The 120 Days of Sodom and Other Writings

by Marquis de Sade

  Seventh: she is held standing before a machine which, six times a minute, shoots a small dart into her body, and each time into a different place; the machine does not stop until she is entirely feathered.

  Eighth: her feet anchored in a furnace, a mass of lead very gradually descends upon her head, thrusting her further into the oven.

  Ninth: her executioner continually pricks her with a red-hot iron goad; she is bound before him, he thus meticulously works over every inch of her body.

  Tenth: she is chained to a pillar underneath a large glass dome, twenty famished reptiles devour her alive.

  Eleventh: a cannon ball attached to each foot, she is suspended by one hand, and if she falls, ’tis into a furnace.

  Twelfth: a hook is driven through her mouth; thus she hangs, a deluge of burning pitch incessantly pouring over her body.

  Thirteenth: the nerves are pulled from her flesh and tied to cords which draw them further, and meanwhile burning nails are driven into her body.

  Fourteenth: alternately torn with tongs and whipped upon her cunt and ass with martinets whose steel tips are heated red hot, and from time to time scratched with burning iron rakes.

  Fifteenth: she is poisoned by a drug which burns and rends her entrails, which hurls her into frightful convulsions, causes her to utter hideous screams, and insures her death; but it is slow, and she is the last to succumb. This is one of the most terrible of the ordeals.

  The villain walks about the torture chamber as soon as he arrives there, spends fifteen minutes contemplating each operation while swearing like one of the damned and overwhelming the patient with unmentionable invectives. When toward the end he can bear no more of it and his fuck, captive for so long, is ready to escape him, he falls into a comfortable armchair whence he can observe the entire spectacle, two of the demons approach him, display their asses and frig him, and he squirts his seed while pronouncing shouts so stentorian that they rise above and totally blot out the din his fifteen patients are producing. And now he gets to his feet and leaves the gallery, the coup de grâce is given the girls who are not yet dead, their bodies are buried, and there’s an end to it until the next fortnight comes round.

  Wherewith Desgranges terminates her contribution; she is congratulated, toasted, acclaimed, etc. . . .

  Upon the morning of that day there had been the most ominous preparations for the great holiday Messieurs were meditating. Curval, detesting Constance as he does, had been cunt-fucking her at a very early hour and while fucking her had imparted grave news to her. Coffee was served by the five victims, to wit: Constance, Narcisse, Giton, Michette, and Rosette. Horrid things were perpetrated in the salon; during the recitations the reader has just perused, the quatrains Messieurs had been able to arrange had been composed of naked children. And as soon as Desgranges had brought her narrations to a term, Fanny had been marched to the fore: her remaining fingers and toes had been hacked off, and Curval had embuggered her without pomade, so had the Duc, so had the four first-rank fuckers.

  Sophie was led into the center of the stage; Céladon, her lover, had been obliged to burn the interior of her cunt, all her fingers had been severed, her four limbs bled, her right ear had been torn away, her left eye gouged out. Céladon had been constrained to lend his assistance in all these operations, and his least frown or lowest murmur was rewarded by a flogging with an iron-tipped martinet. Supper had come next, the meal had been voluptuous, Messieurs drank naught but sparkling champagne and liqueurs.

  The torturing was arranged for the orgy hour; as the friends sat at dessert, word was brought to them that everything was in readiness, they descended and found the cellars agreeably festooned and very properly furnished. Constance lay upon a kind of mausoleum, the four children decorated its corners. As their asses were still in excellent condition, Messieurs were able to take considerable pleasure in molesting them; then at last the heavier work was begun: while embuggering Giton, Curval himself opened Constance’s belly and tore out the fruit, already well-ripened and clearly of the masculine sex; then the society continued, inflicting tortures upon those five victims. Their sufferings were long, cruel, and various.

