Letters From Prison

by Marquis de Sade

  de Sade

  1. Les Confessions du comte de ***, published in 1742, is less a novel than a gallery of portraits and a collection of anecdotes.

  2. François Olivier (1493-1560), chancellor of France under François I and Henri II.

  84. To Madame de Sade

  [November 23-24, 1783]

  Charming creature, you want my soiled linen, my old linen? Were you aware that ’tis the epitome of refinement? You see how I can separate the wheat from the chaff. Listen, my angel, I would like nothing better than to satisfy you on this score, for you know full well that I respect peoples’ tastes and their fantasies; no matter how seemingly strange or odd they might be, I find them all respectable, both because we are not their masters and because when you take a really close look at even the most peculiar and the most bizarre of them, they always emanate from some principle of sensitivity. I shall be only too happy to prove it whenever you like: you know that no one analyzes things the way I do. Therefore, my turtle dove, I would like nothing better than to gratify your request; this said, I have to believe that ‘twould be mean and stingy not to give my old linen to the man who waits on me. I have therefore done so, and I shall always do so; but you can speak to him about it; I’ve already mentioned it to him, only hinting, you may be sure. He understood me, and he promised to see what he could find. Thus, my pet, please do speak to him about it, and I’m sure he’ll be only too happy to comply. —Ah! heavens above! if by so short and sweet a route I might procure all sorts of things from you, soon devoured, if I could only hold them, what I wouldn’t do! I would steal them if I could! would pay their weight in gold! I would say: Hand them over, good Sir, give them to me this minute, for they once belonged to her whom I adore! I will breathe in the aromas of her life; they will inflame the fluid that flows in my nerves; they will bring into the bosom of my existence something from her, and verily I shall believe I have found happiness! All this said, my darling, can you find it in your heart to send me some fresh linen, given the urgent need I have for it?

  You ask me, my fine feathered friend, how I would like the notebook containing 300 sheets, that is, 600 pages: well now, my dove, to that I shall answer that what I need is a notebook like the one that contains the Inconstant One.1

  For the love of Mohammed, you say that the case I asked you for caused you all sorts of trouble.2 I can easily understand that were it already made it might well be a source of trouble, but when ’tis only a matter of having it made, I have more than a little difficulty getting into the restricted capacity of my cerebellum that the very act of placing the order can have a negative effect on the nerves within you that, acting upon the soul, trigger the sensation of pain. They take you for a madwoman, you tell me; now that I fail to understand; and I find it impossible to allow that the request for a large case by a small woman can cause the slightest disorder in the pineal gland, where we atheist philosophers are prone to locate the seat of reason. You will explain all this to me in due course, and meanwhile kindly place the order for the case and send it to me because I need it most urgently and because, without it, I am forced to resort to a makeshift cover which, though the same size as my drawings, tends to tear them.

  You have sent me the handsome young lad,3 darling turtle dove. The handsome young lad: how sweet these words fall upon my ear, which is slightly Italian! Un’ bel giavanetto, signor, they would say to me if I were at Naples, and I would say: Si, si, signor, mandaleto lo voglio bene. You have treated me like a cardinal, my darling pie . . . but unfortunately ’tis only in a painting . . . My case, I say, at least my case, since you are reducing me to illusions!

  Ducky darling, on this subject let me regale you for a moment with a story that took place in Rome while I was there. For there are times when one has to pause and enjoy a moment of merriment: if you doubt it, ask about Lieutenant Charles, who came to enjoy a moment of fun and games with me only a week or so ago, announcing that he was the king’s special envoy.

