¹ Garber, Marjorie, Vested Interests. Cross-Dressing and Cultural Anxiety (New York, 1992)Google Scholar. Recently Julia Epstein and Kristina Straub have written: “Gender ambiguity has become the focus of some of the most serious political debates in recent critical theory.” See their “Introduction” to Body Guards. The Cultural Politics of Gender Ambiguity, Epstein, Julia and Straub, Kristina, eds. (New York, 1991), 9Google Scholar.

² Zeldin, Theodore, France, 1848–1945, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1979–81), vol. I, ch. 1:3–8Google Scholar; Magraw, Roger, France, 1815–1914: The Bourgeois Century (Oxford, 1983)Google Scholar.

³ There has been no serious historical examination of French cross-dress theater. Growing interest in gender ambiguity has produced a number of works on it for Britain, especially in Renaissance drama. Literary scholars, not historians, have written these studies. See Howard, Jean, “Crossdressing, the Theatre, and Gender Struggle in Early Modem England,” Shakespeare Quarterly, 39 (1988), 418–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Orgel, Stephen, “Nobody's Perfect: Or Why Did the English Stage Take Boys for Women?,” South Atlantic Quarterly, 88 (1989), 7–30Google Scholar. On more recent periods of British history, there are Ferris, Leslie, ed., Crossing the Stage (New York, 1993)Google Scholar; Baker, Roger, Drag. A History of Female Impersonation (London, 1968)Google Scholar; Straub, Kristina, Sexual Suspects. Eighteenth-Century Players and Sexual Ideology (Princeton, 1992), ch. 7Google Scholar; Castle, Terry, “The Culture of Travesty, Sexuality, and Masquerade in Eighteenth-Century England,” in Sexual Underworlds of the Enlightenment, Rousseau, G. S. and Porter, Roy, eds. (Chapel Hill, N.C. 1988), 156–80Google Scholar; Slide, Anthony, Great Pretenders: A History of Female and Male Impersonation in the Performing Arts (Lombard, 111., 1986)Google Scholar. Then, there are a growing number of works on transvestism in historical perspective. Among them are Oscar Gilbert, Paul, Women in Men's Guise, J. Lewis May, trans. (London, 1932)Google Scholar; Ackroyd, Peter, Dressing Up. Transvestism and Drag. The History of an Obsession (New York, 1979)Google Scholar; Dekker, Rudolf and Pol, Lotte Van de, The Tradition of Female Transvestism in Early Modern Europe (New York, 1989)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bullough, Vern and Bullough, Bonnie, Cross Dressing, Sex, and Gender (Philadelphia, 1993)Google Scholar.

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The attendance figure of half a million, accepted by Hemmings and Weber, derives from Giffard, Pierre, Nos Moeurs. La vie au théátre (Paris, 1888), 2Google Scholar.

⁵ Marjorie Garber notes that women playing together have always been a motif in male erotic literature and art. See her “Maximum Exposure,” New York Times (December 4, 1993), p. A21Google ScholarPubMed.

⁶ Abirached, Robert, La Crise du personnage dans le theatre modern (Paris, 1978), 11–93, 104–53Google Scholar; Bissell, Clifford, Les Conventions du theatre bourgeois contemporaine en France, 1887–1914 (Paris, 1930)Google Scholar.

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⁹ In the spring of 1874. spectators would have found at least three concurrent transvestite productions to patronize. See Figaro, no. 143 (May 23, 1874), 3.

¹⁰ James, Henry, Parisian Sketches. Letters to the New York Tribune, 1875–1876 (New York, 1957), 22Google Scholar.

¹¹ Brenner, Clarence, The Théátre Italienne: Its Repertory, 1716–1793 (Berkeley, 1961), 1–35Google Scholar; Bernardin, N. M., La Comédie-italienne en France et les Théátres de la foire et du boulevard (Paris, 1902)Google Scholar; Rougemont, Vie théâtrale, chs. 10–11; Carmondy, Francis, Le Répertoire de l'péra-comique en vaudeville de 1708 à 1764 (Berkeley, 1933)Google Scholar; Albert, Maurice, Les Théâtres de la foire (Paris, 1900)Google Scholar; Isherwood, Robert, Farce and Fantasy. Popular Entertainment in Eighteenth-Century Paris (Ithaca, NY, 1986)Google Scholar; Root-Bernstein, Michèle, Boulevard Theater and Revolution in the Eighteenth Century (Ann Arbor, MI, 1984)Google Scholar.

