtre de la Bodinière,<br />
le 17 février 1904. (Courbevoie: Impr. E. Bernard, [1904]).<br />
Bruno, F. 'Romanzi di Peyrefitte' in Ausonia. Rivista di Lettere e Arti 15:4 (1960), pp. 69-72.<br />
Büch, B. 'Curieus Capri' in Avenue 21:8 (1986), pp. 66-82 [with the portrait of d'Adelswärd from Money, and a photo of<br />
Villa Lysis by Martin Thomas].<br />
Büch, B. 'Het Jongenseiland: Een letterenreisje op Capri' in Blauwzee. Eilanden, vierde deel. (Amsterdam-Antwerpen:<br />
Atlas, 1994), pp. 43-69 [contains many inaccuracies].<br />
Cantone, G. ‘Villa Lys – Villa Lysis – Villa Fersen’ in À la Jeunesse d'Amour, pp. 17–29.<br />
Cantone, G. and I. Prozzillo. Case di Capri. Ville, palazzi, grandi dimore. (Napoli-Capri: Electa/La Conchiglia, 1994),<br />
pp. 58-66.<br />
Carassus, E. Le snobisme et les lettres françaises de Paul Bourget à Marcel Proust, 1884-1914. (Paris: Armand Colin,<br />
1966).<br />
Caravita di Sirignano, F. Capri - Immagini e Protagonisti -. (Napoli: Società Editrice Napoletana, 1984).<br />
Caravita di Sirignano, F. Memorie di un Uomo Inutile. (Napoli: Fiorentino, 1990) [contains chiefly inaccurate information].<br />
Cardon, P. (ed.) Dossier Jacques d'Adelsward-Fersen. (Lille: Cahier Gai-Kitsch-Camp XX-4, 1991) [contains reprints of<br />
the texts by Balteau, Jean Lorrain, Georges-Anquetil, Alfred Jarry, Ituriel, A.-S. Lagail].<br />
Cardon, P. (ed.) Dossier Jacques d'Adelsward-Fersen. (Lille: Cahiers Gai-Kitsch-Camp 21, Curiosa 3, 1993) [augmented<br />
edition of the previous title; also contains a complete reprint of MESSES NOIRES. Le Canard Sauvage, caricatures from<br />
L'Assiette au Beurre, and some letters from d'Adelswärd to Georges Eekhoud; reproduces the illustrations from Money].<br />
Caufeynon et Jaf, Docteurs [pseudonym of Jean Fauconney]. Les Messes Noires, le culte de Satan-Dieu. (Paris: Pancier,<br />
1905), pp. 168-170.<br />
Cerio, C. Ex Libris. Incontri a Capri con uomini e libri. (Capri: La Conchiglia, 1999).<br />
Cerio, E. Aria di Capri: il libro degli uomini. ([Portici]: Casella, [c.1936]) [first published c. 1927; pp. 63-78 contain the<br />
short story ‘Il marchese di Pommery,’ inspired by d’Adelswärd’s life].<br />
Cerio, E. L’Ora di Capri. (Capri: Insula editrice, 1950) [new edition in two volumes: Capri: La Conchiglia, 2000)].<br />
Chapier, H. 'L'Exilé de Capri' in Synthèses. Revue Internationale 14:157 (1959), pp. 267-269.<br />
Chatwin, B. 'Self-Love Among the Ruins' in Vanity Fair 47:4 (1984), pp. 46-55, 102-106 [also published in Anatomy of<br />
Restlessness (London: Jonathan Cape, 1996) which was translated into Dutch Anatomie van de rusteloosheid (Amsterdam:<br />
Ooievaar, 1997), pp. 169-189. Contains many inaccuracies about d'Adelswärd].<br />
Ciuni, R. I peccati di Capri. (Roma: New Deal, 1998), pp. 96-120.<br />
Classen, H. Sehnsucht nach Capri. Text von Claretta Cerio. (Dortmund: Hagenberg, 1988; special edition: [München]:<br />
Orbis Edition, 2000), pp. 73-78 [photos of Villa Lysis].<br />
Colas, R. ‘Les d’Adelsward’ in Pays-Haut. Bulletin de l’Association des Amis du Vieux Longwy 2 (1969), pp. 73-77.<br />
Cooper, E. Fully Exposed. The Male Nude in Photography. (London: Unwin Hyman, 1990).<br />
Core, Ph. Camp: The Lie That Tells the Truth. (New York: Delilah Books, 1984).<br />
Daniel, M. [pseudonym of Michel Duchein]. ‘L’Exilé de Capri de Roger Peyrefitte’ in Arcadie. Revue Littéraire et<br />
Scientifique 6:65 (1959), pp. 261-265.<br />
Daniel, M. ‘Mise au point’ in Arcadie. Revue Littéraire et Scientifique 7:73 (1960), pp. 26-29.<br />
Daniel, M. ‘Le non-conformisme à la «Belle Époque». III. Jeunesse, o jeunesse…’ in Arcadie. Revue Littéraire et<br />
Scientifique 6:71 (1959), pp. 622-629.<br />
