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Knights of Malta
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Hardcover
First published June 1, 1959
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About the author
Roger Peyrefitte
158 books41 followersBorn in Castres, Tarn to a wealthy family, Peyrefitte went to Jesuit and Lazarist boarding schools and then studied language and literature in Toulouse. After graduating first of his year from Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris in 1930, he worked as an embassy secretary in Athens between 1933 and 1938. Back in Paris, he had to resign in 1940 for personal reasons before being reintegrated in 1943 and finally ending his diplomatic career in 1945. In his novels, he often treated controversial themes and his work put him at odds with the Roman Catholic church.
He wrote openly about his homoerotic experiences in boarding school in his 1944 first novel Les amitiés particulières (Particular Friendships -- a term used in seminaries to refer to friendships seen as too close and exclusive, often incorrectly translated as "Special Friendships"), which won the coveted prix Renaudot in 1945. The book was made into a film of the same name which was released in 1964. On the set, Peyrefitte met the 12 year old Alain-Philippe Malagnac d'Argens de Villèle; Peyrefitte tells the story of their relationship in Notre amour ("Our Love" - 1967) and L'Enfant de cœur ("Child of the Heart" - 1978). Malagnac later married performer Amanda Lear.
A cultivator of scandal, Peyrefitte attacked the Vatican and Pope Pius XII in his book Les Clés de saint Pierre (1953), which earned him the nickname of 'Pope of the Homosexuals'. The publication of the book started a bitter quarrel with François Mauriac. Mauriac threatened to resign from the paper he was working with at the time, L'Express if it did not stop carrying advertisements for the book. The quarrel was exacerbated by the release of the film adaptation of Les amitiés particulières and culminated in a virulent open letter by Peyrefitte in which he accused Mauriac of homophile inclinations and called him a tartuffe. In April 1976, after Pope Paul VI had condemned homosexuality in a homily, Peyrefitte accused him of being a closet homosexual.
In Les Ambassades (1951), he revealed the ins and outs of diplomacy. Peyrefitte also wrote a book full of gossip about Baron Jacques d'Adelswärd-Fersen's exile in Capri (L'Exilé de Capri, 1959) and translated Greek gay love poetry (La Muse garçonnière (The Boyish Muse), Flammarion, 1973).
In his memoirs Propos Secrets, he wrote extensively about his youth, his sex life (homosexual mainly and a few affairs with women), his years as a diplomat, his travels to Greece and Italy and his troubles with the police for sexually harassing male teenagers. He also gave vent to his fierce love of snobbish genealogizing and vitriolic well-documented gossip, writing about famous people of his time such as André Gide, Henry de Montherlant, Jean Cocteau, Jean Genet, Marcel Jouhandeau, Marie-Laure de Noailles, Gaston Gallimard, Jean Paul Sartre, Charles de Gaulle and Georges Pompidou, among many others. Claiming he had reliable sources within the Vatican's "black aristocracy", once again he stated that three recent popes of the 20th century were homosexuals. He particularly loved to expose the hypocrisy and vanity of prominent people, to denounce fake aristocrats and to out closet homosexuals.
Roger Peyrefitte wrote popular historical biographies about Alexander the Great and Voltaire. In Voltaire et Frédéric II he polemically claimed that Voltaire had been the passive lover of Frederick the Great.
In spite of his libertarian views on sexuality, politically Peyrefitte was a conservative bourgeois and in his later years he would support extreme right-winger Jean-Marie Le Pen.
He died at 93 of Parkinson's disease, after receiving the last rites from the Church he had attacked so strongly.
He wrote openly about his homoerotic experiences in boarding school in his 1944 first novel Les amitiés particulières (Particular Friendships -- a term used in seminaries to refer to friendships seen as too close and exclusive, often incorrectly translated as "Special Friendships"), which won the coveted prix Renaudot in 1945. The book was made into a film of the same name which was released in 1964. On the set, Peyrefitte met the 12 year old Alain-Philippe Malagnac d'Argens de Villèle; Peyrefitte tells the story of their relationship in Notre amour ("Our Love" - 1967) and L'Enfant de cœur ("Child of the Heart" - 1978). Malagnac later married performer Amanda Lear.