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¹³ Grannis, Valleria, Dramatic Parody in Eighteenth-Century France (New York, 1931)Google Scholar; Gruyer, Paul, “De la parodie au theatre,” Revue d'art dramatique, 32 (1893), 218–32Google Scholar.

¹⁴ Font, August, Favart, l'Opéra-comique et la comédie-vaudeville au XVIIe et XVIIle siècles (Paris, 1894), 209–10, 225, 279Google Scholar. The painter, Francois Boucher, immortalized the scene from Daphnis et Chloé in which a travesti shepherd kisses a sleeping shepherdess.

¹⁵ Carlson, Marvin, The Theatre of the French Revolution (Ithaca, NY, 1966)Google Scholar; Kennedy, Emmett, A Cultural History of the French Revolution (New Haven, 1989), ch. 9Google Scholar.

¹⁶ On Moliére's use of female impersonation, see Pougin, Arthur, Diclionnaire historique et pittoresque du théâtre et des arts qui s'y rattachent (Paris, 1885), 659–60Google Scholar.

¹⁷ Celler, Ludovic, Les Types populaires au théâtre (Paris, 1870), 175–9Google Scholar; Carlson, Theatre of the Revolution, 254–5. For the success of the actor, Brunet, as a female impersonator under the First Empire, see Flore, Corvée, Mémoires de Mademoiselle Flore, artiste du théâtre des Variétés, 3 vols. (Paris, 1845), 1:209–13Google Scholar.

¹⁸ Maurice, Charles, Histoire anecdotique du théâtre, de la litterature, et des divers impressions contemporaines, 2 vols. (Paris, 1856), 1:284Google Scholar. Levine, Laura's Men in Women's Clothing:Anti-Theatricality and Effeminization, 1579–1642 (Cambridge, 1994)Google Scholar examines the denunciation of female stage impersonation in Renaissance England. I am unaware of an analogous literature in France for the early modem or modern era.

¹⁹ Carlson, Marvin, The French Stage in the Nineteenth Century (Metuchen, NJ, 1972), 135–6Google Scholar.

²⁰ Flore, Mémoires, 1:87, 162, 185; 111:73; Pougin, Arthur, Acteurs et actrices d'autrefois (Paris, 1909), 130–5Google Scholar. For biographical sketches of these actresses, see Lyonnet, Henry, Dictionnaire des comédiennes français, 2 vols. (Paris, 1910), 11:44–45, 232–4Google Scholar.

²¹ Sardou, Victorien, Les Papiers de Victorien Sardou. Notes et souvenirs, Mauley, Georges, ed. (Paris, 1934), 226Google Scholar.

²² Henri Lecomte, L., Une Comédienne auXIXe siècle. Virginie Dejazet (Paris, 1892), 33, 39, 85Google Scholar; Pierron, Eugene, Virginie Déjazet (Paris, 1856), 151–2, 314Google Scholar; Bouffé, Désiré-Marie, Mes Souvenirs, 1800–1880 (Paris, 1880), 241–4Google Scholar; D'Astide, Paul, La Vie et le monde du boulevard (1830–1870) (Paris, 1930), 86–87Google Scholar. Hemmings, Theater Industry, ch. 12 provides a comparative perspective on salaries.

²³ illustration, no. 1645 (September 5, 1874), 147.

²⁴ Lecomte, Comédienne, 150–225. About a year before the death, stage friends organized an usually grand benefit performance to improve her financial situation. Members of the National Guard escorted her to the stage to a standing ovation by the star-studded audience.

²⁵ Illustration, no. 1710 (December 4, 1875), 361–2.

²⁶ Pierron, Déjazet, 125–8; Lecomte, Comédienne, 444. See the article on Irma, Mademoiselle, “the Dejazet of the provinces,” in Illustration, no. 127 (August 2, 1845), 355Google Scholar.

²⁷ Illustration, no. 644 (June 30, 1855), 403. See similar remarks in the review in Le Temps (October 14, 1867), 2.

²⁸ Le Journal amusant, no. 943 (September 26, 1874), 2.

