Lister’s habit of using code phrases for meaningful events and concepts is particularly evident in language around desire. One especially colorful expression was “going to Italy.” Whitbread interpreted this as indicating a fully sexual relationship, but Orr opines that the evidence for this is not included in the excerpts in No Priest But Love, and that the meaning is more nuanced. The other method of signifying especially noteworthy progress in the relationship was with a triple Silcrow symbol.
sexual/romantic desire
This tag is used broadly when there is discussion of erotic or romantic desire between women, whether or not specific activities are mentioned.
LHMP entry
This section uses Listers discussion with Barlow of her sexual history to lay out both that history and the context in which she shares it, and how that reflects the progression of the Barlow romance. Some of the filtering of the information is marked by how Lister describes her sharing as “the story,” “nearly the whole story,” “nearly the real story,” and similar qualifications. “Story” did not imply a fiction but simply referred to a communication. Such stories were shared with a gradation of specificity.
The chapter opens by reviewing Lister’s several purposes for the Paris trip. A primary one was to seek specialized medical advice and treatment for her venereal disease (More on which later). But other reasons were to improve her French, and to get away – in several senses – from some emotional upsets of a year before.
As noted previously, the proprietor Madame de Boyve loved matchmaking and spent a lot of effort trying to set Lister up with Mr. Franks. But initially, Lester interpreted de Boyve’s attentiveness to her as more personal. Lister recorded that she “seems to have taken a fancy to me” and Lister responded with “something of flattery of manner she is not used to from ladies.” Franks departed with nothing to show for de Boyve’s efforts, after which de Boyve turned toward trying to drive a wedge between Lister and Barlow.
There were a lot of romantic goings-on at Place Vendôme. As noted previously, de Boyve was an enthusiastic matchmaker, and as will be discussed later, her housekeeper was said to procure less formal arrangements for the male guests.
[Note: Orr uses Lister’s abbreviation “Melle de Sans” for M[ademois]elle de Sans, which had me confused at first that “Melle” was a given name! I’m shorthanding her simply as “de Sans.”]
Apart from Lister’s eventual close relationship with the Barlows (mother and daughter), she also became close with the MacKenzie mother and daughter pair (with whom she exchanged a visit after returning to London later). The two widows befriended Lister and made her part of their daily activities, visiting each other and going out shopping and sightseeing. Lister speculates on the possibility of “attaching” the 16-year-old Miss MacKenzie – an attraction that Mrs. Barlow was aware of and commented on. But the attraction was more of intellectual interest than romantic.
This section opens with several encounters Lister had with figures from (recent) French history that presumably had resonance for her personally in some way. She and Mrs. Barlow visited the prison where Marie Antoinette had been kept. Orr connects this with Marie Antoinette’s homosexual reputation (true or not) and with the fascination she held in that regard in the 19th century. The two also examined the writings of Madame de Sévigné, the famous salonnière known for her intimate female friendships.
This section looks more closely at the interplay between the journal and the correspondence. The two neither duplicate content exactly nor represent entirely distinct content.
This section explores the nature and structure of the Lister’s correspondence. Although the correspondence index in the journal lists the full number of letters sent and received, and some note of their contents, the actual number of surviving letters is much smaller and selective. The nature of the content is also distinct from the journal, even apart from the restriction in which items survive. Letters carefully construct the self that Lister wished to present to the world, as well as managing her social relationships with her correspondents.
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