Marquis De Sade: His Life and Work, by Dr. Iwan Bloch

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Public Executions

The works of Marquis de Sade drip with the blood of his century. No one before or after him has described with such monstrous fidelity that dangerous union which ruled steadfastly and securely throughout the century: the union of the century—Vice and Blood! He brought his age to eternal life in the pages of his novels. Hence his works have such horrible effects upon the reader. The terror and fear, the horror and dread, the vice and blood, all have their living corpse in the novels of Marquis de Sade: Justine and Juliette.

The executions in the eighteenth century were public. Before the Revolution the executions had a horrible effect upon the populace: during the Revolution the guillotine had an even more powerful influence for cruelty and ferocity.

Montesquieu in his Spirit of the Laws as well as Voltaire and many others, described the public executions and declared that they were making the people more cruel in spirit, regarding the executions as pleasurable spectacles.

Until the Revolution the principal kinds of death penalties in France were quartering, the wheel and the gallows. The less stringent decapitation was so seldom practiced that even the executioners forgot the methods as was shown by the execution of Count de Lally in 1766. The usual form of execution was the wheel, often met with in de Sade. The unfortunate delinquent was stretched out on a wagon-wheel. The executioner with a heavy iron band broke the upper and larger bones of the victim with great dexterity so that he might be awarded the approval of the spectators. The criminal was then fastened to the spokes of the wheel and exhibited to the spectators in his dying convulsions.

The punishment at the gallows is well known. We shall become acquainted with quartering at the later description of the horrible execution of Damiens.

An execution was always "a great festival for the populace" which was extremely curious to see all the morbid details. Most of the executions took place on the Place de Grève. The most famous were those of the robber Cartouche and his band (November 27, 1721), the robber Nivet and his accomplices (1729) by the "wheel," Deschauffonis, who was first strangled and then burned (1733), the wife-murderer Lescombat by the gallows (1755), Derues and his wife by the wheel (1777). The day and hour set for the execution were cried throughout the streets, printed accounts of the trial were hawked by street-urchins. In this tumultuous and often passionately moved mass, women and children were not those least impatient. Each followed avec ardeur all the dramatic points of the execution which often lasted for more than an hour.

The executioner, surrounded by his servants, bore the expression of a seigneur on display; he was barbered and powdered, clothed in white silk and looked about very proudly. His every movement was jealously watched. The condemned soon learnt whether the crowd was in a good or bad mood according to the expression of sympathetic or curse words on the part of the spectators.

The most horrible execution, perhaps of all time, was that of unfortunate Robert François Damiens who made an attempt on the life of Louis XV and on March 21 of that year was tortured to death. Thomas Carlyle in his The French Revolution cries out: "Ah, the eternal stars look down as if shedding tears of compassion down on the unfortunate people." We believe that a thousand executions by the guillotine cannot balance the terrible execution such as that of poor Damiens, who merited the sympathy of heaven and the stars. This shameful deed of the ancien régime could not have been washed away by all the blood that fell during the Revolution.

And when the individual details are given, the cruelty in Marquis de Sade's works seems entirely conceivable and heralds the passionate bloodthirstiness of the Revolution.

We possess the following account of the execution of Damiens by an eyewitness, de Croy, which we follow in the main. The same judgment was carried out on Damiens as on the murderer of Henry IV, François Ravaillac, on May 27, 1610. On the morning of March 28, 1757 Damiens was put on the rack; with glowing hot forceps his breasts, arms, legs and calves were torn out and in the wounds were poured molten lead, boiling oil, burning pitch mixed with red hot wax and sulphur. At three o'clock in the afternoon the victim was first brought to Notre Dame and then to the Place de Grève. All the streets that he had to pass by were packed with people who showed "neither hate nor pity." Charles Manselet reported: "Wherever one turns one's eyes one sees only crowds in Rue de la Tannerie! The crowds at the intersection of Rue de I'Épine and Rue de Mouton! The crowds in every part of the Place de Grève. The court itself was a compact mass, consisting of all possible classes, particularly the rabble."

At half past four that dreadful spectacle began. In the middle of the court was a low platform upon which the victim, who showed neither fear nor wonder but asked only for a quick death, was bound fast with iron rings by the six executioners so that his body was completely bound. Thereupon his right hand was extended and was placed in a sulphurous fire; the poor fellow let loose a dreadful outcry. According to Manselet, while his hair was burning, they stood on end. Thereupon his body was again attacked with glowing tongs and pieces of flesh were ripped from his bosom, thighs and other parts; molten lead and boiling oil were again spilled on the fresh wounds, the resulting stench (declared Richelieu in his Memoirs), infected the air of the entire court. Then four horses on the four sides of the platforms pulled hard on the heavy cables bound to his arms, shoulders, hands and feet. The horses were spurred on so that they might pull the victim apart. But they were unused to acting as the handmaids of executioners. For more than a hour they were beaten to strain away so that they might tear off the legs or arms of the victim. Only the wailing cries of pain informed the "prodigious number of spectators" of the unbelievable sufferings that a human creature had to endure. The horses now increased to six, were again whipped and forced to jerk away at the cables. The cries of Damiens increased to a maniacal roaring. And again the horses failed. Finally the executioner received permission from the judges to lighten the horrible task of the horses by cutting off the chains. First the hips were freed. The victim "turned his head to see what was happening," he did not cry but only turned close to the crucifix which was held out to him and kissed it while the two father-confessors spoke to him. At last after one and one-half hours of this "unparalleled suffering" the left leg was torn off. The people clapped their hands in applause! The victim betrayed only "curiosity and indifference." But when the other leg was torn off he started anew his wailing. After the chains on his shoulders had been cut off his right arm was the first to go. His cries became weaker and his head began to totter. When the left arm was ripped off the head fell backwards. So there was only left a trembling rump that was still alive and a head whose hair had suddenly become white. He still lived! As the hair was cut off and his legs and hands collected and dropped into a basket, the father-confessors stepped up to the remainder of Damiens. But Henry Sanson, the executioner, held them back and told them that Damiens had just drawn his last breath. "The fact is" wrote trustworthy Rétif, "that I saw the body still move about and the lower jaw move up and down as if he wanted to speak." The rump still breathed! His eyes turned to the spectators. It is not reported if the people clapped their hands a second time. At any rate during the length of the entire execution none moved from their places in the court or from the windows of adjoining buildings. The remainder of this martyr was burnt at a stake and the ashes strewn to the four winds. "Such was the end of that poor unfortunate who it may well be believed—suffered the greatest tortures that a human being has ever been called upon to endure." So concluded the Duke de Croy, an eyewitness, whose report we have almost literally translated. We will give a few more accounts by eyewitnesses of that fateful day when an entire populace greedily waited through few hours for the most dreadful tortures that the world had ever seen.

"The assemblage of people in Paris at this execution was unbelievable. The citizen of near and far provinces, even foreigners, came for the festival. The windows, roofs, streets were packed head on head. Most surprising of all was the dreadful impatient curiosity of women who strained for closer views of the torturings." Madame du Hausset tells in her memoirs that gambling went on during the execution and that wagers were made on the length of the duration of the tortures by Damiens.

Casanova, one of those who came from a foreign country to see the execution, reported a scene that was an excellent if terrible example of the theory of de Sade, that the tortures of another spur on real pleasure. He writes: "On March 28, the day of the Martyrdom of Damiens, I called for the ladies at Lambertini's and since the carriage could scarcely hold us all, I placed my charming friend on my lap without much difficulty and so amused ourselves until we came to the Place de Grève. The three ladies pressed as close to each other as they could so that they could all look through the window. They rested on their arms so we could see over their heads.

