University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

Hysteria in Lourdes and miracles at the Salpêtrière: the intersection of faith and medical discourse in late nineteenth-century French literature

(USC Thesis Other)

Hysteria in Lourdes and miracles at the Salpêtrière: the intersection of faith and medical discourse in late nineteenth-century French literature

PDF

Download a page range

Download transcript

Copy asset link

Request this asset

Transcript (if available)

Content

Hysteria in Lourdes and Miracles at the Salpêtrière:
The Intersection of Faith and Medical Discourse
in Late Nineteenth-Century French Literature

By

Emilie Garrigou-Kempton

A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(FRENCH)

May 13, 2016

Copyright 2016 Emilie Garrigou-Kempton
2
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

It took a village to help me through the dissertation-writing process and I am deeply
grateful to many people who have, directly or indirectly, supported me and my work.
First, I would like to express my deepest appreciation and gratitude to the Chair of my
Committee, Professor Natania Meeker, who has accompanied me through a research and
writing process that has taken more years than I care to admit. She has enlightened my path
and helped me find my way each time I was lost. I am indebted to her for the feedback,
suggestions and edits that are so much part of this final version and have made me a better
scholar. Without her vision, guidance and continuous support, this dissertation would not
have been possible. But I am also equally grateful for her personnalité that made working with
her such a pleasant experience. Her warmth, patience and availability made for the
smoothest dissertation-writing experience possible.
I am also extremely grateful to all the members of my Committee. They each
contributed to my development as a scholar and I feel incredibly fortunate to have had the
privilege to work with them. I am immensely lucky that Professor Peggy Kamuf accepted to
be part of this committee: her thorough feedback has been incredibly precious and her
support means a lot to me. Professor Sherry Velasco has been a constant supporter of my
projects for several years. Her interest in my work made me a more confident scholar.
Professor Panivong Norindr’s enthusiasm, energy and joie de vivre have inevitably lifted my
spirits each time I felt this project would never end. I am grateful to all of them and
delighted to have gone through this scholarly journey with them.
I owe a lot to the staff of USC’s Department of French and Italian. Valentina
Stoicescu and Patrick Irish have been an invaluable help. They have made my life as a
3
student much easier, watching out for me and untangling every administrative issue possible.
I am so appreciative of their generosity with their time and cheerfulness.
Over the years, this project has received financial support from USC’s CSLC and
French departments and from the USC Center for Religion and Civic Culture. Thanks to this
support I was able to test out my ideas about hysteria and miracles at conferences and
conduct further research at the Wellcome Library in London, at the Bibliothèque Nationale
and the Archives de L’Hôpital Public in Paris, and at the Lourdes archives.
My family and friends have played no small part in making this dissertation possible.
Because of me, my fellow graduate students, or rather former graduate students, Naomi
Bergeron and Lucille Toth have learned more about hysteria and miracles than they ever
wanted to. I am thankful for their feedback and edits.
Elaine Jacobs, Elizabeth Schetina and Barbara Eliades provided unremitting moral
support and occasional baby-sitting, two priceless contributions. My father-in-law, Richard
Kempton, always showed an interest in my work and I am so appreciative of his enthusiasm
for my scholarly work.
This dissertation would have never been finished if it wasn’t for Aude Taillefer’s
incessant sarcasms. My inability to finish this dissertation has been an easy punchline for
many years and constantly receiving the brunt of the joke has proven the most powerful
incentive.
My parents, Bernard and Chantal Garrigou have watched me go through this process
with great bienveillance. The value they have always placed in education and in books is
probably the reason I stayed in school much longer than they ever imagined and now thrive
in scholarly pursuits.
Last but certainly not least, my husband, Alex, and daughter, Luce, have been the most
4
patient while they also paid the highest personal price. For reasons I cannot understand,
Alex never doubted that I would finish this dissertation. This unconditional confidence in
my ability, in addition to all the daily help, support, encouragements and patience, has meant
the world to me. This work has deprived Luce of many evenings and weekends with her
mother, yet she is also the reason I kept writing. This work is dedicated to her.

5
Table of Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...................................................................................................................... 2
INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................. 8
I - Hysteria’s return ........................................................................................................................................ 8
To Each Era its Hysteria ........................................................................................................................................... 8
Hysteria in Lourdes ................................................................................................................................................... 11
Hysteria and Miracles .............................................................................................................................................. 13
A Hysterical Etymology .......................................................................................................................................... 15
Metaphors of Hysteria, Hysteria as Metaphor .............................................................................................. 21
Hysteria before Charcot ......................................................................................................................................... 25
An Epidemic of Apparitions .................................................................................................................................. 28
The Lourdes Apparitions ....................................................................................................................................... 32
Miracles in Lourdes .................................................................................................................................................. 37
II- Socio-Political Context ......................................................................................................................... 39
A Fin-de-siècle Tragedy with Three Protagonists ...................................................................................... 39
Teaching Science in Public Schools ................................................................................................................... 41
Women as Political Stakes ..................................................................................................................................... 42
III- Stakes and Problems ........................................................................................................................... 49
Medicine in the Nineteenth Century ................................................................................................................. 49
Epistemological Stakes ........................................................................................................................................... 54
The Question of Sexual Difference ..................................................................................................................... 60
Argument and Method ............................................................................................................................................ 63
CHAPTER I - RETROSPECTIVE MEDICINE AS A GENRE: WRITING ABOUT “LES
NOUVELLES DEMONIAQUES” ....................................................................................................... 70
I- From The New Hysteria to Retrospective Medecine ............................................................... 70
A) Charcot's First Clinical Steps .................................................................................................................... 70
B) Diagnosing Hysteria ..................................................................................................................................... 73
C) The Birth of Retrospective Medicine .................................................................................................... 77
D) A Literary Case of Retrospective Medicine: Léon Hennique's Elizabeth Couronneau
(1879) ............................................................................................................................................................................ 82
II - From Retrospective Medicine to Diagnosing Contemporary Cases. ............................... 91
A) Bourneville: Bridging the Gap Between Medical Accounts and Literature .......................... 92
B) Camille Lemonnier’s L’Hystérique (1884) .......................................................................................... 99
C) Alphonse Daudet’s L’Evangéliste (1883) .......................................................................................... 108
D) Of the Perils of Religion, Especially for Women. ........................................................................... 114
Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................................... 115
CHAPTER II - A HEALING FAITH? HOW MEDICINE AND RELIGION ACCOUNT FOR THE
BODY’S MYSTERIES ..................................................................................................................... 118
Introduction ................................................................................................................................................. 118
I – Hysteria through the Hypnotic Glass .......................................................................................... 124
A) The Secularization of Magnetism ........................................................................................................ 125
B) The Scientific Posterity of Mesmerism. ............................................................................................. 130
a) Hyppolite Bernheim and the Nancy School ............................................................................... 132
b) Charcot and the Salpêtrière School ............................................................................................... 134
c) Nancy vs. the Salpêtrière ................................................................................................................... 137
C) Women Under the Influence? ................................................................................................................ 142
a) The Chambige Case .............................................................................................................................. 145
b) The Bompard Case ............................................................................................................................... 147
c) Hypnotic Rape and the Paradoxes of Womanhood. .............................................................. 151
II – Charcot's La Foi qui Guérit (1892) .............................................................................................. 155
6
A) The Scripted Narratives of Miracles ................................................................................................... 158
B) Debunking Miracles: The Medical Argument ................................................................................. 163
C) The Role of the Doctor .............................................................................................................................. 166
D) The Miracle as a Hysterical Symptom ............................................................................................... 170
III – Cultural Contamination: from Charcot’s Healing Faith to Zola's Lourdes ................ 173
Chapter conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 184
CHAPTER III - WRITING LOURDES: LOURDES LITERATURE AS A NEW GENRE ....... 188
Introduction ................................................................................................................................................. 188
I - The Sanctuary’s Conflicted Genesis .............................................................................................. 191
A) Catholic Guerres Intestines and Political Tensions ....................................................................... 192
a) Claiming the Shrine .............................................................................................................................. 192
b) The Prefect vs. the Bishop ................................................................................................................. 195
c) Louis Veuillot and the Role of the Catholic Press ................................................................... 198
d) The Commodification of Faith ......................................................................................................... 199
B) Felix Lacaze’s Pour le Vrai, À Lourdes avec Zola (1894), the Skeptical Catholic’s
Companion Guide to Zola’s Lourdes. .............................................................................................................. 200
a) The Art of Name-dropping and Conflicting Endorsements ................................................ 201
b) Criticizing the Use of the Scientific Method .............................................................................. 205
II- Writing Lourdes: Devising an Official Narrative ..................................................................... 210
A) Bernadette’s Hagiography: The Perpetual Repetition of an Origin Story. ......................... 212
B) The Founding Texts ................................................................................................................................... 215
a) Henri Lasserre’s Notre-Dame de Lourdes (1868) ................................................................... 217
b) Père Cros’s Histoire de Notre-Dame de Lourdes ....................................................................... 222
III – Elaborating a Canon: Catholics and the Question of Miracles ....................................... 229
A) Boissarie and The Lourdes Medical Bureau ................................................................................... 232
B) Boissarie: L’Histoire Médicale de Lourdes (1891) ....................................................................... 236
a) A Spectacular Catalogue of Scientific Case Studies ................................................................ 237
b) Hysteria and Suggestion in Boissarie’s Histoire Médicale de Lourdes ............................ 251
C) Writing the Suffering Body: Lourdes’s Use of Medical Case Studies .................................... 256
a) A Comparative Case Study: Reading the Miracle of the Veuve Rizan ............................ 257
b) Stories from the 1897 Jubilé ............................................................................................................ 267
c) Reading Lourdes: The Cases of Zola’s Elise Rouquet and La Grivotte ........................... 269
Chapter Conclusion ................................................................................................................................... 274
EPILOGUE - FROM FREUD’s IMMATERIAL UNCONSCIOUS TO THE RETURN OF THE
BIOLOGICAL BODY ....................................................................................................................... 276
Introduction ................................................................................................................................................. 276
I - Toward a Geography of the Immaterial Mind .......................................................................... 279
A) The Undoing of Charcot’s Legacy ........................................................................................................ 279
B) Tracing the Genealogy of Freud’s Immaterial Unconscious. ................................................... 290
II – Where Did the (Biological) Body Go? ........................................................................................ 297
A) Rejecting the (Biological) (Female) Body ........................................................................................ 297
B) Mapping the Psychoanalytic Body ...................................................................................................... 302
C) The Biological Body as a Path to Include Other Bodies? ............................................................ 305
D) Rehabilitating the Body, Reclaiming Hysteria ............................................................................... 306
Chapter Conclusion ................................................................................................................................... 308
CONCLUSION .................................................................................................................................. 312
BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................................. 314
Primary Texts .............................................................................................................................................. 314
Secondary Texts .......................................................................................................................................... 315
Dissertations ................................................................................................................................................ 321
Films ................................................................................................................................................................ 321
Complementary Sources ......................................................................................................................... 321

Lorsqu'on voyait au moyen-âge une femme tomber en convulsions,
rouler les yeux, tirer la langue, se débattre comme une forcenée en
poussant des cris effrayants, nul ne pensait que cet appareil
tumultueux pût être le fait d'une affection nerveuse. On rapportait au
pouvoir néfaste du démon des accidents, qui aujourd'hui, sont
universellement mis sur le compte de l'hystérie.
Quand les danseurs de Saint-Guy parcouraient, au XIV
e
siècle, les
villages de l'Allemagne, du Luxembourg et des Pays-Bas, menant sur
les carrefours et les places publiques leurs farandoles délirantes,
entraînant à chaque étape de nouveaux adeptes dans leur vertigineux
tourbillon, on voyait encore dans ces débordements une
manifestation de l'esprit du mal.
Ainsi furent jugés également les paysans de la Pouille qui, au XV
e

siècle, se disaient piqués de la tarentule ; les frénétiques danseurs
autour des feux allumés à l'occasion de la Saint-Jean, de la fête des
Rois ou de la Noël. Tels aussi les adeptes de certaines sectes
religieuses au XVII
e
et au XVIII
e
siècles, les Manichéens, les
Anabaptistes, les Cicètes, les Jumpers, etc., et les scènes tumultueuses
près du tombeau du diacre Pâris.

Henri Meige, Les Possédées Noires, 1894.

8
INTRODUCTION

Wandering wombs breed wandering words.
Peggy Phelan, Mourning Sex.

I - Hysteria’s return

To Each Era its Hysteria
During his April 17
th
1888 weekly clinical lesson held at the Salpêtrière hopital in Paris,
famed neurologist Jean Martin Charcot proclaimed: “Décidément, on ne voit que ce que l’on
a appris à voir; ces cas m’étaient inconnus il y a trois ans, comme aux autres, et cependant ils
existaient, car il n’est pas du tout vraisemblable qu’il s’agisse là d’une maladie nouvelle.”
1

What Charcot was refering to was yet another case of traumatic hysteria in an otherwise
healthy, vigorous man. The man had suffered a minor occupational accident and
subsequently developed a paralysis whose severity did not in any way match the initial
physical trauma. But now that Charcot had accepted – and theorized – the notion of male
hysteria, he noticed this type of case more and more frequently. This newly developed
diagnosis of male hysteria was just one iteration of hysteria’s overwhelming presence on the
medical scene in late nineteenth-century Paris and, as the fin de siècle was learning about
hysteria, the disease was turning up everywhere.
Hysteria was not new to the nineteenth century. It was one of the earliest documented
diseases, first identified by Hippocrates. At the Salpêtrière Women’s hospital, doctors
endeavored to observe, monitor and auscultate hysterics and, relying on photography in one
of its first clinical uses, document the spectacular symptoms caused by the condition. It is

1
Jean Martin Charcot, Leçons du Mardi à la Salpêtrière 1887-1888, Tome 1 (Paris: 1892), 254.
9
there that, during the second half of the nineteenth century, the study of hysteria benefited
from the latest advances in medicine and scientific methodology. Soon hysteria emerged
jointly as a disease in its own right in the fin-de-siècle nosology and as a new cultural
obsession.
Hysteria owes its name to the uterus, ὑστέρα, the organ that was originally associated
with the disease. Indeed, during antiquity, hysteria was known as the disease of the
wandering womb and its dramatic symptoms were then explained by the woman’s sexual
organs moving about her body which resulted in choking, convulsions and other spectacular
manifestations. This definition of hysteria framed the way hysteria was apprehended and
discussed for centuries to follow and continues to haunt the term. First thought to be a
uterine condition, hysteria remained completely entangled with womanhood and, though
dissident explanations for hysteria punctuate its history, the uterine explanation
overshadowed all others and was still very much in circulation when Charcot started his
reign over the Salpêtrière. It is under his authority that hysteria became the fin-de-siècle
disease par excellence and, even though his theories soon fell out of favor, the iconic and
spectacular hysteria he defined remained as a pervasive – yet mysterious – cultural presence.
Indeed, in spite of the countless medical debates and theoretical discussions it has stirred up
since Charcot, hysteria remains to this day somewhat of a conundrum. Even though hysteria
as a diagnosis was expunged from the DSM III in 1980, many theories continue to circulate
as to what hysteria really was and whether it continues to exist under a new identity. Hysteria
advances behind a mask and most critics agree about its inherently mimetic capabilities. It is
this ability to disguise itself that feminist critic and psychoanalyst Juliet Mitchell points to
when she writes that “Hysteria also migrates. Supremely mimetic, what was once called
10
hysteria manifests itself in forms more attuned to its new social surroundings.”
2
Hysteria’s
mystery results, at least in part, from its ability to change shape and form over time in order
to adapt to its surroundings so much so that each historical era generates its own version of
hysteria.
The indecipherable mystery of hysteria undoubtedly explains its continued cultural
presence. In the past few years, its fin-de-siècle incarnation has set off a renewed mainstream
interest. Recently hysteria went from being a scholarly topic of inquiry, to being the subject
of several films centered on the so-called Golden Age of hysteria. A disease of convulsions
and theatrical manifestations, hysteria is visually compelling and an array of recent films
honor its spectacular symptoms. In 2003, the French film Augustine
3
initiated this return to
fin-de-siècle hysteria by presenting the story of one of the Salpêtrière’s most famous patients,
a young hemiplegic hysteric named Augustine. Particularly interested in showing the role
played by photography in the documentation of hysteria, this first film retraces the history of
Augustine’s famous photographs and extensively stages her hysterical crises. Augustine, and
more particularly her ambiguous relation with Charcot, are also the subject of Alice
Winocour’s 2012 film Augustine
4
. Along with Blanche and Geneviève, Augustine was one of
Charcot’s most famous and iconic patients; she now appears to be the one most commonly
remembered. Historian Asti Hustvedt questions the reason behind her lasting fame:
The patient who came to be known as Augustine was not as famous
as Blanche Wittman during her stay at the Salpêtrière, yet over time
she has become Charcot’s most celebrated hysteric. Later
generations have turned her into an icon: an object of desire, a
victim of misogyny, or a feminist rebel, depending on who is
claiming her for themselves. Artists, writers, choreographers,

2
Juliet Mitchell, Mad Men and Medusas : Reclaiming Hysteria (New York : Basic Books, 2000),
ix.
3
Augustine, dir. Jean-Claude Monod, 2003.
4
Augustine, dir. Alice Winocour, 2012.
11
filmmakers, and cultural critics have adopted her as a kind of mascot
and projected their own ideas and fantasies about femininity onto a
teenager who spent several years at the Salpêtrière Hospital more
than a century ago. Why Augustine?
5

For Hustvedt, the answer lies, at least partially, in the fact that Augustine was the most
photographed – and the most photogenic – hysteric at the Salpêtrière. Hence, she owes her
reputation to her visibility in the Iconographie Photographique de la Salpêtrière as the quintessential
face of Charcot’s hysteria. In 1928, it is a photograph of Augustine that would be chosen by
André Breton to illustrate the Surrealists’ celebration of Le Cinquantenaire de l’Hystérie. As they
celebrate hysteria as the greatest poetic invention, it is essentially the hysteria incarnated by
Augustine that they praise. Within a few decades, Augustine had become the face, and body,
of hysteria.
These recent films about hysteria illustrate the spike in interest in the disease. But they
also frame it since they focus on the Salpêtrière’s incarnation of hysteria and the pre-
psychoanalytical period. If this particular era continues to fascinate filmmakers, it is
undoubtedly because it tackles a number of issues – around women’s bodies and sexuality,
around the representation of femininity and feminine illnesses, and around the medical
understanding of illness – that have yet to be resolved. The permanence of these issues is
particularly visible in another contemporary film that obliquely addresses hysteria.

Hysteria in Lourdes
To the hysteria scholar, Jessica Hausner’s 2009 film Lourdes
6
appears as a perpetuation
of nineteenth-century stereotypes of the disease. Set in the present day during the annual

5
Asti Hustvedt, Medical Muses: Hysteria in Nineteenth-century Paris (New York: Norton, 2011),
145.
6
Lourdes, dir. Jessica Hausner, 2009.
12
pilgrimage to the French sanctuary city of Lourdes, the film tells the story of Christine, a
paralytic woman who joins a group of miracle-hunter pilgrims on their journey to the Marian
sanctuary city of Lourdes. The film follows this group through their daily devotions as
Christine’s behavior becomes increasingly mysterious. Cheerful, coquettish, and constantly
yearning for male attention, Christine challenges the traditional representation of the sick
and desperate pilgrim, especially when she sets her heart on one of the pilgrimage’s male
guides. She stands out further when she is the only one in her group to experience a
miraculous healing and is suddenly able to walk. However, the miracle is soon tarnished by
the film’s implicit portrayal of Christine as a fraud. After having recovered the use of her
limbs, her very first action is to ostentatiously brush her hair in front of a mirror. She is later
shown passionately kissing the coveted guide within hours of her healing and, each time that
she reiterates the story of how “it” happened, the details are ever so slightly modified to
achieve a more satisfying dramatic effect for her fascinated audiences. By its use of
nineteenth-century codes – Christine is portrayed as affabulatrice, séductrice, simulatrice, and
manipulatrice – the film conjures up the figure of the fin-de-siècle hysteric. In this context,
Lourdes shows that nineteenth-century hysteria still shapes contemporary representations of
(sick) women and that the issues surrounding hysteria have not yet been settled.
But this film also does something else: it explicitly articulates historical stereotypes
about hysteria with another crucial fin-de-siècle occurrence, namely miracles and
supernatural manifestations and, thereby, the film creates a dialogue between two mysterious
representations of the sick body: hysteria, an ever-elusive disease, and miracles, the
unexplainable healing of the body. By doing so, Lourdes is a contemporary incarnation of a
debate that had agitated the fin de siècle, opposing doctors and believers, as they were trying
to decide whether some diseases and their miraculous healings were just another
13
manifestation of simulation. As a result, for many physicians, hysteria and miracles became
two sides of the same coin, two distinct but interconnected manifestations of the human
ability to mysteriously act out disease and health.

Hysteria and Miracles
Though the nineteenth century is most often remembered as the golden age of
positivism and scientific progress, the apparitions of the Virgin Mary in Lourdes in 1858, and
the ensuing pilgrimages, offer the most striking example that the fin de siècle was also an age
of intense religious devotion. There is therefore a tension between two types of sanctuaries:
the secular institution of the Salpêtrière that attempts to grasp the mysteries of the hysterical
body and the religious institution at Lourdes that embraces the mystery of healing as a
manifestation of faith in the divine. As different as these two experiences may appear, they
are however both ultimately centered around the sick body. Indeed, the coincidence of
hysteria’s rediscovery at the Salpêtrière and the miracles in Lourdes points to a common
ground since both phenomena appear to be displays of equally inexplicable – and equally
spectacular – physical manifestations and, as such, shed a new light on the understanding of
the physical body at a time when the foundations of modern medicine were being laid down.
In his 1974 seminar at the Collège de France entitled Les Anormaux, Foucault remarked
on the uncanny timing of the convergence of hysteria and miraculous healings:
On pourrait dire en gros ceci. C’est que, vers les années 1870-1890, se
constitue une sorte de vis-à-vis Lourdes-la Salette d’une part, et puis
la Salpêtrière de l’autre, avec derrière tout cela le point focal et
historique de Loudun, tout ceci faisant triangle. Il y a d’un côté
Lourdes, qui dit : “les diableries de Loudun étaient peut-être, en effet,
des hystéries à la manière de la Salpêtrière. Laissons à la Salpêtrière
les diableries de Loudun. Mais ceci ne nous touche en rien, puisque
nous ne nous occupons plus que des apparitions et des petits
enfants.” Ce à quoi la Salpêtrière répond: “ Ce que Loudun et
14
Lourdes ont fait, nous pouvons aussi bien le faire. Nous faisons des
convulsions, nous pouvons aussi faire des apparitions.” Ce à quoi
Lourdes rétorque : “Guérissez tant que vous voudrez. Il y a un
certain nombre de guérisons que vous ne pourrez pas faire et que
nous ferons.” C’est ainsi que, vous voyez, se constitue, toujours dans
la grande dynastie de cette histoire des convulsions, cet
enchevêtrement et cette bataille entre le pouvoir ecclésiastique et le
pouvoir médical. De Loudun à Lourdes, à la Salette ou à Lisieux, il y
a eu tout un déplacement, toute une espèce de translation de la chair,
tout un déplacement réciproque des convulsions et des apparitions.
7

Hence, Foucault points to Lourdes and the Salpêtrière as the iconic poles in a battle between
religious and medical powers. On the one hand, Lourdes presents itself as a unique site of
divine intervention and dismisses other cases – such as the seventeenth-century possessions
at Loudun – as detrimental to its cause. On the other hand, the Salpêtrière conflates, and
discards, all supernatural manifestations. The Salpêtrière essentially pathologizes both
apparitions and miracles and believes in its ability to replicate them in a secular setting in
order to debunk them. Yet, Lourdes ultimately points to the limits of medical knowledge
because of the few cases the Salpêtrière could never adequately explain.
Two things are particularly interesting in Foucault’s analysis. First, his emphasis on the
apparent dialogue between Lourdes and the Salpêtrière: the relationship between hysteria
and miracles is indeed a dynamic one and the fin de siècle becomes the backdrop of an
exchange that goes beyond medical and religious publications and propagates throughout the
culture at large. Second, Foucault exposes the circularity between the two: in the late
nineteenth-century, Lourdes and the Salpêtrière continually echo and respond to each other.
However, in spite of their obvious differences, hysteria and miracles both articulate the
same questions about the body: How is one cured? What is the influence of the mind over
the body? Or rather, how is the role of the mind understood and explained at that time? Does

7
Michel Foucault, Les Anormaux: Cours au Collège de France (1974-1975) (Paris:
Seuil/Gallimard, 1999), 210.
15
(religious) faith play a role in these processes? Can a disease whose symptoms remain elusive
or invisible actually be a “real” disease? Thus, it is the conundrum of the mysteriously sick,
or the miraculously healed, body that Charcot endeavors to solve when he takes over his
functions at the Salpêtrière.

A Hysterical Etymology
When he set his sights on hysteria, Charcot inhererited its long, conflicted history and
a complexity that can be first traced through its etymology. Although hysteria is one of the
oldest documented diagnoses and much has been written about it, there is still much
uncertainty as to what it actually is. The etymology of hysteria, which was identified as a
uterine disease from the very start, dates back to Hippocrates, the father of Western
medicine. In Greek, hystera (ὑστέρα) designates the uterus, and hysteria was diagnosed by
extension as a disease originating in the womb. Hysterical convulsions were thus commonly
explained by the uterus traveling up to the woman’s throat, thereby commonly designating
hysteria as the disease of the wandering womb. Originating in ancient Greece, this uterine
explanation persisted for centuries.
Yet, as hysteria’s symptoms are not limited to the uterus and as no physical trace of a
hysterical lesion can be found in the womb, the condition continues to raise a number of
questions. Was hysteria truly a disease of the uterus, as its etymology may lead us to believe?
Was hysteria originally identified as a disease of the uterus whose list of symptoms was
extended to include non-uterine troubles? Or did the etymology contribute to misleading
interpretations of the disease and lasting confusion? Is it a misnamed neurological disease?
Was the wandering womb used to explain a wide range of maladies? Is it one disease, or a
constellation of disparate diseases? In other words, was hysteria truly a uterine/feminine
16
disease or is it a pathology actually unrelated to the female anatomy that can therefore afflict
men?
Sabine Arnaud’s doctoral research
8
highlights the fact that, although the etymological
explanation of hysteria has largely prevailed to date, it is also the cause of an enduring
confusion. She particularly relies on the works of Helen King and Etienne Trillat in pointing
to the fact that the Greek adjective hysterike was originally used to localize symptoms rather
than denominate a pathology. According to Arnaud, Trillat questions hysteria’s assimilation
with women’s anatomy:
Etienne Trillat was the first scholar to refute that Hippocratic
treatises discuss hysteria. His work Histoire critique de l’hystérie attacks
the misinterpretations that have deformed the Hippocratic corpus,
affirming: “Le mot ‘hystérie’ ne figure nulle part. Il a été rajouté par
Littré dans les intertitres toutes les fois qu’Hippocrate consacre un
paragraphe à la suffocation de la matrice. La mobilité de l’utérus à
l’intérieur du corps sert d’explication à bien des maladies de femmes,
et pas seulement à la “suffocation de la matrice” qui n’est qu’un cas
particulier. C’est ainsi, par exemple, que les maladies dues à la
suppression des règles relèvent d’une migration de la matrice.” Trillat
then retranslates several passages to demonstrate uncertainties and
imprecision in the Hippocratic diagnosis: “Une ambiguïté demeure à
savoir qui suffoque. S’il est clair que c’est la femme qui suffoque
lorsque la matrice se jette sur le foie et obstrue les voies respiratoires,
sur les autres point d’accrochage, on a plutôt l’impression que c’est la
matrice elle-même qui suffoque: ‘Quand la matrice se porte aux
hypocondres, elle suffoque.’” He concludes “La description clinique
reste rudimentaire, et il faut solliciter le texte pour y voir une
préfiguration de la crise hystérique.”
9

According to his interpretation, the definition of hysteria as a female malady appears far-
fetched since the clinical description does not provide adequate detail.

8
I am referencing Sabine Arnaud’s dissertation. Her book, On Hysteria : the Invention of a
Medical Category between 1670 and 1820, came out in late 2015 when the present dissertation
was already written.
9
Sabine Arnaud, Narratives and Politics of a Diagnosis: The Construction and Circulation of Hysteria
as a Medical Category, 1730-1820 (Doctoral Dissertation, City University of New York, 2007),
4.
17
Arnaud continues by sharing scholar Helen King’s critique of the etymological
misuse that has shaped the contemporary understanding of hysteria:
She contests Littré’s translation of the term “hysterika” by affirming
that is (sic) an ancient Greek adjective that signified “of the uterus.”
She establishes that this adjective was used to localize symptoms
rather than denominate a pathology (…) It becomes apparent that
Littré interpreted the Hippocratic corpus in light of anachronistic
nineteenth-century medical conceptions. Helen King demonstrates
that Hippocratic theorizations on suffocation of the mother and
female maladies were not interpreted as texts on hysteric maladies
before the sixteenth century.
10

Hysteria could then be the result of an unfortunate misunderstanding whose denomination
would durably affect the perception of the condition and its destiny. For Trillat and King,
“hysterike” indicates the exact anatomical location of a symptom, in this case the womb. But
it does not convey any information as to the nature of the pathology. In other words, uterine
symptoms could be associated with a wide range of potential disorders, ranging from
menstrual cramps, endometriosis, cysts, or cancer. Yet, according to traditional Greek
nosology they would all be included under the general term “hysteria.” If hysteria was first
thought to be a uterine disease it was then solely because of the localization of its symptoms.
Hence the posterity of hysteria falls victim to a linguistic confusion between an area of the
body, the seat of symptoms, and an actual pathology. Thus, even though hysterical
symptoms originated in the uterine area, they did not necessarilly denote a pathological
womb. In other words, the womb could be the seat of symptoms without necessarily being
the cause of an illness.
In spite of its long recorded history, hysteria all but vanished until the sixteenth
century. Arnaud traces the return of hysteria through the appearance of the word “hysteria”
and remarks:

10
Ibid., 5.
18
Before the 18th century, the term did not exist in any substantive
form. The first appearance of the French word recovered in this
research dates from 1771. The English terms “hystericism” and
“hysteria” emerge in 1710 and 1764, respectively. A number of
adjective forms precede the noun. The adjective “hystérique” appears
in 1568 in France to describe troubles of the womb. The adjective
“hysterical” is first seen in England in 1615, followed by the word
“hystericks” in 1649, used to describe remedies for hysteric pain. The
variation “hysteric” emerges in 1657. Despite the relative novelty of
these terms, they are invested with conceptions originating in
Antiquity and the Renaissance.
11

Hysteria’s return is, then, first signaled lexically and its meaning reflects its foundational
uterine assumption. Though the disease ended up bearing its anatomical location and the
associated symptoms in its very name, over time hysteria also began to encompass a wide
range of symptoms, not necessarily uterine, but still believed to be essentially “feminine.”
However, despite the evident anatomical location of its symptoms, a constant
characteristic of hysteria remained the difficulty in identifying it. Well before the nineteenth
century, the disease had already proved particularly challenging for doctors. Arnaud
highlights the fact that hysteria defied traditional diagnostic methods and that its symptoms
remained elusive. She writes:
Symptoms are seen as signals through which the body speaks,
providing a language for the direct expression of its troubles. In this
equation, the doctor presumes the sincerity of the body and discovers
illness by interpreting and deciphering its signs. The color of the skin
and urine, pulse, and body temperature serve as intermediaries.
Hysteric manifestations frustrate the translation of the body’s signs
according to symptomatology.
12

Hysteria actually challenges the very notion of the objective symptom. Typically, symptoms
are the main way to identify and understand a condition. Yet, hysteric symptoms are difficult

11
Ibid., 51.
12
Ibid., 93.
19
to interpret and further confuse doctors. As a result, sixteenth and seventeenth-century
doctors had to change their approach to disease when dealing with hysteria:
Rather than recognizing the signs of an illness, one reaches a
diagnosis by rejecting all other possibilities in the nosology. Hysteric
illness demands a classification of maladies that incorporates their
genre, principles, and causes. There is no symptom that allows
doctors to rule out hysteric illness as a diagnosis. Though this
dynamic posed a problem, it also offered a solution. When in doubt,
doctors could now resort to diagnoses of hysteric illness.
13

Hence, hysteria becomes a ragbag of possible symptoms, a disease impossible to confirm
and yet so promptly diagnosed. In other words, hysteria defies classification and challenges
logical explanation.
The difficulty of making sense of hysterical symptoms could be better understood
through an alternate, or complementary, etymology for hysteria. Hysteria scholar Martha
Noel Evans tracked down hysteria through the rhetorical figure of the usteron-proteron and
consequently suggests another set of productive connotations for hysteria:
The Greek word for uterus is also related, in its neuter form, usteron,
with what comes after or behind. This form of the word is familiar to
literary scholars in the name of a rhetorical device, usteron-proteron,
in which the term that is logically second or derivative is drawn into a
prime position (Let us die and fight for our country). The verbal
form of usteron, usterein, means to come behind or late, and, derived
from that, to fall short, to be inferior. At the intersection of uterus
and that which comes after, the neuter plural, usteria (meaning literally
“things of the uterus”) signifies the placenta or more precisely, the
afterbirth.
14

Evans’s anaylisis traces this etymological connection to the placenta to the rhetorical figure
of the hysteron proteron which is based on the inversion of the logical order. The Oxford
English Dictionary defines hysteron proteron as “1) A figure of speech in which the word or

13
Ibid., 94.
14
Martha Noel Evans, Fits and Starts: A Genealogy of Hysteria in Modern France (Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 1991), 4.
20
phrase that should properly come last is put first; 2) Inversion of the natural or logical order;
as by placing the conclusion before the premisses, etc. 3) Generally, the position or
arrangement of things in the reverse of their natural or rational order; ‘putting the cart
before the horse’; topsy-turvydom.”
15
In line with the hysteron proteron, the figure of
speech in which what should come last is put first, hysteria is therefore a disease that
challenges both logic and temporality. It is a fundamentally disorienting disease: its
symptoms are not what they appear, nor are they necessarily where they appear.
A brief foray into the Bailly Ancient Greek/French dictionnary
16
confirms Evans’s
analysis as the definitions referring to the womb and to lateness are closely entangled,
converging only around the notion of the afterbirth. From this etymological connection,
Evans derives an analysis of hysteria that, counter to its dramatic manifestations, highlights
its elusiveness and invisibility:
I have taken this excursion into etymology not only to show how
appropriate this cluster of associations remains today in relation to
hysteria, but also to point up another facet of the connection
between hysteria and its theories – and that is that hysteria always
comes after what is shown (theoria, a sight, a spectacle). While we may
posit a real disorder – hysteria in and of itself – which is the site, the
object, of speculation, it exists nevertheless only as a scattered
spectacle or, alternatively, as a derivative concept. In spite of the
proverbial showiness of hysteria, the theatricality of its
manifestations, the hysteria that generates theory is in a sense
invisible, like the uterus, and can become known only as an afterbirth,
as what comes after the mysteries of love – the product of the
gendered encounter between theory and its object. …Like the
afterbirth, it is the site of an exchange that has already taken place.
17

Thus, it is the inherent invisibility of hysteria – a hysteria understood as a trace of something

15
Oxford English Dictionary, s. v. “hysteron proteron,” accessed February, 5
th
2016,
http://www.oed.com.libproxy2.usc.edu/view/Entry/90656?redirectedFrom=hysteron+prot
eron&
16
Dictionnaire Grec-Français, Anatole Bailly, 1935, 2042.
17
Evans, Fits and Starts, 4.
21
else – that consistently intrigues.
Drawing on Evans’s work, Janet Beizer continues to explore the etymological
connection between hysteria and the placenta:
The etymological connections among the words hysteria, uterus,
placenta, and afterbirth suggest to me an uncanny record, in
language, of a well-reserved cultural construction. Briefly stated, the
production of hysteria follows the evolution of the afterbirth.
Nurturing is discarded; the idol falls. Hysteria is a formation that
answers to both reverence and disgust: like the afterbirth/placenta, it
depends upon contradiction and paradox. Hysteria always comes
back to such structures of ambiguous and ambivalent thought.
18

Here hysteria appears as an essential component of life, yet one that is eventually rejected.
This, in turn, points to the universality and to the temporary character of hysteria. We may
all be, at one time or another, hysterics or, at the very least, we may all be coming from hysteria.
Hysteria is therefore akin to a disjunction in the order of things and, as such, also
emerges as a troubling presence. It is what comes last and challenges the order of things. It is
a physiological challenge, a logical challenge, and soon, for Charcot’s School an
epistemological one, as hysteria would resist scientific explanation and categorization. It is
also a linguistic challenge: while its etymology has decisively marked it, hysteria’s list of
unpredictable and spectacular symptoms has made it hard to accurately describe and
metaphors of hysteria have filled this gap.

Metaphors of Hysteria, Hysteria as Metaphor
In Illness as Metaphor, Susan Sontag famously highlights the many uses of illness as a
figure or a metaphor and notes: “it is hardly possible to take up one’s residence in the
kingdom of the ill unprejudiced by the lurid metaphors with which it has been

18
Janet Beizer, Ventriloquized Bodies: Narratives of Hysteria in Nineteenth-century France (Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 1994), 45.
22
landscaped.”
19
Though her work is primarily concerned with tuberculosis and cancer,
hysteria is another disease whose history has been particularly prone to metaphoric thinking.
While Sontag analyzes tuberculosis as a disease of time (as illustrated by the idea that
consumption gallops), she finds cancer to be a disease of space since “its principal
metaphors refer to topography.”
20
Along the same lines, hysteria could then be analyzed as a
disease of elusiveness and fluidity.
Building on Sontag’s work, Sabine Arnaud recognizes hysteria’s particularly strong
metaphorical potential:
Writing is ill equipped to record hysteric manifestations. Unable to literally
translate the malady’s extraordinary character into words, doctors rely upon
evocative images to capture their readers’ imaginations. Such images are
summoned to convey the singularity and intensity of hysteria. Paradoxically,
many doctors agree that metaphor provides the clearest idea of the malady.
21

Particularly difficult to diagnose and accurately describe, hysteria poses a narrative challenge
often solved by the recourse to metaphors. Essentially, hysteria’s propensity for
metaphorical thinking points to its rhetorical powers: as the language of hysteria falls short in
the literal realm, it thrives in the metaphorical one.
Arnaud identifies several evocative figures of hysteria. Going back to Plato’s Timaeus,
she considers the idea of the womb as an animal, which inaugurates both the role played by
imagination in the perception of hysteria, and the tradition of portraying hysteria as a disease
of physical alienation. As the body hides and dissimulates, it also emerges as a foreign entity,
taking on a life of its own.
Imagination is definitely at play when, in the seventeenth century, hysteria becomes
associated with a mythological character:

19
Susan Sontag, Illness as Metaphor (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1977), 3.
20
Ibid., 14.
21
Arnaud, Narratives and Politics of a Diagnosis, 95.
23
Proteus was an ancient Greek god of the ocean and son of Oceanus and
Tethys with the power to take any form he desired, whether animal or
vegetable. He possessed a capacity for prophecy as well, but refused to
divulge the future to mortals. A number of hysteric women were identified as
having this gift for prophecy.
22

This figure, capable of morphing into any shape, of seeing the future, and yet unreliable,
seems to be so fitting to hysteria that “the image of Proteus becomes ubiquitous in medical
literature on hysteria, and soon serves as a second name for the malady.”
23
Later, at the end
of the eighteenth century, the figure is mentioned in a lecture and, this time, it is Proteus’s
trickery that is emphasized. Evoking a course given by eighteenth-century physican
Broussonet, Arnaud writes:
In his lecture on pathology, the image of Proteus is no longer aligned with a
fascination for the extraordinary or supernatural. The phrases of “masque,”
“démasquer,” “trompeuses apparences” and “malgré lui” instead accentuate
the trickster character of Proteus. The image represents a malady that cannot
be localized and whose characteristics cannot be determined. It is an illness
that defies descriptions and renders it obsolete by refusing definition and
confusing treatments. Hysteria is a malady that becomes a lie. It is doubly
dangerous in that it puts both the patient’s health and the doctor’s reputation
into peril.
24

Unable to localize the seat of the disease or to identify its symptoms precisely, hysteria tricks
and deceives doctors and observers, earning its reputation as a deceitful disease and, by
extension, casting a suspicious shadow on hysteric patients.
Another prominent metaphor of hysteria builds on its association with trickery and
deception by equating hysteria with the chameleon. Indeed, the chameleon is an animal that
fascinates the French public in the seventeenth century and whose ability to dissimulate
evokes hysteria’s tricks:
The chameleon represents versatility, intellectual flexibility, and the

22
Ibid., 99.
23
Ibid., 100.
24
Ibid., 101.
24
amorphousness of moral rules. It is connected more to the idea of
manipulation than dissimulation, which is also associated with hysteria
throughout the eighteenth century. A hysteric understands how to react so as
to defeat adversaries and exploit the sympathy of her entourage. The
theatricality of hysteric manifestations and immediacy of her fits express the
full strength of her convictions.
25

Though Proteus and the chameleon share some of the same characteristics, the use of the
chameleon metaphor hints at the intentionality behind hysteria’s tricks: the hysteric is not
just a passive victim of her disease, but intentionally and inherently controls the deception as
a weapon in an adversarial relationship.
Finally, another mythological figure adds another layer of complexity when it is used to
refer to hysteria. In Greek mythology, the hydra was the paragon of the adversary that can
never be completely defeated:
The hydra of Lerne, created as a test for Hercules, was a snake possessing
five or six heads that reproduced after they were severed. After victory over
the hydra, Hercules poisoned his arrows with its blood. This same blood later
kills Hercules himself, included in a purported love potion given by Nessos
to Hercules’ wife.
26

However, in the late eighteenth century the hydra would also become a common political
metaphor since “the image of hydras finds another signification in 1789. In this context, the
doctor must decapitate the hydra as the revolutionaries guillotined the monarchy.”
27

Whereas the figure of Proteus and the chameleon evoke elusiveness and deception, “with
the metaphor of the hydra, accent falls on the resistance of the malady rather than the
difficulty of recognizing it.”
28
Hence, “the image of the hydra leads the hysteric to be cast as
the enemy, and their affliction is understood as a series of paroxysmal fits. With the hydra,
the hysteric is unified with her malady.”
29
The double use of the hydra metaphor to describe

25
Ibid., 103.
26
Ibid., 106.
27
Ibid., 108.
28
Ibid.,107.
29
Ibid., 107.
25
both hysteria and the French Revolution hints at the perceived danger of both conditions
and at the boundary separating the female body from the body politic. Therefore, “when
Burke presents France as a sick feminine body that suffocates, trembles, and tears itself
apart,”
30
he de facto validates the metonymic relationship between the two sick bodies.
Finally, the political use of the metaphor and the porosity between hysteria and the political
situation foreshadow the political role that hysteria would later play in nineteenth century.
Metaphors of hysteria are a stand-in for what cannot (yet) be understood and Arnaud
considers that “the use of such different figures of language permits doctors to suggest that
which they are unable to theorize.”
31
But the constant recourse to metaphors to approach
hysteria is also, in and of itself, an indication of the difficulty of capturing the disease. As a
disease that fundamentally resists, it also defies words and can only be satisfactorily captured
through a rhetorical detour. The structural resistance of hysteria to explanation is an
indication of its very nature. Elusive, shapeless and deceitful, it escapes categorization and, as
such, escapes basic lingustic domestication. This characterization directly evokes that of
femininity itself and the mystery of hysteria echoes the mystery of femininity. Just like
femininity, hysteria cannot be contained, not even by language. As the recourse to
metaphors is the only path to describe hysteria, the metaphors used only emphasize its
essential intangibility. Whether Proteus, chameleon or hydra, hysteria is a deceitful prophet, a
polymorph trickster that will always defy and resist doctors’s efforts. In other words, hysteria
is a woman.

Hysteria before Charcot
Before the late nineteenth-century convergence of hysteria, apparitions and miracles,

30
Ibid., 427.
31
Ibid., 108.
26
the symptoms of hysteria had already long been associated with manifestations of religious
possession, stirring up the interest of the Church and doctors and designating hysteria as a
territory to be divided and conquered.
The seventeenth century sees a shift in the treatment of the disease. Cases of
witchcraft and possession, which would have fallen under the purview of the Church until
then, were now being investigated by doctors and, according to Arnaud, “In the years 1650
to 1750, the Church and the government solicit published interventions on the part of
doctors.”
32
The seventeenth century marks a crucial shift in the handling of cases of
witchcraft and possession since the Church actively sought out the help of doctors to
identify the nature of the cases and, in doing so, began to blur the line between the spiritual
and the pathological. Hence, hysteria plays a key role in the crucial face-off between religion
and medical science: it becomes the chosen path for the medical foray into religious matters.
As doctors are asked to decide if individuals are possessed by the Devil or to
judge whether sufferers are truly sick or simulating their affections, they
gradually spread a new physiological vision of the body. Establishing order
appears more important than actually treating the afflicted. Doctors free
convulsive manifestations from associations with demons and interpret them
as physiologically rooted in “animal spirits.” The medical community comes
to accept this change in their vision of the body.
Yet the status of these new medical judgments remains tenuous. In 1682, the
court asks doctors Bayle and Grangeron to diagnose religious convulsions at
a Toulouse convent. Bayle and Grangeron affect a submission to
ecclesiastical powers throughout their dissertation. Before they identify the
convulsions as epileptic manifestations, they make abundant references to
religious texts and authority
33

As medical competence is starting to be acknowledged in order to differentiate between
cases of possession and hysteria, doctors still proceed with caution in their diagnoses. As
hysteria prompts the redefinition of the relationship between medicine and the Church,

32
Ibid., 32.
33
Ibid., 33.
27
scientific authority and religious authority remain entangled.
This newly established collaboration between the Church and doctors probably
contributed to a boom in medical publications about hysteria, which Sabine Arnaud dates
between 1730 and 1820.
34
However, the actual origin of the disease – whether in the brain
or in the womb – remained mysterious and contested and Mark Micale notices a return of
the uterine theories of hysteria in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century after a
two-hundred year eclipse.
35

When Charcot’s reign at the Salpêtrière begins in 1862, hysteria is a well-known
disease, yet it is still prisoner of its traditional definitions. Evans explains that:
The manifestations and popular notions of the disorder had, remarkably, not
changed much over two thousand years. For the general public in France in
the 1870s hysteria was still a disease that had something to do with the
female “parts.” It made the women it affected act strangely and
unpredictably: some had fits and became violent; some starved themselves or
stopped speaking; others became paralyzed and took to their beds, their
bodies contorted by strange contractures.
36

In other words, even though many symptoms of hysteria did not relate to female anatomy
per se, hysteria nevertheless continued to be understood as a strictly female disease.
Consequently, when the epidemic of apparitions and the subsequent miraculous
healings happened, there was already a long documented precedent for the collaborative
handling of suspicious cases by the Church and doctors.

34
Arnaud notes that until the emergence of the word “hysteria,” a “host of other terms” was
used to describe the same symptoms. (Arnaud, 50) Though the modern term doesn’t appear
until the eighteenth century, hysteria as a category had existed since Antiquity and hysterical
affections were identified by their more symptomatic names: convulsions, vapors.
35
Quoted in Arnaud, Narratives and Politics of a Diagnosis: The Construction and Circulation of
Hysteria as a Medical Category (1730-1820),165.
36
Evans, Fits and Starts, 10.
28
An Epidemic of Apparitions
As the question of laïcisation agitates France in the fin de siècle, ferocious debates
oppose clerics and Republicans. These political tensions serve as the backdrop to an
unprecedented number of supernatural religious manifestations – namely apparitions of the
Virgin Mary – that historians have referred to it as an “epidemic of apparitions.” Two things
are particularly worth noting: first, these apparitions are almost exclusively apparitions of the
Virgin Mary and “Les manifestations miraculeuses de l’au-delà sont toutes mariales à partir
de 1830, de la médaille miraculeuse à Pontmain, en passant par la Salette et par Lourdes; et
les confidents de la Vierge que l’Église canonisera sont encore deux femmes, Catherine
Labouré et Bernadette Soubirous.”
37
Second, these manifestations give a crucial role to
women, so much so that the nineteenth century is the stage of a general “feminization of
piety.” Women are called on to become active members of fast-developing congregations –
essentially displaying a type of semi-professional feminine devotion – and, through the
Church’s enhanced educational initiative, are the target of a massive literacy effort. In fact,
Sarah Mombert considers women as instrumental in the propagation of a sort of “moral
literature.” She writes that,
Un exemple frappant de ce changement d’appréhension du roman
populaire est apporté par le cas des romancières catholiques étudiées
par Ellen Constans. A partir de 1870, l’Eglise retourne la
condamnation traditionnelle portée contre la litterature d’imagination
en arme offensive: désormais, les femmes sont incitées à publier des
œuvres d’imagination susceptibles de combattre l’influence
prétendument immorale du roman sur les classes populaires, et tout
particulièrement sur la jeunesse. C’est à ce moment-là que les
publications bien-pensantes, telles les veillées des chaumières, se
mettent à diffuser abondamment les romans écrits par des femmes,

37
Claude Langlois, “Féminisation du catholicisme,” in Histoire de la France Religieuse, Tome 3.
Du roi très chrétien à la laïcité républicaine XVIII
e
-XIX
e
, ed. Jacques Le Goff and René Rémond
(Paris: Seuil, 1991) 286.
29
qui héritent, dans ce nouveau contexte missionnaire, du rôle de
prosélytes actives des “bonnes lectures.”
38

Hence, women are essential in relaying the Church’s opinions. But women take on an even
more critical role in the nineteenth century, as they become the primary intermediaries of the
divine. At a time when the divine itself is feminine – the Virgin Mary dogmatically dominates
the century – women developed a uniquely privileged relationship with it.
According to Huysmans, “les apparitions de la Sainte Vierge à notre époque n’ont
rien qui puisse surprendre; Lourdes n’est dans l’histoire de la France ni une exception, ni une
nouveauté; toujours la Mère du Christ a considéré ce pays comme son fief.”
39
Of the
multitude of alleged apparitions that prompted the spontaneous creation of countless local
sanctuaries and pilgrimages, only a few passed the stringent test of the Vatican’s official
recognition. Out of ten Marian apparitions officially recognized to date, five took place in
France, four of them within the forty-one-year period between 1830 and 1871. Yet, while
this disproportionate number of apparitions affirms France’s special place in the Catholic
world, it cannot be explained solely by its place as “fille aînée de l’Eglise.”
Huysmans goes on to explain that the contrasting lack of apparitions in the French
eighteenth century was attributable to a deleterious national political context, more
particularly “l’effrayante bassesse des Bourbons” and “l’inexorable infamie des Jacobins.”
40

In doing so, Huysmans builds upon the conventional connection between worldly matters
and divine retribution, and admits that there is a direct connection between the French
political context and heavenly judgment. Hence, in the aftermath of the French Revolution,
and even after the period of de-christianisation, France was the cradle of anti-religious

38
Sarah Mombert, “Profession romancier populaire,” in Le Roman populaire : 1836-1960, des
premiers feuilletons aux adaptations télévisuelles, ed. Loïc Artiaga (Paris : Autrement, 2008), 73.
39
J.K. Huysmans, Les Foules de Lourdes (Paris: Stock, 1906), 9.
40
Ibid., 9.
30
sentiments. In this context, the timely multiplication of apparitions re-energized a weakened
Catholic Church. For Lourdes scholar Ruth Harris, “apparitions were the most extraordinary
displays of Mary’s sollicitude for a sinful nation,”
41
and the list of apparitions can be seen as
so many manifestations of Mary’s concerns and/or demands for France.
The first Vatican-approved Marian apparition of the nineteenth

century took place in
1830 at the rue du Bac in Paris, where Catherine Labouré, a novice at the Daughters of
Charity’s convent, reported first hearing, and then seeing, the Virgin Mary. Based on her
account, the Virgin appeared dressed in a white dress and blue coat and had shining rays of
light streaming from her hands. The vision was framed by these words: “O Mary, conceived
without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.” At the Virgin’s request, this vision was
then made into a medallion – now known as the Miraculous Medal – and disseminated
throughout Catholic Europe at the height of the cholera epidemic.
42
Historian Ruth Harris
estimates that the medal, also known as the “Medal of the Immaculate Conception,” “sold in
the millions and comforted the sick and dying of the cholera epidemic of 1832.”
43
The
medal would play a crucial role in the well-publicized conversion in 1842 of Alphonse
Ratisbonne. He indeed converted from Judaism to Catholicism after experiencing a vision of
the Virgin Mary that mirrored the image of the miraculous medal.
In 1846, in the alpine town of La Salette, two children, Maximin Giraud and Mélanie
Calvat, reported seeing a weeping Virgin Mary. Harris reports that the apparition “spoke in
French at first, claiming to have important news and explaining that she was trying to stay

41
Ruth Harris, Lourdes: Body and Spirit in the Secular Age (New York: Penguin Compass, 2000),
15.
42
Philippe Boutry, “La Mutation des croyances,” in Histoire de la France religieuse, Tome 3. Du
Roi Très Chrétien à la Laïcité Républicaine XVIII
e
-XIX
e
, ed. Jacques Le Goff and René Rémond
(Paris: Seuil, 1991), 463.
43
Harris, Lourdes: Body and Spirit in the Secular Age, 15.
31
the hand of her son, who was preparing a terrible punishment.”
44
On January 17 1871, while
Paris was under siege during the Franco-Prussian war, several children in Pontmain
witnessed another apparition of the Virgin, who enjoined the children to pray to God by
promising that He would grant them their wishes.
Sometimes, the timing of an apparition can reveal its opportunistic nature: in the
case of the Pontmain apparition, Philippe Boutry judges that “L’apparition de Pontmain
répond à la menace de l’invasion.”
45
As France was losing its war against Prussia, Paris was
besieged, and Brittany was on the verge of being invaded, the apparition confirmed France’s
privileged place within Catholicism and provided a spiritual ultimatum and hope for a
positive outcome. The fact that, on the night following the apparition, the Prussian army
stopped short of capturing Pontmain was considered a miracle and re-inforced the influence
of the Catholic Church.
Most of these supernatural sightings actually occurred in moments of political, social,
or economical tension. Catherine Labouré’s experience took place at a time of heightened
political instability: she heard the Virgin a few days before the July Revolution, while the
apparition took place in November 1830, only a few months after the start of the July
Monarchy. The La Salette apparitions also happened during the July Monarchy, amidst
particularly intense social conflicts. Exemplary of the period’s angst, the Faubourg Saint-
Antoine riots were prompted by the high cost of bread and took place within weeks of the
apparition. Hence, Boutry suggests that apparitions can often be interpreted as responses to
the various political and economic crises that stirred up the nineteenth century: La Salette
takes place during the 1846-1847 famine and Pontmain as France faces the Prussian

44
Ibid., 60.
45
Boutry, “La Mutation des Croyances,” 467.
32
invasion.
46
Similarly, we can extend Boutry’s analysis to include the Rue du Bac apparitions,
which take place following the political turmoil of the July monarchy. Throughout the
epidemic of apparitions, the Virgin Mary appears as a reassuring and calming figure
dedicated to helping the poor in the face of adversity.

The Lourdes Apparitions
The most famous of these supernatural occurrences began in 1858 in the small
Pyrenean town of Lourdes, when fourteen-year old Bernadette Soubirous saw the Virgin
Mary appear before her eyes. This sighting, the first in a series of eighteen, which were to
take place over the following six months, happened following the assassination attempt of
Napoleon III by Orsini, at a time of increased vulnerability for the French government.
Miracles started taking place at the site early on and the water of the spring, which had
erupted at the site of the apparitions, was soon sought after by the pilgrims.
On February 11, 1858, Bernadette Soubirous, a fourteen-year old uneducated and
sickly shepherdess, accompanied her sister and her friend outside the small Pyrenean town
of Lourdes to collect firewood.
47
By the riverbank, there was an area with a grotto named
Masabielle where, while the other girls were moving ahead, Bernadette first heard a wind.
She then saw a soft light emanating from the grotto and eventually a beautiful, smiling child.
The apparition had a rosary and made the sign of the cross. No words were spoken and
Bernadette realized that she was the only one to have seen the child. When her sister
reported to their mother what Bernadette had seen, they were grounded and forbidden to
return to Masabielle. When Bernadette managed to return to the grotto more of her friends

46
Ibid., 466.
47
As will become apparent in my third chapter, there are many versions of Bernadette’s
story. This simplified version comes mostly from Ruth Harris’s Lourdes Introduction.
33
followed her and the apparition returned. Again, only Bernadette was able to see her.
Bernadette was once again forbidden to return but her mother eventually changed her mind,
leading to a third vision. It is during this third apparition that the vision spoke for the first
time, addressing Bernadette in local patois dialect and asking her if she would have the
goodness to come here for fifteen days. Harris reports that “At this stage, Bernadette refused
to guess at the presence’s identity, calling it merely Aquéro, the patois word for cela, an
indefinable being, certainly not human but not necessarily divine.”
48
As the apparitions
continued, the crowd grew and Bernadette was eventually brought in for questioning by the
Police commissioner. This police report provides the first written account of the apparition:
“a white robe drawn together with a blue sash, a white veil over her head and a yellow rose
on each foot…(with) a rosary in her hand.”
49
Interest for the events was spreading very fast
and soon local notables started following Bernadette to Masabielle. On the eighth apparition,
the vision in white asked for penitence and prayers. On the ninth apparition, much to the
dismay of her audience, Bernadette scratched the ground and started drinking the dirty water
she found. Though not immediately evident, this scene would reveal one of the key elements
of the Lourdes’ devotion since Bernadette had actually discovered the fresh spring whose
water would be much venerated by pilgrims.
On the thirteenth day, the apparition asked for a procession and a chapel to be built.
According to Harris, the Virgin’s demands particularly resonated with the locals since, “with
the message delivered, she had now provided the outlines of a mission that everyone in the
Pyrenees could understand: prayer, penitence, bathing, and drinking in a fountain, a

48
Harris, Lourdes: Body and Spirit in the Secular Age, 5.
49
Ibid., 5.
34
procession and a chapel,”
50
all elements of traditional Pyrenean devotion. Indeed, Harris is
particularly interested in demonstrating to what extent the Lourdes events are anchored in a
local Christian tradition. The Pyrenees had historically been the site of numerous apparitions
dating back to the sixteenth century. Two nearby sites, Bétharram and Garaison, had been
the stage of interventions by the Virgin in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In
particular, in Garaison in the early sixteenth century, Anglèze de Sagazan, a twelve-year-old
shepherdess, witnessed an apparition of the Virgin, and her story bears a striking
resemblance’s to Bernadette’s own. Harris remarks:
Mid-nineteenth-century contemporaries repeatedly noted the marked
similarities between the two stories. However, rather than seeing the parallels
as evidence of fraud, or even as the product of a particular Pyrenean cultural
legacy, they interpreted them instead as further proof of a genuine sacred
presence in the Grotto.
51

Therefore, far from raising suspicions about the process by which it was produced, the
common narrative actually shored up the truth. In addition to the common duties of prayer
and penitence, local tradition often incorporated elements of water. As the nineteenth
century saw the development of thermal cures, in particular in the nearby mountain town of
Cauterets, incorporating the healing effects of water was a familiar notion for local
Pyreneans at a time where it was being developed as a medical alternative.
On March 25, the feast of the Annunciation, the apparition finally revealed her
identity: “I am the Immaculate Conception,” she declared in patois. The dogma of the
Immaculate Conception of Mary had only been proclaimed by Pius IX four years before and
it was very improbable that Bernadette, the quasi illiterate shepherdess, was familiar with this
theological notion. Of all the other contemporary sightings of the Virgin Mary, it is the

50
Ibid., 7.
51
Ibid., 40.
35
utterance of these words that truly differentiate the Lourdes events.
52
While initially deemed
suspicious, Bernadette’s claims gained credibility after they took on a dogmatic meaning.
Therefore, the Lourdes apparitions served a double purpose: they were an outlet for the
century’s numerous political and social crises and tensions, but they were also closely tied to
the Church’s dogmatic agenda.
The dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, in particular, took on a crucial
role in the nineteenth century. Although a long-held Catholic belief, it did not officially
become doctrine until 1854. Yet, it played a very visible role during the sighting at the Rue
du Bac, and is the key used by the clergy to validate Bernadette’s story. The dogma of the
Immaculate Conception of Mary states that Mary, though herself the result of a “normal”
conception, received sanctifying grace from the first moment of her existence and was
conceived immaculate of all taint of original sin. In this context, both the Miraculous Medal
and the miracles at Lourdes played a crucial role in bringing this dogma to the forefront, and
widely promoting Marial devotion. At the time, the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of
Mary was the third dogma of Catholic Mariology. The first dogma - Mary’s Divine
Motherhood - was adopted at the Council of Ephesus in 431 and the second - the dogma of
Mary’s perpetual Virginity - was adopted at the Council of Lateran in 649.
This irruption of a new Marian dogma, after a doctrinal hiatus that lasted over a
millennium, indicates a return of the figure of the Virgin Mary, which dominated the century
and triumphed through this proclamation. This new dogma can only be understood by
viewing it within its particular socio-political context. According to Langlois:
La portée de l’événement dépasse la definition dogmatique. Beaucoup de
catholiques, et Pie IX notamment, mettent explicitement en avant son “opportunité
sociale,” en brandissant l’impeccabilité mariale face aux erreurs politiques et sociales

52
Ibid., 14.
36
qui surgissent plus nombreuses chaque année. Plusieurs écrits contemporains
laissaient par ailleurs transparaître la volonté plus trouble, en exaltant une créature
préservée, de rappeler la souillure du sexe, de répéter la condamnation de la chair, de
signifier la malediction de la femme (…) le dogme, solennellement défini, donne à la
Vierge une place nouvelle dans la croyance des fidèles, en introduisant un peu plus
avant dans l’économie du Salut la mediation d’une femme sans tâche.
53

Hence, by opposing Mary’s purity to other women’s stain, women’s social subordination was
reaffirmed. In a century marked by its political instability, the belief in the Immaculate
Conception of Mary washed away political sins and, by affirming the corruption of worldly
women, it offered both an inspirational model and condemned women’s newly earned
emancipation. As women’s access to secular education is perceived as a threat, the
conservative rhetoric assimilates women’s education with moral depravation. By
condemning women’s sexuality and by putting forth the ideal of a paradoxical Virgin
mother, the Church de facto places women in an untenable position. In this context, all-
female congregations were fast developing and assumed a vital role in both spreading the
word and fighting secularism. Lastly, in another mark of the feminization of piety, women -
such as Catherine Labouré or Bernadette Soubirous - became the primary intermediaries of
the divine.
Because it inscribes the apparition within the Church’s dogmatic agenda, Lourdes is,
from the beginning, destined to an outstanding future. Hence, this very choice of words by
the apparition contained the key to Bernadette’s credibility and to the posterity of the shrine.
It is of course ironic that it is in fact her ignorance of Catholic dogma that makes her more
credible. From potential hysteric, she is then perceived as a divine messenger. During the
next apparition, known as the miracle of the candle, Bernadette showed no signs of having
been burnt after touching the flame of a candle. The last apparition took place on July 16

53
Langlois, “Féminisation du Catholicisme,” 286.
37
and, after that, Bernadette’s mission was over. The development of the shrine took on a life
of its own and, as the Catholic hierarchy asserted control over her story and the sanctuary,
Bernadette was sent to a convent in Nevers where she died of tuberculosis in 1879 at age 35.
She was canonized by Pius XI in 1933.

Miracles in Lourdes

Not only was the crowd fascinated by the supernatural apparitions, it was also
intrigued by miraculous manifestations. As Bernadette discovered the spring, or as she
remained unaffected by the burning candle, more and more people were being cured of
hitherto incurable ailments. The following cures – recognized by the Catholic Church – all
took place during the series of apparitions. Already, on March 1
st
, 1858 Catherine Latapie
recovered the use of her right hand, which had been paralyzed for years, after washing it
with water from the spring. During the same month, Louis Bouriette recovered his sight
after bathing his eye with the spring’s water. Blaisette Cazenave was also cured in March
1858 from an eye infection previously declared incurable, after applying water to her eye. In
April 1858, Henri Busquet, unable to travel to Lourdes, applied Lourdes water to an abscess
on his neck, which quickly disappeared along with the infection that was plaguing him.
Finally, in July 1858, two-year old Justin Bouhort, a sickly child dying from consumption,
was brought to the Grotto by his mother, immersed in the water and within a few days
showed no signs of illness. Whether considering the miracle of the candle, or the list of
recorded miraculous healings, one must acknowledge that the Lourdes events – from the
beginning – challenged natural laws and blurred the line between the possible (and
believable) and the impossible (and unbelievable). By challenging the science of combustion,
the knowledge of illness or the role of medical intervention, the experience of those present
38
at Lourdes essentially defies common scientific knowledge and questions the relationship
between mind and body, thereby contributing to Lourdes’s status as both mysterious and
problematic. As its record of inexplicable cures continued to baffle skeptics, no unified,
definitive explanation was commonly accepted.
Yet, according to Ruth Harris, Lourdes prospered as a shrine against all odds. In fact,
many of the characteristics that could have contributed to making Bernadette’s story
suspicious – her poor family, her lack of education, her sickness, the obscure message –
counter-intuitively contributed to turning it into a compelling narrative. It is the elaboration
of this narrative – based on a number of minor narratives ranging from the initial police
report, to the witness accounts, to testimonies of people miraculously healed at the shrine –
that contributed to making Lourdes’s story more appealing than any of the other apparition
stories of the nineteenth century. This wide range of narratives is undoubtedly part of the
strength of the Lourdes phenomenon. Because it translates a fundamentally transcendent
idea and a complex theological dogma into a compelling and approachable story, Lourdes
reaffirms the transformative powers of narrative.
Harris’s investigation uncovers the complex historical reality at play in the creation of
the Lourdes’s legend: at the time of Bernadette’s visions, other young women in Lourdes
had seen apparitions too. Why were these women, some of them more pious and therefore
more obviously “worthy” of a divine experience than Bernadette, eventually written out of
the official story? Ruth Harris explains that Bernadette’s position as the sole visionary – so
deeply engrained in the official story of Lourdes – didn’t actually go without saying and that
it took some time for this version of events to emerge.
54
As she questions how Lourdes, the

54
Harris, Lourdes: Body and Spirit in the Secular Age, 100.
39
small Pyrenean town, became the world-famous sanctuary we know today, Harris raises a
number of additional questions:
Why did Bernadette become the unique seer, while other visionaries –
sometimes with stronger reputations for piety and virtue – were repressed
and almost written out of history? What historical circumstances made
Lourdes of interest to important elites in Paris, so foiling the attempts of the
local authorities to suppress this ‘superstitious’ wave? What appeal did
Bernadette – poor, simple, even sometimes considered slow-witted – have
for a nineteenth-century audience? Why did Lourdes achieve priority over
other shrines in France where children had also seen the Virgin? What
motivated those who organized the pilgrimage hospitals and special ‘white
trains’ that carried the sick to their destination? How did Lourdes engage the
loyalties of so many just at the moment when science and secular thought
seemed so close to intellectual supremacy everywhere?
55

In other words, Harris highlights the particularly complex genealogy of Bernadette’s
narrative and emphasizes how fundamentally contingent it was. There were indeed many
reasons that Lourdes should not have turned out to be the major sanctuary it became. The
emergence of Lourdes as a Marial sanctuary with a compelling history was truly the result of
an uncanny conjunction of events.

II- Socio-Political Context

These dual, dichotomous, epidemics – of apparitions and of hysteria diagnoses –
were taking place at a time marked by a polarization of French society. Hence, a strong
current of tension runs through the century.

A Fin-de-siècle Tragedy with Three Protagonists
Mona Ozouf describes the nineteenth century in France as the setting for a tragedy
with three protagonists. While the Church and the Republic are engaged in an ideological

55
Ibid., 10.
40
confrontation, the School emerges as a political stake. The secularization of the French
public education system – culminating with the 1882 law establishing education as secular
and mandatory – can be summed up as a battle to assert moral authority and control over
the whole of French youth.
In this face-off between Republicans and the Church, two particular issues illustrate
the stakes and crystallize the tensions. First, the question of the role to be allocated to
science curricula in public schools leads to heated debates. When Gambetta denounces the
ignorance that plagues the country, he suggests that only public instruction can offer a
remedy and allow for the advent of an enlightened citizenry. A crucial arena of this struggle
against ignorance in a secular France is the introduction of science into schools. Second, the
debates surrounding women’s education – whether it should be secular or religious, what its
contents should be and what its essential purpose is – reveal the increasing influence of
women in the public sphere, and the anxiety it generates. As women are considered the
ideological gatekeepers of the household, the task of educating them becomes a strategic
privilege sought both by the Church and by secular schools. Consequently, in a country
more and more literate, and more and more familiar with science, the concurrent emergence
of the newly refined hysteria diagnosis and the epidemic of supernatural manifestations did
not fall on deaf ears. As hysteria’s influence permeates the hospital’s walls, it also
contaminates the literary productions of the time. In this context, and as their readership
includes more and more women, these “romans de la Salpêtrière” take on an eminently
political role: on the frontlines of social change, these novels both reflect the time’s
challenges and offer to shape and frame the debates around the inseparable issues of
education, secularization, and women’s social roles.

41
Teaching Science in Public Schools
The 1862 translation of Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species brings new intellectual
challenges and inaugurates a new era of division between the modern world and the Church.
Already used in the rhetoric against superstition, science plays a key role in the ideological
battle being waged in schools. Hence, the secularization of education is not simply about
who teaches, and where children are taught, it is also about what is being taught. In this
context different disciplines serve different purposes. Mona Ozouf judges that, “si l’histoire
doit attacher l’enfant à la démocratie, les sciences doivent le détacher de l’Eglise; elles
doivent faire éclater l’irréalité de l’enseignement congrégationiste.”
56
The teaching of science
is therefore charged with a social responsibility: it ought to highlight the irrationality of
traditional religious teachings. Mona Ozouf illustrates this point by quoting an excerpt from
a 1882 copy of L’Ecole maternelle, which particularly highlights the dangers of
Congregationalist education on children: “Ils croient voir partout le Saint-Esprit, les anges;
pour l’un d’eux, une mouche est de la couleur du Bon Dieu; un autre prend une brosse à
vêtements pour un ‘esprit’ ou un ‘amour’; un troisième n’a jamais entendu dire qu’il a un
corps.”
57

The diagnosis is particularly grim: late nineteenth-century French pupils are not
grounded in the “real world.” The solution is therefore to provide children with the
necessary tools to face the world. In other words, “Pour ancrer l’enfant dans le monde reel,
l’école laïque se propose donc de lui donner une culture scientifique.”
58

The Republican discourse is infused with positivism and science is presented as the
magic bullet to counteract the deleterious effects of religion’s stranglehold. For instance,

56
Mona Ozouf, L’Ecole, l’Eglise et la République (1871-1914) (Paris: Cana/ Jean Offredo, 1982),
119.
57
Ibid., 119.
58
Ibid., 120.
42
Dans une conférence au Cercle pédagogique de Nantes, publiée dans La
Revue Pédagogique de 1884, Jean Macé engage les instituteurs à entretenir les
enfants des miracles de la science, à déveloper en eux l’esprit d’observation,
le raisonnement: leur crédulité diminuera d’autant, tandis que s’accroîtra leur
fierté d’appartenir à la société moderne.
59

In addition, the educational effort goes beyond the boundaries of the school itself. Hence,
publications for children also reinforce the need to spread the word about the benefits of
science: “Tous les journaux enfantins ont, à cette époque, une rubrique scientifique, où se
succèdent les ‘causeries’ sur la télégraphie, la photographie, le phonographe, les biographies
de Pasteur, etc.”
60

Science has a double presence in the late nineteenth century: as a systematically
organized body of knowledge, science blossoms in the nineteenth century. As new
discoveries are being made in various scientific disciplines, science’s authority increases. But
science is also an ideological instrument at the hands of anticlerics. The scientific curriculum
is therefore a key practical tool for the lasting secularization of minds.