²⁹ Sardou claimed that vaudeville died with Déjazet (Papiers de Sardou, p. 348). On the genre, see Mattes, Lothar, Vaudeville untersuchungen zu Geschichte und lileratursystem altischem Ort einer Erfolgsgattung (Heidelberg, 1983)Google Scholar; Lenient, Charles, La Comédie en France au XIXe siècle, 2 vols. (Paris, 1898), 1:219–78, 11:157–83Google Scholar.

³⁰ Kracauer, Siegfried, Orpheus in Paris, Offenbach and the Paris of His Time (New York, 1938)Google Scholar. For interesting perspectives on “The Imperial Feast,” see Herbert, Robert, Impressionism: Art, Leisure and Parisian Society (New Haven, 1988)Google Scholar and Richardson, Joanna, La Vie parisienne, 1852–1870 (New York, 1971)Google Scholar.

³¹ On the history of operetta, see Bruyas, Florian, Histoire de I'opérette en France, 1855–1965 (Paris, 1974)Google Scholar; Dufresne, Charles, Histoire de I'opérette (Paris, 1981)Google Scholar; Harding, James, Folies de Paris. The Rise and Fall of French Operetta (London, 1979)Google Scholar; Traubner, Richard, Operetta. A Theatrical History (London, 1984)Google Scholar.

³² Edmond, and Goncourt, Jules, Journal. Mémoires de la vie littéraire, Ricatte, Robert, ed., 4 vols. (Paris, 1956), 1:897Google Scholar.

³³ On Schneider, see Rouff, Marcel and Casevitz, Thérèse, La Vie de fête sous le Second Empire. Hortense Schneider (Paris, 1931)Google Scholar. On Offenbach's artistry, see Dufresne, Claude, Jacques Offenbach, ou La Gaité parisienne (Paris, 1992)Google Scholar; Schneider, Louis, Les Maitres de I'opérette française: Offenbach (Paris, 1923)Google Scholar.

³⁴ Bruyas, Histoire, 87, 100–1; Traubner, Operetta, 24. One should not imagine this Cupid as a fat cherub with bow and arrow; rather, “he” was an enfant malin, a god of sensuality. On Pearl, Binder, Polly, The Truth About Cora Pearl (London, 1986)Google Scholar.

³⁵ Dufresne, Histoire, 50–64; Harding, Folies, 68–87.

³⁶ Lecocq, Alexandra Charles, Le Petit duc; opéra-comique en trois actes. Paroles de Henry Meilhac el Ludovic Halevy (Paris, 1878)Google Scholar.

³⁷ Emmanuel Chabrier, Une Education manquée; opérette en une acte; paroles d'Eugene Leterrier et Albert Vanloo (Paris, n.d.).

³⁸ Louis Varney, Les Petits mousquetaires; opérette en trois actes (Paris, n.d.).

³⁹ Bruyas, Histoire, ch. 4; Dufresne, Histoire, 80–89.

⁴⁰ Illustration, no. 2630 (July 22, 1893), 62.

⁴¹ For her roles, see Englebert, Omer, Du Moins Je Sais Aimer. Vie et conversion d'Eve Lavalliere (Paris, 1963)Google Scholar, Appendix.

⁴² Lavalliere, Eve, “Mes Travestis,” Je sais tout, no. 86 (March 15, 1912), 213–20Google Scholar.

⁴³ For a list of Bernhardt's roles, see Pronier, Ernest, Une Vie au Théâtre: Sarah Bernhardt (Geneva. 1942), 349–77Google Scholar; also, Taranow, Gerda, Sarah Bernhardt. The Art within the Legend (Princeton, 1972), ch. 4Google Scholar.

⁴⁴ On the background of this play, see Horville, Robert, “Lorenzaccio” de Musset (Paris, 1972)Google Scholar.

⁴⁵ Rostand, Edmond, L'Aiglon. Drame en six actes, en vers (Paris, 1916)Google Scholar.

⁴⁶ Bernhardt, Sarah, The Art of the Theater, Stenning, H. J., trans. (London, 1924), 137–41Google Scholar.

⁴⁷ Taranow, Bernhardt, 199–208.

⁴⁸ Illustration, no. 2092 (March 31, 1883), 195.

