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Set in Paris in the 1780s, Retif de la Bretonne’s Ingenue Saxancour is a thinly veiled account of his daughter’s disastrous marriage to an abusive husband. From the time of her marriage in January, 1780, until she left her husband in July, 1785, Agnes Retif suffered continually from severe physical, sexual, and emotional abuse. Published in 1789, Retif’s novel scandalized the public with its graphic descriptions of his son-in-law’s sexual perversity and brutal violence. Retif’s novel remains shocking more than two centuries later and continues to raise disturbing questions about power relations within abusive relationships. Perhaps most disturbing of all are the accusations leveled against Retif himself concerning his motives for writing and publishing this account: Was he, as some charged, a shameless exhibitionist willing to reveal his family’s darkest secrets merely to attract attention and broaden his readership? Was he an unscrupulous opportunist willing to capitalize on his daughter’s misfortunes and risk her reputation simply to pay his debts? Or was he, as he himself claimed, trying to warn young women about the dangers of marrying men of dubious backgrounds against their parents’ wishes? Retif was all this and more: a reform-minded pioneer far in advance of his time with his graphic portrayal of spousal abuse, his call for greater public awareness of this perennial problem, and his crusade for liberal divorce laws that would allow women to escape from abusive relationships and to remarry. This, in fact, is what Agnes Retif was able to do after passage of the divorce law passed by France’s revolutionary government in 1792. Mary S. Trouille is Professor of French at Illinois State University.