Women as Political Stakes
The question of educating women – and how to educate them – is the other central
issue in the education debate. In a context of heightened political divisions where secularism
is threatening not only education, but society as a whole,
61
women – the last remaining

59
Ibid., 120.
60
Ibid., 120.
61
In “Expulser Dieu,” Historian Jacqueline Lalouette writes that,
La combativité des laïcisateurs s'est exercée dans de nombreux autres
domaines de la vie publique et de la vie privée. Il n'est pas une manifestation
de la présence de Dieu — ou plutôt de la présence de l'idée ou du nom de
Dieu —, pas un espace public — hormis les lieux de culte, et encore! —
occupé par les symboles divins, pas une institution dans laquelle les ministres
des cultes tenaient un rôle qui n'aient retenu l'attention des partisans de la
laïcité.
43
bastion of loyalty toward the Church – emerge as a key ally for the clerics. Indeed, as the
religious practice of men declines, the Church seizes the opportunity to strengthen its hold
on women, strategically using them as its privileged vector of proselytism. Consequently, the
role and place of women become crucial strategic stakes.
In 1845 already, Michelet had led the charge against the Church’s stranglehold on
women. Le Prêtre, la femme et la famille is a polemical critique of the Church’s influence in
which Michelet particularly denounces how, through its access to women, priests and
confessors are able to gain access to families and shape society as a whole. In other words,
Michelet believes women are the spiritual and ideological gateway to the family and asserts
the Church has understood their power and is using them strategically. Therefore, it is this
perceived undue influence that Michelet denounces, and particularly the “grande machine
d’éducation jésuite” responsible for the spiritual direction of millions of women. Michelet is
particularly virulent – and paternalist – as he declares “Nos femmes sont élevées,
gouvernées, par nos ennemis.”
62
As the priest takes on a disproportionate importance in
women’s life, he becomes “le rival – ou le substitut – du père et du mari au sein de la
famille.”
63
The strong bond between women and the Church is taken for granted and,
Ni la presse républicaine, ni la presse conservatrice ne mettent en
doute l’intimité du lien qui unit la femme à l’Eglise. Beaucoup de
journaux conservateurs, apportant par là-même des arguments aux
républicains, pensent que c’est, en definitive, la femme qui fera échec
à la Révolution.
64

Hence, thanks to women’s devotion, the Church asserts its power in the private sphere. In

Jacqueline Lalouette, “Expulser Dieu: La Laïcisation des Ecoles, des Hôpitaux et des
Prétoires,” Mots, Juin 1991, Numéro 27, 23.
62
Jules Michelet, Le Prêtre, la Femme et la Famille (Paris: Chamerot, 1861), 2.
63
Langlois, “Féminisation du Catholicisme,” 287.
64
Ozouf, L’Ecole, l’Eglise et la République (1871-1914), 93.
44
this context, the domination of women’s spiritual life is henceforth a means to a more
ambitious societal end. However, women’s loyalty to the Church appears to be divisive even
within families, and Mona Ozouf notes that,
Cette appartenance de la femme à L’Eglise est une source de
dissensions et de conflits familiaux que les journaux républicains, si
attachés au thème de l’unité du pays, s’accordent tous à déplorer. Le
National, le 13 juillet 1875, dénonce ‘l’espèce de divorce intellectuel et
moral qu’on voit dans presque toutes les familles,’ et l’attribue à des
éducations divergentes.
65

Moreover, in the face of a clear population decline in the nineteenth century, women appear
as a crucial ally of the Church’s demographic agenda and need to be spared. Langlois quotes
an essay from a priest:
Qu’on ne s’aliène pas la femme par d’imprudentes rigueurs; la chose
est d’une immense gravité. La génération naissante est entre les mains
de la femme, l’avenir est à elle…. Si la femme nous échappe…, avec
elle tout peut disparaître et s’abîmer dans le gouffre de l’athéisme,
croyance, morale et toute notre civilisation, parce que dès lors il n’y
aura plus de principes de morale, plus de frein religieux, que dis-je!
Peut-être meme plus de baptême… Et alors le mal sera consommé et
sans remède.
66

By securing women’s support early on in their lives, the Church is able to ensure their
deference and loyalty and count them as avid proselytizers on their behalf. Gérard Cholvy
evokes a book published in 1801 and titled “Des Services que les Femmes Peuvent Rendre à
la Religion” which counted on women’s influence and encouraged: “Femmes chrétiennes,
vous êtes responsables de la conversion de vos époux.”
67
Langlois agrees that women play a
crucial strategic role:
Situation paradoxale: Michelet dénonçait une Eglise qui voulait

65
Ibid., 95.
66
Langlois, “Féminisation du Catholicisme,” 289.
67
Gérard Cholvy, Christianisme et Société en France au XIXe siècle (1790-1914) (Paris: Seuil,
1997), 36.
45
dominer la société en s’assurant le contrôle des familles des notables.
Les reponsables religieux, davantage conscients de la faiblesse du
catholicisme, tentent une reconquête, par la périphérie: les enfants et
les mourants. Un seul point d’accord, le role stratégique des femmes,
épouses ou bonnes soeurs.
68

In this context, women play a key role in defense of Christianity and against de-
christianisation.
69
As secularization increases, the Church capitalizes on its influence on
women:
Dans le sillage de la secularisation du champ politique et social, la
religion (le catholicisme, en fait) a été rejetée vers le domaine du
privé, celui justement où la société entend aussi, mais d’une autre
manière, confiner la femme. Et c’est sur ce terrain que se noue
effectivement une “sainte alliance” appelée à durer, comme en
témoignent les ex-voto provençaux du XIX siècle qui présentent la
femme à l’intérieur de sa maison comme la seule personne
agenouillée, en prière, la seule susceptible de communiquer avec la
Vierge Marie, intercesseur céleste presqu’exclusif, invoquée avec
confiance dans les difficultés qui assaillent sa famille.
70

Women’s place and influence go beyond the private sphere. In addition to the feminine
powers of persuasion the Church counts on in the private sphere, women also play a crucial
role in the battle for education. In the late nineteenth century, women’s involvement in
education is double: as congregationalists, they are becoming crucial purveyors of education,
and, as young girls, they are also the targets of an ambitious – if conflicted – educational
effort.
For both parties in play, education is essentially perceived as both the source of and
the solution to the problem. In fact, the type – secular or religious – and the contents of
women’s education matter greatly. Thus, once again, education appears as a crucial
component of this ideological edifice because of its potent social role. Well aware of this

68
Langlois, “Féminisation du Catholicisme,” 288.
69
Cholvy, Christianisme et Société en France au XIXe siècle (1790-1914), 35.
70
Langlois, “Féminisation du Catholicisme,” 291.
46
stake, republicans consider that “pour l’avenir de la République, il faut donc organiser
l’éducation des filles.”
71
For Catholics however, the prospect of a “lycée de jeunes filles”
sounds like a definite threat. They consider it as a sign of “la fin d’un sexe.”
72
Admittedly,
the goal of these public schools is to “soustraire la femme à l’influence du christianisme”
73

and conservatives fear that, without the guidance of religion, women would be perverted and
would consequently fail in their domestic duties. In 1880, Le Gaulois rejoices that “la jeune
fille française élevée dans la protection vigilante de la famille, avait été avec soin préservée de
l’éducation garçonnière et des brutalités de la science”
74
and laments the fact that, from now
on:
La science de l’Etat se chargera de souffler sur ces illusions enfantines.
Diable, ni devoirs, ni justice, ni vertu, ni choux; qu’il n’y a que des
sensations, que des jouissances, une République et de la matière. On leur
apprendra tout, même la rebellion contre la famille, même l’impureté; et
quand elles auront été instruites d’après la méthode nouvelle, qu’elles
auront conquis les grades universitaires, elle se donneront, comme les
élèves du Conservatoire, au premier homme qui passera, ou qu’elles se
tueront, comme cette étudiante qui n’a trouvé que la consolation du
poison au désenchantement de sa jeunesse flétrie et du bonheur perdu…
75

The specter of this hypothetical, well-educated, rebellious and promiscuous woman haunts
religious conservatives. As secular education is presented as going hand in hand with moral
depravity, the educated woman becomes a social threat. Above all, the specter of an
undomesticated and therefore uninhibited femininity frames the issue of women’s education
and generates a great deal of social anxiety.
It is therefore understandable that the Church would make the education of girls one
of its priorities. At a time when men are turning away from the Church, the education of

71
Ozouf, L’Ecole, l’Eglise et la République (1871-1914), 95.
72
Ibid., 99.
73
Ibid., 99.
74
Ibid., 100.
75
Ibid.,100.
47
women, by women remains the way to maintain a strong presence.
Au même moment, des fondateurs de nouvelles congrégations féminines,
prenant acte de la durable disaffection religieuse masculine, élaborent une
stratégie de reconquête en deux temps: ils misent, pour l’avenir, sur
l’éducation des filles, futures épouses et mères chrétiennes – d’où
l’expansion rapide des pensionnats pour les classes moyennes et les
nouvelles manifestations d’un intérêt pour la formation intellectuelle des
filles –, et comptent, pour le present, sur les nouvelles soeurs gardes-
malades préposées à ramener à leur mort ceux qui s’étaient éloignés de la
religion.
76

Women’s congregations are a key instrument of the Church’s endeavor and they are even
more crucial if we take into account the fact that public education for women lags far behind
that for men: “En 1880 encore, beaucoup de communes françaises n’ont pas d’écoles de
filles, 68 départements sont dépourvus d’écoles normales d’institutrices, et quelques
centaines de jeunes filles seulement ont pu bénéficier des cours secondaires créés pour elles
en 1867 par Victor Duruy.”
77
In this context, congregations are in no small part responsible
for the literacy effort: “On sait que le XIX
e
siècle est celui de l’alphabétisation massive des
filles; on sait aussi que les congrégations féminines ont investi principalement dans
l’enseignement, comme en témoigne l’enquête nationale de 1861, selon laquelle deux soeurs
sur trois s’y consacrent.”
78
Truly, congregations are leading the charge in the attempt to
reconquer minds. According to Claude Langlois, the feminization of Catholicism is
particularly visible in education as two thirds of sisters in religious orders are dedicated to
education. But the Church’s ambition goes further than wanting to teach women to read and
write: “L’Eglise va bien au-delà, et vise en fait, principalement par l’intermédiaire des
congrégations, le contrôle progressif de l’ensemble du secteur éducatif.”
79
The development

76
Langlois, “Féminisation du Catholicisme,” 287.
77
Ozouf, L’Ecole, l’Eglise et la République (1871-1914), 93.
78
Langlois, “Féminisation du Catholicisme,” 283.
79
Ibid., 284.
48
of congregations, alongside the education of women, should then be considered as part of a
larger strategic mission. Education is therefore a means to an ideological end.
Though the role of women is debated, all parties agree on one thing: “Tous
s’entendent au moins sur un point: la docilité, la soumission.”
80
In fact, even though women
are much discussed and the stake of many debates, they remained objects of discussion, not
themselves involved in debates. However, rather counterintuitively, their role is greater
within the Church than in civil society. According to Cholvy,
On peut conclure qu’au XIX
è
siècle en France, le rôle des femmes
dans l’Eglise a toujours été sensiblement plus grand que celui que la
société civile lui reconnaissait au même moment. Alors que le Code
civil tient la femme en tutelle, c’est par l’Eglise et ses œuvres que de
nombreuses femmes exercent une influence hors du cercle familial et
que, parmi elles, une élite agit sur un théâtre à la mesure de ses
talents.
81

Lalouette highlights the fact that there is another public domain where women are involved
in the secularization debate. Alongside schools, hospitals too attempt to free themselves
from the Chuch’s influence. Its hold on this area is particularly great since,
Dès le Second Empire, presque tous les hôpitaux et hospices urbains
disposaient de soeurs qui assuraient, pour l'essentiel, les fonctions de
surveillance, l'économat, etc., les pansements, les tâches ménagères
étant plutôt assurés par un personnel laïque, fruste, inculte, sous-
payé.
82

The republicans’ goal will therefore be to remove women’s congregations from hospitals and
once again, women’s education is instrumental in achieving this result:
La création d'écoles d'infirmières à l'intérieur de quatre hôpitaux
parisiens (Bicêtre, La Salpêtrière – 1878 –, La Pitié – 1881 –,
Lariboisière – 1895 –) permit d'y parvenir. En dix ans, de 1878 à
1888, dix-sept hôpitaux furent laïcisés. La laïcisation était achevée à

80
Ibid., 288.
81
Cholvy, Christianisme et Société en France au XIXe siècle (1790-1914), 50
82
Jacqueline Lalouette, “Expulser Dieu: la Laïcisation des Ecoles, des Hôpitaux et des
Prétoires,” Mots, no. 27 (June 1991), 29.
49
Paris en 1908.
83

According to Lalouette, there is no doubt that the public hospital, alongside the school, is a
critical territory to conquer in order to triumph:
L'Eglise avait considéré l'école et l'hôpital comme ses principaux
bastions, cela lui avait réussi, lui assurant une grande influence sur les
populations. Ces bastions, la République voulait les conquérir, par
souci d'assurer progrès, démocratie, par conviction que le triomphe
de la liberté de conscience passerait par là, mais aussi par
opportunisme sans doute: pourquoi ce qui avait réussi à sa grande
rivale ne lui réussirait-il pas? Et comment parvenir à un tel but si les
établissements scolaires et hospitaliers demeuraient investis de
l'intérieur par les soeurs congréganistes?
84

Yet, the battle raging in the hospital between the sisters and the secular nurses hides
another dichotomy at play within in the hospital wards. Though women caregivers are being
instrumentalized for the benefit of the secular state or the Church, they remain part of an
educated, pioneering elite. Female patients, on the other hand, often uneducated, are at the
mercy of doctors’ diagnoses and treatments.
The overarching tension between Church and State trickles down to schools and in
hospitals, where the daily battle for secularization is taking place. In this context, hysteria and
miracles represent two poles of this tension, yet they also reveal a complex entanglement
behind the apparent dichotomy.

III- Stakes and Problems

Medicine in the Nineteenth Century
The Lourdes events were taking place at a time when medicine, and more generally
science, was undergoing major, paradigm-shifting changes. Coming out of the eighteenth

83
Ibid., 30.
84
Ibid., 30.
50
century, medical practice looked very different from today’s medicine. It looked different
because it had not yet benefited from major technical advances, and it looked different
because it operated on fundamentally different principles and assumptions. Within a few
decades, the discovery of germ theory, the advent of bacteriology, microbiology and
immunization, and the development of the experimental method – to only name a few
examples – would radically change medicine and scientific thought.
Some of these discoveries are now part of the mythology of medicine. Such is the case
with Doctor Ignaz Semmelweis who became a pioneer of antiseptic practices in 1847
Hungary and whose story captures the imagination. While working in the hospital, he had
noticed a direct connection between the handling of corpses and an increase in the incidence
of deadly cases of puerperal fever in new mothers. He was able to trace the path of
contamination from the morgue to the delivery room where the same attendants took care
of both dead bodies and laboring mothers. Semmelweis suggested that a transmission of a
pathogen from a dead body could be the cause of the infection and he discovered that the
simple practice of hand-washing between the handling of cadavers and the delivery of babies
could significantly reduce deadly cases. Mostly rejected by the medical community at the
time, Semmelweis’s theory is now recognized as the precursor to germ theory and to the
major shift that would allow us to understand the infectious role played by invisible agents.
Semmelweis’s theory foreshadows that of Louis Pasteur who, a few years later, would
develop germ theory and thereby undeniably confirm Semmelweis’s conclusions. Pasteur
first demonstrated the validity of germ theory by proving that there are micro-organisms
responsible for fermentation. Indeed, in 1862 and alongside Claude Bernard, Pasteur had
demonstrated that the growth of micro-organisms invisible to the naked eye was responsible
for spoiling beverages. The process known as “pasteurization” was consequently developed
51
as way to eliminate illness-causing pathogens. Pasteur’s research in immunology lead him to
design vaccines for two veterinary diseases: first chicken cholera and then anthrax.
Pasteur’s research was also instrumental in supporting German physician Robert Koch
in his discovery of the tuberculosis bacillus, thereby settling a century-long debate about the
nature of this disease. Such a discovery is important because of the ensuing medical and
curative consequences, but it also matters because it affects how particular diseases are
commonly perceived and understood. In Illness as Metaphor, Susan Sontag has eloquently
demonstrated that, once the causes of a disease are identified and understood, its public
perception and the metaphors associated with it evolve. She argues that this was particularly
the case for TB and that, once it was identified by Koch as a bacterial infection, the ensuing
metaphors of TB shifted.
Finally, in 1885, and in another story that has since joined the mythology of medicine,
Pasteur was able to try the first human rabies vaccine on the young Joseph Meister after he
was bitten by a rabid dog. Rabies was then a particularly mysterious and feared disease since
its cause remained unclear. In their cultural history of rabies, Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy
remark that during Pasteur’s time, “Even as the scientist aged, the debate about whether
rabies was a contagion or spontaneous occurrence raged on among France’s prominent
biologists, physicians, and veterinarians.”
85
Until then, rabies had been a lethal disease with
no known treatment, and Pasteur’s ability to provide both a prophylaxis and a cure turned
him into an instant national hero. In fact, his reputation far exceeded the national borders
and Wasik and Murphy share the story of four children from New Jersey bitten by a rabid
dog who were sent to Pasteur’s lab for treatment as early as December 1885. In a nutshell,

85
Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy, Rabid : A Cultural History of the World’s Most Diabolical Virus
(New York : Viking, 2012), 129.
52
Pasteur’s triumph over a mysterious infectious disease that was at the time a deadly threat
perfectly illustrates the changes that were taking place both within and outside of the
boundaries between possible and impossible, visible and invisible, and fatal and curable were
in flux.
Moreover, medical knowledge was also progressing due to technical advances: the
stethoscope was invented at the beginning of the nineteenth century, microscope technology
kept improving throughout the century and, in 1895, German physicist Whilhelm Röntgen
discovered X-rays, thereby providing yet another way to explore bodily symptoms and
hitherto invisible body parts. For Canguilhem, this step is linked to the ability to
physiologically localize the disease. He writes:
Sans vouloir attenter à la majesté des dogmes pastoriens, on
peut bien dire que la théorie microbienne des maladies
contagieuses a dû certainement une part non négligeable de
son succès à ce qu’elle contient de représentation ontologique
du mal. Le microbe, même s’il y faut le truchement
compliqué du microscope, des colorants et des cultures, on
peut le voir, au lieu qu’on ne saurait voir un miasme ou une
influence. Voir un être c’est déjà prévoir un acte.
86

According to Canguilhem, this new ability to see the invisible has ontological implications,
and germ theory brings on a drastic epistemological rupture. Moreover, the question of
visibility is a double-edged sword: on the one hand, scientists are able to see – and
consequently theorize – hitherto invisible agents and, on the other hand, the public has to
accept that it is no longer necessary for the average person to see in order to believe. This
belief in what is invisible to the naked eye inagurates a new paradigm that deeply challenges
common knowledge.
Finally, in addition to these changes in medicine and technologies, the treatment of

86
Georges Canguilhem, Le Normal et le Pathologique (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France,
1966), 12.
53
insanity –or what was then considered insanity – also shifted during the nineteenth century.
Philippe Pinel is famously remembered in the history of psychiatry as the alienist who
unchained the insane and championed a new moral treatment for hysteria. Under his
influence and that of his student Esquirol, the treatment of the mentally ill radically changed.
In The Last Asylum, historian Barbara Taylor describes moral treatment as:
A portmanteau term for therapeutics directed at the minds and
emotions of lunatics rather than any supposed organic cause for
insanity. At the minimum, moral treatment required asylum-keepers
to manage their charges without recourse to ‘mechanical restraints’
(shackling, chains, et cetera) or corporal punishment. In its stronger
versions, it meant the abandonment of of the ineffectual and often
brutal ‘medical’ remedies popular among mad-doctors, in favour of a
psychotherapeutic approach that utilized the asylum environment and
staff-patient relationships as healing agents.
87

According to historian of psychiatry Jan Goldstein, the development of moral treatment is,
in fact, akin to a Kuhnian paradigm shift. Indeed, she writes that, “Even in the mid-
nineteenth century the moral treatment, as opposed to the usual practice of physicians who
“exhaust the entire pharmaceutical arsenal,” was being depicted by some as “this new way
open to science.”
88
Therefore, the moral treatment appears as a particularly modern
approach to insanity. She continues:
The best approach both to understanding it and to demonstrating its
efficacy was, he suggested, through an examination of cases. This
was, in fact, Pinel’s own basic mode of presentation in the Traité.
‘Little stories (historiettes),’ he once noted, when they were the ‘true
results of observation,’ were serious scientific business. Such remarks
translate readily into Kuhnian terms. The paradigm of the moral
treatment was not so much succinctly expressed in “shared rules” as
embedded in an ‘arsenal of exemplars,’ of ‘shared examples of
successful practice.’
89

87
Barbara Taylor, The Last Asylum : A Memoir of Madness in Our Times (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 2015), 110.
88
Jan Goldstein, Console and Classify : The French Psychiatric Profession in the Nineteenth Century
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 106.
89
Ibid., 80.
54

The moral treatment was not only radical in its principles, it also illustrates the role of
medical story-telling and clinical case studies, a tradition promised to a great future.
Pinel’s moral treatment appears as a more humane approach to insanity and durably
changed asylums while prefiguring the emergence of psychotherapy. Yet, despite these
important improvements, the Salpêtrière hospital Charcot first ventured into remained an
infernal place. In the words of Georges Didi-Huberman, “in the last few decades of the
nineteenth century, the Salpêtrière was what it had always been: a kind of feminine inferno, a
citta dolorosa confining four thousand incurable or mad women. It was a nightmare in the
midst of Paris’s Belle Epoque.”
90
In other words, in spite of all the progress of science and the
improvement in the type of care provided, there was still a lot to be done.
Hence, Charcot’s dual foray into medicine and the treatment of the insane happened at
a time where both fields were undergoing drastic changes and as two distinct – and
concurrent – disciplines – neurology and psychiatry – were developing. Hysteria’s return
happened against a backdrop of profound epistemological changes and the condition itself
became endowed with its own paradigm-shifting importance.

Epistemological Stakes
The affinity between hysteria and miracles affinity can also be traced through the
works of the Surrealists. In 1930, only two years after celebrating Le Cinquantenaire de
l’Hystérie in a manifesto-like text illustrated by clinical photographs of Augustine, André
Breton partnered up with Paul Eluard to publish a text entitled L’Immaculée Conception. If the
title itself is a direct reference to the Catholic doctrine made famous by the Lourdes events,

90
Georges Didi-Huberman, Invention of Hysteria: Charcot and the Photographic Iconography of the
Salpêtrière, trans. Alisa Hartz (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2003), ix.
55
one of its chapter titled “la vie intra-utérine” inscribes this text in a clinical tradition and
draws a direct line between the notion of Immaculate Conception and the actual
physiological experience of reproduction. Breton and Eluard give an organic, clinical
dimension to the Immaculate Conception and bring the actual womb into focus. By writing
about both hysteria’s anniversary and the Immaculate Conception, the Surrealists draw a fine
but nonetheless evident connection between the Salpêtrière and Lourdes. The fact that
surrealist practice of automatic writing has brought together Augustine, the Virgin Mary, and
the uterus is a testament to both the conceptual proximity of both phenomena and their
joined mental imprints.
Yet, at first glance, hysteria and miracles have little in common. Of these two
phenomena, one occupies physicians at Paris’s most famous hospital and one takes place in a
rural area; one is a testament of the faith in scientific progress and one is the expression of
popular religious devotion; one epitomizes fin-de-siècle positivism while the other seems a
remnant of a long gone devotional era. Yet, as different as they are, and as opposed as they
might first appear, hysteria and miracles raise similar issues and equally participate in the
epistemological shift that takes place at the end of the nineteenth century.
Hysteria presents a number of challenges for the Salpêtrière physicians: in spite of its
long documented history, there are still conflicting theories about the nature of the disease.
The uterine definition based on etymology continues to haunt hysteria, yet the nineteenth
century is a time when physicians start to confront the impasse hysteria led them to. Its
symptoms are many, often seemingly random yet they cannot be attributed to physiological
lesions.
56
Canguilhem wrote that “Pour agir, il faut au moins localiser”
91
and this statement
summarizes the challenges of hysteria for nineteenth-century physicians, and more
particularly for Charcot who had been trained as a pathologist and was taught to look for the
lesion. Foucault brings up the same quandary:
Toutes les maladies ont-elles leur corrélatif lésionnel? la
possibilité de leur assigner un siège est-elle un principe
général de la pathologie, ou ne concerne–t-elle qu’un groupe
bien particulier de phénomènes morbides? Et dans ce cas ne
peut-on commencer l’étude des maladies par une
classification de type nosographique (troubles organiques –
troubles non organiques) avant d’entrer dans le domaine de
l’anatomie pathologique ?
92

Hence, hysteria inherently raises this epistemological question raised by both Foucault and
Canguilhem: is a physiological lesion a condition sine qua non for a disease to be real? What to
make of apparent diseases whose lesions cannot be documented? How to approach them?
Finally, how to think an invisible materiality? One way the fin de siècle attempts to answer
the question is to migrate hysteria to the mind. After centuries of failed attempts to locate
the organic cause of hysteria, this shift to a cerebral location would help solve this
conundrum of materiality: hysteria would have a material existence that had yet to be
located.
The Salpêtrière then becomes the ideal laboratory for Charcot to hunt hysteria. He
describes the hospital as follows:
Nous sommes, en d'autres termes, en possession d'une sorte de musée
pathologique vivant, dont les ressources sont considérables. À la vérité,
les premiers débuts du mal nous échappent souvent; mais, par
compensation, il nous est permis de rechercher, par l'ouverture du
corps, les lésions correspondant aux symptômes longuement et
minutieusement étudiés pendant la vie. Or, qui ne reconnaît
aujourd'hui l'influence décisive qu'ont eue sur les progrès de la neuro-

91
Canguilhem, Le Normal et le Pathologique, 11.
92
Michel Foucault, Naissance de la Clinique (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1963), 178.
57
pathologie les investigations microscopiques dirigées suivant la
méthode anatomo- clinique?
93

Hence, the Salpêtrière provides Charcot with an endless supply of bodies, alive or dead. In
fact, the « opening up » of bodies is a crucial part of his method.
Yet, in spite of the 5,000 incurables at his disposal, Charcot, the pioneer of the
technique of cerebral localization, fails to find this hysterical lesion, the lesion allegedly
responsible for hysteria. Thus, hysteria challenges the late nineteenth-century epistemology
by suggesting the possibility that there could be a disease without a physiological cause.
Canguilhem helps us take the measure of the radicality of this proposition: “Comte attribue à
Broussais le mérite qui revient en réalité à Bichat, et avant lui à Pinel, d’avoir proclamé que
toutes les maladies admises ne sont que des symptômes et qu’il ne saurait exister de
dérangements des fonctions vitales sans lésions d’organes ou plutôt de tissus.”
94
Medicine up
until then operated under the assumption that there could be no disturbances of vital
functions without lesions affecting organs or tissues. Consequently, the move prompted by
hysteria’s resistance to being located and theorized deeply shatters medical assumptions.
This question of the "materiality" of a disease also played a key role in Pasteur’s
research since germ theory can be summarized as the idea that the invisible agent can cause a
disease and essentially affirms that not seeing evidence does not necessarily equate to its
absence. Wasik and Murphy articulate how visibility and invisibility affected his approach of
rabies:
Pasteur referred to the unseen – and apparently unseeable – agent of
rabies as a virus. As his biographer Patrice Debré observed a century later,
the word “virus” had until that point been associated with a darkly
mysterious etyology: with miasma, with poisons, with plagues. Rabies

93
Jean-Martin Charcot, Leçon sur les Localisations dans les Maladies du Cerveau Faites à la Faculté de
Médecine de Paris (1875) (Paris: Delahaye, 1876), 4.
94
Canguilhem, Le Normal et le Pathologique, 18.
58
behaved as though it were a microbic contagion, and so Pasteur
maintained absolute faith that it was one, even though he could neither
culture it in broth nor observe it under the light microscope. The word
“virus” conveyed this uncertainty of rabies’ specific form and
characteristics. It was not until 1898 that a “virus” was scientifically
defined as a microbe that is invisible under the light microscope and can
pass through a filter designed to trap bacteria; it was not until 1903 that it
was experimentally demonstrated that the agent of rabies fit squarely
within this category.
95

Pasteur’s challenges and his hesitations illustrate the fact that scientific beliefs were very
much in flux at the time. Here, the question of immateriality, and/or invisibility, suggests
another fundamental epistemological question: how can medicine proceed? What does then
constitute sound scientific method? At a time when common knowledge is shifting, how to
differentiate between science and science-fiction, the believable and the unbelievable?
The very same issues are raised at the same time by miracles: though the diseases being
cured are (more or less) documented, the healing process and the cure are both mysterious
and untangible. Miracles, though they visibly impact the body, resist material explanations.
As such, miracles illustrate the immateriality at play in the healing process and the
explanation consisting in crediting the action of faith points to the fact that the miraculous
process is essentially immaterial. In City of God, Augustine had written “A portent, therefore,
happens not contrary to nature, but contrary to what we know as nature”
96
and this
definition raises a couple of issues about the nature of both hysteria and miracles. To
Augustine, it meant that nothing could be contrary to nature since everything was created by
God. Yet, this reflection about the limits of human knowledge echoes some of the concerns
raised around the issue of hysteria and miracles. Are they mysterious because they each are
essentially spiritual and as such immaterial? Or are they mysterious because they simply point

95
Wasik and Murphy, Rabid, 132.
96
Augustinus, The City of God, trans. Rev. Marcus Dods (Edinburgh : T&T Clark, 1871), 429.
59
to gaps in the scientific knowledge of the time? In other words, would hysteria and miracles
both be explained in due time, when medicine eventually catches up? Or are they two
distinct bodily expressions of the immateriality of the mind and of its potent influence on
the body?
Hence, hysteria and miracles appear to challenge what is commonly known and
accepted about the relation between mind and body, and about the nature of the mind.
When these two phenomena come into the public eye, they defeat the traditional medical
approach. Since Charcot’s search for the bodily lesion that would explain the hysterical
symptoms never turned up any tangible results, the question remained: how to understand
the materiality of hysteria when no bodily lesions exist? But, behind this epistemological
question, an ethical one is shaping up. Indeed, if medicine is failing to make sense of these
bodies – bodies inexplicably sick and inexplicably cured – are they condemned to be freak
bodies, existing only outside of science and normality? In other words, is there a place for
the hysteric’s elusive lesion and for the miraculé(e)’s mysterious cure in medical discourse?
More generally, (how) can medicine accept and welcome different, non-conforming bodies?
Psychoanalysis, a therapeutic practice developed by Freud in the final years of the
nineteenth century, would provide an answer to some of these questions by promoting a
new epistemology that would allow one to conceive a lesion-less pathology. Indeed, by
theorizing the existence of an immaterial unconscious and by admitting that mental issues
can manifest themselves physiologically, psychoanalysis explains both the immateriality of
the hysterical lesion and the mystery of the miraculous healing process. In fact, thinking of
the immateriality of the unconscious highlights its radicality at a time when medicine is
concerned with mapping out symptoms and disease on the body. Yet, psychoanalysis’s
ability to conceive lesion-less pathologies rests on a disappearance of the biological body.
60
Indeed, Freud slowly moves away from his interest in the neurological body in order to
focus on a conception of the mind/body relationship that is not necessarily based on the
physiological reality of the body.

The Question of Sexual Difference
As French society emerges as increasingly polarized politically and religiously, and
while short-lived political regimes follow one after the other, the century is caught in fits and
starts and hysteria itself becomes a metaphor for the fin-de-siècle as a whole. This
hysterization of society exemplifies the porosity between the clinic and the rest of the world.
This social hysterization is also visible in the question of sexual difference in the late
nineteenth century. Clearly hysteria and miracles are both very gendered phenomena.
Hysteria, because of its persistent etymological affiliation, and because the majority of cases
– and the most iconic ones – are women, remains associated with the female body. Similarly,
women constitute the vast majority of pilgrims and cases of miraculous healings are often –
though not exclusively – of women. In fact, the nineteenth-century epidemic of apparitions
cast women in a privileged position since they appeared to be privileged witnesses to the
apparitions. Moreover, in the midst of the epidemics of apparitions and miracles, the Church
places an increased importance on women’s religious congregations and, as such, comes to
rely more and more on women. Yet, hysterics and female pilgrims remain subjected to male
authority.
In fact, the clinic and the sanctuary are microcosmes of French society where the
gender dynamic of the time gets played out. Jules Ferry adopted these two poles as the two
possible paths for fin-de-siècle women when he wrote in 1870 that “il faut que la femme
appartienne à la science ou qu'elle appartienne à l'Église,” offering only two possible
61
alternatives for women. Hence, women find themselves caught in the fin-de-siècle
polarization that opposes Church and Science. Yet, even though at first glance hysteria and
miracles appear as perpetuations of social and gendered power dynamics, they place the
woman’s body at the center of the mind/body conundrum, thereby implictely giving the
central role to women to solve a debate as old as man himself.
It is worth noting that, though less visible than female cases, male hysteria is decisively
defined in the late nineteenth century by Charcot even if the figure of the hysteric remains
most iconically female, Charcot’s research about its male counterpart bears important
conclusions. Historian of medicine Mark Micale aims to rectify this misperception when he
writes:
During the 1880s, Charcot published the case histories of more than 60
male “hysterics” and treated countless others in his daily hospital practice.
Between a third and a quarter of the overall number of hysterical patients
he presented in his printed works were men or children. In these writings,
Charcot formulated an elaborate set of medical ideas about the disease in
males, including a theory of aetiology, a model of symptomatology, and a
programme of therapeutics. Throughout this period, Charcot campaigned
energetically for his theory of masculine hysteria, and by the time of his
death, in 1893, the idea was widely accepted within mainstream European
medical communities.
97

The theorization of male hysteria is therefore an important endeavor for Charcot, though
not one that got nearly as much publicity as his work on female hysteria. In turn, this
theorization of male hysteria carries important implications as to the definition of hysteria
itself. Micale actually contextualizes it as part of a crucial redefinition of masculinity and
femininity as he considers that “Charcot’s work on the theme of masculine hysteria was part
of a broad cultural process occurring in many scientific and non-scientific areas of late
nineteenth-century European thought, whereby traditional definitions of masculinity and

97
Mark Micale, « Charcot and the Idea of Hysteria in the Male : Gender, Mental Science, and
Medical Diagnosis in Late Nineteenth-century France. » Medical History, 34 (1990): 365.
62
femininity underwent extensive reformulation.”
98
At stake in the theorization of hysteria lies
the overarching question of what constitutes femininity and masculinity and the fact that the
emergence of a masculine hysteria seems like an obvious challenge to the historical uterine
theory of hysteria. Indeed, according to Micale,
There emerged in the course of the seventeenth century a new
model of mental illness centered on the nervous system, and, as part
of this general development, the projected anatomical locus of
hysteria shifted from the reproductive zone to the brain, the mind,
or the nervous system as a whole. The idea of male hysteria now
became a distinct theoretical possibility.
99

This possibiity of a hysteria that originated in the brain opened the door for Charcot’s
theorization of a male hysteria which he considered mostly traumatic as was the case for
men who had survived train crashes. According to Micale, “Charcot had a generic definition
of both male and female hysteria: For Charcot, the malady in both sexes was a hereditarian-
degenerative disorder of the nervous system with an extensive quasi-neurological
symptomatology, a volatile pattern of evolution, and a largely unfavourable prognosis.”
100

Yet, this new theory of hysteria as a disease of the nervous system did not translate as neatly
in Charcot’s theories. Indeed, while he accepted this definition for cases of male hysteria, he
nonetheless found himself returning to the uterine definition. Indeed,
We have seen previously that, by the middle of the nineteenth
century, traditional uterine theories of hysteria were being challenged
and, in Charcot's mind, challenged decisively. However, at roughly
the same time, major advances were being made in understanding
the physiology of ovulation. One consequence of this new scientific
interest in the influence and operation of the ovaries was the
emergence of ovarian theories of hysterogenesis. Now, aetiologically,
Charcot rejected these ideas: however, in the realm of
symptomatology, and in this new theoretically updated ovarian
version he accepted a gynaecological view of hysteria. In the 1880s,

98
Ibid., 365.
99
Ibid., 366.
100
Ibid., 405.
63
then, as he applied his model of female hysteria to other categories
of patients, we find him extending the concept of ovarian
hysterogenic points to male. Despite his self-conscious medical
modernism, Charcot's writings, including his work on masculine
hysteria, contained residues of classical medical theory.
101

Hence, the case of male hysteria highlights some of the challenges Charcot faced with
hysteria and points to some of his theoretical inconsistencies: in spite of his rebuttal of the
uterine explanation, Charcot remained prisoner of this long-held belief and failed to fully
emancipate himself from these gendered prejudices.
The question of sexual difference adds another layer of complexity to the inquiry into
hysteria, miracles and the fin-de-siècle epistemology and raises a number of questions: first,
how do these definitions of the male and female hysteria frame the debates about the
mind/body relationship? Did the dual development of male and female hysteria affect the
way the late nineteenth century approaches the mind? Is there a male mind and a female
mind? What impact, if any, does the distinction between male and female pathologies have
on the way miracles are approached? In other words, how is gender difference handled by
the clinic, the church and society at large? Last but not least, how will this gendering of
hysteria and miracles affect the development of the psychoanalytic body?

Argument and Method
Hysteria’s history is marked by the inability of language to capture it adequately.
Marked by a doubtful etymology, and therefore already a linguistic challenge, hysteria invites
metaphorical thinking as a means to remedy language’s inadequacies. Metaphors of hysteria
– whether Proteus, the chameleon, or the hydra – all primarily emphasize its polymorphism
and the impossibility of containing the disease – both literally and figuratively. In addition,

101
Ibid., 403.
64
since hysteria defies its all-encompassing denomination, its metaphors also inherently imply
resistance and deception.
Yet, hysteria’s opacity is evocative of miracles. They are, after all, also exemplary of a
mysterious bodily process that challenges medical discourse and rational explanations. Just as
doctors have to resort to elaborating metaphors to (unsatisfactorily) describe hysteria, they
are faced with the same insecurities when dealing with miracles. Through their resistance to
definition and scientific explanation, hysteria and miracles converge in the nineteenth
century, hinting at the tension at play between a positivist desire and a fascination with the
supernatural. Yet, if hysteria and miracles are both emblematic of the body’s resistance, their
political roles diverge. On the one hand, we’ve seen that, through a series of associations,
hysteria is assimilated with a dangerous hydra that needs to be decapitated – a particularly
powerful image that supports radical political action. Miracles, on the other hand, play a
deeply unifying social and political role. A response to the aftermath of the French
revolution and the de-christianization movement, the epidemic of apparitions and miracles
greatly contributes to reviving national religious sentiment. This revival of Catholicism
through its least threatening manifestation – the feminized cult of Mary – plays a crucially
unifying role through the many political and institutional crises of the nineteenth century.
My goal is to study the intersection between hysteria and miracles and its broader
implications through the textual productions of the time. As a result, I find myself at the
intersection of several scholarly fields and, because my literary criticism crosses over into
history of science and history of medicine, I situate my research in the field of medical
humanities. My primary concern is to explore how knowledge comes into being: knowledge
about hysteria, knowledge about miracles, but also knowledge about the body and the mind.
Of course, these trajectories are not straight lines and I am particularly interested in the
65
cross-pollination of knowledge: for instance, how have the theories of hysteria influenced
theories of miracles and, conversely, how did the abundant literature about miracles
contribute to shaping theories of hysteria? Also, how did both participate in the fin-de-siècle
epistemological change? Indeed, I ultimately argue that, in addition to shaping each other
through a complex web of discursive exchanges, hysteria and miracles participate in the
broader epistemological shift that will eventually lead to the psychoanalytical notions of
lesion-less pathology and immaterial unconscious and to a new map of the mind/body
relationship.
This knowledge, or rather all these knowledges, permeates the fin de siècle as hysteria
and miracles are everywhere. In his 1882 Gil Blas essay entitled “Une femme,” Maupassant
had famously remarked on hysteria’s ubiquity:
Nous sommes tous des hystériques, depuis que le docteur Charcot, ce
grand prêtre de l’hystérie, cet éleveur d’hystériques en chambre,
entretient à grands frais dans son établissement modèle de la
Salpêtrière un peuple de femmes nerveuses auxquelles il inocule la
folie, et dont il fait, en peu de temps, des démoniaques.
102

In other words, the figure of the hysteric was very much dominating the times to the point
of causing Maupassant’s – and presumably others as well – sarcasm and exasperation. While
newspapers provided a platform for the debates about hysteria, they also reported on cases
of miraculous healings, placing the figure of the miraculé(e) alongside the hysteric as icons for
the fin-de-siècle. For instance, every year for Carnaval, the Salpêtrière held a popular
Masqued Ball which staged dressed-up patients, attracted le tout-Paris and was widely
documented in the papers. Moreover, in addition to the countless medical treaties about
hysteria and the novels staging fin-de-siècle hysterics, both hysteria and miracles were

102
Maupassant, “Une Femme,” Gil Blas 16/08/1882.
https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Une_femme_(Maupassant)
66
documented and disseminated through the use of photography. The Iconographie Photogaphique
de la Salpêtrière gave a new visibility to hysteria’s most spectacular symptoms while, at
Lourdes, photography was used to share pious images of Bernadette and the Shrine.
It is this overwhelming textual, and cultural, production and its modes of circulation
that I will explore because it allows one best to trace the complex web of mutual influences
between the two poles of my investigation: the literatures of Salpêtrière and Lourdes. These
two genres offer a unique array of narratives to track the hysteric and the miraculé(e) in their
own territories. As such, I am particularly interested in how the figure of the hysteric and
the miraculé(e) relate to each other. I also investigate how narratives of hysteria and healing
are elaborated and disseminated and how they, separately and jointly, build upon each other
and participate in the elaboration of the dual iconic fin-de-siècle figures of the hysteric and
the miraculé(e).
My first chapter explores the intersection of medicine and religion in the nineteenth
century as hysteria is identified as the contemporary counterpart of possession. Indeed, when
Charcot’s hysterics are presented as the descendants of the possessed, the Salpêtrière School
endeavors to prove its point by revisiting past cases of possession and re-interpreting them
in light of the newly developed hysteria diagnosis. Retrospective medicine then emerges as
both a practice and a new literary genre. It is the emergence of the new genre and its
infiltration into literature that I am most interested in. By analyzing texts such as Léon
Hennique’s novel Elisabeth Couronneau (1879), a re-interpretation of the eighteenth-century
episode of the convulsionnaries of Saint-Médard, I intend to demonstrate the influence of
the Salpêtrière’s thought on the literary world. Moreover, a tandem reading of Charcot’s
disciple Bourneville’s Science et Miracle: Louise Lateau ou la Stigmatisée Belge (1878) and Camille
Lemonnier L’Hystérique (1884), allows me to compare two versions – one clinical and one
67
literary – of the story of the contemporary stigmatic Louise Lateau and offers me an
opportunity to study the convergences and divergences between medical and literary
discourses.
My second chapter continues to investigate the intersection of science and religion,
particularly focusing on the role of faith. Charcot’s last published essay, The Healing Faith
(1892), brings to the fore the question of suggestion: a question that engages both hysteria
and miraculous healings since hysterics and miraculé(e)s were believed to be susceptible to
suggestion, their symptoms (and cure) supposedly brought on by suggestion. Hence,
suggestion – and hypnosis, a practice that stems from it – offers a new way to look at the
mind/body relation and very much influenced fin-de-siècle research about hysteria. While
the Salpêtrière saw in hypnosis a therapeutic practice only applicable to highly suggestible
individuals (i.e. hysterics), the Nancy School lead by Doctor Hyppolite Bernheim proposed a
theory of hypnosis that considered that it is a universal therapeutic practice that can be used
to benefit everyone. Suggestion then becomes the crucial issue in a debate that tries to decide
whether the hysteric – and the miraculé(e), whose cure is also understood as a proof of
suggestibility – are inherently susceptible to suggestion. Women are more than ever at the
heart of the debate as they are portrayed as the vulnerable targets of suggestion and potential
criminals at the hands of their accomplices, agitating the specter of a vulnerable femininity
that needs to be controlled and protected. The Healing Faith is therefore Charcot’s evident
conflation of hysteria and miracles, and becomes a tool in the hands of republicans and libres-
penseurs, not the least of them Zola whose novel Lourdes (1892) is the literary twin of
Charcot’s text and further illustrates the porosity between literature and the clinic.
My third chapter centers on Lourdes as I trace the development of the sanctuary’s
mythology. As Lourdes and Bernadette’s story emerge as a myth, I demonstrate that the
68
elaboration of this myth – the canonical story of Lourdes – has been created by fits and
starts and by the juxaposition of narrative layers that eventually obstruct the ur-story. These
narrative practices have led to the creation of a Lourdes literature, a term I coined to
describe the incredible proliferation of texts – by historians, physicians, journalists, and
novelists – about Bernadette, her story and the subsequent miracles. Through these
narratives, Lourdes literature appears to engage in a dialogue with medical discourse, often
appropriating it and making it its own.
My last chapter is an epilogue of sorts. My research ends with the dusk of Charcot’s
theory and the dawn of Freud’s. At the turn of the century, Charcot appears to be passé,
while Freud’s psychoanalysis and its move away from the physiological body appear to
capture the attention. Yet, the biological body got lost in the shuffle and contemporary
feminist critics point to the difficulty of thinking about the psychonalytic body without also
thinking the neurological, biological body at the same time. From Freud’s leap of faith into
immateriality, I return to the challenge – and the necessity – of thinking the physiological
body.
On a final note, writing scholarly work about Lourdes is a tricky exercise: historically
Lourdes, as a topic, has inspired both fervent devotees and zealous detractors but relatively
little scholarly research. Following in historian Ruth Harris’s footsteps, my concern is not to
weigh in or give an opinion on the apparitions and on the miracles themselves, but rather to
replace them in the broader epistemological context of the fin de siècle in order to see how
the phenomena fit in and what they can mean culturally.
Writing about hysteria can also be tricky but for opposite reasons. While few scholars
have engaged with miracles, hysteria is an academic marronnier. Not only does hysteria have a
long documented history impossible to report exhaustively, it has also inspired countless
69
critical theories and essays. Twentieth-century scholarship about hysteria has helped shaped
my work and fed my intellectual curiosity yet I stand at the edge of this tradition, as I do not
engage with hysteria per se, but rather with its cultural presence in tandem with miracles. As
was the case with miracles, my approach is not to present a twenty-first-century debunking
of hysteria but rather to report on the way hysteria has prompted epistemological changes.
Therefore, my focus is not to explain hysteria but rather to track it down in its cultural
manifestations and to undertand it as a literary, sociocultural and epistemological fact in
order to, in turn, capture the fin de siècle anew.

70
CHAPTER 1

RETROSPECTIVE MEDICINE AS A GENRE:
WRITING ABOUT “LES NOUVELLES DEMONIAQUES”

Il a fallu toute l'intuition du génie, jointe à une rare acuité d'observation,
pour saisir et fixer avec tant d'effet et de sûreté les traits fondamentaux
d'un tableau si changeant et si complexe. La figure de la possession créée
par le pinceau de Rubens est un véritable type. Elle est en même temps
une image si fidèle de la nature, que sous tous ses aspects elle demeure
vraie, et que, aujourd'hui, à plus de deux siècles de distance, nous y
surprenons les signes indéniables d'une affection nerveuse alors méconnue.

Les Démoniaques dans l’Art, J.M. Charcot and P. Richer.

I- From The New Hysteria to Retrospective Medecine

A) Charcot's First Clinical Steps

Born in Paris in 1825 in a working-class family, Jean-Martin Charcot was not
predestined to become a prominent doctor. The son of a carriage builder, Charcot had first
envisioned an artistic career. Asti Hustvedt writes that, “before he decided on medical
school, he had considered a career as an artist, and he continued to draw throughout his life,
both for pleasure and for work.”
103
This talent, and his artistic sensitivity, would remain with
him throughout his career – he was known to sketch – and can be perceived through his
emphasis on the physical representations of the sick body.
In 1852, he spent a year of his medical training at the Salpêtrière hospital. At the time,
the Salpêtrière was not just any hospital: it was first and foremost a hospital for women, a
“city of incurable women,” as Didi-Huberman called it.
104
The Salpêtrière Charcot
discovered then was a city within the city, a city of thousands of interned women, a cours des

103
Hustvedt, Medical Muses, 9.
104
Didi-Huberman, Invention of Hysteria, 13.
71
miracles of hopeless cases. The Salpêtrière was also already a legendary place among
physicians as it was the stage of a key moment in the early history of psychiatry. In 1795, it
was at the Salpêtrière that Philippe Pinel, the father of psychiatry, freed the women from
their chains, taking a first step toward promoting a more humane line of treatment. Surely,
Charcot’s early residency at the Salpêtrière left an impression on him, as he specifically
decided to return to this hospital and was named chief of medical services of the Salpêtrière
in 1862. As they provided him with endless material for his investigations into neurological
disorders, the women of the Salpêtrière would shape the course of his career.
One of Charcot early works – his 1857 doctoral thesis – is evidence that, even before
starting his work on hysteria, Charcot was already concerned with some of the issues that
would become more obvious later in his life. Entitled “De l'Expectation en Médecine,” Charcot’s
thesis essentially explores the healing process and the natural course taken by a disease.
Charcot quotes Littré’s definition of “expectation” from the Répertoire Général as follows:
On donne en médecine, dit M. Littré, le nom d'expectation à des règles de
conduite qui consistent à abandonner le malade aux seules ressources de la
nature, sans intervenir dans le cours de l'affection par une médication active,
et en se bornant, tout au plus, à éloigner les agents et les circonstances
nuisibles.
105

Essentially, “expectation” is a medical method that can be considered as a passive practice:
the doctor refrains from actual intervention and observes the natural course of the disease.
In that sense, “expectation” is opposed to “médecine agissante.” As it focuses on non-
intervention and emphasizes observing the natural course of a given disease, this practice
offers insights into bodily processes and is particularly concerned with understanding how
the human body fluctuates between various states of health and sickness.

105
Jean-Martin Charcot, De L’Expectation en Médecine, Thèse de Concours pour l’Agrégation
de Médecine (Paris: Germer Baillère, 1857), 9.
72
Along these lines, Charcot is particularly interested in understanding "la propriété en
vertu de laquelle l'organisme, un moment ébranlé par la maladie, retourne spontanément à
cet état d'équilibre qui constitue la santé."
106
A crucial question for the young Charcot is
therefore how to comprehend and articulate the mysteries of health and sickness, and how
the body self-regulates, allowing itself to go from sickness back to health. Hence, his early
investigation into “expectation” demonstrates his concern with truly foundational questions
about medicine: How can health be defined? How is sickness defined in comparison to
health? Is health to be understood as a fragile balance, and sickness as a – temporary –
disruption of that balance? Can the sick body return itself to health? If so, what are the
bodily processes at play? What is then the role of the doctor and of medical treatment? Why
do some diseases allow for the body’s self-healing, while others require outside intervention
and/or remain incurable? While these questions are very general and found the very practice
of medicine, Charcot’s choice to explore them early in his career points to his particular
interest in the epistemology of medicine. Not only a practicioner of medicine, Charcot
demonstrates early his theoretical ambitions.
As Charcot’s work raises these questions, it becomes evident that he is truly fascinated,
but also epistemologically challenged, by the mysteries of invisible bodily processes. Thus,
Charcot's interests appear mainly theroretical and epistemological, an essential – if
unsolvable – reflection on the role and place of medicine and the nature of the healing
process. In this light, his interest in hysteria and his later interest in miracles – two
mysterious, incarnate manifestations of sickness and healing should be considered as a
logical continuation of his initial research even as they take on a broader meaning as
epistemological investigations.

106
Ibid., 3.
73
B) Diagnosing Hysteria

Hysteria, a chameleon disease, was to be Charcot’s privileged path toward investigating
mysterious bodily processes. It is when he joined the Salpêtrière that Charcot, surrounded by
thousands of women diagnosed as insane, famously re-discovered hysteria. In Invention of
Hysteria, Charcot and the Photographic Iconography of the Salpêtrière, Georges Didi-Huberman shares
some 1862 statistics that illustrate the condition of the Salpêtrière when Charcot arrived. At
that time:
There were approximately one physician per five hundred patients... One
hundred and fifty-three epileptic attacks occurred that year... The rate of cure
was estimated at 9.72 percent. Two hundred fifty-four women died in 1862
of “causes presumed to be due to insanity”... Hysteria did not yet appear in
the vocabulary.
107

Yet, over the course of the next few years, Charcot would re-introduce hysteria in the
medical vocabulary of his time.
What did his rediscovery of hysteria consist of? It was, at the first level, a linguistic
rediscovery: “he named hysteria.”
108
But the naming of hysteria is done against other
pathologies, and Charcot’s main accomplishment is that “he distinguished it from epilepsy in
particular and from all other mental disorders. In short, he isolated hysteria as a pure nosological
object.”
109
In other words, Charcot created a geography of hysteria, a space for hysteria proper
both in medical classification and within the limits of the city.
If Charcot’s goal was to grasp hysteria, his key challenges were to determine the
cause and the seat of hysteria. Charcot, whose early work on “expectation” had raised
epistemological questions, was faced with an epistemological challenge. Before even

107
Didi-Huberman, Invention of Hysteria, Charcot and the Photographic Iconography of the Salpêtrière,
13.
108
Ibid., 19.
109
Ibid., 19.
74
contemplating treatment options, he had to isolate the cause(s) – physiological or
environmental – of hysteria, and determine where the hysterical attack emanated from and
where the disease was located in the body.
Consequently, Charcot added to the already long list of causes for hysteria, thereby
creating “a great etiological ragbag,” where anything – heredity, moral impressions, fears, the
marvelous, exaggerated religious practices, earthquakes, pneumonia, the flu, syphilis,
masturbation, venereal excesses etc. – appeared to be a potential trigger for hysteria.
110

Hence, the problem was not the lack of causes for hysteria, but rather the abundance of
causes: everything and anything could potentially cause a hysterical attack. However, though
a wide range of causes were believed to cause hysteria, its physical locus remained impossible
to pin down, even in spite of extensive anatomical explorations. In other words, anything
could cause hysteria, and almost any bodily symptom could be attributed to hysteria, yet the
disease appeared to have no corporeal reality.
In the search for physical hysterical lesions, tangible clues of the disease, Charcot
spared no efforts. According to Asti Hustvedt,
Charcot applied what he called the ‘anatomo-clinical’ method, a research
strategy that correlated clinical symptoms in the living patient with
anatomical lesions found in his patients after their death. That fact that many
of the women at the Salpêtrière were old and were there for life made this
work possible in a way that it would not have been at other hospitals.
111

Autopsies were therefore a large source of anatomical data and the Salpêtrière, with its large
population of sick women, provided a constant supply of bodies to be investigated. Charcot
also developed the method of “cerebral localizations.” In his Leçons sur les Localisations
Cérébrales, Charcot presented the method as follows:

110
Ibid., 72.
111
Hustvedt, Medical Muses, 12.
75
Qu'entend-on, en somme, par ce terme: localiser? En anatomie pathologique,
localiser c'est: déterminer dans les organes, dans les tissus, le siège, l'étendue,
la configuration, les altérations matérielles et palpables; en physiologie
pathologique, c'est, mettant à profit les données de l'observation clinique et
s'éclairant des données expérimentales, établir le rapport entre les troubles
fonctionnels constatés durant la vie et les lésions révélées par l'autopsie.
Ces deux points de vue se présenteront bien souvent dans le cours de nos
études, et ils devront être, de notre part, l'objet d'une attention égale, car, je le
répète, Messieurs, ce n'est pas seulement l'anatomie pathologique
contemplative, étudiant la lésion en elle-même et pour elle-même que nous
devons connaître, c'est encore l'anatomie pathologique mise au service de la
nosologie et de la clinique, appliquée, en un mot, à la solution de tous les
problèmes pathologiques qui sont de son ressort.
112

Charcot’s method has two components: a clinical observation of symptoms and a thorough
post-mortem analysis of tissues in order to locate organic causes. These two components need
to be equally pursued since it is from the comparison between clinical symptoms and the
findings of the autopsy that conclusions can be drawn.
Didi-Huberman describes how, in an effort to map out the brain and identify the
seat of hysteria, Charcot had developed the method of cerebral localization:
Charcot was obliged to study (“methodically,” and “precisely”) the symptoms
presented by a patient; then - meaning, after the death of said patient - to
study the “seat” of the lesions noted; then, to repeat such studies on a large
number of cases, and finally to correlate them so as to establish with certainty
the “real seat” of the lesions that had produced certain determinate
symptoms.
113

Although the method actually succeeded in matching special regions of the brain with special
functions, it still did not allow Charcot to identify the seat of hysteria because autopsies of
hysterics failed to reveal any physical lesion attributable to hysteria.
114
Indeed, Charcot
himself is aware of this challenge and admits the struggle to prove the physical existence of
some conditions:

112
Charcot, Leçons sur les Localisations dans les Maladies du Cerveau, 184.
113
Didi-Huberman, Invention of Hysteria, 21.
114
Ibid,. 71.
76
En premier lieu, il importe de reconnaître, parce que l'illusion en pareille
matière est la pire des choses, que, malgré tous les efforts, il existe encore à
l'heure qu'il est un nombre considérable d'états pathologiques ayant
évidemment pour siège le système nerveux, qui ne laissent sur le cadavre
aucune trace matérielle appréciable, ou ne s'y révèlent tout au plus que par
des lésions minimes, sans caractère déterminé, incapables en tous cas de
rendre compte des principaux faits du drame morbide. Tels sont, par
exemple, le tétanos et la rage. L'antique groupe des névroses, bien qu'il ait été
sérieusement entamé sur plusieurs points, est là, toujours présent, à peu près
inaccessible à l'anatomo- pathologiste. L'épilepsie vraie, la paralysie agitante,
l'hystérie même la plus invétérée, la chorée enfin, s'offrent encore à nous
comme autant de sphynx qui défient l'anatomie la plus pénétrante. Aussi
sommes-nous forcés de confesser, dès l'origine, que, dans le domaine neuro-
pathologique, l'anatomie pathologique n'a d'application directe que dans un
certain nombre d'états morbides.
115

Therefore, the practice of autopsy is no panacea and some conditions, particularly hysteria,
remain physiologically invisible and, consequently, resist medical theorization.
Yet, Charcot was not one to be deterred by the actual absence of a visible lesion, and
his focus and perseverance in categorizing hysteria underlined the likelihood he intuitively
felt that the disease presented a paradigm-shifting opportunity. In an attempt to overcome
the obstacle of hysteria’s material invisibility, “Charcot fomented a concept of the hysterical
lesion: a lesion of the cortex and not the center, a ‘dynamic lesion’ he said, physiological and
not anatomical, ‘elusive, changeable, always prone to disappear.’”
116
Therefore, by bending
the rules of experimental observation, and by thinking creatively about the challenge posed
by hysteria, Charcot adjusted – and stretched – the scientific method in order to apply it to
hysteria, simultaneously demonstrating his role as a new and powerful demiurge. Ultimately,
the development of the long list of potential causes and the creative solution of the dynamic
invible lesion – deemed as scientific and based on experimental methods – suggested the

115
Charcot, Leçons sur les Localisations dans les Maladies du Cerveau, 173.
116
Didi-Huberman, Invention of Hysteria, 77.
77
irruption of a form of magical thinking in the temple of positivism, and pointed to an
unexpected convergence of science and the supernatural.
Charcot’s “outside the box” thinking may nowadays resonate as less than scientific.
For him, however, there was no conflict between his conclusions and scientific rigor. In
Charcot’s opinion, “in the hysterical attack nothing is left to chance. To the contrary,
everything unfolds according to the rules, which are always the same… they are valid for all
countries, for all epochs, for all races, and are, in short, universal.”
117
Charcot had indeed
done some ethnological exploration to determine whether primitive societies exhibited
forms of hysteria and he was interested in comparing symptoms in other populations to
those of hysterical patients in Paris.
118
Charcot’s ambition and his method were therefore to
determine the universal scientific truth of hysteria. In addition to providing a long list of
causes and a complex – and creative – theory of the hysterical lesion, Charcot also drew on
his visual acuity to describe the four phases of the “grande attaque,” thereby providing a
universal blueprint for the hysterical crisis.
With a cause, a seat, and a scripted and predictive description of the hysterical attack,
Charcot was able to provide an appealing argument in favor of his re-discovery of hysteria.

C) The Birth of Retrospective Medicine

In Hallucinations, Anglo-American neurologist Oliver Sacks considers many different
types of hallucinatory experiences and, in particular, religious hallucinations. He examines
the particularly famous case of Joan of Arc who, as an adolescent in the early fifteenth
century, heard a series of voices attributed to Saint Catherine, Saint Marguerite and the

117
Quoted by Hustvedt, Medical Muses, 22.
118
Henri F. Ellenberger, The Discovery of the Unconscious: The History and Evolution of Dynamic
Psychiatry (New York: Basic Books, 1970), 6.
78
Archangel Saint Michel, enjoining Joan to lead an army in order to remove the English from
France. Whereas the traditional narrative of the story attributes the voices to a supernatural
power, Sacks demonstrates that there are now medical and/or neurological diagnoses for
Joan of Arc. According to him, “much evidence is available from the transcripts of her trial
(and her ‘rehabilitation’ twenty-five years later) and from the recollections of
contemporaries. None of these sources are conclusive, but they do suggest at least that Joan
of Arc may have had temporal lobe epilepsy with ecstatic auras.”
119

Though Sacks admits that the evidence is slim and that it is particularly hard to judge
historical cases in retrospect, he still remarks that:
Ecstatic or religious mystical seizures occur in only a small number of
those who have temporal lobe epilepsy. Is this because there is something
special – a preexisting disposition to religion or metaphysical belief – in
these particular people? Or is it because the seizure stimulates particular
parts of the brain that serve to mediate religious feeling? Both, of course,
could be the case. And yet, quite skeptical people, indifferent to religion,
not given to religious belief, may – to their own astonishment – have a
religious experience during a seizure.
120

The intellectual exercise of looking back at past cases, and in particular past cases that
remain to date largely mysterious to science, in order to provide a new scientific explanation
based on new scientific findings, is not itself novel. Though any “wrong” or misguided
diagnoses can be revisited, it is often the fringe diagnoses that involve mysterious religious
manifestations that yield the most productive results in this re-interpretative exercise. In
other words, scientific knowledge is always in flux: as scientific progress allows us to explain
scientifically phenomenon that had so far remained opaque, science is attempting to conquer
and shrink the religious territory.
This exercise, called retrospective medicine or retrospective diagnosis, became

119
Oliver Sacks, Hallucinations (New York: Knopf, 2012), 160.
120
Ibid., 162.
79
particularly popular in the late nineteenth century, under Charcot’s influence. The founding
moment of retrospective medicine could be traced back to Charcot’s epiphany in Genova,
Italy, where he saw a Rubens’s painting of a possessed woman and intuitively connected her
condition to that of the hundreds of women in his ward at the Salpêtrière. Hence, ancient
cases of possession or witchcraft had the potential to be newly diagnosed cases of hysteria.
Yet, Charcot was not the first one to actually look at religious manifestations from a
scientific perspective. Sabine Arnaud reports that already,
The seventeenth century saw the spread of cases that earlier would have been
left to the judgement of the Church. One of the first encounters between the
Church and the medical community took place around the trial of Elizabeth
Jackson, a woman accused of witchcraft and possession. In 1603, Edward
Jorden composed a dissertation to affirm the pathological origin of Jackson’s
convulsions, identifying them as “suffocation of the womb.” His work was
unsuccessful in saving the accused, who was condemned to the stocks.
However, his writing inaugurated a series of works to which the Church
would eventually become less hostile.
121

Here, Arnaud relays Foucault’s analysis:
Michel Foucault has analyzed how the Church delegated the responsibility
for these cases of possession to doctors. He sees the years between 1632 and
1640 at Loudon as a final staging of the possessed body. The interpretative
model of “chair convulsive” is on the precipice of change. According to
Foucault, the Church is no longer willing to sustain a model whose
consequences it cannot control: “Entre 1680 et 1740, à l’appel de l’église
Catholique tout entière et du gouvernement contre l’explosion de mysticisme
protestant et janséniste, déclenchée par les persécutions de la fin du règne de
Louis XIV; les médecins ont alors été convoqués par les autorités
ecclésiastiques pour montrer que tous les phénomènes de l’extase, de
l’inspiration, du prophétisme, de la possession par l’Esprit Saint n’étaient dus
(chez les hérétiques bien sûr) qu’aux mouvements violents des humeurs et de
l’esprits. (…) C’est l’expérience religieuse elle-même qui, pour se départager,
a fait appel, et d’une manière seconde, à la confirmation et à la critique
médicale.”
122

Yet, if the seventeenth century is the first stage of a medical seizing of religious cases, the

121
Arnaud, Narratives and Politics of a Diagnosis: The Construction and Circulation of Hysteria as a
Medical Category, 32.
122
Ibid., 32.
80
stakes at the time are quite different. The medical community was not chosing the cases, but
was rather at the mercy of the Church’s willingness to delegate some of its powers to doctors
in an attempt to discredit the religious legitimacy of the possessed.
In another early exemple of retrospective interpretation, Arnaud also takes the
exemple of Diderot’s Sur les femmes, in which Diderot seeks to understand women’s emotions
and includes a consideration of historical cases of religious manifestations. He proposes a re-
reading of religious history through hysteria’s lense. In fact,
Diderot convokes a series of examples to illustrate the force and plenitude of
hysteric woman. They include the Convulsionaries, whose bodies appear
beaten to attain visibility, mindful of nothing but their will to tear apart. They
include Madame Guyon and Saint Theresa d’Avila, whose states of abandon
are presented as sacrifice and voluptuous delight. Preceding both the
partisans of magnetism and Charcot, Diderot proposed a rereading of
religious history through the malady.
123

It is therefore clear that Charcot did not invent retrospective medicine. Nor is he the
first one to see the connection between hysteria and cases of possession. Yet, Charcot’s
contribution is to turn retrospective medicine into an official genre. It becomes both a
medical genre, based on the medical investigation of past cases, and a literary genre, through
the development of literary narratives of hysteria-like possession.
Hence, retrospective medicine becomes a crucial component of Charcot’s theoretical
edifice. First, it provides him with an endless supply of cases, taken from history as well as
from artisitic representations (The 1885 Les Démoniaques dans l’art by Charcot and Richer
would take this investigation into the artistic realm so dear to Charcot and thereby initiate a
new way to see hysteria everywhere.) But it is also a self-validating approach: it is indeed a
testament to hysteria’s malleability and its broad catalogue of symptoms that many different
cases can be analyzed as misdiagnosed hysterias. Therefore, seeing hysteria everywhere in

123
Ibid., 392.
81
religious history conveniently validates Charcot’s notion that hysteria is indeed a major,
ubiquitous disease that has to be conquered.
But retrospective medicine is more than a reinterpretation of religious cases. It is both
a reinterpretation and a negation of the validity of the religious experience. When the new
hysteria diagnosis is affixed to an ancient case, the spiritual component is annihilated. In this
context, retrospective medicine should be considered both a medical and a political exercise:
by demonstrating that the essence of the religious experience exists only until science is able
to explain it away, Charcot, the fervent republican, also takes a jab at the very essence of
religious faith.
In his 1891 preface to Là-bas, Huysmans hints at the confusion between hysteria and
possession and insists that the conditions are bound to be taken for each other because of
their similarities. Far from denying the existence of cases of possession, Huysmans insists
that, just as cases of hysteria were confused with cases of possession, nineteenth-century
practicioners too misdiagnose as hysteria cases of possession:
Pendant plusieurs siècles, les démonologues confondirent certains
épisodes de la Grande Hystérie avec les phénomènes du satanisme.
Aujourd’hui, les médecins attribuent à la Grande Hystérie des accidents
qui relèvent exclusivement des exorcistes.
124

Hence, Huysmans points to the blurring of the line between possession and hysteria, yet he
does not support the unilateral idea that only possession or only hysteria exist. Instead he
points to a more nuanced idea: some cases of possession are legitimate but are sometimes
misdiagnosed. Similarly, some cases of hysteria are legitimate but are sometimes
misdiagnosed. Though he comes at it from a different perspective, Huysmans essentially
validates the idea that cases can be misinterpreted and that, therefore, a retrospective

124
J.-K. Huysmans, Là-bas (Paris: Gallimard, 1985), 356.
82
consideration can lead to new conclusions.

D) A Literary Case of Retrospective Medicine: Léon Hennique's Elizabeth
Couronneau (1879)

The year 1878 marks the official introduction of Charcot to the literary world.
According to Bertrand Marquer, “L’événement qui aurait introduit Charcot au monde
littéraire et, plus largement mondain, est l’enterrement de Claude Bernard en février 1878,
qui prend l’allure d’un passage de relais symbolique: le maître des theories expérimentales est
mort, celui de l’hystérie peut occuper le devant de la scène.”
125
As Charcot gets acquainted
with the literary elite of the time, his salon becomes the gathering place for writers. This
close proximity of the pioneering medical world to the period’s most prominent authors
hints at the porosity to come between Charcot’s theories and literature. In particular,
hysteria’s affinity for metaphors makes it a privileged literary trope and, as hysteria
dominates the medical field of the time, it also haunts literary productions. Numerous
novels, dubbed by Bertrand Marquer “romans de la Salpêtrière,” take hysteria as their central
motif, while a number of them focus particularly on the convergence of hysteria and
religious neurosis, making the retrospective analysis of historical cases of possession a
popular sub-genre.
Léon Hennique’s 1879 novel Elisabeth Couronneau
126
is one of the earliest examples of
the literary resonance of retrospective medicine in literary circles. The novel revisits the
eighteenth-century episode of the Convulsionnaires de Saint-Médard, a famous – yet
mysterious – moment in France’s religious history. Sabine Arnaud recounts the actual events

125
Bertrand Marquer, Les Romans de la Salpêtrière, Réception d’une Scénographie Clinique: Jean-
Martin Charcot dans l’Imaginaire Fin-de-siècle (Genève: Droz, 2008), 82.
126
Léon Hennique, Elisabeth Couronneau (Paris : Dentu, 1879)
83
as follows:
In 1728, the Deacon of Paris is buried at Saint Medard cemetery after a long
life of extreme privation, and those assembled at his burial act as though he
were a Saint. His clothing and furniture are treated as relics. The spring water
he drank and bathed in is treated as holy water. Accounts of his miracles
reach beyond the sphere of Jansenists, and men and women of a variety of
ages and social classes begin to congregate at his tomb. In 1731, agitation
surrounding Saint Medard reaches such a height that the cemetery is closed
by decree of the King. Because the Convulsionaries are Jansenists, a recently
excommunicated religious order, the Catholic Church seeks to dismiss ideas
of sacred intervention in these events. Debates around the issue immediately
take on a public character since the convulsions have emerged not in a
convent, but in a public space.
127

The Convulsionaries emerge in a context of heightened religious devotion surrounding the
passing of a saintly figure and as a local cult is developing within the Jansenist religious
community. The situation is therefore doubly complex: though it is a case of mystical
manifestation, its occurring within a religious minority heightens the stakes and automatically
turns it into a political and doctrinal issue. Though Jansenism had lost much of its influence
by 1730s, the development of a visible and spectacular devotion rooted in a heretical
theology in the very heart of Paris was indeed perceived as a threat by both Catholic and
secular authorities.
Since the episode of the convulsionaries uniquely combines a series of miraculous
healings with mass convulsionary attacks, it offers insight into these two distinct bodily
manifestations. In fact, starting in 1731, miracles are becoming more common and they are
often associated with a diagnosis of hysteria. Arnaud continues by citing a contemporary
medical report that assesses the condition of Anne le Franc, one of the women miraculously
healed at Saint-Médard:
Nous disons que ceux qui ne sont point versés dans l’art de guérir, ont pû

