Juliette

by Marquis de Sade

  “My soul is being cast in the mold of yours, Noirceuil,” I answered coolly, “I cease offering you thanks now that you have made it plain that what you did, you did in your own behalf; and it would seem I love thee better and more since I’ve come to see that I owe thee nothing. As for the submission you request of me, it shall be entire; dispose of me, I am yours; a woman, I know my place and that dependence is my lot.”

  “No, not absolutely,” Noirceuil rejoined, “your easy circumstances, your wit, your character set you very definitely outside that form of slavery. To it I only submit wifely women and whores, and in this I comply with the laws of Nature who, as you must observe everywhere, requires that such beings crawl and fawn; intellect, talents, parts, wealth, and influence separate some from the other creatures whom Nature made to comprise the class of the weak; and when these exceptions merit inclusion in the class of the strong, they automatically fall heir to all the rights and perquisites of the latter: tyranny, oppression, impunity, and the liberal exercise of every crime—these are entirely permitted to them. I would have you a woman and a slave unto me and my friends; a despot unto everyone else … and I here and now swear that I shall avail you of the means. Juliette, hast passed a day and a half in prison? You deserve some sort of restitution. Rascal, I know of your twelve thousand a year—you hid that from me; it matters not, I was aware of your transactions, I’ll get you ten thousand more tomorrow, and the Minister has asked me to give you this document: it entitles you to an annual pension of a thousand crowns, interest upon capital bequeathed to the hospitals; the sick will have a few less bowls of soup and you a few fripperies more, the universal scheme shan’t be dislocated for that. Which, it appears to me, makes five and twenty thousand pounds a year for you, not counting your appointments, which will continue to be paid to you in full and punctually. And so, my heart, you do well perceive that the consequences of crime are not always unhappy: a virtuous scheme, that of aiding Lubin, got you hurled into a dungeon; the theft executed in Dennemar’s house determines and motivates your prosperity; do you hesitate any more? Ah! commit your fill of crimes and more, we are presently acquainted with the workings of your imagination, we expect much of you, and we guarantee that whatsoever you do, it shall be done with impunity.”

  “Can human laws be so incredibly unjust, Noirceuil? The innocent Gode groans in one prison cell, from another the guilty Juliette emerges covered with the blessings of fortune.”

  “And it’s quite as it ought to be, all according to order, my sweet girl,” Noirceuil rejoined; “the luckless are the toys of the affluent, Nature’s laws subordinate the ones to the others; the weak are necessarily fodder to the mighty. Glance inspectingly at the universe, at all the laws which regulate its operations: tyranny and injustice, sole principles of every disorder, must be the fundamental laws of a cause which functions only through disorders.”

  “Oh, my friend!” said I, carried away by enthusiasm, “legitimizing all these crimes in my eyes, affording me, as you do, all the means I need for committing them, you so fill my soul with delight, with restlessness … with a delirium such as no words can express—and you still do not wish to have me thank you?”

  “For what? You owe me nothing. I am in love with evil. I will hire anyone to do it. I am acting selfishly in this instance as I do in every other.”

  “But I must show a token of my feelings for all you are doing for me—”

  “Then commit crimes in plenty and hide none of them from me.”

  “Hide a crime from you? Never. My confidence shall be absolute, you shall be master of my thoughts as of my days, in my heart there shall be no desire born save I communicate it to you, every pleasure I shall know shall be shared with you…. But, Noirceuil, there is yet one little favor I’d beg of you: the woman who betrayed me by bringing that Lubin to see me, she powerfully excites my ire—I thirst for revenge. The creature must be punished; will you look to the matter at your earliest convenience?”

  “Give me her name and address, we’ll have her behind bars tomorrow. Her residence there will be permanent.”

  We reached Noirceuil’s house.