A cultivator of scandal, Peyrefitte attacked the Vatican and Pope Pius XII in his book Les Clés de saint Pierre (1953), which earned him the nickname of 'Pope of the Homosexuals'. The publication of the book started a bitter quarrel with François Mauriac. Mauriac threatened to resign from the paper he was working with at the time, L'Express if it did not stop carrying advertisements for the book. The quarrel was exacerbated by the release of the film adaptation of Les amitiés particulières and culminated in a virulent open letter by Peyrefitte in which he accused Mauriac of homophile inclinations and called him a tartuffe. In April 1976, after Pope Paul VI had condemned homosexuality in a homily, Peyrefitte accused him of being a closet homosexual.
In Les Ambassades (1951), he revealed the ins and outs of diplomacy. Peyrefitte also wrote a book full of gossip about Baron Jacques d'Adelswärd-Fersen's exile in Capri (L'Exilé de Capri, 1959) and translated Greek gay love poetry (La Muse garçonnière (The Boyish Muse), Flammarion, 1973).
In his memoirs Propos Secrets, he wrote extensively about his youth, his sex life (homosexual mainly and a few affairs with women), his years as a diplomat, his travels to Greece and Italy and his troubles with the police for sexually harassing male teenagers. He also gave vent to his fierce love of snobbish genealogizing and vitriolic well-documented gossip, writing about famous people of his time such as André Gide, Henry de Montherlant, Jean Cocteau, Jean Genet, Marcel Jouhandeau, Marie-Laure de Noailles, Gaston Gallimard, Jean Paul Sartre, Charles de Gaulle and Georges Pompidou, among many others. Claiming he had reliable sources within the Vatican's "black aristocracy", once again he stated that three recent popes of the 20th century were homosexuals. He particularly loved to expose the hypocrisy and vanity of prominent people, to denounce fake aristocrats and to out closet homosexuals.
Roger Peyrefitte wrote popular historical biographies about Alexander the Great and Voltaire. In Voltaire et Frédéric II he polemically claimed that Voltaire had been the passive lover of Frederick the Great.
In spite of his libertarian views on sexuality, politically Peyrefitte was a conservative bourgeois and in his later years he would support extreme right-winger Jean-Marie Le Pen.
He died at 93 of Parkinson's disease, after receiving the last rites from the Church he had attacked so strongly.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
November 21, 2022
Ladies and gentlemen the first thing to say, and warn / is that very careful to judge this book only by the title (I say it by my good friend Mr. Erro). Before judging a book, you have to inform yourself of the author. I say this because of the number of likes that the process of reading this book had. I first met Roger Peyferitte thanks to a book that my father recommended "The Nature of the Prince" https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2... a book in which it was tried to prove that the Prince of the title (a Gonzaga) was not impotent, and in order to allow him to marry another woman he had to prove that he could consummate a sexual relationship with a peasant woman. All set in the Italy of the misnamed Counter-Reformation that Peyferitte viciously attacked (in fact, this work had a touch to Giovanni Bocaccio https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5... https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... , and à la "Madragora" by Niccolò Machiavelli https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8... ) . Although I personally prefer "Then, Now" by W. Somerset Maugham https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1... https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... . The socialist deputy Pablo Castellanos https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... already said how important it was for the Transition, that when he wanted to read anti-Catholic authors he preferred to read Gide https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4... (whom Peyferitte is very similar by the way), or Peyferitte than the current ones. In fact, Peyferitte's anti-Catholicism is more in line with Umberto Eco https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2... (that of the name of the Rose and her earlier works more than her later works) than in the Follets, https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... Hilary Mantel https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... , Dan Brown https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... , Pullman , https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... or others. It certainly beats them in intelligence, and pseudo-erudition (in fact, it is very difficult to know with Peyrefitte, which is a product of his erudition, and which is fiction). The problem is that it ages really badly. Nor does he have the hatred, and the bad slime of the current anti-Catholic writers, although he has one thing in favor is an LGTBI writer (this was told to me by a Jewish friend) due to his scandals Peyferitte was expelled from the diplomatic career, and was rehabilitated by the Vichy regime by the socialist Laval. He was one of the first to attack the Church saying that he practiced pederasty, and got his merchandise to him, and in the end he ended up being a supporter of Jean Marie Le Pen, with that record it is very difficult to win the sympathies of the gay community. So it has been forgotten. Apart from something unforgivable in his autobiography "Captivated by Joy" Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life" C.S. Lewis https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1... https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... said of the anti-Christian writers