Les Liaisons Dangereuses [antikvár]

INTRODUCTION Les Liaisons Dangereuses was first published in Paris in 1782. Society regarded the event as an outrage. The first edition sold out within a few days and subsequent editions were rapidly exhausted. All Paris read and discussed the book. We hear, inevitably, of how young ladies would retire with it behind locked doors. Many years later a bound copy, title and author's name discreetly absent from its cover, was found in the library of Marie-Antoinette herself. The author, Pierre-Ambroise-Frangois Choderlos de Laclos, an obscure officer of artillery on leave from a garrison in the provinces, shared personally in the notoriety. Only his initials had appeared on the title page of the first edition, but his identity was soon established, and a character supplied him to suit the impression his book had made. 'Because he has portrayed monsters,' as a contemporary put it, 'people will have it that he is one himself.' It is recorded, for instance, of a certain Marquise de Coigny - who was not apparently remarkable for the strictness of her own principles-that she told the footman at her door: 'You know the tall, thin, sallow gentleman in a black suit who often comes to see me. I am no longer at home to him. If we were left alone together I should be terrified.' Long after the scandal had died down, the book continued to be held in bad odour; but it continued to be read, until eventually the government decided to take a hand in its fate. In 1824 a decree of the cour royale de Par« condemned it to be destroyed as 'dangerous'. This verdict remained the official one throughout the later nineteenth century. The book was spoken of only to be deplored: 'a picture of the most odious immorality, that should never have been revealed even supposing it had been true', 'a work of revolting immorality', 'a book to be admired and execrated'. It is interesting that one of its few supporters should have been Baudelaire - but the article he planned in its defence was never written. Beactions in our own century have been less emotional, and the book has risen In"