"We had the patience to maintain our uncomfortable position for four hours of this horrible spectacle. The execution of Damiens is too well-known for me to write about it. Also because the description would take too long and because nature revolts at such atrocities. During the execution of this sacrifice of the jesuits (his execution was said to have been done by order of the jesuits), I had to turn my eyes and hold my ears so that I might not hear that heart-rending cry when he had but half of his body. But Lambertini and her old friend made not the slightest movement; was that because of the cruelty of their souls? I had to pretend that I believed them when they said that his crime had prevented them from feeling sympathy for his plight. The fact is that Tiretta occupied herself during the execution in a most peculiar manner. She lifted her skirt high because, she said, she didn't want it dirtied. And her friend obliged her in the same way. Their hands were busily engaged during all the tortures."

Commentaries to Casanova's account are superfluous. That it was not an isolated case of satyriasis but one of the phases accompanying the horrible execution and calling forth passionate ecstasies was shown clearly by the fact that this charming sexual maneuver lasted two hours as expressly mentioned by Casanova later. "The action was repeated and without a resistance.” That Louis XV told the embassies all the details of the execution with great satisfaction is not strange. The execution of the poisoner Desrues who, on May 6, 1772, was placed on the wheel and then burnt alive, was also "well attended by a distinguished crowd."

The Revolution hence found a ready public for executions. We have mentioned a number of times that de Sade witnessed all the atrocities of the Reign of Terror since he was freed from prison in 1790 and was a prisoner again only from December, 1793 to July 28, 1794. The first forerunners of the September murder, the storming of the Bastille (July 14, 1789), the drive to Versailles (October 5, 1789), the bloody events in Avignon in 1790 and 1791, showed what roles the women played in the executions and murders. In Avignon the fight between the Papal Aristocrats and the Patriotic Brigands for the possession of Avignon flamed to white heat. Thomas Carlyle has well described the open street murders and the role of l’escuger in Bk. V, Chap. III of his The French Revolution. "A hundred and thirty corpses of men, nay of women and even of children (for the trembling mother, hastily seized, could not leave her infant), lie heaped in that glacière; putrid under putriditics: the horror of the world!"

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Ethnological and Historical Examples

Marquis de Sade was a keen observer. He had besides become very well acquainted with contemporary literature during his stay in prison. It is therefore no wonder that we find the signs of both properties in his work. What seems to us most characteristic is the great rôle that ethnology plays with de Sade. That was no accident. The first pretences to folklore started in France. Lafitau wrote the first important work of this kind in 1724 on the American savages. The great interest in the wild races was increased by the number of expeditions of French savants in the eighteenth century. We name only such well known figures as Bouguer, La Condamine, Bougainville, La Pérouse, Marchand, d'Auteroche, Duhalde, Charlevoix, Savary, Le Vaillant, Volney, Dumont. In a tentative fashion comparative analyses of morals and customs of primitive races and the development of humanity were essayed. The glorification of European civilization thus started from these early ideas of ethnology. Lafitau says: "I have read with great irritation the usual works on savage races; they are described to us as people who have no religious instincts, no knowledge of a God, no personality, neither laws, justice nor organization; men who have only the form in common with us. They indeed differ but little from animals." This conception of savage races is also found in de Sade.

He justified all the vice and cruelty found in the savage races. James Cook found pederasty rampant in the South Seas. Therefore it was good (Philosophy in the Boudoir I, 201). The cruelty of women was the same all over the world. Zingua, Queen of Angola (often mentioned by de Sade), the "most cruel of all women" sacrificed her lover after her pleasure, had battles fought for her and gave herself to the victor and had all pregnant women under thirty years of age stamped to death in a huge mortar. (Philosophy in the Boudoir, 1856.) Zoë, the wife of the Chinese Emperor, found the greatest pleasure in having criminals executed before her very eyes, and had all slaves sacrificed in the bed chamber where she was engaged with her husband. The greater the cruelty, the greater the pleasure. She found her greatest enjoyment in watching men roasted alive! Theodora amused herself by castrating men (ib., p. 157). De Sade also told the well known story of Amerigo Vespucci, that the women of Florida had their men place small poisonous insects in their members which swelled up tremendously at the contact and caused an insatiable libido accompanied by dreadful pain and ulcers (Philosophy in the Boudoir I, 157). De Sade had ethnological examples in plenty for poisoning, prostitution, anthropophagy, sexual degeneration, Malthusianism, atheism, etc. The Bible, for one, gave him a number of examples. Then the Africans, Asiatics, Turks, Chinese, etc., etc. De Sade had all the facts. He had all the available material and quoted that in Lapland, Tartary and America it was "an honor to prostitute one's wife," that the Illyrians celebrated remarkable mass orgies, that adultery flourished among the Greeks, that the Romans borrowed one another's wives, that his beloved Zingua had made a law that proscribed vulgivaguibilité of the women. Sparta, Formosa, Otaheiti, Cambodia, China, Japan, Peru, Cucuana, Riogabor, Scotland, etc., afforded him a mass of convincing examples on the justification of his theories.

All bizarre ideas, all remarkable cases of notorious erotic monsters were made use of by de Sade. Noirceuil declared that he would marry twice in one day and indeed at ten o'clock dressed as a woman he married a man; a twelve o'clock, dressed as a man, he married a boy who was married as a woman. Juliette also wanted to marry in the same church and at the same time, two tribades, one dressed as a woman and another dressed as a man. This, of course, was an imitation of the double union of Nero who married Tigellinus as a woman and Sporus as a man (Juliette VI, 319). Juliette, who did not want to fall behind Noirceuil in imitative talent, took an example from the Empress Theodora. She sprinkled barley in her most secret part and had the geese peck there, thus affording her continued pleasure (Juliette IV, 341).

De Sade made continual mention of Marshal Gilles Laval de Rais throughout Justine, Juliette and the Philosophy in the Boudoir. This "bluebeard" was a man of elegant appearance and great learning. At the age of 27 he left the court and army, cast off his wife and child, disappeared to his lonely castle, delved in mystical studies, alchemy, devil-craft and similar pursuits, finally gave himself up to sexual debaucheries and became a pederast, kidnapper, murderer, sadist, coprophiliac, etc., etc. This monster systematically murdered over 140 children in his castle. The victim was thrown on the floor, his throat cut deep and Gilles de Rais drank in his pleasures in watching the convulsive movements of the body. Then the extremities were cut off, breast and stomach opened and the entrails ripped out. At times he sat on the body of the victim to feel the death struggles. He also beheaded the corpse, took the head in his hands, looked at it closely and kissed it passionately. He often said to his accomplices: "No one in the world understands or can understand what I have done in my life. There is no other person who could have enacted my deeds." The heroes of de Sade spoke with similar pride of their crimes.

But the very age of Marquis de Sade was full of similar figures! "How many secret privileged criminals were there," asked Michelet, "who were not prosecuted? How many murders were set down as simple disappearances?"

De Sade also mentioned very often Count Charolais (1700-1760) who "committed murder for pleasure." This Count combined a raging cynicism with an unbelievable boldness. He loved to see blood flowing at his orgies and executed the courtesans who were brought to him in a dreadful fashion. "In the middle of his debaucheries with his mistress he would suddenly shoot a roof-thatcher. The rolling of the body from the roof afforded him infinite satisfaction." Abbé de Beauffremont is also said to have shot down people on the roofs. De Sade indeed placed this monomania in his register of sexual perversions. Juliette shot her father, while satisfying herself sexually with another man, in order to increase the pleasure (Juliette III, 115).

