Full citation:Merrick, Jeffrey and Bryant T. Ragan, Jr. (eds). 1996. Homosexuality in Modern France. Oxford University Press, New York. ISBN 0-19-509304-6
Among the political propaganda published during the French Revolution against Queen Marie-Antoinette (MA, for convenience) was a prominent theme of her sexual profligacy, and in particular the charge that she engaged in lesbian sex (as well as other sexual charges). In this context, her lesbian relations were depicted, not an accompaniment or “appetizer” to heterosexual acts (as often presented in pornography of the time), but as a preference.
This association of MA with sapphic relations informed her public image—though not always overtly sexually—in succeeding centuries. But as much as lesbianism was used as a weapon against MA, MA’s alleged lesbianism tells us much about attitudes toward lesbians in her era. The intersection of these two themes can make a study of both subjects a bit fraught from a historian’s point of view. Political tracts are deliberately exaggerated and use parody, making it impossible to separate fact from fiction. Was MA a lesbian, with the satirists fastening on this as a weapon against her, thus creating an atmosphere of anti-lesbian sentiment deriving from animus against the queen? Or was there a general social anxiety about lesbianism, leading satirists to choose it as a weapon against the queen? Was there an actual lesbian subculture in France that provided the framework for the specifics of the charges? Or was the alleged network of lesbians among the queen’s circle entirely an invention of her enemies?
Historians of sexuality have conflicting ideas and chronologies of models of sexual difference, but generally agree that the 18th century was an era when older metaphysical models were shifting to medical and “scientific” models, in line with the Enlightenment in general. Many of the underlying ideas remained the same, only the superficial explanation changed—such as “women’s sinful nature” shifting to “woman’s inherent weakness and hysteria.” With a shift to same-sex desire and activity no longer being ascribed to sexual natures existing on a continuum between male and female, new identities must be posited (Trumbach’s “four genders”) to account for desire that broke heterosexual models.
In France, public discourse around gender and sexual non-conformity was increasing across the 18th century and became intertwined with ideas about the state, rather than merely being individual foibles. MA complicated ideas about gender and sexuality, at once being seen as hyper-feminine and dangerously masculine. She “passes as a woman but acts like a man.” The authors of this article assert that MA cannot be pinned down to one specific reading precisely because the frameworks for understanding sex and gender were in flux. Official structures and opinions were intolerant of anything “unnatural” by older models, but Enlightenment ideas were challenging the definition and boundaries of “natural.” Political pornography attacking MA as lesbian did not merely reflect understandings, but shaped them.
One thread of the hatred for MA was the image of her as wielding inappropriate political power. This bled over into the image of her ceding that power to sexual partners (in much the same way that kings’ mistresses became targets if thought to have too much influence). King Louis’ well-known sexual failings generated the image of a frustrated and thus sexually voracious MA. While accusations against MA included several men of the court, sex with women was framed as superior and inexhaustible.
Another thread was a shift in the social and economic place of pornography. Previously intersecting several other genres (medical, philosophical), after the Revolution pornography came to be seen and defined as a distinct genre. This segregation of the sexual from the philosophical and political turned pornography from public discourse into private vice. It became apolitical and focused on personal sexual arousal—a shift that had not yet taken place during the propaganda campaign against MA. Before that shift, pornography was one of the tools used for establishing and maintaining political and social order, by helping define the boundaries of the acceptable.
This article has an extensive analysis of the symbolic hierarchies inherent in depictions of various sexual pairings and acts.
Within this context, satires against MA focused on her supposed relations with the comtesse de Polignac and the princesse de Lamballe (who were, objectively, her closest friends and confidantes in the court). The net expanded outside the aristocracy to artists patronized by the queen, including singer Arnould, actress Raucourt, and painter Vigée-Lebrun. These rumors circulated before the Revolution. Early in the Revolution, royalists might try to displace criticism of the queen onto these favorites who had “led her astray.” But a focus on the queen herself overwhelmed ever these efforts. Eventually, the alleged sexual depravity of the queen became the supposed proof that monarchy itself was unsupportable.
