Jeanne D'arc Visits Paris in 1912

Jeanne d'Arc Visits Paris in 1912: Dramatis personae and Personification
Author(s): Carolyn Snipes-Hoyt

Reviewed work(s):
Source: The French Review, Vol. 73, No. 6 (May, 2000), pp. 1141-1154
Published by: American Association of Teachers of French
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THE FRENCHREVIEW,Vol. 73, No. 6, May 2000 Printed in U.S.A.
Jeanne d'Arc Visits Paris

in 1912:Dramatis personae
and Personification
by CarolynSnipes-Hoyt
THE CITYOFPARISfigures in the traditional Jeanne d'Arc story as the

place where Jeanne d'Arc's military career began to founder. After
Charles VII's coronation in Reims, Jeanne launched an attack on Paris.
With the purpose of overthrowing the Burgundian faction's domination,
Jeanne's armies moved into the offensive between la porte Saint-Honor6
and la porte Saint-Denis on September 8, 1429, without Charles's support
and without success. This episode of Jeanne's adventure and the city of
Paris figure prominently in Le Page de Jehanneby the Comtesse d'Houde-
tot, a novel destined for young people and published in 1912, the year of
the five hundredth anniversary of the heroine's birth.1
At the turn of the twentieth century, the city of Paris was the major site
for practices, such as demonstrations and the publication of texts about
Jeanne.2 In fact, cultural production on Jeanne d'Arc achieved its highest
volume just prior to World War I, with her canonization progressing and
a bill to institute a national holiday in her honor receiving Poincard's sup-
port. Speaking of the integral nationalism of 1905-1914, for which Jeanne
had long been an important icon, Eugen Weber notes that it was a prod-
uct of Paris and that it never went much beyond (145). By 1912 Paris had
become a mill churning out multiple representations of the heroine, a
provincial teenage girl who, nearly five hundred years before, briefly set
foot on this urban space. Comtesse d'Houdetot constructs Jeanne as an
atypical feminine subject in a fictitious medieval Paris and publishes her
book in the Paris of the Belle Epoque, a "real" space where a masculine
bourgeoisie has settled in under the Third Republic, where decadence
continues to obsess many who fear conflict with a German enemy, and
where a few women (but most likely not this writer) struggle to over-
come their inferior status as part of yet another feminist movement.
In her educative role Comtesse d'Houdetot informs a youthful audience
of ancient customs, showing values of feudal society in a favorable light.
As a retelling of the national heroine's adventure, the book fits neatly into
a special category of Republican textbooks and leisure reading for young
people that offers zeal for the Fatherland as an antidote for the egotism-a
1141

1142 FRENCHREVIEW
too robust individualism-many of the French attributed to prosperity
and universal suffrage (Ozouf 111). This appropriation of the past presup-
poses a hierarchical social organization, tied to the feudal system and pro-
grammed into the language of the text. A member of the aristocracy and
the sole heir of a feudal lord, Raymond de Barres serves Jeanne as her
page, a detail that corresponds to the historical record (Pernoud and Clin
62). In turn, a former serf of Raymond's father offers himself as a servant
to the son. According to the narrator, this servant belongs to a dying race
that gave itself entirely to the service of an acknowledged superior (20).
Such devotion indicates the recognition of "authentic values," the object
of the hero's quest in the novelistic genre, according to Georg Luk~cs.3In
d'Houdetot's novel, the nobility of soul that can properly appreciate these
values is literally associated with noble status.
Although the fictitious family of the draper P~rin represents the more
positive aspects of the Parisian bourgeoisie, the members are acutely con-
scious of the social distinctions that set them apart from the aristocracy.
When speaking of her brother Michel's lack of courage, Etiennette says,
"Qu'il ne faut point miler ch6tif marchand de drap i besogne de gentil-
homme" (92). These young Parisians' father, who is also an "6chevin de
Paris," answers with spirit, "n'accuse point les bourgeois de Paris qui ont
aussi leur vaillance quoique d'une autre sorte que celle des nobles" (92).4
The narrator regrets the loss of values associated with a feudal social or-
ganization: "Dans notre temps d'individualisme, nous avons perdu la no-
tion de ces 8tres qui, sans r6serve, sans restriction, se donnent Ad'autres
8tres" (20). The hierarchical structure of feudal society serves as a model
for the conservative nationalism that has become a force in Parisian poli-
tics by 1912, but all political parties promote the subordination of women
within family and society.
On a larger scale, the hierarchical system is also endorsed: "Pour la plu-
part des Franqais, au quinzibme siicle, I'id&ede la patrie 6tait inseparable
de celle de la royautd," the narrator informs the reader (12). She sides
with the two kings backed by the Armagnacs in the Jeanne d'Arc story
and not with the Burgundian faction that dominated in medieval Paris.
By giving Charles VI the part of announcing Jeanne d'Arc's mission of
saving France and by refusing to reproach Charles VII for abandoning
the heroine's cause after his coronation in Reims cathedral, this writer re-
habilitates both kings' reputations. However, alongside these traditional
values upheld in an apparently seamless argument, the ambivalent situa-
tion of "real" women becomes visible when the gendered representa-
tional scheme used for character and setting and the subtleties of the
novelist's language are examined closely. In 1912, one must remember, la
femme au foyer was the bourgeois watchword that assured that men
would hold sway in the public sphere, yet women were beginning to
enter educational institutions and areas of activity formerly considered
the exclusive domain of men, especially in Paris.

