In Barbey d'Aurevilly's (1808-1889) literary works the dandy takes on an important role not merely as protagonist but also as narrator. The properties that characterize him and his antibourgeois revolt also define the aesthetic principles and narrative structures of Barbey's text. In spite of this subtle revolt against middle-class values as well as against traditional strategies of textual production, the author's dandies do not challenge the bourgeois concept of gender polarity that shaped nineteenth-century French society.