the thirteenth century the Church was so impressed by the
prevalence of homosexuality that it reasserted the death penalty for
sodomy at the Councils of Paris (1212) and Rouen (1214), while we are told
that even by rejecting a woman's advances (as illustrated in Marie de
France's _Lai de Lanval_) a man fell under suspicion as a sodomist, which
was also held to involve heresy.[68] At the end of this century (about
1294) Alain de Lille was impelled to write a book, _De Planctu Naturae_, in
order to call attention to the prevalence of homosexual feeling; he also
associated the neglect of women with sodomy. "Man is made woman," he
writes; "he blackens the honor of his sex, the craft of magic Venus makes
him of double gender"; nobly beautiful youths have "turned their hammers
of love to the office of anvils," and "many kisses lie untouched on maiden
lips." The result is that "the natural anvils," that is to say the
neglected maidens, "bewail the absence of their hammers and are seen sadly
to demand them." Alain de Lille makes himself the voice of this
demand.[69]

A few years later, at the beginning of the fourteenth century, sodomy was
still regarded as very prevalent. At that time it was especially
associated with the Templars who, it has been supposed, brought it from
the East. Such a supposition, however, is not required to account for the
existence of homosexuality in France. Nor is it necessary, at a somewhat
later period, to invoke, as is frequently done, the Italian origin of
Catherine de Medici, in order to explain the prevalence of homosexual
practices at her court.

Notwithstanding its prevalence, sodomy was still severely punished from
time to time. Thus in 1586, Dadon, who had formerly been Rector of the
University of Paris, was hanged and then burned for injuring a child
through sodomy.[70] In the seventeenth century, homosexuality continued,
however, to flourish, and it is said that nearly all the numerous
omissions made in the published editions of Tallement des Reaux's
_Historiettes_ refer to sodomy.[71]

How prominent homosexuality was, in the early eighteenth century in
France, we learn from the frequent references to it in the letters of
Madame, the mother of the Regent, whose husband was himself effeminate and
probably inverted.[72] For the later years of the century the evidence
abounds on every hand. At this time the Bastille was performing a useful
function, until recently overlooked by historians,