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Genes and the Bioimaginary Science Spectacle Culture
Deborah Lynn Steinberg Digital Instant Download
Author(s): Deborah Lynn Steinberg
ISBN(s): 9781409462552, 1409462552
Edition: New edition
File Details: PDF, 2.65 MB
Year: 2015
Language: english
Genes and the Bioimaginary
This page has been left blank intentionally
Genes and the Bioimaginary
Science, Spectacle, Culture

Deborah Lynn Steinberg

University of Warwick, UK
© Deborah Lynn Steinberg 2015

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or
otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.

Deborah Lynn Steinberg has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act,
1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

Published by
Ashgate Publishing Limited Ashgate Publishing Company
Wey Court East 110 Cherry Street
Union Road Suite 3-1
Farnham Burlington, VT 05401-3818
Surrey, GU9 7PT USA
England

www.ashgate.com

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

Steinberg, Deborah Lynn.
Genes and the bioimaginary : science, spectacle, culture / by Deborah Lynn Steinberg.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4094-6255-2 (hardback) – ISBN 978-1-4094-6256-9 (ebook) –
ISBN 978-1-4094-6257-6 (epub) 1. Human genetics–Social aspects. I. Title.

QH438.7.S725 2015
304.5–dc23
2014042725
ISBN 9781409462552 (hbk)
ISBN 9781409462569 (ebk – PDF)
ISBN 9781409462576 (ebk – ePUB)
 Contents

Acknowledgementsvii

introduction1

1 Languages of risk: Genetic encryptions of the Female Body 9

2 metaphor, materiality and the Gene 25

3 Genes and the (Post)racial imaginary 51

4 monster X: on Gays, Genes, mothers and mad scientists 67

5 trace: on Genes and Crime 91

6 Beggars and Choosers: Genes and the neoliberal subject 111

7 seeking the Jew’s Gene: science, spectacle, redemption 129

8 Between Biology and Culture – What is ‘real’ about Genes? 151

Bibliography167
Index187
This page has been left blank intentionally
 Acknowledgements

i owe a considerable debt of gratitude to many for their support of this book.
thank you to: margaret archer; avtar Brah; mariette Claire; ron davis; Gillian
einstein; tony elger; debbie epstein; elizabeth ettorre; sander Gilman;
Dorothy Sandler-Glick; Chris Griffin; Samantha Halliday; Gillian Lewondo
Hundt; Richard Johnson; Mary Jane Kehily; Beau Lamour; Nina Lykke;
Maureen McNeil; Jane Monger; Lyndsey Moon; Stuart Murray; Ian Proctor;
Eleni Prodromou; Rayna Rapp; Peter Redman; Barbara Katz Rothman; Rivanne
sandler; sari simkins; margrit shildrick; Gershon silins; meg stacey (now, sadly
passed away); Maxine Steinberg; Irwin Steinberg; Lucy Suchman; Jonny Wallis;
and Simon Williams.
I would like to thank the Centre for Women’s and Gender Studies, University
of Toronto where I was based as a Visiting Professor in 2006; participants
and organisers of the Technoscience Salon, University of Toronto; Michelle
Murphy, Brian Beaton and participants in the Biopolitics Workshop, University
of toronto (where i was able to develop my early ideas for Chapter 7 on
phantasmatics and the search for the Jew’s gene); Gillian Lewondo Hundt,
guest hosts and participants in our esrC seminar series ‘Cultures of the Gene:
Discourses, Dialogues, Debates’; Dorothy Sandler-Glick and participants of her
Toronto Salon; colleagues at the Open University, Department of Sociology
and the ESRC seminar series organised by Simon Williams (where I presented
early versions of Chapter 6); The post-CCCS Narrative Group (in which I was
able to extend and refine the methodological approaches that inform much
of this book); elizabeth ettorre and participants in the esrC seminar series
on ‘The New Politics of Reproduction’ and Nina Lykke and participants in
the ‘Feminist Research Conference: Gender Genes and European Biopolitics.’
(where I presented work in progress on moral signification and the ‘gay gene’
that became Chapter 4); colleagues in the Department of Sociology at Warwick
University who attended the (trial by fire) Department Research Seminar –
especially Margaret Archer, Tony Elger and Ian Proctor (where I presented early
ideas that became Chapter 3 on materiality, metaphor and the gene) and also
colleagues who attended the sociology department annual debate between
myself and Sander Gilman (and where I presented the first version of what
became Chapter 8 on what is ‘real’ about genes). Thanks also to everyone who
participated in the vote on the title. I would also like to thank my editor, Neil
Jordan at Ashgate.
 Genes and the Bioimaginary

I owe particular gratitude to the ‘Birmingham School’ – the Centre for

Contemporary Cultural Studies, University of Birmingham UK, ignominiously
closed down by the University in 2002 – which I had the great good fortune
to join in the formative years of my intellectual journey. I hope that this book
helps keep that tradition moving forward and does justice to the friends and
colleagues from the Centre that have played such a central role in my own love
of this work.

viii
 Introduction

We are living in the age of the gene. there is no doubt that the gene, once the
preserve, as object and artefact, of primarily scientific preoccupation, has now
powerfully and pervasively infiltrated the full fabric of contemporary life. The
language of genetics pervades our culture as the era of genetic engineering
capabilities progresses through its fifth decade, and has heralded a revolution,
not only in the arenas of biotechnology and medicine, but also across politics,
popular culture, political economy and everyday vernacular.
since the 1970s, developments in recombinant genetics have appeared at
pace, heralding radical transformations in medical, industrial and agricultural
practices; in regulatory relations of law, commerce and global development; and
in commonsense understandings of risk, disease, kinship, citizenship and identity.
Genetic science has posed unprecedented bioethical and regulatory challenges
surrounding the meanings of intellectual property, social utility and risk. it has
raised new questions and significant concerns about the powers of biomedicine
and commercial interests vis-à-vis non-professionals, including patients and the
general public. it has provoked anxieties and invited aspirations, has altered terms
of reference and debate on race, gender, class and sexuality, and has presaged a
radically reconfigured climate for reproductive politics and practice.
Perhaps most importantly, the possibilities projected onto the understanding
of genes are imbricated not only in novel scientific and medical practices, but
also in processes of signification and grand narrative. As this book will explore,
the emergence of the gene in and as contemporary commonsense accrues from
a complex authorship in which the authoritative accounts of scientific research
intersect with the range of representational media – literary, press, digital, televisual
and cinematic, lay and professional. the gene is thus, at one and the same time,
a site of practice and of projective identification, configured as a tool and also as
a symbol.
this book represents the culmination of over a decade and a half of
observation and critical assessment of the dramatic rise and cultural apotheosis of
the gene. The book traces not only the epochal ‘genetification’ of the culture but
is also an intellectual journey that has aimed to make sense – through a focused
examination of the rise and sedimentation of the gene – of the complex and
intersectional relationship between science and culture. At the heart of this book
are two interlinked questions. The first concerns the paradigmatic transformations
heralded in the wake of the ‘genetics revolution’. And second, what are the
 Genes and the Bioimaginary

