A man of ill repute, the Marquis de Sade had no qualms about turning the world inside out. Combining philosophical speculation with pornography, the writer depicted sexual fantasies in his works, with particular emphasis on violence, criminality and blasphemy against the Catholic Church. His name led to the birth of such words as "sadism" and "sadist"...
Donatien Alphonse François de Sade was born in Paris, at the Chateau de Caudet, on June 2, 1740. His education was carried out by his uncle and teachers of the Jesuit Lyceum. Lined up military career, de Sade served in a dragoon regiment and took part in the Seven Years' War. In 1763, he began courting the daughter of a wealthy magistrate, whose father opposed the wedding, but arranged a marriage with his eldest daughter, Rene-Pélagie Cordier de Montreuil. In 1766, the Marquis celebrated the opening of a private theater in his castle and survived the death of his father.
For many years de Sade's descendants denounced his life and work as a terrible disgrace that needed to be covered up. This attitude did not change until the mid-20th century, when Count Xavier de Sade restored the title of Marquis, long out of use, on his business cards. He also showed a special interest in the “divine marquis,” legends about which were a taboo topic in the Xavier family. Many manuscripts of the libertine freethinker are in universities and libraries, others disappeared without a trace in the 18th and 19th centuries. Many of his father's works were destroyed at the instigation of his son Donatien-Claude-Armand.
De Sade led a free and scandalous existence, repeatedly purchasing prostitutes for cruel pleasures and sexually exploiting his workers, men and women, at his castle in Lacoste. He was accused of blasphemy, a serious crime at the time. He had an affair with Anna Prosper, his wife’s sister, and his mistress lived right in his castle. Several prostitutes complained of abuse by Donatien, and the police began surveillance of the sadistic aristocrat. He was arrested several times for short periods, including being held at the Chateau de Saumur, until in 1768 he was taken into custody at his own chateau in Lacoste.
The first serious scandal broke out at Easter in 1768, when de Sade paid for the sexual services of the beggar widow Rose Keller, who approached him for alms. He tore off the woman's clothes, threw her on the sofa and tied her hands and feet. The Marquis whipped his victim, poured hot wax over the wounds and beat Rose. The process was repeated in a circle seven or eight times until the poor thing was able to escape from him through the window.
In 1772, an unpleasant episode occurred in Marseille. De Sade and his lackey Latour went up to the room where there were several prostitutes, according to the protocol, who had anal sex and flagellation with the Marquis. They were not fatally poisoned by candies with Spanish fly (at that time considered an aphrodisiac harmful to health), as was later another girl whom the Marquis offered to engage in sodomy.
The victims turned to the police with stomach pain, and the culprits were sentenced to death in absentia. Donatien was to be beheaded, Latour was to be hanged. The criminals managed to escape to Italy, where the Marquis also took his wife’s sister. The men were caught and imprisoned in the Miolan fortress at the end of 1772, from where they escaped four months later.
Subsequently, taking refuge in Lacoste, de Sade was reunited with his wife, who became an accomplice in his actions. He kept a group of young workers, most of whom complained of sexual abuse and left the owner. The Marquis was forced to take refuge in Italy again. During a quiet period, he wrote the book "Voyage d" Italie". In 1776, upon returning to Lacoste, the dissolute philosopher took up his old ways. In 1777, the father of one of the employees hired by de Sade went to the castle with demands to give him his daughter and tried shoot at the marquis at point blank range. The weapon misfired.
In the same year, Donatien, under the pretext of visiting his sick mother, who in fact had long since died, went to Paris. He was detained and imprisoned in the Castle of Vincennes. The Marquis successfully appealed his death sentence in 1778, but remained in custody under a writ of extrajudicial arrest (lettre de cachet). The repeat offender escaped again and was caught again. He resumed writing activity and met another slave, Count Mirabeau, who also stained his pages with erotic prose. Despite the common interest, the relationship between the men ended in fierce hostility.
In 1784, Vincennes prison closed and de Sade was transferred to the Bastille. On July 2, 1789, he reportedly shouted to the crowd on the street from his cell, “They are killing prisoners here!”, sparking a riot. Two days later he was taken to a psychiatric hospital in Charenton, near Paris. A few days later, the main event began french revolution- storming of the Bastille.