  Anyway, in Rome there is a cardinal whom, out of discretion, I shall not name, one of whose maxims was that the fluid of one’s nerves, activated each morning by the corpuscles emanating from the charms of a pretty young girl, had a distinctly positive effect on a man by making him studious, cheerful, and healthy. Accordingly, a matron, who had been favored with this fascinating detail by his Grace, takes it upon herself to send into the private chambers of His Eminence each morning a pretty little virgin. There she is received by a gentleman of the cloth, who examines her and introduces her to the cardinal. One day, Signora Clementina (for that was her name), being ignorant of this ceremony and knowing that the prelate, full of respect for a vestal, would never commit any outrage to Nature and confine himself to making a few cursory examinations that could, at the very most, verify in his eyes what both sexes have in common, Signora Clementina, I say, one day being at a loss to find the daily female divinity, takes it into her head to replace her by a handsome boy dressed up as a girl. Having ushered him in, the signora withdraws and the gentleman proceeds to his examination. “Oh! Your Holiness, what treachery do I behold,” he cries out. “Signora Clementina deserves to be . . . ! We should do the same to her!” The cardinal draws nigh, puts on his glasses, verifies what he has just been told, then, smiling with kindness and ushering the child into his chambers, says: “Peace be unto you, my friend, peace be unto you. We may have been duped, but turnabout is fair play: she’ll simply think I made a mistake!”

  October 23rd.

  While we’re on that subject, dear little pig of my heart* I shall mention to you that I have made an attempt to make you a drawing of the cushion I need,4 owing to the fact that my backside is in a sorry state. I should like you not only to see it but to feel it with your finger, and accordingly I have cut out with all the artistry at my command a sheet of paper on which I have traced an exact replica of the cushion I have in mind; the sheet of paper is precisely what the cushion should be; kindly have it stuffed with feathers and horsehair (which is an excellent combination), and have it covered with a sturdy fabric the same on all sides. The sheet of paper is the size I want, but if there is a choice it should be larger rather than smaller, soft but well padded. If you are sending me this cushion, sweet enamel of my eyes, then no need to send the padded napkin; if you are not, then I must have it.

  The model of the stocking and the little case are already on their way to you, blood vessels of my heart, and here is the model for the rug: 42 inches long, 30 inches wide, made of good quality green wool bordered on all sides by a silk ribbon.

  Be they good or bad (the bad ones are as useful to me as the good), I beseech you, star of Venus, to send me all the new plays that have been performed in one theater or the other in the course of 1783, together with the new yearly almanacs, which is to say at the end of next month or the beginning of January.

  You may be quite sure, soul of my soul, that the purchases I shall make once I am out of here, and my initial act as a free man—after I have kissed you on both eyes, both tits, and both buttocks—will be to purchase forthwith at whatever cost:

  The Best Elements of Physics, Natural History by Monsieur de Buffon, in quarto, illustrated; the complete works of Montaigne, Delille, Arnaud, Saint-Lambert, Dorat, Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, with the sequel to the Voyager, the histories of France and of the Byzantine Empire, all the works that either I do not have in my library, or have only partially. Considering how much I would truly like to have these books, and given that I shall most surely buy all of them one day, please do check and see, mirror of beauty, how many of them your current financial resources allow you to send me in the interim, for I am no longer interested in renting any from the lending libraries.

  ’Tis uncommonly witty, my darling nerve-pricker, to criticize and poke fun at books, and ’tis on that head that Monsieur Duclos is actually wrong when he says, as I mentioned to you the other day, that the pastimes of barristers stink of the backstairs: for what could be more fulfilling, what more noble, than
poking fun at the title of a book? No French writer, either in the century of Louis XIV nor that of Louis XV, has ever reached such a sublime pinnacle of genius. I ask you only one thing, and that is to try to make sure that the contents of the book live up to the mockery of the title—which till now you have not managed to do, for I find it impossible to read the recently published novels you’ve sent me, although they do create the most beautiful numerical figures in the world: the number 59 evolving into 84 from the number 45, in a word, things that are truly luminous. Would it not be possible, 0 image of divinity, to somehow work it out so that all these numbers and all these major character traits conjoin in good books? Above all, do not buy anything by Monsieur Rétif,5 in the name of God! He is a Pont-Neuf author, fit only for the bibliotheque bleu, and I find it most extraordinary that it could even enter your mind to send me anything by him. In short, do send me more new novels, but be more discriminating in your choices.