127
Arnaud, Narratives and Politics of a Diagnosis: The Construction and Circulation of Hysteria as a
Medical Category, 362.
84
trouver quelque chose d’extraordinaire dans la maladie & la guérison d’Anne
le Franc; mais qu’ayant vû souvent guérir par le voyes ordinaires des
personnes attaquées du même mal, nous ne trouvons dans la guérison
d’Anne Le Franc, rien de surnaturel, & nous reconnoissons que sa maladie
étoit une affection histérique fort commune: en effet Anne le Franc a eu une
première attaque à l’âge à l’âge de 9 ans, auquel tems le ferment menstruel
commençoit apparemment à se déveloper, ce qui n’est pas surprenant, vû les
exemples que ce dévelopement a souvent produit les menstruës, même dans
un âge moins avancé. La retraction de la langue qu’elle eut alors est une
convulsion, & les convulsions sont les symptômes les plus ordinaries de la
passion histérique, leur durée & le retour des accès au nombre de soixante
par jour, n’ajoûtent rien de merveilleux à la chose; il y a des personnes à qui
les convulsions durent plus long-temps, & dont les accès seroient dangereux,
si elles n’étoient secourües par les remèdes convenables, comme l’a été Anne
le Franc, lorsqu’elle a été attaquée des vapeurs histériques.
128

This early recourse to medical diagnosis may seem surprising, yet it participates in the
emerging trend of soliciting doctor’s participation in determining the nature (and legitimacy)
of cases of possession and this initiative is part of a strategy by both the Church and the
government to use medical authority in order to maintain order. Since, in the particular
context of the Saint-Médard convulsionaries, the idea was to discredit any idea of divine
intervention, the recourse to medicine is even more understandable. Arnaud writes:
“Because the Convulsionaries are Jansenists, a recently excommunicated religious order, the
Catholic Church seeks to dismiss ideas of sacred intervention in these events.”
129

This recourse to medicine – and to a hysteria diagnosis – to marginalize some alleged
cases of divine intervention actually participates in a lasting trend: in the eighteenth century
already hysteria was being used to counter the credibility of possible miracles. However, in
the course of that process, hysteria itself became a more credible and legitimate pathology:
Hysteria, which in medical treatises appears as a mysterious and fascinating
malady in the realm of the extraordinary, suddenly becomes a malady that is
“known,” “original,”and “ordinary.” A malady recognized by all doctors as

128
Arnaud, quoting a report delivered by doctors Petit, Guerin, and Morand along with the
surgeon Jurez, 364.
129
Ibid., 362.
85
among the most difficult to treat may now disappear without doctors’
intervention, and becomes “le plus souvent curable par la nature, par l’art, ou
par les secours de l’une & de l’autre ensemble.”
130

It is paradoxically through its instrumentalization by both religious and secular authorities
that hysteria became a legitimate diagnosis. Used as an alibi to rule out heterodox
manifestations, hysteria would become a reputable (secular) disease.
Medicine is able to de-mystify the convulsionaries’ hysteria: there is nothing sacred, or
mysterious about these manifestations. Rather, they are the result of an established list of
causes. Arnaud shares the list of potential causes of convulsions developed by doctors:
That year (1732), an anonymous doctor from the Faculté de Paris
distinguishes three principal reasons for the origin (sic) of convulsions in his
Observations de Médecine sur la Maladie appelée Convulsion: the odors that
emerge from the Deacon’s tomb, the beverages that Convulsionaries
distribute among themselves in which they mix earth taken from the tomb,
and the passions aroused by the sight of people in the throes of
convulsions.
131

Hysteria is therefore used to explain both miraculous healings – Anne le Franc is not a
miraculée since she actually suffered from hysteria – as well as the convulsionary phenomenon
– convulsions are simply a symptom of hysteria. Hysteria appears therefore as a magic bullet
of sorts: it becomes a shorthand way of explaining that which otherwise resists reason.
At first glance, the episode of the convulsionaries does not lend itself to nineteenth-
century retrospective medicine. Indeed, the hysteria diagnosis was affixed to the
convulsionaries early on, which should make any re-interpretation redundant. What is then
the purpose of Léon Hennique’s revisiting this episode? To what extent does it fall in the
retrospective medicine category? Hennique’s originality lies in the fact that he provides a
nineteenth-century perspective on the episode. Though hysteria was already suggested as a

130
Ibid., 364.
131
Ibid., 365.
86
diagnosis of the convulsionaries in the eighteenth century, we know that hysteria, as a
pathology, has evolved over time. In other words, a nineteenth-century diagnosis of hysteria
diverges from an eighteenth-century one and what Hennique actually does is channel the
Salpêtrière’s “take” on hysteria, thereby providing a nineteenth-century reading of an
eighteenth-century phenomenon. Though the story takes place in the eighteenth century, the
nineteenth-century reader would be able to recognize the pathology as the ubiquitous
Salpêtrière diagnosis. Essentially, literary ventures such as Hennique’s show that, not only is
hysteria everywhere in the nineteenth century, but it also was everywhere in the past. Hence,
retrospective medicine aims to demonstrate the permanence, and therefore the legitimacy, of
the hysteria diagnosis.
Elisabeth Couronneau’s action takes place in Paris in 1732, under the reign of Louis XV.
It is centered on the story of the eponymous character, an eighteen-year old woman, her
much older half-brother Barthélémy Couronneau, and his friend Noé Berthulus. Elisabeth
has just accepted Noé’s marriage proposal and the three of them are gathered when they
hear the story of one of Noé’s servants who, passing by the Saint-Médard cemetery, had
been attracted by the crowds rushing to the Deacon’s grave. There, witnessing a blind man’s
recovery of his eyesight had rid him of his skepticism about miracles. Easily impressionable,
Elizabeth takes the servant’s story to heart and from then on, her newly acknowledged love
for Berthulus competes with her love for God. Fascinated by the convulsionaries, she
secretely attends a gathering at the Saint-Médard cemetery. There, amidst miraculous
healings and the crowd’s fervor, one woman challenges the followers and offers to prove
that people are being duped. She then goes on to demonstrate that the symptoms of
convulsions, far from being a mark from God, can be impersonated on request: “Et bientôt,
la femme, excellente comedienne, simula pour se moquer, des convulsions, essaya de
87
ridiculiser la formule des prières que l’on addressait d’habitude au diacre, se roula, chanta,
cria; puis s’étant relevée souriante, elle pâlit affreusement, agita les bras dans le vide, grinça
des dents et retomba tout à coup comme si la foudre l’avait châtiée.”
132
Emphasizing the
performativity of the convulsionaries and the possibility of mimicking symptoms,
Hennique’s description of an eighteenth-century phenomenon has a definite nineteenth-
century perspective.
This nineteenth-century intrusion into the narrative continues as Elisabeth herself falls
victim to fainting spells and attacks. When his sister first starts exhibiting symptoms,
Barthélémy hypothesizes that she may have been bitten by a rabid dog. The hypothesis of
rabies is meaningful as it shares a number of similarities with hysteria. It is worth noting that
when Hennique writes Elisabeth Couronneau, in the 1870s, Pasteur is still a few years away
from developing his vaccine
133
and rabies is still a fatal disease. The etymology of this long-
documented illness points to the Latin word for madness. A disease of the central nervous
system, the symptoms of rabies overlap with those of hysteria. Indeed, partial paralysis,
confusion, agitation, hallucinations and delirium are symptoms shared by rabies and hysteria
as defined by Charcot.
When the doctor is finally called in, “on lui décrivit les phases diverses que la malade
avait traversées.”
134
This way of describing the symptoms is itself very evocative of the
language used at the Salpêtrière to describe hysteria, which is understood as a succession of
stages. Charcot had indeed provided a detailed description of the successive stages of “la
grande hystérie.” Thus, Barthélémy and Noé’s understanding of Elisabeth’s sickness betrays
Hennique’s familiarity with the contemporary clinical description of hysteria. Along the same

132
Hennique, Elisabeth Couronneau, 52.
133
Pasteur’s first human vaccine against rabies took place in 1885.
134
Hennnique, Elisabeth Couronneau, 97.
88
lines, the doctor’s first inquiry consists of asking if Elisabeth is a woman or a girl, thereby
suggesting that these symptoms are connected to female sexual development and sexuality.
135

This is confirmed soon after when the doctor presents marriage as the only remedy to the
crises. Elisabeth’s hysteria is therefore understood as a manifestation of an excessive, and
frustrated, desire. It is a sickly manifestation of her virginity that can only be cured by
domestic life and reproductive sexuality. The underlying critique of a hysterical and therefore
threatening virginity also appears as an indictment of women’s congregations and the
epidemic of hysteria – misconstrued as divine manifestations – they encourage.
Elisabeth’s condition indeed gets better following her marriage and she temporarily
embraces her life as a wife and, soon, an expectant mother. However, another visit to the
convulsionaries is enough to make her reject her domestic life altogether. She protests:
“J’étais née pour n’avoir qu’un maître; sous quelle dépendance aurais-je mieux servi que sous
celle de Dieu? Pourquoi ne m’est-il pas permis de recommencer à vivre? Je suis souillée
maintenant, puisque je vais devenir mère.”
136
While her husband appears unable to satisfy
her spiritual yearning, domestic life and reproductive sexuality are experienced as blemishes
and her pregnancy is the epitome of her moral stain.
From then on, her destiny is sealed as she can only shed this stain by becoming the
consensual sacrificial victim of the convulsionaries through a self-inflicted crucifixion.
Oblivious to the true nature of her sickness, Noé finds her already on the cross: “Les deux
mains de sa femme étaient clouées aux bras de la croix, ruisselantes de sang. On n’avait pas
encore eu le temps de fixer les pieds.”
137
Oblivious and helpless, the husband is a passive
victim and what today would be called an enabler:

135
Ibid., 97
136
Ibid., 241
137
Ibid., 285
89
Le bovarysme illustré par Léon Hennique témoigne quant à lui de la
responsabilité qui incombe au mari: l’aveuglement et la médiocrité de Berthulus,
qui prend conscience un peu tard de la nature des crises de sa femme, et n’arrive
pas à temps pour la sauver, en fait un Charles Bovary d’Ancien Régime,
alimentant par son absence les rêves de possession mystique d’Elisabeth.
138

Hennique’s evocation of an impressionable woman married to a weak, mediocre man echoes
Madame Bovary and this parallel has two major implications. First, it inscribes Elisabeth
Couronneau’s mal-être in line with Emma Bovary’s. If Emma’s adult life proves a
disappointment in comparison with the (bad) novels she grew up reading, the stories that
fascinate Elisabeth are religious ones. In particular, early stories of miracles had a lasting
impact on her: “Déjà, l’année précédente, les mystères extraordinaires du cimetière Saint-
Médard l’avaient bouleversée.”
139
And, as Elisabeth recalls recent miracles, “sa poitrine
battait à se rompre.”
140
Hence, mystical stories are Elisabeth’s equivalent to Emma’s
romantic novels and both types of narratives are depicted as having an actual, physical effect
on women. Therefore, through a mise en abyme, Hennique’s novel points to the
impressionability of women and to their tendency to somatize when confronted with
compelling narratives. The dissemination of narratives, whether romantic novels or pious
stories – are threatening to women and, paradoxically, Hennique’s text warns his readers
against the contaminating effects of literature.
Hennique’s portrayal of a weak, oblivious Berthulus also suggests a reflexion on a
powerless masculinity in the face of an unyielding female body and the suggestive powers of
religion. Just as Charles Bovary had been unable to understand and satisfy his wife’s desires,
Berthulus also finds himself powerless. Elisabeth Couronneau betrays anxiety both about
masculine powerlessness and the about narratives and their physical hold on women. Yet, it

138
Marquer, Les Romans de la Salpêtrière, 212.
139
Hennique, Elisabeth Couronneau, 37.
140
Ibid., 38.
90
is also a testament to men’s resilience since, a few years after losing his wife and unborn
child – Elisabeth eventually succumbed to her crucifixion – Noé remarried.
First and foremost a novel, Elisabeth Couronneau allows Hennique to revisit an episode
of French history that has remained mysterious. Though the convulsionaries are only a
backdrop to the story, they serve as a narrative trigger to reveal Elisabeth’s vulnerabilities
and allow Hennique to articulate several crucial components of nineteenth-century hysteria.
By pathologizing Elisabeth’s virginity, Hennique exalts domestic life and counters
congregationist models of femininity. Moreover, by suggesting that a domesticated sexuality
is a remedy for hysteria’s excesses, Hennique portrays hysteria as a disease of excess.
Therefore, scientific knowledge is necessary to establish the posology: if too little sex causes
the disease, too much of it is a symptom of a sickly sexual desire. As religious manifestations
are re-interpreted through the prism of hysteria, the saint becomes a pathological virgin
whereas the possessed suffer from a depraved sexuality.

Thus, hysteria blossoms at both extremities and reconciles apparently antithetical
behaviors, which perpetuates the idea of women as inscrutable paradoxes:
Le spectacle de l’hystérie demeure obscène, et, de manière retorse, sa charge

Lack of sex
Saint/Virgin
Excessive sexuality
Possessed/depraved
91
érotique se trouve même confortée par l’analogie entre sainte et démoniaque: les
convulsionnaires de Saint-Médard mises en scène par Léon Hennique dans son
Elisabeth Couronneau décrivent exactement le même fait pathologique, et non son
expression inverse.
141

Hennique’s work serves as a validation of the late nineteenth-century trend that now
“sees hysteria everywhere.” Charcot had not invented hysteria, he had resuscitated it,
unleashing its retrospective contamination of history. Though hysteria was already associated
with the convulsionaries, it is the nineteenth-century’s highly sexualized and performative
strain of hysteria that Hennique’s novel lends to the episode.
Yet, hysteria comes forward in a mask: omnipresent in Hennique’s text, it is never
explicitely called out. Attentive to the elusive nature of hysteria, Hennique chooses to
dispense with naming it.

II - From Retrospective Medicine to Diagnosing Contemporary Cases.

Elisabeth Courrounneau is an early example of the Salpêtrière’s theories permeating into
the literary world. By taking up a famous case of supernatural manifestation and by imposing
a nineteenth-century perspective upon it, Hennique offers a textbook example of literary
retrospective medicine. As Hennique appropriates new theories of hysteria and re-writes an
old story, he offers an early example of the compelling narrativity of Charcot’s hysteria.
However, the trend to reinterpret cases is not limited to past cases and retrospective
medicine expands to the diagnosis of contemporary cases. As the epidemic of supernatural
manifestations is at its height, doctors hunt for every trace of hysteria in current cases. The
case of Louise Lateau, a Belgian stigmatisée whose case was widely talked about in the 1870s
and 1880s, is exemplary: her case was first the subject of a monograph by Désiré Magloire

141
Marquer, Les Romans de la Salpêtrière, 181.
92
Bourneville, one of Charcot’s devoted disciples and a famously avid republican. In Louise
Lateau ou la stigmatisée belge, Bourneville proposes to apply the Salpêtrière’s theories to a
much-discussed contemporary case. A few years later, novelist Camille Lemonnier’s
l’Hystérique (1884), which focuses on the case of a young stigmatic, provides a particularly
explicit example of the porosity between the Salpêtrière and the literary world.

A) Bourneville: Bridging the Gap Between Medical Accounts and Literature

Désiré Magloire Bourneville (1840-1909) fought against clericalism on multiple
battlefronts. One of Charcot’s most fervent students, he was also a sitting member of the
Parisian municipal council (1876-1883) and a leader in the secularization efforts of
Assistance Publique hospitals and nursing schools. As the editor of Le Progrès Médical,
Bourneville was particularly interested in reporting the failings of nuns and priests as
healers.
142
Thus, Bourneville’s decision to investigate the case of Louise Lateau, a young
Belgian girl who had been experiencing stigmata since 1868, had its own agenda. In her 2004
article “Between Miracles and Sickness: Louise Lateau and the Experience of Stigmata and
Ecstasy,” Sofie Lachapelle considers Bourneville’s use of Lateau’s case to prove the
supremacy of the scientific theory of hysteria over the religious belief in divine intervention:
Bourneville’s interest in the Belgian stigmatic comes as no surprise. His
anticlerical stance remained constant throughout his career. From his
political defense of cremation and the laicization of nursing to his interest in
mysticism, he argued that religious beliefs had become ghosts of the past.
The time had come to reinterpret these occurrences. Looking at both
contemporary and past instances of mysticism, possession, stigmata, and
ecstasies, he encouraged a new understanding of such phenomena in
pathological terms. In 1883, he began publishing La bibliothèque diabolique, a
series in which classics of the witchcraft and demonic traditions were

142
Bernard Brais, “Désiré Magloire Bourneville and French anticlericalism during the Third
Republic,” in Doctors, Politics, and Society: Historical Essays, ed. Dorothy Porter and Roy Porter
(Amsterdam and Atlanta: Rodopi, 1993)
93
republished and new contributions to the pathologization of mystical
phenomena were presented.
143

Bourneville’s approach is inscribed in the general trend of re-interpretation of religious cases
as medical ones. While retrospective medicine remained a crucial component of the
Salpêtrière’s influence – the Bibliothèque Diabolique series is a visible example of how well it
served Charcot’s theories – it went beyond the retrospective interpretation stricto sensu and
encompassed the interpretation of current cases, often using conclusions drawn from the
retrospective analysis of ancient cases of possession. The common thread was the use of the
same analytical framework: cases of mystical expression were dismissed and treated as
misdiagnosed hysteria. The fact that hysteria contained such a wide array of symptoms
allowed authors to stretch the analysis to a great and diverse number of cases.
Louise Lateau’s case is one of the most famous and mysterious cases of the late
nineteenth century. In 1868, Louise Lateau was a poor eighteen-year-old girl living in a small
Belgian village. Her early life had been marked by a number of tragedies: her father’s death,
her mother subsequent illness and her own ill health.
144
On a Friday at the end of April, she
started bleeding from the left side of her chest. The bleeding continued and expanded the
following Friday, this time with wounds on her feet, and then on her hands a week later. She
continued to develop stigmata, and eventually a crown-shaped wound on her head and a
wound on her shoulder, exactly mimicking Jesus’s wounds. The clinical description also
included ecstasy as well as extensive fasting – an objective symptom that proved particularly
disconcerting for the medical community:
Much was made of the fact that Lateau had refused to eat or sleep since
March 1871, and yet persisted in good health. The claim was not surprising,

143
Sofie Lachapelle, “Between miracles and sickness: Louise Lateau and the experience of
stigmata and ecstasy,” Configurations 12 (2004): 102
144
Details of Louise Lateau’s story are from Sofie Lachapelle’s 2004 aforementioned article.
94
however: fasting and sleep deprivation had traditionally been associated with
mystical experiences. In this case, the supposed deprivations appeared to
have no effect on her strength and physical appearance.
145

Incidently, Lachapelle points out that the Lateau’s first stigmata appeared only a few days
after her first menstrual period, a fact whose symbolism she doesn’t discuss further but that
bears remarkable importance in the context of the Salpêtrière’s tableau of hysteria.
Though her health would steeply decline after 1876 – she was to be bed-ridden until
her death in 1883 at age 33 – she was still a relatively robust example of an unexplicable
phenomenon by the time Bourneville studied her case. In fact, she had drawn the attention
of both religious and medical communities, clerics and doctors working in a surprising
collaboration to attempt to determine the causes of her “pathology.” Yet, even though
Lateau had been the subject of many medical examinations, her diagnosis remained largely
mysterious.
Bourneville’s approach is three-fold: it warns against superstition, provides a clinical
description of symptoms, and offers a categorical diagnosis: hysteria. In his short
introduction, Bourneville affirms his confidence that science provides – or will soon provide
– an answer to alleged miracles: “la science a commencé à se constituer, à posséder, elle
aussi, ses lois organiques. Moins parfaites encore aujourd’hui qu’elles ne le seront dans
l’avenir, elles suffisent cependant pour expliquer tous ces faits miraculeux.”
146
Bourneville
goes on to observe that miracles are now rare since tremendous recent scientific
developments are allowing doctors to demystify miracles. Of course, Bourneville’s
assessment is at odds with the well-documented contemporary epidemic of miracles, a sign
that, in his opinion, the events at Catholic sanctuaries did not actually defy the laws of

145
Ibid., 95.
146
Désiré Magloire Bourneville, Louise Lateau ou la Stigmatisée Belge (Paris: Delahaye, 1878), I.
95
nature. The method he would be using in Louise Lateau’s case is one already used by
Charcot and other pioneering doctors:
Après avoir étudié avec le plus grand soin les malades que la pratique de chaque
jour leur apporte dans les établissements consacrés aux maladies du système
nerveux, ils les ont compares aux récits plus ou moins legendaires d’autrefois et
il en est ressorti pour eux la conviction que l’on retrouvait aujourd’hui, à l’état
isolé, des cas tout à fait analogues à ceux qui, par leur réunion, ont constitué
durant le Moyen-Age des épidémies redoutables ou ont contribué à entretenir la
croyance aux Miracles.
147

Retrospective medicine, as practiced by Charcot, is therefore a comparative discipline whose
value is validated by its capacity to make sense of past cases that were seemingly irrational. In
the case of Louise Lateau, Bourneville will compare her clinical symptoms to the well-known
list of symptoms associated with hysteria. Since Bourneville has never met Lateau, his
analysis relies on accounts from trusted sources, which points to a key element of
retrospective medicine: the doctor’s work is usually based on second- or third-hand
knowledge of a case. Hence, the central component of the therapeutic approach –the
patient/doctor relationship – is deemed unnecessary to the diagnosis.
Bourneville starts off by providing little biographical and chronological information
about Lateau. Though her most spectacular attack started at the end of April 1868,
Bourneville discusses a prior affection a few weeks earlier, which disappeared promptly. A
hypothesis offered by Bourneville about this unexpected healing is that her puberty may
have played a positive role, since it coincided with her first period on April 19-21:
148
“Au
commencement de 1868, Louise eut une lumière intérieure qui lui fit comprendre que quelque
chose d’extraordinaire allait se passer en elle. Sous l’influence de cette lumière intérieure, son

147
Ibid., II.
148
Ibid., 5.
96
désir de souffrir s’accrut.”
149
This premonition of a great change, as well as of the desire to
suffer, can be read as a precursor to her menstruation.
Yet, in the days following her menstruation her situation worsened: while she had
barely eaten for days, a bleeding wound appeared on the left side of her breast. As the
bleeding continued and spread to her feet, she also began to fall victim to ecstatic fits.
Finally, Bourneville concludes the biographical section by remarking the increased piety
demonstrated by Lateau. Evidently, her religious devotion plays a role in her diagnosis as
Bourneville considers it a condition favorable to the development of hysteria.
The first, biographical chapter is followed by a more clinical description of her
symptoms. Bourneville focuses on four types of symptoms: stigmata, ecstacy, and secondary
symptoms, fasting, excretions, insomnia. To this objective list of symptoms, the next
chapter’s title responds with a condemnation: “Louise Lateau est une hystérique:
démonstration clinique.”
150
Bourneville’s medical opinion is indeed categorical. To reach this
conclusion, his approach consists of a basic comparison between the symptoms exhibited by
Lateau and the whole catalogue of known human disease. Bourneville writes:
Il nous faut maintenant rechercher si les symptômes qui caractérisent la
maladie dont est atteinte Louise Lateau: attaques démoniques,
hémorrhagies, extases, contractures sous forme de crucifiement,
abstinence, absence de selles, ischurie (suppression ou diminution
considerable des urines) et insomnie se rencontrent dans la pathologie
humaine.
151

In other words, by comparing Lateau’s objective list of symptoms to other pathologies,
Bourneville hopes to isolate a medical diagnosis of her case. Apparently unbiased at first,
Bourneville soon betrays his intention: when rhetorically asking whether Lateau’s spectacular

149
Ibid., 4.
150
Ibid., 26.
151
Ibid., 26.
97
hemorrhages are as unexplicable as they appear, he immediately volunteers hysteria as a
possible explanation since “les hémorrhagies sont un accident fréquent chez les
hystériques.”
152
Hence, because hysteria immediately appears as one possible explanation,
other possibilities are dismissed and Bourneville continues his investigation of Lateau using
exclusively the criteria of hysteria. He then proposes to compare every one of her symptoms
with a documented case study of hysteria, and for each one of them he offers a list of case
studies that demonstrate the prevalence of similar symptoms for hysterics. Lachapelle writes:
He attempted to provide a clinical demonstration of the fact that Lateau was
a hysteric, comparable to some of the patients he encountered at the
Salpêtrière. Her symptoms— demonic attacks, hemorrhages, ecstasies,
contractions experienced as crucifixion, abstinence, absence of feces,
considerable reduction of urine, and insomnia—even if they were to be
confirmed by other observers, were symptoms that, taken one by one, all
existed in the clinical history of hysteria.
153

Abstinence (from eating) is one of the symptoms Bourneville considers and his
approach to this symptom is exemplary of his methological flaws. He lists a number of cases
of abnormal fasting, documenting with great detail the specific diet of each patient and the
process by which they manage to reduce their diet to almost nothing. Bourneville notices the
pattern of fasting, but he does not actually provide an explanation as to its physiological
basis. In other words, he doesn’t address the basic metabolic processes at play nor does he
provide any sort of explanation about the possibility for the human body to survive for
extended periods of time whitout sustenance. After having listed a number of cases of
mysterious fasting, Bourneville concludes:
Ces faits, que nous pourrions aisément multiplier, montrent que les
hystériques se contentent dans l’immense majorité des cas, d’une
alimentation insuffisante et que, malgré cela, elles conservent le même

152
Ibid., 26.
153
Lachapelle, “Between miracles and sickness: Louise Lateau and the experience of stigmata
and ecstasy,”102.
98
embonpoint, la même apparence de santé. Ils font voir aussi par quelle
gradation elles arrivent à l’abstinence complète ou à peu près complète, ne
prenant plus que quelques gorgées de liquide ou quelques medicaments.
154

Instead of explaining how it could be physiologically possible for hysterics to survive with
very little food, Bourneville considers the fasting as evidence of hysteria. Though Bourneville
starts out with an alleged comparative method, his comparative efforts stop as soon as he
evokes the possibility of hysteria. In other words, he is not truly intent on comparing
Lateau’s symptoms to a full range of diseases, but rather already knows which pathology fits
her clinical description best. Then, rather than attempting to explain how some symptoms
are actually physiologically possible – for instance, by which complex physiological processes
is prolonged urine retention possible? Or how can one survive without eating? – he limits
himself to a double and somewhat contradictory approach. He both observes cases of
similar symptoms recorded in hysterics and expresses his doubts about the professionalism
of his colleagues who have documented the case of Louise Lateau. For instance, while he
provides a list of cases of extreme fasting or the suppression of urine, he simultaneously
doubts the accuracy of Louise Lateau’s records. Bourneville’s ambiguous approach betrays
his major flaw: in spite of his ability to amply identify similar cases, he is actually unable to
provide a satisfactory scientific explanation for the symptoms. Bourneville is therefore
limited to a (thorough) descriptive approach, rather than an explicative one, a problem also
experienced by Charcot in his attempts to detail the bodily processes of hysteria, or to locate
the hysterical lesion.
Bourneville’s work points to the limits of this formulaic practice of medicine. If a
person presents symptoms of hysteria, then the diagnosis will conclude it is hysteria. It is
also a testament to the hegemony of hysteria in the diagnostic realm: as it goes beyond the

154
Bourneville, Louise Lateau ou la Stigmatisée Belge, 56.
99
walls of the asylum, hysteria contaminates doctors’s practices and essentially eclipses other
diseases. Yet, Bourneville’s text exemplifies the fact that a diagnosis of hysteria leaves many
questions unanswered: how exactly does the disease progress within the body? What is the
step-by-step process that makes some of its strangest symptoms possible? Finally, if
Bourneville explains Lateau’s symptoms in part as a result of her religiosity, how can hysteria
be explained in cases of people who are not religious?
Bourneville’s ventures in the field of contemporary medical re-interpretations provide
an early example of the trend to “see hysteria everywhere.” Camille Lemonier’s 1884 novel
L’Hystérique (1884) and to a lesser extend Alphonse Daudet’s L’Evangéliste (1883) directly
echo Bourneville’s conclusions about the religious neurosis and illustrate hysteria’s intrusion
into the literary world.

B) Camille Lemonnier’s L’Hystérique (1884)

Published by Belgian writer Camille Lemonnier in 1884 – a year after Louise Lateau’s
passing – l’Hystérique is clearly an evocation – though much fictionalized – of her case and its
impact on a small Belgian village and its religious community. According to Bertrand
Marquer, there is little doubt that the hysteric portrayed by Lemonnier is the literary avatar
of Louise Lateau.
155

The story takes place in a small rural Belgian town, where “un peuple de femmes”
156

lives. The village is indeed home to beguignes – a feminine religious order founded in Belgium
– and these women live a life of piety, daily devotion and petty work at the service of the
local church and its priest. Significantly different from other religious orders, “elles ne

155
Marquer, Les Romans de la Salpêtrière, 155.
156
Camille Lemonnier, L’Hystérique (Paris: Charpentier, 1885), 3.
100
prononcent pas de voeux et (…) la règle de l’association les astreint seulement à des
exercises de piété.”
157
In other words, though less restrictive than many other feminine
orders, the life of beguignes is nevertheless marked by the utmost religious devotion.
Lemonnier’s story starts in 1862 with the arrival of a new young beguigne, Marie-
Marthe Joris, who chose Soeur Humilité as her name. Her willingness – and desire – to do
the most degrading and menial work, and her capacity to find spiritual satisfaction in the
hardest chores soon earn her the reputation of being quasi holy. Soeur Humilité’s arrival at
the beguignage coincides with that of a new priest, le curé Orléa, a harsh and overly zealous
man who terrorizes the beguignes. He is particularly relentless with Soeur Humilité, even
though – or maybe because – she is the most devoted and saintly of them all. Still, his
relentlessness toward Soeur Humilité, far from deterring her from her devotions, makes her
even more dedicated, and she becomes even more pious, thriving spiritually as she adopts a
new ascetic life and starts fasting. Then, during Christmas mass, she experiences the first of a
series of very visible manifestations: she finds herself stiff and despondent, so much so that
other beguignes fear that she might have died. Only the summons by Orléa takes her out of
this stupeur, then looking like “une morte qui ressuciterait.”
158

When her condition worsens and she is unable to get up one day, the sisters chose a
double approach: “Nous prierons Dieu pour elle… mais nous lui enverrons aussi le
médecin.”
159
The doctor chosen to treat her is Monsieur Basquin, a pious man, far from the
idea of the anticlerical doctor, but rather remininscent of the complacent doctors dismissed
by Bourneville who had studied Lateau’s case. In fact, “‘on l’appelait Sa Sainteté M. Basquin,
chez les bourgeois de la ville, par allusion à sa piété, qui était plus grande que sa

157
Ibid., 5.
158
Ibid., 42.
159
Ibid., 61.
101
science.”
160
According to the doctor, Soeur Humilité’s disease is solely a consequence of her
fasting and “comme elle se plaignait bien moins du mal qu’elle endurait que de son
douloureux éloignement des quotidiennes pratiques de l’église, il finit par lui prescrire l’eau
de Lourdes, s’ingénia à lui chercher des moyens de guérison spirituels. Il n’avait qu’une
confiance limitée dans la médecine et, pour les cas rebelles, s’en rapportait à Dieu comme à
un médecin plus efficace que tous les autres.”
161
This medical intervention illustrates the
ambiguous attitude adopted by some doctors as they “medically” diagnose diseases of faith
and prescribe religious practices as treatment. While it links mental processes and bodily
symptoms, this excerpt also foreshadows Charcot’s blurring of the line between medical cure
and religious healing in his 1892 essay The Healing Faith.
162

Soeur Humilité’s situation fails to improve and, expected to die, she is transported to
the infirmary where she finds great comfort in daily communion. First suspicious of her
motives, Orléa’s reluctance is eventually worn down as he realizes that she is truly pious. Yet,
“Soeur Humilité ne devait pas mourir. Une crise, sur laquelle n’avait pas compté le médecin
détermina aux profondeurs de son être jusque-là fermé aux secrètes douleurs de la femme,
une commotion puissante, d’autant plus decisive qu’elle avait tardé à venir. Le sexe, comme
un fleuve rouge, coula dans son corps miné par son apparition tardive.”
163
Echoing Lateau’s
case, Soeur Humilité’s menstruation plays a double role: it first appears to cure the pathology
but it is also the precursor of crises to come.
In fact, Humilité’s menstruation plays a crucial role, since when Orléa learns of her
newly found femininity, he feels he has been fooled:

160
Ibid., 62.
161
Ibid., 62.
162
A more detailed analysis of this essay can be found in the second chapter.
163
Lemonnier, L’Hystérique, 66.
102
L’homme de Dieu éprouve le brusque élancement d’une blessure qui lui
aurait été faite dans sa foi. Il lui parut que quelque chose de sa propre vie à
lui, comme une veine artérielle, s’était rompu dans son âme de croyant; et il
en garda une amertume contre le pauvre être dans lequel il avait cru voir
s’épanouir les clartés d’aurore de la sainteté. C’était presque une trahison
dont elle se rendait coupable envers lui (…) et cette plaie soudainement
ouverte en elle lui répugna comme une pourriture de charogne sur l’hermine
de sa candeur.
164

Orléa’s reaction illustrates the fact that holiness and reproductive sexuality are perceived as
antithetical. Essentially, because of her period, Humilité becomes the same as all the other
women. In his opinion, “la commune ignominie (…) la rendait pareille à toutes les autres
femmes.”
165

By desecrating Humilité, the menstrual flow not only disappoints Orléa, it also opens
the way for the apparition of yet another symptom. Humilité starts experiencing a
“sentiment de piqûres à la plante des pieds,”
166
eventually leading to the recurrent apparitions
of stigmata every Friday.
167
Again, this detail is remininscent of Lateau’s clinical description
since she had first experienced menstruation right before her stigmatic condition started.
The use of this detail suggests that menstruation, and women’s access to reproductive
sexuality, play a role in the onset of hysteria. The condition would then be caused by a
rejection of, or a problem with, the transition to adult womanhood.
The periodicity of Soeur Humilité’s crises echoes Louise Lateau’s Friday bleeding. But
Marquer points out that the scheduled recurrence of the crises also invokes the Salpêtrière’s
schedule. He notes:
S’il répond à un calendrier religieux, le fait que les ‘miracles’ d’Humilité se
manifestent le vendredi peut faire écho aux fameuses ‘leçons’ de Charcot. E.
Roy-Reverzy souligne d’ailleurs que ‘ce metteur en scène qu’est Orléa, cette

164
Ibid., 66.
165
Ibid., 74.
166
Ibid., 120.
167
Ibid., 122.
103
fausse sainte qui attire les foules, ce sont Charcot et Geneviève ou telle autre de
ses patients: non seulement il exhibe Humilité comme une creature de cirque,
mais il parvient à la dompter au cours de ses extases comme fait Charcot au
moyen de l’hypnose ou de son compresseur d’ovaires.
168

As Orléa gets closer to Humilité through his administering of her daily communion, he
finds himself torn apart by his newly discovered sexual desire. His disgust for Humilité’s
worldly femininity overlaps with his desire to possess her. Struggling with his desire, he first
ventures to a brothel. Marquer notes:
Torturé par son désir, Orléa subit à l’inverse les affres de ses propres
contradictions, et frôle même une forme de folie d’autant plus terrible qu’elle est
lucide: sur le point de se rendre chez une prostituée, l’abbé est pris de ‘secousses
nerveuses (qui) agitaient ses members, leur communiquaient la détente brusque
d’une sorte de danse de Saint-Gui(sic).
169

The description of Orléa’s symptoms, along with the evocation of Saint Gui’s danse, indicate
that he has himself been contaminated by Soeur Humilité’s hysteria. As his sexual urges
torment the priest, he essentially experiences a feminization: Orléa experiences the typical
symptoms of hysteria and Lemonnier suggests that hysteria opens up a space where sexual
difference fades.
Following his first exploratory adventure in the underworld and his incapacity to
actually get close to a prostitute, he realizes that “ce qu’il lui fallait c’était la femme fraîche et
chaste, une femme qu’il aurait pour lui seul et qui apporterait une âme à baiser sur ses
lèvres.”
170
Humilité, despite her womanly stain, would therefore become the object of his
pursuits since she is the only possible woman for him. Indeed, “Ne lui offrait-elle pas un
amour au-dessus de tous les autres? Quelle volupté humaine était comparable aux blandices

168
Marquer, Les Romans de la Salpêtrière, 221.
169
Ibid., 188.
170
Lemonnier, L’Hystérique, 251.
104
de ses chrétiennes et naïves tendresses? Ne lui appartenait-elle pas déjà spirituellement?”
171

Though the novel’s sexual turn clearly diverges from any biographical information known
about Louise Lateau, the complex and perverse sexual relationship that takes place between
Humilité and Orléa provides great insight into the contemporary sexual bias assigned to
hysteria.
Humilité’s next attack provides Orléa with the opportunity he needed, soon leading
both of them to “une vie de ruses et de mensonge,”
172
as Humilité – and more specifically
her sexuality – becomes Orléa’s obsession. Though Humilité is portrayed as the passive
oblivious victim of Orléa’s perversions, his pathological sexuality is a symptom of a hysteria
that permeates Humilité and contaminates the priest. Marquer argues: “De fait, Lemonnier
présente également son monstre en soutane comme une victime de l’hystérie, captivée
justement par le surgissement proprement sacrilège d’un sang féminin exaspérant son
désir.”
173

Orléa’s forceful sexual encounter with Humilité marks the beginning of the novel’s last
movement, in which Humilité essentially becomes Orléa’s mistress. As her condition
improves, he takes her into the presbytery as a domestic aid and manages to live there in a
quasi-domestic setting. Yet, as Orléa’s comfort increases, so do his sadomasochistic interests.
He quickly gets bored and “un besoin d’émotions nouvelles les prit, pour réveiller la
satiété.”
174
As his fantasies escalate, he subjects Humilité to more and more perverse sexual
scenarios:
Il imagina des perversités, s’ingénia à des artifices de roué, s’enfonça un peu
plus dans les voluptés de perdition. Il l’avait obligée à s’offrir dans ses robes

171
Ibid., 252
172
Ibid., 271
173
Marquer, Les Romans de la Salpêtrière, 187.
174
Lemonnier, L’Hystérique, 292.
105
de messe, le voile en tête, priante et tournée à Jésus, et il lui disait qu’il était
en effet le Seigneur, écoutait monter sa prière à lui, comme l’encens et l’odeur
de son adoration, tout grisé de cette voix molle, implorante.
175

As his fantasies incorporate more and more blasphemy, he inscribes Humilité in the tradition
of famous cases of possession:
Une démence furieuse le poussait à toutes les extravagances, et comme liée à
lui par des philtres d’amour toute pudeur abrogée, elle lui obéissait jusque
dans ses plus déraisonnables caprices. Alors il goûtait des joies sombres de la
sentir se perdre dans son monstrueux délire de mâle inassouvi, de l’enchaîner
à sa propre damnation, comme son âme damnée à lui, toute chargée des
inquités commises à deux, de renouveler sur elle les effets des grandes
possessions auxquelles s’étaient illustrés Grandier et les autres.
176

Comparing Humilité’s case to that of Loudun, and therefore comparing Orléa to Grandier,
plays on the confusion between hysteria and possession and thereby legitimizes Humilité’s
symptoms.
While sexuality had only offered a brief respite, Humilité’s symptoms return with a
vengeance and she falls victim to an even more spectacular relapse. Again, sexuality appears
as a highly sensitive medicine: if an expertly dosed amount can cure you, too much of it can
speed up your fall. Following her first encounters with Orléa, Humilité’s symptoms had
appeared to soften and become more routine, yet they eventually return even more
spectacularly. This association between sexuality and hysteria loops back to the traditional
definition of the disease as caused by a sexual disorder. Yet the actual influence of sex
remains unclear: if it can (temporarily) alleviate the symptoms, it can also worsen them
without notice. Lemonnier’s association therefore suggests an alternate hypothesis: if the
scientific correlation between hysteria and sexuality is hard to pinpoint, it might be because
there is no actual correlation between them. It is worth noting that, throughout the novel

175
Ibid., 292.
176
Ibid., 293.
106
Humilité is a silent protagonist and, though her pathology is described at great lengths,
Lemonnier does not actually allow her to speak of her condition. In this context, she appears
more as the passive patient at the mercy of men’s fantasies. Under Lemonnier’s pen, Orléa’s
fantasies may betray a different truth altogether: men’s arousal by women’s symptoms of
hysteria. Hence, the actual correlation between hysteria and sexuality may be more complex
than initially thought: it might be a self-serving treatment developed by powerless men. As
Humilité’s symptoms escalate and her “écoulement périodique du sang, la grande piété, et le
jeûne presque constant”
177
become more and more visible to the rest of the community, the
bishop launches a formal investigation into Humilité’s condition.
However, even the capucin assigned to the investigation of her case falls victim
himself to Humilité’s contamination as he starts experiencing guilty dreams. It is as if her
extreme devotion (or her hysteria symptoms) acts as a trigger on the men around her. As his
investigation continues and Humilité’s health is deteriorating, doctors are also called on to
provide a diagnosis. As her religious delirium culminates, she even “confessa à Orléa qu’elle
avait eu un songe: Notre-Seigneur Jésus-Christ apparu dans une grande lumière, lui avait
annoncé qu’elle engendrerait de lui.”
178
Her pregnancy is then confirmed, not only by her
starting to feel the child, but also indirectly by the interruption of her stigmata. Again, a
correlation is suggested between her symptoms and her sexuality. However, her stigmata, as
the most visible and intriguing signs of her mysticism, are also the reason that draws pilgrims
to visit her. Therefore, in order for her pregnancy not to be discovered, Orléa digs into her
skin with scissors in order to mimick her former stigmatas. Yet, this solution is only
temporary and soon it becomes clear that Humilité’s maternal instinct has replaced her

178
Ibid., 348.
107
devotion to Jesus. In fact,
Maintenant, elle s’attachait avec moins de ferveur à l’amoureuse idée de
l’Homme-Dieu en sa beauté male et douce, mais constamment s’amollissait
dans la grace et le sourire d’un mignon Jésus d’une chair douillette et molle,
transparente comme celle des Jésus de cire. Et il comprit que la mère petit à
petit descendait dans la fille abusée, préparant l’extatique vierge d’autrefois à
des tendresses humaines par il ne savait quelle redoutable et intransgressible
volonté qui la faisait femme presque sur la pente du tombeau.
179

Her impending maternity is not only a threat to his reputation, it also robs him of the saintly
object of his fantasy. Orléa is therefore left to his own devices: he leaves for Paris and
returns with drugs, forcing Humilité to abort, and also abruptly aborting the narrative. The
only solution left for Orléa is to have Humilité moved away, thereby removing the source of
his temptation:
Alors il arrangea sa vie, il abdiquerait ses racunes et solliciterait de l’évêché
l’éloignement d’Humilité comme un objet de trouble pour son troupeau de
femmes. L’Eglise a pour ceux qui la gênent des retraites profondes comme
des tombes. On la dirait morte quelque part, très loin; et l’oubli se refermerait
sur elle, ainsi qu’une eau sur un noyé. Rien ne l’empêcherait plus dès lors de
penser à son salut, et le reste de ses jours, il pratiquerait sincèrement le
célibat, inaccessible aux tentations.
180

The blame is therefore automatically placed on Humilité, yet the use of the conditional
makes Orléa’s delusion explicit.
Exiled, her child aborted, Humilité remains a silent protagonist, even when she has
lost everything, a passive puppet at the hand of her successive puppeteers. Whether victim
of doctors, priests, Orléa, or the Catholic hierarchy, Humilité’s plight remains very much out
of her hands. As Louise Lateau, but also the Salpêtrière patients, she has attracted the
curiosity of many powerful men and has been subjected to their power and authority. An
exemplary figure of the Salpêtrière hysteric, victim of both her religious faith and her

179
Ibid., 353.
180
Ibid., 355.
108
sexuality, Humilité is nevertheless a hysteric in disguise: besides the title, the word is
nowhere to be found in the text. Hence, as the diagnosis precedes the text itself, it confirms
the hegemony of the hysteria diagnoses and suggests that Humilité’s participation in the
narrative would be pointless since her case has already been analyzed and diagnosed. The
literal absence of the word “hysteria” in the narrative is only possible because of its
overwhelming presence, not only in the novel’s title, but also more important in the minds
of nineteenth-century readers. Humilité’s silence and general passivity falls within the same
logic: she is reduced to her diagnoses from the book’s cover, making any subsequent
intervention pointless.

C) Alphonse Daudet’s L’Evangéliste (1883)

Reading Bourneville’s Louise Lateau alongside Lemonnier l’Hystérique offers a
particularly direct insight into the bridges between the Salpêtrière and the literary world, as
well as between medical diagnosis and mysterious religious cases. Alphonse Daudet’s 1883
L’Evangéliste
181
provides another example of the literary interest in diagnosing pious women
as hysterics. From its dedication, Alphonse Daudet’s novel bears the mark of the Salpêtrière.
Daudet indeed addresses his text to Charcot, a man he knows personally and greatly admires:
“A l’éloquent et savant Professeur J.M Charcot, Médecin de la Salpêtrière, je dédie cette
Observation.” Daudet and Charcot were neighbors in Saint-Germain-des-Prés and through
him Charcot met Edmond de Goncourt, Maupassant and Zola.
182
Only after Charcot failed
in his treatment of Daudet’s bone marrow disease, would they grow apart.
Daudet, from the text’s inception, inscribes his work in a quasi scientific approach: it is
not a novel, but rather an “observation,” that he dedicates to Charcot, thereby suggesting

181
Alphonse Daudet, L’Evangéliste (Paris : Alphonse Lemerre, 1929)
182
Marquer, Les Romans de la Salpêtrière, 83.
109
that the story is not only true, but that Daudet offers an objective, clinical description of
facts. Yet, the novel itself seems to indicate a distance with some of the other “romans de la
Salpêtrière.” Though it takes place in France, L’Evangéliste’s main protagonists are two
foreigners: Mme Ebsen and her daughter Eline, two Danish women who have been living in
Paris for the past twenty years. As the novel begins, Eline, a devoted daughter, contemplates
marrying Mr. De Lorie, a widower with two children. However, when Eline starts translating
religious texts for Jeanne Autheman, the Presidente Fondatrice de L’Oeuvre des Dames
Evangélistes, she soon falls under the Evangelists’ influence. Their hold is insidious and,
little by little, Eline finds herself swallowed by the newly discovered religion. She soon
renounces her impending wedding to join the Evangelists and coldheartedly cuts all ties with
her mother. Eline’s rejection of marriage echoes Elisabeth Couronneau’s failed attempt at
domestic bliss. Again, domestic life and motherhood are presented as women’s golden path
and women’s inability to achieve these goals contains in and of itself great dramatic tension.
Daudet’s portrayal of religious devotion in the Evangelists community is reminiscent
of scenes of collective hysteria. In fact, according to Marquer, “L’emprise de l’évangéliste ne
deviendra irreversible qu’à Port-Sauveur, sous l’influence d’un corps collectif.”
183

Le ‘raptus’ extatique ne les embellissait pas toutes commes Eline. La petite
bossue devenait terrible, les yeux hagards et fixes, son corps difforme
secoué de tremblements spasmodiques, et sa grande bouche appellant
Jésus dans une grimace hurlante et gémissante. Cella-là était une véritable
convulsionnaire, car l’hystérie ne distingue pas entre les cultes, les
historiens des Revivals et des camps-meetings d’Angleterre et d’Amérique
sont là pour en témoigner. Dans ces revivals, sortes d’assemblées
religieuses et prédicantes, un peu comme nos ‘Jubilés’ et ce qu’en Suisse on
appelle des ‘Réveils,’ les attaques convulsives ne sont pas rares. À Bristol,
pendant les sermons de Wesley, des femmes se renversaient comme
foudroyées, frappées au coeur par la parole du Pasteur. On les voyait
joncher le sol pêle-mêle, insensibles et semblables à des cadavres.
184

183
Marquer, Les Romans de la Salpêtrière, 257.
184
Daudet, L’Evangéliste, 228.
110

Daudet’s portrayal of the many dangers of religion for vulnerable, impressionable young
women doesn’t target Catholicism, but rather a more marginal, imported religion. Though
this distance may first appear as an attempt to spare Catholicism, it is in fact part of a larger,
more systematic attack on cults. By claiming that hysteria doesn’t differentiate between the
various cults, he essentially argues that all religions are equal: hysteria is latently and
inherently present in organized religion and women are more likely to succumb.
In 1898, La Chronique Médicale, a bi-monthly medical, historical and literary revue,
dedicated a full edition to Daudet, who had died the previous year. Among other articles by
Daudet, an undated article titled “À la Salpêtrière” describes one of his visits to Charcot’s
department and begins with a striking description of Charcot’s office: “Le cabinet de
Charcot, à la Salpêtrière, un matin de consultation, il y a dix ou douze ans. Aux murs, des
photographies de naïves peintures italiennes, espagnoles, représentant des saintes en prière,
des extasiées, convulsionnaires, démoniaques, la grande névrose religieuse, comme on dit
dans la maison.”
185
The religious iconography in Charcot’s office makes the first and
strongest impression. As religious neurosis appears as a crucial component of the diagnosis
of hysteria at the Salpêtrière, it also takes center stage in Daudet’s depiction of hysteria. In
Eline’s case, religious suggestion and indocrination act as a trigger. He writes:
C’est la maladie du revival, comme on dit en Irlande. Toutes les ouvrières de
Port-Sauveur en étaient atteintes, Eline Ebsen plus dangereusement que les
autres, par une disposition nerveuse naturelle qu’avaient surexcitée la mort de sa
grand-mère et les manoeuvres de Jeanne Autheman. Maladie véritable avec des
accès, des intermittences.
186

Daudet’s depiction of the grandmother’s death as one of the possible cause of Eline’s
hysteria echoes a scene he witnessed at the Salpêtrière, where a fifteen-year old girl was

185
Alphonse Daudet, “À la Salpêtrière,” Chronique Médicale 5, 1 (1898), 15.
186
Daudet, L’Evangéliste, 229.
111
brought in by her father:
On interroge la malade. Quel navrement! Il faut tout dire, bien haut et devant
tant de messieurs, et où la tient le mal, la façon dont elle tombe et comment c’est
arrivé. ‘A la mort de sa grand-mère, monsieur le docteur’, dit le père. – Est-ce
qu’elle l’a vue morte? – Non, monsieur, elle ne l’a pas vue…’
187

In this text, Daudet’s focus on the religious iconography, as well as his anecdote about the
grandmother suggest that he most likely wrote L’Evangéliste after having visited the hospital.
Eline and the other female disciples are not the only victims of a sick religiosity.
Though her portrayal as a manipulative cult leader tends to make the reader forget about her
own faith, the mysterious Jeanne Autheman too experiences strong mystical feelings but the
intensity of her sentiment seems to stem from her fiancé canceling their wedding. Following
this affront,
Elle continua à commenter sa bible, à édifier la cours des grandes, cachant
désormais sous ses dehors de sérénité un écoeurement profond, un mépris de
l’homme et de la vie, l’abîme ouvert dans cette âme de rancune par sa première
et unique deception amoureuse. La tête seule survécut au désastre, et le foyer
mystique brûlant sous ce front d’illuminée. Sa religiosité s’accrut encore, mais
implacable, farouche, allant aux texts désespérés, aux formules de malediction et
de châtiment. Et toujours ce rêve d’évangéliser, de sauver le monde, avec une
sourde colère contre l’impuissance où la tenait le manque d’argent. Comment
partir seule, maintenant, chez les infidèles?
188

From then on, her fanaticism finds its root in her contempt for men. Her revenge would lie
in her instrumentalization of her husband in order to reach her goal of evangelization. She
marries Autheman, the sickly heir of a famous Jewish family, that made its fortune in the
gold trade and now in banking, converts him to Protestantism and starts using his funds for
her evangelist charities. Jeanne Autheman had indeed carefully weighed how she could best
contribute to her cause and has ruled out other types of involvement:
La pensée lui vint d’entrer aux diaconesses de la rue de Reuilly; mais elle savait

187
Daudet, “À la Salpêtrière,”15.
188
Daudet, L’Evangéliste, 88.
112
l’esprit et la règle de la maison, et que ces religieuses à demi civiles s’occupent
surtout de visiter, de soigner les maux et les misères. Or, le souci de la guenille
humaine l’écoeurait, et la pitié lui semblait irréligieuse, puisque les plaies, morales
ou physiques, sont autant d’épreuves bénies qui doivent nous rapprocher de
Dieu.
189

Her welcoming of pain directly echoes Louise Lateau’s exaltation of suffering as a way to get
her closer to God. This exaltation of pain and suffering at a time so concerned with
conquering diseases and providing treatment for human suffering is meaningful. Mysticism,
to the extent that it embraces pain as a way to get closer to the divine, essentially contradicts
one of the very foundations of medicine, which seeks to relieve pain.
In her case, marrying a wealthy man appears to be her preferred way to reach her
evangelical goal and her marriage is therefore no more than a means to an end, a business
transaction. Throughout the novel, she keeps her husband at arm’s length, resisting his
desperate demands for intimacy and, eventually, her constant rejection drives him to suicide.
Autheman, as the other main protagonist alongside Mr Lorie,
190
offers a pathetic and
pessimistic vision of masculinity. Disappointed by the objects of their affections – Lorie
because of Eline’s refusal to marry and Autheman because of his wife’s cold distance –
together they paint the picture of a vulnerable and passive masculinity at the mercy of a
dominating and exarcerbated female will. Hence, hysteria and religious neuroses contribute
to the vulnerability of men. Here, again a “normal” domestic life is presented as the only
viable possibility for both men and women. By establishing men in a dominant position and
allowing them to get their traditional patriarchal role back, Daudet suggests that subjecting
women and reducing them to the domestic role best serve the interests – reproductive

189
Ibid., 88.
190
Another male protagonist confirms the precarious state of masculinity in the novel:
though he has married Mr Lorie’s servant, he is unable to live with his wife, who puts her
work before him.
113
sexuality, docility – of society at large.
Moreover, Daudet’s decision to portray a Jewish convert was also meaningful for a
nineteenth-century readership. In particular, two nineteenth-century cases echo Autheman’s
conversion. The most famous case of these conversions was the 1842 conversion of
Alphonse Ratisbonne, after his sighting of the Virgin Mary. At a time when the Marial cult
was expanding, his conversion received a great deal of public attention and was interpreted
as a validation of Catholicism. In 1858, the year of the Lourdes events, another more
dramatic case of Jewish conversion fascinated public opinion. Edgard Mortara, a young
Jewish child, was taken from his parents’s house in Bologna by the Vatican police. His nanny
had indeed baptized him and Vatican law forbade that Catholic children be raised in non-
Catholic households. Philippe Boutry explains:
À Bologne, Edgard Mortara, un enfant juif de six ans, est arraché à sa
famille par la police pontificale sous le prétexte d’avoir été baptisé par une
servante chrétienne à l’insu de ses parents; il est conduit à Rome et placé
sur les ordres exprès de Pie IX dans une maison de catechumens.
L’indignation est immense en Europe.
191

In a context where Catholicism is weakened, both cases show the Church’s attempt to
proselytize in order to regain its stature. They also illustrate the marginalization of Judaism in
a context of increasing anti-semitism. According to Marquer,
De manière significative, Alphonse Daudet lie symboliquement le peril
hystérique incarné par la religion à une autre communauté abondamment
stigmatisée, comme si l’hystérie permettait de dire tous les complots contre
l’ordre social: le prosélytisme de l’ “évangéliste” Jeanne Autheman s’exerce
en premier lieu sur son mari banquier, “malgré les cris de tout Israël.”
Celui-ci, pusillanime et malheureux, porte les stigmates d’une corruption
atavique, que l’évangéliste récupère symboliquement pour opérer son
oeuvre contre-nature. Seule la puissance financière du banquier juif rend
en effet les rapts religieux irréversibles, le pouvoir politique, même devenu

191
Philippe Boutry, “Le Triomphe de la Liberté de Conscience et la Formation du Parti
Laïc,” in Histoire de la France Religieuse, Tome 3. Du Roi Très Chrétien à la Laïcité Républicaine
XVIII
e
-XIX
e
, ed. Jacques Le Goff and René Rémond (Paris: Seuil, 1991), 141.
114
“sincèrement républicain” préférant s’abstenir de toute intervention.
192

L’Evangéliste is therefore also an expression of Daudet’s anti-Semitism. As the financial
enabler of the cult, and consequently of the hysteria it leads to, Autheman is ultimately a
social threat, foreshadowing the 1894 Dreyfus affair.

D) Of the Perils of Religion, Especially for Women.

Elisabeth Couronneau, L’Hystérique and L’Evangéliste show three distinct ways hysteria,
and more particularly religious neuroses, permeate – and dominate – the literature of the
time. Elisabeth Couronneau provides an example of restrospective medicine’s venture into
literature, offering a fictionalized look back at past cases of religious possession and
debunking them. L’Hystérique follows essentially the same path, though it fictionalized the
famous contemporary case of Louise Lateau. L’Evangéliste does not refer to any past or
contemporary cases but discusses the phenomenon of collective hysteria and indoctrination,
in the contemporary context of developing evangelist cults.
“Romans de la Salpêtrière,” all three are an indictment of religion and warn against its
deleterious effects on society. In this regard, they are particularly concerned by the dangers
of women’s religious faith. A trigger to hysteria, in the form of religious neurosis, religion is
presented, alongside hysteria, as a threat to society to the extent that both belief and illness
divert women from their domestic duties. Already present in Michelet’s Le Prêtre, la Femme, la
Famille, this concern points to the fear that women – because of their heightened
suggestibility and impressionability – are likely to embrace religious fanatism and reject
domesticity and maternity.
Not only do all three texts warn against the perils of religion, they also share a

192
Marquer, Les Romans de la Salpêtrière, 247
115
pessimistic outlook: Elisabeth Couronneau and her unborn child die, Soeur Humilité is
forced to abort and then exiled from her béguignage, and Eline remains with the cult and
rejects her mother. Only Bourneville’s text on Louise Lateau takes a more combative stance
and reaffirms his optimism in science. Yet, in spite of Bourneville’s confidence, families are
the first victims of religious neurosis, pointing to the social urgency of addressing the issue.
In Les Romans de la Salpêtrière, Marquer quotes the first version of Daudet’s dedication
to Charcot: “Voici, mon cher maître et ami, une observation de névrose que je vous prie de regarder,
dans un de vos rares loisirs. Que ne vous a-t-on conduit la pauvre petite Eline Ebsen? Vous
qui faites des miracles, vous l’auriez guérie sans doute, et la mère ne pleurerait plus.”
1
This
intrusion of miracles into the rhetoric of medical treatment points to the porosity of the
divide between religion and science and the cross-contamination of both fields. As religion is
indicated as one of the major guilty parties in the epidemic of hysteria, the notion of miracles
crosses over into the medical field and becomes a central trope of the nineteenth-century
discussion about healing.
As religion embraces miracles, medicine on the other hand is intent on solving the
mysteries of the healing process, in particular as it relates to the mind, in order to debunk the
power of miracles. Hence, at the end of the nineteenth century, miracles have become a
major stake in the positivist agenda.

Conclusion

Against a backdrop of political instability, the nineteenth century is the setting for an
increasing polarization between conservative religious and secular republicans. This
polarization is never clearer than in the face-off between the Catholic Church and pioneering
nineteenth-century doctors. Understanding the human mind and asserting authority over the
116
human body, and more specifically the female body, become crucial tasks as both parties
attempt to establish their legitimacy. At a time when a feminine figure – the Virgin Mary –
dogmatically dominates the century, women are instrumentalized by the Church to help
conquer the authority lost through the de-christianization process.
The female body is at the heart of the century’s inquiries. First, because the hysteria
diagnosis makes a visible return, subjecting women’s bodies to both mysterious symptoms
and inquisitive physicians. Second, because the nineteenth century turns women into
privileged intermediaries for the divine as their bodies are turned into miraculous sites.
Hence, religion and medicine offer conflicting theories of the body. Literature plays a
particularly important role in this conflict: as literary practices such as retrospective medicine
develop, science attempts to reappropriate historical cases of possession, thereby denying
their mystery. As these interpretative ventures inspire novelists, they not only exemplify the
porosity between the scientific and the literary worlds, they also illustrate literature’s political
role. By stepping in where scientific language alone fails to convince, literature demonstrates
its affinity for portraying hysteria and mysterious bodily processes. Hence, literature serves as
science’s crutch as it confers a – perceived – legitimacy on the Salpêtrière’s theories.
Paradoxically, the Catholic Church would resort to medicine, not literature, to ensure the
legitimacy of the sanctuary’s miracles and, by creating an official Medical Bureau in Lourdes,
the Church hoped to benefit from science’s authority. In other words, while medicine finds
itself able to support the claims of the Church, it somehow fails to support its own claims,
and seeks validation through the literary lens.
The multiplication of miraculous healings responds to medicine’s overzealous
diagnosis of religious neuroses and continues to challenge the scientific understanding of
bodily processes. As hysteria and miracles permeate public discourse, and as the rhetoric of
117
hysteria confronts the rhetoric of miracles, medicine attempts to desacralize miracles and to
take the rhetoric of miracles outside the religious realm.

118
CHAPTER II

A HEALING FAITH?
HOW MEDICINE AND RELIGION ACCOUNT FOR THE BODY’S MYSTERIES

Les choses sont souvent, dans la réalité vraie, plus difficiles
qu’on ne le croit, et il faut que vous les connaissiez telles
qu’elles sont; il faut que vous sachiez que le domaine de la
neuropathologie où l’on a fait cependant tant de conquêtes,
n’a pas encore été, il s’en faut, partout convenablement
exploré et que dans ce vaste territoire il existe toujours bien
des terres inconnues.
J-M. Charcot, Leçon du mardi 23 octobre 1888.
193

Introduction

In the context of the much debated secularization process, the concurrence of hysteria
and miracles takes on a particularly political meaning. While fervent Catholics see the
epidemic of apparitions as evidence of France’s privileged place in the Catholic world,
skeptics tend to use the newly re-invented hysteria diagnosis as a rubric to assess – and
discredit – supernatural manifestations and the Church as a whole.
Yet, in spite of their constant rhetorical opposition, hysteria and miracles are more
alike than first meets the eye. As hysteria and miracles are essential questions for medicine
and religion respectively, they remain largely inexplicable phenomena. Hysteria, much like
miraculous healings, continuously defies common scientific explanations. Consequently,
where science and scientific language fail to provide an explanation of a common disease
and healing processes, literature then offers a more productive alternate narrative. Hence,
though it provides a less literal description of hysteria and miracles, literature paradoxically
emerges as a reliable source and the line between medical case studies and literary accounts
gets blurred.

193
Jean-Martin Charcot, Leçons du Mardi à la Salpêtrière (Paris: Lecrosnier & Babé, 1889), 2.
119
As discussed in the previous chapter, the nineteenth-century incarnation of hysteria
introduced a new genre at the intersection of medicine and literature. As retrospective
medicine reinterpreted old cases in light of the new, favored hysteria diagnosis, a host of
novels echoes and reproduces the Salpêtrière’s theories. These novels offer a pessimistically
normative portrait of gender roles in the nineteenth century and betray the time’s
preoccupations and anxieties: by repeatedly portraying women whose hysterical symptoms
erupt as a result of religious neuroses, these novels are openly critical of the influence of
religion on impressionable minds while considering organized religions as a breeding ground
for neuroses. In addition, while these women are metonymically reduced to their
pathological and threatening sexuality, men are consistently portrayed as weak and
vulnerable, suggesting thereby a decadent fin de siècle.
As the maître de la Salpêtrière, Charcot’s theories and aura were instrumental in creating
the overlapping space where medicine and literature explored late nineteenth-century
phenomena. However, starting at the end of the 1880s, Charcot’s star appeared to be fading.
As the scientific explanation for women’s hysterical symptoms remained questionable,
Charcot’s hegemonic authority over hysteria also comes into question as contending doctors
try to elucidate, through the elaboration of alternate theories of the disease, the mysteries of
the mind/ body relationship. As new theories of hysteria emerge, Charcot is brought to
question and reconsider his theories.
The 1880s mark a crucial turning point as the popularity of Lourdes’ Marian sanctuary
and the diagnosis of hysteria concurrently culminate. The visibility of Lourdes’s miracles
paired with the Church’s strategic plan to strengthen the Marial cult contributed to turning
the small Pyrenean town into a major Catholic sanctuary. While Bernadette is exiled in
Nevers, the Church hierarchy actively turns Lourdes into a mandatory destination for both
120
Catholic devotees and miracle-hunters. As the Assomptionists start the national pilgrimage
to Lourdes in 1873, the Golden Age of miracles begins: the crowds of sick people and the
spectacular miracles they experience contribute to strengthening Lourdes’s reputation as they
increasingly capture the fin-de-siècle imagination.
At the same time, long-held scientific knowledge gets challenged as new theories
emerge and major discoveries are also increasingly publicized. Already, over the course of a
hundred years, discoveries and innovations such as the stethoscope, anesthesia, antisepsis,
and X-rays had laid the foundations and durably shaped the development of modern
medicine. However, at the end of the nineteenth century, the emerging field of immunology
made a particularly strong impression on minds. Immunology’s striking development is best
exemplified by two emblematic achievements: in 1882 German microbiologist Robert Koch
published his findings about tuberculosis. By identifying Mycobacterium tuberculosis as the cause
of the disease, Koch was able to prove that tuberculosis was not, as had been previously
believed, an inherited condition, but rather a bacterial infection, thereby shattering long-held
beliefs about the nature of TB and the common knowledge associated with it. Indeed, by
demonstrating that TB was caused by a bacterium, it de-mystified the idea of the TB-type,
the disease of consumption, and demonstrated a greater equality in the face of
contamination.
194

Louis Pasteur’s work on immunology and vaccination also exemplifies how the
understanding of bodily processes was in flux at the time. In 1885 he produced the first
rabies vaccine, offering both a treatment and a prophylaxis against a hitherto fatal disease.
Before this breakthrough, Pasteur had also conducted experiments to demonstrate the

194
However, it is worth noting that this demystification did not suffice to equalize across
class lines, since the poor continued to be stigmatized for their vulnerability to TB.
121
unshakable validity of germ theory and, in 1862, working alongside Claude Bernard, he
fathered the process now known as pasteurization, designed to kill most bacteria and
microorganisms that commonly spoiled beverages. In essence, Pasteur’s work on germ
theory and vaccination conferred upon him – and by extension many scientists of his time –
a demiurge-like quality. By taming a previously lethal disease, and by determining that
seemingly invisible organisms are the actual cause of many illnesses, Pasteur’s theories
uprooted long-held beliefs and to many, may have sounded like science fiction. With the
ability to see the invisible and appearing to defy death, nineteenth-century scientists blurred
the line between scientific achievements and the miraculous healings occurring at the various
Catholic sanctuaries. In this context, it is easy to grasp how the cure of rabies and the
discovery of deadly invisible agents contributed to a major epistemological rupture. These
changes in knowledge signal a major shift as the border between possible and impossible
gets blurry and redefined so much so that, to the layperson, thaumaturges and doctors may
have seemed interchangeable. How could one differentiate between Pasteur and Koch’s
achievements and Charcot’s theory of a dynamic lesion, a theory that then appeared equally
scientific? Similarly, if renowned scientists actually vouched for the fact that diseases can be
caused by invisible yet omnipresent organisms, couldn’t the same types of invisible processes
be at play as part of miracle healings? It is indeed likely that the new immunology theories,
vetted by scientists, did not appear that different from the miracles at religious sanctuaries:
both promoted a new understanding of the body, they were based on invisible, hard to
demonstrate processes and they relied on faith (in the scientific discourse, or in the powers
of religion). Indeed, to the outside observer, Bernadette’s much-publicized miracle of the
candle, where her hand remained unscathed from being burned, did not greatly differ from
demonstrations of hysterical anesthesia in which a physician inserted a large needle through a
122
woman’s arm without prompting any reaction. Hence, through both settings greatly differed,
their apparent similarities remained striking. Therefore, in a context where the line between a
miraculous healing at a religious sanctuary and a cure in a Parisian hospital was already
indistinct, the incursion of the diagnosis of hysteria — a mysterious disease that could
nonetheless account for the more improbable phenomenon of faith-healing — only further
obscured the supposedly hard line separating religion and science.
While the 1880s mark the triumph of bacteriology and immunology, they also mark
the decline of Charcot’s aura. At the end of the nineteenth century, the line between science
and science fiction blurs even more as miracles become more and more visible. Yet, while
miracles enter their golden age, hysteria, on the other hand, seems to fade away, almost as if
both phenomena are redundant, eventually exclude each other, and are prevented from
occupying the same public space concurrently. Though Charcot reigned at the Salpêtrière
until his death in 1893, his professional position was weakened in the last years of his life.
Alternate theories of hysteria had emerged and Charcot’s hegemonic authority over hysteria
is questioned and challenged by other doctors. Among the questions at the heart of the
debate are essential ones about the very nature of hysteria: what is the clinical definition of
hysteria? Does the hysterical crisis as described by Charcot actually exist?
The dissident opinions are crystallized around the question of hypnotism, which
entails a new theory of the mind in its relation to the body. As the hypnotism craze takes
over the late nineteenth century, its practice offers a new theory of hysteria, and more
generally of the mind/body relation. Essentially, where one stood on the theory of
hypnotism – is hypnotism akin to sleep? And if so, can anyone be hypnotized? Or are
women more susceptible to hypnotism, and as such is it a pathological sign? – also
determinates their theory of the mind. Thus, hypnotism had potentially a lot to teach about
123
hysteria. What distinguishes the hypnotic state from the hysterical attack? Can hypnosis play
a role in the treatment of hysteria? What is the role of suggestion in both hypnosis and in
hysteria? Can doctors actually provoke a hysterical attack? Then, if it can be turned on and
off on demand, is hysteria a “real” disease?
These questions point to the theoretical vulnerability of Charcot’s theory of hysteria
and his conception of the mind/body relation. By shining a new light on the complex
mapping of the mind, hypnotism challenges Charcot’s prevalent theory of hysteria. At stake
in this face off between proponents of hysteria and advocates of hypnotism is not only the
question of a gendered map of the body, but also the question of responsibility of the legal
subject. Through scientists’ debates about the very existence of these conditions, crucial
issues emerge that run through society at the time. Yet, rather than being a strictly adversarial
debate, the discussions surrounding hysteria and hypnotism emerge as more complex. At the
end of his life, and as his star had started to fade, Charcot published a short text, The Healing
Faith (1892), where, apparently in contradiction with his earlier theories, he explored the
relation between the mind and the body, and more particularly the role of faith, in the
healing process. This last investigation exemplifies both Charcot’s ambivalence toward
hysteria and the ever-shifting state of the question of the relation between mind and body.
Though a late text, The Healing Faith’s theories, to the extent that they offer an expert
opinion on the controversial question of miracles, still permeated popular culture. Zola’s
1892 novel Lourdes particularly reveals the Salpêtrière’s contamination of literature and
society while it also provided Zola with an opportunity to test out his literary experimental
method. While hypnosis, hysteria and miracles repeatedly defeated scientists, their inquiries
weaved a complex web where fiction and medical writing mingled and competed. In this
context, understanding the mind’s influence on bodily processes became a jointly scientific
124
and literary endeavor.

