French Literature Reviews - 2026
A. Le Camus, Abdeker ou l'art de conserver la beauté.
History, Politics and Society
Antoine le Camus
Abdeker ou l'art de conserver la beauté
Text introduced by Alexandre Wenger
Éditions Jérôme Millon
diff. Harmonia Mundi
ISBN: 2-84137-238-6 - 288 p. - 13/21 - 2008 - 20 €
Abdeker, ou l'art de conserver la beauté (1754) tells the story of a forbidden love between Abdeker, a young physician assigned to care for the women of the sultan's harem in Constantinople, and the stunning Fatmé, the jewel of that same harem, prized as much for her incomparable beauty as for her gentle soul. To outwit the suspicion of the eunuchs and create opportunities to visit his beloved, Abdeker sets out to teach her all the ways a woman can preserve her beauty. Physical causes, moral causes, nothing is omitted; he penetrates right into the sanctuary of pleasures, while taking care, so he claims, not to startle the Graces guarding the entrance. The singular form of this work will undoubtedly pique the curiosity of readers. Abdeker is a physician, but an amorous physician who initiates his mistress, the most beautiful woman in the world, into all the mysteries of beauty; and after reading his book, one is instructed in all diploma secrets of his art, while believing one has merely read the story of his love affairs.
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In Libération of 25/9/08, an article on this work could be read:
Le Camus, wrinkles down Harem. Reclaim your youth thanks to an 18th-century physician. ROBERT MAGGIORI DAILY: Thursday, September 25, 2008
Antoine Le Camus Abdeker ou l'Art de conserver la beauté Edition established and introduced by Alexandre Wenger. Jérôme Millon, 286 pp., 20 euros.
"Once upon a time there was a sultan, Mehmed II. «The cruelest fever consumed his entrails» and death «already wandered around him» when from Mocha, capital of Arabia Felix, a Stranger arrived at his court, Abdeker, whose reputation in «the divine Art of Medicine» was great. Abdeker made Mehmed swallow «a white powder» and, in a few days, restored him to life. Grateful, the sultan «appointed him Lecchin Bachi, that is to say First Physician to His Highness». «By an even more special favor», he appointed him «Physician to the women of his Harem», but «without first depriving him of all that might arouse the jealousy of a Turk». Thus Abdeker went to the apartment of the Odalisques, and there caught sight of Fatmé.
Bought in Georgia, where «the most beautiful women in the world are born», Fatmé was so gentle, so voluptuous, so radiant, and possessed a mind so refined that she had eclipsed all her rivals and won the sultan's heart. Abdeker, too, succumbed to Fatmé's charm, and Fatmé swooned before the gracious Physician with «eyes full of fire». To multiply their encounters without arousing Mehmed's suspicion and bypassing the surveillance of the eunuchs, the Lecchin Bachi made his beloved, at her request, his pupil and undertook to deliver to her «all the mysteries of Medicine for the preservation of Beauty».
Oh dear… The harem, the slaves who dress and undress bodies, the baths, the massages, the intoxicating perfumes, the scented oils, the lascivious caresses, the kisses… Here, for a thousand and one nights, all the pleasures of the world are promised.
«Hollow». But Abdeker ou l'art de conserver la beauté, whose author Antoine Le Camus playfully likes to claim is «the Translation of an Arabic Manuscript that Diamantes Ulasto, physician to the Turkish Ambassador, brought to Paris in 1740», mingles strange notes with the tale of Abdeker and Fatmé's idyll. Such as this one, addressed to women whose vagina is «dilatatus» due to «childbirth or numerous coits»: «Take still-green gall nuts, boil them in wine with a few cloves; dip a cloth in it, and apply.» Or this one, dedicated to ladies who wish to preserve eternal youth on their face: «Take an ounce of native sulfur, two ounces of frankincense and myrrh, six drams of amber, a pound of rose water. Distill the whole in a water bath and wash your face with this water in the evening before going to bed.» And many others besides, concerning this or that ointment, an infusion, a decoction, a talc, an «Imperial water» whose «property is to whiten the teeth, soothe their pain, prevent bad breath and firm up the gums», a pomade against chapping, or this balm that erases «the pits of smallpox».
It will be understood that Abdeker is not truly a novel, although the loves of the physician and the odalisque are depicted therein. Nor is it a medical manual, although the causes and remedies for skin diseases, «warts and corns», or excessive plumpness and leanness are described. Nor is it a treatise on aesthetics or cosmetics. It is all these things at once, which places it among the cabinet of curiosities.
Deviations. Antoine Le Camus (1722-1772) is a true physician, «regent doctor of the Faculty of Medicine of Paris», cited and discussed by his peers — as well as by Diderot, and by Balzac (César Birotteau digs up a copy of Abdeker at a secondhand bookseller's). He defines himself as a «metaphysical physician», because, while he leaves it to philosophy to awaken the beauty of the soul, he wishes to embody that medicine which must watch over the beauty of the body, and, in preserving it, also preserve the health and strength of the mind. Mens sana in corpore sano? Le Camus would rather say: a sound mind in a beautiful body, beautiful because healthy, healthy because beautiful.
Should one shudder at these ideas? Le Camus asserts them with a certain naturalness, even though they imply that stupidity and ugliness are deviations from normality; in his eyes, «the Beautiful ordinarily follows the general rule that Nature has fixed herself». Although blended with fiction, they provide precious indications regarding 18th-century aesthetics and hygiene, the revival of medical cosmetology, and the conception of male and female gender roles. One question remains, hardly metaphysical: how could Fatmé endure that Abdeker, who certainly desired that she retain health and vitality, should declaim to her, not love poems, but recipes to cure constipation, achieve a fine complexion, treat obesity, or «cleanse ulcers»?"
Antoine Le Camus occupies a unique place in eighteenth-century letters, bridging the medical sciences and the burgeoning domain of philosophical literature. As a regent doctor of the Faculty of Medicine of Paris who was known to contemporaries like Diderot and later referenced by Balzac, Le Camus explored the intricate connections between physical vitality and aesthetic presentation. This edition, established with an introduction by Alexandre Wenger, brings to light a singular text that defies conventional genre boundaries. It operates simultaneously as an orientalist romance, a detailed cosmetic and hygienic manual, and an inquiry into the corporeal ideals of the Enlightenment.
The work invites reflection on the history of medicine, the evolution of gender roles, and the cultural obsession with youth and physical perfection during the Enlightenment. Readers interested in the history of the body, medical cosmetology, and eighteenth-century literary curiosities will find this text a compelling study. It provides valuable insight into how medical discourse intersected with narrative fiction to shape societal norms regarding health, beauty, and morality, offering a fascinating window into the intellectual and domestic concerns of pre-revolutionary France.