According to Michelet, Charolais loved the fair sex only "in bloody condition.” His father, Prince Condé, had derived his pleasure from poisoning people as, for example, the poet Santeul, and had willed to his sons, the Duke of Bourgogne and Prince Charolais, these perverse inclinations. Both served as accomplices at the orgies of Madam de Prie. One day, there appeared a Madame de Sart S… who when undressed by the princes was lightly browned in a servette. In spite of this experience the victim again came to the house of de Prie and this time was "roasted like a bud." Michelet expressly mentioned that the Duke of Bourgogne had this horrible idea. This monster was described in Juliette as Duke Dendemar, who poured burning oil on the naked bodies of four prostitutes (Juliette I, 352).

The notorious anthropophagist, Blaize Ferrage, called Seyé, seemed to have served the Marquis as a model. This man terrorized the Pyrenees, killed men, women and especially young children; he ate men only when hungry; he used the women sexually before he murdered them; it was reported that he especially satisfied his passion in the most brutal manner on children. On December 12, 1782, he was condemned to death by the whel; on the following day, only 25 years old, he was executed. De Sade described such an anthropophagist in Minski, the "Hermit of the Apennines" (Juliette III, 313).

Brunet mentioned additional sadistic types of the eighteenth century. A respectable Pole, author of many historical works, Count von Potocki, committed crimes "of the kind of Marquis de Sade." In Lyons the morals before the Revolution were so degenerate that "a number of sadistic outrages took place within a short time." Michelet rightly said in his History of the French Revolution that "not without justice did a notorious writer find a number of his episodes in his horrible novels in Lyons."

Jean Paul Marat, undoubtedly the most bloodthirsty person among the great Revolutionaries, gave the Marquis many ideas that are to be found in his novels. "He behaved like a drunkard who had washed himself in blood and was greedy for the flow of more blood." He advised mass murders in his Friend of the People and returned again and again to this favorite topic of his. We will encounter this idea of mass murders more than once in de Sade's novels.

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Conditions in Italy

In the year 1772, after the Marsellais Scandal, Marquis de Sade and his cousin fled to Italy where they remained for six years. The result of this story was the description of Italian conditions which occupy more than three volumes of Juliette (from the end of the third volume to the end of the sixth volume). The Marquis made it clear that he knew Italy from his own experience and said (Juliette III, 290): "Those who know me are aware that I went to Italy with a very pretty woman whom I, by a unique principle of obscene philosophy, introduced to the Grandduke of Toscana, the Pope, Princess Borgia, the King and Queen of Naples. They may be assured that I have truthfully described the actual morals of these persons. Had the reader himself been an eyewitness he could not have described them more truthfully. The reader may also be assured that I have faithfully described my journey with the greatest accuracy."

Italy was undoubtedly the breeding-ground of real modern and refined immorality. We have but to mention Pietro Aretino, Pope Alexander VI, Lucrezia and Cesare Borgia, Giulio Romano and Agostino and Annibale Carracci, those great artists of passion. In comparison how innocent and naive sound the love-adventures in Boccaccio's Decameron! The Renaissance and the jesuits started a new era in the sexual life of Italy.

Marquis do Sade described the growth of prostitution in Italy as enormous. All the cities that Juliette visited overflowed with prostitutes of all kinds who bore themselves proudly and were in no way ashamed. According to the glossary of the Pope a real whore was one who had sinned at least 23,000 times! What an enormous mount of sins Italy had on its poor head!

Venice was especially degenerate in its sexual life and Marquis do Sade had some horrible things to tell (Juliette IV, p. 144 ff.). The courtesans, for centuries the "pestilence of the city," were glorified in Venice. "Where in the world were there so many charms and pleasures as in Venice? Where were the courtesans prettier, better formed and more accomplished as priestesses of Cytherea? To Venice on the first train came all the roués, to taste every sin they could imagine and to find many they had never dreamed of. Only one purpose led all to Venice. This was the significance of the city of lagoons: The metropolis of absolute freedom for sexual delights. The prostitutes enjoyed the especial protection of the authorities."

Italy was very famous for its pederasty. Marquis de Sade, in this point certainly a true observer, cried: "The back is the best part of Italy" (Juliette III, 290). This was the inheritance from Greece and Rome. Dante even mentioned the great spread of homosexualism in the fifteenth and sixteenth stanza of the Inferno. Pope Sixtus IV (1471-1484) swore allegiance in the widest sense to pederasty and was said to have raised his Ganymede to a cardinalship. A few cardinals asked the Pope to be allowed to practice pederasty and the Pope is said to have granted it. The following verse found its adherent in Pope Sixtus IV.

Since Rome (Roma) delighted in inverse love (amor),
Love took its name from inverse Rome.

In the eighteenth century pederasty was the daily fare in Italy. Indeed one ran the danger of being attacked by pederasts in the open streets. Casanova told of such an attempt that a man made upon him. Cardinal Brancaforte, one of the greatest roués of the world, according to Casanova, "when he went into a bordello he went in to stay," was especially fond of pederasty. At a stay in Paris a young girl of Padua confessed to him that some men had taken certain freedoms with her that were strongly forbidden in the codes. Before he granted her absolution he desired to hear every detail of the crime. At each recital he would cry "but this is monstrous! Oh, my dear, you have committed a horrible sin—but it’s a very pretty story." Casanova, gave many similar anecdotes.

Even today masculine protection in Italy is more general than in any other country. "In Naples, today, on the Via Toledo young men offer themselves to passersby and the pimps proudly describe their masculine as well as feminine wares." Moll, who tells this in his Perversions of the Sex Instinct believes that Italy has always been more disposed to homosexualism than all other countries of Europe.

It is unnecessary to add that the Italian clergy of the eighteenth century played a great part in these sexual debaucheries. The enormous number of the clergy that overran the entire country speaks for itself. Joseph Goroni, whose interesting Memoirs have been verified as historically accurate, estimated that the Kingdom of Naples (without counting Sicily) had 60,000 monks, 3,000 lay brothers and 22,000 nuns in a population of 480,000. Those clergy were of an "unheard of ignorance" and of a monstrous débauche crapuleuse. The convents were scenes of most depraved orgies. The clergy was in addition so rich that it possessed one-third of all the property in the country. Casanova was escorted in all the Italian bordellos by the clergy. The horrible abuse of castrates for spiritual purposes is an additional proof of the extreme depravity of the Italian clergy.

Zoophilia and sodomy were also more rampant in Italy than in other countries. Marquis de Sade saw in the house of Princess Borgiose a regular parade of turkey-cocks, a great bull-dog, one ape and a goat used as Maîtres de plaisir! (Juliette IV, 262.) The shepherds in Sicily were one and all said to have preferred goats. Cardinal Bellarmin after 1624 had "immoral intercourse with women and four pretty goats." Casanova was replete with information on sexual affairs and conditions in Italy. In his own words "there was no kind of depravity that was not practiced in Italy, especially among the clergy." Marquis de Sade's description of Pope Pius VI and Queen Charlotte of Naples will prove interesting.

According to de Sade this Pope was a great roué (Juliette IV, 26 f.); Juliette had a long conversation with him on the immorality of the Popes (TV, 270, ff.) and called him "an old ape" (IV, 285). Later His Holiness held an equally long discourse and his conclusion was that murder was the "simplest and most legitimate action in the world" (IV, 370) and did not fall behind this assurance in his numerous orgies (V, I ff.).

