I am pleased you are said to have gained a bit of weight and that the diet I recommended is working for you; it is unique, you may be sure, and I intend to adopt it for myself as soon as I am out.
Monsieur Le Noir did not increase the number of my walks. And it was pointless to strike out the line “he appeared to me surprised that you were closely confined,” because Monsieur Le Noir knows full well how confined I am, and because the commander here would not confine me in one way or another without orders from above; he does nothing on his own. Therefore, if Monsieur Le Noir appeared to you surprised, etc., he was putting on an act for you.1 Certainly, I am much more restricted than I was before; I have already gone into the details for you two or three times. The hope you held forth in June made me suspend judgment, but if it proves empty, as seems all too likely, and if Monsieur Le Noir promises you to look into my situation and see what he can do to improve it, you should simply tell me to write down, in the form of a memorandum, the various things I need for my comfort, and I shall do it; ask that they be implemented. Meanwhile, do keep on asking for that third walk, which I desire more than ever, since now’s the season to take advantage of it; but try to have it granted me in the afternoon, for ’tis only then that walks really do me any good. Certainly, if your hope of last June were to happen in everything except the extra walk I ask for, we could spare ourselves the trouble of asking for the rest. But if ’tis false, as seems very likely, then I most sincerely desire not to spend the summer as badly as I have the winter. Therefore I await your reply on the subject. You may dispense with any discussion of business matters, however brief, for most assuredly I shall not write one word in response. On that point, you must have received the notice wherein I give my word of honor, and I can tell you I shall not depart from it one iota.
Those verses are by Paulet, of that I am quite sure, and I persist in saying that the letter and the verses were sent from Paris, the lot through Saint Rousset or her intermediaries. You tell me that this Monsieur Ives (another made-up name, like Bontoux’s)2 is a village wit who talks endlessly and who makes the two of you die laughing in the letters Gothon3 has written. That’s precisely where I catch you out, for there is nothing less comical and nothing less endless than Paulet’s letter. The letter and the verses are very well written, in an easy and agreeable style, and are, in a word, the work of one of the Saint’s lovers. For she writes even better than that, and she did not want it to be her style; I would recognize it, of course. ’Tis therefore one more clear signal that I shall not waste my time either scrutinizing or interpreting. The only signals to which I pay any attention are the good old-fashioned ones, solid and substantial like the almanac she gave me at New Year’s, for example . . . Charming little New Year’s gift, more charming with each passing year And then the little looking glass shattered into a thousand pieces, which, without question, most clearly means that this is not going to be a lucky year for me, there being nothing more unlucky than broken mirrors. Those are what I call understandable signals. Oh! when they are like that I do understand them . . . But as for the others, in all candor I simply don’t put myself to any trouble over them. I do not know how to read her, Mademoiselle Rousset says to me in her letter . . . Ask her on my behalf what one should do to know how to read her: do you turn the page sideways, or upside down? Let her at least tell me how if she would have me learn to read her! Is she implying to me that I do not know how to figure out the special punctuation, the dots, the commas, the dashes, etc., which, following your example, she has got into the habit of cramming into her letters? If that is what she means, she is right to maintain that I do not know how to read her; and, if such is the case, she may rest assured that were she to write me letters in that kind for a hundred years I would be no further advanced, for I would have made no effort to decipher them. She is wrong, she adds, to have told me twice the truth when I asked for it only once . . . Please do me the favor of asking her for me in which of the two sentences I copied out for her yesterday is this glaring truth recorded, for as one of them says white and the other black, ‘twere well I be told which one contains the truth, so that, once I know which it is, I importune you no more upon this point. . . The truth! I’m most pleased that she dare assert that she told me the truth. Does she know it, the truth I ask for? It is short, it is brief; it is useless to drown it inside a jumble of nonsense about the hereafter. Simply write it down for me in a single line: You will be released upon the---- day of the month of-in the year-at-o’clock in the morning or afternoon. As you see, what I ask for is short and to the point; no need to make so much ado about it. It required neither thirty blank letters, nor. . . etc. All it required was a single little note, which you could just as easily have delivered to me as you did your infernal blank letters. But you cannot, you tell me?. . . A lie, an atrocious lie . . . Say rather that you do not want to, and at the same time know in your heart of hearts that I shall never forget how you behaved on this score.
