Gender Issues in Diderot's La Religieuse

Author(s): Peter V. Conroy Jr.

Source: Diderot Studies , 1991, Vol. 24 (1991), pp. 47-66
Published by: Librairie Droz

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/40372909

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 GENDER ISSUES IN DIDEROT'S LA RELIGIEUSE

By Peter V. Conroy Jr.

On the very last page of La Religieusey the narrator Suzann

ing escaped from her convent prison, is living a miserable
washerwoman. She writes to the Marquis de Croismare, im
him to guarantee her freedom and to find her a job. In h
sentence she makes a most unexpected declaration: «Je
femme, peut-être un peu coquette, que sais-je? Mais c'est n
ment et sans artifice.»1 This surprising and apparently anti-cli
statement deserves serious examination. Apparently, it av
major themes of the novel, the polemic against life in cloisters
defense of individual freedom. And yet it perhaps sums the
and places them in a new perspective. Is not Suzanne's feminin
key to this novel? Does not everything depend on this fact of
Although it has long been accepted that Diderot is using le
to sharpen his attack against the religious institution of the co
and to serve as a striking example of the natural perversio
befalls man when he lives in artificial isolation, is it not possib
some other, deeper issue is also at stake? In this essay I would
examine the latent tensions contained in Diderot's present
Suzanne's femininity, especially when the latter takes the form
bianism.
La Religieuse is more than a polemical, philosophical attack on
the Catholic Church and on what Diderot considers its abnormal
practice of imposing chastity upon individuals living in groups.
Diderot is doing more than providing a vivid depiction of one collec-
tivity, one totalitarian society that refuses to recognize the right of
any individual to be different, to disagree, to not want to belong to

1 Denis Diderot, La Religieuse, ed. Robert Mauzi (Paris: Collection Folio,

1983), p. 256. Subsequent references will be to this edition and they will be indicated
parenthetically in the text.

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 48 PETER V. CONROY Jr.

the group2. La Religieuse a

confrontation between ma
domination in which men
independence among wome
brings to the novel's surfa
this gender conflict and rev
just because she is female.
What is the real meaning
Suzanne is illegitimate? Her
knows and does not know an
relegating her to a convent,
in the eyes of the world, it
ered M. Simonin's daughter
seems to me, a problem o
gender. As a bastard, Suza
rank that would secure her
confers under the anden r
over what she is to be in
powerlessness is only half
half being her female sexual
she proclaimed so cryptica
have been a mere diversion,
on a disagreeable social r
illegitimate origins confirm
holds no rank, she possesse
by those above her, i.e., by
Woman's lot in the eighteent
no status of her own accordin
tection in the courts... In law a woman was treated as a chattel and was
powerless against masculine tyranny in the home3.

Since she has no status, Suzanne can have no chance to choose what
her life will be. Her birth outside the pale both of legality and
masculinity denies her any choice. Were she a man, bastardy would

2 See Ruth P. Thomas, «Montesquieu's Harem and Diderot's Convent: The

Woman as Prisoner», The French Review, 52 (October 1978), 36-45.
3 Robert Niklaus, «Diderot and Women», in Woman and Society in
Eighteenth-Century France, ed. Eva Jacobs et al (London: The Athlone Press,
1979), pp. 69-70.

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GENDER ISSUES IN DIDEROT'S LA RELIGIEUSE 49

not weigh so heavily upon her. We can in fact co

illegitimacy as synonymous with her femininity
emphasize her position of inherent inferiority; her r
convent is her effort to regain the full social standin
belong to society, that every man enjoys at birth
women ever obtain. This loss of the power and the ri
represented by her confinement to a convent, a parti
form of imprisonment. Suzanne's revolt against th
just her lack of vocation; in resolutely social terms, i
refusal to accept the onus imposed by her illegitimacy
of having been born female. La Religieuse bears a
social as well as religious and sexual: it speaks to th
tween the sexes and to the gender-generated con
dominate whom.
Gender and the struggle for power are closely entwined with the
question of Suzanne's illegitimacy. No other equation could be more
powerful or more indicative of the unspoken but pervasive attitude
that thwarts her at every turn: female equals illegitimate, female
means not having one's own social status or possessing the right to
a free choice.
Unfortunately, not all women in this novel recognize the tyranny
of gender as does Suzanne. On the contrary, most women accept
completely the rules and behavior of a society in which they can claim
only inferior status. One of the tragic elements here is precisely that
women connive so fully in their own undoing and thus they help men
dominate them more easily. Suzanne's mother selfishly sacrifices her
daughter to preserve her marriage and to expiate her sin of infidelity.
She acts against her daughter, her own flesh and blood, out of
deference to men: her duty towards her husband, her obedience to her
confessor and through him, to the Church and its entirely male
hierarchy which claims to speak in God's name and to wield His
authority. Like mother, like daughter: Suzanne's sisters are
mercenary and callous. They even go so far as to steal from their
dying mother.
Vos soeurs sont arrivées; je ne suis pas contente (Teiles; elles prennent,
elles emportent, elles ont, sous les yeux (Time mere qui se meurt, des
querelles d'intéret qui m'affligent... Elles soupirent après le peu que je
laisse; elles font au médecin et à Ia garde des questions indecentes, qui
marquent avec quelle impatience elles attendent le moment oil je m'en
irai, et qui les saisira de tout ce qui m'environne.
(P.89)

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 50 PETER V. CONROY Jr.

