In 1999 Bess joined with Milo Manara and Claire Wendling to illustrate the second tome of Pierre Louÿs' erotic masterpiece Aphrodite issed in three volumes.
She is the author of translations from the French (Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Jean Genet, Pierre Guyotat, Georges Bataille, Monique Wittig, Michel Foucault, Pierre Louÿs, etc.) as well as her own books; she is a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (2006).
King Pausole, a character in Pierre Louÿs' Les aventures du roi Pausole (The Adventures of King Pausole, published in 1901), issued a similar pair of edicts: I. — Ne nuis pas à ton voisin. II. — Ceci bien compris, fais ce qu'il te plaît. ("Do not harm your neighbor; this being well understood, do that which pleases you.") Although Gardner noted the similarity of the rede to King Pausole's words, Silver Ravenwolf believes it is more directly referencing Crowley.
Pierre Boulez | Pierre Trudeau | Pierre-Auguste Renoir | Pierre Corneille | Jean-Pierre Rampal | Pierre Loti | Pierre | Pierre Teilhard de Chardin | Jean-Pierre Thiollet | Pierre Puvis de Chavannes | Pierre Cardin | Pierre Bourdieu | Pierre Amoyal | Pierre Huyghe | Pierre Bonnard | Pierre-Constant Budin | Pierre-Joseph Proudhon | Pierre Beaumarchais | Pierre Restany | Pierre Curie | Pierre Louÿs | Pierre Bayle | Marco Pierre White | Jean-Pierre Ponnelle | Jean-Pierre Jeunet | Saint-Pierre, Martinique | Saint-Pierre | Pierre Monteux | Pierre Gassendi | Pierre Clémenti |
It has been suggested that the story was influenced by Dante Gabriel Rossetti's poem Eden Bower, the singer Mary Garden and also Pierre Louys's novel Aphrodite.
Toward the end of his life, Pichard adapted classic erotic stories such as Les Exploits d'un jeune Don Juan by Guillaume Apollinaire, The Kama-Sutra by Vatsyayana, Trois filles de leur mère by Pierre Louÿs, La Religieuse by Denis Diderot and Germinal by Émile Zola.
Among the painter's most famous works are portraits of his father, Marcel Proust (private collection, Paris), the poet Pierre Louÿs, the Thaulow family (Musée d'Orsay, Paris), Aubrey Beardsley (National Portrait Gallery, London), and Yvette Guilbert and the infamous beauty Virginia Oldoini, Countess of Castiglione whom his father had treated for mental illness.