a case of questionable motives: théophile gautier and "la gazette des femmes"

A Case of Questionable Motives: Théophile Gautier and "La Gazette des Femmes"Author(s): Freeman G. HenrySource: Nineteenth-Century French Studies, Vol. 22, No. 3/4 (Spring—Summer 1994), pp. 431-438Published by: University of Nebraska PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23537143 .

Accessed: 16/06/2014 12:07

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

University of Nebraska Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access toNineteenth-Century French Studies.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 62.122.76.40 on Mon, 16 Jun 2014 12:07:26 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=unp

http://www.jstor.org/stable/23537143?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


A Case of Questionable Motives:

Théophile Gautier and La Gazette des Femmes

Freeman G. Henry

Among

many other items, the Spoelberch de Lovenjoul collection, housed until recently in Chantilly, France, contains originals of virtually all of Théophile Gautier's

early journalism, the numerous "feuilletons" he penned first for the Figaro and then, and for a while

simultaneously, for La Presse. These initial columns reveal why "le Bon Théo" was so much in demand as journalist, why editors—and readers— so esteemed his talent. The wit and verve one encounters therein are

captivating, a curious admixture of tongue-in-cheek, mystification, and

gross exaggeration. One need not agree with Gautier's stance in a

particular column to appreciate the very particular gift he possessed for combining banter and news, artistic news especially, views on

painting, sculpture, dance, theater, music, the decorative arts. Now given his inclinations, it is not surprising that, sooner or later,

Gautier should have turned to the feminism of his day in his search for material he could turn to humor. It was the day of George Sand, after

all, and Gautier was, at very best, an ardent chauvinist. Yet a series of

newspaper articles the author of Mademoiselle de Maupin published in the Figaro in 1836 and 1837 gives the reader to pause. It concerns La Gazette des Femmes and a mystery that is worth the unraveling.

The first article, dated 5 October 1836, is entitled "Le Grand Turc

progressif." The topic is indeed a chauvinistic one, treated in the inim itable Gautier manner, full of irony, hyperbole and digs at several of his contemporaries. According to the piece, the Sultan Mahmoud has liberated the women of his harem and, in allowing them to go about in

public unveiled, has despoiled the illusion of their "beauté idéale."

They are, Gautier writes, "aussi laides que les figurantes de l'Opéra." Now one is not surprised to find in this column a reference to the Journal des Débats, to whose tastes the Sultan's gesture would surely appeal, we are told, for Gautier engaged in a running battle with Jules Janin of that publication for years. One is somewhat surprised to encounter in the opening paragraph the name Madeleine Poutret de Mauchamps, identified as the editor of the Gazette des Femmes.

431



432 Théophile Gautier and La Gazette des Femmes

Madeleine Poutret de Mauchamps, what a wonderfully hideous name. Flaubert's Bouvard and Pécuchet come immediately to mind, those two lovable and blundering bourgeois characters in search of

knowledge and truth. The Gautier invention is obviously in the same

vein, an anti-feminist mystification perpetrated by the leading jour nalistic mystifier of his time.

The mystification had hardly run its course, however. Eight days later, 13 October 1836, Gautier's column carried nothing less than the ti tle "La Gazette des Femmes." This article begins as follows: "Il paraît ou plutôt il ne paraît pas une espèce de journalcule inédit intitulé la Gazette des Femmes." The goal of the publication, according to Gautier, is the enfranchisement of women, a program whose initial phase in cludes three petitions that the women of Paris are invited to sign at the editor's office: 1) a petition to admit women as official witnesses in civil proceedings; 2) a petition negating the requirement that women be

legally obedient to their husbands; and 3) a petition to reestablish di vorce. Gautier goes on to clarify that the publication is simply another of the moribund feminist projects of the time, especially since its found

ing was the result of the death wish of a certain Madame Louise Caroline-Tridon-Herbinot de Mauchamps, a now departed feminist who has charged her adopted daughter and her son with publishing the documents she had amassed. What follows is the usual Gautier banter about divorce and the inability of women to think or write

