I say that, in order to sustain interest, there are times when vice must offend virtue; I further declare that this is a sure way to hold attention, and upon this axiom Villeterque launches an attack upon my morality. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Villeterque, that you are as stupid a judge of men as you are of works. What I am prescribing here is perhaps the highest compliment it is possible to pay to virtue; and indeed, were virtue not so beautiful, would people ever weep so over her misfortunes? If I myself did not believe virtue to be man’s most respected idol, would I say to playwrights: Whenever you wish to inspire a feeling of pity in your public, have the courage to assail, if only for a moment, what is most beautiful in heaven above or on earth below, and you will see what bitter tears your sacrilege will provoke. Therefore, I pay virtue a compliment when Villeterque accuses me of rebelling against its worship. But Villeterque, who is doubtless not virtuous, has no idea how one pays homage to virtue. Only to the votaries of a divinity is granted access to her temple, and Villeterque, who perhaps has no sense of the divinity or any form of worship, hasn’t the faintest notion of what we are talking about. But when on the following page Villeterque makes the allegation that for me to think the way our great masters do, to pay homage to virtue as they do, constitutes proof positive that I am the author of that book wherein virtue suffers the worst humiliations—’tis at this point, the reader will have to admit, that Villeterque’s logic explodes in all its blinding clarity. I prove that without bringing virtue into the picture, it is impossible to write any dramatic work worthy of the name; I offer this truth, since I believe and affirm that indignation, anger, and tears must be the result of the insults whereof virtue is the object and the misfortunes wherewith it is afflicted. And from this, if one is to believe Villeterque, it follows that I am the author of that execrable book wherein one finds the exact opposite of everything I set forth and profess! Yes, quite the exact opposite, for the author of that work appears to make vice triumph over virtue only out of spite. . . or out of libertinage. A perfidious scheme, from which he has no doubt not deemed it necessary to derive the least dramatic interest, whilst the models I cite have always taken the opposite tack, and whilst I, insofar as my poor powers have enabled me to emulate these masters, have depicted vice in my works only in those colors most likely to make it forever detested; and if upon occasion I have allowed vice some modicum of triumph over virtue, it was never for any other reason than to make virtue appear more interesting or more beautiful. My taking the opposite tack from that taken by the author of the book in question does not mean, therefore, that I accept or sanction that author’s principles. Since I loathe these principles and shun them in my works, I therefore cannot have adopted them. And Villeterque-the-irresponsible, who imagines he will prove my guilt by in fact citing the very evidence which exonerates me from it, is in consequence naught but a cowardly slanderer, whom it behooves us to unmask.
“But, pray tell, what is the purpose of all these scenes of crime triumphant?” asks the hack. The purpose, Villeterque, is to have them act as a foil for the opposite scenes, and that in itself is quite enough to prove their usefulness. Furthermore, where precisely does crime emerge triumphant in those stories you attacked so stupidly and with such effrontery? I trust the reader will kindly allow me a brief analysis, in order to prove to him that Villeterque does not know whereof he speaks when he claims that, in these tales, I grant the greatest ascendancy to vice over virtue.
Where is virtue better rewarded than in the tale entitled Juliette et Raunai?
If virtue is chastised in La Double Épreuve, does crime, even so, triumph therein? Assuredly not, as there is not a single criminal character in this entirely sentimental story.
Virtue, I admit, succumbs in Miss Henriette Stralson, as it does in Richardson’s Clarissa Harlowe. But in this tale, is crime not punished by the very hand of virtue?
In Faxelange, is crime not even more severely punished, and virtue not freed from its fetters?
In Florville et Courval, does the hand of fate allow crime to triumph? All the characters who involuntarily perpetrate these crimes are but the pawns of that fate wherewith the Greeks endowed their gods. Do we not daily witness the same events as the misfortunes of Oedipus and his family?
Where is crime more wretched, and more severely punished, than in Rodrigue?
In Laurence et Antonio, does crime not succumb, and is virtue not crowned by the sweetest hymen imaginable?
In Ernestine, is’t not by the hand of the heroine’s virtuous father that the villain Oxtiern is punished?
Is crime not brought to the gallows in Dorgeville?
Does the remorse which leads La Comtesse de Sancerre to the grave not avenge the virtue which she outraged?
Finally, in Eugénie de Franval, does the monster I painted not run himself through with his own sword?
Villeterque . . . Villeterque-the-hack, where in the name of all that is holy does crime emerge victorious in my stories? Ah! the truth of the matter is that the only thing I see triumphing here is your own ignorance and your cowardly desire to slander.