They will treat Suzanne ju

death. Indeed, they are as
in despoiling their sister of
quite clear about both their
husbands' hardness of heart:

Ah! mademoiselle, Pintérêt, Tintérêt! ... Chacun songe à soi dans ce

monde... Et puis elles ne peuvent plus rien; ce sont les maris qui font
tout. Si elles avaient quelques sentiments de commiseration, les secours
qu'elles vous donneraient à Pinsu de leurs maris deviendraient une
source de divisions domestiques.
(P. 67)

Women can then be as cruel and as tyrannical as men in their

treatment of other women. Part of the challenge facing Suzanne lies
in the domination of men; another, equally dangerous part, resides
in the hostility of her fellow women who have so internalized male
values that they cannot respond positively to the helpful and healing
initiatives Suzanne undertakes. Consequently, she will encounter
similarly negative female behavior beyond le monde and even in
totally feminine enclaves like the convent. Thus, at Longchamp under
Sainte-Christine Suzanne encounters only hatred, rivalry, and dis-
cord, a condition created by women to harm other women: «en un
moment, la maison fut pleine de troubles, de haines, de médisances,
d'accusations, de calomnies et de persecutions» (p. 90). Although she
attempts to be everyone's friend, Suzanne cannot prevent other
women from resenting her. After having sung and been congratulated
by one and all when she first arrives at Sainte-Eutrope, she reflects
sadly: «il n'y en avait presque pas une là qui ne m'eüt ôté ma voix et
rompu les doigts, si elle l'avait pu» (p. 187). From her very first
experience with the convent Sainte-Marie, Suzanne records her nega-
tive impression of women as false and hypocritical: «Oh! monsieur,
combien ees supérieures de couvent sont artificieuses ! Vous n'en avez
point d'idée» (p. 49).
Sister Sainte-Thérèse exemplifies most clearly those women who
are unable to free themselves from the domination of male attitudes
and she contrasts sharply with the independent spirit that Suzanne
incarnates. Sainte-Thérèse had displaced another as the Mere
Supérieure's favorite and now fears that Suzanne will do the same to
her. Although Suzanne befriends and protects her, Sainte-Thérèse
resents her and continually tries to upset her relationship with the
Mere Supérieure:

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GENDER ISSUES IN DIDEROT'S LA RELIGIEUSE 51

II me vint en idee que cette jeune filie était jalouse de

craignait que je ne lui ravisse la place qu'elle occupait
graces et l'intimité de la supérieure. Je l'observais plu
suite, et lorsque je me crus suffisamment assurée de m
ses petites colores, ses pueriles alarmes, sa perseveranc
la piste, à m'examiner, à se trouver entre la supérieure e
nos entretiens, à déprimer mes qualités, à faire sortir m
(p. 191)

To Sainte-Thérese's masculina attitude based on rivalry and competi-

tion Diderot opposes Suzanne's thoroughly feminine spirit of
cooperation and her desire to assist others. She intercedes with the
superior on everyone's behalf: «Depuis ce temps, sitôt qu'une
religieuse avait fait quelque faute, j' intercedais pour eile, et j'étais
sure d'obtenir sa grace par quelque faveur innocente» (pp. 194-195).
Even within an exclusively female world like the convent the feminine
spirit that seeks to help rather than to harm is not entirely welcome.
Obviously not all the women in this novel are automatically
«feminine» in the sense that Suzanne is: many are so imbued with
male values that they behave in a petty and cruel manner towards
other women. They are however but pale reflections of the hard and
heartless men who exercise a near despotic authority over them.
All the men who wield force and influence in this novel are cold,
bitter, and brutal. Indeed, their authority is almost inseparable from
their severity and it is broadcast, as it were, by their callous manner.
A father, for example, is defined by his imperious authority, acting
ill-temperedly even towards his own daughter: «M. Simonin entra; il
vit le désordre de sa femme; il l'aimait; il était violent; il s'arreta tout
court, et tournant des regards terribles sur moi, il me dit: «Sortez!»
(p. 73). The vicar Hébert who investigates the persecutions at
Longchamp is «honnête et dur» (p. 173), «homme d'age et
d'expérience, brusque, mais juste, mais éclairé» (p. 133). That con-
cessive mais hides a despairing attempt to justify the unbending
asperity of this man. He has no need of a sympathetic demeanor for
he holds power and that is all that counts. Less flatteringly, Suzanne
notes how, on one occasion, his acolytes are moved: «mais lui, il
ignorait ces sentiments; il était juste, mais peu sensible; il était du
nombre de ceux qui sont assez malheureusement nés pour pratiquer
la vertu, sans en éprouver la douceur; ils font le bien par esprit
d'ordre, comme ils raisonnent» (p. 142). Cut from the same acrid
cloth, the doctor who cares for the nuns at Longchamp «est habile,
à ce qu'on dit, mais il est despote, orgueilleux et dur» (p. 168). In the

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 52 PETER V. CONROY Jr.