JEANNE D'ARC IN 1912 1143
Analysis of Gendered Categories, Urban Space, and Verbal Ambiguity
The Parisian Bourgeoisie'sStereotypicalCategoriesof Sex
For the purpose of analysis, I have imposed a grid established accord-

ing to categories of sex: feminine, masculine, and a third category called
androgynous, which calls into question the stereotypical binary system
and indicates other possibilities for describing a space (Garber 11). The
importance accorded the androgynous figures in d'Houdetot's novel
could be seen as a particular strain of the feminizing tendency prevalent
in so-called "high literary art" at the turn of the century. Huysmans's
novels constitute an example of this counterdiscourse that sought to de-
stabilize traditional models of the masculine bourgeois identity that had
prevailed in Paris (Felski 1094).5 Following a classical model which posits
unfallen man as androgynous, the ideal in this novel is constructed from
selected attributes of both sexes (Weil 10).
Paris Abounds with Scoundrels
The clearly masculine characters-the Burgundian soldiers, Bedford's

English soldiers, and most of the Parisian bourgeois-are associated ei-
ther with evil or with the self-centered desire to accumulate wealth
and/or pick a fight for their own gain; and Paris is teeming with villains.
Some of these city dwellers are as complicated as the layout of the streets
in the medieval city. The reader learns that
c'dtait ddji une ville d'une belle 4tendue, et ses rues tortueuses, 4troites,
obscurcies par les 4tages sup~rieurs des maisons surplombant les rez-de-
chaussde, les saillies et les rentrants des batiments mal alignds qui les
bordaient, favorisaient singulibrement les fuites, les embuscades, tous les
incidents tragiques de la vie quotidienne aux jours troubles oii passe
cette histoire. (18)
The reader only need think of the duplicity of certain inhabitants of Paris,
such as the "chevalier du guet" who enters Monsieur P~rin's house as an
adherent of the Anglo-Burgundian faction, but who, like all Parisians,
"tout au fond de son coeur support[e] avec peine le joug de l'6tranger"
(68). Etiennette P~rin's father-in-law and his friend (le gainier) both belong
to the Anglo-Burgundian faction. Nevertheless, the friend "disserte i
perte de vue avec cet instinct frondeur qui a 6td de tout temps l'apanage
des Parisiens," the narrator notes; "il n'aime pas les Anglais, il n'aime pas
le roi Charles, ce qu'il pr~fare &videmment c'est encore le duc de Bour-
gogne, mais cela ne l'empache pas de le critiquer" (69). More serious than
duplicity, treachery and bad faith could be classified as the worst mascu-
line traits and numerous Parisians merit these descriptive terms.
Exclusive concern for oneself or one's own material well-being charac-
terizes the figures who are considered purely masculine in the novel, but

1144 FRENCHREVIEW
the profession of merchant and masculine sex do not necessarily decide
the classification of a character. Maitre Pdrin's wife would be listed under
this rubric and not the draper himself. She is "une petite bourgeoise ra-
pace et active" (33), a woman who acts prudently and seeks only her per-
sonal advantage, the readers learn. Very often the label of masculine is
associated with devilry or superstition, and the English soldiers, who
drink too much and conduct themselves in a disorderly manner in the
streets of Paris, are guilty of these. Raymond, Jeanne's page, calls the
valet of Lord Lindsay "un grand diable d'Anglais" (18). The Burgundi-
ans in Paris follow the bad example of the English, carousing and scuf-
fling, and they all display the same superstitious world view.
Feminine Charactersin a CapriciousCity
Pure femininity is not seen in a favorable light either. What character-

