Finding the Woman Who Didn't Exist: The Curious Life of Gisèle d'Estoc

4. An Interlude (No Time in Particular)

79 4 An Interlude (No Time in Particular) Lesson #4: How you appear isn’t always the same thing as how you look. This interlude interrupts the otherwise backward narrative account of d’Estoc’s life in order to pause and consider what we know about what she looked like and the larger cultural connections between identity and appearance. An interlude typically comes between two parts of a game or play (inter + ludus) and may also have its own playful qualities. It may even take the form of a play, or at least possess a performative element. This interlude aspires to a certain playfulness, and also has games as its theme, since it will focus on two representations, each with a sporting motif (fencing and tennis). More specifically, it focuses on the ways d’Estoc has been portrayed, especially in ludic contexts. It will show how depictions of d’Estoc have contributed to her continued mystery rather than serving to clarify her identity, while nevertheless staging something about the way identity in general works in our culture. The one thing that has survived all the doubt and obfuscation about d’Estoc is that name, her pseudonym. Even when we have not been able to say much else about her (such as who she really was), we have had that one piece of her identity. There have been various iterations of the pseudonym (G. d’Estoc, Gisèle d’Estoc, J. d’Estoc, and so on), but the “d’Estoc” has been a constant. Estoc is an old French word for a sword, the kind a medieval knight might have wielded (think Excalibur, Charlemagne’s Joyeuse, or, if you are so inclined, the sword of Gryffindor). Such swords might have been 80 An Interlude blessed by the pope, so the holder of such a weapon might have felt a certain sense of self-righteousness, which may explain why “d’Estoc” was such a popular pseudonym to begin with. In the case of Gisèle d’Estoc, the one thing we have known about her all along, even when we did not know who she really was, is that she chose to present herself to the public by her righteous relationship to the sword. The epithet fits her combative nature and crusading spirit, but there may be a more specific reason that she came to be known under this name. One of the persistent rumors attached to Gisèle d’Estoc is that she fought a duel—with swords—with an ex-lover, Emma Rouër. Such “petticoat duels” (or duels en jupon in French) were not unknown (despite being illegal), both in life and in fiction, and in the 1880s fencing was an increasingly popular sport in general, and one that attracted a number of women.1 In a survey of salles d’armes (fencing galleries) published around 1887 (to judge from the preface), Albert de Saint-Albin noted how the Franco-Prussian War had highlighted the need for more attention to physical fitness in France, which in turn led to an explosion of interest in fencing, starting around 1880. To belong to a fencing club was increasingly fashionable, and Saint-Albin lists some of the more famous ones to be found in Paris around this time. Each salle had its own characteristics. For example, the Salle Caïn in the passage de l’Opéra was favored by artists and writers such as Guy de Maupassant and René Maizeroy (141). What is perhaps surprising, given “modern” views of nineteenth-century misogyny, was that many clubs also admitted women. Saint-Albin notes that the painter Louise Abbéma, for example, was an expert (“une escrimeuse des plus alertes et des plus habiles”) (67) and had even illustrated a book on the subject. The Salle Chazalet on the chaussée d’Antin boasted “une clientèle spéciale et choisie de jeunes Américaines, qui font des armes par ordonnance du médecin” (151), but in addition to the American young ladies who fenced for their health, there were women who appealed to no pretext other than love of the sport. Fencing was so popular among women that it even made its way into theater, writes Saint- An Interlude 81 Albin (226), noting that the actress Marguerite Ugalde, who played d’Artagnan in The Three Musketeers, frequented the Salle Caïn along with the artists and writers.2 And no...