What in the world does this sentence mean? Do you remember our butterflies at La Coste? That sentence is extremely peculiar: I am in fact dumbfounded by it. They are two different ways to interpret it. Did you really mean to put butterflies? If it is butterflies, you know that butterflies are something special we have between us, something only the two of us can do together. You offer to find me some, which therefore is tantamount to saying you are ready and willing to come to terms with me. If ’tis that, yes; and that’s the way I understand it, and that’s the way I want to understand it. If on the contrary you used the term butterflies generically, by which you meant or implied snails or vipers, which the meaning of the sentence seems to indicate, then no, no, no, my dear friend, my feelings for you are such that I cannot even hear such language as that. But whichever way you meant it, since ’tis nonetheless passing strange, I beg you to send me which of the two meanings you intended; I am more curious than I can say. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [The balance of the letter is missing.]
1. He is referring to the three-judge panel in Provence that passed sentence on him, which, he is maintaining, was heavily prejudiced against him.
2. Sade is doubtless referring to his trip that month to Dijon, where on June 26 he made his acceptance address to the High Court of Burgundy upon the occasion of formally assuming the position of lieutenant-general of the king for the provinces of Bresse, Bugey, Valromey, and Gex.
3. Though an in-law, Sade is suddenly including himself among the hated Mme de Montreuil’s offspring.
4. By the censors.
62. To Madame de Sade
[October 21, 1782]
I have, my dear friend, but one favor to ask of you, no more, and I still hope that your former friendship for me, or if you prefer your pity, will not let you say nay. That favor is to have me transferred from here to anywhere else, even were it shackled hand and foot to the cage of Mont-Saint-Michel. I would prefer it and mercifully ask that you cause it to happen. Yes, I prefer it a thousand times more than being constantly exposed to the odious attempts by that scoundrel de Rougemont to have me poisoned, he who doubtless has come to some arrangement with your mother to finish me off. For the past six weeks that rogue has been doing everything in his power to give me drugs that are having a serious negative effect upon my health and are causing me pain and anguish more violent than any criminal could ever endure on the wheel. And the proof that this rogue de Rougemont has sold me down the river is that they now keep me confined to my room and serve my food through a trapdoor, the way they do with the insane. They carry their outrageous behavior to the point of not letting the surgeon visit me, proof positive that my life is no longer worth a penny. Farewell, that is my last word to you. May heaven make you happy without me, since they fancy that my death is necessary for your happiness. If that is true, then I leave you without remorse, and I swear and solemnly declare that if I have but one regret, ’tis that in leaving this world I am unable to take along with me the odious scoundrel who stooped not only to fatten his own purse but then to use the monies he is raking in at the price of my life to indulge in his own unworthy pleasures. Have me transferred where you will and under whatever conditions, I beg of you on bended knee, if you still have an ounce of pity left for me in your heart. If you do not, I shall have to believe that you yourself are an accomplice to my death.
63. To Monsieur Le Noir
October 22, 1782
Despite the fact that I am quite certain none of my letters has ever been delivered to you, and that you have unjustly, if I may be so bold, abandoned the most important role wherewith your situation endows you, namely that of doing me justice and enlightening me concerning the results of the rage of those who continue to harry me relentlessly, despite that, I say, I owe it to myself to inform you personally of my complaints relating to the most recent horrors that have been visited upon me, which I shall set forth as truthfully and briefly as possible.
From September 3 to October 20 inclusive, Monsieur de Rougemont, doubtless paid off by my wife’s family, has upon thirteen different occasions had the villainy to mix in with the normal foods allotted me here a drug that has the effect of making me painfully ill to my stomach, so much so in fact that had they fed me poisons the reaction would have been no less violent. As soon as I had detected what they were doing, I asked to be given only soft-boiled eggs, on the assumption that they would be impossible to tamper with: on the second or third day my request was denied. I lodged a complaint about the pain I was suffering. They laughed in my face. I appealed to the surgeon into whose hands I have been entrusted to cure the ills that had been foisted upon me. I asked that he speak to Monsieur de Rougemont on the matter. All I was able to elicit from him by way of response were some cock and bull stories. At which point I said that, since they were refusing to deal with me according to the law, if it happened again I would take matters into my own hands. And they did it again. I took my revenge on whomever I could, Sir, and in that I was guided by this axiom of the law of nature, which shall be my guiding principle throughout my life: whenever justice has been denied me, respond by taking matters into my own hands. Whereupon Monsieur de Rougemont has taken it upon himself, doubtless to cover up his little sport, to withdraw the few pleasures necessary to my health that had hitherto been granted me, as a result of which, Monsieur, either I must allow myself to be poisoned or if I object to it, then I am punished.
