Conventional wisdom has it that the duc d'Orleans was raised to be effeminate and passive so that he would never pose a threat to his older brother's kingship. One might suppose that the Chevalier de Lorraine, who routinely penetrates Monsieur, and who rules his affections, has thereby exploited a vulnerability in the ruling dynasty of France. That, again, is the conventional wisdom at Court. But now I was seeing it in a different light. One cannot penetrate without being encompassed, and the Chevalier de Lorraine is encompassed by Monsieur just as his territory has been encompassed by France. Louis invades and penetrates, his brother seduces and surrounds, they share a common will, they complement each other as brothers should. I see a homosexual who makes a sham marriage and spurns his wife for the love of a man. But Louis sees a brother who will fight a sham war in the Palatinate, supposedly to defend his wife's claim on that territory, while using his lover's fiefdom as a highway to transport matériel to the front.