1) Compare and contrast the character Justine (in Sade's Justine) with the character Therese in Zola's Therese Raquin. Describe the characters and the different narrative techniques employed to portray them. Please discuss how female sexuality is depicted

! MARQUIS

DESADE Justin�1 Philosophy in th� B�Jroom/& Oth�r Writings

rJhe Ul(arquis

decJade

Justine

Philosophy in the Bedroom

and other • •

wrtttngs

Works by the Marquis de Sade Published by Grove Press

Justine, Philosophy in the Bedroom, and Other Writings

The 120 Days of Sodom and Other Writings

Juliette

CJhe Ut[arquis

decSade Justine,

Philosophy in the Bedroom, and other writings

compiled and translated by Richarri Seaver & Austryn Wainhouse

with introductions by Jean Paulhan of l'Acadimie Francoise

& Maurice Blanchot

� Grove Press New York

Copyright © 1965 by Richard Seaver and Austryn Wainhouse

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Any members of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use, or publishers who would like to obtain permission to include the work in an anthology, should send their inquiries to Grove/Atlantic, Inc., 841 Broadway, New York, NY 10003.

Printed in the United Slates of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Sade, marquis de, 1740-1814. [Selections. English. 1990] The complete Justine, Philosophy in the bedroom, and other

writings / the Marquis de Sade : compiled and translated by Richard Seaver & Austryn Wainhouse, with an introduction by Jean Paulhan & Maurice Blanchot.

p. cm. Translated from the French. ISBN 0-8021-3218-9 I. Sade, marquis de, 1740-1814-Translations, English.

2. Erotic literature, French-Translations into English. 3. Erotic literature, English--Translations from French. I. Seaver, Richard. II. Wainhouse, Austryn. III. Title. PQ2063.S3A275 1990 843'.6-nc20 90-3153

Grove Press 841 Broadway New York, NY 10003

00 01 02 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12

Ackn(JlO)ledgments The essay by Jean Paulhan, "The Marquis de Sade and His Accom­ plice," was originally published as a preface to the second edition of Les Infortunes de la Vertu published in 1946 by Les Editions du Point du Jour, copyright 1946 by Jean Paulhan. The essay was later reprinted, under the title "La Douteuse Justine ou Ies R£wnches de la Vertu," as an introduction to the 1959 edition of Les Infortunes de la Vertu published by Jean-Jacques Pauvert. It is here reprinted by permission of the author. The essay "Sade" by Maurice Blanchot forms part of that author's volume entitled Lautmamont et Sade, copyright 1949 by Les Editions de Minuit, and is here reprinted by permission of the publisher. The editors wish to thank Grove Press, Inc. for permission to include certain information in the Chronology in the form of both entries and notes, taken from TIte Marquis de Sade, a Difinitive Biograplry, by Gilbert Lely, copyright © 1961 by Elek Books Limited. This work is a one-volume abridgment of the two-volume La Vie du Marquis de Sade by the same author, to which the editors have referred in their Foreword, wherein further acknowledgments have also been made. Finally, the editors wish especially to thank Miss Marilynn Meeker for the meticulous job of editing, and for the number and diversity of her suggestions.

Contents

Foreword

Publisher's Preface

Part One Critical & Biographical

The Marquis de Sade and His Accomp lice

Xl

XVll

by Jean Paulhan, of l'Academie Fran�aise 3 Sade by Maurice Blanchot 37

Chronology 73 Seven Letters (1763-1790) 121

Note Concerning My Detention (1803) 151 Last Will and Testament (1806) 155

Part Two Two Philosophical Dialogues

Dialogue between a Priest and a Dying Man (1782) 161 Philosophy in the Bedroom (1795) 177

Part T hre e Two Moral Tales

Eugenie de Franval (1788) 371 Justine, or Good Conduct Well Chastised (1791) 447

Bibliography 745

My manner 0/ thinking, so you say, cannot be approved. Do you suppose I care? A poor /001 indeed is he who adopts a manner 0/ thinking lor others! My manner 0/

thinking stems straight from my considered reflections;

it holds with my existence, with the way I am made. It is not in my power to alter it; and were it, 1'd not do so.

This manner 0/ thinking you find fault with is my sole

consolation in life; it alleviates all my sufferings in

prison, it composes all my pleasures in the world out­

side, it is dearer to me than life itself. Not my manner

0/ thinking but the manner of thinking of others has

been the source 0/ my unhappiness. The reasoning man

who scorns the prejudices of simpletons necessarily be­

comes the enemy of simpletons; he must expect as much,

and laugh at the inevitable. A traveler journeys along a fine road. It has been strewn with traps. He falls into one. Do you say it is the traveler's fault, or that of the scoundrel who lays the traps? If then, as you tell me, they

are willing to restore my liberty if I am willing to pay for it by the sacrifice of my principles or my tastes, we

may bid one another an eternal adieu, for rather than part with those, I would sacrifice a thousand lives and a thousand liberties, if I had them. These principles

and these tastes, I am their fanatic adherent; a"nd fanati­

cism in me is the product of the persecutions I have en­

dured from my tyrants. The longer they continue their

vexations, the deeper they root my principles in my

heart, and I openly declare that no one need ever talk

to me of liberty if it is offered to me only in return for

their destruction.

-THE MARQUIS DE SADE, IN A LETTER TO HIS WIFE

Foreword

That the Marquis de Sade also wrote books is a fact now known to almost everyone who reads. And knowledge of Sade as a writer ordinarily ends there . For of his immense and incomparable l iterary achievement, and o f his capital importance in the hi story of ideas, hardly a suspicion has been conveyed by occasional collections of anodyne fragments culled from his writings or by more frequent and flagrantly spurious "adaptations. " ( Of the two, cheap-paperback pastiche and more tastefully contrived anthology of excerpts, the latter, equally meretricious, i s hardly the less dishonest. ) To date, this is Sade bibliography in the United States. To date, Sade re­ mains an unknown author.

For this, censorship, Puritan morality, hypocrisy, and lack of cultivation may be blamed, although not very usefully, since Sade sought condemnation. Ultimately, the fault for i t i s all his own, and the fate of his books is his triumph. Strange ? To be and to stay an unknown author, that has always been his status and his destiny, that was the status he coveted, that was the destiny he created for himself, not by accident or unwittingly, but deliberately and out of an uncommon perversity. To write, but to go unread-this has hap­ pened to many writers. To write endlessly and under the most un­ favorable conditions and as though nothing mattered more than to write, but to write in-such a way, at such length, upon such subjects, in such a manner and using such language as to render oneself un­ approachable, "unpublishable ," "unknown," and yet upon succeed­ ing generations to exert the most intense and enduring influence­ this , it will be admitted, is rare indeed.

Xl

XII .. THE MARQUIS DE SADE

Secrets cannot survive their disclosure j to bare Sade to the public would seem to be rendering him a disservice. Against this "betrayal"-a graver one by far than any accomplished by the obscure tradesmen who from time to time get out a child's version of fustine-Sade has a defense : it consists in maintaining the reader at a di stance, not merely at arm' s length but a t a remove one is tempted to call absolute. Or, to put i t more simply, in forcing every reader-every so-called reasonable reader-to reject him.

Thus, the present attempt-which i s the first to be made in the United States-to provide the basis for a serious understanding of Sade is in a certain sense bound to fail . In this sense : the "reason­ able" man (we repeat) can come to no understanding with this exceptional man who rejects everything by which and for which the former lives-laws, beliefs, duties, fears, God, country, family, fellows-everything and the human condition itself, and proposes instead a way of l ife which is the undoing of common sense and all its works, and which from the point of view of common sense re­ sembles nothing so much as death j and which is, of course, impos­ sible . Such must be the judgment of the "reasonable" man-of him who builds, saves, increases , continues , and thanks to whom the world goes round.

Even so, however firmly he be establ ished in the normality that makes everyday l i fe possible, still more firmly established in him and infinitely more deeply-in the farther reaches of his in­ ali enable self, in his instincts, his dreams, his incoercible desires­ the impossibl e dwells, a sovereign in hiding. What Sade has to say to us-and what we as normal social beings cannot heed or even hear-already exists within us, like a resonance, a forgotten truth, or like the divine promise whose fulfillment is finally the most sol­ emn concern of our human existence.

Whether or not i t is dangerous to read Sade is a question that e asily becomes lost in a multitude of others and has never been settled except by those whose arguments are rooted in the convic­ tion that reading leads to trouble. So i t does j so it must, for reading leads nowhere but to questions. I f books are to be burned, Sade's certa inly must be burned along with the rest. But i f, ultimately, freedom has any meaning, any meaning profounder than the facile utterances that fill our speeches and l itter the columns of our peri-

Foreword .. Xlll

odicals, then, we submit, they should not. At any rate, it is not our intention to enter any special plea for Sade. Nor to apologize for one of our civil ization's treasures. Disinterred or left underground, Sade neither gains nor loses. While for us . . . the worst poverty may be said to consist in the ignorance of one ' s riches.

* * *

Grea t writing needs no j ustification, no complex exegesis : i t is its own defense. Still, the special nature of Sade's work, the legend attached to his name, and the unusual length of time intervening between the writing and the present publication seemed to call for some introduction, both critical and biographical. Thus, Part One of the p resent volume aims at situating Sade in his times and among his familiars. For the brief biography in the form of a Chronology, the editors have relied primarily upon, and are indebted to, Maurice Heine ' s outline for a proj ected Life contained in Volume I of his (Euvres chois ies et Pages Magis trales du Marquis de Sade. We also owe a p articular debt to Gilbert Lely, Heine's close friend and heir to the grea t scholar 's papers. The extent o f both thei r contributions to the establishment of a valid Sade biography, and to a fuller understanding of both the man and his work, is de­ tailed elsewhere.

Sade's letters are p articularly revealing. We have included seven, ranging over an almost thirty-year period from the year of his marriage when he was twenty-three to the time of his release from the Monarchy' s dungeons by the Revolutiona ry government, when he was over fifty. Letter I i s from an unpublished manuscript, and is cited in Volume I of Lely's biography ; Letters I I , I I I , IV, and V are from L'Aigle Mademoiselle . • . ;1 Letters VI and VII are from Paul Bourdin's Correspondance.

We have included two exploratory essays on Sade. The first, by Jean Paulhan, was written in 1946 as the Preface for a second edition of Les Infortunes de la r erlu published that year. The second, by Maurice Blanchot, forms part o f that author's volume

1 For full details of publication, see the Bibliography.

XlV .. THE MARQUIS DE SADE

entitled Lautreamont el Sade which was published by Les Editions de Minuit in 1 949 . They form part of a growing body of perceptive Sade criticism which has developed over the past two or three decades.

The "Note Concerning My Detention" was first published in Cahiers personnels (1803-1804) . Sade's "Last Will and Testa­ ment" has only recently been published in its entirety in French,2 and is here offered in English for the fil-st time.

I f, through the ma terial in Part One, we have tried to situate Sade, we have not attempted to conceal the singularity of his tastes or in any wise to depict him other than he was. He was a volup­ tuary, a libertine-let it not be forgotten that the latter term derives from the Latin liber: "free"-an exceptional man of ex­ ceptional penchants, passions, and ideas. But a monste r ? In his famous grande lettre to Madarp.e de Sade, dated February 20, 1 7 8 1, and written while he was a prisoner in the Bastille, Sade declares:

I am a libertine, but I am neither a criminal nor a murderer [italics Sade's], and since I am compelled to set my apology next to my vindica­ tion, I shall therefore say that it might well be possible that those who condemn me as unjustly as I have been might themselves be unable to offset their infamies by good works as clearly established as those I can contrast to my errors. I am a libertine, but three families residing in your area have for five yean lived off my charity, and I have saved them from the farthest depths of poverty. I am a libertine, but I have saved a de­ serter from death, a deserter abandoned by his entire regiment and by his colonel. I am a libertine, but at Evry, with your whole family looking on, I saved a child-at the risk of my life-who was on the verge of being crushed beneath the wheels of a runaway horse-drawn cart, by snatching the child from beneath it. I am a libertine, but I have never compromised my wife's health. Nor :lave I been guilty of the other kinds of libertinage so often fatal to children's fortunes: have I ruined them by gambling or by other expenses that might have deprived them of, or even by one day foreshortened, their inheritance? Have I managed my own fortune badly, as long as I had a say in the matter? In a word, did I in my youth herald a heart capable of the atrocities of which I today stand accused? ... How therefore do you presume that, from so innocent a childhood and youth, I have suddenly arrived at the ultimate of premeditated horror? no, you do not believe it. And you who today tyrannize me so cruelly, you do not

2 In Volume II of Lely's biog,aphy.

Foreword + xv

believe it either: your vengeance has beguiled your mind, you have pro­ ceded blindly to tyrannize, but your heart knows mine, it judges it more fairly, and it knows full well it is innocent.s

I t was as a l ibertine that Sade first ran afoul of the authorities. I t was society-a society Sade termed, not unjustly, as " thoroughly corrupted"-that feared a man so free it condemned him for half his adult life, and in so doing made of him a writer. If there i s a disparity between the life and the writings, the society that immured him i s to blame. With his usual perception about himself, Sade once noted in a letter to his wife that, had the authorit ies any insight, they would not have locked him up to plot and daydream and make philosophical disquis itions as wild and vengeful and absolute as any ever formulated ; they would have set him free and surrounded him wi th a harem on whom to feast. But societies do not cater to strange tastes ; they condemn them. Thus Sade became a writer.

In presenting Sade the writer, in Parts Two and Three of the present volume, we made a number of fundamental decisions at the outset. We first decided to include nothing but complete works. Otherwise, in our opinion, the endeavor was pointless. Further, as Sade was a writer both of works he acknowledged and works he disclaimed ( and who is to say which of the two types most fairly represents him ? ) i t seemed essential to offer examples of both sorts. Without which, again, the endeavor was pointless-and hypocriti­ cal. Finally, in making our selections we have obviously chosen works we believe represent him fairly and are among his best.

Part Two consists of two of his philosophical dialogues. The first, Dialogue between a Pries t and a Dying Man, written in 1782 and until recently thought to be Sade's earliest literary effort, was not published until 1 926. The present translation i s from the origi­ nal edition. The second, Philosophy in the Bedroom, was first pub­ l ished in 1 7 9 5 , not under Sade's name, or only by inference : it appeared simply as "by the Author of Ius tine." It i s a major work, represents a not unfair example of the clandestine writings, and contains the justly famous philosophical-political tract, "Yet An­ other Effort, Frenchmen, If You Would Become Republicans," which i s a s good, as reasonably concise a summation of his view-

3 Marquis de Sade: L' Aigl�, Mademoiselle ...

XVI + THE MARQUIS DE SADE

point as we have. It is a work of amazing vigor, imbued throughout with Sade's dark-but not bitter-humor, and creates a memorable cast of Sa dean characters. Although Lely deems it the "least cruel" of h i s clandestine writings, Philosophy will reveal wha t all the clamor is about. The translation is from the 1 95 2 edition published by Jean-Jacques Pauvert.

Two of Sade's moral tales make up Part Three. Eugenie de Franval, which dates from 1 788, is generally judged to be one of the two or three best novella-length works which Sade wrote and i s , in the opinion of many, a minor masterpiece of eighteenth-century French l iterature. The translation is from the 1 9 5 9 edition of Les Crimes de l'Amour published by Jean-Jacques Pauvert. Finally, the inclusion of Justine, here presented for the first time in its complete form, was mandatory. It i s Sade's most famous novel, although there are several more infamous. I t is the work, too, which bridges the gap between the avowed and the clandestine, and is thus of special i nterest. For if it is true that, consciously or unconsciously, Sade was seeking condemnation, with Justine he was seeing to wha t lengths he could go and remain read. The translation is from the 1 950 edi tion published by Le Soleil Noir, which contains a preface by Georges Bataille.

Each of the four works presented i s di rectly p receded by a historical-bibliographical note which will , we trust, help s i tuate i t.

It i s our hope that this volume will contribute to a better understanding of a man who has too long been steeped in shadow. I f i t does, i t will be blt slight retribution for the countless ig­ nominies to which Sade was subjected during his long, tormented, and incredibly patient life, and during the century and a half since his death.

In his will, Sa de ordered that acorns be strewn over h is grave, "in order that, the spot become green aga in, and the copse grown back thick over i t , the traces of my grave may di sappear from the face of the earth, as I trJst the memory of me shall fade out of the minds of men .... " Of all Sade's prophecies small or splendid, thi s one , about himself, seems the least likely to come true.

R.S . , A.W.

Publisher's Preface

Donatien-Alphonse-Franc;ois de Sade, better known to history as the Marquis de Sade, has rarely, i f ever, had a fair hearing. A good portion of his adult l ife was spent in the prisons and dungeons and asylums of the sundry French governments under which he lived­ Monarchy, Republic, Consulate, and Empire. During his li fetime , or shortly a fter h i s death, most of h i s wri tings were destroyed either by acts of God or by acts of willful malice, not only by Sade' s enemies but also by h i s friends and even h i s family-which was chiefly concerned with erasing his dark stain from its honored escutcheon. As recently as World War I I , some of Sade' s personal notebooks and correspondence, which had miraculously been pre­ served for over a century and a quarter, fell into the hands of the pillaging Germans and were lost, rendered unintelligible by ex­ posure to the elements, or simply destroyed. Of Sade's creative work-excepting his letters and diaries-less than one fourth of what he wrote has come down to us .

"Come down to us" i s hardly an apt description, for though this quarter has indeed survived, only a small fraction has ever been made public, at least until very recently. The aura of infamy about the author's name has been such that even the most innocent­ meaning "relatively non-scandalous ," for in Sade nothing is wholly innocent-of his works has often been proscribed by the censors or by acts of self-censorship on the part o f scholars and publishers. Although he was far from forgotten throughout the nineteenth century-as Jean Paulhan notes in his now classic essay on Justine, Sade was read and consulted by many of the most significant writers

XVII

XVlll + THE t-lARQlJIS DE SADE

of the preceding century-he was relegated and confined to a nether region, to a clandestinity from which, it seemed tacitly to be agreed, he should never emerge. If, as many, including the editors of the present volume, tend to believe, this scandalous neglect-or neglect due to scandal-was the fate to which Sade truly aspired, then the nineteenth century represents the zenith of his triumph, for it was the nadir of his influerce. Dominated as it was in spirit by the plump , prim figure of Victoria Regina, this age would doubtless have echoed the lofty sentiments expressed by Charles Villiers, who issued the following exemplary challenge to his compatriots:

Let all decent and resp(�ctable people conspire together to destroy as many copies of Justine as they can lay their hands upon. For myself, I am going to purchase the three copies which are still at my booksellers and consign them to the fire. i\1ay my action serve as a general alarm.1

As the century waned, however , a few influential voices were raised in dissent, not only refusing to share the prevailing opinion but daring to take issue with it. "It is necessary," wrote Baudelaire, "to keep coming back to Sa de, again and again." Swinburne pub­ licly acknowledged his debt to Sade :

I deplore with all my heart this incurable blindness, this reiterated, philis­ tine stubbornness whid yet holds you in the chains of the goddess Virtue and prevents you from appreciating the true worth of this Great Man to whom I am indebted (and what, indeed, do I not owe to him?) for whatever I have inadequately been able to express with regard to my sentiments toward God and man. I am compelled to believe that God has hardened your heart; I can find no other explanation for your indifference to the singular but surprising merits of the Marquis.

He then went on to prophesy ecstatically:

The day and the century will come when statues will be erected to him in the walls of every city, and when at the base of every statue, sacrifices will be offered up unto him.2

While that day, and that century, are not yet at hand, our own era has witnessed an evolution , if not a revolution , in the attitude of at l east the more enlightened, regarding both the life and writ-

1 Maurice Nadeau: "Exploration de Sade," in Marquis de Sade: (Euvrcs, Textcs chaisies par l'vIaurice Nadeau, La Jeune Parque, Paris, 19-+7.

2 Gilbert Lely: Marceaux ch"isis de Danatien-A lphanse-Fran(ais At arquis de Sad" Pierre Segher., Paris, 19+8.

Publisher's Preface .. xix

ings of the Marquis de Sade ( for both have been condemned, and as the name of the author affects one's attitude toward the work, so the work affects and colors the legend of the l i fe) .

In 1909, the amazingly eclectic Guillaume Apollinaire, as a result of his research in the Enfer o f the Bibliotheque N ationale in Paris , published a selection of Sade's work and, in his Introduction, proclaimed him to be " th e freest spirit that ever lived." In the ensuing half-century, an increasing number of voices were raised in Sade ' s behalf ; writers and critics not only extolled him vaguely, but were reading him, examining his work as i t had never been examined before. Among them were Andre Breton, Jean Paulhan, Maurice Blanchot, Pierre Klossowski , Simone de Beauvoir, and Maurice Nadeau, all of whom applied themselves diligently to discovering the secret of this extraordinary man, the likes of whdm the world had never seen e i ther before or since. However much these critics may differ as to their conclusions, they are all agreed on one funda­ mental point : Sade i s a writer of the first importance, and one who must be taken seriously. As Maurice Blanchot aptly notes : It i s not incredible to think that, in Sade, we have the most absolute writer who has ever lived, and, yet, for a century and a half, we have chosen to ignore him? And is not this choice voluntarily to ignore him, on the grounds that his work and doctrine are too somber, too anarchistic, too blasphemous, too erotic-the charges vary with the censor-bo th doubtful and dangerous, a choice on the side of dark­ ness ?

N one o f this serious criticism and intellectual speculation would have been possible, however, without the work, during the third and fourth decades of this century, o f that exemplary Sade scholar , Maurice Heine. For fifteen years, with p ainstaking care , h e sifted through the mountain of manuscripts entombed in the Bibliotheque N ationale in Paris and in a dozen other libraries and museums throughout France, constantly revealing new material that had been believed lost, meticulously comp aring various manuscripts and published versions and thus restoring to their pristine state works that h a d been truncated or emasculated. Thanks to him, during the ten-year span from 1926 to 1935, the following works of Sade were published :

xx 4- THE MARQUIS DE SADE

Historiettes, Con tt·s et fabliaux, in 1 926 j Dialogue en tre un pretre et un moribond, also in 1 926; Les Infortunes de La Vertu, being the original draft of Justine,

in 1930; Lcs 120 JOllrnces de Sodome, ou I'Ecole du Libertinage, the

"lost manuscript of the Bastille" miraculously recovered and finally publ ished, i n three volumes, from 1 931 to 1 935.

Since Heine's death in 1 940,3 his work has been carried on with equal devotion and unflagging enthus iasm by Gilbert Lely, who had first met the elder scholar in 1933, and from almost the moment of that firs t encounter took up the torch which he still bears today.4 Lely's defini tive, two-volume biography, La Vie du Marquis de Sade, was published by Librair ie Gallimard in 195 2 and 1957, and offers a more complete and detailed view of Sade than has ever before been available. Moreover, Lely's research led him to dis­ cover, in the Conde-en-B rie chateau of Count Xavier de Sade, an unhoped-for collection of previously unknown Sade material, in­ cluding more than a hundred and fifty letters-most of which are addressed to the Marqris' w i fe-which the author wrote between 1 777 and 1 786, while he was a pr isoner in Vincennes and the Bas­ tille. To date, Lely has published ninety-one of these letters, in three different volumes ;Ii they form a remarkable record of Sade's exis tence during this crucial and yet so productive period of his l i fe and, together with the earl i er correspondence, offer a formi-

3 M aurice Heine, 1884-1 940. A poet as well a. a scholar, Heine h as often been de­ scribed as "the inventor of Sade." Andre B reton, in his eulogy to Heine, published in 1 948, makes mention of him as a man .prung "from the depths of the eighteenth cen­ tury, with his encyclopedic culture . . . a man .0 l ost among us." (Cahirrs de la Pliiade, Summer, 1948 ) .

4 Much, one might add, a s Heine took up the torch from Apoll inaire. Heine, in his Preface to HisloriellC!, Conies et tabliaux, rel ates that, shortly before Apollinaire's death, the two men met and dedded that together they would "search out and publish the disjecta membra of Sade. " Apo.llinaire's premature death p"t an end to the joint p roject, but Heine, in spite of roor and failing health, devoted himself for the next twenty years to the task.

5 The three volumes are: L'Aig!e, Madrmoiulle . . . , George Artigues, Paris, 1 949; Le Carillon de Pincennes, Arcanes, Paris, 1 953; Monsieur Ie 6, Juillard, Paris, 1 954.

Publisher's Preface + XXI

dable record of , and cast new light upon, this much maligned and misunderstood man.

To this constantly increasing store of newly discovered ma­ terial has been added new editions, based on sound documentation, of Sade's major writings. In France, over the past fifteen years, a courageous young publisher, Jean-Jacques Pauvert, has systemati­ cally brought out the complete works of Sade, in twenty-seven vol­ umes, prefaced by the most cogent of contemporary essays. More recently, in Scandinavia , integral editions of the major Sa de writ­ ings have begun to appear, and in tiny Denmark a project similar to Pauvert' s pioneering effort is underway.

In English, however, there is still precious little material avail­ able, and, a s the editors have indicated, even that, at best, i s in the form of largely innocuous fragments carefully culled so as not to offend ; at worst, and this is a more recent development, totally spurious editions of Sade have appeared-what the editors have referred to as the "cheap-paperback pastiche"-baldly proclaiming to be complete. One can only lament that these gross misrepresenta­ tions may yet accomplish what all the censors and calumniators have thus far failed to do over the past two hundred years : these shoddy, and indeed execrable rehashes of his work may yet bury Sa de.

We boast that we have shrugged off the hypocriti c coils of Victorianism, that the last bastions of censorship are on the verge of falling, and yet Sade still remains locked in the library keeps of the world. "I address myself only to those persons capable of hear­ ing me," Sade once remarked. To date we have never allowed his works to seek that audience of hardy "capables ," preferring to judge and sentence them without a public hearing. Thus today we only know him by the words he contributed to the language: sadism, sadistic, sadist. But to know him and judge him by these epithets alone i s to ignore what Sade i s and means. He is, for example , much more than that shunned and restricted pillar of pornography on which his reputation rests, for it has been adequately demonstrated that nothing dates more quickly than real obscenity, in whatever sphere, and Sade has steadfastly refused to date or die. To endure, a writer cannot rely or base his work upon that dubious foundation,

XXll .. THE MARQUIS DE SADE

and those writers over the span of the past century who have been attacked as too coarse or too candid for public consumption and who have survived-B audelaire, Flaubert, Zola among the late­ nineteenth-century Frerch notables; Joyce, D. H. Lawrence, and Henry Miller more recently and in our own language-have sur­ vived precisely because of other qualities. So is it with Sa de.

What is strange, and worth investigating, is how, given the neglect, the quasi-total condemnation of his writings-how has Sade survived? What is there in his work that has caused it so to endure? Its eroticism? To be sure. Its shock qualities, based on a philosophy of negation which, as the editors note, no "reasonable man can understand, much less accept? No doubt. Its imaginative power, which is of such scope and magnitude as to create an entire uni­ verse, a self-contained world not of human comedy but of human (and super-human) tra gedy, surreal rather than real, a writhing,

insensate universe at the pole opposite Gethsemane and Golgotha? Yes, that too. And yet, to date, we have preferred to immure the man and ignore his writings, fearing his absolute vision.

To profit from that extraordinary vision, however, we do not have to subscribe to it. But if we ignore it, we do so at our own risk. For to ignore Sade is to choose not to know part of ourselves, that inviolable part which lurks within each of us and which, eluding the light of reason, can, we have learned in this century, establish absolute evil as a rule of conduct and threaten to destroy the world.

Now, twenty years after the end of the world's worst holo­ caust, after the burial of that master of applied evil, Adolph Hitler, we believe there is added reason to disinter Sade. For though his works speak for themselves and need no apology, they will also serve to remind us, in an age which legislates billions to construct bigger and better doomsday machines, bombs that can wipe out entire populations and missiles to deliver them with incredible swiftness and unerring aim, of the absolute evil of which man is capable. Surely, if we can accept to live with the daily specter of the absolute bomb, we can accept as well to live with the works of this possessed and exceptional man, who may be able to teach us a trifle more about ourselves.

THE PUBLISHER

CJhe UY(arquis

der:Jade

Part (9ne Critical

6fJ Biographical

The Marquis de Sade and His Accomplice

by Jean Paulhan, of l'Academie Fran�aise

I. THE SECRET

Ov�r the past few years we have come to understand what has made for the greatest best seller of all time, the success of the New Testament. I t is because this book has its secret. On every page, in every line, this book implies some­ thing never flatly stated, but which intrigues and involves us all the more on that account. And since in this piece we shall not have anything further to say about the Gospel, nothing need prevent us from disclosing its secret.

It is that Jesus Christ is light of heart. As shown us by the New Testament, he is solemn and rather pensive , ir­ ritated sometimes, at other times in tears, and always very serious. But we detect something else, something the New Testament does not tell us : that Jesus is not against an occasional j oke. That he is full of humor . That he now and again talks without rhyme or reason, just to see what will happen ( when he addresses the fig trees, for instance) . In short, that he enjoys himself.

I would not like to hurt anyone 's feelings by comparing the Gospel o f Good with the most ingenious, and also the most extensive, of all Gospels of Evil which a clear-minded and eminently sane rebel once composed. But I still must say it: if Jus tine deserved to be favorite reading-at least during a certain period of their lives-with Lamartine ,

3

4 .. THE MARQUIS DE SADE

Baudelaire, and Swinburne, with Barbey d'Aurevilly and Lautreamon t, with Nietzsche, Dostoevski , and Kafka (or, on a slightly different plane, with Ewerz, Sacher-Masoch, and M i rbeau ) it is because this strange although apparently simple book, which the writers of the nineteenth century­ hardly ever designating i t by name-spent their time pla­ giarizing, util izing, applying, refuting, this book which posed a question so grave that to answer i t and to fall short of answering i t completely was as much as an entire century could achieve, this book contains i ts secret too. I shall come back to i t. But first let 's settle the question of immorality.

II . CONCERNING CERTAIN DANGEROUS BOOKS

Is there anything to be added to what has already been sai d about the advantage and need of punishment for the wrongdoer ? There are a thousand opinions on the subj ect, and a hundred thousand treatises have been written ; and yet it seems to me that the crux of the matter has been neglected , possibly because i t is too obvious, because it goes without saying. Well, saying it will make it better still.

The first point is only too evident: that criminals are a menace, tha t they imperil society and are a threat to the human race i tself, from whose standpoint, for example , i t would be better i f there were no murderers. If the law left each o f us at l iberty to kill his neighbors (as often we woul d l i k e to do ) a n d h i s p arents (which t h e psychoanalysts claim is what we basically desi re ) , there would not b e many people left al ive on earth. Only friends would be left. Not even friends would be left, for finally-though this is a detail we usually forget to consider-our friends are themselves the fathers, sons, or neighbors of somebody. I move on to the second point, which is equally obvious once one gives it a l ittle thought.

This s econd point i s that criminals are in general curious people, more curious than law-abiding people: I mean unusual, giving more food for thought. And though

Jean Paulhan + 5

i t may happen that they u tter nothing but banalities , they are more surprising to l i sten· to-owing precisely to this contrast between the dangerous content within and the inoffensive appearance without. Of all this the authors of detective s tories are very aware: no sooner do we begin to suspect the honest country lawyer or the worthy pharmacist of having once upon a time poisoned a whole family, than the sl ightest thing he s ays warrants our most avid a ttention, and he needs but predict a change in the wea ther for us to sense he is meditating some new crime. Moralists declare that it suffices to have brought an end, even through negli- gence, to a single human l i fe in order to feel oneself utterly changed. And moralists are imprudent in saying so, for all of us desire to feel such a change in ourselves. It's a wish as old as the world; i t's more or less the story of the Tree of Good and Evil. And i f discretion ordinarily restrains us from changing ourselves to this extent, we nevertheless have the keen desire to frequent those who have undergone the experience, to befriend them, to espouse their remorse (and the Knowledge that comes thereof). The only point to remember here is the conviction I referred to earl ier that an assassin is not someone to encourage; and that through a dmiring him we participate in some vast plot against man and society. And here i s where even those among us who are not overly scrupulous find themselves all of a sudden betwixt and between, torn by conflicting feelings, de- prived alike of the advantages of a good conscience and of a bad. Here is where punishment intervenes.

I may safely assert that it straightens out everything. As of the moment the thi e f i s robbed in h i s turn-if not always of his money, at least of some years of h i s l i fe , which are worth money and a good deal more besides-and the assassin assassinated, we may without hesitation associate with them, and for example, while they are still alive, bring

Shortcomings and merits of criminals

them oranges in prison; we may become fond of them, Advantages of enamored of them, we can even feast upon their words : punishmen t they are paying, they have paid. This we know; i t was yet better known by the kings and queens and saints who in

6 .. THE MARQUIS DE SADE

olden days used to accompany criminals up to the scaffold, and who would even, l ike Saint C a therine, catch a few drops of thei r blood to save. (And who today is not stirred by gratitude toward the handful of men who teach us, as they pay the extreme penalty, the danger and the very meaning, which had become lost to m., of treason ? 1)

This i s what I have been driving a t : for one hundred and fi fty years i t has been the custom to frequent Sade through the intermediary of other authors. We do not read Les Crimes de I ' Amour, instead we read L' Auberge de I ' ange gardien; nor do we read Philosophy in the Bedroom but Beyo nd Good and Evil; nor Les In/ortunes de la f/ ertu, but The Castle or The Trial; nor Juliette, but Weird Women; nor La Nouvelle Jus tine, but Le Jardin des sup­ plices; nor Le Porte/euill.:' d'un homme de leures (which has , moreover, been lost ) but Les Memoires d'ou tre-tombe. And in such timidity one <:an find l i ttle else than the effect of the scruples I mentioned earl ier . Yes, it i s true that Sade was a dangerous man : sensual, violent-tempered, a knave upon occasion, and (in his dreams if not elsewhere ) atro­ ciously cruel. For not only does he invi te us to slay our neighbors and our parents, he would have us kill our own wives. He would go even furthe r : he would with pleasure see the whole of mankind done away with, to make room for some new invention of Nature. He was not particularly sociable ; nor social e i ther. He cared about liberties . He had l iberties on the bra in . But these are scruples we can set a t rest.

For Sade paid, and paid dearly. He spent thirty years of his l i fe i n various b astilles, fortresses, o r keeps of the Monarchy, then o f the Republic , of the Terror, of the Con­ sulate and of the Emp i re . "The freest spirit," sa id Apol­ l inaire , "tha t has ever lived." The most imprisoned body, a t any rate. It has sometimes been maintained that to all his novels there is a single key, and that it i s cruelty (and that, I would maintain, i s to take a simple view of them ) . But far

1 This essay dates from 1946.-Tr.

Jean Paulhan *' 7

more surely, to all his adventures and to all his books there is a single end, and tha: i s pri son. There i s even a mystery in so many arrests and illternments.

Let us see how 'veil the crime corresponds to the punishment. I t seems e;tabl i shed that Sade gave a spank­ ing to a whore in Pari�, : does that fit with a year in ja il? Some aphrodis iac sweets to some girls in Marseill es : does that justi fy ten years i n the Bastille? He seduces h is si ster­ in-law : does that justi f;' a month in the Conci e rgerie? He causes no end of bother to his powerful, h is redoubtable in­ laws, the President and the Presidente de :'v1ontreuil: does that justi fy two years in a fortress? He enables several moderates to escape (we are in the midst of the Terror ) : does that just ify a yeaI' in Madelonnettes? It i s acknowl­ edged that he published some obscene books, that he at­ tacked Bonaparte's entomage; and i t is not impossible that he feigned madness. Does tlat justi fy fourteen years in Charen­ ton, three in Bicetre, and one in Sainte-PeIagie ? \Vould it not strongly appea r as i f, for a whole string of French govern­ ments, any and every excuse sufficed for clapping him behind bars? and, who knows, is if Sade did about all he could to get himself imprisoned? Perhaps; one thing however i s certain : we know that �ade ran his risks; that he accepted them-that he multiplied them. We also know that in read­ ing him we are possibly running risks of our own. Here am I, free to think what thoughts I will about that descendant of the chaste Laure de :�oves ,2 to wonder what there may have been that was gooe in him, and at any rate delightful; to muse upon that extreme distinction, upon those blue eyes into which, when he waf a child, ladies liked to look; upon tha t faint hint of effeminacy about his figure, upon those sparkling teeth;3 upon those wartime triumphs; upon that

2 Wife o f Pau l de S ade, w 10m she married in 1325. Famous for her beauty, she was the "Laur a" of Petrarch's Sonnets. \Vhether she was actu ally Petrarch's mistress or .lOt ha s never been proved.-Tr.

3 Of Sade not a single port",it from life has come down to us. I borrow these details from letters, frOID police descriptions, also from the image Sade gives of himself in A line et F aleaur.

Sade paid, and paid more than his share

8 + THE MARQUIS DE SADE

violent bent for pleasure ; upon those repartees, impetuous but subtle and perhaps tinged with something of cockiness and vainglory ; upon the young Provenc;al nobleman whose vassals come to do him homage, and who i s accompanied wherever he goes by the too faithful love, the love-in-spite­ of-everything of that tall and somewhat equine and rather boisterous Renee-his wife-at bottom a good and gentle woman.

III . THE DIVINE MARQUIS

I shall leave aside the special efficacity Duclos had in mind when he spoke of "those books you read with only one hand." Not that it isn't interesting, and to a certain extent sensational: more than one very serious and even abstruse writer has dreamed that his writings might exert a similar influence, generate similar repercussions ( on other levels, o f course ) . But touching all thi s there i s not much to be said, since such results are Ilsually unpredictable. Then, too, it i s u sually agreed that veiled language and allusion ( or i f you prefer, teasing and smuttiness) a r e more apt to produce them than forthright and unadorned obscenity. Now, veiled language and allusion are rare in Sade, and smuttiness non­ existent. Indeed, that may be what i s held against him. Nothing i s further from him than that kind of smug smile, of malicious innuendo which Brantome displays in his tales of thoroughbred distractions, which Voltaire or Diderot show in their spicy passages, and that mincing deviousness which Crebillon, in his stories of alcoves and sofas, brings to discouraging perfection. There is in literature a free­ masonry of pleasure, whose winks and nods and half-spoken enticements and ellipses are known to all i ts members. But Sade breaks with these conventions. He i s a s unhampered by the laws and rules of the erotic novel as was ever an Edgar Allan Poe by those o f the detective story, a Victor Hugo by those of the serial ized novel. He i s unceasingly direct, explicit-tragic too. If at all costs he had to be

Jean Paulhan + 9

classified, i t would b,! among those authors who, as Montaigne once said, castrate you . Surely not among those who titilla te you. And there is another sort of device he spurns.

It i s the one we rrust term the l iterary device . Many a famous work owes it� value-and in any case i ts renown -to the incorporation of an intricate system of l iterary allusions. Volta ire in lli s tragedies, Delille in his poems evoke in every lin e , and take credit in evoking, Racine or Corneill e , or Vi rgil, or Homer. To cite only the nearest rival of Sade ( and, as i 1 were, his competitor in the domain of Evil) it i s fairly obvious that Laclos is steeped to satura­ tion in a l iterature-whereof, moreover, he makes the cleverest, the most inter igent use. Les Liaisons danqereuses i s the j oust of courtly love ( fo r everything consists in find­ ing out whether Valmollt will succeed in meriting Madame de M erteuil ) , waged by R acinian heroines ( neither Phaedra nor Andromache i s lacking ) within the l ists of the facile society p ainted by Crebillon, by N erciat, by Vivant-Denon (fo r everything p rocee,jg straight and briskly to the bed­ chamber-everything at least is envisaged with this denoue­ ment in view). Such i s the key to i ts mystery : discreetly wrapped up inside Les Liaisons i s a l i ttle course on the history of l i terature for grownups . For the most mysterious authors are generally th e most l iterary, and the strangeness in their writings i s owing predsely to the disparate elements they contain, to this yoki 19 together of characters come from the remotest milieux-nd works-who are quite astonished to encounter one anothe r . Laclos, moreover, was never able to rep roduce his prodigious feat again.

But Sade, with h.s glaciers and his gulfs and his terrifying castles, with the unremitting onslaught he de­ livers against God-ard against man himself-with his drumming insi stence and h is repetitions and his dreadful platitudes, with his stubhorn pursuit of a sensational but ex­ haustively rational ized action, with this constantly main­ tained presence of all the parts of the body ( not a one of them but somehow serves ) , of all the mind' s ideas ( Sade

Neither a pornoqrapher nor a littera­ teur

One of those dreams whose source IS In ins tinct

1 0 .. THE MARQUIS DE SADE

had read as widely as Marx ) , with this singular disdain for l iterary artifices but with this unfaltering demand for the truth, with this look of a man forever animated and en­ tranced by one of those undefinable dreams that sometimes take rise in the instinct, with these tremendous squanderings of energy and these expen ditures of l i fe which evoke re­ doubtable primitive festivals-or great modern wars, festi­ vals of another sort perl: aps-with these vast ra idings of the world or, better still , this looting he i s the first to perpetrate on man, Sade ha �; no need of analyses or of alter­ natives, of images o r of dramati c turns o f events, of elegance or of ampl ifications. He neither distingu i shes nor separates . He repeats himself over again. His books remind one of the sacred books of the great rel igions. From them emanates , for br ief instants caught in s ome maxim-

Dangerous moments there are when the physical self is fired by the mind's extravagances . . . . There i s no better way to familiarize oneself with death than through the medium of a libertine idea.

They declaim against the passions without bothering to think that i t i s from their flame philosophy l ights its torch . . . .

- ( and what maxims they are ! ) that mighty and obsessing murmur which sometimes arises from l i terature, and is perhaps i ts just ification : A:l1iel ,4 Montaigne , the Kalevala , the Ramayana . I f i t be obj ected that these I include among sacred books have never had their religion nor their fai th­ ful , I shall begin my reply by saying that it is a very good thing and that we should be glad ( thereby being in a freer position to judge the books on the i r own merits instead of by their effects ) . Upon further thought , I shall add that I am not so sure a fter all , and that the religion in question was by i ts very nature condemned to clandestinity-but able , from hid ing , to address an appeal to us now and then : three l ines out of Baudelaire :

Who hide a whip under thei r trailing robes And mingle, in the dismal wood and lonely night, The foam of pleasure with the flow of tears.

-----

• Of al l Arnie! wrote only a twentieth has so far been published.

I can Paulhan .. 1 1

Joseph de Maistre 's remark : "Woe unto the nation that were to ban torture" ;5 Swinburne ' s phrase "the martyred Marquis" ; Lautreamon : 's "Cruelty 's delights ! They are delights that endure" ; P ushkin's observation upon "the j oy we are hurled into by whatever heralds death." As for Chateaubri and-I am way of the somewhat murky pleasure that Chateaubriand, among others , derives from the death of women who once love i him, o f regimes he fought for, of the religion he believes the true one. And there are reasons, Sade divine though they are not ea �ily elucidated reasons, why Sade if n o t a has so often been des ignated as the Divine Marquis . marquis \Vhether or not he actudly was a marquis is open to ques- tion ; but there is no que:;tion that a certain number of per- sons, and apparently re: ;pectable persons, held him to be divine-or properly diaholical, which i s something akin.

Still, on this score 1 doubt does assail me. I wonder, when today I behold so many writers struggling so hard and so consciously to avoid I i :erary a rtifice in the ir treatment of an indescribable event o f whose e rotic and at the same time frightful character we a re given every assurance, mindful in all ci rcumstances to mi sconstrue Creation, and busy look­ ing for the sublime in the infamous, the great in the sub­ versive, demanding furti lermore that every work commit and compromise i ts author forever in keeping with a kind of efficacity ( which i s n,>t without its resemblance to the wholly physiological and local efficacity I referred to earl ier ) , I wonder if Oll( i s not compelled to recognize, in a terror so extreme, less an invention than a remembrance , less an ideal than a nosta 19i a , and in short i f our contempo­ rary literature, in that area where i t seems to us most alive -most aggressive , in a ly case-is not oriented enti rely toward the past and, to )e precise, dominated, determined by Sade as eighteenth-cen tury tragedy was by Racine.

But my aim was only to talk about Ius tine.

5 Cf. "The submission of the reople is never due to anything other than violence and the frequent use of t orture . . . . " (La Nouvelle Justine, Book IV. )

The riddle of the Go thic novel

1 2 + THE MARQUIS DE SADE

IV. THE SURPRISES OF LOVE

Well, Justine posses:;es every virtu e , and for each of them she finds herself punished. C ompassionate Justine i s robbed by a beggar. Piou s , she i s raped by a monk. Honest, she i s fleeced by a usurer. She refuses to become the accom­ plice in a la rceny, a poi soning, an a rmed assault ( for ill luck and poverty cast her into strange company ) , and it is she, the clumsy one, who is charged with theft, with brig­ andage, with murder. And so it goes with her throughout. And yet, against villainies of every description the only weapons Justine knows how to use are a pure heart and a sensitive soul. They prov,:: inadequate : to whomever abuses her she brings good fortu 1e, and the monsters who torment her become a minister, sll fgeon to His Maj esty, a milli on­ aire . Here's a novel which bears every resemblance to those edifying works in which vice i s seen punished every time, and virtue rewarded. Except that in Ius tine it 's the other way around ; but this novel ' s failing, strictly from the view­ point of the novel ( which is our viewpoint ) , remains the same : the reader always knows how things are going to end. Now I us tine' s endini� fails even of the tri teness which finally made an unduly v i rtuous conclusion one o f the con­ ventions of the novel, a convention hardly less tried and true than a novel ' s division into chapters o r episodes. Sade, from all evidence, takes h is unhappy denouements extremely seriously, and shows himself taken unaware by them every time. And the strangest thing of all i s that they take us una ware too.

This sllfprise ending poses a singular problem. S ingu­ lar , for Sade will have none of the facil it ies that were com­ monly being employed at about the same period by his rivals, the Gothic novelists. Amazing the reader i s too easy when, like M rs. Radcliffe or M atthew Lewis, you enlist the help of phantoms, supernatural events, infernal machineries, all inherently startling. However, it is with man alone Sade

Jean Paulhan .. 1 3

wishes t o deal ; and, h e specifies, with natural man such as he had been p ainted by, for example, Richardson or Fielding.' Therefore no ogres or wizards, no angels or demons­ above all no gods! -but rather the human faculty which forges these gods, angels, or demons, rather the vices or virtues which, when they lead us into startling situations, set this faculty to work. The riddle thus posed has two or three words, the first of them being a very plain and every­ day one : modesty.

It is a curious thing that the eighteenth century, to which we owe the most cynical descriptions of manners in our literature, also gave us two great portraitists of modesty : one of them, as everybody knows, was M arivaux. The other, and i t is beyond me why everybody persists in not knowing it, was Sade. I t is curious, o r rather i t i s not curious at all. So much fear and trembling in the face of love and so much defiance of fear , so many self-respects to preserve and so many withdrawals into the self, and this refusal to use one' s eyes and ears which reveals and at the same time protects everything that was finally to go under the title of marivaudage-for- M a rivaux shares with Sade the dubious distinction of having left his name to a certain form of amorous behavior : and I am not sure, indeed, that the attribution i s any more correct or better understood in the case of Sade than in that of M a rivaux ; that shyness and that dread of being hurt are only explicable , only under­ standable if there are chances of being hurt and if, in sum, love i s a perilous affair. M a rivaux' heroines are modest to such a degree one would think they had read Jus tine. While Justine herself . . .

Whatever be falls her , Justine is unprepared for it. Experience teaches her nothing. Her soul remains ignorant, her body more ignorant still. One cannot even allow her an occasional flutter of the eyelashes, a hint of a smile. N ever will she take the first step. Even when i n love, i t ' does not occur to her to kiss Bressac. "Although my imagi-

6 Cf. "Idee sur Ie. romans," S ade's preface to Les Crimes de l'Amour.

Sade, pain ter of modes ty

1 4 '*' T H E MARQ U I S DE SADE

nation ," she �ays, "may sometimes have strayed to these pleasures, I beli eved them to be chaste as the God who in­ spired them, given by Nature to serve as consolation to humans, engendered of love and of sensibility ; very far was I from believing that man, after the example of beasts . . . " Each time she i s amazed when upon her are performed operations whose meaning she scarcely suspects, and whose inte rest she fails totally to comprehend. She is the image of the most heart-rending virtue-and, alas , of virtue most heartlessly ren t. " Modesty," they used to say in those days, "is a quality you put on with pins . . . . " But as worn by Justine, the pi ns go through into her flesh and bring forth blood when iler dress is removed. Shall it be said that i t re­ quires conside rable good grace on the part of the reader to let himself be surprised and hurt along with her ? No ; for that reader i s free to interpret as moral and sentimental anguishes all the very p hysical anguishes displayed before him. In its movement Jus tine i s kin to those fairy tales where we are told Cinderella i s shod in glass slippers-and we understand immediately ( unless we a re a l i ttle dull ) that Cinderella walks with infinite caution. And then too we live on the verge o f the strange. What, when you come down to it , is more str:mge than at the end of one's arms to have these queer prehensile organs, reddish and wrinkled, one's hands, and l i t}le transparent gems a t the divergent ex­ tremities of th�se hands ? Sometimes we catch ourselves in the act of eating, wholly absorbed in grinding fragments of dead animals between the other gems that stud our mouth. So i t is with the rest ; and among all the things we do there is perhaps not a single one which will brook prolonged at­ tention. However, there exists a domain wherein strange­ ness enters neither by chance nor exceptionally, but where it i s constant and the rule.

For, when all i s sa id and done , we are not greatly bewildered by eating : we have ( vaguely ) the impression that our presen t meal i s the sequel to a thousand past meals, which it strongly resembles and which serve as its gua rantee. Whereas each time we fall in love again, it seems to us-so

Jean Paulhan .. 1 5

incomparable and so indescribable i s every feature o f our beloved-that we have never loved before. Poets speak of cool fountains, of bowers of bliss, of hyacinths and roses ; they speak in vain, for they evoke hardly more than a faint reflection of the greatest surprise life reserves for us.

On another plane, the same surprise stamps the expres­ sions and proverbs used when in common speech the secret organs are referred to as "li ttle brother," "li ttle man," "little friend," "the l i ttle creature that l ives under a bush and lives on seed." What in the world can they have done to us , these organs, that we are thus unable to talk about them simply ? Ah, they do at least this : they refuse to be treated with familiarity. In such sort that the prose writer, regarding them, can only record surprise and bewilder­ ment ?

Yes, doubtless. Or else he may each time vary and renew the reasons for this surprise, so that it i s ever fresh for the reader and never, instead of suggesting the wonder­ ful to him, imposes bewilderment upon him. Thus does Sade proceed, in his own manner. For what finally do such a multitude of approaches to pleasure and so many different and curious ways of making love signi fy if not that the ways of love and pleasure perpetually amaze us , are per­ petually unpredictable ? Jus tine, I have said, reads-or should be read-like a fairy tale. We may add that it is a tale solely concerned with that particular feature of love, paradoxical and in i tself nigh unto incredible , which driv6s lovers, as Lucretia put i t , to ravage the bodies of those they love.

However, there is one final word to the riddle.

V. JUSTINE, OR THE NEW OEDIPUS

Sade did not wait until he reached pri son before be­ ginning to read. He devoured the favorite books of his age. He knew the Encyclopedia by heart. For Voltaire and Rousseau his feelings were a mixture of sympathy and

Love and pleasure are unpredictable

Sade, disciple of the Encyclopedia

16 .. THE MARQUIS DE SADE

aversion. The aversion was on grounds of logic : Sade con­ sidered those two thinkers incoherent. Inconsequent, that was the word for i t then. But he accepted thei r exactingness, thei r principles--and their prejudices. Of which this i s the gist.

The eighteenth century had just made a di scovery, and was not a l ittle proud of it, that a mystery is not an explana­ tion. No, and that a myth isn't an explanation either. On the contrary, i t was noticed that no sooner i s a myth forged than, in order to stand, it needs another myth to support it. The Indians hold that i t i s upon the back of a tortoise that the world is carried. So be i t ; but upon whose back i s the tortoise borne ? It i s God that created the world. All right ; but who created God ? To be sure, this discovery ( if i t deserves the name of one ) had been made earl ier ; but the Encyclopedists now excel in giving i t this popular and, at the same t ime, fashionable form. Henceforth, all talk of God will be for memory's sake ; and it wil l be of a God against whom Voltaire-and later Sade-range man alone, man ( they go on to say ) who i s nothing other than man. Man ( Voltaire adds ) who i s not noble. Natural man, man minus the Fable .

Thi s was to reject straight off all the current charm­ all the perennial facilit ies-of l iterature. This was also to lay oneself open to a new difficulty. For, you know, this lonely man did a fter all have to go and invent God, and the spir its , and the satyrs, and the Minotaur. Now you'll not be very far advanced toward acquaintance with him unti l you have managed--by consulting nothing outside the bounds of human nature-to account for not just our real societies and the passions that agitate them, but also for those vast fantastic societies which accompany them like their shadow. Such is the weight with which , all of a sudden, the death o f God falls upon Letters. Voltaire i s human, I know. He even belongs among the better specimens of common everyday man. However, there is no getting away from the fact that there have been wars and great religions, migrations and

Jean Paulhan .. 1 7

Empires, the Inquisition and human sacrifice-and that, in fine, men have not very often resembled Voltaire.

"N ever mind," replies the Encyclopedia. "We are not p resumptuous . We shall have the necessary patience. We already have man for a start : he is right here, we have him before our eyes. We are companions in exile ( if it be a question of exil e ) . We have but to observe man objectively, to submit him to our investigations. Sooner or later he'll come clean. Should he contrive to hide ( for he i s crafty ) some one or other of his penchants from us , our grand­ children will get a t them. Time is on our s ide. For the present, let us compile our notes and assemble our collec­ tions."

Sade belongs to his age. He too begins with analyzing and patient collecting. That gigantic catalogue of perver­ sions, The 120 Days of Sodom, was for a long time taken to be the summit and conclusion of his work. Not at all ; i t i s the foundation of his work, and the breaking of ground for it. Such a beginning would have won approval from the Encyclopedia. Indeed, for rigorousness Sade outdoes any of the Encyclopedists , who ( thought he) all fall more or less rapidly into dishonesty : some, like Rousseau, because they are weak-na tured and prone to tears, forever being embarrassed by things as they are , always ready to shrink from the sight, from the touch, from the sound of man such as thei r senses perceive him to be , and to chase instead after some sort of kindly savage ( whose existence the history of peoples denies a thousand times over ) . Others, like Vol­ taire , because of their hardheadedness and unemotional character , being quite incapable of believing in the truth of passions they themselves do not experience. Or still others, l ike Diderot, brill iant but frivolous, skipping from one idea to the next. Voltaire's version of man may explain how humankind came to invent the spade ; J ean-Jacques' , the hayloft ; Diderot' s , conversation. But ogres and inquisitions and wars ? "Eh," replies Voltaire , "those poor people were mad. \Ve shall correct all that." "That is exactly wha t I call chea ting," rejoins Sade ; "we set out to understand man, and

Where Vol­ taire and Jean-Jacques cheat

1 8 .. T H E MARQU I S DE SADE

before we have even begun you are already trying to change him."

This rigor-I am much tempted to say, this heroism­ might, it cannot be denied, have played Sade false and led him astray ( as i t did, at about the same period, that hot­ blooded l i ttle fool and very able writer, Restif de la Bre­ tonne ) . Such was not the case. Reiterating them through ten volumes and supporting them with a thousand examples, a Krafft-Ebing was to consecrate the categories and di stinc­ tions the Divine M arquis traced. Later, a Freud was to adopt Sade's very method and principle. There has not, I think, been any other example, in our Letters , of a few novels provi ding the basis , fi fty years after their publication, for a whole sci ence of man. I t must surely be agreed that, before h e was deprived of his liberty, Sade must have been an even keener observer than he was a tireless reader. Or else that a certain fire in him caused him to feel-and also enabled him to intu it-the broadest range of passions. And to me it seems strange that this has not earned him more gratitude. That sa id , i t i s all too obvious that scientific rigor, in such matters, entails i ts danger : it usually leads to award­ ing overmuch and too exclusive importance, in the study of the p assions, to the physical aspect of love ( as, in social economy, i t leacls to overemphasis upon individual interest ) . For the existence o f the soul, even the existence of the mind, may be easily denied ; but not copulation.

Another facility ; and Sade refuses it no less severely. That which is common to most erotic books, and which i s absent from his , i s , a s w e have noted, a certain superior tone ( and it could j ust as well be called an inferior tone ) , a certain a ir of sufficiency ( or insufficiency, if you prefer to call i t that ) . More preci sely, a certain stiltedness, an aloof­ ness of style , a certain abrupt divergence of style from content. For l iterature halts, and so almost does language, before an event ( which is sometimes called animal, or bes­ ti al ) wherewith the mind seems to have nothing to do ; and which one therefore confines oneself to ascertaining and recording, either-like Boccaccio or Crebillon-with an

Jean Paulhan + 1 9

amused sati sfaction, o r with a few reservations, like Mar­ garet of Navarre or Godart d'Aucourt. But this divorce they establish, this di stance they preserve is unacceptable to Sade. " Man is all of a piece ," says he, "and lucid. There is nothing he does but he does it as a reasoning being." Whence it is his heroes accept themselves for what they are, con­ stantly, down to their last aberrations, and keep themselves under the ir mind's survey. "We buggers ," one of them declares ( but all the others speak in the same vein ) , "pride ourselves upon our frankness and upon exactitude in our principles." Speeches and reflections are what set them in action.

Therein resides thei r weakness. For reflections and speeches could then also appease them. No argument, how­ ever wise, does not accept in advance to bow before a re­ buttal i f in the latter it recognizes wisdom superior to i ts own. Thus does the Leonore o f A line e t J7 alcour more than once elude rape by means of the excellent pretexts she invents on the spur o f the moment. Justine herself is again and again invited to refute her persecutors. There is never any deviation from the rule : "No transports ," she i s told. "Give me arguments. I 'll cede to them if they are good." Now, Justine has a head on her shoulders. The problem presented to her is so honestly presented-so detailed, so explic it-that we expect her to find the solution to i t a t any moment. One word and the riddle would be solved. Justine , or the new Oedipus.

VI. THREE RIDDLES

Most of these riddles have provided no end of diver­ sion since Sade's t ime. The danger is that we today tend to consider them separately whereas Sade poses them simul­ taneously and in combined form ; the danger is also that, detached from one another, they are too familiar to us, and the answer to them-or the difficulty of answering them­ too evident. But let 's have a close look at the texts.

Man under­ takes no thing that is n o t subject t o the scru tiny of his reason

The unique and its property

20 + THE MARQUIS DE SADE

"First o f all , " says Sade, "the exact details. Who are you, and what are you after in this world ? Only too often I behold you asleep, inert, or just barely alive, coming and going like some organic statue . This statue-is it you ? No, you would have yourself a conscious being, as conscious as possible , and rat ional. You seek happiness, which increases consciousness tenfold. What happiness ? Ordinarily i t is located in pleasure and in love . All well and good. But one thing : avoid con fusing the two. To love and to taste pleas­ ure are essentiall y different ; proof thereof i s that one loves every day without tasting pleasure, and that one still more frequently tastes pleasure wi thout loving. Now, while an indisputable pleasure goes with the gratification of the senses, love, you will admit, i s accompanied by nuisances and troubles of every sort. 'But moral pleasures , ' do you say ? Indeed. Do you know of a single one that originates any­ where but in the imagination ? Only grant me that freedom i s this imagination's sole sustenance ; and the joys it dis­ penses to you are keen to the extent the imagination i s unhampered by r e ins or laws. Wh:lt ? F ix some a priori rule upon the imagination ? Why, is i t not imprudent merely to speak of rules ? Leave the imagination free to follow its own bent.

"Pleasure, that was what we were discussing. Here we still have to distinguish the pleasure you sense from that which you think you bestow. Now, from Nature we obtain abundant inforrr ation about ourselves, and precious l i ttle about others. About the woman you clasp in your a rms, can you say with ce-tainty that she does not feign pleasure ? About the woman you mistreat, are you quite su re that from abuse she does not derive some obscure and lascivious satis­ faction ? Let us confine ourselves to simple evidence : through thoughtfulness, g entleness, concern for the feelings of others we saddle our o,,'n pleasure with restrictions, and make this sacrifice to obtain a doubtful result. Rather, i s i t not normal for a man to prefer what he feels to what he does not feel ? And have we ever felt a single impulse from Nature bidding us to give others a preference over ourselves ?"

Jean Paulhan .. 2 1

"Still i n all ," Justine replies, "the moral Impera­ tive . . . "

"Ah, morals," Sade goes on, "a word or two about morals, i f you like. Are you then unaware that murder was honored in China, rape in New Zealand, theft in Sparta ? That man you watch being drawn and quartered in the market place, what has he done ? He ventured to acquit him­ self in Paris of some Japanese virtue . That other whom we have left to rot in a dank dungeon, what was his crime ? He read Confucius. No, Justine, the vice and virtue they shout about are words which, when you scan them for their mean­ ing, never yield anything but local ideas. At best, and i f you consider them rightly, they tell you in which country you should have been born. Moral science is simply geography misconstrued. "

"But we who were born in France," says Justine. "I was coming to that. It i s indeed true that, from

earliest childhood, we hear nothing but lectures on charity and goodness. These virtues, a s you know, were invented by Christians . Do you know why ? The answer is , that being themselves slaves, powerless and destitute, for their pleas­ ures-for their very survival-they could look nowhere but to their masters' bounty. Their whole interest lay in per­ suading those masters to behave charitably. To that end they employed all their parables, their legends, their say­ ings, all their seductive wiles. Those masters, great fools that they were, let themselves be taken in. So much the worse for them. But we philosophers, with more experience behind us, we shall, by pursuing pleasure in the manner we wish and pursuing it with all our might, do exactly what your beloved slaves practiced, Justine, and not what they preached."

"And remorse ?" Justine timidly asks. "What shall you do about remorse ?"

"Haven't you already noticed ? The only deeds man is given to repent are those he is not accustomed to perform­ ing. Get into the habit, and there's an end to qualms and regrets ; whereas one crime may perhaps leave us uneasy, ten, twenty crimes do not."

A slaves' morality

2 2 .. THE MARQUIS DE SADE

"I have never tried." "Why not try i t and find out ? Furthermore, i t i s

vouched for by the innumerable examples offered to us day in, day out by those thieves and brigands who, most appro­ priately, are call ed hardened criminals. The further one sinks into stupidity, the better disposed one becomes for faith ; similarly, o ft-repeated crime renders one callous. There you have the very best proof that virtue is but a superficial principle in man."

"However," Justine insinuates, "had there formerly been some agreement entered into by men, some understand­ ing binding man to man, which our honor or our well­ being might enjoin us to uphold-"

"Ah, ha ," says Sade, "you raise there the entire ques­ tion of the social contract."

"Perhaps I do." "And I fear you misunderstand it. But let us see. You

claim that in the earliest stage of their societies men con­ cluded a pact along these lines : 'I shall do you no ill so long as you do me none. ' "

"I t could have been a tacit arrangement," Justine re­ marks. "Anyhow, I fail to see how, without some such thing, any society could be founded or last one day."

"All right. A pact, and one which must constantly re­ ceive fresh adhert:nts, one which must be reindorsed by each of us."

"Why not ?" "I would simply draw your attention to one thing, that

a pact of this kind presupposes the equality of the contract­ ing parties. I renounced doing you harm ; which means I was free to harm you up until then. I renounce harming you now ; this means I have been free to harm you up until now."

"Well ?" "Imagine however that you are delivered utterly into

The s ocial my power the way a slave is into his master's, the way a man con tract condemned to die i s handed over to his e.xecutioner. How

could i t possibly occur to me to strike a bargain with you whereby you acquire illusory rights through my foregoing

Jean Paulhan .. 2 3

real rights ? If you a r e unable to hurt me , why in the world should I fear you and deprive myself for your sake ? But let us go still further. You wi l l grant me that everybody draws his pleasure from the exercise of his particular facult ies and attributes : like the a thlete from wrestling, and the generous man from his benevolent actions ; thus also the violent man from his very violence. I f you are completely in my power, i t i s from oppressing you that I am going to reap my grea test j oys."

"Is i t possible ?" wonders Justine. "Is it human ?" "That man be human i s not something I 'd stake my

l i fe on. However, observe thi s also : a s the mighty man takes pleasure from the exercise of his strength, so does the gentle or the weak man profit from his compassion. He too has a good time. It i s his own way of having a good time ; and that i s his business. Why the devi l must I further reward him for the enjoyment he gives himself ?"

"Thus you see ," says Justine, " that there are a thou­ sand varieties of weakness and strength. "

"I don' t doubt that. C ivil ization has changed the as­ pect of Nature ; civi l ization nonetheless respects her laws. The rich of today are just as ferocious in their exploitation of the poor a s the violent used to be in their vexation of the helpless. All these financiers, all these important personages you see would bleed the entire popula tion dry i f they fancied i t s blood might yield a few grains of gold."

"It is indeed dreadful, " Justine admits , "and I must own I have seen some examples of i t ."

VII . THREE MORE RIDDLES

That religion, conventional morality, society itself are among those malignant inventions which enable certain in­ dividuals , they being none other than the most powerful individuals, to victimize the lower classes-this is a proposi­ tion contradicted by no eighteenth-century writer concerned with ideas. The wise, the modest Vauvenargues himself ap-

Primitive mentality

24 .. THE MARQUIS DE SADE

peals in the name of Nature. Voltaire simply finds religion to blame for the state of affairs, Rousseau blames society, Diderot the going morality. And Sa de blames them all at the same time. Aye , the laws are harsh, their enforcement is implacable, the authorities are despotic. ( We are rushing, says Sa de-and Sa de is the only one saying i t-toward Revolution.7 ) Very well. What i s left for him to do who has grasped this truth, and who i s nevertheless powerless to put a speedy end to so many oppressions ?

I f nothing else he can at least free himself of them, inwardly defeat their influence upon him. Grimm, Diderot, Rousseau, Mademoiselle de Lespinasse or Madame d'Epi­ nay cleave, as regards morality, to a single tenet which they sometimes proclaim openly, sometimes conceal : that one must in every case discover and then heed the heart's first and most spontaneous prompting ; by dint of patience and of weeding out obstructions, restore the primitive man in onesel f ; and in oneself restore-they add-natural good­ ness.

Of the various Savages of Tahiti, Bougainville's Voy­ ages, His toire des Severambes, Supplemen ts to the Voyages and SupplementJ to the Supplements, which toward 1 7 60 were the fare of sensitive souls, modern sociology has left nothing intact. N othing except the yarns. It could have been expected.

For I see very well that Tahitian savages know nothing of our laws and of our moral codes. But what i f they know others, no less severe or, who can tell, crueler still ? Shall we go a l i ttle further ? I can see very well that they do not have our coaches or our cannons. And if this were deliber­ ate ? What i f trey had known our civil i zation, and then given i t up ( as you are tempted to do ) ? I t i s said, after all, that the Chinese invented gunpowder long ago, and the Romans the elevator. The Tahitians you behold are perhaps the last vestiges of a glorious and prosperous society, which had its palaces and i ts pomp-and then came to know the vanity of riches and of display. Regarding languages, Meillet

7 In A lint! e t IT alcour.

Jean Paulhan + 25

points o u t t h a t there i s no particul a r o n e about which w e c a n s a y with certainty t h a t i t i s closer t o i ts origins than others. Likewise, not a single people exists that we can with complete honesty call primitive.

"Why, " J ean-J acques replies , "as for this primitive man, i t ' s enough for me to experience him in myself. And I kRow he is good."

"I'm not so sure o f i t ," says Sade. Everybody has complained, and rightly enough, that

there are too many tortures in Justine-and in La Nouvelle Jus tine a hundred times too many. Too many strappadoes and needles, gibbets and pulleys, whips and i rons. All the same, let's not be hypocrites. Our European l i terature in­ cludes another work, a greatly esteemed one, which contains ( together with illustrations ) more tortures by far than all of Sade's writings, and in i ts tortures more refinements, and in its refinements more ingenuity : not thirty or forty, but one hundred thousand women bundled in dry straw and then slowly burned alive ( a fter h aving first been gagged, to re­ duce the level of their screaming ) ; and other women sprea d­ eagled on nail-studded beds, and raped in front o f thei r i mpaled husbands ; a n d princes a n d p rincesses grilled over l ive coals ; and peasant women in chains ( those sweet , lamb­ like creatures, says the author ) lashed and clubbed while dying o f systematic starvation. At the end of which it isn't by the dozen ( as in La Nouvelle Justine ) the victims are counted, but by the mill ion. Twenty mill ion, according to the author. He i s a respectable author, and reli able h is­ torians ( such as Gomara and Fray Luis Bertram ) are there to confirm his allegations to within a round million ; for this we are referring to i s no novel but a p iece o f pure and simple reportage : the Brief Relation of the Des truction of the Indies of Father Bartolome de Las Casas, whom no one is l ikely to accuse of designing to fl a tter our wicked instincts. N or were the Spanish soldiers who set out for the New World selected for their cruelty. Who were they ? Sight­ seers, ordinary a dventurers, like you and me. What hap­ pened ? Why, native populations were turned over to them.

About the pleasures of cruelty

26 ,,� T H E MARQ UIS DE SADE

That man is able to derive the livel iest pleasure from cutting man ( and woman ) to pi ecell, and first-and perhap s especially-from the i d e a of cutting them t o pieces, th i s i s a fact, an obviou� fact which we customa rily h i d e from our­ selves out of I don ' t know what sort of cowardice. I do not know because, so far as I can see, there is nothing in all th i s that could for o n e minute conflict wi th Christian bel ief-nor moreover wi th Moslem o r Taoist-which maintains that man once upon a time pa rted ways with God. And as for the unbel iever, by what right could he refuse to observe that man with unbi ased eyes ?

Yet refuse he does once he i s in a hurry to build, to slap together, a natu ral philosophy-the nineteenth century's term for it will be " a l ay ethic"-untrammeled by laws and by authority, untrammeled by God. And as o f now integ­ r ity is of sl ight importance to him. Well ! how preci ous Sade thus becomes to u s in h is refusal o f l ies , in his refusal to seek short cuts, in h is refusal to cheat ! His refusal i s a li ttle too vehement ? Ah, Sade i s not a patient man. And do you suppose he i s not exasperated by the others, with their ecstasies before Nature , the ir weepings over waterfalls, the i r quiverings upon the soft greensward ? To so much sott ishness an antidote was needed.

"A queer antidote , " Justine murmurs. "So pray tell m e : what life shal l be mine to lead ?"

"An absurd l ife ," answers Sade. "But let's have a look at i t ."

The scene i s usually la id in some awesome and almost The absurd inaccessible castle , Or in some monastery lost in the depths world of a forest. Justine is there, a captive, and locked in the

tower with her are three gi rls , the sober Omphale, the addle­ brained Florette , Corne\ie the inconsolable , all slaves o f the perverse monks. Are they alone ? No, everything would in­ dica te tha t within the walls o f the cloister there are other towers , other women. Sometimes this o r that slave vani shes. What becomes of her ? Everything leads to the suspicion that in leaving the monastery she takes leave of l ife . For

I can Pauthan + 2 7

what reason is she taken away ? I t i s impossible t o know. Her age has no bearing upon i t : " I have seen a seventy-year­ old woman here," Omphale tells Justine, "and during the time they retained her in service I saw more than a dozen girls dismissed who were under sixteen." Nor i s her be­ havior a factor. " I have seen some who flew to do thei r every desire , and who were gone within six weeks ; o thers, sullen and temperamental, whom they kept a good many years." Well-clothed girls, well-fed. I f they but knew where they stood, and what conduct . . . but no. "Here, ignorance of the law is no excuse. You are forewarned of nothing, and you are puni shed for everything . . . . Yesterday, though you made no mistakes, you were given the whip. You shall soon receive i t again for having committed some. Above all, don' t ever get the idea tha t you are innocent." ( Thus are the themes of the ca stle and of the trial interwoven throughout Ius tine . ) "The essenti al thing," Omphale goes on to say, " i s never to refuse anything . . . to be ready for everything, and even so, though this be the best course to follow, i t does not much insure your safety . . . . "8

What remedies for so many ills ? There i s but one. The mise rable � � n take consolation in the fact they are sur­ rounded by o thers who are equally miserable, tormented by the same enigmas , victims of the same absurdity.

But i t would be naive to suppose that in this adventure Sade's sole concern is the fate of four li ttle lambs.

VI I I . SADE'S DISAPPOINTMENT

In 179 1 Sade was to have his hour, and his months, o f triumph.

For the Revolution, which recognized in him one of i ts Fathers , made him a free and honored man. At the Theatre Moliere his Le Comle Oxtiern is being played ; in the streets th e people hum a Can tata to the Divine M arat whose author i s the Divine Marqui s . The brill iance o f his

X LI's In/ortunt·s d e f a I' ertu.

Th e President of Piques

28 + THE MARQUIS DE SADE

conversation, the breadth of his learning, the force of his hatred, everythi ng about Sa de spells a shining and safe career ahead. 'W ith his new friends he differs upon not more than one or two points : for example , like Marat, he favors a communist State ,9 but he would also like to retain a Prince to oversee the application of the new laws . Graver however is this : these new laws are to be mild and moderate. Capital punishment is ruled out of them. Though the heat of his passions may sometimes justify an individual' s crime, noth­ ing can excuse crime' s presence in the legal codes "which are by their very definition rational and of a dispassionate na­ ture. But here we have one of those delicate distinctions which escape a great many people, who are manifestly un­ able either to th ink clearly or to count . You put a man to the gallows, my good friends, for having killed another man : and 10 ! thc.t makes two men the less instead of one . " 10

Thus, and not without insolence, speaks Citizen-Secre­ tary Brutus Sade before a meeting of the Section of Piques. How does he sound ? how does he look ? He stands not so straight as he used to, after his years in the tyrant' s dun­ geons ; and he has put on weight, too. But ever the grand style , and the gr:lcious air, the same warmth of personality. A hint of obseqt: iousness. An engaging smile.

He smiles , as all disappointed people do. He is dis­ appointed. To be free, to be in the midst of life again, that's not everything. Troubles, problems are beginning to beset him from all sides. There's his notary, that insect Gaufridy, demanding money ; his sons, behaving as though their father did not exist ; his castles in Provence, threatened with demo­ lition, and being pillaged in the meantime. Right here in the Section he sees h imself closely watched by his fellow citizens. They expectcd >omething else from the ferocious Sade. Something else chan this level-headedness, these cantatas, this politeness ( at a time when the enemy besets us from

9 The theories put forward by Zame in A line et J7 alcour seem fairly exactly to represent Sade'. own political views.

10 Cf. Philosophy in the Bedro om, "Yet Another E ffort, Frenchmen, If You Would Become Republicans."

Jean Paulhan + 29

without while from within the fifth column saps our finances and seeks to starve us into submission) . Secretary-and even, a little later, President-of Piques : very nice, but one must s till earn one ' s living. He files a request for a head librarian's post . No reply. The theaters turn down his new plays which, i t would appear , are lacking in civism. "So they want civism, do they ? I ' ll give them all they can swallow," Sa de mutters, seated behind h i s President's desk. I t ' s a t that point that a l ittle old gentleman sn,eaks into his office on tip­ toe, somebody with an aristocratic past who'd like, thinks the Secretary, to become one of the boys ; who sits down off in a corner. Who positively looks, thinks the Secretary , as i f he were pissing in his pants. Who sits there fiddling stupidly with his cane ; who plainly deserves nothing better than to be purged, with his face of a weasel. Why, good heavens, if i t isn't the President de Montreuil ! The Enemy, the Persecutor to whom Sade i s indebted for some thirteen years in j ai l .

Well , Sade simply goes over and shakes hands with him. And cheers him up a bit. No need to worry, they'l l admit h im into the Section. And, you know, i t ' s not a l l fun and frolic at the Section. Poor Mon treui l puts on a big grin all the same. Three days l a ter an officer in the Army of the Somme, one Major Ramand, is brought before Sade. "You have a ided emigres to escape ?" E,ade demands. "I have." "That means death, you real ize ." "I real ize i t ," s ays the good Major. "Bah," says Sade. "Here's three hundred iivres and some i dentity papers. Off with you."n Another three days la ter, Ramand i s safe somewhere in the country­ side and Sade is behind bars in Les Madelonnettes. If he misses being executed it 's by a hairsbreadth and because Robespierre is sent to the guillotine. Sade i s released from pri son ; but he'll be back there shortly. This time it is for having printed a pamphlet against Josephine. Why a pam­ phlet, why against Josephine ? Probably for the same reason he treated Montreuil as a friend and released the Major.

1 1 "They wanted me to commit an inhumane act. I have never wanted to," Sade will l ater write in a l etter to Gaufridy.

Wherein Sade re turns to prison

3 0 .. THE MARQUIS DE SADE

The simplest explanation is the first one that comes to mind. In prisor . Sa de had become a writer. To be sure , he 'd already scribbl �d a l i ttle , pr ior to then, here and there. In­ deed, he'd sho1Vn himself able to wield a pretty pen, a s they say ; in the Troubadour manner (of course ; for he is Pro­ venc;al ) . But ir prison writing had been accompanied by a sort of revelati on.

I t i s impo ,sible to measure, even to glimpse, the whole extent of an achievement of which a bare fourth has sur­ vived the effect; of persecution ; the rest having been burned, pulped, l ost. Rather, i f you wish to obtain an idea of the fury-of the r;J ge-with which Sade proceeds, consider how for Les I nfort ;mes de fa Vertu he works out a meticulous outline, then writes the novel a first time, then writes it again, then wr tes i t yet again, each time expanding upon each detail, cor recting the least phrase or, better still , rein­ venting i t ; and the second version i s twice the length of the first ; the thi rd-fifteen hundred pages long-three times the l ength of the second. With Sade, writing is worse than a vice or a drug. It has simultaneously to do with passion and wi th duty. Now, directly he is set a t large, everything conspires agai l lst continuing-politics, children, business. How is one to keep afloat while writing ? Parasite, pimp, blackmailer-a , we know only too well, for him who has the need to write, • t 's write by hook or by crook. And the un­ lucky individu<l l who has acquired-for the sake of his independence , s ays he-some "second trade" ( but what then was his first ? ) has hardly-journalist, civil servant, insur­ ance salesman--any other resource : he has himself put down as sick. F<J r his part, Sade puts himself down as guilty. They're j ail ing rebels thi s year ? He's a rebel. The indul­ gent are in trou Jle ? " I am free to let off fools i f I so please." Plotters ? Why not be a plotter ? The impious and the liber­ tine ? There' s a category I fi t into perfectly. When all else fails , there 's always madness. You could read, nothing stood in the way of :four writing-and your fury at being held captive didn't hurt-in the madhouses and pri sons of the e ighteenth century, fai rly mild places, furthermore, for a

Jean Paulhan 1- 3 1

nobleman up on nobody knew exactly what count. "What's that one in here for ?" Sade's j ailers used to wonder. "Seems like they got him for conspiracy against God." "Ever heard the l ike of i t ?"

Yes, the argument i s plausible . But shall we look a li ttle farther ? Sometimes a man will pursue fame, love, in­ dependence with such fervor that he overshoots the mark, with such passion that his passion will sometimes come to scorn what at first i t sought, to deri.de the meager products of such efforts. The glory you strove so hard after, was it this tattle in the press, these silly interviews, this being elected to Academies, and this popular tune whose author nobody knows ? Liberty, was it this ( scanty ) applause from the front rows ; these defiant approbations ; these votes which tomorrow will swing against you ? No, in order to be satisfied with a pittance, pride is not enough, you need vanity of the most stupid sort. Vanity, and also a fondness for being shortchanged, a desire to be cuckolded. At this point the driving forces within a man undergo a mysterious change in direction ; and the victor senses he has been van­ quished by his victory ; and the lover flees his mistress, and for the spirit that lusted after riches, poverty i s now the mark of well-being. Our hero delights in and at the same time i s exasperated by the silence his extravagant preten­ sions create around him ; the lover of liberty turns around and goes back to prison. Totally disgusted.

Yes, the explanation is plausible. However, I cannot say that i t greatly pleases me. Let us return to our ill-starred lambs.

IX. SADE HIMSELF, OR THE SOLUTION TO THE RIDDLE

Sadism did not used to be much talked about. Nowa­ days it is, in the newspapers and in serious books. The change is for the better. For this is an entirely natural and immediate trait in man, a trait he has possessed since the very beginning and which, when you come down to it , may

Causes of ti disappoint­ ment

Masochism 1S tncom­ prehensible

32 + THE MARQUIS DE SADE

be summed up in a few words: we demand to be happy ; we also demand that others be rather less happy than we. That this trait. may, under the pressure of circumstances, degener­ ate into frightful manias-this i s a matter upon which psychiatrists are qualified to speak, not I. Whether Sade was a sadist or not I don't know : the trial records shed l i ttle light upon the question. In the case we are best acquainted wi th-the Marseilles affair-Sade figures as a masochist, which i s the very opposite. I see that a t least once he flatly refused to be sadistic in spite of all sorts of encourage­ ment : his past grievances, his feelings of the moment, and the chorus of the Section of Piques . But it could be argued that the true sadist i s the one who declines to practice sadism on easy terms, who will not stand to be told when and where to give expression to his i diosyncrasy. Each of us is proud in his own way.

Over the l ast fifty years or so we have got into the habit of talking about masochism (which is what I have just done) as we do about sadism. With the same natural­ ness, in the same matter-of-fact way. As if it were a human characteristic no less simple, no less necessary than sadism ; and no less susceptible of becoming a mania either. I have no obj ection to that. But if i t is a natural characteristic, you'll admit i t is a very queer one ; queer almost to the point of being incredibl e ; and that to call i t natural requires considerable forjearance on our part.

If I take th e eye, for example , I note that i t i s subj ect to a wide range of anomalies. It can be farsighted, or my­ opic. I t can present yet rarer and ( l ike sadism ) yet more distinguished defects : amaurosis or diplopia . It is sometimes able to put its faultiness to profi t : it can be nyctalopic, and content to be so. ( Just as a sadist turns his sadism to advan­ tage ; a fter all , a well-ordered society can hardly do without public executioners ; at any rate, without judges and nurses and surgeons. ) So far so good. But never, never has there been found an eye that was afflicted by buzzings, hypera­ cusia or colored audition. Well, that, all else being equal, is what some claim in behalf of masochism.

Jean Paulhan + 33

When pa in experienced by others gives me pleasure, this pleasure I feel i s obviously an unusual feeling ; and doubtless a reprehensible one. In any case it i s a clear and comprehensible feeling, and an a rticle upon it can be in­ cluded in the Encyclopedia. But that my own pain be pleasure to me, that my humiliation be to me a dignification -thi s is no longer reprehensible or unusual , it is simply obscure, and it is only too easy for me to reply that if it i s pain, i t i sn ' t pleasure, if it's dignification, then it's not humili­ ation. If it's . . . And so on and so forth. Yet, however that may be, there does indeed exist, nobody will deny it , some­ thing which can be rightly termed masochism. To be more precise, there do indeed exist men, and women also, whom we must call masochists.

For there are some who seek nothing so eagerly as mockery and ridicule , and who thrive better on shame than on bread and wine : Philip of N eri, who used to caper in the streets and shave only one side of his face, preferred to pass for a madman than for a saint ; the sheik Abu Yazid al Bisthami would give urchins a couple of walnuts in exchange for a slap. There is no lack of persons who to their friends -and to those foremost among all the ir friends, themselves -fondly wish "suffering, abandon, infirmity, ill-treatment and dishonor and profound self-contempt and the martyr­ dom of self-distrust ."12 And others too who say with the Portuguese nun : "Increase the number of my affiictions ." To Masochism is anyone contending that behind whatever it may appear to be a universal this amounts to a clever attempt to assure oneself of the trait weal which follows after woe, and the honor which follows dishonor, and the triumph of esteem which follows after the ordeal of disdain, in keeping with some natural law of com- pensation, the reply would have to be that he had not very well grasped the question. But let me continue.

We see other persons who steer a steady course toward vexations and abuse , who, no matter where they happen to be, are extraordinarily alert and, through the workings of some unerring instinct, as if sensi t ized to the presence of a

12 Nietzsch e : The Will to Power.

The riddles find their solution

34 .. THE MARQUIS DE SADE

possible source of mistreatment and as if fascinated in ad­ vance, attracted, summoned by the cruel potenti alities they have somehow detected in a man everybody else sees as a decent and unexceptional chap. (Thus Justine . . . ) Or else, o f their own accord, with pecul iar willfulness march straight to where prison, trials, and death await them. (Thus Sade . . . )

Let there be no mistake : I do not pretend to be clear­ ing up the mystery, I do not in the least claim to be explain­ ing a difficult fact, a truly mysterious fact, which defies analysis now and has never yielded to i t in the past. No. Instructed by experience, my inclination would instead be to acknowledge th at in masochism we are deal ing with some­ thing veritable but incomprehensible ; with, to put it more vaguely, an oCCllrrence-a frequent occurrence , perhaps, but at any rate an obscure one, and one which remains impene­ trable to my in tell igence . ( After all, why these people are the way they a re i s more than I can fathom. ) In short, I concede to mystery its share in all this-and, doing so, I am at once rewarded for my modesty. I venture no comments about proud sp i ri ts who seek silence or greedy spi rits who seek poverty ( for I must own that the explanation I offered a li ttle while ago was, while banal, rather farfetched : that the proud spiri t , the greedy or the libertarian spirit , having been acquainted beforehand with the signs of glory, wealth, liberty, were in a poor posi tion to complain afterward ) .

For i f it h appens that man sometimes experiences that which i s not al together human, and to which no familiar habits or everyday usages apply-but natural man is not o ther than civi l ized man, nor I o ther than other human beings, nor kindliness o ther than perfidy, nor pain o ther than pleasure--sadism, in the final analysis , i s probably nothing else than the approach to and, as it were the (per­ haps maladroit and certainly odious ) testing of a truth so difficult and so mysterious that once it is acknowledged as such, the problems we have been helpless to resolve-and the very riddles Sade puts to Justine-become instantly and miraculously transparent. I t is as though i t were enough for

Jean Paulhan .. 3 5

me, in order to be able to see clearly ( to see my way clearly through questions and a world both mightily confused and absurd ) , to have once and for all taken obscurity into ac­ count.

Here it will be sa id to me, and very justly said, that the truth we are seeking is too inaccessible, and is as foreign to our language as to our understanding. So indeed it is, and i t should be plain that, rather than express it, I am simply endeavoring, once having set aside a space for i t to occupy, to encircle i t, to surround it. Though he fails to formulate it in thought or speech, the man who has suffered it one time and a thousand times, who has experienced it , still retains the resource of living i t, of being it . And I finally understand i n what sense Sade, like Pascal, Nietzsche, or Rimbaud, paid,. in what sense also he was able to merit the t itle of divine as i t was conferred upon him by a popular idiom which sometimes i s o f greater justness than the j udgments of critics, sometimes rings truer than the lines of poets.

There i s another resource, however.

X. THE ACCOMPLICE

In a curious book by C rebillon, The Letters of the Marquise de M., tender affection and j ealousy, the need for love and ensuing regrets, desire and coquetry are rendered with great subtlety, with such subtlety that at no stage in the story does the reader ever know for sure whether or not the M arquise and the Count have been to bed together. But in Jus tine i t' s quite the reverse. And Justine's amorous ad­ ventures-very diverse, very involuntary-are shown us in the greatest detail without our ever having an inkling of what it might be our heroine is feeling-desire, love, loath­ ing, indifference. Truly, it is difficult to say. And Sade knows it only too well. He knows it only too well because Justine i s Sade himself.

That i s Justine ' s secret. A strange secret. A hard secret to get at, but not because i t i s nameless or unnamable. Hard

3 6 .. THE l\IARQUIS DE SADE

to get at because , on the contrary, it already has its name because i t has, if anything, been identified a little too often, under the name of that good Austrian novelist who came into the world a hundred years after Sade, and who gave his cruel heroines a riding crop to wield and sometimes a mink coa t to wear. \Yell I know that Nature encompasses every taste, every mania. This particular one is no more harmful or more unpleas ant than any other. Nor is it any less. But for mysteriousness it is not to be surpassed. It i s the sole passion that cannot be thwarted without encouraging it, punished without rewarding i t. Perfectly incomprehensible : absurd. What remains to be said ? Only that the critic can turn this absurdity into a rationale.

I t i s now her turn to speak, the discreet, modest, sati. ated Justine Sade chose for his accomplice.

Sade

by Maurice Blanchot

/F" hundred and fifty years ago there appeared in Holland La UJ. N auvelle Jus tine, au les M alheurs de la J7 ertu, suivie de I'Histaire de Juliette, sa saeur. This monumental work, which had been p receded by several shorter versions, had grown longer with each successive revision until it reached the gigantic proportions of four thousand pages in this final form. This almost endless, over­ whelming work immediately horrified the world .

I f there is an Enter in l ibraries-a specia l section for works deemed unfit for human consumption-it is for such a book. No l iterature of any period has seen a work so scandalous, one which has so profoundly wounded the thoughts and feelings of men. Today, when the writings of Henry Miller cause us to quake and quail , who would dare to compete with Sade's licentiousness ? Yes, the cl aim can be made : we h ave here the most scandalous work ever wri tten. I s this not reason enough for us to turn our attention to i t ? What ! You mean to say we have here the opportunity to acquaint ourselves with a work beyond which no other writer, a t any time, has ever managed to venture ; we have, so to speak, a veri table absolute in our hands, in this relative world of letters, and we make no attempt to question or consult i t ? You mean to say it does not occur to us to ask why i t i s unique, why i t cannot be exceeded, what there is about it which is so outrageous, so eternally too strong for man to stomach ? Curious neglect. But can i t be that the purity of the scandal is solely dependent upon this neglect ? When one considers the precautions that history has taken to make

37

3 8 + THE MARQU I S DE SADE

a prodigious enigma out of Sade, when one thinks of those twenty­ seven years behind bars , of that fettered and forbidden existence, when the sequestration affects not only a man's l ife but his afterl i fe -so much so that the condemnation of his work to seclusion seems to condemn him as well , still alive, to some eternal pri son-then one is led to wonder whether the censors and judges who claim to immure Sade are not actually serving him instead, are not fulfill­ ing the most fervent wishes of his libertinage, he who always aspired to the solitude of the earth ' s entrails , to the mystery of a subterranean and reclusive exi stence. In a dozen different ways, Sade formulated the idea that man's wildest excesses call for secrecy, for the obscuri ty of the farthest depths, the inviolable solitude of a cell. Now, the strange thing i s that i t i s the guardians o f morality who, by condemning Sade to solitary confinement, have thereby made themselves the most fai thful accomplices of his im­ morality. It was Sade's mother-in-law, the prudish Madame de Montreuil , who, by turning his life into a prison, at the same time made of i t a masterpiece of infamy and debauchery. And, simila rly, if today, a hundred and fi fty years later, Justine and Juliette still seems to us the most scandalous, the most subversive of books, it is because it i s almost impossible to read it : every possible measure has been taken-by the author, the publishers, and with the added help of universal Moral i ty-to make certain this book remains a secret, a wholly unreadable work, as much for i ts length, the way it was written, and i ts endless repetitions, as for the force of i ts description s and its ferocious indecency, all of which could not help but secure i ts damnation. A scandalous , scarcely approachable book, which no one can render public . But a book which also shows that there is no scandal where there i s first no respect, and that wherever the scandal i s extraordinary the respect i s extreme. Who, indeed, is more respected than Sa de ? How many people, still today, pro­ foundly believe that all chey have to do i s hold this accursed book in their hands for a few moments for Rousseau' s arrogant warning to come true : Any girl who reads but a single page of this book will be lost ? Such respect i s indeed a great treasure for a l iterature and a civil i zation. One can therefore not refrain from making this one discreet request, addressed to all Sade's publishers present and fu­ ture : when dealing with Sa de , at least respect the scandalous aspect.

Maurice Blanchot .. 3 9

Luckily, Sade defends himself rather well. Not only his work but his thinking remains impenetrable-and this in spite o f the fact that both abound in detailed theories , which he expounds and repeats over and over again with disconcerting patience, and in spite of the fact tha t he reasons with impeccable clarity and not inconsiderable logic . He has a penchant-and even a passion-for systems. He expounds and affirms and offers proof ; he comes back to the same problem a hundred times over ( and a hundred is a conservative figure ) , he studies i t from every angle , he considers every possible obj ection and answers them all, then manages to come up with some further obj ections and replies to them as well. And since what he says i s usually simple enough, since his language i s rich but precise and firm, it would seem that nothing should be more simple in dealing with Sade than to elucidate the ideology which, in his case , is inseparable from passion. And yet, what is the gist of Sa de's thought ? What in fact did he say ? What is the scheme, the order of this system ? Where does i t begin and where does i t end ? Is there, indeed, more than the shadow of a system in the probing of this mind, so obsessed a s i t is with reason ? And why i s it that so many well co-ordinated principles fail to form the solid whole which they ought to and which, at least on the surface, they in fact seem to ? That too remains unclear . Such is the first pecul iar characteristic of Sade : his theories and ideas are con­ stantly generating and unleashing irrational forces to which they are bound. These forces simultaneously animate and thwart the theories, in such a way that the theorie s resist at first but then eventually yield ; they seek to dominate the insurgent force, finally do, but only after they have unleashed other obscure forces, which bear the theories further along, deflect them from thei r course, and distort them. The result is that everything which is said i s clear, but seems to be at the mercy of something left unsaid, and a l i ttle later on what has not been explici tly stated does indeed appear and is reintegrated by logic ; but then thi s in its turn succumbs to the in­ fluence of some other, still hidden force, until finally everything is expressed, i s revealed, but also everything i s plunged back again into the obscurity of unformulated and inexpressible thoughts.

The reader is often ill at ease when faced with this thought which is made clear only by a further thought which, for the present,

40 .. T H E MARQ U I S DE S.'\DE

cannot be clarified ; and he becomes even more uncomfortable as he realizes that Sade's sta ted principles-what we may term his basic philosophy-appears to be simplicity itself. This philosophy i s one of self-interest, of absolute egoism : Each of us must do exactly as he pleases , each of us i s bound by one law alone, that of his own pleasure. This morality is based upon the primary fact of absolute solitude. Sade has state d it, and repeated it , in every conceivable form : Nature wills that we be born alone, there is no real contact or relationship possible between one person and another. The only rule of conduct for me to follow, therefore, is to prefer whatever affects me pleasurably and, conversely, to hold as naught anything which, as a result of my preferences, may cause harm to others. The greatest pain inHicted on others i s of less account than my own pleasure. Little do I care if the price I have to pay for my least de­ l ight i s an awesome accumulation of atrocious crimes, for pleasure Hatters me, i t is within, while the effects of crime, being outside me, do not affect me.

These principles a re clear. We find them reiterated and de­ veloped in a thousand ways through some twenty volumes. Sa de never tires of them. "'That he infinitely enjoys is to square them against the prevailing theories of the time, the theories of man's equality before Nature and the law. He then proposes this kind of reasoning : Since all men are equal in the eyes of Nature , I there­ fore have the right, because of this identity, not to sacrifice myself for the preservation of others, the ir ruin being indispensable to my happiness. Or else he will propound a kind of Declaration of the Rights of Eroticism, w;.th this axiom-equally valid for men and women alike-as a fund amental precept : Give yourself to whomso­ ever desires you , take from whomever you please. "What evil do I do, what crime do I :ommit when, upon meeting some lovely creature, I say : 'Avail Me of that part of you which can give me a moment' s satisfaction and, i f you wish, make full use of that part of mine which may prove agreeable to you' ?" To Sade, such proposi­ tions seem irrefutable . For pages on end he invokes the equality of individuals and the reciprocity of rights, wi thout ever realizing that his arguments, far from being buttressed by these lofty principles, are becoming meaninglt:ss because of them. "Never can an act of possession be exercised on a free person," he declares. But what

Maurice Blancho t + 41

conclusion does he draw from this ? Not that he has lost the right to perpetrate violence on anyone or to abuse such a person for his own pleasure, against that person's will, but rather that no one , in order to refuse himself to Sade, may invoke exclusive attach­ ments, a right of "possession." For Sade, the equality of all human beings is the right to equal use of them all , freedom is the power to bend others to his own will.

To see formulas of this sort piling up on top of each other leads one to conclude that there is something missing in Sade's reasoning process, some lacuna or madness. One has the feeling of grappling with the product of a profoundly disturbed mind, strangely suspended over the void. But suddenly logic reasserts itself, the obj ections vanish, and little by little the system takes shape. Justine , who, we recall , represents Virtue in Sade's world­ Virtue which is tenacious , humble, continually wretched and op­ pressed but never convinced of its errors-suddenly declares in a most reasonable manner: Your principles presuppose power. If my happiness consists in never taking into account the interests of others , in exploiting every opportunity to hurt or injure them, there will perforce come a day when the interests of others will likewise consist in doing me harm j in the name of what shall I then protest ? "Can the person who isolates himself do battle with the whole world ?" To this classic obj eCtion, Sade's protagonist replies, both explicitly and implicitly, in a number of ways, and these replies grad­ ually lead us into the heart of his universe. Yes , he starts off by say­ ing, my right is the right of power. And indeed Sade' s cast of characters is composed primarily of a tiny number of omnipotent men who have had the energy and initiative to raise themselves above the law and place themselves outside the pale of prejudice , men who feel that Nature has singled them out and, feeling them­ selves worthy of this distinction , strive to assuage their passions by any and all means.

These peerless men generally belong to a privileged class: they are dukes and kings, the Pope , himself issued from the nobility j they benefit from the advantages of their rank and fortune, and from the impunity which their high station confers upon them. To their birth they owe the inequality which they are content to exploit and perfect by the exercise of an implacable despotism. They are

42 +- T H E MAR Q U I S DE SADE

the most powerful because they belong to a powerful class. "I call people , " says one of them, " that vile and reprehensible class which manages to survive only by dint of sweat and toi l ; all who breathe must jo in together against th is abj ect class ."

Nonetheless, there can be no doubt that, although these sovereigns of debauchc:oy generally concentrate in themselves and to their own advantage the full inequality of classes, this is but a h istorical ci rcumstance to which Sade, in his value judgments, pays not the slightest heed. Sade di scerned clearly that, at the time he was wri ting, power was a social category, that i t was part and parcel of the organizat ion of society such as i t existed both before and a fter the Revolution. But he also believes that power ( l ike solitude, moreover ) i s not merely a state but a choice and a con­ quest, and that only he i s powerful who by his own will and energy knows how to make himself so. Actually, Sade's heroes are recruited from two opposing mil i eux : from among the highest and the lowest, from among the mighty of the world and, at the opposite pole, fished up from the sewers and cesspools o f the lower depths. At the outset, both these groups have something extreme working for them, for the extreme of poverty i s as powerful a stimulus a s are the dazzling possibil it ies tha t fortune offers. When one is a Duboi s or a Durand, one revolts aga inst the law because one i s too far beneath it to be able to conform to the law without perishing. And when one i s a Saint-Fond or the Duc de Blangis , one i s too far above the law to be able to submi t: to it wi thout debasement. This is why, in Sade's works, the apology for crime derives from two contradictory principles : for some men, inequal ity i s a fact of Nature ; certain persons are necessarily sla ves and victims, they have no rights, they are nothing, against the:n any act, any crime i s permitted. Whence those frenzied eulogi es to tyranny, those political constitutions bent on making i t forever impossible for the weak to seek vengeance or the poor to grow rich. "Let i t be clearly understood," says Verneui l ,

that ' t i s among K aturr� 's intentions that there necessarily be a class of individuals who by the! r bi rth and inherent weakness shall remain essen­ tially subj ect to the other class.

The laws are not made for the people . . . . The basic precept of any wise government is to make certain that the people shall not encroach u pon the authority of th masters.

Maurice Blancho t + 43

And Saint-Fond :

The people shall be kept in a state of slavery which will make it quite impossible for them ever to attempt to dominate the wealthy o r debase the ir p roperties and possessions.

Or again :

All that goes under the name of crimes of libertinage shall never be punished, save in the slave castes.

Here, it would seem, we have the most blatant, the wildest theo­ retical apology for absolute despotism ever formulated. But sud­ denly the perspective shifts. And what does Dubois say ?

Nature has caused us all to be equals born ; if fate is pleased to intervene and upset the primary scheme of things, i t i s up to us to correct its caprices and , through our own ski l l , to repair the usurpations of the strongest . . . . So long as our good faith and patience serve only to double the weight of our chains, our crimes will be as Virtues, and we would be fools indeed to abstain from them when they can lessen the yoke where­ with their cruelty bears us down.

And she adds : for the poor, crime alone can open the doors to l ife ; villainy i s the recompense for injustice, just as theft is the revenge of the dispossessed. Thus the lines are clearly drawn : equality, in­ equality ; freedom to oppress, revolt against the oppressor ; these are merely provisional a rguments by which Sadean man, de­ pending on his position in the social hierarchy, a sserts his right to power. Actually, the distinction between those who require crime in order to survive and those for whom crime i s the sole source of pleasure, wi l l soon vanish. Madame Dubois becomes a baroness. Madame Durand, a fourth-rate poisoner, a scends to a higher sta­ tion than that occupied by the selfsame princesses whom Juliette unhesitatingly sacrifices to her. Counts become bandit chieftains, the head of a group of highwaymen ( as in Faxelange ) , or else inn­ keepers, the better to despoil and murder fools. Most of the victims or libertinage , however, are selected from among the aristocracy ; they must be o f noble birth. It i s to his mother, the Countess, that the Marquis de Bressac declares with superb contempt : "Thy days belong to me, and mine are sacred."

Now, wha t happens ? A few men have become powerful . Some were bequeathed power by birth, but they have also demonstrated

44 + T H E MARQ U I S DE SADE

that they deserve it by the way in which they have accrued it and enj oyed it. Others hav e risen to power, and the s ign of the ir success i s that, once having resorted to crime to acquire power, they use it to acquire the freedom to commit any crime whatsoever. Such then i s Sade's world : a fe\\ people who have reached the pinnacle , and around them an infinite , nameless dust, an anonymous mass of creatures which has ne i ther rights nor power . Let us see what now happens to the rule of absolute egoism. I do whatever I please, says Sade's hero, all I know, all I recognize is my own pleasure , and to make certain I get it I torture and kill . You threaten me with a like fate the day I shall h appen to meet someone whose happiness is dependent on torturing and killing me. But I have acquired power precisely in order to raise myself above this threat. Whenever Sade comes up with answen such as these , we can feel ourselves slipping toward an area of hi s thought which is susta ined solely by the obscure forces which l u rk therein. What is this power which fears ne i ther chance nor law, which exposes i tself disdainfully to the terrible r isks of a rule conceived in these terms : I shall do you all the harm I please, you may do me all the harm you can-under the assumption that such a rule will invariably operate to i ts advantage ? N ow, the point is that all i t takes i s a s ingle exception for these principles to d isintegrate and collapse : if the Powerful One, whose sole purpose i s pleasure , ever once encounters misfortune , if in the exercise of his tyranny he once becomes a victim, he will be lost, the law of pl easure will appear a sham, a l i e , and man, instead of wish­ ing to triumph through excess, will once again revert to tha t medioc­ r i ty that ever casts a worried eye in fear of the slightest evil which may befall him.

Sade knows this . "And what i f luck should turn against you ?" Justine asks him. Sade ' s reply i s to delve deeper into his system and demonstrate that to him who casts his lot wholeheartedly with evil , nothing evil can e ver happen. This i s the basic tenet, the very cornerstone of h i s work. : to Virtue, nothing but misfortune ; to Vice, the reward of constant prosperity. There are times, especially in the early versions o f Justine, when this assertion seems to be a simple meretricious hypothesis which the author, always adroitly maneuvering the tale to suit his own needs, advances as proof. One has the impression that Sade is spinning fables and being taken in by

Maurice Blanchot .. 45

them when he entrusts matters to a black Providence whose function it i s to shower blessings on all those who have opted for evil. But in La Nouvelle Justine and in Juliette everything changes. There can be no doubt tha t Sade is profoundly convinced of a t least this : that the man o f absolute egoism can never fall upon evil days ; better, that he will, without exception, be forever happy, and happy to the highest degree. A mad idea ? Perhaps. But wi th Sade the idea is al­ lied to forces so violent that they finally render i rrefutable, in his eyes, the ideas they support. In actual fact , the translation of this conviction into doctrine i s not at all that s imple . Sade resorts to several solutions, he tries them endlessly, although none can really ever satisfy him. The first is strictly verbal : it consists in repudiating the social contract which, according to Sade, i s the safeguard of the weak and, theoretically, constitutes a grave menace for the power­ ful. In practice, however , the Powerful One knows full well how to utiliz e the law to consolidate his a dvantages. But i f he does this, then he i s powerful only through the law, and it i s the law which, in principle, incarnates power. Except in time of war, or during a period o f anarchy, the Sovereign i s merely the sovereign , for even if the law helps him to crush the weak, it is nevertheless through an authority created in the name of the weak that he becomes mas­ ter, substituting the false bond of a pact for the naked strength of man. " My neighbors' passions frighten me infinitely less than do the law's injustices, for my neighbors' passions are contained by mine, whilst nothing constrains, nothing checks the injustices of the law." Nothing checks the inequities of the law for the simple reason that there is nothing above it , hence it i s always superior to me. This is why, even if it serves me, i t also oppresses me. This is also why Sade, whatever affinity he may have had for the Revolution and however much he was able to i dentify himself with it , was drawn to it only to the extent that i t constituted for a short time the possibility of a regime without law, since i t represented a transition period from one set o f l aws to the other. Sade gave voice to this idea in the following curious observations :

The rule of law is inferior to that of anarchy : the most obvious proof of what I assert is the fact that any government is obliged to plunge itself into anarchy whenever it aspires to remake its constitution. In order to

46 + THE MARQVIS DE SADE

abrogate its former l aws, it is compelled to establish a revolu tionary re­ gime in which there is no law : this regime finally gives birth to new l aws, but this second state is necessarily less pure than the first, since it derives from it . . . .

Actually, Power adapts itself to, and refuses to acknowledge the authority of, any regime ; in the midst of a world denatured by l aw, it creates for itsdf an enclave in which all law is silenced , a closed place wherein all legal sovereignty is ignored rather than contested. In the statutes of the Societe des Amis du Crime, there is one article which prohibits all political activity.

The Society respects the government under which it lives, and if it places i tself above the law it is because one of its principles specifies that man does not have the power to make laws in conflict with the laws of N ature; but the disorders of the Society's members, being always in­ terior, must never scandalize either the governed or the governments.

And if in Sade's wri tings it sometimes does come to pass that the Power undertakes some political action or becomes involved in a revolution-as is the case with Borchamps who conspires with the Loge du Nord to overthrow the Swedish monarchy-the rea­ sons which lead him to do so are quite unrelated to any desire to emancipate the law. "Why do you so loathe Swedish despotism ?" one of the conspirators i s asked. "] ealousy, ambition, pride, despair at the thought of being dominated, my own des ire to tyrannize others." "But does th happiness of the people have no bearing upon your opinions ?" " All I am interested in is my own."

If pressed, Power can always maintain that i t has nothing to fear from the ordinary man, who is weak, and likewise nothing to fear from the law, which it refuses to recognize as being legiti­ mate. The real proble:n is the relationship of the powerful among themselves . These peerless men, who come from the highest as well as the lowest echelons of society, necessarily meet: the similarity of their tastes brings them together ; the fact that they are exceptions , by setting them both apart, also brings them together . But what relation can there be hetween exceptions ? Sade certainly pondered thi s question at great length. As always, he moves from one pos­ sible solution to another until finally, at the end of his chain of logic, he brings forth from this enigma the only word that matters to him. When he dev .ses a secret society governed by strict con-

Afaurice Blanch o t + 47

ventions , the purpose of which i s to curb excesses, he can cite the precedent of numerous similar societies then much in vogue . F�r Sade lived at a time when the freemasonry of libertinage and free­ masonry itself led to the emergence, in the midst of a society in ruins, of a great number of secret societies, clandestine "colleges" founded on the complicity of passions and on a mutual respect for dangerous ideas. The So cieti des A m is du Crime i s an effort of this kind. Its statutes, studied and analyzed at great length, forbid its members from indulging in any displays of ferocious passion among themselves , stipulating that these passions can only be sati­ ated in two seraglios which are to be peopled by members of the virtuous classes. When they are in each other' s company, the mem­ bers must "give · themselves over to their freest fantasies , and do everything" ; but, says Sade, "no cruel passions allowed." VYe can easily see why : it i s a question of avoiding at all costs the encounter, on a terrain where evil would become the ir undoing, of those who expect only pleasure from evil. Superior libertines are allies, but never meet.

Such a compromise cannot satisfy Sade. It must therefore be pointed out that, although the heroes of his books are constantly drawn into close alli ance with one another by the conventions which determine the limits of their power and superimpose order on chaos, the possibility of betrayal is forever present : between ac­ complices there is a constantly mounting tension, so much so that they ul timately feel themselves less bound by the oath that unites them than by the mutual need to violate this oath. This situation makes the final part of Juliette extremely dramatic. Juliette is a woman of principle. She respects libertinage, and when she meets an accomplished criminal, the perfection of the crime for which he is responsible and the power of destruction which he represents not only induce her to join forces with him but, what is more, lead her to spare his life i f she can, even when this alli ance becomes dangerous for her. Thus, even though she i s in danger of being killed by the monster Minski , she refuses to have him murdered. "This man is too great a scourge to humanity for me to deprive the world of him, " she says. And then there is another character, the author of veritable masterpieces of lubrici ty : yes, him she finally does destroy, but only because she has noticed that, upon

48 + THE MARQUIS DE SADE

emerging from these orgies of blood, he has developed the habit of retiring to a chapel to purify his soul. I s the perfect criminal therefore presumed to be exempt from the passions in which he indulges ? Can i t be that there i s a principle, an ultimate principle, which guarantees that the l ibertine can never be e ither the obj ect or the victim of his own libertinage ? "You have told me a hundred times," Madame de Donis says to Juliette, "that l ibertines never harm one another. Do you care to refute this maxim ?" The reply i s clear : Juliette does i ndeed refute i t ; Madame de Donis i s sacri­ ficed. And gradually the most beloved confederates in crime, the most respected companions of debauchery perish, victims either of their own fideli ty or the ir perjury, or of the lassitude or the ardor of their feelings. Nothing can save them, nothing excuses them. Scarcely has Jul iette sent her best friends to their death than she turns toward new allies and exchanges with them vows of eternal confidence. Vows they �hemselves find risible, since they know full well that the only rea�on they assign any limitations to their ex­ cesses is in order to be in a position to harvest the pleasure which comes from exceeding them.

The following exchange of conversation among several mas­ ters of crime fairly describes this s i tuation. One of the criminals, Gernand, says o f his cousin Bressac : "You know, he i s my heir . And yet I dare say he i s not in any hurry for my l ife : we have the same tastes , we think in the same way, he knows that he has a sure friend in me." That's al l very true , says Bressac, I shall never harm a hair on your head. And yet this B ressac points out that another of their relatives, d 'Est erval, who makes a specialty of slitting the throats of passing travelers, had come close to murdering him. "Yes, " says d'Esterval , "but as a relative, never as a companion in debauchery." But B :-essac remains skeptical, and, indeed, they concur that thi s consideration almost failed to stop Dorothee, d'Esterval ' s wife. Ane what does this Dorothee reply ? "Your praise i s in your death warrant. The terrible habit I have of im­ molating the men who please me means that your sentence i s passed and inscribed right next to my declaration of love." All of which i s quite clear. But undt:r these conditions what becomes of Sade's proposition concerning happiness through Evil ? What happens to that certainty that the man o f all vices wil l always be happy, as he

Maurice Blancho t * 49

who has but a single virtue will perforce be plagued by misfor­ tune ? Actually, Sade ' s work i s strewn wi th the corpses o f l ibertines struck down at the very pinnacle of the i r glory. Justine i s not alone in her wretchedness ; misfortune strikes the strongest and most energetic of Sade's heroines a s well , the superb Clairwi ll , a s it strikes Saint-Fond, murdered by l'\ oirceuil , and the licentious Borghese, who is hurled headlong into the crater of a volcano ; as, indeed, i t strikes l iterally hundreds of perfect criminals . Strange denouements, s ingula r triumphs for these perverse men I How can Sade's mad rea son remain blind to all these many contradictions i t contains ? But i t i s precisely these contradictions which, for Sade, provide him with his proof, and this i s why :

A cursory reading o f Jus tine can be deceiving ; one may er­ roneously think it no more than a rather coarse and vulgar p iece of fiction. vVe see this virtuous girl who is forever being raped, beaten, tortured, the victim o f a fate bent on her destruction. And when we read Juliette we follow a depraved girl as she fl ies from pleasure to pleasure. It i s hardly l ikely that we shall be convinced by such a plot. But the point is that we have overlooked the book' s most important a spect : the reader who i s merely attentive to the sadness of one and the sat isfaction of the other has neglected to remark that the two s isters ' stories are basically identical , that everything which happens to Justine a l so h appens to Juli e tte, that both go through the same gantlet o f experi ences and are put to the same painful tests . Jul iette i s also cast into prison, roundly flogged, sentenced to the rack, endlessly tortured. Hers i s a hideous ex­ istence, but here i s the rub : from these i l l s , these agonies , she de­ rives pleasure ; these tortures delight her. "How delicious are the i rons wrought by the crime one adores." K ot to mention those un­ common tortures which are so terrible for Justine and which , for Juliette , are a source of pure delight. In one scene set in the cha teau o f a wicked magistrate , poor Justine is subj ected to tortures which are truly execrable . Her pain i s indescribable. The reader i s taken completely aback by such injustice . And then what h appens ? A thoroughly depraved girl who h a s witnessed the scene and become inflamed by the spectacle demands tha t the same torture be inflicted on her , right there on the spot. And from i t she derives the most exquis ite pleasure. Thus i t i s true that Virtue i s the source of man's

5 0 + T H E MARQ U I S DE SADE

unhappiness, not because i t exposes him to painful or unfortunate ci rcumstances but beca use, i f Virtue were eliminated, what was once painful then becomes pleasurable, and torments become volup­ tuous .

For Sade, sovereign man i s impervious to evi l because no one can do him any harm. He is a man possessed of every passion, and his passions are slaked by any and every thing. We have had a tendency to take Jean Paulhan's conclusions that Sade's sadism con­ ceals a contrary propensity as a paradox too witty and too clever to be true.1 But we can see that this idea i s the very heart of Sade's system. The absolute egoist is he who is able to transform every­ thing disagree able into something likable , everything repugnant into something attractive. Like the bedroom philosopher, he declares : "I love everything, I en joy everything, my desire is to commingle all kinds and contraries ." And this i s why Sade, in his Les 120 J ollrnees, has set himsel f the gigantic task of drawing up the complete inventory of anomalies and aberrations, li sting every kind of human possibil i ty. In order to be at the mercy of nothing, i t was necessa ry for him to experience everything.

You shall know nothing i f you have not known everything, and i f you are timid enough to s top with what is natural, Nature will elude your grasp forever.

One understands why the sorrowful Justine' s objection : "And what if luck should turn against you ?" cannot upset the criminal sou\ . For i f indeed luck does reverse i tself and turn into misfortune, the latter will actually be no more than another facet of fortune i tself, a s much to be desired and as satisfying as the former. But you are risking the gall ows ! You may end in the most ignominious of deaths. "Tha t ," repl i es the l ibertine, " is my most cherished de­ s ire ." "Ah, Jul iette ," Borghese says,

i f only my transgressions can lead me like the last of creatures to the fate to which their wild abandon conducts them. The gallows itself would be for me a voluptuous throne, and there would I face death by relishing the pleasure of expiring a victim of my crimes.

And another :

1 M. Blanchot is referring, of course, to Paulh an's "The M arquis de Sade and His Accomp l ice" which appeared three years before his own study on Sade.

Maurice Blancho t + 5 1

The true libertine loves even the reproaches he receives for the un­ speakable deeds he has done. Have we not seen some who loved the very tortu res human vengeance was readying for them, who submitted to them joyfully, who beheld the scaffold as a throne of glory upon which they would have been most grieved not to perish with the same courage they had displayed in the loathsome exercise of their heinous crimes ? There is the man at the ultimate degree of meditated corruption.

Against a Power such as this, what can the law do ? It believes it i s punishing h im, and actually i t i s rewarding him ; i t exalts him by debasing him. Similarly, what can the libertine do, what injury inflict upon his peer ? He may one day betray and destroy him, but this betrayal i s the source o f savage pleasure to him who i s the victim of it and who views such a betrayal as the confirmation of all his suspicions and can die reveling in the thought that he has been the occasion for yet a new crime ( not to mention o ther joys ) .

One of Sade's most curious heroines is named Amelie . She lives in Sweden, and one day she seeks out Borchamps, the conspira­ tor whom we have already mentioned. Borchamps, hoping for a gigantic massacre, has just betrayed all his fellow plotters and de­ livered them into the hands of the king. This betrayal has fired Amelie 's enthusiasm. " I love your ferocity, " she tells him.

Swear to me that I shall one day be your victim. Since the age of fifteen, my mind has been ablaze, obsessed with the idea of perishing a victim of libertinage's most cruel passions. I do not wish to die tomorrow, no doubt ; my extravagance does not go that far. But in no other manner do I wish to die : to become, in expiring, the occasion of a crime is an idea that makes my head spin.

Strange head , full worthy of this reply : "I love your mind to the point of madness, and I beli eve that you and I will do splendid things together." Then : "There's no denying i t : she's rotten, putri­ fied."

Thus, everything begins to grow cle ar : to the integral man, who is a t his fullest , there i s no possible evil. If he injures others, the result i s voluptuous ; injury endured at their hands is sheer delight. Virtue pleases him because Virtue i s weak and he crushes i t ; Vice pleases him because he finds pleasure in the chaos that results from i t , even though it be a t his expense. If he l ives, there i s no ci rcumstance, no event that he cannot turn into happiness.

5 2 -+ THE MARQUIS DE SADE

And i f he dies, he finds an even greater happiness in his death, and in the knowledge of his destruction he sees the crowning achievement of a l i fe whose sole justification lay in the need to destroy. He is therefore inaccessible to others. He is impervious to all attacks, nothing can rob him of his power to be himself and to enj oy himself. T1at i s the primary meaning of his solitude. Even i f he in his turn se emingly becomes a victim and a thrall , the violence o f the passions he knows how to slake in any situation assures him of his sovl�reignty and makes him feel that in any circumstance, in l i fe as in death, he remains omnipotent. It i s for this reason that, despitt the analogy of the descriptions, it seems only fair to leave to Sacher-Masoch the paternity of masochism, and the paternity of sa iism to Sade. The pleasure Sade's heroes find in degradation neve � lessens their self-possession, and abj ection adds to their stature. Shame, remorse, a penchant for puni shment­ all such feelings are foreign to them. vVhen Saint-Fond says to Juliette : "My pride i s such that I should like to be served by per­ sons kneeling, and never speak to that vile scum called people save through an interpreter ," she replies , without a trace of i rony, by asking : "But don't the caprices of libertinage compel you to come down from such heigh ts ?" To which Saint-Fond repli e s : "For minds as organized a s ours, that humil iation serves as an exqui site flattery to our pr ide ." And Sade adds in a note : "Thi s i s readily understood ; one does what no one else does ; one i s therefore unique ." On the moral :evel , the same prideful sati sfaction in the feeling that one i s an exil e from humanity :

The world must tremble upon learning of the crimes we shall have com­ mitted . Men must be made to blush and feel ashamed at belonging to the same species as we do. I demand that a monument be raised to com­ memorate this crime and signal it to the whole world, and that our names be graven upon i t by ou r own hands.

To be unique, unique among one 's own speci es, i s indeed the s ign of true sovereignty , and we shall see to what absolute l imits Sade has taken thi s cat �gory, and what absolute meaning he has given it .

The whole scheme i s beginning to be even clearer . And yet at the stage to which we have progressed we also feel that i t i s also becoming very dark indeed. This deft movement by which the

Maurice Blancho t .. 5 3

Unique Being eludes the influence and control o f others i s far from c rystal clear. In certain respects, it is a sort of stoic insensibil ity, which seems to assume man's perfect autonomy with respect to the world. But a t the same time it i s the exact opposite , for the Unique B eing, being independent of all the others who are incapable of harming h im, immediately declares complete dominion over them. And it is not because others are powerless against him that torture, the stab of the dagger, and debasing maneuvers they devise against him leave him intact, but because he can do whatever he wishes to others that even the pain others cause him affords him the pleasure o f power and helps him exercise his sovereignty. Now, this s ituation becomes very embarrassing. For the moment that "to be master of myself" means " to be master of others, " the moment my independence does not derive from my autonomy but from the de­ pendence of others upon me, it becomes obvious tha t I remain bound to the others and have need of them, if only to reduce them to nothing. Sade 's commentators h ave o ften pointed out this diffi­ culty. I t is far from certain whether Sade himself was aware of it , and one o f the original aspects of this "exceptional" philosophy perhaps comes from this fact : when one is not Sa de there is a crucial problem created, through which the relations of mutual soli­ darity between master and slave are reintroduced ; but if one is Sade, there is no p roblem and, furthermore, i t is impossible even to imagine one in this connection.

It i s impossible for u s to examine, as we should , the large numbe r of texts ( with Sade, everything i s always infinitely numer­ ous ) which relate to this s ituation. Actually, there i s a plethora o f contradictions. Sometimes the m o s t ferocious libertinage seems a s though haunted b y t h e contradiction o f i ts pleasures. The libertine derives his most exquis ite pleasure and joy from the destruction of his victims, but this j oy ruins i tself, i s self-destructive, since it an­ nihilates what causes i t . "The pleasure one gets from killing a woman," says one o f them,

is soon past ; once dead, she feels nothing further ; the pleasure of making her suffer disappears with her life . • . • Brand her (with a red-hot iron ) ; sully and soil her ; from this debasement she will suffer to the very last moments of her life and our lust, infinitely prolonged, will as a result be even more delicious.

5 4 .. T H E MARQ U I S DE SADE

Similarly, Saint-Fond, not content with tortures that are too simple , dreams o f a kind of infini tely protracted death for everyone j i t i s for this reason that he .:onceives of an undeniably ingenious sys­ tem whereby he would a,'ail himself of Hell and arrange to use, in this upper world, Hell 's inexhaustible resources for torturing vic­ tims of his choice. Here we can surely discern what inextricable bonds oppression creates between the oppressor and the oppressed. Sade 's heroes draw their mstenance from the deaths they cause, and there are times when, dreaming of everlasting life, he dreams of a death he can inflict eternally. The result is that the executioner and the victim, set eternally fa ce to face, find themselves endowed equally with the same power, with the same divine a ttribute of eternity. It would be impossible to claim that such a contradiction does not exist in Sade 's work. But even more often he a ttempts to by-pass i t by the use of arguments that give us a much clearer and more pro­ found picture of the world that is his . Clairwill chides Saint-Fond for what she terms his unpardonable excesses, and to restore him to the right path she advises him thus :

Get rid of that voluptuous idea which works you up to such a white-hot pitch-the idea of indefinitely prolonging the agonies of the creature you have selected to kill-get rid of it and replace it by a greater abundance of murders .. Do not conce ntrate on killing the same person over a long period , which is an impossibil ity, but murder a whole host of others, which i s entirely feasible.

Increased numbers i s indeed the more correct solution. To consider human beings from the viewpoint of quantity kills them more com­ pletely than does the physical act of violence which annihilates them. I t may well be tha� the criminal i s inextricably bound to and involved with the person he murders. But the libertine who, as he immolates his victim, feds only the need to sacrifice a thousand others, seems strangely free of all involvement with him. In his eyes, the victim does not of itself exist , he i s not a distinct individual but a mere sign, whico. is indefinitely replaceable in a vast e rotic equation. \Vhen we read statements such as this : "Nothing i s so amusing, nothing so stimulates and excites the brain as do large numbers ," we comprehend more fully why Sade util izes the concept of equality so often to buttress his arguments. To declare that all men are equal is equivalent to saying that no one i s worth

Maurice Blanch o t .. 5 5

more than any other, all are interchangeable , each i s only a unit, a cipher in an infinite progression. For the Unique Person, all men are equal in their nothingness , and the Unique One, by reducing them to nothing, simply clarifies and demonstrates this nothingness.

That i s what makes Sade's world so strange. Scenes of sav­ agery are followed by more scenes of savagery. The repetition is as extraordinary as it is endless . It is not unusual for a l ibertine to slaughter four or five hundred victims in a single session ; then he starts in again the following day ; then again that same evening with a new ceremony. The arrangements and positions may vary slightly, but once again things work up to a fever pitch and heca­ tomb succeeds hecatomb. But i s it not eminently clear that those who perish in these gigantic butcheries no longer possess the slight­ est reality, and if they disappear with such ludicrous ease it i s because they have previously been annihilated by a total , absolute act of destruction, because they are present and die only to bear witness to this kind of original cataclysm, this destruction applicable not only to themselves but to everyone else as well ? Wha t is especially striking is the fact that the world in which the Unique One lives and moves and has his being is a desert ; the creatures he encounters there are less than things, less than shades. And when he torments and destroys them he is not wresting away their l ives but verifying the ir nothingness , establishing his authority over their non-exist­ ence, and from this he derives his greatest satisfaction. What in fact does the Duc de Blangis say to the women who, at the dawn of the first of the hundred and twenty days, have been gathered to­ gether as the pleasure pawns for the four libertines ?

Consider your circumstances, remember who you are and who we are, and let these reflections cause you to tremble and shudder with horror. You are outside the borders of France, in the heart of an uninhabited forest, far beyond the steep mountains whose paths and passages have been obliterated behind you the minute you crossed over them ; you are sealed in an impregnable citadel, no one in the world has the slightest idea where are you, you are beyond the reach of both your friends and your family : so far as the world is concerned, you are already dead.

This last should be taken quite l iterally. These women are already dead, suppressed, enclosed in the absolute void of a bastille into which existence no longer dares to enter , a bastill e where their

56 + THE MARQUIS DE SADE

lives serve only to make manifest thi s quality of "already dead" with which they are commingled.

We shall leave aside the tales of necrophilia which, while there i s no dearth of them in Sa de's writings, seem at some remove from the "normal" inclinations of his heroes. We should, moreover, point out that whenever Sade's heroes exclaim : "Ah, the lovely corpse I" and wax ecsta tic at the insensibility of death, they have generally begun their ca reers as murderers, and it is the effects of this capacity for aggress on that they are striving to prolong beyond the grave. It i s undeniable that what characterizes Sade's world is not the desire to become one with the cadaver's immobilized and petrified exi stence, nor is it the attempt to slip into the passivity of a form representing the absence of forms, of a wholly real reality, shielded and protected f rom life's uncertainties and yet incarnating the very essence of irreality. Quite the contrary : the center of Sade's world is the urgtnt need for sovereignty to assert i tself by an enormous negation. This negation, which cannot be satisfied or adequately demonstrated on the plane of the particular , requires large quantities, for i t is basically intended to transcend the plane of human existence. It i, in vain that Sa dean man imposes himself on others by his power to destroy them : i f he gives the impression of never being dependent on them, even in the situation where he finds himself obliged to annihilate them-if he invariably seems capable of doing witholl t them, it i s because he has placed himself on a plane where he and they no longer have anything in common, and he has done this by setting himself such goals and lending his proj ects a scope which infinitely transcends man and his puny ex­ istence. In other words, insofar as Sa dean man seems surprisingly free with respect to his victims-upon whom, however, his pleas­ ures depend-it i s because violence, as it applies to and is used upon them, is not aimec at them but at something else, something far beyond them, and a I Sade's violence does is to authenticate­ frenziedly, and endlessly in each particular case-the general act of destruction by which he has reduced God and the world to nothing.

Clearly, with Sade the criminal instinct stems from a nostalgic, transcendental vision which the miserable practical possibilities are forever debasing and di shonoring. The most glorious crime which this poor world is capab: e of providing is a wretched nothing which

Maurice Blancho t + 57

makes the libertine blush with shame. Like the monk }tSrome, there is not one among them who i s not overwhelmed with shame at the thought of how mediocre his crimes are, and all seek a crime su­ perior to any of which man is capable in this world. "And un­ happily," says Jerome, "I cannot find it. All we do is but the pale image of what we dream of doing." And Clairwill says ;

What I should like to find is a crime the effects of which would be per­ petual, even when I myself do not act, so that there would not be a single moment of my l ife , even when I were asleep, when I was not the cause of some chaos, a chaos of such proportions that it would p rovoke a general corruption or a disturbance so formal that even after my death its effects would still be felt.

To which Juliette offers this reply, calculated to please the author of the La Nouvelle Justine : "Try your hand at a moral crime, the kind one commits in writing." Although Sade, in his doctrine, re­ duced to a strict minimum the part played by intellectual pleasures, although he eliminated almost entirely intellectual eroticism ( be­ cause his own erotic dream consists in proj ecting, onto characters who do not dream but really act, the unreal movement of hill pleasures ; Sade's eroticism i s a dream eroticism, since it expresses i tself almost exclusively in fiction ; but the more this eroticism is imagined, the more i t requires a fiction from which dream is ex­ cluded, a fiction wherein debauchery can be enacted and lived) , and although Sade does however , and in an exceptional sense, exalt the imaginary, it is because he is wonderfully well aware of the fact tha t the basis for many an imperfect crime is some impossible crime that only the imagination can comprehend. And that i s why he allows Belmore to say :

Ah, Juliette, how delightful are the pleasures of the imagination ! In these delectable moments, the whole world is ours ; not a single creature resists us, we devastate the world , we repopulate i t with new objects which, in turn, we immolate. The means to every crime i s ours, and we employ them all , we multiply the horror a hundredfold.

In h i s volume of essays Sade man prochain, wherein the bold­ est ideas are advanced on Sade and also on the problems Sade's existence can help to clarify , Pierre Klossowski explains the ex­ tremely complex character of the relations the Sadean consciousness entertains with God and with its fellow men. He shows that these

5 8 .. THE MARQUIS DE SADE

a re negative, but that, inasmuch as this negation is real , it re­ introduces the concept it rejects : the concept of God and of one's fellow man are , Klossowski says, indispensable to the l ibertine con­ sciousness. This is a point we could discuss endlessly, for Sade's work i s a welter of clea r ideas wherein everything i s stated but wherein everything i s also concealed. Nevertheless, Sade's original­ i ty seems to us to reside in his extremely firm claim to found man' s sovereignty upon a transcendent power of negation, a power which in no wise depends upon :he obj ects i t destroys and which, in order to destroy them, does no t even presuppose the ir p revious exi stence because, a t the instant it destroys them, i t has already previously, and without exception, considered them as nothing. A dialectic such as thi s finds both its best example and, perhaps, its justification, in the stance Sade's Omnipotent One assumes with respect to divine omnipotence.

Maurice Heine has emphasized Sade's extraordinary stead­ fastness o f purpose when i t comes to atheism.2 But how right KIos­ sowski i s to remind us that Sade's i s not a cold-blooded atheism. The moment the name of God is interj ected into even the mildest di scussion o r plot , the language i s instantly ignited, the tone be­ comes h aranguing and the words are infused with and overwhelmed by hate. It i s surely not in the scenes of luxury and lust that Sade's passion i s revealed ; but w henever the Unique One finds the sl igh test vestige of God in his path, then are the violence and scorn and heat of pride and the vertigo of power and desire immedi ately awak­ ened. In a way, the notion of God is man's inexpi able fault, h is o riginal s in , the proof o f h i s nothingness, the thing which j ustifies and authorizes crime, fo r when one i s dealing with a person who has accepted to prostrate himsel f before God and declare himself as worthless in God' s eyes , one cannot resort to too extreme or too energetic measures against him. "The notion of God i s the one fault I cannot forgive in man," writes Sade. A decisive thought, and one of the keys o f his system. The bel ief in an omnipotent God who only grants to man the reality of a wisp of straw, an atom of nothingness, makes i t incumbent upon the integral man to re­ trieve this superhuman power and exercise himself , on behalf of

2 Sade : Dialogue entre u n pretre e t u n moribond, avec u n avant-propos e t des notes par Maurice H eine. Pa ris, Stendha l et Cie . , 1926.

Maurice Blancho t + 5 9

man and a t the expense o f men, the sovereign right which they have granted to God. When the criminal kills, he i s God-on-earth, be­ cause he effects between his victim and himself a relationship o f subordination wherein the latter sees the concrete definition o f di­ vine sovere ignty. The moment a true l ibertine detects, be it in the mind of the most corrupt debauchee, the slightest trace of religious faith, he immediately decrees him dead : for the miscreant debauchee has destroyed himself, by having abdicated into the hands of God. To do so means tha t he considers himself as nothing, so that he who kills him is s imply recti fying a s i tuation which i s only thinly veiled by appearances.

Sa dean man denies man, and this negation is achieved through the intermedi a ry o f the notion o f God. He temporarily makes him­ self God, so tha t there before him men are reduced to nothing and discover the noth ingness o f a being before God. "It i s true, i s i t not, prince, that you d o not love men ?" Juliette asks. "I loathe them. Not a moment goes by that my mind i s not busy plotting vio­ lently to do them harm. Indeed, there i s no race more horrible, more frightful . . . . How low and scurvy, how vile and disgusting a race i t i s I" "But," Juli ette breaks in , "you do not really believe that you are to be included among men ? . . . Oh, no, no, when one dominates them with such energy, i t i s impossible to belOlig to the same race." To which Saint-Fond : "Yes, she i s right, we are gods."

Still , the dialectic evolves to further levels : Sade's man, who has taken unto himself the power to set himself above men-the power which men madly yield to God-never for a moment forgets that thi s power is completely negative. To be God can have only one meaning : to crush man, to reduce creation to nothing. " I should like t o b e Pandora's box," Saint-Fond says a t another point, "so that all the evils which escaped from my breast might destroy all mankind individually. " And Verneuil : "And if i t were true a God existed, would we not be his rivals, since we destroy thus what he has made ?" This is the way an ambiguous conception o f the Omnipotent i s gradually fashioned, and yet there can scarcely be any doubt about the ultimate meaning. Klossowski refers often to the theories of thi s same Saint-Fond, some of whose views we have cited and who, among all Sade's heroes, i s the only one to believe in a Supreme Being. But the God in whom he believes is

60 + THE MARQUIS DE SADE

not terribly benign, but "extremely vindictive, very barbaric, very wicked, most unjust , and very cruel ." He is the Supreme Being of wickedness , the God of malfeasance. From this idea Sade deduced all kinds of brill iant theories . He imagines a Last Judgment which he describes with all the resources of savage humor which he pos­ sesses. We hear God upbraiding the good in these terms :

When you saw that everything was vicious and criminal on earth, why did yo u stray into the paths of virtue ? Did not the perpetual misery with which I covered the universe suffice to convince you that I love only disorder and chaos, and that to please me you must irritate me ? Did I not daily provide you with the example of destruction ? Seeing which, Fool, why did you not destroy, why did you not do as I did ?

But having recalled this , it is obvious that the conception of an infernal God is but a way station of the dialectic according to which Sade's superman, after baving denied man in the guise of God, next advances to meet God and will in turn deny him in the name of Nature , in order finally to deny Nature by identifying i t with the spir it of negation. In the evil God, the negation which has just exterminated the notion o f man rests as i t were for a few moments before launching a new attack, this time against i tself. In becoming God, Saint-Fond by the same stroke compels God to become Saint­ Fond, and the Supreme Being, into whose hands the weak have committed themselves in order to force the strong to commit them­ selves as well, no longer asserts Himself except as the gigantic constraint of a rocklikt: transcendence which crushes each in pro­ portion to his frailty. This is hatred of mankind hypostasized, raised to its highest degree . But no sooner has the spirit of negation attained the pinnacle of absolute existence than i t i s compelled to become aware of its own infinitude and can only turn against the affirmation of this absolute exi stence, which now is the sole obj ect worthy of a negation g rown infinite. I t i s the hatred of men that was embodied in God. Now i t i s the hatred of God which liberates from God hatred itself-a hatred so violent that it seems to be constantly, moment by moment, proj ecting the reality of what it i s denying, the better to assert and just ify itself. "If that existence­ if God's existence ," says Dubois ,

should prove t o be true, the mere pleasure of baiting and annoying the person so designated would become the most precious compensation for

Maurice Blanchot .. 6 1

the necessity I would then find myself in to acknowledge some belief in him.

But does a hate so intense and searing as this not indicate, as Klos­ sowski would seem to believe, a faith which had forgotten its name and resorted to blasphemy as a means o f forcing God to break his silence ? That seems quite unlikely to us . On the contrary, every­ thing suggests that the only reason this powerful hatred has shown such a predilection for the deity is because it has found in him both a pretense and a privileged sustenance. For Sade, God i s clearly nothing more than a prop f o r h i s hate. That hatred i s too great to b e concerned about any particular obj ect ; being infinite, and as i t is constantly transcending any limits , it tends to delight in itself and to wax ecstatic over that infinitude to which i t lends the name of God ( "The sole source of your system," Clairwill says to Saint-Fond, "is your profound hatred for God." ) . But it is hate and hate alone which i s real, and in the end i t will turn itself with the same intensity and fearlessness against Nature as against the non-existent God it loathes.

Actually, i f Sade's most tempestuous passions are unleashed by things religious , by the name of God and by his priests, whom Sade terms " God-makers," i t i s because the terms God and religion embody virtually every form o f his hatred. In God, he hates the nothingness of man, who has fashioned such a master for him­ self, and the thought o f this nothingness i rritates and inflames him to such an extent that all he can do i s join forces with God to sanction this nothingness. And he also hates God's omnipotence, in which he recognizes what should properly belong to him, and God becomes the figure and embodiment o f his infinite hate. And finally, what he hates in God is God's poverty, the nulli ty of an existence which, however much i t may posit i tself as existence and creation, i s nothing, for what i s great, what i s everything, i s the spirit o f destruction.

This spirit of destruction, in Sade's system, is identified with Nature. This point proved to be a thorny one for Sade, and he found himself forced to grope his way along, and in fact had to re­ pudiate the then fashionable atheistic philosophies for which he could not help but feel a certain sympathy and from which his

62 *' T H E MARQ U I S DE SADE

reason, always eager for supporting OpInIOnS, could draw an inexhaust ible supply. But to the extent that he was able to pass beyond naturalistic i deology and that he was not taken in by external analogies, he proves to us that in him logic has proceeded to its ultima te l imits wi thou t ever abandoning the field to the obscure forces which supported i t. "Nature" i s one of those words Sade, like so many e ighteenth-century authors, delighted in writing. It is in the name of �ature that he wages his battle against God and against everything that: God stands for, especially moral ity. There i s no need to emphasize this point : Sade emphasizes i t over and over again ; his material on the subj ect i s truly staggering. Accord­ ing to him, this Nature i s first of all universal l i fe, and for hundreds and hundreds of pages his whole philosophy consists in reiterating tha t immoral instincts are good, since they are the facts of Nature, and the first and last lppeal must be to Nature. In other words, no morality : the fact reigns . But subsequently, bothered by the equal value he sees himself obliged to accord both to good and evil instincts and impulses, he attempts to establish a new scale of values with crime at the summit . His principal argument consists in maintaining that crime conforms more closely to the spirit o f N a­ ture , because i t i s mo\ ement, that i s l i fe ; � ature, he says, which wishes to create, need�, crime, which destroys : all this i s set forth in the greatest detail and at incredible length, and sometimes with rather st riking proof. Nevertheless , by dint of talking about N a­ ture , by being constantl y faced with this frame of reference, ubiqui­ tous and commanding, the Sadean p rotagonist becomes gradually annoyed, his anger mOllnts, and before long his hatred for Nature i s such that Nature, unbearable in his eyes , is the target for h i s anathemas and negations. "Yes , my friend, yes indeed, I loathe Nature." There are two deep-seated reasons for this revolt. On the one hand, he finds it q lite intolerable that the incredible power of destruction which he represents has no other purpose than to au­ thorize Nature to cre ate . And on the other hand, insofar as he himself belongs to Nature he feels that Nature eludes his negation, and that the more he insults and defiles i t the better he serves it, the more he annihi lates i t the more he i s submi tting to its law. Whence those cries of hatred, that truly insane revolt :

Maurice Blanch o t + 63

Oh thou, blind and insensate force, when I shall have exterminated all the creatures on the face of the earth I shall stil l be far indeed from my goal, for I shall h ave served thee, cruel master, whereas all I aspire to is to revenge myself for the stupidity and evil which thou m akest men to experience by refusing them the means to indulge themselves freely in the frightful predilections which thou dost inspire i n them.

Therein l ies the expression of a primordial and el ementary feeling : to insult and outrage Nature i s man's most deep-rooted exigency, one which is a thousand times stronger than his need to offend God.

In everything we do there are nothing but idols offended and creatures insulted, but Natu re is not among them, and it is she I should like to outrage. I should like to upset her plans, thwart her progress, arrest the wheeling courses of the stars, throw the spheres floating in space into mighty confusion, destroy what serves Nature and protect what is harm­ ful to her ; in a word, to insult her in her works--and this I am unable to do.

And once again, in the above passage, Sade allows himself to can· fuse Nature with i ts great laws, and this enables h im to dream of a cataclysm such that i t could destroy them ; but h is logic rej ects this compromise and when, elsewhere, he envisions an engineer invent· ing a machine to pulverize the universe, he i s forced into the fol· lowing admission : no one will have been more deserving of Nature than he . Sade was perfectly well aware of the fact that to annihilate everything i s not to annihilate the world, for the world i s not only universal affirmation but universal destruction as well, and can be represented al ike by the totality of being and the totality o f non· being. I t i s for this reason that the struggle with Nature represents, in man's hi story, a far more advanced dialectical stage than his struggle with God. We can sa fely state, without fear of unduly modernizing Sade 's thought, that he was one of the first thinkers of his century to have recognized and incorporated into his world view the notion of transcendence : since the notion of nothingness, of non· being, belongs to the world, one cannot conceive of the world 's non· being except from within a total i ty, which is still the world.

If crime is the spirit of Nature, there i s no crime against Nature and, consequently, there i s no crime possible. Sade states thi s , at times with the most profound satisfaction, and then again with the deepest resentment and rage. For to deny the possibili ty of crime allows him to deny morality and God and all human values ;

64 + THE MARQUIS DE SADE

but to deny crime is also to renounce the spirit of negation, to admit that this spirit can suppress itself. This is a conclusion against which he protests most vigorously, and one which leads him little by l ittle to withdraw all reality from Nature. In the last volumes of La Nouvelle Jus tine, ( especially in Volumes VIII and IX ) , Juliette repudiates all her prev ious conceptions and makes amends in the following terms:

Fool that I was, before we parted I was still involved with the notion of Nature, but the new systems which I have since adopted have re­ moved me from her . . . .

Nature , she says, has no more reality, no more truth or meaning than God :

Ah, bitch, perhaps thou dost deceive me too, as in times pll$t I was deceived by the vile deific chimera to which thou art, we were told , submissive ; we are no more dependent upon thee than upon him ; perhaps the causes are not essential to the eff(�cts. . . .

Thus Nature disappears, although the philosopher had placed all h i s trust in her and although he would greatly have loved to make a formidable death machine of universal l i fe. But mere nothingness is not his goal. 'What h:: has striven for i s sovereignty, through the spirit of negation, carried to i ts extreme. Putting thi s negation to the test, he has alterna tely employed it on men, God, and Nature. M en, God, and Nature : the moment each of these notions comes in contact with negation i t seems to be endowed with a certain value , but if one considers the experiment as a whole , these moments no longer have the slightest reality , for the characteristic of the ex­ periment consists precisely in ruining and nullifying them one after the other .. What are men, i f before God they are nothing ? Wha t is God when compared to Nature ? And what in fact is Nature, which is compelled to vanish, driven to disappear by man's need to out­ rage i t ? Thus the circle i s closed. With man we started, we now end up with man. Except that he now bears a new name: he is called the Unique One, the man who i s unique of his kind.

Sade, having discovered that in man negation was power, claimed to base man's future on negation carried to the extreme. To reach this ultimate limit, he dreamed up-borrowing from the vocabulary of his time-a principle which, by i ts very ambiguity,

Maurice Blancho t + 65

represents a most ingenious choice. Thi s principle i s : Energy. Energy i s , actually, a completely equivocal notion. It is both a reserve o f forces and an expenditure of forces, both potential and kinetic, an affirmation which can only be wrought by means of negation, and i t i s the power which i s destruction. Furthermore, i t i s both fact and law , axiom and value .

One thing quite s triking i s that Sade, in a universe full of ef­ fervescence and passion, suppresses desire and deems i t suspect rather than emphasizing it and raising it to the highest level of im­ portance. The reason he does so is that desire denies solitude and leads to a dangerous acknowledgment of the world of others. But when Saint-Fond declare s :

My passions, concentrated on a single point, resemble the rays of a sun assembled by a m agnifying glass : they i mmediately set fire to whatever object they find in their way,

we can see very clearly why "destruction" and "power" may appear synonymous , without the destroyed obj ect deriving the slightest value from this operation. This p rinciple has another advantage : it assigns man a future without saddling him with any feeling of in­ debtedness to any transcendental concept. For this all honor i s due Sade. He has claimed to overthrow the morality of Good, but despite a few provocative affirmations he has been very careful not to replace it with a Gospel of Evil. When he writes : "All is good when it is excessive," he can be reproached for the uncertainty of his p rinciple , but he cannot be charged with wanting to establish the supremacy of man over the supremacy of ideas to which man would be subordinated. In this do(trine, no conduct i s granted any special privileges : one can choose to do whatever one likes ; the important thing i s that, in doing them, one should be able to render coincident the maximum of destruction and the maximum of affirmation. Prac­ tically speaking, that i s exactly what h appens in Sa de 's novels. It i s not the degree of Vice or Virtue that makes people happy or un­ happy, but the energy they put to use , for, in Sade's words :

H appiness is proportionate to the energy of principles ; no one who dri fts endlessly would ever be capable o f experiencing it.

Juliette, to whom Saint-Fond proposes a plan by which two-thirds of France would be decimated by starvation, has a moment' s hesita-

66 .. THE MARQUIS DE SADE

tion and is overawed at the prospect : immediately she is threatened. Why ? Because she has shown signs of weakness, her vital temper is slackened , and the greater energy of Saint-Fond prepares to make her its prey. This i s even clearer in the case of Durand. Durand is a poisoner completely incapable of the slightest virtue ; her corruption i s total. But one day the government of Venice asks her to dissemi­ nate the plague . The proj ect frightens her, not because of its im­ moral character but because of the dangers she would expose her­ self to. Straightway she is condemned. Her energy failed her and she found her master ; and that master i s death. In leading a dan­ gerous l ife, says Sade, what really matters i s never "to lack the strength necessary to forge beyond the furthermost limits." One might say that this strange world i s not made up of individuals, but of systems of vectors, of greater or lesser tensions. Wherever or whenever the tension falls, catastrophe inevitably ensues . Futher­ more, there is no reason to distinguish between Nature's energy and the energy of man : luxury and lust are a kind of lightning flash, as l ightning i s the lubricity of Nature ; the weak will be the victim of both and the mighty will emerge triumphant. Justine is struck by lightning ; Juliette is not. There is nothing providential about this denouement. Justine's weakness attracts the same l ightning which Juliette 's energy deflec:s away from her. Similarly, everything that happens to Justine makes her unhappy, because everything that affects her diminishes her ; we are told of Justine that her inclina­ tions are "virtuous but base ," and this must be taken in the strict sense of the phrase. On the contrary, everything that befalls Juliette reveals her own power to her, and she enjoys i t as she would some increment of herself. This i s why, were she to die, her death would carry her to the very a pogee of power and exaltation, for it would enable her to experience total destruction as the total release of her enormous energy.

Sade was clearly aware of the fact that the supremacy of energetic man, insofar as he achieves this supremacy by identifying himself with the spir it of negation, is a paradoxical situation. The integral man, who asserts himself completely, i s also completely destroyed. He is the man of all passions, and he is without feeling. First he destroyed himself as man, then as God, and then as N a­ ture ; thus did he become the Unique Being. Now he i s all-powerful,

M allrice Blancho t 1- 67

for the negation in h im has vanquished everything. To describe his formation, Sade resorts to an extremely curious concept to which he gives the classical name : apa thy.

Apa thy i s the spirit of negation applied to the man who has chosen to make himsel f supreme. In a way, it is both the cause and the principle of energy. Sade, it would seem, reasons about as follows : the individual of today represents a certain quantum of force ; generally he squanders and disperses his forces, by estrang­ ing them, to the benefit of those simulacra which parade under the names of "other people ," "God, " or "ideals." Through this dis­ persal , he makes the mistake of exhausting his possibilities, by wasting them, but what i s worse, of basing his conduct on weakness, for if he expends himself on behalf of others it i s because he believes he needs them as a crutch to lean upon. This is a fatal lapse : he weakens himsel f by spending his strength in vain, and he expends his energies because he deems himself weak. But the true man knows that he is alone, and he accepts i t ; everything in him which relates to others-to his whole seventeen centuries' heritage of cowardice -he repudiates and rej ects : for example , p ity, gratitude, and love are all sentiments he crushes and destroys ; by destroying them, he recuperates all the strength that he would have had to dedicate to these debilitating impulses and, what i s even more important, from this labor o f destruction he draws the beginning of a true energy.

I t must be well understood that apathy does not only consist in ruining "parasitical" affections, but also in opposing the spontaneity o f any passion a t all . The vicious person who immediately abandons himself to his vice betrays a fl aw that will be his undoing. Even debauchees of genius , perfectly endowed to become monsters if they simply content themsdves with following their bent, will end in disaster. Sade is adamant : in order to convert passion into energy, i t must b e compressed and mediatized by passing through a necessary moment o f insensibility, after which it will attain its apogee. During the early stages o f her career, Juliette is constantly reprimanded by Clairwill, who reproaches her for committing crimes only out of enthusiasm, o f lighting the torch of crime only from the torch o f passion, and who also accuses her of valuing lust and the effer-

68 .. THE MARQUIS DE SADE

vescence of pleasure above everything else. These are dangerous and facile tendencies . C rime matters more than lust , and the cold­ blooded, the premeditated crime is greater than the crime com­ mi tted in the heat of p a ssion. But most important is the somber, secret crime "commi tted by a conscious hardening of sensi tivity, " because i t i s the act o f a soul which, having destroyed everything wi thin i tself, has accumulated an immense strength which will completely identify i tsel f with the a ct of total destruction which it prepares. All these mighty l ibertines who live solely for pleasure are mighty only because they have el iminated in themselves all capacity for pleasure. This i s why they resor t to terri fying and h ideous anomal ies , for otherwise the mediocr i ty of normal pleasures would suffice for them. But they have made themselves insensitive : they claim to enj oy their insensibi l i ty, thei r rej ected and annihi lated sensibil ity, and they become feroci ous. C ruelty i s nothing more than the nega­ tion of self, carr ied so far that it i s transformed into a destructive explosion ; insensibil i ty makes a tremor of the ,vhole being, says Sade, and adds :

The soul assumes a kind of apathy which is soon metamorphosed into pleasu res a thousand t imes more exquisite than those which weakness and self-indulgence would procu re fo r them.

It is understandable that, in this world, principles p lay a maj or role . The l ibertine i s "pensive , deepl y introspective, incapable of be ing moved by anything whatsoever." He keeps to himself, cannot tolerate e i ther noise or l aughter ; nothing must divert h is attention ; "apathy, unconcern, sto i cism, sol i tude within oneself-these are the conditions he requires in order to atta in a proper state of the soul ." A transformation such a �, this , involving a labor o f self-destruction, is not accomplished wi �hout the most extreme d ifficulty. Julie tte i s a kind of Bildu ngsro man, an apprentice 's manual in ,,,hich we gradually learn to recognize the slow transformat ion of an energetic soul. On the surface, Jul i e tte i s thoroughly depraved from the ve ry start . But in real i ty, at that stage, she is only equipped with a few penchants, and her mind is yet intact ; she has a tremendous effort yet to make, for, a s Ba lzac once remarked : n' es t pas de trui t qui veut . Sade notes that there are extremely dangerous moments in this effort to achiev'� apa thy. It m ay happen , fo r exampl e , that insens ib i l i ty can

Maurice Blanchot .. 69

put the libertine into such a state o f prostration that he may at any moment revert to morality : he believes himself hardened, while actually he is only weakened, a perfect prey for remorse. Now, a single gesture of virtue, by revalorizing the universe of man and God, is enough to bring down his entire power structure ; however lofty he may be, that universe crumbles and, generally, this fall is h is death. If, however, while in this state of prostration wherein he feels nothing more than a tasteless repugnance for the worst excesses, he finds one final increment of strength with which to augment this in­ sensibil ity by dreaming up new excesses which repel him even more, then he will evolve from a state of prostration and derelic­ tion to one of omnipotence, from induration and indifference to the most extreme voluptuousness and, "shaken to the very fiber of his being," the supreme enjoyment of the self will transport him a sovereign , beyond all imaginable limits.

One of the most surp rising aspects of Sade and his fate is that, although scandal has no better symbol than he , all that i s daring and scandalous in his thinking has for so long remained unknown. There is no need to l ist and classify the themes he discovered­ themes which the most adventurous minds of future centuries will apply themselves to developing and reaffirming. We have touched upon them in passing, and even so we have limited ourselves to depicting the main elements of his thought by stressing the basic doctrine. We could just as easily have discussed his concept of dreams, which he views a s the work of the mind restored to in­ s tinct and thus delivered from the influences o f waking morality. Or we might have dwelled upon all that part of his thinking in which he p roves himself the precursor of Freud, as for example when he wri tes :

It is in the mother's womb that are fashioned the organs which must render us susceptible of this or that fantasy ; the first objects which we encounter, the first conversations we overhear, determine the pattern ; do what it will, education is incapable of altering the pattern.

In Sade there is also something of the traditional moralist, and it would be a simple matter to make a collection of his maxims which

70 .. T H E MARQ U I S DE SADE

would make those o f L a Rochefoucauld seem weak and hesitant by comparison. Sa de i s o ften accused of having written badly, and, in fact, he often did write in extreme haste and with a prolixi ty that tr ies the patience. But he is also capable of a strange humo r, his style reveals an icy j ovial ity and, in its extravagance, a kind o f cold innocence which on e may fi n d preferable to the ful l range of Voltaire 's i rony and which, in fact, i s not to be found in the work o f any other French writer All these are exceptional merits, but they were in vain . Until the day when Apollinaire and Maurice Heine -and when Andre Breton, with his sixth, divina tory sense of the hidden forces of history-opened the way toward him, and even l a ter, until the recent studies of Georges Batail le , Jean Paulhan, and Pierre Klossowski , Sade-the master of the great themes of modern thought and sensibil ity-continued to glitter l ike an empty name. \Vhy ? Because thi s thought is the work of madness, because it was molded by a depravity which the world was incapable of facing squarely. Wha t i � more , Sade 's doctrine i s presented as the theory o f that depravity, a blueprint of his personal penchant, a doctrine which a ttempts to transpose the most repugnant anomaly into a complete IVeltan.l chauung. For the first time, philosophy is openly conceived of as being the product of an illness,3 and it has the effrontery to present a s a logical and universal theory a system the sole gu arantee for which i s the personal preferences of an aberrant individual .

This again is one o f Sade's most important and original con­ tributions. One may safely say that Sade performed his own psychoanalysis by wri ting a text wherein he consigns everything which relates to his obsessions and wherein, too, he seeks to dis­ cover wha t logic and what coherence his remarks reveal . But, what i s more, he was the first to demonstrate, and demonstrate proudly, th at from a certain personal and even monstrous form of behavior there coule! rightfully be derived a world view significant enough so that some eminent thinkers concerned only with the human condition were to do nothing morc : than to reaffirm its chief perspectives and provide added proof o f its validity. Sade had the courage to assert

3 Sade d o e s n o t m i n d in t h e l e a s t admitting i t : "The man endowed with singu l ar

tastes is a sick man."

Maurice Blancho t + 7 1

that by fearlessly accepting the singular tastes that were his and by taking them as the point of departure and the very principle of all reason , he provided philosophy with the solidest foundation it could hope to have, and advanced himself as the means to a profound in­ terpretation of human destiny taken in its entirety. Such pretension is doubtless no longer of a sort to terrify us, but, in all fairness, we are only beginning to take it seriously, and for a long while this pretension was enough to turn away from Sade' s thinking even those who were interested in Sade.

First of all, what was he exactly ? A monstrous exception, ab­ solutely outside the pale of humanity. "The unique thing about Sade," Nodier once remarked, "is his having commi tted a crime so monstrous that one could not characterize it without danger." ( In a sense, this was one o f Sade's ambitions : to be innocent by dint of culpability ; to smash what i s normal, once and for all, and smash the laws by which he could have been judged. ) Another con­ temporary, Pitou, writes in a rather terri fying manner : "Justice had relegated him to a corner of the prison and offered every pris­ oner a free hand to rid the world o f this burden." When, later, there was recognized in Sade an anomaly to be found in certain other peo­ ple too, he was qu ickly and carefully sealed up inside this unnamable aberration to which, indeed, no other than this unique name could be applied. Even later, when this anomaly was held to reflect credit on Sade, when he was seen a s a man free enough to have invented a new science and, in any event, as an exceptional man both by his destiny and his preoccupations, and when, finally, sadism was seen as a possibility of interest to all humanity-even then Sade's own thought continued to be neglected, as if there could be no doubt that there was more originality and authenticity in sadism than in the way in which Sa de himself had been able to interpret it. Examining i t more closely, however, we see that i t i s not negligible and that, amidst all its teeming contradictions, there emerges, on the problem which Sade's name illustrates, insights more significant than anything the most learned and illuminated minds have come up with on the subj ect to this day. We do not say that this philosophy i s viable. But it does show that between the normal man who imprisons the sadistic man in an impasse, and the sadist

72 + THE MARQUIS DE SADE

who turns the impasse into a way out, it is the latter who is closer to the truth, who know s more about the logic of his s ituation and has the more profound understanding of it , and i t i s he who i s in a position to be able to help the normal man to self-understanding, by helping him to modi fy the bases of all comprehension.

Chronology

1 740

June 2-In the Conde mansion on the rue de Conde,l in Paris, the Countess de Sade, nee ( 1 7 1 2 ) Marie-Eleonore de Maille de Carman, lady-in-waiting to the Princess de Conde, gives birth to a son, during the seventh year of her marriage to Jean-Baptiste­ Joseph-Franc;;ois ( born 1 7 02 ) , Count de Sade, lord of the manors of Saumane and La Coste and co-lord of Mazan, Lieutenant­ General o f the provinces of Bresse, Bugey, Valromey, and Gex, then Ambassador from Louis XV to the Elector of Cologne.2

Jun e 3-In the absence of both his godparents ( hi s godfather being his maternal grandfather Donatien de Maille, Marquis de Carmen, and his godmother Louise-Aldonse d'Astoaud de Murs, his paternal grandmother ) , the infant is held out over the baptismal font in the parish church of Saint-Sulpice by two retainers of the Sade household. For Christian names he is given Donatien-AI­ phonse-Franc;;ois instead of those apparently intended for him, Louis-Aldonse-Donatien, a mishap which i s to plague him with the authorities throughout his l ife , and especially under the Republic.

1 The Conde m ansion actually occupied most of the area today enclosed by the rue de Conde, the rue de Vaugirard, the rue Monsieur-Ie-Prince, and the Carrefour d'OMon.

2 Sade's father also subsequently served as Louis XV's Ambassador to Russia, and then to London. Perhaps the best portrait of the Count de Sade i s the following description by Paul Bourdin : "He was a meticulous and r ather grim person, stiff

both in manner and l anguage, a s pompous to his family as to his servants, most j e alous of his rights, rigid to the point of narrowness, yet liberal to the point of prodigality." (Paul Bourdin, ed., Correspondance inedite du Marquis de Sade, de us proch" et de ses fam iliers, Paris, Librairie de France, 1929.)

73

74 .. T H E MARQUIS DE SADE

1744. Aet. 4

Augus t 1 6-The municipal council of Saumane sends i ts consuls and secretary to Avignon "to compliment My Lord the Marquis de Sade, son of the Lord Count of this place, on his happy arrival at Avignon and to wish him long and happy years as heir appar­ ent . . . . "

1745 . Aet. 5

January 24-A paternal uncle of the Marquis, J acques-Franc;ois­ Paul-Aldonse ( born at the chateau de Mazan on September 2 1 , 1 70 5 ) , moves to the Benedictine monastery o f Saint-Leger d'Ebreuil, · to which he has been named abbot. Entrusted with the education of his nephew, he shares with him two homes, his resi­ dence a t d'Ebreuil and another at Saumane, a seigneury of which he has l ife-long tenure.

1 7 5 0. Aet. 1 0

. . . . -The Marquis returns to Paris to enter Louis Ie Grand College, a Jesu it school. He i s given a personal tutor, Abbe Jacques­ Franc;ois Amblet.3

1 7 54. Aet. 1 4

May 24-Young Sade obtains from the genealogist Clai ram­ bault a certificate of nobil ity in order to be received into the training school attached to the L ight Horse Regiment of the Royal Guards.

1 7 5 5 . Aet. 1 5

December 1 4-He i s appointed sub-l ieutenant without pay in the King's Own Infantry Regiment.

3 In what h a s general ly been taken to be a n autobiogr aphical pass age in Aline et 17 alcour, Sade describes his teacher in the following terms : "I returned to Paris to study under the guid ance of a man who was both severe and intel l igent, one who would probably h ave exerted a good influence on my youth, but unfortunately I did not keep him long enough."

Chronology .. 7 5

1 7 5 7 . Aet. 1 7

January 14-The Marquis d e Sade i s granted a commiSSIOn a s Cornet ( Standard Bearer ) i n the Carbine Regiment, Sa int-Andre Brigade, and participates in the war against Prussia .4

April l-He is transferred, with the same rank, to the Malvoisin Brigade.

1 7 59 . Aet. 1 9

April 21-He i s promoted to the rank o f captain i n the Burgundy Horse.

1 7 63 . Aet. 23

Late February-Sade, i t would appear, i s engaged to two young ladies simultaneously : Mademoiselle Renee-Pelagie de Montreuil and Mademoiselle Laure de Lauris . Of the two, Sade prefers the latter, with whom he i s wildly in love, but his father i s intent on arranging an alli ance between his son and the wealthy Montreuil family, doubtless because of the seemingly delicate financial s itua­ tion in which he then finds himself.5

March 1 5-Sade i s discharged with the rank of cavalry captain, the Paris Treaty having to all intents and purposes ended the Seven Years' War.

Late April-Only a scant two weeks before the date set for his marriage to Mlle. de Montreui l , Sade i s still in Avignon, trying to win the hand of Laure de Lauris , despi te the fact that she appar­ ently has broken off the engagement. Sade's father is angry and

4 Writing of the camp aign, a g a i n i n Aline et Falcour, Sade notes : " I am s u r e I gave a g o o d account of myself. T h e natu r a l impetuosity of my ch ar acter, that fiery Soul with which N ature endowed me, served but to enh ance that unflinching savagery which m e n call courage and which-quite wrongly I am sure-is con­ sidered the one indispensable qual ity in our m ake-up.

B In a l etter d ated at the end of 1762, the Count wrote his brother, Abbe d e S a d e : "Everything here h a s been seized" ; in another l etter he compl ained that he w a s dying of poverty-which was, to say the l e ast, an exaggeration. But that his fortunes were precarious there seems to be l ittl e doubt, and there i s every indic ation that the Count was a poor m anager of his o w n affairs and p roperties.

76 .. THE MARQUIS DE SADE

concerned by the Marquis' conduct, which is compromising the pro­ posed alliance with the Montreuil family ; nonetheless, young Sade appears to have been so persuasive or eloquent that the Count at one point consents to his marrying Lady Laure.6

}l.1 ay I -The King, the Queen, and the royal family give thei r consent to the proposed marri age between the Marquis de Sade, all ied through the Maille family to the royal blood of the Condes, and Renee-Pelagie Cordier de Launay de Montreuil ( born in Paris December 3, 1 74 1 ) , eldest daughter of the President Claude-Rene de Montreuil and of Marie-Madeleine Masson de Plissay (married August 2 2, 1 740 ) .

May 15-The marri age contract is signed by the parties in the town house of the President, situated rue Neuve-du-Luxembourg. The future husband signs i t Louis-Aldonse-Donatien.

May 1 7-The marriage i s celebrated in the church of Saint-Roch.

Octo ber 29-By oreler o f the King, the Marquis de Sade is com­ mitted to Vincennes fortress for excesses committed in a brothel which he has been frequenting for a month.

November 13-The order to free the Marquis is delivered, but the King commands him to withdraw to Echauffour Manor, a prop­ erty owned by the Montreuils, and to remain there.

1 7 64. Aet. 24

May 4-The King �,uthorizes Sade to go to Dijon, with the pro­ vision that he remain there only long enough to address the Bur­ gundy Parl iament in his capacity of Lt.-General of the King for the provinces of Bresse, Bugey, Val romey, and Gex.

Sep tember 1 1-The King completely revokes the order restrict­ ing Sade's residence to Echauffour Manor.

6 Elsewhere i n the p resen1 volu m e i s t h e only l etter, discovered i n 1948 in the Bibliotheque N ationale i n Pais, from Sade to Laure d e Lauris , a l etter revealing many f acets o f the author's c:h aracter : p assion, instability, bril l i ance, and a touch of the scoundrel.

Chronology + 77

December 7-In a report, Police Inspector Marais notes that M . d e Sa d e is i n Paris and adds that he ( Marais ) h a s asked L a Bris­ suale "to refrain from providing the M arquis with girls to go to any private chambers with him."

1 765 . Aet. 2 5

• . . . -Sa de h a s taken a s mistress an actress-prostitute who i s the toast o f a l l the young fops in Paris, Mlle. Beauvoisin.

June-July-Sade i s at La Coste with Mlle. Beauvoisin, passing her off as his wife's relative or at times even as his wife. Sade's mother-in-law, Lady Montreuil, has had wind o f the affair, but ap­ p arently it has been kept from his wife.

September-Sade i s back i n Paris, but spending more time at La Beauvoisin' s house than at his own. His alleged reason for remain­ ing in Paris is that he must settle his debts, which amount to 45 00 livres.

1 7 66. Aet. 26

November 4-Sade p ays a M . Lestarj ette t h e sum of two hun­ dred livres as four and a half months' rent on a furnished cottage in the suburb of Arcueil . This l ittle retreat i s to be associated with important events in Sade's life.

1 7 67 . Aet. 27

January 24-Jean-Baptiste-Franc;ois-Joseph, Count de Sade, dies at Montreuil, near Versailles, a t the age o f sixty-five, leaving his son the Marquis de Sade as his sole heir.

April 1 6-The Marquis de Sade i s promoted to Captain Com­ mander in the du Mestre C avalry Regiment, with orders to as­ semble his company without delay. Lady Montreuil 's reaction is one o f delight, for, as she notes, "it means at least a short period of peace."

7 The proprietress of a famous Paris brothel.

7 8 * T H E MARQ C I S DE SADE

April 20-Sade leaves for Lyons to rej oin Mlle. de Beauvoisin, leaving his wife, who i s five months pregnant, in Paris.

June 21-Debate and deliberation by the community o f La Coste, which results in a favorable reply to the demands o f the M a rquis for due recognition of his rank and for a memorial serv­ ice for his deceased father in the church.

August 27-1n the parish o f the Madeleine de la Ville-l 'Eveque in Paris, Louis-Marie . C ount de Sade, the Ma rquis ' first son is born.

October 1 6-1nspector M a rais reports on M. de Sade's unsuc­ cessful attempts to in duce Mlle. Riviere of the Opera-where she i s a member of the ballet-to live with him. He "has offered her 25 louis a month on condition that whenever she is not performing she will spend her time with him at his maisonette in Arcuei! . The young lady has refused, but M. Sa de is still pursuing her."

1 76 8 . Aet. 28

January 24-Louis-Marie de Sade i s baptized in the private chapel of the Conde mansion, the Prince de Conde and the Princess de Conti being his godparents.

April 3-0n Easte Sunday, at about nine o 'clock in the morning on the Place des Victo lres, the Marquis de Sade accosts Rose Keller , the widow of one Valentin, a pastry cook's assi stant. A cotton spin­ ner by trade, out of work for a month and now reduced to begging alms, she accepts to al:company Sade in a cab to Arcuei!. There, in his rented cottage, h e orders her to undress, threatens her with a knife , and flogs her. He then locks her in a room from which, how­ ever, she shortly man ages to escape. Reaching the village-it now being about four in t il e a fternoon-Rose Keller encounters three local women to whom she recounts her adventure and exhibits her wounds. The women :ake her to the authorities . Her statement is recorded8 and she is e xamined at once by the village doctor, Pierre Paul Le Comte.

8 The Arcueil magistrate being absent, her statement is actu ally taken by the Constabulary Brigadier of neighboring Bourg la Reine, who has been summoned for that purpose.

Chronology + 79

April 7-Madame de Sade summons Abbe Amblet and M. Claude Antoine Sohier to her residence a t the rue N euve-du-Luxembourg and dispatches them to Arcueil to determine whether Rose Kelle r can be prevailed upon to drop the charge she has made to the local magistrate. The emissaries obtain her agreement in return for 2400 livres, plus a payment o f seven gold louis for dressings and medica­ tion.

April 12-Sade sets out for Saumur castle in the company of Abbe Amblet , having been granted the privilege of not being con­ ducted there under police escort.

April 15-23-Concerned by the rumors circulating, the Paris Council orders the case taken out of the hands o f the local magis­ trate and transferred to those of the criminal court of La Tour­ nelle, which p roceeds to a thorough examination of the evidence and declares the accused under arrest.

April 30-Inspector Marais appears a t Saumur castle to transfer the Marquis to Pierre-Encise prison near Lyons, where discipline i s not so lax.

June 2-The King signs two Royal Orders, one authorizing the transfer of the Marquis to the Conciergerie du Palais where the High Court i s to rati fy the previously issued Royal Letters of An­ nulment, the other ordering his transfer back to Pierre-Encise .

June 1 0-The accused i s interrogated and admits to the princi­ pal allegations, but insists that Rose Keller was fully aware of what would be expected of her at Arcuei l . He presents the Letters of Annulment granted him by the King. That same day, the High Court of Paris , meeting in pleno , pronounces for ratification of the annulment and directs the Marquis " to refund the sum of one hun­ dred livres relative to the board of prisoners in the Conciergerie du Palais prison."

June 11 or 1 2-The Marquis i s returned to Pierre-Encise.

August-At the request of her husband, the Marquise a rrives in Lyons, where she will remain until the Marqui s recovers his freedom.

80 .. THE MARQU[S DE SADE

November 1 6-Two Royal Orders are i ssued, one instructing the supervisor of Pierre-Encise to release Sade, the other enj oining Sade to retire to his e states at La Coste. The Marquise, perhaps because she i s again pregnant, returns to Paris shortly after the re­ lease of her husband, while he proceeds to Provence as ordered.

1 769 . Aet. 29

June 27-Birth in Paris of Donatien-Claude-Armand, Chevalier de Sade , the Marquis' second son , who i s christened the following day at the parish church of Madeleine de la Ville-l'Eveque.

1 770 . Aet. 30

Augus t-Sade repor ts to resume his military duties as a Captain Commander in the Burgundy Regiment. After some difficulties caused by the deputy ccmmander of the regiment, who at first places Sade under arrest and forbids the quartermaster to take any orders whatsoever from the n'�wly arrived captain, he i s fully reinstated in his duties.

1 7 7 1 . Aet. 3 1

March 13-Sade applies to the Minister of War, requesting the rank of colonel, without stipend, which application i s granted on March 1 9.

April 1 7-Birth in Paris of Madeleine-Laure, daughter of the Marquis de Sade.

May 27-The Marquis , who has recently arrived in Provence, orders the publ i c officia l s of Saumane, of which he i s the lord of the manor, to do him homage.

June I-The Marqu i s i s authorized to draw 1 0 ,000 livres as the fee payable upon his cession to the Count d'Osmont of the regi­ mental colonelcy.

Chronology + 8 1

September 9-Sade leaves Fort l'Eveque prison, where h e has spent a week for debts. To obtain his release he p ays a sum of 3 000 francs in cash and the remainder in a p romissory note dated Octo­ ber 1 5 .

N o'Vember 7 -Sade's sister-in-law, Mademoiselle Anne-Prospere de Launay de Montreuil, j oins the Sa des at La Coste.

1 772 . Aet. 3 2

January 20-In the theater a t L a C oste, Sade presents a comedy o f which he i s the author.

Mid-June-With his manservant Armand, known as Latour, Sade sets out for M arseilles for the purpose of collecting some monies due him.

June 25-Having several days to spend in Marseilles, Sade sends Latour out in search of some girls with whom to entertain himself.

Jun e 27-Latour a rranges a rendezvous with four girls-M ari­ anne Laverne, Mariannette Laugier, Rose Coste, and Mariette Bo reHy-at M a riette's place at the corner of the rue des Capucins. The girls range in age from eighteen to twenty-three , l\1arianne being the youngest and M a riette the eldest ( Sade bas several times specified to Latour that he i s to look for "very young girls" ) . In the course of the morning, during which Sade and Latour sequester themselves together with each o f the girls singly, then with some jo intly, the M arquis offers at least two of the girls some aniseed sweets, the sugar of which had been soaked with Spanish fly extract, or canth a rides . The orgy lasts throughout the morning. That same evening, Sade's last in M arseilles, Latour procures him another prostitute, M a rguerite Coste , to whom he also gives a number of the same sweets.

June 30-The Royal Prosecutor attached to the Seneschal 's Court o f M a rseilles i s informed that one M a rguerite Coste, after consuming an excessive number o f sweets p ressed upon her by a stranger, has been so racked with intestinal pains as to indicate that she has been poi soned. The Prosecutor calls for an investigation.

8 2 + TH E MARQUI S DE SADE

The Lt.-General for criminal matters, Chomel, records Marguerite Coste ' s accusations , a doctor is appointed to examine her, and a pharmacist to analyze the matter vomited.

Ju ly I-Mariette Borelly and the three other prostitutes make a statement to the Lt.-General and the Royal Prosecutor, Marianne ascribing her digestive troubles during and after the morning bout to the aniseed offered her by the Marquis . All four girl s profess indignation at the a ttitude of the Marquis and his valet whom they accuse of "homosexual sodomy," at the same time claiming to have refused to accede to Sade's and Latour 's "unnatural advances. "9

July 4--Medical reports on Marguerite Coste and Marianne Laverne are completed and deposed. The Lt.-General signs the sub­ mission to the Royal Prosecutor of the ten statements made. The Royal Prosecutor decrees the arrest of both Sade and Latour.

july 4 ( ? ) -The Marquis , e ither fearing trouble or being un­ officially informed of his impending arrest, flees from La Coste ehateau accompanied by his sister-in-law, Anne.

July 5-The pharmacists who have analyzed both the matter thrown up by Margue rite Coste and the uneaten candy found in Mariette Borelly's room, conclude that they have found no trace of arsenic, nor any corrosive sublimate in the specimens.

July I I-Acting upon the warrant of July 4, the bailiff of Apt with three mounted men and a brigadier from the Constabulary, go to La Coste and are advised that Sade and Latour have departed a week before. Further warrants are then issued for their arrest, as are summons for them to appear before the court two weeks from that date. The possessi ,:ms of the two fugitives are impounded and l isted.

Mid-July-The Marquise de Sade goes to Marseilles to appeal her husband's case before the magistrates.

A ugust 8 and I 7-Marguerite Coste and Marianne Laverne ap­ pear before a Marseil les lawyer and drop their charges against Sade and Latour.

9 Given that the eighteenth- century penalty for sodomy, for either party involved. was death, the girls' denials ale understandable.

Chronology .. 83

Augus t 26-The Royal Prosecutor orders special proceedings against the accused and missing persons and stipulates that the re­ examination of witnesses shall require confrontation.

Augus t 29-The President de Montreuil j oins his daughter, the Marquise de Sade, at La Coste, the younger sister Anne being in fl ight with the M arquis.

September 3-Final verdict : Sa de and Latour, being declared contumacious and defaulting, are found guilty, the former of the crimes o f poisoning and sodomy and the latter of the crime of sodomy, and are condemned to expiate their crimes at the cathedral porch before being taken to the Place Saint-Louis "for the said Sade to be decap itated . . . and the said Latour to be hanged by the neck and strangled . . . then the body of the sa id Sa de and that of the said Latour to be burned and their ashes strewn to the wind."

September 1 1-Judgment a t the bar of the High Court of Pro­ vence ( the chamber summoned during the summer vaca tion) con­ firms and renders executive the sentence of the Seneschal ' s Court of Marseilles.

Septem ber 12-Sade and Latour are executed in effigy on the Place des Precheurs, i n Aix.

October 7-The Canoness, Lady Anne de Launay, returns to La Coste and remains there with her sister.lO

October 27-Leaving his luggage at Nice, Sade reaches Cham­ bery, traveling under the name of the Count de M azan. With him are Latour, another footman named Carteron, and his sister-in-law, Lady Anne .

Early November-After putting up for a few days at the Pomme d'Or, Sade rents a country house for six months , the house being outside the city gates. About the same time, having discovered her son-in-law's whereabouts, Lady de Montreuil prevails upon the Duke d'Aiguillon to ask the King of Sardinia ' s ambassador to issue

10 Some accounts h ave it that Lady Anne did not long remain with her sister, but that by mid-October she herself had decamped again to rejoin the Marquis, her brother-in-l aw. ( Cf. Lely : La Fie du MarquiJ de Sade, Vol. I, Paris , Librairie Galli­ m ard, 1952, p. 355.)

84 .. THE MARQUIS DE SADE

a Royal Order " for the arrest and imprisonment of the Count de Mazan, a French nobleman in retreat at Chambery."

December 8-Major de Chavanne and two adjutants, acting upon the order of His Maj esty the King of Sardinia, Duke of Savoy, arrest Sa de and Latour at Sade's Chambery residence.

December 9-The M arquis i s driven by post chaise, escorted by four cavalrymen, to th,� Fort Miolans prison, where he signs a pledge to the commander of the fort, M. de Launay, not to attempt to escape. Latour consti tutes himself a voluntary prisoner, j oining his master behind bars.

December 1 8-A family council convening in Avignon declares before a notary public that , given the absence of the Marquis , the education of his childre:1 and the administration of their property shall be confided to the Marquise, who is appointed their guardian ad hoc.

1 7 73 . Aet. 33

January l-Comman :lant de Launay, in a letter to the Governor of Savoy, describes h is prisoner as "unreliable as he is hot tempered and impulsive . . . capable of some desperate action" and suggests that Sa de be transferred to a more secure prison. Over the ensuing weeks, de Launay reiterates this request and several times over dis­ claims responsibility for the security of Sade.

March 6-The Mar� uise , having left Paris a week or so before, arrives by post chaise at Chambery, disguised in masculine clothing and accompanied by a fr iend and confidant, Alberet.