izes the feminine category is a sort of inconstancy that one could attribute
to the representation of the city of Paris as well, following the lead of
Balzac in La Comidie humaine and Hugo in Les Misdrables,who portrayed
Paris as a character in its own right. At one moment, Paris smiles and its
gates open to receive both the victims and the instigators of the war; at
another, its gates close suddenly and disallow refuge to many others.
Paris is also a city that pursues its joys and extravagances, that insists on
gluttony, even during the troubled times of the Hundred Years' War. The
conical medieval headdress, the hennin, is the most obvious feminine at-
tribute in the novel for signifying this coquetry and irresponsibility. The
feminine power of the witch corresponds to the pole of diabolical mascu-
line power.
Under the rubric of feminine one finds characters who are capricious
(and/or lacking in courage) and who fail to recognize authentic values:
Queen Isabeau de Bavikre, Michel P~rin (son of the drapier), and Paterne
(the cantor of Notre-Dame) are Parisians who may be classified as femi-
nine. From the beginning, Michel Pdrin singles himself out as fearful and
egotistical. He is characterized by his "prudence bourgeoise" (17), but
not by his greed, as is his mother, although he is influenced by her (63).
Michel is incapable of daring to hand over the lock-key to Raymond, a
failure that causes the defeat of Jeanne's army at la porte Saint-Honord in
this version of the traditional story. It was a "lache ind6cision" or "une
invincible pusillanimit6" that, rather than an actual obstacle, paralyzed
his ability to act, says the narrator (91). His father (maitre P~rin) calls this
unfulfilled task a "besogne d'homme et non de femme faiblotte" (66).
Among the women, Isabeau de Bavibre with her "haut hennin" would
have to be categorized as feminine (12). While her husband Charles VI is
"l'objet de l'affection la plus touchante de la part du peuple," the people
have nicknamed his wife "l'Allemande," an execrable label in 1912, when
France had finally identified Germany as its enemy (12). She invents

cruel masquerades of devils that run out suddenly and parade in front of
Charles in the h~tel Saint-Pol to intimidate his intractable insanity, a be-
havior apparently typical of the historical queen. Charles calls her "Isa-
beau la magicienne" (15-16). Isabeau is a Medusa figure, situated at the
farthest reaches of the category of feminine, in a place where woman has
the capacity to exercise an absolute tyranny that is associated with frivol-
ity and irrationality-a textual manifestation of the hysterisation of dis-
course. In its egocentrism, this tyranny connects up with the most ex-
treme manifestations from the category of masculine, but finds the site
for its inscription on the body of woman, according to a Zolian Naturalist
topos that makes woman the privileged location for neuroses that have
the capacity to destroy productive social relations (Dubois 10).
Androgyny and Aspiration
Androgyny is associated in this text with the heights of aspiration

toward an ideal. The roof and the interior of Notre-Dame are the choice
spots for the revelation of hidden truths. Living in a recess on the roof of
the cathedral like Quasimodo in Hugo's famous novel, the so-called Ar-
magnac has rejected the capitalistic bourgeois mentality that has overtak-
en Paris. The ambiguous attributes of this hermit are seen as positive
compared to those of the strictly feminine or masculine characters. All
those represented as androgynous possess simultaneously masculine
courage and feminine tact and sensibilities with relationship to the "au-
thentic values" of friendship and devotion. They exhibit the group soli-
darity that characterizes the idealized feudal world, whose qualities are
on display everywhere in the novel.
An exemplary androgyne, the Armagnac is courageous and manifests
absolute loyalty. This atypical Parisian withdraws from the ordinary
human activity that continues without respite in the unpredictable
streets below, these "6troits et capricieux sillons des rues mal aligndes"
(82). From the top of Notre-Dame, the city of Paris appears as an ocean,
"une mer sombre et houleuse formde de courtes vagues Ala crete d&chi-
quet&e, une mer resserr&e dans quelque d~troit et agit&e par une bise
aigre," following a topos used by Hugo and Zola, while immobility carac-
terizes the Armagnac (82). "A force de vivre i l'ombre d'un auguste sanc-
tuaire, dans la compagnie des anges et des saints," the Armagnac himself
has turned into a saint; that is, he is "incapable des detours de la pru-
dence humaine" (80). The Armagnac has the courage to protect Ray-
mond who is fleeing Bedford's soldiers, while the cantor of Notre-Dame,
Paterne, has no desire to become a martyr.
Certainly, the two main characters of the novel fall into the privileged
category of androgynous. As a courageous young knight who admits to
an overzealous fondness for "les bons coups d'dp&e,"Raymond was in
fact born under the sign of Virgo and fights for the Virgin (90, 25). He