Debidour, V.H. 'Roger Peyrefitte - L'Exilé de Capri' in Bulletin des Lettres 208 (1959), pp. 213-214.<br />
‘Della vita e della morte del barone di Fersen’ in Corriere di Napoli 7/8 December 1923.<br />
‘Della vita e della morte del barone di Fersen’ in Il Mattino 8/9 December 1923.<br />
50
Desbruères, M. 'Découvrez l'oeuvre de Fersen' in Arts 716 (1959), p. 2 [with the portrait of d'Adelswärd from Ébauches et<br />
Débauches].<br />
Dosi, G. Il mostro e il detective. (Firenze: Vallecchi, 1973), pp. 67-69.<br />
Douglas, N. Footnote on Capri. (London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1952).<br />
Douglas, N. Looking Back: An Autobiographical Excursion. (London: Chatto and Windus, 1934), pp. 358-366.<br />
Douglas, N. South Wind. (London: Secker and Warburg, 1946) [first published in 1917].<br />
Dromard, G. Les fausses “messes noires”. Causeries psychologiques et médico-légales sur quelques scandales modernes.<br />
(Paris: Éditions de la “Revue libre”, 1904), pp. 23-34.<br />
Duplay, M. Mon ami Marcel Proust. Souvenirs intimes. (Paris: Gallimard, 1972), pp. 136-137.<br />
Durante, F. Il richiamo azzurro. Storia letteraria dell'Isola di Capri. (Capri: La Conchiglia, 2000).<br />
Dynes, W.R., et al. (ed.) Encyclopedia of Homosexuality. I (New York and London: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1990), pp. 11-<br />
12.<br />
Eaubonne, F. d’. Éros minoritaire. (Paris: André Balland, 1970).<br />
Echara, G. d' [pseudonym of Alphonse Gallais]. 'Chapitre IV. Chez le Baron d'Alderswald' in Passions de Femmes: Roman<br />
vécu de moeurs féminines et autres. Luxures orgiaques et ordurières. Livre III. [c. 1911-1914].<br />
Eder, F.X. et al. (eds.). Sexual Cultures in Europe: Themes in Sexuality. (Manchester: Manchester University Press,<br />
1999), p. 89.<br />
Erber, N. ‘Queer Follies: Effeminacy and Aestheticism in fin-de-siècle France, the Case of Baron d’Adelsward Fersen and<br />
Count de Warren’ in: Robb, G. and N. Erber (eds.). Disorder in the Court: Trials and Sexual Conflict at the Turn of the<br />
Century. (New York: New York University Press, 1999), pp. 186-208.<br />
Eribon, D., Lerch, A. and F. Haboury (eds.). Dictionnaire des Cultures Gays et Lesbiennes. (Paris: Larousse, 2003),<br />
pp. 193–194.<br />
Esposito, F. I misteri di Villa Lysis. Testamento e morte di Jacques Fersen. (Capri: Edizioni La Conchiglia, 1996) [contains<br />
photos of d’Adelswärd and Nino Cesarini, d’Adelswärd’s will, and some official documents concerning his death].<br />
Fabricius, J. Er zijn geen echte gekken meer op Capri. (Den Haag: Leopold, 1976), pp. 12-13 [contains very inaccurate<br />
information].<br />
‘I fastosi vizi d’un barone alsaziano e il mistero della sua morte a Capri’ in Corriere della Sera 8 December 1923.<br />
Féray, J.-C. ‘L’exilé de Capri: un portrait très retouché’ in Inverses. Littératures, Arts et Homosexualités 4 (2004), pp. 209-<br />
215.<br />
‘Il fermo di un cadavere. Alla scoperta di un delitto?’ in Il Giornale d’Italia 7 December 1923.<br />
Fersen, A. von. Rettet die Königin. Revolutionstagebuch 1789-1793. (München: Paul List, 1969).<br />
Fields, A. George Auriol. Catalogue Raisonné by Marie Leroy-Crevecoeur. (Layton: Gibbs M. Smith, 1985), pp. 84,<br />
162.<br />
Fiorani, T. Le case raccontano. Storie e passioni nelle dimore del mito a Capri. (Capri: La Conchiglia, 2002), pp. 242-<br />
262.<br />
FitzGibbon, C. 'The Exile of Capri, by Roger Peyrefitte' in Encounter 17:5 (1961), pp. 81-82.<br />
Fort, P. and L. Mandin. Histoire de la poésie française depuis 1850. (Paris: Flammarion, 1926), p. 354.<br />
Fouquières, A. de. Mon Paris et ses Parisiens. I. Les Quartiers de l’Étoile. (Paris: Pierre Horay, 1954).<br />
Francis, C. and F. Gontier. Mathilde de Morny. La scandaleuse marquise et son temps. (Paris: Perrin, 2000), pp. 260-<br />