No, Monsieur, no, they are not and cannot be the orders of the king. ’Tis impossible they be such, and I beseech you therefore in the name of fair-mindedness that I be treated in strict accordance with those orders. You may be sure, Sir, that one day I shall lodge a most serious and vigorous complaint in connection with an infamy of that sort. I shall state that I first brought this complaint to your attention. Would you be pleased, therefore, if ‘twas said that you refused to see that justice was done me? I most earnestly ask of you that I not be punished because others are in their wrong; I ask you most urgently that this kind of misdeed not be repeated and that they enjoin this infamous scoundrel who within these walls trafficks with the lives of the poor wretches through whom and by whom he has been allowed to earn his sad and somber living, that he be enjoined, I say, from any longer poisoning the already poor nutrition that he gives me, and that I at least be allowed to remain alive, which is not the case at present, since my refusal to go along with his double-dealing compels me to restrict my diet to milk. There in a nutshell, Monsieur, is the essence of my complaint to you and concerning which I have the right to expect, both by your position and your person, justice that will be both prompt and swift. When a prisoner brings such serious complaints as these to your attention, Monsieur, ’tis quite impossible that you refuse to see him yourself or send someone in your place, and that is all I ask of you.
Now then! what in the world can be the reasons behind such perfidy? Is it the destruction of my life? If so, there’s no need to let me linger all this long. No, I categorically reject that idea, and do not despise my wife’s parents sufficiently to suspect them of such behavior. But one idiotic and frightful notion does come to mind here. His misdeeds—for such is the way they will probably put it—are the fruit of an overheated imagination; break down his constitution in order to annihilate his imagination. What an absurd line of reasoning, Sir! ’Tis not from an overheated imagination that so-called misdeeds derive, ’tis from a constitution that has been too beaten and battered. To try to destroy it further would therefore only have the effect of nurturing the cause of the disorder, not curing it. A child of twelve could easily have fathomed that. But what about his rage and his thirst for revenge, they reason? In a word, are they reprisals? They are unjust, Monsieur. I have never even once in my life mixed any drugs into any matter whatsoever, certainly nothing that could have negatively affected the health of a human being, and certainly without that person’s knowing it, and if my Marseilles trial has not rendered t
hat principal charge null and void to the extent I would have wished, ’tis the fault of those who manipulated the trial from start to finish, and I can now see the reason why I have been treated thus. Aside from that, I defy anyone on the face of the earth to prove to me, or be able to prove to himself, that I have ever done anything of the sort. Vouchsafe therefore to see that justice is rendered me, Monsieur, and since despite all the promises you have made to me and the flattering hopes you falsely raised in my heart when you came to see me, I am still reduced to vegetate here in this horrible hell, I beg of you at the very least not to keep me any longer in suspense, as they are doing day in and day out, between the few pleasures that one is able to procure and the most abominable humiliations one is made to endure, and vouchsafe to keep me out of harm’s way.
In the hope of the swiftest justice, I have the honor of being, Sir, your most humble and most obedient servant.
de Sade
64. To Madame de Sade
[1782]
Your merits, Madame Marquise, and your little persiflage, which to my thinking is lacking in wit, will have no effect whatsoever upon me: ’tis to that point I wish to address myself in this response. An idea cannot be compared to a work that springs from one’s mind. ’Tis easy enough to be mistaken when one is alone in judging a work of this sort; ’tis far more difficult when it comes to an idea, and, unless one hasn’t a brain in one’s head, ’tis impossible not to know whether an idea is excellent or whether it’s not. Now then, I assert and affirm that the idea of my project is excellent; never fear of ever hearing me say the same of any of my written works. I know enough about architecture, and I have sufficiently studied all the beautiful examples of that art in Italy, where I spent all my time with people involved in that profession, to know when an idea is good or bad, and I say to you again that my idea is superb, so sublime in fact that there is not the slightest chance it will ever be realized. There is no country in Europe, nor any sovereign rich enough, to bring it to fruition.1 Thus, either your designer never said what you told me he said or he is a dolt or total ass to request that he be hired to carry it out, knowing full well that ‘twas quite impossible. ’Tis therefore no more than a lovely pipe dream—but one I love and intend to have on display in my office one day. Here is a minor supplement that you should pass on to him, which is essential if the construction were to be done properly. Baste!
I firmly refuse to respond to Milli Rousset’s tedious small talk. How is it possible that she can focus her mind on such claptrap? I can understand, and even find amusing, that one consciously wastes one’s mind on matters of some piquancy (’tis why Le Portier des Chartreux never astonished or surprised me), but I cannot conceive anyone spending one’s time discussing pots and pans or other kitchen utensils or the poor wretch who has syphilis or all the other stupidities contained in the plan it doubtless took Madame de Montreuil a good six weeks to concoct and fully as long for poor Rousset to transcribe, she whose talents lie a hundred leagues in the opposite direction. Thus her divine letter number 223 is going to fall into complete oblivion. I shall lower myself to deal with all these base details once I am on the premises: till then I don’t want to give them so much as a single thought. Please remember that I do not want a concierge in her employ: I fail to understand how she ever got that idea into her head in the first place and how you could for a moment have supported it. Please be kind enough to refute that as loudly and expeditiously as possible.
