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PALGRAVE STUDIES IN LANGUAGE,
GENDER AND SEXUALITY

Alpha Masculinity
Hegemony in
Language and Discourse

Eric Louis Russell

Palgrave Studies in Language, Gender
and Sexuality

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York St John University
York, UK

Allyson Jule
School of Education
Trinity Western University
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Language, Gender and Sexuality is a new series which highlights
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 Eric Louis Russell

Alpha Masculinity
Hegemony in Language and Discourse
Eric Louis Russell
Department of French & Italian
University of California, Davis
Davis, CA, USA

Palgrave Studies in Language, Gender and Sexuality

ISBN 978-3-030-70469-8    ISBN 978-3-030-70470-4 (eBook)
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For Gram & für Oma
 Acknowledgements

This project would never have seen the light of day were it not for several
colleagues at UC Davis to whom I’m deeply grateful: Bob Bayley for his
wisdom in all matters linguistic and sociolinguistic; Margaret Crofoot for
leads on behaviorism and animalia; Grace Delmolino for informal chats
and input, especially to the last chapter; Beth Freeman for quick responses
and even quicker reassurances; Claire Goldstein for a willing ear and
more than a few moments of support; Margherita Heyer-Caput for
encouragement and exemplary collegiality; Vai Ramanathan for consis-
tent advice and a clear head in the midst of academic turbulence. Thanks
to others in the French & Italian Department, the Linguistics Department,
and the Program in Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies who make
this career challenging and rewarding.
Colleagues near and far deserve more than a passing word of apprecia-
tion for their time, advice, and inspiration. A heartfelt thanks to Giuseppe
Balirano, Rodrigo Borba, Mary Bucholtz, Scott Burnett, Holly Cashman,
Stina Ericsson, Kira Hall, Mie Hiramoto, Rick Kern, Brian King, Robert
Lawson, William Leap, Michelle Marzullo, Tommaso Milani, Eva
Nossem, David Peterson, Denis Provencher, Greta Vollmer, and anyone
else I have left out (with apologies for the omission). Conference audi-
ences have sharpened descriptions and analyses contained in this book,
including those at Lavender Languages & Linguistics in Providence and

vii
viii Acknowledgements

Gothenburg, IGALA in Gaborone, Language, Interaction & Social

Organization in Santa Barbara, the Linguistics Symposium at Berkeley,
and the Language Research Cluster in Davis.
Former and current students in seminars on language, gender, and
sexuality have given me much to think about, challenged my approach,
and honed data and discussion: arigatōgozaimashita, gracias, grazie, merci,
tanks, and thank you to Chloe Brotherton, Kyrie Foster, Shawn Ho,
Amber Hood, Andrew Hopper, Kelly Kagawa, Rashana Lydner, Ryan
Redmond, Mirna Reyna, and Celina Vargas.
I am especially grateful to the team at Palgrave Macmillan, including
Alice Green and Cathy Scott, as well as series editors Helen Sauntson and
Allyson Jule, all of whom have made the publication process seamless.
Special thanks to my reviewers and those who have given feedback during
various stages, without whose constructive guidance academic research
would be impossible.
Finally, I am deeply obligated to friends and family for their support.
Allison Hart-Young, Daniel Gould, Doug Dertinger, Francesca Peretto,
Gail Goldsmith, Giulia Bulzoni, José Zambrana, Lynne Bartz, Sydney
and Ed Carrillo, and my “pod” in the Davis club swim team have given
me needed perspective, demonstrated the better parts of humanity, and
made sure I laughed along the way. My sister Heidi and my extended
family—Liz, Marc, and Sarah, Jed, and Joanie—have kept me grounded
and been a true home for my heart. Most importantly, my partner-in-
crime and husband-by-law Sam has held my hand, offered boundless
encouragement, and maintained unfailing optimism.
 Contents

1 Stumbling into Alpha  1

1.1 The Origin Story   2
1.2 Speaking Alpha, Being Alpha   5
1.3 Plural Masculinities: Connections and Situations   7
1.4 How to Approach This Book   9
1.5 Author Positionality and Stance  12
References 15

2 Masculinities, Language, and the Alpha Male 17

2.1 Foundations and Interrogations  18
2.2 Positivism and Hybridization: Masculinities in the
Twenty-First Century  22
2.2.1 Masculinities, Misogynies, and Toxicities  25
2.2.2 Alpha by Any Other Name  30
2.2.3 Masculinities and Hegemonies  32
2.2.4 (Re)Interrogating Alpha  39
2.3 Masculinities and Language, Masculinities in Language  40
2.3.1 Feminist and Queer Linguistics: Othering the
Other 42
2.3.2 Language and Men: Complexifying the Self  46

ix
x Contents

2.3.3 The State of the (Language) Art: Hegemonies

and Linguistic Performance  49
References 54

3 The Evidentiary Bases of Alpha Male Discourse 63

3.1 Corpus Selection  63
3.2 Narrowing Focus and Field  67
3.3 Self-Publishing, Social Media, and the Blurring of
Discursive Domains  72
3.4 To Be Alpha: Corpus Overview  74
3.5 From Beta Male to Alpha Gay: Corpus Overview  78
3.6 What Women Want: Corpus Overview  83
3.7 Data: Methods and Procedure  87
3.8 Discussion  89
References 92

4 Enlanguaging Alpha: Making Reality by Making

Language 97
4.1 Reality, the Mind, and Language: Controversies
Past and Present  98
4.2 Discourse, Materiality, and the Place of Language 104
4.3 Language as Matter, Matter in Language, and Language
That Matters 110
References114

5 Representing Alpha: The Forms of Male Hegemony119

5.1 Participant Delimitation 120
5.2 Participant Reference: Naming and Labeling 122
5.3 Attributives: Being and Becoming128
5.4 Modification: Participant Qualities 131
5.5 Pronominalization: Deictic Labeling and Participant
Framing134
5.6 Discussion 136
References138
 Contents xi

6 Constructing Alpha: Structures of Hegemony139

6.1 Participant Exchange: A Grammar of Hegemony 141
6.1.1 Grammatical Roles 142
6.1.2 Genitives and Possessives: Hegemonies of
Governance149
6.2 Hegemony as Message: Power, Capacity, and Ability in
Context153
6.2.1 Active and Passive Voices: The Deflection of
Hegemony154
6.2.2 Modality: The Granularity of Hegemonic
Messaging156
6.3 Representing Hegemony: Processes, Roles, and
Participant Reality 167
6.3.1 Existential and Relational Processes: Hegemony
in Fact and Feature 168
6.3.2 Materiality and Hegemonic Agency 171
6.3.3 Mental Processes: Hegemonic Epistemes and
Representations of the Mind 179
6.4 Discussion 182
References184

7 Discourses of Alpha: Strategies and the Hegemonic Order187

7.1 Defining Strategies, Interpreting Teleos188
7.2 Scientific Orders of Discourse: Constructing the
Gendered Order 190
7.3 Dismantling Androdivergence: De(con)structing Beta 197
7.4 Ontological and Neoliberal Masculinities: Alpha in a
Marketplace of Power 203
7.5 Rhetorical Questions and Clichéd Truisms: Dismantling
Doubt208
7.6 Appeal to Authority 213
7.7 Discussion 216
References218
xii Contents

8 Men, Militarism, and Disruption223

8.1 Faggots and Women, Men and Queers 225
8.2 Militarizing the Men: Ramrod in America 229
8.3 “Fucking with the Men”: A Case for Antimilitaristic
Masculinity234
8.4 Some Final Thoughts 240
References242

Index245
 List of Figures

Fig. 6.1 Grammatical role: participant and corpus 143

Fig. 6.2 Grammatical role, negated VP: Participant and corpus 144
Fig. 6.3a Positive and negative possession, BeAlpha 150
Fig. 6.3b Positive and negative possession, AlphaGay 151
Fig. 6.3c Positive and negative possession, WWW 151
Fig. 6.4 Participants as passive subject 156
Fig. 6.5 Negative modality 157
Fig. 6.6 Inability: negation of potentiality/ability 159
Fig. 6.7 Positive and negative causation by participant and corpus 160
Fig. 6.8 Deontic (obligation) modality 161
Fig. 6.9a Positive volition by participant 162
Fig. 6.9b Negative volition by participant 163
Fig. 6.10 Predicate NP (positive, negative) in relational processes 170
Fig. 6.11 Material processes and participants 171
Fig. 6.12 Actors and negative actors 172
Fig. 6.13 Verbal process participants 173
Fig. 6.14 Behavioral processes and participants 175
Fig. 6.15 Agency score by participant 176
Fig. 6.16 Negated agency score by participant 177
Fig. 6.17 Patient score by participant 178
Fig. 6.18 Mental processes and roles 179

xiii
 List of Tables

Table 5.1 Participant count and weight by corpus 122

Table 5.2 Pronominalization: participant forms and frequencies
by corpus 135
Table 6.1 Possession and governance 149
Table 6.2 Existential clauses: major participants and corpus 169

xv
 1
Stumbling into Alpha

These pages represent the culmination of a journey that began purely by

accident—I have joked with colleagues and friends that I didn’t choose
the Alpha male, but that it chose me. Given this, it seems useful to pro-
vide a short background not only to this book, but also to myself as its
author. In this chapter, I revisit the accidental moment that led to this
project, an event that highlights the degree to which the Alpha male label
and ideology are operative throughout North American Anglophone—
and especially United States—speech communities. Following this, I lay
out the cardinal points of this book, the goals and foci of different chap-
ters, and its overarching objective: to better understand how linguistic
and discursive choices realize the otherwise intangible reality of Alpha
masculinity. In closing, I address my own positionality as researcher,
scholar, and community participant who is inescapably bound up in the
language and practice of masculinity.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 1

E. L. Russell, Alpha Masculinity, Palgrave Studies in Language, Gender and Sexuality,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70470-4_1
2 E. L. Russell

1.1 The Origin Story

As odd as it may appear, I begin with a confession: I fell into the topic of
Alpha masculinity by chance. Stumbling into research agendas has, for
good or bad, long characterized my career. Over more years than I care to
admit, I have come to realize that such serendipity is a double-edged
sword: for every happy moment of good fortune, there is a requisite
amount of labor; for each instance of growth, there are hours of discom-
fort; and for all resulting enlightenment, there are countless realizations
of limitation. I lurched into this project somewhat clumsily, yet through
it have come to better understand the extent to which I have been and
continue to be shaped by the very same forces under the microscope in
the following pages, as well as my complicity in their weight and import.
It has been a humbling, rewarding, maddening, and somewhat paradoxi-
cally freeing journey.
A widely shared metaphor casts knowledge and research as spatio-­
temporal journeys: we speak of pathways to understanding, roads to edu-
cation, and conduits of discovery as ways to conceptualize the life of the
mind. Appropriately enough, this intellectual journey began on an early
flight home following an academic conference. As with many transconti-
nental itineraries, I awoke far sooner than I would have liked, was dan-
gerously under-caffeinated, and more than anything required a nap and
some mindless diversion. After settling into my seat and arming myself
against intrusive conversations with large, noise-canceling headphones, I
opted to binge-watch the popular crime series Criminal Minds, the sixth
season of which was available on a small seatback screen. This show is
easily followed, having predictable plotlines that are constantly repeated
for the viewer—precisely the kind of entertainment that wouldn’t impede
me from zoning out, nodding off, or both. As luck would have it, the plot
I happened upon evoked topics that were the focus of presentations by
colleagues and myself over the previous few days: masculinity, power, and
language. I was instantly curious—and I never did get that nap.
In this episode, a suburban police force was faced with a series of grue-
some homicides targeting well-off, physically fit men in positions of
authority and leadership. Unaccustomed to multiple murders in his
 1 Stumbling into Alpha 3

manicured community, the local sheriff called in the series’ protago-

nists—a team of FBI agents known for their ability to resolve complex
cases with flair and daring, not to mention a dash of interpersonal drama.
Through the forty or so minute story arc, these profilers deduced a com-
mon thread uniting each victim: their status as “Alpha males.” The char-
acters and their dialogue offered little by way of explanation or justification
of this concept, let alone how a given corpse might be included within or
excluded from the Alpha category (a rather important point, one might
think). Nevertheless, the narrative hinged on this assertion, a matter-of-­
fact conclusion put forward with scientific assurance similar to that of a
cancer diagnosis. Soon, and with equally dogged assurance, the FBI team
patched together a psycho-social profile of the unknown killer or “unsub.”
Given mounting evidence (more and more Alphas were being slain by the
hour), the perpetrator was deduced to be a “Beta male,” a man who had
failed to achieve the status of his victims and turned to murder. This cul-
prit was profiled as being down and out, physically unfit, neither authori-
tative nor powerful—the failed mirror of those Alphas apparently littering
the streets of this otherwise pristine suburban idyll.
Alpha and Beta were established with absolute certitude and the FBI’s
diagnoses were bolstered by characters possessing complementary (and
predictably overblown) expertise. These included a nerdy savant capable
of quoting Sophocles and Einstein from memory; a plucky internet whiz
who regularly hacks into secretive databases with a few strokes of the
keyboard; the sly psychological expert who has profiled criminals of all
kinds and lethality, always without losing his sardonic wit; the tough-as-­
nails female agent in tailored pantsuits who speaks dozens of languages
(who else but a female character could do this?) and possesses contacts in
every corner of the globe; the muscly but sensitive hunk who quite liter-
ally saves the day with his steely nerve (perhaps an Alpha in his own
right); and the stern but fair-minded leader who calls the shots, corrals
the troops, and takes the blame when things go poorly (definitely
an Alpha).
I watched this episode of CBS Studio’s Criminal Minds to its conclu-
sion. Of course, the intrepid agents caught their Beta man. Of course,
this occurred as his very pregnant (by an Alpha, not him) wife looked on
in horror. The case closed, justice served, and peace restored to yet another
4 E. L. Russell

swath of tract homes and strip malls, the team returned to base. The
nefarious Beta had been taken down and his killing spree ended, leaving
the remaining Alphas free to go about their lives, doing Alpha things
without fear of homicidal Betas lurking in the shadows. In other words:
mission accomplished, gendered social order restored, and Alpha males—
not to mention the women who love them—victorious yet again.
I hadn’t stayed awake because the episode was particularly well written
or acted—it was none of these by my assessment—but because I was
intrigued by how matter of fact the Alpha and Beta categories were pro-
claimed, how taken for granted their scientific bases were manifested, and
how unflinchingly these hyper- and hypo-masculine identities were
asserted as facts backed up by psychology, sociology, and biology. As
heavily clichéd as it may be, this one episode neatly encapsulated an
intriguing—and particularly American—manifestation of gender perfor-
mances and stereotypes, along with congruous indices of sexual and
socio-economic normativity. It could not escape notice that each of the
Alpha-victims was a happily married, traditionally masculine presenting,
heterosexual man, whereas the Beta-perpetrator was unemployed, dishev-
eled, and impotent, a failed man whose wife sought another to conceive
a child. At the same time, there were ample symbols of other American
ideals of capitalism and neoliberal sovereignty, with Alphas living in large
McMansions situated in gated communities and the Beta driving a ragged
workman’s van. Nearly everyone was white, all spoke convergent forms of
American English, and there was not a non-heteronormative person
in sight.
Whiling away the hours in my cramped economy class seat, I began to
wonder if these characterizations and the cultural competence that
framed them reflect broader, more widely shared ideologies, or if this was
merely a particularly creative moment on the part of the series’ writers.
The assumption and assertion of Alpha and Beta in this instance suggest
a mythology operating within and across a culture backdrop, whether or
not all of its members agree with or appreciate it. Given that the series is
watched by millions and has never been considered even remotely avant-­
garde, it may be inferred that its audience is expected to understand Alpha
and Beta, not to mention their content and veracity, are truths as unques-
tionable as gravity or the change of seasons. After all, this kind of
 1 Stumbling into Alpha 5

entertainment is aimed at a mainstream consumer, one that does not

expect to be challenged by complexity or controversy and turns to the
portrayed, if exaggerated and fictional lives of others as an escape expect-
ing little or no intellectual challenge (much like me on this flight).

