In contrast to the comparative realism of the last five authors stand such imaginative flights as those which follow. The first was the _Monsieur Vénus_ of Rachilde (Marguérite Eymery Vallette), published in Brussels in 1884. According to André David,[8] the book was condemned, all available copies confiscated and the author heavily fined. Living in Paris, however, she was happily outside Belgian jurisdiction—the chief reason why so many daring French titles of the late century bore Brussels imprints. A year later the novel was brought out in Paris with some deletions and a preface by Maurice Barrès, and only this second version has been accessible for study. It is the story of a wealthy orphaned girl, ward of an ascetic aunt who but for the necessity of raising her niece would have taken the veil. At the age of twenty-five Raoule encounters an effeminate man of the working class a year her junior to whom she is hopelessly attracted. Her pride is stung by her weakness, and to avoid accepting Jacques as an equal she virtually buys him and subsequently maintains him in luxury. By degrees she forces him to wear feminine clothing and play the woman’s part, to which he proves readily adaptable after an initial rebellion. She herself assumes the masculine costume and role. Jacques’ avaricious older sister is at first agreeable to his being kept, but when she discovers the real nature of the relationship she uses the threat of exposure to force a marriage which appears to her even more advantageous. This plebeian match estranges the aunt and most of Raoule’s own world, leaving a handsome military man, a former suitor of the girl’s, as the couple’s only frequent visitor. But so completely has the husband become effeminized that presently he makes advances to the officer. A duel ensues which the jealous Raoule urges the latter to carry through to the death. After the loss of her faithless love she has a wax figure of him enshrined in the room that had been their “temple of delight,” and she continues to visit it in secret. In a significant early conversation with her military suitor, Raoule tells him that she is at last in love. “Sapho!” he cries. “Continue, Monsieur Vénérande, mon cher ami!” But she hotly denies the charge. Her intelligence and pride preclude that amusement of boarding-school girls and prostitutes. In Sappho such love may have had dignity because it was her invention, a new thing, but mere imitation is shameful weakness. She herself will also splendidly create a new vice. She then tells of meeting Jacques, with whom she fell in love as with Beauty. “She said ‘Beauty’ because she was unable to say ‘_Woman_.’”[9]