  ’Tis absolutely impossible for me to enjoy the rebuttal of The System of Nature if you do not send me a copy of the book: do go and make a good case for that on my behalf, violet of the garden of Eden, and tell them that they should in no wise stand in the way either of my rehabilitation or my recovery of high principles. I own that the operation will be difficult, and those principles that I have adopted over thirty years, which are rock-solid, will not easily be made to topple: but still, they should not do anything that might stand in the way of the possibility of success.

  O seventeenth planet of space, you should not make light or joke about the head-ribbons. First of all, a woman ought never to make her husband’s head the subject of idle banter; and secondly, 0 quintesse of virginity, these ribbons are a bonus pure and simple, they will not become part of any memoir, they are a gift from you, nothing more. And you would have me believe, O source of all that is angelic, that this refusal is an act of meanness? I am well aware that Lieutenant Charles, about whose head one could make much sport, had his own personal witticism regarding head ribbons; but now, O symbol of modesty, that Lieutenant Charles has earned his six livres, it seems to me that nothing further is standing in your way of sending me the head-ribbons. I leave to you the quantity and the quality. O miracle of Nature, I have asked you to send me a handsome pair of buttocks, whenever a duplicate set might become available, and instead of that who do you send but Lieutenant Charles, who informs me that he is of the king’s service! Dove of Venus, that is what I call mistaking the cause and the effect.

  O rose escaped from the bosom of the Graces, the only thing further I have to ask is why you refused to send me the peach wine? Explain to me if you will what the analogy is between the State constitutions and the fibers of my stomach? Is it possible, my pretty one, that one or two bottles of peach wine could in some way break the Salix Law or strike a serious blow at the Justinian Code? o favorite of Minerva, ’tis to a drunkard that such a refusal makes sense, but I who am intoxicated by naught but your charms, of which I shall never be satiated, o ambrosia of Olympus, do not, I beseech you, deny me my peach wine! o delight of my eyes, I thank you for the lovely print of Rousseau that you sent me. Flame of my life, when O when will thy alabaster fingers come and replace Lieutenant Charles’s chains for the roses of your bosom? Adieu, I plant a kiss on that bosom and so to bed.

  This 24th, at one o ‘clock in the morning.

  1. This five-act play was started New Year’s Eve 1780, completed January 24, 1781, and corrected between late January and April. Later the author changed the title to L’Homme inégal—The Man of Many Moods, and finally settled on Le Capricieux—The Fickle Fellow. Sade kept reworking the play almost till the end of his life, the final version bearing the note: “Read and corrected for the last time June 6 and 11, 1811.”

  2. Renée-Pélagie’s devotion to her husband knew no bounds. The “case” [etui] to which Sade refers was intended for his only sexual outlet, masturbation, or simulated sodomy. Sade gave the precise dimensions of these wooden cases, which were rounded and oblong, presumably with a lid that could be opened and closed and which, he pretended, could be used to hold papers or small objects. Sade’s use of them was of course quite different. He also had her buy flacons—flasks—for him, which were intended for the same purpose. To satisfy his demands, Madame de Sade had personally to approach master carpenters on the Faubourg Saint-Antoine to place her orders, all of whom were quite aware, whatever her claims to the contrary, what the “flasks” or “cases” were for. Worse, she reported to him, the carpenters “take me for a madwoman and laugh in my face . . . Please get someone else to do this errand for you.” But Sade was so insistent, and so demanding, she continued to run this hated errand for him, despite the enormous embarrassment it caused her. Sade had other erotic code names: prestiges for dildo, vanille for aphrodisiacs, and manille for his preferred kind of masturbation.

