Letters From Prison

by Marquis de Sade

  Well now, here’s a letter that, I have no doubt, will prolong my stay within these walls, don’t you agree? You should tell my prolongers that their prolongation is a waste of time, for were they to leave me here for another ten years they would not see one whit of improvement when they do release me, of that you may be sure—either kill me or accept me as I am, for may hell freeze over if I ever change—I have told you before and I tell you again, the beast is too old—there is no longer any hope he will change—the most honest, the most candid, the most sensitive of men, the most compassionate, the most charitable, a man who idolizes his children, for whose happiness he would walk through fire, meticulous to a flaw in his desire to make certain he will neither have the slightest negative influence on their morals nor damage their minds in any wise nor have them adopt any of his own beliefs, a man who adores his relatives (by which I mean blood relatives), the few friends he still has in this world, and above all his wife, whose happiness means everything to him and to whom more than anything in the world he desires to make amends for the many youthful indiscretions—because the fact is, by her nature his wife is not made for that, ’tis a truth that I sensed and expressed to her a good six months before I landed here; she can attest to that. So much for my virtues. As for my vices, much given to uncontrollable anger, extreme in everything, a profligate imagination when it comes to morals the likes of which the world has never seen, atheist to the point of fanaticism, in two words let me say it once again: either kill me or take me as I am, for I shall never change.

  1. Sade is clearly punning here as well as trying to circumvent the censor. Cul literally means “ass”; culs de lampes are rounded architectural ornaments generally used on ceilings that resemble the bottoms of church lamps.

  86. To Madame de Sade

  [First days of January, 1784]

  I beseech you to think most seriously about what you have written me on the subject of my son. This morning I have solemnly sworn the same thing to Monsieur de Rougemont, and if ’tis necessary I shall swear to all of Europe. No reason in the world will make me consent to my son’s becoming a sub-lieutenant in the infantry, and that he shall never be. If you were to allow him to join the infantry against my wishes, I give you my word of honor that I shall force him to leave that branch of service, and there is no means to which I would not resort to attain that end.1 Ponder well what I say, and see for yourself the full run of misfortunes that such stubbornness on the part of your mother will necessarily entail. Even were your son to join the infantry with the promise of a regiment in his pocket, I would still resist it with all my might. I absolutely do not want him to serve in any other branch but the cavalry. From the moment he first opened his eyes, that was what I had planned for him, and I shall most assuredly not change my mind. If it takes 20,000, nay, 40,000 francs to bring that about, I am prepared to provide it. I have always refused you full power of attorney as I did the right to act by proxy, and that you know well. Well, then, as far as this matter is concerned I am ready and willing to sell, pledge, borrow, deprive myself of whatever it may take, no matter what, if that is necessary; I am bound and determined that he enter the cavalry. By the same token, there is nothing I wouldn’t do to make certain he does not spend one minute in the infantry. I have been told that you were going to come and visit me shortly, and I was greatly pleased to hear it. If ’tis true, then you can bring along with you, my dear friend, a power of attorney and a notary; I am fully prepared to make whatever commitment you like, provided ’tis to have my son enter the cavalry. But most assuredly, he will not serve in any other branch, that I swear to you once again.

  de Sade

  I kindly ask that you forbid him to write me again till he has sworn to obey my wishes. Enclosed my letter to him. The errands I asked you to run for me are now six weeks’ stale, which is perfectly ridiculous. ’Tis impossible to use the ointment you sent me. What I asked for was not ointment, but a salve, a salve of the consistency of wax, one that will stick to the part affected and not wipe off the way this one does.

  Kindly send it immediately, for I am suffering greatly. And the ointment the surgeon gives me has the same problem as yours; thus I effectively have none at all.

  You sent me six useless volumes by Koch. All I wanted was the seventh, and that is not part of the set and is sold separately. Always so much money thrown out the window, and always for simply not having thought things through!

  Send me therefore, I beg of you, the works of Saint-Lambert of Delille and whatever new comedies may have appeared; that and the succeeding volumes of the History of France, the Later Byzantine Empire, and the Voyager. Those are what I basically need and want as far as books are concerned, and I beg you to send them to with all due speed.

  I am absolutely out of stockings, and have been for a long time now. So add that item to your package as well. Enclosed please find the rest of my list, all of which I know will meet with your approval; in the future I shall entrust this task to a third party, since I am weary of spending my life drawing up lists.

  I can see by how the wind is blowing that the conditions for my release are being made more and more difficult, and I sense that to attain it I shall be forced to make some sort of major commitment. I shall agree and consent to any conditions that strike me as reasonable. As for all ridiculous conditions, the sole result of Madame de Montreuil’s whims and fancies, which will go against the laws of Nature, the rights of a father or of a citizen, I hereby swear that I shall agree to them as well, because I want to leave here, but I have not the slightest intention of keeping to them.