means by which we can gain critical purchase not only on the conditions and
consequences of a particular science, but on its projective seductions, the terms
of its persuasion, and the dilemmas and anxieties provoked in its wake?
More specifically, this book explores the pervasive and progressive cultural
purchase of genetic discourse and the articulations of the gene between biological
and cultural imaginaries. It forges a critical meditation not only on the epistemic,
but also on the affective and phantasmatic dimensions of genes and genetics. It
explores the ways in which the gene has emerged not only at the interstices of
science and culture, but also as a product of science as culture. In other words,
this book explores genes and genetic discourse as sites of a culture industry,
and explores science as a site of cultural authorship. The book thus interrogates
and challenges the notion that culture – and cultural questions such as feeling,
spectacle, discourse, persuasion – is outside and epiphenomenal to the scientific
enterprise. It forges an alternative understanding in which the privileging of
scientific discourse is, itself, a cultural phenomenon.
The age of genes has witnessed profound transformations in the political,
economic and regulatory dimensions of science, in the interface of technology,
digitalisation and industrial practice, and, as I suggested above, in understandings
of bodies and identities, health and illness, kinship and ethics. Taking a case-study
approach and drawing on an interdisciplinary array of critical analytic tools – drawn
from semiotics, cultural psychoanalysis, narrative studies, and feminist, media and
cultural theory – this book explores the rise of the gene in three respects: i) as a
site of knowledge production crossing boundaries between the clinical-scientific
and the popular; ii) as a gateway technology and locus of transforming bioethical
values and modes of bodily governance; and iii) as site of spectacle, projective
fantasy and attachment.

Science, Spectacle and Desire

Central to this book are three methodological questions: First, by what means do
we gain purchase on the power relations and seductions of biomedical discourse?
Second, what are the processes we aim to theorise in order to explain the forms
biopower may take and the knowledge economies through which the products and
processes of biomedical practice are forged, regulated, reproduced (or resisted)?
Third, what critical tools enable us to grasp both the anxieties and attractions that
may attach to some sciences and not others?

Episteme

This book begins from the proposition that the spectacle of science is not
simply an epiphenomenal artefact, tacked on to ‘real science’, but is, rather,
2
 Introduction

part of the epistemic core of scientific cultures and scientific work. Thus,
exploration of moments and contexts in which spectacle and science explicitly
come together tells us something, indeed something crucial, about both. My
concern here is with the dialogic relations between science and signification as
they consolidate around the gene. The book aims to theorise the intersections
of what Foucault (1966) termed the episteme (the conditions of possibility of
knowledge), affective attachment (the conditions of knowledge’s plausibility)
and phantasmatic projection (the meta-narrational, symbolic investments that
drive or accrue to scientific enterprises). I am interested in genetics as discourse
and representation as well as practice.
To this end, the individual chapters of this book examine points of nexus
between science and popular culture. Each chapter is organised around both
substantive and methodological questions, offering differing critical vantage
points from which to interrogate the interpretive-imperative field of genes.
In turn, the juxtaposition of these cases suggests a wider gestalt, the broader
bioimaginary, the underlying biopolitical and bioethical sensibilities of genes.
The first half of the book is concerned with the genetic episteme in the original
Foucauldian sense: that is as noted above, with the conditions of possibility (and
consequences) of knowledge. Thus, Chapter 1 examines questions of biopower
and gendered medico-morality in the context of reproductive (diagnostic)
genetics. Chapters 2 and 3 draw on Sontag’s insights concerning language
and power in their examination of the dominant metaphors of genes and in
particular in their (post)racial narrations and symbolic economies. Chapter 4
turns to modes of popular signification as they play out over the multi-layered
moral terrains of gays, genes and governance. In Chapter 5, the book turns to
its second consideration: the conditions of plausibility of knowledge. Beginning
with the example of crime and justice, subsequent chapters progressively unpack
the affective, seductive and phantasmatic dimensions of genes, examining not
only the politics, but the persuasion of genes, their aesthetics, their purchase on
the terrains of neoliberal ethics (Chapter 6), cultural identity (Chapter 7), what
is ‘real’ (Chapter 8).
Each chapter pursues a distinctive methodology. In so doing, each provides
a focused, parallel meditation on the purchase of particular critical concepts on
the intersectional terrains of science and culture. The critical tools deployed in
this book draw from social semiotics, film studies, cultural psychoanalysis and
traditions of narrative and discourse analysis. The case studies range across
biomedical texts, to popular spectacle and cross genres of scientific peer review,
science reportage, documentary film, television drama and literary fiction. Taken
together, these examples provide a powerful evocation of the wider cultural
field of genes, providing a multivalent interrogation of contemporary late-
modern meta-narratives as they have coalesced around the gene. These include
biopower and subjectivity, capital and modes of bodily governance, ‘risk society’,
3
 Genes and the Bioimaginary

the ‘turn’ to extremity, the primacy of spectacle and the postmodern dispersal
of identity. Thus the socio-cultural, biopolitical and bioethical dimensions of
genes articulate with the power of spectacle and projection and the cultural
negotiations that constitute genetic capital. In this context, the book offers a
significantly reworked paradigm for understanding the epistemic foundations
of science. Here knowledge is regarded not as a purely (or even primarily)
cognitive formation, artefact, or praxis, but also as a locus and effect of feeling,
of attachment or repudiation, of aspiration, of revulsion. More specifically,
this book argues that knowledge, among the many things that it may be said
to constitute, is also a persuasion. It is a terrain of affect, of standpoint. To
extrapolate from Eve Sedgwick (1993),1 knowledge has tendencies.
In its ‘turn to affect’, the book offers a reworked and expansive interpretation
of episteme, arguing that the conditions of possibility of knowledge emerge
not only from the articulations of capillary and convergent power, but also
from the conditions of its plausibility. Hence the foundational importance of
genes as sites, not only of practice and authoritative knowledge, but also of
discourse and spectacle, of feeling and desire. And hence the consideration of
the authorial, as well as authoritative relations of science – of its role, in other
words, in and as a culture industry.

