Juliette

by Marquis de Sade

  “The ancient Russians impaled through the flanks and hooked by the ribs. Our Turkish contemporaries place the skewer through the fundament.

  “During his Siberian travels Gmelin saw a woman buried alive up to the chin; thus was she fed; and expired only on the thirteenth day.

  “The vestals were walled up in narrow little niches, where was placed a table and upon it a lamp, a loaf, and a bottle of oil. In Rome they have lately discovered an underground passage leading from the imperial palace to the field beneath which these vestal catacombs were built.34 Which proves that the emperors either went to witness these enjoyable sights, or had the doomed vestals fetched to their palace, to enjoy them there and then kill them in a manner analogous to their particular tastes and their passions.

  “In Morocco and Switzerland the guilty one is clamped between planks and sawed in two. Hippomenes, the African king, had his son and daughter devoured by horses that had been deprived of food for a long time; and did it without thought for any sacred ties of kinship; it is no doubt from this feat he got the name Hippomenes.

  “The Gauls first kept their victims five years in prison, then impaled and burned them, all this in honor of the Divinity, for it is upon that splendid machine all human iniquities must be blamed.

  “The ancient Germans smothered their victims in a mud-slough. The Egyptians inserted sharpened reeds into every part of the body, then set them afire.

  “The Persians, the world’s most ingenious race for the invention of tortures, lay their victim in a round boat and inverted another over him, so that he was sealed between these two halves of a hollow sphere, except that his hands, feet, and head remained outside, passing through slots. He was forced to eat and drink in this situation; were he to refuse, his eyes were pricked with pointed instruments; honey was sometimes daubed on his face, so as to attract wasps; worms ate him alive. Who would believe it? Victims sometimes endured eighteen days of this treatment. What sublime science! And what art! For art consists in causing a little dying every day for as many days as possible. The Persians used also to grind between millstones, or would flay alive and with green thorns rub the skinned body, which causes unheard-of sufferings. Nowadays in the harems, the fashionable torture for women with whom some fault has been found is to cut multiple incisions in all their fleshier parts, and then to pour molten lead into each of the wounds, one by one, drop by drop; to impale by way of the matrix, or to make a pincushion of the patient, using not pins, however, but sulphur-dipped splines which are lit and fueled by the victim’s own fat.”

  And Juliette assured His Holiness that she was familiar with this torture too.

  “Daniel,” the Pope went on, “informs us that the Babylonians cast unfortunates into hot ovens.

  “The Macedonians crucified head downward.

  “The Athenians administered toxic brews, drowned in a bathtub after having slit the veins.

  “The Romans occasionally hung by the virile privities from a tree; the torture of the wheel was passed on to us by the Romans. With them an ordinary method of quartering was to bend down the crests of four saplings till they touched the ground, to attach the victim’s four limbs each to one of these treetops, and then to let them all fly back upright at the same moment. Mettius Suffetius was drawn and quartered by four chariots. Under the emperors they flogged to death. Or placed the victim in a leathern bag along with serpents, and tossed the bag into the Tiber. At other times the victim was strapped to the rim of a great wheel, which would be spun very swiftly for a while, then suddenly made to turn in the opposite direction, which loosened the victim inwardly and often caused him to vomit his very bowels.

  “The great Torquemada had the tongs applied in his presence to the fleshier parts of the patient’s body; and at other times would have him sat upon a pointed stake in such a manner that all his weight must bear on his rump: a frightful position, whence there result singular convulsions and a death accompanied by spasmodic laughter very extraordinary to observe.35

  “Apuleius speaks of the mortification one woman was made to undergo, its details are rather droll. An ass was killed, its entrails removed, and into its skin she was sewn, all save her head; she was thus exposed to wild beasts.

  “The tyrant Maxentius bound a living man to a dead man and left him to rot upon the corpse.

  “There are countries where the patient is tied close to a bonfire; holes are bored in his body whereby the flames enter and consume him gradually from within.

