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LAST WORDS ON THE SCAFFOLD: "CONDEMNED" SPEECH AS ROMANTIC REVOLT BY SARAH BERNTHAL B.A., POMONA COLLEGE, 2005 M.A., NEW YORK UNIVERSITY, 2006 A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFULLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE DEPARTMENT OF FRENCH STUDIES AT BROWN UNIVERSITY PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND MAY 2015 © Copyright 2015 by Sarah Bernthal This dissertation by Sarah Bernthal is accepted in its present form by the French Studies Department as satisfying the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Date_____________ _________________________________ Gretchen Schultz, Advisor Recommended to the Graduate Council Date_____________ _________________________________ Pierre Saint-Amand, Reader Date_____________ _________________________________ Kathryn Grossman, Reader Approved by the Graduate Council Date_____________ _________________________________ Peter M. Weber, Dean of the Graduate School iii VITA Sarah Elizabeth Bernthal was born on December 24th, 1982, in Grand Rapids, Michigan. After attending Bullard High School in Fresno, California, she entered Pomona College. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree in May of 2005 with a major in French. In September 2006, she completed a Master of Arts degree in French Literature at New York University in Paris. Sarah enrolled as a graduate student in French Studies at Brown University in 2008, after spending time teaching English in France and tutoring at Fresno State University. From 2010 to 2011, she served as a lectrice at the Université Lumière Lyon 2. Upon returning to Brown, she completed her preliminary examinations and began studying portrayals of condemnation in Romantic literature. She defended her dissertation in May of 2015. During her time at Brown, Sarah was a teaching assistant in the French Studies and Comparative Literature departments. She taught beginning and intermediate French and led discussion sections for literature classes on the themes of relationship and medicine. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank first and foremost my dissertation advisor, Gretchen Schultz, whose extremely patient and thorough readings, advice, intellectual rigor, and illuminating questions helped shape this manuscript in its entirety. My abilities as a reader and writer have been greatly strengthened thanks to her. During the course of an independent study project, Gretchen encouraged me to formulate the central ideas of my dissertation proposal. I chose to focus on the nineteenth century relatively late in my graduate career, and without Gretchen's support, this transition and the resulting research would not have been possible. Heartfelt thanks go also to my readers. Pierre Saint-Amand has been involved in this project from its inception, as he helped guide my preliminary research on criminal language and public opinion. My manuscript owes much of its scope and depth to Pierre's guidance in approaching questions of cultural history. Pierre was always generous with his time, advice, and editing skills. I am also grateful to Kathryn Grossman for enthusiastically agreeing to be my outside reader. I believe her suggestions for transforming this manuscript into a book project will be invaluable for future revisions. I would also like to thank Edward Ahearn for his help with my research into judicial spectacle and courtroom language. As a teaching assistant, I have had the privilege of v learning from course chairs who have inspired me with their dedication to their students and their commitment to pedagogy: Annie Wiart, Stéphanie Ravillon, Thangam Ravindranathan, and Arnold Weinstein. Members of various reading groups have been instrumental in giving me feedback on my dissertation chapters and conference presentations. They have also generously shared their own written work with me. I appreciate the efforts of Bryan, Josh, Sonja, Anne-Caroline, and Valentine in creating a space for peer feedback and community in writing. Thanks go also to Justin for being a wonderful colleague, conference co-chair, and fellow editor. Brittney, Yuri, Jack, Stefanie, and Shannon: your friendship, generosity, culinary skills, humor, sense of adventure, and hospitality during my graduate school years will be fondly remembered. I am also deeply grateful to Chris, whose words of reassurance have accompanied me throughout the past three years of the writing process. Finally, I would like to thank my parents and brother for their continued emotional support, trips to visit me throughout my travels, and constant proofreading. I am indebted to my father, Craig, for cultivating my interest in literature and the humanities, and to my brother, Luke, for the example of his work ethic and his equanimity. This dissertation is dedicated to my mother, Gail, whose love and compassion have helped carry me through the challenging times of my life. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction .......................................................................................................................1 The Enlightenment, Romanticism, and Human Rights……………………………8 The Scaffold as Public Theater…………………………………………………..16 Romantic Speech and Hypersensitivity…………………………………………..20 Performative Speech, Violence, and Sacrifice…………………………………...24 Corpus……………………………………………………………………………32 Chapters………………………………………………………………………….35 Chapter One Doublings and Variations: Vigny's Universal Death Sentence………………………40 Cinq-Mars, Peripheral Hero………………………………...……………………43 Uprooting the Aristocracy………………………………………………………..46 Richelieu's Writing Machine…………………………………………………….48 Urbain Grandier, Romantic Legend and Condemned Judge.................................55 Jeanne's Accusations..............................................................................................61 Cinq-Mars, anti-Hero.............................................................................................68 Cinq-Mars, Romantic Hero....................................................................................70 Poets and Posterity.................................................................................................77 Conclusion.............................................................................................................79 vii Chapter Two Living through Recitation, Death by Improvisation: Julien Sorel's Metamorphosis ............................................................................................................................................81 Condillac and Idéologie.........................................................................................86 Recitation, Repetition, and the Treachery of Language........................................90 Self-Betrayal and False Hypocrisy........................................................................98 The Loss and Recovery of Language...................................................................101 Improvisation, Living Language, and Death.......................................................107 Overturning the Discursive Hierarchy.................................................................111 Performative Monstrosity....................................................................................113 A Respite from Irony...........................................................................................116 Conclusion...........................................................................................................120 Chapter Three Criminal Memoirs and the Displacement of Speech into Writing............................122 Part I: Rivière's memoir...................................................................................................128 Inquisitorial Narratives........................................................................................128 Rivière as (Romantic) Reader and Writer............................................................133 Marriage as Verbal Dispossession.......................................................................148 Murder as Speaking and Writing.........................................................................153 Traveling as Trying to Speak...............................................................................156 Part II: Lacenaire's Memoir.............................................................................................160 The Assassin's Education.....................................................................................160 Lacenaire's Loss of Language: Reconceiving the Complainte............................164 Murder as Metaphor.............................................................................................169 Phrenological Readings: The Murderer as Object...............................................173 viii The Question of Courage.....................................................................................181 Conclusion: From Object to Subject....................................................................184 Chapter Four The Double as Advocate: Speaking on Behalf of the Condemned in Sand's Mauprat...........................................................................................................................185 The Beast and the Fairy: From Animal to Human Language..............................189 Uprootings and Transplantations.........................................................................199 Speech and Silence as Deliberate Decisions........................................................204 Crime and the Involuntary Loss of Language......................................................209