Was Pope Pius VI such a man? History assents only partly. Pius VI (1775-1798), previously Giovanni Angelo, Prince Braschi, was one of the most beautiful men of his times, "tall, of noble appearance and rudulent complexion." He carried his royal wand coquettishly, liked to show his well-rounded lines and laid great emphasis on his harboring.

He had the clergy and the faithful worship him with a stupid veneration, but which often concealed an ironical attitude. Pius was regarded in the Vatican as a much bespotted man, outside, as a god. When he stopped into the street, the women cried: "Quanto è bello, quanto è bello!" Cardinal Bemis called him a lively child who had always to be watched. According to Casanova, he approved of prostitution; according to Gorani, he had many mistresses and even committed incest with his natural daughter. In all, a handsome man with too many vanities that he could not help but succumb to.

Marquis do Sade described Queen Charlotte of Naples as the perfect tribade (Juliette V, 258) and wrote of her charms "according to nature." She, as well as her husband, King Ferdinand IV, were distinguished by their high degree of passionate cruelty and often expressed themselves with a cold fervor on the great Neapolitan festival, at which 400 persons were killed (Juliette VI, 1).

Here Marquis de Sade actually described "according to nature." Gorani and Coletta as well as other authorities, agree that Charlotte was an actual Messalina and Ferdinand a suitable consort.

The relation of Charlotte to the famous Lady Emma Hamilton, the huntress of Nelson, was especially notorious. Coletta’s judgment on tribadic liaison is confirmed by all scientific investigators.

De Sade's description of orgies celebrated in the ruins of Pompey actually occurred (Juliette V, 34 ff.). The great mass-murder of which de Sade wrote is also an historical fact. On October 18, 1794, there was a great street fight in Naples, thirty men were killed and many hundreds were wounded.

All other Neapolitan conditions were actually as bad as represented in Juliette. According to Gorani the Roman Empire had never seen such moral corruption as in the court of Naples, no such Messalina as Queen Charlotte. Nelson said of Naples: "Not a woman is virtuous, not a turn deserves but to be hanged on the gallows." Again according to Consul, King Ferdinand IV's main passion was the torturing and killing of conies, cats and men; his next preference was his countless love-adventures, leaving Acton and the Queen to go on with their orgies without him.

We have seen that Marquis de Sade presented in the main a true account of the condition of cultural and sexual life in France and Italy and that his works have high value in regard to historical, literary, and philosophical proposes. In a later section we will give detailed analysis of his works.

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THE LIFE OF MARQUIS DE SADE

His Ancestors

It was the day when the sun's heavy rays
Grew pale in pity of his suffering Lord
When I fell captive, lady, to the gaze
Of your fair eyes, last bound in love's strong cord.

Who does not know this famous verse in praise of the first meeting with Laura, Madonna Laura, by Francesco Petrarch in his most famous Sonnet? What has this symbol of tender feeling to do in a book on Marquis de Sade? Laura, whom Petrarch met on that memorable Monday in the holy week in 1327 in the Church of Santa Chiara at Avignon, daughter of Audebert de Noues, was the wife of a Hugo de Sade, the ancestor of the family of de Sade. A strange and cruel jest in the history of literature: in the beginning a light from heaven, in the end, the darkness of hell!

Hugo de Sade, the husband of Laura, called the "old man," left many sons, one of whom, Paul de Sade, became the Archbishop of Marseilles and the confidant of the Queen, Jolande of Aragoine. He died in 1433 and left his wealth to the Cathedral of Marseilles.

Hugo, the third son of the first Hugo de Sade and the beautiful Laura, was the progenitor of the three branches of the house, Mazan, Eiguières and Tarascon. His oldest son, Jean de Sade, was a learned jurist and was named president of the first parliament of Provence by Louis II, King of Anjou. His brother, Elzear de Sade, was so powerful that Emperor Sigismund allowed him to use the imperial eagle on his coat of arms.

Pierre de Sade, of the branch of Eiguières, was the first governor of Marseilles (1565-1568). He cleaned the city of all evil elements.

Jean Baptiste de Sade, Bishop of Cavaillon, wrote many pious religious works. He died in December 21, 1667.

Joseph de Sade, Seigneur d’ Eiguières, born in 1684, was a very famous general and had notable victories both on land and sea. He held many important posts and received many decorations and honors. He died on January 29, 1761.

Hippolyte de Sade was also noted for his amazing sea exploits. Voltaire sent him a poem on the occasion of his marriage and Hippolyte replied using the same intricate verse scheme. He died in 1788.

Jacques François Paul Alphonse de Sade, the uncle of our Marquis de Sade, had a great influence upon him and hence must be described in more detail. He was born in 1705 and was the third son of Gaspar François de Sade. He devoted himself to the study of theology, became the general vicar of the Archbishop of Toulouse and Narbonne (1735) stayed for many years in Paris, where he experienced very profane and happy days at the side of the beautiful Madame de Ia Popelinière, the mistress of the Marshal of Saxony. He was an elegant writer, a spirited man, who gave himself up to "all frivolous pursuits of the century" and knew when to say farewell to "the vices of Paris" and return to the solitude of Vaucluse, where he pursued his studies on Petrarch and Laura and wrote many famous works on them as well as an excellent translation of all of Petrarch’s works.

If one thinks in terms of hereditary influence it is clear that Marquis de Sade inherited the properties of his uncle and not his father. It so happened that the uncle undertook the education of his nephew for some time. At any rate the nephew had both his main characteristics: a love for frivolity and for writing. For Marquis de Sade was an ardent bibliophile. And if the uncle cared for love only in his youth, the nephew made his life work the theory and practice of vice.

The father of Marquis de Sade, Count Jean Baptiste François Joseph de Sade, was born in 1700, entered the military service and became the ambassador to Russia (1730) and London (1733). He allied himself with the Bourbons by marriage with Marie Eléonore de MailIé, niece of Cardinal Richelieu and court lady of Princess Condé. The great Condé had also married a Maillé. Comte de Sade was appointed in 1738 the general-lieutenant for Bresse, Bugey and Valromey; he bought the property of Montreuil at Versailles and returned to private life. He died on January 24, 1767, and left many manuscripts of anecdotes, moral and philosophical ideas, as well as a large correspondence on the war during the years 1741-1746.

We would here like to mention the eldest son of Marquis de Sade, Louis Marie de Sade, born in 1764 at Paris. He was a famous army officer and fought in many campaigns. He was also noted for his writings, especially his History of the French Nation (1805), a scholarly investigation. He was killed by brigands in Otranto on June 9, 1809.

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The Childhood of Marquis de Sade

On the second day of June in the year 1740, one of the most remarkable men of the eighteenth century, indeed of modern times, was born in the home of the great Condé. Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade, Philosopher of Vice and professeur de crime, as Michelet and Taine call him, received the title of Comte after his father's death, but since he became notorious even before then the name Marquis de Sade clung to him. At the age of four he was sent to his grandmother at Avignon in sunny Provence, then a few years at Ebreuil with his uncle who carefully gave him his first lessons and prepared him for admittance in 1750 to the College Louis le Grand in Rue Saint Jacques in Paris. This institution was deemed the best in all France and gave the students the opportunity of a well-grounded and diverse education. They had to give public speeches, present plays, debate, etc. More care was taken of the mind than of the body which became defensively inured to the blows and floggings of the teacher.

