by admin » Wed Oct 09, 2013 8:29 am
Bordellos and Secret Pornologic Clubs
Marquis de Sade had made his studies for his two notorious novels Justine and Juliette in Paris. Here he, himself, experienced and conceived the greater part of the contents. Parisian incidents and experiences had permanently fructified his phantasy. And the models for the descriptions of individuals in his works are easy to discover. This will be shown in surprising fashion in the discussions of prostitution and sexual life in Paris. Even today Paris justifies the remark of Montesquieu in his Persian Letters: "It is the most sensual city in the world where the fanciest pleasures are invented." De Sade's description of the great bordello with its ingenious contrivances and settings refers almost entirely to Parisian bordellos. Most of his heroines are Parisian prostitutes. It is therefore fitting that we should cost consider these conditions.
In Juliette, (I, 87) the Marquis de Sade describes the bordello of Duvergier in a suburb of Paris. This madame had a bordello for both men and women. In a private house, surrounded by a pretty garden, Madame Duvergier had her own cook, delicious wine and charming maidens who received ten lounsdors for a tête-à-tête. The house had the requisite back entrance for safeguarding of propriety. The furniture was of the best; the boudoirs most fitting for their purposes. Duvergier, protected by the police, could celebrate more atrocities than her fellow-madames. The bordello supplied princes, nobles, and rich citizens with its wares.
When Juliette organized a house in Paris, six pimpesses (maquerelles) were sufficient to provide for girls from Paris and the provinces. Clairwil introduced Juliette, into the house of the "Society of the Friends of Crime," which lay in the heart of Paris but was discreetly concealed. It had splendid drawing-rooms, boudoirs, cabinets d’aisance and harems or, as de Sade called them, seraglios in which both sexes disported themselves in wild orgies. The girls were, for the most part, torn from their parents, under the protection of the police. Here the respectable world was assisted by hangmen, jailers, floggers and flagellants (Juliette III, 33 ff.).
Alcide Bonneau believes that the Deer Park served de Sade as a pattern for his descriptions of bordellos. Nonetheless de Sade had made a thorough study of Parisian bordellos and had found many incidents to his liking. He wrote (Juliette I, 333) that in many bordellos in Paris turkey-cocks were much esteemed for lustful purposes in zoophilia. At any rate it cannot be denied that de Sade took his descriptions of Parisian bordellos from actual experiences. Authentic reports will conclusively confirm this. The most notorious bordellos of Paris, the secret pornologic clubs and the affairs of the prostitutes will be described in later sections.
The most famous, most sought after, most mentioned Parisian bordello in the Eighteenth Century was the House of Madame Gourdan on Rue des Deux Portes; under the reign of Louis XV and Louis XVI it served the court and nobility. This bordello was distinguished by the genteel attempt to satisfy every desire of male and female visitors. A short description of the place is appended.
1. The "Seraglio." This was a great salon with "plastrons de corps-de-garde," i.e., twelve prostitutes who had always to be in a position such as to satisfy any whim of the visitor. There the price and details of their pleasure were agreed upon. Even the minute details were stipulated. Pidanzat de Mairobert at this description in The English Spy cries out: "Just imagine the horrors and infamies that took place in such a house!"
There is no doubt that de Sade expressed such a great preference for the word "seraglio" from this salon of Madame Gourdan. De Sade also discussed the understandings on the price of love in his novels and was particularly concerned with the analysis of the details for preparing an orgy.
2. The "Piscine." This was the bathroom of the bordello, where the girls, fresh from the provinces, were sent to the madame. There they were bathed, powdered and perfumed. Among the many essences and toilet waters was the famous Eau de Pucelle. This was a strong astringent with which Madame Gourdan renewed "lost beauties" and restored that "which can be lost only once." Marquis de Sade often mentioned this remarkable miracle which will be discussed later under the section:
Cosmetics and Aphrodisiacs. Also in the piscine was the Essence a l’usage des monstres, which made impotent persons potent again by its strong odor and excited them to passionate cruelty. The specific of Doctor Guilbert de Préval (we shall later say more of this charlatan) was truly a magic charm. For it served at one blow as a prevention, diagnosis and cure of syphilis! Truly a sexual panacea!
