Letters From Prison

  Now let us talk about the unfortunate mishap which has just overtaken me, but before we do, permit me to offer you a slight word of reproach. The shots were fired from the direction of Paris, and you told me your mind was at ease about Paris; that only Aix was dangerous; and as I felt sure I had nothing to fear from that quarter, and taking my cue from you, my peace of mind was secure. I asked you whether I could go on with my work: you replied “yes,” and consequently said you were going to send me the necessary papers. You did not hesitate to fill me with the firm belief I was safe: for that belief you alone are therefore responsible, and I spent the night of the 25th to the 26th under my own roof only because of what I had from your letters number 4 and 5, received the 25th. In those letters you notified me of the sale of my charge;7 I was stunned; ‘twas impossible for me to imagine that such a dreadful piece of news could be announced to me on the eve of the day when I was about to be struck an even more dreadful blow, and I went to bed very afflicted8 on the one hand, but very reassured on the other. Nevertheless, do not think that by this little reproach I am seeking to impute anything to you. That would be too much to bear: no, I should never accuse you; I would rather die a thousand deaths. But your mother, who could very well have fallen under suspicion here, did not once appear thus in my eyes; I expressly beseech you to tell her so, and to both of you I hereby swear ’tis my most intimate persuasion this foul deed9 was done without either of you having any knowledge of it.

  Before going into the particulars of this sinister adventure, I shall add yet a second reproach. You have been unsparing concerning some of the good and decent people who were my friends down there, and yours too, and when one needs the help of everybody, one must be tactful with everybody. The canon10 complains greatly about you; you have written him ridiculous letters about a small affair he thought to entrust to your good offices in Paris. These people understand nothing of court flattery, and ’tis not with friends, and, I dare say, with sincere friends, one should act in the same way. You acted in similar fashion with Milli Rousset who, if ‘twere possible, is even more attached to us and who, upon this latest occasion, sacrificed herself entirely for me: one day I shall convince you of it. You wrote her grand and foolish letters headed by Mademoiselle, all the while hers to you were filled with the greatest warmth for you. One day I saw her weeping at being thus treated by you, and that at a time when, out of the kindness of her heart, she had remained in the chateau and was doing me every service friendship could suggest, even, since I had no domestics, helping with the household chores as Gothon would have done. She stayed by me every instant the whole time I was at La Coste, and most assuredly was of great help to me. Is it because she and the canon helped me to see the light about Gaufridy’s infamies that you have taken a dislike to them? and is there a chance you suspect them of acting with their self-interest in mind? Some of your letters have shown that, but you are greatly mistaken. Their staunch friendship for me, and the general scandal created at La Coste by Gaufridy’s behavior, made them all the more zealous; and the proof that neither one nor the other seeks any advantage is that they each separately advised me to exercise patience, to refrain from having any showdown with that monster and, above all, when I did have it out with him, never to replace him, since I had no need of any businessman once my lands were leased. They were therefore completely disinterested and, as you see, had nothing in view either for themselves or for theirs. But at this point you will perhaps remind me that Gaufridy nevertheless behaved well at Aix . . .11 Do not be fooled by that: there were too many eyes upon him, he had no chance to misbehave; yet even so he had some shady dealings with the five girls, which proves that he whispered all the evil he could, and that, if he did no worse, ’tis because he was not able to. Exactly what these shady dealings consisted of would be too long to go into here. The gist of it is that he dealt very harshly with the most decent of them, whose depositions were the most favorable, and showered both kindnesses and money upon one who came to the confrontation12 to stage a tragic scene, which greatly embarrassed the commissioner, and was of a mind to undo everything. Moreover, had that man13 been my friend and truly honest, as I was led to believe, wouldn’t he have agreed to do what was asked of him? Instead of that, he did the very opposite. He even went and revealed to M. de la Tour14 one of the elements of the plan I was getting ready to put into effect, talked Ripert,15 who agreed to take charge of everything (the said Ripert admitted to this publicly), out of doing so with great eloquence and fanfare. Finally, between him and his friend Reinaud16—who is no better than he and to whom I most urgently ask that you send nothing further—their combined efforts all told boiled down to giving me twelve louis, and, what is more, they proposed, beggars that they are, deducting them from a sum intended for you. If they had given me more— and they easily could have, especially because M. de la Tour had offered Gaufridy as much money as he liked—if, I repeat, they had given me more, I would have gone to Florence, as was my intention, and today I would not be here. Once I was home, I could have remedied matters, that I admit; anyone else but me would have done so. It was the time when my leases were up for renewal: by going to see my tenants one by one, I would have collected a considerable amount of money simply by renewing their leases at a third less than the going rate. I repeat: anyone else but me would have done that; but I, who am always the victim whenever I try to do some good, I, far from putting a crimp in my affairs, thought only of straightening them out. They could not possibly have been in greater need of being put aright, the moment could not have been more critical for me. . . . That is how I have been rewarded.