I – Hysteria through the Hypnotic Glass

While hysteria was becoming the emblematic disease of the fin de siècle, French
physicians were also investigating the return of another phenomenon. Hypnosis – a practice
inherited from Mesmer’s animal magnetism but whose roots could also be traced back to
Antiquity – was generating renewed interest. Hypnosis, a term coined in the first half of the
nineteenth century, was then broadly defined as “un état nerveux spécial qui peut être
déterminé par des procédés très variés,”
195
and suffered from an aura of mystery and
quackery by the time it was taken on by reputable physicians. The late nineteenth century
marks a turning point when hypnosis was being claimed by doctors as a legitimate, scientific
therapeutic practice.
Though it originates from Mesmer’s practice, the legitimization of hypnosis as a
scientific practice has a split, and concurrent, genealogy in the second half of the nineteenth
century which would lead to two distinct scientific theories of hypnosis and consequently
two epistemologies of the mind. As hypnotism was becoming a new field of research, the
theoretical differences between the Nancy School, led by Doctor Hyppolite Bernheim, and
the Salpêtrière School, led by Charcot, point not only to fundamental differences in their
definition of the nature of hypnosis, but also to conflicting theories of the mind and its
relationship to the body. What are these distinct theories of hypnosis? How is hypnosis itself
understood? How does hypnosis actually “happen”, and can it happen to anyone equally? Or
is hypnosis’s application limited to individuals particularly prone to suggestion? At stake here

195
Edgar Bérillon, “Considérations Générales sur l’Hypnotisme,” Revue de l’Hypnotisme
Expérimental et Thérapeutique 1 (1887): 2.
125
is the question of the nature of both hypnosis and hysteria: indeed, if hysterics exhibit a
susceptibility to hypnosis, what does this susceptibility mean in regards to the nature of
hysteria? Is hysteria a disease of suggestion? In other words, is hysteria an endogenous
disease, caused by contained bodily (or psychological) processes, or is it an exogenous
disease, a disease that can be provoked by a host of external factors? In this context, the role
of hypnosis takes on a particularly important meaning: is hypnosis truly able to bring on a
hysterical attack, i.e. create hysteria? Hence, looking at the intersection of hypnosis and
hysteria offers a particularly productive angle from which to approach the question of the
mind and its influence over the body.
After tracing the dual genealogy of hypnosis in the nineteenth century as it relates to
hysteria, I will consider a specific aspect of the debate about hypnotism and hysteria, namely
the debates surrounding the issue of criminal responsibility since it exemplifies the stakes
surrounding understanding the role of the mind. While the theory of criminal manipulation
under hypnosis was used in a number of court cases, scientists debated the nature of both
hysteria and hypnosis in order to determine if one can indeed be so influenced and alienated
as to no longer be legally responsible for their actions. Hence, if suggestion, in particular
through hypnosis, is possible, and if it is used to induce illegal activities, it then dilutes legal
responsibility. By looking at the cultural uses of the hypnosis defense and at the divergent
scientific theories that underlie them I will highlight the social anxiety caused by hypnosis,
considered a dangerous, alienating practice, and rendered even more threatening by its
perceived ability to turn women into murderous furies.

A) The Secularization of Magnetism

Though l’Ecole de Nancy and l’Ecole de la Salpêtrière both embraced hypnosis in the
126
last part of the nineteenth century, their perspectives on its nature and its applications greatly
differed and carried profound implications for their respective understanding of the mind.
Yet, in spite of their differences, both schools shared a common genealogy that can be
traced back to both a religious tradition of exorcism and a secular tradition of magnetism.
Historian of psychiatry Henri E. Ellenberger considers Mesmer’s theory of animal
magnetism a turning point in the trajectory from exorcism to the advent of dynamic
psychiatry.
196
In particular, he claims that the year 1775 exemplifies this transition as it
marked the public clash between Mesmer, a physician by training, and J. Gassner, a famous
Austrian exorcist. Gassner’s spectacular healings, based on Church exorcism and prayers,
attracted huge crowds and in 1774 he described his healing method as follows: while some
illnesses were treatable by physicians, he identified a type of illness that required exorcism.
“Circumsessio (an imitation of a natural illness, caused by the devil); obsessio (the effect of
sorcery); and possessio (overt diabolical possession)”
197
were the three categories of illness that
could not be helped by science and required Gassner’s intervention. While his spectacular
healings earned him his reputation as a miracle worker, his exorcisms were also met with
increasing skepticism and opposition to his religious practice, so much so that Gassner was
soon investigated.
198
As the possibility of curative exorcism was being debated, Mesmer rose
to prominence by claiming to have performed similar miracles, albeit secular ones. In a
context increasingly hostile to religious cures, Mesmer provided a modern, secular alternative
to exorcism and “Gassner’s downfall prepared the way for a healing method that retained no

196
Ellenberger, The Discovery of the Unconscious, 57.
197
Ibid., 55.
198
According to Ellenberger, he was the subject of three inquiries: one launched by the
Prince Bishop of Regensburg, one by the University of Ingolstadt and one by the Prince-
Elector Max Joseph of Bavaria who appointed Mesmer to review the case. See Ellenberger,
The Discovery of the Unconscious, 56.
127
ties with religion and satisfied the requirements of an ‘enlightened’ era.”
199
Hearing of
Mesmer’s therapeutic successes, the commission investigating Gassner called on him as an
expert. Anne Harington reports that,
More than anything else, it was Mesmer’s new theory of animal magnetism that
interested the Commission investigating Gassner’s work, for they could see that
it gave Mesmer a new way in which to think about the Christian drama of
demonic possession and exorcism. In 1775, Mesmer gave several
demonstrations in which he showed that he could first evoke convulsions in
people and then dispel them with a peremptory gesture, just like Gassner. Such
things, he said, were not what they seemed – they had nothing to do with the
devil or the supernatural. They were, he said, simply the consequence of his
manipulation of the wholly natural forces of animal magnetism.
200

Mesmer had started elaborating his theory of animal magnetism in 1773-1774, while treating
one of his female patients: first inspired by English physicians’ practice, he attempted to use
magnets as a therapeutic method: “Remplaçant par la suite l’application des métaux par
l’imposition des mains sur le corps des patients, il en vint à considérer la notion de fluide
passant du thérapeute au malade. Mesmer centrera la cure magnétique sur la crise
convulsive.”
201
Eventually doing away with the use of magnets, Mesmer focused his practice
on this mysterious fluid and on the physician himself:
The patient soon began to feel extraordinary streams of mysterious fluid running
downward through her body, and all her evils were swept away for several hours.
(…) He understood that these effects on the patient could not possibly be
caused by the magnets alone, but must issue from an ‘essentially different
agent,” that is, that these magnetic streams in his patient were produced by a
fluid accumulated in his own person, which he called animal magnetism. The
magnet was but an auxiliary means of reinforcing that animal magnetism and
giving it a direction.
202

Mesmer’s theory needs to be placed in its proper context in order to be fully appreciated. If

199
Ibid., 57.
200
Anne Harrington, The Cure Within: A History of Mind-Body Medicine (New York: Norton,
2008), 42.
201
Serge Nicolas, L’Hypnose: Charcot face à Bernheim (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2004), 9.
202
Ellenberger, The Discovery of the Unconscious, 59.
128
it may now appear particularly far-fetched, it was, at the time, in line with some of Isaac
Newton’s theories, namely that “the human body might contain an invisible fluid that
responds to planetary gravitation.”
203
Consequently, Mesmer’s idea of a magnetic fluid was
not necessarily as far-fetched as it may now appear, and Mesmer’s training as a physician lent
him – at least up to a certain point – an aura of authority.
It is worth noting that Mesmer’s scientific ambition – and even hubris – is the first in a
series of striking similarities between him and Charcot. A believer in scientific reason,
Mesmer attempted to develop a rational explanation for the phenomenon. “Since
psychology was almost nonexistent at that time, he was naturally led to think of a physical
concept, of something in the form of Newton’s universal gravitation or of electricity.”
204

This ambition clearly echoes Charcot’s own attempt to make sense of hysteria at all cost and
both men believed that their theories were grounded in a genuinely scientific method. In
addition, Mesmer’s belief that he himself was the “bearer of a mysterious fluid”
205
clearly
echoes the privileged role and power that would later be assigned to doctors in the
nineteenth century, an idea epitomized by Charcot’s practice, and the cult of personality he
developed at the Salpêtrière. (Lastly, Charcot’s depiction of the hysterical crises is in direct
line with Mesmer’s own theory of crisis.)
Though he left Austria and brilliantly conquered Parisian haute société, Mesmer’s reign
was short-lived. Like Gassner a few years before, he found himself under investigation,
though in his case it is his theory’s scientific value that was placed under the microscope. In
1784, he was investigated by members of the French Académie des Sciences et Académie de
Médecine: “The litigious point was not whether Mesmer cured his patients but rather his

203
Harrington, The Cure Within, 41.
204
Ellenberger, The Discovery of the Unconscious, 62.
205
Ibid., 62.
129
contention to have discovered a new physical fluid.”
206
In other words, healing itself, and
Mesmer’s own healing powers, were not what the Académies considered problematic. The
crucial issue was rather a question of the scientific value of Mesmer’s discovery and
Académies indeed acknowledged the results of Mesmer’s treatments but refused to attribute
it to his mysterious magnetic fluid:
The commissioners freely conceded that the treatments they had observed
had the capacity to produce powerful bodily effects in some people –
convulsions, tremors, and more; and they were even open to the possibility
that some of these effects might be of therapeutic nature. But they found
that the cause of these effects lay not in the physical but in the mental realm;
not in Mesmer’s supposed magnetic ‘fluids’ but rather in a faculty of mind
they called the ‘imagination.’
207

Through this verdict, the Académie both validated Mesmer’s therapeutic practice, while at
the same time relegating it outside of the scientific realm. By acknowledging that Mesmer’s
practice relied on mental processes, the Académie implicitly admitted that mental processes
can affect bodily manifestations, while also delineating a scientific domain: if imagination
was at the source of the practice, it could therefore not be considered scientific. According
to Harrington,
Imagination, these commissioners knew (following a considerable tradition in
the eighteenth century), was the enemy of rational enquiry – a quixotic,
irrational, and poorly controlled faculty of the mind. Its fancies, especially ones
so powerful they could spread across the population, were a danger to clear
thinking because they were not grounded in truth. Scientific methods were thus
required, not to understand them, but to unmask them for the unruly, dishonest
things they really were.
208

Essentially, Mesmer is robbed of his scientific pretentions. The final blow comes when, “À
partir du premier octobre 1840, l’Académie décida qu’elle ne répondrait plus aux
communications concernant le magnétisme animal. La doctrine du fluide magnétique,

206
Ibid., 65.
207
Harrington, The Cure Within, 47.
208
Ibid., 47.
130
considéré comme un fluide universel, soit comme une émanation de l’organisme humain,
chaleur ou électricité animale, n’avait pu résister à l’observation scientifique.”
209
Therefore, in
spite of his scientific pretentions, Mesmer found himself essentially dismissed as a quack, in
the same fashion he had himself dismissed Gassner. His scientific pretentions suffered from
his practical proximity with Gassner’s practice and, though he had indeed identified a
genuine phenomenon and opened the way for an epistemological shift, he was nevertheless
dismissed as non-scientific. On the cusp between exorcism and emergent new scientific
theories of the mind, Mesmer never obtained the scientific recognition that he was longing
for.

B) The Scientific Posterity of Mesmerism.

While Mesmer’s life ended in isolation, the movement he had created continued to
grow. Denied any scientific value, animal magnetism became more of a fairground attraction.
However, one branch of the movement was promised to a more prestigious future. One of
Mesmer’s disciples, the marquis de Puységur, started developing a treatment originally based
on animal magnetism and took it further than Mesmer ever did, thereby playing a crucial role
in the development of hypnosis. Ellenberger reports that famous physiologist (and
spiritualist-enthusiast) Charles Richet had argued that, if Mesmer was the initiator of
magnetism, Puységur was its true founder.
210
A practicioner of Mesmer’s magnetism,
Puységur went further than his master: while performing a treatment by magnetism on a
young patient Puységur noticed that the patient “fell into a strange kind of sleep in which he
seemed to be more awake and aware than his normal waking state. He spoke aloud,

209
Nicolas, L’Hypnose, 10.
210
Ellenberger, The Discovery of the Unconscious, 70.
131
answered questions, and displayed a far brighter mind than in his normal condition.”
211

Ellenberger identified two distinct aspects of this state brought on by Puységur:
The first was the ‘perfect crisis’ itself with its appearance of a waking state, its
elective relationship with the magnetizer whose commands the subject executed,
and the amnesia that followed it. The analogy of that magnetic sleep with natural
somnambulism was soon recognized, hence the name ‘artificial
somnambulism.(…) The second aspect was the ‘lucidity’ displayed by certain
patients, that is, their capacity to diagnose diseases, predict their course, and
prescribe treatments for themselves as well as for others with whom they were
placed in rapport.
212

In addition, Ellenberger identified another therapeutic benefits of magnetic sleep: it erased
inhibitions and patients were able to discuss freely utterly private matters.
From a theory of animal magnetism, Puységur’s theory of magnetic sleep opens the
way for the development of hypnosis. In sharp contrast with Mesmer’s practice, Puységur
refrained from generating convulsions in his patients, and practiced his treatments in a one-
on-one setting, rather than in the large crowds that Mesmer had favored. According to Anne
Harrington this change is crucial: “On the brink of the French Revolution, mesmerism had
survived by transforming itself from an experience marked by violent convulsions en masse,
to an experience marked by quiet one-on-one obedience to an authority figure.”
213

Harrington sees the change as a secular variation on the old exorcism model:
No less than the convulsions it replaced, magnetic somnambulism – and
the special abilities people supposedly acquired when in such state – gives
every indication of being a secular adaptation of a part of the Catholic
exorcism ritual that had been ignored by the first generation of
mesmerists, specifically, that moment in the ritual when the exorcist
commanded the demon to speak and reveal its supernatural powers and
secret knowledge.
214

Though Puységur was getting intriguing results and was moving away from the spectacular

211
Ibid., 71.
212
Ibid., 71.
213
Harrington, The Cure Within, 52.
214
Ibid., 52.
132
elements that had characterized Mesmer’s work, magnetism still did not gain credibility in
France, since Puységur wasn’t a physician. It was only in the 1840s, through the work of
English physician James Braid that magnetism – which he then re-baptized hypnotism –
started to be seen as a legitimate practice. Braid provided a new explanation for the
phenomenon: it shouldn’t be attributed to animal magnetism, but rather to the effects of the
“fixation of the mind and eye.”
215
In other words, there was no mysterious fluid, nor was
there any mysterious process: hypnotism was in itself a mechanical process caused by
stimulating the body’s universal reflexes. Though Braid was the true initiator of hypnotism as
we traditionally conceive it, it would be a couple of decades before magnetism, this time
disguised as hypnosis, would make its way back to France.

a) Hyppolite Bernheim and the Nancy School

Nancy physician Liébault is to be credited with bringing hypnosis back on the center
stage. In 1866 he discovered Braid’s work and wrote a book – Du Sommeil et des Etats
Analogues Considérés Surtout au Point de Vue de l’Action du Moral sur le Physique – largely inspired
by his theory of hypnotism. Though the book’s distribution remained confidential, Liébault
began offering hypnotism treatments to his patients. Liébault’s work and therapeutic
experiments came out of the shadows only in 1882, when Hyppolite Bernheim, a local
physician, having heard of Liébault’s therapeutic successes, started looking into his methods.
Originally skeptical of Liébault’s reported cures – Bernheim had originally gone to visit him
with the idea of discrediting his practice – he was quickly converted to the therapeutic
powers of hypnosis after having witnessed Liébault’s healings. Liébault’s method consisted
of telling his patients “in a gentle but emphatic voice that they were now to sleep (…) this

215
Ibid., 54.
133
generally succeeded in producing a somnolent state. Liébault would then ‘affirm’ to them in
no uncertain terms that they were feeling better, that their symptoms were being relieved,
and so on. When they awoke, many of them found that it was so.”
216
Liébault’s method
relied on the physician leading the patient through suggestion. A key element of his
treatment was for the patient to hear – while hypnotized – from his physician that his
condition was improving. The physician’s suggestion is therefore at the core of the patient’s
recovery and places the emphasis on the patient/doctor relationship. Liébault’s method
illustrates the misunderstood and mysterious powers that physicians can hold over their
patients and opened the door to new therapeutic applications. Moreover, by appropriating
hypnotism and taking it away from charlatans, Liébault offered the first medically legitimate
application of hypnotism in France. In other words, through Liébault’s practice, hypnotism
was finally endorsed as a scientific practice. Though his practice remained confidential for
many years, Bernheim’s 1882 “conversion” to the therapeutic merits of hypnotism would lay
the foundations for the creation of the Nancy School.
Bernheim’s groundbreaking book De la Suggestion dans l’Etat Hypnotique et dans l’Etat de
Veille was published in 1884 and clearly laid out the mechanisms at play in the hypnotic
process. He defined hypnosis as a kind of sleep brought on by suggestion and believed that
hypnosis was the result of a naturally existing disposition in all human beings: their
suggestibility, in other words their ability to respond and be influenced by suggestion, which
was enhanced by a somnolent state. His definition of suggestion is rather broad: “Je définis la
suggestion dans le sens le plus large; c'est l'acte par lequel une idée est introduite dans le cerveau et

216
Ibid., 57.
134
acceptée par lui.”
217
Bernheim considers that suggestion is indeed the key to hypnosis: “La
suggestion, c’est-à-dire la pénétration de l’idée du phénomène dans le cerveau du sujet, par la
parole, le geste, la vue, l’imitation, m’a paru la clef de tous les phénomènes hypnotiques que
j’ai observés. Les phénomènes prétendus physiologiques ou physiques m’ont paru être, en
grande partie sinon en totalité, des phénomènes psychiques.”
218

Even though there were for Bernheim varying degrees of suggestibility, he maintained
his belief that “tous les hommes sont hypnotisables; mais nous ne connaissons pas les
procédés capables de les hypnotiser tous.”
219
In other words, everyone could be hypnotized
since everyone is susceptible to suggestion. In fact, Bernheim believed that he had isolated
the susceptibility to hypnosis as a universal human characteristic. There is nothing
pathological in Bernheim’s conception of hypnosis and his theory of the universality of
hypnosis is de facto a response to those who pathologize it. Therefore, far from being a
condition, hypnosis is a natural state, common to all, albeit in varying degrees. Indeed, he
explains resistance to hypnosis by the fact that there are varying degrees of suggestibility.
Hence, resistance does not necessarily disprove the universality of hypnosis, it simply goes to
show that more research is needed to identify the processes that would trigger hypnosis in
less susceptible individuals.

b) Charcot and the Salpêtrière School

1882 was a crucial year for hypnosis in France. While Bernheim was discovering the
values of hypnosis at his Nancy practice, Charcot was independently coming to similar

217
Hippolyte Bernheim, Hypnotisme, Suggestion, Psychotherapie avec Considérations Nouvelles sur
l’Hystérie, Deuxième Edition (Paris: Doin, 1903), 24.
218
Hippolyte Bernheim, De la Suggestion à l’Etat Hypnotique, Réponse à M. Paul Janet (Paris:
Doin, 1884), 6.
219
Bernheim, De la Suggestion à l’Etat Hypnotique, Réponse à M. Paul Janet, 11.
135
conclusions at the Salpêtrière. According to Ellenberger, Charcot’s interest in hypnosis can
be traced back to 1878. At that time, he had been investigating hysteria for about eight years
and had developed a full description of the hysterical crisis:
In 1878, probably under the influence of Charles Richet, Charcot extended
his interest to hypnotism, of which he undertook a purportedly scientific
study (as he had done with hysteria), taking as his subjects several of the
most gifted of his female hysterical patients. He found that these subjects
developed the hypnotic condition through three successive stages:
‘lethargy,’ ‘catalepsy,’ and ‘somnambulism,’ each stage showing very
definite and charateristic symptoms.
220

Very much along the lines of what he had accomplished with hysteria, Charcot endeavors to
describe the hypnotic process, assigning it stages that directly echo the stages of hysteria.
Following his investigation, his 1882 speech on hypnotism at the Académie des
Sciences Sur les Divers Etats Nerveux Déterminés par l'Hypnotisation Chez les Hystériques was
considered a tour de force by Janet, since it managed to lend scientific credibility to a
practice that had long been discarded under the name of magnetism.
221
“Longtemps mis en
doute, repoussé et ridiculisé par les corps savants, le magnétisme animal finit par s’imposer
sous le nom d’hypnotisme. On admit alors qu’il était possible de produire chez certains
sujets predisposés un état nerveux spécial caractérisé par des contractures, des paralysies, des
troubles divers de l’intelligence.”
222
In fact, Harrington considers Charcot’s lecture a turning
point in the legitimization of hypnosis as a scientific practice: “Researchers felt they had
finally been given permission to admit their interest in this long-shunned phenomenon.”
223

This shift, from superstition to science, is at play both in Nancy and at the Salpêtrière in
spite of their theoretical differences. It is acknowledged by Doctor Auguste Voisin, one of

220
Ellenberger, The Discovery of the Unconscious, 90.
221
Ibid., 90.
222
Joseph Babinski, “Grand et Petit Hypnotisme,” Archives de Neurologie, Revue des Maladies
Nerveuses et Mentales, Tome XVII (1889): 92.
223
Harrington, The Cure Within, 55.
136
Charcot’s disciples, in the first volume of the Revue de l’Hypnotisme as one of the unique
particularities of hypnotism: “Il n’est pas ordinaire de faire entrer dans le domaine
scientifique des méthodes de traitement employées jusqu’alors par des empiriques et par des
exploiteurs sans vergogne, et empreintes du charlatanisme le plus éhonté.”
224
Voisin traces
back the genesis of hypnotism through magnetism but he also points out that the practice of
hypnotism now ought to be reserved for physicians, thereby discrediting those, like
Puységur, who practiced healing without being doctors. Hence, though Puységur’s intuition
may have been right when he discovered magnetic sleep, he could only be granted limited
credibility because of his lack of medical training. Voisin also gives credit to Bernheim’s
contribution: “le plus grand pas dans cette voie thérapeutique a été fait par Bernheim qui a
montré la puissance de la suggestion chez les individus hypnotisés. C’est ainsi qu’il a obtenu
la guérison d’états nerveux les plus divers”
225
and this credit is even validated by Charcot
since Voisin writes: “Charcot considère que ces faits sont les mieux établis.”
226

However, for Voisin and Charcot, the most relevant application of hypnotism relates
to hysteria. Voisin shares the case of his successful treatment of a young hysteric: “ainsi que
l’avait bien observé Braid, ma malade n’a aucun souvenir de ce qui s’est passé pendant son
sommeil hypnotique, aussi elle ne peut me dire pourquoi elle exécute tel ou tel acte, ni
pourquoi elle me récite des pages entières; elle dit le faire d’elle-même, sans avoir conscience
qu’elle exécute une suggestion. (…) l’hypnotisme a donc été dans ce cas, un moyen de guérir
la folie et un agent moralisateur.”
227
It is unclear what type of “cure” is reached in the above

224
Auguste Voisin, “De l’Hypnotisme et de la Suggestion Hypnotique dans Leurs
Applications au Traitement des Maladies Nerveuses et Mentales,” Revue de l’Hypnotisme
Expérimental et Thérapeutique volume 1 (1887): 4
225
Ibid., 5.
226
Ibid., 6.
227
Ibid., 8.
137
example: though the patient is placed in a hypnotic sleep, nothing is said of her condition
when she wakes up, nor do we know exactly what is meant by “successful treatment.” Yet,
Voisin suggests that hypnotism can access patients’ moral sense and rectify their behavior.
If the precise therapeutic role of hypnosis at the Salpêtrière remains vague, both
Voisin and Charcot believed that hypnotism had a crucial importance in helping to
understand hysteria. According to them, hypnotism is not a universal practice that can be
applied to a wide range of conditions. Rather, susceptibility to hypnosis is a pathological sign
and, therefore, the successful application of hypnosis very much depends on the patient’s
condition. In other words, not everyone can be hypnotized and hysterics are the most
successful candidates to hypnosis. Essentially, Charcot advocates a pathologization of
hypnosis – hypnosis is in and of itself a sign of nervous disease – and this pathologization is
at the heart of the disagreements between the Nancy school and the Salpêtrière.

c) Nancy vs. the Salpêtrière

In Les Métamorphoses de l’Hystérique,
228
Nicole Edelman affirms that the theory of
hysteria was elaborated through the opposing debates between the Nancy and the Salpêtrière
Schools. Though tensions were palpable between proponents of the two theories, she also
points to the fact that these debates, and disagreements, were scientifically productive. For
instance, she suggests that Charcot’s desperate search for nervous lesions were, at least in
part, an attempt to respond to Bernheim’s theory.
229

Founded in 1887, the Revue de L’Hypnotisme lists both Charcot and Bernheim as its
main contributors, thereby turning the review into a storefront, and a public battlefield, for

228
Nicole Edelman, Les Métamorphoses de l’Hystérique du Début du XIXe siècle à la Grande Guerre
(Paris: La Découverte, 2003), 206.
229
Ibid., 197.
138
their theoretical divergences. Yet, the presence of both doctors in the publication is also a
testimony to the fluidity of the theories and to their constant redefinitions. The Revue’s first
volume clearly states its scientific ambition: “l’hypnose est à l’ordre du jour. Son étude est
devenue scientifique. Il est donc opportun d’avoir une revue où sont consignées les
découvertes expérimentales de l’hypnose et ses applications thérapeutiques.”
230
In the five
years since Charcot’s groundbreaking speech at the Académie, and since Bernheim’s
discovery of Liébault’s methods, hypnotism had definitely come out of the esoteric domain
inherited from magnetism and gained legitimacy as a valid – if still developing – scientific
theory. Now vetted by two preeminent physicians, hypnotism appeared as a promising new
area of therapeutic inquiry.
The Revue’s Comité de Rédaction appears particularly interested in discussing
psychological and physiological applications and shares a clearly positivist agenda:
“Consigner dans une revue spéciale tous les faits importants qui relèvent de l’hypnotisme,
c’est travailler au progrès scientifique et vulgariser ce progrès.”
231
Hence, hypnotism appears
as a promising new treatment that epitomizes the period’s belief in scientific progress. Yet,
this ambition seems to betray a pro-Bernheim bias.
Bernheim admittedly sees in hypnosis a crucial therapeutic tool as he uses it to relieve
a wide range of symptoms. Charcot on the other hand seems to use it more as a
performative, rather than curative, practice. Charcot’s approach clearly serves his medical
ambitions, and hypnosis becomes a piece of his theoretical puzzle on hysteria. He is
predominantly concerned with explaining, categorizing and theorizing, rather than relieving,
symptoms, thereby mirroring his approach to hysteria: it is a descriptive, explicative and

230
“À nos Lecteurs,” Revue de l’Hypnotisme Expérimental et Thérapeutique, 1 (1887): 1.
231
Ibid., 1.
139
nosological approach but it is not concerned with offering treatments. Bernheim’s practice,
on the other hand, is decisively curative. His very venture into Liébault’s practice came from
an intention to treat a patient, and that curative concern underlies his approach to hypnosis.
Moreover, as Bernheim sees hypnosis as a universally attainable state, he also considers it a
practice that can yield potentially endless therapeutic benefits.
Charcot’s and Bernheim’s approaches to hypnosis differ greatly, and so do their actual
analysis of hypnosis’s nature. Hypnosis plays a key role in Charcot’s theoretical edifice:
hypnosis – or the capacity to be hypnotized – is a pathological condition that is a symptom
of hysteria. Bernheim, however, strongly opposes this pathologization of hypnotism:
“l'hypnose n'est pas une variante de l'hystérie; ce n'est pas un état morbide qui se greffe sur
la névropathie. C'est un état physiologique, au même titre que le sommeil naturel d'où il peut
dériver; on peut le produire à un certain degré chez la majorité des sujets. Le degré le plus
intense, le somnambulisme profond, n'est ni rare, ni difficile à rencontrer.”
232
Bernheim
refuses Charcot’s instrumentalization of hypnosis.
French psychoanalyst and hysteria theorist Etienne Trillat presents the divergences
between the Nancy and the Salpêtrière schools as a fundamental choice between two
alternatives:
Ou bien on dit: après tout, ces histoires d’hypnose, ça n’est pas si
mystérieux que ça. Ce sont des états qui font partie de cette maladie bien connue
qui a nom hystérie. L’hystérie alors, absorbe, contient, englobe l’hypnose,
laquelle par conséquent entre dans le cadre de la médecine naturaliste. Elle n’est
plus qu’un état dépendant de l’hystérie. C’est la position Lasègue et ce sera celle
de la Salpêtrière. Pitres, un disciple de Charcot, écrira en 1891 : “l’hypnose n’est
autre chose qu’un symptôme de l’hysterie.”
Ou bien on dit : l’hypnose est une dimension fondamentale de tout être
humain qui échappe à toute tentative réductionniste de la médecine naturaliste.
L’hypnose est une manifestation de la transcendance et témoigne de la présence
du Sacré chez l’homme. Dans ce cas, cet état n’est pas plus lié à l’hystérie qu’à

232
Bernheim, De la Suggestion dans l’Etat Hypnotique: Réponse à M. Paul Janet, 13.
140
n’importe quelle pathologie et même à la normalité. L’hypnose contient,
englobe, absorbe l’hystérie laquelle n’appartient pas (du moins dans un premier
temps) à la médecine naturaliste. C’est la position de Bernheim. Dans un cas, on
réduit l’hypnose à n’être qu’une sorte d’appendice de l’hystérie (une hystérie
artificielle, dira Charcot). Dans l’autre, l’hypnose occupe tout le terrain.
L’hystérie peut s’y trouver mais elle peut aussi bien ne pas y être. L’hypnose
contient toutes les maladies ou presque ; de toute façon, une portion de toute
pathologie. Elle peut sinon guérir du moins soigner toutes les maladies. C’est très
exactement la position du guérisseur ; c’est celle dont se réclamait Liébault
l’initiateur de Bernheim.
233

It is worthnoting that these two seemingly distinct alternatives actually overlap as they both
tend to emphasize hypnosis’s mysteries. Indeed, by considering hypnosis as a state akin to
hysteria, the Salpêtrière resorts to a flawed scientific explanation and conflates hypnosis with
the paragon of mysterious diseases. Similarly, the Nancy School’s finding in hypnosis an
expression of transcendance essentially admits its intrinsic mysteries. Thus, the treatment of
hypnosis ironically reveals the unexpected convergence of Nancy and the Salpêtrière and the
irreducibility of the mind’s mystery.
Therefore, the two theories of hypnosis point to essentially different approaches to the
human mind. If indeed hypnosis is understood as a manifestation of transcendence, then
hypnosis occupies a unique space between science and supernatural, thus as an intermediary
of sorts between religious manifestations of the divine – miracles – and its secular
counterparts – hysteria.
Bernheim draws a parallel between cases of possession and cases of hypnosis. In fact,
in an approach that clearly evokes Charcot’s retrospective medicine, Bernheim too attempts
to explain certain episodes as early examples of hypnotism. In Hypnotisme, Suggestion,
Psychothérapie, (1903) Bernheim considers the historic use of suggestion applied to healing.
According to Bernheim, “de même que la suggestion, l’hypnotisme est vieux comme le

233
Etienne Trillat, De l’Hystérie à la Psychose: du Corps à la Parole (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1999), 63.
141
monde.”
234
He continues to identify specific examples:
Les procès mémorables du prêtre Gandridi, d’Urbain Grandier et des
ursulines de Loudun, et tant d’autres, relus aujourd’hui à la lumière de la
science moderne, montrent que toutes ces histoires de sabbat, de succubes,
d’incubes, toutes ces scènes diaboliques n’étaient autre chose que des
phénomènes hallucinatoires suggérés; toutes ces scènes, toutes ces turpitudes,
la suggestion peut les provoquer artificiellement, soit comme rêves
réellement vécus, soit comme souvenirs illusoires rétroactifs laissant dans
l’esprit des suggestionnées l’impression d’une vérité absolue.
235

Just like the Salpêtrière school invoked retrospective medicine to demonstrate that hysteria
had existed for centuries, Bernheim uses it to legitimize his theory of hypnosis but also to
support his argument that hypnosis is a universal state that long pre-dated its nineteenth-
century theorists.
Though Bernheim and Charcot’s opposition is mainly focused on the issue of
hypnotism, the latter’s connection to hysteria casts a shadow on Charcot’s authoritarian rule
over hysteria. By disagreeing on the nature of hypnotism, they consequently question the
nature of hysteria and force Charcot to redefine his position. One particular aspect is
incessantly debated: is hysteria, like hypnotism, the result of suggestion? Can hysteria be
provoked by external factors, just as hypnosis can be? This question’s implications go
beyond the debate about the nature of hysteria and hypnosis: it reframes the discussion
about what counts as normal, and what counts as pathological. It also suggests that – if
suggestion can indeed be instrumentalized – subjects can be alienated by another’s
intervention. It is not a coincidence that, as the Salpêtrière and the Nancy schools debate the
issue, a number of high profile criminal cases explore the potential role of suggestion in legal
responsibility. This question of the responsibility of the hypnotized encapsulates a number
of crucial stakes surrounding the practice. First, it showcases the adversarial debates between

234
Bernheim, Hypnotisme, Suggestion, Psychothérapie, 65.
235
Ibid., 12.
142
Nancy and the Salpêtrière around much-publicized faits divers, thereby giving hysteria and
hypnosis increased social visibility. Indeed, if hypnosis is so powerful that the hypnotized
patient has no memory of his hypnotic state, and if the physicians can suggest any behavior,
including criminal ones, how can one be sure that hypnotism is not used toward criminal
activities? This criminalization of hypnotism betrays the anxiety caused by the practice since
it is perceived as a social danger if practiced by reckless physicians. The fact that it is
exclusively women – and so potential hysterics - who are put on trial casts the hypnotized
woman as the epitome of social threat.

C) Women Under the Influence?

In 1882 the French public eagerly followed the trial of Gabrielle Fenayrou. A
respectable woman, good wife and good mother, Fenayrou was known for her sweet and
docile demeanor. Yet, after having an affair, she helped her husband murder her former
lover. Upon being charged as her husband’s accomplice, Fenayrou’s very docility became the
focus of heated debates about her guilt. Was she acting of her own free will when she
ambushed her former lover and knowingly led him to her husband? Or was she under his
irresistible domination? In other words, was she herself an active perpetrator of the crime, or
rather the victim of her husband’s suggestion, a helpless woman, morally blinded and acting
under someone’s influence? Did her absence of remorse indicate her flawed character or
simply that the crime was committed without her conscious participation? Thus, determining
if she acted under her husband’s influence would in turn determine her legal responsibility.
Among those believing Fenayrou was not responsible, many diagnosed her as a
hysteric – a sick woman whose condition made her particularly susceptible to suggestion and
easy to influence. In this context, if Fenayrou was indeed a hysteric, and if susceptibility to
143
suggestion was one of her symptoms, should she have been liable for her actions? Could
being a hysteric attenuate one’s legal responsibility? Can hysterics ever be held responsible
for their actions?
However, not everyone considered that Fenayrou was a hysteric. Guy de Maupassant
in particular did not accept that hysteria could explain her behavior, nor did he believe
hysteria to be such a prevalent diagnosis. On August 16, 1882 the writer published an article
about Fenayrou’s trial in the literary periodical Gil Blas. Entitled Une Femme, the article rejects
the argument that Fenayrou is a hysteric and mocks not only the ubiquity of the hysteria
diagnosis but also its prevalence as a cultural trope. In a famous tirade Maupassant
demonstrates hysteria’s cultural pervasiveness:
Hystérique, madame, voilà le grand mot du jour. Êtes-vous amoureuse? vous
êtes une hystérique. Êtes-vous indifférente aux passions qui remuent vos
semblables? vous êtes une hystérique, mais une hystérique chaste. Trompez-
vous votre mari? vous êtes une hystérique, mais une hystérique sensuelle.
Vous volez des coupons de soie dans un magasin? hystérique. Vous mentez à
tout propos? hystérique! (Le mensonge est même le signe caractéristique de
l’hystérie.) Vous êtes gourmande? hystérique! Vous êtes nerveuse? hystérique!
Vous êtes ceci, vous êtes cela, vous êtes enfin ce que sont toutes les femmes
depuis le commencement du monde? Hystérique! hystérique! vous dis-je.
Nous sommes tous des hystériques, depuis que le docteur Charcot, ce grand
prêtre de l’hystérie, cet éleveur d’hystériques en chambre, entretient à grands
frais dans son établissement modèle de la Salpêtrière un peuple de femmes
nerveuses auxquelles il inocule la folie, et dont il fait, en peu de temps, des
démoniaques.
236

This ubiquity is exactly what makes the hysteria diagnosis meaningless: by attempting to
explain every female behavior with hysteria, followers of Charcot essentially failed to explain
anything, in turn making hysteria little more than an often used empty word. Nevertheless,
Maupassant’s explanation for Fenayrou’s behavior remains equally unsatisfying. He affirms
that the reason for her actions is simply that she is a woman and, as such, is notoriously

236
Maupassant, “Une Femme,” https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Une_femme_(Maupassant).
144
weak and easy to influence. Indeed, Maupassant writes:
Changeante, nerveuse jusqu’à la folie, bouleversée par les plus fuyantes
impressions, prête à tous les actes extrêmes, aux plus grands dévouements
comme aux plus grands crimes, la femme, pour qui l’amour est tout (amour
d’un homme, amour de ses enfants, amour du vice, amour de Dieu) est
capable de tout dans un dépit d’amour. Combien s’empoisonnent en une
heure de fièvre inexplicable! Combien d’autres, des filles appartenant souvent
au premier venu, poignardent et vitriolisent à bout portant un amant
quelconque qui les abandonne!

According to Maupassant, women are passionate beings able to do anything for love, but
who lack agency and can only act when under a man’s spell. Far from being pathological,
this extreme vulnerability is therefore an inherent characteristic of womanhood.
Though Maupassant does not explicitly mention it, the practice of hypnosis is at the
core of his indictment of hysteria. In fact, as hypnotism opened up uncharted territory,
stories of hypnotic crimes fascinated the public and crystallized the debates between the two
schools. In historian Ruth Harris’s words: “Hypnotism attracted attention and caused alarm
because of the dramatic way in which it demonstrated the reality of unconscious mental
activity, explored the recesses of memory, and showed the immense possibilities of
manipulating subjects through the imposition of authority.”
237
In this context, the application
of hypnosis to crime seemed to offer endless research opportunities and criminal cases
essentially served as laboratories for scientists to test out their theories of the mind. As such,
stories of hypnotic crimes fascinated the public and they were disproportionally discussed
both in specialized reviews and in the general press.
While the pressing questions of criminal responsibility and guilt mobilized the
experts in court, it was ultimately the epistemological question of the nature of the mind that
was at stake in the debate. Beyond attempting to determine if only hysterics are

237
Ruth Harris, Murders and Madness: Medecine, Law, and Society in the Fin de Siècle (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1991), 157.
145
hypnotizable, or if hypnotized patients could be manipulated to commit crime by proxy, as
Bernheim believed, or if a hypnotized subject always maintained enough will power to resist
criminal suggestions, as Charcot affirmed, two mutually exclusive conceptions of the mind
competed. As the end of the nineteenth century constituted psychoanalysis’s formative years,
how did these debates affect the discovery of the unconscious?
The topic of hypnotic crimes also raises another set of questions. Indeed, women are
believed to be perfect candidates for hypnosis and find themselves the focus of medical
investigations. The paradoxical figure of womanhood, both vulnerable and dangerous,
contributed to a generalized social anxiety. I will consider these questions through two
contemporary criminal cases – the Chambige and the Bompard-Gouffé cases. Both cases
were spectacular and sensational and captivated public opinion through a mise en abyme of
hypnosis. What does the quasi-hypnotic effect of hypnotic crimes reveal about the times?

a) The Chambige Case

On January 25 1888, the undressed body of Magdeleine Grille –a thirty-year-old
married woman – is found in a villa near Constantine, Algeria. Next to her body, her alleged
lover – twenty-two year-old Henri Chambige – lay hurt from a self-inflicted wound to the
head. Two conflicting theories of the crime emerge: Chambige admitted to killing his lover
and to attempting suicide but he affirmed that both lovers had agreed on this scenario and
that Madame Grille had asked him to kill her, unable to face the shame and dishonor
brought on by adultery. However, Madame Grille’s family, concerned with saving face,
offered an alternate theory of the crime. Magdeleine Grille had been hypnotized, raped and
then murdered by Chambige. His version of the events was only a ruse to disguise his crime
as a double suicide. The Grille family’s version is not solely concerned with Madame Grille’s
146
honor, it also betrays a major social anxiety. Choosing to believe that Madame Grille had
been hypnotized, raped and murdered is an indication of the stigma, and fear, associated
with unchaste female sexuality. It also contributed to a patronizing concept of womanhood
since, if women are indeed so susceptible to hypnosis that they may be raped unbeknownst
to them, then women represent a social danger: how to be sure if women are chaste, if they
themselves do not know? How to ensure paternity and/or the purity of a bloodline? The
specter of this silent contamination and secret threat to social order looms and women must
be protected, even against their will.
Though held in Algeria, the trial received a tremendous amount of attention in
mainland France. The national press managed to stir up the public’s interest. First,
capitalizing on the fact that Chambige was a talented writer, Le Figaro published excerpts of
his autobiography. Later, famous writers such as Maurice Barrès and Anatole France weigh
in on the trial. Answering the key question - was the Chambige case a failed double suicide
or rather a case of rape under suggestion?
238
– required an investigation of the very
possibility of hypnosis: was rape under hypnosis even possible? Would a woman remember
the assault? Could anyone practice hypnosis, and is everyone hypnotizable?
While both schools actually agreed that rape under hypnosis was indeed possible, the
public remained skeptical. Anatole France, in particular, debunks hypnosis. He writes:
Je dirai que, généralement, je crois peu à la séduction par l’hypnotisme.
Qu’on m’entende bien. Je ne nie point, après les expériences de MM.
Charcot, Liégeois et Bernheim, l’action d’une volonté forte sur un sujet
débile. Mais il me semble peu probable que les pratiques de la suggestion
mentale, telle que la comprend l’Ecole de Nancy, puisse s’exercer hors des
cliniques et s’étendre dans le commerce ordinaire de la vie. Je me refuse à
penser qu’il y ait des secrets nouveaux pour séduire les femmes. Il serait trop

238
Jacqueline Carroy and Marc Renneville, “Une cause passionnelle passionnante: Tarde et
l’affaire Chambige (1889),” XXXIV
e
Congrès Français de Criminologie, 2008.
https://champpenal.revues.org/260
147
étrange que des moyens de ce genre eussent été découverts par des médecins
et que les amants n’y eussent pas recouru depuis tant de siècles. Il est sage de
croire un peu moins aux académies et un peu plus à la nature.

He continues:
Tous les neurologistes du monde n’ajouteront rien à l’antique expérience des
amants et des amantes. Je m’attends à ce que le ministère public et la partie
civile fassent grand état de l’hypnose. Pour moi, l’hypnose unique, l’hypnose
éternelle, c’est l’amour.

Just like Fenayrou is not a hysteric but simply a woman for Maupassant, hypnosis is just
another catch-all word for love according to France. Hypnosis is just a new term for an old,
well-known reality.
The verdict is a reflection of society’s ambivalence toward hypnosis. Chambige is
sentenced to seven years of forced labor at the Cayenne penal colony for premeditated
murder with mitigating circumstances, leaving the plausibility of the hypnotic rape theory
unresolved. The fact that his sentence was commuted into a seven-year prison sentence by
French President Sadi Carnot adds to the confusion about Chambige’s guilt and confirms
the inconclusiveness of hypnotic theories.

b) The Bompard Case

Whereas the Chambige case was more a reflection of hypnotism’s cultural
pervasiveness, the Bompard case, also known as the Gouffé case or the bloody trunk of
Millery, offered both schools an actual platform to voice their theories publicly. According
to historian of psychoanalysis Lisa Appignanesi, “after the Bompard-Eyraud trial, all of
France and beyond would know that the Paris School and the Nancy school of mind doctors
had opposing views on the powers of hypnotism and the criminal responsibility of
148
hypnotized subjects.”
239

The case begins in July 1889 with the disappearance of a weathly Parisian bailiff,
Toussaint-Augustin Gouffé. His path had crossed that of the Belle Epoque Bonnie and
Clyde,
240
Gabrielle Bompard, a twenty-one-year-old runaway of questionable morals, and
Michel Eyraud, a con man and Gabrielle’s lover. Bompard had seduced Gouffé and led him
to her apartment. Before the couple proceeded to search for the money, Eyraud murdered
him. When the couple failed to find the money Gouffé was allegedly carrying, Eyraud ran to
his apartment in a last attempt to locate the hoard, leaving Bompard alone with the corpse all
night. Unable to find any money, the couple then proceeded to get rid of the body in a
particularly circumvoluted manner, which involved hiding it in a trunk, shipping it by rail to
Lyon, and finally picking it up there and driving it around, before abandoning it by the side
of the road. Gouffé’s body would be found weeks later in an advanced state of
decomposition in the countryside around Lyon and it would be weeks before the body was
properly identified, time during which the criminal pair escaped to the Americas. In 1890,
Bompard surrendered to French authorities and Eyraud was captured in Cuba in few
months later.
Because of Bompard’s depravity, the complexity of their ruse, the international flight
and the multiple twists and developments, this case already had all the required elements to
grab public attention. However, when Bompard’s defense lawyer claimed that his client was
innocent because she had been hypnotized into doing the crime, the case took an even more
sensational turn. Her lawyer affirmed that “the blame for the murder was all that notorious
rogue Eyraud’s. He had hypnotized Gabrielle and implanted a suggestion that she had then

239
Lisa Appignanesi, Trials of Passion: Crimes in the Name of Love and Madness (London: Virago,
2014), 219.
240
Ibid., 219.
149
acted upon. Under the power of suggestion, she had enticed Gouffé to her apartment and
stood by while her lover murdered him.”
241

A witness for the defense, Bompard’s childhood doctor, testified that she had been
“an extraordinarily sensitive hypnotic subject”
242
and her susceptibility to hypnosis became
the crucial point of the trial: admitting that she had been manipulated would absolve her of
all responsibility, whereas proving that she was aware of her actions would contribute to
establishing her guilt. Appignanesi depicts how the courtroom soon turned into a spectacular
stage: Paul Brouardel, a medico-legal expert who supported the Salpêtrière School, faced
Jules Liégeois, the Nancy jurist who had conducted numerous experiments on hypnotic
crimes. Brouardel proceeded to hypnotize the accused but then showed that she reacted to
being tickled, thereby proving that she was not fully unconscious and consequently not in a
state to be a victim of suggestion.
Liégeois, on the other hand, believed in the hypnotic theory and shared the results of
experiments he had conducted during which he was able to manipulate subjects to commit
false crimes. He believed that Bompard had been under Eyraud’s spell when she committed
the murder and was in fact a victim of his suggestion. Ironically, Brouardel mocked
Liégeois’s description of suggestion in very much the same way Maupassant had mocked
hysteria: suggestion and influence are just facts of life, new names given to old facts, and
should not be used as excuses. Brouardel’s opinion clearly resonated with the president of
the court, whom Appignanesi quotes as saying: “the one outstanding fact that has been true
for six thousand years is that the stronger will can possess the weaker: that is no peculiar part

241
Ibid., 221.
242
Ibid., 223.
150
of the history of hypnotism; it belongs to the history of the world.”
243

Alongside the courtroom debates, Charcot and Bernheim themselves debated the
details of the case vicariously in the papers, highlighting the specifics of their respective
theories. According to Charcot, not only was there no proof that crime could be committed
under hypnosis, he also pointed out to “ an underlying ‘honest instinct’ in most people
which can’t be turned to crime while they’re in a hypnotized state.”
244
Bernheim on the other
hand continued to defend Bompard’s extreme suggestibility.
As in the Chambige case, the court rendered an ambiguous verdict. While Eyraud was
sentenced to death, Bompard was sentenced to twenty years in a labor camp. For Bernheim,
the sentence is surprising since “malgré ces deux dominantes psychologiques, absence native
du sens moral et suggestibilité extreme, les médecins experts ont conclu à la responsabilité
morale.”
245
And the verdict is indeed ambiguous: if Bompard was in fact hypnotized, she is
not responsible for her actions and should have been acquitted. If she was not hypnotized
and acted of her own free will, she should then have received a sentence equal to Eyraud’s.
Whether the difference in treatment is due to doubts about hypnosis, or to a general leniency
– and condescension – toward women remains unclear.
As the site of theoretical debate and opposition between the two schools, the
Bompard case offers a unique insight into the two schools’ epistemologies. In particular, the
increasing gap between two distinct and emerging disciplines becomes more apparent. As
the birthplace of neurology, the Salpêtrière endeavors to study pathological symptoms and
their physical implications, whereas the Nancy school, focused on elaborating the bases for a
study of the mind, lays the foundations for psychology. According to Appignanesi: “The

243
Ibid., 231.
244
Ibid., 227
245
Bernheim, Hypnotisme, Suggestion, Psychothérapie, 173.
151
dependence on a physical test to determine the patient’s state – to diagnose that hysterical
illness of which hypnotizability is one sign – points to the underlying difference between the
Salpêtrière and Nancy Schools: the first is ultimately neurophysiological in its explanations.
Hysteria and insanity are mental states based on neurological disorder. The Nancy school is
more psychological: for them ideas can influence the patient’s body, her physical state.”
246

c) Hypnotic Rape and the Paradoxes of Womanhood.

There are two angles to the medico-legal approach to hypnosis: the question of legal
responsibility when the perpetrator is hypnotized, and the role of hypnosis in cases where it
is the victim who has been hypnotized and made oblivious to the crime she suffered.
The question of hypnotic rape is showcased in the Chambige case and is one of the
few theoretical points both schools agree on. It is indeed possible for a woman to be raped
and to retain no memory of the crime. The anxiety over hypnotic rape betrays a generalized
anxiety over female sexuality: if the woman herself cannot know what has happened to her
own body, how can women ever be trusted? Though rape itself was not an explicit element
of the Bompard case, the fact that she was believed to have been hypnotized by Eyraud in
order to seduce Gouffé actually portrays Bompard as both a sexual instrument of the crime,
and a victim of sexual assault.
In a society already overly concerned with female sexuality, the fear of hypnotic rape
ups the ante. According to Lisa Appignanesi, “Society’s underlying fears about women’s
vulnerability to predators and mental fragility, a worry too about their unconscious or
unspoken sexual desire, together with a concern about an insufficiently educated and
‘degenerate’ underclass – all coalesced in the idea of hypnosis. And all this brought in train

246
Appignanesi, Trials of Passion, 225.
152
an anxiety about the stability of the bourgeois family, which was premised on women’s
virtue.”
247
As it threatens the very fabric of nineteenth-century society, hypnotic rape both
portrays women as potential loose cannons and crystallizes fears of women as promiscuous
furies.
All the more concerning is the fact that both schools, in spite of their theoretical
differences, rally behind this social anxiety. For the anxiety caused by the fear of rape has
little to do with a concern over women’s wellbeing. It is rather an expression of fear in the
face of an insidious contamination of society and a general indictment of female sexuality.
Hypnotic rape is dangerous at two main levels: first, because it is an attack on women’s
purity, a most sought after feminine virtue of the time. At a time of heightened religious
devotion to the Virgin Mary, female sexuality is always treated as pathological. Second and
most importantly, hypnotic rape threatens to break social trust: the specter of hypnosis has
rendered women, who are already notoriously not trustworthy, entirely unreliable.
In this context, what both schools agreed on is that women must be protected
primarily against some types of male domination. Jules Liégeois, the Nancy jurist, came up
with a number of radical, and radically patronizing, suggestions. According to Ruth Harris,
“he went so far as to suggest that women should neither travel alone nor stare at strangers,
reasoning that extended eye-contact with a predatory male would be sufficient to lead her
astray. (…) to guard against such dangers, Liégeois advocated the implantation of suitable
moral qualities by men of irreproachable character, thereby helping the female mind to cope
appropriately with all eventualities.”
248

Surfing on the wave of the new popularity of immunization – Pasteur had first used

247
Ibid., 231.
248
Harris, Murders and Madness, 189.
153
the rabies vaccine in 1885 – Liégeois went so far as to attempt to fight the plague of
women’s sexualization by proposing an even more radical way to protect women - and
society. Indeed, Lisa Appignanesi observes that “In 1892, (Liégeois) called for a public
program of ‘moral vaccination’ to protect every nervous woman in the country from the
gaze of dangerous magnetizers who might proceed to rape them. The process of inoculation
would mean that a nervous woman would first be hypnotized by a reliable practictioner, who
would insert a suggestion that immunized her against any later hypnotic influence.”
249

Though none of Liégeois’s far-fetched ideas was adopted, they nevertheless serve as a
reminder of the intensity of the anxiety over hypnosis and the threat of femininity.
Eventually France attempted to address the issue by outlawing theatrical performances of
mesmerism and hypnotism. From them on, hypnosis was to be a more respectable practice,
allegedly carried out by trustworthy doctors. Adopted in an attempt to protect women, and
through them society as a whole, this new law is a testament to the time’s misogyny. Though
the threat actually lies with men, it is still women who bear the burden of society’s fears and
prejudices. At a time when women were beginning to organize to fight for their civil rights,
the debates about hypnosis illustrate the long way ahead. Continually presented as helpless
victims, women were essentially second-class citizens whose morals cannot be trusted, and
who most definitely should not be trusted to vote.
At the end of the nineteenth century, hypnosis fascinated both the public and
scientists. According to Ruth Harris, “it is no exaggeration to say that hypnosis in the 1880s
and early 1890s was at the confluence of almost every major cultural trend, forming an
important aspect of the ‘revolt against rationalism’ and providing experimental proof for the
need to revise social and political thinking in line with new discoveries about the human

249
Appignanesi, Trials of Passion, 232.
154
mind.”
250

As I’ve discussed, the intersection of hypnotism and medico-legal science proved
particularly fruitful. While the medico-legal field was emerging as its own scientific specialty,
hypnosis provided a unique insight into the question of legal responsibility. It also offered a
new way to investigate the relationship between the mind and the body, and between the
conscious and the unconscious mind. Through the debates about hypnosis, two conceptions
of the mind emerge. For Charcot, the mind is grounded in a physical, neurological reality
whereas Bernheim’s theories are less rooted in the physiological body. Essentially, the
distance between Charcot and Bernheim illustrates the distance between two Freuds, the
younger Freud, a physician also trained as a biologist, and the later theorist of the immaterial
unconscious. In addition, Bernheim’s approach to hypnosis places it as an intermediary
between the Salpêtrière’s science and the religious epidemic of apparitions: hypnosis,
according to Bernheim, occupies a space where science and religion can co-exist.
Popular trials seem to present a vision of women oscillating between sexually depraved
cold-blooded killers and helpless victims of sexual assault. However, while hypnotic cases
validate the existence of male domination over woman, they also suggest that the social
anxiety over dangerous females needs to be reframed as an anxiety over men: if women are
indeed helpless puppets at the hands of male puppeteers, then the fear of women is
essentially a disguised fear of masculinity. Therefore, far from offering a reassuring narrative,
hypnosis offers a heightened collective sense of vulnerability. Women are treated as double
victims: victims of sexual assaults, and blamed as threats, while the male assailants are
spared. Hence, buried under this victimization of women, men’s responsibility remains the
elephant in the room.

250
Harris, Murders and Madness, 157.
155
Lastly, at a time when women start to organize for their civil rights, the question of
their alleged suggestibility and moral weakness would be a frequent leitmotif. Thus, the
debate over hypnosis also weakens the case for women’s rights, thereby maintaining women
in a subordinate position.
As an open window into the mysteries of the mind, hypnosis challenges traditionally
defined scientific knowledge and essentially initiates an incursion of the supernatural in the
positivist arena that is late nineteenth-century medicine. By moving hypnotism away from its
lay origins, and by making it allegedly scientific, paradoxically Charcot has integrated into his
scientific edifice a practice that actually defies rationalization. As hypnosis highlights the
mysteries of the mind, Charcot embarks on a conflicting mission: he attempts to validate and
reinforce his (challenged) theories of hysteria while also invalidating superstitious beliefs.

II – Charcot's La Foi qui Guérit (1892)

After Charcot’s 1882 speech at the Académie des Sciences, hypnotism was finally
medically vetted and earned a new scientific credibility. Yet, in spite of now being considered
a bona fide scientific practice, hypnotic processes remained mysterious and both the Nancy
School and the Salpêtrière diverged on what to make of it. Was it – as defended by Charcot
– a medical symptom of hysteria and, as such, a pathological sign? Or was hypnotism a
universal state that not only offered therapeutic options but also, and more importantly,
revealed the transcendent nature of the human mind?
A fervent positivist and a believer in the scientific method, Charcot’s original training
as a pathologist influenced his theories, and particularly his theory of the physical hysterical
lesion. Similarly, his interpretation of hypnotism as a mere symptom is rooted in his
confidence that symptoms are physically identifiable. On the other hand, Bernheim’s theory
156
of hypnosis goes against Charcot’s materialism. Bernheim’s approach reveals a more
metaphysical perspective, embracing the immateriality of the human mind and announcing
the advent of psychology.
However, Charcot’s last text unsettles this strict dichotomy between the two schools.
Several accounts evoke the fact that, toward the end of his life, Charcot was starting to
doubt his position. Ellenberger evokes Georges Guillain’s biography of Charcot and writes:
“Charcot began to feel strong doubts toward the end of his life and was thinking of again
taking up the entire study of hypnotism and hysteria, which death, however, prevented him
from doing.”
251
This context sheds new light on La Foi qui Guérit. Published in December
1892 in La Revue Hebdomadaire, and known in English as The Healing Faith
252
, Charcot’s last
text mitigates the differences between Charcot and Bernheim as it reframes the terms and
expectations of scientific practice.
The title already stands out in sharp contrast with Charcot’s earlier text. Because the
text carries the weight of his scientific authority, the title appears antithetical. By juxtaposing
“faith” and “healing” Charcot foreshadows the crisis to come and betrays his ambivalence
about the faith-based healing process. In Hypnose, Suggestion, et Psychologie, l’Invention des Sujets,
Jacqueline Carroy Thirard considers that, if Charcot “garde tout son pouvoir institionnel,
(…) (il) perd son aura de chef d’école après 1889.”
253
Tellingly, The Healing Faith is evidence
of both Charcot’s authority – his pompous tone betrays his confidence – and his weakened

251
Ellenberger, The Discovery of the Unconscious, 97.
252
Though the title is in French, Charcot refers to “La faith-healing” in the text. I believe
that Charcot is commenting on a contemporary phenomenon that made its way to France
from the US where faith-healing became a prominent issue in the wake of the emergence of
Christian Science. According to the online etymology dictionary, the term “faith-healer” had
appeared by 1874.
253
Jacqueline Carroy-Thirard, Hypnose, Suggestion et Psychologie: l’Invention des Sujets (Paris:
Presses Universitaires de France, 1991), 222.
157
theoretical position as he struggles to defend his theories. In 1889, several events can
account for Charcot’s vulnerability. First, though he (mostly) prevailed, his debates with
Bernheim revealed cracks in his theoretical edifice. Second, the hysterical lesion – a crucial
element of Charcot’s theory of hysteria – remained elusive and the diagnosis of hysteria itself
was encountering increasing skepticism. Finally, miraculous healings – for cases often
associated with hysteria – were on the rise at religious sanctuaries throughout France,
challenging the confidence in medicine’s healing ability. In hindsight, The Healing Faith can
essentially be read as Charcot’s hail Mary: it is his last attempt to defend his theories and
reaffirm the preponderance of hysteria at a time when his authority was being challenged.
Though he does not mention hypnosis in this text, his theory on the topic permeates the text
and informs his position on suggestion. Moreover, because the essay itself was written at the
request of the New Review, it serves as a self-reaffirmation of Charcot’s authority. This short
text reinforces his status by providing him an opportunity to share his expert opinion on a
timely question. This recourse to expert opinion is a reflection of the concurrent social
visibility of both miracles and hysteria and it illustrates the porosity of the border between
the Salpêtrière and culture at large. Because of Charcot’s popularity, his opinion on miracles
will essentially serve as a scientific endorsement of an increasingly talked about, highly
visible, and controversial phenomenon.
Though Lourdes is not named in Charcot’s essay, there is little doubt that it is the
popularity of the sanctuary city that prompted the need for Charcot’s opinion and that its
miracles are Charcot’s main target. The Assumptionists established the National Pilgrimage
to Lourdes in 1873, fifteen years after Bernadette’s visions, and by the 1890s it was a well-
known and well-run event. As contemporary cases of miraculous healings were getting
widely reported and left the public confused about the healing process, Charcot’s text is an
158
attempt to reaffirm the preeminence of science and to debunk miracles. As a physician
whose practice had been focused on the inner workings of the brain and the invisible
processes by which it affects bodily symptoms, Charcot appeared uniquely qualified to
discuss the question of miracles and offer a medically valid explanation. He contends that
there are common characteristics in hysteria and miracles and that they have to be
considered side by side, and not simply because visionaries were often informally diagnosed
as hysterics. More importantly, analyses of hysteria and miracles converged because they
both called into question the influence of the mind over the body and challenged the notion
of the materiality of a disease. After all, for Charcot, even when a hysterical lesion could not
be organically identified, the reality of hysteria remained. Therefore, in a context where some
diseases are invisible, how to prove, or disprove, a miracle? How can one differentiate
between sick people and imitators? And what mechanisms are actually at play in cases where
the mind is able to affect physical health? Is faith – in God or in a physician – the main agent
in the healing process? In other words, do hysteria and miracles operate in the same way, by
coming and going based on a patient’s faith? And, if hysteria and miracles are akin, then how
can one both defend the scientific value of hysteria, while debunking miracles as
superstitious manifestations?

A) The Scripted Narratives of Miracles

From its seemingly antithetical title, The Healing Faith appears in rupture with Charcot’s
positivist interests. Yet, this essay is actually inscribed in consistent continuity with Charcot’s
approach, starting with his 1857 thesis on expectation in medicine, which attempted to
understand healing processes, and his later epiphany in Genoa, where he drew parallels
between the Salpêtrière hysterics and the possessed as portrayed by Rubens. The question of
159
the porosity of the borders between religion and science, and of the mysteries at play in
both, is very consistent with Charcot’s early interests. In 1887 already, the publication of Les
Démoniaques dans l’Art
254
allowed Charcot to explicitly connect religious manifestations and
the hysteria diagnosis. In this case, art served as a testimony of hysteria’s permanence. By
uncovering possession’s historical presence, and by identifying it as a misnamed
manifestation of hysteria, Charcot argued that hysteria was a universal, scientific fact. In fact,
in order to demonstrate that his theory is not a product of his time – Bernheim had talked of
“cultural hysteria” at the Salpêtrière – Charcot is particularly concerned with arguing the
universality of the condition. In the case of possession already, retrospective medicine had
made the case that hysteria had crossed centuries, its name sometimes different but its
manifestations intact. Later, in Les Possédées Noires,
255
Henry Meige, one of Charcot’s disciples,
would track hysteria-like manifestations outside of the Western world in an attempt to
demonstrate that hysteria transcends not only time, but also space.
This universalist ambition is the consequence of Charcot’s embracing Claude
Bernard’s experimental method. Often referred as OHERIC – Observation, Hypothèse,
Expérience, Résultat, Interprétation, Conclusion – Bernard’s experimental method redefines
scientific practice. He writes:
Le savant complet est celui qui embrasse à la fois la théorie et la pratique
expérimentale. 1° Il constate un fait; 2° à propos de ce fait, une idée naît dans
son esprit; 3° en vue de cette idée, il raisonne, institue une expérience, en
imagine et en réalise les conditions matérielles. 4° De cette expérience
résultent de nouveaux phénomènes qu’il faut observer, et ainsi de suite.
256

A crucial element of this method is the necessity to be able to reproduce identical results in

254
Jean-Martin Charcot and Paul Richer, Les Démoniaques dans l’Art (Paris : Delahaye et
Lecrosnier, 1887)
255
Henri Meige, Les Possédées Noires (Paris: Schiller, 1894)
256
Claude Bernard, Introduction à L’Etude de la Médecine Experimentale (Paris : Baillière, 1865),
43.
160
order to draw reliable conclusions. Charcot is not only interested in showing that hysteria is a
universal phenomenon, he also wants to show that it obeys a set of very strict pre-
determined rules, universally applicable. Hence, when Charcot identifies the permanence of
hysteria across centuries and continents, he aims to prove that it is a legitimate disease.
Similarly, he proclaimed the universally-valid rules of hysteria by identifying the stages of the
Grande Hystérie. Ultimately, the universality of a condition serves as its scientific validation
and signifies that it is subject to a number of predetermined laws.
Charcot applies a similar method to miracles. Demonstrating that miracles are not
idiosyncratic but rather that they always obey pre-determined laws would play a great role in
demystifying them. The preface of the 1897 edition of The Healing Faith opens with an
epigraph by Charcot: “Nous ne pouvons rien contre les lois naturelles” and it is indeed the
supremacy of natural laws that Charcot endeavors to use in the Healing Faith in order to
debunk miracles. He particularly wants to show that religious healing is a universally-
occurring (and not simply a cultural) phenomenon. He begins by replacing miracles in a
broader historical context:
C’est surtout dans les sanctuaires religieux que la faith-healing a trouvé à
s’exercer. De tout temps il a existé des thaumaturges, depuis Simon le
magicien jusqu’au prince de Hohenlohe au commencement du siècle, en
passant par le diacre Pâris, qui ont eu le don de faire des guérisons dites
miraculeuses, c’est-à-dire d’inspirer la faith-healing. Ces thaumaturges, étant
souvent eux-mêmes des religieux, ont fondé des sanctuaires, et sur leurs
tombeaux se sont multipliés les miracles qu’ils faisaient pendant leur vie. Il
est en effet très digne de remarque que, dans les sanctuaires religieux, ce n’est
pas la divinité elle-même qu’on intercède, c’est son prophète ou ses disciples.
C’est presque toujours un simple mortel qui, pendant sa vie, a gagné lui-
même sa béatification en faisant des miracles. Il est même curieux de
constater que certains de ces thaumaturges étaient atteints de la maladie dont
ils vont désormais guérir les manifestations: saint François d’Assise, sainte
Thérèse, dont les sanctuaires viennent au premier rang parmi ceux où se
produisent des miracles, étaient eux-mêmes des hystériques indéniables.
257

257
Jean-Martin Charcot, La Foi qui Guérit (Paris : Alcan, 1897), 9.
161

Charcot insists that, in spite of their increased contemporary visibility, miracles are not a new
phenomenon. But, by showing that it is often a man, rather than the divinity, that is appealed
to, Charcot articulates a connection between religious thaumaturges and a great doctor like
himself. However, by affirming that the religious intercessors were often hysterics, he
unintentionally implies that he, himself, may be a hysteric.
He continues by exposing sanctuaries as less than mysterious:
La façon dont s’est formé le sanctuaire importe peu; ce qui est surtout
intéressant à étudier au point de vue du déterminisme du miracle, c’est le
sanctuaire lui-même. Et ce déterminisme devient frappant lorsqu’on constate
que les sanctuaires se ressemblent tous, sont tous coulés dans le même
moule. Ils sont restés les mêmes depuis les temps les plus reculés de l’histoire
jusqu’à nos jours, se copiant pour ainsi dire les uns les autres. C’est dire déjà
qu’à travers les âges, parmi les civilisations les plus diverses, au milieu des
religions les plus dissemblables en apparence, les conditions du miracle sont
restées identiques, ses lois d’évolution étant immuables.
258

There are therefore rules governing supposedly miraculous interventions and miracles are a
universally observable phenomenon:
La mise en œuvre de la faith-healing a donc, dans tous les temps, sous toutes
les latitudes, chez les païens, les chrétiens, comme chez les musulmans,
revêtu le même caractère. Les sanctuaires et les pratiques propitiatoires sont
analogues. Les statues du dieu guérisseur seules diffèrent, mais l’esprit
humain, toujours lui-même, dans ses grandes manifestations, les confond
dans une même évocation.
259

Just as he had demonstrated the historical permanence of hysteria through the recourse to
retrospective medicine, Charcot is now intent on showing that there is a pattern to miracles:
Le miracle thérapeutique a son déterminisme, et les lois qui président à sa
genèse et à son évolution commencent à être, sur plus d’un point,
suffisamment connues pour que le groupe des faits qu’on englobe sous ce
vocable se présente avec une allure assez spéciale pour ne pas échapper tout
à fait à notre appréciation. (…)

258
Ibid., 11.
259
Ibid., 14.
162
La guérison, d’apparence particulière, produit direct de la faith-
healing, que l’on appelle communément en thérapeutique du nom de miracle,
est, on peut le démontrer, dans la majorité des cas, un phénomène naturel qui
s’est produit de tout temps, au milieu des civilisations et des religions les plus
variées, en apparence les plus dissemblables, de même qu’actuellement on
l’observe sous toutes les latitudes.
260

Hence there is rhyme and reason to miracles, but Charcot considers that they operate under
a new epistemology. He then shares a particularly compelling example of the rules limiting
miracles:
On n’a jamais, par exemple, noté, en compulsant les recueils consacrés aux
guérisons dites miraculeuses, que la faith-healing ait fait repousser un
membre amputé. Par contre, c’est par centaines qu’on y trouve les guérisons
de paralysies, mais je crois que celles-ci ont toujours été de la nature de celles
que le professeur Russell Reynolds a qualifiées du terme général de paralysies
“dependent on idea.”
261

Charcot also dismisses miracles as illusory. As he continues to demystify the faith-healing
process, he concludes:
La guérison dite ou non surnaturelle survenue sous l’influence de la faith-
healing obéit à des lois naturelles, et celles-ci sont encore plus évidentes
lorsqu’on pénètre plus avant dans l’analyse des faits. C’est ainsi, par exemple,
que dans tous les cas, la soudaineté de la guérison est beaucoup plus
apparente que réelle.
262

Consequently, miraculous healings are first and foremost an illusion. Just like scientific cures,
miracles are controlled by natural laws and Charcot believes that miracles are governed by an
evident determinism. By sharing the fact that, regardless of the religion or the times, there is
an inherent pattern to miraculous healings, Charcot explains that miracles are not a product
of a particular faith or sanctuary. In a sense, miracles are a misnomer since the parameters of
possible miracles are clearly delineated and limited. In addition, not only does the existence
of natural laws strip miracles of their miraculous quality, it also provides a pattern for

260
Ibid., 3.
261
Ibid., 5.
262
Ibid., 32.
163
miracles. But the very existence of a pattern goes against the very idea of miracles. In fact,
for Bertrand Marquer, “le miracle prévu n’est plus un miracle”
263
and their predictability
negates the idea of miracles.
Charcot’s uncovering of the determinism and the predictability of miracles is a
powerful and fundamental first step in his systematic debunking enterprise. By giving
miracles the retrospective medicine treatment, Charcot both asserts his authority and de-
mystifies the phenomenon: if miracles follow a largely scripted, and universally recognized,
pattern, then they immediately become much less mysterious and intimidating. In turn, it
becomes much easier to debunk them.