3. The "Cabinet de Toilette." Here the students of the Venus-seminar received their second lessons.
4. The "Salle de Bal." From this classroom a secret passageway led into the home of a merchant on Rue Saint Sauveur. Through his house the prelates and preachers (gens à simarre) as well as respectable ladies could enter the bordello. In this secret room were clothing of all kinds as well as "objects of delicacy." Here the clergy could turn into laymen, officials into soldiers, ladies into cooks. Here the respectable ladies permitted unflinchingly the powerful embraces of a coarse peasant, whom her trusty madame had chosen to satisfy her indomitable temperament. On the other hand the peasant believed her to be one of his own kind and was little embarrassed in expression and action.
5. The "Infermerie." This was the room for the impotent. The attendants tried to incite and arouse drooping spirits by all possible means. The light fell from above; on the walls were passionate pictures; in the corners stood similar statues; on the table lay obscene books. In the alcove was a bed of black silk; its top and sides consisted of plate-glass so that it mirrored and reflected all the objects and actions of this pretty boudoir. Perfumed thorny switches served for flagellation. Dragées- pastilles in all colors were offered for food; "only one was needed to make one feel like a new man." They were called Pastilles à la Richelieu because he had often given them to women as aphrodisiacs. Women were also taken care of in this Infermerie. There were present so-called pommes d'amour, little balls of stone, to satisfy them. Mairobert could not discover if "the chemists had analyzed this stone which had a decided chemical reaction and was often made use of by the Chinese." The consolateur was an ingenious instrument "found in convents" as a substitute for a man. Madame Gourdan did a wholesale business with this artificial phallus. In her possession were numberless letters from abbesses and simple nuns asking her to send them a consoler. Great, black rings, so-called aides, served the men as artificial irritations in women. Many of these rings were covered with hard studs for increasing the pleasure. Finally there was a whole arsenal of redingotes d’Angleterre, which are today called condoms, and which, as Mairobert has it, "protect from the virus of love but dull the pleasure." Madame de Sevigné called it "protector of pain and despoiler of pleasure" in one of her letters.
6. The "Chambre de la Question." This was a private room in which one could see through a secret peephole all that took place. A contrivance for voyeurs.
7. The "Salon des Vulcan." In it was a fauteuil of a strange form. The moment one sat in it, one was snuck a heavy blow. The person sank backwards with outstretched legs, which were fastened to the sides. This chair was a discovery of Sire de Fronsac, son of the Duke of Richelieu, and served him as a faithful aid to seduction. The Salon des Vulcan was so situated that the crying and wailing could not be heard outside the room. This mechanization of vice will also be found in de Sade's writings.
Gourdan was the leading madame for the respectable world. She could satisfy all desires and was extremely wealthy. In Villiers le Bel she had a private country house in the forest to which she seldom went but often sent her sick and pregnant girls. The villa also served as a useful hiding place for especially delicate debaucheries. It was ironically called by the peasants the convent.
There were two kinds of madames in Paris; first, the seducers of virgins, second, purveyors of already deflowered maidens. Only the first were punished by being forced to ride backwards on an ass. Gourdan belonged to the second class and took care that her novices were officially prostituted by one of her assistants. But the head-madames had also to make regular reports of the physical health of their girls. We shall later give such a report.
In the House of Gourdan the mistresses were educated for the respectable world. The later Countess Du Barry had to thank her resplendent career to her early stay at the bordello of Madame Gourdan. Many aristocrats also sought new pleasures here. A respectable lady, Madame d'Oppy, was discovered in 1776 by the police at Gourdan's where she was officiating as a prostitute.
On November 14, 1773, Madame Gourdan delivered a funeral oration on her deceased colleague, Justine Paris, which was printed in The English Spy and is so full of sadism that we append a short summary of it. The idea for this funeral oration was conceived by Prince Conti, one of the most notorious adventurers of the ancien régime. It was read at an orgy in Conti's home. The "Funeral Oration of the very proud and very powerful Lady, Madame Justine Paris, Grand Priestess of Cytherea, Paphos, Amathonte, etc., given November 14, 1773, by Madame Gourdan, fellow Priestess, in presence of all the nymphs of Paris" has the characteristic motto:
Syphilis, O my God!
Has put me under the sod!
On their dying-bed Justine's parents preach to her that immorality is the only redemption for the future. "Don't count the days you haven't consecrated to pleasure!" Justine immediately transposed this advice into action, which one finds on almost every page in the novels of Marquis de Sade, and dedicated herself to the advice of her parents. She then entered a Parisian bordello, where she made great advances in the service of Venus and became famous through an affair with the Turkish ambassador. Trips to England, Spain and Germany taught her to be phlegmatic with the Englishmen, serious with the Spaniards, and ardent (emportée) with the Germans. She finally came to Italy and in Rome was the "Queen of the World and the centre of Paillardise." She traveled through all Italy, honored and coveted by nobles and clergy. Unfortunately she was attacked from time to time by her hereditary syphilis but that did not prevent her at her return to Paris from celebrating new orgies, winning success and great honor as the proprietor of a bordello. She ended in a hospital.