262.<br />
Franck, P. Un si joli petit monde. (Paris: La Table Ronde, 1961) [novel inspired by d’Adelswärd’s life].<br />
Gallais, A. The Memoirs of Baron Jacques: The Diabolical Debaucheries of Our Decadent Aristocracy. Transl. and introd.<br />
by Richard West (Vancouver: Ageneios Press, 1988) [reproduces the portrait from Desbruères].<br />
‘Gazette des Tribunaux. Nouvelles Judiciaires’ in Le Figaro 13 January 1904 [about de Warren’s appeal].<br />
Georges-Anquetil. Satan conduit le bal .... (Paris: Agence Parisienne, 1948) [first published in 1925; contains extremely<br />
inaccurate information].<br />
Gervasio, S. ‘Per amore di Fersen’ in La Repubblica 30 May 1992.<br />
Giannoli, P.X. Roger Peyrefitte, ou Les clés du scandale. (Paris: Fayard, 1970).<br />
Gifford, J. Dayneford’s Library: American Homosexual Writing, 1900-1913. (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press,<br />
1995).<br />
Good bye to Berlin? 100 Jahre Schwulenbewegung. (Berlin: Verlag rosa Winkel, 1997), pp. 62, 78-79 [includes the portrait<br />
of d’Adelswärd from Chansons Légères and a painting of Nino Cesarini by Paul Höcker].<br />
Goujon, J.-P. Pierre Louÿs, une Vie Secrète. (Paris: Seghers, 1988), p. 84.<br />
Grandgousier, 'Un procès à huis clos. Les Messes Noires' in Le Matin 29 November 1903, p. 1 [includes drawings of<br />
d'Adelswärd and de Warren].<br />
Grandgousier, 'Tribunaux. Les ' in Le Matin 4 December 1903, p. 2.<br />
‘Grave affaire de moeurs’ in L’Aurore 13 July 1903, p. 2.<br />
Greene, G. (ed.). Eine unmögliche Frau. Die Erinnerungen der Dottoressa Moor von Capri. (Wien-Hamburg: Paul<br />
Zsolnay, 1975), pp. 162-164.<br />
Guarino, C. ‘Follie e scandali a Capri’ in La Stampa-Torino 30 June 1950.<br />
51
Hawthorne, M.C. Rachilde and French Women’s Authorship: From Decadence to Modernism. (Lincoln: University of<br />
Nebraska Press, 2001), p. 223.<br />
Hazzard, S. Begegnungen auf Capri. Erinnerungen an Graham Greene. (Wien: Paul Zsolnay, 2002), pp. 148-150, 180-<br />
181.<br />
Helwig, W. Capri. Magische Insel. (Frankfurt/Main: Insel Verlag, 1979), pp. 217-220 [includes a photo of Villa Lysis by<br />
Herbert List].<br />
Helwig, W. ‘Exil in Capri. Zu dem Buch von Roger Peyrefitte’ in Die Tat 17 January 1961, and Der Tagesspiegel 30<br />
December 1962.<br />
Helwig, W. ‘Recherchen auf der Insel Capri’ in Süddeutsche Zeitung 7/8 January 1961.<br />
Helwig, W. ‘Schwüle Klatschgeschichten aus Capri’ in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 273 (22 November 1960).<br />
Herzer, M. ‘»The very rubbish of humanity!« – Prime-Stevenson und der schwule Kitsch in der Literatur am Beginn<br />
des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts’ in Capri. Zeitschrift für schwule Geschichte 32 (2002), pp. 10–14.<br />
Hirschfeld, M. Geschlechtskunde. IV (Stuttgart: Julius Püttmann, 1930), p. 632 [includes a portrait of d'Adelswärd and Nino<br />
Cesarini].<br />
Hirschfeld, M. Die Homosexualität des Mannes und des Weibes. (Berlin-New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1984), pp. 571,<br />
1023.<br />
Hocquenghem, G. Race d'Ep! Un siècle d'images de l'homosexualité. (Paris: Éditions Libres-Hallier, 1979) [reproduces the<br />
portraits from Hirschfeld].<br />
Hoffmann, M. Mein Weg mit Melchior Lechter. Ein Künstler der Jahrhundertwende. Der Freund Stefan Georges.<br />
(Amsterdam: Castrum Peregrini Presse, 1966), p. 141 [a.o. about Ephi Lovatelli and Édouard Schneider, a friend of<br />
d’Adelswärd since his youth].<br />
Holloway, M. Norman Douglas: A Biography. (London: Secker & Warburg, 1976).<br />
Les Homosexuelles [special issue of] Le Crapouillot 30 (1955).<br />
