GLR May-June 2026

natives. However, it becomes clear that they are men who elab orately present themselves as women or are ambiguously gen dered. To my knowledge, the first explicitly hermaphroditic narrator appears in a somewhat later novel: La Terre australe connue (1676), by Gabriel de Foigny ( long before Jeffrey Eu genides’ Middlesex of 2002). It is another mock-voyage ad venture, this time to a vast, undiscovered southern continent where all the inhabitants are powerful, naked, red-skinned her maphrodites. 2 “Hermaphrodite,” as various scholars have sug gested, was a political epithet for people of a “double nature” or double unnaturalness. The islanders can be read as a whole variety of exotic, suspect, and revoltingly abnormal or “queer” beings: sodomites, cross-dressers, trans people, duplicitous courtiers, and treacherous politicians. The laws of the island encourage all forms of falsehood, bribes, hedonism, luxury, and gratification. “We esteem good looks and appearance in all things, much more than action. … Let desire [ volunté ] be taken as reason everywhere in our Em pire.” The Sixth Article of Faith is: “We do not know of any other life than the present one, and believe that after this one, every thing is dead for us. This is why we make every effort until the last day to give ourselves all the pleasure that we can imagine.” What are we to make of this entertaining, bizarre text? Is it satirical? Does it present a sexual utopia? (The Duke Uni versity volume bears the call number “Utopia 12mo A792D.”) Or is it a dys topia? For centuries the dominant interpretation was by Pierre de l’Estoile (1546–1611), a chronicler of the courts of Henri III and Henri IV, who wrote in his journal entry of April 1605: 3 The book of the Hermaphrodites was printed and published at the same time, and could be seen in Paris in that same month. ... This libelous pamphlet (which was quite well done) under the guise of this imaginary island, revealed the impious and vicious morals and ways of the court [of Henri III], clearly showing that France is now the haunt and refuge of all vice, voluptuousness, and impudence, whereas it was once an honorable academy and seminary of virtue. The King [Henri IV] wished to see it and had it read to him, and although he found it somewhat licentious and too daring, he nevertheless contented himself with learning the name of the author, who was Arthus Thomas, whom he did not want prosecuted, being mindful (he said) of aggrieving a man for having spoken the truth. _______________ 2. Gabriel de Foigny, La Terre australe connue: c’est-à-dire, la de scription de ce pays inconnu jusqu’ici, de ses mœurs et de ses cou tumes, par Mr Sadeur, avec les avantures [sic] qui le conduisirent en ce continent, Geneva (1676). 3. My translation from the original French: “ Le livre des Hermaphro dites fust imprimé et publié en mesme temps, et se voiioit à Paris en ce mesme mois. ... Ce petit libelle (qui estoit assés bien fait) sous le nom de ceste isle imaginaire, descouvroit les mœurs et façons de faire impies et vicieuses de la cour, faisant voir clairement que la France est maintenant le repaire et l’azille de tout vice, volupté, et impudence, au lieu que jadis elle estoit une academie honorable et seminaire de vertu. Le Roy le voulut voir et se le fist lire, et encores qu’il le trouvast un peu libre et trop hardi, il se contenta neantmoins d’en apprendre le nom de l’aucteur qui estoit Arthus Thomas, lequel il ne voulust qu’on recherchast, faisant conscience [disoit-il] de fascher un homme pour avoir dit la verité. ” Pierre de L’Estoile, Journal du regne de Henri IV.: 2 [1604-1606] (1741), The Hague: Frères Vaillant. May–June 2026

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