L'arretin moderne

New edition, after the original published at the same address in 1763. 2 title pages and half-title.
Contemporary marbled glazed full calf binding. Smooth spine decorated. Modern brown title-label. One corner slightly bumped. Handsome copy, fresh.
L'arretin is composed of 25 essays and stories on subjects as diverse as Les nègres, L'agriculture, La chasteté ou le célibat, Histoire de maître Pierre, etc. These are all violent critiques, sometimes direct, sometimes satirical or allegorical, of biblical teaching, the church, and its history. Abbé Du Laurens (1719-1793) was a polemical and anti-religious writer whose works are all libertine and licentious, but above all, profoundly anti-religious. The author does not hesitate to descend into the lowest trivialities to support his criticism, but his comic inventions, often astonishing, earned him praise. Pursued for his books, he took refuge in Holland, then was imprisoned in Mainz in 1767, to end his days at 74 in a convent.
'This book is a lively and rather ribald critique of the principal stories of the Bible... L'epouse de Suze is a critique of La nouvelle Héloïse. Le sage Pangloss is Solomon, the wisest of men, this is an original chapter, even by its singular biblical quotations. L'histoire de Suzon is that of Susanna and the two elders, l'histoire de Godemiché... The origin of these instruments of chamois or velvet that became so common in nunneries. Finally les Couvens de Jésuites is an allegory of the story of Sodom. In a word, the entire volume is rather a facetious critique of the Bible and clerical institutions than a simply ribald book'. Gay/Lemonnyer I, 263-264.