Justine, Philosophy in the Bedroom, and Other Writings

by Marquis de Sade

  Several weeks passed, during which Franval and his daughter finally decided to put into effect the first plan conceived for the despair of this monster’s virtuous wife, rightly believing that before going on to more drastic and shameful acts, they should at least try to give her a lover. For not only would this furnish material for all the other acts, but, if it succeeded, it would necessarily oblige Madame de Franval to cease concerning herself with the faults of others, since she would have her own to worry about. For the execution of this project, Franval cast a careful eye upon all the young men he knew and, after considerable reflection, came to the conclusion that only Valmont could serve as his man.

  Valmont was thirty years old, had a charming face, considerable intelligence and a vivid imagination, and no principles whatever. He was, consequently, ideally suited to play the role they were going to offer him. One day Franval invited him to dinner and, as they were leaving the table, he took him aside:

  “My friend,” he said to him, “I have always believed you worthy of me. The time has come to prove that I have not erred in my judgment. I demand a proof of your sentiments . . . a most extraordinary proof.”

  “What kind of proof, my dear fellow? Explain yourself, and never for a moment doubt of my eagerness to be of service to you!”

  “What do you think of my wife?”

  “A delightful creature. And if you weren’t her husband, I would long since have made her my mistress.”

  “This consideration is most delicate and discerning, Valmont, but it does not touch me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I am going to astound you . . . ’tis precisely because you are fond of me, and because I am Madame de Franval’s husband, that I demand that you become her lover.”

  “Are you mad?”

  “No, but given to whimsy . . . capricious. You’ve been aware of these qualities in me for a long time. I want to bring about the downfall of virtue, and I maintain that you are the one to snare it.”

  “What nonsense!”

  “Not in the least, ’tis a masterpiece of reason.”

  “What! You mean you really want me to make you a . . .?”

  “Yes, I want it, I demand it, and I shall cease to consider you my friend if you refuse me this favor. . . . I shall help you. . . . I’ll arrange it so that you can be alone with her . . . more and more often, if need be . . . and you will take advantage of these occasions. And the moment I am quite certain of my destiny, I shall, if you like, throw myself at your feet to thank you for your obliging kindness.”

  “Franval, don’t take me for an utter fool. There’s something most strange about all this. . . . I refuse to lift a finger until you tell me the whole truth.”

  “All right . . . but I suspect you’re a trifle squeamish . . . I doubt you have sufficient strength of mind to hear all the details of this matter. . . . You’re still a prey to prejudice . . . still gallant, I venture to say, eh? . . . If I tell you everything you’ll tremble like a child and refuse to do anything further.”

  “Me, tremble? . . . In all honesty I must say I’m overwhelmed by the way you judge me. Listen, my friend, I want you to know that there is no aberration in the world, not a single vice, however strange or abnormal, that is capable of alarming my heart for even a moment.”

  “Valmont, have you ever taken the trouble to cast a careful eye on Eugénie from time to time?”

  “Your daughter?”

  “Or, if you prefer, my mistress.”

  “Ah, you scoundrel! Now I understand.”

  “This is the first time in my life I find you perceptive.”

  “What? On your word of honor, you’re in love with your daughter?”

  “Yes, my friend, exactly as Lot! I have always held the Holy Scriptures in highest esteem, as I have always been persuaded that one accedes to Heaven by emulating its heroes! . . . Ah! my friend, Pygmalion’s madness no longer amazes me. . . . Is the world not full of such weaknesses? Was it not necessary to resort to such methods to populate the world? And what was then not a sin, can it now have become one? What nonsense! You mean to say that a lovely girl cannot tempt me because I am guilty of having sired her? That what ought to bind me more intimately to her should become the very reason for my removal from her? ’Tis because she resembles me, because she is flesh of my flesh, that is to say that she is the embodiment of all the motives upon which to base the most ardent love, that I should regard her with an icy eye? . . . Ah, what sophistry! . . . How totally absurd! Let fools abide by such ridiculous inhibitions, they are not made for hearts such as ours. The dominion of beauty, the holy rights of love are oblivious to futile human conventions. In their ascendancy they annihilate these conventions as the rays of the rising sun purge the earth of the shrouds which cloak it by night. Let us trample underfoot these abominable prejudices, which are always the enemies of happiness. If at times they beguile the reason, it has always been at the expense of the most exquisite pleasures. . . . May we forever despise them!”