In contrast to Renaissance pornography that celebrated pleasure, these publications served as a warning to police morality and a rationale for the queen’s execution.
Interestingly, the subjects, treatment, preoccupations, and tone of the political sexual satires closely parallel those of libertine pornography by authors such as Sade, even to the fascination with lesbianism. Within the context of political attacks on women who stepped outside “proper” role, lesbianism was primarily charged against aristocrats, even when charges of “masculinity” were in play against others—primarily, but not exclusively, as some women pushing for equal rights were added to the roster of MA’s alleged lovers. Overall, a contrast was established between the immoral, libertine, sapphic aristocrat and the moral, domestic, heterosexual bourgeoise woman—a contrast that reverberated into the 19th century.
Revolutionary attacks on MA were scarcely uniform or coherent. Beside the continuing theme of lesbianism were allegations of more broad-ranging sexual transgressions, and pamphleteers often inserted their own personal preoccupations into the attacks. MA’s alleged abandonment of material impulses fed into anxiety about declining birthrates.
The article concludes with a discussion of the image of the “hermaphrodite” both physiological and behavioral, and how MA was fitted into this tradition.
[Note: Although some historians have defined “tribade” (the term generally used in these documents) as being associated with the motif of the macro-clitoral woman, the specific sex acts described in this political pornography focus on manual stimulation, dildos, and sometimes oral sex.]
This article looks at French working-class lesbian culture from 1882-1930 and notes that a lot of previous coverage of French culture in this era has focused on the demi-monde, artists, and salon culture. The author challenges the assertion by some historians that a history of this sort—at the intersection of gender and class—is impossible to write. The decadent esthetic and visions of the Belle Epoque stand in contrast to the experiences of the working class. This was an era of union and feminist movements. WWI stepped up women’s participation in the industrial workforce. At the same time, both psychological and political theory created feminized images of disorder and deviance. (The author explains how she is using the terms “lesbian,” “same-sex,” and “homosexual” in the article to make certain distinctions without implying “identities.”) The author claims that the terms “tribade” and “sapphist” were used in this era to indicate specific sexual practices (frottage and cunnilingus respectively) but gives no citation for this claim. Letters written by working class women that alluded to their same-sex desires used phrases like “being for women” or “feminine loves” as well as a variety of slang terms. [Note: I’m gradually assembling a database of terminology from primary sources—this article has a good chunk of examples to add to it.]
The author challenges the claim that lesbians of this era faced, at worst, mockery and were not taken seriously. This may have been true of upper-class lesbians, while working-class lesbians were often portrayed as old, ugly, rough in manners, and addicted to vice. The medical pathologization of lesbianism could also be used against women whose desires were seen as problematic.
Technically speaking, lesbianism was not illegal in France in this era, though public sex and cross-dressing were. Moral crusades against lesbianism ran into this barrier in not having legal tools at their disposal. [Note: This absence of laws against homosexuality also applied to men, though men were more likely to run afoul of the laws against public sex.]
Feminist activists sometimes deliberately shunned an association with lesbianism, perhaps the more so due to leaning towards “mannish” clothing. Artists and authors walked a tightrope of plausible deniability, depicting same-sex desire and affection while relying on a general social acceptance of non-sexual physicality between women.
There is an extensive discussion of women in the union movement and gender discrimination in unionized trades. Restriction to low-paying jobs contributed to a pervasive reliance on sex work. Homophobia was pervasive in leftist political circles, even those supporting “free love.”
Despite and because of this, we can find references to working class lesbians tucked away in records and letters: the audible lovemaking overheard between a cook and a maid, letters with sexual advances between servants in different households, an affair made legible by the results of a suicide pact. Other lesbian lives have been made visible by diligent research, such as artist’s model and painter Victoire Meurent. Women who publicly denied lesbian relationships might be contradicted in memoirs by their friends and lovers.
