Constructing Paris: Flânerie, Female Spectatorship, and the Discourses of Fashion in Französische...

Constructing Paris:Flânerie, Female Spectatorship, and the Discourses

of Fashion in Französische Miscellen (1803)

KARIN BAUMGARTNERUniversity of Utah

Introduction

In January of 1803, a new journal entitled Französische Miscellen made itsappearance on the German literary scene. The monthly, published by the Cottapublishing house, reported on political developments, daily life, the arts, cul-ture, and fashion in post-revolutionary France. The editor-in-chief and prin-cipal contributor was twenty-year old Helmina von Chézy (1783-1856), thegrand-daughter of Germany's first poet laureate, Anna Luise Karsch.'

Descriptions ofthe French capital and its cultural venues, reviews of newliterary publications, discussions of art and sculpture, celebrity gossip, and,above all, articles about the latest Paris fashion are the expected staple of sucha publication. Yet Helmina's^ contempt for the fashion column is still palpabletoday as she described the latest Paris fashion in terse prose. Rather, as hermission statement to Französische Miscellen indicates, Helmina intended toeducate a mixed-gender audience of educated and politically minded read-ers—the upwardly mobile and politically concerned middle classes—aboutthe importance of Paris as the most modem city of the nineteenth century.^

The most striking feature of Französische Miscellen are the many vi-gnettes of urban life written by the editor herself.* In these urban vignettes, Iargue, Helmina attempted to investigate the possibilities of women's accessto the modem city, female spectatorship, and female flânerie, and in doing so,provided her readers with an original model of how to imagine the modemcity. It is generally thought, that the flâneur ofthe 1840s, traditionally male,was the first to render in words the bewildering heterogeneity of the modemcity. However, as my investigation will show, Helmina must be viewed as anoriginal and early prototype of the flâneur. I argue further that it is preciselyher gender that gave Helmina a unique vantage point from where to examinethe modem urban consciousness and make this experience available to herfemale readers at home.

Monatshefte, Vol. 100, No. 3, 2008 3510026-9271/2008/0003/351© 2008 by The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System

352 Karin Baumgartner

My investigation will center on a series of articles, written by Helmina,to show how she grappled with the question of how the modem city can andshould be imagined. The three-part series "Einen Tag in Paris verlebt," "Derzweite Tag in Paris," and "Der dritte Tag in Paris" describes a three-day ramblethrough the inner and outer reaches of Paris.' The article series appeared inthe second, fifth, and eleventh issues oí Französische Miscellen (1803) and os-tensibly describes the impressions of a young German woman and her femalecompanion who explore Paris on foot and in a carriage.

To pursue my argument, I will address three interrelated topics. The firstsection inquires into the possibilities of female flânerie. How did Helminaconstruct access to the modem city as a woman? How did she gain narrativeauthority over the urban experience? Although ̂ á«ene is used as the guidingtheoretical concept, I will use the term in its early-nineteenth-century incama-tion before the figure of the flâneur was reified by Baudelaire and Benjamin andbegan to denote a radical male consciousness associated with independenceand detachment. The second section of my essay reviews the ways of tumingvisuals into language in the early nineteenth century that were at Helmina'sdisposal. The well-read Helmina was cognizant of the most popular mod-els of rendering large cities—late eighteenth-century topographical models.Mercier's Tableau de Paris, and the use of the Panorama—but rejected eachof these models for her particular approach to Paris. The third section of myanalysis details how Helmina instead resorted to the language of fashion toportray Paris as a kaleidoscope of details. By choosing this approach, Helminagave expression to a pervasive sense of fragmentation and discontinuationamong her contemporaries. Fashion provided her with a modem way of under-standing the post-Revolutionary world as an assemblage of parts. The articleseries supplied in particular the joumal's female readers with a radical anduniquely female blueprint of how to experience urban space. The text must,therefore, be viewed as a unique and early contribution to the literature offlânerie by a female writer.

Flânerie and Female Spectatorship

In the article series under discussion, Helmina strolls through Paris describingfor her readers how Paris looks, feels, smells and sounds. Such visual and nar-rative control over the urban experience is, of course, traditionally embodiedby the flâneur. Flânerie, in essence and origin, is tied to Paris and the rise ofmodemity.*" Using the term today leads to two theoretical problems: the termis mostly associated with Baudelaire's radically aesthetic vision of the city (inthe reading of Benjamin), and, more importantly, the term is associated withmale independence and visual control in the public sphere.

The first issue can be easily addressed. Recent research has shown thatthe early nineteenth century did not possess a unified definition of flânerie.

Flânerie, Female Spectatorship, and the Discourses of Fashion 353

Deborah Parson noted that the earliest entry for the term "flâneur/flâneuse" inthe Encyclopedia Larrousse appeared in 1808 and was gender neutral: idler,shopper, watcher of crowds^ This pre-Benjaminian entry, she writes, concededthe possibility of a feminine version (shopping) and will be important for thediscussion below about the possibility of female flânerie. In "The Flâneurand the Aesthetic Appropriation of Urban Culture in Mid-19th-century Paris,"Mary Gluck observed, too, that French writers and journalists of the 1840swere hard-pressed to define who actually qualified as flâneur. In her research,Gluck identifies two separate, though interconnected, formulaic narrativesabout flânerie (which were later conflated): the earlier popular and the lateravant-garde flâneur. ̂

My use of the term flâneur will concentrate only on Gluck's definitionof the popular flâneur, who emerged from the pages of the mass circulationnewspapers in the 1840s and "came to embody the ideals of a dynamic urbanculture and sensibility." It was he, she writes, who "render[ed] legible andtransparent the bewildering heterogeneity of urban life and, in the process,[...] create[ed] a viable model for an epic imagination in modernity" (Gluck65). In her urban vignettes, I argue, Helmina attempted to accomplish pre-cisely this - to render legible Paris for her German readers from a German andfemale vantage point.

Using the term "flâneur" in association with women is theoreticallymore problematic' In the literature of flânerie, the modernist flâneur denotesthe man of the crowds who traverses the city without purpose, detached fromthose around him, and unwilling to engage in any transactions except visualones."* Indeed, many critics have argued, that women could not be flâneusessince they did not have access to the public sphere (Wolff 131), and their pres-ence in cities was traditionally repressed or marginalized (Parsons 1-2). Manyargue that, unlike the flâneur, the female pedestrian cannot walk the city idlyor detached. The loitering woman exposes herself to the charge of prostitution,and the woman who walks with purpose reveals herself as a shopper and there-fore lacks the necessary detachment from the material things of life. Overall,as the quintessential objects of male gaze, women are generally viewed as partof the cityscape and, therefore, are not thought to have mastery over it.

