La gazette de Cythere, ou avantures galantes et recentes, arrivées dans les principales villes de l'Europe. Traduite de l'anglais

First edition, illustrated with an allegorical frontispiece and a portrait of Madame du Barry. The second part has the title: Precis Historique de la Vie de Mad. la Comtesse du Barry. Anonymous edition whose author would be Jean Frédéric Bernard according to Barbier.
Contemporary full marbled glazed calf binding. Smooth spine decorated. Fragile headcap with loss. Joints cracked at head. Upper joint split at tail. Joints splitting. Rubbing. One yellow dampstain in margin in the middle of the work, running over several pages of the second part (from p. 50).
Collection composed of 12 gallant and libertine novellas set in various places in Europe.
The work was first attributed to Jean Frédéric Bernard, better known for his research and compilation works such as L'éloge de l'Enfer, or Recueil de voyages au nord, rather than for his literature.
However, Octave Uzanne informs us, in his preface to the 1881 reprint, that Jean-Frédéric Bernard had died in 1752. It is therefore necessary, according to him, to attribute this collection to François Bernard who published under his own name only an Analyse de l'histoire philosophique et politique de Raynàl in 1775, but who engaged in numerous translations from English and German. Although this Bernard is cited by Quérard, Uzanne tells us no more about "the life of this peaceful Dutchman who must have died, in all likelihood, as the Revolution approached" because, he writes, "the lantern of erudition becomes a dark lantern when it interrogates such a depth of obscurity." Uzanne is moreover quite critical of the literary qualities of the work for which he nevertheless prefaces a reprint, but recognizes as its principal quality that it offers "an overall view of the merchant bourgeoisie of the last century, an ideal of grey naturalism, without any of the spices of imagination, but, in sum, an exact account of the small scandals that occurred somewhat everywhere then outside of France."
These novellas nonetheless remain solidly constructed and well written, they are in the taste of those by Baculard d'Arnaud, with a certain humor and satire added.