Christa Giles

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the artist. The Manicheism evinced in Là-bas was also
manifest in Les Diaboliques. Indeed, as is made clear by
Barbey D’Aurevilly’s words in his preface to the 1874
edition, Huysmans’ interest in the Middle Ages probably
stemmed from the radical nature of this division:
Le Diable est comme Dieu – le manichéisme,
qui fut la source des grandes hérésies du
Moyen Age, le manichéisme n’est si bête. 255
And certainly it was the reliance of evil upon good which
resulted in the practice of blasphemy. ˝The truth of the
matter,˝ we are informed in A rebours,
is that if it did not involve sacrilege, sadism
would have no raison d’être; on the other
hand, since sacrilege depends on the existence
of a religion, it cannot be deliberately or
effectively committed except by a believer. 256
Thus, paradoxically, sadism and sacrilege, the two
components of satanism, are a ˝wholly idealistic, wholly
Christian aberration.˝ 257
In the novel Là-bas Huysmans deals both with
satanism in the middle ages and satanism in the nineteenth
century. Durtal is writing a book about Gilles de Rais, a
fifteenth-century satanist, and is simultaneously examining
the nature of satanism in nineteenth-century Paris. Thus,
ironically, one chapter ends with Durtal casting his mind