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Alcoholics, Lesbians, and Radicals: Depicting Deviancy in Fin-De-Siècle France and the Creation of a Deviant Femininity by Amanda Lancaster, B.A. A Thesis in History Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Texas Tech University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts Approved Dr. Erin-Marie Legacey Chair of Committee Dr. Aliza Wong Dr. Emily Skidmore Mark Sheridan Dean of the Graduate School May, 2015 ©Amanda Lancaster2015 Texas Tech University, Amanda Lancaster, May 2015 Acknowledgements I would like to thank the following people for their love and support while I wrote this project: my advisors Erin-Marie Legacey, Aliza Wong, and Emily Skidmore, for their unwavering support, patience, and advice; Scott Thompson, for reading my work and never failing to provide thoughtful criticism; my two closest friends, Jessica Taylor- Gillen and Keith Morales. They don’t share my interests, but have perfected the art of feigned interest, and I love them for it. Thank you to my entire family, especially my parents, my Nana, and my brother Austin. And most of all, thank you to my husband Dionisio (Niche) Barboza III and our mutts London and Roma. Thank the three of you for being my warm place and my safe space for the past few years. Wherever you are is home to me. I would like to dedicate this work to my late grandfather, Bobby Lee Hicks. Whenever I face a daunting challenge, I ask myself what my Papa would do ii Texas Tech University, Amanda Lancaster, May 2015 List of Figures 1.1 Édouard Manet’s A Bar at the Folies-Bergere (1882)………………………………...1 2.1 Edgar Degas’s L’Absinthe (1876)……………………………………………………12 3.1 Antoine Magaud’s A Kiss in the Glass (1885)……………………………………….42 4.1 Théophile Alexandre Steinlen’s Louise Michel on the Barricades (1885)…………..83 4.2 Vaughan Trowbridge’s sketch of Louise Michel…………………………………….95 4.3 Louise Michel with petrol……………………………………………………………96 iii Texas Tech University, Amanda Lancaster, May 2015 Table of Contents Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………..ii List of Figures…………………………………………………………………………….iii I. Introduction……………………………………………………………………1 II. La Femme Alcoolique in Fin-de-Siècle France……………………………...12 III. A Kiss in the Glass: The Construction of the Sexually Deviant Woman in the Fin-de Siècle………………………………………………………..……42 IV. Furies, Incendiaries, and “La Mère Louise”: Female Political Radicals in the Fin-de-Siècle………………………………………………..……………83 V. Conclusion………………………………………………………………….107 Bibliography………………………………………………………………………..111 iv Texas Tech University, Amanda Lancaster, May 2015 Chapter I Introduction If it were possible to capture, within a frame, the zeitgeist of fin-de-siècle Paris, Édouard Manet might have painted the closest possible approximation in 1882 with A Bar at the Folies-Bergère1. Figure 1.1- A Bar at the Folies-Bergère The work depicts a young female bartender standing in the middle of the crowded Parisian bar Folies-Bergère, located in the spirited Montmartre neighborhood. The painting bursts with action, and Manet filled the painting with coded symbols that allow us to visualize the environment of late nineteenth and early twentieth century Paris. Contemporary viewers of Manet’s paintings would have understood these symbols, and it would have been as if a dialogue took place between artist and viewer. In the present-day, 1 Figure 1 1 Texas Tech University, Amanda Lancaster, May 2015 understanding these symbols, and ultimately, what the artist endeavored to convey, requires a comprehension of the context in which the image was created. A Bar at the Folies-Bergère represents a new type of art, rising in popularity during the late nineteenth century. This avant-garde art attempted to depict life as realistically as possible, and this included the gritty urban scenes of fin-de-siècle Paris. Much about industrialized Paris in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century caused anxiety for many in French society, particularly members of the bourgeoisie, and paintings such as Manet’s can illuminate the source of those fears and anxieties. The French Revolution in 1789 set into motion one hundred years of revolutionary insurgency and conservative backlash. Between 1789 and 1870, France underwent seven regime changes, none peaceful exchanges of power. The Franco- Prussian War in 1870 ended with the defeat of Napoleon III and the establishment of the Third Republic. This new government fulfilled the promise of the original French Revolution; it was a true republic. The first decade of the Third Republic saw the domination by conservatives of the National Assembly, but within ten years republicans had wrested power from the remaining monarchists.2 The Third Republic would be the most successful since the Ancien Régime, and lasted until German forces marched through Paris in 1940. In 1870, however, there was no reason for the French to expect that this government would last where others had not. The Third Republic clung to its 2 For more information about political and social changes during the Third Republic see: Charles Sowerwine, France Since 1870: Culture, Politics, and Society (New York: Palgrave, 2001), 27; Raymond Rudorff, The Belle Époque: Paris in the Nineties (New York: Saturday Review Press, 1973); Colin Jones, Paris: Biography of a City (New York: Penguin Books, 2005). 