The French Republic is represented by Marianne on one side and the community of equal brothers on the other – and in between, the unspeakable notion of a castrated state. The new political body is anything but clear-cut, and the texts of the Third Republic reflect this ambiguity as they engage with its representation. Drawing from the narrative of an identity in crisis, Huysmans, Zola, Lorrain, and Barrès offer various solutions to the conflict between an ideology of a virile brotherhood and an imaginary of lost masculinity. Jarry, Romains, and Proust respond to these solutions, deconstructing them or exposing their contradictions. Through numerous individual analyses, a panorama of forms of work on and with the allegorical is presented.