March 7-14-Repeated attempts by the Marquise to see her husband, which de Launay, in constant contact with the Governor of Savoy, steadfastly refuses. Finally giving up all hope of seeing her husband, Madame de Sade leaves by post chaise for Lyons.

March I 8-Back at La Coste, the Marquise writes both to the Count de la Tour and to the King of Sardiniall imploring each to

11 There w a s now a new kir,g, Charles Emmanuel III, who had been ruling at the time of S ade's imprisonment, h aving died o n Febru ary 20, 1773 . Hi. son Victor Amadeus III succeeded him.

Chronology .. 8 5

intercede on behalf of her husband. To the latter she notes : "My husband i s not to be classed with the rogues of whom the universe should be purged . . . . Bias against him has turned [ a misdemeanor] into a crime ," which she dismisses as a "youthful folly that en­ dangered no l ife nor honor nor the reputation of any citizen . . . . "

April 30-At approximately 8 :3 0 P.M., Sade, the Baron de l' Allee ( a fellow prisoner ) , and Latour climb out of the only un­ barred window of the fortress and, aided by a local farmer, Joseph Violin, head for the French frontier .

May I-Walking all n ight, the fugitives reach the village of Chapareillant by sunup, but by the time a search party sent out by de Launay arrives at the French border Sade is well on his way to Grenoble . How long he remained in Grenoble and exactly where he hid out remain unknown, but sometime before the end of 1 773 he returns clandestinely to j oin his wife a t La Coste.

December I 6-Lady de Montreuil obtains a court order to have the Marquis incarcerated anew in Pi erre-Encise prison.

1 7 74. Aet. 34

January 6-Inspector Goupil of the Paris police, armed with the court orders of December 1 6 and accompanied by four bowmen and a troup of mounted constables from Marseilles, force their way at night into La Coste castle, but find only the Marquise. Goupil searches the place, and especially the Marquis' study, whose papers he confiscates or burns.

March 25-The Minister of the Royal Household, the Duke de la Vrilliere, in transferring the King's orders relative to the Mar­ quis de Sade to the Governor of Provence, suggests that it would be best to arrest him not under his own roof but while he is out making the rounds in the neighborhood.

April I2-The Governor replies to the Duke de la Vrilliere that Sade is not at La Coste and promises to undertake a discreet in­ vestigation.

8 6 + T H E MARQUIS DE SADE

July 14-At 3 :00 A.M . Lady Anne writes to the Abbe de Sade to inform him of her sudden departure, together with her sister, for Paris . 12

N o'Vember 1 7 -Lady Anne , in Paris, reproaches the Abbe for not having replied to her . About this same date, Madame de Sade returns to La Coste, whether or not in the company of the Marquis i s not clear. But i t i s cleu that they had been together in Lyons, and were together later at La Coste. Throughout the winter the Sades remain at La Coste, seldom venturing abroad and seeing very few people.

1 7 7 5. Aet. 3 5

January-Very li ttle i s known o f the "young girls' scandal" which dates from this winter. On their way back from Paris in November of the precedi ng year, the Marquise, either alone or in concert with the Marqu is , hired seven new servants : one was a young maid named N anon, five other girls fifteen years of age, and a secretary ( male ) a trifle older. Some of the parents claimed the girls had been taken without their consent, and in January at least three of the parents filed a complaint. Criminal proceedings were instituted at Lyons, and the Marquise voyaged there to try and quash the affair. One of the girls was secretly taken to the Abbe de Sade and another placed in a nunnery, whence she escaped sev­ e ral months later.

January 21-Sade pn:pares a formal refutation of the accusa­ tions made against him by the girl presently with his uncle and also against the accusations made by the Abbe himself.

February i i-Lady de Montreuil sends the first of a long series o f letters to the notary Gaufridy of Apt, Sade's recently appointed legal adviser. She entrnts him to assume the responsibility for p romptly returning, in person and with all guarantees, these girls to their parents in Lyons and Vienne, including the girl presently at the Abbe de Sade's at Saumane.

12 Exactly how l o n g L a d y A n n e had b e e n at L a Co.te, and w h a t her precise rela­ tionship with her brother-in-law was by now, i. not clear from any extant records.

Chro nology + 87

February 15-The Marquise does not want to return the girls until they have first been examined by a doctor who will furnish them with an appropriate medical certificate. She begs the Abbe not to let the gi rl in his charge be seen.

May 3-From Aix·en-Provence, the President Bruny d'Entre­ castaux simultaneously informs the heads of both junior branches of the family, the Count de Sade-Eyguieres and Count Sade-Vaure­ done, the provost of Saint-Victor of Marseilles , that he has it first­ hand that the Marquis de Sade is at La Coste, where he indulges in excesses of every kind with young people of both sexes whom he kidnaps especially from Lyons, in which city charges have been de- posed against him.

.

May I I-Anne Sablonniere, known as N anon, chambermaid at La Coste , gives birth at Courthezon to a baby girl , Anne Elizabeth, the certificate of baptism attributing the paternity to her husband Barthelemy Fayere, but "some people maintain it was conceived by the work of the Lord of the Manor ."

May 18-The Abbe de Sade requests the capture of his nephew, who i s presently at La Coste, and demands that he be incarcerated as a madman.

June 20-Alexandre de Nerclos, Prior of the Jumiege convent, informs the Abbe de Sa de that he has la tely opened his door to a young girl who has escaped from La Coste, whence three servants of the Marquis have come to seize her on the pretext that she had stolen forty livres. He turns her over to the Abbe's confidant so that he can place her under his protection a s he has with the others from the manor.

June 21-The Marquise brings a complaint against Nanon, charging her with the theft of some household silver. This i s merely a maneuver to hold N anon in check pending the arrival of a Royal lettre de cache t which Lady Montreuil has said was forthcoming, for the Sades now consider N anon the source of all thei r trouble with the other girls and are apprehensive lest she go to Lyons and stir up the whole business again.

June 22-The Prior de Nerclos assures the Abbe de Sade that he believes he has stifled any unfortunate rumors, but adds that the

8 8 .. THE MARQUIS DE SADE

Marquis must be shut up for the rest of his days. He is also con­ vinced that "the Marqu ise is no better than her husband, for he knows that no one in the ir house went to confession on Easter Sun­ day and Lady de Sade allows her servants to have dealings with a married Lutheran woman."

July 5-The M inister of the Royal Household informs Madame de Montreuil that he has just i ssued the necessary Royal Orders for N anon to be imprisoned a t ArIes.

July 30-Nanon's daughter, Anne Elizabeth, dies a t La Coste, her wet nurse, being six months pregnant, having no more milk.

Augus t-Sade i s traveling incognito in I taly under the name of the Count de Mazan. In Florence, h e steeps himself i n the works of art o f the Grand Duke' s " superb gallery."

September 29-The Marquis arrives in Rome.

October 6-0ne of Sade's bail iffs i s instructed to visit N anon in the house o f constraint at ArIes . She threatens to kill herself i f she i s not set free, and relates to the bail iff "a thousand horrors."

October 1 7-The Marquise thanks the Abbe for persuading the I sle-sur-Sorgue hospital to accept the girl he had been keeping in h is charge. She agrees to pay the expenses but asks that the girl not be allowed to speak to anyone.

November 1 0-The Abbe de Sa de reports to the notary Gauf­ r idy that the girl is completely well again and that he intends to take her out of the hospi tal and give her to the care of one of the Marquis' farmers in Mazan, Ripert by name, where she will be better off than at Saumane and less l ikely to talk to strangers.

1 776 . Aet. 3 6

End o f lanuary-Tht Marquis i s a t Naples, where the French charge d'affaires, M. Ber anger, mistakes him for a certain M. Tes­ sier , cashier of a Lyons Hore who has absconded with eighty thou­ sand iivres. To exculpate himself, he i s obliged to reveal his real i dentity, produce supporting documents and agree to be presented

Chronology + 89

at court in h is colonel's uniform. He writes both to Gaufridy and to his wife asking whatever he would do if , because of his reputation, he was recognized and attacked.

March is-The Marquise learns that one of the girls involved in the La Coste scandal has left the Caderousse convent for Lyons, in the company of two young men who have come for her, one o f whom declares he i s her godfather. About the same time, Sade writes to his wife p roposing to return to La Coste, but she dis­ patches Sade's valet Carteron, known as La J eunesse, to Naples, to dissuade him from such a risky undertaking.

May 4-M. de M azan leaves Naples, and on June 1 arrives a t Rome.

End of June-Sade reaches Grenoble , via Bologne and Turin ; from Grenoble h e sends Carteron ahead to La Coste to prepare his return by mid-July.

July 26-Sade is now at home, and rumors circulate that he has turned religious-one rumor even has i t that he had been received by the Pope-none of which the Marquise tries to quash. Mean­ while, the girl placed in farmer Ripert's care also flees , but before returning to Vienne she spends a week at Orange making a deposi­ tion there to the local magistrate.

November 2-Father Durand, recollect monk, · i s charged by Sade, who i s in Montpell ier , to find him a cook for La Coste. Catherine Trillet ( or Treille t ) i s suggested, and the monk vouches to her father, a coverlet weaver, for the standing of La Coste and assures him that, as far as morals go, it is "l ike a nunnery." Her father consents, and the twenty-two-year-old Catherine, who is de­ scribed as "very pretty," i s driven to La Coste by Father Durand.

November 4-The Marquis is back at La Coste. Money is an increasingly serious problem : the forty thousand livres due the Marqui s as Lt.-General of Bresse are under sequester. At her daughter's request , Lady Montreuil sends 1 200 livres not directly to her daughter but to the lawyer Gaufridy, with strict orders for him to spend it only on pressing domestic needs.

90 .. T H E M A R Q U I S DE S A D E

Mid-December-Sade has wri tten to Father Durand to engage four servants for La Co ste. On December 1 3 or 1 4 , there arrive a secretary named Rolla .nd, a wigmaker, a chambermaid named Cavanis and a kitchenm aid "of foreign origin ." The following morning three of the four-all but the ki tchenmaid-return to Montpell ier where th ey inform M. Trlllet what has transpired at the manor.L3 Trillet, worried about his daughter, demands that Father Durand write to Sade requesting that he return Catherine to her father .

Late December-Gau f ridy receives an anonymous letter notify­ ing him that an officer and ten horsemen have been ordered to go to the Ste.-Clair fair at Apt and arrest the Marquis . Thus forewarned, Sade avoids the fa ir .

1 7 77 . Aet. 37

January 14-Marie-El eonore de Maille de Carman, Dowager Countess de Sade, dies a t: the Carmelite convent in the rue Enfer in Paris, aged sixty-five.

January 1 7-Toward one o 'clock M. Trillet comes to La Coste to claim his daughter, who is known in the chateau as Justine. Dur­ ing an argument with th e Marquis, Trillet fires a pistol shot at him almost point blank, but misses. He runs off to the La Coste township where he babbles about what has happened. At about five o'clock Catherine sends someone to find her father, who returns to the chateau. There she tries to calm him, but Trillet, who has brought four other men back with him, fl ies into another rage and fires a second shot into a c ourtyard where he thinks Sade to be. All five men then flee .

January 18-The junior magistrate at La Coste, learning of the a ttempted murder the previous day, begins to hear witnesses.

January 20-Trillet lea ves La Coste, after professing to Messrs. Paulet and Vidal that he feels "the sincerest emotions of fri end­ ship and attachment for the Marquis ."

13 What actu ally d i d transpire is not clear, b u t i t would appear that S a d e w a s accused b y t h e n e w domestics of h aving tried during t h e night to h ave his way with e ach of them, an a l legation that Sade categorically denied, as might be expected.

Chrono logy + 9 1

Late January-In Aix, Trillet enters a charge, backed by a state­ ment outlining what had transpired a month before at La Coste with the newly hired servants. Upon their return to Montpellier , according to Tril let , the three domestics had told him that the Mar­ quis had, during the night, "tried to have his way with them by of­ fering them a purse of silver." His decision to take back his daughter , Trillet adds, was reinforced by the fact that the superior of Father Durand's monastery, having learned of the affair , ex­ pelled Durand from the monastery. In his denial , Sade claims that he never asked Father Durand to hire these servants for him, hav­ ing no need of them, and that it was for this reason he had them returned the following day to Montpellier . Sade adds that he found all "these people frightfully prepossessing" and notes that one would have to be an "arch fool" to have aggravated "their ill hu­ mor brought about by their pointless trip" by trying to "outrage them during the night. " Moreover, he notes, how could he have tried to bribe them with money, since he had none ?

January 30-The Attorney General of Aix makes known, through the intermediary of the Aix l awyer Mouret, his opinion as to the TriIlet affair , which is that the father should be given im­ mediate satisfaction. After so many other imperfectly quashed af­ fairs , the consequences of the present one might become most senous.

February l-Sade, en route for Paris ,14 reaches Tain, near Va­ lence. Sade i s traveling with La J eunesse, while the Marquise is with Catherine Trillet, who has begged Madame to take her along and not send her back to Montpell ier.

February 8-The Sades reach Paris and learn of the Dowager Countess' death in mid-J anuary. Sade puts up at his former tutor's , Abbe Amblet, who gives him a warm reception.

February 10 or 12-Madame de Sade decides that the time has come for her to inform her mother that her husband i s in Paris.

14 Perhaps al armed by news of the Dowager Countess' state of health. The Sades did not le arn of the Dowager's death until their arrival in Paris on February 8, thus three weeks after the event.

92 .. THE MARQUIS DE SADE

February 13-The M a rqu i s de Sade i s a rrested by Inspector Marais at the Hotel de Danemark on the rue Jacob and taken to Vincennes fortress where, at 9 :3 0 that night, he is formally entered as a prisoner.

Late February-Sade writes his wife his first letter as a prisoner ( she still does not know in which prison he has been incarcerate d ) : "I feel i t completely impossible to long endure a condition so cruel. I am overwhelmed with despa ir . . . . My blood i s too hot to bear such terrible restriction . . . . I f I am not released in four days, I shall crack my skull against these walls ." All Lady Sade's applica­ tions to see her husband are denied.

April 18-Sade to h: s wi f e : " I am in a tower closed in by nine­ teen i ron doors, with l ight reaching me only through two li ttle windows, each with a score of i ron bars ." He complains that in over the two months he has been in prison he has been allowed only five walks of one hour each, "in a sort of tomb about forty feet square surrounded by walls more than fifty feet high."

June 24-Madame de Sade i s now aware that her husband is being held a t Vincennes.

September 1-Sade, in a letter to his wife, expresses the horror o f h is situation and S<l ys that, before experiencing i t , he would never have believed it . Such cages should be reserved for savage beasts, he notes, not for human beings.

September 23 and 24-Both Lady de Montreuil and Lady de Sade write to the M inister of the Royal Household in favor o f the quashing of the sentence o f 1 7 7 2 and requesting that this be formally submitted to tJe King in his Council of Dispatches o f the 2 6th inst.

1 7 7 8 . Aet. 3 8

Early February-Na non i s set free, o n condition that she not come within three l eagues of Lyons or Vienne.

April 30-J ean-B aptiste-J oseph-D avid, Comte de Sade d'Ey­ guieres, obtains from the King the post of Lt.-General of the

Chronology + 93

provinces of Bresse, Bugey, Valromey and Gex formerly held by the Marquis de Sade, which has been in suspense for the past five years.

May 23-Faced with the choice of having recourse to the plea of insanity or of personally appearing before the High Court of Provence (in connection with the Marseilles affair of 1 7 72 ) , Sade opts for the second choice.

May 27-The King grants the M arquis de Sade papers of ester a droit to appeal the sentence of the High Court of Provence, despite the expiration of the legal period of five years.

June 1 4-Escorted by Inspector Marais, Sade leaves Vincennes to journey to Aix, arriving there on the evening of Saturday, June 20.

June 30-A crowd of 200 gathers at the door of the Jacobin monastery where the High Court holds its sessions, in anticipation of seeing the Marquis de Sade, but the prisoner both arrives and departs in a sedan chair with curtains drawn, thus thwarting their curiosity. Plaintiff's Counsel Joseph-Jerome Simeon and the Royal Attorney, General d' Eymar de Montmeyan, both speak eloquently in Sade's behalf, and the Court, a fter deliberation, declares the Marseilles trial null and void for absolute lack of evidence of any poisoning. The Court also orders a new investigation of the allega­ tions of libertinage and pederasty alone, and the hearing of wit­ nesses.

July 7-1 0-Cross-examination of Sade. The following day the Court issues a decision ordering a special trial. On July 1 0 there is a re-examination of the witnesses and confrontation with the ac­ cused.

July 1 4-The Marquis is cross-examined publicly in the High Court chambers, returning shortly thereafter for the j udgment, which finds Sade guilty of acts of debauch and excessive libertinage. The Court orders that "Louis-Aldonse-Donatien de Sade be ad­ monished behind the bench in the presence of the Attorney General in future to be of more seemly conduct," and prohibits him "to live in or frequent the city of Marseilles for three years." Further, he

94 .. THE MARQUIS DE SADE

is condemned to pay fi fty livres applicable to the prison fund and the cost of justice.

July 1 5-Sade leaves Aix, escorted by Marais , Marais ' younger brother Antoine and two junior guards, on his way back to Vincennes where, in spite of his legal victory, he i s still a prisoner o f the King's by virtue o f the le t tre de cache t of February 1 3 , 1 7 77 .

July 1 6-At Valen :e, where the party has stopped at an inn overnight, the Marqu : s makes his escape. In spite of a thorough search of the immedi�.te vicinity, no trace i s found of Sade, who described what happened in his "Story of My Imprisonment" : " I had taken refuge about half a mile ou t of town in a shanty near a farmer's threshing floor. Then two local countrymen guided me. We fi rst went toward Montelimar, but after a league we changed our minds and returned to the Rhone, intending to cross it , but we could not find a boat. Finally , just as day was breaking, one of us crossed the river to Vivarais where he found a boat that was suitable and this , for a louis, took me down to Avignon." At Avignon, Sade goes to a friend's house, has supper, and orders a carriage to take h im that same night to La Coste. .

July 1 8-Sade reaches La Coste, where he spends a quiet month, with Mlle. Dorothee de Rousset acting as housekeeper.

July 27-Madame de Sade has only recently learned from her mother o f the verdict of the High Court of Aix ( but she has not yet learned of Sade's escape ) . Upon being informed that her husband, although cleaed at Aix, must nevertheless return to his cell a t Vincennes, she "completely loses control of herself" in the course o f a terrible scene with her mother.

August 1 9-Warned of the presence of suspicious characters in the region, the Marquis takes to hiding out at various places in the neighborhood of La Coste.

Augus t 23-Sade, in spite of strong pleas by his friend Canon Vidal, returns to take lip residence at La Coste.

August 26-At 4 :00 A.M. the door to Sade's chamber i s forced by a group of armed nen, whose leader covers the culprit , before witnesses, with the foulest insults.

Chro n o logy 9 5

September 7-After thirteen days' travel by post chaise then further travel by stage coach, Sade arrives at 8 :30 P.M. at Vincennes, where he is locked in cell No. 6 .

N o'Vember 6-Mlle. de Rousset arrives in Paris to stay with the Marquise.

December 7-After three months' solitary confinement, Sade is allowed to have pen and paper and to write as he please , and is given permission to take exercise twice a week.

1 7 7 9. Aet. 39

J anuary-Sade sends season's greetings i n verse t o Mlle. de Rousset, whom he now addresses as "Saint" Rousset, because of her boundless goodness toward him.

March 29-Sade's exercise periods are increased to three a week.

July I5-He now enjoys five exercise periods a week.

November 9-Mlle. de Rousset, to whom Sade has been writing letters full of unjust reproaches and complaints, breaks off her correspondence with him, although she remains devoted to him and continues her unflagging efforts on his behalf.

1 7 80 . Aet. 40

April 2I-Sade i s visited by M. Le Noir15 who informs him that he will soon be permitted to receive a vi sit from his wife.

April 25-Sade's exercise periods become dai ly.

Jun e 26-An altercation with a j ailer, whom Sade maintains was extremely insolent to him, results in the suspension of his daily exercise periods.

June 28-The Captain of the Guard, M. de Valage, who comes to inform the prisoner officially of the suppression of his walks, i s

15 Charles L e Noir ( 1 732-1 807 ) , Chief o f Police o f Paris for approximately a ten­ year period ending in August, 1785 . He is best remembered for his work in improv­ ing the hospitals and abolishing torture. He was generally known as a kind, just per­ son, qua lities rarely found in the men occupying such a position.

96 .. THE MARQUIS DE SADE

threatened and berated by Sa de. According to the report of the warden, M. de Rougemont,16 Sade then begins to shout at the top of his voice trying to arouse the other prisoners. Spying a fellow prisoner whom he detested, Mirabeau, down below in the prison yard taking exercise, Sade shouts at him out of his cell window, calling him the Commandant's ( i.e . de Rougemont' s ) catamite, blaming him for his , Sa de's , being deprived of his walks, suggesting he might go kiss the warden ' s ass. Sa de dares him to answer, adding for good measure that he intends, once free, to lop off Mirabeau's ears. To which Mirabeau replies : "My name is that of a man of honor who has never either dissected or poisoned any women, a man who win be only too pleased to write his name on your shoulders with a razor, if only you're not broken on the wheel before I have a chance to do so, a man you inspire with one fear only, and that i s that you might put him in mourning a la Greve." (The square where executions are then taking place. )

July 24-The motives for holding Sade prisoner are debated at Versail les , and the First Minister orders that al l information rela ting to the Marqu is' case be gathered and given him for ex­ amination.

December 13-Mirabeau, l eaving Vincennes prison , endorses his official discharge 0.1 the back of the record of Sade's a rrival there on February 1 3 , 1 777 .

1 7 8 1 . Aet. 4 1

March 9-After thi:cty-six weeks, the prisoner's exercise periods are restored.

May 1 0-Lady Anne de Launay, Sa de's sister-in-law, falls ill with smallpox, the fi rst signs of the disease appearing this Thursday evenIng.

16 Charles de Rougemont ,"as the bastard son of the Marquis d'Oise, his mother being an English woman named Mrs. H att. Sade, who loathed the man, often re­ ferred to him is "that quarter Englishman" or simply "that mongrel." He also had more highly descriptive epithets for de Rougemont, one of which was "a toad in breeches." He was, wrote Sade, one of those men "so robot-like, so idiotic, so dim­ witted that he could never think of any way to refuse a request but by saying ' I t has never been done before, I 've never known it to be done before.' ''

Chron ology + 97

May 13-Lady Anne d ies at 1 :00 P.M.

June-Mlle. de Rousset i s back at La Coste, where she once again corresponds with the Marquis .

July 13-Sade receives his first vis i t from his wife , after a separation of four years and five months. They are allowed to meet only in the presence of a witness.

Early October-M. Le Noir suspends the visits of the Marquise because of the violent attacks of husbandly jealousy to which Sade was subject. To counter Sade's suspicions-most probably com­ pletely without foundation-Lady de Sade moves from her apart­ ment on the rue de la Marche and withdraws into the convent of Sainte-Aure.

1 7 82 . Aet. 42

July 12-Sade completes the manuscript of his Dialogue between a Pries t and a Dying Man.

August 6-Sade is deprived of all books because they "over­ heated his head" and led him to write "unseemly things ."

Sep tember 25-Resumed a fter January, the Marquise 's rare vis its are again suspended because of the prisoner's poor conduct.

1 7 8 3 . Aet. 43

February-Sade, suffering from eye trouble , i s treated by the oculi st Grandj ean.

April 1-Madame de Sade informs her husband of the mar­ riage of her younger sister, Fran\oise-Pelagie, born October 1 2 , 1 7 60, to the Marquis de Wavrin, the wedding having taken place toward the end of January .

. . . . -Louis-Marie de Sade, the Marquis ' eldest son, i s named sub-lieutenant in the Rohan-Soubise Regiment. Sade, wanting him to

98 .. THE MARQU; S DE SADE

wear the same cavalry uniform he had worn, is furious and writes his wife, categorically obj ecting to the appointment.

1 7 84. Aet. 44

January 25-Mlle. de Rousset, who has long been suffering from tuberculosis , dies at L" Coste, aged forty years and nineteen days.

February 29-Excerpt from the Repertoire au J ournalier du chateau de la Bas tille : "M. Surbois , inspector of police, has taken the Marquis de Sade from Vincennes at nine o'clock in the evening. The Royal Order, counter signed by Breteuil , i s dated January 3 1 : he i s lodged in second Liberty.17

March 3-M. Le N oir writes to the Governor of the Bastille recommending that Sade, like two other noblemen recently trans­ ferred from Vincennes to the Bastille , be allowed to take periodic walks at the latter prison.

March 8-Sade, in a letter to his wife, complains of conditions at the Bastille, mainta ning they are far worse than at Vincennes.

March 1 6-Madame de Sade pays her first vi sit to the Bastille, bringing him six pounds of candles. She i s allowed to visit him twice monthly.

July 1 6-Le Noir au thorizes Grandj ean, the oculist , to attend to the Marquis.

1 7 8 5 . Aet. 45

October 22-The Marquis begins the final revision of his draft of a major work, The 1 20 Days of Sodom or The Schoo l for Liber­ tines.

17 That is, on the second floor of Liberty Tower. When Sade was imprisoned in the Bastille, Liberty Tower consisted of two dungeon cells , six rooms one above the other and a circIe of narrow cells. Sade's room, on the second floor, like the one below it and the four above, was some fifteen feet in diameter and about eighteen feet h igh.

Chronology + 99

N o'llCmber 12-In twenty evenings of work, between seven and ten, he covers one side of a twelve-meter-long roll of paper which he has prepared for this purpose.

N o'Vember 28-After thirty-seven days of work Sade completes the second side of the famous manuscript of The 120 Days in the form in which it has come down to us .

. . . . -Cardinal de Rohan is imprisoned in the Bastille. The presence of the Church digni tary stops all private visits to all pris­ oners.

1 7 86 . Aet. 46

July 13-Madame de Sade's visits, at the rate of one a month, are reinstated.

1 7 8 7 . Aet. 47

May 23-The prisoner, who hitherto has been allowed a one­ hour walk only every second day, i s now provisionally given an hour's walk daily.

May 25-Madame de Sade writes to Gaufridy that M. Sade is in fair health but getting "very fa t."

Jun e 21-A simple decree of the Chatelet in Paris provides for the administration of the properties of the Marquis de Sade, he "being absent for the past ten years."

July 8-Sade completes Les Infortunes de la Pertu, a philosophi­ cal story 1 3 8 pages long which he wrote in two weeks, in spite of the fact that, as he pencils in the margin of the last page, "All the time I was writing this my eyes bothered me."

October 7-0wing to the arrival of a prisoner just as he was supposed to begin his walk, Sade' s exercise hour is suspended, and he has what the official report describes as a "violent outburst."18

18 Letter of October 10, 1787, from M ajor de Losme-Salbry to the Chief of Police.

1 00 .. THE MARQUIS DE SADE

October 1 0-Sade b<:rates the Governor and his aide who come to announce to him the suspension of his exercise periods.

October 23-Sade's (:xercise right i s restored.

1 7 8 8 . Aet. 48

March l-Sade begins work upon his short novel Eugenie de Pranval, which he completes in six days.

June 5-Sade's exercise period again having been suspended "for impertinence" and he having so been informed in writing, the pri soner nonetheless att empts to descend at his regular hour to the yard and, according to de Losme, "it was only when the officer [stationed a t his door] pointed his gun at him that he retreated, swearing l oudly ."

October J-Sade draws up the Catalogue raisonne of his writ­ ings. By now, apart from his cl andestine works, h e has the contents of fi fteen octavo vol urn! s.

October-At Madame de Sade's request, the Lt.-General of police authorizes the pr soner to read magazines and newspapers.

1 789. Aet. 49

J anuary-June-Aut� orized on November 24 of the preceding year to visit her husband weekly rather than bi-weekly, Madame de Sade pays her husbc .nd twenty-three vis its during the first half of 1 789.

July 2-The Bastille logbook notes that "The Count de Sade19 shouted several times from the window of the Bastille that the pri soners were being sl mghtered and that the people should come to l iberate them."

19 A l though Sade is known IS, and bore the titl e of, M a rquis, h e w a s also often re­ ferred to a s "Count." In a let ter to h i s wife w ritten ear ly in 1 784, Sade in fact an­ nounced his intention to p ass on th e titl e of M arquis to his eldest son Louis-Marie, and himself assume the title of Cou nt, "fol lowing the cu stom of all [noble] famil ies."

Chro nology .. 1 0 1

July 4-At 1 :00 A.M., a s a result o f a report made to Lord de Villedeuil on the Marquis' conduct on July 2 , he is transferred to Charenton Asylum by Inspector Quidor.20

July 9-Sade signs the authori zation requested by Commissaire Chenot to have his Bastille cell, which was placed under seals on July 4, opened in the presence of his emissary, Madame de Sade.

July 14-Awakened by the quickening pace of events, Madame de Sade, who has not yet carried out her commission relative to Sade's personal belongings left behind in the Bastille , sends her authorization to Commissaire Chenot and then leaves town for the country. The Bastille i s stormed and Sade's cell sacked, his furni­ ture, his suits and linen, his library and, most important, his manu­ scripts, are "burned, pillaged, torn up and carried off."

July 1 9-Madame de Sade informs Commissaire Chenot that, for personal reasons, she cannot consider herself responsible for the papers and effects of the Marquis de Sade.

October 5-Madame de Sade escapes from Paris, accompanied by her daughter and a maid, to avoid being "dragged out by the women of the lower classes who are forcing all the women in the town ' houses to march with them through the rain and mud to Versailles to seize the King." She then relates that the King has been brought from Versailles to Paris, "the heads of his two body­ guards set on pikes before him," and that "Paris is in a state of intoxication."

1 790. Aet. 5 0

March 13-The Constituent Assembly adopts a projected decree concerning the lettres de cachet stipulating that all prisoners de­ tained by such Royal Orders will be released save for those con­ demned to death, indicted or judged insane.

20 An asylum run by the charity order of friars known as the Petits Peres. Ac­ cording to Sade's own description, his transfer from the Bastille to Charenton was effected by six men who, pistol in hand, entered his cell and tore him from his bed. He was allowed to take nothing with him, neither his books nor manuscriDts.

1 02 4 THE MARQGn DE SADE

March 18-Sade is vi sited at Charenton by his two sons, whom he has not seen in fi fteen years and who have come to inform him of the decree of the Assembly.

April 2-0n this day, Good Friday, Sade recovers his l iberty and leaves Charenton, without a penny. He goes di rectly to see the man who i s handling his affa i rs, M. de Milly, attorney at the Chatelet Court, who provides him with a bed to sleep in and six lOllis.

April 3-Madame de Sade, a resident of the convent of Sainte­ Aure, refuses to see her husband from whom she has decided to separate .

April 28-Madame de Sade formally applies to the Chatelet Court for a separation o rder. Sade, who claims he has already seen her attitude changing toward him, tends to blame it upon the influ­ ence of her Father Confessor.

Jun e 9--The Chatel et Court i ssues a separation order and instructs th e Marquis de Sade to restore to his wife 1 60 ,842 livres received as marriage settlement.

July l-Sade obtains an identity card as "an active citizen" o f the Place Vendome Section, later to be known as the Piques Section.

A ugus t 3-The Theatre Italien accepts his one-act verse play, L e Suborneur.

Augus t 1 7-Sade givl�s a reading at the Comedie-Fran�aise of h i s one-act play in free verse, Le Boudoir 0 11 Ie mari credille. A week later the play is rej ected, but a second reading agreed to , providing the author makes some changes.

A ugus t 25-Sade forTIS a l ia ison with a young actress, Marie­ Constance Renelle , her husband Balthazar Quesnet having deserted her and left her with their one child. This l ia ison, which Sade will describe many times as " less than platonic," but founded on mutual love and attachment, will last the rest of his li fe.21

21 In a letter to R�inaud, his Aix attorney, Sade writes : "Nothing was ever more virtuous than my littl e nest, To begin with, there is not a hint of love-making. She is just a decent, kindly, matronl:r person, sweet and good and with a keen mind . . . ," (Letter of January, 1 79 1 . )

Chronology + 1 03

September 1 6-Sade's five-act play, Le Misan thrope par amour ou S ophie e t Desfrancs, i s "unanimously accepted" by the Comedie­ Fran«;aise.

November l-Sade moves into a house with garden at No. 20, rue Neuve-des-Mathurins, off the Chaussee d'Antin.

1 7 9 1 . Aet. 5 1

March 5-Sade writes - to Reinaud telling him that he will send the four volumes of his novel, A line et Valcour, which are to be printed by Easter. He also remarks that he now has five plays accepted by various theaters.

June 12-Sade notes, in a letter to Reinaud, that his novel Jus tine ou les Malheurs de la Vertu i s being printed, adding that it is "too immoral a work for so religious and modest a man as your­ self."

October 22-First performance, at the Theatre Moliere on the rue Saint-Martin, of Sade's Le Comte Oxtiern au les elfe ts du libertinage. A second performance is given two weeks later, on November 4, which gives rise to a disturbance and causes Sade to suspend further performances.

November 24-Sade gives a reading to the Comedie-Fran«;aise of his Jeanne Laisne ou Ie Siege de Beauvais, which i s rej ected by an eight-to-five vote.

1 792. Aet. 5 2

March 5-At the Theatre Italien, a J acobin cabal, all wearing red bonnets with the point forward, makes so much noise that Le Suborneur cannot be completed and the perfo rmance is halted after the fourth scene. The reason given for the demonstration : the author was an aristocrat.

M ay-Sub-Lieutenant Donatien-Claude-Armand de Sade, aide. de-camp of the Marquis de Toulongeon, deserts.

1 04 + T H E MARQ UIS DE SADE

August 18-Sade solemnly disavows his sons' emigration, a necessary step taken to save himself, the Republic having issued a decree making parents responsible for the actions of the ir children.

Sep tember 3-During the massacres,22 Sade is for the first time the secretary of his secti on.

September 1 7-Z1-A crowd of people from La Coste-men, women and children-force the ir way into the chateau and ransack it , destroying or carting away most of the furniture. The municipal guard is helpless to cope with the mob, but the municipality does its best to save what remains of Sade's furniture and effects and has them housed in the vicarage, until they are carted away a week later by two bail iffs fro m Apt who a rrive with a requi sition order and abuse their limited autho rity to load all pieces of value onto four wagons, over the protests of the La Coste municipal council.

October 1 7 -Sade is a soldier in the 8 th Company of the Piques Section and commissaire for the organization of the cavalry in that section.

October-Sade in possession of the first copies of his poli tical pamphlet Idees sur Ie mode de la sanctio n des Loix, which i s pub­ l ished by his own section and sent to the other forty-seven sections o f Par is for the ir study an d opinion.

November 4-Sade i ll called by the Piques Section to do twenty­ four hours' guard duty commencing at 9 :00 A.M.

December 13-Unde r the name Louis-Alphonse-Donatien Sade, the Marquis' name i s entered-whether by error or willful malice­ on the list of emigres of ·the Bouches-du-Rhone department.

1 793 . Aet. 5 3

January 21-"Loui s Capet, thirty-nine, profession : last King o f the French" i s guillotined on the Place d e la Revolution at 1 0 :2 2 A.M.

22 On September 3 , ten thousand prisoners were slaughtered. "Nothing can equ al the horror of the massacre," S ade wrote to Gaufridy on September S . "The former Princess de Lamballe was one of the victims. Her head. stuck on a pike. was shown to the King and Queen and h." body. after being subjected to the most savage de­ bauchery. was dragged throug� the streets for eight hours . . . . "

Chronology .. 105

February 26-Together with Citizens Carre and Desormeaux, Sa de signs the report he has drawn up concerning their inspection of five hospitals which the Hospital Commission had entrusted them with on January 1 7.

April 13-1n a letter to Gaufridy, Sade announces that he has been appointed court assessor. "I have two items of news which will surprise you . Lord Montreuil has been to see me 123 And guess the other ! I would give you a hundred guesses I I am appointed magistrate, yes, magistrate ! By the prosecution I Who, my dear lawyer , would have told you that fifteen years back ? You see how wise my oid head is becoming in i ts old age . . . . "

June IS-Citizen Sade, secretary of the assembly of the sections of Paris, is appointed one of the four delegates who the following day are to present an address to the Convention calling for . an an­ nulment of the decree which established a Parisian army of six thousand men at forty sous a day.

June 26-A new department, the Vaucluse, is created out of the former Bouches-du-Rhone department, but in submitting the list of emigres to the new department Sade's name, which has been ordered from the list, still appears there, a fact which is later to have grave consequences for him.

July 23-Sade has been appointed chairman of the Piques Sec­ tion, and he announces the news with elation to Gaufridy.

Augus t 2-At a stormy session of the Piques Section, Sade gives up the chair to the vice-chairman, refusing to ac;t as chair­ man for a proposal he deems "horrible . . . utterly inhuman."

September 29-The General Assembly of the Piques Section, "approving the principles and vigor" of Sade's pamphlet entitled Discours .aux manes de Jl,farat el de Le Peletier, decides to print i t and send i t to the National Assembly.

November 15 ( 2S Brumaire, Year II) -Sade i s the leader of seven other delegates who appear before the bar o f the National

23 The former President de Montreuil had come to visit his son-in- law, whom he had not seen in fifteen years, at the Piques Section of which Sade was secretary. S ade was obviously pleased by the deferential visit.

1 06 + THE MARQU S DE SADE

Convention to read the Pe tition of the Piques Section to the R epre­ sen tatives of the French People, of which Sade is the author.24

December 8 ( 1 8 Fri maire, Year II ) -A warrant is issued for Sade's arrest based on a letter Sade had written two years earl ier , and he i s arrested at h is house on the rue N euve-des-Mathurins and taken to Madelonnettes pri son.25

1 794. Aet. 5 4

January 1 3 ( 23 Niv ?se, Year II ) -The police department o f Paris orders the transfer of the prisoner Sade t o the Carmelite convent on the rue de Va ugirard.26

January 22 ( 3 Pluvi(jse, Year II ) -By o rder o f the police de­ p artment dated 1 Pluvic.se , Sade is transferred to the Saint-Lazare prison.27

February 12 (24 Plw)iose, Year II ) -Sade's name is again ( by erro r ? ) placed on the l ist of emigres, under the Chri stian names o f Louis-Alphonse-Donatien , with t h e mention " Vaucluse, Apt, De­ cember 1 3 , 1 793 ."

March 8 ( 1 8 J7 entose, Year II ) -Sade submits a report in his defense to the Committee of Publ ic Safety defending his conduct since 1 7 8 9 . In i t he nu;intains he w a s overjoyed when the King ( "the most immoral rascal and the most outrageous tyrant" ) was

24 The petition proposed the : dol atrous worship of the Virtues at the deserted altars of C atholicism. It was receive:! favorably by the Convention, who decided to pass on the proposal to the Committ ee on Public Education.

25 Sade's l etter, which he could only l amely explain ( " I had no idea how scandalously that guard had b" en formed" ) , was to the Due de Brissac, commander of Louis Capet' s Gu ard. Sade', l etter fell into the hands of Citizen Pache, former Mayor of Paris.

26 D uring the Revolution thi , convent ( the building of which sti ll stands at No. 70, rue de Vaugirard ) was mad e a prison. In it , a year and half earl ier, on September 2, 1 792, one hundred and fifty priests were murdered.

27 Originally built in 1 6 32 a, a Lepers' Hospice. It was sacked in 1789 but suf­ ficiently repaired to house p riwners five years l ater. Until its destruction in 1 9-10, it served both as a hospital alld women's prison. The building at No. 1 07, rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis stands on the site tod ay.

Copy of S a d e ' s c e r t i f icate of bapt ism, taken f rom the records o f the Par is

Church of Saint-Sulpice, Paris, dated 3 June , 1 7 40. ( COURTESY M U S E E CALVET, AVIG:o.IO:o.l )

A bove ; The ruins of La Co,te chateau, as it looks tocl ay, with the v i l l age g rouped

below it . Be/au' ; A closer view of the chateau. ( P H OTOS B Y A L A I :\, R E S :\, A I S )

Two details of the ruins of La Coste chateau. ( P H OTOS BY A L A I N R E S :-.1 .\ I S )

Frontispiece to Volume IV of the original edition of Les Crimes de I' A m our, which contained Eugenie de Franval.

LE S C R I M E S l1 E

L ' A M O U R ,

N O U V E L L E S H t R O ] Q U E S E T T R A G I Q U E S ;

Precedes d'une IDEE SUIl LES ROMANS , et ornes de gravures.

P,U. D. J... F. SADE , auteur d'Aline et Valeonr.

A.,..r . fruit . cUlieiev1t . que Ie Ciel.Pftmet 1 Ji. terl. de prolluite pour le bonileuf de 1.1 yie . pl'Iurquoi (aw-it 4ue tu falRI nairte de. !'rime. � tt pourquoi l'hOlUllle "\tIe-t it de tout t

A N V II I.

Title page of the original edition of Les Crimes de r A m o ur.

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/ Letter of 1 1 October, 1 782, from Madame de Sade to Mademoiselle de Rousset,

who is at La Coste, but increasingly wary of remaining in the chateau, which

is in such a state of disrepair that the high winds are threatening to reduce it

to ruins, Madame de Sade is worried about the safety of certain papers at La

Coste, and her letter expre�ses her concern. ( COLLECTION R . SEAVER )

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compassionate as yours "ou, opmg they will touch h

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AVER

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Copy of the order issued 1 8 Octobe r, 1 8 1 0 , by the Count de :\lontalivet, :\ l in­ ister o f the Interior, effecti vely isol ating S ade from all contact with other in­

mates at the Charenton asy lum, and also forbidding him all access to writ ing

materials. See the Chronology, entry for Octobe r 1 8 , 1 8 1 0, ( COL'RTESY �IUSEE CALVET, AVI GNON )

Chrono logy .. 1 07

beheaded and draws attention to his many activities and increasing responsibility in the Piques Section.28 He further denies that he or his family before him were ever aristocrats, claiming they were e i ther in business or cultivating the land.

March 27 ( 7 Germinal, Year II ) -For reasons of illness, Sade IS transferred to Picpus Hospice, a p rison hospital only recently opened.29

July 27 ( 9 Thermidor, Year II) -Sade's name appears eleventh on a list of twenty-eight prisoners to be brought to trial . For some reason not wholly explained, the court bailiff fails to take Sade and returns with only twenty-three of the twenty-eight. All but two are guillotined the same day on a square only a few hundred yards from the Picpus p rison where Sade was held.30

July 28 ( 1 0 Thermidor, Year II) �Beginning at 7 :3 0 P.M., Robespierre and twenty-two other terrorists are executed j thunder­ ous cheering from the crowd.

October 13 ( 22 Vendemiaire, Year III) -The Committee of General Safety s igns the order freeing Citizen Sade immediately.

October 15 ( 24 Vendemiaire, Year III ) -After 3 1 2 days o f de­ tention , Sade is released and authorized, in spite of his being a former nobleman and in view of h is patriotic work, to reside in his house on the rue Neuve-des-Mathurins.

28 It is to be noted, however, that in spite of his plea for support, none of his fOlUIler col le agues dared come forth in support of their former chairman. Later, after the ""ecution of Robespierre and a sl ackening if not end of the Terror, his colleagues signed 1I statement in his behalf, on August 25, 1794.

29 Called Coignart House, this property had formerly been the convent of the Canoness of Saint Augustine, who had been ordered to vacate it in 1792. Two "humane" citizens, Riedain and Coignard, decided to set up a prison hospice there for the care of prisoners who were ill and whose purses were sufficient to purchase their health, and at the same time save their necks from the guillotine.

30 Sade describes it thus ( letter of November 19, 1 794) : "An earthly paradise, a lovely building, a magnificent garden, choice company, charming women, then all at once the gui l lotine is set up directly under our windows [the inhabitants of the Place de la Concorde had complained that the stench of blood had become impossible from the guillotine there, and it had thus been removed to the Pl ace du Trone Renverse near the Piepus Hospice] , and they began to dispose of the dead in the middle of our garden . . • • We buried 1,800 in thirty-five days."

1 08 .. T H E MARQUIS DE SADE

1 7 9 5 . Aet. 5 5

January (Nivose-Pluviose, Year [II ) -Death o f the former President de Montreuil about six months after his release from the prison where he and his wife had been kept during the Reign of Terror.

May ( Floreal-Prairial, Year III ) -Sade's son, Louis-Marie, is back in Paris. Since ne ither he nor his brother has ever appeared on any l ist of emigreJ , a story i s concocted according to which Louis has been trave' ing through France studying botany and gravure ; as for Donatien-Claude-Armand, he is in Malta where he i s on duty with a fore ign power all ied to France.

1 796 . Aet. 5 6

October 1 3 ( 22 Pendemiaire, Year P)-Sade sells L a Coste, "both buildings and furni ture ," to the representatives of M. and Mme. Rovere for 5 8 ,400 livres, which sum will never be paid to him in i ts entirety.

October ( Pendemiaire, Year P) -Sade i s living in the town of Clichy.

December 1 ( 1 1 F:�imaire, Year P) -Sade gives as his new address the house of C i tizeness Quesnet, 3, Place de la Liberte in Saint-Ouen.

1 797 . Aet. 5 7

May-June ( Floreai-Prairial, Year P) -Sade, together with Mme. Quesnet, visits Provence, paying calls on Gaufridy in Apt, and going to La Coste, Bonnieux and Mazan.

October (Brumaire, Year Pl) -Sade and Mme. Quesnet return to Saint-Ouen.

November ( Brumai:�e, Year PI) -Having learned that he is l isted in Vaucluse as an emigre and thus not only l iable to arrest but

Chronology + 1 09

subj ect to having his property and possessions confiscated, Sade sets about filing a protest with the police, complete with substantial documentation.

1 79 8 . Aet. 5 8

September 1 0 (24 Fructidor, Year J7I ) -Sade and Mme. Quesnet are, for lack o f funds, compelled to leave Saint-Ouen : she puts up with friends and he finds refuge in Beauce with one of his farmers.

November ( Brumaire, Year J7/l) -The sellers of the properties at Malmaison and Granvilliers, which Sade has purchased with money realized from the sale of La Coste, having not yet been paid in full, secure an injunction on the transfer of said properties. Sade's farmer thus refuses to lodge him any longer, and he is obliged to move from place to place, wherever he can find a bed or a meal.

1 7 99. Aet. 5 9

January 24 (5 Pluviose, Year J7/l ) -Sade goes t o live with Mme. Quesnet's son for the winter, their residence being an un­ heated a ttic.s1

February 13 ( 25 Pluviose, Year V/l ) -Sade earns forty sous a day working as an employee in a Versailles theater, with which miserable sum he is supporting not only himself but "feeding and raising" Madame Quesnet's son.

June 28 ( 1 0 Messidor, Year J7/l ) -A decree forbidding the names of ex-nobles to be stricken from the list of emigres reduces Sa de to despair : "Death and misery, this then is the recompense I receive for my everlasting devotion to the Republic."

81 Sade to Gaufridy : "My dear one's [Mme. Quesnet's] boy and I live here at the back of a barn, subsisting on a few carrots and beans and warming ourselves ( not every day but whenever we can) with some kindling which we gener ally buy on credit . . . . "

1 1 0 + THE MARQ C i S DE SADE

Augus t 5 ( 1 8 Thert'lidor, Year VII ) -The munic ipal admin­ i s tration of the canton 0 f Clichy i s su es Sade a certi ficate of resi dence and ci t izensh ip , counte, -signed by Commiss ioner Cazade , who is in charge of h i s security.

December 1 0 ( 1 9 Fri maire, Year VIII ) -Following the example of the Vaucluse authori t ies , who had earl i er li fted the sequester on Sade 's properties , the Bouches-du-Rh6ne depa rtment does l ikewi se.

December 13 ( 22 Frimaire, Year VIII ) -Revival o f Sade 's play Oxtiern ou les ma lheurs du libertinage on the stage of the Societe Dramatique of Versail les , the author playing the role of Fabrice. This is the same play performed eight years e a rl ier at the Thea tre Moliere, but Sade sl ightly revi sed the title.

1 8 00. Aet. 60

January 26 ( 6 Pluviose, Year VIII ) -Sade i s in the public infirm a ry of Versailles, "dying of cold and hunger" as he writes Gaufridy in an attempt to elicit some money from him.

February 20 ( 1 Ven tose, Year VIII ) -Commissi oner C a zade comes to Versailles to idorm M adame Quesnet and Sade that two bai l iff 's men at twelve francs a day have been placed in their Saint­ Ouen house, since they had failed to make their payments. That same day Sade i s threatened with debtors ' prison i f he fai ls to pay two outstanding bil ls before the 9 Ventose. Fortuna tely for Sade, Cazade i s most helpful and solici tous, and maintains tha t since Sade is in h is care , he cannot be taken to j ai l unless he, Cazade, takes him.

April 5 ( 1 5 Germinal, Year VIII ) -Sade i s back at Saint-Ouen, and Commissioner C a z :lde writes to Gau fridy, whose indi fferent manner o f running Sade s business affairs and his slowness in reply­ ing to letters is characte;�ized as criminal by the Marquis.

May (Floreal-Prair:ial, Year VIII ) -Sade has previously accused Gaufridy of a ccepting bribes and threatened him with legal action. Gaufridy now re !.igns his post as Sade ' s steward.

June (Prairial-Messidor, Year VIII ) -Mme. Quesnet, armed with legal powers to inspect the Sade estates and examine his ac-

Chronology + 1 1 1

counts, goes to Provence to investigate the situation. " I t i s im­ possible, after thirty years of stewardllhip, for things to be in more of a mess ."

July ( Messidor, Year PI/I) -The publication of Zolo e, a pam­ phlet, unsigned, attacking Josephine, Mmes. Tallien, and Visconti , Bonaparte, Tall i en and Barras. I t was l ong thought that Sade was the author of Zoloe, and this pamphlet has often been cited as the reason for Sade's arrest in 1 8 0 1 . I t has now been clearly established that Sade was not the author.

October 22 ( 30 Pendemiaire, Year IX) -In the Journal de Paris, an article by the critic Villeterque appears, violently attacking Sade's Les Crimes de I' Amour, which has just been published. In the article Villeterque refers to Sa de as the author of Jus tine.

1 8 0 1 . Aet. 6 1

January 1 6 ( 26 Nivose, Year IX ) -The Minister o f Police i ssues a certificate of amnesty making it possible to raise the se­ quester on Sa de's property.32

March 6 ( 15 Pentose, Year IX) -Sade, along with his publisher Nicolas Masse, i s arrested in the latter's office, Sade just happen­ ing to be there when the police arrive. They make a search of Masse's premises and find various manuscripts and printed works either in Sade's hand or, in the case of the printed works, annotated by him, including Juliette and La Nouvelle Jus tine. Simultaneously, two other searches are made, one at the house of a friend of Sade's , which uncovers nothing, and the other at the house i n Saint-Ouen where Sade possesses a secret study where there was hung a piece of tapestry depicting "the most obscene subj ects, most of which were drawn from the infamous novel Justine." The tapestry i s taken to the Prefecture.

March 7 ( 1 6 Pentose, Year IX) -Sade and Masse are interro­ gated. The la tter, upon the promise of liberty, reveals where the

32 His name has sti l l not been struck from the list of Imigris, however, a fact which his family will continue to use against him.

1 1 2 -+ THE MARQUIS DE SADE

stock of Juliette i s held and turns i t over, almost in i ts enti rety, to the police. Sade admits to knowing of the manuscript, but claims h e i s only t h e copyist.

April 2 ( 1 2 Germinal, Year IX ) -Prefect Dubois, in agreement with the Minister of Police, decides that a "trial would cause too much of a scandal which an exempla ry punishment would still not make worthwhile ." It is therefore decided to "place" Sade in Sainte-Pelagie prison33 as " a dministrative punishment" for being the author o f "that infamous novel Jus tine" and of that "still more terrible work Julie tte ."

April 5 ( 15 Germina!, Year IX ) -Sade is incarcera t e d in Sainte­ Pelagie.

1 802 . Aet. 62

May 20 ( 30 Flo rea I, Year X ) -From Sainte-Pelagie , where he i s still held, Sade writes to the Minister of Justice saying that as a captive in the "most frightful p rison i n Pari s ," he demands to be freed o r tried. He swears he i s not the author of Jus tine.

1 803 . Aet. 63

March 14 ( 23 Pen tose, Year XI ) -Sade IS transferred to B icetre prison.

April 27 ( 7 Flonfal, Year Xl ) -At the instigation of Sade's family, the prisoner is transferred from Bicetre ( " a frightful prison" ) to the Charenton Asylum, under the escort of a police­ man. His family agrees to pay his board at Charenton, which is set at 3000 francs annually. : '4

33 A former convent foundt:d in 1 662, Sainte-Pelagie became a political prison during the Revolution.

34 Sade had already spent sume time in Charenton, having been transferred there out of the Bastille ten days before the l atter was stormed. Closed in 1795 , the Directory ordered it rehabilitated and reopened in 1797 as an asylum for the care and treatment of the insane d both sexes. It was under the direct control of the Ministry of th e Interior.

Chronology .. 1 1 3

1 8 04. Aet. 64

May 1 ( 1 1 Floreal, Year XII ) -The Prefect orders an examina­ tion of Sade's papers and has the pr isoner informed that if he con­ tinues to show himsel f rebell ious he will be sent back to Bicetre.

June 20 (1 Messidor, Year XII ) -Sade sends the newly con­ stituted Senatoria l Commission for Individual Liberty a strong protest against his arbitrary detention, noting that he has now spent four years in prison without coming to trial. Six weeks later35 he repeats the plea in a letter to M. Fouche, Minister o f Police.

Sep tember 8 ( 21 Fructidor, Year XII ) -The Prefect o f Police Duboi s submits a statement to the Minister of Police in which he describes Sade as a n " incorrigible man" who was in a state of "constant licentious insanity" and of a "character hostile to any form o f constraint." His conclusion i s that there i s good reason to leave him in Cha renton where his family pays his board and where they desire h e remain, to sa feguard the family honor.

1 8 0 5 . Aet. 65

April 14 (24 Germinal, Year X/I/ ) -On this Easter Sunday, Sade takes communion and takes up the collection in the p a rish church o f Charenton-Saint- Maurice.

May 1 7 (27 Floreal, Year X/II ) -Prefect Dubois , learning of . th i s l iberty granted Sade, reprimands the director of Charenton, M. de Coulmier, warning him that Sade i s a pr i soner who must "under no c ircumstances be allowed out without express authorization from me" and asking : " Moreover, d id it not occur to you that the presence o f such an individual [in church] could not fail to inspire a feeling of horror and cause public disturbances ?"

August 24 ( 6 Fructidor, Year XI/I ) -Sade draws up and signs a memorandum outlining the final conditions to which h e will agree

35 On August 12 ( 24 Tkermidor, Year XII) . "The l aws and regul ations concern­ ing individual liberty have never been as openly defied as in my case," wrote S ade, "since i t i s without any sentence or any other legal act that they persist in keeping me under lock and key."

1 1 4 + THE MARQUIS DE SADE

to his family's p roposed purchase of all his property ( save Sau­ mane ) in return for a l i f,� annui ty.

1 8 0 6. Aet. 66

January 3031l-Sade draws up h i s l a s t will a n d testament.37

March 5-He begins the final draft o f his His toire d' Emilie .

July 1 0-He completes the first volume which he entitles M emoires d ' Emilie de Valrose, 0 11 les Egaremen ts du libertinage.

October 1 4-Louis-Marie de Sade takes part in the battle of J ena, on the staff Qf General Beaumont.

1 8 07 . Aet. 67

April 25-After thirteen months and twenty days work, Sade compl etes the revision of His toire d' Emilie, which occup ies seventy­ two notebooks and forns the four final volumes of a large ten­ volume work, the genera I title of which, "defini tively decided upon today , " i s : Les J ournees de Florbelle, O tt la Nature devoiiee, su ivies des M emoires de l' abbe de M odose et des Aven tures d' Emilie de Folnange.

June 5-The police se ize seve ral manuscripts in Sade's room at Cha renton, presumably Les J ournees de Florbelle which Sade i s never to see aga in and which wi l l be burned shortly after his death.

1 8 0 8 . Aet. 68

June 1 4-Louis-M ari e de Sade i s wounded at Friedland. His valorous conduct earns him mention in the mil itary dispatches.

June 1 7-Sade wri te:. to Napoleon, describing himself as the father of a son who has distinguished himself on the battlefield and requesting Ii bera tion.

:j,; The Gregorian cal endar w a s re- establ ish ed o n January 1 , 1 806. 37 The full text appears at the end of Part One.

Chronology .. 1 1 5

Augus t 2-The Chief M edical Officer o f Charenton, Antoine­ Athanase-Royer-Collard, describes to the M inister of Police all the d isadvantages tha t the presence of "the author of that infamous novel Jus tine" entai l s . "The man is not mad," Royer-Collard notes. "His only m a dness is that o f vice . . . . Finally, i t i s rumored that he i s l iving in the asylum with a woman38 whom he p a sses off a s his daughter ." He recommends the suppression o f the theater which Sade has organiz e d a t Charenton, ma intaining i t i s dangerous for the patients/9 and requests tha t Sade be transferred to some prison or fortress.

September 2-In spite of Coulmier 's intervention on Sade's be­ hal f,40 the M inister decides to transfer the Marqui s to Ham prison.

September 1 2-M. de Coulmier pays a personal call upon the Mini ster to appeal against the decision to transfer Sade out of Charenton, a t least until such time as Sade's family makes up the backpayments due for Sade's board and keepY

September-Dr. Deguise, the Charenton surgeon, states that in Sade's plethoric condition, to transfer him would endanger his l i fe .

38 Mme. Quesnet, w h o h a s on her o w n initiative moved into Charenton t o be with S ade.

39 \Vith Charenton inmates as the actors, S ad e staged and directed his own pl ays in an improvised theater in the asylum.

40 M. d e Coulmier is d escribed as " a man of intelligence and influence," h aving once sat in the Constituent Assembly. "Everyone l iked him," wrote D r. R amon, a Charenton doctor during the period of S ade's incarcer ation there. "[He] ruled d espotical ly, though there was never anything rigorous or austere about his rule." Except for the early months of S ade's detention, when h e was inclined to be demand­ ing and difficult, M. d e Coulmier generally took his p art against the h arsh inter­ d ictions of the authorities. When in September, 1 808, the Prefect of Police wrote the Minister of the Interior concerning S ade's involvement with the theatrical events at Charenton, he noted that M. de Coulmier "s ays that in this matter he is much obliged to de S ade, for, seeing in l ight drama a therapeutic method for the deranged he thinks himself lortu nate to h ave i n the asylum a man capable of giving stage train­ ing to those h e wishes to treat by this ther apy." It i s obvious from the above observa­ tion that the Director of Ch arenton w a s well ahead of his era in the treatment of the insane.

41 Knowing Coulmier's symp athetic attitude tow ard and understanding of S ade, it would appear that his request for a delay of transfer on the grounds of delinquent b ack p ayments was but a thinly veiled pretext to keep his p atient at Charenton.

1 1 6 + T H E MARQU I S DE SADE

November 1 1-Sade 's family requests a postponement of h i s transfer, and the Minister agrees to defer i t to April 1 5 , 1 8 09.

1 8 09 . Aet. 69

April 21-The transfer i s postponed indefini tely.

Ju ne 9-Louis-M arie de Sade, Lieutenant in the 2nd Battalion of the Isembourg Regiment, i s ambushed near Mercugl iano on the road to Otranto, where .1e i s on way to rejoin his regiment, and i s killed.

1 8 1 0 . Aet. 70

July 7-At about 1 0 : 00 A . M . , M adame de Sade, who has been bl ind for some t ime, d ies at Echauffour Castle.

August 28-Sade sel l s his Mazan estates to Calixte-Antoine­ Alexandre Ripert for the sum of 5 6 ,462 francs 5 0 centimes, which i s collected by Sa de's children as their mother's heirs .

October 1 8-The Count de Montalivet, Minister of the Interior, i ssue s a harsh order : " C onsidering that M . de Sade . . . i s suffer­ ing from the most dangerous of insanit ies , contact between him and the other inmates poses incalculable dangers, and for as much as h is writings are no less d,�mented than his speech and conduct . . . , I therefore order the following : That Monsieur de Sade be given completely sepa r a t e lodging so that he be barred from all communication with othe rs . . . and th at the greatest care be taken to prevent any use by r im of pencils, pens, ink, or paper. The director of the asylum is nade personally responsible for the execu­ tion of this order ."

October 24-M. de Coulmier acknowledges receipt o f the Minister's order and, nodng that h e does not have at his disposal a t Charenton an isolated area such as the Mini ster requests for Sade, a sks that Sade be transferred elsewhere. He further points out to Count Montalivet that "he credits himself with being the head of a humanitarian establi shment" and would find i t humil iating

Chro nology + 1 1 7

to see himself become " a j ailer" or one given to the persecution of a fellow creature.

1 8 1 1 . Aet. 7 1

February 6-A police report against two booksellers, Clemendot and B arba , who are selling Jus tine both in the p rovinces and in Paris, and against the former who i s accused of secretly printing and distributing a set of one hundred engravings for Justine that had come into his possession.

March 31-Sade is interrogated at Charenton.

July 9-N apoleon, si tting in Privy Council, decides to keep Sade in detention at Charenton.

November 1 4-Sade is again questioned at Charenton, this time by Count Corvietto j in contrast to the March interrogation, when he was treated very rudely, Corvietto is "very gentle and decent."

1 8 1 2. Aet. 7 2

June 9-The Minister of Police informs M . d e Coulmier that he may info rm the interested party that the Emperor, in meetings of the Privy Council of April 1 9 and M ay 3, has decided to continue Sade's detention.

October 6-Some occasional verses, of which Sade is the author, are sung to His Eminence Cardinal M au ry, Archbishop of Paris, who i s visiting the Charenton Hospice.

1 8 1 3 . Aet. 73

March 31-Sade is subj ected to a third interrogation, "very severe but very short."

May 6-A ministerial order prohibits any further theatrical spectacles at Charenton.

1 1 8 .. T H E MARQ C I S DE SADE

May 9-Sade begins to put the finishing touches on his His to ire secrete d'/sabelle de Ba'Viere, which he completes four months la ter .

.-Publ ication of the two-volume work La Marquise de Gange, of which Sade is the anonymous author.

1 8 1 4. Aet. 74

April 1 1-Napoleon abdicates .

May 3-S01emn entr y into Paris of Louis XVI I I .

May 31-M . de COlilmier i s replaced as Di rector of Charenton by M. Roulhac de M aupas.

Sep tember 7-M. Roulhac de Maupas calls the attention of the Minister of the Interior, Abbe de Montesquiou, to the necessity of removing from Charen ton the Marquis de Sade who cannot be properly guarded and whose age and state of health do not permit seclusion. He further notes that, in spite of h i s commitments to pay for his father's board undertaken at the time of h is transfer from B icetre to Charenton, M. de Sade fils has refused to pay arrears on the board amounting to 8934 francs, although he has acquired his father's p roperties which guaranteed the dowry of his late mother, and denies that he owes his father 's creditors anything, maintaining all these de bts antedated his own mortgage.

October 21-The M inister of the Interior invites Count Beu­ gnot, Director-General of the Police , to make a decision concerning M. de Sade, who canno t remain at Charenton without grave con­ sequences and who should be removed to a State prison.

December I-Sade, whose health has been failing for several months, ceases to be able to walk.

December 2-This day, a Saturday, Sade's son Dona tien-Claude­ Armand, comes to visit h is father and asks the newly appointed student-doctor, L.-J. Ramon, to spend the night with him. On his way to the appointment , Dr. Ramon meets Abbe Geoffrey on his way out of Sade 's room, Sade having made an appointment with the

Chrono logy + 1 1 9

Abbe for the following morning. Ramon reports Sade's breathing as "noisy and labored" and he helps him take a few sips o f herbal tea to help ease the pulmonary congestion from which Sade is suffering. Shortly before ten, the old man dies without a murmur, either from the above-named pulmonary congestion or from an "adynamic and gangrenous fever ," according to the official report made to the director and to the police.

In spite o f the strict instructions to the contrary in his will , Sade is buried in the Charenton cemetery. The burial costs s ixty-five livres, of which twenty for the cross, ten for the coffin, six for the chapel, nine for candles, six for the chaplain, eight for the bearers, and six for the gravedigger.

I

Seven Letters (1 763-1 790)

LETTER I ( 1 763 )

To Mademoiselle de L . . . 1

At Avignon, this 6th April 1 763 .2

Perjurer! ungrateful wretch ! pray tell what has happened to those sentiments of l ifelong devotion ? who compels you to incon­ stancy ? who obliges you to break the bonds which were to unite us forever ? Did you take my departure for flight (l Did you believe that I could exist and flee from you ? 'Tis doubtless from your own that you were judging the sentiments of my heart. I obtain the con­ sent of my parents ; my father, with tears in his eyes, asks of me naught but one last favor , and that is to come to Avignon to be married. I leave ; I am assured that all efforts will now be bent toward persuading your father to bring you to these parts. I arrive, God knows with what alacrity and eagerness, in this region which is to become the witness of my happiness, a lasting happiness, a happiness that nothing will ever again be able to trouble . . . . But what i s to become of me-dear God ! can I ever survive this sorrow ? -what i s to become of me when I learn that, inspired by some noble impulse, you cast yourself at your father's knees to ask him to give up all further thought of this marriage, saying that you have no wish to be forced into any alliance. Vain and foolish reason, dictated by perfidy, 0 thou ungrateful, faithless wretch ! You were afraid of being united to someone who adored you. These bonds of an ever-

1 2 1

1 22 + THE MARQ U I S D E SADE

lasting chain were becoming a burden to you , and your heart, which i s seduced by fickleness and frivolity alone, was not discerning or sensitive enough to be ,:onscious of all the charms such bonds en­ tailed. 'Twas the thought of leaving Paris that frightened you ; my love was not enough for you ; I was unable to make it last. Fie, monster, born to make my l ife mise rable , stay there in Paris for­ ever I M ay i t one day be :ome, through the decei tfulness and knavery o f the scoundrel who will replace me in your heart, as odious to you a s your own doublt: dealing has made it in my eyes ! . . . But what am I saying ? Oh, my dear, my divine friend ! the sole support o f my heart , the only l ove of my l ife, where, my beloved, i s my despair leading me ? Forgive the outpourings o f a poor wretch who no longer knows himself, for whom death, a fter the loss of what he loves, i s the sale recou �se. Ala s I I draw near to i t , th i s moment which will deliver me from the day I detest ; my only wish now is to see i t a rrive. What can make me cling to a l i fe whose sale delight was you ? I lose you ; I lose my exi stence, my life, I die, and by the cruelest of deaths . . . . My mind wanders, my love , I am no longer mysel f ; let the tears wh ch becloud my eyes , flow . . . . I cannot sur- vive such misfortunes.--What are you doing ? . . . what has become of you ? . . . What am I in your eyes ? An obj ect o f horror ? of love ? . . . Tell me, how do you view me ? How can you justify your conduct ? Good Heavem, perhaps mine cannot be justified in you r eyes ! Ah, i f you will love me, if you love me as you have always loved me, as I love you, as I adore you, as I shall adore you all my l ife , p i ty our misfo rtunes , pi l:y the crushing blows of fortune, write me, try and justify your actions . . . . Alas ! i t wil l not be all that difficult : what most pains and racks my heart is to find you gu ilty. Oh, how greatly 't is relieved when i t recognizes its error I If you love me, I do not for a moment dOt; bt that you have opted for the convent. The last day I saw you, you remember, the day of all our misfortunes, you told me you would b e delighted if they sent you to a convent. If you want us to be able to see each other, you know ' tis the only decision for you to take ; for you know full well that it will be im­ possible for me to see you at your house. My father, when he sent me word o f your action, gave me the choice of remaining here as long as I l iked or rej o in ing him immediately. 'Tis your reply which will decide me ; let i t not languish ; I shall count the days. Grant me

Seven Letters + 1 23

the means o f seeing you upon my a rrival. I do not for a moment doubt that I shall find them in your letter. Whatever does not seem positive I shall take a s a refusal ; any refusal will be clear proof of your inconstancy, and your inconstancy my most certain sentence of death. But I cannot bel ieve you have changed. What reason could bring you to ? Perhaps thi s voyage of mine alarmed you : but, alas , let us be quite clear as to the veritable reasons for it . They blinded me, they made me believe I was rushing into the arms o f happiness, whereas all they were trying to do was remove me from it . . . . 4 My dear love, do not abandon me, I beseech you ; earnestly request the convent. As soon as I receive your letter I shall be off, and at your side. What tender moments we shall relive I . . . Take care of your health ; I am working to restore my own. But no matter what the state of yours may be, nothing will keep me from offering you the most tender proof of my love. Throughout this affair , I be­ lieve you have had good reason, and will again, to be satisfied with my discretion. But I have merely done my duty ; 'tis not that I am giving myself credit . • . . B eware of inconstancy ; I do not deserve i t. I confess to you that I shall be furious, and there is no horror I shall not commit. The li ttle business o f the c . . . 5 ought to make you be sparing of me. I confess that I shall not conceal i t from my rival, nor will that be the only secret I shall confide to him. There are no lengths-thi s I swear to you-to which I shall not go, no horrors to which I shall not stoop . . . . But I blush to think o f employing these means to keep you. I wish to , and must, talk to you only of your love. Your promises, your oaths, your letters which I read incessantly every day, alone should keep you bound to me ; I appeal only to them. I beg of you not to see . . . . . . ; he i s unworthy to ap- pear before you . In a word, my dear love, let me count upon your constancy! My absence will not be long ; I await only your letter to depart . . . . Let it be goo d and kind, I beg of you, and may I find the means to see you when I arrive. I desire, I think of , I crave only you . . • . No, I am not afraid o f being effaced from your heart ; I have not deserved it . Love me still, my dear, and trust in time. And perhaps there will come a time, a time not far off, when you will not be so afraid to come into my family. When I am the head of it , my wishes will dictate my choice, and perhaps I shall then find you more determined. I need to be comforted and con-

1 24 + THE MARQUIS DE SADE

soled, to be reassured, to receive p roof of your constancy : every­ thing alarms me. Your heroic act has dealt a blow to me. I assure you and give you my word of honor that nothing is more certain than what I am wri ting you , that I await naught but your reply to set out. My fa ther has sent for me again ; do not think that it is for a marriage. My mind i s fully made up not to marry, and never have I aspired to do �.o . I am employing every means necessary, and those I deem the best, to make certain thi s lette r reaches you . Do not fai l to give the woman who delivers i t to you a receipt, in your own hand, formu lated in these terms : I acknowledge receipt of a letter from such-and-such a person . Follow this formula to the letter, for she i s not te · be pa id what i s promised her until she de­ l ivers the receipt into my hands. I f you care to see me, do not delay your reply. I am counti 19 the days. Try to make certain I receive i t promptly, and that I find the means to see you when I arrive. Love me always ; be fai thful to me, if you do not wish to see me expire o f sorrow. Adieu, my beloved child, I adore you and love you a thousand times more d-. an l i fe i tself. Come, now, say what you will, but 1 swear that we shall never be aught but one for the other:'

LETTER II ( 1 77 7 )

T o Madame la Presidente de Montreuil

This the 1 3 th March 1 777 .1

I f in a person capable of having violated at one stroke all of the most sacred sentiments mortals are given in trust : those of hu­ manity in having a son arrested beside the coffin of his dead mother,2 those of hospitality in betraying someone who had just cast himself into your arms, those of Nature in respecting not even the sanctuary taken by him who sought refuge in your daughter's embrace ; i f, I say, in one such person there could yet exist some trace of com· passion, I would perhaps endeavor to excite it through a description at once authentic and frightful of my horrible plight. But these complaints were useless ; independently of that fact, I have yet pride enough, low though I am laid, not to ornament your triumph with my tears, and even in these depths of misfortune I have courage enough to refrain from pleading with my tyrant.

To place before you a few simple considerations will then be the sole purpose of this letter. You will set upon them what value you please ; these few remarks, then no more, so that in silence you will be able for some short while at least to savor the pleasure you reap from my woes.

For a long time, Madame, I have been your victim ; but do not think to make me your dupe. I t i s sometimes interesting to be the one, always humiliating to be the other, and I flatter myself upon as much penetration as you can cla im deceit. I pray you, Mad­ ame, let us a t all times maintain the very clearest distinction between two separate things, my case and II. y imprisonment : for my chil-

1 2 5

1 26 + THE MARQ U I S DE SADE

dren's sake you are seeking the favor of the courts, and imprison­ ment, which you allege indi spensable to that end and which is cer­ tainly not a t all , i s not and cannot be anything but the effect o f your vengeance. O f all the opinions heard so far, the gloomiest, the most terri fying, that of M. Simeon3 of Aix, sa id positively that it was altogether possible to obtain a j udgment whereby exile would serve as prison to the a ccused. Those are Simeon' s own words. A le ttre de cachet banishing me out of the realm, would that not have answered the same purp ose ?-Of course-but i t would not so well have satisfied your fury.

Was i t then you, all by yourself, who hatched and had enacted the scheme of having me locked away between four walls ? And how on earth could the wise magistrates today governing the State have let themselves be hoodwinked to the point of believing they were p romoting the interests of a family when the whole matter was p atently o f slaking a woman's thirst for revenge ? Why, I re­ peat , am I behind bars ? why is an imprudence on my part construed as a crime ? why i s there opposition to allowing me to prove to my j udges the difference be tween the two ? and why does that opposi­ tion come from you ? So many questions to which, unless I am much mistaken, M adame i s not disposed to reply. Ten or a dozen bolts and locks presently ans'¥er in your stead ; but this tyranny's argu­ ment, to which law is formally opposed, is not eternally triumphant. I n this I take comfort.

Fixing our attention upon my case alone, i s i t to clear my name tha t you have me punished ? and are you so deluded as to be­ l ieve that this punishment shall go unknown ? Do you fancy that they who eventually get wind of i t shall fail to see a misdeed some­ where, punishment being so evident ? Be i t meted out by the King, be it meted out by j udge s, ' t i s punishment nonetheless, and the pub­ l ic-which i s ne ither indulgent nor overly curious to ferret out the truth-, is the publ ic gc ing to make this frivolous distinction ? and will it not always see F rior crime where punishment has ensued ? And how then my enemies shall exult I what splendi d opportunit ies you ready for them in the future ! and- how tempted they shall be to have at me anew, since the results correspond so nicely to thei r i n­ tentions ! All your five years of slandering me have provided the foundation for this att itude and behavior in my regard, and you

Seven Letters + 1 27

have at all times been aware of i t from the cruel situation you have seen me in during this whole period, constantly the target of fresh calumnies which sordid interest based upon the unhappiness of my situation. How would you have a man thought anything but guilty after the public authorities come three or four times knocking at his door, and when he i s finally clapped into j ai l once he i s got hold of ? Whom do you hope to convince I have not been in confinement when such a long time has passed since I've been seen or heard from ? After all the maneuvers employed to se ize me, and then after my disappearance-what else do you suppose anyone could think save that I had been arrested ? And from this , what advantage shall be gleaned ? My reputation lost forever and new troubles arising at every turn. That i s what I shall owe to your superior manner of handling my affairs.

But let us consider matters from another viewpoint. Is this a personal chastening I'm getting ? and a s i f I were a naughty l ittle boy, the idea is to spank me into good behavior ? Wasted efforts, Madame. If the wretchedness and ignominy to which I have been reduced by the Marseilles judges' absurd proceedings, who punished the most commonplace of indiscretions as though i t were a crime, ha ve failed to make me mend my ways, your i ron bars and your i ron doors and your locks will not be more successful. You ought by now to know me well enough to realize that the mere suspicion of dishonor i s capable of withering me to the heart, and you a r e clever enough to understand that a fault whose origin i s in hot-bloodedness i s not corrected by bringing that blood to a boil , by firing the brain through deprivation and inflaming the imagination through soli­ tude. What I advance here will be supported by every reasonable being who has some acquaintance of me and who i s not infatuated with the idioti c notion, that to correct or punish a man you must encage him like a wild beast ; and I challenge any sane spirit not to conclude that from such usage the only possible result for me i s the most certain organic disturbance.

If then neither my conduct nor my reputation stand to gain from this latest p iece of kindness in my regard-if, on the contrary, everything loses thereby, and it crazes my brain-what purpose shall i t have served, Madame ? I t shall have served your vengeance, no ? Yes, 'tis all too obvious, everything leads back to that starting

1 2 8 .. THE MARQUI S DE SADE

poin t ; and all I 've just written i s quite beside the point, all that matters not in the sligh test, only one thing does : that I be sacrificed . . . and you satisfied. Indeed, you very surely say to yourself, the greater the damage wrought, the more content I'll be. But ought you not have been amply contented, Madame, by the six months I had of prison in Savoy for the same cause? \71/ ere five years of affiictions and stigmas insufficient ? and was this appalling denoue­ ment absolutely necessary ?-especially after I gave you the dem­ onstration of what lengths this sort of maltreatment could drive me to, by risking my l i fe to escape from i t I Own that, knowing what you know, ' ti s evidence of no l ittle barbarity on your part to have the same thing inflicted upon me again, and with episodes a thou­ sand times crueler than before and which, sickening me into total revolt, will at any moment have me dashing my head against the bars confining me. Do not reduce me to despair, Madame ; I cannot endure this horrible sol itude unscathed, I sense the worst coming. Remember : never shall any good come to you from bestializing my soul and rendering my heart immune to feeling, the only possible re­ sults of the frightful stlte you have had me put in. Give me time to repa ir my errors, do not make yourself responsible for those into which perhaps I shall a �ain be swept by the dreadful disorder I feel brewing in my mind.

I am respectfully, Madame, your very humble and very obedient servant.

DE SADE

P. S .-If the person fr om Montpellier4 returns, I hope it will not be without the most urgent recommendation not to breathe a word about the scandalous sc ene to which you shrewdly made him a wit­ ness, a blunder which, considering the c i rcumstances of his father 's affairs , i s assuredly quite inexcusable.

LETTER III ( 1 7 83 )

To Madame de Sade1

Be so good as to tell me which of the two it is, Goodie Cordier or Gaffer Fouloiseau,3 who i s against my having any shirts. You can deny clean linen to the inmates of a hosp ital ; but I do not intend to go without i t . How your meanness, that of your origin and that of your parents, shines forth in your every act 1 My dove, the day I so far forgot what I was that I could be willing to sell you what I am, it may have been to get you under the covers­ but it wasn't to go uncovered. You and your crew, keep what I say there well in mind until I have the chance to bring i t out in print.

If I go through as much linen as I do, blame i t on the laundress who every day e ither loses or tears to shreds everything of mine she can get her hands on, and rather than remonstrate with me, enjoin his lordship the Warden to issue orders remedying this state of affa irs . Not a month passes but a l l th i s costs me eight or ten francs. Should such things be allowed ?

At any rate , I declare to you that i f inside the next two weeks the l inen I request i s not forthcoming, I shall interpret this as p roof positive that I am on the eve of deliverance, and shall pack my baggage ; only my imminent release can possibly just ify your stupid refusal to send me something to put on my back. Let them but remove the madmen from this establishment and one will be less loath to use what the house provides, one could then forgo asking to have things sent all the time from home. This place was not in­ tended for the insane ; Charenton is where they are to be put, not here , and the disgraceful greed that led to keeping them locked

1 29

1 3 0 + T H E MARQ U I S DE SADE

away there seems now to have been set aside by the police, the result being that those who are not mad risk becoming so by con­ tagion. But the police are tolerant, tolerant of everything except discourtesy toward who res. You may render yourself guilty of every possible abuse and in fa Tty so long as you respect the backsides of whores :4 that's esscntid, and the explanation i s not far to seek : whores pay, whereas WI� do not. Once I am out of here I too must contrive to put myself a l i ttle under the protection of the police : like a whore I too hav'� an ass and I 'd be well pleased to have i t shown respect. I will have M. Fouloiseau take a look at i t-even kiss it if he'd like to, and I am very sure that moved by such a prospect, he will straightway record my name in the book o f proteges.

The story was told to me that upon arriving in Paris ( when you had me arrested ) it was thus you went about having yourself certified. Before anyth ing else the question was of determining whether the said ass h ld or had not been outraged-because my good mother-in-law cl a imed I was an ou trager of asses. Conse­ quently she wanted an examination by an expert. There she was, a s I understand i t, tell ing them You see, gen tlemen, you see, he's a little devil, fllll of vIces ,. he might even . . . perhaps . . • who knows ? there's s o much libertinage in that head of his . . . . And, as I understand i t, there you were , li fting your petticoats. Magis­ trate Le N oir adjusts his spectacles, Albaret" is holding the lamp, Le N oir 's alguazils have got pen and paper. And a report upon the state of the premises was writ out in these terms :

"Item, having betaken ourselves to the said Hotel de Dane­ mark at the requisition of Dame Montreuil nee Cordier, M arie­ Magdeleine,6 we d id uncover the sa id Pelagie du Chauffour,7 daughter to the a forem�ntioned, and having with care made proper and thorough examinat on we proclaim the said du Chauffour well and duly provided with a set of two very fair buttocks, excellently formed and intact with n and wi thout. We did ourselves approach and have our assi stants as nearly approach the said member. They, at the ir risk and peril , did pry, spread, sniff, and probe, and having like ourselves observed naught but health in these parts, we have delivered these present:;, whereof usage may be made in conform­ ance to the law ; and do furthermore, upon the basis of the exhibi-

Seven Letters + 1 3 1

tion described above, grant the said Pelagie du Chauffour access to the Tribunal and in future to our powerful protection.

"Signed : Jean-Baptiste Le N oir, trifler extraordinary in Paris and born protector of the brothels in the capi tal and sur­ roundings."

Well ? Is that how it went ? Come, be a friend, tell me about i t . . . . In addition or, if you prefer, in spite of i t all, you have not sent me a quarter of the things I need.

To begin with, I need linen, most decidedly I must have linen, otherwise I make ready my departure j then four dozen meringues j two dozen sponge cakes ( l a rge ) j four dozen chocolate pastille candies, vanillaed, and not that infamous rubbish you sent me in the way of sweets last time.

What, will you tell me, a re these twelve quarter-qui res of paper ? I a sked for no qui res of anything j I asked you for a copy­ book to replace the one containing the comedy I had conveyed to you. Send me that copybook and don' t prattle so, i t' s very tiresome. So acknowledge receipt of my manuscript. I t is not a t all of the sort I ' d like to have go astray. It belongs safely in a drawer for the time being ; later, when it goes to the p rinter, it can be corrected. Until then i t need not get lost. With manuscripts you delete, you amend, you tinker, they are meant for that ; but they are never meant to be stolen.

For God's own sake, when will you finally be tired of truck­ l ing ? Had you ever noticed one o f your servil it ies to meet with success, I ' d let i t pass j but a fter close on to seven years of this , where has i t brought you ? Come, speak up. You aim a t my undo­ ing ? You would unsettle my brain ? If so, you are all going to be wonderfully rewarded for your efforts, for by everything that is most holy to me I swear to pay every one of your farces back and with good measure ; I assure you I shall grasp their spirit with an artfulness that will stun you, and shall compel you all to recognize for the rest of your days what colossal imbeciles you have been. I confess I was a long while believing your Le N oir had no hand in these abominations, but since he continues to suffer them, that alone proves he has his part in them and convinces me that he is no less a damned fool than the others.

Do not forget the nightcap, the spectacles , the s ix cakes of

1 3 2 .. THE MARQUIS DE SADE

wax, Jean-Jacques' Confessions and the coat M. de Rougemont claims that you have. I am returning a boring novel and vols. 4 and 6 of Velly. With these I send a hearty kiss for your nether end and am, devil take me, goi ng to give myself a fl i ck of the wrist in i ts honor ! Now don't run off and tell the Presiden te so , for being a good Jansenist , she' s all against the molinizing of wives. She main­ tains that M . Cordier has never rammed anything but her vessel of propaga tion and tht whoever steers any other course is doomed to sink in hell. And I who had a Jesuit upbringing, I who from Father Sanchez learned that one must avoid plunging in over o ne's dep th, and look hard lest one leap into emptiness because, according to Descartes, Nature abhors a vacuum, I cannot put myself in ac­ cord with Mamma Cordier. But you're a philosopher, you have a countercharming coun iersense, much counterplay and narrowness in your coun tersense and heat in the rectum, whence it i s I am able to accord mysel f very well with you.

I am yours indeed, in truth your own. Directly this letter reaches you, will you please go in person

to the shop of M. Gn�ndj ean, oculist , rue Galande by Place Mau­ bert and tell him to send straight to M. de Rougemont the drugs and instruments he pr'Jmised to furnish to the prisoner he visited in Vincennes ; and whi l e you are about i t you will go to see your pro tector Le N o ir, and tell him to arrange to have me enjoy a little fresh air . He en j oys plenty o f it , does Le N oir , although a wickeder man than I by far : I 've paddled a few asses, yes, I don ' t deny i t, and he has brought a million souls to the brink of starva­ tion. The King i s just : let His Majesty decide between Le Noir and me and have the guilt ier broken on the wheel, I make the pro­ posal with confidence.

In addition to the neglected errands and to those requested above, a ttend, if you please, to procuring for me one pint of eau de Cologne, a head-ribbon and a half-pint of orange-water.

LETTER IV ( 1 783 )

To Madame de Sade1

My queen, my amiable queen, they are forsooth droll fellows and insolent, the l ackeys you h ave in hire. Were it anything less than certain that your numbers are riddles ( squa ring nicely, by the way, with my manner o f thinking ) 2 your errand boys would be in line for a sound caning one of these days. Ah, would you hear the latest ? They are giving me their estimates upon how much longer I am to remain here 1 Exquisite farce ! It 's for you, charming p rincess, it is for you who a're on your way to sup and dicker with Madame Turnkey ( at the hospital today) , I s ay it 's for you, my cunning one, to take the temperature of my captors, for you to divine just when it is going to suit them to unkennel me, for you to l earn their pleasure o f my lordships M artin,3 Albaret, Fouloiseau, and the other knaves of tha t breed whom you will deign to permit me, for my p art, to consider so many cab horses fit for whipping or to serve the public conveni ence a t whatever hour and in any kind of weather.

To refuse me Jean-Jacques' Confessions, now there's an ex­ cellent thing, above all a fter having sent me Lucretius and the dialogues of Voltaire ; that demonstrates great judiciousness, pro­ found discernment in your spiritual guides. Alas, they do me much honor in reckoning tha t the writings of a deist can be dangerous reading for me ; would that I were still a t that stage. You are not sublime i n your methods of doctoring, my worthy healers of the soul ! Learn tha t it i s the point to which the disease has a dvanced tha t determines whether a specific remedy be good or bad for the

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patient, not the remedy in i tself. They cure Russian peasants o f fever with arsenic ; t o that treatment, however, a pretty woman' s stomach does not well respond. Therein see the proof that every­ thing is relative. Let that be your starting point, gentlemen, and have enough common ,ense to real ize , when you send me the book I ask fo r, that while 'Rousseau may represent a threat for dull­ witted bigots of your !:pecies , he is a salutary author for me. J ean­ J acgues i s to me what The I mitation of Chris t i s for you. Rous­ seau's ethics and religi on are strict and severe to me, I read them when I feel the need to improve myself. If you would not have me become better than I am, why, ' tis high t ime you told me so. The state one i s in when one is good i s an uncomfortable and disagree­ able state for me, and I ask no more than to be left to wallow in my slqugh ; I like i t there. Gentlemen, you imagine your pons asinorum must be used and must succeed with everybody ; and you are mistaken, I 'll prove i t to you. There are a thousand instances in which one is obliged to tolerate an ill in o rder to destroy a vice. For example, you fancied you were sure to work wonders, I ' ll wager, by reducing me to an atrocious abstinence in the article of carnal sin . 'Vell , you were wrong : you have produced a ferment in my brain, owing to you phantoms have arisen in me which I shall have to render real. That was beginning to happen, you have done naught but reinforce and accelerate developments. When one builds up the fire too high under the pot, you know full well that i t must boil over.

Had I been give r! Mr. 64 to cure, I'd have proceeded very differently, for instead of locking him up amidst cannibals I would have cloistered him felr a while with girls, I 'd have supplied him girls in such good num ber that damn me if after these seven years there 'd be a drop of fuel now left in the lamp ! When you have a steed too fiery to brie lle you gallop him over rough terrain, you don ' t shut him up in the stable . Thereby might you have guided Mr. 6 intp the good way, into what they call the honorable path. You 'd have brought an end to those philosophical sub terfuges, to those devious practices Nature disavows ( as though Nature had anything to do with all this ) , to those dangerous truancies of a too ardent imagination which ever in hot pursuit of happiness and never able to find i t anywhere, fin ishes by substituting illusions for reality and

Seven Letters + 1 3 5

dishones t detours for lawful pleasure . . . . Yes , in the middl e o f a harem Mr. 6 would have become the friend of woman; h e would have discovered and felt tha t there i s nothing so beauti ful , nothing so great a s her sex, and that outside o f her sex there i s no salvation. Occupied solely in serving ladies and in satisfying thei r dainty de­ sires , Mr. 6 would have sacrificed all his own. Susceptible of none but decent ones, with him decency would have become a habit, that habit would have accustomed his mind to quelling penchants which had h itherto prevented him from pleasing. The whole treatment would have ended with our sufferer appeased and a t peace ; and lo ! see how out o f the depths o f vice I would have enticed him back to virtue. For once again, a l i ttle less o f vice i s virtuousness in a very vicious heart. Think not that 't is child' s play, to retrieve a man from the abyss ; your mere p roposal to rescue him will cause him to cling tight to where he is . Content yourself with having him conceive a liking for things milder in their form but in sub­ stance the same as those he is wont to delight in. Little by little you will gradually hoist him up from the cloaca . But i f you hurry him along, j ostle him, if you attempt to snatch everything away from him all at once, you will only irritate him further . Only by slow steps is a stomach accustomed to a diet ; you destroy it i f you suddenly deprive it of food. True enough, there are certain spirits ( and of these I have known one or two ) so heavily mired in evil, and who unfo rtunately find therein such charm, that however slight it were, any reform would be painful for them ; ' twould seem they are at home in evi l , that they have their abode there, that for them evil is l ike a natural state whence no effort to extricate them might avail : for that some divine intervention would be necessary and, unhappily, heaven, to whom good or evil in men i s a matter o f great indifference, never performs miracles in their behalf. And, strangest of all, profoundly wicked spirits are not sorry for their plight ; all the inquietudes, all the nuisances, all the cares vice brings in i ts train, these, far from becoming torments to them, are rather delights, s imilar, so to speak, to the rigors o f a mistress one l oves dearly, and for whose sake one would be aggrieved not to have sometimes to suffer. Yes, my fairest o f the fair , by God's own truth, well do I know a few spirits of this kind. Oh, and how dangerous they are ! M ay the Eternal spare us, thou and me, ever from re-

1 3 6 + THE MARQUIS DE SADE

sembling them, and to obtain His mercy let us both before we lay us in our beds, kneel ('own and recite a Paternoster and an Ave Maria with an Oremut or two in honor of Mr. Saint [lacuna in MS. ] . ( 'Tis a s ignal . )

With a great ki ss for each of your buttocks.

I would remind you that you have sent me beef marrow in the past when the weather was just a s warm as i t is at present, and tha t I have none left ; I beseech you to send me some without fail by the 1 5 th of the month . Also, two night-ribbons, so as not to have to wait when one needs replacing : the widest and darkest you are able to find.

Herewith the exact measurements for a case I would be obliged i f you would have mad,� for me, generally similar to the other you sent me but with these d imensions, to be observed to the sixteenth of an inch and with a top that screws on three inches from the end. No loops , no ivory clasps ' ike the last t ime, because they don't hold. This case ( since your confessors must have an explanation for everything ) i s to store rolled up plans, prints and several li ttle landscapes I 've done in red ink. And I believe indeed [one or two words obliterated in MS.] were it for a nun, ought to put [several words obliterated in MS. ] . Kindly attend to this errand as soon a s possible ; m y plans a n d drawings a r e floating loose everywhere about, I don't know where to stick them.

Those who tell YOII I have enough linen are wrong. I am down to four wearable shirt� and am completely without handkerchiefs and towels. So send me what I have requested, will you please, and put a stop to your sill y j oking upon this subj ect. Send me linen, plenty of linen-bah, never fear, I 've plenty o f time ahead of me to wear it out.

LETTE R V ( 1 7 8 3 )

To Madame de Sade1

Good God, how right he i s when M. Duclos tells us on page 1 0 1 o f his Confessions2 that the witticisms of barris ters always s tink of the backstairs . Allow me to go him one better and say that they smell of the ou troom, of the ou thouse : the brainless plat itudes your mother and her Keeper of the Tables invent are o f an odor not to be suffered i n any proper salon. And so you never weary of their drivel and their pranks ! and so we are to have buffoonery and lawyers to the bitter end l Well , my chit, feed on that stuff to your heart's content, gorge yourself on it, drink yourself high with it. I am wrong to wish to teach you nice m anners, quite a s wrong a s were he who would attempt t o prove t o a p ig that a vanilla cream pas ty is better than a t . . . . But if you give me examples of obstinacy, a t least forbea r from criticizing me for mine. You cleave to your principles , eh ? And so do I to mine. But the grea t difference between us two is tha t my systems are founded upon reason while yours are merely the fru i t of imbecility.

My manner o f thinking, so you say, cannot be approved. Do you suppose I care ? A poor fool indeed i s he who adopts a manner o f thinking for others I My manner of thinking stems straight from my considered reflections ; i t holds with my existence, with the way I am made. It i s not in my power to alter i t ; and were i t, I ' d not do so. This manner of thinking you find fault with i s my sole con· sola tion i n l i fe ; it alleviates all my sufferings in prison, it com· poses all my pleasures in the world outside, it is dearer to me than

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l i fe i tself. Not my mann er of thinking but the manner of thinking o f others has been t h e sou rce o f m y unhappiness. T h e reasoning man who scorns the prejudices of simpletons necessarily becomes the enemy of simpletons ; h e must expect as much, and laugh at the in­ evitable. A traveler j ou rneys along a fine road. I t has been s trewn with traps. He falls into one . Do you say i t is the traveler's fault, or that of the scoundrel who lays the traps ? If then, as you tell me, they are willing to restc re my liberty i f I am willing to pay for it by the sacrifice of my principles o r my tastes, we may bid one another an eternal adieu, for ra ther than part with those, I would sacrifice a thousand l ives and a thousand libe rti es , i f I had them. These principles and these t a stes , I am the ir fanatic adhe rent ; and fana t ic ism in me i s the product of the persecutions I have endured from my tyrants. The longer they continue their vexations, the deeper they root my principles in my heart, and I openly declare tha t no one need ever tdk to me of l iberty i f it is offered to me only in return for the ir destruction. I say that to you. I shall say i t to M. Le N oir . I shall say i t to the entire earth. \Vere the very scaffold before me, I'd not chan ge my tune. If my principles and my tastes cannot consort with th,� laws o f th is land , I don' t for a moment insist upon remaining in France. In Europe there are wise govern­ ments which do not c� .st di shonor upon people because of the i r tastes a n d which do n o t c a s t them into j ai l because of the i r opinions. I shall go elsewhere to Lve , and I shall l ive there happily.

The opinions or the vices of private individuals do not harm the State ; through the ir morals only publ i c figures exert any in­ fluence upon the general administration. Whether a private person bel I eves or does not be l i eve in God, whether he admires and ven­ erates a h a rlot or treats her with kicks and curses, neither this form of behavior nor that w i ll maintain or shake the constitution of a Sta te. But let the magi� trate whose duty i s to see the victualing of a town double the price of commodit ies because the purveyors make it worth his while, l e t the treasurer entrusted with publ ic funds leave h irelings to go unpa id because he prefers to turn those p enni es to his o wn account, let the steward of a royal and numerous house­ hold l eave the luckless troOps to die of hunger whom the King has introduced into his palace , because that officer would have a hearty feed at home the Thursday before Shrove Tuesday-and from one

Seven Letters ... 1 3 9

end o f the country t o the other the effects o f this malversation will be felt ; everything falls to pieces. And nonetheless the extortioner triumphs while the honest man rots in a dungeon. A State ap­ proaches its ruin, spake Chancellor Olivier3 at the Bed of Justice held in Henry II 's reign, when only the weak are punished, and the rich felon gets his impunity from h is gold.

Let the King first correct what i s vicious in the government, let him do away with its abuses, let him hang the ministers who deceive or rob him, before he sets to repressing his subj ects' opinions or tastes ! Once again : those tastes and opinions shall not unsteady his throne, but the indignities o f those near to i t will overthrow it sooner o r l a ter .

Your parents, YOIl tell me, dear friend, your paren ts are taking measures to prevent me from ever being in a position to claim any­ thing fro m them. This extraordinary sentence is all the more so for demonstrating that e i th e r they or I must be knaves. If they think me capable of a sking them for anything beyond your dowry, I am the knave ( but I am not ; knavery has never had entrance among my p rinciples, it's too base a vice ) ; and if, on the contrary, they are taking measures in order never to give me that upon which my children must naturally count, then they are the knaves. Kindly decide which it is to be, the one or the other, for your sentence leaves no middle ground. You point your finger at them ? I am not surprised. Neither am I surprised at the trouble they encountered marrying you off, o r at the remark one o f your suitors made : The daughter, I'm no thing loath,- but spare me from the parents. My surprise shall cease at the fact they have been p aying me your dowry in vouchers that lose two-thi rds on the market ; no more shall I marvel that those who were concerned for my interests al­ ways used to warn me : Have a care there, you've no idea whom you are dealing with . People who take measures not to pay the dowry p romised to their daughter, none o f the doings of such people ought to cause surprise ; and I h ave long suspected that the honor of h aving sired three children upon you was going to be my ruin. It 's doubtless to secure it that your mother has so often had my house entered and my papers filched. I t won ' t cost her but a few louis to have some documents now disappear out of the notaries' files, to have some notes to Albaret falsifi ed : and when a t last I

1 40 .. THE MARQU IS DE SADE

emerge from here I sl- all be perfectly able to beg in the streets. -vVell , what's to be done in the face of that ? To me three things shall always remain a s consolation for everything : the pleasure of informing the public, which is not fond o f the foul tricks lawyers play upon noblemen ; the hope of advising the King by going and casting myself at h is feet i f need be, to ask restitution for the roguery o f your parents ; and should all that fail , the satisfaction, to me very sweet, of possessing you for your own sake, my dear friend, and o f devotin!� the l i ttle that shall still be mine to your needs, to your desires, to the charm unto my heart unique o f seeing you owe everything to me.

DE SADE

LETTER VI ( 1 790 )

To Monsieur Gaufridyl

The 1 2th of April 1 790

I came out of Charenton (whither I had been transferred from the Bastille ) on Good Friday. The better the day the better the deed I Yes, my good friend, ' twas upon that day I recovered my freedom j wherefore have I decided to celebrate it as a holiday for the rest of my life and instead of those concerts, of those frivolous promenades custom has i rreligiously sanctified at that time of year, when we ought only to moan and weep , instead, I say, of all those mundane vanities, whenever the forty-fifth day after Ash Wednes­ day brings us around to another Good Friday, you shall see me fall to my knees, p ray, give thanks . . . make resolutions to mend my ways, and keep �hem.

Now to the facts, my dear lawyer, for I see you about to echo what everybody tells me : It's no t talk we want, Sir, but facts-to the facts then : the facts are that I landed in the middle of Paris without a louis in my pocket, without knowing where to go, where to lodge, where to dine, where to procure any money. M. de Milly, procurator at the Chatelet, and who has been supervising my interests in .this part of the country for twenty-six years, was kind enough to offer me a bed, his board and six louis . Unwilling to over­ stay my welcome or become a burden, after four days at M. de Milly's, with three louis left of the original six, I had to set forth and find for myself everything-inn, domestic, tailor , my meals, etc. -with three louis.

My circumstances being what they were I made request of

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1 42 .. THE MARQUl S DE SADE

Madame la Presidente de Montreuil , which lady graciously con­ sented to instruct her notary to advance me a few louis upon con­ di tion I write to you at lnce for the wherewithal first to re imburse the borrowed sum, and second to stay alive. I do therefore conjure you, my good lawyer, to dispatch to me without delay of any sort the preliminary sum of :me thousand crowns , the sum I asked you for the other day and whereof my need i s no less extreme than the promptitude of your response to i t essential.

LETTER VII ( 1 790 )

To Monsieur Gaufridy

I have just this instant come into receipt of your letter o f the fourteenth : a s it arrives too soon to be in answer to mine, I am master of my disappointment at not encountering here one of those charming notes which by far outvalue love letters, and with which one obtains money immediately.

You must not doubt tha t if I did not write to you during my detention, 'twas because I lacked the means to do so ; I cannot well forgive you for supposing my silence due to anything else. I 'd not have bothered about business details, what would have been the use in my position ? But I would have inquired after your news, I would have given you my own, upon the chains lading me we might have dropped an occasional fl ower. But my captors would not have it so ; I did venture a letter to you in that vein, it was returned to me, flung back a t me, after that I wrote no more. Therefore, my dear lawyer, I repeat it , I cannot forgive you for having doubted my feelings in your regard. We have known one another since child­ hood, I need not remind you of i t ; a long-standing friendship made it natural tha t i t be you in whom I placed my trust when long ago I besought you to take on the management o f my affairs ; what motive could I have had for changing my attitude ? 'Twas not your fault I was arrested at La Coste, ' twas mine, I was too sure I was in safety there and I knew not with what an abominable family I had to con­ tend. It goes without saying, and I assume you will have understood already, that when I speak here of family I am referring to the Montreuil s ; you have not, cannot have, the faintest conception of

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the infernal and anthropophagical manner in which these people have conducted themsel ves with me. Had I been the last o f the living and the lowliest , nobody would have dared treat me with the barbarity I have suffered thanks to them ; in fine, it has cost me my eyesight and my chest ; for lack of exerci se I have become so enormously fat I can sca rce stir my body ; prison slew in me the very faculty o f sensation ; I have no more taste for anything, no liking, no love ; the society I so madly regretted looks so dull to me today, so forlorn and sad I There are moments when I am moved by a wish to j oin the Trapp ists , and I cannot say but what I may go off some fine day and nnish al together from the scene. Never was I such a misanthrope as since I have returned into the midst of men ; and i f in their eyes I now have the look of a stranger, they may be very sure they produce the same effect upon me. I was not i dle during my detention ; consider, my dear lawyer, I had readied fi fteen volumes for the printer ;! now that I am at large, hardly a quarter o f those manusc ripts remains to me. Through unpardonable thoughtlessness, Madame de Sade let some of them become lost, let others be seized ; thirteen years of toil gone for naught! The bulk of those wri tings had r'�mained behind in my room at the Bastille when on the fourth of Ju ly, I was removed from there to Charenton ; on the fourteenth the Eastille is stormed, overrun, and my manu­ scripts, six hundred boo ItS I owned, two thousand pounds worth of furni ture, precious port raits , the lot is lacerated, burned, carried off, pillaged : a clean sw �ep , not a straw left : and all that owing to the sheer negligence o f Madame de Sade. She had had ten whole days to retrieve my pos�.essions ; she could not but have known that the Bastille, which the:r had been cramming with guns, powder, soldiers , was being preF ared either for an attack or for a defense. Why then did she not hasten to get my belongings out o f harm' s way ? my manuscripts ?--my manuscripts over whose loss I shed tears of blood I Other b �ds , tables , chests of drawers can be found, but ideas once gone are not found again . . . . No, my friend, no, I shall never be able to figure to you my despair at their loss, for me it i s i rreparable. Sin:e then, the sensi tive and delicate Madame de Sade holds me at arm's length, won ' t see me. Another would have said He is unhappy, we must dry his tears away,. this logic of feel­ ings has not been hers. I have not lost enough, she wishes to ruin me,

Seven Letters .. 1 45

she i s asking for a separation. Through this inconceivable proceed­ ing she i s going to legitimate all the calumnies that have been spewed against me ; she is going to leave her children and me destitute and despised, and that in order to live, or rather to vegetate deliciously, as she phrases it, in a convene where some confessor is doubtless consoling her, giving her to see the merits and the practicabi l i ty of the path of crime, of horror, and of indignity down which her behavior i s going to drive us all . When 't is my most mortal enemy who has her ear , the advice my wife is receiving could not possibly be worse, nor more disastrous .

You wil l have no trouble realizing, my dear l awyer, that hav­ ing now to answer out of my assets for the sums drawn from my wife's dowry ( one hundred s ixty thousand livres ) , this separation is going to be my financial finish, which i s what these monsters are a fter. Alas, great God ! I ' d thought seventeen miserable years, thirteen of them in horrible dungeons, would expiate a few rash foll ies committed in my youth. You see how mistaken I was, my friend. The rage o f Span iards is never appeased, and this execrable family is Spanish. Thus could Volta ire write in A lzire : W hat? You have a Spaniard's loo k-and you have the capacity to forgive?

NOTES TO LETTERS

LETTER I

1 . Laure-Victoi re-Adeline de Lauris, born in Avignon on the 8th of June, 1 74 1 , was exactly one year younger than Sade. Hers was one of the most illustrious houses of Proven:e, tracing its l ineage back to the thirteenth cen­ tury. Although i t has long been known that, p rior to 1 763, the year of his marriage, the fiery-tempered Sade had not often lacked for obj ects o f his amatory dalliance o r affection, the existence of M ademoiselle d e Lauris as one o f them remained u nknown to Sade scholars and students until recently. I t was the indefatigable Gilbert Lely who, in 1 949, discovered the present letter among the unpublished correspondence of the Sade family which Mau rice Heine bequeathed to the Bibl iotheque N ationale in Paris.

2. Sade was married to Mademoiselle de Montreuil on M ay 1 7th of this same year. Thus his arden!: letter to Mademoiselle de Lauris predates his marriage by less than six weeks.

3. Sade had gone to Avignon, ostensibly to await the arrival of his mistress and wife-to-be. B u t follow ing his departure f rom Paris, either M lle. de Lauris had a change of heart or, perhaps, family pressures were b rought to bear against the marriage.

4. Although Sade's father apparently acquiesced to his son's demands to marry M ademoiselle de Lau ris, it is known that he far preferred the much more advantageous alliance with the Montreuil family. Sade's sentence here would seem to suggest that someone, perhaps his father acting alone or i n collusion, sent h i m t o Avignon under false pretenses, the real motive being to separate him from Laure.

5. Lely speculates, not u n reasonably, that the "c . . . " may refer to the "picturesque term which, sti l l today, is used in popular language to designate gonorrhea. Indeed , in a le :ter from the Count de Sade to his sister, the Abbess de Saint-Laurent ( B bliotheque Nationale MS. 24384, no. 1 9 3 6 ) men­ tions that the Marquis i s 'more in love than ever' with M lle. de Lau ris, who apparently 'made him ill. ' And there would seem to be l i ttle doubt about the matter when one compares this remark to the allusions earlier in S ade's letter

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Seven Letters + 1 47

where he admonishes Laure : 'Take care of your health ; I am working to restore my own . . . . ' "

6. The fact is that Laure de Lauris never married. There is also evidence that Sade's feelings for her persisted long after his marriage to M ademoiselle de Montreuil, as suggested by a letter Sade subsequently wrote to Laure's father, reproaching him for not inviting Sade to a ball Monsieur Lauris was giving. In this letter, Sade speaks of "My absolutely irreproachable conduct since everlasting bonds [i .e . , his marriage to another] have prevented me from forming those which were destined to make my happiness." Lely further speculates, without the slightest evidence however, that S ade m ay h ave had a later l iaison with Laure, after his marriage, during the years he was living at La Coste. The only basis for his speculation is the p roximity of La Coste and Vacqueyras, the seigneury of the Lau ris family, which were only twenty miles apart.

LETTER I I

1 . One month t o the day after Sade was incarcerated i n Vincennes Keep.

2. From 1 773 , when he escaped from the fortress of Miolans, until his ar­ rest on February 1 3 , 1 777 , in Paris, Sade was either traveling incognito abroad or hiding in France. In late January of 1 777 , by means of messages reporting the grave state of his mother's health, Madame de Montreuil succeeded in luring Sade to Paris : arriving there ( on February 8 ) he learned · the Dowager Countess had died th ree weeks previously. And on the 1 3th, Inspector Marais, armed with a lettre de cachet obtained by M adame de Montreuil , arrested the Marquis in his hotel and conducted him to Vincennes.

3. Joseph-Jerome S imeon of Aix-en Provence was attorney for the defense when in 1 778 Sade appeared before the Parliament of Aix to face charges of having poisoned some prostitutes in Marseilles in 1 772. Inculpated that same year, the Aix court had condemned S ade-then in flight-to be bu rned in ef­ figy. The search for him continued : he was at last overtaken at ChambCry. It was in connection with the Marseilles episode that S ade was imprisoned at M iolans, and then i n Vincennes.

4. To our knowledge, the identity of the person in question has so far eluded all S ade scholars.

LETTER III

1 . Undated letter which from internal evidence would seem to h ave been written in July, 1 783. It was dispatched from Vincennes where, after standing trial in Aix, Sade had been imprisoned ( for the third time ) since September 7 , 1 778.

1 48 -+ THE MARQUIS DE SADE

2. Goodie Cordier : Madame de Montreuil. 3 . Fouloiseau was l\'ladame de Montreuil 's factotum. 4. I n another letter, cited by Lely, Sade remarks : " 'Tis for having taken

d isrespectful l iberties with the ass of a whore that the father of a family, sepa­ rated from his chi ldren, must risk the loss of their affection, must be snatched from the arms of his wife, from the care of his lands, must be robbed, ruined, dishonored, doomed, must be prevented from bringing up his child ren to enter into the world, and from arpearing in i t himself, must be the plaything of a gang of j ailers, the prey of three or four other villains, must waste his l i fetime, lose his health , be despoiled of his money, and be for the past seven years shut up like a lunatic in an i ron ca ge."

5. Albaret : another of Madame de Montreuil 's factotums. 6. The Presidente's full :lame was : Marie-Madeleine Masson de Plissay,

Dame Cordier de Launay de Montreui l .

7. Madame de Sade's Chl istian name was, as we have noted, Renee-Pelagie. The Montreuils owned a prc perty called d'Echauffour.

LETTER IV

1. Letter written from Vincennes, undated but clearly belonging to the same period as Letter I I I .

2 . Concerning t h e "numbers," t h e "signals," the "ciphers" S a d e again and again refers to in his letters ( and in his "Note Concerning My Detention" ) , Gilbert Lely writes ( L'A igl." Mademoiselle . . . , pp. 1 53-54) : "In almost all of Sade's letters of this period one meets with allusions to more or less com­ p rehensible numbers which he often calls signals. What does this curious arithmetic signify ? Imprison,�d in Vincennes by lettre de cachet, that is, utterly at the mercy of his persecutors' discretion, Sade found himself in tragic ig­ norance of how long his det'�ntion was to last ; wherewith he contrived a sys­ tem o f deduction based uporl calculations which, while they may appear ludi­ crous to us, were in his mine o f a nature to reveal the wildly yearned for day of his liberation . . . . Actual y, the Marquis' troubling arithmetical operations constitute a kind of defense :nechanism, a partly unconscious struggle to ward off the despair which , he d readed , were it to gain the upper hand , would lead to the overthrow of his reas )n. Absolutely in the dark as to his captors' con­ crete intentions, Sade is led 'to ferret out the most unexpected points of de­ parture for his calculations, ' writes Maurice Heine. 'To his eye everything has the look of a hint of his fate, o r perhaps o f a mysterious indication that has escaped the censor's notice. His mind fastens desperately upon the number of lines i n a letter, upon the number of times such and such a word is repeated ,

Seven Letters .. 1 49

even upon a consonance which, spoken aloud, suggests a figure.' But his efforts are not confined to trying to discover the date of his return to freedom ; he also seeks for clues regarding his li fe while in prison : upon exactly what day will he again be allowed to take exercise ? When will Madame de Sade visit him ? His wife's letters are the major source from which he mines the elements for his reckonings, and sometimes when the deductions he extracts from them have a baneful or contradictory look, he accuses Madame de Montreuil of having suggested to the Marquise such signals as might demoralize or throw him into perplexi ty."

An example : "This letter has 72 syllables which are the 72 weeks remaining. It has 7 lines plus 7 syllables which makes exactly the 7 months and 7 days from the 1 7th of April till the 22nd of January, 1 780. It has 1 9 1 letters and 49 words. Now, 49 words plus 16 lines makes 59 [sic] , and there are 59 weeks between now and May 30 . . • . "

Another : "On March 28 he sent to borrow 6 candles from me ; and on April 6, 6 others whereof I lent only 4 . . . . Thursday the 6th of January, 9 months after the borrowing of the candles, on exactly the same day 2� were returned to me instead of the 1 0 I had lent, which seems very plainly to designate another 9 months in prison, making 25 in all."

And finally : " I know of nothing that better illustrates the sterility of your imaginations, your dearth of imagination, than the unbearable monotony of you r insipid signals. What ! nothing but valets forever sick of cleaning boots ! or else workers redu'ced to en­ forced idleness ! And most recently, because you had to find a 23 from somewhere, this : promenades restricted to between 2 and 3. Presto ! there's you r 23. -Astounding ! Sublime ! What ! What quickness of wit, what genius, what brilliance ! But, these signals of yours, if you must make them, at least do so with an honest intent and not as so many vexations."

3. Martin : a police sheriff.

4. Mr. 6 : that is, Sade himself. He occupied Cell No. 6 at Vincennes.

LETTER V

1 . Written from Vincennes, probably in early November, 1 783.

2. Les Confessions du cornie de ••• , published in 1 742, is less a novel than a gallery of portraits and a collection of anecdotes.

3. Fran�is Olivier ( 1 493- 1 560 ) , Chancellor of France under Fran'Wois I and Henri I I .

1 5 0 + THE MARQUIS DE SADE

LETTER VI

1 . Gaufridy was a notary public and procu rator in the little town of Apt near La Coste, Sade's favorite residence in Provence. Gaufridy's father h ad handled business affai rs for the Comte de Sade ; the Marquis entrusted his own to the younger Gaufridy, who for twenty years supervised the management and finances of his estates at Mazan, S aumane, and Aries as well as at La Coste.

LETTER VII

1. Sade is referring to hi!; Catalogue raisonne des a:uvres de r auteur, which he had d rawn up in the Bastille on October 1 , 1 788, and to which we refer elsewhere in the present vo: ume.

2. In 1 78 1 Madame de Sade had taken up quarters at Sainte-Aure, a Carmelite convent in Paris, where she was to remain up until and after the time of her l egal separation from the Marquis.

Note Concerning My Detention

I observed that the s ituation wherein I was being kept and the pranks being played upon me were forcing me to mistake true and authentic happenings for events produced by the imbecile spiteful­ ness of the scoundrels who had me at their mercy ; the effort to render myself insensible to those arranged by artifice had the further result of rendering me insensible to those of fate or of Nature, in such wise that for the sake of my inward peace, I pre­ ferred to credit nothing and to adopt an attitude of indifference toward everything. Whence there developed the terrible and dangerous situation of being ever ready to discount as a deliberate falsehood any announcement of some unpleasant truth, and in the interest of tranquillity, to rank it among the lies that were multi­ plied to foster or give rise to situations ; nay, i t may fairly be said that nothing did greater hurt both to my heart and to my character. To undo my mind was the aim of all thi s . I t failed ; knowing me well, my persecutors ought to have known that my mind was too s trong and too philosophical to yield to such nonsense. But i t did nonetheless have a hardening effect upon my heart, a souring effect upon my character : effects both pernicious and harmful to produce, and which testified to naught but the crass stupidity of these teasings, worthy of the crass dolts who infl icted and who recommended them. And what were the dire effects further pro­ duced upon me by the denial of the good books I wanted to read, by the obstacles created to hinder me from composing the good books I wanted to write I But what had one not to expect from people who, forming ciphers and signals, had, through sending me to Bicetre, sacrificed my honor and my reputation ?

1 5 1

1 5 2 + THE MARQUIS DE SADE

That system of !;ignals and ciphers those rogues util ized while I was in the Bastille and during the last of my detentions, wrought yet another and grave damage upon me through accustom­ ing me to cling to any such fantastic notion or phantom as might shore up my hope and to any conj ecture capable of nourishing it . Thus did my mind take on the sophistical cast I am reproached for in my writings.

By way of final remark, how, I wonder, can inconsistency be carried to the point of :;aying that i f I wrote Jus tine, ' twas at the Bastille, and of thrusting me back into a situation worse still than the one in which I , as it i s alleged, composed the work in question ? Here is the plainest demonstration that everything done and uttered concerning me proceeded from the fanaticism of pious idiots and from the flagrant stupidity of their henchmen . . . . Oh, how right was Sophocles when he said : A husband almos t always meets with his downfall either in the woman he takes for his wife or in the family he allies himself to .

Consecutive to the foregoing remarks I think i t best to join a few touching on Jus t ine, remarks I submit to the thick-skulled Ostrogoths who had me impri soned on account of it .

Only a small amount of common sense were needed ( but have incarcerators any at all i ' ) to be convinced that I am not and could not be the author of th at book. But, unfortunately, I was in the clutches of a flock of imbeciles who always use fetters for argu­ ments and bigotry instead of philosophy, and that for the great good reason that i t i s always much easier to impound than to ponder and to pray to God tha:l to be useful to mankind. In the one case some virtues are require d ; only hypocrisy i s required in the other.

After having been once upon a time suspected of a few ex­ travagances of the imag ination similar to those depicted in Jus tine, I ask whether it were p ossible to believe that I would go and put pen to paper in order tc· reveal turpitudes which would necessarily bring my own to be reco llected. I am guilty of those turpitudes, or else I am not : i t must be the one or the other. Had I committed them, assuredly I would wrap them in the thickest silence all the rest of my life ; and if I am only suspected of them without ever

No te Concerning My Deten tion .. 1 53

having committed them, what have I to gain from divulging them when this p iece of folly would have for its unique result to draw questioning eyes my way ? It would be the height of stupidity. And my hatred for my tormentors is such I am unwilling to resemble them in that respect.

But still another more powerful reason will , I hope, speedily convince anyone that I cannot be the author of this book. Read it a ttentively and one will see that through inexcusable clumsiness, through a manner of proceeding that was bound to set the author at loggerheads with wise man and fool alike, with the good as well a s with the wicked, all the philosophical personages in this novel are villains to the core. However, I myself am a philosopher ; every­ one acquainted with me will certi fy that I consider philosophy my profession and my glory . . . . And can anyone for one instant, save he suppose me mad, can anyone, I say, suppose for one minute that I could bring myself to present what I hold to be the noblest of all callings, under colors so loathsome and in a shape so ex­ ecrable ? What would you say of him who were deliberately to go befoul in the mire the costume he was fondest of and in which he thought he struck the finest figure ? Is such ineptness even con­ ceivable ? Is the l ike anywhere to be seen in my other works ? On the contrary, all the villains I have described are devout because the devout are all villains and all philosophers decent folk, because most decent folk are philosophers. Let me be permitted a reference to the works I speak of. Is there in A line et F alcour a better­ behaved, more virtuous, more duti ful creature than Leonore ? And at the same time is there a more philosophical ? Is there anyone in the world more devout than my Portuguese ? And does the world contain a greater villain ? All my fictional persons have this tint ; I have never departed from this principle. However, I repeat it , the complete opposite is manifest in Jus tine . Therefore i t i s not true that Jus tine i s my doing. I go farther ; i t cannot possibly be. That i s what I have just proven.

I shall here add something better still ; how very odd it is that all the p ietistic rabble, all the Geoffroys, the Genl is , the Legouves , the Chateaubriands, the La Harpes, the Luce de Lancivals, the Villeterques, how odd that all these trustees of the shaveling cor­ poration should have flown furiously out a t Justine, when that

1 54 -&- THE MARQUIS DE SADE

book does nothing but plead in their favor. Had they paid some­ one to write a work denigrating philosophy, they'd not have been able to buy anything so well done. And by all that I hold dear in the world I swear I shall never forgive myself for having been useful to ind ividuals whom I so prodigiously despise.

No greater error could there be than to a ttribute to me a book . . . a book violating all my principles and of which, by all conceivable evidence, I cannot be the author ; and, what i s more, to make such a to-do over a work which, rightly considered, is but the final paroxysm of a dise ased imagination with the ravings whereof they stupidly excite everyone ' s mind by crying it up as they do.

Stung by this inculpation, I have just prepared two works in four volumesl each where I have assailed, toppled, demolished the insidious sophistries in Justine, pulveri zed them from first to last. But since i t i s wri tten 0 1 1 high, according to our friend Jacques the Fatalist ,2 th at men of le tters are to be the perpetual victims of stupidity and of folly, my wri tings are being held, thei r publication is being delayed ( and perhaps even prevented ) while new editions of Jus tine pour from the press every other week. B ravo , my friends ! there'd be no understanding your motions were you to cease your opposition to good and your encouragements to evil . In vain did we revolu tion ourselves to achi eve the contrary, ' twas written on high tha t the most vio lent abuses are ever to hold sway in our France and that so long ; I S any French soil is left on the globe, i t will be recognizable by the corruption practiced upon it .

1 These would very probably be Marcel ou Ie Cordelier and Conrad ou I. jaloux en dilire, never published and the MSS. of which have never been found. That of Conrad, a novel deal ing with the histor:r of the Albigensians, was �eported to have been among the papers of the Marquis that were "seized at the time he was being taken to Charen- ton."

2 The main character in a no vel by Diderot.

Last Will and Testament

OF DONATIEN-ALPHONSE-FRANC;OIS SADE

Man of Letters

For the execution of the clauses mentioned here below, I rely upon the fil ial piety of my children, desiring that their own may act with regard to them as they will have done with regard to me.

First : Wishing to give evidence to demoi selle Marie-Constance R einelle, wife of Monsieur Balthasar Quesnet, believed deceased, wishing, a s I say, to give evidence to this lady, insofar as my poor powers permit, o f my extreme gratitude for the care she has given m e and the sincere friendship she has shown me from the twenty­ fifth of August, seventeen hundred ninety, to the day of my death, sentiments proffered by her not only with the utmost tact and dis­ interest, but, what i s even more, with the most courageous energy, since, during the Reign of Terror, she saved me from the revolu­ t ionary bl ade all too surely suspended over my head, as everyone knows ; and therefore, for the reasons outlined above, I hereby will and bequeath to the sa id lady Marie-Constance Reinelle, wife of Quesnet, the sum of eighty thousand livres in cash from the Tours mint, in whatsoever currency is then in usage in France at the time of my demise, wishing and understanding that this sum be deducted from the freest and most unattached portion of my legacy, charg­ ing my children to deposit it, within the space of a month from the day of my decease, with Monsieur Finot, notary at Charenton-Saint­ Maurice, whom for this purpose I name the executor of my will

1 5 5

1 5 6 .. THE MARQU IS DE SADE

and whom I cha rge to "ltil ize the said sum in the manner the most secure and advantageous to Madame Quesnet, and in a manner susceptible to provide her with an income sufficient for her food and support, which income shall be promptly remitted to her on a quarterly basis , shall be transferable and not attachable by any person whatsoever, desiring, moreover, that the principal and the sale of the above-mentioned bequest be revertible to Charles Quesnet, son of the s l id dame Quesnet, who shall become the proprietor o f the total, but only following the demise of his worthy mother.

And this desire which I here express concerning the bequest I make to Madame Que:met, I beseech my children, in the unlikely case that they should seek to evade or shirk their responsibi l i ty, I beseech them to remerr ber that they had promised the said dame Quesnet a sum roughly Himilar in recognition o f the care she took of their father, and as thi� present document merely concurs with and anticipates their initial i ntentions, any doubt as to their acquiescence to my final wishes is forever banished from my mind and will never for a moment trouble i t further, especially when I reflect upon the filial virtues which have never ceased to characterize them and make them full worthy of my paternal sentiments.

Second: I further leavf and bequeath to the aforementioned Ma­ dame Quesnet all the furniture, effects, linen, clothing, books or papers which are in my chambers at the time of my decease, with the exception, however, of my father's papers, which shall be in­ dicated as such by labels placed upon the bundles, which papers shall be handed over to my ch i ldren.

Third : I t is equally my intention and the expression of my last will that the present beques t in no wise deprive Madame Marie-Con­ stance Reinelle, wi fe 0 f Quesnet, of any rights, claims, or levies that she may care to make upon my estate, whatever the grounds may be.

Fourth : I leave and bequeath to Monsieur Finot, the executor of my last wil l and testaffio�nt, a r ing valued at twelve hundred livres J

Las t Will and Tes tament .. 1 5 7

in return for the trouble which the execution of the present act shall have occasioned him.

Fifth : Finally, I absolutely forbid that my body be opened upon any pretext whatsoever. I urgently insist that i t be kept a full forty­ eight hours in the chamber where I shall have died, placed in a wooden coffin which shall not be nailed shut until the prescribed forty-eight hours have elapsed, at the end of which period the said coffin shall be nailed shut ; during this interval a message shall be sent express to M. Le Normand, wood seller in Versailles, living at number 1 0 1 , boulevard de l 'Egalite, requesting him to come in his own person, with a cart, to fetch my body away and to convey it under his own escort and in the said cart to the wood upon my property at Malmaison near Epernon, in the commune of Emance where I would have i t laid to rest, without ceremony of any kind, in the first copse standing to the right as the said wood is entered from the side of the old chateau by way of the broad lane dividing it. The ditch opened in this copse shall be dug by the farmer tenant of Malmaison under M. Le Normand's supervision, who shall not leave my body until after he has placed it in the said ditch ; upon this occasion he may, if he so wishes, be accompanied by those among my kinsmen or friends who without display or pomp of any sort whatsoever shall have been kind enough to give me this last proof of their attachment. The ditch once covered over, above i t acorns shall be strewn, in order that the spot become green again, and the copse grown back thick over it, the traces of my grave may disap­ pear from the face of the earth as I trust the memory of me shall fade out of the minds of all men save nevertheless for those few who in their goodness have loved me until the last and of whom I carry away a sweet remembrance with me to the grave.

Done at Charenton-Saint-Maurice in a state of reason and good health this thirtieth day of January in the year one thousand eight hundred six.

D. A. F. SADE

rJhe Ut(arquis

decSade

Part gwo

Two Philosophical

Dialogues

Vialogue between a Priest

and a Vying �an (1782)

Un til the recen t discovery of Volume I of Sade's mis­ cellaneous works ( reuvres diverse s ) , which con tains his early occasional prose and verse, as well as his one-act play, Le Philosophe soi-disant, and an epis tolary work, Voyage de Hollande, the Dialogue between a Priest and a Dying Man was his earliest known work to be dated with certain ty . Sade completed i t, or completed the n o tebook which con­ tains i t, on July 1 2, 1 782, during the fourth year of his second imprisonment in Vincennes. It is one of the most in­ cisive works of Sade, who is n o t especially no ted for his concision , and is contemporary to The 1 20 Days of Sodolli, upon which it is known tha t he was hard at work that same year. Like The 1 20 Days, the Dialogue between a Priest and a Dying Man did no t figure in Sade's 1 788 Catalogue ra i sonne, which was limited to works he wished publicly to acknowledge.

The Dialogue did n o t appear until more than a cen tury after Sade's death. In the course of the nineteenth century, the n o tebook con taining it was sold and reso ld on a number of occasions a t various auctions of autograph manuscripts, and in 1 920 Maurice Heine was fortunate enough to be able to purchase i t at a sale held on N ovcmber 6 at Paris' Hotel Drouot. Six years later he published it with an ex­ haustive in troduction . 1 Since it is included in a n o tebook con taining primarily rough drafts, no tes, and jottings, Lely

1 Dialogue entre un pretre et un moribond, par Do natien-Alphonse-Fran­ fois, m arquis de Sade, publit pour la premiere fois sur Ie m anuscrit auto­

graphe intdit, avec un avant-propos et des notes par Maurice Heine. Paris, StendhaJ et Cie., 1926.

1 63

raises the ques tion as to whether this work was ever polished or reworked to the author's satisfaction . Heine's observa­ tion, however, that the manuscrip t was written in a "firm, legible hand, with l�w words cross ed out" would indicate that Sade may well have been sa tisfied with i ts compos ition . In any event, the wor k needs no apology .

What may mo. : t as tonish the reader about the Dia­ logue is the author'.: failure to acknowledge it . For, com­ pared to much of his o ther wri ting, i t seems tame indeed, despite the ferocity of i ts a ttack on the deity and the clerical es tablishment . As H �ine points ou t, however, one may tend to give the Age of Reason , fro m the van tage point of the presen t cen tury, mOTe than its due. In fact, Sade's positio n on the subject of religion was far more radical than that of mos t of h is contemporaries, even the most enlightened. When, in the Encyc: opedia of 1 751 , and under their own signatures, Didero t and d' A lembert can pronounce them­ selves in the follo'lting terms, i t is easier to unders tand Sade's re ticence :

Even the more tolerant of men will no t deny tha t the judge has the rIght to repress those who profess athe­ ism, and even to condemn them to death if there is no o ther way of freeing society from them . . . . If he can punish those W,l O harm a single person , he doubtless has as much a r ight to punish those wh o wrong an en­ tire society by denying that there is a God . . . . Slich a man may be considered as an enemy of all men.2

In the light of rhe above, one reads the Dialogue with a wider respect for tile audacity and uncompromising nature of Sade's mind.

2 Ibid.

1 64

PRIEST-Come to this the fatal hour when a t last from the eyes of deluded man the scales must fall away, and be shown the cruel picture of his errors and his vices-say, my son, do you not re­ pent the host of sins unto which you were led by weakness and hu­ man frailty ?

DYING MAN-Yes, my friend, I do repent. PRIEST-Rejoice then in these pangs of remorse, during the

brief space remaining to you profit therefrom to obtain Heaven's general absolution for your sins, and be mindful of it , only through the mediation of the Most Holy Sacrament of penance will you be granted i t by the Eternal.

DYI NG MAN-I do not understand you, any more than you have understood me.

PRIEST-Eh ?

DYING MAN-I told you that I repented. PRIEST-I heard you say i t .

DYING MAN-Yes, but without understanding i t .

PRIEST-My interpretation-

DYING MAN-Hold. I shall give you mine. By Nature created, created with very keen tastes, with very strong passions ; placed on this earth for the sole purpose of yielding to them and satisfying them, and these effects of my creation being naught but necessities directly relating to Nature ' s fundamental designs or , i f you prefer, naught but essenti-al derivatives proceeding from her intentions in my regard, al l in accordance with her laws, I repent not having

1 65

1 66 + THE MARCUIS DE SADE

acknowledged her om aipotence as fully as I might have done, I am only sorry for the modest use I made o f the faculties ( criminal in your view, perfectly ordinary in mine ) she gave me to serve her ; I did sometimes resist her , I repent i t. Misled by your absurd doctrines, with them for arms I mindlessly challenged the desires instilled in me by a much diviner inspiration, and thereof do I repent : I only plucktd an occasional flower when I might have gathered an ample ha rvest of fruit-such are the just grounds for the regrets I have, do me the honor of considering me incapable o f harboring a n y others.

PRIEST-Lo I wtere your fallacies take you, to what pass are you brought by your sophistri es ! To created be ing you ascribe all the C reator's power, and those unlucky p enchants which have led you astray, ah ! do you not see they are merely the products of corrupted nature, to which you attribute omnipotence ?

DYING MAN-Friend-i t looks to me as though your dialectic were as false as yOUI' thinking. Pray straighten your arguing or else leave me to die in peace. What do you mean by Creator, and what do you mean by corrupted nature ?

PRIEST-The C r eator i s the master o f the universe, 't is He who has wrought ever:1thing, everything created, and who maintains i t all through the mere fact of His omnipotence.

DYING MAN-An impressive figure indeed. Tell me now why this so very formidable fellow did nevertheless, as you would have i t , create a corrupted n a ture ?

PRIEST-What glory would men ever have, had not God left them free will ; and i n the enj oyment thereof, what merit could come to them, were th �rc not on earth the possibility of doing good and that of avoiding evil ?

DYING MAN-And so your god bungled his work deliberately, in order to tempt o r test h is creature�id he then not know, did he then not doubt what the result would be ?

PRIEST-He knew it undoubtedly but, once again, he wished to leave to man the merit of choice.

Dialogue between a Priest and a Dying Man + 1 67

DYING MAN-And to what purpose, since from the outset he knew the course affairs would take and since, all-mighty as you tell me he is, he had but to make his creature choose as suited him ?

PRIEST-Who is there can penetrate God's vast and infinite designs regarding man, and who can grasp all that makes up the universal scheme ?

DYING MAN-Anyone who simplifies m atters, my friend, any­ one, above all , who refrains from multiplying causes in order to confuse effects all the more. \Vhat need have you of a second difficulty when you a re unable to resolve the first, and once i t is possible tha t Nature may all alone have done what you a ttribute to your god, why must you go looking for someone to be her over­ lord ? The cause and explanation of what you do not understand may perhaps be the simplest thing in the world. Perfect your physics and you will understand Nature better, refine your reason, banish your prejudices and you'll have no further need o f your god.

PRIEST-Wretched man I I took you for no worse than a Socinian-arms I had to combat you. But 't is clear you are an atheist, and seeing that your heart i s shut to the authentic and innumerable proofs we receive every day of our lives of the C reator's existence-I have no more to say to you. There is no restoring the blind to the light.

DYING MAN-Softly, my friend, own that between the two, he who blindfolds himself mus t surely see less of the l ight than he who snatches the blindfold away from his eyes . You compose, you construct, you dream, you magnify and complicate ; I sift, I simplify. You accumulate errors, pile one atop the other ; I combat them all. Which one of us i s blind ?

PRIEST-Then you do not believe in God a t all ?

DYING MAN-No. And for one very sound reason : i t is per­ fectly impossible to believe in what one does not understand. B e­ tween understanding and faith immediate connections must subsist ; understanding i s the very lifeblood o f faith ; where understanding has ceased, faith is dead ; and when they who are in such a case

1 68 .. THE MARQUIS DE SADE

procla im they have fai th , they deceive. You yourself, preacher, I defy you to believe in the god you predicate to me-you must fail because you cannot demonstrate him to me, because i t is not in you to define him to me, because consequently you do not under­ stand him-because as o f the moment you do not understand him, you can no longer furn ish me any reasonable argument concerning him, and because, in sum, anything beyond the limits and grasp of the human mind i s either illusion or futil i ty ; and because your god having to be one or the other of the two, in the first instance I should be mad to believe in him, in the second a fool. My friend, prove to me that matter i s inert and I will grant you a creator, prove to me that N atu re does not suffice to herself and I ' ll let you imagine her ruled by a higher force ; until then, expect nothing from me, I bow to evidence only, and evidence I perceive only through my senses : m:r belief goes no farther than they, beyond that point my faith coll apses. I believe in the sun because I see it, I conceive i t as the focal center of all the inflammable matter in Nature, its periodic movement pleases but does not amaze me. 'Tis a mechanical operation , perhaps as simple as the workings of electrici ty, but which we are unable to understand. Need I bother more about i t ? when you have roofed everything over with your god, will I be any the t etter off ? and shall I still not have to make an effort at least as great to understand the artisan as to define his handiwork ? By edi fying your chimera i t i s thus no service you have rendered me, you have made me uneasy in my mind but you have not enlightened it, and instead of gratitude I owe you resentment. Your god i s a machine you fabricated in your passions' behalf, you manipulated i t to their liking ; but the day i t interfered with mine, I kicked i t out of my wa:" deem i t fitting that I did so ; and now, at this moment when I sink and my soul stands in need of calm and philosophy, belabor i t 10t with your riddles and your cant , which alarm but will not conv nce it , which will i rritate without improving i t ; good friends and on the best terms have we ever been, this soul and I , so Nature wishd it to be ; as i t is, so she expressly modeled it , for my soul i s the r esult of the dispositions she formed in me pursuant to her own ends and needs ; and as she has an equal need of vices and of virtues , whenever she was pleased to move me to evil , she did so, whenever she wanted a good deed from me, she

Dialogue between a Priest and a Dying Man + 1 69

roused in me the desire to pe rform one, and even so I did as I was bid. Look nowhere but to her workings for the unique cause of our fickle human behavior , and in her l aws hope to find no other springs than her will and her requirements.

PRIEST-And so whatever i s in this world, i s necessary.

DYING MAN-Exactly.

PRIEST-But if everything I S necessa ry-then the whole IS regulated.

DYING MAN-I am not the one to deny it .

PRIEST-And what can regulate the whole save i t be an all­ powerful and all-knowing hand ?

DYING MAN-Say, i s i t not necessary that gunpowder ignite when you set a spark to i t ?

PRIEST-Yes.

DYING MAN-And do you find any presence of wisdom in that ?

PRIEsT-None.

DYING MAN-It i s then possible tha t things necessarily come about without being determined by a superior intelli gence, and possible hence that everything derive logically from a primary cause, without there being either reason o r wisdom in that primary cause.

PRIEST-What are you a iming at ?

DYING MAN-At proving to you that the world and all therein may be wh a t it i s and as you see it to be, without any wise and reasoning cause directing it, and that natural effects must have natural causes : natural causes sufficing, there is no need to invent any such unnatural ones as your god who himself, as I have told you already, would require to be explained and who would at the same time be the explanation of nothing ; and tha t once 'tis plain your god i s superfluous, he i s perfectly useless ; tha t what i s useless would grea tly appear to be imaginary only, null and therefore non­ exi stent ; thus, to conclude that your god is a fiction I need no other a rgument than that which furnishes me the certitude of his inutility.

170 ... THE MARQUIS DE SADE

PRIEST-At that rate there is no great need for me to talk to you about religion.

DYING MAN-True , but why not anyhow ? Nothing so much amuses me as this sign of the extent to which human beings have been carried away by fanaticism and stupidity j although the pro­ digious spectacle of folly we are facing here may be horrible, i t is always interesting. Answer me honestly, and endeavor to set per­ sonal considerations aside : were I weak enough to fall victim to your silly theories concerning the fabulous existence of the being who renders religion necessary, under what form would you advise me to worship him ? Would you have me adopt the daydreams of Confucius rather than the absurdities of Brahma, should I kneel before the great snake to which the Blacks pray, invoke the Peru­ vians' sun or Moses' Lo rd of Hosts, to which Mohammedan sect should I rally, or which Christian heresy would be preferable m your view ? Be carefu l how you reply.

PRIEST-Can it be doubtful ?

DYING MAN-Then ' ti s egoistical.

PRIEST-No, my SO:1, ' ti s as much out of love for thee a s for myself I u rge thee to embrace my creed .

DYING MAN-And I wonder how the one or the other of us can have much love for h mself, to deign to l i sten to such degrading nonsense.

PRIEST-But who can be mistaken about the miracles wrought by our Divine Redeemer?

DYING MAN-He who sees in him anything else than the most vulgar of all tricksters and the most arrant of all impostors.

PRIEST-O God, you hear him and your wrath thunders not forth!

DYING MAN-No m? friend, all i s peace and quiet around us, because your god, be i t ::rom impotence or from reason or from whatever you please , i s a being whose existence I shall momentarily concede out of condescemion for you or, if you prefer, in order to accommodate myself to your sorry li ttle perspective ; because this

Dialogue between a Priest and a Dying Man + 171

god, I say, were he to exist, as you are mad enough to believe, could not have selected as means to persuade us, anything more ridiculous than those your Jesus incarnates.

PRIEST-What ! the prophecies , the miracles, the martyrs­ are they not so many proofs ?

DYING MAN-How, so long a s I abide by the rules of logic, how would you have me accept as proof anything which itself is lacking proof ? Before a prophecy could constitute proof I should first have to be completely certain it was ever p ronounced ; the prophecies history tells us of belong to history and for me they can only have the force of other h istorical facts, whereof three out of four are exceedingly dubious ; i f to this I add the strong probability tha t they have been transmitted to us by not very objective h is­ torians, who recorded what they preferred to have us read, I shall be quite within my rights if I am skeptical. And furthermore, who is there to assure me that this prophecy was not made after the fact, that it was not a stratagem of everyday political scheming, like that which predicts a happy reign under a just king, or frost in wintertime? As for your miracles, I am not any readier to be taken in by such rubbish. All rascals have performed them, all fools have believed in them; before I'd be persuaded of the truth of a miracle I would have to be very sure the event so called by you was abso­ lutely contrary to the laws of Nature, for only what is outside of Nature can pass for miraculous ; and who is so deeply learned in Nature that he can affirm the precise point where her domain ends, and the precise point where i t i s infringed upon? Only two things are needed to accredit an alleged miracle, a mountebank and a few simpletons ; tush, there's the whole origin of your prodigies ; all new adherents to a religious sect have wrought some ; and more extraordinary still , all have found imbeciles around to believe them. Your Jesus' feats do not surpass those of Apollonius of Tyana, yet nobody thinks to take the latter for a god ; and when we come to your martyrs, assuredly, these are the feeblest of all your argu­ ments. To produce martyrs you need but have enthusiasm on the one hand, resistance on the other ; and so long a s an opposed cause offers me a s many of them as does yours, I shall never be sufficiently authorized to believe one better than another, but rather very much

172 + THE MARQUIS DE SADE

inclined to consider all of them piti able. Ah my friend I were it true tha t the god you preach did exi st, would he need miracle, martyr, or prophecy to secure recogni tion ? and i f, as you declare , the human heart were of his making, would he not have chosen i t for the repository of his law ? Then would this law, impartial for all man­ kind because emanating from a just god, then would i t be found graved deep and writ clear in all men alike, and from one end of the world to the othe', all men, having this delicate and sensitive o rgan in common, would also resemble each other through the homage they would render the god whence they had got it ; all would adore and serve him in one identical manner, and they would be as incapable of d isregarding this god as of resisting the inward impulse to worship him. Instead of that, what do I behold through­ out this world? As many gods as there are countries j as many different cults as there are different minds or different imaginations; and this swarm of opinions among which it i s physically impossible for me to choose, say now, is this a just god's doing ? Fie upon you, preacher, you outrage your god when you p resent him to me thus j rather l et me d�ny him completely, for i f he exists then I outrage him far l es s by my incredulity than do you through your blasphemies . Return to your senses, preacher, your Jesus i s no better than Mohammed, Monmmed no better than Moses, and the three of them combined no better than Confucius, who did after all have some wise things to say while the others did naught but rave ; in general, though, such people are all mere frauds : philosophers laughed a t them, the mob believed them, and justice ought to have hanged them.

PRIEST-Alas, ju:;tice dealt only too harshly with one o f the four.

DYING MAN-If he alone got what he deserved i t was he deserved i t most r ichl:, ; seditious, turbulent, calumniating, dishon­ est, libertine, a clumsy :mffoon, and very mischievous ; he had the art of overawing common folk and stirring up the rabble ; and hence came in line for punishment in a kingdom where the state of affairs was what it was in Jerusalem then. They were very wise indeed to get rid of him, and thi s perhaps i s the one case in which my ex­ tremely lenient and also extremely tolerant maxims are able to

Dialogue between a Priest and a Dying Man .. 173

allow the severity of Themis; I excuse any misbehavior save that which may endanger the government one lives under, kings and their maj esties are the only things I respect ; and whoever does not love his country and his king were better dead than a live.

PRIEST-But you do surely believe something awaits us a fter this life, you must at some time or another have sought to pierce the dark shadows enshrouding our mortal fate, and what other theory could have satisfied your anxious spirit , than that of the numberless woes that betide him who has lived wickedly, and an eternity of rewards for him whose life has been good ?

DYING MAN-What other, my friend ? that of nothingness, it has never held terrors for me, in it I see naught but what is con­ soling and unpretentious ; all the other theories are of pride's composition, this one alone i s of reason's. Moreover, 'tis neither dreadful nor absolute, this nothingness. B efore my eyes have I not the example of N ature's perpetual generations and regenerations ? Nothing perishes in the world, my friend, nothing i s lost ; man today, worm tomorrow, the day after tomorrow a fly ; i s i t not to keep steadily on existing ? And what entitles me to be rewarded for virtues which are in me through no fault of my own, or again punished for crimes wherefor the ultimate responsibility is not mine ? how are you to put your alleged god' s goodness into tune with this system, and can he have wished to create me in order to reap pleasure from punishing me, and that solely on account of a choice he does not leave me free to determine ?

PRIEST-You are free.

DYING MAN-Yes, in terms of your prejudices ; but reason puts them to rout, and the theory of human freedom was never de­ vised except to fabricate that of grace, which was to acquire such importance for your reveries. What man on earth, seeing the scaffold a step beyond the crime, would commit it were he free not to commit i t ? We are the pawns of an i rresistible force , and never for an instant i s it within our power to do anything but make the best of our lot and forge ahead along the path that has been traced for us. There i s not a single virtue which i s not necessary to Nature and conversely not a single crime which she does not need and i t is

174 .. THE MARQUr; DE SADE

in the perfect balance she maintains between the one and the other that her immense scienc(: consists ; but can we be guilty for adding our weight to this side or that when it is she who tosses us onto the scales? no more so than the hornet who thrusts his dart into your skin .

PRIEsT-Then we should not shrink from the worst of all Crimes.

DYING MAN-I say nothing of the kind. Let the evil deed be proscribed by law, let justice smite the criminal, th at will be deter­ rent enough ; but if by misfortune we do commit it even so, let's not cry over spilled milk ; remorse is inefficacious, since it does not s tay us from crime, futil,! since i t does not repair i t , therefore it is absurd to beat one's breast, more absurd still to dread being pun­ ished in another world if we have been lucky to escape it in this. God forbid that this be construed as encouragement to crime, no, we should avoid i t as much as we can, but one must learn to shun i t through reason and not through false fears which lead to naught and whose effects are so quickly overcome in any moderately stead­ fast soul. Reason, sir-yes , our reason alone should warn us that harm done our fellows can never bring happiness to us ; and our heart, that contributing:o their felicity is the greatest joy Nature has accorded us on earth; the entirety of human morals is contained i n thi s one phrase : Renrler others as happy as one desires oneself to be, and never inflict mJre pain upon them than one would l ike to receive at thei r hands. There you are , my friend, those are the only principles we should obse rve, and you need nei ther god nor rel igion to appreciate and subscr ibe to them, you need only have a good heart. But I feel my strength ebbing away ; preacher, put away your prejudices, unbend, be a man, be human, without fear and without hope forget your gods and your religions too : they are none of them good for anything but to set man at odds with man, and the mere name of these horrors has caused greater loss of life on earth than all other wars and all other plagues combined. Renounce the idea of another world j there is none, but do not renounce the pleasure of being happy and of making for happiness in this. Nature offers you no other way of doubling your existence, of extending it. -My friend, l ewd pleasures were ever dearer to me than anything

Dialogue between a Priest and a Dying Man + 175

else, I have idolized them all my l i fe and my wish has been to end it in their bosom; my end draws near, six women lovelier than the l ight of day are waiting in the chamber adjo ining, I have reserved them for this moment, partake of the feast with me, following my example embrace them instead of the vain sophistries of supersti­ tion, under their caresses strive for a l ittle while to forget your hypocritical beliefs.

NOTE

The dying man rang, the women entered; and a fter he had been a l ittle while in their a rms the preacher became one whom Nature has corrupted, all because he had not succeeded in expla in­ ing what a corrupt nature is .

Philosophy in the 13edroom

(1795)

The year 179S was a fruitful and ausptctOUS one for Sade. Almost miraculously, he had sUT'lJived the Reign of Terror and, just six weeks after the execution of Robes­ pierre, was once again set free, on October lS, 1794. Sade's printer, Girouard, who had published Justine and, before his arrest under the Terror had been preparing Aline et Valcour for publication, had not been so lucky : on January 8, 1794, he went to the guillotine.

After Sade regained h is freedom, he managed to re­ trieve that portion of Aline et Valcour which Girouard had already printed prior to his arrest, and by mid-summer of 1795 the first edition of this four-volume work, which Sade acknowledged, was published.

This same year there also appeared a small format, two-volume work, of anonymous authorship, enticingly en­ titled La Philosophie dans Ie boudoir . Although anonymous, it was offered as a "posthumous work by the author of Justine ," a subterfuge Sade was to utilize two years later for the publication of La Nouvelle Justine. The place of publication of the original edition was given as Londres, aux depens de la Compagnie, and besides an allegorical frontispiece, it contained four erotic engravings . The epi­ graph of the original edition is La mere en prescrira la l ec­ ture a s a fille ( Mothers will make this volu me mandatory reading for their daughters). A second edition, in two octavo volumes of 203 and 191 pages respectively, appeared ten years later, in 180S, with the added subtitle-for which Sade, then in the Charento1l asylum, can scarcely have been responsible-ou les Instituteurs immoraux ( or The Im­ moral Teachers). Curiously, the epigraph of this second

179

edition appeared-t�he ther the change was inten tional or not is a moo t poin t--as La mere en proscrira l a lecture a sa fiUe (Mo thers will forbid their daughters to read i t ) .

Together with the Dialogue between a Priest and a Dying Man, the Philosophy in the Bedroom is the only o ther non theatrical 'work of Sade's writ ten in the form of dialogue. Consis ting of seven "Dialogues," in which philo­ s ophical speculations and dissertations on morality, history, and religio n commingle with typical Sadean sexual fan ta­ s ies, this work is one of the mos t specific, eloquen t, and least redundant of Sade's major fictions . The four pro tagonis ts are Eugenie de Mislival, a chaste fi/teen-year-old, a virgin and neophyte who i.i to be initiated into the mys teries of sensual pleasure,. twen ty-six-year-old Madame de Saint­ Ange, a woman "o[ extreme lubricity",. her bro ther, the Chevalier de Mirvd, also a debauchee of considerable talen ts but who, unlike his sis ter and the fourth pro tago­ nist, Dolmance (" The mos t corrupt and dangerous of men" ) , draws the lir.e at the boundary of cruelty. All three of the initiators, with the possible exceptio n of the Cheva­ lier, who is s till wrestling with his soul on the question of inflicting cruelty, WGuid qualify as Sade's Unique Beings, of who m Maurice Biancho t makes mention in his In troduc­ tion . A nd, by the end of the day, Eugenie too, the ap tes t of pupils, is well or. her way along the path of libertin­ age, that is ( in Sade s canon ) , of freedom .

The economy lmd disposit ion o f the four principal characters enable Satle to expound his views bo th positively and negatively, for teaching, initiating the neoph)'te, is n o t on ly instructing bu t "Iso disabusing: one mlls t rid Eugenie's pretty lit tle head of "ll the false n o tions of religion, moral­ i ty, and virtue which a hypocri tical m o ther and false society have ins tilled in her !ince birth.

The long "Fiftiz Dialogue" of this work con tains the well-known "Yet Ano ther Effort, Frenchmen, If You Would Become Republicans," which Le Chevalier reads aloud. Although it '>nay detract from the o therwise con­ siderable un i ty of th,� work, this "pamphle t"l is a work of

180

considerable force, and perhaps the most eloquent refuta­ tion to those who accuse Sade of, or simplistically assimilate him to, the forces of evil and darkness which our century has spawned: fascism . The scope and complexity of Sade's ideas-independently of their individual merit or lack of merit-are such that they abound in contradictions and paradoxes, and may be quoted to prove or demonstrate a vast spectrum of opinion . But one thing is certain : Sade was for fewer laws, not more; for less restrictive social restraints on the individual, no t more oppressive ones. As Maurice Heine has noted :

It is with the individual, with the countless individuals who go to make up human societies, that Sade has placed the only organic strength these societies may possess . . . . He offers a withering criticism of any social restraints which reduce to whatever slight degree the activity of the incoercible human element. In his eyes, the only thing which will lead him to accept not a social pact but a social compromise-which can be denounced and renewed at any time-is the self·inter­ est of the individual. For him, any society which fails to understand this fundamental truth is destined to perish.

In the light of Krafft-Ebing, Freud, or the detailed case histories of Wilhelm Stekel, the Philosophy in the Bed­ room may appear somewhat less audacious than it did to previous generations ( or those s elect few of the earlier generations who clandes tinely were able to read it ) . That it is one of Sade's most seminal and compelling works there can be no doubt. It possesses another virtue : from one end to the other, there reigns a humor-a black and often gro­ tesque humor, admittedly-which one looks for in vain in his strictly theatrical productions, and which perhaps exis ts nowhere else in his writing with such iclat, save in his extraordinary Ie tIers.

1 During the Revolution 0/ 1848, it was detached from the larger work and widely disseminated as a stirring work 0/ great patriotic import.

181

TABLE OF CONTENTS

TO LIBERTINES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185

DIAWGUE THE FIRST................................... 186

DIALOGUE THE SECOND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194

DIALOGUE THE THIRD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196

DIALOGUE THE FOURTH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... . . . . 259

DIALOGUE THE FIFTH . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266

DIALOGUE THE SIXTH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . ... . .. . . . . 349

DIALOGUE THE SEVENTH AND LAST . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . 352

TO LIBERTINES

Voluptuaries of all ages, of every sex, i t is to you on ly that I offer this work; nourish yourselves upon i ts principles : they favor your passions, and these passions, whereof coldly insipid moralis ts put you in fear, are naught bu t the means Nature employs to bring man to the ends she prescribes to him; harken only to these delicious promptings, for no voice save that of the passions can conduct you to happiness .

Lewd women, let the voluptuous Saint-Ange be your model; after her example, be heedless of all that contradicts pleasure's divine laws, by which all her life she was enchained.

You young maidens, too long constrained by a fanciful Virtue's absurd and dangerous bonds and by those of a disgus ting religion , imitate the fiery Eugenie; be as quick as she to des troy, to spurn all those ridiculous precepts inculcated in you by imbecile parents .

And you, amiable debauchees, you who since youth have known no limits but those of your desires and who have been governed by your caprices alone, study the cynical Do/mance, proceed like him and go as far as he if you too would travel the length of those flowered ways your lechery prepares for you; in Dolmance's academy be at las t co nvinced it is only by exploring and enlarging the sphere of his tas tes and whims, i t is only by sacrificing every thing to the senses' p leasure that this individual, who never asked to be cas t into this universe of woe, that this poor creature who goes under the name of Man, may be able to sow a smattering of roses atop the thorny path of life.

185

DIALOGUE THE FIRST

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE, LE CHEVALIER DE MIRVEL

MADAME DE SAINT-P.NGE-Good day, my friend. And what of Monsieur Dolmance?

LE CHEVALIER-He'll be here promptly at four ; we do not dine until seven-and wil l have, a s you see, ample time to chat .

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-You know, my dear brother , I do begin to have a few misgivings about my curiosity and all the ob­ scene plans scheduled far today. Chevalier, you overindulge me, truly you do. The more !;ensible I should be, the more excited and libertine this accursed mind of mine becomes-and al l that you have given me but serves to spoil me . . . . At twenty-six, I should be sober and staid, and I'm still n othing but the most licentious of women . . . . Oh, I 've a busy brain, my friend ; you' d scarce believe the ideas I have, the things I 'd like to do. I supposed that by confining myself to women I would become: better beha.-ed . . . ; that were my desires concentrated upon my ov.n sex I would no longer pant after yours : pure fantasy, my friend ; my imagination has only been pricked the more by the pleasures I thought to deprive myself of. I have dis­ covered that when it is a question of someone like me, born for lib­ ertinage, it is useless to tlink of imposing limits or restraints upon oneself-impetuous desires immediately sweep them away. In a

186

Philos ophy in the Bedroom + 187

word, my dear, I am an amphibious creature: I love everything, everyone, whatever it is, i t amuses me ; I should like to combine every species-but you must admit, Chevalier, is it not the height of extravagance for me to wish to know this unusual Dolmance who in all his l ife, you tell me, has been unable to see a woman according to the prescriptions of common usage, this Dolmance who, a sodomite out of principle, not only worships his own sex but never yields to ours save when we consent to put at his disposal those so well beloved charms of which he habitually makes use when consorting with men ? Tell me, Chevalier, if my fancy i s not bizarre ! I want to be Ganymede to this new Jupiter, I want to enjoy his tastes, his debauches, I want to be the victim of his errors. Until now, and well you know i t, my friend, until now I have given myself thus only to you, through complaisance, or to a few of my servants who, paid to use me in this manner, adopted i t for profit only. But today i t is no longer the desire to obl ige nor i s i t caprice that moves me, but solely my own penchants. I believe that, between my past experi­ ences with this curious mania and the courtesies to which I am going to be subjected, there i s an inconceivable difference, and I wish to be acquainted with it . Paint your Dolmance for me, please do, that I may have him well fixed in my mind before I see him arrive ; for you know my acquaintance with him is l imited to an encounter the other day in a house where we were together for but a few minutes.

LE CHEVALIER-Dolmance, my dear sister, has just turned thirty-six ; he is tall , extremely handsome, eyes very alive and very intell igent, but all the same there is some suspicion of hardness, and a trace of wickedness in his features ; he has the whitest teeth in the world, a shade of softness about h is figure and in his attitude, doubtless owing to his habit of taking on effeminate airs so often ; he i s extremely elegant, has a pretty voice, many talents, and above all else an exceedingly philosophic bent to h is mind.

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-But I trust he does not believe in Godl

LE CHEVALIER-Oh, perish the thought I He i s the most notorious athei st, the most immoral fellow . . . . Oh, no ; his i s the

188 .. THE MARQUIS DE SADE

most complete and thoroughgoing corruption, and he the most evil individual, the greates t scoundrel in the world.

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Ah, how that warms me ! Me­ thinks that I 'll be wild about this man. And what o f h i s fancies, brother ?

LE CHEVALIER-You know them full well ; Sodom's delights are as dear to him in their active as in their passive form. For his pleasures, he cares for none but men; if however he sometimes deigns to employ women, it i s only upon condition they be obliging enough to exchange sex with him . I 've spoken of you to him ; I ad­ vised him of your intentions, he agrees, and in his turn reminds you of the rules of the ga ne. I warn you , my dear, he will refuse you altogether if you attempt to engage him to undertake anything else. "What I consent to do with your s ister i s , " he declares , "an ex­ travagance, an indiscr etion with which one soils oneself but rarely and only by taking ample precautions ."

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Soil oneself! ... Precautions! ... Oh, how I adore the Lmguage those agreeable persons use ! Between ourselves, we women also have exclusive words which like these just spoken, give an idea of the profound horror they have of all those who show heretical tendencies . . . . Tell me, my dear, has he had you? With your a:iorable face and your twenty years , one may, I dare say, captivate sllch a man?

LE CHEVALIER-We've committed follies together-I'll not hide them from you ; ) ou have too much wit to condemn them. The fact is , I favor women ; I only give myself up to these odd whimsies when an attractive man urges me to them. And then there 's nothing I stop at. I 've none of that ludicrous arrogance which makes our young upstarts believe that it' s by cuts with your walking stick you respond to such propo sitions. Is man master of his penchants ? One must feel sorry for those who have strange tastes, but never insult them. Their wrong is Nature 's too ; they are no more responsible for having come into the world with tendencies unlike ours than are we for being born bandy-l egged or well-proportioned. Is it , however, that a man :lcts insultingly to you when he mani fests his desire to enj oy you ? No, surely not ; it is a compliment you are

Philosophy in the Bedroom + 189

paid ; why then answer with injuries and insults ? Only fools can think thus ; never will you hear an intelligent man discuss the que s­ tion in a manner different from mine ; but the trouble i s, the world i s peopled with poor idiots who believe it is to lack respect for them to avow one finds them fitted for one' s pleasures, and who, pam­ pered by women-themselves forever j e alous of what has the look of infringing upon their rights-, fancy themselves to be the Don Quixotes of those ordinary rights, and brutalize whoever does not acknowledge the entirety of their extent.

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-COme, my friend, kiss me. Were you to think otherwise, you'd not be my brother. A few deta ils , I beseech you, both with what regards this man's appearance and his pleasures with you.

LE CHEVALIER-One o f his friends informed Monsieur Dol­ mance o f the superb member wherewith you know me provided, and he obtained the consent of the Marquis de V*** to bring us to­ gether at supper. Once there, I was obliged to display my equipment : a t first curios ity appeared to be h i s single motive ; however, a very fai r ass turned my way, and with which I was invited to amuse my­ sel f, soon made me see that penchant alone was the cause of this examination. I had Dolmance notice all the enterpri se ' s difficulties ; he was steadfast . "A ram holds no terrors for me," he sa id, "and you'll not have even the glory of being the most formidable amongst the men who have perforated the anus I offer you." The Marquis was on hand ; he encouraged us by fingering, dandling, kissing wh atever the one o r the other of us brought to l ight. I took up my posi tion . . . . "Surely some kind of priming ?" I urged. "Nothing of the sort," said the M a rquis , "you'll rob Dolmance of half the sensations he awaits from you ; he wants you to cleave him i n two , he wants to be torn a sunder." "Wen," I sa id, blindly plunging into the gulf, "he'll be satisfied." Perhaps, my dear sister, you think that I met with a great deal of trouble . . . not at all j my prick, enormous a s i t is, disappeared, contrary to all my expectations, and I touched the bottom of his entrails without the bugger seeming to feel a thing. I dealt kindly with Dolmance j the extreme ecstasy he tasted, his wriggl ings and quiverings, his enticing utterances, all thi s soon made me h appy too, and I inundated him. Scarcely was

190 + THE MARQUlS DE SADE

I wi thdrawn when Dolrnance, turning toward me, his hair in dis­ array and his face red a! a bacchante : "You see the state you've put me in, my dear Chevalier," said he, simultaneously presenting a pert , tough rogue of a prick, very long and at least six inches around, "deign, 0 my love, deign to serve me as a woman after having been my lover, and enable me to say that in your divine arms I have tasted all the del ights of the fancy I cherish supremely." Finding as l ittl e difficulty in the one as in the other, I readied mysel f ; the Marquis , dropping1is breeches before my eyes, begged me to have the kindness to be yet a li ttle of the man with him while I played wi fe to his friend ; and I dealt with him as I had with Dolmance, who paid me back a hundredfold for all the blows wherewith I belabored our thi rd; and soon, into the depths of my ass , he exhaled that enchanted liquor with which, at virtually the same instant, I sprayed the bowels of V***.

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-You must have known the most extreme pleasure, to find yourself thus between two ; they say i t is charming.

LE CHEVALIER-My angel, it i s surely the best place to be ; but whatever may be said of them, they're all extravagances which I should never prefer to the pleasure of women.

MADAME DE SAINT··ANGE-\Vell , my chivalrous friend, as re­ ward for your touching consideration, today I am going to hand over to your passions a young virgin, a girl, more beautiful than Love i tself.

LE CHEVALIER-'What! With Dolmance . . . you're bringing a woman here ?

MADAME DE SAINT- ANGE-It is a matter of an education ; that of a l i ttle thing I knew h.st autumn at the convent, while my husband was at the baths. We cOllld accomplish nothing there, we dared try nothing, too many eyes were fixed upon us, but we made a promise to meet again, to get together as soon as possible . Occupied with nothing but this desire, I have, in order to satisfy it, become acquainted with her family. Her father is a libertine-I've en­ thralled him. At any rate, the l ovely one is coming, I am waiting

Philosophy in the Bedroom + 191

for her ; we'll spend two days together . . . two delicious days ; I shall employ the better part o f the time educating the young lady . Dolmance and I will put into this pretty little head every p rinciple of the most unbridled l ibertinage, we will set her ablaze with our own fire, we will feed her upon our philosophy, inspire her with our desires , and a s I wish to join a little practice to theory, a s I like the demonstrations to keep abreast of the dissertations, I h ave destined to you, dear brother, the harvest of Cythera 's myrtle, and to Dolmance shall go the roses of Sodom. I 'll have two pleasures at once : that o f enj oying these criminal lecheries myself, and that of giving the lessons, of inspiring fancies in the sweet innocent I am luring into our nets. Very well , Cheval ier , answer me: i s the proj ect worthy of my imagination?

LE CHEVALIER-It could not have risen in another: it is divine , my sister, and I promise to enact to perfection the charming role you reserve for me. Ah, mischievous one, how much pleasure you are going to take in educating this child ; what pleasure you will find in corrupting her , in s tifling within this young heart every seed of virtue and of religion planted there by her tutors I Actually, all this is too roue for me.

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Be certain I'll spare nothing to pervert her , degrade her, demolish in her all the false ethical no­ tions with which they may already have been able to dizzy her j in two lessons, I want to render her a s criminal as am I . . . as impious . . . a s debauched, a s depraved. Not ify Dolmance, explain everything to him immediately he gets here so that his immoralit ies ' poison, circulating in this young spirit together with the venom I shall inj ect, will in the shortest possible time wither and still all the seeds o f virtue that, but for us , might germinate there.

LE CHEVALIER-I t would be impossible to find a better man: i rreligion, impiety, inhumanity, libertinage spill from Dolmance's lips as in times past mystic unction fell from those of the celebrated Archbishop of C ambrai. He i s the most profound seducer, the most corrupt, the most dangerous man . . .. Ah, my dear, let your pupil but comply with this teacher's instructions, and I gua rantee her straightway damned.

192 .. THE MARQUlS DE SADE

MADAME DE SAINT·ANGE-It should certainly not take long, considering the disposit ions I know her to possess . . . .

LE CHEVALIER-But tell me, my dear s ister, i s there nothing to fear from the parent!; ? May not thi s l i ttle one chatter when she returns home ?

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Have no fears . I have seduced the father . . . he' s mine. I must confess to you, I surrendered myself to him in order to close his eyes : he knows nothing of my designs, and will never dare to scan them . . . . I have him.

LE CHEVALIER-Your methods are appalling I

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Such they must be, else they're not sure.

LE CHEVALIER-And tell me, please, who i s thi s youngster ?

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Her name is Eugenie, daughter of a certain Mistival, one of the wealthiest commercial figures in the capital, aged about thirty-six; her mother is thirty-two at the very most, and the l i ttlt: girl fi fteen. Mistival i s as l ibertine as his wi fe is pious. As for Eugenie , dear one, I should in vain undertake to figure her to you ; she i s quite beyond my descriptive powers . . . satisfy yourself with tht: knowledge that assuredly neither you nor I have ever set eyes on anything so delic ious, anywhere .

LE CHEVALIER-But a t least sketch a l i ttle i f you cannot paint the portrait , so that, knowing fairly wel l with whom I am to deal , I may better fill my imagination with the idol to which I must sacri­ fice.

MADAME DE SAINI-ANGE-Very well, my friend : her abun­ dant chestnut hair-the re 's too much of it to grasp in one's hand -descends to below hel" buttocks j her skin i s of a dazzling whi te­ ness , her nose rather aquiline, her eyes je t black and of a warmth! . . . Ah, my friend, ' t i s mpossible to resist those eyes . . . . You've no idea of the stupidi ties they've driven me to . . . . Could you but see the pretty eyebrows that crown them . . . the extraordinary lashes tha t border them . . . . A very small mouth, superb teeth, and, all of i t, of a freshness I . . . One of her beauties i s the elegant manner

Philosophy in the Bedroo m + 193

whereby her lovely head is attached to her shoulders, the a i r of nobili ty she has when she turns . . . . Eugenie is tall for her age : one might think her seventeen ; her figure is a model of elegance and finesse, her throat, her bosom delicious . . . . There indeed are the two prettiest l i ttle breasts! . . . Scarcely enough there to fill the hand, but so soft . . . so fresh . . . so very white I Twenty times have I gone out of my head while kissing them ; and had you been able to see how she came alive under my caresses . . . how her two great eyes represented to me the whole state of her mind . . . . My friend, I ignore the rest. Ah ! but i f I must judge of her by what I know, never, I say, had Olympus a divinity comparable with this . . . . But I hear her . . . leave us ; go out by way of the garden to avoid meeting her, and be on time a t the rendezvous .

LE CHEVALIER-The portra i t you have just made for me a ssures my promptness . . . . Ah, heaven I to go out . . . to leave you, in the state I am in . . . Adieu ! . . . a kiss . . . a kiss , my dear sister, to satisfy me at least till then. ( She kisses him, touches the prick s training in his breeches, and the young man leaves in haste.)

DIALOGUE THE SECOND

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE, EUGENIE

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Welcome, my pet ! I have been awaiting you with an impatience you fully appreciate i f you can read the feelings I have in my heart.

EUGENIE-Oh, my precious one, I thought I should never arrive, so eager was I to find myself in your arms. An hour before leaving, I dreaded all might be changed j my mother was absolutely opposed to this delightful party, declaring it ill became a girl of my age to go abroad alone j but my father had so abused her the day before yesterday that a single one of his glances was quite enough to cause Madame Mistival to subside utterly, and it ended with her consenting to what my father had granted me, and I rushed here . I have two days j your carriage and one of your servants must without fail take me �ome the day after tomorrow.

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-How short i s thi s period, my dear­ est angel, in so l ittle t me I shall hardly be able to express to you all you excite in me . . . and indeed we have to talk. You know, do you not, that ' ti s durin� this interview that I am to init iate you into the most secret of Venus' mysteri es j shall two days be time enough ?

EUGENIE-Ah, were I not to arrive at a complete knowledge, I should remain . . . . [ came hither to be instructed, and will not go t i l l I am informed . . . .

194

Philosophy in the Bedroo m + 195

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE, kissing her-Dear love , how many things are we going to do and say to one another ! But, by the way, do you wish to take lunch, my queen ? For the lesson may be pro­ longed.

EUGENIE-I have no need, dear friend, than to l isten to you; we lunched a league from here ; I ' l l be able to wait until eight o 'clock this evening without feeling the least hunger.

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Then let 's go into my boudoir , where we will be more a t our ease . I have already spoken to the servants. You may be certain no one shall take it into his head to interrupt us. (They enter t�� boudoir, linked arm in arm . )

'"

DIALOGUE THE THIRD

In a Deligh tful Boudoir

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE, EUGENIE, DOLMANCE

EUGENIE, greatly jurprised to find in this room a man whom she had not expected--Great God I Dearest friend, we are be­ trayed I

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE, equally surprised-Strange, Mon­ sieur, to find you here. Vvere you not expected at four ?

DOLMANCE-One always hastens the advent of that happiness which comes of seeing you, Madame. I encountered Monsieur, your brother-he anticipated the usefulness of my presence at the lessons you are to give Mademoiselle, and knew this to be the lyceum where they would be given. Unperceived, he introduced me into this chamber, far from imagining you might disapprove ; and as for himself, aware his demonstrations will only be necessary after the dissertations on theory, he will not make his appearance until later .

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Indeed, Dolmance, this i s an un­ foreseen turn . . . .

EUGENIE-By whi:h I am not deceived, my good friend ; i t i s a l l your work . . . . At least, you should have consulted me . . . in­ stead of exposing me to this shame. It will certa inly prejudice all our projects.

196

Philos ophy in the Bedroom .. 197

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Eugenie, I protest-my brother i s responsible for this, not 1 . But there's no cause for alarm : I know Dolmance for a most agreeable man, and he possesses just that degree o f philosophic understanding we require for your enlighten­ ment. He can be of nothing but the greatest service to our schemes. As for his discretion, I am as willing to answer for it as for my own. Therefore, dear heart, famil iarize yourself with this man who in all the world is the best endowed to form you and to guide you into a career of the happiness and the pleasures we wish to taste together.

EUGENIE , blushing-Oh I I still find all this most upsetting . . . .

DOLMANcE-Come, my lovely Eugenie, put yourself at ease . . . . Modesty is an antiquated virtue which you, so rich in charms, ought to know wonderfully well how to do without.

EUGENIE-But decency . . .

DOLMANcE-Ha ! A Gothicism not very much defended these days. It is so hostile to Nature I (Dolmance seizes Eugenie, folds her in his arms, and kisses her.)

EUGENIE , s truggling in his embrace-That's quite enough, Monsieur I .. . Indeed, you show me very little consideration I

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Eugenie, listen to me : let 's both of us cease behaving like prudes with this charming gentleman j I am not better acquainted with him than are you, yet watch how I give myself to him. ( She kisses him indecen tly o n the mouth.) Imitate me.

EUGENIE-Oh, most willingly j where might I find better ex­ amples ? ( She pu ts herself in Dolmance's arms; he kisses her ar­ den tly, tongue in mouth.)

DOLMANcE-Amiable, delicious creature I

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE, kissing her in the same way-Didst think, little chit, I'd not have my turn as well ? (At this point Dolmance, holding firs t one in his arms, then the o ther, tongues bo th, each for a quarter of an hour, and they both tongue one an­ o ther and him.)

198 + THE MARQL"IS DE SADE

DOLMANCE-Ah, such preliminaries make me drunk with de­ s ire I Mesdames, upon my word, it is extraordinarily warm here ; more lightly attired, we might converse with infinitely greater com­ fort.

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-You are right, s i r ; we'll don these gauze negligees-of Ollr charms, they'll conceal only those that must be hidden from desire.

EUGENIE-Indeed, dear one, you lead me to do things ! . . .

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE, help ing her undress-Completely ridiculous, isn't i t ?

EUGENIE-Most improper at the very least, I 'd say . • . . My I how you kiss me !

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Pretty bosom ! ... a rOSe only now reaching full bloon.

DOLMANCE, considering, without touching, Eugenie's breasts­ And which p romises ye t other allurements . . . infinitely to be pre­ ferred.

MADAME DE SAINr-ANGE-Infinitely to be preferred ?

DOLMANCE-Oh :res, upon my honor. ( Saying which, Dol­ mance appears eager to turn Eugenie about in order to inspect her fro m the rear. )

EUGENIE-N 0, IJeg of you !

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-No, Dolmance . . . I don' t want you yet to see . . . an object whose sway over you is so great that, the image of i t once fiJ:ed in your head, you are unable thereafter to reason coolly. We need your l essons, first give them to us-and afterward the myrtle y:m covet will be your reward.

DOLMANCE-Very well, but in order to demonstrate, in order to give this beautiful child the first lessons of libertinage, we will requ ire will ing co-operation from you, Madame, in the exercise that must follow.

Philosophy in the Bedroom .. 199

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-SO be i t! All right then, look you h ere-I'm entirely naked. Make your dissertations upon me as much as you please.

DOLMANCE-Oh, lovely body I 'Tis Venus herself, embellished by the Graces.

EUGENIE-Oh, my dear friend, what charms I delights ! Let me drink them in with my eyes, let me cover them with my kisses. ( She does so.)

DOLMANCE-What excellent predispositions I A trifle less pas­ sion, lovely Eugenie , for the moment you are only being asked to show a little a ttention.

EUGENIE-Let's continue , I'm l istening . . . . But how beautiful she is . . . so plump, so fresh I . . . Ah, how charming my dear friend is . Is she not, Monsieur ?

DOLMANcE-Beautiful , assuredly . . . she is wondrous to see ; but I am persuaded you yield to her in nothing .. . . Well, now, my pretty l ittle student, e i ther you pay attention to me or beware lest, i f you are not doci le , I exercise over you the rights amply conferred upon me by my title a s your mentor.

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Oh, yes, yes indeed, Dolmance, I put her into your safekeeping. She must have a severe scolding i f she misbehaves.

DOLMANCE-It is very possible I might not be able to confine myself to remonstrances.

EUGENIE-Great heaven! You terrify me . . . what then would you do to me, Monsieur ?

DOLMANCE, s tammering, and kissing Eugenie on the mouth­ Punishments . . . corrections . . . I might very well hold this pretty li ttle ass accountable for mistakes made by the head. ( He strikes the former through the gauze dressing gown in which Eugenie is presently arrayed.)

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Yes, I approve of the proj ect but not of the gesture. Let's begin our lesson, else the little time granted

200 + THE MARQUIS DE SADE

us to enjoy Eugenie will be spent in preliminaries, and the instruc­ tion shall remain incomplete.

DOLMANCE, who, a.i he discusses them, one by one touches the parts of Madame de Saint-Ange's body-I begin . I will say nothing of these fleshy globes ; you know as well as I, Eugenie , that they are indifferently known as bosoms, breasts, tits. Pleasure may put them to profitable use : while amusing himself, a lover has them continually before his eyes : he caresses them, handles them, indeed, some lovers form of them the very seat of their pleasure and niche their member between these twin mounts of Venus which the woman then squeezes together, compressing this member ; after a li ttle management, certain me n succeed in spreading thereupon the deli­ cious balm of l i fe whose outpouring causes the whole happiness of libertines . . . . But thi s member of which we shall be obl iged to speak incessantly-should we l10t be well advised, Madame, to give our s tudent a lecture upon i t?

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Verily, I do think so.

DOLMANcE-Very well, Madame, I am going to recl ine upon this couch ; place yourse l f near me. Then you will lay hands upon the subject and you will yourself explain its properties to our young student. ( Dolmanti lies down and Madame de Sain t-Ange demon­ strates. )

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-This scepter of Venus you have before your eyes, Eugenie , i s the primary agent of love' s pleasure : i t i s called the member : ':here is not a single part of the human body into which i t cannot introduce i tself. Always obedient to the pas­ sions of the person wh.) wields it , sometimes it nests there (She touches Eugenie's cun t. ) , this i s the ordinary route, the one in widest use , but not the most agreeable ; in pursuit of a more mys­ terious sanctuary, it is often here (She spreads wide Eugenie's buttocks and indicates the anus. ) that the libertine seeks enjoyment : we will return to this most delicious pleasure of them all ; there are as well the mouth, the breasts , the armpits which provide him with further altars upon which to burn his incense. And finally whatever be the place among all these he most prefers, after a few instants of agitation the member may be seen to vent a white and vi scous

Philosophy in the Bedroom + 201

l iquor, whose flowing forth plunges the man into a delirium intense enough to procure for him the sweetest pleasures he can hope to have in l ife .

EUGENIE-How much I should like to see this l iquor flow !

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-I need but vibrate my hand-you see how the thing becomes i rritated the more I chafe and pull on it. These movements are known as pollution, and in the language of libertinage this action i s called frigging.

EUGENIE-Oh, please , dear friend, allow me to frig this splendid member !

DOLMANCE-Look out ! I 'll not be able . . . don't interfere with her, M adame, this ingenuousness has got me horribly erected.

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-N 0 good will come of this excite­ ment. Be reasonable, Dolmance : once that semen flows, the activity of your animal spirits will be diminished and the warmth o f your dissertations will be lessened correspondingly.

EUGENIE , fondling Dolmance's tes ticles-Ah, my dear friend, how sorry I am you resist my desires ( . . . And these balls , what might be their purpose? What are they called?

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-The technical term i s genitals, male genitals . . . tes ticles belongs to art , the balls are the reservoir con­ taining the abundant semen I have just mentioned and which, ex­ pelled into the woman's matrix, or womb, produces the human species ; but we will not stress these details, Eugenie , for they relate more to medicine than to libertinage. A pretty girl ought simply to concern herself with fucking, and never with engendering. No need to touch a t greater l ength on what pertains to the dull business of population, from now on we shall address ourselves principally, nay, uniquely to those libertine lecheries whose spirit is in no wise reproductive.

EUGENIE-But, dear friend, when this enormous member I can scarcely grip in my hand, when this member penetrates, as you assure me it can, into a hole as l ittle as the one in your behind, that must cause the woman a great deal of pain.

