The last Messe de l’abbé de La Croix-Jugan or the specter of the epic in L’Ensorcelée by Jules Barbey d’Aurevilly

With L’Ensorcelée, Barbey’s dream of a “Chouan epic” turns into an elegy. This dark novel tells of the failure of the Chouans, the impossible redemption of the Abbé de La Croix-Jugan, and the damnation of the woman who loves him. A metaphysical and aesthetic drama is played out here. Giving up on staging the great collective and popular voice of the epic, the novelist adopts the elegiac register of a disillusioned univocity, in mourning for the style of the epic that he cannot, however, break with.