The Perraud affair: Clergy, church, and sexual politics in Fin-de-SièCle France

Journal of Modern History

Volumn 70, Issue 3, 1998, Pages 588-618

  Kselman, Thomas ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 33750233324     PISSN: 00222801     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1086/235118     Document Type: Article

References (169)

1. Albert Houtin, Un prêtre marié: Charles Perraud, chanoine honoraire d'Autun, 1831-1892 (Paris, 1908);
2. in general my references are to the English translation, Albert Houtin, A Married Priest, trans. J. R. Slattery (Boston, 1910).
3. Augustin Largent, L'abbé Charles Perraud (Paris, 1895).
4. Eugen Weber, "About Thermidor: The Oblique Uses of a Scandal," French Historical Studies 17 (1991): 330.
5. For good recent summaries of the Dreyfus affair see Jean-Denis Bredin, The Affair: The Case of Alfred Dreyfus, trans. Jeffrey Mehlman (New York, 1986);
6. and Michael Burns, Dreyfus: A Family Affair (New York, 1992).
7. Henriette Caillaux was acquitted in 1914 for the murder of the newspaper editor Gaston Calmette. The trial drew national attention because Madame Caillaux was the wife of Joseph Caillaux, a leading Radical politician and former prime minister. She murdered Calmette after he published a compromising private letter from Joseph to his former mistress and first wife. Madame Caillaux admitted that she killed Calmette, but she was acquitted when the jury accepted her plea that the act was a crime of passion for which she was not culpable. See Edward Berenson, The Trial of Madame Caillaux (Berkeley, Calif., 1992).
8. The deaths of Cardinal Jean Daniélou in 1974 and Bishop Roger Tort in 1975 provide recent examples of how sexual scandals involving the clergy still draw interest in France; for the press coverage on Daniélou, who was found dead in the apartment of a nightclub stripper, see "L'épiscopat et la mémoire du cardinal Daniélou," Le monde (June 16-17), p. 16; "French Church Attacks Reports Cardinal Died in Woman's Room," New York Times (June 25, 1974). Recent cases that have drawn attention include the Bishop of Kerry's affair with Anne Murphy, recounted in lurid detail in her memoirs, coauthored with Peter de Rosa, Forbidden Fruit: The True Story of My Secret Love Affair with Ireland's Most Powerful Bishop (Boston, 1993).
9. The novels of the Catholic priest Andrew Greeley frequently deal with the issue of sexuality; see his first bestseller, The Cardinal Sins (New York, 1982).
10. Some features of the Perraud affair resemble the scandal involving Bishop William O'Connell of Boston and his nephew who was married during a seven-year period (1913-20) in which he was also chancellor of the diocese. See James M. O'Toole, Militant and Triumphant: William Henry O'Connell and the Catholic Church in Boston, 1859-1944 (Notre Dame, Ind., 1992), pp. 176-207.
11. Berenson, p. 103.
12. Robert Nye, Masculinity and Male Codes of Honor in Modern France (New York, 1993),
13. and "Sexuality, Sex Difference, and the Cult of Modern Love in the French Third Republic," Historical Reflections/Réflexions historiques 20 (1994): 57-76;
14. Annelise Maugue, L'identité masculine en crise au tournant du siècle (Paris, 1987);
15. Anthony Copley, Sexual Moralities in France, 1780-1980 (New York, 1989);
16. Peter Gay, The Bourgeois Experience: Victoria to Freud, vol. 1, Education of the Senses (New York, 1984), pp. 169-225;
17. George Mosse, "Masculinity and the Decadence," in Sexual Knowledge, Sexual Science: The History of Attitudes to Sexuality, ed. Roy Porter and Mikulas Teich (New York, 1994), pp. 251-66;
18. Bram Dijkstra, Idols of Perversity: Fantasies of Feminine Evil in Fin-de-Siècle Culture (New York, 1986);
19. James McMillan, Housewife or Harlot: The Place of Women in French Society, 1870-1914 (New York, 1981);
20. Steven C. Hause with Anne R. Kenney, Women's Suffrage and Social Politics in the French Third Republic (Princeton, N.J., 1984).
21. Mary Louise Roberts, Civilization without Sexes: Reconstructing Gender in Postwar France, 1917-1927 (Chicago, 1994), p. 8, notes that the postwar debates she focuses on "simply continued a decades-long pattern in which gender issues were at the forefront of French political, social, and literary discourse."
22. Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, vol. 1, An Introduction (New York, 1980), pp. 17-21, 58-62.
23. Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, vol. 1, An Introduction Ibid., p. 110.
24. Jules Michelet, Le prêtre, la femme, et la famille, 7th ed. (1845; Paris, 1862).
25. For an argument that sees the "scientific" experts criticized by Foucault as a new and expanded clergy see Paul Cohen, "The Priest, the Wife, and the Experts: Anticlericalism, Freedom, and Masculinity in Michelet and Foucault" (paper presented at the meeting of the Society for French Historical Studies, Lexington, Ky., March 21-22, 1997). For an intriguing argument that reveals close connections between clerical celibacy and liberal positions on Jewish and female emancipation in Baden during the 1830s and 1840s see Dagmar Herzog, Intimacy and Exclusion: Religious Politics in Pre-Revolutionary Baden (Princeton, N.J., 1996).
26. Recent surveys of French religion in the nineteenth century include Philippe Joutard, ed., Histoire de la France religieuse, vol. 3, Du roi très chrétien à la laïcité républicaine (Paris, 1991);
27. Gérard Cholvy and Yves-Marie Hilaire, Histoire religieuse de la France contemporaine, 2 vols. (Paris, 1985, 1986);
28. Ralph Gibson, A Social History of French Catholicism, 1789-1914 (New York, 1989).
29. For general assessments of the historiography of religion in modern Europe see David Blackbourn, "The Catholic Church in Europe since the French Revolution," Comparative Studies in Society and History 33 (1991): 778-90;
30. Caroline Ford, "Religion and Popular Culture in Modern Europe," Journal of Modern History 65 (1993): 152-75.
31. For an example of how a scandal involving a woman can be used to illuminate the relationship between religion and gender see Caroline Ford, "Private Lives and Public Order in Restoration France: The Seduction of Emily Loveday," American Historical Review 99 (1994): 21-43.
32. The Oratory, "L'oratoire de Jésus-Christ et de Marie Immaculée," was a loosely organized congregation of secular priests who lived together but took no vows and were responsible for supporting themselves as individuals. See Marvin O'Connell, Critics on Trial: An Introduction to the Catholic Modernist Crisis (Washington, D.C., 1994), pp. 81-82.
33. Charles Perraud, Le christianisme et le progrès: Conférences de Saint-Ambroise, 4th ed. (Paris, 1883), pp. 2-3.
34. Jean-Rémy Palanque, Catholiques libéraux et gallicans en France face au concile du Vatican, 1867-1870 (Aix-en-Provence, 1962).
35. Michelet (n. 10 above). Jean Maurain, La politique ecclésiastique du Second Empire de 1852 à 1869 (Paris, 1930), pp. 435-44, 533-40.
36. Michael Paul Driskell, Representing Belief: Religion, Art, and Society in Nineteenth-Century France (University Park, Pa., 1992), p. 43, calls particular attention to the role of the anticlerical newspaper Opinion nationale, which "made a specialty of reporting cases of immorality among the clergy." For press coverage of the attempt by the superior of the Christian Brothers to warn his congregation of the new governmental policy see Le temps (May 24, May 28, and June 1, 1861). The Superior's frank language allowed the journalists of Le temps to use his circular letter as evidence for the gravity of the threat from the clergy.
37. Barbey d'Aurevilly, Un prêtre marié (1864; Paris, 1993). Philippe Berthier has provided a useful introduction to this Flammarion edition in which he notes that "the question of the marriage of priests agitated a great deal of opinion during the Second Empire" (p. 3).
38. Abbé [Jean-Hippolyte Michon], Le maudit, 6th ed., vol. 3 (Paris, 1864), pp. 221-38. Michon followed the success of Le maudit with La religieuse (Paris, 1864),
39. Le Jésuite (Paris, 1865),
40. Le moine (Paris, 1865),
41. Le confesseur (Brussels, 1866),
42. and Le curé de campagne (Paris, 1867).
43. For an account of the affair of Monseigneur Fournier, from the diocese of Nantes, with a married woman, see Marcel Launay, Le diocèse de Nantes sous le Second Empire, vol. 2 (Nantes, 1982), pp. 810-25. Launay's account is a rare example of how the Church dealt internally with illicit unions; Fournier eventually terminated his relationship and, despite strong objections from his predecessor, was named bishop of Nantes in 1870.
