SOURCE: "Decadent Queen," in The Times Literary Supplement, No. 4813, June 30, 1995, pp. 5-6.

In the following essay, Showalter discusses the dominant themes in Rachilde's works.

In "Grape-Gatherers of Sodom", a remarkable story about the genesis of homosexuality published in 1894, the French writer Rachilde displayed the perverse tastes and sensuous prose style that had won her the nickname "Mademoiselle Baudelaire". Out of the walled town of Sodom comes a procession of male grape-pickers led by a stern patriarch. As they rest in the vineyard, the men are approached by a naked girl, her breasts burned black by the sun, who seductively twines about their sleeping bodies. She is one of the wives and daughters who have been condemned as temptresses by the priests, and driven into the desert. "I am thirsty", the woman cries, and the men look knowingly at one another: "Oh yes! It was evident to them all...