2 Texas Tech University, Amanda Lancaster, May 2015 legitimacy tenuously at times; the threat of upheaval at the hands of radicals on both the right and the left loomed over France. But political changes were not the only transformations sweeping across France. There was a social revolution taking place as well, facilitated in part by the Industrial Revolution. Between 1801 and 1886, the population of Paris had more than quadrupled to over 2 million people. More people than ever before were living in close urban quarters, and there was an increasing amount of cross-class and gender-mixing taking place. There was a meteoric rise in the amount of working-class laborers, and even more worrisome, many of these were women. Additionally, those in the middle classes increasingly sought leisure in the quarters of the working-class and it was there that they mixed with both lower-class men and women in bars like the Folies-Bergère. As spaces became contested among the urban populace, tension increased. These transformations did not go unnoticed by the population, and, as with any large-scale societal changes, many Parisians faced them with apprehension. There was a sense among many that society was undergoing decay and degeneracy. This caused quite a bit of anxiety, which when paired with the dawning of the new century, became known as the fin-de-siècle phenomenon. The phrase fin-de-siècle was used at the time to describe a sense of cultural malaise felt by the bourgeoisie about the changes they saw in their environment. Fin-de-siècle gained widespread usage by the 1890s, and it was never used was a positive designation. The word was often used in conjunction with the word ‘decadence,’ and the frequency with which they were paired suggests that this was a 3 Texas Tech University, Amanda Lancaster, May 2015 prominent fear of many Parisians.3 Fin-de-siècle suggested the modern, or avant-garde, and the term was never used as a compliment. As Eugen Weber noted, “A shoemaker could be praised for being a traditional cobbler rather than fin de siècle.”4 The term fin-de-siècle, as well as the sentiments behind it was spread in part by the rise of mass communications.5 Modernity was encouraged by the growth in newspapers beginning in the first quarter of the nineteenth century. As printing became less expensive and subject to less censorship, the publication and circulation of newspapers grew until almost every political faction had its own paper. This corresponded to a growth in literacy among the French as well. Newspapers helped create a form of common culture and modern identity.6 Not only could mass communication help generate a sense of community; it could also be used to spread fear as well. The nineteenth century was the era of the –isms, anarchism, socialism, communism, radicalism in general. This occurred not only in Paris, but all across Europe and the United States. The revolutions that swept across Western Europe in 1848, paired with the rising popularity of men like Karl Marx created an environment that encouraged radicals to act out. Even the most dangerous of these factions had their newspapers, and could spread their message to a wider public. An epidemic of bomb-throwing and political 3 Rudorff, The Belle Époque, 206. 4 Eugen Weber, France, Fin de Siècle (Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1986), 9. 5 Shearer West, Fin De Siècle: Art and Society in an Age of Uncertainty (Woodstock, NY: Overlook Press, 1994), 1. 6 Dean de la Motte and Jeannene M. Przyblyski, eds. Making the News: Modernity and the Mass Press in Nineteenth-Century France (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1999), 3. 4 Texas Tech University, Amanda Lancaster, May 2015 assassination attempts contributed to feelings of fear and despair amongst many Parisians. The avant-garde art of the period both contributed to these anxieties and reflected them. For the first time, artists began painting subjects from everyday life and doing so outside of their studios. Because of this, avant-garde art is uniquely suited for reading as a cultural artifact. Avant-garde artists did not belong to the established art academies; they were in fact completely rejected by these traditional schools. Many of the artists that have become the most famous from the period were never accepted at these art academies, and their work was rejected from the Salon time and time again. Instead, they simply had their own gallery showings, which were never very successful. At these showings, women like Berthe Morisot and Mary Cassatt were invited to join.

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