There are many descriptions of the personality of de Sade at this tender age, but all are not wellfounded. According to Uzanne he was at this age an "adorable boy with delicate, pale face from which two great black eyes gleamed." But already there was an atmosphere of evil about the entire environment around him and was even more dangerous because of his almost "feminine charm" which inspired involuntary sympathy. Lacroix gives him a "graceful figure, blue eyes and blond, well-kept hair." A German author indulges himself in the following fantasy: "The young Vicomte was of such startling beauty that even in his early youth all the ladies that saw him stood stock still in rapt admiration. He also had a charming voice that pierced into the hearts of all women. He was always dressed in the latest of fashions, bright, colorful clothing that set off his appearance perfectly."

At any rate Marquis de Sade made as a youth a striking appearance. There exists unfortunately no authentic portrait of him. There are, of course, many pictures of him, mostly poor lithographs, but all have been proven to be false.

We also do not know in what mental condition Marquis de Sade left the College Louis le Grand. He is said to have been "an inveterate bookworm from earliest youth and early established a philosophic system on epicurean principles. He was also devoted to fine art and was a proficient musician, dancer, fencer and sculptor. He spent many days in the art galleries, especially those in the Louvre, Fontainebleau and Versailles." That de Sade loved music is confirmed by Lacroix and that he often visited art galleries is proven by his description of the collection of paintings in Florence (Juliette IV, 19 ff.).

Janin believes that when de Sade left school be was already a "fanatic of vice.” De Sade left school in the same year (1754) that Maximilian de Robespierre entered.

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Youth

The young Marquis then entered the regiment of Cheraux-Legers, became a sub-lieutenant in the king's regiment, lieutenant with the Carabiniers and finally captain of a cavalry regiment, serving in the seven-year-war with Germany. According to Lacroix he returned to Paris in 1766 where his father reproached him with "many youthful follies," but in 1763 de Sade was already in Paris. In May, 1880, a letter of the Marquis dated Vincennes, November 2, 1763, was found giving the date of his marriage, May 17, 1763. This is supported by the circumstance that the oldest son of the Marquis, Louis Marie de Sade, became a lieutenant in the Soubise Regiment in 1783. Since it is quite improbable that a boy of 16 could become a lieutenant Marquis de Sade must have returned to Paris to be married in 1763.

The history of the marriage has been described in detail by the bibliophile Jacob from contemporary accounts. Marciat is inclined to place great value from a psychological standpoint on this marriage for the moral deviations of Marquis de Sade. We cannot agree. De Sade's moral decline had already started. The "youthful follies" his father threw up at him, were a part of the general depravity of the French Army as a result of the seven-year-war. His father wanted the son married to rescue him from "the evil practices that flourished in the army during the war."

Montreuil, president of the Cour des aides, long a friend of the father, Marquis de Sade, had two daughters, 20 and 23 years of age, both pretty and well educated but differing in character and external figure. The elder, a brunette with black hair and dark eyes, was very majestic in appearance, very pious and passionless. The younger, a blue-eyed blonde, in spite of her youthful age appeared mature, was very intelligent, "of a heavenly disposition and charm" and was of a very passionate nature.

It had been agreed by the fathers that Marquis should marry the elder daughter and as luck would have it, he saw at his first visit to the home of President Montreuil only the younger daughter since her sister was ill. He immediately fell passionately in love with the younger who entranced him with her musical enthusiasm, her sweet voice and excellent technique at the harp. When de Sade met the older sister at his second visit, he felt only distaste for her and made known that he wanted to marry the younger. The president flatly refused and the Comte de Sade gave his son the choice between submission to his will or return to the army in an obscure post and disinheritance. So the Marquis, whose appeal "to the heart of the mother of the two girls found only a cold reply" was forced to marry the older sister. The younger had already returned de Sade’s love and had sought in vain to move her parents by cries and prayers. Lacroix declares in detail that de Sade had married the older sister only in thought of committing adultery with the younger and that he very probably had come to an understanding with both sisters. Madame Montreuil, who understood the nature of her son-in-law from the very beginning, placed the younger daughter in a convent to escape the threatening scandal.

It is undecided whether this marriage is the chief origin of the demoralization of Marquis de Sade, as Marciat believes. It assuredly explains the hatred of marriage that is found in all of the works of de Sade. That his wife gave him no cause is shown by Ginistry's Letters of Marquise de Sade. She is revealed in these letters as a good wife, always tender and loving to him, stood by his side in all the scandals that surrounded him, helped him in a thousand ways during his stay in prison, assisted him in his flight from prison, in short, showed him all the care and regards of a loving wife. Women were said to have been irresistibly drawn to him by the "air of vice" that surrounded him. Ginistry has shown in detail how the Marquis evaluated his wife's love. We give one of the letters from his wife: "You know the world much better than I and do what you Will. I am only the servant for your commands. You know that you can count on me as your best and dearest friend." De Sade wrote on the margin of this letter: "How can one lie so shamelessly?"

It is not strange that in the first year of the marriage after vain attempts by the Marquis to find the younger Montreuil, that he broke out into wild debaucheries, threw away his health and wealth with the assistance of the most notorious roués of his time and the "Coryphée of perfumed orgies" of the Duke of Fronsac and Prince Lamballe and did not disdain to use lackeys in wild saturnalias.

Initiated in the "secrets of the petites maisons and bordellos" he sought to outdo his companions by devising new, refined vices. Indeed there is a contemporary report that ascribes the idea of the Deer Park to Marquis de Sade. Even a few months after his first marriage de Sade, but 23 years old, was imprisoned in Vincennes because of great excesses in a petite maison. Here he was very retiring and quiet and made no trouble, only asked for a servant and for permission to enjoy some fresh air at intervals. In a letter dated November 2 he asked that his wife be informed of his imprisonment, without giving any reasons, and desired a priest to be sent to him. He closed with the words: "As unhappy as I am, I do not bewail my fate; for I desire divine punishment; to repent for my errors, to repair my wrongs will hence be my only desire." He must already have written an obscene book about this time. For be wrote in this letter of the "unfortunate book" which he wrote the preceding month. Which of his writings de Sade referred to is not clear. Cabanès believes that he referred to Justine but this is not borne out by present literary evidence and data.

Perhaps Marciat is correct in saying that this letter to the governor of the prison is written in a hypocritical style and intention, but it is also possible that this was one of the religious seizures that are so frequent with the perverse and libertines. There is at hand a letter to the prison chaplain, Griffer, on November 4, 1763: "We have a new prisoner at Vincennes who wishes to speak to a priest and has immediate need of your services although he is not sick. The person is Marquis de Sade, a young man of 23 years. Please visit him as soon as possible and I will be grateful if you report to me."

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His Prison Life

Paul Verlaine has written that the Marquis de Sade spent a great part of his life in prisons. Counting from his last sentence at Charenton he spent 27 years in 11 jails: of these 27 years 13 were in his old age. In the solitude of the prison he worked on the material for his books. We can describe the entire manhood of Marquis de Sade as an interrupted prison life of dramatic proceedings that spread his name and "fame" throughout the world.

The reason for his second imprisonment was one of the most talked of contemporary proceedings. It was the Keller Affair.