Social Semiotics and the Gaze

In addition to its reworked notion of episteme, this book takes up a number

of critical media-cultural theoretical concepts to unpack the gene as a site of
signification. These include the notions commonsense (the common or presumed
assumptions or ‘truisms’ of a culture), and discourse, referring not only to textual
modes of signification, but, following Foucauldian tradition, to the broader
relations knowledge-power that articulate in scientific practice, in its bodies of
knowledge and in the repertoires of meaning that emerge from and accrue to it.
The book is interested in both textual repertoires (language, metaphor, narrative)
and visual-generic conventions and aesthetics. It draws liberally on Mulvey’s
notion ‘the gaze’, to unpack the subject-object relations of the gene as spectacle.
Underpinning these approaches is a particular understanding of signification as
embedded in and constitutive of (as opposed to simply ‘representing’) the social

1 Sedgwick’s evocative use of the term ‘tendencies’ arose in her meditations on

sexuality politics and identity and shaped the underpinning (postmodern) epistemology
of queer studies. See also Arendt’s (1963) discussion in Eichmann in Jerusalem, of the
imperative freighting of knowledge and power and where she distinguishes between
what is overdetermined (a tendency or persuasion – in this case the totalitarian
regime-episteme of National Socialism) but not inevitable or totalising.
4
 Introduction

field. Thus, as I shall explore, the symbolic economies of the gene are imbricated
in the material field (the social conditions and social consequences) of genetics.

Media Ecology of Genes

Immersion is not usually a concept associated with media studies, other than
perhaps a study with an ethnographic element involving some form of embedding
in a specific field.2 And until the latter part of the production of this book, I did not
consider myself as ‘embedded’ either in the ethnographic sense or as per common
parlance in journalistic circles. And yet, embeddedness characterises both the
field and the methodological approaches of this book. Each chapter takes up an
immersive approach to its specific subject-matter, involving focused scrutiny and
exposure to categories of text across genres from textbooks and scientific articles,
popular texts, journalism and a widening range of visual and radio based media.
Serendipitous developments in digital media,3 moreover, dramatically filled out
these localised immersive case studies, highlighting (and leveraging) the symbolic
capital and purchase genes within a vast and infiltrating media ecology. This book
became progressively shaped by the development of opportunities within online
news outlets to tag and archive categories of reportage and particularly sites that
aggregate across digitalised sources (including news, magazines, scientific articles,
blogs and other web-based publications and indeed other aggregating sites).
Over the past two years in particular, I have experienced a degree of immersion
across genres and media that I could not have imagined when I began the project.
Thus, I was able to witness the occupation of genes not only in what Richard
Johnson (1986–7)4 termed a circuit of culture (the multi-nodal processes – spanning
production, consumption, representation and regulation – that produce genes as
objects of knowledge/meaning), but the ways in which the meaning circuit of
genes, is also, itself part of a globalising-insinuating and networked technology of
knowledge that both troubles and produces distinctions between truth and desire,
between knowledge and persuasion.

Fantasy/Phantasy

Finally, this book takes up an array of cultural psychoanalytic concepts to

interrogate the affective field of genes, that is, the terms of plausibility of genetic

2 Ann Gray’s (1992) ethnographic study of gender and video use in a domestic
setting takes an embedded vantage point on leisure and media consumption.
3 The iPad’s virtually seamless interface between email and Safari allowed me to
integrate into my reading practices system of archiving that could easily amass and
qualitatively catalogue an unprecedented volume and range of material.
4 See also Du Gay et al. (1997) and Miller et al. [The Glasgow Media Group] (1998).
5
 Genes and the Bioimaginary

knowledge. In particular, it aims to explore the inter-resonances of science,

spectacle and modes of desire, and to re-theorise the gene as an elaboration
not only of knowledge practices (scientific and popular) but, significantly, of
‘regimes of feeling’ and phantasmatic projection. Central to these regimes are
the interlinked discursive-psychoanalytic questions of fantasy and phantasy.
All of the case studies explored in this book take up modes of aspirational (or
repudiative) fantasy – that is, imaginative projections, articulated in narrative
form, of desired goods (or repudiated ills) that attach to genes and genetic
science. Such projections are, in turn, leveraged through modes of feeling that
speak to larger, more inchoate yearnings and anxieties – phantasy. This latter
question – the phantasmatic underpinnings of genes – cross over genre and
context, and as this book will explore, cement the inter-resonances of science
and popular culture, of knowledge and persuasion, and of genetification and
genetic governmentality. As we shall see, the gene is a point of considerable
phantasmatic elaboration, crossing terrains of agency (phantasies of action),
communality (of belonging) and (im)mortality (melancholia).
In this context, perhaps the most important mode of phantasy is what
I would term normotic phantasy. Here I draw on, but also significantly depart
from, Bollas’ (1987) description of ‘normotic illness’ – that is, the idealisation
and enactment of self as ‘pathologically normal’. Normotic illness, Bollas
suggested, is in part characterised by a totalising (compulsive) investment in
the normative. Extrapolating from this, and taken as a cultural description,
normotic values and normotic phantasy might describe the invested repudiation
of what is subjective (feeling, the body) in favour of an idealised ultimate
rationality. As such, it can be suggested that normotic phantasy constitutes
the cultural “unconscious” or persuasion of modernity and modern science,5
with their principled claims of rational utilitarianism, objectivity and natural
law. The place of normotic phantasy in the context of genes, is a primary
theme of this book, and spans the discussion of diagnostic governmentality
(what Lemke (2004) has termed a government of genes) to the validation of the
Lemba as Jews to the social activism of The Innocence Project.

Critical Studies of Genes and Genetics

Despite the pervasive infiltration of genetic discourse and genetic practice

across the gamut of social and cultural life, critical explorations of the gene and

5 Or as some might argue more specifically, of scientism. See, for example,

Wieseltier’s (3 September 2013) distinction between a scientific and scientistic standpoint
on the humanities.
6
 Introduction

