Letters From Prison

by Marquis de Sade

  EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY ENGRAVING BY DUPIN, COLLECTION RICHARD SEAVER

  The Charenton Asylum. Sade was lodged on the second floor of the right wing of the hospital. Following his hasty removal from the Bastille just after midnight on July 3, 1789, Sade remained incarcerated in Charenton until April 2, 1790, which was Good Friday—a day, noted Sade, he intended to celebrate for the rest of his life.

  A letter from Sade to his longtime Provençal lawyer, Gaspard Gaufridy, written shortly after his release from Charenton. Dated only “May 1790,” it probably falls between letters 108 and 109 of the present volume. Sade, setting up his new household in Paris, is asking Gaufridy to go to La Coste and send him posthaste some silverware, sheets, and napkins, as well as, needed even more urgently, money. He also notes that he is ill, “shaking with fever.”

  COLLECTION RICHARD SEAVER

  Another pleading missive to Gaufridy, dated three months later, August 16, 1790, detailing the exact sum he will need between then and January to clear his debts and survive. Noting precisely what he expects to receive, he still finds himself “a thousand francs short.”

  COLLECTION RICHARD SEAVER

  Copy of the order issued October 18, 1810, by the Count de Montalivet, Minister of the Interior, ordering that Sade be isolated from the other inmates at the Charenton asylum. By the time of this order, Sade had already been back at Charenton for seven years. Among other things, Montalivet deprives Sade of all writing materials and concludes the “harsh order” by making the director of the asylum, Monsieur de Coulmier, “personally responsible for [its] execution.” A week later Coulmier, who liked Sade, responded: “I credit myself with being head of a humanitarian establishment and would find it humiliating to see myself become a jailer or one given to persecuting a fellow human being.” Count de Montalivet ‘s order was never enforced.

  COURTESY MUSéE CALVET, AVIGNON

  Sade’s death certificate, signed December 3, 1814, “at twelve noon.” It lists Sade as a “man of letters.”

  COURTESY MAIRIE DE CHARENTON-SAINT MAURICE

  Let us take this one step further. Three other girls, of such age and condition that they were beyond their family’s jurisdiction, lived, either before or after this period, for several weeks at La Coste chateau. Let us tell their full story, and may this be a general confession, for such is my express intention, and I wish, if I possibly can, to destroy once and for all even the slightest suspicion of all the horrors that some people have enjoyed trumping up about me and that have led Madame de Montreuil to treat me as she has, both because of her extreme tendency to believe anything she hears, and because of the weapons these falsehoods have furnished her desire for revenge.

  The first of these three girls was named Du Plan; she was a dancer at the Marseilles Opera. She lived openly in the chateau, and without incognito, with the title of governess; and when she left La Coste, she did so openly. More than a year later, I ran into her again at the Bordeaux Opera, and she was still living in a small provincial town that was pointed out to me when I went to Aix. Therefore, no concerns about her. The second came from Montpellier; her name was Rosette. She stayed for about two months at the chateau, keeping very much to herself. At the end of this period, she said she wanted to leave, and so we both agreed that she would write to a man she knew in Montpellier, and that this man, who, I believe, was a carpenter by trade and her landlord in the said city of Montpellier, would personally come to fetch her, just outside the castle walls. The appointed hour, the place, the day, the rendezvous, everything was specifically agreed upon. On the appointed day the man duly arrived, and I myself handed the girl over to the aforementioned man, the girl named Marie (she being the Lyons girl who had remained in my service) carrying her package of personal belongings, which was also handed over to the man, who, having brought along a mule, placed the girl and her baggage on the mule, and received from me the sum of six gold louis that the girl asked me to give him—that being the sum she had earned in my employ—and off they went. That event took place in June of 1775. In October, 1776, 1 spent a fortnight in Montpellier, as you know, and thence brought back the third girl in question. Rosette—for that was her name—was most certainly living in Montpellier at the time, the proof being that I saw her there, saw her there in any event or, to put it more honestly, in the full meaning of the term, and that ‘twas she who suggested to this third girl, whose name was Adelaide, to come and follow in her footsteps, assuring her in the presence of two or three other women, not all of whom may be disinclined to testify when the time comes for me to speak out; assuring her, I say, that except for the problem of loneliness, she had nothing but good things to say about me and her dealings with her. ‘Twas thanks solely to Rosette’s recommendation that I owed the other who, knowing nothing about me, would otherwise most surely not have come. And so Adelaide arrives and remains until Madame de Montreuil’s third scene, at which point the postmaster of Courthézon8 escorted her away without further ado. Thus is the fate of that third girl clearly established. Two or three other girls, either cooks or scullery maids, including those you and I brought down from Paris, did at different times, during my contumacy, live at La Coste chateau, but they were there so briefly and their arrivals and departures were so well documented, that I see no need even to mention them. Also among them was a niece of Nanon, the p_____about whom we have just spoken, and whom we sent to a convent. Madame de Montreuil had her removed from it; therefore she knows what has become of her. That is the full story. That is my general confession, such as I would make it before God, were I on my deathbed.

