Crimes of reason, crimes of passion: Suicide and the adulterous woman in nineteenth-century France

Journal of Family History

Volumn 24, Issue 2, 1999, Pages 131-147

  Lieberman, Lisa ^a  

^a DICKINSON COLLEGE   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 0033110633     PISSN: 03631990     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/036319909902400201     Document Type: Article

References (89)

1. Michelle Perrot, "Women, Power and History," in Writing Women's History, ed. Michelle Perrot, trans. Felicia Pheasant (Oxford, UK, 1984), 170.
2. Joan B. Landes, Women and the Public Sphere in the Age of the French Revolution (Ithaca, NY, 1988); Lynn Hunt, Politics, Culture, and Class in the French Revolution (Berkeley, CA, 1984); Dorinda Outram, The Body in the French Revolution: Sex, Class, and Political Culture (New Haven, CT, 1989).
3. Joan B. Landes, Women and the Public Sphere in the Age of the French Revolution (Ithaca, NY, 1988); Lynn Hunt, Politics, Culture, and Class in the French Revolution (Berkeley, CA, 1984); Dorinda Outram, The Body in the French Revolution: Sex, Class, and Political Culture (New Haven, CT, 1989).
4. Joan B. Landes, Women and the Public Sphere in the Age of the French Revolution (Ithaca, NY, 1988); Lynn Hunt, Politics, Culture, and Class in the French Revolution (Berkeley, CA, 1984); Dorinda Outram, The Body in the French Revolution: Sex, Class, and Political Culture (New Haven, CT, 1989).
5. Darlene Gay Levy and Harriet B. Applewhite, "Women and Militant Citizenship in Revolutionary Paris," in Rebel Daughters: Women and the French Revolution, eds. Sara E. Melzer and Leslie W. Rabine (Oxford, UK, 1992).
6. Theresa McBride, "Public Authority and Private Lives: Divorce after the French Revolution," French Historical Studies 17 (Spring 1992), 747-68. A discussion of the political implications of this change may be found in Lynn Hunt, "The Unstable Boundaries of the French Revolution," in A History of Private Life: From the Fires of Revolution to the Great War, ed. Michelle Perrot, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (Cambridge, MA, 1990), 33.
7. Theresa McBride, "Public Authority and Private Lives: Divorce after the French Revolution," French Historical Studies 17 (Spring 1992), 747-68. A discussion of the political implications of this change may be found in Lynn Hunt, "The Unstable Boundaries of the French Revolution," in A History of Private Life: From the Fires of Revolution to the Great War, ed. Michelle Perrot, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (Cambridge, MA, 1990), 33.
8. Joëlle Guillais, Crimes of Passion: Dramas of Private Life in Nineteenth-Century France, trans. Jane Dunnett (New York, 1990), 17.
9. Ibid.
10. In phrasing my inquiry in such terms, I have been influenced by the works of Joan W. Scott, notably "Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis," American Historical Review 91 (December 1986), 1053-75, and Joan Wallach Scott, Gender and the Politics of History (New York, 1988). Scott's discussion of the mid-nineteenth-century feminist Jean Deroin has proved especially useful for my purposes here. See also Joan Wallach Scott, Only Paradoxes to Offer: French Feminists and the Rights of Man (Cambridge, MA, 1996), 57-89.
11. In phrasing my inquiry in such terms, I have been influenced by the works of Joan W. Scott, notably "Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis," American Historical Review 91 (December 1986), 1053-75, and Joan Wallach Scott, Gender and the Politics of History (New York, 1988). Scott's discussion of the mid-nineteenth-century feminist Jean Deroin has proved especially useful for my purposes here. See also Joan Wallach Scott, Only Paradoxes to Offer: French Feminists and the Rights of Man (Cambridge, MA, 1996), 57-89.
