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Paul J. Young
by 1777, when Damon, the young protagonist of Vivant
Denon’s Point de lendemain, admits: “j’avais beaucoup de
curiosité; ce n’était plus Mme de T... que je désirais; c’était
[son] cabinet,” architecture had become an important motif in
eighteenth-century French literature, and space, as Denon’s tale
demonstrates, was often pressed into the service of eroticism.1
Nowhere was architecture’s erotic potential more widely explored
than in the number of libertine writings that appeared during the
last century of the ancien régime, and throughout the century, the
libertine text provided an arena in which authors reflected upon
the changes that architecture underwent in France as early as
the latter part of the seventeenth century. As architects moved
to incorporate “commodité” into their plans for living spaces,
creating smaller and more intimate rooms that contrasted with
the larger, more formal spaces of the previous century, libertine
writers put these spaces into play, mining them for their erotic
potential, and making the niche, the alcôve, the boudoir, and the
cabinet, which were central to eighteenth-century French notions
of architecture, mainstays of the libertine text.2
1 Vivant
Denon, Point de lendemain (1777), in Vivant Denon, “Point de
lendemain” suivi de Jean-François de Bastide “La Petite maison,” ed. Michel
Delon (Paris: Gallimard, 1995), 92. References are to this edition.
2 See, for example, Wend Graf Kalnein and Michael Levey, Art and
Architecture of the Eighteenth Century in France, trans. J.R. Foster for part 2
(Baltimore: Penguin, 1972), esp. Kalnein’s remarks, 202–3.
Eighteenth-Century Fiction 20, no. 3 (Spring 2008) © ECF 0840-6286
Artifact
“Ce lieu de délices”:
Art and Imitation in
the French Libertine Cabinet
336
Yo u n g
I will examine the role of the cabinet (a space akin to the
boudoir) in eighteenth-century French architecture, as it is
presented in the period’s architectural treatises, as well as in
three widely read libertine texts: Godard d’Aucour’s Thémidore
(1744), La Morlière’s Angola (1746), and Vivant Denon’s Point de
lendemain (1777, 1812).3 An analysis of the role that this “lieu de
délices” plays in the libertine tale may provide a more significant
understanding of the nature of libertine eroticism, as this space
underscores the complex relationship between art, imitation, and
desire as it is expressed in ancien régime literature.4 The cabinet’s
function as a “supplement” to pleasure highlights the importance
that eighteenth-century writers accorded to taste, luxury, and
even décor as essential for creating or maintaining pleasure.
However, as Derrida has noted, every supplement carries with
it the potential not only to enhance, but also to supplant.5 The
cabinet’s role as supplement—a seemingly necessary addition to
the body’s experience of pleasure—demonstrates the complex
and tenuous role of the body in libertine eroticism, and suggests
that art, in the libertine text, may serve to mask or compensate
for the body’s insufficiencies.
The word “cabinet” served two disparate functions in eigh­
teenth-century French, referring alternately to spaces that were
coded as public (or “social”), and others that clearly belonged to
the realm of the private. This ambiguity is evident in the archi­
tectural treatises from the period as well as in literary texts. In
his 1738 re-edition of Daviler’s Cours d’Architecture, Jean Mariette
describes this former meaning of the word “cabinet,” specifying
for his readers that “Le Grand Cabinet est le lieu où l’on reçoit les
personnes avec lesquelles on a à traiter d’affaires; on les dispose de
manière qu’il y ait une petite Anti-Chambre pour y entrer, sans
passer par l’enfilade des autres pièces. C’est dans le second Cabinet
3 Godard
d’Aucour, Thémidore (1744), and La Morlière, Angola (1746), in
Romanciers libertins du xviiie siècle, vol. 1, ed. Patrick Wald Lasowski (Paris:
Gallimard, 2000). References are to this edition.
4 Damon uses this expression to describe M. de T...’s cabinet (Point de
lendemain, 95).
5 Jacques Derrida argues, in a discussion of the “supplement”: “It adds only to
replace. It intervenes or insinuates itself in the place of; if it fills, it is as if one
fills a void.” Derrida, Of Grammatology (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University
Press, 1976), 145.
The French Libertine Cabinet
337
6 The
Mariette text, which was widely reprinted during the eighteenth century
and which served as a kind of general reference work for architecture during
the century, was initially written by the architect Daviler in 1691, then
reworked by Le Blond, and republished in 1710. Mariette includes a series
of additions to the text, which he then publishes in 1738. Kalnein refers to
Daviler’s work as “the most popular manual of the period and the book that
firmly established the new building habits” (in Kalnein and Levey, Art and
Architecture, 219). Jean Mariette, in C.A. D’Aviler, Cours d’architecture qui
comprend les ordres de Vignole, avec des commentaires, nouvelle édition (Paris,
1738), 216. References are to this edition.
7 Jacques-François Blondel, De la distribution des maisons de plaisance et de la
décoration des édifices en général (Paris, 1737). References are to this edition.
8 Nicolas Le Camus de Mézières, Le Génie de l’architecture, ou l’analogie de cet
art avec nos sensations (Paris, 1780). References are to this edition.
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où l’on doit travailler et où doit être le Bureau.”6 This sense of
cabinet as a work space, or as a formal room in which one receives
persons of distinction, echoes the remarks in Jacques-François
Blondel’s De la distribution des maisons de plaisance (1737).7 In his
plans for a large “chambre de parade,” he notes that, adjoining
this room, he has added “un Cabinet pour donner quelque
audience particulière” (26). For Nicolas Le Camus de Mézières,
whose widely cited work Le Génie de l’architecture appeared in
1780, “cabinet” retains a hint of its polysemy, and is used to name
intimate, private spaces, as well as larger, public rooms.8 Thus, he
uses the word “cabinet” in his description of the proportions and
decoration of an ideal “Cabinet de toilette” (a sort of dressing
room) (126–31), and a “Cabinet à l’Angloise” (the equivalent of
a modern-day bathroom, with a functional, flushing toilet) (133–
36). These smaller cabinets contrast with the “Grand Cabinet,”
which is decorated sumptuously and is furnished with “un bureau
avec ses accessoires, et quelques corps d’armoires perdus dans les
lambris, pour placer les papiers précieux qui ne peuvent rester
sur le bureau” (160). This last room may lead to a smaller and
more intimate work space, the “arrière cabinet,” which Mézières
describes as “un diminutif du premier,” and which is “consacré à
la tranquillité et au travail du Maître” (161). This meaning of the
word “cabinet” is still used in modern French to refer to an office,
and is found in expressions such as “cabinet d’avocat,” “cabinet
de soins,” or “cabinet de médecin.” In his Encyclopédie entry
“Cabinet,” Blondel reinforces the polysemy and ambiguity of the
word “cabinet,” and demonstrates that by the end of the century,
cabinet could refer to a work space, a space akin to a boudoir, a
338
Yo u n g
water closet (which he refers to as a “lieu à soupape”), and even an
outdoor structure.9
The second meaning of “cabinet” describes a smaller, more
intimate, and less formal room, one which, as the century prog­
resses, also comes to be referred to as a boudoir. While Mézières’s
treatise does not include instructions for the decoration of the
kind of smaller cabinet that is often described in the libertine
text, he does include a lengthy description of an idealized
boudoir, which he refers to as “le séjour de la volupté” (116).
