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18th Century, books, desire, Enlightenment, Forbidden Best Sellers, french, French history, French Revolution, history, literature, philosophy, pornography, power, revolution, Robert Darnton, sex, sexuality, Therese Philosophe
During the French Eighteenth Century, sex and philosophy often went hand in hand. This was an age where both were officially considered equally dangerous, making philosophical pornography all the more common – and not just at the fringes of society. Robert Darnton, a prolific (and cute – see the ancient picture below) eighteenth-century historian, has spent most of his academic career documenting how such books, although often banned, printed overseas and smuggled into France, formed a large part of libraries across the country.
Robert Darton and a cat. He also wrote a fantastic book entitled ‘The Great Cat Massacre’, a cultural history of eighteenth-century France. The title gives a lot away…
The list of ‘forbidden best-sellers’ compiled by Darnton is indicative of a greater thread that was running through French society at this turbulent time. Dissent and disillusionment were brewing, and these books, full of free thinking and free love, were adding to the mix. For some, including Darnton, this invites an intriguing question – can books like this cause a revolution?
One particularly raunchy novel that typifies this mix of sex and philosophical thought is Thérèse Philosophe. Published anonymously in The Hague in 1748, the text is ascribed to the marquis d’Argens – but nobody really knows for sure if he wrote it. To the modern reader, the book is pure porn. And yet for our eighteenth-century counterparts, the undeniably sexy text was filled with yet another thrill – the revelation of a radical system of beliefs.
The novel follows the young Thérèse as she discovers her own sexuality through racy encounters with everyone she meets. She spends an awful lot of time hiding in cupboards and behind bushes, watching her elders and betters shagging each other silly.
Starting out in a convent, she watches from the comfort of a wardrobe as a fellow novice is instructed in the ways of ‘prayer’. Father Dirrag, her confessor, explains that the young Eradice has been chosen by God to experience his full presence, and would she kindly turn around and lift her skirts. He then applies ‘the rope of St. Francis’ to the unsuspecting nun (two guesses what the rope actually is), causing her to feel all the ecstasy of a full-on religious experience.
This turns in to a direct and unrelenting attack on the clergy that is typical of literature of this kind. An institution rife with corruption, it was a target of many a slanderous tract. What’s more, in this instance, the episode is based on a real story. The perpetrator, Father Girard, was found guilty of seducing his pupil, Catherine Cadière, in the most unholy manner.
In this engraving from an early edition of the novel, Father Dirrag takes advantage of his pupil as Thérèse looks on in awe.
It is through subversive instances such as this that the novel begins to show its true colours. Although undoubtedly written to titillate, it is equally meant to pour scorn on contemporary institutions.
Thérèse’s journey through life is marked as much by her sexual exploits as her philosophical awakening. The reader follows her as she learns to masturbate, as she is told about the benefits of coitus interruptus, and as she finally takes a lover of her own – and, of course, each of these instances is remarkable for their graphic descriptions. What is equally important, however, is that each of these scenes is either preceded or followed by a length philosophical debate.
For example, the young couple that show her that sex is fine as long as you don’t get pregnant also teach her the importance of free thinking, and her lover towards the end of the novel urges her to question the established order, as well as encouraging her other predilections.
Thérèse is a philosophe – this title elevates her to the rank of great thinkers such as Voltaire, Diderot and Rousseau. Sort of. At least, she has the ability to think for herself. And this ability comes, in no small part, through…well… coming.
When Thérèse is ‘thinking’, the reader is thinking too. This isn’t a one-off, either. There is a vein running through the French Eighteenth Century of texts that combine philosophy and pornography (not least the works of the Marquis de Sade), and some of these will be explored in greater depth at a later date.
(In an interesting side-note… the word ‘pornography’ didn’t really exist in the eighteenth century. It was used in 1769 by Restiff de la Bretonne, but he was exploring reforms in the prostitution business – hardly hardcore smut.)
This is where we come back to Darnton’s question. In engaging their readers in the most ancient of acts, these novels were also pulling them into something that was much more progressive. They encourage freedom – the freedom to think outside of contemporary mores and to question the traditional definitions of mind, matter, politics and society.
Behind the portrayal of pure pleasure lies a critique of contemporary society that was common in these texts. The link between sexuality and knowledge, the rejection of religious belief and the refusal to kowtow to societal norms are all staples of the forbidden, ‘dangerous’ literature produced at this time. What makes Thérèse important is that it was so widely read, so eagerly devoured.
The importance of text such as this comes a little later in the century. Could it be that best sellers like Thérèse Philosophe helped to change the mind-set of a generation and steer them towards revolution? A big leap, yes, but not one to be hidden away on the top shelf, either.
To read more about these seductive texts, try get your hands on a copy of ‘The Forbidden Best-Sellers of Pre-Revolutionary France’ by Robert Darnton. The book also contains an English translation of the novel, although the French version is available for free online here.
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