Fifty shades? That's so old hat

Explicit letters from the ’20s found in a Paris cellar reveal an affair that still has the power to shock.

French diplomat Jean-Yves Berthault was helping a friend declutter a cellar in Paris when he stumbled on a treasure trove of graphic love letters from the '20s that make the exploits detailed in Fifty Shades of Grey look pedestrian.

The correspondence he uncovered has been turned into a book that critics are calling the "steamiest erotic text ever written".

Berthault is slightly embarrassed by The Passions of Mademoiselle S. Before it, his writing centred on essays about geopolitics. "I have written a lot, mostly about the status of the Christian religion in the Middle East," he said. "That is more my cup of tea."

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The 66-year-old is now the author of a racy text that details bondage, role play, gender reversal, sodomy and group sex .

Berthault found the letters in a leather satchel, hidden inside an old crate.

"They were all written by the same woman.

"There were postcards and photos of her when she was a young girl."

Berthault bought them from his friend and spent a year editing the correspondence in his spare time, while on a posting as ambassador to Brunei, piecing together the story of a forbidden affair between a young woman and a married man.

The letters, spanning a two-year period from 1929, were from a woman identified only as Simone, to her lover Charles.

They become increasingly depraved, with talk of "fervent kisses", "perverted coupling" and "shivers of pleasure".

In one relatively tame note, Simone writes: "Give me your wonderful body, I want to hold it in my arms, hold it tight until I am imbued with its intoxicating smell." Others refer to sadomasochism, using phrases such as "my battered rump".

Berthault pieced together clues as to the writer's identity. He believes she was a society girl from a well-to-do family, living in a wealthy district of central Paris.

He has not revealed her name in case she has surviving relatives.

"She was not married and didn't get married after the affair was over."

Simone's vocabulary still has the power to shock today - littered as it is with obscenities which were fashionable in high society at that time.

"Lower-class people would have been much more inhibited than she was," said Berthault.

block_quotes_start Littered as it is with obscenities, Simone's vocabulary still has the power to shock today                 block_quotes_end

"Her style was that of a cultured person.

"From the letters, it is clear she worked, as did a lot of society women in the '20s, as they wanted financial and social independence. Simone was a very modern person. She was swept up in the moral revolution that was happening at the time. Britain was still Victorian."

Simone's affair was ultimately a tragic one-sided one and her insecurity pours forth from the letters, said Berthault.

"I have a lot of affection for her but also see her as a desperate soul, a poor girl who wanted real, reciprocal love," said Berthault.

"She is very dramatic and romantic in spite of her extreme search for physical pleasures. She is neurotic, out of her mind and not realistic.

"Although we don't have any letters from Charles, there is little doubt that he did not love her; he took advantage of her and never cared for her. She was totally blind. The blinder she got, the more she fell in love and lost herself in a passion that he probably did not deserve."

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The letters offer a fascinating insight into continental attitudes to sex in the '20s and '30s.

"We believe that we have never been as liberated as we are now, but I think that is wrong."

What is unusual in Simone's case are her extreme fantasies. "I don't think everyone would harbour those," he said.

It was at Simone's instigation that the couple introduced other men into their bed, a move that eventually led to the demise of their relationship.

Berthault persuaded his secretary to help type up the risqué content, a job which appears to have had some surprising benefits. One day, his secretary's partner came to thank him for helping transform their love life.

The book was snapped up just 48 hours after Berthault submitted a manuscript to the publisher of Fifty Shades and is to be published in paperback next month.

Some have doubted the letters' authenticity, which Berthault denies. "I pointed out that if they thought the content was incredible, then it would be even more incredible to think I had made it up."

The Daily Telegraph, London