  I am returning with this letter your lovely ointment.

  1. Louis-Marie de Sade, now seventeen, was preparing to join Rohan Soubise’s recently formed infantry regiment. Sade, who had always wanted his son to be in the cavalry, was furious.

  87. To Louis-Marie de Sade

  [Early January, 1784]

  I have no son capable of joining a regiment of which I do not approve. He may be the son of Madame de Montreuil, but he is not mine; and from you, Sir, all I expect to receive is a letter wherein you will give me your word of honor that you will accept no other branch of service than the one I shall obtain for you. Till then, I kindly request that you not write me again.

  88. To Louis-Marie de Sade

  [About January 10, 1784]

  It has just come to my attention, Monsieur, that your mother’s parents have made the decision that you should accept a sub-lieutenancy in one of the worst infantry regiments in France. I forbid you, Sir, to accept that appointment; you are not made for a sub-lieutenancy of infantry, and I cannot and will not allow you to join that branch. Either you will not serve at all or you will under the command of Monsieur de Chabrillant, a relative of yours, in the cavalry.

  If in defiance of my express order that you not accept such a post, Sir, I were to learn that you had been so weak as to obey your relatives who, as long as your father is alive, have no right or authority over you, then you may bid me eternal farewell, for I shall never lay eyes upon you for the rest of my life.

  Those who encourage you to disobey that order from me will be held responsible, in their souls and their consciences, for whatever misfortunes your disobedience will bring down upon your head, and I shall call down curses upon it if, within two months from now, I have not received written confirmation from you that you have carried out my wishes.1

  COUNT DE SADE, YOUR FATHER2

  1. Despite all his blustering, Sade was in no position to carry out his threat. A short while later, Louis-Marie became, indeed, a sub-lieutenant in the hated infantry, stationed at Port-Louis.

  2. As Lely notes, there was “utter confusion” on the matter of titles. “In the army and in the letters of Ministers of the Crown about the Arceuil affair, Sade’s imprisonment in Savoy, and so forth, he appears as Count, but in his marriage contract, the arrest warrant of October 29th 1763 and the proceedings at both Arceuil and Marseilles and elsewhere he is described as Marquis” (Lel
y, p. 257).

  89. To Madame de Sade

  [After January 10, 1784]

  I trust, Madame, that you will have passed on to your parents the results of our most recent conversation concerning the ridiculous appointment intended for your son. Be so kind as to remit the enclosed letter to him, so that he can see for himself what my express intentions are as far as he is concerned, and I will hold you responsible for informing me if he intends to disobey them. I most urgently beg your mother to refrain from involving herself in my children’s affairs. I have no need whatsoever either of her little twists and turns, nor of the considerable influence her younger son from Normandy may have in helping place my son in military service. All I do need is my freedom. Were I to be master of my own actions today, tomorrow your son would be placed in the service for which he was destined and where ’tis appropriate he be. I had, moreover, written and told you a thousand times over that none of my children will ever leave their school or your house until I have spent a full year with them. Nothing in the entire universe will make me change that opinion. Nor shall either of my two sons join any branch of service whatsoever until they have learned how to ride properly and until I have personally chosen a servant to accompany them. Ponder well these three points, in the full knowledge that no reason whatsoever could ever make me alter my views thereon. If one acts against my express desires, as is most likely, since I am in prison and unable to prevent it from happening, mark my words that the first thing I shall do once I am free will be to force him to leave that branch of service. That I swear on my most sacred and most authentic word of honor. On that point have no doubts, Madame. Do not try to turn me against my children. Some people seem to be doing everything in their power to do so, and I dare say ’tis not very clever of them. You, the king, and the judiciary, the entire legal code of the kingdom, no matter what precautions one may take under previous or current laws, will not prevent me from reducing the four estates I own in Provence to a hundred pistoles of income, and that without selling off so much as a single inch of land. That is the secret that you never fathomed, and never will, and that I most assuredly will put into effect if you permit my son to disobey me. What is more, Madame, I shall do my best to inspire in him the same kind of feelings for you that you are trying to instill in him about me.

  Since madame your mother’s head is inclined to plan well ahead, when she dreamed up this fine position for your son she doubtless also had in mind some plan or other for an equally excellent marriage a few years down the road. In order to avoid having to bring up these same subjects over and over again, I have the honor of hereby declaring to you, and attesting thereto by this same letter, Madame, and under the same seal as my word of honor, that I most assuredly will not give my approval to any such marriage before he is twenty-five years of age, and not a day sooner. It is my express desire that he be married nowhere but in Lyons or Avignon, and under no circumstances would I allow either he or you, or therefore myself, to take up residence in Paris. I have told you time and time again, Madame, that once all this is over my intention is to repair to and live in my own province. I have no doubt that my children will follow me there, and just as certainly ’tis there they shall marry and take up residence.