B) Debunking Miracles: The Medical Argument

There are several reasons why it is important for Charcot to prove the supremacy of
medical cures over religious healings. One of them is the powerful role such a refutation
would play in France’s political climate; another is the opportunity to reaffirm his role as the
country’s leading doctor. But debunking miracles also potentially carries scientific
importance. In fact, understanding the processes at play in miraculous healings could help
better understand healing processes in general and the mind/body relationship.
Charcot’s definition of miracle already betrays his faith in science over religion. He
considers miracle to mean “une guérison opérée en dehors des moyens dont la médecine
curative semble disposer d’ordinaire,”
264
thereby implicitly signaling that the notion of
miracle is ever changing. He indeed believes that a number of allegedly miraculous healings
have come to be better understood as science evolved, revealing a scientific and not so

263
Marquer, Les Romans de la Salpêtrière, 281.
264
Charcot, La Foi qui Guérit, 3.
164
mysterious explanation for them. In other words, Charcot considers that miracles only exist
as such for a limited period: it is only a matter of time until science is able to provide an
explanation for them. In fact, miracles can stand as evidence of science’s unstoppable
progress:
La guérison plus ou moins soudaine des convulsions et des paralysies était
autrefois considérée comme un miracle thérapeutique du meilleur aloi. La
science ayant démontré que ces phénomènes étaient d’origine hystérique,
c’est-à-dire nonorganiques, purement dynamiques, la guérison miraculeuse
n’existait plus en pareille matière.
265

He also provides another historical example of miraculous healings retrospectively diagnosed
as hysteria:
Au XIII
e
siècle, dans la basilique de Saint-Denis, le tombeau de saint Louis
devint un lieu de pèlerinage très fréquenté; il se produisit de nombreux
miracles à son contact. Littré nous les a fait connaître et il en a donné
l’interprétation dans la Philosophie positive. Il s’agissait là, très certainement,
de contractures hystériques.
266

Paradoxically, miracles give Charcot an opportunity to enthusiastically and emphatically
reaffirm his faith in science and positivism as he proclaims: “Pourquoi jeter tant de défis à la
face de la science, qui finit, en somme, par avoir le dernier mot en toutes choses!” In
addition, while he acknowledges the current limitation of science, he nevertheless predicts its
triumph:
Bien que nous ignorions encore beaucoup de choses, je constate que nous
sommes aujourd’hui plus avancés dans cette voie de l’interprétation
scientifique, et je prévois le jour, plus ou moins éloigné cependant encore, où
l’évidente réalité des faits ne trouvera plus de contradicteurs.
267

Miracles therefore only exist until science catches up and provides an explanation. Yet,
Charcot’s argument is surprising: rather than relying on the findings uncovered by the use of

265
Ibid., 8.
266
Ibid., 21.
267
Ibid., 9.
165
the scientific method, Charcot speculates that translating miracles into science is only a
matter of time. As scientific progress continues, formerly mysterious processes will be
explained. Hence, Charcot’s approach is strikingly unscientific since it purely relies on his
faith in medical progress.
By contrast, Charcot’s second argument is based on his scientific expertise as he
proposes to address the role played by suggestion in faith healing. He writes:
Les faits dits miraculeux, et je n’ai pas la prétention d’exprimer ici rien de
bien neuf, ont un double caractère: ils sont engendrés par une disposition
spéciale de l’esprit du malade; une confiance, une crédibilité, une
suggestibilité, comme on dit aujourd’hui, constitutives de la faith-healing dont
la mise en mouvement est d’ordre variable. D’autre part, le domaine de la
faith-healing est limité; pour produire ses effets, elle doit s’adresser à des cas
dont la guérison n’exige aucune autre intervention que cette puissance que
possède l’esprit sur le corps.
268

Evidently, Charcot’s theory has shifted. He has gone from believing in a dynamic hysterical
lesion – an existing but invisible organic lesion – to admitting that the dynamic lesion falls
under the psychological category. Hysteria would not be a physical disease, but rather a
psychological one with bodily manifestations. Moreover, by invoking the role of suggestion,
Charcot creates a kinship between miracles and hysteria. Miracles, like hysteria, are
conditions of suggestion that prey on impressionable minds. Since both manifestations
operate similarly, Charcot makes hysteria the secular side of miracles. Miracles are thereby
subsumed in the legitimate and scientifically accepted category of hysteria.
Finally, Charcot is particularly interested in debunking the perceived spectacular
nature of miracles. Of course, this task is especially ironic coming from the man who has
notoriously turned hysteria into a medical spectacle. He is nevertheless concerned that

268
Ibid., 4.
166
miracles give the (false) impression of operating immediately. He gives a detailed narrative of
a supposed miracle cure:
Un malade entend dire que dans un tel sanctuaire il se produit des guérisons
miraculeuses: il est bien rare qu’il s’y rende immédiatement. Mille difficultés
matérielles mettent un obstacle au moins temporaire à son déplacement: il
n’est pas commode à un paralytique ou à un aveugle, quelque fortune qu’il
possède, de s’embarquer pour un long voyage. Il interroge son entourage,
demande des renseignements circonstanciés sur les cures merveilleuses dont
le bruit lui est parvenu. Il n’entend que des paroles encourageantes non
seulement émanées de son entourage direct, mais souvent encore de son
médecin. Celui-ci ne veut pas enlever à son malade un dernier espoir, surtout
s’il juge que la maladie de son client est justiciable du faith-healing qu’il n’a
pas su lui-même inspirer. La contradiction dans la circonstance n’aurait, du
reste, d’autre effet que d’exalter la croyance à la possibilité d’une guérison
miraculeuse. La faith-healing commence à naître, elle se développe de plus en
plus, l’incubation la prépare, le pèlerinage à accomplir devient une idée fixe.
Les déshérités de la fortune se mortifient en sollicitant des aumônes qui leur
permettront de gagner le lieu saint; les riches deviennent généreux vis-à-vis
des pauvres afin de se rendre la divinité propice: tous prient avec ferveur et
implorent leur guérison. Dans ces conditions, l’état mental ne tarde pas à
dominer l’état physique. Le corps rompu par une route fatigante, les malades
arrivent au sanctuaire l’esprit éminemment suggestionné. “L’esprit de la
malade, a dit Barwell, étant dominé par la ferme conviction qu’elle doit
guérir, elle guérira immanquablement.” Un dernier effort: une ablution dans
la piscine, une dernière prière plus fervente, aidée par les entraînements du
culte extérieur, et la faith-healing produit l’effet désiré; la guérison
miraculeuse devient une réalité.
269

Of particular relevance is the fact that, rather counter-intuitively, Charcot gives the doctor
the ambiguous role of enabler, suggesting that faith-healing has a place in the positivist
therapeutic arsenal.

C) The Role of the Doctor

Charcot’s text is never more surprising than when it discusses the role of the medical
doctor. He indeed makes a number of pronouncements that appear to go against his
positivist agenda. He begins by embracing faith-healing:

269
Ibid., 15.
167
La faith-healing me paraît être l’idéal à atteindre, puisqu’elle opère souvent
lorsque tous les autres remèdes ont échoué. C’est pourquoi,
depuis longtemps, en présence de certains cas déterminés, j’ai cherché, après
bien d’autres, à pénétrer, autant que faire se peut, le mécanisme de sa
production afin d’utiliser sa puissance.
270

His admission that faith healing is his ideal should be read in conjunction with his early
interest in “expectant medicine.” Indeed, his 1857 Agrégation thesis illustrated his interest in a
“minimally invasive healing process,” and his interest in faith-healing reveals his interest in
making the therapeutic relationship the ultimate medicine. Yet, Charcot’s defense of faith-
healing goes against the tide: whereas he is expected to condemn the practice in the strongest
terms, he actually offers an ambiguous endorsement and his position should be considered
in the context of the genealogy of faith-healing. In The Discovery of the Unconscious, Henri F.
Ellenberger explores the remote ancestry of dynamic psychiatry and dedicates a section to
magical healing. He particularly points to the role of suggestion in magical healing. He writes:
A magic procedure may actually attain its goal because the individual
submitting to it firmly believes in its efficacy; the magician believes in his
own power, and the entire community believes in the existence and efficacy
of magic art because this art is felt to be necessary for social cohesion.
271

By addressing the role of faith in healing, Charcot places himself at the confluence of two
traditions – magical and scientific – thereby blurring the line between science and magic and
questioning the role of the practitioner.
Charcot appears to recognize the powers of faith, but he also points out that it may
indiscriminately be directed to God or to a physician. In other words, he attempts to define a
faith freed from religious implications. Charcot even admits he is himself a thaumaturge. He
shares a particularly strange experience:

270
Ibid., 1.
271
Hellenberger, The Discovery of the Unconscious, 35.
168
De tout cela, je ne parle point sans pouvoir invoquer une expérience un peu
particulière. J’ai vu revenir de sanctuaires en vogue des malades qui y avaient
été envoyés avec mon consentement, n’ayant pu moi-même leur inspirer
la faith-healing. J’ai examiné leurs membres atteints quelques jours
auparavant de paralysie ou de contracture, et j’ai assisté à la disparition
graduelle des stigmates sensitifs locaux qui persistent presque toujours
quelque temps encore après la guérison de l’élément paralysie ou
contracture.
272

In other words, Charcot admits that faith-healing is a deeply subjective process: in some
cases, he is able to “inspire” faith-healing, while he encourages pilgrimages by the patients
who have resisted his own brand of faith-healing. Hence, the man known as the Napoleon
of neuroses evidently places himself on the same level as a religious saint, or maybe even
God. But the evidence seems to indicate that he does so with good reason. Didi-Huberman
also shares this anecdote:
Called to the side of a young nun in a convent who suffered from functional
paralysis, Charcot came and said: “Rise and walk!” The patient obeyed - it
was a miracle - and the Church was seized, in all senses of the word. The so-
called miraculous healings at the Salpêtrière made the headlines of Religious
Week as often as the healings at Lourdes. Occasionally witnesses would bare
their heads and cross themselves in front of Charcot.
273

Ellenberger confirms Charcot’s status as a thaumaturge as he shares a contemporary report
of cures by one of Charcot’s disciples:
Many patients were brought to Charcot from all over the world, paralytics on
stretchers or wearing complicated apparatuses. Charcot ordered the removal
of those appliances and told the patients to walk. There was, for instance, a
young lady who had been paralyzed for years. Charcot made her stand up
and walk, which she did under the astounded eyes of her parents and of the
Mother Superior of the convent in which she had been staying. Another
young lady was brought to Charcot with a paralysis of both legs. Charcot
found no organic lesion; the consultation was not yet over when the patient
stood up and walked back to the door where the cabman, who was waiting
for her, took off his hat in amazement and crossed himself.
274

272
Charcot, La Foi qui Guérit, 36.
273
Didi-Huberman, Invention of Hysteria, 239.
274
Ellenberger, The Discovery of the Unconscious, 95.
169
Such stories contributed to Charcot’s myth as a secular thaumaturge and can be seen as
evidence of his own enjoyment of this particular status.
However, more important than Charcot’s perceived superiority complex, what
matters here is that, whether inspired by God or a doctor, faith-healing functions similarly.
He writes: “Il est beaucoup plus simple de constater que la thérapeutique miraculeuse et la
science ont subi une évolution parallèle. La faith-healing religieuse et laïque ne pouvant être
dédoublée, c’est la même opération cérébrale produisant des effets identiques.”
275
Hence, the
Salpêtrière and Lourdes’s sanctuary proceed from a common therapeutic strategy. Saint and
miracle-making physician, sanctuary and hospital — religion and science all become
entangled.
Against all odds, Charcot actually believes in faith-healing, but his definition of faith-
healing moves away from spiritual considerations and favors a quasi-scientific explanation:
L’évolution de nos données scientifiques me permet d’être, sur la question de
fait, entièrement de l’avis des médecins des sanctuaires: certaines tumeurs ou
certains ulcères sont justiciables de la faith-healing, qui prend sa source dans
les eaux de la piscine sacrée.
Croit-on que ce soient là des faits nouveaux? De tout temps la faith-
healing a guéri des tumeurs et des ulcères, et j’ajoute que, comme
aujourd’hui, cette guérison s’est effectuée dans des conditions parfaitement
déterminées dont il nous est actuellement possible de donner le plus souvent
une exacte analyse.
276

Yet, what he calls faith greatly differs from religious faith since it is a secular manifestation.
Though Charcot does not define faith per se, it clearly appears that it is not necessarily a
religious faith, but rather a particular mental process that yields potentially powerful bodily
results.
However, Charcot’s position does not simply consist of a superstitious faith in the

275
Charcot, La Foi qui Guérit, 8.
276
Ibid., 23.
170
physician’s healing powers. It might be more accurately described as a new emphasis placed
on the curative potential of the patient/physician relationship. Thus, Charcot’s late essay
foreshadows a crucial epistemological shift forthcoming with the advent of psychoanalytical
practice.

D) The Miracle as a Hysterical Symptom

Often spectacular, products of suggestion, and obeying the rules of determinism,
miracles resemble hysteria in more than one way. However, according to Didi-Huberman,
Charcot goes even further as he incorporates the miracle as a key component of hysteria:
Charcot nonetheless admitted that the therapeutic miracle is implicated in a
feat of which bodies, insofar as they are hystericized, are capable. Their
miraculous healing is not a cure but a symptom – a hysterical symptom, of
course.
277

By their very nature, miracles belong to hysteria and are in fact hysterical and hysteria
actually subsumes miracles. Miraculous healings are therefore not limited to religious
sanctuaries: prompted by suggestion, they may happen in Lourdes or at the Salpêtrière and
are to be interpreted as a confirmation of a hysteria diagnosis. Charcot thereby erects
hysteria as the most relevant and pervasive disease of the fin de siècle while he also reaffirms
his own clinical supremacy. However, in spite of Charcot’s best efforts, admitting that a
miraculous healing is nothing more than a hysterical symptom points to the fact that he
failed to adequately capture the scientific reality of hysteria.
Charcot’s approach to miracles is actually reminiscent of his theory of hypnosis: both
are products of suggestion in impressionable minds and are used as clinical evidence of the
hysteria diagnosis. Just as Charcot had developed an all-encompassing list of hysterical

277
Didi-Huberman, Invention of Hysteria, 242.
171
symptoms leading to the assumption that almost any symptom – in particular the ability to
be hypnotized - can be a symptom of hysteria, he now admits that miracles too are a
symptom of hysteria. In other words, in the same way that the ability to be hypnotized
serves as a validation of a hysteria diagnosis, the ability to experience a miracle is evidence of
hysteria as well. Charcot essentially places hypnosis and miracles on the same level, but
theoretically this argument raises a number of issues: Charcot had defended the scientific
value of hypnosis, a practice to be used mainly as a diagnostic tool for hysteria. His 1882
speech at the Académie des Sciences marked the divorce of hypnosis from its Mesmerian
origins, and its birth as a scientific practice. Yet, by admitting that the miracle is a symptom
of hysteria, just as he had argued that hypnosis was a symptom of hysteria, Charcot finds
himself in a irreconciliable position: by drawing a parallel between hypnosis and miracles, he
indirectly, and probably involuntarily, bestows a quasi-scientific status onto miracles without
being truly able to back it up theoretically.
In Charcot’s rhetoric, both hypnosis and miracles appear to affect the mind (and
consequently the body) through the powers of suggestion.
En résumé, je crois que, pour qu’elle trouve à s’exercer, il faut à la faith-
healing des sujets spéciaux et des maladies spéciales, de celles qui sont
justiciables de l’influence que l’esprit possède sur le corps. Les hystériques
présentent un état mental éminemment favorable au développement de
la faith-healing, car ils sont suggestibles au premier chef, soit que la
suggestion s’exerce par des influences extérieures, soit surtout qu’ils puisent
en eux-mêmes les éléments si puissants de l’auto-suggestion. Chez ces
individus, hommes ou femmes, l’influence de l’esprit sur le corps est assez
efficace pour produire la guérison de maladies que l’ignorance, où on était il
n’y a pas longtemps encore, de leur nature véritable faisait considérer comme
incurables.
278

As was already the case with hypnosis, suggestion is presented as the key to unlocking the
mind’s influence on the body.

278
Charcot, La Foi qui Guérit, 37.
172
By making miracles a symptom, and therefore proof, of hysteria, Charcot uses the
same rhetoric he had used with hypnosis. In other words, miracles and hypnosis converge
around the susceptibility to suggestion. By minimizing the inherent theoretical importance of
phenomena such as miracles and hypnosis, Charcot reaffirms his role as the Napoleon of
Neuroses. For his convenience – and glory – hysteria emerges as an all-encompassing
solution to understanding the mind and the body. By explaining both highly visible cultural
phenomena as hysteria, Charcot both proposes a one-size-fits-all solution to the problems of
his times and establishes himself as an authority not simply in the medical field, but as a
cultural reference.

At the end of his life, Charcot contradicts his early theories and finds himself at an
impasse. By denying the organic character of hysteria and incorporating a psychological
component, Charcot highlights the fact that his theory remains vague. In addition, his
explanations of the healing process fail to explain how the mind is actually able to affect the
body. Thus, mimicking hysteria’s characteristics, Charcot’s theory is also elusive and difficult
to capture. In the Dictionnaire Littré, a miracle is defined as an “Acte contraire aux lois
ordinaires de la nature et produit par une puissance surnaturelle. Par exagération, chose
extraordinaire, ou chose ordinaire, régulière dans l’ordre naturel, mais dont on ne sait
aucunement la cause ou le moyen.” And thus, we can read the treatments at the Salpêtrière
as miracles in their own right, as they cannot be explained satisfactorily by medical research.
In spite of some compelling case studies and examples based on his experience, Charcot’s
text fails to make the argument for science over miracles. Or rather, by attempting to debunk
miracles, Charcot ends up undermining his own theory on hysteria by eventually admitting
to its incommensurable mystery. Indeed, as he attempts to debunk miracles and promotes
173
the more secular notion of “faith-healing,” Charcot nonetheless fails to specifically identify
the bodily processes at play. Facing the same issues in his theory of hysteria, he had managed
to disguise his shortcomings under the concept of a “dynamic lesion.” However, in The
Healing Faith, by resorting to hysteria to help explain miracles, Charcot actually highlights his
flaws and weakened his theoretical edifice as a whole. In essence, Charcot discredits religious
faith but only to replace it with a type of scientific superstition, a practice that finds comfort
in the omnipotent ability for science to weigh in on every phenomenon.

III – Cultural Contamination: from Charcot’s Healing Faith to Zola's Lourdes

Published two years after La Foi qui Guérit, Emile Zola’s novel Lourdes (1894)
279
is the
literary expression of the epistemological debates brought on by miracles’ social
pervasiveness. While miracles were increasingly publicized, and therefore visible, Lourdes
took the debate out of the hands of experts and brought the skeptical perspective to a wider,
fiction-reading audience. As he investigates miracles in the sanctuary city, Zola puts into
practice the theories about literature’s social role he had developed in his 1880 essay, Le
Roman Expérimental.
280
A reaction to Claude Bernard’s Introduction à l'Etude de la Médecine
Expérimentale, Le Roman Expérimental is both a literary and a scientific manifesto, which
proposes to define a new literary approach for the positivist era. He argues that literature is
always the product of its time and, as such, nineteenth-century literature should reflect its
positivism.
Le roman expérimental est une conséquence de l'évolution scientifique du
siècle; il continue et complète la physiologie, qui elle-même s'appuie sur la

279
Emile Zola, Lourdes (Paris : Gallimard, 1995)
280
Emile Zola, Le Roman Expérimental (Paris: Charpentier, 1890)
174
chimie et la physique; il substitue à l'étude de l'homme abstrait, de l'homme
métaphysique, l'étude de l'homme naturel, soumis aux lois physico-chimiques
et déterminé par les influences du milieu; il est en un mot la littérature de
notre âge scientifique, comme la littérature classique et romantique a
correspondu à un âge de scolastique et de théologie.
281

Therefore, man, as he is subjected to natural laws and influenced by his environment, is the
object of the new experimental novel. In this context, medicine appears as the leading
science for literature to emulate. Zola considers:
La médecine est encore regardée par beaucoup de personnes comme un art.
Claude Bernard prouve qu'elle doit être une science, et nous assistons là à
l'éclosion d'une science, spectacle très instructif en lui-même, et qui nous
prouve que le domaine scientifique s'élargit et gagne toutes les manifestations
de l'intelligence humaine. Puisque la médecine, qui était un art, devient une
science, pourquoi la littérature elle-même ne deviendrait-elle pas une science,
grâce à la méthode expérimentale?
282

More than in science itself, Zola’s faith is more specifically directed to the seemingly
unlimited powers of the experimental method. By using it as the criteria for science, Zola
endeavors to turn literature into a science. This new scientific literature is then in sharp
contrast with other contemporary literary schools. Zola particularly defines his approach in
contrast with idealist writers:
Que l'on compare un instant la besogne des romanciers idéalistes à la nôtre;
et ici ce mot d'idéalistes indique les écrivains qui sortent de l'observation et
de l'expérience pour baser leurs œuvres sur le surnaturel et l'irrationnel, qui
admettent en un mot des forces mystérieuses, en dehors du déterminisme des
phénomènes. Claude Bernard répondra encore pour moi: «Ce qui distingue le
raisonnement expérimental du raisonnement scolastique, c'est la fécondité de
l'un et la stérilité de l'autre. C'est précisément le scolastique qui croit avoir la
certitude absolue qui n'arrive à rien; cela se conçoit, puisque par un principe
absolu, il se place en dehors de la nature dans laquelle tout est relatif. C'est au
contraire l'expérimentateur qui doute toujours et qui ne croit posséder la
certitude absolue sur rien, qui arrive à maîtriser les phénomènes qui
l'entourent et à étendre sa puissance sur la nature.
283

281
Ibid., 22.
282
Ibid., 30.
283
Ibid., 24.
175
Literature, as defined by Zola, can play a role in the confrontation between science and
Catholic revival. In fact, experimental novels, and their writers, more than any other novels,
carry a heavy social responsibility. By endeavoring to make the novel scientific, Zola also
hopes to make it an agent of change:
On a dit souvent que les écrivains devaient frayer la route aux savants. Cela
est vrai, car nous venons de voir, dans l'Introduction, l'hypothèse et
l'empirisme précéder et préparer l'état scientifique, qui s'établit en dernier lieu
par la méthode expérimentale. L'homme a commencé par risquer certaines
explications des phénomènes, les poètes ont dit leur sentiment et les savants
sont venus ensuite contrôler les hypothèses et fixer la vérité. C'est toujours le
rôle de pionniers que Claude Bernard assigne aux philosophes. Il y a là un
noble rôle, et les écrivains ont encore le devoir de le remplir aujourd'hui.
284

Zola is particularly ambitious since he expects writers to be pioneers, leading science and
scientists as the true engines of change. In Zola’s perspective, novelists and scientists are
peers and work hand-in-hand in a complex web of entanglements.
Je résume notre rôle de moralistes expérimentateurs. Nous montrons le
mécanisme de l'utile et du nuisible, nous dégageons le déterminisme des
phénomènes humains et sociaux, pour qu'on puisse un jour dominer et
diriger ces phénomènes. En un mot, nous travaillons avec tout le siècle à la
grande œuvre qui est la conquête de la nature, la puissance de l'homme
décuplée. Et voyez à côté de la nôtre, la besogne des écrivains idéalistes, qui
s'appuient sur l'irrationnel et le surnaturel, et dont chaque élan est suivi d'une
chute profonde dans le chaos métaphysique. C'est nous qui avons la force,
c'est nous qui avons la morale.
285

Zola’s position sheds a new light on the interpenetration of science and literature as the
latter gets cast as the true engine of change. In this scenario, the writer plays a crucial social
role. Keeping Zola’s goals in Le Roman Expérimental in mind as we approach Lourdes
highlights the connections between the Salpêtrière’s theories and the literary world.
The genealogy of Zola’s novel is a case in point as it is very much entangled with
Charcot’s La Foi qui Guérit. In the very first paragraph of his text, Charcot explains that he

284
Ibid., 50.
285
Ibid., 29.
176
was contacted by the New Review to discuss faith-healing because of the well-publicized
recent trip of a famous writer to an unnamed sanctuary city. Emile Zola, whose visit to
Lourdes in August 1892 had been reported in the papers, is probably the writer in question.
In other words, Zola, whose writing is largely influenced by Charcot’s theories, actually
prompted the writing of Charcot’s text. Published while Zola is still writing Lourdes,
Charcot’s essay then closes the circle as it greatly influences Zola’s position on faith-healing
portrayed in Lourdes. In the “Notice” to Lourdes, Jacques Noiray writes:
Il est certain, par exemple, qu’il (Zola) a remarqué, en décembre 1892,
l’article de Charcot paru dans la Revue Hebdomadaire sur la “foi qui guérit,” où
il a pu trouver confirmation de ses propres convictions: la guérison par la foi
est un phénomène scientifiquement explicable, notamment dans le cas de
maladies nerveuses d’origine hystérique.
286

As a consequence, when he started writing Lourdes, in September 1893, Zola was not only
familiar with the ubiquitous theories on hysteria developed at the Salpêtrière, he also knew -
and embraced - Charcot’s opinion on faith-healing. This complex genealogy clearly illustrates
the web of influence between science and literary culture in the late nineteenth century. It
also allows us to reframe literature’s role as an active participant in investigating,
understanding, and disseminating scientific theories.
Zola’s scientific ambition is palpable in Lourdes. In August 1892, thirty-four years
after the Marian apparitions and thirteen years after Bernadette’s death, Emile Zola traveled
to Lourdes to witness the national pilgrimage. It is no surprise that the writer who had been
fascinated by crowds and had written about collective hysteria in Au Bonheur des Dames and
Germinal was interested in such an event. His enthusiasm for the topic can be measured by
the fact that he stayed in the sanctuary city for two weeks, more than he had spent at the

286
Jacques Noiray, “Notice,” Lourdes (Paris: Gallimard, 1995), 594.
177
Anzin mines for Germinal or in the Beauce region for La Terre.
287
In Lourdes, Zola was able
to conduct a thorough investigation as he enjoyed unlimited access to the sanctuary and
Bernadette’s old house and, most importantly, the Medical Bureau, which was responsible
for objectively evaluating all occurrences of alleged miraculous healings.
Immediately blacklisted by the Catholic Church, the novel caused many heated
debates in the press. With each of the five chapters focused on one day of the national
pilgrimage, Zola offers a panoramic view of Lourdes. Zola’s investigation leaves no stone
unturned and his writing spares no one: from the story of Bernadette to the review of
miraculous healings; from a skeptical priest to the official Medical Bureau; and finally, from
the clergy’s response to the development of the new city dedicated to the “business of faith.”
The novel focuses on a group of pilgrims and their travel companions who have embarked
in Paris on the train to Lourdes. Aboard the train is a sample of the century’s incurable
diseases: lupus, stomach cancer, and phthisis, to name just a few. The novel’s protagonist, a
young priest named Pierre Froment, is deeply conflicted. Although a man of God, Pierre is
nevertheless the requisite skeptic and his cynical voice will consistently represent reluctant
positivism. Pierre participates in the pilgrimage as an escort to his childhood friend, Marie de
Guersaint, a paralyzed twenty-three-year-old woman, disabled by a fall ten years earlier.
Marie is convinced that her pilgrimage to Lourdes will result in her walking again. As the
accident happened at the time of her puberty, Zola portrays her as “à jamais infirme,
condamnée à n’être jamais femme, frappée dans son sexe même,”
288
and her bodily weakness
is reflected in the absence of her sexuality. While channeling Charcot’s theories, Zola

287
Jean-Dominique Merchet, “Lourdes, c’est du Zola,” Libération, 11 février 2008.
288
Zola, Lourdes, 27.
178
addresses an important issue absent from The Healing Faith, namely that gender and sexuality
are deciding factors in diagnosing the miraculous as a symptom of hysteria.
Marie’s religious fervor is in sharp contrast with Pierre’s doubt. While Pierre feels
invested in Bernadette’s story, he struggles with his faith and simply cannot bring himself to
believe in miracles. According to Jacques Noiray, he is Zola’s spokesperson in the novel, his
porte-parole, and thus indicative of a shift in Zola’s later texts, which are increasingly dogmatic.
Pierre’s spiritual struggle is particularly visible when he narrates Bernadette’s story to the
pilgrims and considers cases of miraculous healings. While this hagiographic mise en abyme
offers the Church’s official version, it also allows the reader to take the full measure of
Pierre’s incredulity. While telling the story of Bernadette:
Pierre s’était comme dédoublé. Tandis qu’il continuait son beau conte bleu, si
doux aux misérables, il évoquait pour lui cette Bernadette pitoyable et chère,
dont la fleur de souffrance avait fleuri si joliment. Selon le mot brutal d’un
médecin, cette fillette de quatorze ans, tourmentée dans sa puberté tardive,
déjà ravagée par un asthme, n’était en somme qu’une irrégulière de l’hystérie,
une dégénérée à coup sûr, une enfantine.
289

Hence, through Pierre, Zola articulates a double perspective on Lourdes. In her article
“Divine Images of Hysteria in Emile Zola’s Lourdes,” Kathleen Ann Comfort considers
that:
In this light, Lourdes presents the experience of miraculous healing through
the double optic of positivism and Catholic mysticism, building as much on
Catholic lay representations of miracles as it does on clinical accounts of
spontaneous recovery from psychosomatic illnesses.
290

Pierre’s struggle is also a sign of a broader tension: he embodies both a weakened Church
and an increasingly confused society. Moreover, through the representation of Pierre’s inner

289
Zola, Lourdes, 129.
290
Kathleen Ann Comfort, “Divine Images of Hysteria in Emile Zola’s Lourdes,” Nineteenth-
Century French Studies, Volume 30, Number 3&4 (Spring-Summer 2002: 330.
179
conflict, Lourdes echoes the polarization of French society at the time. Trapped between two
antithetical alternatives, France was, like Pierre, in an unbearable position.
The oscillation between secular positivism and Catholic mysticism is also present in
the depiction of Bernadette. Not only does the narrator portray Bernadette as a hysteric, he
also draws parallels between Bernadette and Marie and thus creates a generic hysterical
character with categorical traits. Comfort explains that:
The narrator also emphasizes the personality traits Marie de Guersaint and
Bernadette share and, most importantly, establishes that these shared traits
are among the primary indicators of hysteria. For both young women,
religious devotion is the most obvious manifestation of their psychoneurotic
disorder.
291

Zola’s superimposition of Marie and Bernadette echoes Charcot’s remark that often
thaumaturges like Bernadette and miraculés suffer from similar symptoms. In The Healing
Faith, Charcot had evoked cases of famous saints:
Il est même curieux de constater que certains de ces thaumaturges étaient
atteints de la maladie dont ils vont désormais guérir les manifestations: saint
François d’Assise, sainte Thérèse, dont les sanctuaires viennent au premier
rang parmi ceux où se produisent des miracles, étaient eux-mêmes des
hystériques indéniables.
292

Consequently, through this juxtaposition of narratives, Zola suggests not only that
Bernadette was a hysteric, but also that all miraculés are hysterics, an idea already articulated
by Charcot in The Healing Faith. Yet, by also giving the Church’s version of Bernadette’s
story, Zola maintains the conflicting perspectives of secular positivism versus spiritual
beliefs.
Bernadette’s hagiography is only one example of “narratives within the narrative” in
Lourdes. Medical narratives or accounts of healings lend Zola credibility by putting him in the

291
Ibid., 330.
292
Charcot, La Foi qui Guérit, 10.
180
position of lead investigator. These multiple narratives are akin to the medical case studies
shared in specialized publications. They are also evocative of the Salpêtrière narrative cases
of retrospective medicine. Hence, Zola offers a striking example of the cross-contamination
of literature and medicine, as art imitates science. Zola choses to write a novel about Lourdes
and, throughout his fiction, he inserts a mix of true medical case studies from either Paris or
Lourdes, stories of Bernadette, interviews with locals and apocryphal stories, effectively
making it impossible for the reader to differentiate between true and false, and facts and
fiction. Ultimately, the line is blurred between true medical case studies and the cases mis en
abyme by Zola, thereby pointing to the blending of both genres and questioning the actual
legitimacy of science. Indeed, if Zola wanted to demonstrate the superiority of the scientific
explanation, his novel actually shows that literature serves as a great equalizer to the extent
that all the stories and case studies he inserts, whether pro-sanctuary or pro-medicine, are
equally compelling.
Demystifying miracles is central to Zola’s project and, while he continually offers
multiple perspectives on faith-healing, his voice remains strongly positivist. Already, in the
first few pages of the novel, he shatters the magic surrounding Marie’s impending healing by
formally announcing it. In fact, her miracle is anticipated and precisely described by a
Parisian scientist, Docteur Beauclair, whom she had consulted before her pilgrimage:
Il s’était écrié qu’il fallait la mener à Lourdes, qu’elle y serait sûrement guérie,
si elle était certaine de l’être. Il parlait de Lourdes sérieusement: la foi
suffisait, deux de ses clientes, très pieuses, envoyées par lui l’année
d’auparavant, étaient revenues éclatante de santé. Même il annonçait
comment se produirait le miracle, en coup de foudre, dans un réveil, une
exaltation de tout l’être, tandis que le mal, ce mauvais poids diabolique qui
étouffait la jeune fille, remonterait une dernière fois et s’échapperait, comme
s’il lui sortait par la bouche.
293

293
Zola, Lourdes, 67.
181
Just like Charcot, Docteur Beauclair suggests that a pilgrimage can cure patients after they
have failed to respond to his medical treatment. His early diagnosis and prognosis
foreshadow Marie’s miracle and, whereas Pierre had sworn he would recover his faith if she
were to be cured, the scripted nature of the miracle feeds his skepticism. In fact, Marie’s cure
directly echoes Charcot’s road map to miracles and the details of the cure themselves seem
to be taken directly from Charcot:
Après ces préliminaires, les suppliants sont admis à passer la nuit sous les
portiques du temple. C’est l’incubation qui
commence, neuvaine propitiatoire, pendant laquelle la faith-healing s’exalte
de plus en plus, par auto-suggestion, par contagion de voisinage, sorte
d’entraînement inconscient, et alors le miracle se produit… s’il y a lieu.
294

The predictability of the miracle continues to hystericize Marie and in effect confirms her
medical diagnosis and the idea that a miraculous healing is itself a hysterical symptom. A
miraculous healing, whether it happened in the Salpêtrière or at Lourdes, was therefore an
example of a hysteria diagnostic. This staged predictability of the miracle illustrates Charcot’s
notion that miracles, far from being irrational and erratic manifestations, are governed by a
strict determinism, the same determinism the Salpêtrière attempted to uncover in the case of
hysteria.
Later in the text, Beauclair’s prediction is even more detailed as he foresees:
Que Marie serait femme enfin, que le sang de la maternité jaillirait, dans ce
sursaut d’hosanna, ce réveil d’un corps resté enfant, attardé et brisé par un si
long rêve de souffrance, tout d’un coup rendu à une santé éclatante, les yeux
vivants, la face radieuse.
295

And in fact, Beauclair’s prediction perfectly matches Marie’s actual healing:
Tandis qu’elle sentait jaillir d’elle la source de sang, la vie de la femme, de
l’épouse et de la mère, elle eut une dernière angoisse, un poids énorme qui lui
remontait du ventre dans la gorge. Seulement, cette fois, il ne s’arrêta pas, ne

294
Charcot, La Foi qui Guérit, 13.
295
Zola, Lourdes, 400.
182
l’étouffa pas, il jaillit de sa bouche ouverte, il s’envola en un cri de sublime
joie. “je suis guérie! je suis guérie!”
296

Both Beauclair’s initial diagnosis and Marie’s cure are described as related to the
femininity she had hitherto been lacking. In Marie’s case, femininity is two-fold: it is first a
belated puberty but also a discovery of jouissance, which is indicated by the depiction of her
spiritual experience as a sexual one. Whereas her amenorrhea was the main sign of her
disease by locking her in a child’s body, the arrival of the menstrual flow signals her
recovery. In this context, the cure is presented as both an affirmation of femininity and a
reminder of the reproductive role of women. Thus, in retrospect, it is particularly meaningful
that Marie’s injurious fall happened when she was on the verge of puberty.
297
Just as hysteria
is connected to the health of a woman’s reproductive system, infertility and hysteria go hand
in hand, which reaffirms the traditional belief in the sexual origin of the disease. In this
context, a cured hysteric may be a hysteric who can repoduce. Analyzing Marie’s cure,
Betrand Marquer writes:
Stigmate de la dégénérescence hystérique, pathologique et contrenature, le
masque de l’enfantine a donc pour exact opposé celui de la grossesse, dont la
guérison de Marie laisse entendre la venue prochaine. Une fois libérée du
“lien qui nouait son sexe” la paralysie hystérique disparaît comme par
miracle.
298

Once cured, however, Marie chooses to renounce the world and to take holy orders. Her
decision to remain a virgin after the spectacular return of her femininity could be seen as
another hysterical symptom. According to Comfort, “one cannot help but view the
renunciation of her womanhood as confirmation of Doctor Beauclair’s diagnosis of hysteria
delivered early in the narration. In effect, her decision to remain a virgin is at once a tribute

296
Ibid., 407.
297
Comfort, “Divine Images of Hysteria in Emile Zola’s Lourdes,” 332.
298
Marquer, Les Romans de la Salpêtrière, 171.
183
to the benevolence of the Holy Mother and a symptom of her hysteria.”
299
Ultimately,
Marie’s cure is doubtful because her determination to remain a virgin can be interpreted as
another sign of a pathological sexuality, suggesting a latent persistence of hysteria.
Marie is not the only one of Zola’s characters to undergo a miraculous healing.
When La Grivotte, a phthisic in critical condition, is spectacularly cured after being
immersed in the Lourdes water pool, she walks into the Medical Bureau asking doctors to
take note of her miracle. And in fact, the doctors are forced to admit that all objective signs
of her disease have disappeared. La Grivotte remains healthy for a few days until she
relapses on the train ride back to Paris. Elise Rouquet, a woman disfigured by lupus, also
shows visible signs of improvements. As the narrative comes to a close, her health is still
improving, but Zola instills little confidence as to her prognosis. And, even though Marie’s
healing is undeniable, two questions now arise: was Marie’s paralysis physiological or was it
hysterical? Is Marie actually cured or has her disease merely migrated and shifted?
In addition to channeling Zola, Pierre also represents French society as a whole.
Even when faced with Marie’s miracle, Pierre appears unable to make up his mind and he
remains conflicted as he perpetually oscillates between two antithetical discourses. Ultimately
incapable of distinguishing between reality and fiction – secular positivism vs. superstition
and religion – Pierre is trapped by his own ambivalence and ironically finds himself in a
hysterical position. Pierre’s inability to make up his mind and to stand up for his beliefs – or
lack thereof – should also be seen as a commentary on his virility. As the nineteenth century
comes to a close, hysteria and miracles conjure up a list of women – hysterics, visionaries,
members of religious congregations or simply pious women – who appear to have already
made up their mind between the Salpêtrière and Lourdes and have already chosen to rally

299
Comfort, “Divine Images of Hysteria in Emile Zola’s Lourdes,” 345.
184
the sanctuary. Women’s powerful – even if involuntary – commitment sharply contrasts with
Pierre’s stasis and the standstill of a stymied society.

Chapter conclusion

In the late nineteenth century, many scientific inquiries are essentially attempts to
define human nature. While positivism triumphs, it nevertheless fails to explain a number of
phenomena, consequently backing science into a corner and prompting an avalanche of
hypotheses. In this context, providing an explanation for these phenomena became a crucial
element in understanding the essence of being human. Can human beings be explained by
their biology? Is the essence of man – if such a thing actually exists – located in the body
alone? Should inexplicable bodily manifestations be attributed to physiology? Or do they
point to another dimension?
Already central to the debates about the nature of hysteria, these questions are also at
the heart of the discussions regarding hypnosis and inspire a wide range of responses from
the scientific community. While Charcot sees the phenomenon as a legitimate and
scientifically explainable symptom, Bernheim hints at the existence of a more transcendent
dimension of the human mind since he considers hypnosis as an irreductible manifestation
of the mystery of the mind. Hence, through Charcot and Bernheim two distinct, legitimate,
medical discourses emerge. As both physicians testify as expert witnesses in criminal trials
their medical discourses become “discours de vérité,” yet they promote problematically
conflicting truths. For this reason, the question of hypnotic crime, disproportionally
represented in the press of the time, thrives on these tensions and highlights these
theoretical loopholes.
185
While theories of hypnosis divide the medical field, the question of healing feeds on
the lack of understanding of bodily processes and engages the broader society as debates
oppose secular physicians to Catholic believers and doctors. Thus, two competing theories
emerge: a secular one that pretends to explain the mind/body relationship without recourse
to spirituality, and a fervent Catholic one that embraces the mystery of miracles. In this
context, the proliferation of supernatural manifestations and the hysteria epidemic coexisted
and exemplified the tensions between a religious revival of the Virgin Mary and the
development of secular positivism. As the country was politically divided over the issue of
secularism, the split was also visible in various conceptions of the body. While the Church
and its devotees embraced the mysteries at play in miraculous healings, Charcot and his
followers endeavored to fully grasp the body’s most mysterious mechanisms. But behind the
question of the body are the issues of the limits of science and of human agency. Whereas
Charcot believed in the ability of science to explain physical phenomena rationally and
methodically, the Church – through its affirmation of miraculous healings – suggested that
the body – and the world – are subjected to mysterious forces, and thereby promised
challenges to the proponents of a secular society.
Though they were used as antithetical arguments in the political debate on
secularism, hypnosis, hysteria and miracles converged on the question of their relationship
with the female body. Oscillating between experimenting, suffering and healing, the female
body became the site of numerous inquiries – both scientific and religious – and yet it
remained mysterious. And at the core of the mystery lay the much-fantasized-about role of
female sexuality.
The apparent tension between these medical and religious phenomena also fades as
they both challenge the traditional distinction between mind and body. Hysteria’s resistance
186
to leaving any trace as well as the invisibility of miraculous processes challenged the organic
explanation of disease. Through hysteria and miracles, the psychological cause of somatic
illness emerges and with it the epistemological shift that will make psychoanalysis and lesion-
less pathologies possible. Yet, this shift is only possible because of Charcot’s failure to
explain fully hysteria. As hysteria defies his scientific methods and expectations, Charcot
followed its lead and indulged in creative but scientifically problematic solutions. As a result,
his theory – often vague and ever-evolving – actually mimicked hysteria itself. Believed to be
a disease of mimicry and (dis)simulation, hysteria and its theory find themselves caught in a
mysterious and perpetual cycle of co-dependence. Ultimately, the failings of Charcot’s theory
are yet another testament to hysteria’s contaminating powers.
Zola’s Lourdes particularly illustrates hysteria’s contagion outside of the walls of the
Salpêtrière. His investigation of the convergence of hysteria and miracles provides him with
an opportuniy to test out the experimental literary method he devised in Le Roman
Expérimental. Heavily influenced by Charcot’s theories, Lourdes offers the in-depth
investigation that The Healing Faith fails to provide. By tackling such a sensational and
controversial topic, Zola attracts and converts new readers to positivist theories. But,
because the question of hysteria and miracles remained as of then very much unresolved,
Zola’s fictionalized accounts also contribute to their theoretical definition. In other words,
since hysteria and miracles were still in the making, Zola’s fiction crosses over into the
“discours de vérité” and contributes to an ever-growing canon. Therefore, theoretical
writings and literature weave a complex web both from the secular and the religious side of
the debate. As Lourdes turned into a locus of positivist debate, it also became a privileged
avenue for Catholic expression and, again through a complex entanglement of science and
187
literature, the Catholic apology of Lourdes will become an unexpected place of debate for
scientists.

188
CHAPTER III

WRITING LOURDES:
LOURDES LITERATURE AS A NEW GENRE

In short, we may suspect that there is in all societies, with great
consistency, a kind of gradation among discourses: those which
are said in the ordinary course of days and exchanges, and
which vanish as soon as they have been pronounced; and those
which give rise to a certain number of new speech acts which
take them up, transform them or speak of them, in short those
discourses which, over and above their formulation, are said
indefinitely, remain said, and are to be said again.

Michel Foucault, Inaugural Lecture at the College de
France.

Introduction

In The Healing Faith, Charcot discusses the potential healing power of faith through the
lens of miraculous cures, thereby illustrating the cultural prevalence of miracles and
providing a context in which to explain Zola’s interest in the Lourdes events. But, while
Charcot’s text is exclusively concerned with medical and epistemological issues and with the
way in which miracles can provide a path to better understand bodily processes, Zola’s
criticism is more comprehensive: not only is he concerned with debunking miracles and
promoting positivism, but he also paints a particularly severe picture of the sanctuary city
itself. His portrayal of Lourdes is articulated around a number of iconic, and often
caricatural, figures – the hysteric, the religious doctor, the skeptic Parisian doctor, the
miraculé(e) – but it also includes an acerbic depiction of the broader socio-political context.
Zola is particularly intent on showing that Lourdes is the seat of doctrinal and territorial
debates and he makes a point of portraying the petty conflicts that animate the various
factions of the Catholic Church, ultimately depicting the sanctuary as engaged in a business
189
of healing that feeds on desperation.
Zola’s portrayal of Lourdes makes one fact particularly clear: the Catholic hierarchy is
plagued by tensions and disagreements and, more than causing doctrinal debates, the events
at Lourdes highlight the flaws of a Catholic hierarchy at the mercy of personal ambitions and
local political considerations. As he paints a complex picture of the situation, Zola also
suggests that a strict dichotomy between believers and non-believers is neither accurate nor
productive: Catholics are far from presenting a unified front on the Lourdes question and,
even among Catholics and believers, there is a wide range of opinions. Hence, Zola
encourages us to look at Lourdes – and at the French social, political and cultural context –
with an awareness of its complexities and contradictions. Zola’s text illustrates that, in the
late nineteenth century, a whole host of issues are enmeshed in the debates surrounding the
shrine. In addition to the epistemological questions Charcot was primarily concerned with,
the sanctuary brings to the foreground a number of timely issues – laïcité, public education,
women’s rights and place in society to only name a few – that will shake French society for
years to come. On all these social issues, as well as on Lourdes itself, Catholics do not speak
with one unified voice, and Lourdes crystallizes some of the century’s most emblematic
debates and offers an invaluable microcosm of a polarized and ambivalent society. Lourdes
plays a role in a broader context as the epistemological question of healing occupies the late
nineteenth century even outside of France as is particularly visible in the rise of faith-healing
practices, and the accompanying interrogations, in the UK and the US in the late nineteenth
and early twentieth century. In this context, Lourdes does not appear as an isolated case, but
rather as an exemplary manifestation of timely concerns.
In the following chapter, I intend to give a panoramic view of the many stakes
surrounding the shrine in order to provide a nuanced context, expose the complexity of the
190
situation and allow a plurality of voices to be heard. I am particularly interested in showing
how these multiple opinions are produced and then disseminated through the emerging
genre of Lourdes non-fiction, a genre they avidly contributed to. This new genre participates
in the creation of a Lourdes canon, a set of texts that frames any future discussion on the
topic for believers and skeptics alike. Encompassing sub-genres such as historical and
medical accounts, and including texts by skeptics as well as devoted believers, Lourdes non-
fiction emerges as a particularly vibrant and dynamic genre at the end of the nineteenth
century. Yet, as prolific as it may be, it also appears static and predictable. Indeed, central to
this new canon is the inclusion in every account of Lourdes’s origin story – the story of
Bernadette and the apparitions – which becomes the foundational moment of all future
Lourdes literature. As it gets included in all accounts about Lourdes, the story of Bernadette
illustrates the constant – and illusory – attempt to return to the source of story. The story of
Bernadette is endlessly re-written and interrogated under the assumption that the account
somehow holds the key to the mystery. Yet, in spite of countless accounts, the need to
produce another version endures as does the impression that a satisfactory version remains
to be told.
After looking at the local hierarchical tensions among the various Catholic orders with
claims to the sanctuary, and the role of local political power, I will consider how Lourdes is
being written and how an official, Church-sanctioned biography of Bernadette emerges from
this multiplicity of accounts. In turn, I will argue that it is the inclusion of the story of
Bernadette that constitutes the foundation for all later accounts and thereby defines Lourdes
literature as a genre. As I focus on the canon of Lourdes literature – primarily Henri
Lasserre’s historical account and Doctor Boissarie’s medical history – I will show that
Lourdes literature borrows from the practice of Salpêtrière case studies and argue that, at
191
Lourdes, medicine and religion also collide around the issue of storytelling and narrative
strategies. Hence, as Lourdes offers an opportunity for a new type of medical case studies, I
propose to question the practice of writing about the suffering body and its physical
symptoms in a context particularly concerned with the spiritual (or psychological)
experience. Of particular interest in this context is the question of gender and specifically the
fact that, though still dominated by women’s cases, men also get cured at Lourdes. In
addition, while the Salpêtrière-type case studies paint a particularly grim portrait of sick
women, the Lourdes case studies – in spite of the abundance of gruesome details they
include – are nonetheless encouraging. Thus, Lourdes offers a new space of hope and happy
endings.

I - The Sanctuary’s Conflicted Genesis

The story of how the sanctuary came into being illustrates the complexity of France’s
late nineteenth-century political landscape. In addition to the well-documented tensions
between Catholics and Republicans during the advent of a secular French state, the Catholic
Church encompasses a wide range of theological and social opinions. These social debates
and tensions are particularly palpable at Lourdes in the dual and conflicting handling of the
1858 events by the bishop and the prefect. While the disagreements between the Catholic
authorities and the state are documented, the nuances of the Catholic response are
purposefully absent from the official story, which carefully shows the unified support of the
Catholic Church. Yet, these tensions reveal that doctrinal questions were actually marginal in
light of broader social considerations.

192
A) Catholic Guerres Intestines and Political Tensions

In its barest version, the Lourdes ur-story goes something like this: in an isolated
Pyrenean town, a young, sickly, and illiterate shepherdess named Bernadette was the only
witness of a series of apparitions of the Virgin Mary. Though skeptical at first, the local
Catholic hierarchy accepted the apparitions once the Virgin had identified Herself to
Bernadette as the Immaculate Conception, a newly adopted doctrinal term that the young
girl could not have possibly been familiar with. Within days of the first apparition, often
spectacular miraculous cures started taking place at the site and, after a chapel was built at
the Virgin’s request, the city soon became a renowned site of pilgrimage.
However, this official version of events fails to take into account the numerous
conflicts, tensions, dissensions and oppositions that have marked the sanctuary’s history
from its very inception. From the Church’s initial resistance to Bernadette’s account to her
exile in Nevers, the making of the shrine was particularly complicated and revealed the
cracks in the official narrative.

a) Claiming the Shrine

A brief revised history of the events of 1858 allows for a different story to emerge, a
story emblematic of the time’s tensions. The first difference to note is the extent of the
skepticism and hostility faced by Bernadette: within less than two weeks of the first
apparition, Bernadette’s story had already caused quite a stir in the village and, perceived as
potentially disruptive to public order, she had been interrogated by Commissaire Jacomet.
To take the measure of Bernadette’s potential threat to law and order, it is important to note
the exponential increase in the number of people accompanying her to the Grotto. On
February 25, the day of the ninth apparition, the crowd was already 350 people strong. By
193
February 28
th
it was 1,000, and it continued to grow up to 7,000 on March 4, mostly
comprised of women and the poor. It is only after the sixteenth apparition (out of eighteen),
when the vision presented herself as the Immaculate Conception, that Bernadette started to
be taken seriously by the authorities. On February 22, Bernadette had already reached out to
the Church for the first time: she consulted Abbé Pomian, a local aumonier, seeking advice
about her moral quandary: she had promised the apparition to come to the Grotto every day
for fifteen days but in doing so, she was disobeying her parents.
Harris traces the interest of Abbé Peyramale – the parish priest –in that seminal
moment in the case: “After the girl in white named herself as the Immaculate Conception,
Pomian sent her directly to his superior, an indication of how seriously he took her reports.
In acting thus he showed the ambivalence of nineteenth-century clergymen, who were wary
of impostors and frauds but also on the alert for a miracle to defy the skepticism of the
age.”
300

The apparitions must have seemed particularly providential for Abbé Peyramale: long
before the events – when Lourdes was still an unknown and isolated mountain town – he
had been planning to renovate and expand the parish’s Church and had struggled to fund his
project. The apparitions, and the enthusiasm they quickly generated, tremendously increased
Lourdes’s visibility, hence leading to Abbé Peyramale to expect an outpouring of support for
his project. But instead, the apparitions and their aftermath crystallized already existing
tensions and made evident the budding territorial battles that soon plagued the sanctuary
city. Tasked with organizing the first official pilgrimage in 1862, Peyramale was also in
charge of building the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception, the chapel requested by the
Virgin and the first of three churches to be built adjacent to the Grotto, which was

300
Harris, Lourdes: Body and Spirit in the Secular Age, 151.
194
consecrated in 1871. Yet, while the Lourdes shrine flourished and became a beacon for
Catholics across France, the parish Church remained neglected, illustrating the scission
between extraordinary spirituality and ordinary worship. Indeed, the parish would soon lose
the responsibility for the sanctuary which would be re-assigned to the diocese; in 1866,
Monseigneur Laurence, Bishop of Tarbes, “asked the missionaries of Notre-Dame de
Garaison to take over the administration of the shrine,”
301
and this change in jurisdiction is
to blame for the increasingly visible discrepancy between the two Lourdes: the opulent and
fast-expanding sanctuary city, and the parish itself, out of the spotlight, abandoned and
derelict. Zola eloquently addressed this contrast: the old Church appears all the more derelict
against the ever-expanding business of piety and the commodification of faith he witnessed
in Lourdes.
1866 was also the year when Bernadette left – or rather was sent away from – Lourdes
to join the order of the Sisters of Charity in Nevers. One of the most common
misconceptions about Lourdes might be the place afforded to Bernadette after the
apparitions: far from being a revered figure, she appears more as thorn in the Church’s side
as she distracted the pilgrims from true devotion. Bernadette’s departure is an opportunity
for devotion at Lourdes to move away from a cult of Bernadette and toward a church-
approved practice, thereby initiating an institutional devotion. According to Kaufman:
“These early efforts to institutionalize popular worship at Lourdes followed a long-standing
pattern in which clerical authorities sought to eradicate or at least to domesticate the
grassroots devotions that emerged at shrines.”
302
In particular, “what stood out during this
early period in the life of the shrine was the bishop’s ongoing efforts to impose a sense of

301
Suzanne K. Kaufman, Consuming Visions: Mass Culture and the Lourdes Shrine (Ithaca, Cornell
University Press, 2005), 21.
302
Ibid., 21.
195
Catholic orthodoxy on often-heterogeneous rituals and pilgrimage practices.”
303
Hence, while
central to the very existence of the sanctuary, Bernadette is nevertheless isolated in an
attempt to give the Church better control over popular fervor.
Similarly, Abbé Peyramale, Bernadette’s original ally, was also pushed aside, while the
newly appointed Fathers of the Grotto were instrumental in the sanctuary’s expansion.
Indeed, by connecting the shrine to the emergent railway system, they exponentially
increased its accessibility, opening the way for a business of pilgrimage and piety. Thus, there
is a discrepancy between Lourdes’s official narrative and the course of events: while the
narrative reveres the young visionary and the bon curé, both were actually isolated for the
institutional benefit of the Church.
However, these Catholic intrigues offer only a partial perspective on the events since
Lourdes was also a stage, and a stake, in the troubled relationship between the Church and
Louis Napoléon’s Second Empire.

b) The Prefect vs. the Bishop

Even before the last apparition, the shrine was perceived as a threat to public order,
both by diocesian and secular authorities. Harris explains that, “After the naming of the
apparition as the Immaculate Conception on 25 March, the poor began to make a chapel at
the Grotto. This spontaneous and unauthorized nature-shrine, primarily decorated in April,
both irritated the clergy and prompted rigorous official action to maintain public order.”
304

Early on, the apparitions were handled jointly by Church and state power because they were
perceived as a potential danger to both Catholic orthodoxy and to law and order. Yet, the

303
Ibid., 20.
304
Harris, Lourdes: Body and Spirit in the Secular Age, 83.
196
events soon illustrate the widening gap between the two authorities as the apparitions go
from heterodox to orthodox. Indeed, while the Bishop soon accepts the authenticity of the
apparitions, the prefect remains skeptical and continues to fight them, leading to a falling out
between the two former friends. Harris describes in detail the tensions between the prefect
and the bishop:
Massy was a well-respected member of the prefectoral corps, a man of
sincere religious convictions who had long been friends with Mgr Laurence.
Until the apparitions the prefect and the bishop had lived in almost perfect
harmony. For these reasons Massy seemed at first glance an unlikely
persecutor, but he was convinced that firmness was needed to safeguard
‘true’ religion from the damaging onslaught of popular ‘superstition’ that
Bernadette’s claims threatened to unleash. He undoubtedly anticipated that
Laurence would take the same line, and felt betrayed when the bishop,
through the Episcopal Commission of Inquiry he set up, began to take the
apparitions seriously. Their friendship never recovered, and, in the ensuing
battle over how to react, Massy – supposedly the embodiment of imperial
authority whose word could scarcely be challenged – was outmaneuvered,
disregarded and finally forced out, his reputation in tatters.
In essence, this remarkable defeat was the product of a coincidence of
interests between the Lourdais themselves, a new Catholic constituency, and
the way Louis Napoleon’s immediate political needs translated into regional
policy.
305

In this context, what is particularly telling about the Lourdes events is that they counter-
intuitively illustrate the influence of a still powerful Catholic Church. While nineteenth-
century French politics is remembered as a crucial moment in the advent of secularism,
Lourdes presents a lesser-known reality where Catholicism remains a force to be reckoned
with. In particular, as Harris observes:
The Lourdes affair shows an important, if unusual increase of diocesan
power at the expense of the prefect and, hence, of the secular arm of
imperial administration. After considerable wrangling, Massy was forced out
and transferred to another post, an illustration of the way that religious
authority, commonly deemed to be losing ground in temporal affairs in
nineteenth-century France, could in the right circumstances show its still

305
Ibid., 111.
197
considerable mettle.
306

Thus, Lourdes illustrates the fragility of state power when faced with such a populaire event:
imperial power retreated under the Church’s pressure. Yet, Lourdes also illustrates the
Emperor’s ability to adapt to a changing environment. Indeed, Louis-Napoléon’s
hierarchical, authoritarian, and centralized power turned out to be quite flexible and
opportunistic. Harris explains the role played by the shrine in the largest context of Louis-
Naopléon’s popularity:
There was no obvious reason for Louis Napoléon to support the shrine, but
timing and political events, perhaps, made it prudent, for the apparitions
came during an uncertain period when his regime needed the support of the
Church. The previous year had ended with elections that produced
widespread abstentions and republican inroads in the big cities. This setback
was followed by the Orsini assassination attempt, when the Emperor and
Empress were nearly killed by a bomb. Aimed at hastening Italian unification
by sparking turmoil in France, the attack resulted in a wave of repression
against the leftists and an increased reliance on the political and religious
right.
307

Lourdes is therefore a political conundrum: it both illustrates the oppositions and tensions
between Church and State but also their possible cohabitation, or at least the possibility for
both entities to use the other. In particular, the increasing visibility and sensationalism of
miracles provide the Church with a renewed influence, an influence that also reinforces the
powers of Louis-Napoléon’s Empire. As the Emperor relies more and more on the right,
miracle-enthusiast Catholics become a group easy to charm and conquer. In addition, at a
time when the church’s power is perceived as diminishing, Lourdes provides proof of its
vitality and tenacity. Thus, Lourdes blurs late nineteenth-century political lines and resists
any attempts to be simply (and simplistically) narrated.

306
Ibid., 132.
307
Ibid., 134.
198

c) Louis Veuillot and the Role of the Catholic Press

The religious right wooed by the Emperor is best represented by Louis Veuillot, a
prominent Catholic journalist for L’Univers, the leading Ultra paper, whose fervent reporting
about Lourdes had largely contributed to the shrine’s popularity, with the result that he
would become one of the key players in its history.
According to Ruth Harris, two important visits to Lourdes in the summer of 1858
played a key role in its popularization. First, Amirale Bruat, governess of the Emperor’s son,
found herself in Lourdes at the time of the apparitions. Quite taken by the events, her
enthusiasm for Lourdes conferred on the apparitions greater visibility and respectability.
Second, Veuillot also visited the region in the summer of 1858. He too was impressed by
Bernadette and the apparitions and used his newspaper to promote and popularize the
events. Harris writes:
Without the intervention of two factors from the outside world – the
polemical skill of the Catholic political activist Louis Veuillot, and the
apparent support of the Empress Eugénie in the person of Amirale Bruat,
her son’s governess – the battle between the Lourdais and the authorities
might have remained a purely local matter. In apparently serendipitous visits
in the summer of 1858, both these outsiders came to the town, defied the
authorities and crossed the barriers to pray at the Grotto.
308

Veuillot’s involvement was particularly meaningful since L’Univers benefited from a large
following and as such could shape public opinion. Harris continues, “By dismissing modern
science and thought, the editors of L’Univers asserted their Christian faith and reassured the
parish clergy that they need not be discomfited by their ignorance of new intellectual trends.
All over France men like Peyramale read the newspaper, finding in it confirmation of their

308
Ibid., 110.
199
political views and often inadequate theoretical musings.”
309
Both serendipitous visits to
Lourdes do not fit in the sanctuary ur-story, yet they are crucial to understanding how
Lourdes, a remote mountain village, could become a public sensation within just a few
months. Far from being anecdotal, these two visits show that a complex web of influences
was at play in giving birth to the shrine.
Thanks to Veuillot and his ultramontaniste newspaper “By the autumn of 1858 few
literate French had not heard of Lourdes,”
310
opening the way for the fast growing business
of piety.

d) The Commodification of Faith

One of the effects of Veuillot’s enthusiasm for the shrine was the fast development of
a religious tourism. Even before the first pilgrimage organized by Peyramale in 1862,
hundreds of hopeful pilgrims had already started making the trip to Lourdes, so much so
that soon the city’s only activity revolved around the shrine.
The economic development of Lourdes provides yet another – much criticized - angle
to view the complex web of tensions and allegiances that animate the main stakeholders.
The town’s economic investment in the shrine is indeed one of the most criticized aspects of
the events and writers as doctrinally different as Zola and Huysmans share a horror of
Lourdes’s mercantilism. Hence, removed from doctrinal issues, this criticism of Lourdes’s
faith tourism actually unites people across “party lines,” thereby offering an opportunity to
witness the diversity of opinions and affiliations prompted by the shrine: both Zola and
Huysmans can attack the business of faith in unison while disagreeing on just about

309
Ibid., 120.
310
Ibid., 128.
200
everything else. Ironically, when critics or skeptics, such as Zola, travel to Lourdes as part of
their research, they have no other choice but to support the new local tourism industry,
thereby participating in a phenomenon they so vehemently criticize.
The criticism of the commodification of faith illustrates the unexpected convergence
between some Lourdes skeptics and believers. Similarly, dissident voices can be heard within
the Catholic community. For instance, Félix Lacaze, a skeptical Catholic journalist critical of
L’Univers, gives voice to moderate Catholics and skeptics and illustrates the divided loyalties
the Lourdes events cultivated. Far from dividing society along religious or political lines,
Lourdes remained a divisive question that continually split loyalties and resisted any
restrictive categorization.

B) Felix Lacaze’s Pour le Vrai, À Lourdes avec Zola (1894), the Skeptical
Catholic’s Companion Guide to Zola’s Lourdes.

Journalist Felix Lacaze’s text about Lourdes is exemplary of both the tensions that run
through Catholicism at the end of the nineteenth century and the complexities of opinions
and beliefs about Lourdes itself within the Catholic community.
311
Indeed, not all Catholics
adhered to belief in the shrine or felt represented by L’Univers, Veuillot’s ultra newspaper,
and the more extreme Catholic press. In particular, since Lourdes brings to the forefront a
cluster of social, cultural, and religious issues, it prompts a wide array of responses caused by
complex and divided allegiances. Part testimony about his own experience at Lourdes, part

311
Felix Lacaze, Pour le Vrai, À Lourdes avec Zola, Parallèle au Roman de Zola (Dentu : Paris,
1894). Though he is referenced in Zola’s diary Voyage à Lourdes, there is very little
biographical information available about Lacaze. Zola only mentions off-handedly a
conversation he had with Lacaze, a conversation that mentioned sorcerers. However, the
fact that Lacaze was able to secure a preface by both Bernheim and Charcot (or at least that
he had had access to Charcot) leads us to believe that he must have been a fairly prominent
journalist at the time.
201
critique of the various stakeholders’s claims on the shrine and part analysis of the events,
Lacaze’s text is a hybrid document that illustrates the complexity (and confusion) of thought
surrounding Lourdes.
Lacaze aims at capitalizing on Zola’s reputation by framing the text from its very title
as an account of Zola’s visit to Lourdes. He particularly emphasizes the fact that his text was
written and published before the serialized publication of Zola’s Lourdes, but after – and
partly based on – his visit to the sanctuary city. As he witnessed the great writer’s trip to
Lourdes, and as Lourdes had not yet been published, Lacaze effectively banks on readers’
anticipation of the novel as he emphasizes his own position as Zola’s unofficial
spokesperson.

a) The Art of Name-dropping and Conflicting Endorsements

From its very title – Pour le Vrai – Lacaze’s volume promises an ambitious – if
impossible – endeavor: to investigate and uncover the truth about Lourdes. But Lacaze’s
circumvoluted path to reaching his goal actually obscures his mission since his webs of
influence are hard to trace and untangle.
His book opens with a short but emphatic dedication to Pope Leo XIII entitled “Vers
Rome.” This pope’s predecessor, Pius IX, had officially adopted the dogma of the
Immaculate Conception of Mary and Leo XIII followed in his footsteps in his Marian
devotion. Though a dedication to the pope is not in and of itself surprising in the context of
a treaty about a Catholic shrine by a Catholic writer, it nonetheless stands out in light of the
double preface immediately following. Indeed, inscribing his project under multiple (and
possibly conflicting) seals of approval, Lacaze had sought out both Bernheim’s and
Charcot’s endorsements. Hence, Lacaze’s text stands at the intersection of two distinct sets
202
of conflicts: first, the conflict between religion and science and, second, the contemporary
debate over divergent understandings of the mind/body relationship. By attempting to
reconcile Charcot and Bernheim around the question of the Lourdes events, Lacaze
explicitly conjures up the specter of hysteria.
In addition, Lacaze’s conflicting influences are further complicated by the fact that
Charcot’s preface is actually only posthumously attributed to the great neurologist. Indeed,
under “Le mot de la science, L’école de la Salpêtrière,” it is actually Lacaze himself who
attempts to channel Charcot. He relates his last visit with Charcot at his Neuilly house on
July 30, 1893, during which the famous doctor had promised to preface his text. But his
untimely death – on August 16, 1893 – prevented him from honoring his promise, and
“forced” Lacaze to write in his name. Yet, Lacaze’s Salpêtrièrian preface seems more like
wishful thinking as he writes: “J’aurais aimé que les chefs de nos deux écoles, de la
Salpêtrière et de Nancy, se rencontrassent d’accord ici sur la question de Lourdes, eux qui,
sur d’autres points, furent de fermes mais honnêtes antagonistes.”
312
By posthumously
echoing the two schools’ disagreements Lacaze endeavors to be the one to initiate a
reconciliation around the – usually divisive but in this case uniting – question of Lourdes.
Lacaze asserts that “comme Bernheim, Charcot a toujours considéré Lourdes un efficace
moyen curateur chez certains, — moyen puissant, merveilleux, mais naturel,
scientifiquement, humainement explicable.”
313
Channeling Charcot, Lacaze quotes him as
saying:
Vous, catholique convaincu, dites donc aux catholiques de ne pas
prétendre à un surnaturel qui n'est qu'un naturel, curateur et sauveur
quand il s'exerce chez certains tempéraments influençables. Si j'étais
croyant, j'espérerais les convaincre. Vous qui croyez, apprenez-leur à ne

312
Lacaze, À Lourdes avec Zola, ix.
313
Ibid., x.
203
point rendre leur foi idolâtre et superstitieuse.
314

In this alleged quote, Charcot both debunks supernatural phenomena and acknowledges the
existence of a genuine, superstition-free faith. But, Charcot does not explain how faith and
superstition can even be separated. This rational faith echoes the healing faith that he had
previously described and faith in the physician appears as the only possible faith Charcot
approves of. However, he never addresses the fact that, to the extent that it also relies on
belief and absolute trust, faith in the great physician is very much akin to the Catholic faith
he so denigrated.
Bernheim’s preface is more nuanced.
315
It is rooted in his factual observations about
healing in Lourdes and, after evoking case studies he had previously written about, he
summarizes his analysis as follows: “les faits existent; l’interprétation est erronnée,”
316

thereby placing the burden on scientists to make sense of the Lourdes events. In a sense, he
echoes Charcot’s pronouncement that faith healing can happen for impressionable
individuals: there is no denying the facts themselves, but doctors need to provide an
explanation of the healing process. However, Bernheim also offers a more nuanced position,
respectful of the religious mystery. He writes:
Qu'importe après tout? La prière qui émane d'un cœur pur, à Lourdes ou
ailleurs, l'idée religieuse qui, dégagée de tout intérêt matériel, embrase une
âme pieuse, de même que toute aspiration de l'être humain vers un idéal
céleste, ou vers un inconnu sublime qui se dérobe et nous étreint; devant
tout cela, je m'incline, n'étant pas de ces matérialistes à outrance, qui
dessèchent l'âme, en tarissant la source de l'idéal: car l'âme a soif d'idéal.
317

Here Bernheim adopts Charcot’s idea that faith (or as he calls it “l’idée religieuse") has a

314
Ibid., x.
315
I should note that one critical page of Bernheim’s preface is missing from all available
digitized copies of Lacaze’s text.
316
Ibid., xi.
317
Ibid., xiv.
204
healing effect, but that this healing is not necessarily spiritual: faith healing can certainly
happen in Lourdes, but it can also happen elsewhere (i.e. hospitals and doctors’ offices),
thereby reaffirming the healing powers of suggestion. Nevertheless, a particular disposition
of the mind, “une âme pieuse,” seems to be a pre-requisite for a successful healing, thereby
linking faith and impressionability.
However, even accepting the possibility of religious healing suggests that Bernheim
attempts to reconcile the materialism of late nineteenth-century medicine with religious
mystery.
Lacaze’s text’s triple affiliations and endorsements – the Pope, Charcot and Bernheim
– exemplify its ambivalence from the very beginning. A devout Catholic himself, Lacaze
appears both reverent toward the Pope but also accepting of the authority of Bernheim and
Charcot. Consequently, his perspective is at once disorienting and emblematic of the chaos
brought on by the Lourdes events, and it illustrates the difficulty of remaining loyal and
consistent when one’s allegiances are so deeply divided.
By attempting to write a balanced account that reconciles the major cultural ruptures
of the late nineteenth century, Lacaze ends up delivering an ambiguous text that brings to
light the contradictions of the era, while it also exemplifies the general ambivalence towards
the Lourdes events. His own ambivalence is evident when, in his first chapter, he evokes an
encounter with the Bishop of Tours that framed his truth-finding mission. His grandiloquent
religious and social credo, “Pour Dieu, pour la Foi, pour la Justice et pour la Vérité, que la
Science a la noble mission terrestre de préciser, de soutenir et de confirmer par
l’expérimentation de son propre pouvoir et de facultés qui lui sont supérieurement
205
concédées,”
318
makes his conflicted allegiances apparent. But it also opens the way for the
possible instrumentalization of science to benefit and support religion’s goals, thereby
further illustrating the extent of science and religion’s entanglement.

b) Criticizing the Use of the Scientific Method

Lacaze’s text is a hybrid: part testimony of his own visit to Lourdes, part opinion, part
analysis, it is deeply rooted in his personal experience at Lourdes, as well as his own set of
beliefs, and it is greatly influenced by contemporary debates. Paradoxically, though he claims
to search for the truth, his text can hardly be considered impartial or scientific. In fact, often
resembling a kind of logorrhea, his analysis appears both disjointed and focused on
“querelles de clochers” often too obscure for the contemporary reader to grasp.
Yet, Lacaze’s perspective remains valuable to the extent that it is symptomatic of the
confusion brought out by Lourdes and, even his most unarticulated opinions are meaningful
as they are emblematic of the ambivalence prompted by Lourdes and illustrate the difficulty
of adopting a coherent opinion on the subject.
Therefore, Lacaze’s approach is paradoxically both unique and exemplary of the
diversity of opinions brought up by Lourdes. His opinion on the role of science in the
evaluation of Lourdes’s miracle is counter-intuitively nuanced: far from being a Catholic’s
indictment of scientism, it is rather an argument in favor of a better use of science at the
sanctuary. Using the intellectual authority of both Charcot and Bernheim, Lacaze admits
that, while healing does happen in Lourdes, it is not to be considered miraculous. He writes:
J'ai dit l'opinion de Charcot, qui est celle de tous les hommes de science,
quelle que soit, d'ailleurs, leur École. Ainsi, par exemple, son célèbre
contradicteur, le docteur Bernheim, se trouve, sur cette question,

318
Ibid., 4.
206
absolument d'accord avec le Maître de la Salpêtrière. Le Chef tant connu
de l'École de Nancy me disait, lui aussi, qu'à coup sûr il y a des guérisons à
Lourdes; mais que ces guérisons ne constituent point des miracles, car
beaucoup d'observations leur sont communes avec celles des résultats
obtenus par la thérapeutique suggestive. De ces guérisons qui semblent des
miracles, Charcot en a fait, Bernheim en fait encore. Et ces résultats
merveilleux passant de bouches en bouches, même entre médecins,
prennent souvent les allures d'un vrai prodige surnaturel, alors que leurs
bienfaisants auteurs en expliquent très clairement la nature physiologique
ou psychologique. Mais ce que jamais savant ne pourra obtenir, c'est de
faire repousser un membre, ni même guérir immédiatement une fracture
ou une plaie apparente.
319

Here again, one of Lacaze’s greatest accomplishments is to seemingly reconcile Charcot and
Bernheim on the question of miracles. He particularly echoes Charcot’s point in La Foi qui
Guérit that miracles are not religious events, but rather therapeutic outcomes generated by a
patient/healer relationship. Along the same lines, Lacaze evokes Bernheim’s opinion that
there are miracles in Lourdes but they are not actually miracles.
320
Bernheim’s argument
highlights the fact that the question of healing gets contaminated by a semantic debate about
true miracles and what they are or are not. Essentially, the question of the definition of
miracles plays a great role in obscuring the discussion. Cases of healing prompted by
suggestion may therefore look like miracles to the untrained eye, but Lacaze suggests that
doctors can demystify healings. Hence, in some ways agreeing, or disagreeing, about miracles
had more to do with language itself. Lacaze uses the example of a severed limb growing back
as the most obvious example of what an indisputable miracle would be. But severed limbs
do not grow back at the Salpêtrière or at Lourdes. The same example had already been used
by Charcot in The Healing Faith to illustrate the impossibility of true miracles. Therefore, by
strictly defining miracles in this way, Charcot explicitly dismisses all other types of
inexplicable healings as frauds. However, the rest of Lacaze’s examples, concerning the

319
Ibid., 179.
320
Ibid., 179.
207
immediate mending of a fracture or the healing of a wound, echoes some of Lourdes cases.
Thus, Lacaze once again cultivates an ambivalent stance: while Lourdes does not allow limbs
to grow back, it does, on occasion, heal fractures and wounds.
Nevertheless, Lacaze navigates a fine line between dismissing some miracles as frauds
and accepting the possibility of some truly miraculous cases. Whereas publications such as
L’Univers appear to discredit the use of science at Lourdes altogether, Lacaze understands
and explains the role that science can play to further the cause of the sanctuary. He
particularly argues for a methodological shift in the handling of cases, a shift that would
allow scientists to access the truth of miracles. Alongside Zola, he demands better record-
keeping of pilgrims’ ailments, so their progress could be monitored as objectively as possible.
Such a system would help ensure that there is one unified and trustworthy process in place.
In particular, he requests that diseases be documented as soon as the pilgrims arrive in
Lourdes.
II y a les maladies internes. Zola les craint plus difficiles à constater et croit
leur amélioration ou leur guérison moins apte à l'évidence absolue —
apparente et tangible. Néanmoins, il y aurait même pour elles un mode de
constatation plus sérieux et plus inattaquable à inaugurer. Je le vais dire
ensuite. Il y a donc aussi les maladies qu'on voit: les plaies apparentes. Eh
bien il faudrait créer, à l'hôpital par exemple, une salle affectée à ces maladies
spéciales. Il faudrait constituer une commission, me spécifie Zola, qui fût
chargée de constater de visu l'état de chaque malade. Cette commission serait
composée de gens connus et estimés, et on y donnerait une très large place,
sinon la majorité, aux incrédules et aux libres-penseurs. Gens honnêtes et de
bonne foi, tous, certainement, observeraient avec scrupule, et ils signeraient
au bas du certificat de constatation. On aurait soin de photographier
instantanément la plaie; l'immersion aurait lieu, et la même commission
prendrait, avec la nouvelle photographie de la plaie ou de l'espace qu'elle
occupait, vue et constat encore de l'état nouveau du malade. De cette façon,
insiste Zola, ce serait l'investigation mise au service direct de la constatation
devenue irréfutable.
321

Lacaze advocates for the constant incursion of science in the sanctuary: such a recourse

321
Ibid., 133.
208
would help identify the few true miracles. Hence Lacaze’s position is ambiguous: as a
believer he agrees that there must be a few true miracles lost in the multitude of poorly
documented cases, but, as a skeptic, he wants a systematic process in place. In addition, the
implementation of an improved process appears as a strategic suggestion since it would put
an end to the debates, thereby ensuring that the Lourdes cures are above reproach.
Moreover, as he appropriates Zola’s own recommendations to make the
“constatation” process more transparent and meaningful, Lacaze implies that the current
process is anything but. This criticism is particularly aimed at Doctor Boissarie, the head of
the Bureau des Constatations Médicales (Lourdes Medical Bureau), the target of Lacaze’s
most virulent critique. Boissarie had indeed been particularly critical of Zola’s position,
insisting that the latter wasn’t equipped to judge the scientific value of miracles since he
wasn’t a medical doctor. But Lacaze’s approach suggests that he believes that many Lourdes
miracles are only considered such as a result of a flawed methodology. Consequently,
Lourdes places the skeptical believer in a bit of a spiritual quandary and Lacaze summarizes
Lourdes’s conflicting injunction as follows:
Admettez Lourdes, ses apparitions et ses miracles; et vous y avez la Foi.
Reconnaissez les guérisons de Lourdes, sans les déclarer miraculeuses; et
vous n'y êtes pas catholique. Tel est l'ultimatum tombé du couvent de
Garaison. Croyez à Lourdes, et tout vous sera donné par surcroît, quant à la
Foi. Que dis-je? entêtez-vous à défendre le miraculeux de Lourdes, sans
expliquer ni pourquoi ni comment il s'y produit, laisserez impunément tout le
reste.
322

In other words, according to Lacaze, les pères de Garaison – the official guardians of the
sanctuary – do not accept lukewarm endorsements: believing in Lourdes is an act of faith
and as such it does not tolerate doubt. Ultimately, Lacaze’s opinion illustrates the tyranny
Lourdes represents over the Catholic imagination as the opinion about the sanctuary city and

322
Ibid., 40.
209
its events had become a measure of faith and devotion. His own personal testimony reveals
his ambivalence toward the Shrine:
Quant à moi, qui dois satisfaire ma conscience chrétienne en ne tolérant
comme acceptable, pour expliquer le Lourdes actuel, que ce qui sera prouvé
surnaturel et divin, je demande alors qu’on crée des autels et des piscines
profanes, où l’on stimulera chez les malades la foi qui guérit. Mais pour la
doctrine du Christ, non, non pas de médecine dans le sanctuaire ni de
vendeurs de guérisons à la porte et jusqu’au parvis du temple.
323

Through the oxymoron of the “autel profane,” Lacaze admits that he believes in the healing
faith, and understands it as a process that does not necessarily have to be understood
religiously. These secular altars and pools would only differ from the ones already in
existence at Lourdes in that they would not appeal to religious faith, but rather to the faith as
described by Charcot. Lacaze concludes that religious sanctuaries should be free from the
invasion of science, thereby admitting the irreconciability of religious faith and medicine. By
evoking the episode of Jesus expelling the money changers from the Temple, Lacaze agrees
with Zola’s criticism of Lourdes’s mercantilism. Essentially, he advocates for a new
geography of faith. At Lourdes, the sanctuary’s purity and integrity should be preserved and
the doctors should keep their distance.
Nevertheless, Lacaze finds himself supporting seemingly paradoxical positions: he asks
for the generalization of secular healing-faith therapeutic practices but refuses, after having
advocated for the development of a more scientific process, medicine’s foray into the shrine.
Even if Lacaze’s recommendation concerning the irreconciability of faith and medicine is
mostly geographic, his position still ends in an aporia: his attempt to unify and reconcile
conflicting perspectives seems to conclude with an even larger antagonism.
Lacaze’s text is an example of the literary proliferation generated by the Lourdes

323
Ibid., 207.
210
events. Often hard to follow, hesitant about his theoretical position, and immersed in some
petty contemporary debates, À Lourdes avec Zola is a minor text that nonetheless illuminates
the tensions and conflicted allegiances the Lourdes question prompted. As he exposes the
multiple disputes and disagreements that shook the sanctuary city, he also exemplifies the
challenges posed to Catholics wanting to wholeheartedly embrace Lourdes. Unique in its
attempts to fit into complex and conflicting genealogies, Lacaze’s text is still part of the
emergent genre of Lourdes literature. While it is not part of the Lourdes canon itself, it is
representative of a more marginal yet still prolific production that invades the fin de siècle.
As a skeptical Catholic trying to make sense of the Lourdes events, Lacaze finds
himself in an untenable position and his text perfectly illustrates the sanctuary’s conflicted
genesis and the pervasive political tensions that went with it. Lacaze himself is the
embodiement of how split loyalties result in intellectual confusion and constant ambivalence.
Though a minor text, À Lourdes avec Zola is emblematic of Lourdes literature as a genre: it is
not part of the canon of Lourdes’s founding texts, but it still occupies a space at the margin
and illustrates both the diversity of texts about Lourdes, their abundance but also their
similarities. In particular, Lacaze complies with the genre’s most critical requirement: the
inclusion of Bernadette’s story. Indeed, as Lourdes literature is defined by its origin story,
each text about the shrine starts with its own version of the visionary’s story and, as a result,
the genre is both formulaic and repetitive. Yet, in the small differences between various
versions, cracks emerge that show the fundamental instability of Lourdes narratives.