Mézières refers to this space as a boudoir rather than a cabinet,
which sug­gests that a tendency to replace the word “cabinet”
with “boudoir” appears somewhere towards the latter half of the
century. However, Mézières’s text only points to the continuing
slippery nature of the word “cabinet,” as the space that he
describes as a boudoir in 1780 bears a remarkable resemblance to
the cabinet that Vivant Denon described in Point de lendemain
only three years earlier.10 Moreover, Denon’s text also reinforces
the imprecise nature of the word “cabinet.” In the course of a
moonlit walk, the two main characters of Point de lendemain
are irresistibly drawn to a “pavillon” (85) that, for the narrator,
resembles “un sanctuaire, ... celui de l’amour” (86). However,
once they have left the pavilion, Mme de T... refers to this site by
another name, suggesting to Damon: “Nous n’oublierons jamais
ce cabinet, n’est-il pas vrai?” (90, emphasis added). “Cabinet” as a
word may ultimately serve as a catch-all to refer, notably in the
erotic literature of the period, to any number of small spaces that
offered the opportunity for intimacy, and that were seen as more
private than the bedrooms of the period. These literary texts,
and their architectural counterparts, make clear that throughout
the eighteenth century these spaces (whether they be named
boudoir or cabinet) responded to a need for intimacy, luxury, and
pleasure, and offered the possibility for encounters, as Michel
9 Encyclopédie
ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers
(Geneva, 1772), s.v. “cabinet.”
10 This is not surprising, given that this cabinet (or boudoir) was most likely based
on a room that La Boissière constructed for his petite maison in Mont­martre.
As early as 1752, Blondel encouraged his readers to visit this space, which also
serves as the model for a stylized boudoir in Bastide’s La Petite maison (115).
See Peter Thornton, L’Époque et son style, la décoration intérieure 1620–1920
(Paris: Flammarion, 1986), 95. See also Rodolphe El-Khoury, introduction,
The Little House: An Architectural Seduction, by Jean-François de Bastide, trans.
and ed. El-Khoury (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1996).
The French Libertine Cabinet
339
11 Michel Delon, preface, Point de lendemain, by Vivant Denon, 17.
a discussion of the proper use of the architectural orders, in his Cours
d’architecture civile, ou traité de la décoration, distribution et construction des
bâtiments; contenant des leçons données en 1750 et les années suivantes, book 2
(Paris, 1771), Blondel writes: “L’esprit de convenance, étayé du goût de
l’Art, fait faire à l’Architecte le choix du caractère de l’un de ces ordres
pour designer l’espèce, l’importance et l’usage de l’édifice qu’il veut décorer”
(xxvii). He confirms this principle in his article “Cabinet,” pointing out
that no matter what kind of cabinet one is dealing with: “il faut sur-tout
que la décoration des uns et des autres soit relative à leur usage, c’est-àdire qu’on observe de la gravité dans l’ordonnance des cabinets d’affaires ou
d’étude ... et de la légèrté, de l’élégance dans ceux destinés à la société, sans
que pour cela on use de trop de licence” (489).
13 This novel was poorly received. Paul Lacroix (also known as Le bibliophile
Jacob), in his preface to the 1879 edition of La Petite maison, describes the
12 In
Artifact
Delon suggests, that were “à l’écart des regards, des pesanteurs de
la mondanité.”11
The essentially private nature of the cabinet, which contrasts
it with rooms such as the “vestibule,” “chambre de parade,” or
even the “grand cabinet,” is made evident in Jacques-François
de Blondel’s treatise on “maisons de plaisance,” through his use
of the idea of “convenance,” one of the guiding principles of his
architectural writings. For simplicity’s sake, one could reduce
Blondel’s notion of convenance to the basic principle that every
building should be decorated in a manner that befits its owner
(and that is appropriate to his rank), and, in any given structure,
each room should offer a décor that announces the room’s
purpose.12 Throughout his career, Blondel pushed for a return to
the ideals that guided the great architects of the classical era,
arguing for a correct and restrained use of architectural orders,
and railing against the “sécheresse et ... mauvais goût,” as well as
the “sterilité et la disproportion” (xiv), that he remarked in many
of the works executed after the death of Louis xiv. For Blondel,
early eighteenth-century French architecture is marked by works
executed by architects who have lost sight of “les vrais principes”
of architecture, inspired instead by “tout ce que les caprices
de la nouveauté ont introduit depuis quelques années” (iv, xv).
His mission to inspire and instruct students in “le bon goût de
l’architecture, la noble simplicité, et l’harmonie judicieuse” (xv) is
expressed not only in De la distribution des maisons de plaisance,
but also in his numerous published courses and architectural
plans, as well as in the epistolary novel, L’Homme du monde éclairé
par les Arts, which he wrote with Jean-François de Bastide.13
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The notion of convenance, then, is linked to another essential
ideal of eighteenth-century thought, that of “bienséance,” or
propriety. Yet, although Blondel argues for a measure of reason in
the construction and distribution of buildings, and despite the fact
that his models might be seen as conservative, notably compared
to the kinds of rococo interiors that were starting to appear in
Paris as early as the 1730s, this does not mean that pleasure or
even “caprice” was banished from his notions of architecture. One
might argue instead that in Blondel’s view, pleasure can follow the
ideals of convenance, and he suggests that pleasure has its place, and
an appropriate décor. Blondel expresses this in a discussion of the
décor for a “chambre de parade,” a site that, as he remarks, would
most likely not serve as an actual bedroom, since any number of
smaller bedrooms, which were therefore easier to heat, would be
more comfortable.14 The “chambre de parade” was coded as a public
space in which visitors would be received, and thus, it requires a
formality that distinguishes it from the “commodité” that reigns
in the private spaces designed for comfort and intimacy. Daviler,
in his Cours d’architecture, notes that “Les Grands Cabinets sont
des lieux de parade, qui doivent se distinguer par la richesse et la
délicatesse des ornaments” (385), and Blondel specifies, in terms of
their decoration, that: “Quelques personnes ont introduit l’usage
de les peindre en jonquille ou citron, et en d’autres couleurs” (26),
a practice that he scorns.
