Feuilles a l’envers recueillies par un Bourguinon sale (Topsy-turvy Pages Collected by a Dirty Burgundian), generally attributed to Frédillo though there are no signatures, is a rather amazing collection of illustrated verses. If these plates are indeed by Frédillo, then ‘Dirty Burgundian’ gives us a clue that he may have come from this famous wine-making region in central France.
Each of the lithographs incorporates an original poem, some with abbreviated dedications, and a series of hand-coloured illustrations mirroring the subject of the poem. The poems are extremely sexually explicit, or as the French would say ‘très libre’, and they are rather good.
The title page carries this verse:
Comme vos sœurs des bois ombreux
Hantés de désirs amoureux:
Voltigez, feuilles indiscrètes,
Retournant vos faces secrètes
Sous les doigts des amants heureux.
Like your sisters of the shadowy woods
Haunted by amorous desires:
Fly, indiscreet leaves,
Turning over your secret pages
Under the fingers of happy lovers.
The other poems in the collection are:
Ouverture (Overture)
L’apothicaire (The Apothecary)
La plume (The Quill)
Entre deux feux (Between Two Fires)
Rêve de nonne (The Nun’s Dream)
Prostitution (Prostitution)
La lune à un metre (Close-up of the Moon)
Femme fidèle (A Faithful Woman)
Les enfants terrible (Naughty Children)
Les deux paradis (The Two Paradises)
Lubricités (Lustfulness)
La pessimiste (The Pessimist)
Amies de pension (Flatmates)
The first poem, ‘Ouverture’, suggests that it is by P(aul) Verlaine, but in fact only the last of the three verses bears any relation to an actual Verlaine poem, being a misquoted version of the first verse of the first poem in his 1891 collection Femmes. This does allow us to date Feuilles a l’envers, and suggests that Frédillo probably knew Verlaine personally. It may even be that Frédillo’s ‘Ouverture’ is actually an alternative unpublished version of the well-known Verlaine poem.
Ouverture (the Frédillo version of the verse in question)
C’est pourquoi, mes soeurs, vers vos cuisses et vos fesses
Je veux m’abstraire tout, seules prêtresses vraies,
Beautés mûres ou non, novices ou professes,
Et ne vivre plus qu’en vos fentes et vos raies.
That’s why, my sisters, concerning your thighs and buttocks
I wish to separate myself from everything but true priestesses,
Beauties ripe or not yet ripe, novices or professionals,
And live only in your cracks and in your cleavages.
(The Verlaine version as published)
Je veux m’abstraire vers vos cuisses et vos fesses,
Putains, du seul vrai Dieu seules prêtresses varies,
Beautés mûres ou non, novices ou professes,
O ne vivre plus qu’en vos fentes et vos raies.
I want to get away into your thighs and cheeks,
You whores, the one true god’s only true priestesses,
Whether you’re long sworn in, green beauties or antiques:
O to live only in your clefts and cleavages.
(The English version of this verse is translated by Alistair Elliot, Anvil Press Poetry, 1979)
And here are just two of the other colourful poems from the Frédillo pages:
Rêve de nonne
Jésus, mon bien aimé, dans un nimbe d’opale
Et d’azur, m’apparaît dans le ciel radieux ;
Il s’avance vers moi, sa face auguste et pâle
Souris à mon sourire, et ses yeux à mes yeux.
Oh bonheur! il approche et sa bouche divine
Distille entre mes dents le miel de son baiser;
Il écrase mes seins nus contre sa poitrine
Je sens des bras serrer mes reins à les briser.
Dieu ! son corps à mon corps qui s’enflamme se mêle
Et se fond dans ma chair où passe un flot brûlant,
Et sa lèvre amoureuse aspire à la mamelle
L’ardente volupté qu’il verse dans mon flanc.
Oh délire ! je sens ta brûlante rosée
Dans mon sein frémissant se répandre, ô seigneur!
Ô doux Jésus! divin seigneur, je suis brisée
Et j’expire en tes bras d’amour et de bonheur.
C’est ainsi qu’au couvent rêve mainte nonnette
En se branlant d’un doigt léger dans sa couchette.
The Nun's Dream
Jesus, my beloved, in an opal and azure halo
Appears to me in the radiant sky;
He walks towards me, his serious pale face
Smiles at my smile, his eyes see my eyes.
Oh happiness! He approaches and his divine mouth
Distils between my teeth the honey of his kiss;
He crushes my bare breasts against his chest
I feel his arms squeeze my body as if to break it.
God! His body and my igniting body mingle
And melt into my flesh where a burning stream passes,
And his loving lips yearn for my nipples.
What ardent pleasure he pours into my side.
Oh sweet delirium! I smell your burning dew
Spread in my quivering bosom. Oh lord!
Oh sweet Jesus! Divine lord! I am broken,
And swoon in your arms with love and happiness.
This is how in the convent many a novice dreams,
Jerking off in her cot with a light finger.
Les deux paradis
J’aime ce qui semblable à quelques fleurs mystiques
S’épanouit ainsi qu’un lotus rose et noir
Près du val de ton sexe, ô femme! et chaque soir
Je veux en effeuiller un pli problèmatique.
Avec sa porte à deux battants, son promenoir
J’aime ton con, plus vaste et plus énigmatique,
Calice humide où pleut l’averse spermatique,
Et qui sert à mon nœud de cuve et d’entonnoir.
Evoluant de l’un à l’autre en mes caresses,
Du dôme de ton ventre aux rondeurs de tes fesses,
J’explore le versant, le gouffre et le sommet:
Et je crois, énervé de volupté subtile,
Entrevoir dans ton cul le ciel de Mahomet,
Et dans ton con le paradis de l’évangile.
The two paradises
I love what look like mystical flowers,
Blossoms like a pink and a black lotus
Near the valley of your sex, oh woman! Every evening
I want to remove the petals from your teasing folds.
With its double door, its portico,
I love your cunt, grown larger and more enigmatic,
A wet chalice where the spermatic downpour rains,
Used both as my funnel and my bowl.
Moving from one to another in my caresses,
From the dome of your belly to the curve of your buttocks,
I explore the slope, the chasm and the summit.
And, aroused with subtle pleasure, I believe
I glimpse the sky of Mohammed in your ass,
And in your cunt the paradise of the gospel.