We have many different accounts of the Keller affair. The most important is that of Madame du Deffand in a letter written ten days after the incident to the English writer and statesman, Horace Walpole. She so wrote: "Here is a tragic and very strange story. A certain Comte de Sade, nephew of the abbé and Petrarch-student, met on Easter Tuesday a tall, well-built woman of 30 years who asked him for alms. He questioned her at length, showed much interest, promised to free her from her misery and make her the superintendent of his petite maison near Paris. The woman eagerly assented and was ordered for the next day. When she appeared the Marquis showed her all the corners and rooms of the house and finally brought her to the attic. There he ordered her to undress completely. She threw herself at his feet and begged him to spare her since she was a respectable woman. He threatened her with a pistol that he drew from his pocket and so forced her to obey. Then he bound her hands together and whipped her savagely. When she was completely covered with blood he applied salve to all her wounds and had her lay down. I do not know whether he gave her food and drink. At any rate he first saw her again an the following morning, looked at her wounds and saw that the salve had worked effectively. Then he took a knife and made cuts on her entire body, again placed salve on all her wounds, and left. The victim succeeded in testing her bonds and to free herself by means of a window to the street. It is not known whether she was injured by the fall. A great outcry arose. The police-lieutenant was informed. De Sade was imprisoned. What will happen further is not known; it may be that this will be all the punishment since he comes from highly respectable people. It is said that the reason for his dreadful action was to prove the value of his salve."

On the following day (April 13) Madame du Deffand wrote: "Since yesterday I have been informed of further details of this affair. The place in which he had his petite maison was Arceuil. He whipped and cut her on the same day and poured balsam on her wounds. Then he untied her hands, covered her and placed her on a good bed. As soon as she was alone she made a bold escape through the window. The police-lieutenant had de Sade imprisoned. The latter had the audacity to claim that his crime was a noble public service because he had thus shown to the public the miraculous working of a salve that immediately cured all wounds. She received a large sum of damages from him and he was therefore freed."

This is the most trustworthy report of the affair. The other accounts of the notable case deviate so greatly from one another that they befog rather than clear the details of the event. Janin wrote that Marquis de Sade had in Arceuil a petite maison where he held his orgies. The windows were covered with double shutters and the house was padded (matelassé) inside so that no sound or sight was granted the passerby. On an Easter morning, April 3, 1768, his servant and confederate brought there two common prostitutes; the Marquis himself, on his way to Arceuil, met a poor woman, Rosa Keller, widow of a certain Valentine, who was vying to earn her bread by prostitution. De Sade spoke to her, promised her food and sleep, addressed her very reservedly and tenderly, so that she rode in the carriage with him to Arceuil. The Marquis brought her to the second story of the dimly lighted house, where both prostitutes drunk and decorated with flowers, sat at a richly laden table. She was here gagged, entirely undressed, bound and beaten until she was "only a single wound" whereupon the orgy with the two prostitutes began. Then Janin described the flight of the victim, the riot, the imprisonment of the criminal who was found dead-drunk in a pool of "wine and blood."

Eulenberg gives practically the same account and adds that the sadism was evidently a preparatory act to incite de Sade for the girls.

Lacroix reports that Keller was whipped under obscene circumstances which Madame du Deffand did not describe in her letters to Walpole but that even the "greatest prudes told to each other all the scabrous details without any feminine modesty." He adds that Keller was cut in many places with a knife and that the wounds were sealed again with Spanish wax.

Rétif de la Bretonne, who knew the Marquis since 1768, gave in his Nights of Paris an entirely different account of the history of the "femme vivante dissequé." Marquis de Sade is said to have met Keller on the Place des Victoires, brought her to his house, placed her in an anatomy-room, where a great number of people were assembled, and made preparations to vivisect her. "Who wants this unfortunate being in the world?" said the Marquis in a grave voice. "She can do nothing and will serve to reveal to us the mysteries of the human structure." At a lull in the vivisection the woman is supposed to have freed herself and escaped. In her later story she claimed she saw a number of corpses in the house.

According to Cabanès, it was much simpler: Rosa Keller took one look at the room and company and fled to the street, nude as she was.

Finally there is an account by Brierre de Boismont which Manciat relates to the Keller affair but which we believe to be another case. Some years before the Revolution some people in a lonely street of Paris heard weak cries coming from the ground-floor of a house. They broke into it and found a nude girl, white as wax, upon a table. Blood streamed from cuts in all parts of the body. When the victim was revived she said that she had been enticed, beaten and cut by Marquis de Sade after which he satisfied himself on her. According to Brierre de Boismont this affair was hushed up, the victim receiving damages.

The Keller affair went off quite easily for de Sade. He was first imprisoned at the castle in Saumur but was released in six weeks after Rosa Keller had received damages of 100 louisdors.

He then again started on his debaucheries in the lowest spheres of the theatrical and literary world, associated with people of all sorts of callings, surrounded himself with prostitutes and gave free rein to his perverse inclinations. Montreuil finally had the police forbid the Marquis entrance to his castle, La Coste, when he was informed of the vices of his son-in-law by an actress (probably Beauvoisin of the Théâtre Français).

His wife who had asked for permission to visit the Castle Saumur in order to be near him, was foolish enough to inform him that her sister had finally left the convent. De Sade, whose desire for the younger sister had never diminished, hypocritically pretended indifference to his wife. But the first chance he was alone with his beloved, he fell at her feet, swore that he loved only her and that all the crimes had been the result of his unfortunate love. He threatened to take his life if his plea was not heard and he understood from the features of the silent young girl that he would receive a favorable answer. So, according to Lacroix, he conceived the plan of committing a strange crime, dazzle his sister-in-law with a suicide and thus get her to flee with him. The execution of this plan is the Marseilles Scandal (The Cantharidic Bonbon Orgy).

Bachaumont's secret memoirs has the following report under the date July 25, 1772: "I am told that Comte de Sade, who in 1768 caused great disorder by his crimes with a prostitute on whom he wanted to test a new cure, has just played in Marseilles a spectacle at first amusing but later horrible in its consequences. He gave a ball to which he invited many people and for dessert gave them very pretty chocolate pastilles. They were mixed with powdered 'spanish fly.' Their action is well known. All who ate them were seized by shameless ardor and lust and started the wildest excesses of love. The festival became an ancient Roman orgy. The most modest of women could not restrain themselves. The Marquis de Sade abused his sister-in-law and then fled with her to escape the threatening penalty of death. Many persons died as the result of the excesses and many others still suffer recurrent pains."

This account is plainly exaggerated. According to Lacroix who received his information from a trustworthy eyewitness, Marquis de Sade left with his servant for Marseilles. He had provided himself with cantharidic bonbons which he distributed in a public house. One prostitute sprang from a window and killed herself. The others, half nude, gave themselves to the most infamous debaucheries even in the midst of a great crowd. Two girls died as a result of the poison. De Sade read a letter from the council announcing the judgment of death upon him, showed this letter to his sister-in-law, called himself a monster and threatened to kill himself. She pleaded with him to flee and he enticed her to accompany him. After an hour they departed.

According to the Universal Biography this account is also false because no one died and only a few persons were "lightly harassed." Rétif de la Bretonne places the scene of the action in Paris in the Faubourg St Honoré. This is important since Rétif, who hated the Marquis, declared no one died as a result of this orgy.

It is hence quite certain that the affair did not lead to any deaths. Marseilles often saw such scenes which were part of the extravagant life of the ancien régime. According to authentic documents discovered by Cabanès the only actual facts in this famous affair were the visit of Marquis de Sade to one or a number of bordellos at Marseilles and the distribution of innocent bonbons to the prostitutes.

Marquis de Sade was sentenced by the Parliament in Aix on September 11, 1772, to death on account of sodomy and poisoning in contumaciam. The severity of this sentence was ascribed to the Chancellor Maupeou who wanted to make an example of de Sade. The death sentence was finally lifted on June 30, 1778. The Marquis had to pay a penalty of 50 francs; according to the author of Contemporary Biography he received only an admonition.