Now, I ask my reprehensible censor upon what grounds he dares to describe such a work as “a compilation of revolting atrocities,” when none of his reproaches proves to be well founded? And once having proved that much, what remains of the criticism leveled by that inept phrase-maker? Nothing but satire without a trace of wit, of criticism without the slightest discernment, and of spleen without provocation—all because Villeterque is a fool, and from fools there never stems aught but foolish things. I contradict myself, the pedagogue Villeterque goes on to say, whenever I put into the mouth of one of my protagonists thoughts in any wise contrary to those enunciated in my preface. Loathsome ignoramus: have you not yet learned that every character in any dramatic work must employ a language in keeping with his character, and that, when he does, ’tis the fictional personage who is speaking and not the author? and that, in such an instance, ’tis indeed common that the character, inspired by the role he is playing, says things completely contrary to what the author may say when he himself is speaking? Imagine what a man Crébillon would have been were he always to have spoken in the accents of Atrée; or what a person Racine, if his thoughts had been only those of Nero. Fancy what a monster Richardson would have been had his principles been only those of Lovelace! Ah, Monsieur Villeterque, what a fool you are! This is one truth concerning which both I and my characters will always be in complete agreement whenever we have the occasion to exchange views regarding your prosaic existence. But what a show of weakness on my part! Must I then resort to reason when ’tis contempt that is called for? And, indeed, what more does a lout deserve, one who dares to say to him who at every turn has castigated vice: “Show me some villains who are happy, ’tis what is required for one to perfect one’s art: the author of Les Crimes de l’Amour will prove it to you!” No, Villeterque, I neither claimed nor proved any such thing; and in my defense I appeal from your stupidity to the enlightenment of the public. I said quite the contrary, Villeterque, and my works are constructed upon the opposite bases.
A splendid invocation finally brings our hack scribbler’s vile diatribe to an end:
Rousseau, Voltaire, Marmontel, Fielding, Richardson, you have not written novels [he exclaims]. You have painted customs, you should have painted crimes!
—as though crime did not constitute a part of our customs, and as though there were not criminal customs and virtuous customs. But this is too much for Villeterque, whose mind is incapable of embracing so vast a concept.
Actually, should such reproaches have even been leveled at me in the first place, I who have the highest regard for all those authors whom Villeterque cites, and who have never ceased to extol their merits in my “Reflections on the Novel”? And, furthermore, have these mortals for whom I have never had anything but the highest regard—these same authors to whom Villeterque refers in his article—have they not described and painted crimes in their works? Is Rousseau??
?s Julie such a virtuous girl? Is the hero of Clarissa Harlowe a man of such impeccable moral standards? Is there all that much virtue in Zadig and in Candide? And these are but a few I could name.
Ah! Villeterque, I have somewhere written that when one aspires to write without having the good fortune to be endowed with any talent for it, it would be infinitely preferable to fashion ladies’ dancing pumps or boots; at the time I wrote these words, I did not realize they were meant for you. Follow that advice, my good fellow, pray do; you may perhaps turn out to be a tolerable good shoemaker, but as sure as I’m alive you will never be anything but a wretched writer. But, Villeterque, you may find comfort in the thought that Rousseau, Voltaire, Marmontel, Fielding, and Richardson will always be read. Your ridiculous jokes on this score will not convince anyone that I disparage these great writers, when on the contrary I have never ceased to cite them as examples. But one thing of which you may be quite certain, Villeterque, is that you will never be read, first because you have never written anything which could possibly ever survive you; but even assuming that someone should one day stumble upon one of your literary plagiarisms, he will certainly prefer to read it in the original, in its pristine state rather than sullied by a pen as coarse as yours.
Villeterque, you have ranted and raved, you have lied, you have piled stupidity upon slander, ineptitude upon chicanery—all in order to avenge your mirror-authors, in whose camp your boring anthologies so rightly place you.4 I have taught you a lesson, and I stand ready to teach you another, if ever you should happen to insult me again.
D.-A.-F. DE SADE
Florville and Courval, or The Works of Fate (1788)
Monsieur de Courval had just turned fifty-five; a vigorous man, in excellent health, he could look forward to another twenty years of life. Having known nothing but unpleasantness with a first wife, who had long ago left him to devote herself to a life of libertinage, and having good reason to believe, on the basis of the most reliable testimony, that this creature was now in her grave, he was seriously considering the possibility of remarrying, this time a person who, by the kindness of her character and the excellence of her morals, would help him to forget his earlier misfortunes.
As unlucky with his children as with his wife, Monsieur de Courval, who had had only two—a girl who had died while still very young, and a boy who, at the age of fifteen had, like his wife, abandoned him, unfortunately to follow the same principles of debauchery—Monsieur de Courval, I repeat, did not believe that any ties could ever bind him to this monster, and planned to disinherit him and bequeath his possessions to the children he hoped to have by the new wife he wished to marry. He had an income of fifteen thousand francs: formerly engaged in business, his fortune was the fruit of his labors, and he had lived well within his means, as decent men will, surrounded by a handful of friends who loved and esteemed him, who visited him either in a handsome apartment which he occupied on the rue Saint-Marc or, more often, on a charming little estate near Nemours, where Monsieur de Courval spent two-thirds of the year.
