A libertine pamphlet from the French Revolution

Les étrennes aux fouteurs takes the form of an almanach – a booklet published at the beginning of the year, full of useful or entertaining texts. A number of contributions have been collected under the revolutionary-libertine motto of « Foutre libre ou mourir » .

In the fiercely revolutionary preface Marie-Antoinette (“une autrichienne”), the French king, religious dignitaries, the representatives of the people and the foreign enemies of France are ridiculed through pornographic remarks.

The racy atmosphere is continued in a mix of previously existing erotic texts and revolutionary deprecation of the Ancien Régime.

There are naughty songs to be sung on popular airs, anecdotes, jokes and wordplays (calembour). But also paraphrases of texts by contemporaneous authors (Zaïre, a tragedy by Voltaire) and classical writers (Martial, Horace). The “imitation of an Ode by Horace” is again directed against the hated queen Marie-Antoinette.

The Catholic Church is further attacked in La ressource du clergé, which suggests in words and image how clerics find satisfaction, now that they are no longer able to get women. Another example of ridiculing the church is La doctrine amoureuse, a text that dates back to the end of the 17th century. In some editions the subtitle ou le catéchisme d’amour appeared. Its form is that of the catechism with questions and answers, an enumeration of virtues and sins, a credo and prayers.

Les étrennes aux fouteurs was in demand: several editions were published between 1790 and 1796, with a varying number of loose illustrations.

This is a digitally restored reprint of a 1793 edition, in which the illustrations have been inserted in the appropriate places.

— currently out of stock