202 .. THE MARQU1 S DE SADE

MADAME DE SAI:t>T-ANGE-Whether this introduction be wrought before or beh :nd, i f she i s not yet accustomed to i t a woman always suffers. It has pleased Nature so to make us that we attain happiness only by way of pain. But once vanquished and h a d this way, nothing can equal the j oy one tastes upon the entrance o f this member into our ass ; it i s a pleasure incontestably superior to any sensation p rocure d by this same introduction in front. And, besides, how many dangers does not a woman thus avoid I Fewer r isks to her health, and none a t all of pregnancy. Fo r the present I 'll say no more about th i s delight-your master and mine, Eugenie , wil l soon award i t a full analysis , and by unit ing practice with theory will , I trust, convince you , my p recious one, that amongst all the bedroom's pleasures, that is the only one for which you should have a preference.

DOLMANCE-I beg you to speed you r demonstrations, Madame, for I can no longer rc strain mysel f ; I 'll discha rge despite my efforts, and this redoubt able member, reduced to nothing, will be unable to aid your lessor s.

EUGENIE-What! I t would be reduced to nothing, dear hea rt. if i t were to lose this semen you speak of I . . . Oh, do allow me to help him lose i t , so that I may see what happens to it . . . . An d besides, I should take sw:h pleasure i n seeing i t flow !

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-No, no, Dolmance, up with you. Remember tha t this i s th e p ayment o f your labors, and that I'll not turn her over to you unt l you've merited her.

DOLMANCE-SO be i t ; but the better to convince Eugenie of a l l we are going to relat e concerning pleasure, would i t be in any way p rejudicial to Eugen :e ' s instruction i f, for instance, you were to frig her in front of me ?

MADAME DE SAINT-l.NGE-"\Vhy, doubtless not, and I shall do so all the more happily since I am certain this lubricious episode will only enrich our lessons. Onto the couch, my sweet.

E UGENIE-Oh dear God I the delicious niche ! But why all these mirrors ?

Philosophy in the Bedroom .. 203

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-By repeating our attitudes and pos­ tures in a thousand different ways, they infinitely multiply those same pleasures for the persons seated here upon this ottoman. Thus everything is visible , no part of the body can remain hidden : every­ thing must be seen ; these images are so many groups disposed around those enchained by love, so many delicious tableaux where­ with lewdness waxes drunk and which soon drive it to i ts climax.

EUGENIE-What a marvelous invention I

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Dolmance, undress the victim your­ self.

DOLMANCE-That will not be difficult , since ' ti s merely a ques­ tion of removing this gauze in order to discern naked the most appealing features. ( He strips her, and his firs t glances are in­ s tantly directed upon her behind.) And so I am about to see this divine, this priceless ass of which I have such ardent expectations! . . . Ah, by God ! What fullness of flesh and what coolness, what stunning elegance ! . . . Never have I seen one lovelier !

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Rascal ! How clearly your initial homages betray your tastes and pleasures I

DOLMANCE-But can there be anything in the world to equal this ? . . . Where might love find a more divine altar ? . . . Eugenie . . . sublime Eugenie , let me overwhelm this ass of yours with the softest caresses. (lJ e fingers and kisses i t, transported. )

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Stop, libertine ! . . . You forget Eugenie belongs to me only. She' s to be your reward for the lessons she awaits from you ; but you' l l not have your recompense before she has been given those lessons. Enough of this ardor or you'll anger me.

DOLMANCE-Scoundrel ! It ' s your j ealousy . . . . Very well. Pass me yours and I ' l l pay i t a similar homage. ( He raises Madame de Sain t-Ange's negligee and caresses her behind.) Ah, ' ti s lovely, my angel, ' ti s delicious too ! Let me compare them both . . . . I 'd see them one next to the other-Ganymede beside Venus ! ( He [avis hes kisses upon each. ) In order to have the bewitching spectacle of so much beauty constantly before my eyes , Madame, could you not, by

204 + THE MARQUIS DE SADE

interlacing yourselves, uninterruptedly offer my gaze these charm­ ing asses I worship ?

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Perfectly well ! There . . . are you satisfied ? . . . ( They in tertwine their bodies in such a manner that b o th asses confront Dolmance. )

DOLMANCE-It could not be better : 't is precisely what I asked for. And now agitate those superb asses with all the fire of lubricity ; let them sink and risl ! in cadence ; let them obey the proddings whereby pleasure i s going to stir them . . . . Oh, splendid, splendid, ' ti s delicious I . . .

EUGENIE-Ah, my dearest one, what pleasures you give me . • . . Wha t i s i t you call what you are doing now ?

MADAME DE SAIlST-ANGE-Frigging, my pet, giving oneself pleasure. Stop a moment ; we'll alter our positions. Examine my cunt . . . thus is named the temple of Venus. Look sharply at that coign your hand covers , examine it well . I am going to open i t a l ittle . This elevation you notice above i t is called the mound, which i s garnished with hail ' , generally, when one reaches the age of fourteen or fi fteen, whm, that i s , a girl begins to have periods . Here above i s a l ittle tongue .shaped thing-that i s the clitoris , and there lies all a woman's power of sensation. I t is the center of all mine ; i t would be impossible to tickle this part of me without seeing me swoon with delight . • . . Try i t . . . . Ah, sweet l i ttle bitch, how well you do i t ! One would ' :hink you've done nothing else all your l i fe I . . . enough ! . . . stop I . . . No, I tell you, no, I do not wish to sur- render myself . . . . Oh, Dolmance, stop me I . . . under the enchanted fingers of this pretty child, I am about to go out of my mind.

DOLMANCE-You might be able to lower the temperature of your ideas by varying them : frig her in your turn ; keep a grip on yourself, and le t her go to work . . . . There, yes, in this position, in this manner her pretty l ittl e ass i s between my hands, I ' l l pollute it ever so l ightly with a f nger . . . . Let yourself go Eugenie , abandon all your senses to pleasure, let i t be the one object , the one god of your existence ; i t i s to thi s god a girl ought to sacrifice everything, and in her eyes , nothing must be as holy as pleasure.

Philosophy in the Bedroom .. 205

E UGENIE-N othing in the world i s so delightful, I do feel that . . . . I am beside myself . . . I no longer know what I am saying, nor what I am doing . . . . What a drunkenness steals through all my being !

DOLMANCE-Look at the l ittle rascal discharge ! And squeeze! . . . Her anus nearly nipped off the end of my finger . . . how splendid it would be to bugger her at such a moment ! ( He s tands and claps his prick to the girl's ass.)

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Yet another moment' s patience. The dear girl ' s education must be our sole occupation ! . . . How pleasant it i s to enlighten her !

DOLMANCE-Well then, Eugenie , you observe that a fter a more or less p rolonged pollution, the seminal glands swell, enlarge, and finally exhale a liquid whose release hurls the woman into the most intense rapture. This i s known as discharging. When it pleases your good friend here, I ' ll show you , but in a more energetic and more imperious manner, how the same operation occurs in a man.

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Wait, Eugenie , now I 'm going to teach you a new way to drown a woman in j oy. Spread your thighs . . . . Dolmance, you see how I am adjusting her, her ass is all yours. Suck i t for her while my tongue l icks her cunt, and between the two of us let 's see if we can get her to swoon three or four times. Your l i ttle mound i s charming, Eugenie , how I adore kissing this downy flesh ! . . . I see your clitor is more clearly now ; ' ti s but somewhat formed, yet most sensitive . . . . How you do quiver and squirm! . . . Let me spread you . . . . Ah ! you're a virgin indeed 1 . . . Describe what you feel when our two tongues run at once into your two apertures. ( They do as they have said. )

EUGENIE-Ah, my dear, i t thrills me so ; i t i s a sensation impossible to depict ! I ' d be hard put to say which of your tongues plunges me further into my delirium.

DOLMANcE-In this posture, Madame, my prick i s well within your reach. Condescend to frig it , I beg of you, while I suck thi s heavenly ass. Thrust your tongue ye t further, Madame ; don' t be content to suck her clitoris ; make your voluptuous tongue penetrate into her womb : 't is the surest way to hasten the ej acula tion.

206 ,� THE MARQ C I S DE SADE

EUGENIE , s tiffeniny-I cannot bear it any more ! oh, I'm dying! Don't abandon me, de •. r friends, I am about to swoon. ( She dis­ charges between her tw ') initiators . )

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Well, my pet ! What think you of the pleasure we have gi ven you ?

EUGENIE-I am d,:ad , exhausted . . . but I beg you to explain two words you pronoun:ed and which I do not understand. First of al l , what does womb signify ?

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-'Tis a kind of vessel much resem­ bling a bottle whose ne,:k embraces the male's member, and which receives the fuck produced in the woman by gl andula r seepage and in the man by the ej aculation we will exhibit for you ; and of the commingling of these l i quors is born the germ whereof result now boys, now girls.

EUGENIE-Oh, I see ; this definition simultaneously explains the word luck whose me aning I did not thoroughly grasp until now. And is the union of th e seeds necessary to the formation of the fetus ?

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Assuredly ; although i t is proven that the fetus owes its existence only to the man's sperm, this latter, by itself, unmixed with the woman's , would come to naught. But that which we women furnish has a merely elaborative function ; it does not create, it furth,:rs creation without being i ts cause. Indeed, there are several contemporary naturalists who cla im it is useless ; whence the moralists, a lways guided by science 's d iscoveries , have decided-and the conclusion has a degree of plausibi l i ty-that, such being the case, the child born of the father's blood owes fil ial tender­ ness to him alone, an a,;sertion not wi thout its appealing qualit ies and one which, even though a woman, I should not be inclined to contest.

EUGENIE-It i s in my heart I find confirmation of what you tell me, my dear ; for I love my father to distraction, and I feel a loathing for my mother.

DOLMANCE-But there i s nothing unusual about that predilec­ tion ; I have always thought as you. I still lament my father's death ;

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when I lost my mother, I lit a perfect bonfi re from joy . . . . I de­ tested her. Be unafraid, Eugenie , and adopt these same sentiments ; they are natural : uniquely formed of our sires' blood, we owe absolutely nothing to our mothers. What, furthermore, d id they do but co-operate in the act which our fathers, on the contrary, solic­ ited ? Thus, it was the father who desired our birth, whereas the mother merely consented thereto. As regards sentiment, what a difference !

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Yet a thousand more reasons in your favor, Eugenie , if it is a mother still alive. If in all the world there i s a mother who ought to be abhorred she is certainly yours ! Super­ stitious, pious, a shrew, a scold . . . and what with her revolting prudery I dare wager the fool ha s never in her l ife committed a faux pas . Ah, my dear, how I hate v irtuous women! . . . But we'll return to that question.

DOLMANCE-And now would it not be fitting for Eugenie, di rected by me, to learn to pay back what you have just done in her behalf ? I think she might frig you before me.

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-I applaud the suggestion-and while she frigs me, would not you, Dolmance, rel ish the s ight o f my ass ?

DOLMANCE-Are you able to doubt, Madame, o f the pleasure with which I will render it my gentlest homages ?

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE, presenting her buttocks to him-Do you find me suitable thus ?

DOLMANcE-Wonderfully ! I should never find a better manner to render you all the services Eugenie found so enormously to her l iking. And now, my little wildcat, station yourself for a moment between your friend's legs, so, and with that pretty l ittle tongue of yours, care for her as she has for you. Why, bless me I This way I shall be able to manage both your asses : I'll fondle Eugenie 's while sucking her lovely friend's . . . . There, admirable . • . How agreeably we are all together .

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE, swoo ning-Good God, I 'm dying. . . . Dolmance, how I love to handle your prick while I dis­ charge . . . . I 'd have it drown me in fuck, so frig i t ! Suck me! Oh,

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heavenly fuck ! How I love to play the whore when my sperm flows this way! . . . It's done, finished, I cannot go on . . . . You've ruined me, both of you . . . . I 1 hink I have never had so much pleasure in my l i fe.

EUGENIE-And how happy I am to be i ts cause I But, dear friend, you have just u ttered another unfamiliar word. What do you understand this expression whore to mean ? Forgive me, but you know I'm here to karn.

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-My most lovely one, in such wise are called the public victims of the debauchery of men, creatures prepared at all times to surrender their persons, whether from temperament or for reward ; happy and deserving creatures com­ mon opinion assails but whom l i cense crowns and who, far more necessary to the socie ty which they strive to serve than are prudes , forgo the esteem an unj clst society denies them. All ha i l to those in whose eyes this t i t le i s a .1. honor ! Such are truly lovable women, the only authentic philosophers I As for myself, dear heart, I , who for twelve years have endt avored to merit the laurel, I assure you that if I do not work as a whore, I always play as one. Better st i l l , I love thus to be named when I am fucked : ' t i s a vi l ification that fires my brain.

EUGENIE-My de:: .r , I fancy I too should not be sorry to be called a whore, though ' ti s true I sca rcely merit the name ; but is not virtue opposed to ! ,uch misconduct, and does i t not reproach us for behaving as we do ?

DOLMANCE-Ah, Eugenie , have done with virtues I Among the sacrifices that can be mlde to those counterfeit divinities, i s there one worth an instant of the pleasures one tastes in outraging them ? Come, my sweet, virtue i s but a chimera whose worship consists exclusively in perpetua l immolations, in unnumbered rebellions against the temperament's inspirations. Can such impulses be na­ tural ? Does Nature reommend what offends her ? Eugenie , be not the dupe of those women you hear called virtuous. Theirs are not, i f you wish, the same pass i ons a s ours ; but they harken t o others, and often more contemptible . . . . There is ambition, there pride, there you find self-seeking, and often, again, it is a question of mere

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constitutional numbness, of torpor : there are beings who have no urges. Are we, I ask, to revere such as them ? No ; the vi rtuous woman acts, or i s inactive, from pure selfishness. Is i t then better, wiser, more just to perform sacrifices to egoism than to one's passions ? As for me, I beli eve the one far worthier than the other, and who heeds but thi s latter voice i s far better advised, no question of it , since i t only i s the organ of Nature, while the former i s simply that of stupi dity and prejudice. One single drop of fuck shed from this member, Eugenie , i s more precious to me than the most sub­ lime deeds of a virtue 1 scorn.

EUGENIE- ( Calm being to some degree re-es tablished during these expositions, the women, clad again in their negligees, are re­ clining upon a collch, and Dolmance, seated in an armchair, is close by. ) But there is more than one species of virtue. What think you of, for example, pity ?

DOLMANCE-What can it be for whosoever has no bel ief in rel igion ? And who is able to have religious beliefs ? Come now, Eugenie, let' s reason systematically. Do you not call rel igion the pact that binds man to his Creator and which obliges him to give his Creator evidence, by means of worship, of his gratitude for the existence received from this sublime author ?

EUGENIE-It could not be better defined.

DOLMANcE-Excellent ! If i t is demonstrated that man owes his existence to nothing but Nature's irresistible schemes ; i f man i s thus proven as ancient i n this world as i s ancient the globe i tself, he is but as the oak, a s grain, a s the minerals to be found in the earth's entrails , who are bound only to reproduce, reproduction being necessitated by the globe's existence, which owes i ts own to nothing whatsoever ; i f it i s demonstrated that this God, whom fools behold a s the author and maker of all we know there to be, i s simply the ne plus ultra of human reason, merely the phantom created at the moment this reason can advance its operations no further ; if it is p roven that thi s God's existence is impossible, and that Nature, for­ ever in action, forever moving, has of herself what i t pleases i diots to award God gratu itously ; i f i t is certain that this inert being's existence, once supposed, he would be of all things the most ridic-

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ulous, s ince he would have been useful only one single time and, thereafter and throughout millions of centuries , fixed in a con­ temptible stillness and inactivity ; that , supposing him to exist as religions portray him to us, this would be the most detestable of creatures, since it woul d be God who pecmits evil to be on earth while his omnipotence C)uld prevent i t ; if, I say, all that is admi tted to be proven, as inconte stably i t is, do you bel ieve, Eugenie , that it is a very necessary virtue , this piety which binds man to an idiotic , insufficient, atrocious, a nd contemptible Creator ?

EUGENIE , to Madt:me de Sain t-A nge-What ! Then you mean to say, dear friend, God's existence i s an illusion ?

MADAME DE SAINT· ANGE-And without doubt one of the most deplorable.

DOLMANCE-To bdieve therein one must first have gone out of one's mind. Frui t of the terror of some and of the frailty of others , that abominabl e phantom, Eugenie , i s of no use to the terrestrial scheme and ' vould infallibly be injurious to i t , since the will o f God would have to be just and should never be able to ally i tself to the essential in: ustices decreed by Nature ; since He would constantly have to will the good, while Nature must desire it only as compensation for tht, evil which serves her laws ; since it would be necessary that he, God, exert his influence a t all times, while Nature, one o f whose laws i s thi s perpetual activity , could only find herself in competition " ith and unceasing opposition to him. Am I to hear in reply, that God and Nature are one ? 'Tis an absurdity. The thing created cannot be the creative being's equal. Might the pocket watch be the watchmaker ? Very well then, they will con­ tinue, Nature is nothing, it i s God who is all . Another stupidity ! There are necessa rily two things in the universe : the creative agent and the being created ; now, to identify th i s creative agent is the single task before us, t he one question to which one has got to provide a reply.

If matter acts, is :noved by combina tions unknown to us, i f movement i s inherent i n Nature ; i f , i n short, she alone, by reason of her energy , is able to create, produce, preserve, maintain, hold in equilibrium within the immense plains of space all the spheres that stand before our gaze and whose uni form march, unva rying,

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fills u s with awe and admiration, what then becomes of the need to seek out a foreign agent, since thi s active faculty essenti ally i s to be found in Nature herself, who i s naught else than matter in action ? Do you suppose your deific chimera will shed light upon anything ? I defy anyone to prove him to me. It being supposed that I am mistaken upon matter' s internal faculties , I have before me, at least, nothing worse than a difficulty. What do you do for me when you offer your God to me ? Nothing but offering one more god. And how would you have me acknowledge as cause of what I do not understand, something that I un derstand even less ? Will it be by means of the Christian religion that I shall examine . . . that I shall obtain a view of your appalling God ? Then let us cast a glance upon the God Christianity propounds . . . .

What do I see in the God of that infamous sect if not an inconsistent and barbarous being , today the creator of a world of destruction he repents of tomorrow ; what do I see there but a frail being forever unable to bring man to heel and force him to bend a knee. This creature, although em anated from him, dominates him, knows how to offend him and thereby merit torments eternally ! What a weak fellow, this God ! IIow able he was to mold all that we know and to fail to form man in his own guise I Whereunto you will answer, that had man been created so, man would have been l i ttle deserving of his author ; what a platitude this is ! and what necessity i s there that man be deserving of his God ? Had man been formed wholly good, man should never have been able to do evil , and only then would the work be worthy of a god. To allow man to choose was to tempt him ; and God's infinite powers very well advised him of what would be the result. Immediately the being was created, it was hence to pleasure that God doomed the creature he had himself formed. A horrible God, this God of yours, a mon­ ster ! Is there a criminal more worthy of our hatred and our implacable vengeance than he ! However , l ittle content with a task so sublimely executed, he drowns man to conver t him ; he burns him ; he curses him.

Nothing in all that alters man one jot. More powerful than this villainous God, a being still in possession of his power, forever

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able to brave h is author, the Devil by his seductions incessantly succeeds in leading astray the flock that the Eternal reserved unto himself. Nothing can vanquish the hold this demon's energy has upon us. But picture , in your own terms, the frightful God you preach : he has but one son ; an only son, begot of some passing strange commerce ; for, a s man doth fuck, so he hath willed that his Lord fucketh too ; an d the Lord didst detach and send down out of Heaven this respectable part of himself. One perhaps imagines that it i s upon celestial rays, in the midst of an angelic cortege, within sight of all the universe this sublime creature is going to appear . . . not a t all ; ' ti s upon a Jewish whore's breast, ' ti s in a proper p igsty that there i s announced the God who has come to save the earth ! Behold the worthy extraction accorded this personage ! But his mission is honorable-will he disabuse us ? Let us have a close look at him for an instant. What does he say ? What is it he does ? What i s his sublime mission ? What mystery is he about to reveal ? What is the dogma he i s going to p rescribe for us ? What will be the act wherein at last his grandeur will shine ?

I see, first of all , an obscure childhood, a few doubtless very libertine services this smutty fellow renders the priests at the Temple of Jerusalem ; nt'xt, a fifteen years' disappearance during which the scoundrel goes to poi son himself with all the reveries of the Egyptian school , which at length he fetches back to Judea. Scarcely does he reappear when his raving begins : he says he i s the son of God, his father's peer ; to this alli ance he j oins another phantom he calls the Holy Ghost, and these three persons, he swears, must be but one ! The more this preposterous mystery amazes the reason, the more the low fellow declares there is merit in swallowing i t . . . and danger in refusing i t . It i s to save us one and all, the imbecile argues , that he has assumed a fleshly shape, although he is God, mort ally incarnate in the breast of a child of man ; and the glittering wonders one is about to see him perform will speedily convince all the world of it . During a ribald supper, indeed, the cheat transfo rms, so they say, water into wine ; in a desert he feeds a few bandits upon the victuals previously hidden there by his devoted con:�ederates ; one of his cronies plays dead, our impostor restores him to l i fe again ; he betakes himself to a

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mountain and there, before two o r three o f his friends only, he brings off a jugglery that would cause the worst among our con­ temporary mountebanks to redden with shame.

Roundly damning, moreover, all those who do not accredit him, the scoundrel promises the heavens to whatever fools will listen. He writes nothing, for he i s ignorant ; talks very l ittle , for he i s stupid ; does even less, for he i s weak ; and, finally, completely exhausting the patience of the magistrates with his sedit ious out­ bursts, the charlatan has himself fixed to the cross a fter having assured the rogues who follow him that, every time they invoke him, he will descend to them to get himself eaten. He is put to torture , he puts up with i t. Monsieur his Papa , that sublime God whence he dares affirm he descends, succors him not in the least , and there you have him, this scoundrel, used like the last of the outlaws of whom he was such a fi tting chief.

His henchmen assemble : "It 's all up with us ," they say, "and all our hopes are perished lest we save ourselves with a quick piece of cunning. We'll besot the guard set to watch over Jesus ; then make off with hi s body, bruit i t abroad he i s risen : the trick's sure ; if we manage to get this knavery believed, our new religion's founded, propagated ; i t' l l seduce all the world . . . . To work I " The blow is struck, i t succeeds. In how many blackguards has not bold­ ness occupied the place of merit I The corpse i s filched, fools, women, children bawl out "Miracle I" at the top of their lungs ; nevertheless, in this c ity where such great prodigies have just been wrought, in this city stained with a God's blood, no one cares to believe in this God ; not a single conversion i s operated there. Better yet : so l i ttle worthy of transmission i s the event that no historian alludes to it . Only thi s impostor's disciples think they have some­ thing to gain from the fraud ; but not at the hour.

This detail is crucial ; let's note i t well . They permit several years to pass before exploiting their artifice ; at l ength, they erect upon i t the shaky edifice of their unwholesome doctrine. Men are pleased by any novelty. Weary of the emperors' de spotism , the world agrees to the need for a revolution. These cheats are heard,

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they make a very rapid ::>rogress ; 't is the story of every error. Soon the altars of Venus and Mars are changed to those of Jesus and Mary ; the l i fe of the impostor i s published, the insipid fiction finds its dupes ; he i s represented as having said a hundred things which never came into his head ; some few of his own drivelings instantly become the basis of his morality, and as this romance is p reached to the poor, char ity be('omes its foremost virtue . Weird rites are instituted under the na ne of sacraments ; the most offensive and the most abominable of them all is the one whereby a priest, covered with crimes, has, notwithstanding, thanks to a few magical words, the power to bring God back in a morsel of bread. Let there be no mistake : a t its very bi rth, this shameful cult might have been utte rly destroyed had one but employed against it those weapons of the contempt it deserved ; but men took it into their heads to employ persecution ; the cult throve ; ' twas inevitable.

Even today were one to cover i t with ridicule, i t would fall. The adroit Voltaire mver used any other arm, and among all writers he is the one who may congratulate himself upon having the greatest number of proselytes. Such, in a few words, Eugenie , is the history of God and of religion ; consider the treatment these fables deserve, and adopt a determined attitude toward them.

EUGENIE-My choice is unperplexed ; I scorn the lot of these unhealthy reveries , and this God himself, to whom I la tely clove through weakness or through ignorance, is henceforth nothing for me but an obj ect of horror.

MADAME DE SAINT·ANGE-SWear to me to think no more of him, never to be concerned for him, never to invoke him at any moment in your l ife, and so long as breath be in you never to return to him.

EUGENIE, flinging herself upon Madame de Saint-Ange's breast-I pledge i t in yo ur arms ! How readily I see that what you demand is for my own good, and that you would never have such reminiscences disturb my tranquillity !

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-What other motive could I have ?

Philosophy in the Bedroo m .. 2 1 5

EUGENIE-But, Dolmance, i t seems to me i t was the analysis of virtues tha t led us to the examination of religions. Let us now return to the former. Might there not exi st in this religion, com­ pletely ridiculous though it i s , some virtues p rescribed by it, whose cultivation could contribute to our happiness ?

DOLMANcE-All right, let us see . Shall chastity be tha t virtue your own eyes destroy, Eugenie , although you and all about you are the very image of i t ? Are you going to respect the obligation to combat all Nature 's operations, wil l you sacr ifice them all to the vain and ludicrous honor of never having had a weakness ? Be fair and answer me , pretty l i ttle friend : think you to find in this absurd and dangerous purity of soul all the pleasures of the contrary vice ?

EUGENIE-N 0, I 'm bound to declare I see nothing there ; I do not feel the least inclination to be chaste, but rather the most com­ pelling urge to the opposite vice. But, Dolmance, might not charity and benevolence bring happiness to some sensitive souls ?

DOLMANcE-Begone those virtues which produce naught but ingratitude I But, my charming friend, be not a t all deceived : benev­ olence is surely rather pride 's vice than an authentic virtue in the soul ; never i s it with the single intention of performing a good act, but instead ostentatiously that one aids one' s fellow man ; one would be most annoyed were the alms one has just bestowed not to receive the u tmost possible publicity. Nor, Eugenie , are you to imagine that, as i s the popular view, this action has only excellent consequences ; for my part I behold it a s nothing o ther than the greatest of all duperies ; it accustoms the poor man to doles which provoke the deterioration of his energy ; when able to expect your charit ies , he ceases to work and becomes , when they fail him, a thief or assassin. On all sides I hear them ask a fter the means to suppress mendicity, and meanwhile they do everything possible to encourage i t . Would you have no fl ies in your bed chamber ? Don't spread about sugar to attract them into it . You wish to have no poor in France ? Distribute no alms , and above al l shut down your poor­ houses. The individual born in misfortune thereupon seeing himself deprived of these dangerous crutches, will fend for himself, sum­ moning up all the resources put in him by Nature, to extricate him-

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self from the condition wherein he started l i fe ; and he will impor­ tune you no longer. Desl roy, with entire unpity, raze to the ground, those detestable houses where you billet the progeny of the liber­ tin age of the poor, app llling cloacas , wherefrom there every day spews forth into societr a swarm of new-made creatures whose unique hope resides in your purse. What purpose, I ask, i s there in preserving such individt: a l s with so much care ? Does anyone fear France 's depopulation ? Ha ! dread not.

One of the foremost of this nation's defects consi sts in a population by far too numerous, and much is wanting when such overabundances become considered the State's riches. These super­ numerary beings are like unto the parasi tical branches which, l iving only a t the trunk's expense, always bring it to final decline. Re­ member that in no matter what pol itical organization, whenever the size of the population exceeds what is strictly necessary to its existence, that society languishes. Examine France well, and you will observe that to be h,!r situation. What results of i t ? 'Tis clear . The Chinese, wiser thar we , are most careful to avoid the perils of excessive numbers. No asylum for the shameful fruit of de­ bauchery : i t is not preserved, it i s abandoned, just as are the after­ maths of digestion. No establishments for poverty : such a thing is totally unknown in Ctina. There, everyone works : there, every­ one is happy ; nothing saps the poor man's energy and everyone can say, as did Nero, Quid es t pauper?

EUGENIE, to M ad.lme de Sain t-..1nge-Beloved friend, my father thinks exactly as Monsieur Dolmance : never in his l i fe has he performed a good wo::k, and he is continually abusing my mother for the money she spen :Is in such practices. She belonged to the Maternal Society, to the Philan thropic Club; I have no idea of what associa tion she is not a member ; he obliged her to stop all that by promising her he would reduce her to the narrowest pension were she to relapse into : ;imilar foll ies .

MADAME DE SAINT··ANGE-There i s nothing more ludicrous and at the same time more dangerous, Eugenie, than all these sodalities ; it i s to them, to free public schools, and to charitable establishments we owe t 1e terrible disorder in which we presently live. Never give alms, my dear, I beseech you.

Philosophy in the Bedro om + 2 1 7

EUGENIE-Nothing to fear on that score ; i t was long ago my father put me under the same obligation, and I am too li ttle tempted to benevolence to disregard his orders . . . my heart's impulses, and your desires.

DOLMANCE-N ature has en dowed each of us with a capacity for kindly feelings : le t us not squ ander them on others. What to me are the woes that beset others ? h ave I not enough of my own with­ out afflicting myself with those 1 hat are foreign to me ? May our sensibility's hearth warm naugh t but our pleasures I Let us feel when it is to their advantage ; and when it i s not, let us be absolutely unbending. From this exact economy of feeling, from this judicious use of sensibil i ty , there results a ;;:ind of cruelty which is sometimes not without i ts delights. One cannot always do evil ; deprived of the pleasure i t affords, we can a t le ast find the sensation's equivalent in the minor but piquant wickedr ess of never doing good.

EUGENIE-Dear God, hovi your discourses inflame me I I believe I would now sooner suffer death than be made to perform a good act I

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-·-And were the opportunity pre­ sented to do an evil one, would y,m be ready to commit i t ?

EUGENIE-Be still , temptn ss ; I 'll not answer that until you have completed my instruction. In the light of all you tell me, i t seems, Dolmance, that there i s Ilothing on earth a s indifferent a s the committing o f good or evil ; :lUght not our tastes, our tempera­ ment alone counsel us ?

DOLMANCE-Ah, be in no :ioubt of it , Eugenie , these words vice and virtue contain for us n :mght but local i deas. There is no deed, in whatever the unusual hrm you may imagine it , which is really criminal, none which may be really called virtuous. All is relative to our manners and the climate we inhabi t ; what i s a crime here i s often a virtue several hundred leagues hence, and the virtues of another hemisphere might well reverse themselves into crimes in our own. There i s no horror tlat has not been consecrated some­ where, no virtue that has not be :n blasted. When geography alone decides whether an action be wo rthy of praise or blame , we c annot

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attach any great importa nce to ridiculous and frivolous sentiments, but rather should be impeccably armed against them, to the point, indeed, where we fearle!.sly prefer the scorn of men i f the actions which excite i t are for us sources o f even the mildest voluptuousness.

EUGENIE-But it would however appear to me that there must be actions in themselves so dangerous and so evil that they have come to be considered from one end of the earth to the other as generally criminal.

MADAME DE SAINT-1.NGE-There are none, my love, none, not even theft, nor incest, ne; ther murder nor parricide i tself.

EUGENIE-What I such horrors are somewhere tolerated ?

DOLMANcE-They have been honored, crowned, beheld as exemplary deeds , whereas in other places, humaneness, candor, benevolence, chastity, in brief , all our virtues have been regarded a s monstrosities.

EUGENIE-I would have you explain that to me j I ask for a succinct analysis of each one o f those crimes, but I beg you to begin by exposing your opinion:; upon l ibertinage in young girls, then upon the adultery of married women.

MADAME DE SAINT-.\NGE-Then l i sten to me, Eugenie. It is absurd to say that immediately a girl i s weaned she must continue the victim of her parents ' will in order to remain thus to her dying day. It i s not in this age of preoccupation with the rights of man and general concern for l iberties tha t girls ought to continue to believe themselves their famil ies ' slaves, when it is clearly estab­ lished that these familie! ' power over them i s totally illusory. Let us consult Nature upon : ;0 interesting a question as this , and may the laws that govern animals , in much stricter conformance with Nature , provide us for a . moment with examples. Amongst beasts , do paternal duties extend beyond primary physical needs ? Do not the offspring of animals possess all their parents' l iberty, all thei r rights ? As soon as they are able to walk alone and feed themselves, beginning a t this instant , are they any longer recognized by the authors of the i r days ? And do the young fancy themselves in any sense beholden to those whence they have received breath ? Surely

Philosophy in the Bedroom .. 2 19

not. By what right, hence, are other dutie s incumbent upon the children of men ? And wha t is the basis of these duties if not the fathers' greed or ambition ? Well, I ask i f i t is just that a young girl who i s beginning to feel and r eason be submitted to such con­ straints. Is it not prejudice which ;111 unaided forges those chains ? And i s there anything more ridic ulous than to see a maiden of fifteen or sixteen, consumed by desi res she i s compelled to suppress, wait, and, while waiting, endure worse than hell ' s torments until i t pleases her parents, having firs! rendered her youth miserable, further to sacrifice her riper yea r s by immolating them to their perfidious cupidity when they associ ate her, despite her wishes, with a husband who e i ther has nothing " herewith to make himself loved, or who possesses everything to make himself hated ?

Ah ! no. No, Eugenic, such bonds are quickly dissolved ; i t i s necessary that when once she reach es the age of reason the girl be detached from the paternal househ :>ld, and after having received a public education i t i s necessary that at the age of fifteen she be left her own mistress, to become what ! he wishes. She will be delivered unto vice ? Ha I what does that mat! er ? Are not the services a young girl renders in consenting to procur e the happiness of all who apply to her, infinitely more important t han those which, i solating her­ self, she performs for her husband ? Woman's destiny i s to be wanton, like the bitch, the she-wolf ; she must belong to all who claim her. Clearly, it is to outrage the fate Nature imposes upon women to fetter them by the absurd ties of a solitary marriage.

Let us hope eyes will be opened, and that while we go about assuring the l iberty of every individual, the fate of unhappy girls will not be overlooked ; but should they have the great misfortune to be forgotten, then, of their own accord ri sing above usage and prejudice, let them boldly fling off and spurn the shameful i rons wherewith others presume to keep them subjugated ; they will rapidly conquer custom and opinion ; man become wiser, because he will be freer , will sense the injustice that would exist in scorning whoever acts thus, and will sense too that the act of yielding to Nature's promptings, beheld as a crime by a captive people, can be so no longer amongst a free people.

B egin, therefore, with the legitimacy of these principles , Eugenie , and break your shackles at no matter what the cost ; be

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contemptuous of the fu tile remonstrances of an imbecile mother to whom you legitimately owe only hatred and a curse. If your father, who is a libertine, desires you, why then, go merrily to h im : let him enjoy you, but enj oy without enchaining you ; cast off the yoke i f h e wishes to enslave you ; more than one daughter h a s treated thus with her father. Fuck, in one word, fuck : ' twas for that you were brought into the world ; no limits to your pleasure save those of your strength and will ; no exceptions as to place, to time, to partner ; all the time, e verywhere, every man has got to serve your pleasures ; continence i : ; an impossible virtue for which Nature , her rights violated, instantly punishes us wi th a thousand miseries . So long a s the laws rema n such as they are today, employ some dis­ cretion : loud opinion fo rces us to do so ; but in privacy and silence let us compensate oun elves for that cruel chasti ty we are obliged to display in public.

Let our young maiden strive to procure herself a companion who, unattached and a broad in the world, can secretly cause her to taste the world' s ple<.sures ; fail ing of that, let her contrive to seduce the Arguses pOf ted round her ; let her beg them to prostitute her, and p romise them all the money they can earn from her sale ; e i ther those watchdogs alone, or the women they will find and whom one calls procuresses, will soon supply the l i ttle one ' s wants ; then let her kick up the dust into the eyes of everyone at hand, brothers, cousins, frier ds , parents ; let her give herself to everyone, i f that i s necessary to hide her conduct ; le t her even make the sacrifice, if ' ti s required of her, of her tastes and affections ; one intrigue which might Cisplease her, and into which she would enter only for reasons of policy, will straightway lead her to another more agreeable ; and there she i s , launched. But let her not revert to her childhood prejll dices ; menaces, exhortations, duti es , virtues, religion, advice , let her give not a damn for the one or the lot of them ; let her s tubbornly rej ect and despise all that which but tends to her re-entry into thralldom, and all that which, in a ,Yord, does not hie her along the road to the depths of impudicity.

'Tis but folly in our parents when they foretell the disasters of a l ibertine career ; there are thorns everywhere, but along the path o f vice roses bloom above them ; Nature causes none to smile along virtue ' s muddy track. Upon the former of the routes, the one snare

Philosophy in the Bedroom .. 2 2 1

t o fear i s men's opinion ; but what mettlesome girl, with a l ittle reflection, will not render herself superior to that contemptible opinion ? The pleasures received through esteem, Eugenie , are nothing but moral pleasures, acceptable to none but certain minds ; those of fuckery please all, and their winning characteristics soon eclipse the hallucinatory scorn from which escape i s difficult when one flouts the public ' s views at which several cool-headed women have so much laughed as therefrom to derive one pleasure the more. Fuck, Eugenie , fuck, my angel ; your body i s your own, yours alone ; in all the world there i s but yourself who has the right to enjoy i t as you see fit .

Profit from the fairest period in your life ; these golden years o f our pleasure are only too few and too brief . If we are so fortu­ nate as to have enjoyed them, delicious memories console and amuse us in our old age. These years lost . . . and we are racked by bitterest regrets, gnawing remorse conjoins with the sufferings of age and the fatal onset of the grave is all tears and brambles . . . . But have you the madness to hope for immortality ?

Why, then, ' t is by fucking, my dear, you will remain in human memory. The Lucretias were soon forgot whereas the Theodoras and the Messalinas are subj ects for life's sweetest and most fre­ quent conversation. How, Eugenie, may one not elect an alternative which twines in our hair the flowers of this world and yet leaves us the hope of reverence when we are gone out of i t ? How, I s ay, may one not prefer thi s course to another which, causing us stupidly to vegetate upon earth, promises us nothing after our existence but scorn and oblivion ?

EUGENIE, to Madame de Saint-Ange-Oh I my love, how these seductive words inflame my mind and captivate my soul I I am in a state hardly to be painted . . . . And, I pray, will you be able to ac­ quaint me with some of these women . . . ( worried ) who will , if I tell them to, prostitute me ?

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-For the moment and until you have become more experienced, the matter is entirely my concern, Eugenie ; trust me and above all the precautions I am taking to mask your excesse s ; my brother and this solid friend instructing you will be the fi rst to whom I wish you to give yoursel f ; after-

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ward, we will discover e thers. Be not distu rbed, dear heart : I shall have you fly from one p leasure to the next, I ' ll plunge you in a sea o f delights, I will fill yo lr cup to overflowing, my angel, I will sate you.

E UGENIE , throwing herself into Madame de Saint-Ange's arms -Oh, my dearest one, I adore you ; you will never have a more sub­ missive scholar . But i t � ,eems to me you gave me to understand in our earl ier conversation s that it were a difficult thing for a young person to fling herself ir. to libertinage without the husband she is to wed perceiving it later 01 ?

MADAME DE SAINT·ANGE-'Tis true , my heart, but there are secrets which heal all those breaches. I promise to make them known to you, and then, had you fucked like Antoinette, I charge myself to render you a s much a vi rgin as you were the day you were born.

E UGENIE-Oh, my delightful one ! Come, continue to instruct me. Be quick then ; teaC:1 me what should be a woman's conduct in marrIage.

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-In whatever circumstances, a woman, my dear, whether unwedded, wife, or widow, must never have for obj ective, occu Jation, or desire anything save to have her­ self fucked from morning to night : ' ti s for this unique end N a ture created her ; but if , in o rder to answer this intention, I require her to trample upon all the prejudices of her childhood, i f I prescribe to her the most form a l disobedi ence to her family's orders, the most arrant contempt for all her relatives' advice, you will agree with me, Eugenie , that among all the bonds to be burst, I ought very surely to recommend that the very first be those of wedlock.

Indeed, Eugenie , consider the young girl scarcely out o f her father's house or her :Jension, knowing nothing, without experi­ ence : o f a sudden she i� ; obliged to pass thence into the arms of a man she has never seen, she i s called to the altar and compelled to swea r to this man an oath of obedience, of fidelity, the more unjust for her o ften having n o thing in the depths of her heart but the greatest desire to break her word. In all the world, i s there a more terrible fate than this, Eugeni e ? However, whether her husband pleases her or no, whether or not he has tenderness in store for her

Philosophy in the Bedroo m <� 223

or vile treatment, behold I she is married ; her honor binds her to her oaths : it is attainted if she disregards them ; she must be doomed or shackled : either way, she must perish of despair . Ah, no ! Eugenie, no I ' t is not for that end we are born ; those absurd laws are the handiwork of men, a.nd we must not submit to them. And divorce ? Is i t capable of satisfying us ? Probably not. What greater assurance have we of finding the happiness in a la ter bondage that eluded us in an earli e r ?

Therefore, in secrecy let us compensate ourselves for all the restraint imposed by such absurd unions, and let us be certain in­ deed that this species of disorders, to whatever extreme we carry them, far from outraging Nature, is but a sincere homage we render her ; it is to obey her laws to cede to the desires she alone has placed in us ; i t i s only in resisting that we affront her. The adultery men deem a crime, which they have dared punish in us even with death, adultery, Eugenie, is hence nothing but an acquittance sanctioned by a natural law the whims of those tyrants shall never be able to abrogate. But i s i t not horrible, say our husbands, to lay us open to cherishing as our own children, to embracing as ours the fruit of your licentiousness ? The obj ection is Rousseau' s ; i t is, I admit, the only faintly specious one wherewith adultery may be opposed. WeIl l Is it not extremely simple to surrender oneself to libertinage without fear of pregnancy ? Is i t not easier yet to check it i f through our oversight or imprudence it should occur ? But, as we shall return to the subj ect, let 's now but treat the heart of the matter : we will see that, however plausible i t a t first appears, the a rgument is chimerical nevertheless_

First, provided I sleep with my husband, provided his semen flows to the depths of my womb, should I see ten men at the same time I consort with him, nothing will ever be able to prove to him that the child I bear does not belong to him ; it i s quite as likely the child is his as not, and in a case of uncertainty he cannot justifiably disclaim his part in bringing about something which may perhaps have been all of his doing. Immediately it can be his, it i s his ; any man who vexes himself with suspicions upon this head seeks vexa· tions, even were his wife a vestal he would plague himself with wor· ries, for i t i s impossible to be sure of a woman, and she who has behaved wel l for years may someday interrupt her good behavior.

224 .. THE MARQU [S DE SADE

Hence, i f this husband i , suspicious, he will be so in any case : never, then, will he be convinced the child he embraces i s really his own. Now, i f he can be suspici ous in any case, there can be no disadvan­ tage in sometimes j usti(ying his suspicions : with what regards h i s state of happiness or ur happiness , i t will all be one ; therefore, ' ti s just as well things be tiUS. Well, suppose him in complete error : picture him caressing the fruit o f h i s wi fe ' s l ibertinage : where i s the crime i n that ? Are not our goods held in common ? In which case, what ill do I came by introducing into the menage a child to whom must be accorded a share of these goods ? 'Twill be my share the child will have ; he'll steal nothing from my tender mate : I consider as a levy upon my dowry this portion to which the child will be heir ; hence, ne ither i t nor I take anything from my husband. Had this child been his, by what title would it have been a cla imant to a part of my chattels and monies ? Is it not by reason of the fact the child would have been my offspring ? Very well, the child is go­ ing to inherit thi s part, rightfully the child's by virtue of the same intimate alliance. It i s because this child belongs to me that l owe it a share of my wealth.

With what are you to reproach me ? The child i s provided for. "But you deceive your husband ; thus to be false is atrocious ." "No, it ' s t it for tat ," say I , "and there's an end to i t : I was the dupe in the first place of the a �tachments he forced upon me : I take my revenge : what could be more simple ?" "But your husband's honor has suffered a real outr age." "What ludicrous notion i s this ! My libertinage in no wise affects my husband ; mine are personal faults. Thi s alleged dishonor s ignified something a century ago ; we're rid of our illusions today, and my husband i s no more sullied by my debauches than I might be by his . I might fuck with the whole wide world without wounding him in the slightest. This so-called hurt i s therefore a mere fable whose authentic existence i s impossible. Of the two things, one : e i ther my husband i s a brutal, a j ealous man, or he i s a delicate one ; in the former hypothesis , the best course for me is to avenge myself for his conduct ; in the latter, I should be unable to aggrieve him ; the fact I am tasting pleasures will make him happy if he i s hom s t ; no man of refinement fails to relish the spectacl e of the happine ss of the person he adores." "But, were you to love him, would you wish him to do the same ?" "Ah, woe unto

Philosophy in the Bedroom .. 225

the wife who decides to be j ealous of her husband ! Let her be con­ tent with what he gives her, if she loves him ; but le t her make no attempt to constrain him ; not only will she have no success , but she will soon make herself detested. So long as I am reasonable , I shall never be affiicted by my husband's debauches ; let him be thus with me, and peace will reign in the house."

Let us recapitula te : Whatever be adultery' s issue, were i t even to introduce into the home children who do not belong to the hus­ band, because they are the wife's they have certain rights to a por­ tion o f that wife 's dowry ; i f the husband has intelligence of the thing, he must consider them as he would children his wife might have had by an earl ier marriage ; i f he knows nothing, he'll not be the worse for it, for one cannot be distressed by what one i s un­ aware of ; if the adultery is followed by no consequences and if i t remain unknown to the husband, no jurist can prove, in this case , the existence o f crime : here , adul tery appears as an act of perfect indifference to the husband, who knows nothing of it, and perfectly splendid for the wife, whom i t del ights ; i f the husband discovers the adultery, 'tis no longer the adultery which is an evil , for i t was not such a moment ago, and it could not have altered its nature : if evil there be, it i s in the husband's discovery of i t : well, that fault belongs only to him : it has nothing to do with his wife.

Those who in former times punished the adulterer were hence mere hangmen, tyrannical and j ealous, who, viewing everything subj ectively, unjustly imagined that in order to be criminal i t was only necessary to offend them, as if a personal injury were always to be considered a crime, and as if one might justly describe as a crime an act which, far from outraging Nature or society, clearly serves the one and the other. There are , however, cases when adultery, easy to prove, becomes more embarrassing for the woman without for that reason being any more criminal ; witness, for ex­ ample , the case wherein the husband is found either impotent or subj ect to inclinations disfavorable to engendering. As she i s sus­ ceptible of pleasure, and as her husband never is, her deportment doubtless then becomes more open ; but ought she be disquieted on that account ? Surely not. The one precaution she must take is to produce no children, or to have an abortion if these precautions should happen to fail her. If it i s thanks to her husband's unseemly

226 -+ THE MARQU I S DE SADE

penchants that she is wmpelled to compensate herself for his neg­ lect, she has fi rst of all to sat isfy him, wi thout repugnance and ac­ cording to h i s tastes, of whatever character they may chance to be ; next, let her make i t kr,own to him that such complacencies entitle her to a counterpart ; let her demand an enti re l iberty in return for the one she accords ; thereupon, the husband refuses or else he con­ sents : i f he consents, a�; has mine, one puts oneself at his disposal and redoubles one's IT inistrations and condescensions to his ca­ prices ; if he refuses, then one perfects one's concealments and one fucks peacefully in thei r shadow. I s he impotent? Why, then one parts company ; but, whatever may be the case, one gives oneself : one fucks, my lamb, the particular s ituation notwithstanding, be­ cause we are born to f lck, because by fucking we obey and fulfill Nature's ordinations, and because all man-made laws which would contravene Nature 's are made for naught but our contempt.

A silly gull is the woman whom ties as absurd as those of wed­ lock inhibit from surrendering to her penchants, who dreads either pregnancy o r the injury to her husband, or the yet more vain tar­ nishing of her reputati on ! You have just seen, Eugenie, yes, you have just sensed what a dupe she is when basely she immolates both her happiness and all l i f e's joys to the most preposterous prejudices. Oh ! let her fuck with impunity ! Will a l ittle false glory, a few frivolous religious anti cipations balance the weight of her sacri­ fices? No j no, virtue, vice, all are confounded in the grave. A few years hence, will the public any more exalt the ones than it con­ demns the others? Why, no, once again, I say no, and the wretch who has l ived a stranger to j oy, dies, alas, unrewarded.

EUGENIE-How thoroughly you persuade me, my angel , what a straight way you make with my prejudices, what short work you make of all the false principles my mother planted in me ! Oh, I would be married tomorrow in order immediately to put your maxims into use. How �;eductive they are , how true, and how much I love them ! Only one t �ing troubles me, dear one, in what you have just sa id to me, and as I understand it not at all , I beg you to ex­ plain : your husband, you declare, does not, when he takes h i s pleasure with you , stri :<.e an attitude such a s would produce chil­ dren : what then, pray tell , does he do ?

Philosophy in the Bedroo m } 227

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-My husband was already advanced in years when I married him. On our wedding night he gave me no­ tice of his fancies , the while assuring me that, for his part , never would he interfere with mine ; I swore to obey him and we have always, since then, he and I, l ived in the most delicious independence and mutual understanding. My husband's whim is to have himself sucked, and here i s the most unusual practice joined a s a corollary to that one : while, a s I bend over him, my buttocks squarely over his face and cheerily pumping the fuck from his balls , I must shit in h i s mouth ! . . . He swallows i t down ! . . •

EUGENIE-N ow there 's a most extraordinary notion !

DOLMANCE-N one may be qualified thus , my dear : all are a part of Nature ; when she created men, she was pleased to vary the ir tastes a s she made different their countenances, and we ought no more be astoni shed at the divers ity she has put in our features than at that she has placed in our affections. The fancy your friend has just mentioned could not be more it l a mode ; an infinite num­ ber of men, and principally those of a certain age, are prodigiously addicted to i t ; would you refuse your co-operation, Eugenie , were someone to require i t o f you ?

E UGE N I E , turning red-In accordance with the maxims where­ with I am being inculcated here, can I refuse anything ? I only ask to be forgiven my surprise ; this i s the first time I have heard of all these lubriciti e s : I must first of all visual ize them ; but between the solution of the problem and the execution of the act, I believe my tutors can rest assured there will never be but the distance they themselves impose. However all that may be, my dear, you won your liberty by acquiescing to this duty ?

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-The most entire liberty, Eugenie . On my s ide , I did everything I wished without his rais ing any ob­ stacles , but I took no lover : I was too fond of pleasure for that. Unlucky woman, she who is a ttached ; she needs but take a lover to be lost , while ten scenes o f libertinage, repeated every day, if she wishes, vani sh into the night of silence instantly they are consum­ mated. I was wealthy : I had young men in my pay, they fucked me incognito, I surrounded myself with charming valets , assured of

228 + THE MARQCIS DE SADE

tasting the sweetest plea sures with me upon condition of discretion, certain they would be thI Own out-of-doors i f they so much as opened their mouths. You have ,no idea, dear heart, of the torrent of de­ l ights into which, in this manner, I did plunge. Such i s the conduct I will always urge upon e very woman who would imitate me. During my twelve marr ied year s I have been fucked by upward of ten or twelve thousand individ .lals . . . and in the company I keep I am thought well-behaved ! Another would have had lovers ; by the time she exchanged the first f.) r the second she would have been doomed.

EUGENIE-This se( :ms the safest way of p roceeding ; most de­ cidedly, it shall be mine ; I must, like yourself, ma rry a rich man, and above all one with ]:ancies . . . . But, my dear, your husband is strictly bound by his tastes ? Does he never ask anything else of you ?

MADAME DE SAINT-.'\NGE-N ever in a dozen years has he been untrue to himself a singl e day, save when I am on an outing. A very pretty girl he very much wanted me to take into the house then substi tutes for me, and ':hings proceed exceeding well.

EUGENIE-But he doesn' t stop there, surely ? There are other obj ects , outside the hom e, competing to diversi fy hi s pleasures ?

DOLMANcE-Ee certain there are , Eugenie ; Madame's hus­ band is one of the grea ':est l ibertines of the day ; he spends above one hundred thousand crowns a year upon the obscene tastes your friend described to you I: ut a moment ago.

MADAME DE SAINT-.\NGE-To tell the truth, I suspect the figure may be higher ; but what are his excesses to me, s ince the ir multiplic­ ity authorizes and camouflages my own ?

EUGENIE-I beseech you, let us follow in detail the manners by which a young person, married or not, may preserve herself from p regnancy, for I confes: ; I am made most timorous by dread of i t , whether i t be the work of the husband I must take, or the effect of a career o f l ibertinage. You have just indicated one means while speaking of your husband' s tastes ; but th is fashion of taking one ' s pleasure, which may be nighly agreeable to the man, does not seem as pleasurable for the woman, and it is our dalliances, exempt from the risks I fear, that I d esire you to discuss .

Philosophy in the Bedroo m + 2 29

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-A girl risks having a child only in proportion to the frequency with which she permits the man to in­ vade her cunt. Let her scrupulously avoid this manner of tasting delight ; in its stead, let her offer indi scriminately her hand, her mouth, her breasts, or her ass . This last thoroughfare will yield her considerable pleasure, far more, indeed, than any other ; by means of the others she will give pleasure.

In the first instance, that i s to say, the one which brings the hand into play, one proceeds in the fashion you observed a short while ago, Eugenie ; one shakes one's friend's member as i f one were pumping i t ; after a l i ttle agitation, the sperm i s emitted ; mean­ while, the man kisses, caresses you, and with th i s l iquid wets that part of your body whereof he is fondest. If one wishes to have it distributed over the breasts, one stretches upon the bed, the virile member i s fi tted between the two tits, they are compressed, and aftt';r a few passes the man discharges so as to flood you sometimes up to the height of your face. This manner i s the least voluptuous of all and can only suit those women whose breasts, from repeated usage, have acquired that flexibility , that looseness needed to grip the man's member tightly when clamped between them. Pleasure incepted at the mouth is infinitely more agreeable , quite as much for the man as for the woman. The best way to go about i t i s for the woman to l ie prone, contrariwise to her fucker and upon his body : he pops his prick into your mouth and, his head being lodged between your thighs, he repays in kind what you do for him, by in­ troducing h is tongue into your cunt or by playing i t over your cli­ toris ; when employing this attitude one must show spirit, catch hold of the buttocks, and the partners should finger and tickle each other's asshole, a measure always necessary to complete voluptu­ ousness. Spirited lovers, those full of imagination, therewith swal­ low the fuck which squirts into their mouths, and thus delicately they enj oy the exquisite pleasure of mutually causing this precious liquid, mechanically diverted from i ts customary destination, to pass into their entrails.

DOLMANcE-Eugenie, 't is a delicious method. I recommend to you its execution. Thus to cheat propagation of its rights and to contradict what fools call the laws of Nature, is truly most charm-

230 + THE MARQUIS DE SADE

ing. The thighs, the armpits also sometimes provide asylum to the man's member and offer him retreats where his seed may be spilled without risk of pregnanl:Y.

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-SOme women insert sponges into the vagina's interior ; th ese , intercepting the sperm, prevent i t from springing into the vessel where generation occurs. Others oblige their fuckers to make use of a l i ttle sack o f Veneti an skin , in the vulgate called a condom, which the semen fills and where it i s pre­ vented from flowing farther. But of all the possibi l i ties , that pre­ sented by the ass is without any doubt the most del ic ious. Dolmance, to you I reserve the di� sertations thereupon. Who better than you might be able to describe a taste in whose defense, were i t to require any defense, you would l ay down your l i fe ?

DOLMANCE-I acknowledge my weakness. I admit as well that in all the world there is no mode of pleasure-taking preferable to thi s ; I worship it in e i:her sex ; but I 'l l confess a young lad's ass gives me yet more plea �ure than a girl ' s . Buggers i s the appellation designating those who are this fancy's adepts ; now, Eugenie , when one goe s so far as to be a bugger , one must not stop halfway. To fuck women in the rea � is but the first part of buggery ; ' ti s with men Nature wishes men to practice th i s oddity, and it is especi ally for men she has given us an incl ination. Absurd to say the mania offends N a ture ; can i t be so, when ' t i s she who puts i t into our h e a d ? can she dictate what degrades her ? No, Eugenie , not at all ; thi s i s as good a place to serve her a s any other, and perhaps i t i s there she i s most devoutly worshiped. Propagation owes i ts exist­ ence to her forbearance. How could she have prescribed as law an act which challenges her omnipotence, since propagation i s but a consequence of her primary intentions, and since new constructions, wrought by her hand, were our species to be destroyed absolutely, would become again p rimordial intentions whose accomplishment would be far more flattering to her p ride and to her power ?

MADAME DE SAIN1'-ANGE-Do you know, Dolmance, that by m e ans o f this system you are going to be led to prove that totally to extinguish the hum a n race would be nothing but to render N a- tu re a service ?

.

Philosophy in the Bedroom .. 23 1

DOLMANCE-Who doubts of it , Madame ?

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-My God I wars, plagues, famines, murders would no longer be but accidents, necessary to Nature 's laws, and man, whether instrumental to or the object o f these e f­ fects, would hence no longer be more a criminal in the one case than he would be a victim in the other ?

DOLMANCE-Victim he i s , without doubt, when he bends be­ fore the blows of ill fortune ; but criminal, never. We shall have more to say about all these things ; for the moment, in the lovely Eugenie 's behalf, let ' s analyze sodomistic pleasures, which presently a re the subject of our discussion. In this mode of pleasure-seeking, the posture most commonly adopted by the woman i s for her to l ie belly down upon the edge of the bed, the buttocks wel l spread, the head a s low as possible ; a fter having mused for an instant upon the splendid prospect of a ready and beckoning ass , a fter having patted i t, slapped i t a bit , handled it , sometimes a fter having beaten or whipped i t, pinched and bitten it , the rake moistens with his mouth the pretty l i ttle hole he is about to perforate, and prepares his entry with the tip o f his tongue ; in simi lar wise , he wets his engine with saliva, o r with pomade, and gently presents it to the aperture he intends to pierce ; he guides it with one hand, with the other he lays wide open the cheeks of his delight ; immediately he feels his mem­ ber penetrate, he must thrust energetically, taking all due care not to give ground ; then it is, occasionally, the woman suffers, if she is new, or young ; but, totally heedless of the pangs which are soon to change into pleasures , the fucker must be l ively and drive his engine ahead, inch by inch, gradually, but with determination, till at last he i s arrived at his obj ective, till , tha t is to say, h is device's hairs precisely rub the anal rim of the embuggered party. Then may he give free rein to himself j all the thorns are plucked from out his pa th , there remain roses only there. To complete the meta­ morphosis into pleasures of what distresses h i s obj ect still experi­ ences, if i t be a boy, let him seize his prick and frig i t ; let him twiddle her cl itoris , if 't is a girl ; the titillations of the pleasure he will cause to be born will in turn work a prodigious contraction in the patient's anus , and wil l double the delight o f the agent who, overwhelmed with comfort, will soon dart, to the very

· depths of

232 .. THE MARQUIS DE SADE

the ass of his delight, a sperm quite as abundant as thick, thus de­ termined by so many lubricious details. There are some who do not care to have the patient take pleasure in the operation ; an atti­ tude we will account for in good time.

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Allow me to be the scholar for a moment, and let me ask you, Dolmance, in what state the patient' s ass must be in order to ensure the agent a maximum of pleasure ?

DOLMANCE-Full , by all means ; 't is essential the obj ect in use have the most imperiou s desire to shit, so that the end of the fucker 's prick, reaching �he turd, may drive deep into it , and may more warmly and more softly deposit there the fuck which irritates and sets i t afire.

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-I fear the patient's pleasure i s less.

DOLMANcE-Error ! This method of pleasure-taking i s such that there exists no pos:;ibil ity of the fucker's receiving hurt nor of the employed obj ect' s fail ing to be transported into seventh heaven. No other matchc:s this in value , no other can so completely satisfy each of the prot lgonists, and they who have tasted of it know a great difficulty in abandoning it for another. Such, Eugenie , are the best ways of taking pleasure with a man i f the perils of pregnancy are to be avo; ded ; for one enjoys-and be very certain of i t-not only offering a man one ' s ass , but also sucking and frig­ ging him, etc . , and I have known libertine ladies who often had an higher esteem for this byplay than for real pleasures. The imagina­ tion i s the spur of deligh':s ; in those of this order, all depends upon it , it i s the mainspring of everything ; now, i s i t not by means of the imagination one knows joy ? i s i t not of the imagination that there come the most p iquant delights ?

MADAME DE SAINT·ANGE-Indeed ; but let Eugenie beware thereof ; the imagination serves us not save when our mind is abso­ lutely free of prejudices : but a single one will suffice to chill it . This capricious portion of ou:: mind i s so libertine nothing can restrain it ; its greatest triumph, i ·:s most eminent delights come of exceeding all l imits imposed upon i t ; of all regularity it i s an enemy, i t wor­ ships disorder, idolizes whatever wears the brand of crime ; whence

Philosophy in the Bedroom .. 233

derived the extraordinary reply o f an imaginative woman who was fucking coolly with her husband : "Why this ice ?" quoth he . "Ah, truly," answered this singular creature , " ' tis all very dull, what you are doing with me ."

EUGENIE-I adore the remark . . . . Ah, my dear , how great i s my urge to become acquainted with these divine outbursts of a disordered imagination ! You'd never believe it , but during our stay together . . . since the instant we met-no, no, my darling, never could you conceive all the voluptuous ideas my brain has caressed . . . . Oh, how well I now understand wha t is evil . . . how much it is des ired o f my heart !

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-May a troci ties, horrors, may the most odious cr imes astonish you no more, my Eugenie ; what i s of the filthiest , the most infamous, the most forbidden, ' t i s that which best rouses the intellect . . . 'tis tha t which always causes us most deliciously to discharge.

EUGENIE-To how many incredible perversit ies must you not, the one and the other, have surrendered yourselves ! And how I should relish hearing the details I

DOLMANCE, kissing and fon dling the y o u ng lady-Beauteous Eugenie , a hundred times more would I love to see you experience all I should love to do, rather than to relate to you what I have done.

EUGENIE-I know not whether i t would be too good for me to accede to everything.

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-I would not advise it, Eugenie .

EUGENIE-Very well , I spa re Dolmance his narrations ; but you, my dear , pray tel l me what they are , the most extraordinary things you have done in your l i fe ?

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-I engaged fifteen men, alone ; in twenty-four hours, I was ninety times fucked, as much before as be­ hind.

EUGENIE-Mere debauches, those, tours de force ; I dare wager you have done yet more uncommon things.

234 + THE MARQUIS DE SADE

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-I passed a term in a brothel .

EUGENIE-And what does that word mean ?

DOLMANCE-Such a re called the public houses where in con- sideration of a price agreed upon, each man finds young and pretty girls in good sort to satis fy his passions.

EUGENIE-And you gave yourself there, my dearest ?

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Yes ; there I was, a perfect whore ; there during an entire week I satisfied the whims of a goodly num­ ber of lechers, and there ] beheld the most unusual tastes di splayed ; moved by a s imilar libertine principle , like the celebrated empress Theodora , Justin ian 's wi f e , ! I waylaid men in the streets, upon pub­ l ic promenades, and the money I earned from these prostitutions I spent a t the lottery.

EUGENIE-My dear , I know that mind of yours : you've gone still further than that.

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Were i t possible ?

EUGENIE-Why, ye:d Yes, and this is how I fancy i t : have you not told me our mm t delicious moral sensations come of the imagina tion ?

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-I did say so.

EUGENIE-Then, by allowing this imagination to stray, by ac­ cording i t the freedom to overstep those ult imate boundaries reli­ gion, decency, humanenes:" virtue , in a word, all our pretended obl i­ gations would like to pr escribe to it , i s i t not possible that the imagination's extravagances would be prodigious ?

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-N 0 doubt.

EUGENIE-Well, i s i t not by reason of the immensity of these extravagances that the imagination will be the more inflamed ?

MADAME DE SAINT-.A NGE-Nothing more true.

EUGENIE-If that i s so, the more we wish to be agitated, the more we desire to be moved violently, the more we must give rein

1 See the Anecdotes of ProcOJ>ius.

Philosophy in the Bedroom + 2 3 5

to our imagination ; we must bend i t toward the inconceivable ; our enjoyment will thereby be increased, made better for the track the intellect follows, and . . .

DOLMANCE, kissing Eugenie-Delicious !

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-My, but how our little rascal has progressed, and in such a brief space ! But, do you know, my charm­ ing one, that one can go very far by the route you trace for us.

EUGENIE-I understand i t very nicely thus ; and since I will subj ect myself to no inhibit ions, you see to what lengths I suppose one may go.

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-To crime, vicious creature, to the blackest, most frightful crimes.

EUGENIE, in a lowered and halting 'Voice-But you say no crime exists there . . . and after all , i t i s but to fire the mind : one thinks, but one does not do.

DOLMANCE-However, 'tis very sweet to carry out what one has fancied.

E UGENIE, flushing-Well, then, carry i t out . . . . \Vould you not like to persuade me, dear teachers, that you have never done wha t you have conceived ?

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-It has sometimes been given to me to do it . . . .

EUGENIE-There we are I

DOLMANCE-Ah ! what a mind.

EUGENIE, cont inuing-What I ask you is this : what have you fancied, and then, having fancied, what have you done ?

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE, s tammering-Someday, Eugenie , I shall . . . relate my l i fe to you. Let us continue our instruction . . . for you would bring me to say things . . . things • . .

EUGENIE-Ah, begone I I see you do not love me enough fully to open your soul to me ; I shall wait as long as you say ; let 's get on

236 .. THE MARQUIS DE SADE

with the particulars . Tell me, my dear , who was the happy mortal who intended a t your beginnings ?

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-My brother : from childhood on he adored me ; during ou r earl iest years we often amused each other without attaining our goal ; I p romised to give myself to him im­ mediately I married ; I kept my word ; happily, my husband dam­ aged nothing : my brother harvested all . We continue with our in­ tr igue , but without hampering ourselves j we do not-he on his part , I on mine-plunge ou �selves into anything but the most divine of l ibertinage ' s excesses j we even mutually serve one another : I pro­ ' cure women for him, he introduces me to men.

EUGENIE-Delightful arrangement ! But, i s not incest a crime ?

DOLMANCE-Might one so regard Nature 's gentlest unions, the ones she most insistently p rescribes to us and counsels most warmly ? Eugenie, a moment o f reason : how, after the vast afflic­ tions our planet somet me knew, how was the human species other­ wise able to perpetuate itsel f, i f not through incest? Of which we find, do we not, the ex.mple and the proof i tsel f in the books Chri s­ t ianity respects most highly. By what other means could Adam's familr and that of N Jah have been preserved ? Sift , examine uni­ versal custom : everywhere you will detect incest authorized, con­ sidered a wise law and proper to cement familial ties. If, in a word, love is born of resemblance, where may it be more perfect than between brother and sister , between father and daughter ? An ill-founded policy, one produced by the fear lest certain families become too powerful, bans incest from our midst ; but let us not abuse ourselves to the point of mistaking for natural law what is dictated to us only by interest or ambition ; let us delve into our hearts : ' ti s always there I send our pedantic moral ists j let us but question this sacred o r gan and we will notice that nothing i s more exquisite than carnal c onnection within the family ; let us cease to be blind with what concerns a brother ' s feelings for his sister, a father ' s for his daugb ter : in vain does one o r the other disguise them behind a mask of legitimate tenderness : the most violent love

2 Adam was nothing, nor w a s N o ah, but a restorer of hum ankind. An appalling catastrophe l eft Adam alone in the world, just as a similar event did Noah ; but Ad am's tradition is lost to us, Noah', has been preserved.

Philosophy in the Bedroom .. 237

i s the unique sentiment ablaze in them, the only one Nature has de­ posited in the ir hearts. Hence , let us double , triple these delicious incests, fearlessly multiply them, and let us beli eve that the more straitly the obj ect of our desires does belong to us , the greater charm shall there be in enjoying it.

One of my friends has the habit of l iving with the girl he had by his own mother ; not a week ago he deflowered a thirteen-year­ old boy, fruit of his commerce with this girl ; in a few years' time, this same lad will wed his mother : such are my friend's wishes ; he is readying for them all a destiny analogous to the proj ects he delights in and his intentions, I know very well, are yet to enjoy what this marriage will bring to bear ; he is young and he has cause to hope for the best. Consider, gentle Eugenie , with what a quantity of in­ cests and crimes this honest friend would be soiled were there a j o t of truth in the low notion that would have us define these alli­ ances as evil. To be brief, in all these matters I base my attitude upon one principl e : had Nature condemned sodomy's pleasures, in­ cestuous correspondences, pollutions, and so forth, would she have allowed us to find so much delight in them ? That she may tolerate what outrages her is unthinkable .

EUGENIE-Oh ! My divine teachers, I see full well that, ac­ cording to your doctrine, there are very few crimes in the world, and that we may peacefully follow the bent of all our desires, how­ ever singular they may appear to fools who, shocked and alarmed by everything, stupidly confuse social institutions for Nature's di­ vine ordinations. And yet, my friends, do you not at least acknowl­ edge that there exist certain actions absolutely revolting and de­ cidedly criminal, although enjoined by Nature ? I am nothing loath to agree with you, tha t this Nature , as extraordinary in the produc­ tions she creates as various in the p enchants she gives us, sometimes moves us to cruel deeds ; but if, surrendered to depravity, we were to yield to this bizarre Nature's promptings, were we to go so far a s to attempt, let me suppose, the lives of our fellows, you will surely grant me, at least I do hope so, that such an act would be a crime ?

DOLMANcE-Indeed, Eugenie, l ittle good would i t do for us to grant you anything of the sort. Destruction being one of the

23 8 .. THE MARQ U I S DE SADE

chi e f laws of Nature , n othing that destroys can be criminal ; how might an action which s) well serves Nature ever be outrageous to her ? This destruction 0 f which man is wont to boast is, moreover, nothing but an illusion j murder is no destruction j he who commits it does but alter forms, he gives back to Nature the elements whereof the hand of tb i s skilled artisan instantly re-creates other beings : now, as creations cannot but afford delight to him by whom they are wrought, the mlrderer thus prepares for Nature a pleasure most agreeable, he furn shes her materials , she employs them with­ out delay, and the act fe,ols have had the madness to blame is noth­ ing but meritorious in the universal agent's eye. 'Tis our pride prompts us to elevate murder into crime. Esteeming ourselves the foremost of the universe' s creatures, we have stupidly imagined that every hurt thi s sublime creature endures must perforce be an enormity ; we have believed Nature would perish should our marvel­ ous species chance to be : blotted out of existence, while the whole extirpation of the breed would, by returning to Nature the creative faculty she has entrusted to us , reinvigorate her, she would have again that energy we de?rive her of by propagating our own selves ; but wha t an inconsequence, Eugenie ! indeed I an ambitious sovereign can destroy, at his ease and without the least scruple , the enemies prejudicial to his grand ose designs . . . . Cruel laws, arbitrary, im­ perious laws can likewi: ;e every century assassinate millions of in­ dividuals and we, feebl e and wretched creatures, we are not al­ lowed to sacrifice a singl e being to our vengeance or our caprice I Is there anything so barbarous, so outlandish, so grotesque ? and, cloaking ourselves in the profoundest mystery, must we not amply compensate ourselves fe r this ineptitude, and have revenge ?3

EUGENIE-Yes, of course . . . Oh, but your ethics seduce me, and how I savor their b ouquet I Yet, wait , Dolmance, tell me now, in good conscience, whe ther you have not sometimes had satisfac­ tion in crime ?

DOLMANCE-Do n ot force me to reveal my faults to you : the ir number and kind might bring me excessively to blush j Perhaps someday I 'l l confess the n to you .

3 This a rticle will be treated exha u stively further on ; for the time being, we limit ourselves to l aying some of th" bases for the system to be developed l ater.

Philosophy in the Bedroom .. 239

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-While guiding the law's blade , the criminal has often employed i t to satisfy his passions.

DOLMANCE-Would that I h ave no other reproaches to make myself I

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE, throwing her arms about his neck­ Divine man I . . . I adore you I . . . What spirit , wha t courage are needed to have tasted every pleasure, as have you ! 'Tis to the man of genius only there i s reserved the honor of shattering all the l inks and shackles of ignorance and stupidity. Kiss me-oh, you are charming I

DOLMANcE-Be frank, Eugenie , tell me : have you never wished the death of anyone ?

EUGENIE-Oh, I have I Yes I there is every day before my eyes an abominable creature I have long wished to see in her grave.

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Now, I dare say I have guessed her name.

E UGENIE-Whom do you suspect ?

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Your mother ?

EUGENIE-Oh, let me hide myself upon your breast I

DOLMANCE-Voluptuous creature ! in my turn I would over- whelm her with the caresses that should be the reward of her heart's energy and her exquis ite mind. (Dolmance kisses her entire body and bes tows light smacks upo n her buttocks; he has an erection ; his hands, from time to time, s tray als o over Madame de Sain t-A nge's behind which is lubriciously tendered him; restored a lit tle to his senses, Dolmance proceeds. ) But why should we not put this sub­ l ime idea into execution ?

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Eugenie , I detested my mother quite as much a s you hate yours, and I hesitated not.

EUGENIE-The means have been lacking to me.

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-The courage, rather.

EUGENIE-Alas ! still so young.

240 + THE MARQt IS DE SADE

DOLMANCE-But, Eugenie , now what would you do ?

EUGENIE-Everything . . . only show me the way and you'll see I

DOLMANCE-It wi ll be shown you, Eugenie , I promise i t ; but thereunto , I put a condi :ion.

EUGENIE-And w.1at is i t ? or rather what i s the condition I am not ready to accept ?

DOLMANcE-Come, my rascal , come into my arms : I can hold off no longer ; your charming behind must be the price of the gi ft I promise you, one crim e has got to pay for another. Come hither ! . . . nay, both , the two of you , run to drown in floods of fuck the heavenly fire that blazes in us 1

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-If you please, let us put a l ittle order in these revels ; measure is requ i red even in the depths of infamy and delirium.

DOLMANCE-N othing easier : the major object, so i t appears to me, is that I discharge the while giving this charming girl all possible pleasure : I am going to insert my prick in her ass ; mean­ while, as she reclines i n �TOur arms you will frig her ; do your utmost ; by means of the position I place you in , she will be able to retaliate in kind ; you will kiss on e another. After a few runs into this child 's ass, we wil l vary the picture : I wil l have you, Madame, by the ass ; Eugenie , on top o f you, your head between her legs, will present her cl itoris to me ; I 'll suck i t : thus I 'll cause her to come a second time. Next, I will lodge my prick in her anus ; you will avail me of your ass , ' twill take the plac e of the cunt she had under my nose, and now you will have at i : in the style she will have employed, her head now between your legs ; I'll suck your asshole as I have just sucked her cunt, you wil l discharge, so will I , and all the while my hand, embracing the dear sweet pretty li ttle body of this charming novice, will go ahead to tickle her clitoris that she too may swoon from delight.

MADAME DE SAIW�-ANGE-Capital , my Dolmance, but will not there be something missing ?

Philosophy in the Bedroo m + 241

DOLMANCE-A prick in my ass ? Madame, you are right.

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Let's do without i t this morning : we'll have it in the a fternoon : my brother will j oin u s and our pleasures will be at the ir height. Now let 's to work.

DOLMANCE-I think I 'll have Eugenie frig me for a moment. ( She does s o . ) Yes, quite, that's it . . . a bit more quickly, my heart . . . that rosy head must always be kept naked, never let it be covered over, the more ' ti s kept taut the more you facil itate the erection . . . never, you must never cap the prick you frig . . . 'Tis very well done . . . thus you yourself put into a proper state the member that i s to perforate you . . . . Notice how it responds, gets sturdily up . . . . Give me your tongue, l i ttle bi tch . . . . Let your ass rest on my right hand, while my left goes on to toy with your clitoris .

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Eugenie , would you l ike to cause him to taste the extremest pleasure s ?

EUGENIE-By all means . . . I wish to do everything to give him them.

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Why, then take his prick in your mouth and suck it a few instants.

EUGENIE , does it-Thus ?

DOLMANCE-Delicious mouth I what warmth I Worth as much to me as the prettiest ass! . . . Voluptuous, tactful, accomplished woman, never deny your lovers this pleasure : ' twill bind them to you forever . . . Ah I by God I ah, by God's own fuck I . . .

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-My, what blasphemies, my friend.

DOLMANCE-I'll have your ass, Madame, i f you please . . . . Yes, give i t me, let me kiss it while I 'm sucked, and be not astonished at my language : one of my largest pleasures i s to swear in God's name when I 'm stiff. It seems then that my spirit , a t such a moment exalted a thousand times more, abhors, scorns this disgusting fiction ; I would like to discover some way better to revile it or to outrage i t further ; and when my accursed musings lead me to the conviction of the null i ty of this repulsive obj ect of my hatred, I am

242 .. THE MARQUIS DE SADE

i rritated and would ins ':antly like to be able to re-edi fy the phantom so that my rage might a t least fall upon some targe t ; imitate me, charming women, and you wi l l observe such discourses to increase without fail your sensi ) i l ity . But, by God's very damnation, I say, I 've got absolutely, w,1atever be my pleasure, I 've got to retire from this celestial mouth . . . else I ' l l leave my fuck in i t ! . . . All right, Eugenie , move ! let 's get on with the scene I proposed and, the three of us, let 's be plunged into the most voluptuous drunken­ ness. ( The positions ar,; arranged. )

EUGENIE�Oh, how I fear, dear one, that your efforts will come to naught! The disproportion i s exceedingly strong.

DOLMANCE-Why, I sodomize the very youngest every day ; just yesterday a l ittle : ad of seven was deflowered by that prick, and in less than three minutes . . . . Courage, Eugenie , courage ! . . .

EUGENIE-Oh ! y,)u're tearing me !

MADAME DE SAINf-ANGE-A l i ttle management there, Dol­ mance ; remember , I am responsible for the creature.

DOLMANCE-Ther. frig her, Madame, she'l l feel the pain less ; but there ! ' t is said , ' ti s done ! I 'm in up to the hilt .

EUGENIE-Oh heaven ! i t i s not without trouble . . see the sweat on my forehead, :lear friend . . . . Ah I God, I 've never under­ gone such agonies I . . .

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Yet there you are, dear heart , half deflowered, there you are , arrived at a woman' s estate ; ' t is well worth purchasing the g: ory at the cost of a l i ttle inconvenience ; my fingers then do not soot ;1e you at all ?

EUGENIE-Could I have borne it without them ! . . . Tickle away, rub, my angel. . . . I feel i t , imperceptibly the pain meta- morphoses into pleasur � . . . . Push, Dolmance ! . . . thrust I thrust ! oh, I am dying ! . . .

DOLMANCE-O by God's holy fuck! thrice bloody fuck of God ! Let's change ! I 'l l not b,� able to hold . . . your behind, kind lady, I beseech you, your ass , quick, place yourself as I told you . ( Shift of att itude, and Dolmtlnre goes o n . ) 'Tis eas ier so . . . how my

Philosophy in the Bedroom + 243

p rick penetrates . . . but, M adame, this noble ass is not the less delicious for that . . . .

E UGENIE-Am I as I should be, Dolmance?

DOLMANcE-Admi rably ! I 've got this l i ttle virgin cunt all to myself, delicious. Oh, I'm a guilty one, a villain, indeed I know it ; such charms were not made for my eyes ; but the desire to provide this child with a firm grounding in voluptuousness over­ shadows every other considerat ion. I want to make her fuck to flow, if ' t i s possible I want to exhaust her, drink her dry . . . . ( He sucks her. )

EUGENIE-This pleasure will kill me, I can' t resist it ! . . .

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-T'm coming, I say ! Oh fuck ! . • . fuck ! . . . Dolmance, I 'm discha rging ! . . .

EUGENIE-And I too, my darling ! Oh, my God, how h e does suck me ! ...

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Then swear, l ittle whore, curse ! . . . Then cry an oath ! . . .

E UGENIE-Al l right then, damn thee! I discharge I Damn thee ! . . . I am so sweetly drunk ! . . .

DOLMANCE-To your post ! . . . Take up your station I . . . Eugenie ! . . . I 'l l be the dupe o f these handlings and shifts. ( Eugenie assumes her place . ) Ah, good! here again am I, at my original place and abode ... exhibit your asshole, M adame, I 'll pump i t at my leisure . . . . Oh, but I love to kiss an ass I 've just l eft off fucking . . . . Ah I l ick up mine , do you h ear, while I drive my sperm deep home into your friend's . . . . Wouldst beli eve it, Madame? in i t goes , and this time effortlessly ! Ah, fuck I fuck ! you've no i d e a how it squeezes , how she clamps me I Holy frigging God, what ecstasy! . . . Oh, ' tis there, 'tis done, I resist no longer . . . flow I my fluid flows ! . . . and I die ! . • •

E UGENIE-He causes me to die also, my friend, I swea r i t to you . . . .

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-The wench ! how promptly she' s taken to it !

244 .. THE MARQUIS DE SADE

DOLMANcE-Yes, bt t I know countless girl s of her age nothing on ea rth could force to take their pleasure otherwise ; 'tis only the first encounter that taxes ; a woman has no sooner tried that sauce and she'll eat no other co okery . . . . Oh heavens ! I 'm spent ; let me get my breath, a few moments' respite, please .

MADAME DE SAINT-A NGE-There they are , my dear : men. A glance at us, no more, ane their desires are satisfied ; the subsequent annihilation conducts then to disgust , soon to contempt.

DOLMANCE, co 0 lly- Why, what an insult, heavenly creature ! ( They embrace . ) The one and the other o f you are made for naught but homages , wha tever be the state wherein one finds one­ self.

MADAME DE SAINT-f,NGE-COnsole yourself, Eugenie ; while they may have acqui red the right to n eglect us because they are sated, have we not in the same way that to scorn them, when their conduct bids us to i t ? I f Tiberius sacrified to Caprea the obj ects that had just appeased h :s hungers,4 Zingua , Africa 's queen, also immolated her lovers.5

DOLMANCE-Such excesses, perfectly simple and very in­ tell igible to me, doubtless , all the same ought never be commi tted amongst ourselves : "vVol ves are safe in their own company," a s t h e proverb has it , a n d trivi al though i t m a y be , ' t i s true . My friends, dread nothing from me, ever : I ' l l perhaps have you do much that is evi l , but never will :: do any to you.

EUGENIE-N 0 , my dear , I dare be held answerable for i t : never will Dolmance abm e the privileges we grant him ; I believe he has the roue' s probity : i t is the best ; but let us bring our teacher back to his theorems and, before our senses subside into calm, let u s return, I beg o f you, to the gre a t design that inflamed us before.

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Wha t, dost think yet on that ? I thought 'twas no more than a l i ttle intellectual effervescence.

EUGENIE-It is the nost certain impulse of my heart, and I ' ll not be content till the crim � i s done.

� See Suetonius and Dion C assiu of Nicaea. � See the History of Zingua, Qu. -en of Angola.

Philosophy in the Bedroom -+ 245

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Oh splendid ! splendid I Let her off, though ; consider : she is your mother.

E UGENIE-Noble title I

DOLMANcE-She is right : did this mother think o f Eugenie when she brought her into the world? The j a de let herself be fucked because she found it agreeable, but she was very far from having this daughter in mind. Let her act as she sees fit with what regards her mothe r ; let's allow her compIete freedom and we'll be content to a ssure her that, whatever be the extreme lengths she goes to, never will she render herself guilty o f any evil .

E UGENIE-I abhor her , I de test her, a thousand causes justi fy my hate ; I 've got to h ave her life a t no matter what the cost I

DOLMANcE-Very well, since your resolve is unshakable, you'll be satisfied, Eugenie, I give you my oath ; but permit me a few words o f advice which, before you act, are of the utmost neces­ sity. N ever let your secret go out of your mouth, my dear, and always act alone : nothing is more dangerous than an accomplice : let us always beware of even those whom we think most closely attached to u s : "One must," wrote Machiavelli , "e i ther have no confederates, or dispatch them as soon as one has made use of them." Nor is that all : guile , Eugenie , guile is indispensable to the p roj ects you are forming. Move closer than ever to your victim before destroying her ; h ave the look of sympa thy for her, seem to console her ; cajole her, partake of her sufferings, swear you wor­ ship her ; do yet more : persuade her of it : deceit, in such instances, cannot be carried too far. Nero caressed Agrippina upon the deck of the very bark with which she was to be engulfed : imitate his example, use all the knavery, all the imposture your brain can in­ vent. To lie i s always a necessity for women ; above all when they choose to deceive, falsehood becomes vital to them.

E UGENIE-Those instructions will be remembered and, no doubt, put into effect ; but let us delve deeper into this deceit whose usage you recommend to women ; think you then that i t is absolutely essential in this world?

246 + THE MARQUI S DE SADE

DOLMANCE-Without hesitation I say I know of nothing more necessary in l ife ; one certain truth shall prove i ts indispensa­ bil i ty : everyone employs i t ; I ask, in the light of that, how a sincere individual will not always founder in the midst of a society of false people. Now, i f ' tis true , as they declare , that virtues are of some usefulness in civil life, how would you have someone unprovided with either will, or power, or the gift of any virtue, which is the case with many persons , how, I ask you, would you have i t that such a personage be not essentially obliged to feign, to dissemble, in order to obtain, in his turn, a l i ttle portion of the happiness his competitors seek to wre s t away from him ? And, in effect, i t is very surely virtue, or might it not be the appearance of virtue, which really becomes necessary to social man ? Let's not doubt that the appearance alone is quite sufficient to him : he has got that, and he possesses all he needs. Since one does nothing in this world but pinch, rub, and elbow others, is it not enough that they display their skin to us ? Let us morec,ver b e well persuaded that o f the practice o f virtue we can at the " ery most say that it is hardly useful save to him who has i t ; others reap so l i ttle therefrom that so long as the man who must live amongst other men appears virtuous , i t matters not in the slight,!st whether he is so in fact or not. Deceit, furthermore, is almost a' ways an assured means to success ; he who possesses deceit necessarily begins with an advantage over who­ soever has commerce Ot correspondence with him : dazzling him with a false exterior, hI: gains h is confidence ; convince others to place trust in you, and you have succeeded. I perceive someone has deceived me, I have only myself to blame ; and he who has conned me has done so all the more prettily i f because of pride I make no complaint and bear i t all nobly ; his ascendancy over me will always be pronounced ; he will be right, I wrong ; he will advance, I 'l l recede ; he is great, I am nothing ; he will be enriched, I ruined ; in a word, always above me , he'll straightway capture public opinion ; once arrived th ere , useless for me to inculpate him, I 'll simply not be heard ; and so boldly and unceasingly we'll give our­ selves over to the most infamous dece i t ; let us behold i t as the key to every grace, every favor, all reputation, all riches, and by means of the keen pleasure of acting villainously, let us placate the l ittle twinge our conscience feds at having manufactured dupes.

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MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Having there infinitely more on the matter than, so it appears to me, i s needed, Eugenie , well con­ vinced, ought also to be reassured, encouraged : she will take action when she pleases . We had now better resume our dissertations upon men's various l ibertine caprices ; the field should be vast ; let ' s survey i t ; we've just in it iated our student into a few of the practice's mysteries , let ' s not neglect theory.

DOLMANCE-The libertine details of masculine passions , Madame, have l i ttle therein to provide suitable stuff for the in­ struction of a girl who, l ike Eugenie , i s not destined for the whoring profession ; she will marry and, sllch being the hypothesis , one may s take ten to one on it , her husband will have none of those inclina­ tions j however, were he to have them, her wiser conduct is readily to be described : much gentleness, a readiness ever to comply, good humor ; on the other hand, much deceit and ample but covert com­ pensation : those few words contain it all . However, were you, Eugenie , to desire some analysis o f men's preferences when they resort to l ibertinage, we might, i in order most lucidly to examine the question, generally reduce those tastes to three : sodomy, sac­ rilegious fancies, and penchants to cruelty. The first of these pas­ s ions i s universal today ; to what we have already sa id upon it , we shall join a few choice reflections. I t divides into two classes , active and passive : the man who embuggers, be i t a boy, be i t a woman, acquits himself o f an active sodomization j he i s a passive sodomite when he has himself buggered. The question has often been raised, which of the two fashions o f sodomistic behavior i s the more voluptuous ? assuredly, 't is the passive, since one enjoys at a single stroke the sensations of before and behind ; it is so sweet to change sex, so delicious to counterfeit the whore, to give oneself to a man who treats u s a s if we were a woman, to call that man one's p aramour, to avow oneself h is mistress ! Ah! my friends, what voluptuousness ! But, Eugenie , we shall limit ourselves here to a few details of advice relating only to women who, transforming themselves into men, wish, like us, to enjoy this delicious pleasure. I have just familiar ized you with those attacks, Eugenie , and I have observed enough to be persuaded you will one o f these days make admirable progress in this career ; I exhort you to pursue i t diligently

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as one of the most delightful of the Cytherean isle , and am per­ fectly sure you will follow my counsel. I ' ll restrict myself to two or three suggestions essenti al to every person determined hence­ forth to know none but l hese pleasures or ones analogous. Fi rst of all, be mindful also of YC1urself, insist your clitoris be frigged while you are being buggered : no two things harmonize so sweetly a s do these two pleasures ; avoid a douche, let there be no rubbing upon the sheets, no wiping with towels , when you have just been fucked in this style ; 't is a goo :l idea to have the breech open always ; whereof result desires , a 1d titill ati ons which soon obvi ate any con­ cern for tidiness ; there is no imagining to what point the sensations are prolonged. Prior to sodomite amusements remember to avoid acids : they aggravate ha l �morrhoids and render in troductions pain­ ful : do not permit several men to discha rge one after the other into you r ass : this mixtl re o f sperms, however i t may excite the imagination, i s never beneficial and often dangerous to the h e alth ; always r id yoursel f o f ea,:h emission before allowing the next to b e deposited.

E UGENIE-But if they were to be made i n my cunt, should tha t purging not be a crirr e ?

MADAME DE SAINT-A NGE-Imagine nothing of the sort, sweet l i ttle fool ; there i s not t� e least wrong in diverting a man's semen into a detour by one means or by another, because propagation i s in n o wise the obj ective of N' ature ; she m erely tolerates it ; from her viewpoint, the less we propagate, the better ; and when we avoid i t altogether, th at's best of all . Eugenie , be the implacable enemy of thi s wearisome chi ld-getting, and even ill ma rriage incessantly deflect that perfidious l iquor whose vegetation serves only to spoil our figures, which deadens our voluptuous sensations, withers us, ages and makes us fade a nd disturbs our health ; get your husband to accustom himsel f to these losses j entice him into this or that p assage, let him busy him;elf there and thus keep him from making his offerings a t the temple ; tell him you detest children, point out the advantages o f having none. Keep a close watch over yourself in this a rticle, my dear, f 'Jr, I declare to you, I hold generation in such horror I should ceas e : to be your friend the instant you were to become pregnant. If , however, the mis fortune does occur, without

Philosophy in the Bedroom + 249

yourself having been at fault, notify me within the first seven or e ight weeks, and I ' ll have it very neatly remedied. Dread not infanticide ; the cr ime i s imaginary : we are always mistress of what we carry in our womb, and we do no more harm i n destroying this kind of matter than i n evacuating another, by medicines, when we feel the need.

E UGENIE-But if the child i s near the hour of i ts birth ?

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-'Were i t in the world, we should still have the right to destroy it. In all the world there i s no prerogative more secure than that of mothers over their children. No race has failed to recogniz e this truth : 'tis founded i n reason, consecrated in principle.

DOLMANC E-The right is n a tural . . . i t i s incontestable. The deific system's extravagance was the source o f every one o f those gross errors. The imbeciles who believed in God, persuaded that our existence i s had of none but him and that immediately an embryo begins to mature, a l i ttle soul, emanation of God, comes straightway to animate i t ; these fools, I say, a. ssuredly h a d to regard as a capital crime this small creature' s undoing, because, according to them, it no longer belonged to men. 'Twa s God's work ; ' twas God's own : dispatch i t without crime ? No. Since, however, the torch o f philos­ ophy has diss ipated all those impostures , since, the celestial chimera has been tumbled in the dust, since , better instructed of physics' laws and secrets, we have evolved the principle o f generation, and now that this material mechanism offers nothing more astonishing to the eye than the development o f a germ of wheat, we have been called back to N ature and away from human error. As we have broadened the horizon o f our rights, we have recognized that we are perfectly free to take back what we only gave up reluctantly, or by accident, and that i t is impossible to demand o f any individual whomsoever that he become a father or a mother against his will ; that this creature whether more or less on earth is not of very much con­ sequence, and that we become, in a word, as certainly the masters of this morsel of flesh, however i t be animated, as we are of the nails we pare from our fingers, or the excrements we eliminate through our bowels , because the one and the other are our own, and

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because we are absolute proprietors of what emanates from us . Having had elaborated for you, Eugenie , the very mediocre im­ portance the act of murd.!r has here on earth, you have been obliged to see of what slight consequence, similarly, must be everything that has to do with childbearing even if the act is perpetrated against a person who has arrived a t the age of reason ; unnecessary to em­ broider upon i t : your b igh intelligence adds its own arguments to support my proofs. Peruse the history of the manner of all the world 's peoples and you will unfailingly see that the practice is global ; you will finally ")e convinced that i t would be sheer im­ becility to accord a very indifferent action the title of evil .

EUGENIE, first to D 'Jlmance-I cannot tell you to what point you persuade me. (Now addressing herself to Madame de Saint­ A nge : ) But tell me, my :nost dear, have you ever had occasion to employ the remedy you p :�opose to me in order internally to destroy the fetus ?

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Twice, and both times with total success ; but I must admi t I have had recourse to i t only at preg­ nancy's outset ; however, [ am acquainted with two ladies who have used the same remedy at mid-term, and they assure me it all came out as happily with them . Should you be in need, count upon me, my dear, but I urge you never to allow yoursel f to fall into a state of having need. An ounc,: o f prevention . . . But back we go , and on with the lubricious d<tails we have promised this young lady. Pursue, Dolmance ; we've reached the sacrilegious fancies.

DOLMANCE-I suppose Eugenie i s sufficiently disabused on the score of religious errors to be intimately persuaded that sporting with the obj ects of fools' piety can have no sort of consequence. Sacrilegious fancies have :;0 li ttle substance to them that indeed they cannot heat any but those very youthful minds gladdened by any rupture of restraint ; ' ti s nere a kind of petty vindictiveness which fires the imagination and which, very probably, can provoke a moment or two of enjoyment ; but these delights, it would seem to me, must become insipid and cold when one is of an age to under­ stand and to be convinced of the null ity of the obj ects of which the idols we j eer at are but meager likenesses. The profanation of

Philosophy in the Bedroom 4 2 5 1

relics, the images o f saints, the host, the crucifix, all that, in the philosopher's view can amount to no more than the degradation o f a pagan statue. Once your scorn h a s condemned those execrable baubles, you must leave them to contempt , and forget them j ' t is not wise to preserve anything for all that but blasphemy, not that blasphemy has much meaning, for as of the moment God does not exist, what's the use of insulting his name ? but it i s essential to pronounce hard and foul words during pleasure's intoxication, and the language of blasphemy very well serves the imagination. Be utterly unsparing j be lavish in your expressions ; they must scan­ dalize to the last degree ; for ' tis sweet to scandalize : causing scandal flatters one's pride, and though this be a minor triumph, 't is not to be disdained ; I say it openly, Mesdames , such i s one of my secret delights : few are the moral pleasures which more actively affect my imagination. Try it, Eugenie, and you shall see what results from it. Above all , labor to articulate a prodigious impiety when you find yourself with persons of your own age who yet vegetate in superstition's twil ight ; parade your debauchery , an­ nounce your libertinage ; affect a whorish air, let them spy your breast when you go with them into secluded places, garb yourself indecently ; flauntingly expose the most intimate parts of your body ; require of your friends that they do the same ; seduce them, lecture them, cause them to see what i s ridiculous in their prejudices ; put them eye to eye with what is called evil ; in their company swear like a trooper j if they are younger than you , take them by force, ply them with examples or with counsels , entertain them with all you can think of that is, in a word, most apt to pervert them, thuswise corrupt them ; similarly, be extremely free with men ; display irre­ ligion and impudence to them ; far from taking umbrage at the liberties they will take, mysteriously grant them everything which can amuse them without compromising yourself ; let yourself be handled by them, frig them, get yourself frigged ; yes, go even so far as to lend them your ass ; but, since the fictitious honor of women is bound up with their anterior integrity, be in a less willing humor to have i t demolished ; once married, secure a lackey, not a lover, or pay a few rel iable young men : from there on, all i s to be masked, and i s ; no more peril to your reputation and without anyone ever

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having been able to sl spect you, you have learned the art of doing wha tever you please. Let us move on.

Cruel pleasures comprise the third sort we promised to ana­ lyze . This variety is today exceedingly common amongst men, and here is the argument they employ to justify them : we wish to be roused, stirred, they lay, ' ti s the aim of every man who pursues pleasure, and we waul j be moved by the most active means. Taking our departure from :his point, it i s not a question of knowing whether our proceedings please or displease the obj ect that serves us , it i s purely a que� tion of exposing our nervous system to the most violent possible shock ; now, there i s no doubt that we are much more keenly affected by pain than by pleasure : the reverbera­ tions that result i n m when the sensation of pain i s produced in others wi l l essenti ally be of a more vigorous character, more in­ cisive, will more energetically resound in us, will put the animal spir its more violently into circulation and these, di recting them­ selves toward the nether regions by the retrograde motion essen­ tial to them, instant! Y" will i gnite the organs of voluptuousness and dispose them to pleasure. Pleasure's effects, in women, are always uncertain ; oft en disappointing ; i t i s , furthermore, very difficult for an old o r an ugly man to produce them. When i t does happen that they are produced, they are feeble, and the nervous concussions fainter ; hence, pain must be preferred, for pain 's telling effects cannot deceive, and i ts vibrations are more powerful . But, one may obj ect to men infatuated by this mania, this pain i s afflictive to one's fellow ; i s i t charitable to do others ill for the sake of delighting onesel f i In answer thereto, the rascals reply that, accustomed in the pleasure-taking act to thinking exclusively of themselves and accounting others as nothing, they are persuaded that i t i s entirely reasonable, in accordance with natural impulsions , to prefer what they fel to what they do not feel. \Vhat , they dare ask, what do these pa ns occasioned in others do to us ? Hurt us ? No ; on the contrary, we have just demonstra ted that from their­ production there resu lts a sensation delightful to us. For what reason then ought we to go softly with an individual who feels one thing while we feel an :>ther ? Why should we spare him a torment that will cost us never a tear, when i t is certain that from thi s

Philosophy in the Bedroo m .. 253

suffering a very great pleasure for us will be born ? Have w e ever felt a single natural impulse advising us to prefer others to our­ selves, and i s each of us not alone, and for h imself in this worl d ? 'Tis a very false tone you use when you speak to us of this Nature which you interpret as tell ing us not to do to others what we would not have done to u s ; such s tuff never came but from the lips of men, and weak men. Never does a s trong man take it into his head to speak that l anguage. They were the first Christ ians who, daily persecuted on account of their ri diculous doctrine, used to cry at whosoever chose to hear : " Don't burn us , don't fl ay us ! Nature says one must n o t do unto o thers that which un to oneself one would no t have done I " Fools I How could Nature, who always u rges us to delight in ourselves, who never implants in us other instincts, other notions, other inspirations, how could Nature, the next moment, assure us that we must not, however, decide to love our­ selves i f that might cause others pain ? Ah ! believe me, Eugenie, believe me, Nature, mother to us all, never speaks to us save of ourselves ; nothing has more o f the egoistic than her message, and .what we recognize most clearly therein is the immutable and sacred counsel : prefer thyself, love thyself, no matter at whose expense. But the others, they say to you, may avenge themselves . . . . Let th em ! the mightier will vanquish ; he will be right. Very well, there i t is , the primi tive state of p erpetual stri fe and destruction for which Nature's hand created us, and within which alone i t i s o f advantage to her tha t we remain.

Thus, my dear Eugenie, is the manner of these p ersons ' argu­ ing, and from my experience and studies I may add thereunto that cruelty, very far from being a vice, i s the first sentiment Nature inj ects in us all. The infant breaks his toy, bites his nurse's breast, strangles his canary long before he is able to reason ; cruelty is stamped i n animals, in whom, as I think I h ave said, Nature's laws are more emphatically to be read than in ourselves ; cruelty exi sts amongst savages, so much nearer to Nature than civilized men are ; absurd then to maintain cruelty i s a consequence of depravity. I repeat , the doctrine i s false. Cruelty is natural. All of us are born furnished with a dose of cruelty education later modifies ; but education does not belong to N a ture, and is as deforming to N a-

254 .. T H E MARQl I S DE SADE

ture's sacred effects as arboricul ture is to trees. In your orchards comp are the tree aban doned to Nature 's ministry with the other your art cares for, and you will see which i s the more beautiful, you will discover from whi,:h you will pluck the superior fru i t. Cruelty i s s imply the energy in a man civi l ization has not yet altogether corrupted : therefore i t i s a virtue, not a vice. Repeal your la ws, do away with your constraints, your chastisements, your habits, and cruelty will have danE;erous effects no more, since i t will never manifest i tself save when it meets with resistance, and then the coll i s ion will always b , � between competing cruelties ; i t is in the civi l ized state cruelty s dangerous, because the assaulted person nearly always lacks the force or the means to repel injury ; but in the state of uncivi l iza tion, i f cruelty 's target i s strong, he will repulse cruelty ; and if the person a ttacked i s weak, why, the case here is merely that of assault upon one of those persons whom N a ture's law prescribe s to yield to the strong-' tis all one, and why seek trouble where there is none ?

We may dispense with an explanation o f cruelty in man's lubricious pleasure ; yot: already have a faint idea, Eugenie , of the several excesses they tend to lead to, and your a rdent imagination must easily enable you to understand that for a firm and stoical spirit, they should be re stricted by no limits. Nero, Tiberius, Helio­ gabolus slaughtered the i r children to cause an erection ; Marechal de Retz, Charolais , Conde also committed murders of debauch ; the first declared upon being questioned that he knew no delight more powerful than the one derived from the torture infl icted by his chaplain and himself upon infants of either sex. Seven or e ight hundred sacrificed chik ren were found in one of his B reton cha­ teaux. All quite conceiv�.ble , I 've just p roven i t to you. Our consti tu­ tion, our scheme, our organs, the flow of l iquids , the animal spirits' energy, such are the physical causes which in the same hour make for the Tituses and the Neros, the Messalinas or the Chantals ; we can no lorger take pride in the virtue that repents of vice, no more condemn N ature for having caused us to be born good than for having created us criminal : she acts in keeping with her designs, her views, her needs : let us submit to them. And so I will only examine, in what follows, female cruelty, which is always

Philosophy in the Bedroo m .. 2 5 5

more active than male, by reason of the excessive sensibility o f women's organs.

In general, we distinguish two sorts of cruelty : that resulting from stupidi ty, which, never reasoned, never analyzed, assimilates the unthinking individual into a ferocious beast : this cruelty affords no pleasure, for he inclined to i t i s i.ncapable of discrimination ; such a being's brutalit ies are rarely dangerous : it is always easy to find protection against them ; the other species of cruelty, fruit of extreme organic sensibil ity, is known only to them who are extremely delicate in their person, and the extremes to which it drives them are those determined by intelligence and niceness of feeling ; this delicacy, so finely wrought, so sensitive to impressions, responds above all, best, and immediately to cruelty ; it awakens in cruelty, cruelty liberates it . How few are able to grasp these distinctions ! • . . and how few there are who sense them I They exist nonetheless. N ow, i t is this second kind of cruelty you will most often find in women. Study them well : you will see whether it i s not their exces­ sive sensitivity that leads them to cruelty ; you will see whether i t i s not their extremely active imagination, the acuity of their in­ telligence that renders them crimin:al, ferocious ; oh, they are charm­ ing creatures, every one of them ; and not one of the lot cannot turn a wise man into a giddy fool if she tries ; unhappily, the rigidity, or rather the absurdity, of our customs acts as no encouragement to their cruelty ; they are obliged to conceal themselves, to feign, to cover over their propensit ies with ostensible good and benevolent works which they detest to the depths of the ir soul ; only behind the darkest curtain, by taking the greatest precautions, aided by a few dependable friends, are they able to surrender to their inclina­ tions ; and as there are many of this sort, so there are many who are miserable . Would you meet them ? Announce a cruel spectacle , a burning, a battle, a combat of gladiators, you will see droves of them come running ; but these occasions are not numerous enough to feed their fury : they contain themselves, and they suffer.

Let 's cast a rapid glance at women of this variety. Zingua, Queen of Angola, cruelest of women, killed her lovers as soon as they had had their way with her ; o ften she had warriors contend while she looked on and was the victor 's prize ; to flatter her ferocious spirit , she had every pregnant woman under the age of

2 5 6 .. THE MARQ"C IS DE SADE

thirty ground in a mortar.6 Zoe, a Chinese emperor's wife, knew no pleasure equal to what she felt upon witnessing the execution of criminals j wanting these, she had slaves put to death, and the while would fuck with her husband, and proportioned her discharges to the anguishes she made these wretches endure. 'Twas she who, searching to improve t he tortures she imposed upon her victims, invented the famous hollow column of brass one heats after having sealed the pati ent with n. Theodora, Justinian's wife, amused her­ self seeing eunuchs mac e j and Messalina frigged herself while men were masturbated to death before her. The women of Florida cause their husband's member to swell and they deposit l i ttle insects upon the glans, which produces very horrible agonies j they league together to perform th e operation, several of them attacking one man in order to be more sure o f the thing. When the Spaniards came, they themselves held the ir husbands while those European barbarians assassinated them. Mesdames Voisin and la Branvill iers po isoned for the simple : pleasure of committing crime. In a word, h istory furnishes a tho lsand thousand details of women's cruelty, and it is because of the ntural penchant they have, because of their instincts for cruelty, th at I should like to have them become ac­ customed to active flagellation, a means by which cruel men appease their ferocity. Some f(w among them have the habit already, I know, but i t i s not yet in use amongst women, a t least to the point I should desire. By means of this outlet given women' s barbarity, society would have mu ch to gain j for, unable to be evil in one way, they are in some other, and, thus broadcasting their poison everywhere about, they cause their husbands and their famil ies to despair . The refusal to perform a good action, when the occasion presents i tself, and th.�t to relieve misfortune, surely gives con­ s iderable impetus, if yeu wish, to that ferocity into which certain women naturally are led, but all this is pale , weak stuff, and often falls far short of the need they have to do yet worse. There would be without doubt other devices whereby woman, at once sensitive and ferocious, might ca lm her intemperate emotions, but, Eugenie , they are dangerous me ans, and I should never dare recommend them to you . . . . But, my stars ! What i s the matter with you, dear angel ? Madame, look at the state your pupil i s in !

6 See the History of Zingua, Queen of Angola, written by a missionary.

Philosophy in the Bedroo m + 2 5 7

EUGENIE , frigging herself-Oh Christ ! you drive me wild ! See what your frigging speeches do ! . . .

DOLMANCE-To the rescue, Madame, help me if you will ! Are we going to allow this lovely child to discharge without our a id ? . . .

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Oh, what an injustice ' twould be ! ( Taking Eugenie in her arms . ) Adorable creature, never have I beheld a sensibil i ty like yours, never so delightful a mind ! . . .

DOLMANcE-Take care o f the fore-end, Madame, I am going to glide over this pretty li ttle a sshole with my tongue , and give her a few light slaps on these cheeks ; she must be made to discharge at least seven or eight times in this manner.

EUGENIE, wild-eyed, beside herself-Ah, by fuck ! i t won' t be difficult !

DOLMANCE-In your present posture , ladies , you might be able to suck my p rick, one a fter the other ; thus excited, I could with much more energy advance to our charming pupi l ' s pleasures.

EUGENIE-My dear , I dispute with you the honor of sucking this noble prick. (She seizes it . )

DOLMANCE-Oh, what delights I what voluptuous warmth ! Eugenie , will you behave well at this critical instant ?

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-She'll swallow, oh, I promise you, she'll swallow i t down ; yet . . . on the other hand, i f she were through childishness . . . for I do not know what reason . . . were she to neglect the duties lubricity imposes upon her . . .

DOLMANCE, grea tly aroused-I'd not forgive her , Madame, there would be no pardon for her ! . . . An exemplary punishment . . . I swear to you she'd be whipped . . . whipped till her blood flowed . . . . Ah, damn the both of you, I discharge . . . my fuck's coming ! . . . Swallow . . . swallow, Eugenie , let there not be one drop lost ! and you, Madame, look to my ass ; it's ready for you . . . . Do you see how i t yawns ? do you not see how i t calls your fingers ? By God's fuck! my ecstasy is complete . . . drive them in further , to the wrist ! Ah, back on our feet, I can no more . . . this delicious girl has sucked me like an angel . . . •

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E UGENIE-My d e a r , my adorable instructor, not a drop w a s l o s t . Kiss me, my love, your fuck i s now i n t h e depths o f m y bowels .

DOLMANcE-Sh e i s del ic ious . . . and how the wench d is­ cha rged ! . . .

MADAME DE SAI�T-ANGE-She i s inundated-but what 's that I h e a r ? Someone knocks ? who can have come to trouble u s ? My brother . . . imprudent creature !

E UGENIE-B ut, my dear , this i s trea son !

DOLMANc E-Unpralleled, i s i t not ? Fe a r not, Eugeni e, w e labor f o r naught b u t t o p rocure y o u pleasures.

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-And we' l l very soon convince her of i t ! Come in, dear b rother , and have a l augh a t this l itt le girl 's shyness ; she 's hiding haself so a s not to be seen by you.

DIALOGUE THE FOURTH

MADAME DE SAI NT-ANGE, EUGENIE, DOLMANCE, LE CHEVALIER DE MIRVEL

LE CHEVALIER-Lovely Eugenie , I beg you to be easy ; my discretion is entire ; there i s my sister and there my friend, both of whom can be held answerable for me.

DOLMANCE-I see but one way to terminate this ridiculous ceremony : look here, Chevalier , we are educating this pretty gi rl, we are teaching her all a l i ttle girl of her age should know and, the better to instruct her, we j oin some practice to theory. She must have a tableau dressed for her : i t must feature a prick discharging, that's where presently we are ; would you like to serve as model ?

LE CHEVALIER-Surely, the proposal i s too flattering to re­ fuse, and Mademoiselle has the charms that will very quickly guarantee the desired lesson's effects.

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Then let's go on ; to work!

EUGENIE-Oh, indeed, 'tis too much j you abuse my inexperi­ ence to such a degree . . . but for whom is Monsieur going to take me ?

LE C HEVALIER-For a charming girl, Eugenie . . . for the most adorable creature I have ever la id eyes on. ( He kisses her;

2 5 9

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h is hands rove over he1' charms, ) Oh God I what fresh, what sweet a ttractions I , . . enchanting ! . . .

DOLMANcE-Less prattle, Cheval ier , let ' s act instead ; I ' l l di rect the scene, ' ti s my right ; the obj ect here i s to exhibit to Eugenie the mechanics o f an ej aculation ; but, since i t should be difficult for her to obsl�rve such a phenomenon in cold blood, the four of us are going to group ourselves close together. You , Madame, will frig you r friend, I ' l l be responsible for the Chevalier. When 't is a question of a man's pollution, he would infini tely prefer to entrust the business to another man, not to a woman. As a man knows what sui ts himself , so he knows how to manage for another . • • . Well, off we go. Pc sitions ! ( They arrange themselves . )

MADAME D E SAIN1 -ANGE-Are we not too close ?

DOLMANCE, who has already go t his hands upon the Chevalier -Impossible to be too close, Madame ; we must have your friend' s face and breast inundated by the proofs of your brother ' s viri l ity ; l e t h im aim at her nose, as the saying goes . Master of the pump, I' l l d irect the stream in suh wise she' l l be covered quite absolutely. Meanwhile , frig her in every lubricious part of her body ; Eugenie , give all o f your imagination up to dwelling upon libertinage 's ult i­ mate extravagances ; think that you are about to see its most splendid mysteries operated before your very eyes ; cast away every restraint, spurn every O:le : never was modesty a virtue. Had Nature desired some part of our body to be hidden, she would have seen to the matter herself ; hut she created us naked ; hence, she wishes that we go naked, and a ll contrary practice thoroughly outrages her l aws. Children, who do not yet have any notion of pleasure and consequently of the necessity to render it more keen by modesty, exhibit all of themseh es. One also sometimes meets with a yet stranger curios ity : there are countries where, although modesty of manners i s not to be er countered, modesty of dress is in usage. In Tahiti , girls are clothec , and when one demands it , they strip . . . .

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-What I love about Dolmance i s tha t he wastes not a moment ; a l l the while he discourses, observe how he acts, look how approvingly he inspects my brother ' s superb ass , how voluptuously he frigs the young man's handsome prick.

Philosophy in the Bedroom .. 2 6 1

. . . Come, Eugenie , let 's not tarry. There's the pump's nozzle in the a i r ; it won ' t b e long before we're flooded.

EUGENIE-Oh, dearest friend, what a monstrous member ! . . . I can scarcely get my hand around i t ! . . . Dear God, are they all as big as this ?

DOLMANcE-Eugenie , you know that mine is much inferior in s ize ; such engines are redoubtable for a youngster ; you are fully aware one such as this could not without danger perforate you.

E UGENIE, already being frigged by Madame de Saint-A nge­ I 'd brave anything to enjoy i t !

DOLMANcE-And you would be right : a girl ought never be terrified by such a thing ; Nature lends a helping hand, and the torrents of pleasure wherewith sht: overwhelms you soon compen­ sate the slight inconveniences that precede them. I have seen girls younger than you sustain still more massy p ricks : with courage and patience l ife 's greatest obstacles a re surmounted. 'Tis madness to think one must have a child deflowered by only very small pricks. I hold the contrary view, that a virgin should be delivered unto none but the vastest engines to be had, in order that, the hymeneal l igaments sooner burst, pleasure's sensations can more p romptly occur in her. To be sure, once launched on this diet , she will have much to do to quit i t for another less p iquant, more meager ; but if she is wealthy, lovely, and youthful, she'll find a s many of th is s ize as she can wish. Let her keep her wits about her : should something mediocre be offered her, and should she nevertheless have the desire to make use of i t, let her put i t in her ass .

MADAME DE sAINT-ANGE-Indeed, and to be still happier , let her employ the greater and the lesser at once ; let the voluptuous j ars wherewith she will agitate him who encunts her serve to precipi­ tate the ecstasy of the other who buggers, and, drowned in the fuck of the two, let her loose her own as she dies of pleasure.

DOLMANCE- ( I t should be pointed out that the pollutions continue throughou t all of the dialogue. ) I t seems to me two or three more pricks should figure in the picture you describe, Madame ;

262 .. THE MARQUIS DE SADE

this woman of yours O Jght to have, don't you think, a prick in her mouth and another in each hand ?

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-She might have some clapped under her armpits and a few in her hair, i f i t were possible she ought to have thirty ranged rot: nd her ; under such ci rcumstances , one must have, touch, devour no thing but pricks, be inundated by them all , at the same instant one discharges oneself. Ah, Dolmance I l ibertine that you are, I defy you to equal me in these delicious combats of luxury . . . . On this head, I 've done all that it i s possible to do.

EUGENIE, con tinw JUsly frigged by her friend, as is the Che­ valier by Dolmance-Oh, my sweet ! . . . I grow dizzy I . . . Why, I too could procure myself such pleasures ! . . . I could give myself • . . to a perfect army of men I . . . Ah, what del ight I . . . How you frig me, dearest one . . . you are the very goddess of pleasure . . . and how this wondrom prick does swell . . • how i ts majestic head enlarges and grows red I . . .

DOLMANCE-He'� not far from the denouement.

LE CHEVALIER-Eugenie . . . sister . . . approach . . . . Oh, what divine breasts I . . . what soft, plump thighs I Discharge! dis­ charge both, my fuck will j oin yours I . . . It flows ! leaps I Christ ' ( During the crisis, D 'Jimance has carefully directed his friend's ou tpourings of sperm upon the two women and principally upo n Eugenie, who finds henelf drenched. )

EUGENIE-Magnificent spectacle ! how noble , how majestic i t i s . . . I 'm completely covered I . . . i t sprang into my very eyes ! . . .

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Wait, dear heart, let me gather up these priceless pearls ; I ' ll rub some upon your clitoris more speedily to p rovoke your own d: scharge.

EUGENIE-Ah ! y'!S, my darling, yes ! delicious idea • • • go ahead, and I 'l l come in your arms.

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Divine child, kiss me a thousand times over . . . let me suck your tongue . . . let me breathe your voluptuous respiration all fired by pleasure's heat ' Ah, fuck ! I discharge myself . . . . B rother, finish me, I beg you to finish me ' • • •

to.

Philosophy in the Bedroom + 2 63

DOLMANcE-Yes, Chevalier . . . frig your sister.

LE C HEVALIER-I'd prefe r to fuck her . . . I 'm still in a state

DOLMANcE-Very well, press i t in and give me your ass ; I ' l l fuck you throughout thi s voluptuous incest . Eugenie , a rmed with this India rubber dildo, will bugger me. Destined someday to have enacted all the roles of lechery, she has got to strive, in the lessons we're giving here , to fulfill them all equally well .

EUGENIE, rigging up the dildo-Oh, willingly ! You will never find me wanting when it i s a question of l ibertinage ; it is now my single god, the unique rule of my conduct, the single basis of all my actions. ( She buggers Dolmanet;. ) In like wise, my dear master ? Is it well done ? . . .

DOLMANcE-Splendidly ! . . . Truly, the l ittle rascal buggers me mannishly ! Fine ! it seems to me we are all four perfectly at­ tached one to the o the r ; we have but to commence.

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Oh, I'm dying, Chevalier ! . . . I am incapable of becoming accustomed to the throbbing of your lovely prick ! . . .

DOLMANCE-Ah, but this damned, this charming ass affords me pleasure ! Oh fuck I fuck ! all of us , let's discharge together ! Christ, but I perish ! I expire ! Ah, in my l ife never have I come more voluptuously ! Hast lost thy sperm, Chevalier ?

LE CHEVALIER-Look you at this cunt : smeared, muddied up, is i t not ?

DOLMANCE-Oh, my friend, wouldst I had as much in my ass !

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Rest, stop, I am dead.

DOLMANCE, kissing Eugenie-This matchless girl has fucked me like a god.

EUGENIE-In truth, I found it rather pleasurable.

DOLMANcE-All excesses procure it , provided one is libertine ; and a woman i s best advised to multiply those excesses even to be­ yond the possible.

264 + TH� MARQUl S DE SADE

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-I have deposited five hundred louis with a notary, and the purse will belong to any individual , whomso­ ever he be, who can teach me a passion I am ignorant of now, and who can plunge me into an ecstasy I have not yet enjoyed.

DOLMANCE- (At Ihis poin t the in terlocu tors, set to rights, have ceased to occupy themselves with all but conversation . ) The idea i s strange, Madame , and I'd accept to try, but I am in doubt whether thi s uncommon desire after which you chase, resembles the delicate pleasures you hnve just tasted.

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-What indeed I

DOLMANCE-'Tis t nat , in honor , I know nothing so boring a s enjoyment of the cunt and when once, Madame, one has , like your­ self, tasted what the ass has to offer, I cannot conceive how one may forsake that pleasure for others.

MADAME DE SAIN1-ANGE-They are old habits. When one thinks as I do, one wishe , everywhere to be fucked and whatever the part an engine perforate s, one i s made happy upon feeling it there. However , I am wholly )f your opinion and herewith attest to all voluptuous women that the pleasure they will experience of ass­ fucking will always by much surpass the one they experi ence in having a man by the cunt. On this count let them refer to that woman who in al l Europe has accomplished most in the one manner and in the other : I certi fy there is not the least comparison to be made, and that very reI Jctantly will they return to the fore after having put their behinds to the proof.

LE CHEVALIER-My thoughts are not enti rely identical . I am prepared for anything that is expected o f me, but , by taste , in women I really love only the altar Nature indicates for the render­ ing of an homage.

DOLMANCE-VVhy, to be sure, and it 's the ass I My dear Chevalier, never did Na ture, i f you scrupulously examine her ordi­ nations, never did Nature indicate another altar for our offerings than the asshole, but this latter she expressly commands. Ah, by God ! were not her inten tion that we fuck assholes , would she have so exactly proportioned this orifice to fit our member ? is not this

Philosophy in the Bedroom + 265

aperture circular, l ike th i s instrument ? Why, then ( What person, no matter how great an enemy of common sense, can imagine that an oval hole could have been created for our cylindrical pricks ! Ponder this deformity and you will at once apprehend Nature's intentions ; we very plainly see that too frequent sacrifices made in thi s part, by increasing a propagation of which only her for­ bearance makes us capable, would displease her infallibly. But let us go on with our education. Eugenie has just , entirely a t her leisure, contemplated the sublime mystery of a discharge ; presently, I would like to have her learn how to direct its flow.

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-COnsidering your exhaustion, 'tis to expose her to a great deal o f t rouble.

DOLMANCE-To be sure ; and tha t is why I should desire that we have, from your house or your fields, some robust young lad who could serve as a mannequin, and upon whom we could give our lessons.

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-I've precisely what you need.

DOLMANCE-It might not be, by chance, a young gardener, with a delicious aspect, of about eighteen years or twenty, whom I saw just a short while ago, working in your kitchen garden ?

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Augustin ? Exactly, yes, Augustin, whose member measures fourteen inches in length and has a circum­ ference of eight and an half (

DOLMANcE-Great heaven ( what a monster ( . . . and that discharges ? . . .

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Like a waterfall ! . . . I ' ll go fetch him.

DIALOGUE THE FIFTH

DOLMANCE, LE CHEVALIER, AUGUSTI N,

EUGENIE, MADAME DE SAI NT-ANGE

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE, presen ting Augus tin-Behold the man I mentioned. Let's en with i t , friends, let 's to our frolics ; what would l i fe be without i t!. l i ttle amusements ? Come hither, simple­ ton ! Oh, the ninny ! . • • Would you believe it , I have been six months struggling to turn this great pig into something fit for civil­ ized society, and I've got nowhere with him.

AUGUSTIN-Aye, M'am, you speak sometimes like that, that I 'm beginning not to ge t on so bad right now, and when there 's a p i ece o f ground lying fall ow you always give i t to me to till , I 'm the one that gets i t .

DOLMANCE, laughin q-Oh, precious I . . . charming ! . . . The dear boy, he's as frank as he is fresh . . . . ( Exhibiting Eugenic. ) Augustin, look sharp , my lad, there's a bed of flowers lying fallow ; would you like to try your spade on it ?

AUGUSTIN-Oh ]enmy, Sir ! Such neat l ittle oddments ain' t made for such as me.

DOLMANCE-To it , \1ademoiselle .

EUGENIE, blushing--Heavens ! I am so ashamed !

266

Philosophy in the Bedroom + 267

DOLMANCE-Rid yourself of that weak-hearted sentiment ; all actions, and above all those of libertinage, being inspired in u s by Nature, there is not one, of whatever kind, that warrants shame. Be smart there, Eugenie, act the whore with this young man ; con­ sider that every provocation sensed by a boy and originating from a girl is a natural offertory, and that your sex never serves Nature better than when it prostitutes i tself to ours ; that ' tis, in a word, to be fucked that you were born, and tha t she who refuses her obedi­ ence to thi s intention Natu re has for her does not deserve to see the light longer. You yourself, lower the young man's trousers to below his handsome thighs, roll his shirt up under his vest, so that his fore-end . . . and his after, which, by the by, i s damn fine, are at your disposal . . . . Now, let one of your hands catch up that lank length of flesh, pendant now, but which, I wager, will soon amaze you in i t s new form, and with your other hand explore h i s buttocks, and, thus, tickle his rectal gap . . . . Yes, in this manner . . . ( To show Eugenie how ' tis to be done, h e socratizes A ugus tin himself. ) Un­ cap thi s rubicund head ; never, while you pollute i t , never allow i t to be covered over ; keep i t naked . . . stretch the skin, yea , stretch it taut . . . . Now there ; dost see what effect my lesson has had al- ready ? . . . And you, my boy, I beseech you, do� ' t stand there hold- ing your hands behind your back ; isn't there something you might put them to ? Let them stray about upon this superb breast, over these wondrous buttocks . . . .

AUGUSTIN-Sir, couldn ' t I give this miss a smack or two, i t would make me right happy.

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Well, kiss her, imbecile , kiss her as much as you like ; do you not kiss me when I'm in bed with you ?

AUGUSTIN-Oh, j eez ! Pretty l ittle mouth, all fresh and nice­ tasting I . . . Seems like I 've got my nose in the roses in our garden. ( Showing his rising prick. ) Look, Sir, that's what i t does, d'ye see i t ?

EUGENIE-Good heaven I How i t enlarges !

DOLMANCE-Attempt now t o pu t rather more regularity in your motions, let them be more energetic . . . . Here, yield me your place for an instant, and watch closely what I do. ( He {rigs .l1ugus-

268 + THE MARQUIS DE SADE

tin . ) Do you observe ? These movements are more purposeful and a t the same time softer . There, begin again and above all keep the head bare . . . Good I th ere it i s in its full vigor ; now let's ascertain whether it ' s bigger than the Chevalier 's .

EUGENIE-Be certain o f i t : you see very well I cannot get my hand around i t.

DOLMANCE , m easz. ring-Yes , right you are : fourteen long. eight and a half around . I 've never seen a larger. 'Tis what i s called a superb prick. And you, Madame, you say you employ i t ?

MADAME DE SAINT .. ANGE-Regularly, every night I spend here in the country.

DOLMANCE-But not , I hope, in the ass ?

MADl\ME DE SAINT· ANGE-Rather more often there than in the cunt.

DOLMANCE-Ah I my God ! what l ibertinage ! Upon my honor, I don 't know whether I could manage i t .

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Don' t pinch, Dolmance, and he'll penetrate your ass as neatly as he does mine.

DOLMANCE-We ! hall see ; I fla tter myself in the belief our Augustin will do me th e honor of casting a l i ttle fuck into my be­ hind : I ' ll repay him in the same coin ; but let's continue , we have lessons to give . . . . Loo � sharp, Eugenie , mind, the serpent is about to disgorge its venom : prepare yourself ; fix your gaze upon the head of this sublime we lpon ; and when as the s ign of its approach­ ing spasm you see it inf. ate, take on a deeper, more purple hue , let your activit ies then bec,)me frenzied ; let your fingers now tickling his anus dig as deep as possible, before the event occurs ; give your­ self entirely to the liber tine who i s amusing himself with you ; seek out his mouth in order to suck i t ; let your charms fly, so to speak, to do your hands' bidding . . . . He discharges, Eugenie , 't is the mo­ ment of your triumph.

AUGUSTIN-Aie ! aie I Miss, i t ' s killing me ! I can't do no more ! More, go on and do me more, harder, Miss , please, Miss ! Ah, God a 'mighty I I can' t see st l 'aight I . . .

Philosophy in the Bedroom + 269

DOLMANCE-Redouble your efforts, Eugenie I Triple them I Caution to the winds, he ' s drunk and in his throes ! . . . God, what abundance of sperm I . . . with what power i t springs forth I . . . Behold the traces o f the initial j e t : i t shot ten feet, nay, more ! By God's fuck I the room's awash ; Never have I seen a comparable discharge, and you tell me, Madame, this article fucked you last night ?

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Nine or ten times, I believe ; we gave up counting long ago.

LE CHEVALIER-Lovely Eugenie , you're covered with it .

EUGENIE-Wouldst I were drowned in it . ( To Dolmance : ) Tell me, my dear master, are you content ?

DOLMANCE-Mightily, for a beginning ; but there remain sev­ eral episodes you have neglected.

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Wait j they can mean nothing to her lest they are the fruit of experience ; for my part, I confess I am ex­ ceedingly pleased with my Eugenie ; the happiest dispositions are apparent in her , and I believe that we ought now to have her enjoy another spectacle. Let's have her witness the effects of a prick in the ass. Dolmance, I am going to offer you mine ; I shall be in my brother 's arms ; he will encunt me, I ' l l be buggered by you , and Eugenie will prepare your prick, will insert i t in my ass, will super­ vise all the movements, will study them, all this in order to famil iar­ ize herself with this operation to which, a fterward, she will submit ; it will then be a question of this Hercules' fair prick.

DOLMANCE-I am passing eager to see this p retty l ittle behind rent by brave Augustin'S violent blows ; but I agree to what you p ropose, M adame, provided we add one detail : Augustin, whom I 'l l have stiff again with two strokes of my wrist, will bugger me while I sodomize you.

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-I heartily approve the arrange­ ment ; I too gain thereby ; and my scholar will benefit from two ex­ cellent lessons instead of one.

DOLMANCE, seizing Augus tin-Come, my stalwart swain, I'll restore thee to l i fe . . . . Eh, look how the brute responds ! Kiss me,

270 .. T H E MARQUW DE SADE

dear friend . . . . You are still all wetted over with fuck, and 't is fuck I ask of thee. Ah, by God, I simply must pump his ass while frigging him! . . .

LE CHEVALIER-Approach, s ister ; to comply with Dolmance's strictures and with yours , I am going to stretch out on this bed ; you will l i e in my arms, and expose your gorgeous buttocks to him, and very wide indeed you s� all spread them . . . . Yes, just so : we're ready to begin.

DOLMANCE-No, n :>t quite ; wait for me ; I must first of all enter your sister's ass , s ince Augustin whispers me to do i t ; next, I 'l l marry you : remember, let's not fall short of any of our prin­ ciples and remember also that a student i s observing us, and we owe her precise demonstratic·ns. Eugenie , come frig me while I deter­ mine this low fellow's er ormous engine ; lend a hand with my own erection, pollute my prick, very lightly , roll i t upon your buttocks . . . . (She does s o . )

EUGENIE-Is this a H i t ought t o be ?

DOLMANcE-There is always too much of the timorous in your movements ; far more tightly squeeze the prick you frig, Eugeni e ; i f masturbation i s agreea ble a t all it i s because the member i s more severely compressed then than in fucking, i t i s therefore necessary that the co-operating ha nd become, for the engine over which i t works, an infinitely stra iter passage than exists anywhere else in the body . . . . Better ! Yes, that' s better I Spread your behind ye t a little more so that with each stroke the end of my prick can glide ahead to touch your asshole . . . . yes, very good, very good indeed I While waiting, Chevalie r, frig your sister ; we will be a t your dis­ posal in a minute . . . . Ah, excellent I there's my man stiffening ! Now ready yourself, Madame ; open that sublime ass to my impure ardor ; Eugenie , guide th e dart, it must be your hand that conducts it to the vent, your hand must make it penetrate ; immediately it i s i n , ge t a grip on good Augustin here, and fi l l my entrails up with him ; those are an apprentice's chores and thence there i s much in­ struction to be had ; that my dear, i s why I put you to this trouble.

Philosophy in the Bedroom + 27 1

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Are my buttocks where you wish them, Dolmance ? Ah, my angel, if you but knew how much I desire you, how long I have been waiting to be buggered by a sodomite!

DOLMANCE-Thy will shall be done , Madame ; but suffer me to halt an instant a t my idol ' s feet ; I would praise i t before entering into the depths of the sanctuary . . . . What a divine ass i s this I . . . let me kiss i t I let me l ick i t, l ick i t a thousand times over and a thousand more I . . . Here, that 's the prick you yearn for I . . . Dost feel it , bitch ? Tell me, say, dost feel i t penetrate ? . . .

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Oh, drive i t to darkness in my bowels I . . . Oh sweet lechery, what is your empire !

DOLMANCE-'Tis an ass such as never in my days have I fucked ; worthy of Ganymede himself I To it , Eugenie , be immedi­ a tely a ttendant upon my buggering by Augustin.

EUGENIE-I bring him to you ; there. ( To Augustin : ) Wake, sweet angel, do you spy the hole you've to pierce ?

AUGusTIN-Aye, I see it . Mother of God! there's a big one I say I I ' ll go in easier than into you, Miss . Kiss me a little so i t will enter nice.

EUGENIE, embracing him-Oh, as much as you like, you are so fresh I . . . But push, do you hear I The head's out of sight-'twas quick, and I dare say the rest will follow close behind . . . .

DOLMANCE-Thrust, thrust , my good fellow . . . tear me, i f so i t must be. . . . Dost see my ass ? I s i t not ready ? Doth i t not beckon ? Well, drive . . . ah , by Christ I what a bludgeon I never have I received one of such amplitude . . . Eugenie , how many inches remain outside ?

EUGENIE-Scarcely two.

DOLMANCE-Then 1 have eleven in my ass ! . . . What ecstasy I He cleaves me in twain, I can no more I Chevalier ! Are you ready ?

LE CHEVALIER-Feel, and give me your opinion.

DOLMANcE-Come hither, my children, let me wed thee . . • let me do all I may to expedite thi s heavenly incest. ( He in troduces the Chevalier's prick into his sis ter's cun t . )

272 + THE MARQUI , DE SADE

MADAME DE SAINT-.,\NGE-Why, my dears, there I am fucked from either side ! By Jesus ! \¥hat a divine pleasure ! No, there ' s none l ike i t in al l the we, rid. Ah, fuck! how I pity the woman who has not tasted i t ! Rattle me, Dolmance, smite away . . . let the violence of your movements impale me upon my brother's blade and you, Eugenie , do YOIl contemplate me ; come, regard me in vice ; come, learn, from my example , to savor i t, to be transported, to taste it with delectation . . . . Behold, my love, behold all that I simultaneously do : scandal , seduction, bad example , incest, adultery, sodomy ! Oh, Satan ! one and unique god of my soul , inspire thou in me something yet more, present further perversions to my smoking heart, and then shalt thou see how I shall plunge myself into them all I

DOLMANCE-Ah voluptuous creature, how you do stir up my fuck, how your s entiments and the uncommon temperature of your ass do excite it to discharge ! 'Twill all have me coming in an instant . . . . Eugenie , fire my fucker's courage, belabor his flanks, pry apart h is buttocks ; you are now somewhat skilled in the art of reviving the desires in him who vacillates • . . your approach alone gives energy to the prick that fucks me . . . . I feel it, the strokes are more powerful . . . oh, thou bi tch, I must yield to you what I should never have wanted but to owe to my own ass-end . . . wait for me! wait, dost hear ? Oh, my friends, let us not discharge but in unison : ' t i s l ife 's single pleasure I . . .

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Fuck ! fuck I come when you wish . . . for I can withstand it no longer ! Oh double name of God be­ fucked I Sacred bugger-God ! I come ! . . . Inundate me, my friends, soak, drench, drown YOl lr whore ! spray floods o f your scum-fuck to the very seat of th i s blazing soul ! it exi sts for naught but to be slaked, quenched by yo Jr tides I Aie ! a ie ! a ie ! . . . fuck I . . . fuck I . . . what incredible excess of voluptuousness ! . . . I am slain ! . . . Eugenie , l e t ffii! kiss thee, let me eat thee ! let me consume, batten upon thy fuck as :: loose my own ! . . . ( Augus tin, Dolmance and the Chevalier act in chorus; the fear of appearing mono tonous preven ts us from recordi ng expressions which, upon such occasions, are all very apt to resem/7/e one ano ther. )

Philosophy in the Bedroom .. 273

DOLMANCE-And there i s one of the fairest fucks I have ever had. ( Showing Augus tin to the o thers . ) This bugger glutted me with sperm ! but, Madame, I consider I passed as much on to you .

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Ah, speak not to me of i t ; I am sunk in it .

EUGENIE-I cannot say as much, not I I no I ( Casting herself playfully into her friend's arms . ) You say you have committed abundant sins, my dearest, but as for me, blessed God! not a one. Oh, if I have got to eat my soup cold this way, I'l l have indigestion.

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE, bursting into laugh ter-How droll the creature i s !

DOLMANCE-But how charming ! Come here, l i ttle one, I 'd whip thee a b i t . ( He s trikes her ass . ) Kiss me, your turn i s soon to come.

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-From now on we must occupy our­ selves exclusively with her ; consider her, brother, she's the prey ; examine that charming maidenhead ; ' twill soon belong to thee.

EUGENIE-Oh, no I not by the fore-end I ' twould hurt me overmuch ; from behind as much as you please, a s Dolmance dealt with me a short while ago.

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-N aive and delicious girl I She de­ mands of you preci sely what one has so much difficulty obtaining from others.

EUGENIE-Oh, 't is not without a l i ttle remorse ; for you have not entirely reassured me upon the criminal enormity I have always heard ascribed to this, especially when i t i s done between man and man, as has just occurred with Dolmance and Augustin ; tell me, Monsieur, tell me how your philosophy explains this species of misdemeanor. 'Ti s frightful , i s i t not ?

DOLMANCE-Start from one fundamental point, Eugenie : in libertinage, nothing is frightful , because everything libertinage suggests i s also a natural inspiration ; the most extraordinary, the most b izarre acts, those which most arrantly seem to conflict with every l aw, every human institution ( as for Heaven, I have nothing

274 -4.. THE MARQ e l S DE SADE

to sav ) , well , Eugenie , even those are not frightful, and there i s not one amongst them < . 1 1 that cannot b e demonstrated within the boundaries of Nature ; i t i s certain that the one you allude to, lovely Eugenie , is the very same relative to which one finds such a strange fable in the tasteless fic :i ons of the Holy \Vrit, that tedious com­ pi lation o f an untutored Jew during a

- Babylonian captivi ty ; bu t

the anecdote i s false, wants all l ikelihood, all veris imil i tude, when i t i s affi rmed tha t in ret ribution for these depravi ti es , those cities , those towns rather , peli shed by fi re ; having the ir s i te upon the craters of ancient volcanoes , Sodom, Gomorrah too , per ished l ike the I tal ian c i t ies Vesuvius' lavas submerged ; and that ' s all there i s to the miracle , yet , all t l te same, ' twas from thi s most simple event they departed in order barbarously to invent the torture of fire to be used against those lnfortunate humans who, in one area o f Europe, delivered thems elves over to this natural fancy.

EUGENIE-Oh, 't is natural ?

DOLMANcE-Yes, r atural , so I affirm it to be ; Nature has not got two voices, you knol" , one of them condemning all day what the other commands, and i t i s very certain that i t i s nowhere but from her organ that those mer . who are infatuated with th i s mania receive the impressions that dri 'Te them to it . They who wish to denigrate the taste or proscribe irs practice declare i t i s harmful to popula­ tion ; how dull-witted th( y are , these imbeciles who think of nothing but the multiplication of the ir kind, and who detect nothing but the crime in anything th at conduces to a different end. Is it really so firmly establ ished tha : Nature has so great a need for this over­ crowding as they would like to have us beli eve ? is i t very certain that one i s guilty of an outrage whenever one abstains from this stupid propagation ? To convince ourselves, let us for an instant scrutinize both her operations and her laws. Were i t tha t Nature did naught but create, ; nd never destroy, I might be able to be­ l i eve, with those tedious sophists, that the sublimest of all actions would be incessantly to labor at production, and following that , I should grant, with therr , th at the refusal to reproduce would be, would perforce have to be, a crime ; however, does not the most fleeting glance a t natunl operations reveal tha t destructions are just a s necessary to her plan as are creations ? that the one and the

Philos ophy in the Bedro o m + 2 7 5

other o f these functions a r e interconnected a n d enmeshed s o inti­ m ately that for either to operate without the other would be im­ possible ? tha t nothing would be born, nothing would be regenerated without destructions ? Destruction, hence, l ike creat ion, i s one o f Nature 's mandates .

Thi s p rinciple acknowledged, how may I offend Nature by refusing to create ? the which, supposing th ere to be some evil in i t, would appe a r infini tely less evi l , no question about i t , than the act o f destruction, which l a tter i s num.bered among her l aws, a s I have but a moment ago proven. If on the one hand I admit the p enchant Nature has given me to fabrica ':e these losses and ruins, I must examine , on the other hand, to see wheth e r they a re not necessa ry to h e r and whether I do not conform with her will when I destroy ; thus considered, where then, I ask you , is the crime ? But, the fools and the popul ators continue to obj ect-and they are naught but one-thi s p rocreative sperm cannot h ave been placed i n your loins for any purpose other than reproduction : to misuse i t i s an offense. I have j ust p roven the contra ry, since th i s misuse would not even be equivalent to destruction, and si nce destructi on, far more serious than misuse, would not itself be �r iminal . Secondly, i t i s false that Nature intends this spermatic l iquid to be employed only and en­ tirely for reproduction ; were th i s true , she would not permit i ts spillage under any ci rcumstance save those appropriate to that end. But exper i ence shows that the contrary may happen, s ince we lose it both when and where we wish. Secondly, she would forbid the occurrence o f those losses save in coitus, losses which, however, do take place, both when we dre am and when we summon remem­ brance s ; were N a ture miserly abou t th is so precious sap , ' twould never but be into the vessel of rep roducti on she would tolerate its flow ; assuredly, she would not wi sh this voluptuousness, wherewith at such moments she crowns us, to be felt by us when we divert our tribute ; for i t would not be reasonable to suppose she could consent to give u s pleasures a t the very moment we heaped insults upon her. Let u s go further ; wer,: women not born save to p roduce -which most surely would be the case were this production so dear to N a ture-, would i t happen that, throughout the whole length of a woman' s life, there are no more than seven years, all the ar i thmetic performed, during which she i s in a state capable of

276 .. THE MARQUIS DE SADE

conceiving and giving birth ? What I Nature avidly seeks propaga­ tion, does she ; and everything which does not tend to thi s end of­ fends her , does i t I and out of a hundred years of l i fe the sex destined to p roduce cannot do so during more than seven years ! Nature wishes for p rop lgation only, and the semen she accords man to serve in these rel 'roducings is lost , wasted, misused where­ ever and as o ften a s it pll �ases man ! He takes the same pleasures in this loss as in useful employment o f his seed, and never the least . . I InconvenIence . . . •

Let us cease, good friends, let us cease to believe in such absurditi e s : they cause good sense to shudder. Ah ! far from out­ raging Nature , on the co 1trary-and let us be well persuaded of i t -, the sodomite and Lc :sbian serve he r by stubbornly abstaining from a conjunction whosl � resultant p rogeniture can be nothing but i rksome to her. Let us m ake no mistake about it , this propagation was never one of her law " nothing she ever demanded of us , but at the very most something she tolerated ; I have told you so. \Vhy ! what difference would i t make to her were the race of men enti rely to be extinguished upon e arth, annihilated I she laughs at our pride when we persuade ourselres all would be over and done with were thi s misfortune to occur I Why, she would simply fail to notice it . Do you fancy races have tlot already become extinct ? Buffon counts several of them perished, and Nature, struck dumb by a so precious loss, doesn't so much as murmur ! The entire species might be wiped out and the air would no t be the less pure for it , nor the Star less brilliant, nor the universl : ' s march less exact. \Vhat idiocy it i s to think that our kind is so l Iseful to the world that he who might not labor to propagate it or he who might disturb this propagation would necessarily becomf a criminal ! Let's bring this blindness to a s top and may the example o f more reasonable peoples serve to persuade us of our errol 's . There is not one corner of the earth where the alleged crime of sodomy has not had shrines and vo­ taries . The Greeks, who nade of it, so to speak, a virtue , raised a statue unto Venus Callip ygea ; Rome sent to Athens for law, and returned with this divine taste.

And under the empc :rors , behold the p rogress i t made I Shel­ tered by the Roman eagle i t spread from one end of the earth to the other ; with the Empire 's :ollapse, it took refuge near the diadem, it

Philosophy in the Bedroo m .. 277

followed the arts in Italy, i t i s handed down to those o f us who govern ourselves aright. We discover a hemisphere, we find sodomy in it. Cook casts anchor in a new world : sodomy reigns there. Had our balloons reached the moon, i t would have been discovered there a s well . Delicious preference, child of Nature and of pleasure, thou must be everywhere men are to he found, and wherever thou shalt be known, there shall they erect altars to thee ! 0 my friends, can there be an extravagance to equal that of imagining that a man must be a monster deserving to lose his l ife because he has preferred en­ j oyment of the asshole to that of the cunt, because a young man with whom he finds two pleasures, those of being at once lover and mistress, has appeared to him prefe rable to a young girl, who promises him but half as much I He shall be a villain, a monster, for having wished to play the role of a sex not his own I Indeed I Why then has Nature created him susceptible of this pleasure ?

Let us inspect his conformat ion ; you will observe radical dif­ ferences between it and that of other men who have not been blessed with this predilection for the behind ; his buttocks will be fairer, plumper ; never a hair will shade the altar of pleasure, whose interior, lined with a more delicate, more sensual, more sensitive membrane, will be found positively of the same variety as the interior of a woman's vagina ; this man's character, once again unlike that of others, will be softer, more pliant, subtler ; in him you will find almost all the vices and all the virtues native to women ; you will recognize even their weaknesses there ; all will have feminine manias and sometimes feminine habits and traits. Would it then be possible that Nature, having thuswise assimilated them into women, could be i rritated by what they have of women's tastes ? I s i t not evident that this is a category o f men different from the other, a class Nature has created in order to diminish or minimize propagation, whose overgreat extent would infallibly be prejudicial to her ? . . . Ah, dear Eugenie, did you but know how delicate i s one's enjoyment when a heavy prick fills the behind, when, driven to the balls, it flutters there, palpitating ; and then, withdrawn to the foreskin, it hesitates, and returns, plunges in again, up to the hair I No, no, in the wide world there i s no pleasure to rival this one : 't is the delight of philosophers, that of heroes, it would be that of

2 7 8 + THE MARQUl S DE SADE

the gods were not the parts used in his heavenly conjugation the only gods we on earth should reverence F

EUGENIE, very milch m oved-Oh, my friends, let me be buggered I . . . Here, m:; buttocks stand ready . . . . I present them to you I . . . Fuck me, for I discharge I . . . ( Up o n pron ouncing these words, she falls into t i le arms of Madame de Sain t-A nge, wh o clasps her, em braces h er, and offers the young lady's elevated flanks to Dolm ance. )

MADAME DE SAINT·ANGE-Divine teacher, will you resist the proposal ? Will you not be tempted by this sublime ass ? See how it doth yawn, how it winks at thee !

DOLMANCE-I ask your forgiveness, beautiful Eugenie : i t shal l not be I , i f indeed you wish it , who shal l undertake to ex­ tinguish the fires I have l it . Dear child, in my eyes you possess the l arge fault of being a woman. I was so considerate as to forget much in order to harvest your virginity ; deign to think well of me for going no further : the Cheval ier i s going to take the task in hand. His s ister, equipped with this artificial prick, wil l bestow the most redoubtable buffet� upon her brother 's ass , all the while pre­ senting her noble behind to Augustin, who shall bugger her and whom I ' ll fuck meantimt' ; for, I make no attempt to conceal it , this fine lad's ass has been signaling to me for an hour, and I wish absolutely to repay him for what he has done to me.

EUGENIE-I accept the revision ; but, in truth, Dolmance, the frankness of your avowa l l i ttle offsets its impoli teness.

DOLMANCE-A thousand pardons, Mademoiselle ; but we other buggers are very nice on the question of candor and the exactitude of our principles.

MADAME DE SAINT-.... NGE-However, a reputation for candor i s not the one we commonly grant those whom, l ike yourself, are accustomed only to taking people from behind.

7 A l ater p a rt of this work Fomising us a much more extensive dissertation upon

this subject, we h ave, here, lim; ted ourselves to an analysis but roughly sketched and

but boldly outlined.

Philosophy in the Bedro om + 279

DOLMANCE-vVe do have something of the treacherous, yes ; a touch o f the false, you may believe i t . But a fter al l , Madame, I have demonstrated to you that this character i s indispensable to man in society . Condemned to live amidst people who have the greatest interest in h iding themselves from our gaze, in disguising the vices they have in order to exhibit nothing but v irtues they never respect, there should be the greatest danger in the thing were we to show them frankness only ; for then, ' ti s evident, we would give them all the advantages over us they on their part refuse us , and the dupery would be manifest. The needs for dissimulation and hypocrisy are bequeathed us by society ; let us yield to the fact. Allow me for an instant to offer my own example to you , Madame : there is surely no being more corrupt anywhere in the world ; well, my contemporaries are deceived i n me ; ask them what they think of Dolmance, and they all will tell you I am an honest man, whereas there i s not a single crime whereof I have not gleaned the most exquis i te delights.

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Oh, you do not convince me that you have committed atrocit ies .

DOLMANCE-Atrocities . . . indeed, Madame, I have wrought horrors.

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Fie , you are l ike the man who sa id to his confessor : "Needless to go into details , S ir ; murder and theft excepted, you can be sure I 've done everything."

DOLMANCE-Yes, Madame, I should say the same thing, omitting those exceptions.

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-W"hat ! libertine, you have per­ mitted yourself . . .

DOLMANcE-Everything, M adame, everything ; with a tem­ perament and principles like mine, does one deny oneself anything ?

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Oh, let 's fuck ! fuck I . . . I can bear such l anguage no longer ; we'l l return to it . But save your confes­ sions for la ter , Dolmance ; to hear them best your auditors should be clear-headed. And when you h ave an erection, all the sincerity

2 8 0 .. THE MARQUI:; DE SADE

deserts what you say, YO l fall to uttering horrors and from you we get, in the guise of truths , the libertine glitterings of an inflamed imagination. ( They take their places. )

DOLMANcE-One moment, Cheval ier , one moment ; I am the one who shall introduce i t ; but , by way of preliminary, and I ask the lovely Eugenie 's pardon for it , she must allow me to flog her in order she be put in the proper humor. ( He beats her. )

EUGENIE-I assure you, thi s ceremony has no purpose . . . . Admit, Dolmance, that i t satisfies your lewdness ; but in doing i t don ' t take on a irs , I beg of you, and suppose you a r e doing anything in my behalf.

DOLMANCE, whipping merrily away-Ah, you'll have news for me in a moment I . . . You have yet no acquaintance with this pre­ l iminary's influences . • . . Come, come, l i ttle bitch , you'll be lashed!

EUGENIE-My God , how he does wax hot ! And my buttocks too, they are all afire I . . . But, indeed, you're hurting me !

MADAME DE SAINT·ANGE-I'll avenge you, dear heart ; I ' l l retaliate in kind. ( She tt kes up a whip and flogs Dolmance. )

DOLMANCE-With all my heart ; I ask but one favor of Eugenie : that she conser:t to be flogged as vigorously as I mysel f desire to be ; you notice how well within natural law I am ; but wait , let ' s arrange i t : let Eug(:nie mount your flanks, Madame, she will clutch your neck, like those children whose mothers carry them on their backs ; that way, I ' l l have two asses under my hand ; I ' ll drub them together ; the Chevalier and Augustin, both will work upon me, striking my buttock� . . . . Yes, ' ti s thus . . . Well, there we are I . . . what ecstasy I

MADAME DE SAINT-.,\NGE-Do not spare this li ttle rascal, I beseech you, and as I ask no quarter, I want you to grant i t to no one.

EUGENIE-Aie I aie! aie ! I believe my blood is flowing I

MADAME DE SAINT-!\NGE-'Twill embellish our buttocks by lending color to them . . . . Courage, my angel, courage ; bear in mind that it is always by way of pain one arrives at pleasure.

Philosophy in the Bedroom .. 28 1

E UGENIE-I can no more I

DOLMANCE, halts a minute to con template his work ,. then, s tarting in again-Anoth e r fi fty, Eugeni e j yes , precisely, fi fty more on either cheek will do i t . 0 bitches ! how grea t shall now be your pleasure in fucking I ( The pos tUTt� is dissolved. )

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE, examining Eugenie's buttocks-Oh, the poor l ittle thing, her behind i s all bloodied over I Beast, how much pleasure you take thus in kissing cruelty's vestiges !

DOLMANCE, pollu ting h ims elf-Yes , I mask nothing, and my pleasures would be more a rdent were the wounds more cruel.

EUGENIE-But you are a monster I

DOLMANcE-Indeed I am.

LE CHEVALIER-There 's good fa ith in him a t least.

DOLMANCE-Off with you, Chevalier . Sodomize her.

LE C HEVALIER-Hold her body and in three shakes ' twill be done.

EUGENIE-Oh h eavens I Yours i s thicker than Dolmance's . . . Cheval ier , you are tearing me apart ! . . . go softly, I beg o f you ( . . .

LE C H EVALIER-Impossible, my angel, I must reach my ob­ j ective . . . . Consider : I ' m performing before my master's eyes ; both h i s p restige and mine a re at stake.

DOLMANCE-'Tis there ( I prodigiously love to see a p rick' s pubic ha ir rub the border o f an anus . . . . Come now, M adame, embugger your brother. Here we have Augustin's pr ick, in an a d­ mirable way to be introduced into you, and I p romise you I ' l l spare your fucker nothing . . . . Excellent I i t seems to m e we've got our rosary well strung togethe r ; not another thought now but o f dis­ charging.

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Cast an eye on this l ittle tramp I How she quivers and wriggles I

E UGENIE-Is i t my faul t ? I am dying from pleasure I That whipping . . . thi s immense p rick . . . the amiable Chevalier who frigs me the while ( My darling, my darling, I can no more (

282 .. THE MARQU I:, DE SADE

MADAME DE SAINT-.'\NGE-Jesus ! nor can I ! I discharge I . . .

DOLMANCE-A little unity, my friends ; grant me another two more minutes to overtake you and we shall all of us come together.

LE CHEVALIER-There's no time left ; my fuck runs into lovely Eugenie 's ass . . . I am dying I Ah sacred name of the fucking Al­ mighty I what pleasure ! . . .

DOLMANCE-I follow you , friends . . . I follow hard after you . . . I too am blinded by fuck . . . .

AUGUSTIN-Me too I . . . and me ! . . .

MADAME DE SAINT-llNGE-What a scene I . . . This bugger has fil led up my ass I . . .

LE CHEVALIER-Tc, the bidet, ladies , to the bidet !

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-No, indeed, no, I like that, I do ; I like the feeling of fuck in my ass , and keep it in me as long as I can.

EUGEN1E-No mor,! , enough . . . . My friends, tell me now if a woman must always accept the proposal, when ' ti s made to her , thus to be fucked ?

MADAME DE SAINT.ANGE-Always, dear heart , unfail ingly. More, as this mode of fucking is del ightful, she ought to require i t o f those of whom she makes use ; but i f she i s dependent upon the person with whom she amuses herself, i f she hopes to obtain favors from him, gi fts 0 ) ' thanks, let her restra in her eagerness and not surrender her ass for nothing ; cede i t after being urged, be­ sought, wheedled ; there i s not a man of all those who possess the taste who would not ruin himself for a woman clever enough to refuse him nothing save with the design of infl aming him further ; she will extract from him all she wants i f she well has the art of yielding only when presse d.

DOLMANcE-Well , little angel , a re you converted ? have you given over believing sod :>my a crime ?

EUGENIE-And were i t one, what care I ? Have you not demonstrated the nonexistence of crime ? There are now very few actions which appea r criminal in my vi ew.

Philosophy in the Bedroo m '!o 283

DOLMANCE-There i s crime in nothing, dear girl , regardless of what i t be : the most monstrous of deeds has, does i t not, an auspicious aspect ?

EUGENIE-Who's to gainsay i t ?

DOLMANcE-Well, a s of this moment, it loses every aspect of crime ; for, in order that what serves one by harming another be a crime, one should first have to demonstrate that the injured person is more important, more precious to Nature than the person who performs the injury and serves her ; now, all individuals being of uniform importance in her eyes, 'tis impossible that she have a predil ection for some one among them ; hence, the deed that serves one person by causing suffering to another is of perfect indifference to Nature.

EUGENIE-But i f the action were harmful to a very great quantity o f individuals . . . and i f i t rewarded us with only a very small quantity of pleasure, would i t not then be a frightful thing to execute i t ?

DOLMANcE-No more so, because there i s no possible com· parison between what others experience and what we sense ; the heavi· est dose of agony in others ought, a ssuredly, to be as naught to us, and the faintest quickening of pleasure, registered in us , does touch us ; therefore , we should, at whatever the price, prefer this most minor excitation which enchants us, to the immense sum of others' miseries , which cannot affect us ; but, on the contrary, should i t hap­ pen that the singularity of our organs, some bizarre feature in our construction, renders agreeable to us the sufferings of our fellows, as sometimes occurs, who can doubt, then, that we should incontestably prefer anguish in others, which I�ntertains us , to that anguish's absence, which would represent, for us, a kind of privation ? The source of all our moral errors l ies in the ridiculous acknowledgment of that tie of brotherhood the Christians invented in the age of their ill-fortune and sore distress. Constrained to beg pity from Gthers, ' twas not un clever to claim that all men are brothers ; how is one to refuse aid if this hypothesis be accepted ? But its rational acceptance is impossibl e ; are we not all born solitary, isolated ? I say more : are we not come in to the world all enemies, the one of the

284 .. THE MARQUIS DE SADE

other , all in a state of perpetual and reciprocal warfare ? Now, I ask whether such would be the s i tuation i f they did truly exist, th i s supposed t i e of brothe rhood and the virtues i t enjoins ? Are they real ly natural ? Were t �ey inspired in man by Nature 's voice, men would be aware of th(m at birth. From that time onward, p i ty, goo d works, generosity, would be native virtues against which ' twould be impossible to defend oneself, and would render the primitive state of savage man totally contrary to what we observe i t to be .

EUGENIE-Yet i f, as you say, Nature caused man to be born alone , all independent d other men, you will at least grant me that his needs, bringing him together with other men, must necessari ly have establ ished some t ies between them ; whence blood rel ation­ ships, ties of love too, of fri endship, of gratitude : you will , I hope, respect those at least .

DOLMANCE-No more than the others , I am afraid ; but let us analyze them, I should l ike to : a swift glance, Eugenie , a t each one in parti cular . Would you say, for example , that the need to marry or to prolong my race o r to a rrange my fortune or insure my future must establ i sh indissoluble o r sacred t i e s with the obj ect I ally my­ sel f to ? \Vould it not, ] ask you , be an absurdity to argue thus ? So long as the act of coi tion lasts , I may, to be sure, continue in need of that obj ect, in order to participate in the act ; but once i t i s over and I am satisfied, wh . . t , I wonder, wil l attach the results of this commerce to me ? Thes,� latter relationships were the results of the terror o f parents who dreaded lest they be abandoned in old age, and the pol it ic a ttentions they show us when we are in our infancy have no obj ect but to make them deserving of the same considera­ tion when they are beome old. Let us no longer be the dupes o f thi s rubbish : we owe no thing t o our parents . . . not the least thing, Eugenie , and since i t i s far less for our sake than for their own they have labored, we may rightfully test them, even rid ourselves of them i f their behavior annoys us ; we ought to love them only i f they comport themselves wcll with us, and then our tenderness toward them ought not to be one degree greater than what we might feel for other friends, because the r ights of bi rth establish nothing, are basis to nothing, a nd , once they have been wisely scrutin ized

Philosophy in the Bedroom .. 285

and with deliberation, we will surely find nothing there but reasons to hate those who, exclusively thoughtful of their own pleasure, have o ften given u s nothing but an unhappy and unhealthy existence.

You mention, Eugenie , ties of love ; may you never know them I Ah I for the happiness I wish you, may such a sentiment never approach your breast I What is love ? One can only consider it , so it seems to me, as the effect upon us of a beautiful obj ect's qualities ; these effects distract u s ; they inflame us ; were we to possess this obj ect, all would be well with us ; if ' ti s impossible to have it, we are in despair . But what i s the foundation of this sentiment ? desi re. What are thi s sentiment's consequences ? madness. Let us confine ourselves to the cause and guarantee ourselves against the effects. The cause is to possess the obj ect : spendid ! let' s strive to succeed, but using our head, not losing our wits ; let's enj oy it when we've got i t ; let 's console ourselves if we fail : a thousand other identical and o ften much superior obj ects exist to soothe our regrets and our pride : all men, all women resemble each other : no love resists the effects of sane reflection. 0 ' t is a very great cheat and a dupery, this intoxication which puts us in s11ch a state that we see no more, exist no more save through this obj ect insanely adored I Is this really to live ? Is it not rather voluntarily to deprive oneself of all l i fe 's sweetness ? Is it not to wish to linger in a burning fever which devours, consumes us , without affording us other than metaphysical j oys, which bear such a likeness to the effects of madness ? Were we always to love this adorable obj ect, were it certain we should never have to quit i t, ' twould still be an extravagance without doubt, but at least an excusable one. Does this happen, howeve r ? Has one many examples of these deathless l ia isons, unions which are never dissolved or repudiated ? A few months of doting and dalliance soon restores the obj ect to its proper size and shape, and we blush to think of the incense we have squanderingly burned upon that altar, and often we come to wonder that it ever could have seduced us a t all.

o voluptuous young women, deliver your bodies unto us as o ften and as much a s you wish I Fuck, divert yourselves, that's the essential thing ; but be quick to fly from love. There i s none but physical good in it , sa id Buffon, and as a good philosopher he exercised h i s reason on an unde rstanding of Nature. I repeat it,

2 8 6 + THE MARQUlS DE SADE

amuse yourselves ; but 1,)Ve not at all ; nor be any more concerned to make yourselves lovd : to exhaust onese; f in lamentation, waste in sighs, abase oneself i, leering and oglings , pen billets-doux, 't is not that which you mm,t do ; i t is to fuck, to multiply and often change your fuckers, it is above all to oppose you rselves resolutely to enslavement by any one single person , because the outcome of constant love, binding you to him. would be to prevent you from giving yourself to someone else, a cruel selfishness which would soon become fatal to your pleasures. Women are not made for one single man ; 't is for men at large Nature created them. Listening only to this sacred voice, let them surrender themselves , indiffer­ ently, to all who want them : always whores, never mistresses, eschewing love, worshipng pleasure ; it will be roses only they will discover in l ife 's career ; i t will no longer be but flowers they proffer us ! Ask, Eugenie , a sk the charming woman who has so kindly consented to undertake :rour education, a sk her what is to be done with a man a fter one ha : ; enjoyed him. ( In a lower 'Voice, so as not to be heard by A ugus tin . ) Ask her i f she would l i ft a finger to save thi s Augustin who, tod,.y, i s the cause of her delights. Should i t fall ou t that someone wi shed t o steal him from her, she would take another, would think no more on this one and, soon weary of the new, would herself sacri : lce him wi thin two months' time, were new pleasures to be born of this maneuver.

MADAME DE SAINT- O\NGE-Let my dear Eugenie be very sure that Dolmance is describing the impulses of my heart, mine and tha t of every other woman, as i f she were to unfold i t to him herself.

DOLMANcE-The f nal part o f my analysis treats the bonds of friendship and those )f gratitude. We shall respect the former, very well, provided they remain useful to us ; let us keep our friends as long as they s e rve us ; forget them immediately we have nothing further from thl�m ; 't is never but selfishly one should love people ; to love them for themselves is nothing but dupery ; Nature never inspires other movements in mankind's soul , other sentiments than those which ought to prove useful in some sort, good for something ; nothing is more an egoist than Nature ; then let us be egoists too, i f we wish to live in harmony with her dictates. As for

Philosophy in the Bedroom + 287

gratitude, Eugenie , ' t i s doubtless the most feeble of a l l the bonds. Is i t then for ourselves men are obliging to us ? Not a bit of it, my dear ; 't is through ostentation, for the sake of pride. Is it not hu­ mil iating thus to become the toy of others' pride ? Is it not yet more so to fall into indebtedness to them ? Nothing i s more burdensome than a kindness one has received. No middle way, no compromise : you have got to repay i t or ready yourself for abuse. Upon proud spirits a good deed sits very heavily : i t weighs upon them with such violence that the one feeling they exhale is hatred for their bene­ factors . What then, in your opinion, are now the ties which supply the i solation wherein Nature creates us ? What are they, those which should establish relationships between men ? By what title should we love them, those others, cherish them, prefer them to ourselve s ? By what right should we relieve them, who says that we must relieve them in misfortune ? Where now in our souls is that cradle of the pretty and u seless virtues of generosity , hu­ manity, charity, all those enumer<l.ted in the absurd codes of a few i diotic religious doctrines , doctrin es which, preached by impostors or by indigents, were invented to secure them their sustenance and toleration ? Why, Eugenie , why do you yet acknowledge something sacred in men ? Do you conceive some reasons for not always pre­ ferring yoursel f to them ?

EUGENIE-What you say so thrills my heart that my mind can take no exception to it.

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-These precepts are grounded in Nature, Eugeni e ; the proof i s that you approve them ; freshly hatched from her womb, how could what you sense be the fru i t of corruption ?

EUGENIE-But i f all the errors you speak of are in Nature, why do our laws oppose them ?

DOLMANCE-Those laws, being forged for universal applica­ tion, are in perpetual conflict with personal interest, just as personal interest i s always in contradiction with the general interest. Good for soci ety, our laws are very bad for the individuals whereof i t is composed ; for, if they one time protect the individual, they hinder, trouble , fetter him for three quarters of his l ife ; and so

2 8 8 .. THE MARQU1 S DE SADE

the wise man, the man full of contempt for them, will be wary of them, as he is of reptile!; and vipers which, although they wound or kill, are nevertheless sometimes useful to medicine ; he will safe­ guard himself against the laws as he would against noxious beasts ; he will shelter himself behind precautions, behind mysteries , the which, for p rudence, i s easily done. Should the fancy to execute a few crimes inflame your spirit, Eugenie, be very certain you may commit them peacefully in the company of your friend and me.

EUGENIE-Ah, the fancy i s already in my heart !

MADAME DE SAIN��-ANGE-What caprice agitates you, Eu­ genie ? you may report i t to us in confidence.

EUGENIE, wild-eyed-I want a victim.

MADAME DE SAINT·ANGE-And of what sex would you desire her to be ?

EUGENIE-Of mint !

DOLMANCE-Well, Madame, are you content with your stu­ dent ? does she make sufliciently rapid progress ?

EUGENIE, as above-A victim, my dearest, a victim! . • • Oh, God, that would cause my life's happiness ! . . .

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-And what would you do with her ?

EUGENIE-Everytl- ing ! . . . everything ! . . . all that could render her the most wretched of creatures. Oh, my dearest, my dearest, have pity on mt ! I can stand i t no longer !

DOLMANCE-By God, what an imagination! . . . Come, Eugenie , you are delici ,ms . . . come, let me bestow a thousand kisse s upon you ! ( He t ,1kes her in his arms . ) Look, Madame, do you see i t ? Do you see this l ibertine discharge mentally, without anyone having touched her ? I must absolutely embugger her once again.

EUGENIE-And afl erward will I have what I request ?

DOLMANCE-Yes, mad creature ! . . . yes, we assure you, you shall ! . • •

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EUGENIE-Oh, my friend, there is my a s s I . . . do with i t what you will ! . . .

DOLMANcE-One moment, while I a rrange this pleasure bout in a sufficiently lustful manner. ( As Dolmance gives his orders, each person execu tes them, taking his p ost . ) Augustin, l ie down on the bed ; Eugenie , do you recline in his arms ; while I sodomize her, I ' ll frig her clitoris with the head of Augustin's superb prick, and Augustin who must be sparing of his fuck will take good care not to discharge ; the gentle Chevalier-who, without saying a word, softly frigs himself while l isteninl� to us-will have the kindness to arrange himself upon Eugenie's shoulders so as to expose his fine buttocks to my kisses : I 'l l fr ig him amain ; so shal l I have my engine in an ass and a prick in each hand, to pollute ; and you, Madame, a fter having been your master, I want you to become mine : buckle on the most gigantic of your dildos. ( Madame de Sain t-Ange opens a chest filled with a s tore of them, and our hero selects the most massive. ) Splendid ! This , according to the label, i s fourteen by ten ; fit i t about your l oins , Madame, and spare me not.

MADAME DE SAlNT-ANGE-Indeed, Dolmance, you had best reconsider. I will cripple you with this device.

DOLMANcE-Fear not ; push, my angel , penetrate : I ' ll not enter your dear Engenie ' s ass until your enormous member is well advanced into mine . . . and i t i s ! i t i s ! oh, l i ttle Jesus 1 . . . You propel me heavenward ! . . . No pity, my lovely one . . . I tell you I am going to fuck your ass without preparations . . . oh, sweet God ! magnificent ass ! . . •

EUGENIE-Oh, my friend, you are tearing me . . . . at least p repare the way.

DOLMANCE-I 'll do nothing of the sort , by God : half the pleasure's lost by these stupid attentions. Put yourself in mind of our principles , Eugenie : I labor i n my behalf only : now victim for a moment, my lovely angel , sCion you'll persecute in your turn . . . . Ah, holy God, it enters I . . .

EUGENIE-You are putting me to death !

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DOLMANC E-Ah God I I touch bottom I . . .

E UGENIE-Ah, do what you wil l , ' ti s arrived . . . I feel nothing but pleasure I . . .

DOLMANCE-How I l ove to fr ig this h uge prick on a virgin's cl i tor i s ! . . . You, Chev;J l i er , show me a good ass . . . . Do I fr ig you well, l ibert ine ? . . . And you, M a dame, do fuck me, fuck you r slut . . . yes , I am she and w i sh to be . . . Eugenie , d i sch a rge, my angel , yes , d ischa rge ! . . . D esp i te himself , Au gust in fills me with h i s fuck . . . . I receive t h e Cheval ier ' s , m i n e goes t o j o in him . . . . I res ist no more . . . . Eug{ n ie , wiggl e your bu ttocks and grip my p rick : I am going to j e t a blaz ing fuck-stream deep into your entra i l s . . . . Ah l fucking bugger o f a God ! I di e ! ( He withdra'U)s, the circle breaks . ) Behold, Mada me, h e r e ' s your l i ttle l ibertine full of fuck again ; the entrance to h , �r cunt is soaked wi th i t ; fr ig her , vigorously smite her clitoris al l we t with sperm : 'tis one o f the most del ic ious things tha t may be done ,

EUGENIE , palpitat ing-Oh, my blessed one, what pleasure you give m e I Ah, dear : ove, I burn with lubricity! ( The pos ture is assum ed. )

DOLMANcE-C hev ll ier , a s ' t i s you who'll deflower th is lovely chi ld, add you r m i n i s tn.t ions to those o f your s ister , that she m ay swoon in your a rms , and strike the sodomi te 's att itude : I am go i n g to embugger you while Augustin does t h e same to m e . ( Th e dis­ position is effected. )

LE C H EVALIER-I s my posi t ion sat isfactory ?

DOLMANcE-Your ass eve r so gently raised, up with i t , a fraction o f an inch, my love ; there, j ust so . . . without lubrication, Cheval ier ?

LE C H EVALIER-'Why, bless my soul ! a s you damned well please ; can I feel anything but pleasure in this delicious gi rl 's womb I ( H e kisses h er, frigs her, burying a finger in her cun t while Madame de Sain t-A nge s trums Eugenie's cli to ris . )

DOLMANCE-As for myself , my dear , I , be assured of i t , I take f a r more pleasure with you than wi th Eugeni e ; there is an

Philosophy in the Bedroom .. 2 9 1

immense difference between a boy' s and gi rl ' s ass . . . . So bugger me, Augustin ! what a bloody effort i s required to get you to move !

AUGusTIN-B'damn, Sir , i t ' s because it ' s just been running and dripping a moment ago into thi s pretty l i ttle turtledove here and now you're wanting i t to get right up for your bum there which really a in 't so pretty,

DOLMANCE-Idiot ! But why complain ? 'Tis Mother Nature. Well, go on, trusty Augustin, go on with your indiscriminate pene­ trating, and when one day you have a l i ttle more experience, you will tell me whether one ass isn't worth thirty cunts . . . . Eugenie , deal fairly with the Chevalier ; you are thoughtless of everyone but yoursel f ; well, l ibertine, you are right ; but in your own pleasure' s interest, frig h im , since he i s to gather your fir s t fruits .

EUGENIE-But I am frigging him, I do kiss him, I am going out of my head . . . . Aie I aie I aie I my friends, I can stand no more . . . p i ty my condition . . . I am dying . . . I discharge I Oh, God ! I am in ecstasy I . . .

DOLMANCE-Now, as for myself, I have elected prudence and restraint : I wish merely to have this fine ass put me in form ; the fuck that ' s being fired in me I am saving for Madame de Saint­ Ange : ' t i s wonderfully amusing to commence in one ass the opera­ tion one wishes to conclude in another. I say there, Chevalier, you seem nicely got up . . . shall we to the deflowering ? . . .

EUGENIE-Oh, heavens ! no, not by him, I 'd perish from i t ; yours i s smaller, Dolmance : may it be you to whom l owe thanks for the opera tion, I beg of you !

DOLMANCE-'Tis out of the question, my angel ; I 've never fucked a cunt in my l i fe and one cannot begin a t my age. Your hymen belongs to the Chevalier : of us all here , he alone is worthy of its capture : do you not rob him of h is just prize .

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Refuse a maidenhead . . . as fresh, as pretty a s this-for I defy anyone to say my Eugenie i s not the loveliest girl in France-oh, Monsieur ! Monsieur, indeed, that's what I call holding too closely to one's principles I

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DOLMANCE-You say I am too scrupulous, Madame ? 'Ti s unkind. For there are multitudes of my colleagues , str icter in the i r worship than I , who most assuredly would not bugger you . . . . I , I 've done i t, and would do i t again : i t i s not, thus , a s you suspect , a question of carrying rry worship to the point of fanat ic ism.

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Well then Cheval ier , the task is yours , proceed ; but have a l i ttle care what you do ; consider the narrowness of the channel you are going to navigate : what o f tht: proportion between the contents and the container ?

EUGENIE-Oh, ' twill kill me, I 'm sure of it , ' t i s inevitable . . . . But my furious desire to be fucked makes me chance i t fearlessly . . . . Go on, penetrate, m y dear , I abandon myself to you.

LE CHEVALIER, tahng a firm grip upon his rampant prick­ Fuck, yes ! l e t it go in . . . . Sister , Dolmance, each of you take one of her legs . . . . Ah, by God, what an enterpr ise ! . . . Yes , yes , she must be spl it like a me lon, halved, God and God again , yes, i t ' s got to enter I

EUGENIE-Gently, gently, the pain i s great . . . . ( She screams; tears roll down her che ?ks. ) Help me ! my good friend . . . . ( She s truggles . ) No, I don't want him to do i t l . . . I 'll cry for he lp i f you pers i s t 1 . . .

LE CHEVALIER-C ry away as much as you please, l i ttle ch i t , I tell you it must go in fven were i t to shiver you into sma l l p ieces .

EUGENIE-What barbarity 1

DOLMANCE-Fuck! is one expected to be a gentleman whcn one is stiff ?

LE CHEYALIER-H a l look ! i t ' s sunk . . . i t ' s in ! by God ! . . . Fuck ! there ' s the maidc lhead blasted to the dcvil ! . . . Look how i t bleeds I

EUGENIE-Go on, tiger I . . . tear me to ribbons if vou wish . . . I don' t care a damn : . . . kiss me, butcher, I adore you ! . . . O h , ' t i s nothing when i t ' s ins ide : a l l t h e pains are forgot . . . . 'Voe unto girls who shy away frem such an attack! . . . What tremendous

Philosophy in the Bedroom + 293

pleasures they deny themselves at the cost of a l i ttle trouble 1 Thrust 1 thrust 1 push I Cheval ier , I am coming I • • • spray your fuck over the wounds and lacerations . . . drive i t to the bottom of my womb . . . ah ! suffering gives way to pleasure . . . I am ready to swoon I . . . ( The Chevalier discharges,. while he tucked, Dolmance toyed with his ass and balls, and Madame de Sain t-Ange tickled Eugenie's clitoris. They dissolve their position . )

DOLMANCE-'Twould be my opinion that, while the avenue is open, the l i ttle bitch might instantly be fucked by Augustin I

EUGENIE-By Augustin ! . . . a prick of those dimensions ! . . . ah , immediately 1 . . . While I am still bleeding! . . . Do you then wish to kill me ?

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Dear heart . . . kiss me, I sym­ pathize with you . . . but sentence has been pronounced j there i s no appeal, my dearest : you have got to submit to i t .

AUGUSTIN-Ah, zounds 1 here I am, all ready : soon's i t means sticking this bonny girl and I ' d come, by God, all the way from Rome, on foot.

LE C HEVALIER, grasping Augus tin's mammoth device-Look a t i t, Eugenie , look how it is erect . . . how worthy it i s to replace me . . . .

EUGENIE-Oh merci ful heaven, what a piece 1 . . . Oh, 't is clear , you design my death I . . .

AUGUSTIN, seizing Eugenie-Oh no, Mam'selle , that's never killed anybody.

DOLMANCE-One instant, my fine boy, one instant : she must present her ass to me while you fuck her . . . yes, that's it, come hither, Madame ; I promised to sodomize you, I ' ll keep my word ; but situate yourself in such a way that as I fuck you, I can be within reach of Eugenie ' s fucker . And let the Cheval ier flog me in the meantime. ( All is arranged. )

EUGENIE-Oh fuck I he cracks me ! . . . Go gently, great lout I . . . Ah, the bugge r ! he digs in ! . . . there 't is , the fucking-j ohn 1 . . .

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he ' s at the very bottom I . . . I 'm dying! . . . Oh, Dolmance, how you strike I . . . ' t is to ignite me before and behind ; you're setting my buttocks afire I

DOLMANCE, swingi 1g his whip with all his s trength-You ' ll be afire . . . you' l l burn, l i ttle bi tch I . . . and you'l l only disch arge the more deliciously. How you frig her, Saint-Ange . . . let your deft fingers soothe the hurt that Augustin and I cause her I . . . But your anus contracts . . . I see i t , Madame, I see i t ! we're going to come together . . . . Oh, ' tis I know not how divine thus to be , ' twixt brother and sister I

MADAME DE SAINT··ANGE, to Dolmance-Fuck, my star, fuck I · . . Never do I bel i eve ] have had so much pleasure I

LE C HEVALIER-Dolmance, let 's change hands ; be nimble : pass from my sister 's ass to Eugenie ' s , so as to acquaint her with the intermediary 's pleasure� , and I will embugger my sister who mean­ while will shower upon your ass the very whip strokes wherewi th you've just brought Eugenie ' s behind to blood.

DOLMANCE, execu t ing the propo sal-Agreed . . . there, my friend, hast ever seen a :;hift more cunningly effected ?

EUGENIE-What ! both of them on top of me, good heavens I · . . what will come next ' j I 've really had enough of thi s oaf ! . . . Ah, how much fuck this douhle pleasure is going to cost me I . . . it flows already. Without that sensual ej aculation, I believe I would be already dead . . . . Why, my dearest, you imitate me . . . . Oh, hear the bitch swear ! . . . Discharge, Dolmance, . . . discharge, my love . . . this fat peasant inundates me : he shoots to the depths of my entra ils , . . . Oh, my good fuckers, what is thi s ? Two at a time ? Good Christ I . . . rece ive my fuck, dear companions, it conjoins itself with your own . . . . I am annihilated, . . . ( The attitudes are dissolved. ) Well, my dear, what think you of your scholar ? . . . Am I enough of a whore now ? . . . But what a state you do put me in · • . what an agitation I , . . Oh, yes, I swear, in my drunkenness, I swear I would have gone i f necessary and got myself fucked in the middle of the street I . , .