  Let me come now to the particulars I promised you. On August 19th I was taking a quiet stroll in the park ‘round about dusk with the curate and Milli Rousset when we heard someone in the little wood, which upset me greatly. I called out several times, asking who it was; to which I got no response. I stepped forward and came upon the guard Sambuc, the elder, a little tipsy from too much wine, who said to me, looking extremely worried and frightened, that I should make my getaway as fast as I could, for the tavern was beginning to fill up with people who looked most suspicious. Milli Rousset went down to check things out and an hour later returned, completely taken in by the speeches of two spies whose task it was to prepare the way, and assured me she would stake her life that these people were indeed who they said they were, that is to say silk merchants, adding that there was absolutely nothing to fear. You would not have made such a mistake, for one of them was part of the gang that arrested me in Paris at your house. So I was not all that wrong in wishing you were with me. When you were with me, nothing bad ever happened to me at La Coste. Little reassured by what I had learned, I left that same night and sought refuge with the canon. Milli Rousset forwarded my mail and twice a day sent me dispatches to keep me abreast of all the details. As these were becoming ominous, I left Oppède and came to a barn about a league away. The reports continued to be disquieting. You know who, from Apt,17 spoke in the clearest terms, and, in spite of everything, as though impelled by a force superior to my own, for there is no escaping one’s fate, on Sunday the 23rd I fell into a kind of agitation so violent that nobody with perceptiveness could have failed to see that this cruel state signaled the end of my unhappy period of freedom. The person the canon had appointed to take care of me was so frightened by this state that she hurried off to notify the canon. He soon arrived. “But what is the matter with you?” “Nothing; I want to get out of here.” “Are you feeling ill?” “No, but I want to get out.” “And where do you want to go?” “Home.” “You are mad, and I shall certainly not go with you there.” “I’m not asking you to, I can get home quite nicely by myself.” “But stop and think for a moment, I beg of you.” “I’ve already thought about it, I want to go home.” “And you’re totally ignoring the danger, everything that has been written to you! . . .” “Stuff and nonsense, that’s all it is; there isn’t any danger. So let’s be off.” “Let’s wait at least another four days?” (A
las, the poor devil guessed exactly the number of days we should have waited!) “I don’t want to wait, I tell you, I want to leave.” Finally, we set off together, and arrive at La Coste. For fear of keeping me from getting a little rest, they don’t dare take me too openly to task for my rashness. On the morrow, they urge me to return to my hiding place. I hold stubbornly to the notion of staying. Your letters of the 25th arrive. I feel increasingly safe, and, on the 26th, at four o’clock in the morning, Gothon, in a state of complete undress and all aflutter, rushes into my bedchamber (the one where I sleep in summer) shrieking at the top of her lungs: “Run for your life! . . .” What an awakening! Clad only in my nightshirt, I make off in the only direction I can, racing mechanically up the stairs to a place which, despite my explicit instructions, had in no wise been prepared;18 finding nothing there to help me, I dash into the Marchais bedroom, lately referred to as the Brun bedroom. I lock myself in; a minute later I hear such a frightful uproar on the stairway that for a moment I thought they were thieves coming to cut my throat. There were shouts: “Murder! Fire! Thief!” and then, in a trice, the door is battered down and I am seized by ten men at once, several of whom have their swords pointed at my body, while others are holding pistols clapped to my face. At which point, a flood of atrocious stupidities comes pouring out of the mouth of Monsieur Inspector Marais; I am tied up; and from that moment until Valence I had unceasingly to put up with that man’s invectives and insults, the details of which I shall spare you. They were too humiliating relative to someone you love, and I prefer not to describe them to you. At Cavaillon, the whole town came out; at Avignon more than three hundred people,19 and what most distressed me there was that, at the very same moment, my poor aunt, the Abbess of Saint-Laurent, lay dying. She had just had my cousin write me a charming letter full of congratulations. What a turn of events! It may prove to be the death of her. . . . I beg you to write to her and also to my aunt in Cavaillon, to express all my fondest regards, and to give me news of them. —There, my dear friend, is how I was treated.

  But I would have thought at the very least, according to what your mother wrote, that, once I was back in prison, I would have all the amenities that were consistent with my safekeeping. Instead of that, I have not a fourth of the bare amenities I had before. They have put me in a new cell20 where I can barely breathe, where all ventilation is blocked off, a cell in which ‘twill be impossible for me to make a fire this winter. I am harassed and vexed on every score; I am much less well fed, and at completely different hours, which wreaks havoc with my stomach. In a word, I am treated like someone they don’t know what to do with and would like to give up on completely. I have no more commission, I have no more trial: does it matter whether I live or die! Such was doubtless their reasoning as they worked out my unhappy fate, and all I need do now is die of grief. You clearly insinuated that if I asked to be transferred to the abbey, my wish would be granted. I most earnestly make that request; there we would at least be within striking distance of each other, if only they would allow visits, and I would at least be able to have the food and furnishings I liked. If cost is a consideration, I do not ask that one more penny be spent than what is being paid to keep me here, and with this sum I warrant that in any other prison, be it in a kingdom, I would be infinitely better off than I am here. Please be so kind as to ask your mother this one favor. If she is of a mind to seek it for me she will surely obtain it. I am going to ask it of M. Le Noir; and to make sure ’tis not mistaken as some momentary whim on my part, I shall most assuredly go on asking for it in every letter I am allowed to write.