In 1785, de Sade literally wrote the novel “120 Days of Sodom, or the School of Debauchery” in just a month, about four rich debauchees who decided to experience the highest sexual bliss through orgies. The immoral experiment ends in sophisticated torture and general murder. A free adaptation of the novel, "Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom" from 1975, directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini, takes us to the fascist republic of Salò, in 1944.
In 1790, the Marquis was released from the psychiatric hospital after the new Constituent Assembly abolished extrajudicial arrests. De Sade's wife received a divorce. While free, Donatien, starting in 1790, anonymously published several of his books. He met the abandoned Marie Constance Renel, a former actress and mother of a six-year-old son, and remained with her for the rest of his life.
An angry mob destroyed and plundered de Sade's estate in Lacoste in 1789, causing him to move to Paris. In 1790, he was elected a member of the National Convention, where he represented the extreme left sector. Donatien wrote several pamphlets calling for the implementation of direct voting. There are suggestions that he was a victim of mistreatment at the hands of his fellow revolutionaries due to his aristocratic background.
In 1801, Napoleon Bonaparte ordered the imprisonment of the anonymous author of the provocative novels Justine, or the Miserable Fate of Virtue and Juliette, or the Successes of Vice. De Sade was arrested at his publisher's office and imprisoned without trial. From the first place of detention, where Donatien allegedly tried to seduce young inmates, he was transferred to the harsh fortress of Bicêtre.
In 1803, De Sade was declared insane and transferred to an asylum in Charenton. His ex-wife and the children agreed to pay for his maintenance. Marie Constance Renel was allowed to live with him. The head of the asylum allowed the Marquis to stage several plays in which prisoners became actors, for the amusement of the Parisian public. In 1809, by new order, de Sade was placed in solitary confinement and his writing instruments and paper were taken away.
The lustful philosopher entered into a sexual relationship with 14-year-old Madeleine Leclerc, the daughter of an employee in Charenton. The affair lasted about four years, until de Sade’s death in 1814. In his will, the Marquis forbade his body to be opened, ordered it to be kept in a cell untouched for 48 hours, and then placed in a coffin and buried. His skull was removed from the grave for phrenological examination.
The Marquis de Sade recognized only the division into rulers and masters. Denied the existence of God and moral norms and rules. Admitted murder the best way resolving issues with overpopulation and lack of resources. Finally, he considered cruel and vile desires natural, basic elements human nature.
Here is the biography of the Marquis de Sade. The biography is presented in a light, frivolous manner, which is much easier to read than the dry, eye- and soul-tearing lines of Wikipedia and other biography interpreters famous people.
The Marquis de Sade is an odious and scandalous figure to the point of indecency. Even as a child, he did not live up to the aspirations of his mother, who was the maid of honor of the Princess de Condé herself, which promised the opportunity in the future to establish friendly relations with her son, the heir of the Prince de Condé, and to always be at court, that is, to have access to many benefits available only to powerful of this world. After all, connections, oddly enough, help to settle well in this difficult life, they still help to this day, but little Donatien Alphonse Francois de Sade, this is the real name of the Marquis de Sade, was independent from birth, freedom-loving, free-thinking, and one day At the moment, he gave excellent **** to the Prince de Condé himself, albeit a small one, still in the stage of inheritance. Naturally, the young brawler de Sade was expelled from the palace, excommunicating him forever from the imposing palace life and its guaranteed benefits.
The little Marquis de Sade goes to live in Provence. Until the age of ten he is under the supervision of his uncle the abbot. The boy lives in an ancient castle, which is fenced stone walls, providing an eternal shadow that so beneficially influenced the thoughts of the growing de Sade. There is also a deep, large basement in the castle, where a growing boy loves to spend his time for hours, listening to water dripping from the ceiling, rats squeaking, ghosts and spirits wandering, but they future genius not afraid, because from them there is nothing more than a little fear, which also passes quickly.
What attracts the boy's attention is the fuss of rats in a mossy corner. So for the first time he sees sexual intercourse, in which the male copulates with females indiscriminately, with incredible speed, not tolerating any refusals, and brutally biting those who try to escape the eternal process of continuing life, even if it is a rat. In this example, the boy learns the basics of life itself, which is based on violence, humiliation and the result of which will always be death. In parallel with this knowledge of the world, the boy studies life from books, where everything is much more veiled, sweeter, but, however, saturated with philosophy, the study of which, the growing young man, continues in the famous Parisian Jesuit Corps.
