III. PRINCIPAL UNPUBLISHED MANUSCRIPTS
1. Œuvres diverses (1764–1769). Contains the one-act play Le Philosophe soi-disant; the epistolary work Voyage de Hollande; various letters, couplets, etc. Until the discovery of this notebook, Sade’s earliest writing was thought to date from 1782.
2. Les Jumelles ou le Choix difficile. Two-act comedy in verse.
3. Le Prévaricateur ou le Magistrat du temps passé. Five-act comedy in verse.
4. Jeanne Laisné, ou le Siège de Beauvais. Five-act tragedy in verse.
5. L’École des jaloux ou la Folle Épreuve. One-act comedy in vers libres.
6. Le Misanthrope par amour ou Sophie et Desfrancs. Five-act comedy in vers libres.
7. Le Capricieux, ou l’Homme inégal. Five-act comedy in verse.
8. Les Antiquaires. One-act comedy in prose.
9. Henriette et Saint-Clair, ou la Force du Sang. Prose drama in five acts.
10. Franchise et Trahison. Prose drama in three acts.
11. Fanny, ou les Effets du désespoir. Prose drama in three acts.
12. La Tour mystérieuse. Opéra-comique in one act.
13. L’Union des arts ou les Ruses de l’amour. A play in alexandrines, prose and vers libres. In the Catalogue raisonné of 1788, this work was to comprise six parts and a final Divertissement. In the extant manuscript, the Divertissement and one play, La Fille malheureuse, are missing.
14. Les Fêtes de l’amitié. Two acts incorporating prose, verse, and vaudeville.
15. Adélaïde de Brunswick, princesse de Saxe, événement du XIe siècle. Novel.
IV. PRINCIPAL UNPUBLISHED MANUSCRIPTS EITHER DESTROYED OR NOT RECOVERED4
1. L’Égarement de l’infortune. Three-act prose drama.
2. Tancrède. One-act lyric play in alexandrine verse with music interspersed.
3. La Fille malheureuse. One-act comedy in prose.
4. La Fine Mouche. Tale.
5. L’Heureux Échange. Tale.
6. La Force du Sang. Tale.
7. Les Inconvénients de la pitié. Tale (first draft).
8. Les Reliques. Tale.
9. Le Curé de Prato. Tale.
10. La Marquise de Thélème. Tale (first draft).
11. Le Portefeuille d’un homme de lettres. Of this projected four-volume work, there exists eleven historiettes published by Maurice Heine, an avertissement, the Voyage de Hollande previously cited, and various fragments.
12. La Liste du Suisse. Historiette.
13. La Messe trop chère. Historiette.
14. L’Honnête Ivrogne. Historiette.
15. N’y allez jamais sans lumière. Historiette.
16. La justice vénitienne. Historiette.
17. Adélaïde de Miramas, ou le Fanatisme protestan. Historiette.
18. Les Délassements du libertin, ou la Neuvaine de Cythère.
19. Les Caprices, ou un peu de tout. Political work.
20. Les Conversations du château de Charmelle. The first draft of Les Journées de Florbelle.
21. Les Journées de Florbelle, ou la Nature dévoilée, suivies des Mémoires de l’abbé de Modose et des Aventures d’Émilie de Volnange servant de preuves aux assertions, ouvrage orné de deux cents gravures. This immense work, contained in over a hundred notebooks, according to Lely’s estimate, was burned by the police at the request and in the presence of Sade’s son, Donatien-Claude-Armand.
Notes
Notes for Forward
1 For full details of publication, see the Bibliography.
2 In Volume II of Lely’s biography.
3 Marquis de Sade: L’Aigle, Mademoiselle . . .
Notes for Preface
1 Maurice Nadeau: “Exploration de Sade,” in Marquis de Sade: Œuvres, Textes choisies par Maurice Nadeau, La Jeune Parque, Paris, 1947.
2 Gilbert Lely: Morceaux choisis de Donatien-Alphonse-François Marquis de Sade, Pierre Seghers, Paris, 1948.
3 Maurice Heine, 1884-1940. A poet as well as a scholar, Heine has often been described as “the inventor of Sade.” André Breton, in his eulogy to Heine, published in 1948, makes mention of him as a man sprung “from the depths of the eighteenth century, with his encyclopedic culture . . . a man so lost among us.” (Cahiers de la Pléiade, Summer, 1948).
