Seduced at the age of 10 by a famous sodomist named Duplessis, he had since been at the disposition of a number of homosexual persons, including officers, priests, and marquises.

Some of the persons involved in these affairs were burned alive; some cut their own throats; others again were set at liberty or transferred to the Bicetre.[73] During the latter part of the eighteenth century, also, we find another modern homosexual practice recognized in France; the rendezvous or center where homosexual persons could quietly meet each other.[74] Inversion has always been easy to trace in Germany.

Ammianus Marcellinus bears witness to its prevalence among some German tribes in later Roman days.[75] In mediaeval times, as Schultz points out, references to sodomy in Germany were far from uncommon.

Various princes of the German Imperial house, and of other princely families in the Middle Ages, were noted for their intimate friendships.

At a later date, attention has frequently been called to the extreme emotional warmth which has often marked German friendship, even when there has been no suspicion of any true homosexual relationship.[76] The eighteenth century, in the full enjoyment of that abandonment to sentiment initiated by Rousseau, proved peculiarly favorable to the expansion of the tendency to sentimental friendship.