By the way, Monsieur Quiros, be so kind as to tell me if you are in tune with the fashion, do you have running shoes, harness buckles, or are you wearing a windmill on your head. I have a very great desire to see you in such an outfit, and am certain ‘twould give you a most interesting appearance. Just the other day I felt like decking myself out in one of those windmills. ‘Twas the one belonging to Lieutenant Charles, who happened to be performing that day (’twas quite a day); well, Monsieur Quiros, you’d never believe how much I looked like a cuckold as soon as my forehead was covered with a bit of felt. Oh, yes! Where did that cuckold look come from, Monsieur Quiros (for it did come from somewhere)? From the hat? From my forehead? From Lieutenant Charles? ’Tis a question I leave for you to answer.
I would be most obliged to you, Monsieur Quiros, if in return for all the many favors I have lavished on you, you would be so kind as to send me, in paper, a little model of your friend Monsieur Albaret’s dunce-cap. I’ve a pregnant woman’s whim to see a sample of that diadem. Kindly find the address of his hatmaker, for the first thing I intend to do when I get out is to go straight there and have myself properly hatted.
And how do your pleasures go, Monsieur Quiros?
Which of the two, Bacchus or Cupid,
Crowns your day with victory?
What!. . . by toasting each in turn
You think that glory you will earn?
I have every confidence you are fully capable of it, and the wines of Meursault, Chablis, Hermitage, Côte Rôtie, Lanerte, Romanée, Paphos, Tokay, Sherry, Montepulciano, Falerno, and Brie tickle your organs lubriciously, next to the chaste flanks of your Pamphilia, your Aurora, Adelaide, Rosette, Zelmira, Flora, Fatimah, Pouponne, Hyacinth, Angelica, Augustine, and Fatmé. Wonderful, Monsieur Quiros! Believe me, that’s the way to spend your life; and when Mother Nature created vines on the one hand and c-nts on the other, you may be sure ’twas for the sake of our pleasure. As for myself, Monsieur Quiros, I too have my little pleasures, and though they may not be as lively as yours, they are no less precious. I trip about to and fro in my room; to keep up my spirits at dinnertime, I have (and they consider this a great favor) a man who, regularly and without the slightest exaggeration, takes ten pinches of snuff, sneezes half a dozen times, blows his nose a dozen times, and hawks up thick phlegm from deep down in his throat, at least fourteen times, all that in the space of half an hour. Makes for a very clean and entertaining meal, wouldn’t you agree, especially when I am downwind? . . . ’Tis true, to keep me entertained, there’s the tall, disabled soldier who comes once a fortnight bearing an official form to fill out, which I have to renew, and once a year I receive a visit from Lieutenant Charles, who struts like an insolent peacock. Come now, Monsieur Quiros, you have to admit, these pleasures are worth every bit as much as yours: yours but befoul you in every vice, whilst mine lead to every virtue. Go ask Madame la présidente de Montreuil whether there is any better means in the world than locks to bring a person to the straight and narrow. I know full well that there are animals—you for example, Monsieur Quiros (and please do forgive me)— who say and maintain that one may give prison a try and, if it doesn’t succeed the first time, ’tis dangerous to try it again. But that’s sheer stupidity, Monsieur Quiros. Here’s the proper way of thinking: prison is the only remedy we in France know; hence prison can only be good; and since prison is good, it ought to be utilized in all cases. But it failed to work, not the first time, not the second time, nor the third time . . . So? In which case, they reply, ’tis a good reason to try it a fourth time. ’Tis not prison that’s at fault, since we have just if not proven at least established that prison is good. Hence the problem lies with the subject, and consequently back to prison with him. Bleeding is good for fever; in France we know nothing better; so bleed away, bleeding reigns king. But for Monsieur Quiros, for example, who has delicate nerves or a rare type blood, bleeding is not the solution—one must try to find something else for him. Not at all! your doctor will rejoin, bleeding is excellent for fever, that much we know for sure. Monsieur Quiros has fever: therefore he must be bled. All of which is called the power of reason . . . On that score, people far more sensible than