4 Much, one might add, as Heine took up the torch from Apollinaire. Heine, in his Preface to Historiettes, Contes et fabliaux, relates that, shortly before Apollinaire’s death, the two men met and decided that together they would “search out and publish the disjecta membra of Sade.” Apollinaire’s premature death put an end to the joint project, but Heine, in spite of poor and failing health, devoted himself for the next twenty years to the task.
5 The three volumes are: L’Aigle, Mademoiselle . . ., George Artigues, Paris, 1949; Le Carillon de Vincennes, Arcanes, Paris, 1953; Monsieur le 6, Juillard, Paris, 1954.
Notes for The Marquis de Sade and His Accomplice
1 This essay dates from 1946.—Tr.
2 Wife of Paul de Sade, whom she married in 1325. Famous for her beauty, she was the “Laura” of Petrarch’s Sonnets. Whether she was actually Petrarch’s mistress or not has never been proved.-Tr.
3 Of Sade not a single portrait from life has come down to us. I borrow these details from letters, from police descriptions, also from the image Sade gives of himself in Aline et Valcour.
4 Of all Amiel wrote only a twentieth has so far been published.
5 Cf. “The submission of the people is never due to anything other than violence and the frequent use of torture. . . .” (La Nouvelle Justine, Book IV.)
6 Cf. “Idée sur les romans,” Sade’s preface to Les Crimes de l’Amour.
7 In Aline et Valcour.
8 Les Infortunes de la Vertu.
9 The theories put forward by Zamé in Aline et Valcour seem fairly exactly to represent Sade’s own political views.
10 Cf. Philosophy in the Bedroom, “Yet Another Effort, Frenchmen, If You Would Become Republicans.”
11 “They wanted me to commit an inhumane act. I have never wanted to,” Sade will later write in a letter to Gaufridy.
12 Nietzsche: The Will to Power.
Notes for Sade by Blanchot
1 M. Blanchot is referring, of course, to Paulhan’s “The Marquis de Sade and His Accomplice” which appeared three years before his own study on Sade.
2 Sade: Dialogue entre un prêtre et un moribond, avec un avant-propos et des notes par Maurice Heine. Paris, Stendhal et Cie., 1926.
3 Sade does not mind in the least admitting it: “The man endowed with singular tastes is a sick man.”
Notes for Chronology
1 The Condé mansion actually occupied most of the area today enclosed by the rue de Condé, the rue de Vaugirard, the rue Monsieur-le-Prince, and the Carrefour d’Odéon.
2 Sade’s father also subsequently served as Louis XV’s Ambassador to Russia, and then to London. Perhaps the best portrait of the Count de Sade is the following description by Paul Bourdin: “He was a meticulous and rather grim person, stiff both in manner and language, as pompous to his family as to his servants, most jealous of his rights, rigid to the point of narrowness, yet liberal to the point of prodigality.” (Paul Bourdin, ed., Correspondance inédite du Marquis de Sade, de ses proches et de ses familiers, Paris, Librairie de France, 1929.)
3 In what has generally been taken to be an autobiographical passage in Aline et Valcour, Sade describes his teacher in the following terms: “I returned to Paris to study under the guidance of a man who was both severe and intelligent, one who would probably have exerted a good influence on my youth, but unfortunately I did not keep him long enough.”
4 Writing of the campaign, again in Aline et Valcour, Sade notes: “I am sure I gave a good account of myself. The natural impetuosity of my character, that fiery Soul with which Nature endowed me, served but to enhance that unflinching savagery which men call courage and which—quite wrongly I am sure—is considered the one indispensable quality in our make-up.
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5 In a letter dated at the end of 1762, the Count wrote his brother, Abbé de Sade: “Everything here has been seized”; in another letter he complained that he was dying of poverty—which was, to say the least, an exaggeration. But that his fortunes were precarious there seems to be little doubt, and there is every indication that the Count was a poor manager of his own affairs and properties.
6 Elsewhere in the present volume is the only letter, discovered in 1948 in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, from Sade to Laure de Lauris, a letter revealing many facets of the author’s character: passion, instability, brilliance, and a touch of the scoundrel.
