Do have the kindness to dwell on this for a moment, Monsieur. What they are doing is setting a trap for me here. Madame de Montreuil knows full well that I shall not survive the horror of this latest infamy, this new spectacle she desires to make of me; she knows full well that I shall try to escape, which will result in the fulfillment of her most ardent desire, namely to obtain thereby the iniquitous and odious right—a right completely opposed to the laws and constitution of the government, and to which ’tis unworthy that any magistrates make themselves a party—the right, I say, to keep me under the abominable authority of a lettre de cachet for the rest of my life.
But she will not long enjoy her little triumph, for I tell you, Sir, that my only purpose in escaping will be to go abroad, there to end my days. Thus it is, by your having yielded to the whims of a wretched woman, who if you knew her as I do you would order to be put in chains rather than protected, thus it is, I say, that you have a man undone, robbed of his children, stripped of his worldly goods, and a family overwhelmed with both dishonor and misfortune.
Do redress all that, Sir, I beg of you, bearing in mind the two clauses in my letter that deal with what shall result therefrom.
Without question I do not have the right to make the laws, and when I say so in writing myself, ’tis useless to repeat that statement over and over again, as happened to me yesterday throughout the day, but the right to air one’s grievances, to lodge a complaint, has not been denied the wretched of the earth, not even those people we dare call savages, because their king is not in the habit of spending a million to ferret out what his subjects may be doing to the country’s women.2 And this right to lodge a complaint, given the situation in which I find myself, to whom should I address myself if not to the selfsame magistrate whose task it is to make certain all citizens are assured of their equal rights? A fatal case of blind injustice? You would send to the gallows a poor wretch who, in order to feed his father and children, had stolen a crown from a passerby, and you call that maintaining order in Paris, and without the slightest qualm or remorse you would deliver over an innocent man to his torturers, whose only goal is to dishonor him, strip him of his fortune, bring him down, debase him for the rest of his days. Yet which of the two, Sir, in your opinion is more wronged in all this, the man who has stolen a crown or I, who for ten years has been robbed of his rightful goods and possessions, his wife, children, honor, influence, reputation, responsibilities, happiness, domestic tranquillity, etc.? And yet what a difference in your tribunal in the fate of these two assailants! One you will send to the gallows, the other you will overwhelm with honors. No, Monsieur, no, ’tis not a misfortune, ’tis not a deprivation to be exiled forever, to lose for the rest of one’s life a country one finds unworthy, a country where justice is meted out to those of its citizens who have served it with honor, those members of the military who have taken up arms in its defense. I do not deserve a torture as long as the one to which I have been subjected. I defy God Himself to prove that I deserve it. I am therefore the sole victim of the frenzied rage of a monster, and you should not put up with her.
Here is my final word on the matter, and they are not laws I am making,3 they are prayers and opinions I am offering about what will happen if they are refused.
First clause. I ask to spend a fortnight encloseted with my wife in Paris, to consult with doctors concerning my health, which is passing poor, for not a day goes by that I don’t cough up blood, and to see my children; thence to leave with my wife, and with my word as my bond, without having to incur the expense of any police escort, because ’tis not for families to pay these knaves, all of whom ought to be taken out and hanged: ’tis for the king to support such rogues and rascals in his kingdom; to leave, I say, for my estates, for as long as one wishes, whether in exile or not, I care not. For I have no desire to leave my own estates for a good long while.
In return for that clause, if ’tis granted me, I give you my word of honor, to you and whomsoever else is required to have it, duly signed and sealed with all the most authentic forms it may please you to prescribe, that I shall behave for the rest of my life in a manner that is sober, orderly, and exemplary in every possible manner, so exemplary in fact that not even an angel could behave more seemly. I further swear that I shall devote my time and energy to the happiness of my wife and my children, and to mending, insofar as ’tis in my hands to do so, both my misfortunes and the inroads made into my fortune. What is more, I shall sign whatever legal document you may require endowing Madame de Montreuil with the authority to act on behalf of my children however she sees fit, without the slightest interference from me, in consequence whereof I am ready and willing to turn over to her whatever portion of my goods and possessions she deems appropriate to that end; and I agree to approve her choice of education, profession, place of residence, marriage, etc., and to provide her with everything, even above and beyond what I have already agreed to. I also consent to wipe out the entire past, not a shred of which I shall ever mention again in the future, in short, to supplement anything I may have omitted herein by whatever it may please you add as either necessary or useful to the complete satisfaction of all concerned.