44. Claude Savart, L'abbé Jean-Hippolyte Michon, 1806-1881: Contribution à l'étude du libéralisme catholique au XIXe siècle (Paris, 1971 ), pp. 171-95;
45. Philip Spencer, Politics of Belief in Nineteenth-Century France (London, 1954), pp. 182-91.
46. Savart, pp. 174-78.
47. Letter from Perraud to Loyson, May 1, 1870, cited in Houtin, Married Priest (n. 1 above), p. 14.
48. Largent (n. 2 above), p. 39.
49. Houtin, Married Priest, p. 16.
50. Archives Nationales (henceforth A.N.) F 19 5508 includes several files tracing the series of judicial cases that led to the 1887 decision. See in particular the file "Projet de la loi Raspail," which describes the attempt of a Radical deputy in 1877 to reform the law so as to allow priests to marry in a civil ceremony. For the decision of the Cour de Cassation finally permitting such marriages, see La gazette des tribunaux (January 29, 1888).
51. Hyacinthe Loyson, My Last Will and Testament (London, 1895), pp. 23, 27.
52. Hyacinthe Loyson, The Family and the Church, trans. L. W. Bacon (New York, 1870).
53. For the career and marriage of Loyson see Lucienne Portier, Christianisme, églises et religions - Le dossier Hyacinthe Loyson (1827-1912) (Louvain-la-Neuve, 1982), pp. 39-59.
54. Loyson to Perraud, letter of February 1, 1883, in Houtin, Married Priest, p. 68.
55. Houtin, Married Priest, p. 46.
56. Loyson, My Last Will, pp. 20-21.
57. For a standard defense of celibacy see "Célibat," Dictionnaire des objections populaires contre le dogme, la morale, la discipline et l'histoire de l'église catholique (Paris, 1860), pp. 251-62.
58. A similar position is defended in M. Pernet, Le célibat considéré dans ses rapports religieux et politiques (Paris, 1835),
59. summarized in Philippe Boutry, Prêtres et paroisses au pays du curé d'Ars (Paris, 1986), pp. 218-22.
60. Houtin, Married Priest (n. 1 above), p. 35.
61. The passage in French reads: "X et Z [Perraud's code for himself and Madame Duval], pour des motifs que je ne puis vous exposer, n'avaient à choisir qu'entre divers genres de mort; ils ont décidé d'un commun accord d'essayer de nouveau celui auquel une souffrance poussée jusqu'au paroxysme les avaient violemment et subitement arrachés, il y a un an." Houtin, Prêtre marié (n. 1 above), p. 42. The dating of the letter suggests that the "marriage" of 1872 coincided with an acknowledgment of their inability to forego sexual relations.
62. Houtin, Married Priest, p. 35.
63. Houtin, Married Priest, p. Ibid., p. 56.
64. Abbé Plaus, "La mort et les funérailles de M. l'abbé Charles Perraud," and "Allocution prononcé au service funèbre célébré pour le repos de l'âme de l'abbé Charles Perraud dans l'église cathédrale d'Autun," in his Allocutions et discours (Paris, 1895); Largent (n. 2 above).
65. Albert Houtin, Les origines de l'église d'Angers (Lavai, 1901),
66. La question biblique chez les catholiques en France au XIXe siècle (Paris, 1902),
67. La question biblique au XXe siècle (Paris, 1906).
68. Gary Lease, "Denunciation as a Tool of Ecclesiastical Control: The Case of Roman Catholic Modernism," Journal of Modern History 68 (1996): 819-30; O'Connell (n. 13 above).
69. For the preparation of the Perraud biography see Bibliothèque Nationale, nouvelles acquisitions françaises 15721, Papiers Houtin (letters exchanged between Paul Loyson and Houtin). For a narrative of the issues and events that led to the papal condemnation see O'Connell.
70. Loisy, e.g., claimed in his response to the papal condemnation, which associated modernism with an attack on celibacy, that "I have never said a word on the question of celibacy ... because, given the general system of ecclesiastical government and action, it could be usefully discussed and resolved only after other issues have been dealt with." Cited in Albert Houtin, Autour d'un prêtre marié (Paris, 1910), p. 77.