Although Paris in the literature of flânerie appears as a city populatedonly by men with women relegated to being prostitutes, rag-pickers, or shop-pers, my reading of Chézy suggests that women certainly traversed the city,assembled in city squares, parks, and shopping galleries, and even roamed thestreets in pursuit of visual adventure." Just over a decade before, women hadparticipated in the storm of the Bastille (1789), had attended the sessions ofthe National Assembly, and had cheered the spectacle of public executions.In 1803, Helmina reports that aristocratic women crisscrossed the city in car-riages, sometimes driving themselves,'^ and poor working women went toand fro in pursuit of their daily tasks. Middle class women, to whom the new


ideals of domesticity applied tbe most, congregated in public parks, the theaterand other semi-public spaces. In short, Helmina claims that Parisian womenhad appropriated the city for themselves.'^

Although unaware of the theoretical figure of the flâneur in the twentiethand twenty-first centuries, Helmina thought it necessary to addresses the bar-riers that traditionally kept women from observing the urban landscape. Theflâneur is thought to be independent, a loner so to speak, in order to have unre-stricted access to the urban public sphere. In the nineteenth-century, only menwere thought to be sufficiently independent from family responsibilities andhousehold duties to idle away their days on the streets of Paris. In Aurikeln,a text that reconstructs her early childhood and her years in Paris, Chézy claimsthat such independence was, indeed, possible for female artists abroad: "Ichlebte nun, fast wie ein unabhängiger Mann, ohne häusliche Pflichten, ohneAngehörige, ohne wahre Freunde, ganz der Poesie, der Kunst, den Anschau-ungen ohne Zahl, welche das damals blühende, heitre Paris darbot" {Aurikeln140-41).'" Like M. Bonhomme, the first literary flâneur, Helmina viewed her-self as detached from familial responsibilities qua her status as an unmarriedwoman and artist.'̂ However, it is important to note that in 1803, Helmina didnot think it important to mention independence as a prerequisite to her accessto the city.

The second barrier to women's access to the city is that women do nothave access to the public sphere, which is thought to be dangerous to women'svirtues. While the city in Chézy's narrative does not appear hostile to women,in her text, Helmina nods toward conventional models of femininity to whichmany of her readers adhered. On her amblings through Paris, a female friend,Madame L., accompanies Helmina. Madame L. guides her, often driving her-self and the narrator in a cabriolet.'* Yet Madame L's function in the narrativeis not, as one might expect, to protect Helmina from the Parisian crowds andthe dangers lurking around the next street comer. Instead, the relationshipbetween the experienced urbane Madame L. and Helmina is one of teacherand student. Just as Madame L. teaches Helmina to read the city correctly,Helmina transmits this knowledge to her own readers. It turns out that the re-lationship between Madame L. and Helmina mirrors the relationship betweenthe narrator and her readers and allows for identificatory reading on the part ofthe provincial reader at home. Like Helmina, this reader learns, step-by-step,about the correct way of reading the urban text.

Another nod toward conventional femininity is Helmina's attempt tosanitize the urban spaces—streets, coffee houses, and crowds—from thosedangers that traditionally prevented women's presence in them. Among thedangers that assail the female observer are the charge of prostitution and theinability to enter certain spaces. Indeed, the charge of prostitution is a seriousdanger for the female walker. Not only does it destroy a woman's reputation,but prostitution prevents the female flâneur from exerting mastery over the


city. After all, the prostitute is in the city to be consumed: she is, to speak withBenjamin, "Verkäuferin und Ware in einem.""

Helmina addresses prostitution in the second installment of the articleseries and devotes several pages to "public women." Conspicuously, the au-thor places these "fallen women" in the heart of the city, in the Rue Royale,the commercial and recreational center of Paris with shops, coffeehouses, andcasinos. By doing so, Helmina points to the intertwined discourse of consumercapitalism and pleasure as Benjamin did over a hundred years later (Benjamin,V. I: 612-13). At the outset of the encounter, the author takes great care topoint to her physical distance from the prostitutes. While she is safely en-sconced in a carriage, the streetwalkers display themselves on the street-level.Helmina writes, "Entblößt, in helle Farben und lichte Gewänder gekleidet,ohne Furcht vor der Abendluft, ohne Schaam vor der Menschen Blick, stehenhier und an unzählich (sie) vielen Orten mehr als 10000 dieser unglücklichenGeschöpfe singend und scherzend in den Fenstern und Thüren, an den Ecken"(IL 2: 65). Yet, upon seeing these unhappy creatures, the narrator's initial sen-sation of horror is almost immediately replaced by pity and empathy for the lotof these women. The passage continues, "Ach! wer könnte mit verächtlichemHohn ein so elendes Wesen auch nur in Gedanken kränken wollen? Ist sienicht auch ein Weib? Hätte sie nicht Mutter, nicht Gattin werden können?"(II. 2: 65). Instead of maintaining her narrative distance to the prostitutes,Helmina posits these women as possible mothers and wives, similar to theirbourgeois and aristocratic sisters.

Taking her cue from the very apparent commercial nature of the transac-tion, Helmina cites socio-economic and political reasons as the root causes ofprostitution, thereby placing her discourse in the vein of the moral-sentimentalweeklies that made their appearance in the late eighteenth century.'^ An entirearticle in the following issue of Französische Miscellen revisits Helmina'stwo points: Prostitutes cannot be distinguished from their bourgeois sisters,"and women are pushed into prostitution by hunger, destitution, and predatoryrelatives. Helmina's passionate advocacy for these "public women" servestwo functions; first, she posits the prostitutes as victims instead of sexual pred-ators, thereby echoing the post-Revolutionary discourse on female sexuality.Second, by constructing a group identity for all women as potential moth-ers and wives, Helmina facilitates her own physical and discursive access tothe city. This is all the more important, since Helmina, in her carriage, isalso on display. Women, thus elevated above the crowd, not only watched thespectacle in the streets, but became themselves spectacles (Pascoe 132). Byremoving the stigma of "immorality" from prostitutes and viewing them withcompassion, bourgeois women in Helmina's text may share the streets withthese unhappy souls without being contaminated.^"

In addition to being labeled a streetwalker, the female flâneur encountersmany perils in the public spaces she wants to explore and Chézy addressed


these dangers as well. While (shopping) galleries, the market halls, and cof-fee houses belong to the city scapes in which the nineteenth-century flâneurrevels, the public perceived these spaces as dangerous for women. Here, itwas thought, women had no control over their surrounding and their reputa-tions might be tamished. Unsavory men and disreputable women, MadameL. explains, may chose a seat in close proximity and violate the sensibilitiesof the female coffee drinker. However, in a move analogous to the discussionon prostitution above, Madame L. swiftly puts these concems aside when sheand Helmina desire rest and a cup of coffee: "Wir aber dürfen jetzt nicht dieseRücksicht nehmen, denn Sie müssen etwas Stärkendes geniesssen, um IhreLebensgeister wieder zu erholen" (IV. 2: 67).

