L'homme tout nu by Catulle Mendès
"L’homme tout nu" by Catulle Mendès is a novel written in the late 19th century. It playfully revisits medieval Provence and its Courts of Love, following the headstrong young baron Pierre de Pierrefeu on a quest for amorous glory amid satirical portraits of troubadours, nobles, and clergy. The tone is witty, sensual, and mock-chivalric, blending romance, farce, and learned pastiche of courtly codes. The opening of the novel sets a twelfth‑century stage
and introduces three half‑brothers—Marcabrus the drinker, Aymeril the penitent, and Pierre the lover—who part ways after their father’s death, leaving Pierre splendidly mounted and eager for adventure. A digression celebrates the castle of Romanin, recounting how Doulce and Antiphanor perished in a lovers’ fire, and then ushers us into the famed Court of Love presided over by the comtesse Phanette, where witty cases are judged (a promised kiss limited to a sleeve, a voyeur punished, a cleric defended, a scandalous slip of a wife condemned). A larger debate about love in darkness awaits the counsel of the chaste Clermonde, who arrives breathless to claim she was embraced in the woods by a naked man. In parallel, Pierre rescues the tavern girl Mariotte, only to be ambushed by routiers who steal his horse and finery, leaving him entirely unclothed and fleeing into the forest—setting the comic complication that triggers Clermonde’s outcry. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
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About this eBook
| Author | Mendès, Catulle, 1841-1909 |
|---|---|
| Title | L'homme tout nu |
| Original Publication | Paris: Victor-Havard, 1887. |
| Credits | Laurent Vogel, Robin Tremblay and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) |
| Language | French |
| LoC Class | PQ: Language and Literatures: Romance literatures: French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese |
| Subject | French fiction -- 19th century |
| Category | Text |
| EBook-No. | 78059 |
| Release Date | Feb 27, 2026 |
| Copyright Status | Public domain in the USA. |
| Downloads | 4656 downloads in the last 30 days. |
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