71. The English modernist George Tyrrell, however, wrote in very positive terms to Houtin, congratulating him for the attack on celibacy. See Houtin, Autour d'un prêtre marié, pp. 209-13.
72. Emile Poulat, Histoire, dogme et critique dans la crise moderniste (Paris, 1962), pp. 354-55.
73. Houtin, Autour d'un prêtre marié, p. xi.
74. See also Houtin's critique of modernist hypocrisy in Albert Houtin, La crise du clergé, 2d ed. (Paris, 1908), pp. 190-95.
75. Albert Houtin, Mon expérience, I, une vie de prêtre, 1867-1912, 2d ed. (Paris, 1928), p. 430.
76. Houtin, Autour d'un prêtre marié. Houtin sought to emphasize the similarities between his argument for a reform of celibacy and the more erudite case for a historically sophisticated approach to the scriptures in his sequel to A Married Priest, for just as Loisy followed his famous L'evangile et l'église with a response to his critics entitled Autour d'un petit livre, Houtin followed Un prêtre marié with Autour d'un prêtre marié.
77. John McManners, Church and State in France, 1870-1914 (New York, 1972);
78. Maurice Larkin, Church and State after the Dreyfus Affair (London, 1974).
79. See A.N. F 19 5508 for an extensive file of clippings from these and other papers. After the initial wave of interest in the fall of 1908, the controversy faded for a time, but it was revived when the Oratorians responded with a brochure attacking Houtin's book in the spring of 1909. Press interest in the Perraud affair disappeared by 1910.
80. L'action (November 16, 1908); Michelet (n. 10 above). Confession was attacked consistently in the popular novels of Michon, Le maudit and Le confesseur (n. 18 above).
81. Emile Zola took up the theme in La conquête de Plassans (1874; Paris, 1972).
82. The importance of confession for anticlericals is emphasized in Theodore Zeldin, "The Conflict of Moralities: Confession, Sin, and Pleasure in the Nineteenth Century," in his Conflicts in French Society: Anticlericalism, Education, and Morals in the Nineteenth Century (London, 1970), pp. 13-50;
83. Geoffrey Cubitt, The Jesuit Myth: Conspiracy Theory and Politics in Nineteenth-Century France (Oxford, 1993), pp. 235-40.
84. Traditional anticlerical attacks on the clerical exploitation of the confessional still appear in contemporary France, as in Guy Bechtel, La chair, le diable et le confesseur (Paris, 1994).
85. L'action (November 16, 1908).
86. The Comtesse de Flaviac, a fictional character in Michon, Le Jésuite (n. 18 above), is an early example of this image of a sexually aggressive woman excited by the possibility of seducing a priest.
87. Rappel (December 12, 1910).
88. Michelet and Zola also noted the sexual ambiguity of the clergy; see Cubitt, p. 239; Emile Zola, The Sin of Father Mouret, trans. Sandy Petrey (1875; Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1969), pp. 239, 242.
89. L'eclair (November 4, 1908). In A.N. F 19 5508.
90. Réponse à MM Loyson et Houtin (Paris, n.d.), p. 33.
91. Henry Charles Lea, History of Sacerdotal Celibacy in the Christian Church (1867; New Hyde Park, N. Y., 1966)
92. provides a catalog of priestly wrongdoing and a criticism of celibacy from the origins of Christianity to the nineteenth century, but it is insensitive to the shifting cultural contexts within which the issue is discussed. Uta Ranke-Heinemann, Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven: Women, Sexuality, and the Catholic Church, trans. Peter Heinegg (New York, 1990), is useful for its coverage of the entire history of Christianity but is unremittingly hostile.
93. In more balanced accounts Peter Brown, The Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity (New York, 1988);
94. and Elaine Pagels, Adam, Eve, and the Serpent (New York, 1988) suggest the deep roots and central importance of sexual renunciation in the Christian tradition.
95. For a brief survey inspired by the ideas of Michel Foucault see Michel Despland, Christianisme, dossier corps (Paris, 1987).
96. Martine Sevegrand uses the issue of contraception to explore the relationship of the Church and Catholics to sexuality in Les enfants du Bon Dieu: Les catholique s français et la procréation au XXe siècle (Paris, 1995).