Houten, B. van. ‘Literaire capriolen’ in HP/De Tijd (22 June 2001), pp. 62-67.<br />
‘Die Insel der Wachteln’ in Der Spiegel 6 May 1959, p. 56.<br />
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science 1:4 (1925), pp. 49-50.<br />
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52
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Léger, A. 'Sur un Portrait' in Akademos 1:11 (1909), p. 700 [poem dedicated to "Jacques de Fersen"].<br />
Litschfousse, V. 'Ainsi chantait Marsyas' in Akademos 1:1 (1909), pp. 120-122.<br />
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there is an excerpt, translated into English, of Une Jeunesse; on p. 387 the sonnet ‘Vous qui lisez nos vers au clair de votre<br />
lampe…’ from Les Cortèges qui sont passés].<br />
MESSES NOIRES [special issue of] L'Assiette au Beurre 141 (12 December 1903) [with illustrations by Hradecky].<br />
MESSES NOIRES [special issue of] Le Canard Sauvage 1:19 (1903) [includes texts by Charles-Louis Philippe, Thomas<br />
Griffon, Alfred Jarry, Henry Creil, and caricatures by Auguste Roubille, Hermann-Paul, František Kupka, Félix Vallotton,<br />
Paul Iribe].<br />
‘La misteriosa e improvvisa morte di un barone. Fosco epilogo di una messa nera?’ in Il Messaggero 7 December 1923.<br />
‘Le Monde et la Ville. Mariages’ in Le Figaro 25 October 1906 [about Germaine’s marriage].<br />
‘Le Monde et la Ville. Salons’ in Le Figaro 23 October 1906; 24 October 1906 [about Germaine’s marriage].<br />
Money, J. Capri: Island of Pleasure. (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1986) [with a portrait of d'Adelswärd and a photo of the<br />
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Moyano. 'FERSEN' in Akademos 1:5 (1909), p. 708 [caricature].<br />
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‘Il noto barone De Fersen mori un mese fa a Capri per sincope’ in Il Mezzogiorno 7 December 1923.<br />
Numa Praetorius [pseudonym of Eugen Daniel Wilhelm]. 'Adelswärd-Fersen D'Jacques ' in Vierteljahrsberichte des Wissenschaftlich-humanitären Komitees 2:1 (1910), pp. 82-85.<br />
Numa Praetorius. 'd'Adelsward-Fersen, Jacques, Le danseur aux caresses' in Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen 9 (1908),<br />
pp. 597-600.<br />
Numa Praetorius. 'Akademos' in Vierteljahrsberichte des Wissenschaftlich-humanitären Komitees 1:4 (1910), pp. 433-437.<br />
Numa Praetorius. 'Fersen de, Lord Lyllian' in Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen 9 (1908), pp. 595-597.<br />
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2:1 (1910), pp. 85-86.<br />
Numa Praetorius. ‘Die Homosexualität in den romanischen Ländern’ in Sexual-Probleme. Zeitschrift für<br />
Sexualwissenschaft und Sexualpolitik 5 (1909), pp. 183–203.<br />
Ogrinc, W.H.L. ‘A Shrine to Love and Sorrow. Jacques d’Adelswärd-Fersen (1880-1923)’ in Paidika. The Journal of<br />
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Ormesson, J. d'. 'Uranism Service. L'Exilé de Capri, petite fleur bleue des enfers' in Arts 719 (1959), p. 3.<br />
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Palacio, J. de. ‘Jacques d’Adelswärd-Fersen et la figure d’Héliogabale’ in Romantisme 113 (2001), pp. 117-126.<br />
Palmquist, P.-A. Amori et dolori sacrum. Mostra artistica sulla Villa Lysis-Fersen. (Capri: Fondazione San Michele, 1991)<br />
[photos of Villa Lysis].<br />
Perceau, L. Bibliographie du roman érotique au XIXe siècle. II (Paris: Georges Fourdrinier, 1930).<br />
Perier, J. 'Comme j'ai peur ce soir!.....' in Akademos 1:9 (1909), pp. 393-394 [poem dedicated to "Jacques de Fersen"].<br />
Perot, J. ‘Le Destin français d’une famille suédoise: les barons d’Adelswärd’ in Bulletin du Musée Bernadotte de Pau 26<br />
(1986), pp. 13-29.<br />
