Erotic literature Lifted Curtain or Laura's Education", about a young girl's sexual initiation by her father, written by the French revolutionary politician Comte de Mirabeau; also Les Liaisons dangereuses (Dangerous Liaisons) by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, first published in 1782. In the late 18th century, such works as "Justine, or the Misfortunes of Virtue" and "120 Days of Sodom" by the Marquis de Sade were exemplars of the theme of sado-masochism and influenced later erotic accounts of Sadism and masochism in fiction. De Sade (as did the later writer Sacher-Masoch) lent his name to the sexual acts which he describes in his
Paris in the 18th century fountain was still under construction: There was no official census of the Parisians before 1801, but based on parish records and other sources, most historians estimate that the population of Paris was about 500,000 persons at the beginning of the 18th century and grew to between 600,000 and 650,000 shortly before the Revolution of 1789. Following the Reign of Terror, economic hardship and the emigration of the nobility, the 1801 census reported that the population had dropped to 546,856, but it quickly recovered to reach 622,636 in 1811. It was no longer the largest city in Europe; London passed it