Les Romans de la Salpêtrière: réception d’une scénographie clinique: Jean-Martin Charcot dans l’imaginaire fin-de-siècle by Bertrand Marquer

Abstract

others argue for a particular interpretation), there are sure to be interesting intersections with other topics (authors, movements, historical moments). Fans of decadence will rejoice. Texas A & M University Melanie Hawthorne MARQUER, BERTRAND. Les Romans de la Salpêtrière: réception d’une scénographie clinique: Jean-Martin Charcot dans l’imaginaire fin-de-siècle. Genève: Droz, 2008. ISBN 978-2600 -001153-2. Pp. 424. 49,65 a. Examining novels that run the gamut from the well known to the relatively obscure, from Realism to the Fantastic, Marquer traces Jean-Martin Charcot’s journey from eminent neurologist to cultural icon. Assuming that “la littérature, reflet de son époque, intègre les espoirs et les angoisses que la figure saillante du médecin peut engendrer” (12), he gauges Charcot’s influence on the popular imagination through the optic of the romans de la Salpêtrière, texts that integrate various facets of his work with hysterics. In the nineteenth century, hysteria was often linked to extremes of female sexuality—those suffering from the disorder were either over- or under-sexed (i.e., prostitutes or repressed virgins). Not surprisingly , then, novelists found “dans la vie mouvementée des hystériques une trame incitant à la fiction en transposant le savoir faire que la Salpêtrière entend rendre accessible” (160). At the same time, Marquer brings to light the way in which literature shaped Charcot’s clinical methods. As much a man of letters as a neurologist, Charcot understood the possibilities that literary devices offered the emerging discipline of psychiatry; his clinical writings on hysteria and other neurological disorders benefited from his creative use of narrative perspective. Endowed with a “parole pittoresque,” Charcot was “plus peintre qu’orateur,” (116) his often poetic descriptions more vivid and full of life than the photographic portraits of his patients that made him famous. Many of the novels in Marquer’s study target the unenlightened beliefs about hysteria that the anticlerical, republican Charcot sought to dispel, such as the association between hysteria and diabolical possession. He argues that Marie de Guersainte in Zola’s Lourdes exemplifies the Catholic Church’s view that hysterics were “des possédées corps et âme” (203) while the character of Geneviève in Jules Lermina’s Les Hystériques de Paris confirms that “la ruse principale de l’hystérie est, comme pour le Malin, de faire croire à sa non-existence, en substituant constamment à sa réalité la comédie d’un rôle qui pourtant le signale” (199). Nonetheless, both works implicitly credit Charcot with convincing clinicians and laypersons alike that hysteria was a medical, not a spiritual, concern, its treatment best undertaken by physicians instead of priests. What makes hysteria unique among psychological disorders is that the majority of its symptoms are external, manifesting in behaviors that are discernable even to the untrained eye. In part 3, “L’Esprit de Charcot: autopsie du regard clinique,” Marquer explains that Charcot’s “theater” was frequently filled not only with medical practitioners but with members of the general public. What is more, actors such as Sarah Bernhardt and novelists such as Léon Daudet visited La Salpêtrière seeking artistic inspiration in the “performances” provided by Charcot’s hysterics. In giving his patients a voice and medical practitioners a methodology, he presented artists and writers with “la structure d’un drame 596 FRENCH REVIEW 84.3 intérieur, et [a] offert un cadre dramatique à de nombreux récits exploitant la dimension proprement subjective d’une contemplation pathologique” (366). Marquer’s nearly encyclopedic knowledge of the romans de la Salpêtrière affords him a deep understanding of the place Charcot and his patients occupy in fin-de-siècle literature and culture. The more familiar novels Marquer examines —Zola’s Lourdes, Huysmans’s Là-bas—benefit from a fresh reading while the more esoteric ones—Léo Tréznik’s La Confession d’un fou, Jules Claretie’s Les Amours d’un interne—prove that the romans de la Salpêtrière were something of a literary phenomenon. Thanks to Marquer’s top-notch analysis and documentation , the reader comes away with insight into the myriad social changes...