The text proceeds to replace the myth of the coffee house as an ill-suitedplace for women with Helmina's description of the actual coffee house as anenchanting and sylvan city space suited for women. She writes, " Wir fuhrenbald wieder fort, nachdem ich die niedliche Einrichtung dieses Kaffeehausesgesehen, und seine angenehme Lage bewundert hatte; sein schattiger Gartenvoll Blumen, und die Aussicht über die Seine hin nach den stolzen Brückenund Quais, [. . .], macht eine hübsche Wirkung" (IV. 2: 67-68). By employ-ing language such as "niedlich," "angenehm," and "Garten," Helmina equatesthis space to other city spaces open to female strollers like, for example, theTuileries. Emphasizing ̂ oweri allows Helmina to link women, who are as-sociated with flowers throughout the nineteenth century, to the coffee house.In fact, the many references to nature give the impression that coffee housesmight be the natural habitat for women. As she did in her unflinching investi-gation of the causes of prostitution, Helmina exposes the prohibition againstwomen's visits to coffee houses as an obsolete custom from the Ancien Ré-gime, a political system frequently criticized in the pages of Französische Mis-cellen}^ Furthermore, the description of the coffeehouse as a pleasant urbanspace gave her female readers information about an environment to which fewhad themselves access.

While the coffee houses and the arcades, or "galleries" as Helmina callsthem, are important sites for flânerie, the flaneur's favorite environment is thecrowd. Helmina, too, immerses herself in the crowds of Paris. This bath in themasses does not threaten the female spectator as might be expected, but con-firms her identity as the sole authorial consciousness ofthe text. In the very firstinstallment of the series, Helmina takes a bold step out of the safety of femalecompanionship and puts her body quite literally into the very center of post-revolutionary Paris. She writes, "Ich trat auf die Mitte des Revolutionsplatzesund blieb dort wie angefesselt stehen. Es war die Mittagsstunde; das Gewühlder geputzten Menge, die nach dem Boulevard, nach den Elisäischen Feldemund nach dem Garten der Thuillerien hinströmend sich durchkreuzte, drängtesich um mich her" (I. 2: 108).̂ '̂ Despite her choice ofthe word "angefesselt"'̂ ^Helmina's experience is not one of fear or dread as might be expected of a


young woman: rather, Helmina's eyes survey the sites arranged around thiscity square, thereby assuming visual and narrative control over her surround-ings. This paradigmatic scene posits the authorial I/eye at the intersection ofthree crucial axes: the writer, Paris, and the beginning nineteenth century. Inthis cmcial scene, I argue, Helmina establishes herself as the sole authorialvoice at the geographic center of post-Revolutionary Paris at the height of thenoon hour, when the city is buzzing with activity. In other words, this sceneestablishes Helmina as the expert chronicler of contemporary urban life re-porting from the world's geographic center. Like'the literary icon of the 1840s,Helmina, in the scene above, produces the city as a multi-sensory experiencefor her readers to relive. Like the flâneur, she orders the potentially disruptiveurban environment through visual control into a unified textual experience,and forces the reader to view the city through her eyes—the eyes of a femalespectator.

Reading the Urban Text

The city produces the flâneur, but the flâneur produces the city in his or hernarrative. The flâneur is the expert who reads the text of the city and stitchestogether a comprehensible narrative from the fragmentary impressions. In herrole as editor-in-chief of Französische Miscellen, Helmina was charged to doexactly that: to render Paris, the political center of the known world, intel-ligible and legible for her readers at home. To reproduce the city in "EinenTag in Paris verlebt" Helmina could have chosen among a number of modelsknown to her audience. For example, Friedrich Nicolai (Vienna) and JohannWilhelm von Archenholtz (London) had attempted to reproduce the city in itstotality for their readers by assembling precise descriptions and vignettes ofthe city's individual parts.̂ " Both Nicolai and Archenholtz insisted that theyprovided a "correct," or empirical, rendering ("richtiger Begriff) of the citythat was verifiable.̂ ^ This topographical model (Häuser 97) attempted to dojustice to the described city by describing precisely everything the author sees.The method, still productive at the beginning of the nineteenth century, suf-fered from information overload as it became increasingly more difficult torender the modem city's heterogeneity in any meaningful authorial way. Thefour volumes of Nicolai's description of Vienna speak volumes about the dif-ficulties of the task involved.

Louis-Sébastian Mercier sought to "paint" the tableau of the city (Sev-erin 19).̂ '' Unlike Nicolai or Archenholtz, who looked at the city with theeyes of the expert tourist. Mercier was radically devoted to the descriptionof his home city, Paris. The presentation of "buildings" and "curiosities" wassuspended in favor of an investigation of the citizens of contemporary Parisand "la physionomie morale de cette gigantesque capitale" (Mercier I: 3). Theorganizing principle of the Tableau de Paris resembled the sequence of the


observer's aimless ramble through the city (Häuser 106). Writing about thecity, therefore, depended on walking the city (Severin 19).^' In its approach,the Tableau thus reproduced and aestheticized the modem city's chaotic het-erogeneity.

A third way of describing the urban cityscape presented urban totalityas panorama.^* The panorama put observers above the city from where theycould survey the city in its entirety. The panoramic gaze with the promise ofvisual control was the preferred way of seeing for the tourist, and became theparadigmatic means through which to aesthetisize the modem city (Stierle157). Through his elevated position, the observer had both, distance from andcontrol over, the object observed.

Helmina used a combination of these literary models. The descriptionof her three-day ramble through Paris is part guidebook, part tableau. WhileHelmina claims to be guided by an expert female friend, her true guides areher eyes leading her through and to the curiosities of Paris. As in later texts ofthis kind, Helmina's narrative appropriates the city through the senses, mostlyvision, but also hearing, smell, and touch thereby moving beyond the modelsoffered by Nicolai, Archenholtz, and Mercier. At the same time, the text re-mains suspicious of the radical visual appropriation offered by the panorama.In particular, the promise of visual control is deemed a delusion by Helmina.

As the narrative unfolds, visual control of the city, symbolized throughthe panorama and used strategically by Helmina to establish her authorialvoice, tums out to be an illusion available to those who are inexperiencedin matters of urban living. Throughout the first day in Paris (first installmentof the series), the urban novice, Helmina, attempts to understand Paris bymastery of the images it offers. Precisely the expectation of visual controlreveals Helmina as a tourist, since the panoramic gaze focuses solely on thesights of Paris, which are laid out in front of Helmina like a painting.^' Onthe first day in Paris, Helmina is unable to read the city in any way other thanas a sketch in a guidebook. As a tourist, Helmina cannot focus sufficiently toread the individual parts and accordingly her gaze drifts aimlessly across thepanorama in front of her without the ability to truly see. "Die Übersicht desGanzen," she writes, "macht es unmöglich, auf einzelnen Gegenständen zuverweilen" (I. 2:109). This points to an early understanding of Helmina's thatvisual control—the panoramic gaze—prevents a true appropriation of the city.As Helmina becomes more proficient in interpreting the sights, she will giveup her attempt to see Paris in its entirety, in particular, when the panoramicview is revealed as an illusion (second installment).

