This erotic novella relates the progress of a handsome young rake, Valentine de St. Geraud through a succession of female conquests of varying amatory experience. He is soon offered a job which gave him power of administration over orphanages. With a great deal of hypocrisy he manages to replace the mother superior at one of these establishments with her deputy, which whom he has been intimate. The story meanders lasciviously through episodes involving mothers and daughters, even attractive young men, one of whom he murders, and even a large dog. Along the way he inherits his family fortune, and contentedly pursues his amorous activities until the tale comes to a fairly abrupt ending with his (natural) death. ( )