Book Review: The Bastard Prince of Versailles

IndieBookView

Nov 14

The Bastard Prince of Versailles

by Will Bashor

Genre: Historical Fiction / LGBTQ

ISBN: 9798988965343

Print Length: 338 pages

Reviewed by Tucker Lieberman

The Bastard Prince of Versailles is a lushly detailed historical novel that reconstructs the French court of the Sun King and brings it to sensual life. It's a sympathetic, fictional character study of one of the king's sons during his early years in which he discovers his attraction to other boys. Bashor embroiders the story in a confident voice that invites in readers who aren't already familiar with the culture.

Count Louis of Vermandois is Louis XIV's illegitimate son with Louise de Vallière. In reality, this younger Louis was indeed a member of a secret gay society, and his father did have him flogged and exiled from court, as Bashor confirms for us in an author's note. Bashor imagines the boy beginning at age seven in 1674 and continuing to his punishment at age 15.

When we first meet the boy, he's still wearing the feminine clothing that all small children wear, but he's about to be "breeched"—that is, ceremonially given boys' pants—and he'll begin to be treated by his rank at court.

He's taken to France's up-and-coming royal center of Versailles, where the billiard room is "paneled in marble and decorated with portraits of Diana and her Nymphs." His mother lives upstairs, overlooking "vibrant gardens," in a room through which "wafts of brisk air clashed with the acrid scent of dying embers in the fireplace." Her relationship with the king has ended, and she plans to take the veil in a Carmelite convent, renouncing the world. We also meet the pregnant Elizabeth, traveling in a coach "covered in gold leaf" and "lined with purple velvet" with cushions "perfumed with lavender and rosemary."