  Upon THE 1ST DAY OF MARCH, remarking that the snows have not yet melted, Messieurs decide to dispatch the rest of the subjects one by one. Messieurs devise new arrangements whereby to keep their bedchambers staffed, and agree to give a green ribbon to everyone whom they propose to take back with them to France; the green favor is bestowed, however, upon condition the recipient is willing to lend a hand with the destruction of the other victims. Nothing is said to the six women in the kitchen; Messieurs decide to do away with the three scullery maids, who are well worth toying over, but to spare the cooks, because of their considerable talents. And so a list is drawn up; ’tis found that, to date, the following creatures had already been sacrificed:

  The new ménages are arranged:

  Messieurs decide that, upon a given signal, and with the aid of the four fuckers and the four storytellers, but not the cooks whom they do not wish to employ for these purposes, they will seize all the others, making use of the most treacherous possible means and when their victims least expect it; they will lay hands upon all the others, I say, save for the three scullions, who will not be seized until later on; it is further decided that the upstairs chambers will be converted into four prisons, that the three subaltern fuckers, manacled, will be lodged in the strongest of these prisons; Fanny, Colombe, Sophie, and Hébé in the second; Céladon, Zélamir, Cupidon, Zéphyr, Adonis, and Hyacinthe in the third; and the four elders in the fourth; that one subject will be dispatched every day; and that when the hour arrives to arrest the three scullions, they will be locked into whichever of the prisons happens to be empty.

  These agreements once reached, Messieurs appoint each storyteller the warden of one prison. And whenever they please, Messieurs will amuse themselves with these victims, either in their prison or in one of the larger rooms, or in their Lordships’ bedchambers, depending upon Messieurs’ individual preference. And so, as we have just indicated, one subject is dispatched daily, in the following order:

  On the 1st of March: Fanchon.

  On the 2nd: Louison.

  On the 3rd: Thérèse.

  On the 4th: Marie.

  On the 5th: Fanny.

  On the 6th and the 7th: Sophie and Céladon together, for they are lovers, and they perish nailed one to the other, as we have hitherto explained.

  On the 8th: one subaltern fucker.

  On the 9th: Hébé.

  On the 10th: another subaltern fucker.

  On the 11th: Colombe.

  On the 12th: the last of the subaltern fuckers.

  On the 13th: Zélamir.

  On the 14th: Cupidon.

  On the 15th: Zéphyr.

  On the 16th: Adonis.

  On the 17th: Hyacinthe.

  On the morning of the 18th, Messieurs and their cohorts seize the three scullions, lock them in the prison formerly occupied by the elders, and dispatch one upon that day,

  A second upon the 19th.

  And the last upon the 20th.

  Total. . . . . . . . . . . . . .20

  The following recapitulation lists the inhabitants of the Château of Silling during that memorable winter:

  Whereof thirty were immolated and sixteen returned to Paris.

  FINAL ASSESSMENT

  With what regards the tortures and deaths of the last twenty subjects, and life such as it was in the household until the day of departure, you will give details at your leisure and where you see fit, you will say, first of all, that thirteen of the sixteen survivors (three of whom were cooks) took all their meals together; sprinkle in whatever tortures you like.

  NOTES

  Under no circumstances deviate from this plan, everything has been worked out, the entirety several times re-examined with the greatest care and thoroughness.

  Detail the departure. And throughout the whole, introduce a quantity of moral dissertation
and diatribe, above all at the suppers.

  When you produce the final version, keep a notebook; in it you will place the names of all the principal characters and the names of all those who play important roles, such as they who have several passions and who will appear several times in the romance, as, for example, the hell libertine; leave a wide margin beside their names and, as you recopy, fill it with everything you come across that has any bearing upon them; this note is very essential, it is the sole way to keep your work clear of obscurities and to avoid repetitions.

  Edulcorate Part the First, it is much too strong; things develop too rapidly and too far in it, it cannot possibly be too soft, mild, feeble, subdued. Above all, never have the four friends do anything until it has first been recounted. You have not been sufficiently scrupulous in that connection.

  In Part the First, say that the man who mouth-fucks the little girl prostituted by her father is the same man, of whom she has already spoken, who fucks with a dirty prick.