He had in the meantime fled with, his sister-in-law to Italy where he led a quiet life with her until after a short, severe illness she suddenly died and he fell back into his old habits. He was then seized in Piedmont and imprisoned in Fort Miolans on December 8, 1772. He conspired with his fellow-prisoner, the well-known de Songy (Baron de I'Allée), and they escaped on the night of May 1, 1773, with the aid of the Marquise and 15 men. They went to Geneva and from there to Italy where he met his wife. He soon changed her company for that of a mistress. He returned in 1777 to France where his wife and mother-in-law occupied themselves with his rehabilitation.

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Imprisonment in Vincennes and in the Bastille

After a short stay in Provence where he led a vicious life, de Sade was seized, brought to Paris and imprisoned in the chief tower of the fortress at Vincennes. In a letter to the governor he implored him to allow him to see his wife. Somehow he got in touch with her and through her efforts he secured a reversal of judgment. De Sade was brought to Aix where Counselor Siméom brilliantly defended him and brought about an annulment of judgment on June 30, 1778. But by the influence of his mother-in-law, who rightly feared de Sade's freedom more than his imprisonment, the judgment was made retroactive and he was brought back to Vincennes. He was guarded by Inspector Marais, already well known to us. At a stop in Lambesc on July 5, 1778, he succeeded in escaping, again with the aid of his wife. But he was shortly thereafter (September 7) discovered by Marais at his castle and this time brought back without mishap to Vincennes. In 1784, he was transferred to the Bastille.

From 1774 to 1790, in the flower of his manhood, Marquis de Sade sat in prison. There is no doubt that here he made the first outlines of his works.

In his first year at Vincennes he was placed in a cold, damp room containing only a bed. No other furniture. His food was pushed through a small bole. Books and writing materials were withheld. This he found extremely painful.

His wife, who clung to him with patient love, finally got permission to send him books, writing materials and some other useful items. She later received permission to visit him. But every visit started a scandal. The Marquise had to be protected from the anger and wild fits of her husband. Hence police-lieutenant Le Noir denied her visits on September 25, 1782. Not until July 13, 1786, was she again allowed to see the Marquis. As a precaution there were always people present to protect her from the violence of her husband.

Marciat finds in the life of Marquis de Sade before his imprisonment a tendency to be cruel, a hatred for all women and an untamable sexual lust. He rightly concludes that thirteen years of imprisonment, from his twenty-eighth to fifty-first year, must have wrought terrific havoc on his body and mind, since confinement made every satisfaction of his mighty sexual inclination impossible.

This is seen in his increased irritability due to his illness. It is proven by the endless mistrust of his wife as shown by the notations on his wife's letters, which ascribe sexual motives to all her actions. The prison made a deep impression on de Sade. In the solitude of the cell his fantasy roamed free in images of passion and cruelty. It could be his only substitution for reality. As soon as he received books he sought in them all the possible examples and models for his vicious presentations which he placed as a record in his many manuscripts. This also was plainly a means of escape for his tired mind and body. He wrote and read incessantly while in prison.

Unfortunately the diaries kept by de Sade from 1777 to 1798, 13 books, were burnt so that an important aid for knowledge of his mental state was lost forever. He had marked down in his diaries everything that he had "said, done, heard, read, wrote, felt, or thought for 13 years." Only his works are left for a judgment of his personality.

It is interesting to note that while in prison the Marquis kept a correspondence with some of his former mistresses. There recently came up at auction some of these letters, filled with passionate remembrances.

By chance, Mirabeau was imprisoned at Vincennes at this time and, curiously enough, he also wrote his obscene works there. A strange effect of prison life!

There exists a remarkable letter by Mirabeau on his relations with the Marquis. "De Sade yesterday set the prison in an uproar and without the slightest provocation called me most infamous names. I was permitted by Rougemont (the governor of the prison) to walk about the court, while his request to do the same was denied. He asked me for my name so that at his release he could cut off my ears. I lost my patience and told him: 'My name is that of an honorable man, who never was imprisoned for strangling women.' He was silent and since then has never opened his mouth to me. It is dreadful to be in the same place with such a monster.”

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Participation in the Revolution and Literary Activity

The first scenes of the Revolution took place before the imprisonment of Marquis de Sade, who from youth had great sympathy for the movement. On July 2, 1789, before the storming of the Bastille, he halted the passersby on Rue Saint Antoine by means of a speaking trumpet, and soon had a great crowd listening to his loud insults of the governor of the Bastille. As the result of this incident Marquis de Sade was imprisoned at Charenton on July 4 and so missed the storming of the Bastille which took place on the fourteenth. He was freed from Charenton on March 29, 1790, by demand of the people. His first act was to hasten the separation from his wife. He also became estranged from his family; his sons left the country at the beginning of the Revolution. According to Lacroix he took a mistress who acted the hostess at his home. He lived first in the Rue Pot de Fer, near Saint Sulpice, later in Rue Neuve des Mathurins, Chausée d'Antin, No. 20. According to most reliable reports the Marquis was in a bad way as far as material wealth went. There exists a letter written in the year III of the Revolution, in which de Sade asked for a position as librarian or museum-conservator because he was completely without means, having lost his literary property at the storming of the Bastille, his lands at Marseilles by confiscation. There is another letter written in the year VI of the Revolution in which he asked payment for a poem he wrote and the return of a comedy. Soon after his release from Charenton he began to write a great number of comedies which he sold to the numerous theatres. For a couple extra louisdors he himself would play a part.

During the Revolution de Sade’s chief works appeared one after the other in quick succession. A year after his release, 1791, there appeared Justine, which was written for the most part in prison. The first edition is just erotic; those later, especially the last edition of 1797, contain all the bloody details. Marciat rightly believes that the influence of the milieu, the mighty events in the Revolution, called forth these later changes. Another novel written in the Bastille was Aline and Valcour which appeared in 1793. Then followed in 1795 Philosophy in the Boudoir and in 1797 as a crowning glory the double publication of Justine and Juliette. His 120 Days of Sodom was also written in the Bastille in 1785 but was not discovered until 1904. Until 1804, the year of his new imprisonment, the Marquis' pen was sterile, a fact which will later be explained.

Much has been made of the fact that Marquis de Sade at times denied the authorship of his works. But that signified nothing. It was a common practice of contemporary writers; for example, Voltaire and Mirabeau. Again, de Sade probably did not care to sit in prison any longer. At any rate he acknowledged to his personal friends that he was the author and presented to them a deluxe edition of Justine and Juliette in ten volumes.

We are scantily supplied with information on the private life of Marquis de Sade during the Revolution. One can only conclude from his earlier affairs that he resumed his previous vicious life. When Marquis de Sade was again seized in 1801 his bedroom was found full of large pictures representing the "principal obscenities of the novel, Justine." Many stories are told of finding instruments of torture in his bedroom. He had his walls decorated with pictures of all sorts of enemas and nude figures in all kinds of postures.

Especially notable is the political activity of Marquis de Sade during the French Revolution. He had clearly and early foretold its appearance. He said in Aline and Valcour, written in the Bastille in 1788: "A great Revolution is being prepared in this country. It has become tired of the crimes of our rulers, their cruelties, debaucheries and stupidities. It is tired of despotism and is getting ready to break its chains." In the solitude of his cell he had time to develop systematically all the Revolutionary principles, especially the fight against God, empire and priests.

The "martyr of the Bastille" also took a lively part in the leading incidents of the Revolution. He became secretary to the Section des Piques, also called Section de Place Vendôme and Section de Robespierre. In the disorders of September 2, when everyone remained at home, he thought he would be safest in the bosom of his section. So he left his home in Rue Neuve des Mathurins and went in the evening to the Place Vendôme. The friends of Robespierre were not there but in the Jacobin club. De Sade was recognized only as a man who had been in prison under the ancien régime. "Would you like to be our secretary?" "Gladly." He took the pen.