This worthy man disclosed his plan to his friends, and seeing that they approved of it, he bade them make immediate inquiries amongst their acquaintances to discover whether in their circle there were someone between the ages of thirty and thirty-five, whether a widow or spinster, who might serve his purpose.
Two days later, one of his former colleagues came to inform him that he believed he had found exactly the person Monsieur de Courval was seeking.
“The young lady I am recommending to you,” his friend said to him, “has two things against her which I must first reveal, so that I can subsequently console you by giving an account of her good qualities. ’Tis quite certain that neither her father nor mother is alive, but we have no idea who they were or where she lost them. All we do know,” the intermediary went on, “is that she is the cousin of Monsieur de Saint-Prât, a man of considerable reputation who acknowledges her, esteems her, and who will freely sing her praises to you, which is no more than she deserves. Her parents left her nothing, but she has an income of four thousand francs from Monsieur de Saint-Prât, in whose house she was reared and wherein she spent her entire childhood. This is her first fault,” said Monsieur de Courval’s friend, “let us move on to the second: an affair that occurred when she was sixteen years old, a child who died; she has never seen the father again. So much for the debit side; now a word about the things in her favor.
“Mademoiselle de Florville is thirty-six years old, though she looks but twenty-eight, if that; it would be difficult to conceive of a more attractive and interesting face: her features are gentle and delicate, her skin has the whiteness of a lily, and her chestnut-brown hair reaches down to her ankles. Her mouth is fresh, most pleasantly adorned, the very image of a springtime rose. She is rather tall, but she has such a lovely figure, there is so much grace in her movements, that her height, which otherwise might make her appear somewhat hard, is of no consequence. Her arms, her neck, her legs, are all pleasingly molded, and hers is a kind of beauty that will long resist the onset of age.
“As for her conduct, her extreme regularity may perhaps not please you. She is not much given to mundane activities and leads a most secluded life. She is extremely pious, assiduous in her devotion to the duties of the convent in which she lives, and if she is a source of edification to all those around her by her religious qualities, she also is a source of delight to all who behold her, because of her mind and the charms of her character. . . . In a word, she’s an angel on earth, whom Heaven has reserved for the happiness of your later years.”
Monsieur de Courval, delighted at the prospect of such an encounter, urged his friend to arrange for him to see the person in question without further delay.
“The matter of her birth concerns me not in the least,” he said. “So long as her blood is pure, what does it matter to me who transmitted it to her? And her affair when she was sixteen daunts me just as little; she has made up for the lapse by many years of modesty and discretion. I shall marry her as though I were marrying a widow. Having set my mind on a woman between thirty and thirty-five, ’twould have been difficult indeed for me to add to that demand the foolish requirement that she be a virgin. Thus, nothing about your proposals displeases me; all that remains is for me to urge you to let me see the object herself.”
Monsieur de Courval’s friend was not long in satisfying his desire. Three days later he gave a dinner at his house, with the lady in question as one of the guests. It was difficult not to be captivated at first sight by this charming person: her features were those of Minerva herself, disguised beneath those of love. Since she was privy to the matter, she was even more reserved, and her decorum, her circumspection, and the nobility of her bearing, together with so many physical attributes and so gentle a nature, and with so judicious and well-developed a mind, soon had poor Courval so enamored that he begged his friend to hasten matters to their conclusion.
They met again two or three times, once at the same house, another time at Monsieur de Courval’s, or at Monsieur de Saint-Prât’s, and finally, in response to his most earnest entreaties, Mademoiselle de Florville declared to Monsieur de Courval that nothing could flatter her more than the honor he was bestowing upon her but that, in all fairness, she could in no wise accept before she herself had discovered to him the adventures of her life.
“You have not been told everything,” said this charming girl, “and I cannot consent to be yours until you know more about me. Your esteem means too much to me to put myself in a position whereby I might lose it, and I assuredly would not deserve it if, taking advantage of your illusions, I were to consent to become your wife, without your first judging whether I am worthy to be.”
Monsieur de Courval assured her that he was aware of everything, that ’twas he rather than she who should be evincing the concern she was showing, and that if he were fortunate enough to please her, then she should no longer trouble her head about it. Mademoiselle de Florville was firm; she insi
sted that she would not give her consent to anything until Monsieur de Courval had been thoroughly instructed with regard to her; and so he had to give in to her. The only concession he was able to wrest from her was that Mademoiselle de Florville would come to his estate near Nemours, that all preparations would be made for the marriage he desired, and that, as soon as he had heard her story, she would become his wife forthwith.