And Monsieur de Corville gave a brief account of what he had just done.
“Dearly beloved and respectable man,” said Madame de Lorsange, casting herself down before her lover, “this is the most splendid gesture you have performed in your life, it is such as comes from one who has true acquaintance with the human heart and the spirit of the law which is the avenger of oppressed innocence. There she stands, Monsieur, behold, there is your captive; go, Thérèse, go, run, fly at once and kneel down before this equitable protector who will not, as have all others, abandon you. O, Monsieur, if those attachments of love which have bound me to you have been cherished, how much more so are they to become now that they are strengthened by the most tender esteem. . . .”
And one after the other the two women embraced the knees of a so generous friend, and upon him they did shed their tears.
A few hours later they arrived at the château; once there, Monsieur de Corville and Madame de Lorsange both strove with might and main to raise Thérèse from the ultimate deeps of unhappiness to the pure sunshine of contentment and well-being. They took greatest joy in giving her to eat of the most succulent foods, they laid her to sleep in the finest of beds, they did urge her to command and they made her will to be done, and into their hospitable proceedings they introduced all the gentility and understanding it were possible to expect from two sensitive souls. She was given medicines for several days, she was bathed, dressed, arrayed in elegant attire, embellished, the two lovers worshiped her, each labored at nothing but to make her forget her sorrows as quickly as might be. An excellent surgeon was fetched; he undertook to make the ignominious mark disappear, and soon the cruel result of Rodin’s villainy was effectively gone; and everything responded to the cares her benefactors lavished upon Thérèse: the shadowed memories of misery were already effaced from that amiable girl’s brow; already the Graces had re-established their empire thereupon. For the livid tints on her cheeks of alabaster were substituted the rosy hue appropriate to her years; what had been withered by such a multitude of griefs was called back to fresh new life. Laughter, for so many years banished from her lips, reappeared again under the wings of Pleasure. The very best news came from the Court; Monsieur de Corville had put all of France in action, he had reanimated the zeal of Monsieur S* * *, who collaborated with him to publicize Thérèse’s ill-treatment and to restore her to a tranquillity to which she was so heavily entitled. At length letters came from the King, they nullified all the legal proceedings unjustly initiated against her, they gave her back the name of an honest citizen, imposed silence upon all the realm’s tribunals before which efforts had been made to defame her, and accorded her a thousand crowns a year, interest realized upon the gold seized in the counterfeiters’ Dauphiné workshop. They wished to make Cardoville and Saint-Florent answer for their misdeeds but, in accordance with the fatality of the star intending upon all of Thérèse’s persecutors, one of them, Cardoville, had just, before his crimes were made known, been named to the administration of the Province of * * *, and the other to general supervision of Colonial Trade; each had already reached his destination, the edicts affected no one but the powerful families who soon found means to quiet the storm and, pacifically installed in Fortune’s sanctuary, those monsters’ depredations were quickly forgotten.8
With what regards Thérèse, as soon as she learned of so many agreeable developments she came well-nigh to expiring from joy; for several days on end the sweetest tears flowed from her eyes and she rejoiced upon her guardians’ breasts, and then, all of a sudden, her humor altered, and ’twas impossible to ferret out the cause. She became somber, uneasy, troubled, was given to dreaming, sometimes she burst into weeping before her friends, and was not herself able to explain what was the subject of her woe. “I was not born for such felicity,” said she to Madame de Lorsange, “. . . oh, dear sister, ’tis impossible it last much longer.” She was assured all her troubles were over, none remained, said they, no more inquietude for her; ’twas all in vain, nothing would quiet her; one might have said that this melancholy creature, uniquely destined for sorrow, and feeling the hand of misery forever raised above her head, already foresaw the final blow whereby she was going to be smitten down.
Monsieur de Corville was still residing on his country estate; ’twas toward summer’s end, they had planned an outing when the approach of a dreadful storm obliged them to postpone their promenade; the excessive heat had constrained them to leave all the windows open. Lightning glitters, shakes, hail slashes down, winds blow wrathfully, heaven’s fire convulses the clouds, in the most hideous manner makes them to seethe; it seems as if Nature were wearied out of patience with what she has wrought, as if she were ready to confound all the elements that she might wrench new forms from them. Terrified, Madame de Lorsange begs her sister to make all haste and close the shutters; anxious to calm her, Thérèse dashes to the windows which are already being broken; she would do battle with the wind, she gives a minute’s fight, is driven back and at that instant a blazing thunderbolt reaches her where she stands in the middle of the room . . . transfixes her.