Philosophical excerpts and dogmas literally drive the young marquis into a frenzy; he contrasts them with his thoughts and finds that his thoughts reflect life and its various manifestations much more truthfully.
At the same time, Donatien’s puberty is rapidly progressing and, not finding an outlet in the form of the female sex, the young man begins to satisfy his lust with the boys who study with him. So, having learned about sodomy, de Sade remained an adherent of it until the end of his days. But the ardor of the maturing young man was a little swallowed up by the war, to which he went straight from the cavalry corps, where he studied for some time.
The war allowed Donatien de Sade to taste blood, violence and depravity to the fullest. It was then that the young man learned that winners are not judged. But the Marquis, in full bloom, did not want to fight, but to have fun, and he resigns in order to return to Paris and begin a social life full of pleasant moments. The dream of the Marquis de Sade is coming true and now in Paris, surrounded by their beautiful ladies and no less lovely gentlemen.
Social life begins. Donatien marries, but he fails to establish himself as a good son-in-law and faithful husband. Immediately after his marriage, the marquis indulges in all sorts of bad things, begins visiting brothels and drinking houses, where he greedily gets what his inexperienced wife could not give him in bed.
From then on, the marquis began to be accused of all mortal sins. Sodomy, flagellation, rape, poisoning, inducement to constantly provide intimate services for money and for free - this is only a hundredth part of what the marquis managed to create on this earth. The Marquis de Sade is constantly persecuted by the authorities, he is treated in hospitals, he also pays fines for his scandalous violent behavior. For some time now, the Marquis de Sade has been in prison on very serious charges. He is even sentenced to death, but de Sade manages to escape from custody. Subsequently, the nimble marquis more than once escaped from fortresses and prisons, where he was captured by the authorities for his defiant, daring and hypersexual behavior. Once the marquis’s imprisonment lasted for thirteen years in the famous Vincennes castle.
In prison the Marquis was treated harshly and cruelly. He needed the most basic things and asked for clothes, food and books. It was in prison that he began to write his first stories, philosophical reflections and novellas. This happened when the Marquis de Sade was finally softened the conditions of detention and was given pen, ink, and paper. Walking in the fresh air was also allowed. However, soon the Marquis was transferred from the Vincennes Castle, which was closed for economic reasons, to the famous Bastille, where he continued to write his brilliant works.
While the Marquis de Sade was working in the Bastille, the Great French Revolution was brewing, which brought angry crowds of people to the walls of the famous prison. The Marquis de Sade shouts to the crowd that the prisoners are being beaten and humiliated, calling on the people to storm this citadel of evil. For such a scandalous provocation and incitement of hatred towards the Bastille, the Marquis is removed from prison and transferred to the Charenton hospital. However, the Marquis’s call did not go unnoticed and the time came when the people took the Bastille by storm, but as it happens, the riots were destructive and the chamber in which the Marquis had previously sat and his brilliant manuscripts were kept was burned.
And soon all charges against the Marquis de Sade are dropped and he is again a free man. The Marquis immediately joins the revolutionary group, finds himself a new woman, who remains his mistress until the end of the loving Marquis’s days. The life of the Marquis did not become calm; on the contrary, persecution and persecution began for revolutionary pamphlets and political notes. And again prison, escapes, shelters, hospitals. Endless imprisonment and freedom for a couple of months, or even days. The last stronghold of the Marquis de Sade is the Charenton hospital, which he already knew well.
The Marquis died of an asthmatic attack. Before his death, Donatien Alphonse François de Sade asks to be buried in the forest, to cover his grave with acorns and to forget the road to it forever, erasing it from the memory of mankind once and for all, but last will the genius of freedom was not fulfilled. He was buried according to Christian custom.
Several centuries have passed, but the thoughts of the Marquis de Sade, his philosophy, live and flourish, for how could they not live if they are the basis of our world, where cruelty and violence are miraculously intertwined with virtue and chastity and can never exist separately. Otherwise the world will collapse.
A free interpretation of the biography of the Marquis de Sade belongs to Alisa Perdulaeva.
Reviews
Hello Alice!
I have always been interested in the character of the Marquis... Since childhood, I have been interested in his person.
