Les égaremens de Julie (Julie’s Distractions) is a rather minor and second-rate example of the supposed memoirs of a young eighteenth-century woman who sets off to explore the pleasures of the flesh.

Julie’s author is one Jacques-Antoine-René Perrin (1730–1813), Counsel to the Comte d’Artois, who as well as fulfilling his legal duties wrote three erotic mémoires, Les égaremens de Julie and L’empire des passions ou mémoires de M de Gersan (Monsieur de Gersan’s Empire of Passions), both published in 1756, and Henriette de Marconne, ou mémoires du Chevalier de Présac, published in 1763.

Les égaremens de Julie was published in three small volumes, supposedly in London but actually in Paris; at that time such books were less likely to be prosecuted if they bore a non-French place of publication.

As with his colourful illustrations for Le journal d’une femme de chambre, Sainte-Croix’s images for Julie are bright and full of life.

Les égaremens de Julie was published by Éditions Eryx in a limited numbered edition of 685 copies.

We are very grateful to Philippe Isoard of Librairie In Quarto, Marseille, for these illustrations. The In Quarto catalogue can be found here; where you can buy the book if it is still in stock.