Mlle Raucourt, was a popular 18th-century actress until her affairs with women scandalized Paris and her career took a nosedive. Gay writers Henri-Lambert de Thibouville and Charles, marquis de Villette were both friends of Voltaire. Īmong the 17th century male aristocracy, Philippe I, Duke of Orléans and Louis Joseph de Bourbon, Duke of Vendôme were known to have relationships with men.
Historian Maurice Lever notes that by the eighteenth century, various subcultures had developed into a 'homosexual world' in Paris, 'with its own language, rules, codes, rivalries and clans.' There is also historical evidence that lesbian relationships occurred among aristocratic women of that century, as well as lesbian subcultures among the city's prostitutes.
Throughout the Middle Ages however, poor Parisian artisans were regularly convicted and sometimes executed for engaging in sodomy and other same-sex activities. Sibalis, who notes a twelfth-century poet's description of the city as full of 'the vice of Sodom'.
Paris' reputation as a center for queer life dates back as far as the Middle Ages, according to Michael D. Caricature of Chevalier d'Éon dressed half in women's clothes, half in men's clothes