For this experience, Helmina's companion takes her to an overlook,where the awestruck Helmina recounts for her readers, "Zu meinen Füssenlag der Garten der Thuillerien, rechts erblickte ich die Seine, den Pont Royal,den Pont neuf und Louis 16; das Invalidenhaus, das Pantheon, den QuaiBonaparte, den Montcalvaire und Montmartre und eine weite grüne waldigte


Ebene rings umher" (IL 2: 67). Yet the panorama Helmina had been viewingis precisely that: a virtual representation of the city known appropriately asthe "Panorama of Paris." Although initially duped, Helmina realizes veryquickly that the city she sees is not the Paris she had experienced just minutesbefore. For one thing, the viewer cannot make out details in this perspectiveeven when aided by a telescope, as Helmina must learn, "[Ich] grief (sic)hastig nach dem Glase, aber ich konnte nicht deutlicher unterscheiden" (II. 2:67). Helmina's impression is one that is also described in the literature of menof that period (Häuser 115-16) with the important difference that the tele-scope cannot aid this female spectator in structuring the visual multitude ef-fectively.^" Indeed, Helmina seems to claim that technologically enhancedways of seeing, that were associated with masculinity in the nineteenth cen-tury, cannot guarantee scopic control of the city. The second reason is the ab-sence of noise that makes the experience unreal.-" Indeed, Madame L. teachesHelmina that, "das Geräusch [einer] Strasse so karakteristisch sich immergleich bleibend sey, daß man sie auch ohne sie zu kennen beim Hereintretenvon allen andern Gegenden der Stadt unterscheide" (II. 2: 68). Seeing withouthearing therefore defies the assumption of control over the city. In order to ex-perience the modem city, Helmina learns, that she must be part of its fabric.

The elevation of the viewer over the city, as practiced in the panorama,does not provide a viable way of perceiving the modem urban space for thisnarrator. It is certainly significant that Helmina employs the motif of deception("optischer Betmg") in her commentary on the Panorama's attempt to representParis in its totality. Helmina's observation that the panorama is situated rightnext to Robertson's phantasmagoria,'̂ further emphasizes the illusionary natureof the panorama, an observation shared by Benjamin who calls the Panoramaa 'residual dreamworld' (Rückstände einer Traumwelt) of a totality-lovingbourgeoisie (V. 1: 59). Helmina's text, written at the beginning of a modemconceptualization of urban space and the human presence in it, points to aninitial instability—succinctly felt by the narrating female consciousness—ofvisual and narrative control over the modem urban cityscape.

Accordingly, in the course of her descriptions of Paris, Helmina forgoesseeing the city in its totality in favor of attention to detail, and the predominantmode of perception will not be the panorama, but the semiotic system of fash-ion with its attention to detail and difference. She thereby gives expression tothe experiences of a younger post-Revolutionary generation who experiencedtheir world as a discontinuous and fragmented."

Reading the City through the Language of Fashion

Helmina begins her descriptions of Paris with precise instructions for her read-ers how to perceive the modem city correctly. The text provides the readerwith two versions of Paris. The first version, a view of the city in its total-


ity, is discarded as outdated, and the second version, structured by details, isconfirmed as the true way of seeing in the nineteenth century.^'' Upon arrivingfrom Germany, the inexperienced Helmina had first glimpsed Paris as a me-dieval fortress that elicited fear. "Mir ward etwas schauerlich, als ich von dortin die Stadt hineinblickte, die mir gothisch und armselig zu seyn schien" (I. 2:104).'' Viewing the city from a distance is associated with the past ("gothisch")and rejected as the adequate way of perceiving this modem city. For a betterview, Helmina's friends drive her to another city gate from where the narratorviews a more modem Paris, a version that is defined by particulars. Her im-pression is now entirely different: "In der entfemten Perspektive der großenEinfahrtallee (sic), welche den Wald vor mir durchschnitt, schimmerte dasmajestätische Schloss der Thuillerien" (1. 2. 105). This palace had been theseat of the National Convention until 1798, and was now the residence of Na-poleon, thereby symbolizing a new Paris like no other sight. Helmina rendersthe perspective of modem, post-Revolutionary France in vivid and precise de-tail, zooming in on the scene. She describes elegant cabriolets, dashing horse-men in uniforms with gold applique and wavy feather bushes, young womenwith fresh-cut flowers decorating their breasts, and colorful ribbons on theirdresses (I. 2: 105). The earlier "gothic" city in its entirety is replaced with asequence of specific and detailed descriptions, just like the ones her readersmight get from the precise description of a fashionable garment in a fashionjoumal.

Attention to detail, juxtaposition of old and new, and emphasis on rapidchange are all constitutive of the emerging system of fashion and consumerculture. Books, such as the Tableau de Paris, fashion joumals and travel logshad allowed the German bourgeoisie, living isolated in provincial towns, topartake in the discourses of modernization through their imagination. Likefashion joumals, which introduced the German readership to styles and trendsnever seen before, descriptions of famous places, such as Paris and London,transported the identificatory reader to places he or she might never visit.'*Helmina was certainly conscious of the function of such joumals and calledthem "kein unebener Ersatz" for those who are not part of the trendsettingcircles {Leben und Kunst 52).

By 1803, when Französische Miscellen first appeared, German readershad been exposed to the culture of consumption and fashion for a good twentyyears. A number of joumals, the most famous among them Bertuch's Journaldes Luxus und der Moden, had familiarized their male and female readerswith the tools to read this semiotic system, the cyclical nature of fashion, theever increasing speed of changing styles, and most importantly, these joumalshad established a framework for viewing consumption and fashion as crucialtools of modemization (Purdy 21). In a very short period of time, fashion hadmoved beyond clothes to signify a culture of lifestyles and a universal (anduniversalizing) way of viewing the world.


It is, therefore, puzzling that the fashion column in Französische Miscel-len is quite truncated in comparison, for example, to the lively coverage pro-vided in the Journal des Luxus und der Moden. Französische Miscellen doesnot include fashion plates, and information about styles, colors, and hemlinesconsists of 1-2 pages generally placed at the end of each issue. The languageof the column is neutral and impersonal and fashion news is in the passivevoice as when Chézy writes, "Alle Hüte sind auf englische Art gemacht. DieTitusköpfe sind beinahe allgemein [. . .] Roth wird wieder ziemlich häufigaufgelegt [. ..] Die seidenen Strümpfe sind jetzt allgemein." (II. 3: 162). OftenHelmina qualifies her assessment of an emerging fashion trend as the opinionsof others: "Nun das schöne Wetter wiedergekommen, werden—sagt man—Hemden von feinem Battist getragen, die ohne Aermel sind, und kaum bis andas Knie reichen" (11. 3 f 161). In general, the fashion column feels labored andprovides fashionable German ladies with the bare minimum of information tostay à la mode in their provincial towns.