There was a regular association in the popular imagination between lesbians and sex workers. This existed side by side with the stereotype of the working class as moral and “innocent” unless debauched by encounters with the upper classes. A similar stereotype asserting that homosexuality was absent from high society and the middle classes pretty much narrowed the possibilities (in the popular imagination) to “café society and the theater.” [Note: What this means is that visible lesbianism tended to be restricted to these stereotypes, not that lesbianism itself wasn’t present.]
A contrasting theory was that gender transgression in dress or appearance would itself lead to homosexuality. (There is more discussion of contradictory psychological and popular theories associated with lesbianism.)
This image of lesbian sex workers (including those asserted to have a wealthy female clientele) was exploited by pornographers and those promoting “sex tourism” in Paris. The complex dynamics and attitudes around lesbian sex workers are a poplar theme in literature of the time. Regardless of popular imagery, lesbian relationships and domestic arrangements among sex workers were common. (A number of brief biographical sketches are offered.)
The article concludes with a discussion of lesbian culture within women’s prisons.
In 18th century France, philosophy and pornography intersected to a degree such that “philosophical texts” became a euphemism for sexual content, including a regular interest in same-sex relations. Among critiques of society and politics, enlightenment philosophers debated traditional understandings and condemnation of homosexuality. This included the radical idea that all sexuality was natural and morally neutral, and that the state should not regulate it.
Moral traditionalists cited biblical references while being hampered by a suspicion that being too explicit about what they were condemning might induce people to try it. Sodomy was characterized as a type of heresy.
Legal authorities discussed sodomy in much more specific and detailed terms, focusing on same-sex relations, rather than the alternate definition of sodomy as anal sex regardless of gender. The traditional penalty for sodomy was death by burning.
The traditionalist philosophical position was that same-sex relations were “un-natural” because they were unique to human beings and not found in nature among animals. [Note: Of course, this was a flawed premise.] Another theme was the necessity of a contrast of difference in the participants for love and sexual reproduction.
Religious and legal prohibitions had less practical effect to discourage same-sex relations than theory would suggest, in part due to a French tradition of anti-clerical sentiment, and a disinterest by the courts in fully prosecuting the existing laws, especially against the nobility, where libertine attitudes were prevalent. A study of executions for sodomy indicates that many involved some other violent crime. To some extent, the courts were more interested in regulating m/f sex, especially around the consequences of illegitimate births. [Note: The author suggests that people deliberately turned to same-sex outlets as a strategy to avoid pregnancy, but this feels speculative.]
Examination of m/m behavior in France between the Renaissance and the 18th century shows a similar path to what is seen elsewhere. Such relations were common, though rarely exclusive, and required strict hierarchies of age and class to be considered acceptable. Information about women is less accessible. Reasons involve fewer court cases, a lower public profile, and an overlay of prurient interest on the part of those writing on the subject. During this era, women who engaged in same-sex activity were not perceived as being unfeminine.
The article embraces Randolph Trumbach’s model of the emergence of a “four gender” model across the 18th century. This included the idea of fixed preference in desired partners, and a shift away from age-based hierarchies. One eventual result was that exclusive sodomites became viewed as effeminate, and exclusive sapphists as masculine.
Among men, social subcultures emerged, focusing on pick-up locations already associated with prostitutes, such as the gardens of the Tuileries, Palais Royal, and Luxembourg. In-group jargon, rituals, and practices developed. This was the context for the emergence in the 18th century of a philosophical/pornographic genre of literature.
By the late 18th century, the idea of exclusive orientation had become well established, invoking Plato’s symposium for support. This distinction was less prevalent in pornography, which often celebrated bisexuality. Pornographic works often involved characters discussing and debating various sexual acts and experiences.