genetics from social and cultural standpoints6 have been relatively limited. This
may in part be due to the complexities of the science itself and the difficulties
that face the non-scientist in gaining critical purchase on communities and
practices of which they are not a part. Yet the profound cultural purchase of
genetics – a science that has sedimented into popular discourse than most
other scientific enterprises – means that it is not, and should not be regarded
as, a terrain limited only to scientific practitioners. There are, nevertheless, a
distinctive set of critical and intersectional literatures from which this book
takes its impetus. Studies about genes and genetics have tended to array into
four more or less distinct areas, though of course many of these texts have
crossover interests.
First are critical assessments which are focused on the impact of
recombinant genetics on citizenship, rights and social inequalities (e.g. Nelkin
1991; Spallone 1992; Tobach and Rosoff 1994; Fox Keller 2000; Ettorre 2002;
Thacker 2005; Sunder 2006). These texts tend to be particularly concerned
with the social conditions, institutional relations and social consequences of
genetics, particularly with respect to questions of gender, race, class, disability
and sexuality. These studies examine the impact of genetic practices on rights,
on social inclusion, on already marginalised groups, and on the larger terrains
of economic, political and social inequality.
A second and linked area of literature is concerned with genetic epistemologies
and embodiment. These texts tend to take up poststructuralist and postmodern
theoretical approaches and, as with the previous arena, are often strongly
located in or influenced by feminist epistemological critical standpoints (e.g.
Spanier 1995; Haraway 1997; Steinberg 1997; Katz Rothman 1999; Lemke 2004;
Franklin and Roberts 2006). A distinctive subset of this literature is particularly
concerned with questions of bioethics, bodily governance and law (Nelkin
1991; Spallone 1992; Shildrick 2005; Rose 2006; Sewell 2009).
Third are texts concerned with media, representation and the gene (e.g. Van
Dijck 1998; Turney 1998; Nelkin and Anker 2003; Haran et al. 2007). More
recent texts include Nelkin and Lindee’s (2004) focus on the iconography of
genes and Stacey’s 2010 examination of cinematic treatment of the gene. These
texts have been concerned with the modes through which genes and genetics
have entered the popular imagination and the key representational motifs of
genes across a range of contexts, particularly in visual representation.
Fourth are texts that offer speculative interrogations of genetics in terms
of scientific capabilities and futures. Books in this cluster, as distinct from
books particularly in clusters 1 and 2, tend to articulate powerful investments in

6 I am referring here to scholarly rather than journalistic or popularising texts, of

which there has been a steady, if also, given the extensive reach of genetic discourse,
comparatively modest output.
7
 Genes and the Bioimaginary

genetic futures (e.g. Jones 1994; Kitcher 1996; Winston 1997; Woolfson 2000;
Frank 2010), but also include more ambivalent and critical assessments (e.g.
Rose 2003; Sunder 2006).
Additionally, as Ettorre, Katz Rothman and I suggested in our introduction
to Feminism Confronts the Genome (2006), the apotheosis of the gene has
been ‘articulated on a conceptual terrain in which critical ideas concerning
reproductive rights, ecology, embodiment, bioethics, choice and agency
have been reshaped by feminism.’ (p. 134). Of particular note have been the
standpoint debates7 (which challenged conventional epistemological claims
about scientific objectivity) and the emergent postmodern turn in feminist
science studies to inter-subjective, affective and symbolic relations of science,8
of which genes are a salient case study.

A Convergence of Cultures

This book, then, aims to enter into a multi-stranded field of debate – informed
by an array of intellectual traditions and standpoints – and also to offer particular
distinction in a number of ways. Firstly, it aims to elaborate, both substantively
and methodologically, on the intersections of science and culture and on the
dramatic and pervasive purchase of genes and genetics. It aims to account not
only for the social conditions and consequences of genetics, but for their terms
of persuasion. It is interested not only in the impact and purchase of genes
across social and cultural contexts, but also in their plausibility as knowledge
and their power in inchoate terms, as objects of phantasy and attachment. And
finally, this book aims also to trace a personal interpretive journey, serendipitous,
even accidental, that happened to position me ringside, as a conscious witness
of the progressive and exponential genetification of culture.

7 For extended discussion of the distinct critical traditions and paradigms within
feminist studies of science, see, for example, Kirkup and Smith Keller (1992); Kirkup
et al. (2000) and Ettorre, Katz Rothman and Steinberg (2006a).
8 See, for example, the essays in Jordanova’s 1986 edited book Languages of Nature.
8
 Chapter 1
Languages of Risk: Genetic
Encryptions of the Female Body1
the new genetics marks the birth of a new kind of medicine. it heralds the most
comprehensive assault ever against disease and will have a profound impact
on each and every one of us, influencing what we eat and drink, where we live
and even the jobs and hobbies we pursue. as children we will know if we will
be at high risk in later life from diseases such as cancer and heart disease. as
prospective parents we [sic] will no longer face the anguish of a pregnancy that
may end in abortion if we are known carriers of defective genes. (illman, 1
march 1989)

if the biochemical basis for a genetic disease is known, it is usually possible to

isolate the offending gene. (Weatherall et al. 1986, p. 85, my emphasis)

Britain is moving Closer to having “three Parent” iVF Babies. (Lai, 28 June
2013, Slate)

mitochondrial transfer procedure could prevent mothers passing on devastating

genetic conditions to their children. (sample, 28 June 2013, Guardian)

iVF baby born using revolutionary genetic-screening process

next-generation sequencing could enable iVF clinics to determine the chances
of children developing diseases. (sample, 7 July 2013, Guardian)

Introduction

notions of genetic origins, genetic disease, genetic risk and genetic ‘self
ownership’2 have sedimented powerfully into both common vernacular and
the fabric of cultural persuasion, if not always into common practice. the

1 an earlier version of this chapter appeared under the same title in Women: A
Cultural Review 7(3), 1996.
2 this coinage appeared in the headline ‘angelina Jolie’s Genetic self-ownership
is the Future of medicine’ (reason.com, 15 may 2013) and reflected a widely validated
understanding that Jolie’s decision to undertake a prophylactic double mastectomy as a
response to her family history and particularly her diagnosis of carrying a BrCa gene.
 Genes and the Bioimaginary

currency of scientific and popular iconography of the gene – as geographical

terrain which can be mapped, traversed and transformed; as text which can be
read and (re)written and as ‘offending’ body which can be ‘isolated’, altered
or eliminated, has come to constitute not only a ‘new kind of medicine’, as
Illman, above, suggested in 1989, but a reconfigured language of reproductive
‘health’. This is a language inflected by converging currents concerning bodies
and ‘risk’ – one deriving from gendered discourses of risk, localised to the
properties of the female body, and the other deriving from what Lemke (2004)
has termed ‘genetic governmentality’. Indeed, the advent of in-vitro fertilisation
(IVF), specifically the capability of producing extra-corporeal embryos, and
the increasing proliferation of pre-implantation genetic diagnostic (screening)
technologies3 – both of which are premised on medical intervention on female
bodies – have produced languages of genetic risk as a specifically obstetric
preoccupation. In turn, and notwithstanding that ‘genetic risk’ or ‘bad genes’
can be ascribed to men as well as women, they have conscripted women’s bodies
as the primary locus of anxiety about ‘offending’ genes and yet, at the same
time, as the absent referent of a genetified reproductive imaginary.
The focus of this chapter is on the place and significance of reproductive
medicine as a foundational condition of possibility for the emergence of
human genetic science and transformed and genetified understandings
of health and illness. In its exploration of the convergence of genetic and
obstetric discourses of risk, this chapter makes three arguments. First, it
argues that current understandings of genetic risk, driven by but not limited
to reproductive medical contexts, derive in part from earlier, historically
constituted medical narratives of danger associated with female bodies,
specifically of women as dangerous bearers, carers and carriers. Secondly, it
argues that understandings of genetic risk are informed by a parallel trajectory
of genetic governmentality arising in part from the move from early eugenic
preoccupations with human ‘fitness’ and breeding to contemporary genetic
concerns about the care, cure and prevention of illness. Thirdly, it argues that
the convergence of these trajectories has constituted a gendered field of ethical
burden whose regulative and embodied effects are disproportionately borne
by women and yet, at the same time, where women are also, typically, displaced
subjects and absent referents.

