Letters From Prison by Marquis de Sade

  Please see to it that my baggage is sent on to me with all due speed.

  Well now, my dearly beloved, most amiable, and above all extremely straightforward spouse, you tricked me good and proper when you promised me, each time you paid me a visit, that ‘twould be you who would come to fetch me, that I would be free and would see my children! Were it possible to be more despicably, more shamefully deceitful and untruthful? And do tell me now whether you still believe that those who so villainously betray your husband are working in your best interest, in the hope of making you happy? . . . My dear friend, if that is what they tell you, they are deceiving you: tell them that you have it directly from me.

  Since I was brought back to Vincennes, after all the horrors that preceded it and that I at least have not forgotten,2 but since I was returned there, only two further thrusts of the dagger were available to you and yours: to have me transferred to a different prison, and to have my son enrolled in a branch of service in which I absolutely do not want him to serve, and that without my laying eyes on him to tell him so. Now you have struck both those blows. I shall remember to show my gratitude, that I swear to you by all I hold most sacred in the world.

  I salute you most humbly, Madame, and beseech you to devote a bit of your attention to my letter, to my requests and my errands, all the more so because it is my firm intention in this new environment to send you lists, lists, and more lists. Whereupon I declare that this will be my first and my last letter.

  [P.S.] I believe you would be well advised to reward the man in charge of services here, about whom I hear only good things, and especially because I can already most cruelly sense the difference. Kindly see to it.

  1. That is, Montélimar.

  2. Sade is referring to his rearrest in August 1778 when police invaded the La Coste chateau at four in the morning.

  94. To Abbé Amblet

  [April (?) 1784]

  res, my good and dear friend, yes, whatever you may say to the contrary, your critical remarks are more indulgent than they are truthful.1 You have drawn your colors from a palette sprinkled with venom: how then could the tints be other than harsh? Perhaps I should have preferred more truth and less condescendence on your part. But I am wretched, my enemies triumphant: one must be sacrificed to their sins.

  However little importance I ascribe to my own misery, I do ascribe great importance to your remarks, in which wise I trust you will not judge it inopportune if I say a word or two about your remarks. I am going to follow you word for word, not about the corrections you have made—for those I can but thank you most graciously—but about those that I have not been able to bring myself to make, because I seemed to detect therein naught but bitterness and condescension toward those people that my kind of work drives to despair and, if only for that reason, links me to them for the rest of my life, so strong is my desire to please them.

  In referring to Pierre the Hermit, I cannot say: the most remarkable character in the play. He is not the most remarkable character in Jerusalem; Renaud and Armide are most certainly as special as he; therefore I am obliged to put what I did: one of the most remarkable characters of Tasso.

  The language of painting is used everyday in poetry; the muses are sisters; these are intimately interlinked. Homer and Michelangelo have both been called painters of Nature. ’Tis rendered by one in beautiful verses, the other by the adroit mixture of his colors, but Nature is the rule for both, therefore both can have the same language.

  All operas are doubtless composed of several lyric scenes that form the various acts: ’tis nonetheless true that convention calls for us to apply this same term to a short drama, be it in prose or in verse, where the dialogue, spoken rather than sung, is punctuated by ritornellos. These works are also called melo-dramas, which (as you know better than I) being a literal translation from the Greek, means simply a drama with music.

  ’Tis Monsieur de La Harpe2 who is greatly opposed to this new genre, and ’tis from one of his most recent works, wherein he bitterly attacks it, that I borrowed the words perverse and monstrous, terms that he uses to denigrate the genre, and I quoted those terms in italics simply to demonstrate how ridiculous they are. But considering the proposed intent of the poem, I saw no reason to cite him as my source.

  I know that both Esther and Athalie are performed without music, but I also know that the lyrical scenes of Rousseau’s Pygmalion are performed to very lovely and excellent music, and my little work is supposed to be in this same vein and, so I trust, will one day be set to music.

  Only truth is beauty, truth alone is kind and good.

  Could it be Madame de M[ontreuil] by any chance has brought your attention to that maxim? If so, then I say to you that she is in complete contradiction with herself.

  I do not have a copy of Tasso to hand, but I believe I am correct in saying that I followed the position Tasso describes word by word, and that the body is laid to rest very close to Tancrede. Moreover, that is merely a theatrical situation that can easily be changed: all one need do is put Chlorinda on the grassy bank and Tancrede in his tent. Everything is in place, and that would not necessitate any change whatsoever in my scene.

