Empire Wastes: Fashion and Fractured Femininity in La Curée
On the occasion of the review in the Champ de Mars, the PRESIDENT wore the uniform of a General of the Infantry—or of a Colonel of the National Guard—for, as he has never served in either, it is extremely doubtful which uniform he wore, or in fact, what rank in the French army he has gained at all, beyond that, from never having been in it, of a Rank Imposter. As these doubts make it very inconvenient to know what military title to give him, we suggest that LOUIS NAPOLEON do take his title from the only battle-field [sic] in which he has hitherto distinguished himself, and be henceforth known as “the Great SHAM de Mars.”64
Louis Napoleon seems to attach so much importance to the coats of his senatorial and other lacqueys that his government may be called a Co(a)terie of Despotism.65
For twenty years, the imperial government of Louis-Napoléon provided much fodder for sarcasm in the British satirical newspaper Punch. The publication
frequently expressed its disapproval of the regime in ways that many French publications could not because of strict censorship laws in the Hexagon. In their caricatures and quips about the French Emperor, the British satirists provided their readers innumerable variations on a theme, focusing primarily on the illegitimacy of the origins and agendas of the Second Empire. Over the years, the writers at Punch
criticized everything about Louis-Napoléon’s government, from its adventurist wars, to its ruthless razing and renovation of Paris, to its feckless financial ventures.66 The
64Punch, or the London Charivari. Vol. 22-23. 1852. 223. 65Punch, or the London Charivari. Vol. 22-23. 1852. 82.
66 In an 1853 edition of the publication, a Punch writer notes: “The Moniteur [the official Imperial newspaper] has denied officially the report, “that the Imperial Government intended to authorize gaming houses, and to re-establish the lottery.” The Moniteur might have added that the
Government has no necessity to authorize any other gaming establishment than the Bourse, or to extend the privilege of gambling to any but such companies as the Société Générale du Crédit
humorists spoke derisively specifically of Louis-Napoléon’s apparent fascination with dress: the Emperor is repeatedly mocked for his careful attention to his own clothing and that of his deputies, or, in Punch’s formulation, his “co(a)terie of despotism. Upon the establishment of the Second Empire senate, Punch reports that a “grave deliberation” took place in the chamber about the proper length of knee breeches at official functions.67 To ignore the dress code edict in Louis-Napoléon’s court, the
writers at Punch imply, would be to commit a serious sartorial transgression–a breach of breech etiquette, in other words.
While Punch would also later take aim at the flamboyant feminine fashions (especially the crinoline) of Second Empire France, what seemed to be particularly bothersome to the humorists about French fads was Louis-Napoléon’s disingenuous appropriation of vestimentary signs of authority. He wore a military uniform, though he had never served as a soldier; his chest was decorated with a panoply of medals for valor in battle he had never shown.68 The perfidy of the Emperor’s new clothes
was a symbol in the pages of Punch for the parvenu regime as a whole. The publication regularly took aim at Louis-Napoléon’s regime for its pretensions to greatness, for its mania for monumentalizing itself, for its crazed and conspicuous consumption, and for its ruthless exploitation of resources—both natural and human—to exhaustion.
Mobilier, and others of the same class to which the Empire gives its patronage” (Punch, Vols.24- 25, 1853, 20).
67Punch, or the London Charivari. Vol. 24-25. 185. 41.
68 Bernadette C. Lintz explains that Zola caused a scandal with his depiction of “l’Empereur fardé” at the battle of Sedan in La Débâcle (1892). While some of Zola’s contemporaries contested the historical veracity of a “made-up” emperor, he refused to change the text. Lintz suggests that the image of Louis-Napoléon wearing make-up into battle suggests his facility with “la théâtralité et du trompe-l’oeil” in politics as an “expert en l’art de manipuler les signes” (611).
Of interest in this analysis of La Curée are the rhetorical and stylistic strategies deployed by Zola to critique both the immoderate spectacle and the unbridled speculation of the Second Empire. My central claim is that the twin narratives of Renée’s moral downfall and Saccard’s corrupt speculation are different manifestations of the same root cause—that is, the collapse of the distinctions that had previously ordered French society. In a Second Empire Paris where prostitutes and proper ladies share paramours, fathers and sons share lovers, and investors and regulators share inside information, Renée’s incestuous romance with Maxime is the libidinal corollary to Saccard’s insider trading and profiteering in the Parisian real estate market. Renée’s profound myopia—her inability to distinguish visually her surroundings—is the physical manifestation of the collapse of distinctions occurring at the personal and political levels in La Curée.
Furthermore, Renée’s fascination with fashion represents her attempt to distinguish herself sartorially as one of the preeminent members of the Second Empire beau monde. Considering the importance of looking and of being seen in the social practice of nineteenth-century fashion, Renée’s significant visual impairment reveals her fixation on fashion to be profoundly problematic. Using the language of Laura Mulvey’s theory of gendered looking and spectacle in cinema, I show how Zola anticipates many of Mulvey’s insights in the story of Renée as sartorial spectacle. I argue that the kind of reading for detail elicited by the practice of fashion produces a kind of fracturing of the female form similar to that which Mulvey describes. In La Curée, Renée’s victimization can be attributed to her inability to perceive how others (specifically, Maxime and Saccard) see her: born of her desire to see and be seen,
Renée becomes blind to the atomizing and alienating effects of the male gaze on her subjectivity. I also show how Zola effects his critique of the moral degradation of imperial France stylistically through the pun. Using Tony Tanner’s insights about the political implications of the transgressive joining of multiple meanings in one word, I argue that the pun is an effective rhetorical vehicle for a critique of the corrupt and incestuous nature of the personal and political relations in La Curée.