Jean-Jacques-Régis Cambacérès

O CALAMUS The English poet Algernon Char- Napoleon Bonaparte. When Napoleon les Swinburne (1837-1909), whose atti- became Emperor in 1804, he named tudes toward homosexuality were con- Cambacirks Arch-Chancellor and in 1808 flicted, dubbed John Addington Symonds conferred on him the title of Duke of and his associates "Calamites," with a Parma. Great as was his influence with mocking echo of "catamites" and thepejo- Napoleon, he failed to persuade him not to rative nuance of the -ite ending. In his undertakethedisastrousRussiancampaign book Greek Love (New York, 1964))J. 2. of 1812. After the Restoration of Louis Eglinton employed the term to designate XVlII to the throne he was forced into the broader school of minor English and exile, but restored to his civil and political American homoerotic poets who flour- rights in 1818. He Lived quietly in Paris ished under the aegis of Whitman, Edward until his death. Carpenter, and Symonds (ca. 1890-1930). Cambacirks' greatest achieve- Timothy dlArch Smith, the author of Love ment was the drafting of the Code Na- in Earnest (London, 1970)) the standard polion, which was not a new set of laws work on the English poets in this group of but a revision and codification of all the writers and their themes, prefers to call legislative reforms since 1789 into a set of them Uranians. However, Donald Mader, 28 separate codes to which the Emperor in the learned introduction to his edition then attached his name. He was not re- of theMen and Boys anthology (NewYork, sponsible for the silent omission of sod- 1978)) speaks of the American poets as omy from the criminal-code; this step had "calamites." been taken by the Constituent Assembly Just as Whitman used the cala- in 1791, and he was not even a member of mus to symbolize male homosexual at- the legislative committee of the Council traction, so some of the English Calamitel of State that debated the draft of the penal Uranian poets favored the plant ladslove code of 1810. But his reputation as a (Artemisiaabrotanum), ostensibly because homosexual was such that when the ques- the odor of its sap resembled that of semen, tion of allowing bachelors to adopt chil- but more likely just because of the name. dren arose, Napoleon asked him to speak for the proposal. As early as his days as second consul, the rumors of his homo- CAMBACERES, sexuality hadreached theears of the agents JEAN-JACQUES REGISDE of Louis XVIII. Napoleon was fully aware (1753-1824) of the truth of these allegations, but was Arch-Chancellor of the French too unprejudiced and astute to attach any First Empire and editor of the Code Na- significance to them in his evaluation of polkon. Born in Montpellier as the scion of Carnbac6rk.s' character. Various stories, an oldnoblefamily, Cambacirks became a witticisms, and cartoons about the Arch- lawyer in his birthplace and a counselor at Chancellor's proclivities circulated dur- the Cour des Comptes. Renouncing his ing his years of power, and a number of title of nobility in 1790, he became active women prominent during the First Em- in the revolutionary movement. As a pire-among them Madame de Stael-were member of the National Assembly he did his bitter enemies. As a consequence, as not vote for the death of Louis XVI, but did late as 1859 the City Council of Montpel- move for the execution of the death sen- lier refused to erect a statue in his honor. tence. He withdrew from the murderous For the same reason the memoirs of factional struggles of the 1790s to pursue CambacQks have remained unpublished his legal calling, with such success that and his family has denied historians access following the coup d16tat of 18 Brumaire to its private archives. (1799))he became the second consul after CAMBRIDGE AND OXFORD + While Cambadrks was a major which, despite careful selection, could not figure in the entourage of Napoleon Bona- be purged of pederastic motifs. parte, the reform of the penal laws on On early sodomites the curtain of homosexuality was not his doing; this silence lifts only occasionally. In 1739 the action was rather the consequence of the Rev. Robert Thistlethwayte, who had philosophical trends of the eighteenth served as warden of Wadharn College at century and the critique of the criminal Oxford for fifteen years, was charged with legislation of the Old Regime by such making a "sodomitical attempt" on Wil- writers as Beccaria and Voltaire. No one liam French, an undergraduate. As deposi- statesman can be credited with the merit tions to the grand jury revealed, Thistle- of this advance over the barbarity of previ- thwayte had shown a previous pattern of ous centuries. The prestige of Napoleon homosexual activity, and he fled to France, and the force of French arms fostered the fearing mortal consequences. John spread of the code and marked the dawn of Fenwick, known to have had homosexual an era of toleration for the homosexuals of relations as a student at Oxford, but not France and many other countries. charged until 1797, when he had become a clergyman, also fled to the continent. At BIBLIOGRAPHY. Jean-LouisBory, Les Cambridge George Gordon, Lord Byron, cinq girouettes; ou, Servitudes et already in love at Harrow, had a relation- souplesses de . lean-lacques Rdgis de Cambacdrt3s, duc de Parme, Paris: ship with a choirboy named John Edleston Ramsay, 1979; Numa Praetorius and formed lifelong friendships with John (pseudonym of Eugen Wilhelm], Cam Hobhouse, the dissipated Scrope "Carnbaci:&s, der Enkanzler Napoleons Berdmore Davies, and the irreverent I. und sein Ruf als Homosexueller," lahrbuch fiir sexuelle Zwischenstufen, Charles Skinner Matthew-his correspon- 13 (19121, 23-42. dents and defenders when, having discov- Warren Johansson ered a more open homosexuality in Italy and Greece, Byron went into exile. Reformers and Aesthetes. The CAMBRIDGEAND OXFORD Victorians (1837-1901) strove to raise the . Residential colleges have domi- standards of Britain's decayed educational nated England's two ancient universities- establishment. In addition to the the uni- sometimes verbally merged as "Ox- versities, the feeder system of the elite bridgeu-which trace their origins to the public schools had to be restructured. twelfth century. Royal and aristocratic Unbeknownst to the reformers, public patronage, accentuated by the richly en- school boys fashioned a thrivinghomosex- dowed, exquisite colleges in which fel- ual subculture, with its social hierarchies lows slept and dined, gave them an elite and special vocabulary, and passed it on to character often, though not always, con- the universities. ducive to academic excellence. The mid-nineteenth century also Early Indications. Following the saw a crisis of faith. Some like Cardinal clerical tradition of the Middle Ages, the Newman resolved this by converting to dons were (until Gladstone's liberal re- Roman Catholicism. Gravitating toward forms in 1877)forbidden to marry. Temp- aestheticism, a creed with strong homo- tation beckoned in the form of an endless sexual overtones, others-unlike the Ox- supply of highborn and attractive under- ford don Walter Pater, the pontiff of aes- graduates. After 1500 most trained aca- theticism, who was most discrete about demically and (homo)sexually at the his sexual longing-became notorious, aristocratic public [i.e., private boarding] Oscar Wilde met Alfred Douglas when the schools like Harrow and Winchester on a latter was a handsome undergraduate at curriculum of Greek and Latin classics Oxford, and the Chameleon-which played .

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