Shifting away from the image, persistent to this day, of an indecent Colette, this paper will highlight the different aspects of a colettian modesty (pudor). A modesty that does not express itself in life or through the body, but as soon as we pass the threshold of literature: it is the modesty of the writer regarding the act of writing, the modesty of the woman who hides and reinvent herself within the textual veil, the modesty in the painting of things and people, the modesty of words and figures. Ultimately, what we would like to bring to light in the works of Colette is modesty both as poetics and ethics, as well as the way modesty is linked to a certain idea of truth, unveiling and veiling at the same time, attentive to the irreducible uncertainty and mystery of life.