  What is the upshot of all this? That Monsieur de Sade, whom they doubtless accuse of all sorts of horrors, since they are keeping him in prison for so long, who has good and valid cause to fear being imprisoned, both for the reason he shall shortly reveal and because he has already experienced, on two occasions, what the public’s malicious calumny could do to harm him, is nonetheless no more guilty of tests, experiments, or murders in this most recent story than he was in any of the others, that Monsieur de Sade has done everything that everyone else in the world has, that he has consorted with women who were either already wanton or furnished for him by a p_____, and therefore seduction is simply not applicable as regards him, and yet Monsieur de Sade is being punished and made to suffer as if he were guilty of the most heinous crimes.

  Let us now have a look at the proof brought forth against him: 1st: The confessions of the guilty p______.9 But are the personal reasons she had for self-justification not powerful enough to make me think ‘twas in her best interest to put as much of the blame as she could upon the shoulders of the person she thought to be her accomplice? 2nd: The nonexistence of the girls: I stake my head on this, and am prepared to lose it if I am wrong. 3rd: Human bones found in a garden: they were brought as evidence by the girl named Du Plan, she is very much alive and well, she can be interrogated; as a joke, be it in good or bad taste (in either case I offer it to you), they used the bones to decorate a small room; they were actually used for that purpose, and then put out into the garden when the joke, or rather the platitude, was over. Let them count and compare what they found against the list that I have in Du Plan’s hand of the number and kind of those she herself brought from Marseilles: they shall see whether one more was found. All these verifications and confrontations are nonetheless necessary in an affair of this sort: has anyone gone to the trouble of making even a single one? Of course not! Verily, ‘twas not the truth they were after: ‘twas to send me to prison—and here I am. But I shall perhaps get out some day, and when I do perhaps people will give me sufficient credit to understand that I shall know how to vindicate myself and how to pass judgment on those who are treating me thus; or at least, if because of their wealth and their protection I fail to succeed in this endeavor, at least, I say, I shall know how to cover them publicly with ignominy, shame, and embarrassment.10

  Let us go on; I want to leave no stone unturned. What more is to be added to all this evi
dence? The testimony of a child? But that child was a servant:11 in his capacity as a child and as a servant his evidence is inadmissible. Moreover, there is another obvious element of prejudice here: this child was the dependent of a mother who was by no means disinterested, a woman who thought that by having her child report a thousand horrors she would earn herself a nice little nest egg for life; she knew all about the hundred louis of Arcueil. Ah, someone may object, what makes you so sure that this child testified against you? Therefore the child did see certain things, knew certain things, since you are afraid of his admissions? Yes, I was expecting you to say that, for ’tis precisely the crux of the infamy. First of all, who must have been afraid of him, knowing that he had just been retrieved in the same way and by persons such as those who had already raised such a ruckus in Lyons? A first reason for me to be highly skeptical, for me to be sure he was making the whole thing up, just as the others had done and with the same ends in view. But that is far from the whole story, and here is what I learned and what I was told during my trip up from Provence, by someone who seemed to be so well informed that he could not be suspected of making it up. I gave him my word of honor that I would never compromise him, and so I shall most surely keep his identity secret. But I also give my word of honor that this secret shall not remain one forever. If he is dead when I come out, I shall no longer be bound and I shall say who it is; if he is still alive, I am almost certain I can get him to release me from my obligation to keep the secret, and at that point you shall know who it is. I shall tell you what he said in his own words, to give them their full force: “You have everything to fear,” he said to me, “even though your Aix affair may be over. The child you had as your secretary in 1775 went, as soon as he left the chateau, with his mother to give a deposition in the chambers of the general prosecutor in Aix, and there, I can assure you as positively as if I had heard it myself, both of them were fed what they were supposed to say. Monsieur de Castillon,12 fearing that once your case was finished you might attack his cousin, Monsieur de Mende,13 who had brought the iniquitous Marseilles suit against you, hardly reassured by what he had been hearing from Paris on that score, and unable to figure out or learn what your intentions might be and seeing full well that the said Monsieur de Mende would be undone if you were to bring a recriminating suit against him, decided to beat you to the punch; and they filled the mother and child with a tissue of horrors, gave them some money, and they said and wrote down everything they were asked. After that Monsieur de Castillon, to give himself the appearance of a man who, far from picking a fight, wanted only to prevent one, duly informed your mother-in-law, and, acting in concert, had the mother and child packed off to Paris, so well paid, so full of hopes for the future and both so well prompted that, in all likelihood, they made the same accusations in Paris that were drilled into them at Aix.” That is what I was told, on that I give you my word of honor, and told me by someone who surely was in a position to know. Whatever may happen, I swear that some day I shall get his permission to reveal who he is,14 and you shall see what an impression that will make.