We can only speculate about Helmina's aversion to the fashion column.In her memoirs, she claims not to have been very interested in clothes andadomment {Unvergessenes, I: 295), indeed, her own son later called her indif-ferent to fashion.̂ ^ More importantly, Parisian fashion was associated witharistocratic elegance, deception, and dissimulation, and therefore, it may beassumed, not in keeping with the progressive bent of the joumal. Besides,Helmina, a novice at her task, untested, and in reputation far below the fa-mous Johann Christian Hüttner who edited Cotta's Englische Miscellen fromLondon,̂ * might have sought to distance her writing from being viewed as"too feminine."

Ironically, although clothes and fashionable accessories receive little at-tention in the scope of the joumal, Helmina links fashion and modemity inher writing about the modem city. Her writing emphasizes the characteristicsof fashion: rapid change, attention to detail, the significance of context, andcontrast. Indeed, the placement and language of the articles in FranzösischeMiscellen reproduce the laws of fashion: Reports of technological inventionsjuxtapose descriptions of the latest art shows, fiction and poetry adjoin po-litical coverage, and new books and the latest fashions jostle one another forspace. The language is energetic, sometimes even breezy, and the short, variedarticles are written as to keep the attention of a broad segment of the readingpopulation.

For Helmina, rapid change, defined as arbitrary and outside the scopeof individual control, characterizes both fashion and Paris. In a later text,Helmina describes her experiences in Paris as follows: "Es kann Ihnen nichtunbekannt seyn, wie rauschend und rasch alles in Paris zugeht, wie in einemunaufhörlichen Treiben, eine Begebenheit die andre weiter rollt, und wiedervor einer neuen verschwindet, so daß man nichts ruhig festhalten kann, wennman mit den Blicken dies unaufhörliche Getreibe verfolgen will" {Leben


und Kunst, 51). This quote also applies to Helmina's reluctant description ofParisian fashion that changes every month and requires the careful attentionof the author.

To pursue the language of fashion, "Einen Tag in Paris verlebt" definesParis by details; yet such details must be put in context. A tunic by itself mightmean little to the fashion-conscious, but when combined with a certain shawl,the owner is a trendsetter such as the much-admired Josephine Beauhamais.Conversely, wearing the shawl past its fashionable life marks the wearer asilliterate in the language of fashion (IV. 2: 102-03). When describing the waresin a shop, Helmina points out how the language of fashion works preciselythrough the tension between details and context. She writes, "Jeder Schaal,jedes Stück Zeug, jedes Paar Handschuh gewann durch die Art, mit der man esaufgehängt, und durch den Farbenkontrast und die Accessorien, die man ihmzur Seite gestellt hatte" (11. 2: 68). Helmina employs the same juxtapositionwhen describing architectural, social and political aspects of Paris. The newParis, for example, only emerges in comparison to what had been before: "Ichbetrachte nie das alte Paris neben dem neuem ohne den Unterschied des jetzi-gen Geistes der Nation, von dem, der dem Zeitalter Ludwig XIV vorangieng,lebhaft zu empfinden. Dort in der alten Citee ist alles ängstlich, klein, dunkel,mit unzweckmäßigen Zierrathen überhäuft. Hier steht jeder Umriß in großenfreyen Zügen hingeworfen da" (I. 2: 112). This narrative device also servesHelmina when pointing to the diversity of Paris and its status as a world capital:"Hier sehen Sie Chineser, Mohren, Türken, Indianer, Engländer, Holländer aufden Schilden, römische und griechische Namen an den Straßen angeschlagen,und viele Straßen nach den berühmten Schriftstellem ihrer Nation benannt. Dieschmutzige Gasse dort heißt me Jean Jacques Rousseau, eine andre Diderot"(IV. 2: 63-64). The juxtaposition of France's famous son, Rousseau, with thesqualor of a small Paris alley points on the one hand to the humble begin-nings of Rousseau, but more importantly, to the new fashionable philosophiescreated by the accidental concurrence of a great philosophical mind with aspecific time and place. Overall, this assemblage of details allows the readersat home to imagine Paris in a variety of ways that are all correct. Helmina'srendering of Paris, thereby, opens up the modem city for creative imagination.

Finally, contrast, another important tool in the semiotic system employedby Helmina, is elevated to the correct method of analyzing the social and po-litical conditions in Paris, and implicitly, in the German towns where Franzö-sische Miscellen is read. Indeed, Helmina's narrative becomes most powerfulwhen she addresses the economic inequities of this post-Revolutionary andconsumer-driven city. She writes, "Noch mehr empörte mich der Anblick derTrafteurladen, Konditeurs- und Kuchenbäcker, die man unaufhörlich antraf,und wo Speise über Speise aufgehäuft lag, wo während die nackte zittemdeArmuth da vorüberschlich, die Menschen an vollen Tischen sassen und sichum nichts kümmerten, als um die Esswaren vor sich" (IV. 2: 65). In this in-


stance, the semiotic system of fashion is anchored in the tradition of late en-lightenment social criticism (Stierle 161). By taking sides, passionately speak-ing for prostitutes, the poor and dejected, Helmina, of course, lacks the cooldetachment that will become emblematic of the flâneur in the course of thenineteenth century. In contrast to these later flâneurs, her amblings aim to con-vey to her audience the promises and the failures of the French Revolution andhave didactic and political purposes. Ultimately, the stark economic contraston display in Paris allows Helmina to redefine the modem city as one stmc-tured by class and not gender differences. Erasing the differences betweenprostitutes and bourgeois women is part of this project as is highlighting theabject poverty of the lower classes.^'

By using the language of fashion, instead of the panorama for example,for viewing the city, Helmina opens the urban space, and the modem con-sciousness it engendered, to her female readers who were proficient in readingthis semiotic system. The language of fashion is dynamic and open and al-lows for creative imagination on the part of the writer and the reader. Fashion,while subjected to trends, is also expressed in highly individualized ways,and therefore allows for a highly individualized reading by the female narra-tor. Most importantly, fashion is by definition fleeting and impermanent, andgives expression to the fleeting nature of the modem city, and by implication,modemity. Serving as the underlying structure of Helmina's urban vignettes,the language of fashion allows the narrator to describe the city without requir-ing her to freeze the visual heterogeneity into a definitive master narrative.Precisely, the fluidity of her narration makes Helmina's urban descriptionsmodem to a contemporary reader.