  All the reproaches that Tancrede makes, that he is the most criminal of men, that he is the disgrace of all Nature, etc., are word for word from Tasso; I did not add a single one, of that I am quite sure. Do verify that, if you would be so good, by referring to Chant XII. In other words, I have not eliminated a single one of them.

  Shamefully faithless is bad, I agree with you, but you should know that before I settled on that phrase I tried no fewer than 15 different variants in that one verse, and I came to the conclusion that was the only possible choice, if you agree with me that from the time of Jean de Meung down to Monsieur de La Harpe there are no fewer than thirty or forty million verses made solely for rhyming; if, I say, you would be so indulgent as to ponder that thought, you might pardon my most detestable shamefully faithless, which I offer because ’tis so devilishly difficult to find a better phrase. I cannot, however, let your condemnation of Tancrede’s monologue pass without rebuttal, and I find that:

  Ah!you enrapture me, O fatal illusion

  But the better to punish me by your impression.

  ’Tis to torment me with even greater fury

  That you seem to ascribe it to my idolatry,

  And you vanish whene’er a joy e’en fairer

  Arises for a moment from your somber error,

  are and remain fine verses, verses that are in no wise prosaic.

  You also take issue with these:

  Death, by blackening a beauty so pure,

  Would have feared to flout the laws of Nature.

  I have the misfortune of believing that they are among the least poor thoughts that have ever escaped my hand.

  The first law of Nature was to give birth to beauty, and that law was so strong, and so necessary, that even Death, the great destroyer who respects nothing, cannot triumph over her: Death, by blackening a beauty so pure, would have feared, would not have dared, to flout the laws of Nature.

  And that thought is not beautiful! O horse of Pegasus, you next to whom I am but a wretched dropping, inspire me always to other verses of equal force, and I shall not give up the fond hope of one day perching on a comfortable chair, bewigged in-folio, directly beside the divine La Harpe and company!

  I had thought that rigidity was a synonym of rigor, and I had also thought I was well versed when it came to words of this kind, for I have for so long associated them with words of art. Since you tell me ’tis not so, then I stand corrected, my dear friend, I believe you and I have substituted severity in its place. Do you approve?

  You do not approve of dark and gentle. Nothing more gentle however, and nothing darker, than a beautiful summer’s night. Thus, since I wanted to make that sublime comparison, which comes directly from Tasso, I thought I could do so by using the epithets dark and gentle. You do not accept them: I substituted pure for gentle, but it makes
for a repetition; and yet I find no other word.

  You find fault with the following portrait, and yet I find it quite good:

  Nothing can alter my adorable lover,

  And the masculine pride of this soul so bright,

  On this radiant brow where worth burns bright

  Still mingle the traits of a languishing look.

  I see nothing contradictory in that, and the gentle and pure, or dark, that precedes it, marries well with the following quatrain, it seems to me. You have to bear in mind the context in which those lines occur: a lover always flatters, and, since he is exaggerating, he can be inconsistent. I know from my own experience that a woman such as she did exist, and because I was blinded by love I sang her praises; but today, seeing her for what she really is, I swear I would be unable to so much as pay her a lowly compliment. Nothing cools one’s ardor more than the fulfillment of one’s desires—nothing, that is, except residence in the Bastille.

  There are verses, you say, which do not scan properly. Oh! my dear friend, do not tell me that. I do not claim that my ability to scan impeccably stems from my innate talent but from the fact that I am extremely well organized; so I take no credit therefrom! But I would be physically incapable either of uttering, or hearing, a verse that did not scan properly. Which being so, judge for yourself whether or not I am capable of writing such a verse. Would you like to make me a little wager? You give me one crown for every properly scanned verse I write, and I shall give you a thousand crowns for each verse that is false. Is that a deal? Here is the only verse we might quibble about:

  Will you come and join me in your eternal delights?

  I do not have my principles of versification in front of me, but I believe I am correct in saying that everyone agrees that joie [the French for, in this case, “delights”] and its various rhyming words—voie [see], croie [believe], Troie [Troy], etc., are only two syllables when they occur at the end of a line, but always one syllable when they occur in the body of the verse. This said, I may be mistaken. If people here were not in the habit, every six months or so, of stealing first my books, then my personal papers, I would not make such mistakes, and I would at least profit from being able to consult necessary sources. But ’tis much more fun to drive me to the point of exhaustion and despair, to keep me perpetually in a state of idleness, to make me waste my time.