  ’Tis in vain that you make Baron de Breteuil your spokesmen in all such matters. My present situation, and the extremely high regard in which I hold this minister, a man full worthy of respect for a thousand different reasons,1 oblige me to agree to whatever he requests; but once I am free, I shall take the liberty of reminding him that a pater familias is the master of his children, and that ’tis quite impossible for anyone to deprive him of those rights. You must see by the style of this letter that ’tis written with all the self-control at my command. It contains the same things I have been repeating to you for seven years now, and you may be quite sure that I shall never change my opinion. I finish by giving you, and signing, my most genuine and sacred word of honor.

  DE SADE

  Moreover, Madame, now that your elder son has become a man in his own right in the world, I must warn you that I intend to follow the well-established family custom, wherein the head of the family assumes the title of count and names his eldest son the marquis. As for myself, I shall doubtless do the king’s bidding, whatever that may be, since I do not have a single letter patent that stipulates either my responsibility nor my duties, not a single letter, from either the princes or the ministers, that addresses me by this title. I tell you this so that you may familiarize the public which, having become accustomed to a different title, will subsequently have trouble changing its ideas. As for my own ideas, you may rest assured that they will never change.

  1. Baron de Breteuil, the newly named minister of the royal household for Paris, was much more humane than his predecessor and took steps to improve conditions in the prison system. As a result, Sade was allowed to receive more frequent visits from his wife.

  90. To Madame de Sade

  [End of January, 1784]

  Given the impossibility of having the frank and open exchange we could have if you were here on one of your visits, and lest you mistake the tone I am obliged to use in my letters as a lack of spine on my part, or even acquiescence, when it comes to the subject of my son, I say once again and do solemnly swear that on the matter in question my feelings will never change; that I am absolutely against his joining the regiment in which you wish to place him against my wishes; and that in the event you persist and place him there despite what I say to you, then the first thing I shall do once I am free is to oblige him to leave that regiment immediately, and in order to convince you that ’tis not for the base reason that you dared ascribe to me yesterday for so doing, a reason that you should blush even to dare let enter your mind, in order to convince you, I say, that far from standing in the way of his advancement as your unworthy parents dared prompt you to tell me, I am fully prepared if ’tis what it takes, to sacrifice half of my fortune, nay, two-thirds if necessary, to make sure he obtains even the lowliest post in the carabiniers. To that end, I am ready and willing to sign whatever paper, make whatever pledge, might be required. All you need do is bring along a notary and I shall sign whatever you like. But as for serving in Soubise’s infantry regiment, that he will not do under any circumstances, and on that I swear to you on everything I hold most sacred in the world. There is nothing more ridiculous than hearing you say what you did yesterday on that score: The king, you said, wants him to join the infantry! Verily, you do me the honor, you and those around you, of believing that because I am confined to a single room I have therefore become an imbecile. Do you for a moment believe that I do not know the constitution as well as you? Are we in Turkey, or have we been born serfs under the authority of some despot who holds the power of life and death over his slaves? No, no, Madame, the king’s authority does not go so far as to remove a son from his father’s control; the authority of paternal rights takes precedence over that of a monarch, of that you may be quite sure.

  Leave it to your mother, all puffed up with pride as she is from having succeeded in paying off three or four police puppets, to hold to the little bourgeois notion that the king can do no wrong, just because the police informers, her faithful disciples, tell her that ’tis a sin to question the king’s word. —Yes, leave her that fathead Marais; she is made for him, but not you, and mark you well that in spite of all that odious woman’s servile stupidities, the only two people who have the final say about your children are you and me, that I do not want your son to serve under Soubise, and that your friendship for me and duty to me oblige you to yield to my desires, especially when they are founded on such firm reasons as those I shall cite at the appropriate time.

  Meanwhile, keep in mind the genuine oath that I have sworn to you, namely that nothing on the face of the earth will persuade me to leave him where you seem bound to place him, and that no later than six weeks following my release I shall at long last seek proper redress under the law to undo all the infamies that your
odious parents have inflicted on me day in and day out.

  DE SADE

  91. To Gaufridy

  [February 3, 1784]

  I have just learned from Madame de Sade, Monsieur, that I have had the misfortune to lose one of my aunts.1

  My intention is that the annuity that aunt received be shared between my two surviving aunts (I refer to the two nuns). Please be so kind as to inform them of this, Monsieur, and the new situation should take effect from the day of my aunt’s death, in such wise that there be no hiatus in this modest income, not even a single moment, and that from the time it ceased to be given over into the hands of Madame La Coste2 it pass in equal shares to these two ladies of Saint-Benoit and Saint-Bernard. I would also be grateful if you would, in carrying out my orders most promptly on this matter, at the same time also inform them, while offering them a thousand pardons on my behalf, that because of my many hardships and the mediocrity of my fortune, I am not in a position to offer a more concrete proof of my affection and respect, and one more commensurate with the dictates of my heart.