narrator's eyes, all the men who wield power share the same
characteristics of coldness and obstinacy; throughout the narrative
they remain untouched by their own emotions. Père Lemoine pro-
vides a striking example of the sad dichotomy that separates the
public man of power from the private emotional being. Unable to
establish a healthy relationship with his own feelings, Lemoine (here
a proper name which is also the common noun designating a class of
men) seems to be almost schizophrenic, split between heart and head,
emotion and reason: «Je ne connais pas deux hommes plus différents
que le P. Lemoine à l'autel et le P. Lemoine au parloir seul ou en com-
pagnie» (pp. 229-230). At the altar in his public role, which combines
both religion and power, Lemoine differs radically from what he is
privately, relaxed, and outside the persona which his powerful
privilege as a male dictates to him. We might also characterize this
dichotomy as a conflict between a softer and more conciliatory
feminism and a rough, excessively obdurate masculinity.
In opposition to the cold harshness of male power and its unfor-
tunate corollary, the persistent hostility of women towards each other,
there exists only one form of female solidarity. Only in one area do
men fear women as rivals; only in one area do women communicate
with each other in a manner that places them beyond the reach of
male power. That single expression of female solidarity is the lesbian
behavior that Suzanne discovers at Sainte-Eutrope.
In a profoundly ambiguous paradox that is worthy of Diderot4,
lesbianism is not only a perversion of nature that condemns life in the
cloister but it is also the single route by which women can escape com-
plete male domination. Suzanne's story is not just a pointed attack
against closed societies which frustrate individual liberties; it is also,
and more importantly, a female denunciation of male authority. This
latter interpretation does not by any means invalidate or diminish the
former. Nonetheless, it does help us to understand the curious,
incomplete nature of this novel and why Diderot seems to have aban-
doned his text at its climax, unable to resolve the tensions latent in its

4 See Walter E. Rex, «Secrets from Suzanne: The Tangled Motives of La

Religieuse», The Eighteenth Century: Theory and Interpretation, 23, n° 3 (Fall
1983), p. 198: «Diderot in real life had been simply fascinated by lesbian love...
Diderot could only give free rein to the unorthodox fantasies provided he and his
heroine never took cognizance of them for what they were.»

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GENDER ISSUES IN DIDEROT'S LA RELIGIEUSE 53

own ambiguous attitude towards lesbianism5. Surel

condemns such unnatural behavior; yet, at the sam
it an affirmation of individuality, an idiosyncratic
conformity imposed by an overly rigid society. Jam
us, in another context, that Diderot's true opinion
embracing extreme positions than in the movement
points, in the gaps, on the cusp, in the liminal6. W
pretend that La Religieuse is a brief in favor of ho
think that its explosive impact derives from seriousl
polemical and controversial a position. One of th
never finished the novel is precisely that the latent t
depiction of lesbianism did not permit him any ea
In marked contrast to the examples we have cited
behavior stand those refreshing and pleasant mo
sociability. The most developed example of Utopian
place in the superior's room at Sainte-Eutrope. Suza
scene as if it were a painting: « Vous qui vous connais
je vous assure, monsieur le marquis, que c'était u
tableau à voir. Imaginez un atelier de dix à dou
(p. 221). The tone is exactly Diderot's in the Salons
or perhaps Diderot himself sympathizing overmuch w
narrator8, offers us an idyllic tableau, rendered in s
filled with pretty girls in various postures occupied
The scene is a charming and voluptuous fête gala
most significantly, men are absent. This is an ex
delight and, in Suzanne's words, «cette soirée fut d

5 Rex, ibid, p. 198: «Diderot could not make parts of his

prehensible.»
6 See James Creech, Diderot: Thresholds of Representatio
State University Press, 1986).
7 Although he pursues an argument different from my
also sees this same passage as being in the same style and ma
criticism. See his Diderot et la mystification (Paris, A.G. Niz
8 See Jack Undank, «Diderot's 'Unnatural' Acts: Lessons
vent», French Forum, 11, n° 2 (May 1986), 151-167. In a vir
Undank argues for a profound identification between Didero
especially Suzanne, a continuous to-and-fro movement that
barriers separating creator from his creature: «we are astoni
Suzanne who was not, at one time, a woman but a man, not a f
but, intermittently, the object of a third person narration!»
folds himself into Suzanne and she into him» (p. 154).

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 54 PETER V. CONROY Jr.

Our original and negativ

begins to change when we r
de Moni, resembles the sin
has pointed to these «insis
spiritual Mme de Moni an
parallels which force bot
Superiors befriend Suzanne
to her and undergo powe
behavior because of her. B
suffers and shares with the
precisely when she has m
notice furthermore that th
Mme de Moni is not far fr
Supérieure. Here Suzanne
Alors elle se prosternait, el
¿'eloquence, de douceur, d'é
l'esprit de Dieu Pinspirait.
pénétraient jusqu'au fond d
on était entraíné, on s'unissai
ses transports. Son dessein n
c'est ce qu'elle faisait; on sor
joie et Pextase étaient peint
douces !
(P. 80)

Now the scene when Suzanne plays the harpsicord and the Mere
Supérieure reacts to that music in a sexually explicit manner:
je jouai quelques pieces de Couperin, de Rameau, de Scarlatti; cepen-
dant elle avait levé un coin de mon Unge de cou, sa main était placee
sur mon épaule nue, et Pextrémité de ses doigts posee sur ma gorge. Elle
soupirait, eile paraissait oppressée, son haieine s'embarrassait; la main
qu'elle tenait sur mon épaule d'abord la pressait fortement, puis elle ne
la pressait plus du tout, comme si elle eüt été sans force et sans vie, et
sa tête tombait sur la mienne. En vérité, cette folle-là était d 'une sen-
sibilité incroyable et avait le goüt le plus vif pour la musique; je n'ai
jamais connu personne sur qui elle eüt produit des effets aussi
singuliers.
(p. 196)

The physical symptoms are the same for sexual arousal and religious
devotion, for being moved by music or by prayer. The mixture of the

9 Janet Todd, Woman's Friendship in Literature (New York, Columbia

University Press, 1980), p. 126.