  Thus, in such an important matter as this, I have testifying against me a p_____who once worked for me and a child, who also was in my employ; a p_____who has everything to gain from exculpating herself at my expense, and a child who has obviously been paid off by my worst enemies. At this point, quite apart from all my own assertions, kindly let me offer the following thought: was it not visibly demonstrated, more clearly than daylight, that those people in Aix were past masters at bringing about my downfall whenever it was deemed appropriate? Since in an earlier affair in this town of Aix you had the proof of it, again clearer than daylight, why do you wish to deny those that may exist in a second affair? You will admit that this presumption is very strong, and much in my favor. Tell me, would you willingly set foot in a wood where you had been already once been robbed of your purse? and if you were robbed of your purse a second time, would you not be more than justified in thinking that they were the same thieves? If I had been in Madame de Montreuil’s shoes, that alone would have sufficed to make me reject any accusations against my son-in-law emanating from that town.

  Let us go on; there is still something else, and I want everything resolved. In my pocketbook three objects were found, or allegedly found, that were used against me. Let us focus on all three.

  One was a prescription for delivering a pregnant woman who wanted to be rid of her fruit. That was a mistake on my part, and no doubt an imprudence to have such a thing on my person, that I admit. I most certainly never made use of it, nor did I copy it out with the intent of ever using it. In the course of my life I had occasion to see two or three women or girls—that is as much as I shall say—whom urgent reasons had forced to hide the result of their misconduct with their lover [and] had led them to commit such a crime. They confessed it to me and at the same time confided to me the very dangerous means that people in that profession used on them, means which, it seemed to me, were a threat to their lives. In Italy I heard tell of this means that they found in my pocketbook, and finding it extremely mild and not dangerous, I noted it down out of curiosity. I believe that in the eyes of any reasonable man there is nothing here that could be upsetting and that every choirboy is well aware that savin15 has the same effect.

  The second paper was the result of an argument I had with the little doctor in Rome.16 He maintained that the ancients poisoned iron by the means he told me and I jotted this down; and I claimed the contrary, assuring him that I thought I had read somewhere of a very different method. All that stemmed from the subject of the poisoned antique weapons we had seen together in the arsenal of San Angelo Castle. Since I wanted to include a word or two about that in my description of Rome, I wrote down his opinion, promising to send him mine as soon as I could lay my hands on it, and then, in my dissertation, to decide which of the two was more likely. In fact, I did find the opinion contradicting his, in one of the books you sent me, the fourth volume of the History of the Celts. ‘Twas from an herb called linveum and, according to Pliny and Aulus Gellius, hellebore, which the ancients rubbed on the blades they wanted to poison. I therefore opted in favor of this opinion, contesting the one I had been given. And there is the subject of what was found in this connection. Is that still another venial sin?