7 The proprietress of a famous Paris brothel.
8 The Arcueil magistrate being absent, her statement is actually taken by the Constabulary Brigadier of neighboring Bourg la Reine, who has been summoned for that purpose.
9 Given that the eighteenth-century penalty for sodomy, for either party involved, was death, the girls’ denials are understandable.
10 Some accounts have it that Lady Anne did not long remain with her sister, but that by mid-October she herself had decamped again to rejoin the Marquis, her brother-in-law. (Cf. Lely: La Vie du Marquis de Sade, Vol. I, Paris, Librairie Gallimard, 1952, p. 355.)
11 There was now a new king, Charles Emmanuel III, who had been ruling at the time of Sade’s imprisonment, having died on February 20, 1773. His son Victor Amadeus III succeeded him.
12 Exactly how long Lady Anne had been at La Coste, and what her precise relationship with her brother-in-law was by now, is not clear from any extant records.
13 What actually did transpire is not clear, but it would appear that Sade was accused by the new domestics of having tried during the night to have his way with each of them, an allegation that Sade categorically denied, as might be expected.
14 Perhaps alarmed by news of the Dowager Countess’ state of health. The Sades did not learn of the Dowager’s death until their arrival in Paris on February 8, thus three weeks after the event.
15 Charles Le Noir (1732-1807), Chief of Police of Paris for approximately a ten-year period ending in August, 1785. He is best remembered for his work in improving the hospitals and abolishing torture. He was generally known as a kind, just person, qualities rarely found in the men occupying such a position.
16 Charles de Rougemont was the bastard son of the Marquis d’Oise, his mother being an English woman named Mrs. Hatt. Sade, who loathed the man, often referred to him is “that quarter Englishman” or simply “that mongrel.” He also had more highly descriptive epithets for de Rougemont, one of which was “a toad in breeches.” He was, wrote Sade, one of those men “so robot-like, so idiotic, so dimwitted that he could never think of any way to refuse a request but by saying ‘It has never been done before, I’ve never known it to be done before.’ ”
17 That is, on the second floor of Liberty Tower. When Sade was imprisoned in the Bastille, Liberty Tower consisted of two dungeon cells, six rooms one above the other and a circle of narrow cells. Sade’s room, on the second floor, like the one below it and the four above, was some fifteen feet in diameter and about eighteen feet high.
18 Letter of October 10, 1787, from Major de Losme-Salbry to the Chief of Police.
19 Although Sade is known as, and bore the title of, Marquis, he was also often referred to as “Count.” In a letter to his wife written early in 1784, Sade in fact announced his intention to pass on the title of Marquis to his eldest son Louis-Marie, and himself assume the title of Count, “following the custom of all [noble] families.”
20 An asylum run by the charity order of friars known as the Petits Pères. According to Sade’s own description, his transfer from the Bastille to Charenton was effected by six men who, pistol in hand, entered his cell and tore him from his bed. He was allowed to take nothing with him, neither his books nor manuscripts.
21 In a letter to Reinaud, his Aix attorney, Sade writes: “Nothing was ever more virtuous than my little nest. To begin with, there is not a hint of love-making. She is just a decent, kindly, matronly person, sweet and good and with a keen mind. . . .” (Letter of January, 1791.)
22 On September 3, ten thousand prisoners were slaughtered. “Nothing can equal the horror of the massacre,” Sade wrote to Gaufridy on September 5. “The former Princess de Lamballe was one of the victims. Her head, stuck on a pike, was shown to the King and Queen and her body, after being subjected to the most savage debauchery, was dragged through the streets for eight hours. . . .”
23 The former President de Montreuil had come to visit his son-in-law, whom he had not seen in fifteen years, at the Piques Section of which Sade was secretary. Sade was obviously pleased by the deferential visit.
24 The petition proposed the idolatrous worship of the Virtues at the deserted altars of Catholicism. It was received favorably by the Convention, who decided to pass on the proposal to the Committee on Public Education.
25 Sade’s letter, which he could only lamely explain (“I had no idea how scandalously that guard had been formed”), was to the Duc de Brissac, commander of Louis Capet’s Guard. Sade’s letter fell into the hands of Citizen Pache, former Mayor of Paris.