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GENDER ISSUES IN DIDEROT'S LA RELIGIEUSE 55

sexual and the religious is too pervasive to miss, as in

of the verb séduire to describe Mme de Moni. After a
and adoration before the Blessed Sacrement, Suzann
charisma that overwhelms all who see her. She senses that her
resemblance to Mme de Moni is too strong to be mistaken. Yet her
description of this mystic, prayerful metamorphosis uses the same
vocabulary, the same expressions, and the same style as in the passage
about her sexual experience with the Mere Supérieure:
[the other nuns] attendaient que je sortisse de moi-même de l'état de
transport et diffusion oü elles me voyaient. Quand je me retournai de
leur côté, mon visage avait sans doute un caractere bien imposant... je
ressemblais alors à notre ancienne supérieure [Moni], lorsqu'elle nous
consol ait... Mon âme s'allume facilement, s 'exalte, se touche; et cette
bonne supérieure m'a dit cent fois en m'embrassant que personne
n'aurait aimé Dieu comme moi, que j 'avais un coeur de chair et les
autres un coeur de pierre. II est sur que j'éprouvais une facilité extreme
à partager son extase...
(pp. 111-112)

These two powerful emotions, religious fervor and sensuality, seem

to blurr as they mix freely in Suzanne. Thanks to them, she is able to
establish a strong personal bond with another woman; thanks to
them, she achieves special, privileged status among her peers. Only
with these two women does Suzanne even approach her goal of self-
fulfillment and personal satisfaction.
Critics have sometimes been puzzled that an agnostic Diderot,
usually so hostile to organized religion, offered so sympathetic a por-
trayal of the mystic Moni; should we be surprised then that the les-
bian Mere Supérieure also has a positive side? The essential point, to
me, is that Suzanne reproduces the miracle of social harmonisation
and stabilisation at Arpajon that she experienced at Longchamp with
Mme de Moni.
Recalling Suzanne's difficult relationship with Soeur Sainte-
Thérèse is once again instructive. Divisive, jealous, and confused by
her own sexuality which does not conform to the rules imposed on
her by the men of the Church, Sainte-Thérèse is hostile, and can see
Suzanne only as a rival for the exclusive affection of the Mere
Supérieure. Suzanne always attempts to transform this hostility into
friendship. Unlike Sainte-Thérèse, Suzanne intends to share the
superior's affections and not to monopolize them:
Chère soeur, preñez garde, vous indisposerez notre mere. Je ne vous
abandonnerai pas, mais vous userez de mon credit auprès d'elle, et je

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 56 PETER V. CONROY Jr.

serai désespérée de ne pouv

autre. Mais quelles sont vo
vous de moi?» Point de rép
nous aimer également tout
(P. 197)

To Suzanne's feminine solidarity, which seeks to help others and to

share, Sainte-Thérese's answer is couched in violent and exclusive
terms that recall the hostility of male power: «Non, non, me
répondit-elle avec violence, cela ne se peut» (p. 197). Seeing nothing
wrong in her relationship with the Mere Supérieure, Suzanne cannot
imagine why Sainte-Thérèse feels so much guilt. Half questioning,
half stating, she says: «Vous n'avez rien à vous reprocher? » (p. 197).
All Sainte-Thérese's repressed and mounting guilt explodes in her
response: «Plüt à Dieu! » That short phrase is eloquent for the enor-
mous load of gender-generated culpability it captures. A male con-
fessor has convinced his female penitent, in the name of a God
represented through an all-male ecclesiastical hierarchy, that she is
gulity of acts that have in fact only increased her affection for and
solidarity with other women. Once she accepts this guilt, this
religious condemnation of her actions, this system in which men
determine what her sins are, Sainte-Thérèse, and indeed any woman,
is caught. She cannot escape from her own conscience which
monitors her behavior and punishes her according to those male
values. Suzanne, on the other hand, escapes from the concept of sin
that men impose on women. She maintains her innocence even as she
describes what, in the eyes of men and her confessors, constitutes a
sinful act: «elle [the Mother Superior] paraissait goüter le plus grand
plaisir. Elle m'invita à lui baiser le front, les joues, les yeux et la
bouche, et je lui obéissais: je ne crois pas qu'il y eüt du mal à cela»
(p. 200). She does not regard lesbianism as a sin simply because a man
tells her it is. From her perspective, it is an act of solidarity which per-
mits women to find value in themselves and in each other, free from
the restrictions of male judgments. Once we go beyond the moral and
sinful aspect of lesbianism, we see that in this polemical context of
a diatribe against the Church Diderot also and even paradoxically
envisions it as a positive force, a source of sharing and cooperation,
and a possibility for congeniality over hostility.
Precisely because it is such a positive force among women, les-
bianism incurs male censure. Those confessors who, as men, are
primarily concerned with maintaining their power know deep in their

