The Poison of Literature: On the Social and Literary Construction of Baron Jacques d’Adelswärd-Fersen’s ‘Black Masses’ Scandal

Abstract

In Le Canard sauvage, 1903, Alfred Jarry states that ‘après tout, c’est la littérature qui prédestine les noms, même s’ils sont déjà historiques, et qui dicte ses conditions à la vie’ [after all, it is literature that predestines names, even if they are already historic, and which imposes its conditions upon life]. This statement was made in the wake of the ‘Black Masses’ scandal that broke in the press during the summer of 1903. Two young men – Baron Jacques d’Adelswärd-Fersen and Count Hamelin de Warren – were arrested on the charge of being involved in a moral scandal that was rumoured to include underage boys at orgiastic ‘ceremonies’ inspired by Nero and Elagabalus, held twice a week in Adelswärd-Fersen’s flat, in Paris’ beaux quartiers.