“a happy disposition for every sort of voluptuous pleasure.”
Further joys await the foursome when, their gambolings discovered by an Italian prelate and Madame Valbouillant’s aunt, they turn these two witnesses into accomplices in their love-games. Hic et Hec is next introduced by the prelate to Signora Magdalani, a thirty-year-old female relative who has haughtily refused all suitors. Vowing to cure her of “a prejudice so contrary to the will of nature and Christian humility,” Hic et Hec is introduced into her household as an Indian prince and initiates her into the sexual habits of “India.” And as the two families with whom Hic et Hec has dallied are united by his efforts, the reader is left to marvel at the ingeniousness of what Hic et Hec tells us were “a thousand reciprocal teasings.”
Unlike many erotic works of the past, no ponderous morals are preached in this work. It merely seeks—in a cheerful, zestful, witty, deliciously French way—to set down what it feels like to be totally and happily engrossed in physical desire and its fulfillment in every guise. As piquant as eighteenth-century snuff and as elegantly titillating as the erotic paintings of Fragonard, this neglected little gem of erotica deserves a place alongside other frank and open celebrations of the delights of the boudoir, and justly deserves its subtitle : the art of varying the pleasures of love.
This edition, presented in the original French version, will be necessary reading for scholars and students of French, historians, and for all those many parents and educators who have always believed that to spare the rod is to spoil the child.
DESIGN : KUHLMAN ASSOCIATES