Second clause. If, instead of all the above, one decides to pursue the Montélimar project,4 and if one is bound and determined not to renounce it once and for all, I shall go, I am ready to leave, and I say that in no uncertain terms so that you may be assured that I do not, as my wife mistakenly wrote me yesterday, find Vincennes preferable. But if that is the decision, then mark you well, I shall try to escape as soon as I possibly can, and I shall succeed, no matter what precautions may be taken to prevent me; I shall move to a foreign country; I have a prince ready to take me in, of that you may be sure, Sir, and a monarch who does not lock up his subjects over a matter of prostitutes, as he does not deliver them over into the hands of pimps;5 and from there I shall do my level best to thwart all of Madame de Montreuil’s various and sundry projects, in the cruelest way I know how; I shall publicly dishonor her by my writings, which will contain truths so well known that no one will ever be able to refute them. I shall disclose how and why honors are bestowed in France, and reveal that if I left that country it was because I did not have a hundred thousand francs per annum wherewith to grease the palms of Themis’ henchmen as did those to whom the State has sacrificed me, the same State which in my present misfortune should have acted as a father to me, since I spent my youth serving it faithfully and well, that State which repaid me only with chains and nourished me with naught but my own tears. Nor is that all I shall do. No matter what precautions they may take to prevent me, I still have one certain means to deprive my children of their birthright—at least two of them unquestionably—and I shall use it, you may be sure. I shall leave them with nothing but the breath of life they received from their mother, and the only reason I shall leave them with that is so that they may spend their lives cursing the abominable creature who was responsible for preventing them from ever having a father.
Deign to reflect upon all this, Sir. Why, when you can mold a man to your desires by using proper methods, opt to use improper ones? Is that either fair or reasonable? And is that what fate intended for us both, good Sir, I to serve as fodder for a bankrupt woman dishonored in the eyes of every thinking person, and you to offer me up to her for this purpose? My happiness is in your hands, Sir, I entrust myself to your good offices. Think of the inner satisfaction that a man as virtuous as you will feel knowing that he has dried the tears of a poor wretch of a man, knowing that he has returned that man to his duties and to his family, realizing that that entire family loves you, has you in its prayers, thinks of you as its mentor, that it revels less in the happiness it has found again on earth than in the charm of knowing ’tis owing to you and to you alone. ’Tis the personage of God Himself you will then be playing here below. Just think, Sir, think that if the Almighty has accidentally bestowed upon you some of his bounden duties, ’tis in order to be the image not of his angry thu
nderbolts but of his infinite goodness.
I have the honor of being, with all the sentiments due you, Sir, your most humble and most obedient servant.
de Sade
1. Sade is referring to the fact that if he is transferred out of Vincennes to another prison, it will be the fifth such dungeon he will have known.
2. Here Sade really means “prostitutes.”
3. Sade keeps harping on this point because whenever he lodges a complaint or makes a request of his jailers, they inevitably remind him: “You, Sir, do not make the laws here.”
4. Having begged his wife to get him transferred to another prison, and she having made efforts to effect a change, Sade is still terrified at being sent to a pestilential prison in or near Montélimar, as indicated earlier in his letter of March 28.
5. In the original, Sade does not spell out either term, doubtless not for fear of being censored, since the meaning is obvious, but out of deference to his correspondent, a police inspector.
40. To Gaufridy
[April 12, 1781]
I am told, Monsieur, that you might be so bold, so insolent, as to come and pay me a visit in Montélimar, a site to which no doubt you were involved in having me sent, the better to cheat me, the better to steal from me, and the better to entice me to subscribe to everything that you may have done against my better interests and to enhance your own. I agree that this place1 would be most convenient for that, but I strongly advise to refrain from coming; for if I am unfortunate enough not to have a stout stick within reach—the only arm with which to receive a traitor, a rogue, and a scoundrel of your ilk—I shall excoriate you with such a round of violent invectives, in the presence of everyone within hearing—invectives I might add that are totally deserved—that I have no doubt you will greatly regret you ever had the impertinence to come and will make haste to beat a quick retreat.
1. That is, the Montélimar prison.
41. To Monsieur Le Noir1
April20, 1781
Monsieur,
My mind would long ago have been greatly relieved . . . Instead of the despair and pain wherewith I have for so long now been besieged, I would have felt my soul once again filled with the virtues people so greatly desire to see restored within it, had only I earlier had the meeting you honored me with the day before yesterday.
The glimmer of hope you raised within me concerning a possible remission of my sentence by means of some sort of transfer requested by Madame de Sorans and by my wife, the purpose of which is to put me in a better position to reestablish some order in my affairs, and the impossibility that such a transfer could be to any prisons located in the vicinity of my estates, prisons less atrocious than where I am presently being detained, such as the Tower of Crest, etc., leads me to ask most urgently that you inform the minister forthwith of the following:
1. That I have no desire whatsoever to trade one bad situation for another;
2. That no matter what castle or keep they might choose in the vicinity of my estates, it has been clearly demonstrated that there is no way I can manage my affairs from there.
The first of these articles being so obvious as to require no explanation, I shall confine myself to proving the second.
My affairs, Sir, are currently in the hands of a man2 who takes advantage of my absence to further his affairs far more than he does mine. Since all I have to go on are the glimpses and vague notions that a rogue such as he might come and offer me in prison, where I am able to see and consult no one but him, you can well imagine how astonishingly easy it is for him to persuade me to do whatever he would like. And since ’tis only to him I have recourse, I am compelled to make up my mind, sign the necessary papers, and as a result put myself entirely in his hands for the rest of my days; a terrible disadvantage that can only result in the complete loss of all my goods and possessions and the inevitable ruin of my children. ’Tis impossible to spell out the degree to which my affairs are in a state of frightful disorder, and to what degree my presence on the spot has become an absolute necessity. ’Tis therefore for that reason, Monsieur, that I most urgently request that you be so kind as to obtain for me a place of residence that is agreeable to everyone concerned, in order to satisfy both the restrictive measures that have been imposed upon me and the kindnesses wherewith the king may choose to make them less harsh.
