Dear friend La Moussaye

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]

Grand Condé:

Marquis de La Moussaye:

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]

• De Chouvigny De Blot, C. (1919). Chansons libertines (in French).
• Descharmes, B.; Heuser, E.A.; Krüger, C.; Loy, T.; Asch, R.G.; Dabringhaus, S.; Gander, H.H. (2011). Varieties of friendship: Interdisciplinary perspectives on social relationships. V&R Unipress. ISBN 978-3-86234-108-5.
• Brunet, G. (1857). Le Nouveau siècle de Louis XIV; Choix de chansons: historiques et satiriques, accompagnées de notes par le traducteur de la Correspondance de Madame Duchesse d'Orléans (in French). Librairie de Garnier frères.
• Marcel Proust (1923). A la recherche du temps perdu. A la recherche du temps perdu (in French). Librairie Gallimard.
• Hammond, N. (2019). The Powers of Sound and Song in Early Modern Paris. Perspectives on Sensory History. Penn State University Press. ISBN 978-0-271-08553-1.
• Orléans, C.E.; Brunet, G. (1863). Correspondance complète de madame duchesse d'Orléans (in French). Charpentier.
• Tin, L.G.; Redburn, M. (2008). The Dictionary of Homophobia: A Global History of Gay & Lesbian Experience. Arsenal Pulp Press. ISBN 978-1-55152-314-9.
• Bannister, M. (2017). Conde in Context: Ideological Change in Seventeenth-century France. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1-351-19833-2.
• Dynes, W.R. (2016). Encyclopedia of Homosexuality: Volume I. Routledge Revivals: Encyclopedia of Homosexuality. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1-317-36814-4.