1146 FRENCH REVIEW
incorporates the feudal/knightly ideal in his devotion to the king (in

whose name he kills Lord Guillaume Lindsay) and in his tendency to
place woman symbolically on a pedestal (Jeanne) and to consecrate his
life to her. In an early episode of the novel, he plays the role of Sainte
Agnbs in a mystery and dresses as a woman. The figure of Jeanne d'Arc
is, of course, truly other. She escapes the perfidy of urban life as a pro-
vincial and possesses both military skill and the womanly virtues that
qualify her for sainthood. The narrator says that Jeanne "reste sous son
armure masculine, femme sensible et tendre" (49-50).
Etiennette is a prominent figure who displays characteristics of both
sexes, yet is anchored in the reality of daily life in Paris. She represents a
correction of the extreme femininity of an Isabeau de Bavi~re. As daugh-
ter of the draper Maitre P~rin, Etiennette also reveals herself to be much
more courageous than her brother Michel and thus merits the label an-
drogynous. This wife of a spice merchant carries out actions within a
space limited for most women by constraints imposed by a masculine hi-
erarchy, whereas Jeanne d'Arc is situated outside this space, for the most
part. Etiennette's principal attribute indicating her status as a bourgeoiseis
"le cliquetis de ses ciseaux et de ses clefs" (69). She delights in the possi-
bility of contributing to the attack near la porte Saint-Honor6 that occu-
pies Jeanne's army and Raymond, a childhood friend, by daring to steal
the lock-key from her snoring father-in-law (66). She shows her recogni-
tion of "authentic values" through her readiness to sacrifice her personal
comfort for the well-being of the collective, for the sake of friendship and
loyalty toward those of her group.
Urban bourgeois customs require Itiennette to ask her father for per-
mission to leave the house, according to this narrator, but once married, a
young woman must ask her husband or her father-in-law, the readers
learn. Since Etiennette is a devoted wife, she submits voluntarily to the
authority of her husband, Marcel Tabernet, who permits her to return
occasionally to her paternal home when he is on business trips (64). The
spokesperson for these customs is Etiennette's father-in-law, Maitre
Tabernet. According to him, frequent outings are not permitted women,
who are at most allowed to attend Mass at the church; otherwise, they
should occupy themselves with cooking and not with men's affairs (91).
The narrator shows her agreement, saying that "une conduite diff~rente
l'exposait [la femme] Atoutes les critiques" (91).
One must keep in mind that when this novel was written, a woman in
France was still only accorded the legal status of minor and that her only
acceptable role was that of wife and mother, according to a model Proud-
hon had elaborated where she forms the ethical center of the family, the
basic unit of organization for society as a whole. D'Houdetot's invented
character Etiennette at first calls into question the doctrine of la femme au
foyer that Proudhon had underscored in a brief and brutal statement,

saying that women had a choice between only two possible roles--mnagbre
or courtisane(McMillan 2). The power that Etiennette's representation initi-
ally captures, however, is subsequently defused by the narrator's discourse,
which relegates her courageous action to "perfidie feminine" (70). The nar-
rator says that "cela l'amuse un peu de berner le gros homme [son beau-
phre]" and trivializes thus the significance of this woman's accomplish-
ment, reduced almost to the level of Isabeau's perversity.
The narrator, however, establishes a link between Etiennette's situation,
a woman who wants to contribute to the success of the attack on Paris, and
that of Jeanne d'Arc, when she says that "elle 6prouvait meme quelque
fiert6, elle, humble femme, modeste bourgeoise en songeant Ala part ob-
scure qui lui revenait dans le triomphe remport&par cette autre femme,
myst~rieuse, 6trange, dont la pense la hantait" (91). The news that her
brother Michel has not carried out his part of the plan destroys Etiennette's
dream of becoming a heroine similar to Jeanne d'Arc, but the indicesassoci-
ated with Etiennette extend beyond the limits of stereotypical notions of
sex and her textual image serves thus to disturb the category of feminine.6
500o Anniversaire de la Pucelle
.!
~4lC -
Illustrationserved as cover for sheet music-1912.

1148 FRENCHREVIEW
Her courage and desire to escape the usual feminine role place her in the
third category, a space of possibilities not yet realized.
Jeanned'Arc and the Androgynous Ideal
In contrast to the relatively realistic depiction of Etiennette, presented

only from the narrator's perspective, the textual image of Jeanne d'Arc is
most often evoked as a creation of the masculine imagination, undergoing
modifications according to its adherence to a particular political faction
(Burgundian, Armagnac, Catholic, English, etc.). Her representation is a
construction that carries the inflections of a saint, from the point of view
of Raymond. Until the end of the novel, she is for example either a virgin
saint, like Mary, to whom Raymond swears absolute devotion, or a repre-
sentative of the devil in whose presence one must fear for one's life, from
the point of view of the adherents of the Anglo-Burgundian faction.
In this scheme of characters Jeanne can most certainly be classified in
the third group that calls into question traditional binary categories and
is associated with the ideal. The most impressive representations of
Jeanne occur in dreams or in other contexts where emphasis is placed on
her unreal or supernatural character or on her marginal status. Raymond
dozes while in hiding in Notre-Dame, dreaming already of Jeanne's
posthumous glory and future sainthood, aspects of the heroine's story fa-
miliar to the novel's contemporary audience. Jeanne's beatification in
1909 had been an important step in the canonization process, to be com-
pleted in 1920. In the novel, Raymond is aware that the Jeanne he sees in
his dream is not the heroine in person, but "seulement son image par&e
des attributs de la saintet6 et du martyre" (74).
Successive layers of French history are superimposed in this story and
in the description of physical Paris, some dating back to the Roman peri-
od (in particular, the life of Julian the apostate, appointed to govern Gaul
in 355, before becoming emperor) and before, while others are built up
during the Middle Ages (notably, the reign of Philip Augustus) and dur-
ing the lifetime of the heroine and after her death, and yet others extend
into a distant future (her canonization). The city of Paris becomes a
palimpsest, on which new narratives and new habitus, or life-styles, are
inscribed and where the old never submit to complete erasure.' These im-
ages of Jeanne d'Arc, as a statue or as a saint, in the style of the Armag-
nac, contribute to her construction as an icon of the secular religion of the
Fatherland that was promulgated in the Republican schools at this time
(Ozouf 114). Against the background of prevailing social structures in
Paris, the androgynous figure stands out and suggests behaviors and val-
ues other than those of the marketplace and the rugged individualism
that accompany the bourgeois paradigm responsible for the capital city's
most recent developments. It becomes evident that the representation of
the androgyne is located completely in the realm of the ideal.