As pornography was primarily written by men, this affected how f/f relations were depicted. The women are presented as being focused on m/f sex even when in the middle of f/f acts, and m/f sex is usually presented as a preferred option, when available. The attraction of one woman for another is considered understandable and natural, because the authors themselves desired women, and the attributes that they described women as finding attractive in each other (in the texts) were those feminine attributes that men found attractive. These attitudes also underlay pornographic texts that treated f/f sex as desirable while deprecating m/m sex. As the trope of the “masculine sapphist” was not yet prevalent, f/f sex did not at this time challenge gender roles.
The association of philosophy and pornography also influenced an assumed association of philosophers and homosexuals, leading to euphemisms like “the philosophical vice” for homosexuality.
There is an extended discussion of how philosophers analyzed different sexual attitudes in other cultures. This consideration did not inevitably lead to promotion of tolerance, but some did conclude that morality was simply a matter of arbitrary social agreement. If the idea of the “natural rights of man” were extended to sexuality, there could be no basis for prosecuting acts that were consensual and affected no one else’s rights.
Following a long tradition of framing f/f sex as “something newly prominent,” the French Mémoires Secrets of 1784 asserted it had “never been flaunted with as much scandal and show as today.” But while male homosexuals were arrested by the hundreds, far less attention was given to women, leaving fewer traces for historians to reconstruct. One notable exception is the actress Mademoiselle de Raucourt. This article compares her context to that of the Marquis de Villette to examine difference in the treatment and reception of male and female homosexuality among social prominent figures. [Note: My summary of this, as usual, will focus primarily on Raucourt.]
Villette was a wealthy aristocrat with philosophical and literary interests. He dabbled in both legal and military careers, but ran into trouble over a misrepresented duel, as well as his notoriety for homosexual relations. This notoriety took the form of gossip and satire, but despite occasional encounters with the police (and being the subject of investigations) he did not face legal penalties.
His marriage in middle age went some way to changing his reputation. During the Revolution, he took something of a moderate position, which resulted in more radical voices linking his sexuality to the decadence of the court.
Raucourt was the daughter of an actor and began her own career at the Comédie Française at the age of 16. Early mentions of her praised her beauty and intellect. Sexual speculation began with guesses as to which aristocrat would take (or had already taken) her virginity, as actresses were assumed to all moonlight as mistresses to the wealthy. Her disinterest in that path resulted in her becoming notorious for her romantic affairs with women. Her rejection of the career of paid mistress, combined with a profligate lifestyle, led her into bankruptcy four years into her career, though she was rumored to have income from some female aristocratic admirers.
Due to finances, she temporarily fled France for several years in company with her lover Mademoiselle Souck. She returned under the sponsorship of Marie-Antoinette, and this later resulted in Raucourt being named as one of the queen’s female lovers in political pamphlets that framed Marie-Antoinette as a lesbian.
Gossip also linked Raucourt’s name with singer Sophie Arnould, with one source claiming the two had “married.” Arnould had both male and female lovers and several of the latter moved between her bed and that of Raucourt.
In pornographic literature, Raucourt was cast in the role of leader of a secret society of lesbians, known as the Anandrine Sect. These texts also referenced Arnould and Souck as part of the Sect. This fictionalized version of Raucourt proclaimed the long history of lesbianism and promoted it as a better choice and option for women. These pornographic texts, however, typically ended with a young female protagonist at risk of being seduced into the Anandrine Sect being “rescued” by a male lover.
Raucourt was said to sometimes dress as a man, not only for stage roles, but when visiting her female lovers. Raucourt had no revolutionary sympathies, and political pamphleteers once again depicted her as leader of a band of lesbians and sodomites against the prostitutes of Paris, which latter were framed as representing the Revolution. Raucourt, along with other actors of suspect politics, was arrested but eventually revived her career, with some (perhaps surprising) support from Napoleon, who included her in a group of entertainers traveling with him.
She spent her last years in company with a woman she had met in prison and had engaged in long correspondence with.
Both Villette and Raucourt were used as examples of the decadence of the Ancien Régime. Their sexuality was a theme of personal attacks, but also as a context for political attacks. Due to the nature and purpose of these attacks, they do not represent reliable history, but represent prevalent attitudes toward sexuality.