William Rose’s novel ‘The Strange Case of Madeleine Seguin’ is set in the rich and decadent world of the intelligentsia in Fin de Siècle Paris. The book centres on the institution of the Salpetriere hospital in Paris.
In the diary extract that begins the novel we are introduced to the concept of the Salpetriere as a repository for women who have behaved in a socially unacceptable manner and sold their bodies out of financial desperation and necessity. The hospital at this time (i.e. 1792) was more penitentiary than therapeutic, used primarily to keep ‘undesirable’ women away from the delicate constitution of the general public. This is contrasted with the fin de siècle Salpetriere, at which point the institution was decidedly therapeutic, but retained an air of mystery and intrigue encouraged by the ‘ringleader’ of the hysterical circus, Jean Martin Charcot.
The character of Madeleine embodies the reinvented concept of the madwoman. In contrast to the degenerative madness propagated by psychiatrists such as Henry Maudsley, Madeleine is a quiet and intelligent girl, and the mysterious anonymous financial support she receives hints at her upper-class origins. Rather than the overtly sexual animalistic madwoman who is a trope of Victorian fiction representing lunacy, Madeleine is unintentionally and artlessly seductive, attracting the attention of men with her innocence and naivety.
In the era in which the novel is set, the Salpetriere has progressed from its previous incarnation as a ‘warehouse’ for societies undesirables to a kind of human museum filled with subjects for Charcot to study. Rather than a prison, the hospital has become a laboratory for the vivisection of the hysterical mind. As theories of hysteria and female madness morph from animalistic and anatomical degeneracy to those of psychological trauma, the doctors at the Salpetriere in the novel drift towards Freudian theory. One of these young doctors named Lamond writes a letter to Freud in which he describes the unconscious as ‘a veritable Salpetriere of the psyche which harbours ideas and emotional ventures we can scarce dare even think of’.
The church is another reoccurring theme in the novel, and parallels are drawn illustratively between religion and a kind of hysterical theatre. Charcot draws parallels in his studies between the behaviour of various saints and of those in the grip of a hysterical attack. Indeed, the concept of possession is present both in the occult and quasi-religious rituals that were becoming popular in the Fin de Siecle and also in the theatrical hypnotism Charcot performs on his patients at the public lectures held in the Salpetriere for the titillation of the aristocratic intelligentsia. The figure of Charcot represents the conflict between science and religion, and the church is a sinister force in the novel, providing a steady undercurrent of menace and tension which drives the plot forward and captures the attention.
The title character of Madeleine recalls particularly a historical patient of the Salpetriere under Charcot who has come to be known as Augustine. Augustine arrived at the hospital when she was only 15 years old, and was described as ‘too saucy’ for her age. Although Madeleine is far from overtly sexual, she has an entrancing and mystical quality which makes her similarly appealing, and she is similarly submissive. Augustine was an example of a hysteric who was thought to be possessed. She was raised in a convent and the sisters tried to banish her demons with exorcism. She and another girl were caught touching themselves sexually and were punished. She was one of Charcot’s ‘favourites’ and caught the attention of many in her demonstrations at the Salpetriere where she obediently performed the various stages of a hysterical fit including ‘passionate attitudes’ and religious poses interposed with rigidity and contortions of her body. Augustine fully recovered, worked at the Salpetriere for many years, before eventually succumbing again to the disease.
Augustine’s occasional overtly sexual behaviour fits with a popular contemporary theory of madness or hysteria – that of repressed or excessive sexuality. Charcot himself believed that the answer lay in an anatomical lesion but simultaneously acknowledged the sexual component of hysteria; he described another of his hysterical patients as ‘too tightly laced’ and commented ‘c’est toujours la chose genitale’ with regard to hysteria. This conflict between the theories of the great neurologist highlights a division still present in modern psychiatry between the biological theories of mental illness and the high prevalence of psychological therapy and psychoanalytical theories of mental illness, fuelling the objections of the anti-psychiatry lobby.
Another thread of the novel is the development of the school of symbolist artists. We are introduced through a young artist to the intellectual salons of the ‘Mardistes’, including the poet Mallarme. Although somewhat extraneous to the plot, our excursions into the artistic Parisian demi-monde add to the atmospheric milieu and set the scene which allows us to better understand the world in which these events happen. Indeed, the novel raises an interesting question over the differences between hysteria and the decadent decay into neurasthenic self-absorption.
The visual is one of the threads which unites these related but disparate themes of the novel. Charcot, described as a ‘visuel’ with regard to his method of practicing medicine, forms the link between the medical world and that of the artists and the worshippers of the occult. The belief in the power of the visual unites Charcot’s passions of art and neurology, and as a result the novel is highly visual in itself and evocative of its time and setting. Another thread that ties the book together is that of theatre in its various incarnations, from Charcot as the ringleader of his hysterical circus, to the performance of the Mardistes, to the ritualistic theatre of the church and the occult.
The primary female characters of the novel display contrasting female characters illustrating the divided Victorian concepts of femininity. Madeleine, undesiring and yet desirable, quiet and obedient and yet mysterious in a feminine and enticing way, is a version of the ‘angel in the house’ the Victorian ideal of femininity. This is contrasted with the classic femme fatale, a character who is seductive and curvaceous, and uses her feminine wiles as a manipulative tool. In the Fin de Siecle there was both a fascination with and fear of female sexuality, and the femme fatale was both desired and feared. Asylum records from the beginning of the 20th century sometimes refer to a woman displaying symptoms of mental illness in overt displays of her sexual desire, in masturbation or in erotic letters. Although the female characters in the novel are essentially caricatures they nicely illustrate contemporary conflicts over the ideals of femininity.
In an era when women were primarily defined by their interactions and relationships with men, it seems appropriate that the title character is largely silent throughout the novel and only finds her voice in the final chapter. Our image of Madeleine is based on the descriptions of her by men; we see her through the eyes of the men who are fascinated and entranced by her. We also lack any significant backstory for Madeleine until the final chapter, and so unusually for a main character, for the majority of the book she remains as mysterious to the reader as she does to the characters. Although her character lacks depth, her mystery and intrigue is part of what makes the story so compelling, and it is this which entrances her ring of admirers between whom the plot is woven. The epistolary novel reads in some ways like the documentation of a power struggle between a group of men and one woman for the possession of Madeleine. She is a vulnerable character and moves straight from the powerful domineering figure of Charcot as her hypnotist to being under the control of several others with variably sinister intentions. The final part of the novel is not overly surprising but does resolve this unsettling power struggle.
In conclusion, the novel beautifully illustrates the skilfully interwoven threads of hysteria, art, the occult, and the Parisian fin de siècle demi monde and intelligentsia. Tension builds with a steady bubbling undercurrent of devil worship and the impending threat of the femme fatale. Hysteria is explored in the context of these societal factors and ideals of femininity, and this brings to mind the role of these factors and our ideals in our modern concepts of mental illness. The clever interplay between the themes of the novel was displayed well in the readable epistolary style. I would recommend the book as an entertaining and compelling introduction to some of these themes, and it certainly inspires further reading and study.
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