⁴⁹ Horville, Robert, “The Stage Techniques of Sarah Bernhardt,” in Bernhardt and the Theatre of Her Time, Salmon, Eric, ed. (Westport, Conn., 1984), 37Google Scholar.

⁵⁰ Illustration, no. 2453 (March 1, 1890), 182; no. 3061 (September 7, 1901), 150.

⁵¹ See note 46 for the reference. The citation is on page 137.

⁵² Bernhardt, Sarah, “Men's Roles as Played by Women,” Harper's Bazaar (December 15, 1900), p. 2114Google Scholar. Dressing in male clothes was one of the charges made against her during her controversial trip to London in 1879. See Huret, Jules, Sarah Bernhardt (Paris, 1898), 47Google Scholar. One critic later praised her for wearing pants regularly and wished other trouser actresses “had the courage.” See Jollivet, Gaston. “L'Aiglon,” Théâtre (March 15, 1900), 8Google Scholar.

⁵³ Roberts, Mary Louise, “Samson and Delilah Revisited: The Politics of Women's Fashion in 1920s France,” American Historical Review, 98 (June 1993), 657–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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⁵⁵ Sorel, Belles heures, 60–63.

⁵⁶ Sorel, Confessions, 261–64. On the concern about women, see Roberts, Mary Louise, Civilization without Sexes. Reconstructing Gender in Postwar France, 1917–1927 (Chicago, 1994)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On Bartet, there is the uncritical biography, Dubeux, Albert, Julia Bartet (Paris, 1938)Google Scholar.

⁵⁷ The brief and pointless entries on the subject in contemporary theatrical dictionaries are illustrative. See Bouchard, Alfred, La Langue théâtrale (Paris, 1878), 282–3Google Scholar; Duflot, Joachim, Les Secrets des coulisses des théâtres de Paris (Paris, 1862), 223Google Scholar.

⁵⁸ Peter, René, “La Fin du travesti,” Le Theatre el la vie sous la Troisieme Republique, 2 vols. (Paris, 1946), II: ch. 14, at 138, 143Google Scholar.

⁵⁹ Landes, Women and the Public Sphere; Flugel, John writes about the “Great Masculine Renunciation,” when men gave up sartorial decorativeness, in The Psychology of Clothes (London, 1950), 110–21Google Scholar.

⁶⁰ Nye, Robert, Masculinity and Male Codes of Honor in Modern France (New York, 1993)Google Scholar; Berenson, Edward, The Trial of Madame Caillaux (Berkeley, 1992)Google Scholar, ch. 5; Maugue, Annelise, L'ldentité masculine en crise an tournant du siècle (Paris, 1987)Google Scholar.

⁶¹ Showalter, Elaine, Sexual Anarchy. Gender and Culture at the Fin de Siecle (New York, 1990)Google Scholar.

⁶² Davis, “Women on Top,” 130.

⁶³ The fundamental work on this subject is Foucault, Michel, History of Sexuality (New York. 1978)Google Scholar.

⁶⁴ Nye, Robert, Crime, Madness, and Politics in Modern France (Princeton 1984)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁶⁵ Gary Kates, “D'Eon Returns to France: Gender and Power in 1777,” in Body Guards, Julia Straub and Kristina Epstein, eds. 167–194.

⁶⁶ Laqueur, Thomas, Making Sex, Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud (Cambridge, MA, 1990Google Scholar), chs. 2–4; Maclean, Ian, The Renaissance Notion of Woman (Cambridge, 1980CrossRefGoogle Scholar). For qualifications regarding Laqueur's argument, see (Parker, Katherine and Nye, Robert, “Destiny is Anatomy,” The New Republic, 204 (February 18, 1991), 53–57Google Scholar.

⁶⁷ Laqueur, Making Sex, chs. 5–6; Schiebinger, Londa, The Mind Has No Sex ? (Cambridge, MA, 1989Google Scholar), ch. 8.