A lot has been written and written about him...
I think... that about three quarters are fiction...
But the fact that he is a person is for sure! Otherwise they wouldn’t write so much about him...
Classic - BDSM, so to speak. :)
I don’t know about Asma...
I also think it's just speculation...
Sincerely, Vamp Incognito.
Hello, Vamp!)
I also think that too much is attributed to him. It’s our custom: if you wrote about something, it means you did it, but this is not always the case! It seems to me that he physically would not be able to do so much debauchery and at the same time write novels.
Even the Marquis de Sade himself wrote about himself that he was a libertine, but not a criminal or a murderer.
On my own behalf I would like to add that he Great Writer. France is proud of him. In fact, he brilliantly revealed the essence of man, but people did not forgive him for such freethinking. People like it when people write exceptionally well about them)
Thank you very much for your feedback.
Best regards, Alice.
The answer to this question is not as obvious as it seems at first glance.
Donatien Alphonse François de Sade (1740-1814) belonged to the French aristocracy. His father was governor of the provinces of Bresse, Bugey, Valromet and Jeu. Before receiving this title, he served for some time as the French ambassador to Russia. Donatien's mother was a lady-in-waiting to the Princess de Condé. Donatien himself had the honor of playing with the prince as a child and received a good education, graduating from the famous College d'Harcourt. Then he entered military school. In 1755, with the rank of lieutenant in the Royal Infantry Regiment, he took an active part in the Seven Years' War that flared up at that time. He fought bravely, as befits a nobleman of good family, and in 1763 he retired with the rank of cavalry captain.
All he had to do was marry profitably and spend the rest of his life in social amusements and caring for the well-being of his family, in order to repeat the path of the majority of the noble nobles of France.
However, everything turned out completely differently.
Two elements intervened in the matter: Donatien Alphonse Francois de Sade’s own temper and the Great French Revolution.
… “Where are we? Here there are only bloody corpses, children torn from the hands of their mothers, young women whose throats are cut at the conclusion of the orgy, goblets filled with blood and wine, unheard-of torture, blows with a stick, terrible scourgings” - this is what the literary writer wrote about de Sade’s works. critic XIX century Jules Janin.
After his death, the Marquis's son made sure that his papers were burned, so horrified was he by the monstrous content of the texts written by his father.
It was said about de Sade's novel Justine that after reading just one page of it, not a single girl would be as pure as before.
All his novels tell about incest, seduction of innocent girls, monstrous torture and perversion.
This is literature. And what happened in real life marquise?
His entire biography is a series of violent scandals and imprisonments. He married the daughter of Monsieur de Montreuil, president of the French Tax Chamber. Soon after the wedding, de Sade threw such a riotous party in a brothel that he was expelled from Paris for some time. After this, there were attempts to rape some actresses or courtesans, and treating guests to strange candies containing an aphrodisiac that was fashionable at that time - Spanish flies. Having swallowed this delicacy, the guests began to behave very freely, indulging in a variety of voluptuous amusements.
Actually, the first serious arrest followed precisely on charges of sodomy, which was then a criminal offense.
De Sade fled and was executed in absentia: on one of central squares the city was burned in effigy. For some time, de Sade hid in the family castle and managed to seduce his wife’s younger sister, who for some time shared his lifestyle with him. Even while hiding from persecution, de Sade still found himself in stories from time to time, either with attempted rape or with some girls whom he flogged with whips.
Finally, his mother-in-law had him arrested, and de Sade was placed first in the Château de Vincennes and then transferred to the Bastille. He spent more than ten years in prison.
It was in prison that he began to write. During this period he wrote “Dialogue between a priest and a dying man”, “Eugene de Franval”, “120 days of Sodom” and other equally wonderful things.
By a strange irony of fate, de Sade was perhaps the only prisoner who was languishing in the Bastille at the start of the French Revolution. When riots began in the city, he shouted from the window that here, in the Bastille, prisoners were being beaten and tortured, which was one of the reasons for the storming of the castle by the rebel people.
Having been freed, de Sade took an active part in the revolutionary movement, became a member of various committees, publicly read out his appeals dedicated to the martyrs of the revolution, and published new novels, including Justine. This page of his life ends with arrest and awaiting execution. He managed to avoid the guillotine only because the coup of 9 Thermidor took place in Paris, and the sentence simply did not have time to be carried out.
