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Contact Form. A plainte en grossesse initiated a legal procedure during which an unmarried woman, in compliance with the Royal Edict of , reported her illegitimate pregnancy to a competent judicial authority and thereby took legal steps towards financial compensation for damages. In front of the magistrates, the young man claimed that:. During Lent last year and for about a month, he would each day, between eight and nine in the morning, prepare coffee with milk and bavaroises for the plaintiff and for sieur Couly [โฆ] and that he often found the said Couly and the plaintiff sleeping together: he served them coffee in bed when he found them there; it was normally the plaintiff who ordered bavaroises.
Invited into the private and intimate space of these two suitors, the caffetier was able to give evidence as to the sexual intimacy of an illegitimate couple.
This fascinating testimony is not unique, however. Establishing the history of sexual behaviour was an important part of the juridical process. Judges had to establish the nature of the relationship before they could determine whether a sentence should be imposed on the defendant. In doing so, it was essential for both parties to describe the relationship in great detail and thereby reveal the nature of their sexual intimacy.
Thus, the plaintes en grossesse allows historians unique access to the representations or discourses of the sexual, emotional, and affective intimacy of couples living out their sexuality on the margins of legality in eighteenth-century France. Legal sources have often been used to study the repression of sexual behaviours. This document must therefore be seen as an egodocument since the self-disclosure is made by Otto himself, but also by his parents who dictate the writing and the writing environment.