⁶⁸ Maza, Sarah, Private Lives and Public Affairs (Berkeley, 1993), chs. 4, 6, and pp.314Google Scholar–9; Baker, Keith, “Defining the Public Sphere in Eighteenth-Century France: Variations on a Theme by Habermas,” in Habermas and the Public Sphere, Calhoun, Craig, ed. (Cambridge, Mass.,1992), 181–209Google Scholar; Chartier, Roger, The Cultural Origins of the French Revolution, Cochrane, Lyndia, trans. (Durham, NC, 1991Google Scholar); Berlanstein, Lenard R., “Women and Power in Eighteenth Century France: The Case of the Actresses at the Comédie-française, ” Feminist Studies, 20 (Fall 1994), 475–506CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁶⁹ A group of activist women during the Revolution had even demanded the “right” to wear breeches. See “Requête des dames a l'Assemblée nationale, ” in Les Trates feministes au XVIIle siècle (Geneva, 1986), 141Google Scholar.

⁷⁰ Nye, Masculinity, ch. 4; Hunt, Family Romance; Scott, Joan Wallach, “French Feminism and the Rights of ‘Man’: Olympe de Gouges's Declaration, ” History Workshop, no. 28 (1989), 1–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁷¹ James Johnson suggests that, during the most radical phase of the Revolution, audiences demanded complete authenticity from performers. Arguably, the disillusionment of the Directory period may have encouraged cross dressing. See Johnson's, article, “Revolutionary Audiences and the Impossible Imperative of Fraternity, ” in Re-Creating Authority in Revolutionary France, Ragan, Bryan and Williams, Elizabeth, eds. (New Brunswick, N.J., 1993), 57–78Google Scholar.

⁷² It is frequently argued that in patriarchal societies, female clothes are invested with erotic associations, whereas male attire has no such associations (Woodhouse, Annie, Fantastic Women. Sex, Gender, and Transvestism [New Brunswick, N.J., 1989], 12–20)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁷³ Goncourt, Journal, II:1189. When Edmond became aware that males had played female parts in Renaissance English theater, he was startled by the idea and jumped immediately to the conclusion that the practice had fostered pederasty (which he assumed Shakespeare, himself, must have practiced) (Journal, III, 825).

⁷⁴ Faure, Alain, Paris Carême-Prenant. Du Carnaval à Paris au XIXe siècle (Paris, 1978), 48, 74–78Google Scholar; Sahlins, Peter, “Deep Play in the Forest: the Wars of the Demoiselles in the Ariège, 1829–31, ” in Culture and Identity in Early Modern Europe, Hesse, Carla and Diefendorf, Barbara, eds.(Ann Arbor, MI, 1994Google Scholar); Rey-Flaud, Henri, Le Charivari: les rituels fondamentaux de la sexualite (Paris, 1985Google Scholar).

⁷⁵ Laqueur, Making Sex, 193.

⁷⁶ Ariès, Philippe, “Thoughts on the History of Homosexuality, ” in Western Sexuality. Practice and Precept in Past and Present, Ariès, Philippe and Béjin, Andrè, eds. (Oxford, 1985), 62–69Google Scholar; Greene, H.J.H., Menander to Marivaux. The History of Comic Structure (Edmonton, Alberta, CA, 1977), 3Google Scholar. Ariés draws very interesting parallels between the historical representations of youths and homosexuals.

⁷⁷ Nye, Masculinity, 58.

⁷⁸ Pierron, Virginie Déjazet, 127; Marguerite Coe, “Sarah and Coq: Contrast in Acting Styles, ” in Bernhardt and Theatre, 68.

⁷⁹ Lecomte, Comédienne, 42. On the explosion of Bonapartism on the Parisian stage in 1830, see Ménager, Bernard, Les Napoléons du peuple (Paris, 1988), 44–45Google Scholar.

⁸⁰ There was one minor variation. A few plays had Déjazet portraying one of the philosophies, the young Voltaire or Rousseau. For example, in Voltaire en vacance, the future writer was fifteen years old. The plot concerned his efforts to prove to his father that he could be a successful author.

⁸¹ Illustration, no. 1710 (December4, 1875), 361–2. Another critic, writing a decade earlier, remarked that Dejazet's performances “recaptured the entire eighteenth century”; they were the perfect embodiment of that bygone era of “piquent innuendoes and witty repartee” (Ibid., no.1152 [March 25, 1865], 190).

⁸² de Leuven, Adolphe and Forges, Alfred De, Vert-Vert, comédie-vaudeville en trois actes (Paris, 1832)Google Scholar.