you, Monsieur Quiros, who (with my most profound apologies) are an oaf, people say: Pagans! Atheists! impious souls! can you not tell the difference between physical illnesses and those of the soul? Do you not understand that there is no connection between the soul and the body? As proof of that, taking you as an example, whoremonger, drunkard, your soul’s gone to the devil while your body is rotting away in Saint Eustache’s cellar! So there is a very great difference between the soul and the body: therefore, there is no way one can make a connection between the treatments for the one and treatments for the other. Moreover, I, a doctor, earn my money from bleeding you, I am paid so much for each prick of the lancet; therefore you must be bled. And I, Sartine, earn money from clapping you in: I am paid so much per prisoner; therefore, you must be imprisoned. What do you have to say to that logic, Monsieur Quiros? If you want my advice, hold your tongue, and don’t get involved in dredging up your trite objections: prison is the fairest institution whereof the monarchy is adorned . . . If I had not kept my son-in-law behind bars, Madame la présidente de Montreuil will tell you, how could I have married 5’s, 3’s, and 8’s together, could I have squared 23’s with 9’s? and so arranged things that when my daughter visits her husband for the first time, when she pays him a last visit, and when finally she goes to bring him home, more than eighty numbers will all be the same? Eh, you big oaf, the présidente will go on to tell you, could I have done that if I had been worrying my head about my son-in-law’s happiness, about cleaning up his ideas or trying to bring him back to the straight and narrow? And isn’t my matching of numbers worth far more than these foolish suggestions you are recommending to me now? Happiness, virtues, head cures, you see that everyday. But the squaring numbers, figuring out their relationships, and resemblances, only my Albaret and I can carry out such things. Faced with such profound reasonings, Monsieur Quiros, your arms go slack, your large mouth grins from ear to ear, your right eyebrow makes a move toward your left, your nostrils swell, your brow breaks into a sweat, your knees knock together, and in your enthusiasm you exclaim: Ah! I had always said that that bitch was smarter than I and my cousin Albaret, too! Come now, Monsieur Quiros, cough, blow, spit, fart, and hum me a few bars from Margot’s in the Stockade Now.3
1. Monsieur Le Noir.
2. François-René Molet, a.k.a. Mole (1734-1802), an actor at the Comedie Française whom Sade greatly admired and who, he hoped, would one day appear in one of his plays.
3. Rough translation of the title of an irreverent army song popular at the time: Margot a fait biribi.
23. To Monsieur de Montreuil
January 6, 1780
I kindly request that Monsieur le président de Montreuil be so good as to remit to Madame la Marquise de Sade, his daughter, the sum of one hundred livres, of which I shall be accountable to him in the manner and at the time of his choosing; said sum to be employed by the aforementioned Marquise de Sade, my wife, for the deliverance from prison of one or two persons lying there for debts or fosterage; the sum remaining after the deliverance of the one, or of both, to be employed by her for whatever charitable purpose she so desires; all this in celebration of the greatest and most pleasing piece of news in the world, and of the finest act of justice, wisdom, and insight that the best of kings could implement in the course of his reign: the fall from grace, the dismissal, the shame, and the downfall and degradation of Sartine.
de Sade
24. To Madame de Sade
[Sometime after April 21 1780]1
I know of nothing that better proves the dearth and the sterility of your imagination than the unbearable monotony of your insipid signals. What! valets still sick of cleaning boots, workers reduced to idleness? And that’s all you can do, with a dozen of you toiling away, racking your brains, making up one thing after another, and only to come up
with the same nonsense every day? What stupidity. I blush with shame for all of you!
The other day, because you needed a 24, some fellow, sent to impersonate Monsieur Le Noir, and in order to make sure I wrote to Monsieur Le Noir, came on the 4th: and there was the 24!2
Recently, because you needed a 23, walks reduced by one and restricted to between 2 and 3: there’s your 23. Beautiful! Sublime! What a stroke of genius! What verve!