Of all the books you sent me, there are only two that bear a second reading, and ’tis books like those two that I need and want. Kindly fill out the enclosed catalogue; I repeat that I want it done most urgently. The Iliad bears but a single reading. The Italian Anecdotes do not even bear that; they are books that have a value for their chronology, works you keep on your table to refer to but would never read anymore than you would a dictionary. Therefore, fill out my list, I beg of you.2
Enclosed please find a little note for Amblet, which I ask you to forward to him; and when the manuscript comes back to you, be so good as to incorporate the minor corrections contained in this note.
Since the story of the Medicis is not complete, make sure not to break off relations with the doctor but, on the contrary, humor him. —Eh! As a friend, wouldn’t it have been better to have me go away and spend my days locked up in the doctor’s office in Florence, where I could have worked on that story, which most assuredly would one day have enhanced my reputation, rather than having me sent here to try to make some sense out of the imbecilic regurgitations of Madame la présidente de Montreuil?. . . I shall make a very special bet with you and your whole crew: I’ll wager that keeping me here for a period of ten years will end up costing a good hundred thousand francs, all for the purpose of making me a hundred times worse than I ever was before and for harming not only my honor and reputation but those of my children by a solid hundred degrees. You will have to admit that ’tis paying a pretty penny indeed for the pleasure of such ridiculous spitefulness and insipid numbers.
In former times, the doctor took me on as a paying guest. A manservant and I under his roof, including room and board, cost 800 livres, and one was well lodged, you may be sure; add an additional 1,200 for living expenses, etc., and now calculate how far ahead we would have been at the end of ten years. I would have emerged from the doctor’s hospital with a hundred thousand francs more in my pocket, a fine work to offer to the public, and my head filled with good ideas and thoughts. Now look at the other side of the coin and see what will result from what you are doing. But what was called for was silence and closure? Ah, no sooner said than done. At Florence there was a French ambassador who was a trifle better than Monsieur de Rougemont in my view. I am the first to admit that he would certainly not have played exactly the same role (members of the military as vile as he do not grow on trees). But Barbantane, who is my cousin and has wit, would have vouchsafed for me, would have had in his pocket an appropriate order under the king’s private seal in case it might have occurred to me to leave the confines of Florence, in which wise I would have found myself back in Vincennes in a week’s time; he would have been entrusted with my correspondence back and forth, with managing my money, etc.; I would have taken an assumed name; and in the eyes of that entire troop of rogues and knaves whose sole desire in life is to see that I am kept under lock and key, they could have been informed that I was visiting the grand duke and they would have had no reason not to believe it, so long as I was out of sight and they no longer heard mention of me. These are the measures one takes when one has a spark of intelligence, as opposed to how you act when you are imbeciles pure and simple, and prefer being protected by subalterns and lowlife rather than being concerned about the well-being and happiness of your kith and kin.
You wanted a letter for my children? Here it is. With me, your wishes are my desires, and as you see I do your every bidding and do it without delay. ’Tis the goodness of my heart and my longing to please you that will it, and not, you may be sure, any self-interest, for I am not looking for any response to it. I prefer a hundred times over not to write letters than to be the recipient of heavy and incredibly stupid sentences o’erflowing with philosophical blather and reeking of the bilious black venom of my unworthy tormentor. Remember, I want no reply to that letter; let them write it if they are so moved, but if they do, refrain from sending it on to me.
This letter is the expression of my feelings about my children. They will have the letter, they will read it over and over, and they will remember what it says . . . Do you for a moment believe that I would be so hostile both to them and to myself, that I would ever oppose these principles? If ever I were, they would despise me, and they would be perfectly right to do so. Let this remind you of the little descriptive note I sent you this past winter, and may it persuade you how far removed I am from trying to instill in them any harmful principles. Oh, no! perish the thought: if I had to choose between having them put to death or corrupting their hearts I would not hesitate for a m
inute, and would even go so far as to say the former was by far the lesser evil. Nor should you think for a moment what I write in that letter to the children has been in any way influenced by my stay in prison; ‘twould be quite the contrary, in fact, for my time here has had only negative effects upon me. I have thought this way my entire life, and you know it as well as I do. To make my profession of faith to you here and now, all you need do is ponder how I have always striven to assure both your own well-being and that of the children; the happiness of all four of you is and will always be my constant and sole concern. As long as you have known me you have always heard me say the same thing. That is my plan of action when my misfortunes will have come to an end.