  Do not forget to place somewhere in December the scene of the little girls serving supper, squirting liqueurs from their asses into Messieurs’ glasses; you announced such a scene but failed to include it in the plan.

  SUPPLEMENTARY TORTURES

  —By means of a hollow tube, a mouse is introduced into her cunt, the tube is withdrawn, the cunt sewn up, and the animal, unable to get out, devours her entrails.

  —She is made to swallow a snake which in similar wise feeds upon her entrails.

  ADDENDA

  In general, describe Curval and the Duc as two hot-blooded and imperious scoundrels, ’tis thus you conceived of them in the plan and in Part the First, and figure the Bishop as a cool, reasoning and tough-minded villain. As for Durcet, he must be mischievous, a teaser, false, traitorous, perfidious. In accordance with which, have them do everything that conforms with such characters.

  Carefully recapitulate all the names and the qualities of all the personages your storytellers mention; this to avoid repetition.

  Upon one page in your notebook of characters draw the plan of the château, room by room, and in the blank space next to this page, itemize all the things done in each room.

  This entire great roll was begun the 22nd of October, 1785, and finished in thirty-seven days.

  PART FOUR

  Theater

  Oxtiern, or The Misfortunes of Libertinage (1800)

  Sade was particularly attached to the theater, and there is good reason to believe that the author of Justine and The 120 Days would have given up a great deal in exchange for success as a dramatist. Among his earliest writings is the one-act play in prose Le Philosophe soi-disant, which is contained in his manuscript of early works, Œuvres diverses. It was probably this play which Sade had performed in 1772, on the private stage he had installed in his La Coste château.

  Sixteen years later, in his list of works-to-date drawn up in the Bastille—the Catalogue raisonné of 1788—Sade placed the two manuscript volumes of his theatrical works, comprising some thirty-five acts of various plays, a comic opera, and a ballet, at the head of his proud list. Following his release from the Monarchy’s dungeons, on Good Friday of 1790, Sade concentrated much of his energy upon trying to peddle his plays and get them performed. On the 3rd of August, 1790, the Théâtre-Italien accepted his one-act verse play, Le Suborneur, which went into rehearsal the following January and had its première on the 5th of March, 1792. The Journal des théâtres of the 10th of March relates what transpired at this first performance:

  On Monday, the 5th of March, this theater [Le Théâtre-Italien] attempted to present a one-act comedy in verse, Le Suborneur. During the first scene, murmurs arose. . . . During the second scene, the noise increased; during the third, it reached its highest pitch; during the fourth, the actors left the stage. What was the reason for all this? We have no idea; we were unable even to hear what the commotion was all about. During the intermission, we saw patriots donning the red bonnet with the tip pointing forward, like the Phrygian corno. One of those who was thus coifed said in a loud voice that henceforth this red bonnet would be the signal, in public places, round which patriots should rally, and especially in the theaters, where the aristocracy would be ceaselessly combated by the friends of liberty. . . .”1

  Thus ended the first performance of a Sade play. On the 17th of August, 1790, just two weeks after Le Suborneur had been accepted by Le Théâtre-Italien, Sade gave a reading of his free-verse play, Le Boudoir ou le Mari crédule at the Comédie-Française. Although it was ultimately rejected by one vote, the committee which had heard it agreed to a second reading, providing the author made certain changes. A month later, Sade’s five-act comedy in free verse, Le Misanthrope par amour ou Sophie et Desfrancs was “unanimously accepted” by the Comédie-Française, though it was never performed. Within the next few months several more of Sade’s plays were “accepted” by various theaters,2 but only one more was ever publicly presented: that is the play we include in the following pages, Le Comte Oxtiern ou les Effets du libertinage, the première of which took place on the 22nd of October, 1791, at Le Théâtre Molière on the rue Saint-Martin. Of this, Sade wrote elatedly to his steward Gaufridy a few days later:

  I have at last appeared in public, my dear lawyer. Last Saturday, the 22nd, a play of mine was presented, the success of which, thanks to certain cliques, hirelings, and the women I insulted, was somewhat mixed. It will be staged again on the 29th, with some changes. Pray for me; we shall see. Adieu.3

  The second performance, however, was postponed until the 4th of November, and at the curtain the audience called for the author, who appeared to take a bow. Two days later Le Moniteur reviewed the play, and after giving a résumé of its plot, judged it thus:

  The play is interesting in itself and for its vigor; but the character of Oxtiern is a revolting atrocity. He is a worse villain, a creature more despicable, than Lovelace, with none of his more endearing qualities.

