Seclusion and Intersubjectivity in 19th Century Leper Colonies

A novella inspired by a true story, Xavier de Maistre’s Le lépreux de la cité d’Aoste (1811) had a considerable influence throughout the 19th century, from Romanticism to Aestheticism. In their tales, Flaubert, Villiers, and Schwob deal with the biblical motif of leprosy, which affects excluded and isolated characters in closed spaces, be they social outcasts or fallen aristocrats. Their towers, castles, or huts are modern versions of the old leprosaria. I propose here a socio-cultural reading of this corpus, within the framework of the counter-revolutionary and anti-modern currents of 19th century France. The seclusion of the contagious patient and the difficulties of intersubjective communication refer to the impossibility for anti-bourgeois authors of finding their place in a new cultural and economic system.