Conclusion

Priscilla Ferguson writes that the flâneur first appeared in early-nineteenthcentury post-Revolutionary Paris when new urban practices were required.Flânerie responded to particular cultural and social conditions that allowedthe conception of the city simultaneously in terms of its parts and as a whole.The confusion wrought by relentless political and social transformation,the incertitude fostered by a changed and changing population all undermineda sense of the city as a cohesive whole and required a new consciousness tonarrate the connections among the parts (Ferguson 39). Helmina's choice torender Paris through its details responds precisely to such a sense of fragmen-tation. The language of fashion, therefore, provides readers with an estab-lished way to integrate parts into a unified whole without giving the semblanceof permanence. At any time, the parts may reassemble into a different realityas Helmina did with her textual fragments."*"

By assuming narrative authority and describing the city in a way thatwas open to women, Helmina's writing reveals that female spectatorship


was, indeed, possible at the beginning of the nineteenth century, and that fe-male authors found authentic ways of rendering the visual cityscape despiteprejudices against female literary agency.'" Gen Doy correctly notes that itis becoming ever more necessary to revise the commonly held belief thatwomen did not walk the city, evaluate art, or render their impressions in newliterary genres since such texts by women authors are increasingly coming tolight.'*̂

For her task, Helmina took advantage of the universal appeal of fashionto render Paris for her audience. Nothwithstanding Helmina's personal disin-,terest in fashion, the language of fashion opened the city space to Helmina'sfemale readers. While bourgeois gender ideology increasingly viewed menand women in complementary and exclusionary terms, and defined women asbelonging to the domestic sphere, imperatives of the consumer culture enticedthe very same middle-class women to leave their homes for a stroll through thegalleries and market halls. The language of fashion with its focus on the fleet-ing and the transient, on details and context, provided Helmina with a modemand universally accessible way of representing such urban spaces. The city inHelmina's report is no longer reproduced as encyclopedia, and not yet ren-dered in the language of an avant-garde trained in classical aesthetic discourse.Rather, Helmina's writing helped pave the way to the feuilleton: a genre thatsaw its birth in nineteenth-century Paris, is defined by its heterogeneity, itslack of scholarly discourse, and its attention to the fashionable.''̂

' See Irina Hundt for the most comprehensive biographical and bibliographical assess-ment of Chézy. Irina Hundt, '"Wäre ich besonnen, wäre ich nicht Helmina.' Helmina von Chézy(1783-1856)—Porträt einer Dichterin und Publizistin." Autorinnen des Vormärz. Ed. HelgaBrandes and Detlev Kopp. (Bielefeld: Aisthesis, 1997) 43-79. In her biography. Unvergessenes,Chézy describes how she had arrived in Paris only two years before to serve as a companion toMadame de Genlis. She came to the editorship through her relationship with Johann GottfriedSchweighäuser who had been offered the editorship first. Schweighäuser had already committedto a more lucrative assignment as a private tutor, and he offered Helmina as a replacement. Afterreading a selection of Helmina's texts, Cotta offered her this paid position. Helmina von Chézy.Unvergessenes. Denkwürdigkeiten aus dem Leben von Helmina von Chézy. Von ihr selbst erzählt.(Leipzig: Brockhaus, 1858) 227-28. For information on Friedrich Cotta, see Bernhard Fischer,Der Verleger Johann Friedrich Cotta. Chronologische Verlagsbibliographie 1898-1832. Aus denQuellen bearbeitet. Vol. 1. (Marbach/Munich: Saur, 2003).

^ Helmina frequently signed her articles in Französische Miscellen with her first namecreating thus a literary identity for herself that was unrelated to her father or her first husband.See Otrun Niethammer, Autobiographien von Frauen im 18. Jahrhundert. (Tübingen: FranckeVerlag, 2000) 235-54.

' The mission Statement announced that the journal would cover, "interessante Gegen-stände, Literatur, Industrie, Kunst, Wissenschaft, Gesetze, Polizei, Privatnotizen über berühmtePersonen, allgemeine Uebersichten von grossen Gegenständen, [und] öffentliche Anstalten."Französische Miscellen, 1.3 (1803) 192. After Helmina's removal from the position as editor-in-chief, the journal increased its reporting on scientific and technological innovation and cutback on political and cultural reporting.

'' These urban vignettes are modeled on Louis-Sébastian Mercier's famous Tableau deParis (first published in 1781 and translated into German in 1783/84). Louis-Sébastian Mercier,


Tableau de Paris. [1782-88]. (Geneva: Slatkine Reprints, 1979). Helmina included a translationof Mercier, "Die französischen Denkmäler," in Französische Miscellen, 4.1 ( 1803) 12-14.

' This three-day ramble is most likely fictional as a comparison with a later text, Lebenund Kunst in Paris seit Napoleon dem Ersten, reveals where parts of this article series are reusedin a different context. Helmina von Hastfer [Chézy, Helmina von], Leben und Kunst in Paris seitNapoleon dem Ersten. 2 vols. (Weimar: Landes-Industrie-Comptoir, 1805) II: 111-25.

' As a theoretical construct, flânerie is much indebted to the work of Walter Benjaminand his reading of Baudelaire and Franz Hessel. The flâneur, who thrives on the streets of Paris,derives aesthetic meaning from the teeming crowds while remaining aloof from them. Like ascientist, the flâneur collects oberservations for his study of modem life. See Walter Benjamin,"Der Flaneur," Gesammelte Schriften. Werkausgabe. (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1980) 1.2:538. For a comprehensive summary, see Keith Tester: "The flaneur is the secret spectator of thespectacle of the spaces and places of the city. Consequently, flânerie can, after Baudelaire, beunderstood as the activity of the sovereign spectator going about the city in order to find thethings which will occupy his gaze and thus complete his otherwise incomplete identity; satisfyhis otherwise dissatisfied existence; replace the sense of bereavement with a sense of life." KeithTester, "Introduction." The Elaneur. Ed. Keith Tester. (London: Routlege, 1994) 7.

'Deborah L. Parson, Streetwalking the Metropolis. (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2000) 17.' The avant-garde flâneur was created in the writings of Baudelaire who "gave expres-

sion to the aestheticist vision of innovative artists and poets." Mary Gluck, "The Flâneur andthe Aesthetic Appropriation of Urban Culture in Mid-19th-century Paris." Theory, Culture &Society 20.5 (2003) 54.

' For a discussion of gender and flânerie, see Janet Wolff, "The Artist and the Flaneur:Rodin, Rilke and Gwen John in Paris." The Elaneur. Ed. Keith Tester. (London: Routlege, 1994)111-37.

'"Anke Gleber comments dryly that "the female flâneur has not been noted as an imagethat the canonical authors of flânerie would expect to encounter in the streets, nor as a conceptthat would give the female flâneur a figure and a term of her own." Anke Gleber, The Art ofTaking a Walk. Elänerie, Literature, and Eilm in Weimar Culture. (Princeton: Princeton UP,1999) 172.

' ' Johanna Schopenhauer, for example, remembers the busy streets of Paris teeming withwomen. "Selbst wohlgekleidete Frauen und Mädchen laufen behende über ungangbar schei-nende Stellen hin, und selten verrät der Saum des Kleides, der feine weiße Strumpf, der netteSchuh, welche Wege sie zu überwinden gehabt haben." Johanna Schopenhauer, Promenadenunter südlicher Sonne. Die Reise durch Erankreich 1804 [1825]. Ed. Gabriele Habinger. (Vi-enna: Promedia, 1993) 7.