⁸³ Bayard, Jean-François and Dumanoir, Philippe, “Les Premières Armes de Richelieu. Comedie-vaudeville en deux actes, ” in Théâtre de J-F. Bayard, 8 vols. (Paris, 1856), VII:510–61Google Scholar, citations on 515, 524.

⁸⁴ Sardou, Victorien, Près Saint-Gervais. Comédie mélée de couplets (Paris, 1867)Google Scholar.

⁸⁵ Sardou, Victorien, Le Dégel. Comédie en trois actes avec couplets (Paris, 1869)Google Scholar.

⁸⁶ That old regime aristocrats had prepared the way for their own destruction by letting women out of their proper place was a commonplace accepted even by their descendants. See Pope, Barbara Corrado, “Women and Retreat: Upper Class French Women after 1789, ” in Women, War, and Revolution, Berkin, Carol and Lovett, Clara, eds. (New York, 1979), 215–36Google Scholar.

⁸⁷ Garafola, Lynn, “The Travesty Dancer in Nineteenth-Century Ballet, ” Dance Research Journal, 17:2 (1986), 35–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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⁸⁹ See Pinkney, David, The French Revolution of 1830 (Princeton, 1972)Google Scholar on the ambiguities of a bourgeois revolution.

⁹⁰ Except for plays that had pretentions to being high art, critics rarely took the trouble to make insightful comments. Most reviews were plot summaries with brief comments on the acting. On the history of theatrical criticism, see Descotes, Maurice, Histoire de la critique dramatique en France (Paris, 1980)Google Scholar.

⁹¹ See, for example, the review of Les Parisiennes (an operetta by Victor Koning) in Le Figaro, no. 92 (April 2, 1874), 3. The reviewer announced that he expected Mademoiselle Prechard to receive flowers and invitations for trysts from the women in the audience because she made them forget her true sex and see her as a “prince charming.”

⁹² Alexandra Dumas fils put a contemporary courtesan on stage in his huge hit, La Dame aux camélias (1852) and coined the phrase demi-monde in his 1855 play of that title. On the “reign of courtesans, ” see Auraint [pseud. François Bravay], Les Lionnes du Second Empire (Paris, 1935)Google Scholar and Richardson, Joanna, The Courtesans (London, 1967)Google Scholar.

⁹³ See, for example, Orestes's devil-may-care song of debauchery in Art III, scene 1. Offenbach, Jacques, La Belle Hélène. Opera Bouffe in Three Acts. Libretto by Messrs. Meilhac and Halévy (New York, 1868)Google Scholar.

⁹⁴ Nye, Masculinity, 60.

⁹⁵ Edmond Audran, Le Grand Mogol. Opéra bouffe en trois actes de Henri Chivot el Alfred Duru (Paris, n.d ).

⁹⁶ Illustration, no. 2673 (May 19, 1894), 421.

⁹⁷ Matlock, Jann, “Masquerading Women, Pathologized Men: Cross-Dressing, Fetishism, and the Theory of Perversion, 1882–1935, ” in Fetishism as Cultural Discourse, Apter, Emily and Pietz, William, eds. (Ithaca, NY, 1993), 51–53Google Scholar.

⁹⁸ Davidson, Arnold, “Sex and the Emergence of Sexuality, ” Critical Inquiry, 14 (Autumn 1987), 16–48CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed. On the shift from procreative instinct to camal lust, see Katz, Jonathan Ned, The Discovery of Heterosexuality (New York, 1995Google Scholar).

⁹⁹ Nye, Masculinity, ch. 6.

¹⁰⁰ This discovery has been analyzed as the culmination of vast socioeconomic changes, mainly the fall of fertility and industrialization and also as a reflection of the insecurities and quest for new identity in the fin de siècle. See Neubauer, John, The Fin-de-Siecle Culture of Adolescence (New Haven, 1991Google Scholar); Crubellier, Maurice, L'Enfance et la jeunesse dans la societe francaise, 1800–1950 (Paris, 1979Google Scholar); Gillis, John, Youth and History (New York, 1979Google Scholar); Alaimo, Kathleen, “Adolescence in the Third Republic” (Unpublished Ph.D. disser., University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1988Google Scholar).

¹⁰¹ Much of the analysis that follows is based on the excellent and not-well-known study by O'Brien, Justin, The Novel of Adolescence in France (New York, 1937Google Scholar).