Peyrefitte, R. Les Amitiés particulières. Édition définitive. (Paris: Flammarion/Le Livre de Poche, [1981]), pp. 100-101,<br />
103, 108.<br />
53
Peyrefitte, R. Les Amours singulières. (Paris: Flammarion/Le Livre de Poche, 1975), p. 160.<br />
Peyrefitte, R. 'XIX. Les Distractions de Capri' in Du Vésuve à l'Etna. (Paris: Flammarion/Le Livre de Poche, 1975), pp.<br />
194-229.<br />
Peyrefitte, R. L’Esule di Capri. [Transl. by Giorgio Flaccomio]. (Capri: Edizioni La Conchiglia, 2003) [contains photos of<br />
d’Adelswärd, Nino Cesarini (including nudes by Guglielmo Plüschow), and a portrait of Nino by Vincenzo Gemito].<br />
Peyrefitte, R. L'Exilé de Capri. Avant-propos de Jean Cocteau. (Paris: Flammarion, 1959).<br />
Peyrefitte, R. L'Exilé de Capri. Édition définitive. (Paris: Flammarion/Le Livre de Poche, 1974) [augmented, definitive<br />
edition with suppression of Cocteau's preface; cover by Gaston Goor].<br />
Peyrefitte, R. The Exile of Capri. Transl. by Edward Hyams. (London: Secker and Warburg, 1961).<br />
Peyrefitte, R. Exil in Capri. Transl. by Urban Fürst. (Karlsruhe: Stahlberg, 1960).<br />
Peyrefitte, R. Notre amour. (Paris: Flammarion/J’ai Lu, 1975), pp. 68-69, 77, 90, 97, 182, 185, 205.<br />
Peyrefitte, R. 'Pourquoi L'Exilé de Capri' in Arts 716 (1959), p. 1.<br />
Peyrefitte, R. Propos secrets [1]. (Paris: Albin Michel, 1977).<br />
Peyrefitte, R. Propos secrets 2. (Paris: Albin Michel, 1980).<br />
Philip, J. ‘Pourriture’ in L’Aurore 14 July 1903, p. 1.<br />
Philippe, C.-L. ‘Le Mouton à cinq pattes’ in MESSES NOIRES [special issue of] Le Canard Sauvage 1:19 (1903) [no<br />
pagination; reprinted in: Philippe, C.-L. Chroniques du Canard sauvage. (Paris: Gallimard, 1923), pp. 89–92; Philippe,<br />
C.-L. Oeuvres complètes. V (Paris: Éditions Ipomée, 1986), pp. 59–61; Les Homosexuelles [special issue of] Le<br />
Crapouillot 30 (1955), p. 53; and Juventus 1 (15 May 1959), p. 40.<br />
Pia, P. Les Livres de l'Enfer. Bibliographie des ouvrages érotiques du XVIème siècle à nos jours. II (Paris: Coulet et Faure,<br />
1978).<br />
Picq, G. Laurent Tailhade ou De la provocation considérée comme un art de vivre. (Paris: Maisonneuve & Larose, 2001).<br />
Platen, Ch. de. Autographes. Recueil de ma collection. (Roma: E. Calzone, 1910), p. 64 [d’Adelswärd’s autograph].<br />
Pohlmann, U. (introd.). Guglielmo Plüschow (1852-1930). Ein Photograph aus Mecklenburg in Italien. (Grevesmühlen:<br />
NWM-Verlag, 1995) [contains photos of Nino Cesarini].<br />
Pollard, P. André Gide: Homosexual Moralist. (New Haven-London: Yale University Press, 1991) [contains a chapter about<br />
Akademos].<br />
Ponchon, R. ‘Messes Noires’ in Le Courrier Français (19 July 1903).<br />
Prime-Stevenson, E.[I.]. ‘Out of the Sun’ in Her Enemy, Some Friends - and Other Personages: Stories & Studies Mostly of<br />
Human Hearts. (Florence: Obsner, 1913) [reprinted in: Mitchell, M. and D. Leavitt (eds.). Pages Passed from Hand to<br />
Hand. The Hidden Tradition of Homosexual Literature in English from 1748 to 1914. (Boston-New York: Houghton<br />
Mifflin, 1997), pp. 394-403; also translated into German: ‘Out of the Sun (Wenn bei Capri die rote Sonne . . .)’ in Capri.<br />
Zeitschrift für schwule Geschichte 32 (2002), pp. 3–9].<br />
‘Un processo scandaloso’ in Il Messaggero 15 June 1907.<br />
Les p'tits jeun' hommes [special issue of] L'Assiette au Beurre 422 (1 May 1909) [with illustrations by Miklós Vadász].<br />
Quillard, P. 'Le Danseurs [sic] aux caresses' in Mercure de France 61:215 (1906), pp. 429-430.<br />
Rachilde [pseudonym of Marguerite Aymery Vallette]. ‘Une Jeunesse – Le Baiser de Narcisse’ in Mercure de France<br />
70:248 (16 October 1907), pp. 699-700.<br />
Rachilde. ‘Lord Lyllian’ in Mercure de France 54:188 (15 April 1905), pp. 575-576.<br />