The Degradationof Jeanne,the Adventuress
Clearly, the figure of Jeanne d'Arc can be used ideologically by tradi-

tionalists and nontraditionalists alike. In this book destined for young
people, the writer has curiously highlighted some of the inflections associ-
ated with the heroine that detract from her overt ideological purposes. In
the last pages, Jeanne loses the splendor associated with saintliness and
the readers see her in all the degradation of her marginalized situation,
"sur un vieux cheval hors d'usage..., Jehanne, vitue d'un habit d'hom-
me, mais sans armes, se tenait triste, Ademi r~signde seulement" (111).
Some of the legendary Jeanne d'Arc's transgressions of social boundaries
are programmed into the lexikon of the text, undermining her representa-
tion as saint of the Fatherland even while her virtues are extolled. Jeanne
d'Arc migrated out of the social group into which she was born, the sol-
diers insist as they take her to prison: "Si tu 6tais demeure ... fille sage i
garder tes bates en ouvrant ton chanvre, tu serais en meilleure position i
cette heure" (111). Jeanne's enemies underscore this violation by chanting
a redundant litany based on variants of vilain and itrange. The figure of
the androgyne only superficially disturbs the tenets of patriarchy, accord-
ing to Kari Weil, with its symmetrical opposition of male and female. In
the end, this ideal figure is most often at the service of traditional hierar-
chical values. However, another figure lurks behind the androgynous
one: the more disturbing hermaphrodite that dislodges these structures
(11). It is this other figure that comes to mind in the subtext of the novel.
During the Middle Ages, the word vilain meant "paysan libre" that is,
not a serf (Le Robert 1074). Referring to the social hierarchy of the fif-
teenth century, the narrator says that even the "vilains de la campagne"
had the right to glean the rich farmer's fields (31). Connected to this
word that would describe Jeanne's family, either as paronyms or
homonyms, the variants all bring with them negative connotations.
Jeanne's enemies call her vilaine in the novel, a word which denotes
"ugly" in 1912, but which signifies at the same time "abnormal" and "up-
rooted" (that is, without connection to country, family, or feudal lord). A
number of the king's advisors did not want the sovereign to receive "une
vilaine qui est peut-atre poss~d&e du diable ou folle femme" (44), and
two Burgundians, who have not yet laid eyes upon her, say that she
"doit 8tre vilaine" (85). One almost hears Jeanne singing, "En passant par
la Lorraine..."
Jeanneas "Etrange"
In fact, the historical Jeanne was not technically French, although this is a
term that did not have, in the Middle Ages or at the turn of the twentieth
century, the same connotations it has now. In 1912, part of Jeanne's native
Lorraine had been annexed by the Prussians since 1871 and, together with

1150 FRENCH REVIEW
Alsace, had become a symbol of the shameful terms of defeat that needed
to be reversed. In the fifteenth century, the area was called "les marches
de la Lorraine"-and was considered a frontier region of a very different-
ly understood "France" (Pernoud and Clin 28). Jeanne's outsider status
perhaps explains the abundant usage of the adjective dtrangeto designate
Jeanne. On the other hand, Isabeau clearly earns the title of l'dtrangare;
she is "l'Allemande" who distances herself not only from her husband
Charles VI, but also from the French people through her imperious man-
ner and cruelty (12). The vilification of foreigners detected here upholds
the patriotic paradigm, in which the figure of Jeanne d'Arc often plays an
important role in making distinctions between the French and others at
this time; but in this novel, the heroine is not only provincial, she is
bizarre. Her military aptitude is seen as "6trange," according to the En-
glish and Burgundian soldiers and the narrator (59, 81, 85); even Maitre
P~rin and his son, who promote the heroine's cause, find her "6trange"
as a young woman (64, 70). Twirling a spindle by the side of the road, a
young shepherdess uses the word "dtrange" as well to designate Jeanne
seated on horseback in her masculine clothing as soldiers lead her to
prison.
During these pre-World War I years, in fact, a debate was underway
among various groups of women, as to their role in society. The Parisian
bourgeoisewas supposed to signify her husband's wealth through her lack
of gainful employment and her presence in the home," and the bourgeoise
who had the means and the time at her disposal often reveled in her role
as homemaker. "Voilh ce que les femmes, leurs devoirs rigoureux de m&-
nagbre achev~s, ont A faire dans la maison: elles ont A crier le charme!
C'est une occupation," insisted Amblie Gayraud, who conducted a survey
about young women in 1914. Taking issue with this line of thinking, radi-
cal feminist Madeleine Pelletier spoke out against teaching young girls
what she termed useless household occupations, such as embroidery, in
her book entitled L'Educationfrministe des filles (1914): "Si on a de l'argent,
on peut facilement se procurer tout faits ces objets Ala confection desquels
les femmes passent durant leur vie des milliers d'heures As'abatir" (Mar-
tin-Fugier 170-71, 306). This sort of discussion of feminine roles lies be-
neath the narrator's open endorsement of an hierarchical social structure
in her novel about Jeanne d'Arc.
TheHearth Transformedinto a Stake
The figure of Jeanne d'Arc appears to be tangled in the plot of an au-