De Sade spent his last years in poverty and oblivion, and he ended his days in a mental hospital. He entered the history of culture as a writer and philosopher, professing the denial of God, as well as all moral norms and rules, as prescribed church canons, and universal human principles of behavior in the family and society. Actually, the result of his life is shining example what such morality leads to.
It is difficult to judge what is more monstrous or pathetic in his biography.
One thing is clear: Donatien Alphonse François de Sade was not a sadist in the sense in which this word can be understood by a person who has read at least one of his works. There are no sophisticated tortures, terrible killings, and even more so, incest and infanticide on his conscience. He, as modern sexual pathologists familiar with his works say, certainly suffered from a sexual disorder, which boiled down to the fact that in a situation where the partner did not resist, he turned out to be impotent. He could only engage in sexual intercourse by raping, inflicting, and experiencing pain himself. Whipping maids is certainly not good, but in this sense de Sade was hardly more cruel than many other nobles who indulged in such entertainment, not even suspecting that they would soon have a medical name “sadism.”
Actually, it is precisely the originality of their literary texts De Sade owes it to him to go down in history as the “first sadist.” In this sense, it’s even a little insulting for Caligula, Nero, Henry VII Tudor, the Spanish king Ferdinand II and other rulers, whose voluptuous cruelty crossed all boundaries.
Name: Marquis de Sade (Donatien Alphonse Francois, Comte de Sade)
Age: 74 years old
Activity: aristocrat, politician, writer and philosopher
Marital status: was divorced
Marquis de Sade: biography
The personality of the Marquis de Sade modern world is associated with the same number of myths and fictions, as is the no less impressive and terrifying. Born into a wealthy aristocratic family, the young man supported the revolutionaries and even renounced his noble titles.
If now the name of de Sade is associated exclusively with harsh forms of sexual intercourse, then in the 18th century his books were condemned solely for reasons of morality and ethics, but not in connection with his predilection for rough bed games.
Throughout his life, the eccentric Frenchman promoted the personal freedom of everyone and the endless pursuit of pleasure in spite of everything, to satisfy all his needs. A philosopher, and the Marquis de Sade undoubtedly was a philosopher, he denied all the norms of morality and morality that, in his opinion, interfered with the enjoyment of pleasure.
WITH light hand Austrian psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing, who studied the works of the Marquis, his surname gave the name to the term “sadism”. At first, the word sadism was used to describe obtaining sexual satisfaction by inflicting physical or mental suffering on a partner. Later, the term became widely used and began to denote the desire to intentionally cause pain to another living being.
Childhood and youth
Donatien Alphonse François de Sade was born in Paris on June 2, 1740. His family belonged to an ancient and famous aristocratic family. Donatien's great-grandfathers bore the title of count, which indicated that they belonged to royal officials, and his grandfather was the first to receive the title of marquis. The boy's father preferred to sign himself as Count de Sade.
By the way, Laura de Nove, to whom he dedicated his poems, also belonged to the glorious de Sade family. Noble title in the de Sade family passed from father to son, but the archives do not contain documents confirming the legal grounds for Donatien de Sade to use the title of marquis rather than count.
Donatien's mother served as a maid of honor to the Princess de Condé and cherished the hope that her son Donatien would become friends with the little Prince de Condé, which would benefit the family in the future. But these hopes were not destined to come true. The prince did not arouse the sympathy of little de Sade, and after a childhood fight, Donatien was sent to live with relatives in a village in Provence at the insistence of Princess de Condé.
The boy was only five years old when he went to live with his uncle the abbot. Life in a huge gloomy castle-fortress left its mark on the boy’s psychology and worldview. Donatien's favorite pastime as a child was to hide in the large basement of the castle and sit there alone all day.
Until the age of ten, the boy was educated at home, and in 1750 he returned to Paris, where he entered the Jesuit Corps. Throughout his studies, the young man continued to live at the expense of his uncle, since his parents divorced, and his mother left for the province after the divorce. After graduating from the Jesuit Corps, Donatien decided to build a military career. At the age of 15, the boy had already received the rank of junior lieutenant. For the courage shown in the battles of the colonial seven-year war, the young man received the rank of captain, after which he resigned at the age of 23.