See Steinberg (2014) for further discussion of genetic risk and its emergent calculus of
personal responsibility in the context of genetic diagnosis and cancer.
3 Such screening practices include methods of prenatal diagnosis (e.g.
amniocentesis), pre-implantation diagnosis (screening of embryos produced by in vitro
fertilisation) and genetic counselling and screening of adults.
10
 Languages of Risk

I will begin with a brief contextual discussion of reproductive medicine, and

specifically, the advent of in vitro fertilisation capabilities which constituted a
central precondition of human genetic research and its projective and concrete
applications in clinical medicine. I will then briefly set out Thomas Lemke’s
critical parsing of ‘risk’ in the context of genetics and his understanding of
‘genetic governmentality’, particularly his discussion of genetic diagnostics as
a ‘regime of equity’ which both displaces and discursively reconstitutes earlier
modes of social-categorical discrimination, but where, interestingly, he does
not discuss gender as one of those categories. I will then turn to the central
considerations of the chapter: the convergence of gendered and genetified
discourses of risk. In this context I will trace a number of thematic trajectories
through which modern medical discourse has, from its consolidation in the late
nineteenth century, conceptualised female sexuality and sexual-reproductive
organs as repositories in which danger, pollution and the transmission of
disease and moral degeneracy, in classed and racialised terms, are understood to
be immanent. Here, I will consider the constitution of women both as bodies
of risk and bodies at risk, with particular reference to obstetric, psychiatric and
eugenic medico-legal discourses in which the regulation of the maternal body
and the reproduction of ‘fit’ families emerge as interlinked logics. I will then
turn to the gene and consider the ways in which genetic diagnostic discourse
reflects, transforms and reinscribes the female body as primary locus and vector
of, at one and the same time, risk, diagnosis and, what Mort (1987) has termed,
medico-moral regulation. I will conclude by returning to the question of
genetic governmentality and suggest that diagnostic genetics is foundationally a
gendered terrain, constituted of asymmetric ethical and embodied imperatives
on which its regimes of equality depend and at the same time, conceal, and in which
the normative reach of ‘genetification’ and IVF are now mutually expansive.

The IVF Gateway

The advent of IVF in 1978 set in motion both the pragmatic and imaginative
preconditions for the development of diagnostic genetics. Because IVF
procedures produced extra-corporeal embryos, it became possible to undertake
myriad forms of research on human genetics and also to develop processes
through which embryos could be diagnostically screened before being implanted
back into a woman’s body. According to the records of the Human Fertilisation
and Embryology Authority (UK), the first baby born to an IVF patient following
the use of pre-implantation genetic diagnosis was in 1990, at the Hammersmith
Hospital.4 IVF was thus both a gateway technology and a normalising context