straight. A particular concern has to do with the feminization of lan

guage. The piece concludes thus: "Ces dames, non contentes d'innover en

politique et en morale, innovent aussi en grammaire; elles ont une termi

nologie spéciale. Elles disent une femme auteure, professeure de piano, sculpteure, et ainsi de suite; nous soumettons une observation à ces dis crètes personnes: diront-elles peinteuse ou peintresse? Le cas est bien

grave et je serais bien aise d'avoir leur avis là-dessus." Surely Gautier has outdone himself this time. Not only does the mystification include a death wish and an adoptive mother, it foreshadows some of the le

gitimate concerns of French and American feminists nearly a century and a half into the future.

Only two days later, 15 October 1836, Gautier's column laments the Gazette des Femmes' practice of publishing book reviews, as do its male

counterparts. He accuses them of being every bit as entertaining and as well written as those of the Journal des Débats and uses the occasion to cite two more lexical feminisms: "écrivaine" and "rédacteure." Further, Gautier claims, a female reviewer uses the critical argument that a would-be male author named Rosier knows nothing at all of what it is to be a woman, that he is not in the least capable of understanding a woman and is even less qualified to present women authentically in his



Freeman G. Henry 433

novels. Gautier's response, given the mystification, is quite predictable: "ô femme qui n'ignore pas ce que c'est qu'un homme, être bizarre qui n'a

pas de mère, pas de soeur, pas de tante, pas le moindre ustensile féminin en ligne descendante ou ascendante. . . ." That fellow Rosier, he adds, must be some poor wretch "né sous un choux, une bête brute qui n'a jamais eu une amie tendre et dévote." The initial series of four articles con cludes with that of 17 October 1836; and, with regard to the subject at

hand, it is hardly a paragon of taste. It depicts the reported weekly soirées held by the the Gazette for both social and professional pur poses. The reader is interested to note that, indeed, some males are in vited to these functions, though they are hardly portrayed as worthy creatures. Among them, we find a name we recognize, Arsène Houssaye,

writer, editor and the man to whom Baudelaire would later dedicate his Spleen de Paris. There follows a description of one of these soirées. The women are all dressed in white as for their first communion

(despite their very advanced age), their heads are wrapped in turbans made from their window curtains. The youngest is in her forties and is treated for it as though a child. The others, all pushing the century mark, resemble oxen or hippopotami. One of the men is a famous editor, Alfred de Montferrand, publisher of the prestigious Ossuaire des

femmes célèbres du 19e siècle. The next reference in the Figaro doesn't

appear for over a month. We find it in the issue of 27 November in a list of recent events in the world of French journalism. Among the several

listings, we read the following, a cryptic entry indeed: "7 Madame Madeleine Poutret de Mauchamps, ex-rédacteure du Journal des

Femmes, jeune foetus mâle âgé de quatre-vingt-sept ans nageant dans un bocal d'eau de vie où il paraît se plaire."

How strange. Gautier's journalistic mystifications, when complete elaborations, are usually quite self-sufficient. Yet there is something missing here. And something present also that seems quite out of place, a vituperative accent uncommon to his columns. Further information is needed to decode the message. Could it be that the mystification has substance after all? Or is this a rather extreme case of the disgruntled chauvinist's view that a woman of ambition is simply endeavoring to become a male?

The latter seems to be borne out in the two following articles. The first (20 January 1837) tells us that George Sand had appeared recently disguised as a man and that Mme Madeleine Poutret de Mauchamps had appeared disguised as a woman. The next column, published 22

January 1837, concerns the Journal Philomarien, a thin veil indeed for the Gazette des Femmes. The masculine image of the preceding column is repeated. "Comme on voit," Gautier tells us, "c'est un journal de




femmes adressé aux femmes, mais avec cet incontestable avantage sur ses pareils, qu'il est rédigé par des hommes."