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DOLMANCE-How beautiful she i s thus.

EUGENIE-Y au ! I detest you : you refused me.

DOLMANCE-Could I contradict my dogmas ?

EUGENIE-Very well, I forgive you, and I must respect the principles which lead us to wild conduct ; how could I not acknowl­ edge and adopt them, I whQ wish not to live save in crime ? Let's s it down and chat a l i ttle ; I 'm exhausted. Continue my instruction, Dolmance, and say something that will console me for the excesses to which I have given myself over ; st ifle my remorse ; encourage me.

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-'Tis fair enough : as we say, a l ittle theory must succeed practice : it i s the means to make a perfect disciple.

DOLMANcE-Well then! Upon what subj ect, Eugenie , would you like to have a discussion ?

EUGENIE-I should like to know whether manners are truly necessary in a governed society, whether their influence has any weight with the national genius.

DOLMANCE-VVhy, by God, I have something here with me. As I left home thi s morning I bought, outside the Palace of Equality , a l ittle pamphlet, which i f one can believe the title, ought surely to answer your question . . . . It's come straight from the press.

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Let me see it . ( She reads : ) "Yet Another Effort, Frenchmen, If You Would Become Republicans." Upon my word, 't is an unusual title : ' ti s promising ; Chevalier, you possess a fine organ, read it to us.

DOLMANCE-Unless I am mistaken, this should perfectly reply to Eugenie ' s queries.

EUGENIE-Assuredly I

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Out with you, Augustin : this i s not for you ; but don't go too far ; we'll ring when we want you back.

LE C HEVALIER-Well, I 'll begin.

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YET ANOTHER EFFORT,

FRENCH MEN,

IF YOU WOULD B ECOME REPUB LICANS

RELIGION

I am about to put forward some rna jar ideas ; they will be heard and pondered. If not all of them please, surely a few will ; in some sort, then, I shall have contributed to the progress of our age, and shall be conten t . We near our goal, but haltingly : I confess that I am disturbed by the presentiment that we are on the eve of failing once again to arrive there. Is it thought that goal will be attained when a t last we have been given laws ? Abandon the notion ; for what should we, who have no religion, do with laws ? \Ve must h ave a creed, a creed bd itting the republican character, something far removed from ever being able to resume the wo rship of Rome. In this age, when we are convinced that morals must be the basis o f rel igion, and not reli gion of morals , we need a body o f bel iefs in keeping with our cus :oms and habits , something that would be the ir necessary conseque 1.ce, and that could, by l i fting up the spirit , maintain it perpetually at the high level of this precious l iberty, which today the spir it has made i ts unique idol.

Well , I ask, i s it tl t inkable that the doctrine of one of Titus' sla ves, o f a clumsy histrionic from J udaea, be fitting to a free and warlike nation that hal; just regenerated itself ? No, my fellow countrymen , no ; you think nothing of the sort. If, to his misfortune, the Frenchman were to (ntomb himself in the grave of Christ ianity, then on one side the priests ' pride, their tyranny, their despotism, vices forever cropping l p in that impure horde, on the other side the baseness, the narro>'> ness, the plat itudes of dogma and mystery of this infamous and fahulous religion, would, by blunting the fine edge of the republican spirit, rapidly put about the Frenchman's neck the yoke which h is vital i ty but yesterday shattered.

Let us not lose s igh : of the fact this puerile rel igion was among our tyrants' best weapon s : one of i ts key dogmas was to render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's. However, we have dethroned

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Caesar, we are no longer disposed to render him anything. French­ men, i t would be in vain were you to suppose tha t your oa th-taking clergy today i s in any essential manner different from yesterday' s non-juring clergy : there are inherent vices beyond all possibil ity o f correction. B efore ten years a r e out-util izing t h e Christian reli­ gion, i ts superstit ions, its prejudices-your priests, their pledge s notwithstanding and though despoiled o f their riches, a r e sure t o reassert thei r empire over the sou ls they shall have undermined and captured ; they shall restore the monarchy, because the power of kings has always reinforced that of the church ; and your republi­ can edifice, i ts foundations eaten away, shall collapse.

o you who have axes ready to hand, deal the final blow to the tree of superstition ; be not cont,ent to prune its branches : uproot enti rely a plant whose effects are so contagious. Well understand that your system of liberty and equality too rudely affronts the ministers of Christ's altars for there ever to be one of them who will either adopt i t in good faith or give over seeking to topple it , i f he i s able t o recover any domini on over consciences. \Vhat priest , comparing the condition to which he has been reduced with the one he formerly enj oyed, will not do his utmost to win back both the confidence and the authority he h a s lost ? And how many feeble and pusillanimous creatures will not speedily become again the thralls of this cunning shavepate ! Why i s it imagined that the nuisances which existed before cannot be revived to plague us anew ? In the Christ ian church' s infancy, were priests less ambitious than they are today ? You observe how far they advanced ; to what do you sup­ pose they owed their success i f not to the means rel igion furnished them ? Well, i f you do not absolutely prohibit this religion, those who preach i t, h aving yet the same means, will soon achieve the same ends.

Then annihilate forever wha t may one day destroy your work. Consider tha t the fru i t of your labors being reserved for your grandchildren only, duty and probity command that you bequeath them none o f those seeds o f disaster which could mean for your descendants a renewal of the chaos whence we have with so much trouble just emerged. At the present moment Our prejudices are weakening ; the people have already abjured the Catholic absurd­ it ies ; they have already suppressed the temples , sent the relics flying,

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and a greed that ma rriage is a mere civil undertaking ; the smashed confessionals serve as public meeting places ; the former faithful, deserting the apostoli c banquet, leave the gods of flour dough to the mice. Frenchmen, an end to you r wave rings : all o f Europe, one hand halfway raised to the blindfold over her eyes, expects that effort by which you must snatch i t from her head. M ake haste : holy Rome strains every nervl� to repress your vigor ; hurry, lest you give Rome time to secure her grip upon the few proselytes remaining to her. Unsparingly and re :klessly smi te off her proud and trembling head ; and before two months the tree o f l iberty, overshadowing the wreckage o f Peter ' s Chair , will soar victoriously above all the contemptible Christian v �stiges and idols raised with such effrontery over the ashes o f Cato a nd Brutus.

Frenchmen, I repeat it to you : Europe awaits her deliverance from scepter and cetlser alike. Know well that you canno t possibly l iberate her from royal l yranny without at the same time breaking for her the fetters of relgious sup ersti t ion : the shackles of the one are too intimately l inked to those of the other ; let one of the two survive, and you cannot avoid falling subj ect to the other you have left intact. I t i s no longe r before the knees of e ither an imaginary being or a vile impostor a republ ican must prostrate h imsel f ; h is only gods must now be courage and liberty . Rome disappeared immedia tely Christ ianity was preached there, and France is doomed if she continues to rever,� it.

Let the absurd dognas, the appalling mysteries, the impossible morality of this disgustin g religion be examined with attention, and it will be seen whether it befits a republic . Do you honestly beli eve I would allow myself to be dominated by the opinion of a man I had just seen kn eel ing before the. id iot priest of Jesus ? No ; cer­ tainly not I Th at eternalb base fellow will eternally adhere, by dint of the baseness of h i s lttitudes, to the atroci t ies of the ancien regime; as of the momen t he were able to submit to the stupid i ties o f a religion as abj ect al · the one we are mad enough to acknowl­ edge, he is no longer competent to dictate laws or transmit learning to me ; I no longer see h im as other than a slave to prej udice and superstit ion.

To convince ourselv es , we have but to cast our eyes upon the h andful of individuals wh o remain attached to our fath ers' insensate

Philos ophy in the Bedroom .. 299

worship : we will see whether they are not all i rreconcilable enemies of the present system, we will see whether i t i s not amongst their numbers that all of that justly contemned caste of royalis ts and aristocrats i s included. Let the slave of a crowned brigand grovel , if he pleases , at the feet of a plaster image ; such an obj ect i s ready­ made for his soul of mud. He who can serve kings must adore gods ; but we, Frenchmen, but we, my fellow countrymen, we, rather than once more crawl beneath such contemptible traces, we would die a thousand times over rather than abase ourselves anew I Since we believe a cult necessary, let us im itate the Romans : actions, pas­ sions, heroes-those were the obj ects of their respect. Idols of this sort elevated the soul , electrifi ed it, and more : they communicated to the spirit the virtues of the res pected being. M inerva's devotee coveted wisdom. Courage found i ts abode in his heart who wor­ shiped M ars. Not a single one of that great people ' s gods was deprived of energy ; all of them infused into the s.pirit of him who venerated them the fire with which they were themselves ablaze ; and each Roman hoped someday to be himself worshiped, each aspired to become as great at least as the deity he too� for a model. But what, on the contrary, do we lind in Christianity' s futi le gods ? What, I want to know, what does this idiot' s religion offer yoU ?8 Does the grubby Nazarene fraud inspire any great thoughts in you ? His foul , nay repellent mother, the shameless Mary-does she excite any virtues ? And do you discover in the saints who gar­ nish the Christ i an Elysium, any example of greatness , of e i ther heroism or virtue ? So alien to lofty conceptions i s this miserable belief, that no artist can employ i ts attributes in the monuments he raises ; even in Rome i tself, most of the embellishments of the papal palaces have their origins in paganism, and as long as this world shall continue, paganism alone will arouse the verve of great men.

Shall we find more moti fs of grandeur in pure theism ? Will acceptance of a chimera infuse into men's minds the high degree

8 A c a r e f u l imp ection of this re l igion w i l l reveal to anyone that the impieties with which it is fi l l e d come in p a rt from the ] ews' ferocity and innocence, and in p art from the indifference and confu sion of the Gent i les ; instead of appropri ating what was good i n what the ancient peoples had to offe:, the Christi ans seem only to h ave formed their doctri n e from a mixture of the vices they found everywhere.

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of energy essential to r epublican virtues, and move men to cherish and practice them ? Le t us imagine nothing of the kind ; we have bid farewell to that ph antom and, at the present time, atheism is the one doctrine of al l those prone to reason. As we gradually proceeded to our enlig htenment, we came more and more to feel that, motion being inhe �ent in matter, the prime mover existed only as an illusion, and tha': all that exists essenti ally having to be in motion, the motor wa s useless ; we sensed that this chimerical divinity, prudently inve :1ted by the earl iest legislators , was , in their hands, simply one mor � means to enthrall us , and that, reserving unto themselves the ri€;ht to make the phantom speak, they knew very well how to get hi m to say nothing but what would shore up the preposterous laws whereby they declared they served us . Ly­ curgus , Numa, Moses , Jesus Christ , Mohammed, a l l these great rogues, all these great thought-tyrants, knew how to associ ate the divinities they fabricattd with their own boundless ambition ; and, certain of captivating the people with the sanction of those gods, they were always studi ous, as everyone knows, either to consult them exclusively about. or to make them exclusively respond to, what they thought likely to serve their own interests .

Therefore, today let us equally despise both that empty god impostors have celebrared, and all the farce of religious subtlet ies surrounding a ridiculou!; belief : i t i s no longer with thi s bauble that free men are to be amused. Let the total extermination of cults and denominations therefore enter into the principles we broadcast throughout all Europe . Let us not be content with breaking scepters ; we will pulve : · ize the idols forever : there i s never more than a single step fro n superstition to royal i sm.9 Does anyone doubt i t ? Then let him understand once and for all, that in every age one of the primary concerns of kings has been to maintain the dominant religion as 0 1e of the polit ical bases that best sustains the throne. But, since i t i s shattered, that throne, and since i t is ,

9 Insp ect the h i story of evel Y r ace : n e v e r w i l l y o u fi n d one of t h e m ch anging t h e government it h a s for a monal chical system, save by r e a son of the brutal iz ation or t h e superstition th at grip s them ; : r o u wil l see kings a l w ays upholding rel igion, and re l i ­ gion s a nctifying kings. One knows the story of the steward and the cook : Hand me the pepper; I'll pass you the h utter. Wretched mortals I are y o u then destined forever to resemble th ese two r a scals ' r l aster ?

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happily, shattered for all t ime, let u s have not the slightest qualm about also demolishing the thing that suppl ied i ts plinth.

Yes, c it izens, religion i s incompatible with the libertarian system ; you have sensed a s much. Never will a free man stoop to Christianity's gods ; never will its dogmas , its rites, its mysteries, or i ts morals su i t a republican. One more effort ; s ince you labor to destroy all the old foundations, do not permit one of them to sur­ vive, for let but one endure, ' ti s enough, the rest will be restored. And how much more certain of their revival must we not be i f the one you tolerate is positively the source and cradle of all the others I Let us give over thinking rel igion can be useful to man j once good laws are decreed unto us, we will be able to dispense with religion. But, they assure us, the people stand in need of one ; i t amuses them, they are soothed by it. Fim: ! Then, if that be the case, give us a religion proper to free men ; give us the gods of paganism. We shall willingly worship Jupiter , Hercules , Pallas ; but we have no use for a dimensionless god who nevertheless fills everything with his immensity , an omnipotent god who never achieves what he wills, a supremely good being who creates malcontents only, a friend of order in whose government everything i s in turmoil . No, we want no more of a god who is at loggerheads with Nature, who i s the father of confusion, who moves man at the moment man aban­ dons himself to horrors ; such a god makes us quiver with indigna­ tion, and we consign him forever to the oblivion whence the in­ famous Robespierre wished to call him forth.lO

Frenchmen, i n the stead of tha t unworthy phantom, we will substitute the imposing simulacra that rendered Rome mistress o f the earth ; l e t us treat every Christian image as we have the tokens of monarchy. There where once tyrants sat we have mounted em­ blems of liberty ; in like manner we will place effigies of great men on the pedestals once occup ied by statues of the knaves Christianity adoredY Let us cease to entertain doubts as to the effect of atheism

10 All religions are agreed in exalting the divinity's wi sdom and power ; but a. soon as they expose his conduct, we find nothing but imprudence, weakness, and folly. God, they say, created the world for himself, and up until the present time his efforts to m ake it honor him h ave proven unsuccessful ; God created u s to worship him, and our d ays are spent mocking him ! Unfortu nate fellow, that God !

1 1 We are only spe aking here of those great men whose reputation has been for a long while secure.

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in the country : have no t the peasants felt the necessity of the an­ nihilation of the Catholi c cult, so contradictory to the true principles of freedom ? Have they not watched undaunted, and without sor­ row or pain, the i r altan and presbyteries battered to bits ? Ah I rest assured, they will renonnce their ridiculous god in the same way. The sta tues of Mars , 0 f Minerva, and of Liberty will be set up in the most conspicuous p ! aces in the villages ; holidays will be cele­ brated there every year ; the pr ize will be d ecreed to the worthiest citizen . At the entrance to a secluded wood, Venus , Hymen, and Love, erected beneath a rustic temple , wil l receive lovers' homages ; there, by the hand of the Graces , Beauty will crown Constancy. More than mere lovinl� will be required in order to pose one ' s candidacy fo r the t iara . i t will be necessary to have merited love. Heroism, capabil it ies , humaneness, largeness of spirit , a proven civism-those are the credentials the lover shall be obliged to present at his mistress' feet, and they will be of far greater value than the titles of birth and wealth a fool 's pride used to require . Some virtues at least wi ll be born of this worship , whereas nothing but crimes come of that other we had the weakness to profess. This worship will ally itself to the l iberty we serve ; i t will animate, nourish, inflame liberty, whereas theism i s in its essence and in i ts nature the most deadly enemy of the l iberty we adore.

Was a d rop o f blood spilled when the pagan idols were destroyed under the Elstern Empire ? The revolution, prepared by the stupidity of a people become slaves again, was accompl ished without the slightest hi ndrance or outcry. Why do we dread the work of philosophy as more painful than that of despotism ? It i s only the priests who s t 11 hold the people, whom you hesitate to enlighten, captive at the feet of their imaginary god : take the priests from the people , and the veil will fall away naturally. B e persuaded that these pe ople, a good deal wiser than you suppose them, once r id o f tyranny's i rons, will soon also be r id o f super­ stition's . You are afraid of the people unrestrained-how ridicu­ lous I Ah, bel ieve me, c tizens, the man not to be checked by the material sword of justice will hardly be halted by the moral fear of hell 's torments, a t which he has laughed since childhood ; in a word, many crimes hav{ been committed as a consequence o f your theism, but never has it prevented a s ingle one.

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If it is true that passions blind, that the i r effect i s to cloud our eyes to dangers that surround us, how may we suppose tha t those dangers which are remote, such as the punishments announced by your god, can successfully dispel the cloud not even the blade of the law i tself, constantly suspended above the passions, i s able to penetrate ? If then it is patently clear that this supplementary check imposed by the idea of a god becomes useless, i f i t i s demon­ strated that by its other effects i t is dangerous, then I wish to know, to what use can i t be put, and from what motives should we lend our support in order to p rolong its existence ?

I s someone about to tell me that we are not yet mature enough to consolidate our revolution in so brill iant a manner ? Ah, my fellow cit izens, the road we took in ' 8 9 has been much more difficult than the one still ahead of us, and we have l i ttle yet to do to con­ quer the opinion we have been harrying since the time of the over­ whelming of the Bastille_ Let us firmly believe that a people wise enough and brave enough to drag an impudent monarch from the heights of grandeur to the foot of the scaffold, a people that, in these la s t few years, has been able to vanquish so many prejudices and sweep away so many ridiculous impediments, will be sufficiently wise and brave to terminate the affair and in the interests of the republ ic 's well-being, abolish a mere phantom a fter having success­ fully beheaded a real king.

Frenchmen, only strike the init ial blows ; your State education will then see to the rest. Get promptly to the task of training the youth , i t must be amongst your most important concerns ; above all , build their education upon a sound ethical basis , the ethical basis that was so neglected in your religious education. Rather than fatigue your children's young organs with deific stupidities, replace them with excellent social p rinciples ; instead of teaching them futile prayers which, by the time they are sixteen, they will glory in having forgotten, let them be instructed in their duties toward society ; train them to cherish the virtues you scarcely ever mentioned in former times and which, without your religious fables, a re sufficient for thei r individual happiness ; make them sense that thi s happiness consists in rendering others as fortunate a s we desire to be our­ selves. I f you repose these truths upon Christian chimeras, a s you so foolishly used to do, scarcely will your pupils have detected the

3 04 .. THE MARQUI S DE SADE

absurd futil ity of i ts foundations than they will overthrow the entire edifice, and they will b('come bandits for the simple rea son they bel ieve the religion they have toppled forbids them to be bandits. On the o ther hand, if you make them sense the necessity of virtue , uniquely because the ir happiness depends upon it , egoism wil l turn them into honest people, and thi s law which dictates their behavior to men will always be the surest, the soundest of all . Let there then be the most scrupulous ca re taken to avoid mixing religious fantasies into this S tate education. Never lose s ight of the fact i t i s free men we wish to form, not the wretched worshipers of a god. Let a simple philosopher introduce these new pupils to the inscrutable but won­ derful sublimities of Nature j let him prove to them that awareness of a god, often highly dangerous to men, never contributed to thei r happiness, and that they will no t be happier for acknowledging as a cause of what they do not understand, something they well under­ stand even less ; that it i s far less essential to inquire into the workings of Nature than to enjoy her and obey her laws j that these laws are as wise as they are simple ; that they are written in the hearts of all men j and that i t i s but necessary to interrogate that heart to discern i ts impube. If they wish absolutely that you speak to them of a creator, answe r that things always having been what now they are, never having had a beginning and never going to have an end, it thus becomes as u seless as impossible for man to be able to trace things back to an imaginary origin which would explain noth­ ing and do not a jo t of g;ood. Tell them that men are incapable of obtaining true notions of a being who does not make his influence felt on one of our senses.

All our ideas are representations of objects that strike us : what i s to represent to u:; the idea of a god, who i s pla inly an idea without obj ect ? I s not sllch an idea , you wil l add when talking to them, quite as impossible as effects without causes ? Is an idea with­ out prototype anything o ther than an hallucination ? Some scholars, you will continue , assure us that the idea of a god i s innate , and that mortals already hav e this idea when in their mothers' bell ies . But, you will remark, tha t i s false j every principle i s a judgment, every judgment the outcl)me of experience, and experience is only acquired by the exercis e : of the senses j whence it follows that religious principles bear 'lpon nothing whatever and are not in the

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slightest innate. How, you will go on, how have they been able to convince rational beings that the thing most difficult to understand is the most vital to them ? It is that mankind has been terrorized ; it i s that when one i s a fraid one ceases to reason ; i t is, above all , that we have been advised to mistrust rea son and defy i t ; and that, when the brain is disturbed, one beli eves anything and examines nothing. Ignorance and fear, you will repeat to them, ignorance and fea r-those are the twin bases of every religion.

Man's uncertainty with respect to his god is, precisely, the cause fo r his attachment to his re1igion. Man's fear in dark places is as much physical as moral ; fear becomes habitual in him, and is changed into need : he would bel i eve he were lacking something even were he to have nothing more to hope for or dread. Next, re­ turn to the uti l itarian value of morals : apropos o f this vast subj ect, give them many more examples than lessons, many more demon­ strations than books, and you will make good citizens of them : you will turn them into fine warriors, fine fathe rs , fine husbands : you will fashion men that much more devoted to the ir country's l iberty, whose minds will be forever immune to servil ity, forever hostile to servitude, whose genius will never be troubled by any religious terror . And then true patriotism will shine in every spir it, and will reign there in all its force and purity, because it will become the sovereign sentiment there , and no alien notion will dilute or cool its energy ; then your second generation will be sure, reliable, and your own work, consolidated by it, will go on to become the law of the universe . But if, through fear or faintheartedness, these counsels are ignored, if the foundations of the edifice we thought we destroyed are left intact, what then will happen ? They will rebuild upon these foundations, and will set thereupon the same colossi , with thi s diffe rence, and it will be a cruel one : the new structures will be cemented with such strength that neither your generation nor ensuing ones will avail against them.

Let there be no doubt of i t : religions are the cradles of despotism : the foremost amongst all the despots was a priest : the first king and the first emperor of Rome, N uma and Augustus, as­ socia ted themselves , the one and the other, with the sacerdotal ; Constantine and Clovis were rather abbots than sovereigns ; Helio­ gabalus was priest of the sun . At all t imes, in every century, every

3 0 6 .. THE MARQUIS DE SADE

age, there has been sHch a connection between despoti sm and religion that it is infini tdy apparent and demonstrated a thousand times over , that in destroying one, the other must be undermined, for the s imple rcason that the first wil l always put the la,v into the service of the second. I do not, however, propose e i ther massacres or expuls ions . Such dreadful things have no pl ace i n the enlightened mind. No, do not assas! , inate a t all , do not expel at al l ; these are royal atrocities , or the brigands' who imitate kings ; i t i s not at a l l by acting as they that you wi l l force men to look with horror upon them who practice :i those crimes. Let us reserve the employ­ ment of force for the idols ; r id icu le alone will suffice for those who serve them : Jul ian's sarcasm wrought greater damage to Ch risti­ anity than all Nero's to rtures. Yes, we shall des troy for all time any notion of a god, and make soldiers of his priests ; a few of them are already ; let them ke ep to thi s trade, sold iering, so worthy of a republican ; but let them give us no more of the ir chimerical being nor of his nonsense-filled religion, the single obj ect of our scorn.

Let us condemn the first of those blessed charlatans who comes to us to say a few more words either of god or of religion, le t us condemn him to be j eered at , r idiculed, covered with fil th in al l the publ i c squares and marketp l aces in France 's l a rgest c i t ies : im­ p ri sonment for l i fe wi l l be the reward of whosoever falls a second t ime into the sarr e error. Let the most insult ing blasphemy, the most atheistic works next be fully and openly authori zed, in order to complete the ext irpa tion from the human heart and memory o f those appall ing past imes o f our childhood ; let there be put in c i rculation the writings most capable of finally illuminating the Europeans upon a matter so important, and let a considerable pr ize , to be bestowed by the N:ltion, be awarded to him who, having sa id and demonstrated everything upon this score , will leave to h i s countrymen no more than a scythe to mow the land c lean o f all those phantoms, and a ste ady heart to hate them. In six months, the whole will be done ; you - infamous god will be a s naught, and all that without ceasing to be just, j e alous of the esteem of others without ceasing to be hO,1est men ; for i t will have been sensed that the rea l friend of h i s c ountry must in no way be led about by chimeras, as is the slave of kings ; that it is not, in a word, either the frivolous hope o f a better world nor fear of the greatest il ls

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Nature sends us tha t must lead a republican, whose only guide I S virtue and whose one restraint i s conscience.

MANNERS

After having made it clear that theism i s in no wise suitable to a republican government, it seems to me necessary to prove that French manners are equally unsuitable to it. This article i s the more cruci al , for the l aws to be promulgated will issue from manners, and will mirror them.

Frenchmen, you are too intelligent to fail to sense that new government will require new manners. That the c itizens of a free State conduct themselves like a despotic king's slaves is unthink­ able : the differences o f their interests, of their duties, of the ir rela­ tions amongst one another essentially determine an enti rely different manner of behaving in the world ; a crowd of minor faults and of l i ttle social indelicacies, thought of as very fundamental indeed under the rule of kings whose expecta tions rose in keeping with the need they felt to impose curbs in order to appear respectable and unapproachable to their subj ects, are due to become as nothing with us ; other crimes with which we are acquainted under the names of regicide and sacrilege, in a system where kings and religion will be unknown, in the same way must be annihilated in a republican State. In according freedom of conscience and of the press, con­ s ider , c it izens-for it i s practically the same thing-whether free­ dom of action must not be granted too : excepting d irect clashes with the underlying principles of governmen t, there remain to you it i s impossible to say how many fewer crimes to punish, because in fact there are very few criminal actions in a society whose founda­ tions are l iberty and equality. Matters ,vell weighed and things closely inspected, only that is really criminal which rejects the law ; for Nature , equally dictating vices and virtues to us , in reason of our consti tution, yet more philosophically, in reason of the need � ature has of the one and the other, what she inspires in us would become a very rel iable gauge by which to adjust exactly what is good and bad. But, the better to develop my thoughts upon so important

308 + THE MARQU!:; DE SADE

a question, we will classi :y the different acts in man's li fe that until the present it has pleased us to call criminal, and we will next square them to the true obl igati ,)ns o f a republican.

In every age, the duties o f man have been considered under the following three categorie s :

1 . Those his consc . ence and his credul i ty impose upon him, wi th wha t regards a supreme being ;

2. Those he i s obliged to fulfill toward his brethren ; 3 . Finally, those that relate only to himself.

The certainty in w �ich we must be that no god meddles in our affairs and that, a s lecessary creatures of Nature, like plants and animals, we are here because i t would be impossible for us not to be-, th is unshakable certainty, it i s clear enough , at one stroke erases the first group of duties, those, I wish to say, toward the divinity to which we err oneously bel ieve ourselves beholden j and with them vanish all religious crimes, all those comprehended under the indefinite names of impie ty, sacrilege, blasphemy, atheism, etc . , al l those, i n br ief, which Athens so unjustly punished in Alcib iades , and France in the unfortunate Labarre . I f there i s anything ex­ travagant in this world i t i s to see men, in \vhom only shallowness of mind and poverty of ide� .s give rise to a notion of god and to what this god expects of them, nevertheless wish to determine what pleases and what angers their imagination's r idiculous phantom. It would hence not be mere y to tolerate indi fferently each of the cul ts that I shou ld like to see l i S l imit ourselves ; I should l ike there to be perfect freedom to deri de them all ; I should like men, gathered in no matter what temple tc invoke the eternal who wears their image, to be seen as so many comics in a theater, a t whose antics everyone may go to laugh. Regard �d in any other l ight, religions become seri­ ous, and then important once again ; they will soon stir up and pa­ tronize opinions, and no sooner will people fall to d isputing over religions than some will t e beaten into favoring religionsY Equal i ty

1 2 Each nation decl ares its rel igion the best of a l l and relies, to persuade one of it, upon an endless number of pr . ,ofs not only in disagreement with one another, but nearly all contradictory. In our profound ignorance, what i s the one which may please god, supposing now that there is a god ? We should, i f we are wise , either protect them all and equal ly, or proscri be them all in the same way ; well, to proscribe them is certainly the surer, since we have the moral a"urance th at all are mummeries, no une o f which can be more pleasing than another to a god who does not exist.

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once wrecked by the preference o r protection tendered one of them, the government will soon disappear , and out of the reconstituted theocracy the aris to cracy will be reborn in a trice. I cannot repeat it to you too often : no more gods, Frenchmen, no more gods, lest un­ der their fatal influence you wish to be plunged back into all the hor­ rors o f despotism ; but it i s only by j eering that you will destroy them ; all the dangers they bring in the ir wake will instantly be re­ vived en masse i f you pamper or ascribe any consequence to them. Carried away by anger, you overthrow their idols ? Not for a minute ; have a bi t of sport with them, and they will crumble to bits ; once withered, the opinion will collapse of its own accord.

I trust I have said enough to make plain that no laws ought to be decreed against religious crimes, for that which offends an il­ lusion offends nothing, and it would be the height of inconsistency to punish those who outrage or who despise a creed or a cult whose priority to all others i s established by no evidence whatsoever. No, that would necessarily be to exhibit a parti al ity and, consequently, to influence the scales of equality, that foremost law of your new gov­ ernment.

We move on to the second class of man's duties , those which bind him to his fellows j this is of all the classes the most extensive.

Excessively vague upon man's relations with his brothers, Christ ian morals propose bases so filled with sophistries that we are completely unable to accept them, since, if one i s pleased to erect principles, one ought scrupulously to guard against founding them upon sophistries. This absurd morality tells us to love our neighbor as ourselves. Assuredly, nothing would be more sublime were i t ever possible for what i s false to be beautiful. The point is not at all to love one's brethren as oneself , s ince that is in defiance of all the laws of Nature, and since hers is the sole voice which must di rect all the actions in our l i fe ; i t is only a question of loving others as brothers, as friends given us by Nature, and with whom we should be able to live much better in a republican State, wherein the disappearance of distances must necessarily tighten the bonds.

May humanity, fraternity, benevolence prescribe our recip­ rocal obligations, and let us individually fulfill them with the simple degree of energy Nature has given us to this end ; let us do so wi th-

3 1 0 .. THE MARQUn DE SADE

out blaming, and above all without punishing, those who , of chill ier temper o r more acrimon ious humor, do not not ice in these yet very touching social tie s all tr e sweetness and gentleness others di scover therein ; for, i t will be agreed, to seek to impose universal laws would be a p alpable absurdi ty : such a p roceeding would be as ridi­ culous a s tha t o f the gencTal who would have all h is soldiers dressed i n a uniform o f the salT e s ize ; i t i s a terrible injustice to require tha t men of unlike chara cter all be rul ed by the same law : what i s good for one i s not a t all good for another.

.

That we cannot devise as many laws as there are men must be admitted ; but the laws ( an be lenient, and so few in number, th at all men, o f whatever ch uacter, can easi ly observe them. Further­ more, I would demand t :1at this small nur�ber of l aws be of such a sort a s to be a d aptable to all the various characters ; they who formulate the code should follow the principle of applying more or less , according to the pe rson in question. It has been pointed out that there are certain vi r' :ues whose p ractice i s impossible for certain men, just as there are certain remedies which do not agree with cer­ tain constitutions. Now, would it not be to ca rry your injustice beyond al l l imits were y ou to send the law to strike the man in­ capabl e of bowing to th e law ? Would your in iquity be any less here th an in a case where yO J sought to force the bl ind to d i s tinguish amongst colors ?

From these fi rst pr i nciples there follows, one feel s , the neces­ s i ty to make fl exible , mil :l l aws and especially to get r id forever of the atrocity of cap i ta l punishment, because the law which attempts a man's l i fe i s impractird, unjust, inadmissible. Not, and i t will be clarified in the sequel , th3 t we l ack an infinite number of cases where, without offense to N atur,! ( and this I shall demonstrate ) , men have freely taken one another's l ives , simply exercis ing a p rerogative received from their common mother ; but i t i s impossible for the law to obtain the same privi l eges, s ince the l aw, cold and impersonal , i s a total stranger to the pass ions which a re able to justify in man the cruel act of mu rder. Man receives h is impressions from Nature, who i s able to forgive him this act ; the l aw, on the contrary, a lways opposed as it i s to N a ture and receiving nothing from her , cannot be authorized to permi t i tsel f the same extravagances : not having the same motives, the law ca nnot have the same rights. Those a re wise

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and delicate di stinctions which escape many people, because very few o f them reflect ; but they will be grasped and retained by the instructed to whom I recommend them, and will , I hope , exert some influence upon the new code being readied for us.

The second reason why the death penalty must be done away with is tha t it has never repressed crime ; for crime is every day com­ mitted at the foot of the scaffold. This punishment is to be got rid o f, in a word, because it would be difficult to conceive of a poorer calculation than this , by which a man i s put to death for having killed another : under the present arrangement the obvious result is not one man the less but, of a sudden, two ; such arithmetic is in use only amongst headsmen and fools. However all that may be, the injuries we can work against our brothers may be reduced to four types : calumny; theft; the crimes which, caused by impurity, may in a disagreeable sense affect others ; and murder.

All these were acts considered of the highest importance under the monarchy ; but are they quite so serious in a republican State ? That i s what we are going to analyze with the a id of philosophy's torch, for by its light alone may such an inquiry be undertaken. Let no one tax. me with being a dangerous innovator ; let no one say that by my writings I seek to blunt the remorse in evildoers' hearts, tha t m y humane ethics a r e wicked because they augment those same evil­ doers' penchant for crime. I wish formally to certify here and now, that I have none of these perverse intentions ; I set forth the ideas which, since the age when I first began to reason, have i dentified themselves in me, and to whose expression and real ization the in­ famous despotism of tyrants has been opposed for uncounted cen­ turies . So much the worse for thos e susceptible to co rruption by any idea ; so much the worse for them who fasten upon naught but the harmful in philosophic opinions, who are likely to be corrupted by everything. Who knows ? They may have been poisoned by reading Seneca and Charron. It is not to them I speak ; I address myself only to people cap able o f hearing me out, and they will read me without any danger.

I t i s with utmost candor I confess tha t I have never considered calumny an evi l , and especially in a government like our own, under which all of us, bound closer together, nearer one to the other, ob­ viously have a greater interest in becoming acqu ainted with one an-

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other. Either one or the other : calumny attaches to a truly evil man, o r i t falls upon a virtuous creature. I t will be agreed that, in the fi rst case , i t makes l i ttle jifference if one imputes a l i ttle more evil to a man known for having done a great deal of i t ; perhaps indeed the evil which does not exi " t will bring to l ight evil which does, and there you have him, the malefactor, more fully exposed than ever before.

We will suppose now that an unwholesome influence reigns over Hanover, but that in repa iring to that city where the air is in­ salubrious, I r isk l i ttle Vlorse than a bout of fever ; may I reproach the man who, to p reven t me from going to Hanover, tells me that one perishes upon arriving there ? No, surely not ; for, by using a great evil to frighten me, he spared me a lesser one.

I f, on the contrary, a virtuous man i s calumniated, let him not be alarmed ; he need bu t exhibit h imself, and all the calumniator's venom will soon be turn ed back upon the latter. For such a person, calumny is merely a test of purity whence his virtue emerges more resplendent than ever. As a matter o f fact, his individual ordeal may profit the cause of virtue in the republ ic , and add to its sum ; for this virtuous and sen s itive man, stung by the injustice done him, will apply himself to th,! cultivation of still greater virtue ; h e will want to overcome this calumny from which he thought himself sheltered, and h is splendid actions will acqui re a correspondingly greater degree of energy. Thus , in the first instance, the calumniator p roduces quite favorabk results by inflating the vices of the danger­ ous obj ect of his attacks ; in the second, the results achieved are ex­ cellent, for virtue is obli i�ed to offer i tsel f to us enti re.

Well now, I am at a loss to know for what reason the calum­ niator deserves your fea r, especially under a regime where i t i s es­ sential to identi fy the wicked, and to augment the energy of the good. Let us hence very carefully avoid any declarat ions prejudicial to calumny ; we will conBider it both a lantern and a stimulant, and in either case something highly useful . The legislator, all of whose ideas must be as l arge as the work he undertakes is great, must never be concerned with the effect of that crime which strikes only the individual. It i s the general , overall effect he must study ; and when in thi s manner he c bserves the effects calumny produces, I defy him to find anything pun ishable in i t . I defy him to find any shadow

Philosophy in the Bedroo m .. 3 1 3

or hint o f justice in the law that would punish i t ; our legislator becomes the man of greatest justice and integrity if , on the contrary, he encourages and rewards it .

Theft i s the second of the moral offenses whose examination we proposed.

I f we glance at the history of ancient times, we will see theft permi tted, nay, recompensed in all the Greek republics ; Sparta and Lacedaemon openly favored i t ; s.everal other peoples regarded i t as a virtue in a warrio r ; i t i s certain tha t stealing nouri shes courage, strength, skill, tact, in a word, all the virtues useful to a republican system and consequently to our own. Lay partial ity aside, and an­ swer me : i s theft , whose effect i s to distribute wealth more evenly, to be branded as a wrong in our day, under our government which aims at equal ity ? Pla inly, the answer is no : i t furthers equal i ty and, what i s more, renders more difficult the conservation of property. There was once a people who punished not the thief but him who allowed himself to be robbed, in order to teach him to care for his property. This brings us to reflections of a broader scope .

God forbid that I should here wish to assa i l the pledge to re­ spect property the Nation has just given ; but will I be permitted some remarks upon the injustice of this pledge ? vVhat i s the spir i t of the vow taken by al l a nat ion's individuals ? I s i t not to maintain a perfect equality amongst cit izens, to subj ect them al l equally to the law protecting the possessions o f all ? Well, I ask you now whether that law is truly just which orders the man who has nothing to respect another who has everything ? What are the elements of the social contract ? Does it not consi s t in one's yielding a l i ttle o f h is freedom and of h i s wealth in order to assure and sustain the preser­ vation of each ?

Upon those found a tions all the laws repose ; they just ify the punishments inflicted upon him who abuses his l iberty ; in the same way, they authorize the imposition o f conditions ; these latter pre­ vent a cit izen from protesting when these things are demanded of h im, because he knows that by means of what he gives, the rest of what he has is safeguarded for him ; but, once again, by what right wi l l he who has nothing be enchained by an agreement which protects only him who has everything ? I f, by your pledge, you per­ form an act of equity in protecting the property of the rich, do you

3 1 4 .. THE MARQUIS DE SADE

not commit one of unfairness in requiring this pledge of the owner who owns nothing ? Wht advantage does the latter derive from your pledge ? and how [an you expect him to swear to something exclusively beneficial to someone who, through his wealth, differs so greatly from him ? Certa inly, nothing i s more unjust : an oath must have an equal effe :t upon all the individuals who pronounce i t ; that i t bind him who has no interest in its maintenance i s im­ possible, because it wou .d no longer be a pact amongst free men ; i t would be the weapor. o f the strong against the weak, against whom the latter would have to be in incessant revolt. Vvell, such, exactly, i s the situation c �eated by the pledge to respect property the Nation has just required all the citizens to subscribe to under oath ; by i t only the rich ench< . in the poor, the rich alone benefit from a bargain into which the poor man enters so thoughtlessly, fail ing to see that through this oath wrung from h i s good faith, he engages himself to do a thing tha t cannot be done with respect to himself.

Thus convinced, as you must be, of this barbarous inequality, do not proceed to worsen your injustice by punishing the man who has nothing for having cared to filch something from the man who has everything : your inequi table pledge gives h im a greater right to i t than ever. In driving him to perjury by forcing him to make a promise which, for him, i s absurd, you j usti fy all the crimes to which this perjury will impel t im ; i t i s not for you to punish something for which you have been the cause. I h ave no need to say more to make you sense the terrible cruelty of cha stis ing thieves. Imitate the wise law of the people I spoke of just a moment ago ; punish the man neglectful enou gh to let himself be robbed ; but proclaim no kind of penalty agai r st robbery. Consider whether your pledge does not authorize the lct, and whether he who commits i t does any more than put him ,elf in harmony with the most sacred of Nature 's movements, th: l t of preserving one ' s own existence at no matter whose expense.

The transgressions we are considering in th i s second class of man' s duties toward his fellows include actions for whose under­ taking l ibertinage may be ! the cause ; among those which are pointed to as particularly incompatible with approved behavior are pros ti­ tution, inces t, rap e, and sodomy. We surely must not for one mo­ ment doubt that all thOSe ! known as moral crimes, that is to say, all

Philosophy in the Bedroom .. 3 1 5

acts o f the sort to which those we have just cited belong, are o f total inconsequence under a government whose sole duty consists in pre­ serving, by whatever may be the means, the form essential to its continuance : there you have a republican government's unique morality. Well , the republic being permanently menaced from the outside by the despots surrounding i t, the means to its preservation cannot be imagined as moral means, for the republ ic will preserve i tself only by war, and nothing is le :;s moral than war. I ask how one will be able to demonstrate that in a state rendered immoral by i ts obligations, i t i s essential that the individual be moral? I will go further : it is a very good thing he i s not. The Greek lawgivers per­ fectly appreci ated the capital nece:ss ity of corrupting the member­ cit izens in order that, their moral dissolu tion coming into conflict with the establishment and its values , there would result the insur­ rection that i s always indispensable: to a polit ical system of perfect happiness which, like republican government, must necessarily ex­ cite the hatred and envy of all its foreign neighbors. Insurrection, thought these sage legisla tors , i s not at all a m o ral condi tion ; how­ ever, it has got to be a republ ic 's permanent condition. Hence it would be no less absurd than dangerous to require that those who are to insure the perpetual immor.al subversion of the established order themselves be moral beings : for the state of a moral man i s one o f tranquill i ty and peace , the state of an imm oral man is one of perpetual unrest that pushes him to, and i dentifies him with, the necessary insurrection in which the republican must always keep the government of which he is a member.

'-IVe may now enter into detail and begin by analyzing modesty, that fainthearted negative impulse of contradiction to impure a f­ fections. Were i t among Nature's intentions that man be modest, assuredly she would not have caused him to be born naked ; un­ numbered peoples, less degraded by civi l ization than we, go about naked and feel no shame on that account ; there can be no doubt that the custom of dressing has had its single origin in harshness of climate and the coquetry of women who would rather provoke de­ sire and secure to themselves i ts effects than have i t caused and satisfied independently of themselves. They further reckoned that Nature having created them not without blemishes, they would be far better assured o f all the means needed to please by concealing

3 1 6 .. T H E MARQ U S DE SADE

these fl aws behind adornments ; thus modesty, far from being a virtue, was merely one of corruption ' s e a rl iest consequences, one o f t h e fi r s t devices o f fem� � le gui le .

Lycurgus and Solon, fully convinced that immodesty' s results are to keep the citizer in the immoral state indispensable to the mechanics of republ ican government, obliged girls to exhib i t them­ selves naked a t the theater. 13 Rome imi tated the exampl e : a t th e games o f Flora they danced naked ; t h e greater p a r t o f pagan mysteries were celebra ted thus ; among some peopl es , nud i ty even passed for a virtue. If- any event, immodesty i s born o f l ewd in­ cl inations ; what comes o f these incl inations comprises the alleged cr iminal ity w e are di scussing, o f which p rostitution i s the foremost effect.

Now that we h avt got back upon our feet and broken wi th the host o f prejudices th at h el d u s captive ; now that , brought closer to N a ture by the quantity o f p rejudices we have recently obl iterated, we l i s ten only to Natu r e ' s voice, we are fully convinced that i f any­ thing were criminal , i t would be to res i s t the penchants she inspires i n us , rather than to c ,)me to grips w i th them. vVe are persuaded tha t lust , being a p roduct o f those penchants , i s not to be sti fled o r legislated against , but that i t i s , rather , a ma tter o f a rranging fo r the means whereby p� � ss ion may be sat isfied i n peace. Vif e mll s t hence undertake t o int'oduce o r d e r i n t o t h i s sph ere o f affa i rs , and to es tabl i sh a l l the secur i ty necessary so that , when need sends the c it izen near the obj ect:; o f lust, he can give himsel f ove r to doing with them al l that h i s passions demand, without ever being ham­ pered by anythi ng, for there i s no moment in the l i fe of man when l iberty in i t s whole ampl itude i s so important to him. Various sta­ t ions, cheerful , sani tar y , spacious , p roperly furnished and in every respect safe, wil l be en cted in divers points in each c ity ; in them, al l sexes , all ages , all creatures poss ibl e will be offered to the caprices o f the l ibert ines who shall come to divert themselves , and the most

13 It h a s b e e n said the intention of t h e s e l egislators w a s , b y d u l l ing t h e p a ssion m e n experienced f o r a n a k e d gir l , t o render m o r e acti ve the o n e men sometimes experi­ ence for their own sex. The,e sages caused to be shown that for which they w anted there to be d isgu st, and to l e hidden what they thought incl ined to inspire sweeter desire s ; i n either c a s e, did they not strive after the obj ective we have j u st mentioned ? O n e sees that they sensed the need of imm o r a l ity in republican manners.

Philosophy in the Bedroo m + 3 1 7

absolute subordination will be the rule of the individuals participat­ ing ; the slightest refusal o r recalcitrance will be instantly and arbi­ trarily punished by the inj ured party. I must explain this last more fully, and weigh i t against republican manners ; I promised I would employ the same logic from beginning to end, and I shall keep my word.

Although, as 1 told you just a moment ago, no passion has a greater need of the widest horizon of l iberty than has this, none, doubtless , i s as despotic ; here i t i s that man likes to command, to be obeyed, to surround himself with slaves compel led to satisfy him ; well, whenever you withho ld from man the secret means whereby he exhales the dose of despotism Nature instille d in the depths of his heart, he will seek other outlets for it , i t will be vented upon nearby obj ects ; i t will trouble the government. If you would avoid that danger , permit a free fl ight and rein to those tyrannical desires which, despite himself, torment man ceaselessly : content with having been able to exercis e his small dominion in the middle of the harem of sultanas and youths whose submission your good offices and his money procure for him, he will go away appeased and with nothing but fond feelings for a government which so obligingly af­ fords him every means of satisfying his concupiscence ; proceed, on the other hand, a fter a different fashion, between the citizen and those obj ects of public lust raise the ridiculous obstacles in olden times invented by ministerial tyranny and by the lubricity of our Sardanapaluses14-, do that, and the cit izen, soon embittered against your regime, soon j ealous of the despotism he sees you exercise all by yourself, will shake off the yoke you lay upon him, and, weary of your manner of ruling, will , as he has just done, sub­ stitute another for it .

But observe how the Greek legislators, thoroughly imbued with these ideas, treated debauchery at Lacedaemon, at Athens : rather than prohibiting, they sotted the citizen on i t ; no species of lechery was forbidden him ; and Socrates , whom the oracle described

14 It is wel l known that the infamous and criminal Sartine devised, in the interests of the king's lewdness, the p l a n of h aving Dubarry read to Louis XV, thrice e ach week, the p rivate details, enriched by Sartine, of all th at transpired i n the evil corners of Paris. This dep artment of the French Nero'. libertinage cost the the State three mil­ l ions.

3 1 8 .. THE MARQUIS DE SADE

as the wisest philosopl.er of the land, passing indifferently from Aspas ia 's arms into those of Alcibiades, was not on that account less the glory of Greece . I am going to advance somewhat further , and however contrary a r e my ideas to our present customs, a s my obj ect is to prove that we must make all haste to alter those customs if we wish to preserve I :he government we have adopted, I am go­ ing to try to convince you that the prostitution of women who bear the name of honest i s r 0 more dangerous than the prostitution of men , and that not only nust we associate women with the lecheries practiced in the houses I have set up, but we must even build some for them, where their whims and the requirements of thei r temper, ardent l ike ours but in l quite different way, may too find satisfac­ tion with every sex.

First of all, what right have you to assert that women ought to be exempted from the blind submission to men' s caprices Nature dictates ? and, secondly by what other right do you defend their subjugation to a contin ence impossible to their physical structure and of p erfect uselessness to their honor ?

I will treat each of these questions separately. It is certain, in a ;tate of Nature, that women are born vul­

guivagu o uJ, that i s to say , are born enjoying the advantages of other female animals and belonging, l ike them and without exception, to all males ; such were, w i thout any doubt, both the primary laws of Nature and the only i nstitutions of those earliest societies into which men gathered. Self-in teres t, ego ism , and love degraded these primitive attitudes, at once so simple and so natural ; one thought oneself enriched by taki ng a woman to wife, and with her the goods of her family : there we find satisfied the first two feelings I have just indicated ; still mor·! often, this woman was taken by force, and thereby one became a ttached to her-there we find the other of the motives in action, and in every case, injustice.

Never may an act I ){ possession be exercised upon a free being ; the exclusive possession of a woman i s no less unjust than the posses­ sion of slaves ; all men are born free, all have equal rights : never should we lose sight of those principles ; according to which never may there be granted tCI one sex the legitimate right to lay monopo­ lizing hands upon the other, and never may one of these sexes, o r classes, arbitrarily possess the other. Similarly, a woman existing in

Philosophy in the Bedroo m + 3 19

the purity of Nature's laws cannot allege, a s justification for refus­ ing herself to someone who desires her, the love she bears another, because such a response i s based upon exclusion, and no man may be excluded from the having of a woman as of the moment it is clear she definitely belongs to all men. The act of possession can only be exercised upon a chattel or an animal, never upon an individual who resembles us, and all the ties which can bind a woman to a man are quite as unjust a s illusory.

If then i t becomes incontestable that we have received from Nature the right indiscriminately to express our wishes to all women, i t likewise becomes incontestable that we have the right to compel their submission, not exclusively, for I should then be con­ tradicting myself, but temporarilyP It cannot be denied that we have the right to decree laws that compel woman to yield to the Hames of him who would have her ; violence itself being one of that right's effects, we can employ it lawfully. Indeed ! has Nature not proven that we have that right, by bestowing upon us the strength needed to bend women to our will ?

It i s in vain women seek to bring to their defense either modesty or their a ttachment to other men ; these illusory grounds are worthless ; earlier, we saw how contemptible and factitious i s the sentiment of modesty. Love, which may be termed the soul's madness, i s no more a title by which thei r constancy may be justified : love, sat isfying two persons only, the beloved and the loving, can­ not serve the happiness of others, and it i s for the sake of the happiness of everyone, and not for an egotistical and privileged happiness, that women have been given to us. All men therefore have an equal right of enjoyment of all women ; therefore, there is no man who, in keeping with natural law, may lay cl a im to a unique and personal right over a woman. The law which will oblige them

15 Let i t not be said that I contradict myself here, and that after h aving established, at some point further above, th at we h ave no right to bind a woman to ourselves, I destroy those principles when I declare now we h ave the right to constr ain her ; I repeat, it is a question of enj oyment only, not of property : I have no right of posses­ sion upon that fountain I find by the road, but I have certain rights to its use ; I h ave the right to avail myself of the limpid water it offers my thirst ; similarly, I have no real right of possession over such-a nd-such a woman, but I h ave incontestable rights to the enjoyment of her ; I have the right to force from her this enjoyment, if she re­ fuses me it for whatever the cause m ay bl',

320 + THE MARQUl S DE SADE

to p rosti tute themselves as often and in any manner we wish, in the houses of debauchery we referred to a moment ago , and which will coerce them if they baI<, punish them if they shirk or dawdle , i s thus one of the most equ itable of laws, against which there can b e no sane or r ightful complaint .

A man who would l ike to enjoy whatever woman or girl wil l henceforth be able , i f the laws you promulgate are just, to have her summoned at once to du :y at one of the houses ; and there, under the supervision of the matrons of that temple of Venus, she will be sur­ rendered to him, to satisfy, humbly and with submission, all the fancies in which he wiI: be pleased to indulge with her, howeve r strange or i rregular they may be, since there i s no extravagance which is not in Nature, none which she does not acknowledge as her own. There remains bu : to fix the woman's age j now, I maintain it cannot be fixed withOl; t restr icting the freedom of a man who de­ s ires a gi rl of any given age.

He who has the right to eat the fru i t of a tree may assuredly pluck it ripe or green, a( ,cording to the inspiration of his taste. But, it will be obj ected, the re i s an age when the man's proceedings would be decidedly harmful to the girl ' s well-being. This considera­ tion i s utterly without value j once you concede me the proprietary right of enjoyment, tha t right i s independent of the effects enjoy­ ment produces j from th s moment on, it becomes one, whether this enjoyment be beneficial o r damaging to the obj ect which must sub­ mit itself to me. Have I not already proven that it is legitimate to force the woman's will i :l thi s connection ? and that immediately she excites the desire to enjoy she has got to expose herself to this en­ joyment, putting all ego tistical sentiments quite as ide ? The i ssue o f h e r well-being, I repeat i s i rrelevant. As soon as concern for this consideration threatens to detract from or enfeeble the enjoyment of him who desires her, and who has the right to appropriate her, thi s consideration for age ceases to exi st j for what the obj ect may experience, condemned by Nature and by the law to slake mo­ mentarily the other ' s thirst, i s nothing to the point j in this study, we are only interested in wr at agrees with him who desires . But we will redress the balance.

Yes, we will redre:; s i t j doubtless we ought to. These women we have just so cruelly enslaved-there i s no denying we must

Philosophy in the Bedroom .. 3 2 1

recompense them, and I come now to the second question I pro­ posed to answer.

If we admit, as we have just done, tha t all women ought to be subjugated to our desires, we may certa inly allow then ample satis­ faction o f theirs. Our laws must be favorable to their fiery tempera­ ment. It is absurd to locate both their honor and their vi rtue in the antinatural strength they employ to resist the penchants with which they h ave been far more profu sely endowed than we ; this injustice o f manners i s rendered more fl agrant still s ince we contrive at once to weaken them by seduction, and then to punish them for yielding to all the efforts we have made to p rovoke the i r fall . All the ab­ surdity o f our manners , i t seems to me, i s graven in this shocking paradox, and thi s br ief outl ine a lone ought to awaken us to the urgency of exchanging them for manners more pure.

I say then that women, having been endowed with considerably more violent penchants for carnal pleasure than we, will be able to give themselves over to i t wholeheartedly, absolutely free o f all encumbering hymeneal t ies , of all false notions o f modesty, ab­ solutely restored to a state o f N a ture ; I want laws permitting them to give themselves to as many men a s they see fi t ; I would have them accorded the enj oyment of all sexes and, as in the case o f men, the enjoyment of all p arts of the body ; and under the special clause prescribing thei r surrender to all who desire them, there must be subj oined another guaranteeing them a s imil a r freedom to enjoy all they deem worthy to s a ti sfy them.

What, I demand to know, what dangers are there in this li­ cense ? Chi ldren who will l ack fathers ? Ha ! what can that matter in a republ i c where every individual must have no other dam than the nat ion, where everyone born i s the motherland's child. And how much more they will cherish her , they who, never having known any but her , will comprehend from birth that it is from her alone all must be expected. Do not suppose you are fashioning good re­ publ icans so long as children, who ought to belong solely to the republic, remain immured in their famil ies . By extending to the family, to a restricted number of persons, the portion o f affection they ought to distribute amongst their brothers , they inevitably adopt those persons' sometimes very harmful prejudices ; such chil­ d ren' s opinions, the ir thoughts a re part icul ar ized, mal formed, and

3 2 2 .. T H E MARQ U [ S DE SADE

the vi rtues of a Man of the State become completely inaccessible to them. Finally abandoning the ir heart altogether to those by whom they have been given b :-eath, they have no devotion left for what wil l cause them to matl :re , to understand, and to shine , a s i f these l a tter blessings were no : more important than the former I I f there i s the greatest disadvan tage in thus letting children imbibe interests from their family often in sharp disagreement with those of the ir country, there i s then the most excellent argument for separating them from their family ; and are they not naturally weaned away by the means I suggest , since in absolutely destroying all marital bonds, there are no longer born, as fruits of the woman's pleasure, anything but children to whom knowledge of their father i s abso­ lutely forbidden, and w i th that the possibil ity of belonging to only one family, instead of e e ing, as they must be, purely les enfa n ts de la patrie .

There will then b e houses intended for women's libertinage and, like the men' s , under the government's protection ; in these es­ tablishments there will he furnished all the individuals o f e i ther sex women could desire , ar d the more constantly they frequent these places the higher they ",ill be esteemed. There i s nothing so barba­ rous or so ludicrolls aB to have identified the ir honor and their virtue with the resistance women show the desires Nature implants in them, and which continually inflame those who are hypocrite enough to pass censure on them. From the most tender age,16 a girl released from her pate rnal fetters, no longer having anything to preserve for marr iage ( completely abolished by the wise laws I advocate ) , and superior to the prejudices which in former times imprisoned her sex, wi l l there fore , in the houses created for the purpose , be able to indulge in everything to which her constitution prompts her ; she will he received respectfully, copiously satisfied, and, returned once aga i :1 into society, she will be able to tell o f the pleasures she tasted quite a s publicly as today she speaks of a ball or promenade. 0 charming sex, you will be free : a s do men, you

1 6 Th e B abylonians scarcely aw aited t h e i r seventh year to carry t h e i r fi r s t fruits to the temp l e of Venus. Th e lirst impulse to concu piscence a young girl feels is the moment when N a tu r e bids her p rostitute herself , and without any other kind of con­ sider ation she must yi e ld insta i ltly N ature speaks ; i f she resist., she outrages N ature's l aw.

Philosophy ill the Bedroom + 3 23

will enjoy a ll the pleasures of which Nature makes a duty, from not one will you be withheld. Must the diviner ha lf of humankind be laden with i rons by the other ? Ah, break those i rons ; Nature wil ls i t . For a br idle have nothing but your incl inations, for laws only your desires , for morality Nature's alone ; languish no longer under brutal p rejudices which wither your charms and hold captive the divine impulses of your hearts ;17 l ike us, you a re free, the field of action whereon one contends for Venus' favors i s as open to you as i t is to us ; have no fear of absurd reproaches ; pedantry and superstit ion are things of the past ; no longer will you be seen to blush at your cha rming delinquencies ; crowned with myrtle and roses, the esteem we conceive for you will be henceforth in direct proportion to the scale you give your extravagances.

What has just been said ought doubtless to dispense us from examining adultery ; nevertheless, l et 's cast a glance upon it , how­ ever nonexistent i t be in the eyes o f the laws I am establishing. To what point was it not ridiculous in our former inst i tutions to con­ s ider adultery criminal ! \Vere there anything absurd in the world, very surely i t is the timelessness ascribed to conjugal relations ; it appears to me i t is but necessary to scrutin ize , or sense the weight o f, those bonds in order to cease to view as wicked the act which l ightens them ; Nature , as we remarked recently, h aving supplied women with a temper more a rdent, with a sensib i l i ty more p ro­ found, than she awarded persons of the other sex, it is unquestion­ ably for women that the marital contract p roves more onerous.

Tender women, you ablaze wi th love' s fire , compensate your­ selves now, and do so boldly and un afra id ; persuade yourselves that there can exist no evil in obedience to Nature 's p romptings, that it i s not for one man she created you, but to please them all, without d i scrimination. Let no anxi ety inhibit you. Imi tate the Greek repub­ l icans ; never d id the philosophers whence they had the i r laws con­ trive to make adultery a crime for them, and nearly all authorized disorderliness among women. Thomas More p roves in h is Utopia

17 Women are unaware to what point their l a sciviou sness embellishes them. Let one comp are two women of roughly comp arable age and beauty, one of whom lives in cel ib acy, and the other in l ibertin age : i t wil l be seen by how much the l atter exceeds in ecl at and freshness ; al l violence done N a ture is far more wearing than the abuse of pleasures ; everyone knows beas improve a woman's looks.

3 24 + THE MARQUS DE SADE

tha t i t becomes women to surrender themselves to debauchery, and tha t great man's i deas '.vere not always pure dreams. 18

Amongst the Tart ars , the more profligate a woman, the more she was honored ; about her neck she publicly wore a certain j ewelry a ttesting to her impudiri ty, and those who were not at a l l decora ted were not at all admired. In Peru, famil ies cede the ir wives and daughters to the vis it ir g traveler ; they are rented at so much the day, l ike horses, or carr i ages ! Volumes, finally, would not suffice to demonstrate tha t lewd behavior has never been held criminal amongst the illuminated peoples of the earth. Every philosopher knows full well it is solely to the Christian impostors we are in­ debted for having puffed it up into crime. The priests had excellent cause to forbid us led ery : this injunction, by reserving to them acquaintance with and absolution for these private sins, gave them an incredible ascendancy over women, and opened up to them a career o f lubric i ty who:;e scope knew no limits. We know only too well how they took advantage of it and how they would again abuse the i r powers, were the:, not hopelessly discredited.

Is incest more dar gerous ? Hardly. It loosens family ties and the cit izen has that much more love to lavish on his country ; the primary l aws of Natu re : dictate i t to us , our feel ings vouch for the fact ; and nothing i s so enj oyable as an obj ect we have coveted over the years. The most pr imitive institutions smiled upon incest ; i t is found in society's or igin s : it was consecrated in every rel igion, every l aw encouraged i t . I f \\1e traverse the world we will find incest every­ where establ i shed. The bl acks of the Ivory Coast and Gabon prosti­ tute the ir wives to the i r own chi ldren ; in Judah , the eldest son must marry his father's wi ft ; the people of Chile l ie indifferently with the ir sisters, the i r daughters, and marry mother and daughter at the same time. I would venture, in a word, that incest ought to be every gove rnment 's la·.v-every government whose basis i s fra­ terni ty. How is it that reasonable men were able to carry absurdity to the point of believinf; that the enj oyment of one's mother, sister, or daughter could ever be criminal ? Is it not, I ask, an abominable view wherein i t i s made to appear a crime for a man to place higher

l ' The same th inker wished a ffi anced couples to ,ee e ach other n aked before m a r­ r i age. H o w m a ny a l l i ances would f a i l , w e r e this l a w enforced ! It might be decl ared th a t the cont r a ry i s indeed w h at is termed p u rchase of merchandise s ight unse en.

Philos ophy in the Bedroom .. 3 2 5

value upon the enjoyment of an obj ect t o which natural feeling draws him close ? One might just as well say that we are forbidden to love too much the individuals Nature enj oins us to love best, and that the more she gives us a hunger for some object, the more she orders us away from it . These are absurd paradoxes j only people bestialized by superstition can believe or uphold them. The com­ munity of women I am establishing necessarily leading to incest, there remains l ittle more to say about a supposed misdemeanor whose inexistence is too plainly evident to warrant further pursuit of the matter, and we shall turn our attention to rape, which at first glance seems to be, of all libertinage' s excesses, the one which is most dearly established as being wrong, by reason of the outrage it appears to cause. I t i s certain, however, that rape, an act so very rare and so very difficult to prove, wrongs one' s neighbor less than theft, since the latter is destructive to property, the former merely damaging to it. B eyond that, what obj ections have you to the ravisher ? What will you say, when he repl ies to you that , as a matter of fact, the injury he has committed is trifling indeed, since he has done no more than place a l i ttle sooner the obj ect he has abused in the very state in which she would soon have been put by marriage and love.

But sodomy, that alleged crime which will draw the fire of heaven upon cities addicted to i t , i s sodomy not a monstrous devia­ tion whose punishment could not be severe enough ? Ah, sorrowful it i s to have to reproach our ancestors for the j udiciary murders in which, upon this head, they dared indulge themselves. We wonder that savagery could ever reach the point where you condemn to death an unhappy person all of whose crime amounts to not sharing your tastes. One shudders to think that scarce forty years ago the legislators' absurd thinking had not evolved beyond this point. Con­ sole yourselves , c it izens j such absurdities are to cease : the intelli­ gence of your lawmakers will answer for it . Thoroughly enlightened upon this weakness occurring in a few men, people deeply sense to­ day that such error cannot be criminal, and that Nature, who places such sl ight importance upon the essence that flows in our loins, can scarcely be vexed by our choice when we are pleased to vent it into this o r that avenue .

What single crime can exist here ? For no one wi l l wish to

326 + THE MARQUIS DE SADE

maintain that all the pa rts of the body do not resemble each other, that there are some wh: ch are pure, and others defiled ; but, as i t is unthinkable such nonsense be advanced seriously, the only possible crime would consist in tle waste of semen. Well, i s i t l ikely that thi s semen i s so precious to Nature that i ts loss i s necessarily criminal ? 'Vere tha t so, would sh e every day institute those losses ? and is i t not to authorize them to permit them in dreams, to permit them in the act of taking one 's :?leasure with a pregnant woman ? I s i t pos­ sible to imagine Nature having allowed us the possibil ity of com­ mitting a crime that would outrage her ? Is it possible that she con­ sent to the destruction by man of her own pleasures, and to h is thereby becoming stronger than she ? I t i s unheard of-into what an abyss o f folly one i s hurled when, in reasoning, one abandons the aid of reason's torch I Let us abide in our unshakable assurance that it i s a s easy to enj oy a woman in one manner as in another, that i t makes absolutely no di fference whether one enjoys a girl or a boy, and as soon as it is clea �ly understood that no inclinations or tastes can exist in us save the ones we have from Nature, that she is too wise and too consistent to have given us any which could ever of­ fend her.

The penchant for sodomy i s the result of physical formation, to which we contribute nothing and which we cannot alter. At the most tender age, some chi ldren reveal that penchant, and i t i s never corrected in them. Som �times i t i s the fruit of sat iety ; but even in this case, i s i t less Nature's doing ? Regardless o f how it is viewed, it is her work, and, in e very instance, what she insp i res must be re­ spected by men. I f, wer e one to take an exact inventory, it should come out tha t this tastf i s infini tely more affecting than the other, that the pleasures resul ting from i t are far more lively, and that for thi s reason its exponents are a thousand times more numerous than its enemies, would i t not then be possible to conclude that, far from affronting Nature , this vice serves her intentions, and that she is less delighted by our procrea tion than we so foolishly believe ? Why, a s we travel about the world, how many peoples do we not see holding women in contempt ! Many are the men who strictly avoid employing them for anything but the having of the child necessary to replace them. The c,)mmunal aspect o f l i fe in republ ics always renders thi s vice more f requent in that form of society ; but it is not

Philosophy in the Bedroom .. 327

dangerous. 'Vould the Greek legislators have introduced i t into their republics had they thought it so ? Quite the contrary ; they deemed it necessary to a warlike race. Plutarch speaks with en­ thusiasm of the battalion of lovers : for many a year they alone de­ fended Greece's freedom. The vice reigned amongst comrades-in­ arms, and cemented their unity. The greatest of men lean toward sodomy. At the time i t was discovered, the whole of America was found

" inhabited by people of this taste. In Louis iana, amongst the

Ill inois, Indians in feminine garb prostituted themselves a s courte­ sans. The blacks of Benguela publicly keep men ; nearly all the seraglios of Algiers are today exclusively filled with young boys. Not content to tolerate love for young boys, the Thebans made it mandatory ; the philosopher of Chaeronea prescribed sodomy as the surest way to a youth 's affection.

We know to what extent it prevailed in Rome, where they had public places in which young boys, costumed a s girls, and girls as boys, prostituted themselves. In the ir letters, Martial , Catullus , Tibullus , Horace, and Virgil wrote to men a s though to their mis­ tresses ; and we read in Plutarch19 that women must in no way figure in men's love. The Amasians of Crete used to abduct boys, and their initiation was distinguished by the most singular ceremonies . When they were taken with love for one, they notified the parents upon what day the ravisher wished to carry him off ; the youth put up some resistance if his lover failed to please him ; in the contrary case, they went off together, and the seducer restored him to his family as soon as he had made use of him ; for in this p assion as in that for women, one always has too much when one has had enough. Strabo informs us that on this very island, seraglios were peopled with boys only ; they were prostituted openly.

Is one more authority required to prove how useful this vice is in a republic ? Let us lend an ear to Jerome the Peri pa tetic : "The love of youths ," says he, "spread throughout all of Greece, for it instilled in us strength and courage, and thus stood us in good stead when we drove the tyrants out ; conspiracies were formed amongst lovers, and they were readier to endure torture than denounce their accomplices ; such patriots sacrificed everything to the

19 The Moralities: "On Love."

328 + THE MARQUIS DE SADE

State ' s prosperity ; it was beheld as a certain thing, that these attachments steadied the republic, women were declaimed against, and to entertain connections with such creatures was a frailty reserved to despots ." Pederasty has always been the vice o f warrior races. From Caesar we learn that the Gauls were to an extraordinary degree given to i t . The wars fought to sustain the republic brought about the separation of the two sexes, and hence the propagation of the vice, and when i ts consequences , so useful to the State, were recogn. zed, religion speedily blessed it . Tha t the Romans sanctified the amours of Jupiter and Ganymede i s well known. Sextus Empi ric11s assures us that th i s caprice was compul­ sory amongst the Persi ans. At last, the women, jealous and con­ temned, offered to rend er the ir husbands the same service they re­ ceived from young bOyl' ; some few men made the experiment, and returned to the ir forme r habits, finding the illusion impossible. The Turks, greatly incl ined toward this depravity Mohammed conse­ crated in the Koran, were nevertheless convinced that a very young virgin could well enoug1 be substituted for a youth, and rarely did they grow to womanhc od without having passed through the ex­ perience. Sextus Quintus and Sanchez allowed this debauch ; the latter even undertook tc' show it was of use to procreation , and that a child created after this prel iminary exercis e was infini tely better constituted thanks to i t . Finally, women found resti tution by turn­ ing to each other. This latter fantasy doubtless has no more disad­ vantages than the other, since nothing comes of the refusal to re­ produce, and since the means of those who have a bent for repro­ duction are powerful enough for reproduction'S adversaries never to be able to harm population. Amongst the Greeks , thi s female perversion was also sUFported by policy : the result of it was that, finding each other sufficient, women sought less communication with men and their detrime ntal influence in the republ ic 's affairs was thus held to a minimum. Lucian in forms us of what progress this l icense promoted, and it i s not without interest we see i t exemplified in Sappho.

In fine, these are perfectly inoffensive mani as ; were women to carry them even furthel· , were they to go to the point of caressing monsters and animals, as the example of every race teaches us , no ill could possibly result therefrom, because corruption of manners,

Philosophy in the Bedroom 1- 3 2 9

often of prime uti l i ty to a government, cannot in any sense harm it , and we must demand enough wisdom and enough prudence of our l egi slators to be entirely sure that no law will emanate from them that would repress perversions which, being determined by con­ stitution and being inseparable from physical structure, cannot render the person in whom they are present any more guilty than the person Nature created deform ed.

In the second category of man's crimes against his brethren, there i s left to u s only murder to examine, and then we will move on to man's duties toward himsdf. Of all the offenses man may commit against his fellows, murder is without question the cruelest, since it deprives man of the s ingle asset he has received from N a­ ture, and i ts loss i s i rreparable . Nevertheless , at this stage several questions arise, l eaving aside the wrong murder does him who be­ comes i ts victim.

1 . As regards the laws of Nature only, i s this act really criminal ?

2 . I s i t criminal with what regards the laws of politics ? 3 . Is i t harmful to society ? 4. vVhat must be a republican government's attitude to­

ward i t ? 5 . Finally, must murder be repressed by murder ?

Each o f these questions will be treated separately ; the subj ect is important enough to warrant thorough consideration ; our ideas touching murder may surprise for their boldness. But what does that matter ? Have we not acquired the right to say anything ? The time has come for the ventilation of great verities ; men today will not be content with less . The time has come for error to disappear ; that blindfold must fall beside the heads of kings. From Nature's point of view, i s murder a crime ? That i s the first question posed.

I t i s probable that we are going to humiliate man' s pride by lowering him again to the rank of all of Nature 's other creatures, but the philosopher does not flatter small human vanities ; ever in burning pursuit of truth, he discerns i t behind stup id notions of pride, lays i t bare, elaborates upon it , and intrepidly shows i t to the astonished world.

What is man ? and what difference is there between him and other plants, between him and all the other animals of the world ?

330 .. THE MARQUB DE SADE

None, obviously. Fortuitously placed, l ike them, upon this globe, he is born like them j like them, he reproduces, rises, and falls j l ike them he arrives a t old age and s inks like them into nothingness at the close o f the l i fe spar Na tu re ass igns each speci c: s of animal , in accordance with its organic construction. Since the parallels are so exact tha t the inquiring eye of philosophy i s absolutely unable to perceive any grounds for di scrimination, there is then just as much evil in killing animals as men, or just as l i ttle , and whatever be the distinctions we make, they will be found to stem from our pride's prejudices , than which, unhappily, nothing i s more absurd. Let us al l the same press on tc the question. You cannot deny i t i s one and the same, to destroy a man or a beast j but i s not the destruction of all l iving animals decidedly an evil , as the Pythagoreans be­ l i eved, and as they who dwell on the banks o f Ganges yet bel ieve ? B e fore answering that, w e remind the reader that we are examining the question only in terms of Nature and in relation to her j later on, we will envisage i t wi ::h reference to men.

N ow then, what val ue can Natu re set upon individuals whose making costs her ne i ther the least trouble nor the slightest concern ? The worker values h i s work according to the labor it entails and the time spent creating i t. Does man cost Nature anything ? And, under the supposition that he docs , does he cost her more than an ape or an elephant ? I go further : what are the regenerative ma­ terials used by Nature ? Of what are composed the beings which come into l i fe ? Do not th e three elements of which they are formed result from the prior destruction of other bodies ? If all individual s were possessed of eterna l l i fe, would it not become impossible for Nature to create any new ones ? I f Nature denies eternity to beings, i t follows th a t their dest ruction is one of her laws. Now, once we observe that destructi on i s so usefu l to her that she absolutely can­ not dispense with it , and that she cannot achieve her creations without drawing from the store o f destruction which de ath pre­ p a re s for her , from th is moment onward the idea of annihilation which we attach to death ceases to be real j there i s no more veri­ table annihilation j what .ve call the end of the living animal is no longer a true finis , but a � , imple transformation, a transmutation of matter, what every modern philosophe r acknowledges as one of Nature ' s fundamental laws . According to these irrefutable prin-

Philos ophy in the Bedroom + 33 1

ciples, death is hence no more than a change of form, an imper­ ceptible p assage from one existence into another, and that is what Pythagoras called metempsychosis.

These truths once admitted, I ask whether it can ever be proposed that destruction i s a crime ? Will you dare tel l me, with the design of preserving your absurd illusions, that transmutation is destruction ? No, surely not ; for, to prove that , it would be necessary to demonstrate matter inert for an instant, for a moment in repose. Well, you will never detect any such moment. Little animals are formed immediately a large animal expires, and these l i ttle animals' lives a re simply one of the necessary effects deter­ mined by the large animal ' s temporary sleep . Given this , will you dare suggest that one pleases Nature more than another ? To sup­ port that contention, you would have to prove what cannot be proven : that elongated or square are more useful, more agreeable to Nature than oval or triangular shapes ; you would have to prove that, with what regards Nature's subl ime scheme, a sluggard who fattens in idleness i s more useful than the horse, whose service is of such importance, or than a steer, whose body i s so precious that there i s no part of i t which is not useful ; you would have to say that the venomous serpent is more necessary than the faithful dog.

Now, a s not one of these systems can be upheld, one must hence consent unreservedly to acknowledge our inabi l i ty to anni­ h i late Nature 's works ; in light of the certainty that the only thing we do when we give ourselves over to destroying i s merely to effect an alteration in forms which does not extinguish l ife , it becomes beyond human powers to prove that there may exist anything criminal in the alleged destruction of a creature, of whatever age, sex, or species you may suppose it . Led sti l l further in our series of inferences proceeding one from the other, we affirm that the act you commit in juggling the forms of Nature 's different productions is of advantage to her, since thereby you supply her the primary material for her reconstructions, tasks which would be compromised were you to desist from destroying.

Well , let her do the destroying, they tell you ; one ought to let her do i t , of course, but they are Nature 's impulses man follows when he indulges in homicide ; it i s Nature who advises him, and the man who destroys his fellow is to Nature what are the plague and

3 3 2 .. T H E MARQU [S DE SADE

famine, like them sent by her hand which employs every possible means more speedily to obtain of destruction this primary matter, itself absolutely essenti a l to her works .

Let us deign for a moment to illumine our spir it by philoso­ phy's sacred flame ; wh,.t other than Nature ' s voice suggests to u s personal hatreds, reveLges, wars , in a word, a l l those causes o f perpetual murde r ? N ow, i f s h e incites u s to murderous acts , she has need of them ; that once grasped, how may we suppose ourselves guilty in her regard ,,,hen we do nothing more than obey her intentions ?

But that is more than what i s needed to convince any enlight­ ened reader , tha t for murder ever to be an outrage to Nature i s impossible .

I s i t a polit ical cr ime ? We must avow, on the contrary, that i t i s , unhappily, merely one of policy's and politics' greatest instru­ ments. I s i t not by dint o f murders that France i s free today ? Needless to say, here we are referring to the murders occasioned by war, not to the a troci t ies committed by plotters and rebel s ; the la tter , destined to the publ ic 's execration, have only to be recollected to a rouse forever general horror and indignation. \Vhat study, what science, has greater need of murder ' s support than that which tends only to deceive , wrlOse sole end is the expansion of one nation a t another ' s expense ? Are wars, the unique fruit of thi s polit ical barbarism, anything bu' : the means whereby a nation i s nourished, whereby it i s strengthened, whereby i t i s buttressed ? And what i s war i f not the science o f destruction ? A strange blindness in man, who publicly teaches the art of kil l ing, who rewards the most ac­ complished killer , and who punishes him who for some particula r reason does away with h i s enemy ! I s i t no t high time errors so savage be repaired ?

I s murder then a crime against society ? But how could that reasonably be imagined ? What difference does i t make to this murderous society , whel her i t have one member more, or l ess ? \Vi l l i ts laws, its manners, i t s customs be vit iated ? Has an individual ' s death ever had any influence upon the general mass ? And after the loss of the greatest batt le , what am I saying ? after the obliteration of half the world-or, if one wishes, o f the entire world-would the l ittle number of survivors , should there be any, notice even the

Philosophy in the Bedroo m *' 3 3 3

faintest difference in things ? No , alas . Nor would Nature notice any either, and the stupid pride of man, who believes everything created for him, would be dashed indeed, a fter the total extinction of the human species, were i t to be seen tha t nothing in Nature had changed, and that the stars' fl ight had not for that been re­ tarded. Let u s continue .

What must the attitude of a . warlike and republican state be toward murder ?

Dangerous i t should certainly be, either to cast discredit upon the act, or to punish it . Republican mettle calls for a touch of ferocity : if he grows soft, if his energy slackens in him, the re­ publican will be subjugated in a trice. A most unusual thought comes to mind at this point, but if it i s audacious i t i s also true, and I will mention it. A nation that b egins by governing itself as a re­ publ ic will only be sustained by v irtues because, in order to attain the most, one must always start with the least . But an already old and decayed nation which courageously casts off the yoke of i ts monarchical government in order to adopt a republican one, will only be maintained by many crimes ; for it is criminal already, and if i t were to wish to pass from crime to virtue , that i s to say, from a violent to a pacific, benign condi60n, it should fall into an inertia whose result would soon be i ts certain ruin. What happens to the tree you would transplant from a soil full of vigor to a dry and sandy plain ? All intel lectual ideas are so greatly subordinate to Nature 's physical aspect that the compari sons supplied us by agri­ culture will never deceive us in morals.

Savages, the most independent of men, the nearest to Nature, daily indulge in murder which amongst them goes unpunished. In Sparta, in Lacedaemon, they hunted Helots , just as we in France go on partridge shoots. The freest o f people are they who are most friendly to murder : in Mindanao, a man who wishes to commit a murder i s raised to the rank of warrior brave, h e i s straightway decorated with a turban ; amongst the C araguos, one must have killed seven men to obtain the honors o f this headdress : the in­ habitants o f Borneo believe all those they put to death will serve them when they themselves depart l ife ; devout Spania rds made a vow to St. James of Galicia to kill a dozen Americans every day ; in the kingdom of Tangut, there is selected a strong and vigorous

334 + THE MARQ U I S DE SADE

young man : on certain c ays of the year he is allowed to kill whom­ ever he encounters ! Was there ever a people better disposed to murder than the Jews ? One sees i t in every guise , upon every page of their histo ry.

Now and again, Ch ina's emperor and mandarins take measures to sti r up a revolt amongst the people, in order to derive, from these maneuvers, the ri� ;ht to transform them into horrible slaugh­ ters. May that soft and effeminate people rise against their tyrants ; the latter will be massacred in their turn, and with much greater justice ; murder, a dopted always, always necessary, will have but changed its victims ; i t has been the delight of some, and will be­ come the felicity of othe "S o

An infinite number of nations tolerates public a ssassinations ; they are freely permitte d in Genoa, Venice, Naples, and through­ out Albania ; at Kachoa on the San Domingo River, murderers, undisguised and unashamedly, upon your orders and before your very eyes cut the throa t of the person you have pointed out to them ; Hindus take opium to encourage themselves to murder ; and then, rushing out into the street, they butcher everyone they meet ; English travelers have found this idiosyncracy in Batavia , too.

What people were a t once greater and more bloodthi rsty than the Romans, and what nation longer preserved its splendor and freedom ? The gladiato rial spectacles fed its bravery, i t became warlike through the habit of making a game of murder. Twelve or fi fteen hundred victims lilled the circus' a rena every day, and there the women, crueler than the men, dared demand that the dying fall gracefully and be �ketched while still in death's throes. The Romans moved from that to the pleasures of seeing dwarfs cut e ach other to p ieces ; and when the Christian cult, then infecting the world, came to pcsuade men there was evil in killing one another, the tyrants imnediately enchained that people , and every­ one's heroes became thei r toys.

Everywhere, in short, i t was rightly believed that the murderer -that i s to say, the man who stifled his sensibil it ies to the point of kill ing his fellow man, and of defying public or private vengeance -everywhere, I say, it was thought such a man could only be very courageous , and consequ ently very precious to a warlike or republi­ can community. We may discover certain nations which, yet more

Philosophy in the Bedroom + 335

ferocious, could only satisfy themselves by immolating children, and very often their own, and we will see these actions universally adopted, and upon occasion even made part of the law. Several savage tribes kill their children immediately they are born. Mothers, on the banks of the Orinoco, fi rm in the belief their daughters were born only to be miserable, since thei r fate was to become wives in this country where women were found insufferable, immolated them as soon as they were brought into the light. In Taprobane and in the kingdom of Sopit , all deformed children were immolated by their own parents. I f their children are born on certain days of the week, the women of Madagascar expose them to wild beasts. In the republics of Greece, all the children who came into the world were carefully examined, and i f they were found not to conform to the requirements determined by the republic 's defense, they were sacrificed on the spot : in those d ays, i t was not deemed essential to build richly furnished and endowed houses for the preservation of mankind's scum.20 Up until the transferal of the seat of the Empire, all the Romans who were not disposed to feed their off­ spring flung them upon the dung heaps. The ancient legislators had no scruple about condemning children to death, and never did one of thei r codes repress the rights of a father over his family. Aristotle u rged abortion ; and those ancient republicans, filled with enthusi­ asm, with patriotic fervor, fai led to appreci ate this commiseration for the individual person that one finds in modern nations : they loved their children less, but thei r country more. In all the cities of China , one finds every morning an incredible number of children abandoned in the streets ; a dung cart picks them up at dawn, and they are tossed into a moat ; often, midwives themselves disen­ cumbered mothers by instantly plunging thei r issue into vats of boiling water , or by throwing it into the river. In Peking, infants were put into little reed baskets that were left on the canals ; every day, these canals were skimmed clean, and the famous traveler Duhalde calculates as above thirty thousand the number of infants collected in the course of each search.

20 It must be hoped the n ation will elimin ate this expense, the most useless of all ; every individual born l acking the qualities to become useful somed ay to the republ ic, h as no right to li ve, and the best thing for all concerned i s to deprive him of life the moment he receives it.

3 3 6 + THE MARQUr:; DE SADE

It cannot be denied that it is extraordinarily necessary, ex­ tremely pol itic to erect a dike against overpopulation in a republican system ; for entirely con trary reasons, the bi rth rate must be en­ couraged in a monarchy ; there, the tyrants being rich only through the number of their slaves, they assuredly have to have men ; but do not doubt for a minute that populousness i s a genuine vice in a republican government. However, it is not necessary to butcher people to restrain it , as our modern decemvi rs used to say ; i t i s but a question o f not leaving i t the means of extending beyond the l imits i ts happiness prescribes. Beware of too great a multiplica­ tion in a race whose every member i s sovereign, and be certain that revolutions are never bu t the effect of a too numerous population. I f, for the State ' s splencor , you accord your warriors the right to destroy men, for the preservation of that same State grant also unto each individual the right to give himself over as much as he pleases, since this he may do without offending Nature, to ridding himself of the children hi! i s unable to feed, or to whom the govern­ ment cannot look for assistance ; in the same way, grant him the right to rid himself, at h i s own risk and peri l , of all enemie s capable of harming him, because the result of all these acts, in themselves of perfect inconsequence , will be to keep your population at a moderate s ize , and never large enough to overthrow your regime. Let the monarchists say a State is great only by reason of its ex­ treme population : this S':ate will forever be poor, if i ts population surpasses the means by which it can subsist, and it will flourish al­ ways i f, kept trimly witr in its proper l imits , i t can make traffic of i ts superfluity. Do you not prune the tree when it has overmany branches ? and do not too many shoots weaken the trunk ? Any system which deviates from these principles is an extravagance whose abuses would conduct us directly to the total subversion of the edifice we have just nised with so much trouble ; but i t i s not at the moment the man reaches maturity one must destroy him in order to reduce population. I t i s unj ust to cut short the days of a well­ shaped person ; it is not nnjust, I say, to prevent the arrival in the world of a being who will certainly be useless to it . The human species must be purged from the cradle ; wha t you foresee as useless to society i s what must be stricken out of i t ; there you have the only reasonable means to the diminishment of a population, whose ex-

Philo sophy in the B edro o m .. 33 7

cessive s ize is , as we have just proven, the source o f certain trouble. The time has come to sum up. Must murder be repressed by murder ? Surely not. Let us never

impose any other penalty upon the murderer than the one he may risk from the vengeance of the friends or family of him he has ki l led. " I grant you pardon, " sa id Louis XV to Charolais who, to divert himself , had just ki l led a man ; "but I also pardon who­ ever will kill you ." All the bases of the law against murderers may be found in that sublime motto.21

Briefly, murder i s a horror" but an often necessary horror, never criminal , which i t i s essenti al to tolerate in a republican State. I have made i t clear the enti re universe has given an example of i t ; but ought i t be considered a deed to be punished by death ? They who respond to the following dilemma will have answered the question :

I s i t or is it not a crime ? I f i t is not, why make laws for its punishment ? And i f it is , by

what barb arous logic do you, to punish it , duplicate it by another crime ?

We have now but to speak of man's duties toward himself. As the philosopher only adopts such duties in the measure they conduce to his pleasure or to his preservation, i t i s futile to recommend their practice to him, still more futile to threaten him with penalties i f he fails to adopt them.

The only offense of this order man can commit i s suicide. I will not bother demonstrating here the imbeci l ity of the people who make of this act a crime ; those who might have any doubts upon the matter are referred to Rousseau' s famous letter. Nearly all early governments, through policy or religion, authorized sui­ cide. Before the Areopagites, the Athenians explained their reasons

21 The S a l ic Law only punished murder by ex acting a simple fine, and as the guilty one easi ly found ways to avoid p ayment, Childebert, king of A u strasia , decreed, in a writ published at Cologne, the de ath penalty, not against the murderer, but against him who would shirk the murderer's fine. Ripuarian Law similarly ordained no more against this act th an a fine proportionate to the individu a l ki l led. A priest w a s ex­ tremely costly : a leaden tunic, cut to his measurements, w a s tai lored for the assassin, and h e was obliged to produce the equiv a l e nt of this tunic's w eight in gol d ; in de­ fault of which the guilty one and hi. family remained sl aves of the Chu rch.

33 8 1- T H E MARQUI > DE SADE

for self-destruction ; thf n they stabbed themselves . Every Greek government tolerated su c ide ; i t entered into the anci ent legisl a tors ' scheme ; one kil led onesel f in publ ic , and one made of onc 's death a spectacle of magnificen,:e.

The Roman Republic encouraged suic ide ; those so greatly celebrated instances of d evotion to country were nothing other than suicides . When Rome W i S taken by the Gaul s , the most illustrious senators consecrated the nselves to death ; a s we imitate that spir it , we adopt the same vi rtues . During the campa ign of '92 , a soldier , grief-stricken to find himself unable to follow h i s comrades to the J emappes affair , took his own l i fe . Keeping ourselves at al l t imes to the h igh standard o f those proud republicans, we wil l soon sur­ pass the ir v irtue : it is the government that makes the man. Ac­ customed for so long to c espotism, our courage was utte rly crippled ; despoti sm depraved our manners ; we are being reborn ; it will shortly be seen of what sublime actions the French genius and character are capable w'-len they are free ; let us maintain, at the p rice of our fortunes and our l ives , this l iberty which has already cost us so many victims, of whom we regret not one i f we attain our objective ; every one o f them sacrificed himself voluntarily ; let us not permit their blood to h ave been shed in vain ; but union . . . union, o r we will lose the fru i t of all our struggles . Upon the vic­ tories we have jus t achitved let u s seat excellent laws ; our former legisl a tors , still slaves of the despot we have just slaughtered, had given us nothing, but l a ws worthy o f that tyrant they continued to reverence : let us re-do thei r work, let us cons ider that it i s at last for republicans we are going to labor ; may our laws be gentle , l ike the people they must rule .

In pointing out , a s I have just done, the null i ty , the indifference of an infinite number of actions our ancestors, seduced by a false religion, beheld as cr imi nal , I reduce our labor to very l i ttle . Let .1 S create few laws, but : e t them be good ; rather than multiplying h.indrances, i t i s purely a question of giving an indestructible qual i ty to the law we employ, 0 f seeing to it that the laws we promulgate have, as ends, nothing but the c i t izen 's tranqui l l i ty, his happiness, and the glory of the republic . But, Frenchmen, after having driven the enemy from your lands, I should not like your zeal to broad-

Philosophy in the Bedro om + 339

cast your p rinciples t o lead you further afield ; i t i s only with fire and steel you will be able to c arry them to the four corners of the earth. B e fore taking upon yourselves such resolutions, remember the un success of the crusades. When the enemy will have fled across the Rhine, heed me, guard your f rontiers , and stay at home behind them. Revive your trade, resto re energy and markets to your manufacturing ; cause your arts to flourish again, encourage agri­ culture , both so necessary in a government such as yours, and whose aim must b e to provide for everyone without standing in need of anyone. Leave the thrones of Europe to crumble of themselves : your example, your prosperity will soon send them flying, without your having to meddle in the business at all.

Invincible within, and by your administration and your l aws a model to every race, there will not be a s ingle government which will not strive to imitate you, not one which will not be honored by your alliance ; but if, for the vainglory of establishing your prin­ ciples outside your country, you neglect to care for your own felicity at home, despotism, which is no more than asleep, will awake , you will be rent by intestine disorder, you will have ex­ hausted your monie s and your soldiers, and all that, all that to re­ turn to kiss the manacles the tyrants, who will have subjugated you during your absence, will impose upon you ; all you desire may be wrought without leaving your home : let other people observe you happy, and they will rush to happiness by the same road you have traced for them.22

EUGENIE, to Dolmance-Now, it strikes me as a very solidly composed document, that one, and it seems to me in such close agree­ ment with your principles , at least with many of them, that I should be tempted to believe you its autho r.

DOLMANcE-Indeed my thinking does correspond with some part of these reflections, and my discourses-they've p roven it to you-even lend to wha t has just been read to us the appearance of a repetition . . . .

22 Let it be remembered that foreign warfare was never proposed s ave by the in­ famous D umou riez.

340 + T H E MAR Q U I S DE SADE

EUGENIE-That I did not notice ; wise and good words can­ not be too often uttered ; however, I find several amongst these p rinciples a tri fle dangerous .

DOLMANcE-In thi s world there i s nothing dangerous but p i ty and beneficence ; goe,dness i s never but a weakness of which the ingratitude and imperti tlence of the feeble always force honest folk to repent. Let a keen observer calculate all of pity's dangers, and let him compare them with those of a staunch, resolute severity, and he will see whether the former are not the greater. But we are straying, Eugenie ; in the interests of your education, let 's compress all that has just been said into this single word of advice : Never l i s ten to your heart, my child ; i t i s the most untrustworthy guide we have received from Nature ; with greatest care close i t up to misfortune' s fallacious accents ; far better for you to refuse a person whose wretchedness i s g'�nuine than to run the great risk of giving to a bandit , to an intrig ler , or to a caballer : the one is of a very slight importance, the other may be of the highest disadvantage.

LE C H EVALIER-May I be allowed to cast a glance upon the foundations of Dolmanc£s principles ? for I would like to try to annihilate them, and may be able to. Ah, how different they would be, cruel man, if, stripped of the immense fortune which continually provides you with the means to gratify your passions, you were to languish a few years in that crushing misfortune out of which your ferocious mind dares t:> fashion knouts wherewith to lash the wretched ! Cast a p i tying look upon them, and stifle not your soul to the point where the pierc ing cries of need shall never more be heard by you ; when your fram( , weary from naught but pleasure , languor­ ously reposes upon swansdown couches, look ye a t those others wasted by the drudgeri e s that support your existence, and at their bed, scarcely more than a straw or two for protection against the rude earth whereof, like beasts , they have nothing but the chill crust to lie down upon ; :ast a glance a t them while surrounded by succulent meats wherewith every day twenty of Comus' students awake your sensual ity, , :ast a glance, I say, a t those wretches in yonder wood, disputing with wolves the dry soil 's bitter root ; when the most affecting obj e,:ts of Cythera's temple are with games, charms, l aughter led to your impure bed, consider that poor luck-

Philosophy in the Bedroom .. 341

less fellow stretched out near h i s grieving wi fe : content with the pleasures he reaps a t the breast of tears , he does not even suspect the existence of others ; look ye at him when you are denying your­ self nothing, when you are swimming in the midst of glut, in a sea of surfei t ; behold him, I say, doggedly lacking even the basic necessi ties of l ife ; regard his disconsolate family, his trembling wife who tenderly divides herself between the cares she owes her husband, languishing near her, and those Nature enj oins for love's offspring, deprived of the possibil ity to fulfi ll any of those duties so sacred unto her sensitive heart ; if you can do it, without a tremor hear her beg of you the leavings your cruelty refuses her I

Barbaric one, are these not at all human beings like you ? and if they are of your kind, why should you enjoy yourself when they lie dying ? Eugenie , Eugenie , never slay the sacred voice of Nature in your breast : i t i s to benevolence i t will direct you desp i te yourself when you extricate from out of the fire of passions that absorb i t the clear tenor of Nature. Leave: rel igious principles far behind you-very well, I approve i t ; but abandon not the virtues sensibil ity insp i res in us ; ' twill never be but by practicing them we will taste the sweetest, the most exquis ite of the soul's delights. A good deed will buy pardon for all your mind's depravities, i t will soothe the remorse your misconduct will bring to birth and, forming in the depths of your conscience a sacred a sylum whereunto you will some­ times repa i r, you will find there consola tion for the excesses into which your errors will have dragged you. Sister, I am young, yes, I am libertine, impious, I am capable of every mental obscenity, but my heart remains to me, it is pure and, my friends, it is with it I am consoled for the i rregularit ies of this my age.

DOLMANCE-Yes, Chevalier , you are young, your speeches illustrate i t ; you are wanting in experience ; the day will come, and I await i t , when you will be seasoned ; then, my dear, you will no longer speak so well of mankind, for you will have its acquaintance. 'Twas men's ingratitude dried out my heart, their perfidy which destroyed in me those baleful virtues for which, perhaps, like you, I was also born. Now, if the vices of the one establish these danger­ ous virtues in the other, is it not then to render youth a great service when one throttles those virtues in youth at an early hour ? Oh, my

342 .. THE MARQUIS DE SADE

friend, how you do spe�,k to me of remorse ! Can remorse exist in the soul of him who re ::ognizes crime in nothing ? Let your prin­ ciples weed it out of you if you dread its sting ; will i t be possible to repent of an action with whose indifference you are profoundly penetrated ? When you no longer believe evil anywhere exists, of what evil wi l l you be able to repent ?

LE CHEVALIER-It i s not from the mind remorse comes ; rather, ' ti s the heart 's is :me, and never will the intellect' s sophistries blot out the soul' s impuh.ions.

DOLMANCE-Howfver, the heart deceives, because i t i s never anything but the express ion of the mind's miscalculations ; allow the latter to mature and the former will yield in good time ; we are con­ stantly led a stray by fal se definitions when we wish to reason logi­ cally : I don ' t know wh�.t the heart is, not I : I only use the word to denote the mind's fnilti es. One single, one unique flame sheds i ts l ight in me : when I am whole and well, sound and sane, I am never misled by i t ; when I am old, hypochondriacal, or pusillani­ mous, it deceives me ; in which case I tell myself I am sensible , but in truth I am merely we lk and timid. Once again, Eugenie , I say i t to you : be not abused by th i s perfidious sensibi l i ty ; be well con­ vinced of it, i t i s nothing but the mind's weakness ; one weeps not save when one i s a fraid, and that is why kings are tyrants. Rej ect, spurn the Chevalier ' s insidious advice ; in telling you to open your heart to all of misfortune's imagina ry ills, he seeks to fashion for you a host of troubles which, not being your own, would soon plunge you into an anguish and that for no purpose. Ah, Eugenie , believe me when I tell you that t he delights born of apathy are worth much more than those you get of your sensibi l i ty ; the latter can only touch the heart in one sense , the other titillates and overwhelms all of one's being. In a word, i s i t pOi;sible to compare permissible pleasures with pleasures which, to far more piquant delights, join those inestimable j oys that come of bursting socially imposed restraints and of the violation of every law ?

EUGENIE-You triumph, Dolmance, the laurel belongs to you ! The Chevalier 's harangue did but barely brush my spirit , yours seduces and entirely wires it over. Ah, Chevalier , take my advice :

Philo sophy in the Bedro o m -+ 3 43

speak rather to the passions than to the virtues when you wish to persuade a woman.

M A D A M E D E SAI NT-ANGE, to the Chevalier-Yes, my friend, fuck us to be sure, but let us have no sermons from you : you'll not convert us , and you might upset the lessons with which we desire to saturate this charming girl's mind.

EUGENIE-Upset ? Oh, no, no ; your work i s finished ; what fools call corruption i s by now firmly enough established in me to leave not even the hope of a return, and your principles are far too thoroughly riven into my heart ever to be destroyed by the Chev­ al ier 's casuistries.

DOLMANCE-She i s right, l e t us not discuss i t any longer, Chevalier ; you would come off poorly in this debate, and we wish nothing from you but excellence.

LE CHEVALIER-SO be i t ; we are met here for a purpose very different, I know, from the one I wished to achieve ; let 's go directly to that destination, I agree with you ; I 'll save my ethics for others who, less besotted than you, will be : in a better way to hear me.

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Yes, dear brother, yes, exactly, give us nothing but your fuck ; we'll forgo your morals ; they a re too gentle and mild for roues of our ilk.

EUGENIE-I greatly fear, Dolmance, that this cruelty you recommend with such warmth may somewhat influence your plea­ sures ; I believe I have already remarked something of the sort : you are hard when you take your pleasure ; and I too might be able to confess to feeling a few dispositions to viciousness . . . . In order to clear my thoughts on the matter, please do tell me with what kind of an eye you view the obj ect that serves your pleasures ?

DOLMANCE-As absolutely null, that is how I view it , my dear ; whether i t does or does not share my enjoyment, whether i t feels contentment or whether i t doesn't, whether apathy or even pain, provided I am happy, the rest i s absolutely all the same to me.

EUGENIE-Why, i t i s even preferable to have the obj ect ex­ perience pain, is it not ?

3 44 .. THE MARQUIS DE SADE

DOLMANCE-To be sure, 't is by much to be preferred ; I have given you my opinion , m the matter ; this being the case, the re­ percussion within us i s much more pronounced, and much more energetically and much more promptly launches the animal spirits in the direction necessary to voluptuousness. Explore the seraglios o f Africa , those of Asi a , those others of southern Europe , and discover whether the masters of these celebrated harems are much concerned, when their pricks are in the air, about giving pleasure to the individuals they use ; they give orders, and they are obeyed, they enjoy and no one dares make them answer ; they are satisfied, and the others retire. Amongst them are those who would punish as a lack of respect the audacity of partaking of their pleasure. The king of Acahem pi tiles� ly commands to be decapitated the woman who, in his presence, has dared forget herself to the point of sharing his pleasure, and not in frequently the king performs the beheading himself. This despot, O tle of Asia ' s most interesting, i s exclusively guarded by women ; he never gives them orders save by signs ; the cruelest death i s the reward reserved for her who fails to under­ stand him, and the tortures are always executed either by his hand or before his eyes.

All that, Eugenie , i s founded entirely upon the principles I have already developed for you. What is i t one desires when taking one's pleasure ? that eve rything around us be occupi ed with nothing but ourselves, think of naught but of us , care for us only. I f the obj ects we employ know pleasure too, you can be very sure they are less concerned for us th In they are for themselves, and lo ! our own pleasure consequently di sturbed. There i s not a l iving man who does not wish to play the des?ot when he i s stiff : i t seems to him his j oy is less when others appea r to have as much as he ; by an impulse of p ride , very natural at l :h is juncture, he would l ike to be the only one in the world capabl e of experiencing what he feels : the idea of seeing another enjoy as he enj oys reduces him to a kind of equal i ty with that other, which impairs the unspeakable charm despo tism causes him to feeP3 'Tis false as well to say there i s pleasure in

23 T h e poverty of the Freno:h l anguage compels us t o employ words which, tod ay, our h appy government, with S J much good sense, disfavors ; we hope our enlightened readers will understand us w e I and will not at all confound absurd political despotism with the very delightful desp" tism of Iibertinage's p assions,

Philosophy in the Bedroom +- 345

affording pleasure to others ; that is to serve them, and the man who is erect i s far from desiring to be useful to anyone. On the contrary, by causing them hurt he experiences all the charms a nervous personality relishes in putting i ts strength to use ; ' ti s then he dominates, i s a tyrant; and what a difference i s there fo r the amour­ propre! Think not that i t i s silent during such episodes.

The act of enjoyment i s a passion which, I confess, subordi­ nates all others to i t, but which simultaneously unites them. This desire to dominate at this moment i s so powerful in Nature that one notices i t even in animals. See whether those in captivity procreate as do those others that are free and wild ; the camel carries the matter further still : he will engender no more if he does not sup­ pose himself alone : surprise him and, consequently, show him a master, and he will fly, will inst antly separate himsel f from his companion. Had i t not been Nature 's intent that man possess this feeling of superiority, she would not have created him stronger than the beings she destines to belong to him at those moments. The debility to which Nature condemned woman incontestably proves that her design is for man, who then more than ever enjoys his strength, to exercise i t in all the violent forms that suit him best, by means o f tortures , i f he be so inclii.ned, or worse. Would pleasure's cl imax be a kind of fury were i t not the intent ion of th is mother of humankind that behavior during copulation be the same as be­ havior in anger ? What well-made man, in a word, what man en­ dowed with vigorous organs does not desire, in one fashion or in another, to molest his partner during his enj oyment of her ? I know perfectly well that whole a rmies of idiots , who are never conscious of their sensations, will have much trouble understanding the sys­ tems I am establishing ; but what do I care for these fools ? 'Tis not to them I am speaking ; soft-headed women-worshipers, I l eave them prostrate at their insolent Dulcineas ' feet, there let them wait for the s ighs that will make them h appy and, basely the slaves o f the sex they ought to dominate, I abandon them to the vile delights of wearing the chains wherewith Nature has given them the right to overwhelm others ! Let these beasts vegetate in the abj ection which defiles them-'twould be in vain to preach to them 1-, but let them not denigrate what they are incapable of understanding, and let them be persuaded that those who wish to establish their p rinciples

346 .. THE MARQUIS DE SADE

pertinent to thi s subj ect only upon the free outbursts of a vigorous and untrammeled imag nation, as do we, you, Madame, and I , those like ourselves , I say, will always b e the only ones who merit to be l i stened to, the onl y ones proper to prescribe laws unto them and to give lessons! . . .

Goddamn I I 've an erection I . . . Get Augustin to come back here , i f you please . ( Th ey ring; he reappears . ) 'Tis amazing how this fine lad 's superb ass does preoccupy my mind while I talk ! All my ideas seem involuntarily to relate themselves to it . . . • Show my eyes that masterpiec1! , Augustin . . . let me kiss it and caress i t , oh ! for a quarter of an hour. Hither, my love, come, that I may, in your lovely ass , render mysel f worthy of the flames with which Sodom sets me aglow. Ah, he has the most beautiful buttocks . . . the whitest I I ' d like to have Eugenie on her knees ; she will suck his prick while I advanc'e ; in this manner, she will expose her ass to the Cheval ier , who'l l plunge into it , and Madame de Saint-Ange, astride Augustin's back, will present her buttocks to me : I ' l l kiss them ; armed with the c a t-o'-nine-ta i ls , she might surely, it should seem to me, by bending a l i ttle , be able to flog the Cheval ier who, thanks to thi s stimulati :lg ritual , might resolve not to spare our student. ( The posit ion is arranged. ) Yes, that' s i t ; let ' s do our best , my friends ; indeed, i t i s a great pleasure to commission you to execute tableallx; in all the world, there ' s not an artist fitter than you to real ize them ! . . . Thi s rascal does have a nipping t ight ass I . . . ' ti s all I can do to get a foothold in i t . 'Vould you do me the great kindness, Madame, of allowing me to bite and pinch your lovely flesh while I 'm at my fuckery ?

MADAME DE SAINT·ANGE-As much as you like, my friend ; but, I warn you, I am n:ady to take my revenge : I swear that, for every vexation you give me, I ' ll blow a fart into your mouth.

DOLMANCE-By God, now ! that is a threat I . . . quite enough to drive me to offend y')U, my dear. ( He bites her. ) Well! Let's see i f you'll keep your word. ( He receives a fart. ) Ah, fuck, de­ l ic ious ! delicious ! . . . ( He s laps her and immediately receives ano ther fart. ) Oh, 'tis divine, my angel ! Save me a few for the critical moment . . . and, be sure of it , I ' ll then treat you with the extremest cruelty . . . me'st barbarously I ' ll use you . . . . Fuck ! I can

Philosophy in the Bedro om + 347

tolerate this no longer . . . I di scha rge ! . . . ( He bites her, strikes her, and she farts unin terruptedly. ) Dost see how I deal with you, my fine fai r bitch ! . . . how I dominate you . . . once again here . . . and there . . . and let the final insult be to the very i dol at which I sacrificed I ( He bites her asshole,. the circle of debauchees is broken . ) And the rest of you-what h ave you been up to, my friends ?

EUGENIE , spewing forth the fuck from her mouth and her ass-Alas I dear master . . . you see how your disciples have ac­ commodated me ! I have a mouthful o f fuck and half a pint in my ass , ' ti s all I am disgorging on both ends.

DOLMANCE, sharply-Hold there ! I want you to deposit in my mouth what the C hevalier introduced into your behind.

EUGENIE, assuming a proper p osition-What an extravagance I

DOLMANCE-Ah, there's nothing that can match fuck drained out of the depths of a pretty behind . . . ' ti s a food fit for the gods. ( He swallows some. ) Behold, 't is neatly wiped up, eh ? ( JvJoving to Augus tin's ass, which he kisses . ) M esdames, I am going to ask your permission to spend a few moments in a nearby room with this young man.

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Bu t can't you do here all you wish to do with him ?

DOLMANCE, in a low and mysterious tone-No ; there are certain things which strictly require to be veiled.

E UGENIE-Ah, by God, tell us what you 'd be about!

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-I 'l l not allow him to leave if he does not.

DOLMANCE-You then wish to know ?

EUGENIE-Absolutely.

DOLMAN CE, dragging Augustin-Very well, M esdames, I am going . . . but, indeed, i t cannot be sa id .

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Is there , do you think, any con­ ceivable infamy we are not worthy to hear of and execute ?

348 .. THE MARQU I S DE SADE

LE CHEVALIER-Vvait , sister. I ' ll tell you. ( He whispers to the two women . )

EUGENIE, with a leak of revu/sion-You are right, ' ti s hideous.

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Why, I suspected as much.

DOLMANCE-You see very well I had to be silent upon this caprice ; and you grasp now that one must be alone and in the deepest shadow in orde 0- to give onesel f over to such turpitudes.

EUGENIE-Do you want me to accompany you ? I ' ll frig you while you amuse yourse l f with Augustin.

DOLMANCE-N 0, no, this i s an aft aire d' honneur and should take place between men only ; a woman would only disturb us . . . . At your service in a moment, dear ladies . ( He goes o u t, taking Augustin with him. )

DIALOGUE 'THE SIXTH

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE, EUGENIE, LE CHEVALIER

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Indeed, brother, your friend i s greatly a libertine.

LE CHEVALIER-Then I 've not deceived you in presenting him as such.

EUGENIE-I am persuaded there is not his equal anywhere in the world . . . . Oh, my dearest, he i s charming ; I do hope we will see him often.

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-I hear a knock . . . who might it be ? . . . I gave orders . . . it must be very urgent. Go see what it i s , Chevalier , i f you wil l be so kind.

LE CHEVALIER-A letter Lafleur has brought ; he left hastily, saying he remembered the instructions you had given him, but that the matter appeared to him as important a s i t was pressing.

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Ah ha ! what's this ? 'Tis your father, Eugenie I

EUGENIE-My father I . . . then we are lost I . . .

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Let's read i t before we get upset. (She reads . )

349

3 5 0 + THE MARQU: S DE SADE

Would you believ � i t, my dear lady ? my unbearable wife, alarmed by my daught" r's journey to your house, is leaving im­ mediately , with the in t ,m tio n of bringing Eugenie home. She im­ agines all s orts of thing,; . . . which, even were one to suppose them real, would, in truth, be but very ordinary and human indeed. I request you to punish her impertinence with exceeding rigor; yes terday, I chas tised her for something similar : the lesson was not sufficien t. Therefore , mys tify her well, I beseech you on bended knee, and believe that, 110 matter to what lengths you carry things, no complain t will be heard from me . . . . ' Tis a very long time this whore's been oppressing me . . . indeed . . . . Do you follow me? what you do will be well done : that is all I can say to you. She will arrive shortly after my letter; keep yourself in readiness. Adieu ; I should indeed like to be numbced in your company . Do no t, I beg of you, re turn Eugenie to me u ll ti l she is ins tructed. I am most con tent to leave the first gathering 5 to your hands, but be well convinced how­ ever that you will have labored in some sort in my behalf.

Why, there, Eugenie ! you see ? There is nothing over which to be disturbed ; i t must be admitted, though, that the l i ttle wife in question is a mightily imolent one.

EUGENIE-The slut ! Ha ! since Papa gives us a free hand, we must, by God, recei,'e the creature in the manner she deserves.

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Hither, kiss me, my heart. How comforted I am thus to perceive such dispositions in you ! . . . Well, be at ease j I guarantee you we will not spare her. Eugenie, you desired a victim, and behold ! here is one both Nature and fate are glvmg you.

EUGENIE-We wil l enjoy the gift, my dear, I swear to you we'll put her to use !

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-How eager I am to know how Dolmance will react to the news.

DOLMANCE, en tering with Augustin-'Tis the best news pos­ sible, Madame j I was not so far away I could not overhear ; Madame de Mistival ' s a rrival is very opportune . . . . You are fi rmly determined, I trust, to sat isfy her husband' s expectations ?

Philos ophy i n the Bedro o m .. 3 5 1

EUGENIE, to Dolmance-Satisfy them ? • . . to surpass them, my love • . • oh, may the earth sink beneath me if you see me falter whatever be the horrors to which you condemn the tramp t • • • Dear friend, entrust to me the supervision of the entire proceedings . . . .

DOLMANCE-Allow your friend and me to take charge ; you others need merely obey the orden we give you • . . oh, the insolent creature t I've never seen anythin�: like it! • . .

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Clllmsy fool I Well, shall we rather more decently deck ourselves in order to receive her ?

DOLMANcE-On the contrary ; from the instant she enters, nothing must prevent her from b�: ing very sure of the manner in which we have been spending the time with her daughter. Let us all be rather in the greatest disorder.

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-I hear sounds ; 'tis she t • • • Courage, Eugeni e ; remember our principles • • • • Ah, by God t ' twill be a delightful scene I . . .

DIALOGUE THE SEVENTH AND LAST

MADAME DE SAI NT-ANGE, EUGENIE,

LE CHEVALIE R, AUGUST I N , DOLMANCE, MADAME DE M I STIV AL

MADAME DE MISTIVAL, to Madame de Sain t-A nge-I beg your forgiveness, Madame, for arriving unannounced at your house j but I hear that my daughter i s here and as her few years do not yet permit her to venture a broad alone, I beg you , Madame, to be so very good a s to return h er to me, and not to disapprove my request or behavior.

MADAME DE SAINT- �NGE-This behavior i s eminently impolite, Madame j one would � ay, upon hearing your words, that your daughter i s in bad hands.

MADAME DE MISTIYAL-Faith! i f one must judge by the state I find her in , and you, Madame, and your company, I believe I am not greatly mistaken in supposing her in no good sort while she is here.

DOLMANCE-Madame, this i s an important beginning and, without being exactly in formed of the degree of famil iar ity which obtains between Madame de Saint-Ange and you, I see no reason to pretend that I would not, were I in her place, already have had you pitched out of the w indow.

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Philo so phy in the Bedro o m + 353

MADAME DE MISTIVAL-I do no t completely understand what you mean by "pitched out of the window." Be advised, Monsieur, that I am not a woman to be pitched out of windows ; I have no idea who you are, but from your language and the state I observe you to be in, i t i s not impossible to arrive at a speedy conclusion concerning your manners . Eugenie I Follow me.

EUGENIE-I beg your pardon, Madame, but I cannot enjoy that 'honor.

MADAME DE MISTIVAL-What l my daughter resists me l

DOLMANcE-Nay, ' t i s worse yet : ' ti s a case of formal dis­ obedience, as you observe, Madame. Bel ieve me, do not tolerate it in her. Would you like me to have whips brought in to punish this intractable child ?

EUGENIE-I should be greatly afraid, were they to be sent for, that they would be employed rather upon Madame than upon me.

MADAME DE MISTIVAL-Impertinent creature !

DOLMANCE, appro aching Madame de Mistival-Softly, my sweet, we'll have no invectives here ; all of us are Eugenie ' s pro­ tectors , and you might regret your hastiness with her .

MADAME DE MISTIVAL-What l my daughter i s to disobey me and I am not to be able to make her sensible of the rights I have over her !

DOLMANCE-And what , i f you please , are these rights, Madame ? Do you flatter yourself they are legitimate ? When Monsieur de Mistival, or whoever i t was, spurted into your vagina the several drops of fuck that brought Eugenie into being, d id you then, in the act, have her in mind ? Eh ? I dare say you did not. Well , then, how can you expect her to be beholden to you today for your having discharged when years ago someone fucked your nasty cunt ? Take notice, Madame : there i s nothing more illusory than fathers' and mothers' sentiments for their children, and children ' s for the authors of their days . Nothing supports, nothing justifies, nothing establishes such feelings, here in currency, there held in contempt, for there are countries where parents kill their

3 5 4 4 THE MARQU S DE SADE

chi ldren, others where the la tter cut the throats of those whence they have breath. Were recip rocal love to have some natural sanction, con­ sanguinity's power would no longer be chimerical and, without being seen, without mutually bl! ing known, parents would distinguish , would adore thei r sons and, reversibly, these would di scern their unknown fathers , would fly into t 'le ir arms and would do them reverence. In­ stead of which, what is i : we see ? Reciprocal ha treds inveterate ; chil­ dren who, even before reaching the age of reason, have never been able to suffer the sight of their fathers ; fathers sending away their children because never could they endure their approach. Those alleged instincts are hence fictit ious, absurd ; sel f-interest only in­ vents them, usage prese ribes, habit sustains, but never did Nature engrave them in our hearts. Tell me : do animals know these feel­ ings ? no, surely not ; h owever, ' t i s always them one must consult when one wishes to be a cqua inted with Nature. 0 fathers I have no qualms regarding the so-called injustices your passions or your interest leads you to wo rk upon these beings, for you nonexistent, to which a few drops of your sperm has given l i fe ; to them you owe nothing, you are in the world not for them but for yourselves : great fools you would be to he troubled about, to be occupied with any­ thing but your own seh es ; for yourselves alone you ought to live ; and you, dear children, you who are far more exempted-i f it is possible to be far more exempted-from this fil ia l p ie ty whose basis is a true chimera, you must be persuaded also that you owe nothing to those individuals whJse blood hatched you out of the darkness. Pity, gratitude, love-not one of these sentiments is their due ; they who have given you e):istence have not a single right to require them from you ; they labor for themselves only : let them look a fter themselves ; but t'le greatest of all the duperies would be to give them e i ther the hdp or the mini stry no relationship can pos­ s ibly oblige you to giv( ; no law enjoins you, there i s no prescrip­ tion and if, by chance, you should hear some inner voice speaking to you-whether it i s cllstom that inspires these announcements, whether i t i s your character's moral effect that produces these twinges-, unhesitatingly, remorselessly throttle those absurd senti­ ments • . • local sentiments, the fruit of geographical accident, cl imate, which Nature repudiates and reason disavows always I

Philosophy in the Bedroom .. 3 5 5

MADAME D E MISTIVAL-But the care I have l avished upon her, the education I have given her r • • •

DOLMANCE-Why, as for the care , ' ti s never but the effect of convention or of vanity ; having done no more for her than what is dictated by the customs of the country you inhabit , assuredly, Eugenie owes you nothing. As for her education, it appears to have been damnably poor, for we here have been obliged to replace all the principles you had put into her head ; not one of the lot you gave her provides for her happiness, not one i s not absurd or illusory. You spoke to her of God as i f there were some such thing ; of virtue as if i t were necessary ; of religion as i f every religious cult were some­ thing other than the result of the grossest imposture and the most signal imbecil i ty ; of Jesus Christ a s i f that rascal were anything but a cheat and a bandit . You have told her that it i s s inful to fuck, whereas to fuck is l i fe ' s most delicious act ; you have wished to give her good manners, as if a young gi rl ' s happiness were not in­ separable from debauchery and immoral ity, as i f the happiest of all women had not incontestably to be she who wallows most in filth and in libertinage, she who most and best defies every prejudice and who most laughs reputation to scorn. Ah, Madame, disabuse yoursel f : you have done nothing for your daughter, in her regard you have not fulfilled a single one of the obligations Nature dic­ tates : Eugenie owes you naught but hatred.

MADAME DE MISTIVAL-Oh merci ful heaven ! my Eugenie is doomed, 't is evident . . . . Eugenie , my beloved Eugenie , for the last time heed the supplications of her who gave you your l i fe ; these are o rders no longer, but prayers ; unhappily, i t i s only too true that you are amidst monsters here ; tear yourself from this perilous commerce and follow me ; I ask i t of you on my knees ! (She falls to her knees . )

DOLMANCE-Ah, very pretty! a tearful scene ! • . . To it , Eugenie ! Be tender.

EUGENIE, half-naked, as the reader surely must remember­ Here you are , my dear l ittle Mamma, I bring you my buttocks . • • • There they are , positively at the l evel of your l ips ; kiss them, my sweet , suck them, ' ti s all Eugenie can do for you . . . . Remember,

3 5 6 .. THE MARQUH DE SADE

Dolmance : I shall alway!! show myself worthy of having been your pupi l .

MADAME DE MISTIV} L, thrus ting Eugenie away, with horror­ Monster ! I disown you forever , you are no longer my child I

EUGENIE-Add a f ew curses to it , i f you like, my dearest Mother, in order to ren,ler the th ing more touching yet , and you will see me equally phlegmatic .

DOLMANCE-Softly, Madame, softly ; there i s insult here ; in our view, you have just rather too harshly repulsed Eugenie ; I told you that she i s in our safekeeping : a punishment i s needed for this crime ; have the kindness to undress yourself, strip to the skin, so as to receive what your brutality deserves.

MADAME DE MISTIV.A L-Undress mysel f I . . .

DOLMANCE-Augustin , act as this lady's maid-in-waiting, s ince she resists . (Augus tin go �s bru tally to work; Madame de Mis tival seeks to pro tect herself. )

MADAME DE MISTIV},L , to Madame de Sain t-Ange-My God, where am I ? Are you aware , Madame, o f what you are allowing to be done to me in your house ? Do you suppose I shall make no complaint ?

MADAME DE SAINT-l,NGE-It is by no means certain you will be able to.

MADAME DE MISTIVi\L-Great God ! then I am to be killed here I

DOLMANCE-Why not ?

MADAME DE SAI:--JT·ANGE-One moment, gentlemen. Before exposing this charming b< :auty 's body to your gaze , it would be well for me to forewarn you of the condition you are going to find i t i n . Eugenie has j ust whis J ered the entire story into my ear : yester­ day, her husband used the whip on her, all but broke his arm beating her for some minor domestic mismanagement . . . and, Eugenie assures me , you are going to find her as s ' cheeks looking l ike moire taffeta.

Philosophy in the Bedroom .. 3 5 7

DOLMANCE , immediately Madame d e Mistival i s naked-Well , by God, 't i s the absolute truth ! I don't believe I 've ever seen a body more mistreated than this . . . but, by Jesus ! she 's got as many cuts before as she has behind I . . . Yet . . . I believe I espy a very fine ass here . ( He kisses and fondles i t . )

MADAME DE MISTIVAL-Leave me alone, l eave me, else I ' l l cry for help I

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE, coming up to her and sexzmg her by the arm-Listen to me, whor,� I I'm going to explain everything to you I . . . You are a victim sent us by your own husband j you have got to submit to your fate j nothing can save you from it . . . what will i t be ? I 've no idea j p erhaps you'll be hanged, wheeled, quartered, racked, burned alive j the choice of torture depends upon your daughter : 't is she will give the order for your period j but, my whore, you are going to suffer . . . oh, yes, you will not be immolated until a fter having undergone an infinite number of preliminary embarrassments. As for your cri es , I warn you they will be to no purpose : one could slaughter a :steer in this chamber without any risk of h aving h i s bellowings overheard. Your horses, your servants have already l eft ; once again, my lovely one, your husband au­ thorizes what we are doing, and your coming here is nothing but a trap baited for your simplicity and into which, you observe, you could not have fallen better.

DOLMANCE-I hope that Madame is now perfectly tran­ quilized .

EUGENIE-Thus to be forewarned is certainly to have been the obj ect of a very ample consideration.

DOL\[ANCE, s till feeling and s lapping her buttocks-Indeed , Madame, ' t i s clear you have a warm friend in Madame de Saint­ Ange . . . . \Vhere, these days, does one come across such candor ? What forthrightness in her tone when she addresses you ! . . . Eugeni c , come here and place your buttocks beside your mother's . . . . 1 ' d like to make a comparison o f your asses . (Eugenie obeys . ) My goodness ! yours is splendid , my dear , but, by God, Mamma's is not b ad either . . . not yet . . . in another instant I ' ll be amusing myself fucking you both . . . . Augustin, lay a hand upon Madame.

3 5 8 + THE MARQUIS DE SADE

MADAME DE MISTIV},L-Merci ful heavens ! what an outrage !

DOLMANCE, con tinui 'lg throughout to realize his projects, and beginning them with an embuggery of the mo ther-\Vhy, not at al l ! Nothing eas ier ! . . . Look ye ! You scarcely felt i t ! . . . Ha ! ' ti s clear your husband ha s many times trod the path ! Your turn now, Eugenie . . . . What a difference ! . . . There, I 'm content ; I simply wished to volley I he ball a l i ttle , to put myself into shape . . . well , a l i ttle order now. First , Mesdames, you , Saint-Ange, and you, Eugenie , have the g oodness to arm yourselves with a rtificial p ricks in o rder , one a fter the other , to deal th i s respectable lady, now in the cunt, now in the ass . . . the most fea rsome strokes. The Cheval ier , Augustin , and I, acting with our own members, will rel i eve you with a promp t exacti tude . I am going to begin and, as you may well believe, i t i !; once again her ass which will receive my homage. During the games, parenthetically, each is invited to decide for himself what :ortu re he wishes to inflict upon her ; but bear it in mind : the suffe 'ing must increase gradually, so a s not to kill her off beforctimes . . . . Augustin, dear boy, conso le me, by buggering me, for the obligation I am under to sodomi ze this ancient cow. Eugenie , le t me kiss your beauti ful behind while I bugger mamma, and you, Madame, bring yours near , so that I can handle it . . . socratiz e it . One must be walled round by asses when 'tis an ass one fucks.

EUGENIE-What, my friend, what are you going to do to this b i tch ? While losing your sperm, to what do you intend to condemn her ?

DOLMANCE, all the while plying his whip-The most natural thing in the world : I am going to depila te her and lacerate her thighs with p incers.

MADAME DE MISTIVAL, unders tanding this dual vexation-The monster ! Criminal ! he is nuti lating me ! . . . oh , God Almighty !

DOLMANcE-Implore him not, my dove : he will remain deaf to your voice, a s h e i s to that o f every other person : never has this powerful figure bothered to entangle himself in an affa ir concerning merely an ass .

Philosophy in the Bedroom .. 3 59

MADAME DE MISTIVAL-Oh, how you are hurting me I

DOLMANcE-Incredible effects of the human mind' s idiosyn­ crasies ! . . . You suffer, my best beloved, you weep and, wondrous thing I I discharge . . . ah, double whore ! I 'd strangle you if I did not wish to leave the pleasure of i t to others . She's yours, Saint­ Ange. ( Madame de Sain t-Ange em buggers and encun ts her with her dildo; she bestows a few blows of her fis t upon her; the Chevalier succeeds her; he too avails h ims elf of the two avenues and, as he discharges, boxes her ears . ' Tis .1ugustin who comes next : he acts in like wise and ends with a few digs with his fingers, pokes, pulls, and punches. During these various a ttacks, Dolmance has sent his engine s traying about all the agents' asses, the while urging them on with his remarks. ) Well, pretty Eugenie , fuck your mother, first of all , encunt her.

EUGENIE-Come, dear lovely Mamma , come, let me serve you as a husband. 'Tis a l i ttle thicker than your spouse' s , is it not, my dear ? Never mind, ' twilll enter . . . . Ah, Mother dear, you cry, you scream, scream when your daughter fucks you ! . . . And you, Dolmance, you bugger me I . . . Here I am : at one stroke incestuous, adulteress, sodomite, and all that in a girl who only lost her maidenhead today ! . . . What progress, my friends I . . . with what rapidity I advance along the thorny road of vice ! . . . Oh, right enough, I am a doomed girl ! . . . I believe, dear Mother, you are discharging . . . . Dolmance, look at her eyes ! she comes, i t ' s certain, is i t not ? Ah, whore I I'm going to teach you to be a libertine . . . well, bitch, what do you think of that ? ( She squeezes, twis ts, wrenches her mo ther' s breas ts . ) Ah, fuck, Dolmance . . . fuck, my gentle friend, I am dying I . . . ( As she discharges, Eugenie showers ten or twelve jarring blows upon her mo ther's breast and sides . )

MADAME DE MISTIVAL, about to lose consciousness-Have pity upon me , I beg of you . . . I . . . I am not well . . . I am fainting . . . . (Madame de Sain t-Ange seems to wish to aid her; Dolmance lifts a res training hand. )

DOLMANCE-Why, no, leave her in her swoon : there i s nothing so lubricious as to see a woman who has fainted ; we'll flog her : that should restore her to her senses . . . . Eugenie, come, stretch out

3 60 .. THE MARQUIS DE SADE

upon your victim's body . . . ' ti s here I wish to discover whether you are steadfast. Chevalier fuck her as she l ies upon her fail ing mother, and let her frig us , Augustin and me, with each of her hands. You, Saint-Ange, frig her while she's being fucked.

LE CHEVALIER-Indeed, Dolmance, ' ti s horrible , what you have us do j this at once outrages Nature, heaven, and the most sacred l aws of humanity.

DOLMANCE-N othing diverts me like the weighty outbursts of the Cheval ier 's virtuollsness ; but in all we are doing, where the devil does he see the least outrage to Nature, to heaven, and to mankind ? My friend, i t i;; from Nature roues obtain the principles they put into action ; I ', 'e told you a thousand times over that Nature , who for the perfl�ct maintenance of the laws of her general equil ibrium, has sometiml:s need of vices and sometimes of virtues, inspires now this impulse , now that one, in accordance with what she requires j hence, we do no kind of evil in surrendering ourselves to these impulses , of whatever sort you may suppose them to be. \Vith what regards heav �n, my dear Cheval ier , I beg of you , let us no more dread i ts effects : one single motor is operative in this universe, and that motor i s Nature . The miracles-rather, the physical effects-of this mother of the human race, differently interpreted by men, have been deified by them under a thousand forms, each more extraordinary than the other ; cheats and in­ triguers, abusing their f �llows' credul i ty, have propagated their ridiculous daydreams, and that i s what the Chevalier calls heaven, that i s what he fears offnding ! . . . Humanity's laws are violated, he adds, by the petty stuH and nonsense in which we are indulging ourselves this a fternoon. Get it into your head once and for all, my simple and very fainthea �ted fellow, that what fools call humane­ ness is nothing but a weakness born of fear and egoism ; that this chimerical virtue , enslaving only weak men, is unknown to those whose character i s form�d by stoicism, courage, and philosophy. Then act, Cheval ier , act and fea r nothing ; were we to pulveri ze this whore, there 'd not be a suspicion of crime in the thing : i t is impossible for man to commit a crime ; when Nature inculcated in him the irresistible desire to commi t crime, she most prudently arranged to put beyond h i s reach those acts which could disturb her

Philosophy in the Bedroom + 3 6 1

operations o r conflict with her will . H a , my friend, b e sure that all the rest i s entirely permitted, and that she has not been so idioti c as to give us the power of discomfiting her or of disturbing her workings. The bl ind instruments o f her inspirations, were she to order u s to set fire to the universe , the only cr ime possible would be in resisting her : all the criminals on earth are nothing but the agents of her caprices . . . well , Eugenie , take your place. But what do I see ? . . . she's turning pale! . . .

EUGENIE , lying down upon her mo ther-Turning pale I I I God no I you'll very soon see the contrary! ( The at titude is ex­ ecuted; Madame de Mis tival remains unconscious. When the Chevalier has discharged, the group is broken . )

DOLMANCE-What l the b itch i s not y e t awake ! Whips I I say, bring me whips ! . . . Augustin, run and gather me a handful o f thorns from the garden. ( While waiting, he slaps her face . ) Oh, upon my soul , I fear she may be dead ; nothing seems to have any effect upon her.

EUGENIE , with irritation-Dead I dead I what's thi s ? Then I 'll have to go about wearing black this summer, and I have had the prettiest dresses made for me !

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-Ah ! the l ittle monster I ( She burs ts into laugh ter. )

DOLMANCE, taking the thorns from Augus tin, who returns­ We shall see whether this final remedy will not have some results. Eugenie , suck my prick while I labor to restore a mother to you and, Augustin, do you give me back the blows I am going to strike this stricken l ady. I should not be sorry, Chevalier , to see you embugger your sister : you would adopt such a posture a s to permit me to kiss your buttocks during the operation.

LE CHEVALIER-Well, let 's comply with i t , since there seems no way of persuading this scoundrel that all he i s having us do is appalling. ( The s tage is set; as the whipping of Madame de Mis­ tival proceeds, she comes slowly to life . )

DOLMANCE-Why, do you see the medicine's effects ? I told you it would not fail us .

362 -+ THE MARQUIS DE SADE

MADAME DE MISTIVl'.L, opening her eyes-Oh heavens I why do you recall me from th e grave' s darkness ? Why do you plunge me again into l ife 's horrors ?

DOLMANCE, whippin:'1 her s teadily-Indeed, mother dear, i t i s because much converS3 tion remains t o be held. Must you not hear your sentence pronoL nced ? must i t not be executed ? . . . Come, let 's gather round our victim : let her kneel in the center of the ci rcle and, trembling, heal ' what will be announced to her. M adame de Saint-Ange, will you p ease begin. ( The following speeches are pronounced while the acte r s are in full action . )

MADAME DE SAI NT-A:"GE-I condemn her to be hanged.

LE C HEVALI ER-Cut into eighty thousand p ieces, a fter the manner of the Chinese.

AUGUSTIN-As for roe, by Gar, I'd let her get off with being broken alive.

E UGENIE-Into my pretty l i ttle mamma's body there will be driven wicks garnished w i th sulphur and I will undertake to set them afire, one by one. ( The circle is dissolwd. )

DOLMANCE, coolly-Well, my friends, as your leader and instructor, I shall l ighten l he sentence j but the difference which will be di scovered between what I decree and what you have demanded, this difference, I say, is th at your sentences would be in the nature o f the effects of mordant practical j oking ; mine, on the contrary, i s going to be the cause of a l i ttle knavery. I have, wait ing outside, a valet, and he i s furnished with what is perhaps one of the loveliest members to be found in a ll o f N a ture ; however, i t distills disease, for ' ti s eaten by one of the most impressive cases of syphill is I have yet anywhere encountered j I 'll have my man come in : we'll have a coupling : he'll inj ect h is poison into e ach o f the two natural con­ duits tha t ornament this dear and amiable lady, with thi s conse­ quence : that so long as thi:; cruel disease's impressions shall last , the whore will remember not to trouble her daughter when Eugenie has herself fucked. (Evt ryone applauds ,. the valet is called in . Dolmanee speaks now to him. ) Lapierre, fuck this woman ; she is

Philosophy in the Bedroom + 3 63

exceptionally healthy j thi s amusement might cure you : a t least, there may be some precedent for the miracle' s success.

LAPIERRE-In front of everyone, Monsieur ?

DOLMANcE-Are you afraid to exhibit your prick ?

LAPIERRE-No, by God l for i t' s very attractive . . . . Let's to it , Madame, be so good as to ready yourself.

MADAME DE MISTIVAL-Oh, my God l what a hideous damna­ tion !

EUGENIE-Better that than to die, Mamma j a t least I 'll be able to wear some gay dresses this summer.

DOLMANcE-Meanwhile , we might amuse ourselves ; my opinion would be for us all to flagellate one another : Madame de Saint-Ange will thrash Lapierre, so as to insure Madame de Mis­ tival's obtaining a good encuntment ; I 'll fl ay Madame de Saint­ Ange, Augustin will whip me, Eug,;nie will have at Augustin and herself will be very vigorously beaten by the Chevalier. (All of which is arranged. When Lapierre' has finished cun t-fucking, his mas ter orders him to luck Madame de Mistival's ass, and he does so. When all is completed, Dolmanee continues. ) Capital ! Out with you, Lapierre. Wait. Here are five louis. Ha ! by God, that was a better inocula tion than Tronchin made in all his l ife I

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-I believe i t is now of the highest importance to provide against the escape of the poison circulating in Madame's veins ; consequently, Eugenie must very carefully sew your cunt and ass so that the virulent humor, more concentrated, less subject to evaporation and not at all to leakage, will more promptly cinder your bones.

EUGENIE-Excellent idea ! Quickly, quickly, fetch me needle and thread ! . . . Spread your thighs, Mamma, so I can stitch you together-so that you'll give me no more li ttle brothers and sisters. ( Madame de Sain t-Ange gives Eugenie a large needle, through whose eye is threaded a heavy red waxed thread; Eugenie sews. )

MADAME DE MISTIVAL-Oh, my God! the pain I

3 64 .. THE MARQUIS DE SADE

DOLMANCE, laugh ing like a madman-By God I excellent idea indee d ! i t does you h0 10r, my dea r ; i t would never have occurred to me.

E UGENIE, fro m t �me to time pricking the lips of the cun t, occasionally s tabbing i ts in terior and sometimes using her needle on her mo ther's belly and mons veneris . ) Pay no attention to it , Mamma. I am simply :esting the point.

LE C HEVALIER-The l i ttle whore wants to bleed her to death !

DOLMANCE, causii1g himself to be frigged by Madame de Sain t-Ange, as he witnt'ssess the operatio n-Ah, by God ! how this extravagance stiffens me I Eugenie, multiply your stitches, so that the seam will be quite solid.

E UGENIE-I 'll ta� e , i f necessary, over two hundred of them . • . . Chevalier , frig me while I work:

LE C HEVALIER, o beying-I 've never seen a gi rl as vicious as this one I

E UGENIE, much ii1jlamed-No invectives, Chevalier, or I ' l l prick you I C onfine yourself to tickling me in the correct manner. A little a sshole , i f you please, my friend ; have you only one hand ? I can see no longer, my ;titches go everywhere . . . . Look at i t ! do you see how my needle wanders . . . to her thighs, her tits . . . . Oh, fuck ! what pleasure I . . .

MADAME DE MIST lVAL-You are tearing me to pieces , vile creature ! . . . Oh, how I blush that i t was I who gave you l ife !

E UGENIE-Come, come, be qu iet, Mother dear ; i t ' s finished.

DOLMANCEj emerg ing, with a great eredion, fro m Madame de Saint-Ange's hands-Eugenie , allow me to do the ass ; that part belongs to me.

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE-You're too stiff , Dolmance, you'll make a martyr of her.

DOLMANCE-Wha t matter I have we not written permIssIOn to make of her what we please ? ( He turns Madame de Mis tivai

Philosophy in the Bedroom .. 3 65

upon her s tomach, catches up the needle, a nd begins to s ew her asshole. )

MADAME DE MISTIVAL, screaming like a banshee-Aie I aie ! aie l

DOLMANCE, driving the needl,� deep in to her flesh-Silence, bitch! or I ' l l make a hash of your buttocks. . . . Eugenie , frig me . . . •

EUGENIE-Willingly, but upon condition you prick her more energetically, for, you must admit, you are proceeding with strange forbearance. ( She frigs him . )

MADAME D E SAINT-ANGE-Work upon those two grea t cheeks for me l

DOLMANCE-Patience, I ' ll soon have her carved like a shank of beef ; Eugenie, you are forgetting your lessons : you capped my prick !

EUGENIE-'Tis because this bitch' s sufferings are infl aming my imagination to the point I no longer know exactly what I am doing.

DOLMANCE-Sweet fucking God ! I'm beginning to go out of my mind ! Saint-Ange, have Augustin bugger you in front of my eyes while your brother fl i es into your cunt, and above all dress me a panorama o f asses : the picture wil l fin ish me. ( He s tabs Madame de Mistival's but tocks while the posture he has called for is ar­ ranged. ) Here, Mamma dear, take this . . . and again that ! . . . ( He drives his needle into a t leas t twen ty places . )

MADAME DE MISTIVAL-Oh pardon me, Monsieur, I beg your pardon a thousand thousand times over . . . you are killing me . . . .

DOLMANCE, wild with pleasure-I should like to . . . ' ti s an age since I have had such an erection ; never would I have thought i t possible a fter so many consecutive ej aculations.

MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE, execu ting the called-for attitude­ Are we a s we should be, Dolmance ?

3 6 6 .. THE MARQ"JIS DE SADE

DOLMANCE-Augustin, turn a l i ttle to the right ; I don't see enough ass ; have him l ean forward : I must see the hole .

EUGENIE-Ah fu :k! look at the bugger bleed !

DOLMANCE-Ratler a good deal o f blood, i sn ' t there ? Well , are the rest of you ready ? As for myself, one minute more and I 'll spray l ife 's very balm upon the wounds I have just opened.

MADAME DE SAI>H-ANGE-Yes, my heart, yes . . . I am coming . . . we arrive at the end at the same time . . . .

DOLMANCE, who has finished his task, does no thing but increase his s tabbing of the vi c tim's buttocks as he discharges-Ah triple bloody fucking God ! . . . my sperm flows . . . ' ti s lost, by bleeding li ttle Jesus ! . . . Eugenie , direct i t upon the flanks I have just mutilated . . . oh fuck ! fuck ! ' t is done . . . over . . . I 've no more . . . oh, why must weakness succeed passions so alive ? . . .

MADAME DE SAI>H-ANGE-Fuck ! fuck me, brother, I d i s­ charge ! . . . ( To A� gus tin : ) Stir yourself, great fucking-john ! Don't you know that il is when I come that you've got to sink your tool deepest into my a:;s ? . . . Ah, sacred name of God ! how sweet i t is, thus to be fucked by two men . . . ( The group disperses . )

DOLMANcE-And now all 's been said . ( To lvladame de Mis ti­ val : ) Hey ! whore, ye u may clothe yourself and leave when you wish. I must tell you that your husband authorized the doing of a l l that has jus t been done to you. We told you as much ; you d id not believe it . ( He shows her the le tter. ) May this example serve to remind you that ye ur daughter i s old enough to do what she pleases ; that she likes to fuck, loves to fuck, that she was born to fuck, and that, i f you do not wish to be fucked yoursel f, the best thing for you to do is to let her do what she wants. Get out ; the Chevalier will escort you home. Salute the company, whore ! on your knees, bow down before your daughter, and beseech her par­ don for your abominable use of her . . . . You , Eugenie , bestow two good smacks upon Madame your Mother and as soon as she gains (he threshold , help her cross i t with a few lusty kicks aimed at her ass. ( All this is done. ) Farewell, Chevalier ; don't fuck Madame on the highway : remember, she's sewn up and has got the pox.

Philosophy in the Bedroom + 3 67

( After the Chevalier's departure and Madame de Mis tival' s . ) And now, good friends, let 's to dinner, and a fterward the four of us will retire for the night • . . in the same bed. Well, we've had a fine active day. I never dine so heartily, I never sleep so soundly as when I h ave, during the day, sufficiently befouled myself with what our fools call crimes.

Cflte rUt(arquis

decSade

Part rJhree

Two

Moral

Tales

eugt;nie de :Franval

(17��8)

In his famous Catalogue raisonne1 of 1788, drawn up with obvious pride in the Bastille less than a year before it was s tormed, Sade made n o te of a work en titled Eugenie de Franval , which he described in the following manner:

7.2 Eugenie de Franval, which might also be called or the M isfortunes of Incest. In all the literature of Europe there are neither any stories or novels wherein the dangers of libertinage are exposed with such force, no work wherein the dar,�-hued class of fiction [genre sombre] is carried to such frightening and pathetic extremes. This story offers a sublime characterization of a clergyman,. a personage well-suited to reconcile the ungodly and debauched with virtue and religion.

Sade originally in tended to include Eugenie de Franval in a projected multivolume work which was to be en titled Contes e t fabliaux du XVIIIe s iecle , par un troubadour provencra1.3 Of this work, Sade no ted:

This work comprises four volumes, with an engraving for each tale; these short tales are interspersed in such a manner that an adven ture which is gay, and even

1 Of which the full title is: Catalogue raisonne des reuvres de M. de SU. a I'epoque du 1er octobre 1788, and the subtitle: Cette collection contient quinze volumes in-8° avec estampe •. The fifteen 'Volumes of which he gi'VfS the breakdown do not, of course, contain the clandestine works he was disinclined to acknowledge.

2 Eugenie was to appear as the se'Venth tale in the fourth 'Vo/ume of Sade's stories and no'Vellas.

8 Sade, of course, was from Pro'Vence.

373

n aughty but Hill well within the limits of modesty and decency, will follow immediately upon a serious or tragic ad'IJenture . • • . 4

Many of the manuscripts slated for this work were los t or des troyed 'when the Bastille was s tormed,s howe'IJer, and Sade was o bliged to abandon his initial plan of publica­ tion. It was n o t uto,til the year FIII (1800) that he com­ piled a new work, t .. sing those tales he had managed to sa'IJe or recover, a volume for which he gave up the idea of alter­ nating gay and somber s tories, eliminating the gay.6 Sade en titled the work Les C rimes de l 'Amour, and prefaced i t by a fascinating essay o n the novel, Idee sur les romans, in which, turning his l'ack o n much of the French fiction of his day, he paid special homage to the robust genius of Fielding and Richardso n.

The eleven s tories which comprise Les C rimes de l'A­ mour are uneven i1l quality, bu t a t leas t one of them, Eu­ genie de Franval, qualifies as among the best of Sade's shorter fictions. /foe present it here in its en tirety, aug­ mented by certain passages which did n o t figure in the origi­ nal edition bu t which M au rice Heine discovered in Sade's rough drafts and in.:luded in a later edition.7

4 Do-A.-F. de Sade: Eistoriettes, Contes et fabliaux/Dorci, Paris, Jean­ Jacques Pauvert, 1957.

5 In a letter to Gaufr.dy, dated late in May, 1790, Sade relates his tale of 'Woe concerning his removal from the Bastille. "I 'Was taken out hare

as the ·hack of my hand, and all my effects, that is more than a hundred

louis' 'Worth of furniture clothing, and linen, six hundred volumes some of 'Which very expensive tlnd, 'What is irreparable, fifteen volumes of my manuscript works, read} for the printer-manuscripts over which I daily 'Weep tears of hlood-.r:tre placed under seals."

6 Perhaps, said the anonymous reviewer of the work in the Journal de Paris on 6 Brumaire (29 Octobpr) of that same year, because the author "doubtless thought that this hue was hetter suited to us no'W and for some

time to come, since in this realm [of tragedy] reality still continues to

surpass fiction."

7 T heu passages appetr in italics herein.

374

� instruct man and correct his morals: such is the sole goal 1 �e set for ourselves in this story. In reading it , may the reader

be steeped in the knowledge of the dangers which forever dog the steps of those who, to satisfy their desires, will stop at nothing ! May they be persuaded that the best education, wealth, talent, and the gifts of Nature are l ikely to lead one astray unless they are buttressed and brought to the fore by self-restraint, good conduct, wisdom, and modesty. Such are the truths we intend to relate. May the reader show himself indulgent for the monstrous details of the hideous crime we are obliged to describe ; but is it possible to make others detest such aberrations unless one has the courage to lay them bare, without the slightest embellishment ?

It i s rare that everything conspires in one person to lead him to prosperity ; does Nature shower her gifts upon him ? Then Fortune refuses him her gifts. Does Fortune lavish her favors upon him ? Then Nature proves niggardly. I t would appear that the hand of Heaven has wished to show us that, in each individual as in the most sublime operations, the laws of equilibrium are the prime laws of the Universe, those which at the same time govern everything that happens, everything that vegetates, and everything that breathes.

Franval lived in Paris , the c ity of his birth, and possessed, among a variety of other talents, an income of four hundred thousand livres, a handsome figure , and a face to match. But beneath this seductive exterior was concealed a plethora of vices, and unfortunately among them those which, when adopted and practiced, quickly lead to crime. Franval' s initial shortcoming was an imagination the disorderliness of which defies description; this is

375

376 .. THE MARQUIS DE SADE

a shortcoming tha t one cannot correct ; its effects only worsen with age. The less one can do , the more one undertakes; the less one acts, the more one invents; each period of one' s l ife brings new ideas to the fore, and sat iety , far from dampening one's ardor, p aves the way for even more baleful refinements.

As we have said, Franval was generously endowed with all the charm of youth and all the talents which embellish i t; but so great was his contempt o f both moral and religious duties that it had become impossible for his tutors to inculcate any of them in him.

In an age when th e most dangerous, the most insidious books are available to childrer., a s well as to thei r fathers and their tutors, when rashness o f thought passes for philosophy, when increduli ty passes for s trength, an d l ibertinage i s mistaken for imagination, Franval 's wit p rovoked approving l aughter. He may have been scolded immediately afterward, but later he was praised for it. Franval ' s father, an a rdent advocate of fashionable sophisms, was the first to encourage his son to think soundly on all these matters. He even went so far a� to p ersonally lend h is son the works most l i able to corrupt him a ll the more quickly. In the l ight of which, wha t teacher would have dared to inculcate principles d ifferent from those of the household wherein the young Franval was obliged to please ?

B e that as it m ay, Franval lost his p a rents while he was still very young, and when :Ie was nineteen an elderly uncle , who also died shortly therea fter, bequeathed him, upon the occa sion of his m arriage, the full weallh due him from his inheri tance.

With such a fortune, M onsieur de Franval should have had not the slightest difficul ty in finding a wife. An infinite number o f possible matches were proposed, b u t since Franval had begged h i s uncle t o a rrange a match f o r h i m with a girl younger than he, and with as few relatives as possible , the old man directed his a ttentions to a M ademoiselle de F:lrneille , the daughter of a financier, who had lost her father and wh ose only family was her widowed mother. The girl was actu ally quite young, only fifteen, but she had sixty thousand very realli'UTes annual income and one of the most charm­ ing and delightful faces in all Paris . . . one of those virgin-like faces in which the qualifies of candor and charm vie with e ach other

Eugenie de Franval .. 377

b eneath the delicate features of love and feminine grace. H er long b lond hair cascaded down b elow her waist and h er l arge b lue eyes b espoke b oth tenderness and modesty ; she had a slender, l ithe, and graceful figure , skin that was l ily-white , and the freshness of roses ab out her . She was b lessed with many talents, was possessed of a l ively b ut slightly melancholy imagination-tha t gentle melan­ choly which predisposes on e to a love of b ooks and a taste for sol itude , a ttrib utes which Nature s eems to accord to those whom she has fated for misfortune , as th ough to make it less b itter for them by the somb er and touching pleasure it b rings the m, a pleasure which makes them prefer tears to the frivolous joy o f happi ness , which i s a much less active and less pervasive force.

Ma dame de Farneill e , who wa s thirty-tw o at the time of her daughter's marriage, was also a w itty and winning woman, b ut perhaps a trifle too reserved and severe . Desirous to s ee her only child happy, she had consulted all of Paris ab out this marriage. A nd since she no longer had any family, she was obliged to rely for advice on a few of those cold frien ds who care not a whit ab out anything. They succeeded in convi ncing her that the young man who was b eing proposed for her daughter was , b eyond any shadow of a doub t, the b est match she cou ld make in Paris , and that she would be utterly and unpardonab ly fool ish i f sh e were to turn it down. And so the marriage took place, and the young couple, wealthy enough to take the i r own house, moved into i t within a few days.

Young Franval ' s heart did not contain any of those vices of levity , disorder, o r irresponsib il i ty which prevent a man from ma­ turing b efore th e age of thirty. Possessed of a fair share of self­ confidence , and b eing an orderly man who was at h i s b est in managing the affairs of a household, Franval had all the qualit ies necessary for this aspect of a happy life. His vices, o f a different order altogether , were rather the fail ings of maturity t han the indiscretions of youth : he was artful, scheming, cruel, b ase , self­ centered, given to maneuvering, dec eitful, and cunning-all of this he concealed not only by the grace and talent we have previously mentioned b ut also b y his eloquence, h i s uncommon wit , and his most pleasing appearance. Such was the man we shall be dealing with.

378 + THE MARQUIS DE SADE

Mademoiselle de Farneille, who in accordance with the custom had only known her husband at most a month prior to their mar­ riage, was taken in by this sparkling exterior, and she had become his dupe . She idolized him, and the days were not long enough for her to feast her adoring eyes upon him ; so great was her adoration in fact, that had any obstacles intervened to trouble the sweetness of a marriage in which, she said, she had found her only happiness in li fe, her health, and even her l i fe, might have been endangered.

As for Franval, � . philosopher when it came to women as he was with regard to eVfrything else in li fe, coolness and impassivity marked his attitude toward thi s charming young woman.

"The woman who belongs to us," he would say, "is a sort of individual whom custom has given us in bondage. She must be gentle, submissive ... utterly fai thful and obedient ; not that I especially share the cemmon prejudice concerning the dishonor a wi fe can impose upon us when she imitates our debaucheries . 'Tis merely that a man does not enjoy seeing another usurp his rights. Everything else is a matter of complete indifference, and adds not a j ot to happiness."

With such sentiments in a husband, it is easy to predict that a l i fe of roses i s not what l ies in store for the poor girl who is married to him. Honest, sensih e , well-bred, lovingly anticipating the every desire of the only man in the world she cared about, M adame de Franval bore her chains during the early years without ever sus­ pecting her enslavement. It was easy for her to see that she was merely gleaning meage r scraps in the fields o f Hymen, but, still too happy with what l i ttle he left her, she devoted her every attention and applied herself scrupulously to make certain that during those bri e f moments when Franval acknowledged her tenderness he would at least find everything that she believed her beloved husband required to make him happy.

And yet the best proo f that Franval had not been completely remiss in his duties wa:; the fact that, during the fi rst year o f their marriage, his wife, th(n aged sixteen and a half, gave bi rth to a daughter even more b(:aut iful than her mother, a child whom her father stra ightway named Eugenie-Eugen ie , both the horror and the wonder o f Nature.

Monsieur de Franval , who doubtless had formed the most

Eugenie de Franval T 379

odious designs upon the child the moment she was born, immedi­ a tely separated her from her mother. Until she was seven, Eugenie was entrusted to the care of some women on whom Franval could rely, and they confined themselves to inculcating in her a good disposition and to teaching her to read. They scrupulously avoided imparting to her the sl ightest knowledge of any religious or moral principles of the sort that a girl of that age normally receives.

Madame de Farneille and her daughter, who were grieved and shocked by such conduct, reproached Monsieur de Franval for it. He replied imperturbably that his plan was to make his daughter happy, and he had no intention of filling her mind with chimeras designed solely to frighten men without ever proving of the least worth to them. He also said that a girl who needed nothing more than to learn how to make herself pleasing and attractive would be well advised to remain ignorant of such nonsense, for such fantasies would only disturb the serenity of her l i fe without adding a grain of truth to her moral character or a grain of beauty to her body. Such remarks were sorely displeasing to Madame de Far­ neille, who was increasingly attracted to celestial ideas the more she withdrew from worldly pleasure s . Piety i s a failing inherent in periods of advancing age or declining health. In the tumult of the passions, we generally feel but slight concern over a future we gauge to be extremely remote, but when passions' language be­ comes less compelling, when we advance on the final stages of l i fe , when in a word everything leaves us , then we cast ourselves back into the a rms of the God we have heard about when we were chil­ dren. And if, according to philosophy, these latter il lusions are fully as fantastic as the others, they are at least not as dangerous.

Franval 's mother-in-law had no close relatives, she herself had li ttle or no influence, and at the very most a few casual friends who proved less than that when put to the test. Having to do battle against an amiable, young, well-si tuated son-in-law, she very wi sely decided that it would be simpler to l imit herself to remonstrating than to undertake more vigorous measures with a man who could ruin the mother and cause the daughter to be confined if they should dare to p i t themselves against him. In consideration of which a few remonstrances were all she ventured, and as soon as she saw that they were to no avail , she fell silent.

380 .. THE MARQUIS DE SADE

Franval , certain of h is superiority and perceiving that they were a fra id of him, SOOT. threw all restraint to the winds and, only thinly disguising his activities simply for the sake of appearances , he advanced stra ight toward his terrible goal.

When Eugenie was seven years old, Franval took her to his wife ; and that loving mother, who had not seen her child since the day she had brought he:� into the world, could not get her fill of fondling and caressing her. For two hours she hugged the child to her breast , smothering her with kisses and bathing her with her tears. She wanted to lean all her Ii tt le talents and accompli shments ; but Eugenie had none except the abil i ty to read fluently, to be blessed with p erfect health, and to be as pretty a s an angel. M adame de Franval was once again plunged into desp a i r when she real ized tha t i t was only too true tha t h e r daughter was quite ignorant of the most basic p rinciples of religion.

"What are you doing, S ir ," she said to her husband. " Do you mean to say you are brin ging her up only for this world? Deign to reflect that she, like all of us, is destined to dwell but a second here, a fterward to plunge into an eternity, which will be disastrous if you deprive her of th(, wherewithal to find happiness at the feet o f Him from whom all life cometh."

"If Eugeni e knows nothing, M adame, " Franval replied, "if these maxims are carefully concealed from her, there i s no way she could be made unhappy ; for i f they are true , the Supreme Being is too just to punish her fOJ' her ignorance, and i f they are false, what need i s there to speak to her about them ? As for the rest of her education, please have confidence i n me. Starting today I shall be her tutor, and I p romise you that in a few years your daughter will surpass all the children her own age ."

M a dame de Franval wished to pursue the matter further ; calling the heart 's eloqu ence to the a id of reason, a few tears ex­ pressed themselves for hr. But Franval, who was not i n the least moved by the tears, did not seem even to notice them. He had Eugeni e taken away, aT d informed his wi fe that i f she tr ied to interfere in any way w th the education he planned to give h is daughter , or i f she a ttempted to inculcate in the gir l principles different from those wirh which he intended to nourish her, she would by so doing depr ive herself of the pleasure of seeing her

Eugenie de Franval + 381

daughter, whom he would send to one o f those chateaux from which she would not re-emerge. Madame de Franval, accustomed to sub­ mission, heard his words in silence. She begged her husband not to separate her from such a cherished possession and, weeping, p rom­ ised not to interfere in any way with the education that was being prepared for her.

From that moment on, M a demoiselle de Franval was installed in a very lovely apartment a dj ac<:nt to that o f her father, with a highly intelligent governess, an as!.istant governess, a chambermaid, and two girl companions her own age, solely intended for Eugenie 's amusement. She was given teachers of writing, drawing, poetry, natural history, elocution, geography, astronomy, Greek, English, German, Ital ian, fencing, dancing" riding and music. Eugenie arose at seven every day, in summer as well as winter. For breakfast she had a large piece of rye bread, which she took with her out into the garden. She ran and played there t i ll e ight, when she came back inside and spent a few moments with her father in h is apartment, while he acquainted her with the little tricks and games that society indulges in . Till nine she worked on her lessons ; a t nine her first tutor a rrived. Between then and two she was visited by no less than five teachers. She ate lunch with h,er two li ttle friends and her head governess. The dinner was composed of vegetables , fish, pastries, and fruit ; never any meat, soup, wine, liqueurs, or coffee. From three to four , Eugenie went back out again to play with her com­ panions. There they exercised together, playing tennis , b all, skittles, battledore and shuttlecock, or seeing how far they could run and jump. They dressed according to the seasons ; they wore nothing that constricted thei r waists, never any of those ridiculous corsets equally dangerous for the stomach and chest which, impairing the breathing of a young person, perforce a ttack the lungs. From four to six, M a demoiselle de Franval received other tutors ; and as all had not been able to appear the same day, the others came the following day. Three times a week, Eugenie went to the theater with her father, in the little grilled boxes that were rented for her by the year. At nine o 'clock she returned home and dined. All she then had to eat were vegetables and fruit . Four times a week, from ten to eleven, she played with her two governesses and her maid, read from one or more novels, and then went to bed. The three

382 + THE MARQUI:, DE SADE

o the r days, those whe n Franval did not dine out, she spe nt alone in her fathe r' s apartme nt , and Franval devote d this pe riod to what he te rme d his conferences. During the se se ss ions he inculcate d in his daughte r his maxims on morality and re l igion, pre se nting to he r on the one hand what some me n thought on the se matte rs , and the n on the othe r expounding his own vie ws .

Posse sse d o f conside rab le intell ige nce , a vast range of knowl ­ e dge , a kee n mind, and p assions that were alre ady awake ning, i t i s e asy t o judge the progre ss that the se views made in Eugenie ' s soul. But since the shame ful Fr anval ' s inte ntion was not only to stre ngthe n he r mind, these lecture s rare ly conclude d wi thout inflaming he r he art a s we ll ; and this horrib le man succee de d so we ll in finding the me ans to ple ase his daughte r, te corrupte d he r so cle ve rly, he made him­ se l f so use ful b oth to he r e ducation and he r ple asure s, he so arde ntly anticipated he r eve ry des i re that Eugenie , e ve n in the most b ril l iant c i rcle s, fou nd no one as attractive as he r fathe r. And e ve n be fore he made his inte ntions e) plicit , the innoce nt and pliant cre ature had fille d he r young he art w i th all the se ntime nts of fr ie ndship, grati­ tude , and tende rne ss which must i ne vitab ly lead to the most arde nt love. She had e ye s only� or Franval ; she paid no attention to any­ one b ut him, and reb elle d at any ide a that might separate he r from him. She would gladly have l avishe d upon him not he r honor, not he r charms -all the se sacrifice s would have se eme d far too meage r for the obje ct of he r idolatry-b ut he r b lood, he r very l i fe , i f this te nde r frie nd of he r he a rt had de mande d it .

Made moisel le de F ranval' s fee lings for he r mother, her re ­ spectab le and wre tche d mother, we re not quite the same. He r father , b y skillfully conve ying to h i s daughter that Madame de Franval, be ing h i s wife , de manded certain mini strations from him which ofte n prevente d h m from doing for his dear Eugenie e ve ry­ thing his heart dictate d, had discove red the se cre t of implanting in the he art of th is young pe rson much more hate and je alousy than the sort of re spe ctab le and tender sentiments that she ought to have felt for such a mothe r.

"My frie nd, my b rJ the r ," Eugen ie sometime s use d to say to Franval, who did not wan t his daughter to employ other e xpressions with him, "this woman :/ ou call your wife, this cre ature who, you te l l me, b rought me into thi s wo rld, i s ind eed most de manding, since

Eugenie de Franval + 383

in wishing to have you always by her s ide, she deprives me of the happiness of spending my l ife with you . . . . It i s quite obvious to me that you prefer her to your Eugenie. As for me, I shall never love anything that steals your heart away from me."

"Y ou are wrong, my dear friend," Franval replied. "No one in this world will ever acquire over me rights as strong as yours. The ties which bind this woman and your best friend-the fruit of usage and social convention, which I view philosophically-will never equal the ties between us . . . . You will always be my favorite, Eugenie ; you will be the angel and the light o f my l ife , the hearth of my heart, the moving force of my existence."

"Oh I how sweet these words are ! " Eugenie replied. "Repeat them to me o ften, my friend . . . . If only you knew how happy these expressions of your tenderness ma.ke me !"

And taking Franval ' s hand and clasping i t to her heart , she went on :

"Here, feel, I can feel them all there . . . . " "Your tender caresses assure: me it's true ," Franval answered,

pressing her in his arms . . . . And thus , without a trace of remorse, the perfidious wretch concluded his plans for the seduction of this poor girl.

Eugenie' s fourteenth year was the time Franval had set for the consummation of his crime. Let us shudder I . . . He did it.

The very day that she reached that age, or rather the day she completed her fourteenth year, they were both in the coun try, without the encumbering presence of family or other in trusions. The Coun t, having that day attired his daughter in the manner that ves tal virgins had been clothed in ancient times upon the occasion of their consecra tion to the goddess P enus, brought her upon the s troke of eleven a' clock in to a voluptuous drawing room wherein the daylight was softened by muslin curtains and the furniture was bedecked with flowers. In the middle of the room was a throne of roses; Franval led his daughter o�)er to it.

"Eugenie," he said to her, ht'lpin g her to sit down upon it, "to­ day be the queen of my heart and allow me, on bended knee, to worship and adore thee."

"You adore me, my brother, when it is to you that I owe

384 + THE MARQUlS DE SADE

everything, you who ar,� the author .of my days, who has formed me . . . • Ah! let me rather fall down at your feet; that is the only place I belong, and the only place I aspire to with you."

ItOh my dear, my tender Eugenie," said the Cou n t, seating himself beside her o n the flower-strewn chairs which were to serve as the scene of his triu1.'Jph, "if indeed it is true that you owe me something, if your feelings toward me are as sincere as you say they are, do you know by what means you can persuade me of your sincerity,!"

"What are they, my bro ther'! Tell them to me quickly, so that I may be quick to seize ,hem."

"All these many charms, Eugenie, that Nature has lavished upon you, all these phys;:cal charms with which She has embellished you-these you must sa.:rifice to me withou t a moment's delay."

"Bu t what is it you ask of me'! Are you n o t already the master of everything? Does no t what you have wrought belong to you'! Can ano ther delight in your handiwork'!"

"But you are not ur.aware of people's prejudices . . . . " tty o u have n ever c'Jncealed them from me." ttl do not wish to flou t them without your consen t." "Do you n o t despise them as much as I'!" ItSurely, but I do uo t wan t to be your tyrant, and even less

your seducer. The services I am soliciting, nay the rewards I re­ quest, I wish to be won through love, and through love alone. You are familiar with the w'Jrld and with its ways; I have never COll­ cealed any of i ts lures Jrom ·you. My habit of keeping o ther men from your eyes, s o that I alon e will be the constan t object of your vision, has become a hO!lx, a piece of trickery unworthy of me. If in the world there exis ts a being whom you prefer to me, n ame him withou t delay, I shall go to the ends of the earth to find him and s traightway lead him b,uk here into your arms. In a word, i t is your happiness I seek, my angel, yours much more than mine. These gen tle pleasures you can give me will be n o thing to me, if they are no t the concrete proof cf your love. Therefore, Eugenie, make up your mind. The time ha� come for you to be immolated, and immo­ lated you mus t be. But you yourself mus t n ame the pries t who shall perform the sacrifice; I renounce the pleasures which this title as­ sures me if it is n o t your heart and soul which offer them to me.

Eugenie de Franval + 385

And, still worthy of your heart, if 'tis not I whom you mos t prefer, s tilll shall, by bringing you him whom you can love and cherish, a t leas t have merited your tender affection though l may not have won the citadel of your heart. And, failing to become Eugenie's lover, l shall still be her friend.}}

"You will be everything, my brother, you will be everything, }} Eugenie said, burning with love and desire. " To whom do you wish me to sacrifice myself if it is not to him whom l solely adore! Wha t creature in the en tire universe can be more worthy than you of these meager charms that you desire ... and over which your burning hands are already roaming with great ardor! Can't you see by the fire which inflames me that l am ,ius t as eager as you to know these pleasures of which you have spoken? Ah! do, do what you will, my dear brother, my bes t friend, make Eugenie your victim; immolated by your beloved hands, she will always be triumphant.}}

The ferven t Franval who, considering the character we know him to possess, had draped himself in so much delicacy only in order to seduce his daughter all the more subtly, soon abused her credulity and, with all the obstacles eliminated or overcome both by the principles with which he had nourished that open and impression­ able heart and by the cunning with which he had ensnared her at this final momen t, he concluded his perfidious conques t and himself became with impunity the ravisher of that virginity of which Nature and the bonds of blood had made him the trus ted defender.

Several days passed in mutual in toxication. Eugenie, old enough to experience the pleasures of love, her appetite whetted by his doctrines, yielded herself to its transports. Franval taught her all its mys teries; he traced for her all i ts paths and byways. The more he paid obeisance, the more complete became his conques t. She would have wished to receive him in a thousand temples simul­ taneously; she accused her friend's imagination of being too timid, of not throwing all caution to the winds. And she had the feeling that he was hiding something from her. She complained of her age, and of a kind of ingenuousness which perhaps kept her from being seductive enough. And if she wished to further her amorous educa­ tion, it was to insure that no means of inflaming her lover remained unknown to her.

386 + THE MARQUI� DE SADE

They returned to Paris , but the criminal pleasures which th is perverse man had reveled in had too del ightfully flattered h is moral and physical facult ies for that trait of cha racter, inconstancy, which generally caused him to break off h is other affairs , to have the least effect in breaking the bonds of this one. He had fallen hope­ lessly in love, and frorr this dangerous passion there inevitably ensued the cruelest abar donment of his wife . . . . Alas! what a victim. Madame de Franval , who was then thirty-one , was in the full flower of her beauty An impression of sadness, the sort which inevitably follows upon the sorrows which consumed her , made he r even more attractive . Ba thed in her own tears , a constant prey to mel ancholy, her beauti fu' ha i r carelessly scattered over an alabaster throat , her l ips lovingly pressed against the portra i ts of her fai th­ less daughter and tyrant.husband, she resembled one of those beau­ ti ful virgins whom Michelangelo was wont to portray in the throes of sorrow. As yet she was s till unaware of that which was destined to crown her affiiction. The manner in which Eugeni e was being edu­ cated, the essential things to which Madame de Franval was not privy or those she was told only to make her hate them ; the cer­ tainty tha t these duti ef, despised by Franval , would never be permitted to her daughtt r ; the l i ttle time she was allowed to spend with the young person ; the fear that the pecul iar education that Eugenie was being given might sooner or later lead her into the pa ths of crime ; and, finally, Franval 's wi ld conduct, h i s da i ly harsh­ ness toward her--she whose only concern in l i fe was to anticipate his every wish, who knew no other charms than those resulting from her having interested or pleased him: these alone, for the moment, were the only causes of J- er distress . But imagine with what sorrow and pa in this tender soul would be affiicted when she learned the full truth!

Meanwhile , Eugen e's education continued. She herself had expressed a des i re to follow her masters until she was sixteen, and her talents , the broad s:ope of her knowledge, the graces which da ily developed in her--all these further tightened Franval 's fet­ ters. I t was easy to see t'lat he had never loved anyone the way he loved Eugenie .

On the surface , no :hing in Eugenie 's daily routine had been changed save the t ime of the lectures. These private discussions

Eugenie de Franval * 387

with her father occurred much more frequently and lasted far into the night. Eugenie ' s governess was the only p erson p rivy to the affair , and they trusted her sufficiently not to be worried about her indiscretion. There were also a few changes i n Eugenie ' s meal schedule : now she ate with her p a rents. In a house like Franval' s , this c ircumstance soon placed Eug4!ni e in a position to meet people and to be courted with a view toward marriage. Several men did ask for her hand. Franval, certain of his daughter ' s heart and feeling he had nothing to fear from these requests, had nonetheless failed to realize that this virtual flood of proposals might end by reveal­ ing everything.

In one conversation with her daughter-a favor so devoutly desired by M a dame de Franval and so rarely obtained-this tender mother informed Eugenie that M onsieur de C olunce had asked for her hand.

"You know the gentleman," M a dame de Franval said. "He loves you ; he is young, agreeable, and one day he will be rich. He a waits your consent . • • naught but your consent. What will my answer be ?"

Taken aback, Eugenie reddened and replied that as yet she did not feel incline d towar d m arri age , but suggested the ma tter be referred to her father ; his wish would be her command.

Seeing in this reply nothing but candor pure and simple , Ma­ dame de Franval waited patiently for a few days until at last she found an occasion to speak to her husband about i t. She communi­ cated to him the intentions of the Colunce family, and those o f young Colunce himself, a n d told him w h a t h i s daughter 's reply h a d been.

As one can imagine, Franval already knew everything ; but he made l i ttle effort to d isguise h i s ft:elings.

"Madame," h e said dryly to his wife, "I must ask you to re­ frain from interfering i n matters pertaining to Eugenie . I should have imagined that you would have surmised, from the care you saw me take to keep her away from you , how deeply I desired to m ake certain that anything relating to her should in no wise con­ cern you. I reiterate my orders on this subj ect. I trust you will not forget them again."

388 + THE MARQU:S DE SADE

"But what, S i r , sh�l l I repl y, " she answered, " since the request has been made through me ?"

"Y ou will say tha t I appreci a te the honor, and that my daughter has certain cc ngenital defects which make marriage Im­ possibl e for her."

" But, Mons; eur , the se defects a re not real. Why should I then falsely saddle her with t hem, and why deprive your daughter of the happiness she may fi nd in marriage ?"

"Has marriage th en made you so profoundly happy, Ma­ dame ?"

"Doubtless a ll other wives have not failed so s ignally to win the ir husband's de votion, or" ( and thi s was accompanied by a sigh ) " al l husbands are not l ik e you ."

"Wives . . . wives are fa i thless, j ealous, imperious, coquettish , or pious. . . . Husbands are treacherous, inconstant, cruel , or despotic. There , Madam e, you have the summary of everyone on earth . Do not ex pect to find a paragon."

"Still , everyone ge: s married. " "True, the fools and ne'e r-do-well s . In the words of one

philosopher, 'People ge: married only when they do not know what they are doing, or when they no longer know what to do. ' "

"Then you think the human race should be allowed to die out ?"

"And why not ? A planet whose only product i s poison cannot be rooted out too quickly."

" Eugenie wil l not be gratefu l to you for your excessive stern- ness toward her."

"Has she evinced a ny desire to marry this young man ?" " She sa id that your wishes were her commands." "In that case , l\1a dame, my commands are tha t you pursue

this matter no further ." And Monsie ur de F ranval l eft the room after reiterating most

vig orously to his wife : hat she never speak to him on the subject agam .

Madame de Franr al did not fail to inform her mother o f the conversation that she h:l d just had with her husband, and Madame de Farne ille , a more sub tl e soul and one more versed in the effects

Eugenie de Franval .. 389

of the p assions than was her attractive daughter , immediately sus­ pected something unnatural wa s involved.

Eugenie saw her grandmother very seldom, no more than an hour, on festive or important occasions, and always in the presence o f her father. D esirous of clar ifying the matter, Madame de Farneille sent word to her son-in-law asking him to accord her the presence of her granddaughter one day, and requesting that he might allow her to stay one enti re a fternoon, in order to distract her, she said, from a migraine headache from which she was suffer­ ing. Franval sent back an i rr itable reply saying tha t there was nothing Eugenie feared more than the vapors , but that he would nonetheless bring her p ersonally to her grandmother whenever the latter desired. He added, however, that Eugenie would not be able to remain for very long, since she was obliged to go from her grand­ mother's to a physics course which she was ass iduously following.

When they a rrived at M a d ame de Farneille ' s , she did not hide from her son-in-law her a stonishment at h is refusal of the proposed marriage.

" I imagine that you safely can allow your daughter to per­ suade m e herself ," Madame de Farneille went on, "of this defect which, according to you, must deprive her of m arriage."

"Whether this defect is real or not, Madame, " sa id Franval, who was slightly surprised by his mother-in-Iaw's resolution, "the fact i s that i t would cost m e a small fortune to marry my daughter , a n d I am still too young t o consent to such sacrifices. When s h e i s twenty-five, s h e m a y do a s s h e wishes. Until then, s h e cannot count on me o r my support."

"And do you feel the same way, Eugenie ?" sa id M a dame de Farneille.

"With this one difference ," Eugenie said with considerable firmness. " My father has given me p ermission to marry when I am twenty-five. But to you both here p resent, M adame, I swear that I shall never i n my l ife take advantage of this permission, which with my way of thinking would only lead to unhappiness ."

"At your age one does not have 'a way of thinking, ' said M a dame de Farneille , "and there i s something quite out of the ordinary in all this, which I i ntend to ferret out."

"I urge you to try, M adame," Franval said, leading his

390 + THE MARQUIS DE SADE

daughter away. "In fact, you would be well advised to seek the services of your clergy t ) help you in solving the enigma. And when all your powers have scraped and delved and you are a t last en­ lightened in the matter, please let me know whether or not I was r ight in opposing Euger ie ' s marriage."

Franval's sarcasm concerning his mother-in-Iaw's ecclesiastical advisers was aimed at a respectable personage whom i t will be appropriate to introduc<! a t this point, since the sequence of events will soon show him in action.

He was the confessor both of Madame de Farneille and her daughter, one of the most virtuous men in all France: honest, benevolent, a paragon of candor and wisdom, Monsieur de Clervil, far from having all the vices of men of the cloth, was possessed only of gentle and useful qualit ies . The rod and the staff of the poor, the sincere friend of the wealthy, the consoler of the wretched and downtrodden, this worthy man combined all the gifts which make a person agreeable, all the virtues which make one sensitive.

When consulted, Clervil replied as a man of good common sense that before taking a stand in the matter they would have to unravel the reasons wh:r lVlonsieur de Franval was opposed to h i s daughter's marriage ; a 1d although Madame de Farneille offered a few remarks suggesting the possibility of an affair-one which in fact exi sted all too concretely-the prudent confessor rejected these ideas. And finding them too outrageously insulting both for Ma­ dame de Franval and for her husband, he indignantly refused even to consider the possibili ty.

"Crime is such a d stressing thing, Madame," this honest man was sometimes wont to say, "it i s so highly unlikely that a decent person should voluntarily exceed all the bounds of modesty and virtue, that it is never with anything but the most extreme repug­ nance that I make up rry mind to ascribe such wrongs to someone. Be wary in suspecting tbe presence of vice. Our suspicions are often the handiwork of our p:ide and vani ty, and almost always the fruit of a secret compari son that takes place in the depths of our soul : we hasten to assign evil, for this gives us the right to feel superior. If we reflect seriously upon the matter, would i t not be better to leave a secret s in forever hidden rather than to dream up imaginary ones because of our unforgivable ha ste, and thus, for no reason, to sully

Eugenie de Franval + 391

in our eyes people who h ave never committed any wrongs save those which our pride has ascribed to them ? And would our world not be a better place if this principle were always followed ? Is it not infinitely less necessary to punish a crime than i t i s essential to p revent it from spreading ? By lea.ving it in the darkness it seeks, have we not as it were annihilated i t ? Scandal noised abroad i s cer­ tain scandal, and the recital o f i t awakens the passions of those who a re incl ined toward the same kind of crime. Crime being inevitably blind, the guilty party of the as yet undiscovered crime fl atters him­ self tha t he will be luckie r than the criminal whose crime has been found out. 'Ti s not a lesson he has been given, but a counsel, and he gives himself over to excesses tha t he might never have dared to indulge in without the rash revdations . . . falsely mistaken for justice, but which, in reality, a re nothing more than i ll-conceived severity, o r vanity in disguise."

This init ial conference therefore led to no other resolution than the decision to investigate carefully the reasons for Franval' s aversion to the marriage of h is daughter, and the reasons why Eugenie shared his opinions. It was decided not to undertake any­ thing until these motives were discovered.

"Well , Eugenie ," Franval sa id to his daughter that evening, "now can you see for yourself that they want to separate us? And do you think they'll succeed, my chil d ? . . . Will they succeed in breaking the sweetest bonds in my l i fe ?"

"N ever . . . never ! Don' t be a fraid, my dearest friend I These bonds in which you delight are as p recious to me a s they a re to you. You did not deceive me when you formed them ; you clearly warned me how they would shock the morality o f our society. But I was hardly frightened a t the idea of breaking a custom which, varying from clime to clime , cannot therefore be sacred. I wanted these bonds ; I wove them without remorse. Therefore you need have no fear that I shall break them."

"Alas , who knows ? • • . Colunce i s younger than 1. . . . He has everything a man needs to win you. Eugenie , leave off l istening to a vestige o f madness which doubtless blinds you. Age and the torch o f reason will soon dispel the aura and lead to regrets, you'll con­ fide them to me, and I shall never forgive myself for having been the cause o f thetu. "

392 .. T H E MARQUlS DE SADE

"No," Eugenie said firmly, "no, I have made up my mind to love no one but y ou . I should deem myself the most miserable of women if I were obliged to marry . . . . Can you imagine," she went on heatedly, "me, me m uried to a stranger who , unlike you, would not have double reason to love me and whose feelings therefore would at best be no strJ nger than his desire . . . . Abandoned and despised by him, what w ould become of me thereafter ? A prude, a sanctimonious person, or a whore ? No, no, I prefer being your mistress, my frien d. Yes , I love you a hundred times better than being reduced to p layine: one or the other of these infamous roles in society . . . . But w hat i s the cause of all this commotion ?" Eugenie went on bitterly. "Do p u know what it is, my friend ? Who i s the cause of it ? . . . Y our wl fe ? . . . She and she alone. Her implac able j ealousy . . . You may be sure of i t : these are the only reasons behind the disaste rs tha t threaten us . . . . Oh, I don ' t blame her : everything i s simp le . . everything conceivable . . . one can resort to anything when i t i s a question of keeping you. \V hat would I not do if I were in her pla� e , and someone were trying to steal your affections from me ?"

