La gazette de Cythère ou histoire secrète de madame la comtesse du Barry

New edition published anonymously.
Bradel binding in full burgundy watered silk, smooth spine, red morocco title-label with two marginal tears, burgundy watered silk endpapers and pastedowns, burgundy top edge, binding signed by Thiébaut.
The engraved frontispiece is lacking in our copy and has been replaced by a 20th-century portrait of Madame du Barry.
Collection composed of 12 gallant and libertine novellas set in various locations across Europe.
Handsome copy.

The work was initially 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 tells us, in his preface to the 1881 reprint, that Jean-Frédéric Bernard had died in 1752. According to him, this collection must therefore be attributed to François Bernard who published under his own name only an Analyse de l'histoire philosophique et politique de Raynàl in 1775, but who devoted himself to 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, by all appearances, as the Revolution approached" because, he writes, "the lantern of erudition becomes a dark lantern when it interrogates such depths 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 spice of imagination, but, in sum, an exact account of the small scandals that occurred everywhere outside of France at that time."
These novellas nonetheless remain solidly constructed and well written, they are in the taste of those of Baculard d'Arnaud, with a certain humor and satire added.