Petit manuel de la femme supérieure : secrets intimes by Gerard de Beauregard
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"Petit manuel de la femme supérieure" by Gerard de Beauregard is a satirical conduct manual written in the late 19th century. With playful cynicism, it coaches an ambitious society woman to manufacture the appearance of brilliance and authority—through persona, décor, conversation, fashion, and carefully managed rumor—rather than through genuine erudition. Expect a witty deconstruction of salons, wardrobes, dinners, and domestic staging as tools of social power. The opening of the manual lays
out “Prolegomena” in which the narrator, addressing “madame,” promises intimate secrets, urges her to borrow opinions from recognized authorities without ever citing them, and to adopt a consistent, curated “type” defined by an adaptable smile and safe audacity. A quick tour of famous women extracts usable traits (notably Catherine de’ Medici’s art of dissimulation) and concludes that legend rests largely on setting. In “The Frame,” he prescribes an old hôtel in the Faubourg Saint‑Germain, a grand and a small salon in coherent styles, invented ancestral portraits if needed, a royal‑blue bedroom with pre‑Raphaelite devotions, and a lavish, mirrored bathing and toilette suite designed to fuel tantalizing gossip via servants. “The Table” demands a light Louis XV dining room, many small refined dishes, and rare wines to win loyalty through appetites. “The Chaise Longue” becomes a strategic pedestal: revive fashionable “vapors” to disarm adversaries and end visits on your terms. “The Toilette” elevates dress to strategy—morning coiffure à la vierge, a stately velvet robe de chambre, discreet day elegance, and suggestive (not blatant) evening décolletage—and the section on the husband begins by sketching an ideal, well‑mannered, moderate partner to be guided as a compliant collaborator. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
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About this eBook
| Author | Beauregard, Gerard de, 1865- |
|---|---|
| Title | Petit manuel de la femme supérieure : secrets intimes |
| Original Publication | Paris: Dentu, 1897. |
| Credits | Laurent Vogel and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF/Gallica)) |
| Language | French |
| LoC Class | PQ: Language and Literatures: Romance literatures: French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese |
| Subject | Satire |
| Subject | French literature -- 19th century |
| Category | Text |
| eBook-No. | 77876 |
| Release Date | Feb 7, 2026 |
| Copyright | Public domain in the USA. |
| Downloads | 215 downloads in the last 30 days. |
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