'^Compare Pascoe's analysis of the carriage as a particularly female way of insertingherself into the cityscape. Judith Pascoe, Romantic Theatricality. Gender, Poetry, and Spectator-ship. (Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1997) 133; 148-62.

''Judith Pascoe made the same observation for London women (131-32).'" Chryssoula Kambas emphasizes the confessional nature of the early autobiography,

Aurikeln. It was written by a returned (figuratively and metaphorically) Chézy to explain her lifechoices to a conservative German public. Chryssoula Kambas, "Zwischen Kosmopolitismus undNation. Helmina von Chézy als Pariser Chronistin." Autobiographien von Erauen. Beiträge zuihrer Geschichte. Ed. Magdalene Heuser. (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1996) 248,250-51. The passageabove concludes with Chézy's ritualistic rejection of her earlier life style. "Wenn ich an irgendeine Zeit meines Lebens mit heißem Schmerz über die in Nichtigkeiten und Wahn verscherztenTage zurückdenke, so ist es jenes Jahr, wo meine wissenschaftliche und poetische Ausbildung soeinseitig betrieben wurde, und wo ich so falsche Lebensansichten gewann. Ich vermeinte, stetsnur der Poesie leben zu müssen, nie Gattin und Mutter werden zu sollen, weil die Ausübunghäuslicher Pflichten mir drückend und gemein erschien." Helmina von Chézy, geb. Freyin vonKlencke, Aurikeln. Eine Blumengabe von deutschen Händen. (Berlin: Duncker und Humblot,1818) 140-41.

" Priscilla Parkhurst Ferguson, "The flaneur on and off the streets of Paris." The Elaneur.Ed. Keith Tester. (London: Routlege, 1994) 26. See also Parson 17.

"Pascoe insists that driving must be viewed as a possible way for women to experiencethe city. Nevertheless, she cautions, "However useful a compromise the carriage was for females


desiring unimpeded movement, it was in the end a compromise and not at all the same thing asstriding about unencased by a mechanical contraption and unaccompanied by driver and horse"(162). Madame L.'s and Helmina's insistence on driving themselves certainly gives expressionto a desire to control their access to the city.

"See Gesammelte Schriften, V. I: 55. Benjamin also observed, "Die Liebe zur Prostitu-ierten ist die Apotheose der Einfühlung in die Ware," (V. I: 637).

'* Karlheinz Stierle writes that sentimental and moralizing descriptions of the city werepopular in the beginning of the nineteenth century when reform-minded authors described thecity with the stated desire to improve political and economic inequities and the moral fabric ofParis: "Der Perspektivismus der moralischen Darstellung, wie er erstmals in Montaignes Essayexemplarisch zur Geltung kommt, hat im 18. Jahrhundert insbesondere in England neue Formender Darstellung und Reflexion inspiriert, die in Frankreich gleichfalls ihren Wiederhall fan-den. Es sind die moralistischen Wochenschriften eines Addison oder Steele, der Spectator oderTattier, in denen ein warmherziger Beobachter der gegenwärtigen Welt das Gespräch mit seinemLeser aufnimmt und auch dessen Erfahrung zu Wort kommen läßt. Gerade die Paris-Darstellunggreift auf diese Darstellungsfonn, die in Frankreich sogleich Aufnahme und Nachahmung fand,zurück." Karlheinz Stierle. Der Mythos von Paris. Zeichen und Bewusstsein der Stadt. (Munich:Hanser, 1993) 162.

" A prostitute described in this context is "groß und schlank, von zartem Gliederbau undstittsamen Anstand. Ihre Züge hatten etwas unaussprechlich Sanftes und Anziehendes" (Franzö-sische Miscellen 11. 3: 158).

^̂ While the streetwalkers are portrayed as victims, Helmina views upper-class courtesansas a driving force behind new styles and fashions. These "unterhaltende Mädchen," she writes,often set the tone in fashion as they invent and popularize new styles that will be imitated bytheir virtuous sisters (Französische Miscellen II. 3: 157). This comment reminds the reader thatfashion, like prostitution, is intimately connected to money and sexuality, and that prostitutesshape the appearance of the city.

'̂ This comment of Helmina's is interesting, as it is commonly believed that France underNapoleon curbed the rights of French women and relegated them to the domestic sphere. See JoanLandes, Visualizing the Nation: Gender, Representation, and Revolution on Eighteenth-CenturyFrance. (Ithaca: Cornell UP, 2001). However, Helmina's description points to the fact thatthis relegation was uneven and contested. See also Gen Doy, Women and Visual Culture inNineteenth-Century France, 1800-1852. (London: Leicester UP, 1998) 20-71.

^^The Place de la Révolution (today Place de la Concorde) is the largest and mostfamous square in Paris. It marks the intersection of two principal axis: the East-West axisconnects the Tuilerie Gardens and the Champs Elysées, the North-South axis extends theRue Royale across the Seine. During the revolution, it was the site of the king and queen'sexecution. For an architectural history of the square, see Ulrike Schuster, Stadtutopien und¡dealstadtkonzepte des 18. Und ¡9. Jahrhunderts am Beispiel der Großstadt Paris. (Weimar:VDG, 2003), in particular chapter 9.1 "Von der Place Louis XVI zur Place de la Révolution"(115-21).

^̂ Helmina frequently uses the word "gefesselt" to indicate rapt attention, e.g. "Die Auf-merksamkeit des Publikums war ganz gefesselt," Französische Miscellen, IV. 2: 80. The wordchoice íjíigefesselt does, however, indicate a paradoxical convergence of helplessness and powerthat allows Helmina to enjoy the urban spectacle 'against her will.' I am grateful to KarinSchutjer for pointing out this aspect to me. As Peter Pfeiffer pointed out, the scene also recallsUlysses' desire to hear the sirens' song while tied to the mast of his boat. While Helmina had readthe classics, there is no other indication in the text that this was the image she intended. How-ever, the image again points to the intersection of pleasure and danger that is very apparent inHelmina's bold step into the center of this city square.

2" Johann Wilhelm von Archenholtz, Engtand und Italien. [1787]. (Karlsruhe: Chr. G.Schmieder, 1791). Friedrich Nicolai, Beschreibung einer Reise durch Deutschland und dieSchweiz im Jahre 1781. Nebst Bemerkungen über Gelehrsamkeit, Industrie, Religion und Sitten.Mit Rom. Kaiserl. und königt. Preuß. Churhrandenb. aüergnädigsten Freiheiten. (Berlin andStettin: Nicolai, 1783-1795).

'̂ Susanne Hauser, Der Blick auf die Stadt. Semiotische Untersuchungen zur literarischenWahrnehmung bis 1910. (Berlin: Dietrich Reimer, 1990) 92.