For Blondel, however, this palette derives from or even an­
nounces a sensual pleasure, and suits perfectly the smaller space:
“ce n’est que dans les petites pièces que cette licence peut être mise
en usage”(26). The cabinets that one encounters in the libertine
text would certainly fall into the category of “petites pièces,” in
which desire informs the choice of the room’s colour or décor.
Thus, for Blondel, convenance does not try to prevent, or even
restrain pleasure; as a principle it simply proposes that each room
novel as “fastidieux” (“tedious”). Cited in Patrick Mauriès, preface, La Petite
maison, by Jean-François de Bastide (Paris: Le Promeneur, 1993), 19. For
more on this novel, see Richard Cleary, “Romancing the Tome: Or an
Academician’s Pursuit of a Popular Audience in Eighteenth-Century France,”
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 48, no. 2 (1989): 139–49.
14 In the 1738 edition of Daviler’s Cours, the author remarks that the chambre à
coucher that follows the chambre d’assemblée “est plutôt de parade que d’usage,
quoiqu’on puisse y coucher en été; car pour l’Hyver, on se retire dans de petits
Appartements plus bas, moins aërez, et plus faciles à échauffer” (215).
The French Libertine Cabinet
341
15 Thornton, 95.
16 Kalnein, in Kalnein and Levey, Art and Architecture, 219.
Artifact
has a specific use, and, consequently, that each activity (whether
work or play) has its specific site. Pleasure, and its attendant
licentious décor, may be banned from the formal “grand cabinet,”
but this does not mean that it goes wanting. In De la distribution
des maisons de plaisance, Blondel suggests that entire buildings,
such as the Trianon that he describes, which is composed solely
of small, intimate rooms, may be seen as havens of pleasure,
whose function is to provide a kind of “délassement de l’esprit”
(87). While “convenance” dictated a sobriety in the decoration of
the larger, official, and more public rooms, such as the “chambres
de parade,” the same principle here calls for “[une] décoration
enjouée et galante,” in which “le génie peut prendre l’essor et
s’abandonner à la vivacité de ses caprices, au lieu que dans les
appartements de parade, il doit se resserrer dans les règles les
plus exactes de la bienséance et du bon goût” (87). Moreover, an
unpublished drawing by Blondel, which shows the floor plan of
a “Bâtiment Idéal,” demonstrates that for this architect, an ideal
building contains both the formal elements of an “appartement
de parade” and an appartement with an “arrière cabinet,” which
is seen as more private, and which has a bed placed in the niche.15
As Wend Graf Kalnein has suggested, by the early eighteenth
century, “People began to organize their houses for their own
comfort, not just to display their rank. Alongside the appartement
de parade the appartement de commodité began to assume growing
importance.”16 In Blondel’s ideal building, comfort and rank
coexist. “Le bon goût” exists alongside a décor that is “enjouée et
galante”; pomp has its place, as does desire.
This is not to suggest that the decoration of the “arrière”
cabinet—whether referred to simply as a cabinet, or a boudoir—
cannot be as grandiose as that of the most formal areas of the
appartements de parade. Indeed, here pleasure is served by, to cite
Thémidore, “tout ce que l’art peut inventer” (525). Although the
cabinet may occupy a relatively small space within a house, this
space serves as a showcase for the owner’s ostentatious wealth,
and, in theory, his or her good taste. Pleasure and abundance
are also pressed into service in the cabinet, as is witnessed in
Denon’s description of the cabinet of M. de T... in Point de
342
Yo u n g
lendemain, which offers one of the most striking examples of
the interdependence between art, architecture, and desire in
eighteenth-century French literature.17
The description of this cabinet is situated near the end of Point
de lendemain, which recounts the seduction (and subsequent
betrayal) of Damon, the young narrator who has spent a night of
passion with the duplicitous Mme de T..., at the estate owned by
her husband, who is attempting to forge a reconciliation with her.
Damon’s tale resembles a kind of initiatory journey, and although
the text’s language has little in common with more explicit
libertine best-sellers such as Thérèse Philosophe, or the Histoire de
dom B***, Damon’s story is that of a coming of age, or, to use the
term favoured by libertines of the seventeenth and eighteenth
century, a “déniaisement.” Damon’s education is multi-faceted
and follows a model that derives, in part, from Crébillon fils’s
Les Égarements du cœur et de l’esprit (1736); the older Mme de
T... teaches Damon about pleasure, offers a lesson in her par­
ticular, materialist-inspired philosophy, instructs him about the
complex social codes that reigned in “le monde,” and ultimately
makes him the dupe of the complex amorous machinations she
has orchestrated. Near the end of their night together, Damon,
despite his remarks that he lacks a certain degree of “ferveur,”
asks Mme de T ... to reveal to him the secret cabinet that her
husband had ordered to be built, some years prior. Through this
visit, the author reinforces the reputation of the cabinet, while
adding an aesthetic element to the young narrator’s sensual and
worldly education. Moreover, in his description of the cabinet,
Denon engages in a purposeful intertextuality, situating the en­
counters between Damon and Mme de T... in décors that he has
culled, in part, from literary sources (and, indeed, from actual
contemporary rooms, such as La Boissière’s cabinet), which may
have been familiar to many of his readers.
Although space, in general, plays an important role in the
eroticism of Point de lendemain, Denon tells the reader little about
the rooms in M. de T...’s chateau. Whereas even the famous
17 The
other, more obvious, example of this relationship is Jean-François de
Bastide’s La Petite Maison (1758). Given the striking similarities between
the boudoir in Bastide’s text, and the cabinet that Denon describes in
Point de lendemain, it seems likely that Denon was familiar with Bastide’s
architectural tale.
The French Libertine Cabinet
343
18 The
positioning of the cabinet beyond the bedroom is standard, and
affords the cabinet a greater degree of privacy than even the bedroom. In
an architectural treatise dating from 1743, Briseux demonstrates this by
suggesting that beyond the bedroom, one could place a space that is clearly
even more removed from the public parts of the house, which he calls “un
troisième petit cabinet, qui renferme un lit de repos, auquel on donne le nom
de ‘boudoir’” (Thornton, 95–96).
19 Although Svend Eriksen has suggested that the model for this cabinet was
neoclassical, the presence of these small statues of Cupid near the ceiling
recall a more rococo decoration, which would have been more likely found
in La Boissière’s cabinet, which dated from the early 1750s. Eriksen, Early
Neo-Classicism in France, trans. and ed. Peter Thornton (London: Faber and
Faber, 1974).
Artifact
pavilion—“témoin des plus doux moments” (85)—merits only
a very scant description, the cabinet is described in rich detail.
Damon and Mme de T... enter through a hidden door in Mme
de T...’s room,18 and they find themselves in a room that Damon
describes as resembling “une vaste cage, entièrement de glaces”
(95). The room’s mirrors are painted with scenes that make the
space appear to be a secluded grove, or a kind of enchanted
garden. This impression is reinforced by the thick carpeting on
the floor, which imitates “un épais gazon” (95). The cabinet is
decorated with objects that evoke, on the one hand, the natural
elements of the garden motif, such as “[des] treillages ornés de
fleurs,” “guirlandes,” and even a mysterious “grotte sombre” (95).
Alongside the “natural” (or floral) elements of the garden are art
objects that would not be out of place in Fragonard’s depictions of
gardens: a “statue de l’Amour” (95), and even an altar, surrounded
by cups, garlands, and wreaths. This large statue of love is echoed
in the numerous putti (or smaller statues of “amours”) that form
an integral part of the decoration.19
The grotto forms an even more secluded space inside this
room, and its mystery stems not only from the “obscurité” and
“silence” that Damon remarks “regnai[en]t ... dans ce sanctuaire”
(96). Indeed, the grotto appears to exert a kind of agency. Damon
notes that as he and Mme de T... approach the entrance, they
are dragged inside by a force that propels them forward, making
them land upon a pile of cushions. The mechanical elements that
push the couple inside the grotto also operate a kind of change
of scenery in the cabinet; when the lovers depart this darkened
space to return to the main room, they find that the statue of love
has been replaced by a statue representing the “dieu des jardins”
344
Yo u n g
(96), that is, Priapus. In this movement, an Enlightenment de­
mystification of the drive to pleasure takes place, brought about
through the theatrical mechanics that fell out of favour in the lat­
ter part of the century:20 the cabinet affirms that Damon’s desire
has little to do with love, and the mechanism that reveals a pagan
god (normally represented in a state of erection) harks back to
the mechanics of physical attraction that have pushed Damon
into Mme de T...’s arms.
The mechanical aspect that Denon portrays in M. de T...’s
cabinet has its echoes in other libertine novels from the period.
In Thémidore, the young narrator, eager to flee the caresses
of Mme de Dorigny—a “belle médisante” (569) who is too
hypocritical, he decides, for his taste—finds himself trapped
within her cabinet. Dorigny has built into her cabinet a secret
mechanism that prevents Thémidore from opening the door, and
he notes: “Je n’avais pu ouvrir le cabinet, parce qu’il y avait un
ressort secret” (570). Unable to flee, he resigns himself to making
love to his captor, ultimately remarking: “Que je bénis mille fois
ce fortuné ressort qui m’avait forcé à jouir de mon bonheur”
(570). In an earlier scene in this novel, Thémidore find himself
in a cabinet in a petite maison in the company of two women,
and his successes with them appear to depend more upon the
room’s furniture than upon any wilful expression of his erotic
desire. Initially the cabinet’s waxed floors seem to push him into
Laurette’s arms: “Nous nous approchâmes d’un canapé qui était
auprès de nous, et vers lequel le parquet ciré conduisit, peut-être
malicieusement, nos sièges” (511). A short while later, Laurette
notices that Thémidore has seduced her companion, Argentine.
For Laurette, this seduction owes more to their surroundings than
to Thémidore; pointing at the site of Thémidore’s conquest, she
suggests: “Ce canapé est contagieux, on ne peut en approcher sans
s’en ressentir” (512–13). In both of these moments, as in Damon’s
encounter in M. de T...’s cabinet, the role of space serves to subtly
interrogate the importance of desire, choice, or the body itself,
20 See
Downing Thomas, “Architectural Visions of Lyric Theater and Specta­
torship in Late-Eighteenth-Century France,” Representations 52 (Fall 1995):
52–75. Thomas argues that by the end of the ancien régime: “The supernatural
effects (the merveilleux) of the tragédie en musique, such as the appearance
of flying gods and goddesses were increasingly criticized and rejected,” as
architects “began to emphasize the horizontal space of the stage,” in order to
“create an inclusive, circular space for the audience” (52).
The French Libertine Cabinet
345
21 Peter
Cryle, The Telling of the Act: Sexuality as Narrative in Eighteenth- and
Nineteenth-Century France (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2001), 29.
22 In Le savoir-vivre libertin, Michel Delon argues that this “demi-jour”
represents a kind of libertine ideal (Paris: Hachette, 2000), 151. La
Morlière, for example, mentions in Angola: “ce demi-jour qui paraissait
avoir été inventé pour éclairer les enterprises de l’amour, et pour ensevelir
la defaite de la vertu” (712).
23 The sense of taste, and perhaps the sense of hearing, are apparent exceptions.
In his preface to Point de lendemain, Michel Delon remarks that “Le goût
Artifact
within the erotic encounter; the characters in these texts appear
powerless in the face of an ineluctable intermingling of bodies,
and their surroundings appear (if one can believe the words of
these narrators) to conspire to bring about pleasure. These spaces
appear, then, not simply to facilitate the sexual act, but indeed, to
remove the actor’s ability to act otherwise.
The ability of these spaces to provoke a pleasure that seems almost
wholly dependent upon them, incited by décor rather than by the
excitement brought about through the sight of the other’s body,
calls to mind Peter Cryle’s remarks about the function of erotic
art in the intimate spaces of eighteenth-century French literature:
“they provide models for erotic behavior. Or, to put it better, they
reveal the notion of behavior to be somewhat anachronistic, since
they position the body in precise ways that are already present as
erotic culture, inscribed on the walls, and built into the furniture.”21
Behaviour, with its implication of choice, desire, and the expression
of will, seems to be called into question by the semblance of agency
that is cast upon the cabinet and its décor.
In Denon’s description of M. de T...’s cabinet, the lovers’
experience of pleasure is heightened by the fact that almost every
sense is privileged through the variety of objects found within the
cabinet’s interior. The architecture here appeals to the eye through
the painted scenes that surround the lovers, as well as through the
creation of a “lueur douce et céleste,” which illuminates the room,
despite the fact that, as Damon notes, “On ne voyait intérieure­
ment aucune lumière” (94). This lighting, moreover, is not simply
any “mood lighting,” but rather the creation of a “demi-jour” that,
as Michel Delon has noted, was especially appreciated in the
eighteenth century.22 The sense of smell is stimulated by the “plus
agréables parfums” that burned in small perfume pots, while the
thick carpeting in the cabinet engages the sense of touch.23
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The aesthetic refinement that Denon describes is present in the
cabinets of his literary predecessors. In Thémidore, the narrator
recalls the night he spent in the cabinet belonging to Rozette,
the mistress with whom he enjoys a short affair before his father
has her imprisoned. Despite the fact that Rozette, a courtesan,
would not have had the means to create a space as elaborate
as the wealthy M. de T..., her cabinet is still coded as a site of
“volupté.” Although the space is not perfumed, Rozette is, and
she awaits Thémidore in a bed made of myrtle wood, surrounded
by “plusieurs larges coussins de soie”(528). The bed is covered by
“un voile de fin lin”; a sort of blanket made of “taffetas couleur de
roze [sic]” awaits to cast a veil of discretion upon the lovers.
Rozette’s cabinet offers a less ornate predecessor of the
cabinets that La Morlière describes in Angola, in which the
eponymous hero comes of age. Angola’s first sensual encounters
take place within a series of cabinets, and it is, in part, through
his experiences in these cabinets that Angola is educated in
the complex social codes that govern expressions of affection
in eighteenth-century French culture. The narrator describes
the role that one such cabinet plays in Angola’s encounter with
Zobéide, writing that the two lovers “passèrent dans un cabinet
reculé au fond de l’appartement, plus voluptueusement meublé
que tout ce que le prince avait vu jusque-là. Il était revêtu de
glaces, et on voyait sur les panneaux des aventures galantes,
rendues avec une expression parfaite; aucune d’elles ne peignait
les rigueurs, elles étaient bannies, même en peinture, dans ce
lieu de plaisir. Tout y respirait l’amour content, un lit de repos
en niche, de damas couleur de rose et argent, paraissait comme
un autel consacré à la volupté” (711).
Although Zobéide’s cabinet, like Rozette’s, is not as sumptuous
as the one described in Point de lendemain, it offers an emblematic
illustration of this space, which one writer has described as
“petit, coquet, garni de glaces et de peintures, [et] qui disparaît,
on peut le dire, avec l’ancien régime.”24 Moreover, although the
“peintures” in these cabinets are most likely a far cry from the
reste évasivement évoqué, c’est que les baisers sont peut-être les vrais plaisirs
de bouche. La musique en revanche est reine. Point de lendemain commence
à l’Opéra et se continue au murmure du fleuve” (20).
24 Marie-Juliette Ballot, Le Décor intérieur au xviiie siècle à Paris et dans l’Île de
France (Paris: Les Editions Van Oest, 1930), 14.
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347
25 Voltaire, Le Mondain (1736; Ferney: Atelier du Livre, 2002), 5.
Morlière uses italics to indicate that these expressions were either
fashionable, or were part of the language of the petit-maître (1237n3).
26 La
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works by “Corrège et du savant Poussin ... encadrés dans l’or d’une
bordure” that Voltaire’s narrator lauds in Le Mondain (1736), in
the description of these rooms, painting enjoys a particular and
complex relationship to desire.25 Whereas the paintings in the
domicile of the honnête homme in Le Mondain affirm the taste
(and wealth) of their owner, the cabinet’s paintings participate
in a more complex relationship to the semiotics of space, for they
function as signs that not only affirm, but also serve to create the
meaning that can be ascribed to their very context, the cabinet.
In this sense, the relationship of these paintings to desire recalls
one of the central tenets of eighteenth-century aesthetics, that
of “imitation.”
In Angola, La Morlière explores the importance of “imitation”
for seduction—here, in reference to a literary text—in a
passage in which the young prince Angola is seduced by La
Fée Lumineuse. Lumineuse pretends that it would be indecent
for the two of them, alone in her cabinet, to finish the reading
that they have undertaken, since she suspects that it is not
“fort propre à inspirer le respect” (725). Angola insists, and it
soon becomes apparent that he is powerless to resist this text’s
seductive nature; the narrator remarks that “Il était hors de luimême, il lisait d’une voix tremblante, et portait à chaque instant
des regards sur Lumineuse” (725). The printed word inspires
Angola to follow the example of what he reads. Thus, reading a
passage in which the protagonist kisses his lover’s hand, Angola
“en même temps, par imitation, dévorait de baisers celles de la
fée” (725). Indeed, La Morlière suggests that “imitation” is an
essential part of the young man’s initiation, writing that Angola
was swept away by “la contagion de l’exemple.” Moreover, as
the seduction progresses, Angola remains “toujours fidèle à son
modèle,”26 leading La Morlière to remark: “Angola faisait des
progrès étonnants dans l’imitation; son exactitude à suivre les
leçons qu’il avait sous les yeux le menait insensiblement à son
but” (725). In this scene, the reader encounters the complex
mise en abyme of the libertine text’s relationship to desire; the
veracity of the erotic encounter that is described leads to a
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replication of the same encounter, and the power of literary
imitation leads Angola to try his own hand at imitation.
La Morlière’s exploration of the relationship between mimesis
and eroticism is echoed in the Encyclopédie entry on “Peinture.”27
In this article, the chevalier de Jaucourt describes the amorous
origins of painting, citing a legend that recounts that this art form
came into being when a young shepherd girl first traced upon a wall
the profile of her sleeping lover. Through painting, then, this first
artist found the means to, as Jaucourt writes, “tromper l’absence”
(267); this representation of the beloved object could later stand
in place of the absent lover, and thus, painting, like writing, offers
the promise of a fictive plenitude, a presence through absence.
Jaucourt argues that painting achieves this through “imitation,”
and, moreover, that this desire for imitation is natural to man, and
is suggested by nature. Through the act of observing the reflection
of objects in the surface of a lake, for example, men learned to
“satisfaire leurs goûts pour l’imitation” (267). Through imitation,
painting is linked to its sister art, poetry, and yet Jaucourt suggests
that painting has a more potent capacity to move the spectator,
for: “[la peinture] saisit l’âme par le secours des sens; et c’est peutêtre dans le fond le plus sur moyen de l’attacher” (267).
Painting’s ability to move the spectator through imitation,
Jaucourt argues, carries with it the possibility for the manipulation
of the viewer. Thus, he cites painting’s role in what might best be
described as propaganda, suggesting that “Ceux qui ont gouverné
les peuples dans tous les tems, ont toujours fait usage des peintures
et des statues pour leur mieux inspirer les sentimens qu’ils
vouloient leur donner” (267). Jaucourt’s suggestion that, through
the act of viewing, spectators finds themselves moved to imitate
what they see, implies that painting is not an entirely innocent
art, and that the act of viewing a painting—very much like the act
of reading—carries with it an implicit danger. Just as the repre­
sentation of bravery or virtue (most likely the kinds of images
that Jaucourt refers to) may inspire such sentiments in the viewer,
the sight of other, more sensuous actions would provoke a similar
desire for imitation on the part of the spectator. Jaucourt addresses
this when he suggests that painters of licentious subjects are “pas
27 “Peinture,”
Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences des arts et des
métiers, vol. 12 (Encyclopédie 1751–1772; Stuttgart: Friedrich Frommann
Verlag, 1967), 267–70. References are to this edition.
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349
28 Abbé
Dubos, Réflexions critiques sur la poësie et la peinture (1719; Geneva:
Slatkine Reprints, 1967), 339.
29 Thornton, 96.
30 Le Petit-fils d’Hercule, in Romanciers libertins du xviiie siècle, vol. 2, ed.
Lasowski (Paris: Gallimard, 2005). References are to this edition. The initial
publication date of Hercule has not been determined, but is most likely 1784
(“Note sur le texte,” Romanciers libertins, 2:1556).
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moins capable, par l’amorce d’un spectacle agréable aux yeux, de
corrompre le cœur et d’allumer de malheureuses passions” (268).
In the paintings mentioned in two of cabinets I have described
(Angola and Point de lendemain), mimesis has been pressed into
the service of seduction; through the representation, or even the
suggestion of physical pleasure, the artist wagers on painting’s
effect upon the senses, and its ability to “inspirer les sentiments.”
In this sense, these paintings offer a sensuous adherence to one
early eighteenth-century writer’s theory of aesthetics, that of the
abbé Dubos, who, writing in 1719, argued that “Les poëmes et
les tableaux ne sont de bons ouvrages qu’à proportion qu’il nous
émeuvent et qu’ils nous attachent.”28 The cabinet’s occupants stand
in a double relationship to imitation; through the representa­tion
of pleasure in the cabinet’s décor, they are moved to imitate the
“aventures galantes” that surround them, and in doing so, suggest
the painting’s ability to “move” the spectator. The role ascribed to
painting in these cabinets, moreover, should not be regarded as
purely literary invention; Peter Thornton cites the example of a
M. Ménars, who gave instructions that his ideal cabinet should be
decorated only by pictures that he described as “nudités.”29
Moreover, throughout the century, libertine writings offers
numerous examples of moments in which their protagonists
find themselves entering into an imitative relationship with the
sensuous engravings or paintings that seem to form an almost
requisite part of the décor of seduction. Indeed, at certain moments,
these paintings serve to arouse the body in situations in which
desire might otherwise go begging. In the anonymous Le Petit-fils
d’Hercule, the narrator (much like the narrator of Mirabeau’s Ma
conversion) earns his living by peddling his services to a series of
willing, albeit often older, and less desirable “patrons.”30 One of
these, an abbess whom he describes as “une petite vieille, sèche et
ridée, bossue par-derrière” (1086), offers two variations on a theme
to remedy the narrator’s unen­thusiastic physical response to her.
In the first instance, she employs some of the younger nuns in her
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charge to excite the narrator. With the abbess beneath him, the
narrator gazes upon “les deux plus superbes corps qu’il soit possible
de voir” (1086). The image serves to arouse desire, and this desire,
excited and displaced, serves the abbess’s needs. As the narrator
explains, the older woman, her ugliness temporarily obfuscated,
“jouissait des victorieuses sensations qu’elles me faisaient éprouver”
(1086, emphasis added). Later that same evening, the abbess relies
upon painting to produce the same effect; pulling aside a curtain,
she exposes “un tableau représentant Mars enfilant Vénus” (1087).
The sight of this painting proves every bit as efficacious, and
the narrator notes: “La vue de cette brûlante peinture redouble
tous les mouvements, et au milieu des ... ardents soupirs, je me
laisse tomber sur l’abbesse” (1087). This “brûlante peinture” with
its explicit nature—expressed by the verb “enfiler”—pushes the
narrator to adopt an equally lascivious posture.
Lynn Hunt has argued, in regard to early modern print
culture, that “Pornography did not constitute a wholly separate
and distinct category of written or visual representation before
the early nineteenth century,” and yet, the paintings that the
reader encounters in some of the spaces of eighteenth-century
French literature might seem to challenge this.31 The 1748
edition of Thérèse Philosophe included an engraving offering the
reader a tableau similar to the one Thérèse sees, which depicts
Mars, Venus, and a putto, poised to draw a curtain over the
couple’s embrace.32 The moment the reader witnesses precedes
this veiling, and leaves little to the imagination; Venus has never
seemed more naked, Mars’s very visible “lance” (which captures
Thérèse’s gaze) is poised for action.33 In Angola, the paintings La
Morlière places in Zobéide’s cabinet, although not as explicitly
described, have little other purpose than to excite the cabinet’s
visitors. Indeed, one would imagine that these pictures come close
to falling within the as-yet-nonexistent category of pornography,
which Hunt defines as “the explicit depiction of sexual organs
and sexual practices with the aim of arousing sexual feelings”
(10). Although the reader is not able to gauge whether the
31 Lynn
Hunt, introduction, The Invention of Pornography: Obscenity and the
Origins of Modernity, 1500–1800 (New York: Zone Books, 1993), 9–10.
32 Boyer d’Argens, Thérèse Philosophe, in Romanciers libertins, 1:965.
33 In his notes on the engravings for Thérèse Philosophe, Jean-Pierre Dubost
writes that this image comes from a series entitles “Les Amours des dieux”
(1299).
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paintings that Angola views would be more akin to the delicate
sensuality of Fragonard or Boucher, or whether they more closely
resembled the explicitness of the paintings that Thérèse views, it
is clear from the context that these paintings have been placed
within the cabinet (to return to Hunt’s criteria for pornography)
“with the aim of arousing sexual feelings.”
Moreover, the notion of art’s capacity to arouse the viewer,
and thus to function as something akin to pornography, is also
suggested in Thémidore, in a passage in which the narrator,
deprived of Rozette, spends the night looking at his engravings,
and presumably masturbating. He recounts that, unable to sleep:
“Je me fis donner mes cartons à estampes et j’en commençai une
revue générale. A proportion qu’elles étaient libres ou plaisantes
je me rappelais les situations dans lesquelles je m’étais trouvé avec
celle qu’on venait de m’enlever” (547). Thémidore falls asleep, with
these engravings “éparses sans ordre sur la surface de [s]on lit,” only
after, as he writes, “la nature se trouva accablée” (547). These same
images play a role in Thémidore’s seduction of Nanette, a servant
girl who spies them on his bed, and peruses them “par sensualité”
(548), and upon whom they make “une agréable impression” (548).
Aucour underscores these engravings’ relationship to “imitation,”
suggesting that they serve (literally, according to Thémidore) as
a kind of acoustic and visual echo of what eventually transpires
between the narrator and Nanette, as Thémidore recounts: “Mes
estampes répandues sur le lit jouèrent leur personnage et joignirent
leur petit murmure à un certain bruit occasionné par la pratique
de ce qu’elles représentaient” (549–50).
Unlike Thémidore’s engravings, however, the artwork in the
cabinet plays a more complex role in relationship to the libertine
writer’s conception of desire. Rather than simply provoking the
libertine subject to enter into an imitative relationship with
these works, these paintings may also lend themselves to the
creation of an idealized, atemporal space, one that posits itself
as an imitation or representation of Cythera, that mythical site
that signified pleasure throughout the eighteenth century. In this
sense, the very fact of entering the cabinet removes the subject
from the society that surrounds him or her. Zobéide’s paintings
function to code the cabinet as space that exists outside of the
limitations that society may place upon pleasure, for here, as the
author has noted, “les rigueurs ... étaient bannies” (Angola, 711);
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the cabinet’s location, far removed from the house’s public spaces,
only reinforces this notion.
Thomas Kavanagh has argued that eighteenth-century France
experienced a valorization of what he refers to as “the moment,”
that is, “a temporality promising a previously unsuspected freedom
from the fetters of continuity and its subordination of the present
to past and future,” or “a here and now freed from any allegiance
to an assumed past and an expected future.”34 This privileging of
the moment, with its attendant valorizing of private pleasures that
exist in a site removed from the realm of the public, is clearly
manifest in the experience of the cabinet. However, in their
descriptions of this space freed from the constraints of past or
future, libertine writers rely upon a vocabulary that derives from
a (largely fictive) notion of Antiquity. Transposing the moment
to a mythic “Antiquity” accords a ritual aspect to pleasure, which
is now cast in costumes and décors deriving from an intertextual
fantasy of a bygone era, most likely inspired by the tragedies, genre
paintings, and novels of the seventeenth and eighteenth century.
In Thémidore, Rozette’s bed is described as “an autel simple” (528);
Rozette is presented as a “victime de l’amour,” who has taken care
to “se purifier dans une onde parfumée” (528) before adorning
herself with “bandelettes” (528). This vaguely pagan aesthetic
serves as a reference for Thémidore’s descriptions of pleasure; he
writes that “gardant un silence sacré, je posai mon offrande sur
l’autel” (529), and notes that, among the variety of pleasure he
experiences, he also felt “Presque la satisfaction d’être immolé ...
Hors le couteau sacré qui ne me percait pas le flanc, il ne me
manquait rien de ce que doit éprouver une victime” (533).
In Point de lendemain, Damon also describes the cabinet’s
atmosphere through a ritualistic and quasi-religious vocabulary,
noting that, entering the cabinet, his heart “palpitait comme celui
d’un jeune prosélyte que l’on éprouve avant la célébration des grands
mystères” (94).35 This notion of mystery echoes the mystical, almost
34 Thomas Kavanagh, “The Libertine Moment,” in “Libertinage and Modernity,”
ed. Catherine Cusset, special issue, Yale French Studies, no. 94 (1998): 80.
See also Kavanagh, Esthetics of the Moment: Literature and Art in the French
Enlightenment (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996).
35 In his notes to Point de lendemain, Jean-François Bory remarks about this
passage: “On pourrait voir là une allusion au cérémonial initiatique de la
villa des Mystères; celle-ci étant mise à l’air depuis peu à Pompéi, on sait que
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353
Denon en avait eu connaissance. Étiemble, d’autre part, signale que les trois
étapes de cette nuit sans lendemain font penser aux étapes de l’initiation
maçonnique, très fréquemment théâtralisées au xviiie siècle.” Vivant Denon,
Point de lendemain (Paris: Seuil, 1993), 32n1.
36 On the influence of Aretino in the early tradition of libertine writings, see
Hunt, 24–27; and Kavanagh, Esthetics of the Moment, 88–89.
37 Jean-Marie Goulemot, Forbidden Texts: Erotic Literature and Its Readers in
Eighteenth-Century France (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press,
1994), 49.
Artifact
liturgical vocabulary that Damon employs in his remarks to Mme
de T... about the cabinet, admitting: “je ne me sentais pas encore
toute la ferveur, toute la dévotion qu’il fallait pour visiter les saints
lieux ” (92, emphasis added). Through the aesthetic atmosphere
of the cabinet, the subjects in the libertine text claim to engage
in a sensuality removed from the “rigueurs” of their century; the
language of the libertine text casts these experiences as if they
derived from—or transpired within—a sort of Arcadia. The “art”
of the cabinet, in general, and painting, in particular, allow the
libertine subjects to transpose the erotic into an aesthetic realm,
in which these actors find their echoes in the works that surround
them. Thus, Thémidore describes his encounter with Rozette as
an aestheticized experience, by com­paring himself to Jupiter, as
depicted by Coypel, and noting that, in Rozette’s cabinet, “Nous
étions une copie de ce chef-d’oeuvre”(520).
Thémidore’s reference to Coypel’s work suggests that “imitation”
gives the libertine subject a vocabulary to describe his/her
encounters, as well as offering a lexicon of positions and postures.
In this sense, the “imitation” that transpires in the cabinet may offer
a more elevated version of the poses that the enduring popularity
of Aretino offered eighteenth-century French readers.36 However,
the erotic art that one encounters in the cabinet also has another
purpose, which is to serve as a witness to the erotic act. The role
of voyeurism in the libertine novel has been noted by Jean-Marie
Goulemot, who argues that “The erotic novel is ... in essence a
novel about voyeurism.”37 Indeed, many libertine texts depend
on a version of a primal scene of voyeurism to set their narrative
in motion. However, important as voyeurism is to the libertine
text, a kind of exhibitionism is perhaps even more essential. Every
narrative effort, but most notably the libertine text, derives from
a drive to reveal, to tell, to expose something. One might argue
that the libertine text presents a special relationship to narrative,
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in that it offers its readers the image of an eroticism that can
only find its fulfilment through narration. In this sense, libertine
literature appears to question whether those pleasures that are
not written or narrated really exist; this imperative to recount
conquests and to circulate tales of one’s triumphs is the sine qua
non of the libertine text.