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GENDER ISSUES IN DIDEROT'S LA RELIGIEUSE 57

hearts that such sexual relations can endanger thei

women. On several occasions the Mere Supérieu
that men use the confessional to impose their w
forestall any subversive behavior:
Eh! folie, me disait-elle, quel mal veux-tu qu'il y ait à
fessional] ce qu'il n'y a point eu de mal à faire?
- Et quel mal y a-t-il à le dire? lui répondis-je.
- Aucun, mais il y a de 1' inconvenient. Qui sait ¡'i
homme peut y met t re!
(p. 232, my italics)

Because men realize that such sexual behavior a

dangerous for them, they emphasize the male ru
sinful. It is because of the confessor Père Lemoine
shoulders that enormous guilt for her relationship
Morals are not the prime issue here, however, si
sciously engaged in a political power struggle wi
is only a pretext for this conflict between men who
authority and women who would resist it: «votr
visionnaire; ce n'est pas la premiere algarade de
rn'ait causee... Peu s'en est fallu qu'il n'ait rendu
Sainte-Thérèse» (p. 240). Crazy with guilt, we shoul
and abuse the confessional as an instrument to su
to punish then if they dare disobey.
Suzanne's negative relation with Sainte-Thérès
trasts with her positive contact at Longchamp with
latter is a true friend, helping Suzanne, nursin
illness, and protecting her to the best of her small
Christine's wrath. Even in this most innocent relat
are traces of what will become more explicitly
Female solidarity in La Religieuse is difficult if
depict without this undercurrent of sensuality and
having opposed female emotion to cold male ration
not avoid such logical implications. Suzann
Ursule the complaint she is writing in order to h
Christine's searches. In the chapel, as they are all a
ing their heads, «je tirai doucement le papier de mo
tendis derrière moi; elle le prit, et le serra dans
most personal and confidential exchange is highl
tion of woman's most obvious and visible sexual
sein. At the end of a convalescence brought on b

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 58 PETER V. CONROY Jr.

hostile nuns, Suzanne is ast

She asks what is wrong: «C
et vous me le demandez! II
serais morte» (p. 165). Thei
suffers the consquences of S
thereby echoing the death
Suzanne's dislike of the convent and from her desire to be free of it
and foreshadowing the Mere Supérieure's. The description of
Ursule's agony uses a vocabulary that has explicit sexual connota-
tions while the mixing of sickness and sensuality adumbrates
Suzanne's subsequent confusion of illness with sexual passion in both
Sainte-Thérèse and the Mere Supérieure:
Elle était si faible et si oppressée, qu'elle ne put prononcer de suite deux
mots de ce discours ; elle s'arretait presque à chaqué syllable, et puis elle
parlait si bas, que j 'avais peine à Pentendre, quoique mon oreille fút
presque collée sur sa bouche... persuadée que sa maladie était une suite
ou de Ia mienne, ou de la peine qu'elle avait prise, ou des soins qu'elle
m'avait donnés, je me mis à pleurer et à me désoler de toute ma force.
Je lui baisai le front, les yeux, le visage, les mains... une de ses mains
se reposait sur mon visage et me caressait.
(P. 171)

The actions evoked here are not innocent of the novel's sexual/lesbian
subtext. As she did with Moni, Suzanne shares with Ursule a deep
affection and an intimate communication whose sensual ambiguity
reflects the larger issue of female sexuality as the only path to har-
mony. Unlike men who are cold, unfeeling, and obsessed with order,
these women communicate with gestures and touches that suggest a
whole world of emotion and affection. They console rather than
compete; they share rather than monopolize.
It is precisely in the incipient female solidarity that men recognize
the real threat that lesbianism poses to fbeir authority and domina-
tion. That this female revolt against ipale power and prestige is
presented in sexual terms that the average reader, both then and now,
considers wrong and sinful only enhances its shock value. The men
in this narrative realize that they must be vigilant against this sexual
revolution because it could so easily lead to others. The men here are
reacting to more than forbidden, sinful sexuality; what they really
cannot tolerate is the female solidarity, the minimal freedom from
their domination that lesbianism represents10.

10 Janet Whatley, «Nun's Stories: Marivaux and Diderot», Diderot Studies 20

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GENDER ISSUES IN DIDEROT'S LA RELIGIEUSE 59

At this time we should restate the point that l

Religieuse is as symbolic as it is erotic: it is both polit
Thus doubled and enhanced, it becomes a dangerou
provocative metaphor for women's resistance to m
more precisely for Suzanne's personal revolt again
status imposed upon her merely because she is a w
In the long interrogation that the Mere Supé
Suzanne to, as well as in a number of passing com
clearly that Suzanne is not interested in sex per s
unmoved by the superior's physical ardors. When
other's sexual climax, she understands it as pain o
résultat de mes reflexions, c'est que c'était peut-êt
laquelle elle était sujette; puis il m'en vint une autr
être cette maladie se gagnait, que Sainte-Thérèse l'a
je la prendrais aussi» (p. 204). Rendered in these ter
holds no special attraction for her. On another occ
an advance by the superior out of indifference: «
coucher seule, et je ne saurais dormir avec une autr
Suzanne finds in her lesbian encounters is peace an
brings these positive values to others and tries to
those women who behave in negative and harmfu
thereby mimick negative male behavior: «Jamais
n'avait été plus heureuse que depuis que j'y étais entré
paraissait avoir perdu Pinégalité de son caractere;
Favais fixée» (p. 213). Suzanne has brought equilibrium
superior and an empathetic atmosphere to the entire
bian activity symbolizes therefore positive social
values. The importance it places on sharing explai
rejects definitively the superior's insinuations abo
The latter is a solitary act, one which isolates and o
share with others. Lesbianism, on the contrary, requi
leads to solidarity. There is then a solid ideological
ing Suzanne's distinction. Earlier, when asked why
convent, she replied: «Je hais la vie solitaire» (p.
solipsistic masturbation in favor of a sharing lesbia
sistent with herself by saying in effect: «Je hais le