Voltaire, https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... Shaw, https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... , Edward Gibbons https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... that they were funny, but nothing more (especially Gibbons). The problem is that Peyferitte is a boring pedant (although "The Nature of the Prince" is morbid, and funny I have to confess). What could be an exciting book telling episodes of the Order of Malta (when it tells them is when the story keeps the reader's interest somewhat). Before opting for my previous thesis Relations of Charles II and the Holy See. I thought I would write it about the Order of Malta, and the 30 Years' War (that would have been an interesting topic). Even the anticlerical Arturo Pérez Reverte was fascinated by the Order of Malta in the Alatriste episode "Corsairs of the Levant". https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6... https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... . I say, as I have pointed out in other reviews, why are not more novels written about the Hospitallers, or the Order of the Dragon? If you hurry me with the Teutonic Order instead of the editors, continue to insist on the pseudo-Gnostic smear of the Templars. The Order of St. John, after Malta starred in more interesting deeds in Cyprus, in Rhodes defeating Mehmet II (who conquered Byzantium https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2... https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...) one of his Grand Masters defeated a dragon Gozzon. De Arbusson got Prince Djem, nothing was better lost than Rhodes as Charles V said that Malta gave them after the heroic defense of their Grand Master Villiers L'Isle Adam, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2... https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... survived in the siege of Malta https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2... https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9... The Damceny ended up as a knight of Malta the only survivor of the "Dangerous Liasons" of Pierre Chardelos de Laclos https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4... . They refused to confront Napoleon his Grand Master Hompesch, so as not to confront another Christian nation. Being his transit as heroic, or more than that of the Jesuits, or Templars, and they still exist. They are a sure success as were the novels of the Legion with P.C. Wren https://www.goodreads.com/series/1414... or "The Centurions" by Jean Larteguy https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1... and the Order of the Dragon is aposionante let's leave the myth of Dracula buried, and Vlad Tepes too, and let's talk about the Order founded by Sigismund Luxemburg. Hopefully a courageous novelist will read my review, and tell those forgotten stories, and that people are eager to read. I hope my Maltese friend Fiorella de Maria https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... dares with this challenge. What Peyferitte tells us is a conflict between an ambitious Cardinal Canali, who wants to take over the Order of Malta, presided over by an elderly Chigi (name of the family that gave Alexander VII as Pope), and does not hesitate to implicate Pius XII, https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... , and other cardinals. He is baited with Pacelli, Montini https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... , and Spellman https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... . Leaving all kinds of scandals, which allegedly do not leave the Church well, and its link with the Argentina of Peron, and Franco (one of the masters Thun of Hohesheim would have been involved in a problem with Argentine wheat). The only interesting thing when he talks about the past of the Order, the alleged conversion of Tsar Paul I (at the hands of a Jesuit, which is perhaps more false than the jewels that Leonard Quinton painted in Father Brown https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...), and the story of Zizim (Djem) poisoned by Caesar Borgia https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3.... For five endless and soporific parts we see how the Order defends itself against Canali and the Papacy in a line similar to the Barsetshire of Trollope https://www.goodreads.com/series/5671... . https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... (in a similar vein is "La regenta" by Clarín https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6...) First this is fiction, and if it is not it no longer matters to anyone. Anyway, until the sixties this was the only libel that could be used against Pius XII, because there was nothing against him. Now, despite scholarship, this does not interest today's atheists. It is too heavy, and boring, and the only interesting thing is the ending comparing the triumphant Order with the one that defeated Mehmet II (the conqueror of Byzantium). In fact, only the ending is salvageable (in these unbearable five parts into which the author divides his novel) not only because it is the best, but because one is eager to finish this dreadful book. My grade is (1/5).
March 21, 2024
An enjoyable journey through the alleged shenanigans of Vatican Cardinals and officials, without papal sanction, and the senior office holders and national leadership holders of the Order of Malta (Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta). Famous names of recent history are scattered through the text, which makes for authenticity, even if much may be speculative. As so often, secrecy leads to credible speculation. Allegations are laid before us, not least in relation to money-raising in America. Intriguing - if one can keep up with the ranks and honours of the Order and the Church.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews