La Belle sans chemise, ou Ève ressuscitée (Beauty without a Shift, or Eve Resurrected) was first published anonymously in 1683. The heroine is Angélique, a beautiful young woman whose jealous ageing mother forces her into an Ursuline convent in order to keep her from competing socially. While in the convent Angélique falls ill, and is seduced by a visiting Jesuit priest, Father Stanislas. He becomes her lover and eventually helps her escape. From here the tale turns into a picaresque erotic travelogue – Angélique runs away and lives as an adventuress; she takes a cavalier lover, and together they rob the Jesuit. They engage in group sexual escapades with a servant girl, but Angélique is betrayed and robbed by an Italian lover. She finally settles in a respectable household, where she instructs an innocent young serving girl in the use of the godemichet or dildo.

For many years La Belle sans chemise was attributed to Louis-Charles Fougeret de Monbron (1706–60), a writer of scandalous satirical and libertine prose, though the attribution is not absolutely certain. The book was a genuine succès de scandale. It was translated into English and German in 1684, and reprinted regularly throughout the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

Maurice Leroy’s stylish illustrations are the most explicit he ever produced, probably because this was a privately printed edition. As well as the sixteen colour versions, for a limited number of copies he also produced a monochrome set together with ‘remarques’, small additional drawings, which were placed in a translucent envelope at the back of the book. Here we show you both versions.

The Leroy-illustrated La Belle sans chemise was published ‘Aux dépens d’un amateur’ (at the expense of an amateur collector) in Paris, in a limited, numbered and boxed edition of 300 copies.

You can read La Belle sans chemise in French in an online version here.