II- Writing Lourdes: Devising an Official Narrative

Lacaze is only one example of the plethora of books that take Lourdes for their object
in the late nineteenth century. Through Lacaze’s example, Lourdes literature appears as a
211
very formulaic –and often redundant – genre. Essentially, Lourdes literature is a hybrid genre
at the intersection of historical accounts, hagiography, medical literature and, sometimes,
fiction.
In her sociological study of the Lourdes phenomenon, Laëticia Orgozelec-Guinchard
acknowledges the proliferation of formulaic texts about Lourdes:
Dans une perspective scientifique, on ne peut se contenter de reproduire les
innombrables “Histoires de Lourdes” relatant les visions et les guérisons
marquant le devenir du sanctuaire. En effet, charriant le même cortège de
personnages archétypiques et de poncifs, ces récits semblent fonctionner
comme les variations superficielles d’un veritable système mythique: “en
1858, dans un village des Pyrénées, la Vierge apparaît à une petite bergère,
pauvre et ignorante…” Ainsi, il suffit de prononcer ce nom si célèbre de
‘Bernadette Soubirous” pour voir s’associer une série de motifs devenus lieux
communs: la Grotte, la Vierge, la source miraculeuse et les guérisons…
Cette histoire a cessé d’être une “affaire” pour devenir, en quelque sorte,
une “boîte noire” désormais “non questionnée” comme le disent certains
sociologues à propos des objets qui sont simplement là et qui s’imposent à
notre habitude. Mais, de même que la musique canalise et organise le chaos
sonore, ce qui semble aujourd’hui harmonieux et presque atemporel fut
marqué par un temps de querelles, de turbulences et d’incertitudes.
324

Orgozelec-Guinchard concludes that there is “une histoire de l’histoire de Lourdes”
and it is this story that I will now explore.
325
I will show here how, in the decades following
the apparitions, a new, highly populaire literary genre emerged. Lourdes literature
encompasses a wide range of non-fiction texts – from historical accounts to healing
narratives and opinion pieces – that share three crucial characteristics, all of them particularly
palpable in Lacaze’s text: it surveys the preceding literature about Lourdes and it offers a
discussion – and an opinion – about miracles. Last but not least, it includes a retelling of
Bernadette’s biography.
The retelling of Bernadette’s story is a mandatory component of all literature about

324
Laëticia Orgozelec-Guinchard, Le Miracle et L’Enquête, les Guérisons Inexpliquées à l’Epreuve de
la Médecine (Paris : Presses Universitaires de France, 2014), 18.
325
Ibid., 18.
212
Lourdes – present dissertation included. This constant repetition conflicts with the perpetual
injunction to start the Lourdes story from scratch, as if every new version carries the hope
that it finally holds the key to its mysteries. But it only provides an illusion of a tabula rasa
since each account builds on the previous ones, providing an interconnected chain of
evidence that endlessly re-works the same source material. Ironically, this attempt at a fresh
start directly echoes the fact that Bernadette’s confessor had referred to her as a tabula rasa.
326

Indeed, the young shepherdess was considered a blank slate, and her innocence and lack of
education became a crucial part of her mystery: why was she – of all people – the chosen
one?
Lourdes literature, whether it emanates from Church authorities or from their critics, is
particularly concerned with the elaboration of a factual, official story. Therefore, each
investigative attempt carefully considers testimonies and other evidence in an effort to
capture the truest version of the story, a version that is, in turn, included in each account.
Even in Lourdes, Zola did not depart from this rule and Pierre read a version of Bernadette’s
story to a wagon full of pilgrims. As the narrative soothes the sick pilgrims, Zola illustrates
the power of storytelling in the Church’s reliance on the masses’ adherence to its new gospel.
Thus, the constant inclusion of Bernadette’s story both signals the cultural importance of
narrative in the Lourdes context and its irreducible instability and vulnerability.
Paradoxically, the narrative is the foundation of a massive liturgical edifice, but it is also
constantly questioned and challenged.

A) Bernadette’s Hagiography: The Perpetual Repetition of an Origin Story.

Every book about Lourdes includes its own version of Bernadette’s story. This

326
Patricia A. McEachern, A Holy Life: The Writings of St. Bernadette (Ignatius Press, 2005), 12.
213
constant repetition serves multiple practical purposes: each textual iteration allows for a
further dissemination of her story, each version creates and then reinforces an official
record, but each version also aims at fixing or modifying seemingly problematic narrative
elements. As such, Lourdes literature is consequently caught in an endless cycle of
contradictory injunctions: on the one hand, faithfulness to an original story and on the other
hand, identification of an elusive true story. Hence, these narratives oscillate between a
desire to be always dynamic and the necessity of remaining static.
Bernadette’s word is therefore both the foundation of the Lourdes events and its most
problematic component. Indeed, her original account has been obscured as it was buried
under layers and layers of subsequent versions. As each version works to pierce the mystery,
the narrative remains unsatisfying and redundant as no new details ever emerge and Lourdes
literature appears as a sterile accumulation of narrative layers. Composed of many quasi-
identical, often redundant, but sometimes contradictory accounts, Lourdes literary tradition
generates a paradox: while it presents Bernadette as the source of truth, it also contributes to
occulting her word. The genre is thereby caught in a self-justifying position: more texts are
required to excavate the truth, yet each text contributes to the opacity. Hence the genre as a
whole is paradoxically justified and questionable. Here, the quest for the story of Bernadette
echoes the Salpêtrière’s search for hysteria. During the disease’s golden age, the proliferation
of clinical research and case studies contributes to extensively documenting hysteria, but it
also dissolves it into an overwhelmingly large corpus. Hence, hysteria research is caught in
the same self-justiying position as the Lourdes origin story, and it essentially provides itself
with the conditions of its own perpetuation.
Though her own unmediated accounts were not published at the time, Bernadette was
a witness to these investigations. As Ruth Harris notes, access to Bernadette becomes a
214
crucial endeavor for her biographers:
This subsidiary struggle over access to Bernadette shows how she too
became embroiled in these disputes, yet lacked the authority to control her
own story, for interviewers noted enthusiastically when she confirmed their
opinions, but claimed she was too tired, or too forgetful, to remember when
she contradicted them. Although they all saw themselves as devotees of her
simplicity, they also seemed to believe that this very quality made her
inadequate for the task of historical reconstruction: she needed to be helped
to express the truth by people wiser than herself.
327

Hence, Bernadette herself is at the center of contradicting reactions since she is
simultaneously venerated for her divine encounter and dismissed as possibly inaccurate. This
ambivalence also echoes the fascination operated by the Salpêtrière’s famous hysterics, at
once revered and despised. As literary attempts to uncover the truth of Bernadette’s story
fail, it appears that she is repeatedly treated as an unreliable narrator of her own story. In
other words, the closest witness to the apparition is also the most easily discredited one, just
as the hysteric is always dispossessed of her own experience.
New narratives repeatedly emerge out of a constant act of re-interpretation of early
available versions. Hence, embedded in the emerging genre of Lourdes literature is the
discipline of Lourdes hermeneutics. While a great significance is bestowed on narratives, the
idea that the solution to the mystery is contained in the story itself comes to the fore. Thus,
the ur-story of Lourdes essentially follows the doctrine of transsubstantiation as it itself
becomes the object of worship and acquires a quasi-divine quality.
This ever-changing, polymorphic origin story is a crucial component of all Lourdes
literature texts, but more particularly of its two founding texts. First, journalist and miraculé
Henri Lasserre, author of the reference book on Lourdes (whom Lacaze referred to as “le

327
Harris, Lourdes: Body and Spirit in the Secular Age, 190.
215
seul historien sérieux de Lourdes”
328
), and Père Cros, a Jesuit scholar, author of an
exhaustive and well-respected (but rarely read) historical account. These two texts, along
with the multiple accounts of the events Bernadette recounted, form the foundation of all
subsequent Lourdes literature.

B) The Founding Texts

Bernadette’s accounts are the foremost source for all subsequent texts about Lourdes
yet they are hard to come by and were not distributed in an unmediated version. Indeed,
since the start of the apparitions Bernadette was subjected to interrogations by police and
clergy and, as such, her word was always mediated and framed or, in other words,
instrumentalized. There is no original written version of Bernadette’s account and her
reported interviews with the Commissaire Jacomet and l’Abbé Peyramale constitute the basis
of all later accounts. A collection of Bernadette’s later correspondence constitutes her only
first-person contribution, though these texts do not provide her version of the events.
329

When Lacaze and Zola published their respective texts in 1893, they joined the
plethora of already existing texts about Lourdes. Early accounts of the events initiated and
permanently marked all subsequent ones. But these founding texts were themselves the
result of laborious and contentious writing processes. Indeed, soon after the 1858
apparitions and amidst the ecclesiastic and political power struggles, another battle emerged
over the recording of the true story of Lourdes. At stake in this effort was the institutional
adoption of a consistent official version. Hence, as the sanctuary city promptly evolved into
a major pilgrimage site, it became crucial to isolate one official, orthodox version and to

328
Lacaze, À Lourdes avec Zola, 218.
329
I have used the previously mentioned collection of texts by Bernadette edited and
presented by Patricia A. McEachern.
216
dismiss any heterodox attempts. In other words, the debates surrounding the adoption of a
narrative betray different – and opposed – ideological stances about what Lourdes was, or
ought to be. In this light, the story itself takes on a particularly crucial importance.
Starting in 1868, the Church started publishing the Annales de Notre-Dame de Lourdes, a
periodical publication dedicated to documenting the life of the sanctuary. Bishop
Monseigneur Laurence explains their purpose:
Nous avons cru, disait l’évêque de Tarbes, que les Annales étaient
nécessaires, et pour l’édification des fidèles, et pour les intérêts matériels
de I’Œuvre. Sans elles, un grand nombre de faits qui se passent à la grotte
demeureraient inconnus, bien qu’ils soient de nature à intéresser les amis
de Notre-Dame de Lourdes, et à augmenter la confiance de tous en la
protection de la Vierge Immaculée.
330

Hence, the creation of the Annales betrays a desire to exhaustively document everything that
happens at the Grotto, as if exhaustivity could hold the key to the mystery. This approach
soon yields massive results: by 1891, twenty-two volumes had already been published,
thereby creating an overwhelming record of daily life in Lourdes. However, while they
include letters from pilgrims and doctors, as well as progress reports on the sanctuary being
built and so on, the Annales do not thoroughly address the origin story of Lourdes. This task
was left to a few writers who endeavored to produce Lourdes’s reference story.
In a chapter entitled “The Battle of the Books,” Ruth Harris addresses the question of
the story’s painful genesis: “At the same time that the sanctuary was being constructed,
another struggle focused on building the history of Lourdes, a battle over whose version of
events constituted the ‘truth’ about the apparitions and their aftermath.”
331
This battle
publicly opposed two widely different versions and approaches to the events. On the one

330
Quoted in Père Léonard-Joseph-Marie Cros, Notre-Dame de Lourdes: Récits et Mystères
(Toulouse et Paris: Privat et Retaux, 1901), 253.
331
Harris, Lourdes: Body and Spirit in the Secular Age, 177.
217
hand, journalist Henri Lasserre, a recent miraculé who had made it his life’s mission to write
the story of Lourdes, produced an early and exhaustive account of the events. But, very
much novel-like, his Notre-Dame de Lourdes takes some creative license with the truth in favor
of a more compelling story-telling. On the other hand, Jesuit Père Léonard Cros put his
meticulous scholarly skills to work in correcting all of Lasserre’s errors in order to produce a
drier, but more factual, rendering of the events. Thus, at stake in Cros’s endeavor was the
integrity of the shrine’s reputation, and a conflict between religious orthodoxy and a more
superstitious, superficial, and fictionalized conception of Catholicism.

a) Henri Lasserre’s Notre-Dame de Lourdes (1868)

In À Lourdes avec Zola, Félix Lacaze had confessed his admiration for Lasserre’s skills as
an historian even though his version of events was highly disputed upon its publication. His
Notre-Dame de Lourdes (1868) both founded Lourdes literature as a genre and preemptively
silenced other versions, in effect making it almost impossible for dissenting versions to
emerge. Indeed, according to Ruth Harris, Lasserre’s account was one of the greatest
bestsellers of the nineteenth century: 142 French editions were published in the first seven
years and it was then translated into eighty languages by 1900.
332

This overwhelming success can be explained by the fact that Lasserre’s text is a unique
hybrid that combines a compelling history of the events, a detailed account of miracles and
his own personal healing testimony. A journalist, Lasserre had experienced a miracle
firsthand in 1862 when he was healed of degenerative blindness by using Lourdes water on
his eyes. This founding event explains both his devotion to the cause of the shrine and his
deeply personal involvement with the story. As he explains in his preface, Notre-Dame de

332
Ibid., 180.
218
Lourdes is the result of a promise he made upon healing, and he justifies the delay in writing
his history – he was healed in 1862 but his Notre-Dame de Lourdes was published in 1868 – by
the exhaustive approach he took. He asserts:
Cette étude j’ai voulu la faire complète. Aussi ne me suis-je contenté ni des
documents officiels, ni des lettres, ni des procès-verbaux, ni des
attestations écrites. J’ai voulu, autant que possible, tout connaître, tout voir
par moi-même, tout faire revivre à mes yeux par le souvenir et le récit de
ceux qui avaient vu. J’ai fait de longs voyage à travers la France pour
interroger tous ceux qui avaient figuré, soit comme personnages
principaux, soit comme témoins, dans les événements que j’avais à
raconter, pour contrôler leurs récits les uns par les autres et parvenir de la
sorte à une entière et lumineuse vérité.
333

By his own admission, Lasserre’s history is to be the most trustworthy and reliable account
of Lourdes and his goal is to “let the truth shine.” His disclosure of his investigative method
lends his endeavor heightened legitimacy and credibility and prepares the reader to read the
true story of Lourdes.
Uniquely legitimate, his Notre-Dame de Lourdes is a compelling account that would play a
key role in promoting the shrine for decades. Kaufman considers that:
Notre-Dame de Lourdes combined an idealized vision of Bernadette’s peasant
religiosity with a novel and compelling story of the power of the miraculous
in the modern age. Lasserre’s book was instrumental in promoting the shrine
to a newly emerging mass audience of readers, though it did so in part by
drawing on an image of Lourdes as an unchanging and exotic Pyrenean
world. This image would soon change.
334

In his travel diary, Zola’s personal opinion of Lasserre is particularly stinging: “un illuminé,
un exalté, orateur, s’emballant, peu organisateur, je crois.”
335
This judgment confirms the idea
Lasserre lacks method, or at least that his research might not be the most objective. In fact,
Lasserre’s skilled storytelling contradicts his truth-finding mission as he endeavors to make

333
Henri Lasserre, Notre-Dame de Lourdes (Paris: Palmé, 1872), vii.
334
Kaufman, Consuming Visions, 25.
335
Emile Zola, Mes Voyages, Lourdes et Rome (Paris : Fasquelle, 1958), 53.
219
Lourdes’ story as compelling as possible. His text reads more as a novel than a journalistic
inquiry: his style tends to embellish reality in favor of a more dramatic effect. His style is
particularly evident as he tells the story of Bernadette’s testimony at the police station. The
dialogue between Bernadette and an officer goes as follows: “-J’ai ordre de vous prendre et
de vous emmener. – Et où? – Chez le Commissaire de Police. Suivez-moi.”
336
Ending a
chapter on such a dramatic cliffhanger illustrates Lasserre’s skills and helps explain the
popular success of his Notre-Dame de Lourdes.
One chapter later, Lasserre offers this description of Commissaire Jacomet: “L’homme
très intelligent qui allait interroger Bernadette se sentait assuré d’un facile triomphe, et il s’en
était à l’avance hautement réjoui.”
337
This particular example shows that Lasserre proceeds to
narrate the events as an omniscient narrator. He does not adhere to strict facts, as a
journalist would, but rather relies on emotional descriptions to elicit readers’ interest and
belief. Thus, as one of the earliest – and most comprehensive – books about Lourdes, Notre-
Dame de Lourdes filled a void: as it got disseminated strikingly fast, its dramatic descriptions of
the events also contaminated the public imagination about Lourdes and effectively
preempted subsequent dissonant accounts. Its anteriority thereby conferred on it an aura of
authority that will durably mark subsequent Lourdes literature. For instance, his imprint is
particularly visible in Zola’s novel Lourdes. It is not coincidental that Lasserre’s book is the
one that Pierre reads to the pilgrims on the train. At the time it constituted the most famous
text about Lourdes and also exemplified Zola’s issues with the shrine.
Additionally, Lasserre’s rhetorical stance contributed not only to his text’s readability,
but to his populaire dissemination. Indeed, by tackling the events in a quasi-novelistic form,

336
Lasserre, Notre-Dame de Lourdes, 68.
337
Ibid., 70.
220
Lasserre captured both the interest and the imagination of his readers, making a lasting
impact on the Lourdes literary tradition. Harris explains Lasserre’s appeal by his quasi-
fictionalization of the events: “Lasserre was a rhetorical genius, and he gave his
melodramatic oppositions greater resonances by mixing biblical imagery with contemporary
events.”
338
Punctuated by biblical motifs, his text is distanced from any alleged journalistic
objectivity. As he presents Bernadette, he writes: “Telle devait être Ruth ou Noémi, allant
glaner dans les champs de Booz.”
339
This anecdotic reference to a biblical story echoes the
contemporary and popular 1859 Victor Hugo poem “Booz Endormi” and places Notre-Dame
de Lourdes in the lineage of fictionalized accounts of religious events.
Kaufman is also interested in Lasserre’s rhetorical strategies. She writes: “Lasserre
relied on transcripts of the 1858 Episcopal commission to tell the story of the first cures.
While retaining the basic facts, he dramatized these first cures by telescoping the time frame
of the event or by citing medical testimony to prove the supernatural nature of the healing
process.”
340
Factual accuracy is not Lasserre’s main concern. Rather, he is interested in
making the events more appealing:
Lasserre humanized his main characters, adding personal details to their
accounts. At times, he inserted family members into the stories or situated
his protagonists within a larger community. (…) In another healing account,
Lasserre has a neighbor preparing a special funeral shroud for a dying child,
while the boy’s mother runs to the grotto frantically searching for a cure.
341

By borrowing so much from novelistic storytelling, Lasserre loses credibility in the eyes of
skeptics, yet by the same token, he also gains a tremendous following and popularity. His
enhancements make his text a particularly effective proselytizing instrument and his

338
Harris, Lourdes: Body and Spirit in the Secular Age, 185.
339
Lasserre, Notre-Dame de Lourdes, 23.
340
Kaufman, Consuming Visions, 100.
341
Ibid., 101.
221
compelling stories greatly contributed to making a lasting impression on the consciousness
of readers while building Lourdes as a myth.
Lasserre’s personal experience provides a counterpoint to his romanticized version of
historical events. His preface opens with a mention of his own cure and announces its
narration, thereby building up readers’s expectations of a unique insight into Lourdes’s
mystery. Alongside his journalistic credibility, his miraculous cure fully validated his unique
credentials and made him the only possible legitimate historian of the shrine. Harris writes
that “at the same time Lasserre was straightforward enough to acknowledge his personal
engagement with the subject through an almost post-modernist insertion of the authorial
‘self’ into the narrative.”
342
Lasserre’s “je” is therefore a unique voice in the Lourdes literary
landscape as he is both an investigator and a party to the facts. Consequently, Lasserre’s
Notre-Dame de Lourdes decisively leaves little space for competing accounts. In fact,
Lasserre believed that his book, and his book alone, should be the official
story, and defended himself fervently against criticism from the bishop’s
supporters, who were wary of the ‘novelistic’ style of his work, its many
factual errors and severe characterization of the officials.
343

It is worth noting that Lasserre’s Notre-Dame de Lourdes ends with the word “Fin,” as would a
novel. This detail is illuminating for two reasons: first, it betrays the ambivalent genre of
Lasserre’s text and second, it indicates his ambition to provide the ultimate account of the
events. With one simple word, Lasserre dismissed competing narratives. For instance, the
Garaison Fathers, the guardians of the temple, had themselves previously completed an
account, entitled La Petite Histoire, which Lasserre vehemently fought. Essentially the battle
between the Petite Histoire and Notre-Dame de Lourdes was a battle for legitimacy. They indeed
each appear to have a claim on Lourdes: Lasserre as a miraculé, and the Fathers as the lawful

342
Harris, Lourdes: Body and Spirit in the Secular Age, 186.
343
Ibid.,188.
222
guardians of the Shrine. By inscribing the word “fin” at the end of his book, Lasserre
essentially shuts down any future attempts to narrate the story and fulfills his ambition to
constitute the canon by himself.
However, another legitimate hagiographer emerged: Père Léonard Cros (1831-1913), a
Jesuit Father who had been so permanently impressed after meeting Bernadette that he, in
turn, committed to writing the true account of the events. His mission became more urgent
once he was confronted with Lasserre’s inaccuracies.

b) Père Cros’s Histoire de Notre-Dame de Lourdes

Père Cros’s Histoire de Notre-Dame de Lourdes d’après les Documents et les Témoins was
published only many years after Lasserre’s Notre-Dame de Lourdes. While Père Cros died in
1913, the first – and abridged – version of his history wouldn’t be published until 1927. The
complete version was eventually published in 1957 to mark the centenary of the apparitions.
If Lasserre claimed his legitimacy thanks to his status as a miraculé and the Garaison Fathers
thanks to their official connection to the shrine, Cros’s legitimacy was derived from his
scholarly rigor and his personal devotion to Bernadette. In fact, his personal relationship
with Bernadette is listed as evidence of his account’s authenticity. In Notre-Dame de Lourdes,
Récits et Mystères (1883), a text published years before his Histoire de Notre-Dame de Lourdes,
Cros already insists on his access to Bernadette’s account:
En avril 1864 et en octobre 1865, nous interrogeâmes Bernadette: ses
réponses furent, chaque fois, écrites sans retard; plusieurs, la seconde fois, de
la main même de la Voyante. Plus tard, et jusqu’au mois qui précéda celui de
sa mort, Bernadette a dicté ses réponses aux très nombreuses questions que
nous lui adressâmes par écrit. Les réponses furent écrites, séance tenante, par
des secrétaires de la Mère générale des Sœurs de la Charité de Nevers, et
signées par la Mère générale elle-même, qui assistait aux interrogatoires.
344

344
Cros, Notre-Dame de Lourdes: Récits et Mystères, viii.
223

Cros illustrates the fact that until the end of her life, Bernadette would be subjected to
questions about the apparitions, even when she lived away from Lourdes at the Nevers
Convent. Having access to Bernadette is tantamount to a proof of authenticity and by
invoking his close relationship with the young woman, Cros essentially silenced all
competing accounts. Harris argues that,
In tone, style and content, nothing could be further from Lasserre’s account
than the history that resulted, for Cros produced a scholarly and
compendious work that revolutionized the study of the apparitions.
However, for a series of political, religious and personal reasons, the new
work was also subject to assault, this time before it was even published.
345

Cros had been particularly alarmed by Lasserre’s rhetoric and by his tendency to fictionalize
the events. According to Harris, “He was horrified by its romantic and literary qualities, and
set out both to overturn his general theses and to correct his many factual errors.”
346
Cros’s
methodical and meticulous research made him a credible authority on Lourdes history, yet
the fact that Lasserre’s publication preceded his by decades, along with its novel-like
readability, help explain why it is eventually Lasserre’s version – however imprecise – that
dominated later reception of the narrative. Cros’s intervention also provides one more
illustration of the conflicts that agitated the Church:
To his opponents, he came to seem a caricature of Jesuit fanaticism. He
appeared to be trying to dominate through his intellectual superiority and
methodological rigour, a tactic not designed to win friends among the
practical Garaison Fathers, whose intellectual attainments were meager in
comparison. Their disenchantment shows the perennial struggle between
various orders within the Church, and the resentment that the highly
educated Jesuits in particular could generate.
347

Ultimately, and no matter how much more accurate and valuable his account was, Cros’s text

345
Harris, Lourdes: Body and Spirit in the Secular Age, 196.
346
Ibid., 197.
347
Ibid., 197.
224
failed to supplant Lasserre’s. As Harris put it: “Lourdes became Lourdes because of Henri
Lasserre.”
348
Or in other words, without Lasserre, it would be a different Lourdes. Through
his version romancée of events, Lasserre frames future versions of the Lourdes story. His
presence as the pilgrims’ reference text in Zola’s Lourdes is an example of its dissemination
and of the propagation of the quasi catechismic quality of his prose. Along with offering a
firsthand account of his own cure, Lasserre focuses on sensational episodes and striking
anecdotes, thereby marking durably the consciousness about Lourdes. Yet, analyzing the
sanctuary’s complex history and genealogy matters as it allows us to understand how such a
massive edifice was built on shaky grounds from its inception.
The conflicted genealogy of the Lourdes literary tradition also matters to the extent
that it shows how much the Lourdes narrative has been slow in the making and constantly
evolving. The debates also highlight how prevalent Lasserre’s account was. In Harris’s
words, “Cros’s work proves – ironically considering his wish to write the definitive account –
how the history of Lourdes was yet in the making.”
349
Thus, Lourdes illustrates how writing
and the constant succession of texts – producing accounts that are the result of multiple
narrative layers –- contribute to shape stories and history itself. Indeed, the abundance of
texts, and the divergences between them, provides a fascinating case study of life and
literature’s mutual entanglement and influence and particularly shows how the fin-de-siècle
imaginaire was permeated by Lourdes’s narratives.
Cros’s ambitious summa about Lourdes consists of three volumes. The first one, “Les
Apparitions (11 février- 7 avril 1858)” is an extremely detailed day-by-day account of the
apparitions that includes multiple testimonies. The second volume entitled “Les Luttes”

348
Ibid., 177.
349
Ibid., 200.
225
focuses on the political and religious conflicts that have marked the establishment of the
sanctuary, while the third volume, “La Chapelle et Bernadette” concentrates on the later
years.
Cros offers a uniquely compelling rendering of the events as he places the reader in a
more active position. Indeed, as he presents the evidence and the various testimonies Cros’s
investigative method essentially suggests that the reader can essentially weigh in on the facts.
Instead of adopting a more enticing narrative style, Cros interrupts his account with
testimonies. As such, his work is not a unified narrative, but rather a succession of
transcribed testimonies. This approach is immediately visible to the reader, since Cros’s
account is intermittently interrupted by testimonies that he seems to quote directly and
extensively. This technique creates an apparent space of objectivity where the reader is faced
with ostensibly bare testimonies. Concretely, Cros’s accounts are typically more detailed, and
offer more information than that of other biographers.
Moreover, when he presents reports from the Episcopal Commission, Cros also
resorts to a visually compelling presentation. He creates a two-column table where he
includes a point-by-point comparison between the 1858 Procès-Verbal des Commissaires
Episcopaux and subsequent ones. This approach makes the differences between accounts as
visible as possible. It also makes obvious how much more detail has been added to later
versions. In fact, one glance suffices to notice that later accounts have expanded with many
added details and this simple visual gimmick allows the reader to grasp the development of
Lourdes narratives and to see how, as time goes by, newer narratives seem to outdo previous
ones.
In this context, Cros’s intervention offers great insight into the fluidity of Lourdes’s
story and how it gets modified through successive narrative layers. He gives a particular
226
example of how Bernadette’s own words have been interpreted and distorted to give birth to
newer, conflicting versions. He reports:
Le Journal de Lourdes, daté du 4 mars fait dire à Bernadette: “elle est
petite comme moi; de mon âge…” Beaucoup de ceux qui entendirent
Bernadette parler de la jeunesse et de la taille de l’Apparition, conclurent
qu’elle était de l’âge de la Voyante, au moins, et ils lui donnèrent quinze ans:
les Pères de Lourdes consignèrent ce témoignage dans leur Petite Histoire.
Quinze ans parut trop peu à la plupart. M. l’Abbé Père, vicaire de Lourdes,
qui vit et interrogea Bernadette, au temps des apparitions, écrit: “l’âge
semblait être de dix-huit à vingt ans.”
350

Through this example, Cros illustrates how easily facts get modified and how the
proliferation of accounts and stakeholders facilitates the sliding and shifting of the narratives.
Hence, accounting for the existence of conflicting narratives, he both explains and excuses
distortions between different versions, modified by various people or over time. His
credibility as a scholar is furthered as he is able to preemptively point out and address
discrepancies and inconsistencies. Having uncovered the layering and sliding effects of
Lourdes narratives, he considers that one should not be wary of witnesses’ accounts as their
different perspectives explain the discrepancies in their accounts.
351
He is therefore able to
dismiss most discrepancies without discrediting the integrity of Bernadette’s story.
In an approach that may seem counterintuitive at first, Cros endeavors to investigate
whether the Lourdes events can be attributed to naturally occurring facts. For instance, his
ninth chapter entitled “En quel sens la source de la grotte de Masabieille est miraculeuse”
established the natural state of the soil – he shows that the ground was humid – and he
explains scientifically the increase in water flow as a simple question of supply and demand.
Similarly, the chapter dedicated to miracles comes late and is emblematic of his prudence.
Thus, Cros’s approach is far from an automatic endorsement of miracles since he does not

350
Cros, Notre-Dame de Lourdes: Récits et Mystères, 100.
351
Ibid., 245.
227
blindly believe in Lourdes’s miracles.
Cros’s history also offers unexpected convergences, as his scholarly skepticism goes
hand in hand with his devotion. Harris considers that he “sought to distinguish between
superstition and supernatural intervention, intending his work to secure an inviolable, if
reduced realm for the holy.”
352
Consequently, after he investigated every alleged miraculous
cure, Cros did not hesitate to dismiss the ones he finds unreliable. In this regard, he refuses
to acknowledge the miracle of the candle, one of Bernadette’s most iconic moments:
He dismissed the widely held belief that during the seventeenth apparition,
on April 7, Bernadette had accidentally put her arm in a burning candle and
had been utterly unharmed. A story propagated initially by the local
physician, Dozous, who saw it at first hand, recounted in fulsome terms by
Estrade and then immortalized by Lasserre, Cros spent an entire chapter
debunking this ‘myth of the marvelous,’ examining the depositions,
describing the events as circumstantially impossible, and demolishing the
testimony of the witnesses. Throughout, he was concerned to demystify
Bernadette’s experience and contrast her human ordinariness with the
remarkable nature of divine encounter. In this instance Cros’s determination
to rid the history of Lourdes of ‘superstition’ meant that he may well have
misquoted witnesses to strengthen his case.
353

His determination both contrasts with and echoes Lasserre’s approach since Cros’s dry
scholarship seems to wane in light of his agenda and since he too does not hesitate to
instrumentalize a miracle (or lack thereof) to make a point. Cros’s dismissal of the miracle of
the candle is interesting also to the extent that it severs one of the alleged connections
between the Salpêtrière and the sanctuary. Indeed, this very miracle illustrated the
convergence between events at the Salpêtrière and at Lourdes, as highlighted by Ruth Harris:
One Eléonore Pérard stuck a big pin with a black head in Bernadette’s
shoulder without producing any reaction. Similarly, the popularly accepted, if
later contested, ‘miracle of the candle’ also indicated a special anaesthesia.
Her invulnerability to pain and injury suggested Bernadette’s holy other-
worldliness at the moment of her apparitions. What is striking is that both

352
Harris, Lourdes: Body and Spirit in the Secular Age, 199.
353
Ibid., 201.
228
were the sort of tests conducted on subjects under investigation for either
demonic influence or hysterical tendencies. The famous seventeenth-century
witch of Loudun, Urbain Grandier, was subjected to similar prickings, while
the Parisian neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot also used large needles to show
the anaesthesia of his hysterical patients in the 1880s, thus transferring this
aspect of theological examination into modern medical practice.
354

Therefore, by dismissing this spectacular performance of the body’s dissociation, Cros also
implicitly rid the shrine of any suspicions of hysteria. Whether apocryphal or not, the miracle
of the candle finds great resonance within the fin-de-siècle imagination. By conjuring up
images of the scission between physical and spiritual, it highlights the mysteries of
Bernadette’s body and illustrates the double impasse of religion and science.
The specter of hysteria also emerged when Cros shared accounts by local physicians
that mentioned Bernadette’s rire convulsif.
355
He writes:
Enfin quand les docteurs parlent du “rire convulsif” de Bernadette, ils
traduisent inexactement, en style medical, ce que les témoins leur
rapportèrent, savoir que l’on voyait tout à coup, les plus gracieux sourires
illuminer le visage de Bernadette, et tout à coup, ce visage s’assombrir;
puis, de la façon la plus inattendue le sourire réapparaître, pour faire place
encore à une impression de tristesse. La convulsion est, en partie caractérisée
par un mouvement irrégulier et involontaire des muscles: l’irrégularité des
sourires était acquise. Bernadette en extase avait-elle pleine possession de
sa volonté? Rien ne le prouvait: donc, concluaient les médecins, le sourire, le
rire de Bernadette est convulsive. Déjà, la conclusion n’est pas rigoureuse,
et elle le paraît beaucoup moins si l’on observe que la convulsion suppose
des secousses plus ou moins violentes, qui n’accompagnèrent jamais les
charmants sourires ou, en de rares occasions, le très doux rire enfantin de
Bernadette en extase.

Hence, by rejecting the miracle of the candle and by refusing to pathologize Bernadette’s
smile, Cros dismisses two occurrences that could have led to associations between
Bernadette and hysteria.
By admiring Lasserre’s skills as an historian, Lacaze had implicitly provided proof of
his stranglehold on the Lourdes literary tradition. Even though Lasserre’s version of events

354
Ibid., 63.
355
Cros, Notre-Dame de Lourdes: Récits et Mystères, 181.
229
would face criticism, it dominated the genre for decades and contaminated all subsequent
writings about Lourdes. Moreover, his own intimate experience tainted his account and lent
him legitimacy at the same time as it altered his credibility. The absolute bestseller of the late
nineteenth century, Lasserre’s text – his personal story, coupled with his eloquent and
embellished novelistic account – was instrumental in giving life to a mythical Lourdes and
conquering the heart of a populaire readership.
Though Cros’s full account would only be published decades later, the shadow of his
dissent haunted Lourdes at the end of the nineteenth century as he publicly challenged
Lasserre. Even though Cros and Lasserre’s strife has a prominent place in Lourdes’s
metahistory, it did not directly affect the myth of Lourdes as it was set in motion by
Lasserre’s account. Indeed, while he took the country’s religious imaginary by storm,
Lasserre also laid the foundations for what would constitute the official Lourdes literary
canon.

III – Elaborating a Canon: Catholics and the Question of Miracles

As a genre, Lourdes literature incorporates three key elements. First, a reflexive survey
of past literature on the topic; second, an iteration of the story of Bernadette; and third, a
discussion, and an opinion, about miracles. Lasserre’s and Cros’s texts establish Lourdes’s
historiographic tradition and, even though they discuss individual cases of miraculous
healings, they do not do so in as much technical detail as another branch of Lourdes
literature that focuses on the medical discussion of miracles.
This miracle-centric Lourdes literature happens in a broader cultural context
particularly concerned with understanding healing and the limits of medical knowledge and
practices. Indeed, more or less concurrently with the Lourdes events, the question of healing
230
processes had become a prominent and visible issue and much was being written about them
in medical circles, particularly in the UK and US. Not only were the discussions about
Lourdes propagated outside of France, other occurrences of (non-Catholic) religious
healings raised the same questions as the Lourdes events. The British Medical Journal, in
particular is one of the publications that would repeatedly address the question of miraculous
healings. In 1910, the publication of an article about faith healing in Lourdes in the British
Medical Journal prompted a wave of responses and opinions about Lourdes and the possibility
of faith healing. That same year, the June 18
th
edition of the British Medical Journal
356
was
dedicated to the general question of faith healing. With articles entitled “Reflections on Faith
Healing,” “‘Suggestion’ in the treatment of disease,” “Remarks on Spiritual Healing,” “The
Faith that Heals,” “Considerations on the Occult,” “The Interactions of Mind, Body and
Soul” and “Mental Healing,” the British Medical Journal illustrates the permanence of the
question and the fact that it has still not been resolved in the early years of the twentieth
century. The United States was also the stage of a return of faith healing, most famously
through the development of Christian Science, a religion whose practice bore some
resemblance with Catholic thaumaturgy.
An article such as “‘Suggestion’ in the treatment of disease,” written by the former
president of the Royal college of Surgeons, provides a comprehensive historical background
for the question of suggestion and, after reviewing the Lourdes cures, is particularly
concerned with the type of faithhealing described in Christian Science. Mary Baker Eddy’s
1866 healing from a spinal injury had prompted her to write Science and Health with Key to the
Scripture (1875), the founding text of Christian Science, and to promote a religious practice
that relied on the healing role of prayer. Hence, while the Lourdes cures are repeatedly

356
British Medical Journal, June 18
th
1910.
231
evoked and referenced in these articles, the contemporary angle of the faith healing debate
stems from the practices of Christian Science, especially in the Anglo-Saxon world.
To some extent, Christian Science generated in America the same type of discussions
Lourdes did in France and raised the same epistemological issues. In 1892, Science published
an article entitled “Divine Healing,” and a few years later a number of articles on the
question appeared in The American Journal of Psychology: in 1899, an article entitled “The
Effects of Mind on Body as Evidenced by Faith Cures,”
357
and later in 1909 another one
explicitly entitled “Miracles of Healing.”
358

Moreover, the United States was also the stage of another important event in the
history of faith healing: in 1906 Boston, the Emmanuel Movement was established,
combining principles of religious healing and psychotherapy. Founded by Elwood
Worcester, a chaplain with a background in psychology, the movement turned the church
into a healing place, blending medical and spiritual care. Another article published in the
American Journal of Theology in 1910 and entitled “The Religious Significance of the
Psychotherapeutic Movement” builds a bridge between traditional religious healing practices
and the new therapeutic methods that emerged at the turn of the century:
It seems to me, in conclusion, that great good for the minister and his
people might come from the current psychotherapeutic movement, even
though the minister should not enter the field as a mental therapist. As he
goes about his ordinary duties as a religious ministrant and counselor he
may exercise important and safer therapeutic influences. He is
preeminently a character-builder, and he may now appreciate as never
before the subtle difficulties which attend the process through the
possibility of emphasizing aspects of religion which, if taken by
themselves, disintegrate rather than build up the self.
359

357
Henry H. Goddard, “The Effects of Mind on Body as Evidenced by Faith Cures” The
American Journal of Psychology, Vol 10(3), Apr 1899, 431-502.
358
Charles W. Waddle, “Miracles of Healing,” The American Journal of Psychology, Vol 20, 1909
219-268.
359
Irving King, “The Religious Significance of the Psychotherapeutic Movement,” The
232

In the first years of the nineteenth century, a shift is at play: faith healing coincides with an
emerging secular, therapeutic practice and the introduction of the notion of “Mental
healing” signals the emergence of psychotherapy as a scientific practice.
In this context, the events at Lourdes, and the way they were narrated, recorded and
remembered take on an even greater importance: Lourdes writers historically documented
the phenomena of faith healing so that they could serve as a reference for future cases. The
founding medical text of the Lourdes cures is Doctor Boissarie’s 1891 L’Histoire Médicale de
Lourdes and it aims to catalogue and gage cases of healing. The founder of the very official
Lourdes Medical Bureau, Boissarie lent his scientific credibility and his incomparable access
to the shrine’s records to his endeavor, attempting to cautiously discriminate between true
miracles and superstition. This text, alongside Lasserre’s Notre-Dame de Lourdes and Cros’s
L’Histoire de Notre-Dame de Lourdes, makes up the foundation of the Lourdes literary canon.

A) Boissarie and The Lourdes Medical Bureau

The Medical Bureau’s current webpage
360
traces its origin to the appointment of
Professor Vergez of the Faculty of Medicine at Montpellier to examine the cures. Then,
“Seven cures were recorded before 1862 promoting the argument for the recognition of the
Apparitions by Bishop Laurence. However, the Bureau (Bureau des Constatations
Médicales) officially opened in 1884 and it is truly when Dr. Gustave Boissarie became its
president that it became the institution it still is today. In 1905, Pope Pius X requested 'to
submit to a proper process' the most spectacular of the cures of Lourdes. The Medical

American Journal of Theology, Vol. 14, No. 4 (Oct., 1910), pp. 533-551, 550
360
Lourdes Medical Bureau. http://en.lourdes-france.org/deepen/cures-and-
miracles/medical-bureau-sanctuary
233
Bureau was set up to carry this out.”
361
It is however a bit unclear when the Bureau officially
opened. If we are to consider Professor Vergez’s involvement at Lourdes as the first official
venture of medical opinion at the sanctuary, then we can consider it started in 1859. But,
1883 marks the date when an official Bureau was established at the sanctuary by physicians.
Then, 1891 would mark the appointment of Doctor Boissarie as the head of the Medical
Bureau, inaugurating a new era in the foray of medical experts at Lourdes.
The Lourdes Medical Bureau is a unique entity. While it does represent modern
medicine in this bastion of religious faith, its mission is nevertheless to identify and record
genuine miracles, thereby functioning under the assumption that miracles can actually exist.
According to Harris, the Bureau’s role can be viewed as paradoxical:
The apparent opposition of the miraculous and scientific rationality at
Lourdes was not as straightforward as first appears, however. The sanctuary
physicians who set up the Bureau des Constatations Médicales (Lourdes
Medical Bureau) in 1883 to vet claims of cure hoped to use modern medical
diagnosis to strengthen religious belief rather than undermine it. As the
‘miraculous mood’ intensified at the close of the nineteenth century – with
the crippled jumping to their feet and joining Eucharistic processions, or
shouting out in joy as they were cured in the glacial water of the pools – the
Medical Bureau was seen as a means of distinguishing between the cure of
hysterical and ‘real,’ ‘organic,’ ailments. In this way, it aimed to identify the
‘true’ miracles that could convert the skeptical by rejecting the false claims
that might bring the shrine into disrepute. But in promoting the Medical
Bureau, the shrine made a Mephistophelean bargain with positivism. On the
one hand, the Church gained a measure of scientific sanction for the
miraculous; on the other, it ceded some of its authority, no longer willing, it
seemed, to pronounce without medical approval.
362

Hence, the Lourdes Medical Bureau embodies the complex entanglement of medicine and
religion and occupies a unique space in epistemological discussions of healing. Indeed, this
institution walks a fine line between acknowledging (and using) scientific knowledge and
admitting its limitations for the explanation of miraculous cases. The relationship between

361
webpage 5/28/15
362
Harris, Lourdes: Body and Spirit in the Secular Age, 18.
234
the Bureau, the shrine and the medical communities is therefore not necessarily antagonistic,
but rather complementary and causal. In other words, in order to exist, the Medical Bureau
needs to be validated and approved by the medical community, but by its very existence, the
Bureau also points to an implicit admission of medicine’s short-comings as it is unable to
explain some healing processes.
In the chapter he devoted to the cures, Félix Lacaze too had emphasized the Church
hierarchy’s vested interest in using science to validate or invalidate miraculous cures. He
writes: “le Saint-Père voulut que la science jugeât si quelque cause, humaine et naturelle bien
que merveilleuse, pouvait expliquer les guérisons. Lorsque la cour de Rome instruit le procès
en canonization d’un Saint, elle fait appel à l’examen scientifique le plus minutieux et le plus
inflexible.”
363
Therefore, contrary to popular opinion, the Church is not necessarily opposed
to science, but rather uses it to serve its own agenda. The Pope’s approach reveals the
Church’s interest in having the cures evaluated by an objective (or as objective as possible)
entity. By placing the bar very high and ensuring that all official miracles are scientifically
inexplicable, the Church aims to differentiate between superstition and supernatural vs.
genuine miraculous manifestations of the divine. Hence, as Harris writes, “By establishing
the Medical Bureau in 1883 the Church accepted both the need for scientific verification and
for many of the epistemological criteria of modern medicine.”
364
Therefore, the Bureau
embodies a form of reconciliation, or at least the possibility for medicine and religious faith
to harmoniously co-exist. Not only does this increased reliance on medical authority
demonstrate the complexity of the relation between the shrine and doctors but, by its very
existence, the Lourdes Medical Bureau also instrumentalizes the divide between science and

363
Lacaze, À Lourdes avec Zola, 128.
364
Harris, Lourdes: Body and Spirit in the Secular Age, 307.
235
religion and questions the foundations of late nineteenth-century medical epistemology.
Harris traces Boissarie’s first visit to Lourdes back to 1872 when he came “for
personal reasons, because of one son’s cholera, and again in 1886 to thank the Virgin for
sparing another from tuberculosis. It was in this year that he wrote his first article for the
Annales de Notre-Dame de Lourdes and was, in a sense, head-hunted by the Garaison
Fathers.”
365
Not unlike Lasserre, Boissarie appears bound to Lourdes for personal gratitude
and he puts his professional skills at the service of the shrine. Harris also affirms that
Boissarie had been an admirer of Charcot and the most progressive Parisian medicine,
making his presence at the shrine paradoxically both potentially suspicious and legitimate.
She writes:
Boissarie was a man of the south-west, a native of Sarlat and a physician’s
son, a man destined to return from Paris to take his place among the local
elite. But he long resisted a return to provincial life because of the capital’s
allure as a centre for research; unlike Saint-Maclou (his predecessor at the
precursor of the Medical Bureau), his private papers demonstrate a
fascination with Charcot and the world of Parisian medicine that he
ultimately abandoned. He even passed the taxing concours, or competitive
examination, for the Internat des Hôpitaux, a position granted by the dean
of the faculty of medicine, Paul Brouardel, a famous hygenist and
Pasteurian. His ultimate rejection of this world may in part explain the
intensity of his later assault upon it.
366

Through this portrayal Boissarie emerges as a conflicted –- and divisive –- figure: he is both
a fully credentialed, well-respected, positivist physician, but he is also a religious man and a
believer in the shrine’s powers. Published in 1891, as he was just starting his tenure at the
Bureau, his Histoire Médicale de Lourdes initiates and exemplifies the foray of physicians into
the realm of Lourdes and the complexity of medicine’s involvement in the sanctuary.

365
Ibid., 330.
366
Ibid., 329.
236
B) Boissarie: L’Histoire Médicale de Lourdes (1891)

Boissarie was instrumental in turning the Bureau into an indispensable and trustworthy
institution and, ironically, in order to do so, he needed to assert his own scientific
credentials. Kaufman describes Boissarie’s role as follows:
Dedicated to employing scientific methods to prove the existence of
the miraculous, Boissarie’s agenda meshed neatly with the desires of
the Assumptionists, who wished to make the supernatural events of
the shrine known and respected throughout the world. At Lourdes,
the pious doctor enacted new policies for streamlining the
verification process. He insisted that sick pilgrims have their medical
conditions certified by expert diagnosis before their arrival at the
shrine. Pilgrims needed a doctor to declare, in writing, that their
illnesses were organic and were regarded as incurable. Boissarie also
insisted that the bureau conduct its own ongoing examinations to
verify that cures were, first, spontaneous and, second, enduring in
nature. In effect, these conditions inserted the norms of professional
medicine into the process of miraculous healing, while also ensuring
that the bureau would remain an indispensable part of the curing
experience.
367

Though it would not satisfy his detractors, such as Lacaze and Zola, Boissarie did endeavor
to let medical method into the shrine and to professionalize the Bureau in an effort to ensure
that all validated miraculous cures would be beyond reproach for his critics.
The same dedication and method is at play in his documenting of cases for his Lourdes:
Histoire Médicale. Kaufman affirms that,
The work appeared to offer a powerful new interpretation of the
miracle-cure experience. Avoiding all discussion of religious belief or
devotional practice, the doctor provided a sober-minded analysis of
the cures alone. Emphasizing his rigorous medical objectivity and his
own credentials as a former intern at a Parisian hospital, Boissarie
presented himself as a scientist gathering facts at the shrine.
368

While he himself embodies the influence of Parisian medicine on Lourdes’s spirituality, to
his detractors Boissarie would remain a destabilizing presence: his palpable affection for the

367
Kaufman, Consuming Visions, 104.
368
Ibid., 109.
237
Church, along with his seemingly ambiguous role, contributed to making him one of
Lourdes’s most polarizing figures.

a) A Spectacular Catalogue of Scientific Case Studies

Boissarie’s attempts to lend credibility and legitimacy to the shrine are very much
inscribed in late nineteenth-century scientific method. As he attempts to demonstrate the
validity of the cures that occurred before his arrival, Boissarie adopts a method very
reminiscent of the Salpêtrière’s retrospective medicine. He writes case studies to
indiscriminately document the cases he worked on as well as the earliest cases, where he was
not present. Kaufman sees in this use of the case-study format an attempt to write a
retrospective medical history of the sanctuary. She writes:
By using the medical case-study format to re-examine past cures as
well as document present-day ones, Boissarie rewrote the divine
history of the grotto in terms of modern medical theory. What was
new in this analysis was Boissarie’s attempt to categorize past cures –
including the first cures from the 1858 episcopal reports as well as
later accounts of healing found in the sanctuary’s Annales de Notre-
Dame de Lourdes – in light of modern definition of disease.
369

Hence, Boissarie, the Parisian-educated physician and Charcot-admirer, appropriates one of
the pseudo-scientific narrative techniques developed at the Salpêtrière but he practically
turns it on its head as he uses it to paradoxically demonstrate the permanence of miraculous
events. As he instrumentalizes fin-de-siècle scientific method to make the case for miracles,
Boissarie’s approach illustrates a two-way cultural permeability between the Salpêtrière and
Lourdes.
In the Histoire Médicale, Boissarie aims to present an unbiased and medically sound
account of the cures and, as part of the corpus of Lourdes literature, it too includes the story

369
Ibid., 109.
238
of Bernadette. But Boissarie’s account of Bernadette’s story is more strictly concerned with
ensuring that she is not and could not be considered mentally ill, and here too he endeavors
to weigh in as a physician. Yet, as his text opens with a Lasserre reference, Boissarie gives
another example of the impossibility of starting a Lourdes narrative from scractch and the
rampant contamination by anterior narrative layers. Already in 1891, before the golden age
of the Bureau Medical, Boissarie acknowledges the existence of a legend that frames all
discussions about Lourdes:
De là est née, autour de l'histoire de Lourdes, une légende reproduite
de cent façons différentes, accommodée aux goûts, aux principes de
chacun. De là une confusion qui, de nos jours, n'est pas encore
dissipée, et entretient souvent dans l'esprit des méfiances
insurmontables.
370

As he opens his first chapter with a mention of the tremendous success of Lasserre’s text, he
implicitly acknowledges the role played by l’Histoire de Notre-Dame de Lourdes in the
elaboration of the Lourdes legend. He considers that,
Avec les Annales dont la publication remonte à 1868 et qui forment
aujourd'hui un recueil de 22 volumes, nous avons le bulletin officiel
de l'oeuvre: oeuvre si considérable que nul historien ne pourra
désormais l’embrasser dans son entier.
371

Lasserre’s text along with the Annales de Lourdes are therefore the basis for the official story,
but this official story, through its dissemination and reapproproation, also became a mythical
one.
Boissarie proceeds carefully and methodically. First he acknowledges the difficulty of
the task and the ambivalence of the times toward both science and religion. He confirms
that the topic is particularly difficult for physicians to address, as they can be put in an
untenable situation. He writes, “La tâche est difficile; elle est même périlleuse pour un

370
Docteur Boissarie, Lourdes, Histoire Médicale 1858-1891 (Paris: Lecoffre, 1891), 5.
371
Ibid., 2.
239
médecin.”
372
Indeed, the physician has a unique responsibility: “Le véritable témoin et le seul
juge c’est le médecin du malade. Il parle en clinicien, en homme d’expérience; il parle de faits
qui lui sont familiers, de résultats qui se passent sous ses yeux. Écrite sur ses indications et
sous sa dictée, l’histoire de Lourdes repose sur des bases indiscutables.”
373
In other words,
Lourdes’s reputation rests on the physician’s training and skills as he is the only one who can
confer credibility and legitimacy on the shrine. Boissarie also presents physicians as the
source of Lourdes’s history since their words fuel narratives. His own role in this context is
crucial as he proposes to lay the foundation for the appropriate observation and diagnosis of
miracles as a way to put to rest the constant disputes about miracles and superstition. He
also acknowledges that the broader cultural context confuses the situation even more.
Indeed, “Dans notre société positive et sceptique, il se fait un étrange retour vers le
mystérieux. Le XIX
e
siècle finit au milieu de manifestations et d’idées, qu’il reléguait naguère
dans le domaine des impostures.”
374
He continues,
Les écoles de la Salpêtrière et de Nancy, rompant avec les traditions
du passé, ont compris qu’il fallait sortir d’une négation systématique.
Elles ont reconnu qu’il y avait autour de la Grotte des guérisons
capables de frapper d’étonnement les spectateurs les plus instruits,
mais ces guérisons, disent-elles, doivent trouver dans les théories de
la suggestion une explication décisive.
375

Boissarie demonstrates that in 1891, two years before the publication of Charcot’s The
Healing Faith, the question of miraculous cures already agitated the medical community. By
calling out the Salpêtrière and the Nancy schools, Boissarie announces from the outset that
he is planning to address the question of suggestion and its role in the cures.
Boissarie also places his rejection of pure materialism under the auspices of the most

372
Ibid., i.
373
Ibid., ii.
374
Ibid., vi.
375
Ibid., ii.
240
well-respected nineteenth-century scientist. Indeed, by quoting Pasteur’s Académie Française
acceptance speech, Boissairie defends an approach that both advocates for science and
embraces a mystery:
Celui qui proclame l’existence de l’infini, et personne ne peut y
échapper, accumule dans cette affirmation, plus de surnaturel qu’il n’y
en a dans tous les miracles de toutes les religions: la notion de l’infini
a ce double caractère de s’imposer et d’être incomprehensible. (…)
La notion de l’infini dans le monde, j’en vois partout l’inévitable
expression. Par elle, le surnaturel est au fond de tous les cœurs. L’idée
de Dieu est une forme de l’idée de l’infini.
376

Therefore, Boissarie interprets Pasteur’s speech to mean that there are inherent supernatural
qualities at the heart of the most scientific of concepts. Thus, the cures too have proven the
existence of a mystery within the realm of science and, the fact that there is indeed mystery
in the heart of science does not, in Boissarie’s opinion, negate science.
As a matter of fact, Boissarie is particularly interested by the epistemological questions
raised by miracles. He is especially focused on defining what it means to “declare”
(“constater”) un miracle and he contests the existence of evidence for miracles: there is not
one sure criterion to establish a miracle, but rather a miracle may be considered once all
other possibilities have been exhausted. Indeed, far from presenting itself obviously, a
miracle is a process and the responsibility, and burden, of establishing its authenticity lies
with the physician. Boissarie is particularly concerned with the question of the medical
certificate and how to trust it. Indeed, pilgrims would often show a medical certificate
established before their cure to prove a miracle. Yet Boissarie questions this method and
disparages its lack of rules and integrity. The authenticity of medical certificates from
unknown doctors is hard to establish, their credentials could be questionable and these
documents are easily falsifiable. Consequently, Boissarie wants to set a higher, uniformly

376
Ibid., viii.
241
accepted standard for the proclamation of a miracle and to create a systematic identification
of miracles. At stake here are both the question of the importance of the physician and the
epistemological question of what defines a miracle as such. Boissarie’s ambitious mission
consists in developing new – objective and scientific – rules for miracles.
Mais cette façon de raisonner n’est pas concluante. Il ne s’agit pas de
prouver, en effet, que quelques observations, relevées dans le groupe
si nombreux des guérisons de Lourdes, peuvent s’accommoder d’une
explication scientifique. — Nous sommes tous d’accord là-dessus. Il
s’agit d’établir si, parmi ces guérisons, il en est un certain nombre,
cent, vingt ou dix, peu importe, si même il en est une seule, qui
présente des preuves irrécusables d’une action surnaturelle. Il s’agit de
savoir si nous pouvons arriver à la démonstration scientifique du
miracle. Ce n’est pas une question de nombre, mais une question de
principe.
377

Hence, Boissarie’s ambition is to devise a scientific and systematic way to identify miracles.
His ambition is primarily espistemological as he searches for the scientifically valid and
methodically sound way to recognize a miracle. Of course, what Boissarie’s approach
assumes is the existence of miracles.
As with every text about Lourdes, Boissarie also discusses the Lourdes site and
Bernadette herself. He introduces Lourdes and the broader context and then presents his
version of Bernadette’s story. He dedicates six consecutive chapters to Bernadette and four
of them combined are entitled “Bernadette en presence des médecins” and constitute a
thorough medical evaluation of the visionary. As such, Boissarie uses this opportunity to
dismiss allegations against her. Here, his medical authority allows him to dispel rumors
suggesting that Bernadette had had hallucinations. He starts by addressing the question of
her ecstasy, already tackled by Père Cros:
Les attitudes que prennent les extatiques ne peuvent assurément
servir de preuve pour établir le caractère surnaturel d'une vision ou

377
Ibid., 27.
242
d'une apparition. Elles expriment l'étonnement, l'admiration, la
frayeur, et chacun traduit ses sentiments avec les moyens dont il
dispose. “L'extase hystérique, dit Charcot, ne possède par elle-même
aucun caractère spécial, qui puisse permettre de la distinguer des
autres variétés d'extase. Pour la reconnaître, il faut étudier le sujet
dans l'intervalle des crises, analyser tous les phénomènes qui
précèdent ou qui suivent. Si l'on rencontre les stigmates de l'hystérie,
si l'on observe des phénomènes appartenant aux périodes de la
grande attaque, alors seulement on est fixé sur sa nature, car la
physionomie extérieure de l'extase ne suffit pas à la caractériser. Pour
rendre (ajoute encore le professeur Charcot) les expressions variées
de l’extase, les peintres ont pu trouver dans les sujets hystériques
d'inappréciables modèles.” Nous reconnaissons volontiers que les
hystériques, avec leur talent d'imitation, leur impressionnabilité si
vive, peuvent exprimer toutes les passions en artistes consommés.
378

Boissarie draws on his knowledge of Charcot’s theory to establish a distinction between a
hysterical ecstasy and a religious one, in other words two distinct states that are quasi
impossible to differentiate for the untrained eye, thereby justifying his own importance at the
shrine.
Later, Boissarie particularly criticizes more contemporary allegations by doctor Voisin,
one of Charcot’s disciples at the Salpêtrière, who had publicly alleged that Bernadette – at
that time already exiled at the convent in Nevers – was confined in a mental institution.
Boissarie summarizes his argument as follows:
Le Dr Voisin reconnaît, bien plus: il affirme a priori et sans examen
que le cerveau d'un enfant ne peut, dans des conditions normales,
subir de pareils troubles et qu'il est impossible d'admettre que
Bernadette ait conservé l'intégrité de ses facultés: un sens droit, un
jugement sûr, un équilibre parfait de son esprit. Si donc elle a joui
jusqu'à la fin de sa vie de tous ces dons, c'est qu'elle n'a été que le
témoin d'apparitions bien réelles, dont elle a conservé le fidèle
souvenir. Pouvons-nous dire encore que la Dame au vif éclat, qui se
montrait à la Grotte, n'est que la reproduction des statues qui
décoraient les églises du pays? qu'elle n'est qu'une pâle copie de ces
images grossières reproduites avec cette pauvreté d'imagination et
cette stérilité d'invention que l'on remarque chez les hallucinés? Les
paroles de la Vierge, son nom, les ordres donnés, les résultats

378
Ibid., 53.
243
obtenus, tout cela est-il en proportion avec l'entendement du sujet?
Comment le cerveau de cette enfant, éclairé de semblables lueurs et
conservant intact le reflet de ses hautes visions, a-t-il pu garder son
équilibre et le jeu de ses fonctions? Problème absolument insoluble
avec la théorie de l'hallucination, et que la médecine ne peut résoudre,
sans faire appel à l'intervention d'une force étrangère et supérieure au
monde matériel.
379

As he paraphrases Voisin’s allegations, Boissarie also dismisses them and his final
pronouncement pleads in favor of an acknowledgement of medicine’s limits: some
phenomena cannot be explained without accepting that higher and immaterial forces are at
play.
Boissarie continues by detailing Voisin’s involvement:
L'Union médicale du 27 juin 1872 reproduisait une des conférences du
Dr Voisin, sur les maladies mentales. Dans cette conférence le Dr
Voisin, médecin de la Salpêtrière, développait la thèse que presque
toujours les hallucinations aboutissent à la folie, et pour preuve il
disait: Le miracle de Lourdes a été affirmé sur la foi d'une enfant
hallucinée, qui est maintenant enfermée dans le couvent des
Ursulines de Nevers. J'ai encore aujourd'hui, dans une de mes salles,
une femme qui, depuis son adolescence, voit la Sainte Vierge dans le
ciel, et qui a ainsi rempli le principal rôle dans le miracle de La
Salette.
380

Voisin’s affirmations, as retranscribed by Boissarie, point to the permanence of the debates
regarding Bernadette’s condition fourteen years after the first apparitions. From Voisin’s
initial publication in L’Union Médicale, a lengthy debate ensues through various publications.
On October 3, 1872 the Bishop of Nevers publishes a refutation in L’Univers, the ultra
newspaper. Public debate both in the medical press and in religious periodicals points to a
great visibility of the question of miracles at both ends of the socio-political spectrum.
Ultimately, Boissarie points to a deeply engrained prejudice against all religions:

379
Ibid., 79.
380
Ibid., 81.
244
Pour comprendre les divergences profondes qui séparent des
hommes également instruits, il faut quitter la question de fait et
remonter aux principes qui ont inspiré ces jugements différents ; il
faut se rappeler que parmi les médecins, un certain nombre
considèrent les pratiques de la vie chrétienne comme les symptômes
d'une névrose: névrose aiguë dans certains cas qui tranchent sur le
cours ordinaire de la vie ; névrose chronique qui se confond avec
l'hystérie et est endémique dans les couvents.
“Les miracles, dit Littré, sont dans ce domaine particulier où
la médecine confine à l'histoire; on les range dans la catégorie des
troubles du système nerveux. Toute révélation est une hallucination.
La religion relève de la médecine. Ses fondateurs, ses grands
personages sont des malades.”
381

Hence, Boissarie’s sees in doctors’s secularism the source of their skepticism. Hysteria has
contaminated the medical consciousness so much so that it has become a fully social disease
that affects the society as a whole, or at least a large proportion of people, all of them
believers.
Boissarie appears less concerned with Bernadette’s story as a narrative and with its
details and more concerned with making a medically argumented case in her favor. As he
addresses and dispels allegations that she was not of sound mind at the time of the
apparitions, or later, he endeavors to prove that the Lourdes events were not tainted by the
stain of hysteria.
Parallel to his theoretical considerations, and in addition to the contextualization of the
Lourdes events, Boissarie’s ambition to offer a medical validation to the Lourdes’s cures is
obvious in his development of case studies. He does not shy away from presenting
exhaustive accounts of lengthy cases. His Histoire Médicale is indeed a catalogue of cases and
he tries to document them as thoroughly as possible and he embraces medical case studies,
the iconic genre of Salpêtrière doctors. For instance, in some cases, he includes additional
supporting documents such as letters from physicians that have accompanied, diagnosed or

381
Ibid., 89.
245
“constaté” particular miracles and mixes his own medical analysis with female pilgrims’
accounts.
Boissarie notices that the year 1872 saw a greater-than-usual number of cures and he
proceeds to discuss some of them at length. He begins with the case of Léonie Chartron
from the Nièvre region and introduces the case by including a letter provided by her long-
time physician who had been treating her for a serious spinal condiction, which was
published in the local Revue de l’Yonne. The doctor’s letter includes details about her
condition, her cure itself and the aftermath of her recovery:
Plus d'appétit, amaigrissement complet, fièvre continue, insomnie, la
mort était imminente. Mlle Chartron part soutenue, sinon portée, par
deux personnes, accompagnée d'un oncle, vénérable prêtre, qui vient
de mourir à Lormes en odeur de sainteté. On la met comme on peut
en voiture, en chemin de fer dans un wagon-lit. A Lourdes, elle est
conduite près de la fontaine, elle y entre et en sort guerie, n’ayant plus
besoin de personne pour marcher, allant, venant, agile et gaie. Sa
gibbosité avait disparu instantanément. Depuis, sa santé a toujours
été excellente. Je me suis promené avec elle pendant une demi-heure,
et j'étais plus fatigué qu'elle.
382

Boissarie falls in with the provincial doctor’s opinion and his commentary only highlights the
seriousness of her condition and the fact that healing for such a condition never comes
instantaneously. Boissarie’s brief commentary is interrupted by a longer testimony from the
miraculée herself. Though he does not say where he found the testimony, he had previously
announced that the cures from 1872 had been documented by the Annales and one can
reasonably assume that both the doctor’s letter and the patient testimony had been compiled
by the Annales at the time. Miss Chartron’s testimony is concerned in particular with
establishing the sudden onset of the disease in 1866 and its gravity. She also documents the
fact that she reached out to medical professionals right away and that subsequent medical

382
Ibid., 167.
246
treatments were not successful in treating her condition, leading her to consider Lourdes as
her only option:
Et cependant la faiblesse et la maigreur augmentaient. Je n'avais
éprouvé un peu de soulagement pendant cette dernière année, qu'à la
suite d'une neuvaine à Notre-Dame de Lourdes... J'en conclus que je
ne pouvais être guérie que par elle, et, pleine de foi en sa puissance,
comme de confiance en sa bonté, je résolus d'aller lui demander ma
guérison.
383

Here, Léonie Chartron implicitely admits that Lourdes appears as yet another source of cure,
betraying a fin-de-siècle state of mind where Lourdes mixes in with medical treatments.
Miss Chartron continues by including a detail of her time at Lourdes, and in particular
the moment of her cure:
Le mercredi, après la sainte communion, je descendis avec bien des
précautions dans la piscine, témoin déjà de tant de prodiges; et j'en
avais à peine touché le fond, que, toute seule, au grand ébahissement
de mon excellente tante, qui ne m'abandonnait pas, sans effort et sans
secousses, sans pouvoir me dire comment la chose se fit, je me
trouvai hors de l’eau. Je ne me sentis nullement incommodée par ce
froid glacial qu'on ne peut bien comprendre que quand on l'a
éprouvé; j'étais guérie!
384

As is often the case in descriptions of cures, the moment of the cure is worthy of
exclamation. The cure is mysterious (“sans pouvoir dire comment la chose se fit”),
counterintuitive (“je ne me sentis nullement incommodée par ce froid glacial”) and
instantaneous (“j’étais guérie”). The episode of the cure is followed by her return home and
her physician’s witnessing her indubitable cure:
Mon bon vieux docteur, mandé et reçu par moi au seuil de la maison,
ne pouvait en croire ses yeux; mais après avoir constaté ma parfaite
guérison, il me dit d'un ton fermé et résolu: “Quand une maladie
aussi dangereuse que la vôtre, compliquée d'une complexion délicate,
à résisté aux soins les plus assidus, comme aux efforts des maîtres de
la science; quand elle devient de plus en plus grave, quand la cachexie

383
Ibid., 169.
384
Ibid., 169.
247
se manifeste, et qu'un beau jour, subitement, et par la simple
immersion, pendant une seconde, dans une eau glaciale, elle disparaît
entièrement, il faut bien dire avec Ambroise Paré : Dieu l'a guérie; et
je dois ajouter: par un miracle.”
385

Her testimony conveys the miraculous character of her cure (the physician “ne pouvait en
croire ses yeux”) and she quotes her doctor as echoing Charcot’s later opinion on the healing
faith. Her physician acknowledges that, when a disease that had resisted all sorts of medical
treatments heals instantaneously, one can speak of a miracle. However, her physician does
not mention the role of faith in the process, nor does he address the healing process itself.
Only Miss Chartron had mentioned her faith in the Virgin before she embarked on her
healing journey.
After quoting her, Boissarie does not address her testimony directly, but rather he ends
the section dedicated to her case with another letter by her physician, thereby granting him
the authority of a final word:
Vous pourrez défier le médecin le plus instruit, le plus fort, le plus
expérimenté, d'expliquer la guérison de la maladie de Mlle Chartron,
maladie arrivée à la dernière période de paralysie, de fièvre et de
marasme, avec suppuration de six vertèbres, en quelques secondes, en
dehors de n'importe quel traitement, et d'en citer un seul exemple
dans la science.
386

Her doctor’s final words validate the miracle scientifically at the same time as they express
medicine’s powerlessness in the face of some conditions.
Such cases of healing are “short” stories of sorts and constitute what Kaufman
describes as Boissarie’s special touch:
A series of vignettes …, bracketed on both sides by dispassionate
medical analysis, was typical of the most dramatic and compelling
moments in Boissarie’s study. Drawing on a device also common to
the patent-medicine promotions of the day, the doctor employed the

385
Ibid., 170.
386
Ibid., 171.
248
patient testimonial to great effect. The device enabled the sentimental
moralism and sheer excitement of melodrama to enter the story
directly through the voice of the female pilgrim. While Boissarie
explained the facts of the case, the woman recounted the emotional
side of the story. This division of labor served a vital function,
enabling Boissarie to relate an emotionally dramatic miracle tale
without jeopardizing his own scientific legitimacy. Making effective
use of the gender conventions of the period, the doctor merged
medical discourse with popular entertainment to produce a modern
rhetoric of miraculous healing, a story of the cure that was at once
objective and compelling. In doing so, he repositioned his sacred
protagonists as the central figures of this new narrative. Objects of
medical investigation when male doctors scrutinized their bodies,
these women also became subjects of an unfolding melodrama
narrated by themselves. The female miraculée, both subject and object
of the new medico-miracle take, was in this sense a flexible symbol
that could appeal to multiple audiences. While male readers
encountered the familiar figure of the sick female in need of medical
investigation, devout female readers found a familiar heroine, one
who suffered at the hands of men only to be saved by the Virgin’s
powers of intercession. This versatile figure, then, was indispensable
to Boissarie’s groundbreaking rhetoric of scientific sensationalism.
387

Though Kaufman is right in her analysis of Boissarie’s rhetorical devices, she exaggerates the
extent to which women are the main, and even the only, focus of Boissarie’s attention when,
in reality, he also includes miraculés and resorts to the same narrative techniques with men
who experience miraculous cures. The case of François Macary is one such case and
Boissarie considers it to be “un des plus importants dont les Annales aient conservé le
récit.”
388

In this case, Boissarie follows the same pattern by introducing the patient and
including a more detailed summary of his symptoms and diagnosis:
Le D
r
Bernet examine pour la première fois Macary (François), de
Lavaur, en 1852. A la partie interne du genou et de la jambe gauche,
se trouve un ulcère variqueux profond, avec engorgement
considérabie des tissus. Les veines dilatées le sont en outre en si
grand nombre et à un si haut degré, que tous les moyens chirurgicaux

387
Kaufman, Consuming Visions, 111.
388
Boissarie, Histoire Médicale, 155.
249
sont contre-indiqués. Dix-huit ans plus tard, le même docteur
constate que le mauvais état de la jambe a beaucoup empiré. Il
conseille un repos prolongé et absolu au lit.
389

In this case, the length of the medical care is particularly striking and it offers Boissarie an
opportunity to present a case with extensive follow-up and documentation. He then
proceeds to quote the miraculé himself:
Versant l'eau dans le creux de la main, j'en lave mes deux jambes, je
bois l'eau qui reste dans le flacon, je me mets au lit, et je m'endors.
Vers minuit, je me réveille; je ne sens plus aux jambes aucune
douleur; je les touche de mes deux mains, les varices avaient disparu.
Ma femme était dans une pièce voisine communiquant par une porte.
— Femme, lui criai-je, je suis guéri, — “Tu deviens fou; allons,
dors...” Un sommeil, comme je n'en avais pas goûté depuis
longtemps, s'empara de moi. Le lendemain, à mon réveil, je
m'empresse de regarder mes jambes; varices, ulcères, tout avait
disparu; la peau était plus lisse que celle de mes deux mains, comme
vous les voyez tout à l'heure.
390

The suddenness of the cure, the miraculé’s confusion and the striking result echo Léonie
Chartron’s cure and though Boissarie does not leave the final word to Macary’s physician, he
himself reiterates his doctor’s earlier opinion that such a cure was supernatural.
Whether they are stories of men or women, Boissarie essentially creates a long
catalogue of cases, but he uses a number of narrative strategies to ensure that they capture
the reader’s interest and imagination. By framing accounts with solid scientific discussions,
Boissarie creates a compelling document that can convince by appealing to both its readers’
emotions and reason. Hence, the abundance of gruesome medical details coupled with a
legitimate medical discourse ensure that the stories recounted by Boissarie made an even
more powerful impression.
As a collection of case studies that combine the testimony of miraculés, diagnostic

389
Ibid., 155.
390
Ibid., 158.
250
documents and medical opinions, Bossarie’s Histoire Médicale de Lourdes exemplifies how
Lourdes medical literature – a specialized subgenre of Lourdes literature – places the
suffering body at its very heart. Boissarie’s rhetoric, in particular, is founded on the ability of
these narratives to sway readers’s minds. Indeed, this literature focuses on the dramatic
tension between health and sickness and, through graphic depiction of ailments and misery,
effectively plays on readers’ impressionability. In this context, reading gets cast as an activity
that triggers impressionability. Thus, these particular narratives, and the subgenre as a whole,
imply that literature itself has a suggestive effect.
Cases such as the ones detailed by Boissarie turn the sick body itself into the hero of
the story. By pointing out how literature can make an impression on readers, Boissarie uses
literature as a tool for conversion in more ways than one. First, literature – broadly
understood to include medical case studies can be instrumentalized to convert skeptics. In
the case of Boissarie, his case studies are a tool to convince the public of the medical
possibility of miracles. But literature’s ability to make an impression also points to parallels
between literature and hysteria. First, the preeminence of these graphic body-centric
narratives draws a direct line between Lourdes and the Salpêtrière and exemplifies the time’s
obsession with showing suffering bodies. Second, the instrumentalization of
impressionability also draws a connection between the reader and the hysteric: just as
hysteria can be triggered in impressionable minds, literature, and particularly narratives of
pain and suffering, make a lasting impression on a readers’ mind, thereby inscribing hysterics
and readers in a continuum of sorts. Hence, literature appears as a powerful trigger and
readers appear as not only impressionable, but also hysterics en puissance.