Philosophy and literature
While in forced exile in Italy in 1774, the Marquis de Sade studied the occult and wrote plays. In total, the Marquis de Sade wrote 14 novels, 6 historical works, the texts of which are lost, 2 essays, 18 plays and 9 political pamphlets. In memory of the eccentric philosopher and writer, 9 films were made and 12 works by other authors were written.
In his books, Donatien de Sade did not so much describe sexual orgies with elements of violence, but rather considered certain philosophical problems. So the Marquis considered it inappropriate to divide society into several layers. According to Donatien, there are only two classes among people - slaves and masters.
The philosopher was one of the first to voice concerns about overpopulation of the planet and propose mass wars as a solution to the shortage of natural resources. But the leitmotif of all the works and lifestyle of the Marquis de Sade was a complete denial of the norms of morality, morality and religion. A person, in his opinion, becomes himself only by freeing himself from moral dogmas. And this is the only path to happiness and limitless pleasure.
Personal life
Returning to the capital, a stately nobleman with a military rank planned to marry the youngest daughter of the president of the French tax chamber. However, the father did not want to give the girl to Donatien, but in return invited him to marry the eldest Rene-Pélagie Cordier de Montreuil. The wedding, which was blessed by the king and queen himself, took place in May 1763.
However, to family life Donatien was not ready. He led a dissolute lifestyle, drank and was not shy about visiting brothel, for which he was once placed under arrest, and then expelled from Paris to the provinces. But the following year, de Sade, with the permission of the king, returned back to the capital.
Three years later, Donatien's father died, as a result of which the Marquis de Sade inherited the estate, lands and the title of viceroy in several provinces. And in the spring, in Paris, de Sade's legal wife gave birth to his son, who was named Louis-Marie. However, neither age, nor the birth of his first child, nor his responsible position and status could change Donatien’s violent temper.
In October 1767, rumors spread throughout Paris that the Marquis de Sade had invited the young singer to sleep with him for money and be listed as his official mistress. The girl refused. And the next year the Marquis was in prison again: now he was accused of raping a girl named Rosa Keller. De Sade did not spend too much time in prison; he was soon released by personal order after paying a fine.
In an effort to hush up the scandal, the Marquis de Sade again signed up for military service, from where he returned a year later with the rank of colonel. Donatien chose the family estate as his place of residence. Soon after returning to social life de Sade sent out invitations to the premiere of his author's play, which took place on the marquis’s estate.
And just six months later, the whole of France was rocked by the “Marseille Affair”, according to the materials of which Donatien de Sade and his lackey indulged in debauchery with four girls, having previously treated the girls with Spanish fly powder. In France at that time, drugs made from this insect were banned, since doctors established not only the strong stimulating effect of the substance, but also serious toxic damage to the gastrointestinal tract and central nervous system.
After treating the girls to an aphrodisiac, the Marquis de Sade and his servant persuaded them to have group sex, including oral and anal. A few days later, all the girls who participated in the orgy first turned to doctors about a sharp deterioration in their health, and then to the court with statements against de Sade. A search was carried out at the Marquis's estate, but nothing illegal was found, and de Sade himself, fearing punishment, disappeared with the footman.
The court decided to find the men guilty and sentence both to death as punishment. Donatien and his servant faced a procedure of public repentance on the main square of Paris, and then de Sade was to be beheaded and the footman hanged. On September 12, 1772, effigies of the marquis and servants were burned in Paris, but the guilty escaped punishment.
As it became known later, Donatien de Sade, having escaped from the police pursuing him, went to Italy, taking with him his wife’s sister, whom he wanted to marry in his youth. Already in Italy, through the efforts of the Marquis's mother-in-law, he was arrested again, but in the spring of 1773, de Sade fled from the fortress with the help of Madame de Sade.
Donatien returned to the family estate in the French province, where he lived for a year as a recluse, in fear of being imprisoned again. His legal wife, having lived with him for several months, fled secretly. And de Sade, unable to cope with his inclinations, decided to kidnap three young girls from a nearby village. He illegally kept the girls in his castle and raped them. In this regard, in the second half of 1774, Donatien fled to Italy again, without waiting for arrest.
Two years later, the scandalous man returned to his estate, where he lived, surrounding himself with young maids. Most of the girls ran away as soon as they got a job, but one still lingered. Catherine Trilet, whom the Marquis called Justine, later became the heroine of several books by de Sade. The girl's father, realizing what his daughter was doing in the service of the titled master, burst into the castle and tried to shoot the marquis, but missed.
In the winter of 1777, having learned the news about the imminent death of his mother, Donatien went to Paris, where he was arrested and placed in custody. The restless de Sade soon managed to escape again, but his mother-in-law revealed his location to the police. From prison, Donatien wrote letters to his wife, where he complained about cruelty on the part of the guards. Then the Marquis began to write books. Madame de Sade became a nun after her husband's final imprisonment.
Death
In 1789, the Marquis was transferred to the Bastille, where he wrote the manuscript of the novel 120 Days of Sodom. Shortly before the storming of the Bastille by revolutionaries, de Sade was transferred to a hospital for the mentally ill, where he spent about a year. At the end of her husband’s treatment, Madame de Sade obtained a divorce, suing her former husband for a considerable share of property and finances, after which the Marquis joined the revolutionaries. Under the name Louis Sade, without any titles, he lived with his mistress Marie Constance Renel, published manuscripts and staged his own plays. theater stages.
In 1793, Donatien was arrested again and sentenced to death for the third time in his entire biography, but the political events taking place in France saved the marquis. In 1801, the impoverished aristocrat was imprisoned for pornographic novels, and was soon transferred from there to a psychiatric hospital, because in prison he corrupted prisoners. On December 2, 1814, the 74-year-old Marquis de Sade died of an asthma attack. There is still controversy over the burial place of Donatien de Sade: according to one version, he was buried in a Christian cemetery, according to another, on his estate.
Bibliography
- "120 days of Sodom, or the School of debauchery"
- "Justine, or the Misfortunes of Virtue"
- "Aline and Valcourt, or a Philosophical Romance"
- "The History of Juliette, or the Successes of Vice"
- "Philosophy in the boudoir"
- "Crimes of Love, Heroic and Tragic Novels"
A man of ill repute, the Marquis de Sade had no qualms about turning the world inside out. Combining philosophical speculation with pornography, the writer depicted sexual fantasies in his works, with particular emphasis on violence, criminality and blasphemy against the Catholic Church. His name led to the birth of such words as "sadism" and "sadist"...
Donatien Alphonse François de Sade was born in Paris, at the Chateau de Caudet, on June 2, 1740. His education was carried out by his uncle and teachers of the Jesuit Lyceum. While building his military career, de Sade served in a dragoon regiment and took part in the Seven Years' War. In 1763, he began courting the daughter of a wealthy magistrate, whose father opposed the wedding, but arranged a marriage with his eldest daughter, Rene-Pélagie Cordier de Montreuil. In 1766, the Marquis celebrated the opening of a private theater in his castle and survived the death of his father.
For many years, de Sade's descendants denounced his life and work as a terrible disgrace that needed to be covered up. This attitude did not change until the mid-20th century, when Count Xavier de Sade restored the title of Marquis, long out of use, on his business cards. He also showed a special interest in the “divine marquis,” legends about which were a taboo topic in the Xavier family. Many manuscripts of the libertine freethinker are in universities and libraries, others disappeared without a trace in the 18th and 19th centuries. Many of his father's works were destroyed at the instigation of his son Donatien-Claude-Armand.
De Sade led a free and scandalous existence, repeatedly purchasing prostitutes for cruel pleasures and sexually exploiting his workers, men and women, at his castle in Lacoste. He was accused of blasphemy, a serious crime at the time. He had an affair with Anna Prosper, his wife’s sister, and his mistress lived right in his castle. Several prostitutes complained of abuse by Donatien, and the police began surveillance of the sadistic aristocrat. He was arrested several times for short periods, including being held at the Chateau de Saumur, until in 1768 he was taken into custody at his own chateau in Lacoste.
The first serious scandal broke out at Easter in 1768, when de Sade paid for the sexual services of the beggar widow Rose Keller, who approached him for alms. He tore off the woman's clothes, threw her on the sofa and tied her hands and feet. The Marquis whipped his victim, poured hot wax over the wounds and beat Rose. The process was repeated in a circle seven or eight times until the poor thing was able to escape from him through the window.