  “At the time of the Dragonnades, girls who were loath to embrace the True Faith were seized and, in order to bring about a change in their minds, their anus and womb were funneled full of gunpowder. Next, they were exploded like bombs. You have simply no idea how this gave them a taste for the host and for auricular confession. And how can one help but love a God in whose name such wondrous fine deeds are wrought!

  “Coming back again to classical tortures we see St. Catherine bound to a nail-studded cylinder and rolled down a mountainside. Now there, Juliette, is a pleasant way of getting to heaven, don’t you agree?

  “We see other martyrs of this same religion, whose apostle I am rather more from interest than from taste, having needles driven under their fingernails, roasted upon grills, lowered head downward into a pit containing a dog and a snake otherwise deprived of food and drink, and having to endure a thousand other horrors of whose details you have a fair inkling.36

  “Moving next to foreign customs, in China we see the executioner answerable with his life for the patient’s if this patient loses his before the appointed term, which is ordinarily very long, sometimes eight, even nine days, and during this time the tortures are varied with utmost artistry.

  “The English chopped into pieces and boiled them in a pot. In their colonies they slowly crushed the Negroes in the sugar-cane mills, which is as slow a way to die as it is dreadful.

  “In Ceylon the victim is condemned to eat his own flesh or his children’s.

  “The inhabitants of Malabar are choppers also, they use a saber. Or else they feed to tigers.

  “In Siam if you fall out of favor you may expect to be gored and trampled to death by bulls. The king of this country put a rebel to death by feeding him upon his own flesh, whereof he was given a slice from time to time; those same Siamese sometimes squeeze the victim’s body in a jacket through which he is pricked by very sharp instruments, to force him to hold his breath: next, the body is cut suddenly in two, the upper part placed straight on a red-hot brass griddle, which halts the escape of blood and prolongs the life of the patient whose existence has been reduced by a half.

  “It is not very different in Cochin-China, where they strip the man bare, bind him to a post, and remove one piece of his flesh every day.

  “The Koreans inflate the victim’s body with vinegar and when he is swollen to goodly proportions, drum upon him with sticks till he dies. Their king put his sister in a brazen cage beneath which a fire was kept burning, and she danced to amuse His Majesty.

  “In other parts the victim is fixed so that he lies in the air, one transverse bar supporting his thighs, his ankles attached to another; his shins are beaten with rods; occasionally he is struck on the buttocks; this latter method is widely practiced in Turkey and the Barbary States.

  “The object they call the pao-lo in China is a brass column standing twenty cubits high and having eight in diameter; it is hollow; from within it is brought to an extremely high temperature; when it is glowing, the patient embraces the column, is bound fast to it, and is slowly grilled. ‘Twas, they say, an emperor’s wife who invented this torture, and never saw it being used without discharging deliciously.37

  “The Japanese carve open the belly; the patient is sometimes pinioned by four men; from afar the fifth runs upon the sufferer and as he somersaults over him, deals him a skull-shattering blow with an iron mace.

  “The Moravian Brothers used to tickle to death. A somewhat similar torture has been tried on women: experience shows they may b
e masturbated to death.

  “But what will surprise you even more is to see persons of condition and high rank plying the trade of executioner. What then is one to suppose, unless that they are guided by a cruel form of lubricity?

  “Moulay Ismael was himself the chief executioner of the criminals in his empire; in Morocco no one was put to death save by his royal hand; and no one took off a head as nicely as could he. In performing these feats, so he used to say, he found inexpressible delight. Ten thousand unfortunates came to know the vigor of his arm: in those lands where he held sway it was a current opinion that he who perished by the monarch’s hand earned an eternity of bliss in Paradise.

  “The king of Melinde himself metes out the bastinadoes in his country.

  “Bishop Bonner of London himself depilated those who were unwilling to be converted, or lashed them. He held one man’s hand on a brazier until the nerves were burned.

  “Uriothesli, England’s Lord Chancellor, had a very pretty woman who did not believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ brought before him, and he himself flogged her to ribbons and cast her into the fire. And do you fancy the lecher got through all this without an erection?