Could this funeral oration have been unknown to Marquis de Sade? It is hardly probable; it is almost certain that Madame Paris was the prototype for Juliette who was celebrated throughout all Italy, in Florence, Rome and Naples as the queen of the world and as the ideal prostitute.
Casanova, the famous confidant, whose historic trustworthiness is attested by Barthold, told in his Confessions of a visit in 1750 to the bordello of Paris, the so-called HôteI du Roule, and presented a living picture of the life and action in a Parisian bordello of the eighteenth century, which may here serve as an addition to the more systematic description of the house of Gourdan.
"The HôteI du Roule was famous in Paris, but was as yet unknown to me. The proprietress has furnished it elegantly and has from twelve to fourteen splendid girls. One finds there all the desirable comforts: good table, good beds, cleanliness; her cook was excellent, her wine splendid.
"She is called Madame Paris, undoubtedly a pseudonym that pleases all.
"Protected by the police, she was far enough from Paris to be certain that the visitors to her place were persons well above the middle-class.
"The inside was well policed by servants, and all pleasures had a fixed tariff.
"One paid six francs for breakfast with a nymph, twelve for a dinner and double that for a night."
Here we pause for a moment and declare that the above description of Casanova tallies almost word for word with the description of Duvergier's in de Sade's Juliette. The house of Duvergier was just like that of Justine Paris.
Casanova died in 1798; his memoirs reaching only to 1773 remained in manuscript form long after his death and were not made public until 1822. Juliette appeared early in 1797. The only conclusion to be drawn is that both men have described independently the same bordello. To return to the description of Casanova.
"We enter a fiacre and Zatu says to the driver: 'To Chaillot.'
"After half an hour journey he stops before a gate on which is a sign, HôteI du Roule.
"The gate was closed. A Swiss with a great beard stepped out from a side-door and seriously sized us up with his eyes. He found us respectable, opened the gate and we walked in.
"A one-eyed woman of about fifty years, but still showing traces of former beauty, greeted us and asked if we would like to dine.
"Upon my assent she led us into a very pretty salon, in which we saw fourteen young maidens who were all pretty and dressed in muslin.
"At our entrance they arose and made a charming bow.
"All were about the same age, some blonde and some brunette.
"Every taste could be satisfied here.
"We spoke a word to all and made our choice.
"The two chosen let loose a joyous cry, embraced us with a passion that was virginal, and we went to the garden expecting that we would be called to dinner.
"This garden was extensive and so arranged that it could serve the joys of love.
"Madame Paris said: 'Go, sirs, and enjoy the fresh air and reassure yourselves; my house is a temple of peace and of health.'
"During the sweetest occupation we were called to eat.
"We were very well served; the meal had aroused new longing in us, but with the clock in her hand the one-eyed attendant entered to inform us that our party was ended.
"Pleasure was here measured by the hour."
Finally Casanova and his friend were induced to spend the night in the bordello.
This home was mainly visited by the clergy. Madame Richard had started her career with the systematic seduction of young father confessors. This specialty gave her the idea of opening a bordello exclusively for the clergy. It flourished. Madame Richard became the purveyor of young girls for a "missionary home, for prelates and other clergymen." We have previously described an erotic scene in this house.
A roué in Venice always brought with him two Negresses in the bordello of Juliette because the contrast between white and black girls afforded him special satisfaction (Juliette VI, 152). Negroes also played a rôle in the anthropophagic dinner in Venice (Juliette VI, 204). In the castle of Cardoville at Grenoble, where Justine was led as a sacrifice to the passions of this roué, two Negroes are active accomplices at this orgy (Justine IV, 331). In the third volume of Aline and Valcourt there is an obscene picture on page 200 showing three naked women and four Negresses swinging heavy clubs at one another.
The Negroes are no invention of de Sade. Long before 1790 there existed a Negro bordello in Paris. This was in the house of a Mlle. Isabeau, first on Rue Neuve de Montmorency, later on Rue Xaintonge. In this bordello Negresses, mestizos, and mulattos were at hand. There were no set prices; the inmates were sold "like slaves in a caravan."