Rachilde. 'Les Romans. Le Sourire aux yeux fermés' in Mercure de France 98:362 (1912), p. 374.<br />
Raffalovich, M.-A. ‘Une affaire unisexuelle à Paris en 1904’ in Archives d’Anthropologie Criminelle 166/167 (1907), p.<br />
779.<br />
Reed, J. Baron Jacques d’Adelsward Fersen. (London: Tragara Press, 1997).<br />
Regina. 'La Vie de Paris. L'Ile de Puteaux' in Le Figaro 10 July 1903, p. 1 [about d'Adelswärd's mother].<br />
Respighi, E. Ottorino Respighi: dati biografici ordinati da Elsa Respighi. (Milano: Ricordi, [1954]) [about the friendship<br />
between the composer Respighi and d’Adelswärd].<br />
Richard, J.-P. Onze études sur la poésie moderne. (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1964).<br />
Richter, D. Il giardino della memoria. Il cimitero acattolico di Capri. Storia di un luogo. (Capri: La Conchiglia, 1996).<br />
Robb, G. Strangers. Homosexual Love in the 19th Century. (London: Picador, 2003), pp. 168, 230.<br />
‘Il romanzo di orgie e di perversità del bar. Fersen nei verdi incantesimi dell’Isola di Capri’ in Il Giornale d’Italia 8<br />
December 1923.<br />
Rosario, V.A. The Erotic Imagination. French Histories of Perversity. (New York-Oxford: Oxford University Press,<br />
1997), pp. 98-108.<br />
Ross, A. Reflections on Blue Water. Journeys in the Gulf of Naples and in the Aeolian Islands. (London: Harvill, 1999)<br />
[retells the story of Peyrefitte].<br />
Roux, H. le. ‘La jeunesse qui vient’ in Le Journal 16 July 1903, p. 1.<br />
Ruig, R. de. In de schaduw van de grand seigneur. (Utrecht: E.J. van Himbergen, 1984).<br />
Ryersson, S.D. and M.O. Yaccarino. Infinite Variety: The Life and Legend of the Marchesa Casati. (Minneapolis:<br />
University of Minnesota Press, 2004), pp. 105-107.<br />
Salaris, C. Marinetti editore. (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1990), pp. 41, 84-85.<br />
54
‘La salma del barone de Fersen sequestrata e mandata alla sala mortuaria del Trivio per ordine dell’autorità giudiziaria’ in<br />
Corriere di Napoli 6/7 December 1923.<br />
‘Un Scandale à Montmartre’ in Le Journal 22 June 1909.<br />
S[cheffer]., R. 'Les Romans. Et le feu s'éteignit sur la mer ...' in Akademos 1:6 (1909), pp. 918-919.<br />
Scheffer, R. ‘Visions de Minuit’ in Poesia. Rassegna Internazionale 5:1-2 (Febr./March 1909), p. 75 [poem dedicated to “J.<br />
de Fersen”].<br />
Settanni, E. Scrittori stranieri a Capri. ([Napoli]: La Conchiglia, 1986), pp. 30-31.<br />
Setz, W. ‘Fünffüßiger Hammel in Rosa oder Jacques d'Adelswärd-Fersen, Roger Peyrefitte und andere’ in Forum<br />
Homosexualität und Literatur 46 (2005), pp. 25-65.<br />
Setz, W. (ed.). Jacques d’Adelswärd-Fersen. Dandy und Poet. Annäherungen. (Hamburg: MännerschwarmSkript<br />
Verlag, 2005) [illustrated; includes texts by Patricia Marcoz, Will H.L. Ogrinc, Wolfram Setz, Paul Snijders and<br />
Thomas Steinfeld].<br />
Sibalis, M.D. ‘Paris’ in: Higgs, D. (ed.). Queer Sites. Gay urban histories since 1600. (London-New York: Routledge,<br />
1999), pp. 10–37.<br />
Simonetti, P. ‘Villa Lysis: la villa di un personaggio infelice’ in Il Caprifoglio. Rivista di Storia Locale 9:1 (1999), pp. 161-<br />
169.<br />
Snijders, P. 'Akademos' in Tegendeel. Periodiek voor de leden van het Genootschap voor Tegennatuurlijke Letteren 5:3<br />
(1988), pp. 68-70, 71-86 [pp. 71-86 contain a selection of reprints from Akademos].<br />
Snijders, P. 'De komeet van Fersen. Het literaire tijdschrift Akademos (1909)' in De Parelduiker 1:1 (1996), pp. 39-51 [with<br />
the portraits of d'Adelswärd from Chansons Légères and Les Cortèges. Also translated into German ‘Der Komet von<br />
Fersen’ in Capri. Zeitschrift für schwule Geschichte 30 (2001), pp. 24-34].<br />