In the final column devoted to the publication (18 March 1837), Gautier hails the appearance of the second issue, two months late, and the resuscitation of its "rédacteure en cheffe," who is now making the

following demand: "que LOUIS PHILIPPE SOIT CONSIDERE NON SEULEMENT COMME ROI DES FRANÇAIS, MAIS ENCORE DES

FRANÇAISES." What will they want next, Gautier asks, the "théâtre

français" and the "théâtre française"? Gautier's lampooning has lost its edge again. It's mere mystification.

It must be. But to be on the safe side, perhaps some bibliographical sources should be checked, the Histoire générale de la presse, volume 2,

Bellanger et al. (Paris: PUF, 1969), for example. There are several en

tries, the Tribune des Femmes (1832-1834), the Journal des Femmes and Mère de famille, but no Gazette des Femmes, not a trace.

Well then, what about Marie-Madeleine Poutret de Mauchamps herself? No, there is no listing in the seven volumes of Gautier's

Correspondnce générale published recently by Droz under the editor

ship of Claudine Lacoste. Nor has anything appeared on her in the Bulletin de la Société Théophile Gautier to date. And though an un

likely source, perhaps Natalie David-Weill's Rêve de Pierre. La

Quête de la femme chez Théophile Gautier (Geneva: Droz, 1989) will reveal something. No, nothing there either.

Since conversations with other Gautier scholars have proved un

fruitful, perhaps the Bibliothèque Nationale will be able to provide some information. Yes. There is something. On microfiche: La Gazette des Femmes, July 1836-April 1838(?). "Journal de Législation et de

Jurisprudence, Littéraire, Théâtral, Artistique, Commercial, Judiciaire, de Musique et des modes. Rédigé par une société de femmes et d'hommes de lettres." The second title page contains the publication's "charter" in the following form:

CHARTE des Droits et des Devoirs DES FEMMES

La raison

la justice et l'égalité

triompheront, car au-dessus de la

loi des hommes, il y a la

conscience, et la conscience

c'est Dieu.

The collection is not complete, but there are on microfiche fifteen is sues running from July 1836 to April 1838, the numbers six through eleven




(June-November) of Volume 2 not among them. A cursory look confirms

the following: 1. Madame Poutret de Mauchamps is indeed listed as owner-editor. 2. The announced political intent is to bring a series of amendments to

the Charter of 1830, all of them designed to "instaurer l'égalité des sexes devant la loi." The first issue contains a petition to liberalize the laws governing the press to allow La Gazette des Femmes to become

eventually a daily political newspaper without having to be owned and directed by a male of legal age and possessing full civil rights, which was required by the Charter.

3. The format also includes book reviews and editorials dealing with

topics of interest to the informed woman of the day, as well as art and fashion news.

It is obvious that the publication was taken very seriously by its

journalistic staff. The items found in its pages are weighty and wonder

fully well informed as to the law. It is curious, given its gravity, that it has not been heralded as a forerunner of the modern feminist press. That implied question along with several others remain to be an swered. Who was this enterprising editor? How did the concept come about and how was it funded initially? Who were consultants on legal matters? Why did the journal disappear abruptly in 1838 after having been so seemingly vibrant? And what was Théophile Gautier7s true in terest in it, since some of the references in his columns seem so pointed and others so cloaked?

Back to the bibliographies and histories. Again patience is re warded: this time in the form of Evelyne Sullerot's Histoire de la

presse féminine en France des origines à 1848 (Paris: Armand Colin, 1966). Chapter 15, pages 191-209, is devoted entirely to La Gazette des Femmes. And what we find there, in addition to the answers to most of our questions, are strange revelations that would be quite enough to sus tain a long-running soap opera or a lengthy Emile Zola novel.