  In a letter you wrote me at La Coste, you told me that it was just as well I had escaped, since were I to return to prison ‘twould be for at least a year, with exile afterward, and for three years at the most. Which of the two is it, then, one year or three, since the length of my sentence has been determined? And ’tis quite clear that it has been fixed. Since my sentence is a result of my trial, they can very well tell me what the sentence is. I most urgently ask to be told what it is. There is no longer any reason whatsoever to keep me from knowing it. This terrible uncertainty keeps me in a state of affliction that no words can describe. I beseech you and your mother to have the kindness to remove me from that affliction: all I ask is that one consolation: will they deign grant it to me?

  You had no idea, my dear friend, how deeply upset I was over the loss of my charge.21 What a frightful combination, to suffer such a loss and then find myself in prison to boot! Was it at least sold for a suitable price or was it simply given away for the assumption of the commission? You should at least have told me that much. I must confess that this arrangement, especially when I learned it was initially to be made with the elder M. d’Evry,22 struck me as a trifle suspect on your mother’s part. To transfer into her family the favors which the king formerly granted to mine did not strike me as very loyal. I suspected some other arrangement more advantageous to my children was being made, when I learned that it was going to someone bearing my name. That will not prevent me from feeling the most profound hatred for that pip-squeak of a gentleman; and despite the enthusiasm for this house you display in one of your latest letters, you will permit me to be completely convinced of the fact that I reported on them because I have it from the horse’s mouth, [and] to consider him personally as a man both hard-hearted and lacking in sensibility for daring to enrich himself at the expense of his cousin, and most cordially to loathe him, him and his kin, for the rest of my life.

  Moreover, from some phrases you let slip into your letters, from one letter written by your mother and sent on to me for some unknown reason, I was able to piece together—for with you one always has to piece together: candor and simplicity are virtues you simply no longer have—in any case, I was able to figure out that your mother was meddling with my property. She probably thought that since she had succeeded in stripping me of my commission without my consent, she could also sell off my estate as she liked and act as if all this were no more than the cabbages in her own garden. I believe she is incapable of ever making a mistake, and I would even go so far as to say I know her well enough to be certain that I could only gain from any arrangement she might make: nonetheless, I beg her to get it firmly into her head that under no circumstances do I wish to part either with La Coste, or with Saumane, or with Mazan; that from the moment I go on record as being formally opposed thereto, which I am and always shall be, I doubt whether anyone would purchase a property, given the fact that as soon as I am free my first act would be to lodge a complaint against him. Therefore, I beseech her not to meddle with any of those three objects, not wanting, no matter what they may allege my wishes to be, to part with any of the three. Let her sell Aries if she likes, and with the money and with what the commission yields, let her meddle to her heart’s content. But as for the rest, no. Let her be sure that I shall always stand in opposition. In my next letter I shall include some details about what should be done instead, at least for the time being, regarding the renewal of the leases.

  1. Sade is not referring to anyone in his wife’s entourage to whom she might give this letter, but to the prison censor, Monsieur Boucher, whom Sade considered a cross between a dolt and an idiot.

  2. The “blow” to which Sade is referring is his rearrest on August 26 at La Coste. On June 14, Sade, whose Marseilles case was on appeal, was released from Vincennes and allowed to travel by coach under the watchful eye of Inspector Marais and three policemen to Aix, where he arrived in late afternoon. The next morning he was incarcerated in the royal prison of Aix, where he spent the next twenty-three days. The appellate court overturned the Marseilles verdict relative to the charge of poisoning, which, it found, was “totally unproved,” and ordered a new trial on the further charges of debauchery and sodomy. On July 14, the high court of Aix, after hearing witnesses, including the accused, also overturned the Marseilles court on these latter counts, reducing the charges to those of “debauchery and excessive libertinage” admonishing Sa
de “to behave more decently in the future,” fining him fifty livres, and prohibiting him from living in or visiting Marseilles for a period of three years. In other words, Sade was, after sixteen months in Vincennes prison, a free man. Or was he?

  3. After the Aix verdict, Sade was returned to the royal prison, assuming he would be freed the next day. But at three in the morning on July 15, Marais awakened Sade and announced he was being brought back to Vincennes. Why, Sade wanted to know, didn’t the Aix final verdict mean he was a free man? By reply, Marais produced the king’s lettre de cachet, revalidated only days before, which meant that Sade’s return to Vincennes, and all it implied, was inevitable.

  The next night, during a stopover near Valence, Sade made a daring escape from his three escorts, and stealthily returned to La Coste via Avignon. There for the next several weeks he rejoiced in his freedom and savored his role of lord of the manor, especially because the local populace, having heard of the Aix verdict, flattered him with its compliments and respectful attention.

  But just before dawn on Wednesday, August 26, Inspector Marais, backed by Paris police and local gendarmes, burst into the chateau, captured the marquis, bound him hand and foot, and shoved him into a police wagon. After a thirteen-day journey Sade arrived back in Paris on September 7 and was reincarcerated immediately in Vincennes, in cell number 6.