  Nor can I bring myself to agree with you that my verses are prosaic, and I dare say that, from start to finish, the fact of always being alone is a great source of strength.

  Moreover, my dear friend, it is impossible for me to turn my back on my muse; it sweeps me along, forces me to write despite myself and, no matter what people may do to try to stop me, there is no way they will ever succeed. I already have stashed away in my portfolio more plays than the most highly regarded contemporary authors do, and the canvasses have been stretched for more than twice what I have actually written. If I had been left to my own devices, I would have had some fifteen plays ready to be performed when I get out of prison. But they have preferred to trick me and torment me to death.

  Only the future will tell whether my tormentors were right or wrong. In any event, ‘twould be an immense pleasure for me to see my works performed in Paris, and if they were well received, my reputation as a man of wit might possibly make people forget my youthful transgressions and would, in a sense, rehabilitate me. I would devote myself heart and soul to my work, to the exclusion of absolutely everything else. I shall even go so far as to say that is my sole recourse, and the reason is physical: to combat a powerful force one has to be at full strength oneself. But la présidente does not see things that way, for the simple reason that she makes a profession of seeing everything through a false lens. She lives in constant fear that I shall portray her in one of my plays; let me set her mind at rest: I shall leave the Calibans of this world to Shakespeare; for whatever reason, they don’t go over well in our theater. No matter; she’s afraid, and therefore she’ll do everything in her power to convince me my talent is nil. In that she is doomed to failure; she will only succeed in making me cherish that talent all the more, simply because she’s against it. If in the future circumstances should take me away from Paris—as I wish to God they might—there are four other royal courts in Europe where my works will be greeted with open arms. I shall doubtless establish residence in one of those four countries and there peacefully live out my remaining days, happy in the knowledge that I am no longer breathing the same air as my life’s tormentor.

  You advise me to take up writing history? I have tried: they have thwarted me in that effort,3 and besides, I don’t really have the taste or talent for history. What’s more, even the best-written books of history have trouble finding more than two hundred readers, whereas even the least talented comedies manage to attain an audience of three or four thousand souls.

  Please forgive me for such a long letter; but I write you so rarely that when I do I more than make up for it. I embrace you with all my heart. A thousand greetings to Madame de Saint-Germain.

  1. Sade is doubtless referring to his former tutor’s critical reading of his play Tancréde, which was drawn from Tasso and which Sade completed in January 1784. The play has been lost.

  2. A theater critic of the day.

  3. Because, Sade implies, to write history he would need all sorts of reference works constantly available, and, despite the extent of his personal library, obtaining many tomes he needed or wanted was like pulling teeth.