12. In phrasing my inquiry in such terms, I have been influenced by the works of Joan W. Scott, notably "Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis," American Historical Review 91 (December 1986), 1053-75, and Joan Wallach Scott, Gender and the Politics of History (New York, 1988). Scott's discussion of the mid-nineteenth-century feminist Jean Deroin has proved especially useful for my purposes here. See also Joan Wallach Scott, Only Paradoxes to Offer: French Feminists and the Rights of Man (Cambridge, MA, 1996), 57-89.
13. The conjunction of these two images is the subject in Stéphane Michaud, Muse et madone: Visages de la femme de la Révolution française aux apparitions de Lourdes (Paris, 1985).
14. It was no accident that Mary should have been exulted at this time, and by the same Pontiff who would go on to proclaim himself infallible. Over the course of his thirty-two-year reign, Pius IX was engaged in a battle with anticlericalism. Twice he was defeated; during the 1848 revolution, he was driven from Rome, and with Italian unification, he was forced to concede his influence over the Holy City and retreat to the Vatican. The dogma of the Immaculate Conception began as a rear-guard action in this battle, a mechanism for rallying the faithful to the cause and a means of testing the loyalty of the soldiers within the ranks. In both regards, it was a magnificent success, initiating a burst of pious activity among Catholics throughout Europe. See Nicholas Perry and Loreto Echeverria, Under the Heel of Mary (London, 1988), 118. The Marian dogma, as Perry and Echeverria write, "though biologically vague, left no doubt about the fate of those who failed to acknowledge its truth" (ibid., 117).
15. It was no accident that Mary should have been exulted at this time, and by the same Pontiff who would go on to proclaim himself infallible. Over the course of his thirty-two-year reign, Pius IX was engaged in a battle with anticlericalism. Twice he was defeated; during the 1848 revolution, he was driven from Rome, and with Italian unification, he was forced to concede his influence over the Holy City and retreat to the Vatican. The dogma of the Immaculate Conception began as a rear-guard action in this battle, a mechanism for rallying the faithful to the cause and a means of testing the loyalty of the soldiers within the ranks. In both regards, it was a magnificent success, initiating a burst of pious activity among Catholics throughout Europe. See Nicholas Perry and Loreto Echeverria, Under the Heel of Mary (London, 1988), 118. The Marian dogma, as Perry and Echeverria write, "though biologically vague, left no doubt about the fate of those who failed to acknowledge its truth" (ibid., 117).
16. Ibid., 120. Perry and Echeverria also note that the government of the Second Empire assiduously restored images of the Blessed Virgin destroyed during the 1848 revolution (ibid., 109).
17. Ibid., 120. Perry and Echeverria also note that the government of the Second Empire assiduously restored images of the Blessed Virgin destroyed during the 1848 revolution (ibid., 109).
18. On the female iconography of Liberty and the republic, see Maurice Agulhon, Marianne au combat: L'imagerie de la symbolique républicaines de 1789 à 1880 (Paris, 1970). The conscious attempt by the revolutionaries in 1789 to substitute Marianne for the Virgin is discussed by Hunt, Politics, Culture, and Class, 60-62, 93.
19. On the female iconography of Liberty and the republic, see Maurice Agulhon, Marianne au combat: L'imagerie de la symbolique républicaines de 1789 à 1880 (Paris, 1970). The conscious attempt by the revolutionaries in 1789 to substitute Marianne for the Virgin is discussed by Hunt, Politics, Culture, and Class, 60-62, 93.
20. For the historical development of this theme, see Marina Warner, Alone of All Her Sex: The Myth and Cult of the Virgin Mary (New York, 1976).
21. This point is emphasized by Joan Landes, "Representing the Body Politic: The Paradox of Gender in the Graphic Politics of the French Revolution," in Rebel Daughters: Women and the French Revolution, eds. Sara E. Melzer and Leslie W. Rabine (Oxford, UK, 1992), 15-37. A more general discussion of the social and political implications of feminine allegorical figures may be found in Marina Warner, Of Monuments and Maidens: The Allegory of the Female Form (New York, 1985 ).
22. This point is emphasized by Joan Landes, "Representing the Body Politic: The Paradox of Gender in the Graphic Politics of the French Revolution," in Rebel Daughters: Women and the French Revolution, eds. Sara E. Melzer and Leslie W. Rabine (Oxford, UK, 1992), 15-37. A more general discussion of the social and political implications of feminine allegorical figures may be found in Marina Warner, Of Monuments and Maidens: The Allegory of the Female Form (New York, 1985 ).
23. A fascinating exploration of this tendency in the eighteenth century may be found in Madelyn Gutwirth, The Twilight of the Goddesses: Women and Representation in the French Revolutionary Era (New Brunswick, NJ, 1992).
24. Much attention in feminist studies has been focused on the bipolarities that govern gendered discourse, particularly in the nineteenth century. Among the works that I have found most useful are Ludmilla Jordanova, Sexual Visions: Images of Gender in Science and Medicine between the Eighteenth and Twentieth Centuries (London, 1989); Sandra Lee Bartky, Femininity and Domination (New York, 1990); and Scott, Only Paradoxes to Offer.
25. Much attention in feminist studies has been focused on the bipolarities that govern gendered discourse, particularly in the nineteenth century. Among the works that I have found most useful are Ludmilla Jordanova, Sexual Visions: Images of Gender in Science and Medicine between the Eighteenth and Twentieth Centuries (London, 1989); Sandra Lee Bartky, Femininity and Domination (New York, 1990); and Scott, Only Paradoxes to Offer.
26. Much attention in feminist studies has been focused on the bipolarities that govern gendered discourse, particularly in the nineteenth century. Among the works that I have found most useful are Ludmilla Jordanova, Sexual Visions: Images of Gender in Science and Medicine between the Eighteenth and Twentieth Centuries (London, 1989); Sandra Lee Bartky, Femininity and Domination (New York, 1990); and Scott, Only Paradoxes to Offer.
27. The fragility of masculine authority in nineteenth-century France was counterbalanced by the extension of aristocratic honor codes among the bourgeoisie. See Robert Nye, Masculinity and Male Codes of Honor in Modern France (Oxford, UK, 1993).
28. Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary, trans. Mildred Marmur (New York, 1964), 294, 307.
29. A suggestive discussion of the subversiveness of Flaubert's heroine may be found in Nathalie Buchet Rogers, "Adultère, arsenic ou crème à la vanille? Écrire le scandale dans Madame Bovary," in Nineteenth-Century French Studies 26 (Fall-Winter 1997-98), 104-18. Rogers' study augments the conclusions reached by Dominick LaCapra, Madame Bovary on Trial (Ithaca, NY, 1982). See also Naomi Schor, Breaking the Chain: Women, Theory, and French Realist Fiction (New York, 1985).
30. A suggestive discussion of the subversiveness of Flaubert's heroine may be found in Nathalie Buchet Rogers, "Adultère, arsenic ou crème à la vanille? Écrire le scandale dans Madame Bovary," in Nineteenth-Century French Studies 26 (Fall-Winter 1997-98), 104-18. Rogers' study augments the conclusions reached by Dominick LaCapra, Madame Bovary on Trial (Ithaca, NY, 1982). See also Naomi Schor, Breaking the Chain: Women, Theory, and French Realist Fiction (New York, 1985).
31. A suggestive discussion of the subversiveness of Flaubert's heroine may be found in Nathalie Buchet Rogers, "Adultère, arsenic ou crème à la vanille? Écrire le scandale dans Madame Bovary," in Nineteenth-Century French Studies 26 (Fall-Winter 1997-98), 104-18. Rogers' study augments the conclusions reached by Dominick LaCapra, Madame Bovary on Trial (Ithaca, NY, 1982). See also Naomi Schor, Breaking the Chain: Women, Theory, and French Realist Fiction (New York, 1985).
32. "The Trial of 'Madame Bovary': Speech for the Defense," reprinted in Flaubert, Madame Bovary, 348, 351, 357.
