French writer and diplomat Roger Peyrefitte was BOTD in 1907. Born in Castres, Tarn to a middle-class family, he was educated at Roman Catholic schools and the University of Toulouse, before moving to Paris to attend the Institut d’études politiques. After graduating, he became a diplomat, posted to the French Embassy in Athens in 1933. He resigned in 1938 to avoid a scandal over his relationship with a 14 year-old boy, and returned to Paris. In 1940, he was arrested while cottaging for sex in the Luxembourg Gardens and forced to resign. He retreated to his parents’ country house to begin work on a novel. In 1943, he was reinstated in his diplomatic post at the request of the Nazi-controlled German embassy, working for a year under the Vichy government. His debut novel Les Amitiés particulières (Special Friendships) was published in 1944, creating a scandal with its account of a love affair between two boys at a Catholic boarding school. After the liberation of France, Peyrefitte was dismissed from the diplomatic corps on suspicion of collaboration with the Nazi regime. Amitiés became a bestseller, winning the Renaudot Prize and allowing him to write full time. He published a series of satirical novels about life in the French foreign service, including Les Ambassades (Diplomatic Diversions) and La Fin des Ambassades (Diplomatic Conclusions). In 1954, he co-founded and contributed to the gay magazine Arcadie, alongside his friend Jean Cocteau. He ignited outrage with 1955’s Les Clefs de Saint-Pierre (The Keys of St. Peter), a satire of the inner workings of the Vatican, dropping broad hints about Pope Pius XII’s homosexuality. Nobel Prize-winning writer François Mauriac condemned Peyrefitte’s work, threatening to resign as literary critic of L’Express if it continued to advertise the book. In response, Peyrefitte published an open letter to Mauriac in Arts magazine, outing him as homosexual. His 1965 novel Les Juifs (The Jews) led to widespread accusations of anti-Semitism while 1968’s Les Américains (The Americans) prompted an enraged Marlene Dietrich to sue Peyrefitte for libel after claiming she had supported Hitler. Undeterred, Peyrefitte published Des Français (The French) in 1970, a roman-a-clef peppered with bitchy anecdotes about his literary circle. Controversially committed to outing public figures, his novels featured thinly-veiled portraits of diplomat Dag Hammarskjöld, Pope John XIII (whom he nicknamed “Giovanna”) and his friend Henry de Montherlant. After Montherlant’s death in 1972, Peyrefitte published their correspondence, revealing their mutual attraction to pre-adolescent boys. He also published a series of historical novels about famous pederasts Alexander the Great, Wilhelm von Gloeden and Jacques d’Adelswärd-Fersen. His two-volume novel about Frederick II enraged historians, following his claim that the king had a sexual relationship with Voltaire. Peyrefitte’s personal life was equally as controversial. Loudly and unapologetically declaring himself a pederast, he had a long relationship with Alain-Philippe Malagnac, whom he met in 1964 when he was 56 and Malagnac was 12. Peyrefitte wrote several essays about their relationship, adopting Malagnac later in life to make him his legal heir. In later years, he became a supporter of the anti-immigrationist politician Jean-Marie Le Pen. He died in 2000, aged 93, after being received into the Catholic Church.