4 Steinberg (1997), 105. See also Winston (1997; 1999).

11
Another Random Scribd Document
with Unrelated Content
 LATER EVENTS is now completing an illustrated history of
ancient Greece he has been working on for these last twenty years.
He is well known already by his history of France. His wife was
formerly Mile. Redel, governess to the daughters of the Duchesse
d'Albe, and in that capacity well known to the Empress. She helps
her husband with his writing and so do his two grown up sons, one
of whom, Georges, has quite a reputation as a novelist. The Duruys
will be a nice addition to the Parisian friends I have made. I have
invitations from all the visitors here, to go and see them whenever I
can. Dr. Scott who came to see us yesterday, pleased with the
wonderful improvement in my foot during the last few days, has
given me leave to do anything in moderation now, provided I guard
against fresh sprains by keeping on the bandages for some time to
come. I do hope I may be able to get to the Colonial Exhibition some
day now, as I think the Rainbeaux will go again before the closing
day. Sunday, September 19. The regular Sunday party for afternoon
tea, with the addition of Sir Algernon and Lady Bothwick and
daughter. Conversation after dinner, as was quite usual, drifted to
the past, and included eventually the Orsini attentat of January,
1858. The Empress 257
 EMPRESS EUGENIE IN EXILE told us that they (the imperial
party) were one night on their way to the Opera House, then in rue
Lepelletier, when all at once there was a terrific rending noise, and
the carriage suddenly halted with a jerk that threw the occupants
out of their seats, while injuring the coachman and killing the
horses. Then came a second terrifying report. After the third bomb
exploded they were left in absolute darkness, which added very
much to the horror of the experience. The concussion had been so
great it had put out all the lights in the street. The cries of the
frightened people and the wounded, the rearing and neighing of
frantic horses, was succeeded by a silence de mort. They all held
their breath, expecting another explosion, and thinking their end had
surely come. The first terrible shock over, a man stepped forward to
open the carriage door, and the Emperor following his first impulse,
and thinking him probably an assassin, dealt him a terrible blow on
the head which felled him to the ground. The suspect later proved to
be an anxious and friendly official come to the rescue, and the
Emperor fully made it up to him afterward for the very natvu-al but
awkward mistake. As there were no more explosions the imperial
couple thought they had better keep to their original plan, and go
into the Opera House, and by showing themselves reassure the
public, 258
 LATER EVENTS then in danger of a panic. To do so they
had to step over the wounded and dead bodies strewn about. When
the Empress finally entered her box and stood there bowing, and
feeling more dead than alive, everybody rose and gave her a warm
ovation. Noticing the glances of the people fastened persistently on
her, she looked down and saw the front of her satin gown covered
with blood, the result of a tiny cut on her cheek which in the
excitement she had not even felt, but which was responsible for the
stain. To quiet the people's anxiety for their sovereign an
announcement had to be made from the stage, stating that she was
not seriously injured. Then, till messengers were despatched and
had returned, came the hardest part of the evening to bear, — to sit
through the play in suspense, dreading lest some attack might have
been attempted against her little two year old son at home in the
Tuileries. At the end of her narrative the Empress added: "Je ne nie
pas que j'avais tres peur; le bruit, I'obscurite, I'incertitude, les cris et
les gemissements des blesses; la vue des cadavres tout autour ; la
voiture traversee ; et le chapeau de TEmpereur crible de trous, —
tout cela etait epouvantable. L/'Empereur a montre un sang-froid
admirable, et moi, tout en ayant affreusement peur, j'ai passe
(comme du rests je Tai fait toute ma vie), pour avoir un courage
extraordinaire 1 En 259
 EMPRESS EUGENIE IN EXILE apparence, j 'avals la peur la
plus digne qu'il fut possible d'avoir, car j 'avals trop peur pour crier,
et trop peur pour bouger, — j etals parallsee, — et alors on croyait
que j 'etals completement Indlfferente et que cela ne me faisait
absolument rien!"^ She only reached home and her son after
midnight, and then had to hold a reception for grateful subjects.
Saturday, September 25. General Fielding, Earl Denbigh's brother,
came to take his final leave of the Empress before his departure
from Aldershot. He had tea with us on the terrace. From a letter:
Farnborough Hill, September 28, 1886. I hope you will not expect
me to-day, as I have been persuaded, much against my inclination,
not to join the Exhibition party. On ac1 " I do not deny that I was
very frightened ; the noise, the darkness, the uncertainty, the criea
and groans of the wounded, the sight of the corpses strewn around;
the carriage and the Emperor's hat riddled with holes — all that was
terrifying. The Emperor was admirably calm, and I, though fearfully
frightened, appeared (as indeed I have done all my life) to have
wonderful courage. I had on the surface the most dignified fear it is
possible to have, for I was too frightened to scream, too frightened
to move, — I was paralyased, — and so people thought I was
completely indifferent and that the affair bad absolutely no effect
upon me." 260
 LATER EVENTS count of the departing Indians the crowd
will be very great, and though I can now walk quite well on level
ground with a stick, everyone thinks it would be foolish for me to
attempt the expedition. Dr. Tyler wrote, very kindly offering to have
a bath chair at the main entrance for me, but I don't like to accept
and take up his time on this, his last day in England. They sail for
Bombay Thursday. So I have decided to give up the trip altogether,
great also as is my disappointment in not seeing you. But my visit to
you need only be postponed a little, I hope. I have a plan for next
week. When Mme. de Mouchy was here and they all went with the
Empress to visit Lady Holland, I told the former how sorry I was to
have missed my opportunity of seeing the old historic house. She
agreed to speak to Mr. Lane, the steward, and get me permission to
visit it when in London. The place will not be dismantled for another
fortnight, he writes, and I have only to name the day and hour, and
he will be ready to show me over everything. Now, this is what I
propose: when the visitors have left, I hope to go to London and
take H. and some other friend to visit Holland House, and then
spend the remainder of the day with you. M. Rainbeaux has given
me two photographs of this house; that is all he has to 261
 EMPRESS EUGENIE IN EXILE spare at present but he has
plenty in Paris, and has promised me a copy of each one in which I
appear. The other day, the Empress who never would, so far, allow
herself to be included in any of the groups, gave her consent, and in
a moment M. Rainbeaux had taken two instantaneous pictures
before she could change her mind. Unfortunately, I was not on the
spot at the time, so I shall have no claim on these, but I think one
may be given me all the same, as our amateur photographer is
generous and good natured, as well as clever. Yesterday we had his
excellency the Portuguese minister, M. D'Antas, and M. le Baron de
Varu to lunch, and in the afternoon arrived the Duque de Alva,
whom I missed a fortnight ago, and also his wife, because of my
sprain. I cannot say much for his personal appearance ; small and
thin and with a nervous tic, he is not at all what one would imagine
a Spanish grandee of the first class, and a descendant of so great a
man as the famous warrior, would be like. But he is kindly and
sociable, and during a drive we took together this afternoon in the
dogcart (the Empress and others being in the landau and victoria)
we got along splendidly. He told me many interesting incidents of his
childhood during the war, besides a good deal about people in 262
 I LATER EVENTS Madrid I know by name through M. and
A., so the drive was quite a pleasant one. In the interest of our
conversation he forgot his nervous eccentricities for the time being.
He has all sorts of queer tricks and mannerisms which he practises
when he thinks himself unobserved, and at which the Empress
laughs unmercifully, hoping thereby to shame him out of them. I
noticed one day that he dropped his napkin at table and stooped to
pick it up; this happened not only once, but several times during the
meal. After dinner, the Empress talking to us about her guest,
explained this queer habit. He feels that he must during the meal
touch his knee at least once to the ground. If he is prevented from
doing it, he seems miserably preoccupied and will not eat, so he
makes a regular practice now of dropping his napkin at once, and in
picking it up slips his knee to the floor, and is thus contented. He
always tries also to touch with the soles of his feet the lintels of any
door he passes through. I noticed how cleverly when going into
dinner he made conversation, or slight pauses in the doorway, until
he could accomplish his end and properly step on the lintel. The
Empress, whose arm he had, hurried him along, and said laughingly,
"Now, Carlos, I know what you are doing, — come along, we can't
wait for you." 263
 EMPRESS EUGENIE IN EXILE Talking one day of plucky and
courageous acts, the Empress told us several anecdotes and among
others one about her sister, the Duquesa de Alva, — anecdotes
which I think come in appropriately here. She and her husband were
living in Madrid, in the Palacio Alva, then one of the most beautiful
of the old palaces, and now, since its skilful and artistic restoration,
quite the most beautiful, the Empress says. In the evenings,
following the Spanish custom, they often went to the different
Tertulias, It happened one night, when they had been playing cards,
that the Duchess went home with her maid at a somewhat earlier
hour than usual, leaving the Duke behind. She entered the palace
with her woman, crossed the numerous uninhabited suites of rooms
in the huge building, and entered her bedroom, locking in herself
and her maid as she always did at night, if her husband had not
returned with her. While undressing she accidentally dropped