Ah! my God, read, keep busy, and if you had read nothing but Little Tom Thumb and spent all your time learning to tie knots, your time would have been less wasted than it has with such stupidities. If ’tis true that one must account to the Lord for one’s time on earth, what embarrassment awaits you in the next world!
But if you must make these signals of yours, at least do so with honest intent, and not so they are forever a source of vexation! ’Tis only the executioner who torments or mistreats a prisoner. Is that the profession you or your family intend to exercise? Is it baseness or sheer stupidity that keeps you from turning your signals into a source of comfort instead of always making them a source of constant vexation? If ’tis the former, then I have nothing to say, and I shall pay you back in the same coin, on that I give you my word. Of what use would your school be to me if I did not learn something from it? If ’tis the latter, then cast your eyes if you please upon this little example and you will see how easy it is to do the same things properly instead of doing them wickedly and stupidly.
When I want to form a 16—since, according to you sixteen and ceases are one and the same,3 and since you arrogate unto yourself the right to corrupt both the language and the ideas to such an extent— when, I say, I wanted to form a 16, from amongst the thirty or forty uniformly ridiculous chains Monsieur de S. has when I would subtract one, there would be a cessation. He desires an open door: when a 16 occurred I would open one for him to have 3 men bring him his food, as is done with the insane: he finds it both insipid and stupid. When the 16 comes around, I’d have this foolishness cease.
When I wanted to form a nine, I would tell him some piece of news or feed him some pleasantry. And the same with every other number. I want a 24? On the 4th I would grant him the pleasure of chatting with someone on the 2nd. I want a 33? I give him three hours of walks, and he writes back to me: “On the 3rd I had a three-hour walk,” and there’s my 33.
I want to mark some outstanding event, say a quarter, a third, etc.: I have him take a walk in the company of the major or the doctor for two or three hours in some other garden; now that’s an event. And why is it that, of the miserable less than half-acre they have here for taking walks, the commandant perforce takes three-quarters for himself? Is that fair? Have you seen Monsieur de Bory resorting to such infamies?
There, in a highly abbreviated form, is the way in which you should go about making your signals. This one little example can serve for five hundred numbers as it can for two; at least I shall not sink into a state of utter exhaustion as I am presently doing here, from never seeing anyone or having anyone to talk to. Yes, that is the way you ought to act if you had a shred of kindness left in you, and any other projects or desires in mind except those of imitating all the hangmen in Hell or driving me completely mad.
Not only must the signal be made in complete honesty, it must absolutely and very distinctly stand out from the ordinary parts of the letter, failing which ’tis but a horror, a heinous and spiteful act deserving of vengeance.
1. We know that on April 21 Sade received a visit from Monsieur Le Noir, during which the police official informed Sade that in the near future his wife would be allowed to visit him.
2. An example of Sade’s reading signals into many of his wife’s letters. Only he knew how to “read” them. Most signals were figments of Sade’s mind, therefore impossible to clarify, though in some instances here he does offer the source for his deductions.