  “Here’s Juliette,” said Noirceuil, presenting me to his wife whose air was cool and reserved. “She’s back with us again, safe and sound. The charming creature was the victim of a calumny; she’s the world’s best beloved girl and I beseech you, Madame, to continue to hold her in the high regard she for a quantity of reasons is entitled to expect from you.”

  Great Heaven! I said to myself, when once re-established in my luxurious quarters, I began to take stock of the splendid situation I was going to enjoy—and to contemplate the revenue I was to become mistress of. Oh, great Heaven! the life I am to lead! Fortune, Providence, Fate, God, Universal Agent, whoever thou art, whatever be thy name, if ’tis thus thou dost treat those who surrender themselves into the arms of wickedness, how can one help but follow that career? Eh. ’Tis done, I’ll never enter into any other. Divine excesses which they dare call crimes, you shall from now on be my gods, my only gods, my unique principles and my whole code of laws; I’ll cherish only you so long as there is breath unto me.

  My maids were waiting with my bath. I spent two hours there, two more at my toilette; fresh as a rose, I appeared at the Minister’s supper, and, so they assured me, looked more lovely than the very sun itself, of whose light a few abject rogues had cheated me for the space of two days.

  Part Two

  Monsieur de Saint-Fond was a man of some fifty years: endowed with a keen wit, with much intelligence and much duplicity, his character was very traitorous, very ferocious, infinitely proud; it was in the supremest degree he possessed the art of robbing France, and that of distributing warrants for arbitrary arrest—the which he both sold at a goodly price and himself made use of, according to the dictates of his most idle fancy. Above twenty thousand persons of both sexes and all ages were at that moment, owing to his instructions, languishing in the various royal dungeons with which the kingdom is studded. “Of these twenty thousand souls,” he confided to me one day, a smile upon his lips, “not a single one is guilty of anything.” D’Albert, Chief Justice of the Parlement at Paris, was also at the Minister’s supper. It was only as we, Noirceuil and I, were arriving that he told me of D’Albert’s presence there.

  “You ought,” he counseled me, “to show as much deference to that gentleman as to the other, your fate was decided by him a mere twelve hours ago; he spared you. I had Saint-Fond extend an invitation to him so as to give you an opportunity to repay him for his thoughtfulness.”

  The seraglio at the disposal of the three men included, in addition to Madame de Noirceuil and myself, four charming whores. Of Duvergier’s selection, these creatures were still virgins. The youngest was called Eglée—she was thirteen, honey-haired, a little enchantress. Then there was Lolotte, fair as Flora; such a glow of health as distinguished her has become rare indeed; she was only lately turned fifteen. Henriette was sixteen years old and combined about her person more charms than did ever poet ascribe to the Three Graces. Lindane was the eldest, she was seventeen, superbly made; the expressiveness of her eyes positively took one’s breath away.

  On hand as well were six youths ranging in age from fifteen to twenty; naked, their hair arranged in feminine style, they served the table. And so it was that each libertine had at his bidding four objects of lust, two of one sex and two of the other. None of the corps had as yet put in an appearance when Noirceuil led me into the salon and introduced me to D’Albert and Saint-Fond, who, after embracing me, dallying with me, praising me for a quarter of an hour or more, declared themselves well pleased to have me of the company.

  “It’s a delicious little rascal, this one,” said Noirceuil, “who through her unconditional submission to them would indicate to her judges how thankful she is they saved her life.”

  “I’d have regretted depriving her of it,” said D’Albert. “However, it is not without good reason Themis is represented wearing a
blindfold. And you’ll agree with me that we ought always to have one over our own eyes whenever it is one such pretty little thing as this we have to judge.”

  “I promise her lifelong impunity,” said Saint-Fond, “total impunity. She is at liberty to do absolutely anything she likes, without fear. Regardless what she is guilty of, she shall be protected by me, and I swear to avenge her according to her wishes upon whosoever seeks to spoil or in any wise interfere with her pleasures, however criminal they may be.”