Deeply move d, Franval showered his daughter with a thousand kisses. And Eug enie , finding the encouragement in these criminal caresses to plumb more forcefully the depths of her appalling soul, chanced to mention to h er father, with an unforgivable impudence, tha t the only way for e ither one of them to escape her mother's surveillance would be to give her a lover. The idea amused Franval . But being a muc h more evi l person than his daughter, and wishing to p repare imperceptibly this young heart for all the impressions of hatred for his wife! that he desired to implant therein, he answered that he foune thi s vengeance far too mild, adding that there were plenty of ot her means o f making a woman miserable when she put her husband into a bad humor.

Several weeks passed, during which Franval and his daughter fi nally decided to put itl to effect the first plan conceived for the despa ir of this monster\ virtuous wife, rightly believing that before going on to more drastic and shameful acts, they should at least try to give her a lover. For not only would this furnish material for all the other acts, but, i f i t succeeded, i t would necessarily oblig e M adame de Fran val to cease concerning herself with the faults of

Eugenie de Franval + 393

others, since she would have her own to worry about. For the execution of this proj ect, Franval cast a careful eye upon all the young men he knew and, after considerable reflection, came to the conclusion that only Valmont could serve as his man.

Valmont was thirty years old, had a charming face, consider­ able intell igence and a vivid imagination, and no principles what­ ever. He was, consequently, ideally suited to play the role they were going to offer him. One day Franval invited him to dinner and, as they were leaving the table, he took him aside :

"My friend," he sa id to him, " I have always believed you worthy of me. The time has come to prove that I have not erred in my judgment. I demand a p roof of your sentiments . . . a most extraordinary proof."

"What kind of proof, my dea r fellow ? Explain yourself, and never for a moment doubt of my eagerness to be of service to you ! "

"Wha t do you think o f my wif e ?" "A delightful creature . And if you weren't her husband, I

would long since have made her my mistress ." "This consideration i s most d el icate and discerning, Valmont ,

but i t does not touch me." "Wh at do you mean?" "I am going to a stound you . . . ' t i s precisely because you are

fond of me, and because I am Madame de Franval 's husband, that I demand that you become her lover ."

"Ar e you mad ?" "N 0, but given to whimsy . . . capricious. You've been aware

of these qual it ies i n me for a long time. I want to bring about the downfall of v irtue, and I maintain that you are the one to snare i t ."

"What nonsense I" "Not in the least, ' t is a masterpiece of reason." "What 1 You mean you really w ant me to make you a . . . ?" "Yes, I want i t , I demand i t , a nd I shall cease to consider you

my friend if you refuse me this favor . . . . I shall help you . . . . I ' l l arrange i t so that you can be alone with her . . . more and more often, if need be . . . and you will take advantage of these occasions. And the moment I am quite c ertain of my destiny, I shall , i f you

394 + THE MARQt'IS DE SADE

like, throw myself a t your feet to thank you for your obliging kindness."

"Franval, don't t"ke me for an utter fool. There's something most strange about all this . . . . I refuse to lift a finger until you tell me the whole truth."

"All right , . . bu t I suspect you're a trifle squeamish . . . I doubt you have sufficient strength of mind to hear all the details of thi s matter . . . . You're still a prey to prejudice . . . still gallant, I venture to say, eh ? . . . I f I tell you everything you' l l tremble like a child and refuse to do anything further."

"Me, tremble ? . . . In all honesty I must say I 'm overwhelmed by the way you judge me. Listen , my friend, I want you to know that there is no aber ration in the world, not a single vice, however strange or abnormal, that i s capable of alarming my heart for even a moment."

"Valmont, have y ou ever taken the trouble to cast a careful eye on Eugenie f rom time to time ?"

"Your daug hter ?" "Or, i f you prefer, my mistress ." "Ah, you scoundrd I N ow I understand." "This i s the first t ime in my l i fe I find you perceptive." "What ? On your word of honor, you ' re in love with your

daughter ?" "Yes, my friend, (�x actly as Lot ! I h ave always held the Holy

Script ures in highest es teem, as I have always been persuaded that one accedes t o Heaven by emulating its heroes ! . . . Ah ! my friend, Pygmalion ' s madness nJ longer amazes me . . . . Is the world not full of such weakness es ? W as it not necessary to resort to such methods to populate the world·) And what was then not a s in , can it now have become one? \V hl t nonsense ! You mean to say that a lovely girl cannot temp t me be cause I am guil ty of having sired her ? That what ought to bind me more intimately to her should become the very reason for my rem oval from her ? 'Tis because she resembles me, because she i s flesh of my flesh , that is to say that she i s the embodiment of all the natives upon which to base the most a rdent love , that I should regard her wit h an icy eye ? . . . Ah, what sophistry ! . . . How to tally absurd ! L et fools abide by such ridicu­ lous inhibitions, they ae not made for hearts such as ours. The

Eugenie de Fran'lJal + 395

dominion of beauty, the holy rights of love are oblivious to futile human conventions. In their ascendancy they annihilate these con­ ventions as the rays of the rising sun purge the earth of the shrouds which cloak i t by night. Let us trample underfoot these abominable prejudices, which are always the enemies of happiness. If at times they beguile the reason, it has always been at the expense of the most exquis ite pleasures . ... May we forever desp ise them I"

"I'm convinced," Valmont :responded, "and I am willing to admit that your Eugenie must be a delightful m istress . A beauty more lively than her mother's, even though she does not possess, as does your wife, that languor which seizes the soul with such volup­ tuousness. But Eugenie has that piquant quality which breaks and subdues us, which, as it were, seems to subjugate anything which would like to offer resistance. \Vhile one seems to yield, the other demands ; what one allows, the other offers. Of the two, I much prefer the latter."

"But i t' s not Eugenie I'm giving you, but her mother." "And what reasons do you have for resorting to such

methods ?" " My wi fe is jealous, an albatross on my neck. She' s forever

spying on me. She wants Eugenie to marry. I must saddle my wi fe with sins in order to conceal my own. Therefore you must have her .. . amuse yourself with her for a time . . . and then you'll betray her. Let me surprise you in her arms . . . and then I shall punish her or, using this di scovery as a weapon, I shall barter i t in return for an armistice on both our parts. But no love, Valmont ; with ice in your veins, capture and win her, but do not let her gain mastery over you . If you let sentiments become involved, my plans are as good as finished."

"Have no fear: she would be the first woman who had aroused my heart."

Thus our two villains came to a mutual agreement, and it was resolved that in a very few days Valmont would undertake to seduce Madame de Franval, with full permission to employ any­ thing he wished in order to succeed . . . even the avowal of Franval's love, as the most powerful means of inducing this virtuous woman to seek vengeance.

Eugenie, to whom the plan was revealed, thought it mono

396 .. THE MARQUH, DE SADE

strously amusing. The in famous creature even dared declare that i f Valmont should succeed , t o make h e r happiness a s complete a s possible she would l ike ' :0 verify with her own eyes her mother ' s disgrace, she absolutely had to witness that paragon of virtue in­ contestably yielding to the charms of a pleasure that she so rigor­ ously condemned in othe -s .

At last the day arrived when the most virtuous, the best, and most wretched o f women was not only going to receive the most pa inful blow that anyone can be dealt but also when her hideous husband was destined to outrage her, abandoning her-handing her over himself-to him b:r whom he had agreed to be dishonored . . . . What madness! . . . What utter disdain of all principles . With what view in mind dOI:s Nature create hearts as depraved as these ? . . .

A few preliminary conversations had set the stage for the p resent scene. Furthermore , Val mont was on close enough terms with Franval so that his wife had not the slightest compunction about remaining alone with him, as indeed she had done on more than one occas ion in the past. The three of them were sitting in the drawing room. Fram'al rose and sa id :

"I must leave. An important matter requires my presence . . . . 'Tis to leave you in the care of your governess ," he sa id , laughing, "leaving you with Valmont. The man's a pillar of virtue . But i f he should forget himself , p lease be kind enough to inform me. I still do not love him enough to yield him my rights . . . . "

And the insolent fe! low departed. After exchanging a few banal ities , the aftereffects of Franval ' s

l i ttle j oke, Val mont sa id th at he had found h i s fr iend changed during the past six mont 15 .

"I haven't dared broach the subj ect, to ask him the reasons, " Valmont sa id , "but he se ems t o b e upset and distressed."

"One thing which i �, certa in ," Madame de Franval repl ied , " i s that he i s upsetting and distressing those around h im."

"Good heavens! What a re you saying ? . . . that my friend has been treating you badly " "

"If it were still only that I" "Be so good as to inform me, you know how devoted I am

. . . my inviolable a ttachment."

Eugenie de Franvat .. 397

"A series of frightful disorders . . . moral corruption, in short every kind of wrong . . . would you believe i t 7 We received a most advantageous offer to marry our daughter . . . and he refused . . . . "

And here the artful Valmont averted his eyes, the expression of a man who has understood . . . who sighs to himself . . . and is a fraid to explain.

"What is the matter, Monsieur," Madame de Franval reo sumed, "what I have told you does not surprise you 7 Your silence is most singular ."

"Ah, Madame, i s i t not better to remain s i lent than to say things which will bring despair to someone one loves 7"

"And what, may I ask, i s that enigma ? Explain yourself, I beg of you."

"How can you expect me not to shudder i f I should be the one who causes the scales to fall from your eyes ," Valmont said, warmly seizing one of her hands.

"Oh, Monsieur," Madame de Franval went on, with great animation, "e i ther explain yourself or say not another word, I beseech you. The situation you leave me in i s terrible ."

"Perhaps less terrible than the state to which you yourself reduce me," said Valmont, casting a look of love at the woman he was intent on seducing.

"But what does all that mean, Sir 7 You begin by alarming me, you make me desire an explanation, then daring to insinuate certain things that I neither can nor should endure , you deprive me of the means of learning from you what upsets me so cruelly. Speak, Sir, speak or you shall reduce me to u tter despair ."

"Very well , Madame, s ince you demand i t I shal l be less obscure, even though i t costs me dearly to break your heart . . . . Learn, i f you must, the cruel reason behind your husband' s refusal to Monsieur Colunce' s request . . . Eugenie . . . "

"Yes 7" "Well , the fact is, Madame, that Franval adores her. Today

less her father than her lover, he would rather give up his own l i fe than give up Eugenie ."

Madame de Franval had not heard this fatal revelation with· out reacting, and she fell down in a faint. Valmont hastened to her ass istance, and as soon a s she had come to her senses he pursued :

3 9 8 + T H E MARQUI S DE SADE

"You see , Madam<�, the cost of the disclosure you demanded . . . . I would have given anything in the world to . . . "

"Leave me, Monsi eur, leave me," said Madame de Franval, who was in a state difficult to describe. "After a shock such as this I need to be alone for 3 while."

"And you expect ne to leave you in this s ituation ? Ah, your grief i s too fully felt if my own heart for me not to ask you the privilege of sharing it with you. I have inflicted the wound. Let me bind i t up."

"Franval , in love with h is daughter ! Just Heaven I This crea­ ture whom I have born,! in my womb, 't is now she who breaks my heart so grievously ! . . . So horribl e , so shocking a crime ! . . . Ah, Monsieur, i s it possibl e ? . . . Are you quite certain ?"

"Madame, had I I he slightest doubt I should have remained silent. I would a hundred times rather have preferred not to tell you anything than to ala rm you in vain. 'Tis from your own husband I have the certitude of t hi s infamy, which he confided to me. In any event, try and be calm, [ beg of you. Rather let us concentrate now on the means of breakir g off this affair than on those of bringing i t to light. And you alone hold the key to this rupture . . . . "

"Ah, tell me this minute what i t i s . This crime horrifies me." "Madame, a husband of Franval's character i s not brought

back by virtue . He is l i ttle disposed to believe in the virtue of women. Virtue, he maintains, i s the fru i t of thei r pride or their temperament, and wha t they do to remain faithful to us is done more to satisfy themselves than either to please or enchain u s . . . . You will excuse me, Madame, i f I say that on this point I must admit that I tend to share his opinion. Never in my experience has a wife succeeded in de stroying her husband's vices by means of virtue . What would prick him, what would stimulate him much more would be a conduct approximating his own, and by this would you bring him more q lickly back to you. Jealousy would be the inevitable resul t ; how many hearts have been restored to love by this infallible means. Your husband, then seeing that this virtue to which he i s accustomed, and which he has been so insolent as to despise , is rather the work of reflection than of the o rgans' in­ souciance, will really Ie un to esteem it in you, at the very moment when he believes you c<cpable of discarding it. He imagines . . . he

Eugenie de Fran'lJal + 399

dares to say that if you have never had any lovers, it i s because you have never been assaulted. Prove to him that this is a decision which lies solely in your own hands . . . to revenge yourself for his wrongdoings and his contempt. Perhaps, according to your strict p rinciples , you will have committed a minor sin. But think of all the sins you will have prevented ! Think of the husband you will have steered back to you ! And for no more than the most minor outrage to the goddess you revere, what a disciple you will have brought back into her temple . Ah, M adame, I appeal only to your reason. By the conduct I dare to prescribe to you , you will bring Franval back forever, you will captivate him eternally. The reverse conduct -the one you have been following-sends him flying away from you. He will escape you, never to return. Yes, M adame, I dare to affirm that either you do not love your husband or you should cease this hesi ta tion."

Madame de Franval, very much taken aback by this declara­ tion, remained silent for some time . Then, remembering Valmont's earl ier looks, and his init ial remarks, she managed to reply adroitly :

"Monsieur, let us p resume that I follow the advice you give me ; upon whom do you think I should cast my eye to upset my husband further ?"

"Ah, my dear, my divine friend," Valmont cried, oblivious to the trap she had set for him, "upon the one man in the world who loves you most, upon him who has adored you since first he set eyes upon you and who swears at your feet to die beneath your sway . . . . "

"Leave, M onsieur," M adame de Franval said imperiously, "leave and never let me see you again. Your ruse has been dis­ covered. You accuse my husband of wrongs of which he can only be innocent merely to advance your own treacherous schemes of seduction. And let me tell you that even were he guilty, the means you offer me are too repugnant to my heart for me to entertain them for a moment. Never do the fail ings o f a husband justi fy or exoner­ a te those of a wife. For her they must become the reasons for even greater virtue , so that the Just and Righteous man, whom the Al­ mighty will come upon in the afflicted cit ies on the verge of suffering the effects of his wrath, may divert the flames which are about to consume them."

400 .. T H E MARQU IS DE SADE

Upon these wordil Madame de Franval left the room and, call ing for Valmont's servants, obliged him to withdraw, much ashamed of his ini tial efiorts.

Although this attr active woman had seen through Valmont' s ruses , what he had sa id coincided so well with her own and her mother's fears that she resolved to do everything within her power to ascertain these cruel facts. She paid a visit to Madame de Far­ nei l le , recounted to heT everything that had happened and re­ turned, her mind made up as to the steps that we are going to see her undertake.

I t has long been said, and rightfully so, that we have no greater enemies than our own servants ; forever j ealous, always en­ vious, they seem to see k to l ighten the burden of their own yoke by discovering wrongs in us which, then placing us in a position inferior to themselves, al low them for the space of a few moments a t least to grati fy thei r vanity by a ssuming a superiority over us which fate has denied them.

Madame de Franval bribed one of Eugenie 's servants : the promise of a fixed pension, a pleasant future, the appearance of do­ ing a good deed-all swayed this creature and she promised to ar­ range i t the following night so that Madame de Franval could di spel all doubts as to h'�r unhappiness.

The moment a rri,'ed. The wretched mother was admitted to a room adjoining the room wherein, each night, her perfidious hus­ band outraged both his nuptial bonds and the bonds of Heaven. Eugenie was with her hther ; several candles remained l ighted on a corner cupboard ; they were going to illuminate this crime . . . . The altar was prepared, th(: victim took her place upon i t, he who per­ forms the sacrifice followed her . . . .

M adame de Fram'al was no longer sustained by anything save her despair , her outraged love, and her courage . . . . She burst open the doors r estraining her, she hurled herself into the room, and there, her face bathed in tears, she fell on her knees a t the feet of the incestuous Franval :

"Oh, you," she cried, addressing herself to Franval, "you who fill my l i fe with misery and sorrow, I have not deserved such treat­ ment . • _ _ However you have insulted and wronged me, I st i l l worship you. See my tears, and do not dismiss my appeal : I ask

Eugenic dc Franval + 40 1

you to have mercy on this poor wretched child who, deceived by her own weakness and your seduction, thinks she can find happiness in shamelessness and crime . . . . Eugenie , Eugenie , do you want to thrust a sword into the h eart of her who brought you into the world ? No longer consent to be the accomplice of this heinous crime whose full horror has been concealed from you ! Come . . . l e t me fold you in my waiting arms. Look at your wretched mother on her knees before you , begging you not to outrage both your honor and Nature . . . . But i f you both refuse , " the distraught woman went on, bearing a dagger to her heart, "this is the means I shall employ to escape the d ishonor with which you are trying to cover me. I shall make my blood flow and stain you here, and you will have to consummate your crimes upon my sad body."

That Franval ' s hardened heart was abl e to resist this spec­ tacle , those who are beginning to know this scoundrel will have no trouble bel ieving j but that Eugenie remained unmoved by it is quite inconceivable .

" Madame," said this corrupted girl with the cruelest show of impassivity , " I must admit I find i t hard to believe you in full pos­ session of your reason, after the scene you have just made in your husband's room. I s h e not the master of his own actions ? And when he approves of mine, what right have you to blame them ? Do we worry our heads or pry into your indiscretions with Monsieur Val­ mont ? Do we disturb you in the exercise of your pleasures ? There­ fore deign to respect ours, or do not be surpr ised if I urge your husband to take whatever steps are required to oblige you to do so . . . . "

At this point Madame de Franval could no longer control her patience, and the ful l force of her anger was turned against the unworthy creature who could so forget herself as to speak to her in such terms. Struggling to her feet , Madame de Franval threw herself furiously upon her daughter, but the odious and cruel Fran­ val , se iz ing h i s wife by the hair , dragged her in a rage away from her daughter out of the room. He threw her violently down the stairs of the house, and she fell , bloody and unconscious , at the door of one of the chambermaids' rooms. Awakened by this terrible noise , the maid quickly saved her mistress from the wrath of her

402 + T H E MARQtl IS DE SADE

tyrant, who was alrea :iy on his way downstai rs to finish off h i s hapless victim . . . .

They took her to her room, locked her in, and began to a d­ minister to her, while :he monster who had just treated her with such utter fury flew back to his detestable companion to spend the n ight as peacefully as though he had not debased himself lower than the most ferocious bea >ts by assaults so execrable, so designed to degrade and humil iate her . . . so horribl e , in a word, that we blush at the necessity of havin g to reveal them.

Poor Madame de Franval no longer had any illusions left, and there was no other for her to espouse. It was all too clear that her husband's heart, tha t is , the most beloved possession of her li fe , had been taken from h,�r. And by whom ? By the very person who owed her the most respect, and who had just spoken to her with utter insolence. She also began to suspect strongly that the whole adventure with Valmor.t had been nothing more than a detestable trap set to ensnare her in a web of guilt , if ' twere possible or, fai l ing that, to ascrihe the gui I t to her in any event, in order to counter­ balance , and hence justi fy, the thousand times more serious wrongs which they dared to heap upon her.

Nothing could ha re been more certain. Franval , informed of Valmont's fai lure, had prevai led upon him to replace the truth by imposture and indiscretion, and to noise it abroad that he was Madame de Franval ' s l over. And they had decided that they would forge abominable lette-s which would document, in the most un­ equivocal manner, the exi stence of the illicit commerce in which, however , poor Madamt: de Franval had actually refused to involve herself.

Meanwhile , in dee J despa ir , Madame de Franval, whose body was covered with numerous wounds, fell seriously ill. Her bar­ barous husband, refusir g to see her and not even bothering to in­ form himself o f her condition, left with Eugenie for the country, on the pretense tha t s ince there was fever in the house he d id not care to expose his daugh ter to i t.

During her illness, Valmont several times came to call a t her door , but was each tirr e refused admission. Locked in her room with her mother and Monsieur de Clervil, Madame de Franval absolutely refused to sec : anyone else. Consoled by such dear friends

Eugenie de Franval .. 403

a s these , who were so fully worthy o f being able to influence her, and nourished back to health by their loving care, forty days later M adame de Franval was in a cond i tion to see people again. At which time Franval brought his daughter back to Paris and, with Valmont, mapped out a campaign intended to counter the one i t appeared that M a dame de Franval and h e r friends were preparing to direct against him.

Our scoundrel paid his wife a vis it a s soon a s he j udged she was well enough to receive him.

" Madame," he said coldly, "you must be aware of my con­ cern for your condition. I cannot conceal from you the fact that your condition is the sole factor restraining Eugenie . She was de­ termined to bring a complaint ag�jnst you for the way you have treated her. However she may be persuaded of the basic respect due a mother by her daughter, still she cannot i gnore the fact that this same mother threw herself on her daughter with a drawn dag­ ger. Such a violent and unseemly act, M adame, could well open the eyes o f the government to your conduct and, inevitably, pose a serious threat to both your honor and your l iberty."

"I was not expecting such recriminations, Monsieur," Mad­ ame de Franval replied. "And when my daughter, seduced by you, becomes at the same time guilty o f incest, adultery, libertinage, and ingratitude-ingratitude of the most odious sort-toward her who brought her into the world, . . . yes, I must confess , I did not imagine that a fter this complexity of horrors that I would be the one against whom a complaint would be brought. It takes all your cunning, all your wickedness, M onsieur, to accuse innocence the while excusing crime with such audacity."

"I am not unaware, M adame, that the pretense for your scene was the odious suspic ion you dared to formulate rega rding me. But chimeras do not j ustify crimes. What you have imagined is false. But, unfortunately, what you have done is only too real. You evinced astonishment at the reproaches my daughter directed at you a t the time of your affair with Valmont. But, M adame, she has only discovered the irregularit ies of your conduct since they have been the talk o f all Paris. This affair i s so well known, and the proofs o f it unfortunately so solid, that those who speak to you about i t are at the very most guilty o f indiscretion, but not of calumny."

404 + T H E MARQUIS DE SADE

"I, S ir ," sa id thi! l respectable woman, rising to her feet, in­ dignantly, "I have ar, affa ir with Valmont l Just Heaven ! 'Tis you who have said i t ! " ( Breaking into tears : )

"Ungrateful wret:h I This i s how you repay my tenderness . . . . This i s my recompense for having loved you so. I t i s not enough for you to outrage me so cruelly. It is not enough that you seduce my daughter. You have to go even further and, by a scribing crimes which for me would be more terrible than death, dare to justi fy your own . . . . " ( Rega ining her composure : ) ! 'You say, Monsieur, that you have the p rods o f this affair. All right, show them. I de­ mand that they be mad e public , and I shall force you to show them to everyone i f you refu:;e to show them to me."

"No, M adame, I shall not show them to the whole world ; i t i s not generally the hus band who openly displays th is sort of thing ; h e bemoans i t , and con:eals it as best he can. But i f you demand i t , M adame, I shall certa inly not refuse you . . . . " ( And then taking a letter case from his pocket : ) "Sit down," h e said, "this must be verified calmly. Ill-hurr. or and loss o f temper would be harm ful but would not convince me. Therefore, I beg you to keep control of yourself, and let us dis( uss this with composure ."

M adame de Fran val, thoroughly convinced o f her innocence, did not know what to make of these preparatory remarks. And her surp rise , mingled with f right, kept her in a state of extreme agitation.

"First of al l , M a dame, " said Franval , emptying one side of the letter case , "here i ! a l l your correspondence wi th Valmont over the past six months. Do) not accuse this worthy gentleman either of imprudence o r indiscn tion. He i s doubtless too honorable a man to have dared fail you so badly. But one o f his servants, more adroit than Valmont i s attentive, discovered the secret way to p ro­ cure for me this preci Jus monument to your extreme fidel i ty and your eminent virtue ." ( Then, leafing through the letters which he sp read out on the table : ) "Please allow me," he went on, " to choose one from among many o f these ordinary di splays of chitchat by an overheated woman . . • overheated, I might add, by a most a t­ tractive man ; one, I s< .y, which seemed to me more lascivious and decisive than the othen • . Here i t i s , Madame :

My boring husband is dining tonight in his maisonette on the outskirts of Paris with that h :>rrible creatu re . . . a creatu re it is impossible I

Eugenie de Franval + 405

brought into the world. Come, my love, come and comfort me for all the sorrows which these two monsters give me . . . . What am I saying ? Is this not the greatest service they could be doing me at present, and will that affair not prevent my husband from discovering ours ? Let him then tighten the bonds as much as he likes ; but at least let him not bethink himself to desire breaking those which attach me to the only man whom I have ever adored in this world.

"Well, Madame ?" "vVell, Monsieur, I must say I admire you," Madame de

Franval repl ied. "Each day adds to the incredible esteem you so richly deserve. And however many fine qualities I have recognized in you hitherto, I confess I was yet unaware you were also a forger and a slanderer."

"Ah, so you deny the evidence ?" "N ot in the least. All I ask is to be persuaded. We shall have

judges appointed . . . experts. And, if you agree, we shall ask that the most severe penalty be exacted against whichever of the two parties is found guilty."

"That is what I call effrontery ! Well, the truth is I prefer it to sorrow . . . . Now, where were we ? Ah, yes ; that you have a lover, Madame," said Franval, shaking out the other s ide of the letter case, "a lover with a handsome face, and a boring husband, is most assuredly nothing so extraordinary. But that a t your age you are supporting this lover-at my expense-I trust you will al­ low me not to find this quite so simple . . . . And yet here are 1 00,000 ecus in notes , either paid by you or made out in your hand in favor of Valmont. Please run through them, I beg of you," this monster added, showing them to her without allowing her to touch them . . . .

To Zaide, jeweler

By the present note I hereby agree to pay the sum of twenty-two thousand livres on the account of Monsieur de Val mont, by arrangement with him.

F ARN EILLE DE FRANVAL

"Here's another made out to Jamet, the horse merchant, for six thousand livres. This i s for the team of dark bay horses which today are both Valmont's delight and the admiration of all Paris. . . . Yes, Madame, the whole package comes to three hundred thousand, two hundred and eighty-three livres, and ten sous, a third

406 + THE MARQT.:IS DE SADE

of which total you still lwe, and the balance o f which you have most loyally paid . . . . Well , Madame ?"

"Ah, Monsieur, this fraud is too crude and vulgar to cause me the least concern. To c onfound those who have invented it against me, I demand but one thing : that the people in whose names I have, so it i s alleged, made out these documents, appear personally and swear under oath that I have had dealings with them."

"They wi l l , Madc me, o f that you may be sure. Do you think they themselves would have warned me of your conduct if they were not determined to back up their claims ? Indeed, without my intervention, one of them would have signed a writ against you today . . . . "

At this point poor Madame de Franval 's beautiful eyes filled with bitter tears. Her c ourage fai led to sustain her any longer, and she fel l into a fi t of de�,pa ir with the most frightful symptoms : she began to strike her he ad against the marble objects around her, bruis ing her face horrib ly.

"Monsieur," she cried out, throwing herself a t her husband' s feet, "please do away wi th me , I beseech you, by means less slow and less torturous. Since my l i fe i s an obstacle to your crimes, end i t with a singl e blow . . . refrain though from inching me into my grave . . . . Am I guilty of having loved you ? of having rebelled against what was so cnlelly stealing your heart from me ? . . . \Vell then, barbarian, punish me for these transgressions. Yes, take this metal shaft ," she said, throwing herself on her husband ' s sword, "and pierce my breast with i t, wi th no p i ty. But at least let me die worthy of your esteem, let me take as my sole consolation to the grave the certainty that you beli eve me incapable of the infamies of which you accuse me . . . solely to cover your own . . . . "

She was on her knees at Franval' s feet, her head and bust thrown back, her hands wounded and bleeding from the naked steel she had tried to seize and thrust into her breast. This lovely breast was laid bare, her hair was in disarray, its strands soaked by the tears that flowed abund antly. Never had sorrow been more pathetic and more expressive, never had it been seen in a more touching, more noble, and more Htractive garb.

"No, Madame, " Franval sa id , resisting her movement, "no, 't is not your death I de s ire , but your punishment. I can understand

Eugenie de Fran'IJal .. 407

your repentance, your tears do not surprise me, you are furious at having been discovered. I approve of this frame of mind, which leads me to believe you plan to amend your ways, a change that the fate I have in mind for you, and because of which I must depart in order to give it my every care, will doubtless precipi tate ."

"Stop, Franval ," the unhappy woman cried, "do not voice abroad the news of your dishonor, nor tell the world that you are a perjurer, a forger, a slanderer, and guilty of incest into the bar­ gain . . . . You wish to have done w ith me, I shall run away, I shall leave in search of some refuge where your very memory shall dis­ appear from my mind . . • . You will be free , you can exerci se your criminal desires with impunity . . . . Yes, I shall forget you, if I can, oh heartless man. Or, if your painful image remains graven in my heart, i f it still pursues me in my distant darkness, I shall not obliterate it, traitor, that effort i s beyond my abilities ; no, I shall not obliterate it, but I shall punish my own blindness, and shall bury in the horror of the grave the guilty altar which committed the error of holding you too dear . . . . "

With these words, the final outcry of a soul overwhelmed by a recent illness, the poor woman fainted and fell unconscious to the floor. The cold shadows of death spread over the roses of her beautiful complexion, already withered by the stings of despair . She appeared l ittle more than a l i feless mass , from which, however, grace, modesty, and seemliness . . . all the attributes of virtue, had refused to flee . The monster left the room and repaired to his own chambers, there to enjoy, with h i s guilty daughter, the terrible triumph which vice, or rather low villainy, dared to win over in­ nocence and unhappiness.

Franval 's abominable daughter infinitely savored the details of thi s encounter. She only wished she could have seen them. She would have liked to carry the horror even further and see Valmont vanquish her mother's resistance, and then have Franval surprise them in the act. What means, if that were to happen, what means of justification would thei r victim then have had left ? And was i t not important for them to deprive her of any and all means ? Such was Eugenie.

Meanwhile, Franval ' s poor wife had only the refuge of her mother's breast for her tears, and i t was not long before she re-

408 + THE MARQtIS DE SADE

vealed to her the rea!.ons for her latest sorrow. It was at this juncture that M adame de Farneille came to the conclusion that Monsieur de Clervil's age, h is calling, and his personal prestige perhaps might exercise a certain good influence on her son-in-law. Nothing i s more confident than a dversity. As best she could, she apprised this worthy ecclesiastic of the truth about Franval' s cha­ otic conduct ; she convinced him of the truth which he had hi therto been di sinclined to beli c!ve , and she beseeched him above all to em­ ploy with such a scoundrel only that persuasive eloquence wh ich ap­ peals to the heart rathe r than to the head. And after he had talked with this traitor, she :mggested that Monsieur de Clervil solicit a meeting with Eugenie , during which he could similarly put to use whatever he should dee m most appropriate toward enlightening the poor child a s to the abyss that had opened beneath her feet and, if possible, to bring her back to her mother 's heart and to the path of virtue .

Franval , informed that Clervil intended to request to see both him and his daughter , had time enough to conspire with Eugenie , and when they had settled on their plans they sent word to Madame de Farneille that both were prepared to hear him out. The credu­ lous M a dame de Franval held out the highest hopes for the elo­ quence of this spir itual guide. The wretched are wont to se ize at straws with such avidi ty, in order to procure for themselves a pleasure which the truth disowns, tha t they fabricate most cunningly all sorts of illusions I

Clervil arrived. I t was nine in the morning. Franval received him in the room when he was accustomed to spending the night with his daughter. He had embelli shed i t with every imaginable elegance , but had nonet heless allowed i t to retain a certain disorder which bore witness to his criminal pleasures. In a neighboring room, Eugenie could h( ar everything, the better to prepare herself for the conversation wi t h her which was due to follow.

"It is only most re luctantly, and wi th the greatest fear of dis­ turbing you, Monsieu r , " Clervil began, "that I dare to present myself before you. Persons of our calling are commonly so much a burden to those who, like yourself, spend their lives tasting the pleasures of this world, that I reproach myself for having con-

Eugenie de Fran'Val + 409

sented to Madame de Farneille 's desires and having requested to converse with you for a moment or two."

"Please s it down, Monsieur, and so long as reason and justice hold sway in your conversation, you need never fear of boring me."

"Sir, you are beloved of a young wife full of charm and virtue and whom, it is alleged, you make most miserable. Having as arms naught but her innocence and her candor, and with only a mother's ear to hear her complaints, still idolizing you despite your wrongs, you can easily imagine the frightful position in which she finds herself I "

"If you please, Monsieur, I should like u s t o get down t o the facts. I have the feeling you are skirting the issue ; pray tell me, what is the purpose of your mission '?"

"To bring you back to happiness, if that is possible ." "Therefore, i f I find myself happy in my present situation,

may I assume that you should have nothing further to say to me ?" "I t is impossible, Monsieur, to find happiness in the exercise

of crime." "I agree . But the man who, through profound study and ma­

ture reflection, has been able to bring his mind to the point where he does not see evil in anything, where he contemplates the whole of human endeavor with the most supreme indifference and con­ siders every action of which man is capable as the necessary result of a power, whatever i ts nature, which i s at times good and at times bad, but always imperious, inspires us alternately with what men approve and what they condemn, but never anything that disturbs or troubles i t-that man, I say, and I'm sure you will agree, can be just as happy living the way I do as you are in your chosen call­ ing. Happiness is ideal , it is the work of the imagination. It i s a manner of being moved which relies solely upon the way we see and feel. Except for the satisfaction of needs, there i s nothing which makes all men equally happy. Not a day goes by but that we see one person made happy by something that supremely displeases another. Therefore, there is no certain or fixed happiness, and the only happiness possible for us is the one we form with the help of our organs and our principles."

"I know that, Monsieur, but: though our mind may deceive

4 1 0 .. T H E MARQUIS DE SADE

us, our conscience ne,'er leads us astray, and here is the book wherein Nature has inscribed all our duties ."

"And do we not manipulate thi s factitious conscience at will ? Habit bends it , i t is fo ' us like soft wax which our fingers shape a s they choose. If this book were as certain a s you pretend, would man not be endowed with an invariable conscience ? From one end of the earth to the o the r, would not all of man's actions be the same for him ? And yet i s such truly the case ? Does the Hottentot tremble a t what terrifies the Frenchman ? And does the Frenchman not do dai ly what would be punishable in Japan ? No, Monsieur, no , there i s nothing rea l in the world, nothing deserving of pra i se or approbation, nothing worthy of being rewarded or punished, noth· ing which, unjust here , is not quite lawful five hundred leagues away. In a word, no wr.)ng i s real, no good i s constant."

"Do not believe it , Sir . Virtue i s not an illusion. I t i s not a matter of a scertaining whether something is good here, or bad a few degrees farther away, in order to assign it a precise determina· tion of cr ime or virtue , and to make certain of finding happiness therein by reason of t ile choice one has made of i t . Man's only happiness resides in h i s complete submission to the laws of h i s l and . He has either to respect them or to be miserable , there i s no middle ground betweell their infraction and misfortune. 'Tis not, i f you prefer to state i t in these terms, these things in themselves which give rise to the e vi ls which overwhelm us whenever we allow ourselves free reign to indulge in these forbidden practices , ' ti s rather the conflict betw �en these things-which may be intrinsically e ither good or bad-and the social conventions of the society in which we l ive . One car surely do no harm by preferring to stroll along the boulevards d an along the Champs Elysees. And yet if a law were passed forb idding our cit izens from frequenting the boulevards, whosoever should break this law might be setting in motion an eternal chain of misfortunes for himself , although in breaking i t he had dO le something quite s imple . Moreover, the h abit o f breaking ordirary restrictions soon leads to the viola tion of more serious ones, and from error to error one soon arrives a t crimes of a nature to b(: punished in any country under the sun and to inspire fear in any reasonable creature on earth, no matter in what clime he may dwdl. If man does not have a universal con-

Eugenie de Franval + 4 1 1

science, he at least has a national conscience, relative to the existence that we have received from Nature, and in which her hand in­ scribes our duties in letters which we cannot efface without danger. For example, Monsieur, you r family accuses you of incest. It makes no difference what sophistries you employ to justi fy this crime or lessen the horror, or what specious a rguments you apply to it o r what authorities you call upon b y buttressing these a rguments with examples drawn from neighboring countries, the fact remains tha t t h i s crime, which is only a crime in certain countries, i s most as­ suredly dangerous wherever the law forbids it . It i s no less certain that i t can give rise to the most frightful consequences, as well as other crimes necessitated by th is fi rst one . . . crimes, I might add, o f a sort to be deemed abominable by all men. Had you married your daughter on the banks of tte Ganges, where such marriages are permitted, perhaps you might have committed only a minor wrong. But i n a country where these unions are forbidden, by o f­ fering this revolting spectacle to the publ ic . . . and to the eyes of a woman who a dores you and who, by th is treacherous act , i s being pushed to the edge o f the grave, you are no doubt committing a frightful act, a crime which tends to break the holiest bonds of Nature : those which, attaching your daughter to her who gave her l i fe , ought to make this person the most respected, the most sacred of all obj ects to her. You oblige this girl to despi se her most precious du ties, you cause her to hate the very person who bore her in her womb ; without real iz ing it , you are p reparing weapons that she may one day direct against you. In every doctrine you offer her, in every p rinciple you i nculcate in her, your condemna­ tion is inscribed. And if one day her arm i s ra ised against you in an attempt against your life, 't is you who will have sha rpened the dagger."

"Your way o f rea soning, so different from that o f most men of the cloth," Franval replied , "compel s me to trust in you, M onsieur. I could deny your accusations. I hope tha t the frankness with which I reveal myself to you will also oblige you to believe the wrongs I impute to my wife when, to expose them, I employ the same truth­ fulness with which I intend to cna racterize my own confessions. Yes, Monsieur, I love my daughtl�r, I love her passionately, she is my mistress, my wife, my daught,er, my confidante, my friend, my

4 1 2 + T H E MARQUH DE SADE

only God on earth ; in fi 1e, she possesses all the homage that any heart can ever hope to obtain, and all homage of which my heart is capable is due her . Thes e sentiments will endure as long as I live. Being unable to give them up, I doubtless must therefore justify them.

"A father 's first duty toward his daughter i s undeniably­ I 'm sure you will agree, Monsieur-to procure for her the greatest happiness possibl e . I f he does not succeed in this task, then he has failed in his obligations toward her ; i f he does succeed, then he is blameless. I have neither seduced nor constrained Eugenie-this is a noteworthy consideration, which I trust you will not forget. I did not conceal the world fr(lm her . I expounded for her the good and bad sides of marriage, the roses and the thorns it contains. I t was then I offered myself, and left her free to choose. She had adequate time to reflect on the mat ter. She did not hesi tate : she claimed that she could find happiness only with me. Was I wrong to give her, in order to make her happy, what she appeared in full knowledge to desire above all else ?"

"These sophistries j lstify nothing, Monsieur. You were wrong to give your daughter the slightest incl ination that the person she could not prefer withou t crime might become the obj ect of her happiness. No matter how lovely a fruit might appear, would you not regret having offereel it to someone if you knew that lurking within its fl esh was dnth ? No, Monsieur, no : in this whole wretched affair you have: had only one object in mind, and that object was you, and you have made your daughter both an accom­ plice and a victim. Thes( methods are inexcusable . . . . And what wrongs, in your eyes , do you ascribe to that virtuous and sensitive wife whose heart you twi ,t and break at will ? What wrongs, unjust man, except the wrong of loving you ?"

"This is the point I wish to discuss wi th you, Sir, and ' tis here I expect and hope for your confidence. After the full candor to which I have treated you , in making a full confession of all that is ascribed to me, I trust I t ave some right to expect such confidence."

And then Franval, showing Clervil the forged letters and notes he had a ttributed t J his wife , swore to him tha t nothing was more authentic than these documents , and than the affair between

Eugenie de Franval + 4 1 3

Madame de Franval a n d the person who w a s t h e subject o f the papers.

Clervil was famil iar with the entire matter. "Well, Monsieur ," he said firmly to Franval , "was I not right

to tell you that an error viewed at first a s being without consequence in i tself can, by accustoming us to exceed limits, lead us to the most extravagant excesses of crime an.d wickedness ? You have begun with an act which, i n your eyes, you deemed totally inoffensive, and you see to what infamous lengths you are obliged to go in order to just ify or conceal i t ? Follow m y a dvice, Monsieur, throw these unpa rdonable atrocities into the fire and, I beg of you, let us forget them, let us forget they ever existed."

"These documents are authentic, Monsieur." "They a re false." "You can only be in doubt about them. I s tha t sufficient reason

for you to contradict me ?" "Pardon me , Monsieur, but the only reason I h ave to suppose

they are authentic is your word on the matter, and you have good reason indeed for buttressing your accusation. As for believing them false, I h ave your wife's word for it, and she too would have good reason to tell me if they werl� authentic, if they actually were. This , Sir , is how I j udge. Self-intl�rest i s the vehicle for all man's act ions, the wellspring of everything he does. Wherever I can dis­ cover i t, the torch of truth immediately l ights up . This rule has never once fa i led me, and I have been applying i t for forty years. And furthermore, will your wife 's virtue not annihilate this loath­ some calumny in everyone's eyes ? And is it possible that your wife, with her frankness and her candor, with indeed the love for you which still burns within her, could ever have committed such abom­ inable acts as those you charge her with ? No, M onsieur, this i s not h o w crime begins. Since you are so famil iar with its effects, you should maneuver more cleverly."

"That , S ir , i s abusive language." "You'l l forgive me, Monsieur, but injustice, calumny, l iber­

tinage revolt my soul so completely that I sometimes find i t hard to control the agitation which these horrors incite in me. Let us burn these p apers, M onsieur, I most u rgently beseech you • • • burn them for your honor and your peace of mind."

41 4 ... THE MARQUI S DE SADE

" I n ever suspected , Monsieur ," sa id Franval, getting to his feet , "th a t i n the exerciHe o f your min i stry one could so easily be­ come an apologist . . • tn e protector o f misconduct and of adultery. My wife i s dishonoring me, she i s ruining me. I have proved i t to you. Your blindness concerning her makes you prefer to accuse me and rather suppose that ' t is I who am the slanderer than she the treacherous and debauched woman. All right, Monsieur, the law shall decide. Every court in France shall resound with my accusa­ tions, I shall come beari ng p roof, I shall publish my dishonor, and then we shall see whethe:� you will still be guileless enough, or rather fooli sh enough, to protect so shameless a creature against me."

"I shall leave you :10W, Monsieur ," Clervil sa id , also getting to his feet. "I did not real ize to what extent the faults of your mind had so altered the qualit ies of your heart and that, blinded by an unjust desire for I'evenge, you had become capable o f coolly maintaining what could only derive from delirium . • . . Ah! Mon­ sieur, how all this has p ersuaded me all the more that when man oversteps the bounds of h is most sacred duties, he soon allows himself to annihilate all the othe :�s . . . . I f further reflection should bring you back to your senses, I beg of you to send word to me, Monsieur, and you will always find, in your family as well as in myself, friends dis­ posed to receive you. M ay I be allowed to see Mademoiselle your daughter for a moment 1 "

"You, Sir , m a y do as you like. I would only suggest, nay u rge you that when talking with her you e i ther employ more eloquent means or draw upon sou nder resources in p resenting these luminous truths to her, truths in which I was unfortunate enough to perceive naught but blindness and sophistries ."

Clervil went into Eugenie 's room. She awaited him dressed in the most elegant an d most coquettish negl igee . This sort of indecency, the fruit of self-negl igence and o f crime, re igned un­ ashamedly i n her every gesture and look, and the perfidious girl , insulting the graces whic :h embellished her in spite o f herself, com­ bined both the qualities susceptible of inflaming vice and those cer­ tain to revolt virtue .

Since i t was not appropriate for a girl to engage in so de­ tailed a discussion as a. philosopher such as Franval had done, Eugenie confined herself to p e rsiflage . She gradually became openly

Eugenie de Franval + 41 5

provocative, but upon seeing that her seductions were in vain, and that a man as virtuous as the one with whom she was dealing had not the slightest intention of allowing himself to be ensnared in her trap, she adroitly cut the knots holding the vei l o f her charms and, before Clervil had the time to realize what she was doing, she had a rranged herself in a state of grea t disorder.

"The wretch," she cried at the top of her lungs, " take this monster away from me I And, above all , let not my father know of his cr ime. Just Heaven ! I was expecting pious counsel from him . . . and the vi le man assaulted my modesty . . . . Look," she cried to the servants who had hastened to her room upon hearing her cries , "look at the condition this shameless creature has put me in. Look at them, look at these benevolent d isciples of a divinity they insult and outrage. Scandal, debauchery , seduction : there is the trinity of thei r morality, while we, dupes of their false virtue, are foolish enough to go on worshiping them."

Clervil , although extremely �lllnoyed by such a scene, nonethe­ less succeeded in concealing his emotions. And as he left the room he sa id , with great self-possession, to the crowd around him :

"May heaven preserve this unfortunate child . . . . May it make her better i f i t can, and let no one in this house offend her sentiments of virtue more than I have done • . . sentiments that I came here less to defile than to revive in her heart."

Such were the only fruits which Madame de Farneille and her daughter culled from a negoti ation they had approached so hope­ fully. They were far from realiz ing the degradations that crime works in the souls of the wicked : what might have some effect on others only embitters them, and i t is in the very lessons of good that they find encouragement to do evi l .

From then on , everything turned more venomous on both sides. Franval and Eugenie clearly saw that Madame de Franval would have to be persuaded of her alleged wrongs, in a way that would no longer allow her to doubt of the matter. And Madame de Farneille, in concert with her daughter, concocted serious plans to abduct Eugenie . They discussed the proj ect \vith Clervil ; this worthy man refused to have any part of such drastic resolutions. He had, he said, been too badly treated in th i s affair to be able to undertake anything more than imploring forgiveness for the guilty,

4 1 6 + T H E MARQUJ S DE SADE

and this he urgently did pray for , steadfastly refusing to involve himself in any other duty or effort of mediation. How subl ime were his sentiments ! Why is it that this nobil ity i s so rare among men of the cloth ? Or why had so singular a man chosen so soiled a call ing ?

Let us begin with ::;'ranval 's endeavors. Valmont reappean:d. "You're an imbecil e , " Eugenie 's gui l ty lover sa id to him, "you

are unworthy of being my student. And if you do not come off better in a second meeting wi1 :h my wife, I shall trumpet your name all over Paris. You must h;lve her, my friend, and I mean really have her, my eyes must be pe rsuaded of her defeat . . . in fine, I must be able to deprive that loathsome creature of any means o f excuse and of defense."

"And what if she resists ?" Valmont responded. "Then employ viol ence . . . I shall make certain that there i s

no one a round . . . . Frig1ten her, threaten her, what does i t matter ? . . . I shall consider all the means of your triumph a s so many favors l owe you."

"Listen , " Valmont then sa id , "I agree to everything you pro­ pose , I give you my wo]'d of honor that your wife will yield. But 1 require one condition, a :1d i f you refuse i t then 1 refuse to play the game. We agreed that i ealousy is to have no part in our arrange­ ments, as you know. I l :herefore demand that you accord me half an hour with Eugenie . You have no idea how I shal l act after 1 have enjoyed the pleasure of your daughter 's company 'for a short while . . . . "

"But Valmont . . • " "I can understand your fears. But i f you deem me your friend

I shall not forgive you for them. All I aspire to i s the charm of seeing Eugenie alone ar,d talking with her for a few moments ."

"Valmont," said F �anval, somewhat a stonished, "you place too high a fee on your services. I am as fully aware as you of the ridiculous aspects of jea :ousy, but 1 idolize the girl you are referring to , and I should rather give up my entire fortune than yield her favors ."

"1 am not claiming them, so set your mind a t rest." And Franval, wh" realized that, among all his friends and

Eugenie de Fran'CJal .. 4 1 7

acquaintances, there was none capable o f serving h is purposes so well as Valmont, was adamantly opposed to letting him escape :

"All r ight," h e sa id , a tr ifle testily, "but I repeat that your services come very dear, and by discharging them in this manner you have reli eved me from any obl igation toward you, and from any gratitude. "

"Oh ' gratitude i s naught b u t t h e p r i c e pa id f o r honest favors. It will never be kindled in your heart for the services I am going to render you. And I shall even go so far as to predict that these selfsame services will cause us to qua rrel before two months are up. Come, my friend, I know the ways of men • . • their faults and fail ings, and everything they involve. Place the human animal, the most wicked animal o f all , in whatever s i tuation you choose, and I shall predict every last result that will p erforce ensue . . • . There­ fore I wish to be paid in advance, o r the game i s off."

" I accept," sa id Franval. "Very well then ," V almont repl ied. "Now everything depends

on you. I shall act whenever you wish." " I need a few days to make my preparations, " Franval sa id .

"But within four days a t the most I am with you." Monsieur de Franval had r aised h i s daughter i n such a way

that he had no m isgivings about any excessive modesty on her part which would cause her to refuse to p articipate in the plans he was formula ting with h is friend. But h e was j e alous, and this Eugenie knew. She loved him a t least a s much as he adored -her , and as soon a s she knew what was in the offing she confessed to Franval that she was terribly afra id this tete-a-tete with Val mont might h ave serious repercussions. Franval, who believed he knew Valmont well enough to be persuaded tha t all this would only p rovide certain nourishments for his head without any danger to his heart, re­ assured his daughter a s best he could, and went about his prepara­ tions.

It was then tha t Franval learned, from servants i n whom he had complete confidence and whom he had planted in the service of h i s mother-in-law, that Eugenie w as in the gravest danger and that M adame de Farneille was on the verge of obtaining a writ to have her taken away from him. Franval had no doubt but that the whole plot was Clervi l ' s work. And momentarily putting aside his plans

4 1 8 + THE MARQUr:i D E SADE

involving Valmont, he turned his complete a ttention to r idding himself of this poor ecd�siastic whom he wrongly judged to be the instigator of everything. He sowed hi s gold ; this powerful weapon of every vice i s properly planted in a thousand different hands, and finally six trustworthy s·:oundrels are ready and willing to do his bidding.

One evening when Clervil , who was wont to dine rather fre­ quently with Madame de Farneille, was leaving her house alone and on foot , he was surrounded and seized . . . . He was told that the arrest was made UpO il the orders of the government, and shown a forged document. Then he was thrown into a post chaise and he was driven in all haste 1 0 the prison of an isolated chateau which Franval owned in the depths of the Ardennes. There the poor man was turned over to the c :mcierge of the chateau as a scoundrel who was plo tting to kill his master. And the most careful precautions were taken to make ce �tain that this unfortunate victim, whose only wrong was to have shown himsel f overly indulgent toward those who outraged him so cruelly, could never again be seen.

Madame de Farnei lle was on the brink of despa ir . She had not the slightest doubt but 1 hat the whole affa ir was the work of her son-in-law. Her efforts to ascertain the whereabouts o f Clervil slowed those touching upon Eugenie 's abduction. Having at her dis­ posal only a l imited amount of money, and with only a few friends, i t was difficult to pursue 1wo equally important undertakings at once. And furthermore , Franval ' s drastic action had forced them onto the defensive. They directec all their energies , therefore , toward find­ ing the father confesso c . But all their efforts were in vain ; our villa in had executed his plan so cleverly that i t became impossible to uncover the slightest tra :e.

Madame de Franvd, who had not seen her husband since their last scene, was hesitant to question him. But the intensi ty of one's interest in a matter de stroys any other considerations, and she finally found the courag': to ask her tyrant i f he planned to add to the already long l ist of grievances o f which he was guilty on her behalf by depriving her mother of the best friend she had in the world. The monster protested his innocence. He even carried hypoc­ risy so far as to offer 1 0 help in the search. And seeing that h e needed t o molli fy his wif e's hardened heart and mind i n preparation

Eugenie de Franval .. 4 1 9

for the scene with Valmont, h e again p romised her that h e would do everything in h i s power to find Clervll . He even caressed h is credulous wife, and assured her that , no matter how unfai thful h e might be t o her , he found i t impossible , deep in h i s hea rt, n o t to adore her. And M adame de Franval , always gentle and accommo­ dating, always pleased by anything which brought her closer to a man who was dearer to her than l ife i tself, gave herself over to all the desires of this perfidious husband ; she anticipated them, served them, shared them all , without da ring, as she should have, to profit from the occasion in o rder at least to extract a p romise from this barbarian to improve h i s ways, one which would not precipitate his poor wife each day into an abyss o f torment and sorrow. But even had she extracted such a promise , would her efforts have been crowned with success ? Would F:ranval , so false in every other aspect o f h is l ife , h ave been any more s incere in the one which, according to him, was only a ttrac tive to the extent one could go beyond certain set l imits . He woul .d doubtless have made all sorts of p romises solely for the pleasure of being able to break them ; and perhaps he might even have made her demand that he swe a r to them, so that to his other frightful pleasures he might add that of perjury.

Franval, absolutely at peace, turned all his a ttention to trou­ bling others. Such was his vindictive, turbulent, impetuous nature when he was distu rbed ; desiring to regain his tranquil l ity at any cost whatever , he would awkwardly obtain it only by those means most l ikely to make him lose i t again. And i f he regained i t ? Then he bent all h i s physical and moral faculties to making certain he lost i t again. Thus, in a state o f perpetual agitation, he e i ther had to forestall the a rtifices he obliged others to employ against him, o r else he had t o u s e some o f h is own against them.

Everything was a rranged to Valmont's satisfaction ; h is tete-a­ tete took place in Eugenie 's apartment and lasted for the better part o f an hour.

There, in the ornate room, Eugenie, o n a pedes tal, portrayed a young savage weary of the hunt , leaning on the trunk of a palm tree whose s o aring branches concealed an infinite number of lights arranged in such a way that their reflections, which shone o nly on

420 .. T H E MAR Q U [ S DE SADE

the beau tiful girl's phys :cal charms, accentuated them m o s t artfully . The sort of miniature t:uater wherein this tableau vivant appeared was surrounded by a six·fo o t-wide m o a t which was filled with water and acted as a barrier which preven ted any one fro m appro aching her on any side. At the edge of this circumvallatio n was placed the throne of a knigh t, wit h a silk cord leading fro m the bas e of the pedes tal to the chair. B:I manipula ting this s tring, the pers o n in the chair could cause the pedes tal to turn in such a m anner that the o bject of his admiratio r.' could b e viewed from every angle by him , and the arrangement was such that, n o matter which way he turned her, she was always ddigh tful to beh old. The Coun t, concealed behind a decora tive shrub, was in a positio n to view b o th his m is­ tress and his frien d. A cc ording to the agreement, Valm o n t was free to examine Eugenie for half an hour . . . . Valm o n t took his place in the chair . . . he is besiu'e himself; never, he main tains, has he seen so m any alluremen ts ir� one pers o n . He yields to the transports which inflame him, the c o ns tan tly moving cord offers him an en dless successio n of new angles an d beau ties . Which should h e prefer ab ove all o thers, to which shall he sacrifice himself? He can n o t make up his min d : Eugenie is such a wondrous beauty ! Meanwhile the fleet­ ing minu tes pass,. for lime, in such circums tan ces, passes quickly . The h our s trikes, the high t abando ns himself, and t h e incense flies to the fee t of a god whose sanctuary is forbidden him . A veil des cends, it is time to leave the ro o m .

"Well, are you c'Jntent now ?" Franval said, reJOImng h i s friend.

"She i s a del ightfu l creature ," Valmont replied. "But Franval , i f I m a y o ff e r y o u one piece of advice, never chance such a thing with any other man. And congratulate yoursel f for the sentiments I have for you in my heart, which protect you from all danger ."

" I am counting on them," Franval said rather seriously. "And now, you must act as SO IJn as you can."

" I shall prepare y ou r wife tomo rrow . . . . I t i s your feeling that a preliminary conversation is required . . . . Four days later you can be sure of me."

They exchanged vows and took leave of each other. But a fter h is hour with Eugenie , Valmont had not the slightest

Eugenie de Franval .. 42 1

desire to seduce M a dame de Franval or further to assure his friend of a conquest of which he had become only too envious . Eugenie had made such a profound impression upon h im tha t he was unable to put her out of his mind, and he was resolved to have her, no matter what the cost, as his wife. Recollecting upon the matter in tranquillity, once he was no longer repelled by the idea of Eugenie 's affair with her father, Valmont was quite certain that his fortune was equal to that of Colunce and that he had just as much right to demand her hand in m arriage. He therefore p resumed that were he to offer himself as her husband, he could not b e refused. He also concluded that by acting z ealously to break Eugenie 's incestuous bonds, by p romising her family tha t he could not but succeed in such an undertaking, he would inevi tably obtain the obj ect of his devo­ tion. There would, of course, be a duel to be fought with Franval, but Valmont was confident that his courage and skill would success­ fully overcome that obstacle .

Twenty-four hours sufficed for these refl ections, and ' twas with these thoughts crowding through his mind that Valmont set off to visit M a dame de Franval. She had been informed of his impending call. It will be recalled that in her last conversation with her hus­ band, she had almost become reconciled with him ; or , rather, having yielded to the insidious cunning of this traitor, she was no longer in a position to refuse to see Valmont. As an obj ection to such a visit, she brought up the remarks and the ideas that Franval had advanced, and the letters he had shown her ; but he , with seeming unconcern, had more than reassured her that the surest way of con­ vincing people tha t there was absolutely nothing to her alleged affair with Valmont was to see him exactly as before ; to refuse to do so, he assured her, would only lend credence to their suspi­ cions. The best proof a woman can provide of her chastity, he told her , was to continue seeing in public the man to whom her name had been linked. All this was so much sophistry, and M a dame de Franval was perfectly well aware of it . Still, she was hoping for some explanation from Valmont, and her desire to obtain it , coupled with her desire not to anger her husband, had blinded her to all the good reasons that should normally have kept her from seeing Valmont.

Thus Valmont arrived to pay his call, and Franval quickly

422 .. THE MARQUrS DE SAnE

left them alone as he had the previous time : the explanations and clarifications were sure to be lively and long. Valmont, his head bursting with the ideas which had filled i t during the previous twenty-four hours, cut short the formalities and came straight to the point.

"Oh, M adam e ! Do not think of me as the same man who, the last time he saw you, conducted himself so guiltily in your eyes ," he hastened to say. "The:l I was the accomplice of your husband's wrongdoings ; today I come to repair those wrongs. Have confi­ dence in me, Madame, I beseech you to believe my word o f honor that I have come here neither to lie to you nor to deceive you in any way."

Then he confessed to the forged letters and promissory notes and apologized profusdy for having allowed himself to be impli­ cated in the affair . He warned Madame of the new horrors they had demanded of him, and as a proof of his candor, he confessed his feelings for Eugenie , revealed what had already been done, and pledged his word to br eak off everything, to abduct Eugenie from Franval and spirit her away to one of Madame de Farneille' s estates in Pica rdy, i f be th these worthy ladies would grant h i m the permission to do so, and as a reward would bestow on him in mar­ riage the girl whom he would thus have rescued from the edge of the abyss.

Valmont's decl a ra tions and confessions had such a ring of truth about them that \1adame de Franval could not help but be convinced. Valmont waH an excellent match for her daughter. After Eugenie's wretched cO lduct, had she even a right to expect as much ? Valmont would assume the responsibility for everything ; there was no other way to put a stop to this frightful crime which was driving her to distr action. Moreover, could she not flatter her­ self that, once the only affair which could really become dangerous both for her and her husband had been broken off, his sentiments might once again be di rected toward her ? This last consideration tipped the scal es in favor o f Valmont's plan, and she gave her consent, but only on condition that Valmont give her his word not to fight a duel with her husband and that, a fter he had delivered Eugenie into M a dame de Farneille' s hands, he would go abroad and remain there until Franval's fury had abated sufficiently to

Eugenie de Franval .. 423

console himself for the loss of his i l l ic i t love and finally consent to the marriage. Valmont agreed to everything ; and for her part, Madame de Franval assured him o f her mother's full co-operation and p romised that she would in no wise oppose o r obstruct any of the decisions they came to together. Upon which Valmont left, a fter again apologizing for having acted so basely against her by par­ ticipating in her unprincipled husband's schemes.

Madame de Farneille, who was immediately apprised of the affair, l eft the following day for Picardy, and Franval, caught up in the perpetual whirlwind of his pleasures, counting solidly on Valmont and no longer fearful of Clervil, cast himself into the trap p repared for him with the same guilelessness which he had so often desired to see in others when, in his turn, he had been making his preparations to ensnare them.

For about six months Eugenie , who was now just shy of turn­ ing seventeen, had been going out a lone o r in the company of a few of her female friends. On the eve of the day when Valmont, in accordance with the a rrangements made with her father, was to l aunch his assault upon Madame de Franval, Eugenie had gone alone to see a new play at the Comedie. Fran�aise . She likewise left the theater alone, having arranged to meet her father at a given place from which they were to drive elsewhere to dine together . . . . Shortly a fter her carriage had left the Faubourg Saint-Germain, ten masked men stopped the horses, opened the carriage door, seized Eugenie , and bundled her into a post chaise beside Valmont who, taking every precaution to keep her from crying out, ordered the post chaise to set off with all possible speed, and i n the twinkling o f an eye they were out o f Paris .

Unfortunately, i t had been impossible to get r id o f Eugenie 's retainers or her carriage, and as a result Franval was not ified very quickly. Valmont, to make a safle escape, had counted both on Franval 's uncertainty a s to the route he would take and the two or three hour a dvance that he would necessarily have. I f only he could manage to reach Madame d,e Fa rneille's estate, that was all h e would need, for from there two trustworthy women and a stage­ coach were waiting for Eugenie to drive her toward the border, to a sanctuary with which even h e was unfamil iar . Meanwhile, Val­ mont would go immediately to Holland, returning only to marry

424 .. THE MARQUIS DE SADE

Eugenie when Madame de Farneille and her daughter informed him there were no furt her obstacles . But fate allowed these well­ la id plans to come to grief through the designs of the horrible scoundrel with whom we are dealing.

When the news n:ached him, Franval did not lose a second. He rushed to the post house and asked for what routes horses had been given since six o ' clock that evening. At seven , a traveling coach had departed for Lyon at e ight, a post chaise for Picardy. Franval did not hesitate : the coach for Lyon was certainly of no interest to him, but a post chaist : heading toward a province where Madame de Farneil le had an estate, yes , that was i t : to doubt it would have been madness.

He therefore promptly had the eight best horses a t the post hitched up to the carri ;; ge in which he was riding, ordered saddle s for h i s servants and , while the horses were being harnessed, pur­ chased and loaded some pistols . And then he set off like an arrow, drawn by love, despa ir , and a thirst for revenge. When he stopped to change horses at Senlis , he learned that the post chaise he was pursuing had only just l e ft . . . . Franval ordered his men to proceed at top speed. Unfortunately for him, he overtook the post chaise ; both he and his servar ts , with drawn pistols , stopped Valmont 's coach, and a s soon a s the impetuous Franval recognized h i s adver­ sary, he blew his brains out before Valmont had a chance to defend himself, se ized Eugenie , who was faint with fright, tossed her into his own carriage, and was back in Paris before ten o 'clock the following morning. Not in the least apprehensive about all that had just happened, Franval devoted his full attention to Eugenie . . . . Had the traitorous Vahnont tried to take advantage of the circum­ stances ? Was Eugenie still faithful, and were his guilty bonds still intact and unsullied ? Mademoiselle de Franval reassured her father : Valmont had cone no more than reveal his plans to her and, full of hope that he would soon be hers in marriage, he re­ frained from profaning the altar whereon he wished to offer his pure vows.

Franval was reas�,ured by her solemn oaths . . . . But what about his wife ? . . . Wa s she aware of these machinations ? was she involved in them in any way ? Eugenie , who had had ample time to inform herself on thi s matter, guaranteed that the entire plot had

Eugenie de Franval + 425

been the work of her mother, upon whom she showered the most odious names. She also declared that that fateful meeting between Valmont and her mother, wherein the former was, so Franval thought, preparing to serve him so well, had in fact been the meet­ ing during which Valmont had moslt shamelessly betrayed him.

"Ah I" said Franval, beside himself with anger, "if only he had a thousand l ives . . . I would wrench them from him one a fter the other . . . . And my wife I Here I was trying to lull her, and she was the fi rst to deceive me . . . that creature p eople think so soft and gentl e . . . that angel of virtu e I . . . Ah, traitor, you female traitor, you will pay dearly for your crime . . . . My revenge calls for blood, and, if I must, I shall draw it with my own lips from your treacherous veins . . . . Do not be upset, Eugenie ," Franval went on in a state of great agitation, "yes, calm yourself, you need some rest. Go and take a few hours' rest, and I shall take care of every­ thing."

Meanwhile Madame de Farneille, who had stationed spies along the road, was soon informed of everything th<J t had just happened. Knowing that her granddaughter had been recaptured and Valmont killed, she lost not a moment returning to Paris . . . . Furious, she immediately called her advisers together ; they pointed out to her that Valmont's murder was going to deliver Franval into her hands, and that the influence she feared was shortly going to vanish and she would straightway regain control over both her daughter and Eugenie. But they counseled her to avoid a publ ic scandal, and, for fea r of a degrading trial , to solicit a writ that would put her son-in-law out of the way.

Franval was immediately informed of this counsel and of the proceedings that were being t

' aken as a result. Having learned both

that his crime was known and that his mother-in-law was, so they told him, only waiting to take adv antage o f h i s disaster, Franval left with all dispatch for Versailles , where he saw the Minister and di sclosed the whole affair to him. The Minister 's reply was to advise Franval to waste no time leaving for one o f h i s estates in Alsace, near the Swiss border.

Franval returned home a t once , having made up his mind not to leave without both his wife and his daughter , for a number of reasons : to make sure he would not miss out on his plans for

426 + THE MARQUIS DE SADE

revenge and the punish ment he had reserved for his wife's treason, and also to be in posse�sion o f hostages dear enough to Madame de Farneille's heart so that she would not dare, at least politically, to instigate actions against him. But would Madame de Franval agree to accompany him to Yalmor, the estate to which the Minister had suggested he retire ? Feeling herself guilty o f that kind of treason which had been the cause of everything which had happened, would she be willing to leave for such a distant place ? Would she dare to entrust herself without fear to the a rms of her outraged husband ? Such were the consider a ti ons which worried Franval . To ascertain exactly where he stood. Franval at once went in to see his wife, who already knew everythin g.

" M adame," he sa id to her coldly, "you have plunged me into an abyss of woe by y,)ur thoughtless indiscretions. While I con­ demn the effects, I nonetheless applaud the cause, which surely stems from your love both for your daughter and mysel f. And since the initial wrongs are nine, I must forget the second. My dear and tender wi fe , who art half my l ife ," he went on, falling to his knees, "will you consent to a reconcili ation which nothing can ever again disturb ? I come here to offer you that reconcil iation, and to seal it here i s what I place in �rour h ands . . . . "

So saying he lays a t h is wife's feet all the forged papers and false correspondence w i th Valmont.

" Burn all these, my dear friend, I beseech you , " the traitor went on, with feigned tears, "and forgive what j ealousy drove me to. Let us banish all this bitterness between us. Great are my wrongs, that I confess. But who knows whether Valmont, to assure the success of his plam;, has not p ainted an even darker picture of me than I truly deserv e . . . . I f he dared tell you that I have ever ceased to love you . . . tha t you were other than the most p recious object in the world, ar d the one most worthy of respect-ah , my dear angel, i f he sullied himself with calumnies such as these, then I say I have done weI to rid the world o f such a rogue and im­ poster I"

"Oh! Monsieur ," Madame de Franval said in tears, "is it possible even to conceive the atrocities you devised against me ? How do you expect me to have the least confidence in you a fter such horrors ?"

Eugenie de Franval + 427

"Oh I most tender and loving of women, my fondest desire is that you love me still I What I desire i s that, accusing my head alone for the multitude of my sins, you convince yourself that this heart, wherein you reign eternally, has ever been incapable of betraying you . . . . Yes, I want you to know that there is not one of my errors which has not brought me closer to you . . . . The more I withdrew from my dear wife, and the greater the distance between us became, the more I came to realize how impossible i t was to replace her in any realm whatsoever. Neither the pleasures nor the sentiments equaled those that my inconstancy caused me to lose with her, and in the very arms of her image I regretted reality . . . . Oh I my dear, my divine friend, where else could I find a heart such as yours ? Where else savor the pleasures one culls o nly in your arms ? Yes, I forsake all my errors, my fail ings . . . henceforth I wish to live only for you in this world . . . to restore in your wounded heart that love which my wrongs destroyed . . . wrongs whose very memory I now abjure ."

I t was impossible for Madame de Franval to res ist such tender effusions on the part of the man she still adored. I s it possible to hate what one has loved so dearly ? Can a woman of her delicate and sensi tive soul have naught b

' ut cold, unfeeling looks for the

obj ect which was once so precious to her, cast down at her feet, weeping bitter tears of remorse ? She broke down and began to sob . . . .

" I who have never ceased adoring you, you cruel and wicked man," she said , p ressing her husband's hands to her heart , " ' t i s I whom you have wantonly driven to despa ir . Ah ! Heaven i s my witness that of all the scourges with which you might have afflicted me, the fear o f losing your heart , of being suspected by you, became the most painful of all to bear . . . . And what obj ect do you choose to outrage me with ? . . . My daughter . . . 'tis with her hands you pierce my heart . . . do you wish to oblige me to hate her whom Nature has made so dear to me ?"

"Listen to me," Franval said, his tone waxing ever more ardent, "I want to bring her back to you on her knees, humbled, I want her to abjure, as I have done, both her shamelessness and her s ins ; I want her to obtain, a s I have, your pardon. Let u s henceforth con­ cern ourselves, all three of us , with nothing but our mutual happi-

428 + T H E MARQUI S DE SADE

ness. I am going to return your daughter to yOU . . . return my wife to me . . . and let us flee ."

"Flee , Great God ] ' "My adventure is st irring up trouble . . . tomorrow may

already be too late . . . . My friends, the Minister, everyone has advised me to take a vo::age to Valmor . . . . Please come with me. my love ! I s it possible that at the very moment when I prostrate myself before you askin!� for your forgiveness you could break my heart by your refusal ?"

"You frighten me . . . . \Vhat, this adventure . . . " " . . . i s being treated not a s a duel but as a murder." "Dear God ] And [ am the cause of i t ! . . . Give me your

orders , do : dispose of me as you will, my dear husband. I am ready to follow you, to the en :ls of the earth , i f need be . . . . Ah ! I am the most wretched wom.l.ll al ive ! "

"Consider yourself rather the most fortunate , since every moment o f my l i fe i s henceforth going to be dedicated to changing into flowers the thorns which in the past I have strewn in you r p a th . . . . Is a desert not enough, when two people love each other ? Moreover, this i s a s itlation which cannot last forever. I have friends who have been a Jprised . . . who a re going to act ."

"But my mother . . . I should like to see her. . . . " "No, my love, abo'7e all not that. I have positive proof that

't is she who i s stirring 1 p Valmont's family against me, and that , wi th them, ' t i s she who s working toward my destruction . . . . "

"She i s incapable o f such baseness . Stop imagining such per­ fidious horrors. Her sOli l , totally disposed towa rd love, has never known dece i t . . . . You n ever did appreci ate her, Franval. If only you had learned to love her as I do ] In her arms we both would have found true happin �ss on earth . She was the angel of peace that Heaven offered to the errors of your l i fe. Your inj ustice re­ j ected her proffered hea rt , which was always open to tenderness , and by inconsequcnce or caprice, by ingrati tude or l ibertinage, you voluntari ly turned your back on the best and most loving friend that Nature ever creatd for you . . . . Is it true then, you really don' t want me to see her ?"

"N o. I'm afraid I must insist. Time i s too precious ! You will write her, you will descr .be my repentance to her. Perhaps she will

Eugtfnie de Franval .. 429

be moved by my remorse . . . perhaps I shall one day win back her love and esteem. The s torm will one day abate, and we shall come back to Paris , and there, in her a rms, we shall revel in her forgive­ ness and tenderness . . . . But now, let us be off, dear friend, we mnst be gone within the hour a t most, the carriage awaits without . . . . "

Terrified, Madame de Franval did not dare raise any further obj ections. She went about her preparations. Were not Franval's slightest wishes her commands ? The traitor flew back to his daugh­ te r and brought her back to her mother. There the false creature throws herself at her mother's feet with full as much perfidy as had her father . She weeps , she implores her forgiveness , and she obtains i t. Madame de Franval embraces her ; how difficult i t i s to forget one is a mother , no matter how one's children have sinned against her. In a sensitive soul, the voice of Nature i s so imperious that the slightest tear from these sacred obj ects of a mother's affection is enough to make her forget twenty years of faults and failings.

They set off for Valmor. The extreme haste with which this voyage had been prepared justified in Madame de Franval 's eyes , which were still a s blind and credulous a s ever, the paucity of servants that they took along with them. Crime shuns a plethora o f eyes, and fears them all ; feeling i t s secur ity possible only in the darkness of mystery, i t envelops itself in shadow whenever it de­ sires to act.

When they reached the country estate, nothing was changed, all was as he had promised : constant attentions, respect, solicitous care, evidence of tenderness on the one hand . . . and on the other, the most a rdent love-all this was lavished on poor Madame de Franval, who easily succumbed to it . At the end of the world, far removed from her mother, in the depths of a terrible solitude, she was happy because , as she would say , she had her husband's heart aga in and because her daughter, constantly a t her knees, was con­ cerned solely with pleasing her .

Eugenie 's room and that of her father were no longer adjoin­ ing. Franval 's room was at the far end of the chateau, Eugenie 's was next to her mother's . At Valmor , the quali ties of decency, regularity, and modesty replaced to the utmost degree all the dis­ orders of the capital. Night a fter night Franval rep aired to his

43 0 + T H E MARQ UI S DE SADE

wife ' s room and there, in the bosom of innocence, candor, and love, the scoundrel shameles ;ly dared to nou ri sh her hopes with h i s horrors. Cruel enough n,)t to be disarmed by those naive and ardent caresses which the most delicate of women lavished upon him, i t was at t h e torch of lovf i tsel f that the villain l ighted the torch of vengeance.

As one can easily magine, however, Franval ' s attentions to­ ward Eugenie had not diminished. In the morning, while her mother was occupied with her toilet , Eugenie would meet her father at the far end of the garden, and from him she would receive the necessary instructions and the fav·)rs which she was far from willing to cede completely to her rival.

No more than a week a fter thei r arrival in this retreat, Fran­ val learned that Valmclnt's family was prosecuting him unremit­ tingly, and that the affair was going to be dealt with in a most serious manner. I t was becoming difficult, so they said, to pass i t off as a duel, for unfortur ately there had been too many witnesses. Furthermore, so Franv It was informed, beyond any sha dow of a doubt Madame de Farn �ille was leading the pack of her son-in-l aw's enemies, her clear inten tion being to complete his ruin by putting him behind bars or oblig ing him to leave France, and thus to restore to her as soon as possibl e the two beloved creatures from whom she was presently separated.

Franval showed these missives to h is wife. She at once took out pen and paper to cal m her mother, to urge her to see matters in a different l ight, and to depict for her the happiness she had been enjoying ever since misfortune had succeeded in moll ifying the soul of her poor husband. Furthermore, she assured her mother that all her efforts to force ler back to Paris with her daughter would be quite in vain, for she had resolved not to leave Valmor until her husband's difficulti es had been settled, and ended by saying that i f ever the malice of h i s enemies or the absurdity of h i s judges should cause a warrant for his arrest to be issued which was degrading to him, she had fully made up her mind to accompany him into exit<;.

Franval thanked his wife. But having not the least desire to s i t and wait for the fa :e that was being prepared for him, he in­ formed her tha t he wa:; going to spend some time in Swi tzerland. He would leave Eugen ie in her care, and he begged both women,

Eugenie de Franval + 43 1

nay made them promise, not to leave Valmor so long as his fate was still in doubt. No matter what fate might decide for him, he said, he would still return to spend twenty-four hours with his dear wife, to consult with her as to the means for returning to Paris i f nothing stood in the way o r , i f fortune had turned against him, for leaving to go and live somewhere in safety.

Having taken these decision s , Franval, who had not for a moment forgotten that the sole cause of his misfortunes was his wife's rash and imprudent plot with Valmont, and who was still consumed with a desire for revenge, sent word to his daughter that he was waiting for her in the remote part of the park. He locked himself in an isolated summer house with her, and after having made her swear blind obedience to everything he was going to order her to do, he kissed her and spoke to her in the following manner :

"You are about to lose me , my daughter, perhaps forever." And seeing tears welling up into Eugenie 's eyes : "Calm yourself, my angel, " he sa id to her , "our future happi­

ness is in your hands, and in your!; alone. Only you can determine whether we can again find the happiness that once was ours, whether it be in France or somewhere els,e. You, Eugenie , I trust are as persuaded as one can possibly be that your mother is the sole cause of our misfortunes. You know tha t I have not lost sight of my plans for revenge. If I have concealed these plans from my wife, you have been aware of my reasons and have approved of them ; in fact ' twas you who helped me fashion the blindfold with which i t seemed prudent t o cover h e r eyes . The time h a s come t o act, Eugenic , the end is at hand. Your future peace of mind and body depends on it , and what you are going to undertake will assure mine forever as well . You will , I trust, hear me out, and you are too intelligent a girl to be in the least a larmed by what I am about to propose. Yes, my child, the time has come to act, and act w e must, without delay and without remorse , and thi s must be your work.

"Your mother has wished to make you miserable , she has defiled the bonds to which she lays claim, and by so doing she has lost a l l rights to them. Henceforth she i s not only no longer any­ thing more than an o rdinary woman for you, but she has even become your worst , your mortal enemy. Now, the law of Nature most deeply graven in our he arts is that we must above all r id our-

432 + THE MARQLIS DE SADE

selves, i f we can, of those who conspire against us. This sacred law, which constantly moves and inspires us , does not instill within us the love of our neighbor as being above the love we owe our­ selves. First ourselves, then the others : thi s is Nature 's order of progression. Consequer dy, we must show no respect, no quarter for others a s soon as they :lave shown that our misfortune or our ruin i s the object of the ir desires . To act differently, my daughter, would be to show preference for others above ourselves, and that would be absurd. Now, let me come to the reasons behind the action 1 shall counsel you to take.

"I am obliged to leave, and you know the reasons why. I f I leave you with this woman, Eugenie , within the space of a month her mother will have enticed her back to Paris, and since, after the scandal that has just occurred, you can no longer marry, you can rest assured that these two cruel persons will gain ascendancy over you only to send you to a convent, there to weep over your weakness and repent of our pleasures. 'Tis your grandmother who hounds and pursues me, Eugenie , ' :i s she who j oins hands with my enemies to complete my destruction. Can such zeal , such methods have any purpose other than to -ega in possession of you, and can you doubt that once she has you s 1e will have you confined ? The worse things go with me, the more those who are persecuting and tormenting us will grow strong and increasingly influential . Now, i t would be wrong to doubt that, : nwardly, your mother i s the brains behind this group, as it would be wrong to doubt that, once I have gone , she wi l l re jo in them. And yet thi s faction desires my ru in only in order to make you the most wretched woman alive. Therefore we must lose no t ime in weakening i t , and i t will be deprived of i ts most sturdy pi l lar i f your mother i s removed from i t . Can we opt for another course of a ction ? Can 1 take you with me ? Your mother will be most annoyed, will run back to her mother, and from tha t day on, Eugenie , we will never know another moment's peace. We will be persecuted and pursued from place to place, no country will have the right to offe r us asylum, no refuge on the face of the earth will be held sacn'd . . . inviolable , in the eyes of the monsters whose fury will pUrSUi! us . Do you have any idea how far these odious arms of despot sm and tyranny can stretch when they have the weight of gold be 1ind them and are directed by malice ? But

Eugenic de Franval .. 433

with your mother dead, on the contrary, Madame de Farneille, who loves her more than she loves you and who has acted solely for her sake in this whole endeavor, seeing her faction deprived of the only person to whom she was really attached in the group, will abandon everything, will stop goading my enemies and a rousing them against me. At th i s j uncture, one of two things will happen : e i ther the Valmont incident will be settled and we shall be able to return to Paris in safety, or else the case will become more serious, in which case we shall be obl iged to leave France and go to another country, but at least we shall be safe from Madame de Farneille ' s machina. tions. But as long as her daughter is still alive, Madame de Far­ neil le will have but a single purpose in mind, and that will be our ruin , because, once again, she beli eves that her daughter' s happiness can be obtained only at the price o f our downfall .

"N a matter from what angle we view our s ituation, then, you will see that Madame de Franval i s the constant thorn in the side o f our secur i ty, and her loathsome presence i s the most certain obstacle to our happiness.

"Eugeni e , Eugenie ," Franval continued warmly, taking his daughter ' s hands in his, "my dear Eugenie , you do love me. Do you therefore consent to lose forever the person who adores you, for fear of an act a s essential to our interests ? My dear and loving Eugenie , you must decide : you can keep only one of us. You are obliged to kil l one of your parents, only the choice of which heart you shall choose as the target of your dagger yet remains. Either your mother must perish, or else you must give me up . . . . What am I saying ? You will have to sl it my throa t . . . . Alas, could I l ive wi thout you ? Do you think i t would be possible for me to live with­ out my Eugeni e ? Could I endure the memory of the pleasures I have tasted in these arms, these delightful pleasures that I shall have lost forever ? Your crime, Eugenie , your crime is the same in e i ther case : e i ther you must destroy a mother who loathes you and who l ives only to make you unhappy, .or else you must murder a father whose every breath is drawn only for you. Choose, Eugenie , go ahead and choose, and if ' t i s I you condemn, then do not hesitate , ungrateful daughter : show no p i ty when you p ierce this heart whose only wrong has been to love you too deeply j strike, and I shall bless

434 + THE MARQ( IS OF. SADE

the blows you strike, and with my last breath I shall say again how I adore yOU."

Franval fell s i lent , to hear what his daughter would reply, but she seemed to be lost in deep thought. Finally she threw herself into her father's a rms.

"Oh, you, you wh'Jm I shal l love all my l i fe , can you doubt o f the choice I shall m ake ? Can you suspect m y courage ? A r m me a t once, a n d s h e who , b y her terr ible deeds a n d the threat s h e poses to your safety, i s pros :r ibed wi l l soon fall beneath my blows. In­ struct me, Franval , te I me what to do ; leave, s ince your safety demands i t , and I sha: I act while you are gone. I shall keep you apprised of everything . But no matter wha t turn things may take, once our enemy has been d i sposed of , do not leave me alone in th i s chateau . . . . Come bac k for me , o r s e n d f o r me to come a n d j o i n you wherever y o u m a y be."

" My darling daughter ," sa id Franval , kiss ing thi s monste r who had shown herself to be a n all too apt pupil of h i s seductions, " I knew that I would find in you all the sentiments of love and steadfastness o f purpose n eces�a ry to our mutual happiness . . . . Take this box. Death l i es within i ts l id . . . . "

Eugenie took the fatal box and repeated her promises to her father. Other decis ion:; were taken : i t was decided that Eugenie would awa i t the outcome of the trial , and that the decision as to whether the p roj ected crime would take place or not would be dependent upon whethf r the decision was for or against her father . . . . They took leave of each other, Franval went to p ay a call upon his wife , and there carried audacity and dece i t so far as to inun­ date her with his tears, the while receiving from th i s heavenly angel , wi thout once giving himself away, the touching caresses so full o f candor which s h e lavished upon h i m . Then , having been given her solemn p romise that she would most assuredly remain in Alsace with Eugeni e no matter what the outcome of his case, the scoundrel mounted his horse and rode away, leaving behind him the innocence and v i r tue which his c r mes had sull i ed so long.

Franval proceeded to B asel , and there procured l odgings, for a t Basel he was safe from any legal actions that might be inst i tuted against him and a t the same time was as close to Valmor as one could possibly be , so th at his le tters might maintain Eugenie in the

Eugenic de Franval .. 43 5

frame of mind he desired to keep her in while he was away . . . . B asel and Valmor were about twenty-five leagues apart , and although the road between them went through the Black Forest, communications were easy enough , so that he was able to receive news of his daughter once a week. As a measure of precaution, Franval brought an enormous sum of money with him, but more in paper than in cash. Let us leave him then, getting settled in Switzer­ l and, and return to his wife .

Nothing could have been purer or more sincere than this excel­ lent woman's intentions. She had promised her husband to remain in the country until he had given her further orders, and nothing in the world could have made her change her mind, a s she was wont to assure Eugenie every day . . . . Unfo rtunately too far removed from her mother to place her trust in this worthy woman, still a party to Franval' s injustice-the seeds of wh.ich he nourished by his l etters sent regula rly once a week-Eugenie did not for a moment enter­ tain the thought that she could have a worse enemy in the world than her mother . And yet there was nothing her mother did not do to try and break down the invinc ible antipathy that this ungrate­ ful child kept buried deep in her heart. She show'ered friendship and caresses on her, she expressed tender sat isfaction with her over her husband's fortunate change of h eart , she even went so far in her manifestations of gentleness and meekness as to thank Eugenie at t imes and give her a l l the credit for the happy conversion. And then she would grieve at being the innocent cause of the new calamities that were threatening Franval ; far from accusing Eugenie, she put the entire onus on herself and, clasping Eugen ie to her heart, she would tearfully ask her whether she could ever forgive her mother . . . . Eugenie ' s heart remained hardened to these angel i c advances, and her perverse soul ",'as deaf to the voice of Nature , for vice had closed off every avenue hy which one might reach her . . . . Coldly withdrawing from her mother 's a rms, she would look a t her with eyes that were often wild and would say to herself, by way of encouragement : How false this woman is . . . how full of deceit and treachery. The day she had me abducted she caressed me in exactly the same way. But these unjust reproaches were naught but the abominable sophisms with which crime steadies and supports itself whenever i t tries to smother the conscience. M adame de Franval,

436 .. T H E MARQUIS DE SADE

whose motives in having Eugenie abducted were her own happiness and peace of mind, and in the interest of virtue, had, i t i s true , con­ cealed her plans. But such pretense is condemned only by the gui lty party who i s deceived by i t , and in no wise offends probity. Thus Eugen ie resisted all her mother's proffered tenderness because she wanted to commit an ltrocity, and not in the least because of any wrongs on the part of < mother who had surely committed none with regard to her .

Toward the end of the first month of their stay at Valmor, Madame de Farneille wrote to her daughter that her husband's case was becoming increasi :1gly serious and that, in view of the fear of an unfavorable decisic n by the court , the return of both Madame de Franval and Eugerie had become a matter of urgent necessity, not only to make an impression on the publ ic , which was spreading the worst kind of gos , ip , but also to j oin forces with her and to­ gether seek some sort of arrangement that might be able to disarm the forces of justice, a nd answer for the culprit wi thout sacrificing him.

Madame de Fra wal, who had resolved not to conceal any­ thing from her daught er , immedia tely showed her this letter. Sta

' r­

ing coldly a t her mot 'ler, Eugenie asked her evenly what she in­ tended to do in view of this sad news ?

"I don ' t know," Madame de Franval replied. "But the fact is I wonder what good we are doing here ? Would we not be serving my husband's interests far better by taking my mother's advice ?"

" 'Tis you who are in full charge, Madame," Eugenie repl ied . "My role i s to obey, and you may rest assured of my obedience ."

But M adame de Franval, clearly see ing from the curt manner of her daughter's repl y tha t she was dead set against i t , told he r tha t she was going to wait , tha t she would write again , and that Eugen ie could be quit ! : sure that i f ever she were to fail to follow Franval ' s intentions, it would only be when she was completely certain that she could serve him better in Paris than at Valmor.

Another month passed in this manner, during wh i ch Franval continued to write both to his wi fe and daughter, and from whom he received letters that could not help but please him, since he saw in those from his wife naught but the most perfect acquiescence to h i s every desire , and i :1 those from h i s daughter an unwavering de-

Eugenie de Franval + 437

termination to carry out the proj ected crime as soon a s the turn of events required it, or whenever M adame de Franval seemed on the verge of complying with her mother's solicitations.

For, as Eugenie noted in one o f her letters, "If I see in your wife naught but the qualities of honesty and candor, and if the friends working on your case in Paris succeed in bringing i t to a happy conclusion, I shall turn OVf:r to you the task you have en­ trusted me and you can accomplish i t yourself when we are together, i f you deem i t advisable then. But of course i f you should in any case order me to act, and should find it indispensable that I do so, then I shall assume the full responsibility for i t by myself, of that you may be sure ."

In his reply, Franval approved o f everything she reported to him, and these were the last two l etters he received and sent. The following mail brought him no more. Franval grew worried. And when the succeeding mail proved equally unsatisfactory, he grew desperate, and since his natural restlessness no longer allowed him to wait for further mails , he immediately decided to pay a personal visit to Valmor to ascertain the reasons for the delays in the mails tha t were upsetting him so crueliy.

He set o ff on horseback, followed by a faithful valet. He had calculated his voyage to arrive the second day, late enough at night not to be recognized by anyone. At the edge o f the woods which surrounds the Valmor chateau a n d which, to the east, j oins the Black Forest, six well-armed men stopped Franval and his servant and demanded their money. These rogues had been well info rmed ; they knew with whom they were dealing and were fully aware that Franval , being implicated in an u npleasant affair , never traveled without his paper money and immense amounts o f gold . • • . The servant resisted, and was la id out l i feless at the feet o f his horse. Franval , drawing his sword, leapt to the ground and attacked these scurvy creatures. He wounded three o f them, but found himself surrounded by the others . They stripped him of everything he had, without however being able to disarm him, and a s soon as they had despoiled him the thieves escaped. Franval followed them, but the brigands had vanished so swiftly with their booty and horses that it was impossible to tell in which direction they had gone.

The weather tha t night was miserable. The cutting blast of the

43 8 .. THE MARQUm DE SADE

north wind was accompanied by a driving hail-all the elements seemed to be conspiring against thi s poor wretch. There are perhaps cases in which Nature, r evolted by the crimes of the person she is pursuing, desires to overwhelm him with all the scourges at Her command before drawinl� him back again into her bosom . . . . Fran­ val , half-naked but still holding onto his sword, d irected his foot­ steps as best he could a way from this baleful place, and toward Valmor. But as he was il l-acquainted with this estate, which he had visi ted only the one t im, ! we have seen him there , he lost h is way on the darkened roads o f this forest with which he was totally unfamil iar . . . . Compl etely exhausted, and racked by pa in and worry, tormented by th,! storm, he threw himself to the ground ; and there the first tears he had ever shed in his l i fe flowed abun­ dantly from his eyes . . . _

"Ill-fated man," h(� cried out, "now is everything conspi ring to crush me at last . ' . . to make me feel the pangs of remorse . I t took the hand o f disas ter to p ierce my heart. Deceived b y the blandishments of good f o rtune , I should h ave always gone on fail­ ing to recognize i t . Oh :'ou , whom I have outraged so grievously, you who at this very moment are perhaps becoming the victim of my fury and barbarous 'Jlans, you my adorable wife . . . does the world, vainglorious of )'our existence, still possess you ? Has the hand of Heaven put a stop to my horrors ? . . . Eugenie ! my too credulous daughter . . . too basely seduced by my abomin able cun­ ning . . . has Nature softened your heart ? . . . Has she suspended the cruel effects o f my ascendancy and your weakness ? Is there still time ? I s there still t ime, Just Heaven ? . . . "

Suddenly the pla intive and maj est ic sound of several peal ing bells , rising sadly heavenward, came to add to the horror of his fate . . . . He was deeply affected . . . h e grew terrified . . . .

"What i s this I hear ?" h e cried out, getting to his feet. "Bar­ barous daughter . . . is i t death ? . . . is it vengeance ? . . . Are the Furies of hell come then to finish their work ? Do these sounds announce to me . . . ? ' Where am I ? Can I hear them ? . . . Finish, oh Heaven, finish the ta� k of destroying the culpri t . . . . "

And, prostrating himsel f : "Almighty God, suffer me to join my voice to those who at

this moment are implor ing Thee . . . see my remorse and Thy

Eugenie de Franval + 439

power, and pardon me for disowning Thee. I beseech Thee to grant me this prayer , the first prayer I dare to direct a t Thee I Supreme Being, preserve virtue, p rotect her who was Thy most beauti ful image on this e arth . I pray tha t these sounds, these mournful sounds, may not be those I fear and dread."

And Franval , completely dis traught, no longer aware of what he was doing nor where he was going, his speech but an incoherent mumble , followed whatever path he chanced across . . . . He heard someone . . . he regained control o f himself and listened . . . . I t was a man on horseback.

"Whoever you are ," Franval called out, advancing toward this man, "whoever you may be, t ake p i ty on a poor wretch whom pain and sorrow has rendered distraught. I am ready to take my own l i fe . . . . Instruct me, help me, i f you are a man, and a man of any compassion . . . deign to save me from myself."

"Good God I " repl ied a voice too well-known to poor Franval. "vVhat ! You here ? . . . For the sake of all that is holy, leave, go away I "

And Clervil-for ' twas h e , this worthy mortal , who had escaped from Franval 's prison, whom fate had sent toward this miserable creature in the saddest moment of his l ife-Clervil j umped down off his horse and fell into the arms of his enemy.

"So 'tis you, Monsieur," Franval sa id , clasping the honorable man to his breast, "you upon whom I have wrought so many hor­ rible acts which weigh so heavily on my conscience ?"

"Calm yourself, Monsieur , you must calm yourself. I put away from me all the misfortunes that have recently surrounded me, nor do I remember those which you wished to inflict upon me when Heaven a l lows me to serve you . . . and I am going to be of service to you , Monsieur, doubtless in a manner which will be rather cruel, but necessary . . . . Here, let u s s it down a t the foot of this cypress, for now i ts sinister boughs alone shall be a fi tting wreath for you . Oh, my dear Franval , what reverses of fortune I must acquaint you with ! . . . vVecp , my friend, for tears will relieve you, and I must cause even more bitter tears to flow from your eyes . . . . Your days of delight are over . . . they h ave vanished as a dream. And all you h ave left to you are days of sorrow and grief ."

"Oh, Monsieur, I understand you . . . those bells . . . "

440 + THE MARQUS DE SADE

"Those bells are bearing the homage, the prayers of the in­ habi tants o f Valmor t o the feet of Almighty God, for He has allowed them to know an angel only so that they might p i ty and mourn her all the more "

At which point Franval, placing the tip of his sword at his heart, was about to cut the frail thread of his days, but Clervil fore­ stalled this desperate act :

"N 0, no, my friend," he cried, " 't is not death that i s needed, but reparation. Hear what I have to say, I have much to tell you , and to tell i t , an atmosphere o f calm is required."

"Very well , Mons i eur, speak. I am listening. Plunge the dag­ ger by slow degrees into my heart. I t is only just that he who has tr ied to torment other! should in his turn be oppressed."

"I shall be brief a s regards myself, Monsieur," Clervil said. "After several months o f the frightful detention to which you sub­ j ected me, I was fortunate enough to move my guard to p i ty. I strongly advised him meticulously to conceal the injustice which you committed regarding me. He will not reveal it, my dear Franval, he will never reveal that s ecret."

"Oh, Monsieur . . . " "Hear me out. I r �peat that I have much to tell you. Upon my

return to Paris I l earned of your sorry adventure . . . your depar­ ture . . . . I shared Madame de Farneil le 's tears, which were more sincere than you ever believed. Together with this worthy lady, I conspired to persuade \1adame de Franval to bring Eugenie back to us , her presence behg more necessary in Paris than in Alsace . . . . You had forbidden her to leave Valmor . . . she obeyed you. She apprised us of these orders and of her reluctance to contradict them. She hesitated as long as she could. You were found guilty, Franval , and the sentence still stands. You have been sentenced to death a s guilty of a highway murder. Neither Madame de Far­ neil le 's entreaties nor t he efforts of your family and friends could alter the decision of jmtice : you have been worsted . . . dishonored forever . . . you are ruined . . . al l your goods and estates have been seized . . . . " (And in response to a second, violent movement on Franval 's part : ) "Listen to me, Monsieur, hear me out, I say, I demand this of you in expiation of your crimes ; I demand it too in the name of Heaven, which may still be moved to forgiveness by

Eugenie de Franval .. 44 1

your repentance. At this time we wrote to Madame de Franval to apprise her o f all this : her mother informed her that, as her p res­ ence had become absolutely indi spensable , she was sending me to Valmor to persuade her once and for all to return to Paris . I set o ff immediately a fter the letter was posted, but unfortunately it reached Valmor before me. When I arrived, i t was already too late ; your horrible plot had succeeded only too well ; I found Madame de Franval dying . . . . Oh, Monsieur, what base, what foul villainy I . . . But I am touched by your abj ect state, I shall refrain from reproaching you any further for you r crimes. Let me tell you every­ thing. Eugenie was unable to bear the sight, and when I arrived her repentance was already expressed by a flood o f tears and bitter sobs . . . . Oh, M onsieur, how can I describe to you the cruel effect of this varied scene. Your wife, disfigured by convulsions o f pain , was dying . . • . Eugenie, having been reclaimed by N a ture, was uttering frightful cries , confessing her guilt , invoking death, want­ ing to kill herself, in turn falling a t the feet o f those whom she was imploring and fastening herself to the breast of her mother, trying desperately to revive her with her own breath, to warm her with her tears, to move her by the spectacle o f her remorse ; such, Monsieur, was the sinister scene that struck my eyes when I arrived a t Valmor.

"When I entered the house, M adame de Franval recognized me. She pressed my hands i n hers , wet them with her tears , and uttered a few words which I had great difficulty hearing, for they could scarcely escape from her chest which was constricted from the effects of the po ison. She forgave you . . . . She implored Heaven's forgiveness for you, and above all she asked for her daughter 's forgiveness . . . • See then, barbarous man, that the final thoughts, the final p rayers of this woman whose heart you broke and whose virtue you vilified were yet for your happiness.

"I gave her every care I could, and revived the flagging spirits of the servants to do the same, I called upon the most celebrated practitioners o f medicine available • • • and I employed all my resources to console your Eugenie . Touched by the terrible state she was in , I felt I had no right to refuse her my consolations. But nothing succeeded. Your poor wife gave up the ghost amid such convulsions and torments as are impossible to describe. At that

442 .. THE MARQ'JIS DE SADE

fatal moment, Monsif�ur, I witnessed one of the sudden effects o f remorse which till thf'n had been unknown t o me. Eugenie threw herself on her mother and died at the same moment as she. 'rVe all thought she had mere:.y fainted . . . • No, all her faculties were ex­ tinguished. The s ituat ion had produced such a shock to her vital o rgans that they had dl ceased simultaneously to function, and she actually died from th e violent impact o f remorse, grief, and de­ spa i r . • . • Yes, Monsieur, both are lost to you. And the bells which you yet hear pealing He celebrating simultaneously two creatures, both o f whom were bo>rn to make you happy, whom your h ideous crimes have made the victims o f the i r attachment to you, and whose bloody images will pu rsue you to your grave.

"Oh, my dear Franval , was I wrong then in times past to try and save you from the abyss into which your passions were plunging you 7 Will you still condemn, still cover with r idicule the votaries of virtue 7 And are vi rtue ' s disciples wrong to burn incense at its altars when they see cr me so surrounded by troubles and scourges 7"

Clervil fell s i lent, He glanced at Franval and saw th at he was petrified with sorrow. His eyes were fixed and from them tears were flowing, but no expres : ; ion managed to cross his l ips . Clervil asked him why he had foune him in this half-naked state. In two words, Franval related to him wha t had happened.

"Ah, Monsieur , " cried the generous Clervil , "how happy I a m , even in the midst of al l the horrors which surround me, to be able a t least to ease your s i tuation. I was on my way to Basel in search of you, I was €;oing to acquaint you with al l that had hap­ pened, I was going to offer you the l i ttle I possess . . . . Take it, I beg you to . As you know, I am not rich , but here are a hund red louis, my l i fe ' s savings, they are al l I own. I demand that you . . . "

"Oh noble and g enerous man," Franval cr ied, embracing the knees of that rare ar d honorable friend, "why me 7 Do I need anything, a fter the losses I have suffered 7 And from you , you whom I have treated so mise rably, ' t is you who fly to my help."

" Must we reme mber past wrongs when misfortune over­ whelms him who has done them to us 7 When this happens, the only revenge we owe i s to a lleviate his suffering. And what point i s there i n adding to h i s grie f when h is heart i s burdened with h i s own re­ proaches 7 . . . Monsieur , that i s the voice o f Nature. You can see

Eugenie de Fran'IJal + 443

that the sacred cult of a Supreme Being does not run counter to i t as you had supposed, since the counsel offered by the one i s naught but the holy writ o f the other."

"N 0, " said Franval , getting to his feet, "no, Monsieur, I no longer have need for anything at all . Since Heaven has left me this one last possession," he went on, di splaying his sword, "teach me what use I must put i t to . . . . " ( Looking at the sword : ) "This , my dear, my only friend, this is the same sword that my saintly wife seized one day to plunge into her breast when I was overwhelming her with horrors and calumnies . . . . 'Tis the very same . . . . Per- haps I may even di scover traces of her sacred blood on it . . . blood which my own must efface . . . . Come, let us walk awhile, until we come to some cottages wherein I may inform you of my last wishes . . . and then we shall take leave o f each other forever . . . . "

They began walking, keeping a look out for a road that would lead them to some habitation . . . . Night still enveloped the forest in its darkest veils. Suddenly the sound of mournful hymns was heard, and the men saw several torches rending the dark shadows and lending the scene a tinge of h orror that only sensi tive souls will understand. The pealing of bells grew louder, and to these mourn­ ful accents, which were still only scarcely audible, were j oined flashes of l ightning, which had h i therto been absent from the sky, and the ensuing thunder which mingled with the funereal sounds they had previously heard. The l ightning which flashed across the skies , occasionally eclipsing the sinister flames of the torches, seemed to be vying with the inhabitants of the earth for the right to conduct to her grave this woman whom the procession was accompanying. Everything gave r ise to horror, everything beto­ kened desolat ion, and it seemed that Nature hersel f had donned the garb of eternal mourning.

"\Vhat is this ?" said Franval , who was deeply moved. "Nothing, nothing," Clervil said, taking his friend's hand and

leading him in another direction. "N othing ? No, you're misleading me. I want to see what it

. " I S . . . .

He dashed forward . . . and saw a coffin. "Merciful Heaven ," he cried. "There she i s ; I t I S she, i t I S

she. God has given me one last occasion to see her . . . . "

444 .. T H E MARQ U I S DE SADE

At the bidding of Clervil , who saw that it was impossible to calm the poor man down, the priests departed in si lence . . . . Com­ pletely di straught, Franval threw himself on the coffin, and from it he se ized the sad remai ns of the woman whom he had so gravely offended. He took the body in his arms and la id it at the foot of a tree , and in a state of del ir iu 11 threw himself upon it , crying in utter despa i r :

"Oh you whose l if e has been snuffed out by my barbarous cruelty, oh touching crea ture whom I still adore, see a t your feet your husband beseeching :lOur pardon and your forgiveness. Do not imagine that I ask this in order to outl ive you. No, no, ' t is in order that the Almighty, touched by your virtues, might deign to forgive me as you have done, if s llch be possible . . . . You must have blood, my sweet wife , you must have blood to be avenged . . . and avenged you shall be . . . . Ah I firs': see my tears and witness my repentance ; I intend to follow you , bdoved shade . . . but who will receive my tortured soul i f you do not intercede for i t ? Rej ected alike from the arms of God and fro m your heart , do you wish to see i t con­ demned to the hideou s :ortures of Hell when i t is so sincerely repentant of i ts crimes ? Forgive , dear soul , forgive these crimes, and see how I avenge them."

With these words :;'ranval , eluding Clervi l ' s gaze , plunged the sword he was holding twice through his body. His impure blood flowed onto his victim a:ld seemed to sully her much more than avenge her .

"Oh my friend," he sa id to Clervil , "I am dying, but I am dying in the bosom o f remorse . . . . Apprise those who remain behind both of my deplorable end and of my crimes, tell them that is the way that a man who i s a miserable slave of his pass ions must die, a man vile enough to have st ifled in his heart the cry of duty and of Nature . Do not d �ny me half of my wretched wife 's coffin ; without my remorse I would not have been worthy o f sharing it , but now my remorse renders me full worthy of that favor, and I demand i t. Adieu ."

Clervil granted poor Franval 's dying wish, and the procession continued on i ts way. An eternal refuge soon swallowed up a hus­ band and wi fe born to ave each other, a couple fashioned for happiness and who would have savored it in its purest form i f crime

Eugenie de Franval *' 445

and its frightful disorders had not, beneath the guilty hand of one of the two, intervened to change their l ife from a garden of delight into a viper's nest.

The worthy eccles iastic soon carried back to Paris the frightful details of these different calamities . No one was distressed by the death of Franval ; only his l i fe had been a cause of grief . But h i s wife was mourned, bitterly mourned. And indeed what creature i s more precious, more appealing in the eyes of men than the person who has cherished, respected, a nd cultivated the virtues of the earth and, at each step of the way, has found naught but misfor­ tune and gri e f ?

Justine, or good {9onduct 'Well {9hastised

(1791)

The m o s t fam ous of all Sade's works is the novel Justine. It is also probably the Ont� he cared m o s t ab ou t-Sade dedicated it to the faithful co mpanion of the las t twenty­ five years of his exis tence, Marie-Cons tance Quesne t. It was also the b o o k which caused him the m o s t difficulty with the authorities during his life time.

Sade finis hed the firs t draft of this "philosophical novel" while he was a pris oner in the Bas tille. Working uninterrup tedly over the two-week period fro m June 23 to July 8, 1 787, in his cell ill the "Second Liberty," Sade co mpleted the hundred-and-thirty-eigh t-page manuscrip t, which he enti tled Les Infortl.lnes de la Vertu. Originally in­ tended to beco me a part of the volume he was then prepar­ ing, Contes et fabl iaux du XVIII" siecle, this "firs t Justine" underwent considerable revision in the course of the fo llow­ ing year, and Sade s oon determined to s trike it fro m his lis t of tales and make it a work unto itself.

Writing to his lawyer-friend Reinaud on June 1 2, 1 79 1 , a little m o re than a year after the Revo lutio tzary government had rendered him his liberty, Sade no ted : "A t the m o ment a novel of mine is being printed, but it is a work too im m o ral to be sent to s o pious and s o decent a man as yourself. 1 needed m o ney, my publis her said that he wanted it well spiced, and 1 gave it to him fit to plague the devil himself. It is called Justine, or Good Conduct Well Chastised. Burn i t and do not read it, if perchance it falls into your hands . I am disclaiming the au thorship . . . . "

In fact, the original edition of Justine-the au thor's firs t work published during his life time-did no t bear his

+49

name. Prin ted in Pari s , chez Girouard1 o n the rue du B o u t­ du-M o nde, Justine ji.-s t appeared in two o c tavo volu m es, 'll.'i th a fro n tispiece dt picting Firtlle between Licen tiousness and Irreligion, and a( the place on the ti tle page gen erally reserved for the puolisher's imprin t th ere appeared the vague des cript io n : In Holland, At Associated Booksel lers .

JFh a t of the admiss ion by the author that he wro te the n ovel to o rder ? This, as Lely poin ts o u t, s ee m s h ardly likely . Firs t, the geiural ou tline and s o mber pessimism of the 1 7 9 1 Justine were already evide n t in the 1 78 7 ver­ s io n . Seco n d, the n ovel does jigure in the C atalogue rai sonne which Sade himself d rew up roughly three y ears before its publica tio n . And jin al. 'y-p erhaps the m o s t co nvincing argu­ m e n t of all-Sade dt dica ted the n ovel, as we have n o ted, to his dear friend M arie-Co ns tance Quesnet, atl indicatio n tha t he himself valued the work highly, well unders t o o d i ts importance, and would n ever have dared co mpro mise the m erit of the work by spicing i t to suit the publish er's tas te .

"Will i t n o t be felt," wri tes Sade in his dedica t ion, "that Firtue, h o weve r beau tiful, becomes the wors t of all poss ib le a t ti tudes when i t is found too feeble to con tend with Fice and tha t, i 1 ! an en tirely corrupted age, the s afes t course is to follow tl. e o th ers ?" If this be the impression, s ays Sade, i t is wro ng : this work is i n tended to combat sllch "dangerous sophis tries ," s tich "fals e philosophy," and s h o w h o w Firtue afflicted -nay turn a thoro ughly depraved a n d corrup t spirit wh erei 'l there y e t remain a f e w g o o d prin­ ciples, back to ward th � path of righ teousness .

During the decade fo llo wing i ts publica tion, Justine wetl t through six prir. tings ( o n e of which , actually done in Paris, b ore as the u n likely place of publicatio n : "Ph iladel­ phia" ) , eloquent tes t i m o ny to its early popularity . D o u b t­ less promp ted by its S 'Jccess, an en terprising Paris publisher, Nicolas }'1 asse, broupht o u t, in 1 79 7, the m o numen tal ten­ 'Voili m e work en titlec: La Nouvelle Justine . . . suivie de l 'Histoire de Jul i e tte, sa soeu r, wh ich was freely offered, at

1 Girouard 'Was later to perish, u nder the Reign 0/ Terror, on January 8, 1794.

4 5 0

least for a year following its publica tion, in the leading Paris bookstores. Then, in the waning two years of the eighteenth cen tury, searches and seizures began, ending with the arres t, on March 6, 1 801 , of the man who was purported to be, but adamantly denied he was, the author of bo th works. On that day, bo th Sade and Masse were arres ted o n the latter's prem ises. A search of Masse's offices revealed a number of manuscrip ts in Sade's hand­ writing, as well as printed volumes of Justine and Juliette anno tated in his hand. M assl, after being detained for twen ty-four hours, was relea.lCd upon condition that he reveal the whereabouts of his stock of Juliette , and there is evidence to indicate that the pu blisher, to save himself, had denounced Sade to the police. Be that as i t may, Sade was once again incarcerated, first in Sainte-Pelagic and then, two years later, in the Charen ton ,t/syium, where he was to re­ m ain a prisoner un til the end of his life.

45 1.

o thou my friend! The pros­ p erity of Crime is like unto the /i. c;htning, whose traitorous bril­ li ancies embellish the atmosphere but for an instan t, in order to h url into death's very depths the luckless one they have dazzled.

TO MY DEAR FRIEND

Yes, Constance, it is to thee I address this work; at once the example and honor of thy sex, with a spirit of profoundest sensibility combining the mos t judicious and the most enlightened of minds, thou art she to whom I confide my book, which will acquain t thee with the sweetness of the tears Pirtue s ore beset do th shed and do th cause to flow. Detes ting the sophis tries of libertinage and of irreligion, in word and deed combatting them un wearingly, I fear n o t that those necessitated b y t h e order o f personages appearing in these M emoires will put thee in any peril; the cynicism remarkable in certain portraits ( they were softened as much as ever they could be ) is no more apt to frighten thee; for it is on ly Pice that trembles when Pice is found ou t, and cries scandal im m ediately i t is attacked. To bigo ts Tartuffe was indebted for h is ordeal; Iustine's will b e the achievement of libertines, and li ttle do I dread them : they'll no t betray my intentions, these thou shalt perceive; thy opinion i s suf­ ficien t to make my who le glory and after having pleased thee I must either please universally or find consolation in a general censure.

The scheme of this novel (ye t, ' tis less a novel than one might suppose) is doub tless new; the victory gained by Pirtue over Pice, the rewarding of good, the punishment of evil, such is the usual scheme in every o ther work of this species : ah! the lesson cannot be too often dinned in our ears !

But throughout to present Pice triumphant and Pirtue a victim of i ts sacrifices, to exhibit a wretched creature wandering from one misery tv the next; the toy of villainy; the target of every debauch; exposed to the mos t barbarous, the most monstrous caprices; driven witless by the most brazen, the most specious sophis tries; prey to the most cunning seductions, the most irresis tible suborna-

4 5 5

456 + THE MARQUIS DE SADE

tio ns; for defense against so many disappointmen ts, so much bane and pes tilence, to repul! e such a quan tity of corruption having n o th­ ing b u t a sensitive soul, a mind na turally formed, and considerable courage : briefly, to em" loy the b o ldes t scenes, the m o s t extraordi­ nary situations, the m os t dreadful maxims, the most e nerge tic brush s trokes, with the so le object of ob taining from all this one of the sublimest parables ever penned for human edifica tio n ; n o w, such were, ' twill be allowed, to seek to reach o ne's des tination by a road n o t much travele d h eretofore.

H ave I succeeded, Cons tance ? Will a tear in thy eye determine my triumph ? After ha� ing read Justine, wilt say : " O h, how these renderings of crime m a k e me proud of my love for Virtue I How sublime does i t appear t hrough tears I How ' tis embellished by mis­ fortunes I"

Oh, Cons tance l m 1y these words but escape thy lips, and my labors shall be crowned.

'7he very masterpiece of philosophy would be to develop the 1 �eans Providence employs to arrive a t the ends she designs

for man, and from this construction to deduce some rules of conduct acquainting this wretched two-footed individual with the manner wherein h e must p roceed along l ife's thorny way, forewarned of the strange caprices of that fatality they denominate by twenty dif­ ferent titles, and all unavailingly, for i t has not yet been scanned nor defined.

I f, though full o f respect for social conventions and never overstepping the bounds they draw round us, if , nonetheless, it should come to pass that we meet with nothing but brambles and briars, while the wicked tread upon flowers, will i t not be reckoned -save by those in whom a fund of incoercible virtues renders deaf to these remarks-, will i t not be decided that i t i s p referable to abandon oneself to the tide rather than to resist i t ? Will i t not be felt tha t Virtue , however beauti ful, becomes the worst of all atti­ tudes when i t is found too feeble to contend with Vice, and that, in an entirely corrupted age, the safest course i s to follow along a fter the others ? Somewhat better informed, if one wishes, and abusing the knowledge they h ave acquired, will they not say, as did the angel Jesrad in Zadig, that there i s no evil whereof some good i s not born ? and will they not declare, that th is be ing the case , they can give themselves over to evil since, indeed, i t is but one of the fashions of producing good ? Will they not add, that i t makes no difference to the general plan whether such-and-such a one i s by preference good or bad, that if misery persecutes virtue and pros­ perity accompanies crime, those things being as one in Nature's view, far better to join company with the wicked who flourish, than to be counted amongst the virtuous who founder ? Hence, i t is im-

45 7

45 8 + THE MARQUIS DE SADE

portant to anticipate those dangerous sophistries of a false phi­ losophy ; i t is essential to show that through examples of afHicted virtue presented to a dc :praved spirit in which, however, there remain a few good principles, i t i s essential , I say, to show that spir it quite as surely restored to ri ghteousness by these means as by portraying this virtuous career ornate with the most glittering honors and the most flattering rewards. Doubtless i t i s cruel to have to describe, on the one hand, a host of ills overwhelming a sweet-tempered and sensi tive woman who, a s best she i s able , respects virtue , and, on the other , the afHuence of prosperity of those who crush and mortify this same wonan. But were there nevertheless some good engendered of the demonstration, would one have to repent of making i t ? Ought one be sorry for having establ i shed a fact whence there resulted, for the wise man who reads to some purpose, so use­ ful a lesson o f submiss ion to p rovi dential decrees and the fateful warning that i t i s o ften to recall us to our duties that Heaven strikes down beside us the person who seems to us best to have ful­ filled his own ?

Such are the sent iments which are going to di rect our labors , and it is in consideration o f these intentions that we ask the reader ' s indulgence for t h e errc,neous doctrines which are t o be placed in the mouths o f our characters, and for the sometimes rather painful s i tuations which , out I)f love for truth, we have been obli ged to dress before his eyes .

M adame la Comtesse de Lorsange was one of those priestesses of Venus whose fortune i s the product of a pretty face and much misconduct, and who s e titles , pompous though they are, are not to be found but in the a rchives o f Cythera, forged by the imperti­ nence tha t seeks, and s ustained by the fool's credulity that bestows, them ; brunette, a fine figure, eyes o f a singular expression , that modish unbel ief which , contributing one further spice to the pas­ sions, causes those w(,men in whom i t i s suspected to be sought after that much more dil igently ; a tri fl e wicked, unfurnished with any p rinciple, allowing evil to exi st in nothing, lacking however that amount of depravation in the heart to have extinguished its sensibil ity ; haughty, l ibertine ; such was Madame de Lorsange .

Neverthel ess. th i s woman had received the best education ;

Justine -+ 459

daughter of a very rich Parisian banker, she had been brought up, together with a sister named Justine, by three years younger than she , in one of the capital ' s most celebrated abbeys where, until the ages of twelve and fi fteen years , the one and the other of the two sisters had been denied no counsels, no masters, no books, and no poli te talents.

At this period crucial to the virtue of the two maidens, they were in one day made bereft of everything : a frightful bankruptcy precipitated the ir father into circumstances so cruel that he perished of grief. One month later, his wife followed him into the grave . Two distant and heartless rel a t ives deliberated what should be done with the young orphans ; a hundred crowns apiece was thei r share of a legacy mostly swallowed up by credi tors . No one caring to be burdened with them, the convent 's door was opened, thei r dowry was put into their hands, and they were left at l iberty to become what they wished.

Madame d� Lorsange, a t th e time called Jul i ette, whose mind and character were to all intents and purposes as completely formed then as a t thirty , the age she had attained at the opening of the tale we are about to relate , seemed nothing but overj oyed to be put at large ; she gave not a moment's thought to the cruel events which had broken her chains . As for Justine, aged as we have remarked, twelve , hers was of a pensive and melancholy character, which made her far more keenly appreciate all the horrors of her s itua­ t ion. Full of tenderness, endowed with a surpris ing sensibi l i ty in­ ste ad of with her s ister ' s a rt and finesse, she was ruled by an ingenuousness, a candor that were to cause her to tumble into not a few pi tfalls. To so many qual i t i e s th is girl jo ined a sweet counte­ nance, absolutely unlike that with which Nature had embell ished Jul i ette ; for all the artifice, wi les , coquetry one noticed in the features of the one , there were proportionate amounts of modesty, decency, and timidity to be adm ired in the other ; a virginal a i r, l arge blue eyes very soul ful and appealing, a dazzl ing fa ir skin, a supple and resi l ient body, a touching voice , teeth of ivory and the lovel iest blond ha i r , there you have a sketch of this charming creature whose naive graces and delicate traits are beyond our power to describe .

They were given twenty-four hours to l eave the convent ; into

460 .. T H E MARQUIS DE SADE

their hands, together wi t h their five score crowns, was thrown the responsibil i ty to p rovide �or themselves as they saw fit. Del ighted to be her own mistress, Jul iette spent a minute, perhaps two , wiping away Justine's tears, th,�n, observing i t was in vain, she fell to scolding instead of com:orting her ; she rebuked Justine for her sensi tiveness ; she told her, with a philosophic acuity far beyond her years , that in this we rid one must not be affiicted save by what affects one personally ; th l t i t was possible to find in oneself physical sensations of a suffici enlly voluptuous p iquancy to extinguish all the moral affections whose shock could be pa inful ; that i t was all the more essential so to proceed, since true wisdom consists infini tely more in doubling the sum of one's pleasures than in increasing the sum of one's pains ; tha t , in a word, there was nothing one ought not do in order to deaden in oneself that perfidious sensibi l i ty from which none but others profit while to us it brings naught but troubles . But i t is d ifficult to harden a gentle good heart, it resists the arguments of a tough ened bad mind, and its solemn sat isfactions console it for the loss of t fle bel-esprit's false splendors.

Jul iette, employing o ther resources, then sa id to her sister, that with the age and the: figure they both of them had, they could not die o f hunger-she ci ted the example of one of their neighbors' daughters who, having e ,caped from her father's house, was pres­ ently very royally maintained and far happier, doubtless , than i f s h e had remained at hom e with her family ; one must, s a i d Juliette, take good care to avoid bel ieving it i s marriage that renders a gi rl happy ; that, a captive under the hymeneal laws, she has , with much ill-humor to suffer, a very slight measure of joys to expect ; instead o f which , were S le to surrender herself to libe rtinage , she might always be able to protect herself against her lovers' moods, or be comforted by the ir mmber.

These speeches horrified Justine ; she declared she preferred death to ignominy ; wha ':ever were her sister's reiterated urgings, she adamantly refused 1 0 take up lodging with her immediately she saw Jul iette bent upcn conduct that caused her to shudder.

After each had announced her very different intentions, the two girls separated witt out exchanging any p romises to see each another again. Would Juliette, who, so she affirmed, intended to be­ come a l ady of consequ ence, would Juliette consent to receive a

Justine .. 46 1

l i ttle girl whose virtuous but base incl inations might be able to bring her into dishonor ? and, on her s ide, would Justine wish to j eopardize her morals in the socie ty of a p erverse creature who was bound to become publ ic debauchery's toy and the lewd mob's victim ? And so each b id an eternal ad ieu to the other, and they left the convent on the morrow.

During early childhood caressed by her mother' s dressmaker, Justine believes this' woman will treat her kindly now in this hour o f her distress ; she goes in search of the woman, she tells the tale o f her woes, she a sks employment . . . she i s scarcely recognized ; and i s h arshly driven out the door .

"Oh Heaven I " cr ies the p001� l i ttle creature, "must my init ial steps in this world b e so quickly stampe d with ill-fortune ? That woman once loved me ; why does she cast me away today ? Alas I 't is because I am poor and an orphan, because I have no more means and p eople are not esteemed save in reason of the aid and benefits one imagines may be had o f them." Wringing her hands, Justine goes to find her cure ; she describes her circumstances with the vigorous candor proper to her years . . . . She was wearing a li ttle white garment, her lovely ha ir was negl igently tucked up under her bonnet, her breast, whose development had scarcely begun, was h idden beneath two o r three fold s o f gauze, her pretty face had somewha t of p allor owing to the unh appiness consuming her , a few tears rolle d from her eyes and lent to them an addi tional expres­ siveness . . . .

"You observe me, Monsieur , " sa id she to the saintly ecclesi­ astic . . . "Yes, you observe me in what for a girl is a most dreadful posi tion ; I have lost my father and mother . . . . H eaven has taken them from me at an age when I stand in greatest need of their assi stance . . . . They died ruined, Monsieu r ; we no longer have anything. There ," she continued, " is all they left me," and she displayed her dozen louis, "and nowhere to rest my poor head . . . • You will have p i ty upon me, Monsieur, will you not ? You are Re­ ligion ' s minister and Religion was always my heart 's virtue ; in the name o f that God I adore and whose organ you are, tell me, a s i f you were a second father unto m e , what must I do ? . • . what must become of me ?"

The charitable priest clapped an inquisitive eye upon Justine,

462 + T H E MARQlJ IS DE SADE

and made her answer, saying that the parish was heavily loaded ; that i t could not e asi ly take new charges unto its bosom, but that i f Justine wished t o sen"e him, i f she were prepared for hard toil , there would a lways be a crust of bread in his ki tchen for her. And a s he uttered those wo rds, the gods' interpreter chucked her under the chin ; the kiss he gave her bespoke rather too much worldliness for a man o f the church, and Justine, who had understood only too well , thrust him away. " Monsieur ," said she, "I a sk ne ither

' alms

of you nor a position as your scull ion ; it was all too recently I took leave of an estate lof:ier than that which might make those two favors desi rable ; I am not yet reduced to imploring them ; I am sol ic it ing advice when o f my youth and my misfo rtunes put me in need, and you would h ave me purchase i t a t an excessively inflated pr ice . " Ashamed thus to have been unmasked, the pastor promptly drove the l i ttle creatu ,e away, and the unhappy Justine, twice re­ j ected on the first day ·)f her condemnation to isolation, now enters a house above whose door she spies a shingle ; she rents a small chamber on the fourth floor, pays in advance for i t , and, once estab­ l ished, gives hersel f over to l amentations all the more bitter be­ cause she is sensitive and because her l i ttle pride has just been com­ p romised cruelly.

We will allow ou rselves to leave her in this state for a short while in order to return to Juliette and to rel a te how, from the very ordinary condition in which she sets forth, no better furni shed with resources than her s ister, she nevertheless attains, over a period of fi fteen years , the position o f a titled woman, with an in­ come o f thirty thousand p ounds, very h andsome j ewels , two or three houses in the c ity , as many i n the country and, a t the present moment, the heart , the fortune and the confidence o f Monsieur de Corville, Councilor to the State, an important man much esteemed and about to have a minister's post . Her rise was not, there can b e no question of it , unattended by difficulties : 'tis by way of the most shameful, most onerous apprenticeship that these ladies attain their obj ectives ; and ' t i s in all l ikel ihood a veteran of unnumbered campaigns one may find today abed with a Prince : perhaps she yet carries the humil iating marks of the brutal i ty of the libertines into whose hands her youth and inexperience flung her long ago.

Upon l eaving the convent, Juliette went to find a woman whose

Justine .. 463

name she had once heard mentioned by a youthful friend ; per­ verted was what she desired to be and this woman was to pervert her ; she arrived a t her house with a small parcel under her arm, clad in a blue dressing gown nicely disarrayed, her hair straggling carelessly about, and showing the prettiest face in the world, if i t i s true that for certain eyes indecency may have its charms ; she told her story to this woman and begged her to afford her the sanctuary she had p rovided her former friend.

"How old are you ?" Madame Duvergier demanded. " I wil l be fi fteen in a few days , Madame," Juli ette replied. "And never ha th mortal . . . " the matron continued . "No, Madame, I swear i t ," answered Juliette. "But, you know, in those convents ," said the old dame, "some­

times a confessor, a nun, a companion . . . I must have conclusive evidence . "

"You have bu t to look for i t , " Juliette repl ied with a blush. And, having put on her spectacles , and having scrupulously

examined things here and there, the duenna declared to the girl : "Why, you've only to remain here, pay strict attention to what

I say, give proof of unending complaisance and submissiveness to my practices, you need but be clean, economical , and frank with me, be prudent with your comrades and fraudulent when deal ing with men, and before ten years' time I shall have you fit to occupy the best second-sto ry apartment : you'll have a commode, p ier-glass mir­ rors before you and a maid behind, and the art you will have acquired from me will give you wha t you need to p rocure yourself the rest ."

These suggestions having left her l ips , Duvergier l ays hands on Juliette ' s l i ttle parcel ; she asks her whether she does not have some money, and Juliette having too candidly admitted she had a hundred crowns, the dear mother confiscates them, giving her new boarding guest the assu rance her l i ttle fortune will be chanced at the lottery for her, but that a girl must not have money. "It i s ," says she, " a means to doing evil, and in a per iod as corrupt a s ours, a wise and well-born girl should carefully avoid all which might lure her into any snares . I t i s for your own good I speak, my l ittle one ," adds the duenna , "and you ought to be grateful for what I am doing."

464 + THE MARQU IS DE SADE

The sermon delh'ered, the newcomer is introduced to her colleagues ; she i s assigned a room in the house , and on the next day her maidenhead is put en sale .

Within four mon :hs the merchandise i s sold successively to about one hundred buyers ; some a re content with the rose, others more fastidious o r mo re depraved ( for the question has not yet been decided ) wish to bring to full flower the bud that grows adj acently. After each bout, Duvergi er makes a few tai lor 's re­ adjustments and for f,)Ur months i t i s always the p ri stine fru its the rascal puts on the block. Finally, at the end of this harassing novit iate, Juliette obtains a lay s ister's patents ; from this moment onward, she i s a recognized girl of the house ; thereafter she i s to share i n i ts profits and losses. Another apprenticeship ; if in the fi rst school, aside from 1 few extravagances, Juliette served N a ture, she altogether i gnores Nature 's laws in the second, where a com­ plete shambles is made I)f what she once had of moral behavio r ; the triumph she obtains in vice totally degrades her soul ; she feels th a t, h aving been born for crime, she must a t least comm i t it grandly and give over languishing in a subaltern's role, which, al­ though entailing the sane misconduct, although abasing her equally, brings her a slighter, a much sl ighter profit. She is found agreeable by an elderly gentleman , much debauched, who at fi rst has her come merely to attend to the affairs of the moment ; she has the skill to cause herself magnikently to be kept ; it is not long before she i s appearing at the the l ter , at p romenades, amongst the elite, the very cordon hieu of the Cytherean order ; she i s beheld, mentioned, desired, and the clever creature knows so well how to manage her affairs that in less than four years she ruins six men, the poorest of whom had an annuity of one hundred thousand crowns. Nothing more i s needed to make her reputation ; the blindness of fashionable p eople i s such that the more one of these creatures has demon­ strated her dishonesty, the more eager they are to get upon her l i s t ; i t seems that the degree o f her degradation and her corruption becomes the measure o f the sentiments they dare display for her.

Juli ette had just attained her twentieth year when a certain Comte de Lorsange, a gentleman out of Anj ou, about forty years o f age, became so captinted by her he resolved to bestow his name upon her ; he awarded her an income of twelve thousand pounds and

Justine .. 465

assured her of the rest of his fortune were he to be the first to die ; he gave her, as well , a house, servants, l ackeys, and the sort o f mundane cons ideration which, in the space o f two or three years, succeeded in causing her beginnings to be forgot.

It was at this point the fell Juli e tte , oblivious of all the fine feel ings that had been hers by birthright and good education, warped by bad counsel and dangerous books, spurred by the des ire to enj oy herself , but alone , and to have a name but not a singl e chain, bent he r attentions to th e culpable i d ea o f abridging he r husband's days. The odious proj ect once conceived, sh e consolidated her scheme during those dangerous moments when the physical aspcct i s fired by e thical error, instants when one refuses onesel f much less , for then nothing i s opposed to the i rregularity of vows or to the impetuosity of des ires , and the voluptuousness one ex­ periences is sharp and l ively only by reason of the number o f the restraints whence one bursts free, or their sanctity. The dream dissipated, were one to recover one's common-sense mood the thing would be of but mediocre import , 'tis the story of mental wrong­ doing ; everyone knows very well i t offends no one ; but, alas! one sometimes carr ies the thing a l i ttle farther. What, one ventures to wonder, what would not be the idea 's real izati on, if i ts mere ab­ stract shape has just exalted, has just so profoundly moved one ? The accursed reverie i s vivified , and its existence is a crime .

Fortunately for herself , Madame de Lorsange executed i t in such secrecy that she was sheltered from all pursu i t and with her husband she bur ied a l l traces of the fr ightful deed which pre­ cipitated him into the tomb.

Once again become free, and a countess, Madame de Lorsange returned to her former habits ; but, bel ieving herself to have some figure in the world, she put somewhat less of the indecent in her deportment. 'Twas no longer a kept gi rl , ' twas a rich widow who gave pretty suppers at which the Court and the C i ty were only too happy to be included ; in a word, we ha ve here a correct woman who , all the same, would to bed for two hundred louis, and who gave herself for five hundred a month .

Until she reached the age of twenty-six, Madame de Lorsange made further bri l l iant conquests : she wrought the financial downfall o f three foreign ambassadors , fou r Farmers-general , two b ishops, a

466 + THE MARQV lS DE SADE

cardinal , and three knights of the King's Order ; bu t as it is rarely one stops a fter the firs � offense, especi ally ,,,hen it has tu rned out very happily, the unh lPPy Jul ie tte blackened herself with two addit ional cr imes s imil a r to the fi rst : one in order to plunder a lover who had entrusted a cc nsiderable sum to her, o f which the man's family had no intelli gence ; the other in o rder to capture a legacy o f one hundred thousand crowns another one o f her lovers granted her in the name o f a third, who was charged to pay her th at amount a fter h i s death. To these horrors M a dame de Lorsange added three o r four infanticides. Th e fear o f spoil ing her pretty figure , the de­ s ire to conceal a double intrigue , all combined to make her resolve to sti fl e the proof o f h �r debauches in her womb ; and these mis­ deeds, l ike the others , unknown, d id not p revent our adroit and am­ bitious woman from finding new dupes every day.

It is hence true tha t prosperi ty may attend conduct o f the very worst, and that in the nry thick o f disorder and corruption, all o f w h a t mankind calls happiness m a y s h e d i tself bounti fully upon l i fe ; but let this cruel and faral truth cause no alarm ; let honest folk be no more seriously torm�nted by the example we are going to pre­ sent o f disaster every'vhere dogging the heels o f Virtue ; this criminal fel ic ity i s decei, ing, i t i s seeming only ; independently o f the punishment most certair ly reserved by Providence for those whom success i n crime has sed uced, do they not nour i sh in the depths o f the i r soul a worm which unceas i ngly gnaws, prevents them from finding j oy in these ficti ve gleams of meretric ious well-being, and, instead o f delights, l eaves naught in their soul but the rending memory of the crimes which have led them to where they are ? \Vith what rega rds the luckle � s one fate pe rsecutes , he has his heart for h i s comfort, and the interi o r ecstas ies virtues procure bring him speedy restitution for the inj u stice o f men.

Such was the state )f affairs with M adame de Lo rsange when l\Ionsieur de Corvill e , , i fty, a notable wielding th e influence and possessing the p rivileges described further above, resolved entirely to sacrifice himself for this woman and to attach her to himself forever. vVhether than;\:s to dil igent attention, whether to ma­ neuver, whether to pol i c y on the part o f M adame de Lo rsange, he succeeded, and there had p a ssed fou r years during which he dwelt with her , entirely as if with a legit imate wife, when the acqui s i t ion

Ius tine 4- 467

of a very handsome property not far from Montargis obl iged both of them to go and spend some time in the Bourbonnais .

One evening, when the excellence of the weather had induced them to p rolong the ir stroll beyond the bounds of their estate and toward Montargis, too fatigued, both, to attempt to return home as they had left, they halted at the inn where the coach from Lyon stops , with the intention of sending a man by horse to fetch them a carriage. In a cool , low-ceil inged room in this house , looking out upon a courtyard, they took their ease and were resting when the coach we just mentioned drew up at the hostelry.

It i s a commonplace amusement to watch the arrival of a coach and the passengers' descent : one wagers on the sort of persons who are in it, and if one has gambled upon a whore, an officer, a few abbots and a monk, one is almost certain to win. Madame de Lorsange rises , Monsieur de Corville follows her ; from the window they see the well-j olted company reel into the inn. There seemed to be no one left in the c a rriage when an officer of the mounted constabulary, stepping to the ground, received in his arms, from one of his comrades poised high on top of the coach, a girl of twenty-six o r twenty-seven, dressed in a worn calico j acket and swathed to the eyes in a great black taffeta mantle . She was bound hand and foot like a criminal, and in such a weakened state, she would surely have fallen had her guards not given her support. A cry of surpr ise and horror escaped from Madame de Lorsange : the gi rl turned and revealed, together with the loveliest figure imag;inable, the most noble , the most agreeable, the most interesting visage, in br ief, there were there all the charms of a sort to please, and they were rendered yet a thous and times more p iquant by that tender and touching air innocence contributes to the traits of beauty.

Monsieur de Corville and his mistress could not suppress their interest in the miserable girl . They approached, they demanded of one of the troopers what the unhappy creature had done.

"She i s accused of three crimes, " repl ied the constable , " ' ti s a question of murder , theft and arson j but I wish to tel l your lord· ship that my comrade and I have never been so reluctant to take a criminal into custody ; she 's the most gentle thing, d'ye know, and seems to be the most honest too ."

"Oh, la ," sa id Monsieur de Corville , " i t might easily be one

468 .. T H E MARQUIS DE SADE

of those blunders so frequent in the lower courts . . . and where were these crimes comnitted ?"

"At an inn sever ll leagues from Lyon, it 's at Lyon she was tr ied ; in accordance wi th custom she's going to Paris for confirma­ tion of the sentence and then will be returned to Lyon to be exe­ cuted."

Madame de LOl sange, having heard these words , said in lowered voice to Monsieur de Corville, that she fa in would have from the girl ' s own l i p s the story of her troubles, and Monsieur de Corville, who was possessed o f the same desire , expressed it to the pair of guards and identified himself. The officers saw no reason not to oblige, everyor e decided to stay the night at Montargi s ; comfortable accomodations were called for ; Monsieur de Corville declared he would be r �sponsible for the prisoner, she was unbound, and when she had been given something to eat, Madame de Lor­ sange, unable to cont �ol her very great curiosity, and doubtless saying to herself , "This creature, perhaps innocent, i s , however, treated l ike a crimina l , whilst about me all i s prosperity . . . . I who am soiled with cr imes and horrors" ; Madame de Lorsange I say, as soon as she obs erved the poor gi rl to be somewhat restored, to some measure reass Jred by the caresses they hastened to bestow upon her , besought he � to tell how it had fallen out that she, with so very sweet a face , found herself in such a dreadful plight.

"To recount you the story of my l ife , Madame," this lovely one in distress said to the Countess, "is to offer you the most striking example of innocence oppressed, is to accuse the hand of Heaven, i s to bear complaint against the Supreme Being's will, i s , in a sense , to rebel against His sacred designs . . . . I dare not . . . . " Tears gathered in thi s interesting girl ' s eyes and, a fter having given vent to them for a moment, she began her recitation in these terms.

Permit me to conceal my name and birth, Madame ; without being illustrious, they are distinguished, and my origins did not destine me to the hum il iation to which you see me reduced. vVhen very young I lost my parents ; provided with the slender inheri tance they had left me, I th.)ught I could expect a suitable position and, refusing to accept all those which were not, I gradually spent, at Paris where I was bon, the l i ttle I possessed ; the poorer I became,

Jus tine .. 469

the more I was despised ; the greater became my need of support , the less I was able to hope for it ; but from amongst al l the severi­ ti e s to which I was exposed at the beginning of my woeful career, from amongst all the terrible proposals that were made me, I will cite to you what befell me at the home of Monsieur Dubourg, one of the capital 's richest tradesmen. The woman with whom I had lodgings had recommended him to me as someone whose influence and wealth might be able to melior�.te the harshness of my situation ; after having waited a very long time in this man's antechamber, I was admitted ; Monsieur Dubourg, aged forty-eight, had just risen out of bed, and was wrapped in a dressing gown which barely hid his disorder ; they were about to p repare his coiffure ; he dismissed his servants and asked me what I wanted with him.

"Alas , Monsieur ," I sa id, greatly confused, "I am a poor orphan not yet fourteen years old and I have already become famil iar with every nuance of mi sfortune ; I implore your com­ miseration, have p i ty upon me, I beseech you ," and then I told in detail o f all my ills , the difficulty I was having to find a place, per­ haps I even mentioned how pa inful i t was for me to have to take one, not having been born for a menial 's condition. My suffering throughout i t all , how I exhausted the little substance I had . . . failure to obtain work, my hope he would facilitate matters and help me find the wherewithal to live ; in sum, I said everything that i s dictated by the eloquence of wretchedness , always swift to rise in a sensitive soul. . . . After having l istened to me with many dis­ tractions and much yawning, Monsieur Dubourg a sked whether I had always been well-behaved. " I should be neither so poor nor so embarrassed, Monsieur," I answered him, "had I wished to cease to be."

" But," said Dubourg upon hearing that, "but what right have you to expect the wealthy to relieve you if you are in no way useful to them ?"

"And of what service are you speaking, Monsieur ? I asked nothing more than to render those decency and my years will permit me fulfill ."

"The services o f a child like yourself are of no great use in a household, " Dubourg repl ied to me. "You have neither the age nor the appearance to find the place you are seeking. You would

470 .. T H E MARQU :S DE SADE

be be tter advised to occupy yourself with giving men pleasure and to labor to d iscover someone who will consent to take care of you ; the virtue whereof you make such a conspicuous display is worthless in this world ; in vain wi l l you genuflect before i ts altars, i ts ridicu­ lous incense will nouri ,h you not at all. The thing which least flatters men, that which makes the least favorable impression upon them, for which they h" ve the most supreme contempt, i s good be­ havior in your sex ; here on earth, my child, nothing but what brings in gain or insures powe � is accounted ; and what does the virtue of women profit us I It i s their wantonness which serves and amuses us ; but their chastity could not interest us less. When, to be brief , per­ sons of our sort give, i t i s never except to receive ; well , how may a l i ttle girl like yourself show gratitude for what one does for her if i t i s not by the most complete surrender of all that i s desired of her body I "

"Oh, M onsieur," ] replied, grown heavy o f heart and uttering a sigh, "then uprightness and benevolence are to be found in man no longer ! "

"Precious l i ttle, " Dubourg rejoined. "How can you expect them still to exist a fter al l the wise things that have been said and written about them ? Vve have rid ourselves of this mania o f obliging others gratui tously ; i t was recognized that charity's p leasures are nothing hlt sops thrown to pride , and we turned our thoughts to stronger sensations ; i t has been noticed, for example, that with a child l ike you, i t i s infinitely preferable to extract, by way of dividends upon one's investment, all the pleasures lechery i s able to offer-much better these delights than the very insipid and futile ones sa id to come of the dis interested giving of help ; his reputation for being a l iberal man, an alms-giving and generous man, i s not, even at the instant when he most enjoys it , comparable to the slightest sensual pleasure ."

"Oh, Monsieur, in the l ight of such principles the miserable must therefore perish I"

"Does i t matter ? We have more subj ects in France than are needed ; given the mech:tnism's e lastic capacities for production, the State can easily afford :o be burdened by fewer people ."

"But do you suppose children respect the ir fathers when they a re thus despised by the:n ?"

Jus tine + 47 1

"And what to a father is the love of the children who are a nuisance to him ?"

"Would i t then have been better had they been strangled in the cradle ?"

"Certainly, such is the p ractice in numerous countries ; i t was the custom of the Greeks, i t i s the custom in China : there, the offspring of the poor are exposed, or are put to death. What i s the good of letting those creatures l ive who, no longer able to count upon their parents' aid either beco.use they are without parents or because they are not wanted or recognized by them, henceforth are useful for nothing and simply weigh upon the State : that much surplus commodity, you see , and the market i s glutted already ; bastards, orphans, malformed infants should be condemned to death immediately they are pupped : the first and the second be­ cause, no longer having anyone who wishes or who i s able to take care of them, they are mere dregs which one day can have nothing but an undesirable effect upon the society they contaminate ; the others because they cannot be of any usefulness to it ; the one and the other of these categories are to society what are excrescences to the flesh , battening upon the healthy members' sap, degrading them, enfeebling them ; or, i f you prefer, they are like those vegetable paras i tes which, attaching themselves to sound plants, cause them to deteriorate by sucking up their nutritive juices. It's a shocking outrage, these alms destined to feed scum, these most luxuriously appointed houses they have the rna dness to construct quite as if the human species were so rare , so p recious one had to preserve i t down to i ts l a s t vile portion ! Bu t enough of politics whereof, my child, you are not l ikely to understand anything ; why lament your fate ? for it is in your power, and yours only, to remedy it ."

"Great Heavens ! at the price of what ! " "At the price o f a n illusion, o f something that has none but the

value wherewith your pride invests it. \Vell , " continued this barbarian, getting to his feet and opening the door, "that i s all I can do for you ; consent to it , or deliver me from your presence ; I have no fondness for beggars . . . . "

My tears flowed fast, I was unable to check them ; would you believe it, Madame ? they irritated rather than melted this man. He shut the door and, se iz ing my dress at the shoulder, he said most

472 + THE MARQt"IS DE SADE

brutally he was going to force from me what I would not accord him voluntarily. At this cruel moment my misery endowed me with courage ; I freed myself from his grasp and rushed toward the door :

"Odious man," sa i d I as I fled from him, "may the Heaven you have so grievously offended some day punish your execrable heartlessness as i t merits to be. You are worthy neither of the riches you have put to ! .uch vile use, nor of the very air you breathe in a world you defile with your barbarit ies ."

I lost no time telli ng my hostess of the reception given me by the person to whom she had sent me ; but what was my astonishment to have this wretch bel abor me with reproaches rather than share my sorrow.

"You idiotic chit ! " said she in a great rage, "do you imagine men are such great dupes as to dole out alms to l i ttle girls such as you without requi ring something for their money ? Monsieur Dubourg's behavior was far too gentle ; in his place I should not have allowed you to leave without having had satisfaction from you . But since you do not care to profit from the aid I offer you, make your own a rrangements as you please ; you owe me money : pay it tomorrow ; otherwise , i t 's to j ai l ."

"

" M a dame, have p . ty-" "Yes, yes, p i ty ; one need only have p i ty and one starves to

death." " But what would y ou have me do ?" "You must go back to Dubourg ; you must appease him ; you

must bring home money to me ; I will visit him, I will give him notice ; i f I am able , I 'll repa ir the damage your stupidity has caused ; I will convey your apologies, but keep i t in mind, you had better improve your conduct. "

Ashamed, desper�te, knowing not which way to turn, seeing myself savagely repuls �d by everyone , I told M adame Desroches ( that was my landlady s name ) that I had decided to do whatever had to be done to satis l :y her . She went to the financier 's house and upon her return advised me that she had found him in a very i rritable mood, that i t had not been without an effort she had managed to incline him in my favor, that by dint o f supplications she had a t least persuaded him to see me again the following

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morning, but that I would have to keep a strict watch over my be­ havior, because , were I to take it into my head to disobey him again, he himself would see to it I was imprisoned forever.

All atremble, I arrived j Dubourg was alone and in a state yet more indecent than on the previous day. B rutality, l ibertinage, all the characteristics of the debauchee gli ttered i n his cunning glances.

"Thank Desroches ," he said ha rshly, " for it is as a favor to her I intend to show you an instant ' s kindness ; you must surely be aware how l i ttle you deserve it after your performance yesterday. Undress yourself and if you once again manifest the least resistance to my desires, two men, waiting for you in the next room, will conduct you to a place whence you will never emerge alive."

"Oh Monsieu r , " say I , weeping, clutching the wicked man's knees, "unbend, I beseech you j be so generous as to relieve m e without requiring what would be so costly I should rather offer you my life than submit to i t . . . . Yes, 1 p refer to die a thousand times over than violate the principles I received in my childhood . . . . Monsieur, Monsieur, constrain m e not, I entreat you ; can you conceive of gleaning happiness in the depths of tears and disgust ? Dare you suspect pleasure where you see naught but loathing ? N o sooner shall you have consummated your crime than m y despair will overwhelm you with remorse . . . . "

But the infamies to which Dubourg abandoned himself pre­ vented me from continuing ; that I was able to h ave believed myself capable of touching a man who was already finding, in the very spectacle of my suffering, one further vehicle for his horrible pas­ sions l Would you believe i t , Madame ? becoming inflamed by the shrill accents of my pleadings, savoring them inhumanly, the wretch disposed himself for h is criminal a ttempts I He gets up, and ex­ hibiting himself to me in a state over which reason i s seldom triumphant, and wherein the opposition of the obj ect which causes reason's downfall i s but an additional a ilment to delirium, he seizes me brutally, impetuously snatches away the veils which still conceal what he burns to enjoy ; he caresses me . . . . Oh ! what a p icture, Great God I What unheard-of mingling o f harshness . . . and lewdness I I t seemed that the Supreme Being wished, in that first of my encounters, to imprint forever i n me all the horror I was to have for a kind o f crime whence there was to be born the torrent

474 + T H E MARQUIS DE SADE

of evils tha t have besl!t me since. But must I complain of them ? No, needless to say ; to h i s excesses l owe my salvation ; had there been less debauchery ir him, I were a ruined girl ; Dubourg's fl ames were extinguished in d.e fury of his enterprises, Heaven intervened in my behalf against the monster before he could commit the o f­ fenses he was readying for , and the loss of his powers, before the sacrifice could occur , p 'eserved me from being i ts victim.

The consequence was Dubourg became nothing i f not more insolent ; he laid upon me the blame for his weakness' mistakes, wanted to repair them with new outrages and yet more morti fying invectives ; there was Lothing he did not say to me, nothing he did not attempt, nothing h is perfidious imaginat ion, h i s adamantine character and the depravation of his manners did not lead him to undertake. My clumsiness made him impatient : I was far from wishing to participa te n the thing, to lend myself to it was as much as I could do, my remclrse remained l ively. However, it was all for naught , submitting to Lim, I ceased to inflame him ; in vain he passed successively from tenc e rness to rigor . . . from grovel ing to tyr­ anny . . . from an a i r of decency to the profl igate 's excesses , in vain, I say , there was nothing for i t , we were both exhausted, and happi ly he was unable to recov er what he needed to del iver more dangerous assaults . He gave it up, made me promise to come the next day, and to be sure o f me he r< :fused absolutely to give me anything above the sum l owed Desr oches . Greatly humi l iated by the adventure and firmly resolved, " hatever might happen to me, not to expose myself a third time, I returned to where I was lodging. I announced my intentions to Desroches, pa id her, and heaped maledictions upon the criminal capable of so cruelly exploit ing my misery. But my imprecations, far frorr drawing the wrath of God down upon him, only added to his goe d fortune ; and a week la ter I learned thi s s ignal l ibertine had jut obtained a general trusteeship from the Government, ",:hich would augment h i s revenues by more than five hundred thousand pounds per annum. I was absorbed in the reflec­ tions such unexpected nconsistencies of fate inevitably give rise to, when a momentary ray of hope seemed to shine in my eyes.

Desroches carne to tel l me one day that she had finally located a house into which I c ould be received with pleasure provided my comportment remained of the best. "Great Heaven, Madame ," I

Jus tine + 47 5

cried, transported, throwing myself into her arms, " that condition is the one I would stipulate myself-you may imagine how happy I am to accept i t ." The man I was to serve was a famous Parisian usurer who had become rich, not only by l ending money upon col­ l a teral , but even by stealing from the publ ic every time he thought he could do so in safety. He lived in the rue Quincampoix, had a thi rd-story flat , and shared it with a creature of fi fty years he called his wife and who was a t least as wicked as he.

"Therese ," this miser said to me ( such was the name I had taken i n order to hide my own ) , "Therese , the primary virtue in this house i s probity ; if ever you make off with the tenth part of a penny, I 'l l have you hanged, my child, d'ye see . The modest ease my wife and I enj oy i s the fruit o f our immense labors, and of our perfect sobriety . . . . Do you eat much, l ittle one ?"

"A few ounces of bread each day , Monsieur ," I replied, "water, and a l i ttle soup when I am lucky enough to get it ."

"Soup I Bleeding Christ ! Soup ! Behold, deary, " said the usurer to his dame, "behold and tremble a t the progress of luxury : i t' s looking for ci rcumstances , it 's been dying o f hunger for a year, and now it wants to eat soup ; we sca rcely have i t once a week, on Sunday, we who work like galley slaves : you'll have three ounces of bread a day, my daughter, plus half a bottle of river water, plus one of my wife ' s old dresses every e ighteen months , plus three crowns' wages at the end of each year, if we are content with your services, if your economy responds to our own and if, finally, you make the house prosper through orderliness and arrangement. Your dutie s a re mediocre, they' re done in jig time ; 'tis but a question of washing and cleaning this six-room apartment thrice a week, of making our beds, answering the door, powdering my wig, dressing my wife 's ha ir , looking a fter the dog and the parakeet, lending a hand in the kitchen, washing the utensils , helping my wife whenever she prepares us a bite to eat , and daily devoting four or five hours to the washing, to mending stockings , hats, and other li ttle house­ hold odds and ends ; you observe, Therese, 'tis nothing at all , you will have ample free time to yourself , we will permit you to employ it to your own interest, provided, my child, you are good, discreet and, above all , thri fty, th at 's of the essence . "

You may readily imagine, :M adame, that one had to be in the

476 + THE MARQ U I S DE SADE

frightful state I indeed ,,'as in to accept such a position ; not only was there infini tely more work to be done than my strength per­ mitted me to undertake, c ut should I be able to live upon what was offered me ? However, I was careful to raise no difficult ies and was instal led that same evening.

Were my cruel si tua tion to permit me to amuse you for an instant, Madame, when I must think of nothing but gaining your compass ion, I should dare describe some of the symptoms of avarice I witnessed while n that house ; but a catastrophe so terrible for me was awai ting me :luring my second year there that i t i s by no means easy to linger over entertaining details before making you acquainted with my miseries .

Nevertheless, you 'vill know, Madame, that, for l ight in Monsieur du Harpin 's a Jartment, there was never any but what he got from the street lamp which, happily, was placed opposite his room ; never did 1'vfonsie l lr or Madame use linen ; what I washed was hoarded away, i t was never touched ; on the sleeves of Mon­ s ieur 's coat , as well as c pon Madame' s dress , were old gauntlet cuffs sewn over the mater ia l , and these I removed and washed every Saturday evening ; no sheets ; no towels, and that to avoid laundry expenses. Never was wine drunk in her house , clear water being, declared Madame du Harpin , the natural drink of man, the healthiest and least dan �erous . Every time bread was sl iced, a basket was put beneath th e kni fe so that whatever fell would not be lost ; into th is conta iner went , a lso , and with exactitude all the scraps and leavings th at might survive the meal , and this com­ pound, fried up on Sunday together with a l i ttle butter, made a banquet for the day of rf s t ; never was one to beat clothing or too energetically dust the furniture for fear of wearing i t out, instead, very cautiously, one tickl ed about with a feather. Monsieur 's shoes, and Madame's as well , " ere double-soled with iron, they were the same shoes that had served them on the ir wedding day ; but a much more unusual custom ,vas the one they had me practice once a week : there was in the apartment a rather la rge room whose walls were not papered ; I was expec ted to take a kni fe and scrape and shave away a certain quantity c ,f plaster, and this I next passed through a fine s ieve ; what resulted from thi s operation became the powder wherewith every morning I sprinkled Monsieur 's peruke and

Justine .. 477

Madame's hair , done up in a bun. Ah I wouldst to God those had been the only turpitudes of which this evil pair had made habits 1 Nothing's more normal than the desire to conserve one's property ; but what i s not normal i s the desire to augment i t by the accession of the property of others. And i t was not long before I perceived that i t was only thus du Harpin acquired his wealth.

Above us there lodged a solitary individual of considerable means who was the owner of some handsome j ewels, and whose belongings, whether because of their proximity or because they had passed through my master 's hands, were very well known to him ; I o ften heard him express regrets to his wife over the loss of a certain gold box worth fifty or sixty louis, which a rticle would infallibly have remained his , said he, had he proceeded with greater clever­ ness. In order to console himself for the sale of the said box, the good Monsieur du Harpin p roj ected i ts theft, and it was to me he entrusted the execution of his plan.

After having delivered a long speech upon the indifference of robbery , upon, indeed, i ts usefulness in the world, since i t maintains a sort of equilibrium which totally confounds the inequality of property ; upon the infrequence o f punishment, since out of every twenty thieves i t could be p roven that not above two dies on the gallows ; a fter having demonstrated to me, with an erudition of which I had not dreamt Monsieur du Harpin capable, that theft was honored throughout Greece, that several races yet acknowledge it , favor it , and reward i t for a bold deed simultaneously giving proof of courage and skill ( two virtues indispensable to a warlike nation ) , a fter having, i n a word, exalted his personal influence which would extricate me from all embarrassments i n the event I should be detected, Monsieur du Harpin tendered me two lock picks, one to open the neighbor 's front door, the other his secretary within which lay the box in question ; incessantly he enj oined me to get him this box and, in return for so important a service, I could expect, for two years , to receive an additional crown.

"Oh Monsieur I" I exclaimed, shuddering at his proposal, " i s i t possible a master dare thus corrupt his domesti c I What prevents me from turning against you the weapons you put into my hands ?

47 8 + THE MARQUIl DE SADE

and what defense will you have if someday I m ake you the victim of your own principles ?"

Du H a rpin , much confused, fell back upon a lame subterfuge : what he was doing, sa id he , was being done with the simple inten­ tion of testing me ; how fortunate that I had resisted this tempta­ tion, h e added . . . how I should have been doomed had I succumbed, etc. I scoffed a t this lie but I was soon enough aware of what a mi stake it had been to answer him with such asperity : malefactors do not l ike to find res is tance in those they seek to seduce ; unfor­ tunately, there is no middle ground or median a ttitude when one i s so unlucky a s t o h ave been approached b y them : one must neces­ sa rily thereupon becomt either their accomplices , which i s exceed­ ingly dangerous, or thei r enemi es , which is even more so. H a d I been a l i ttle exp e ri enced, I would have quit the house forthwith , but i t was already written in Heaven that every one o f the honest gestures tha t was to em anate from me would be answered by mis­ fortunes.

Monsieur du Harp n let more than a month drift by, that is to say, he waited until the e nd o f my second year with him, and waited without showing the lea st hint o f resentment at the refusal I had given him, when one eHning, having just retired to my room to taste a few hours of repose, I suddenly heard my door burst open and there, not without krror, I saw Monsieur du Harpin and four soldiers of the wa tch standing by my bed.

"Perform your duty, S irrah ," sa id he to the men o f the law, "this wretch has stoler from me a di amond worth a thousand crowns, you will find i t i 1 her chamber or upon her person, the fact i s certain."

" I have robbed you, Monsieur I " said I , sore troubled and springing from my bed, ' I ! Great Heaven ! Who knows better than you the contra ry to be true ! Who should be more deeply aware than you to what point I l oathe robbery and to what degree i t i s unth inkable I could have committed i t ."

But du Harpin ma le a great uproar to drown out my wo rds ; he continued to order perquisit ions, and the miserable ring was di scovered in my mattrc:ss. To evidence o f this strength there was nothing to reply ; I was :;e ized instantly, pinioned, and led to p rison

Justine ,� 479

without being able to prevail upon the authorities to listen to one word in my favor.

The trial of an unfortunate creature who has neither influence nor protection is conducted with dispatch in a land where virtue is thought incompatible wi th misery, where poverty i s enough to con­ vict the accused ; there, an unjust prepossession causes i t to be supposed that he who ought to have committed a crime did indeed commit i t ; sentiments are proport ioned according to the gui lty one 's estate ; and when once gold or ti tles are wanting to establish his innocence, the impossibility that he be innocent then appears self­ evident.l

I defended myself, i t did no good, in vain I furnished the best material to the lawyer whom a protocol of form required be given me for an instant or two ; my employer accused me, the diamond had been discovered in my room ; i t was plain I had stolen it . When I wished to describe Monsieur du Harpin's awful traffic and prove that the misfortune that had struck me was naught but the fruit of his vengeance and the consequence of his eagerness to be rid of a creature who, through possession of his secret, had become his master, these pleadings were interpreted as so many recriminations, and I was informed that for twenty years Monsieur du Harpin had been known as a man of integrity, incapable of such a horror. I was transferred to the Concierger ie , where I saw myself upon the brink of having to pay with my l i fe for having refused to participate in a crime ; I was shortly to perish ; only a new misdeed could save me : Providence willed that Crime serve at least once as an aegis unto Virtue, that crime might preserve it from the abyss which is some­ day going to engulf j udges together with thei r imbecil i ty.

I had about me a woman, probably forty years old, as cele­ brated for her beauty as for the variety and number of her vil­ lainies ; she was called Duboi s and, like the unlucky Therese, was on the eve of paying the capi tal penalty, but as to the exact form of it the judges were yet mightily perplexed : having rendered her­ self guilty of every imaginable crime, they found themselves virtu­ ally obliged to invent a new torture for her, or to expose her to one whence we ordinarily exempt our sex. Thi s woman had become

1 0 ages yet to come ! You shall no longer be witness to these horrors and infamies abounding !

480 .. T H E MARQUIS DE SADE

interested in me, criminally interested without doubt, since the basis o f her feel ings, as I learned a fterward, was her extreme desire to make a p roselyte of me.

Only two days from the t ime set for our execution, Dubois came to me ; i t was at night. She told me not to lie down to sleep, but to stay near her side. vVithout attracting attention, we moved as close as we could to the prison door. "Between seven and eight," she said, "the Conciergt rie will catch fire, I have seen to i t ; no question about it , many people wil l be burned ; i t doesn' t matter, Therese ," the evil creature went on, "the fate of others must always be as nothing to u s wher our own lives are at stake ; well, we are going to escape here, of that you can be sure ; four men-my con­ federates-wil l jo in us and I guarantee you we will be free ."

I have told you, Madame, that the hand of God which had just punished my innocence, employed cr ime to protect me ; the fire began, i t spread, the bla ze was horrible, twenty-one persons were consumed, but we made a successfu l sally. The same day we reached the cottage of a poacher, an intimate friend of our band who dwelt in the forest of Bondy.

"There you are , Therese ," Duboi s says to me, "free. You may now choose the kind of l i fe you wish, but were I to have any advice to give you, it would be t� renounce the practice of virtue which, as you have noticed, i s the courting of disaster ; a misplaced delicacy led you to the foot o f the scaffold, an appall ing crime rescued you from i t ; have a look abO\; t and see how useful are good deeds in this world, and whether i t i s really worth the trouble immolating your­ self for them. Therese, you are young and attractive, heed me, and in two years I 'l l have led you to a fortune ; but don ' t suppose I am going to guide you there along the paths of vi rtue : when one wants to get on, my dear girl, one must stop at nothing ; decide, then, we have no security in this cottage, we've got to l eave in a few hours."

"Oh Madame ," I said to my benefactress, "I am greatly in­ debted to you , and am far from wishing to disown my obligations ; you saved my l i fe ; in my view, ' t i s frightful the thing was achieved through a crime and, bt lieve me, had I been the one charged to commit it , I should have preferred a thousand deaths to the anguish o f participating in i t ; I am aware of all the dangers I risk in trusting myself to the honest se 1timents which will always remain in my

Justine + 48 1

heart ; but whatever be the thorns o f virtue , Madame, I prefer them unhesitatingly and always to the perilous favors which are cr ime's accompaniment. There are rel igious principles with in me which, may it please Heaven, will never desert me ; if Providence renders difficult my career in life, 'tis in order to compensate me in a better world. That hope is my consolat ion, it sweetens my griefs, i t soothes me i n my sufferings, i t fortifies me in distress , and causes me confidently to face all the i l ls i t pleases God to vis it upon me. That j oy should stra ightway be extinguished in my soul were I perchance to besmi rch it with crime , and together with the fear of chastisements i n th i s world I should have the painful anticipation of torments in the next, which would not for one instant procure me the tranquil l i ty I th irst a fter. "

"Those are absurd doctrines which will have you on the dung heap in no time , my gid ," sa id Dubois with a frown j "bel ieve me : forget God's justice, His future puni shments and rewards, the lot of those plat itudes lead us nowhere but to death from starvation. 0 Therese , the callousness of the Hich l egitimates the bad conduct of the Poor ; l e t them open their purse to our needs , l e t humaneness reign in their hearts and virtues wil l take root in ours ; but as long as our misfortune, our patient endurance of it, our good faith, our abjection only serves to double the weight of our chains, our crimes will be their doing, and we will be fools indeed to abstain from them when they can lessen the yoke wherewith their cruelty bears us down. Nature has caused us all to be equals born, Therese j i f fate i s pleased to upset the primary scheme o f the general law, i t i s u p t o us to correct i t s caprices a nd through our skill t o repa i r the usurpa tions o f the strongest . I love to hear these rich ones, these t itl ed ones , these magistrates and these priests , I love to see them preach virtue to us. I t i s not very difficult to forswear theft when one has three or four times wh;J. t one needs to live ; i t i s not very necessary to plot murder when one i s surrounded by nothing but adulators and thralls unto whom one's will i s law ; nor i s it very hard to be temperate and sober when one has the most succulent dainties constantly within one's reach j they can well contrive to be sincere when there i s never any apparent advantage i n falsehood . • . . But we, Therese, we whom the barbar ic Providence you are mad enough to i doli ze , has condemned to sl ink in the dust of humiliation

482 4 THE MARQUIS DE SADE

as doth the serpent in gri SS , we who are beheld with disdain only because we are poor , who are tyrannized because we are weak ; we, who must quench our thi rst with gall and who, wherever we go, tread on the thistle alway ; , you would have us shun crime when i ts h and alone opens up unto us the door to l ife , maintains us i n i t, and is our only protection when our l i fe i s threatened ; you would have it that , degraded and in f ,erpetual abj ection, while this class domi­ nating us has to i tself all the blessings of fortune , we reserve for ourselves naught but pain, bea tings, suffering, nothing but want and tears , b randings and the gibbet . No, no, Therese, no ; e i ther this Providence you reverence i s made only for our scorn, or the world we see about us i s not a t a ll what Providence would have i t . Become better acquainted with your Providence, my chi ld , and be con­ vinced that as soon as it F laces us in a s i tuation where evil becomes necessary, and while a t th e same time i t le aves us the possibil ity of doing i t , th i s evil harmon izes quite as well with i t s decrees a s does good, and Providence gains as much by the one as by the other ; the state in which she has created us i s equal i ty : he who di sturbs i s no more guilty than he who ;eeks to re-establ i sh the balance ; both act i n accordance with receiv �d impulses , both have to obey those im­ pulses and enj oy them."

I must confess that i f ever I was shaken i t was by th i s clever woman's seductions ; but 1 yet stronger vo ice , that of my heart to which I gave heed, combatted her sophistri e s ; I declared to Dubois that I was determined neve r to allow myself to be corrupted. "Very well !" she repli ed , "become what you wish, I abandon you to your sorry fate ; but if ever YOl get yourself hanged, which i s an end you cannot avoid , thanks to the fatal ity which inevi tably saves the criminal by sacrificing the virtuous, a t least remember before dying never to mention us ."

vVhile we were argu ing thus , Dubois' four companions were drinking with the poache r, and a s wine d isposes the male factor 's heart to new crimes and causes him to forget h is old, our bandits no sooner l earned of my resolution than, unable to make me their accomplice , they dec ided to make me their victim ; their principles , the ir manners, the dark retreat we were in, the security they thought they enjoyed, th �ir drunkenness , my age, my innocence­ everything encouraged th �m. They get up from table , they confer in

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whispers , they consult Duboi s , doings whose lugubrious mystery makes me shiver with horror, and at las t there comes an order to me then and there to sat isfy th e des ires of each of the four ; i f I g o t o i t cheerfully, e a c h will give me a crown t o h e l p me along my way ; if they must empl oy violence , the thing wil l be done all the same ; but the better to guard thei r secret, once finished with me they will stab me, and will bu ry me at the foot of yonder tree.

I need not paint the effect th is cruel proposition had upon me, Madame, you will have no diffi culty understanding that I sank to my knees before Dubois , I besought her a second time to be my protectress : the low creature did bu t laugh at my tears :

"Oh by God ! " quoth she , "he r e ' s an unhappy l i ttle one. What ! you shudder before the obligation to serve four fine big boys one a fter another ? Listen to me," she added, after some refl ection, "my sway over these dear lads is sufficiently great for me to obtain a reprieve for you upon condition you render you rself worthy of i t ."

"Al a s ! Madame, what must I do ?" I cr ied through my tears ; "command me ; I am ready."

"Join us , throw in your lot with us , and commit the same deeds, without show of the least repugnance ; e i ther that , o r I can­ not save you from the rest ." I did not think myself in a position to hesitate ; by accepting thi s cruel condition I exposed myself to fu rther dangers, to be sure, but they were the less immediate ; per­ haps I might be able to avoid them, whereas nothing cou ld save me from those with which I was actua l:y menaced.

"I will go everywhere wi th you, M a dame , " was my prompt answer to Dubois, "everywhere , I p romise you ; shield me from the fury of these men and I shall never leave your s ide while I l ive ."

" Children ," Duboi s sa id to the four bandits , "this g ir l i s one o f the company, I am taking her into i t ; I ask you to do her no ill, don't put her stomach o ff the mhier during her first days in i t ; you see how useful her age and face can be to u s ; let ' s employ them to our a dvantage rather than sacrifice them to our pleasures ."

But such i s the degree of energy in man's passions nothing can subdue them. The p ersons I was deal ing with were in no state to heed reason : all four surrounded me, devoured me with their fiery glances, menaced me in a st i l l more terrible manner ; they were about to lay hands on me, I was abolJt to become their victim.

484 + T H E MARQ I ' I S DE SADE

"She h a s got to go through wi th i t ," one of them declared , " i t ' s too late for discu >sion : was she not told she must give proof o f vi rtues in order to �e admitted into a band o f thieves ? and once a l i ttle used, won't she be quite as serviceable as she i s while a virgin ?"

I am softening the ir expressions , you understand, Madame, I am sweetening the scene i tself ; alas ! their obscen i ties were such that your modesty mi ;�h t suffer a t least as much from beholding them unadorned as did my shyness .

A defenseless and trembl ing vict im, I shuddered ; I had barely strength to breathe ; kneeling before the qua rtet , I ra ised my feeble a rms as much to supplicate the men as to mel t Duboi s ' heart . . . .

"An instant ," sa id one who went by the name o f Coeur-de-fer and appeared to be the band's chief, a man of thirty-six years, of a bull ' s strength and b,!a ring th e face of a satyr ; "one moment, friends : i t may be pos� , ible to sat isfy everyone concerned ; since this l i ttle gi rl ' s virtue i s s( · p recious to her and since , as Dubois states i t very well , this qual i ty otherwise put into action could become worth something to m , let 's le ave i t to her ; but we have got to be appeased ; our mood is warm, Dubo i s , and in the state we are i n , d ' y e know, we might Jerhaps c u t you r own t h r o a t i f you w e r e t o stand between us and our pleasures ; l et ' s have Therese instantly strip as naked as the day she came into th e world , and next let ' s have her adopt one af ter the other al l the pos it ions we are pleased to call for , and meanwhile Dubois wi l l sate our hungers , we' l l burn our incense upon the , d tars ' entrance to which th i s creature refuses us. "

"Strip naked I " I exclaimed, "Oh He aven, what is it thou doth require o f me ? Wher I shall have del ivered myself thus to your eyes, who ,,,ill be abl e to answe r for me ? . . . "

But Coeur-de-fer , who seemed in no humor e i ther to grant me more o r to suspend hi � des ires , burst out with an oath and struck me i n a manner so brutal that I saw ful l well compl iance was my l ast resort. He put himself in Dubois ' hands, she having been put by h i s i n a disorder m o r e o r l e s s t h e equivalent of mine a n d , as s o o n a s I was as he des ired me to be , having made me crouch down upon all fours so that I rel,emble d a beast, Dubois took in hand a very

Justine + 485

monstrous obj ect and l ed i t to the peristyles of first one and then the other of Nature 's altars , and under her guidance the blows it del ivered to me here and there were l ike those of a battering ram thundering at the gates of a besieged town in olden days. The shock of the initial assault drove me back ; enraged, Coeur-de-fer threat­ ened me with harsher treatments were I to retreat from these ; Dubois is instructed to redouble h er efforts, one of the l ibertines grasps my shoulders and prevents me from staggering before the concussions : they become so fierce I am in blood and am able to avoid not a one.

"Indeed," stammers Coeur-de-fer , " in her place I'd p refer to open the doors rather than see them ruined this way, but she won't have i t , and we're not far from the capitulation . . . . Vigorously . . . vigorously, Dubois . . . . "

And the explosive eruption o f this debauchee 's flames, almost as violent as a stroke of l ightning, fl ickers and dies upon ramparts ravaged without being breached.

The second had me kneel between his legs and while Dubois administered to him as she had to the other, two enterprises ab­ sorbed h is enti re attention : sometimes he slapped, powerfully but in a very nervous manner, either my cheeks or my breasts ; some­ times his impure mouth fell to sucking mine. In an instant my face turned purple , my chest red . . . . I was in pain, I begged him to spare me, tears leapt from my eyes : they roused him, he accelerated his activities ; he bit my tongue , and the two strawberries on my breasts were so bruised that I slipped backward, but was kept from falling. They thrust me toward him, I was everywhere more furi­ ously harassed, and his ecstasy supervened . . . .

The third bade me mount upon and straddle two somewhat separated cha i rs and, seating himself betwixt them, excited by Dubois , lying in his arms, he had me bend until his mouth was directly below the temple of Nature ; never will you imagine, Madame, what this obscene mortal took i t into his head to do ; willy-nilly, I was obliged to satisfy his every need . . . . Just Heaven I what man, no matter how depraved, can taste an instant of pleasure in such things . . . . I did what he wished, inundated him, and my complete submission p rocured this foul man an intoxication o f which he wa s incapable without thi s infamy.

486 .. THE MARQU S DE SADE

The fourth attachc:d strings to all pa rts of me to which it was possible to t ie them, h,! held the ends in his hand and sat down seven or eight feet from my body ; Dubois ' touches and kisses ex­ cited him prodigiously ; I was standing erect : ' twas by sharp tugs now on this string, now on some other that the savage irritated h is pleasures ; I swayed, I l ·)st balance again and again, he fl ew into an ecstasy each t ime I tottc:red ; finally, he pulled al l the cords at once, I fell to the floor in front of him : such was his design : and my fore­ head, my breast, my cheeks received the p roofs of a delirium he owed to none but this mania.

That i s what I suffered, M adame, but at least my honor was respected even though my modesty assuredly was not. Their calm restored, the bandits spoke of regaining the road, and that same night we reached Tremblai wi th the intention of approaching the woods of Chantilly, where it was thought a few good prizes might be awaiting us.

Nothing equaled my despa ir at being obliged to accompany such p ersons, and I was only determined to p a rt with them a s soon as I could do so wi tho'lt r isk. The following day we lay hard by Louvres , sleeping under h aystacks ; I fel t in need of Dubois ' support and wanted to pass the night by her s ide ; but i t seemed she had planned to employ i t otherwise than protecting my vi rtue from the attacks I dreaded ; three of the thieves surrounded her and before my very eyes the abominable creature gave herself to all three simultaneously. The fourth approached me ; i t was the captain. "Lovely Therese , " sa id he , "I hope you shall not refuse me at least the pleasure of spendin g the night with you ?" and as he perceived my extreme unwillingness, " fear not," he went on ; "we'll have a chat together, and I wil l a ttempt nothing without your consent.

"0 Therese , " cried he, folding me in his arms, " ' ti s al l foolish­ ness, don' t you know, 1 :0 be so pretentious with us . Why are you concerned to guard you : · pu rity in our midst ? Even were we to agree to respect i t, could i t be compa tible with the interests of the band ? No need to hide i t from you, my dear ; for when we settle down in c i t i es , we count upon yc ,ur cha rms to snare us some dupes."

"Why, Monsieur ," I repl ied, " since i t is certain I should p refer death to these horrors, of what use can I be to you, and why do you oppose my fl igh t ?"

Jus tine .. 487

"We certainly do oppose i t, my girl," Coeur-de-fer rejoined, "you must serve either our pleasures or our interests ; your poverty imposes the yoke upon you, and you h ave got to adapt to it . But, Therese, and well you know it , there i s nothing in this world that cannot be somehow a rranged : so li sten to me, and accept the management o f your own fate : agree to live with me, dear girl, con­ sent to belong to me and be properly my own, and 1 will spare you the baneful role for which you are destined."

"1 , Sir , 1 become the mi stress o f a-" "Say the wo rd, Therese, out with i t : a scoundrel, eh ? Oh, 1

admit it , but 1 h ave no other titles to offer you ; that our sort does not ma rry you are doubtless well aware : marri age i s one of the sacraments Therese, and full of an undiscriminating contempt for them all, with none do we ever bothe r . Howeve r, be a l ittle reason­ able ; that sooner or later you lose what is so dear to you is an indispensable necessity, hence would i t not be better to sacrifice i t to a single man who thereupon will become your support and pro­ tector , is that not better, 1 say, than to be prostituted to everyone ?"

" But why must it be ," 1 repl ied, "that 1 have no other alter­ native ?"

" B ecause , Therese, we have got you , and because the stronger i s always the better reason ; La Fontaine made the remark ages ago. Truthfully ," h e continued rapidly, "is it not a ridicul ous extravagance to assign, a s you do, such a great value to the most futile o f all things ? How can a gi rl be so dull-witted as to beli eve that virtu e may depend upon the somewhat greater or lesser diameter o f one of her physical p arts ? What difference does i t make to God or man whether this part be intact o r tampered with ? 1 will go further : i t being the intention of Nature that each individual fulfill on this earth all o f the purposes for which he has been formed, and women existing only to provide pleasure for men, i t i s pla inly to outrage h e r thus to resist the intention she has in your regard. I t i s to wish t o be a creature useless in t h i s world a n d consequently one contemptible . This chimerical p ropriety, which they have had the absu rdity to present to you as a virtue and which, since infancy, far from being useful to Nature and society, is an obvious defiance of the one and the other , this propriety, I say, i s no more than a repre­ hensible stubbornness o f which a person a s mettl esome and full of

4 8 8 + T H E MARQl'lS DE SADE

intelligence as you should not wish to be guilty. No matter j con­ tinue to hear me out, dear girl, I am going to prove my desire to please you and to respect your weakness. I will not by any means touch that phantom, Therese, whose possession causes all your delight ; a gi rl has mOl e than one favor to give, and one can offer to Venus in many a temple j I will be content with the most mediocre ; you know, 'lly dear, near the Cyprean altar, there i s s i tuate an obscure grot into whose solitude Love retires, the more energetically to seduce us : such will be the altar where I will burn my incense ; no disadv antages there, Therese ; if pregnancies a f­ fright you, 'tis not in thi s manner they can come about, never will your pretty figure be deformed this way ; the maidenhead so cher­ ished by you will be preserved unimpai red, and whatever be the use to which you deci d e to put it , you can propose it unattainted. Nothing can betray a girl from this quarter, however rude or multiple the attacks may be ; as soon as the bee has left off sucking the pollen, the rose ' s calix closes shut again ; one would never imagine i t had been opened. There exist girls who have known ten years o f pleasure this way, even with several men, women who were just as much married a s anyone else after i t all , and on their wed­ ding n ights they prove d quite as vi rgin as could be wished. How many fathers, what a 'llultitude of brothers have thuswise abused the i r daughters and s is ' :ers without the latter having become on that account any the less worthy of a later hymeneal sacrifice I How many confessors have not employed the same route to satisfaction, without parents exper i ,!ncing the mildest disquiet ; in one word, ' ti s the mystery's a sylum, ' t i s there where i t connects itself w i th love by ties of prudence . . . . Need I tell you further, Therese, th at although this i s the most secret temple i t i s howbeit the most voluptuous ; what i s ne cessary to happiness is found nowhere else, and that easy vastnes ; native to the adj acent aperture falls far short of having the picuant charms of a locale into which one does not enter without eftor:, where one takes up one's abode only at the price of some trouble ; women themselves reap an advantage from it, and those whom rea ;;on compels to know this variety of pleasure , never pine after the others. Try it , Therese, try, and we shall both be contented."

"Oh Monsieur , " :: repl ied, "I have no experience of the thing ;

Jus tine + 489

but I have heard i t sa id that this perversion you recommend out­ rages women in a yet more sensitive manner . . . . I t more grievously offends Nature. The hand of Heaven takes its vengeance upon it in this world, Sodom provides the example ."

"What innocence, my dear , what childishness , " the libertine retorted ; "who ever told you such a thing ? Y ct a l ittle more atten­ tion, Then�se , l e t me proceed to rectify your ideas.