  3. Renée-Pélagie had sent him a portrait of a handsome young lad.

  * No offense intended: ’tis only that pork is one of my favorite meats, and I have scant opportunity to eat it in here. (Sade’s note)

  4. Suffering increasingly from hemorrhoids, Sade compounded the problem by spending as many as ten or eleven hours a day writing. A donut-shaped cushion enabled him to sit for long periods without undue pain.

  5. Rétif de la Bretonne, also known as Réstif. Nicolas Rétif (1734-1806) was the author of some 250 works focusing on peasant life and lower-class women, the most famous of which was Le Paysan perverti ou les dangers de ville. Known also as the “Rousseau of the Gutter,” Rétif was thoroughly detested by Sade, who knew him and who thought his teasingly erotic work was detestable. One might add that Rétif returned the compliment.

  85. To Madame de Sade

  [Late November, 1783]

  God be praised, here at long last is the letter with the three questions; ’tis some nine months now I’ve been waiting for it, and I’ve been growing most impatient. My case should be made to follow the model exactly, without the slightest modification, and I need it as soon as possible. All the books I asked you for have already been published, and ’tis only to torment me pure and simple that you choose not to send them to me, and verily, ’tis most stupid, and most banal, to play games with me regarding these books. Of all the many crass blunders committed by your guides and counselors, that is the most outrageous.

  As far as the case is concerned, I can make neither head nor tail of why it should be an apparently endless problem; all the shopkeepers who deal in this sort of merchandise make cases to order, and to have one made to the specifications I sent you presupposes a certain width at most. But as for the folie, not a word. If you aren’t sure, ask your cousin Villette.

  You need to tell your shopkeeper that the case is meant to hold culs—culs de lampes, that is1—yes, lamp bases and some other little drawings I have made in red ink, and so I beseech you to send it to me, because without it I am obliged to resort to some stopgap measures, which have the defect of wrinkling and tearing my papers and culs . . . I mean lamp bases, which is most disagreeable. ’Tis out of pure modesty and so as not to frighten you that I asked you to have the case made eight and a half inches on all sides, for if worst came to worst it could have been nine inches square, using the size of my lamp bases as a basic measure. But I told myself, nine inches square is going to frighten these people who are already afraid of their own shadow, so I settled for eight and a half.

  How do you expect me to appreciate the rebuttal of The System of Nature if you refuse to send me the rebuttal at the same time you send the book being refuted? ’Tis as if you asked a judge to render his verdict without having seen the evidence of both parties. You have to admit that that is quite impossible, despite the fact that the System is verily and indubitably the basis of my philosophy, and I am and shall remain a faithful disciple of that philosophy even at the cost of my life, if it came to that. Still, since ’tis a good seven years since I last read it, there is no way I can remember it in sufficient detail to follow and appreciate the rebuttal
. I would very much like to do my best to see if I have been mistaken, but at least provide me with the means to do so. Kindly ask Villette to lend me the book for a week, no more, and let there be no equivocation on that score, ‘twould be utterly stupid to deny me a book that I recommended to the Pope himself, a golden book in a word, a book that ought to be in every library and whose tenets should be in the heads of everyone, a book that undermines and destroys forever the most dangerous and most odious of all fantasies, the one that has caused more bloodshed here on earth than any other, one against which the entire universe should rise up and destroy once and for all, if the people who make up this universe had the slightest idea of what constitutes their true happiness and tranquillity. Personally, I cannot even conceive that there are people who still believe in religion, and I can only conclude that if they do ’tis only a sham. For in that case, either they are imbeciles, people who find it beyond them to think things through, however superficially, or who cannot or will not make the slightest effort to get to the heart of the matter. For beyond any shadow of doubt, theism cannot for a moment stand up to the slightest scrutiny, and one would have to be completely ignorant of the workings of Nature not to recognize that it operates on its own and without any primary cause, and that so-called primary cause, which explains nothing and which on the contrary requires explanation, is naught but the nec plus ulta of ignorance.