So you have written to Gothon telling her to write to me every month . . . Something to look forward to, indeed . . . every month . . . So I have a hundred more of them to spend here! . . . Every month, how nice it sounds. You wrote to her because I told you to—all well and good, but from that phrase every month Gothon will understand—’tis as plain as the nose on her face—that I still have a very long time to spend here, and no longer will she have the illusion under which I told you ‘twas necessary we keep her, so that, thinking we were due to arrive from one day to the next, she would maintain the chateau at all times in a proper state and above all not raise any silkworms. Now find a way to make sure both those things come to pass.
A further bit of kindness. You are not going to send the stomachers back to me because you hope I’ll have enough of them to last for the rest of my detention. Now, I very clearly informed you that I was supplied up until the end of May 1780. Thus you hope that at that point I shall need them no more. What a charming idea. Now, I do not wear them in summertime. Consequently, ’tis only twenty-one months from now that I might have a need for those in your possession. And you hope that by that time I’ll not need them anymore. Verily, I thank you, Madame! When I look back upon the period of my sufferings, I shall be able to think of how well you fulfilled your duties toward me and to say that you were a source of great comfort to me. I know full well that your answer to that will be that I lack common sense, that I get upset for no reason and that I always see everything in the worst light. For two years now, Madame, you have been writing me those fine phrases, and yet you must admit that when they began to reach me, ‘twas for good reason I got upset and I was not wrong in seeing things in the worst light. Inasmuch as I have been suffering ever since, who will assure me at present that more of the same is not in store for me? Am I in any way better off than I was at that time? Not by one iota; and ’tis a truly unusual and perhaps unparalleled thing, that with two years of suffering behind me, I have cause, both by the letters I receive and the treatment I endure, to consider myself worse off than I was in my first months here . . . And you believe I shall forgive those who have concocted this kind of torture to inflict upon me? I shall eat my own soul sooner than forsake vengeance . . . I shall prove to these unworthy monsters, to these execrable beasts vomited up out of hell to visit un-happiness upon others, that I am not their toy, and that if I had the misfortune to be it for a while, they may just as well become mine someday, no matter who they are.
Keep your bottle of Muscat wine. I asked whether Chauvin4 had sent a lot of it, but since there is so little, I don’t want any; and above all do not buy me any, because I’ll drink nothing from any shopkeeper . . . it would be doctored stuff; I’ll not touch a drop . . . Besides, my fancy for it is gone . . . This situation I am in is both horrible and extraordinary; and I feel something very strange that I had never experienced in the outside world. I would like to have some experienced soul-healer explain it to me. Twenty times a day you have an overwhelming desire for all kinds of things, and then the
next moment, without having procured them, you have an awful sense of revulsion for them. That was the way it was about every one of the things I asked you for, and as soon as they reached me I found them disgusting: explain that to me.
What is all this nonsense you keep feeding me over and over that you do not understand how the doctor can be so philosophical as to laugh at a sentence which you did not write to him? I said that IF you had sent that sentence to the doctor, he would have been philosophical enough not to be angered by it. That is clear, is it not? Personally, I see nothing strange about it; and there’s no point your telling me that I talk without knowing what I’m saying.