Sonnentag, S. Spaziergänge durch das literarische Capri und Neapel. (Zürich-Hamburg: Arche, 2003).<br />
Sper, A. [pseudonym of Hans Rau]. Capri und die Homosexuellen. Eine psychologische Studie. (Oranienburg-Berlin:<br />
Orania-Verlag, [1903]).<br />
Spiess, C. Mon Autopsie. Éjaculations autobiographiques. (Nice: Athanor, 1938), pp. 109-112, 129.<br />
Sprigge, E. and J.-J. Kihm. Jean Cocteau. The Man and the Mirror. (New York: Coward-McCann, 1968), p. 235.<br />
Steinfeld, T. ‘Opiumelegie. Wenn in Capri die rosa Sonne im Meer versinkt – Rausch und Ruin des Baron Jacques von<br />
Adelswärd-Fersen’ in Süddeutsche Zeitung 6/7 July 2002, p. SZ Wochenende IV.<br />
Sternweiler, A. (ed.). Selbstbewusstsein und Beharrlichkeit. Zweihundert Jahre Geschichte. (Berlin: Schwules Museum,<br />
2004), pp. 69-70 [reproduces the painting of Nino Cesarini from Jugend].<br />
Stora-Lamarre, A. L'Enfer de la IIIe République. Censeurs et Pornographes (1881-1914). (Paris: Imago, 1990).<br />
‘Sulla morte del barone De Fersen’ in Il Mezzogiorno 8 December 1923.<br />
‘Sulla morte del Barone De Fersen. L’autopsia eseguita ieri confermerebbe la morte per sincope’ in Il Mezzogiorno 8/9<br />
December 1923.<br />
Summers, [A.J.-M.A.] M. Antinous and Other Poems. (London: Sisley's, [1907]) [poems dedicated to “Jacques<br />
d'Adelswärd-Fersen”; reprint: London: Cecil Woolf, 1995, with introd. by T. d'Arch Smith and E. Pouncey, a letter from<br />
d'Adelswärd to Summers, and the portrait of d'Adelswärd from Chansons Légères].<br />
Summers, [A.J.-M.A.] M. The Galanty Show. An autobiography by Montague Summers. (London: Cecil Woolf, 1980), pp.<br />
236-237.<br />
Tailhade, L. ‘3 juin. Lundi’ in Je Dis Tout (15 June 1912).<br />
Tailhade, L. ‘Lettre de Laurent Tailhade à M. Jacques d’Adelsward de Fersen’ in La Raison 16 July 1903.<br />
Thurman, J. Colette. Roman ihres Lebens. (Berlin: Berlin Verlag, 2001), pp. 873-874.<br />
Vergine, L. (ed.). Capri 1905/1940 – Frammenti Postumi. (Capri: La Conchiglia, 1993), pp. 66-76 [contains photos of<br />
d’Adelswärd].<br />
‘La vita e il sogno. Scintillio di gemme ed ombre di peccato nell’isola di Tiberio. Il sequestro della salma del barone Fersen,<br />
morto nella sua villa di Capri’ in Il Giorno 7 December 1923.<br />
Vitrano, S. ‘Nel rifugio del dandy infelice’ in Il Mattino 1 June 1992.<br />
Weiermair, P. Guglielmo Plüschow. (Köln: Benedikt Taschen, 1993) [contains photos of Nino Cesarini and an indoor photo<br />
of Villa Lysis].<br />
Wilhelm von Gloeden, Wilhelm von Plüschow, Vincenzo Galdi. Italienische Jünglings-Photographien um 1900. (Berlin:<br />
Janssen, 1991) [contains a photo of Nino Cesarini by Plüschow].<br />
Willy [pseudonym of Henry Gauthier-Villars]. Le Troisième Sexe. (Paris: Paris-Édition, 1927), pp. 66-73 [reproduces the<br />
text by Georges-Anquetil].<br />
Typescripts<br />
Wohl, E. Mémoire de IVème Année (...) sur Interferences Morales dans le Domaine Esthétique: de Fersen à Peyrefitte<br />
[Unpublished BA-thesis. Kensington (Australia): University of New South Wales, 1987].<br />
55
Music<br />
Les Amants Solitaires (2003), composed and performed by the French soprano and accordionist Nicole Renaud; contains<br />
four songs based on poems by d’Adelswärd: ‘Les extatiques’ and ‘Gongs’ from Ainsi chantait Marsyas, ‘Chanson cruelle,<br />
chanson d’adieu II’ and ‘T’en souvient-il?…..’ from L’Hymnaire d’Adonis (CD-Label: Le Producteur Invisible; Cat.Nr.<br />
9287).<br />
Cinque Liriche per Canto e Pianoforte (1918), by the Italian composer Ottorino Respighi (1879-1936); contains two<br />
songs based on poems from L’Hymnaire d’Adonis by J. de Fersen: ‘3. Par les soirs…’ and ‘4. Par l’étreinte’ (CD-<br />
Label: King; first issue Cat.Nr. NKCD359).<br />