3. A pun lost in translation. In French, sixteen (seize) and cease (cesse) sound very much alike.
25. To Madame de Sade
[April, 1780]
So ’tis decided once and for all that you do not want to send me those two comedies I have been asking you for so insistently and for such a long time. Or else, if you are sending them, they simply will have to await their turn and fall in line with the sublime signals that govern everything. I had begged you to send them in the simplest way, without bothering to enclose a letter, without anything, just sent in a plain envelope, nothing could have been easier. But apparently the Sublime Council1 has decided otherwise. All right. Come now, since I find myself without anything to do, I therefore might as well write to you. That will keep me busy for an hour, and ‘twill be one more hour taken care of. As a first piece of news, I hereby inform you that my health grows worse and worse. The day before yesterday the stove finally did me in and gave me such a terrible headache I was ill. I would have given ten louis to have been able to have fifteen minutes of fresh air; and, of course, I thought this would be a good time to make an exception to the rules, but ‘twas not my day, and people who think that at the very least they risk being hanged if they depart in any wise from their duty or take the slightest initiative, such people, as you can well imagine, would not lift a finger to help you even if you were on death’s doorstep. But in that case, Sir Sublime Director,2 insolent little despot who doubtless think that you’re in charge of a menagerie and not of people who are your betters—may I be allowed to address this to you— but in such a case you therefore must stay home, so that when such an emergency as the one that has just happened to me does occur, you can issue the necessary orders. And not take off at six o’clock in the morning, without anyone having the faintest notion where one can get hold of you for the rest of the day. All so that you can have your nasty little body purged somewhere on the other side of the mountain. We know you, you clever scoundrel, we know all about you! What does one do in Paris at six o’clock in the morning? ’Tis not at that hour of the day decent folk opens their doors. On the contrary, ’tis the hour of the lowest of the low, and ’tis they you are out looking for, is that not true? Yes, those are the ones you want, and we know at what price you frequent such people with impunity, and how you procure the sums necessary to pay for the pleasures they provide you. Yes, we know all this and have known it for a long time. And so when one prefers not to stay at home, one at least ought to have an adjutant who can act in one’s stead and make decisions when someone might be in dire need. But providing you are told in the morning, or once a week, that none of your wards has either escaped or died, that’s all you require. For since that is the only thing that guarantees your income and consequently your little pleasures at six o’clock in the morning, that is all that interests you.
Oh! ’tis a fine mess we have here, dear friend! Good God, if only you could see it for yourself! But of such shenanigans and of my health who will ever give you an accurate report? Ah! perish all thought of ever finding out the truth! Can you hope to get it from this kind of automaton who, twice a day, brings me food and drink as if to a dog in its kennel? Certainly not! The rascal to whom I’m worth more than forty pence a day would be the last person to let you know that I am at my wit’s end here and that ’tis killing me by slow degrees. Do you think you’ll find out from His Highness the Chief Jailer? Even less likely. Ah! Good Lord, since no one is going to make the slightest move to have them all released until word gets out that everyone is at the end of their rope, we are in a position to do some fine business! I sometimes imagine I can hear him say:
“You bore me to tears, Sir, with all this talk of yours about human kindness; I have a hard time feeling sorry for you. I, Sir, I need to drink, eat, sleep, and have myself . . . shaved. I am the youngest son in my family, slightly depraved, and to whom this post was given in the days when everything went to pimps, and because that’s what I was like any other. I got to where I am by the sweat of my brow, and in times as perilous for us as these, considering that the State is no longer honored as it deserves to be, yo
u want me to subject myself to that ridiculous human kindness and report to your family on matters that might be of interest to them and so deprive me of my few remaining pleasures! Ah! you may be sure I shall do no such thing.”
In short, the upshot of all this is that your ever-witty présidente has been screwing around full-go twice over; one, the Langeacqueries3 can at least be taken care of by payoffs, but this one is much worse, since keeping one here is the source of one’s income. Oh, the decent woman, the good woman, the ingenious woman, that présidente of yours! What a sharp mind, what a genius, how adept she is at making things work! Sometimes when I reflect upon that woman’s vast capacities—I mean her genius—I am simply stunned. How quick she is to foresee things once they have happened! What a talent she has for averting calamities when they have already occurred! . . . ’Tis an obsession with her, a veritable innate predilection! What that woman wants is not to prevent evil, ’tis that it come to pass and she then has the pleasure of taking her revenge afterward . . . Oh, she is the most generous of souls! She reminds me of that madman in Athens of whom Plutarch speaks, who stood in the street watching his house burn. “What, don’t you want to save your house?” people shouted at him. “I’d like nothing less,” he replied coldly. “I want the house to burn down so that I may have the pleasure of punishing those who set it on fire.” He and your mother are like two peas in a pod. Hark back upon almost all the events in the history of that prude’s behavior toward me, her falsehoods, her ruses, her infamous maneuvers, both past and present, and you will see whether ’tis not the same thing, word for word.
Letters From Prison Page 20