Nor did I say that the doctor’s daughter was a beauty, but I did say that she was not dark-haired, that she was fair. Does that mean I said she is a beauty? As far as the duchess is concerned, still nothing at the bottom of your portrait: she looks as much like La Martignan as I do Sixtus the Fifth. La Martignan is a tramp, in large part the cause of my affair,5 and who acted out of revenge because I would have nothing to do with her in the days when I first went to Provence. She is affected, short in stature, and has a common look about her, whereas the duchess, along with a very amiable character, has very noble features and the look of Minerva. I persist in telling you that there is no lawyer in Paris named Bontoux. When I tried to convince Simeon that there was, he brought me a register, printed in Paris, listing the names and addresses of all the lawyers in Paris, amongst whom I espied no one by that name. So don’t talk to me any more about that brute. As for the unpleasant-looking countenance worn by the somber creature who was introduced to me by that name, let him go by whatever name he pleases, Chivarucmarbarbarmarocsacrominecpanti, if he likes, it’s all the same to me; but may the Good Lord take whatever steps He must to make sure he is never alone in the same room as me. I impatiently await the four volumes of Les Hommes Illustres; when you send me those first four, let me know how many more there are. And the little candles, for God’s sake, the little candles! Why do you persist in refusing to send them? I shall return Petrarch during the holidays, perhaps before. Does your father still go to the law courts? Bully for him! When one has a hundred thousand livres in annuities, one must be a fool to get up at five in the morning to go stick one’s nose in other people’s business! Is he by now presiding judge in his chamber? And your brother the knight, in what wretched regiment is he serving today? I find him mentioned nowhere in the almanac. Why do you never go to dine at your parents’, young lady?. . . For shame, you should be ashamed! Honor your father and mother, says Moses, and eat often at home. How is Madame de Plissay?6 And give my regards to Madame de Chamousset.7 I have always liked and respected her, and I would be willing to wager she does not dislike me either. It gives me pleasure to be told that I shall see Laure8 when I am released . . . That, for example, is one desire that has yet to turn into revulsion. . . There are two or three others of the same sort, about which, Madame la Marquise, I shall inform you at the proper time and place. You did most positively tell me, my sweet, that “your children left satisfied they were to see you in two years”—that, word for word, is what you wrote. Which means, I believe, that I shall not see them for two years. You now change your tune, so much the better, for I confess it would have sorely grieved me to leave the country without seeing them. Thinking about them drives me crazy. If only you could see me talking to them all by myself. . . You’d think I’d lost my wits. Not a night goes by without my dreaming of them. I’ll write to them soon. I greatly appreciate all the charming things you tell me now and then about that duchess. I’d like to have sufficient wit to respond to them. Let it suffice that you know my heart is touched by them.
This portrait the Saint has done is quite unparalleled. ’Tis unheard of to have done it without a sketch . . . She does whatever she likes with those five fingers of hers. There was only one thing I wanted to get her to do at La Coste with those same fingers, and she never would . . . Well now, ladies, there it is, isn’t it? You think you are about to hear a little remark, and ’tis the simplest thing in the world. ’Tis so simple and so proper I would say it to the Holy Virgin herself, were she to ask. When you ask me for an explanation, I’ll be happy to provide it. . . Meanwhile, tell her I was even more flattered by her efforts than she supposes, and shall keep this portrait all my life. Tell her, too, that one must not leave when one loves someone to the point of enjoying painting their portrait. In addition to which, tell her that good though it is, I like to think it would have been an even better likeness if she had not worked from the painting, since I am sure there exists in her a little spot where I am more strikingly present than upon Van Loo’s canvas . . . But if she does leave, I shall never see her again. So let her stay and we shall always be together, and live happily ever after. As for you, my little duckling, I kiss you upon the . . . then upon the . . . afterward upon the . . .
This 22nd of March, having eleven more months more to endure.
1. Knowing his fate is in the hands of M. Le Noir, Sade generally avoids attacking him, but here he loses control.
2. The parenthesis is Sade’s. Ives was Madame de Montreuil’s envoy to Sade. He was hired to assist in Sade’s appeal at Aix, presumably as a lawyer, but Sade staunchly maintains, in this same letter, that no such name was included in the register of Paris lawyers.
3. Gothon Duffé, a Swiss chambermaid the Sades engaged to service La Coste. From Sade’s description in letter number 56, she was chosen more for the extraordinary proportions of her buttocks than for her chambermaidenly talents. Her lover at the chateau was Carteron, a.k.a. La Jeunesse (Youth), who was Sade’s trusted valet. (See letter number 19.)
