French aristocrat, socialite and writer Robert, Comte de Montesquiou was BOTD in 1855. Born in Paris to an aristocratic family, he was raised in the splendour of Belle Époque high society. He emerged in adulthood as a colourful and controversial star of Parisian salon life, gaining a reputation as a dandy, tastemaker, art critic and rampant royalist. His friendship circle included actress Sarah Bernhardt (the only woman he claimed to have slept with, vomiting furiously for days afterwards), the painter Edouard Manet, the composer Gabriel Fauré and writers Alphonse Daudet, Edmond de Goncourt and Stephane Mallarmé. An acquaintance of Oscar Wilde, he is one of the possible inspirations for the amoral protagonist of Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray. A keen equestrian, he completed as a show jumper at the 1900 Olympic Games, and published several volumes of mediocre poetry. His many lovers included his Argentinean secretary Gabriel Yturri. After Yturri’s death, Montesquiou published a series of love poems dedicated to him and some of their intimate correspondence. He followed this with a book on the lives of Wilde and other homosexual aesthetes, while somehow still attempting to mask his own sexuality. His most famous friendship was the novelist Marcel Proust, with whom he shared gossip about Parisian society and aristocratic history. Proust used him as the basis for the debauched gay Baron de Charlus in his novel À la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time), effectively outing him to the world. Perhaps unsurprisingly, they became estranged. His companion in his latter years was his secretary Henri Picard, who inherited what remained of his squandered fortune. He died in 1921 aged 66. His memoirs, Les Pas effaces, were published posthumously, though failed to sell as well as Proust.