Georges Eekhoud

Laurent Paridael is a young man from a good bourgeois family, who is completely out of touch with his environment, and prefers to hang out with thugs from working-class neighborhoods. He is seduced by their freedom, their lack of culture, but also by the slenderness of their bodies, their naturally graceful gestures and wild charm.

The young Count Henry of Kehlmark returns to his homeland to settle in Escal-Vigor, the castle of his ancestors, located on a wild island in the North Sea. There, the aristocrat falls in love with Guidon Govaertz, a handsome peasant youth, who is rejected by his own family.

Set in the 16th century, it follows the story of the roofer Éloi Pruystinck -called Loïet le Couvreur- prophet of an anarchic movement, which constitutes the center of the Antwerp Libertines, nicknamed Loïstes. This historical novel contains notions of homosexuality.