us too far afield. It is for this reason that I have not even mentioned the name of Pierre Loti or others who would have to be considered in this connection.43

To have been complete I should have had to study not only France but countries abroad where the trial of Oscar Wilde and the "byzantine" scandals surrounding the entourage of the Kaiser brought homosexuality to the very forefront of the news. Neither have I forgotten that in addition to Sodom there is Gommorah the Gommorah into which the novels of Colette have given us illuminating and tasteful glimpses, and which has been admirably illustrated by the lesbian poetry of Pauline Tarn who called herself Renée Vivien. But, I prefer to say nothing rather than to say too little and to sin by abstention rather than by omission or inadequacy 44 In this essay I have had no other aim than to sketch the main outlines of the historical evolution of homosexuality at the meeting point of the 19th and 20th centuries.

In this field as in so many others, the Belle Epoque was a period of discovery and innovation. Together with the first telephones, the first automobiles, and thereafter the first airplanes, appear the first great studies in sexology, the first great psychoanalyses of homosexuality, the first affirmations by homosexuals of their right to a life of their own, the first realization of the homosexual self which would result later in the taking of a stand for social recogni tion. One may state in all reason ableness that not since the promulgation of the Theodosian Code at the beginning of the 5th century had the life of the homosexual undergone such profound changes insofar as his integration into society was concerned as took place at the beginning of the 20th century I do not exclude from this observation the enactment of the Penal Code a hundred

years before the Belle Epoque, for that rational and benign piece of legislation had had no effect whatsoever on the level with which we are here concerned.

In the field of homosexuality we have, for the last fifty years, been witnessing that “acceleration of history" which had made such an effect on Jacques Pirenne: Marcel Proust, when he was writing Cities of the Plain, could not have dared even dream of an organization so forthright, so restrained, so thoughtful and so discreetly effective as Arcadie, but those who in mid-20th century are now working for a healthful, dignified, and reasonable attitude toward homosexuality should not forget the pioneers who, in the full-bloom of the "modern style" and "artistic writing," and at risk of their repu tations, even of their liberty, opened the way which leads, ever more con fidently, into the future.

34 On this subject, see the trenchant observations of F Porche, l'Amour qui n'ose pas dire son nom, p. 14-15. The most complete study of this kind of attraction was made by Rodney Garland in his The Heart in Exile.

35

36

37

38

A. Bataille, Causes criminelles et mondaines de 1880, p. 150.

In Mes Communions.

Ibid.

39 Colette, Ces Plaisirs.

40

E. Raynaud, Police des Moeurs, p. 141-142.

41 Judgement of the Court of Appeals of Bourges, January 26, 1905 (Dalloz, Jurisprudence générale, 1906

42

43

R. Peyrefitte, l'Exilé de Capri, p. 2930.

On the homosexuality of Pierre Loti, see G. Veherz, Le Paradis perdu de Pierre Loti, in Arcadie, No. 29-34 May-October 1956 and more recently the Ephémérides by Xavier Beal, in Arcadie, No. 66, June, 1959, p 376377

44 On Renée Vivien, who actually lived

the maddest extravagances of a Des Esseintes, see Ces Plaisirs by Colette.

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