Sex Workers in Fin de Siècle French Literature

Edgar Degas, Dans un cafe, 1875-1876

As part of a self-assigned project (see last post), I read several Paul Alexis novellas in place of his contribution to the 1880 Naturalist anthology, Evenings at Médan. One of them was The End of Lucie Pellegrin (translator Richard Robinson, Snuggly Books), in which all the principal characters are sex workers. The novella reminded me of something I’d noticed a while ago: the focus on – even preoccupation with – sex workers in French literature of the fin de siècle. 

Consider, in the same year Alexis released his novella, Naturalist leader Emile Zola published Nana, a novel peopled with prostitutes and courtesans. J.-K. Huysmans’ first novel was Marthe: The Story of a Whore (1876) which - maybe in hopes of a succès de scandale? - he’d rushed to publish before Edmond de Goncourt finished La Fille Elisa (1877). As for French Decadent authors, sex workers were common fixtures in their novels and stories about the demimonde throughout the 1880’s, 1890’s, and into the new century. 

It was only after reading two novels and the memoir of Liane de Pougy, a former courtesan, that I’d started thinking about the way sex workers were depicted. And why. While de Pougy wasn’t a feminist, she certainly provided an alternate perspective on the lives of courtesans and sex workers. Her perspective led me to cast a very critical eye on the depictions of sex workers in fin de siècle French literature and authors’ thematic purposes in presenting them. [I'm well aware a blog entry isn't sufficient space to deeply address this topic, so bear with me.]

Jean-Louis Forain, Joris-Karl Huysmans, 1878

To start with, most writing about sex workers in the fin de siècle was done by men. This is problem, because prejudice against women was very strong and they were viewed as weak, prone to hysterics, and lacking moral fiber. In fact, many Decadent and Naturalist authors were openly misogynistic, with writers like Huysmans, Remy de Gourmont, and Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam being virulently so. In addition, Decadent authors’ fixation on the femme fatale required dwelling on negative stereotypes of women. Amid this context, I’m not sure how a male author could depict sex workers in a reliable manner. 

This leads to some interesting insights. First, despite the social taboo of writing about prostitutes or courtesans, the stories of Naturalist and Decadent authors seem to suggest liaisons with them were commonplace. If so, then the demeaning moral stance taken by many male authors regarding prostitution would be hypocritical. Second, one can identify gender bias in how these women and the men who patronize them are characterized. For example, there is a tendency to portray men who come to ruin through liaisons with sex workers as sympathetic victims which, when you think about it, is absurd. The loudest example of this is Zola’s depiction of Nana as a “golden fly” corrupting French society. 

The End of Lucie Pellegrin is a great example for analysis. As a Naturalist, Alexis spends a good portion of the novella serving up his expected ‘slice of life’ by letting readers eavesdrop on a conversation between four prostitutes about the title character. They discuss how Lucie got her start, the rumors about her, and her enviable coup of being kept by a wealthy man. Lucie’s ‘end’, however, quickly arrives and – typically for Naturalism – is unsparing.

Giovanni Boldini, Scène de fête au Moulin Rouge, 1889

However, when comparing Alexis’ novella to de Pougy’s work, it’s impossible to ignore that Alexis is only painting the surface of his characters. He gives us no insight into them as people or any significant interior psychology. The same is true for Huysmans and Zola. In fact, Huysmans and Zola’s descriptions of sex workers are often unsympathetic or even openly hostile. 

For example, Huysmans presents Marthe’s fall as a product of vanity, without letting us ‘hear’ her thinking. I would argue part of the reason is that the misogynistic Huysmans had little interest in what any woman was thinking. Note that he displays a similar disdain for women in his second novel, The Vatard Sisters. Meanwhile, Zola’s Nana – even in her first appearances in L’Assommoir – is painted as a promiscuous, empty-headed party girl. Of course, one reason for Zola’s skin-deep characterization is that the analytic engine of the Rougon-Macquart cycle is heredity, not psychology. Even so, one can’t escape his tireless efforts to convey Nana’s stupidity, bad taste, and destructive selfishness.

Alexis has less space in a novella to create psychological insight, but one can’t excuse him when the bulk of The End of Lucie Pellegrin is spent sketching Lucie via the women’s gossip. I believe that we don’t get deeper characterization because, first, Alexis’ purpose in the novella wouldn’t be served by it. Second, since the main characters are prostitutes, they cannot be permitted to have deep conversations and thoughts without flying in the face of common stereotypes about them. Doing that would be a ‘no-no’ for Naturalists, who sought to present statistical averages. As a result, Alexis’ characterization of these women is driven primarily by what they are rather than who they are. This same dynamic likely applies to most – if not all – male Naturalist writers.

To be balanced, the artistic point of Naturalism was to present life ‘as it is’, free of romanticism or idealism. Further, the psychoanalysis of Freud and the interior perspective of Modernism were nearly two decades in the future from these writers. Still, one ignores a very large elephant in the room if one reads these novels and their depictions of sex workers without keeping in mind the deep social and artistic prejudices of their male authors, who as a result of their social context, can have little interest in depicting these characters as human beings.

Taking this line of thinking further, one might criticize Alexis and his Naturalist contemporaries for failing to adhere to their credo of conducting detailed research to depict life “as it is”. Rather, in their depictions of sex workers, they are merely kowtowing to socially acceptable moral norms (“look what happens to a bad girl!”). That Huysmans felt such pressure is evidenced by the tacked-on moralistic passages in the final pages of Marthe. In the final pages of Nana , Zola chooses to personify the corruption and fall of the Second Empire through Nana’s physical corruption, rather than the moral degeneracy of the men orbiting her (who likely have much more to do with it). 

Toulouse-Lautrec, Au Salon de la rue des Moulins, 1894

A harsher charge was being leveled against writers who depicted sex workers: that they merely using shock value to sell books. In a letter he wrote after The Vatard Sisters was published, Huysmans expressed the belief that scathing reviews were a boon to sales. Much more visibly, in the Manifesto of the Five, an 1887 open letter to Emile Zola published in Le Figaro, Naturalists Paul Bonnetain, J.-H. Rosny, Lucien Descaves, Paul Margueritte, and Gustave Guiches explicitly charge Zola with cynically using shock value to sell books.

The authors of the Manifesto of the Five were members of a rival literary salon, and their venom in some passages seems personal rather than artistic. While this reduces the level of sincerity we might attribute to the manifesto, it doesn’t alter the fact that they have a point. To suggest Zola didn’t knowingly intend to shock readers with some passages of his novels seems terminally naive. On his side, Zola probably would have argued that he is merely presenting reality and it is therefore hypocrisy, not moral rectitude, which leads to ‘pearl clutching’ reactions.

In any case, it is inaccurate to suggest Naturalist and Decadent writers had no other agenda than to shock people by presenting sex workers as characters. And, so long as we are cognizant of the authors’ biases and balance their talent against their limitations, we can recognize a positive aspect of their depictions of sex workers. Naturalist writers like Zola, Huysmans, and Alexis were the first to consistently breach the walls of ‘politeness’ and insist on depicting sex workers (as well as poverty, poor working conditions, alcoholism, etc.) in anything like a realistic manner. 

As such, their efforts may have opened the way for a later writer like de Pougy, whose first novel, L'Insaisissable, appeared in 1898, nearly two decades after The End of Lucie Pellegrin. To some degree they normalized depictions of sex workers in serious literature. While any initial effort to address a controversial subject is doomed to be later criticized as “not going far enough” by more modern readers, these authors may ultimately have allowed for a more humane – or at least a more multi-dimensional – depiction of sex workers in literature.