1.2 Speaking Alpha, Being Alpha

I had, of course, encountered Alpha (especially) and Beta (less so) before,
although I had never given much thought to either the conceptualization
or content of these labels. Friends had joked, sometimes admiringly,
sometimes disparagingly, about so-and-so being “such an Alpha,” which I
understood to be the type of man—and it was always a man—who wants
to or needs to take charge, assert his authority or influence over others,
and establish his power through body, mind, or charisma, if not all three.
And yet, until encountering the aforementioned episode, I had never seen
such an idealized mythology put forth so matter-of-factly and in a man-
ner that made plain its presumptive naturalness, let alone its scientific
foundations. I had also never seen such a blatantly disparaging view of the
non-Alpha, a somehow defective pseudo-male who is intrinsically flawed
and ultimately dangerous. As a linguist who works on sexualities and
genders, my curiosity was piqued. What is the content of these categories
and how is such ideational reality manifested? How normalized are these
constructs, among whom, and within what gendered and sexualized con-
figurations? How do these and adjacent discourses surrounding mascu-
linities, in this moment and in this space, emerge from and contribute to,
interleave with, and stand apart from broader discourses pertinent to
belonging, the demos or civic body, and relationality? And perhaps most
importantly, given that these ideations are rendered and shared through
language, what are the linguistic and meta-linguistic mechanisms called
upon to make real and thus shareable the Alpha male imaginary?
It is this last question that sits within the bullseye of my research and
scholarly agenda: the question of what a granular investigation of the
linguistic and discursive substance of male semiotic realities stands to
offer scholars of language, gender, and sexuality, and how such an inves-
tigation might contribute to the important conversations so many of us
6 E. L. Russell

are nourishing with regard to masculinities and their seemingly intracta-

ble correlation to toxicity. Space for such exploration and dialogue is
being held within and beyond gender studies courses, on and off univer-
sity campuses, in coffee shops, living rooms, and internet forums.
Thoughtful individuals of all genders, sexualities, races, and backgrounds
are asking more and increasingly profound questions that trouble shared
conceptualizations of maleness, the primacy of males over females, and
what exactly it means to be a man in the first place. In so doing, they are
interrogating and challenging the ways these and other sociocultural ide-
ations fit within our collective and individual worlds, whether they pre-
cede us or emerge from us, if they are inevitable, and how they might be
transformed.
All of this is richly bathed in language, at all levels, from simple words
to the most complex and ambivalently interpretable structures. Of course,
none of this is solely linguistic. Gender, like sexuality, race, and ethnicity,
is born of and borne on the body and lived out in political and sociocul-
tural spheres; it is shaped by and shapes economic, psychological, and
physical existence. To maintain that gender—or any other ideological
construct—is vectored through language alone would be specious on its
face. However, it cannot escape notice that, in order for any such con-
struct to have life beyond the individual, for it to be shared and anthro-
pologically real, it is inevitably rendered linguistic in some way. And
through this act, the realization of gendered orders, gendered concepts,
and gendered power necessarily deploys preexisting, acquired forms and
structures, obeying predictable patterns, all of which can be readily
described, interpreted, and analyzed under the linguist’s microscope. The
manifestations of contemporary American masculinities that were fed to
me through the airplane screen that day were not solely—but were cer-
tainly very particularly—accomplished through language. As such, these
linguistic performances, in all their complexity and opacity, can and
should be unraveled, dissected, and studied.
This is not to say that language is the only aperture into contemporary
masculinity, but that it is one path to understanding. It is a particularly
important one at that, if only because so much of the observable reality
of gender and gender configurations in this and any other sociocultural
setting is linguistic. Alphas are as real as the labels that are given to them,
 1 Stumbling into Alpha 7

the structures into which they are projected, the propositional reality
within which they are cast, and the discourses through which they appear.
These forms, structures, and functional patterns further bring Alphas
into relations and interrelations of contiguity and conflict with other,
equally fluid ideations concerning and surpassing gender. Despite the
overt claims and covert allusions of many Alpha proponents and authors,
let alone facile assertions written into fictitious television scripts, there is
no biological basis for the categorization of persons into Alpha, Beta, or
any other such category. What is true, evidentiary, and observable is the
casting of persons into such categories via linguistic performance. By
speaking the Alpha, the Alpha is made real. By scripting the Beta, the
Beta is made real. By projecting these into the world through clauses,
sentences, utterances, and paragraphs, by integrating these into discourse
practices of all shape and substance, their relative positionality and con-
sequential constitution are made real. Unraveling these realizations, the
viscera and corpora of that which is constituted and iteratively constitut-
ing is therefore a mighty, but worthy task. Hence this book.

1.3  lural Masculinities: Connections

P
and Situations
This book is by far not the first, nor is it the most original work of aca-
demic scholarship that seeks to understand the linguistic and discursive
foundations of narrow, celebrated masculinities. Indeed, I owe a tremen-
dous debt to many scholars who have preceded me and whose work has
informed my own thinking—from feminist critics to those charting the
destructive path of neoliberalism. Many of these are reviewed in detail in
Chap. 2 and others are introduced throughout the book. Feminist and
queer scholarship in particular lies at the foundation of nearly all critical
work in this arena, if only because these voices question and contradict
many of the cardinal points so often taken for granted in daily life (and
not only): that masculinity and maleness are not default states, but con-
structed variables; that female or homosexual or transgender are not deri-
vations, but manifestations; that language is not static, but dynamic; that
8 E. L. Russell

linguistic actors and audiences are never neutral, but always and
already subjective; and that the formal, structural, and functional compo-
nents of their performances can only be interpreted in human contexts.
It is the stuff of academic scholarship to describe, interpret, analyze,
and argue. Perhaps more importantly, it is the privilege of intellectual life
to call into question that which has been asserted, to expose that which
has been assumed, to trouble that which has been settled, and to cast light
on that which has been normalized under cover of darkness. Because
Alpha masculinity exists in the culturally and linguistically situated real-
ity of communicative practice, and because this practice is in itself a com-
plex interleaving of sequenced practices and their specific formal,
functional, and structural components, it seems appropriate to take a
“turn to language” similar to that seen in late twentieth-century feminist
criticism (Matoesian 1995; Conley and O’Barr 1998; Ehrlich and King
1992; Ehrlich 2001, 2004), building especially upon their investigations
of sexual assault and victimization. Of course, I do not wish to conflate
the type of discursive practices and textual archives under the microscope
here with acts of physical violation, but I do believe that similar methods
can be adopted and adapted to the study of androcentrism, male hege-
mony, and other forms of insidious violence that characterize daily life
for most, if not all. It must suffice to note here that the types of unequal
social, economic, sexual, and political configurations that are implica-
tionally realized and explicitly promulgated through Alpha discourses are
precursors, if not vectors, of violence enacted on real bodies, individually
and collectively, regardless of gender and irrespective of any identity
ascribed or acquiesced to by one or another participant.
This book is foremost a step into conversation with these and other
thinkers, questioners, investigators, and “queer-ers” of language as it is
lived in real lives, as well as with agitators and provocateurs who have
called such acts by their names: discrimination, toxicity, androcentrism,
anti-female, anti-effeminate, and much more. A primary objective is the
confrontation of the normalized configurations of power, potentiality,
and inclusion that are overtly expressed or covertly iterated and reiterated
by shows such as Criminal Minds, by persons who consume these media
representations reflexively and not reflectively, and by a broader society
that has allowed and continues to allow these configurations to propagate
 1 Stumbling into Alpha 9

largely unchecked and unexamined. These are logics and ethics that I
categorically state from the outset that I find abhorrent: as a scholar, as a
citizen, as a human being, and as a gendered person who tries to chal-
lenge my own inherited, internalized perceptions of the world and those
of my fellow travelers.
More than anything else, this project is a call to the sort of freedom
given words by Giorgio Gaber—not a climax or ephemera, not some-
thing to be obtained and forgotten, but freedom as participation.1 This
work confronts a foreclosure of freedom that is the locus of Alpha male
ideologies and discourses. This marginalizes, if not entirely sidelines,
females and non-normative males from participation in a livable life,
making smaller their potentialities even as it augurs the participation of
normative males and enlarges their potentialities. By exposing these dis-
cursive practices and the linguistic scaffolds that give them form and sub-
stance, perhaps the forces that limit participation and shackle freedom
and participation can be undermined, if only to a small degree.

1.4 How to Approach This Book

The pages that follow offer a multi-level description and analysis of three
carefully chosen textual corpora and the linguistic and discursive realiza-
tion of Alpha masculinities they comprise. Chapter 2 looks more closely
at the Alpha label, its ideational content, and the interconnectedness of
this to broader discourses concerning masculinities and the gendered
order. Discussion is oriented toward linguistics and sociolinguistics, over-
viewing recent works on language and masculinities, while also demon-
strating the unique place of Alpha within this field. This also introduces
and problematizes several crucial concepts, notably hegemony, while call-
ing into question how the Alpha label and its content fit within sexuali-
ties and the gendered order. Chapter 3 presents three textual corpora and
justifies their inclusion in the study, also tracing the bounds of Alpha as
deployed in the research project. And Chap. 4 takes a more philosophical
turn, consisting of an apologia for and definition of enlanguaging—a
heuristic capturing the making real by making linguistic—while tracing
the at-times problematic, at-times ignored intellectual antecedents to
10 E. L. Russell

this. This chapter also introduces concepts pertinent to discourse and

discursive formations, as well as their effect upon and emergence through
language.
Chapters 5, 6, and 7 consist of level-specific descriptions, interpreta-
tions, and analyses of the linguistic and discursive components of textual
corpora. Each chapter demonstrates how language serves to construct
and reify the Alpha male, and how linguistic and discursive patterns posi-
tion this ideological figure in complex antonymies involving other gen-
dered actors. Chapter 5 examines the lexico-semantic projection of major
discourse participants: Alpha and Beta male personas and women, as well
as related gender ideations. This chapter unravels the lexical pathways
through which discourse creators establish a series of complementary and
oppositional antonymies. Alpha males are realized through surface forms
activating semantic fields that celebrate their natural prowess, physical
strength, and mental acuity, whereas Beta male and female lexical projec-
tions establish these participants as either a counterpart to or adversary of
Alpha, depending upon the sexual and gender dynamic of the corpus in
question. Chapter 6 attends to the grammatical, pragmatic, and repre-
sentational structures in which these participants appear. The tripartite
(but always Alpha-centric) dynamic seen in lexical forms is complexified
and nuanced at this level, particularly as it concerns the forces and factors
that bind Alphas to or repel them from Betas and women. Through a
close description and analysis of phrasal and propositional data, it is
shown that discourse creators realize ideational worlds in which Beta or
female participants cannot help but be drawn to the Alpha, always depen-
dent on corpus factors, and in which Alpha cannot help but fight against
and be repelled by his respective opposite. It is also at this level that ques-
tions of power and transitivity are most clearly seen and their discourse
internal effects are made clear. Finally, Chap. 7 investigates a series of
supra-structural discourse strategies, unraveling the ways in which authors
assert truths and frame understandings of the world, the gendered order,
its uneven hierarchy and power distribution, and its ideational content.
This chapter also examines the ways that Alpha masculinity is inserted
within preceding discourses of science and neoliberalism, arguing that
this form of male hegemony is enlanguaged through complex discourse
practices as unquestionable and unstoppable.
 1 Stumbling into Alpha 11

While each chapter is differently formulated and its discussion and

analysis variably grounded, it should be readily apparent to any reader
that form, structure, and function are inextricably bound up in each
other. Through the descriptive and analytical arc of these chapters, I argue
that the enlanguaging of Alpha represents a naturalized, positivistic
expression of male dominance and of hegemonic masculinity, one that is
situated in neoliberal frames of public-private relation and realized
through linguistic performances giving form and meaning to gendered
relations within and across the traditional male-female divide. This is, at
its foundation, an expression of neo-positivism, a term I use to capture
the type of pseudo-scientific orders of discourse exemplified by the
Criminal Minds episode. This hybridized form of positivism establishes
Alpha masculinity as natural, inevitable, and desirous for all—in effect, as
the best of all worlds, and not just for the Alpha, himself.
In the guise of a conclusion, and echoing the explicitly subjective pos-
ture of these pages, Chap. 8 returns to the extra-linguistic bases of the
project. This discussion reverts to many of the themes uncovered in lin-
guistic and discursive description and analysis, while also bringing them
into contiguity with contemporary questions of male toxicity and milita-
rization. Here, I integrate a linguistic and discourse analytic reading of a
mostly forgotten work of literature, offering an alternative conceptualiza-
tion of masculinity that embraces and celebrates a distinct way of “being
a man” and being in relation with others. In effect, it juxtaposes a reading
of Larry Mitchell’s The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions to
the Alpha male and to contemporary examples of toxic masculinity, using
the former as a pivot to the disruption of male hegemony.
Each chapter is written to be accessible and useful standing alone.
Some may best be read before others, particularly by those who have less
familiarity with the topics at hand: masculinities and the variability of
these within gendered orders; the construction and perpetuation of hege-
mony; and the question of how ideational reality is bound up in and
inevitably constrained by linguistic competence and substance. In these
instances, readers are advised to proceed in a linear fashion, skipping any
background material that may be redundant to them. Chapter 3 intro-
duces the corpora taken up for closer study and should be read before
subsequent chapters, as it provides a critical foundation for all
12 E. L. Russell

descriptive, interpretive, and analytical work. Chapters 5, 6 and 7 can,

however, be read in any order, depending upon a reader’s interest or focus.