"The wasting of the seed destined to perpetuate the human species, dear girl , i s the only crime which can exist-such is the hypothesis ; according to it, this seed is put in us for the sole purpose of reproduction, and if tha t were true I would grant you that diverting it i s an offense. But once i t i s demonstrated that her situating this semen in our loins i s by no means enough to warrant supposing that Nature 's purpose i s to have all of i t employed for reproduction, what then does it matter, Therese, whether it be spilled in one place or in another ? Does the man who diverts i t perform a greater evi l than Nature who does not employ all of i t ? Now, do not those natural losses , wh ich we can imitate i f we please , occur i n an abundance of instances ? Our very ability to provoke them, firstly, is an init ial proof that they do not offend Nature in the slightest. It would be contrary to al l the equity and profound wisdom we everywhere recognize in her l aws for them to permit what might affront her ; secondly, those losses occur a hundred hundred million times every day, and she instigates them herself ; nocturnal pollutions, the inuti l i ty o f semen during the periods of woman's p regnancy, are they not au thorized by her laws, enjoined by them, and do they not prove that . very l i ttle concerned for what may result from th i s l i quid to which we so foolishly attach a dis­ proportionate value , she permits us its waste with the same indiffer­ ence she herself causes i t every day to be wasted ; she tolerates re­ production, yes, but much is wanting to prove reproduction is one of her intentions ; she lets us go ahead with our reproducing to be sure. but it being no more to her advantage than our abstaining therefrom, the choice we happen to make i s as one to her. I s i t not clear that leaving us the power to create, not to create, or to destroy, we will not delight her at all or disappoint her any more by adopting toward the one or the other the attitude which suits us best ; and what could be more se'f-evident than that the course

490 + THE MARQUIS DE SanE

we choose, being but the result of her power over us and the influ­ ence upon us of her ac tions, will far more surely please than i t will risk offending her. Ah, Therese I believe me, N ature frets very l i ttle over those mysteries we are great enough fools to turn into worship o f her. Whatever be the temple a t which one sacrifices, immedi­ a tely she allows incer se to be burned there , one can be sure the homage offends her in no wise ; refusals to p roduce, waste of the semen employed in pr oduction, the obli teration of that seed when it has germinated, the annihi lation of that germ even long after i ts forma ti on, all those , Therese, a re imaginary crimes wh ich are o f no interest to N a ture ane at which she scoffs as she does at all the rest o f our insti tutions which offend more o ften than they serve her ."

Coeur-de-fer wa xed warm whi le expounding his perfidious maxims, and I soon heheld him again in the state which had so terrified me the night before ; in order to give his lesson additional impact, he wished imtantly to jo in practice to p recep t ; and, my resistances notwithsta nding, h is hands strayed toward the altar i n to which the tra i to r wanted to p enetrate . . . . Must I declare , M adame, that , bl inded by the wicked man's seductions ; content, by yie lding a l i ttle , to save what seemed the more essential ; reflecting neither upon his casu i s tries' illogicalities nor upon what I was my­ se lf about to r i sk s ir ce the dishonest fellow, possessing gigantic proportions, had not even the possibi l ity to see a woman in the most permissible placf ' and since, urged on by his native pervers i ty, he most a ssuredly had no obj ect but to maim me ; my eyes as I say, perfectly blind to all that, I was going to abandon myself and become criminal through vi rtue ; my opposition was weakening ; a lready master of the throne, the insolent conqueror concentrated all h i s energies in order to establ i sh himself upon i t ; and then there was heard the sound o f a carriage moving along the highway. Upon the instant, Coeur-de- fer forsakes his pleasures for his duties ; he assembles his followers and flies to new crimes. Not long after­ ward, we hear cries, and those bandi ts, all bloodied over, return triumphant and laden with spoils .

"Let 's decamp smartly, " says Coeur-de-fer, "we've killed three men, the corpses are c ,n the road, we're safe no longer ." The booty i s divided, Coeur-de-f er wants me to have my share ; i t comes to twenty louis, which ] am compelled to accept. I tremble a t the

Jus tine ,� 49 1

obligation to take such money ; however, we are in a hurry, every­ one snatches up his belongings and off we go.

The next day we find ourselves out of danger and in the forest of Chantilly ; during supper , the men reckon what their latest operation has been worth to them, and evaluate the total capture a t no more than two hundred louis.

"Indeed, " says one of them, "it wasn't worth the trouble to commit three murders fo r such a l i ttle sum."

"Softly, my friends ," Dubo is answers , " i t was not for the sake of thei r purses I exhorted you not to spare those travelers, i t w a s solely in t h e interests o f o u r security ; t h e law' s t o be blamed for these crimes, the fault's not our s ; so long a s thieves are hanged like murderers, thefts shall never be committed without assassina­ tions. The two misdeeds are punished equally ; why then abstain from the second when i t may cover up the first ? \Vhat makes you suppose , furthermore ," the horri d creature continued, "that two hundred louis are not worth three kill ings ? One must never appraise values save in terms of our own interests . The cessation of the victims' existences i s as nothing comp ared to the continuation of ours, not a mite does i t matter to us whethe r any individual is alive o r in the grave ; consequently, i f one o f the two cases involves what in the smallest way a ffects our wel fare , we must , with perfect unre­ morse, determine the thing in our own favor ; for in a completely indifferent matter we should, if we have any wits and are ma ster o f the s ituation, undoubtedly act so as t o turn it t o the profitable s ide , ent irely neglecting whatever may befall our a dversary ; for there is no rational commensuration between what affects u s and what affects others ; the first we sense physically, the other only touches u s morally, and moral feelings are made to deceive ; none but physical sensa tions are authentic ; thus , not only do two hundred louis suffice for three murders , but even thi rty centimes would have sufficed, for those thirty cen times would have procured a satisfac­ tion which, although l i ght , must necessa rily affect us to a much more l ively degree than would three men murdered, who are nothing to u s , and by the wrongs done whom we are not in the least touched, no, not even scratched ; our o rganic feebleness, careless thinking, the accursed prejudices in which we were brought up, the vain terrors of religion and law, those are what hamper idiots and confound

492 + T H E MARQGI l DE SADE

the i r criminal careers , those are what prevent them from arriving at greatness ; but every sl rong and healthy individual , endowed with an energetically organized mind, who preferring himself to others, a s he must, will know h )w to weigh their interests i n the balance aga inst h i s own, wi l l la ugh God and mankind to the devi l , will brave death and mock a: the law, fully aware that i t i s to himsel f he must be fa i th ful , that by himself all must be measured, will sense that the vastest multitude of wrongs inflicted upon others cannot offset the least enj oymen t lost to himsel f or be as important as h i s s l ightest pleasure purchased by an unheard-of host of vi l la inies . Joy pleases him, it is in him , it is h i s own, crime 's effect touches him not, i s exter ior to him ; well , I ask, what thinking man will not prefer what causes his dclectat on to what i s al ien to him ? who will not consent to commit thi s deed whereof he experi ences nothing un­ pleasant, in order to procure what moves him most agreeably ?"

"Oh Madame," I sa id to Dubois , asking her leave to reply to her execrable sophi stri e s , "do you not at all feel that your damna­ tion is writ in what you have j u st uttered ? At the very most, such principles could only befit the person powerful enough to have nothing to dread from a :hers ; but we, 1\1 adame, perpetually in fear and humil i ated ; we, prc,scribed by all honest folk, condemned by every law, should we be the exponents of doctrines which can only whet the sword blade Sl spended above our heads ? Would we find ourselves in th is unhapp:l position were we in the center of society ; were we to be where, that i s to say, we ought to be , without our misconduct and delivered from our miser ies , do you fancy such maxims could be any me re fitting to us ? How would you have him not perish who through blind egoism wishes all alone to strive against the combined interests of others ? Is not soci ety r ight never to suffer in its midst the man who declares himsel f hostile to i t ? And can the isolated individllal fight against everyone ? Can he flatter himsel f he i s happy and tranquil if , refusing to submit to the socia l contract, he does not CO:l sent to give up a l i ttle o f his happiness to insure the rest ? Society i s maintained only by the ceaseless inter­ exchange o f considerati :ms and good works, those are the bonds which cement the edific( s ; such a one who instead of positive acts offers naught but crim es , having therefore to be dreaded, will necessarily be attacked f he i s the strongest, laid low by the first

Justine + 493

he offends i f he i s the weakest ; but destroyed at any rate, for there i s in man a powerful instinct which compels him to safeguard his peace and quiet and to strike whosoever seeks to trouble them ; that i s why the long endurance of criminal associations i s virtually impossible : their well-being suddenly confronted by cold steel, all the others must promptly unite to blunt the threatening point. Even amongst ourselves, Madame, I dare add ; how can you lull yourself into believing you can maintain concord amongst ourselves when you counsel each to heed nothing but his own self-interest ? Would you have any just complaints to make against the one of us who wanted to cut the throats of the others, who did so in order to monopolize for himself what has been shared by his col leagues ? Why, 't is a splendid panegyric to Virtue, to prove i ts necessity in even a criminal society . . . to prov,e for a certainty tha t this society would disintegrate in a trice were i t not sustained by Virtue I "

"Your obj ections, Therese ," said Coeur-de-fer, "not the theses Dubois has been expounding, are sophistries ; our criminal frater­ nities are not by any means sustained by Virtue ; rather by self­ interest, egoism, selfishness ; this eulogy of Virtue, which you have fabricated out of a false hypothesis , miscarries ; i t is not a t all owing to virtuousness that, believing myself, let us suppose, the strongest of the band, I do not use a dagger on my comrades in order to appropriate their shares, i t i s because, thereupon finding myself all alone, I would deprive myself of the means which assure me the fortune I expect to have with their help ; similarly, this i s the single motive which restrains them from l ifting their a rms against me. Now this motive, as you, Therese, perfectly well ob­ serve, is purely selfish, and has not even the least appearance of virtue j he who wishes to struggle alone against society ' s interests must, you say, expect to perish ; will he not much more certa inly perish i f, to enable him to exist therein, he has nothing but his misery and is abandoned by others ? What one terms the interest of society i s simply the mass of individual interests unified, but i t i s never o therwise than by ceding that th is private interest can accom­ modate and blend with the general interest j well, what would you have him cede who has nothing he can relinquish ? And he who had much ? Agree that he should see his error grow apace with the discovery that he was giving infinitely more than he was getting in

494 + THE MARQtr IS DE SADE

return ; and, such being the case , agree that the unfairness of the bargain should prevent him from concluding it . Trapped in this dilemma , the best thin� : remaining for thi s man, don't you agree, i s t o quit thi s unj ust socifty , t o go elsewhere, and to accord preroga­ tives to a different soc: ety of men who, placed in a situation com­ parable to his, have t le ir interest in combating, through the co­ ordination of the i r less ,�r powers, the broader authority that wished to extract from the poo r man what l i ttle he possessed in exchange for nothing a t all . But you will say, thence will be born a state of per­ petual warfare . Excellent ! i s that not the perpetual state of Nature ? Is i t not the only state ':0 which we are really adapted ? All men are born i sol ated, envious, cruel and despotic ; wishing to have every­ thing and surrender nothing, incessantly struggling to maintain e ither the i r r ights or achieve the i r ambition, the legislator comes up and says to them : Cease thus to fight ; i f each were to retreat a l ittle , calm would be -estored. I find no fault with the posit ion implic it in the agreemtnt, but I maintain that two species of indi­ viduals cannot and oug lt not submit to i t , ever ; those who feel they ar e the stronger have no need to give up anything in order to be happy, and those who find themselves the weaker also find them­ selves giving up infinit ely more than what i s assured them. How­ ever, society is only composed o f weak persons and strong ; well, i f the pact must perforc o : displease both weak and strong, there i s grea t cause to suppose i t will fa i l , to su i t soci ety, and the previously existing state of warfare must appear infini tely preferable, since i t permitted everyone the free exercise of his strength and h i s in­ dustry, whereof he would d iscover himself deprived by a society's unjust pact which take , too much from the one and never accords enough to the other ; h ence, the truly intelligent person i s he who, indifferent to the r isk of renewing the state of war that re igned prior to the contract, lashes out in i rrevocable violation of that contract, violates i t as much and often as he i s ab le , full certain that what he will gain from these ruptures will always be more important than what he will lose if he happens to be a member of the weaker class ; for s uch he was when he respected the treaty ; by breaking i t he may become one of the stronger ; and if the laws return him to the class whence he wished to emerge, the worst that can befall him i s the loss of h is l i fe , which i s a misfo rtune infinitely

Jus tine + 495

less great than that o f eXlstmg in opprobrium and wretchedness. There are then two positions available to us : e i ther crime, which renders us happy, or the noose, which prevents us from being unhappy. I ask whether there can be any hesitation, lovely Therese , and where will your l i ttle m ind find an a rgument ab l e to combat that one ?"

"Oh Monsieur," I repl ied with the vehemence a good cause inspires, "there are a thousand ; hut must this l i fe be man's unique concern ? I s th i s existence other than a passage each of whose stages ought only, if he i s reasonahle , to conduct him to that eternal fel ic ity, the pr ize vouchsafed by Virtue ? I suppose together with you ( but this, however, is rare , it conflicts with all reason's infor­ mations, but never mind ) , I will for an instant grant you that the vil la in who abandons himself to crime may be rendered happy by i t in this world, but do you imagine God's justice does no t await that dishonest man, that he will not have to pay in another world for what he does in thi s ? Ah ! think not the contrary, Monsieur, be­ l i eve it not ," T added, tears in my eyes , " 't i s the misfortunate one's sole consolation, take i t not away from us ; forsaken by man­ kind, who will avenge us i f not God jl"

"Who ? No one, Therese, absolutely no one ; i t i s in no wise necessary that the misfortunate be avenged ; they flatter themselves wi th the notion because they would like to be, the idea comforts them, but it is not on that account the less false : better still , it is essenti al that the misfortunate suffer ; thei r humiliat ion, their anguishes are included in what Nature decrees, and thei r miserable existence is useful to the general scheme , as i s that of the prosperity which crushes them ; such is the truth which should sti fl e remorse i n the tyrant's soul or in the malefactor ' s ; let him not constrain himsel f ; let him blindly, unthinkingly deliver himself up to causing every hurt the idea for which may be born in him, i t is only Nature 's voice which suggests this i dea ; such i s the only fashion in which she makes us her l aws' executors. When her secret inspirations dis­ pose us to evi l , i t i s evil she wishes , i t is evil she requires , for the sum of crimes not being complete, not sufficient to the l aws of equil ibrium, the only laws whereby she i s governed, she demands that there be crimes to dress the scales ; therefore let him not be afra id , let him not pause, whose brain i s d riven to concerting i l l ; let him

496 + THE MARQl IS DE SADE

unheeding commit wwng immediately he discerns the impulsion, it i s only by lagging and snufHing he outrages Nature. But let us ignore ethics for a moment, si nce i t ' s theology you want. Be advi sed then, young innocent, ":hat the rel i gion you fall back upon, being nothing but the relationship between man and God, nothing but the reverence the creature I:hinks himself obl iged to show his creator , i s annihilated instantly th s creator's existence is itself proven illusory.

"Primitive man, tt: rr ified by the phenomena which harried him, had necessarily to believe that a subl ime being unknown to him had the direction of thei r operation and influence ; i t is native to weak­ ness to suppose strength and to fear i t ; the human mind, then too much in its infancy to explore, to d iscover in Nature 's depths the laws of motion, the unique springs of the entire mechanism that struck him with awe, found i t simpler to fancy a motor in this N a­ ture than to view Nature as her own mover, and without considering that he would have to go to much more trouble to edify , to define thi s gigantic master, t han through the study of Nature to find the cau�e of what amazed him, he acknowledged this sovereign being, he elaborated ri tua ls to worship i t : from this moment each nation composed itsel f an overlord in conformance with its peculi ar characteristics , i t s kn01vledge, and i t s cl imate ; soon there were as many rel igions on earth a s races and peoples and not long a fter, as many Gods as families ; nevertheless , behind all these i dols i t was easy to recognize the same absurd il lusion, first fruit o f human blindness. They appareled it differently, but i t was always the same thing. Well , tell me, Therese, merely because these idiots talk drivel about the erection of a wretched chimera and about the mode of serving him, must it follow that an intell igent man has got to renounce the certain and present happiness of l i fe ; like Aesop' s dog, must he abandon the bone for the shadow and renounce his real j oys for hallucinations ? No , Therese, no, there is no God, Nature sufficeth unto herself ; i n no wise hath she need of an author ; once supposed, that author is naught but a decayed version of herself , i s merely what we descrihe in school by the phrase , a begging of the question. A God predicate s a creation, that i s to say, an instant when there was nothing, or an instant when all was in chaos. I f one or the other of these states was evil , why did your God allow i t to subsi st ? Was it good ? Then why did he change i t ? But i f all is now good at

lus tine .. 497

last , your God has noth ing left to do ; well , i f h e i s useless, how can he be power ful ? And if he i s not power ful , how can he be God ? I f, in a word, N a ture moves h ersel f , what do we want with a moto r ? and i f the motor acts upon matter by causing i t to move , how i s i t n o t i tself material ? Can you conc eive t h e effect o f t h e m i n d upon matter and matter receiving motion from the mind which itself has no movement ? Examine for one cold-blooded instant all the ridicu­ lous and contradictory qual i t ies wherewith the fabricators of this execrable chimera have been obliged to clothe him ; verify for your own self how they contradict one another, annul one another, and you will recognize tha t this deific phantom, engendered by the fear of some and the i gnorance of all , is nothing but a loathsome plati­ tude which merits from us neither an instant of faith nor a minute' s examination ; a p i tiable extravagance, di sgusting to the mind, re­ volting to the heart , which ought never to have issued from the darkness save to plunge back into it, forever to be drowned.

" May the hope o r fear o f a world to come , bred of those p rimordial l ies, trouble you not, Therese, and above all give over endeavoring to forge restraints fo r us out of this stuff. Feeble por­ tions o r a vile crude matter , upon our death, that i s to say, upon the conjointure o f the elements whereof we are composed with the ele­ ments composing the universal mass, annihi lated forever, regardless o f what our behavior has been, we will pass for an instant into N ature ' s crucible thence to spring up again under other shapes, and that without there being any more p rerogatives for h im who madly smoked up Virtue ' s effigy, than for the other who wallowed in the most disgraceful excesses, because there i s nothing by which Nature i s offended and because all men, e qually her womb's i ssue , during thei r term having acted not a t all save i n accordance with her im­ pulsions, will all of them meet with a fter the ir existence , both the same end and the same fate . "

I w a s once again about t o rep ly to these appalling blasphemies when we heard the clatter of a horseman not far away.

"To arms I" shouted Coeur-de-fer, more eager to put his sys­ tems into action than to consolidate the ir bases .

The men leapt into l i fe • . . and an instant later a luckless traveler was led into the copse where we had our camp.

Questioned upon h is motive for traveling alone and for being

498 .. THE MARQU [S DE SADE

so early abroad , upon 'l i s age, h i s profess ion, the rider answered that h i s name was Sa int-Florent, one o f the most important mer­ chants o f Lyon, tha t he was th i r ty-s ix years old, th at he was on h i s way back from Fl anders where he had been concerned with affairs relat ive to h is bus iness , th at he had not much hard money upon his person, but many secur ti es . He added that h i s valet had left h im the preceding day and th at , to avo i d the heat , he was j ou rneying a t n ight with the intenti on of reaching Paris the next day, where he would secure a new d omestic , and would conclude some of h i s transactions ; that , mo reover, he was following an unfami l i a r road, and, apparently, he must have lost h i s way while dozing on h i s horse . And having sa id that, h e a sked for h i s l i f e , i n return offer­ ing al l he possessed. His purse was examined, h is money was counted, the prize coul d not have been better. Sa int-Flo rent had near unto a half a mil l ion , p ayable upon demand at the capi tal , had also a few gems and abcut a hundred gold IO llis . . . •

"Friend," sa id Co eur-de-fer , clapping his pistol to Sa int-Flor­ ent's nose , "you under: ;tand, don't you, that a fter h aving robbed you, we cannot leave you alive."

"Oh Monsieu r, " I cried, cast ing mysel f at the vill a i n ' s feet, " I beseech you not to :Jresent me the horrible spectacle , upon my recep tion into your bar d, of th i s poor man's death ; allow him to l ive , do not refuse me t 1 i s first request I ask of you . "

A n d qui ckly resort ing t o a m o s t unusual ruse , in o r d e r t o just i fy the interest I appea red t o take in t h e captive :

"The name Monsieur has just given h i mself, " I a dded with warmth, "causes me to bel ieve we a re nea rly rel ated. Be not aston­ i shed , Monsieur ," I went on, now address ing the voyager, "be not at all surprised to find a kinsman in these ci rcumstances ; I will ex­ pla in i t all to you. In tLe l i ght of th is , " I continued, once again im­ ploring our c h i e f , " in t1e l i ght of th i s , Monsieur, grant me the un­ lucky creature ' s l i fe , I will show my gratitude for the favor by the completest devot ion to all that will be able to serve your inte rests ."

"You know upon wh at condi t ions I can accord you what you ask, Therese," Coeu r-c e-fer answered ; "you know what I demand from you . . . "

"Ah, very well , Monsieur, I will do everyth ing," I cr ied ,

Jus tine + 499

throwing myself between Saint-Florent and our leader , who was still about to kill him. "Yes . I wi l l do anything ; spare him."

"Let him live," sa id Coeur-de-fer , "but he has got to j oin us, that last clause i s crucial , I can do nothing i f he refuses to comply with it, my comrades would be against me ."

Surprised, the merchant, und,erstanding nothing of th i s con­ sanguinity I was establishing, but observing his l i fe saved if he were to consent to the proposal , saw no cause for a moment' s hesita­ tion. He was p rovided with meat and drink, as the men did not wish to leave the place until daybreak.

"Therese, " Coeur-de-fer said to me, "I remind you of your promise, but, since I am weary tonight, rest quietly beside Dubois , I wil l summon you toward dawn and i f you are not prompt to come, taking th i s knave' s l i fe will be my revenge for your dece i t ."

"Sleep , J\Ionsieur , sleep well , " I repl ied , "and believe that she whom you have filled wi th gra titude has no desire but to repay it ."

However, such was fa r from my des ign, for i f ever I believed deception permitted, it was certainly upon this occasion. Our ras­ cals , greatly overconfident, kept at the ir drinking and fell into slumber, leaving me enti rely at l iberty beside Dubois who, drunk like the others, soon closed her eyes too.

Then seizing my opportuni ty as soon a s the bandits surround­ ing us were overcome with sleep :

"Monsieur ," I sa id to the young Lyonnais , " the most atrociolls catastrophe has thrown me against my will into the midst of these thi eves, I detest both them and the fatal instant that brought me into their company. In truth, I have not the honor to be related to you ; I employed the trick to save YOll and to escape, i f you approve it , with you , from out of these scoundrels ' clutches ; the moment's propitious ," I add�d, "let us be off ; I notice your pocketbook, take it back, forget the money, it is in the ir pockets ; we could not recover it without danger : come, Monsieur, let us quit this place. You see what I am doing for you , I put myself into your keeping ; take pity on me ; above all , be not more cruel than these men ; de ign to respect my honor, I entrust it to you, it i s my unique treasure, they have not ravished it away from me."

I t would be difficult to render the declarations of gratitude I had from Sa int-Florent. He knew not in what terms to express his

5 0 0 .. T H E MARQUIS DE SADE

thanks ; but we had no time to talk ; i t was a question of fl ight. With a dextrous movement, I retrieve the pocketbook, return i t to him, and treading softly we walk through the copse , leaving the horse for fear the sound o f h i s hoofs might rouse the men ; with all possible disp a tch we reach the path which is to lead us out o f the fo rest. \Ve had the good luck to b � out of it by daybreak, without having been followed by anyone ; b dore ten o ' clock we were in Luz a rches and there, free from all amiety, we thought of nothing but resting our­ selves.

There are moments in l i fe when one finds that despite one's r iches , which may be great, one nevertheless lacks wha t i s needed to l ive ; such was Saint-Florent's case : five hundred thousand francs might be awaiting him in Paris , but h e now had not a coin on h is person ; mindful o f th i s , h e paused before entering the inn . . . .

"Be easy, Monsieur ," I sa id upon perceiving his embarrass­ ment, "the thieves have : not left m e without money, here are twenty louis, take them, pleas , ! , use them, give what remains to the poor ; nothing in the world could make me want to keep gold acquired by murder ."

Saint-Florent, whose refinements o f character I a t the time did not exactly appreci ate , was absolutely unwilling to accept what I tendered h im ; h e a sked me what my expectations were, said he would make himsel f hound to fulfill them, and that he des ired nothing but the power 1 0 acquit himself o f h i s indebtedness to me .

" I t i s to you l owe my l i fe and fortune, Therese, " h e added, kiss ing my h ands, " I c a n do no better than to lay them both a t your feet ; receive them, I beseech you , and permit the God o f marriage to tighten the knots o f =ri endship."

I know not whet her i t was from intuit ion o r chill iness of temper , but I was so fir from bel ieving that what I h a d done for the young man could m otivate such sentiments as these he expressed for me , that I allowed h im to read in my countenance the refusal I dared not arti culate ; h e understood , insisted no further , and l imited himself to a sking what he could do for me.

" Monsieur, " sa iC I , " i f my behavior i s really not without mer i t in your view, fo:" my entire recompense I a sk nothing more than to proceed to Lyon with you and to have you find me a place

Jus tine .. 5 0 1

in some correct household, where my modesty will have n o more to suffer."

"Y ou could do nothing better ," sa id Saint-Florent, "and no one i s in a better position than I to render this service ; I have twenty relatives in the city ," and the young trader then besought me to divulge my reasons for having left Paris where I had men­ tioned to him I was born. I told my story with equal amounts o f confidence a n d ingenuousness.

"Oh, if i t i s but that ," said the young man, "I will be o f use to you before we reach Lyon ; fear not, Therese, your troubles are over ; the affair will be hushed ; you will not be sought after and, certainly, less in the a sylum where I wish to leave you than in any other. A member of my family dwells near Bondy, a charming region not far from here ; I am sure i t will be a pleasure for her to have you with her ; I will introduce you tomo rrow."

In my turn filled with gratitude, I approve a p roj ect which seems so well suited to me ; we repose at Luz a rches for the rest of the day and on the morrow, i t is our plan, we will gain B ondy, but six leagues distant.

"The weather i s fine," Saint·Florent says to me, "trust me, Therese ; i t will be most enj oyable to go a foot ; we will reach my relative' s estate, will tell of our adventure , and this manner of arriving, I should think, will make you appear in a still more inter­ esting light."

Having not the faintest suspicion of this monster's designs, and far from imagining that I was to b e less safe with him than I had been when in the infamous company I h a d left, I agree to everything ; we dine together ; he not so much as murmurs when for the night I take a chamber separate from his, and a fter having waited until the warmest part o f the day is past, certain o f what he tells me, that four or five hours will suffice to bring us to his relative's, we leave Luzarches and strike out on foot for Bondy.

It was toward four o'clock in the a fternoon when we entere d the forest. Until then Saint-Florent had not once contradicted himself : always the same propriety, always the same e agerness to prove his sentiments for me ; I should not have thought myself more secure had I been with my father. The shades of night began to descend upon the forest and to inspire that kind of religious horror

502 + T H E MARQUIS DE SADE

which at once causes the birth of fear in timorous spmts and criminal p roj ects in fer ocious hearts. We followed mere paths ; I was walking ahead, I turned to ask Saint-Florent whether these obscure trails were really the ones we ought to be following, whether perchance he h Id not lost his bearings, whether he thought we were going to arrive soon.

"We have a rrived , whore , " the villain replied, toppling me with

. a blow of his cane brought down upon my head ; I fel l un­

conscIOus . . . . Oh, Madame, I have no idea what that man a fterward said or

did ; but the state I wa� in when I returned to my senses advised me only too well to what point I had been his victim. I t was darkest night when I awoke ; I was at the foot o f a tree, away from any road, injured, bleeding . . . dishonored, Madame ; such had been the reward of all I had just done for the unlucky man ; and carry­ ing infamy to i ts ultima te degree, the wretch, after having done to me all he had wished, af ter having abused me in every manner, even in that which most outrages Nature, had taken my purse . . . con­ taining the same money I had so generously offered him. He had torn my clothing, most ) f i t lay in shreds and ribbons about me, I was virtually naked, and several parts of my body were l acerated, clawed ; you may apprec ate my s ituation : there in the depths of the night, without resources , without honor, without hope, exposed to every peril : I wished to put an end to my days : had a weapon been presented to me, I wou: d have la id hands on it and abridged this unhappy l ife full only of plagues for me . . . the monster I What did I do to him, I asked myself, to have deserved such cruel treatment a t his hands ? I save his l ife , restore his fortune to him, he snatches away what is most dear to me! A savage beast would have been less cruel l 0 man, thus are you when you heed nothing but your passions ! Tigers that d" ell in the wildest jungles would quail before such ignominies . . . these first pangs of suffering were succeeded by some few minutes of exh wstion ; my eyes, brimming over with tears, turned mechanically toward the sky ; my heart did spring to the feet of the Master who dwdleth there . . . that pure glittering vault . . . that imposing stillne! s of the night . . . that terror which numbed my senses . . . tha t image of Nature in peace, nigh unto my whelmed, di straught soul . • . all ::listilled a somber horror into me, whence

Jus tine + 5 03

there was soon born the need to pray. I cast myself down, kneeling before that potent God denied by the impious, hope of the poor and the downtrodden.

"Holy Majesty, Saintly Om:," I cried out in tears, "Thou Who in this dreadful moment deign to flood my soul with a celestial joy, Who doubtless hath prevented me from attempting my l ife ; 0 my Protector and my Guide, I aspire to Thy bounties, I implore Thy clemency, behold my miseries and my torments, my resignation, and hear Thou my entreaties : Powerful God ! Thou knowst it, I am innocent and weak, I am betrayed and mistreated ; I have wished to do well in imitation of Thee, and Thy will hath punished i t in me : may Thy will be done, 0 my God ! all i ts sacred effects are cherished by me, I respect them and cease to complain of them ; but if how­ ever I am to find naught but stings and nettles terrestrially, is it to offend Thee, 0 my Sovereign Master, to supplicate Thy puissance to take me into Thy bosom, in order untroubled to adore Thee, to worship Thee far away from thes.e perverse men who, alas ! have made me meet with evils only, and whose bloodied and perfidious hands at their pleasure drown my sorrowful days in a torrent of tears and in an abyss of agonies ."

Prayer i s the misfortunate's sweetest comfort ; strength re­ enters him once he has fulfilled thi s duty. My courage renewed, I raised myself up, I gathered together the rags the villain had left me, and I hid myself in a thicket: so as to pass the night in less danger. The security I believed I enjoyed, the satisfaction I had just tasted by communing with my God, all combined to help me rest a few hours, and the sun was already risen high when I opened my eyes. For the wretched, the instant of awakening i s hideous : the imagination, refreshed by sleep ' s sweet ministrations, very rapidly and lugubriously fills with the evils these moments of deceiving repose have smoothed into oblivion.

Very well, I said as I examined myself, i t is then true that there are human creatures Nature reduces to the l evel of wild beasts I Lurking in this forest, like them flying the sight of man, what difference now exists between them and me ? Is it worth being born for a fate so pitiable ? . . . And my tears flowed abundantly as I meditated in sorrow ; I had scarcely finished with my reflections

5 04 + T H E MARQ l ' I S DE SADE

when I heard sounds somewhere about ; l i ttle by l ittl e , two men hove into view. I pricked up my ears :

"Come, dear frier d ," sa id one o f them, "this place will suit u s admirably ; the cruel ar d fatal presence o f an aunt I abhor will not p revent me from tasl ing a moment with you the pleasures I cherish ,"

They draw near , :hey station themselves squarely in front o f me and so p roximately that no t one o f their words, no t one o f their gestures is able to escape me, and I observe . . . Just Heaven, Madame, said Therese, interrupting herself, i s i t possible that destiny has placed me in none but si tuations so cri tical that i t be­ comes quite as difficul t for Virtue to hear them recited a s for modesty to describe them ? That horrible crime which equally out­ rages both Nature and soc ia l conventions, that heinous deed, in a word, which the hand of God has so often smitten, rationalized, legit imized by Coeur- :ie-fer, proposed by him to the unhappy Therese, despite her wi:;hes consummated against her by the butcher who has just immolated her , in brief, I did see that revolting execra­ tion carried out before my own eyes, together with all the impure gropings and fumbling: ; , all the frightful episodes the most medi­ tated depravity can de1'i se . One of the men, he who gave himself, was twenty-four years o ld, of such a bearing and presence one might suppose him of an ele\ ated degree, the other, o f about the same age, appeared to be one of his domestics. The act was scandalous and prolonged. Bendinf; over, supported by his hands, leaning upon the crest of a l i ttle hillo ck facing the thicket where I l ay, the young master exposed naked to his companion in debauch the impious sacrificial altar, and the la tter, whom the spectacle filled with ardor, caressed the idol, ready to immolate i t with a spear far more awful and far more colossal than the one wherewith the captain of the brigands of Bondy had nenaced me ; but, in no wise intimidated, the young master seemed prepared unhesitatingly to brave the shaft that was presented to him ; he teased it , he excited it , covered i t with kisses ; seized i t , p lunged i t into himself, was in an ecstasy a s he swallowed i t up ; a roused by criminal caresses , the infamous creature writhed and st�uggled under the i ron and seemed to regret i t was not yet more te rribl e ; he withstood i ts blows, he rose to anticipate them, he repelled them . . . . A tender couple lawfully

Jus tine -+ 5 0 5

connected would n o t have caressed one another s o passiona tely . . . their mouths were pressed together, the ir sighs intermingled, the ir tongues entwined, and I witnessed each o f them, drunk with lust, bring h is perfidious horrors to completion in the very vortex of del ight. The homage is renewed, and i n order to fire the incense nothing is neglected by him who cries aloud his demand for i t ; kisses , fingerings, pollutions, debauchery's most appall ing refi ne­ ments, everything is employed to revive s inking strength, and i t al l succeeds in reanimating them five times in swi ft succession ; but that without e ither o f them changing his role . The young lord was con­ stantly the woman and although there was about him what sug­ gested the possibi l ity h e could have acted the man in h i s turn, he had not for one instant even the appea rance of wishing to. If he vis ited the altar corresponding to the one i n h im where sacrifices were performed, i t was in the other idol' s behalf, and there was never any indica tion the latter was threa tened by assault .

Ah, how slowly the time seem ed to pass I I dared not budge for fear o f detection ; a t last , the criminal actors in this indecent drama , no doubt surfeited, got up and were prepared to start along the roa d that was to take the m home, when the master drew near the bush which hid me ; my bonnet betrayed me . . . he caught s ight of i t . . . .

"Jasmin," s a i d he to h i s valet , "we are di scovered . . . a girl has beheld our mysteries . . . . Come hither, flush the bitch into the open, let's find out why she i s here ."

I d id not put them to the trouble o f dragging me from my sanctuary ; I steppe d forward immediately and, fal l ing at their feet ,

"Oh, M essieurs ! " I cr ied, stretching my a rms toward them, "deign to have p i ty upon an unhappy creature whose fate more deserves your compassion than you may think ; there are very few misfortunes which can equal mine ; do not let the posture wherein you discover me cause any suspicion to be born in you ; i t i s rather the consequence of my misery than o f my faults ; do not augment the ills which overwhelm me, be so kind as to diminish them by making available to me the means to escape the fur ies that hound me."

The Comte de Bressac ( that was the name of the young man

506 .. T H E MARQUIS DE SADE

into whose hands I had fallen ) possessed a mind containing a great fund of wickedness an d libertinage ; no very abundant amount of sympathy dwelled in h is heart. Unfortunately, i t i s only too common to find men in whom p i ty has been obl iterated by l ibertinage, whose ordinary effect i s to harden : whether i t be that the major part of his excesses necessitate , apathy in the soul , or that the violent shock passion imparts to the nervous system decreases the vigor of its act ion, the fact always remains that a libertine i s rarely a man of sensibi l i ty. But in add t ion to this harshness native to the species whose character I am sketching, there was also in Monsieur de Bressac a disgust for :>ur sex so inveterate, a hatred so powerful for al l tha t di stingu ishes i t , that I encountered considerable diffi­ culty introducing the affections into his soul wherewith I strove to move him.

" My li ttle dove ," said the Count, severity in h is tone, "if you are looking for dupes , improve your style ; neither my friend nor I ever sacrifice at your : ;ex 's impure temple ; i f i t i s money you are begging, look for people who are fond of good works, we never perform any of that d �scription . . . . But, wretch, out with i t : d id you see what passed b( tween lVIonsi eur and me ?"

"I saw you conv( rsing together upon the sward," I repl ied , "nothing more, Monsi e :ur , I assure you . "

" I should like t o beli eve i t, " sa id the Count, " for you r own good ; were I to imagi ne you had seen anything else , never would you emerge alive frorr where we are . . . . Jasmin, i t i s early, we have time to hear the �irl 's adventures , and a fterward we will see what's to be done with her ."

The young men s i t down, they order me to s i t near them, and thereupon very ingenuously I make them acquainted with all the woes that have afflicted me from the day of my birth.

"\Vell, Jasmin , " : ;aid Monsieur de Bressac as soon as I had finished, " for once let l i S be just : the equitable Themis has doomed this creature , let us no : suffer the Goddess' designs to be thwarted so cruelly : let us expos e : the delinquent to the death penalty she has incurred : this l ittle murder, far from being a crime, will merely take its place as a repa ration in the moral scheme ; since sometimes we have the misfortune to di sturb that order, let us at least cou­ rageously make amends when the occasion ari ses . . . . "

Justine + 507

And the cruel men , having la id hands upon me, dragged me toward the wood, laughing at my tears and screams.

"We'll t ie each of her members to a tree-we need four trees placed in a rectangle ," said B ressac, tearing off my clothes.

Then by means of their cravats, the ir handkerchiefs , their braces , they make cords wherewith I am tied instantly, in keeping with their plan, that i s to say in the cruelest and most painful posi­ tion imaginable. I cannot express to you what I suffered ; i t seemed they were rending me limb from limb and that my belly, facing downward and strained to the utmost, was about to spl i t at any moment ; sweat drenched my fon�head , I no longer existed save through the violence of pain ; had .it ceased to compress my nerves, a mortal anguish would surely have seized me : the villa ins were amused by my posture, they considered me and applauded.

"Well, that 's enough," Bressac said at last, " for the time being she may get off with a fright.

"Therese ," he continued as he untied my hands and com­ manded me to dress mysel f, "show a l ittl e judgment and come along with us ; if you attach yoursel f to me you shall never have reason to regret it . My aunt requires a second maid ; I am going to present you to her and, upon the basis of your story, undertake to interest her in you ; I shall make myself answerable for your conduct ; but should you abuse my kindness , werl� you to betray my confidence, or were you not to submit yourself to my intentions, behold these four trees, Therese, behold the plot of earth they encompass : i t might serve you for a sepulcher : bear it in mind that this dreadful place is no more than a league 's distance from the chiiteau to which I am going to lead you and that, upon the least provocation, I will bring you back here a t once . "

I forgot my sufferings instantly, I embraced the Count's knees, tears streaming down my cheeks, I swore to behave mysel f well ; but quite a s insensible to my j oy as to my pain ,

"Let us be off ," sa id Bressac, "your actions wi l l speak for you, they alone will govern your fate."

We advance ; Jasmin and his master exchange whispered re­ marks ; I follow them humbly, without saying a word. In less than an hour we arrive at Madame la Marqui se de B ressac 's chateau, whose magnificence and fhe multitude of servants i t contains make

5 08 .. THE MARQU; S DE SADE

me see tha t whatever th � post I must hold in the house , it will surely be more advantageous 1 :0 me than that of drudge to Monsieur du Harpin. I am made to w a i t in an office where Jasmin most obligingly offers me everything conducive to my comfort. The young Count seeks out his aunt, acquaints her with what he has done, and a half­ hour later himself come , to introduce me to the M arquise.

Madame de B ress� c was a woman of forty-six years , still very b e auti ful , and who seemed highly respectable and sensible, although into her principles and r , !marks somewhat of austerity had entrance ; for two years she had b een the widow o f the young Count's uncle , who had m a rried her w .thout any fortune beyond the fine name he b rought with him. All the r iches Monsieur de Bressac was able to hope for depended upon this aunt ; what had come down to him from his father b arel:r gave him the wherewithal to buy his pleasures : to which income M a dame de Bressac j oined a consider­ able allowance, but tha t scarcely sufficed ; nothing i s s o expensive a s the delights to which the C ount was addicted ; perhaps they a re purchased at a cheaper rate than others, but they far more rapidly multiply. Fifty thousand crowns was the M arquise's revenue , and young Monsieur de Bre ssac was its sole heir . All efforts to induce him to find a profess ion or an occupation had failed ; he could not adapt himself to whatever diverted h is a ttentions from libertinage. The M a rquise p assed three months of the year's twelve in the country ; the rest of th,! time she l ived in Pari s ; and these three months which she requ i re d her nephew to spend with her, were a kind o f torture for a man who h a ted h is aunt and considered as wasted every moment he passed outside the city which was the home of his pleasures.

The young C ount Jade me relate to the Marquise the matter with which I had just made him acquainted, and as soon as I was done :

"Your candor and n aivete ," Madame de B ressac sa id to me, "do not permit me to t1ink you untruthful . I wi l l inquire a fter no other information save what will authorize me to believe you are really the daughter o f tle man you indicate ; i f i t i s so, then I knew your father, and that w 11 be one more reason to take an interest in you. As for the du Ha ,pi n affa ir , I will assume responsibil ity for settling it with two vis its paid to the Chancellor ; he has been my

Jus tine + 509

friend for ages. In all the world there i s no man o f greater in­ tegrity ; we h ave but to prove your innocence to him : all the charges leveled against you will crumble and be withdrawn. But consider well, Therese : what I promise you now will not be yours save at the price o f fl awless conduct ; thus , you see that the effects of the grati­ tude I require will always redound to your profit." I cast myself at the M a rquise 's feet , assured her she would be contented with me ; with great kindness she raised me up and upon the spot gave me the post of second chambermaid in her service .

At the end of three days, the information M a dame de B ressac had sought from Paris arrived ; it corresponded with what I de­ sired ; the M a rquise praised me for having i n no wise imposed upon her, and every though t of unhappi ness vanished from my mind, to be replaced by nothing but hope for the sweetest consolations it was permitted me to expect ; but it did not consort with the designs of Heaven that the poor Therese should ever be h appy, and if for­ tuitously there were born unto her some few moments of calm, i t was only t o render more bitter those o f distress that were t o suc­ ceed them.

We were no sooner arrived in Paris than M adame de B ressac hastened to work in my behalf : the first president judge wished to see me, h e heard with interest the tale o f my misfortunes ; du Har­ pin 's calumnies were recognized, but i t was in vain they undertook to punish him ; having made a great success of trafficking in counter­ fei t b anknotes, whereby h e ruined three o r four families, and whence h e amassed nearly two millions, he had j ust removed to England ; as regarded the burning of the Palace prisons, they were convinced that although I had profited from the event , I was in no way to blame for causing it and the case against m e was dropped, the officiating magistrates being agreed, so I was assured, that there was no need to employ further formalit ies ; I asked no questions, I was content to learn what I was told, and you will see shortly whether I was mistaken.

You m ay readily imagine that as a consequence of what she did for me, I became very fond of M a dame de B ressac ; had she not shown m e every kindness as well, had not such steps as those she had taken obligated me forever to this p recious p rotectress ? However, i t was by no means the young Count' s intention that I

5 1 0 .. T H E MARQUIS DE SADE

become so intimately Htached to his aunt . . . . But this seems the moment for a portra i t of the monster.

Monsieur de Bre ;;sac had the charms of youth and the most attractive countenance too ; if there were some defects in his figure or his features, i t was because they had a rather too pronounced tendency toward that nonchalance, that softness which properly belongs only to women ; it seemed that, in lending him the attributes of the feminine sex, Kature had introduced its tastes into him as well . . . . Yet what a soul lurked behind those effeminate graces ! All the vices which 6aracterize the villain's genius were to be encountered in his : never had wickedness, vindictiveness , cruelty, atheism, debauchery, contempt for all duties and principally those out of which Nature i :. s a id to fashion our delights, never had all these qualities been carried to such an extreme. In the midst of all his faults· predominated another : Monsieur de B ressac detested his aunt. The Marquise did everything conce ivable to restore her nephew to the paths of vi rtue ; perhaps she put too much rigorous­ ness into her attempts ; the result, however, was that the Count, further inflamed by th at very rigor's effects, only the more impet­ uously gave himself uF to his predilections and the poor Marquise gained nothing from h er persecutions but his redoubled hate.

"Do not imagine, " the Count would often tell me, "that i t is of her own accord my aunt acts in all that concerns you, Therese ; believe me, were it not for my constant badgering she would quickly forget what she has p:'omised to do for you. She would have you feel indebted to her, hut all she has done is owing exclusively to me ; yes, Therese, exac tly, it is to me alone you are beholden, and the thanks I expect from you should appear the more disinterested, for although you've a pretty face, i t i s not, and you know i t very well, a fter your favor:; I aspire ; no, Therese, the services I await from you are of a rae ically different sort, and when you are well convinced of what I nave accomplished in behalf of your tran­ quill ity, I hope I will 1nd what I think I have the right to expect from your spirit ."

So obscure were these speeches I knew not how to answer : however, reply to him I did, on a chance, a s it were, and perhaps with too great a facili ty. Must I confess i t ? Alas ! yes ; to conceal my shortcomings would be to wrong your confidence and poorly to

Jus tine + 5 1 1

respond to the interest my misfortunes have quickened in you . Hear then, Madame, of the one deliberate fault with which I have to reproach myself . . . . What am I saying, a fault ? It was a folly, an extravagance . . . there has never been one to equal i t ; but at least i t is not a crime, i t i s merely a mistake, for which I alone have been punished, and of which it surely does not seem that the equitable hand of Heaven had to make use in order to plunge me into the abyss which yawned beneath me soon afterward. Whatever the foul treatment to which the Comte de Bressac had exposed me the first day I had met him, i t had, all the same, been impossible to see him so frequently without feeling myself drawn toward him by an in­ superable and instinctive tenderness . Despite all my recollections of his cruelty, all my thoughts upon his disinclinations toward women, upon the depravity of his tastes, upon the gulf which separated us morally, nothing in the world was able to extinguish this nascent passion, and had the Count called upon me to lay down my life, I would have sacrificed i t for him a thousand times over. He was far from suspecting my sentiments . . . he was far, the ungrateful one, from divining the cause of the tears I shed every day ; nevertheless, i t was out of the question for him to be in doubt of my eagerness to fly to do his every bidding, to please him in every possible way, it could not have been he did not glimpse, did not have some inkling of my attentions ; doubtless, because they were instinctive, they were also mindless, and went to the point of serving his errors, of serving them as far as decency permitted, and always of hiding them from his aunt. This behavior had in some sort won me his confidence, and all that came from him was so precious to me, I was so blinded by the l ittle his heart offered me, that I sometimes had the weakness to believe he was not indifferent to me. But how promptly his exces­ sive disorders disabused me : they were such that even his health was affected. I several times took the liberty to represent to him the dangers of his conduct, he would hear me out patiently, then end by telling me that one does not break oneself of the vice he cherished.

"Ah, Therese I" he exclaimed one day, full of enthusiasm, " i f only you knew this fantasy's charms, if only you could understand what one experiences from the sweet illusion of being no more than a woman! incredible inconsistency ! one abhors that sex, yet one

5 1 2 ... T H E MARQU I S DE SADE

wishes to imitate it I Ah ! how sweet i t i s to succeed, Therese , how delicious i t i s to be a slut to everyone who would have to do with you and carrying delirium and prostitution to the ir ultimate period, successively, in the very same day, to be the mi stress of a porter , a marquis , a valet, a fria r, to be the beloved of each one after the other, caressed, envied . menaced, beaten, sometimes victorious in their arms, sometimes a victim and at their feet, melting them with caresses , reanimating them with excesses . . . . Oh no, Therese, you do not understand what is this pleasure for a mind constructed like mine . . . . But, morals aside, i f you are able to imagine thi s divine whimsy's physical sens ltions, there i s no withstanding it , it i s a titillation so l ively, i t i s of so piquant a voluptuousness . . . one becomes giddy, one ceases to reason, stammers ; a thousand kisses one more tender than t he next do not inflame us with an ardor in any way approaching the drunkenness into which the agent plunges us ; enlaced in h i s arms, our mouth glued to his, we would that our entire being were incorporated into his ; we would not make but a single being with him ; i f we dare complain, ' t i s o f being neglected ; we would have him, mHe robust than Hercules , enlarge us , pene­ trate us ; we would haye that precious semen, shot blazing to the depths of our entrails , cause, by its heat and its s trength, our own to leap forth into his hands . . . . Do not suppose, Therese, we are made like o ther men ; ' ti s an entirely different structure we have ; and, in creating us , Heaven has ornamented the altars at which our Celadons sacrifice with that very same sensi tive membrane which l ines your temple of Venus ; we are , in that sector, as certainly women as you are in your generative sanctuary ; not one of your pleasures is unknown t) us, there is not one we do not know how to enjoy, but we have in addition to them our own, and it is this delicious combination which makes us of all men on earth the most sensi tive to pleasure, t he best created to experi ence i t ; i t is this enchanting combination which renders our tastes incorrigible , which would turn us into enthusiasts and frenetics were one to have the stupidity to punish u s . . . which makes u s worship, unto the grave itself , the charming Gc d who enthralls us ."

Thus the Count expressed himself, celebrating his eccentric­ i t ies ; when I strove to :lpeak to him o f the Being to whom he owed everything, and of the grie f such disorders caused his respectable

Justine + 5 1 3

aunt, I perceived nothing in him but spleen and ill-humor and especially impati ence a t having to see , i n such hands and for so long, riches which, he would say, already ought to belong to him ; I saw nothing but the most inveterate ha tred for that so gentle woman, nothing but the most determined revolt against every nat­ ural sentiment. I t would then be t rue that when in one ' s tastes one has been able so formally to transgress that law's sacred instinct, the necessary consequence of this original crime is a frightful pen­ chant to commit every other.

Sometimes I employed the means Rel igion provides ; almost always comforted by i t , I attempted to insinuate its sweetnesses into this perverse creature' s soul , more or less certain he could be re­ strained by those bonds were I to succeed in having him strike at the lure ; but the Count did not long tolerate my use of such weap­ ons. A declared enemy of our most holy myster ies , a stubborn crit ic of the purity of our dogmas , an impassioned antagonist of the idea of a Supreme Being's existence, Monsieur de Bressac , instead of letting himself be converted by me, sought rather to work my corruption.

"All rel igions start from a false premise , Therese, " he would say ; "each supposes as necessary the worship of a Creator , but that creator never existed. In this connection, put yourself in mind of the sound precepts of that certain Coeur-de-fer who, you told me, used to labor over your mind a s I do ; nothing more j ust , nor more precise , than that man's principle5 , and the degradation in which we have the stupidity to keep him does not deprive him of the right to reason well .

"If all Nature 's productions are the resultant effects of the l aws whereo f she i s a captive ; i f her perpetual action and reaction suppose the motion necessary to h er essence, what becomes of the sovereign master fools gratuitomly give her ? tha t i s what your sagacious instructor said to you, dear girl . What, then, are religions if not the restraint wherewith the tyranny of the mightier sought to enslave the weaker ? Motivated by tha t design, he dared say to him whom he cla imed the right to dominate, that a God had forged the i rons with which cruelty manacled him ; and the latter, bestial­ ized by his misery, indistinctly believed everything the former wished. Can rel igions, born of these rogueries , merit respect ? I s

5 1 4 .. T H E MAR Q U I S DE SADE

there one of them, Therese , which does not b e a r the stamp o f impo stu re and o f stupi c i ty ? W h a t d o I descry i n them a l l ? Mys­ t e r i e s which cause re;J son to shudder , dogm a s \vhich outrage N a ture , grotesque ce remoni e s which s imply i n s p i r e der i s ion and d is­ gust. But i f amongst them all ther e were one which most p a rticu la rl y deserves o u r scorn and h a tred , 0 Therese , i s i t not that barbar ic l a w o f t h e C h ri s t i a n i ty into which both o f us were born ? I s there any more odious ? one Hhich so spurs both t h e heart and mind to r evol t ? How is i t tha t rat ional men a r e st i l l able to lend any credence to the obscu re mutter ings , to the a l leged mi racles o f tha

' t

appal l ing cul t ' s v i le or ig inato r ? Has there ever exi sted a rowdy scoundrel more worthy of publ i c ind ign a tion ! What i s h e but a leprous Jew who, born o f a s lut and a sold ier i n the worl d ' s meanest stews, dared fob h imse l f off for the spokesman o f h i m who, they say, created the universe ! vVith such l o fty pretensions , you will h ave to admit , Tll eres e , a t l e a s t a few credent i a l s a r e necessa ry. But what are those o f th i s r i d i culous Ambassado r ? \Vh a t is he going to do to p rove h is mi ss ion ? I , the e a rt h ' s face going to be change d ? are the p lagues \vhich beset i t going t o be ann i h i l ated ? i s the sun going to shine upon it by n ig lt a s well a s by day ? vices wi l l so i l i t no more ? Are we going to , e e happiness re ign at l a s t ? . . . � o t a t a l l ; i t i s through hocus-pocu s, ant ic capers , a n d puns2 that God ' s envoy announces h imse lf to thf world ; it is i n the elegant soc iety of manual labore rs , a rt i sans , and s treetwalkers that Heaven ' s minister comes t o m a n i fest his grandem ; i t i s by d runken carousing with these, bed­ d ing w i t h those , that God's fr iend, God h i mself , comes to bend the toughened s inner to his l aws ; i t i s by inventing nothing for h i s fa rces but what can sat i s fy eid er his lewdness or his gourmand's guts that the knavish fel low demon strates h i s m i ss ion ; however al l that may be , h e makes his fortL n e i a few beef-witted s a tel l i tes gravi tate tow a r d the v i l l a i n ; a sect i s forme d ; th i s crowd ' s dogm a s manage to seduce some Jews ; s lav � s of the Roman power, they joyfully em­ brace a re l i g ion which, ' idding them o f their sh ackl es , makes them subj ect to none but a m etaphysical tyranny. The i r motives become ev ident, t h e i r i n doci l i ty unveils i tself, the sed i tious louts are a r-

2 The M arquis de Bievre n e v e r m a d e one quite a. clever a. the N azarene'. to hi. d i scip l e : "Thou art Peter and upon this Rock I will build my Church" ; a n d they tel l u s th a t witty l anguage is one · )f our century' s innov ations !

Jus tine + 5 1 5

rested ; their captain perishes , but o f a death doubtless much too merciful for his species of crime, and through an unpardonable l apse of intell igence, th i s uncouth boor's disciples are allowed to disperse instead o f being slaughtered cheek to j owl with their leader . Fanatic ism gets minds in its grip , women shriek, fools scrape and scuffie , imbeciles bel ieve, and 10 I the most contemptible of beings, the most maladroit quacksalver, the clumsiest impostor ever to have m a de h is entrance, there he i s : behold ! God, there's God's l i ttle boy, h is papa ' s peer ; and now all h is dreams are consecrated I and now all h is epigrams a re become dogmas I and all h is blunders mysteries ! His fabulous father ' s breast opens to receive him and that Creator, once upon a time s imple, o f a sudden becomes com­ pound, triple, to humor h i s son, thi s l ad so worthy of h i s greatness ; but does that sacred God stick a t tha t ? N o , surely not , h is celestial might i s going to bestow m any another and greater favor. At the beck and call o f a priest , of, that i :s to say, an odd fellow foul with l ies , the great God, creator o f all we behold, is going to abase him­ self to the point of descending ten o r twelve million times every morning in a morsel o f whe a t paste ; this the faithful devour and ass imilate , and God Almi ghty is lugged to the bottom of their in­ testines where he is speedily transmuted i nto the vilest excrements, and all that for the sat isfaction of the tender son, odious inventor o f th i s monstrous impiety which h a d i ts beginnings i n a cabaret supper. H e spake, and i t was ordained. He sa id : this bread you see will be my flesh ; you will digest i t a s such ; now, I am God ; hence, God will be digested by you ; hence, the C reator o f Heaven and E arth will be changed, because I h ave spoken, into the vilest stuff the body o f man can exhale , and man will eat h is God, because this God i s good and because he i s omnipotent. However, these blather­ ings increase ; their growth i s a ttributed to their authenticity , their greatness , the i r sublimity to the puissance of h im who introduced them, whil e in truth the commonest causes double their existence, for the credit error acquires never p roved anything but the presence of swindlers on the one side and of i diots on the other. This infa­ mous religion finally a rrives on the throne, and it is a weak, cruel, ignorant and fanatical emperor who, enveloping it in the royal mantle , soils the four corners o f the e arth with it. 0 Therese, what weight are these a rguments to carry wi th an inquiring and philo-

5 1 6 .. T H E MARQUl S DE SADE

sophie mind ? I s the sage able to see anything in thi s appall ing heap o f fables but the disgust ing fruit o f a few men's imposture and the diddled credul i ty of a VLst numbe r ? had God willed i t that we have some rel igion o r other, � .nd had he been truly powerful or , to frame it more sui tably, had tht re truly been a God, would i t have been by these absurd means he �lOuld have imparted his instructions to us ? Would i t h ave been thr ,)ugh the voice o f a contemptible bandit he would have shown how it were necess a ry to serve him ? Were he supreme, were he might:1, were he just , were he good, this God you tell m e about, would it be through enigmas and buffooneries he would wish to teach me to serve and know him ? Sovereign mover of the stars and the heart of man, may he not instruct us by employ­ ing the one or convince liS by graving himself in the other ? Let him, one of these days, upon the Sun indite the law, writ out in letters o f fi r e, the law a s he wa nts us to understand i t , in the version that pleases him ; then from one end o f the universe to the other, all mankind will read i t , will behold i t a t once, and thereafter will be guilty i f they obey i t nOl o But to indicate h i s des ires nowhere but in some unknown corner of Asia ; to select for witnesses the craftiest and most vis ionary o f p, !ople , for alter ego the meanest a rt isan, the most absurd, h im of the greatest rascal i ty ; to frame h is doctrine so confusedly it i s impossi� .Ie to make i t out ; to l imit knowledge o f it to a small group o f indi viduals ; to leave the others in error and to punish them for remain ng there . . . . Why, no, Therese , no , these atrocit ies are not what we want for our gui dance ; I should prefer to d ie a thousand death s rather than bel i eve them. When atheism will wish for martyrs , l e t i t des ignate them ; my blo

' od i s ready to be

shed. Let u s detest these horrors , Therese ; l e t the most steadfast outrages cement the sco -n which i s pa tently thei r due . . . . My eyes were barely open when ] began to loathe these coarse reveries ; very e a rly I made i t a law unto myself to trample them in the dust, I took o a th to return to them never more ; if you would be happy, imitate me ; as do I , hate , abj u r e , profane the foul obj ect of this dreadful cult ; and this cult too, created for i l lus ion, made l ike him to be reviled by everyone whc pretends to wisdom."

"Oh! Monsieur ," I responded, weeping, "you would deprive an unfortunate of her f(,ndest hope were you to wither in her heart this rel igion which i s h er whole comfort. Fi rmly attach e d to its

Jus tine .. 5 1 7

teachings, absolutely convinced tha t all the blows leveled against i t are nothing but l ibertinage ' s e ffects and the pass ions ' , am I to sacrifice, to bla sp hemies, to sophistries horrible to me , my heart 's sweetest sustenance ?"

I added a thousand other arguments to this one, they merely caused the Count to laugh, and his captious principles , nourished by a more male eloquence , supported by readings and studies I, hap­ p ily, had never performed, daily attacked my own p rinciples, with­ out shaking them. M adame de Bressac, tha t woman filled with p iety and virtue, was not unaware her nephew j ust ified h is wild behavior with every one of the day' s paradoxes ; she too o ften shuddered upon hearing them ; and as she condescended to attribute somewhat more good sense to m e than to her other women, she would sometimes take me aside and speak o f her chagrin.

M e anwhile , her nephew, champing a t the bit, had reached the point where he no longer bothered to hide his malign intentions ; not only had he surrounded his aunt wi th all of that dangerous canaille which served his pleasures, but he h a d even carried boldness so far as to declare to her , in my p resence, that were she to take i t into her h e a d to frustrate h is appetite, h e would convince her o f their charm by p racticing them before her very eyes.

I tremble d ; I beheld thi s conduct with horror. I strove to rationalize my reactions by a ttributing their or igin to personal mo­ tives, for I wished to sti fl e the unhappy passion which burned in my soul ; but is love an illness to be cur e d ? All I endeavored to oppose to i t merely fanned its flames, and the p e rfidious Count never ap­ peared more lovable to me than when I h a d assembled before me everything which ought to have induced me to hate him.

I had remained four years in this household unrelentingly persecuted by the same sorrows, forever consoled by the same sweetnesses, when this abominable man, fi nally believing himself sure o f me , dared disclose h is infamous schemes. We were in the country a t the t ime, I alone attended upon the M arquise , h e r first maid-in-waiting h a d obtained leave to remain in Paris through the summer to look a fter some o f her husband's business . One evening shortly a fter I had retired, and as I was taking some air upon the balcony of my room, being unable to bring myself to go to bed because o f the extreme heat, I suddenly heard the Count knock ; he

5 1 8 .. T H E MARQUH, DE SADE

wished to have a word or two with me. Alas ! the moments that cruel author o f my ills accorded me of his presence were too pre­ cious for me to dare refuse him one ; he enters, carefully closes the door and flings himself irto an a rmchair.

"Listen to me, Therese , " and there i s a note of embarrassment in his voice, "I have things of the greatest importance to say to you ; swear to me you will never reveal any of them. "

" Monsieur," I reply, "do you think me capable of abusing your confidence ?"

"Y ou have no idea what you would be risking were you to p rove to me I had made a mistake in trusting you I"

"The most frightfd o f all my woes should be to lose your trust, I have no need of �;reater menaces . . . . "

"Ah then, Therese, I have condemned my aunt to die . • . and it i s your hand I must employ. "

" My h a n d I " I criec" recoiling in fright, "have you been able , Monsieur, to conceive such proj ects ? . . . no, dispose of my life i f you must, but imagine not you will ever obtain from me the hor­ ror you propose . "

" H e a r m e , Therese," says t h e Count, reasoning with me calmly, "I indeed foresaVl' your distaste for the idea but, as you have wit and verve, I fl attered myself with the belief I could vanquish your feelings . . . could prove to you that this crime, which seems to you of such enormity, is , a t bottom, a very banal affair .

"Two misdeeds preHent themselves, Therese, to your not very p hilosophic scrutiny : the destruction of a creature bearing a resem­ blance to us, and the evil with which this destruction is augmented when the said creature is one of our near kinsmen. With regard to the crime of destroying one's fellow, be persuaded, dear girl, it i s purely hallucinatory ; man has not been accorded the power to destroy ; he has at best the capacity to alter forms, but lacks that required to annihilate them : well, every form is of equal worth in Nature's view ; nothing : s lost in the immense melting pot where variations are wrought : all the material masses which fall into it spring incessantly forth in o ther shapes, and whatsoever be our interventions in this process, not one o f them, needless to say, out­ rages her, not one is ca?able of offending her. Our depredations revive her power ; they st imulate her energy, but not one attenuates

Jus tine + 5 1 9

her ; she is neither impeded nor thwarted by any . . . . Why I what difference does i t make to her creative hand i f th is mass o f fl esh today wearing the conformation of a bipedal individu al i s repro­ duced tomorrow in the guise of a handful o f centipedes ? Dare one say that the construction o f this two-legged animal costs her any more than that of an earthworm, and tha t she should take a greater interest in the one than in the other ? If then the degree o f attach­ ment, or rather of indifference, is the same, what can it be to her if , by one man's sword, another man is trans-speciated into a fly or a blade o f grass ? When they will have convinced me of the sub­ l imity of our species, when they will have demonstrated to me that i t i s really so important to N ature, that her laws are necessarily violated by this transmutation, then I will be able to believe that murder is a crime ; but when the most thoughtful and sober study has p roven to m e that everything that vegetates upon this globe i s o f equal value in her eyes, I shall never concede that t h e alteration of one of these creatures into a thousand others can in any sense upset her intentions or sort ill with her desires. I say to myself : all men, all animals, all plants growing, feeding, destroying and repro­ ducing themselves by the same means, never undergoing a real death, but a simple variation in what modifies them ; all, I say, appearing today in one form and several years or hours later in another, all may, at the will of the being who wishes to move them, change a thousand thousand times in a single day, without one of Nature 's directives being affected for one instant-what do I say ? without this transmuter h aving done anything but good, since, by dismantling the individuals whose basic components again become necessary to N ature, he does naught by thi s action, improperly qualified as criminal, but render her the creative energy o f which she i s necessarily deprived by him who, through brutish indiffer­ ence, dares not undertake any shuffl ing, as i t were, o f the deck . . . . o Therese , i t is man's pride alon e erects murder as a crime. This vain creature, imagining himself the most sublime of the globe's inhabitants, its most essential , takes h is departure from thi s false principle in order to affirm that the deed which results in his un­ doing can be nothing but an infamy ; but his vanity , his lunacy alter the laws o f Nature not one j o t ; no person exists who in the depths o f his heart does not feel the most vehement desire to be rid of

5 20 .. T H E MARQUl S DE SADE

those by whom he is ha mpered, troubled, or whose death may b e o f some advantage t o him ; and do you suppose, Therese, that the difference between this desire and its effect is very great ? Now, i f these impressions come ' :0 us from Nature , can it be p resumed they i rritate her ? Would she inspire in us what would cause her down­ fall ? Ah, be at ease , de:: r girl, we experience nothing that does not serve her ; all the impulses she puts in us are the agents of her decrees ; man's passions are but the means she employs to attain her ends. If she stands in need of more individuals, she insp i res lust in us and behold I there are creations ; when destructions become necessary to her, she inserts vengeance, avarice, lechery, ambition into our hearts and 10 I you have murders ; but she has not ceased to labor in her own bd alf, and whatever we do, there can be no question of i t , we are the unthinking instruments of her caprices.

"Ah, no , Therese, no! Nature does not leave in our hands the possibil ity of committing crimes which would conflict with her economy ; has i t ever be �n known to happen that the weakest were able to offend the migh iest ? What are we in comparison to her ? Can she, when she ere, ted us , have placed in u s what would be capable of hurting her '? Can that idiotic supposition consort with the sublime and sure m" nner in which we see her attain her ends ? Ah I were murder not one of the human actions which best fulfilled her intentions, would s h.e permit the doing of murder ? May to imitate then be to injure her ? Can she be incensed to see man do to h is brethren what she herself does to him every day ? Since it i s p roven that she cannot reproduce without destructions, i s i t no t to a c t i n harmony with he r wishes to multiply them unceasingly ? The man who moves in thi s direction, who plunges ahead with al l possible zeal , wil l incontestably be the one who serves her best , since i t will be he who most co-operates with the schemes she mani­ fests constantly. The pr imary and most beautiful of Nature's quali­ t ies is motion, which agitates her a t all times, but this motion is simply a perpetual consequence of crimes, she conserves i t by means of crimes only ; the person who most nearly resembles her, and therefore the most p erf:ct being, necessari ly will be the one whose most active agitation wi IJ become the cause o f many crimes ; where­ as , I repeat, the inactive or indolent person, that is to say, the virtuous person, must b(� in her eyes-how may there be any doubt

Jus tine .. 5 2 1

o f i t ?-the least perfect since h e tends only to apa thy, t o lethargy, to that inactivity which would immedia tely plunge everything back into chaos were h i s star to be in the ascendant. Equil ibrium must b e preserved ; i t can only be preserved b y crimes ; therefore , crimes

. serve Nature ; if they serve her , if �,he demands them, if she desires them, can they offend h e r ? And who else can be o ffended if she i s not ?

" But my aunt i s the creature I am going to destroy . . . • Oh, Therese, in a phi losopher' s view how frivolous are these consan­ guinary t ies I Forgive me , but I do not even wish to discuss them, so futile a re they. These contemptibl e chains , fru i t o f our laws and our poli tical insti tutions-can they mean anything to N ature ?

"Desert your prejudices , Therese, l eave them behind, and serve m e ; your fortune i s made."

"Oh Monsieur I " I repl ied , terr ified by the Comte de B ressac , "your mind invents this theory o f an impassive, indifferent N a ture ; deign rather to heed your heart , and you will hear i t condemn all l ibertinage's false reasonings. I s not that heart , to whose tribunal I recommend you, the sanctu a ry where this N a ture you outrage wishes to be heard and respected ? I f she engraves upon i t the extreme horror of the crime you meditate , will you grant me i t is a damnable one ? Passions, I know, are blinding you a t the p resent moment, but once they subs ide , how will you not be torn by re­ morse ? The greater your sensitivity, the more cruelly shall it sting you . . . . Oh Monsieur ! preserve, respect this tender, invaluable friend's l i fe ; sacrifice i t not ; you would perish o f desp a i r I Every day . . . a t every instant you would be vis ited by the image of this cherished aunt, she whom your unthinking rage would have hurled into her tomb ; you would hear her pla intive voice stil l pronouncing those sweet names that were your childhood's j oy ; she would be present during your waking hour:; and appear to torture you in your dreams ; she would open with her bloodstained fingers the wounds wherewith you would have muti lated her ; thereafter not one h appy moment would shine for you while you dwelt upon this e arth ; you would become a stranger to pleasures ; your every idea would be o f trouble ; a celestial arm, whose might you do not appreciate , would avenge the days you would have obl i terated , by envenoming your own, and without having tasted happiness from

522 .. THE MARQUIS DE SADE

your felonies , you would be slain by mortal sorrow for having dared accomplish them ."

As I uttered these : words tears returned to my eyes , I sank to my knees before the Count ; by all that is most holy I did implore him to let fade into oblivion an infamous aberration I swore to him all my l ife I would con :eal. . . . But I did not know the man with whom I was deal ing ; ] knew not to what point p assions had en­ throned crime in that F erverse soul. The Count rose and spoke in a voice of ice.

"I see very well I was mistaken, Therese, " said he. "I regret it, perhaps as much on your account as on my own ; no matter, I shall di scover other me InS, and it will be much you shall have lost without your mistress gaining anything."

The threat change<j a l l my ideas ; by not accepting the criminal role p roposed to me, I was exposing myself to great personal risk and my protectress was infallibly to per ish ; by consenting to be his accomplice, I would shield myself from the Count' s wrath and would assuredly save hi s aunt ; an instant's reflection convinced me I should agree to everyt hing. But as so rapid a reversal would have appeared susp icious, I ,trove to delay my capitulation ; I obl iged the Count to repeat his sophistries o ften ; l i ttle by l i ttle I took on an a i r o f not knowing what to reply : B ressac beli eved me van­ quished ; I j ustified my weakness by the potency of his art and in the end I surrendered. ��he Count sprang into my arms. Ah, how I should have been over oyed had his movement been inspired by another motive . . . . \Vhat is it I am saying ? The time had passed : h i s horrible conduct, hi ll barbarous designs had anni hilated all the feelings my weakling heart had dared conceive, and I saw in him nothing but a monster . . . .

"You are the first woman I have ever held in my arms," sa id the Count, "and truly, i t i s with all my soul. . . . You

" are del ic ious,

my child ; a gleam o f 1\ isdom seems to have penetrated into your mind ! That thi s charming mind has lain in darkness for so long ! Incredi ble ."

N ext, we came to facts. In two or three days, a s soon, that is , as an opportuni ty Fesented itself, I was to drop a dose of poi son-Bressac gave me the package that conta ined i t-into the cup of chocolate Madame customarily took in the morning. The

Justine -&0 5 23

Count assured my immunity against all consequences and directly I consummated the deed, handed me a contract p roviding me with an annuity of two thousand crowns ; he signed these promises wi th­ out characterizing the state in wh ich I was to enjoy the ir benefits ; we separated.

In the midst of all this , something most singula r occurred, something all too able to reveal the atrocious soul of the monster with whom I had to deal ; I must not interrupt myself for a moment for, no doubt, you are awaiting the denouement of the adventure in which I had become involved.

Two days following the conclusion of our criminal pact, the Count learned that an uncle , upon whose succession he had not in the least counted , had just left him an income of e ighty thousand pounds. . . . "0 Heaven I" I said to myself upon hearing the news, "is it then in thuswise celestial j ustice punishes the basest conspiracy I " And straightway repenting this blasphemy spoken against Providence, I cast myself upon my knees and implored the Almighty' s forgiveness , and happily supposed that this unexpected development should at least change the Count 's plans . . . . What was my error !

"Ah, my dear Therese ," he said that same evening, having run to my room, "how prosper ity does rain down upon me I Often I have told you so : the idea of a crime or an execution i s the surest means to attract good fortune ; none exists save for villa in s ."

"What I " I responded, " this unhoped for bounty does not persuade you, Monsieur, pa ti ently to await the death you wished to hasten ?"

"Wait ?" the Count replied sharply, "I do not intend to wait two minutes, Therese ; are you not aware I am twenty-eight ? vVell , it is hard to wait a t my age . . . . No, let this affect our scheme not in the sl ightest , give me the comfort of seeing everything brought to an end before the time comes for us to return to Paris . . . . To· morrow, a t the very latest the day a fter tomorrow, I beseech you. There has been delay enough : the hour approaches for the payment of the first quarter of your annui ty . . . for performing the act which guarantees you the money . . . . "

As best I could, I disguised the fright th i s desperate eagerness

5 24 + THE MARQUIS DE SADE

inspired in me , and I reLewed my resolution of the day before, well persuaded that if I weI e not to execute the horrible crime I had engaged to commit, the Count would soon not ice I was playing a trick upon him and tha t, i f I were to warn Madame de Bressac, whatever would be her reaction to the project 's disclosure, the young Count, observing b.imself deceived one way or another, would promptly resort to more certain methods which, causing his aunt equally to perish, would also expose me to all her nephew's venge­ ance. There remained the a l ternative of consulting the law, but nothing in the world could have induced me to adopt i t ; I decided to forewarn the Marqu ise ; o f all possible measures, that seemed the best, and I elected i t .

"Madame ," I sa id to her on the morrow of my las t interview with the Count, "Madame, I have something of the highest im­ portance to reveal , but however vital i ts interest to you, I shall not broach it unless, before �and, you give me your word of honor to bear no resentment aga inst your nephew for what Monsieur has had the audacity to concert . . . . You will act , M adame, you will take the steps prudence enjoins, but you will say not a word. Deign to give me your promise ; else I am silent."

Madame de Bressac , who thought i t was but a question of some of her nephew' s everyday extravagances , bound herself by the oath I demanded, and I disclosed everything. The unhappy woman burst into tears upon learning of the infamy . . . . "The monster I " she cried, "have I ever done anything that was not for his good ? Had I wished to thwart his vices, or correct them, what other motive than his own happiness could have constrained me to severity ! And is i t not thanks to me he inherits this l egacy his uncle has just left him ? Ah, Therese, Therese, prove to me that i t i s true , thi s proj ect . . . put me in a way that will prevent me from doubting ; I need all that may a id in extinguishing the sentiments my unthinking heart dares yet preserve for the monster . . . . " And then I brought the package of poison into view ; i t were difficult to furnish better proof ; yet the Marquise wished to experiment with i t ; we made a dog 5wallow a light dose, shut up the animal , and a t the end of two hours i t was dead a fter being seized by frightful convulsions. Any lingering doubt by now dispelled, Madame de Bressac came to a deci1 . ion ; she bade me give her the rest of the

Justine + 525

poison and immediately sent a courier with a letter t o the Due de Sonzeval, related to her, asking him to go directly, but in secrecy, to the Secretary of State, and to expose the atrocity of a nephew whose victim she might at any moment become ; to provide himself with a lettre de cachet; to make all possible haste to come and deliver her from the wretch who had so cruelly plotted to take her l ife .

But the abominable crime wa s to be consummated ; some in­ conceivable permission must have been granted by Heaven that virtue might be made to yield to villainy'S oppressions : the animal upon which we had experimented n�vealed everything to the Count : he heard i t howling ; knowing of h i s aunt's fondness for the beast, he asked wh at had been done to i t ; those to whom he spoke knew nothing of the matter and made him no clear answer ; from this moment, h is suspicions began to take shape ; he uttered not a word, but I saw that he was disqu ieted ; I mentioned his state to the Marquise, she became further upset, but could think of nothing to do save urge the courier to make yet greater haste, and, if possible, still more carefully to hide the purpose of his mission. She advised her nephew that she was writinf: to Paris to beg the Duc de Sonzeval to waste not a moment to take up the matter of the recently deceased uncle ' s inheritance for if no one were to appear to claim it , there was l i tigation to be feared ; she added that she had requested the Duke to come and give her a complete account o f the affair, in order that she might learn whether or not she and her nephew would be obliged to make a journey to Paris . Too skill ful a physiognomist to fail to notice the embarrassment in his aunt' s face, to fail to observe, as well, some confusion written upon mine, the Count smiled at everything and was no less on his guard. Under the pretext of taking a promenade, h ,e leaves the chateau ; he lies in wait for the courier at a place the man must inevitably pass. The messenger, far more a creature o f the Count than his aunt' s trust­ worthy minion, raises no obj ections when his master demands to see the dispatches he is carrying, and Bressac, once convinced of what no doubt he cal ls my treachery, gives the courier a hundred louis, together with instructions never to appear again at the M arquise 's . He returns to the chateau, rage in his heart ; however, he restrains himself ; he encounters me, as usual he caj oles me, asks

5 2 6 .. T H E MA RQUIS DE SADE

whether i t shall not be tomorrow, p oints out it is essenti al the deed be perfo rmed before t he Duke' s arrival, then goes to bed with a tranquil a ir about which nothing is to be remarked. At the time I knew nothing, I was t he dupe of everything. Were the appalling crime to be committed--as the Count's actions informed me later­ he would o f course have to commit it himself ; but I did not know how ; I conj ectured mu ch ; what good would it do to tell you what I imagined ? Rather, let us move ahead to the cruel manner in which I was punished for not having wished to undertake the thing. On the day a fter the mes: lenger was intercepted, M adame drank her chocol ate a s she alwaYl; did, dressed, seemed agitated, and sat down at table ; scarcely was l out of the dining room when the Count accosted me.

"Therese, " and nothing could have been more phlegmatic than his manner a s h e spoke , "I have found a more reliable method than the one I proposed to attain our objectives, but numerous details are involved, and I dare not come so o ften to your room ; at pre­ c isely five o 'clock be at the corner of the park, I 'll j oin you, we will take a walk together in the woods ; while on our promenade I'll expla in it all ."

I wish to affirm, Madame, that, whether because of the influ­ ence of Providence, wl.ether owing to an excessive candor, whether to blindness, nothing g ive me a hint o f the terrible misery awaiting me ; I believed myself so safe, thanks to the Marquise's secret a rrangements, that I never for a moment imagined that the Count had been able to discover them ; nevertheless I was not entirely at ease.

"Le parjure est v ertu quand on promit Ie crime, " one o f our tragic poets has said ; but perjury i s always odious to a delicate and sensitive spir it which finds itself compelled to resort to it . My role embarrassed me.

However tha t m�Ly be, I came to the rendezvous ; the Count was not late in getting there ; he came up to me very gay and easy, and we set off into the forest ; the while he but laughed banteringly and j ested, as was his habit when we were together. When I sought to guide the conversat ion to the subject which he had desired to discuss, he told me to wait yet a l ittle, he said he feared we might be observed, i t did not seem to him we were in a safe enough place ;

Justine + 527

very gradually, without my perceiving i t , w e approached the four trees to which I had been so cruelly bound long ago. Upon seeing the place, a quiver ran through me : all the horror of my fate rose up before my eyes, and fancy whether my terror was not doubled when I caught sight o f the preparations which had been made in that horrible place. Ropes hung from one of the trees ; huge mastiffs were leashed to each of the other three and seemed to be waiting for nothing but me in order to fall to sating the hunger announced by their gaping foam-flecked j aws ; one of the Count's favori tes guarded them.

Whereupon the perfidious creature ceased to employ all but the very foulest epithets.

"Scum," quoth he, "do you recognize that bush whence I dragged you like a wild beast only to spare a life you deserved to lose ? Do you recognize these trees unto which I threatened to lash you were you ever to give me cause to repent my kindness ? Why did you agree to perform the task I demanded, if you intended to be­ tray me to my aunt ? and how could you imagine it was virtue you served by imperiling the freedom of him to whom you owe all your happiness ? By necessity placed between two crimes, why have you chosen the more abominable ?"

"Alas ! I did not choose the less . . . " "But you should have refused," the Count continued, in his

rage seizing one of my arms and shaking me furiously, "yes, cer­ tainly, refused, and not consented to betray me."

Then Monsieur de B ressac told me how he had gone about the interception of Madame's messages, and how the suspicion had been born which had led him to deci�de to stop them.

"What has your duplicity done for you, unworthy creature ? You h ave risked your l i fe without having saved my aunt's : the die i s cast, upon my return to the chateau I will find a fortune awaiting me, but you must perish ; before you expire you must learn that the virtuous road i s not always the safest, and that there are circum­ stances in this world when complicity in crime is preferable to informing." And without giving me time to reply, without giving evidence of the least pity for the frightful situation I was in, he dragged me toward the tree destined for me and by which his valet stood expectantly. "Here she is," he said, "the creature who wanted

528 .. THE MARQUIS DE SADE

to poison my aunt and who may already have committed the terrible crime in spite of my efforts to prevent it ; no doubt, it would have been better to have pl: t her i�to the hands of justice , but the law would have taken away her life, and I prefer to leave i t to her in order that she have 10:lger to suffer."

The two vil la ins then lay hands on me , in an instant they strip me naked. "Pret ty buttocks," said the Count in a tone o f cruelest irony, brutally handling those obj ects, "superb flesh . . . ex­ cellent lunch for the dogs." When no article o f clothing i s left upon me, I am secured to th e tree by a rope a ttached around my waist ; so that I may defend myself as best I can, my arms are left free , and enough slack i s provided for me to advance or retreat about two yards. The arrangements completed, the Count, very much moved. steps up to have a look at my expression, he turns and passes a round me ; his savage way of l and l ing me seems to say that his murderous fingers would l ike to di ;pute the rage of his mastiff ' s steel teeth . . . .

"Come," says he :o his lieutenant, " free the animals, the time has arrived."

They are loosed, the Count excites them, all three fling them­ selves upon my poor body, one would think they were sharing i t in such wi se that not one of i t s parts would be exempt from assault ; in vain I dr ive them back, they b ite and tear me with renewed fury, and throughout this hc rrible scene, Bressac, the craven Bressac, a s i f my torments had ignited h i s perfidious lust . . . the beastly man gives himself up , while he regards me, to his companion ' s criminal caresses.

"Enough," sa id he after several minutes had gone by, "that will do. Tie up the dog:; and let 's abandon this creature to her sweet fate.

"Well indeed, Therese ," says he as he severs my bonds, "vir­ tue i s not to be practiced at some expense ; a pension of two thou­ sand crowns, would th l t not have been worth more than the bites you are covered with ?"

But in my state I can scarcely hear him ; I slump to the foot of the tree and am about to lose consciousness.

"It i s most gener,)us of me to save your l ife ," continues the traitor whom my suffe �ings inflame, "at least take good care how you make use of this fa vor . . . . "

Justine + 5 2 9

Then h e orders me t o get up , dress, a nd quit the place at once. As my blood is flowing everywhere, in order that my few clothes, the only clothes I have , not be stained, I gather some grass to wipe mysel f ; B ressac paces to and fro, much more preoccupied with his thoughts than concerned with me.

My swollen flesh , the blood that continues to stream from my multiple wounds, the atrocious pain I am enduring, everything makes the operation of dressing well nigh impossible ; never once does the dishonest man who has just put me into this horrible state . . . him for whom I once would have sacrified my l ife , never once does he deign to show me the least hint of sympathy. When at l ength I am ready :

"Go wherever you wish," says he ; "you must have some money left, I will not take it from you, but beware of reappearing at any one of my houses in the city or the country : there are two excellent reasons for not doing so : you may just as well know, first of all, that the affair you thought finished i s not at all over. They informed you that the law was done with you ; they told you what i s not true ; the warrant for your arrest still holds, the case i s still warm : you were left in this s i tuation so that your conduct might be observed. In the second place, you are going to pass, insofar as the public is concerned, for the Marqui se 's murdere r ; if she yet breathes, I am going to see to i t she carries this notion into the grave, the entire household will share i t ; and there you have two trials still to face instead of one : instead of a vile usurer, you have for an adversary a rich and powerful man who i s determined to hound you into Hell itself i f you misuse the l ife his compassion leaves to you ."

"Oh Monsieur ! " was my response, "whatever have been your severities with me , fear not that I will retaliate ; I thought myself obliged to take steps against you when it was a question of your aunt's l i fe ; but where only the unhappy Therese i s involved, I shall never do anything. Adieu, Monsieur, may your crimes render you a s happy as your cruelties have made me to suffer ; and no matter what the fate reserved to me by Heaven, while i t shall prolong my deplorable l ife , I shall only employ my days in uttering prayers for you."

The Count raised his head ; h e could not avoid glancing at me upon hearing these words, and, a s he beheld me quavering and

5 3 0 + T H E Mr\ R Q l " l S D E S A O E

covered with tears and doubtless was a fraid l e st he be moved by what he saw, the cruel , )ne went away, and I saw him nevermore.

Enti rely del iverer' unto my agony, I fell back again and lay by the tree ; there, giving free reign to my hurt , I made the forest resound wi th my groans ; I pressed my stricken frame against the ea rth, and shed upon the sward all my tears .

"0 my God ," I :ried out, "Thou hast so wil led i t ; i t was gra ined in Thy eternal decrees that the innocent were to fall unto the guilty and were to be their prey : di spose of me, 0 Lord, I am yet far away from what Thou didst suffer for us ; may those I endure , as I adore Thee , render me worthy someday o f what re­ wards Thou keepeth for the lowly, when he hath Thee before him in his tribulations, and let his anguishes be unto Thy greater glorifi­ cation I "

Night wa s closing : i t wa s almost beyond my power to move ; I was scarcely able to s t and erect ; I cast my eyes upon the thicket where four years earl i e r I had slept a night when I had been in ci rcumstances almost a s unhappy! I dragged myself along as best I could , and h aving r e ached the very same spot, tormented by my still bleeding wounds, overwhelmed by my mind' s anxiet ies and the sorrows o f my hear t , I passed the cruelest night imaginable.

By dawn, thanks ' :0 my youth and my vigo rous temperament, some of my strength wc . s restored ; greatly terrified by the proximity of that baneful chhea l , I started away from i t without delay ; I l eft the forest, and resolved at any price to gain the fi rst habitation which might catch my eye, I entered the town of Saint-Marcel , about five leagues dista nt from Pari s ; I demanded the address of a surgeon, one was giver� me ; I p resented myself and besought him to dress my wounds ; I told him that, in connection with some affair at whose source : ay love, I had fled my mother 's house, quit Paris , and during the night had been overtaken in the forest by bandits who in reveng( for my resi stance to their desires , had set their dogs upon me. R.)din, as thi s artist was called, examined me with the greatest a tte 1tion, found nothing dangerous about my injuries ; had I come t(1 him directly, he sa id , he would have been able to guarantee that in the space of a fortnight he would have me as fresh and whole a s I had been before my adventure ; however , the

Jus tine + 53 1

night passed in the open and my worry had infected my wounds, and I could not expect to be well in less than a month. Rodin found space in h is own house to lodge me, took a l l possible care o f me, and on the thirtieth day there no longer existed upon my body a single vestige of Monsieur de B ressac's cruelties.

As soon as I was fi t to take a l i ttle a ir , my first concern was to find in the town some girl sufficiently adroit and intelligent to go to the Marquise ' s chateau and find out what had taken place there since my departure. Thi s apparently very dangerous inquisitiveness would without the sl ightest doubt have been exceedingly misplaced ; but here i t was not a question o f mere curiosity. vVhat I had earned while with the M arquise remained in my room ; I had scarcely s ix louis about me , and I possessed above forty a t the chateau. I did not suppose the Count would be unkind enough to refuse me what was so legi timately mine. Persuaded that, h is first fury once p a ssed, he would not wish to do me such an injustice , I wrote a letter calcu­ l ated to touch him as deeply as possible. I was careful to conceal my address and I begged him to sen d back my oId clothes together with the small sum that would be found in my chamber. A lively and spiri ted peasant girl of twenty-five undertook to deliver my letter and promised to do her best to bring me back all the informa­ tion she could garn e r upon the various subj ects about which I gave her to understand I needed to be enl ightened. I insisted, that above all e l se , she hide the name of the place where I was, that she not breathe a word of me in whatever form o r connection, and that she say she had taken the letter from a man who had brought it from somewhere fi fteen leagues away. Jeannette left, and twenty-four hours l a ter she came back with the reply ; i t still exi sts , I have i t here, Madame, b u t before y o u r e a d it , deign to learn w h a t h a d transpired a t the Count's chateau since I had b e e n o u t o f i t .

Having fallen seriously i l l the very day I left, the Marquise de Bressac had been seized by frightful pains and convulsions, and had died th e next morning ; the family had rushed to the chateau and the nephew, seemingly grippe d in the greatest desolation, had decl ared that h i s aunt had been poisoned by a chambermaid who h a d taken fl ight the same day. Inquiries were made, and they had the intention to put the wretch to death were she to be found ; as for the rest , the Count discovered that the inheri tance had made him

53 2 .. THE MARQUIS DE SADE

much wealth ier than he had ever anticipated he would be ; the Marquise 's strongbox pocketbook, and gems, all of them obj ects of which no one had known anything, put the nephew, apart from his revenues , in poss l �ssion of more than six hundred thousand francs in cha ttcls or c� sh . B ehind his affected grief, the young man had, it was sa id , considerable trouble concealing his delight, and the rel atives, convoked fo r the autopsy demanded by the Count, a fter having lamented the u 1happy Marquise ' s fate and sworn to avenge her should the culprit fall into their hands, had left the young man in undisputed and pe aceful possession of his villa iny. Monsieur de Bressac himself hac spoken to Jeannette, he had asked a number of questions to which the g ir l had repl i ed with such frankness and decis ion that he had re solved to give her his response without press­ ing her further . Then: is the fatal letter, said Therese , handing it to Madame de Lorsallge, yes, there i t i s , Madame, sometimes my heart has need of i t and I will keep it until I die ; read it , read i t wi thout shuddering, i f you can.

Madame de Lon ange, having taken the note from our lovely adventuress' hands, re Id therein the following words :

The criminal capabl � of having poisoned my aunt is b razen indeed to d are thu s write to mt after her execrable deed ; better still is the care with which she conceals hI r retreat ; for she may be sure she will be discomfited if she is discovered. I :ut what is i t she has the temerity to demand ? What are these references t ) money ? Does what she left behind equal the thefts she committed, eithe ' during her soj ou rn in the house o r while consum­ mating her final crime ? Let her avoid sending a second request similar to this, for she is adyised her ambassador will be arrested and held until the law acquaints itself with the place where the guilty party is taking cover.

Madame de Lor s ange returned the note to Therese ; "Con­ tinue, my dear chi ld ," sa id she, "the man's behavior is horrifying ; to be swimming in go ld and to deny her l egitimate earnings to a poor creature who me rely did not want to commit a crime, that i s a gratu i tou s infamy enti rely without example ."

Alas ! Madame, Therese continued, resuming her story, I was in tears for two days over that dreadful letter ; I was far more afR icted by the though t of the horrible deed it attested than by the refusal it contained. Then, I groaned, then I am guilty, here am

lustine .. 533

I a second time denounced t o justice for having been overly respect­ ful o f the law I So be it , I repent nothing, I shall never know the least remorse so long as my soul i s pure, and may I never be responsible for any evil other than that o f having too much heeded the equitable and virtuous sentiments which will never abandon me.

I was , however, simply unable to believe that the pursuits and inquiries the Count mentioned were really true , for they seemed highly implausible : i t would be so dangerous for him to h ave me brought into court that I imagined there was far greater reason for him to be frightened at the prospect of having to confront me, than I had cause to tremble before his menaces. These reflections led me to decide to stay where I was and to remain, if possible, until the augmentation of my funds might allow me to move on ; I communicated my plan to Rodin, who approved it , and even sug­ gested I keep my chamber in h is house ; but first of all , before I speak o f what I decided to do, it is necessary to give you an idea o f this man a n d his entourage.

Rodin was forty years of age , dark-haired, with shaggy eye­ brows, a sparkling bright eye ; there was about him what bespoke strength and health but, at the same time, l ibertinage . In wealth he was risen far above his native station, possessing from ten to twelve thousand pounds a year ; owing to which, if Rodin practiced his surgical art, it was not out of necessity, but out of taste ; he had a very attractive house in Saint-Marcel which, since the death o f his wife two years p reviously, he shared with two girls , who were his servants, and with another, who was his own daughter. This young person, Rosalie by name, had just reached her fourteenth year ; in her were gathered all the charms most capable of exciting admira­ tion : the figure of a nymph, an oval face, clear, lovely, extraor­ dinarily animated, delicate pretty features, very p iquant a s well , the prettiest mouth possible, very large dark eyes, soulful and full of feeling, chestnut-brown hair falling to below her waist, skin of an incredible whiteness . . . aglow, smooth, already the most beautiful throat in all the world, and, furthermore, wit, vivacity, and one of the most beauti ful souls Nature has yet created. With respect to the comp anions with whom I was to serve in thi s household, they were two peasant girl s : one of them was a governess, the other the

5 34 + T H E MARQ U IS DE SADE

cook. She who held thf first post could have been twenty-five, the other eighteen or twenty, and both were extremely attractive ; their looks suggested a delibe rate choice , and this in turn caused the birth of some suspicions as to why Rodin was pleased to accommodate me. What need has h e of a third woman ? I asked myself, and why does he wish them all to be pretty ? Assuredly, I continued, there is something in all this th It l i ttle conforms with the regular manners from which I wish never to stray ; we'll see .

In consequence, I besought Monsieur Rodin to al low me to extend my convalescenc e a t h is home for yet another week, declar­ ing that, a t the end of thi s time, he would have my reply to what he had very kindly p roposed.

I p rofited from th s interval by attaching myself more closely to Rosalie, determined to establish mysel f in her father's house only if there should p rove to be nothing about it whence I might be obl iged to take umbrage . With these designs, I cast appraising glances in every directic ,n, and, on the following day, I noticed that thi s man enjoyed an a rr Ingement which stra igh tway provoked in me furious doubts concerning h is beh avior .

Monsieur Rodin k �pt a school for children of both sexes ; dur­ ing his wi fe's l i fetime he had obtained the required charter and they had not seen fit to deprive him of i t a fter he had lost her. Monsieur Rodin's pupils were fe�; but select : in al l , there were but fourteen girls and fourteen boys : he never accepted them under twelve and they were always sent a way upon reaching the age of sixteen ; never had monarch pretti er subjects than Rodin. If there were brought to him one who had some physical defect or a face that l e ft some­ thing to be desired, he knew how to invent twenty excuses for re­ j ecting him, all his argu:nents were very ingenious, they were always colored by sophistries to which no one seemed able to reply ; thus, e ither his corps of l i ttle day students had incomplete ranks, or the children who filled them were always charming. These youngsters did not take the i r meals with him, but came twice a day, from seven to eleven in the morning, from four to e ight in the afternoon. I f until then I h ad not yet seen all o f this l i ttle troupe it wa s because, having arrived at Rodin's during the holidays, his scholars were not attending classes ; towa �d the end of my recovery they reappeared.

Rodin himself toc k charge of the boys' instruction, his gov-

Jus tine + 5 3 5

erness looked a fter that of the gi rls , whom h e would vis it as soon as he had completed his own lessons ; he taught h is young pupils writing, arithmetic, a l i ttle h istory, drawing, music , and for all that no other master but himself was employed.

I early expressed to Rosalie my astonishment that her father, whil e p erforming his functions a s a doctor, could at the same time act as a schoolmaste r ; i t struck me as odd, said I , that being able to live comfortably without exercising either the one or the other of these professions, he devoted himself to both. Rosal ie , who by now had become very fond of me , fell to laughing at my remark ; the manner in which she reacted to what I said only made me the more curious, and I besought her to open herself enti rely to me.

"Listen ," said that charming girl , speaking with all the candor proper to her age, and al l the n aIvete of her amiable characte r ; " l i s ten to me, Therese , I am going to tell you everything, for I see you are a well brought up girl . . . incapable o f betraying the secret I am going to confide to you.

"Certainly, dear friend, my father could make ends meet with­ out pursuing e i ther of these two occupations ; and if he pursues both at once, i t i s because of the two motives I am going to reveal to you. He p ractices medicine because he has a liking for i t ; he takes keen pleasure in using his skill to make new discoveries , he has made so 'many o f them, he has written so many authori tative texts based upon his investigations that he is generally acknowledged the most accomplished man in France at the present time ; he worked for twenty years in Paris , and for the sake of his amusements he retired to the country. The real surgeon at Saint-Marcel i s someone named Rombeau whom he has taken under his tutelage and with whom h e collaborates upon experiments ; and now, Therese, would you know why he runs a school ? • . • l ibertinage, my child, l ibertin­ age alone, a pass ion h e carries to its extremes. My father finds in h i s pupils o f e i ther sex obj ects whose dependence submits them to his incl inations, and he exploi ts them . . . . But wait a moment • . • come with me," sa id Rosalie , "today i s Friday, one o f the three days during the week when he corrects those who have misbehaved ; i t i s in thi s kind o f punishment my father takes his pleasure ; follow me, I �ell you, you shall see how he behaves. Everything i s visible from a closet in my room which adjoins the one where he concludes

5 3 6 + THE MARQUIS DE SADE

his business ; let's go there without making any noise, and above all be careful not to say a word both about what I am telling you and about what you are going to witness. "

I t w a s a matter ( , f such great importance t o famil iarize my­ self with the customs :>f this person who had offered me asylum, that I felt I could ne� ;lect nothing which might discover them to me ; I follow hard upon Rosalie 's heels, she situates me near a par­ tition, through cracks between its i ll-j oined boards one can view everything going on in the neighboring room.

Hardly have we t lken up our post when Rodin enters, leading a fourteen-year-old girl , blond and as pretty as Love ; the poor creature i s sobbing away, all too unhappily aware of what awaits her ; she comes in with moans and cries ; she throws herself down before her implacable i nstructor, she entreats him to spare her, but h is very inexorability fi res the fi rst sparks of the unbending Rodin' s pleasure, h is heart is a lready aglow, and his savage glances spring alive with an inner l igh t . . . .

"Why, no, no, " he cries, "not for one minute, this happens far too frequently, Ju l ie , I repent my forbearance and leniency, their sole result has b een repeated misconduct on your part, but could the gravi ty of thi s most recent example of it possibly allow me to show clemency, ever supposing I wished to ? A note passed to a boy upon entering the dassroom I "

"Sir , I protest to you, I did not-" "Ah I but I saw it my dear, I saw it ." "Don't believe a word of i t ," Rosal ie whispered to me, "these

are tri fles he invents by way of pretext ; that li ttle creature is an angel , i t i s because she resists him he treats her harshly."

M eanwhile, Rodil l , greatly aroused, had seized the li ttle girl ' s hands , t ied them to a r ing fitted high upon a pi l lar standing in the middle of the punishment room. Julie is without any defense . . . any save the lovely hce languishingly turned toward her execu­ tioner, her superb hai r in disarray, and the tears which inundate the most beauti ful face in the world, the sweetest . . . the most in­ teresting. Rodin dwell : ; upon the picture, i s fired by i t, he covers those supplicating eyes with a blindfold, approaches his mouth and dares kiss them, Jul ie s ees nothing more, now able to proceed as he wishes, Rodin remove� the veils of modesty, her blouse is unbut-

Justine ... 5 3 7

toned, her stays untied, she i s naked t o the waist and yet further below . . . . What whiteness ! What beauty ! These are roses strewn upon l i l ies by the Graces' very handH . . . what being i s so heartless , so cruel as to condemn to torture charms so fresh . . . so poignant ? What is the monster that can seek pleasure in the depths o f tears and suffering and woe ? Rodin cont emplates . . . h is inflamed eye roves , his hands dare profane the flowers his cruelt ies are about to wither ; all takes place directly before us, not a detail can escape us : now the l ibertine opens and peers into, now he closes up again those dainty features which enchant him ; he offers them to u s under every form, but he confines himself to these only : a lthough the true temple o f Love i s within his reach , Rodin, faithful to h is creed, casts not so much as a glance in that direction, to j udge by his be­ havior, he fears even the s ight o f i t ; i f the child's posture exposes those charms, he covers them over again ; the sl ightest di sturbance might upset his homage, he would have nothing distract him . . • finally, his mounting wrath exceeds all l imits, a t first he gives vent to it through invectives , with menact:s and evil language he affrights thi s poor l ittle wretch trembling before the blows wherewith she realizes she is about to be torn ; Rodin is beside himself, he snatches up a cat-o'-nine-tai ls that has been soaking i n a vat of vinegar to give the thongs tartness and sting. " Well there," says he, approach­ ing his victim, "prepare yourself, you have got to suffer" ; he swings a vigorous arm, the lashes are brought whistl ing down upon every inch of the body exposed to them ; twenty-five strokes are ap­ pl ied ; the tender p ink rosiness of this matchless skin is in a trice run into scarlet.

Jul ie emits cries . . . p iercing screams which rend me to the soul ; tears run down from beneath her blindfold and like pearls shine upon her beautiful cheeks ; whereby Rodin i s made all the more furious. . . . He puts his hl lnds upon the molested parts, touches, squeezes , worries them, seems to be readying them for further assaults ; they follow fast upon the first , Rodin begins again, not a cut he bestows i s unaccompanied by a curse, a menace, a re­ proach . . . blood appears . . . Rodin is in an ecstasy ; h i s delight is immense a s he muses upon the eloquent proofs o f h is ferocity. He can contain himself no longer , the most indecent condition mani fests his overwrought state ; he fears not to bring everything out of hid-

5 3 8 + THE MARQ U I S D E SADE

ing, Juli e cannot see it . . . he moves to the breech and hovers there, he would greatly like to mount as a victor, he dares not, instead, he begins to tyrannize ar ew ; Rodin whips with might and main and finally manages, thanks to the leathern stripes, to open this a sylum of the Graces and of j oy . . . . He no longer knows who he is or where ; his delirium ks attained to such a pitch the use of reason i s no longer available ' :0 him ; he swears, he blasphemes, he storms, nothing i s exempt from his savage blows, all he can reach i s treated with identical fury, bul the vil la in pauses nevertheless , he senses the impossibil i ty of going further without risking the loss o f the pow­ ers which he must preHerve for new operations.

"Dress yourself ," he says to Jul ie , loosening her bonds and readjusting h is own c( 'stume, "and if you are once again gui lty of s imilar misconduct, be u i t firmly in mind you will not get off quite so lightly."

Julie returns to her class , Rodin goes into the boys' and im­ media tely brings back a young scholar of fifteen, lovely as the day ; Rodin scolds him ; duubtless more at his ease with the lad, he wheedles and kisses whi le lecturing h im.

"You deserve to be punished," he observes, "and you are go­ ing to be."

Having uttered these words, he oversteps the last bounds of modesty with the chile ; for in th i s case , everything i s of interest to him, nothing is excluc ed, the veils are drawn aside , everything i s palpated indiscriminat ely ; Rodin alternates threats, caresses, kisses , curses ; his impious fingers attempt to generate voluptuous senti­ ments in the boy and, in his turn, Rodin demands identical ministra­ tions.

"Very well ," cri e s the satyr , spying his success, " there you are in the state I forbade . . . . I dare swear that with two more move­ ments you 'd have the i mpudence to spi t a t me . . . . "

But too sure of ' : he titillations he has produced, the l ibertine advances to gather a 10mage, and his mouth i s the temple offered to the swee t incense ; l i s hands exci te i t to j et forth, he meets the spurts, devours them , and i s himself ready to explode, but he wishes to p ersevere to the end.

"Ah, I am going to make you pay for this stupidity ! " says he and gets to his feet.

Jus tine + 5 3 9

He takes the youth's two hands, he clutche s them tight, and offers himself entirely to the altar at which his fury would perform a sacrifice. He opens i t , his kisses roam over it , his tongue drives deep into it, i s lost in it. Drunk with love and ferocity, Rodin mingles the expressions and sentiments of e ach . . . .

"Ah, little weasel I " he cries, "I must avenge myself upon the illusion you create in me."

The whips are picked up, Rodin flogs ; clearly more excited by the boy than he was by the vestal, his blows become both much more powerful and far more numerous : the child bursts into tears, Rodin i s in seventh heaven, but new pleasures call , he releases the boy and flies to other sacrifices. A l i ttle girl of thirteen i s the boy' s successor, and she is followed by another youth who is in turn abandoned for a gi rl ; Rodin whips nine : five boys, four girl s ; the last i s a l ad of fourteen, endowed with a delicious countenance : Rodin wishes to amuse himself, the pupil resists ; out o f his mind with lust , he beats him, and the villain, losing all control of himself, hurls his flame's scummy j ets upon h is young charge 's injured parts , he wets him from waist to heels ; enraged a t not having had strength enough to hold himself in check until the end, our corrector releases the chi ld very testily , and after warning him against such tricks in the fu tu r e , he sends him back to the cl ass : such a r e the words I heard , those the scenes which I witnessed.

"Dear Heaven ! " I sa id to J;:osal ie when this appall ing drama came to its end, " ho,v i s one a-)le to surrender oneself to such excesses ? How can one find pleasure in the torments one infli cts ?"

"Ah , " repl ied Rosal ie , "you do not know everything. Listen , " she sa id , l eading me back into he r room, "what you have seen has perhaps enabled you to understand that when my father discovers some aptitudes in his young pupils, he carries his horrors much further, he abuses the girls in th � same manner he deals with the boys ." Rosalie spoke of that :riminal manner of conjugation whereof I myself had believed I might be the victim with the brigands' captain into whose hands I had fallen a fter my escape from the Conciergerie , and by which I had been soiled by the merchant from Lyon. "By this means," Rosalie continued, " the girls are not in the leas t di shonc red , there are no pregnancies to fear , and nothing prevents them from finding a husband ; not a year

540 .. THE MAR QUI� DE SADE

goes by without his corrupting nearly all the boys in thi s way, and a t least half the other chi ldren. Of the fourteen girls you have seen, e ight have already been � poiled by these methods, and he has taken his pleasure with nine of the boys ; the two women who serve him are submitted to the sam ! horrors . . . . 0 Therese ! " Rosalie added, casting herself into my arms, "0 dear girl, and I too, yes I, he seduced me in my earl iest years ; I was barely eleven when I be­ came his victim . . . wh en, alas I I was unable to defend myself against him. "

" B u t M ademoiselle , " I interrupted, horrified, "at least Re­ l igion remained to you . . . were you unable to consult a confessor and avow everything ?"

"Oh, you do not know that as he p roceeds to pervert us he st ifles in each of u s the ve ry seeds of belief, he forbids us al l religious devotions, and, furthermore, could I have done so ? he had in­ structed me scarcely at all . The li ttle he had said pertaining to these matters had been motiv;.ted by the fear that my ignorance might betray his impiety. But 1 had never been to confession, I had not made my First Communi on ; so deftly did he cover all these things with ridicule and insinuate his poisonous self into even our smallest ideas, that he banished f( ,rever all the ir duties out of them whom he suborned ; or i f they are compelled by the ir families to fulfill the ir religious duties, they do so with such tepidness, with such complete indifference , that he has ! lothing to fear from the ir indiscretion ; but convince yourself, There se , let your own eyes persuade you," she continued, very quickly d rawing me back into the closet whence we had emerged ; "come h ther : that room where he chastises his students i s the same wherein he enj oys us ; the lessons are over now, it is the hour when, warmed by the preliminaries, he i s going to compensate himself for the restraint his prudence sometimes im­ poses upon him ; go back to where you were, dear girl, and with your own eyes behold it a ll ."

However slight my curiosity concerning these new abomina­ tions, it was by far the better course to leap back into the closet rather than have myself surprised with Rosalie during the classes ; Rodin would without ql,estion have become suspicious. And so I took my place ; scarcely was I at it when Rodin enters his daughter's room, he leads her into the other, the two women of the house

Justine + 541

arrive ; and thereupon the impudicious Rodin, all restraints upon his behavior removed, free to indulge his fancies to the full, gives him­ self over in a le isurely fashion and undisguisedly to committing all the i rregularit ies of debauchery. The two peasants, completely nude, are flogged with exceeding violence ; while he plies his whip upon the one the other pays him back in kind, and during the inter­ vals when he pauses for rest, he smothers with the most uninhibited, the most disgusting caresses, the same altar in Rosalie who, elevated upon an armchair, slightly bent over, presents i t to him ; a t last, there comes this poor creature's turn : Rodin ties her to the stake as he tied his scholars, and while one after another and sometimes both at once his domestics fl ay him, he beats his daughter, lashes her from her ribs to her knees, utterly transported by pleasure. His agitation i s extreme : he shouts, he blasphemes, he flagellates : h is thongs bite deep everywhere, and wherever they fall, there im­ mediately he presses his lips. Both the interior of the altar and his victim's mouth . . • everything, the before-end excepted, everything is devoured by his suckings ; without changing the disposition of the others, contenting himself with rendering it more propitious, Rodin by and by penetrates into pleasure ' s narrow asylum ; meanwhile, the same throne is offered by the governess to his kisses, the other girl beats him with all her remaining strength, Rodin is in seventh heaven, he thrusts, he splits, he tears, a thousand kisses, one more passionate than the other, express his ardor, he kisses whatever is presented to his lust : the bomb bursts and the libertine besotted dares taste the sweetest of delights in the sink of incest and in­ famy . . . .

Rodin sat down to dine ; after such exploits he was in need of restoratives. That afternoon there were more lessons and further corrections, I could have observed new scenes had I desired, but I had seen enough to convince myself and to settle upon a reply to make to this villain's offers. The time for giving it approached. Two days after the events I have described, he himself came to my room to ask for it . He surprised me in bed. By employing the excuse of looking to see whether any traces of my wounds re­ mained, he obtained the right, which I was unable to dispute, of performing an examination upon me, naked, and as he had done the same thing twice a day for a month and had never given any offense

542 -+ THE MARQU [S DE SADE

to my modesty I did nc,t think mysel f able to resist. But th is time Rodin had other plans ; when he reaches the obj ect o f his worship, h e locks h i s thighs about my waist and squeezes with such force that I find mysel f, so to ,peak, quite defenseless.

"Therese ," says he , the while moving h is hands about in such a manner a s to e r a s e all doubt of his intents, "you are fully recovered, my dear , and now you can give me evidence of the grat i tude with which I have beheld you r heart overflowing ; nothing s impler than the form :rour thanks would take ; I need nothing be­ yond thi s , " the traitor :ontinued, binding me with all the strength at his command. " . . . Yes, this will do, merely th is , here i s my recompense , I never de mand anything else from women . . . bu t ," h e continued, " ' ti s one o f . the most splendid I have seen i n all my l i fe . . . vVh a t roundness , fullness ! . . . unusual elast ic ity ! . . . what exquis i te qu al ity in the skin ! . . . Oh my I I absolu tely must put th is to use . . . . "

Whereupon Rodin, appa rently already prepared to put h is p roj ects into execution, i s obliged, i n order to p roceed to the next stage , to relax his grip for a moment ; I se ize my opportunity and extricating myself from his clutches,

" Monsieur ," I say, " I beg you to be well persuaded that there is n o thing i n the entire world which could engage me to consent to the horrors you seem 1 0 wish to commit. My gratitude i s due to you, indeed it is, but I will not pay my debt in a criminal coin. N eed­ less to say , I am poor and most unfo rtun ate ; but no matter ; here i s the smal l sum o f m oney I possess , " I continue , p roducing my meager purse , "take w llat you esteem just and allow m e to leave th is house, I beg of you , a s soon a s I am in a fi tting state to go . "

Rodin , confounded b y t h e oppos i t ion he l ittl e expected from a girl devo i d of me am and whom, acco rding to an injustice very ordinary amongst men he supposed dishonest by the simple fact she was sunk in poverty ; Rodin, I say, gazed at me attentively.

"Therese ," he resumed a fter a minute's silence, "Therese, it is hardly app ropr i a te for you to play the virgin with me ; I have, so i t would seem to me, some right to your compl a i sance ; but, how­ ever, i t makes l ittle d ifference : keep your s i lver but don' t leave me. I am highly pleased to have a well-behaved girl in my house, the conduct o f these others I have about me being far from i mp eccabl e .

Justine + 543

. Since you show yourself so virtuous in this instance, you will be equally so, I trust, in every other. My interests would benefit therefrom ; my daughter i s fond of you, just a short while ago she came and begged me to persuade you not to go ; and so rest with us, if you will , I invite you to remain."

"Monsieur," I replied, "I should not be happy here ; the two women who serve you aspire to 0.11 the affection you are able to give them ; they will not behold me without j ealousy, and sooner or later I will be forced to leave you."

"Be not apprehensive, " Rodin answered, " fear none of the effects of these women's envy, I shall be quite capable of keeping them in the ir place by maintaining you in yours, and you alone will possess my confidence without any resultant danger to yourself. But in order to continue to deserve it , I beli eve i t would be well for you to know that the fi rst quality, the foremost, I requ i re in you, Therese, is an unassailable discretion. Many things take place here, many which do not sort with you r virtuous principles j you must be able to witness everything, hea r all and never speak a syllable of it . . . . Ah , Therese, remain w i th me, stay here, Therese, my chi ld , i t will be a joy to have you ; in the midst o f the many vices to which I am driven by a fiery temper, an unrestrainable imagina. tion and a much rotted heart, a t least I will have the comfort of a virtuous being dwell ing close by, and upon whose breast I shall be able to cast myself a s at the feet of a God when, glutted by my debauches, I . . . " "Oh Heaven ! " I d id think at this moment, " then Virtue i s necessary, it is then indispensable to man, since even the vicious one i s obl iged to find reassurance in it and make use of i t as of a shelter." And then, recollecting Rosal ie ' s requests that I not l eave her, and thinking to di scern some good principles in Rodin, I resolved to stay wi th him.

"Therese ," Rodin said to me several days later, "I am going to install you near my daughter j in this way, you will avoid all fric­ tions with the other two women, and I intend to give you three hundred pounds wages. "

Such a post was , in my s ituation, a kind of godsend ; inflamed by the desire to restore Rosalie to righteousness, and perhaps even her father too were I able to attain some influence over him, I repented not of what I h ad just done . . . Rodin, having had me

544 .. T H E MARQUl S DE SADE

dress myself, conducted me at once to where his daughter was ; Rosalie received me w i th effusions of j oy, and I was promptly established.

Ere a week was gone by I had begun to labor at the conver­ sions a fter which I th: rsted, but Rodin's intransigence defeated all my efforts.

"Do not believe , " was the response he made to my wise coun­ sels , "that the kind of deference I showed to the virtue in you proves that I either esl eem virtue or have the desire to favor i t over vice. Think nothing of the sort, Therese, ' twould be to de­ ceive yoursel f ; on the basis of what I have done in your regard, anyone who was to mai rltain, as consequential to my behavior, the importance or the necessity of virtue would fall into the very l argest error, and sorry I would be were you to fancy that such i s my fashion of thinking . The rustic hovel to which I repair for shelter when, during th,� hunt, the excessive heat of the sun' s rays falls perpendicularly u pon me, that hut is certainly not to be mistaken for a superior building : its worth i s merely ci rcumstantial : I am exposed to some sort of danger, I find something which affords protection, I use it , but i s this something the grander on that ac­ count ? can i t be the les� , contemptible ? In a totally vicious society, virtue would be totally worthless ; our societies not being entirely of this species , one musl absolutely either play with virtue or make use o f i t so as to have less to dread from its faithful followers. I f n o one adopts the virt uous way, i t becomes useless ; I a m then not mistaken when I affirm tha t it owes its necessity to naught but opinion or c ircumstances ; virtue is not some kind of mode whose value is incontestable , i t i s simply a scheme of conduct, a way of getting along, which v:u i e s according to accidents of geography and climate and which, consequently, has no reality , the which alone exhibits its futility. Or ly what i s constant i s really good ; wha t changes perpetually cannot claim that characterization : that i s why they have declared tha': immutability belongs to the ranks of the Eternal ' s perfections ; but virtue i s completely without this quality : there is not, upon the entire globe, two races which are virtuous in the same manner ; hence, virtue i s not in any sense real , nor in any wise intrinsically good and in no sort deserves our reverence. How is it to be employed ? a . a prop, as a device : i t is politic to adop t

Jus tine .. 545

t h e virtue o f t h e country o n e inhabits, so that those who p ractice i t , either because they have a taste for it o r who have to cultivate i t because o f the ir station, will leave you in peace, a n d so that this virtue which happens to be respected in your area will guarantee you, by i ts conventional preponderance, against the assaults de­ livered by them who p ro fess vice. But, once again, all that i s at the dictation of vari able ci rcumstances, and nothing in all that assigns a real merit to virtue. There are, furthermore, such virtues as are impossible to certain men ; now, how are you going to persuade me that a virtue in conflict or in contradiction with the passions is to be found in N a ture ? And if i t is not in Nature and natural, how can it be good ? In those men we are speaking of there will cer­ tainly be vices opposed to these virtues , and these vices will be preferred by these men, since they will be the only modes . . . the only schemes of being which will be thoroughly agreeable to thei r peculi ar physical constitutions o r to their uncommon organs ; in this hypothesis, there would then be some very useful vices : well, how can virtue be useful i f you demonstrate to me that what i s contrary to virtue is useful ? In reply to that, one hears that virtue is useful to others, and that in this sense i t is good ; for i f it i s posited that I must do only what i s good to others , in my turn I will receive only good. And this a rgument is pure sophistry : in return for the small amount o f good I receive a t the h ands o f o thers thanks to the virtue they practice, my obligation to practice virtue in my turn causes me to m ake a million sacrifices for which I am in no wise com­ p ensated. Receiving less than I give, I hence conclude a very dis­ a dvantageous bargain, I experience much more ill from the priva­ tions I endure in o rder to be virtuous, than I experience good from those who do it to me ; the arrangement being not at all equitable , I therefore must not submit to i t , and certain, by being virtuous, not to cause others as much pleasure as I receive p ain by compelling myself to be good, would it not be better to give up procuring them a happiness which must cost me so much distress ? There now re­ mains the harm I may do others by being vicious and the evil I myself would suffer were everyone to resemble me. Were we to acknowledge an efficient circulation of vices, I am certainly running a grave danger, I concede i t ; but the grie f experienced by what I risk i s offset by the pleasure I receive from causing others to be

546 .. THE MARQUIS DE SADE

menace d : and there, YOll see , equal i ty is re-establ ished : and every­ one is more or less equal ly happy : which is not the case and cannot b e the case in a society W 1ere some are good and oth e rs are bad, be­ cause , from thi s mixture , perpetual pi tfalls result . and no pitfalls exi s t i n the other instanc( : . In the hete rogeneous society, all interests are unal ike : there you have the source o f an i n fin i te number of miser ies ; i n the contrary associat ion, al l interests a re identical , each individual composing it i s furni shed with the same proclivit ies . the same p enchants, e acL one marches togeth e r with all the others and to the same goal ; they are all happy. But , id iots compla in to you, evil does not make for happiness . No, not when everyone has agreed to idol i z e goo d ; but merely cease to prize, instead defl a te , heap abuse upon what you cal l good, and you wi l l no longer revere anything but wha t formerly you had the id iocy to call evil ; and every man will hav( the pleasure of committing i t , n o t a t all because it will b e permitted ( that might be, upon occas ion, a reason for the diminishment o f i ts appeal ) , but because the law wil l no l onger punish i t, and it i s the law, through the fear i t inspires . which lessens the pleasure Nature has seen to i t we take in cr ime. I visual i z e a socie ty when: it will be generally admitted that incest ( let us include this o ffense together with all the o thers ) , that incest , I say, is cr iminal : those who commit incest will be unhappy, because opinion, laws, bel i e fs , ev( · rything will concert to chill their pleasure ; those who des ist from doing this evil , those who, because o f these restra ints , wil l not dare, wil l be equally unhappy : thus , the law that p roscribes incest wi ll have done nothing but cause wretched­ ness . Now, I visual i z e a rcother soci ety ne ighboring the first ; in this one incest i s no cr ime a t all : those who do not des ist will not be unhappy, and those who des ire i t wi l l b e happy. Hence, the socie ty which permits this act will be better suited to mankind than the one i n which the act is re p resented as a crime ; the same perta i n s to all o ther deeds clumsily denominated criminal ; regard them from this point o f view, and you create crowds o f unhappy persons ; permi t them, and not �. compl aint i s to be heard j for h e who cherishes this act, whateHr i t happens to be , goes about performing it i n peace and quiet , and he who does not care for it e i ther remains in a kind o f neutral ind .fference toward i t , which is certainly not p a i n ful , o r finds rest itut ion for the hurt h e may have sustained by

.Ius tint' ,4 547

resorting t o a h o s t of other inj uries wherewith in h is turn he belabors whosoever has aggrieved him : thus everyone in a crimi­ nal society i s e ither very happy i ndeed, o r else in a paradise of unconcern ; consequ ently, there 's nothing good, nothing respectable, nothing that can bring about happiness in what they call virtue . Let those who follow the virtuous track b e not boastingly proud o f the concessions wrung from us by the structural pecul iarit ies of our society ; 't is purely a matter o f ci rcumstance, an accident of convention that the homages demanded of us take a virtuous form ; but in fact, thi s worship is a hallucination, and the virtue which obtains a little pious attention for a moment i s not on that account the more noble ."

Such was the infernal logic o f Rodin' s wretched p assions ; but Rosali e , gentle and less corrupt, Rosal i e , detesting the horrors to which she was submitted, was a more docile auditor and more re­ ceptive to my opinions. I had the most ardent desire to bring her to discharge her primary religious duties ; but we would have been obliged to confide i n a priest, and Rodin would not have one in the house ; h e beheld them, and the bel ie fs they professed, with horror : nothing in the world would have induced him to suffer one to come near his daughter ; to l e a d the girl to a confessor was equally impossibl e : Rodin never allowed Rosal ie to go abro a d un­ less he accompanied her . We were therefore constrained to bide our time unti l some occasion might present i tsel f ; and while we waited I instructed the young person ; by giving her a taste for virtue , I inspired i n her anothe:c for Religion, I revealed to h e r i t s s a c r e d dogmas and its sublime mysteries , and I so intima tely attached these two sentiments to her you thful heart that I rendered them indispensable to her l i fe ' s happiness.

"0 M a demoisell e , " I said one day, my eyes welling with tears at her compunction, "can man blind himself to the point o f be­ lieving tha t h e i s not destined to some better end ? I s not the fact h e has been endowed with the capaci ty of consciousness of his God sufficient evidence that this blessing has not been accorded him s ave to meet the responsibil it ies it impose s ? Well, what may be the foundation of the veneration we owe the Eternal , if it is not that virtue o f which He is the example ? Can the Creator o f s o many wonders have other than good laws ? And can our hearts be pleas-

548 .. THE MARQUIS DE SADE

ing unto Him i f their element is not good ? It seems to me that, for sensi tive spirits , the only val id motives for loving tha t Supreme Being must be those gra titude inspires. I s it not a favor thus to have caused us to enjoy the beauties o f this Universe ? and do we not owe Him some gratitude in return fo r such a blessing ? But a yet stronger reason establ ishes , confirms the universal chain o f our duties ; why should we refuse to f ulfill those required by His decrees, s ince they are the very same which consol idate our happiness amongst mortals ? I s i t not swee t to feel that one rend ers onesel f worthy of the Sup reme Being sirr ply by practic ing those vi rtues which must b ring about our conten tment o n earth, and that the means which render us worthy to l ive amongst our brethren are the identical ones which give us the a ssurance of a rebi rth, in the l i fe sti ll to come , close by the throne o f God ! Ah, Rosali e ! how blind are they who would strive to ravi sh away this our hope ! Mistaken, benighted, seduced by their wretched pass ions , they prefer to deny eternal verities rather than ab andon what may render them deserving of them. They would ra ther say, 'These people deceive us, ' than admit th ey deceive themselves ; the lingering thought of what they a re preparing themselves to lose troubles them in their low r iot and sport ; i t seems to them less dreadful to annihilate hope o f Heaven, t h a n t o be de prived o f wh a t woul d acquire i t f o r them ! But when those tyrannical passions finally weaken and fade in them, when the veil i � torn away, ",·hen there i s no longer any­ thing left in their dis l :ase-ea ten hearts to counter the imperious voice o f that God their delir ium disregardingly mispri zed, Oh Rosali e ! what must it be, this cruel awakening ! and how much its accompanying remorse must inflate the price to be paid for the instant' s error that blin ded them ! Such is the condition wherein man has got to be i n order to construe h i s proper conduct : ' ti s ne ither when in drunkenness , nor when in the transport produced by a burning feve r, he ough to be believed or h i s sayings marked, but when his reason i s calr1ed and enj oys i ts full lucid ene rgy he must seek a fter the truth, ' t s then h e divines and sees i t. 'Tis then with all our being we yearr. after tha t Sacred One o f Whom we were once so neglectful ; we • mplo re Him, He becomes our whole solace ; we pray to Him, He hears our entreaties. Ah , why then should I deny Him, why should I be unheeding o f this Obj ect so necessary to

Justine + 549

happiness ? Why should I prefer to say with the misguided man, There is no God, while the heart of the reasoning part of human­ kind every instant offers me proofs of this Divine Being's existence ? I s it then better to dream amongst the mad than rightly to think with the wise ? All derives nevertheless from this initial principle : immediately there exists a God, this God deserves to be worshiped, and the primary basis of this worship indisputably is Virtue ."

From these elementary truths I easily deduced the others and the deistic Rosalie was soon made a Christian. But by what means, I repeat, could I j oin a l ittle pra ctice to the morality ? Rosalie , bound to obey her father, could at the very most do no more than display her disgust for him, and with a man like Rodin might that not become dangerous ? He was intractable ; not one of my doctrines p revailed against him ; but although I did not win him over, he for his part at least did not shake me.

However, such an academy, dangers so permanent, so real, caused me to tremble for Rosalie , so much so in fact that I could not find myself in any wise guilty in engaging her to fly from this perverse household. It seemed to me that to snatch her from her incestuous father were a lesser evil. than to leave her prey to all the r isks she must run by staying with him. I had already delicately hinted at the idea and perhaps I was not so very far from success when all of a sudden Rosalie vanished from the house ; all my efforts to find out where she was failed. �Then I interrogated his women or Rodin himself I was told she had gone to pass the summer months with a relative who lived ten l eagues away. When I made inqui ries a round the neighborhood, they were a t fi rst astonished to hear such a question from a member of the household, then, as had Rodin and his domestics, they would answer that she had been seen, everyone had bade her farewell the day before, the day she had left ; I received the same replies everywhere. I asked Rodin why this departure had been kept secret from me ; why had I not been al­ lowed to accompany my mistress ? He assured me the unique reason had been to avo id a scene difficult for both Rosalie and me, and that I would certainly see the person I loved very soon. I had to be content with these answers, but it was more difficult to be con­ vinced of their truth. Was it presumable tha t Rosalie-and how great was her affection for me I-could have consented to l eave me

5 5 0 + THE MARQUIH DE SADE

without so much as one word ? and according to what I knew of Rodin's character, was t here not much to fear for the poor girl ' s fate ? I resolved to employ every device to learn what had become of her, and in order to find out, every means seemed justifiable.

The following day, noticing I was alone in the house, I care­ fully investigated every :orner of it ; I thought I caught the sound of moans emanating from a very obscure cellar . . . . I approached ; a pile of firewood seemed to be blocking a narrow door at the end of a passageway ; by removing the obstructions I am able to ad- vance . . . further noise:; are to be heard . . . I believe I detect a voice . . . I l isten more ca refully . . . I am in doubt no longer.

"Therese ," I hear at last, "0 Therese, i s i t you ?" "Yes, my dear, my most tender friend ," I cry, recognizing

Rosal ie ' s accents . . . . "Yes, 't is Therese Heaven sends to your rescue . . . "

And my numerous questions scarcely allow this interesting gi rl time to reply. At length I learn that several hours before her dis­ appearance, Rambeau , I:odin's friend and colleague, had examined her naked and that she had received an order from her father to ready herself to undergo, at Rombeau's hands, the same horrors Rodin exposed her to every day j that she had resi sted j that Rodin, furious, had seized her and himself presented her to his com­ panion's frantic attacks j that, next, the two men had spoken to­ gether in whispers for a very long time, leaving her naked the whil e , and periodically renewing their probings, they had con­ tinued to amuse themsel ves with her in the same criminal fashion and had maltreated her in a hundred different ways ; that, a fter this session, which had lasted four or five hours, Rodin had finally sa id he was going to send her to the country to visit one of her family, but that she mt st leave at once and without speaking to Therese, for reasons he would explain the day afterward, for he i ntended to join her immediately. He had given Rosalie to under­ stand he meant to marry her and this accounted for the examination Rombeau had given her which was to determine whether she were capable of becoming a mother. Rosalie had indeed left under an old woman's guardianship j ,he had crossed through the town, in pass­ ing sa id farewell to sel' eral acquaintances ; but immediately night h a d fal len , her conductress had led her back to her father 's house ;

Justine 5 5 1

she had entered at midnight. Rodin, who was waiting for her , had se ized her , had clapped h i s hand over her mouth to stifle her voice and, without a word, had plunged her into this cellar where, in truth , she had been decently well fed and looked a fter.

"I have everything to fear ," the poor thing added ; "my father's conduct toward me since he put me here, his discourses, wha t p receded Rombeau's examination, everything, Therese, every· thing suggests that these monsters are going to use me in one of the ir experiments, and that your poor Rosal ie i s doomed."

After copious tears had flowed from my eyes, I a sked the unhappy girl whether she knew where the key to the cellar was kept ; she did not ; but she did not believe their custom was to take it with them. I sought for it everywhere ; in vain ; and by the time the hour a rrived for me to return upstairs I had been able to give the dear child no more by way of aid than consoling words, a few hopes, and many tears. She made me swear to come back the next day ; I promised, even assuring her that i f by that time I had dis­ covered nothing satisfactory regarding her, I would leave the house directly, fetch the police and extricate her, at no matter what price, from the terrible fate threatening her .

I went up ; Rombeau was diniing with Rodin that evening. De­ termined to stick at nothing to clarify my mistress' fate, I hid myself near the room where the two friends were at table, and the i r conversation was more than enough to convince me of the horror of the project wherewith both were occupied.

I t was Rodin who was speaking : "Anatomy will never reach its ultimate state of perfection until an examination has been per­ formed upon the vaginal canal of a fourteen- or fifteen-year-old child who has expired from a cruel death ; it i s only from the contingent contraction we can obtain a complete analysis of a so highly interesting part."

"The same holds true ," Rombeau replied, " for the hymeneal membrane ; we must, of course, find a young girl for the dissection. What the deuce i s there to be seen after the age of puberty ? noth­ ing ; the menstrual discharges rupture the hymen, and all research is necessarily inexact ; your daughter is p recisely what we need ; al though she i s fifteen, she is not yet mature ; the manner in which we have enjoyed her has done no damage to the membranous tissue,

5 5 2 .. THE MARQU1 S DE SADE

and we will be able to handle her with complete immunity from interference. I am delighted you have made up your mind at last ."

"Oh, I certainly have," Rodin rej oined ; "I find i t odious that futile considerations ch,�ck the progress of science ; did great men ever allow themselves t::> be enslaved by such contemptible chains ? And, when Michelangel o wished to render a Christ a fter Nature, did he make the crucifix on of a young man the occasion for a fit of remorse ? Why no : he copied the boy in h is death agonies. But where i t i s a question of the advance of our art, how absolutely essential such means become I And how the evil in permitting them dwindles to insignificance ! Only think of i t I you sacrifice one , but you save a million, perhaps ; may one hesitate when the price is so modest ? Is the murder operated by the law of a species differ· ent from the one we are going to perform ? and is not the purpose of those laws, which are commonly found so wise, the sacrifice of one in order to save a thousand ?"

"But what other ,>Jay can one approach the problem ?" Rom­ beau demanded ; "then is certainly no other by which to obtain any info rmation. In tho le hospitals where I worked as a young man I saw similar experimerts by the thousand ; but in view of the ties which attach you to thi l creature, I must confess I was afraid you would hesitate."

"What! because she i s my daughter ? A capital reason ! " Rodin roared, "and what rank do you then fancy this title must allot her i n my heart ? I place rO Jghly the same value ( weighing the matter very nicely ) upon a litde semen which has hatched i ts chick, and upon that I am pleased to waste while enj oying myself. One has the power to take back what one has given ; amongst no race that has ever dwelled upon earfl has there been any disputing the right to dispose of one's children as one sees fit. The Persians, the Medes , the Armenians, the Greeks enjoyed this right in its fullest latitude. The constitution decreed by Lycurgus , that paragon of l awgivers, not only accorded fathers every right over their offspring, but even condemned to death those children parents did not care to feed, or those which were disC(Jvered malformed. A great proportion of savage peoples kill thei r young immediately they are born. Nearly all the women of Asia , Africa, and America p ractice abortions, and are not for that reason covered with discredit ; Cook di scovered

Justine .. 5 53

the custom widespread in all the South Sea islands. Romulus per­ mitted infanticide ; the law o f the twelve tables similarly tolerated i t and until the era of Constantine the Romans exposed or killed the ir children with impunity. Aristotle recommended this pretended crime ; the Stoic sect regarded i t a s praiseworthy ; i t is still very much in use in China. Every day one counts, lying in the streets and floating in the canals of Peking, more than ten thousand individuals immolated or abandoned by their parents, and i n that wisely­ governed empire whatever be the child's age, a father need but put i t into the hands o f a j udge to be rid of it . According to the laws of the Parthians, one killed one' s son, one' s daughter, o r one's brother, even a t the age of nubility ; Caesar discovered the custom universal amongst the Gauls ; several passagc:s in the Pentateuch prove that amongst the children of God one was allowed to kill one's children ; and, finally, God Himself ordered Abraham to do j ust that. I t was long believed, declares a celebrated modern author, that the pros­ perity of empires depends upon the slavery of children ; this opinion i s supported by the healthiest logic. Why I a monarch will fancy himself authorized to sacrifice twc:nty or thirty thousand of his subj ects in a singl e day to achieve h i s own ends, and a father is not to be allowed, when h e esteems it p ropitious, to become the master o f h is children's l ives I What absurdity I 0 folly I Oh what i s this inconsistency, this feebleness in them upon whom such chains are binding I A father's authority over his children, the only real one, the one tha t serves as basis to every other, tha t authority i s dictated to us by the voice of N a ture herself, and the intelligent study o f h e r operations p rovides examples of i t a t every turn a n d instant. Cza r Peter was in no doubt as to thi s right ; he used i t habitually and addressed a public declaration to all the o rders of h i s empire, in which he sa id that, according to laws human and divine , a father had the entire and absolute right to sentence his children to death, without appeal and without consulting the opinion of anyone at all. I t i s nowhere but in our own ba rbarous France that a false and ludicrous p i ty has p resumed to suppress this preroga tive. No," Rodin pursued with great feeling, "no , my friend, I will never understand how a father, who had the kindness to p rovide it with l ife, may not be at liberty to bestow death upon his issue. 'Tis the ridiculous value we attach to this l i fe which eternally makes us

5 54 .. THE MARQl'IS DE SADE

speak drivel about the kind of deed to which a man resorts in order to disencumber himself o f a fellow creature. Believing that exist­ ence is the greatest of all goods, we stupidly fancy we are doing something criminal wh en we convey someone away from its enj oy­ ment ; but the cessation of this existence, or at least what follows it, is no more an evil than l ife i s a good ; or rather, if nothing dies, i f nothing i s destroyed , i f nothing i s lost to Nature, i f all the de­ composed parts of any body whatsoever merely await dissolution to reappear immediate ly under new forms, how indifferent i s this act of murder ! and how dare one find any evil in i t ? In this connec­ tion I ought to act accc rding to nothing but my own whim ; I ought to regard the thing al i very simple indeed, especially so when it becomes necessary to an act of such vital importance to mankind . . . when it can furnish such a wealth of knowledge : henceforth it i s an evil no longer, my friend, i t i s no longer a crime, no, not a petty misdemeanor, i t i s the best, the wisest, the most useful of all actions, and crime wou ld exist only in refusing oneself the pleasure of committing i t . "

"Ha ! " said Romheau , full of enthusiasm for these appalling maxims, "I appl aud y')U, my dear fellow, your wisdom enchants me, but your indifference i s astonishing ; I thought you were amorous-"

"I ? in love with 1 girl ? . . . Ah, Rombeau ! I supposed you knew me better ; I err ploy those creatures when I have nothing better to hand : the ex :reme penchant I have for pleasures of the variety you have watched me taste makes very precious to me all the temples at which this sort of incense can be offered, and to multiply my devotions I sometimes assimilate a l i ttle girl into a pretty l ittle boy ; but : ;hould one of these female personages un­ happily nourish my i lusion for too long, my disgust becomes energetically mani fest, and I have never found but one means to sati sfy it deliciously . . . you understand me , Rombeau ; Chilperic, the most voluptuous o f France's kings, held the same views. His boisterous organ procl : t imed aloud tha t in an emergency one could make use o f a woman, but upon the express condition one extermi­ nated her immedi ately one had done with her.3 For five years this

a Cf. a work entit led The 1 -suits in Fine FeWe.

Justine .. 5 5 5

l ittle wench has been serving my pleasures ; the time has come for her to pay for my loss of interest by the loss of her existence."

The meal ended j from those two madmen's behavior, from their words, their actions, their preparations, from their very state, which bordered upon delirium, I was very well able to see that there was not a moment to be lost, and that the hour of the unhappy Rosalie's destruction had been fixed for that evening. I rushed to the cellar, resolved to deliver her or die.

"0 dear friend," I cried, "there is not an instant to waste . . . the monsters . . . it is to be tonight . . . they are going to come . . . . "

And upon saying that, I make the most violent efforts to batter down the door. One of my blows dislodges something, I reach out my hand , it is the key, I seize it, I hasten to open the door . . . I embrace Rosal ie , I urge her to fly, I promise to follow her, she springs forward . . . Just Heaven I It was again decreed that Vi rtue was to succumb, and that sentimen ts of the tenderest commiseration were going to be brutally punished j l it by the governess, Rodin and Rombeau appeared of a sudden, the former grasped his daughter the i nstant she crossed the threshold of the door beyond which, a few steps away, lay deliverance.

"Ah, wretch, where are you going ?" Rodin shouts, bringing her to a halt while Rombeau lays hands upon me . . . . "Why," he continues , glancing at me, "here's the rascal who has encouraged your fl ight ! Therese, now we behold the results of your great virtu­ ous p rinciples . . . the kidnaping of a daughter from her father I "

"Certainly ," was my steadfast reply, "and I must do so when that father is so barbarous as to plot against his daughter's l ife ."

"vVell, weIl l Espionage and seduction," Rodin pursued ; "all a servant's most dangerous vices ; upsta irs , up with you, I say, the case requires to be judged. "

Dragged by the two villains, Rosal ie and I are brought back to the apartments ; the doors are bolted. The unlucky daughter of Rodin is tied to the posts of a bed, and those two demoniacs turn all their rage upon me, their language is of the most violent, the sentence pronounced upon me appalling : i t is nothing less than a question of a vivisection in order to inspect the beating of my heart, and upon this organ to make obse rvations which cannot practi cably

5 5 6 .. THE MARQUW DE SADE

be made upon a cadaver. Meanwhile, I am undressed, and subj ected to the most impudicious fondl ings.

"Before all else , " says Rambeau , "my opinion i s a stout attack ought to be delivered u pon the fortress your lenient proceedings h ave respected . . . . Why, 'tis superb ! do you mark that velvet texture, the whiteness of :hose two half-moons defending the portal ! never was there a virgin o f such freshness."

"Virgin ! but so sh(� i s , o r nearly," says Rodin, "once raped, and then i t was despite her wishes ; since then, untouched. Here, let me take the wheel a moment . . . " and the cruel one added to Rambeau ' s h is homage made up o f those harsh and savage caresses which degrade rather tha n honor the idol. Had whips been available I should have been cruell y dealt with ; whips were indeed mentioned, but none were found, they limited themselves to what the bare hand could achieve ; they set me afire . . . the more I struggled, the more rigidly I was held ; when however I saw them about to undertake more serious matters, I flung myself prostrate before my execu­ tioners and offered them my l ife.

"But when you are no longer a virgin ," said Rombeau, "what is the difference ? What are these qualms ? we are only going to violate you as you have been already and not the least peccadillo will s it on your consci �nce ; you will have been vanquished by force . . . " and comfoning me in this manner, the infamous one placed me on a couch.

"No," spoke up Rodin, interrupting his colleague 's effer­ vescence , of which I was on the brink of becoming the victim, "no, let's not waste our powers with this creature ; remember we cannot further postpone the operations scheduled for Rosalie , and our vigor is necessary to carry them out ; let' s punish this wretch in some other manner."

Upon saying which , Rodin put an i ron in the fi re. "Yes," he went on, "let's punish h er a thousand times more than we would were we to take her l i fe, let 's brand her ; this disgrace, jo ined to all the sorry business about :ler body, will get her hanged i f she does not fi rst die of hunge r ; unt! then she will suffer, and our more pro­ longed vengeance will be come the more delicious ."

Wherewith Rambeau seized me, and the abominable Rodin

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applied behind my shoulder the red-hot iron with which thieves are marked.

"Let her dare appear in public, the whore," the monster con­ tinued, exhibi ting the ignominious l etter, "and I 'll sufficiently justify my reasons for sending her out o f the door with such secrecy and prompti tude."

They bandage me , dress me, and fortify me with a few drops of brandy, and under the cover of night the two scientists conduct me to the forest' s edge and abandon me cruelly there after once again having sketched what dange rs a recrimination would expose me to were I to dare bring complaint in my present state of dis­ grace.

Anyone else might have been little impressed by the menace ; what would I have to fear as soon as I found the means to prove that what I had just suffered had been the work not of a tribunal but of criminal s ? But my weakness, my natural timidity, the fright­ ful memory of . what I had undergone at Paris and recollections of the chateau de Bressac-it all stunned me, terrified me ; I thought only of fl ight, and was far more stirred by anguish at having to abandon an innocent victim to those two villains, who were without doubt ready to immolate her, than I was touched by my own ills. More irritated, more affi icted m orally than i n physical pain, I set off at once ; but, completely unoriented, never stopping to ask my way, I did but swing in a circle around Paris and on the fourth day of traveling I found I had got no further than Lieursaint. Knowing this road would lead me to the southern provinces , I re­ solved to follow i t and try to reach those distant regions, fancying to myself that the peace and calm so cruelly denied me in those parts of France where I had grown up were, perhaps, awaiting me in others more remote ; fatal error ! how much there remained of grief and pain yet to experi ence.

Whatever had been my trials until that time, at least I was in possession of my innocence. Merely the victim of a few monsters' a ttempts, I was still able to consider mysel f more or less in the category of an honest girl . The fact was I had never been truly soiled save by a rape operated five years earl ier , and its traces had healed . . . a rape consummated at an instant when my numbed state had not even left me the faculty of sensation. Other than that,

5 5 8 .. T H E MARQ t l S DE SADE

what was there with wtIich I could reproach mysel f ? Nothing, oh I nothing, doubtless ; and my heart was chaste , I was overweeningly proud of i t , my prest mption was to be punished ; the outrages awaiting me were to be such that in a short while i t would no longer be possible , however s ight had been my participation, for me to form the same comfort ing ideas in the depths of my heart.

This time I had my entire fortune about me ; that i s to say, about a hundred crowns, comprising the total of what I had saved from B ressac's clutches and earned from Rodin. In my extreme misery I was able to fed glad that this money, at least , had not been taken from me ; I fla ttered myself with the notion that through the frugality, temperance, and economy to which I was accustomed, this sum would amply suffice unti l I was so situated as to be able to find a place o f some sort . The execration they had just stamped upon my flesh did not :;how, I imagined I would always be able to disguise it and that this brand would be no bar to making my living. I was twenty-two yea rs old, in good health, and had a face which, to my sorrow, ,,'as the obj ect of eulogies all too frequent ; I possessed some virtues which, although they had brought me un­ remitting injury, nevertheless, as I have just told you, were my whole consolation anc caused me to hope that Heaven would finally grant me, if not rewards, at least some suspension of the evils they had drawn clown upon me. Full of hope and courage, I kept my road until I g a ined Sens, where I rested several days. A week of this and I was enti rely restored ; I might perhaps have found work in that cit:, but , penetrated by the necessity of getting further away, I resurIH'd my journeying with the design of seeking my fortune in Dauphine j I had heard this province much spoken of, I fancied happiness a ttended me there , and we are going to see with what success I sought i t out.

N ever, not in a single one of my l i fe ' s circumstances , had the sentiments o f Religion deserted me. Despising the vain casuistries of strong-headed think,�rs , believing them all to emanate from liber­ tin age rather than con ;equent upon firm persuasion, I had dressed my conscience and my heart against them and, by means of the one and the other, I had found what was needed in order to make them stout reply. By my misfortunes often forced to neglect my pious

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duties, I would make reparation for these faults whenever I could find the opportunity.

I had just , on the 7th of August, left Auxerre ; I shall never forget that date. I had walked about two leagues : the noonday heat beginning to incommode me, I climbed a l ittle eminence crowned by a grove of trees ; the place was not far removed from the road, I went there with the purpose of refreshing myself and obtaining a few hours of sleep without having to pay the expense of an inn, and up there I was in greater safety than upon the high­ way. I establ i shed myself at the foot o f an oak and, a fter a frugal lunch, I drifted off into sweet sleep . Well did I rest, for a consider­ able time, and in a state of complete tranquill ity ; and then, opening my eyes, it was with great pleasure I mused upon the landscape which was visible for a long distance. From out of the middle of a forest that extended upon the right, I thought I could detect, some three or four leagues from where I was, a Ii ttle bell tower rising modestly into the air . . . . "Beloved sol i tude," I murmured, "what a desire I have to dwell a time in thee ; and thou afar ," said I, ad­ dressing the abbey, " thou must be the a sylum of a few gentle, virtuous recluses who are occupied. with none but God . . . with naught but their pious duties ; or a retreat unto some holy hermits devoted to Religion alone . . . men who, far removed from that pernicious society where incessant crime, brooding heavily, threat­ fully over innocence, degrades i t, annihilates i t . . . ah I there must all vi rtues dwell, of that I am certain, and when mankind's crimes exile them out of the world, 'tis thither they go in that i solated place to commune with the souls of those fortunate ones who cher­ ish them and cultivate them every day."

I was absorbed in these thoughts when a girl o f my age, keeper of a flock of sheep grazing upon the plateau, suddenly appeared before my eyes ; I question her about that habitation, she tells me what I see i s a Benedictine monastery occupied by four solitary monks of peerless devotion, whose continence and sobriety are with­ out example. Once a year, says the girl , a pilgrimage is made to a miraculous Virgin who is there, and from Her pious folk obtain all their hearts' desire. Singularly eager immediately to go and implore aid at the feet of this holy Mother of God, I ask the girl

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whether she would l ike to come and pray with me ; ' t i s impossible, she repli es, for her mother awa i ts her ; but the road there is easy. She indicates i t to me, she assures me the superior of the house , the most respectable, the most sa intly o f men, will receive me with perfect good grace and will offer me all the aid whereof I can poss ibly stand in need. " Dom Severino, so he is called ," continues the girl, "is an I talian c losely related to the Pope , who overwhelms him with kindnesses ; he is gentle , honest, correct, obliging, fifty-five years old, and has spen t above two-thi rds of his l i fe in France . . . you will be satisfied with h im, Mademoi sell e ," the shepherdess concluded, "go and edi :=y yourself in that sacred quiet , and you will only return from it imp roved."

This recital only i nfl amed my zeal the more, I became unable to resist the violen.t desire I felt to pay a vi sit to this hallowed church and there , by a few acts of piety, to make restitution for the neglect whereof I ,"as gu ilty. However great was my own need of charities , I gave th e girl a crown, and set off down the road leading to Saint M a ry-in-the-Wood, as was called the monastery toward which I directd my steps .

When I had descended upon the plain I could see the spire no more ; for gt;ide I hac nothing but the forest ahead o f me , and before long I began to fear that the distance, of wh ich I had for­ gotten to inform mysel f, was far greater than I had estimated at first ; but was in nowise discouraged. I arrived a t the edge of the forest and, some amount of daylight st i l l remaining, I decided to forge on, considering I should be able to reach the monastery before nightfall . However, not a hint of human l i fe presented itself to my gaze, not a hous e , and all I had for road was a beaten path I followed virtually at random ; I had already walked at least five l eagues without seeing a thing when, the Star having completely ceased to light the universe, i t seemed I heard the tolling of a bell . o 0 0 I harken, I move toward the sound, I hasten, the path widens ever so l ittle , a t last I perceive several hedges and soon a fterward the monastery ; than thi s isolation nothing could be wilder , more rustic, there i s no neighboring habitation, the nearest i s six leagues removed, and dense tracts of forest surround the house on all s ides ; it was situated in a depression, I had a goodly distance to descend in order to get to it, and this was the reason I had lost sight of the

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tower ; a gardener's cabin nestled against the monastery's walls ; it was there one appl ied before entering. I demanded o f this gate­ keeper whether i t were permitted to speak to the superior ; he asked to be info rmed of my e rrand ; I advised him tha t a religious duty had drawn me to this holy refuge and tha t I would be well repaid for all the trouble I had experienced to get to i t were I able to kneel an instant before the feet o f the miraculous Virgin and the sa intly ecclesiastics in whose house the divine image was preserved. The gardener rings and I penetrate into the monastery ; but as the hour i s advanced and the fathers are at supper, he i s some time in returning. At last he reappears wi th one o f the monks :

" Mademoiselle , " says he , "here i s Dom Clement, steward to the house ; he has come to see whether what you desire merits inter­ rupting the superior ."

Clement, whose name could not conceivably have been less descriptive o f his physiognomy, was a man o f forty-eight years, of an enormous bulk, of a giant's stature ; somber was h is expression, fierce his eye ; the only words he spoke were harsh, and they were expelled by a raucous voice : here was a satyric p ersonage indeed, a tyrant' s exterior ; h e made me tremble . . . . And then despite all I could do to suppress i t , the remembrance o f my oId miseries rose to smite my troubled memory in tra i ts of blood . . . .

"What do you want (" the monk asked me ; his a i r was surly, his mien grim ; "is this the hour to come to a church ( • . . Indeed, you h ave the air o f an adventuress ."

"Sa intly man," sa id I , prostrating myself, "I believed i t was always the hour to present oneself a t God's door ; I have h astened from far o ff to arrive here ; full o f fervor and devotion, I ask to confess, if it i s possible, and when what my conscience contains i s known t o you, you will s e e whether or n o t I am worthy t o humble myself at the feet o f the holy image."

"But this i s not the time for confession ," said the monk, his manner softening ; "where are you going to spend the night ? We h ave no hospice . . . i t would have been better to have come in the morning." I gave him the reasons which had prevented me from doing so and, without replying, Clement went to report to the superior. Several minutes later the church was opened, Dom

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Severino himself appro< ched me, and invited me to enter the temple with him.

Dom Severino, of whom i t would be best to give you an idea a t once, was, as I had :>een told, a man of fifty-five, but endowed with handsome feature: ; , a still youthful quality, a vigorous phys­ i que, herculean limbs, and all that without harshness ; a certain elegance and pliancy re gned over the whole and suggested that in his young years he mu:;t have possessed all the traits which con­ stitute a splendid man. There were in all the world no finer eyes than his ; nobili ty shont in his features, and the most genteel, the most courteous tone was there throughout. An agreeable accent which colored every one of his words enabled one to i dentify his Italian origin and, I admit it , this monk's outward graces did much to dispel the alarm the other had caused me.

" My dear girl," said he very graciously, "although the hour is unseasonable and though i t i s not our usage to receive so la te , I will however hear your con:=ession, and afterward we will confer upon the means whereby you may pass the night in decency ; tomorrow you will be able to bow down before the sacred image which brings you here."

We enter the church ; the doors are closed ; a lamp is l i t near the confessional. Severino bids me assume my place, he sits down and requests me to tell him everything with complete confidence.

I was perfectly at ease with a man who seemed so mild­ mannered, so full of g entle sympathy. I disguised nothing from him : I confessed all Illy sins ; I related all my miseries ; I even uncovered the shameful mark wherewith the barbaric Rodin had branded me. Severino li stened to everything with keenest attention, he even had me repeat several details, wearing always a look of pity and of interest ; bl t a few movements, a few words betrayed him nevertheless-alas ! it was only a fterward I pondered them thoroughly. Later, when able to reflect calmly upon this interview, i t was impossible not to remember that the monk had several times permitted h imself cert< . in gestures which dramatized the emotion that had heavy entrance into many of the questions he put to me, and those inquiries not only halted complacently and lingered lovingly over obscene details, but had borne with noticeable in­ sistence upon the following five points :

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1 . Whether i t were really so that I were an orphan and had been born in Paris . 2. Whether i t were a certainty I were bereft of k in and had neither friends, nor protection, nor , in a word, anyone to whom I could write. 3. Whether I had confided to anyone, other than to the shepherdess who had pointed out the monastery to me, my purpose in going there, and whether I had not arranged some rendezvous upon my return. 4. Whether it were certain that I had known no one since my rape , and whether I were fully sure the man who had abused me had done so on the side Nature condemns as well as on the side she permits. 5. VV"hether I thought I had not been followed and whether anyone , according to my belief, might have observed me enter the monastery.

After I had answered these questions in all modesty, with great sincerity, and most naively :

"Very well , " sa id the monk, r i sing and taking me by the hand, "come, my child, tomorrow I shall procure you the sweet satisfac­ tion of communing a t the feet of the image you have come to visi t ; let u s begin by supplying your primary needs," and he led me toward the depths of the church . . . .

"Why I " sa id I , sensing a vague inquietude arise in me despite myself, "what i s this, Father ? Why are we going inside ?"

"And where else , my charming pilgrim ?" answered the monk, introducing me into the sacristy. "Do you really fear to spend the night with four saintly anchorites ? Oh, we shall find the means to succor you, my dearest angel, and if we do not procure you very great pleasures , you will at least serve ours in their most extreme amplitude." These words sent a thrill of horror through me ; I burst out in a cold sweat, I fell to shivering ; it was night, no light guided our footsteps, my terrified imagination raised up the specter of death brandishing its scythe over my head ; my knees were buck­ ling . . . and a t this point a sudden sh ift occurred in the monk's speech. He j e rked me upright and hissed :

"Whore, pick up your feet and get along ; no complaints, don't try resi stance, not here, i t would be useless ."

These cruel words restore my strength, I sense that i f I falter I am doomed, I straighten myself. "0 Heaven I " I say to the traitor, "must I then be once again my good sentiments' victim,

5 64 .. THE MARQU IS DE SADE

must the desire to app roach what is most respectable In Religion be once again punished as a crime I . . . "

We continue to walk, we enter obscure byways, I know not where I am, where I am going. I was advancing a pace ahead of Dom Severino ; his bre athing was labored, words flowed incoher­ ently from his lips, one might have thought he was drunk ; now and again he stopped me, tNined his left arm about my waist while his right hand, sliding ben.!ath my skirts from the rear, wandered im­ pudently over that uns� emly part of ourselves which, likening us to men, i s the unique obj e:t of the homages of those who prefer that sex for their shameful pleasures. Several times the libertine even dared apply his mouth to these areas' most secluded lair ; and then we recommenced our march. A stairway appears before us ; we climb thi rty steps or forty, a door opens, brightness dazzles my eyes, we emerge into a charmingly appointed, magnificently illu­ minated room ; there , I see three monks and four girls grouped around a table served ' )y four other women, completely naked. At the spectacle I recoil , t rembling ; Severino shoves me forward over the threshold and I am in the room with him.

"Gentlemen," say , he as we enter, "allow me to present you with one of the veritable wonders of the world, a Lucretia who simultaneously carries upon her shoulder the mark stigmatizing girls who are of evi l npllte , and, in her conscience, all the candor, all the naivete of a viq;in . . . . One lone violation, friends, and that six years ago ; hence, p ractically a vestal . . . indeed , I do give her to you as such . . . the most beauti ful, moreover . . . Oh Clement ! how that cheerless Coulltenance of yours will light up when you fall to work on those handsome masses . . . what elasticity, my good fellow I what rosiness I "

"Ah, fuck I " cried the half-intoxicated Clement, getting t o his feet and lurching tow< rd me : "we are pleasantly met, and let us verify the facts."

I will leave you fo r the briefest possible time in suspense about my s ituation, Madame, said Therese, but the necessity to portray these other persons in whose midst I discovered myself obliges me to interrupt the thread of my story. You have been made acquainted with Dom Severino, you suspect what may be his predilections ;

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alas I i n these affairs h i s depravation was such he h a d never tasted other pleasures-and what an inconsistency in Nature's operations was here I for with the bizarre fantasy of choosing none but the straiter path, thi s monster was outfitted with faculties so gigantic that even the broadest thoroughfares would still have appeared too narrow for him.

As for Clement, he has been drawn for you already. To the superficies I have delineated, j oin ferocity, a disposition to sarcasm, the most dangerous roguishness, intemperance in every point, a mordant, satirical mind, a corrupt heart, the cruel tastes Rodin displayed with his young charges, no feelings, no delicacy, no reli­ gion, the temperament of one who for five years had not been in a state to procure himself other j oys than those for which savagery gave him an appetite-and you have there the most complete characterization of this horrid man .

Antonin, the third protagonist in these detestable orgies, was forty ; small, sl ight o f frame but very vigorous, as formidably organized as Severino and almost as wicked as Clement ; an enthu­ siast of that colleague's pleasures, but giving himself over to them with a somewhat less malignant intention ; for while Clement, when exercising this curious mania , had no obj ective but to vex, to tyran­ nize a woman, and could not enj oy her in any other way, Antonin using it with delight in all its natural purity, had recourse to the flagellative aspect only in order to give additional fire and further energy to her whom he was honoring with his favors. In a word, one was brutal by taste, the other by refinement.

Jerome, the eldest of the four recluses, was also the most de­ bauched ; every taste, every passion, every one of the most bestial i rregularities were combined in th is monk's soul ; to the caprices rampant in the others, he j oined that of loving to receive what his comrades distributed amongst the girls, and if he gave ( which fre­ quently happened ) , it was always upon condition of being treated likewise in his turn : all the temples of Venus were, what was more, as one to him, but his powers were beginning to decline and for several years he had preferred that which, requiring no effort of the agent, left to the patient the task of arousing the sensations and of producing the ecstasy. The mouth was his favorite temple, the shrine where he liked best to offer, and while he was in the pursuit

5 66 .. THE MARQU: S Df: SADE

of those choice pleasur.!s, he would keep a second woman active : she warmed him with tbe lash. This man's character was quite as cunning, qui te as wicked as that of the others j in whatever shape or aspect vice could exh b i t itself, certain i t was immediately to find a spectator in this infernal household. You will understand it more easily, Madame, i f I e�plain how the society was organized. Pro­ digious funds had been Joured by the Order into this obscene insti­ tution, i t had been in exi stence for above a century, and had always been inhabited by the fc,ur richest monks, the most powerful in the Order's hierarchy, they of the highest birth and of a l ibertinage of sufficient moment to require burial in this obscure retreat, the disclosure of whose secr et was well provided against as my further explanations will cause you to see in the sequel j but let us return to the portraits.

The eight girls who were present at the supper were so much separated by age I canr.ot describe them collectively, but only one by one j that they were ;0 unlike with respect to their years aston­ ished me-I will speak �rst of the youngest and continue in order.

This youngest one of the girls was scarcely ten : pretty but i rregular features, a look of humil iation because of her fate, an a ir o f sorrow and trepidation.

The second was fifteen : the same trouble written over her countenance , a quality of modesty degraded, but a bewitching face, of considerable interest all in all .

The third was twenty : pretty as a picture , the loveliest blond hair j fine, regular, gentle features j she appeared less restive, more broken to the saddle.

The fourth was thirty : she was one of the most beauti ful women imaginable j candor, quality, decency in her bearing. and al l a gentle spirit 's virtues .

The fifth was a girl of thirty-six, six months pregnant j dark­ haired, very lively, with beautiful eyes , but having, so it seemed to me, lost all remorse, all decency, all restraint.

The sixth was of the same age : a tall creature of grandiose proportions, a true giantess, fair of face but whose figure was already ruined in excess flesh j when I first saw her she was naked, and I was readily able to notice that not one part of her body w a s

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unstamped by signs of the brutality of those villains whose pleasures her unlucky star had fated her to serve.

The seventh and eighth were two very lovely women of about forty.

Let us continue with the story of my arrival in this impure place.

I did tell you that no sooner had I entered than each one approached me : Clement was the most brazen, his foul lips were soon glued to my mouth ; I twisted away in horror, but I was ad­ vised all resistance was pure affectation, pretense, and useless ; I should do best by imitating my companions.

"Y ou may without difficulty imagine," declared Dom Severino, "that a recalcitrant attitude will be: to no purpose in this inaccessible retreat. You have, you say, undergone much suffering ; but that greatest of all woes a virtuous girl can know i s yet missing from the catalogue of your troubles. I s it not h igh time that lofty pride be humbled ? and may one still expect to be nearly a virgin at twenty­ two ? You see about you companions who, upon entering here, like yourself thought to resist and who, as prudence will bid you to do, ended by submitting when they noticed tha t stubbornness could lead them to incur penalties ; for I might just as well declare to you, Therese ," the superior continued, showing me scourges, ferules, withes, cords, and a thousand other instruments of torture, "yes, you might just as well know i t : there you see what we use upon unmanageable girls ; decide whether you wish to be convinced. What do you expect to find here ? Mercy ? we know it not ; humaneness ? our sole pleasure i s the violation of i ts laws. Religion ? 'tis as naught to us, our contempt for it grows the better acquainted with i t we become ; allies . . . kin . . . friends . . . judges ? there's none of that in this place, dear girl, you will discover nothing but cruelty, egoism, and the most sustained debauche:�y and impiety. The completest submissiveness i s your lot, and that is all ; cast a glance about the impenetrable asylum which shelters you : never has an outsider invaded these premises : the monastery could be taken, searched, sacked, and burned, and this retreat would still be perfectly safe from discovery : we are in an isolated outbuilding, as good as buried within the six walls of incredible thickness surrounding us entirely, and here you are, my child, in the midst of four libertines who

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surely have no inclinati ::m to spare you and whom your entreaties , your tears, your speeches, your genuflections, and your outcries will only further inflame. To whom then will you have recourse ? to what ? Will i t be to th a t God you h ave just implored with such earnestness and who, hr way of reward for your fervor, only pre­ cipitates you into further snares, each more fatal than the last ? to that illusory God we ourselves outrage all day long by insulting h i s va in commandments ? . . . And so , Therese, you conceive that there i s no power, of whatever species you may suppose, which could possibly deliver you out of our hands, and there i s neither in the category of things real nor in that of miracles, any sort of means which might permit you successfully to retain this virtue you yet glory in ; which might, in fine, prevent you from becoming, in every sense and in every manner, the prey of the libidinous excesses to which we, all four of WI, are going to abandon ourselves with you . . . . Therefore, l i ttle slut, off with your clothes, offer your body to our lusts, let i t be soiled by them instantly or the severest treatment will prove to you wha t risks a wretch like yourself runs by dis­ obeying us ."

This harangue . . . this terrible order , I felt, left me no shi fts, but would I not have been gu ilty had I failed to employ the means my heart prompted in me ? my s i tuation left me this last resource : I fall a t Dam Severino's feet, I employ all a despairing soul ' s elo­ quence to supplicate him not to take advantage of my state or abuse i t ; the b itterest tears spring from my eyes and inundate his knees , all I imagine to be of th e strongest, al l I beli eve the most pathetic, I try everything with thi , man . . . . Great God I what was the use ? could I have not known that tears merely enhance the obj ect of a l ibertine's coveting ? how was I able to doubt that everything I at­ tempted in my efforts t(1 sway those savages had the unique effect of arousing them . . . . "Take the bitch," said Severino in a rage, "se ize her , Clement, let her be naked in a minute, and let her learn that i t i s not in persons l ike ou rselves that compassion sti fles Nature." My resistance had animated Clement, he was foaming at the mouth : he took hold o f me, his arn shook nervously ; interspersing his actions with appalling blasphemies , he had my clothing torn away in a trice.

"A lovely creature ," came from the superior, who ran h is

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fingers over my flanks, "may God blast me i f I 've ever seen one better made ; friends, " the monk pursued, "let' s put order into our procedure s ; you know our formula for welcoming newcomers : she might be exposed to the entire ceremony, don' t you think ? let's omit nothing ; and let' s have the eight other women stand around us to supply our wants and to exci te them."

A ci rcle i s formed immediately, I am placed in its center and there, for more than two hours, I am inspected, considered, handled by those four monks, who, one a fter the other, p ronounce either encomiums or criticisms.

You will permit me, Madame, our lovely prisoner said with a blush, to conceal a part o f the obscene details of this odious ritual ; allow your imagination to figure all that debauch can dictate to villains in such instances ; allow it to see them move to and fro between my companions and me, comparing, confronting, contrast­ ing, airing opinions, and indeed it still will not have but a faint idea o f what was done in those init ial orgies , very mild, to be sure , when matched against all the horrors I was soon to experience.

"Let ' s to it," says Severino, whose prodigiously exalted desires will brook no further restraint and who in this dreadful state gives the impression of a tiger about to devour its prey, "let each of us advance to take his favorite pleasure." And placing me upon a couch in the posture expected by hi s execrable projects and causing me to be held by two of his monks , the infamous man attempts to satisfy himself in that criminal and perverse fashion which makes us to resemble none but the sex we do not possess while degrading the one we have ; but either the shameless creature i s too strongly proportioned, or Nature revolts i n me at the mere suspicion of these pleasures ; Severino cannot overcome the obstacles ; he pre­ sents himself, and he i s repulsed immediately . . . . He spreads, he presses, thrusts, tears, all his efforts are in vain ; in his fury the monster lashes out against the altar at which he cannot speak his prayers ; he strikes it, he pinches it, he bites i t ; these brutalities are succeeded by renewed challenges ; the chastened flesh yields, the ga te cedes, the ram bursts through ; terrible screams rise from my throat ; the entire mass is swifty engulfed, and darting i ts venom the next moment, robbed then o f its strength, the snake gives

570 + THE MARQUIS DE SADE

ground before the movements I make to expel it, and Severino weeps with rage. Never in my l ife have I suffered so much.

Clement steps forward; he is armed with a cat-o'-nine- tails; his perfidious designs gl i tter in his eyes.

" 'Tis I," says he to Severino, " 'tis I who shall avenge you, Father, I shall correct this silly drab for having resisted your pleasures." He has no need of anyone else to hold me; with one arm he enlaces me and forces me, belly down, across his knees; what i s going to serve his cnrices is nicely discovered. At first, he tries a few blows, i t seems they are merely intended as a prelude ; soon inflamed by lust, the beast strikes with all his force; nothing i s exempt from h i s ferocity; everything from the small of my back to the lower part of my thighs, the traitor lays cuts upon i t all ; daring to mix love with these moments of cruelty, he fastens h is mouth to mine and wishes to inhale the sighs agony wrests from me .. . my tears flow, he laps then up, now he kisses, now he threatens, but the rain of blows continues ; while he operates, one of the women excites him; kneeling hefore him, she works with each hand at diverse tasks; the greater her success, the more violent the strokes delivered me; I am nig h to being rent and nothing yet announces the end of my suffering! ; he has exhausted every possibi l i ty, still h e drives on ; the end I awa i t is to be the work of h i s delirium alone ; a new cruelty stiffens him : my breasts are a t the brute's mercy, he irritates them, uses his teeth upon them, the cannibal snaps, bi tes, this excess determines the crisis , the incense escapes him. Frightful cries, terrifying blaspht mies, shouts characterize its spurtings, and the monk, enervated, t� rns me over to Jerome.

"I will be no more of a threat to your virtue than Clement was," said this libertine as he caressed the blood-spattered altar a t which Clement h ad j ust sacrificed, "but I should indeed like t o kiss the furrows where the plow passed; I too am worthy to open them, and should like to pay �hem my modest respects ; but I should l ike even more, " went on th,: old satyr , inserting a finger where Severino had lodged himself, "I should like to have the hen lay, and 'twould be most agreeable to d,!vour its egg .. . does one exi st ? Why, yes indeed, by God! • • . Oh, my dear, dear l ittle girl I how very soft . . . "

His mouth takes the place of his finger . . . I am told what I

Jus tine 4- 5 7 1

have to do, full of disgust I do it . In my si tuation, alas, am I per­ mitted to refuse? The infamous one is delighted . . . he swallows, then, forcing me to kneel before him, he glues himself to me in this position; his ignominous passion is appeased in a fashion tha t can­ not justify any complaint on my part. While he acts thus, the fat woman /logs him, another puts herself directly above his mouth and acqui ts herself of the same task I have just been obliged to execute .

. , 'Ti s not enough," says the monster, "each one of my hands has got to contain ... for one cannot get one's fill of these goodies." The two prettiest girls approach; they obey : there you have the excesses to which satiety has led }tSrome. At any rate , thanks to impuri ties he is happy, and at the end of half an hour, my mouth finally receives, with a loathing you must readily apprecia te, thi s evil man's disgusting homage.

Anton in appears. "\Vell , " s ays he, "let's have a look at this so very spotless virtue; I wonder whether, damaged by a s ingle assault , it i s really what the girl maintains." His weapon is raised and trained upon me j he would willingly employ Clement' s devices: I have told you that active flagellation pleases him qui te as much as it does the other monk but, as he i s in a hurry, the state in which his colleague has put me suffices him : he examines this state, relishes it, and l eaving me in tha t attitude of which they are all so fond. he spends an instant pawing the two hemispheres poised at the en­ trance ; in a fury, he ra ttles the temple 's porticos, he i s soon a t the sanctuary j although quite as violent as Severino' s , Antonin's as­ sault, launched against a less narrow passage, is not a s painful to endure j the energetic athlete seizes my haunches and, supplying the movements I am unable to make, he shakes me, pull s me to him vivaciously ; one might judge by this Hercules' redoubling efforts that , not content to be master of the place, he wishes to reduce it to a shambles. Such terrible attacks, so new to me, cause me to succumb j but unconcerned for my pain, the cruel victor thinks of nothing but increasing his pleasure ; everything embraces, every­ thing conspires to his voluptuousness; facing him, raised upon my flanks, the fifteen year-old girl, her l egs spread open , offers h is mouth the altar a t which he sacrifices in me : leisurely, he pumps that precious natural juice whose emission Nature has only lately

572 .. THE MARQUI S DE SADE

granted the young child ; on her knees, one of the older women bends toward my vanquisher's loins, busies herself about them and with her impure tongue animating his desires, she procures them their ecstasy while , to i nfl ame himself yet further, the debauchee excites a woman with e i ther hand ; there is not one of his senses which is not tickled, not one which does not concur in the perfection of his delirium ; he attains it, but my unwavering horror for all these infamies inhibits :ne from sharing i t . . . . He arrives there alone ; his j ets, his cries, everything proclaims i t and, despite myself, I am flooded with the p roofs of a fire I am but one of six to l ight ; and thereupon I fall ba:k upon the throne which has just been the scene of my immolatior, no longer conscious of my existence save through my pain and m�' tears . . . my despair and my remorse.

However, Dom Severino orders the women to bring me food ; but far from being quickened by these a ttentions, an access of furi­ ous grief assails my soul . I, who located all my glory, all my felic ity in my virtue, I who thor ght that, provided I remained well-behaved at all times, I could be consoled for all fortune's ills, I cannot bear the horrible idea of see ing myself so cruelly sull ied by those from whom I should have been able to expect the greatest comfort and a id : my tears flowed in abundance, my cries made the vault ring ; I rolled upon the floor, I lacerated my breast, tore my hair , invoked my butchers, begged 6em to bestow death upon me . . . and, Madame, would you bel ieve i t ? this terrible sight exci ted them all the more.

"Ah I" sa id Severi no, "I 've never enjoyed a finer spectacle: behold, good friends, SI!e the state it puts me in ; it is really unbe­ l ievable , what feminine lnguish obtains from me."

"Let's go back to work," quoth Clement, "and in order to teach her to bellow at ;ate, let the bitch be more sharply handled in this second assault."

The proj ect i s no woner conceived than put into execution ; up steps Severino, but his speeches notwithstanding, his desires require a further degree of i r ritation and it is only after having used Clement's cruel measur,!s that he succeeds in marshaling the forces necessary to accomplish his newest crime. Great God I What excess of ferocity I Could it be that those monsters would carry it to the point of selecting the instant of a crisis of moral agony as violent

Justine .. 573

as that I was undergoing, in order to submit me to so barbarous a physical one I " 'Twould be an injustice to this novice," said Clement, "were we not to employ in its major form what served us so well in its merely episodic dimension, " and thereupon he be­ gan to act, adding : "My word upon it , I will treat her no better than did you." "One instant," said Antonin to the superior whom he saw about to l ay hands upon me again ; "while your zeal is ex­ haled into this pretty maiden's posterior parts, I might, it seems to me, make an offering to the contrary God ; we will have her between us two."

The position was so arranged I could still provide Jerome with a mouth ; Clement fi tted himself between my hands , I was con­ strained to arouse him ; all the priestesses surrounded this frightful group ; each lent an actor what she knew was apt to stir him most profoundly ; however, i t was I supported them all, the entire weight bore down upon me alone ; Sevel�ino gives the signal , the other three follow close after him and there I am a second time infa­ mously defiled by the proofs of those blackguards' disgusting luxury.

"Well," cr ies the superior , " that should be adequate for the first day ; we must now have her remark that her comrades are no better treated than she." I am placed upon an elevated armchair and from there I am compelled to witness those other horrors which are to terminate the orgies .

The monks stand in queue ; aU the sisters file before them and receive whiplashes from each ; next, they are obliged to excite their torturers with their mouths while the latter torment and shower invectives upon them.

The youngest, she of ten, is placed upon a divan and each monk steps forward to expose her to the torture of his choice ; near her is the girl of fifteen ; it is with her each monk, after having meted out punishment, takes his pleasure; she is the butt ; the eldest woman i s obliged to stay in close attendance upon the monk presently per­ forming, in order to be of service to him either in this operation or in the act which concludes i t. Severino uses only his hands to molest what i s offered him and speeds to engulf himself in the sanctuary of his whole delight and which she whom they have posted nearby presents to him ; armed with a handful of nettles, the eldest woman

574 .. THE MARQnS DE SADE

retali a tes upon him for what he has a moment ago done to the chi ld ; 'tis in the depth:; of painful t it i l lations the libertine's trans­ ports are born . . . . Consult him ; will he confess to cruelty ? But he has done nothing he doc:s not endure in his turn.

Clement l ightly p inches the l ittle girl' s flesh ; the enj oyment offered within is beyond h i s capabil it ies , but he is treated as he has dealt with the gi rl, and at the feet of the i dol he leaves the incense h e lacks the strength to fling into i ts s anctu ary.

Antonin entertain; himself by kneading the fleshier parts of the victim's body ; fi red by her convulsive struggling, he precipitates himself into the district- offered to h is chosen pleasures. In h is turn he is mauled , beaten, and ecstasy is the fruit of his torments .

Old Jerome employs h i s teeth only, but each bite l eaves a wound whence blood leaps instantly forth ; a fter receiving a dozen, the target tenders him her open mouth ; therein h is fury i s appeased while he is himself bitten quite as severely as he did bite.

The s aintly father:; drink and recover their strength. The thirty-six-year-old woman, s ix months pregnant, as I have

told you, is p erched upon a pedestal eight feet high ; unable to pose but one l eg, she i s obl iged to keep the other in the a i r ; round about her, on the floor , are mattresses garnished three feet deep with thorns, splines, holly ; a fl exible rod is given to her that she may keep herself erect ; it i s easy to see, on the one hand, tha t it i s to her in­ terest not to tumble , �nd on the other, that she cannot possibly retain her b alance ; the alternatives divert the monks ; all four of them cluster a round her, during the spectacle each has one o r two women to excite him in divers manners ; great with child as she i s , the luckless creature remains in thi s attitude for nearly a qua rter o f an hour ; a t last , strength deserts her, s h e falls upon the thorns , and our villains , wild with lust, one last time step forward to lavish upon her body their ferocity's abominable homage .. . the company retires.

The superior put me into the keeping of the thirty-year-old girl of whom I made mention ; her name was Omphale ; she was charged to instruct me, to settle me i n my new domicile. But tha t night I neither saw no)' heard anything. Annihilated, desperate, I thought o f nothing but to capture a little rest. In the room where I had been installed I noticed other women who had not been at the

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supper ; I postponed consideration of these new objects until the following day, and occupied myself with naught else but repose. Omphale left me to myself; she went to put herself to bed; scarcely had I stepped into mine when the full horror of my circumstances presented i tself to me in yet more lively colors : I could not dispel the thought of the execrations I had suffered, nor of those to which I had been a witness. Alas I if at certain times those pleasures had occurred to my wandering imagination, I had thought them chaste, as i s the God vVho inspires them, given by Nature in order to com­ fort human beings ; I had fancied them the product of love and delicacy. I had been very far from believing that man, a fter the example of savage beasts, could only relish them by causing his com­ p anion to shudder . . . then, returning to my own black fate . . . "0 Just Heaven," I sa id to myself, " i t i s then absolutely certain that no vi rtuous act will emanate from my heart without being an­ swered at once by an agonizing echo! And of what evil was I gui lty, Great God ! in desiring to come to accomplish some religious duties in this monastery ? Do I offend Heaven by wanting to pray? In­ comprehensible decrees of Providence, deign," I continued, "deign to open wide my eyes, cause me to see i f you do not wish me to rebel against you ! " Bitterest tean, followed these musings, and I was still inundated with them when dayl ight appeared; then Omphale approached my bed.

"Dear companion," she said., "I come to exhort you to be courageous ; I too wept during my first days, but now the thing has become a habit ; a s have I, you will become accustomed to i t all ; the beginnings are terrible : i t i s not s imply the necessi ty to sate these debauchees' hungers which i s our Ii fe's torture, i t i s the loss of our freedom, i t is the cruel manner in which we are handled in this terrible house."

The wretched take comfort in seeing o ther sufferers about them. However trenchant were my anguishes, they were assuaged for an instant ; I begged my companion to inform me of the ills I had to expect.

"In a moment," my instructress said, "but first get up and let me show you about our retreat, observe your new companions ; then we'll hold our conversation."