In the way of orientation, we find that in the view of this historian La Gazette des Femmes "fut en effet le premier organe qui sembla dès ses

débuts avoir un programme précis, et sa directrice semblait posséder les connaissances juridiques et la combativité nécessaires pour soutenir la lutte que sous-entendait ce programme" (191). The verb "sembler," used twice in the quotation, alerts us initially to what is eventually to follow. But first Sullerot indicates that the editor was indeed Madame Poutret de Mauchamps of the family of Madame Tridon de Mauchamps. Further, the publication is reported to have been founded just as Gautier had described, as the result of the wishes of a dying adoptive mother who had devoted much of her life to women's rights. The stated equal rights goals, according to Sullerot, were sincere, and the expertise and




resources brought together in their quest were formidable. Its program attracted the greatest participation of women from all sectors of society of any of the feminist publications of its time. Too, as Gautier had re

lated, beginning in 1836 Madame Poutret de Mauchamps hosted on

Thursday evenings a gathering known as "jeudis de la Gazette," held at 27 rue Lafitte in Paris. Among the guests we also find, as we might have

expected, the name of none other than Gautier's arch-rival at the

Journal des Débats, Jules Janin. How interesting. Not only did the Gazette des Femmes exist, then,

it was the leading and most active feminist publication of its day, surely a mark of distinction for our would-be fictitious editor, Madame Poutret de Mauchamps. But if this is so, why haven't we encountered her name elsewhere? Why have we stumbled onto her name in Gautier's column in the Figaro, for which he was writing anonymously, rather than in the prestigious La Presse—for which Gautier was also

writing—or anywhere else for that matter? Our curiosity is soon satis

fied, first within Sullerot's account and then by consulting issues of the Gazette itself.

Gautier's references to the masculine traits of the editor Madame Poutret de Mauchamps are not as gratuitous as we had believed, Sullerot's history of the press informs us. Though listed as

"propriétaire-gérante" (owner-manager) of the Gazette, the true

owner-manager, hiding behind the woman's skirts, is here revealed to be a man, Frédéric Herbinot, former fashion journalist for the Journal des Femmes and the Journal des Dames et des Modes. It was he who

founded the Gazette. It was he also who drafted the Gazette's program and determined the paper's format. What is more, our Monsieur Frédéric Herbinot was a bona fide "docteur en droit," a holder of a law

degree and the provider of the legal expertise that distinguished the Gazette from other such publications. Marie-Madeleine Poutret de

Mauchamps, Mary Magdalene, as it were, was only twenty-one at the time of the paper's founding. And her two first names, each of which she used to sign various articles in the paper, are not without signifi cance either, as we learn in consulting further Sullerot's enlightening account.

The Gazette's demise in 1838 had less to do with the pressures of

journalism and finance that condemned other such enterprises of the

day than with the moral character of both Marie and Frédéric. In

September 1838, Frédéric was sentenced to ten years in prison for "incitation à la débauche et attentat à la pudeur" (moral corruption, in

general, and corrupting a minor in particular). Marie-Madeleine her self was sentenced to eighteen months as well for complicity. The whole sordid story came out in the pages of La Presse at the time,




though it was not Gautier who reported it. It was a matter of violence and debauchery involving their minor domestics. The trial and the

negative publicity put an end to the Gazette des Femmes, as one might imagine, and in the final analysis, Sullerot tells us, had a terribly neg ative effect on the women's rights movement of the period. What had

begun as such a seemingly noble and just project had ended in a disaster for the cause it had endeavored to champion. The history of the Gazette des Femmes ends there, but one more chapter of Marie and Frédéric's story was played out in the same Saint-Lazare prison that had gained such fame during the French Revolution. It was there, as

inmates, that, on the second of October 1838, they were married. Now none of the above has shed much light on why Gautier became

interested in La Gazette des Femmes, when he did, and why his reac tions to it and to its "editors" took their ultimate form. By looking more

closely at the initial issues of the paper, however, we soon discover that it too was a matter of a hidden agenda, a matter of ulterior jour nalistic motives that bode all too clearly of things to come.

