A Noblewoman’s Gothic: Aristocratic Domesticity, Political Medievalism, and Ancien Régime Family Strategy in Caroline Wuiet’s Le Couvent de Sainte Catherine (1810)

In her 1810 novel Le Couvent de Sainte Catherine, ou Les moeurs du xiii e siècle , journalist and musician Caroline Wuiet allegorizes the travails of her fellow noblewomen. Deploying the conventions of Gothic medievalism, she responds to contemporary threats to elite women’s security. First, she condemns the patriarchal tools of family strategy common under the Ancien Régime, notably arranged marriage, lettres de cachet, and enforced religious vows. Second, she defuses revolutionary allegations that noblewomen were ‘boudoir politicians’ who used sex to manipulate affairs of state. She accomplishes both these rhetorical goals by positioning aristocratic women as victims, rather than motive perpetrators, of dynastic plots. She also insists that noblewomen are inherently drawn to the structures of modern domesticity — companionate marriage and involved motherhood — where they would naturally flourish and prove socially useful. By closely examining Le Couvent de Sainte Catherine in the context of Wuiet’s biography, I demonstrate the surprising intersection of Gothic literary tropes and French political transformations during the Age of Revolutions.