^'Rüdiger Severin, Spuren des Flaneurs in deutschsprachiger Prosa. (Frankfurt am Main:Peter Lang, 1988) 24. Consider also Johanna Schopenhauer who was influenced by Mercier inthe presentation of her own descriptions of Paris as drawing. In Promenaden unter südlicherSonne, she writes, "so versuche ich denn jetzt, was ich früher nicht untemehmen mochte, indemich, wenngleich nur mit leichten, crayonartigen Zügen, ein skizzenhaftes Bild von Paris ent-werfe, wie es mir damals erschien" (2).

"Mercier claims to have written his tableau with his legs. "J'ai tant couru pour faire leTableau de Paris, que je puis dire l'avoir fait avec mes jambs; aussi ai-je appris à marcher surle pave de la Capitale, d'une maniere leste, vive & prompte. C'est un secret qu'il faut posséderpour tout voir." (Mercier, XI: 229).

*̂ For a description of the panorama, see Stephan Oettermann, The Panorama. History ofa Mass Medium. (New York: Zone, 1997).

'̂ "Meine Freundin führte mich an das Ufer der Seine, wo ich seines Anblicks in seinerganzen Größe genoß. Es ist der Tempel des Mars, jenseits des Stroms, zu seinen beyden Seitenliegt eine schöne Waldung, welche sich bis an das Ufer erstreckt. Dies ist das Invalidenhaus... .Ein Meisterstück von französischer Bauart" (Französische Miscellen, I. 2: 107). The passagecontinues with the labeling of famous buildings and an explanation of their significance.

^"See Dryl Ogden, The Language of the Eyes. Science, Sexuality, and Female Vision inEnglish Literature and Culture, 1690-1927. (Albany: SUNY P, 2005) 6-7; 75-81. Ogden, bas-ing his analysis on Evelyn Fox Keller and John Berger, claims that visuality became connotedmasculine in the eighteenth century when the paradigm was inscribed that men looked whilewomen were being looked at. In particular the telescope and the microscope became tools of atechnologically enhanced way of seeing that were linked to empirical science and, ultimately,to masculinity.

' ' Many contemporaries commented on the disorienting experience the panorama offeredat the beginning of the nineteenth century (Oettermann 12-13). In "Das Paris des Second Em-pire bei Baudelaire," Walter Benjamin, too, noticed the disorienting sensation of seeing withouthearing (I. 2: 539-40). A contemporary of Helmina's (J.A. Eberhard) wrote in his Handbuchder Ästhetik (1807), " . . . die öde Todesstille und die erstorbene Bewegungslosigkeit stoßen michdaraus zurück, tch schwanke zwischen Wirklichkeit und NichtWirklichkeit, zwischen Natur undUnnatur, zwischen Wahrheit und Schein. Meine Gedanken, meine Lebensgeister erhalten eineschwingende, hin und her gestoßene, schaukelnde Bewegung, die eben so wirkt, wie das Her-umdrehen im Kreise und das Schwanken des Schiffs. Und so erkläre ich mir den Schwindelund die Uebelkeit, die den unverwandten Anschauer des Panorama überfallt." Quoted in HeinzBuddenmeier, Panorama, Diorama, Photographie. Entstehung und Wirkung neuer Medien im19. Jahrhundert. (Munich: Fink, 1970) 175.

^̂ A phantasmagoria is defined as "An optical effect produced by a magic lantern. Thefigures are painted in transparent colors, and all the rest of the glass is opaque black. The screen isbetween the spectators and the instrument, and the figures are often made to appear as in motion,or to merge into one another." "Webster's Dictionary, 13 ed.," Bibliomania, February 6, 2006,<http://www.bibliomania.eom/2/3/frameset.html>.

" During her time in Paris, Helmina belonged to the Romantic circle around Friedrichand Dorothea Schlegel, even sharing an apartment with the Schlegels. Between 1802-04, sheembraced Romantic Universalpoesie with its focus on the fragmentary and contributed to Schle-gel's joumal Europa. Unvergessenes I: 295-96; 306.

'••This way of seeing the city is certainly based on Mercier's Tableau de Paris. He, too,constructed the entirety of the city through its individual parts. See Karlheinz Stierle: "AusKontrasten soll die Augenblicksphysiognomie der großen Stadt entstehen. Die Konzeption derStadt als Ausdruck der gesteigerten Widersprüchlichkeit der Kulturbewegung selbst wird zumDarstellungsmittel, zum konstruktiven Prinzip" (107).

' ' Paris was famous for its lack of representative city gates. Both Voltaire and Rousseaureported that the city looked shabby and poor on their approaches (Schuster 67-68). See alsoSchopenhauer who described her approach to Paris in words similar to Helmina's (3-4).

''Purdy, Daniel. The Tyranny of Elegance. Consumer Cosmopolitanism in the Era ofGoethe. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1998) 34.

•" Wilhelm von Chézy, "Aus dem Leben einer deutschen Dichterin," Morgenblatt für ge-bildete Stände 57 (1857) 1227.


'* Johann Christian Hüttner was famous through his voyage to the court of Chinese em-peror Chien-long in 1793/94 as part of a 100-member delegation under the leadership of the Earlof Macartney sent by King George III. Hüttner published his impressions as Nachricht von derBrittischen Gesandtschaftsreise durch China und einen Theil der Tartarei in 1797. The book hasbeen republished as Johann Christian Hüttner, Nachricht von der britischen Gesandtschaftsreisenach China 1792-94. Ed. Sabine Dabringhaus. (Sigmaringen: Jan Thorbecke, 1996).

''See Stierle on Etienne Jouys Hermite de la Chaussee d'Antin, a book that focuses on amoralizing description of Pads. The author describes a visit to the insane asylum in Chrenton in1812. Unlike Mercier, he does not emphasize what is bizarre or foreign in the inmates; rather hefocuses on the commonalities between reader and inmates to create empathy with the lot of theunfortunate patients (167-69).

^ Helmina reused texts she had written for Französische Miscellen for her later bookLeben und Kunst seit Napoleon dem Ersten. There she placed these earlier text fragments intoentirely different contexts.

*' Also see Debora Epstein Nord, Walking the Victorian Streets: Woman, Spectatorship,and the City. (Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1995). Nord traces the existence of the flâneuse later in thenineteenth century.

''̂ She writes, "In attempting to construct a language to express their own [visual] pleasurein a conscious way, the women [critics] demonstrate that they are not subjects totally formed bypre-existing discourses and texts but are engaging as conscious agents with discourses of art tochange the viewing positions and language that are available to them" (Doy 153).

"' In her study of the feuilleton, Ruth Jakoby defined the genre as follows: "Wir verstehenalso unter Feuilleton, dies sei abschliessend noch einmal betont, sowohl die Gesamtheit dessen,was im Rez-de-chausée des Journal des Débats veröffentlicht wurde, als auch alle Buchbespre-chungen, Miszellen etc., die sich unter der Rubrik "variétés" im oberen Teil der Zeitung zwischenpolitischen Nachrichten befinden." Ruth Jakoby, Das Feuilleton des Journal des Débats von1814-1830. (Tübingen: Gunter Narr, 1988) 11.

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