Peyrefitte accused him of being a closet homosexual that chose his papal name after his lover's first name. Although his statements were published in a few discreet magazines, Peyrefitte was surprised and overjoyed when one day he watched in television the Pope addressing the issue in the heart of St. Peter's Square, complaining about the "horrible and slanderous insinuations" that were being said about the Holy Father and appealing for prayers on his behalf. In Les Ambassades (1951), he revealed the ins and outs of diplomacy. Peyrefitte also wrote a book full of gossip about Baron Jacques d'Adelswärd-Fersen's exile in Capri (L'Exilé de Capri, 1959) and translated Greek gay love poetry (La Muse garçonnière (The Boyish Muse), Flammarion, 1973). In his memoirs, Propos Secrets, he wrote extensively about his youth, his sex life (pederastic mainly and a few affairs with women), his years as a diplomat, his travels to Greece and Italy and his troubles with the police for sexually harassing male teenagers. He also gave vent to his fierce love of snobbish genealogizing and vitriolic well-documented gossip, writing about famous people of his time such as André Gide, Henry de Montherlant, François Mauriac, André Malraux, Jean Cocteau, Jean Genet, Marcel Jouhandeau, Marie-Laure de Noailles, Gaston Gallimard, Jean-Paul Sartre, Charles de Gaulle, Giscard d'Estaing, Georges Pompidou, among many others. Claiming he had reliable sources within the Vatican's "black aristocracy", once again he stated that three recent popes of the 20th century were homosexuals: Pius XII, John XXIII and Paul VI. He particularly loved to expose the hypocrisy and vanity of prominent people, to denounce fake aristocrats and to out closeted homosexuals. Roger Peyrefitte wrote popular historical biographies about Alexander the Great and Voltaire. In Voltaire et Frédéric II he claimed that Voltaire had been the passive lover of Frederick the Great. In spite of his libertarian views on sexuality, politically Peyrefitte was a conservative bourgeois and in his later years he supported the far-right politician Jean-Marie Le Pen. He died of Parkinson's disease at age 93. Legacy After his death, the city of Capri dedicated a plaque to him which is mounted near Villa Lysis and the inscription of which reads: A Roger Peyrefitte autore de L'esule di Capri per aver esaltato e diffuso il mito, la cultura e la bellezza dell'isola nel mondo. — "For Roger Peyrefitte, author of L'Exile de Capri, for having exalted and diffused the myth,