  A slight incident threatened to disturb the second performance. At the start of the second act, a member of the audience, either discontent or malicious, but in any case wholly lacking in tact, shouted “Lower the curtain!” . . . The stage hand made the mistake of following this isolated command and lowered the curtain more than halfway. Whereupon many other members of the audience, after having obliged him to raise it again, cried: “Throw him out!”, referring to the person who had caused the original disturbance. Whence resulted some degree of dissension among the audience. A tiny minority hissed and whistled, for which the author was more than compensated by the hearty applause of the majority. They called for him after the performance: it was Monsieur de Sade.4

  Sade was learning that the Revolution, which had delivered him from the dungeons of a Monarchy he had every reason to detest, was far from ready to receive him, a ci-devant, unreservedly. In a letter to Gaufridy shortly after the second performance of Oxtiern, Sade noted:

  The frightful disturbance which it [Oxtiern] occasioned is the reason the play is not being repeated under the same title, and the reason why I have postponed further performances. The members of the audience were at each other’s throats. The guards, and the commissaire, were obliged to remain in a state of constant readiness each time it was played. I preferred to suspend it. We shall put it on again this winter.5

  Actually, it was not until eight years later that Oxtiern was performed again, under a slightly different title,6 on the stage of the Société dramatique at Versailles, with Sade himself playing the role of Fabrice. The same year—Year VIII of the Republic—Sade had the play printed by the Versailles bookseller Blaisot.

  What of Sade the playwright? It is an understatement to maintain that, were his seventeen plays7 all that history had bequeathed us of his writings, Sade would hardly have a claim to immortality. The force, and indeed the essential worth, of Sade’s works varies directly in proportion to their clandestine nature. The more open and public they are, the more conventional they become. The dramatic works, being mos
t public, suffer most from conventionality and from what appears to be Sade’s inherent timidity when faced with the dramatic form. What makes Sade of interest is his absolute refusal to compromise, his determination to carry his convictions to their ultimate conclusions. In the theater this was virtually impossible. While he could still treat the same themes that abound in his fiction, and portray virtue overwhelmed by vice, both character and dialogue had greatly to be diluted and tempered. That Sade was fully capable of writing brilliant, biting, and often witty dialogue is unquestionable—one need only turn to his Dialogue between a Priest and a Dying Man, for example, or to Philosophy in the Bedroom. Or, more simply, one need but compare the dialogues and characterization in the novella Ernestine, from which Oxtiern was drawn.

  Ernestine was written while Sade was a prisoner in the Bastille and, as noted, was first published in 1800 as one of the eleven stories contained in Les Crimes de l’Amour. Comparing the story and the play, Maurice Heine observed:

  The denouement of the story is at once more somber and richer in meaning than the play. Ernestine’s lover is not only imprisoned but sentenced to death and, though innocent, is executed on a scaffold erected before Oxtiern’s windows, at the very moment when he is violating Ernestine. Later there ensues a duel between Ernestine and her father, both of whom believe they are fighting Oxtiern. In this duel, Ernestine is mortally wounded. Her father at length obtains justice; Oxtiern is granted a reprieve, upon condition that he be forever banished to the mines, there to perform hard labor.8

  Both these situations are typically Sadean. In the first—a “pleasure” recounted in The 120 Days—the hero-villain contrives to coincide the moment of his own pleasure with that of his rival’s execution. In the second, he arranges to have two of virtue’s pawns mistakenly engage each other in mortal combat, the outcome of which cannot help but be tragic for the combatants, and therefore a source of pleasure to him.