251
b) Hysteria and Suggestion in Boissarie’s Histoire Médicale de Lourdes

Since Boissarie uses the same impressionability at play in hysteria in his own narratives,
it is worth noting that he dedicates two chapters to address this particular condition and to
the accusations that miraculous cures can be attributable to hysteria. Both entitled
“L’Hystérie à Lourdes,” these chapters allow Boissarie to take a stance in the debates
surrounding the role of hysteria in miracles. He begins by discussing one of the opinions
Charcot would also discuss in The Healing Faith:
Les malades de Lourdes appartiennent à tous les degrés de l’échelle
sociale. D'après l'aveu de M, le professeur Charcot, l'hospice de la
Salpêtrière envoie chaque année un certain nombre de ses incurables.
Sur ces malades on observe souvent des reprises inespérées, parfois
des guérisons définitives, et cependant ces malheureuses femmes ont
été soumises d'ordinaire aux traitements les plus rationnels et les plus
variés, sans obtenir même une apparence d'amélioration. Les
maladies nerveuses prennent chez elles des formes si graves que
toutes les fonctions sont troublées, l'intelligence éteinte; il leur reste à
peine l'apparence humaine. Dans ces conditions, les accidents
morbides constituent une sorte d'affection organique, sont souvent le
reflet de diathèses profondes et restent, dans tous les cas, au-dessus
des efforts de la médecine.
391

Not only does Boissarie admit that hysterics do come to Lourdes, he also admits that
“maladies nerveuses” are real conditions that constitute an impasse for medicine.
Recounting stories such as Céleste Mériel’s, Boissarie acknowledges the potentially
healing power of Lourdes for former Salpêtrière patients:
Au mois d’août dernier, Céleste Mériel, pensionnaire de la Salpêtrière,
arrivait à Lourdes, paralysée du côté gauche, n’entendant pas, ne
parlant pas; son œil vague, elle marchait librement, s’exprimait
parfaitement bien et entendait d’une façon normale. Une vie nouvelle
semblait animer la physionomie de cette femme jusque-là si morne, si
terne. Nous avons revu deux fois l’hiver suivant Céleste Mériel à la
Salpêtrière; sa guérison ne s’était pas démentie; elle avait demandé
une place de fille de service dans l’hôpital, alors que, depuis cinq ans,

391
Ibid., 258.
252
elle était couchée dans la salle des grandes infirmes.
392

By returning victoriously healthy to the place of her former alienation, Céleste Mériel stands
as an example of Lourdes’ superiority and effectively silences skeptics’s doubts: surely a
woman who had unsuccessfully been subjected to many medical explorations and
investigations and who eventually went from paralysed to active and working is a miraculée.
Kaufman sees in Boissarie’s discussion of hysteria an opportunity for him to distance
himself from Charcot and Bernheim, while at the same time affirming himself as the only
true expert, uniquely able to distinguish between healing caused by suggestion and true
miracles. According to her,
The emerging psychological theories of hysteria, in fact, were
potentially troublesome for the bureau’s verification of miracles. Yet
Boissarie’s skillful handling of these theories solidified his scientific
work while capitalizing on the current vogue for the ideas of such
celebrated medical authorities as Jean-Martin Charcot and his rival
Dr. Hippolyte Bernheim. The doctor began his discussion, rather
ingeniously, by freely admitting that large numbers of hysterics were
among the sick at the shrine. Rather than denying their presence,
Boissarie discussed it candidly, even noting that many experienced
relief and full recovery from their illnesses while at Lourdes. Yet
Boissarie insisted that these cures were not counted among the
extraordinary graces attributed to the Virgin. Emphasizing his own
keen understanding of the theories of Charcot and Bernheim – both
of whose ideas on suggestion, hypnotism, and hysteria he discussed
at length – Boissarie and his crew of doctors claimed to be able to
distinguish hysterical cures from cases of divine healing. (…)
Explaining in detail what hysterical illnesses were and how healing by
suggestion worked, Boissarie deftly neutralized the most threatening
arguments against the Lourdes cures by incorporating them into his
own explanations.
393

By chosing to engage the topic of hysteria and suggestion, and by illustrating his analysis
with the case of one of the Salpêtrière girls, Boissarie demonstrates his knowledge of the
times most iconic diagnosis. He also positions himself – the provincial physician – on the

392
Ibid., 258.
393
Kaufman, Consuming Visions, 112.
253
same level as his famous peers. Finally, it allows him to discredit both Charcot and
Bernheim’s skills – they have after all never practiced at Lourdes – and to advocate for a
more cautious diagnostic practice where hysteria is concerned. In fact, he mocks the
supposed ubiquity of hysteria:
D’après la théorie madame du miracle, le monde entier est en
puissance d’hystérie; l’œil le plus exercé, le médecin le plus instruit ne
peut reconnaître cette maladie sous une variété infinie de
manifestations et de formes. La suggestion qui naît de tout ou de
rien, d’une impression légère ou d’une émotion violente; la suggestion
spontanée ou provoquée efface en un instant les troubles nerveux les
plus anciens et les plus graves. Cependant l’hystérie ne peut donner
une fièvre typhoïde, créer le cancer, creuser une plaie profonde. Avec
elle, on aura une fièvre mal définie, une fausse tumeur, une éraillure,
ou une vésication légère; pâle copie de la réalité. Affirmer que chez
l’homme, intelligence, le jugement, qualités morales ou affectives,
tout est sous la dépendance de la suggestion, n’est-ce pas détruire
d’un mot notre personnalité, notre libre arbitre et résoudre ainsi les
plus hauts problèmes de philosophie sociale?
394

Boissarie points out the excessive use of the hysteria diagnosis and shows the limits of an all-
encompassing explanation: affirming the supremacy of hysteria would not explain some of
the most serious symptoms and would actually turn humans into puppets. Even though
Boissarie himself relies on the suggestive powers of Lourdes narratives, he ironically
considers that giving unlimited powers to suggestion serves as a pretext in order to absolve
humans of social responsibility. Moreover, suggestion is not a scientifically sound
explanation to account for a number of conditions. Suggestion cannot create lesions and it
cannot create a disease out of nothing. Hence somewhat paradoxically, Boissarie, the shrine’s
physician, offers one of the strongest epistemological critiques of hysteria and suggestion as
organic explanations and exposes the type of magical thinking that focuses on hysteria.
Evidently, hysteria is useless to explain some conditions:

394
Boissarie, Histoire Médicale, 418.
254
La suggestion ne tue pas les microbes, ne crétifie pas les tubercules.
Les maladies, de leur nature, progressives et envahissantes, telles que
l’ataxie, la sclérose en plaques, continuent leur marche. Il arrive un
moment où la suggestion ne peut rien. Il importe donc de distinguer
les maladie qui résultent d’une altération matérielle qui tombe sous les
sens, des troubles fonctionnels ou nerveux.
395

Hence, Boissarie nuances hysteria’s stronghold. He does not deny the existence of nervous
conditions, but rather gives it a limited scope and, as such, he eliminates the possibility that
all Lourdes miracles are cases of hysteria. Suggestion cannot effect material diseases, but
miracles can and have. As such, Boissarie definitely separates suggestion from miracles. As
he establishes medical boundaries to what hysteria can actually encompass, he essentially
creates a safe space for miracles that cannot be invaded by hysteria. Harris emphasizes
Boissarie’s goal of strictly differentiating between hysteria and other diseases. She writes:
“Even the Catholic doctors at the shrine increasingly adhered to fin-de-siècle notions of
‘nervous’ illnesses as functional disorders, with Doctor Boissarie, the head of the Bureau
from 1892, distinguishing ruthlessly between such illnesses and the ‘organic’ maladies
alleviated at Lourdes.”
396
Essentially Boissarie advocates for more scientific rigor:
Charcot, Bernheim ont affirmé la chose d'une façon plus ou moins
explicite. Et à leur suite, un grand nombre de médecins ont accepté
cette thèse comme chose jugée, démontrée. Mais la démonstration
n’a jamais été faite. Il y a eu souvent, à Lourdes, des observations mal
interprétées et classées d’une façon hâtive. Dans une enquête aussi
étendue, il ne peut en être autrement. Lorsque nous les
rencontrerons, nous nous empresserons de les signaler; mais dans les
faits étudiés d’une façon méthodique, la confusion n’est pas possible.
Entre les malades de Lourdes et les malades de la Salpêtrière et de
Nancy, il n’y a rien de commun, il n'y a aucun point de comparaison à
établir.
397

Boissarie explains the recurrent conflation of hysteria and miracles with his competitors’

395
Ibid., 303.
396
Harris, Lourdes: Body and Spirit in the Secular Age, 307.
397
Boissarie, Histoire Médicale, 117.
255
flawed scientific method. The rise of the hysteria hypothesis to explain Lourdes is therefore
based on a vain enthusiasm for a catchy, but erroneous, justification. Paradoxically,
Bernheim and Charcot have not demonstrated the necessary conscientiousness in their
analysis of hysteria and Boissarie sends them back to their experimental methodology.
Finally, Boissarie also re-affirms that miracles cannot be categorized alongside other
physical phenomena. They resist predictability and challenge commonly accepted
epistemology. He writes:
Tandis que l'hypnotisme peut, à la longue, par des séances répétées,
réussir chez tous les sujets, à Lourdes, ni les séjours prolongés, ni les
immersions fréquentes ne peuvent garantir le succès. L’eau de la
Grotte n'est pas un médicament dont on peut graduer les doses,
prédire à l’avance les effets thérapeutiques. On ne peut promettre ni
amélioration, ni guérison; chacun a le soin de sa conduite et le secret
de ses espérances.
398

In other words, there is no science of miracles. They do not obey the law of medicine or the
laws of nature. The healing process itself cannot be explained, nor can the seemingly random
selection of miraculés. Because of miracles’ resistance to science, Charcot is not qualified to
weigh in on the issue: each miracle is unique and trying to predict or draw conclusions from
a miracle proves to be pointless.
Boissarie’s discussions of hysteria in the Lourdes context are more impartial and
accurate than one might expect from the official leader of the Medical Bureau. Time and
again, he proves his scientific credibility and uses sound scientific method against its
supposed champions. By reminding Charcot and Bernheim of the basis of scientific rigor, he
dismisses their sweeping assessments and discredits their credentials. Furthermore, by
adopting a nuanced position that accepts the existence of both (a form of) hysteria and (a
few) miracles, Boissarie reconciles two seemingly opposite worlds.

398
Ibid., 429.
256
Just as Lasserre’s Histoire de Notre-Dame de Lourdes had durably marked all subsequent
historiographic productions about Lourdes, Boissarie wrote the founding text of Lourdes
medical literature. While the suffering body is central to all of Lourdes’s founding text,
Boissarie – and all subsequent Lourdes medical literature – models a new subgenre that
entangles case studies, personal narratives and medical opinion.
Considering how one particular case of healing has been treated by the three founding
authors of Lourdes literature – Lasserre, Cros and Boissarie – will now reaveal unexpected
convergences and divergences and help us define the place of the suffering body throughout
Lourdes literature.

C) Writing the Suffering Body: Lourdes’s Use of Medical Case Studies

The abundance of Lourdes literature—understood broadly as inclusive of historical,
medical, and fictionalized texts—points to the need to explore and perpetually revisit the
Lourdes events through constantly renewed narratives. Doctors, clerics, historians,
journalists, and novelists illustrate a wide range of opinions about Lourdes and participate in
the production of an ever-growing canon. As they tell and re-tell the stories of Bernadette,
the apparitions and the cure, they endlessly practice an exegesis of preceding texts, yet they
do not engage with primary source material. Indeed, Bernadette’s unmediated, original
account had not been published and, of the hundreds of alleged miraculés, only Lasserre
famously published his own narrative of his experience as part of his Notre-Dame de Lourdes.
Lourdes literature, and even more so its medically-oriented texts, focuses on the body,
as all the embedded stories propose narrative arcs that go from agony to health, or remain
confined in the realm of sickness. The ailing body and its future, whether cured, unaffected
or relapsing, constitutes the heart of the Lourdes narratives. Much like the Salpêtrière had
257
developed a genre around the body of the hysteric, Lourdes literature is about suffering and
healing bodies. As the Salpêtrière’s case studies made visible to a broader audience the lives
of (women) patients that would have otherwise been fast forgotten, cases that emerge out of
Lourdes literature document the suffering, the treatments and the cures of patients who
would have otherwise remained anonymous. Paradoxically, Lourdes literature, which aims at
making the divine manifest, is grounded in physicality.
The way cases of miraculous healings were typically included in all three of Lourdes’s
founding texts is indicative of the circulation and the shaping of narratives in the Lourdes
context as stories get retold, modified and constantly added to. Hence, though the textual
production is abundant, it is also redundant due to the constant re-adaptation and re-citation
of already well-known stories. By first considering how a particular case was treated in the
three founding texts – Lasserre’s, Cros’s and Boissarie’s – I propose to examine how
Lourdes’s narratives manage to produce meaning through their complex entanglement: the
story of the early miracle of the Veuve Rizan, treated by all three authors, is exemplary of the
contribution of case studies to Lourdes literature.

a) A Comparative Case Study: Reading the Miracle of the Veuve Rizan

The story of the Veuve Rizan’s cure is one of those cures whose story was widely
disseminated since it is present in all three of Lourdes’s founding texts. Zola includes it in
the part he dedicates to the Première Journée of the pilgrimage: as the excitement rises
among pilgrims on the train to Lourdes, they begin sharing stories of famous cures. The
Veuve Rizan’s is one of them and Zola has one of the enthusiastic pilgrims present her story
to the group:
Moi j’ai une amie qui a connu la veuve Rizan, cette dame dont la
258
guérison a fait aussi tant de bruit… Depuis vingt-quatre ans, elle était
paralysée de tout le côté gauche. Elle rendait ce qu’elle mangeait, elle
n’était plus qu’une masse inerte qu’on retournait dans le lit; et, à la
longue, le frottement des draps lui avait usé la peau… Un soir, le
médecin annonça qu’elle mourrait avant le jour. Deux heures plus
tard, elle sortit de sa torpeur en demandant d’une voix faible à sa fille
d’aller lui chercher un verre d’eau de Lourdes, chez une voisine. Mais
le lendemain matin seulement, elle put avoir ce verre d’eau, elle cria:
“Oh! Ma fille, c’est la vie que je vois, lave-moi le visage, le bras, la
jambe, tout le corps!” Et, à mesure que l’enfant
lui obéissait, elle voyait l’enflure énorme s’affaisser, les membres
paralysés reprendre leur souplesse et leur aspect naturel… Ce n’est
pas tout, madame Rizan criait qu’elle était guérie, qu’elle avait faim,
qu’elle voulait du pain et de la viande, elle qui n’en avait pas mangé
depuis vingt-quatre ans. Et elle se leva, et elle s’habilla, pendant que
sa fille répondait aux voisines qui la croyaient orpheline, en la voyant
bouleversée:
“Non, non! maman n’est pas morte, elle est ressuscitée!”
399

In Lourdes, this story is included in a long list of similar miracles narrated by the pilgrims. A
few pages later, Zola’s protagonist, Pierre, reads to the passengers a version of Bernadette’s
story based on Lasserre’s account,
400
but Lasserre’s influence is also palpable in the version
of the Veuve Rizan’s story told by the pilgrim. Zola’s description of her skin, for instance,
directly echoes Lasserre’s: “Sur le côté, en plusieurs endroits, sa peau était usée par le long
frottement du lit, et laissait voir la chair toute dénudée et sanglante. La mort approchait.”
401

In this excerpt, Lasserre’s taste for graphic bodily details and sensationalism is evident. But
his story of the Veuve Rizan is paradoxical: it is both extremely detailed but also lacks the
most essential elements. For example, Lasserre’s portrayal of her agony includes many
explicit details of her ailments. He also includes information about her medical history,
including the fact that two doctors had deemed her condition hopeless and that she had
received the last rites just before her cure. Lasserre also discusses at length her son’s reaction

399
Zola, Lourdes, 99.
400
See Jacques Noiray’s footnote in Zola’s Lourdes, 115.
401
Lasserre, Notre-Dame de Lourdes, 365.
259
to her illness and subsequent cure. He writes:
À Bordeaux cependant, M. Romain Rizan, au désespoir, attendait
avec angoisse la missive fatale qui devait lui annoncer la mort de sa
mère. Ce fut pour lui un coup terrible lorsqu’un matin la poste lui
apporta une lettre dont l’adresse portait l’écriture bien connue de M.
l’abbé Dupont.
- J’ai perdu ma pauvre mère, dit-il à un ami qui était venu le visiter.
Et il fondit en larmes sans avoir le courage de briser l’enveloppe.
-Ayez de la force dans le Malheur, ayez de la foi, lui disait son ami.
Il rompit enfin le cachet. Les premiers mots qui frappèrent ses yeux
furent ceux-ci: “Deo gratias! Alleluia! Réjouissez-vous mon cher ami.
Votre mère est guérie, complètement guérie. C’est la Sainte Vierge
qui lui a rendu miraculeusement la santé.” L’abbé Dupont lui
racontait de quelle façon toute divine Mme Rizan avait trouvé au
terme de son agonie la Vie au lieu de la Mort.
402

Lasserre’s melodramatic tone plays no role in providing scientific facts to understand the
cure, but it heightens the emotional stakes of his narrative. Indeed, by including such
emotional details, Lasserre actually plays with his readers’ fears and their morbid fascination
in order to optimize its dramatic effect, essentially playing with their impressionability.
For instance, in spite of the abundance of details, Lasserre’s text lacks some basic and
essential information. The exact age of the Veuve Rizan is never given (though it can be
deduced from the context he provides), nor does he give any specific medical information
about her exact condition or even the year of her cure. Rather, Lasserre is concerned with
making a lasting impression and he strays away from scientific language and considerations.
Yet, even as he fails to provide scientific evidence, Lasserre uses this case as an opportunity
to lecture on the role of medicine. Indeed, Lasserre stages himself conducting an
investigation ten years after the cure and visiting the Veuve Rizan’s physician. As the aging
doctor does not express curiosity about the cure and even dismisses it, Lasserre gets carried
away:

402
Ibid., 367.
260
La médecine n’est pas une science speculative, c’est une science
expérimentale. L’expérience est sa loi. L’observation des faits, voilà
son principe premier et fondamental. Si on vous eût dit que Mme
Rizan avait été guérie de la sorte en se frottant avec une infusion de
telle ou telle plante récemment trouvée dans la montagne, vous
n’auriez certainement pas manqué d’aller constater la guérison,
examiner la plante, et enregistrer une découverte qui vous aurait peut-
être paru aussi importante que celle du quinquina au siècle dernier. Il
en eût été de même si cette cure soudaine eût été produite par
quelque nouvelle source sulfureuse ou alkaline. Mais ici, on parlait
d’une eau jaillie miraculeusement, et vous n’avez pas voulu aller voir.
Oubliant que vous étiez médecin, c’est-à-dire le très-humble serviteur
des faits, vous avez refuse de regarder, comme les academies des
sciences qui nièrent la vapeur sans daigner verifier, et qui
proscrivirent le quinquina au nom de je ne sais quels principes
médicaux. En médecine quand un fait se présente qui contredit un
principe accepté, c’est la preuve que le principe est faux. L’expérience
est le juge suprême.
403

Here Lasserre points to what he considers to be a double standard: there is a prejudice
against Lourdes since the cures attributed to Lourdes are too easily dismissed by the medical
community. Hence, in spite of his lack of medical credentials and his failure to incorporate
objective medical facts in his storytelling, Lasserre still uses a format akin to medical case
studies, though emptied out of their scientific relevance and, in the face of a de-legitimized
medical community, Lasserre presents himself as the only credible voice. In turn this
seemingly scientific attempt entitles him to impart his definition of what constitutes sound
medical method and betrays how epistemological considerations permeated the fin de siècle
and were expressed in littérature populaire, thereby exposing a wide range of readers to new
ideas.
Boissarie’s Histoire Médicale de Lourdes offers another example of how the story of the
Veuve Rizan gets re-appropriated and instrumentalized to serve a specific agenda. Though
Boissarie devotes more time to the most recent cases, he still aims to provide an exhaustive

403
Ibid., 376.
261
account of the Lourdes cases and revisits early cases. His rendering of the story of the Veuve
Rizan is situated in his second chapter dedicated to the early cases of miraculous healing and
is prefaced by a discussion of cures in the broader context of the Salpêtrière and Nancy. He
writes:
Dans ces derniers temps, les applications nouvelles de l'hypnotisme,
la connaissance plus approfondie des maladies nerveuses, ont ouvert
devant nous des voies inexplorées. Sur ce terrain, on a cru trouver
l'explication des guérisons de Lourdes. Charcot, Bernheim ont
affirmé la chose d'une façon plus ou moins explicite. Et à leur suite,
un grand nombre de médecins ont accepté cette thèse comme chose
jugée, démontrée. Mais la démonstration n'a jamais été faite. Il y a eu
souvent à Lourdes, des observations mal interprétées et classées
d'une façon hâtive. Dans une enquête aussi étendue, il ne peut en être
autrement. Lorsque nous les rencontrerons, nous nous empresserons
de les signaler; mais dans les faits étudiés d'une façon méthodique, la
confusion n'est pas possible. Entre les malades de Lourdes et les
malades de la Salpêtrière et de Nancy, il n'y a rien de commun, il n'y a
aucun point de comparaison à établir.
404

Hence, for Boissarie, discussing the case of the veuve Rizan, an early case of healing, re-
iginites the debates about healing and provides him with another opportunity to dismiss
objections over Lourdes’s healing powers. In fact, her case is exemplary of these objections
and he uses it to address concerns. As he begins telling the Veuve Rizan’s story, he
immediately admits his debt to Lasserre. Indeed, his version of the story is admittedly a
summary taken from Lasserre’s version and this particular example illustrates his influence
on later Lourdes literature.
Boissarie does not quote Lasserre verbatim. Rather he expunges Lasserre’s version of
its most melodramatic elements but he still keeps some of the dialogues that make the
moment of the cure so impressive for the reader. In addition, though he managed to keep a
lyrical style, he still managed to use medical vocabulary, conferring on his version an aura of

404
Boissarie, Histoire Médicale, 117.
262
authority and legitimacy. For instance, the parallel storyline about the Veuve Rizan’s son’s
surprise at his mother’s cure has been reduced to a brief mention, but Boissarie includes
some of the facts that were missing from Lasserre’s. Hence, we learn that the miraculée was
fifty-eight at the time of the cure and he also includes a direct quote from one of the early
medical reports. Boissarie’s bleak physiological portrayal aims to highlight how unlikely a
cure was in the case of the Veuve Rizan.
However, although he moves away from Lasserre’s quasi-novelistic storytelling,
Boissarie still plays with the readers’ emotion and impressionability. For example, he poses a
series of questions:
Tout cela peut-il disparaître en un instant, comme ces douleurs
fugaces qui disparaissent avec la rapidité de l’éclair? Cette femme
peut-elle sauter à bas de son lit et retrouver sans transition une santé
qui paraissait à jamais perdue? Pas un médecin, ayant quelque
expérience de son art, ne vous répondra d'une façon affirmative.
405

This series of rhetorical questions ressemble Lasserre’s melodramatic style and, though he is
representing scientific method and modern medicine, Boissarie’s style is not objective and
clinical, but rather relies on rhetorical strategies.
If Boissarie’s medical writing resorts to rhetorical strategies, it is undoubtedly because
this case, among others, is one where the battle of hysteria is being waged. In fact, the case
of the Veuve Rizan is a platform to address once again the question of hysteria and hypnosis
and settle the issue once and for all:
Quant à nous parler ici des merveilles de l'hystérie ou de
l'hypnotisme, l'argument n'est pas sérieux. Chaque jour il faut en
rabattre de ces merveilles. Il y a quelques mois, je demandais des
renseignements sur l'hypnotisme à un homme dont la parole fait
autorité sur ces questions, à un des plus brillants élèves de Charcot,
au doyen d'une importante faculté de province.

405
Ibid., 122.
263
“L'hypnotisme, me disait-il, a été étudié sans règle et sans
méthode par des hommes peu préparés à ce genre d’études, par des
hommes de loi, par des savants étrangers à la médecine, et par des
empiriques, il en est résulté des études un peu fantaisistes et des
données contradictoires. Nous n'observons pas dans nos hôpitaux
toutes ces merveilles que l’on nous signale comme des phénomènes
d'observation usuelle. L’hypnotisme a encore du roman dans son
histoire. Quant à ces guérisons instantanées à ces surprises que nous
réserve l’hystérie, à ces modifications à vue qui renversent toutes les
lois, il faut en rabattre aussi. Nos hystériques guérissent mal et,
malgré la suggestion, les aimants et toutes les ressources nouvelles,
elles restent comme dans le passé longtemps dans les salles d'hôpital,
elles conservent toujours ou le germe, ou les manifestations de leur
diathèse. Les cures merveilleuses et les changements à vue sont une
illusion ou une espérance, mais bien rarement une réalité.”
C'est néanmoins sur de pareilles données que l'on a voulu
édifier toute une théorie pour expliquer les guérisons de Lourdes.
Sans doute, dans des exemples semblables à celui de là veuve Rizan,
nous n'avons pas de lésion matérielle qui tombe sous les sens, comme
une plaie ou une tumeur. Et encore, nous avons des plaies résultant
d'un séjour trop prolongé dans le lit, l’hydropsie qui s’efface à vue
d'oeil, etc. Mais, même en faisant abstraction de ces lésions
secondaires, il n'y a là pour celui qui consent à étudier les faits et pour
le médecin qui rencontre chaque jour des maladies semblables, qu’un
problème dont la solution lui est connue. C'est une affection dont
l’issue est fatale et qui se jouera de tous nos efforts. Pour l’enrayer
brusquement, il faut une puissance supérieure à la nôtre, supérieure à
tous nos moyens d'action.
406

Hence, just like Lasserre has used the case of the Veuve Rizan to lecture on medicine’s role
and on the physicians’s responsibilities, Boissarie too uses this case to debunk once again the
idea that hysteria and/or hypnosis play a part in the Lourdes events. Essentially, his
argument relies on the idea that the occurrence of miraculous cures in hospitals is an illusion
and therefore, the idea that Lourdes and the Salpêtrière resort to the same therapeutic
mecanisms is flawed.
Lasserre’s influence is evident in Boissarie’s text, since he is admittedly his main source
and, though their accounts differ stylistically, as Boissarie endeavors to insuflate a scientific

406
Ibid., 122.
264
legitimacy to his analysis, their approach and their agendas are particularly close. Cros, on the
other hand proposes a different take on the case of the Veuve Rizan.
Père Cros discusses the case of the Veuve Rizan in his canonical, and exhaustive,
Histoire de Notre-Dame de Lourdes. Her story is narrated in the second volume, dedicated to
Lourdes’ struggles and in a chapter addressing the early cases of miracles. As always, Cros is
concerned with accuracy and he provides two specific details missing from previous
accounts. First, he documents the onset of her condition (in 1834) as well as the exact date
of her cure, on October 17
th
1858, after receiving Lourdes water. Whereas Lasserre provides
abundant details about her obtaining the water, Cros does not focus on this aspect but he
reconstitutes the case through his usual method of listing quotes from the individuals closer
to the case. Hence, he includes excerpts from a letter of Veuve Rizan’s local priest dating to
1860 and attesting to her renewed vigor and health.
407
He also includes reports from doctor
Vergez, the shrine’s original doctor admitting that this particular healing qualified as
supernatural. He is also the only one to document her life after the cure, establishing that she
died in 1869 after ten years of perfect health following the miracle. Yet, in spite of the added
details, his version does not differ much from that of his predecessors.
Père Cros had already discussed the case well before the publication of his exhaustive
history of the sanctuary. In 1901, Père Cros’s Notre-Dame de Lourdes, Récits et Mystères, was a
condensed version of his major work and it too offered descriptions of miracles from this
respected Lourdes scholar. He dedicates a couple of pages to the Veuve Rizan’s case in a
chapter dedicated to “la relation officielle de quelques miracles de Notre-Dame de Lourdes,

407
Père Léonard-Joseph-Marie Cros, Histoire de Notre-Dame de Lourdes d’après les Documents et les
Témoins (Paris: Beauchesne, 1925), 470.
265
en ces premiers temps.”
408
Here, Cros explicitly admits his ambition to recount the ultimate
version of events and to provide the official version of a much re-written story.
We know that Cros prided himself on his thoroughness and his attention to detail is
obvious from the beginning of his account. His narrative starts by providing a host of
details: Veuve Rizan’s age, the time of her first cholera episode, her location. Then, the
medical part of his account includes a long list of her ailments and ends with an admission of
medicine’s powerlessness. However, Cros is more inclined to discuss religious
considerations: while Lasserre had mentioned that the Veuve Rizan had received the last
rites, Cros goes further, insisting that she was not conscious at that point. He writes:
Des progrès si rapides et si intenses firent craindre une fin peu
éloignée, et l’on se détermina à administrer les derniers sacrements à
la malade, le dimanche 12 septembre; mais son accablement était si
grand qu’elle n’eut pas conscience de la cérémonie accomplie près
d’elle, et des onctions qui lui furent faites.
409

Similarly, after he describes the cure itself, he shares another detail already present in both
Lasserre’s and Boissarie’s accounts, namely that the first thing the miraculée did was to kneel
in front of a statue of the Virgin. He also adds that she went to the nearby city of Bétharram
soon after and she attended three consecutive masses, a detail not present in the other two
authors’ accounts.
Cros’s story makes evident how Lourdes storytelling builds upon previous versions
and exemplifies how each writer adapts the source material and carefully edits the details to
add, or substract. Cros’s quoting a report from doctor Vergez, the original shrine doctor,
who had already been quoted by Lasserre illustrates the constant recycling and reframing of
facts and the way in which they sometimes remain latent, eventually traveling through textual

408
Ibid., 194.
409
Ibid., 204.
266
iterations, sometimes disappearing only to reappear in a much later version. Moreover, the
differences between Cros’s two versions of events shows even more acutely how vain this
constant production of marginally different accounts is: while the narrative differences
between Lasserre’s and Boissarie’s accounts are minimal, the differences between the two
Cros texts are even more minimal. Yet, they also illustrate and exemplify the compulsion to
endlessly write and rewrite Lourdes.
While Lasserre offers the longest version of the Veuve Rizan’s story, he also offers the
most fictionalized one, offering an abundance of details about the condition, the cure and its
aftermath. His propensity for dramatic effect is also palapable in his discourse about the role
and method of medicine, which he frames as part of a virulent and grandiloquent dialogue
with a local doctor. Boissarie’s account of the case is very much inspired by Lasserre, though
he proposes a much-expunged version. He too uses the case to address some outstanding
concerns about the cures, namely the alleged role of hysteria and hypnosis. At this point, his
narrative breaks away from Lasserre’s as he endeavors to give a scientific demonstration of
the lack of merit of the hysteria hypothesis. Cros’s version encompasses details from both
Lasserre and Boissarie’s and he illustrates the illusion of exhaustivity and throroughness: he
writes a shorter, more condensed version that includes more factual information – such as
dates and location – yet, overall, his version only marginally differs from the others. Hence,
paradoxically, through the subsequent narrative layers, each version of the Veuve Rizan’s
story appears both somewhat unique and still quite similar to the others. This inherent
paradox is also evident in other miracles stories. Indeed, a collection of miracles testimonies
compiled for Lourdes’s twenty-fifth Jubilé illustrates how each story is both unique and
formulaic.

267
b) Stories from the 1897 Jubilé

Le Jubilé du Pélerinage national de Lourdes 1873-1897 is a Catholic publication whose
purpose is to celebrate the “noces d’argent du pélerinage.” Illustrated with colorful images of
the Virgin, Bernadette and Lourdes, it appears to target a popular audience of fidèles and
endeavors to trace back and exalt the story of the pilgrimage itself.
This text covers the organization of the Jubilé events and details the appeal launched
in preparation for the festivities:
Voici le projet que nous proposons: grouper autour de Notre-Dame
de Lourdes les heureux privilégiés qui ont été guéris ou qui ont été
l’objet de grâces spéciales et profiter du Pèlerinage national de 1897
pour organiser cette magnifique manifestation d’actions de grâces.
410

Hence, the organizers of the Jubilé
411
endeavor to track down the miraculés and to ask them to
join the Jubilé procession in an effort to exalt Lourdes. In other words, the organizers
propose to make the miraculés the heros of the Jubilé, thereby placing the tension between the
suffering and the healed body in the spotlight:
Mais ceux qui accueillirent ce projet avec le plus de joie, ce furent les
privilégiés eux-mêmes de Marie, tous ceux qui avaient été l’objet de
quelque guérison merveilleuse et qui étaient invités à être les héros de
la fête jubilaire. Leur nombre est considérable, d’après ce que nous
avons vu dans le court historique des Pèlerinages nationaux. Nous
croyons même qu’il dépasse 2000. Il fut impossible de les retrouver
tous. À Paris, les changements de domicile sont fréquents, surtout
pour les pauvres, et sur quelques adresses prises dans les récits des
guérisons ou améliorations publiées depuis vingt-cinq ans par Le
Pèlerin, beaucoup — 102 —ne permirent pas de retrouver les anciens
malades guéris.
412

The goal of the Jubilé’s organizers is particularly ambitious: finding and gathering at Lourdes

410
Le Jubilé du Pèlerinage National à Lourdes: 1873-1897 (Paris: Maison de la Bonne Presse,
1897), 42.
411
The Jubilé’s text authorship remains obscure. The authors speak as a “we,” though no
entity is formally identified.
412
Ibid., 47.
268
as many miraculés as possible, and recording their stories. Indeed, participants are asked to
provide, among other things, their account of their cure:
Voici ce que nous demanderions de ceux qui viennent en action de
grâces:
1° De nous faire connaître leur intention de venir à Lourdes pour le
dimanche 22 août;
2° D’apporter le récit de leur maladie et de leur guérison avec
l’attestation de leur curé et de leur médecin ou de leurs amis;
3° De préparer un insigne qu’ils porteraient à la procession et qu’ils
rapporteraient ensuite à leur paroisse ou à leur communauté comme
un souvenir précieux.
413

Therefore, miraculés are asked to provide their own testimony. They need to write the story of
their disease and of their cure, and that document needs to be complemented by additional
documents, one of them a medical certificate, thereby demonstrating that, by 1897, Lourdes
had fully integrated the affirmative role that medicine could play in demonstrating miracles.
The text gives further details as to the characteristics of the narratives:
Pour faire partie du groupe dit des “miraculés” et avoir droit aux
insignes spéciaux, il faut être admis par le Comité de Paris, qui juge
d’après les pièces reçues. Ces pièces sont:
1° Réponses à un questionnaire envoyé;
2° Récit très court de la maladie, de la guérison et de l’état actuel;
3° Certificats des médecins (ou de personnes dignes de foi) sur la
maladie et l’état actuel;
4° Certificats des curés, confesseurs ou supérieurs, sur l’authenticité
des récits et sur la piété des guéris;
5° Attestation de Pauvreté par leur curé ou par une dame de nos
Comités qui les aurait visitées, pour les personnes trop Pauvres qui ne
pourraient, en conscience, faire les frais du voyage.
414

The criteria to select the miraculés to be included are particularly precise and the requested
account of the cure is required to follow a very specific formula: it needs to be short, it needs
to detail the moment of healing itself and an update on the miraculé’s current health. This
requirement, along with the list of mandatory supporting documents, preemptively frames

413
Ibid., 43.
414
Ibid., 44.
269
these narratives. Hence, whereas the Jubilé offers a rare opportunity for miraculés to speak,
their words remain constrained by the required format.
The first chapter of the Jubilé publication is dedicated to the preparation of the event
and includes excerpts from letters sent to the Jubilé chosen to highlight the recurrent
gratitude toward the shrine. The second chapter – entitled “les héros du Jubilé” – compiles
excerpts from “plus de quarante exemples de guérisons pris ça et là,”
415
adapted mostly from
case notes. While it includes these notes, it does not share any actual first-person account.
Hence the Jubilé demonstrates the interest in compiling accounts of the cures, yet it also
shows the will to control how narratives are being used and disseminated since the first-
person accounts are not shared with the broader public.
416

However, two of the miraculées discussed in the Jubilé’s text are also featured in Zola’s
Lourdes and illuminate the way in which these stories of healing circulate in the late
nineteenth century.

c) Reading Lourdes: The Cases of Zola’s Elise Rouquet and La Grivotte

In Lourdes, Zola had reveled in depicting particularly grim conditions with an
abundance of graphic details. In the novel, Zola follows the pilgrimage –and the (debatable)
cure – of two particularly sick women: Elise Rouquet, who suffers from a disfiguring lupus,
and La Grivotte, who is consumed by tuberculosis. Zola’s initial description of la Grivotte is
relatively subdued:
C’était une grande fille qui avait dépassé la trentaine, déhanchée,
singulière, au visage rond et ravagé, que ses cheveux crépus et ses de

415
Ibid., 59.
416
Historians Harris and Kaufman were able to access the original testimonies through
archival research at Lourdes.
270
flame rendaient presque belle. Elle était phtisique au troisième
degree.
417

By contrast, Zola finds in Elise Rouquet’s condition an opportunity to make an impression
on his readers:
Enfin, le fichu tomba, et Marie eut un frisson d’horreur. C’était un
lupus, qui avait envahi le nez et la bouche, peu à peu grandi là, une
ulceration lente s’étalant sans cesse sous les croûtes, dévorant les
muqueuses. La tête allongée en museau de chien, avec ses cheveux
rudes et ses gros yeux ronds, étiat devenue affreuse. Maintenant, les
cartilages du nez se trouvaient presque mangés, la bouche s’était
rétractée, tirée à gauche par l’enflure de la lèvre supérieure, pareille à
une fente oblique, immonde et sans forme. Une sueur de sang, mêlée
à du pus, coulait de l’énorme plaie livide. (…) Le prêtre frémit à son
tour, en regardant Elise Rouquet glisser avec precaution les petits
morceaux de pain dans le trou saignant qui lui servait de bouche.
Tout le wagon avait blêmi devant l’abominable apparition. Et la
même pensée montait de toutes ces âmes gonflées d’espoir. Ah!
Vierge sainte, Vierge puissante, quels miracles, si un pareil mal
guérissait!
418

In the novel, both Elise Rouquet and la Grivotte were cured at Lourdes, though Zola
depicted the latter’s particularly graphic relapse during her return trip, thereby reinforcing his
skepticism. In the aftermath of the publication of Lourdes, these two cases were much
discussed. Indeed, even though Zola changed their names, both Rouquet and la Grivotte are
fictional versions of existing pilgrims who traveled to Lourdes and had been cured there and
soon the real patients were tracked down in order to publicly contradict Zola’s version of
events and, more importantly, his theories of miracles.
Le Matin dated November, 22 1894 headlined that Zola was in the hot seat (“sur la
selette”) over his treatment of the miraculées. Indeed, the newspaper relays the news of a press
conference during which Boissarie, reacting to the publication of Lourdes, had virulently

417
Zola, Lourdes, 22.
418
Zola, Lourdes, 24.
271
attacked Zola’s method and lack of integrity. Boissarie presents the real Elise Rouquet to the
crowd in order to prove Zola’s deception:
Nous arrivons enfin aux trois maladies les plus intéressants, la fille au
lupus, la Grivotte et Mlle de Guersaint. La fille au lupus, vous la
voyez devant vous; elle est venue de Caen ce matin même, elle fut
soignée par le docteur Dombre; elle était atteinte d'un lupus qui lui
dévorait le nez et la bouche, elle avait en outre des tubercules dans les
poumons. D'habitude, ces cas sont incurables. Marie Marchand, que
Zola appelle dans son roman Elise Rouquet, est devant vous. Le
romancier a été témoin de son rétablissement et il ne peut le nier. “Ce
n'est pas un teint de lis et de rose, a-t-il dit quand Mlle Marchand s’est
présentée au bureau, mais je dois constater que c’est
extraordinaire.”
419

Hence, Boissarie’s intervention contradicts Zola’s version of events. But Boissarie’s
demonstration and his grandiloquent public display of women are also evocative of
Charcot’s methods.
The 1897 Jubilé publication had also tracked down both Elise Rouquet and la
Grivotte and featured them as examples of both Zola’s bad faith and the powers of miracles.
Mme Marie Lemarchand, rue du Bras, 57, à Caen, était horriblement
défigurée par un lupus de la face et atteinte de paralysie du côté
gauche. C’est l’Élise Rouquet du roman de Zola. Le romancier s’est
plu à décrire dans tous ses détails sa face monstrueuse, “sa tête de
chien, au museau rongé....” Passons sur ce réalisme répugnant.
L’écrivain a raconté une guérison lente, à évolutions successives,
obtenue en plusieurs jours avec des lotions d’eau de Lourdes. Marie
Lemarchand fut guérie, non pas à la fontaine, mais à la piscine, non
pas progressivement, mais instantanément. Le Dr d’Hombre, témoin
de la guérison, en a raconté dans une déposition écrite la production
subite. À la place de la plaie hideuse avait succédé immédiatement
une surface rouge, il est vrai, mais sèche et comme recouverte d’un
épiderme de nouvelle formation
.420

419
“Les Miraculés,” Le Matin, 22 novembre 1894, 1.
420
Le Jubilé, 77.
272
Hence, the text insists on the medical validation provided by a doctor who witnessed the
cure, thereby contradicting Zola. The Jubilé also presents the case of la Grivotte as equally
convincing:
Marie Lebranchu, la célèbre Grivotte de Zola, s’est fixée à Lourdes.
Elle est en service chez Mme Node, chalet Saint-Bernard; elle habitait
précédemment, 172, rue Championnet, à Paris. Malgré que le
romancier l’ait fait mourir, Marie Lebranchu se porte très bien
aujourd’hui. Elle était atteinte, d'après le certificat du Dr Marquézy,
médecin de l’hospice de Lariboisière, d’une tuberculose pulmonaire
au 38 degré. On a trouvé dans ses crachats des bacilles
caractéristiques du tubercule. Elle restait constamment au lit,
vomissait du sang, avait perdu 48 livres de son poids, et ne gardait
plus aucune nourriture. On refusa d’abord de la baigner: c’était un
véritable squelette. La tremper dans l’eau, c’était le miracle ou la mort.
Marie Lebranchu insista, supplia. On la mit dans la piscine. Les forces
lui revinrent subitement comme un grand coup de fouet qui lui
cinglait tout le corps. “je suis guérie,” s’écria-t-elle (22 août 1892).
Elle avait trente-cinq ans.
421

Already, in the supplement section La Croix newspaper dated September 1-2, 1895, an article
entitled “Zola et la Vierge” featured a journalist’s conversation with Marie Lebranchu, also
intended to contradict Zola:
Or, j'ai vu Marie Lebranchu qui affirme qu'elle est guérie et que M.
Zola, ayant su le miracle, a nié quand même de parti pris. Le démenti,
d'ailleurs, est infligé à la science en même temps qu'au roman. Mais la
guérison de l'héroïne de Lourdes, si elle était prouvée, ce serait plus
que la revanche de la Foi bafouée ce serait la conclusion de la vie
changée, et je pense que cela vaut bien une interview.
422

This interview also provides a rare opportunity to hear a quasi-direct quote from a miraculée.
Here, Marie Lebranchue is the true focus of the interview and testifies about her cure and
her current condition;
“Oui, je reviens de Lourdes, et c'est mon troisième pèlerinage. La
première fois, en 1892, j'ai été guérie. J'y suis retournée l'année
suivante et celle-ci encore, et de nouveau tant que je vivrai, puisque la

421
Ibid., 78.
422
“Zola et la Vierge, Conversation avec la Grivotte,” La Croix, 1-2 Septembre 1895, 2.
273
Vierge m'a prise en pitié. Car, vous savez, ce que M. Zola a dit dans
son livre n'est pas la vérité. Il a affirmé que j'étais revenue malade,
m'était crue sauvée. C'est faux. Je n'ai pas eu de rechute, ainsi qu'il l'a
écrit pour contester le miracle. Et c’est bien moi qu'il a vue, moi qu'il
a interrogée au bureau médical des constatations, à Lourdes. OUI,
c’est bien moi la Grivotte…”
423

As the interview continues, she provides a graphic description of her symptoms that Zola
would not have disavowed:
C'est alors, Monsieur, que je partis pour Lourdes, On dut me
transporter couchée sur un matelas. Et je souffrais. Et je priais tout le
long du voyage, les vomissements me prenaient avec tant de force
que tout mon sang s'en allait. Je me vidais positivement. A Poitiers, je
crus que j'allais passer et on courut chercher le prêtre, qui
m'administra les Saints Sacrements. Et puis, comme je voulais vivre
pour être sauvée, et comme nous étions arrivés à Lourdes, voilà
qu'on craignit de me transporter à la Grotte comme si j'avais dû
mourir en route. A force d'insister, je m'y fis porter, toujours sur mon
matelas, et on me plongea dans la piscine. Que se passa-t-il en moi, je
ne puis vous le dire. Sur tout le corps, j'éprouvai comme une brûlure;
mais ce ne fut que l'impression d'une seconde, pas davantage, et puis
je poussai un cri “Je suis guérie !” et je sortis de l’eau et je me mis à
courir, à courir…
424

The rest of the interview provides a surprising insight into the common perception of the
miracle and furtively brings back to the forefront the specter of hysteria:
Elle répète “J'étais guérie, guérie absolument, et j'étais restée dans
l'eau quelques seconds à peine.” Mais son mari intervient, M.
Wuiplier, qui n'a rien dit jusque-là, laisse tomber cette phrase “Ça se
comprend la réaction des nerfs!” Alors, elle se tourne vers lui, et,
brutalement: Des nerfs! Des nerfs.! Eh bien quoi? Avec cela que, si la
SainteVierge n'était pas intervenue, j'aurais été guérie. Des nerfs! Des
nerfs! Ils n'ont que ce mot-là à la bouche, des nerfs!” Et elle
s'emporte en un torrent de paroles, un peu de rouge aux joues “C'est
à la Vierge, lui dis-je, que vous attribuez votre guérison, Madame?”
Elle me répond oui, très fermement, et, soudainement calmée, elle
fait un signe de croix. (…) Moi, quand je suis sortie de la piscine,
reprend-elle, j'ai tout de suite eu envie de courir. C'était la joie. Et
puis la faim m'a prise, Monsieur, une faim comme vous n'en pouvez
imaginer, et j'ai mangé, j'ai mangé. Cet appétit formidable m'a tenu

423
Ibid., 2.
424
Ibid., 2.
274
durant tout le voyage, au retour, pendant ce long trajet en chemin de
fer que j'avais parcouru, mourante. Alors, je vous le demande,
pourquoi M. Zola écrit-il, dans Lourdes que j’ai eu une rechute dans le
wagon?
425

Zola’s Lourdes had been serialized in Gil Blas, thereby reaching a wide audience, and it is also
through the press that the battle of Lourdes is waged. These two cases illustrate the
circulation of stories, not only through the medical and religious press, but also as fictions in
widely read periodicals, demonstrating the place of Lourdes in the imaginaire of the time.
Indeed, Lourdes permeates the fin-de-siècle unconscious. But these cases also show the
difficulty of accessing original sources and of differentiating between facts and fictive layers.
Hence, Lourdes’s case studies present an inextricable entanglement of (medical) facts and
fiction.

Chapter Conclusion

This chapter’s goals were three-fold: to document the existence of Lourdes literature
as a genre, to establish a canon, and to study the particular types of storytelling that emerge
in the Lourdes context. The events at Lourdes gave birth to a plethora of textual
productions. Alongside novels such as Zola’s Lourdes erupted a new genre of Lourdes literary
non-fiction that aimed to capture and disseminate the shrine’s story once and for all. While
some texts emphasized historical aspects of the story and others focused on the medical
question of miracles, all of them share the same ambition to deliver the definite text about
Lourdes. This quixotic endeavor results in the endless production of overlapping texts that
present Lourdes as a riddle buried under countless narrative layers and, in spite of the
proliferation of texts, authors fail to produce any original material.
Moreover, Lourdes literature provides a perfect laboratory to investigate the effects of

425
Ibid., 2.
275
impressionability on readers. As the most gruesome bodily details are recounted, reading
appears as one path of contamination and, reading about miracles (or hysteria) can be
credited for its epidemic dimension. Hence, the cultural pervasiveness of these healing
testimonials can indeed hold the key to the sanctuary’s longevity. Indeed, Lourdes literature
could be a cause of the self-perpetuation of the sanctuary: stories being published and read
could result in more healings that, once recorded, would themselves contribute to more
cures and so on. Hence, as Lourdes permeates the public sphere, its contaminating powers
are grounded in impressionability, thereby building another bridge between the sanctuary
and the Salpêtrière.
Finally, through the myriad of healing narratives, emerge hybrid discourses about
health, sickness, mind and body that also illustrate how the common understanding of the
body was shifting at the time. The notion of a healing faith foreshadows the secular theory
of psychosomatism and announces the advent of psychoanalysis.
276
EPILOGUE
FROM FREUD’s IMMATERIAL UNCONSCIOUS TO THE RETURN OF THE BIOLOGICAL
BODY

Where there's smoke, there's fire.
Hélène Cixous, Portrait of Dora, 1979.

Bodies have all the explanatory power of minds.
Elizabeth Grosz, Volatile Bodies, 1994.

Introduction
Though polarized, the fin de siècle appears as a time of cross-contamination and
mutual influence between fields that had been traditionally opposed. In the first chapter, I
demonstrated that medical literature had taken over, adapted and appropriated formerly
religious narratives. Through the practice of retrospective medicine, medical thought
meddled with the religious world and superimposed on cases of possession and mysticism
the newly popular diagnosis of hysteria. Medicine, and particularly the emerging field of
neurology, looked at – and through – religious manifestations and invaded their territory,
providing an alternate way to interpret and understand the body. In this context, literary
texts provide evidence of hysteria’s dominance in public discourse – its cultural ubiquity –
since the newly revived diagnosis quickly imposed its narrative hegemony on medicine,
literature and culture.
Yet, this contamination of the religious field – and of culture at large – by hysteria is
not unilateral. The interpenetration of religion and medicine is particularly obvious in the
historical convergence of hysteria and miracles. As these two phenomena unfold
concurrently, they both challenge the contemporary understanding of the mind/body
277
relationship. In the second chapter, I considered how the notion of suggestion was being
theorized as a way to explain both hysterical manifestations and the Lourdes cures. Through
debates about suggestion and hypnosis – suggestion’s “voie royale” – a new, much-debated,
way to think of the mind’s influence over the body emerged. The debates over mind and
body culminated with the publication of Charcot’s last essay, The Healing Faith, which, by
explicitly questioning the possibility of religious miracles and by folding them into the
category of suggestive healings, showed the uncanny proximity of medicine and religion.
Moreover, as Zola’s Lourdes appropriates the Salpêtrière’s theories, it also illustrates the fact
that hysteria was indeed everywhere in the fin de siècle; his text served as a gateway to
approach Lourdes as a cultural and literary phenomenon. Coining the term “Lourdes
Literature,” I have demonstrated in the third chapter that a particularly complex web of
narratives constituted a genre that largely permeated the culture. Hence, Lourdes literature
illustrates the complex layering of narratives, the cross-pollination between medicine and
religion, the mutual influence of medicine and religion on the elaboration of scientific theory
and the strengthening of dogma, the slow incorporation of pro- and anti-Lourdes rhetoric,
and the eventual blurring of sources leading to an essentially amnesic ur-narrative. Therefore,
these two epidemics of hysteria and miracles sit at the cusp of a historical moment that
would formulate and redefine a new understanding of the mind. A study of this particular
intersection can shed new light on the birth and the epistemology of psychoanalysis.
Contrary to popular belief, turn-of-the-century Lourdes was not just a remnant of a
bygone past. While it displayed antiquated elements of nineteenth-century French provincial
life, it also very much incorporated the issues that were defining the end of the century. In
particular, historian Ruth Harris sees in the Lourdes events one facet of the modern search
for the self: “As a result Lourdes became embroiled in arguments about the role of
278
suggestion, the ‘subliminal unconscious’ and mediumic power. In this way Lourdes and the
nature of the miraculous became as much a part of the fin de siècle search for the ‘self’ as
Freud’s psychoanalytic investigations.”
426
Hence, Lourdes too played a role in the emergence
of the modern self as it showcased the problematic role of the mind on the healing process.
Evidently, Lourdes’s search for the ‘self’ and Freud’s are not coincidental but inherently
connected to the extent that, as sites for the production of knowledge, Lourdes and the
Salpêtrière both participated in the development of a new epistemology that re-
problematized the physiological body and would eventually lead to Freud’s conception of a
lesion-less pathology. Because Freud offers a theory of the mind that is not rooted in
physiology, I will explore how the question of the materiality – or of the biological existence
– of the unconscious is framed by the issues raised by fin-de-siècle hysteria and miracles and
how Charcot’s theory of the physiological hysterical lesion ultimately lost to Freud’s theory
of an incorporeal unconscious.
Therefore, the goals of this last chapter are two-fold: first, to examine the post-
Charcot moment and the twentieth-century destiny of hysteria. Hysteria is traditionally
credited with being the disease that facilitated the discovery of the Freudian unconscious. I
will explore the exact role played by hysteria in early Freudian theory, particularly focusing
on the apparent rupture between psychoanalysis and medicine (more particularly neurology,
Freud’s original specialization).
My second goal is – fast-forwarding almost a century later – to think this
epistemological rupture in light of recent research in neuroscience and to question the fate of
both Charcot’s elusive organic lesion and Freud’s essentially paradoxically disincarnate
somatic symptoms. While Freud’s theories had first appeared as a solution to Charcot’s

426
Harris, Lourdes: Body and Spirit in the Secular Age, 19.
279
inability to locate organic causes and to the mysteries of Lourdes’s healings, they now create
an impasse of their own as neuroscience promotes a topographical approach. In other
words, how does Freud’s remapping of the mind/body survive Freud? I will also consider
the feminist implications of both the initial Freudian epistemological rupture and the current
return to the body. Among others, psychologist and feminist scholar Elizabeth A. Wilson
has argued in favor of a re-appropriation of the material body that can eventually lead us
toward a feminist reclaiming of hysteria. In other words, as the most recent neurological
research unfolds, the neurological, physiological, female body – i.e. Charcot’s body – finds
itself rehabilitated. As the focus shifts toward pathology, lesions regain visibility and
Charcot’s elusive lesion makes a spectral apparition. While the psychoanalytic theories that
have emerged in the post-Charcot moment have disconnected the unconscious mind from
any anatomical reality and disincarnated the female body, a return to neglected biological
inquiries can allow feminists to reincarnate the psychoanalytic body.

I - Toward a Geography of the Immaterial Mind
A) The Undoing of Charcot’s Legacy
By the late 1880s, Charcot’s star had begun to fade. Even though he remained,
alongside Pasteur, one of the most prominent and well-respected scientists of his time, the
mid-1880s dispute with Bernheim about the nature of the hypnotic state as well as the
ongoing debates about hysteria were taking a toll on Charcot’s authority. The slow decline of
Charcot’s influence at the end of his life foreshadows the oblivion that would soon follow
his remarkable funérailles nationales. Indeed, while he is still remembered for his neurological
work – in French Lou Gehrig’s disease is still simply known as la maladie de Charcot – his
work on hysteria became obsolete very soon after this death, so much so that Nicole
280
Edelman calls Charcot’s domination “paradoxale et éphémère.”
427
It is particularly ironic that
what he was hoping would be his greatest achievement, i.e. his work on hysteria, eventually
turned out to be its most easily forgotten – and dismissed – research.
Yet, until his death, and in spite of his relative declining influence, he continued to
reign at the Salpêtrière and enjoyed a devout following of medical students. Pierre Janet can
be considered Charcot’s self-appointed successor. Charcot, who nominated Janet at the head
of the Salpêtrière psychology lab, also directed the publication of Janet’s 1892 Etat Mental des
Hystériques and penned its preface. This text is representative of the changes that Charcot’s
thought, and particularly his theory of hysteria, were undergoing at the end of his life. First,
Charcot uses this opportunity to inscribe Janet’s research within the continuity of the work
he had himself started at the Salpêtrière. He writes: “(Ces études) viennent confirmer une
pensée souvent exprimée dans nos leçons, c’est que l’hystérie est en grande partie une
maladie mentale. C’est là un des côtés de cette maladie qu’il ne faut jamais négliger si l’on
veut la comprendre et la traiter.”
428
This preface, written less than a year before Charcot’s
death, leaves the reader perplexed as it appears – by promoting the mental dimension of
hysteria – to dismiss what had been, so far, the very essence of Charcot’s theory: the
physiological nature of the disease. Defining hysteria as a mental condition appears to
remove its connection to the physiological body. Indeed, Littré defines “mental” states as:
“1) Qui se fait dans l’esprit. 2) Qui a rapport à l’entendement.”
429
As such, defining hysteria
as a mental condition appears to radically modify its paradigm. Hence at the end of his life,
Charcot seems to soften the materiality of his approach and make space for a theory that
centers on a mental component.

427
Edelman, Les Métamorphoses de L’Hystérique, 243.
428
Pierre Janet. Etat Mental des Hystériques : Les Stigmates Mentaux (Paris : Rueff, 1892), Préface.
429
Littré, s.v. “Mental,”http://littre.reverso.net/dictionnaire-francais/definition/mental
281
Charcot continues by acknowledging Janet’s unique combination of skills: “M. Pierre
Janet a voulu joindre aussi complètement que possible les études médicales aux études
philosophiques; il fallait réunir ces deux genres de connaissances et ces deux éducations pour
essayer d’analyser cliniquement l’état mental d’un malade.”
430
Janet is indeed uniquely
qualified: his precocious interest in psychology led him first to study philosophy and then to
study medicine (he would later be appointed at the Collège de France to teach psychology),
enabling him to apprehend and interpret hysteria through a new, pluridisciplinary
perspective. This appreciation of Janet’s talent is also an implicit admission on Charcot’s part
that the issues raised by hysteria extend far beyond the medical field. At stake in the
understanding of hysteria are questions about the nature of the mind, its influence on the
body, and the constitution of the self. Strict pathologists are thus ill-equipped to address
them. Hence, Janet himself is exemplary of the shift being played out after Charcot’s death,
from a physiological conception of hysteria to a mental one.
Yet, Charcot’s acknowledgment of the mental component of hysteria is not as
categorical as it first appears. Indeed, he does not say that hysteria is a mental condition, but
rather that it is in large part a mental condition. This particular formulation is likely intentional
and cautiously ambiguous. It is also worth noting that mental is not synonymous with
psychological and that qualifying the disease as “mental” leaves the possibility of a connection
to the body. It is also skillfully diplomatic, since it allows for dissenting opinions, and
strategic, as it opens the door to a more unifying theory of hysteria. But Charcot’s
formulation also subtly implies that the psychological dimension of hysteria had been
overlooked so far. This admission, if not exactly a reversal, echoes some of his ambiguous
statements in The Healing Faith and reads as a last attempt to promote a more moderate and

430
Janet, Etat Mental des Hystériques : Les Stigmates Mentaux, Préface.
282
consensual theory. But Charcot’s second thoughts also echo the very nature of hysteria,
mimicking its malleability. Hysteria has changed shape at the mercy of scientific progress or
popular theories and Charcot’s subtle change of direction is yet another example of its
polymorphism.
Janet’s own words in Etat Mental des Hystériques also hint at a more nuanced mental
element. He writes:
Si elle (l’hystérie) trouble la nutrition et toutes les fonctions
physiologiques, elle trouble aussi les phénomènes psychologiques qui sont
l’une des fonctions de l’organisme. Ce sont ces perturbations
psychologiques produites par l’hystérie dans l’état mental des malades
considéré comme une fonction des centres supérieurs de l’encéphale que
je désire examiner dans cet ouvrage.
431

According to Janet, hysteria should not be understood as a symptom of psychological
distress; it is rather the cause of “perturbations psychologiques.” In other words, hysteria is
not a mental condition, it is a (nondescript) condition that happens to produce both
physiological and psychological effects. If this definition is largely compatible with Charcot’s
classical theory of hysteria, it is nonetheless suggestive of the opaque nature of hysteria itself.
Janet preemptively addresses the issue of hysteria’s physicality and acknowledges:
Il n’y a pas lieu de recommencer ici l’antique querelle du physique et du
moral, qui, au point de vue scientifique, est tout à fait oiseuse. Le médecin
constate simplement des phénomènes qui se produisent chez les malades;
il les considère tous comme aussi réels les uns que les autres, ou du moins
comme des expressions d’une réalité inconnue, et il cherche seulement à
établir entre ces faits les liens d’un déterminisme rigoureux. Quelles que
soient donc nos opinions métaphysiques, l’étude du moral d’une malade
doit faire partie de sa description clinique, et les relations des phénomènes
psychologiques entre eux ainsi que leurs relations avec les faits
physiologiques doivent être minutieusement recherchés. C’est ainsi
seulement que la médecine pourra conquérir la connaissance de l’homme
tout entier et comprendre des maladies qui affectent tout l’organisme.
432

431
Ibid., 1.
432
Ibid., 1.
283
Here, Janet’s solution is to refer back to the essence of the scientific method: his role as a
doctor is not to take sides in the debate but rather to report what he can observe, without
making any distinction between physiological and mental observations. Therefore, Janet
rehabilitates psychological symptoms by placing them at the level of physiological ones. He
also inscribes his work in a holistic approach where physical and mental states are necessarily
united to provide a full picture of the human body. Hence, Janet’s approach appears
particularly ambitious: it is about no less than understanding the nature of the human body
and, in order to do so, he gives a new, central role to psychology. Charcot’s own
contribution to Janet’s text is elliptical and does not give any theoretical explanation for this
new, amended version of hysteria. As a result, and in spite of his late hesitations, Charcot is
remembered for his support of a physiological theory of hysteria.
However, recent research gives a more complex pictures of the process leading up to
Freud’s theorization. Indeed, in a 2010 article Catherine Bouchara, Philippe Mazet and
David Cohen, Salpêtrière physicians and Charcot scholars, have identified a newly
discovered manuscript by Charcot dating to the year before his death and indicating that he
was, at the time, sketching a theory of the unconscious that closely resembles Freud’s.
Charcot’s first ideas on unconscious processes were conceived in the early
1880s, when he performed in–depth studies on hysteria, understood its
possible traumatic origin, and focused, in his Salpêtrière lessons, on the
force of the idea and experimental paralysis. About ten years later, in 1892,
the drawing was made at the time of 1) a substantial correspondence
between Charcot and Janet on the case of Emma Dutemple, who suffered
from hysterical amnesia, and 2) Charcot’s lessons on personality disorders.
In this lesson on June 28, Charcot explained that “the memories are on
vacation in the unconscious where they are engraved; they do not get lost
there… it is as a latent ego but this ego is in a sense upper to the other
one. It builds all which seemed lost.”
433

433
Bouchara, Catherine, Mazet, Philippe and Cohen, David. “Jean Martin Charcot 1825-
1893: Did he anticipate Freud’s First topology?” The American Journal of Psychiatry. April
2010,167, 4 p. 387
284

This new discovery provides another piece of evidence that, at a time when he was
communicating with Janet, Charcot was thinking of a geography of the mind that was not
necessarily physiological. This description of the mind’s inner working is surprisingly close to
Freud’s and his hand-drawn sketch (see below) proposes a new topology of the mind that is
distinctly detached from the body.
Reproduction of Charcot’s sketch, from Bouchara et al.

