Abstract: The moral darkness of the criminal extends the material darkness in which the victim is confined. In Alphonsine ou la tendresse maternelle (1806), Félicité de Genlis ideologically reverses the gothic novel and places the acuity of the senses at the service of education and faith. Descriptions of sounds and smells in the underground reformulate Molyneux’s question to exorcise any materialist temptation. The disparity between what is heard and what is seen suggests another reality: the whisper of fabric.