Madame de Lorsange emits a terrible cry and falls in a faint; Monsieur de Corville calls for help, attentions are given each woman, Madame de Lorsange is revived, but the unhappy Thérèse has been struck in such wise hope itself can no longer subsist for her; the lightning entered her right breast, found the heart, and after having consumed her chest and face, burst out through her belly. The miserable thing was hideous to look upon; Monsieur de Corville orders that she be borne away. . . .
“No,” says Madame de Lorsange, getting to her feet with the utmost calm; “no, leave her here before my eyes, Monsieur, I have got to contemplate her in order to be confirmed in the resolves I have just taken. Listen to me, Corville, and above all do not oppose the decision I am adopting; for the present, nothing in the world could swerve my designs.
“The unheard of sufferings this luckless creature has experienced although she has always respected her duties, have something about them which is too extraordinary for me not to open my eyes upon my own self; think not I am blinded by that false-gleaming felicity which, in the course of Thérèse’s adventures, we have seen enjoyed by the villains who battened upon her. These caprices of Heaven’s hand are enigmas it is not for us to sound, but which ought never seduce us. O thou my friend! The prosperity of Crime is but an ordeal to which Providence would expose Virtue, it is like unto the lightning, whose traitorous brilliancies but for an instant embellish the atmosphere, in order to hurl into death’s very deeps the luckless one they have dazzled. And there, before our eyes, is the example of it; that charming girl’s incredible calamities, her terrifying reversals and uninterrupted disasters are a warning issued me by the Eternal, Who would that I heed the voice of mine guilt and cast myself into His arms. Ah, what must be the punishment I have got to fear from Him, I, whose libertinage, irreligion, and abandon of every principle have stamped every instant of my life! What must I not expect if ’tis thus He has treated her who in all her days had not a single sin whereof to repent! Let us separate, Corville, the time has come, no chain binds us one to the other, forget me, and approve that I go and by an eternal penance abjure, at the Supreme Being’s feet, the infamies wherewith I am soiled absolutely. That appalling stroke was necessary to my conversion in this life, it was needed for the happiness I dare hope for in another. Farewell, Monsieur; the last mark of your friendship I ask is that you institute no perquisitions to discover what shall have become of me. Oh, Corville! I await you in a better world, your virtues should lead you unto it; may the atonements I make, to expiate my crimes, in this place where I go to spend the unhappy years that remain to me, permit me to encounter you again someday.”
Madame de Lorsange leaves the house immediately; she takes some money with her, leaps into a carriage, to Monsieur de Corville abandons the rest of her ownings after having recommended that they be turned into a pious legacy, and flies to Paris, where she takes a Carmelite
’s veil; not many years go by before she becomes the example of her order and the edification, as much by her great piety as by the wisdom of her mind and the regularity of her manners.
Monsieur de Corville, worthy of his country’s highest posts, attained to them, and, whatever were his honors, he employed them for no end but to bring happiness to the people, glory to his master, whom, “although a minister,” he served well, and fortune to his friends.
O you who have wept tears upon hearing of Virtue’s miseries; you who have been moved to sympathy for the woe-ridden Justine; the while forgiving the perhaps too heavy brushstrokes we have found ourselves compelled to employ, may you at least extract from this story the same moral which determined Madame de Lorsange! May you be convinced, with her, that true happiness is to be found nowhere but in Virtue’s womb, and that if, in keeping with designs it is not for us to fathom, God permits that it be persecuted on Earth, it is so that Virtue may be compensated by Heaven’s most dazzling rewards.
Bibliography
I. WORKS PUBLISHED DURING THE AUTHOR’S LIFETIME
LITERARY WORKS
1. Justine, ou les Malheurs de la Vertu. En Hollande, Chez les Libraires associés [Paris, Girouard], 1791. Two volumes, 8vo. Frontispiece by Chéry. During Sade’s lifetime, there were six further printings between the initial publication and 1801. Sade’s re-arrest that year put an end to the reprintings. These subsequent editions were:
1) En Hollande [Paris, Girouard], 1791. Two volumes, 12mo. Certain copies of this edition include twelve erotic engravings.
2) À Londres [Paris, Cazin], 1792. Two volumes, 18mo. Frontispiece and five engravings.
3) Troisième [fourth] édition corrigée et augmentée. Philadelphie [Paris], 1794. Two volumes, 18mo. Frontispiece and five engravings.
4) À Londres [Paris], 1797. Four volumes, 18mo. Further augmented edition. Six erotic engravings.
5) En Hollande [Paris], 1800. Four volumes, 16mo. Presented as the Troisième édition corrigée et augmentée, this is actually a reprint of the original edition.
