GAY ICONS Jacques D'Adelsward Fersen
When you’re gay and and rich enough, you can live a life of debauchy with plenty drug and sex. That sums up Jacques D'Adelsward Fersen.
Jacques was born in Paris to a wealthy family (from making steel furnaces). His father died when he was young. As an adult he became a writer and traveled often. He inherited his father’s fortune when he reached 22.
In 1903, together with Albert François de Warren, he began hosting elaborate parties at his home. They featured “Tableau vivant” where people would be posed in costume in exotic presentations (as in a freeze frame). But rumors circulated that underage boys appeared in the tableaus, nude or near nude.
Eventual this was brought to the attention of the police (blackmail from Rent Boys may have been involved). Like Oscar Wilde, charges were brought against Jacques and his friend. They spend 5 months in jail, awaiting trial.
At the trial it was revealed that the tableau parties were attended by the “cream of Parisian society” including some Catholic priests. Not surprisingly Jacques was only sentenced to time served and a fine of 50 francs.
Due to the scandal, Jacque needed to cancel his engagement to his fiancée Blanche Suzanne Caroline de Maupeou, the daughter of a respected aristocratic.
Jacques decided to move to Capri, an island he loved as a child. Capri was popular with other famous homosexuals of the era, including Oscar Wilde, Somerset Maugham, and Robbie Ross. He purchased land on a hill top and commissioned a mansion to be built.
During construction he traveled to Rome where he met a 15 year old construction worker, Nino Cesarini. Sparks were ignited and Jacques arranged with Nino’s parents to hire him as a secretary and bring him back to Capri.
Jacques commissioned several artists of the day to immortalize Nino’s beauty, including a photo as a young martyr by Wilhelm von Plüschow, and portrait by Paul Hoecker. Both von Plüschow and Hoecker were gay as well.
But Jacques eventually succumbed to the excesses of his lifestyle. By 1914 he was addicted to opium. Then when he was hospitalized for the condition, he secretly used cocaine. He remained in Capri for the remainder of his life, often ensconced in his “Opiarium”. He died from a heart attack from a cocaine over dose at the age of 43.
(Jacques left 300,000 francs in his will to Nino, and the use of the Capri mansion during his life. Nino sold the mansion rights to Jacques sister for another 200,000 franc.)