  But now we come to the most important point: an entire legal opinion concerning matters very similar to those of which you stand accused.17 Yes, a damning piece of evidence, but it reminds me of the old story of the magpie’s mess; you know that story, do you not? Well, from that story, from the one about Calas and his son, and from a good many others like them, you learn, you who imprison at the drop of a hat, that one should never judge by appearances and punish people without hearing them out, especially in a country that, through its laws and its government, thinks that it is free of all inquisitional vexations; that, in a word, there is not a single citizen whom you have the right to clap into prison without a fair trial, or who at least will not have the right, after he is out, to avenge himself in whatever manner he may choose, providing he punish you for your injustice. Yes, whoever you may be, let this idea sink clearly into your head and listen to what I have to say on this vitally important point. This document is the confession of a poor wretch who, like myself, was seeking asylum in Italy. The idea of returning home was the furthest thing from his mind; and seeing me inclined to cross back over the Alps, he handed me his legal opinion, asking me to show it to a lawyer in France and to send him the lawyer’s reaction. I promised him I would. Two days later he came to me and begged me to give him the paper back, saying that, since ‘twas written in his own hand, it could serve as evidence against him; he wanted to have it transcribed but had found no one in the area who wrote French. I copied out the entire document myself, with no other thought in mind but to oblige him, and not giving a thought to the document’s implications. There is another fact for which I vouch upon my word of honor and which I stand ready to prove beyond all shadow of
doubt when the time comes.

  There are all my so-called faults, together with what I have to say about them and in reply to them and what I shall prove, I swear it, by various proofs and other means so irrefutable that ‘twill be absolutely impossible to deny the truth thereof. I am therefore guilty only of libertinage pure and simple such as it is practiced by all men, to a greater or lesser degree, depending upon the temperament or penchant that Nature happened to have bestowed upon them. Everybody has his failings; let us make no comparisons: my torturers might suffer from such a comparison.

  Yes, I am a libertine, that I admit. I have conceived everything that can be conceived in that area, but I have certainly not practiced everything I have conceived and certainly never shall. I am a libertine, but I am neither a criminal nor a murderer, and since I am obliged to place my apology next to my justification, I shall therefore say that ’tis quite possible that they who condemn me so unfairly are in no position to offset their infamies by good deeds as patent as those I can raise to compare to my misdeeds. I am a libertine, but three families living in your section of the city lived for five years from my charity, and I rescued them from the depths of poverty. I am a libertine, but I saved a deserter from the military, a man abandoned by his entire regiment and by his colonel, from certain death. I am a libertine, but at Evry, with your entire family looking on, I saved at the risk of my own life a child who was about to be crushed beneath the wheels of a cart drawn by runaway horses, and I did so by throwing myself beneath that cart. I am a libertine, but I have never compromised the health of my wife. I have never indulged in any of the other branches of libertinage so often fatal to the fortune of one’s children: have I squandered mine through gambling or other expenditures that in any way deprived them, or threatened to cut into their inheritance? have I mismanaged my goods and possessions, insofar as they have been under my control? have I, in a word, given any indication as a youth that I preferred a heart capable of the heinous acts wherewith I am accused today? have I not always loved everything that was deserving of my love, and everything I ought to hold dear? did I not love my father? (alas, I still weep for him every day of my life) did I ever behave badly with my mother? and was it not when I went to be with her as she drew her last breath, and to show her the ultimate mark of my devotion, that your mother had me dragged off to this horrible prison, where she has left me to languish for the past four years? In a word, look at my life since my earliest childhood. You have in your entourage two people who followed me in that period, Amblet and Madame de Saint-Germain. From there move on to my youth, which was observed by the Marquis de Poyanne,18 who personally watched me evolve, thence move forward until the age when I married, and look around, consult whomsoever you will, enquire whether I ever gave any signs of the ferocity I am supposed to possess and whether I ever committed any misdeeds that could have been seen as the harbinger of the crimes ascribed to me: there must be something there, for as you know, crime does not spring out of nothing. How is one to suppose, therefore, that out of such an innocent childhood and youth, I all of a sudden attained the very depths of meditated horror? No, you don’t believe that. And you, who today tyrannize me so cruelly, you don’t believe it either: your vengeance has clouded your mind, you have acted without thinking, but your heart understands mine, judges it better, and knows full well that it is innocent. Someday I shall have the pleasure of seeing you admit as much, but that avowal will not compensate for my torments, and I shall not have suffered any less for it . . . In a word, I want to be cleared, I shall be as soon as they let me out of here, whenever that may be. If I am a murderer, I did not commit enough murders, and if I am not, I shall have been punished far too severely and I have every right to demand redress.