  “Let me take the same oath,” said D’Albert. “Indeed, I shall go farther: tomorrow there will be delivered to her a letter from the Chancellor, which will in advance nullify any court action any tribunal in the realm might eventually be induced to take against her. But, Saint-Fond, I have yet something else in mind. So far we have tended to dismiss crime, to connive at it; we ought rather encourage it, don’t you think? I’d like to have you arrange to have Juliette rewarded for the misdeeds I expect her to commit: bonuses in the form of pensions running from, let us say, two thousand to twenty-five thousand francs a year, the sums depending upon the feats she proves capable of.”

  “It should seem to me, Juliette,” said Noirceuil, “that you have just now been given the solidest motives both to allow your passions the broadest scope possible, and to hide none of your extravagances from us. But I really must say, gentlemen,” my lover continued before I had a chance to reply, “you put to wonderful purpose the authority vested in you by the laws and the monarch of this our beloved country.”

  “Eh, we do what we can with the means we possess,” was Saint-Fond’s candid response; “one always labors best in one’s own behalf. Our office is to safeguard and promote the welfare of the king’s subjects; in ensuring our own and this engaging child’s, are we not carrying out our duties?”

  “Permit me to expand upon those remarks,” said D’Albert. “When accorded these powers we were not instructed to concern ourselves for the welfare of this or that isolated individual, we were merely informed: the authority we grant you is to further the happiness of the community. Now, it is impossible to render all men equally happy; therefore we hold our mission fulfilled when we have been able to satisfy several among the many.”

  “Yet,” said Noirceuil, whose sole aim in pursuing the conversation was to provide his friends an opportunity to shine, “by shielding the guilty and dooming the innocent, your efforts conspire rather to the ill of society than to the good.”

  “I very stoutly deny that,” Saint-Fond rejoined. “To the contrary, vice makes many more people happy than ever does virtue; and hence I am a far better servant of the public weal in my protecting the vicious than I would be in rewarding the virtuous.”

  “Fie! Such arguments are appropriate only in the mouths of scoundrels—”

  “My friend,” said D’Albert, “they are also your joy. It does not beseem you to contradict them.”

  “You are quite right,” was Noirceuil’s answer. “I think, though, that after all this talk we might do well to act a little. Would you care to have Juliette to yourselves before the others get here?”

  “No, not I,” D’Albert said. “I am not prone to tête-à-têtes. What with the extreme need I have to be aided in these proceedings, I prefer to keep patience and wait till the assembly is complete.”

  “For my part,” said Saint-Fond, “I rejoice at Noirceuil’s suggestion. Come along with me, Juliette; we shan’t be long.”

  He led me into a boudoir, closed the door, invited me to undress. He spoke to me while I removed my clothes. “I have been assured you are very compliant. My desires are a bit loathsome, I know, but you are intelligent. I have done you outstanding service; I shall do more: you are wicked, you are vindictive—very well,” said he, tendering me six lettres de cachet which required only to be filled in with the names of whomever I chose to have imprisoned for an indeterminate period, “here are some toys, amuse yourself with them; and here, take this, it is a diamond worth about a thousand louis, payment for the pleasure that is mine in making your acquaintance this evening. What? No, no, my dear, take it all, it is yours, it cost, me nothing. Money for purchasing the gem came from State funds, not out of my pocket.”

  “Indeed, my Lord, your generosity leaves me confused—”

  “Oh, it will go farther still. I’d like to have you in my household. I need a woman who will stop at nothing. I give dinners from time to time; you strike me as the ideal person for handling the poisoning.”

  “What, my Lord, do you poison people?”

  “There’s often nothing else to do with them. There are so many individuals one must put out of the way, you see. Scruples? I? Surely not. It’s simply a technical problem. I shouldn’t suppose you have any objections to poison?”

  “None at all,” I returned, “not in principle. I can swear to you that no conceivable crime affrights me, that every one I have perpetrated so far has delighted me unspeakably. It is merely that until now I have never administered poison; only afford me the chance, I ask no more.”