thoress who has sold out to the dominant discourses of her time for the
sake of educating her reading public. On one level, the narrator endorses
a masculine hierarchy that promotes the bourgeois habitus functional in
Paris in 1912, but feminizes it slightly by using the androgyne to repre-
sent all that is noble in the feudal social structure. Near the end of the

novel, inconsistencies surface on another level of the narrator's discourse,

however, and a Jeanne d'Arc who finds herself caught up in a contradic-
tory set of impossible constraints comes into view. Much less capable of
playing an active role in the public sphere than Jeanne, French women of
this period would not even be able to vote until 1944, although they
seemed on the point of achieving this status just prior to World War I
(Bloss and Frickey 44). In 1912, woman is incapable on her own strength
of finding her way out of the categorical strictures that the masculine dis-
courses have drawn up in their agreement that woman's place is by the
hearth. Some of these inconsistencies in the situation of women become
apparent in the very fiber of this text, although one could not consider
the author to be a feminist.
As a prisoner, Jeanne makes Raymond aware of her approach by "le
cliquetis d'armes et de chaines," and the sound thus evoked echoes in a
terrifying way in the reader's mind "le cliquetis" of the scissors and keys
associated with the bourgeoise Etiennette and makes known the servile
condition of "real" women (114, 69). The effort to render Jeanne an ideal
figure in this text runs counter to another discourse that vitiates her and
at the same time emphasizes the reprisals that victimize her. On a purely
textual level, Jeanne suffers the martyrdom of the impossible situation in
which women find themselves, an identity that purifies her in the end
(through fire) and brings on her metamorphosis into a secular saint in the
portrait gallery of great women. Both ways, Jeanne loses.
Toward the end of the novel Raymond has taken ill. He approaches a
small fire around which some people have gathered in Rouen, where
Jeanne faces the tribunal that will condemn her to death. It seems to him
"un paisible foyer familial" (117). Raymond's reason for participating in
Jeanne's military campaigns and now for delivering Jeanne from captivi-
ty has been to find the "foyers d~truits" of his father's vassals (111). All at
once, Raymond's eyes widen in an expression of horror; and he backs
away from the fire, crying out silently, says the narrator, since he finds
himself incapable of imagining "l'6pouvantable bfcher qui va d~vorer
une victime humaine et quelle victime!" Raymond only risks getting
burned symbolically in this affair; Jeanne will literally be burned.
Viewed from the perspective of the androgynous Raymond in this rev-
elatory moment, the bourgeois married woman's dilemma is that she
makes great sacrifices while devoting herself to the family hearth (au
foyer familial) and that other women (like Jeanne) make even greater sac-
rifices in deciding not to play this role. They are ostracized from society,
perhaps even martyred symbolically, if not literally. One image of this
foyer, in whose proximity the married woman spends her entire life,
would perhaps consist of "fum&enoire," rising like "un voile de deuil,"
and "flammes aigues comme des langues de dragons incandescents," if
one were to continue to place side by side the descriptions of these two
fires in an extended metaphor, a parallel drawn by the narrator. Indeed,

1152 FRENCH REVIEW
feminists in pre-World War I Paris, in their concern for the education of

young girls, hoped that women would one day be able to experience
marriage in some way other than as victims. A survey was conducted in
1912 on this topic, as part of a movement to make marriage more moral,
in order to regenerate society by redefining the couple in terms of knowl-
edge, hygiene, and love (Martin-Fugier 59-60).
In the context of bourgeois social organization, Comtesse d'Houdetot's