In 1772, an unpleasant episode occurred in Marseille. De Sade and his lackey Latour went up to the room where there were several prostitutes, according to the protocol, who had anal sex and flagellation with the Marquis. They were not fatally poisoned by candies with Spanish fly (at that time considered an aphrodisiac harmful to health), as was later another girl whom the Marquis offered to engage in sodomy.
The victims turned to the police with stomach pain, and the culprits were sentenced to death in absentia. Donatien was to be beheaded, Latour was to be hanged. The criminals managed to escape to Italy, where the Marquis also took his wife’s sister. The men were caught and imprisoned in the Miolan fortress at the end of 1772, from where they escaped four months later.
Subsequently, taking refuge in Lacoste, de Sade was reunited with his wife, who became an accomplice in his actions. He kept a group of young workers, most of whom complained of sexual abuse and left the owner. The Marquis was forced to take refuge in Italy again. During a quiet period, he wrote the book "Voyage d" Italie". In 1776, upon returning to Lacoste, the dissolute philosopher took up his old ways. In 1777, the father of one of the employees hired by de Sade went to the castle with demands to give him his daughter and tried shoot at the marquis at point blank range. The weapon misfired.
In the same year, Donatien, under the pretext of visiting his sick mother, who in fact had long since died, went to Paris. His
detained and imprisoned in the castle of Vincennes. The Marquis successfully appealed his death sentence in 1778, but remained in custody under a writ of extrajudicial arrest (lettre de cachet). The repeat offender escaped again and was caught again. He resumed his writing and met another slave, Count Mirabeau, who also covered his pages with erotic prose. Despite the common interest, the relationship between the men ended in fierce hostility.
In 1784, Vincennes prison closed and de Sade was transferred to the Bastille. On July 2, 1789, he reportedly shouted to the crowd on the street from his cell, “They are killing prisoners here!”, sparking a riot. Two days later he was taken to a psychiatric hospital in Charenton, near Paris. A few days later, the main event of the French Revolution began - the storming of the Bastille.
In 1785, de Sade literally wrote the novel “120 Days of Sodom, or the School of Debauchery” in just a month, about four rich debauchees who decided to experience the highest sexual bliss through orgies. The immoral experiment ends in sophisticated torture and general murder. A free adaptation of the novel, "Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom" from 1975, directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini, takes us to the fascist republic of Salò, in 1944.
In 1790, the Marquis was released from the psychiatric hospital after the new Constituent Assembly abolished extrajudicial arrests. De Sade's wife received a divorce. While free, Donatien, starting in 1790, anonymously published several of his books. He met the abandoned Marie Constance Renel, a former actress and mother of a six-year-old son, and remained with her for the rest of his life.
An angry mob destroyed and plundered de Sade's estate in Lacoste in 1789, causing him to move to Paris. In 1790, he was elected a member of the National Convention, where he represented the extreme left sector. Donatien wrote several pamphlets calling for the implementation of direct voting. There are suggestions that he was a victim of mistreatment at the hands of his fellow revolutionaries due to his aristocratic background.
In 1801, Napoleon Bonaparte ordered the imprisonment of the anonymous author of the provocative novels Justine, or the Miserable Fate of Virtue and Juliette, or the Successes of Vice. De Sade was arrested at his publisher's office and imprisoned without trial. From the first place of detention, where Donatien allegedly tried to seduce young inmates, he was transferred to the harsh fortress of Bicêtre.
In 1803, De Sade was declared insane and transferred to an asylum in Charenton. His ex-wife and children agreed to pay his maintenance. Marie Constance Renel was allowed to live with him. The head of the asylum allowed the Marquis to stage several plays in which prisoners became actors, for the amusement of the Parisian public. In 1809, by new order, de Sade was placed in solitary confinement and his writing instruments and paper were taken away.
The lustful philosopher entered into a sexual relationship with 14-year-old Madeleine Leclerc, the daughter of an employee in Charenton. The affair lasted about four years, until de Sade’s death in 1814. In his will, the Marquis forbade his body to be opened, ordered it to be kept in a cell untouched for 48 hours, and then placed in a coffin and buried. His skull was removed from the grave for phrenological examination.
The Marquis de Sade recognized only the division into rulers and masters. Denied the existence of God and moral norms and rules. Recognized murder as the best way to resolve issues with overpopulation and lack of resources. Finally, he considered cruel and vile desires to be natural, basic elements of human nature