Following Omphale 's suggestion, I began by examining the

576 ... THE MARQUS DE SADE

chamber we were in. It was an exceedingly large chamber, contain­ ing eight l i ttle beds covered with clean calico spreads ; by each bed was a partitioned dressing room ; but all the windows which lit both these closets and the rlom itself were raised five feet above the floor and barred inside and out. In the middle of the room was a large table, secured to the fio)r, and it was intended for eating or work ; three doors bound and braced with iron closed the room ; on our side no fittings or keyholes were to be seen ; on the other, enormous bolts.

"And thi s is our prison ?" "Alas! yes, my dear," Omphale replied ; "such i s our unique

dwelling place ; not far from here, the eight other girls have a simila r room, and we never communicate with each other save when the monks are pleased to assemble us all at one time."

I peered into the alcove destined for me ; it was eight feet square, daylight entereli it , a s in the great room, by a very high window fitted all over with iron. The only furniture was a bidet, a l avatory basin and a chaise percee. I re-emerged ; my companions, eager to see me, gathered round in a circle : they were seven, I made the eighth . Omphale, in 1abiting the other room, was only in this to indoctrinate me ; were I to wish it, she would remain with me, and one of the others would take her place in her own chamber ; I asked to have the arrangement made. But before coming to Omphale's story, it seems to me ess ential to describe the seven new companions fate had given me ; I will proceed according to age, as I did with the others.

The youngest was twelve years old : a very animated, very spirited physiognomy, the loveliest hair , the prettiest mouth.

The second was si xteen : she was one of the most beautiful blondes imaginable, wit:1 truly delicious features and all the grace, all the sweetness of her 1ge, mingled with a certain interesting qual­ ity, the product of her! adness, which rendered her yet a thousand times more beautiful.

The third was twenty-three ; very pretty, but an excessive ef­ frontery, too much imp'ldence degraded, so I thought, the charms Nature had endowed he:: with.

The fourth was twenty-six : she had the figure of Venus ; but perhaps her forms were rather too pronounced ; a dazzling fair

Justine .. 577

skin ; a sweet, open, laughing countenance, beautiful eyes, a mouth a trifle large but admirably furnished, and superb blond hair .

The fifth was thirty-two ; she was four months pregnant; with an oval, somewhat melancholic face, l arge soulful eyes ; she was very pale, her health was delicate, she had a harmonious voice but the rest seemed somehow spoiled. She was naturally libertine : she was, I was told, exhausting herself .

The s ixth was thirty-three: a tall strapping woman, the loveli­ est face in the world, the loveliest Hesh.

The seventh was thi rty-eight ; a true model of figure and beauty : she was the superintendent of my room; Omphale fore­ warned me of her malicious temper and, principally, of her taste for women.

"To yield i s the best way of pleasing her," my companion told me ; "resist her, and you will bri.ng down upon your head every misfortune tha t can befall you in thi s house. Bear it in mind."

Omphale a sked permission of Ursule, which was the superin­ tendent's name, to instruct me ; Ursule consented upon condition I kiss her. I approached : her impure tongue sought to a ttach i tself to mine, and meanwhile her fingers labored to determine sensations she was far indeed from obtaining. However, I had to lend myself to everything, my own feelings notwithstanding, and when she be­ l ieved she had triumphed, she sent me back to my closet where Omphale spoke to me in the following manner :

"All the women you saw y�sterday, my dear Therese, and those you have just seen, are divided into four classes, each con­ taining four girls; the first is calh:d the children's class : it includes girls ranging from the most tender age to those of sixteen ; a white costume distinguishes them.

"The second class , whose color i s green, is called the youthful class; it contains girls of from sixteen to twenty-one.

"The third is the cl ass of the age of rea son; its vestments are blue ; its ages are from twenty-one to thirty, and both you and I belong to it .

"The four th cl ass, dressed in reddish brown, is intended for those of ma ture years; it is composed of anyone over thirty.

"These girls are e ither indiscriminately mingled at the Rever. end Fathers' suppers, or they appear there by class : it all depends

578 4 THE MARQUIS DE SADE

upon the whims o f the monks but, when not at the meals, they are mixed in the two dormit')ries , as you are able to judge by those who are lodged in ours.

"The instruction I have to give you," said Omphale, "divides under the headings of:our primary articles ; in the fi rst, we will treat of what pertains tc.J the house ; in the second we will place what regards the behavior of the gi rls, the ir puni shment, the ir feeding habi ts, e tc ., e tc., etc. ; the third article will inform you o f the ar­ rangement o f these monks' pleasures, of the manner in which the gi rls serve them ; the fourth will con tain observations on person­ nel changes.

"I will not, Therese, describe the environs of this frightful house, for you are as famil iar with them as I ; I will only discuss the interior ; they have sho\\n i t all to me so that I can give a picture o f i t t o newcomers, whose c:ducation i s one o f my chores, and in whom, by means of thi s accoull':, I am expected to dash all hope of escape. Yesterday Severino exp ained some of its features and he did not deceive you, my dear. The church and the pavilion form what is properly called the mOlustery ; but you do not know where the building we inhabit is situated and how one gets here ; 'tis thus: in the depths o f the sacristy, behind the altar, i s a door h idden in the wainscoting and opened by a spring ; th is door is the entrance to a narrow passage, quite �.s dark as it i s long, whose windings your terror, upon entering, prevented you from noticing ; the tunnel descends at first, becaw.e it must pass beneath a moat thi rty feet deep, then i t mounts a ft�r the moat and, leveling out, continues at a depth o f no more than ;ix feet beneath the surface ; thus it arrives a t the basements of our pavil ion having traversed the quarter of a league from the churd ; six thick enclosures rise to baffle all a t­ tempts to see this buildi 19 from the outside, even were one to climb into the church ' s tower; the reason for this invisib i l i ty is s imple : the pavil ion hugs the ground, i ts height does not atta in twenty-five feet, and the compounded enclosures, some stone ,valls, others liv­ ing p al isades formed b:r trees growing in stra i t prox imity to each other, are, all of them, at least fi fty feet high : from whatever di­ rection the place is observed it can only be taken for a dense clump of trees in the forest, never for a habi tation ; i t i s, hence, as I have said, by means of a trap door opening into the cellars one emerges

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from the obscure corridor of which I gave you some idea and of which you cannot possibly have any recollection in view of the state you must have been while walking through it . This pavilion, my dear, has, in all, nothing but basem ents, a ground floor, an entresol, and a first floor; above it there is a very thick roof covered with a l a rge tray, lined with lead, filled with earth, and in which are planted evergreen shrubberies which, blending wi th the screens sur­ rounding us, give to cvcrything a yet more realistic look of solidity; the basements form a la rge hall in the middle, a round i t are dis­ tributed eight smaller rooms of which two serve as dungeons for g i rls who have merited incarcerat ion, and the other six are reserved for provisions ; above are loca ted the dining room, the kitchens, p antries, and two cabinets the monks enter when they wish to isol ate the ir pleasures and taste them with us out of thei r col leagues' sight: the intervening story i s composed of e ight chambers, whereof four have each a closet : these are the cells where the monks sleep and introduce us when their lubricity destines us to share their beds ; the four other rooms are those o f the serving friars, one of whom is our j ai ler, another the monks' valet, a third the doctor , who has in his cell all he needs for emergencies , and the fourth i s the cook ; these four friars are deaf and dumb ; i t would be difficult to expect, as you observe, any comfort or aid from them; furthermore, they never pass time in our company and it i:; forbidden to accost or attempt to communicate with them. Above the entresol are two seraglios: they are i dentical ; as you see , each is a large chamber edged by eight cubicles; thus , you understand, dear girl , that, supposing one were to break through the bars in the casement and descend by the win­ dow, one would still be far from being able to escape, since there would remain five palisades, a stout wall , and a broad moat to get past : and were one even to overcome these obstacles, where would one be ? In the monastery's courtyard which, i tself securely shut, would not afford, at the first moment, a very safe egress. A perhaps less perilous means of escape would be , I admit, to find, somewhere in our basements, the opening to the tunnel that leads out ; but how are we to explore these underground cellars, perpetually locke6 up as we are ? were one even to be able to get down there , thi s open·· ing would still not be found, for it enters the building in some hidden corner unknown to us and itself barricaded by grills to which

580 .. THE MARQ U :S DE SADE

they alone have the ke:, . However, were all these difficulties van­ quished, were one in th,! corridor, the route would still not be any the more certain for us, for i t i s strewn with traps with which only they are famil iar and into which anyone who sought to traverse the passageways would ill( v itably fall without the guidance of the monks. And so you mus1 renounce all thought of escape, for it is out of the question, There�e ; believe me, were it thinkable, I should long have fled this dete stable place, but that cannot be. They who come here never leave save upon their death ; and thence i s born this impudence, this cru elty, this tyranny these villains use with us ; nothing infl ames them, nothing stimulates their imagination like the impunity gua ranteed them by this impregnable retreat ; certain never to have other witnesses to their excesses than the very victims they feast upon, sure indeed the ir perversities will never be re­ vealed, they carry them to the most abhorrent extremes ; delivered of the law's restraints, having burst the checks Religion imposes, unconscious of those of remorse, there i s no atrocity in which they do not indulge themselves, and by this criminal apathy their abomi­ nable passions are so much more agreeably pricked that nothing, they say, incenses them: ike solitude and silence, l ike helplessness on one hand and impunity on the other. The monks regularly sleep every night in this pavil on, they return here at five in the a fternoon and go to the monaster:, the following morning at nine, except for one of the four, chosen ,:la ily, who spends the day here : he i s known as the Officer of the Day. We will soon see what his duties are . As for the four subaltern friars, they never budge from here ; in each chamber we have a belJ which communicates with the j ai ler 's cell ; the superintendent alone has the right to ring for him but, when she does so in time of her need or ours, everyone comes running instantly ; when they re'urn each day, the fathers themselves bring the necessary victuals and give them to the cook, who prepares our meals in accordance witl their instructions ; there i s an artesian well in the basements, abundant wines of every variety in the cellars . We pass on to the second article which relates to the girls' manners, bearing, nourishment, pmishment, etc.

"Our number is .lways maintained constant ; affairs are so managed that we are a: ways sixteen, eight in e ither chamber, and, as you observe, always it the uni form of our particular class ; before

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the day is over you will be given the habit appropriate to the one you are entering ; during the day we wear a l ight costume of the color which belongs to us; in the evening, we wear gowns of the same color and dress our hair with all possible elegance. The su­ perintendent of the chamber has complete authority over us, dis­ obedi ence to her i s a crime ; her dUity i s to inspect us before we go to the orgies and if things are not in the desired state she is punished as well a s we. The errors we may commit are o f several kinds. Each has i ts particular punishment, and the rules, together with the list of what i s to be expected when they are broken, are displayed in each chamber ; the Officer of the Day, the person who comes, as I explained a moment ago, to give us orders, to designate the girls for the supper , to visit our living quarters, and to hear the superin­ tendents' complaints, this monk, I :,ay, is the one who, each evening, metes out punishment to whoeve r has merited i t : here are the crimes together with the punishments exacted for them.

"Failure to rise in the morning a t the prescribed hour, thirty strokes with the whip ( for it i s almost always with whipping we are punished ; i t were perfectly to be expected that an episode in these l ibertines' pleasures would have become their preferred mode of correction ) . The presentation during the pleasurable act , either through misunderstanding or for whatsoever may be the reason, of one part of the body instead of some o ther which was desired, fi fty strokes ; improper dress or an unsuitable coiffure, twenty strokes ; failure to have given prior notice of incapacitation due to menstruation, sixty strokes ; upon the day the surgeon confirms the exi stence of a pregnancy, one hundred strokes are administered ; negligence, incompetence, or refusal i n connection with luxurious proposals , two hundred strokes . And how often their infernal wickedness finds us wanting on tha t head, without our having made the least mistake ! How frequently i t happens that one of them will suddenly demand what he very w ell knows we have just accorded another and cannot immediately do again! One undergoes the pun­ ishment nonetheless ; our remonst rances, our pleadings are never heeded ; one must either comply or suffer the consequences. Imper­ fect behavior in the chamber, or disobedience shown the superin­ tendent, sixty strokes ; the appearance of tears , chagrin, sorrow, re­ morse, even the look of the sli ghtest return to Religion, two

582 + THE MARQUIS DE SADE

hundred strokes. I f a monk .selects you as his partner when h e wishes to taste t h e l a s t cr is is o f pleasure a n d i f he i s unable t o achieve i t , whether t h e fault be h i s , which i s m o s t common, o r whether i t be yours, UpOl t h e spot, three hundred strokes ; the least hint o f revulsion a t the monks' propositions, of whatever nature these propo sitions may ')e , two hundred strokes ; an attempted or concerted escape o r revolt, nine days' confinement in a dungeon, entirely naked, and thret hundred lashes each day ; caballing, the in­ stigation o f plots, the sowing o f unrest, etc . , immediately upon dis­ covery, three hundred st roke s ; proj ected suicide, refusal to eat the stipulated food o r the pl'Oper quantity, two hundred stroke s ; disre­ spect shown toward the monks, one hundred eighty strokes . Those only are crimes ; beyond what i s mentioned there, we can do wha t­ ever we please , sleep together, qua rrel, fight, carry drunkenness , r iot and gourmandizing to their furthest extremes, swea r, blas­ pheme : none of that makes the faintest difference, we may commit those faults and never a word will be sa id to us ; we are rated for none but those I h ave ju : ;t mentioned. But if they wish, the superin­ tendents can spare us many of these unplea santnesses ; however, this protection, unfortunately, can be purchased only by com­ placencies frequently more disagreeable than the sufferings for which they are substi tu t e s ; these women, in both chambers, have the same taste , and it i s only by according them one's favors that one enters into their good graces. Spurn one o f them, and she needs no additional motive to exaggerate her report of your misdeeds, the monks the superintertdents serve double thei r powers, and far from reprimanding them for their injustice, unceasingly encourage i t in them ; they are themselves bound by all those regulations and are the more severely chastised if they are suspected of leniency : not tha t the libertines need all th at in order to vent the ir fury upon us, but they welcome excuses ; the look o f legitimacy that may be given to a p iece of viciousness renders it more agreeable in thei r eyes , adds to its piquanc;" its charm. Upon arriving here each o f us i s provided with a l ittle store o f linen ; we are given everything by the half-dozen, and our supplies are renewed every yea r, but we are obliged to surrender what we bring here with us ; we are not permitted to keep the le�st thing. The complaints of the four fri ars I spoke of a re heard just as a re the superintendents' ; the ir mere

Justine + 583

delation is sufficient to procure our punishment; but they at least ask nothing from us and there is less to be feared from that quarter than from the superintendents who, when vengeance informs their maneuvers, are very demanding and very dangerous. Our food is excellent and always copious ; were i t not that their lust derives benefits thence, thi s article might not be so satisfactory, but as their fi lthy debauches p rofit thereby, they spare themselves no pains to stuff us with food: those who have a bent for flogging seek to fatten us, and those, as Jerome phrased it yesterday, who like to see the hen lay, are assured by means of abundant feeding, of a greater yield of eggs. Consequently, we e<�t four times a day; at breakfast, between nine and ten o 'clock we are regularly given 'Volaille au riz , fresh fru i t or compotes, tea , coffee, or chocolate; at one o'clock, dinner i s served ; each table of eight i s served alike; a very good soup, four entrees , a roast of some kind, four second courses, des­ sert in every season. At five-thirty an a fternoon lunch of pastries and fru i t arrives. There can be no doubt of the evening meal's ex­ cellence if it is taken with the monks ; when we do not j oin them at table, as often happens, since but four o f us from each chamber are allowed to go , we are given three roast plates and four entremets ; each of us has a daily ration of one bottle of white wine, one of red, and an hal f-bottle o f brandy; they who do not drink that much are a t liberty to di stribute the ir quota to the others ; among us are some great gourmands who drink astonishing amounts, who get regularly drunk, all of which they do without fear of reprimand; and there are , as well , some for whom these four meals st i l l do not suffice; they have but to ring, and what they ask for will be brought them at once.

"The superintendents requin� that the food be consumed, and if someone persists in not wishing to eat , for whatever reason, upon the third infraction that person will be severely punished; the monks' supper is composed of three roast dishes, six entrees fol­ lowed by a cold plate and e ight entremets, fruit, three kinds of wine, coffee and l iqueurs : sometimes all eight of us are at table with them, sometimes they oblige four of us to wait upon them, and these four dine afterward; it also happens from time to time that they take only four girls for supper; they are, ordinarily, an entire class; when our number is eight, there are always two from each

584 + THE MARQU::S DE SAnE

class. I need hardly tell you that no one ever vis its us ; under no c ir­ cumstances is any outsider ever admitted into this pavilion. I f we fall i l l , we are entrusted to the surgeon friar only, and if we die , we l eave thi s world without any religious ministrations ; our bodies are flung into one of the spaces between the circumvallations, and that's an end to i t ; but, and the cruelty is signal, i f the sick one's condi­ tion becomes too grave or if there is fear of contagion, they do not wait until we are dead to dispose o f us ; though still alive, we are carried out and dropp ed in the place I mentioned. During the e ighteen years I have been here I have seen more than ten instance s o f this unexampled ferocity ; concerning which they declare i t is bet­ ter to lose one than endanger sixteen ; the loss o f a girl , they con­ tinue , i s of very modes t import, and it may be so easily repaired there is scant cause to regret i t . Let us move on to the arrange­ ments concerning the monks' pleasures and to all of what pertains to the subj ect.

"We rise a t exactly nine every morning, and in every season ; we retire a t a l a ter o r �.n e a rlier hour, depending upon the monks' supper. Immedia tely we a re up, the Officer of the Day comes on his rounds ; he seats hinself in a l a rge armchair and each o f us i s obliged t o a dvance, stand before h i m with our skirts raised upon the side he prefers ; he touches, he kisses, he examines, and when every­ one has carried out thi s duty, he identifies those who are to partici­ p a te at the evening's eXf!rcises : he prescribes the state in which they must be, he l i stens to t.1e superintendent's report, and the punish­ ments are imposed. R a rely does the officer leave without a luxurious scene in which all eight: usually find roles. The superintendent di­ rects these libidinous activit ies , and the most entire submission on our part reigns during them. Before breakfast it often occurs that one of the Reverend Fathers has one o f us called from bed ; the ja i ler friar brings a card bearing the name of the person desired, the Officer of the Day sees to i t she is sent, not even he has the right to withhold her, she leaves and returns when dismissed. This first ceremony concluded, w.! breakfast ; from this moment till evening we have no more to de ; but at seven o'clock in summer, at six in winter, they come for those who have been designated ; the j a iler friar himself escorts them, and a fter the supper they who have not been retained for the night come back to the seragl io . Often, all

Justine .. 585

return ; other girls have been selected for the night, and they are advised several hours in advance in what costume they must make their appearance ; sometimes only the Girls of the Watch sleep out of the chamber."

"Girls of the Watch ?" 1 inte rrupted. "What function this ?" "1 will tell you," my historian replied. "Upon the first day of every month each monk adopts a girl

who must serve a term as his servant and as the target of his shame­ ful desires ; only the superintendents are exempted, for they have the task of governing their chambers. The monks can neither ex­ change girls during the month, nor make them serve two months in succession ; there is nothing more cruel , more taxing than this drudgery, and I h ave no idea how you will bear up under it. When five o 'clock strikes, the Girl of the 'Watch promptly descends to the monk she serves and does not leave his side until the next day, at the hour he sets off for the mona stery. She rejoins him when he comes back ; she employs these few hours to eat and rest, for she must remain awake all night throughout the whole of the term she spends with her master; 1 repeat to you, the wretch remains con­ stantly on hand to serve as the object of every caprice which may enter the libertine ' s head ; cuffs, slaps , beatings, whippings, hard language, amusements , she has got to endure all of i t ; she must remain standing all night long in her patron' s bedroom, a t any in­ stant ready to offer hersel f to th e passions which may stir that tyrant ; but the cruelest, the most i gnominious aspect of this servi­ tude is the terrible obligation she is under to provide her mouth or her breast for the relie f o f the one and the other of the monster's needs : he never uses any other vase : she has got to be the willing recipient of everything and the least hesitation or recalcitrance is straightway punished by the most savage reprisals. During all the scenes of lust these are the girls who guarantee pleasure's success , who guide and manage the monks' joys, who tidy up whoever has become covered with filth : for example, a monk dirties himself while enjoying a woman : it is his aide's duty to repa ir the disorder ; he wishes to be excited ? the task o f rousing him falls to the wretch who accompanies him everywhere, dresses him, undresses him, is ever at his elbow, who is always wrong, always at fault, always beaten ; at the suppers her place is behind her master's chair or ,

586 .. THE MARQUIS DE SADE

like a dog, at his feet tinder the table, or upon her knees, between his thighs, exciting him with her mouth; sometimes she serves as his cushion, his seat, his torch; at other times all four of them will be grouped around the ta"Jle in the most lecherous, but, at the same time, the most fatiguing attitudes.

"If they lose their balance, they risk e ither falling upon the thorns placed nea. by, c r breaking a limb, or being killed, such cases have been known ; and meanwhile the villains make merry, enact debauches, peacefully get drunk upon meats, wines, lust, and upon cruelty."

"0 Heaven I" said 1 to my companion, trembling with horror, " i s it possible to be tr ansported to such excesses I What infernal place is this!"

"Listen to me, Therese, listen, my child, you have not yet heard i t all, not by any means ," said Omphale. "Pregnancy, rever­ enced in the world, is the very certitude of reprobation amongst these vi llains ; here, the pregnant woman i s given no dispensations : brutalities, punishment:;, and watches continue ; on the contrary, a gravid condition is the .:ertain way to procure oneself troubles , suf­ ferings, humil iations, sorrows j how o ften do they not by dint o f blows cause abortions in them whose fruits they decide n o t to h a rvest, and when indeed they do allow the fruit to ripen, it is in order to sport with i t : 'vha t 1 am telling you now should be enough to warn you to preserve yourself from this state as best you pos­ sibly can."

"But i s one able to ?" "Of course, there are certain devices, sponges . . . But if An­

tonin perceives what you are up to , beware of h is wra th; the safest way i s to smother whatever might be the natural impression by striving to unhinge the imagination , which with monsters like these is not difficult.

"We have here a: l well ," my instructress continued, "certain dependencies and alli arces of which you probably know very l i ttle and o f which it were 'veIl you had some idea j although this has more to do with the fourth article-wi th, that i s to say , the one that treats o f our recru; tings, our retrenchments, and our exchanges -I am going to anticipate for a moment in order to insert the fol­ lowing details .

Justine .. 587

"Y ou are not unaware, Therese, that the four monks com­ posing this brotherhood stand at the head of their Order; all be­ long to distinguished families , all four are themselves very rich : independently of the considerable funds allocated by the Benedic­ tines for the maintenance of this bower of bliss into which everyone hopes to enter in his turn, they who do arrive here contribute a large proportion of their property and possessior.s to the founda­ tion already established. These two sources combined yield more than a hundred thousand crowns annually which is devoted solely to finding recruits and meeting the house 's expenses ; they have a dozen discreet and reliable women whose sole task is to bring them every month a new subj ect, no younger than twelve nor older than thirty. The conscriptee must be free of all defects and endowed with the grea test possible number of quali t:es, but principally with that of eminent birth. These abductions, well paid for and always effected a great distance from here, bring no consequent discomfitures ; I have never heard of any that resulted in legal action ; their extreme caution protects them against everything. They do not absolutely confine themselves to vi rgins : a girl who has been seduced already or a married woman may prove equally pleasing, but a forcible abduction has got to take place, rape must be involved, and it must be defini tely verified ; this ci rcumstance arouses them ; they wish to be certain their crimes cost tears ; they would send away any gi rl who was to come here voluntarily ; had you not made a prodigious defense, had they not recognized a veri table fund of virtue in you, and, consequently, the possibility of crime, they would not have kept you twenty-four hours. Everyone here, Therese, comes of a dis­ tinguished line ; my dear friend, you see before you the only daughter of the Comte de * * * , c;arried off from Paris at the age of twelve and destined one day to have a dowry of a hundred thousand crowns : I was ravished from the arms of my governess who was taking me by carriage, unoccupied save for ourselves, from my father's country seat to the Abbey of Panthemont where I was brought up ; my guardian disappeared ; she was in all likeli­ hood bought ; I was fetched hither by post chaise. The same ap­ plies to all the others. The girl of twenty belongs to one of the noblest families of Poi tou. The one sixteen years old i s the daughter of the Baron de * * * , one of the greatest of the Lorraine squires ;

5 8 8 + THE MARQUIS DE SADE

Counts, Dukes, and Margraves are the fathers o f the girls o f twenty-three, twelve, a1d thirty-two ; in a word, there i s n o t one who cannot claim the lo ftiest titles , not one who i s not treated with the greatest ignominy. But these depraved men are not content to stop a t these horro r s j they have wished to bring dishonor into the very bosom o f thei r own family. The young lady o f twenty-six, without doubt one of th.e most beauti ful amongst us, is Clement' s daughter; she o f thir�'-six is the niece o f Jerome.

"As soon as a ne'l" g ir l has arrived in this cloaca, a s soon as she has been sealed in here forever to become a stranger to the world, another i s imffil!diately retrenched : such i s our sufferings' complement j the cruelest of our afflictions i s to be in ignorance of what happens to u s dur ng these terrible and disquieting dismissals. It i s absolutely impossible to say what becomes of one upon l eaving this place. From all the evidence we in our i solation are able to assemble , it seems a s if the girls the monks retire from service never appear again ; th.!y themselves warn us , they do not conceal from us that this retre:lt is our tomb, but do they assassinate us? Great Heaven I Would murder, the most execrable o f crimes, would murder be for them wha t it was for tha t celebrated M arechal de Retz,· a species o f entic entertainment whose cruelty , exalting the i r perfidious imagimtions , were able to plunge their senses into a more intense drunke1ness ! Accustomed to extracting j oy from suffering only, to know no delectation save what is derived from inflicting torment and anguish, would it be possible they were distracted to the point o f believing that by redoubling, by amelio­ rating the delirium's primary cause, one would inevi tably render i t more perfect; and that, without principles a s without faith, wanting m anners a s they are lacking i n virtues , the scoundrels, exploi ting the miseries into which their earl ier crimes plunged us, were able to find sat isfaction in lhe later ones which snatch our lives away from us . . . . I don ' t know . . . . If one questions them upon the m a tter, they mumble urcintell igibil it ies , sometimes responding nega­ tively, sometimes in thf a ffi rmative j what i s certain i s that not one of those who has l e ft, desp i te the p romises she made us to denounce these men to the authorit ies and to strive to procure our liberation,

"See L'Historie de Bretag' ... by Dom Lobineau. (Mariehal de Ret.: Gilles de Rais, marshal of Charles VII's army.-Tr. )

Justine .. 5 8 9

no t one, I say, has ever kept her word . . . • Once again: do they placate us, dissuade us, or do they eliminate the possibility of our preferring charges ? What we ask those who arrive for news of them who have gone, they never have any to communicate. What becomes of these wretches ? That i s what torments me, Therese, that i s the fatal incertitude which makes for the great unhappiness of our existence. I have been in this house for eighteen years, I have seen more than two hundred girls depart from it . . . . Where are they ? All of them having sworn to help us , why has not one kept her vow ?

"N othing, furthermore, justi:fies our retirement; age, loss of looks, this is not what counts : caprice is their single rule. They will dismiss today the girl they most caressed yesterday, and for ten years they will keep another of whom they are the most weary: such i s the story of this chamber's superintendent ; she has been twelve years in the house, and to preserve her I have seen them get r id of fifteen-year-old children whose beauty would have rendered the very Graces j ealous. She who left a week ago was not yet six­ teen ; lovely a s Venus herself, they had enj oyed her for less than a year, but she became pregnant and, as I told you Therese, that i s a great sin in this establishment. Last month they retired one of six­ teen, a year ago one of twenty, eight months pregnant ; and, re­ cently, another when she began to feel the first pangs of childbi rth. Do not imagine that conduct has any bearing upon the matter : I have seen some who flew to do their every bidding and who were gone within six months' time ; o thers sullen, peevish, fantastical whom they kept a great number of years ; hence, i t is useless to prescribe any kind of behavio r to our newly arrived; those mon­ sters' whimsy bursts all circumscriptions, and caprice forms the unique law by which thei r actions a re determined.

"When one i s going to be dismissed, one is notified the same morning, never earlier : as usual, the Officer of the Day makes his appearance at nine o'clock and says, let us suppose, 'Omphale, the monastery is sending you into retirement ; I will come to take you this evening. ' Then he continues about his business. But you do not p resent yourself for his inspection; he examines the others, then he l eaves ; the person about to be released embraces her comrades, she makes a thousand promises to strive in their behalf, to bring

590 .. T H E MAR Q 1 J 1 S DE SADE

charges, to brui t abro ad what transpires in the monastery : the hour strikes, the monk appc :ars, the girl i s led away, and not a word is heard of her. Supper takes place in the usual fashion; we have simply been able to re nark that upon these days the monks rarely reach pleasure ' s ultirr,ate episodes, one might say they proceed gingerly and with unwonted care. However, they drink a great deal more, sometimes even to inebri ation ; they send us to our chamber at a much earlier hour they take no one to bed with them, even the Girls of the Watch are relegated to the seraglios."

"Very well ," I say to my companion, " if no one has helped you it is because you h ave had to deal with frail , intimidated crea­ tures, or women with children who dared not attempt anything for you. That they wi: l kill us is not my fear ; at least, I don't be­ l ieve they do : that rea soning beings could carry crime to that point . . . i t i s unthinkable . . . I know that full well . . . . After what I have seen and undergcne I perhaps ought not defend mankind as I do, but, my dear, i t i� ; simply inconceivable that they can execute horrors the very idea of which defies the imagination. Oh dear companion ! " I pursued with great emotion, "would you like to exchange that promise which for my part I swear I will fulfill ! . . . Do you wish i t ?"

"Yes." "Ah, I swear to you in the name o f all I hold most holy, in

the name of the God Wrho makes me to breathe and Whom only I adore . . . I vow to you I will either die in the undertaking or destroy these infamies . . . will you promise me the same ?"

"Do not doubt i t ," Omphale replied, "but be certain of these promises' futil ity ; oth !rs more embittered than you, stauncher, no less resolute and not ! o scrupulous, in a word, friends who would have shed their last d rop of blood for us, have not kept identical vows ; and so, dear Therese, and so allow my cruel experience to consider ours equally 'lain and to count upon them no more ."

"And the monks ," I said, "do they also vary, do new ones often come here ?"

"No," answered Omphale, "Antonin has been here ten years, Clement eighteen, ]erc1me thirty, Severino twenty-five. The superior was born in Italy, h e is closely allied to the Pope with whom he i s in intimate contact ; only since h is arrival have the so-called miracles

Jus tine .. 5 9 1

o f the Virgin assured the monastery's reputation and prevented scandalmongers from observing too closely what takes place here ; but when he came the house was already furnished a s presently you see it to be ; it has subsisted in the same style and upon this footing for above a century, and all the superiors who have governed it h ave perpe tuated a system which so amicably smiles upon their pleasures . Severino, the most l ibertine man of our times, has only installed himself here in order to lead a l i fe consonant with his tastes . He intends to maintain this abbey' s secret privileges as long a s he possibly can. We belong to the diocese of Auxerre, but whether or not the bishop is informed, we never see him, never does he set foot in the monastery : generally speaking, very few outsiders come here except toward the t ime o f the festival which i s that o f N otre Dame d'Aoiit ; according to the monks, ten persons do not a rrive at this house over the period of a twelvemonth ; however, it is very l ikely that when strangers do presen t themselves, the superior takes care to receive them with hospital ity ; by appearances of religion and austerity he imposes upon them, they go away content, the monas­ tery i s eulogized, and thus these villains' impunity i s established upon the people 's good faith and the credulity o f the devout."

Omphale had scarcely concluded her instruction when nine o'clock tolled ; the superintendent called us to come quickly, and the Officer o f the Day did indeed enter. 'Twas Antonin ; according to custom, we drew ourselves up in a l ine . He cast a rapid glance upon the group, counted us, and sat down ; then, one by one, we went forward and l ifted our skirts, on the one s ide a s high a s the navel, on the other up to the middle of the back. Antonin greeted the homage with the blase unconcern of sat iety ; then, clapping an eye upon me, he asked how I l iked this newest of my adventures. Getting no response but tears, "She'll manage," he said with a l augh ; "in all of France there's not a single house where girls a re finished as nicely as they are in this ." From the superintendent's h ands he took the list of girls who had misbehaved, then, a ddressing himself to me again, he caused me to shudder ; each gesture, each movement which seemed to oblige me to submit myself to these l ibertines was for m e a s a sentence o f death. Antonin commanded me to s it on the edge o f a bed and when I was in this posture he bade the superin­ tendent uncover my breast and raise my skirt to above my waist ; he

592 + THE MARQUIS DE SADE

himself spread my legs as far apart as possible, he seats himself before thi s p rospect, O!1e of my companions comes and takes up the same pose on top of me in such a way that it is the altar of genera­ tion instead of my visage which is offered to Antonin ; with these charm s raised to the level of his mouth he readies himself for pleasure. A third girl kneeling before him, begins to excite him with her hands, and a fourth, completely naked, with her fingers indicates where he must strike my body. Gradually, this gi rl begins to arouse me and wha t she does to me Antonin does as well , with both his hands, to two other girls on his left and right. One cannot imagine the language, l:he obscene speeches by which that debauchee stimula tes himsel f ; a t last he is in the state he desires, he i s led to me, but everyone follows him, moves with him, endeavors to in­ flame him yet further while he takes his pleasure ; h is naked hind p arts a re exposed, Omphale takes possession o f them and neglects nothing in order to i r ritate him : rubbings, kisses, pollutions, she employs them all ; completely afire , Antonin leaps toward me . . . . " I wish t o s tuff h e r this time," h e says , beside himself . . . . These moral deviations determine the physical . Antonin, who has the habit of u ttering terrible cries d u ring the final instants o f drunkenness, emits dreadful ones ; everyone surrounds, everyone serves him, everyone labors to enrich his ecs tasy, and the libertine attains it in the midst of the most bizarre ep i sodes o f luxury and depravation.

These groupings ',vere frequent ; for when a monk indulged in whatever form of plea sure, all the girls regularly surrounded him in o rder to fire all his : )arts' sensations, tha t voluptuousness might, if one may be forgiven the expression, more surely penetrate into him through every pore.

Antonin left , breakfast was brought in ; my companions forced me to eat, I did so to please them. We had not qui te finished when the superior entered : ! eeing us still a t table, he dispensed us from ceremonies which were: to have been identical with those we had just executed for Ant( lnin. "We must give a thought to dressing her," said he, looking a t me ; and then he opened a wardrobe and threw upon my bed several garments of the color appropriate to my class , and several bundles o f linen a s well.

"Try that on," he sa id , "and give me what belongs to you." I donned the new :lothes and surrendered my oid ; but, in antic-

Justine .. 5 93

ipation of having to give them up, I had, during the night, pru­ dently removed my money from my pockets and had concealed it in my hair . With each article of clothing I took off , Severino's ardent stare fell upon the feature newly exposed, and his hands wandered to it a t once . At length, when I was half-naked , the monk seized me, put me in the position favorable to his pleasure, that i s to say, in the one exactly opposite to the attitude Antonin had made me assume; I wish to ask him to spare me, but spying the fury already kindled in his eyes, I decide the obedient is the safer way; I take my place, the o thers form a ring around me, Severino is able to see nothing but a multitude of those obscene altars in which he delights ; his hands converge upon :nine , his mouth fastens upon it , his eyes devour it . . . he is a t the summit of pleasure.

With your approval , Madame, sa id the beautiful Therese, I shall l imit myself to a foreshortened account o f the fi rst month I spent in that monastery , that is , I will confine myself to the period's principal anecdotes ; the rest would be pure repetition ; the monot­ ony o f that sojourn would make my recital tedious ; immediately afterward, I should, it seems to m e, move on to the events which finally produced my emergence from this ghastly sewer.

I did not attend supper tha t first day ; I had simply been selected to pass the night with Dom C lement. In accordance with custom, I was outside his cell some few minutes before he was expected to return to i t ; the j a iler opened the door, then locked it when I had gone in .

Clement arrives a s warm with wine a s lust , he is followed by the twenty-six year-old girl who, a t the time was officiating as his watch ; previously informed of wha. t I am to do, I fall to my knees as soon as I hear him coming; he nears me, considers me in my humbled posture, then commands me to rise and kiss him upon the mouth ; he savors the kiss for several moments and imparts to i t all the expression . . . all the amplitude one could possibly conceive. Meanwhile , Armande, as his thrall was named, undresses me by stages; when the lower part o f the loins, with which she had begun, is exposed, she bids me turn around and display to her uncle the area his tastes cherish. Clement examines it, feels it, then, reposing himself in an armchair , orders me to bring it close so that he can kiss i t ; Armande is upon her knees , rousing him with her mouth,

594 * T H E MAR Q I J I S DE SADE

Clement places his at :he sanctuary of the temple I present to him and his tongue strays into the path s i tuate at i ts center ; his hands fasten upon the corresponding altar in Armande but, as the cloth­ ing the girl is still wearing impedes him, he commands her to be rid of it, this is soon done , and the docile creature returns to her uncle to take up a posil ion in which, while excit ing him with only the hand, she finds herself better within reach of Clement' s . The im­ pure monk uninterrup :edly occupied with me in like fashion, then tells me to give the largest possible vent to whatever winds may be hovering in my bowels , and these I am to direct into his mouth; this eccentric ity struck me a s revolting, but I was at the time far from perfect acquaintance with all the i rregularities of debauch : I obey and straightway feel the effect of this intemperance. More excited, the monk becomes mo ,e impassioned : he suddenly appl ies bites to s ix different places upon the fleshy globes I have put at h i s disposal ; I emit a cry and start f orward involunta rily, whereat he stands, ad­ vances toward me, raE:e blazing in h is eyes , and demands whether I know what I am risk ng by unsettling him . . . . I make a thousand apologies, he grasps th� corset still about my torso, r ips it away, and my blouse too, i n less rime than i t takes to tell. . . . Ferociously he se izes my breasts, srouting invectives as he squeezes , wrings, crushes them; Armand e undresses him, and there we are , all three of us, naked. Upon Armande his attention comes to bear for a mo­ ment : he deals her savage blows with h i s fists ; kisses her mouth ; nibbles her tongue and l ips , she screams ; pain now and again sends the girl into uncontrolhble gales of weeping ; he has her stand upon a cha ir and extracts from her just what he desired from me. Armande satisfies h im, with one hand I excite him, and, during this luxury, I whip him gently with the other , he also bi tes Armande, but she holds herself somehow in check, not daring to st ir a hair . The monster's tooth-m arks are soon printed upon the lovely gi rl ' s flesh; they are to be sel :n in a number o f places ; brusquely wheeling upon me: "Therese , " he says, "you are going to suffer cruelly"­ he had no need to te ll me so, for his eyes declared it but too emphatically. "You are going to be lashed everywhere," he con­ tinues, "everywhere, without exception," and as he spoke he again laid hands upon my breasts and mauled them brutally, he bruised their extremities with ;. is fingertips and occasioned me very sharp

Jus tine + 5 9 5

pain ; I dared not say a word for fear o f irri tating him yet more, but sweat bathed my forehead and, willy-nilly, my eyes filled with tears ; he turns me about, makes me kneel on the edge of a chair upon whose back I must keep my h ands without removing them for a single instant ; he promises to inflict the gravest penalties upon me if I li ft them ; seeing me ready and well wi thin range, he orders Armande to fetch him some birch rods, she presents him with a handful, slender and long ; Clement snatches them, and recommend­ ing that I not stir, he opens with a score of stripes upon my shoulders and the small of my back ; he leaves me for an instant, returns to Armande, brings her back, she too i s made to kneel upon a chair six feet from where I am ; he declares he i s going to flog us simultaneously and the first of the two to release her grip , u tter a cry, or shed a tear will be exposed on the spot to whatever torture he is pleased to inflict: he bestows the same number of strokes upon Armande he has just given me, and positively upon the identical places, he returns to me, kisses ,everything he has just left off molesting, and raising his sticks, says to me, "Steady, l i ttle slut, you are going to be used l ike the last of the damned." Whereupon I receive fifty strokes , all o f them d irected between the region bor­ dered by the shoulders and the small of the back. He dashes to my comrade and treats her likewise: we pronounce not a word ; nothing may be heard but a few stifled groans, we have enough strength to hold back our tears. There was no indication as to what degree the monk's passions were inflamed ; he periodically excited himself briskly, but nothing rose. Returning now to me, he spent a moment eyeing those two fatty globes then still intact but about to undergo torture in their turn; he -handled them, he could not prevent himself from prying them apart, tickling them, kissing them another thou­ sand times. "Well , " sa id he, "be courageous . . . " and a hail of blows descended upon these masses, l acerating them to the thighs. Extremely animated by the starts, the leaps, the grinding of teeth, the contortions the pain drew from me, examining them, battening upon them rapturously, he comes and expresses, upon my mouth which he ki sses with fervor, the sensations agitating him . . . . "This girl enterta ins me," he cri es, "I have never flogged another with as much pleasure ," and he goes back to his niece whom he treats with the same barbari ty; there remained the space between the upper

5 9 6 + T H E MARQU IS DE SADE

thigh and the calves and this he struck with identical vehemence: first the one of us, then the other. "Ha I " he said, now approaching me, "let 's change hand ; and visit this place here" ; now wielding a cat-o'-nine-tails he giv( s me twenty cuts from the middle o f my belly to the bottom of my thighs ; then wrenching them apart, he slashed at the interior of the lair my position bares to his whip. "There i t is," says he . "the bird I am going to pluck" : several thongs having, through the precautions he had taken, penetrated very deep, I could not !.uppress my screams. "\Vell, well ! " said the villain, "I must have found the sensi tive area at last ; steady there, calm yourself, we'll vis . t it a l i ttle more thoroughly" ; however, h is niece is put in the same posture and treated in the same manner ; once again he reaches the most delicate region of a woman's body ; but whether through h"bit, or courage, o r dread of incurring treat­ ment yet worse, she ha s enough strength to master hersel f , and about her nothing i s v i s ible beyond a few shivers and spasmodic twitchings. However, there was by now a sl ight change in the libertine's physical aspect, and although things were still l acking in substance , thanks to strokings and shakings a gradual improve­ ment was being registered.

"On your knees ," the monk said to me, "I am going to whip your titties ."

"My titties, oh my Father I " "Yes, those two l ubricious masses which never excite m e but

I wish to use them thm," and upon saying this, he squeezed them, he compressed them violently.

"Oh Father ! Thev are so delicate \ You will kill me \ " "No matter, my clear, provided I am satisfied," and he applied

five or six blows which, happily, I parried with my hands. Upon observing that, he bind:; them behind my back ; nothing remains with which to implore his mercy but my countenance and my tears, for he has harshly ordered me to be silent. I strive to melt him . . . but in vain, he strikes ou· : savagely at my now unprotected bosom ; terrible bruises are immediately writ out in black and blue ; blood appears as his batte ring continues, my suffering wrings tears from me, they fall upon th e vestiges left by the monster' s rage, and render them, says he, y et a thousand times more interesting . . . he kisses those marks, he devours them and now and again returns to

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my mouth, to my eyes whose tears he l icks up with lewd delight. Armande takes her place, her hands are tied, she presents breasts of alabaster and the most beautiful roundness ; Clement pretends to kiss them, but to bite them is what he wishes . . . . And then he l ays on and that lovely flesh, so white, so plump, i s soon nothing more in its butcher's eyes but lacerations and bleeding stripes. "Wait one moment," says the berserk monk, "I want to flog simul­ taneously the most beautiful of behinds and the softest of breasts." He leaves me on my knees and, bringing Armande toward me, makes her stand facing me with her legs spread, in such a way that my mouth touches her womb and my breasts are exposed between her thighs and below her behind ; by this means the monk has what he wants before him: Armande's buttocks and my titties in close prox­ imity: furiously he beats them both, but my companion, in order to spare me blows which are becoming far more dangerous for me than for her, has the goodness to l ower herself and thus shield me by receiving upon her own person the lashes that would inevitably have wounded me. Clement detects the trick and separates us : "She'll gain nothing by that, " he fumes, "and i f today I have the graciousness to spare that part of h er , ' twill only be so as to molest some other at least a s delicate." As I rose I saw that all those infamies had not been in vain: the debauchee was in the most bril­ l i ant state j and i t made him only the more furious j he changes weapons-opens a cabinet where s f:veral martinets are to be found and draws out one armed with i ron tips . I fall to trembling. "There, Therese ," says he showing me the martinet, "you'll see how de­ licious it is to be whipped with this . . . you'll feel i t , you'll feel it, my rascal , but for the instant I prefer to use this other one . . . " It was composed of small knotted cords, twelve in all j at the end of each was a knot somewhat larger than the others, about the s ize o f a plum pit. "Come there I Up I The cavalcade I . . . the caval­ cade I " says h e to his niece j she, knowing what is meant, quickly gets down on all fours, her rump raised as high as possible, and tells me to imitate her ; I do. Clement leaps upon my back, riding facing my rear ; Armande, her own presented to him, finds herself directly ahead of Clement: the villain then discovering us both well within reach, furiously cuts at the charms we offer him; but, as this position obl iges us to open as wide as possible that delicate part of

5 9 8 .. T H E MARQU1 S D E SADE

ourselves which distinguishes our sex from men's , the barbarian aims stinging blows in this direction : the whip' s long and supple strands, penetrating into the interior with much more facil ity than could withes or ferule!. , leave deep traces of his rage ; now he strikes one, now his bkws fly at the other ; as skilled a horseman as he i s an intrepid flagdlator, he several times changes his mount ; we are exhausted, and 1 he pangs of pain are of such violence that i t is almost impossible to bear them any longer. "Stand up," he tells us , catching up the martinet again, "yes, get up and stand in fear of me"-his eyes gli tter, foam flecks his lips-like persons distracted, we run about the room, here, there , he follows after us , indiscriminately striking Armande, myself ; the villain brings us to blood ; at last he traps us both between the bed and the wall : the blows are redoubled : d e unhappy Armande receives one upon the breast which staggers l: er, this last horror determines his ecstasy, and while my back is fla iled by its cruel effects, my loins are Hooded by the proofs of a deliri um whose results are so dangerous.

"We are going to bed," Clement finally says to me ; " that has perhaps been rather too much for you , Therese, and certainly not enough for me j one ne'Ter tires of this mania notwithstanding the fact it i s a very pale image of what one should really like to do ; ah, dear girl ! you have no idea to what lengths this depravity leads us, you cannot imagine t he drunkenness into which it plunges us , the violent commotion in l he electrical fluid which results from the irri tation produced by the suffering of the obj ect that serves our pass ions ; how one is ne edled by its agonies ! The desire to increase them . . . ' ti s , I know, :he reef upon which the fantasy i s doomed to wreck, but i s this p{ ril to be dreaded by him who cares not a damn for anything ?"

Although Clement ' s mind was still in the grip of enthusiasm, I observed that his senses were much more calm, and by way of reply to what he had just said, I dared reproach him his tastes' deprava­ tion, and the manner i l which this libertine justified them merits inclusion, i t seems to me , amidst the confessions you wish to have from me.

"Without question the sil l iest thing in the world, my dear Therese," Clement said to me, "is to wish to dispute a man's tastes, to wish to contradict, thwart, discredit, condemn, or punish them if

Jus tine + 5 99

they do not conform either with the laws o f the country he inhabits on with the prejudices o f social convention. Why indeed ! Will it never be understood that there i s no variety of taste, however bizarre, however outlandish, however criminal it may be supposed, which does not derive di rectly fmm and depend upon the kind of organization we have individually received from Nature ? That posed, I ask with what right one man will dare require another either to curb or get rid of his tas tes or model them upon those of the social order ? With what right will the law i tself , which is created for man's happiness only, dare pursue him who cannot mend his ways, or who would succeed in altering his behavior only a t the price o f forgoing that happiness whose protection the law is obliged to guarantee him ? Even were one to desire to change those tastes could one do so ? Have we the power to remake ourselves ? Can we become other than what we are ? \Vould you demand the same thing from someone born a ,:ripple ? and i s this inconformity of our tastes anything in the moral sphere but what the ill-made man's imperfection i s in the physical ?

"Shall we enter into details ? \Vhy, very well . The keen mind I recognize in you, Therese, will enable you to appreci ate them. I believe you have been arrested by two irregularit ies you have re­ marked in us : you are astonished at the piquant sensation experi­ enced by some o f our friends where i t is a question of matters commonly beheld a s fetid or impure , and you are similarly surprised that our voluptuous faculties are susceptible of powerful excitation by actions which, in your view, b,ear none but the emblem of fe­ rocity j let us analyze both these tastes and attempt, if ' t i s possible, to convince you that there is nothing simpler or more normal in this world than the pleasures which are their result.

"Extraordinary , you declare , that things decayed, noisome, and filthy are able to produce upon our senses the irr itation essen­ tial to precipitate their complete delirium j but before allowing oneself to be startled by this, i t would be better to realize , Therese, that obj ects have no value for us save that which our imagination imparts to them j it is therefore very possible , bearing this constant truth well in mind, that not only the most curious but even the vilest and most appalling things may affect us very appreciably. The human imagination is a faculty of man's mind whereupon, through

600 .. T H E MARQU IS DE SADE

the senses' agency, obj e cts are painted, whereby they are modified, and wherein, next, idea i become formed, all in reason of the initial glimpsing of those exte rnal obj ects. But this imagination, itself the result of the pecul iar organization a particular individual i s en­ dowed with, only adopts the received objects in such-and-such a manner and a fterward only creates ideas according to the effects produced by perceived (,bjects' impact : let me give you a comparison to help you grasp what I am exposing. Therese, have you not seen those differently formed mirrors, some of which diminish obj ects, o thers of which enlarge them ; some give back frightful images of things, some beautify things ; do you now imagine that were each of these types of mirrors to possess both a creative and an obj ective faculty, they would not each give a completely different portrait of the same man who stan Js before them, and would not that portrait be different thanks to the manner in which each mirror had per­ ceived the object ? I f to the two faculties we have just ascribed to the mirror, there were added a third of sensation, would not this man, seen by it in such-and-such a manner, be the source of that one kind of feeling the mir 'or would be able, indeed would be obliged, to conceive for the SOl t of being the mirror had perceived ? The mirror sees the man as )eauti ful, the mirror loves the man ; another mirror sees the man as frightful and hates him, and i t is always the same being who produc es various impressions.

"Such is the hum�.n imagination, Therese ; the same obj ect i s represented to i t under as many forms as that imagination has various facets and moods, and according to the effect upon the imagination received from whatsoever be the obj ect, the imagina­ tion is made to love or to hate i t ; i f the perceived object' s impact strikes i t in an agreea Jl e manner, the obj ect is loved, preferred, even if this obj ect has nothing really attractive about it ; and i f the obj ect, though of a certain high value in the eyes of someone else, has only struck in a d sagreeable manner the imagination we are discussing, hostility wil l be the result, because not one of our senti­ ments i s formed save in reason of what various obj ects produce upon the imagination ; these fundamentals once grasped, should not by any means be cause for astonishment that what distinctly pleases some is able te· displease others, and, conversely, that the

Jus tine + 60 1

most extraordinary thing is able to find admirers . . . . The cripple also discovers certain mirrors which make him handsome.

"Now, if we admit that the senses' joy i s always dependent upon the imagination, always regulated by the imagination, one must not be amazed by the numerous variations the imagination is apt to suggest during the pleasurable episode, by the infinite multi­ tude of different tastes and passions the imagination's various extravagances will bring to light. Luxurious though these tastes may be, they are never intrinsically strange ; there is no reason to find a mealtime eccentricity more or less extraordinary than a bed­ room whim ; and in the one and the other, i t is not more astonishing to idolize what the common run of mankind holds detestable than it is to love something generally recognized as pleasant. To like what others like proves organic con formity , but demonstrates noth­ ing in favor of the beloved obj ect. Three-quarters of the universe may find the rose's scent delicious without that serving either as evidence upon which to condemn th,! remaining quarter which might find the smell offensive, or as proof that this odor is truly agreeable.

"If then in this world there exi st persons whose tastes conflict with accepted prejudices, not only must one not be surprised by the fact, not only must one not scold these dissenters or punish them, but one must a id them, procure them contentment, remove obstacles which impede them, and afford them, if you wish to be j ust, all the means to sat isfy themselves without risk ; because they are no more responsible for having this curious taste than you are responsible for being live-spirited or dull-witted, prettily made or knock-kneed. It is in the mother's womb that there are fashioned the organs which must render us susceptible of such-and-such a fantasy ; the first obj ects which we encounter, the first conversations we overhear determine the pattern ; once tastes are formed nothing in the world can destroy them. Do what i t will, education i s incapable of altering the pattern, and he who has got to be a villain just as surely becomes a villain, the good education you give him notwithstanding ; quite as he, however much he has lacked good example, flies unerringly toward virtue if his organs dispose him to the doing of good. Both have acted in accordance with their organic s tructure, i n accordance with the impressions they have received from Nature, and the one is no more deserving of punishment than the other i s of reward.

602 .. T H E MARQUIS DE SADE

"Curiously enough , so long as it i s merely a question of trifles, we are never in the l.east astonished by the differences existing among tastes ; but let ' :he subject take on an erotic tincture, and l isten to the word sprea :l about I rumors fly, women, always thought­ ful of guarding their ri �hts-women whose feebleness and inconse­ quence make them especially prone to seeing enemies everywhere about-, women, I say a re all constantly trembling and quivering lest something be snatched away from them and i f, when taking one's pleasure, one unfortunately puts practices to use which con­ flict with woman-wors� ip, lo ! there you have crimes which merit the noose. And what a 1 injustice I Must sensual pleasure render a man better than l ife 's other pleasures ? In one word, must our penchants be any more :oncentrated upon the temple of generation, must i t necessarily more certainly awaken our desires, than some other part of the body t : ither the most contrary to or at the furthest remove from i t ? than s ome emanation of the body either the most fetid or the most disgusting ? It should not, in my opinion, appear any more a stonishing 1 0 see a man introduce s ingularity into his libertine pleasures than i t should appear strange to see him employ the uncommon in any a ,her of l ife 's activities. Once again, in either case, his singularity is t1e result of his organs : is i t his fault i f what affects you is naught to him, or i f he i s only moved by what repels you ? What living man would not instantly revise his tastes, his affections, his penchan ts and bring them into harmony with the general scheme, what man, rather than continue a freak, would not prefer to be like everyone else, were it in his power to do so ? It is the most barbarous and most stupid intolerance to wish to fly at such a man's throat ; he is no more gui lty toward society, regardless of what may be his ext ravagances , than is , as I have just said, the person who came blind and lame into the world. And i t would be quite as unjust to puni!.h or deride the latter as to affi ict or berate the other. The man en :lowed with uncommon tastes is sick ; i f you prefer, he is like a wuman subj ect to hysterical vapors. Has the idea to punish such a p erson ever occurred to us ? let us be equally fair when dealing with the man whose caprices startle us ; perfectly like unto the ill man or the woman suffering from vapors, he is deserving o f sympathy and not of blame j that is the moral apology for the persons whom we are discussing j a physical explanation will

Jus tine .. 603

without doubt be found as easily, and when the study of anatomy reaches perfection they will without any trouble be able to demon­ strate the relationship of the human constitution to the tastes which it affects. Ah, you pedants, hangmen, turnkeys, lawmakers, you shavepate rabble , what will you do when we have arrived there ? what i s to become of your laws, your ethics, your religion, your gallows, your Gods and your Heavens and your Hell when i t shall be proven that such a flow of liquids, this variety of fibers, that degree of pungency in the blood or in the animal spirits are sufficient to make a man the object of your givings and your takings away ? We continue. C ruel tastes astonish you.

"What i s the aim of the man who seeks his joy ? is i t not to give his senses all the irritation of which they are susceptible in order, by this means, better and more warmly to reach the ultimate crisis . . . the precious crisis which characterizes the enj oyment as good or bad, depending upon the greater or lesser activity which occurs during the crisis ? Well, is one not guilty of an untenable sophistry when one dares affirm i t i s necessary, in order to amel­ iorate it , that it be shared with the woman ? Is it not plain enough that the woman can share nothing with us without taking something from us ? and tha t all she makes away with must necessarily be had by her at our expense ? And what then is this necessity, I ask, that a woman enj oy herself when we are enjoying ourselves ? in this arrangement i s there any sentiment but pride which may be flat­ tered ? and does one not savor thi s proud feeling in a far more piquant manner when, on the contrary, one harshly constrains this woman to abandon her quest for pleasure and to devote herself to making you alone feel it ? Does not tyranny flatter the pride in a fat more lively way than does beneficence ? In one word, is not he who imposes much more surely the master than he who shares ? But how could i t ever have entered a reasonable man's head that delicacy is of any value during enj oyment ? 'Tis absurd, to maintain i t is necessary at such a time ; i t never adds anything to the pleasure o f the senses, why, I contend that i t detracts therefrom. To love and to enjoy are two very different things : the proof whereof is that one loves every day without enj oying, and that even more often one enjoys without loving. Anything by way of consideration for the woman one stirs into the broth has got to dilute its strength

604 + THE MARQUI S DE SADE

and impair its flavor fo r the man ; so long as the latter spends his time giving enjoyment, he assuredly does not himself do any enjoy­ ing, or h i s enjoyment is -nerely intellectual , that is to say, chimerical and far inferior to sensual enj oyment. No, Therese, no, I will not cease repeating i t, there i s absolutely no necessity that, in order to be keen, an enjoyment must be shared ; and in o rder that this kind of pleasure may be rendered piquant to the utmost, it is, on the contrary, very essential that the man never take his pleasure save at the expense o f the woman, that he take from her ( without regard for the sensation she may experience thereby ) everything which may in any way improve o r increase the voluptuous exercise he wants to rel ish, and th i s without the slightest concern for whatever may be the effects of all thi s upon the woman, for preoccupation of tha t sort will p rove bothersome to him ; he either wants the woman to p artake o f pleasure, md thereupon his j oys are at an end ; or he fears lest she will suffer, and he i s hurled into confusion, a l l ' s brought to a stop. If e :goism i s Nature's fundamental command­ ment, it is very surely most of all during our lubricious delights that this celestial Moth.!r desires us to be most absolutely under i ts rule ; why, i t ' s a very small evil , i s i t not, that, in the interests o f t h e augmentation of the: m a n ' s lecherous delights h e has g o t either to neglect or upset d: e woman's ; for if this upsetting of her pleasure causes him to gain any, what i s lost to the obj ect which serves him affects him i n no wise, save p rofitably : i t must be a m atter o f indifference t o him whether tha t object i s happy o r un­ happy, provided i t be d electable to him ; in truth, there i s no rela­ tion at all between thaI: obj ect and himself. He would hence be a fool to trouble himself about the obj ect's sensations and forget his own ; h e would be entir ely mad i f, in order to modi fy those sensa­ tions foreign to him, he were to renounce improvement o f his. That much established, i f th e individual in question is , unhappily, or­ ganized in such a fashi on he cannot be stirred save by producing painful sensations in t b.e obj ect employed, you w1ll admit he i s forced t o g o ruthlessly t o work, since the point o f i t a l l i s t o have the best possible time, tle consequences for the obj ect being enti rely excluded from consideration . . . . We will return to the problem ; let u s continue in an orderly fashion.

"Isolated enj oymelt therefore has i ts charms, i t may therefore

Justine + 605

have more of them than al l other kinds ; why ! i f i t were not so, how should the aged and so many deformed or defective persons be able to enjoy themselves ? for they know full well they are not loved nor lovable ; perfectly certain it i s impossible to share what they experience, is their j oy any the less powerful on that account ? Do they desire even the illusion ? B (:having with utter selfishness in their riots, you will observe them seeking pleasure, you will see them sacrifice everything to obtair.. it, and in the obj ect they put to use never other than passive properties . Therefore, it i s in no wise necessary to give pleasures in ordl�r to receive them ; the happy or unhappy s i tuation of the victim of our debauch is, therefore, abso­ lutely as one from the point of vi ew of our senses, there is never any question of the state in which his heart or mind may be ; i t matters no t one whit, the obj ect may be pleased by what you do to it, the obj ect may suffer, i t may love or detest you : all these con­ siderations are null ified immediately it is only a question of your sensation. Women, I concede, may establish contrary theories, but women, who are nothing but machines designed for voluptuousness, who ought to be nothing but the targets of lust, are untrustworthy authorities whenever one has got to construct an authentic doctrine upon this kind of pleasure. I s there a single reasonable man who i s eager to have a whore partake of h i s j oy ? And, however, a r e there not millions of men who amuse themselves hugely with these crea­ tures ? Well, there you have that many individuals convinced of what I am urging, who unhesitat ingly put it into practice, and who scorn those who use good principle s to legitimate their deeds, those ridiculous fools, the world i s stuffed to overflowing with them, who go and come, who do this and that, who eat , who digest, without ever sensing a thing.

"Having proven that solitary pleasures are as del icious as any others and much more likely to delight, it becomes perfectly clear that this enjoyment, taken in independence of the object we employ, is not merely of a nature very remote from what could be pleasur­ able to that object, but is even found to be inimical to that obj ect's pleasure : what i s more, it may become an imposed suffering, a vexation, or a torture, and the only thing that results from thit abuse i s a very certain increase of pleasure for the despot who does the tormenting or vexing ; let us a ttempt to demonstrate this .

606 .. T H E MARQ U l S DE SADE

"Voluptuous emotion i s nothing but a kind of vibration pro­ duced in our soul by shocks which the imagination, inflamed by the remembrance of a lubriri ous obj ect, registers upon our senses, e i ther through this obj ect's pr esence, or better still by this obj ect's being exposed to that particular kind of i rritation which most profoundly stirs us ; thus, our voluptuous transport-this indescribable convul­ sive needling which driv es us wild, which l i fts us to the highest pitch of happiness at which r1an is able to arrive-is never ignited save by two causes : e ither by the perception in the object we use of a real or imaginary beauty, the beauty in which we delight the most, o r by the sight of that obj ect Jndergoing the strongest possible sensation ; now, there is no more l i vely sensation than that of pain ; its impres­ sions are certain and d.!pendable, they never deceive as may those of the pleasure women perpetually feign and almost never experi­ ence ; and, furthermorl!, how much self-confidence, youth, vigor, h ealth a re not needed in order to be sure o f producing this dubious and hardly very satisfying impression of pleasure in a woman. To produce the painful imFession, on the contrary, requires no virtues a t all : the more defect:; a man may have, the older he is, the less lovable, the more reso lnding his success. With what regards the obj ective, i t will be far more certainly attained since we are estab­ l i shing the fact that or e never better touches, I wish to say, that one never better i rritates one's senses th an when the greatest possible impression has been pro duced in the employed obj ect, by no matter what devices ; therefore, he who will cause the most tumultuous impression to be born in a woman, he who will most thoroughly convulse thi s woman'! entire frame, very decidedly will have managed to procure himself the heaviest possible dose of voluptu­ ousness, because the shock resultant upon us by the impressions others experience, which shock in turn i s necessitated by the im­ pression we have o f those others, will necessarily be more vigorous if the impression these · )thers receive be painful, than i f the impres­ s ion they receive be sw !et and mild ; and i t follows that the volup­ tuous egoist, who is p ersuaded his pleasures will be keen only insofar as they are enti re, will therefore impose, when he has it in his power to do so, the strongest possible dose of pain upon the employed obj ect, fully certain that what by way o f voluptuous

Jus tine ,� 607

pleasure he extracts will be his only by dint of the very lively impression he has produced."

"Oh, Father," I said to Clement, " these doctrines are dread­ ful , they lead to the cultivation of cruel tastes, horrible tastes."

"Why, what does it matter ?" demanded the barbarian ; "and, once again, have we any control over our tastes ? Must we not yield to the dominion of those Nature has inserted in us as when before the tempest's force the proud oak bends its head ? Were Nature offended by these proclivi ties, she 'Would not have inspired them in us ; tha t we can receive from her hands a sentiment such as would outrage her is impossible , and, extremely certain of thi s , we can give ourselves up to our passions, wha tever their sort and of what­ ever their violence, wholly sure that all the di scomfitures their shock may occasion are naught but the designs of Nature, of whom we are the involuntary instruments. And what to us are these pas­ sions' consequences ? When one wishes to delight in any action whatsoever, there is never any question of consequences."

"I am not speaking to you o f ,:onsequences ," I put in abruptly, "but of the thing itself ; if indeed you are the s tronger and if through atrocious principles of cruelty you love to take your pleas­ ure only by means o f causing suffering with the intention o f aug­ menting your sensations, you will gradually come to the point of producing them with such a degree of violence that you will cer­ tainly risk killing the employed obj ect."

"So be i t ; that is to say that, by means of tastes given me by Nature, I shall have carried out the intentions o f Nature who, never affecting her creations save through destructions, never in­ spires the thought of the latter in me save when she is in need of the former ; tha t is to say tha t from an oblong portion of matter I shall have formed three or four thousand round or square ones. Oh Therese, i s there any crime here ? I s th is the name with which to designate what serves Nature ? Is it in man's power to commit crimes ? And when, preferring his own happiness to that of others, he overthrows or destroys whatever he finds in his path, has he done anything but serve Nature whose primary and most imperious inspirations enjoin him to pursue his happiness a t no matter whose expense ? The doctrine of brotherly love i s a fiction we owe to Christianity and not to Nature ; the exponent of the Nazarene's

608 + THE MARQUI S DE SADE

cult, tormented, wretched and consequently in an enfeebled state which prompted him to cry out for tolerance and compassion, had no choice but to allege t his fabulous relationship between one per­ son and another ; by gai 1ing acceptance for the notion he was able to save his life. But th,! philosopher does not acknowledge these gigantic rapports ; to hi� . consideration, he is alone in the universe, he j udges everything s lbj ectively, he only i s o f importance. If he i s thoughtful of o r C Hesses another for one instant, i t i s never but in strait connection with what profit he thinks to draw from the business ; when he i s no longer in need of others, when he can forcefully assert his empire , he then abjures forever those pretty humanitarian doctrines ' Jf doing good deeds to which he only sub­ mi tted himself for rea �;ons of policy ; he no longer fears to be selfish , to reduce everyone about him, and he sates h i s appetites without inquiring to know what his enj oyments may cost others, and without remorse ."

"But the man you describe is a monster." "The man I describe is in tune with Nature." "He is a savage beast." "Why, i s not the ti 5;er or the leopard, of whom this man is, if

you wish, a replica, l ike man created by Nature and created to p rosecute Nature's intentions ? The wolf who devours the lamb accomplishes what thi s common mother designs, just as does the malefactor who destroYB the obj ect of his revenge or his lubricity."

"Oh, Father, say what you will , I shall never accept this destructive lubric ity."

"Because you are afraid of becoming its obj ect-there you have i t : egoism. Let's exchange our roles and you will fancy i t very nicely. Ask the lamb, and you will find he does not understand why the wolf is allowed to devour him ; ask the wolf what the lamb i s for : to feed me, he will reply. Wolves which batten upon lambs, lambs consumed by wolves, the strong who immolate the weak, the weak victims of the strong : there you have Nature, there you have her intentions, there yO ] have her scheme : a perpetual action and reaction, a host of vice�; , a host of virtues , i n one word, a perfect equil ibrium resulting from the equali ty of good and evil on earth ; the equilibrium essential to the maintenance of the stars, of vegeta­ tion and, lacking which, everything would be instantly in ruins. 0

Justine .. 609

Therese, mightily astonished she would be, this Nature, were she to be able to converse with us for a moment and were we to tell her that these crimes which serve her, these a trocit ies she demands and insp ires in us are punished by laws they assure us are made in imitation o f hers . ' Idiots' she would reply to us , 's leep, eat , and fearlessly commit whatever crimes you like whenever you like : every one of those alleged infami es pleases me, and I would have them all , since it i s I who inspire them in you. It is within your province to regulate what annoys me and what delights, indeed! be advised that there i s nothing in you which i s not my own, nothing I did not place in you for reasons it is not fitting you be acquainted with ; know that the most abomina ble of your deeds is , like the most virtuous of some other, but one of the manners of serving me. So do not restrain yourself, flout your laws, a fig for your social con­ ventions and your Gods ; l i sten to :me and to none other, and bel ieve that if there exists a crime to be committed against me it i s the resistance you oppose, in the forms of stubbornness or casuistries, to what I inspire in you . ' "

"Oh, Just Heaven ! " I cried, "you make me shudder ! Were there no crimes against Nature, whence would come that Insur­ mountable loathing we experience for certain misdeeds ?"

"That loathing i s not dictated by Nature," the villain replied with feeling, " i ts one source i s in the total lack of habi t ; does not the same hold true for certain foods ? Although they are excellent, i s not our repugnance merely caused by our being unaccustomed to them ? would you dare say, upon the basis of your p rejudices or ignorance, that they are good or bad ? If we make the effort , we will soon become convinced and will find they sui t our palate ; we have a hostil ity toward medicaments, do we not, although they are salu­ tary ; in the same fashion, let us accustom ourselves to evil and i t will no t be long before we find i t charming ; this momentary revul­ sion is certainly a shrewdness, a kind of coquetry on the part of Nature, rather than a warning that the thing outrages her : thus she prepares the pleasures of our triumph ; she even manages thus to augment those of the deed i tself : better still, Therese, better still : the more the deed seems appalling to us, the more it i s in contradiction with our manners and customs, the more it runs head­ long against restraints and shatters them, the more it conflicts with

6 1 0 + T H E MARQUJ ; DE SADE

social conventions and a tronts them, the more i t clashes wi th what we mistake for Nature's laws, then the more, on the contrary, it is useful to this same N at' l re . I t i s never but by way of crimes that she regains possession of the rights Vi rtue incessantly steals away from her. If the crime i s slight, i f it is at no great vari ance with Virtue, its weight will be less in re-establishing the balance indis­ pensable to Nature ; but the more capi tal the crime, the more deadly, the more it dre� ,ses the scales and the better i t offsets the influence of Virtue which , without this, would destroy everything. Let him then cease to h� in a fright, he who meditates a crime or he who has just commit :ed one : the vaster his crime, the better i t will serve Nature."

These frightful thwries soon led me to think of Omphale's doubts upon the manner in which we left the terrible house we were in. And it was ther I conceived the plans you will see me exe­ cute in the sequel. How( ver, to complete my enlightenment I could not prevent myself from putting yet a few more questions to Father Clement.

"But surely," I said, "you do not keep your passions' unhappy victims forever ; you surely send them away when you are wearied of them ?"

"Certainly, Therese ," the monk repl ied ; "you only entered this establishment in orier to leave i t when the four of us agree to grant your retirement. Which will most certa inly be granted."

"But do you not fear ," I continued, "lest the younger and less discreet girls sometimes go and reveal what i s done here ?"

" 'Tis impossible ." "Impossible ?" "Absolutely." "Could you explain . . . " "N 0, that's our secret, but I can assure you of this much : that

whether you are discre et or indiscreet, you will find i t perfectly impossible ever to say a word about what is done here when you are here no longer. And thus you see, Therese, I recommend no discretion to you, just as my own desires are governed by no re­ straining policy . . . . "

And, having uttterd these words, the monk fell asleep. Fron that moment onward, ] could no longer avoid realizing that the

Justine + 6 1 1

most violent measures were used with those unhappy ones of us who were retrenched and that this terrible security they boasted of was only the fruit o f our death. I was only the more confirmed in my resolve ; we will soon see its effect.

As soon as Clement was aslet:p , Armande came near to me. "He will awake shortly," s he said ; "he will behave l ike a

madman : Nature only puts his !,enses to sleep in order to give them, after a l ittle rest, a much greater energy ; one more scene and we will have peace until tomo rrow."

"But you," I sa id to my companion, "aren't you going to sleep a Ii ttle while ?"

"How can I ?" Armande replied, "when, were I not to remain awake and standing by his side, and were my negligence to be per­ ceived, he would be the man to stab me to death."

"0 Heaven !" I sighed, "why ! even as he sleeps the villain would that those a round him remain in a state of suffering I"

"Yes," my companion responded, "it i s the very barbarity of the idea which procures the furious awakening you are going to witness ; upon this he is l ike unto those perverse writers whose cor­ ruption is so dangerous, so active, that their single aim is, by causing their appalling doctrines to be printed, to immortal ize the sum of their crimes a fter their own lives a re at an end ; they themselves can do no more, but their accursed writings will instigate the com­ mission of crimes, and they carry this sweet idea with them to their graves : it comforts them for the obl igation, enjoined by death, to relinqui sh the doing of evi l ."

"The monsters ! " I cr ied . • . . Armande, who was a very gentle creature, kissed me as she

shed a few tears, then went back to pacing about the roue's bed. Two hours passed and then the monk did indeed awake in a

prodigious agitation and seized me with such force I thought he was going to strangle me ; his respiration was quick and labored, his eyes glittered, he uttered incoherent words which were exclu­ sively blasphemous or libertine expressions ; he summoned Ar­ mande, called for whips, and started in again with his flogging of us both, but in a yet more vigor aus manner than before having gone to sleep. It seemed as if he wished to end matters with me ; shrill cries hurst from his mouth ; to abridge my sufferings, Armande

6 1 2 .. THE MARQUIS DE SADE

excited him violently, h e lost h is head entirely, and finally made rigid by the most violenl sensations, the monster lost both his ardor and his desires together with smoking floods of semen.

Nothing transp irec during the rest of the night ; upon getting up, the monk was content to touch and examine each of us ; and as he was going to say Ma ss , we returned to the seragl io . The super­ intendent could not be prevented from desi ring me in the infl amed state she swore I must be in ; exhausted I indeed was and, thus weakened, how could ] defend mysel f ? She did all she wished, enough to convince me that even a woman, in such a school, soon losing all the delicacy a nd restraint native to her sex, could only, a fter those tyrants' example , become obscene and cruel.

Two nights la ter , [ slept with Jerome ; I will not describe his horrors to you ; they Wf re st i l l more terrifying. vVhat an academy, great God ! by week's end I had finally made the ci rcuit , and then Omphale asked me whether it were not true that of them all, Cle­ ment was the one about whom I had the most to complain.

"Alas ! " was my response , " in the midst of a crowd of horrors and messes o f filth whi ch now di sgust and now revolt, i t is ve ry difficult to pronounce u pon these villains' individual odiousness ; I am mortally weary o f them all and would that I were gone from here, whatever be the hte that awaits me."

"It might be posBible that you wil l soon be satisfied," my companion answered ; ' we are nearing the period o f the festival : this c ircumstance rarely takes place without bringing them victims ; they either seduce girl� by means o f the confessional, or , i f they can, they cause them to disappear : which means so many new recru i ts , each of whom always supposes a retrenchment."

The famous hol id lY arrived . . . will you be able to believe, Madame, what monstrc us impiet ies the monks were gui l ty of during this event ! They fanci ,:d a visible mi racle would double the bril­ l i ance of their reputatio n ; and so they dressed Florette, the youngest of the girls, in all the Yirgin's attire and adornments ; by means of concealed strings they tied her against the wall of the niche and ordered her to elevate her arms very suddenly and with compunc­ tion toward heaven simultaneously the host was raised. As the l i ttle creature was threatene,i with the cruelest chastising if she were to speak a single word 0.· mismanage in her role, she carried i t off

Jus tine + 6 1 3

marvelously well, and the fraud enjoyed all the success that could possibly have been expected. The people cried aloud the miracle, l eft rich offerings to the Vi rgin , and went home more convinced than ever of the efficacity of the cel estia l Mother's merci es. In order to increase thei r impiety, our l ihertines wanted to have Florette appear at the orgies that evening, dressed in the same costume that had attracted so many homages, and each one inflamed his odious desires to submit her, in this guise , to the irregularity of his caprices. Aroused by thi s initi al crime, the 5acrilegious ones go con siderably further : they have the child stripped naked, they have her l ie on her stomach upon a large table ; they l ight candles , they place the image of our Saviour squarely upon the little gi rl ' s back and upon her buttocks they dare consummate the most redoubtable of our mysteries . I swooned away at this horrible spectacle, 'twas im­ possible to bear the s ight. Severino, seeing me unconscious, says that, to bring me to heel, I must se rve as the altar in my turn. I am seized ; I am placed where Florette was lying ; the sacrifice i s con­ summated, and the host . . . that sacred symbol of our august Religion . . . Severino catches it up and thrusts it deep into the obscene locale of his sodomistic pl easures . . . crushes it with oaths and insults . . . ignominiously drives it further with the intensified blows of his monstrous dart and a�: he blasphemes, spurts, upon our Saviour 's very Body, the impure floods of his lubricity' s torrents . . . .

I was insensible when they drew me from his hands ; I had to be carried to my room, where for a week I shed uninterrupted tears over the hideous crime for which, against my will, I had been employed. The memory still gnaws at my soul, I never think back upon that scene without shuddering . . . . In me, Religion i s the effect of sentiment ; all that offend.s or outrages it makes my very heart bleed.

The end of the month was close at hand when one morning toward nine Severino entered our chamber ; he appeared greatly aroused ; a certain crazed look hovered in his eyes ; he examines us , one a fter the other, places us in his cherished attitude, and especially lingers over Omphale ; for several minutes he stands, contemplating her in the posture she has assumed, he excites him­ self , mutters dully, secretly, kisses what i s offered him, allows every­ one to see he i s in a state to consummate, and consummates nothing ;

6 1 4 + THE MARQ UB DE SADE

next, he has her straigh ten up, casts upon her glances filled with rage and wickedness ; then, swinging his foot, with all his strength he kicks her in the bell V' she reels backward and falls six yards away.

"The company i s r etrenching you , whore ," he says, "we are ti red of you, be ready by this afternoon. I will come to fetch you myself ." And he leaves.

When he is gone Omphale gets up and, weeping, casts herself into my a rms.

"Ah !" she says, "hy the infamy, by the cruelty of the pre­ l iminaries . . . can you st H blind yoursel f as to what follows ? Great God ! what i s to become of me ?"

"Be easy," I say to the miserable girl, "I have made up my mind about everything ; I only await the opportuni ty ; it may per­ haps present i tself sooner than you think ; I will divulge these horrors ; if i t i s true the measures they take are as cruel as we have reason to believe, strive to obtain some delays, postpone i t , and I will wrest you from thei r clutches."

In the event Omp� ale were to be released, she swore in the same way to aid me, and both of us fell to weeping. The day passed, nothing happened during i t ; a t five o 'clock Severino returned.

"Well ," he asked Omphale, "are you ready ?" "Yes, Father, " sh.: answered between sobs, "permit me to

embrace my friends." " 'Tis useless ," repl i ed the monk ; "we have no time for lachry­

mose scenes ; they are wait ing for us ; come." Then she asked whether she were obligd to take her belongings with her.

"No," said the sur er ior ; "does not everything belong to the house ? You have no ft :rther need of any of i t" ; then, checking himself, as might one who has sa id too much :

"Those old clothes have become useless ; you will have some cut to fit your s ize , they will be more becoming to you ; be content to take along only what you are wearing."

I asked the monk Nhether I might be allowed to accompany Omphale to the door of the house ; his reply was a glance that made me recoil in terror . . . . Omphale goes out, she turns toward us eyes filled with uneasiness and tea rs, and the minute she i s gone I fling myself down upon the bed, desperate.

Justine + 6 1 5

Accustomed to these occurrences o r blind to their significance, my companions were less affected by Omphale's departure than I ; the superior returned an hour later to lead away the supper's girls of whom I was one-we were only four : the girl of twelve, she of sixteen, she of twenty-three , and me. Everything went more or less as upon other days ; I only noticed that the Girls of the Watch were not on hand, that the monks often whispered in each other' s ears , that they drank much, that they l imited themselves violently to exciting desires they did not once consummate, and that they sent us away at an early hour without retaining any of us for their own beds . . . . I deduced what I could from what I observed, because, under such circumstances, one keeps a sharp eye upon everything, but what did this evidence augur ? Ah, such was my perplexity that no clear idea presented itself to my mind but i t was not immediately offset by another ; recollecting Clement's words, I felt there was everything to fear . . . of course ; but then, hope . . . that treacherous hope which comforts us , which b linds us, and which thus does us almost as much ill a s good . . . hope finally surged up to reassure me . . . . Such a quantity of horrors were so alien to me that I was simply unable to conceive of them. In this terrible state of con­ fusion, I lay down in bed ; now 1 was persuaded Omphale would not fail to keep her word ; and the: next instant I was convinced the cruel devices they would use against her would deprive her of all power to help us, and that was my final opinion when I saw an end come to the third day of having h eard nothing at all .

Upon the fourth I found myself again called to supper ; the company was numerous and select : the e ight most beautiful women were there that evening, I had been paid the honor of being included amongst them ; the Girls of the \Vatch attended too. Immediately we entered we caught sight of our new companion.

"Here i s the young lady the: corporation has destined to re­ place Omphale, Mesdemoiselles ," said Severino.

And as the words escaped his lips he tore away the mantlets and lawn which covered the girl 's bust, and we beheld a maiden of fifteen, with the most agreeable and del icate face : she raised her lovely eyes and graciously regarded each of us ; those eyes were still moist with tears, but they contained the liveliest expression ; her figure was supple and light, her s,kin of a dazzling whiteness, she

6 1 6 .. THE MARQU : S DE SADE

had the world's most � eauti ful hair , and there was something so seductive about the whc le tha t it was impossible not to feel onesel f automatically drawn to her. Her name was Octavie ; we were soon informed she was a gir l of the highest quality , born in Paris , and had just emerged fron a convent in order to wed the Comte de * * * : she had been kidnaped while en route in the company of two governesses and three lackeys ; she did not know what had become of her retinue ; i t had been toward nightfall and she alone had been taken ; a fter having been blindfolded, she had been brought to where we vrere and it had not been possible to know more of the matter.

As yet no one had ;poken a word to her. Our libertine quartet, confronted by so much charm, knew an instant of ecstasy ; they had only the strength to admire her. Beauty 's dominion commands re­ spect ; despite his heart essness, the most corrupt villain must bow before it o r else suffer :he stings of an obscure remorse ; but mon­ sters of the breed with which we had to cope do not long languish under such restraints.

"Come, pretty child ," quoth the superior, impudently drawing her toward the chair i'1 which he was settled, "come hither and let's have a look to see whether the rest of your charms match those Nature has so profusely distributed in your countenance . "

And as the lovely €;irl was sore troubled, as she flushed crimson and strove to fend him off, Severino grasped her rudely round the waist.

"Understand, my artless one ," he said, "understand that what I want to tell you is simply this : get undressed. Strip. Instantly."

And thereupon th,! l ibertine sl id one hand beneath her skirts while he grasped her with the other. Clement approached, he raised Octavie ' s clothes to abclve her waist and by this maneuver exposed the softest, the most af'petizing features i t i s possible anywhere to find ; Severino touches , perceives nothing, bends to scrutinize more narrowly, and all fOUl agree they have never seen anything as beautiful . However, thl: modest Octavie, l ittle accustomed to usage of this sort, gushes tea ·s , and struggles.

"Undress, undress , " cries Antonin, "we can't see a thing thi s way."

He assi sts Severino and in a trice we have displayed to us all

Jus tine .. 6 17

the maiden's unadorned charms. Never, without any doubt, was there a fairer skin, never were there more happily modeled forms . . . . God ! the crime of i t ! . . . So many beauties, such chaste fresh­ ness, so much innocence and daintiness-all to become prey to these barbarians ! Covered with shame, Octavie knows not where to fly to hide her charms, she finds naugh t but hungering eyes everywhere about, nothing but brutal hands which sully those treasures ; the c ircle closes a round her, and, as did I , she rushes hither and thither ; the savage Antonin lacks the strength to resist ; a cruel attack deter­ mines the homage, and the incense smokes at the goddess' feet. Jerome compares her to our young colleague of sixteen, doubtless the seragl io 's prettiest ; he places the two altars of his devotion one next to the other.

"Ha ! what whiteness ! what grace I" says he as he fingers Octavie , "but what gentil ity and freshness may be discerned in this other one : indeed," continues the monk all afire , "I am uncertain" ; then imprinting his mouth upon the charms h i s eyes behold, "Oc­ tavie ," he cries, " to you the apple , it belongs to none but you, give me the precious fruit of this tree my heart adores . . . . Ah, yes ! yes, one of you , give it me, and I will forever assure beauty's prize to who serves me sooner."

Severino observes the time has come to meditate on more seri­ ous matters ; absolutely in no condition to be kept waiting, he lays hands upon the unlucky child, places her as he desires her to be ; not yet being able to have full confidence in Octavie ' s aid, he calls for Clement to lend him a hand. Octavie weeps and weeps unheeded ; fire gleams in the impudicious monk's glance ; master of the terrain, one might say he casts about a roving eye only to consider the dvenue s whereby he may launch the fiercest assault ; no ruses, no preparations are employed ; will he be able to gather these so charm­ ing roses ? will he be able to battle past the thorns ? Whatever the enormous disproportion between the conquest and the assailant, the latter i s not the less in a sweat to give fight ; a piercing cry an­ nounces victory, but nothing mollifies the enemy's chilly heart ; the more the captive implores mercy, the less quarter is granted her, the more vigorously she i s pressed ; the i ll-starred one fences in vain : she is soon transpierced.

"N ever was laurel with greater difficulty won," says Severino,

6 1 8 ... THE MARQU IS DE SADE

retreating, "I thought indeed that for the fi rst time in my l ife I would fall before the gde . • . ah I ' twas never so narrow, that way, nor so hot ; 'tis the God' s own Ganymede. "

"I h a d better brin�� h e r round t o the sex you have just soiled," cries Antonin, seizing Octavie where she i s , and not wishing to let her stand up ; " there's more than one breach to a rampart," says he, and proudly, boldly marching up, he carries the day and i s within the sanctu a ry in no tim( at all. Further screams are heard.

"Praise be to God, " quoth the indecent man, "I thought I was alone ; and would have doubted o f my success without a groan o r two from the victim ; b u t m y triumph i s sealed. D o you observe ? Blood and tears ."

"In truth, " says Clement, who steps up with whip in hand, " I 'll not disturb her sw!et posture e i ther, i t i s too favorable to my desires." Jerome's Girl of the Watch and the twenty-year-old girl hold Octavie : Clement considers, fingers ; terrified, the l i ttle girl beseeches him, and i s not li stened to.

"Ah, my friends 1 " says the exalted monk, "how are we to avoid flogging a school �irl who exhibits an ass of such splendor l "

The a ir immediately resounds t o t h e whistle of lashes and the thud of stripes sinking into lovely fl esh ; Octavie ' s screams mingle with the sounds o f leather, the monk's curses reply : what a scene for these libertines surrend ering themselves to a thousand obscenities in the midst o f us ali I They applaud him, they cheer him on j how­ ever, Octavi e 's skin ch :mges color, the brightest tints incarnadine join the lily sparkle ; bl lt what might perhaps divert Love for an instant, were moderati on to have direction of the sacrifice, be­ comes, thanks to sever t ty, a frightful crime against Love' s laws ; nothing stops or slows the perfidious monk, the more the young student complains , the more the professor's harshness explodes ; from the back to the b.ee , everything i s treated in the same way, and it is a t last upon hi� barbaric pleasures' blood-drenched vestiges the savage quenches his fl ames.

"I shall be less im polite, I think," says Jerome , laying hands upon the lovely thing and adjusting himself between her coral l ips ; "where i s the temple where I would sacrifice ? Why, in this en­ chanting mouth . . . . "

Justine + 6 1 9

I fall silent . . . . 'Tis the impure reptile withering the rose­ my figure of speech relates i t all .

The rest o f the soiree would have resembled all the others had i t not been for the beauty and the touching age of this young maiden who more than usually inflamed those villains and caused them to multiply their infamies ; i t was satiety rather than com­ miseration that sent the unhappy child back to her room and gave her, for a few hours at least, the rl�st and quie t she needed.

I should indeed have liked to have been able to comfort her that first night, but, obliged to spend i t with Severino, i t may well have been I on the contrary who stood in the greater need of help, for I had the misfortune, no, not to please, the word would not be suitable, no, but in a most l ively manner to exci te that sodomite' s infamous passions ; at this period he desired me almost every night ; being exhausted on this particular one, he conducted some re­ searches ; doubtless a fraid the appalling sword with which he was endowed would not cause me an adequate amount of pain, he fanci ed, this time, he might perforate me with one of those articles of furniture usually found in nunneries, which decency for­ bids me from naming and which was of an exorbitant thickness ; here, one was obliged to be ready for anything. He himself made the weapon penetrate into his beloved shrine ; thanks to powerful blows, i t was driven very deep ; I screamed ; the monk was amused, a fter a few backward and forwa rd passes, he suddenly snapped the instrument free and plunged h is own into the gulf he had just dug open . . . what whimsy ! I s that not posi tively the contrary of everything men are able to desire I But who can define the spiri t of libertinage ? For a long time we have realized this to be an enigma of Nature ; she has not yet pronounced the magic word.

In the morning, feeling somewhat renewed, he wanted to try out another torture : he produced a far more massy machine : this one was hollow and fitted with a high-pressure pump that squirted an incredibly powerful stream of water through an orifice which gave the jet a circumference of over three inches ; the enormous in­ strument i tself was nine inches around by twelve long. Severino loaded it with steaming hot water and prepared to bury it in my front end ; terrified by such a project, I throw myself at his knees to ask for mercy, but he is in one of those accursed situations where

620 + THE MARQUIS DE SADE

pity cannot be heard, wllere far more eloquent passions stifle i t and substitute an often excee dingly dangerous cruelty. The monk threat­ ens me with all h is rage i f I do not acquiesce ; I have to obey. The perfidious machine pene trates to the two-thirds mark and the tear­ ing i t causes combined ';yith i ts extreme heat are about to deprive me of the use of my senses ; meanwhile, the superior, showering an uninterrupted stream of invectives upon the parts he is molesting, has himself excited by h s follower ; after fifteen minutes of rubbing which lacerates me, he releases the spring, a quart of nearly boiling water i s fi red into the la st depths of my womb . . . I fall into a faint. Severino was in an ecst asy . . . he was in a delirium at least the equal of my agony.

"Why," said the l raitor, " that's nothing at all. When I re­ cover my wits, we'll tre at those charms much more harshly . . . a salad o f thorns, by Jes �s I well peppered, a copious admixture of vinegar, a l l tha t tampe,:l in with the point of a knife, that's what they need to buck them up ; the next mistake you make, I condemn you to the treatment," � aid the villain while he continued to handle the obj ect of his worship ; but two or three homages a fter the pre­ ceeding night's debauch,:s had near worked him to death, and I was sent packing.

Upon returning to my chamber I found my new companion in tears ; I did what I could to soothe her, but it is not easy to adjust to so frightful a change of situation ; this girl had, furthermore, a great fund of religious feeling, of virtue, and of sensitivity ; owing to it , her state only appeared to her the more terrible. Omphale had been right when she told me seniority in no way influenced re­ tirement ; that, simply by the monks' caprice, or by their fear of ulterior inquiries , one could undergo dismissal at the end of a week as easily as at the end of twenty years. Octavie had not been with us four months when Jerome came to announce her departure ; al­ though ' twas he who had most enjoyed her during her soj ourn at the monastery, he who had seemed to cherish her and seek her more than any other, the poor child left, making us the same promises Omphale had given ; she kept them just as poorly.

From that momer t on, my every thought was bent upon the plan I had been devisin� since Omphale's departure ; determined to do everything possible to escape from this den of savages, nothing

Justine + 62 1

that might help me succeed held any terrors for me. What was there to dread by putting my scheme into execution ? Death. And were I to remain, of what could I be certain ? Of death. And suc­ cessful fl ight would save me ; there could be no hesitation for there was no alternative ; but it were necessary that, before I l aunched my enterprise, fatal examples of vice rewarded be yet again repro­ duced before my eyes ; it was inscribed in the great book of fate, in that obscure tome whereof no mortal has intelligence, ' twas set down there, I say, that upon all those who had tormented me, hu­ miliated me, bound me in iron chains, there were to be heaped un­ ceasing bounties and rewards for what they had done with regard to me, as if Providence had assumed the task of demonstrating to me the inuti l ity of virtue . . . . Bal.eful lessons which however did not correct me, no, I wavered not ; lessons which, should I once again escape from the blade poised above my head, will not prevent me from forever remaining the slave of my heart's Divinity .

One morning, quite unexpectedly, Antonin appeared in our chamber and announced that the F:everend Father Severino, allied to the Pope and his protege, had just been named General of the Benedictine Order by His Holines s . The next day that monk did in effect depart, without taking his leave of us ; 'twas said another was expected to replace him, and he would be far superior in de­ bauch to all who remained ; additional reasons to hasten ahead with my plans.

The day following Severino's departure, the monks decided to retrench one more of my companions ; I chose for my escape the very day when sentence was pronounced against the wretched girl, so that the monks, preoccupied with her, would pay less attention to me.

l t was the beginning of spring ; the length of the nights still somewhat favored my designs : for two months I had been prepar­ ing them, they were completely unsuspected ; l i ttle by l i ttle I sawed through the bars over my window, using a dull pair of scissors I had found ; my head could already pass through the hole ; with sheets and linen I had made a cord of more than sufficient length to carry me down the twenty or twenty-five feet Omphale had told me was the building's height. When they had taken my oid belongings, I had been careful, as I told you, to remove my l ittle fortune which

622 + T H E MAR Q V I S DE SADE

came to about six ioui r , and these I had always kept hidden with extreme caution ; as I l e ft , I put them into my hair, and nearly all of our chamber having left for tha t night's supper, finding no one about but one of my nmpanions who had gone to bed as soon as the others had descended, I entered my cabinet ; there , clearing the hole I had scrupulousl) kept covered at all times, I knotted my cord to one of the undamaged bars, then, sliding down outside, I soon touched the ground- twas not thi s part which troubled me : the six enclosures of stone and trees my companion had mentioned were what intrigued me far more.

Once there, I discovered that each concentric space between one barrier and the next was no more than eight feet wide, and it was this proximity wr ich assured a casual glance that there was nothing in the area but a dense cluster of trees. The night was very dark ; a s I turned round the first alley to di scover where I might not find a gap in the pal isade, I p assed beneath the dining hall , which seemed deserted ; my inquietude increased ; however, I . con­ tinued my search and :hus at last came abreast the window to the main underground roem, located directly below that in which the orgies were staged. lYJ uch l ight flooded from the basement, I was bold enough to approach the window and had a perfect view of the interior. My poor comJanion was stretched out upon a trestle table , her hair in disarray ; she was doubtless destined for some terrible torture by which she � as going to find freedom, the eternal end of her miseries . . . . I sht ddered, but what my glances fell upon soon astonished me more : Omphale had e ither not known everything, or had not told all she knew ; I spied four naked girls in the basement, and they certainly did not belong to our group ; and so there were other victims of these nonsters' l echery in this horrible asylum . . . other wretches unkno\{n to us . . . . I fled away and continued my circu i t until I was on :he side opposite the basement window ; not yet having found a bre ach, I resolved to make one ; all unobserved, I had furnished myself with a long knife ; I set to work ; despite my gloves, my hands were soon scratched and torn ; but nothing daunted me ; the hedge was two feet thick, I opened a passage, went through, and entered the second ring ; there, I was surprised to find nothing but soft eartb underfoo t ; wi th each step I sank in ankle­ deep : the further I advanced into these copses, the more profound

Justine .. 623

the darkness became. Curious to know whence came the change of terrain, I felt about with my hands . . . 0 Just Heaven ! my fingers seized the head of a cadaver ! Great God! I thought, whelmed with horror, this must then be the cemetery, as indeed I was told, into which those murderers fl ing their victims ; they have scarcely gone to the bother of covering them with e a rth ! . . . this skull perhaps belongs to my dear Omphale, perhaps i t i s that o f the unhappy Octavie , so lovely, so sweet, so good, and who while she lived was l ike unto the rose of which her charms were the image. And I , alas ! might that this have been my resting place ! Wouldst that I had submitted to my fate ! What had I to gain by going on in pursuit of new pitfalls ? Had I not committed evil enough ? Had I not been the occasion o f a number of crimes sufficiently vast ? Ah ! fulfill my destiny ! 0 Earth, gape wide and swallow me up ! Ah, 't is madness , when one is so forsaken, so poor , so utterly abandoned, madness to go to such pains in order to vegetate yet a few more in­ stants amongst monsters ! . . . Bw: no! I must avenge Virtue in irons . . . . She expects i t of my cou rage . . . . Let her not be struck down . . . lct us advance : it is essential that the universe be ridded of vill ains as dangerous as these. Ought I fear causing the doom of three or four men in order to save the millions of individuals the ir pol icy or their feroci ty sacrifice ?

And therewith I pierce the next hedge ; this one was thicker than the first : the further I progressed, the stouter they became. The hole was made, however, but there was fi rm ground beyond . . . nothing more betrayed the same horrors I had just encountered ; and thus I arrived a t the brink of the moat wi thout having met with the wall Omphale had spoken of ; indeed, there turned out to be none at all, and i t i s likely that the monks mentioned i t merely to add to our fear. Less shut in when beyond the sextuple enclosure , I was better able to distinguish obj ec ts : my eyes at once beheld the church and the bulk of the adj acent building ; the moat bordered each of them ; I was careful not to a ttempt to cross i t at this point ; I moved along the edge and finally discovering myself opposite one of the forest roads, I resolved to make my crossing there and to dash down that road as soon as I had climbed up the other side of the di tch ; it was very deep but, to my good fortune, dry and lined with brick , which eliminated all possibil it ies of slipping ; then I

624 + THE MAR Q U I S DE SADE

leapt : a l i ttl e dazed by my fall, i t was a few moments before I got to my feet . . . I went ahead, got to the further side wi thout meeting any obstacle , but how was I to climb i t ! I spent some time seeking a means and at last fot; nd one where several broken bricks at once gave me the opportuni ty to use the others as steps and to dig foot­ holds in order to moun t ; I had almost reached the top when some­ thing gave way beneath my weight and I fell back into the moat under the debris I dral�ged wi th me; I thought myself dead; this involuntary fall had bc !en more severe than the other; I was, as wel l , entirely covered with the material which had followed me ; some had struck my he ad . . . i t was cut and bleeding. 0 God ! I cried out in despair, go no further; stay there ; 't is a warning sent from Heaven; God does not want me to go on : perhaps I am de­ ceived in my ideas , perhaps evil i s useful on earth, and when God's hand desires i t, perhaps i t i s a sin to resist i t ! But, soon revolted by that doctrine, the too wretched fruit of the corruption which had surrounded me, I extricated myself from the pile of rubble on top of me and finding it eal ; ier to climb by the breach I had just made, for now there were new holes , I try once again, I take courage, a moment l ater I find mvself at the crest. Because of all this I h ad strayed away from th� path I had seen, but having taken careful note o f its position, I found i t again, and began to run. Before day­ break I reached the for est 's edge and was soon upon that l i ttle hill from which, six long months before, I had, to my sorrow, espied that frightful monaste ry ; I rest a few minutes, I am bathed in perspiration; my first thought i s to fall upon my knees and beg God to forgive the sins I u:lwillingly committed in that odious asylum of crime and impurity ; tears of regret soon flowed from my eyes . Alas! I said, I was far J ess a criminal when last year I left this same road, guided by a devout principle so fatally deceived t 0 God t In what state may I now behold myself! These lugubrious reflections were in some wise m itigated by the pleasure of di scovering I was free ; I continued along the road toward Dijon, supposing i t would only be in t h a t , :apital m y complaints could be legitimately lodged . • . •

At this point M�.dame de Lorsange persuaded Therese to catch her breath for a few minutes at least j she needed the rest ; the

Jus tin e 4- 625

emotion she put into her narrative, the wounds these dreadful re­ citals reopened in her soul, everything, in short, obliged her to re­ sort to a brief respite . Monsieur de Corville had refreshments brought in, and after collecting her forces , our heroine set out again to pursue her deplorable adventures in great detail, as you shall see.

CD y the second day all my initial fea rs o f pursuit had dissipated ; D the weather was extremely warm and, following my thri fty habit, I left the road to find a she ltered place where I could eat a l ight meal that would forti fy m e till evening. Off the road to the right stood a l ittle grove of trees through which wound a limpid stream ; this seemed a good spot for my lunch. My thirst quenched by thi s pure cool water, nou rished 'Jy a li ttle bread, my back leaning against a tree trunk, I breathed deep draughts of clear, serene air which relaxed me and was soothing. Resting there, my thoughts dwelled upon the almost unexampled fatal i ty which, despite the thorns strewn thick along the care e r of V irtue, repeatedly brought me back, whatever might happen, to the worship of that Divinity and to acts of love and resignati on towa rd the Supreme Being from Whom Virtue emanates and of \Vhom it is the image. A kind of enthusiasm came and took possess ion of me ; a las ! I sa id to myself, He abandons me not, this God I adore, for even at thi s instant I find the means to recover my stren gth. Is i t not to Him l owe this merci ful favor ? And are there no t p ersons in the world to whom it is refused ? I am then not completely unfortunate because there are some who have more to compl ain of than I. . . . Ah! am I not much less so than the unlucky ones I left in that den of iniquity and vice from which God's kindness caused me to emerge as if by some sort of mi racle ? . . . And full of gratitude I threw myself upon my knees, raised my eyes, and fixing the sun, for i t seemed to me the Divinity' s most splendid achievement, the one which best manifests His greatness, I was drawing from that Sta r ' s sublimify new mo­ tives for prayer and good works when all of a sudden I felt myself seized by two men who, having cast something over my head to

627

628 .. T H E MARQU [S DE SADE

prevent me from seeing and crying out, bound me like a criminal and dragged me away w ithout uttering a word.

And thus had we walked for nearly two hours during which I knew not whither my ( 'scorts were taking me when one of them, hearing me gasp for a i r, proposed to his comrade that I be freed of the sack covering m�' head ; he agreed, I drank in fresh air and observed that we were in the midst of a forest through which we were traveling along a fairly broad although l ittle frequented road. A thousand da rk ideas rushed stra ightway into my mind. I feared I was being led hack to their odious monastery.

"Ah," I say to on . : of my guides, "ah Monsieur, wil l you tell me where I am being conducted ? May I not ask what you intend to do with me ?"

"Be at ease, my child," the man repl ied, "and do not let the precautions we are obl iged to take cause you any fright ; we are leading you to a good rr aster ; weighty considera t ions engage him to procure a maid for his wife by means of this mysterious process, but never fear , you will find yourself well off ."

"Alas I Messieurs , " I answered, " i f ' ti s my welfare for which you labor i t i s to no purpose I am constrained ; I am a poor o rphan, no doubt much to be commiserated ; I ask for nothing but a place and since you are giving me one, I have no cause to run away, do I ?"

"She's r ight," sa i ( i one o f my escorts, "let 's make her more comfortable ; untie everything but her hands."

They do so and w.: resume our march. Seeing me calmed, they even respond to my que stions, and I finally learn that I am destined to have for master one Comte de Gernande, a native of Paris , but owning considerable property in this country and rich to the tune of five hundred thousand pounds a year , all of which he consumes alone-so sa id one of rry guides.

"Alone ?" "Yes, he is a sol it� ry man, a philosopher : he never sees a soul ;

but on the other hand b e i s one o f Europe ' s greatest epicures ; there i s not an eater in all tt e world who can hold a candle to him. But I ' ll say no more about i l " ; you'll see ."

"But what do the: ;e cautious measures s ignify, Monsieur ?" "Well, simply thi : ; . Our master has the misfortune to have a

wife who has become insane ; a strict watch must be kept over her ,

Jus tine .. 629

she never leaves her room, no one wishes to be her servant j it would have done no good to propose the work to you, for had you been forewarned you 'd never have accepted it. We a re obliged to carry girls off by force in order to have someone to exercise this un· pleasant function."

"What ? I will be made thi s lady's captive ?" "Why, forsooth, yes, you will , and that's why we have you

tied thi s way j but you'll get on . . . don't fret, you'll get on per­ fectly j apart from this annoyance, you'll l ack nothing."

"Ah ! Merciful Heaven ! what thralldom !" "Come, come, my child, courage, you'll ge t out of it someday

and you'll have made your fortune . " My guide had no sooner fin ished speaking than we caught

s ight of the chateau. It was a superb and vast building isolated in the middle of the forest, but this great edifice which could have accommodated hundreds of persons, seemed to be inhabited hardly at all . I only noticed a few signs of life coming from kitchens si tu­ ated in the vaults below the central part of the structure j all the rest was as deserted as the chateau 's site was lonely. No one was there to greet us when we entered ; one of my guides went off in the direction of the kitchens, the other presented me to the Count. He was at the far end of a spacious and superb apartment, his body enveloped in an oriental satin dressing gown, reclining upon an ottoman, and having hard by him two young men so indecently, or rather so ridiculously, costumed, their hair dressed with such ele­ gance and skill, that at first I took them for girls ; a closer inspection allowed me to recognize them for I:WO youths, one of about fi fteen, the other perhaps sixteen. Their faces struck me as charming, but in such a state of dissipated softness and weariness, tha t at the outset I thought they were ill.

" My Lord, here i s a girl ," said my guide, "she seems to us to be what might suit you : she is properly bred and gentle and asks only to find a situation ; we hope you will be content with her."

" 'Tis well , " the Count sa id with scarcely a glance in my di­ rection j "you, Saint-Louis, will close the doors when you go out and you will say tha t no one is to enter unless I ring."

Then the Count rose to his feet and came up to examine me. While he makes a detailed investigation I can describe him to you :

630 4- T H E MAR Q U l i ; DE SADE

the portrait 's singularit:1 merits an instant's attention. Monsieur de Gernande was a t that time a man of fifty, almost six feet tall and monstrously fat. Nothin g could be more terri fying than his face, the length of his nose, his wicked black eyes, his large ill-furnished mouth, his formidable high forehead, the sound of his fearful raucous voice, his enorm JUS hands ; all combined to make a gigantic individual whose presence inspired much more fear than reassur­ ance . We will soon be able to decide whether the morals and actions of thi s species of centau r were in keeping with his awesome looks. After the most abrupt arLd cavalier scrutiny, the Count demanded to know my age.

"I am twenty-three, Monsieur," I replied. And to this first question he added some others of a personal

nature . I made him pri,'y to everything that concerned me ; I did not even omit the brand [ had received from Rodin, and when I had r6presented my misery to him, when I had proven to him that un­ happiness had constantly dogged my footsteps :

"So much the bette r ," the dreadful man replied, "so much the better, i t will have made you more pliable-adaptabil ity counts heavily toward success i ll this household- ; I see nothing to regret in the wretchedness that hounds an abj ect race of plebeians Nature has doomed to grovel Lt our feet throughout the period allotted them to live on the same earth as we. Your sort is more energetic and less insolent, the p ressures of adversity help you fulfill your duties toward us ."

"But, Monsieur, I :old you that I am not o f mean birth ." "Yes , yes , I have 1eard that before, they always pass them­

selves off for all kinds of things when in fact they are nothing or miserable. Oh indeed, p : ' ide's illusions are of the highest usefulness to console fortune' s ills , and then, you see, i t i s up to us to believe what we please about t!- ese lofty estates bea ten down by the blows of destiny. Pish, d'ye know, it 's all the same to me if you fancy yourself a p rincess. To my consideration you have the look and more or less the costurr e of a servant, and as such you may enter my hire, if it suits you . However ," the hard-hearted man continued, "your welfare , your happiness-they are your concern, they depend on your performance : a li ttle patience, some discretion, and in a few years you will be sent forth in a way to avoid further service."

Jus tine + 63 1

Then he took one a fter the other of my arms, rolled my sleeves to the elbows, and examined them attentively while a sking me how many times I had been bled.

"Twice, Monsieur ," I told him, rather surprised a t the ques­ tion, and I mentioned when and under what ci rcumstances i t had happened. He pressed his fingers against the veins as one does when one wishes to inflate them, and when they were swollen to the desired point, he fastened his l ip!; to them and sucked. From that instant I ceased to doubt libertinage was involved in this dreadful person's habits , and tormenting anxieties were awakened in my heart.

"I have got to know how YOli are made," continued the Count, staring at me in a way tha t set m e to trembling ; "the post you are to occupy precludes any corporeal defects ; show me what you have about you ."

I recoiled ; but the Count, a l l h is facial muscles beginning to twi tch with anger, brutally informed me that I should be ill-advised to play the prude with him, for, said he, there are infallible methods of bringing women to thei r senses.

"What you have related to me does not betoken a virtue of the highest order ; and so your resistance would be quite as mis­ placed as ludicrous ."

Whereupon he made a s ign to his young boys who, approach­ ing immediately, fell to undressing me. Against persons as en­ feebled, as enervated as those who surrounded me, it is certainly not difficult to defend onesel f ; but what good would i t have done ? The cannibal who had cast me into their hands could have pulver­ ized me, had he wished to, with one blow of his fist. I therefore understood I had to yield : an instant later I was unclothed ; 'twas scarcely done when I perceived I was exciting those two Ganymedes to gales o f laughter.

"Look ye, friend," said the younger , " a girl ' s a pretty thing, eh ? But what a shame there ' s that cavity there ."

"Oh I " cried the other , "nothing nast ier than that hole , I 'd not touch a woman even were my fortune a t stake ."

And while my fore end was the subj ect of the ir sarcasms, the Count, an intimate partisan of the behind ( unhappily, alas I like every l ibertine ) , examined mill(: with the keenest interes t : he

632 + THE MARQUl S DE SADE

handled it brutally, he b rowsed about with avidity ; taking handfuls of flesh between h i s fingers, he rubbed and kneaded them to the point of drawing blood. Then h e made me walk away from him, halt, walk backward ir his direction, keeping my behind turned toward him while h e dwelled upon the s ight o f it . When I had re­ turned to him, he made me bend, stoop, squat, stand erect, squeeze and spread. N ow and again h e slipped to his knees before tha t part which was his sole com ern. He applied kisses to several different a reas of it , even a few upon that most secret orifice ; but all his kisses were distinguished by suction, his l ips felt like leeches. While he was applying them here and there and everywhere he solicited numerous details concerning what had been done to me at the mon­ astery o f Saint M ary-in-the-Wood, and without noticing that my recitations doubled his warmth, I was candid enough to give them all with n aivete. He summoned up one of his youths and placing him beside me, he untied the bow securing a great red ribbon which gathered in white gauze pantaloons, and brought to l ight all the charms this garment c0 1cealed. After some deft caresses bestowed upon the same altar at which, in me, the Count had signaled his devotion, h e suddenly exchanged the obj ect and fell to sucking that part which characterized the child's sex. He continued to finger me : whether because o f habit in the youth, whether because o f the satyr's dexterity , in a very brief space Nature, vanquished, caused there to flow into the rr outh of the one what was ej ected from the member of the other. That was how the libertine exhausted the un­ fortunate children he ke ?t in his house, whose number we will shortly see ; ' twas thus he sapped their strength, and that was what caused the languor in which I :>eheld them to be. And now let us see how h e managed to keep women in the same state of p rostration and what was the true cause o f his own vigor' s preservation.

The homage the Count rendered me had been protracted, but during it not a trace 0 f infidel ity to his chosen temple had he re­ vealed ; neither his glances, nor his kisses, nor his hands, nor his des ires strayed away f rom i t for an instant ; after h aving sucked the other l a d and hav �ng in likewise gathered and devoured his sperm :

" Come," he said to me, drawing me into an adj acent room

Justine + 633

before I could gather up my clothes, "come, I am going to show you how we manage ."

I was unable to dissimulate my anxiety , i t was terrible ; but there was no o ther way to put a different aspect upon my fate, I had to quaff to the lees the potion in the chal ice tendered to me.

Two other boys of sixteen, quite as handsome, quite as peaked as the first two we had left in the salon, were working upon a tapestry when we entered the room. Upon our entrance they rose.

"N arcisse , " said the Count to one of them, "here i s the Count­ ess' new chambermaid ; I must test her ; hand me the lancets."

Narcisse opens a cupboard a .nd immediately produces all a surgeon's gear. I allow your imagination to fancy my state ; my executioner spied my embarrassment, and i t merely exci ted his mirth.

" Put her in place, Zephire , " Monsieur de Gernande said to another of the youths, and this boy approached me with a smile.

"Don't be a fraid , M ademoise l le ," said he, "it can only do you the greatest good. Take your place here."

I t was a question o f kneeling l ightly upon the edge o f a tabouret located in the middle o f the room ; one's arms were ele­ vated and attached to two black straps which descended from the ceiling.

No sooner have I assumed the posture than the Count steps up scalpel in hand : h e can scarcely breathe, his eyes are alive with sparks, his face smites me with terror ; he ties bands about both my arms, and in a flash he has lanced ,�ach of them. A cry bursts from between his teeth, it i s accompani ,�d by two or three blasphemies when he catches s ight o f my blood j he ret ires to a distance o f s ix feet and sits down. The l igh t garment covering him is soon de­ ployed j Zephire kneels between his thighs and sucks him j Narcisse , h i s feet planted on his master's armchair, presents the same obj ect to him to suckle he i s himself having d)·ained by Zephire. Gernande gets his hands upon the boy's loins, squeezes them, presses them to him, but quits them long enough to cast his inflamed eyes toward me. My blood i s escaping in floods and i s falling into two white basins s itu­ ated underneath my arms. I soon feel myself growing faint.

" M onsieur, Monsieur ," I cry, "have p i ty on me, I am about to collapse. "

634 .. T H E MARQU [ S DE SADE

I sway, totter , am held up by the straps, am unable to fall ; but my arms having shi fted , and my head slumping upon my shoulder, my face i s now washed with blood. The Count is drunk with j oy . . . however, I see nothing like the end of his operation approaching, I swoon before he reache s his goal ; he was perhaps only able to at­ tain i t upon seeing me in this state, perhaps his supreme ecstasy depended upon this mo rbid p icture . . . . At any rate, when I re. turned to my senses I found myself in an excellent bed, with two old women standing nt,ar me ; as soon as they saw me open my eyes, they brought me a cup of bouillon and, at three-hour interval s, rich broths ; this con tim ed for two days, at the end of which Mon­ sieur de Gernande sent :0 have me get up and come for a conversa­ tion in the same salon where I had been received upon my arrival. I was led to him ; I was ,till a li ttle weak and giddy, but otherwise well ; I arrived.

"Therese ," said the Count, bidding me be seated, "I shall not very often repeat such (Xercises with you, your person is useful for other purposes ; but i t was of the h ighest importance I acquaint you with my tastes and the manner in which you will expire in this house should you betra y me one of these days, should you be un­ lucky enough to let YOl:fsel f be suborned by the woman in whose society you are going to be placed.

"That woman belongs to me, Therese, she i s my wife and that title is doubtless the m Jst baleful she could have, since i t obliges her to lend herself to the bizarre passion whereof you have been a recent victim ; do not slIppose it i s vengeance that prompts me to treat her thus , scorn, 0 ; ' any sentiment of hostility or hatred ; it i s merely a question of pa ,s ian. Nothing equals the pleasure I experi­ ence upon shedding her blood . . . I go mad when i t flows ; I have never enjoyed this WOrr an in any other fashion. Three years have gone by since I married her, and for three years she has been regu­ larly exposed every foUl days to the treatment you have undergone. Her youth ( she i s not yet twenty ) , the special care given her, all this keeps her aright ; and as the reservoir i s repleni shed at the same rate it is tapped, l ;he has been in fairly good health since the regime began. Our rehtions being what they are, you perfectly well appreciate why I ca n neither allow her to go out nor to receive visitors. And so I repre ,ent her as insane and her mother, the only

Justin e .. 63 5

l iving member of her family, who resides in a chateau six leagues from here, i s so firmly convinced of her derangement that she dares not even come to see her. Not infrequently the Countess implores my mercy, there i s nothing she omits to do in order to soften me ; but I doubt whether she shall ever succeed. My lust decreed her fate, it i s immutable, she will go on in this fashion so long as she i s able ; while she lives she will want nothing and as I am incredibly fond of what can be drained from her living body, I will keep her alive as long a s possibl e ; when finally she can stand it no more, well, tush, Nature will take its course. She's my fourth ; I 'll soon have a fi fth. Nothing disturbs me less than to lose a wife. There are so many women about, and it is so pleasant to change.

"In any event, Therese, your task i s to look a fter her. Her blood i s let once every ninety-six hours ; she loses two bowls of i t e ach time and nowadays no longer faints, having got accustomed to it . Her p rostration lasts twenty-four hours ; she is bedridden one day out of every four , but during the remaining three she gets on tolerably well. But you may eas ily understand this l i fe d i spleases her ; a t the outset there was nothing she would not try to deliver herself from it, nothing she did not undertake to acquaint her mother with her real s i tuation : she seduced two of her maid­ servants whose maneuvers were detected early enough to defeat their success : she was the cause of these two unhappy creatures' ruin, today she repents what she d id and, recognizing the i rremedi­ able character of her destiny, she is co-operating cheerfully and has p romised not to make confederates of the help I hire to care for her. But this secret and what becomes of those who conspire to be­ tray me, these matters, Therese, obl ige me to put no one in her neighborhood but persons who, like yourself, have been impressed ; and thus inquiries are avoided. Not having carr ied you off from anyone's house, not h aving to render an account of you to anyone at all, nothing stands in the way of my punishing you, if you deserve to be, in a manner which, although you will be deprived of mortal breath, cannot nevertheless expose me to interrogations or embroil me in any unpleasantnesses. As of the present moment you inhabit the world no longer, since the least impulse of my will can cause you to disappear from it . What can you expect a t my hands ? Happi­ ness if you behave properly, deatn if you seek to play me false.

63 6 + THE MARQUIS DE SADE

Were these alternatives not so clear , were they not so few, I would ask for your response ; hut in your present situation we can dispense with questions and answers. I have you, Therese, and hence you must obey me . . . . Let 11S go to my wife's apartment."

Having nothing to obj ect to a discourse as precise as this , I followed my master : we traversed a long gallery, as dark, as soli­ tary as the rest of the chateau ; a door opens, we enter an ante­ chamber where I recoJ;nize the two elderly women who waited upon me during my coma and recovery. They got up and introduced us into a superb apartment where we found the unlucky Countess doing tambour brocade as she reclined upon a chaise longue ; she rose when she saw her husband.

"Be seated," the Count said to her, "I permi t you to listen to me thus . Here a t last we have a maid for you, Madame," he con­ tinued, " and I trust you will remember what has befallen the others -and that you will not try to plunge this one into an identical mis­ fortune."

"I t would be useless," I said , full eager to be of help to this poor woman and wishir g to disguise my designs, "yes , Madame, I dare certi fy in your presence tha t i t would be to no purpose, you will not speak one word to me I shall not report immediately to his Lordship, and I sha ll certainly not j eopardize my l ife in order to serve you ."

"I wi l l undertake nothing, Mademoiselle, which might force you into tha t position, ' said this poor woman who did not yet grasp my motives for speaking in this wise ; "rest assured : I solicit nothing but your care."

"It will be entirely yours , Madame ," I answered, "but beyond that, nothing."

And the Count, erchanted with me, squeezed my hand as he whispered : "Nicely done , Therese, your prosperity is guaranteed i f you conduct yourself as you say you will ." The Count then showed me to my room which a djoined the Countess' and he showed me as well tha t the entirety 0 : this apartment, closed by stout doors and double grilled a t every window, left no hope of escape .

"And here you ha'le a terrace, " Monsieur de Gernande went on, leading me out intc a l i ttle garden on a level with the apart­ ment, "but i ts elevation above the ground ought not, I believe, give

Justine + 637

you the idea of measu ring the walls ; the Countess is permitted to take fresh a ir out here whenever she wishes, you will keep her company . . . adieu . "

I returned to my mistress and, a s a t fi r s t we spent a few moments examining one another without speaking, I obtained a good picture of her-but let me paint i t for you.

Madame de Gernande, aged nineteen and a half, had the most lovely, the most noble , the most majestic figure one could hope to see, not one of her gestu res, not a single movement was without gracefulness, not one of her glances lacked depth of senti­ ment : nothing could equal the expression of her eyes , which were a beautiful dark brown although her hair was blond ; but a certain languor, a lass itude entailed by her misfortunes, dimmed their eclat, and thereby rendered them a thousand times more interesting ; her skin was very fair, her hair very rich ; her mouth was very small, perhaps too small, and I was l ittle surprised to find this defect in her : ' twas a pretty rose not yet in full bloom ; but teeth so white . . . lips of a vermillion . . . one might have sa id Love had colored them with tints borrowed from the goddess of flowers ; her nose was aquiline, straight, del i cately modeled ; upon her brow curved two ebony eyebrows ; a perfectly lovely chin ; a visage, in one word, of the finest oval shape, over whose entirety reigned a kind of attractiveness, a naivete, an openness which might well have made one take this adorable face for an angelic rather than mortal physiognomy. Her arms, her breasts, her flanks were of a splendor . . . o f a round fullness fi t to sern as models to an artist ; a black silken fleece covered her m o ns ven eris, which was sustained by two superbly cast thighs j and what astonished me was that, despite the slenderness of the Countess' figure, despite her sufferings, nothing had impaired the firm quality of her flesh : her round, plump but­ tocks were as smooth, as ripe, as firm as if her figure were heavier and a s i f she had always dwelled in the depths of happiness. How­ ever, frightful traces of her husband's libertinage were scattered thickly about ; but, I repeat, nothing spoiled, nothing damaged . . . the very image o f a beautiful lily upon which the honeybee has inflicted some scratches. To so many gifts Madame de Gernande a dded a gentle nature, a romantic and tender mind, a heart of such sensibility I . . . well-educated, wi th talents • . . a native art for

63 8 .. T H E MARQ( I S DE SADE

seduction which no on e but her infamous husband could resist, a .charming timbre in her voice and much piety : such was the unhappy wife of the Comte de Gernande, such was the heavenly creature against whom he had plotted ; i t seemed that the more she inspired ideas, the more she inflamed his feroci ty, and that the abundant gi fts she had received from Nature only became further motives for that villain's cruelties .

"When were you last bled, Madame ?" I asked in order to have her understand I was acquainted with everything.

"Three days ago, " she said , "and i t is to be tomorrow . . . . " Then, with a sigh : " . . . yes, tomorrow . . . Mademoiselle, tomorrow you will witness the pre tty scene ."

"And Madame is not growing weak ?" "Oh, Grea t Heaven ! I am not twenty and am sure I shall be

no weaker at seventy. Hut it will come to an end, I fla tter myself in the belief, for i t i s per :ectly impossible for me to live much longer this way : I will go to my Father, in the arms of the Supreme Being I will s e ek a pl ace of rcst men h ave so cruelly denied me on e a rth . "

These words clove my heart ; wishing to maintain my role, I disguised my trouble , but upon the instant I made an inward promise to lay down rry l ife a thousand times, i f necessary, rather than leave this ill-starred victim in the clutches of this monstrous debauchee.

The Countess wa! , on the point of taking her dinner. The two old women came to tell me to conduct her into her cabinet ; I trans­ mitted the message ; she was accustomed to i t all , she went out at once, and the two wom en, aided by the two valets who had carried me off, served a sump :uous meal upon a table a t which my place was set opposite my mistress. The valets retired and the women informed me that they would not sti r from the antechamber so as to be near at hand to rco:ive whatever might be Madame's orders. I relayed this to the Countess, she took her place and, with an air of friendliness and affabil ity which enti rely won my heart, invited me to j oin her . There wer , : at least twenty dishes upon the table.

"With what rega ods this aspect of things, Mademoiselle, you see that they treat me well ."

"Yes, Madame," I replied, "and I know it i s the wish of Monsieur Ie Comte th:lt you lack nothing."

Jus tine .. 639

"Oh yes ! But as these attentions are motivated only by cruelty, my feelings are scarcely of gratitude."

Her constant state of debilita tion and perpetual need of what would revive her s trength obliged Madame de Gernande to eat copiously. She desired partridge and Rouen duckling ; they were brought to her in a trice. After the meal, she went for some a ir on the terrace, but upon ris ing she took my arm, for she was quite unable to take ten steps without someone to lean upon. I t was at this moment she showed me all those parts o f her body I have just described to you ; she exhibited her a rms : they were covered wi th small scars.

"Ah, he does not confine himself to that," she said, " there is not a single spot on my wretched person whence he does not love to see blood flow."

And she allowed me to see her feet, her neck, the lower part o f her breasts and several other fleshy areas equally speckled with healed punctures. That first day I limited myself to murmuring a few sympathetic words and we retired for the night.

The morrow was the Countess' fatal day. Monsieur de Ger­ nande, who only performed the operation after. his dinner-which he always took before his wife ate hers-had me j oin him at table ; i t was then, Madame, I beheld that ogre fall to in a manner so terri fying that I could hardly believe my eyes. Four domestics, amongst them the pair who had led me to the chateau, served this amazing feast. It deserves a thorough description : I shall give it you without exaggeration. The meal was certainly not intended simply to overawe me. What I witnessed then was an everyday affair .

Two soups were brought on, one a consomme flavored with saffron, the other a ham bisque ; then a sirloin of English roast beef, e ight hors d' oeuvres, five substantial entrees, five others only ap­ parently l ighter, a boar's head in the midst of eight braised dishes which were relieved by two services of entremets, then sixteen plates of frui t ; ices, six brands of wine, four varieties of l iqueur and coffee. Monsieur de Gernande attacked every dish, and several were polished off to the last scrap ; he drank a round dozen bottles of wine, four , to begin with, of Burgundy, four of Champagne with the roasts ; Tokay, Mulseau, Hermitage and Madeira were downed

640 -to THE MARQUI S DE SADE

with the fru i t. He finis led with two bottles of West Indies rum and ten cups of coffee.

As fresh after this performance as he might have been had he just waked from sleep, Monsieur de Gernande said :

"Off we go to bleed your mistress j I trust you will let me know if I manage as nicely wi :h her as I did with you."

Two young boys I lad not hitherto seen, and who were of the same age as the others, were awai ting at the door of the Countess' apartment j it was then the Count informed me he had twelve minions and renewed th em every year. These seemed yet prettier than the ones I had seen hitherto j they were livelier . . . we went in . . . . All the ceremonies I am going to describe now, Madame, were part of a ritual fr om which the Count never deviated, they were scrupulously observed upon each occasion, and nothing ever changed except the place where the incisions were made.

The Countess, dressed only in a loose-floating muslin robe, fell to her knees instantly the Count entered.

"Are you ready ?" her husband inquired. "For everything, Monsieur ," was the humble reply j "you

know full well I am �oUl victim and you have but to command me." Monsieur de Gern:.nde thereupon told me to undress his wife

and lead her to him. \Vllatever the loathing I sensed for all these horrors, you understanc , Madame, I had no choice but to submit with the most entire res ignation. In all I have sti l l to tell you , do not, I beseech you, do not at any time regard me as anything but a slave j I complied simp y because I could not do otherwise, but never did I act will ingly in anything whatsoever.

I removed my misl ress' simar, and when she was naked con­ ducted her to her husband who had already taken his place in a l arge armchair : a s part of the ritual she perched upon this armchair and herself p resented to his kisses that favorite part over which he had made such a to-do ",ith me and which, regardless of person or sex, seemed to affect hirr, in the same way.

"And now spread dIem, Madame," the Count said brutally. And for a long tirr e he rollicked about with what he enj oyed

the sight of j he had i t assume various positions, he opened it , he snapped i t shut j with t.)ngue and fingertip he tickled the narrow aperture j and soon ca rried away by his passions' ferocity, he

Justine + 64 1

plucked up a p inch of flesh, squeezed it , scratched it. Immediately he produced a small wound he fastened his mouth to the spot. I held his unhappy victim during these preliminaries , the two boys, com­ pletely naked, toiled upon him in relays ; now one, now the other knelt between Gernande' s thighs and employed his mouth to exci te him. It was then I noticed, not without astonishment, that this giant, this species of monster whose aspect alone was enough to strike terror, was howbeit barely �. man ; the most meager, the most minuscule excrescence of flesh or, to make a juster comparison, what one might find in a child of three was all one discovered upon this so very enormous and otherwise so cnrpulent individual ; but its sensa­ tions were not for that the less ke en and each pleasurable vibration was as a spasmodic attack. After this prologue he stretched out upon a couch and wanted his wife, seated astride his chest, to keep her behind poised over his visage while with her mouth she rendered him, by means of suckings, the same serVice he had just received from the youthful Ganymedes who were simultaneously, one to the left, one to the right, being excited by him ; my hands meanwhile worked upon his behind : I titillated i t, I polluted it in every sense ; this phase of activities l asted more than a quarter of an hour but, producing no results, had to be given up for another ; upon her husband's instructions I stretched the Countess upon a chaise longue : she lay on her back, her legs spread as wide as possible. The sight of what she exposed put her husband in a kind of rage, he dwelt upon the perspective . . . his eyes blaze , he curses ; l ike one crazed he leaps upon his wi fe, with his scalpel pricks her in several places, but these were all superficial gashes, a drop or two of blood, no more, seeped from each. Thes e minor cruelties came to an end at last ; others began. The Count s i ts down again, he allows his wife a moment's respite, and, turning his attention to h i s two l i ttle followers, he now obliges them to suck each other, and now he arranges them in such a way that while he sucks one, the other sucks him, and now again the one he sucked first brings round his mouth to render the same service to him by whom he was sucked : the Count received much but gave little. Such was his satiety, such his impotence that the extremest efforts availed not at all, and he remained in his torpor : he did indeed seem to experience some very violent reverberations, but nothing manifested itsel f ; he several

642 + THE MARQUl S DE SADE

times ordered me to suc k h is l i ttle friends and immediately to con­ vey to h is mouth wha te'rer incense I drained from them ; finally he flung them one a fter the other at the miserable C ountess. These young men accosted her insulted her, carried insolence to the point o f beating her, s lapping her , and the more they molested her, the more lou dly the C ount praised and egged them on.

Then Gernande turned to me ; I was in front of him, my buttocks a t the level of h is face, and he pa id his respects to hi

' s

God ; but he did not abuse me ; nor do I know why he d id not tor­ ment h is Ganymedes ; h(' chose to reserve all his unkindness for the C ountess. Perhaps the h :mor of being all ied to him established one ' s r ight to suffer mistreatment a t h is hands ; perhaps he was moved to cruelty only by a ttachrr ents which contributed energy to his out­ rages. One can imagine anything about such minds, and almost always s afely wager th a t what seems most apt to be criminal is what will inflame them most. At last he places his young friends and me beside h i s wi fe � nd enlaces our bodies ; here a man, there a woman, etc. , all fou r dn ssing their behinds ; he takes h is stand some d istance away and muses upon the panorama, then he comes near, touches , feels , comp a res , caresses ; the youths and I were not perse­ cuted, but each time he came to his wife , he fussed and bothered and vexed her in some 'lIay o r other. Aga in the scene changes : he has the Countess lie bell:r down upon a divan and taking each boy in turn, he introduces each o f them into the narrow avenue M a dame ' s posture exposes : he allows them t o become aroused, b u t i t i s no­ where but i n his mouth the sacrifice i s to be consummate d ; a s one a fter another they eme:'ge he sucks each. While one acts, he has himself sucked by the other , and his tongue wanders to the throne of voluptuousness the a �;ent p resents to him. This activity continues a long time, it irr itates the Count, he gets to his feet and wishes me to take the Countes! . ' place ; I instantly beg him not to requ ire i t o f me, but he insists . He l ays his wife upon her back, has me superimpose myself UpO :1 her with my fl anks raised i n h is di rection and thereupon he order s his a i des to plumb me by the forbidden passage : he brings them up, his hands guide the ir introduction ; meanwhile , I have got to st imulate the Countess with my fingers and kiss her mouth ; a s for the Count, h is offerto ry i s still the same ; a s each o f the boys cannot act without exhibiting to him one of the

Jus tine + 643

sweetest objects of his veneration, he turns it all to his profit and, as with the Countess, he who has just perforated me is obliged to go, a fter a few lunges and retreats, and spill into his mouth the incense I have warmed. When the boys are finished, seemingly in­ clined to replace them, the Count glues himself to my buttocks.

"Superfluous efforts ," he cries , " this is not what I must have . . . to the business . . . the business . . . however piti able my state . . . I can hold back no longer . . . come, Countess, your arms I "

He seizes her ferociously, places her as I was placed, a rms suspended by two black straps ; mine is the task of securing the bands ; he inspects the knots : finding them too loose, he tightens them, "So that," he says, "the blood will spurt out under greater pressure" ; he feels the veins, and lances them, on each arm, a t almost the same moment. Blood I eaps far : he i s i n an ecstasy ; and adjusting himself so that he has a clear view of these two fountains, he has me kneel between his legs so I can suck him ; he does as much for first one and then the other of his l i ttle friends, incessantly eyeing the j ets of blood which inflame him. For my part, certain the instant at which the hoped for cri s is occurs will bring a conclusion to the Countess' torments, I bring all my efforts to bear upon pre­ cipitating this denouement, and I become, as, Madame, you observe, I become a whore from kindness, a l ibertine through virtue . The much awaited moment arrives at last ; I am not famil iar with its dangers or violence, for the last time i t had taken place I had been unconscious . . . . Oh, Madame ! what extravagance ! Gernande remained delirious for ten minutes , fl ailing his arms, staggering, reeling like one falling in a fit of epilepsy, and uttering screams which must have been audible for a league a round ; his oaths were excessive ; lashing out at everyone at hand, his strugglings were dreadful. The two li ttle ones are sent tumbling head over heels ; he wishes to fly at his wife, I restrain him : I pump the last drop from him, his need of me makes him rf spect me ; at last I bring him to his senses by ridding him of that fiery l iquid, whose heat, whose viscosity, and above all whose abundance puts him in such a frenzy I believe he is going to expire ; seven or eight tablespoons would scarcely have contained the discharge, and the thickest gruel would hardly give a notion of i t s consistency ; and with a l l that, no appear­ ance of an erection at all , rather, the limp look and feel of ex-

644 * THE MARQUI ; DE SADE

haustion : there you have: the contrarieties which, better than might I, explain artists of the Count's breed. The Count ate excessively and only dissipated each time he bled h is wife, every four days, that i s to say. Would thi s be the cause o f the phenomenon ? I have no idea, and not daring to ascribe a reason to what I do not under­ stand, I will be content to relate what I saw.

However, I rush to the Countess, I stanch her blood, untie her, and deposit her upon a couch in a state of extreme weakness ; but the Count, totally indifferent to her, without condescending to cast even a glance at thi s victim stricken by his rage, abruptly goes out with his aides, leav ing me to put things in whatever order I please. Such i s the fatal apathy which better than all else charac­ terizes the true libertine soul : if he is merely carried away by passion's heat, limned vrith remorse will be his face when, calmed again, he beholds the baleful effects of deli rium ; but if his soul is utterly corrupt ? then such consequences will affright him not : he will observe them with � s l i ttle trouble as regret, perhaps even with some o f the emotion o f those infamou s lusts which produced them.

I put Madame de ']ernande to bed. She had, so she said, lost much more this time than she ordinarily did ; but such good care and so many restoratives were lavished upon her, that she appeared well two days later. Th at same evening, when I had completed all my chores in the Counte ss' apartment, word arrived that the Count desired to speak to me ; Gernande was taking supper ; I was obliged to wait upon him while he fed with a much greater intemperance than at dinner ; four of his pretty li ttle friends were seated round the table with him anc there, every evening, he regularly drank himself into drunkenness ; but to that end, twenty bottles of the most excellent wine were scarcely sufficient and I often saw him empty thirty. And every evening, propped up by his minions, the debauchee went to bed, and took one or two of the boys with him ; these were nothing but vehicles which disposed him for the great scene.

But I had discovf red the secret o f winning this man's very highest esteem : he fra nkly avowed to me that few women had pleased him so much ; Lnd thereby I acquired the r ight to h is con­ fidence, which I only enloited in order to serve my mistress.

One morning Gemande called me to h is room to inform me of

Justine + 645

some new libertine schemes j a fter having l istened closely and ap­ proved enthusiastically, and seeing him in a relatively calm state, I undertook to persuade him to mitigate his poor wife's fate. "Is it possible , Monsieur ," I said to him, "that one may treat a woman in thi s manner, even setting aside a ll the ties which bind you to her ? Condescend to reflect upon her sex's touching graces."

"Oh Therese I" the Count a.nswered with alacrity, "why in order to pacify me do you bring me arguments which could not more positively a rouse me ? Liste:'l to me, my dear girl, " he con­ tinued, having me take a place beside him, "and whatever the in­ vectives you may hear me utter against your sex, don't lose your temper j no, a reasoned discussion j I 'l l yield to your arguments i f they're logically sound.

"How are you justified, pray tell me, Therese, in asserting that a husband l ies under the obligation to make his wife happy ? and what titles dares this woman cite in order to extort thi s happi­ ness from her husband ? The necessity mutually to render one an­ other happy cannot legitimately exist save between two persons equally furnished with the capaci ty to do one another hurt and, consequently, between two persons of commensurate strength : such an association can never come into being unless a contract is imme­ diately formed between these two persons, which obligates each to employ against the other no kind of force but what will not be injurious to either j but this ridiculous convention assuredly can never obtain between two persons one of whom is strong and the other weak. What entitles the l atter to require the former to treat kindly with him ? and what sort of a fool would the stronger have to be in order to subscribe to such an agreement ? I can agree not to employ force against him whos,e own strength makes him to be feared j but what could motivate me to moderate the effects of my strength upon the being Nature subordinates to me ? Pity, do you say ? That sentiment is fitting for no one but the person who re­ sembles me and as he is an egoist too, pity's effects only occur under the tacit circumstances in which the individual who inspires my commiseration has sympathy for me in his turn j but i f my superi­ ority assures me a constant ascendancy over him, his sympathy becoming valueless to me, I need never, in order to excite i t, consent to any sacrifice. Would I not be a fool to feel pity for the chicken

646 + T H E MARQ UI! . DE SADE

they slaughtered for my dinner ? That obj ect, too inferior to me, lacking any relation to me, can never excite any feelings in me ; well , the relationships of a wi fe to her husband and that of the chicken to myself are of identical consequence, the one and the other are household cha ttels which one must use, which one must employ for the purpose indicated by Nature, without any differentiation what­ soever. But, I ask, had i t been Nature 's intention to create your sex for the happiness c ·f ours and vice versa, would this blind Nature have caused the existence of so many ineptitudes in the construction of the one and the other of those sexes ? Would she have implanted faults so grave in each that mutual estrangement and antipathy were bound infallibly to be their result ? Without going any further in sea rch of examples, be so good as to tell me, Therese, knowing my organization to be what it is , what woman could I render happy ? a 1d , reversibly, to what man can the enjoy­ ment of a woman be sweet when he is not endowed with the gigantic proportions necessary to satisfy her ? In your opinion, will they be moral qualities which will compensate his physical shortcomings ? And what thinking being, upon knowing a woman to her depths, will not cry with EuriF ides : 'That one amongst the Gods who brought women into the world may boast of having produced the worst of all creatures aLd the most afHicting to man.' If then i t is demonstrated that the two sexes do not at all sort agreeably with each other and tha t there i s not one well-founded grievance of the one which could not eC 1ually and immediately be voiced by the other, i t i s therefore fal se, from this moment, to say that Nature created them for their reciprocal happiness. She may have per­ mitted them the desire to attain each other's vicinity in order to conjugate in the interest s of propagation, but in no wise in order to form attachments with the design of di scovering a mutual felicity. The weaker ther efore having no right to mouth complaints with the obj ect of wrest ing pity from the stronger and no longer being able to raise the obj ection that the stronger depends for his happiness upon her, the weaker, I say, has no alternative but to submi t ; and as , despite the difficulty of achieving that bilateral h appiness, i t i s natural that individuals of both sexes labor at noth­ ing but to procure it f'Jr themselves, the weaker must reconcile herself to distill ing from her submissiveness the only dose of happi-

Justine + 647

ness she can possibly hope to cull, and the stronger must strive after his by whatever oppressive methods he i s pleased to employ, since it i s proven that the mighty's sole happiness i s yielded him by the exercise of his strong faculti es, by, that is to say, the most thorough­ going tyranny ; thus, that happiness the two sexes cannot find with each other they will find, one in blind obedience, the other in the most energetic expression of his domination. Why! were it not Nature's intention that one of the sexes tyrannize the other, would she not have created them equally strong ? By rendering one in every particular inferior to the o ther, has she not adequately indi­ cated that she wills the mightier to exploit the rights she has given him ? the more the latter broadens his authority, the more, by means of his preponderance, he worsens the misery of the woman enthralled by her destiny, the b etter he answers Nature's inten­ tions ; the frail being's complaints do not provide a correct basis for analyzing the process ; judgments thus come by would be nothing i f not vicious, since, to reach them, you would have to appropriate none but the feeble's ideas : the sui t must be judged upon the stronger party's power, upon the scope he has given to his power, and when this power's effects a re brought to bear upon a woman, one must examine the question, What i s a woman ? and how has this con­ temptible sex been viewed in ancient times and in our own by seventy-five per cent of the peoples of this earth ?

"Now, what do I observe upon coolly proceeding to this in­ vestigation ? A puny creature, always inferior to man, infinitely less a ttractive than he, less ingenious, less wise, constructed in a dis­ gusting manner entirely opposite to what is capable of pleasing a man, to what is able to delight him . . . a being three-quarters o f he r l i fe untouchable, unwholesome, unable to satisfy he r mate throughout the entire period Nature constrains her to childbearing, o f a sharp turn of humor, shrill , shrewish, bitter, and thwart ; a tyrant i f you allow her privileges, mean, vile, and a sneak in bond­ age ; always false, forever mischievous, constantly dangerous ; in short, a being so perverse that during several convocations the question was very soberly agitated at the Council of Macon whether or not this pecul iar creature, as di stinct from man as is man from the ape, had any reasonably legitimate pretensions to classification as a human ; but this quandary might be merely an

648 .. T H E MARQUl S DE SADE

error of the times ; were women more favorably viewed in earlier ages ? Did the Persians , the Medes, the Babylonians, the Greeks, the Romans honor this odious sex we are able to dare make our idol today ? Alas ! I see it oppressed everywhere, everywhere rigor­ ously banished from affairs , contemned everywhere, vilified, se­ questered, locked up ; v/omen treated, in a word, like beasts one stables in the barn and F uts to use when the need arises . Do I pause a moment at Rome ? th en I hear the wise Cato exclaim from the heart of the ancient world's capi tal : 'Were women lacking to men, they would yet hold cor.versation with the Gods.' I hear a Roman censor begin his harangue with these words : 'Gentlemen, were we ever to find a means t) live without women, thereupon unto us should true happiness b,: known. ' I hear the Greek theater resound to these lines intoned : " i) Zeus ! what reason was i t obl iged thee to create women ? couldst not have given being to humankind by better devices and wise: - , by schemes which in a word would have spared us this female p estilence ?' I see this same Greek race hold that sex in such high contempt legi sl a tion w a s needed to obl ige a Spartan to reproduce, lnd one of the penalties decreed in those enlightened republics was to compel a malefactor to garb himself in a woman's a ttire, th a t is to say, to wear the raiments of the vilest and most scorned creature of which man had acqua intance.

"But without inqu iring for examples in ages at such a great remove from ours, with what sort of an eye is this wretched sex still viewed upon the earth's surface ? How is it dealt with ? I be­ hold it imprisoned thrc ughout Asia and serving there as slave to the barbarous whims 0 : : a despot who molests it, torments i t, and turns i ts sufferings into a game. In America I find a naturally humane race, the Eski 110S, practicing all possible acts of benef­ icence amongst men and treating women with all imaginable severity : I see them humiliated, prosti tuted to strangers in one part of the world, used as currency in another. In Africa, where without doubt the ir sta tion i s yet further degraded, I notice them tolling in the manner of beasts of burden, tilling the soil , fertil iz ing it and sowing seed, and serving their husbands on their knees only. Will I follow Captain Cook in his newest discoveries ? Is the charm­ ing i sle of Tahiti , where pregnancy is a crime sometimes meri ting death for the mother and almost always for the child, to offer me

Justine + 649

women enjoying a happier lot ? In the other islands this same mari­ ner charted, I find them beaten, harassed by their own offspring, and bulli ed by the husband himself who collaborates with his family to torment them with additional rigor.

"Oh, Therese ! let not all this astonish you, nor be more sur­ pr ised by the general pre-eminence accorded men over the i r wives in all epochs : the more a people is in harmony with Nature, the better will be its use of her laws ; the wife can have no relation to her husband but that of a slave to his master ; very decidedly she has no right to pretend to more ch,erished titles. One must not mis­ take for a prerogative the ridiculDus abuses which, by degrading our sex, momentarily elevates yours : the cause for these travesties must be sought out, enunciated, and a fterward one must only the more constantly return to reason's sagacious counsels. Well, The­ rese, here is the cause of the temporary respect your sex once upon a time enjoyed and which it still misuses today while they who perpetuate it are unaware of what they are doing.

"In the Gaul of long ago, that is to say, in that one part of the world where women were not total ly treated as slaves, women had the habit o f prophesying, of predicting the ha ppy event : the people fancied they plied their trade successfully only because of the inti­ mate commerce they doubtless had with the Gods ; whence they were, so to speak, associated with the sacerdotal and enjoyed a measure o f the consideration lavished upon priests. French chivalry was founded upon these inanit ies and finding them favorable to its spir it , adopted them : but what ha ppened next was what happens always : the causes became extinct, the effects were preserved ; chivalry vanished, the prejudices i t nourished persevered. This ancient veneration accorded for n o sound reason could not i tself be annihi lated when what founded the illusion had dissipated : we no longer stand in awe of witches , but we reverence whores and, what is worse, we continue to kill each other for them. May such plat itudes cease to influence these our philosophers' minds, and restoring women to thei r true position, may the intelligent spir it conceive them, as Nature indicates , as the wisest peoples acknowl­ edge, to be nothing but individuals created for their pleasures, sub­ m itted to their caprices , obj ects whose frailty and wickedness make them deserving of naught but contempt.

650 .. THE MARQUl S DE SADE

"But not only, Thc:rese, did all the peoples of the earth enjoy the most extensive rights over their women, there were even to be found certain races whi,:h condemned women to death immedi ately they were born into the world, and of thei r numbers retained only those few necessary to the race's reproduction. The Arabs known as Koreish interred thc : ir daughters at the age of seven upon a mountain near Mecca, because, said they, so vile a sex appeared to them unworthy of seein g the light; in the seraglio of the King of Achem, the most appall ing tortures a re applied as punishment for the mere suspicion of in fidelity, for the slightest disobedience in the service of the prince ' s lusts, or as soon as his women inspire his distaste; upon the banks of the River Ganges they are obliged to immolate themselves o"er their husbands' ashes , for they are es­ teemed of no further pc rpose in the world once their lords are able to enjoy them no more in other regions they are hunted like wild beasts , ' tis an honor to kill a quantity of them; in Egypt they are sacrificed to the Gods; l hey are trampled under foot in Formosa if they become pregnant ; '::;erman law condemned the man who kil led a foreign woman to pay a fine of about ten crowns, nothing at all if the woman was his O W '1 or a courtesan; everywhere , to be brief, everywhere, I repeat, I see women humiliated, molested, every­ where sacrifi ced to the superstition of priests, to the savagery of husbands, to the playfu lness of libertines. And because I have the misfortune to live amiut a people still so uncouth as not to dare abolish the most ludicrous of prejudices, I should deprive myself of the rights Nature has granted me ! I should forgo all the pleasures to which these privileges give birth ! . . . Come, come, The­ rese, that's not just, no . ' tis unfair : I w·ill conceal my behavior be­ cause I must, but I will be compensated, in the retreat where I have exiled myself, and silently , for the absurd chains to which I am condemned by legisl a tion, and here I will treat my wife as I like , for I find my right to do se lettered in all the universe' s codes, graved in my heart, and sealed in Nature ."

"Oh Monsieur, " said I , "your conversion is impossibl e." "And I advise ye ·u not to attempt it, Therese ," Gernande

answered; "the tree is too long out of the nursery; at my age one can advance a few step s in the career of evil , but not one toward good. My principles an ·! my tastes have brought me joy since child-

Justine + 651

hood, they have always been the unique bases of my conduct and actions : I will , who knows ? go further , I have the feeling it could be done, but return ? never ; I have too great a horror for mankind's prejudices, I too sincerely hate their civi l ization, their virtue and their Gods ever to sacrifice my penchants to them."

From th i s moment I saw very clearly that nothing remained for me, in order e ither to extricate myself from this house or to save the Countess, but the employment of strategems and j oint action with her .

During the year I had spent in the house , what I had allowed her to read in my heart was more than sufficient to dispel any doubts she might have of my desire to serve her, and now she could not fail to divine what had at fi rst prompted me to act differently. I became less guarded, then spoke ; she assented ; we settled upon a plan : i t was to inform her mother, to expose the Count's infamies to her eyes. Madame de Gernande was certain that unfortunate lady would hasten with all expedit ion to sever her daughter's bonds ; but how were we to approach her ? for we were so securely im­ prisoned, so closely watched ! Accus tomed to coping with ramparts, I gauged those upon which the terrace was raised : their height was scarcely thirty feet ; th ere was no other enclosure in sight ; once at the foot of the wall I thought one would find oneself already on the road through the forest ; but the Countess, having been brought to this apartment at night and never having left it since, was unable to confirm my ideas . I agreed to attempt the descent ; the letter Ma­ dame de Gernande wrote to her mother could not have been better phrased to melt and persuade her to come to the rescue of her most unhappy daughter ; I slipped the le :ter into my bosom, I embraced that dear and a ttractive woman, then, as soon as night had fallen, aided by our bed l inen , I slid to the ground outside the fortress. What had become of me, 0 Heaven ! I di scovered that instead of being outside the enclosure I was simply in a park, and in a park girt by walls which the quantity ;J.nd dense foliage o f trees had camouflaged from sight : these battlements were more than forty feet high, all o f them garnished at t he top with broken glass , and of a prodigious thickness . . • what was to become of me ? Dawn was not far off : what would they think when I was found in a place into which I could not have come without a certain plan of escape ?

6 52 + T H E MARQU I S DE SADE

Would I be able to keep the Count's fury at bay ? Was it not very likely that ogre would drink my blood to punish such an offense ? To return was out of the luestion, the Countess had drawn back the sheets ; to knock at the door would be st i l l more certa inly to betray myself ; a li ttle more and I would have lost my head altogether and ceded to the violent efft cts of my despair . Had I been able to recog­ ni z e some pity in the Count's soul, I might perhaps have been lulled into hopefulness, but , tyrant, a barbarian, a man who detested women and who, he sa id , had long been seeking the occasion to im­ molate one by draining away her blood drop by drop in order to find out how many hours sh e would be able to last . . . No doubt about i t, he was going to put me to the test. Knowing not what would hap­ pen or what to do, disc'lVering dangers everywhere , I threw myself down beside a tree, de termined to await my fate and sil ently re­ s igning myself to the E ternal 's will . . . . The sun rose at last ; merci­ ful Heaven ! the fi rst ohj ect to present itself to me . . . i s the Count himself : i t had been f rightfully warm during the night, he had stepped out to take a breath of a ir . He believes he i s in error, he supposes this a specte r, he recoils, ra rely i s courage a traitor's virtue : I get trembling to my feet, I fling myself at h is knees.

"Therese! What a re you doing here ?" he demands. "Oh, Monsieur, F unish me," 1 reply, " I am guilty and have

nothing to answer you. " Unhappily, in my fright I had forgotten to destroy the Count­

ess ' letter : he suspects i ts existence , asks for i t , I wish to deny I have i t ; but Gernande s ees the fatal letter protruding above my ker­ chief, snatches, i t , read , it , and o rders me to follow him.

We enter the chat �au , descend a hidden stai rway leading down to the vaults : the most profound stillness reigns there below ground ; a fter several detours, the Count opens a dungeon and casts me into it.

"Impudent girl ," 'lays he, " I gave you warning that the crime you have just committed is punished here by death : therefore pre­ pare yourself to undergo the penalty you have been pleased to incur . When tomorrow I rise from dinner I am going to dispatch you ."

Once again I fall prostrate before h im but, seizing me by the hair, he drags me alon � the ground, pulls me several times around

Justine .. 6 5 3

m y prison, and ends b y hurling me against the wall in such a manner I am nigh to having my brains dashed out.

"You deserve to have me open your four veins this instant," says he as he closes the door, " and i f I postpone your death, be very sure i t i s only in order to render i t the more horrible ."

He has left ; I am in a state o f the most violent agitation ; I shall not describe the night I passed : my tormented imagination to­ gether with the physical hurt done me by the monster' s init ial cruelties made i t one o f the most dr,eadful I had ever gone through. One has no conception of what anguish is suffered by the wretch who from hour to hour awaits his ordeal, from whom hope has fled, and who knows not whether this breath he draws may not be his last. Uncertain of the torture, he: pictures i t in a thousand forms, one more frightful than the other ; the least noise he hears may be that of his approaching assassins ; the blood freezes in his veins, his heart grows faint, and the blade which i s to put a period to his days i s less cruel than those terribh: instants swollen with the men­ ace of death.

In all l ikelihood the Count began by revenging himself upon his wi fe : you will be a s convinced o f i t as I by the event which saved me. For thirty-six hours I lingered in the critical condition I have just described ; during that time I was brought no relief ; and then my door was opened and the Count appeared : he was alone, fury glittered in his eyes.

"You must be fully cognizant o f the death you are going to undergo : thi s perverse blood has got to be made to seep out of you : you will be bled three times a day, I want to see how long you can survive the treatment. 'Tis an expe riment I have been all afire to make, you know ; my thanks to you for furnishing me the means."

And, for the time being occupying himself with no passion but his vengeance, the monster made me stretch forth an a rm, pricked i t and stopped the wound after he had drawn two bowls of blood. He had scarcely finished when cries were heard.

"Oh, my Lord, my Lord I" exclaimed one o f the servants who came running up to him, "come as quick as ever you can, Madame i s dying, she wishes to speak to you before she gives up her sou1."

And the old woman turned and flew back to her mistress. However habituated one may be to crime, i t i s rarely that news

654 .. THE MARQUIS DE SADE

of its accomplishment does not strike terror into him who has com­ mitted i t ; this fear avenges Virtue : Virtue resumes possession of i ts rights : Gernande goe 3 out in alarm, he forgets to secure the dun­ geon's doors ; althou[h enfeebled by a forty hours' fast and the blood I have lost, I eYploit my opportunity, leap from my cell, find my way unimpeded, :raverse the court, the park, and reach the forest without having been perceived. Walk, I say to myself, walk, walk, be courageous ; f the mighty scorn the weak, there is an om­ nipotent God Who shi elds the latter and Who never abandons them. My head croweled with these ideas, I advance with a stout heart and before nigh : closes I find myself in a cottage four leagues from the chateau. Some money remained to me, my needs were at­ tended to, in a few hours I was rested. I left at daybreak and, re­ nouncing all plans to register old or new complaints with the authorities, I asked ':0 be di rected toward Lyon ; the road was pointed out to me and on the eighth day I reached that city, very weak, suffering much, but happy and unpursued ; once arrived, I turned all my thought ; to recove ry before striking out for Grenoble where, according to one of my persistent notions, happiness awaited me.

One day my eye fell upon a gazette printed in some distant place ; what was my mrprise to behold crime crowned once again and to see one of the principal authors of my miseries arrived at the pinnacle of success. Rodin, the surgeon of Saint-Michel, that infa­ mous wretch who had punished me with such cruelty for having wished to spare him the murder of his daughter, had just, the news­ paper declared, been named First Surgeon to the Empress of Rus­ sia with the considerable emoluments accompanying that post. May he prosper, the v:i1lain, I muttered to myself, may he be so whilst Providence so wills i : ; and thou, unhappy creature, suffer, suffer uncomplainingly, sinn i t i s decreed that tribulations and pain must be Virtue ' s frightful � ;hare ; no matter, I shall never lose my taste for it.

But I was far from done with these striking examples of the triumph of vice, examples so disheartening for Virtue, and the flourishing condition of the personage whose acquaintance I was about to renew was surely to exasperate and amaze me more than

Justine .. 65 5

any other, since i t was tha t o f one of the men a t whose hands I had endured the bloodiest outrages. I was exclusively busied with pre­ paring my departure when one evening a lackey cla d in gray and com­ pletely unknown to me brought me a note ; upon presenting it, he sa id his master had charged him to obtain my response without fail. The missive was worded this W�Ly : "A man who has somewhat wronged you , who bel ieves he recognized you i n the Place de B elle­ cour, i s most desirous to see you and to make amends for his con­ duct : hasten to come to meet him ; he has things to tell you which may help l iquidate h is entire indebtedness to you . "

T h e message carried no signature a n d t h e lackey offered n o explanations. Having declared I was resolved to m a k e no answer a t all lest I was informed of who his master was :

"He i s Monsieur de Saint-Florent, M a demoiselle ," the l ackey sa id ; "he has had the honor to know you formerly in the neighbor­ hood o f Paris ; you rendered him, hl� maintains, services for which he burns to attest his gratitude. Presently risen to a position o f undisputed eminence in this c i ty's c:ommercial c ircles, he a t once enjoys the consideration and the me�LOS which put him in a position to prove his regard for you. He awa i ts you ."

My deliberations were soon completed. I f th is man had o ther than good intent ions, I sa id to myseL f, would h e be apt to write to me, to have me spoken to in this fashion ? He repented his past infamies, was covered with remorse, i t was with horror he remem­ bered having torn from me what I cherished most and, by inau­ gurating a sequence of nightmares, ha�ving reduced me to the cruelest c ircumstances a woman may know . .. . yes, yes, no doubt of i t , this i s repentance, I should be culpable before the Supreme B eing were I not to consent to a ssuage his sufferings. Am I in a position, fur­ thermore, to spurn the support that i s p roposed here ? Rather, ought I not eagerly snatch at all that: i s offered to relieve me ? This man wishes to see me i n his town house : h i s prosperity must sur­ round him with servants before whom he will have to act with enough dignity to prevent him from daring to fai l me again, and in my state, Great God I can I inspi re anything but sympathy in him ? Therefore I assured Saint-Flor ,ent' s lackey that upon the mor­ row at eleven o ' clock I would take the privilege o f going to salute his master ; that I congratulated him upon his good fortune, and

656 + THE MARQUIS DE SADE

added tha t luck had treated me in nothing approaching the same manner.

I returned to my room, but I was so preoccupied with what this man might wish to say to me that I slept not a wink all night ; the next day I a rrived a t the indicated address : a superb mansion, a throng o f domestics, that insolent canaille's contemptuous glances at the poverty it scorned, everything affl icts me and I am about ready to retreat when up comes the same liveryman who had spoken to me the p revi ous evening, and, reassuring me, he conducts me into a sump tuous drawing room where, although it is nine years since I have set e yes on him, I perfectly recognize my butcher who has now reached the age of forty-five. He does not rise upon my entrance, but gives the order we be left alone, and gestures me to come and seat myself near the vast a rmchair where he is en­ throned.

"I wanted to see you again, my child," says he with a humili­ a ting tone of superiority , "not that I thought I had much wronged you , not that a troublesome recollection bids me make restitutions from which I believe my posi tion exempts me ; but I remember that, however brief was our acquaintance, you exhibited some parts dur­ ing i t : wit and character are needed for wha t I have to propose to you and if you accept, the need I will then have o f you will insure your discovery o f the resources which are necessary to you , and upon which i t should b � in vain you were to count without s ignifying your agreement."

I wished to reply with some reproaches for the levity o f this beginning, but S aint-Fl orent imposed si lence upon me.

" 'Tis water under the bridge , " says he , " a purely emotional episode, and my p rinciples support the bel ief I have, that no brake should be applied to passion ; when the appetites speak, they must be heard : that' s my l a w. When I was captured by the thieves with whom you were, did you see me burst into tears ? Swallow the bitter pi l l and act with dil igence if one is weak, enj oy all one ' s rights i f powerful : that' s m y doctrine. You were young and pretty, Therese, we found ourselves in the middle o f a forest, nothing so a rouses me sensually as the rape o f a young virgin gi rl ; such you were , I raped you ; I might perhaps have done worse had what I attempted not met with success and had you put up any resistance. But I raped

Justine + 6 5 7

you, then left you naked and robbed in the middle of the night, upon a peri lous road : two motives gave rise to that further vil la iny : I needed money and had none ; a s for the other reason which drove me to do this , ' twould be in vain were I to explain it , Therese, i t would surpass your understanding. Only those spirits who are deep­ learned in the heart of man, who have studied i ts' innermost re­ cesses, gained access to the most impenetrable nooks of this dim-l i t l abyrinth, they alone might be able to account for this consequence of an aberration."

"What, Monsieu r ! the money I gave you . . . the service I had just rendered you . . . to be pa id for what I did in your behalf by the blackest treachery . . . that may, you think, be understood, justified ?"

"Why yes, Therese ! yes indeed I the proof an explanation exists for all I did i s that , having j ust pillaged you , molested you . . . ( for, Therese, I d id beat you, you know) , why ! having taken twenty steps, I stopped and, meditating upon the state in which I had left you, I at once found strength in these ideas , enough to perpetrate addit ional outrages I mi ght not have committed had it not been for that : you had lost but one maidenhead . . . . I turned, retraced my steps, and made short work of the other. . . . And so it i s true that in certain souls lust may be born from the 'womb of crime ! What do I say ? it i s thus true that only crime awakes and stiffens lust and that there is not a single voluptuous pleasure it d.oes not inflame and improve . . . . "

"Oh Monsieur ! what horror i s thi s ?" "Could I not have acquitted myself o f a st i l l greater ? I was

close enough to i t , I confess, but I was amply sure you were going to be reduced to the last extremi ties : the thought satisfied me, I left you . Well , Therese, let ' s leave the subj ect and continue to my reason for desi ring to see you .

" M Y incredible a ppeti te for both of a Ii ttle girl 's maidenheads has not deserted me, Therese ," Saint-Florent pursued ; "with this i t is a s with all libertinage's o ther extravagances : the older you g�ow, the more deeply they take root ; from former misdeeds fresh desires are born, and new crimes from these desires. There would be nothing to the matter, my dear , were not the means one employs to succeed exceedingly culpabl e . Bllt as the desire of evil i s the

6 5 8 + T H E MAR Q U I S DE SADE

primum m obile of our caprices, the more criminal the thing we are led to do, the better our i rr itation. 'Vhen one arrives at this stage, one merely complains of the mediocrity of the means : the more en­ compassing the i r atro :iousness, the more piquant our j oy becomes, and thus one s inks in the quagmire without the slightest desire to emerge.

"That , Therese, i s my own history : two young chi ldren are necessary for my dai l y sacrifices ; having once enj oyed them, not only do I never again set eyes upon these obj ects, but it even be­ comes essential to m:r fantasies ' entire sat i sfaction that they in­ stantly leave the city : I should not at all savor the following day's pleasures were I to imagine that yesterday's victims still breathed the same air I inhale ; the method for being r id of them i s not complicated. Would yOU beli eve i t , Therese ? They are my de­ bauches which popul a te Languedoc and Provence with the multi­ tude o f obj ects o f l ib�rtinage wi th which those regions are teem­ ing :5 one hour a fter these l i ttle girls have served me, rel i able emissar ies pack them off and sell them to the m a tchmakers of M ontpell ier , Toulous e , Nimes, Aix, and M a rseil les : this trade, two-thi rds o f whose net profits go to me, amply recompenses the outlay required to p rocure my subj ects , and thus I sat­ i sfy two of my mm t cher ished p a ssions, lust and greed ; but reconnoi te ring and sed uction are bothersome. Furthermo re, the kind o f subj ect is o f infinite importance to my lubri c i ty : I must h ave them all procured from those asylums o f misery where the need to live and the impossibi l i ty o f managing to do so eat away courage, pr ide , del icacy, finally rot the soul , and, in the hope of an indispensable subsistence, steel a person to undertake whatever appears l ikely to p rovide it . I have all these nests ransacked, all these dungheaps combed p i t i lessly : you 've no idea what they yield ; I would even go further, Therese : I say that civil activi ty, i ndustry, a l i ttle soc ia l ease would defeat my subornat ions and divest me of a great pro-

5 Let this n o t be m i s t a k e r f o r a f a bl e : this w r etched figure existed in this s am e Lyon. What i s herein r e l atc ·d of h i s m a n e u v e r s is ex act and authentic : h e c o s t t h e h o n o r of b e t w e e n fi f t e e n a nd twe nty thousand u n h appy l itt le c r e a tu r e s : upon t h e completion of each oper atioll , the victim w a s embarked on the R h o n e , and for tbirty y e a r s the above-mentioned citi e s w e r e peopled with the obj ects of this v i l l a in ·s d e b a uchery, with gi r l s undone by him. There i s nothing fictitious about this episode but the gentleman's name.

Jus tin e + 659

portion o f my subj ects : I combat these perils with the influence I enjoy in this city, I promote commercial and economic fluctuations or instiga te the rise of prices which, enlarging the poverty-stricken class, depriving it, on the one hand, of possibilities of work and on the other rendering difficult those of survival , increases according to a predictable ratio the total number of the subj ects misery puts into my clutches. The strategy i s a familiar one, Therese : these scarcities of firewood, dearths of wheat and of other edibles where­ from Paris has been trembling for so many years, have been created for the identical purposes which animate me : avarice, libertinage : such are the passions which, from the gilded halls o f the rich, extend a multitude of nets to ensnare the poor in their humble dwellings. But whatever skill I employ to press hard in this sector , if dexterous hands do not pluck nimbly in another, I get nothing for my troubles , and the machine goes quite as badly as i f I were to cease to exhaust my imagination in devising and my credit in operating. And so I need a clever woman, young and intelligent, who, having herself found her way through misery's thorny pathways, i s more familiar than anyone e lse with the methods for debauching those who are in the toils ; a woman whose keen eyes will descry adversity in its darkest caves and attics, whose suborning intelligence will deter­ mine destitution ' s victims to extricate themselves from oppression by the means I make available ; a spirited woman, in a word, un­ scrupulous and ruthless, who will stop a t nothing in order to suc­ ceed, who will even go to the point of cutting away the scanty reserves which, still bolstering up those wretches' hopes, inhibit them from taking the final step. I had an excellent woman and trustworthy, she has just died : i t cannot be imagined to what lengths that brill iant creature car ried effrontery ; not only did she use to isolate these wretches until they would be forced to come begging on their knees, but if these devices did not succeed in ac­ celerating their fall, the impatient villain would hasten matters by kidnaping them. She was a treasure ; I need but two subj ects a day, she would have got me ten had I wanted them. The result was I used to be able to make better selections, and the superabundance o f raw material consumed by my operations reimbursed me for inflated labor costs. That's the woman I have got to replace, my dear, you'll have four people under your command and ten thousand crowns

660 + T H E MARQU I S DE SADE

wages for your trouble ; I have had my say, Therese ; give me your answer, and above all d(t not let your illusions prevent you from ac­ cepting happiness when · :hance and my hand offer i t to you ."

"Oh Monsieur ," I lay to thi s dishonest man, shuddering a t his speech, " i s i t possible ye u have been able to conceive such joys and that you dare propose t nat I serve them ? \Vhat horrors you have just u ttered in my hear ng ! C ruel man, were you to be miserable for but two days, you would see these doctrines upon humanity swiftly obliterated fron your heart : i t is prosperity blinds and hardens you : mightily )lase you are before the spectacle of the evils whence you suppose yourself sheltered, and because you hope never to suffer them, YOt consider you have the right to inflict them ; may happiness never co ne nigh unto me i f i t can produce this de­ gree of corruption I 0 Just Heaven ! not merely to be content to abuse the misfortunate ! To drive audaci ty and ferocity to the point o f increasing it , of prolonging it for the unique gratification of one's desires ! \Vhat cruelty, \1onsieur ! the wildest animals do not give us the example of a comparable barbarity."

"You are mistaken , Therese, there i s no roguery the wolf will not i nvent to draw the lamb into his clutches : these are natural ruses, while benevolence has nothing to do with Nature : charity is but an appurtenance of the weakness recommended by the slave who would propit iate tis master and dispose him to leniency ; i t never proclaimed itself n man save in two cases : in the event he i s weak, or in the event he fears he will become weak ; tha t this alleged virtue i s not natural is { , roven by the fact it is unknown to the man who lives in a state of Nature. The savage expresses his contempt for charity when p i tile ssly he massacres his brethren from mo­ tives of either revenge or cupidity . . . would he not respect tha t virtue were i t etched in h is heart ? but never does i t appear there, never will it be found wherever men are equal. C ivil ization, by weeding certain individuals out o f society, by establishing rank and class , by giving the rich man a gl impse of the poor, by making the former dread any change of ci rcumstances which might p recipitate him into the latter's misery, civi l ization immediately puts the desire into his head to relieve the poor in order that he may be helped in h is turn should he chan :e to lose his wealth ; and thus was benevo­ lence born, the fru i t of civi l ization and fear : hence it is merely a

Justine + 661

circumstantial virtue, but nowise a sentiment originating in Nature, who never inserted any other desire in us but that of satisfying our­ selves at no matter what the price. It i s thus by confounding every sentiment, it is by continually refusing to analyze a single one of them that these people are able to linger in total darkness about them all and deprive themselves of every pleasurable enjoyment."

"Ah, Monsieur ," I interrupted with grea t emotion, "may there be one any sweeter than the succoring of misfortune ? Leaving aside the dread lest someday one have to endure suffering oneself, is there any more substantial satisfaction than that to be had from obliging others ? . . . from relishing gratitude's tearful thanks, from par­ taking of the well-being you have just distributed like manna to the downtrodden who, your own fellow creatures, nevertheless want those things which you take a irily for granted ; oh! to hear them sing your praise and call you the i r father, to restore serenity to brows clouded by failure, destitution, and despair ; no, Monsieur, not one of this world's lewd pleasures can equal this : i t i s that of the Divinity Himself, and the happiness He promises to those who on earth will serve Him, is naught other than the possibility to be­ hold or make happy creatures in Heaven. All virtues stem directly from that one, Monsieur ; one is a better father, a better son, a better husband when one knows the charm of alleviating misfor­ tune's lot. One might say that like tmto the sun's rays, the chari table man's presence sheds fertility, sweetness, and j oy everywhere about and upon all, and the miracle of N ature, a fter this source of celes­ t ial light, i s the honest, delicate, and sensitive soul whose supreme felicity consists in laboring in behalf of that of others."

"Feeble Phoebus stuff, Therf:se ," Saint-Florent smiled ; "the character of man's enjoyment i s determined by the kind of organs he has received from Nature ; a we ak individual 's , and hence every woman's , incline in the direction of procuring moral ecstasies which are more keenly felt than any other by these persons whose physical constitution happens to be entirely devoid of energy ; quite the opposite i s the case for vigorous spirits who are far more delighted by powerful shocks imparted to what surround them than they would be by the delicate impressions the feeble creatures by whom they are surrounded inevitably prefer, as befits their constitution ; similarly the vigorous spirits delight more in what affects others pain-

662 ,.. T H E MARQ UI :> DE SADE

fully than in what affects them agreeably : such is the only difference between the cruel and j he meek ; both groups are endowed with sensibility, but each i s endowed with i t in a special manner. I do not deny that each class knows its pleasures, but I , together with a host of philosophers, maintain of course tha t those of the indi­ vidual constructed in th e more vigorous fashion are incontestably more lively than all his ldversary' s ; and, these axioms established, there may and there must be men of one sort who take as much j oy in everything cruelty suggests, as the other category of persons tastes delight in benevol!nce ; but the pleasures of the latter will be mild, those of the form,!r keen and strong : these will be the most sure, the most reliable, <l nd doubtless the most authentic, since they characterize the penchants of every man who is still a creature of Nature, and indeed of lll children before they have fallen under the sway of civil ization ; the others will merely be the effect o f this civil ization and, consequently, of deceiving and vapid delights. Well, my child, since W'! are met not so much in order to philos­ ophize as to conclude a hargain, be so kind as to give me your final decision . . . do you or dc, you not accept the post I p ropose to you ?"

"I very decidedly reject it , Monsieur," I replied, getting to my feet, " . . . indeed I am poor . . . oh yes l very poor, Monsieur ; but richer in my heart's sent ments than I could be in all fortune's bless­ ings ; never will I sacrifi :e the one in order to possess the other ; I may die in indigence, but I will not betray Virtue ."

"Get out," the del estable man said to me, " and, above all, should I have anything to fear from your indiscretion, you will be promptly conveyed to a )lace where I need dread it no longer ."

Nothing heartens Yirtue l ike the fear of vice ; a good deal less timorous than I should have thought, I dared, upon promising he would have nothing to dread a t my hands, remind him of what he had stolen from me in t he forest of Bondy and apprise him of my present circumstances w 1ich, I said, made this money indispensable to me. The monster gan me harsh answer, declaring it was up to me to earn i t and that I had refused.

"N 0 Monsieur, no," I repl ied firmly, "no, I repeat, I would rather perish a thousan,:l times over than preserve my l ife at that price. "

"And as for mysel f ," Saint-Flo rent rejoined, "there i s i n the

Jus tine + 663

same way nothing I would not prefer to the chagrin of disbursing unearned money : despite the refusal you have the insolence to give me, I should relish passing another fi fteen minutes in your company ; and so i f you please, we will move into my boudoir and a few mo­ ments of obedience will go far to stra ighten out your pecuniary difficulties . "

"I am no more eager to se rve your debauches in one sense than in another, Monsieur ," I proudly retorted ; "it i s not charity I ask, cruel man ; no, I should not procure you the pleasure of it ; what I demand is simply what is my due : that i s what you stole from me in the most infamous manner . . . . Keep it, cruel wretch, keep it if you see fit : unpityingly observe m:r tears ; hear , i f you are able , hear without emotion need's sorrowing accents, but bear in mind that if you commit this newest outrage, I will have bought, for the price i t costs me, the right t o scorn you forever."

Furious, Saint-Florent ordered me to leave and I was able to read in his dreadful countenance that, had it not been for what he had confided in me and were he not a fraid lest it get abroad, my bold plain speaking might perhaps have been repaid by some bru­ tality . . . . 1 l eft. At the same instant they were bringing the deb­ auchee one of the luckless victim$ of his sordid profligacy. One of those women whose horrible state he had suggested I share was leading into the house a poor little girl o f about nine who displayed every attribute of wretchedness and dereliction : she scarcely seemed to have enough strength to keep erect . . . . 0 Heaven ! I thought upon beholding this, is it conceivable that such obj ects can inspire any feelings but those of pity ? 'Voe unto the depraved one who will be able to suspect pleasures in the womb want consumes, who will seek to gather kisses from lips withered by hunger and which open only to curse him!

Tears spilled from my eyes ; [ should have l iked to snatch that victim from the tiger awaiting her ; I dared not. Could 1 have done it ? 1 returned directly to my hotel, quite as humil iated by the mis­ fortune which attracted such proposals a s revolted by the opulence which ventured to make them.

The following day I left Lyon by way of the road to Dauphine, still filled with the mad faith which allowed me to believe happiness awaited me in that province. Traveling a foot as usual , with a pair

664 .. THE MARQ U S DE SADE

of blouses and some ha ndkerchiefs in my pockets, I had not pro­ ceeded two leagues when I met an old woman j she approached me with a look of sufferin�; and implored alms. Far from having the miserliness of which 1 1.ad just received such cruel examples, and knowing no greater wor Idly happiness than what comes of obliging a poor person, I instan :ly drew forth my purse with the intention of selecting a crown and giving i t to this woman j but the unworthy creature, much quicker than I, although I had at first judged her aged and crippled, leaps nimbly a t my purse, seizes it , aims a power­ ful blow of her fist at my stomach, topples me, and the next I see of her , she has put a hundred yards betwixt us j there she is , sur­ rounded by four rascals who gesture threateningly and warn me not to come near.

"Great God I" I CI ied with much bitterness, " then i t i s impos­ sible for my soul to giH vent to any vi rtuous impulse without my being instantly and very severely punished for it I" At this fatal mo­ ment all my courage deserted me j today I beg Heaven's forgive­ ness in all sincerity, for I faltered j but I was blinded by despair . I felt myself ready to gi" e up a career beset with so many obstacles . I envisioned two altern atives : that of going to join the scoundrels who had just robbed me, or that of returning to Lyon to accept Saint-Florent's offer. God had mercy upon me j I did not succumb, and though the fresh lope He quickened in me was misleading, since so many advers i t ies yet lay in store for me, I nevertheless thank Him for having held me upright : the unlucky star which guides me, although inr ocent, to the gallows, will never lead me to worse than death j other supervision might have brought me to in­ famy, and the one is far less cruel than the other.

I continue to direc � my steps toward Vienne, having decided to sell what remains to me in order to get on to Grenoble : I was walk­ ing along sadly when, a t a quarter league's distance from this ci ty, I spied a plain to the r ight of the h ighway, and in the fields were two riders busily trampling a man beneath their horses' hooves ; after having left him br dead, the pa ir rode off a t a gallop. This appalling spectacle mel :ed me to the point of tears. "Alas I " I said to myself, " there is an 1 lnluckie r person than I j health and strength at least remain to me, ] can earn my living, and if that poor fellow is not rich, what is to become of him ?"

Justine .. 665

However much I ought to have forbidden myself the self­ indulgence of sympathy, however perilous i t was for me to sur­ render to the impulse, I could not vanquish my extreme desire to approach the man and to lavish upon him what care 1 could offer. 1 rush to his side, 1 aid him to inhale some spirits 1 had kept about me : at last he opens his eyes and h i s first accents are those of grati­ tude. Stil l more eager to be of use to him, 1 tear up one of my blouses in order to bandage his wounds, to stanch his blood : I sacri­ ficed for this wretched man one of the few belongings 1 still owned. These first attentions completed, I give him a l ittle wine to drink : the unlucky one has completely come back to his senses, I cast an eye upon him and observe him more closely. Although traveling on foot and without baggage, he had some valuable effects-rings, a watch, a snuff box-but the latter two have been badly damaged during his encounter. As soon as he i s able to speak he a sks me what angel of charity has come to his rescue and what he can do to ex­ press his gratitude. Still having th,e simplici ty to believe that a soul enchained by indebtedness ought to be eternally beholden to me, I judge i t safe to enjoy the sweet pleasure of sharing my tears with him who has just shed some in my arms : 1 instruct him of my nu­ merous reverses, he l i stens with interest, and when I have concluded with the latest catastrophe that ha:; befallen me , the recital provides him with a glimpse of my poverty.

"How happy I am," he excl aims, " to be able a t least to ac­ knowledge all you have just done for me ; my name is Roland," the adventurer continues , "I am the owner of an exceedingly fine chateau in the mountains fifteen leagues hence, I invite you to fol­ low me there ; and that this propo sal cause your delicacy no alarm, 1 am going to explain immediately in what way you will be of service to me. I am unwedded, but I have a sister 1 love passionately : she has dedicated herself to sharing my solitude ; I need someone to wait upon her ; we have recently lost the person who held that office unt i l now, I offer her post to you ."

I thanked my protector and took the liberty to ask h im how i t chanced that a man such as he exposed himself to the dangers of journeying alone, and, as had ju s t occurred, to being molested by bandits.

