Emotions and adulterous love in 19th century Paris: The letters of Adèle Schunck and Aimé Guyet de Fernex (1824–1849)

• A study based on an extraordinary source: 1500 letters of two adulterous lovers.
• We analyze epistolary expressions of love as characteristic of the Romantic rhetoric.
• We show how literature can influence the way people express their emotions.
• We examine the emotional turmoil typical of the Romantic era.
• We highlight the link between nature and passion.

In Paris, between 1824 and 1849, Adèle Schunck and Aimé Guyet de Fernex had an illicit relationship in perfect secrecy. This article discusses the place of emotion in the 1500 letters of the two lovers. Analysis, in their words, of the experience and epistolary expression of feelings of love and of the deep emotional turmoil that this generates, leads to describe them as characteristic figures of the Romantic rhetoric. Because of society's disapproval of their love, they are not allowed to express their emotions openly: hence, it is in Nature that the lovers find a link to their feelings.