Gautier's references to the very male Marie-Madeleine Poutret de

Mauchamps, editor of La Gazette des Femmes, now have little mystery for us. He must have been aware of the paper's éminence grise: phras ings such as "male fetuses" and "the editors are men" hardly seem coin cidences. Furthermore, Gautier was always known as a supreme net

worker; his sources of information came from every stratum of French so

ciety. But what put him onto La Gazette in the first place? A prelimi nary clue comes to us from Sullerot. Frédéric Herbinot had been a mem ber of the "Institut historique," an organization from which he was ex

pelled the 2nd of June 1834 owing to a prior conviction dating from 1830. One of the expelling members was Émile de Girardin, Gautier's close friend and his editor at La Presse, a name found in the editorial column of La Gazette des Femmes—as were those of other members of the Institut—a name cited ignominiously in an obvious ploy of vengence. Indeed, the editorial columns of the Gazette became on occasion mere

gossip columns, the personal tool of a spiteful and reproving publisher. Therein lies a primary reason for Gautier's attention, we might con clude. Yet there is more, a good deal more. And it all concerns the inner

workings of the nineteenth-century French press. In Volume 1, Number 2 of La Gazette des Femmes, dated August 1st

1836, we find a book review of Alphonse Karr's Le Chemin le plus court. It is a strange review, for it begins by praising in most exaggerated terms Chemin de traverse, a work by another writer and journalist, Gautier's rival, Monsieur Jules Janin. This rivets our attention, espe cially since we are aware that Alphonse Karr was none other than the editor of the Figaro. And, sure enough, our suspicions are borne out. The




reviewer takes Karr's novel very much to task. "Le premier volume ne

signifie rien, absolument rien," the reviewer writes, "et certes ce n'est

pas le chemin le plus court pour arriver au second volume ..." (57). Moreover, the feminine psychology contained in the book is depicted as

utterly false. "On nous promet un nouvel ouvrage de M. Karr; tant mieux ..." (58).

And still that is not all. Karr might well have put Gautier onto La Gazette des Femmes for that review alone. But Gautier may have de cided himself to launch his bantering attack owing to Janin's willing ness to contribute to La Gazette des Femmes. The September 1st issue contains an article signed by the Journal des Débats writer, an article devoted to George Sand, a feminist article of all things—Gautier might have thought—a biographical article in which Sand is lauded as an authentic talent whose future is compromised by her sex. "Toutes les routes sont fermées à George Sand," Janin writes. And why? For one

simple reason: "Elle est femme!" (114). Too, Gautier must have been taken aback by the editor's panegyrical introduction to his rival's arti cle on Sand in which Janin is described as "l'écrivain le plus gracieuse ment spirituel de notre époque, le critique le plus fin et le plus pro fond ..." (114).

Yes, such would have been motive enough. But there is even more.

Again it is a question of Gautier's editor at the Figaro, Alphonse Karr.

Again we encounter his name in the November 1836 issue of La Gazette des Femmes. This time it has nothing to do with Karr's career as writer.

Alphonse Karr, the paper informs us, has been left by his wife who has filed for a legal separation. Details are scant in this issue, but the reader is promised the full story in a later issue, a full revelation! These are indeed shades of things to come, shades of the scandal sheet, one of the most enduring products of the fourth estate. And there is a rather bleak irony to all of this. La Gazette des Femmes—for all the

negative pressures it must have faced in its day, including those exerted

by chauvinist writers such as Gautier—often turned to a form of journal istic expression that depends integrally on freedom from repression, an abundance of freedom, perhaps too much freedom in our own day, given the constant suits brought against the tabloids in our own country and elsewhere. This is a modern phenomenon to which Théophile Gautier

adapted quite successfully his considerable journalistic talent: he used his wit and verve as a means to attaining his own and his editors' less than noble ends. If, as the twentieth century draws to a close, we are still able to smile at his efforts, it is not without a pang of conscience.

Department of French & Classics

University of South Carolina

Columbia, SC 29208



a case of questionable motives: théophile gautier and "la gazette des femmes"

Documents