1.5 Author Positionality and Stance

I have been reading Rebecca Solnit with special fervency in the Trump era
and quote her at several points in later chapters. Her frank and fearless
writings have led me to wonder whether I even have the right to write this
book, or if I am not contributing to an echo chamber of male essential-
ism, androcentrism, and hegemony by dissecting the Alpha male and the
linguistic and discursive substances that realize him. I don’t know how to
respond to these doubts that hang in the air like so much pollen. Perhaps
this truly is but another manifestation of white, male, academic advan-
tage, or maybe I am simply not used to the type of nakedness and hum-
bling that this work has required. So many of the tropes of Alpha male
discourses have permeated my own existence. So much of their content
has defined me, “ensmalling” me, and rendering plain that I might read-
ily be cast into the Beta category. It has also underscored a degree of
comfort I have long taken for granted—publicly, professionally, and per-
sonally. After all, I am a white male, a status and identity that conveys
advantages already and always, without even requiring me to apprehend
it as such. I cannot claim objectivity or any lack of bias: I am steeped in
gender, mio malgrado, and to an extent that has inevitably colored every
facet of what follows.
It is with a degree of hesitation, therefore, that I put forth this work,
hopefully accompanied with, a dash of modesty and optimism. If men
like me have historically been the hegemons, if men like me have and
continue to occupy spaces and positions of exaggerated participation,
maintaining this apparent freedom through subtle violence or outright
coercion, perhaps it is men like me who may best call our own into
account. Perhaps it is men like me who can effectively challenge not only
the hubris that nourishes and is nourished by this hegemonic circuit, but
the dehumanization that it entails for all genders, gender expressions,
identities, and conceptualizations of the self, the other, and the “collective
we” of our common humanity. More than all else, and like others in
 1 Stumbling into Alpha 13

critical discourse studies, I hope this book will be read as a carefully, albeit
unavoidably fallibly, articulated step toward the weakening of androcen-
trism, male supremacy, and the foreclosing of freedom-as-participation
that fuels it and is fueled by it, like a self-perpetuating inferno (see Russell
2019: 261–265).
I believe it is also important to openly acknowledge my own position-
ality, as well as the limitations I carry into this project. I do this openly
and explicitly, acknowledging that it would be impossible to achieve
objectivity vis-à-vis any cultural construct, particularly one as powerful
and deeply embedded as masculinity. I am a white, cisgendered gay male,
dual-passported European-American, multilingual and multicultural
since birth, professionally tenured, now resident in liberal Northern
California. I have spent the vast majority of my life in the sheltered, pro-
gressive world of academia, where I have thrived in many ways and atro-
phied in a few others. By accident of parentage and as the result of many
structural advantages preceding me, I am a deeply fortunate person—and
not only socio-economically: I have never felt threatened walking down a
street, have never seriously worried about my safety, and have never been
the object of physical assault. I am, in short, a fairly boring example of the
type of male who could easily take on the Alpha label—or at least one that
would hardly be considered Beta—save for that pesky academic pedigree.
Although labels like Alpha and Beta were never used in the environments
of my upbringing, I was educated and encultured with the unspoken
expectation I would be the type of man who leads and is not led, who
speaks often and listens only when told to do so (usually by another man),
who does much and is infrequently done to. I was groomed (often implic-
itly, at times very explicitly) to be the type of man who would not only
rise to the top of the pile, but who could imagine that by occupying this
position he benefits those below him. All the while, I was encouraged to
believe in the inevitable existence of such a hierarchy and its various strata,
to accept their differential valuation, to never doubt that my position was
achieved by merit alone. It might have been said that I was lucky, but only
inasmuch as that which can be called luck was created and nurtured so
that requisite acts of creation and nurturing appeared natural and “not
unexpected,” rather than as what they truly are and were—inheritances of
privileged inequality borne on the backs of others.
14 E. L. Russell

Through countless conversations, over many years, with generous,

patient people of divergent gender, racial, ethnic, socio-economic, cul-
tural, and so many other identities and backgrounds, I have come to
better understand this positionality as not only problematic and deeply
rooted in inequalities past and present, but as profoundly damaged and
damaging. Certainly, this is harmful to others, most notably to those
non-nurtured, under- or un-privileged others who are not gender con-
forming, not male, not European or American, not white, not fortunate
enough to be given “legs up” by everyone around them. This cannot be
denied and must never be allowed to slip out of collective consciousness.
However, such unquestioned privilege is also harmful to men themselves,
including me, as it hardens us and reduces our fuller participation in
humanity, pulling us away from others even as we become numb to our-
selves. I now see it as the work of being human to question not just the
inevitability of people who look and sound like me, who move and talk
like me, who assert themselves as leaders and deciders, but to question
the very taxonomy of leader/led, decider/decided-for, and the possibility
that such configurations are toxic to both sides of the equation. I believe
it is my and our responsibility to question not simply the goodness and
value of not being sexist or not being misogynistic, but to see the possibil-
ity of being antisexist and antimisogynistic, echoing Ibram Kendi’s deft
framing of antiracism as a purposeful act that counters not only the sur-
face forms of racist thought and action, but the structures and powers
that fuel and propagate these (Kendi 2019). As such, rather than being
non-sexist, what I seek to achieve through this work is an example of
critical antisexism, a purposeful step toward not simply eradicating rec-
ognized social and personal ills, such as sexual assault or unequal pay, but
toward disrupting the underlying dynamics that allow them to flourish.
I write this not because I believe I have achieved anything tremendous
in this regard, nor because I have overcome the shackles of gender, eth-
nicity, race, and class that bind me, much like they bind us all. Rather, I
state this from the outset because it is important that any reader under-
stands that even the most empirically articulated of descriptions is already
a biased enterprise, colored by my perspective and bound by my limita-
tions, and that there can be no pretense that any argument put forth
based on these descriptions is not a priori steeped in positionality. I write
 1 Stumbling into Alpha 15

this so that all can understand more brightly and sharply that the type of
scholarship offered in the following pages is critical-but-flawed, that it is
oriented toward that which is identifiable and identified as a problem or
social ill, and that this very orientation is intimately bound up in the
journey of this researcher. And that I, like so many others, recognize that
I am positioned within the problem itself. Hopefully, and I write this
acknowledging the limitations of such a supposition, this also affords me
a degree of agency in its disruption and denaturalization.

Note
1. In perhaps his most famous song, cantautore Gaber proclaims “la libertà
non è star sopra un albero, non è neanche aver un’opinione. La libertà non
è uno spazio libero. Libertà è partecipazione.” [‘Freedom is not standing
up atop a tree, nor is it having an opinion. Freedom isn’t an open field.
Freedom is participation.’ Translation mine.]

References
Conley, John M., and William M. O’Barr. 1998. Just Words: Law, Language and
Power. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Ehrlich, Susan. 2001. Representing Rape: Language and Sexual Consent. London:
Routledge.
———. 2004. Linguistic Discrimination and Violence Against Women:
Discursive Practices and Material Effects. In Language and Woman’s Place:
Text and Commentaries, ed. Robin Tolmach Lakoff, 223–228. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Ehrlich, Susan, and Ruth King. 1992. Gender-Based Language Reform and the
Social Construction of Meaning. Discourse & Society 3 (2): 151–166.
Kendi, Ibram. 2019. How to be an Antiracist. New York: Random House.
Matoesian, Gregory M. 1995. Language, Law, and Society: Policy Implications
of the Kennedy Smith Rape Trial. Law and Society Review 29 (4): 669–701.
Russell, Eric Louis. 2019. The Discursive Ecology of Homophobia: Unraveling
anti-LGBT Language on the European Far Right. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
 2
Masculinities, Language,
and the Alpha Male

Human history is the story of alphas, those indispensable powerhouses

who take charge, conquer new worlds, and move heaven and earth to make
things happen. Whether heading a band of warriors, bringing a vital new
product to market, guiding a team to glory, or steering a giant conglomer-
ate, alphas are hardwired for achievement and eager to tackle challenges
that others find intimidating. Along the way, they inspire awe and admira-
tion—and sometimes fear and trembling. […] The business world swarms
with alpha males. Although there are no hard numbers to support this
approximation, we estimate that alphas comprise about 75 percent of top
executives. (see also Ludeman and Erlandson 2006: 1–2)

The above citation is taken from the opening pages of The Alpha Male
Syndrome, a serious sounding book published by the equally serious
sounding Harvard Business Review Press (although affiliated with the
renowned university’s Business School, it is independent from Harvard
University Press). In the 200-some pages that follow, the authors tackle
the advantages and challenges that Alpha males face within the hallowed
corridors of the American business world, chiming in on their natural
leadership and providing examples of how these men have come to be the
movers and shakers of the neoliberal socioeconomic and cultural order.
Although not always laudatory of the Alpha, Ludeman and Erlandson’s
work reflects a widely shared belief, one that is often heard but rarely
examined: that a typology of males exists, defined by or discerned from

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 17

E. L. Russell, Alpha Masculinity, Palgrave Studies in Language, Gender and Sexuality,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70470-4_2
18 E. L. Russell

their character traits and actions, who are somehow naturally endowed or
preternaturally destined to lead, command, and take charge. These men
stand apart from others, to quote from an earlier article by the same
experts, as “bold, self-confident, and demanding,” and their importance
can be distilled through such apparently straightforward assertions that
“alpha males get things done.” It is worth noting that they also observe
“the traits that make them so productive can also drive their coworkers
crazy,” a particular issue when it comes to coaching these individuals on
how to capitalize on their Alpha-ness for success in the business world
(see also Ludeman and Erlandson 2004).
Nowhere in this study of the organizational and psychological aspects
of masculinity is the veracity of Alpha males as a category, let alone its
content, seriously examined, factually grounded, or overtly critiqued.
Quite the opposite: the authors suggest an empirical accounting of Alphas
among the ranks of top executives, from which we are invited to infer
that a similar number can be found in other arenas. Alphas are in power
because they are Alphas, and power inevitably or naturally flows toward
these Alphas because they are Alpha-like, or so goes this story. For all of
its mind-numbing circuitousness, this tautology is hardly innovative or
shocking, particularly when it comes to masculinity.
Taking its cue from this citation and all that it implies, this chapter
explores the mythological Alpha male, as well as broader issues pertinent
to ideological masculinities, their intersections with and interpolations in
language, as well as related questions of hegemony. The chapter is struc-
tured along three paths: a first section provides a background to the Alpha
ideation and related sociocultural constructs, noting similarities in other
sociocultural settings; a second looks at masculinities as plural, hybridiz-
ing spaces of interrogation and action; and a final section considers the
interleaving of masculinities and language, especially how language is a
vehicle for hegemony.

2.1 Foundations and Interrogations

Building from the observation that the Alpha label and category, while
not true, are maintained as truth by many in North American Anglophone
speech communities, a primary task is to describe the general shape and
 2 Masculinities, Language, and the Alpha Male 19

constitution of Alpha ideations, bringing these into contiguity with other

forms of masculinity, while concurrently attending to issues of normativ-
ity, dominance, and power. This section interrogates Alpha masculinity
through the broadest of possible lenses, also bringing into focus other
ideological constructs that cohabit its discursive ecosystem, especially
women and so-called Beta males. The objective of this section is thus to
review and solidify a common understanding of the Alpha male as
mythology, demonstrating the ways this figure transects other construc-
tions of masculinity.
Before beginning to peel back the layers of Alpha male as a gendered
ideation, it is useful to situate this label in its cultural setting. Although
perhaps most accepted in spheres such as those evoked by the opening
citation, the assertion of Alpha males as prominent socioeconomic and
sociocultural actors is hardly limited to the business sphere—or even to
those concerned with organizational psychology in any domain. This
ideological masculinity permeates contemporary culture, at least among
North American Anglophones, to the extent that its formulation and
authenticity are usually accepted unquestioningly. “Alpha” is used to
describe military and political leaders, categories of sexualized men,
prominent sports figures, and just about any other male who is ascribed
with the characteristics of an unquestioned and unquestioning leader
(the example cited in the preceding chapter being a rather obvious case in
point). While there is little specific attention given to this figure, few
would say they are not familiar with the Alpha label or have no under-
standing of what it evokes.
It is interesting to note that the Alpha male has crept into the shared
imaginary with very little historical knowledge of its origin, at least as it
concerns the moniker itself. Perhaps the only source attesting to this is
Almog and Kaplan, who retrace contemporary uses of the form “Alpha
male” to the early 1990s, specifically pointing to The Red Queen by pop-­
scientist Matt Ridley and his loose coopting of psychological and biologi-
cal narratives, an observation that already points to the label’s grounding
in positivism and scientific orders of discourse (Almog and Kaplan 2017:
40). Regardless of origin, however, the expansion of this idea into all
spheres and social practices is readily observable. By way of evidence,
consider the results of a relatively simplistic Google search using only the
20 E. L. Russell

input “Alpha Male.” In the blink of an eye (0.52 seconds to be precise),

the largest and most powerful internet search engine to date yielded 228
million results. The first seven of these included, in descending order: “11
signs you’re an alpha male” (www.mantelligence.com); the urban diction-
ary entry for this topic (www.urbandictionary.com); “Are Alpha Males a
Myth or a Reality?” (www.psychologytoday.com); the Wikipedia ethnol-
ogy entry for “Alpha”; “Do alpha males even exist?” (www.theguardian.
com); “the myth of the alpha male” (https://greatergood.berkeley.edu);
and a journalistic piece also entitled “The myth of the alpha male” (www.
independent.co.uk). The search also featured prominent video links such
as “The surprising science of alpha males” (a TED talk); “10 alpha male
body language tricks EVERY guy should do”; and “15 signs you’re an
Alpha-Male.” This original search, yielding the result above, was con-
ducted on 24 September 2019. It was conducted again on 25 March
2020 and a third time on 25 June 2020, with virtually no substantive
variation in results, numerically or as it concerned the most prominent
site returns and their ranking. Indeed, page after page of results attested
to the cultural presence and pseudo-scientific foundation of the Alpha
label. None actually questioned the fact that Alphas exist, and yet neither
did any offer substantive evidence for the content of this existence, save
for circuitous statements mirroring those provided above. Once again,
Alphas are Alphas because they are Alpha.
Few readers who participate in the broader discursive ecology of
American masculinity will be surprised at these observations, even if the
example provided by Ludeman and Erlandson might raise a few eye-
brows, at least in cultural and gender studies departments. It must be
admitted, however grudgingly, that these authors enjoy a great deal of
company within and beyond the humanities and social sciences. Even in
academia, there is a striking tendency to unreflectively evoke the Alpha
male, whether as problem or ideology, as positive or negative, as some-
thing to be celebrated, disrupted, or merely tolerated. The Alpha’s place
in broader discussions and critiques of contemporary masculinity is
something of an a priori, something taken for granted or, at the very least,
left under-problematized. Maclean (2016) looks at the Wall Street Alpha
male, casting this figure as an explicit problem, while leaving bounds or
foundation of Alpha masculinity untouched; Kingfisher (2007) inscribes
 2 Masculinities, Language, and the Alpha Male 21

