GLR March-April 2026

girls a prey to their own feelings of shame, and to the com ments of the crowd.” They leave the hotel dressed as women, and although “the gate of the hotel had been closed to screen them from sight,” as they step into their coach, they are “forced, when the door was open, to pass through a throng of curious glances and whispering voices.” Eugénie shuts her eyes but cannot close her ears, and she realizes the crowd is mocking and sneering at her. “‘Oh, why is not the world a wilderness?’ she exclaimed, throwing herself into the arms of Mademoiselle d’Armilly, her eyes sparkling with the same kind of rage which made Nero wish that the Roman world had but one neck, that he might sever it at a single blow. The next day they stopped at the Hôtel de Flandre, at Brussels. The same evening Andrea was incar cerated in the Conciergerie.” Thus do the two women exit the

story. Unlike nearly everyone else in the narrative, who is dead, disgraced, or bound for Africa by the end, Eugénie and Louise get a happier ending even than the count. § F ORBIDDEN LOVE is a recurring theme in Dumas’ works. The Three Musketeers and its sequels delve into it a great deal. Themes of gay love also appear: La Dame de Monsoreau is rife with them. Protagonist Count de Bussy and side character François duc d’Anjou are implied to be in a relationship, as are King Henri III and the court jester, Chicot. Sodomy had been decriminalized in France in 1791 but remained stigmatized at the time, and accusations of queerness were used to smear po litical opponents. It remained persecuted through laws against “indecency” and “corruption,” although its enforcement varied by time and place. Depictions of queerness were not uncommon in French media of the era; Honoré de Balzac, a contemporary of Dumas, wrote numerous such works. His novella Sarrasine chronicles the relationship between two men, while his novel Séraphîta details a love triangle including an androgynous person, a man, and a woman. The Girl with the Golden Eyes is about a similar love triangle among a man, the woman he’s in love with, and her lover, who is the man’s half-sister. Another contemporary, Théophile Gautier, wrote Mademoiselle de Maupin , a novel that revolves around a polyamorous genderfluid person. This freedom regarding gender and sexuality was often available only to people of the middle and upper classes. Peo ple of the lower classes were policed more heavily, as in 1843, when Parisian prostitutes were banned from rooming together lest they have sexual relations. Committed same-sex relation ships did exist, however, among the classes in which they were permitted. Writers Joseph Fiévée (1767–1839) and Théodore Leclercq (1777–1851) lived together for decades and were buried in the same tomb. Dumas himself freely indulged his li bido but is not known to have had any gay relationships. Nev ertheless, his presence in French high society meant that he would have had freer access to people whose sexuality was an open secret and therefore familiar with their social norms and mores. Dumas made the lesbian themes in The Count of Monte Cristo obvious enough that they were evident to Victorian cen sors. The original 1846 English translation redacted most of Eu génie’s sapphic tendencies, such as sharing a bed with Louise. The book also invokes antiquity, in particular Classical Greece, a place and time famous in the Victorian era for its tolerance of homosexuality. Louise compares Eugénie to Hippolyta, saying: “You are a perfect Amazon, Eugénie!” Eugénie compares her self to Hercules and his mistress: “‘Ah, you do well to ask,’ said Eugénie, laughing; ‘I forgot that I was Hercules, and you only the pale Omphale!’” Despite the extensive evidence, only a smattering of blog posts and Goodreads threads have tried to analyze the gay themes of The Count of Monte Cristo in depth. Most academic analyses of the work focus on the nature of revenge and the de velopment of the historical novel, not on the interpersonal rela tionships portrayed or the sexuality of its characters. Perhaps as a new generation, one of the most queer-identified in history, discovers the work, its gayness can be better appreciated.

To my friend, Billy Billy, I call you by your nick-name like you know we’re just kids at heart. And here we are in media vita, sitting on the edge of the old pond next to each other on a warm afternoon in June, with you digging with toesies for fresh water clams, disturbing the water’s blue sky with ripples. Fishing is something that feels like old familiar handling though we remind each other that we haven’t done it since we were kids. Oh, it was you Billy who caught the pickerel. I brought him in with my net and grabbed his slimy body with my firm fingers careful not to get spiked by his spines, worrying that he’d run out of breath ere I’d torn the hook out. Then toss him back and pray he’d come to. With a flip of his tail he’s gone. The sky moves along, we look at each other and feel we’d best move it along too. Oh, could it really be a bit of embarrassment over a silly fish, or a little self-conscious innocence? Hours later, on the car trip back to Kingston, I’m still relishing my smelly fingers.

R ICHARD A RNOLD

March–April 2026

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