her memoirs, reputedly as a part of therapy. In these memoirs, Barbin would use female pronouns when writing about her life prior to sexual redesignation and male pronouns following the declaration. Nevertheless, Barbin clearly regarded herself as punished, and "disinherited", subject to a "ridiculous inquisition". In his commentary to Barbin's memoirs, Michel Foucault presented Barbin as an example of the "happy limbo of a non-identity", but whose masculinity marked her from her contemporaries. Morgan Holmes states that Barbin's own writings showed that she saw herself as an "exceptional female", but female nonetheless. Death In February 1868, the concierge of Barbin's house in rue de l'École-de-Médecine found her dead in her home. She had died by suicide by inhaling gas from her coal gas stove. The memoirs were found beside her bed. Publication of memoirs Dr. Regnier reported the death, recovered the memoirs and performed an autopsy. Later he gave the memoirs to Auguste Ambroise Tardieu, who published excerpts as "Histoire et souvenirs d'Alexina B." ("The Story and Memoirs of Alexina B.") in his book Question médico-légale de l'identité dans ses rapport avec les vices de conformation des organes sexuels, contenant les souvenirs et impressions d'un individu dont le sexe avait été méconnu ("Forensics of Identity Involving Deformities of the Sexual Organs, along with the Memoirs and Impressions of an Individual whose Sex was Misidentified") (Paris: J.-B. Ballière et Fils, 1872). The excerpts were translated into English in 1980. Michel Foucault discovered the memoirs in the 1970s while conducting research at the French Department of Public Hygiene. He had the journals republished as Herculine Barbin: Being the Recently Discovered Memoirs of a Nineteenth-century French Hermaphrodite. In his edition, Foucault also included a set of medical reports, legal documents, and newspaper articles, as well as a short story adaptation by Oscar Panizza. Modern commentaries and references According to Morgan Holmes, the anthropologist Gilbert Herdt has identified Barbin as providing a crisis for "modern ideology" through an identification as neither male nor female, but Barbin's own writings describe a self-identification as female, albeit an exceptional female. Barbin's memoirs inspired the French film The Mystery of Alexina. Jeffrey Eugenides in his book Middlesex treats concurrent themes, as does Virginia Woolf in her book, Orlando: A Biography. Judith Butler refers to Foucault's commentary on Barbin at various points in their 1990 Gender Trouble, including their chapter "Foucault, Herculine, and the Politics of Sexual Discontinuity." Barbin