¹⁰² On the interaction between medical experts and writers, see Robert Nye, “The Medical Origins of Sexual Fetishism, ” in Fetishism as Cultural Discourse, 13–15. The leading psychological studies included Compayre, Gabriel, L'Adolescence. Etude de psychologie et de pédagogie (Paris, 1909Google Scholar); Lemaitre, Auguste, La Vie mentale de I'adolescent et ses anomalies (Paris, 1910Google Scholar); and Mendousse, Pierre, L'Ame d'adolescent (Paris, 1909Google Scholar).

¹⁰³ Margueritte, Paul, Tous quatre (Paris, 1885), 256–7Google Scholar; Bourget, Paul, Un Crime d'amour (Paris, 1886Google Scholar), 38. Cited in O'Brien, Novel of Adolescence, 127.

¹⁰⁴ O'Brien, Novel of Adolescence, 125–35. Young bourgeois females did not acquire a sexual identity until after World War I. See Roberts, Civilization Without Sexes, 174.

¹⁰⁵ Laqueur, Making Sex, 54.

¹⁰⁶ Wohl, Robert, The Generation of 1914 (Cambridge, MA, 1979Google Scholar), ch. 1; O'Brien, Novel of Adolescence, ch. 2. On the relatively undistinguished status of French sexology, see Nye, Masculinity, 103.

¹⁰⁷ Weber, Eugen, My France (Cambridge, MA, 1991Google Scholar), ch. 10.

¹⁰⁸ O'Brien, Novel of Adolescence, 33, cites five major newspaper surveys, including the much-discussed one by “Agathon” (Henri Massis and Alfred de Tarde).

¹⁰⁹ Ibid., 129–33; Neuberger, Fin-de-Siècle Culture, 156–7.

¹¹⁰ See, for example, Charles, Docteur Féré, L'Instinct sexuel. Evolution et dissolution (Paris, 1899), 322Google Scholar–3.

¹¹¹ Weber, Eugen, The Nationalist Revival in France, 1905–1914 (Berkeley, 1968), 13Google Scholar, 145; Nord, Philip, Paris Shopkeepers and Politics of Resentment (Princeton, 1986), 335Google Scholar–46, 436–50, 462–3.

¹¹² A good example of a figure who connected le gratin, boulevard society, nationalist intellectuals, and the theater world was Arthur Meyer, the director of Le Gaulois, a leading society newspaper. See his Forty Years of Parisian Society (London, 1912Google Scholar).

¹¹³ Bernhardt, Art of Theatre, 141–2.

¹¹⁴ Zanetto is “a butterfly, ” a “child of the woods.” Sylvia, the courtesan, loves him because there is “no artifice in your heart” (François Coppee, Le Passant, Frederick Schwar, trans. [New York, 1880], 7, 11).

¹¹⁵ Taranow, Sarah Bernhardt, 222.

¹¹⁶ Rostand, L'Aiglon, 26, 31, 44.

¹¹⁷ Davis, “Women on Top, ” 150.

¹¹⁸ Bordeaux, Henri, “Lorenzaccio, ” Vie au Théâtre, 5 vols. (Paris, 1910–1921), III:259Google Scholar–61; Anatole France, “Lorenzaccio, ” Revue de Paris (12 15, 1896), 900Google ScholarPubMed–6.

¹¹⁹ The role of Hamlet also became the favorite of Suzanne Desprès. She interpreted it as Bernhardt did when she performed it just before World War I. See Dubeux, Albert, Suzanne Desprès (Paris, 1922), 23Google Scholar, 28.

¹²⁰ Roberts, “Samson and Delilah”; Roberts, Civilization Without Sexes, chs. 1–3.

¹²¹ Coe, “Sarah and Coq, ” 79.

¹²² See Figaro, no. 164 (June 16, 1874). 3, on Mademoiselles Théo and Judic.

¹²³ Although it may seem that the category, transvestism, has some use in the analysis that follows, I will not attempt to apply it. The psychological literature dismisses transvestism in women as extremely rare and almost always associated with transexualism (see Stoller, Robert, “Transvestism in Women, ” Archives of Sexual Behavior, 11 (1982), 99–115CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.) However, the more scholars learn about the ways psychological categories have been constructed and gendered, the more unilluminating they seem.