similar masculinities into neoliberal orders of discourse, critiquing the

acceptance of such dominant masculinity and its naturalization within
and beyond discourse; Atkinson evokes “established hierarchies of alpha
male power,” but fails to define what this is or how it is lived (2011: 29);
and Stern’s (2019) savvy look at alt-right and alt-light white supremacist
movements evokes Alpha masculinity in numerous examples, while leav-
ing the question of what, precisely, an Alpha male is or might possibly be
untouched.
That genders, as well as their bounding and content, should be subject
to broadly shared mythologies, for example, about “real men” and “true
femininity,” cannot come as a shock to anyone. Any reader may readily
recognize that, while many, including the present author, view the male-­
female dichotomy as both culturally created and problematic, this divide
and its presumptive natural basis is accepted as truth by a great number
of members of the wider community. Not only are those of us who have
been encultured within rigid boundaries separating male and female
likely unable to ever fully escape these constraints, even as we question
their frontiers and permeability: we are constantly involved in acts of
reiteration and reification, if only because our epistemologies remain
largely trapped within this oppositional system and its archetypes. We are
steeped in cultures that continually and reiteratively establish that some
men are “more masculine,” others “less masculine,” and still more simply
“not real men at all.” We are educated within cultures that make unequiv-
ocal claims about how to one might “be more feminine” and “lady-like,”
how one should “act like a man” and “toughen up,” regardless of the price
that must be paid in terms of mental and physical health in order to
accomplish such finalities. We are immersed in ideological worlds whose
truisms about “being men” or “being women” gird even the efforts of
those who seek to push against traditional norms of gender expression, as
well as those who transgress longstanding, oppressive conflations of gen-
der, sex, and sexuality. In short, we may find the notion that there are
typologically distinct gender categories and subcategories to be anti-
quated and oppressive, something to push back against and undermine,
but we must inevitably acknowledge that such categories operate upon
and through us, even—perhaps especially—as we critique, dismantle,
and queer them. (For a thought-provoking discussion of on queer theory
22 E. L. Russell

and queering across and through gendered orders, see Halberstam 1998,
2005, 2011.)
It can be argued that one of the most apparent delineations of gen-
dered categories and typologies is the Alpha male himself, in part because
of this seeming omnipresence and largely unquestioned nature. And yet
the importance of this category for contemporary understandings of the
gendered order does not simply reside within the category, itself. The
Alpha male inevitably coexists alongside his foil, whether he is referred
to as a “nice guy,” “douchebag,” “Beta,” or otherwise. Alpha is also inexo-
rably linked to the co-construction of females and femininity. The fol-
lowing section breaks down this ideological construct and its discursive
ecosystem, first considering how these fit into a broader field of mascu-
linities and gender, writ large, while also comparing and contrasting the
Alpha male to similar figures outside of North America. Alpha is
reframed as a new or newly manifested form of positivistic masculinity,
one that combines elements of semantic anti-femininity and mytho-
poetic essentialism. In so doing, the relationship of this and other con-
temporary masculinities to chronologically conceived “waves” of
feminism, especially the third and fourth, becomes all the more relevant.
At the same time, the seemingly unending and much-lamented concept
of crises of masculinity and the question of male violence and toxicity
are also revisited.

2.2 Positivism and Hybridization:

Masculinities in the Twenty-First Century
The question of “being a man” is hardly new, although shifts in gender
relations and configurations in the past century have resulted in substan-
tive and wide-reaching rearticulations of this inquiry (see e.g. Whitehead
2002). Moving away from a nearly exclusive concern as to what a man
should and shouldn’t do, how he should or shouldn’t behave, and what
exactly his role in society should or should not be, recent decades have
seen increased explorations as to the nature of lived masculinity, very
often as a reprise to contemporary feminism’s refutation of masculine
 2 Masculinities, Language, and the Alpha Male 23

neutrality or primacy (Lawson 2020: 9–10). Much of this stands in con-

versation with an understanding of gender as plural, socially constructed,
personally embodied, and distinct from biological sex. This increasingly
accepted view is closely associated with Butler (1990, 2004) and her con-
ceptualization of gender as a performance—something that is accom-
plished iteratively and reiteratively (see also Kessler and McKenna 1985).
Accordingly, the question of what serves to constitute Alpha masculinity
must be situated within the broader field of gendered categories and con-
figurations, their performance and, eventually, their realization through
linguistic representations (see Sauntson 2019 for a comprehensive
background).
If the so-called first wave of feminism defined itself by efforts to bring
women into the socioeconomic and political fold, for example, through
suffrage movements, the second wave can be seen as a movement to liber-
ate women from oppressive configurations within bounded socioeco-
nomic and sociocultural arenas. In the United States and much of the
Global North (a heuristic referring to the wealthy, established democra-
cies of Europe and North America), one of the primary aims of activists
such as Betty Friedan and writers such as Kate Millett was to overturn the
subjugated place of women and question their secondary status (Gamble
2001; Thornham 2001; Baxandall and Gordon 2002; Bucholtz 2014).
These were moments that valued the “second sex” (pace de Beauvoir
1949) in its own right. Quite understandably, little attention was paid to
the nature of masculinity or its variability: after all, the feminists of the
mid-twentieth century sought to overcome centuries in which male cen-
trality had been taken for granted at any number of levels and in nearly
all spheres of life. It would have made little sense to speak of Alpha mas-
culinity or ideology from this point of view, even if it had been a salient
cultural trope at the time (especially since Alpha masculinity does not
stand in opposition to femininity, per se, but to all else, within and
beyond the gendered binary). This observation serves to anchor Alpha
masculinity in and as a response to the third and fourth waves of femi-
nism, particularly as these moments challenged not simply surface mani-
festations of male dominance, but the very internal nature of this
self-perpetuating dynamic. It was not until the 1990s, after many hard-­
fought gains of feminists and their allies, as well as the contributions of
24 E. L. Russell

groups and persons not conforming to prevailing sexual and gender

norms—notably the LGBTQ activists and scholars—that questioning
and critiquing of now pluralized masculinities took place in earnest.
Taking the poststructuralist of these years as a point of departure, it is
possible to reconsider how masculinities are understood and studied at
present. At the heart of Connell’s examination of contemporary mascu-
linities and their projection within hegemonic orders is a distinction
between four potentially overlapping constellations of masculinity:
mythopoetic, resting on shared beliefs about a core set of values or quali-
ties; positive or positivistic, which is often scalar and tends to include a
set or list of features motivated by purportedly scientific evidence; nor-
mative, which is reliant on anthropological averaging or representations,
such as media portrayals; and semiotic, which deploys a web of syn-
onymic and antonymic relations often projected by lexico-semantic
forms, for example, “not girly” (2005). Quite naturally, few would argue
that any conceptualization may fit solely into one category alone, leading
Connell to conclude that masculinity should be considered “simultane-
ously a place in gender relations, the practices through which men and
women engage that place in gender, and the effects of these practices in
bodily experience, personality and culture” (Connell 2005: 71). This
masculinity cannot be reduced to an essence, biological or otherwise, nor
can it be simply ascribed into a given semiotic dynamic. For Connell and
others, masculinity is not a stable or fixed object, not the static “first sex”
from which earlier feminists fought to liberate themselves, but a dynamic
subjectivity, one that is constantly in flux and in the process of rebirth,
hybridization, and rearticulation.
Clearly, the description of contemporary masculinities is complex and
cannot be attended to with justice in any single work. In what follows, I
make connections with sources and antecedent scholarship helpful in
understanding the narrower topic of Alpha masculinities. This first con-
siders the entangling of masculinity and violence, especially in the United
States and as these are cogent to questions of misogyny and anti-­feminism.
Next, attention is given to comparisons with other labeled hypermascu-
linities in various contexts, highlighting a number of important similari-
ties and divergences. Finally, discussion reverts to the theorization
 2 Masculinities, Language, and the Alpha Male 25

of androcentrism as an expression and structuring of power within cul-

turally situated gendered orders, particularly as this involves the unequal
distribution of potential and capacity (pace Bourdieu 1998). This revisits
the question of hegemonic masculinity and the nature of power mani-
fested through unequal gender configurations, setting a crucial founda-
tion for the eventual nuancing of this heuristic. Accordingly, Alpha
masculinity is shown to combine elements of antifemale (and certainly
anti-feminist) stances that have come to characterize many other shades
of contemporary hypermasculinity, while also incorporating elements of
traditional masculinity. That this category concurrently occupies promi-
nent space in the neoliberal political and socioeconomic orders and stakes
its putative foundation in scientific and quasi scientific grounds testifies
to the uniqueness of the Alpha ideation and the importance of its better
understanding.

2.2.1 Masculinities, Misogynies, and Toxicities

Following on the heels of increasingly frequent and increasingly lethal

acts committed at the hands of men, the closing years of the previous and
the first decades of the present centuries have put toxic masculinity in
sharper focus. This can be understood as a tacit, but far from universal,
acknowledgment of harmful effects of contemporary masculinity, as well
as an implicit recognition of longstanding links between masculinity and
violence, from the physical to the verbal, the economic to the sexual.
While there is no precise agreement on the term, Salter (2019) notes that
“toxic masculinity” was first used by men’s movements in the 1980s as a
response to traditional pressures of career success. Its denotative expan-
sion occurred in the 2000s, especially during the lead up to the election
of Donald Trump as US President, and has come to signify acts of vio-
lence and aggression, especially those directed against women (see also
Myrttinen 2004 for a useful critique of the representational links between
toxic masculinity and weapons and Haider 2016, who brings this into
conversation with terrorism). If masculine domination had been the “air
that we breathe” (to use a formulation reminiscent of Bourdieu), it has
26 E. L. Russell

become increasingly visible as the water in which we swim. Now tangible,

although still seemingly unavoidable, few do not recognize that mascu-
linity is frequently polluted and even dangerous, especially in its exagger-
ated forms.
Given the long history of androcentrism in the Global North and else-
where, it should come as no surprise that some of the earliest and most
important scholarship problematizing masculinities has taken on acts of
hostility and violence done by men and in the name of men but targeting
women. Important examples of early scholarship in this field are notable
for having taken seriously the investigation of women’s experiences of
physical violence (e.g. MacKinnon 1989), sexual pleasure and activity
(e.g. Cameron 1992), efforts for the equalization of professional and
public terminology (e.g. Ehrlich and King 1992), and the implications of
verbal and non-verbal semantics in media, such as pornography (e.g.
MacKinnon 1993), to provide but a few examples. Of the many more
recent examples of scholarship looking at masculinism and misogyny in
contemporary America, Ging (2017) stands out as one of few who explic-
itly tackle the Alpha figure, although these are far more overtly antifemale
than the perhaps overbearing, but still well-intentioned figure of Ludeman
and Erlandson, and certainly bear little overt resemblance to the Alpha
victims cited in Chap. 1. (Accordingly, it is possible to consider Alpha as
a floating signifier, i.e. a single form having multiple, contextually deter-
mined denotations.) Positioning herself largely in contrast to Messner
(2016) whose study of men’s rights groups suggests a “kinder, gentler”
masocentrism (i.e. oriented toward all things male, to the default of other
genders, especially female), Ging investigates the ways that toxic or hos-
tile masculinity operates in virtual spaces online. She shows that men’s
rights movements and their aggrieved male adherents coopt feminist dis-
courses of oppression, subjugation, and inequality, producing a hybrid-
ized misogyny. These actors also establish an imagined misandry (i.e. the
obverse of misogyny), through which men present themselves as harmed
by feminism. Ideological misandry allows these men to claim a mantel of
victimhood, one perverting feminism by turning it back on itself. Echoing
Kupers (2005: 713), Ging reformulates this as a teleological toxicity,
evoking “the need to aggressively compete and dominate others” (2017:
 2 Masculinities, Language, and the Alpha Male 27

3), refining Connell and Messerschmidt’s view of toxicity as a behavior or

practice, that is, that which is done (2005).
Ging and Siapera’s special edition of Feminist Media Studies (2018)
represents another investigative moment, assembling scholars who
inquire whether online forms of anti-feminism and male toxicity are new
or if these are merely newly packed and differently configured constella-
tions of long-extant forces. Among the many contributions to this vol-
ume, which is notable for its inclusion of non-Anglophone subjects and
contexts, is Koulouris, whose investigation of online misogyny and the
so-called alt-right is particularly cogent to the subject of the Alpha imagi-
nary (2018). As explored in subsequent chapters, the space opened up by
internet media has made visible that which may have existed long before,
while also fueling its propagation, growth, and mutation. Importantly,
his and other voices call to question Messner’s assumption that the deck
is stacked against an overt anti-feminist backlash. Rather than moving
into a gentler form of androcentrism, it is suggested that antifemale actors
are moving into different spheres and adopting innovative methods,
reframing their positions and rearticulating their objectives in a way that
makes them less visible, albeit still powerful. (One wonders how the cur-
rent state of public misogyny, in the US as in many other polities, can be
squared with this view. The election of Donald Trump, in spite of numer-
ous allegations of sexual assault and harassment, can be seen as evidence
that we are not headed down the road Messner foresaw.)
The definition of misogyny in contemporary society, especially in
online and unmediated, synchronous forms of distanced communica-
tion, is taken up by Richardson-Self (2018). She presents a broad argu-
ment for the study of hate speech as a conceptual category, distinguishing
between sexism (which is oppressive) and misogyny (which involves the
actuation of hatred). She contends that sexism exploits, marginalizes, and
renders powerless an entire group—here, one bounded by gender—as a
form of cultural imperialism. Citing Matsuda (1989), she views this sub-
ordination as “rendering a group as lesser or inferior to another on the
basis of some (real or imagined) trait or status” (2018: 259). Accordingly,
misogyny is systemic, social, and relational, being both hostile or hate-­
based and coercive, whereas sexism is a justification for this stance and
shared performativity (260–261). This understanding shines a
28 E. L. Russell

particularly harsh light on the Alpha male, as his very existence is

predicated on the inferiority of other forms of masculinity and a bright-
line distinction separating male from female. Alpha might thus be
inscribed into discourses of animus and hatred, albeit in a manner that is
far more covert than those taken up by Matsuda or Richardson-Self (see
Russell 2020).
No overview of the subject of contemporary misogynies in the US
context could omit the imperative to consider intersections between gen-
der, race, and a politico-ideological stance, a topic brought squarely into
focus in Stern’s timely work looking at alt-right and alt-light groups that
occupy an alarmingly growing space in American life. Woven through
her careful description and analysis of broader discourses of neosuprema-
cist movements, men’s rights advocates, and pundits promoting the New
Right is the tacit acknowledgment that at the foundation of these reac-
tions to modernity’s tenets of inclusion, equality, and opportunity is a
rigid understanding of masculinity. A thread that joins together the dis-
parate actors and forces she investigates is, in fact, not just the male, but
the white male hegemon or demigod, as it is to him that all fealty is owed
in the cutthroat neoliberal social economy. That this hypermasculine fig-
ure should be connoted to violence, particularly violence directed at
women and androdivergent men1 cannot be understated. She observes
that contemporary American hypermasculinity’s primary targets are fem-
inists, regardless of gender, and those whose very ideational existence
challenges the foundations of ideological manhood, not to mention its
place in the gendered order.
That male toxicity intersects with other identities and their indices,
especially race and ethnicity, has become increasingly—and frustrat-
ingly—evident. The rhizomatic, intersectional nature of gender imbal-
ances and inequalities cannot be ignored, as individuals and groups are
never simply “male” or “female,” but are inscribed in a host of socially
constructed and emergent identities (see e.g. Lazar 2017). Indeed, when
the first edition of Kimmel’s Angry White Men was published in 2007,
few questioned that men—and white men in particular—were angry,
and that this anger was intensely directed at everything and everyone that
they perceived to be a threat to whiteness and maleness, not to mention
those who might call into question the justice of their rage: feminists,
 2 Masculinities, Language, and the Alpha Male 29