(1981), p. 310: «La Religieuse bears witness throughout to a

women in groups means women in mobs, whether nuns or m

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 60 PETER V. CONROY Jr.

To further support our con

form of female solidarity
resistance to male authori
underline Suzanne's acute awareness of the real but unspoken
equivalency between female and illegitimate and of the struggle bet-
ween men and women in which the former do not hesitate to use and
abuse the force of religion against the latter. Even as an adolescent,
she refused the second-class status that was the female lot. Seeing the
mad nun at Sainte-Marie, she recognizes the danger all women run
in a man's world and commits herself to resisting it: «je vis mon sort
dans celui de cette infortunée, et sur le champ il fut decide, dans mon
coeur, que je mourrais mille fois plutôt que de m'y exposer» (p. 54).
She refuses to allow others, especially men and those women who
abet male hegemony to «disposer de moi sans moi» (p. 57). Her
ordeal at Longchamp commences when she demands to participate
fully in the decisions affecting her life. At one point, before she
realized her true condition as a bastard, she dreamt of a future unfet-
tered by her deficiency as a woman, by the handicap of being born
illegitimate and female: «J 'avais alors seize ans et demi... ma tête
s'était remplie de projets séduisants» (p. 48). Slowly she comes to
understand that all her possibilities end in some form of feminine
prison, either the convent or the home. To remain in the world and
unmarried - that is to say, as an independent and self-sufficient
individual - is impossible since it is through man that woman is
defined. Suzanne's mother reiterates the fate that awaits her and adds
her own bit of guilt to discourage any thoughts of an alternative:
«Mais, si je ne trouve point un époux, est-il nécessaire que je
m'enferme dans un couvent? A moins que vous ne veuilliez perpétuer
ma douleur et mes remords, jusqu'a ce que j'aie les yeux fermés»
(p. 72). Always she will be given status by a man: her father, her con-
fessor, her husband. To remain single would confirm her
independence and validate her claim to equality with men. But mar-
riage does not offer a viable possibility either, since Suzanne is not
the kind of a blindly docile and obedient woman that men can easily
order about. Her conduct at Sainte-Marie has revealed a courage and
independence that men wish for themselves but deny to women: «On
ne conçoit guère comment une filie de dix-sept à dix-huit ans a pu se
porter à cette extrémité sans une fermeté peu commune. Les hommes
louent beaucoup cette qualité, mais il me semble qu'ils s'en passent
volontiers dans celles dont ils se proposent de faire leurs épouses»

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GENDER ISSUES IN DIDEROT'S LA RELIGIEUSE 61

(p. 69). Suzanne's scandal is that she has usurped fo

prerogatives. She dares to think and act like an ma
wants to choose freely what she will do with her life
her innocent yet threatening acceptance of sex in
bianism, Suzanne's masculine approach to life mak
danger to male privilege.
The endgame in this conflict between the autho
the forbidden sexuality of women begins when Suz
a priest the caresses she has received from the Mer
latter knows the intruding power of the confessor
Suzanne not to go to confession. She does, however
reaction precipitates the superior's agonizing dea
flight from the convent. Since lesbianism eliminates t
accustomed position of power and authority both in
in the sexual act, the confessor automatically def
denouncing it. Suzanne does not comprehend the v
reaction because, throughout the novel, as protago
sidered her lesbian behavior innocent, a position whi
even as a retrospective narrator.
Suzanne's very particular optic as narrator hig
argument for understanding sex as a political issue. M
noticed Suzanne's innocent narrative viewpoint as
authorial subversion of usual narrative logic11. In
gender conflict discussed here, we can offer an in
does not deal with technical matters, but rather cent
of meaning12. As a retrospective narrator, Suzan
perspective she enjoyed as a protagonist. It would
rator Suzanne is no more intelligent, no more info
is happening than when she participated in these

1 ' For a complete overview of narrative viewpoint in this n

Georges May, Diderot et 'la Religieuse' (New Haven, Yale Un
12 The exact technical nature of this novel's narrative focu
See Henri Coulet, Le Roman jusqu'a la Revolution (Paris, Ar
vol. I, p. 503 : «La Religieuse est done tantôt un román en form
le point de vue est celui de la retrospection, tantôt un román ép
intime, quand le point de vue est celui de Pinstantané. » Contin
see Emile Lizé, «La Religieuse, un román épistolaire?», SVEC,
and Jacques Rustin, «La Religieuse: mémoires ou journal int
intime et ses formes littéraires, ed. V. Del Litto (Genève, Dr

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 62 PETER V. CONROY Jr.

