French literature, meanwhile, moved in quite the other direction, undoubtedly following tendencies at court. At the end of the sixteenth century Henry III was widely reputed to be homosexual. A generation later Louis XIII, ailing and neurotic, vacillated between a few feminine and several masculine favorites, and is said, by some French biographers, to have made little distinction among them. The house of Orléans was also generally credited with homosexual proclivities in both the male and the female lines. On the feminine side, too, we have Christina of Sweden’s lengthy visit in France during the emotionally disturbed period of her life (1670-1680) following her abdication. It has been suggested that she brought about Monaldeschi’s murder at Versailles because the “thick packet of letters” in his possession contained damning evidence of her now almost unquestioned lesbian habits. A century later Marie Antoinette’s relations with Lamballe, Polignac and others of her court ladies were the subject of numerous scurrilous pamphlets, and although the details must be largely discounted as political mudslinging, any wide reading of serious biographical studies shows the underlying charges to be quite plausible. For whatever reason, as the Bourbon dynasty grew in power and extravagance and under Louis XV the great courtesans enjoyed high social standing, freedom among women even loosely connected with court circles became quite fashionable. By the middle of the eighteenth century several houses of pleasure were elite institutions. Private theatres were maintained by certain noblemen for the presentation of highly censorable drama, and the best-known actresses and courtesans—often synonymous—were credited with constant lesbian activity in memoirs of the gossip-column type. From better authenticated sources we know that numerous frivolous private societies sprang up, and at least one of them was composed of “Anandrynes” or lesbian women. The _galant_ narratives, of which the eighteenth century produced a rich crop, included frequent lesbian episodes, and for the first time in many decades the variant interest sometimes predominated over the heterosexual.