Nicolas Chorier was a French

French people

The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...

 lawyer, writer, and historian. He is known especially for his historical works on Dauphiné

Dauphiné

The Dauphiné or Dauphiné Viennois is a former province in southeastern France, whose area roughly corresponded to that of the present departments of :Isère, :Drôme, and :Hautes-Alpes....

, as well as his erotic dialogue

Erotic literature

Erotic literature comprises fictional and factual stories and accounts of human sexual relationships which have the power to or are intended to arouse the reader sexually. Such erotica takes the form of novels, short stories, poetry, true-life memoirs, and sex manuals...

 called The School of Women, or The Seven Flirtatious Encounters of Aloisia .

He was born at Vienne

Vienne, Isère

Vienne is a commune in south-eastern France, located south of Lyon, on the Rhône River. It is the second largest city after Grenoble in the Isère department, of which it is a subprefecture. The city's population was of 29,400 as of the 2001 census....

, Isère

Isère

Isère is a department in the Rhône-Alpes region in the east of France named after the river Isère.- History :Isère is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790. It was created from part of the former province of Dauphiné...

, practised as a lawyer in Grenoble

Grenoble

Grenoble is a city in southeastern France, at the foot of the French Alps where the river Drac joins the Isère. Located in the Rhône-Alpes region, Grenoble is the capital of the department of Isère...

 and then as a prosecutor

Prosecutor

The prosecutor is the chief legal representative of the prosecution in countries with either the common law adversarial system, or the civil law inquisitorial system...

 for King Louis XIV. His works on Dauphiné remain an important source for historians to this day. He died at Grenoble in his eightieth year.

The School of Women

The School of Women first appeared as a work in Latin entitled Aloisiae Sigaeae, Toletanae, Satyra sotadica de arcanis Amoris et Veneris. This manuscript claimed that it was originally written in Spanish

Spanish language

Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

 by Luisa Sigea de Velasco

Luisa Sigea de Velasco

Luisa Sigea de Velasco , also known as Luísa Sigeia, Luísa Sigea Toledana and in the Latinized form Aloysia Sygaea Toletana, was a poetess and intellectual of the 16th century, one of the major figures of Spanish humanism, who spent a good part of her life in the Portuguese court in the service of...

, an erudite poetess and maid of honor at the court of Lisbon

Lisbon

Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...

 and was then translated into Latin by Jean or Johannes Meursius

Johannes Meursius

Johannes Meursius , was a Dutch classical scholar and antiquary.-Biography:...

, a humanist

Humanism

Humanism is an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. In philosophy and social science, humanism is a perspective which affirms some notion of human nature, and is contrasted with anti-humanism....

 born in Leiden, Holland in 1613. The attribution to Sigea was a lie and Meursius was a complete fabrication. The manuscript circulated through the libertine

Libertine

A libertine is one devoid of most moral restraints, which are seen as unnecessary or undesirable, especially one who ignores or even spurns accepted morals and forms of behavior sanctified by the larger society. Libertines, also known as rakes, placed value on physical pleasures, meaning those...

 community at the beginning of the eighteenth century and was known in Latin under many different titles. It was translated into French many times, including one translation by Jean Terrasson

Jean Terrasson

Jean Terrasson , often referred to as the Abbe Terrasson, was a French priest, author, and most notably a member of the Académie française....

 in 1750, and was also translated into English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

.

The book is written in the form of a series of dialogues with Tullia, a twenty-six year-old Italian

Italian people

The Italian people are an ethnic group that share a common Italian culture, ancestry and speak the Italian language as a mother tongue. Within Italy, Italians are defined by citizenship, regardless of ancestry or country of residence , and are distinguished from people...

 woman, the wife of Callias, who is charged with the sexual initiation of her young cousin, Ottavia, to whom she declares, "Your mother asked me to reveal to you the most mysterious secrets of the bridal bed and to teach you what you must be with your husband, which your husband will also be, touching these small things which so strongly inflame men's passion. This night, so that I can teach you above all in a freer language, we will sleep together in my bed, which I would like to be able to say will have been the softest of Venus

Venus (mythology)

Venus is a Roman goddess principally associated with love, beauty, sex,sexual seduction and fertility, who played a key role in many Roman religious festivals and myths...

's lace."

Editions

• 1660: Aloisiae Sigeae Toletanae Satyra sotadica de arcanis Amoris et Veneris; Aloisia Hispanice scripsit; Latinitate donavit Ioannes Meursius. Gratianopoli (imprint is fictitious)
• 1678 (ca.): Aloisiae Sigaeae Toletanae Satyra sotadica de arcanis Amoris & Veneris ... accessit colloquium ante hac non editum, Fescennini, ex m.s. recens reperto. Editio nova, emendatior & auctior. Amstelodami (or rather Geneva?)
• 1757: Joannis Meursii Elegantiae Latini sermonis seu Aloisia Sigæa Toletana de arcanis Amoris et Veneris; adjunctis fragmentis quibusdam eroticis. Lugduni Batavorum: Ex typis Elzevirianis [or rather, Paris: Barbou]
• 1969: Des secrets de l'amour et de Vénus, satire sotadique de Luisa Sigea, de Tolède
  Toledo, Spain
  Toledo's Alcázar became renowned in the 19th and 20th centuries as a military academy. At the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936 its garrison was famously besieged by Republican forces.-Economy:...
  
  , par Nicolas Chorier, préface d'André Berry. Éditions l'Or du Temps
• 1999: L'Académie des dames ou la Philosophie dans le boudoir du Grand Siècle; dialogues érotiques présentés par Jean-Pierre Dubost. Arles: Éditions Philippe Picquier

Other works

• The Research of Sire Chorier on the history of the city of Vienne
  Vienne, Isère
  Vienne is a commune in south-eastern France, located south of Lyon, on the Rhône River. It is the second largest city after Grenoble in the Isère department, of which it is a subprefecture. The city's population was of 29,400 as of the 2001 census....
  
  , metropolis of Allobroges
  Allobroges
  The Allobroges were a Celtic tribe of ancient Gaul, located between the Rhône River and the Lake of Geneva in what later became Savoy, Dauphiné, and Vivarais. Their cities were in the areas of modern-day Annecy, Chambéry and Grenoble, the modern of Isère, and modern Switzerland...
  
  (1658).

• Genealogical History of the House of Sassenage, related to the counts of Lion and of Forests (1669).

• A General History of Dauphiné
  Dauphiné
  The Dauphiné or Dauphiné Viennois is a former province in southeastern France, whose area roughly corresponded to that of the present departments of :Isère, :Drôme, and :Hautes-Alpes....
  
  (1671–72). Reprinted in 1971.

• The Political State of the Province of Dauphiné, supplement to the Political State of the Country of Dauphiné (1671–72).

• History of Dauphiné, abridged for His Royal Highness the Dauphin (1674)

• The Nobility of the Province of Dauphiné (1697)

• Life of Artus Prunier of Saint-André, Adviser to the King in his Council of State and Private, First President of the Parliaments of Provence
  Provence
  Provence ; Provençal: Provença in classical norm or Prouvènço in Mistralian norm) is a region of south eastern France on the Mediterranean adjacent to Italy. It is part of the administrative région of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur...
  
   and Dauphiné (1548–1616), based on a Manuscript by Nicolas Chorier, published with an Introduction, Notes, Appendices, and the unedited Correspondence of Saint-André by Alfred Vellot  (1880)

• Memoirs of Nicolas Chorier on his life and affairs, translated from three books in Latin inserted into the fourth volume of the "Bullitin of the Statistical Society of the Department of Isère" by Félix Crozet (1868)