should not think however that she is a failed narrator whose

retrospective knowledge is faulty or carelessly presented by th
author13. On the contrary, Suzanne is a clever and subtle narrato
who refuses to apologize, who continues to regard as innocent no
the lesbian behavior she engaged in then. She does not revise he
original assessment of it because she knows how vital this fema
solidarity, this sensual subversion is to her desire to win her freedom
and to become her own person. (I almost wrote «her own man», a
idiomatic expression which brilliantly illuminates the subversive ele-
ment in Suzanne's struggle.) Except for the insinuations she hears in
confession which will enventually destroy them both, Suzanne se
nothing wrong in the Mere Supérieure's sexual advances. For her they
represent an intimate and sincere communication, a feeling o
solidarity with another woman like the one she knew with Mme d
Moni or with Soeur Ursule. Unloved by her own mother and sister
victimized by the female hostility she meets in Sainte-Christine, she
welcomes the love and sharing she finds with the Mere Supérieur
Female sexuality is important to Suzanne principally for the huma
contact, the loving communication, and the emotional support i
represents. She does not fail to see the lesbian behavior about her; bu
she does refuse to adopt the male point of view and thus to consider
it sinful when she narrates14. In a similar vein, she frequently adds a

1 3 The search for the author's bévues has continued almost unabaited since the
first such discovery by P. Chaponnière, «Une Bévue de Diderot dans la Religieuse»,
Revue d'Histoire Littéraire de la France, 22 (1915), p. 573. Here I am arguing that,
while these «mistakes» are logically wrong, they are artistically right since they pro-
duce a powerful emotional impact totally coherent with the author's and the text's
intentions.

14 Vivienne Mylne, «What Suzanne Knew: Lesbianism and La Religieuse»,

SVEC, 208 (1982), 167-173, also attempts to justifiy Suzanne's narrative viewpoint.
Although her discussion is quite different from mine, I agree with many of her obser-
vations. I agree, for example, with her insight that Diderot is trying here to
accomplish a near impossible feat: «Diderot probably wanted to achieve two things
which are not really compatible: that Suzanne should on the one hand remain inno-
cent, and yet on the other discover the perils from which she has escaped and become
convinced of the Superior's infamy» (p. 172). I am less convinced, on the other hand,
of the Superior's «infamy» or that Suzanne wants to escape it. See also William F.
Edmiston, «Narrative Voice and Cognitive Privilege in Diderot's La Religieuse»,
French Forum, 10 (May 1985), 133-144, who uses the notions of «dissonance» and
«consonance» to explore this same issue. He concludes that this is (p. 141) «a
deliberate use of focal manipulations by Diderot to give us a picture of Suzanne that

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GENDER ISSUES IN DIDEROT'S LA RELIGIEUSE 63

defensive restatement of her contention that this behavior is inno-

cent. The sensuality underlying all the female contacts in this novel
stands in sharp contrast to the cold and harsh attitude of the men in
power. As narrator, Suzanne presents this (aberrant to male eyes)
female sexuality in a most positive manner. Her continued acceptance
of lesbianism as the sole expression of female solidarity explains her
narrative stance while it also justifies its apparent logical and
chronological inconsistency15.
Sin and guilt as they are defined by the men in power are finally
imposed on Suzanne when she overhears the Mere Supérieure's con-
fession to dom Morel. Here as in the case of Sainte-Thérèse, confes-
sion plays a key role in assigning guilt to women. Alone, in her own
conscience, Suzanne saw these acts as innocent and continues to pre-
sent them as such throughout her narrative.
Le directeur m'a demandé quelquefois si Ton ne m'avait jamais propose
de venir dormir à côté de moi, et il m'a sérieusement recommandé de
ne pas le souffrir. Je lui ai même parlé des caresses que vous [the
superior] me faisiez; je les trouve tres innocentes, mais lui, il n'en pense
pas ainsi; je ne sais comment j 'ai oublié ses conseils, je m'étais bien pro-
posé de vous en parler.
(p. 216)

But now she confronts male authority in one of its most powerful
expressions. As a tool of male domination, confession is better at
creating sins than forgiving them. Now the long struggle between
Suzanne's innocence and man's efforts to impose guilt upon her
reaches its climax. Overhearing her superior's confession suddenly
overwhelms Suzanne and makes her feel just as guilty as Sainte-
Thérèse did. As she listens, the guilt created by men finally triumphs
over her sexual and narrative innocence:
J'écoutais, le voile qui jusqu'alors m'avait dérobé le peril que j'avais
couru se déchirait, lorsqu'on m'appela. II fallut aller, j 'aliai done; mais,
helas! je n'en avais que trop entendu. Quelle femme, monsieur le mar-
quis, quelle abominable femme...!
(p. 256, ellipses in the original)

is, if not temporal, at least elusive of logical and chronological progression. Voice
and perspective are often at odds: while her speech usually reflects her temporal
distance from the past she recounts, her consciousness follows closely the immediate
present of experience». Although Edmiston focuses on narrative point of view, his
explanation gives a technical basis to my discussion of Suzanne's conduct.
15 For a discussion of these inconsistencies, see Philip Stewart, «A Note on
Chronology in La Religieuse», Romance Notes, 12 (1970), 149-156.

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64 PETER V. CONROY Jr.

