The Dedalus Book of French Horror: The 19th Century (3 page)

The earlier work attributed to him by the reviewer of
Les Crimes de l’amour
does not make the same concessions to the reader as Sade’s short fiction since it is presumably the final and definitive version of the adventures of the long-suffering Justine,
La nouvelle Justine ou les Malheurs de la Virtu
, published clandestinely in 1797. This, of course, is not only the most celebrated of the novels of the Marquis de Sade but might also be rightly considered one of the most horrific novels ever written. As in the two earlier versions Justine passes from the hands of one extraordinary tormentor to those of another, experiencing every imaginable suffering and degradation. Unlike the earlier versions, however, in the 1797 edition the author no longer leaves the reader in any doubt as to the precise nature of horrors to which Justine is subjected.
⁸

If Sade’s writing was merely a catalogue of atrocities, a compendium of
psychopathia sexualis
, it might still be lacking in literary distinction. What makes it worthy of our attention is the economic, philosophical and political thought which informs it. Indeed, it is this intellectual framework – frequently paradoxical and always far from consistent with the author’s own behaviour in real life – which makes Sade’s fiction so compelling. The extent of his impact on French horror fiction – particularly on the
roman frénétique
– is difficult to determine though. Pétrus Borel describes Sade’s liberation from the Bastille with approval in the pages of
Madame Putiphar
, Jules Janin and P. L. Jacob wrote damning essays about him in the pages of
La Revue de Paris
. In a sense Sade’s profound misanthropy and misogyny are encountered everywhere in the nineteenth century, though the author himself remains elusive – an invisible presence.

Thus it was that as the fashion for
frénétique
tales published in the literary reviews gave way to the new fashion for immense serial novels published in the newspapers, the short tale of horror (excluding the
conte fantastique
) experienced a hiatus until it was reborn (as the
conte cruet
) as a result of a new literary impetus which, once again, came from abroad.

The sense of excitement which greeted the publication of the first volume of Charles Baudelaire’s translations of Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories is captured by the entry for July 16, 1856 in the
Journal des Goncourt
: ‘Left with a feeling that the critics have missed something after reading Poe. This is a new way of writing; a new literature for the twentieth century. Scientific miracles, plots woven out of A + B, writing which is at the same time obsessive and mathematical. […] The subject of love is displaced by other sources of interest. In short, the novel of the future will be forced to deal more with what passes through the head of humanity than that which passes through the heart.’ In his introduction to the
Histoires extraordinaires
, Baudelaire is even more categorical: not only is there no love interest but, ‘despite Poe’s remarkable talent for the grotesque and the horrible, there is not a single lewd passage, or one which deals with sensual pleasures, in his entire oeuvre.’
⁹
Such would not be the case with Poe’s French imitators.

Indeed, many of the authors grouped together here under the heading
conte cruel
would seem to have sought to have the best of both worlds. On one hand, they share not only Sade’s misanthropy but also his fascination with every form of sexual ‘aberration’; on the other hand, they quickly mastered from Poe the lessons of conciseness, psychological insight, and the appeal of the scientific macabre. The French reading of Poe would be radically different from that which occurred in Britain and America.

Jean Richepin (1849–1926), for example, refers to Poe on several occasions in his collection of tales
Les Morts bizarres
(1876). (He also later lectured on him.) Indeed, Poe’s story
The Tell-Tale Heart
(1843) – about a man who confesses to a murder even though there is not the slightest chance of detection – would seem to inspire (this is perhaps not quite the right word since Poe’s original intentions are entirely subverted) two different stories by Richepin. Firstly,
Le chef-d’oeuvre du crime
recounts not so much the confession of the murderer (which is not believed by the authorities, even when the criminal publishes a short story to the effect which is quickly turned into a popular play) but the adroit manner in which the crime was committed. Like Poe’s narrator, Richepin’s criminal is driven to insanity by the end of the story – not from remorse though, but from his failure to prove how he cleverly escaped conviction. Secondly, in
Deshoulières
, Richepin invents an eccentric individual whose crime is not only a masterpiece but also totally macabre: he plans not only to murder his mistress but, after having had her body embalmed, continue to remain her lover afterwards. Even after he is sentenced to be guillotined, his restless imagination seeks out new sensations. Twisting round during execution, he manages to have the top of his head sliced off like a boiled egg.

