Parisian women.- Prostitutes.- [Saint-Hilaire (Émile Marco de)], "Modeste Agnèse, l’une d’elle". Biographie des Nymphes du Palais Royal, first edition, folding hand-coloured frontispiece (a little trimmed affecting head text), some light spotting, slightly heavier to title, 20th century half morocco, spine lettered in gilt in compartments, book-label on pastedown and stamp on endpaper, very slightly rubbed at extremities but a lovely copy overall, 12mo, Paris, [F. -P. Hardy for] Librairie Française et Étrangère, 1823.

⁂ Rare, Library Hub records just one copy found at the British Library of the second edition (published in the same year as the first). No other copies of this edition in commerce.

A fascinating guide to sex workers around the Palais Royal. The preface opens with an unusually forthright declaration: "The issue of prostitution as long been resolved. Governments must not only tolerate, but also protect these brothels which, by abandoning the courtesans, become courts of sex...".

The work includes individual entries for different named women. Many document the visual descriptions that are usual of this type of work, but some have curiously intimate details of how they came to their line of work. The case of Amélie C is particularly unfortunate: "le nom d'Amelie C. doit être marqué d'une croix rouge dans le annales de la prostitution. Élevée sous le toit paternel, la première déclaration d'amour qu'elle entendit, sortit de la bouche de l'auteur de ses jours. La mort avait moissonné sa mère; son père voulut lacontraindre à remplir envers lui les devoirs d'une épouse, et pour se soustraire à cet acte atroce de l'autorité paternelle, elle se jet'a dans une maison de débauche, comme dans un sanctuaire protectuer."