6) En Hollande [Paris], 1801. Four volumes, 16mo. Also presented as the Troisième édition corrigée et augmentée, this was a reprinting of the 1800 edition.1
2. Aline et Valcour, ou le Roman philosophique. Écrit à la Bastille un an avant la Révolution de France. Orné de quatorze gravures. Par le citoyen S***. À Paris, chez Girouard, Libraire, rue du Bout-du-Monde, n° 47, 1793. Eight volumes, 18mo.
There are actually three different editions of this work, bearing different dates and, in some instances, containing sixteen rather than twelve engravings. Sade announced2 the book would appear at Easter of 1791, but the instability of the times and the death of Girouard beneath the guillotine in 1794 kept the book from appearing until 1795, which date should be taken as the date of reference of the original edition.
3. La Philosophie dans le boudoir. Ouvrage posthume de l’auteur de “Justine.” À Londres, aux dépens de la Compagnie, MDCCXCV. Two volumes, 18mo. Frontispiece and four erotic engravings.
4. La Nouvelle Justine, ou les Malheurs de la Vertu. Ouvrage orné d’un frontispice et de quarante sujets gravés avec soin. En Hollande [Paris], 1797. Four volumes, 18mo. These four volumes comprise the first part of the definitive edition of this work, of which the second part, in six volumes, bears the title:
5. La Nouvelle Justine, ou les Malheurs de la Vertu, suivie de l’Histoire de Juliette, sa soeur [ou les Prospérités du vice.] Ouvrage orné d’un frontispice et de cent sujets gravés avec soin. En Hollande [Paris], 1797.
6. Oxtiern, ou les malheurs du libertinage, drame en trois actes et en prose par D.-A.-F. S. Représenté au Théâtre Molière, à Paris, en 1791; et à Versailles, sur celui de la Société Dramatique, le 22 frimaire, l’an 8 de la République. À Versailles, chez Blaizot, Libraire, rue Satory. An huitième [1800]. One volume, 8vo, 48 pages.
7. Les Crimes de l’Amour, Nouvelles héroïques et tragiques; précédées d’une Idée sur les romans et ornées de gravures, par D.-A.-F. Sade, auteur d’ “Aline et Valcour.” À Paris, chez Massé, éditeur-propriétaire, rue Helvétius n° 580. An VIII [1800]. Four volumes, 12mo. Four frontispieces. This work contains eleven stories, as follows:
Vol. I—Juliette et Raunai, ou la Conspiration d’Amboise, nouvelle historique; La Double Épreuve.
Vol. II—Miss Henriette Stralson, ou les Effets du désespoir, nouvelle anglaise; Faxelange, ou les Torts de l’ambition; Florville et Couvral, ou le Fatalisme.
Vol. III—Rodrigue, ou la Tour enchantée, conte allégorique; Laurence et Antonio, nouvelle italienne; Ernestine, nouvelle suédoise.
Vol. IV—Dorgeville, ou le Criminel par Vertu; la Comtesse de Sancerre, ou la Rivale de sa fille, anecdote de la Cour de Bourgogne; Eugénie de Franval.
8. L’Auteur de “Les Crimes de l’Amour” à Villeterque, folliculaire. Paris, Massé, an XI [1803]. 12mo, 20 pages.
9. La Marquise de Gange. Paris, Béchet, Libraire, quai des Augustins, n° 63, 1813. Two volumes, 12mo.
POLITICAL PAMPHLETS
1. Adresse d’un citoyen de Paris, au roi des Français. Paris, Girouard, no date [1791]. 8vo, 8 pages.
2. Section des Piques. Observations présentées à l’Assemblée administrative des hôpitaux. 28 octobre 1792. De l’Imprimerie de la Section des Piques, rue Saint-Fiacre, n° 2., 8vo, 4 pages.
3. Section des Piques. Idée sur le mode de la sanction des Loix; par un citoyen de cette Section. De l’Imprimerie de la rue Saint-Fiacre n° 2, 2 novembre 1792. 8vo, 16 pages.
4. Pétition des Sections de Paris à la Convention nationale. De l’imprimerie de la Section des Piques. No date [1793]. 8vo, 4 pages.
5. Section des Piques. Extraits des Régistres des délibérations de l’Assemblée générale et permanente de la Section des Piques. De l’Imprimerie de la Section des Piques, 1793. 8vo, 8 pages.
6. La Section des Piques à ses Frères et Amis de la Société de la Liberté et de l’Égalité, à Saintes, département de la Charente-Inférieure. De l’Imprimerie de la Section des Piques, 1793. 8vo, 4 pages.