LGBTQ persons, immigrants, liberals, and countless other non-male,

nonwhite individuals and collectives. The intersectionality of race, eth-
nicity, and gender has long been acknowledged, particularly as these per-
tain to minorities and those excluded from power (Crenshaw 1991). In
the United States, with its pervasive culture of violence and an increas-
ingly anticivic, highly individualized polis, armed and unarmed assaults
targeting women, sexual minorities, and nonwhite racialized groups are
no longer isolated incidents. That these byproducts of toxic masculinity,
as well as the innumerable, putatively “minor” acts of daily violence are
explicitly carried out in the name of idealized masculinity makes them all
the more imperative objects of study.
The place of the Alpha male within the landscape of contemporary
toxic masculinities must rank among them. Although the denotative
characteristics of the label is at times blurred, it is worthy to note that
“Alpha-ness” has been evoked by several mass shooters, including the one
who carried out a deadly attack in and around the University of California,
Santa Barbara, in 2014. Rebecca Solnit reports that the young male
attacker2 wrote in his manifesto, “After I picked up the handgun, I
brought it back to my room and felt a new sense of power. I was now
armed. Who’s the alpha male now, bitches? I thought to myself, regarding
all of the girls who’ve looked down on me in the past” (2017: 99). This
was just days before he took the lives of six, seriously injured dozens of
others, and irreparably damaged families and communities in a series of
horrifically violent acts that need not be described in detail. Apparently,
his goal was to become or be perceived as Alpha, tragically echoing media
representations such as that presented in Chap. 1.
The toxicity of modern American masculinity forms a broad, but cru-
cial backdrop for the understanding of the Alpha male evoked by
Ludeman and Erlandson, as well as those examples examined in more
detail in subsequent chapters. While these may not be the gun-toting
warriors of Stern’s study or the hate-spewing Incels investigated by Ging,
they are also not entirely separated from them, if only by virtue of their
drive to dominate and control. In the Alpha, a nakedly misogynistic and
racist male toxin hides beneath a veil of acceptability and normativity,
expressing dominance and control through celebrated, codified acts of
30 E. L. Russell

leadership and competition. This does not mean, however, that the Alpha
is less toxic or somehow a kinder, gentler quasi-misogynistic actor, but
that his poison is more readily tolerated and better concealed.

2.2.2 Alpha by Any Other Name

Although this label might be unique and firmly situated in North

American Anglophone speech communities, Alpha is hardly the sole
manifestation of exaggerated, hypermasculinity past or present. This ide-
ological construction fits squarely, if depressingly, within a vast field of
tropes that can be seen in all corners of the globe and throughout history.
Similar essentialized, dichotomist conceptualizations of masculinity are
active in various contexts and in varying manifestations, whether this be
organized binarily or along a gradient. These may be alternately domi-
nant, as in one exerting power over others; celebrated or held up in high
esteem and value; or simply normative, that is, as that which is repre-
sented as usual and expected. In many instances, hypermasculine figures
subsume all three characteristics.
Some of the more widely recognized and stereotyped forms of domi-
nant masculinity are seen in conceptions of machismo, especially in Meso-
and South American sociocultural contexts (see e.g. Mosher and Tomkins
1988; Stobbe 2005; Junge 2010). Other examples include the so-called
“Real Man” of Russia (see e.g. Ryabova and Ryabov 2011). These and
other ideological formations share several of the characteristics of Alpha
masculinity, while being contextually articulated and manifested. All
conceptualize masculinity as an opposition to others and as the result of
a hard-fought battle, that is, as a rank or title to be obtained; all project
the dominant or celebrated male in opposition to some other figure or
figures; and all are explicitly performative. Machismo is achieved through
sexual conquest and the maintenance of an exterior façade denying emo-
tionality: “macho men” remove themselves from most overt expressions
of emotion and their ability to maintain this façade comes to characterize
their belonging to the category. In the Russian context, “Real Men” per-
form dominance through physicality and acts of courage: this involves
confronting dangers and hardships, heavy drinking, and other performed
 2 Masculinities, Language, and the Alpha Male 31

indices of hypermasculinity, many of which become venerated through

official (e.g. the military) and unofficial (e.g. media) organs.
Within the Anglophone world, hypermasculine ideations range from
the tough guy of the Australian or British working classes (Iacuone 2005;
Lawson 2013) to the Pick-up Artist personae that populate internet
forums and chat rooms (Lyons 2015). Similar examples through the ages
are not hard to find, from the classical Greek construction of masculinity
(see e.g. Cartledge 1998) to the feudal Japanese Samurai (see e.g. Miyazaki
2011). Time and again, in context after context, ideological masculinity
involves opposition to external forces, such as elite scorn or female rejec-
tion, and is explicitly performative. Each example also testifies to the
highly variable nature of the identities performed and achieved, includ-
ing sexuality, intelligence, emotion, paternity, and allegiance. Common
to all of these are oppositional dynamics involving one who leads or
imposes himself versus those who are led or imposed upon. Each of these
bears certain similarities to the Alpha male, whether this be his natural-
ized urge to take charge of non-Alpha figures, like the Russian Real Man;
his complex seduction-domination of women, like the Macho Man; or
his implicit distain for nonconforming males, like the tough guy figure.
Emotionality is also tightly controlled, if not denied altogether in these
and other manifestations of hypermasculinity: the male character is not
necessarily unfeeling, but his emotional world is limited and sub-
sists under strict limitations.
In many ways, the Alpha male is yet another echo of these figures. And
yet, he is unique, and not only because of the label given him. He is not
merely an Americanized Real Man, as his identity does not depend solely
on overcoming physical challenge. While he does seek to conquer—or
“pick up”—women, this is not the totality of his sexual desire—in fact,
and as will be shown in the examined corpora, the Alpha man can desire
sex with other men or he may strive for what might be seen as a tradi-
tional heterosexual relationship, with the requisite trappings of monog-
amy and fidelity. As it concerns his physicality, he certainly is not allowed
to appear weak or to physically perform anything other than strength—
and even eschews such in other men—but this does not derive primarily
or even mostly from physical imposition. Alphas certainly act tough
and perform in a manner congruous to other hypermasculine figures, but
32 E. L. Russell

this is not simply action or performance: it is being and becoming,

performativity predicated on ontology. Alpha status is attained and at the
same time innate; it is nurtured, but also putatively grounded in nature;
it is something that precedes the Alpha, but is also something the Alpha
must activate in order to acquire. The Alpha can thus be situated at a
distinct place and in divergent relations with regard to other labeled
forms of masculinity. Furthermore, the Alpha male is unique and is
uniquely integrated within American mythologies that surpass masculin-
ity itself, notably those bound up in the neoliberal self: he is an individu-
alized and individualistic Cartesian actor, largely free from impositions
from the outside, acting and not being acted upon (viz. Harvey 2006;
Peterson 2011; Brown 2019).
These considerations hark to a requisite sensitivity to the anthropologi-
cal environment from which discourse practices emerge and to which
they are directed. Alpha Male linguistic performances hardly exist within
a vacuum but are deeply integrated into the cultural fiber of the North
American Anglophone sociocultural and linguistic context, most obvi-
ously that of the United States. From this presumptive stance, it becomes
all the more important to investigate not just the Alpha Male participant
alone, but also a host of other contextually constructed concepts, each of
which exists in symbiosis. All of this reverts to one crucial, over-arching
heuristic: hegemony.

2.2.3 Masculinities and Hegemonies

While the corpora examined in this book are distinct from overt expres-
sions of misogyny or racism, there are a number of telling points of con-
tact between the Alpha male examined here and the frankly masocentric,
antifemale actors reviewed by Ging, Stern, Richardson-Self, and others.
All rest on a denigration, overt or covert, of non-traditional masculin-
ity—and particularly anything cast as feminine or feminized—thus reit-
erating and reconstituting unequal gender configurations. Leaving aside
the question as to whether Alpha should be conceived of as a manifesta-
tion of hatred or animosity, this label and its realization can be under-
stood as fitting squarely within broader, widely shared discourses that
Other documents randomly have
different content
instructions religieuses, déchira les robes et les hardes de sa sœur,
et en entassa les fragmens au milieu de la chambre.
Cette malheureuse semblait poussée au meurtre par une
puissance irrésistible. Après ces deux égorgemens, il lui faut encore
de nouvelles victimes. Elle se rend chez Claudine Brondel, veuve
Georges, voisine de sa mère, monte un escalier de bois très-rapide,
arrive à la porte de la chambre dans laquelle était cette femme,
annonce qu'elle veut lui parler; celle-ci s'approche et la voyant
couverte de sang, elle lui dit: A qui ressembles-tu? Aussitôt Jeanne
Desroches se précipite sur elle, la frappe de son couteau à la tête et
au cou. La veuve Georges, en cherchant à défendre ses jours, reçoit
encore aux doigts plusieurs blessures. Jeanne Desroches, pour
terminer plus promptement la lutte, la précipite au bas de l'escalier
et prend la fuite.
En sortant de la maison de la veuve Georges, Jeanne Desroches
alla dans celle de la veuve Dorneron. Cette femme était dans une
chambre avec son fils, âgé de sept ans. De la porte, Jeanne lui dit:
On crie dans la rue, venez donc voir. La femme Dorneron sort de sa
chambre pour aller dans une chambre voisine dont la fenêtre donne
sur la rue; Jeanne Desroches profite de cet instant pour se glisser
dans la pièce que celle-ci vient de quitter, se jette sur l'enfant
Dorneron, et avec son couteau, lui fait deux blessures, dont l'une,
large et profonde, pénètre jusqu'à la moelle épinière et détermine
une hémorrhagie abondante et mortelle. Aux cris de l'enfant, la
veuve Dorneron était revenue sur ses pas; mais il était trop tard, son
enfant avait cessé de vivre. Jeanne Desroches, qui venait de tuer
l'enfant, veut encore attenter à la vie de la mère. Jusque-là elle
n'avait attaqué que des femmes d'un âge avancé ou des enfans, elle
éprouve de la part de la femme Dorneron, âgée seulement de trente
ans, une résistance plus sérieuse. Vainement elle lui fait au cou avec
son couteau une blessure légère; vainement elle lui fait aux doigts
plusieurs morsures; celle-ci se défend avec une telle vigueur, que,
voyant qu'elle ne pouvait venir à bout de la terrasser, Jeanne
Desroches se retire et s'enfuit dans la maison de sa mère et entre
dans la cave. Là, elle pense à cacher le couteau qui vient de
commettre tant de crimes, elle enlève le bouchon qui ferme
l'ouverture supérieure d'un tonneau. Un nouveau désir de vengeance
semble l'animer encore dans cet accès de démence: elle arrache une
petite cheville de bois qui tenait le tonneau bouché par le bas, et elle
donne ainsi une libre cours au vin qui se répand dans la cave.
La femme Dorneron avait vu Jeanne Desroches entrer dans la
cave de la maison de sa mère; elle appela à grands cris les secours
de ses voisins; des hommes, des femmes surviennent; on cerne la
maison dans laquelle Jeanne Desroches s'est cachée; et quand elle
tente d'en sortir et de prendre la fuite, elle est arrêtée.
Le maire de la commune, le juge de paix d'Anse, le procureur du
roi de Villefranche, des médecins, des gendarmes se rendirent sur
les lieux. On dressa un procès-verbal, et toutes les formalités,
prescrites par la loi, furent remplies exactement. Le procureur du roi
interrogea Jeanne Desroches en présence des médecins, car il
s'agissait moins de constater une chose trop évidente, que de
reconnaître l'état mental d'une femme qui s'était livrée à des crimes
si atroces, que leur atrocité même inspirait des craintes sur sa
raison. Les médecins déclarèrent que son pouls vibrait fortement,
mais ce fut là le seul signe d'agitation qu'on reconnut en elle; car du
reste, ses réponses furent claires, et sa mémoire fidèle. Elle avoua
tous ses actes, et déclara qu'elle était allée de Pommiers à Poully,
avec l'intention de donner la mort à sa mère, mais non avec
l'intention de faire un si grand nombre de victimes. Elle donna à ses
meurtres deux motifs: Sa mère avait toujours mieux aimé sa sœur
qu'elle, elle voulait s'en venger: ayant toujours lu beaucoup de livres
de prières, elle craignait d'être damnée, et cette pensée la
tourmentait.
Les médecins ne trouvèrent, ni dans ses dehors physiques, ni dans
ses réponses, des preuves d'aliénation mentale, et déclarèrent qu'il
convenait de faire sur elle une étude plus longue et plus
approfondie.
 Le juge d'instruction lui fit subir, le 21 juin, un nouvel
interrogatoire auquel elle répondit d'une manière aussi étrange que
la première fois. Le 19 juin, quand on lui avait demandé si elle était
fâchée d'avoir fait ce qu'elle avait fait, si elle recommencerait, si les
cris de sa mère ne l'avaient pas touchée; elle avait répondu: Je suis
fâchée sans être fâchée; je recommencerais, parce que je suis
toujours tourmentée de même; ma mère a crié, cela ne m'a rien fait;
je sais bien que ma mère ne méritait pas la mort, mais je ne suis pas
fâchée. Le 21 juin, elle versa des larmes en songeant à sa mère, à
sa mère qui l'aimait tant! elle dit en parlant du jeune Dorneron:
Pauvre enfant! qui était si charmant!... Ah! si c'était à faire.....
Le 19, elle avait dit: «J'étais trop tourmentée... je lisais des livres
de prières qui m'ont tourmentée... je croyais perdre Dieu... je ne
dormais pas... je faisais des rêves dans lesquels je croyais voir
toutes sortes de bêtes... J'ai déchiré ces livres, parce qu'ils sont
cause de ma perte, en me faisant trop penser que j'étais damnée.»
Puis le 21, elle disait: «C'est ce mauvais coup de sang qui m'a fait
faire ce que j'ai fait... je ne savais pas ce que je faisais... j'étais si
vivement tourmentée! je me sentais depuis long-temps un
bougement dans l'épaule... je ne savais où j'allais... En lisant, je
pensais être damnée... j'étais toujours tourmentée, je me sentais
bouger dans l'épaule...»
Ces contradictions, ces non-sens dans ses réponses, cette
fluctuation dans les sentimens, cette idée fixe de bougement dans
l'épaule et de damnation, rapprochés de l'état de maladie qui avait
précédé le mariage de Jeanne Desroches, attestaient un
dérangement notable dans le cerveau de cette infortunée. Que l'on
considère d'ailleurs quelles victimes son délire lui avait fait choisir, et
l'on aura une preuve de plus de sa démence. La jeune nièce de deux
ans qu'elle a frappée, elle l'aimait comme ses yeux; sa vieille mère,
qui a été sa seconde victime, avait été jusque-là l'objet de ses soins
les plus tendres; la veuve Georges qu'elle avait précipitée au bas de
l'escalier, était cette femme septuagénaire à laquelle elle rendait
volontairement tous les services qui dépendaient d'elle; la femme
Dorneron, dont elle avait immolé le fils si charmant, et qui elle-
même n'avait échappé au même sort que par son courage et sa
force physique, était cette voisine qu'elle avait soignée si
charitablement pendant une maladie. Depuis quand le crime choisit-
il pour victimes les objets de son affection?
Trois médecins de Villefranche, chargés de visiter cette Desroches
dans sa prison et de faire un rapport sur son état, déclarèrent que la
mélancolie habituelle de Jeanne Desroches avait pu réagir sur le
cerveau, amener un trouble dans les fonctions intellectuelles, et lui
faire croire quelle était damnée, ce qui caractériserait la monomanie
religieuse, ou la démonomanie, et la pousser aux actes qu'elle avait
commis, ce qui formerait une autre monomanie.
De nouveaux signes de fureur se firent remarquer dans la
personne de Jeanne Desroches, au commencement du mois d'août.
Sa conduite, dans la maison d'arrêt de Villefranche, avait été
raisonnable et calme, sauf les terreurs nocturnes qui parfois
l'arrachaient de son lit. Transférée à Lyon, on la mit dans la prison de
Roanne, où pendant le jour, elle pouvait communiquer avec les
autres femmes détenues. Tout-à-coup un accès violent la saisit; elle
se jette comme une furieuse sur ses compagnes d'infortune et de
captivité. Heureusement elle n'a point d'arme qu'elle puisse plonger
dans le sein de nouvelles victimes: les gardiens de la prison
accourent; ils s'en emparent, et dès ce moment, elle est reléguée
dans l'isolement d'un cachot. Là, sa fureur s'exhale en cris
impuissans, en longs hurlemens; des prisonniers l'interrogent, elle
leur répond. Le silence des nuits n'apporte aucun soulagement à
l'agitation qu'elle éprouve; il paraît même que, jetée dans une
espèce de désespoir par la vue du cachot, elle se frappait la tête
contre la muraille et se faisait de profondes blessures.
Elle avait si peu la conscience du bien et du mal, qu'après la
tentative d'homicide qu'elle avait faite sur ses compagnes, elle
répondait aux reproches que lui adressait son avocat: J'ai bien plus
fait de mal cette fois que la première, n'est-ce pas?
 Me Margerand, avocat à la Cour royale de Lyon, s'était chargé de
la défense de l'accusée. Il la visitait fréquemment dans sa prison, lui
adressait une foule de questions relatives à ses actes sanguinaires.
D'après ces entretiens avec sa cliente, d'après les réponses qu'il en
recevait, il avait acquis la triste certitude de sa démence. Le
plaidoyer qu'il prononça dans cette cause intéressante, atteste son
zèle et ses talens. C'est dans cette pièce remarquable, ainsi que
dans l'acte d'accusation, que nous avons puisé les détails de cette
malheureuse affaire.
L'avocat avait résumé toute sa plaidoirie par ces paroles
remarquables d'un homme célèbre: «Lorsqu'un maniaque a causé
quelque grand malheur, il est à craindre sans doute; il faut le
surveiller, le garrotter, l'enfermer peut-être. Mais il ne faut pas
l'envoyer à l'échafaud: ce serait cruauté.»
A l'égard de Jeanne Desroches, il ne semblait pas y avoir de milieu
entre l'acquittement et l'échafaud. Le jury montra, par sa décision,
qu'il était d'une opinion contraire. La réponse fut affirmative sur
toutes les questions d'homicide volontaire, même sur celle de
préméditation; seulement il déclara, à la majorité de plus de sept
voix, qu'il y avait des circonstances atténuantes.
En conséquence, Jeanne Desroches fut condamné à dix ans de
travaux forcés, sans exposition, et aux frais de la procédure.
 LES INFORTUNES
DE LESURQUE ET DE SA FAMILLE.