26 During the Revolution this convent (the building of which still stands at No. 70, rue de Vaugirard) was made a prison. In it, a year and half earlier, on September 2, 1792, one hundred and fifty priests were murdered.
27 Originally built in 1632 as a Lepers’ Hospice. It was sacked in 1789 but sufficiently repaired to house prisoners five years later. Until its destruction in 1940, it served both as a hospital and women’s prison. The building at No. 107, rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis stands on the site today.
28 It is to be noted, however, that in spite of his plea for support, none of his former colleagues dared come forth in support of their former chairman. Later, after the execution of Robespierre and a slackening if not end of the Terror, his colleagues signed a statement in his behalf, on August 25, 1794.
29 Called Coignart House, this property had formerly been the convent of the Canoness of Saint Augustine, who had been ordered to vacate it in 1792. Two “humane” citizens, Riedain and Coignard, decided to set up a prison hospice there for the care of prisoners who were ill and whose purses were sufficient to purchase their health, and at the same time save their necks from the guillotine.
30 Sade describes it thus (letter of November 19, 1794): “An earthly paradise, a lovely building, a magnificent garden, choice company, charming women, then all at once the guillotine is set up directly under our windows [the inhabitants of the Place de la Concorde had complained that the stench of blood had become impossible from the guillotine there, and it had thus been removed to the Place du Trône Renversé near the Picpus Hospice], and they began to dispose of the dead in the middle of our garden. . . . We buried 1,800 in thirty-five days.”
31 Sade to Gaufridy: “My dear one’s [Mme. Quesnet’s] boy and I live here at the back of a barn, subsisting on a few carrots and beans and warming ourselves (not every day but whenever we can) with some kindling which we generally buy on credit. . . .”
32 His name has still not been struck from the list of émigrés, however, a fact which his family will continue to use against him.
33 A former convent founded in 1662, Sainte-Pélagie became a political prison during the Revolution.
34 Sade had already spent some time in Charenton, having been transferred there out of the Bastille ten days before the latter was stormed. Closed in 1795, the Directory ordered it rehabilitated and reopened in 1797 as an asylum for the care and treatment of the insane of both sexes. It was under the direct control of the Ministry of the Interior.
35 On August 12 (24 Thermidor, Year XII). “The laws and regulations concerning individual liberty have never been as openly defied as in my case,” wrote Sade, “since it is without any sentence or any other legal act that they persist in keeping me under lock and key.”
36 The Gregorian calendar was re-established on January 1, 1806.
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37 The full text appears at the end of Part One.
38 Mme. Quesnet, who has on her own initiative moved into Charenton to be with Sade.
39 With Charenton inmates as the actors, Sade staged and directed his own plays in an improvised theater in the asylum.
40 M. de Coulmier is described as “a man of intelligence and influence,” having once sat in the Constituent Assembly. “Everyone liked him,” wrote Dr. Ramon, a Charenton doctor during the period of Sade’s incarceration there. “[He] ruled despotically, though there was never anything rigorous or austere about his rule.” Except for the early months of Sade’s detention, when he was inclined to be demanding and difficult, M. de Coulmier generally took his part against the harsh interdictions of the authorities. When in September, 1808, the Prefect of Police wrote the Minister of the Interior concerning Sade’s involvement with the theatrical events at Charenton, he noted that M. de Coulmier “says that in this matter he is much obliged to de Sade, for, seeing in light drama a therapeutic method for the deranged he thinks himself-fortunate to have in the asylum a man capable of giving stage training to those he wishes to treat by this therapy.” It is obvious from the above observation that the Director of Charenton was well ahead of his era in the treatment of the insane.
41 Knowing Coulmier’s sympathetic attitude toward and understanding of Sade, it would appear that his request for a delay of transfer on the grounds of delinquent back payments was but a thinly veiled pretext to keep his patient at Charenton.
Notes for Note Concerning My Detention
1 These would very probably be Marcel ou le Cordelier and Conrad ou le jaloux en délire, never published and the MSS. of which have never been found. That of Conrad, a novel dealing with the history of the Albigensians, was reported to have been among the papers of the Marquis that were “seized at the time he was being taken to Charenton.”