Your research delves into the personal stories of women loving other women in the urban setting of Paris during the Enlightenment. Could you tell us one story that struck you the most?
The life of Françoise Raucourt struck me most. She was one of the leading actresses of her time and later became the first female theatre director in Paris – a position traditionally reserved for men. What fascinated me was how she refused to be constrained by any form of societal norms that sought to limit her. Rather than submitting to them, she simply defied them. Her unwavering freedom-seeking spirit is also evident in her private life. I was especially moved by her final partnership. The few surviving letters from Françoise to Henriette are so tenderly written that they revealed a side of Raucourt I had never thought to encounter at the start of the project – intimate and deeply affectionate.
The question of space is central to your analysis: where and how could the women you are studying live their love lives in a context in which homosexuality was formally illegal?
The Théâtre-Français and the court of Versailles were both spaces where women could, in specific ways, push against the boundaries imposed on them. At Versailles, noblewomen – especially those of higher rank – were subject to strict rules. Their husbands held authority as heads of households, leaving women with little say. Yet in private, particularly within their writing cabinets, they found room to express themselves freely. The Comtesse de Provence, for example, wrote hundreds of letters to her former reader who had been banned from court. In the theatre, women transgressed norms simply by becoming actresses. They occupied such a peculiar social position that men like Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote spiteful texts about actresses in particular. Yet, this mix of social stigma, celebrity status, and financial opportunity created a space where some women could live more authentically. Françoise Raucourt did just that – although she was never very good with money, she excelled at embracing liberty.
Historically, in the European context, how was female homosexuality subject to specific discriminatory patterns?
Lesbians continue to face marginalisation rooted both in their gender and their sexual identity. Already in the 1770s and 1780s, Françoise Raucourt was mocked in the press and sometimes caricatured as a failed imitation of a man. This public ridicule stood in stark contrast to the erotic portrayals of female same-sex encounters found in early modern pornography, which tended to fetishise such relationships. The idea that a woman ultimately requires a man for sexual fulfilment – a trope still prevalent in modern pornography – was already present in these depictions. This reflects a broader cultural tendency, both past and present, to view relationships between women as somehow incomplete. However, intimate and sexual relationships between women are fully valid and self-contained, even if society has long struggled to recognise them as such.
How is this legacy still affecting the lives of homosexual women in present-day Europe? Is the question of space, of the possibility to express a relation, still relevant?
In the 18th century, space was a means that allowed non-normative desires to be expressed and lived – like Françoise Raucourt within the cosmos of the theatre and the world of the performing arts. This room to express oneself remains crucial in queer spaces, but today they are also safe spaces. This shift in meaning had its first high point in fin-de-siècle Paris and the early 20th century, when the city became a cultural centre for lesbian women, that included figures like the salonnière and socialite Natalie Clifford Barney and the poetesse Renée Vivien. There seems to be something about the urban Parisian setting that has long allowed queer people to live more openly and carve out their very own spaces. The conservative backlash we are witnessing in parts of Europe today is unsettling. However, the life of Françoise Raucourt reminds us that homosexuality is not a contemporary invention or trend – it has always existed. It is consistent, and women like Raucourt, who lived in a time before sexuality as we know it existed, already led unconventional lifestyles. Uncovering individuals who felt differently long before us in the archives offers comfort to those coming to terms with their homosexuality. It affirms that it’s okay, that it has always existed – and that they are not alone.
Cynthia Sadler is a PhD researcher in the Department of History of the European University Institute (EUI), specialising in queer and women's history, cultural history, and history of theatre. Her PhD thesis, ‘Women loving Women in 18th century Paris - Figurations of Alterity', is supervised by History Professors Benno Bastian Gammerl, and Carlotta Sorba.
Photo credits: Composite portrait of Marie Joséphine of Savoy and Françoise Raucourt, both in public domain, via Wikimedia Commons