The Adventures of King Pausole

by Pierre Louÿs

The code of government of the legendary (Anatole France's) mythic King Pausole prescribed but two laws for his subjects: the first being, Hurt no man, and the second, Then do as you please.

Pierre Louys, pseudonym of Pierre Louis (1870-1925), was a French novelist and poet who expressed pagan sensuality with stylistic perfection. Louys frequented Parnassian and Symbolist circles and was a friend of the composer Claude Debussy. He founded various literary reviews, notably La Conque in 1891. His "Chansons de Bilitis" (1894), prose poems about Sapphic love, purporting to be translations from the Greek, deceived even experts. "Aphrodite" (1896), a novel depicting courtesan life in ancient Alexandria, made him famous and it became the best-selling work by any living French writer (350,000 copies).

Genres: France

328 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1901

About the author

Pierre Louÿs was a French poet and writer, most renowned for lesbian and classical themes in some of his writings. He is known as a writer who sought to "express pagan sensuality with stylistic perfection". He was made first a Chevalier and then an Officer of the Légion d'honneur for his contributions to French literature.

Born in Belgium, in 1870, but moved to France where he would spend the rest of his life. He was a friend of authors André Gide and Oscar Wilde, and of composer Claude Debussy.

Reviews

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pierre Louÿs's The Adventures of King Pausole is one of those lighthearted works about sex that come from a century ago and which seem so dated today. It is amusing that with all that coupling going on, there is no mention about children. Are they found in cabbage patches? Were they delivered by the stork? It is such a male perspective in which women could not possibly desire anything from the sexual act different from that which men desire. Hah! As if!

I am amazed that Louys was able to parlay his single-minded talent into membership among the Officers of the Legion d'Honneur.

Note: I did not read this book in French, but in an English translation on Kindle by Charles Hope Lumley.

[Rjyan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hilarious and provocative, though nowhere near as filthy as the notorious She-Devils. Pierre's outrageous sexual mores still underlie the action, but they're deployed with a classy Balzacky approach-- still obscene, but witty and suggestive rather than explicit. I'd highly recommend this to anyone who enjoys ribald tales like Balzac's Droll Stories or Rabelais, as well as anybody who has an opinion (favorable or otherwise) about the writing of De Sade.

[Ostap Bender · Rating 3 out of 5]

This little bit of playful French fluff is part male fantasy, part social satire, and part political manifesto – probably in that order. Pierre Louÿs was the author Colette had young Claudine reading at school, and in reading him, you can see just how inappropriate that was.

In this book, the mythical kingdom of Tryphemia off of the French coast is ruled by Pausole, a laissez-faire king (in this case, lazy-faire king?-) who has a few general principles, but doesn’t really want to be bothered by administration, or much of anything for that matter. He instead leaves it to his advisors, one of whom, a minister and court Eunuch, he grants control for half of the day, the other, a page who is always after the women (and consistently succeeds with them), the other half. How’s that for delegating? The king’s daughter has run off, and they engage in what amounts to a low-speed pursuit, running into various subjects along the way.

The positives for the book all center around its concepts of freedom. The kingdom’s ‘Code’ is the epitome of small government, and individual liberty, consisting of two rules: (1) Thou shalt not harm thy neighbor, and (2) This being understood, do as thou wouldst. He allows religious freedom “to experience the consolations of the various Paradises in turn”, and his subjects at all levels praise him for leaving them the hell alone. Indolent as he is, he says “the citizens of Europe are tired of feeling at every moment the hand of authority on their shoulder, an authority which is made unbearable by being omnipresent.” He allows sexual freedom, recognizing non-binary sexuality (his daughter has actually run off with another woman), the concept that women do not fit into two simple types (“chaste” and “satanic”), and allows women to leave their husbands and get a divorce if it suits them (a novelty at that time).

On the negative side, the book is a little too bawdy. All of the actual sex is ‘off-screen’, but it’s pretty pervasive, and while Louÿs gets pretty daring at times (a “handy banana” comes to mind), it starts to lose its appeal midway through. The bigger issue, however, is that women are essentially playthings – the king literally has a wife for each night, the traditional custom is for women (and girls) to walk around naked, and while many of the scenes are tongue-in-cheek fantasy, some are misogynistic, such as 40 guards being sent off to have a young woman in the woods, one after another (which Louÿs of course has her enjoying).

If only the book had been more mature and enlightened, because it is a fun read for the most part, and this edition is so fantastic – numbered copy 135 out of 1200 made on hand-made paper by The Fortune Press in London in 1929, with very uneven pages and interesting font.

[Wreade1872 · Rating 3 out of 5]

My score on this one has not been effected by any moral judgments. If it was it would be about minus 20 stars ;) . But i'm just going to put aside the questionable age of some of the characters and the authors complete certainty that women always mean Yes when they say No. It is or at last claims to be humour and if this was written by Rabelais in the 17th century i might be looking at it differently but 1901 is a bit too late to be this primitive.

This is a philosophical sexual comedy about a small kingdom where the only law is don't hurt anyone, apart from that you can do what you like especially when it comes to sex. Oh except for the royal family of course, where the king imposes his own set of rules, because this book can be quite realistic at times :) .
Despite its caveman ethics in places, its also quite advanced in others, there are gay characters and its belief in sexual freedoms is quite modern.

Its also genuinely funny at times. Its also quite confused, contradictory and meandering. An interesting satire on sexual ethics and very bold for the time period but no classic.

Of note i own The Bumper B3ta Book of Sick Jokes, so bad non-pc humour is fine by me, however in this case it kept catching me off guard and you could never be sure how much of a joke was intended.