2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This article examines distressing images of dead infants in several novels by Rachilde (Marguerite Eymery Vallette, 18601953), principally La Princesse des tnbres of 1896 in order to emphasize the failure of walls to prevent seepage. Examples range from domestic walls that leach arsenic to uterine walls that slough blood. These fictional images of decomposition suggest a parallel porosity in the generic walls that separate fiction and biography, leading to speculation as to whether any of these fictional representations have grounding in autobiographical experience. The article also presents new biographical information about Rachilde's relationship with Louis-Pilate de BrinnGaubast and Lo dOrfer (Marius Pouget) to fill certain silences (and Silences) in Rachilde's work.