  “I’m convinced,” Valmont responded, “and I am willing to admit that your Eugénie must be a delightful mistress. A beauty more lively than her mother’s, even though she does not possess, as does your wife, that languor which seizes the soul with such voluptuousness. But Eugénie has that piquant quality which breaks and subdues us, which, as it were, seems to subjugate anything which would like to offer resistance. While one seems to yield, the other demands; what one allows, the other offers. Of the two, I much prefer the latter.”

  “But it’s not Eugénie I’m giving you, but her mother.”

  “And what reasons do you have for resorting to such methods?”

  “My wife is jealous, an albatross on my neck. She’s forever spying on me. She wants Eugénie to marry. I must saddle my wife with sins in order to conceal my own. Therefore you must have her . . . amuse yourself with her for a time . . . and then you’ll betray her. Let me surprise you in her arms . . . and then I shall punish her or, using this discovery as a weapon, I shall barter it in return for an armistice on both our parts. But no love, Valmont; with ice in your veins, capture and win her, but do not let her gain mastery over you. If you let sentiments become involved, my plans are as good as finished.”

  “Have no fear: she would be the first woman who had aroused my heart.”

  Thus our two villains came to a mutual agreement, and it was resolved that in a very few days Valmont would undertake to seduce Madame de Franval, with full permission to employ anything he wished in order to succeed . . . even the avowal of Franval’s love, as the most powerful means of inducing this virtuous woman to seek vengeance.

  Eugénie, to whom the plan was revealed, thought it monstrously amusing. The infamous creature even dared declare that if Valmont should succeed, to make her happiness as complete as possible she would like to verify with her own eyes her mother’s disgrace, she absolutely had to witness that paragon of virtue incontestably yielding to the charms of a pleasure that she so rigorously condemned in others.

  At last the day arrived when the most virtuous, the best, and most wretched of women was not only going to receive the most painful blow that anyone can be dealt but also when her hideous husband was destined to outrage her, abandoning her—handing her over himself—to him by whom he had agreed to be dishonored. . . . What madness! . . . What utter disdain of all principles. With what view in mind does Nature create hearts as depraved as these?. . .

  A few preliminary conversations had set the stage for the present scene. Furthermore, Valmont was on close enough terms with Franval so that his wife had not the slightest compunction about remaining alone with him, as indeed she had done on more than one occasion in the past. The three of them were sitting in the drawing room. Franval rose and said:

  “I must leave. An important matter requires my presence. . . . ’Tis to leave you in the care of your governess,” he said, laughing, “leaving you with Valmont. The man’s a pillar of virtue. But if he should forget himself, please be ki
nd enough to inform me. I still do not love him enough to yield him my rights. . . .”

  And the insolent fellow departed.

  After exchanging a few banalities, the aftereffects of Franval’s little joke, Valmont said that he had found his friend changed during the past six months.

  “I haven’t dared broach the subject, to ask him the reasons,” Valmont said, “but he seems to be upset and distressed.”

  “One thing which is certain,” Madame de Franval replied, “is that he is upsetting and distressing those around him.”

  “Good heavens! What are you saying? . . . that my friend has been treating you badly?”

  “If it were still only that!”

  “Be so good as to inform me, you know how devoted I am . . . my inviolable attachment.”

  “A series of frightful disorders . . . moral corruption, in short every kind of wrong . . . would you believe it? We received a most advantageous offer to marry our daughter . . . and he refused. . . .”

  And here the artful Valmont averted his eyes, the expression of a man who has understood . . . who sighs to himself . . . and is afraid to explain.