In Point de lendemain, Denon offers an expression of this inter­
dependence of exhibitionism, voyeurism, and desire in the cabinet
of M. de T..., by underscoring that the two lovers share this
cabinet with a large statue of love, and later, with the statue of
Priapus. Moreover, the mirrors that cover the walls of this space
offer sensuous paintings while also allowing Damon and Mme
de T... to offer themselves as both the spectacle of, and witness
to, their own pleasure. Damon describes this experience when,
kneeling at Mme de T...’s feet, he catches a glimpse of the two of
them in the painted scenery on one of the room’s mirrors, causing
him to remark: “grâce à ce groupe répété dans tous ses aspects,
je vis cette île toute peuplée d’amants heureux” (95). In this pas­
sage, Damon’s pleasure seems to be both his, and another’s, as
the bodies that inhabit the cabinet appear to belong to orgiastic
grouping that obscures its origins, complicating its relationship
with the eye that perceives it.
The cabinet’s “art,” then, whether in the form of the paintings,
décors, or mirrors that cover the cabinet’s surface, enjoys a privi­
leged relationship with the experience of pleasure. Art engages
the spectator to enter into a relationship with imitation, while
also serving to return the libertine’s gaze, in a promise to witness,
and thus, complete, the libertine’s moment of pleasure. The
relationship between space and pleasure is further underscored,
and complicated, by Mme de T...’s descriptions of her husband’s
cabinet. Before visiting this site, she notes her disdain for this
room, suggesting that it stands as a witness of the “ressources
artificelles dont M. de T... avait besoin de fortifier son sentiment,
et du peu du ressort qu’[elle] donnai[t] à son âme” (91-92). In
Denon’s tale, then, the cabinet is not only the site of pleasure’s
triumph; it is a monument to the body’s failings. Moreover, Damon
remarks this upon first visiting M. de T...’s house. Describing
the “goût” and “magnificence” of the salons, he explains: “Le
maître de la maison raffinait sur toutes les recherches de luxe.
Il s’étudiait à ranimer les ressources d’un physique éteint, par des
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images de volupté” (77). In this passage, Mme de T... is suddenly
cast in another light; no longer the alluring woman who seduces
Damon, she now appears to have an affinity with the aged abbess
that the narrator of Hercule encounters. In both cases, their lovers
need the supplement of images or settings in order to provoke a
somatic effect; where desire is absent, art and invention are called
upon to trump the body’s resistance.
The cabinet, rather than simply inspiring or facilitating
pleasure, attempts to offer a response, or a challenge, to nature.
Through its idealized décors and the representation of bodies
engaging in an unending pleasure, the cabinet attempts to sup­
plement all that is inconvenient about the natural. In doing so,
however, it points to its own limits, and to the body’s limits. The
cabinet may push (metaphorically, or literally—as is the case in
Denon’s tale) its occupants towards pleasure, but ultimately as
a décor, it also suggests the fear that haunts Denon’s text—that
of a “physique éteint”—while also demonstrating its restricted
abilities to supplant the body’s eventual finitude. The role that
the cabinet plays in eighteenth-century French literature offers
an insight into that century’s ideas of eroticism, and suggests
the complex interdependence between architecture and desire.
Ultimately, however, even this “lieu de délices” echoes a question
that Thémidore poses, a question that operates a return of the
repressed in a century so obsessed with pleasure: “Pourquoi la
nature a-t-elle borné nos forces, et étendu si loin nos désirs? Ou
plutôt pourquoi ne se rencontrent-ils pas à raison égale?” (533).
The role that the cabinet (and architecture, in a larger sense)
plays within the libertine tale raises questions about what has
long been understood as the reader’s relationship to the erotic
text. On the one hand, the role that imitation plays within these
narratives obviously harks back to the reader’s positions vis-àvis the libertine tale, and the seductive power it exerts over the
reader. In the erotic text, as Jean–Marie Goulemot has noted, the
reader becomes the “intimate companion” of the main character;
the almost exclusive reliance upon first-person narratives pushes
the reader to form a rapid and profound cathexis with the
protagonist, causing the reader a more intimate association with
erotic educations encountered in these texts. The end result of
this cathexis, obviously, is the reader’s drive to pleasure. In this,
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Goulemot remarks, the erotic tale differs from a narrative such as
Don Quixote: the former category, he argues “leaves absolutely no
freedom of choice: he who reads [the erotic novel] succumbs to
the power of its illusion” (117). The mechanistic nature of certain
erotic spaces certainly echoes the “mechanics” of arousal that
the book effects upon its readers; the body, through a process of
imitation, seeks pleasure, a seemingly blameless pleasure, a sideeffect of reading, a reaction in this space of reading from which
“behaviour,” or reflection, has been banished.
However, the cabinet and similar aesthetically charged spaces
in the erotic narrative complicate the reader’s attempts at finding
satisfaction through (or within) these texts. These settings seem
to imply that sensuous pleasure alone will never satisfy, and that
the subject’s deepest experience of pleasure may indeed have little
to do with the body, which in these spaces seems to be a poor and
faulty locus unable to contain a pleasure that surpasses it. One
may easily name or describe the pleasures that occur within the
body, and yet the primary source for these pleasures seems to be
located somehow beyond the body, in the aesthetic atmosphere
that provokes (perhaps faute de mieux) bodies to come together to
seek an expression of pleasure that might otherwise elude them.
Moreover, a space such as M de T...’s cabinet disrupts the
reader’s ability for voyeurism, that mainstay of the erotic narrative.
While it is simple for the reader to engage in a process of imita­
tion, and imagine some variation of the couplings that she or
he encounters in the libertine text, the capacity to experience the
rich and complex sensual elements that compose the cabinet in
Point de lendemain eludes the reader. The engravings that accom­
panied many eighteenth-century French libertine texts attest to
this: their focus is often on fairly rudimentary depictions of the
body. Décor is often a simple matter: a bed with a curtain, the sug­
gestion of a painting in the background, a sofa, a screen, a crudely
formed hole in the wall for spying. As readers of these texts turn
a voyeuristic gaze towards the elaborate and sensual cabinets that
lead their “intimate companions” to an experience of pleasure that
seems, ultimately, to interrogate the body’s very role in libertine
eroticism, the reader cum voyeur can only ever feel left out.
Georgetown University