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Military Mates: From Revolutionary Fraternity to Napoleonic Intimacy in the Memoirs of Sergeant Faucheur
Author(s) -
Martin Brian Joseph
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
journal for eighteenth‐century studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.129
H-Index - 11
eISSN - 1754-0208
pISSN - 1754-0194
DOI - 10.1111/1754-0208.12569
Subject(s) - memoir , fraternity , military service , masculinity , human sexuality , gender studies , history , ancient history , sociology , law , political science , art history , archaeology
The Souvenirs de campagne du Sergent Faucheur recount Narcisse Faucheur's service in Napoleon's armies from 1812 to 1814. Like the memoirs of Sergeant Bourgogne, Faucheur's memoirs provide a moving account of the suffering and survival of Napoleonic soldiers, whose friendships among army foragers, regimental mentors, hometown compatriots and post‐war veterans represent the legacy of Revolutionary fraternité in the ranks of the Grande Armée. Long before nineteenth‐century discourses on ‘homosexuality’ or twentieth‐century debates on ‘gays in the military’, Faucheur's memoirs demonstrate that late eighteenth‐century soldiers shared a range of homosocial and homoerotic intimacies that challenged heteronormative conceptions of gender, sexuality and military masculinity.