  “Charming creature,” Saint-Fond murmured. “Come, Juliette, kiss me. And so it is agreed? Good. Once again I give you my solemn oath: never shall you have any punishment to fear. Do in your own interest whatever you esteem profitable and pleasurable, dread no reprisals; should the blade of the law be turned against you, I shall deflect its edge, I shall do so every time, I promise that. Believe me. But you must prove—prove right now—that you are fit for the employment I have in mind. Look here,” and he tendered me a little box, “tonight at supper I shall seat next to you that one of the whores I have selected for the test; ingratiate yourself, caress her thoroughly, feint is the sure cloak of crime, deceive her as artfully and as entirely as you can, and at dessert cast this powder into one of the glasses of wine that will be placed before her: its effect will be swift; by that token I shall learn whether you are or are not the woman I need. Succeed, and the post I propose is yours.”

  “Ah, my Lord,” said I with warmth, “I am at your orders. Issue them, issue them, let me show you what I can do.”

  “Delightful, delightful…. But now let us distract ourselves, Mademoiselle, your libertinage fetches my prick to a pretty stand. Eh, not too fast, however; we must undertake nothing until I have impressed upon you the high importance of observing very strictly this formula: you must be respectful. Respectful in all things, constantly, unfailingly. My titles to respect are many, I demand that they be acknowledged; I am a proud man, Juliette. Under no circumstances shall I use the familiar second person with you; never say thou to me. Address me, instead, as my Lord, speak to me in the third person so far as possible, and when you are in my presence study to assume a reverent attitude, posture, and mien. Apart from the eminent position I occupy, my birth is illustrious, my fortune enormous, and my credit superior even to the King’s: my station and condition make vanity unavoidable: the powerful man who, beguiled by the always meretricious popularity he may sometimes enjoy, allows himself to be approached too nearly, suffers as a consequence a loss of face, of prestige, is humiliated, abased, sinks into the estateless ruck. Nature put the great on earth as she did the stars in the sky: they are to shed light upon the world, never to descend to its level. Such is my pride that I like servants to kneel before me, prefer always to employ an interpreter when holding parley with that vile rabble known as the people; and I detest everybody who is less than my peer.”

  “In that case,” said I, “my Lord must despise a great share of society, since there are very few persons in this world who can pretend to be his equal.”

  “Precious few, Mademoiselle, that is correct; which is why I despise everybody on earth except the two friends who are here this evening, and a very limited number of others: for all the rest my hatred is unbounded.”

  “But, my Lord,” I took the liberty to say to this despot, “do not your libertine caprices now and again constrain you to step down from the pinnacle upon which, so it does seem to me, you would prefer to remain
at all times?”

  “No,” Saint-Fond replied, “there’s no contradiction here, it’s all of a piece: for minds conformed like mine, the humiliation implicit in certain acts of libertinage serves only as fuel to the fire of our pride.”1

  By then I was standing naked before him. “Ah, Juliette, it is a magnificent ass I see there,” praised the haughty lecher, exposing himself. “They told me it was superb, but upon my soul it surpasses its reputation. Bend forward, let me put my tongue to it…. O God!” he cried, all dismayed, “it’s spotlessly clean! Did Noirceuil neglect to tell you in what state asses are to be when presented to me?”

  “No, my Lord, of this Noirceuil told me nothing.”

  “I like them unwiped, beshat. … I like them perfectly foul—but this one is scrubbed, fresh as new-driven snow. Well, we shall have to resort to another; here you are, Juliette, behold mine—it is the way I wanted yours to be, you’ll find shit in there aplenty. Kneel facing it, adore it, consider the honor I accord you in permitting you to do my ass the homage an entire nation, nay, the whole wide world aspires to render it—oh, how many people would be overcome with joy could they but exchange places with you! if the very gods were to descend into our midst it would be to vie for this favor. Suck, lick; drive deep your tongue; seize your chance, my child, this is not the moment for backwardness.”