  “In the year 1700, at the time of the war of the Camisards, Abbé du Chayla ranged the Cévennes, whipping all the little girls who would not renounce their Protestantism; so severely did he deal with some that they died, and the shooting began forthwith.

  “It has been reported in several countries that when two criminals are being executed at the same time, the headsman steeps his hands in the blood of the first and wipes it on the face of the second before decapitating him.

  “Murder, we must conclude, has been revered and made a common practice all over the earth; from pole to pole human victims are sacrificed. Egyptians, Arabs, Cretans, Cypriots, Rhodians, Phocaeans, Greeks, Pelagians, Scythians, Romans, Phoenicians, Persians, Indians, Chinese, Massagetae, Getae, Sarmatians, Irish, Norwegians, Suevi, Scandinavians, all Northern peoples, Gauls, Celts, Cimbrians, Germans, Bretons, Spaniards, Moors, Blacks, all of them individually and generally have slain human beings upon the altars of their gods. From time immemorial man has taken pleasure in shedding the blood of his fellow man and to content himself he has sometimes disguised this passion under a cloak of justice, sometimes under one of religion. But, and of this let there be no doubt, his purpose, his aim has always been the astonishing pleasure killing procures him.

  “After such examples, Juliette, after such striking demonstrations, shall you be convinced that there is no commoner deed than murder in all the world, that there exists none more legitimate, and that it would be extravagance in you to have the slightest misgivings or a single regret over all those you may have committed, or to form the cowardly resolution not to commit any more?”

  “Adorable philosopher!” I cried, flinging my arms around Braschi’s neck, “never has anyone dealt with this important matter in the way you have done; never has it been so precisely, so thoroughly, so plausibly explained; with so many curious anecdotes; with so many trenchant examples. Ah, all my doubts are dissipated now, I surrender to right reason; all my scruples are removed, the way ahead lies clear, and I am at the point of desiring, with Tiberius, that all mankind might have but a single head which one could have the pleasure of cutting off at a single stroke.

  “Let us go, Father, the hour is advanced; did you not say that morning must not find us still in our impurities?”

  We moved into the basilica.

  Part Five

  Enormous screens surrounded the isolated altar of St. Peter, making a space about one hundred yards square with the altar in its center; this room was completely shut off from the rest of the cathedral. Twenty girls and twenty young boys were disposed on tiered benches backed against each of the four sides of the arena; at each of the four angles of that superb altar, between the steps descending from it and the front row of benches, was a small Greekish altar intended for the victims. By the first a girl of fifteen was to be seen; by the second, a young woman of twenty, gravid; by the third, a youth of fourteen; by the fourth, a young man eighteen years of age and fair as Apollo. Three priests faced the great altar, ready to consummate the sacrifice, and six naked choirboys were there to serve it, two of them stretched prone upon the altars, their sparkling behinds ready for use as holy stones. Braschi and I reclined upon an ottoman situated on a stage raised ten feet above the ground, access to which was had by a stairway whose steps were covered by a magnificent Turkish carpet; this stage was large enough to provide easy accommodation to twenty persons at least. Six little Ganymedes of seven or eight, all naked, sitting on the steps, were at a snap of the finger to execute the orders of the Holy Father; various costumes both gallant and picturesque adorned the men, but that worn by the women was too delicious not to merit particular description. They wore a shift of unbleached gauze fitting loosely, negligently to their figure, hiding none of it; and had a pink collarette around the neck. The tunic I have just spoken of was, by means of a broad bow of the same pink, gathered up in behind and left the flanks absolutely exposed; over this shift each had on a blue taffeta simar which, falling in ample folds back over the shoulders, shaded nothing in front; their hair floated in free tresses; upon her head each wore a simple crown of roses. I was so taken with the elegance of this dishabille that I decided at once to adopt something similar. The ceremony began.