97. René Tavenaux, Le Catholicisme dans la France classique, 1610-1715, vol. 2 (Paris, 1994), pp. 137-43;
98. Thérèse-Jean Schmitt, L'Organisation Ecclésiastique et la pratique religieuse dans l'archdiaconé d'Autun (Autun, 1957), pp. 133-34;
99. Alain Lottin, Lille, citadelle de la Contre Réforme, 1598-1668 (Lille, 1984), pp. 103-4;
100. Robert Sauzet, Les visites pastorales dans le diocèse de Chartres pendant la première moitié du XVIIe siècle (Rome, 1985), pp. 137-41.
101. Stephen Haliczer, Sexuality in the Confessional: A Sacrament Profaned (New York, 1996), argues that the "sacramentalism" of the Counter-Reformation resulted in "a massive effort to breathe new life into the sacrament of penance," a tactic that had as an unintended consequence an increase in the solicitation of women in the confessional.
102. Timothy Tackett, Priest and Parish in Eighteenth-Century France (Princeton, N.J., 1977), pp. 191-92.
103. B. Robert Kreiser, "The Devils of Toulon: Demonic Possession and Religious Politics in Eighteenth-Century Provence," in Church, State, and Society under the Bourbon Kings of France, ed. Richard Golden (Lawrence, Kans., 1982), pp. 173-221.
104. Robert Darnton, The Forbidden Best-Sellers of Pre-Revolutionary France (New York, 1995), p. 91. The clergy were already prominent figures in seventeenth-century pornography such as L'académie des dames (Paris, 1680), which appeared in France in 1680;
105. see Lynn Hunt, "Introduction: Obscenity and the Origins of Modernity," in The Invention of Pornography, ed. Lynn Hunt (New York, 1993), pp. 27-29. The character of Tartuffe in Molière's play, though not an ordained clergyman, provoked a major controversy in the 1660s because he used his status as a spiritual advisor as cover for his seductive projects.
106. Damton, p. 284.
107. Aventures et mariage de l'abbé Maury [s.l., ca. 1791; Case collection, Newberry Library 1212].
108. A nos seigneurs des Etats-Généraux: Mémoire sur le célibat des curés de campagne (1789) [Case collection, Newberry Library 41];
109. Projet de loi sur le clergé et utilité du mariage des prêtres (1789) [Case collection, Newberry Library 7221];
110. Le mariage des prêtres, ou récit de ce qui s'est passé à trois séances des assemblés généraux du district du Saint-Etienne-du-Mont, où l'on a agité la question du mariage des prêtres (1790) [Case collection, Newberry Library 6542].
111. Michel Vovelle, La révolution contre l'église: De la raison à l'Etre Suprême (Paris, 1988), p. 135.
112. Speech of Abbé Cournand cited in Le mariage des prêtres, p. 33.
113. Paul-Louis Courier, "Réponses aux anonymes qui ont écrit des lettres à Paul-Louis Courrier," February 6, 1823, in Oeuvres complètes, ed. Maurice Allemand (Paris, 1951), pp. 160-64;
114. René Rémond, L'anticléricalisme en France de 1815 à nos jours (Paris, 1985), pp. 73-75.
115. Sheryl Kroen, "The Cultural Politics of Revolution and Counterrevolution in France, 1815-1830" (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1992), chap. 5.
116. Michelet (n. 10 above), p. 263.
117. Judith F. Stone, "Republican Ideology, Gender, and Class: France," in Gender and Class in Modern Europe, ed. Laura L. Frader and Sonya O. Rose (Ithaca, N.Y., 1996), pp. 238-59.
118. Nye, Masculinity (n. 7 above), p. 90;
119. have drawn on Nye for much of the analysis in this paragraph. On the history of prostitution, see Alain Corbin, Les filles de noce: Misère sexuelle et prostitution aux 19e et 20e siècles (Paris, 1976);
120. Laure Adler, La vie quotidienne dans les maisons closes, 1830-1930 (Paris, 1990). There were 6,639 prostitutes registered with the city of Paris in 1902 (Corbin, p. 66), but by this point the system of municipal regulation had broken down and "filles insoumises," prostitutes who worked outside of the official brothels, far outnumbered these.
