Georges de Peyrebrune’s Victoire la Rouge, published in 1883, tells the story of a farm maid, who is repeatedly shunned by her rural community because of her three illegitimate pregnancies. Although it was generally well received by the French press, Peyrebrune’s depiction of illegitimate motherhood and infanticide in an explicit writing style sparked controversy. Victoire la Rouge, with its portrayal of motherhood as a violence exerted onto a woman’s body and consciousness, presents a powerful counter-narrative to contemporary discourses that tended to idealize and naturalize motherhood. The novel also scandalized critics because of its appropriation of a naturalist writing mode, considered unsuitable for a woman writer. This article explores how Peyrebrune responded to the public debates around the 1804 law on paternity recognition by eliciting the reader’s sympathy for a working-class woman excluded from her community for showing signs of her victimization at the hands of men and left with no possibility of obtaining justice. In doing so, it will both demonstrate the novel’s engagement with a wide range of social and literary discourses on motherhood and highlight its significance as an example of a woman writer reclaiming the right to intervene in the public sphere through aesthetic means.
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