Les extatiques, by the French composer Jean Nouguès (1875-1932); song based on a poem from Ainsi chantait Marsyas.<br />
Il pleut, gentil berger (1919), by Ottorino Respighi; song based on a poem from L’Hymnaire d’Adonis (CD-Label: Nuova<br />
Era; Cat.Nr. 7182).<br />
Films<br />
Musik, die sich entfernt: Capri und die Träume des Cyrill K. (1984), directed by Ferry Radax.<br />
Sources of Figures<br />
1. Cover by Gaston Goor of the definitive Livre de Poche edition of 1974.<br />
2. Cover by Louis Morin.<br />
3. Powerstation Herserange; to the right the d’Adelswärd family castle. Collection of the author.<br />
4. Jacques d'Adelswärd in his late teens. In: Chansons Légères (Paris: Léon Vanier, 1901).<br />
5. The Lycée Janson-de-Sailly (1991). Photo by Dré Leyten.<br />
6. Jacques d'Adelswärd in his twenties. In: Ébauches et Débauches (Paris: Léon Vanier, 1901).<br />
7. Avenue Friedland, Nr. 18 (1991). Photo by Dré Leyten.<br />
8. Cover of Les Cortèges qui sont passés (Paris: Léon Vanier/Albert Messein, 1903) with d'Adelswärd's portrait.<br />
9. Caricature by František Kupka, in MESSES NOIRES. Le Canard Sauvage 1:19 (1903) [no pagination].<br />
10. "Two Removals" Caricature by František Kupka, in MESSES NOIRES. Le Canard Sauvage 1:19 (1903) [no<br />
pagination].<br />
11. The Lycée Carnot (1991). Photo by Dré Leyten.<br />
12. "At the Aesthete's - ... My Master is busy..." Caricature by Hermann-Paul, in MESSES NOIRES. Le Canard Sauvage<br />
1:19 (1903) [no pagination].<br />
13. First page of the decision by the Ninth Chamber of the Tribunal de la Seine, 3 December 1903.<br />
14. Cover by Claude Simpson.<br />
15. Villa Lysis. From: B. Büch, “Curieus Capri” in Avenue 21:8 (1986), p. 68. Photo by Martin Thomas.<br />
16. Jacques d'Adelswärd. In: M. Hirschfeld, Geschlechtskunde. IV (Stuttgart: Julius Püttmann, 1930), p. 632.<br />
17. Painting of Nino Cesarini (c. 1908) by Paul Höcker. In: Good bye to Berlin? 100 Jahre Schwulenbewegung (Berlin:<br />
Verlag rosa Winkel, 1997), p. 62.<br />
18. The glorification of Nino Cesarini. In: M. Hirschfeld, Geschlechtskunde. IV (Stuttgart: Julius Püttmann, 1930), p. 632.<br />
19. Interior of Villa Lysis with Höcker’s painting. In: P. Weiermair, Guglielmo Plüschow (Köln: Benedikt Taschen, 1993),<br />
p. 69.<br />
20. Frontal nude of Nino Cesarini.<br />
21. Bathing boys at Marina, Capri (c. 1900). Picture post-card by Richter & Co., Naples. Collection of the author [there also<br />
exists a copy of this post-card, with the postmark “Capri (Napoli) 18 Giu [19]04,” in the correspondence of Georges<br />
Eekhoud in the Archives et Musée de la Littérature at Brussels (ML 2970/543), written by an undecipherable sender].<br />
22. Nino Cesarini as a Roman soldier (c. 1910) by Guglielmo Plüschow. In: D. Leddick, The Male Nude (Köln: Taschen,<br />
1998), p. 134.<br />
23. Cover by George Auriol of the first issue of Akademos (15 January 1909).<br />
24. "FERSEN. The writer of: Et le Feu s'éteignit sur la Mer..." Caricature by Moyano, in Akademos 1:5 (1909), p. 708.<br />
25. Villa Lysis (1961). Collection Raimondo Biffi, Rome.<br />
26. Cover by Ernest Marie Brisset of Hei Hsiang. Le parfum noir (1921).<br />
27. Autograph of d'Adelswärd, double signed: Au passant, l'inavouable. F[ersen.] avec beaucoup de sympethie [sic] vraie.<br />
Fersen. (To the passer-by, what we try to conceal. F[ersen.] with lots of sincere sympathy. Fersen.) In: Hei Hsiang. Le<br />
parfum noir (Paris: Albert Messein, 1921). Collection of the author.<br />
28. Portrait from the in memoriam “Le triste héros des messes noires Jacques d'Adelsward meurt mystérieusement à<br />
Capri” in Le Matin 10 December 1923, p. 1.<br />
Copyright © 2006 by W.H.L. Ogrinc.<br />
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