Sexual Crime, Religion and Masculinity in fin-de-siècle France

This book explores a vital though long-neglected clash between republicans and Catholics that rocked fin-de-siècle France. At its heart was a mysterious and shocking crime. In Lille in 1899, the body of twelve-year-old Gaston Foveaux was discovered in a school run by a Catholic congregation, the Frères des Écoles Chrétiennes. When his teacher, Frère Flamidien, was charged with sexual assault and murder, a local crime became a national scandal. The Flamidien Affair shows that masculinity was a critical site of contest in the War of Two Frances pitting republicans against Catholics. For republicans, Flamidien's vow of chastity as well as his overwrought behaviour during the investigation made him the target of suspicion; Catholics in turn constructed a rival vision of masculinity to exonerate the accused brother. Both sides drew on the Dreyfus Affair to make their case.

Explores the political culture of fin-de-siècle France through an examination of a notorious crime and its aftermath in 1899 Utilises a mass of archival records illuminating the nature of masculinity, the power of the popular press and understandings of sexual perversion Demonstrates the role of sexual crime in driving the republican attack on the Catholic Church

Autorentext
Timothy Verhoeven is Senior Lecturer in the School of Philosophical, Historical and International Studies at Monash University, Australia. He is the author of Transnational anti-Catholicism: France and the United States in the Nineteenth Century (2010) as well as a series of articles on the history of Catholicism, anticlericalism and masculinity.

Inhalt

1. Introduction.- 2. Gaston Foveaux: Lille and the War of Two Frances.- 3. Charles Delalé: Republicans, celibacy and the performance of masculinity.- 4. Dr Castiaux: Legal medicine, pederasty and effeminacy at the fin-de-siècle.- 5. Cyr: Catholic masculinity and the defence of Frère Flamidien.- 6. Les Flamidiens/Les Dreyfus: the School Question and Collective Guilt.- 7. Émile Zola: Vérité and the aftermath of the Affair.- Index.