Bouchara et al. provide additional background about Charcot’s new map of the mind:
In this scheme, the conscious ego (or ‘concrete ego,’ added Charcot) was
the center of the mind. The unconscious stayed at the periphery of the
conscious ego. As a consequence of a trauma or a nervous or affective
shock, fixed ideas (idées fixes), designated ‘I’ in the figure, were produced
and located in the unconscious, which Charcot compared to a ‘second ego
in formation.’ He drew from ‘I’ a vector he called force de reviviscence that
represented a force allowing recollection. The force located in the
conscious ego was blocked by the fixed ideas. Is this vector the first
description of Freud’s repression, with its consequence of the return of
repressed feelings or memories? This may be the case, as Charcot added
285
that the unconscious, a second ego in formation, acted on the conscious
ego. Under the drive of the fixed idea, the thoughts stayed at the outskirts,
trapped in the unconscious, ‘the latent ego,’ unattainable, ‘repressed’.
434

As Bouchara speculates that Freud’s most significant contributions to psychology were “his
arguments concerning the importance of the unconscious mind in understanding conscious
thought and behavior,”
435
then the discovery of Charcot’s theoretical ébauche marks a clear
evolution from his earlier physiologically oriented theories. Hence, though they believe that
– based on an analysis of Freud and Charcot’s correspondence – Freud had no knowledge of
Charcot’s latest theory, this discovery provides crucial context for understanding how, at the
end of the nineteenth century, trained neurologists converged toward a theorization of a
psychological unconscious.
Charcot’s eventual change of heart remained quasi-confidential; according to Edelman,
Charcot’s death actually marks a turning point in the public perception of hysteria. Indeed, it
is only once Charcot died that the understanding of hysteria could free itself from his
theoretical grip and evolve from a physiological condition to a psychological condition. She
affirms:
À la fin du XIX
e
siècle, l’hystérie savante se transforme alors
profondément. L’interprétation neurophysiologique issue de Charcot
recule puis disparaît: l’hystérie devient une maladie psychique. Dans ce
passage d’une maladie mentale liée à un désordre du système nerveux à
une maladie psychique liée au traumatisme d’une émotion ou à la
suggestion, ce n’est plus alors la representation publique de l’hystérique qui
se joue.
436

In other words, even though we know that Charcot himself had initiated this transition in his
later years – and witnessed this shift in his student’s works — his death facilitated the
transition from a physiological hysteria to the psychologically- induced condition.

434
Ibid., 387.
435
Ibid., 387.
436
Edelman, Les Métamorphoses de l’Hystériques, 263.
286
The intrusion of psychology into Charcot’s pathological realm marks the beginning of
a transition that will eventually lead to the repudiation of Charcot by his own students. By
that point, the writings of the more moderate, older Charcot will not be taken into account
and it is rather the haughty master, author of the classical theory of hysteria, who will be
disavowed posthumously. Joseph Babinski, a favored disciple of Charcot in the 1880s, will
publicly lead the charge against Charcot’s theory of hysteria.
In his 1909 text Démembrement de l’Hystérie Traditionnelle – Pithiatisme, Babinski expands
on ideas he had already started elaborating as early as 1901. His text negotiates a fine line
between his great personal debt to his mentor and his desire to “kill the father.” He starts by
situating his approach in his own biography:
Ayant fait mes premiers pas, dans la carrière neurologique, à l'Ecole de la
Salpêtrière, où j'eus l'honneur d'être de 1885 à 1887 le chef de clinique de
Charcot, je fus, à mes débuts, imprégné des idées sur l'hystérie qu'on y
enseignait à cette époque et qui, jusque dans ces derniers temps, ont été
presque unanimement admises … Si les résultats de mes recherches
m'ont conduit à abandonner la doctrine de mon illustre maître, je n'en
conserve pas moins — je tiens à le dire — une admiration profonde pour
le grand neurologiste dont les travaux sur l'hystérie, fort importants
d'ailleurs malgré les erreurs qui s'y sont glissées, ne constituent qu'une
faible partie d'une œuvre imposante.
437

Paradoxically, the very mention of Charcot, the theoretician he wants to undermine, is also
what grants him credibility. At once, Babinski establishes himself as a well-respected
scientist, shares his admiration for Charcot’s work and gives him credit for his neurological
research, while refuting his work on hysteria. He then proposes a diagnosis as to what is
wrong with hysteria as defined by Charcot:
Tous les médecins reconnaissent actuellement que le domaine de l'hystérie
traditionnelle a été démesurément étendu et que l'on a, tout au moins,

437
Babinski, Joseph. Démembrement de l’Hystérie Traditionnelle (Paris: Imprimerie de la Semaine
Médicale, 1909), 3.
287
singulièrement exagéré cette faculté attribuée à l'hystérie de reproduire les
maladies les plus diverses, “de tout faire,” comme on le disait jadis.
438

It is therefore the fin-de-siècle ubiquity of hysteria that Babinski rejects : when hysteria was
in fashion, it was made responsible for every ailment, a fact that Babinski does not consider
realistically possible. He then proposes to identify the mistakes that have lead to hysteria’s
overuse:
Selon moi, l'extension excessive que l'hystérie a subie tient à trois causes
principales : 1° on a commis des erreurs de diagnostic, en considérant
comme hystériques des affections organiques ; 2° on a méconnu l'importance
de la supercherie, et, faute d'une surveillance suffisante, on a rattaché à
l'hystérie des phénomènes qui relevaient de la simulation ; 3° on a confondu
des états nerveux qui doivent être distingués les uns des autres.
439

In other words, hysteria has been misused for three main reasons: it has been applied to
organic lesions (in other words, for Babinski, hysteria is not responsible for organic lesions),
it has been applied to fake symptoms, and it has been used as an all-encompassing category
for nervous states. Here Babinski implicitly acknowledges hysteria’s essentially psychological
nature since he believes that hysteria cannot apply to physiological symptoms. He also
exhumes suggestion to affirm the fundamentally suggestive nature of hysteria. However,
while he is discussing hysteria and suggestion, two long established topics of medical inquiry,
Babinski also feels the need to coin a new term to address this condition. As he identifies
within hysteria the particular subset of conditions that are associated with suggestion, he
writes:
Il est nécessaire de donner une dénomination spéciale à ce groupe de
phénomènes, comme à tout objet qui se distingue, ne serait-ce que
par un seul attribut. J'ai proposé de l'appeler “pithiatisme,” de πειθϖ
persuasion et ιατος guérissable, et de désigner par l'adjectif
“pithiatique” chacun des troubles qui constitue ce groupe.
440

438
Ibid., 4.
439
Ibid., 4.
440
Ibid.,16.
288
Babinski’s desire to create a new terminology, and to therefore dismiss hysteria as an empty,
exhausted term, is exemplary of his attempt to actually start from scratch and truly
“dismember” hysteria. His approach indicates that recent progress in science has allowed
scientists to dismiss hysteria as an antiquated concept and to identify, and more specifically
define, a new group of phenomena. He writes:
Je me crois en droit de conclure de cette étude que la conception ancienne de
l'hystérie fondée sur des observations les unes insuffisantes, les autres
erronées, ne résiste pas à la critique ; que le démembrement de l’hystérie
traditionnelle est une conséquence inévitable d’une série de faits ignorés
autrefois et solidement établis aujourd’hui ; que de cette désagrégation résulte
la mise en liberté d’un groupe autonome de phénomènes occupant en
pathologie une place fort importante, auquel on peut réserver la
dénomination de d’hystérie, mais qui est désigné d’une manière plus
expressive par le mot pithiatisme.
441

Yet, this dismemberment of hysteria is not as radical, or violent, as Babinski initially suggests.
After he develops the notion of phitiatism, hysteria does not actually disappear but coexists
alongside it. He writes:
Il y a beaucoup de médecins qui, dans des cas particuliers, se laissent prendre
à des mensonges plus ou moins habiles et attribuent à l'hystérie des
phénomènes résultant de la supercherie. Ces phénomènes doivent être
divisés en plusieurs groupes. A l'un d'eux appartiennent les manifestations
qui sont l'imitation de troubles que la suggestion réalise, que la persuasion
guérit, pithiatiques (j'indiquerai plus loin la signification exacte de ce terme).
Ce sont des accidents tels que certaines espèces de paralysies, de
contractures, d'anesthésies, etc., rangés, de l'avis unanime, dans l'hystérie.
442

Indeed, for Babinski the new term pithiatism essentially becomes a synonym for hysteria:
Je me servirai de ces deux termes hystérie et pithiatisme comme synonymes,
laissant au temps le soin de décider, ce qui, du reste, est d'importance
secondaire, si l'on devra les conserver tous les deux, ou l'un d'entre eux
seulement. L'hystérie ainsi définie constitue un état névropathique bien
délimité, se distinguant nettement de toutes les autres névroses. On peut déjà
théoriquement déduire de ma définition que les phénomènes hystériques ou
pithiatiques doivent avoir pour propriété de dépendre essentiellement, dans

441
Ibid., 29.
442
Ibid., 9.
289
leur apparition, leur durée, leur forme, leur disparition, du milieu psychique
où vivent les sujets suggestionnables dont la prédisposition maladive est
susceptible d'être mise en jeu par tel ou tel spectacle, tel ou tel propos.
443

This paragraph illustrates the semantic difficulty of moving away from “hysteria” as the term
continues to pervade Babinski’s text in spite of his efforts. This need by Charcot’s
descendants to break free from the very language they use contrasts with hysteria’s lasting
connotations. In fact, Edelman acknowledges the impossibility of linguistically reclaiming
hysteria post-Charcot :
Après la mort de Charcot, l’image de l’hystérique ne connaît plus guère de
retouches. Injure adressée aux femmes, car l’hystérique est indéniablement
femme, qualificatif donné aux foules (féminines), l’hystérique se fige dans une
figure de l’excès, à la nervosité extrême, frénétique, érotique et irresponsable
même si cette hystérique n’est finalement pas gravement malade.
444

While Charcot remains to date a celebrated scientist for the work he accomplished as
neurologist and a pathologist, his theory of hysteria – a project he was so passionate about –
has long been rejected by scientists. His scientific legacy around hysteria is negligeable, yet
the cultural influence of Charcot’s iconic hysterics is undeniable. Ironically, Charcot’s most
lasting legacy pertaining to hysteria might be semantic: the image of the Grande hystérique
haunts both language and imagination.
Finally, in his attempt to start anew, Babinski actually rehearses some of Charcot’s
considerations. For instance, his discussion of a miracle cure directly echoes some of
Charcot’s remarks on suggestion:
Voici une jeune fille atteinte de paraplégie hystérique, qui, après avoir été
plongée dans une piscine miraculeuse, en sort complètement guérie. Je
veux bien admettre qu'elle a été vivement émue par la pieuse cérémonie à
laquelle elle a pris part, mais il est incontestable aussi qu'ayant été
instruite des cures qui avaient déjà été obtenues en ce lieu, elle a été ainsi

443
Ibid., 22.
444
Edelman, Les Métamorphoses de L’Hystérique, 263.
290
l'objet de pratiques persuasives ou suggestives dont il est permis de faire
dépendre le retour à l'état normal.
445

Babinski’s analysis of this miracle – most likely one from Lourdes – is reminiscent of
Charcot’s Healing Faith and Zola’s Lourdes; in spite of his reluctance, Babinski remains
inscribed in a clinical tradition begun by Charcot.
Essentially, the main changes in the years following Charcot’s death include the
acceptance of the idea that hysteria, however it is defined, is a psychological condition, and
that its physical manifestations are not the cause of the condition, but rather one of its
manifestations. Beyond the semantic considerations, and beyond the discussion around the
role of suggestion, it is therefore the question of the materiality of hysteria that presents the
most significant theoretical change in the years following Charcot’s death.
In this context, the question of the materiality of hysteria frames our approach to
Freud’s theory: how did Freud distance himself from his initial training as a pathologist?
How did he transition from focusing on bodily lesions to examining an immaterial,
untangible mind?

B) Tracing the Genealogy of Freud’s Immaterial Unconscious.
Contrary to popular opinion, Freud did not discover the unconscious. As Frank
Sulloway suggests, “there is considerably more historical merit to a related and less
pretentious claim, namely, that what Freud really discovered was the essential psychical laws
and contents of the unconscious mind.”
446
Yet, based on what we now know of Charcot’s
latest theories, even this statement needs to be nuanced since the idea of an immaterial

445
Babinski, Démembrement de l’Hystérie Traditionnelle, 18.
446
Frank J. Sulloway, Freud, Biologist of the Mind: Beyond the Psychoanalytic Legend (New York:
Basic Books, 1979), 468.
291
unconscious circulated at the end of the nineteenth century.
As Ellenberger argues, the discovery of the unconscious is the result of a lengthy
historical process and many physicians have influenced the development of Freud’s theory.
One of them is nineteenth-century British neurologist Hughling Jackson
447
who, before
ultimately rejecting it, had developed the notion of an unconscious. In 2007, the Medical
History Supplement presented the role of Jackson as follows:
Even before he enunciated his doctrine of concomitance, he accepted the
existence of unconscious mental states and actions as the source of spoken
words. In an 1878 article on aphasia, published in the first volume of the
journal Brain, he wrote that “perception is the termination of a stage
beginning by the unconscious or subconscious revival of images.” Echoing
the ideas of G H Lewes, he noted the possibility that all nervous centres have
a psychological side, presumably including the spinal cord.
448

Hence, interestingly, Jackson’s theory of the unconscious seems to go hand in hand with a
belief in psychology. It is also worth noting that, several years after Jackson, Charcot too had
developed the idea of an unconscious. As previously mentioned, at the height of the hysteria
epidemic, Charcot had defended the idea of an unconscious, but a physiological
unconscious. Jacqueline Carroy-Thirard affirms that:
La conception qu’il (Charcot) défend en 1883 est celle d’un inconscient
physiologique: ‘les expériences d’hypnotisme, dont il s’agit, deviennent ainsi
la plus belle démonstration du fonctionnement automatique d’une partie de
l’encéphale, fonctionnement déjà étudié par les psychologues et les
physiologistes, et auquel on a donné le nom d’automatisme cérébral et de
cérébration inconsciente.
449

This last term is particularly helpful to understand the exact importance of Freud’s
intervention. Thus, Freud did not invent the notion of the unconscious. Rather, he invented

447
Neurologist Lionel Naccache presents Jackson as an early influence on Freud and an early
theorist of the unconscious
448
York, George K. and Steinberg, David A. “An Introduction to the Life and Work of John
Hughlings Jackson.” Medical History Supplement. 2007; (26): 3–34
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2640105/
449
Carroy Thirard, L’Invention des Sujets, 161.
292
an unconscious that had no physiological existence.
How did Freud’s immaterial unconscious come into being? Charcot’s direct influence
on Freud is often exaggerated. Freud did indeed spend a few months at the Salpêtrière in
1885 and Charcot’s lessons and his hysterics undoubtedly made an impression on him, but
Bernheim was probably as important for the development of Freud’s thought. In 1888, a few
years after spending time at the Salpêtrière, Freud translated Bernheim’s On Suggestion and, in
the preface, he addressed the debates that opposed the two French schools.
I am convinced that (Charcot’s) view will be most welcome to those who
feel an inclination – and it is still the predominant one in Germany today –
to overlook the fact that hysterical phenomena are governed by laws. Here
we should have a splendid example of how neglect of the psychical factor
of suggestion has misled a great observer into the artificial and false
creation of a clinical type as a result of the capriciousness and easy
malleability of a neurosis.
Nevertheless there is no difficulty in proving piece by piece the
objectivity of the symptomatology of hysteria. But the principal points of
the symptomatology of hysteria are safe from the suspicion of having
originated from suggestion by a physician. Reports coming from past
tomes and from distant lands, which have been collected by Charcot and
his pupils, leave no room for doubt that the peculiarities of hysterical
attacks, of hysterogenics zones, of anaesthesia, paralyses and contractures,
have been manifested at every time and place just as they were at the
Salpêtrière when Charcot carried out his memorable investigation of that
major neurosis.
450

Here, Freud’s loyalty appears clearly divided. While he first re-affirms the importance of a
psychical factor in hysteria, he also supports the idea that there are physiological
manifestations of hysteria. Therefore, in the late 1880s, Freud is conflicted and oscillates
between two seemingly contradictory conceptions – psychological and physiological. Frank
Sulloway examines Freud’s split loyalties:
Freud, in his Preface to the German translation of Bernheim’s book,
warmly welcomed the latter’s psychological approach to the subject. Freud

450
Sigmund Freud, Preface to the Translation of Bernheim’s Suggestion, in The Freud Reader,
ed. Peter Gay (New York: Norton, 1989), 48.
293
especially praised Bernheim’s attempt to link hypnotism with the more
familiar phenomenon of sleep. At the same time, Freud felt that
Bernheim’s theoretical view had introduced certain new contradictions and
had, as it were, gone to the opposite extreme – that of a psychology
without physiology. In a contemporary letter to his friend Fliess, Freud
succinctly conveyed the judgment of his translator’s Preface (1888-89)
with the words: ‘I do not share Bernheim’s views, which seem to me one-
sided, and I have tried to stand up for Charcot in the introduction- I do
not know how skillfully…’
451

Freud appears in an untenable position at the intersection of the two theories that divided
the fin de siècle. Five years later, the obituary Freud wrote for Charcot further reveals some
of his issues with the Parisian doctor:
Charcot’s concern with hypnotic phenomena in hysterical patients led to
very great advances in this important field of hitherto neglected and
despised facts, for the weight of his name put an end once and for all to
any doubt about the reality of hypnotic manifestations. But the exclusively
nosographical approach adopted at the School of the Salpêtrière was not
suitable for a purely psychological subject. The restriction of the study of
hypnosis to hysterical patients, the differentiation between major and
minor hypnotism, the hypothesis of three stages of ‘major hypnosis,’ and
their characterization by somatic phenomena - all this sank in the
estimation of Charcot’s contemporaries when Liébault’s pupil, Bernheim,
set about constructing the theory of hypnotism on a more comprehensive
psychological foundation and making suggestion the central point of
hypnosis. It is only the opponents of hypnotism who, content to conceal
their lack of personal experience behind an appeal to authority, still cling
to Charcot’s assertions and who like to take advantage of a
pronouncement made by him in his last years, in which he denied to
hypnosis any value as a therapeutic method. ”
452

In other words, Freud disagreed with Charcot’s dismissal of hypnosis and, more generally,
with the fact that he did not seem to recognize the importance – or maybe even the
possibility – of psychology.
The focus Freud places on hypnosis in the early 1890s prefigures the role that

451
Sulloway, 47.
452
Sigmund Freud, “Charcot’s Obituary,” in The Freud Reader, ed. Peter Gay (New York:
Norton, 1989), 55.

294
hypnosis would play in Freud’s early practice. The publication in 1895 of Freud and Breuer’s
Studies on Hysteria is often used to mark the birth of psychoanalysis. Breuer and Freud’s 1893
Preliminary Communication clearly delineates their field of inquiry – hysteria – and their method
– hypnosis. It is in this Communication that they famously affirm that “hysterics suffer mainly
from reminiscences”
453
and start to detail the way memory is structured:
We must, however, mention another remarkable fact, which we shall
later be able to turn to account, namely, that these memories, unlike
other memories of their past lives, are not at the patients’ disposal.
On the contrary, these experiences are completely absent from the patient’s memory
when they are in a normal psychical state, or are only present in a highly summary
form. Not until they have been questioned under hypnosis do these
memories emerge with the undiminished vividness of a recent
event.
454

In the theoretical section of the Studies on Hysteria, Breuer returns to the initial idea that
hysterics suffer from reminiscence and explains its significance:
But if this is so – if the memory of the psychical trauma must be
regarded as operating as a contemporary agent, like a foreign body,
long after its forcible entrance, and if nevertheless the patient has no
consciousness of such memories or their emergence – then we must
admit that unconscious ideas exist and are operative.
455

Two conclusions can be drawn from these two moments: first, since curing the symptoms
requires exhuming traumatic memories, psychoanalysis is going to be primarily interested in
accessing a patient’s history through her memories, and, second, hypnosis will be – at least at
first – the privileged way to access these buried memories. Hence, hypnosis appears as the
key instrument that will allow hysterical patients to recount their repressed memories.
Hypnosis is therefore used to make the initial connection with the unconscious mind. The
Editor’s Preface retraces the role played by hypnosis in the particular case of Anna O.:

453
Josef Breuer and Sigmund Freud, Studies on Hysteria (New York: Basic Books, 1957), 7.
454
Ibid., 9.
455
Ibid., 221.
295
Breuer’s patient Anna O. herself demonstrated and overcame the
first of these obstacles – the amnesia characteristic of the hysterical
patient. When the existence of this amnesia was brought to light,
there at once followed a realization that the patient’s manifest mind
was not the whole of it, that there lay behind it an unconscious mind.
It was thus plain from the first that the problem was not merely the
investigation of conscious mental processes, for which the ordinary
methods of enquiry used in everyday life would suffice. If there were
also unconscious mental processes, some special instrument was
clearly required. The obvious instrument for this purpose was
hypnotic suggestion – hypnotic suggestion used, not for directly
therapeutic purposes, but to persuade the patient to produce material
from the unconscious region of the mind.
456

This early theorization of unconscious ideas also reveals the topology of a divided mind.
Breuer himself proposes to clarify the early unconscious in spatial terms:
All our thinking tends to be accompanied and aided by spatial ideas,
and we talk in spatial metaphors. Thus when we speak of ideas which
are found in the region of clear consciousness and of unconscious
ones which never enter the full light of self-consciousness, we almost
inevitably form pictures of a tree with its trunk in daylight and its
roots in darkness, or of a building with its dark underground cellars.
If, however, we constantly bear in mind that all such spatial relations
are metaphorical and do not allow ourselves to be misled into
supposing that these relations are literally present in the brain, we
may nevertheless speak of a consciousness and a subconsciousness.
But only on this condition.
We shall be safe from the dangers of allowing ourselves to be
tricked by our own figures of speech if we always remember that
after all it is in the same brain, and most probably in the same
cerebral cortex, that conscious and unconscious ideas alike have their
origin. How this is possible we cannot say. But then we know so little
of the psychical activity of the cerebral cortex that one puzzling
complication the more scarcely increases our limitless ignorance. We
must take it as a fact that in hysterical patients a part of their
psychical activity is inaccessible to perception by the self-
consciousness of the waking individual and that their mind is thus
split.
457

This passage is particularly revealing. First, it points to the need to use spatial metaphors to

456
James Strachey, “Editor’s Introduction” in Breuer and Freud’s Studies on Hysteria, ed.
James Strachey (New York: Basic Books, 1957), xvii.
457
Breuer and Freud, Studies on Hysteria, 228.
296
represent the existence of the unconscious, but it also points to their inherent inadequacy.
But they are inadequate mostly because the exact topography of the mind remains unknown.
Breuer here seems to suggests that consciousness and the unconscious have a material
existence, yet this is a belief that does not appear to be backed up by scientific facts. In 1895,
the Studies on Hysteria are at the forefront of the epistemological shift underway. Breuer’s
intuition that the brain is the actual physiological location of the unconscious will soon give
way to a new model that does not engage with the anatomical body.
The theory of the immaterial unconscious was first born out of the convergence of
hysteria and hypnosis as practiced by Freud and Breuer; the first map of the Freudian
unconscious is also a map of the hysterical mind. The genealogy of Freud’s theory also
points to an unexpected source. In the Discovery of the Unconscious, Ellenberger points to the
literal translation of Freud’s Traumdeutung, explaining that the term was originally used to
designate the popular interpretation of dreams by fortune tellers.
458
This choice of words
then points to how radical Freud’s new theory was for his time. It also points to a parallel
between miracles, thaumaturges, psychoanalysts and the analytic cure. “To contemporary
scientists, the title Traumdeutung held something intriguing and shocking.”
459
This last element
contributes to a more complex picture of the birth of psychoanalysis: attempting to combine
two leading scientific theories of the mind, Freud is also an heir to less scientific
representations of the mind – in the lineage of Mesmer. At first glance, there is indeed a
quasi-magical component to psychoanalysis since it requires patients to believe in both the
crucial importance of dreams and the ability to treat bodily symptoms through a talking cure.
As he publishes his groundbreaking Traumdeutung, Freud epitomizes the conflicts, and

458
Ellenberger, The Discovery of the Unconscious, 452.
459
Ibid., 452.
297
contradictions, between various medical theories, but also between scientific and religious
belief systems that agitated and defined the end of the nineteenth-century.

II – Where Did the (Biological) Body Go?
Tracing the genealogy of psychoanalysis involves tracing a trajectory that slowly moves
away from the physiological body and into a new map of the mind. Sulloway summarizes
Freud’s distance from physiology by affirming that, “In short, by 1893 the work of Bernheim
and others had succeeded in convincing Freud that much of Charcot’s evidence for the
physiological nature of hysteria was completely bogus.”
460
Yet, this new topology, already
intuited by Charcot, raises a number of questions: first, how to account for the physiological
manifestations of a psychological condition? In other words, how does the mind actually
influence the body? Additionally, what does this new psychoanalytic body look like? And
whose body is it?

A) Rejecting the (Biological) (Female) Body
Influenced by both Charcot and Bernheim, Freud’s essential contribution is to
propose a new, ground-breaking map of the mind. Yet, in spite of his training as a neuro-
pathologist, Freud’s map is not grounded in a physical topology but is rather an immaterial
geography that does not connect to the anatomical body. This new immaterial unconscious
is therefore the solution to Charcot’s conundrum of the elusive and dynamic hysterical
lesion. By proposing an unconscious not rooted in a physical materiality, Freud suggests that
Charcot’s lesion was invisible because it did not actually exist. Yet, not only does that shift
constitute a great epistemological breakthrough, it is also a leap of faith as it appears to lose

460
Sulloway, Freud : Biologist of the Mind, 49.
298
touch with the principles of clinical inquiry. In other words, believing without seeing, and
accepting unforeseen conclusions, can be understood as a form of magical thinking and is
thus reminiscent of the belief system in place in Lourdes. Indeed, affirming the primacy of
the mind (or the spiritual domain) and the mysteries of the healing process places Freud in
an odd position within the scientific community. But it also demonstrates how much Freud’s
theories owe to the fin-de-siècle context: they are evidently a product of theories of hysteria,
but they also emerge out of the cultural pervasiveness of miracles – a pervasiveness that
challenged and ultimately changed the perception of the relation between mind and body.
Freud’s position also contrasts with earlier positivist beliefs in the inescapable progress
of science. In The Healing Faith, Charcot had argued that all mysteries would be explained in
due time, as science progresses. Breuer too implicitly admitted that the inability to localize
the unconscious in the brain could be temporary. But he also appears to displace the
question by hinting that the problem of the localization might not be relevant after all.
Whether the unconscious has a biological seat or not would not change his conclusions.
Freud’s move away from the body and from the strict scientific method indicate that
his interest has shifted; this shift is also a major rupture in Freud’s own path, from neuro-
pathology to psychology. This rupture will also mark the appearance of a new body, a
psychoanalytic body different from the anatomical. It is the emergence of the psychoanalytic
body out of Freud’s medical and biological training that I propose to trace in an attempt to
explore the question of the physiological anchoring of psychoanalysis.
Sulloway’s project aims to evaluate the debt Freud owed to his training as a biologist;
he discusses the misconception that Freud’s theories emerged out of thin air. He writes:
Ernst Kris, Ernest Jones, and, indeed, the vast majority of Freud
scholars, by portraying Freud’s ideas as fundamentally alien to their
times and as the product of unique personal experiences (e.g., Freud’s
self-analysis), have created a tradition of a man whose ideas were so
299
without precedent that only a psychological explanation can account
for them.
461

According to this Freudian mythology, Freud is then a groundbreaking genius whose theory
of the mind owes much to his own personal story. Yet, I have demonstrated that Freud’s
ideas do not emerge out of the void, but are rather the result of a complex genealogy, since
new conceptions of the mind/body were already circulating at the end of the nineteenth
century – most evidently around the questions of hysteria and miraculous healings. Hence,
psychoanalysis is the result of a process that eventually leads to the change in paradigm.
Yet Freud’s theorization of psychoanalysis remains somewhat mysterious: how could
he, a neurologist who had also been trained as a pathologist and who had consequently
focused on identifying disease in tissues and cells, so blatantly disregard the physiological
body? While he had been trained to look at illness in its most minute organic occurrences,
psychoanalysis would essentially mark a new irreducible distance between Freud’s theories
and the physiological body. In other words, psychoanalysis was not to concern itself with
identifiable lesions and organic pathologies. The body no longer mattered as such.
However, psychologist and feminist scholar Elizabeth A. Wilson is particularly
concerned, and intrigued, by this disappearance of the biological body from psychoanalysis;
she highlights the fact that this very disappearance has been largely ignored. In Psychosomatic:
Feminism and the Neurological Body, she proposes to rethink psychoanalysis:
Perhaps the body in psychoanalysis has been understood in terms that are
too narrow. There has been a tendency, especially in feminist writing, to
disregard Freud’s neuroscientific and prepsychoanalytic bodies. I would
like to extend the somatic beginnings of psychoanalysis back further than
hysteria – further chronologically, further phylogenetically. Psychoanalysis
can be approached, I argue, not just through the hysterized body of the

461
Ibid., 19.
300
patient, but also through the spinal ganglia of the petromyzon”
462

In other words, Wilson goes against psychoanalysis’s official narrative that traces its birth
back to hysteria: she proposes to track its biological and physiological reality further into
Freud’s original training and argues that the cellular level is also relevant to psychoanalysis.
Psychoanalysis is then the result of a dual genealogy that combines the study of hysteria and
biological research.
Wilson’s goal is therefore to rehabilitate the biological dimension of psychoanalysis
and, in order to do that, she acknowledges the influence of Freud’s background in biology
on his thought. For instance, she recognizes that in Freudian thought, “these moments of
biological reduction often produce Freud’s most acute formulations about the nature of the
body and the character of the psyche.” Freud’s early research focused on the lamprey’s nerve
cells, and it is this moment that Wilson wants to bring back as she wonders: “what new
accounts of the body are possible if we are able to keep the body of the lamprey in mind?
What new modes of embodiment become legible when biological reductionism is tolerated
and explored?”
463
What Wilson suggests here is that a re-biologization of psychoanalysis
could inform new theories of the body and be particularly productive for feminist thought.
Indeed, Wilson identifies a crucial knot between psychoanalysis’s forgetting of the biological
body and feminism’s own rejection of biological essentialism. But this dual exclusion of the
body is further complicated by feminism’s historical misgivings about psychoanalysis.
Wilson’s description of the feminist rejection of the body is part of the material turn in
feminist theory and gender studies. Feminist philosopher Elizabeth Grosz remarked as early
as 1994 that “the body has remained a conceptual blind spot in both mainstream Western

462
Elizabeth A. Wilson Psychosomatic. Feminism and the Neurological Body (Durham: Duke
University Press, 2004), 1.
463
Ibid., 3.
301
philosophical thought and contemporary feminist theory.”
464
This dismissal of the body is, at
least partially, rooted in the fact that the body has been considered to be the seat of sexual
difference:
For feminist purposes the focus on bodies, bodies in their concrete
specificities, has the added bonus of inevitably raising the question of
sexual difference in a way that mind does not.
465

Feminist rejection of the biological body can also be traced to a more general rejection of
nature. Indeed, as argued by Stacy Alaimo, “woman has long been defined in Western thought
as a creature mired in ‘nature’ and thus outside the domain of human transcendence,
rationality, subjectivity, and agency, most feminist theory has worked to disentangle woman
from nature.”
466
She continues,
Human corporeality, especially female corporeality, has been so
strongly associated with nature in Western thought that it is not
surprising that feminism has been haunted not only by the specter of
nature as the repository of essentialism, but by, as Lynda Birke puts
it, “the ghost of biology.”
467

Consequently, the rejection of the biological body was first an emancipating move from both
patriarchy and nature and an attempt to escape a body understood as the guardian of the
essentialist definition of femininity.
In other words, ignoring the body – or rather bodies – also keeps the question of
sexual difference at bay. Similarly, the traditional feminist rejection of Freudian
psychoanalysis is rooted in a recognition of its patriarchal bias and its pathologization of the
female body and of femininity as a whole.
However, Wilson sees an opportunity in the body: a biological re-contextualization of

464
Elizabeth Grosz, Volatile Bodies: Toward a Corporeal Feminism (Bloomington: Indiana Press
University, 1994), 3.
465
Ibid., vii.
466
Alaimo, Bodily Natures, 4.
467
Ibid., 5.
302
psychoanalysis could not only strengthen its case but also allow the rehabilitation of the
(female) body; Wilson suggests that this effort could lead to conceptualize new modes of
embodiment. The biological body, its imprint on psychoanalysis, and its potentially feminist
claims are Wilson’s leitmotiv. As she explains in her 2015 book Gut Feminism:
I seek some feminist theoretical gain in relation to how biological data can
be used to think about minded and bodily states. What conceptual
innovations would be possible if feminist theory wasn’t so instinctively
antibiological ?
468

Wilson’s goals are two-fold: reclaiming the biological origin of the psychoanalytic body and
re-acquainting feminism with biological claims. She asserts that accepting biology can hold
the key to feminist theoretical gains. However, reclaiming biology also means understanding
the extent of the disconnect between the biological body and the psychoanalytic body.

B) Mapping the Psychoanalytic Body

The biological body and the psychoanalytic body share a territory and coexist but their
borders greatly differ: the psychoanalytic body does not match the biological one. This
discrepancy is evident in one of Freud and Breuer’s early case studies, the case of Fraulein
Elisabeth von R., published in their 1895 Studies on Hysteria. In her analysis of the case,
Wilson describes the patient as “a young woman who came to Freud with constant pain in
her legs that left her unable to walk, stand, or even lie down with any comfort at all.”
469
But
Freud’s diagnosis does not address some seemingly obvious questions. In Psychosomatic,
Wilson asks:
What strikes me as more pertinent to this case history, and less
familiar to a contemporary feminist audience, is the biology of
Fraulein Elisabeth’s conversion. What are the physiological

468
Elizabeth A. Wilson, Gut Feminism (Durham: Duke University Press, 2015), 1.
469
Ibid., 9.
303
mechanisms that allow the thigh muscles to function differently: the
right thigh muscle in response to her father, and the left thigh muscle
in response to her brother-in-law? What is in the nature of the
muscles that makes them so psychologically attuned? Freud offers
little help on the physiological mechanisms of bodily conversion.
470

In other words, Wilson interrogates the founding assumption of psychoanalysis, namely that
there is a body that exists both independently from and alongside the physiological body,
and that this parallel body operates according to its own rules. Here, she particularly points
to the fact that medical knowledge about the physiological body fails to account for the
symptoms of the psychoanalytic body, and she challenges the widely accepted notion of
conversion – the somatic manifestation of a mental disturbance. Wilson does not question
whether conversion occurs, but she rather refutes the unsatisfactory clinical explanations of
it. If Freudian psychoanalysis has documented and theorized conversion, it has nonetheless
failed to explain the « how » of conversion. Or rather, the explanations of conversion fail to
account for its actual processes: how does a trauma turn into a physiological symptom?
What internal, neurological phenomena provide an explanation? How does the
psychoanalytic body work?
The hysterical body clearly differs from the anatomical body and Wilson questions
how exactly trauma becomes translated into biological and physiological changes, a fact
commonly accepted in spite of the difficulty to actually explain the physiological mechanisms
at play.
471
The distinction between the two bodies points to an essential founding element of
psychoanalysis. Wilson also calls the psychoanalytic body a colloquial body, suggesting that it
is a body as it is experienced daily. She notes that “Hysterical symptoms do not follow the

470
Ibid., 9.
471
In Psychosomatic (15), Wilson discusses an example taken from Peter Kramer ‘s case history
of the type of causal relationship between trauma and disease – in this case depression – that
we typically accept even though the exact processes of how a psychic trauma turns into a
biological fact remains opaque.
304
conventional logic of anatomy; an arm, for example, is paralyzed not according to
biomedical maps of muscles and ligaments, but according to the logic of how an arm is
usually dressed and used.”
472
In this context, this colloquial body also points to a relation
between this new map of the body and language, since the inner workings of this body
mirror the body as it is commonly “talked about” and perceived, and not as it is
apprehended and known by medical science.
Wilson’s inquiry into the mysteries of the conversion process are still present in Gut
Feminism, where she continues to problematize and question the exact, physiological
mechanisms that allow for somatic symptoms. She gives another description of the hysterical
body, a body that does not know anatomy:
Hysteria appears ignorant of the anatomy of the body. Hysteria is
uninterested in the facts of how muscles, ligaments, nerves, organs, and
blood vessels are mapped, how they converge or dissociate, how they
connect to distant parts of the body, or how they rely on certain signals or
pathways in order to function effectively. Rather, hysteria “takes organs in
the ordinary, popular sense of the names they bear: the leg is the leg as far
up as its insertion into the hip, the arm is the upper arm as it is visible
under clothing.” Hysteria is an alteration of the everyday body especially as
it is understood through tactile and perceptual data; it is an engagement of
the body as we know it colloquially-as we imagine, love, or despise it. It is
for this reason, Freud argues, that he has never observed-nor will anyone
ever observe- a hysterical hemianopsia. Hysteria “has no knowledge of the
optic chiasma, and consequently it does not produce hemianopsia.”
473

Wilson’s quest for the neurological explanation of psychoanalytic symptoms points to the
dead-end of psychoanalysis regarding hysteria: whereas Freud solved Charcot’s dilemma by
authoritatively dismissing the dynamic lesion, his theory ended in a similar aporia.
Psychoanalytic symptoms are as mysterious as Charcot’s invisible lesion.
The psychoanalytic body is thought to follow hysteria’s map of the body and therefore

472
Wilson, Psychosomatic, 7.
473
Wilson, Gut feminism, 47.
305
does not seem to overlap with the biological body. Wilson’s research points to how much
the biological and neurological dimensions of the body have been neglected by
psychoanalysis, which has accepted a long list of psychoanalytical symptoms without actually
providing clinical explanations for them. Wilson’s work points to the clinical failure of
Freud’s theory and re-problematizes Charcot’s main challenge to hysteria: how to account
for a pathology that has no lesion. Ultimately, feminism has much to gain from re-thinking
psychoanalysis in a way that makes space for the physiological body. As the female body has
primarily given shape to Charcot’s theories and to psychoanalysis, it has been consistently
rejected as irrelevant. Yet, this rejection of the body has led to theoretical aberrations that
can be overcome only by a return to the body. Embracing the body, and particularly
embracing the female, hysterical, psychoanalytic, body, would therefore reconcile the two
conflicting traditions – neurological and psychological – that have developed in opposition
to each other.

C) The Biological Body as a Path to Include Other Bodies?

Wilson, Grosz and Alaimo are actively engaged in bringing the focus of feminist theory
onto the body and its material reality. According to Alaimo, there is a crucial need for
feminists to redefine the problematic:
Since biology, like nature, has long been drafted to serve as
the armory for racist, sexist, and heterosexist norms, it is
crucial that feminists recast the norms, values, and
assumptions that permeate the field.
474

474
Alaimo, Bodily Natures, 5.
306
The move away from the body that has marked both psychoanalysis and feminism is
evidently damaging to women because it places them in porte-à-faux vis-à-vis their own
corporeal experience.
This disincarnation is equally damaging to other non-male, non-normative or non-
conforming bodies. Indeed, this disinvestment of the body by feminism goes hand in hand
with a streamlining of the body – the healthy male body – that leaves little to no visibility to
other, different modes of embodiment. In this context, the disorderly, convulsive body of
the hysteric or the disabled body of the sick pilgrim do not fit in.
The epistemological rupture iniated by Freudian psychoanalysis – and partially
precipitated by the demands brought on by hysteria and miracles – carried with it the
potential to rethink the mind/body relationship under the influence of two types of sick
non-conforming bodies, the hysteric and the miraculé(e), that challenged commonly accepted
scientific knowledge. This rupture also carried the promise of a new definition of health and
sickness, normality and abnormality. Yet, instead of proposing an epistemology that thinks
the bodily incarnation of the immaterial unconscious and the lesion-less pathology,
psychoanalysis’s move away from the body perpetuates the marginalization of the most
vulnerable, and often most suffering, bodies.
In this context, the fin-de-siècle moment and the advent of psychoanalysis appear as
missed opportunities to radically rethink body and mind without sacrificing, or valorizing,
one over the other. Sick, different, deviant or queer bodies then offer a new path to rethink
material embodiement.

D) Rehabilitating the Body, Reclaiming Hysteria

307
Tracing the history of the mind/body relation through hysteria and miracles has allowed
me to show the slow decline in the theoretical attention given to the body, whereas the
mind, especially with the development of psychoanalytic theory, was soon understood as a
leading force in this duo. This change was made possible by the epistemological shift that
allowed the development of the psychoanalytic theory of a lesion-less pathology. Indeed,
Freud’s increasing dismissal of the biological body and his transition to an immaterial
unconscious have essentially given birth to a theory that has failed to accurately identify the
causality linking traumas and their alleged symptoms. Even though Freud’s theories propose
to explain conversion, they nevertheless fail to provide convincing biological arguments to
make sense of this process, thereby giving birth to a discipline that relegates the
(physiological) (female) body to a theoretical detail. Indeed, conversion suggests that the
origin of a physiological symptom is psychological and that therefore its treatment needs to
originate in the mind. Such thinking has contributed to the devaluation of the body pointed
out by Wilson. Now, I want to suggest that rehabilitating the body, the incarnated bodily
experience of symptoms, ultimately results in a rehabilitation of the female body, but also in
an inclusion of other different bodies.
The female hysterical body, from Lourdes and the Salpêtrière, was the primary object of
scientific inquiry in the late nineteenth-century study of hysteria. Because more women
experienced hysteria and miraculous healings, they were predominantly studied, prodded,
questioned and doubted. More susceptible to hysteria and suggestion, women were the
iconic analysands while womanhood was presented by Freud as deficient and inherently
pathological. Today, refocusing on the physiological body, and re-investigating somatic
symptoms as valid physiological expressions could result in a radical rehabilitation of the
female body.
308
This return to the physiological body is also an inadvertent return to Charcot’s hitherto
obsolete theories. Unexpectedly, Wilson opens the door to a possible rehabilitation of
Charcot, whose elusive dynamic hysterical lesion had, until recently, rather amused the
contemporary reader. The idea that the organic evidence of hysteria was always moving and,
as such, was impossible to capture, had been promptly abandoned and had soon sounded
ridiculous. Nevertheless, Charcot’s intuition that the lesion matters is essentially, and
paradoxically, post-Freudian and even very modern. Indeed, as Wilson’s work highlights the
disconnect between the psychoanalytic mind and the physiological body, it also affirms that
the very notion of lesion-less pathology, so paradigm-shifting at the turn of the nineteenth
century, has now resulted in an epistemological impasse.
Of course, there is irony in the fact that Charcot’s recently discovered notes showed
that he was moving away from a physiological body to propose a map of an immaterial
unconscious, whereas we are now pointing to a necessary return to his practice of cerebral
localization in order to truly understand the psychosomatic body. This return to Charcot,
which is essentially a return to the physiological, neurological body, is exemplary of the shifts
between two paradigms that have marked the history of medicine since the late nineteenth
century. Indeed, after the transformation of the scientific imagination that made
psychoanalysis possible, the history of medicine has been caught in a schizophrenic
oscillation, favoring alternatively the mind or the body, yet failing to think them jointly.

Chapter Conclusion

309
French physician and historian of hysteria Etienne Trillat once wrote that: “All
psychoanalytic theory was born from hysteria but the mother died after the birth.”
475
Yet,
this idea that psychoanalysis is the orphaned daughter of hysteria erroneously suggests that
hysteria has disappeared. If the word “hysteria” itself is not present in the DSM and if it is
no longer an official diagnosis, hysteria endures both culturally and in the form of
conversion disorders, and, as such, remains visible. Moreover, the continued presence of the
term “hysteric” continues to haunt language and representations of womanhood. Finally, the
questions of the mind’s influence on the body and of the conundrum of materiality remain
as pressing as ever, and attempts to solve them continue to revisit the fin-de-siècle moment
and hysteria’s Golden Age.
Building on the late nineteenth-century research on hysteria and a cultural climate
that accepted the existence of miracle cures – two phenomena that pointed to a dominance
of the mind over the body – Freud went further: he asserted that the mind could cause
physiological symptoms and suggested that these symptoms would not necessarily be visible
and identifiable by clinical exams. In a way, Freud proposes new means to think the
immaterial: symptoms do not have to be caused by an actual lesion and the mind itself does
not follow the anatomical map of the brain. Yet, this dismissal of the body leaves essential
questions unanswered and psychoanalysis ends in the same aporia as Charcot’s original
theory of hysteria. As recent feminist scholarship has shown, Freud’s paradigm has reached
its limits and the necessary rehabilitation of the body resembles a return to Charcot’s
previously dismissed theories. This return to the body is another turn to biology in an
attempt to answer how and where in the body conversion and healing happen. But this

475
Quoted by Elaine Showalter in “Hysteria, Feminism and Gender” in Hysteria Beyond Freud,
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 291.
310
return to the body can also be seen as an inclusive attempt to bring back in the fold bodies
that have so far been ostracized. Thus, hysteria and miracles serve as an injunction to rethink
embodiment and materiality for the benefit of all other bodies. Hence, the hysteric and the
miraculé(e) are just two examples of how non-conforming bodies can be illuminated by a
return to the materiality of the body.
Of course, this injunction to rethink embodiment beyond polarizing dichotomies –
psychological/physiological, material/immaterial, male/female, etc. - does not offer a
simple resolution but is rather a testament to the fact that the history of knowledge proceeds
in fits and starts. Many questions remain open-ended: How to think this disincarnate
materiality? And how to think (and understand) the hysteric and the miraculé(e) in the twenty-
first century? In other words, what have we learned about bodies?
In short, maybe not much. Hysteria and miracles have not provided answers but
have rather allowed us to ask questions and to think the body and its stakes conceptually. As
such, it is not exactly Charcot who is rehabilitated, but rather his interrogation of materiality
has found a new echo and has provided a road map to think all bodies. Yet, it is ironic that
this openness to learning from bodies stems from Charcot, who was himself so entangled in
his objectification of these same bodies. Nevertheless, what we can now learn from Charcot
– and from Charcot’s errors – is the necessity to pay attention to the body and to all bodies.
Elizabeth Grosz notes the importance of the attention given to “particular kinds of bodies:”
Feminists have increasingly recognised that there is no monolithic
category, ‘the body’ There are only particular kinds of bodies. Where one
(the youthful, white, middle-class male body) functions as a
representative of all bodies, its domination must be overcome
through a defiant affirmation of the autonomy of other kinds of
bodies/subjectivities. It may turn out that a subversion is
311
accomplished by the proliferation of a number of different types of
ideals or representatives for the range and type of bodies.
476

Thus, the hysteric and the miraculé(e) provide one example, among many, of the subversive
nature of bodies and point to their political powers. Then, the fin-de-siècle debates about
hysteria and miracles were eminently political as they made space in the public sphere for
potentially subversive bodies.

476
Elizabeth Grosz, “Notes Towards a Corporeal Feminism,” Australian Feminist Studies, 2 : 5
(1987) : 9.
312
CONCLUSION

FROM MIRACLES TO OTHERNESS

Coincidence is not causality, nor is it necessarily meaningful in and of itself. It is the
uncanny coincidence of two distinct epidemics – the diagnoses of hysteria at the Salpêtrière
and the miracle cures at Lourdes – that stirred up my curiosity and led me to inquire further.
My research did not uncover a clear-cut answer concerning this coincidence: hysteria did not
cause the epidemic of miracles, nor are miracles the religious counterpart to hysteria. The
historical coexistence of hysteria and miracles is evidence of a cross-contamination and
mutual influence at a moment shaken by contradictory tensions – between Church and State,
between secular and religious authorities, and between unprecedented scientific progress and
unsurmontable epistemological challenges.
Much has been written about these two separate phenomena. They each open up a
new understanding of an historical period, its belief systems, and its prejudices. Separately,
they also open new lines of inquiry that have remained open. From its early description in
Antiquity to possession cases, from Charcot to Freud, the meaning and clinical reality of
hysteria continues to generate scholarship across academic disciplines. Similarly, miracles, by
their very definition, remain an ever-unsettled topic. From Augustine to Spinoza, to the
more recent medically-supported approach of the Catholic Church, the theories – and critics
- abound, yet the mystery remains.
Jointly however, these phenomena open up new avenues to understand and interpret
the fin de siècle and the epistemological changes at play. Yet, all they provide are « pistes » for
interpretations and, as always with these two polymorphous, ever-evolving phenomena, a
definite truth – if one ever existed – remains elusive.
313
Hysteria and miracles were two instrumental forces that precipitated the new
psychoanalytic epistemology. Indeed, they challenged the traditional understanding of the
relation between mind and body and suggested that an illness could manifest somatically
without having an actual material cause. This dilemma of materiality – how to make sense of
symptoms that cannot be seen – is essentially solved by Freud’s theoretical embrace of an
immaterial unconscious and of a new map of the body that excludes biological
considerations. However, this dismissal of the biological body eventually leads to a
marginalization of the female body and, by extension, of all bodies that are different from
the standard male, heterosexual body. Hysteria and miracles had offered to re-think sickness
and normality, yet their epistemological promise fell short.
As suggested by the figure of the hysteron-proteron, hysteria continues to shatter the
order of things and turn things on their head. Its challenges to logic and temporality are also
a promise of radicalism and, as hysteria continues to preoccupy culture and language, it also
carries with it an offer to rethink the material existence of all bodies.

314
BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Texts

Bernheim, Hippolyte. Hypnotisme, Suggestion, Psychothérapie avec Considerations Nouvelles
sur l’Hystérie, Deuxième Edition. Paris: Doin, 1903.
---. De la Suggestion dans l’Etat Hypnotique, Réponse à M. Paul Janet. Paris: Doin, 1884.

Boissarie, Prosper Gustave. Les Grandes Guérisons de Lourdes. Paris: Douniol, 1900.
---. Lourdes: Histoire Médicale 1858-1891. Paris: Lecoffre, 1891.

Bourneville, Désiré Magloire. Science et Miracle, Louise Lateau, ou la Stigmatisée Belge.
Paris: Delahaye, 1878.

Charcot, Jean-Martin. La Foi qui Guérit. Éditions Félix Alcan: Paris, 1897.
--- Leçon sur les Localisations dans les Maladies du Cerveau Faites à la Faculté de Médecine de
Paris (1875). Paris: Delahaye, 1876.
---. Leçons du Mardi à la Salpêtrière 1887-1888, Tome 1. Paris, 1892.
---. Leçons du Mardi à la Salpêtrière. Paris : Lecrosnier & Babé, 1889.

Charcot, Jean-Martin and Richer, Paul. Les Démoniaques dans l’Art. Paris : Delahaye et
Lecrosnier, 1887.

Cros, Père Léonard-Joseph-Marie. Histoire de Notre-Dame de Lourdes d’Après les
Documents et les Témoins. Paris : Beauchesne, 1925.
---. Notre-Dame de Lourdes: Récits et Mystères. Toulouse et Paris: Privat et Retaux, 1901.

Daudet, Alphonse. L’Évangéliste. Paris: Alphonse Lemerre, 1929.
---. “À la Salpêtrière.” Chronique Médicale, no 05. Paris, 1898. 15-18

Hennique, Léon. Elisabeth Couronneau. Paris: Dentu, 1879.

Le Jubilé du Pélerinage National à Lourdes: 1873-1897. Paris: Bonne Presse, 1897.

Lacaze; Félix. Pour le Vrai, à Lourdes avec Zola, Parallèle au Roman de Zola. Paris: Dentu,
1894.

Lasserre, Henri de Monzie de. Notre-Dame de Lourdes. Paris: Victor Palmé, 1872.
---. Les Lettres de Henri Lasserre à l’occasion du roman de Mr. Zola. Paris: Dentu, 1894.

Lemonnier, Camille. L’Hystérique. Paris: Charpentier, 1885.

Emile Zola, Lourdes, Gallimard, Paris:1995, preface by Jacques Noiray.
---. Le Roman Expérimental. Paris: Charpentier, 1890.
---. Mes Voyages: Lourdes, Rome. Paris: Fasquelle Editeurs, 1958.

315

Secondary Texts

Agulhon, Maurice. 1848 ou l’Apprentissage de la République (1848-1852). Paris: Seuil,
1973.

Alaimo, Stacy. Bodily Natures, Science, Environment, and the Material Self. Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 2010.

Appignanessi, Lisa. Mad, Bad and Sad: A History of Women and the Mind Doctors. New
York: Norton, 2007.
---. Trials of Passion: Crimes in the Name of Love and Madness. London: Virago, 2014.

Augustine, The City of God. Translated by Rev. Marcus Dods. Edinburgh : T&T Clark,
1871.

Babinski, Joseph. Démembrement de l’Hystérie Traditionnelle. Paris: Imprimerie de la
Semaine Médicale, 1909.
---. “Grand et Petit Hypnotisme,” Archives de Neurologie, Revue des Maladies Nerveuses et
Mentales, Tome XVII, 1889.

Bailly, Anatole. Dictionnaire Grec-Français.1935

Beizer, Janet. Ventriloquized Bodies, Narratives of Hysteria in Nineteenth-Century France.
Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994.

Bérillon, Edgar. “Considérations Générales sur l’Hypnotisme.” Revue de l’Hypnotisme
Expérimental et Thérapeutique. Volume 1, 1887.

Claude Bernard, Introduction à L’Etude de la Médecine Experimentale. Paris: Baillière,
1865.

Bouchara Catherine. Charcot: Une Vie avec l’Image. Catalogue de L’Exposition du 14 mai au
8 juillet 2014, Eglise Saint-Louis, Pitié-Salpêtrière, Paris. Paris: Phllippe Rey, 2013.

Bouchara, Catherine, Mazet, Philippe and Cohen, David. “Jean Martin Charcot 1825-
1893: Did He Anticipate Freud’s First Topology?” The American Journal of Psychiatry 167, 4
(April 2010): 387.

Brais, Bernard. “Désiré Magloire Bourneville and French anticlericalism during the
Third Republic,” in Doctors, Politics, and Society: Historical Essays. Edited by Dorothy Porter and
Roy Porter. Amsterdam and Atlanta: Rodopi, 1993.

Braunstein, J-F. L’Histoire des Sciences: Méthodes, Styles et Controverses. Paris: Vrin, 2008.

Breton, André and Aragon, Louis. “Le Cinquantenaire de l’Hystérie (1878-1928),” in
La Révolution Surréaliste, no 11, 15 mars 1928.
316

Breton, André and Eluard, Paul. L’Immaculée Conception. Paris: Seghers, 1961.

Breuer, Josef and Freud, Sigmund. Studies on Hysteria. Translated and edited by James
Strachey. New York: Basic Books, 1957.

Canguilhem, Georges. Le Normal et le Pathologique. Paris: Presses Universitaires de
France, 1966.

Carroy-Thirard, Jacqueline.“Figures de Femmes Hystériques dans la Psychiatrie
Française au 19
e
siècle.” Psychanalyse à l’Université, n
o
14, mars 1979. 313-322
---. Hypnose, Suggestion et Psychologie: l’Invention des Sujets. Paris: Presses Universitaires de
France, 1991.
---. “Possession, Extase, Hystérie au XIXième siècle.” Psychanalyse à l’Université V,
n
o
14, 1980. 499-515.

Carroy, Jacqueline and Renneville, Marc. “Une cause passionnelle passionnante:
Tarde et l’affaire Chambige (1889),” XXXIV
e
Congrès Français de Criminologie, 2008
https://champpenal.revues.org/260

Certeau, Michel de. La Possession de Loudun. Paris: Gallimard/Julliard, 1980.

Cixous, Hélène. “Portrait of Dora.” Translated by Anita Barrows. In Benmussa Directs
Portrait of Dora (Hélène Cixous) and The Singular Life of Albert Nobbs (Simone Benmussa).
Richmond: Calder Publications, 1979.

Cholvy, Gérard. Christianisme et Socitété en France au XIXe siècle 1790-1914. Paris: Seuil,
1997.

Comfort, Kathleen Ann. “Divine Images of Hysteria in Emile Zola’s Lourdes,”
Nineteenth-Century French Studies. Volume 30, Number 3&4 (Spring-Summer 2002): 330-346.

David-Ménard, Monique. Hysteria from Freud to Lacan: Body and Language in
Psychoanalysis. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989.

Didi-Huberman, Georges. Invention of Hysteria, Charcot and the Photographic Iconography of
the Salpêtrière. Translated by Alisa Hartz. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2003.

Edelman, Nicole. Les Métamorphoses de l’Hystérique du Début du XIXe siècle à la Grande
Guerre. Paris: La Découverte, 2003.

Ellenberger, Henri F. The Discovery of the Unconscious, the History and Evolution of Dynamic
Psychiatry. New York: Basic Books, 1970.

Ender, Evelyn. Sexing the Mind, Nineteenth-century fiction of Hysteria. Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 1995.

317
Evans, Martha Noel. Fits and Starts, A Genealogy of Hysteria in Modern France. Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 1991.

Foucault, Michel. les Anormaux: Cours au Collège de France (1974-1975). Paris:
Seuil/Gallimard, 1999.
---. Histoire de la Sexualité, la Volonté de Savoir. Paris: Gallimard, 1994
---. Les Mots et les Choses.Paris: Gallimard, 1990.
---. Naissance de la Clinique. Paris: Presse Universitaires de France, 1966.
---. “The Order of Discourse.” In Untying the Text, A Post-Structuralist Reader. Edited
by Robert Young. Boston: Routledge, 1981.

Freud, Sigmund. Dora. An Analysis of a Case of Hysteria. New York: Simon & Schuster,
1963.
---. On the History of the Psycho-Analytic Movement. New York: Norton & Companie,
1966.
---. The Freud Reader. Edited by Peter Gay. New York: Norton, 1989.

Gelfand, Toby. “The Secret of Medical Miracles: Zola’s Lourdes and Charcot’s La
Foi Qui Guérit.” Excavatio 19, no 1-2 (2004): 251-271.

Goddard, Henry H. “The Effects of Mind on Body as Evidenced by Faith Cures”
The American Journal of Psychology, Vol 10(3), Apr 1899: 431-502.

Goldstein, Jan. Console and Classify: The French Psychiatric Profession in the Nineteenth
Century Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987.
---. Hysteria Complicated by Ecstasy, the Case of Nanette Leroux. Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 2010.

Grosz, Elizabeth. “Notes Towards a Corporeal Feminism ;” Australian Feminist
Studies, 2 :5 (1987) : 1-16.
---. Volatile Bodies: Toward a Corporeal Feminism. Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 1994.

Harrington, Ann. The Cure Within: A History of Mind-Body Medicine. New York:
Norton, 2008.

Harris, Ruth. Lourdes, Body and Spirit in the Secular Age. New York: Penguin Compass,
2000.
---. Murders and Madness: Medecine, Law, and Society in the Fin de Siècle. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1991.

Hochmann, Jacques. Histoire de la Psychiatrie. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France,
2004.

Hustvedt, Asti. Medical Muses: Hysteria in Nineteenth-century Paris. New York: Norton,
2011.

Huysmans, J.-K. Les Foules de Lourdes. Paris: Stock, 1906.
318
---. Là-Bas. Paris: Gallimard, 1985.

Janet, Pierre. Etat Mental des Hystériques : Les Stigmates Mentaux. Paris : Rueff, 1892.

Soeur Jeanne des Anges, Supérieure des Ursulines de Loudun. Autobiographie d’une
Hysterique Possédée, Préface de Charcot. Paris: Delahaye et Lecrosnier 1886.

Kahane, Claire. Passions of the Voice: Hysteria, Narrative, and the Figure of the Speaking
Woman, 1850-1915. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995.

Kaufman, Suzanne K. Consuming Visions: Mass Culture and the Lourdes Shrine. Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 2005.

King, Helen. “Once upon a text, Hysteria from Hippocrates” in Hysteria Beyond Freud.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.

King, Irving. “The Religious Significance of the Psychotherapeutic Movement,” The
American Journal of Theology, Vol. 14, No. 4 (Oct., 1910): 533-551.

Kuhn, Thomas. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1996.

Lachapelle, Sofie. “Between miracles and sickness: Louise Lateau and the experience
of stigmata and ecstasy,” Configurations 12 (2004) 77-105.

Lalouette, Jacqueline. “Expulser Dieu: La Laïcisation des Ecoles, des Hôpitaux et des
Prétoires.” Mots, juin 1991, N°27. pp. 23-39.
---. “La Querelle de la Foi et de la Science et le Banquet Berthelot.” Revue Historique,
T. 300, Fasc. 4 (608) (Octobre / Décembre 1998): 825-844.
---, Dimensions Anticléricales de la Culture Républicaine (1870-1914). In: Histoire,
économie et société. 1991, 10e année, n°1. Le concept de révolution. pp. 127-142.
---. “Charcot au Coeur des Problèmes Religieux de son Temps” in Revue Neurologique
150, 8-9. Paris: Masson, 1994. 511-516.

Le Goff, Jacques and Rémond, René. Histoire de la France Religieuse, volume III. Du Roi
Très Chrétien à la laïcité républicaine XVIII
e
-XIX
e
Siècle. Paris: Seuil, 1991.

Laplanche, Jean and Pontalis, Jean-Bertrand. ‘Hysteria.” The Language of Psychoanalysis,
New York: Norton, 1974. 194-195.

Laurentin, René. La Question Mariale, Editions du Seuil: Paris, 1963.
---. Pilgrimages, Sanctuaries, Icons, Apparitions,

Mangiapan, Théodore. Guérisons de Lourdes. Lourdes: Notre Dame de Lourdes
Editions, 2010.

Marquer, Bertrand. Les Romans de la Salpêtrière. Réception d’une Scénographie Clinique: Jean-
Martin Charcot dans l’Imaginaire Fin-de-siècle. Genève: Droz, 2008.
319

Mazzoni, Cristina. Saint Hysteria: Neurosis, Mysticism, and Gender in European Culture.
Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996.

McEachern, Patricia A. A Holy Life: The Writings of St. Bernadette. San Francisco:
Ignatius Press, 2005.

Meige, Henri. Les Possédées Noires. Paris: Schiller, 1894.

Mark Micale, “Charcot and the Idea of Hysteria in the Male : Gender, Mental
Science, and Medical Diagnosis in Late Nineteenth-century France.” Medical History. 34.
(1990) : 363-411

Michelet, Jules. Le Prêtre, la Femme et la Famille. Paris: Chamerot, 1861.

Mitchell, Juliet. Mad Men and Medusas : Reclaiming Hysteria. New York: Basic Books,
2000.

Mombert, Sarah. “Profession Romancier Populaire.” In Le Roman Populaire : 1836-
1960, des Premiers Feuilletons aux Adaptations Télévisuelles. Edited by Loïc Artiaga. Paris:
Autrement, 2008.

Mukherjee, Siddharta. The Emperor of All Maladies, a Biography of Cancer. New York:
Scribner, 2010.

Murat, Laure. L’Homme qui se Prenait pour Napoléon. Paris: Gallimard 2011.

Naccache, Lionel. Le Nouvel Inconscient. Freud, Christophe Colomb des Neurosciences. Paris:
Odile Jacob, 2006.

Nicolas, Serge. L’Hypnose: Charcot Face à Bernheim. Paris: L’Harmattan, 2004.

Oxford English Dictionary, s. v. “hysteron proteron,” accessed February, 5
th
2016,
http://www.oed.com.libproxy2.usc.edu/view/Entry/90656?redirectedFrom=hysteron+prot
eron&

Orgozelec-Guinchard, Laëticia. Le Miracle et L’Enquête, les Guérisons Inexpliquées à
l’Epreuve de la Médecine. Paris : Presses Universitaires de France, 2014.

Onfray, Michel. Le Crépuscule d’une Idole, l’Affabulation Freudienne, 2010.

Ozouf, Mona. L ‘Ecole, l’Eglise et la République 1871-1914. Paris: Editions Cana/Jean
Offredo, 1982.

Phelan, Peggy. Mourning Sex: Performing Public Memories. London: Routledge, 1997.

Sacks, Oliver. Hallucinations. New York: Knopf, 2012.

320
Scull, Andrew. Hysteria, the Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.

Showalter, Elaine. Hystories, Hysterical Epidemics and the Modern Media. New York:
Columbia University Press: 1997.
---. “Hysteria, Feminism and Gender,” Hysteria Beyond Freud. Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1993.

Silverman, Debora. “Sigmund Freud, Jean-Martin Charcot,” Vienne 1880-1938,
l’Apocalypse Joyeuse, sous la direction de Jean Clair. Paris: Editions du Centre Pompidou, 1986.

Sontag, Susan. Illness as Metaphor. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1977.

Sulloway, Frank J. Freud, Biologist of the Mind: Beyond the Psychoanalytic Legend. New
York: Basic Books, 1979.

Szabo, Jason. “Seeing Is Believing? The Form and Substance of French Medical
Debates over Lourdes.” Bulletin of the History of Medicine. 76, 2. (Summer 2002): 199-230.

Taylor, Barbara. The Last Asylum : A Memoir of Madness in Our Times. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2015.

Trillat, Etienne. De l’Hystérie à la Psychose: du Corps à la Parole. Paris: L’Harmattan,
1999.

Voisin, Aguste. “De l’Hypnotisme et de la Suggestion Hypnotique dans Leurs
Applications au Traitement des Maladies Nerveuses et Mentales,” Revue de l’Hypnotisme
Expérimental et Thérapeutique volume 1, 1887.

Waddle, Charles W. “Miracles of Healing.” The American Journal of Psychology, Vol 20,
(1909): 219-268.

Wasik, Bill and Murphy, Monica. Rabid : A Cultural History of the World’s Most
Diabolical Virus. New York : Viking, 2012.

Wilson, Elizabeth A. Gut Feminism. Durham: Duke University Press, 2015.
---. Neural Geographies, Feminism and the Micro structure of cognition, Routledge, 1998
---. Psychosomatic. Feminism and the Neurological Body. Durham: Duke University Press,
2004.

Xenakis, Mâkhi. Les Folles d’Enfer de la Salpêtrière. Paris: Actes Sud, 2004.

York, George K. and Steinberg, David A. “An Introduction to the Life and Work of
John Hughlings Jackson.” Medical History Supplement. 2007; (26): 3–34.

Zapolska, Gabriela. Madame Zapolska et la Scène Parisienne. Edited and Translated by
Lisbeth Virol and Arturo Nevil. Paris: Éditions de la Femme pressée, 2004.

321
Bob Ziegler, “Literature of the Miraculous, Huysmans’s Les Foules de Lourdes,”
French Forum. Vol. 36, No. I. (Winter 2011)

Dissertations

Arnaud, Sabine. “Narratives and Politics of a Diagnosis: The Construction and
Circulation of Hysteria as a Medical Category, 1730-1820.” PhD diss., University of Chicago,
2008.

Charcot, Jean-Martin. “De L’Expectation en Médecine.” Thèse de Concours pour
l’Agrégation de Médecine (Paris: Germer Baillère, 1857).

Filippi, Corinne. “Le Contrôle Médical des Guérisons de Lourdes (à propos de
cinquante-sept dossiers).” Faculté de Médecine de Marseille, 1987.

Pierie, Jean. “Le Contrôle Médical des Guérisons de Lourdes.” Thèse de Doctorat
en Médecine, Bordeaux, 1976.

Thozet, Claudine. “La Stabilité des Guérisons de Lourdes.” Thèse pour le Doctorat
en Médecine, Toulouse, 1975.

Films

A Dangerous Method, dir. David Cronenberg. 2011

Lourdes, dir. Jessica Hausner. 2009.

The Song of Bernadette, dir. Henry King. 1943.

Augustine, dir. Jean-Claude Monod. 2003

Hysteria, dir. Tanya Wexler. 2011

Augustine, dir. Alice Winocour. 2012.

Complementary Sources

British Medical Journal. June 18, 1910, Vol. 1, issue 2581.

Jean-Dominique Merchet. « Lourdes, C’est du Zola. » Libération. 11 février 2008.

Errol Morris: “The Anosognosic’s Dilemma: Something’s Wrong but You’ll Never
Know What It Is,” The New York Times, June 20, 2010
322

Revue de l’Hypnotisme Expérimental et Thérapeutique. Volume 1, 1887.

“Les Miraculés” in Le Matin. 22 novembre 1894. 1.

« Zola et la Vierge, Conversation avec la Grivotte » in La Croix, 1-2 Septembre 1895.
2.

Art Absolument. Hors Série de L’exposition Charcot, Une Vie avec l’Image. 2014.

Abstract (if available)

Abstract This dissertation identifies miracles as a privileged site of convergence between medicine and religion in France in the second half of the nineteenth century. The project first explores the development—under Professor Charcot’s aegis—of retrospective medicine, a genre of medical literature that consisted of revisiting past cases of possession and re-interpreting them in light of the newly revived hysteria diagnosis. This new genre promptly exceeded the boundaries of the Salpêtrière hospital and contaminated contemporary novels. Next, I examine the reverse contamination process as the concept of healing faith—the title of Charcot’s last published essay—emerges in the context of the cures at Lourdes to challenge the epistemology of the healing process. My research establishes, in particular, that the fin-de-siècle fascination with hypnosis, suggestion, hysteria, and miracles proceeds from the same concern with mapping the mind/body relationship. A subsequent chapter coins the term “Lourdes literature” to describe the considerable literary production that appears out of the sanctuary city. I demonstrate that the traditional format of medical case studies is effectively being re-appropriated by Lourdes literature, thereby exposing the constant circulation of narratives and the mutual influence between medicine and religion. In its conclusion, my dissertation places the question of miracles in the context of the emergence of Freudian psychoanalysis. I argue that faith healing foreshadowed psychoanalysis and facilitated the epistemological shift necessary to go beyond medical materialism and conceive of a lesion-less pathology. Thus, while hysteria itself has consistently been a topic of scholarly inquiry, my research, which examines the space occupied by the intersection of hysteria and miracles, innovates by interrogating the epistemological shifts at play in the late nineteenth century and tracing them through literary and medical texts.

Linked assets

University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

Conceptually similar

PDF

Danser la maladie, contaminer la beauté: a viral approach to the (choreo)graphed body

PDF

Mourning melancholia: modernist poetics and the refusal of solace

PDF

'L'autre chez nous': defining the national body in French literature, 1800-1848

PDF

The Chinovnik and the Rond-de-cuir: bureaucratic modernity in nineteenth-century Russian and French literature

Asset Metadata

Creator Garrigou-Kempton, Emilie (author)

Core Title Hysteria in Lourdes and miracles at the Salpêtrière: the intersection of faith and medical discourse in late nineteenth-century French literature

School College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program French

Defense Date 02/24/2016

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag apparitions,Hysteria,immaterial unconscious,Jean Martin Charcot,Lourdes,medical humanities,Miracles,OAI-PMH Harvest,psychoanalysis,retrospective medicine,Salpêtrière,Sigmund Freud

Format application/pdf (imt)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Meeker, Natania (committee chair), Kamuf, Peggy (committee member), Norindr, Panivong (committee member), Velasco, Sherry (committee member)

Creator Email emiliegk@gmail.com,garrigou@usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c40-219114

Unique identifier UC11277024

Identifier etd-GarrigouKe-4188.pdf (filename),usctheses-c40-219114 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-GarrigouKe-4188.pdf

Dmrecord 219114

Document Type Dissertation

Format application/pdf (imt)

Rights Garrigou-Kempton, Emilie

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA