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Audiobook editionPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
In the salons of eighteenth-century France, a clever remark can lift a reputation—or bring it down.
In Loves of Times Gone By, Charles Monselet looks back with affection at a world of powdered wigs, elegant society and love affairs conducted with style. These short tales bring together flirtation, clever talk and gentle mockery. Love meets vanity, desire tests reputation, and pleasure raises a question: what are people willing to risk for it?
Monselet writes with the light touch of a storyteller who trusts you to catch a hint. His tales favour a neat phrase over a long explanation, making room for both amusement and curiosity. Through their salons, manners and romantic intrigues, you also glimpse how a later French generation imagines the eighteenth century—not simply as history, but as a world worth revisiting.
What you’ll discover
- Love and its risks Explore tales where desire and vanity meet the delicate demands of reputation.
- The art of conversation Enter a society where a clever remark can change how others see you.
- Wit with a light touch Enjoy neat phrases, playful hints and gentle mockery rather than long explanations.
- An affectionate backward glance See eighteenth-century France through a later writer's fond curiosity about its manners.
- A tale in one sitting Spend a short reading break among salons, flirtations and stylish love affairs.
Who will love it
For readers who love French history, salon wit and the gossip of the Old Regime, and who enjoy short comic tales, real portraits and true stories of the Revolution told in a teasing voice.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A private joke becomes public trouble
- Old games bring absent friends close
- Private writing reveals public habits
- Frank judgments bring forgotten fiction alive
- Ancient gods deserve a fair hearing
- Songs and kindness shape a life
- A portrait carries a daughter's fear
- A daughter's love confronts the crowd
- Mockery and tenderness share the scene
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Loves of Times Gone By
A dandy dictates a love letter to himself, and by midnight a jealous husband holds it.
Medium level2–5 hours to read20 languages
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“So this tale will have to do without a moral.”
In short
A man wakes at two in the afternoon and decides that today he will be a dandy. His cure for boredom is a scrap of verse about a little man who reads love letters he writes to himself.
Loves of Times Gone By at a glance
- Reading time
- About 3 h 50 min3 h fast, 4 h 30 min slow
- Length
- 54,300 words
- Library level
- Medium longer sentences, everyday words
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A dandy writes a love letter to himself
The Chevalier de Pimprenelle wakes at two in the afternoon after losing at cards. His friends call him a dandy, and he has no idea what the word means. His footman, La Brie, fetches a small book with a verse definition. It speaks of a small man who reads brief romantic notes he sends to himself.
The chevalier is delighted. He sits La Brie at a table and dictates a love letter, with an absent husband, a blot for passion and a flourish. La Brie signs it with an invented woman's name, and the two men laugh at their own cleverness.
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Details
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 4 h 25 min
- Level
- Medium level
Cite this edition
Monselet, Charles. Loves of Times Gone By. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/loves-of-times-gone-by.
Monselet, C. (2026). Loves of times gone by. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/loves-of-times-gone-by
Monselet, Charles. Loves of Times Gone By. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/loves-of-times-gone-by.
@book{monselet2026loves,
author = {Monselet, Charles},
title = {Loves of Times Gone By},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/loves-of-times-gone-by}
}
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What is Loves of Times Gone By about?
It gathers a comic tale, an essay on parlor games, studies of forgotten novels and a daring poem, portraits of an actor and a painter, and true accounts from the French Revolution, all told with wit.
Who is the Chevalier de Pimprenelle?
He is the vain young man in the opening tale, The Love Letter. Wanting to be a dandy, he has his valet write him a fake love letter, and the joke leads him into a tangled evening.
Are the stories in this book true?
The opening tale is fiction. The essays on Popelinière, Desforges, Cazotte and the Garde-Meuble theft deal with real people and events of the eighteenth century and the 1790s, drawn from memoirs and records.
The author
Charles Monselet
1825–1888 · French novelist, poet and journalist
Charles Monselet was a French journalist, novelist, poet and playwright. He was born in Nantes in 1825 and died in Paris in 1888. During the nineteenth century, he wrote for newspapers and published novels, poems and plays. He also wrote about food and dining.
“So this tale will have to do without a moral.”
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