  “What is the matter, Monsieur,” Madame de Franval resumed, “what I have told you does not surprise you? Your silence is most singular.”

  “Ah, Madame, is it not better to remain silent than to say things which will bring despair to someone one loves?”

  “And what, may I ask, is that enigma? Explain yourself, I beg of you.”

  “How can you expect me not to shudder if I should be the one who causes the scales to fall from your eyes,” Valmont said, warmly seizing one of her hands.

  “Oh, Monsieur,” Madame de Franval went on, with great animation, “either explain yourself or say not another word, I beseech you. The situation you leave me in is terrible.”

  “Perhaps less terrible than the state to which you yourself reduce me,” said Valmont, casting a look of love at the woman he was intent on seducing.

  “But what does all that mean, Sir? You begin by alarming me, you make me desire an explanation, then daring to insinuate certain things that I neither can nor should endure, you deprive me of the means of learning from you what upsets me so cruelly. Speak, Sir, speak or you shall reduce me to utter despair.”

  “Very well, Madame, since you demand it I shall be less obscure, even though it costs me dearly to break your heart. . . . Learn, if you must, the cruel reason behind your husband’s refusal to Monsieur Colunce’s request . . . Eugénie . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “Well, the fact is, Madame, that Franval adores her. Today less her father than her lover, he would rather give up his own life than give up Eugénie.”

  Madame de Franval had not heard this fatal revelation without reacting, and she fell down in a faint. Valmont hastened to her assistance, and as soon as she had come to her senses he pursued:

  “You see, Madame, the cost of the disclosure you demanded. . . . I would have given anything in the world to . . .”

  “Leave me, Monsieur, leave me,” said Madame de Franval, who was in a state difficult to describe. “After a shock such as this I need to be alone for a while.”

  “And you expect me to leave you in this situation? Ah, your grief is too fully felt in my own heart for me not to ask you the privilege of sharing it with you. I have inflicted the wound. Let me bind it up.”

  “Franval, in love with his daughter! Just Heaven! This creature whom I have borne in my womb, ’tis now she who breaks my heart so grievously! . . . So horrible, so shocking a crime! . . . Ah, Monsieur, is it possible? . . . Are you quite certain?”

  “Madame, had I the slightest doubt I should have remained silent. I would a hundred times rather have preferred not to tell you anything than to alarm you in vain. ’Tis from your own husband I have the certitude of this infamy, which he confided to me. In any event, try and be calm, I beg of you. Rather let us concentrate now on the means of breaking off this affair than on those of bringing it to light. And you alone hold the key to this rupture. . . .”

  “Ah, tell me this minute what it is. This crime horrifies me.”

  “Madame, a husband of Franval’s character is not brought back by virtue. He is little disposed to believe in the virtue of women. Virtue, he maintains, is the fruit of their pride or their temperament, and what they do to remain faithful to us is done more to satisfy themselves than either to please or enchain us. . . . You will excuse me, Madame, if I say that on this point I must admit that I tend to share his opinion. Never in my experience has a wife succeeded in destroying her husband’s vices by means of virtue. What would prick him, what would stimulate him much more would be a conduct approximating his own, and by this would you bring him more quickly back to you. Jealousy would be the inevitable result; how many hearts have been restored to love by this infallible means. Your husband, then seeing that this virtue to which he is accustomed, and which he has been so insolent as to despise, is rather the work of reflection than of the organs’ insouciance, will really learn to esteem it in you, at the very moment when he believes you capable of discarding it. He imagines . . . he dares to say that if you have never had any lovers, it is because you have never been assaulted. Prove to him that this is a decision which lies solely in your own hands . . . to revenge yourself for his wrongdoings and his contempt. Perhaps, according to your strict principles, you will have committed a minor sin. But think of all the sins you will have prevented! Think of the husband you will have steered back to you! And for no more than the most minor outrage to the goddess you revere, what a disciple you will have brought back into her temple. Ah, Madame, I appeal only to your reason. By the conduct I dare to prescribe to you, you will bring Franval back forever, you will captivate him eternally. The reverse conduct—the one you have been following—sends him flying away from you. He will escape you, never to return. Yes, Madame, I dare to affirm that either you do not love your husband or you should cease this hesitation.”