121. Nye, Masculinity, p. 126. According to Anne Wagner, the art of Rodin as viewed by both art critics and the popular press offers another perspective on the manners of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
122. Both the sculptor's own work and its portrayal in the press show "man endlessly chasing after, peering at, pursuing, possessing, and being possessed by one object, woman." See Anne Wagner, "Rodin's Reputation," in Eroticism and the Body Politic, ed. Lynn Hunt (Baltimore, 1991), pp. 191-242, quote on 215.
123. Karen Offen, "Ernest Legouvé and the Doctrine of 'Equality in Difference' for Women: A Case Study of Male Feminism in Nineteenth-Century French Thought," Journal of Modern History 58 (1986): 452-84.
124. Legouvé's ideas helped shape the program that the Ecole Normale Supérieure established in 1881 to train women to teach in the new system of girls' secondary schools; see Jo Burr Margadant, Madame le Professeur: Women Educators in the Third Republic (Princeton, N.J., 1990).
125. They also had a profound impact on the reform of family law carried out during the Third Republic; see Claudia Kselman, "The Modernization of Family Law: The Politics and Ideology of Family Reform in Third Republic France" (Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan, 1980).
126. Offen, p. 480.
127. Yves Gallo has characterized nineteenth-century French clerical attitudes as "gynécophobie." See his Clergé, religion et société en Basse-Bretagne de la fin de l'ancien régime à 1840, vol. 2 (Paris, 1991), pp. 921-27.
128. For the "feminization" of Catholicism in the nineteenth century, see Claude Langlois, Le catholicisme au féminin: Les congrégations françaises à supérieure générale au XIXe siècle (Paris, 1984);
129. Ralph Gibson, "Le catholicisme et les femmes en France au XIXe siècle," Revue d'histoire de l'église de France 79 (1993): 63-94.
130. For a stimulating account of the relations between women and clergy see Ruth Harris, "Gender and the Sexual Politics of Pilgrimage to Lourdes," in Religion and Rebellion, ed. Judith Devlin and Ronan Fanning (Dublin, 1997), pp. 152-73;
131. Bonnie Smith, Ladies of the Leisure Class: The Bourgeoises of Northern France in the Nineteenth Century (Princeton, N.J., 1981), remains an indispensable guide to the Catholic culture of the era.
132. "Manuscrit d'un manuel du directoire spirituel," Archives Episcopates, Paris, 6 D 2 3, pp. 33-39. Although undated, the manuscript is filed with materials on retreats for young priests given in the middle years of the nineteenth century. For similar prescriptions for the diocese of Belley see Boutry (n. 30 above), pp. 223-26.
133. "Manuscrit d'un manuel du directoire spirituel," pp. 33-39. Another manual designed for clerical use elaborates on this theme when it warns priests that "the best women and girls, even the most spiritual nuns, can render you incontinent, and feminized. . . . the hours spent with women pass like minutes, and the quarter hours that they spend at their duties seem like days; voilà the demon's trick. In the terrestrial paradise Adam lost his innocence in becoming too familiar with his own wife, and priests of the Church ought to think about this when they talk with women." See pt. 2, chap. 2, the section on the priest and his parish, in "Manuel du clergé," Archives Episcopales, Paris, 6 D 2 3.
134. "Manuscrit d'un manuel du directoire spirituel," pp. 38-39.
135. Loyson, Family and the Church (n. 26 above), pp. 77-78.
136. Loyson, Family and the Church (Ibid., p. 89.
137. Perhaps in a reaction against Loyson's preaching and marriage, the Augustinian position figures more prominently in the sermons preached by Father Monsabré, the Dominican who took over Loyson's former position at Notre Dame in 1872. Although Monsabré praises the sanctity of marriage, he asserts plainly the superiority of celibacy and quotes the decree of the Council of Trent: "If any one maintains that the conjugal state should be preferred to virginity and celibacy, and that it is not better and happier to remain a virgin than to marry, let him be anathema." Père Monsabré, Marriage, trans. M. Hopper (New York, 1890), pp. 149-50.
138. For the continuing tension in the Church between a more tolerant attitude toward sexuality and erotic pleasure and the older Augustinian suspicions see Martine Sevegrand, "L'affaire chanson (1950-1952): Continence conjugale ou érotisme catholique?" Revue d'histoire ecclésiastique 88 (1993): 439-83.
139. The appeal of clerical sexuality to artists interested in exploring eroticism and the limits of sexual behavior has continued well into the twentieth century, as illustrated in the work of Georges Bataille. See his pornographic novel, Story of the Eye, trans. Joachim Neugroschel (San Francisco, 1987),
140. which first appeared in 1928, and L'abbé C. (Paris, 1950).
141. Michèle Haddad, "Une image 'déversoir': La tentation de saint Antoine dans la deuxième moitié du XIXe siècle," in Usages de l'image au XIXe siècle, ed. Stéphane Michaud, Jean-Yves Mollier, and Nicole Savy (Paris, 1992), pp. 101-18.
142. Charlotte Charrier, Héloïse dans l'histoire et dans la légende (Paris, 1933), pp. 342-63, 493-545.
143. For other examples of the appeal of images referring to clerical sexuality see Jacqueline Lalouette, "Iconoclastic et caricature dans le combat libre-penseur et anticlérical (1879-1914)," in Michaud, Mollier, and Savy, eds., pp. 50-61; and Driskell (n. 16 above), pp. 57, 80, 192.
144. In La vérité (1903; Paris, 1957), e.g., published in 1903, Emile Zola transforms the Dreyfus affair into a clerical sexual scandal; Major Esterhazy's selling of French military intelligence is transposed into the rape and murder of a young boy by Brother Gorgias, a Catholic elementary school teacher. A Jewish public school teacher is falsely accused of the crime but is finally exonerated through the work of Zola's hero, Marc Froment.
145. Froment himself is the son of a former priest, Pierre Froment, the central character in Zola's "Trois Villes" trilogy, Lourdes (1894),
146. Rome (1896),
147. and Paris (1898).
148. See David Schalk, "Zola and History: The Historian and Zola," Historical Reflections/Reflexions historiques 20 (1994): 77-93;
149. Susan Rubin Suleiman, "The Literary Significance of the Dreyfus Affair," in The Dreyfus Affair: Art, Truth, Justice, ed. Norman Kleebat (Berkeley, Calif., 1987), pp. 129-31;
150. Pierre Ouvrard, Zola et le prêtre (Paris, 1986).
151. Emile Zola, The Sin of Father Mouret (n. 48 above), p. 24. For a detailed analysis of this novel see Ouvrard, pp. 64-84.
152. Zola, The Sin of Father Mouret, pp. 96-98.
153. Zola, The Sin of Father Mouret, pp. Ibid., p. 187.
154. For the suggestion that the sexual salvation of Mouret is also a sinful act, see Ouvrard, pp. 75-76.
155. Les droits de l'homme (February 10, 1877). For this and articles from numerous other papers, see A.N. F19 5508, projet de la loi Raspail.
156. Léo Taxil, Les amours secrètes de Pie IX (Paris, 1881). Although a bit tamer, the novels of Michon cited in n. 35 above are also full of scenes designed to titillate the reader.
157. Darnton (n. 55 above), pp. 85-114, 249-99; Hunt, ed., Invention of Pornography (n. 55 above). Bataille's Story of the Eye can be seen as a continuation of tradition, but with an important reversal; in Bataille's story, the priest is not the initiator but the helpless victim unable to resist the sexual provocation of Simone and her lover, Sir Edmond.
158. Léo Taxil, ed., Livres secrets des confesseurs, 2d ed. (Paris, 1884).
159. L'action (September 25, 1909), in A.N. F 19 5508.
160. Perraud, Le christianisme et le progrès (n. 14 above), pp. 115-16.
161. Le christianisme et le progrès (Ibid., pp. 121-32.
162. Charles Perraud, Meditations on the Seven Words of Our Lord on the Cross, translated from 6th French ed. (New York, 1898), p. 26.
163. have drawn my citations from this edition, checked against the first French edition, Méditations sur les sept paroles de N.S. Jésus-Christ en croix (Paris, 1890).
164. Perraud, Meditations, p. 29.
165. Adolphe-Louis Perraud, "Introduction," in Perraud, Meditations, p. 10.
166. Perraud, Meditations, pp. 88-89.
167. This theme is worked out most carefully in the Second Meditation, based on Luke 23:43 ("Amen, I say to thee, this day thou shall be with me in paradise"). Perraud, Meditations, pp. Ibid., pp. 47-62.
168. Richard Griffiths, The Reactionary Revolution: The Catholic Revival in French Literature, 1870-1914 (New York, 1965), pp. 149-222.
169. Perraud, Meditations, pp. 150-51.