Nostalgies du passé et lieux de mémoire dans Les Diaboliques de Barbey ­d’Aurevilly

Barbey ­d’Aurevilly did not escape his ­era’s passion for history. It is a marked presence in his novels and also infuses the pages of the famous and scandalous novellas of the Diaboliques. This study analyses the different ways in which history is inscribed within this brief narrative form, and evokes the principal features of a style of writing which amounts to a nostalgic memorial for a past that Barbey ­d’Aurevilly, a minor noble and a great dandy, takes it on himself to awaken.