Sexual Crime, Religion and Masculinity in fin-de-siècle France: The Flamidien Affair

by Timothy Verhoeven

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783319744780
Publisher:	Springer International Publishing
Publication date:	03/03/2018
Series:	Genders and Sexualities in History
Edition description:	1st ed. 2018
Pages:	122
Product dimensions:	5.83(w) x 8.27(h) x (d)

About the Author

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.

Table of Contents

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.

Editorial Reviews

Verhoeven’s judicious, rich scholarship beautifully recreates the debates and animosities … This book will interest non-specialists, undergraduate and graduate students, and professors of history, French cultural studies, criminology, sexuality, and gender studies.” (Sharon P. Johnson, French Studies, Vol. 73 (2), April, 2019)

“Verhoeven … showcase the continuing need for scholars to more fully integrate gender into their work, but also the need for historians of gender and sexuality to pay closer attention to religion. I highly recommend this book not only to gender historians, but also to anyone interested in the political and cultural history of the early French Third Republic.” (Andrew Israel Ross, French History, April 02, 2019)

“Timothy Verhoeven’s excellent monograph on the so-called Flamidien Affair is a study of masculinity that will interest historians of the Church as well as a wider academic audience. This book speaks to a growing body of scholarship in which the analytical tool of gender is applied to the study of religious faiths and sexualities.” (Elizabeth C. Macknight, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, Vol. 70 (1), January, 2019)

From the Publisher