something and stooped to pick it up. In so doing she thought she
noticed something unusual under the bed, but paid little attention at
first. She felt impelled, however, to look again and this time she
distinctly saw two eyes glistening. The fact suddenly dawned upon
her that some one was there, but her presence of mind made her
realize at once that she must not appear to have seen anything. 264
 LATER EVENTS So with extraordinary self-control she
quietly went on undressing. Her first aim was to prevent her maid's
suspecting that there was anything wrong; the girl would, she
argued to herself, in all probability scream, and disaster might follow.
Her second aim was to obtain aid, and that immediately. She
thought hard for a minute as to what she could do, undressing
leisurely all the time, and soon her plan of action was evolved. She
began casually telling her maid about the evening she had spent,
and how pleasant it had been. She explained also that she had
played cards and been in luck, and won quite a large sum of money.
Then seeming suddenly to remember that she had left her purse
behind, and simulating great concern about it, said to her maid, "You
must go and get it tonight, for the frotteurs and cleaners will be
there early in the morning, it will be pocketed, and I shall probably
never see the money again." She instructed the maid to go in person
to the house of the Duke of , to deliver into his own hands a note
she would write telling him about the money, and then bring back
the purse when found. The note was written and sealed, and the
maid quite unconcernedly went on her errand, leaving the Duchess
alone in the room with the "somebody" under her bed. Then began,
the Empress told us, the hardest 265
 EMPRESS EUGENIE IN EXILE time for her plucky sister, who
tried to eke out the minutes and invent things to do without exciting
suspicion. At last she realized she could delay no longer, and that
she must get into bed or the man would be suspicious of her
dawdling, so she took her courage a deuce mains and unflinchingly
walked over to her bed, and very slowly and deliberately stepped in.
Later on she congratulated herself on having had the forethought
and nerve to do this, for it will appear later it actually saved her life.
She then spent ten or fifteen terrible minutes of suspense,
wondering whether the intruder would now creep out and stab her,
— first feehng impelled to bound out of bed and rush from the
room, then resisting the temptation so as to protect her property.
However, these few trying minutes, which seemed like hours, passed
at last, — she heard to her infinite relief the tramp of footsteps
coming down the long corridor, and knew she was safe. The note to
her recent host had briefly acquainted him with the trying situation
she was in, and urged him to come as quickly as possible, with her
husband and the police. Another minute's delay, the door was burst
open and the pohce made straight for the bed, then secured and
dragged out the would-be burglar. 266
 LATER EVENTS When brought to justice, he was asked at
the trial what his intentions had been and he confessed that he had
come to steal the Duchess's jewels, tempted by the knowledge that
she possessed some of the most beautiful and renowned pearls in
Europe. He intended at first to secure these only, but hearing her tell
her maid of her winnings at the card-table, he thought he would
keep quiet a little longer and so get the purse of gold besides. In the
first few moments, he said, he imagined the Duchess had seen him,
and he felt inclined to jump out at once and seize the jewels, and
owned he was quite prepared to take her life, too, if she resisted.
When she wrote the note his suspicions were again aroused, he
said, and he watched closely for tell-tale signs of fear on her part ;
but after the deliberately calm way she got into bed, his mind was
quite at ease, and he decided within himself that it was not possible
she could know of his presence. He could not believe any woman
could get into bed so quietly under such untoward circumstances.
But here he had reckoned without his host, — ^her pluck was
superior to his reasoning, and he paid in prison the penalty of his
would-be theft, and of his lack of judgment in the character of an
exceptionally fine woman. 267
 EMPRESS EUGENIE IN EXILE From a letter ; Farnborough
Hill, October 1, 1886. The Empress has invited me to stay on here,
as she is not leaving for Italy just yet. I look forward to spending
Tuesday or Wednesday with you, and I hope I shall find you well and
H.'s cold quite gone. She has a comjpagne de malheur in the
Empress, who has a violent influenza cold, too, in spite of the lovely
weather. On Tuesday, the twenty-eighth, Mme. and Felix Rainbeaux,
whose first visit to England this is, went to see Windsor Castle, and
the whole party (the Rainbeaux and the Duruys) left this morning for
Paris, so we are now very quiet. The Marquis de Bassano came to
lunch and to say goodby to the Empress ; he is starting on a
shooting trip to Algeria, spending a few days first with his family at
Folkstone, and the Duke, his father, has gone to see him off. From a
letter: Farnborough Hill, October 2, 1886. At present the Empress,
Mme. Le Breton, M. Pietri and myself are quite alone — rather a
difference now in the size of the table at meals. Next week a few
people are coming to enliven us again, — Mme. de Arcos and her
sister, and a 268
 LATER EVENTS young Frenchman who has already been
here, M. Urbain Chevreau. After the lovely day of yesterday we had
a most violent storm at night. I hardly ever remember seeing such
hghtning, but it did not last long,— only from about 7:15 to the end
of our dinner at nine, and then the stars came out. I wish the
Empress would think of inviting H. down for a day now, —
everything was so cold and bare when she was here in March, — but
of course, it is rather too much to hope that she will think of it, and
the Empress never could imagine I'm sure the pleasure strangers get
out of what she is not only accustomed to, but thoroughly tired of.
This evening at table our party was further reduced to only Mme. Le
Breton, M. Pietri and myself, and we spent the rest of the evening in
the Empress's salon de travail, her cold being too bad for her to
come to the dining-room. From a letter: Farnborough Hill, October 6,
1886. It seems absurd of me to say I have not had a minute all day
to write to you, but such is really the case. Now, at 7 p. m., I am
sitting down in my room for the first time today for a few minutes'
leisure. On getting up this morning I set to work till 11:30 on the
dress I am arranging. 269
 EMPRESS EUGENIE IN EXILE Then I went to the Empress's
room and helped her with her embroidery till one o'clock lunch, after
which, it being rainy, we set to work again with our silks and needles
till tea time at five; and now I have only just come up to my room,
the conversation lasting all this time. The Empress was tired of
embroidering and was glad to chat, but I, in a less calm state of
mind, was steadily watching the clock, hoping to come up and write
to you, knowing how disappointed you would be if you did not hear
from me at least tomorrow morning. I hope to see H. the day after
tomorrow, as the Empress has asked me to invite her to spend the
day here. Strange that the invitation should have so soon followed
the expression of my wish, — thought transference perhaps. Let us
hope it will be fine. There is a train at 9 :45 reaching here at 11 :10,
which would give her a nice long day. I have only seven and a half
minutes to dress and get downstairs for dinner, so goodby hastily.
The Empress told us at tea time certain funny incidents, which might
belong to the Punch series of things ''better left unsaid." Mme. la
Marquise de la Bedoyere, when at the Tuileries, heard some one in a
group in the drawing-room ask, as a lady entered the room, "Qui est
ce petit pruneau la qui entre?" An angry but ceremonious voice
answered, "Madame, c'est ma femmel" 270
 LATER EVENTS Thoroughly disconcerted and much excited,
the lady moved off to another group to tell the occurrence, and had
just said the words: "Et je disais: *Qui est ce petit pruneau la?' "
when the same voice behind her answered again: — "Et je repondis:
*Madame c'est ma femme!' " ^ We also had a pleasant account of
the little plays given at Compiegne on the Empress's fete by her
ladies, and all the fun and merriment they occasioned. Prosper
Merimee (her childhood friend) often wrote the plays and the
charades, and Princess Metternich was one of the principal actors,
and led matters with a high hand. She was plain to ugliness, but full
of intelligence and ready wit, as the following will show. A lady who
was anxiously pressing forward to see this renowned woman,
exclaimed under her breath on seeing her, "Oh, quel singe [Oh, what
a monkey] !" She was overheard by the Princess, who, bowing
politely, turned to her and said without a moment's hesitation, "Oui,
madame, le singe a la mode [Yes, Madame, the fashionable
monkey]." Sunday, October 3. General and Mrs. Byrne and Reggie
came to tea, also Dr. Scott. The i"Who is that little black thing
coming in?" "Madame, it is my wife." "And I was just saying, 'Who is
that little black thing? ' " " And I answered: ' Madame, it is my wife !
' " 271
 EMPRESS EUGENIE IN EXILE Due de Bassano returned
from Folkstone at 10 P.M. Monday, October 4. In the afternoon went
for a drive with M. Pietri, who talked interestingly about the Franco-
Prussian War and the Prince Imperial. We called on Mrs. Scott, who
was out. Wednesday, October 6. Worked all day with the Empress,
helping her with her embroidery, which she is finishing for Lady
Revelstoke (Lady Baring that was). It is going to be made up into a
screen, and the Empress showed me how to do parts of it, — just
tedious filling in, — which greatly helps her. Friday, October 8.
Embroidery again with the Empress most of the day. Dr. Scott called
to inquire after her cold. Went for a long drive in the afternoon with
the Due de Bassano, who told me many interesting things about his
childhood and recollections of his youth. His father, first Due de
Bassano, was one of Napoleon I's ministers, and had apartments at
the court, so as a child the Duke was often in a position to see his
godfather and godmother, Napoleon and Josephine, and later on the
little Roi de Rome, who indeed became his constant playfellow. He
told 272
The text on this page is estimated to be only 26.40%
accurate