33. Ibid., "Verdict," 402.
34. Ibid., "Speech for the Prosecution," 340, 347.
35. In this regard, Madame Bovary had an eighteenth-century precursor m Roxanne, the heroine of Montesquieu's Persian Letters who violated the sanctity of the seraglio by taking a lover, inciting the other wives to rebellion, and then, when her cause was lost, killing herself in what clearly was a gesture of defiance of her husband's authority. Although I do not mean to suggest that Emma and Roxanne are alike in terms of character, it is significant that the themes of adultery and suicide were linked to subversive females in both works.
36. Carol Blum, Rousseau and the Republic of Virtue: The Language of Politics in the French Revolution (Ithaca, NY, 1986).
37. Flaubert, Madame Bovary, 51.
38. Ibid., 116-17.
39. Ibid., 119.
40. Ibid., 163.
41. Ibid., 262.
42. Ibid., 266.
43. Charles Baudelaire, "Madame Bovary," in Oeuvres complètes, vol. 2 (Paris, 1976), 82. In "The Uses of Male Hysteria: Medical and Literary Discourse in Nineteenth-Century France," Representations 34 (1991), 134-65, Jan Goldstein explores the implications of Madame Bovary's androgyny for Flaubert himself.
44. Charles Baudelaire, "Madame Bovary," in Oeuvres complètes, vol. 2 (Paris, 1976), 82. In "The Uses of Male Hysteria: Medical and Literary Discourse in Nineteenth-Century France," Representations 34 (1991), 134-65, Jan Goldstein explores the implications of Madame Bovary's androgyny for Flaubert himself.
45. Baudelaire, "Madame Bovary," 82-83.
46. Jules Barbey D'Aurevilly, "M. Gustave Flaubert," in Critical Essays on Gustave Flaubert, ed. Laurence M. Porter (Boston, 1986), 52.
47. Ibid., 53.
48. For much of the nineteenth century, girls' education emphasized these virtues. See Rebecca Rogers, "Boarding Schools, Women Teachers, and Domesticity: Reforming Girls' Secondary Education in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century," French Historical Studies 19 (Spring 1995), 152-81.
49. Flaubert, Madame Bovary, 59.
50. Ibid.
51. Barbey, "M. Gustave Flaubert," 55.
52. Le Procès de Madame Lafarge (Paris, 1840), 405. Quoted in Mary S. Hartman, Victorian Murderesses: A True History of Thirteen Respectable French and English Women Accused of Unspeakable Crimes (New York, 1976), 34.
53. Le Procès de Madame Lafarge (Paris, 1840), 405. Quoted in Mary S. Hartman, Victorian Murderesses: A True History of Thirteen Respectable French and English Women Accused of Unspeakable Crimes (New York, 1976), 34.
54. Hartman, Victorian Murderesses, 14, 37.
55. Quoted by Michelle Perrot in her essay, "The Family Triumphant," in A History of Private Life, ed. Perrot, 105. For a fuller discussion of this issue, see Lynn Hunt, The Family Romance of the French Revolution (Berkeley, CA, 1992), 1-16.
56. Quoted by Michelle Perrot in her essay, "The Family Triumphant," in A History of Private Life, ed. Perrot, 105. For a fuller discussion of this issue, see Lynn Hunt, The Family Romance of the French Revolution (Berkeley, CA, 1992), 1-16.
57. Alexandre Dumas, fils, L'Homme-Femme: Réponse à M. Henri D'Ideville, 7th ed. (Paris, 1872), 51, 54, 174.
58. Eugène Poitou, Du Roman et du théâtre contemporains et de leur influence sur les moeurs, 2nd ed. (Paris, 1858) 72, 128, 200.
59. The parallels that nineteenth-century social scientists perceived between disruptive women and crowd behavior is the subject of Susannah Barrows, Distorting Mirrors: Visions of the Crowd in Late Nineteenth-Century France (New Haven, CT, 1981).
60. Gustave Flaubert, Flaubert in Egypt: A Sensibility on Tour (New York, 1979).
61. Charles Bourdin, Du Suicide considéré comme maladie (Batignolles, France, 1845), 54.
62. Alexandre Brierre de Boismont, Du Suicide et de la folie suicide considéré dans leur rapports avec la statistique, la médecine et la philosophie (Paris, 1856), 118.