Richepin was by no means the only French author behind whom one can detect the somewhat distorted shadow of Edgar Allan Poe. Baudelaire’s relationship with Poe is the subject for a book in its own right (included here is one of the short prose poems he wrote just before his premature death, aged 46, in 1867). Léon Bloy (1846–1917) and J.-K. Huysmans (1848–1907), two of the most interesting writers of what has sometimes been called the Catholic reaction, on occasion make use of some of the more macabre scientific developments of the epoch in their writings. Moreover, it might be worth recalling that Des Esseintes, the principal character of
A Rebours
(1884; tr.
Against Nature
, 1959), is described as preferring Poe above all other writers. Villiers de l’Isle-Adam (1838–1889), like Huysmans a committed Catholic and an impeccable stylist, also came under the spell of Poe – though he was also prey to all the fashionable
isms
of the day (which included not only Wagnerism but also occultism and spiritualism). A fitful genius, the slender collection of stories assembled in 1883 under the title
Contes cruels
took him more than fifteen years to compose, during which time he lived in Paris, often in conditions of atrocious poverty.

Catulle Mendès (1842–1909), whom Mario Praz describes as the belated purveyor of the more ‘succulent morsels from the Baudelairean table’, wrote about little else other than sex (though literary historians tend to stress his youthful involvement with the Parnassian poets).
¹⁰
Author of some fifteen novels and several dozen collections of short stories, Mendès was one of the most prolific decadent writers. His first collection of stories –
Histoires d’amour
(1868) – set the tone of what would follow. The longest story in the book is a dramatic study of precocious adolescent sexuality caused by prolonged illness; another story concerns the adroit scheme of an ageing society
belle
to take a younger lover (Mèndes would quickly establish himself as a master of this sort of
Gauloiserie
); while a third features a young dandy who attracts a string of mistresses by affecting such a sense of
ennui
that he is always on the point of committing suicide. Generally speaking, Mendès’ novels take a more pessimistic approach to the activities of the bedroom.
La première maîtresse
(1887), for example, concerns a young woman with some ill-defined sexual proclivity (though a form of vampirism is inferred) which causes her lovers to fall into a rapid decline and die of exhaustion. Given Mendès’ reputation for being charming, thoroughly corrupt and a born philanderer (one contemporary said of him that he looked like a Christ who had caught the clap), it is perhaps not surprising that when, in 1863, he proposed to Judith Gautier, her father, Théophile, was horrified. The marriage was not a success, the couple soon separated, and for the next forty or so years Mendès sought to live up to his reputation as a man about town.

The three other authors included under the heading
conte cruel
are all very different from one another. Charles Cros (1842–1888) is primarily remembered as a poet though, at the time, he was better known as the inventor of the monologue (of which an example is given here). Jules Lermina (1839–1915), who would seem to have been involved with the occult group around Papus in the late 1880s, also found time to write two curious collections of short fiction (
Histoires incroyables
, 1885;
Nouvelles histoires incroyables
, 1888) as well as popular pot-boilers such as
Le Fils de Monte-Christo
(1885). Finally, Edmund Haraucourt (1857–1941), whose literary career began with a sulphurous collection of poems (
La Légende des sexes
, 1883), several of which deal with the theme of necrophilia, published a single collection of horror stories early in the new century.

Just as the original impetus for the
roman frénétique
was provided by the English Gothic novel and that for the
conte cruel
by the psychological insight of the American writer Edgar Allan Poe, the
conte fantastique
also had a foreign source: the work of the German author E. T. A. Hoffmann (1776–1822).