MEMORIAL TO THE PRINCE IMPERIAL ON CHISLEHURST

COMMON From a drawing by B. B. Long
 LATER EVENTS me of the great awe with which Napoleon
inspired him even as a very young child, though the stem soldier-
emperor was always kindness and tenderness itself to this little
fellow, and all children. One day in the midst of a very amusing
game that the two boys were playing in the Emperor's room, his
footsteps were unexpectedly heard approaching. The little Roi de
Rome got an affectionate greeting from his father, and then ran
away elsewhere, forgetting his playmate. Bassano was so startled
that he darted instinctively behind a curtain and hid. The Emperor,
who had forgotten isomething, came in and began to write, and was
so deep in his work that several hours passed before he finished and
went away again. Every minute the little boy stayed hidden it
became more difficult for him to make up . his mind to come out, so
he finally resigned himself to indefinite imprisonment behind his
curtain, much dreading that the Emperor might come to the window
it covered and wondering what he could say for himself if he did.
After his long life, eighty odd years, the Duke said he remembered
now perfectly his infinite relief when Napoleon finally departed and
he crept out of his hiding place. The Duke also told me about Queen
Victoria's coronation (1887), at which he was present as a 273
 EMPRESS EUGENIE IN EXILE young attache of the French
embassy in London. He described the entrance of this young girl in a
simple white dress into Westminster Abbey, and the unforgettable
impression made on him by the glitter of uniforms and the dazzling
gorgeousness of the jewels and the coronets of the peeresses and
the court. The Duke also remembered well riding (with one of the
Bonapartes) in the steam coach invented and run by my grandfather,
Colonel Macirone, in the New Road (now Marylebone Road) , till an
act of Parliament at a great monetary loss to the inventor put a stop
to it, on a plea of its frightening the horses. Saturday, October 9. H.
arrived at 11 o'clock. We showed her the state carriages before
lunch and afterward went for a drive all through Aldershot, both
North and South Camps. She left at 7:27, having very much enjoyed
her day and the Empress's kindness. From a letter: Farnborough Hill,
October 12, 1886. A few visitors are beginning to arrive here again,
Mrs. Edmund Vaughan yesterday afternoon, M. Urbain Chevreau
today, and Mme. de Arcos on Thursday next — a change from the
274
 LATER EVENTS monotony, which was beginning to pall.
Yesterday we had some people to lunch: Prince Roland Bonaparte
and his aid-de-camp, Mr. Bonot. Prince Roland is a grandson of
Napoleon I*s brother, Lucien. Today old Prince Louis Lucien
Bonaparte, who lives in London, is coming to lunch. I have seen him
already here once before. He is uncle to Roland, who came
yesterday. Now I must say goodby. I hear the Empress going into
her salon de travail and I must follow her. I am sorry H. did not see
the embroidery ; it is like a most lovely painting of flowers, and it
will certainly go down to posterity with honor. Wednesday, October
13. After dinner the Empress, under much protest, took the very first
lesson of her life in whist; she had strenuously resisted learning, she
said, till then, but was urged to try by Mrs. Vaughan who taught us.
It was my first lesson, too. The Empress played with the Due de
Bassano against Mrs. Vaughan and myself. Thursday, October 14.
Went for a drive with Mme. Le Breton, Mrs. Vaughan and the Due de
Bassano; M. Chevreau following alone in the dogcart, driving
Umgenie. Before his arrival the Empress spoke a good 275
 EMPRESS EUGENIE IN EXILE deal about Urbain Chevreau's
father, who was Ministre d'Interieur, the last minister under the
Empire appointed by her. Among many other schemes, which
interested her in behalf of her different subjects, the Empress took
special thought about a project for shortening, and thereby
softening, the ceremonial preceding the execution of criminals. It
was arranged that they should enter by a door nearer the scaifold,
should wear no strait- jacket, and that their hair should be cut off
beforehand in the prison. M. Chevreau and she worked together
over these and other reforms for a long time. One day the Minister
came to announce that all was settled and in working order. The
Empress expressed her pleasure to him, and as he was leaving her
presence she said, "Eh bien, c'est une bonne affaire de faite; — qui
sait si nous n'en profiterons pas nous aussi. Peutetre aurons nous un
jour a nous feliciter personellement de ce travail." ^ M. Urbain
Chevreau is a frequent visitor at Monza, the country place of the
King and Queen of Italy, just outside Milan. He told us a good deal
about Queen Margharita one evening; how charming she is, both in
public and private life, and especially the latter; how bright and 1 **
Ah well this is a good thing achieved, — who knows if we will not
profit by it ourselves some day. Perhaps we shall some day
personally rejoice over this day's work!" 276
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