63. Ibid., 23-27.
64. Alexandre Parent-Duchâtelet, La Prostitution à Paris au XIXième siècle, ed. Alain Corbin (Paris, 1981). For an analysis of Parent-Duchâtelet's findings, see Jill Harsin, Policing Prostitution in Nineteenth-Century Paris (Princeton, NJ, 1985), and Alain Corbin, Les Filles de noce: Misère sexuelle et prostitution au XIXe et XXe siècles (Paris, 1978). The relationship that nineteenth-century observers perceived between prostitution and political disorder is the subject of a chapter by T. J. Clark, "Olympia's Choice," in The Painting of Modern Life: Paris in the Art of Manet and his Followers (New York, 1985), 79-146. A discussion of the representation of prostitution in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries may be found in Leslie Choquette, "Degenerate or Degendered? Images of Prostitution and Homosexuality in the French Third Republic," Historical Reflections 23 (Spring 1997), 205-28.
65. Alexandre Parent-Duchâtelet, La Prostitution à Paris au XIXième siècle, ed. Alain Corbin (Paris, 1981). For an analysis of Parent-Duchâtelet's findings, see Jill Harsin, Policing Prostitution in Nineteenth-Century Paris (Princeton, NJ, 1985), and Alain Corbin, Les Filles de noce: Misère sexuelle et prostitution au XIXe et XXe siècles (Paris, 1978). The relationship that nineteenth-century observers perceived between prostitution and political disorder is the subject of a chapter by T. J. Clark, "Olympia's Choice," in The Painting of Modern Life: Paris in the Art of Manet and his Followers (New York, 1985), 79-146. A discussion of the representation of prostitution in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries may be found in Leslie Choquette, "Degenerate or Degendered? Images of Prostitution and Homosexuality in the French Third Republic," Historical Reflections 23 (Spring 1997), 205-28.
66. Alexandre Parent-Duchâtelet, La Prostitution à Paris au XIXième siècle, ed. Alain Corbin (Paris, 1981). For an analysis of Parent-Duchâtelet's findings, see Jill Harsin, Policing Prostitution in Nineteenth-Century Paris (Princeton, NJ, 1985), and Alain Corbin, Les Filles de noce: Misère sexuelle et prostitution au XIXe et XXe siècles (Paris, 1978). The relationship that nineteenth-century observers perceived between prostitution and political disorder is the subject of a chapter by T. J. Clark, "Olympia's Choice," in The Painting of Modern Life: Paris in the Art of Manet and his Followers (New York, 1985), 79-146. A discussion of the representation of prostitution in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries may be found in Leslie Choquette, "Degenerate or Degendered? Images of Prostitution and Homosexuality in the French Third Republic," Historical Reflections 23 (Spring 1997), 205-28.
67. Alexandre Parent-Duchâtelet, La Prostitution à Paris au XIXième siècle, ed. Alain Corbin (Paris, 1981). For an analysis of Parent-Duchâtelet's findings, see Jill Harsin, Policing Prostitution in Nineteenth-Century Paris (Princeton, NJ, 1985), and Alain Corbin, Les Filles de noce: Misère sexuelle et prostitution au XIXe et XXe siècles (Paris, 1978). The relationship that nineteenth-century observers perceived between prostitution and political disorder is the subject of a chapter by T. J. Clark, "Olympia's Choice," in The Painting of Modern Life: Paris in the Art of Manet and his Followers (New York, 1985), 79-146. A discussion of the representation of prostitution in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries may be found in Leslie Choquette, "Degenerate or Degendered? Images of Prostitution and Homosexuality in the French Third Republic," Historical Reflections 23 (Spring 1997), 205-28.
