ABSTRACT
Masculinist forms of written legal expression, including Les Lettres de Cachet, Les Mémories Judiciaries, Les Causes Célèbres, all provide a striking admission that women of all classes had very limited access to recourse. Current studies of French literature in the eighteenth century provide paradoxical testimony to the makings of first-wave feminism. While the rise of the novel provided a way for some educated women to express themselves through their writing, the then all male French Academy dictated and defined the parameters of French literary acceptability and tradition. Though women had some access to literary circles through the salons, they were by and large precluded from entering the legal world. There is a trove of evidence that women struggled to find agency and voice in the form of letters, mémoires, lists, and objects enclosed in legal briefs belonging to women who were consigned to the prison, convent, or workhouse. This body of writing serves as the basis for forensic literature, helping to piece together their real stories. These authentic life stories have literary as well as historical merit.