Déjà près de quarante années se sont écoulées depuis l'exécution

de Joseph Lesurque, condamné, par une erreur bien déplorable,
comme complice de lâches assassins. Suivant l'ordre chronologique
que nous avons adopté, plus d'un lecteur aura cherché sans doute
dans nos volumes précédens la fatale catastrophe de l'infortuné
Lesurque, et nous aura peut-être reproché, avec quelque apparence
de fondement, d'avoir omis dans nos fastes une affaire si
éminemment intéressante, une infortune dont la célébrité est toute
européenne, et dont l'amer souvenir se réveille, à chacune de nos
sessions législatives, comme pour faire le procès à la barbarie de nos
codes, et réclamer une justice qui n'a encore été que fort
incomplètement obtenue. Nous devons à cet égard une courte
explication.
Si nous avons différé jusqu'à présent la publication de cet article,
c'est que nous avions l'espérance de pouvoir annoncer, au moyen
d'un retard de quelques mois, la réhabilitation de la mémoire de
Lesurque. Les chambres, le gouvernement, la famille royale, avaient
accueilli avec tant de bonté les justes réclamations de la veuve et
des enfans de cet infortuné, qu'il y avait tout lieu de croire que ce
bienveillant intérêt serait bientôt suivi des plus heureux résultats.
Cette espérance n'est pas encore pleinement réalisée; les difficultés
juridiques que l'on oppose depuis tant d'années aux larmes du
malheur, aux cris de l'opinion publique, ne sont pas encore aplanies.
Seulement on a restitué à la famille Lesurque une partie des biens
qu'elle possédait à la mort de son chef; on veut lui tenir compte des
intérêts qui lui sont dus depuis le moment de la séquestration;
indemnité bien modique, bien insuffisante sans doute, quand on
songe aux longues années que cette malheureuse famille a traînées
dans la misère et le dénuement; enfin on est entré dans une voie de
réparation et de justice. Ce progrès est d'un favorable augure, et il
est permis de croire que le moment n'est pas éloigné où les héritiers
de Lesurque verront enfin réhabiliter son nom, aux applaudissemens
unanimes des gens de bien.
Il est vraiment inconcevable que, dans un siècle qui se vante à
tout propos d'être le siècle des lumières et des perfectionnemens,
une veuve et des orphelins aient vainement réclamé la réhabilitation
d'une innocence reconnue par la justice elle-même; tandis que, sous
nos anciennes cours parlementaires, on peut citer une foule de
réhabilitations proclamées solennellement: celles de Calas et de
Cahusac à Toulouse, celle de Montbailly à Saint-Omer, celle de
Fourré à Rouen, celles de Langlade et de Lebrun à Paris. Nous
n'avons pas mission pour approfondir cette question grave; mais,
nous en tenant aux faits, nous sommes obligés de reconnaître, que
sur ce point-là du moins, notre marche n'a pas toujours été
réellement progressive.
Passons maintenant au récit des événemens qu'une fatalité
persévérante sembla se plaire à lier les uns aux autres pour accabler
de tout leur poids une famille qui, par sa position et par ses qualités
sociales, réunissait toutes les chances d'un heureux avenir.
Le 28 avril 1796 (9 floréal an IV), on apprit à Melun que le courrier
de la malle de Lyon avait été assassiné la veille sur la grande route,
ainsi que le postillon qui conduisait sa voiture. Cette nouvelle se
répandit dans Paris le même jour, et y jeta la consternation. La
police se mit aussitôt à la recherche des auteurs de ce crime. Le
juge de paix de la commune voisine du lieu où avait été commis
l'assassinat, se transporta sur la scène du meurtre, pour y dresser
procès-verbal des faits et des circonstances. On y trouva les
cadavres du courrier et du postillon. Le premier avait le cou coupé et
le corps percé de trois coups de poignard. Le postillon, qui paraissait
s'être défendu avec beaucoup de courage, avait une main abattue,
le crâne fendu d'un coup de sabre, le corps également percé de trois
coups mortels; sur ce champ de carnage étaient une houppelande
grise, bordée d'une lisière bleu foncé, un sabre cassé et son
fourreau. La lame de ce sabre était ensanglantée, et, par un hasard
en quelque sorte dérisoire, portait pour devise d'un côté: L'honneur
me conduit; de l'autre, Pour le soutien de ma patrie. Plus loin, on vit
un second sabre, une gaîne de couteau, un éperon argenté à
chaînons, la note des effets remis au courrier; les bottes fortes du
postillon furent trouvées à quelque distance sur le pont de Pouilly. La
malle avait été pillée.
Les gendarmes, requis à l'instant par les autorités locales,
parcoururent tous les lieux voisins pour recueillir des renseignemens.
Ils apprirent bientôt, que, la veille, on avait vu sur la route quatre
hommes à cheval, qui paraissaient plutôt se promener que voyager.
Ils avaient dîné à Montgeron, chez la dame Évrard, aubergiste; ils
avaient pris le café et joué au billard chez la dame Châtelain,
limonadière. Ils s'étaient ensuite arrêtés à Lieursaint chez le sieur
Champeaux, cabaretier, s'y étaient rafraîchis, et étaient repartis peu
après. L'un d'eux était revenu sur ses pas chercher son sabre qu'il
avait laissé à l'écurie.
Le jour du départ du courrier, un individu, muni d'un passeport
sous le nom de Laborde, avait retenu sa place dans la malle et était
parti avec le courrier. Il n'avait aucun paquet. On avait remarqué
qu'il était vêtu d'une houppelande bordée de peluche de laine noire.
A une heure du matin, dans la nuit du 27 au 28 avril, un officier
de garde à Villeneuve-Saint-Georges, et la sentinelle, avaient vu
passer cinq hommes à cheval, suivant la route de Paris. On
remarqua que l'un de ces cinq cavaliers, avait eu beaucoup de peine
à faire passer son cheval à la poste de Villeneuve-Saint-Georges où il
s'arrêtait obstinément.
La police n'était pas moins active à Paris. Elle apprit que l'on avait
trouvé sur la place Royale, près des boulevards, un cheval
abandonné. On en conclut qu'au moins un des assassins était rentré
dans Paris. On poussa les recherches avec plus de zèle, et l'on
parvint bientôt à savoir que les cinq meurtriers étaient revenus à
Paris, entre quatre et cinq heures du matin, par la barrière de
Rambouillet; qu'un homme avait ramené un peu plus tard, quatre
chevaux chez le sieur Muiron, rue des Fossés-Saint-Germain-
l'Auxerrois, et qu'il était revenu les reprendre avec un de ses
camarades, à sept heures environ. On apprit que cet homme se
nommait Courriol, qu'il ne portait habituellement que le nom
d'Étienne. On parvint encore à savoir qu'il avait logé avant l'époque
de l'assassinat, rue du Petit-Reposoir; qu'il n'avait point couché le 27
avril dans son domicile; qu'il était ensuite déménagé et était allé
loger, avec Madeleine Bréban, sa maîtresse, rue de la Bûcherie, n°
27, chez un sieur Richard; qu'ils étaient demeurés tous deux dans
cette maison jusqu'au 6 mai, et que, parvenus à se procurer un
passe-port pour Troyes, ils étaient partis le lendemain pour cette
ville; que le sieur Richard, sa femme et un autre individu, nommé
Bruer, les avaient accompagnés jusqu'à Bondi; que la voiture de
poste dans laquelle ils voyageaient, leur avait été fournie par un
sieur Bernard, juif, homme d'une réputation équivoque; qu'ils
s'étaient ensuite détournés de la route de Troyes pour se rendre à
Château-Thierry, chez le sieur Golier, employé aux transports
militaires. Un agent de police se rendit aussitôt à Château-Thierry, et
fit arrêter Étienne Courriol et sa femme. Courriol était nanti, tant en
espèces d'or et d'argent, qu'en assignats, mandats, rescriptions,
bijoux d'or et d'argent, etc., d'une somme formant le cinquième à
peu près des objets volés au courrier de Lyon. Ainsi tout annonçait
que la justice venait de mettre la main sur l'un des assassins. Il
s'agissait de découvrir les autres. On arrêta le sieur Golier, et une
autre personne qui s'était trouvée chez lui à Château-Thierry. C'était
le sieur Guesno, qui était aussi employé aux transports militaires à
Douai.
On ramena à Paris Courriol et sa femme, Guesno et Golier; mais
ces deux derniers ne furent pas mis en état d'arrestation. On fit
perquisition chez Richard; on mit les scellés sur ses papiers et sur
ceux de Guesno.
 Le magistrat chargé de l'instruction de cette affaire à Paris, était
M. Daubanton, juge de paix de la section du Pont-Neuf, homme
d'une justice aussi active que sévère. Ayant interrogé les prévenus, il
n'eut pas de peine à se convaincre de l'innocence de Golier et de
Guesno, les renvoya l'un et l'autre, et permit au dernier de revenir
prendre ses papiers qu'on avait compris sous le même scellé que
ceux de Richard. Le sieur Guesno s'empressa de se rendre au
bureau central de la police, au jour indiqué? Il était plein de cette
douce sécurité qui ne peut procéder que d'une conscience sans
remords!
Il rencontra en chemin un de ses amis, nommé Lesurque. La
fatale étoile de ce dernier voulut que Guesno l'invitât à
l'accompagner. Ils entrèrent l'un et l'autre dans les bureaux de la
police.
Ici commence pour Lesurque une série de malheurs inexplicables.
M. Daubanton avait, ce jour-là, appelé devant lui une partie des
témoins de Lieursaint et de Montgeron. Tous ces témoins étaient
réunis dans l'antichambre de son cabinet. Les sieurs Guesno et
Lesurque y entrent; ils attendent quelque temps avant de pouvoir
pénétrer jusqu'au juge de paix. Deux femmes de Montgeron, assises
l'une près de l'autre, les regardent avec attention et imaginent qu'ils
sont tous les deux du nombre des assassins que la justice poursuit.
Bientôt elles croient les reconnaître; elles se communiquent leurs
idées, se fortifient dans ces premières impressions, et demandent à
parler au juge de paix. Ces deux femmes se nommaient Santon et
Grosse-Tête. L'une était servante chez l'aubergiste de Montgeron;
l'autre servante chez la limonadière. M. Daubanton les fait introduire
dans son cabinet: elles lui font part de leur prétendue découverte. Il
y oppose tout ce que la raison peut suggérer en pareil cas à un
homme de bon sens. Ces femmes persistent. M. Daubanton, pour
n'avoir rien à se reprocher, fait entrer les sieurs Guesno et Lesurque,
et recommande aux deux témoins de les bien examiner, en leur
faisant observer qu'une méprise de leur part pourrait conduire deux
innocens à la mort. Les deux servantes continuent d'assurer qu'elles
les reconnaissent très-bien; qu'ils étaient du nombre de ceux qu'elles
ont vus à Montgeron. L'étonnement de M. Daubanton redouble: il
craint de manquer à la prudence; il avait entre les mains les
signalemens qu'on lui avait envoyés de Melun. Il les consulte: deux
se trouvent parfaitement applicables aux sieurs Guesno et Lesurque;
la taille, l'âge, la couleur des cheveux, les traits du visage, tout s'y
trouve conforme. Le magistrat adresse au sieur Lesurque plusieurs
questions; il lui demande sa carte de sûreté; Lesurque n'a que celle
d'un de ses parens qui porte le même nom que lui. On le requiert
d'exhiber ses papiers; on y trouve une carte de sûreté en blanc.
Alors les présomptions les plus fortes s'élèvent contre lui. Il est
arrêté. Son nom et celui du sieur Guesno vont se trouver accolés à
ceux de Courriol, de Richard et des autres prévenus. Dès ce
moment, tout prend pour Lesurque, dans cette affaire, une couleur
sinistre.
Et cependant quel était cet homme que l'on allait charger de
l'accusation d'un crime horrible, qui allait être désigné comme le
complice d'assassins de grand chemin, et, comme tel, encourir une
condamnation capitale? Nous allons l'apprendre à nos lecteurs.
Joseph Lesurque avait reçu le jour à Douai, en 1763, de parens
recommandables par leur probité. Les premières années de son
adolescence s'étaient écoulées dans la carrière militaire. Il servit
honorablement dans le régiment d'Auvergne, y obtint le grade de
sergent, et quitta le service en 1789. C'était une époque où des
routes nouvelles et de nouvelles espérances s'offraient à une
jeunesse impatiente et ambitieuse. Toutes les anciennes
administrations ayant été renversées par un système nouveau de
gouvernement, le jeune Lesurque fut admis, comme chef, dans les
bureaux de l'administration du district de Douai, sa ville natale. Il se
conduisit dans cet emploi de manière à mériter les suffrages de tous
ceux qui le connaissaient, et ne cessa de jouir de la réputation
d'homme de bien. Ayant épousé une demoiselle d'une bonne famille,
ce mariage accrut son aisance, et, au moyen d'heureuses
spéculations, il se vit, au bout de quelques années, possesseur d'une
fortune de dix mille livres de rente, revenu considérable dans une
ville de province.
Lesurque, devenu père de famille, conçut à l'âge de trente-trois
ans, le projet de quitter Douai et de venir s'établir à Paris, pour y
suivre lui-même l'éducation de ses enfans. Il en avait trois: deux