De Sade was an enthusiastic admirer of the bloodthirsty Marat and after his murder by Charlotte Corday, delivered his funeral oration, all filled with revolutionary phrases and celebrating "holy and divine freedom" as the only goddess of France. But all are agreed in saying that the Marquis was secretly despised and hated by the members of his section as well as by the other revolutionaries. According to Cabanès he was still called Marquis by his companions and adds that he was the only living Marquis under the rule of Robespierre and Fouquier. He was probably a republican not from political conviction but rather from his war against justice and law in general, because of his théorie du libertinage. He was the philosopher of vice but not a passionate politician. He developed a theory of absolute evil but in life he was very gentle, prudent, and full of virtuous phrases, which did not fail to please the great terrorists. A paradoxical action gave them the excuse of proceeding against him. He saved his wife's parents from the scaffold, for which he was condemned as a "moderate" and on December 6, 1793, upon the command of the Comité de la Sûreté Générale he was imprisoned in turn at Madelonettes, Carmes and Picpus; he, after a year of prison, finally received his freedom through Rovère, to whom he sold his property at La Coste. He had money for a while, once more.

De Sade went back to his literary activity which was hindered under the Directory. Indeed he had presented to each of the members a special deluxe edition of Justine and Juliette. At that time all the notorious works of Marquis de Sade were publicly sold. They were found in all bookstores and catalogues. A great capitalist financed the sale. This lasted until 1801. In the preceding year Marquis de Sade had published a novel Zoloë and Her Two Acolytes, a pamphlet against Josephine de Beauharnais (Zoloë), the ladies Tallien (Laurenda) and Visconti (Volsange), Bonaparte (Baron d'Orsec), Barres (Vicomte de Sabar), a senator (Fessinot), etc., all carrying on the most shameless infamies in a petite maison.

On account of this diatribe de Sade was seized on March 5, 1801. Without being legally tried he was brought to the prison of Sainte Pélagie, because a "trial would have provoked great scandal," and because the punishment was "even too mild for the crime." The prefect complained that de Sade seduced the young people in Sainte Pélagie and he was sent to Bicêtre. Upon the pleas of his family he was brought to Charenton on April 26, 1803. All his manuscripts and books were again confiscated. The practice of setting people in prison without trials was common in the rule of Napoleon. The poet Desorgues who wrote a chanson against Napoleon with the refrain

Oh, the grand Napoleon
Is a grand chameleon.

was interned in Charenton where he died in 1808. Many other authors met the same fate. De Sade indeed came off lucky. Buckle cites many similar fates in his History of Civilization in England.

We possess many interesting accounts of Marquis de Sade's stay in the insane asylum at Charenton. The most notable is the report of the famous Dr. Royer Collard on the Marquis in 1808. We give it verbatim:

Paris, August 2, 1808.

The Chief Doctor of the Hospital at Charenton to his Excellency, the Senator and Police Minister:

Sir:

I have the honor to appeal to your authority far assistance in an affair that threatens the entire order in my home.

We have here a man whose bold immorality has made him only too well known and whose mere presence effects the greatest evils. I speak of the author of that shameful novel Justine. This man it not mentally ill. His one delirium is that of vice—and this cannot be aided in an insane asylum. He has to be placed in the severest isolation to protect others from his outbreaks and to separate him from all circumstances that might increase his horrible passion. Our place as Charenton does not fulfill any of these conditions. De Sade enjoys too great freedom here. He can have intercourse with a great number of patients and convalescents either in his or their rooms. He has the right to walk in the park and often meets patients there. He preaches to them his criminal theories and lends them books. Finally we received a report that he is living with a woman whom he claimed was his daughter.

That is not all. They were so improvident at the asylum that they had a theatre erected for the performance of comedies and did not think at the harmful effects of such a tumultuous proceeding upon the mind. De Sade is the director of this theatre. He presents the plays, hands out the rôles and directs them. He is also the asylum poet. For example, at the dinners of the director he writes an allegorical piece in his honor or at least some couplets in his praise. I ask your excellency to remedy such a horrible condition. How can such things be in an insane asylum? Such crimes and immorality! Will not the patients who daily meet this man be also infected by his corruption and does not the mere thought of his presence in this house awaken the fantasy of those who do not see him?

I sincerely hope that your excellency will find these reasons imperative enough to find another resort than Charenton for de Sade. An order for him not to associate with the patients will not be sufficient as it will be only a temporary aid. I do not ask for him to be sent back to Bicêtre but I believe that a strong castle would he better fitted for him than an asylum with its many opportunities for the satisfaction of his degenerate desires.

Royer Collard, MD

This report had no results. Marquis de Sade remained in Charenton. There is a justification for the conjecture that he preferred this to a prison. He was the especial favorite of the director of Charenton, Abbé Coulmier. He was thus allowed the greatest possible freedom. Royer Collard's repeated complaints on the theatre finally resulted in its removal. But in its place were substituted concerts and balls! This he also made many protests against, but it was not until May 6, 1813, that they were stopped.

We have many impressions of the personality of Marquis de Sade during his stay at Charenton but they are none too trustworthy. Janin describes the perverted influence he had on the patients and the tender sympathy he showed to young and pretty girls. Lacroix writes that all the persons he met gave the best reports of him. Nodier recalls that he “spoke politely, solemnly and respectfully of all that was deserving of respect." But the "grace and elegance" were not borne out by his appearance for he was enormously fat. His tired eyes, though, would at times suddenly light up in excitement. According to the Universal Biography de Sade retained his perverted habits until his death.

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His Death

Marquis de Sade died at the age of 74 on December 2, 1814, at 10 o'clock in the evening, easily and quietly as a result of a long illness which had nevertheless not impaired his vigor. De Sade wrote of his illness in a letter to Napoleon dated June 17, 1808. He bitterly complained that he had led a most unhappy existence for 20 years in three different prisons. He was 70 years old, almost blind, suffered from gout, and had very severe pains in the breast and stomach. This could be confirmed by the doctors at Charenton. He therefore begged His Majesty to release him. The archives at Charenton state that the Marquis had been ill for some time from "liver trouble as a result of asthma." The end was sudden: he became severely ill two days before his death. His son, Armand de Sade, was present and burnt all the "dangerous papers" of his father. He was scarcely dead when "his skull was seized as an invaluable booty as if with one stroke the secret of the strange constitution would be discovered." The skull was like all others. It was a notable mixture of vice and virtue, of crime and honor, of hate and love. It was small, well formed and very like a woman's.

After his death the following testament was found:

I forbid my body to be dissected under any pretext whatsoever and desire most stringently that it shall remain in the room in which I died for 48 hours in a wooden coffin to be made only after the expiration of this time. The timber merchant, Lenormand, in Versailles, shall be ordered to come with his wagon and take my body to the forest on my property near Epernon where without any ceremony I should be buried on the first coppice that is seen from the great path in the old part of the castle. The grave should be dug by the tenant at Malmaison under the direction of Lenormand who shall not leave until all the arrangements are completed. My friends and relatives who wish to show me this last mark of love for me may be present. The ground over my grave should be sprinkled with acorns so that all traces of my grave shall disappear so that, as I hope, this reminder of my existence may be wiped from the memory of mankind.

Written at Charenton Saint Maurice in sound mind and health on January 30, 1806.

D. A. F. Sade.