68. Alexandre Parent-Duchâtelet, La Prostitution à Paris au XIXième siècle, ed. Alain Corbin (Paris, 1981). For an analysis of Parent-Duchâtelet's findings, see Jill Harsin, Policing Prostitution in Nineteenth-Century Paris (Princeton, NJ, 1985), and Alain Corbin, Les Filles de noce: Misère sexuelle et prostitution au XIXe et XXe siècles (Paris, 1978). The relationship that nineteenth-century observers perceived between prostitution and political disorder is the subject of a chapter by T. J. Clark, "Olympia's Choice," in The Painting of Modern Life: Paris in the Art of Manet and his Followers (New York, 1985), 79-146. A discussion of the representation of prostitution in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries may be found in Leslie Choquette, "Degenerate or Degendered? Images of Prostitution and Homosexuality in the French Third Republic," Historical Reflections 23 (Spring 1997), 205-28.
69. My conclusion here is consistent with the findings of Patricia O'Brien in regard to middle-class women who shoplifted from department stores. See "The Kleptomania Diagnosis: Bourgeois Women and Theft in Late 19th-century France," Journal of Social History 11 (Spring 1978): 65-77. On the issue of female sexual virility and prostitution, see Jacques Revel, "Masculine and Feminine: The Historiographical Use of Sexual Roles," in Writing Women's History, ed. Perrot, 90-105.
70. My conclusion here is consistent with the findings of Patricia O'Brien in regard to middle-class women who shoplifted from department stores. See "The Kleptomania Diagnosis: Bourgeois Women and Theft in Late 19th-century France," Journal of Social History 11 (Spring 1978): 65-77. On the issue of female sexual virility and prostitution, see Jacques Revel, "Masculine and Feminine: The Historiographical Use of Sexual Roles," in Writing Women's History, ed. Perrot, 90-105.
71. A suggestive discussion of the masculine anxieties that informed romantic literature may be found in Alain Corbin, "A Sex in Mourning: The History of Women in the Nineteenth Century," in Writing Women's History, ed. Perrot, 106-17.
72. On women writers and patriarchy, see Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, The Madwoman in the Attic (New Haven, CT, 1979), and Whitney Walton, "Sailing a Fragile Bark: Rewriting the Family and the Individual in Nineteenth-Century France," Journal of Family History 22 (April 1997), 150-75.
73. On women writers and patriarchy, see Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, The Madwoman in the Attic (New Haven, CT, 1979), and Whitney Walton, "Sailing a Fragile Bark: Rewriting the Family and the Individual in Nineteenth-Century France," Journal of Family History 22 (April 1997), 150-75.
74. Ibid., 357.
75. Staël, Corinne, 261.
76. Ibid., 124.
77. Ibid., 301. Oswald's response is worth noting: "Ah! if that is so, may your genius be hushed, and may your heart be all mine!" (ibid., 302).
78. Ibid., 301. Oswald's response is worth noting: "Ah! if that is so, may your genius be hushed, and may your heart be all mine!" (ibid., 302).
79. Ibid., 330.
80. Ibid., 315.
81. Ibid., 272, 276, 280, emphasis in original.
82. Ibid., 419.
83. Ibid.
84. A fuller discussion of Corinne, and the relationship of the novel to Staël's own life, may be found in Madelyn Gutwirth, Madame de Staël, Novelist: The Emergence of the Artist as Woman (Urbana, IL, 1978). have also benefited from reading the collection of essays edited by Madelyn Gutwirth, Avriel Goldberger, and Karyna Szmurlo, Germaine de Staël: Crossing the Borders (New Brunswick, NJ, 1991).
85. A fuller discussion of Corinne, and the relationship of the novel to Staël's own life, may be found in Madelyn Gutwirth, Madame de Staël, Novelist: The Emergence of the Artist as Woman (Urbana, IL, 1978). I have also benefited from reading the collection of essays edited by Madelyn Gutwirth, Avriel Goldberger, and Karyna Szmurlo, Germaine de Staël: Crossing the Borders (New Brunswick, NJ, 1991).
86. George Sand, Lélia (Paris, 1960), 48.
87. Ibid., 48, 95, 172.
88. Ibid., 60, 207, 216-17.
89. Ibid., 96, 324.