filles et un garçon. Il arriva à Paris en 1795, et logea d'abord chez un
de ses parens qui portait le même nom que lui. Il y recevait
plusieurs artistes, notamment MM. Hilaire Ledru et Bodard, tous
deux peintres. Comme il aimait les arts du dessin, il était tout naturel
qu'il se plût dans la société de ceux qui les cultivaient. Il passait
habituellement ses matinées chez le sieur Legrand, bijoutier au
Palais-Royal, où il se trouvait fréquemment avec le sieur Aldenof,
autre bijoutier, d'une probité reconnue. Enfin la vie de Lesurque était
celle d'un excellent père de famille; son existence était partagée
entre sa femme et ses enfans, d'une part, l'amitié et les arts, de
l'autre; et tous les jours, il était rentré à dix heures du soir. Après
quelques mois de séjour chez son cousin, il choisit un appartement
vaste et commode dans la rue Montmartre, chez M. Maumet,
notaire, et se livra au plaisir d'en diriger lui-même les décors et
embellissemens. Lesurque se promettait d'y couler des jours
heureux: il n'y coucha que deux fois!
On sait que les personnes qui viennent de la province à Paris, se
trouvant d'abord comme isolées dans cette immense cité, n'ont,
dans les premiers momens, d'autres liaisons que celles qu'elles
forment avec les gens de leur pays. Lesurque connaissait le sieur
Guesno qui tenait une maison de roulage à Douai, et à qui même il
avait prêté une somme de 2,000 francs. Guesno vint le voir à Paris,
et lui restituer la somme qu'il en avait reçue; il l'invita en outre à
venir déjeuner chez lui. Guesno logeait chez Richard dont il a été
question plus haut, lequel était aussi natif de Douai. Ce Richard était
d'une vie dissipée et d'une conduite peu régulière, circonstance
qu'ignorait entièrement Guesno, tout entier occupé de ses affaires.
Lesurque n'avait aucune liaison avec Richard, qu'il connaissait peu.
La destinée de Lesurque voulut que le déjeuner, donné par Guesno
chez Richard, eût lieu quatre jours après l'assassinat du courrier de
Lyon, et que Courriol, celui des assassins dont nous avons déjà
parlé, s'y trouvât avec Madeleine Bréban, qui passait pour sa femme.
Cette circonstance fortuitement malheureuse, dès qu'elle fut connue,
devint bien funeste à Lesurque.
Maintenant, revenons à la déclaration des deux servantes qui
prétendaient reconnaître dans Guesno et Lesurque deux des
assassins du courrier de Lyon. Dans une semblable conjoncture, la
justice devait se montrer ombrageuse et défiante: M. Daubanton
commença à concevoir quelques soupçons.
Lesurque et Guesno furent mis en jugement avec Courriol,
Bernard qui avait fourni des chevaux aux assassins, Richard, chez
qui on avait déposé une partie des effets volés, et le sieur Bruer,
qu'un aubergiste de Lieursaint prétendait avoir reconnu, et qui fut
bientôt déclaré innocent.
L'instruction se poursuivit avec toute l'ardeur qui devait animer les
magistrats, dans un temps où les routes étaient infestées de
brigands, où les courriers étaient fréquemment arrêtés et les deniers
de l'État enlevés à main armée.
Dès que la nouvelle de l'arrestation de Lesurque fut répandue, la
consternation de ses amis et le désespoir de sa famille furent au
comble. Le malheureux prévenu reçut de toutes parts les marques
du plus vif intérêt. Tous ceux qui connaissaient Lesurque étaient
convaincus de son innocence. En effet, la moindre réflexion suffisait
pour faire concevoir qu'un homme qui avait 10,000 francs de revenu,
qui, jusqu'à ce jour, avait joui de la réputation la plus honorable, qui
venait s'établir à Paris avec sa femme et ses enfans, qui avait loué
un appartement de 1,500 francs chez un des notaires les plus
connus de Paris, qui avait pris plaisir à décorer cette nouvelle
habitation, n'avait pu quitter son pays pour venir assassiner le
courrier de Lyon sur la route de Melun. La somme volée au courrier
était de 14,000 francs en numéraire, et de 7 millions en assignats,
qui, en 1796, pouvaient représenter 5 à 6,000 francs. Le nombre des
coupables signalés à la justice était de six, y compris celui qui avait
fourni des chevaux; c'était donc pour se procurer environ 3,000
francs qu'on supposait qu'un homme, honnête et riche, s'était
subitement transformé en voleur et assassin de grande route.
Dans une circonstance aussi délicate, il eût fallu, pour le triomphe
de l'innocence faussement accusée, que la justice procédât avec une
extrême circonspection, avec une sage lenteur. Tout le contraire
arriva. Appelées aux débats, les deux femmes qui prétendaient avoir
reconnu Guesno et Lesurque s'obstinèrent dans leur première
déclaration. Guesno en détruisit tout l'effet, pour ce qui le
concernait, en prouvant jusqu'à l'évidence son alibi. De quel poids
devenait alors le témoignage de ces deux femmes? Il était évident,
par cette première preuve de méprise, qu'elles n'étaient point
infaillibles dans leurs attestations.
Courriol, interrogé, ne put rendre un compte satisfaisant de sa
conduite et des sommes que l'on avait trouvées chez lui. Mais
Madeleine Bréban, sa concubine, dévoila tout ce qu'elle savait: elle
parla d'un voyage que Courriol avait fait à l'époque de l'assassinat;
elle signala leur déménagement subit, lors de son retour, et enfin
leur départ pour Troyes. Elle crut reconnaître le sabre trouvé sur le
lieu du crime pour être celui de Courriol. Elle ajouta qu'elle avait vu
plusieurs fois chez ce dernier, les nommés Bruer et Richard, qu'elle
n'y avait vu Guesno que par occasion, et jamais Lesurque.
Richard déposa qu'il connaissait fort peu le sieur Lesurque.
Bernard et Bruer déclarèrent qu'ils ne le connaissaient pas du tout.
Le nommé Bruer, aussi heureux que Guesno, prouva, avec la
même évidence, qu'il n'avait eu, ni pu avoir la moindre part au crime
dont on poursuivait la vengeance. Lesurque se croyait aussi sûr
qu'eux de démontrer son innocence; ce qui serait probablement
arrivé si la procédure eût été continuée par M. Daubanton. Mais il
semblait écrit dans le livre des destins que la tête de Lesurque était
vouée à l'échafaud.
 Le 22 mai, la procédure de M. Daubanton fut cassée pour cause
d'incompétence, et les prévenus se virent renvoyer devant le tribunal
criminel de Melun.
Devant ce nouveau tribunal, la procédure prit une tournure plus
désastreuse. De funestes préventions furent accueillies légèrement;
on crut que tous les prévenus indistinctement étaient coupables, et
l'on parut chercher tous les moyens de se fortifier dans cet injuste
préjugé et de le faire prévaloir. L'acte d'accusation fut dressé sous
l'influence de cette fatale préoccupation.
Les débats s'ouvrirent le 2 août. Lesurque s'y présenta avec ce
calme que donne une conscience sans reproche. Il montra une
contenance ferme et assurée, où perçait, par intervalles,
l'indignation qu'il éprouvait de se voir confondu avec d'exécrables
brigands. A la première nouvelle de son malheur, tout ce qu'il avait
d'amis, tant à Douai qu'à Paris, s'étaient réunis spontanément pour
venir attester sa probité.
Le premier témoin à décharge, qui se présenta, fut le sieur
Legrand; c'était l'ami chez lequel Lesurque se rendait le plus
souvent. Legrand était de Douai; il tenait au Palais-Royal un riche
magasin d'orfévrerie et de bijouterie; sa réputation était sans tache.
Le 8 floréal an IV (27 avril 1796), il avait reçu chez lui Lesurque; ils
avaient passé ensemble une partie de la matinée. Legrand rattachait
à ce souvenir celui d'une fourniture de boucles d'oreilles que lui avait
faite le même jour le sieur Aldenof, bijoutier-fabricant, auquel il avait
vendu, de son côté, une de ces cuillers d'argent qu'on appelle
poches. Plein de l'idée d'avoir inscrit cette affaire sur son livre, il
invoque cette circonstance devant le tribunal. O surprise! ô
consternation! la date invoquée est surchargée! on reconnaît que
d'un 9 on a fait un 8, et la surcharge est si grossière qu'elle frappe
tous les yeux.
Dès ce moment, les débats ne présentent plus qu'un aspect
sinistre. Le témoin Legrand est presque soupçonné d'avoir voulu
tromper la justice; les autres témoins qui étaient venus pour déposer
dans le même sens sont à peine écoutés; la sentence de
condamnation n'est plus douteuse. Le président du tribunal semble
s'efforcer d'infirmer, par tous les moyens possibles, les dépositions
favorables à l'accusé. Déjà cette tendance malheureuse s'était
manifestée lors de l'interrogatoire. Le président ayant interrogé
Lesurque sur l'état de ses revenus, et celui-ci ayant répondu qu'ils
pouvaient s'élever à douze ou quinze mille francs: «Qu'est-ce que
cela? répondit le président: sans doute vous voulez parler
d'assignats?—Non, reprit l'accusé; mon revenu est en fermages et
en argent.» Alors le président se tournant vers les jurés, dit: «On
voudrait faire croire que les crimes n'appartiennent qu'aux pauvres;
mais si les petits crimes appartiennent aux pauvres, les grands
crimes appartiennent aux riches.» Doctrine monstrueuse, effrayante,
subversive; doctrine qui semble être un écho de ces dogmes
sanglans que prêchait, trois années auparavant, l'énergumène
Marat!
«J'ai assisté aux débats, écrivait le rédacteur du Messager du Soir,
et j'avoue que, loin d'avoir été convaincu par l'assurance des témoins
qui déclaraient reconnaître Lesurque pour être le même qu'ils
avaient aperçu une seule fois, il y avait trois mois, j'ai vu avec peine
que le citoyen G..... qui se laisse quelquefois entraîner par la haine
qu'il a si justement vouée aux vrais coupables, cherchait, par un
plaidoyer contradictoire, à détruire l'effet qu'aurait pu produire sur
les jurés la déclaration de quelques ouvriers, qui affirmaient avoir vu,
le jour même de l'assassinat, Lesurque chez lui.»
Sur les déclarations du jury, Guesno et Bruer furent acquittés;
Richard fut condamné à vingt-quatre années de fers, comme
convaincu d'avoir reçu gratuitement des effets qu'il savait provenir
d'un crime; Courriol, Lesurque et Bernard entendirent prononcer
contre eux un arrêt de mort.
Lesurque ne put se défendre d'un mouvement d'effroi, de douleur
et de surprise, en entendant cette foudroyante sentence. Une pâleur
mortelle se répandit sur son visage. Mais bientôt, recueillant ses
forces, et élevant la voix, il dit: «Sans doute le crime, dont on
m'accuse, est horrible et mérite la mort; mais s'il est affreux
d'assassiner sur une grande route, il ne l'est pas moins d'abuser de
la loi pour frapper un innocent. Un moment viendra, où mon
innocence sera reconnue, et c'est alors que mon sang rejaillira sur la
tête des jurés qui m'ont trop légèrement condamné, et du juge qui
les a influencés.»
Ce jugement fut rendu le 5 août, à dix heures du soir. La
condamnation de Courriol parut juste à tous ceux qui avaient assisté
aux débats; mais on ne put s'expliquer celle de Lesurque et de
Bernard. Les jurés déclaraient ce dernier convaincu d'avoir participé
à main armée à l'assassinat du courrier de Lyon, et cependant
Bernard n'avait pas quitté Paris. Il avait, à la vérité, fourni les
chevaux, et l'on apprit depuis qu'il avait assisté au partage des effets
volés; mais on ne le savait point alors, et s'il méritait une peine, ce
ne pouvait être la peine capitale.
La condamnation de Lesurque était bien plus étrange encore. Elle
frappa tous les esprits d'une profonde consternation; étrange
destinée que celle de cet infortuné père de famille! Condamné,
comme assassin, par les organes de la justice, il devait être
innocenté par les vrais assassins eux-mêmes. Déjà la fille Madeleine
Bréban, cette concubine de Courriol, avait déclaré que jamais elle
n'avait vu Lesurque chez son criminel amant. Courriol lui-même,
entendant la sentence, s'écria: Lesurque et Bernard sont innocens.
Bernard n'a fait que prêter ses chevaux, Lesurque n'a jamais pris
aucune part à ce crime. Plus tard le même coupable, pressé par les
remords, fait des révélations entre les mains des magistrats. Il
nomme ses complices; il donne des détails circonstanciés sur la part
que chacun d'eux a pris à l'assassinat.
Cependant les condamnés s'étaient pourvus en cassation; mais
leur pourvoi fut rejeté. Lesurque présenta une requête au Directoire
qui, frappé des considérations si puissantes et si justes qu'elle
contenait, se fit remettre toutes les pièces du procès et les examina
avec soin.
 Il paraît certain qu'on avait recueilli dès-lors à Bicêtre, une
conversation qui mettait dans tout son jour l'innocence de Lesurque.
Bernard reprochait à Courriol de ne pas le défendre avec le même
zèle qu'il défendait Lesurque. «Tu n'as pas assassiné le courrier, lui
répondit Courriol, mais tu as profité de l'assassinat. Lesurque n'a ni
assassiné, ni profité du vol. Il nous est tout-à-fait étranger; tu le sais
aussi bien que moi.»