In all three cases, the receptivity of French literary culture to new ideas and narrative techniques imported from abroad resulted in the creation of fresh and innovative genres which ultimately bore but little resemblance to the works which had inspired them. In a sense, this is always the fate of new ideas: the very act of translation is a selective process, individual texts or entire oeuvres are deliberately or accidentally distorted to answer the needs of the host culture, while local authors borrow just as much or as little as they require for their own particular purposes, rewriting their own literary history as they do so. Moreover, a certain amount of common ground is essential before any form of cultural dialogue is possible. Thus it is that a writer who is seminal in his own country (Hoffmann provides an excellent example) and widely translated in another (several different editions of his complete works are still commonly available to this day in France) may be largely neglected elsewhere (Britain and America have never exhibited more than a cursory interest in his work).

The French reception of Hoffmann is seen in certain quarters to have been aided by the existence of an earlier work – the only one for which the author is today remembered – by Jacques Cazotte (1719–1792):
Le Diable amoureux
(1772; tr.
The Devil in Love
, 1793). This fine tale, which concerns an abortive pact with the devil, is even considered by certain commentators to have been partially recycled by authors as diverse as M. G. Lewis (in
The Monk
, 1796) and Friedrich Schiller (in
Der Geistersehr
, 1789; tr.
The Ghost-Seer, or Apparitionist
, 1795). Whatever the truth of this, it was certainly a work which enjoyed some currency in the late eighteenth century and may be read with pleasure even today.
¹¹

Charles Nodier and Gérard de Nerval both wrote curious essays on Cazotte – though, significantly, not until 1836 and 1845 respectively, well after the French vogue for the
conte fantastique
was under way. More significant still is the adroit manner in which both essayists continually establish the link between Cazotte’s reputed gift of second sight and the bloodshed of the French Revolution. Indeed, it might be said that each of these essays resembles a short tale of terror in which Cazotte’s main function is to provide a background – the real point being to demonstrate that some form of supernatural agency is watching over mankind. This is achieved in a particularly deft manner by Nodier who begins by proclaiming that he has no intention of discussing Cazotte’s famous prediction concerning the French Revolution (which he then in a sense proceeds to discuss by not discussing it), continues by relating a childhood memory of an evening spent in the company of Cazotte (who was a close friend of his father) in the early 1790s, and concludes with the statement that Cazotte was beheaded four months later. As if to emphasise the point, the anecdote which Nodier has Cazotte relate is left unfinished.

Neither essay represents a biographical sketch in any real sense, though Nerval does at least deal in passing with one or two incidents from Cazotte’s early manhood. In fact, Cazotte’s life is of far greater interest than one might expect from reading Nodier or Nerval. As a young man he penned a number of ballads and satirical pieces which earned him admittance to Parisian literary circles; entering the Marine Department of the civil service, he was involved in various naval campaigns; this was followed by two stints as an administrator on the island of Martinique, postings which left his health broken; on his return to France in 1759, he lived in some reclusion, writing and pursuing his interests in occult philosophy. Fascinating though such material may be, it does not suit the rhetorical purpose of either Nodier or Nerval to reveal much of it – both authors largely ignoring the first seventy years or so of their subject’s existence in order to concentrate on the final few months.

The ideological appropriation of Cazotte began some years earlier however with the publication of the posthumous fragment, claimed to be a prophecy uttered by Cazotte in 1788, by Jean-François La Harpe (1739–1803) which is included in this volume. Indeed, La Harpe – who was a dramatist, journalist and literary critic – probably contributed more to keeping Cazotte’s reputation alive than anything he actually wrote or said. The story itself shows every indication of being an example of what are called today urban myths, though there is no reason to suspect that La Harpe did not believe every word of it. But this is the manner of urban myths – the story is always passed on by narrators who are convinced of the truth of what they relate. Just as importantly, urban myths also contain a strong moral message – in this case one expressing a warning about the consequences of political upheaval.
¹²
Given the turmoil of France throughout the nineteenth century, the continued relevance of this warning hardly needs stating.