Excerpt from The Kisses (Les Baisers): Preceded by the Month of May IN the eighteenth century a perfect furore prevailed in France for publishing choice editions of celebrated works, more or less profusely illustrated with finely engraved cop per-plates, after the graceful if occasionally meretricious designs of such well-known artists as Eisen, Gravelot, Maril lier, Cochin, Moreau, Boucher, and others. The first work published in this style was The Decameron of Boccaccio, issued in 1757, with illustrations by Gravelot, Boucher, and Eisen. The great success it met with led to a very general production of standard works in somewhat similar form and not only were masterpieces, which had stood the test of time, enshrined in this elegant fashion, but living writers sought to perpetuate their renown by issuing. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.