PLAIDOYER DE MONSIEUR FREYDIER, AVOCAT À NISMES, CONTRE L'INTRODUCTION DES CADENATS, OU CEINTURES DE CHASTETÉ
Sammelband of five French titles in one volume, including a contemporary court argument against an abusive man who employed a chastity belt to control a woman — evidently, a true account of a device frequently thought apocryphal.
Very good plus.
Price: $4,500.00
PLAIDOYER DE MONSIEUR FREYDIER, AVOCAT À NISMES, CONTRE L'INTRODUCTION DES CADENATS, OU CEINTURES DE CHASTETÉ
As scholar Albrecht Classen has shown (in his landmark THE CHASTITY BELT: A Myth-Making Process, 2007), the myth of the chastity belt remains stubbornly intractable. As he convincingly argues, the medieval (or sometimes Renaissance) device as it is generally conceived was rarely actually used. Instead, misinterpretation, misunderstanding, misreading, and even outright deception and forgery have conspired to create an image of the chastity belt built more on symbolism and anxiety than scholarship and evidence. However, even Classen does not seem to question the essential veracity of this harrowing tale told in PLAIDOYER DE MONSIEUR FREYDIER (Montpellier, Augustin-François Rochard: 1750).
Marie Lajon — a young woman kidnapped, abused, and raped by Pierre Berlhe under false pretenses of an eventual marriage proposal — employed lawyer Monsieur Freydier to make her case in court. In his PLAIDOYER, Freydier relates how Berlhe frequently dressed Lajon as a young male servant to bring her with him when he traveled for business, but that when Lajon became pregnant, his plans changed. Berlhe devised a monstrous solution to control her body even while they were apart: he forced her to wear a haphazard chastity belt of brass mesh, locked with a key and several wax seals to prevent tampering. It was this device that prompted Lajon to seek help, resulting in a court order served to Berlhe: he was to turn over the key and the seal to a clerk, and two midwives would assist in the belt's removal, recording their findings to be included in charges against him. Berlhe refused.
In constructing his arguments for the jury, Freydier noted that Berlhe had spent a great deal of time in Avignon, a "nearly Italian city" ("Ville presqu'Italienne," xxviii); Freydier posited that Berlhe got the idea from his chastity belt from the Italians who, he claimed, invented the device (and used it widely). In a fairly lengthy diatribe against the jealous nature of the Italians and Spanish, Freydier used Berlhe's chastity belt as an appeal to the court's French pride while also presenting evidence of his crimes.
Unfortunately, the result of the trial is not known, though Freydier requested the judge "strike [Berlhe's] heart with a thunderbolt of severe judgment" ("pour vous déterminer à frapper le cœur de l'insensible de la foudre d'un jugement sévère," xxxvii). Nevertheless, the case was widely cited in discussions of the history of chastity belts as proof of the practice and it appears therefore that the PLAIDOYER is a rare true account of the device actually in use.
Read more: Albrecht Classen, The Medieval Chastity Belt: A Myth-Making Process.
The Object
Montpellier; Paris; Amsterdam; Paris; London: Augustin-François Rochard; Desenne; n. p.; Jussienne; John Adamson, 1750; 1793; 1760; 1791; 1781. Other titles included in volume: Pensées diverses de Mirabeau, tirées de ses lettres originales; Critique d'un livre contre les spectacles intitule J. J. Rousseau; Mémoire sure les courses de chevaux et de chars en France; Supplément a L'espion Anglois. Octavo, five titles in one volume. 7'' x 4.25''. Contemporary mottled calf spine with waste parchment boards, waste dated 12 April 1604. Edges sprinkled red. Illustrated with one fold-out engraving, lacking engraving of chastity belt as usual. xvi, 70; 94; xxxviii; xii, 32; 222 pages; three titles lacking final blanks. Boards slightly bowed, a bit of worming to top of spine. A couple leaves with tiny chips to margins; title page of final title with mild dampstaining. Tight.
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