How Not to Behave: ‘The Handbook for Young Ladies’ by Pierre Louys

Rojan, 1926

Published in 1926, soon after the author’s death, Pierre Louys’ Handbook for Young Ladies (Manuel de civilite pour les petites filles a l’usage des maisons d’education) is very typical of much of his later output: it is also very accessible for readers- short and ridiculously, scandalously funny.

In his broadly contemporary verse collection Pybrac, Louys savaged the moralising verse of the Guy du Faur, seigneur de Pibrac (1529-84). He had written a series of pious but pompous quatrains, giving worthy advice to his readers. These texts became required reading for generations of French schoolchildren and, as such, were a clear target for loathing and mockery.

The Handbook was, in this context, merely a modernised version of the same project, attacking manuals of deportment and good manners written for the daughters of bourgeois families. There were plenty of these to satirise- a small selection of examples includes a snappily titled work by Stéphanie Félicité Genlis, Dictionnaire critique et raisonné des étiquettes de la cour, des usages du monde, des amusemens, des modes, des moeurs, etc: ou, L’esprit des etiquettes et des usuages anciens, compares aux modernes (1818), as well as the Manuel complet de la bonne compagnie, ou, Guide de la politesse, et de la bienséance, dédié à la société française et à la jeunesse des deux sexes, by Elisabeth Celnart (1834), Manuel de l’homme et de la femme comme il faut, by Eugène Chapus (1855), Cham’s Nouvelles lecons de civilité, puérile et honnête (1859), La civilité puérile et honnête by Eugène Plon and Louis Maurice Boutet de Monvel (first published 1887) and Paul Burani’s Guide-manuel de la civilité française; ou, Nouveau code de la politesse et du savoirvivre (1890). Burani, for instance, advises that:

“The carriage of the head is especially a study to be done in the young girl ‘s early years. A leaning, languorous expression, an impudent and disdainful expression are also unsuitable and later become unfortunate habits.”

“Spouses must avoid overly familiar caresses in front of their children, in front of servants and in front of strangers. The mysteries of marriage, to retain all their attraction, must not be revealed.”

Guide-manuel de la civilité française

In the Handbook, over just sixty pages, Louys purported to give advice on the correct behaviour for young ladies in a range of social situations: when dining in company, at a ball, at school, at church, when visiting a museum, at the theatre, when travelling, when being introduced to the president of the republic- and many other circumstances. Almost none of this advice ought to be followed: “Get this truth into your head: every person around you, regardless of their age or sex, has a secret desire for you- but most of them will never dare to say so;” “If you pass an attractive man in the street, do not proposition him yourself; have your maid do this for you,” or “If your mother accompanies you to your lover’s home, let her go to bed with him first. That is the proper way to do things.”

Many recommendations are probably still valid, even so: at the dining table, for example, do not arrange a banana above a pair of tangerines on the tablecloth; do not slide asparagus in and out of your mouth whilst regarding the young man you find attractive; if you are doing an arithmetic lesson at school and the solution to your calculation is 69, do not roll around laughing like an idiot, or, if you are in a compromising situation with the elderly gentleman and he drops dead, rearrange his clothes and make him decent before calling for help…

As regular readers will know, I am as interested in the publishing history of Louys’ many works as in the texts themselves; most of the artists commissioned to illustrate successive editions of the Handbook will be familiar to readers who have read my earlier posts. The first edition was published in 1926 in Paris by Simon Kra, but within just a few months the publisher released an illustrated edition containing six etchings by Louys-regular Rojan. Strangely, the next year Simon Kra reissued the same text, but this time featuring twelve coloured etchings by Leon Courbouleix. He was an artist and occasional author who illustrated cheap erotic books for the Parisian book publishing trade, along with providing plates for more literary erotica, such as Restif de la Bretonne.

Illustration by Schem 1948

A further edition of the Handbook followed in 1930 (although- as was common- the title page claimed it had been published in Brussels in 1919). Twelve plates by Martin van Maele were provided, but these were not original works, being taken from La Grande danse macabre des vifs which he had illustrated in 1909. Nevertheless, those images were readily transferrable and highly suitable for the new text. Van Maele (a pseudonym of artist Maurice Martin, 1863-1926) had been widely employed in illustrating literary erotica (Laclos, Gautier, Verlaine) as well as in providing images for the thriving trade in spanking novels.

After World War II two more editions of the Handbook followed. 1948 saw an edition with twelve ‘pouchoir’ plates, designed by the illustrator and printmaker Schem (Raoul Serres, 1881-1971). In 1950 a further version, with eighteen line drawings, some hand-coloured, by Nicolas Sternberg was published. Most of these are not really suitable for publication here- as the CD cover reproduced below says: “Interdit aux moins de dix-huit ans.”

The cover of the Sternberg edition

The Handbook is ribald and irreverent; it’s no guide at all to correct comportment, although it might well function as a catalogue of all the things one should never do in polite company. It is, in microcosm, an epitome of Pierre Louys’ parallel reality- a vision of contemporary Parisian society that existed only in his imagination.

A longer, fully annotated essay on Pybrac can be downloaded from my Academia page. A couple of recent English translations of the Handbook have been published: one, The Young Girl’s Handbook of Good Manners for Use in Educational Establishments by Wakefield Press (2010) and the second, A Handbook of Manners for the Good Girls of France by Black Scat Books (2022).

The cover of a CD of the Handbook