In Provence I have four estates: two of them, Saumane and Mazan, are situated in the Comtat; the third is a parcel of land near Aries which remains unbuilt; and the fourth, which is my normal place of residence, is called La Coste, located not far from the small city of Apt.
My presence in each of the four estates is equally essential, and I should never be able to sort out the tricks and ruses of the people who for years now have been leading me down the garden path unless I am able to listen on the spot both to the friends of these rogues and to their enemies, in order to make up my own mind and render a new administrative decision that will be less unfavorable to my own interests. As you know better than I, Sir, that is the only manner of ferreting out the truth. But one has to be there in order for it happen. None of that is admissible if all one has to go on are the reports, made by a man who is completely unreliable, to his master in prison; in which wise, hearing only him, one is compelled to follow the route he suggests, and far from sorting things out, everything is only further confused, to such a degree that no one any longer knows which end is up.
As both Saumane and Mazan are located in the Comtat, it strikes me as neither good nor proper to request that I be allowed to live there, so long as I am under the king’s orders.3 The Aries property contains no building. That leaves La Coste, which is in a sense the chief town, the place where I have always lived, where my papers are, etc. There I can be, if one so desires, under the surveillance of whatever person the Court cares to appoint, and that for as long as the minister is of a mind to forget that he is dealing with a military officer and a man of the nobility, for whom, by both titles, nothing is more sacred than his word of honor.
I shall make no complaint whatsoever: the very glimmer of the king’s bounties that you have danced before my eyes, banishing forever any bitterness my soul may have harbored, leaves room there for naught but gratitude. If, however, one is willing to spare me the shameful embarrassment of being kept under surveillance, and relieve me of that unnecessary expense, I shall commit myself to the king’s order, by whatever means it shall please you to stipulate on his behalf. And I shall be so absolutely scrupulous in fulfilling the various clauses of the king’s order that no one will ever have the least regret for having rendered my sentence less onerous. In which case, the gentleman Blancard, sublieutenant of the mounted constabulary, who resides in Apt, a city in the vicinity of the estate where I am asking to reside—a man of honor and probity whom the late Marquis de Muids, under whom he served, held in the highest regard—could come and check up on me as frequently as may be desired, and report back to whomsoever it pleases you as to my conduct.
As for the extent of my confinement as specified by the king’s letter, here are my thoughts on the subject and the reasons that I beseech the court to give them serious consideration. Four leagues4 is too great a distance if one is of a mind to confine me to my chateau, the circumference of the estate being no more than two leagues in all, in which case two leagues would suffice. And in the event one would be willing to allow me to attend to the totality of my affairs, as I believe is absolutely essential and as I have just requested, four leagues would not be enough. Vouchsafe to hear me out for a moment, Monsieur, and use the chief town as our point of departure. There are four leagues from La Coste to Saumane, eight from La Coste to Mazan, and twelve from La Coste to Aries. Here, then, is what I suggest as the fair means to satisfy all parties: the necessity to extend the king’s letter to the Mazan and Saumane dwellings and their surrounding territories seems to me indispensable, for without that, I repeat, there is absolutely no way I can administer anything but the sole estate where I shall be living. Yet
twelve leagues is too much. In all my requests you will never see me trying to take advantage of anything that is offered or of slipping anything irregular into my suggestions. Surely you must remember, Monsieur, my thoughts on this matter such as I laid them out to you the other day. Anyone who takes advantage of the least act of kindness deserves not only that he be offered none in the future but that he be punished, in that, by so doing, he serves as a bad example for all those decent and wretched people who are without exception forced to bow in like manner to the severe measures the government has seen fit to impose upon them. ’Tis my view, therefore, that different restrictions be placed upon me, on the one hand regarding my three dwellings and their respective territories, which should fall into one equal category, and on the other hand my voyages to Aries, for which my presence is required once every six months at the most, and that that be clearly stipulated in the lettre de cachet; but also contained therein would be a special permission allowing further visits if they became necessary without any further requirement on my part, except having the honor to inform you several days in advance of such an impending visit, it also being incumbent upon me to alert the previously mentioned officer of the mounted constabulary in Apt both of my departure and my return. Which would mean, therefore, in order to spell out even more clearly my request, that I would have the right to live wherever and for whatever periods of time I deem necessary in each of my three estates upon which buildings already exist, and that I go to my Aries property only once every six months after having obtained specific permission to do so. Concerning which, I note that the affairs of that estate being the most pressing and the most in need of my intervention, I urgently request that the first of these tacit permissions be accorded me for this coming September, and consequently that it be issued to me almost simultaneously with the king’s order exiling me to my three estates.