Fraxi believes that the taste for black women belongs exclusively to the French. At any rate one finds today in many bordellos in Paris and the provinces permanent examples of these black beauties. Hagen in his Sexual Osphresiology makes many references to this preference for Negresses by the French; he ascribes it to the charm of their odor.
For descriptions of the other great bordellos of Paris we must refer to the famous work of Rétif de la Bretonne, Pornography and to the Bordellos of Paris. Yet we would like to mention the house in Faubourg Saint-Antoine, where, according to Retif, the Duke of Orleans, Prince d'Artois, enjoyed the wildest debaucheries and atrocities, where those bestialities were encountered which the Marquis de Sade described in his exécrable romance, Justine.
Manifestly even this great number of bordellos could not satisfy the desires of the ancien régime. Passion must be made private. Hence the respectable gentlemen and rich roués of that time had in the so-called petites maisons, their own private bordello in miniature. Every one had his little house with some mistresses. That was the high tone in young and old. Casanova became acquainted in Paris with the eighty year old Chevalier d'Arzigny, the oldest of the petits maîtres, who powdered and perfumed himself, scented his heavy wig, penciled his eyebrows, etc. Even this old worldling was devoted to his mistress, who managed his little house, in which he always ate at evening in the society of her friends, who were all young and lovable and gave up every company for his.
The Marquis de Sade also had his petite maison in Saint-Roch in 1772.
What Marquis de Sade described in the "Society of the Friends of Crime," and what we shall later delineate as the mysterium of vice in the novels of this author, actually existed. There were in Paris secret clubs whose members united for the practical study of debauchery. They had their temple with a statue of Priapus, of Sappho and other symbols of sexual passion; they had also their own special speech and symbols.
The Island of Happiness or The Order of Happiness or The Society of Hermaphrodites was the notorious love-club. This secret society borrowed all descriptions, ceremonies and other forms of seafaring life, addressing their songs and prayers to holy Nicolaus. Maître, Patron, Chef d'escadre, Viceadmiral were the names for the individual grades of cavalier, and cavalieresses, who bore an anchor on their heart and had to swear eternal fidelity and silence if they wished to be borne to the island of fortune. In their more than gallant meetings the most obscene conversations were held. A very zealous member of this obscene club was Moët, the author of the Code of Cytherea and translator of the English work Lucina sine Concubitu. He wrote for his club the famous Anthropophily or the Secrets and Mysteries of the Order Devoted to the Pleasure of Mankind. It contained the rules and statutes of the organization, its vocabulary and poems. I chose a few expressions from the dictionary: "chaloupe, petite fille; flute, grosse femme; frégate, femme; gabari, fille on femme bien faite; goudron, fard; hisser une frégate, enlever une femme; mât, les corps; mer, amour; sondes, les doigts." The purpose of the club is given in the following verse:
Let us sail to the Island of Happiness
In our good ship of hermaphrodites.
We are sure to find complete success
In our search for strange and new delights.
Very mysterious was the Society of Aphrodites who by a holy oath, and by frequent change of their meeting place, sought to hide their secret. The men were given names from the animal kingdom; the women from the flower kingdom.
On the other hand in another club we have the manuscript of the statutes, signs of recognition, and index of members with the noms de plaisir. This was the Société du Moment. This manuscript affords a profound insight into the atmosphere in which this society of cynicism reveled.
A fourth secret pornologic society was the Secte Anandryne, the club for tribades, who celebrated their orgies in the Temple of Vesta. We will give later a detailed description of this club and its meetings.
The origin of this secret society is explained by Delbène (Juliette I, 25): "Vice need not be suppressed for that is the only fortune of our life. One must only surround it with such a mystery that will never be revealed." De Sade’s description of the Society of the Friends of Crime was plainly designed from the above plans. This society had its own printing plant with twelve copyists and four readers. In the club building were many cabinets d'aisance which were served by young girls and boys who were forced to gratify all the desires of the visitors of this place. One found seringues, bidets, lieux à I'anglaise, linges très-fins, odeurs. But one could be cleaned by the tongues of boys and girls.
In both seraglios of the house were boys, girls, men, women and animals for the satisfaction of every kind of vice. Murder cost 100 Thaler. The novice entered nude into the assembly room with a crucifix at the end of which was a Bible. Before her admittance Juliette was asked if she wished to undergo the kinds of immorality and crime that are tolled off. After she assented she received The Instructions for Women entering the Society of Joy. The orgies taking place in this secret club will be described later in the analysis of Juliette.