  As soon as His Holiness formed a desire, the six aides-decamp poised on the stairs immediately flew to satisfy it. Three girls were called for. The Pope sat down on the face of one of them, bidding her tongue his anus; the second mouthed his prick; the third dandled his balls; and while this was going forward my ass became the object of Pius VI’s lewd kisses. Mass was said and orders given that my wishes be carried out as promptly and fully as the Pontiff’s own. The Host once consecrated, the acolyte brought it up to the stage and respectfully deposited it upon the tip of the papal prick; the very next moment the bugger claps it into my bum, wafer first. Six girls and six pretty boys press around us, making flashing display of their asses and tools; I was myself being frigged from below by a very comely youth whose prick one of the girls was masturbating. There was no resisting this onslaught of lewdness; Braschi’s sighs, moans, pulsations, and blasphemies report his nearing ecstasy and precipitate mine; we discharge with screams of pleasure. Sodomized by the Pope, the body of Jesus Christ nested in one’s ass, oh, my friends! what rare delight. It seemed to me I had never in all my life tasted quite the like. We fell back exhausted amidst that crowd of celestial playthings surrounding us, and the sacrifice was over.

  Forces must be regained; Braschi would have no tortures started until he was stiff again. As twenty girls and that many boys labored to restore him to life, while he looked avidly on I got myself thirty or so fuckings from a group of youths, exciting them four at a time while being caressed by a pair. Braschi, as I say, watched me perform these libertine excesses, he cheered me on and exhorted me to more. A new Mass was celebrated, and this time the Host, conveyed by the fairest prick in the room, was introduced into the fundament of the Holy Father, who, beginning to stand aright, had asses fence us in and he re-embuggered me.

  “Good,” said he, withdrawing after a few lunges and recoveries, “I merely wanted to temper the blade. We may now immolate.”

  He gives the signal for the first execution; it was to be of the eighteen-year-old young man. We have him approach, and having kissed, caressed, sucked, polluted him, Braschi informs him he is going to be crucified like St. Peter, head downward. He hears his sentence with stoic resignation and undergoes it courageously. I was frigging Braschi while the nails were being driven in; and who do you suppose wielded the hammers? The same priests who had just celebrated the Masses. After affixing the young man to his cross they attached the latter to one of the spiraled pillars of Saint Peter’s altar, and attention was turned to the girl of fifteen. She too was led up, the Pope embuggered her; I was frigging her; she was first condemned to the
most vigorous fustigation, then hanged from a second pillar.

  Up stepped the boy of fourteen, Braschi embuggers him too; and desiring to carry out this execution personally, he subjected him to every known vexation and horror. It was at this point it occurred to me what a villain Braschi was. One has but to be on the throne to carry infamy to the last extreme: the impunity these diademed rascals enjoy leads them into refinements nobody else would even dream of. Sotted from lust, the monster finally tears the child’s heart out and devours it while loosing streams of evil fuck. The pregnant woman remained.

  “Entertain yourself with this baggage,” Braschi said to me, “I leave her fate in your hands. I am not going to stiffen again, I can feel it, but it will nevertheless gladden me to see you have at her: no matter what the state I happen to be in, crime always amuses me. So don’t spare her.”

  The wretch approaches.

  “Whose is this child?” I ask her.

  “One of His Holiness’ minion’s.”

  “And it was done within His Holiness’ sight?”

  “Yes.”

  “The father, is he present?”

  “He is standing there.” She pointed toward a young man.

  I now addressed him. “What you put into her you shall now take out—here is the knife, and act this very instant if you do not wish to feel its edge.” The crestfallen fellow did as he was told; each thrust of the dagger drew a discharge from me, and when the body was all one great wound and I all dry, we retired.

  Braschi was bent on having me pass the rest of the night with him, the libertine adored me.

  “You are firm,” he declared, “and that is how I like a woman to be. Among them you do not have many rivals.”

  “Princess Borghese surpasses me,” I replied.

  “Far from it,” the Pope retorted, “she is forever having fits of remorse. A week from today,” he continued, “I shall give you the supper I have promised; the Princess will be there, and your friends the Cardinals too. Believe that I am sincere, beloved child, when I say that I hope we shall achieve horrors exceeding anything we have accomplished this evening.”