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the work would be lewd, vicious and indecent. Moreover, the polished style
with exquisite settings and perfumed words makes it all the more dangerous
and insidious and none the less obscene and lascivious.
FURTHER READING
Cusseres, Benjamin de. Case of Prudery against Literature: Attack on Gautier s
Novel Brings to Mind Many Historical Examples of Law s Moral Censorship of
Books. New York Times, May 23, 1920, p. 3.
Marchand, Henry. The French Pornographers: Including a History of French Erotic Litera-
ture. New York: Book Awards, 1965.
Nelson, Hilda. Theophile Gautier: The Invisible and Impalpable World. French
Review 45 (June 1972): 819 30.
THE MAID OF ORLEANS (LA PUCELLE)
Author: François-Marie Arouet (Voltaire)
Original dates and places of publication: 1759, France; 1901, United
States
Original publishers: Privately printed (France); E. R. Du Mont (United
States)
Literary form: Satire
SUMMARY
The Maid of Orleans, translated sometimes as The Virgin of Orleans, is a highly
suggestive work that relates stories of King Charles VII of France dallying
with his mistress Agnes Sorel while the threat of an English attack looms.
157
THE MAID OF ORLEANS
The disgusted nobleman St. Denis vows that every wrong is righted by its
opposite, and he looks for a virgin who can lead France to victory, despite
the skepticism of other nobles who doubt that any virgins remain in France.
When he finds Joan of Arc, many comment that the key to France s salva-
tion lies under her skirt, and many attempt to violate her chastity. She does
come close to surrendering to Dunois, but she stops their lovemaking just in
time to prevent defloration:
Beloved bastard, she cried, do stop. Now is not the right time. Heaven
knows of our love, so let us not ruin our future. To you alone I pledge my
troth. I swear that you shall have my flower. But let us wait until your aveng-
ing arm has conquered the Briton and driven out the usurper. Then we shall
lie together under our laurels.
After victory on the battlefield, Joan keeps her promise to Dunois.
Voltaire allows Joan her chastity, but the other characters in the satire
show distinctly immoral behavior. The king s mistress is licentious, and her
charms are described in detail. Voltaire observes:
Below a neck whiter than alabaster were two separate mounds, shapely, stir-
ring and throbbing, rounded by Eros, and tipped with little buttons of rose.
Oh, charming, palpitating breasts, you invited the hand to squeeze, the eye to
marvel, and the mouth to kiss.
At one point, King Charles surprises Agnes with a naked young page,
Monrose, who is described as having displayed a rear like that which Caesar
in his youth shamelessly proffered to Nicodemus, that portion of the anatomy
for which valiant warriors, alas, have such a weakness.
The author makes other graphic observations. He states that Robert
d Abriselle liked to lie between two big-bottomed nuns, to caress four
chubby hemispheres and fondle an equal number of breasts, and all that
without sinning. In other incidents, an English chaplain sexually assaults
Agnes Sorel, and the English king turns over a mother and daughter to his
soldiers.
CENSORSHIP HISTORY
The Maid of Orleans became the object of a legal action in 1909 when a
man who had ordered the 42-volume set of Voltaire s works refused to
honor the contract and pay $200 for the set. Peter J. Quinn s claim that
The Maid of Orleans and the PHILOSOPHICAL DICTIONARY were immoral
made this the first case in which a person buying the book for personal
use became a litigant in a literary obscenity case. The case went before the
New York Municipal Court, which ruled that the books were immoral and
the contract was illegal.
158
MEMOIRES
In an appeal to the Supreme Court of New York, the decision was
reversed in St. Hubert Guild v. Quinn, 64 Misc. 336, 118 N.Y.S. 582 (Sup. Ct.
1909). In his decision, Judge J. Seabury, with Judges Gildersleeve and Gieg-
erich concurring, asserted, The rule against the sale of immoral publications
cannot be invoked against those works which have been generally recognized
as literary classics. Seabury added that the question in a given case is not
simply whether the publication be immoral, but whether it is sufficiently so to
enable the criminal law to punish it as such. In ruling on The Maid of Orleans,
he decided that the book in question was not sufficiently immoral.
FURTHER READING
De Grazia, Edward. Censorship Landmarks. New York: Bowker, 1969.
Lewis, Felice Flanery. Literature, Obscenity, and Law. Carbondale: Southern Illinois
University, 1976.
Wellek, Rene, and Austin Warren. Theory of Literature. 3d ed. New York: Harcourt
Brace & World, 1956.
MEMOIRES
Author: Giovanni Casanova de Seingalt
Original dates and places of publication: 1826, Germany; 1922, England
Original publishers: Brockhaus (Germany); The Casanova Society (En-
gland)
Literary form: Autobiography
SUMMARY
Casanova s Memoires, originally titled Memoires: Ecrites par lui-meme, is the
world s most famous erotic autobiography. As researchers of sexual behavior
Eberhard and Phyllis Kronhausen point out, the work also provides one of
the most important sources for the cultural historian, and especially for the
student of sexual customs, the psychologist, and the sexologist.
Throughout the work, Casanova reports in detail a wide and varied
range of sexual experiences, and he also reveals important social information
regarding contraception and the sexual customs of different classes. In one
incident, Casanova and an agent who has procured the sexual services of three
beautiful young girls have dinner, drink champagne, and then settle down to
an amorous evening. The agent takes from his pocket a condom, this admi-
rable preservative from an accident which might give rise to a terrible and
fruitless repentance. The girls are familiar with the item, and they laughed
heartily to see the shape these articles took when they were blown out. In
another incident, Casanova not only describes contraceptives but also pro-
vides a detailed description of an ejaculation and its abundant flow of liquid.
159
MEMOIRES
He relates experiences in which various girls undress completely, allowing
him to rhapsodize in detail about their naked bodies, particularly their breasts
and buttocks, and then make his bliss complete by presenting me with their
maidenheads.
In one instance, Casanova meets a nun who has recently given birth in
secret and who joins him in exhausting all imaginable kinds of pleasure,
exciting each other s desires, and only wishing to prolong our enjoyment.
Remembering her earlier pregnancy, the next time they engage in sexual
intercourse Casanova uses a little article of transparent skin, about eight
inches long, with one opening, which was ornamented with a red rosette . . .
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