Après un examen approfondi, le Directoire crut devoir adresser un
message au conseil des Cinq-Cents, en faveur du malheureux
Lesurque. Le conseil des Cinq-Cents ordonna un sursis, et nomma
une commission pour lui faire un prompt rapport. Malheureusement
les mêmes préventions qui avaient déjà été si fatales à Lesurque,
assiégèrent la commission! On supposa que Courriol avait pu être
engagé par argent à faire ses tardives révélations; que les détails
qu'il donnait sur l'assassinat pouvaient n'être qu'un roman concerté
entre lui et son complice; que les coupables, qu'il indiquait,
pouvaient n'être que des individus imaginaires; que les preuves,
dont on prétendait fortifier la déclaration de Courriol, pouvaient être
encore l'ouvrage des amis de Lesurque; et, sur cet échafaudage de
possibilités, on proposa l'ordre du jour. Un second message du
Directoire n'eut pas plus d'effet que le premier; on ajoutait aux
considérations, dont on vient de parler, le respect dû aux décisions
du jury, l'inviolabilité de ses jugemens; et, déterminé par un simple
peut être, le Conseil des Cinq-Cents envoya Lesurque, Bernard et
Courriol à la mort. Jusqu'à son dernier moment, Courriol proclama
l'innocence de Lesurque; jusqu'à son dernier moment, il continua
d'attester qu'il périssait victime d'une fatale ressemblance avec un
des assassins, et demanda que l'on recherchât les hommes qu'il
avait désignés. Lesurque mourut en pardonnant à ses juges! Sa mort
laissait une veuve inconsolable et trois orphelins encore en bas âge!
La veille du jour fatal, Lesurque avait coupé lui-même ses cheveux
et les avait partagés en tresses pour les envoyer à sa femme et à
ses enfans. Avant ses derniers momens, il s'était occupé sans trouble
de régler ses affaires, comme s'il fût arrivé au terme naturel de sa
vie. Il écrivit à son épouse en proie au désespoir: «Quand tu liras
cette lettre, je n'existerai plus; un fer cruel aura tranché le fil de mes
jours, que je t'avais consacrés avec tant de plaisir. Mais telle est la
destinée; on ne peut la fuir en aucun cas. Je devais être assassiné
juridiquement. Ah! j'ai subi mon sort avec une constance et un
courage dignes d'un homme tel que moi. Puis-je espérer que tu
imiteras mon exemple? Ta vie n'est point à toi; tu la dois tout entière
à tes enfans et à ton époux, s'il te fut cher. C'est le seul vœu que je
puisse former. On te remettra mes cheveux que tu voudras bien
conserver, et, lorsque mes enfans seront grands, tu les leur
partageras: c'est le seul héritage que je leur laisse. Je te dis un
éternel adieu. Mon dernier soupir sera pour toi et mes malheureux
enfans!» Cette lettre était adressée à la citoyenne VEUVE Lesurque.
A peine la terre s'était-elle refermée sur la dépouille sanglante de
cette victime innocente que déjà le jour de la vérité commençait à
luire. M. Daubanton qui, le premier, par une funeste précipitation,
avait préparé, sans le vouloir, la fin tragique de Lesurque, faisait,
depuis le commencement même de la procédure de Melun, les plus
généreux efforts pour réparer son erreur. Mais, quand il vit qu'il
n'avait pu sauver l'innocent confondu avec le coupable, pénétré de
remords déchirans, dès ce jour, il se dévoua tout entier à cette cause
malheureuse, et se livra avec une ardeur extrême à la découverte
des vrais coupables. Ses recherches actives et zélées furent
récompensées par le succès. Il parvint à faire arrêter les complices
de Courriol. Nous allons extraire quelques particularités intéressantes
d'un mémoire que ce magistrat présenta, à cette occasion, au grand-
juge, en 1806, dans le but de prouver d'une manière invincible, que
Lesurque était mort innocent.
Les complices désignés par Courriol étaient Rossy, Dubosc, Vidal
et Durochat. C'était ce dernier qui, sous le nom de Laborde, avait
pris une place dans la malle de Lyon à côté du courrier.
M. Daubanton qui avait été chargé de l'instruction contre Courriol,
ayant appris que Durochat était en prison à Sainte-Pélagie, pour vol
commis récemment, procéda à la reconnaissance de cet individu et
quand il fut bien convaincu de l'identité, il se fit livrer le prisonnier et
se transporta avec lui à Melun. Durochat fut interrogé, et choisit,
pour être jugé, ainsi qu'il en avait alors le droit, le tribunal de
Versailles. Aussitôt on repartit de Melun pour se rendre en cette ville.
Durochat demanda à déjeuner dans un village près de Gros-Bois. Il
exprima à M. Daubanton le désir de l'entretenir un moment tête-à-
tête. Les gendarmes craignaient quelque mauvais coup de sa part,
et ne voulaient pas sortir. M. Daubanton cependant l'exigea, après
avoir pris quelques mesures pour sa sûreté.
Resté seul avec Durochat, et près de lui, M. Daubanton prit un
couteau, qui se trouvait entre eux deux, pour ouvrir un œuf.
Durochat lui dit aussitôt: «Vous avez peur, M. Daubanton?—Et de
qui? lui dit l'officier public.—De moi, dit Durochat, vous prenez mon
couteau.—Tenez! dit M. Daubanton, coupez-vous du pain.» A ce trait
de tranquillité, Durochat ne put s'empêcher de lui dire: «Vous êtes
un brave; c'est fait de moi; vous saurez tout.»
En effet, il fit à l'égard de Courriol, de Vidal, de Rossy et de
Dubosc, les déclarations les plus positives sur leur complicité dans
l'assassinat du courrier. Il ne tarda pas à faire légalement les mêmes
déclarations. Parmi une foule de détails relatifs à l'assassinat, il
revint plusieurs fois sur l'innocence de Lesurque: «J'ai entendu dire,
ajouta-t-il, qu'il y avait un particulier, nommé Lesurque, qui avait été
condamné. Je dois à la vérité de dire que je n'ai jamais connu ce
particulier, ni lors du projet, ni lors de son exécution, ni au partage;
je ne le connais pas; je ne l'ai jamais vu.
Le 9 germinal an V, dans une nouvelle déclaration, il ajouta, en
parlant de Lesurque: Ce dernier est innocent de cette affaire, je ne
l'ai jamais connu. Lesurque a été arrêté et condamné au lieu de
Dubosc.
Le témoignage de ce criminel était d'un grand poids; lui qui
s'accusait franchement lui-même, lui qui ne craignait que deux
témoins dans l'affaire, lui qu'il aurait été difficile de condamner s'il
eût tout nié. Lorsqu'il accusa tous ceux qu'il connaissait pour ses
complices, il n'hésita pas plus que la première fois à déclarer qu'il
n'avait jamais connu, qu'il n'avait jamais vu Lesurque de sa vie. Il
répondit à toutes les observations du juge avec un sang-froid, une
tranquillité qui portait au fond de l'ame la conviction que Lesurque
avait été condamné et exécuté pour un autre, par erreur de
ressemblance.
Le magistrat lui observa que cependant Lesurque avait été
reconnu pour l'un des voleurs de la malle; qu'il avait à ses bottes des
éperons argentés; qu'on l'avait vu en raccommoder un avec du fil,
soit à Lieursaint, soit à Montgeron, et que cet éperon avait été
trouvé à l'endroit où la malle avait été volée. Durochat répondit:
«C'est le nommé Dubosc qui avait des éperons argentés. Le matin
même où nous avons partagé le vol, je lui ai entendu dire qu'il avait
brisé l'un des chaînons de ses éperons; qu'il l'avait raccommodé avec
du fil dans l'endroit où nous avions dîné, et qu'il l'avait perdu dans
l'affaire. Je lui ai vu moi-même dans les mains l'autre éperon: il
disait qu'il allait le jeter dans les commodités.» Durochat donna
ensuite le signalement de Dubosc, et ajouta que, le jour de
l'assassinat, il avait une perruque blonde. Lesurque, pris pour
Dubosc, était blond.
Vidal, l'un des assassins, fut confronté avec Durochat, qui le
reconnut. Mais Vidal eut recours à la défense ordinaire des scélérats,
il ne reconnut point Durochat.
Dubosc fut aussi arrêté et conduit à Versailles pour être jugé avec
Vidal. Attendu la déclaration de Durochat, portant que, le jour de
l'assassinat, Dubosc avait une perruque blonde; attendu que Courriol
et Durochat avaient déclaré que Lesurque avait été pris et reconnu
pour Dubosc, le tribunal criminel de Versailles avait ordonné que cet
accusé serait coiffé d'une perruque blonde pour être présenté aux
témoins; on lui en mit une qui avait été faite exprès. Dans cet état, il
fut reconnu par plusieurs témoins, pour avoir été vu à Montgeron, le
jour du crime. La femme Alfroy qui, précédemment avait reconnu
Lesurque pour être un des quatre individus soupçonnés de
l'assassinat, déclara que devant le tribunal de la Seine, elle avait
reconnu Lesurque, mais qu'aujourd'hui, sa conscience lui faisait un
devoir de dire qu'elle s'était trompée; qu'elle croyait fermement
qu'elle n'avait pas vu Lesurque, mais Dubosc présent; qu'elle le
reconnaissait très-bien; qu'elle l'avait déjà reconnu à Pontoise;
qu'elle l'avait dit au directeur du jury. La femme Alfroy, invitée à
plusieurs reprises, par le président, à bien examiner encore Dubosc,
et après l'avoir long-temps considéré en silence, persista enfin dans
sa dernière déclaration. Ce Dubosc était un scélérat redoutable: il
avait brisé quatre fois ses chaînes.
Un dernier hommage rendu à l'innocence de Lesurque par l'un des
auteurs du crime pour lequel il avait été condamné, fut le testament
de mort du nommé Rossy, dit encore Ferrary, ou le grand Italien,
dont le vrai nom était Beroldy. Il avait été découvert à Madrid, et
livré sur la réclamation du gouvernement français. Il fut également
jugé à Versailles; après avoir nié constamment qu'il eût jamais
connu Lesurque, et soutenu que lui, Beroldy, était innocent; il fut
néanmoins condamné à mort, par suite des révélations de ses
complices. Après l'exécution, M. de Grand-Pré, curé de la paroisse de
Notre-Dame de Versailles, qui avait assisté Rossy dans ses derniers
momens, certifia au président qu'il avait été autorisé par son
pénitent à déclarer que le jugement qui le condamnait avait été bien
rendu. Depuis, le même ecclésiastique déposa chez M. Destréman,
notaire à Versailles, une déclaration écrite et signée de Beroldy (dit
Rossy), mais qui ne devait être publiée que six mois après sa mort.
Cette déclaration, que M. Daubanton mit sous les yeux du ministre,
portait que Lesurque était innocent.
«Je n'ajouterai rien à ces faits, disait cet ancien officier public en
terminant sa requête; ils suffisent à la raison et au cœur pour
compléter la justification de Lesurque; ils suffisent au moins pour
engager le gouvernement à ordonner la révision du procès de cet
infortuné. Calas, les Sirven, et tous ceux pour lesquels la justice de
nos monarques a ordonné de semblables révisions, n'ont jamais eu
en leur faveur tant de présomptions d'innocence. Aucun d'eux n'a eu
l'avantage, comme Lesurque, d'intéresser les tribunaux eux-mêmes,
presque aussitôt son jugement rendu, et pendant tout le cours des
différens autres procès subis par tous les complices de l'assassinat
du courrier de Lyon.»
Cette réclamation de M. Daubanton fut rejetée après un long
examen.
On frémit de tous ses membres, quand on songe au trop fatal
enchaînement de circonstances qui circonscrivit l'infortuné Lesurque
et l'amena sous le fer du bourreau. Et lorsqu'on voit son innocence
solennellement proclamée par ceux-là même qui étaient les vrais
coupables, on ne peut contenir un sentiment d'indignation contre
cette inexplicable politique qui s'est jusqu'ici constamment refusée à
apposer le sceau de la légalité à la réhabilitation de cet honnête père
de famille, immolé par le glaive de la loi. Certes, la réhabilitation de
Lesurque a été, depuis long-temps, prononcée par l'opinion
publique; mais cette consolation, bien honorable sans doute,
pouvait-elle suffire à une veuve désespérée qui réclamait un époux,
à des orphelins qui redemandaient la tendresse, l'appui, l'honneur de
leur père! L'honneur! le plus bel héritage qui puisse rester à des
enfans! Que fallait-il de plus à la justice pour lui prouver sa
sanglante erreur? Les quatre scélérats, désignés par Courriol,
avaient subi leur peine. Avait-elle d'autres coupables à rechercher?
Elle n'avait que cinq têtes à frapper, elle en avait fait tomber sept!
La veuve Lesurque, dévorée par le chagrin, ne s'en est pas moins
montrée à la hauteur de la tâche pénible que lui imposaient et
l'innocence de son époux, et l'affection vraie qu'elle lui avait vouée.
Secondée par sa fille aînée, elle ne cessa de harceler de ses
réclamations trop légitimes le gouvernement impérial; mais ses
vœux, ses prières furent impitoyablement repoussés. Le retour des
Bourbons semblait devoir être plus propice à une si juste cause. Un
écrivain d'un caractère noble et généreux, M. Salgues, vint associer
ses talens, son zèle et ses lumières aux efforts de la malheureuse
famille Lesurque. Mémoires au roi, requêtes, pétitions aux deux
chambres, démarches actives et éclairées, sollicitations continuelles
et pressantes; rien ne fut épargné par cet homme de lettres, homme
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