  Madame de Franval, very much taken aback by this declaration, remained silent for some time. Then, remembering Valmont’s earlier looks, and his initial remarks, she managed to reply adroitly:

  “Monsieur, let us presume that I follow the advice you give me; upon whom do you think I should cast my eye to upset my husband further?”

  “Ah, my dear, my divine friend,” Valmont cried, oblivious to the trap she had set for him, “upon the one man in the world who loves you most, upon him who has adored you since first he set eyes upon you and who swears at your feet to die beneath your sway. . . .”

  “Leave, Monsieur,” Madame de Franval said imperiously, “leave and never let me see you again. Your ruse has been discovered. You accuse my husband of wrongs of which he can only be innocent merely to advance your own treacherous schemes of seduction. And let me tell you that even were he guilty, the means you offer me are too repugnant to my heart for me to entertain them for a moment. Never do the failings of a husband justify or exonerate those of a wife. For her they must become the reasons for even greater virtue, so that the Just and Righteous man, whom the Almighty will come upon in the afflicted cities on the verge of suffering the effects of his wrath, may divert the flames which are about to consume them.”

  Upon these words Madame de Franval left the room and, calling for Valmont’s servants, obliged him to withdraw, much ashamed of his initial efforts.

  Although this attractive woman had seen through Valmont’s ruses, what he had said coincided so well with her own and her mother’s fears that she resolved to do everything within her power to ascertain these cruel facts. She paid a visit to Madame de Farneille, recounted to her everything that had happened and returned, her mind made up as to the steps that we are going to see her undertake.

  It has long been said, and rightfully so, that we have no greater enemies than our own servants; forever jealous, always envious, they seem to seek to lighten the burden of their own yoke by discovering wrongs in us which, then placing us in a position inferior to
themselves, allow them for the space of a few moments at least to gratify their vanity by assuming a superiority over us which fate has denied them.

  Madame de Franval bribed one of Eugénie’s servants: the promise of a fixed pension, a pleasant future, the appearance of doing a good deed—all swayed this creature and she promised to arrange it the following night so that Madame de Franval could dispel all doubts as to her unhappiness.

  The moment arrived. The wretched mother was admitted to a room adjoining the room wherein, each night, her perfidious husband outraged both his nuptial bonds and the bonds of Heaven. Eugénie was with her father; several candles remained lighted on a corner cupboard; they were going to illuminate this crime. . . . The altar was prepared, the victim took her place upon it, he who performs the sacrifice followed her. . . .

  Madame de Franval was no longer sustained by anything save her despair, her outraged love, and her courage. . . . She burst open the doors restraining her, she hurled herself into the room, and there, her face bathed in tears, she fell on her knees at the feet of the incestuous Franval:

  “Oh, you,” she cried, addressing herself to Franval, “you who fill my life with misery and sorrow, I have not deserved such treatment. . . . However you have insulted and wronged me, I still worship you. See my tears, and do not dismiss my appeal: I ask you to have mercy on this poor wretched child who, deceived by her own weakness and your seduction, thinks she can find happiness in shamelessness and crime. . . . Eugénie, Eugénie, do you want to thrust a sword into the heart of her who brought you into the world? No longer consent to be the accomplice of this heinous crime whose full horror has been concealed from you! Come . . . let me fold you in my waiting arms. Look at your wretched mother on her knees before you, begging you not to outrage both your honor and Nature. . . . But if you both refuse,” the distraught woman went on, bearing a dagger to her heart, “this is the means I shall employ to escape the dishonor with which you are trying to cover me. I shall make my blood flow and stain you here, and you will have to consummate your crimes upon my sad body.”