  95. To Madame de Sade

  June 8, 1784

  So now the real reason why you have been so terribly overheated, why you have been in such a frightful state each time you have come to see me, is at long last revealed:1 ’tis because you have come on foot, like some shopkeeper, like some streetwalking prostitute . . . And your parents allow that, and your knavish servants make no effort to prevent it! How low can they stoop! What unspeakable conduct on their part! . . . Listen, I have made a vow to myself not to lose my temper, I promised to write this letter with as cool a head as I can . . . Thus I have only one word to say to you, and that is, if ever again you arrive in such a state, I swear to you on all that I hold most sacred in the world that I shall refuse to see you, that I shall return immediately to my room and I shall never again come back downstairs to see you as long as I live. And what is the reason for you to act in such an inexcusable manner? If you truly cared for me at all, would you not make every effort to take care of yourself, would you not sense that my only happiness, my only hope, is to find you in good health when I get out of here? Why do you want to disappoint that sole and dear hope to which I hold so strongly, by so exposing yourself to bodily harm the way you do, by risking your very life? A woman alone, on foot, in the streets? Think of the dangers . . . a drunken man . . . a stone thrown by some street urchin . . . a tile that falls from some roof onto the street . . . the shaft of some carriage that tears loose . . . some other problem I can’t foresee . . . Even assuming that none of those dangers actually come to pass: the fact is, you arrive bathed in perspiration in a damp room, you remain there for a good two hours without changing clothes, and then you head home the same way you came. Verily, you must be out of your mind, I mean mad beyond all description, to put yourself thus at risk . . . And have you thought for one moment of the distress it causes me? Isn’t my situation difficult enough without your making it even worse by the worry that such foolishness causes me? If you persist in behaving this way, I swear I shall refuse to see you for the rest of my life. Nor do I want to hear you claim that you are doing it in order to get a bit of exercise. When a woman such as you needs to get some exercise, all she has to do is go for a stroll in the park: there are enough parks in Paris specifically made for that purpose; and she does not come on foot to pay visits. I shall return the book for which you paid twelve livres; I do not want it bruited about that I am ready and willing to pay twelve livres for books while my wife deprives herself of even the most basic necessities of life. Doubtless th
at was what you had in mind all along; to raise your esteem in people’s eyes, at my expense; ‘twas to make people say: Monsieur spares himself no expense, while Madame is forced to travel about on foot, and thereby make me look even more ludicrous than I already am. Thank you for that latest kindness; ’tis most touching; I really can’t thank you enough. —Ah! there’s really no point trying to overcome, by whatever means I can find, the humiliation into which the horror of my fate has forced me, while at the same time, by your own meannesses and odious methods, all you are trying to do is thrust me a hundred times deeper into that state of utter embarrassment. But what precisely do you do with my income, after all? I suppose I cost you roughly two thousand crowns a year: that leaves you with an annual income of twenty-eight thousand livres. What do you do with it? Debts have to be dealt with. That I take to mean: paying off debts according to the rules of Paris, which translates into, thirty thousand livres over a period of fifteen years paid into the hands of managers, bailiffs, administrators, tutors, and other rogues and scoundrels of the same ilk, in order to liquidate sixty thousand in debts . . . Oh! I know all your mother’s little tricks of the trade, as well as those of all the crooks she uses to eat up our nest egg! And that is why madame goes about on foot, so that Comrade Albaret can save two or three thousand francs, which fit nicely into her own pocket, thank you. Patience, patience . . . You had better have your accounting books strictly in order, Ladies or Gentlemen of the administration, that is my advice to you, for they will have to deal with someone who will be casting an eagle eye upon them. Odious stepmother, mother unworthy to bear that name, to think that you would allow your own daughter to go out and about on foot in weather such as this, expose her to the danger of an inflammation of the lungs simply so that she can further bribe the band of scoundrels who surround and advise her! And you expect me to keep that to myself! You think that I shall not let it be known far and wide as soon as I am in a position to do so! May the prison locks that presently keep me from crying out how urgently these atrocities need to be made known, may they be opened only to let me tell all of Europe how odious her conduct is, and may I be allowed to remain alive so that I may depict her, in the eyes of the entire universe, as vile and as base as she deserves to be portrayed! To have a hundred thousand crowns of income and allow her daughter to go about on foot! Yes, ’tis to risk her daughter’s life; ’tis known and proven that not a day goes by without someone having an accident in the streets of Paris. Who is to say that you will not be the next person to whom such misfortune will befall? In short, I do not want you to come any longer by foot. First and foremost, I forbid you to do so by the prerogatives that are mine as your husband, my tender feelings for you, and the misfortunes that are mine. Is that not enough? Well then, I throw myself at your feet in the name of everything you hold most dear in the world and beseech you not to inflict this further sorrow upon me! If it happens again, know both that I shall find out about it, be obliged to disown you, no matter how long and difficult it may be for me to adjust to that situation, and you may be sure that I shall never see you again as long as I live. No excuses, no procrastinations, by saying: Oh! but I live only a stone’s throw from here. I couldn’t care a fig! Even if you lived literally in the shadow of the Bastille, I would forbid you to come and see me on foot. If ’tis the expenses I’m incurring that bother you, and if we are both obliged to cut all our expense to the bone in order to pay off the scoundrels in your mother’s entourage, then so be it. Do let me know, and I shall take upon myself whatever steps are required, assume whatever hardships are necessary, I shall do without everything, I shall eat only bread and sleep upon the bare floor, providing you lack for nothing. The next time you come, I forbid you to bring me anything. And ’tis not only when you’re paying me a visit that you come by foot, since you mentioned that one day you ran into Aldonze.2 That proves you go out frequently. Mark thee well, I strictly forbid you to do that ever again, and bear in mind that there is no way you can wound me more than to repeat those same despicable acts and stupidities such as the one you have just made.