These few moments as a li

narrator and as an innoce
comes to know sin; indeed,
only part of what the super
ripped from its full context
Also, she is forced («il fallut
which is more powerful th
As she falls from the stat
grasp of narrative point of
convent. The priest's auth
complicity and causes Suza
long and patient efforts to
women. It also destroys that
allowed her to recount h
apology. The violence of thi
the narration breaks off he
in the text. Suzanne's narrat
lapse of time and only in t
totally coherent. They are a
a tone and style that contra
been torn in two, just as the
interrupted eavesdropping a
which announces the break
As wrenching as this shock
for the superior. The latter
she has been long resisting
literally murderous since th
The horrible ordeal of the
guilt and suffers bitter ang
experienced at Longchamp
was punished in the same te
mother superior's sexuality.
male order; to the extent th
response and punishment,
sonal freedom to choose on
Not content to destroy this
insists upon reasserting hi
who jeopardized them and
escapes from the convent
Suzanne finds herself the

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GENDER ISSUES IN DIDEROT'S LA RELIGIEUSE 65

Me voilà sur le chemin de Paris avec un jeune bénédictin

pas à m'apercevoir, au ton indecent qu'il prenait et aux
permettait, qu'on ne tenait avec moi aucune des conditi
stipulées. Alors je regrettai ma cellule, et je sentis toute
situation.
C'est ici que je peindrai ma scene dans le fiacre. Que
homme!
Je crie; le cocher vient à mon secours. Rixe violente entre le fiacre et
le moine.
(pp. 262-263)

Violated in her most profound sense of self, Suzanne now discovers

at enormous personal cost that men are not about to relinquish their
domination over women. Conduct that the priest-confessor con-
demned in women he permits in himself. Violent male rape attempts
to eradicate the threat of consenting female lesbianism and to
reestablish the male in his accustomed position of power and might16.
Only a crime of this magnitude can explain the visceral shock
Suzanne undergoes or depict the violence men use to maintain their
power. Women try to escape from male authority by means of sex just
as men seek to reimpose their power through it. Sexuality is an instru-
ment heavy with ideological implications17. Both sides struggle over
who will control it and over who will decide when it is sinful or not.
La Religieuse ends in a curious and provocative abeyance. Having
solicited Croismare's assistance by the very text we have just finished
reading, Suzanne awaits his reaction. Will he help? Or will he aban-
don her? Here the novel's apparent purpose is at odds with the con-
cealed tensions that my gender-oriented reading has tried to reveal.
Jack Undank has noted how often «subversion» creeps into Diderot's
work and creates internal paradoxes, those «extraordinary frames»
which «demolish an intention while providing a window on it»18. As

16 Diderot's text is unclear whether this bénédictin is dom Morel, who heard
the superior's confession, or not. Either possibility fits: if he is dom Morel, the con-
nection between outright rape and the guilt-producing confession is enhanced; if he
is not, the emphasis falls on a conspiracy uniting all men in a violent struggle against
all women.
17 Cf. Elaine Marks, «Lesbian Intertextuality», in Homosexualities and
French Literature, ed. George Stambolian and Elaine Marks (Ithaca, Cornell Univer-
sity Press, 1979), p. 369: «There is no one person in or out of fiction who represents
a stronger challenge to the Judeo-Christian tradition, to patriarchy and phallocen-
trism than the lesbian-feminist.»
1 8 Jack Undank, Diderot: Inside, Outside, and In-Between (Madison, Wiscon-
sin, Coda Press, 1979), p. 88.

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 66 PETER V. CONROY Jr.

a man of standing and w

influence, Croismare repre
independence and subversiv
addressing her request for h
confronts its own story,
another gender conflict, a
another level of the spiralin
tion. Now we return to the
warns Croismare that she is a woman. To a reader who has
understood this narrative's subtext of a woman's revolt against ma
authority, such an obviously gender-specific comment can only be
challenge. Its ambiguous aggressivity is further complicated by h
admission of coquettry. Even as she masks her deepest intentions, sh
marks her text as a form of seduction, a defense of her sex presente
to a leading representative of the opposing party, a sexual manifesto
that asks him to submit to her conditions19. Of course, the novel end
precisely on this interrogation. We never do learn «la réponse de M. l
marquis de Croismare, s'il m'en fait une» (p. 45) which we have be
awaiting since the first line of the narration20.
At this climactic moment, as that initial question approaches it
long deferred answer, the novel simply stops. Suzanne's ultimate fate
is not revealed; we do not know what or even if the «Marquis d
Croismare» ever answers her. With this unconventional ending,
Diderot captures the full emotional impact of the gender conflict hid
den at the heart of his nun's story. Our final image of Suzanne is bot
double and disturbing. On one hand, she is sick and pathetically
reduced to almost nothing by her heroic struggle «against the man»;
on the other, unbowed on the brink of defeat, she has the courage to
recount her life as a final expression of her independence, as a la
defiant gesture to those who would oppress her.

The University of Illinois, Chicago

19 Walter Rex, p. 187: «This implies a novel that is tailored, confined, to th

tastes of a given person it must not offend, whom, in fact, it must seduce.»
20 Obviously I am talking here of the fictionalized reader Croismare, Suzanne'
auditor within the novel. This figure is only remotely connected to the real Marqu
de Croismare, the victim of the prank recounted in the Preface-annexe. Conse
quently, the fact that the real Croismare was duped by Diderot and friends and d
attempt to help the nun he thought was writing to him has no bearing at all on m
argument.

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