Le bon plaisir (The Great Pleasure) is a novel by Henri de Régnier (1864–1936), an influential poet and novelist associated with the rise and significance of the French  symbolist school of the early twentieth century. His first volume of poems, Lendemains (Tomorrows), appeared in 1885, and among numerous later volumes of poetry quickly became essential reading. A series of novels, starting with Le double maître (The Double Master) in 1900, cemented his reputation as a writer who successfully combined eighteenth-century settings with modern psychological insights.

Le bon plaisir, first published in 1902 but set in the 1760s, is about the Marischal de Manissart, whose desires are split between his love of combat, with opportunities to serve his king well and acquire glory for himself, and his need to be as far as possible from Madame de Manissart. His wife, with her cantankerous character and her irritable virtue, makes her the scourge of the Marischal, who she torments with a restless jealousy of his military life and its opportunities for other affairs.

Sylvain Sauvage’s colour plates show him to be the master of composition and witty interpretation of de Régnier’s polished text.

The Sylvain-illustrated edition of Le bon plaisir was published in Paris by Les Éditions de la Roseraie, in a limited numbered edition of 226 copies.