Astolphe De Custine

Astolphe de Custine (1790-1857) was one of the last and most remarkable members of the French aristocracy. A passionate literary figure, dandy with exquisite manners, poet, playwright, essayist, traveller and extraordinarily wealthy homosexual adventurer, he was the first member of French high society to live an openly gay life. Emphatically opposed to anything or anyone who curtailed personal freedom he wrote "Russia in 1838", after a personal invitation from the Czar to visit. This book is still considered to be a better explanation of Russian totalitarianism than most written since. Custine's account of a colourful family includes a father and grandfather who were guillotined in 1793 during the French Revolution, and a mother who rescued both herself and Astolphe through trading sexual favours with her gaoler. Though Beaudelaire thought Custine a 'genius whose dandyism went so far as to encompass the ideal of negligence', others continued to describe him as 'Mme la marquise de Custine' and his house as 'Sodom and Gomorrah'.