fictitious Jeanne d'Arc distances herself from the norm, in comparison to
both the medieval Parisian woman and the Parisian bourgeoiseof 1912.
Yet Jeanne's representation could be brought into line with that of the
fictitious Parisian, the individualized Etiennette, in one sense, since both
aspire to the status of desiring subjects. In such a discourse, the French
city is depicted with an emphasis on its intricacy-labyrinthine and
layered-analogous to the Parisians who live there and espouse the mar-
ket-driven worldview. The figure of the androgynous outsider inscribes
itself in such a text in order to draw the young reading public's attention
to the possibility of moving beyond the capitalist bourgeois mentality
which focuses on personal gain (and is associated here with extreme
masculinity) and irrational self-absorption (associated with extreme fem-
ininity). As a provincial, the historical figure of Jeanne d'Arc is capable of
representing the "true" values that form part of a nostalgic remembering
of a past that probably never existed, values that are incorporated into
the patriotic paradigm by 1912. The representation of the heroine is con-
nected to the French soil and to feudal society, placing explicit emphasis
on rootedness and hierarchy, but suggesting at the same time implicitly a
space where a more egalitarian discourse is taking hold and becoming
problematic.
This sort of contradictory textual representation of Jeanne d'Arc plays a
dual role in the doxa, or codes of behavior, in effect in 1912.9On one level,
the depictions of itiennette and Jeanne reinforce in young minds the sub-
ordinate position occupied by women in contemporary society. How-
ever, while condoning bourgeois norms, d'Houdetot's representations of
Jeanne d'Arc and Etiennette also reveal in their subtextual connotations
fissures that are developing in the status quo. Through its reconfigura-
tions of cliches and stereotypical categories, this writer's discourse points
to injustices inherent in the habitus of 1912 and the possibility for moving
outside these limits imposed arbitrarily on women in French society.
This is a chameleon discourse, satisfying the ideological demands of cur-
rent codes of behavior, yet already containing traces of future develop-
ments, preparing the way for new habitus to superimpose themselves on
the old in a never-ending succession, symbolized as they are in this novel
by the archeological layers accumulating over the centuries in Paris.'o
UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA

Notes
'The author is perhaps a descendant of Elisabeth de La Live de Bellegarde, comtesse

d'Houdetot (1730-1813) who had a liaison with Saint-Lambert that lasted fifty years and in-
spired certain episodes of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's La Nouvelle Hdloise.Houdetot is the name
of a village in the Pays de Caux, in Upper Normandy north of the Seine.
2In the 1890s during the unofficial May celebrations of Jeanne d'Arc's lifting of the seige
in Orleans, demonstrations took place in Paris that focused on the statue of Jeanne d'Arc
(by Frdmiet) in the place des Pyramides.Through this sort of political activism, integral na-
tionalists showed their dissatisfaction with the Third Republic. Paul D~roulbde and Mau-
rice Barrbs were important leaders in this movement. For these and others, the figure of
Jeanne d'Arc represented the positive aspects of traditional France. Yet the movement to in-
stitute a national holiday in honor of Jeanne d'Arc had started on the left in 1884 at the in-
stigation of Joseph Fabre, who in 1894 again promoted the bill he had introduced ten years
earlier. In 1897 "Les Femmes de France" (originally a group of Catholic aristocratic women,
but later included all classes) submitted a petition to have the law voted as soon as possible.
Then the right took up the cause in reaction to Zola's involvement in the Dreyfus Affair in
1898, a journalistic event that brought to the fore issues such as the encroachment of for-
eigners in France and the importance of upholding the honor of the French army, the last
stronghold of traditional French institutions in the secular Third Republic (Krumeich
212-26). In 1904, an outcry could be heard among nationalists in Paris against Thalamas, a
Jewish professor at the lyc6e Condorcet, who had expressed doubts as to the heroine's sa-
cred character and, as a result of this incident, anger again flared up against the "foreign"
presence in Paris (Winock 147-48). When Germany sent its steamship, the Panther, to
Agadir in July, 1911, a failure in French-German negotiations to exploit Morocco was evi-
dent and gave rise to feelings of hostility towards the "foreigner" outside France. Perhaps
for this reason, the reintroduction of Fabre's bill calling for the institution of a holiday in
Jeanne's honor found favor in 1912 (when Poincard was President du Conseil), although the
bill would not be passed until after the war (Weber 95-103). These are just a few examples
of events taking place in Paris that focused on the figure of Jeanne d'Arc during this period.
3These "authentic values" that Raymond seeks are analogous to the "patrie transcendan-
tale" or the "systhme ideal de valeurs" of which Georg LukAcs speaks in La Thdoriedu roman
(1920) and whose quest constitutes the signifying structure of the novelistic genre. In his in-
troduction to LukAcs' book, Lucien Goldmann calls them "valeurs authentiques" when
comparing them to the degraded market-driven values found in modern society (see 120,
124-45, 173-74, 178-79).
4According to the documentation on the Rehabilitation Trial, a "Perrin Drappier" who
testified was the "marguiller de Domr~my," and not an "&chevinde Paris" (Pernoud and
Clin 249).
5Donald Bruce refers to the work of other researchers who have dealt with varied aspects
of this phenomenon: Barbara Spackman says that "degeneration is, finally degenderation,"
and Christine Buci-Gluckmann speaks of an enormous "feminization of culture" in the sec-
ond half of the nineteenth century. She remarks that this is a movement where "the
metaphor of the feminine arises as an element of rupture of a certain rationality put into
question, of a historical and symbolic continuum, by designating a heterogeneity and a new
alterity" of which the goal is "the deconstruction of the frontier of masculine and feminine
identities" (cited 90-91).
61na narrative, the signified of an indice is always implicit and therefore requires decod-
ing (Barthes 181-82).
7I use the term habitus according to Pierre Bourdieu's idea that within a certain society,
social behaviors are naturalized and members forget that they are historically determined
(92, note 27).
8In a book entitled Parisiennes de ce temps (1910), Octave Uzanne notes that the definition