¹²⁴ Illustration, no. 1645 (September 5, 1874), 147; Sardou, Papiers. 214–6; Lecomte, Comédienne, 443.

¹²⁵ Déjazet's letter books are conserved in the Bibliothèque de 1'Arsenal. I shall cite from the large selection printed in Lecomte, Comédienne, 150–455. Fechter is best remembered for creating the male lead in the original production of La Dame aux camélias.

¹²⁶ Ibid., 385.

¹²⁷ Lavallière, “Mes Travestis, ” 219–20.

¹²⁸ Lenoir, Jacqueline, Eve Lavallière (Paris, 1966). Citation on pp. 90–91Google Scholar; Murphy, Edward, Mademoiselle Lavallière (New York, 1948Google Scholar). Another biography, by Willette, Henriette, Lavallière. Actress and Saint, Sands, Mary, trans. (London, 1934Google Scholar), leaves out most of the grit.

¹²⁹ Lavallière, Eve, Ma Conversion (Paris, 1930), 171Google Scholar.

¹³⁰ Bernhardt, Sarah, Memories of My Life (New York, 1908), 334Google Scholar; Gold, Arthur and Fizdale, Robert, The Divine Sarah. The Life of Sarah Bernhardt (New York, 1991), 134Google Scholar. It would be easy to situate Bernhardt in a circle of homosexual writers and boulevard-types, including her friends Robert de Montesquieu and Pierre Loti. The practices of this circle were an open secret. See Jullian, Philippe, Robert de Montesquieu. A Fin-de-Siècle Prince (London, 1965Google Scholar). For insight into the sexual underworld of late-nineteenth-century Paris, see the illuminating article by Michael Wilson, “Gender and Transgression in Bohemian Montmartre, ” in Body Guards, 195–222.

¹³¹ Bernhardt, “Men's Roles, ” 2114.

¹³² Bernhardt, Art of Theatre, 139–42.

¹³³ Lecomte, Comédienne, 314, 316, 336, 378, 424. Bemhardt used her husband's name on personal documents, even though her marriage ceased to be anything more than formal and the press referred to him as Monsieur Sarah Bemhardt.

¹³⁴ On the feminism of these two celebrated cross dressers, see Vermeylen, Pierre, Les Idées politiques et sociales de George Sand (Brussels, 1984Google Scholar), ch. 4; Boime, Arthur, “The Case of Rosa Bonheur: Why Should a Woman Want to be More Like a Man?” Art History, 4 (December 1981), 384–409CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹³⁵ Kates, “D'Eon Returns, ” 186.

¹³⁶ This was equally true of ballet. Garafola, “Travesty Dancer, ”37, notes that ballet directors sought the image of “idealized adolescents” for their travesti dancers.

¹³⁷ Nye, Masculinity, 227.

¹³⁸ On Britain, see Baker, Drag, 137–43; on the American stage, see Dutten, Faye, Women in American Theater (New Haven, 1994Google Scholar), ch. 4. George Chauncey argues for an acceptance of homosexual lifestyles by non-gay spectators in New York from the Belle Epoque to the late 1920s. See his Gay New York. Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of a Gay Male World (New York, 1994Google Scholar).

¹³⁹ The thoughts in this paragraph have been inspired by Greenblatt's, Stephen discussion of Renaissance stage inversion in Shakespearean Negotiations (Oxford, 1988), 87–94Google Scholar. I am aware that this analysis opens up all sorts of psychoanalytic questions, but I have neither the inclination nor capacity to explore them. On men projecting fears of castration on to women, see Silverman, Kaja, The Acoustic Mirror. The Female Voice in Psychoanalysis and Cinema (Bloomington, IN, 1988Google Scholar).

¹⁴⁰ Maugue, L'ldentité masculine, 86, 144; Roberts, Civilization Without Sexes, 27, 139–49.

¹⁴¹ Garber, Vested Interest, 387–9.

¹⁴² Laqueur, Making Sex, 193.

¹⁴³ Ariès, “History of Sexuality, é 68–72.

¹⁴⁴ On the politics of identity, see Weeks, Jeffrey, “Questions of Identity, ” in The Cultural Construction of Sexuality, Caplan, Pat, ed. (London, 1987), 31–51Google Scholar.