Dear friend La Moussaye

Dear friend La Moussaye is a satyrical poem in macaronic verse written in 1643 in Latin and attributed to Louis de Bourbon, Prince of Condé.^[1]

History

Louis, Prince of Condé (1621-1686) is said to have written the poem in an exchange of letters with his friend and aide-de-camp Amaury III de Goyon, Marquis de La Moussaye (1601-1674), when he was twenty-two years old.^[1] The poem features Condé and de La Moussaye traveling on the river Rhone,^[2][3] surprised by a thunderstorm, Conde exclaimed "We are going to drown!" to which de La Moussaye is said to have answered: "Our lives are safe, for we are sodomites" ie. homosexuals.^[4]

According to Professor Mark Bannister, Prince of Condé was known in his youth as a libertine noble motivated by a desire to shock and "to ridicule the protocol to which a Prince du Sang was expected to conform".^[5] Condé was also prepared to use his authority to take the defence of "sodomites",^[6] while evoking the subject of homosexuality in songs, was a form of self-derision.^[6] According to Christian Kühner, lecturer in history at the University of Freiburg, for young libertine nobles, playing with the forbidden, like homosexuality or atheistic opinions, was also a way of strengthening a relationship.^[7]

The refrain "Landerirette" indicates that the dialogue was very likely sung, possibly to a tune that both correspondents would have sung together on their shared travels and military campaigns.^[8]

Content

Marquis de La Moussaye (1601-1674)

Grand Condé:

Carus amicus Mussœus, Ah! Deus bone! quod tempus! Landerirette; Imbre sumus perituri, Landeriri.[4]

Dear friend La Moussaye Ah! Good God! What weather! Landerirette, We are going to drown, Landeridi.[9]

Marquis de La Moussaye:

Securæ sunt nostræ vitæ, Sumus enim Sodomitæ; Landerirette; Igne tantum perituri, Landeriri.[4]

Our lives are safe, For we are sodomites. Landerirette, And shall perish only by fire, Landeridi.[10]

Legacy

The playfulness element about the protagonists sexual preferences appealed to Marcel Proust who quoted the poem in In Search of Lost Time.^[8] The insinuation made in the last verse was use by one of Condé's former allies, Conte Jean de Coligny-Saligny, who after an altercation with the Prince became his most heinous enemy.^[4] The poem was also reported by Elizabeth Charlotte, Duchess of Orléans, the famous Versailles gossipmonger, who questioned whether Condé really made a confession.^[11] In the Encyclopedia of Homosexuality, published in 1990, "Dear friend La Moussaye" was incorrectly attributed to Prince Eugene of Savoy.^[12]