Abbé de Choisy
He was a priest and abbot of Saint-Seine (1661-1675). He is the author of The story the Barres Countess,and also of some Memories (1721).
"I have lived three or four different lives: male and female and always at the extremes," says the Abbe of Choisy. Under a frivolous and light varnish, the abbot describes that " extreme life" in his memories, which addresses such important issues as the search for sexual identity and the rachievement of the desire over any ban and how the individual loses emotional balance when society strives to counteract such natural preferences.
The memories of François Timoléon of Choisy show us an amazing true story that has structure bordering on the fiction. He was raised as a boy by his mother in a courtesan family, who used to dress him and his playmate, Felipe Orleans, brother of Luis XIV – like girls. At her death, he uses female name and clothing. Sui generis transexual, he does not look for male lovers, but the girls who he sexually initiates, and he also enjoys dressing them as men. Transvestism alternates in his life with his passion on the games, which once ruined he left away. His amorous adventures are exciting and unprejudiced description of the customs of his time.
