Québec Université Laval, Bibliothèque 2014

This interdisciplinary thesis belongs to Marie Antoinette studies. The contemporary dissonant commodification of the controversial historical character of the last Queen of France, detected at her former home, Petit Trianon, drives the course of the thesis research. Considering the complexity and controversy of the subject, the thesis seeks to make a contribution to extant scholarship by clarifying important modern history issues through a fresh approach: by using art history as an indicator in assessing the historical truth of the narrative of Petit Trianon, the residence identified as home to the last Queen of France. The thesis examines Petit Trianon and Marie Antoinette in the context of four major narratives - the historical, cinematic, architectural and heritage narratives - relevant to the contemporary heritage interpretation of Petit Trianon as well as its visitor perceptions. In addition to sourcing evidence for the arguments originating in art history information, the thesis relies on the data collection provided by a tailor-made survey for the topic, placing the results in the wider context of a hermeneutical interpretation of data found in either history or contemporary popular culture. The array of Marie Antoinette’s images detected by the analysis charts the commodification of this historical character at Petit Trianon: its production and consumption. It is through the assessment of this commodification that the present thesis reveals the misconceptions surrounding the historical character best known as Marie Antoinette. The thesis argues that the true role of the last Queen of France was successfully obscured through juxtaposition with her perception by the French collective memory. In other words, the perception of Marie Antoinette had subverted historical truth. Furthermore, the commodification of her historical character is perpetuated in an endless chain of representations fuelled by postmodern consumerism.

Le Mouvement de libération des femmes en France ne fut pas seulement un mouvement politique et social, ce fut également l’une des dernières, si ce n’est la dernière, avant-garde littéraire que la France a connue. Du point de vue international, l’activité des littératrices au sein du Mouvement constitue un des principes distinctifs de la lutte des femmes en France. Les manifestantes qui déposent publiquement une gerbe de fleurs à la femme plus inconnue encore que le soldat inconnu sous l’Arc de Triomphe le 26 août 1970, sont déjà pour certaines – appelées à le devenir pour d’autres – des écrivaines. Dix ans plus tard, le MLF, depuis peu marque déposée à l’Institut national de la propriété industrielle, appartient à une éditrice, Antoinette Fouque, promotrice d’une écriture dite féminine. Dans l’espace circonscrit par ces deux points fixes, paraît un ensemble de textes qui s’inscrivent au sein de deux tendances majoritaires – mais antagonistes – du Mouvement, le féminisme d’une part et la néo-féminité, ou éloge de la différence, d’autre part. En miroir, un double rhizome éditorial se développe, partageant maisons d’édition et revues en deux factions militantes et littéraires bien distinctes. Pendant dix ans, la littérature se met tout autant au service du Mouvement des femmes que le Mouvement irradie la littérature, chacun-e influençant et informant la pratique et la pensée de l’autre. C’est de cette coïncidence entre littérature et Mouvement de libération des femmes que le présent écrit se propose de rendre compte, afin de retracer un mouvement politique qui fut et se fit littéraire, et, dans le même élan, une littérature qui fut et se fit politique. Par là même, la thèse redouble la question posée par tout un mouvement de femmes à la littérature elle-même, contestant ses définitions premières et repoussant les limites qui lui ont été assignées. / The Women’s Liberation Movement (MLF) was not only a political and social movement, but one of the last, if not the very last, literary avant-garde that France has experienced. From an international perspective, the activity of the literary women within the movement represents one of the fundamental principles of the fight for women’s rights in France. The demonstrators, who publicly placed a bouquet of flowers for the unknown wife of the Unknown Soldier under the Arc de Triomphe on August 26th 1970, are for some, and are soon to become for others, women writers. Ten years later, the MLF, a recently registered trademark with the National Institute for Intellectual Property Rights, belongs to the editor, Antoinette Fouque, promotor of female writing. Within the space determined by these two fixed points, there exists a collection of texts that adhere to two major trends – although antagonistic – of the movement, Feminism on one hand and Neofeminity, or the praise for “difference”, on the other hand. Mirroring each other, a dual editorial form develops, sharing publishers and scholarly journals, into two distinct literary and militant factions. For ten years, literature served the purpose of the Women’s Liberation Movement as much as the latter promoted literature, each influencing and informing the other by practice and thought. It is precisely this coexistence between literature and the Women’s Liberation Movement that the present dissertation proposes to examine, in order to trace the political movement that was and made itself literary, and, by the same token, a literature that was and made itself political. At the same time, the dissertation continues the question asked of literature by an entire women’s movement, challenging its assigned definitions and pushing back its boundaries.