"A stout, youthful, and vigo rous fellow, for several years ,"

666 ... THE MARQ UIS DE SADE

said Roland, "I have bew in the habit of traveling this way between the place where I reside a nd Vienne. My health and pocketbook bene­ fi t from walking. I t i s nc t that I need avoid the expense of a coach, for I am wealthy, and you will soon see proof of i t i f you are good enough to return home with me ; but thriftiness never hurts. As for those two men who inSllted me a short while ago, they are two would-be gentlemen of this canton from whom I won a hundred louis last week in a gaming house at Vienne ; I was content to ac­ cept their word of hone r , then I met them today, asked for what they owe me, and you w: tnessed in what co in they paid me."

Together with this man I was deploring the double misfortune of which he was the vict im when he proposed we continue our way.

"Thanks to your at tentions I feel a l i ttle better, " said Roland ; "night is approaching, l , !t 's get on to a house which should be two l eagues away ; by means of the horses we will secure tomorrow, we might be able to arrive at my chateau the same a fternoon."

Absolutely resolved to profit from the aid Heaven seemed to have sent me, I help Rol and to get up, I give h im my arm while we walk, and indeed, after progressing two leagues we find the inn he had mentioned. We take supper together, ' t is very proper and nice ; after our meal Roland entrusts me to the mistress of the place, and the following day we set off on two mules we have rented and which a re led by a boy from the inn ; we reach the frontier of Dauphine, ever heading into the highlands. We were not yet a t our destination when the da:' ended, so we stopped at Virieu, where my patron showed me the s� me consideration and provided me with the same care ; the next morning we resumed our way toward the moun­ tains. We arrived at the r foot toward four in the afternoon ; there, the road becoming almc·st impassable , Roland requested my mule­ teer not to leave me for fear of an accident, and we penetrated into the gorges . vVe did but t urn, wind, climb for the space of more than four leagues, and by thell we had left all habita tions and all traveled roads so far behind us I thought myself come to the end of the worl d ; despite myself, I was seized by a twinge of uneasiness ; Roland could not avoid seeing it , but he sa id nothing, and I was made yet more uncomfc rtable by his s i lence. \Ve finally came to a castle perched upon the crest o f a mountain ; i t beetled over a dread­ ful p recipice into which it seemed ready to plunge : no road seemed

Justine + 667

to lead up to i t ; the one we had followed, frequently by goats only, strewn with pebbles and stones, however did at last take us to this awful eyrie which much more resembled the hideaway of thieves than the dwelling place of virtuous folk.

"That i s where I live," said Roland, noticing I was gazing up at his castle .

I confessed my astonishment to see that he l ived in such i sola­ tion.

"I t suits me," was his abrupt reply. This response redoubled my forebodings. Not a syllable i s lost

upon the miserable ; a word, a shift of inflection and, when 't is a question of the speech o f the person upon whom one depends, 't is enough to stifle hope or revive i t ; but, being completely unable to do anything, I held my tongue and waited. We mounted by zigzags ; the strange pile suddenly loomed up before us : roughly a quarter of a l eague still separated i t from us : Roland dismounted and hav­ ing told me to do likewise , he returned both mules to the boy, paid him and ordered him to return. This latest maneuver was even more displeasing to me ; Roland observed my anxiety.

"What is the trouble, Therese ?" he demanded, urging me on toward his fortress ; "you are not out of France ; we are on the Dauphine bo rde r and within the bishopric of Grenoble ."

"Very well , Monsieur ," I answered ; "but why did it ever occur to you to take up your abode in a place befitting brigands and robbers ?"

"Because they who inhabit i t are not very honest peopl e ," sa id Roland ; " i t might be altogether possible you will not be edified by thei r conduct."

"Ah, Monsieur ! " said I with a shudder , "you make me tremble ; where then are you leading me ?"

" I am leading you into the service of the counterfeiters of whom I am the chief ," said Roland , grasping my arm and driving me over a l i ttle drawbridge that was lowered a t our approach and raised immediately we had traversed i t ; "do you see that well ?" he continued when we had entered ; he was pointing to a large and deep grotto s ituated toward the back of the courtyard, where four women, nude and manacled, were turning a wheel ; "there are your companions and there your task, which involves the rotation of

668 .. THE MARQUIS DE SADE

that wheel for ten hc urs each day, and which also involves the satisfaction of all the , :aprices I am pleased to submit you and the other ladies to ; for which you will be granted six ounces of black bread and a plate o f ki :lney beans without fail each day ; as for your freedom, forget i t ; you will never recover it . When you are dead from overwork, you will be flung into that hole you notice beside the well , where the remains of between sixty and eighty other ras­ cals o f your breed av; a i t yours, and your place will be taken by somebody else ."

"Oh, Great God I " I exclaimed, casting myself a t Roland's feet, "deign to remember, Monsieur, that I saved your life, that, moved by gratitude fe r an instant, you seemed to offer me happi­ ness and that it i s by p recipitating me into an eternal abyss of evils you reward my services. I s what you are doing just ? and has not remorse already begun to avenge me in the depths of your heart ?"

"What, pray tell , do you mean by this feeling of gratitude with which you fancy you have captivated me ?" Roland inquired. "Be more reasonable, wretched creature ; what were you doing when you came to my rescue ? Between the two possibil it ies , of continuing on your way and of coming up to me, did you not choose the latter as an impulse dictated by your heart ? You therefore gave yourself up to a pleasure ? How in the devil ' s name can you maintain I am obliged to recompense you for the joys in which you indulge your­ sel f ? And how did you ever get i t into your head that a man like my­ self, who is swimming in gold and opulence, should condescend to lower himself to owinf something to a wretch of your species ? Even had you resurrected me, I should owe you nothing immediately i t were plain you had aced out o f selfi shness only : to work, slave, to work ; learn that though civi l ization may overthrow the principles of Nature, it cannot however divest her of her rights ; in the be­ ginning she wrought s trong beings and weak and intended that the lowly should be forever subordinated to the great ; human skill and intelligence made var ious the positions of individuals, i t was no longer physical force alone that determined rank, ' twas gold ; the richest became the mightiest man, the most penurious the weakest ; i f the causes which est ablish power are not to be found in Nature's ordinations, the prior ity o f the mighty has always been inscribed therein, and to Natu re i t made no difference Vihether the weak

Justine ... 669

danced at the end of a leash held by the richest or the most ener­ getic, and l ittle she cared whether the yoke crushed the poorest or the most enfeebled ; but these grateful impulses out of which you would forge chains for me, why, Therese , Nature recognizes them not ; it has never been one of her laws that the pleasure whereunto someone surrenders when he acts obligingly must become a cause for the recipient o f his gratuitous kindness to renounce his rights over the donor ; do you detect thes e sentiments you demand in the animals which serve us as example:> ? When I dominate you by my wealth or might is i t natural for me to abandon my rights to you, either because you have enjoyed yourself while obliging me or be­ cause, being unhappy, you fancied you had something to gain from your action ? Even were service to be rendered by one equal to an­ other, never would a lofty spirit 's pride allow him to stoop to ac­ knowledge it ; is not he who receives always humil iated ? And is this humiliation not sufficient payment for the benefactor who, by this alone, finds himself superior to the other ? I s it not pride's delight to be raised above one's fellow ? Is any other necessary to the person who obliges ? And if the obligation, by causing humilia­ tion to him who receives , becomes a burden to him, by what right is he to be forced to continue to shoulder i t ? Why must I consent to let myself be humiliated every time my eyes fall upon him who has obliged me ? Instead o f being a vice, ingratitude i s as certainly a virtue in proud spirits a s gratitude i s one in humble ; l e t them do what they will for me i f doing i t gives them pleasure, but let them expect nothing from me simply because they have enjoyed them­ selves. "

Having uttered these words, to which Roland gave me no op­ portunity to reply, he summoned two valets who upon his instruc­ tions seized me, despoiled me, and shackled me next to my com­ panions, so was I set to work at once, without a moment's rest a fter the fatiguing journey I had just made. Then Roland approaches me, he brutally handles all those parts of me designation of which modesty forbids, heaps sarcasms upon me, makes impertinent refer­ ence to the damning and l i ttle merited brand Rodin printed upon me, then, catching up a bull' s pizzle always kept in readiness nearby, he applies twenty cuts to my behind.

"That is how you will be treated, bitch ," says he, "when you

670 + T H E MARQ I J I S DE SADE

lag at the j ob ; I 'm nol giving you this for anything you've already done, but only to show you how I cope with those who make mis­ takes ."

I screamed, struggled against my manacles ; my contortions, my cries, my tears, th,� cruel expressions of my pain merely enter­ tained my executioner. . . .

"Oh, l i ttle whore, you'll see other things ," says Roland, "you're not by a long shot a t the end of your troubles and I want you to make the acqua ntance of even the most barbaric refinements of misery."

He leaves me. Located in a cav( on the edge of that vast wel l were six dark

kennels ; they were bared like dungeons, and they served us a s shelters for the night, which arrived not long after I was enl isted in this dreadful chain gang. They came to remove my fetters and my companions ' , and aftu we had been given the ration of water, beans, and dry bread Roland had mentioned, we were locked up.

I was no sooner alone than, un distracted, I abandoned mysel f to contemplating my si tuation in all its horror. Is it possible , I won­ dered, can it be that there are men so hardened as to have st ifled in themselves their capacity for gratitude ? This virtue to which I surrender myself with such cha rm whenever an upright spirit gives me the chance to feel it . . . can this virtue be unknown to certain beings, can they be ut :er strangers to i t ? and may they who have suppressed it so inhumanly in themselves be anything but monsters ?

I was absorbed i n these musings when suddenly I heard the door to my cell open j ' tis Roland : the villain has come to complete his outraging of me by making me serve his odious eccentricities : you may well imagine, Madame, tha t they were to be as ferocious as his other proceedings and that such a man's love-makings are necessarily tainted by 1is abhorrent character. But how can I abuse your patience by relating these new horrors ? Have I not already more than soiled your imagination with infamous recitations ? Dare I hazard additional ones ?

"Yes, Therese, " Monsieur de Corville put in, "yes, we insist upon these details, you veil them with a decency that removes all thei r edge o f horror ; there remains only what i s useful to who­ ever seeks to perfect t is understanding of enigmatic man. You may

Justin e 4- 67 1

not fully apprehend how these tableaux help toward the develop­ ment of the human spi rit ; our backwardness in this branch o f learn­ ing may very well be due to the stupid restraint o f those who ven­ ture to write upon such matters. Inhibited by absurd fears, they only discuss the pueril ities with which every fool is famil iar , and dare not, by addressing themselves boldly to the investigation of the human heart, offer its gigantic idiosyncrasies to our view."

"Very well, Monsieur, I shall proceed," Therese resumed, deeply affected, "and proceeding as I have done until this point, I will strive to offer my sketches in the least revolting colors."

Roland, with whose portrait I ought to begin, was a short, hea vy-set man, thirty-five years old, incredibly vigorous and as hirsute as a bear, with a glowering mien and fierce eye j very dark, with masculine features , a long nose, bearded to the eyes, black, shaggy brows ; and in him that part which differentiates men from our sex was of such length and exorbitant circumference, that not only had I never la id eyes upon anything comparable, but was even absolutely convinced Nature r..ad never fashioned another as prodigious ; I could scarcely surround it with both hands, and its length matched that of my forearm. To this physique Roland j oined all the vices which may be the issue of a fiery temperament, of con­ siderable imagination, and of a luxurious l i fe undisturbed by any­ thing likely to distract from one's ldsure pursuits. From his father Roland had inherited a fortune ; very early on in l i fe he had become surfeited by o rdinary pleasures, and begun to resort to nothing but horrors j these alone were able to r'�vive desires in a person j aded by excessive pleasure ; the women who served him were all employed in his secret debauches and to sati s fy appetites only slightly less dishonest within which, nevertheless , this l ibertine was able to find the criminal spice wherein above all his taste delighted j Roland kept his own sister as a mistress, and it was with her he brought to a climax the passions he ignited in our company.

He was virtually naked when he entered ; his inflamed visage was evidence simultaneously o f the epicurean intemperance to which he had just given himself over , and the abominable lust which con­ sumed him ; for an instant he considers me with eyes that unstring my limbs.

"Get out of those clothes ," says he, himsel f tearing off what I

672 + THE MAR Q U I S DE SADE

was wearing to cover me during the night . . . "yes, get rid of all that and follow me ; a l i ttle while ago I made you sense what you risk by laziness ; but should you desire to betray us, as that crime would be of greater magnitude, its punishment would have to be proportionally heavier ; come along and see of what sort it would be."

I was in a state di fficult to describe, but Roland, affording my spirit no time in which ro burst forth, immediately grasped my arm and dragged me out ; he pulls me along with his right hand, in his left he holds a l i ttle lan tern that emits a feeble light ; a fter winding this way and that, we reach a cellar door ; he opens it , thrusts me ahead of him, tells me to descend while he closes this first barrier ; I obey ; a hundred pace! . further, a second door ; he opens and shuts it in the same way ; bu t after thi s one there i s no stairway, only a narrow passage hewn in the rock, filled with sinuosities, whose downward slope i s ext remely abrupt. Not a word from Roland ; the silence affrights me still more ; he lights us along with his lan­ tern ; thus we travel for about fi fteen minutes ; my frame of mind makes me yet more sensi tive to these subterranean passages' terrible humidity. At last, we had descended to such a depth that it i s with­ out fear of exaggeratic,n "I assure you the place at which we were to arrive must have bef n more than a furlong below the surface of the earth ; on either side of the path we followed were occasional niches where I saw cofl·ers containing those criminals' wealth : one last bronze door appeared, Roland unlocked it, and I nearly fell backward upon percei1ring the dreadful place to which this evil man had brought me. Seeing me falter, he pushed me rudely ahead, and thus , without wishing to be there , I found myself in the middle of that appalling sepul cher. Imagine, Madame, a circular cavern, twenty-five feet in di,.meter, whose walls, hung in black, were decorated by none but the most lugubrious objects, skeletons of all s izes , crossed bones, s everal heads, bundles of whips and collec­ tions of martinets, sabf rs, cutlasses, poignards, firearms : such were the horrors one spi ed on the walls illuminated by a three-wicked oil lamp suspended in one corner of the vault ; from a transverse beam dangled a rope which f ell to within eight or ten feet of the ground in the center of this dungeon and which, as very soon you will see, was there for no other purpose than to facilitate dreadful expedi-

Jus tine .. 673

tions : to the r ight was an open coffin wherein glinted an effigy of death brandishing a threatful scythe ; a prayer stool was bes ide i t ; above i t was visible a crucifix bracketed by candles o f j e t ; to the le ft, the waxen dummy o f a naked woman, so l i felike I was for a long time deceived by i t ; she was attached to a cross, posed with her chest facing i t so that one had a full view o f her posterior and cruelly molested p arts ; blood seemed to ooze from several wounds and to flow down her thighs ; she h ad the most beautiful hair in all the world, her lovely head was tu rne d towa rd us and seemed to implore our mercy ; all of suffering's contortions were pla inly wrought upon her lovely face, and there were even tears flowing down her cheeks : the sight o f this terrible image was again enough to make m e think I would collapse ; the further part of the cavern was filled by a vast black divan w hich eloquently bespoke all the atrocities which occurred in this infernal place.

"And here i s where you will perish, Therese ," quoth Roland, "if ever you conceive the fatal noti on o f l eaving my establishment ; yes, i t is here I will myself put you to death, here I will make you reverberate to the anguishes inflic ted by everything of the most appall ing I can possibly devise ."

As he gave vent to thi s threat Roland became a roused ; h i s agitation, h is disorder made h im resemble a t iger about to spring upon its p rey : 'twas then he brough': to l ight the formidable member wherewith h e was outfitted ; he had. me touch it , asked me whether I had ever beheld its peer .

"Such as you see i t, who re ," sa . id h e in a rage , " in that shape i t has , however, got to be introduced into the narrowest part o f your body even if I must spl i t you in h a l f ; my sister, considerably your junior, manages it in the same secto r ; never do I enjoy women in any other fashion," and so a s to leave me in no doubt o f the locale he had in mind, he inserted into i t three fingers a rmed with ex­ ceedingly long nai ls , the while saying :

"Yes, ' t i s there, Therese, i t will be shortly into this hole I will drive thi s m ember which affrights you ; i t will be run every inch of the way in , it will tear you , you'll bleed and I will be beside myself."

Foam flecked h i s l ips a s he spoke these words interspersed with revolting oaths and blasphemi es . The hand, which had been

6 74 + T H E MARQFIS DE SADE

prying open the shrine he seemed to want to attack, now strayed over all the adj acent pats ; he scratched them, he did as much to my breast , he clawed me s,) badly I was not to get over the pain for a fortnight. Next, he pI aced me on the edge of the couch, rubbed alcohol upon that mos� ,y tonsure with which N a ture ornaments the altar wherein our spe :ies finds regeneration ; he set it afire and burned it. His fingers closed upon the fleshy protuberance which surmounts this same a ' tar , he snatched at i t and scraped roughly, then he inserted his fin�;ers within and his nails ripped the membrane which l ines it. Losing all control over himself, he told me that, s ince he had me in his la ir , I might just as well not leave i t , for that would spare him t 1e nuisance o f bringing me back down again ; I fell to my knees and jared remind him again of what I had done in his behalf . . . . I ob ;erved I but further excited him by harping again upon the r ights to h is p i ty I fancied were mine ; he told me to be silent, bringing up his knee and giving me a tremendous blow in the pit of tht stomach which sent me sprawling on the fl agstones. He se ized a handful of my ha ir and j e rked me erect.

"Very well ! " he said, "come now ! prepare yoursel f ; i t is a certainty, I am going tc kill you . . . . "

"Oh, Monsieur ! " "N 0, no, you've g )t to d ie ; I do not want to hear you reproach

me with your good l i ttl e deeds ; I don ' t l ike owing anything to any­ body, o thers have got to rely upon me for everything . . . . You ' re going to peri sh, I tell } OU , get into that coffin, let 's see i f i t fits ."

He l i fts me, thrus l s me into it and shuts i t , then quits the cavern and gives me the impr ession I have been left there. Never had I thought myself so nea r to death ; a las ! i t was nonetheless to be p resented to me under a yet more real aspect. Roland returns , he fetches me out o f the wffin.

"You'll be well o ff in there , " says he, "one would say ' twas made for you ; but to l !t you finish peacefully in that box would be a death too sweet ; I 'm going to expose you to one of a different variety which, all the same, will have i ts agreeable qual it ies ; so implore your God, w lore, pray to him to come posthaste and avenge you if he really has i t in him . . . . "

I cast mysel f dow 1 upon the prie-dieu, and while aloud I open my heart to the Eterna l , Roland in a still crueler manner intensifies ,

Jus tine + 675

upon the hindquarters I expose to h im, h is vexations and his torments ; with all his strength he flogs those parts with a steel­ tipped martinet, each blow draws a gush of blood which springs to the walls.

"Why," he continued with a curse, "he doesn't much aid you, your God, does he ? and thus he allows unhappy virtue to suffer, he abandons i t to villa iny' s hands ; ah ! what a bloody fine God you've got there , Therese, what a superb God he i s ! Come," he says, "come here, whore , your prayer should be done ," and at the same time he places me upon the divan at the back of that cell ; "I told you Therese, you have got to die I"

He seizes my arms, binds them , to my side, then he slips a black silken noose about my nec � ; he holds both ends of the cord and, by tightening, he can strangle and di spatch me to the other world either quickly or slowly, depending upon his pleasure.

"This torture i s sweeter than you may imagine, Therese , " says Roland ; "you will only approach death by way of unspeakably pleasurable sensations ; the pres�;u re this noose will bring to bear upon your nervous system will se t fire to the organs of voluptuous­ ness ; the effect i s certain ; were all the people who are condemned to this torture to know in wha t an intoxication of j oy it makes one die , less terrified by thi s retribution for their crimes, they would commit them more often and with much greater sel f-assur­ ance ; this delicious operation, Therese, by causing, as well, the contraction of the locale in which I am going to fit myself, " he added a s he presented himsel f to a criminal avenue so worthy of such a vill a in, " is also going to double my pleasure ."

He thrusts, he sweats , ' t is in vain ; he prepares the road, ' t i s fu tile ; he i s too monstrously proportioned, h is enterprises are re­ peatedly frustrated ; and then his wrath exceeds all l imits ; his nails , his hands, his feet fly to revenge him upon the opposition Nature puts up against him ; he returns to the assault, the glowing blade slides to the edge of the neighboring canal and smiting vigorously, penetrates to nigh the midway m,] rk ; I utter a cry ; Roland, enraged by his mistake, withdraws petulantly, and this time hammers at the other gate with such force the moistened dart plunges in , rending me. Roland exploits thi s fi rst sally' s success ; h i s efforts become more violent ; he gains ground ; as he advances, he gradually

676 + THE MAR Q U I S DE SADE

tightens the fatal cord he has passed round my neck, hideous screams burst from my lips ; amused by them, the ferocious Roland urges me to redouble my howlings, for he i s but too confident o f the ir insufficiency, he i s perfectly able t o put a stop to them when he wishes ; the ir shrill sharp notes infl ame him, the noose's pressure i s modulated by his degfel�s of delight ; l i ttle by l i ttle my voice waxes faint ; the tightenings no" become so intense that my senses weaken although I do not lose the power to feel ; brutally shaken by the enormous instrument wi t h which Roland is rending my entrails , despite my frightful circumstances, I feel myself flooded by his lust 's j etted outpourings : I stil l hear the cries he mouths as he di scharges ; an instant of stupor followed, I knew not what had happened to me, but SOO l my eyes open again to the l ight, I find myself free , untied, and :ny sensory organs seem to come back to l i fe .

"Well , Therese," says my butcher, "1 dare swear that i f you' ll tell the truth you'll say you felt pleasure only ?"

"Only horror, Monsieur, only disgust, only anguish and despair ."

"You are lying, I am fully acquainted with the effects you have just experienced, but wha t does it matter what they were ? I fancy you already know me wel enough to be damned certain that when I undertake something w . th you, the joy you reap from it concerns me infinitely less than m� ' own, and th is voluptuousness I seek has been so keen that in an instant I am going to procure some more of it. I t i s now upon yoursel f, Therese, " declares this signal libertine , " i t i s upon you alone you e l ife is going to depend."

Whereupon he hitches about my neck the rope that hangs from the ceiling ; he has me stand upon a stool , pulls the rope taut, secures it , and to the stool he attaches a string whose end he keeps in his hand as he �its down in an armchair facing me ; I am given a sickle which I am to use to sever the rope at the moment when, by means of the string, he j erks the stool from beneath my feet.

"Notice, Therese ," he says when all i s ready, " that though you may miss your blow I ' ll not miss mine ; and so I am not mis­ taken when I say your l i fe depends upon you."

He excites himself ; i t i s at his intoxication ' s critical moment he

Justine .. 67 7

i s to snatch away the s tool which, removed, will leave me dangling from the beam ; he does everything possible to pretend the instant has come ; he would be beside himself were I to miss my cue ; but do what he will, I divine the cris is , the violence of his ecstasy be­ trays him, I see him make the telltale movement, the stool flies away, I cut the rope and fall to the ground ; there I am, completely detached, and although five yards divide us, would you believe i t , Madame ? I feel my entire body drenched with the evidence of his delirium and his frenzy.

Anyone but I, taking advantage of the weapon she clutched in her hand, would doubtless have leapt upon that monster ; but what might I have gained by thi!> brave fea t ? for I did not have the keys to those subterranean passages, I was ignorant of their scheme, I should have perished before being able to emerge from them ; Roland, furthermore, was armed ; and so I got up, leaving the sickle on the ground so that he might not conceive the slightest suspicion of my intentions, and indeed he had none, for he had savored the full extent of pleasure and, far more content with my tractabil i ty, with my resignation, than with my agil ity, he s ignaled to me and we left.

The next day I cast an appra ising eye upon my companions : those fou r gi rls ranged from twenty-five to thi rty years of age ; although bestial ized and besotted by misery and warped by exces­ sive drudgery, they still had the remnants of beauty ; their figures were handsome, and the youngellt, called Suzanne, sti ll had, to­ gether with charming eyes, very fine hair ; Roland had seized her in Lyon, he had deflowered her, and a fter having sworn to her family he would marry her , he had brought her to this frightful chateau, where she had been three years his slave, and during that period she had been especially singled out to be the object o f the monster's feroci ties : by dint of blows from the bull' s pizzle , her buttocks had become as calloused and toughened a s would be cow's hide dried in the sun ; she had a cancer upon her left breast and an abscess in her matrix which caused her unspeakable suffering ; all that was the perfidious Roland's achievement ; each o f those horrors was the fru i t of his lecheries .

I t was she who informed me Roland was on the eve of de­ parting for Venice if the considerable sums he had very recently

678 .. THE MARQUIS DE SADE

shipped to Spain could be converted into letters of credit he needed for I taly, for he did not want to transport his gold east across the Alps j never d id he send any in that d i rection : i t was i n a different country from the one he had decided to inhabit that he c irculated his false coins j by this device, r ich to be sure but only in the bank­ notes of another kingdom, h i s rascali t ies could never be detected in the land where he planned to take up his next abode. But every­ thing could be overthro" n within the space of an instant and the reti rement he envi sioned wholly depended upon th i s latest trans­ action in which the bulk of his treasure was compromised. Were Cad iz to accept his false pias ters, sequins, and louis, and against them send him letters neg otiable in Venice, Roland would be estab­ l i shed for the rest of his days j were the fraud to be detected, one s ingle day would suffice to demol i sh the fragile edifice of his fortune.

"Alas ! " I rema rked upon learning these deta i ls , "Providence will be just for once. I t will not countenance the success of such a monster, and all of us will be revenged . . . . "

Great God ! in view of the experience I had acqui red, how was I able thus to reason !

Toward noon we were given a two-hour respite, which we always used to good a dvantage to go for a l i ttle individual rest and food in our cells j at two o'clock we were reattached to the wheel and were made to work till n ightfall ; never were we allowed to enter the chateau ; i f 've were naked, 'twas not only because of the heat, but so as better to be able to receive the bull ' s p izzle bea tings our savage mast er periodically came to inflict upon us j in winter we were given p antaloons and a l ight sweater which so closely hugged the skin t hat our bodies were not the less exposed to the blows of a vi l la i 1 whose unique pleasure was to beat us half-senseless.

A week passed duriag which I saw no s ign of Roland j on the ninth day he vis i ted us at work and maintained Suzanne and I were imp roperly applying ourselves to our task ; he distributed thi rty cuts with the pizzle upon each of us, slashing us from back to calf.

At midnight on that same day, the evil man came to get me i n my kennel and, warmed by the sight of what h is cruelties had p roduced, h e once aga in introduced h is terrible bludgeon into the shadowy l a i r I exposed by the posture he made me assume in order

Justine .. 679

to inspect the vestiges of his rage . When his hungers were appeased I thought to profit from his momentary calm to supplicate him to mitigate my lot. Alas 1 I was unaware that in such a genius , whereas the delirious interlude stimulates the penchant for cruelty into greater activity , the subsequent reflux does not by any means restore the honest man's pacific virtues to i t ; ' t is a fi re more or less quick­ ened by the fuel wherewith it is fed, but one whose embers, though covered with cinder , burn nonethdess.

"And what right have you, " Roland replied to me, "to expect me to sweeten your circumstances ? Because of the fantasies I am pleased to put into execution with you ? But am I to throw myself at your feet and implore you to accord favors for the granting of which you can implore some recompense ? I ask nothing from you, I take , and I simply do not see that, because I exercise one right over you, i t must result that I have to abstain from demanding a second ; there i s no love in what I do : love i s a chivalric sentiment I hold in sovereign contempt and to whose assaults my heart i s always impervious ; I employ a woman out of necessity, as one employs a round and hollow vessel for a different purpose but an analogous need ; but never according this individual , which my money and authority make subj ect to me, e i ther esteem or tenderness, owing to myself what I get from her and never exacting from her any­ thing but submission, I cannot be constrained, in the l ight of all this , to acknowledge any gratitude toward her. I ask them who would like to compel me to be thankful whether a thie f who snatches a man's purse in the woods because he , the thief , i s the stronger of the two, owes this man any gratitude for the wrong he has just done him ; the same holds true for an outrage committed against a woman : it may justi fy a repetition o f the abuse , but never i s it a sufficient reason to grant her compensation."

"Oh, Monsieur ," I said to him, "to what limits you do carry your villa iny 1"

"To the ultimate periods ," Roland answered ; "there is not a single extravagance in the world in which I have not indulged, not a crime I have not committed, and not one that my doctrines do not excuse or legitimate ; unceasingly, I have found in evil a kind of a ttractiveness which always redounds to my lust's advantage ; crime ignites my appetites ; the more frightful i t i s , the more i t

6 8 0 + THE MARQUm DE SADE

stimulates ; in committing it, I enjoy the same sort of pleasure o rdinary folk taste in naught but libricity, and a hundred times I have discovered myself, while thinking of crime, while surrender­ ing to it , or just a fter having executed i t, in precisely the same state in which one i s when cc·nfronted by a beauti ful naked woman ; i t i rri tates m y senses in t h e s a m e way, a n d I have commi tted i t i n o rder t o arouse myself a s , when o n e i s filled with impudicious designs, one approaches 1 beauti fu l obj ect ."

"Oh, Monsieur ! ' t s frightful , what you say, but I have be­ held example s o f it ."

"There are a thous and, Therese . I t must not be supposed that i t i s a woman's beauty \\ hich best st irs a l ibertine mind, i t i s rather the species of crime thaI : the law has a ssoci a ted with possession of her : the proof of which s that the more criminal this possession the more one i s inflamed by i t ; the man who enjoys a woman he steals from her husband, a daLghter he snatches from her parents, knows a far greater delectation, no doubt of it, than does the husband who enj oys no one but i1i s wi fe , and the more the ties one breaks appear to be respected, the more the voluptuousness i s compounded. If 'tis one ' s mother, or :>ne's daughter, so many additional charms to the pleasures experienced ; when you've savored all this , then you truly would have interdictions further increase in order to give the violation of them added difficulty and greater charm ; now, if pleasure-taking i s seaoned by a criminal fl avoring, crime, dis­ sociated from this pleasure, may become a j oy in i tself ; there will then be a certain del ight in naked crime. Well, i t i s imposs ible tha t what contributes th e saline tang not itself be very salty . Thus, let me imagine, the abd uction o f a girl on one's own account will give a very lively pleasu �e, but abduction in the interests o f someone else will give all that pleasure with which the enjoyment o f this girl i s improved by rape : ; the theft o f a watch, the rape o f a purse will also give the sam! pleasure, and i f I have accustomed my senses to being moved by the rape of some girl qua rape, that same pleasure, that same deli �ht will be found again in the seizing o f the watch or of the purse, c :tc . ; and that explains the eccentrici ty in so many honest folk who s �eal without needing to steal. Nothing more common ; from this moment on, one both tastes the greatest

Jus tine + 68 1

pleasure in everything criminal, and, by every imaginable device, one renders simple enjoyments as criminal as they can possibly be rendered ; by conducting onesel f in this style , one but adds to en j oy­ ment the dash o f salt which was wanting and which became indis­ pensable to happiness' perfection. These doctrines lead far , I know ; perhaps, Thcri:se, I shall even show you how far before too long, but what matter ? enjoyment' s the thing. Was there, for example, dear gi rl, anything more ordinary or more natural than for me to enjoy you ? But you oppose it , you ask that i t stop ; i t would seem that, in the light of my obligations toward you, I ought to grant what you request ; however, I surrender to nothing, I l isten to nothing, I slash through all the hots that bind fools , I submit you to my desires, and out of the most elementary, the most monotonous enj oyment I evolve one tha t i s really delicious ; therefore submit, Therese, submit, and if ever YOIl are reincarnated and return to the world in the guise of the mighty, exploit your privileges in the same way and you will know every one of the most lively and most piquant pleasures ."

These words gone out of hi s mouth, Roland went away and left me to ponder thoughts which, as you may well believe, pre­ sented him in no favorable aspect.

I had been six months in this household, from time to time serving the vil la in 's disgraceful d<:bauches , when one night I beheld him enter my prison with Suzanne . .

" Come, Therese, " said he , " ' t i s already a long time, I find, since I took you down to that cavern which impressed you so deeply ; both of you are going to accompany me there, but don ' t expect to climb back together , fo r I absolutely must leave one of you behind ; well, we'll s e e which one fate designates ."

I get to my feet , cast alarmed glances a t my companion, I see tears roll ing from her eyes . . . an d we set off.

When we were locked into the underground vault, Roland examined each of us with ferocious eyes ; he amused himself by reiterating our sentence and per:mading us both that one of the two would certainly remain there below.

"Well ," said he, seating himself and having us stand directly before him, "each of you take your turn and set to work exorcising

6 8 2 .. THE MARQUH DE SADE

this disabled obj ect ; there ' s a devil in it keeps it limp, and woe unto the one of you who restores its energy."

" 'Tis an inj ustice," quoth Suzanne ; "she who arouses you most should be the one to obtain your mercy."

"N ot a t all , " Roland retorted, " once it i s manifest which of you arouses me most , i t i s established which one's death will give me the greater pleasure . . . and I'm itlm:n!:. _ c pleasure, nothing else. Moreover, by sparil1g her who inflames me the more rapidly, you would both proceed with such industry that you might perhaps plunge my senses into their ecstasy before the sacrifice were con­ summated, and that must not happen."

" 'Tis to want evil for evi l ' s sake , Monsieur ," I said to Roland, "the completion of your ecstasy ought to be the only thing you desire, and if you attain it without crime, why do you want to commit one ?"

"Because I only deli c iously reach the critical stage in this way, and because I only came :lown here in order to commit one. I know perfectly well I might succeed without it , but I want it in order to succeed. "

And, during this dialogue, h aving chosen me to begin, I start exciting his behind with one hand, his front with the other, while he touches a t his leisure every part of my body offered him by my nakedness.

"You've still a long way to go, Therese, " said he , fingering my buttocks, "before this f ne flesh is in the state of petrified cal­ losity and mortification apparent in Suzanne ' s ; one might light a fire under that dear gi rl s cheeks without her feeling a thing ; but you, Therese, you . . . t� ese are yet roses bound in lil ies : we'll get to them in good time, in �;ood time ."

You simply have ne idea , Madame, how much that threat set me at ease ; Roland doubtless did not suspect, as he uttered it , the peace i t sent flooding th �ough me, for was it not clear that, since he planned to expose me to further cruelties, he was not yet eager to immolate me ? I hav,: told you, Madame, that everything the wretched hear drives home, and thenceforth I was reassured. An­ other increase of happiness ! I was performing in vain, and that enormous mass telescoped into itself resisted all my shakings ;

Justine .. 683

Suzanne was in the same posture, she was palpated in the same areas, but as her flesh was toughened in a very different way, Roland treated i t with much less consideration ; however, Suzanne was younger.

"I am convinced," our p ersecu tor was saying, "that the most awesome whips would P0W fail to d raw a drop of blood from that ass ."

He made each of u s bend over and, our angle of inclination providing him with the fou r avenue:, of pleasure, his tongue danced wriggling into the two narrowest ; the villa in sp at into the others ; he turned us about, had us kneel between his thighs in such a manner our breasts found themselves at a l '�vel with what of him we were stimulating.

"Oh ! as regards breasts , " said Roland, "you've got to yield to Suz anne j never had you such fine teats j now then , let's take a look at this noble endowment."

And with those words he pressed the poor girl ' s breasts till , beneath his fingers, they were covered with bruises. At this point i t was no longer I who was exciting him, Suzanne had replaced me j scarcely had she fallen into his clu tches when his dart, springing from its quiver, began to menace eve rything surrounding it.

"Suzanne, " said R ol and , "behold an appalling triumph. 't is you r death decreed, Suzanne j I feared as much, " added that ferocious man as h e nipp ed and clawed her breasts.

As for mine, h e only sucked and chewed them. At length, he placed Suzanne on her knees at the edge of the sofa , h e made her bend her head and in this att itude he enjoyed her according to the fri ghtful manner natural to him ; awakened by new pains , Suz anne struggles and Roland, who simply wishes to ski rmish , is content with a brisk passage of arms, and comes to take refuge in me at the same shrine at which he has sac r ificed in my companion whom he does not cease to vex and molest the while .

"There's a whore who excites me cruelly," he says to me , " I don't know w h a t to d o with her ."

"Oh, M onsieur, " say I , "have pity upon her ; her sufferings could not be more intense."

"Oh, but you're wrong I " the villain replies, "one might . . . ah ! i f only I had with me that celebrated Emperor Kie, one of the

6 8 4 + T H E MAR Q l T l S DE SADE

greatest scoundrels ev,:r to have sat on the Chinese th rone,6 wi th Ki e we'd really be abh to perform wonders . Both he and h i s wife , they say, immol ated vi , :t ims daily a n d would have them l ive twen ty­ four hours in death 's :ruelest agonies , and in such a state of su f­ fe ring that they were c onstantly on the verge of expir ing but never quite able to d ie , for t hose monsters administered that kind o f a id which made them fhi tter between rel i e f and torture and only brought them back to l i fe for one minute in order to kill them th� next . . . . I , Therese , I am too gentl e , I know nothing o f those a rts , I 'm a mere apprentice . '

R oland ret ires w th out compl eting the sacr ifice and hurts me almost as much by this preci p i tous withdrawal a s h e h a d upon i n sert ing himsel f. He throws himself into Suzanne's a rms , and joining sarcasm to outr age :

"Amiable creature, " h e apostrophi zes, "with such del ight I remembe r the fi rst i n s tants o f our union ; never h a d woman given me such thri l l ing pleasures , never had I loved one a s I did you . . . l e t u s embrace, Suzanne , for we're going to part , perhaps the season o f our separation wil l be lang."

" M onste r ! " my mmp anion retorts, thrusting him away with h o rror , "begone ; to the torments you inflict upon me, join not the desp a i r o f hea ring Yo J [ terrible remarks ; sate your rage , t igerish one, but at least respect my sufferings ."

Roland l a i d hands on her , stretched her u pon the couch , her legs widespread, and the workshop of gen erat ion ideal ly with in range.

"Templ e o f my ancient plea sures , " the i nfamous creature in­ toned, "you who p m:ured m e del i ghts so sweet when I plucked you r first roses, I mw;t indeed address to you my fa rewells . . . . "

Th e vill a in ! h e I l rove h i s fingernai ls into i t and, rummaging

6 K i f , the E m p e r o r of C h i n a , h a d a wife a s c r u e l and debauched as h e ; bloodshed was a s n aught to them, and for their <,<el u s i v e p l e a su r e they spi l led rivers of i t every d ay ; within the ir p a l ace thty h a d a secret chamber where vict ims w e r e put to de ath before t h e i r eyes and w h i l e they enjoyed themselves . Theo, one of this Prince's suc­ cessors, had, l i ke him, a n ry b l oodth i r sty w ife ; they invented a brass col u m n and t h i s great cyl i n d e r they wOl l d heat red hot ; u n l ucky persons were bound to i t whi le the royal cou p l e looked on : 'The P r i ncess," writes the h i sto r i a n from whom we h ave borrowed th ese touches, " ' v as infini tely entertained by these m e l a ncholy victim< contorti ons and scream . ; , he w a s not content unless h e r h u sband gave h e r this spectacl e frequently." His/. d es Conj. vol. 7, p age 43.

Jus tine + 6 8 5

about inside for a few minutes while screams burst from Suzanne's mouth, he did not withdraw them until they were covered with blood. Glutted and wearied by these horrors, and feeling, indeed, he could restrain himsel f no longer :

" Come, Therese, come, " he said, "let 's conclude all this with a l i ttle scene of funambulism : it'll be cut-the-cord,7 dear gi rl ."

That was the name he gave that deadly legerdemain of which I gave you a description when I mentioned Roland's cavern for the fi rst time. I mount the three-legged stool, the evil fellow fits the halter about my neck, he takes his place opposite me ; al though in a frightful state, Suz anne exci tes h im manually ; an instant pa sses, then he snaps the s tool from bem:ath me, but equipped with the sickle, I sever the cord immediately and fall uninj ured to the ground.

"Nicely done, very neat," says Roland, "your turn, Suzanne, there i t is , and I'l l spare you, if you manage as cleverly."

Suzanne takes my place. Oh, M adame, allow me to pass over that dreadful scene's details . . . . The poor thing did not recover from it.

"And now off we go, Therese ," says Roland, "you'll not re­ turn to this place until your time has come."

"Whenever you like , Monsieur, whenever you l ike ," I reply ; "I prefer death to the frightful l i fe you have me lead. Are there wretches such as we for whom l i fe can be valuable ? . . "

And Roland locked me into my cell. The next day my com­ panions asked what had become of Suzanne and I told them ; they were hardly su rprised j all were awaiting the same fate and each,

7 This game, described above, was in great use amongst the Celts from whom we are d escended ( see Monsieur Peloutier'. Hi,.lo ;r,' des CrltfS ) ; virtu al ly all these ex­ travagances of debauchery, these extr aordinary l ibertine pa ssions, some part of which are d escribed in this book and which, how ridiculously ! today awaken the law's attention, were, in d ays bygone, either o u r ancestors' sports, games far superior to our contempor ary amusements, or legalized cu stoms, or again, religious ceremonies ; currently, they are transformed into crimes. In how m any pious ritu als did not the pagans employ flagell ation ! Several people used these identical tortu res, or p assions, to initiate their wa rriors ; this was known as huscanaver (viz., the religiou s ceremonies of every r ace on earth ) . These pleasantries, whose maximum inconvenience m ay be at the very most the death of a slut, are cap:.tal crimes at the moment. Three cheers for the progress of civilization ! How it conspires to the happiness of man, and how much more fortun ate than our forebears we ar e !

686 .. T H E MARQ J I S DE SADE

like me, seeing therein a term to their suffering, passionately longed for it .

And thus two ye:trs went by, Roland indulging in his custom­ a ry debauchery, I ling ering on with the prospect of a cruel death, when one day the ne" s went about the chateau that not only were our master's expectat ions satisfied, not only had he received the immense quantity of Venetian funds he had wished, but that he had even obtained a hrther order for another six millions in coun­ terfeit coin for whicL he would be reimbursed in I taly when he a rrived to claim payment ; the scoundrel could not possibly have enjoyed better luck ; t e was going to leave with an income of two millions, not to mentic,n his hopes of getting more : this was the new piece of evidence Providence had prepared for me. This was the latest manner in whirh it wished to convince me that prosperity belongs to Crime only and indigence to Virtue.

Matters were at this stage when Roland came to take me to his cavern a third time. I recollect what he threatened me with on my previous visit, I shJdder. . . .

" Rest assured, " he says, "you 've nothing to fear, ' t is a question of somethin�: which concerns me alone . . . an uncommon joy I 'd like to taste and from which you will incur no risks."

I follow him. When the doors are shut : "Therese," says Roland, "there's no one in the house but you

to whom I dare confide the problem ; I 've got to have a woman of impeccable honesty . . , . I 've no one about but you, I confess that I prefer you to my sister . . . .

Taken aback, I ntreat him to clar ify himself. "Then l isten," says he ; "my fortune is made, but whatever

be the favors I have received from fate, it can desert me at any instant ; I may be traf'ped, I could be caught while transporting my bullion, and if that misfortune occurs, Therese, it 's the rope that's waiting for me : 't is t 1e same delight I am pleased to have women savor : that's the one will serve as my undoing ; I am as firmly per­ suaded as I can possihly be that this death is infini tely sweeter than cruel ; but as the w Jmen upon whom I have tested i ts initial anguishes have never really wished to tell me the truth, it i s in person I wish to be :nade acquainted with the sensation. By way of the experience itsdf I want to find out whether it i s not very

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certain this asphyxiation impels , in the individual who undergoes it , the erectory nerve to produce an ej aculation ; once convinced this death is but a game, I ' l l brave i t with far greater courage, for i t is not my existence's cessation terrifies me : my principles are deter­ mined upon that head and well persuaded matter can never become anything but matter again, I have no greater dread of Hell than I have expectation of Paradise ; but a cruel death's torments make me apprehensive ; I don' t wish to suffer when I perish ; so let 's have a try. You will do to me everything I did to you ; I 'll strip ; I ' l l mount the stool, you'll adjust the rope, I 'll excite myself for a moment, then, as soon as you see things assume a certain consistency, you'll jerk the stool free and I 'll remain hanging ; you'll leave me there until you either discern my semen's emission or symptoms o f death's throes ; i n the latter case, yot; 'll cut me down at once ; in the other, you'll allow Nature to take her course and you'll not detach me until a fterward. You observe, Therese, I'm putting my l i fe in your hands ; your freedom, your fortune will be your good conduct's reward."

"Ah, Monsieur, there's folly in the proposition." "N 0 , Therese, I insist the thing be done," he answered, un­

dressing himself, "but behave yourself well ; behold what proof I give you o f my confidence and high n:gard I "

What possibil i ty o f hesi tation had I ? Was he not my master ? Furthermore, i t seemed to me the evJ I was going to do him would be immediately offset by the extreme care I would take to save his l i fe : I was going to be mistress o f th at l ife, but whatever might be his intentions with respect to me, i t would certainly only be in order to restore it to him.

We take our stations ; Roland i s stimulated by a few of his usual caresses ; he cl imbs upon the stool, I put the halter round his neck ; he tells me he wan ts me to curse him during the process , I am to reproach him with all his l i fe ' s horrors, I do so ; his dart soon rises to menace Heaven, he himsel f gives me the sign to remove the stool, I obey ; would you believe it, Madame ? nothing more true than what Roland had conj ectured : nothing but symptoms of pleasure ornament his countenance and a t practically the same in­ stant rapid j e ts of semen spring nigh to the vault. When 't is all shot out without any assistance whatsoever from me, I rush to cut

688 .. THE MARQl:'IS DE SADE

him down, he falls, un,:onscious, but thanks to my ministrations he quickly recovers h is senses.

"Oh Therese !" hi! exclaims upon opening his eyes , "oh, those sensations are not to be described j they transcend all one can possibly say : let them now do what they wish with me, I stand unflinching before Themis ' sword I

"You're going to find me guilty yet another time, Therese," Roland went on, tying my hands behind my back, "no thanks for you , but, dear girl , w'1at can one expect ? a man doesn' t correct himself at my age . . . . Beloved creature, you have just saved my l i fe and never have I so powerfully conspired against yours j you lamented Suzanne's fate j ah well , I 'll arrange for you to meet again ; I'm going to p' unge you alive into the dungeon where she expired."

I wil l not describf my state of mind, Madame, you fancy what i t was j in vain did I weep, groan, I was not heeded. Roland opened the fatal dungeon, he hangs out a lamp so that I can still better discern the multitude of corpses wherewith i t i s filled ; next, he passes a cord under mr arms which, as you know, are bound behind my back, and by mean:; of this cord he lowers me thirty feet : I am twenty more from the bottom of the p i t : in this position I suffer hideously, it i s a s i f my arms are being torn from their sockets. With what terror was I not seized I what a prospect confronted my eyes ! Heaps of bodies in thf midst of which I was going to finish my l i fe and whose stench wa � already infecting me. Roland cinches the rope about a stick fitt !d above the hole then, brandishing a knife , I hear him exciting himself.

"Well , Therese," he cries, "recommend your soul to God, the instant my delirium supervenes will be that when I plunge you into the eternal abyss awa ting you ; ah . . . ah . . . Therese, ah . . . " and I feel my head cO'lered with proof of h is ecstasy j but, happily, he has not parted the rope : he li fts me out.

"Ha," says he, "were you a fraid ?" "Oh, Monsieur--" " 'Tis thus you'll die, be sure o f it , Therese, be sure of i t , and

' twas pleasant to famiiarize you with your egress. " We climb back to the light . . . . Was I to complain ? or be

thankful ? What a reward for what I had just done for him I But

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had the monster not been in a position to do more ? Could he not have killed me ? Oh, what a man !

Roland prepared his departure ; on the eve o f setting out he pays me a visi t ; I fall before his feet, most urgently I beg him to free me and to give me whatever l ittle sum of money he would like, that I might be able to reach Grenoble .

"Grenoble I Certainly not, ThfTese, you' d denounce us when you got there."

.

"Very well, Monsieur ," I say, sprinkling his knees with my tears, "I swear to you I'll never go there and, to be sure o f me, condescend to take me to Venice with you ; I will perhaps find gentler hearts there than in my native land, and once you are so kind as to set me free, I swear to you by all that i s holy I will never importune you."

"I 'll not a id you, not a pennyworth of aid will you get from me," that peerless rogue answered ; "everything connected with pity, commiseration, gratitude i s so alien to my heart that were I three times as rich a s I am, they'd not see me give one crown to the poor ; the spectacle of misery i rritates me, amuses me, and when I am unable to do evil myself, I have a delicious time enjoying that accomplished by the hand of destiny. Upon all thi s I have p rinciples to which, Therese, I a dhere faithfully ; poverty i s part of the natural order j by creating men of dissimilar strength, Nature has convinced us of her desire that inequal ity be preserved even in those modifications our culture might bring to Nature's laws. To relieve indi gence is to violate the established order, to imperil it , it i s to enter into revolt against that which Nature has decreed, i t i s to undermine the equilibrium that i s fundamental to her sublimest a rrangements j i t i s to strive to erect an equal ity very perilous to society, i t i s to encourage indolenc e and fl atter drones, i t i s to teach the poor to rob the rich man when the latter is pleased to re­ fuse the former alms, for it 's a dang:erous habit , and gratuities en­ courage i t ."

"Oh, M onsieur, how harsh these principles are I Would you speak thus had you not always been wealthy ?"

"Who knows, Therese ? everyone has a right to h is opinion, that 's mine, and I 'll not change it . They complain about beggars in France : if they wished to be rid o f them, the thing coul ll soon be

690 + T H E MARC :UIS DE SADE

done ; hang seven or dght thousand of 'em and the infamous breed will vanish overnight . The Body Polit ic should be governed by the same rules tha t apply to the Body Physical. Would a man devoured by vermin allow them to feed upon him out of sympathy ? In our gardens do we not u?root the p a ras i tic plant which harms useful vegetation ? Why then should one choose to act otherwise in thi s case ?"

"But Religion," I expostulated, "benevolence, Monsieur, hu- manity . . . "

" . . . are the chopping blocks o f all who pretend to happiness ," sa id Roland ; " if I have consolidated my own, i t i s only upon the debris o f all those in famous prejudices o f mankind ; ' t i s by mock­ ing l aws human and divine ; ' t i s by constantly sacrificing the weak when I find them i n my path, ' t is by abusing the publ ic 's good faith ; ' t i s by ruining the poe .r and stealing from the rich I have arrived a t t h e summi t o f tha t p r ecipice whereupon s i t s t h e temple sacred to the divinity I adore ; why not imitate me ? The narrow road leading to that shrine i s a s plainly offered to your eyes a s mine ; the hallucina­ tory virtues you h avt: preferred to it , have they consoled you for your sacrifices ? 'Tis too late , luckless one, ' ti s too late , weep for your sins, suffer, and strive to find in the depths o f the phantoms you worship, if any finding there is to be done, what the reverence you have shown them has caused you to lose ."

With these words , the cruel Roland leaps upon me and I am a gain forced to serv(: the unworthy pleasures o f a monster I had such good reason to abhor ; thi s t ime I thought he would strangle me ; when his p assion s were sat isfied, he caught up the bull ' s pizzle and with i t smote me above a hundred blows all over my body, the while a ssuring me I was fortunate he lacked the time to do more.

On the morrow , before setting out, the wretch presented us with a new scene o f cruelty and o f barbarity whereof no example i s furnished by the annals of Andronicus , Nero, Tiberius , o r Wenceslaus. Everyone a t t h e chateau supposed Roland' s s i ster would leave with him , and he had indeed told her to dress and ready herself for the j ourney ; a t the moment of mounting h is horse, he leads her toward us . "There 's your post , v i le creature ," says he , o rdering her to take off her clothes, "I want my comrades to re­ member me by leavir. g them as a token the woman for whom they

Justine + 69 1

thought I had a fancy ; but as we need only a certain number and as I am going to follow a dangerous road upon which my weapons will perhaps be useful , I must try my p i stols upon one of these rascal s ." Whereupon he loads one of his guns, a ims i t a t each of our breasts , and comes at last to his s ister. "Off you go, whore , " says he, blast­ ing out her brains, "go advise th e devil that Roland, the richest villain on earth, is he who mosr insolently taunts the hand of Heaven and challenges Satan's own! " The poor girl did not expire at once : she writhed in her death throes for a considerable period : ' twas a hideous spectacle : that infamous scoundrel calmly con­ sidered it and did not tear h i s eyes away until he had left us for­ ever .

Everything changed the day a fter Roland went away. His successor, a gentle and very reasonable man, had us released a t once.

"That i s hardly fit work for a frail and delicate sex," he sa id to us with kindness ; "animals should be employed a t this machine ; our trade i s criminal enough without further offending the Supreme Being with gratu i tous atrocities ."

He installed us in the chateau and, without requiring me to do so, suggested I a ssume possession o f the dut ies Roland's sister had performed ; the other women were busied cutting out counter­ feit coins, a much less fa tiguing task, no doubt, and one for which they were rewarded, as was I, with good lodgings and excellent food.

At the end of two months, Dalville , Roland's successor, in­ formed us of his colleague ' s happy a rrival at Venice ; there he had establ i shed himself and there realized his fortune and there he enj oyed i t in peace and quiet, wholly content, full of the fel ic ity he had anticipated. The fate o f the man who replaced him was of a distinctly different character. The unfortunate Dalville was honest in his profession, indeed, even more honest than was neces­ sary in order to be destroyed.

One day, while all was calm at the chateau, while, under the di rection of that good master, the work, although criminal, was however being carried on with gaiety, one day the gates were stormed, the moats bridged and the house, before our men had a moment's opportunity to look to their defense, found itself invaded

692 + THE MARQU' S DE SADE

by soldiers of the cons tabul ary, sixty strong. Surrender wzs our sole alterna tive ; we we re shackled l ike beasts ; we were attached to the horses and marc! es down to Grenoble . "0 Heaven ! " I said to myself as we entered, " ' t i s then the scaffold destiny holds for me in this city wherein I wildly fancied my happiness was to be born . . . . Oh ! how deceived i s man by his intuitions I "

The court was not long tarrying over the counterfei ters' case ; they were all sentenced :0 the gallows ; when the mark that branded me was detected, they scarcely gave themselves the trouble of interrogating me and ] was about to be hanged along with the others when I made a last effort to obtain some pity from that famous magistrate whc proved to be an honor to his tribunal , a judge o f integrity, a beloved cit izen, an enlightened philosopher whose wisdom and bem volence will grave his name for al l t ime in letters of gold upon Th emis' temple . He l i stened to me ; convinced of my good faith and :he authenticity of my wretched pl ight, he deigned to give my case a l i ttle more a ttention than his cohorts saw fi t to l avish upon i t . . . . 0 great man, ' tis to thee l owe an homage : a miserable creature's f ;ratitude would not s i t onerously with thee and the tribute she offers thee, by publ ishing abroad thy goodness of heart, will always be 1er sweetest j oy.

Monsieur S * * * himself became my advocate ; my testimony was heard, and his mak eloquence i l lumined the mind of the court. The general deposition s of the false coiners they were going to execute fortified the zeal of the man who had the kindness to take an interest in me : I W(l S declared an unwill ing party to crime, in­ nocent, and fully acquitted of all charges, was set a t complete l iberty to become what I wished ; to those services my protector added a collection he h ad taken for my relief, and i t totaled more than fifty louis; I began to see a dawning of happiness at last ; my presentiments seemed iinally about to be real ized and I thought I had reached an end of my tribulations when i t pleased Providence to convince me they were still far from their definitive cessation.

Upon emerging from j a i l I took up lodgings a t an inn facing the Isere bridge on tfll: s ide of the faubourgs where, I had been assured, I might find p roper quarters. My plan, suggested by the advice of Monsieur SH *, was to stay there awhile in order to try to find a s ituation in the town ; in the event the letters of recom-

Justine + 693

mendation Monsieur S * * * had so kindly given me produced no results, I was to return to Lyon. On the second day I was dining at my inn-'twas what is called table d 'hote-when I noticed I was being closely scrutinized by a tall, very handsomely attired woman who went under a baroness' ti tle ; upon examining her in my turn, I believed I recognized her ; we "both rose and approached each other, we embraced like two people who once knew each other but cannot remember under what 6rcumstances.

Then the baroness drew me aside. "Therese," says she, "am I in error ? are you not the person I

saved from the Conciergerie ten y ears ago ? have you entirely for­ gotten your Duboi s ?"

Little flattered by this di scovery, I however replied to it with politeness, but I was dealing with the most subtle, the most adroit woman in contemporary France ; t b.ere was no way of eluding her. Dubois overwhelmed me with attentions, she said that she, like the entire town, had taken an inte rest in my fate but that had she known who I really was, she would have resorted to all sorts of measures and made many a representation to the magistrates, amongst whom, she declared, she had several friends. As usual, I was weak, I permitted myself to be led to this woman's room and there I related my sufferings to her .

"My dear friend," said she, r ,�newing her embraces, " if I have desired to see you more intimately, i t is to tell you I have made my fortune and that all I possess is at your disposal ; look here," she said, opening some caskets brim:ning with gold and diamonds, " these are the fruits of my industry ; had I worshiped Virtue like you, I should be in pri son today, or hanged."

"0 Madame," I cr ied, " if you owe all that to naught but crime, ProvideNce, which eventually is always just, will not suffer you to enj oy it for long."

"An error ," said Dubois ; "do not imagine that Providence invariably favors Virtue ; do not let a bri e f interlude of prosperity blind you to this point. It i s as one to the maintenance of Provi­ dence' s scheme whether ' ti s Peter or Paul who follows the evil career while the other surrenders himself to good ; Nature must have an equal quantity of each, and the exercise of crime rather than the commission of good i s a matter of you've no idea what

694 .. THE MARQUW DE SADE

indifference to her ; l i sten Therese, p ay a l i ttle attention to me," con­ tinued that corruptor, se lting herself and bidding me take a nea rby chai r ; "you have some VIi t , my child, and your intelligence will be speedily convinced.

" 'Tis not man's ele =tion o f Virtu e which brings him happiness, dear girl , for Virtue , l ike vice, i s nothing beyond a scheme o f getting along in the world ; 'ti� not, hence, a question o f adopting one course rather than anothe r ; 'tis merely a matter o f following the road generally taken ; l ee who wanders away from it is always wrong ; in an entirely virtuous world, I would recommend virtue to you, because worldly rewards being associ ated therewith, happiness would infall ibly be connected with i t too ; in a totally corrupt world, I would never advise a :1ything but vice. He who does not walk along with others has in evitably to peri sh ; everyone he encounters he coll ides with, and, : l S he i s weak, he has necessarily to be crushed. I t i s i n vain the : aw wishes to re-establish order and restore men to righteousness ; too unjust to undertake the task, too in­ sufficient to succeed i n i i , those laws will lure you away from the beaten path, but only temporarily ; never will they make man abandon it. While the gl �neral interest of mankind drives i t to cor­ ruption, he who does not wish to be corrupted with the rest will the r e fore be fighting aga inst the general interest ; well , what happi­ ness can he expect who i s i n perpetual conflict with the interest of everyone else ? Are you �oing to tell me i t i s vice which i s a t odds with m ankind's welfare � I I would grant this true in a world com­ posed of equal p roporf ons of good and bad people , because in this instance, the intere : ;t of the one category would be in cle a r contradiction w i t h t h a t of t h e other ; however, t h a t d o e s n o t hold true i n a completely corrupt society ; in i t , my vices outrage the vicious only and provoke in them other vices which they use to square matters : and thus all of us are happy : the vibration becomes general : we have a m llltitude o f confl icts and mutual in jur ies whereby everyone, immt :diately recovering what he has just lost , incessantly d iscovers hirr self i n a happy posit ion. Vice i s dangerous to naught but Virtue w 1ich, frail and timorous, dares undertake nothing ; but when i t sha ll no longer exi st on earth, when its weari­ some reign shall reach its end, vice therea fter outraging no one but the vicious, will caus e other vices to burgeon but will cause no

Justine ... 695

further damage to the virtuous. How could you help but have foundered a thousand times over in the course of your l ife , Therese ? for have you not continually driven up the one-way street all the world has crowded down ? Had you turned and abandoned your­ self to the tide you would have made a safe port a s well a s 1. Will he who wishes to climb upstream cover as much distance in a day as he who moves with the current ? You constantly talk about Providence ; ha ! what proves to you this Providence is a friend of order and consequently enamored of Virtue ? Does I t not give you uninterrupted examples of Its inj ustices and I ts i rregularities ? Is it by sending mankind war, plaglles , and famine, i s i t by having formed a universe vicious in every one of its particulars It manifests to your view Its extreme fondnes:; of good ? Why would you have it that vicious individuals displea :;e It since Providence Itself acts only through the intermediary of vices ? since all i s vice and corruption in Its works ? since all i s crime and disorder in what It wills ? Moreover,

· whence do we derive those impulses which lead us

to do evil ? is it not Providence's hand which gives them to us ? is there a single one of our sensatio;1s which does not come from It ? one of our desires which i s not It� artifact ? is it then reasonable to say that I t would allow us or give us penchants for something which might be harmfu l to It or useless ? if then vices serve Providence, why should we wish to disown them, disclaim them, resist them ? what would just ify our labors to destroy them ? and whence comes the right to sti fle their voice ? A. l i ttle more philosophy in the world would soon restore all to o rder and would cause magistrates and legisla tors to see that the crimes they condemn and punish with such rigor sometimes have a far greater degree of utility than those virtues they preach without practicing and without ever re­ warding."

"Bu t when I become sufficiently enfeebled, Madame," I re­ plied, "to be able to embrace your appalling doctrines , how will you manage to suppress the feelings of guilt in my heart whose b irth they will cause at every instant ?"

"Guilt is an illusion ," Duboi s answered ; "my dear Therese , it it naught but the idiotic murmuring of a soul too debilitated to dare annihilate it ."

"Annihilate i t ! May one ?"

696 + THE MARQUIS DE SADE

"N othing simpler one repents only of what one is not in the habit of doing ; frequently repeat what makes you remorseful and you'll quickly have done with the business ; against your qualms oppose the torch o f yo ur passions and self-interest's potent laws : they'll be put to rout in a trice. Remorse is no index o f criminality ; i t merely denotes an ea sily subjugated spirit ; let some absurd com­ mand be given you, whi :h forbids you to leave this room, and you'll not depart without guil ty feelings however certain i t i s your depar­ ture will cause no one any harm. And so it is not true that it i s exclusively crime which excites remorse. By convincing yourself of crime' s null ity , o f its ne , :essity with what regards Nature's universal scheme, i t would therefore be a s possible to vanquish the guilt one would sense a fter h avi 1g committed i t as i t would be to throttle tha t which would be bo : ·n from your leaving this room after having received the illegal orde r to stay here. One must begin with a precise analysis o f everything mankind denominates as criminal ; by con­ vincing oneself that i t i s merely the in fraction of i ts laws and national manners they :haracterize thus , that what i s called crime in France ceases to be ( rime two hundred leagues away, that there i s no act really considt red criminal everywhere upon earth, none which, vicious or crimir-al here, is not praiseworthy and virtuous a few miles hence, that i t is all a matter of opinion and of geograp hy and that it is therefor,� absurd to t ie oneself down to practicing virtues which are only vices somewhere else, and to flying from crimes which are excel lent deeds in another cl imate-I ask you now if , a fter these refle :tions, I can still retain any feelings of gu i l t for having committed, e ither for the sake o f pleasure or of self­ interest, a crime in Fra nce which is nothing but a virtue in China ? or i f I ought to make myself very miserable or be prodigiously troubled about practici : 1g actions in France which would have me burned in Siam ? Now, if remorse exi sts only in reason of prohibi­ tion, i f i t i s never but b o rn of the wreckage of the inhibitory check and in no wise of the committed act, is it so very wise to allow the impulse in itself to sub sist ? i s i t not stupid not to exti rpate i t at once ? Let one become a ccustomed to considering as inconsequential the act which has just excited remorse ; let the scrupulously medi­ tated study o f the man lers and customs of all the world's nations culminate in one's jud�:ing the act indifferent ; as a result of this

Jus tin e + 697

research, let one repeat th i s act, whatever i t i s , as o ften as possible ; or , better still , l e t one commit more powerful versions of the act one i s concerting so as better to habituate oneself to it , do this , and famil iar i ty together with reason will soon destroy remorse for i t ; they will rapidly annihilate this shadowy, furtive impulse, issue of naught but ignorance and education. One will straightway feel that there being nothing really criminal in anything whatsoever, there is stupidity in repentance and pu sillanimity in not daring to do everything that may be useful or agreeable to us, whatever be the dikes one must breach, the fences one must topple in order to do it. I am forty-five, Therese ; I committed my first crime at four­ teen. Tha t one emancipated me from all the bonds that hampered me ; since then I have not ceased to chase fortune throughout a career sown with crimes , there's not a single one I've not done or had done . . . and never have I known any remorse. However that may be, I am reaching my term, yet another two or three neat strokes and I pass from the mediocre condition wherein I was to have spent my life , to an income of above fi fty thousand a year. I repeat, my dear, never upon this happily traveled road has remorse made me feel its stings ; a catastrophic miscarriage might this instant plunge me from the pinnacle into the abyss, I ' d not feel remorse, no : I would lament my want of skill or accuse men, but I should always be at peace with my conscience ."

"Very well , " I replied, "very well , Madame, but let 's spend a moment reasoning in terms o f your own principles : wha t right have you to require that my conscience be as impregnable as yours when since childhood it has not been accustomed to vanquishing the same prejudices ? By what title do you require that my mind, which i s not constituted like your own, be able to adopt the same systems ? You acknowledge sums of good and evil in Nature , you admit that, in consequence, there must be a certain quantity of beings who practice good and another group which devotes itself to evil ; the course I elect i s hence natural ; therefore, how would you be able to demand that I take leave of the rules Nature prescribes to me ? You say you find happiness in the career you pursue ; very well, Madame, why should it be that I do not also find i t in the career I pursue ? Do not suppose, furthermore, that the law's vigilance long leaves in peace him who violates its codes, you have just had a striking example of

698 + THE MARQUI S DE SADE

the contrary ; of the fifteen scoundrels with whom I was l iving, fourteen peri sh ignomin iously . . . . "

"And i s that what 'rou call a misfortune ?" Duboi s asked. "But what does this ignominy mean to h im who has principles no longer ? When one has trespassed every frontier, when in our eyes honor i s no more than a hallucination, reputation of perfect indifference, religion an illusion, de" th a total annihilation ; i s i t then not the same thing, to die on th( scaffold or in bed ? There are two varieties of rascals in the world Therese : the one a powerful fortune or prodigious influence shdters from this tragic end ; the other one who i s unable to avoid it when taken. The latter, born unprovided with possessions, must have but one desire i f he has any espri t : to become rich at no matte: - what price ; if he succeeds, he obtains what he wanted and should be: content ; i f he is put on the rack, what's he to regret since he has nothing to lose ? Those laws decreed against banditry are null i f they are not extended to apply to the powerful bandi t ; that the law insF ire any dread in the miserable i s impossible , for the sword is the miserable man's only resource . "

"And do you beli ' �ve, " I broke in , " that in another world Celestial Justice does nc,t await him whom crime has not affrighted in this one ?"

" I believe, " thi s dangerous woman answered, " that if there were a God there would be less evil on earth ; I bel ieve that since evil exists, these disorders are either expressly ordained by this God, and there you hav e a barbarous fellow, or he is incapable of preventing them and right away you have a feeble God ; in either case, an abominable being, a being whose l ightning I should defy and whose laws contemr . . Ah, Therese ! is not atheism preferable to the one and the other o f these extremes ? that's my doctrine, dear lass , it 's been mine sinc � childhood and I ' l l surely not renounce it while I l ive."

"You make me shudder, Madame," I sa id , getting to my feet ; "will you pardon me ? fJr I am unable to l i sten any longer to your sophistries and blaspher1ies ."

"One moment, Th :rese, " said Dubois, holding me back, " i f I cannot conquer your re ason, I may a t least captivate your heart . I have need o f you, do not refuse me your aid ; here are a thousand louis : they will be yours as soon as the blow is struck."

Jus tine + 699

Heedless of al l but my penchant for doing good, I immediately asked Dubois what was involved so as to forestall, i f ' twere pos­ sible, the crime she was getting ready to commit.

"Here i t i s ," she sa id : "have you noticed that young tradesman from Lyon who has been taking his meals here for the past four or five days ?"

"Who ? Dubreuil ?" "Precisely. " "Well ?" "He is in love with you , he told me so in confidence, your

modest and gentle air pleases him infinitely, he adores your candor, your virtue enchants h im ; this romantic fellow has eight hundred thousand francs in gold or paper, i t' s al l in a l i ttle coffer he keeps near his bed ; let me give the man to understand you consent to hear him, whether that be true or not ; for, does i t matter ? I ' ll get him to propose you a drive, you'll take a carriage out of the town, I ' ll persuade him he will advance matters with you during your prome­ nade ; you'll amuse him, you'll keep him away as long as possible, meanwhile I 'l l rob him, but I 'l l not flee ; h is belongings will reach Turin before I quit Grenoble , we will employ all imaginable art to dissuade him from settling his eyes upon us , we'll pretend to assist his searches ; however, my departure will be announced, he'll not be surprised thereby, you'll foHow me, and the thousand louis will be counted out to you immedia tely we get to the Piedmont."

"Agreed, Madame," I sa id to Dubois , fully determined to warn Dubreuil of the concerted thdt, "but consider," I added in order more thoroughly to deceive this villain, " that if Dubreui l i s fond o f me, by revealing the busine ,s or by giving myself to him, I might get much more from him th�,n you offer me to betray him ."

"Bravo ," repl ied Dubois , " that' s what I call an adept scholar, I 'm beginning to beli eve Heaven gave you a greater talent for crime than you pretend : ah well , " she continued, picking up a quill , "here's my note for twenty t housand crowns, now dare say no to me."

"N at for the world , Madame," quoth I , taking her note , "but, a t least, my weakness and my wrong in surrendering to your seduc­ tions a re to be attributed only to my impecunious circumstances ."

" I 'd prefer to interpret i t as a meritorious act o f your

700 + THE MARQUS DE SADE

intelligence , " said Dubois , "but if you prefer me to blame your poverty, why then, as you like ; serve me and you will always be content ."

Everything was arranged ; the same evening I began in earnest to play my game with Dubreuil , and indeed I discovered he had some taste for me.

Nothing could have been more embarrassing than my situa­ tion : I was without an:, doubt far from lending myself to the pro­ posed crime even had it been worth ten thousand times as much gol d ; but the idea of cenouncing this woman was also painful for me ; I was exceedingly l oa th to expose to death a creature to whom I had owed my freedom ten years before. I should have liked to have been able to find a way of preventing the crime without having it punished, and with anyone else but a consummate villain like Dubois I should have succeeded ; here then is what I resolved to do, all the while unawa:'e that this horrible woman's base maneuvers would not only topple the entire edifice of my honorable schemes but even punish me for having dreamt of them.

Upon the day fixed for the proj ected outing, Duboi s invites us both to dine in her rO(lm, we accept, and the meal over, Dubreuil and I descend to sumn.on the carriage that has been prepared for us ; Dubois does not a :company us , I find myself alone with Du­ breuil the moment before we set out.

"Monsieur ," I say, speaking very rapidly, "li sten closely to me, don't be alarmed, no noise , and above all pay strict attention to what I am going to r ecommend ; have you a reliable friend at this hotel ?"

"Yes, I have a young associate upon whom I can count with absolute confidence. "

"Then, Monsieur, go promptly and order him no t to leave your room for a second while we are on our drive ."

"But I have the key to the room ; what does th i s excess of precaution signify ?"

"I t is more essential than you believe, Monsieur, I beg you to employ it , or else I shal l not go out with you ; the woman with whom we dined i s a bandit, � he only arranged our outing in order more easily to rob you while we are gone ; make haste, Monsieur, she is watching us, she i s dar.gerous ; quickly, turn your key over to your

Justine .. 7 0 1

friend, have h i m g o a n d install himself in your room a n d l e t him not budge until we're back. I 'll explain the rest as soon as we are in the carriage."

Dubreuil heeds me, presses my hand in token of thanks, flies to give orders rela t ive to the warni ng he has received, and returns ; we leave ; when en route, I disclose the entire adventure to him, I recite mine and inform him of the unhappy circumstances in my life which have caused me to make the acquaintance o f such a woman. This correct and sensible young man expresses the deepest gratitude for the service I have just so kindly rendered him, he takes an interest in my misfo rtunes, and proposes to alleviate them with the bestowal o f his hand.

"I am only too happy to be able to make you restitution for the wrongs fortune has done you, M a demoiselle ," says he ; "I am my own master, dependent upon no one, I am going on to Geneva to make a considerable investment with the funds your timely warning has saved me from losing ; accomp8 ny me to Switzerland ; when we arrive there I shall become your hu:.band and you will not appear in Lyon under any other title, or, i f you prefer, M ademoiselle, i f you have any misgivings, it will only be in my own country I will give you my name."

Such an offer, so very flattering, was one I dared not refuse ; but it did not on the other hand become me to accept i t without making Dubreuil aware o f all that :night cause him to repent i t ; he was grateful for my delicacy and only insisted the more urgently . . . unhappy creature that I was ! ' twas necessary that happiness be offered me only in order that I be more deeply penetrated with grief at never being able to seize i t ! i t was then ordained that no virtue could be born in my heart without preparing torments for me l

Our conversation had already taken u s two leagues from the city, and we were about to dismoun t in order to enjoy the fresh a ir along the bank of the Isere , when all o f a sudden Dubreuil told me he felt very ill . . . . He got down, he was seized by dreadful vomit­ ings ; I had him climb into the carri age a t once and we flew back posthaste to Grenoble. Dubreuil i s so sick he has to be borne to his room ; his condition startles his associate whom we find there and who, in accordance with instructions, has not stirred from the

702 .. T H E MARQ U I S DE SADE

chamber ; a doctor corr es, Just Hea ven ! Dubreuil has been poi soned ! I no sooner learn the : :atal news than I dash to Dubois ' apartment ; the infamous creature ! she's gone ; I rush to my room, my a rmoire has been forced open, the l i ttle money and odds and ends I possess have been removed ; Dubois , they tell me, left three hours ago in the direction of Turin. There was no doubt she was the author of this multitude of crimes ; � he had gone to Dubreuil 's door ; annoyed to find his room occupied, she revenged herself upon me and had envenomed Dubreuil a t dinner so that upon our return, i f she had succeeded with her th �ft, that unhappy young man would be more busied with his own hiling l i fe than concerned to pursue her who had made off with his fortune and would let her fly in safety ; the accident of his death, occurring, so to speak, while he was in my arms, would make me : appear more suspect than hersel f ; nothing directly informed us { of the scheme she had contrived, but could it have been different ?

And then I rush back to Dubreuil 's room ; I am not allowed to approa ch his bedside "But why ?" I demand and am given the reason : the poor man i s expi ring and i s no longer occupied with anyone save his God. However, he exonerates me, he gives assur­ ance o f my innocence ; he expressly forbids that I be pursued ; he dies. Hardly has he dosed his eyes when his associate hastens to bring me the news and begs me to be easy. Ala s I how could I be ? how was I not to weep bitterly for the loss of a man who had so generously offered to extricate me from mi sery ! how was I not to deplore a theft which forced me back into the wretchedness whence I had only a moment before emerged ! Frightful creature ! I cried ; if 't is to this your pr inciple s lead you, is i t any wonder they are abhorred and that horest folk punish them ! But I was arguing from the injured party's v ewpoint and Dubois , who had only reaped happiness therefrom and saw nothing but her interest in what she had undertaken, Dub( , is , I say, had doubtless reached a very differ­ ent conclusion.

To Dubreuil 's a! .sociate , whose name was Valbois , I divulged everything, both whal had been concerted against the man we had lost and what had happened to me. He sympathized with me, most sincerely regretted Dubreuil and blamed the overly nice scruples which had prevented me from lodging a complaint instantly I had

Jus tine + 703

been advised of Dubois ' scheme s ; we agreed that this monster who needed but four hours to get to another country and security would arrive there before we would be able to o rganize her pursuit , that to follow her would involve considerable expense, that the inn­ keeper, heavily compromised by the proceedings we would launch, by de fending himself with vehemence might perhaps end by having me crushed, I . . . who seemed to be living in Grenoble as one who had missed the gallows by a hairsbreadth. These reasons convinced me and even terrified me to the point I resolved to leave the town without even saying farewell to my protector, Monsieur S * * *. Dubreuil 's friend approved the i dea ; he did not conceal from me that i f the entire adventure were to be revealed he would be obliged to make depositions which, his p recautions notwithstanding, would involve me as much by my intimacy with Dubreuil as in reason of my last outing with his friend ; in the l ight of which he urged me to leave at once without a word to anyone, and I could be perfectly sure that, on his side, he would never take steps against me, whom he believed innocent, and, in all that had just occu rred, whom he could only accuse of weakness.

Upon pondering Valbois' opi nions, I recognized they were that much better the more certain it appeared I would be beheld with suspicion ; the less my guilt , the wiser his suggestions ; th e one thing that spoke in my behalf, the recommendation I had made to Dubreuil at the outset of our promenade, which had, so they told me, been unsatisfactorily explained by the article of his death, would not appear so conclusive as I might hope ; whereupon I promptly made my decision ; I impa rted i t to Valbois .

"Would," sa id he, "that my friend had charged me with some dispositions favorable to you, I should carry out such requests with the greatest pleasure j I am sorry indeed he did not tell me ' twas to you he owed the advice to gu ard his room ; but he said nothing of the sort, not a word did I have from him, and consequently I am obliged to l imit myself to merely complying with his orders. What you have suffered by his loss would persuade me to do something in my own name were I able to, Mademoiselle, but I am just setting up in business, I am young, my fortune i s not boundless, I am com­ pelled to render an account of Dubreuil to his family and wi thout delay ; allow me then to confine myself to the one li ttle service I beg

7 04 + THE MARQUIS DE SADE

you to accept : here are five louis and I have here as well an honest merchant from Chalon-sur-Saone, my native city ; she i s going to return there after a da y and a night's stop at Lyon where she i s called b y business mattus ; I put you into h e r keeping."

" Madame B e rtrand, " Valbois continued, "here is the young lady I spoke o f ; I recommend her to you, she wishes to procure her­ self a s i tuation. Wi th the same e a rnestness which would apply were she my own sister, I beg you to take all possible steps to find some­ thing i n our c i ty which will be suitable to her person, her birth, and her upbringing ; that un til she i s p roperly installed she incur no ex­ pense ; do see to her r equirements and I shall reimburse you im­ mediately I am home."

Valboi s besought me leave to embrace me. "Adieu , Made­ moiselle ," he continue.:], " Madame B ertrand sets o ff tomorrow at daybreak ; accompan:r her and may a li ttle more happiness a ttend you in a c ity where I � hall perhaps soon have the satisfaction o f seeing you again."

The courtesy of this young man, who was in no sort indebted to me, brought tears to my eyes. Kind treatment i s sweet indeed when for so long one has experienced naught but the most odious. I accepted his gifts, a t tho : same time swearing I was going to work at nothing but to put mys elf in a way to be able someday to recipro­ cate. Alas I I thought as I retired, though the exercise of yet another virtue has just flung me into destitution, a t least , for the first time in my life, the hope of cO ls01ation looms out of this appalling pit of evil into which Virtue h lS cast me again.

The hour was not a dvanced ; I needed a breath o f air and so went down to the Iser e embankment, desir ing to stroll there for several instants ; and, a s almost always happens under similar cir­ cumstances, my thoughts , absorbing me enti rely, led me far. Finding myself, a t length, in an isolated place, I sat down, more le isurely to ponder. However, n ig� t descended before I thought to retu rn ; of a sudden I felt myself s eized by three men : one clapped a hand over my mouth, the other t,vo precipitated me into a carriage, climbed in, and for three full h ours we sped along, during which time not one o f these brigands ddgned either to say a word to me or respond to any of my questions The blinds were drawn down, I saw noth­ ing ; the carriage came to a halt before a house, gates swung wide,

Justine + 705

we entered, the gates clanged to immediately. My abductors pick me up, lead me through several unl i t apartments, and finally leave me in one near which i s a room wherein I perceive a l ight.

"Stay here ," says one of my ravishers a s he withdraws with his companions, "you're soon going to see an old acquaintance."

And they disappear , carefully shutting all the doors. At almost the same time, that leading into the room where I had spied illumi­ nation i s opened, and carrying a candle in her hand, I see emerge . . . oh, Madame, fancy who i t was . . . Dubois . . . Dubois herself, that frightful monster, devoured, no question of it , by the most ardent desire to be revenged.

"Hither, charming girl ," sa id she in an arrogant tone, "come here and receive the reward for th e virtues . i n which you indulged yourself at my expense . . . . " And angrily clutching my hand : " . . . ah , you wretch I I ' l l teach you to betray me I"

"N 0 , Madame, no," I say in great haste , " I betrayed you not at all : inform yourself : I uttered not one word which could cause you any inquietude, no, I spoke not the least word which might compromise you."

"But did you not offer resistance to the cr ime I meditated ? have you not thwarted i t s execution, worthless crea ture ! You've got to be chastened . . . . "

And, a s we were entering, she had no time to say more. The apartment into which I was made to pass was lit with equal sumptu­ ousness and magnificence ; at the further end, reclining upon an ottoman, was a man of about forty, wearing a billowing taffeta dressing robe.

"Monseigneur ," said Dubois , p resenting me to him, "here i s the young lady you wanted, she in whom al l Grenoble has become interested . . . the celebrated Therese, to be brief, condemned to hang with the counterfeiters, then delivered thanks to her innocence and her virtue. Acknowledge that I serve you with skil l , Mon­ seigneur ; not four days ago you evinced your extreme desire to immola te her to your passions ; and today I put her into your hands ; you will perhaps prefer her to that pretty l i ttle pensionnaire from the Benedictine convent at Lyon you also desired and who should be arriving any minute : the la tter has her physical and moral integrity this one here has nothing but a sentimental chastity ; but

7 0 6 �� T H E MARQl I S DE SADE

i t i s deep-grained in he r being and nowhere will you find a creature more heavily ballasted with candor and honesty. They are both at your disposition, Monseigneur : you'll e i ther dispatch each this evening, or one today � nd the other tomorrow. As for myself, I am leaving you : your kindnesses in my regard engaged me to make you privy to my Greno jle adventure. One man dead, Monseigneur, one dead man ; I must f ly-"

"Ah no, no , charming woman I" cried the master of the place ; "no, stay, and fear not ning while you have my protection ! You are as a soul unto my plea sures ; you alone possess the art of exciting and satisfying them, and the more you multiply your crimes, the more the thought of you inflames my mind . . . . But this Therese i s a pretty thing . . . . " and addressing himself to me : "what is your age, my child ?"

"Twenty-six, Monseigneur ," I repl ied, "and much grief ." "Ha, yes , grie f indeed, lots of distress, excellent, I 'm famil iar

with all that , hugely amusing, just what I like ; we're going to straighten everything out , we' l l put a stop to these tumbles ; I guarantee you that in twenty-four hours you'll be unhappy no longer , ha ! . . . " and, with that, dreadful fl ights of l aughter . . . " ' t is true , eh, Duboi� ? I 've a sure method for ending a young girl ' s misfortunes, hav. :n 't I ?"

"Indeed you do," the odious creature replied ; "and if Therese weren ' t a friend of mil le , I 'd never have brought her to you ; but i t i s only fa i r I reward her for what she d id for me . You 'd never imagine how usefu l this dear thing was to me during my latest enterprise at Grenoble ; you, Monseigneur, have had the kindness to accept my expression of gratitude, and, I pray you , repay what l owe her with interest . "

The opaque ambi�uity o f these phrases, what Dubois had said to me upon entering, t 1e species of gentleman with whom I had to do, this other girl whose forthcoming appearance had been an­ nounced, all this instantly troubled my imagination to a degree it would be difficult to d :scribe. A cold sweat seeped from my pores and I was about to fall in a swoon-'twas at that instant this man's proj ects finally became clear to me. He calls me to him, begins with two or three kisses w 1ereby our mouths are obliged to unite ; he seeks my tongue, finds and sucks i t and his , running deep into my

Justine + 707

throat, seems to be pumping the very breath from my lungs. He has me bend my head upon h i s chest, he l ifts my ha ir and closely ob­ serves the nape of my neck.

"Oh, 'tis delicious I" he cri es , squeezing i t vigorously ; " I've never seen one so nicely attached ; ' twill be divine to make it jump free. "

This last remark confirmed all my intimations ; I saw very clearly I was once again in the clutches of one o f those libertines moved by cruel passions, whose most cherished delights consist in enjoying the agonies or the death of the luckless victims procured them by money ; I observed I wa�, in danger of losing my l i fe.

And then a knock at the door ; Dubois leaves and an instant later ushers in the young Lyonnaise she had mentioned shortly before. I 'll now try to sketch the two personages in whose company you are going to see me for a while. The Monseigneur, whose name and estate I never discovered, was, a s I told you, a man of forty years, slender, indeed slight of frame, but vigorously constituted, sinewy, with his muscles almost constantly tensed, powerful biceps showing upon arms that were covered with a growth of thick black hair ; everything about him prodaimed strength and good health ; his face was animated, his gaze ardent, his eyes small , black, and wicked, there were splendid white teeth in his mouth , and liveliness in his every feature ; his height was above average, and this man's amatory goad, which I was to have but too frequent occasion to see and feel, was roughly a foot long and above eight inches around. This incisive, nervous , constantl ), alerted and oozing instrument, ribboned with great purple veins that rendered i ts aspect still more formidable, was levitated throughout the seance, which lasted five or six hours ; never once did i t sink or falter. I had never before or since found a more hirsute man : he resembled those fauns described in fables. His powerful hands ended in fingers whose strength was that of a vice ; as for his character, i t seemed to me harsh, abrupt, cruel , his mind was inclined to that sarcasm and teasing of a sort calculated to redouble the sufferings one was per­ fectly well able to see one had to expect such a man would strive to inflict.

The l ittle Lyonnaise was called Eulalie. A glimpse o f her was enough to convince one of her distingui shed b irth and virtue : she

708 + THE MARQUIS DE SADE

was the daughter of one )f the c ity 's foremost famil ies from whose house Dubois ' criminal h i relings had abducted her under the pretext of conveying her to a rendezvous with the lover she i dol ized ; to­ gether with an enchanting forthrightness and naivete, she possessed one of the most delightful countenances imaginable. Barely s ixteen years old, Eulalie had thc! face of a genuine Madonna ; her features were embellished by an enviable innocence and modesty ; she had li ttle color but was only the more fetching for that ; and the sparkle in her superb eyes endo''Ved her pretty face with all the fire and warmth whereof, at fi rst glance, this pallor seemed to deprive her ; her rather generous mOl th was filled with the prettiest teeth, her already fully matured b reasts seemed yet whiter than her com­ plexion ; but she was no ,ense lacking in plumpness : her form was round and well furnished, all her flesh was fi rm, sweet, and succu­ lent. Dubois asserted it vTere impossible to behold a more beauti ful ass : l i t tle expert in thes � matters, you will permit me to abstain from j udging here. A fine mossy growth shadowed her fore end ; maj estic blond hair fioatc !d about all those charms, rendering them s till more p iquant ; and to complete the masterpiece, Nature, who seemed to have created it for pleasure, had endowed her with the sweetest and most lovable temperament. Tender and delicate flower, thus were you to grace the world for but an instant in order more swi ftly to be withered !

"Oh, Madame ! " sh e sa id upon recognizing Dubois , " i s i t in this way you have deceived me I . . . Just Heaven I where have you brought me 7"

"You shall see, my child ," put in the master of the house, abruptly seizing Eulalie, drawing her to him and forthwith begin­ ning his kisses while, upon his orders, I excited him with one hand.

Eulalie sought to protect herself, but, thrusting the girl toward the libertine, Dubois eliminated all possibility o f her escape. The sitting was long ; for very fresh, new-blown was that flower, and the hornet's desire to drain i ts pollen was commensurately great . His i terated suckings were succeeded by an inspection o f Eulalie ' s neck ; betimes, I palpated his member a n d felt i t throb w i t h growing insistence.

"Well , " said Monse igneur, "here are two victims who shall fill my cup o f j oy to ovc :rflowing : Dubois , you shall be well paid,

Jus tin e + 709

for I am well served. Let 's move into my boudoi r ; follow us, dear woman, come," he continued as he l ed us away ; "you'll leave to­ night, but I need you for the party."

Dubois resigns herself, and we pass into the debauchee's pleas­ ure chamber, where we are stripped naked.

Oh, Madame, I shall not attempt to represent the infamies of which I was at once victim and witness. This monster 's pleasures were those of the executioner ; his unique j oy consisted in decapitat­ ing. My luckless companion . . . oh, no I Madame . . . no I do not require me to finish . . . I was about to share her fate ; spurred on by Dubois , the villain had decided to render my torture yet more horrible when both experienced a need to revive their strength ; whereupon they sat down to eat . . . . What a debauch I But ought I complain ? for d id it not save my l i fe ? Besotted with wine, ex­ hausted by overeating, both fell dead drunk and slumbered amidst the I i tter that remained from their feast. No sooner do I see them collapse than I leap to the skirt and mantle Dubois had just re­ moved in order to appear more immodest in her patron's view ; I snatch up a candle and spring toward the stairway : this house, di­ vested, or nearly so, of servants, contains nothing to frustrate my escape, I do encounter someone, I put on a terrified air and cry to him to make all haste to relieve hi:> master who is dying, and I reach the door without meeting further obstacles . I have no acquaintance with the roads, I ' d not been allowed to see the one whereby we had come, I take the first I see . . . 'tis the one leading to Grenoble ; there i s nothing denied us when fortune deigns momentarily to smile upon us ; at the inn everyone was still abed, I enter secretly and fly to Valbois ' room, knock, Valbois wakes and scarcely recognizes me in my disordered state ; he demands to know what has befallen me, I relate the horrors whereof I was simultaneously an observer and object.

"You can have Dubois arrested," I tell him, "she's not far from here, I might even be able to point out the way . . . . Quite apart from all her other crimes, the wretch has taken both my clothing and the five louis you gaye me."

"0 Therese," says Valbois, " there's no denying it , you are without doubt the unluckiest girl on earth, but, nevertheless, my honest creature, do you not perceive, amidst all these afflictions

7 1 0 + T H E MARQUIS DE SADE

which beset you, a celestial arm that saves yOU ? may that be unto you as one additional mo tive for perpetual vi rtuousness, for never do good deeds go unrewa rded. We will not chase after Dubois , my reasons for letting her fO in peace are the same you expounded yesterday, let us simplY 'epa ir the harm she has done you : here, first of all, i s the money ,he stole from you. In an hour' s t ime I' l l have a seamstress bring two complete outfits for you, and some linen.

"But you have got t.> leave, Therese, you must leave this very day, Bertrand expects YO J , I 've persuaded her to delay her depar­ ture a few hours more, jo in her . . . . "

"0 virtuous young nan," I cried, falling into my benefactor's a rms, "may Heaven som�day repay you for the kindness you have done me."

"Ah, Therese," sa id Valbois , embracing me, "the happiness you wish me . . . I 've en: oyed it already, 't is presently mine, since your own i s my doing . . . fa re thee well ."

And thus i t was I Ie ft Grenoble , Madame, and though I had not found in that c ity all the felicity I had imagined was awaiting me there, at least I had 'lever met in another so many kindly and goodhearted people assembled to sympathize with or assuage my woes.

My conductress and I were in a small covered carriage drawn by one horse we drove fwm within ; we had with us, beside Madame Bertrand's baggage, her Jaby girl of fifteen months whom she was s ti l l suckling and for wh.)m I straightway, to my vast misfortune, formed an attachment qu i te as deep as was that o f the mother who had brought the infant into the world.

She was, this Bert �and, an unattractive person, suspicious, gossipy, noi sy, monotonous, and dull-wi tted. Every night we regularly emptied the cat riage and transported everything into our inn and then went to sleep in the same room. Until Lyon, everything went along very smoothl y, but during the th ree days this woman needed for her business dealings, I fell upon someone I was far from expecting to encour ter in that city.

Together with girls from the hotel whom I had got to accom­ pany me, I would take walks on the Rhone quay ; one day I all of a sudden espied the Reve rend Father Antonin formerly of Saint

Jus tine .. 7 1 1

Mary-in-the-Wood, now superior in charge o f his order's establi sh­ ment located in that city . That monk accosted me and after rebuk­ ing me in a very low and still sharper tone for my flight, and having given me to understand I would be running great risks of recapture were he to relay information to the Burgundian monastery, he added, softening his manner, tha t he would not breathe a word i f I should be willing that very instant to come to visit him in his new quarters and to bring with me the girl I was with, who struck him as worth having ; then repeating his proposal aloud, and to this other creature : "We shall reward you handsomely, both of you," quoth the monster ; "there are t en of us in our house, and I promise you a minimum of one louis f:om each i f your complacency is unlimi ted." I flush crimson upon hearing these words ; I spend a moment trying to convince the monk he has made a mistake ; failing at that, I attempt to use signs to i nduce him to be silent, but nothing prevails with this insolent fellow, and his solicitations become only the more heated ; at last having received repeated refusals , he de­ mands to know our address ; in order to get rid of him, I immedi­ ately give a fictitious one, he writes it down, and leaves us with the assurance we will soon meet again.

Upon retu rning to our inn I explained a s best I could the history of thi s unfortunate acquaintance ; but whether my com­ panion was not at all satisfied by what I told her , or whether she may perhaps have been exceedingly annoyed by my virtuous per­ formance which deprived her of an adventure wherefrom she might have earned much, she waggled her tongue , the effects of which were only too pla inly revealed by Bertrand's remarks upon the occasion of the deplorable catastrophe I am going to relate to you in a moment ; however, the monk never did reappear, and we left Lyon.

Having quit the city late, we could get no further than Ville­ franche that day, and there we stopped for the night ; ' twas in tha t town, Madame, there took place the horrible event which today causes me to appear before you in a criminal guise , a lthough I was no more a malefactor in that one of my life's fateful circumstances than in any other of those where you have observed me so unjustly assaulted by the blows of fate ; and as in many another instance, so

7 1 2 + THE MARQUW DE SADE

this time I was flung into the abyss by nothing other than the good­ ness of my heart and the wickedness of men.

Having made Ville franche toward six o 'clock in the evening, we supped in haste and retired directly, that we might be able to undertake a longer stage on the morrow ; we had not been two hours in bed when a dreadful Hmell of smoke roused us from sleep ; con­ vinced the fl ames are nea at hand, we get instantly from bed. Just Heaven ! the havoc wrOl ght by the fire was already but too fright­ ful ; half-naked, we open our door and all around us hear nothing but the fracas of collaps : ng walls, the noise of burning timbers and woodwork and the shrie k.s of those who had fallen into the blaze ; surrounded by devourinj:: : fl ames we have no idea in which direction to run ; to escape their 1'iolence, we rush past them and soon find ourselves lost in a milling crush of wretches who, like ourselves, are seeking salvation in fl ight ; a t thi s point I remember that my con­ ductress, more concerned for her own than for her child's safety, has not thought of preserving i t from death ; without a word to the woman, I fly to our chamber, having to pass through the conflagra­ tion and to sustain burns in several places : I snatch up the poor little creature, spring forward to restore her to her mother : I advance along a half-consumed beam, miss my footing, instinctively thrust out my hands, this natural reflex forces me to release the precious burden in my arms . . . i t slips from my grasp and the unlucky child falls into the inferno be fore i ts own mother's eyes ; at this instant I am myself se ized . . . carried away ; too upset to be able to dis­ tinguish anything, I am unaware whether 't is aid or peril which surrounds me but, to my grief, I am but too fully enlightened when, flung into a post chaise, I discover myself beside Dubois who, clap­ ping a pistol to my head , threatens to blow out my brains if I utter a syllable . . .

"Ah, li ttle villa in," says she, "I 've got you now and this time for good."

"Oh, Madame I YOl l ?" I exclaim. "Here ?" "Everything that h a s just transpired is my doing, " the monster

replies, " ' twas by arson I saved your l ife ; and by a fire you're going to lose i t : in order to catch you I'd have followed you to Hell had i t been necessary. Momeigneur was furious, beli eve me, when he found out you had escaped ; I get two hundred louis for every girl

Jus tine + 7 1 3

I procure him, and not only did h e not want to pay me for Eulal ie , but he menaced me wi th all his anger could produce were I to fai l to bring you back . I di scovered I 'd missed you by two hours at Lyon ; yesterday I reached Villefranche an hour a fter your arrival, I had the hotel burned by the henchmen I always have i n my em­ ploy, I wanted to incinerate you o r get you back ; I 've got you, I 'm returning you to a house your fl ight has plunged into trouble and unquiet, and I'm taking you there,. Therese, to be treated in a cruel manner. Monseigneur swore he 'd not have tortures terrible enough for you, and we'll not step from this carriage until we are at his seat. Well , Therese, what is your present opinion of Virtue ?"

"Oh, Madame ! tha t i t is very frequently crime's prey ; that i t i s happy when triumphant ; bu t tha t i t ought to be the unique obj ect of the Heavenly God's rewards even though human atrocities bring about its downfall upon earth."

"You've not long to wait before you know, Therese , whether there i s really a God who punishes or recompenses the deeds o f mortals . . . . Ah I i f, in the eternal inexistence you a r e shortly going to enter, if ' twere possible to cogi tate in that state of annihi lation, how much you would regret the fruitless sacrifices your inflexible stubbornness has forced you to make to phantoms who have never doled out any but the wages of sorrow . . . . Therese, there i s yet time left to you : if you wish to be my accomplice I'll save you, for, I avow, 't is more than I can bear to see you break down ever and ever again upon Virtue 's routes all be:;et by perils. What ! are you not yet sufficiently punished for your good behavior and false princi­ pies ? What kind of misery do you have to know in order to be persuaded to mend your ways ? 'Nhat then are the examples you require in order to be convinced the a ttitude you have adopted is the worst of all and that, as I have told you a hundred times over, one must expect nothing but calamity when, breasting the crowd's headlong stampede, one wishes to be virtuous and alone in a com­ pletely corrupt society. You count upon an avenging God ; cease to be a gull , Therese, disabuse yourself, the God you fabricate for yourself is but a fiction whose stupid existence is never found else­ where but in the heads of the crazed ; 't is a phantom invented by human wickedness ; the sol i tary purpose of this illusion is to deceive mankind or to create armed divisions among men. The greatest

7 1 4 .. THE MARQUH DE SADE

service it were possible 1 :0 render humankind would have been in­ stantly to cut the throat of the first impostor who took it into his head to speak of God to men. How much blood that one murder would have spared the u 1iverse ! Get on, get on with you, Therese, perpetually active Nature, Nature acting always, has no need of a master for her governm ent. And if indeed this master did exist, a fter all the faults and sins with which he has stuffed creation, would he, think you, would he merit anything from us but scorn and out­ rage ? Ah, if he exists, your God, how I do hate him ! Therese, how I abhor him I Yes, were this existence authentic, I affirm that the mere pleasure of perpetl ally irr itating whatever I found that bore his impress or bespoke 1is touch would become for me the most p recious compensation fe r the necessity in which I would find myself to acknowledge some bel ef in him . . . . Once again, Therese , do you wish to become my confderate ? A superb possibility presents i tself, with courage we can execute the thing ; I ' ll save your l ife i f you'll undertake it . This Monseigneur to whose house we are going, and whom you know, lives al ,me in the country house where he gives his parties ; their species, wi th which you are famil iar , requires isola­ tion ; a single valet lives with him when he takes up residence there for the sake of his pleai ,ures : the man riding ahead of the coach, you and I , dear girl, that's three of us against two ; when that libertine i s inflamed by h :s lecheries , I' l l snatch away the saber with which he decapitates his victims, you'll hold him, we'll kill him, and meanwhile my man will have done in the valet. There's money h idden in that house ; more than eight hundred thousand francs, Therese, I 'm sure of it the thing's well worth the trouble . . . . Choose, clever creature, decide : death or an all iance ; i f you betray me, if you expose my plall to him, I 'll accuse you of having contrived it alone, and don ' t doub : for a moment that the confidence he has always had in me will ti p the balance my way . . . think carefully before you give me you r answer : this man is a vil lain ; hence, by assassinating him we merely aid the law whose rigorous treatment he deserves. A day doe s not go by, Therese, without this rascal murdering a girl ; i s it d en to outrage Virtue by punishing Crime ? And does the reasonabl, ; proposition I make you still alarm your wild principles ?"

"Be certain of it , Madame," I answered ; "it is not with the

Jus tine + 7 1 5

object of chastening. crime you propose this deed, it is rather with the sole intention of committing one yourself j consequently there cannot be but great evil in doing what you suggest, and no sem­ blance of legitimacy can appear thereupon j better still, even were you to intend to avenge humanity for this man's horrors, you would still be committing evil by doing so, for this is not a problem which concerns you : there are laws decreed to punish the guilty j let those laws take their course, i t i s not unt,o our feeble hands the Supreme Being has entrusted their sword, n ever might we wield that blade without affronting justice ."

"Well, then you'll have to die, worthless creature," retorted the furious Dubois , "you'll die j don't tease yourself with hopes of escaping your fate."

"What matters i t to me ?" I calmly answered, "I shall be delivered of all the ills that assail me ; death holds no terrors for me, 't is life's last sl eep, 't is the downtrodden's haven of repose . . . . "

And, upon these words, that savage beast sprang at me, I thought she was going to strangle me ; she struck several blows upon my breast, but released me, however, immediately I cried out, for she feared lest the postilion hear me.

We were moving along at a brisk pace ; the man who was r id ing ahead arranged for new horses and we stopped only long enough to change teams. As the new pair was being harnessed, Dubois suddenly raised her weapon and clapped i t to my heart . . . what was she about to do ? . . . Indeed, my exhaustion and my situation had beaten me down to the point of preferring death to the ordeal of keeping it at bay.

We were then preparing to enter Dauphine, o f a sudden six ho rsemen, galloping at top speed behind our coach, overtook it and, with drawn cutlasses, forced our driver to h alt. Thirty feet off the hi ghway was a cottage to which these cavaliers, whom we soon identified as constables, ordered the driver to lead the car­ riage ; when we were alongside it , we were told to get out, and all three of us entered the peasant's dwelling. With an effrontery unthinkable in a woman soiled with unnumbered crimes, Dubois , who found herself arrested, a rchly demanded o f these officers whether she were known to them, and with what right they com­ ported themselves thus with a wom an of her rank.

7 1 6 .. T H E MARQUIS DE SADE

"We have not the honor of your acquaintance, Madame," re­ pl ied the officer in charge o f the squadron ; "but we are certain you have in your carriage the wretch who yesterday set fire to the principal hotel in Villefranche" ; then, eyeing me closely : "she answers the description, Madame, we are not in error ; have the kindness to surrender r er to us and to inform us how a person as respectable as you appl: ar to be could have such a woman in your keeping."

"\Vhy, 't is very r �adily accounted for ," repl ied Dubois with yet greater insolence, "and, I declare , I 'l l neither hide her from you nor take her side in tb e matter if 'tis certain she i s guilty of the horrible crime you Spf ak of. I too was staying at that hotel in Villefranche, I left in the midst of al l the commotion and as I am getting into my coach, this girl runs up, begs my compassion, says she has just lost ev erything in the fire , and implores me to take her with me to Lyon where she hopes to be able to find a place. Far less attentive to my rea son than to my heart 's promptings, I acqui­ e sced, consented to fetc h her along ; once in the carriage she offered herself as my servant ; once again imprudence led me to agree to everything and I have been taking her to Dauphine where I have my properties and fami ly : 'tis a lesson, assuredly, I presently recog­ nize with utmost claritr all o f pity's shortcomings ; I shall not again be gui lty of them. There she is , gentlemen, there she i s ; God forbid that I should be intere! ;ted in such a monster, I abandon her to the law's severest penaltie! , and, I beseech you, take every step to p re­ vent i t from being known tha t I committed the unfortunate mistake of l ending an instant's :redence to a single word she uttered."

I wished to defe n.d myself, I wanted to denounce the true villain ; my speeches v'ere interpreted as calumniatory recrimina­ tions to which Duboi s opposed nothing but a contemptuous smile . o fatal effects of miSt ry and biased prepossession, of wealth and of insolence I \Vere it thinkable that a woman who had herself called Madame la Ba ronne de Fulconis , who proclaimed a high degree and di splayed ' )pulence, who asserted she owned extensive holdings and arrogated a family to herself ; were it to be conceived that such a personage could be gui lty of a crime wherefrom she did not appear to have th � slightest thing to gain ? And, on the other

Jus tin e + 7 1 7

hand, did not everything condemn me ? I was unprotected, I was poor, 'twas a very sure thing I'd done a fell deed.

The squadron officer read me the catalogue o f Bertrand's deposed charges. 'Twas she had accused me ; I'd set the inn afire to pillage her with greater ease , and :,he'd been robbed indeed to her last penny ; I 'd flung her infant into the flames in order that, blinded by the despa ir with which this event would overwhelm her, she'd forget all else and give not a thought to my maneuvers ; and, further­ more, Bertrand had added, I was a girl o f suspect virtue and bad habits who had escaped the gallows at Grenoble and whom she had only taken in charge, very foolishly, thanks to the excessive kindness she had shown a young man from her own district, my lover, no doubt. I had publicly and in broad d aylight solicited monks in Lyon : in one word, there was nothing the: unworthy creature had not ex­ ploited in order to seal my doom, no thing that calumny whetted by despa ir had not invented in ord,�r to besmirch me. Upon the woman's insistence, a juridical examination had been conducted on the premises. The fire had begun in a hayloft into which several persons had taken oath I had entered the evening of that fatal day, and that was true. Searching for a water closet to which I had not been very clearly directed by a maid I had consulted, I had entered this loft having failed to locate the sought a fter place, and there I had remained long enough to make what I was accused of plausible, or at least to furnish probabil it ies 0 f its truth ; and 'tis well known : in this day and age those are proofs. And so, do what I could to defend myself, the officer's single response was to ready his mana­ cles.

"But, Monsieur ," I expostulated before allowing him to put me in i rons, "if I robbed my traveling companion at Villefranche, the money ought to be found upon my person ; search me."

This ingenuous defense merely excited laughter ; I was assured I'd not been alone, that they were certain I had accomplices to whom, as I fled, I had transferred the stolen funds. Then the malicious Dubois , who knew of the brand which to my misfortune Rodin had burned upon my flesh long ago , in one instant Dubois put all sympathy to rout.

"Monsieur ," sa id she to the officer, "so many mistakes are committed every day in affairs of this sort that you will forgive me

7 1 8 1- T H E MARQ JIS DE SADE

for the idea tha t occu -s to me : if this girl is guilty of the atrocity she is accused of i t i s lmrely not her first ; the character required to execute crimes of this variety is not attained in a night : and so I beg you to examine this girl , Monsieur . . . were you to find, by chance, something up('n her wretched body . . . but if nothing de- nounces her , allow m( to defend and protect her ."

The officer agree d to the verifica tion . . . i t was about to be carried out . . .

"One moment, :l\1onsieur ," said I , "stay ; th is search i s to no purpose ; Madame lm)ws full well I bear the frightful mark ; she also knows very well what misfortune caused i t to be put on me : this subterfuge o f her ; i s the crowning horror which will , together with all the rest, be revealed at Themis' own temple . Lead me away, Messieurs : hen: are my hands, load them with chains ; only C rime blushes to carry them, stricken Virtue is made to groan there­ by, but is not terrified. "

"Truth to tell , " quoth Dubois , "I 'd never have dreamt my idea would have such success ; but as this creature repays my kind­ ness by insidious inculpations, I am willing to return with her if you deem it necessary."

"There's no neec whatsoever to do so, Madame la Baronne ," rejoined the officer, " th i s girl i s our quarry : her avowals, the mark branded on her body, i t all condemns her ; we need no one else , and we beg your pardon � thousand times over for having caused you this protracted incom enience."

I was handcuffed immediately, flung upon the crupper o f one of the constables' mounts, and Dubois went off, not before she had completed her insults by giving a few crowns to my guards, which generously bestowed silver was to aid me during my melancholy soj ourn while awaiting trial .

o Virtue ! I cried when I perceived myself brought to this dreadful humiliation ; couldst thou suffer a more penetrating out­ rage ! Were i t possibk that C rime might dare affront thee and van­ quish thee with so much insolence and impunity!

We were soon come to Lyon ; upon arrival I was cast into the keep reserved for criminals and there I was inscribed as an arsonist, harlot , child-murderer, and thief.

Seven persons h ld been burned to death in the hotel ; I had

Ills tille ,� 7 1 9

myself thought I might be ; I had been on the verge o f peri shing ; but she who had been the cause of this horror was eluding the law's vigilance and Heaven's justice : she was triumphant, she was flying on to new crimes whereas, innocent and unlucky, I had naught for prospect but dishonor, castigation, and death.

For such a long time habituated to calumny, injustice, and wretchedness ; destined, since childhood, to acquit myself of not a single vi rtuous deed o r feel a singl e r ighteous sentiment without suffering instant retribution therefor, my anguish was rather mute and blunted than rending, and I shed fewer tears than I might have supposed . . . however, as 'tis instinctive in the distressed creature to seek after every possible device to extricate himself from the chasm into which his ill-fortune has plunged him, Father Antonin came to my mind ; whatever the mediocre rel ief I could hope from him, I did not deny to myself I was anxious to see him : I asked for him, he appeared. He had not been informed of by whom he was desired ; he affected not to recognize me ; whereupon I told the turn­ key that it was indeed possible he bd forgotten me, having been my confessor only when I was very young, but, I continued, it was as my soul 's director I solicited a private interview with him. 'Twas agreed by both parties. As soon as 1 was alone with this holy man I cast myself at his knees, rained tears upon them and besought him to save me from my cruel situation ; I proved my innocence to him ; I did not conceal that the culpable proposals he had made me some days before had p rovoked my young companion's enmity, and presently, said I , she accused me ovt of spite. The monk li stened attentively.

"Therese ," said he when I wa s done, "don't lose control of yoursel f as you customarily do when someone contradicts your damnable prejudices ; you notice to what a pass they've brought you, and you can at present readily convince yoursel f that it's a hundred times better to be a rascal and happy than well-behaved and unprosperous ; your case i s as bad as i t possibly could be, dear girl , there' s nothing to be gained by hi ding the fact from you : this Dubois you speak of , having the largest benefits to reap from your doom, will unquestionably labor behind the scene to ruin you ; Ber­ trand will accuse you, all appearances stand against you, and, these days, appearances are sufficient grounds for decreeing the death

720 + THE MARQIT IS DE SADE

sentence : you are, her ce , lost, 'tis plain : one singl e means migh t save you : 1 get on well with the bail iff, he has considerable influence with this city's magistr lture ; I'm going to tell him you are my niece, and that by this titl e 1 am claiming you : he'll dismiss the entire business : I' ll ask to sen d you back to my family ; I ' l l have you taken away, but ' twill be to O .1r monastery and incarceration there , whence you'll never emerge . . and there, why conceal i t ? YOll , Therese , will be the bounden sb ve of my caprices, you'll sate them al l with. out a murmur ; as well , you will submit yoursel f to my col leagues : in a word, you will be as utterly mine as the most subordinated of victims . . . you heed me : the task i s hard ; you know what are the passions of libertines I)f our variety ; so make up your mind, and make me prompt answer."

"Begone, Father, " 1 replied, horror-struck, "begone, you are a monster to dare so c : -uelly take advantage of my ci rcumstances in order to force upon me : the al ternatives of death or infamy ; I shall know how to die , i f die 1 must, but ' twill be to die sinless ."

"As you like ," quoth the cruel man as he prepared to with· draw ; "I have never been one to impose happiness upon reluctant people . . . . Virtue has so handsomely served you until the present, Therese, you are quite right to worship at its altar . . . good.bye : above all , let it not occur to you to ask for me again."

He was leaving ; an unconquerable impulse drew me to his knees yet another tim( .

"Tiger ! " I excla med through my tears , "open your granite heart, let my appallinE misadventures melt it , and do not, in order to conclude them, do not impose conditions more dreadful to me than death i tself . . . . '

The violence of T1y movements had disturbed what veiled my breast, i t was naked, ny di sheveled hair fell in cascades upon it , i t was wetted thoroughl y by my tears ; I quicken desires in the dis· honest man . . . desin:s he wants to satisfy on the spot ; he dares di scover to me to what point my state a rouses them ; he dares dream of pleasures lying in t he middle of the chains binding me and be­ neath the sword which is poised to smite me . . . I was upon my knees . . . he fl ings me backward, leaps upon me, there we lie upon the wretched straw I 1lse for a bed ; I wish to cry out, he stuffs his handkerchief into my mouth ; he ties my arms ; master o f me, the

Ius tine + 7 2 1

in famous creature examines m e everywhere . . . everything becomes prey to h i s gaze , his fingerings, his perfidious caresses ; a t last, he appeases h is desires.

"Listen to me," says he, untyi ng me and readjusting his cos­ tume, "you do not want me to be helpful , all very well ; I am leaving you ; I ' ll ne i ther aid nor harm you , but i f i t enters your head to breathe a word of what has just happened, I will, by charging you with yet more enormous crimes, instantly deprive you of all means of defending yoursel f ; refl ect carefully before j abbering . . . I am taken for your confessor . . . now hark : we are permitted to reveal anything and all when 'tis a question o f a criminal ; fully approve what I am going to say to your warden, or else I'll crush you like a fly."

He knocks, the j ailer appears. " M onsieur," says the traitor, "the nice young lady i s in error ;

she wished to speak to a Father Antonin who is now in Bordeaux ; I have no acquaintance of her, never have I even set eyes upon her : she besought me to hear her confession, I did so, I salute you and her and shall always be ready to present myself when my ministry i s esteemed important."

Upon u ttering these words, Antonin departs and leaves me as much bewildered by his fraudulence as revolted by his l ibertinage and insolence.

My s i tuation was so dreadful that, whatever it might be, I could ill a fford not to employ every means at my disposal ; I recol­ l ected M onsieur de Saint-Florent : in the l ight of my behavior toward h im, I was incapable of bel i eving this man could under­ estimate my character ; once long a go I had rendered him a most important service, he had dealt most cruelly with me, and therefore I imagined he could not, in my presently critical pl ight, very well re fuse to make reparation for the wrongs he had done me ; no, I was sure he would at least have to acknowledge, as best he were able , what I had so generously done in his behalf ; passions' heat might have bl inded him upon the two occasions I had h eld com­ merce with h im ; there had been some sort of excuse for his former horrors, but in this instance, it seemed to me, no feeling 5hould p revent h im from coming to my aid . . . . Would h e renew his last proposals ? to the assistance I was going to request from him would

7 2 2 + T H E MA R Q l I S DE SADE

he a ttach the condi tio 1 I must agree to the frightful employments he had outl ined to me before ? ah, very well ! 1'd accept and, once free, I should easi ly di scover the means to extri cate mysel f from the abominable kind 0 ; existence into which he might have the base­ ness to lure me. Full o( these ideas, I write a letter to him, I describe my miseries , I beg hirr, to vis it me ; but I had not devoted adequate thought to analyzing th i s man's soul when I supposed i t susceptible of infil tration by benel i cence ; I e ither did not sufficiently remember h i s appall ing theories , or my wretched weakness constantly forcing me to use my own he� rt as the standard by which to judge others, fancied thi s man was bound to comport himself toward me as I should certa inly have done toward him.

He arrives ; and, as I h ave asked to see him alone, he i s freely introduced into my ce I . From the marks of respect showered pro­ fusely upon him it w� s easy to determine the eminent position he held in Lyon.

"Why, it's you !" said he, casting scornful eyes upon me, "I was deceived by the ldter ; I thought i t wri tten by a woman more honest than you and whom I would have helped with all my heart ; but what would you have me do for an imbecile of your breed ? \Vhat ! you're guilty of a hundred crimes one more shocking than the other, and when s omeone suggests a way for you to earn your l ivel ihood you stubbornly reject the proposal ? Never has stupidity been carried to these l engths ."

"Oh, Monsieur !" I cr ied, "I am not in the least gui l ty." "Then what the devil must one do in order to be ?" the harsh

creature sharply rej oi led. "The first time in my l i fe I cl apped eyes on you, there you were, in the thick of a pack of bandits who wanted to assassinate me ; an, I now i t i s in the municipal pri son I di scover you, accused of three or four new crimes and wearing, so they tell me, a mark on your shoulder wh ich proclaims your former mis­ deeds. I f that i s what you designate by the word honest, do in form me of what i t would r �quire not to be."

"Just Heaven, l\1onsieur ! " I repl ied, "can you excoriate that period in my li fe whe l I knew you, and should i t not rather be for me to make you blus 1 at the memory of what passed then ? You know very well , Monsieur, the bandits who captured you, and amongst whom you found me, kept me with them by force ; they

Jus tine + 7 23

wanted to kill you, I saved your l i fe by facil itating your escape while making mine ; and what, cruel man, did you do to thank me for my a id ? i s it possibl e you can recall your actions without horror ? You yourself wanted to murder me ; you dazed me by terrible blows and, profiting from my half-unconscious state, you snatched from me what I prized most highly ; through an unexampled refinement of cruelty , you plundered me of the l ittle money I possessed qui te as i f you had des ired to summon humiliation and misery to complete your victim's obliteration! And g;reat was your success , barbaric one ! indeed, i t has been entire ; ' tis you who precipitated me into desola tion ; ' t i s you who made the abyss to yawn, and ' t i s thanks to you I fell into i t and have not ceased to fall since that accursed moment.

"N evertheless, Monsieur, I would forget i t all , yes, everything is effaced from my memory , I even ask your pardon for daring to upbraid you for wha t is past , but can you hide from yourself the fact that some recompense, some gratitude is owing to me ? Ah, deign not to seal up your heart wt en the wing of death brushes i ts shadow over my unhappy days ; ' tis not death I fear, but disgrace ; save me from the dread horror of a criminal 's end : all I demand from you comes to that single mercy, refuse me it not, and both Heaven and my heart will reward you someday."

I was weeping, I was upon my knees before this ferocious man and, far from reading upon his hce the effect I thought I should be able to expect from the disturbances I flattered myself I was producing in h is soul, I distingu i shed nothing but a muscul ar altera­ tion caused by that sort of lust whose germinal origins are in cruel ty. Saint-Florent was seated opposite me ; his wicked dark eyes considered me in a dreadful manner, and I noticed h is hand glide to a certain sector and his fingers begin to perform those cer­ tain motions which indicated I was putting him in a state which was by no means that of pity ; he concealed himself withal, and, getting to his feet :

"Look here ," he said, "your case rests entirely in the hands of Monsieur de Cardovil le ; I need not tell you what official post he occupies ; i t suffices that you know your fate depends absolutely upon him ; he and I have been intimate friends since childhood ; I shall speak to him ; if he agrees to a few arrangements, you will be called

724 .. T H E l\lARQt; S DE SADE

for a t sunset and in ord �r that he may see you, you'll be brought to e ither his home or mine ; such an interrogation, wrapped in secrecy, will make it much simJler to turn matters in your favor, which could not possibly be done here. If he consents to bestow the favor , just ify yourself when yc u have your interview with him, prove your innocence to him in a F > ersuasive manner ; that i s all I can do for you. Adieu, Therese, Lep yourself ready for any eventuality and above all do not have ne waste my time taking futi le measures ." Saint-Florent left .

Nothing could han equaled my perplexi ty ; there had been so l i ttle harmony between that man's remarks, the character I knew him to have, and his actual conduct, that I dreaded yet further p itfalls ; but, Madame, pause a moment and decide whether I was right o r wrong ; was I in a posit ion to hesi tate ? for my position was desperate ; and wa ; I not obliged to leap at everything which had the semblance o f a� s istance ? Hence I decided to accompany the persons who would come to fe tch me ; should I be compelled to p rost itute myself , I would put up what defense I could ; was it to dea th I was to be led ? too bad ; i t would not, at least , be ignomin­ ious, and I would be ri d of all my sufferings. Nine o'clock strikes, the j a i ler appears , I tremble .

"Follow me , " tha t Cerberus says ; "you are wanted by Mes­ s ieurs Saint-Florent and de Cardoville ; consider well and take advantage, as it befits y .m, of the favor Heaven offers you ; there are many here who might desire such a blessing and who wil l never obtain it ."

Arrayed a s best I am able , I follow the warden who puts me into the keeping of two strange tall fellows whose savage aspect doubles my fright ; not a word do they utter ; the carriage rolls off and we halt before an mmense mansion I soon recognize as Saint­ Florent's . Si lence ensl rouds everything ; it augments my dread, however, my guides gr ISP my arms, hustle me along, and we climb to the fourth floor ; the re we di scover a number of small decorated apartments ; they seem to me very mysterious indeed. As we progress through them every door closes shut behind us, and thus we advance till we reaC l a remote room in which, I notice, there a re no windows ; Saint-Flo "ent awai ts me, and also the man I am told is Monsieur de Cardov lle, in whose hands my case rests ; this heavy-

Jus tin e c� 7 2 5

set, fleshy personage, provided with a somber and feral counte­ nance, could have been about fi fty years of age ; although he was in lounging costume, ' twas readily to be seen he was a gentleman of the bar. An a ir of severity seemed to distinguish his entire aspect ; it made a deep impression upon me. 0 cruel injustice of Providence ! 't is then possible Virtue may be overawed by C rime. The two men who had led me hither, and whom I was better able to make out by the gleam of the twenty candles which l i t this room, were not above twenty-five and thirty years old. The first, referred to as La Rose, was a dark handsome chap with Hercules' own figure ; he seemed to me the elder ; the other had m ore effeminate features, the love­ l iest chestnut locks and large brown eyes ; he was at least five feet ten inches tall, a very Adonis , had the finest skin to be seen, and was called Julien. As for Saint-Florent, you are acquainted with him ; as much o f coarseness in his traits as in his character, yet , nevertheless, certain splendid features.

"Everything i s secured fast ?" Saint-Florent asked Julien. "We're well shut in, yes, Monsieur," the young man replied ;

"your servants are off for the night in accordance with your orders and the gatekeeper, who alone is on watch, will follow his in­ structions to admit no one under any circumstances." These few words enlightened me, I shivered, but what could I h ave done, con­ fronted as I was by four men ?

"Sit down over there, my friends ," said C ardoville , kissing the two men, "we'll call for your co-op eration when the need arises."

Whereupon Saint-Florent spoke up : "Therese," said he , pre­ senting me to Cardoville , "here is your judge, this is the man upon whom your fate depends ; we have discussed your problem ; but i t appears to me that your crimes are o f such a nature we wil l have much to do to come to terms about them. "

" S h e has exactly forty-two witnesses against h e r , " remarks Cardoville , who takes a seat upon Julien's knees, who kisses him upon the l ips, and who permits his fingers to stray over the young man's body in the most immodest fashion ; " it 's a perfect age since we condemned anyone to die for crimes more conclusively estab­ lished. "

"I ? Conclusively established crimes ?" " Conclusively established or inconclusively established, " quoth

726 + T H E MARQ UI S DE SADE

CardoviIle, getting to h i s feet and coming up to shout, with much effrontery, at my very n ,)se , "you're going to burn pissing if you do not, with an entire resignation and the blindest obedience, instantly lend yourself to everyth ng we are going to require of you."

"Yet further horrors I" I cried ; "ah indeed ! 't is then only by yielding to infamies im ocence can escape the snares set for i t by the wicked! "

"That's i t ; ' tis ordained ," Saint-Florent broke in j "you know, my dear : the weak yield to the strong's desires, or fall victims to their wi ckedness : that's all : that's your whole story, Therese, there­ fore obey."

And while he spok: the libertine nimbly pulled up my skirts. I recoiled, fended him off, horrified, but, having reeled backward into Cardoville's arms, the l a tter grasped my hands and thereupon ex­ posed me, defenseless, t ,) h is colleague 's assaults. The ribbons hold­ ing up my skirts were ( ut, my bodice torn away, my kerchief , my blouse , all were remov.!d, and in no time I found myself before those monsters' eyes a s naked as the day I came into the world.

"Resistance . . . " said one. "Resistance , " chimed in the other, both proceeding to des Joil me, "the whore fancies she can resist us . . . . " and not a garment was ripped from my body without my receiving a few blows.

When I was in the state they wished, they drew up their chairs, which were provided 'vith protruding armrests j thus a narrow space between the chairs was left and into i t I was deposited ; and thus they were able to s :udy me at their leisure : while one regarded my fore end, the other mused upon my behind ; then they turned me round, and turned me a gain. In this way I was stared at , handled, kissed for thirty minute ; and more ; during this examination not one lubricious episode was neglected, and I thought it safe to conjecture, upon the basis of thos,: preliminaries , that each had roughly the same idiosyncrasies.

"Well, now," Sain t-Florent sa id to his friend, "did I not tell you she had a splendid ass I"

"Yes, by God I her behind i s sublime," said the jurist who there­ upon kissed i t ; " I 've seen damned few buttocks molded like these : why I look ye I solid and fresh at the same time ! . . . how d'ye sup­ pose that fits with such a tempestuous career ?"

Jus tine 7 2 7

"Why, i t' s s imply that she ' s never given herself of her own accord ; I told you there 's nothing as whimsical as this girl ' s ex­ ploits ! She's never been had but by rape"-and then he drives his five fingers simultaneously into the peristyle of Love' s temple-"but she's been had . . . unfortunately, for i t ' s much too capacious for me : accustomed to virgins, I could never put up with this ."

Then, swinging me around, he repeated the same ceremony with my behind wherein he found the same fl aws.

"Ah well, you know our secret," said Cardoville. "And I 'l l employ i t too," repl ied Saint-Flo rent ; " and you who

have no need of the same resour:e , you , who are content with a factitious activi ty which, although painful for the woman, never­ theless brings enjoyment of her to perfection, you , I hope, will not ha ve her till I 'm done."

"Fair enough ," Cardoville answered, "while watching you, I 'l l busy myself with those preludes so cherished by my lechery ; I 'll play the girl with Jul ien and La Rose while YOll masculinize Therese, and, so I think, the one's as good a s the other."

"Doubtless a thousand t imes better ; for you've no idea how fed up I am with women ! . . . do you suppose I would be capable of enjoying those whores without the help of the auxi l iary episodes we both use to add a tart flavor to the busines.s ?"

With these words, having afforded me clear evidence their state called for more substantial pleasures, the impudicious crea­ tures rose and made me mount upon a large chair, my forearms leaning upon its back, my knees propped upon its a rms, and my behind arched so that it was prominently thrust toward them. I was no sooner placed in this atti tude than they stepped out of their breeches, tucked up their shirts, and save for their shoes, they thus discovered themselves completely naked from the waist down ; they exhibited themselves to me, passed several times to and fro before my eyes, making boastful display of their behinds of which they were overweeningly p roud, for, they declared, they had p arts far superior to anything I could offer ; indeed, each was womanishly made in thi s region : ' twas especially Cardoville who was possessed of elegant l ines and majestic form, snowy white color and enviable plumpness ; they whiled away a minute or two polluting themselves in full view of me, but did not ej acula te : about Cardoville, nothing

7 2 8 + T H E MARQUr ; DE SADE

that was not of the most ordinary ; as for Saint-Florent, 'twas mon­ strous : I shuddered to think that such was the dart which had immolated me. Oh Just Heaven ! what need of maidenheads had a man of those dimensions ? Could i t be anything other than ferocity which governed such c lprices ? But what, alas I were the other weapons I was going to be confronted by I Jul ien and La Rose, pla inly a roused by these exhibitions, also ridded themselves of their clothes and advanced pike in hand . . . . Oh, Madame I never had anything similar soiled my gaze, and whatever may have been my previous representations, what now I beheld surpassed everything I have been able to descr be until the present : 't is l ike unto the as­ cendancy the imperious eagle enjoys over the dove . Our two deb­ auchees soon laid hands upon those menacing spears : they caressed them, polluted them, dr ew them to their mouths, and the combat straightway became mo re in earnest. Saint-Flo rent crouches upon the armcha ir supporting me ; he i s so adjusted my widespread but­ tocks are on an exact l evel with his mouth ; he kisses them, his tongue penetrates into fi rst one then the other temple . Saint-Florent provided Cardoville wi :h amusement, the l atter offers himself to the pleasures of La Ro! .e whose terrific member instantly vanishes into the redoubt dressed before him, and Jul ien, s i tuated beneath Saint-Florent, excites h m with his mouth the whi le grasping his haunches and modulating them before the resolute blows of Cardo­ ville who, treating his friend with intransigent rudeness, does not quit him before having wetted the sanctuary with his incense. N oth­ ing could equal Cardo'lille ' s transports when the cris is deprives him of his senses ; soft ,y abandoning himself to the man who is serving a s husband to him, but pressing hard after him of whom he i s making a wife, thh dastardly libertine, with hoarse gasps like unto those of a dying man, thereupon pronounces indescribable blasphemies ; as for Sai It-Florent, measure governs his evolutions, he restrains h imself, an([ the tableau i s dissolved without his having performed his beau geste.

"Truly ," Cardovil e says to his comrade, "you st i l l give me as much pleasure as you did when you were fifteen . . . . Indeed," he continues, turning and k . ssing La Rose, " ' ti s true thi s fine lad knows how to arouse me too . . . . Have you not found me rather gulfy this evening, angelic boy ? . . . would you bel ieve it , Saint-Florent ?

Jus tille + 7 2 9

' t i s the thirty-sixth time I 've had i t today . . . only natural that the thing be somewhat di lated ; I'm all yours, dear friend ," the abom­ inable man pursues, fi tting himse lf into Jul ien's mouth, his nose glued to my behind, and his own offered to Saint-Florent, "I 'm yours for the thirty-seventh." Sain t-Florent takes h i s pleasure with Cardoville, La Rose his with Saint-Florent, and after a quick skir­ mish the latter burns in his friend the same offering his friend had burned in him. I f Saint-Florent 's ecstasy was of briefer duration, i t was no less intense, less noisy , les�, criminal than Cardoville' s ; the one shouted, roared out everythirlg that came to his mouth, the other restricted his transports' scope without their being the less energetic for that ; Saint-Florent chose his words with care , but they were simply yet filthier and more i mpure : distraction and rage, to select precise terms, seemed to characterize the delirium of the one, wickedness and ferocity were the eminent qualities announced in the other's .

"To work, Therese, revive us," says Cardoville ; "you see the l amps are extinguished, they've got to be l i t again."

While Jul ien enjoyed Cardov ille and La Rose Sa int-Florent, the two l ibertines inclined over me and one after the o ther inserted their languishing instruments into my mouth ; while I pumped one, I was obliged to go to the rescue of the other and pollute it with my hands, then I had to anoint the member i tsel f and the adj acent parts with an alcoholi c l i qu id I had bee n given ; but I was not to l imit myself to sucking, I had to revolve my tongue about the heads and I was required to nibble them with my teeth while my l ips squeezed tightly about them. However, our two patients were being vigor­ ously thumped and j olted ; Julien and La Rose shi fted in order to increase the sensations produced by entrances and exits. When at length two or three homages had flowed into those impure temples I began to perceive a degree of firmness ; although the elder of the two, Cardoville' s was the first to manifest solidity ; he swung h i s hand and with a l l the strength at his command slapped one of my titties : that was my reward. Saint-Florent was not far behind him ; he repa id my efforts by nearly tearing one of my ears from my head. They backed away, reviewed the situation, and then warned me to prepare to receive the treatment I richly deserved. An analy­ sis of these l ibertines' appalling language allowed to me to conclude

730 + THE MARQU S DE SADE

that vexations were abo ut to descend like a hailstorm upon me. To have besought mercy in the state to which they had just reduced me would have been to have further aroused them : and so they placed me, completely n lked as I was, in the center of the circle they formed by all four drawing up chairs. I was obliged to parade from one to the next and to r eceive the penance each in his turn chose to o rder me to do ; I had no more compassi on from the youths than from the older men, but ' twas above all Cardoville who distin­ guished himself by refin ed teasings which Saint-Florent, cruel as he was, was unable to dupli cate without an effort.

A brief respite sw:ceeded these vicious orgies, I was given a few instants to catch my breath ; I had been beaten black and blue , but what surprised me was that they doctored and healed the damage done me in less time than it had taken to inflict it, whereof not the slightest trace r ema ined . The lubriciti es were resumed.

There were moments when all those bodies seemed to form but one and when Saint-Fhrent, lover and mistress, received copious quantities of what the i mpotent Cardoville doled out with sparing economy : the next instant, no longer active but lending himsel f in every manner, both h i s mouth and hindquarters served as altars to frightful homages. Car :loville cannot resist such a profusion of l ib­ ertine scenes . Seeing hi : ; friend brill iantly elevated, he comes up to offer himself to Saint-F orent' s lust, and the tradesman enj oys him ; I sharpen the spears , I steer them in the direction they are to thrust, and my exposed buttocks provide a perspective to the lubric­ i ty of some, a target fc , r the besti al ity of others. As all this wears on our two l ibertines be come more c i rcumspect, for considerable ef­ forts are the price of reanimation ; they emerge unscathed from the i r j oustings and thei r new state is such to terri fy me even more.

"Very well, La F�ose, " says Saint-Florent, " take the bi tch ; we'l l tighten her up : i t ' ! time for the stricturing."

I am not familia r iVith the exp ression : a cruel experiment soon reveals i ts meaning. La Rose seizes me, he places my flanks upon a small c i rcula r repentance stool not a foot in diameter : once there , lacking any other supp )rt, my legs fall on one side, my head and arms on the other ; my four limbs, stretched a s far apart as pos­ sible, are tied to the flo n ; the executioner who i s going to perform the stricturing catches l p a long needle through whose eye h e passes

Justine .. 73 1

a stout waxed thread, and with complete unconcern for e i ther the blood he is to shed or the sufferings he is going to cause me, the monster, directly before the two colleagues whom the spectacle amuses, sews shut the entrance to the temple of Love ; when fin­ ished, he turns me over, now my belly rests upon the repentance stool ; my limbs hang free, they are attached as before, and the in­ decent shrine of Sodom is barricaded in the same manner : I do not speak of my agonies, Madame, you must yoursel f fancy what they were, I was on the verge of losing consciousness.

"Splendid, that's how I must have them," quoth Saint-Flo rent when I had been turned over agai n and was lying on my buttocks, and when, in this posture, he spied well within striking range the fortress he wanted to invade. "Ac:ustomed to reaping nothing but the first fruits , how, without this ceremony, should I be able to harvest any pleasures from this cre ature ?"

Saint-Florent had the most violent erection, they were currying and drubbing his device to keep it rampant ; grasping that pike, he advances : in order to excite him further, Julien enjoys Cardoville before his eyes ; Saint-Florent opens the a ttack, maddened by the resistance he encounters, he presses ahead with incredible vigor, the threads are strained, some snap. Hell ' s tortures are as naught to mine ; the keener my agonies , the more piquant seem to be my tormenter's delights. At length, everything capitulates before his efforts, I am ripped asunder, the gli ttering dart sinks to the ulti­ mate depths, but Saint-Florent, a nxious to husband his strength, merely touches bottom and wi thdraws ; I am turned over ; the same obstacles : the savage one scouts them as he stands heating his en­ gine and with his ferocious hands he molests the environs in order to put the place in fit condition for assault . He presents himself, the natural smallness of the locale renders his campaign more arduous to wage, my redoubtable vanquisher soon storms the gates, clears the entry ; I am bleeding ; but what does it matter to the conquering hero ? Two vigorous heaves carry him into the sanctuary and there the villain consummates a dreadful sacrifice whose rack­ ing pains I should not have been able to endure another second.

"My turn ," cries up Cardoville, causing me to be untied, "I 'll have no tailoring done, but I'm going to place the dear girl upon a camping bed which should restore her circulation, and bring out

732 -&- THE MARQUI S DE SADE

all the warmth and mobi l i ty her temperament or her virtue re­ fuse us ."

Upon the spot La Rose opens a closet and draws out a cross made of gnarled, thorn y, spiny wood. 'Tis thereon the infamous debauchee wishes to ph:e me, but by means of what episode will he improve his cruel enj oy 'Ilent ? Before attaching me, Cardoville in­ serts into my behind a si lver-colored ball the size of an egg ; he lubricates i t and drives . t home : it disappears . Immediately it is in my body I feel it enla rge and begin to burn ; without heeding my complaints , I am lash4 !d securely to thi s thorn-studded frame ; Cardoville penetrates a 3 he fastens himself to me : he presses my back, my flanks, my butt ocks on the protuberances upon which they are suspended. Julien fi :s himself into Cardovill e ; obl iged to bear the weight of these two bodies , and having nothing to support my­ self upon but these accu rsed knots and knurs which gouge into my flesh, you may easily cc nceive what I suffered ; the more I thrust up against those who p �ess down upon me, the more I am driven upon the irregularities which stab and lacerate me. Meanwhile the terrible globe has worked its way deep into my bowels and is cramp­ ing them, burning them , tearing them ; I scream again and again : no words exis t which can describe what I am undergoing ; all the same and all the whi le , my murderer frolics j oyfully, his mouth glued to mine , he seem s to inhale my pain in order that i t may magnify his pleasure s : lis intoxication is not to be rendered ; but, as in h i s friend's instan:e, he feels his forces about to desert him, and l ike Sa int-Florent ;vants to taste everything before they are gone entirely. I am turn ed over again , am made to ej ect the a rdent sphere, and it i s set to p roducing in the vagina i tself , the same con­ fl agration it ignited in the place whence it has just been flushed ; the ball enters, sears , s, :orches the matrix to its depths ; I am not spared, they fasten me 1 elly-down upon the perfidious cross, and far more delicate parts o f me are exposed to molestation by the thorny excrescences awaiting l hem. Cardovil le penetrates into the for­ bidden passage ; he perl:orates it while another enjoys him in sim­ i lar wise : and at last del irium holds my persecutor in its grasp, his appalling shrieks announce the crime's completion ; I am inundated, then untied.

"Off you go, dear friends ," Cardoville says to the pair of

Jus tine <4- 7 3 3

young men, "get your hands on this whore and amuse yourselves in whatever way your whims advise : she's yours, we're done with her ." The two youthful l ibertines se ize me. While one entertains himself with the front, the other buries h imself in the rear ; they change places and change again ; I am more gravely torn by their prodi­ gious thickness than I have been by Saint-Florent 's artificial bar­ r icadings ; both he and Cardoville toy with the young men while they occupy themselves with me. Saint-Florent sodomizes La Rose who deals in like manner with me, and Cardoville does as much to Julien who employs a more decent place to excite himself in me. I am the focal point of these execra ble orgies, thei r absolute center and mainspring ; La Rose and Julien have each four times done reverence at my altars, whilst Ca rdoville and Saint-Florent, less vigorous or more enervated, are content with one sacrifice offered to each of my lovers. And then the last measure of seed i s sown by La Rose-'twas high time, for I w as ready to swoon .

"My comrade has certa inly hurt you, Therese ," says Julien, "and I am going to repa ir all the damage ." He picks up a flask of spirits and several t imes rubs a l l my wounds. The traces o f my execu­ tioners' a trocities vanish , but noth ing assuages my pain, and never had I experienced any as sharp.

"What with our skill at making the evidence o f our cruelties disappear , the ladies who would like to lodge complaints against us must have the devi l ' s own time getting themselves believed, eh , Therese ?" says Cardoville. "What proofs do you fancy could be presented to support an accusation ?"

"Oh," Saint-Florent interrupts, "the charming Therese is in no condition to level charges ; on the eve of being immolated herself , we ought to expect nothing but prayers from her."

"\Vell, she'd be ill-advi sed to undertake the one or the other," Cardoville replies ; "she might inculpate us ; but would she be heard ? I doubt i t ; our consequence and eminent stations in this c i ty would scarcely allow anyone to notice suits which, anyhow, always come before us and whereof we are at all times the masters. Her final torture would simply be made crueler and more pro­ longed. Therese must surely sense we have amused ourselves with her person for the natural, common , and uncomplex rea son which engages might to abuse feebleness : she must surely sense she can-

734 1- T H E MARQC S DE SADE

not escape her sentence , th at it must be undergone, that she will undergo it, that i t would be in vain she might divulge this evening's absence from j ail ; she 'd not be believed ; the j a i ler-for he's ours -would deny it at once. And so may this lovely and gentle girl , so penetrated with the :�randeur of Providence, peacefully offer up to Heaven all she has jr st suffered and all that yet awaits her ; these will be as so many expic tions for the frightful crimes which deliver her into the hands of th law ; put on your clothes, Therese, day is not yet come, the two men who brought you hither are going to conduct you back to you � prison."

I wanted to say a word, I wanted to cast myself a suppli ant a t these ogres' feet, either to unbend their hearts, or ask that thei r hands smite away my l i i 'e . But I am dragged off , pitched into a cab, and my two guides climb in a fter me ; we had hardly started off when infamous desires i lflamed them again.

"Hold her for me H quoth Julien to La Rose, "I simply must sodomize her ; I have never la id eyes on a behind which could squeeze me so voluptuo lsly ; I 'll render you the same service."

There is nothing I can do to defend myself, the proj ect i s ex­ ecuted, Julien triumphs , and it is not wi thout a trocious agonies I sustain this newest at tack : the assailant's exorbitant bulk, the lacerated condition of t lose parts, the fire with which that accursed ball had devoured my i ntestines, everything combined to make me suffer tortures which L l Rose renewed immediately his companion was finished. Before arriving I was thus yet another time victim of those wretched valet , ' criminal libertinage ; we reached our desti­ nation at last. The j ai ler greeted us, he was alone, it was still n ight, no one saw me enter.

"Go to sleep , The 'ese ," said he , restoring me to my cell , " and if ever you wish to tell , i t makes no difference whom, that on this night you left prison, n member that I will contradict you, and that thi s useless accusation v 'i l l get you nowhere . . . . "

And, sa id I to myself when I was left alone, I should regret departing this world ! I should dread to leave a universe freighted with such monsters 1 Ah ! were the hand of God to snatch me from the ir clutches a t whatenr instant and in whatever manner He sees fi t ! why ! I'd complain 10 more ; the unique consolation which may

Justine .. 7 3 5

remain t o the luckless one bred up i n this den of savage beasts, his one comfort is the hope of leaving it soon.

The next day I heard nothing and resolved to abandon myself to Providence, I languished and would touch no food. The day a fter that, C ardoville came to question me ; I could not repress a shudder upon beholding the nonch alance wherewith that scoundrel walked in to execute his judiciary duties-he, Cardoville, the most villainous of mortals, he who, c ontrary to every article of the j ustice in which he was cloaked, h ad just so cruelly abused my in­ nocence and exploited my misery ; it was in vain I pled my cause, the dishonest man's a rtfulness devised more crimes than I could invent defenses ; when all the charges had been well established in the view of this iniquitous judge, and when the case was made, he had the impudence to ask me whether I knew in Lyon one Mon­ sieur de Saint-Florent, a wealthy and estimable citizen ; I answered that I knew him, yes.

"Excellent," said Cardoville, "no more i s needed. This Mon­ sieur de Saint-Florent, whom you declare you know, also has a per­ fect knowledge of you ; he has deposed that he saw you in a band of thieves, that you were the first to steal h:s money and his pocket­ book. He further deposes that yo ur comrades wished to spare his l i fe , that you recommended they take i t from him ; nevertheless, he managed to escape. Saint-Florent adds that, several years later, having recognized you in Lyon, he yielded to your importunings and permitted you to come to pay him a call at his home upon con­ dition you would give him your word to behave well in future and that, while he was delivering a lecture on manners to you, while he was seeking to persuade you to persist along the paths of r ighteous­ ness, you carried insolence and crime to the point of choosing these moments of kindness to steal a watch and one hundred IOllis he had l eft lying upon the mantel. . . . "

And, profiting from the resentment and anger such atrocious calumnies provoked in me, Cardoville ordered the court clerk to write that my silence and my facial exp ressions were ample acknowl­ edgment of my guilt and were tantamount to a confession.

I threw myself upon the ground, I made the walls resound with my cries, I struck my head against the stone floor, hoping to obtain a speedier death, unable to find vehicles to give expression

73 6 .. T H E MAR Q U [ S DE SADE

to my rage : "Villain I" I screamed, "I put my faith in the God of Justice who will revenge me for your crimes ; He shall cry out in­ nocence, He shall mak,� you repent your disgraceful abuse of the authority vested in YOl l ! " Cardoville rings and tells the j ai ler to take me away, I appea r , says he, to be unsettled by despair and remorse and, a t any rate, in no state to follow the interrogation ; "But, on the other hand, what remains to be asked or sa id ? The doss ier i s complete j she has confessed to all her crimes ." And the villain l eaves peacefully I And divine l ightning strikes him not I

The case was tried in short order ; motivated and directed by hatred, vengeance, and lust, the court promptly condemned me and I was dispatched to Pa ris for the confirmation of my sentence. While on this fatal j ou �ney, which, though guiltless , I made in the character of the last c f criminals, the most bi tter and the most dolorous thoughts gathered in my head and completed the desola­ tion of my heart . Unde r what doom-spelling star must I have been born, I wondered, in oder that I be utterly incapable of conceiving a single generous sent ment without immediately being drowned in a sea of misfortunes ! And why is i t that this enlightened Provi­ dence whose justice 1 2 m pleased to worship, the while punishing me for my virtues, simultaneously shows me those who crush me with their crimes carrid to the pinnacle o f happiness !

During my childhc od I meet a usurer ; he seeks to induce me to commit a theft, I refuse : , he becomes rich. I fall amongst a band of thieves, I escape from :hem with a man whose l i fe I save ; by way of thanks, he rapes me. I reach the property of an aristocratic debauchee who has me set upon and devoured by his dogs for not having wanted to poi so:l his aunt. From there I go to the home of a murderous and incestu JUS surgeon whom I strive to spare from doing a horrible deed : the butcher brands me for a criminal ; he doubtless consummates his a troci ties, makes his fortune, whilst I am obliged to beg for my bread. I wish to have the sacraments made available to me, I wish fervently to implore the Supreme Being whence howbeit I receive so many ills , and the august tri­ bunal, at which I hope to find purification in our most holy mys­ teries , becomes the ble 'ody theater of my ignominy : the monster who abuses and plunG ers me i s elevated to his order's highest honors and I fall back into the appalling abyss of misery. I attempt

Justine -+ 737

to preserve a woman from her husband's fury, the cruel one wishes to put me to death by draining away my blood drop by drop . I wish to reli eve a poor woman, she robs me. I give aid to a man whom adver­ sar ies have struck down and left unconscious, the thankless creature makes me turn a wheel l ike an animal ; he hangs me for h is pleasure's sake ; all fortune's blessings accrue to him, and I come within an ace of dying on the gallows for having been compelled to work for him. An unworthy woman seeks '�o seduce me for a new crime, a second time I lose the l ittle I own in order to rescue her victim's treasure. A gentleman, a kind spi ri t wishes to compensate me for all my sufferings by the offer of hiB hand, he dies in my arms before being able to do anything for me. I r isk my l i fe in a fire in order to snatch a child, who does not belong to me, from the flames ; the infant's mother accuses and launches legal proceedings against me. I fall into my most mortal enemy's hands ; she wishes to carry me off by force and take me to a man whose passion is to cut off heads : i f I avoid that villa in 's sword i t i s so that I can trip and fall under Themis ' . I implore the protection of a man whose l ife and fortune I once saved ; I dare expect gra titlde from him, he lures me to his house, he submits me to horrors , and there I find the iniquitous judge upon whom my case depends ; both abuse me, both outrage me, both accelerate my doom ; fortune overwhelms them with favors, I hasten on to death.

That i s what I have received from mankind, that i s what I have learned of the danger of traflicking with men ; i s it any wonder that my soul, stung, whipsawed hy unhappiness, revolted by ou t­ rage and injustice, aspires to notl'ing more than bursting from i ts mortal confines ?

A thousand pardons , Madame, sa id this unlucky girl , termi­ nating her adventures at this point ; a thousand times over I ask to be forgiven for having sull ied your spirit with such a host of ob­ scenit ies , for having, in a word, so long abused your patience. I have, perhaps, offended Heaven with impure recitals, I have la id open my oid wounds, I have disturbed your eflse and rest ; farewell , Madame, Godspeed ; the Star rises above the horizon, I hear my guards summon me to come, let me run on to meet my destiny , I fear i t no more, ' twill abridge my torment : this last mortal instant i s dreaded only by the favored being whose days have passed un-

73 8 .. T H E MARQU I S DE SADE

clouded ; bu t the wretcr ed creature who has breathed naught but the venomous effiuvia of reptiles , whose tottering feet have trod only upon nettles , who has never beheld the torch of dawn save with feelings l ike unto those of the lost traveler who, trembling, perceives the thunderbolt 's forked track ; she from whom cruel accident has snatched a'vay parents, all kin, friends, fortune, pro­ tection, a id ; she who in all thi s world has nothing more than tears to quench her thirst and for sustenance her tribulations ; she, I say, undi smayed sees death a dvance, she even yearns for it as for a safe haven, a port wherein tr anquil l i ty will be born again unto her when she is clasped to the bn ast of a God too just to permit that inno­ cence, defiled and groulld under the heel on earth, may not find recompense for so many evils in another world.

The honest Monsi( ur de Corville had not heard thi s tale with­ out profound emotion ; as for Madame de Lorsange in whom, as we have said , the monstrous errors of her youth had not by any means extinguished sen ; ib i l i ty, as for :t\Jadame de Lorsange, she was ready to swoon.

"Mademoiselle ," S l id she to Justine, "it is difficult to l i sten to you without taking the k eenest interest in you ; but, and I must avow i t ! an inexpl icable senti nent, one far more tender than this I de­ scribe, draws me invinci bly toward you and does make of your ills my very own. You have disguised your name, you have concealed your bi rth, I beg you to di sclose your secret to me ; think not that i t i s a va in curiosity which b ids me speak thus to you . . . Great God! may what I suspect be t 'ue ? . . . 0 Therese ! were you Justine ? . . . were it th at you would b e my sister I"

"Justine ! Madame 1 ' t i s a strange name." "She would have b l �en your age-" "J uliette ! is i t you [ hear ? " cried the unhappy prisoner, casting

herself into Madame de Lorsange's a rms ; " . . . you . . . my s ister ! . . . ah , I shal l die far , ess miserable , for I have been able to em­ brace you again ! . . . "

And the two sisters, clasped in each other's arms, were pre­ vented by the i r sobs from hearing one another , and found expres­ sion in naught but tears.

l\Ionsieur de Corv lle was unable to hold back his own ; aware

Jus tine 4 739

of the overpowering significance of this affair and sensing h i s in­ volvement in i t, he moves into an adjoining room, sits down and writes a letter to the Lord Chancellor , with fiery strokes, in ardent ciphers he paints in all its horror the fate of poor Justine, whom we shall continue to call Therese ; he takes upon himself responsi­ bil ity for her innocence , he will guarantee i t under oath ; he asks that, until the time her case has been finally clarified, the allegedly guilty party be confined to no other prison but his chateau, and Corville gives his word he will produce her in court the instant the Chief Justice s ignals his desire to have her appear there ; he makes himself known unto Therese's two guards, entrusts his corres­ pondence to them, makes himself �.nswerable for the ir prisoner ; he i s obeyed, Therese i s confided to hi m ; a carriage is call ed for.

"Come, my too unfortunate creature , " Monsieur de Corville says to Madame de Lorsange' s interesting sister, "come hither ; all i s going to be changed j i t shall n ot be said your virtues ever re­ mained unrewarded and that the beauti ful soul you had from N a­ ture ever encountered but steel j follow us, 'tis upon me you depend henceforth . . . . "

And Monsieur de Corville gave a brief account of what he had just done.

"Dearly beloved and respecta ble man ," said Madame de Lor­ sange, casting herself down before her lover, "this is the most splendid gesture you have performed in your life, it i s such as comes from one who has true acquaintance with the human heart and the spirit of the law which is the avenger of oppressed innocence. There she stands, Monsieur, behold, theJ:e i s your captive j go, Therese, go , run, fly at once and kneel down before this equitable protector who will not, as have all others, abandon you. 0, Monsieur, if those a ttachments of love which have bound me to you have been cher­ ished, how much more so are they to become now that they are strengthened by the most tender esteem . . . . "

And one a fter the other the two women embraced the knees of a so generous friend, and upon him they did shed the ir tears.

A few hours later they arrived a t the chateau j once there, Monsieur de Corville and Madame de Lorsange both s trove with might and main to raise Therese from the ultimate deeps of un-

740 + T H E M:\RQ C [ S D E SADE

happiness to the pu re sl nshine of contentment and well-being. They took greatest j oy in giying her to eat of the most succulent foods, they la id her to sleep in the finest of beds, they did urge her to com­ mand and they made h , :r will to be done, and into their hospi table proceedings they introduced all the genti l i ty and understanding it were possible to expect from two sensitive souls . She was given medicines for several d lYs, she was bathed, dressed, arrayed in ele­ gant attire, embell ished , the two lovers worshiped her, each labored at nothing but to make her forget her sorrows as quickly as might be. An excellent surgeon was fetched ; he undertook to make the ignominious mark disappear, and soon the cruel result of Rodin's villainy was effectively I�one ; and everything responded to the cares her benefactors lavishe :l upon Therese : the shadowed memories of misery were already eff aced from that amiable girl ' s brow ; already the Graces had re-established their empire thereupon. For the livid tints on her cheeks o f alabaster were substituted the rosy hue ap­ propriate to her years ; what had been withered by such a multitude of griefs was called ba , :k to · fresh new l ife . Laughter, for so many years banished from her lips, reappeared again under the wings of Pleasure. The very best news came from the Court ; Monsieur de Corville had put all of France in action, he had reanimated the zeal of Monsieur S * * * , who collaborated with him to publ ic ize Therese 's ill-treatment and to restore her to a tranquil l ity to which she was so heavily enti tled. At length letters came from the King, they null ified all the leg al proceedings unjustly in i tiated against her , they gave her back the name of an honest cit i z en, imposed s i lence upon all the realm's tr ibunals before which efforts had been made to defame her, and accorded her a thousand crowns a year , interest real ized upon the gold se ized in the caunte rfei ters ' Dauphine work­ shop . They wished to make Ca rdoville and Saint-Florent answer for their misdeeds but, in accordance with the fatal ity of the star in­ tending upon all of Th �rese's persecutors, one of them, Cardovill e , had just, before his cr imes were made known, been named to the administration of the :?rovince o f * * * , and the other to general supervision of Colonia . Trade ; each had already reached his dest i ­ nation, the edicts affect �d no one but the powerful fami l ies who soon found means to quiet the storm and, pacifically installed in For-

Jus tine T 7 4 1

tune 's sanctuary, those monsters' depredations were quickly for­ gotten.s

With what regards Therese, as soon a s she learned of so many agreea ble developments she came well-nigh to exp iring from j-oy ; for several days on end the sweetest tears flowed from her eyes and she rej oiced upon her guardians' � reasts, and then, all of a sudden, her humor altered, and ' twas impo ssible to ferret out the cause. She became somber, uneasy, troubled, was given to dreaming, sometimes she burst into weeping before her friends, and was not herself able to expla in what was the subject of her woe. "I was not born for such felicity," said she to Madame de Lorsange, " . . . oh, dear s ister, ' t i s impossible i t last much longer." She was a ssured all her troubles were over , none remained, sa id they, no more inqui etude for her ; ' twas all in vain, nothing would quiet her ; one might have said that this melancholy creatur,�, uniquely destined for sorrow, and feeling the hand of misery fo rever raised above her head, al­ ready foresaw the final blow whereby she was going to be smitten down.

Monsieur de Corville was still residing on his country estate ; ' twas toward summer's end, they had planned an outing when the approach of a dreadful storm obl iged them to postpone thei r promenade ; the excessive heat h ad constrained them to leave all the windows open. Lightning gli tters, shakes, hail slashes down, winds blow wrathfully, heaven's fire convulses the clouds, in the most hide­ ous manner makes them to seethe ; it seems as if Nature were wearied out of pati ence with what she has wrought, a s i f she were ready to confound all the elements that she might wrench new forms from them. Terrified, Madame de Lorsange begs her sister to make all ha ste and close the shutters ; anxious to calm her, Therese dashes to the windows wh ; ch are already being broken ; she would do battle with the wind, she gives a minute ' s figh t, i s driven back and at that instant a blazing thunderbolt reaches her where she stands in the middle of the room . . . transfixes her.

Madame de Lorsange emits a terrible cry and falls in a faint ; Monsieur de Corville calls for help, attentions are given each woman, Madame de Lorsange is r evived, but the unhappy Therese

8 As for the monks of S aint Mary-in-the-Wood, suppression of the religious orders will expose the atrociou s - crimes of that hor rible crew.

742 .. T Il E MARQ U I S DE SADE

has been struck in such wise hope i tsel f can no longer subsi st for her ; the l ightning enter ed her right breast, found the hea rt, and a fter having consumed her chest and face, burst out through her belly. The miserable tb ing was hideous to look upon ; Monsieur de Corville orders that she be borne away . . . .

"N 0," says Madame de Lorsange, getting to her feet with the utmost calm ; "no, leave her here before my eyes, l\lonsi eur, I have got to contemplate her in order to be confi rmed in the resolves I have just taken. Listen to me, Carvill e , and above all do not oppose the decision I am adopting ; for the present, noth ing in the world could swerve my designs .

"The unheard of :;ufferings th is luckless creature has experi­ enced although she has always respected her duties , have something about them which i s toc extraordinary for me not to open my eyes upon my own sel f ; th ink not I am blinded by that false-gleaming felicity which, i n the C01lrse of Therese 's adventures, we have seen enj oyed by the villains who battened upon her. These caprices of Heaven's hand are eni �ma s i t i s not for us to sound, but which ough t never seduce us. 0 thou my friend ! The prosperity o f Crime i s but an ordeal to whic 1 Providence would expose Virtue, it i s l ike unto the l ightning, whose traitorous bril l i anci es but for an instant embel l i sh the atmosphe re, in order to hurl into death's very deeps the luckless one they h, ve dazzled. And there, before our eyes , is the example of it ; tha ' : charming girl ' s incredible calamities , her terri fying reversals and uninterrupted disasters are a warning is­ sued me by the Eternal , Who would that I heed the voice of mine gui lt and cast myself into His arms. Ah, what must be the punish­ ment I have got to fear from Him, I , whose libertinage, irreligion, and abandon of every principle have stamped every instant of my l i fe ! What must I not (xpect if ' ti s thus He has treated her who in all her days had not a s i ngle sin whereof to repent ! Let us separate, Carville , the time has ( I)me, no chain binds us one to the other, for­ get me, and approve th lt I go and by an eternal penance abjure, a t the Supreme Being's f( et, the infamies wherewith I am soiled ab­ solutely. That appall in s stroke was necessary to my conversion in this l i fe , it was needec for the happiness I dare hope for in an­ other. Farewell , Monsi eur ; the last mark of your friendship I ask is that you inst itute no Jerquisit ions to discover what shall have be-

Justille ,� 743

come of me. Oh, Carville 1 I await you in a better world, your vir­ tues should lead you unto i t ; may the atonements I make, to expiate my crimes, in this place where I go to spend the unhappy years that remain to me, permit me to encoun ter you again someday."

Madame de Lorsange leaves the house immedi ately ; she takes some money with her, leaps into a carriage, to Monsieur de Corville abandons the rest of her ownings after having recommended that they be turned into a pious legacy, and flies to Paris, where she takes a Carmelite 's veil ; not many yea r s go by before she becomes the example of her order and the edification, as much by her great piety as by the wisdom of her mind and the regularity of her manners.

l\Ionsieur de Carville, worthy of his country's h ighest posts, attained to them, and, whatever were his honors, he employed them for no end but to bring happiness to the people, glory to his master, whom, " although a minister ," he served well, and fortune to his friends.

o you who have wept tears upon hearing of Virtue 's miseries ; you who have been moved to sympathy for the woe-ridden Justine ; the while forgiving the perhaps too heavy brushstrokes we have found ourselves compelled to employ, may you a t least extract from this story the same moral which determined Madame de Lor­ sange ! May you be convinced, with her, that true happiness is to be found nowhere but in Virtue's womb, and that i f, in keeping wi th designs i t i s not for us to fathom, God permits that i t be per­ secuted on Earth, i t is so that Virtue may be compensated by Heaven ' s most dazzling rewards.

Bibliography

I. WORKS PU BLIS H ED DURING T H E AUTHOR'S LIFETIME

LITERARY WOR KS

1 . Jus tine, o u les Malheurs de l a Pertu. En Hollande, Chez les Libraires ass ocies [Paris , Girouard] , 1 7 9 1 . Two volumes , 8vo. Frontisp iece by Chery . During Sade ' s l i fe time, there were six further printings be tween the ini tial publication and 1 8 0 1 . Sade ' s re-a rrest that ye a r put an end to the reprintings. These subsequent editions were : 1 ) En H o llande [Paris , Gi rouard] , 1 79 1 . Two volumes, 1 2-

mo. Certain cop ies of thi� edition include twelve erotic en­ gravings.

2) A Londres [Par is , Caz in] , 1 7 92 . Two volumes , 1 8 mo. Frontispiece and five eng ravings.

3 ) Troisieme [ fourth] edi ti on corrigee et augmen tee. Phila­ delphie [Pari s ] , 1 7 94. Two volumes, 1 8mo. Frontis­ piece and five engravings .

4 ) A Londres [ Par is ] , 1 7 97 . Four volumes , 1 8mo. Further augmented edition. Six erotic engravings.

5 ) En Hollande [Paris ] , 1 8 00 . Four volumes, 1 6mo. Pre­ sented as the Troisieme edi tion corrigee et augmen tee, thi s is actually a reprint of the original edition.

74.5

746 + T H E MARQU I S DE SADE

6 ) En Hollande [Paris] , 1 80 1 . Four volumes, 1 6mo. Also presented as the Troisieme edition corrigee e t augmen tee, this was a reprinting of the 1 8 00 edition.1

2. A line e t Valcour, ou Ie R o man philosophique. Ecri t a la Bas­ tille un an ava n t la Revolu tion de France. Orne de quatorze gravures. Par Ie citoyen S * * * . A Paris, chez Girouard, Li­ bra ire, rue du Bou t-du-Monde, n° 47, 1 793 . Eight volumes, 1 8mo. There are actuall y three different editions o f this work, bear­ ing different dates and, in some instances, containing sixteen rather than twelve engravings. Sade announced2 the book would appear at Easter of 1 7 9 1 , but the instability of the times and the dfath of Girouard beneath the guillotine in 1 7 94 kept the bc'ok from appearing until 1 7 9 5 , which date should be taken ;,s the date of reference of the original edi­ tion.

3. La Phi losophie dans Ie boudoir. Ollvrage pos tlwme de l' auteur de "Jus / ine." A Londres, aux depens de la Com­ pagnie, MDCCXCV. Two volumes, 1 8mo. Frontispiece and four erotic engravings.

4. La Nouvelle Jus / ine, 0 11 les Malheurs de la Vertu . Ouvrage o rne d'un fro n tis llice et de qllaran te sujets graves a'vcc so in . En Hollande [ Par is ] , 1 79 7 . Four volumes, 1 8mo. These fou r volumes comprisc � the fi rst part of the defini tive edition of this work, of whi :h the second part, in six volumes, bears the title :

5 . La N oWl:elle hl5 l ine, o u les M alhellrs d e f a f/ ertll, suivie de I'His toire de Juli e t te , sa s o eur [ 0 11 les Prosperi tes du vice . ] OU7)rage orne d'iln fro n tispice e t d e cen t sujets gravis avec so in . En H ollande [Paris] , 1 7 9 7 .

6. Oxtiern, o u II'S m alheurs du libertinage, drame en tro is actes e t en prose par D.-A .-F. S. Reprisente au Theatre Mo liere,

1 See the "Bibliographie d" s ffiu<Jres de Sade" drawn up by Robert Valenf;ay in Les Infortunes de la fl ertu, P nis, Les Editions du Point du Jour, 1946.

2 In a l etter of March 6, 1 191 .

Bibliography ""&- 747

a Paris, en 1 791 ; et a Persailles, sur celui de la Socihe Dra­ matique, Ie 22 frimaire, I' an 8 de la Republique. A P ersailles, chez Blaizo t, Libraire, rue Satory. An huitieme [ 1 S00 ] . One volume , Svo , 48 pages.

7 . Les Crimes de I' Amour, N ot/velles hCroiques et tragiques; precedees d'une Idee sur les romans et ornees de gravures, par D.-A.-F. Sade, au teur d' "Aline et P alcour." A Paris, chez Masse, Cditeur-proprihaire, rue H elvCtius nO 580. An VIII [ 1 800 ] . Four volumes, 1 2mo. Fou r fronti spieces. This work contains eleven stories, as follows : Vol . I-Juliette e t R aunai, o u la Conspiration d'Amboise,

nouvelle historique; La Double Epreuve. Vol. I I-Miss Henriette Stralson, ou les Elfets du desespoir,

nouvelle anglaise j Faxelange, ou les Torts de [' ambitionj Florville e t Couvral, ou Ie Fatalisme.

Vol. I I I-R odrigue, ou la Tour enchan tee, conte allegorique; Laurence e t Antonio, n0 1welle i taliennej Ernestine, nou­ velle suCdoise .

Vol. IV-Dorgeville, ou Ie Criminel par Vertu; la Com tesse de Sancerre, ou la Rivale de sa fille, anecdo te de la Cour de Bourgogne; Eugenie de Franval.

8 . L'A u teur d e "Les Crimes d e IAmour" a Pille terque, follicu­ laire . Paris, Masse, an XI [ 1 803 ] . 1 2 rna, 20 pages.

9. La Marquise de Gange. Paris, Bechet, Librairc, quai des Augustins, n° 63, 1 813 . Two volumes , 1 2mo.

POLITICAL PAl\1PHLETS

1 . Adresse d'un citoyen de Pari�:, au roi des Fran�ais. Paris, Girouard, no date [ 1 79 1 ] . 8 vo , 8 pages.

2 . Section des Piques. Observa tions presen tees a l' A ssembUe adminis trative des /u3pitaux. 28 octobre 1 792. De l'Impri-

748 .. T H E MARQU S DE SADE

merie de la Secti £ ' n des Piques, rue Sain t-Fiacre, nO 2., 8vo, 4 pages .

3. Section des Pique: . Idee sur Ie mode de la s anction des Loix; par un ci toyen d, ' cette Section . De I'Imprimerie de la rile Sain t-Fiacre n° 2, ,? novembre 1 792. 8vo, 1 6 pages .

4. Petit ion des Secti ,ms de Paris it Ia Convention natjonale. De I' imprim erie de la Section des Piques. No date [ 1 7 93 ] . 8vo, 4 pages.

5 . Section des Piql/o . Extraits des Regis tres des deliberations de I' Assemb!ee § inerale e t permanente de la Section des Piques. De l'Imprim erie de la Section des Piques, 1 793. 8vo, 8 pages.

6. La Section des Pi ques it ses Freres e t Amis de la Societi de ia Liberti e t dt l ' Egali ti, it Sain tes, dipartem ent de la Charen te-Inferiett re. De I'Imprimerie de La Secti o n des Piques, 1 793. 8vo, 4 pages .

7. Section des Piqu es. Discours pron o nce par la Section des Piques, aux man n de M ara t et de Le Pelle tier, par Sade, citoyen de cette . ieeti on e t membre de la Societi populaire. De l'Imprimerie de la Section des Piques, 1 793. 8vo, 8 pages.

8 . Petit ion d e l a Sec tion des Piques, aux represen tans du peupfe franr;ais . De l'Imprimerie de fa Section des Piques, 1 793. 8vo, 8 pages.

II . PRI NCI PAL POSTH UMOUS PUBLICATIONS

1 . Dorei a ll Ia Biztlrrerie du sort, co n te inedit par Ie marquis de Sade, publii s ur Ie man t/serit avec li ne no tice sur l' all lellr [ s igned A. F. ( Anatole France ) ] . Paris, Cha ravay freres, edi teurs , 1 8 8 1 . 1 i lmo, 64 pages.

Bibliography + 749

2. His toriettes, Con tes e t fabliaux de Donatien-Alphonse-Fran­ (ois, m arquis de Sade, publih pour La premiere fois sur lcs manuscrits autographes inedits par M allrice 11 eine. A Paris, pour les membres de la S ociete du R o man Philosophique, 1 926 . 4to , 340 pages. Contains the following works : HISTORIETTEs-Le Serpent; La Saillie gascon n e ; L'Heureuse Fein te; Le !vI . . . puni; L' Eveque embourbe; L e R ev/, nant ; Les H arangueurs pro­ ven(aux; A ttrapez-mo i toujou rs de meme; L' Epoux com­ plaisant; Aven ture incompreh( nsible; L a Fleur de chataig­ nier. CONTES ET FAB LIAux-L'Institu teur philosophe; La Prude, au la R enco n tre imprev:u; Emilie de Tourville, ou la Cruau te fra ternelle; A ugus tinl de Villeblanche, a u Ie Stra­ tageme de l' a m our; S o i t fai t a;:nsi qu'it est requis ; Le Presi­ den t mysti{ie; La Marquise de Theteme, ou les Effets du libertinage; Le Tali o n ; Le Cow de lui-meme, 011 Ie Raccom­ mo dement imprevu; Il y a pIau pour deux; L' Epo llx co rrige; Ie M ari pretre, c o n te provem;al; La Chatelaine de Lo ngue­ ville, ou la Femm e vengee; Les Filous . ApPENDlcE-Les D angers de fa bienfaisance ( D �rci ) .

3 . Dialogue en tre u n pretre e t un moribond, p ar D o n atien­ A lph o nse-Fran(ois, m arquis de Sade, publie pour la premiere fois sur Ie manuscri t autograp h e inedit, avec un avan t-propos e t des n o tes par Maurice Hein e . [ Paris] , Stendhal et Com­ pagnie , 1 926 . Small 4to, 62/pages.

4. Correspo n dance inedite du Marquis de S ade, de ses proches et de ses familiers, publiee avec une in troductio n, des annales et des n o tes par Paul Bourdin . Paris , Librair ie de France, 1 9 29 . Small 4to, 45 2 pages .

5 . Marquis de Sade . Les Infortunes de la Vertu. Texte habli sur Ie manuserit o riginal au tographe e t publie pour la pre­ miere fois avec lin e in troducti o n par Maurice 11 eine. Paris , Editi ons Fourcade, 1 930 . 8vo, 206 pages .

6 . Les 1 20 J ournees de Sodomc, o u I ' Ecole du lib ertinage, par Ie marquis de Sade. Edi ti o n cri tique etablie sur Ie manuscrit

7 5 0 + T H E MARQI J I S DE SADE

original au togra tyhe par Maurice Heine. A Paris , par S. e t C., aux depens des Bibliophiles souseriptellrs, 1 93 1-1 93 5 . Three volumes, 4to, 5 00 pages ( uninterrupted pagination throughout the t hree volumes ) .3

7 . Marquis d e Sad �. L'Aigle, Madem oiselle . . . , Let tres pub­ liees pour la premiere fois sur les m anuserits au tograph es inedits avec u n e Preface e t un Commen taire par Gilbert Lei}' . Paris , Les Edif ons Georges Artigues, 1 949. One volume, 1 6mo, 222 page , ; .

8 . Marquis de Sade. His toire s ecrete d'lsabelle de Baviere, reine de France. Publiee pour la premiere fois sur le m anuscrit au tographe inedit avec un avan t-propos par Gilbert Lely . Paris , Librair ie Gall imard, 1 9 5 3 . One volume, 1 6mo, 3 3 6 pages.

9. Marquis de Sad,�. Le Carillon de Vincennes . Lettres inedites publiees avec de 5 n o tes par Gilbert Lely . Paris , "Arcanes ," 1 9 5 3 . One volurr e, 1 6mo, 1 06 pages.

1 0. Marquis de Sat�e. Cahiers personnels ( 1 803-04 ) . Publiis pour la premiere fois sur les manuscrilS autographes inedits avec une preface et des n o tes par Gilb ert LeZy. Paris , Correa, 1 9 5 3 . One volurr e, 1 2mo, 1 3 0 pages.

1 1 . Marquis de Saa e. Monsieur Ie 6 . Lettres inedites ( 1 778- 1 784 ) publiees e . ' anno tees par Georges Daumas. Preface de Gilbert Lely . Pa ris, Jull iard, 1 954. One volume, 1 6mo, 2 8 8 pages.

1 2. Marquis de Sade . Cen t onze No tes pour La Nouvelle Ju� tine . Collect, on "Le Terrain vague," n o . IV. [Paris , 1 9 56 . ] Small 4to, 1 5 8 pages ( unnumbered ) .

3 An earlier edition o f Th e 120 Days, edited by Dr. Eugen D iihren, was published in 1904. The version is so r iddled with errors, however, th at Maurice Heine's 1931- 1935 edition must rightly figure as the original edition of this work.

Bibliography .. 7 5 1

III. PRINCIPAL U N PUBLIS H ED MAN USCRIPTS

1. CEuvres diverses ( 1 764-1 769 ) . Contains the one-act play Le Philosophe s oi-disant; the epistolary work Voyage de H ollande ,. various letters, couplets , etc. Until the discovery of this notebook, Sade's earl iest writing was thought to date from 1 7 8 2 .

2 . Les lumelles o u Ie Choix difficile. Two-act comedy i n verse.

3 . L e Privaricateur o u Ie Magis trat du temps passe. Five-act comedy in verse.

4. Jeanne Laisne, o u Ie Siege de Beauvais. Five-act tragedy in verse.

5 . L' Ecole des jaloux ou l a F oUe Epreuve. One-act comedy in vers libres.

6. Le Misan thrope par amour ou Sophie et Desfrancs. Five- act comedy in vers libres.

7. Le Capricieux, ou l' Homme inegal. Five-act comedy in verse.

8 . Les A n tiquaires. One-act comedy i n prose.

9 . Henriette et Sain t-Clair, ou la Force d u Sang. Prose drama i n five acts.

1 0 . Franchise e t Trahiso n . Prose drama in three acts.

1 1 . Fanny, ou les Effets du des espoir. Prose drama in three acts.

1 2 . La Tour mysterieuse. Opera-comique in one act.

1 3 . L' Union des arts o u les Ruses d e I' amour. A play i n alex­ andrines, prose and vers libres. In the Catalogue raisonne of 1 7 8 8 , th i s work was to comprise s ix parts and a fina l Divertis­ sement. In the extant manuscript, the Divertissement and one play, La Fille malheureuse, are missing.

1 4. Les Fetes de l' amitie. Two acts incorporating prose , verse, and vaudeville.

7 5 2 .. T H E MARQ JIS DE SADE

1 5 . AdelaIde de Bru nswick, princesse de Saxe, evenement du XI" siecle. Nove!.

IV. PRIN CIPAL U N PUBLIS H ED MAN U S CRIPTS EIT H ER

DESTROYED OR NOT RECOVERED 4

1 . L' Egarement de l'infortune. Three-act prose drama.

2. Tancrede. One-� ct lyric play in alexandrine verse with music interspersed.

3 . L a Fille m alheu1 euse. One-act comedy in prose.

4. La Fin e M oucht . Tale.

5. L' H eureux Echt. nge. Tale.

6. La Force du Sa;zg. Tale.

7 . Les In convenien IS de la pitie. Tale ( first draft ) .

8 . Les R eliques. Tale.

9. Le Cure de Pra �o. Tale.

1 0. L a Marquise de Theleme. Tale ( first dra ft ) .

1 1 . Le Portefeuille d'un h o m m e de let tres. Of thi s proj ected four-volume wo �k, there exi sts eleven historiet tes publ ished by Maurice Heine, an avertissement, the P oyage de H o llande previously cited, and various fragments.

1 2 . La Lis te du Sui. se. Historie tte.

1 3 . L a Messe trap chere. His torie tte.

1 4. L'Honnete ivro qne. His toriette.

1 5 . N'y allez jam ais sans lumiere. Historiette.

4 Numbers 1 through 17 r" present works mentioned in t h e 1788 Catalogue raiJonni; numbers 18 through 20 are works seized at S ade's publisher, M asse, on 1 5 P entase, An IX; number 21 is the projected ten-volume work burned at the Prlfecture d, Po lice a fter Sade's death.

1 6 . L a jus tice venitienne. His torie t te.

Bibliography + 7 53

1 7 . A dela'ide de Miramas, au Ie Fana tisme pro testan . His­ toriette.

1 8 . L es Dilassements du libertin, au la Neuvaine de Cy there.

1 9 . Les Caprices, au un peu de tout . Political work.

20 . Les Co nversations d u chateau d e Charmelle . The firs t draft o f Les ] o urnees de Florb elle.

2 1 . Les ] ournees de Florbelle, a u la Nature devoilee, suivies des M em oires de I' abbe de M odose et des Aven tures d' Emilie de Volnange servan t de preu�'es aux assertions, o uvrage orne de deux cen ts gravures. This i mmense work, contained in over a hundred notebooks, according to Lely's estimate, was burned hy the police a t the request and in the presence of Sade 's son, Donati en-Claude-Armand.

Lit�rature

'Th� supNm� valu� of h is t�stimony l i�s in i ts abi l ity to disturb us. It forc�s us to r��xamin� thoroughly th� basic probl�m which haunts our ag� in dirr�rmt forms: th� true relation betw�en man and man." -Simone de Beauvoir

"Justine is the most abominabl� book �ver engendered by the most d�prav�d imagination." -Napol�on Bonapart�

No other writer has so scandaliz:�d proper soci41ty as the Marquis de Sade, but d41spiN the

delib�rate destruction of over three-quarters of his work, Sade r�mains a major figuN in the

history of ideas. His influence on some of the gNatest minds of th� I�st century-from

Baudelaire and Swinburn� to Nietz:schel DostoY41vskYI and Kafka-is indisputable. This

volum� contains the only authentic and complete American edition of his most famous

work, Justine; Phi losophy in th� Bedroom, a major novel that pr�s�nts the cI�ar�st

summation of his pol it ical philosophy; and Euslnie de Fran va (, a nov�l Ia wid�ly

consid41Nd a mastnpi�c� of �ight�enth-century Fr�nch l iterature. This lit�rary portrait of

Sad� is compld�d by one of his �arli�st philosophical �rrortsl Diafosue �etwl?en a Priest

and a Dyins M,ln, a sel�ction of his I�tters, a fi fty-pag� chronology of his l i fe , two

important �ssays on Sad�1 and a bibliography of his work.

"Shines a perv�rse and revealing spotlight on th� �ntiN era of the French Revolution . . • . An important and elucidating book." -Robert Lowry, Chicaso Sun- Times

Co." J"i�n by E.elyn Kim

COVH p.\inring: Gust."'� CourbQ:f' Lc Somm�;/, court .. y 01 Gir.udonl Art R,soure<

Grov( Prus 841 Bro .• dw •• y

N,w York, NY 10003

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