4. Both Sade and his wife asked Chauvin to ship them local wines.
5. Meaning: my arrest.
6. Madame de Montreuil’s mother.
7. The wife of Claude Piarron de Chamousset, an eighteenth-century French philanthropist.
8. Madeleine-Laure, his daughter, whose eighth birthday is less than a month away.
14. To Madame de Sade
[March or April, 1779]
Is it possible that they don’t want to see and [words missing] revolt, Jl and serves only to destroy to the very root all the good resolutions that the conclusion of my affair caused to well up in me . . . No, never shall I pardon their infamy in having me rearrested . . . ’Tis a horror of unparalleled dimensions. To sacrifice a man, his reputation, his honor, his children, to the rage, to the vengeance, and to the greed of those who wanted me to be clapped back in prison—since, knowing what lay in store for me, they hid it from me so that I would I fall all the more easily into the trap—that is an execration whose example cannot be found even amongst the most ferocious of nations. And when I have the misfortune to fall again into this terrible trap, to make sure I was even more unhappy than I was before, to keep me even more confined in my new prison, to increase my persecutions there, to lie to me even more recklessly than before . . . These methods make one shudder, and I dare not look upon them with composure. . . Tell those who think that this is the way to punish their fellow human beings, tell them without mincing words that they are greatly mistaken: all they are doing is making their victims more bitter, nothing more. Persecutors—be you male or female—tyrants, valets of tyrants, odious satellites of their shameful caprices, in short all of you whose only good is revenge or the hope of attaining honors by basely serving the rage of those whose influence is your sole support or whose money nourishes you, do you know what I compare you to? To that band of ne’er-do-wells who go, sticks in hand, to jeer at the lion held captive in an iron cage. ’Tis with a mixture of great fear and glee they tease it, poking their sticks through the bars. If the animal had broken loose, you would have seen them running helter skelter, trampling one another as they all fled, and dying of terror before the lion had caught up with them. There, my friends, in such wise do you behave: judge what I think of you from the comparison, and your infamies from its accuracy.
I am infinitely gratified by the
news of my son’s progress.1 You must sense to what degree that makes him even dearer to me . . . Whatever the prior may think, this translation strikes me as most commendable in a schoolboy in his first six months of study. That does not lessen my affection for the chevalier.2 You know that till now I was fonder of him than of his older sibling. But I am so delighted by the good things I hear about the elder, rendering him even so dear to me, I shall as you say write to the chevalier to encourage him. Please be so kind as to thank your mother for her attentiveness in wanting me to share with her the joy this child’s progress affords us. To inform me of the news by such an agreeable channel is, in a way, to make it twice as welcome. What a pity that this child cannot be given a broader education . . . And how truly sad I shall be if I don’t have the chance to see him when I am released from here. I have no further work for La Jeunesse.3 What can you expect me to do without books? One must be surrounded by them in order to work, otherwise one can concoct nothing but fairy tales, and I have no talent for that. Therefore answer me about that book I asked your father for, and the little candles which I asked for centuries ago; I have been out of them for over a week.
I embrace you.
1. Louis-Marie, his older son, who was doing very well in school.
2. Donatien-Claude-Armand.
3. Sade’s valet served, among other things, to transcribe Sade’s writings into fair copy.
15. To Mademoiselle de Rousset
[April or May, 1779]
There has been a veritable torrent of meaningless words on both our parts for a very simple discussion; it has gradually led us to bitterness, and I do not want our friendship ever to become embittered. Whether or not you reply to this final accusation, I care not; it shall be, if you so desire, the concluding piece of evidence in the case, and once we have got past this I would prefer not to mention it again. First of all, I am going to lay out the wrongs you have done me, and excuse them by invoking the one motive that I consider an attenuating circumstance; after which I shall set forth the wrongs you accuse me of, and justify myself with great ease.
Letters From Prison Page 15