7. Section des Piques. Discours prononcé par la Section des Piques, aux mânes de Marat et de Le Pelletier, par Sade, citoyen de cette section et membre de la Société populaire. De l’Imprimerie de la Section des Piques, 1793. 8vo, 8 pages.
8. Pétition de la Section des Piques, aux représentans du peuple français. De l’Imprimerie de la Section des Piques, 1793. 8vo, 8 pages.
II. PRINCIPAL POSTHUMOUS PUBLICATIONS
1. Dorci ou la Bizarrerie du sort, conte inédit par le marquis de Sade, publié sur le manuscrit avec une notice sur l’auteur [signed A. F. (Anatole France)]. Paris, Charavay frères, éditeurs, 1881. 16mo, 64 pages.
2. Historiettes, Contes et fabliaux de Donatien-Alphonse-François, marquis de Sade, publiés pour la première fois sur les manuscrits autographes inédits par Maurice Heine. À Paris, pour les membres de la Société du Roman Philosophique, 1926. 4to, 340 pages.
Contains the following works: HISTORIETTES—Le Serpent; La Saillie gasconne; L’Heureuse Feinte; Le M . . . puni; L’Évêque embourbé; Le Revenant; Les Harangueurs provençaux; Attrapez-moi toujours de même; L’Époux complaisant; Aventure incompréhensible; La Fleur de châtaignier. CONTES ET FABLIAUX—L’Instituteur philosophe; La Prude, ou la Rencontre imprévue; Émilie de Tourville, ou la Cruauté fraternelle; Augustine de Villeblanche, ou le Stratagème de l’amour; Soit fait ainsi qu’il est requis; Le Président mystifié; La Marquise de Thélème, ou les Effets du libertinage; Le Talion; Le Cocu de lui-même, ou le Raccommodement imprévu; Il y a place pour deux; L’Époux corrigé; le Mari prêtre, conte provençal; La Châtelaine de Longueville, ou la Femme vengée; Les Filous. APPENDICE—Les Dangers de la bienfaisance (Dorci).
3. Dialogue entre un prêtre et un moribond, par Donatien-Alphonse-François, marquis de Sade, publié pour la première fois sur le manuscrit autographe inédit, avec un avant-propos et des notes par Maurice Heine. [Paris], Stendhal et Compagnie, 1926. Small 4to, 62 pa
ges.
4. Correspondance inédite du Marquis de Sade, de ses proches et de ses familiers, publiée avec une introduction, des annales et des notes par Paul Bourdin. Paris, Librairie de France, 1929. Small 4to, 452 pages.
5. Marquis de Sade. Les Infortunes de la Vertu. Texte établi sur le manuscrit original autographe et publié pour la première fois avec une introduction par Maurice Heine. Paris, Éditions Fourcade, 1930. 8vo, 206 pages.
6. Les 120 Journées de Sodome, ou l’École du libertinage, par le marquis de Sade. Édition critique établie sur le manuscrit original autographe par Maurice Heine. À Paris, par S. et C., aux dépens des Bibliophiles souscripteurs, 1931–1935. Three volumes, 4to, 500 pages (uninterrupted pagination throughout the three volumes).3
7. Marquis de Sade. L’Aigle, Mademoiselle . . . , Lettres publiées pour la première fois sur les manuscrits autographes inédits avec une Préface et un Commentaire par Gilbert Lely. Paris, Les Éditions Georges Artigues, 1949. One volume, 16mo, 222 pages.
8. Marquis de Sade. Histoire secrète d’Isabelle de Bavière, reine de France. Publiée pour la première fois sur le manuscrit autographe inédit avec un avant-propos par Gilbert Lely. Paris, Librairie Gallimard, 1953. One volume, 16mo, 336 pages.
9. Marquis de Sade. Le Carillon de Vincennes. Lettres inédites publiées avec des notes par Gilbert Lely. Paris, “Arcanes,” 1953. One volume, 16mo, 106 pages.
10. Marquis de Sade. Cahiers personnels (1803–04). Publiés pour la première fois sur les manuscrits autographes inédits avec une préface et des notes par Gilbert Lely. Paris, Corréa, 1953. One volume, 12mo, 130 pages.
11. Marquis de Sade. Monsieur le 6. Lettres inédites (1778–1784) publiées et annotées par Georges Daumas. Preface de Gilbert Lely. Paris, Julliard, 1954. One volume, 16mo, 288 pages.
12. Marquis de Sade. Cent onze Notes pour La Nouvelle Justine. Collection “Le Terrain vague,” no. IV. [Paris, 1956.] Small 4to, 158 pages (unnumbered).