1154 FRENCHREVIEW
of the bourgeoisearound the turn of the century is "toute femme de grande, moyenne ou pe-
tite aisance dont la vie n'est astreinte ni i une profession r~gulibre, ni Aaucun travail A
domicile" (quoted in Martin-Fugier 11). Only bourgeois and aristocratic women, however,
had the luxury of merely signifying the wealth of their husbands.
At the turn of the twentieth century, the ideological construction of the Parisian bourgeoise
had had an effect on practices in the provinces, where rural women had previously held re-
sponsibilities more in line with those of men and enjoyed certain property rights as wid-
ows. Practices had changed in rural areas, so that at the death of a male property owner, the
property rights were passed to males in the next generation, instead of to the deceased's
widow (Lehning 127).
9Bourdieu uses the term doxa to refer to accepted norms that are not even discussed in a
given society (156).
'OIwould like to thank Dr. Olivier Bouzy and the Centre Jeanne d'Arc in Orleans, France,
for the use of Comtesse d'Houdetot's novel, the illustration from "France sauv&e,"a Ricital
musical by Mme L.B. de Laval (Paris: Vaubaillon, 1912), and other documents relating to
Jeanne d'Arc.
Works Cited
Barthes, Roland. L'Aventuresimiologique. Paris: Seuil, 1985.

Bliss, Thierry, and Alain Frickey. La Femme dans la socidtdfrangaise.Que sais-je? Paris: PUF,
1994.
Bourdieu, Pierre. Ce que parlerveut dire. Paris: Fayard, 1982.
Bruce, Donald. "Convergences contamindes." Recherchessimiotiques/SemioticInquiry 17. 1-3
(1997): 73-97.
Dubois, Jacques. L'Assommoir de Zola: socidtd,discours, iddologie.Paris: Larousse, 1973.
Felski, Rita. "The Counterdiscourse of the Feminine in Three Texts by Wilde, Huysmanns,
and Sacher-Masoch." PMLA 106.5 (1991): 1094-1105.
Garber, Marjorie. Vested Interests: Cross-Dressing and Cultural Anxiety. New York: Harper/
Collins, 1992.
Houdetot, Comtesse d'. Le Page de Jehanne.Illus. Ed. Zier. Nouvelle Collection pour la Jeu-
nesse. Paris: Hachette, 1912.
Krumeich, Gerd. Jeanne d'Arc &travers l'histoire. 1989. Trans. Josie M6ly, Marie-H6l1ne
Pateau and Lisette Rosenfeld. Prof. R~gine Pernoud. Paris: Albin Michel, 1993.
Lehning, James R. Peasant and French: Cultural Contact in Rural France during the Nineteenth
Century. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1995.
LukAcs, Georg. La Thdoriedu roman. Trans. Jean Clairevoye. "Introduction aux premiers
&critsde Georg LukAcs"by Lucien Goldmann. Paris: Denoel, 1968.
Martin-Fugier, Anne. La Bourgeoise:femme au temps de Paul Bourget.Paris: Grasset, 1983.
McMillan, James F. Housewife or Harlot: The Place of Women in French Society 1870-1940.
Brighton: Harvester Press, 1981.
Ozouf, Mona. L'Fcole,l'Fglise et la Ripublique1871-1914. Paris: Cana/Offredo, 1982.
Pernoud, R~gine, and Vronique Clin. Jeanned'Arc. Coll. Pluriel. Paris: Fayard, 1986.
Robert, Paul. Le Robert:dictionnaired'aujourd'hui:langue frangaise,histoire, gfographie, culture
gindrale. Ed. Alain Rey. Paris: Dictionnaires Le Robert, 1992.
Weber, Eugen. The Nationalist Revival in France, 1905--1914. University of California Publica-
tions in History 60. Berkeley/Los Angeles: U of California P, 1959.
Weil, Kari. Androgyny and the Denial of Difference.Charlottesville: UP of Virginia, 1992.
Winock, Michel. "Jeanne d'Arc et les Juifs." Nationalisme, antisimitisme et fascisme en France.
Paris: Seuil, 1982. 145-56.


Jeanne D'arc Visits Paris in 1912

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Jeanne d'Arc Visits Paris in 1912: Dramatis personae and Personification

Author(s): Carolyn Snipes-Hoyt

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