SOURCE: "The Diaboliques," in The Novels and Stories of Barbey d'Aurevilly, Librairie Droz, 1967, pp. 107-35.

In the following excerpt, Rogers asserts that the stories in The Diaboliques are interrelated and also evince connections to Barbey's earlier novels such as What Never Dies and Une vieille maîtresse.

Les Diaboliques is a collection of six stories varying in length and intensity, but all so unusual in tone and content that they aroused comment and controversy as soon as they were published. Each is related both to its companions, and to [Barbey d'Aurevilly's] earlier novels; all six, 'Le Rideau cramoisi,' 'Le Plus Bel Amour de Don Juan,' 'Le Bonheur dans le crime,' 'Le Dessous de cartes d'une partie de whist,' 'A un Dîner d'athées' and 'La Vengeance d'une femme,' fit into a coherent framework conceived over a period of twenty years, and introduce...