Mirrors, Cross-dressing and Narcissism in Choisy’s Histoire de Madame la Comtesse des Barres

The Abbé de Choisy was one of the most intriguing figures in Louis XIII’s entourage and, most notably, Louis XIV’s court. A prolific author, he composed the Sun King’s memoirs, his own personal memoirs, and in his old age wrote an ambitious twelve volume-work entitled Histoire de l’Eglise. Although he led a ecclesiastic career, his writing and intellectual interests reached well beyond the Church into politics; he was even chosen by Louis XIV as part of his official embassy to travel to the exotic land of Siam, an experience that was later recorded in his travel documentation. In 1687, Choisy’s professional life was further enhanced when he was elected to the Académie Française, where he served along with Racine and Boileau. But to scholars of the seventeenth century, Choisy is perhaps the most renowned for his flamboyant cross-dressing, a secret never hidden from literary peers such as Madame de La Fayette, Bussy Rabutin, Madame de Sévigné and La Rochefoucauld, who openly acknowledged and even encouraged his fetish for women’s clothing.